Читать книгу The Gold Hunters - J.D. Borthwick - Страница 7

CHAPTER III

A CITY IN THE MAKING

T

HE entrance to San Francisco harbor is between precipitous rocky headlands about a mile apart, which have received the name of the Golden Gate. The harbor itself is a large sheet of water, twelve miles across at its widest point, and in length forty or fifty miles, getting gradually narrower till at last it becomes a mere creek.

On the north side of the harbor falls in the Sacramento, a large river, to which all the other rivers of California are tributary, and which is navigable for large vessels as far as Sacramento city, a distance of nearly two hundred miles.

The city of San Francisco lies on the south shore, nearly opposite the mouth of the Sacramento, and four or five miles from the ocean. It is built on a semicircular inlet, about two miles across, at the foot of a succession of bleak sandy hills, covered here and there with scrubby brushwood. Before the discovery of gold in the country, it consisted merely of a few small houses occupied by native Californians, and one or two foreign merchants engaged in the export of hides and horns. The harbor was also a favorite watering-place for whalers and men-of-war cruising in that part of the world.

At the time of our arrival in 1851, hardly a vestige remained of the original village. Everything bore evidence of newness, and the greater part of the city presented a makeshift and temporary appearance, being composed of the most motley collection of edifices, in the way of houses, which can well be conceived. Some were mere tents, with perhaps a wooden front sufficiently strong to support the sign of the occupant; some were composed of sheets of zinc on a wooden framework; there were numerous corrugated iron houses, the most unsightly things possible, and generally painted brown ; there were many imported American houses, all, of course, painted white, with green shutters; also dingy-looking Chinese houses, and occasionally some substantial brick buildings; but the great majority were nondescript, shapeless, patchwork concerns, in the fabrication of which sheet-iron, wood, zinc, and canvas seemed to have been employed indiscriminately; while here and there, in the middle of a row of such houses, appeared the hulk of a ship, which had been hauled up, and now served as a warehouse, the cabins being fitted up as offices, or sometimes converted into a boarding-house.

The hills rose so abruptly from the shore that there was not room for the rapid extension of the city, and as sites were more valuable as they were nearer the shipping, the first growth of the city was out into the bay. Already houses had been built out on piles for nearly half-a-mile beyond the original high-water mark; and it was thus that ships, having been hauled up and built in, came to occupy a position so completely out of their element. The hills are of a very loose sandy soil, and were consequently easily graded sufficiently to admit of being built upon; and what was removed from the hills was used to fill up the space gained from the bay. This has been done to such an extent, that at the present day the whole of the business part of the city of San Francisco stands on solid ground, where a few years ago large ships lay at anchor; and what was then high-water mark is now more than a mile inland.

The principal street of the town was about three-quarters of a mile long, and on it were most of the bankers’ offices, the principal stores, some of the best restaurants, and numerous drinking and gambling saloons.

In the Plaza, a large open square, was the only remaining house of the San Francisco of other days— a small cottage built of sun-dried bricks. Two sides of the Plaza were composed of the most imposing-looking houses in the city, some of which were of brick several stories high; others, though of wood, were large buildings with handsome fronts in imitation of stone, and nearly every one of them was a gambling-house.

Scattered over the hills overhanging the town, apparently at random, but all on specified lots, on streets which as yet were only defined by rude fences, were habitations of various descriptions, handsome wooden houses of three or four stories, neat little cottages, iron houses, and tents innumerable.

Rents were exorbitantly high, and servants were hardly to be had for money; housekeeping was consequently only undertaken by those who did not fear the expense, and who were so fortunate as to have their families with them. The population, however, consisted chiefly of single men, and the usual style of living was to have some sort of room to sleep in, and to board at a restaurant. But even a room to oneself was an expensive luxury, and it was more usual for men to sleep in their stores or offices. As for a bed, no one was particular about that; a shake-down on a table, or on the floor, was as common as anything else, and sheets were a luxury but little thought of. Every man was his own servant, and his own porter besides. It was nothing unusual to see a respectable old gentleman, perhaps some old paterfamilias, who at home would have been horrified at the idea of doing such a thing, open his store in the morning himself, take a broom and sweep it out, and then proceed to blacken his boots.

The boot-blacking trade, however, was one which sprang up and flourished rapidly. It was monopolized by Frenchmen, and was principally conducted in the Plaza, on the long row of steps in front of the gambling saloons. At first the accommodation afforded was not very great. One had to stand upon one foot and place the other on a little box, while a Frenchman, standing a few steps below, operated upon it. Presently arm-chairs were introduced, and, the bootblacks working in partnership, time was economized by both boots being polished simultaneously. It was a curious sight to see thirty or forty men sitting in a row in the most public part of the city having their boots blacked, while as many more stood waiting for their turn. The next improvement was being accommodated with the morning papers while undergoing the operation ; and finally, the bootblacking fraternity, keeping pace with the progressive spirit of the age, opened saloons furnished with rows of easy-chairs on a raised platform, in which the patients sat and read the news, or admired themselves in the mirror on the opposite wall. The regular charge for having one’s boots polished was twenty-five cents, an English shilling—the smallest sum worth mentioning in California.

In 1851, however, things had not attained such a pitch of refinement as to render the appearance of a man’s boots a matter of the slightest consequence.

As far as mere eating and drinking went, living was good enough. The market was well supplied with every description of game—venison, elk, antelope, grizzly bear, and an infinite variety of wildfowl. The harbor abounded with fish, and the Sacramento river was full of splendid salmon, equal in flavor to those of the Scottish rivers, though in appearance not quite such a highly-finished fish, being rather clumsy about the tail.

Vegetables were not so plentiful. Potatoes and onions, as fine as any in the world, were the great stand-by. Other vegetables, though scarce, were produced in equal perfection, and upon a gigantic scale. A beetroot weighing a hundred pounds, and that looked like the trunk of a tree, was not thought a very remarkable specimen.

The wild geese and ducks were extremely numerous all round the shores of the bay, and many men, chiefly English and French, who would have scorned the idea of selling their game at home, here turned their sporting abilities to good account, and made their guns a source of handsome profit. A Frenchman with whom I was acquainted killed fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of game in two weeks.

There were two or three French restaurants nearly equal to some of the best in Paris, where the cheapest dinner one could get cost three dollars; but there were also numbers of excellent French and American houses, at which one could live much more reasonably. Good hotels were not wanting, but they were ridiculously extravagant places ; and though flimsy concerns, built of wood, and not presenting very ostentatious exteriors, they were fitted up with all the lavish display which characterizes the fashionable hotels of New York. In fact, all places of public resort were furnished and decorated in a style of most barbaric splendor, being filled with the costliest French furniture, and a profusion of immense mirrors, gorgeous gilding, magnificent chandeliers, and gold and china ornaments, conveying an idea of luxurious refinement which contrasted strangely with the appearance and occupations of the people by whom they were frequented.

San Francisco exhibited an immense amount of vitality compressed into a small compass, and a degree of earnestness was observable in every action of a man’s daily life. People lived more there in a week than they would in a year in most other places.

In the course of a month, or a year, in San Francisco, there was more hard work done, more speculative schemes were conceived and executed, more money was made and lost, there was more buying and selling, more sudden changes of fortune, more eating and drinking, more smoking, swearing, gambling, and tobacco-chewing, more crime and profligacy, and, at the same time, more solid advancement made by the people, as a body, in wealth, prosperity, and the refinements of civilization, than could be shown in an equal space of time by any community of the same size on the face of the earth.

The every-day jog-trot of ordinary human existence was not a fast enough pace for Californians in their impetuous pursuit of wealth. The longest period of time ever thought of was a month. Money was loaned, and houses were rented, by the month; interest and rent being invariably payable monthly and in advance. All engagements were made by the month, during which period the changes and contingencies were so great that no one was willing to commit himself for a longer term. In the space of a month the whole city might be swept off by fire, and a totally new one might be flourishing in its place. So great was the constant fluctuation in the prices of goods, and so rash and speculative was the usual style of business, that no great idea of stability could be attached to anything, and the ever-varying aspect of the streets, as the houses were being constantly pulled down, and rebuilt, was emblematic of the equally varying fortunes of the inhabitants.

The streets presented a scene of intense bustle and excitement. The side-walks were blocked up with piles of goods, in front of the already crowded stores; men hurried along with the air of having the weight of all the business of California on their shoulders ; others stood in groups at the comers of the streets; here and there was a drunken man lying groveling in the mud, enjoying himself as uninterruptedly as if he were merely a hog; old miners, probably on their way home, were loafing about, staring at everything, in all the glory of mining costume, jealous of every inch of their long hair and flowing beards, and of every bit of California mud which adhered to their ragged old shirts and patchwork pantaloons, as evidences that they, at least, had “seen the elephant.”

Troops of newly arrived Frenchmen marched along, en route for the mines, staggering under their equipment of knapsacks, shovels, picks, tin wash-bowls, pistols, knives, swords, and double-barrel guns—their blankets slung over their shoulders, and their persons hung around with tin cups, frying-pans, coffee-pots, and other culinary utensils, with perhaps a hatchet and a spare pair of boots. Crowds of Chinamen were also to be seen, bound for the diggings, under gigantic basket-hats, each man with a bamboo laid across his shoulder, from each end of which was suspended a higgledy-piggledy collection of mining tools, Chinese baskets and boxes, immense boots and a variety of Chinese “fixins,” which no one but a Chinaman could tell the use of,—all speaking at once, gabbling and chattering their horrid jargon, and producing a noise like that of a flock of geese. There were continuous streams of drays drawn by splendid horses, and loaded with merchandise from all parts of the world, and horsemen galloped about, equally regardless of their own and of other men’s lives.

Two or three auctioneers might be heard at once, “crying” their goods with characteristic California vehemence, while some of their neighbors in the same line of business were ringing bells to collect an audience—and at the same time one’s ears were dinned with the discord of half-a-dozen brass bands, braying out different popular airs from as many different gambling saloons. In the midst of it all, the runners, or tooters, for the opposition river-steamboats, would be cracking up the superiority of their respective boats at the top of their lungs, somewhat in this style: “One dollar to-night for Sacramento, by the splendid steamer Senator, the fastest boat that ever turned a wheel from Long wharf—with feather pillows and curled-hair mattresses, mahogany doors and silver hinges. She has got eight young-lady passengers to-night, that speak all the dead languages, and not a colored man from stem to stem of her.” Here an opposition runner would let out upon him, and the two would slang each other in the choicest California Billingsgate for the amusement of the admiring crowd.

Standing at the door of a gambling saloon, with one foot raised on the steps, would be a well-dressed young man, playing thimblerig on his leg with a golden pea, for the edification of a crowd of gaping greenhorns, some one of whom would be sure to bite. Not far off would be found a precocious little blackguard of fourteen or fifteen, standing behind a cask, and playing on the head of it a sort of thimblerig game with three cards, called “French monte.” He first shows their faces, and names one—say the ace of spades—as the winning card, and after thimblerigging them on the head of the cask, he lays them in a row with their faces down, and goes on proclaiming to the public in a loud voice that the ace of spades is the winning card, and that he’ll “bet any man one or two hundred dollars he can’t pick up the ace of spades.” Occasionally some man, after watching the trick for a little, thinks it is the easiest thing possible to tell which is the ace of spades, and loses his hundred dollars accordingly, when the youngster pockets the money and his cards, and moves off to another location, not being so soft as to repeat the joke too often, or to take a smaller bet than a hundred dollars.

There were also newsboys with their shrill voices, crying their various papers with the latest intelligence from all parts of the world, and boys with boxes of cigars, offering “the best Havana cigars for a bit a-piece, as good as you can get in the stores for a quarter.” A “bit” is twelve and a half cents, or an English sixpence, and for all one could buy with it, was but little less useless than an English farthing.

Presently one would hear “Hullo! there’s a muss!” (Anglicé, a row), and men would be seen rushing to the spot from all quarters. Auction-rooms, gambling-rooms, stores, and drinking-shops would be emptied, and a mob collected in the street in a moment. The “muss” would probably be only a difficulty between two gentlemen, who had referred it to the arbitration of knives or pistols; but if no one was killed, the mob would disperse, to resume their various occupations, just as quickly as they had collected.

Some of the principal streets were planked, as was also, of course, that part of the city which was built on piles; but where there was no planking, the mud was ankle-deep, and in many places there were mudholes, rendering the street almost impassable. The streets were the general receptacle for every description of rubbish. They were chiefly covered with bits of broken boxes and casks, fragments of hampers, iron hoops, old tin cases, and empty bottles. In the vicinity of the numerous Jew slop-shops, they were thickly strewed with old boots, hats, coats, and pantaloons; for the majority of the population carried their wardrobe on their backs, and when they bought a new article of dress, the old one which it was to replace was pitched into the street.

I often wondered that none of the enterprising “old clo” fraternity ever opened a business in California. They might have got shiploads of old clothes for the trouble of picking them up. Some of them doubtless were not worth the trouble, but there were always tons of cast-off garments kicking about the streets, which I think an “old clo” of any ingenuity could have rendered available. California was often said to be famous for three things—rats, fleas, and empty bottles; but old clothes might well have been added to the list.

The whole place swarmed with rats of an enormous size; one could hardly walk at night without treading on them. They destroyed an immense deal of property, and a good ratting terrier was worth his weight in gold dust. I knew instances, however, of first-rate terriers in Sacramento City (which for rats beat San Francisco hollow) becoming at last so utterly disgusted with killing rats, that they ceased to consider it any sport at all, and allowed the rats to run under their noses without deigning to look at them.

As for the other industrious little animals, they were a terrible nuisance. I suppose they were indigenous to the sandy soil. It was quite a common thing to see a gentleman suddenly pull up the sleeve of his coat, or the leg of his trousers, and smile in triumph when he caught his little tormentor. After a few weeks’ residence in San Francisco, one became naturally very expert at this sort of thing.

Of the last article—the empty bottles—the enormous heaps of them, piled up in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, suggested a consumption of liquor which was truly awful. Empty bottles were as plentiful as bricks—and a large city might have been built with them.

The appearance of the people, being, as they were, a sort of world’s show of humanity, was extremely curious and diversified. There were Chinamen in all the splendor of sky-blue or purple figured silk jackets, and tight yellow satin continuations, black satin shoes with thick white soles, and white gaiters; a fan in the hand, and a beautifully plaited glossy pigtail hanging down to the heels from under a scarlet skull-cap, with a gold knob on the top of it. These were the swell Chinamen ; the lower orders of Celestials were generally dressed in immensely wide blue calico jackets and bags, for they really could not be called trousers, and on their heads they wore enormous wickerwork extinguishers, which would have made very good family clothes-baskets.

The Mexicans were very numerous, and wore their national costume—the bright-colored sérape thrown gracefully over the left shoulder, with rows of silver buttons down the outside of their trousers, which were generally left open, so as to show the loose white drawers underneath, and the silver-handled bowie-knife in the stamped leather leggins.

Englishmen seemed to adhere to the shooting-coat style of dress, and the down-east Yankees to their eternal black dress-coat, black pantaloons, and black satin waistcoat; while New Yorkers, Southerners, and Frenchmen, came out in the latest Paris fashions.

Those who did not stick to their former style of dress, indulged in all the extravagant license of California costume, which was of every variety that caprice could suggest. No man could make his appearance sufficiently bizarre to attract any attention. The prevailing fashion among the rag-tag and bobtail was a red or blue flannel shirt, wide-awake hats of every conceivable shape and color, and trousers stuffed into a big pair of boots.

Pistols and knives were usually worn in the belt at the back, and to be without either was the exception to the rule.

The few ladies who were already in San Francisco, very naturally avoided appearing in public; but numbers of female toilettes, of the most extravagantly rich and gorgeous materials, swept the muddy streets, and added not a little to the incongruous variety of the scene.

To a cursory visitor, auction-sales and gambling would have appeared two of the principal features of the city.

The gambling-saloons were very numerous, occupying the most prominent positions in the leading thoroughfares, and all of them presenting a more conspicuous appearance than the generality of houses around them. They were thronged day and night, and in each was a very good band of music, the performers being usually German or French.

On entering a first-class gambling-room, one found a large well-proportioned saloon sixty or seventy feet long, brilliantly lighted up by several very fine chandeliers, the walls decorated with ornamental painting and gilding, and hung with large mirrors and showy pictures, while in an elevated projecting orchestra half-a-dozen Germans were playing operatic music. There were a dozen or more tables in the room, each with a compact crowd of eager betters around it, and the whole room was so filled with men that elbowing one’s way between the tables was a matter of difficulty. The atmosphere was quite hazy with the quantity of tobacco smoke, and was strongly impregnated with the fumes of brandy. If one happened to enter while the musicians were taking a rest, the quiet and stillness were remarkable. Nothing was heard but a slight hum of voices, and the constant clinking of money; for it was the fashion, while standing betting at a table, to have a lot of dollars in one’s hands, and to keep shuffling them backwards and forwards like so many cards.

The people composing the crowd were men of every class, from the highest to the lowest, and, though the same as might be seen elsewhere, their extraordinary variety of character and of dress appeared still more curious from their being brought into such close juxtaposition, and apparently placed upon an equality. Seated round the same table might be seen well-dressed, respectable-looking men, and, alongside of them, rough miners fresh from the diggings, with well-filled buckskin purses, dirty old flannel shirts, and shapeless hats; jolly tars half-seas over, not understanding anything about the game, nor apparently taking any interest in it, but having their spree out at the gaming-table because it was the fashion, and good-humoredly losing their pile of five or six hundred or a thousand dollars; Mexicans wrapped up in their blankets smoking cigaritas, and watching the game intently from under their broad-brimmed hats; Frenchmen in their blouses smoking black pipes; and little urchins, or little old scamps rather, ten or twelve years of age, smoking cigars as big as themselves, with the air of men who were quite up to all the hooks and crooks of this wicked world (as indeed they were), and losing their hundred dollars at a pop with all the nonchalance of an old gambler; while crowds of men, some dressed like gentlemen, and mixed with all sorts of nondescript ragamuffins, crowded round, and stretched over those seated at the tables, in order to make their bets.

There were dirty, squalid, villainous-looking scoundrels, who never looked straight out of their eyes, but still were always looking at something, as if they were “making a note of it,” and who could have made their faces their fortunes in some parts of the world, by “sitting” for murderers, or ruffians generally.

Occasionally one saw, jostled about unresistingly by the crowd, and as if the crowd ignored its existence, the live carcass of some wretched, dazed, woebegone man, clad in the worn-out greasy habiliments of quondam gentility; the glassy unintelligent eye looking as if no focus could be found for it, but as if it saw a dim misty vision of everything all at once; the only meaning in the face being about the lips, where still lingered the smack of grateful enjoyment of the last mouthful of whisky, blended with a longing humble sigh for the speedy recurrence of any opportunity of again experiencing such an awakening bliss, and forcibly expressing an unquenchable thirst for strong drinks, together with the total absence of all power to do anything towards relieving it, while the whole appearance of the man spoke of bitter disappointment and reverses, without the force to bear up under them. He was the picture of sottish despair, and the name of his duplicates was legion.

There was in the crowd a large proportion of sleek well-shaven men, in stove-pipe hats and broadcloth; but, however nearly a man might approach in appearance to the conventional idea of a gentleman, it is not to be supposed, on that account, that he either was, or got the credit of being, a bit better than his neighbors. The man standing next him, in the guise of a laboring man, was perhaps his superior in wealth, character, and education. Appearances, at least as far as dress was concerned, went for nothing at all. A man was judged by the amount of money in his purse, and frequently the man to be most courted for his dollars was the most to be despised for his looks.

One element of mixed crowds of people, in the States and in this country, was very poorly represented. There were scarcely any of the lower order of Irish; the cost of emigration to California was at that time too great for the majority of that class, although now the Irish population of San Francisco is nearly equal in proportion to that in the large cities of the Union.

The Spanish game of monte, which was introduced into California by the crowds of Mexicans who came there, was at this time the most popular game, and was dealt almost exclusively by Mexicans. It is played on a table about six feet by four, on each side of which sits a dealer, and between them is the bank of gold and silver coin, to the amount of five or ten thousand dollars, piled up in rows covering a space of a couple of square feet. The game is played with Spanish cards, which are differently figured from the usual playing-cards, and have only forty-eight in the pack, the ten being wanting. At either end of the table two compartments, are marked on the cloth, on each of which the dealer lays out a card. Bets are then made by placing one’s stake on the card betted on; and are decided according to which of those laid out first makes its appearance, as the dealer draws card after card from the top of the pack. It is a game at which the dealer has such advantages, and which, at the same time, gives him such facilities for cheating, that any one who continues to bet at it is sure to be fleeced.

Faro, which was the more favorite game for heavy betting, and was dealt chiefly by Americans, is played on a table the same size as a monte table. Laid out upon it are all the thirteen cards of a suit, on any of which one makes his bets, to be decided according as the same card appears first or second as the dealer draws them two by two off the top of the pack.

Faro was generally played by systematic gamblers, who knew, or thought they knew, what they were about; while monte, from its being apparently more simple, was patronized by novices. There were also roulette and rouge-et-noir tables, and an infinite variety of small games played with dice, and classed under the general appellation of “chuck-a-luck.”

I should mention that in California the word gambler is not used in exactly the same abstract sense as with us. An individual might spend all his time, and gain his living, in betting at public gaming-tables, but that would not entitle him to the distinctive appellation of a gambler; it would only be said of him that he gambled.

The gamblers were only the professionals, the men who laid out their banks in public rooms, and invited all and sundry to bet against them. They were a distinct and numerous class of the community, who followed their profession for the accommodation of the public; and any one who did business with them was no more a “gambler” than a man who bought a pound of tea was a grocer.

At this time the gamblers were, as a general thing, the best-dressed men in San Francisco. Many of them were very gentlemanly in appearance, but there was a peculiar air about them which denoted their profession—so much so, that one might frequently hear the remark, that such a person “looked like a gambler.” They had a haggard, careworn look (though that was nothing uncommon in California), and as they sat dealing at their tables, no fluctuation of fortune caused the slightest change in the expression of their face, which was that of being intently occupied with their game, but at the same time totally indifferent as to the result. Even among the betters the same thing was remarkable, though in a less degree, for the struggle to appear unconcerned when a man lost his all, was often too plainly evident with them.

The Mexicans showed the most admirable impassibility. I have seen one betting so high at a monte table that a crowd collected round to watch the result. After winning a large sum of money, he finally staked it all on one card, and lost, when he exhibited less concern than many of the bystanders, for he merely condescended to give a slight shrug of his shoulders as he lighted his cigarita and strolled slowly off.

In the forenoon, when gambling was slack, the gamblers would get up from their tables, and, leaving exposed upon them, at the mercy of the heterogeneous crowd circulating through the room, piles of gold and silver, they would walk away, seemingly as little anxious for the safety of their money as if it were under lock and key in an iron chest. It was strange to see so much apparent confidence in the honesty of human nature, and—in a city where robberies and violence were so rife, that, when out at night in unfrequented quarters, one walked pistol in hand in the middle of the street—to see money exposed in such a way as would be thought madness in any other part of the world. But here the summary justice likely to be dispensed by the crowd, was sufficient to insure a due observance of the law of meum and tuum.

These saloons were not by any means frequented exclusively by persons who went there for the purpose of gambling. Few men had much inducement to pass their evenings in their miserable homes, and the gambling-rooms were a favorite public resort, the music alone offering sufficient attraction to many who never thought of staking a dollar at any of the tables.

Another very attractive feature is the bar, a long polished mahogany or marble counter, at which two or three smart young men officiated, having behind them long rows of ornamental bottles, containing all the numerous ingredients necessary for concocting the hundred and one different “drinks” which were called for. This was also the most elaborately-decorated part of the room, the wall being completely covered with mirrors and gilding, and further ornamented with china vases, bouquets of flowers, and gold clocks.

Hither small parties of men are continually repairing to “take a drink.” Perhaps they each choose a different kind of punch, or sling, or cocktail, requiring various combinations, in different proportions, of whisky, brandy, or gin, with sugar, bitters, peppermint, absinthe, curaçoa, lemon-peel, mint, and what not ; but the bar-keeper mixes them all as if by magic, when each man, taking his glass, and tipping those of all the rest as he mutters some sentiment, swallows the compound and wipes his moustache. The party then move off to make way for others, the whole operation from beginning to end not occupying more than a couple of minutes.