Читать книгу By the Golden Gate - Joseph Carey - Страница 8

Arrival at Oakland—"Ticket!"—On the Ferryboat—The City of "Live

Oaks"—Mr. Young, a Citizen of Oakland—Distinguished Members of

General Convention—Alameda—Berkeley and Its University—Picturesque

Scenery—Yerba Buena, Alcatraz and Angel Islands—San Francisco at

Last.

It was on the morning of Wednesday, October the second, 1901, when I had my first view of that Queen City of the Pacific coast, San Francisco. Our train, fully nine hours late, in our journey from Salt Lake City, arrived at its destination on the great Oakland pier or mole at 2:30 A.m. The understanding with the conductor the evening before, as we were descending the Sierra Nevada Mountains, was that we would not be disturbed until day break. When the end of our long journey was reached I was oblivious to the world of matter in midnight slumber; but as soon as the wheels of the sleeping coach had ceased to revolve I was aroused with the cry, "Ticket!" First I thought I was dreaming, as I had heard the phrase, "Show your tickets," so often; but the light of "a lantern dimly burning" and a stalwart figure standing before the curtains of my sleeping berth, soon convinced me that I was in a world of reality. This, I may say, was my only experience of the kind, in all my travelling over the Southern Pacific Railway, the Sante Fé, and the Mexican International and Mexican Central Railways. There was little sleep after the interruption; and when the morning came with its interest and novelty I was ready to proceed across the Bay of San Francisco. Our faithful porter, John Williams, whose name is worthy of mention in these pages, as I stepped from the Pullman car, said, "Good-bye, Colonel!" He always addressed me as "Colonel." The porters on all the western roads and on the Mexican railways are polite and obliging, and a word of commendation must be said for them as a class.

The Rev. Dr. James W. Ashton, of Olean, N.Y., my fellow-traveller, and I were soon in the ferry house. We ascended a wide staircase and then found ourselves in a large waiting room, through whose windows I looked out on the Bay of San Francisco for the first time. Off in the distance, in the morning light, I could catch a glimpse of the Golden City of the West. Near by was a departing ferryboat bound for San Francisco. Just then a young man, evidently a stranger, accompanied by a young woman, apparently a bride, accosted me and asked the question, "Sir, do you think we can get on from up here?" Looking at the bay-steamer fast receding, I assured him, somewhat pensively, that I thought we could. In a few moments another steamer appeared in view and speedily entered the dock. The gates of the ferry house were opened and we went on board at once. Most of the passengers at this early hour were those who had come across the Sierras, but there were a few persons from Oakland going over to their places of business in San Francisco. Oakland, so named from the abundance of its live-oaks, has been styled the "Brooklyn" of San Francisco. It is largely a place of residence for business men, and from fifteen to twenty thousand cross the Bay daily in pursuit of their avocations. It is pleasantly situated on the east side of the Bay, gradually rising up to the terraced hills which skirt it on the east. The streets are regularly laid out and lined with shade trees of tropical luxuriance as well as the live-oaks. Pretty lawns, green and well kept, are in front of many of the houses in the residence part of the city, and here the eye has a continual feast in gazing on flowers in bloom, fuschias, verbenas, geraniums and roses especially. At a later day I visited Oakland, and found it just as beautiful and attractive as it looked in the distance from the deck of the ferry boat. It has several banks, numerous churches, five of our own faith, with some twelve hundred communicants, also good schools, and some fine business blocks. Trolley cars conduct you through its main streets in all directions. Landing at the Oakland pier, one of the largest in the world, and extending out into the Bay some two miles from the shore, the Southern Pacific Railway will soon carry you to the station within the city limits. As you wander hither and thither you see on all sides tokens of prosperity. There is an air of refinement about the place, and you find the atmosphere clear and stimulating. There is not a very marked difference in the temperature of the climate between summer and winter. Frosts are unknown. It is no disparagement to San Francisco to say that Oakland for delicate persons is more desirable. The trade winds as they blow from the Pacific ocean, and make one robust and hardy in San Francisco, when there is vitality to resist them, are tempered as they blow across the Bay some fourteen miles or more, while the fogs, so noted, as they rush in through the Golden Gate and speed onward, are greatly modified as they reach the further shore. As it has such a splendid climate and natural advantages, and enjoys the distinction of being at the terminus of the great overland railway systems, it is constantly attracting to itself population and capital. Ten years ago it had 48,682 inhabitants; to-day it numbers 66,960.

Its people are very hospitable and are glad to welcome the traveller from the east to their comfortable homes. On the ferry boat I was accosted by a ruddy-faced and genial gentleman, a Mr. Young, a resident of Oakland, who was proceeding to his place of business in San Francisco. He gave me some valuable information, and pointed out objects and places of interest. He seemed to be well informed about the General Convention appointed to meet on the day of my arrival, in Trinity church, San Francisco. He spoke with intelligence about its character and purpose, and with enthusiasm concerning its members whom he had met as they were crossing the Bay. The names of Bishop Doane, of Albany, Bishop Potter, of New York, and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, were as household words on his lips, and there was a gleam of delight in his eye as he pictured to us the pleasures and surprises in store for us during our sojourn in the Capital of the Golden West.

"That town," said he, "which you see to the south of Oakland, with its long mole, is Alameda. It is a great place of resort, a kind of pleasure grove. Alameda in the Spanish language means 'Poplar Avenue.' Many people go there on excursions and picnic parties from San Francisco, and other places along the Bay. It is, as you see, a very pretty spot. In time it will become a part of Oakland. It has to-day a population of over sixteen thousand people." When I asked him if it had an Episcopal Church, he said, "Yes. Its name is Christ Church, and there are in it four hundred communicants. Do you know its rector? He is the Rev. Thomas James Lacey." Mr. Young, who was a native of Massachusetts and just as proud of California as he was of his old home in the east, turned with considerable elation to Berkeley, the University town. "There," said he, "to the north of Oakland is Berkeley, with a population of thirteen thousand. It is, as you see, situated at the foot of the San Pablo hills, and is about eleven miles from the Market street ferry in San Francisco. To reach it you go by ferry to the Oakland pier and then take the cars on the Southern Pacific road." As I gazed northward, there, as a right arm of Oakland, was the classic town with its aristocratic name, nestling at the foot of the hills in the midst of trees and flowers. It was like a dainty picture with the Bay in the foreground. A nearer view or a visit to it brings the traveller into line with the Golden Gate, through which his eye wanders straight out into the Pacific ocean with all its mystery and grandeur. The University of California was organised by an act of the Legislature in 1868. A law passed then set apart for its work $200,000, proceeds from the sale of tide lands. To this endowment was added the sum of $100,000, from a "Seminary and Public Building Fund." There was also applied to the new university another fund of $120,000, realised from the old college of California, which had been organised in 1855. Then by an act of Congress appropriating 150,000 acres of land for an Agricultural College, which is a part of the equipment of the University, it became still richer. It embraces 250 acres within the area of its beautiful grounds, and so has ample room for expansion. It has departments of Letters, Science, Agriculture, Mechanics, Engineering, Chemistry, Mining, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Astronomy and Law. The famous Lick Observatory, stationed on Mount Hamilton near San Jose, is a part of the institution. It has prospered greatly under its present efficient President, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, LL.D.; and it now has three hundred instructors, with over three thousand students. Tuition is free to all students except in the professional departments. It has a splendid library of seventy-three thousand volumes. It will be readily seen that with such an institution of learning, and with the Leland Stanford Jr. University, at Palo Alto, the State of California is giving diligent attention to matters of education. While also there are the various schools and academies and seminaries of the different denominations, it may be said that the church is not backward in this respect. St. Margaret's School for girls, and St. Matthew's School for boys, as well as the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, at San Mateo, where Bishop Nichols resides, and the Irving Institute for girls, and Trinity School in San Francisco, are an evidence of what she is doing for the welfare of the people intellectually, aside from her spiritual ministrations in the dioceses of California and Los Angeles and the Missionary Jurisdiction of Sacramento. Mr. Young was forward to mention the fact that in Berkeley there is the large and influential parish of Saint Mark with a list of nearly four hundred communicants; and this is a great factor for good in the life of such a unique University town. As my eyes turned away from Berkeley, I naturally recalled the great Bishop of Cloyne, after whom the place is named; and as I took into view the wider range of the coast lands, and the blue waters of the magnificent Bay, some fifty miles in length, and, on an average, eight miles wide, and reflected on the significance which attaches to this favoured region, and the influences which go out from this seat of power, and fountain head of riches, I instinctively recalled the noble lines which the eighteenth century prophet wrote when he mused, "On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America:"

"Westward the course of empire takes its way;

The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day:

Time's noblest offspring is the last."

East of us, in picturesqueness, as in a panorama spread out, were the counties of Alameda and Contra Costa, with their receding hills, and Mount Diablo, 3,855 feet in height, lifting up its head proudly. Farther to the south was the rich and beautiful valley of Santa Clara, with its orchards and vineyards. On the west across the Bay were the counties of San Mateo, and San Francisco, with their teeming life, covering a Peninsula twenty-six miles long, and extending up to the Golden Gate; while off to the north, and bordering on the ocean was Marin in its grandeur, crowned with Tamalpais, 2,606 feet above the sea;—and skirting San Pablo Bay was Sonoma with its vine-clad vale. There were the islands of the Bay also, which attracted our attention. Not far from the Oakland pier is Goat Island rising to the height of 340 feet out of the waters, and consisting of 300 acres. It was brown on that October morning when I first saw it, but when the rains come with refreshment in November the islands and all the surrounding country are invested with a robe of emerald green, and flowers spring up to gladden the eyes. Goat Island was so named because goats which were brought in ships from southern ports to San Francisco, for fresh meat, were turned loose here for pasturage for a time; and as these creatures multiplied the island took their name. But it formerly bore the more euphonious title, Yerba Buena, which means in Spanish "Good Herbs." Later in my journeyings to and fro I overheard a lady instructing another person as to the proper way in which to pronounce it, and she made sad work of it. She gave the "B" the sound of the letter G. It also had another name, as you may learn from an old Spanish map of Miguel Costanso, where it is called—Ysla de Mal Abrigo, which means that it afforded poor shelter. It is a government possession, as also the other islands, Alcatraz and Angel. Alcatraz, which Costanso styles, White Island, is smaller than Yerba Buena. In its greatest elevation it is 135 feet above the Bay, and it embraces in its surface about thirty-five acres, about the same area as the Haram Esh-Sherîf, or sacred enclosure of the Temple Hill in Jerusalem, with the Mosque of Omar and the Mosque el-Aksa. On its top is a lighthouse, which, on a clear night, sailors can see twelve miles outside of the Golden Gate. Nature, with her wise forethought, seems indeed to have formed this island opposite the Golden Gate, far inside, in the Bay, as a sentinel to watch that pass into the Pacific, and to guide the returning voyager after his perilous journeyings to safe moorings in a land-locked haven. Farther to the north is Ysla de los Angeles, Angel Island, with a varied landscape of hill and plain, comprising some 800 acres of land.

Here are natural springs of water, and in the early days it was well wooded with live-oak trees. To the eyes of Drake and other early navigators and explorers it must have been a vision of beauty, lifting itself out of the waters. Not many trees are seen here now, however, but you may behold instead in harvest time fields of grain. It is especially noted for its stone quarries, and out of these were taken the materials for the fortifications of Alcatraz and Fort Point—as well as the California bank building. It was my privilege at a later day, in company with many of the members of the General Convention to sail over the Bay and around these islands, which one can never forget. The steamer "Berkeley" was courteously placed at the service of the members of the Convention by the officers of the Southern Pacific Railway; and it was indeed a most enjoyable afternoon under clear and balmy skies as we rode along the shores of the Peninsula, and up the eastern side of the Bay, and northward towards San Pablo, and then around Angel Island and Alcatraz strongly fortified, a distance altogether of forty miles. But now on the first morning, veiled partly with clouds, San Francisco rises on the view, that city of so many memories by the waters of the Pacific, where many a one has been wrecked in body and soul as well as in fortune, while others have grown rich and have led useful lives. Yes, it is San Francisco at last! And while it looms upon the view with its varied landscape, its hills and towered buildings, I am reminded of another October morning when I first saw Constantinople, when old Stamboul with its Seraglio Point, and Galata with its tower, and Pera on the heights above, and Yildiz to the east, and Scutari across the Bosphorus, all were revealed gradually as the mists rolled away. So the Golden City of the West is disclosed to view as the shadows disappear and the clouds break and flee away and the morning sun hastening across the lofty Sierras gilds the homes of the rich and poor alike, and bathes water and land in beauty. There is another city on the shore of a tideless sea, and it will be the joyful morning of eternal life, when, earthly journeys ended, we walk over its golden streets!