I am again in San Francisco, and my revisit
to California is closed.
I have touched too lightly and rapidly
for much impression upon the reader on my last visit into the
interior; but, as I have said, in a mere continuation to a narrative
of a sea-faring life on the coast, I am only to carry the reader
with me on a visit to those scenes in which the public has long
manifested so gratifying an interest. But it seemed to me that
slight notices of these entirely new parts of the country would
not be out of place, for they serve to put in strong contrast with
the solitudes of 1835-6 the developed interior, with its mines,
and agricultural wealth, and rapidly filling population, and its
large cities, so far from the coast, with their education, religion,
arts, and trade.
On the morning of the 11th January, 1860, I passed, for the eighth
time, through the Golden Gate, on my way across the delightful Pacific
to the Oriental world, with its civilization three thousand years
older than that I was leaving behind. As the shores of California
fadcd in the distance, and the summits of the Coast Range sank
under the blue horizon, I bade farewell - yes, I do not doubt,
forever - to those scenes which, however changed or unchanged,
must always possess an ineffable interest for me.
- - -
It is time my fellow-travellers and I should part company. But I
have been requested by a great many persons to give some account of
the subsequent history of the vessels and their crews, with which
I had made them acquainted. I attempt the following sketches in
deference to these suggestions, and not, I trust, with any undue
estimate of the general interest my narrative may have created.
Something less than a year after my return in the Alert, and when,
my eyes having recovered, I was again in college life, I found one
morning in the newspapers, among the arrivals of the day before,
"The brig Pilgrim, Faucon, from San Diego, California." In a
few hours I was down in Ann Street, and on my way to Hackstadt's
boarding-house, where I knew Tom Harris and others would lodge.
Entering the front room, I heard my name called from amid a group
of blue-jackets, and several sunburned, tar-colored men came forward
to speak to me. They were, at first, a little embarrassed by
the dress and style in which they had never seen me, and one of
them was calling me Mr. Dana; but I soon stopped that, and we
were shipmates once more. First, there was Tom Harris, in a
characteristic occupation. I had made him promise to come and
see me when we parted in San Diego; he had got a directory of
Boston, found the street and number of my father's house, and,
by a study of the plan of the city, had laid out his course,
and was committing it to memory.
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