SAN FRANCISCO.
It would be gratifying to indulge in full descriptions of San Francisco and the enjoyment derived from valued friends. In doing this, I could most cordially repeat the enthusiastic words of others. Let me give at once the scale by which I soon learned to measure everything in this wonderful region, indicated by some first impressions:
Before leaving home, an elderly lady told me that she had long watched her calla lily, hoping that it would open in time to be presented to me before I left home. It came at last, perfectly beautiful, such as the stem had yielded several times before; the same silvery frost work on its petals, the same odor of lemon balm in the calyx. I told the venerable donor that I believed that the impression made by her rare gift, so long and carefully watched, a beautiful unit, lovely in its oneness, would have a charm for me which I could not suppose would be forgotten in more luxuriant climes. My one calla lily which had made a last impression upon me on leaving home, was brought forcibly to mind the morning after my arrival. I was requested to walk to the window, where I was told some favorites of mine were waiting to see me. There stood in a border to a flower garden, thirty calla lily plants, each plant with its lily in perfect growth. There was no more spirit in me. Is this the scale by which you excel your friends at the East? I found it to be so. A pleasurable feeling of being vanquished came over me. Every hour brought its new surprise. I gave up. I was in California.
A day or two after, the seal was set to my conviction that I was there. I had the pleasure of experiencing an earthquake. About ten o’clock one fair day, suddenly a noise came, such as I never before heard, and a motion unlike anything which I had ever felt before. It lasted not more than five seconds. But Cape Horn did not shake after that pattern. No description can convey any idea of the feeling excited by it. I turned involuntarily to my door, and, opening it, found the family in the entry, brought there in the same bewildered state of mind as myself. Apprehension of danger soon subsided; but we wished ourselves at sea, in order to be safe.
The view of the Pacific from the Cliff House seemed to me the most interesting of sea views from shore. In itself, it so impressed me; but, added to this, the recollection of the great extent of territory of which it is a boundary, makes it approach near to the sublime. The coast line of California, taking in its curves and indentations, it is said in an able statistical paper in that State, is equal to a straight line drawn from San Francisco to Plymouth, Mass. Those seals, climbing upon the rocks not many feet from you, undisturbed by your presence, giving you a new chapter in natural history, opening animal life to you as you may not have seen it before, remind you that you are in a region of the earth far from your home. One day in driving we came to a hill which, though it was only the fifteenth of March, had began to put forth a combination of colors so numerous and brilliant as to make you believe at first that they were the work of art. A little below, the ground was without any sign of spring. A soil which could so quickly feel the sun as to give forth its luxuriance profusely, as it were at a day’s warning, though lifted but a little above the general level, impresses one with its extremely sensitive nature, making you ready to believe anything which is told you of its fruitfulness.
So many friends come around you here that your home circle seems to have stretched its circumference; for those who dwell under these western skies seem to retain their native qualities, which make you identify them at once as those whom you formerly knew and loved. Ties of friendship or valued acquaintance draw many to you, in connection or association with people whom you are glad to recall in the features, the voices, of their descendants. The names of Oakland and Alameda, and of other places, will ever be associated in our minds with names and scenes most precious. I left this wonderful region with great love for it, deeply impressed with the many valued friends whom I found or made there.