Читать книгу In the Footprints of the Padres - Charles Warren Stoddard - Страница 20

Sunday is ever the people's day, and a San Francisco Sunday used to be as lively as the Lord's Day at any of the capitals of Europe. How the town used to flock to Telegraph Hill on a Sunday in the olden time! They were mostly quiet folk who went there, and they went to feast their eyes upon one of the loveliest of landscapes or waterscapes. They probably took their lunch with them, and their families—if they had them; though families were infrequent in the Fifties. They wandered about until they had chosen their point of view, and then they took possession of an unclaimed portion of the Hill. They "squatted," as was the custom of the time. The "squatter" claimed the right of sovereignty, and exercised it so long as he was left unmolested.

One man seemed to have as much right as another on Telegraph Hill. And one right was always his: no one disputed him the right of vision; he shared it with his neighbor, and was willing to share it with the whole world. For generations he has held it, and he will probably continue to hold it so long as the old Hill stands. From the heights his eye sweeps a scene of beauty. There is the Golden Gate, bathed in sunset glories; and there the northern shore line that climbs skyward where Mount Tamalpais takes on his mantle of mist. There is Saucelito, with its green terraces resting upon the tree-tops; and there the bit of sheltered water that seems always steeped in sunshine—now the haunt of house boats, then the haven of a colony of Neapolitan fishermen; and Angel Island, with its military post; and Fort Alcatraz, a rocky bubble afloat in mid-channel and one mass of fortifications.

What an inland sea it is—the Bay of San. Francisco, seventy miles in length, from ten to twelve in width; dotted with islands, and capable of harboring all the fleets of all the civilized or uncivilized worlds! The northern part of it, beyond the narrows, is known as the Bay of San Pablo; the Straits of Carquinez connect it with Suisun Bay, which is a sleepy sheet of water fed by the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers.

To the east is Yerba-Buena, vulgarly known as Goat Island; and beyond it the Contra Costa, with its Alameda, Oakland, and Fruit Vale; then the Coast Range; and atop of all and beyond all Mount Diablo, with its three thousand eight hundred feet of perpendicularity, beyond whose summit the sun rises, and from whose peaks almost half the State is visible and almost half the sea—or at least it seems so—but that's another vision!