Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water. Ethel Gwendoline Vincent
earlier stages of the line the "Old Emigrant Trail" can frequently be seen, with here and there a rude wooden cross marking the lonely grave of some emigrant or freighter, who, overcome by sickness and weariness, lay down and died.
We lived through the long hours of that day as best we could, and about seven o'clock we thought it was perhaps just a little cooler, and the glare of the sun not quite so angry. We tried to ventilate the cars by opening all the windows, and standing outside on the platforms before turning in for the night. It was wonderful how mutual sufferings had brought the passengers together, and how friendly we had all become. One charming American lady, the wife of a clergyman, brought us each a most refreshing cup of "real English tea."
After such a trying day it was particularly aggravating to be entering the magnificent scenery of the Sierra Nevadas, and to be crossing them, during the night.
We were in the beautiful valley of the Sacramento the next morning, among its corn-fields, vineyards, and orchards, catching already glimpses of the blue waters of the Bay of San Francisco, running far inland. We crossed the Carthagena Straits on one of those wonderful steam ferries that are capable of carrying four loaded trains. The train was slowed, run on, and before we knew anything had happened, we were halfway across, and able to get down from the car, and going to the side of the ferry, look down into the muddy waters. The platforms at either end are hydraulically raised or lowered, according to the state of the tide, to the level of the ferry. For many miles we continued skirting the bay, partly crossing it on trestle bridges till we reached Oakland, so called from its beautiful groves of oaks; and which, though separated from San Francisco by the bay, is one of its suburbs. We crossed over from Oakland Ferry, and were at San Francisco, our journey to the Far West—across the continent of America, 4000 miles from ocean to ocean, traversing the ten states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, the territory of Utah Nevada, into California—safely accomplished.
CHAPTER VI
SAN FRANCISCO AND THE YOSEMITE VALLEY
I think we never felt more dirty or forlorn in our lives than on that bright morning when, crossing the bay in one of the palatial Oakland ferry steamers, sitting in the deck saloon, we were surrounded by a crowd of smartly-dressed "Frisco" ladies, particularly humiliated by the appearance of two of our fellow-travellers in the cars, in fresh morning toilettes. A bitter east wind was blowing in our teeth, and raising the muddy waters of the bay into "white horses," and the town with its straight lines running perpendicularly up the hill, showing the division of the streets into regular blocks, looked bleak and grey under the wintry sky.
We could not help being struck by the wonderful precision with which they run these enormous ferry-boats into a dock, fitted with exact nicety to their dimensions, rarely "bumping" against the floating piles, which, however give slightly to a pressure on either side as required.
As your foot is set on the wharf, an army of hotel "touts" besiege you, ready to devour you and your small hand-baggage, and it is with difficulty, and only after some display of firmness and decision, that you are allowed to select the natural choice of a first visit to San Francisco—the Palace Hotel. Rejecting the omnibus or large yellow coach, we took a carriage, to be as quickly as possible installed in a charming suite of rooms; all our possessions, from which we have been so long separated, once more gathered around us—luxury again after the four days of heat and discomfort in "the cars."
We have all heard so much, and for so long of "The Palace," that it is hard to be disenchanted. When the hotel was first built, it was a marvel of magnificence, but since then others as beautiful, as gigantic, as costly, have sprung up, by the side of which its celebrity is paling. The arches and white pillars repeat themselves seven times one above the other, round the four sides of the covered courtyard, and when lighted in the evening by the single pendant electric light, form a very brilliant and pretty sight. The attendance, as might be expected, is only moderate, increasing the feeling ever present of being only a unit among the host of visitors. You have the option of the American or European system, and there is an excellent restaurant, but the courtyard, the piazza, the long corridors leading to the ladies' entrance and waiting-rooms, are filled with groups of men lounging and hanging about; it is, in fact, a general meeting-place for the citizens, which renders it unpleasant for ladies. The rooms are not numbered according to floors, but the hotel is divided into blocks, called according to the street towards which it faces, and each block, with its separate lift and numbering, forms a house of itself.
It may be mentioned in passing that the proprietor, Mr. Sharon, is at present defendant in a tremendous divorce case, which has been occupying the court and local press for the last eighty days; the leading counsel on either side is a "colonel" for the petitioner, and a "general" for the respondent. We spent the afternoon in wandering about among the splendid stores, and in re-hatting C., who was much reduced by the loss of one hat in the early days of our travels, and by the collapse of the remainder in the railway accident. At first surprised by the beautiful furs and sealskin paletots of the ladies we met in the streets, we soon understood the wisdom of their winter wraps when at four o'clock we were driven home by the cold wind, and raw sea fog, hanging about the city.
Sunday, August 24th. Palace Hotel, San Francisco.—We arrived in church in time for the second lesson, having met with a shake of the head, and in one case an honest confession "that he never went to church," in answer to our inquiries for Trinity Church.
We made an unsuccessful attempt to reach Cliff House by the Cable Cars in the afternoon. An expedition there is the favourite Sunday amusement. You go out, over the bleak downs, along the edge of the cliffs, to the small hotel, where a few seals are to be seen disporting themselves on the rocks beneath, sounding their monotonous "bark" or call. The wind was blowing in our faces, and the mist driving before us, and at last, as we seemed about to penetrate into a cloud which had descended on the further hill, we called a halt, as we were passing a return car. We had seen part of one of the pretty suburbs that are San Francisco's greatest attractions, where the villas of her Bonanza or railway kings centre—men whose fortunes were made in the gold beds of the tributaries to the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, barely forty years ago. Then San Francisco was but a village of shanties which they called "Yerba Buena" or good hut, and the "hoodlum" element predominated, traces of which are still to be found but too frequently in many of the low quarters of the city. Not so very long ago it was necessary to carry a revolver about. It was worn daily as a matter of course, and an unintentional raising of the hand to the place where it was secreted might prove fatal, causing an opponent to draw his under suspicion, and in supposed self-defence.
There are many evident traces of the quick rise to wealth that has been the ordinary lot of the inhabitants of the city. You notice it particularly in the extraordinary number of jewellers' stores, and the display of diamonds, in the expensive upholsterers, with their superb if gaudy furniture, in the marvellous curios of Chinese and Japanese art, that here find a ready sale.
Disgusted with the climate of San Francisco, we fully expected to be told the usual story about "phenomenal weather." Every one has observed how exceptional the weather generally is when they happen to visit a certain place. But no, we found it is the rule here for the bright, sunny mornings to change to cold wind and sea fog in the afternoon throughout the summer months. During the winter the climate is warm and equable, and it therefore possesses the advantage of having no great extremes throughout the year.
Monday, August 25th. San Francisco.—A morning of indecision, angry agents, each "touting" for their route, a hurrying about from one office to the other.
The question under consideration was an expedition to the Yosemite Valley. A telegram from New York confirmed the date of the 30th as the arrival of the mails and the departure of the Pacific Mail Steamboat, the Australia, for New Zealand. This left us exactly four days in which to carry out the expedition, one and a half to go into the valley, the afternoon there, and two days to come out again. I confess now that it is all over, that it was a mad idea to think it practicable. Five years ago I had heard my first description of this wonderland, and been seized with an unreasoning desire to see it. All through the continent I had been hurrying and pushing on, particularly towards the last, chafing feverishly against the delays caused by our mishaps on the railways; fearful lest time should fail us at the last for