"It is impossible for pen to convey or tongue to tell the feeling of shadowy mystery that invites the gazer into the solemn and mighty forests to enter and explore. Little by little the light before begins to pale and dim, and the trunks to grow grander in proportion, the height vaster, until at last one stands in reverence before the silent and ancient monarchs themselves. It is twilight. No breeze whispers through the branches of these forest gods, that climb seemingly to the zenith in their search for space and light. All the eloquence that has stirred and electrified the civilized world, fails utterly to hold spell-bound and attentive the man, as does the mute appeal of these monsters to the truth, 'I am the Lord thy God.' Yosemite is grand, terrific, beautiful, but is stone. These—the trees—'live.' Their tops, as the ocean breeze wafts through them, sigh a mournful requiem of the Ages they have witnessed, of the suffering, the toil and the little recompense of man. What stories could they tell of nations, peoples, cities, born and decayed on this our continent before Columbus came from the rising sun to people with a new race a long-lost world! Do they hold the future of our nation, the destiny of our children, in the grasp of their knowledge, and look mute and pityingly down upon a pride, a glory, that, like all other prides and glories, pomps and circumstances, whether of nations or men, shall surely fade?"
To return to that hot afternoon during which we went coaching on, leaving the mountains behind us, and coming to a dead level country, which was interesting from its being the scene of some of the earliest of the Californian gold diggings. The ground was of a brilliant reddish colour, and in some parts gulched and undermined in all directions. These diggings are deserted now, but traces of the gold fever are left in the numerous and scattered population,—men who came out expecting sudden riches, remaining in the bitterness of disappointment to work for daily bread. We had dinner about five o'clock at Priest's, and then a long moonlight drive afterwards of twenty miles. We descended into a valley to cross the Tuolumne river, coach and horses being driven on to the ferry-boat, which was worked by a man by means of a rope suspended in mid-air across the river. The heat in this valley was intense, nor was it much better when we got up on to the open plain, and galloped along with the shadow of the coach rolling round and round after us in the moonlight; nor yet when we arrived at Chinese Camp, our night's resting-place. We all spent a sleepless night in our small, barely-furnished rooms, with insect companionship, and were glad when the first streaks of daylight came, and we made another early start, in the grey dawn this time, for it was 4 a.m. We had twenty-eight miles to drive to catch the 10.50 train at Milton. It was pleasant after such a bad night to feel the cool breeze of the early morning, and to know the sun had risen behind the hill by the pinky tinge of the sky.
When we stopped for breakfast at Sonora, we found a Noah's Ark waiting to receive us, in place of our coach, which went no further. It was an ancient vehicle lined with greasy yellow leather, with neither door nor window, but curtains that rolled up and down and did duty instead. The way was through a baking piece of prairie, over a road "not" made with hands, and we suffered very bitterly. It was a crowning misery, for we felt that the expedition had been somewhat of a failure. Vainly we strained our eyes across the dreary waste for miles around, in search of what it seemed hopeless to find—a railway station. We did not breathe, we panted breathlessly; we did not sit, we rolled helplessly, and C. quite felt, whilst I almost did, that no Yosemite could be worth such terrible misery. We were near to Milton before we saw it, and found the station, and the train waiting. We were positively ashamed of the dust that we brought into the railway carriage to the other passengers, and certainly were not less so when we arrived at Stockton, and drove to the hotel for luncheon; and a great deal more so when we came to Oakland Ferry, and crossed in the ferry-boat, driving to the "Palace" once more.
We spent that evening in trying to remove some of the traces of our expedition. The rooms seemed almost oppressively luxurious to us, the fare sumptuous after our late experiences, and bed very like an earthly paradise.
Saturday, August 29th.—It was a beautiful sunny morning, and I wanted to carry away with me a happier impression of San Francisco, and so determined to go up Telegraph Hill for a bird's-eye view. The cable-car accomplishes the almost perpendicular ascent in three minutes, and it is so steep that you slip down on to your next-door neighbour unless you hold on. I had a beautiful view of the town on either side; the broad, muddy-coloured bay beneath, with the islands of Alcatraz and Angel; and, beyond all, the Golden Gate, through which we should be passing that afternoon.
I returned to the worry and fuss that seems an inevitable accompaniment to the "going on board." I suppose it is partly that there is no fixed time, and that you may go at any time in the morning, that there are deck chairs to be thought of, and the luggage for the hold, and the luggage that is "wanted in state-room" to be set specially apart. We had a further cause for anxiety in some washing which a Chinaman (an unauthorized washerman, it appeared) had walked off with, and which on inquiry was not forthcoming. The bell-man had told us he would send the washerman, and we naturally confided it to the first Chinaman who appeared and asked for it. I gave it up for lost but the policeman stationed in the courtyard of the Palace, ready to show strangers through the Chinese quarters, spent the morning there searching for it, and brought it forth at the last minute. I was sorry to be going away from San Francisco without seeing one of the most interesting features of the city, the Chinese quarter. In the length of three streets live all the Chinese who swarm about the city. They inhabit cells burrowed underneath the streets, below the level of the drainage, sleeping in bunks placed one above the other. The sights and smells are sickening, but the chief interest of Chinese Town lies in its theatres, temples, gambling houses, restaurants, and opium dens. Wherever the Chinese goes, with his toiling and long-suffering patience, there is the price of labour immediately cheapened; and so strong is the feeling among the lower classes against them that the State of California has been obliged to pass a law forbidding the immigration of any Chinese labourer. Any Chinaman on landing now has to go before a magistrate and prove that he is a merchant, or in possession of property, and that he has come solely for the purposes of trading.
We drove down to the Docks at one o'clock, and went on board the Australia at once.
It was the closing of the first era in our travels, to have thus journeyed over the first of our great continents, to have seen the first of our new worlds, and to have gained the knowledge of a new people with their manners and customs. Though a little marred by the shortness of time, we look back with very great pleasure to our seven weeks spent in America and Canada.
We said our farewell to America as we sailed out of the Golden Gate, regret tempered in leaving her shores by the excitement of going forth on the ocean, in search of other lands and other peoples.