He Walked With A Stride, An Uplifted Open Countenance,
His Face Covered With Beard, Whiskers, And Mustache, His Voice
Strong And Natural; - And, In Short, He Had Put Off The New
England Deacon And Become A Human Being.
In a visit of an hour
I learned much from him about the religious societies, the moral
reforms, the
"Dashaways," - total abstinence societies, which had
taken strong hold on the young and wilder parts of society, - and
then of the Vigilance Committee, of which he was a member, and of
more secular points of interest.
In one of the parlors of the hotel, I saw a man of about sixty years
of age, with his feet bandaged and resting in a chair, whom somebody
addressed by the name of Lies.(1) Lies! thought I, that must be the
man who came across the country from Kentucky to Monterey while
we lay there in the Pilgrim in 1835, and made a passage in the
Alert, when he used to shoot with his rifle bottles hung from the
top-gallant studding-sail-boom-ends. He married the beautiful Dońa
Rosalía Vallejo, sister of Don Guadalupe. There were the old high
features and sandy hair. I put my chair beside him, and began
conversation, as any one may do in California. Yes, he was the
Mr. Lies; and when I gave my name he professed at once to remember
me, and spoke of my book. I found that almost - I might perhaps say
quite - every American in California had read it; for when California
"broke out," as the phrase is, in 1848, and so large a portion of the
Anglo-Saxon race flocked to it, there was no book upon California
but mine. Many who were on the coast at the time the book refers
to, and afterwards read it, and remembered the Pilgrim and Alert,
thought they also remembered me. But perhaps more did remember
me than I was inclined at first to believe, for the novelty of a
collegian coming out before the mast had drawn more attention to
me than I was aware of at the time.
Late in the afternoon, as there were vespers at the Roman Catholic
churches, I went to that of Notre Dame des Victoires. The congregation
was French, and a sermon in French was preached by an Abbé; the music
was excellent, all things airy and tasteful, and making one feel as if
in one of the chapels in Paris. The Cathedral of St. Mary, which I
afterwards visited, where the Irish attend, was a contrast indeed,
and more like one of our stifling Irish Catholic churches in Boston
or New York, with intelligence in so small a proportion to the number
of faces. During the three Sundays I was in San Francisco, I visited
three of the Episcopal churches, and the Congregational, a Chinese
Mission Chapel, and on the Sabbath (Saturday) a Jewish synagogue.
The Jews are a wealthy and powerful class here. The Chinese, too,
are numerous, and do a great part of the manual labor and small
shop-keeping, and have some wealthy mercantile houses.
It is noticeable that European Continental fashions prevail generally
in this city, - French cooking, lunch at noon, and dinner at the end
of the day, with café noir after meals, and to a great extent the
European Sunday, - to all which emigrants from the United States and
Great Britain seem to adapt themselves. Some dinners which were given
to me at French restaurants were, it seemed to me, - a poor judge of
such matters, to be sure, - as sumptuous and as good, in dishes and
wines, as I have found in Paris. But I had a relish-maker which my
friends at table did not suspect - the remembrance of the forecastle
dinners I ate here twenty-four years before.
August 17th. The customs of California are free; and any person who
knows about my book speaks to me. The newspapers have announced the
arrival of the veteran pioneer of all. I hardly walk out without
meeting or making acquaintances. I have already been invited to
deliver the anniversary oration before the Pioneer Society, to
celebrate the settlement of San Francisco. Any man is qualified
for election into the society who came to California before 1853.
What moderns they are! I tell them of the time when Richardson's
shanty of 1835 - not his adobe house of 1836 - was the only human
habitation between the Mission and the Presidio, and when the vast
bay, with all its tributaries and recesses, was a solitude, - and
yet I am but little past forty years of age. They point out the
place where Richardson's adobe house stood, and tell me that the
first court and first town council were convened in it, the first
Protestant worship performed in it, and in it the first capital
trial by the Vigilance Committee held. I am taken down to
the wharves, by antiquaries of a ten or twelve years' range,
to identify the two points, now known as Clark's and Rincon,
which formed the little cove of Yerba Buena, where we used to
beach our boats, - now filled up and built upon. The island we
called "Wood Island," where we spent the cold days and nights
of December, in our launch, getting wood for our year's supply,
is clean shorn of trees; and the bare rocks of Alcatraz Island,
an entire fortress. I have looked at the city from the water
and islands from the city, but I can see nothing that recalls the
times gone by, except the venerable Mission, the ruinous Presidio,
the high hills in the rear of the town, and the great stretches of
the bay in all directions.
To-day I took a California horse of the old style, - the run, the
loping gait, - and visited the Presidio. The walls stand as they
did, with some changes made to accommodate a small garrison of
United States troops.
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