"There's a granite cross just visible above the trees in Golden Gate Park." He focused his glasses for a better view. "It's quite elaborate in design and seems to be raised on a hill."
He offered me the glasses but I did not need them. "It's the Prayer-Book Cross and commemorates the first Church of England service held on this Coast by Sir Francis Drake in 1579. I think it is a shame that we haven't also a monument for Cabrillo, the real discoverer, who was here nearly forty years earlier. If Sir Francis hadn't stolen a Spanish ship's chart, he would never have found the Gulf of the Farallones. Cabrillo sailed along the coast more than half a century before Massachusetts Bay was discovered," I added maliciously.
"I had forgotten the old duffer," he smiled back at me. Raising his glasses again, he scanned the sombre roofs to the right. "There's another monument," he volunteered, "rising out of the heart of the city."
I followed the direction indicated to where the outstretched arms of a white wooden cross were silhouetted against the sky.
"If I were in Europe," he continued, "I should call it a shrine, for the sides of the hill on which it stands are seamed with paths running from the net-work of houses to the foot of the cross."
"It is a shrine at which all San Francisco worships. Wrapped in mystery it stands, for when it was placed there no one knows. It comes to us out of the past—a token left by the Spanish padres. Three times it has fallen into decay, but always loving hands have reached forward to restore it, and as long as San Francisco shall last, a cross will rise from the summit of Lone Mountain."
"The Spanish padres!" The ring in his voice bespoke his interest. "Are there any other relics left?"
I pointed to the level section below. "Do you see that low red roof almost hidden by its towering neighbors? That is the old Mission San Francisco de Asis, colloquially called Dolores, from the little rivulet on whose bank it was built."
Through his field glasses he scrutinized the expanse of substantial houses and paved streets. "I can't find the rivulet," he announced.
"Of course you can't, you stupid man!" I laughed. "If you'll use your imagination instead of your glasses you will see it easily. The stream arose, we are told, between the summits of Twin Peaks, and tumbling down the hill-side, made its way east, emptying into the Laguna."