The day of our departure for Australia had been finally fixed for November 18th, and the evening before Spalding, as a recognition of the kindness with which we had been treated during our stay, gave a farewell banquet to the members of the California League and the San Francisco Press Club at the Baldwin Hotel, covers being laid for seventy-five guests, among them being several men of prominence in the social and business world of the Pacific Coast. The menu card for that occasion, which is circular in form and represents a base-ball cover, now lies before me, the idea originating in the fertile brain of Frank Lincoln. Under the heading of "score-card," on the inside, is the magic injunction, "Play Ball," with which the majority of us who sat at the table were so familiar, and among the courses, "Eastern oysters on the home run," "Green turtle a la Kangaroo," "Petit pate a la Spalding," "Stewed Terrapin, a la Ward," "Frisco Turkey a la Foul," together with other dishes, all of which had some allusion either to base-ball or to our contemplated Australian trip.
After we had played ball, the debris cleared away and the cigars lighted, there followed a succession of impromptu speech-making, the toasts and those who replied being as follows: "Early Californian Ball-players," Judge Hunt of the Superior Court; "The National League Champions, the New York Base-ball Club," ex-Senator James F. Grady, of New York; "The San Francisco Press," W. N. Hart, of the San Francisco Press Club; "The Good Ship Alameda," Capt. Henry G. Morse; "A G. Spalding and the Australian Trip," Samuel F. Short-ride; "The Chicago Nine," yours truly; "The All-Americans," Capt. John M. Ward; "The 'Base-ball' Cricketers," George Wright. In closing Spalding thanked the press and the base-ball people of the coast for the magnificent reception that we had received, and for all the kindness which had been showered upon us since our arrival, after which we bade farewell to those of our friends that we should not see again before our departure.
That night all was bustle and confusion about, the hotel. With an ocean journey of 7,000 miles before us there was much to be done, and it was again late before we retired to dream of the King of the Cannibal Islands and the Land of the Kangaroo.
Eleven years have rolled away since that trip to San Francisco was made and many of the friends that we then met with and that helped to entertain us so royally have passed over the Great Divide that separate the known from the unknown, but their memory still lingers with us and will as long as life shall last.
There was not a minute of the time that was spent on the coast that I did not enjoy myself. I found the Californians a warm-hearted, genial and impulsive people, in whose make-up and habits of life there still live the characteristics of those early pioneers who settled there in:
"The days of old, the days of gold, The days of '49."
and to whom money came easily and went the same way.
[CHAPTER XXI. WE VISIT THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.]
"We sail the ocean blue, Our saucy ship's a beauty.
We're sailors good and true, And attentive to our duty."
So sang the jolly mariners on the good ship Pinafore, and so might have sung the members of the Chicago and All-American base-ball teams as they sailed out through the Golden Gate and into the blue waters of the Pacific on the afternoon of November 18, 1888. Only at that time we were not in the least sure as to whether the Alameda was a beauty or not, pleasant as she looked to the eye, and we had a very reasonable doubt in our minds as to whether we were sailors "good and true." There was a long ocean voyage before us, and the few of us that were inclined to sing refrained from doing so lest it might be thought that, like the boy in the wood, we were making a great noise in order to keep our courage up. We were one day late in leaving San Francisco, it having been originally planned to leave here on Saturday, November 17th, and this delay of one day served to cut short our visit at Honolulu. The morning of our departure had dawned gray and sullen and rainy, but toward noon the clouds broke away and by two o'clock in the afternoon, the hour set for our departure, the day had become a fairly pleasant one.
At the wharf in San Francisco, a great crowd had assembled to wish us bon voyage, conspicuous among them being my paternal ancestor, who would have liked well enough to make the entire trip, and who would doubtless have done so could he have spared the necessary time from his business at Marshalltown. Here, too, we bade farewell to Jim Hart, Van Haltren and others of the party who had accompanied us on our trip across the country, and who were now either going to return to their homes or spend the winter in San Francisco. Hardly had we left the narrow entrance to the harbor, known as the Golden Gate, and entered the deep blue waters of the Pacific before a heavy fog came down upon the surface of the deep, shutting out from our gaze the land that we were fast leaving, and that we were not again destined to see for many months. The steamer was now rising and falling on the long swells of the Pacific Ocean, but so gently as to be scarcely perceptible, except to those who were predisposed to seasickness, and to whom the prospects of a long voyage were anything but pleasant. I am a fairly good sailor myself, and, though I have been seasick at times, this swell that we now encountered bothered me not in the least. Some ten miles from the harbor entrance, the steamer stopped to let the pilot off, and with his departure the last link that bound us to America was broken.