The Bay of San Francisco is the finest harbour in the world. The navies of all nations could congregate and manœuvre in it. It is simply a huge inland salt-water lake communicating with the ocean. There is only one entrance, the Golden Gates, possibly one-third of a mile wide. It is commanded by fortifications, built on the rocks on either side, but these being stone appeared to me ill adapted to the enormous forces gunnery can exert to-day. Just outside the Golden Gates, lashed by the waters of the Pacific, is a large solitary rock, called the Seal Rock. Hundreds of seals live on it, finding their food in the ocean. No one is allowed to molest them, but the fishermen on the coast cannot regard them with favour, for they must devour tons of fish daily. The said rock, covered with seals, some sleeping, some playing, rolling off into the water, and clambering out of it, is a very curious and characteristic sight as you enter the bay.
Living in San Francisco is very cheap as regards the cost for food. Fruit, as I have said, is far cheaper there than anywhere in the world. It is quite incredible what a few pence will procure in that way. Enough of splendid grapes, apricots, greengages, currants, strawberries, and what not to last three or four people several days. The price of meat too is very low. Mutton or beef, which costs here in England say 10d., per pound, can be had there for 3d. to 4d. Vegetables are the same. Bread is cheap too, say three-quarters the price it commands here. Thus very little will keep body and soul together in San Francisco, but outside bare necessaries in the way of food, most things are dear. Groceries are about the same cost as in England. Furniture, and the many things required in a house, are all much dearer, but this of course only affects the poor in a measure. There are no beggars, no very poor, in San Francisco, for labour is in demand; the climate necessitates but a small outlay for fuel and clothes; and as for food, what better meal than bread and grapes, the latter to be had almost for the asking.
San Francisco is a very cosmopolitan town. All nationalities are to be found there. In the first gold fever days crowds poured in from all parts of the world, and they or their descendants are there still. Perfect as San Francisco is as a city, it is not thirty years since a small fishing village alone stood there. How such a perfect town has been erected in the time is truly a wonder, more wonderful still that in so many respects it should excel other capitals.
There are curious stories told of those gold-fever days. How law and order there was none. A man there at that time held his life by a frail tenure, viz. only as long as he could himself take care of it—
"The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can,"
held in California at that time. Later, as San Francisco enlarged, as the first attempts to put down violence and bloodshed were made, gambling in the gold stocks and mines assumed huge proportions. New mines, or new water-courses rich in gold dust, came forward daily. Shares often attained one hundred times their original value in a week. Beggars became rich, the millionaire a pauper in the same time. We shudder when we read of a suicide at "Monte Carlo" once or twice in the season. At the time of which I write there were often two or three at San Francisco in a day! That it should be so, was perhaps natural, for never, I believe, in this world's history were there such violent and sudden ups and downs as California then witnessed.
While I was at San Francisco an English man-of-war came into the bay. She was an object of great interest, and crowds flocked on board to see her—the result a wholesome appreciation of England's naval power. The fighting power of the United States at sea is very limited. She has really no navy to speak of. Odd that it should be so, but it is no less a fact. Congress is well aware of this, and admits it. But it will not be long thus, for the Americans realize how truly helpless they are in this way, and have commenced to remedy the defect as fast as they can. The United States, almost as much as England, need fear no foes except from over the water, but her position to-day in that respect is a sad one. Did war occur between Great Britain and the States, there is not a town on her sea-board which could not be annihilated by British men-of-war. America, isolated as she is, need fear no European or Asiatic convulsions, and the time is distant, if it ever come, that Canada, without England's support, though her neighbour, will be able to cope with her in the field. But to give her a voice among nations, a navy is a necessity, and, as I have said, she has now fully realized that fact.
Of the United States' army I can say but little, for I saw but little of it. That little I was not favourably impressed with. No one who recalls the war between the North and South, can doubt the material is at hand, the question is whether the best is made of it. The physique of the American (national physique can only be spoken of generally) is perhaps not equal to the physique of some European nations, still the inferiority, if it exists, is slight, and physique has not so much to say in battle now as in times gone by. A soldier is more of a machine to-day than he was then. Courage given, it is discipline, coolness under fire, self-reliance, all teachable qualities, which makes the individual valuable. Has the American soldier these qualities in perfection? I rather doubt it from the little I saw. I have trained soldiers myself, and from rough materials (I raised a cavalry regiment of Albanians during the Crimean War, and previously served with the native army in India), so I speak with experience.