A La California/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
FROM THE ORIENT DIRECT.
Arrival of a China Steamer at San Francisco.—Her Passengers and Cargo.—A Horseback Trip to Mount Diablo.—Ascending the Mountain.—The Magnificent View from the Summit.
Well, what next? We have done the Mission Dolores and its quaint old red tile-roofed, adobe walled, and curiously ornamented altar, standing amid the graves of the pious fathers, whose faith led them here and helped them to rear this structure on the far confines of heathendom, generations ago. We have galloped over the broad macadamized road—out past Lone Mountain, with its City of the Dead gathered around the tall, white shaft which marks the resting-place of the gallant Broderick, and Mount Calvary, with another City of the Dead gathering around the white cross gleaming from its summit—to Point Lobos, where we have seen the ships from Europe, Asia, Australia, the Atlantic ports, and the islands of the Pacific, come sailing in through the Golden Gate. From the balcony of the Cliff House, over-hanging the roaring breakers, we have looked down for hours with never-flagging interest, upon those strange monster survivors of the World Before the Flood, the sea-lions, as they crawled from the depths of the slimy sea upon the rugged rocks, writhing and wriggling as if in mortal agony, fighting and howling in infernal chorus, over the degeneracy of the days upon which, through some mistake never fully explained, they have fallen, ages and ages after their co-inhabitants of the primeval world had perished. Fruit we have indulged in to a surfeit. Wine? We went round through the cellars yesterday until our heads were, or felt as if they were, as large and as full as the great casks holding thousands of gallons, in which the champagne was being prepared for bottling. The Barbary Coast, with its reeking vice, seething crime, and nameless, unutterable human degradation, we did last night; this evening we do the Chinese Theatre; to-morrow the Geysers; next week the Big Trees and Yosemite. But what to-day?
There is a small white flag, inscribed with the letters U. S. M., flying from each of the San Francisco street cars as it passes; a mail steamer from some part of the world has entered the Golden Gate. From the direction of North Beach, a messenger of the Merchants' Exchange comes galloping at full speed along Stockton street, his half-wild Spanish horse—with head erect, nostrils distended, and lustrous eyes (the glory alike, of Spanish steeds and women) that flash like coals of fire—bounding over the rough pavement as proudly as if conscious that he bore the fate of Caesar and his empire. "What is it?" we call out as the messenger flies past us. "The Great Republic, from China and Japan," is the answer he gives, without even turning his head to see who asked; and the loud report echoing over the city tells us that the proud steamer, which has borne our starry flag to the uttermost parts of the earth, is safe in port, and is rounding Telegraph Hill on her way up the harbor to the wharves of the P. M. S. S. Co., at Rincon Point. Eureka! here is the wished- for sensation. Let us be off for South Beach!
Looking down from Rincon Hill, we see the long shed-covered wharf of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company stretching far out into Mission Bay to the southward, huge steamers lying in the docks, or at anchor in the stream, a stone's throw off, and in front, outside the high, closed gates, a vast crowd of Europeans, Americans, and Asiatics commingled, and a jam of vehicles of every description, gathered in anticipation of the steamer's arrival at her wharf. Descending the hill and making our way slowly through the crowd, we reach the gates at last, and approaching the group of police-officers on duty, offer the card inscribed, "Admit the Bearer on Great Republic" which was received at the company's office on Sacramento street, as a special courtesy from the great corporation. The officer has already recognized our companion. as a member of the San Francisco "press-gang," and passes us through the side door with a quiet nod, not even condescending to look at our ticket. Passing down the long-wharf, between the great steamers lying on either hand, we find in waiting a few vehicles—hacks sent to bring away some particular persons known to be on board, the United States mail and express wagons—some gentlemen and ladies who, having friends on board, have secured passes to go inside the gates, a crowd of custom-house officers, detectives in the employ of the company, the captain of the San Francisco police, with his entire watch, in grey uniforms, and armed with clubs and revolvers, and fifty to one hundred leading Chinese merchants, consignees of the cargo, or representatives of the "Six Companies," to whom all the Celestial emigrants or immigrants are consigned.
The "Great Republic," flying the flag of our country, that of the P. M. S. S. Co., and the yellow dragon of China, has meantime rounded Rincon Point, and is lying in the stream, off the southern end of the wharf, with hawsers out, vainly endeavoring, against the strong ebb tide, to warp into her berth on the western side. The bow hawser parts at last, and she drifts out towards Yerba Buena Island, then swings slowly round under steam, heads towards San Jose, and then, when about half a mile away, turns gracefully, and, with her monster wheels beating the bay into a foam, comes rushing at full speed directly down toward the wharf. The picket gates which separate the southern end of the shed from the section of open wharf beyond, are opened in an instant by the officers, and the people rush at their utmost speed down towards the northern gateway, apprehensive lest the leviathan, now approaching with the fleetness of a racehorse, should miss the point aimed at by a few feet, knock the pine-timber built wharf into kindling-wood, and send those upon it into Davy Jones' locker in an instant. Needless alarm! The monster of the deep obeys her helm to perfection, comes rushing swiftly into her berth right alongside the wharf, and, before we have ceased wondering at the immense proportions of this magnificent specimen of American marine architecture, her wheels are reversed, and she has ceased to move. Then, for the first time, we observe that her main deck is packed with Chinamen—every foot of space being occupied by them—who are gazing in silent wonder at the new land whose fame had reached them beyond the seas, and whose riches these swart representatives of the toiling millions of Asia have come to develop. The great gangway-planks—bridges they might be called more appropriately—are run out from the wharf and hoisted into place; the health-officer, who had boarded the steamer off "the Heads," comes down bowing and smiling as he parts with the officers of the vessel, the custom-house officers ascend to the decks, the detectives and policemen range themselves at the gangways fore and aft, and—hats off in front!—the grand panorama of the Orient is about to be unrolled!
The forward gangway is reserved for the disembarkation of Chinamen exclusively; the after gangway is for the cabin passengers, mostly Americans and Europeans. Several Chinese merchants, neatly-dressed and quiet, gentlemanly-behaved men, attempt to go on board by the after gang-plank, and are hurled back with, it would seem, needless violence by the officers stationed there. The sub-agents and employes of the Six Companies, who attempt to reach the main-deck by the forward gangway, are repulsed with even greater rudeness and force: the orders are that none shall be allowed to go on board until the custom-house officers have done their work. Half a dozen United States Navy officers, from the squadron in Chinese and Japanese waters, coming-home on leave of absence, come down the after-gangway, and are told to get their luggage all together in one place on the wharf, and it will be passed immediately by the officers. Their lacquered boxes, trunks, open-work, rattan chairs and lounges for reclining upon in a tropical climate, boxes of rare plants, and small collections of "curios" from the far East—West it seems to us—are soon run through, and chalked with the names of the examining officers, and they enter carriages in waiting, and are driven away to the hotels. A stout-built, manly-looking American, forty years of age or thereabouts, comes down the plank, and a fair-faced woman, who, with her four half-grown-up children around her, has been standing patiently for hours in a corner of the building on the wharf, grows suddenly pale in the face, runs towards him, and with the single exclamation, "O Joe!" has her arms around his neck in an instant. A few ladies and gentlemen, looking curiously about them, issue from the cabin, point out their luggage on the wharf, receive the proper directions, and, entering carriages admitted through the gates one at a time to receive them, are hurried away, apparently half glad at finding themselves standing on the solid land once more, half sorry to part from those with whom they have voyaged across the broad Pacific, and dared the perils of the sea. And now from the cabin emerges a tiny-creature, clad in costly robes of satin, richly embroidered, and stands at the upper end of the plank in the gangway opening, as if in doubt which way to turn or how to proceed. She is not more than four feet in height—slender and graceful of figure. Her lustrous blue-black hair is puffed out at the sides and fashioned into a wonderful rudder-shaped structure behind, supported with gold and silver skewer-like ornaments thrust through it; and her head, guiltless of hat or bonnet, is surmounted by a small wreath of bright-colored artificial flowers. Her face is really pretty—the features being delicately formed—despite the obliquity of the almond-shaped eyes, and the slight projection of the anything but Grecian nose. Her complexion, naturally whiter than that of the common working people of her country, has been so cunningly improved by her maid-servant—who could teach our enamellers and beautifiers the first rudiments of their profession—that she is as fair to look upon as the blonde beauties of our race, and you would hesitate long before you would swear whether the red which tinges her cheeks and lips is real or the work of "high art" in its perfection. Her tunic or sacque is of sky-blue satin, embroidered with flowers in bright-colored silk; her wide, loose trousers of darker blue satin, similarly but more elaborately embroidered; and her dainty little feet are encased in slippers of blue satin, with gold-bullion embroidery and thick white felt soles, with thin bottoms of polished wood. In her hand she holds two fans, with which she endeavors to keep her face hidden as far as possible from the public gaze. Timid to the last degree she seems, and probably is, and she looks neither to the right nor the left, but keeps her eyes fixed on the plank beneath her, as if anxious to avoid the sight of everything else in the world. As she stands there in the open gangway, she looks the perfect counterpart of something we have seen, or dreamed of, before. Ah, yes; we remember now! Thirty years ago—fifteen or sixteen years before this little thing was born—our big cousin came home from a sailing voyage round the world, and among the curious things he brought with him was a book of rice-paper, white as snow and soft as velvet, each leaf of which bore a single, wonderfully elaborate little picture, in colors more brilliant than the rainbow; her picture, correct and perfect in the most minute detail, was there; no one could fail to recognize it at a glance. She is the bride of an opulent Chinese merchant of San Francisco, who has been home to get her; his parents selected her for him from one of the most respectable families in the Central Flowery Empire, and he had no trouble with courting: and such like Caucasian nonsense. He leads her down the plank, the bracelets and bangles of silver and green semi-transparent stone which encircle her wrists and ankles, clinking musically as she walks; and at the wharf a policeman, detailed for the purpose, receives and escorts the party through the crowd, which opens respectfully before the end of his club, and they enter a carriage. Another and another come down the plank; the last two are accompanied accompanied by bright-eyed, richly-dressed children, who follow mechanically in their mother's footsteps, furtively glancing-at the strange crowd as they pass through it. These are the wives and offspring of Chinese merchants resident here, who married before coming to California; you had better take a good look at them now, while you can, for they—the women and female children—will be kept in the strictest seclusion from the moment they set foot in their husbands' and fathers' houses, and they may live many years, and die, here in the midst of a great Christian city, and yet never be looked upon by Caucasian eyes. You may purchase exquisite pictures, on rice-paper, of these "first-chop" Chinese ladies, at the bazaar of Chy Lung & Co., on Sacramento street, but the living married Chinese women or respectable young girls you will never so much as catch a glimpse of, except on such an occasion as this.
Following the Chinese ladies comes an Englishman returning from the Indies, a broad, burly fellow, with dogged resolution, self-complacency, and a stout, unconquerable determination to grumble at everything he meets in "this blarsted country, you know," traced upon every lineament. His feet are encased in clumsy thick-soled gaiters, his nether limbs in gray, very scant cassimere pantaloons, which hang limp as withered cabbage leaves round his ankles; a coat, broader than it is long, covers his shoulders, and reaches down just below his waist, and on his head is a hideous Monitor-shaped hat, as large as the shell of a green turtle, and as unmanageable and badly out of place in the San Francisco summer trade-winds as a balloon in a western tornado. Surely we have seen somewhere the counterpart of this figure also; yes, it was years ago, when we were laid up with a broken leg, and the fever of our waking hours was followed by the nightmare in our troubled sleep.
The custom-house officers have done their work here quickly, and perhaps effectually, and now all is ready at the forward gangway. A living stream of the blue-coated men of Asia, bearing-long bamboo poles across their shoulders, from which depend packages of bedding, matting, clothing, and things of which we know neither the names nor the uses, pours down the plank the moment that the word is given, "All ready!" They appear to be of an average age of twenty-five years—very few being under fifteen, and none apparently over forty years—and though somewhat less in stature than Caucasians, healthy, active, and able-bodied to a man. As they come down upon the wharf, they separate into messes or gangs of ten, twenty, or thirty each, and, being recognized through some (to us) incomprehensible free-masonry system of signs by the agents of the "Six Companies" as they come, are assigned places on the long, broad-shedded wharf which has been cleared especially for their accommodation and the convenience of the customs officers. Each man carries on his shoulders, or in his hands, his entire earthly possessions, and few are overloaded. There are no merchants or business men among them, all being of the coolie or laboring class. They are all dressed in coarse but clean and new blue cotton blouses and loose baggy breeches, blue cotton-cloth stockings which reach to the knee, and slippers or shoes with heavy wooden soles; these last they will discard for American boots when they go up country to work in the dust and mud; and most of them carry one or two broad-brimmed hats of split bamboo, and huge palm-leaf fans, to shield them from the burning sun in the mountains or valleys of California, or the fertile fields of the south, towards which many of them will eventually direct their steps. There is a babel of uncouth cries and harsh discordant yells, accompanied by whimsically energetic gestures and convulsive facial distortions, as the members of the different gangs recognize each other in the crowd, and search out the places assigned them. The luggage is deposited on the wharf, and each group squat on the planking, or stand silently beside their little property, waiting in patience and perfectly soldier-like order the arrival of the officers who are to search them for smuggled goods. "Here, this way!" "Here, here on this side!" "There, over there on that side!" shout the policemen, as they swing their clubs about and frantically endeavor to direct the tide, often really creating disorder among these most orderly and methodical people, who would get things straightened twice as quickly without such assistance. For two mortal hours the blue stream pours down from the steamer upon the wharf; a regiment has landed already, and still they come. The wharf is covered with them so densely that the passage-way for carriages through the centre can with difficulty be kept open, and yet the stream is not broken for a single moment. You wonder where such a swarm of human beings found stowage room—the bulk seems greater than that of the steamer—and wonder still more when told that the vessel with all these on board had still room for a cargo of thousands of tons; her freight-capacity being some six thousand tons, and her custom house registry measurement between four and five thousand. This steamer actually brought one thousand two hundred and seventy-two Chinamen; last week one thousand two hundred came by sailing vessels, and behind them are yet four hundred millions of the most patient, ready, apt, and industrious toilers on the face of the earth.
The writer shares none of the prejudice against this people which is manifested so strongly by the lower order of the European-born residents of California, and leads to so many disgraceful acts of violence and outrage; but such a sight as this awakens curious thoughts, and suggests doubts of the future in the mind of every one who has made political economy and free institutions a study to any extent. The Chinese-labor question is destined within the next ten years—five years, perhaps—to become what the slavery question was a few years since, to break down, revolutionize, and reorganize parties, completely change the industrial system of many of our States and Territories, and modify the destiny of our country for generations to come. Educated, thinking men do not, as a rule, fear the result, nor see in this vast semi-civilized immigration any danger to republican institutions; nevertheless, it is a movement fraught with mighty consequences for good or ill, and the question demands and must receive a most careful consideration in all its bearings. Commerce, religion, politics, capital and labor, education, our whole social fabric, must be affected more or less. Occident and Orient stand face to face at last, and the meeting must signalize a notable era in the history of mankind.
The customs agents search the person of every Chinaman as he lands, and go through the luggage of every group or mess as thoroughly as possible, in quest of opium, the one blighting curse of China, for which she may thank Christian England, and for which her children will run any risk and bear any privation. The deadly drug is so costly in proportion to its bulk, that, next to gold and precious stones, it offers the greatest inducement for smuggling and on the arrival of every steamer and sailing vessel from China, large seizures are made by the officers. On this occasion one officer detected and confiscated forty boxes of opium, each worth eight or ten dollars in coin, which had been concealed in the false bottom of a box containing merchandise of comparatively small value. To do them justice, we should say that one of the Chinese companies' agents directed the officer's attention to the box, and so caused him to make the discovery. Another officer discovered a suspicious protuberance on the person of a Chinaman, and had just reached out his hand to examine it, when the frightened Celestial flung from him into the bay half a dozen boxes of the poison. Bladders of it, flattened out like pancakes, were found concealed in the linings of blankets or bed-quilts, and the stuffed under-garments worn by some of the men. In all, several thousand dollars' worth thus fell into the hands of the officers, and a moiety of its value will go into the treasury of Uncle Sam, if the costs cannot be made large enough to swallow up all his share.
Fifteen or twenty Chinese girls—the poor raft and boat born women of Canton, trained, from childhood, to lewdness, and as utterly ignorant of the ways of virtue or any sense of shame or moral responsibility as so many blocks of wood—were landed also; some steamers bring them by hundreds, in spite of the efforts of the "Six Companies" to discourage the traffic. These women signed contracts, in China, to serve their masters a given number of years for their passage-money, board and clothing, and, despite our laws, will submit to live and die in a slavery more horrible than any other that ever existed on earth; all efforts of our authorities to break it up having proved utterly unavailing. As they land, they are searched in no delicate manner by the officers, and then received by their purchasers, and delivered into the charge of the sallow old hags in black costume, with bunches of keys in the girdles at their waists, who are called "old mothers," and who will hold them in horrible bondage and collect the wages of their sin—if they who have no moral responsibility can be said to sin—for the remainder of their days. The girls are dressed in silk or cotton tunics and trousers, similar in shape and color to those worn by the married ladies, but far less costly, are painted gaudily on cheeks and lips, and wear on their heads the checked cotton handkerchiefs which are the badge of prostitution. They are jeered and "hi-hied" by the crowd of common Chinamen waiting outside the gates, as they pass out to enter the open express wagons waiting to receive them and carry them away to the dens in Murderers' Alley and along the Barbary Coast. As fast as the groups of coolies have been successively searched, they are turned out of the gates, and hurried away towards the Chinese quarter of the city by the agents of the "Six Companies." Some go in wagons, more on foot; and the streets leading up that way are lined with them, running in "Indian file," and carrying their luggage suspended from the ends of the bamboo poles slung across their shoulders. By nightfall the throng has dispersed, the work of the officers is over, and the vast wharf is cleared for the delivery of the immense cargo in the hold of the steamer.
This cargo is made up of articles in a great measure strange to the people of the Atlantic States; and for their benefit the list is copied out in full from the manifest, as follows: For San Francisco: 90 packages cassia; 940 packages coffee, from Java and Manila; 192 packages fire-crackers, 30 packages dried fish, cuttle-fish, shark's fins, etc.; 400 packages hemp; 116 packages miscellaneous merchandise, lacquered goods, porcelain-ware, and things for which we have no special names; 53 packages medicines; 18 packages opium; 16 packages plants; 20 packages potatoes; 25 packages rattans; 2,755 packages rice; 1,238 packages sundries—chow-chow, preserved fruits, salted melon-seeds, dried ducks, pickled duck's eggs, cabbage sprouts in brine, candied citron, dates, dwarf oranges, ginger, smoked oysters, and a hundred other Chinese edibles and table luxuries; 824 packages sugar; 20 packages silks; 203 packages sago and tapioca; 5,463 packages tea; 27 packages tin.
For New York; 2 packages merchandise; 21 packages sundries; 150 packages silks; 465 packages teas; 144 packages rhubarb; 9 packages hardware.
For Panama, 1 package opium; 1 package sundries; 115 packages tea.
It is not the tea season, and this cargo is consequently a small one comparatively—nothing, in fact, to what is sometimes landed from a China steamer; though, as will be seen from the foregoing manifest, it comprises no less than 13,354 packages of merchandise, many of them of large size—a small mountain in the aggrerate.
Having enjoyed to the utmost the pleasure of a new sensation, we leave the wharf, meditating on the strange scene which we have beheld, and wondering what is to be the end of all this, and wend our way back to Montgomery street. Sitting by the fruit-laden table in our own room in the evening, and breathing the air charged with the odors of the fairest flowers that bloom, a doubt arises in our mind, and we begin to inquire if there was in sober truth any such scene as we fancy we have been witnessing. Was that little oval-faced woman, clad in blue, purple, crimson and gold, shrinking in speechless fear from the strange throng around her, a being of flesh and blood after all, or a creature of the imagination? Did we actually see her come out of the great black steamer's cabin and stand there hesitating in the gangway, or have we been gazing at some brilliantly-tinted picture from the land where Marco Polo journeyed centuries ago, until one of the figures took on itself the semblance of life and action, and walked forth from its frame? Was it not in fact all a dream? A dream, we would almost swear! And yet a dream it could not have been, we find when we come to reflect upon it. There is the card of admission to the wharf, still lying on the table before us; that is tangible and real at least. The sunlight which the waters of the bay of San Francisco glistened under, and which flooded with its golden glory the mountains of Contra Costa and Alameda, looked and felt real. We can still hear the roar of many voices shouting in an unknown tongue, and see the stream of men in blue blouses, with shaven foreheads, and with long braided queues of glossy black hair and silk hanging down their backs. The strange odor of Asiatic tobacco, spices, opium—
"Mandragora,
And all the drowsy syrups of the world,"
which pervaded ship and cargo, still clings to our clothing, and finds its way into our nostrils. It was real, wholly real, after all! We have indeed stood on the farther shore of the New World, and seen the human tides which have surged round the globe from opposite directions meet and commingle, and have beheld the yellow flag, emblazoned with the red-dragon, emblem of the "Lord of the whole Earth and Brother of the Sun and Moon"—master of the oldest nation which the sun shines upon—and the starry emblem of a sovereign people, "By the Grace of God Free and Independent," floating side by side. It was a sight worth living long and coming-far to look upon—a scene to wonder at, to ponder over and reflect upon—to gaze upon once and remember through all the coming years of life—a scene such as our fathers never beheld nor dreamed of, and of which our children's children only may know the full import and meaning.
The rainy season is over at last, and we are thankful for it. We are weary of the city, its vices, its crimes and its follies, already. All cities are much alike after all, varying only in minor details, but the mountains; God be praised for them. There we shall find change and beauty, sunshine, pure air, freedom, and rest.
As the steamer approaches the Golden Gate, one of the most striking features of the glorious landscape which unfolds itself before the eyes of the traveler, is the bold crest of Mount Diablo standing out clear and sharp against the blue sky, over beyond the Contra Costa hills to the eastward of the Bay of San Francisco. As he walks the streets of the Golden City he sees it still before him, and as he ascends the Sacramento or San Joaquin, it confronts at every turn and bend of the winding stream, every change in his position revealing some new feature in the scene.
When he ascends the Sierra Nevada, on his way to the Yosemite, or climbs farther up to the line of eternal snow, and looks back toward the Pacific, the dark mountain looms up grander and more beautiful than ever, seeming to have increased in size while he has been climbing heavenward, and looming up apparently thousands of feet higher in the blue, hazy atmosphere than when he stood at its base in the valley miles and miles below. Located near the junction of the two great rivers which drain the vast interior basin of California between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range, it rises abruptly from the plain to a height of nearly 4,000 feet; and standing isolated and solitary, with no rivals to dwarf it by comparison or detract from the effect of the picture—it is pre-eminently the great central feature of the landscape, travel which way you may. Placed by the side of Mount Shasta, or the high peaks of the Sierra, Mount Diablo would sink into insignificance, but standing alone in solitary grandeur, he is monarch of the land. No other mountain peak in America, perhaps in the world, commands a view of such wide extent of country and so wonderful and varied scenery; and he who has not ascended to its summit, certainly has not seen and can form no clear idea of California.
Old Californians of Spanish-American origin will tell you, with an earnestness which impresses you with the sincerity of their belief in what they say, that three fourths of a century ago a vaguero, chasing a stray band of cattle, ascended the mountain nearly to the summit, when he came suddenly upon a cavern from which issued great sheets of flame and clouds of sulphurous smoke, and he felt at once that he stood at the door of the abode of the Enemy of Mankind. Crossing himself with trembling hand, he devoutly repeated a prayer to Mary Mother, and turning his horse's head, rode regardless of risk to life and limb, looking not backward until he stood among his friends in the valley below, and told them of the wonder he had seen. From that time the mountain bore the name of him who was supposed to make his abode in its depths, and no man's foot intruded among its lonely defiles and savage canons until the Los Americanos, who feared neither God, man, nor devil, came and possessed the land, carried their surveying instruments to its summit, and there set up a rude monument of stone, which serves as a base for the surveys throughout all Alta California. The fire which the vaguero beheld, or thought he beheld, has burned out long years ago, if it ever existed; the cavern, if ever there was a cavern, has been closed to human eyes, and the superstitious dread with which the mountain was regarded has passed away with the simple people we have dispossessed, and the order of things which we have overturned. Thus much for the mountain as we see it at a distance, and the name it bears.
It was a pleasant afternoon early in the month of May, 1866, when a party of four, including the writer, went on board the Oakland ferry steamer "Washoe," at San Francisco, bound for Mount Diablo. The swift steamer in half an hour landed us at the Oakland railroad wharf, and we started off for the ride across the country. Two of the party, Dr. James Murphy and Dr. James D. Whitney, Jr., eminent men in their profession in San Francisco, rode in a light carriage, with a span of fast-trotting horses; while R. H. Lloyd, Esq., a prominent young lawyer, and myself were on horseback. Lloyd rode a beautiful, spirited, and very fleet-footed California horse, of a pale gold color, and with a mane and tail like spun silver—"Silvertail" they' called him; while I was mounted on my pet, "Juanita," a bright bay California mare, with great brown eyes, widely distended nostrils and clean limbs, which could carry her over the ground as fast as any mortal man would care to ride.
Poor Juanita! How bitterly do I remember springing to my feet, after a troubled sleep, one glorious moonlight night a year later, in the Great Colorado Valley, and at a glance discovering that she had been stolen from beside me as I slept! I ran out into the open ground and called aloud, "Juanita! Juanita!" but there came no answer. Half frantic, I searched all around for tracks, and soon found the prints of her dainty hoofs in the soft soil. Alas! a long-pointed moccassin track was beside them, and a little farther on I discovered where the accursed Chimahuevis thief had mounted, her and ridden off at a gallop across the sandy desert toward the desolate Chimahuevis mountains; and I knew that pursuit was useless, for long ere I could have reached the rancheria of the accursed tribe, their long sharp knives had slashed her silky throat, and her plump, round form had furnished food for the savages, to whom I also then owed a debt of hatred and revenge. I paid it well in after days; but let us turn back towards Mount Diablo.
From the landing at Oakland to Clayton, at the foot of the mountain, is thirty miles, up hill and down. We ride at a gallop through the quiet streets of Oakland, the most beautiful and flourishing of the suburban towns around San Francisco Bay; passing elegant residences standing embowered among the great spreading live oaks, which gave the place its name; deep green acacias, which in this climate never shed their feathery leaves; rose trees, loaded down with flowers of every hue, the fragrance of which pervades the dreamy, soft, voluptuous, languid air; fuschias, hanging like banners of living flame from trellis-work, arbor and broad veranda; and, in short, all the flowers which, gathered from every land beneath the sun, have become acclimated here; passing churches, school-houses, and college-buildings, through a long, wide lane, leading between thrifty orchards filled with ripening cherries, apricots, plums, nectarines, peaches, apples, pears, and wide acres covered with richly-bearing strawberry, blackberry and raspberry plants, where the Chinese laborers are at work in their broad bamboo hats and blue blouses, in rows like Louisianian slaves in the "good old time," now gone forever, gathering the luscious fruit for the San Francisco market, and emerge at last on the open farming country which stretches up to the high hills of Alameda, over which our road leads. At the foot of the hills we halt a moment, to rest and water man and beast, then strike into a winding cañon, which leads us up by an easy grade toward the summit of the hills. A little stream of pure, bright water comes down the canon, and, as we splash through it from time to time, we catch glimpses of hares and rabbits scudding away into the chapparal, and the beautiful tufted quail of California rise in pairs and whirr away to the leafy coverts where their nests are concealed. The sides of the canon are densely covered with the vine- like shrub known as the "poison-oak" which affects some people so terribly, even the wind blowing over it poisoning them so as to produce frightful swellings and eruptions of the face and glands, blindness, deafness, and sometimes even death itself. This plant has no effect whatever on any animal, nor on many men. The writer has chewed its fresh leaves, and handled it with perfect impunity. There are dog-roses and many wild flowers of brilliant hue, of which we do not know the names. The summit reached at last, we stop at a roadside inn to rest and "recruit"—gentle reader, if you ever travel in California you will learn what that means—and look back for a few minutes at the glorious panorama of the Bay of San Francisco and its surroundings: the white-winged ships coming and going from and to the uttermost parts of the earth—the steamers treading the blue waters, and the thousand evidences of life and progress developed in a few short years by the indomitable energy of our people on this outer edge of the continent—this western outpost of the Great Republic. On again, down a broad, graded road, which is cut along the side of a cañon, leading eastward among beautifully-rounded hills, covered with a dense growth of wild oats to their very summits, across a narrow valley, and up over the broken hill-range of Las Trampas, and down once more into a broad, beautiful valley, filled with farm-houses and wide fields of ripening grain, which seem wonderfully like those of the prairie country of Illinois. We pass through two or three country villages, each consisting of a store or two, post-office and express-office combined, a hotel, billiard-saloon, and two or three small rum-mills, and stop to refresh at each.
The sun is sinking behind the Western hills when we pass up by a short cut through a winding canon filled with wild mustard plants, as high as our horses' heads, through which we push our animals with difficulty, and emerge on a gravelly, unfenced and uncultivated plain, which stretches away to the foot of Mount Diablo, and catch a glimpse of Clayton, where we propose to pass the night. The company all together, we propose a taste of fragrant pisco (Peruvian white brandy) all round, sundry bottles of that and other refreshments having been stowed away under the seat of the carriage in which the doctors are riding. Something knocks Dr. Murphy's hat off, and I, Greaser style, swing down from my saddle, catch it from the ground, and slip it over my own. A laugh at his expense, and he offers me a chance at the bottle of pisco for the hat. I take the bottle and jump back just in time to avoid a swinging cut from his horsewhip, and in an instant we are off on a race across the plain. The doctor binds his head with a handkerchief, giving himself the air of a Bedouin of the desert, and lashes his horses into a "dead run" to overtake me, but in vain, and he coaxes and threatens by turns, as we allow him to get almost alongside of us to tantalize him, and then dash off again at a gallop. Silvertail and Juanita are mad for another brush, and Lloyd and myself leave the doctors far behind, and "go in" with a will to see who shall reach Clayton first. Now Silvertail makes a sudden dash and passes ahead, sending the gravel flying back from his hoofs in such volleys that I must perforce shield my eyes and get to one side as soon as possible; then Juanita, with a snort, closes into the work and shoots ahead, compelling him to yield the road in turn. Just as the day is closing and the soft twilight falls, we dash neck and neck into Clayton, rein up our panting steeds before the "Ironclad Hotel," and dismount, having ridden over the mountains and across two hill-ranges, thirty good miles, in just three hours and forty-five minutes, stoppages included. Round, red, and full the moon rises over the eastern hills and floods the landscape with golden glory, bringing out the peaks of the mountain, and every rock, hill, and glen in masses of sharply contrasted light and shadow, very grand to behold. Supper over, we sit, chat, and smoke our cigarritos around the doorway until bedtime; then give orders for a guide, an early breakfast and a lunch to take with us up the mountain, and retire to rest.
Daybreak sees us up and making ready for the ascent of the mountain which looms up right before us with its walls of rugged rock, which look altogether impassable. A good breakfast disposed of and we are all in the saddle—no carriage can ascend the mountain—and away up a little valley, dotted with patches of vineyards and young orchards, into a deep, dark canon which leads right into the depths of the mountain. Larks and robins are singing in the black beech and water-maple trees by the roadside, as we gallop along; and, as we ascend the defile, we look down upon the bright waters of a purling brook coming out of the mountain, in which we see the spotted mountain trout of California playing as we used to see them in the brooks of New England so long ago that we do not care—I might say do not dare—to count the years between. Soon the road leaves the bed of the stream, and becomes a narrow path, cut with infinite labor along the side of a precipice, over which you can look as you ride along, and drop a stone down hundreds of feet before it strikes the rocks, and goes bounding and awakening echoes down to the bottom of the canon. There is no room for two horses to go abreast, and we wind along in Indian file up, up, up, toward the blue sky above us. The bridle-path becomes at last a mere trail—dim and indistinct; but we press on, passing the first peak, and arrive at a point where our horses must be recinched, to prevent the saddles slipping over their tails and dumping us over the precipice, as they go up an acclivity steeper and more difficult of ascent than any we have as yet encountered. This matter of cinching a California mustang is no trifling feat for a green hand to essay. The wide band of woven horsehair, known as the cinch, is drawn up by the powerful purchase on the látigo strap until it deeply imbeds itself in the animal's belly, causing him to swell himself up like a toad to resist the pressure, and not unfrequently—especially if he sees that you are a stranger at the business—to commence a rearing, plunging, kicking, and biting performance, involving danger to life and limb.
We soon reached Deer Flat, a little park-like plateau, in a sheltered nook within a mile of the top of the mountain, and stopped for a breathing spell. A few years ago, when all California was wild with excitement and everybody was getting rich—on paper—from wild-cat mining stocks, every hill and mountain around San Francisco was bored, and tunnelled, and drifted in search of gold and silver bearing quartz. Claims were actually staked off in the streets of San Francisco, and companies formed to work them, on the strength of a few wandering bits of metalliferous rock having been picked up here and there. The prospectors pushed their way up here into the rocky defiles of Mount Diablo, and finding traces of gold, silver and copper, organized dozens of companies to work the "leads." For months the deep gorges of the mountain echoed the sound of the sledge, the pick and the drill, and the loud reports of the blasts let off to disengage the rock which hid from the eager eyes of the miners boundless stores of imaginary wealth. It is all over now and silent as the grave, save when a wandering party of pleasure-seekers penetrates here, as we have done, or the hunter climbs the rocky peaks in search of deer or a stray grizzly bear, and awakes the mountain echoes with the sharp crack of his rifle. Here, at Deer Flat, a comfortable house had been erected, and the superintendent of a mine, a Mexican, had made his headquarters. A vegetable-garden, run to weeds and climbing vines, a held of volunteer barley—into which we turn our panting horses without a question—and a trellised arbor, covered with sweet peas and climbing plants in full bloom, which a woman's loving hand must have planted and trained, tell of the industry and taste of those who once made their home in this wild mountain eyrie. A drink of cold water from a running spring, with the chill taken off it by an admixture of pisco, is heartily enjoyed after the hard ride, and we are soon ready for another climb. Up a steep hillside, past tall pine trees, like those of the Sierra Nevada, along a steep, narrow "hog-back" of crumbling, shelvy stone, running through a waste of the bitter, worthless chemisal, a plant which grows only on land too barren to support anything else; then up another sharper and more stony hill, and we pass through a scrubby thicket, and suddenly emerge on the summit of the mountain.
We stand for a moment in silence, looking down on the world at our feet. Words utterly fail to convey the faintest idea of the grandeur of the scene which bursts on our startled vision. I have ascended mountains higher than this, but never beheld such a scene as that below me, as I stood looking down, as upon a map, upon the vast country spread out on every side. The view was unbroken from the mountains to the sea, and what a scene! The sun was high in the heavens; it was nine o'clock, and the whole landscape was bathed in his glory. Turning naturally eastward at first, we see in the far distance the whole vast range of the Sierra Nevada; mountain piled on mountain, stretching to the limits of the vision north and south, with summits white with snow, glistening in the rays of the summer sun, beneath which the dwellers in the valleys are sweating at their toil. Northward the black buttes of Marysville, far away in Yuba county, bound the view. Southward you look away over the billowy hills and fresh smiling valleys to the mountains of the Coast Range, old Loma Prieta, a hundred miles or more away in Santa Cruz, being the last object distinguishable. Westward the ranges of Las Trampas and Alameda, and over them, the high peak of Tamalpais to the northward of the Golden Gate. Far away to the northwest, where Napa, Lake, and Sonoma counties meet, is dimly discernible the summit of Mount St. Helens. A white mist is on the western horizon, but, even as we gaze, the curtain unrolls and lifts from the scene, and we see the city of the Pacific, proud San Francisco, the Golden Gate, and the blue ocean beyond, aye, even a steamer far out at sea, heading for the portal of the golden land. The bay of San Francisco is only partly visible, but we see on its bosom the dark form of Yerba Buena Island, and the steamers Washoe and Alameda plying to and from Oakland and the Encinal de Alameda, crowded with pleasure -seekers going over the bay for a Sunday's amusement, the shipping lying thickly around the wharves upon the city front. The rock fortress of Alcatraz, bristling with heavy guns, rising tier on tier from the water's edge, and surmounted with barracks and officers' quarters, painted of a peach bloom color, can be readily distinguished, and as a heavy bank of mist drifts in and covers it for a few minutes, we almost fancy that our ears catch the deep booming of the fog bell,
"The weary warden that o'er sea and marshes
Monotonously calls,
The challenge to the foe whose stealthy marches
Invest the city's walls."
A fog-bank, white as driven snow, drifts swiftly up the Marin county shore, slides over Lime Point, and fills the defiles of Tamalpais, whose summit, cut off from his base, apparently rocks and pitches in the surging billows like the wreck of some proud ship, tossed in the breakers on a stormy coast. The mist is gone again, and the Presidio of San Francisco, with its lone lines of barracks, and Fort Point, with its red brick fortress, stand out so plainly, that we look in momentary expectation of seeing the glinting of the muskets of the sentries in the sunlight, as they turn in their silent round and glance seaward for the foe who never comes. The bay of San Pablo is nearly-all visible, and the bay of Suisun, with its surface dotted with sails, lies uncovered before us. The blue of the sky overhead mingles with the blue of the sea in the west, all the middle ground is emerald green, and white and cold gleam the summits of the Sierra along the whole eastern horizon. Martinez, Pacheco, Alamo, San Ramon, Lafayette and Clayton lie at our feet; it seems as if you might toss a stone into either of them from where we stand; and, on the other side of the straits of Carquinez, Benicia, and Vallejo, with every building plain and distinct, are to be seen. Suisun, Rio Vista and Freeport, farther northward, are plainly visible, and we see Sacramento, embowered in shade trees, distinctly in the northeast. Nearer where we stand, we see long threads of yellow water twisting and winding among tule marshes and low plains. It seems hardly possible that one of these is the lordly Sacramento, whose waters are thick with the earth from a thousand hills, being washed down by the miners in their search for gold, and on whose bosom is borne the commerce and treasure of the State, and the lands beyond the Sierra. Coming in from the southwest is another winding stream of somewhat purer water, and the eye follows it up through vast, treeless plains to the southward, until the limit of vision is reached, and it glitters in the sunlight on the edge of the horizon like a broken bit of rainbow on a cloud; this is the San Joaquin. The dozen lesser rivers emptying into one or the other are hardly distinguishable in the bayous and natural canals which cut up the tule marshes in all directions. Eternal Winter looks down from the snow-capped summits of the Sierra Nevada on Summer, in all her riches, in the valleys below us, and we, looking at both by turns, have but to cast our eyes toward San Francisco, where summer heat is never fully felt, and winter's cold never comes, to see eternal Spring. Tropical heat is felt, and tropical fruits flourish in the valleys of Sacramento and the San Joaquin, and up on yonder mountains, near the limit of human habitation, the climate and productions of New England may be found. The gold placers of the foothills, the quartz ranges of the mountains, the wide valleys and rich alluvial bottom lands, resembling those of the Delta of the Mississippi, along the Sacramento and San Joaquin, the vine-clad hills of Napa and Sonoma, the great pine forests of the upper mountains, the boundless pastures of Contra Costa and Alameda, all lie before us. Without Le Sage's demon's gift, we look down into the dooryards, and upon the roofs of half the dwellers in all the goodly land of California. Pacheco Valley, rich with the broad acres of ripening grain, where the reapers are already at work; Moragua Valley, green as an emerald lake, where the haymakers are; Livermore, San Ramon, Nashau, Marsh, Walnut, and a dozen other valleys, are around us. There is grass enough standing in the valleys beneath us, to feed countless thousands of cattle, but since the great drouth of 1863-4, the country is almost stripped of live stock, and we look over miles on miles of pasture, in which we cannot discern a single animal. To the southwest, half way down the mountain side, we see a lovely little lake, which seems the abode of fairies. No human habitation is within miles of it, and it is the haunt of wild game, hare, rabbits, quail, doves, even grizzly bears it is said, are sometimes to be found there. As we look down upon it, we see a herd of brown deer wading around in its clear waters, or lying at ease under the broad spreading live oaks around it. We could sit and gaze and dream for days, if we had the time to spare, and even then not be able to recount the half of the glories and the beauties of the wondrous panorama of mountain, plain, river, ocean, city, village, bay, forest, and boundless valley spread before us.
But the sun is already climbing high overhead, and approaching the meridian, and we have at least forty good miles ride yet before nightfall; so we hastily discuss our luncheon, wondering all the time, as we look down from the heights to which we have climbed, at the stupidity of those who dwell in the land below us. Of the two hundred and fifty thousand people who glance up at the peak where we are sitting, every day of their lives, not a thousand ever stood where we are standing, and beheld what we behold. And yet people leave San Francisco by every steamer to travel over Europe, or climb the pigmy heights of Mount Washington or the Catskills in search of the grand and beautiful in nature, and the "Colfax party" crossed the continent in search of wonders, and missed the grandest scene of all. Well, this is a very queerworld.
Luncheon finished, we make a punch from the last of the pisco, and on the principle of always speaking well of the person whose hospitality you are enjoying, solemnly drink the health of "San Diablo," fancying to ourselves the wink and chuckle in which the old gentleman indulged when he heard that pious prefix to his name announced. One more look all around the horizon—over at the ocean to the westward—across the great interior valley of California to the great Sierra on the eastward, where delicate coral hues are beginning to flush the snow-fields glittering in the noonday sun; southward and northward to where the earth and sky joined to shut off the vision—then loosened the cinches of our Spanish saddles, and rearranged them, to prevent their sliding forward over the horses' heads in the descent, and regretfully started down the mountain. We had gone but a few rods, when somebody gave a yell, and off went all the horses on a gallop over rocks and shelving hillsides, where to stumble was to insure a broken neck, and to fall was a joke not to be endured twice in a lifetime. As we went helter-skelter down "the hogback," I heard something fall with a dull thud, and looking up, discovered Juanita standing over me with the saddle under her neck, waiting patiently for me to recover my senses. I remounted as soon as possible, and rejoined my friends at Deer Flat, where they were waiting, not knowing what had become of me. Again we are off, and as we strike the bridle-path cut along the face of the precipice, yell after yell, and whoop á la Apache succeeds whoop á la Camanche, while the horses break into a gallop, and we turn in and out the winding road, and dash down the steep declivity with something of the sensation which the hawk or eagle must feel as he sets his wines at an angle, and slides down with arrowy swiftness from the realms of ether toward the lower earth. Stones dislodged by our horses' feet go over the precipice, and we hear them bound and crack from rock to rock down to the very bottom of the cañon, hundreds of feet below; but the sense of danger seems to give fresh zest to the excitement of man and horse, and the mad gallop is not broken until we reach the wagon-road in the bed of the creek, or the bottom of the great ravine by which we entered the mountain. Then the guide and myself run our horses across an irrigating-dam, strike a hard, smooth mesa, dotted with live oaks like an orchard, and leaving our friends to go round by the road, ride at the full speed of our mustangs down it, only halting when we have reached the stable at Clayton, and dismount to order dinner.
Dinner over, we re-saddle and hitch up, and are off at two p. m. for San Francisco, by the road we came on the previous day. An occasional race, pistol shooting at quail or hare, a lunch by a mountain spring by the roadside, and occasional halts for "refreshments," only diversifying the ride homewards, and at six p. m. we are again on board the Washoe at Oakland, steaming-across the Bay of San Francisco, having ridden fifty miles up and down mountains and across the valleys since sunrise.
Reader, it would pay you to make the trip, and may you be with us when next we mount our fiery and untamed caballos to ride up and down Mount Diablo.