In place of the grand mud-colored brown fronts of San Francisco, I saw
dwellings built of straw, adobies, and cream-colored pebble-and-shell-
conglomerated coral, cut into oblong blocks and laid in cement; also a
great number of neat white cottages, with green window-shutters; in place
of front yards like billiard-tables with iron fences around them, I saw
these homes surrounded by ample yards, thickly clad with green grass, and
shaded by tall trees, through whose dense foliage the sun could scarcely
penetrate; in place of the customary geranium, calla lily, etc.,
languishing in dust and general debility, I saw luxurious banks and
thickets of flowers, fresh as a meadow after a rain, and glowing with the
richest dyes; in place of the dingy horrors of San Francisco’s pleasure
grove, the “Willows,” I saw huge-bodied, wide-spreading forest trees,
with strange names and stranger appearance–trees that cast a shadow like
a thunder-cloud, and were able to stand alone without being tied to green
poles; in place of gold fish, wiggling around in glass globes, assuming
countless shades and degrees of distortion through the magnifying and
diminishing qualities of their transparent prison houses, I saw cats–
Tom-cats, Mary Ann cats, long-tailed cats, bob-tailed cats, blind cats,
one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats, cross-eyed cats, gray cats, black cats,
white cats, yellow cats, striped cats, spotted cats, tame cats, wild
cats, singed cats, individual cats, groups of cats, platoons of cats,
companies of cats, regiments of cats, armies of cats, multitudes of cats,
millions of cats, and all of them sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep.
I looked on a multitude of people, some white, in white coats, vests,
pantaloons, even white cloth shoes, made snowy with chalk duly laid on
every morning; but the majority of the people were almost as dark as
negroes–women with comely features, fine black eyes, rounded forms,
inclining to the voluptuous, clad in a single bright red or white garment
that fell free and unconfined from shoulder to heel, long black hair
falling loose, gypsy hats, encircled with wreaths of natural flowers of a
brilliant carmine tint; plenty of dark men in various costumes, and some
with nothing on but a battered stove-pipe hat tilted on the nose, and a
very scant breech-clout;–certain smoke-dried children were clothed in
nothing but sunshine–a very neat fitting and picturesque apparel indeed.
In place of roughs and rowdies staring and blackguarding on the corners,
I saw long-haired, saddle-colored Sandwich Island maidens sitting on the
ground in the shade of corner houses, gazing indolently at whatever or
whoever happened along; instead of wretched cobble-stone pavements, I
walked on a firm foundation of coral, built up from the bottom of the sea
by the absurd but persevering insect of that name, with a light layer of
lava and cinders overlying the coral, belched up out of fathomless
perdition long ago through the seared and blackened crater that stands
dead and harmless in the distance now; instead of cramped and crowded
street-cars, I met dusky native women sweeping by, free as the wind, on
fleet horses and astride, with gaudy riding-sashes, streaming like
banners behind them; instead of the combined stenches of Chinadom and
Brannan street slaughter-houses, I breathed the balmy fragrance of
jessamine, oleander, and the Pride of India; in place of the hurry and
bustle and noisy confusion of San Francisco, I moved in the midst of a
Summer calm as tranquil as dawn in the Garden of Eden; in place of the
Golden City’s skirting sand hills and the placid bay, I saw on the one
side a frame-work of tall, precipitous mountains close at hand, clad in
refreshing green, and cleft by deep, cool, chasm-like valleys–and in
front the grand sweep of the ocean; a brilliant, transparent green near
the shore, bound and bordered by a long white line of foamy spray dashing
against the reef, and further out the dead blue water of the deep sea,
flecked with “white caps,” and in the far horizon a single, lonely sail–
a mere accent-mark to emphasize a slumberous calm and a solitude that
were without sound or limit. When the sun sunk down–the one intruder
from other realms and persistent in suggestions of them–it was tranced