The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). Frederick Whymper
sounds, resembling those of ungreased cart-wheels and railway-whistles, mingled with the rolling of drums and striking of gongs. Some of the streets are lined with Chinese shops, ranging from those of the merchants in tea, silks, porcelain, and lacquered ware—a dignified and polite class of men, who are often highly educated, and speak English extremely well—to those of the cigar-makers, barbers, shoemakers, and laundry-men. Half the laundry-work in San Francisco is performed by John Chinaman. There is one Chinese hotel or caravanserai, which looks as though it might at a stretch accommodate two hundred people, in which 1,200 men are packed.
The historian of the future will watch with interest the advancing or receding waves of population as they move over the surface of the globe, now surging in great waves of resistless force, now peacefully subsiding, leaving hardly a trace behind. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s steamers have brought from China to San Francisco as many as 1,200 Chinamen—and, very occasionally, of course, more than that number—on a single trip. The lowest estimate of the number of Chinese in California is 70,000, while they are spread all over the Pacific states and territories, and, indeed, in lesser numbers, all over the American continent. One finds them in New England factories, New York laundries, and Southern plantations. Their reception in San Francisco used to be with brickbats and other missiles, and hooting and jeering, on the part of the lower classes of the community. This is not the place to enter into a discussion on the political side of the question. Suffice it to say that they were and still are a necessity in California, where the expense of reaching the country has kept out “white” labour to an extent so considerable, that it still rules higher than in almost any part of the world. The respectable middle classes would hardly afford servants at all were it not for the Chinese. All the better classes support their claims to full legal and social rights. The Chinamen who come to San Francisco are not coolies, and a large number of them pay their own passages over. When brought over by merchants, or one of the six great Chinese companies, their passage-money is advanced, and they, of course, pay interest for the accommodation. On arrival in California, if they do not immediately go to work, they proceed to the “Company-house” of their particular province, where, in a kind of caravanserai, rough accommodations for sleeping and cooking are afforded. Hardly a better system of organisation could be adopted than that of the companies, who know exactly where each man in their debt is to be found, if he is hundreds of miles from San Francisco. Were it possible to adopt the same system in regard to emigrants from this country, thousands would be glad to avail themselves of the opportunity of proceeding to the Golden State.
One little anecdote, and the Chinese must be left to their fate. It happened in 1869. Two Chinese merchants had been invited by one of the heads of a leading steamship company to visit the theatre, where they had taken a box. The merchants, men of high standing among their countrymen, accepted. Their appearance in front of it was the signal for an outburst of ruffianism on the part of the gallery; it was the “gods” versus the celestials, and for a time the former had it all their own way. In vain Lawrence Barrett, the actor, came forward on the stage to try and appease them. He is supposed to have said that any well-conducted person had a right to his seat in the house. An excited gentleman in the dress-circle reiterated the same ideas, and was rewarded by a torrent of hisses and caterwauling. The Chinamen, alarmed that it might result in violence to them, would have retired, but a dozen gentlemen from the dress-circle and orchestra seats requested them to stay, promising them protection, and the merchants remained. They could see that all the better and more respectable part of the house wished them to remain. After twenty or more minutes of interruption, the gallery was nearly cleared by the police, and the performance allowed to proceed. And yet the very class who are so opposed to the Caucasian complain that he does not spend his money in the country where he makes it, but hoards it up for China. The story explains the actual position of the Chinaman in America to-day. The upper and middle classes, ay, and the honest mechanics who require their assistance, support their claims; the lowest scum of the population persecute, injure, and not unfrequently murder them. Many a poor John Chinaman has, as they say in America, been “found missing.”
The sailor ashore in San Francisco may likely enough have an opportunity of feeling the tremor of an earthquake. As a rule, they have been exceedingly slight, but that of the 21st October, 1868, was a serious affair. Towers and steeples swayed to and fro: tall houses trembled, badly-built wooden houses became disjointed; walls fell. Many buildings, for some time afterwards, showed the effects in cracked walls and plastering, dislocated doors and window-frames. A writer in the Overland Monthly, soon after the event, put the matter forcibly when recalling the great earthquake of Lisbon. He said, “Over the parts of the city where ships anchored twenty years ago, they may anchor again,” for the worst effects were confined to the “made” ground—i.e., land reclaimed from the Bay. Dwellings on the rocky hills were scarcely injured at all, reminding us of the relative fates of the man “who built his house upon a rock” and of him who placed it on the sand. Four persons only were killed on that occasion, all of them from the fall of badly-constructed walls, loose parapets, &c. The alarm in the city was great; excited people rushing wildly through the streets, and frightened horses running through the crowds.
California possesses other ports of importance, but as regards English naval interests in the Pacific, Esquimalt, Vancouver Island, B.C., which has a fine land-locked harbour of deep water, dock, and naval hospital, deserves the notice of the reader. It is often the rendezvous for seven or eight of H.M.’s vessels, from the admiral’s flag-ship to the tiniest steam gun-boat. Victoria, the capital, is three miles off, and has a pretty little harbour itself, not, however, adapted for large vessels. Formerly the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, the mainland, were separate and distinct colonies; they are now identified under the latter name. Their value never warranted the full paraphernalia of a double colonial government—two governors, colonial secretaries, treasurers, attorney-generals, &c., &c.; for these countries, charming and interesting to the tourist and artist, will only attract population slowly. The resources of British Columbia in gold, timber, coal, fisheries, &c., are considerable; but the long winters on the mainland, and the small quantity of open land, are great drawbacks. Approaching Vancouver Island from the sea, the “inside channel” is entered through the grand opening to the Straits of Fuca, which Cook missed and Vancouver discovered. To the eastward are the rocks and light of Cape Flattery, while the rather low termination of Vancouver Island, thick with timber, is seen to the westward. The scene in the Straits is often lively with steamers and shipping, great men-of-war, sometimes of foreign nationalities; coast packet-boats proceeding not merely to Vancouver Island, but to the ports of Washington Territory, on the American side; timber (called “lumber” always on that side of the world) vessels; colliers proceeding to Nanaimo or Bellingham Bay to the coal-mines; coasting and trading schooners; and Indian canoes, some of them big enough to accommodate sixty or more persons, and carrying a good amount of sail. The Straits have many beauties; and as, approaching the entrance of Esquimalt Harbour, the Olympian range of mountains, snow-covered and rugged, loom in the distance, the scene is grandly beautiful; while in the channel, rocky islets and islands, covered with pine and arbutus, abound. Outside the Straits two lighthouses are placed, to warn the unwary voyager by night. Often those lighthouses may be noted apparently upside down! Mirage is common enough in the Straits of Fuca.
Victoria, in 1862, had at least 12,000 or 15,000 people, mostly drawn thither by the fame of the Cariboo mines, on the mainland of British Columbia. Not twenty per cent. ever reached those mines. When ships arrived in the autumn, it was utterly useless to attempt the long journey of about 600 miles, partly by steamer, but two-thirds of which must be accomplished on foot or horseback, or often mule-back, over rugged mountain-paths, through swamps and forests. Consequently, a large number had to spend the winter in idleness; and in the spring, in many cases, their resources were exhausted. Many became tired of the colony; “roughing it” was not always the pleasant kind of thing they had imagined, and so they went down to California, or left for home. Others were stuck fast in the colony, and many suffered severe privations; although, so long as they could manage to live on salmon alone, they could obtain plenty from the Indians, who hawked it about the streets for a shilling or two shillings apiece—the latter for a very large fish. The son of a baronet at one time might be seen breaking stones for a living in Victoria; and unless men had a very distinct calling, profession, or trade, they had to live on their means or have a very rough