XVII
Oakland Ferry-house and Pier. — The Russian Church. — Off Eastward. — Crossing the Mountains. — Hydraulic Mining. — Stop at Reno. — Nevada Deserts. — Ogden. — The Playing Indian.
As we turned our backs on San José, we began to feel that we were heading for home, and were descending from romance and flowers, to the more commonplace conditions of existence. I question if it would be good for us to lead too long, the ideal and refined Bohemian life, such as a well-appointed car, and no care, affords.
It was with a sort of shock, that, after hours of travel, through smiling plain and upland, we found ourselves in the prosaic environment of Oakland.
Our car was run out to the end of a pier, which stretched for miles, it seemed, into the bay. The vast expanse of water about us, the great city away off across the bay, and the frail-looking, but yet perfectly safe, piling on which our car had place, gave a tone of empty loneliness to everything, and we could not but feel gloomy.
We were becoming fastidious. We wanted "roses, roses all the way," and absolutely were oblivious to the energy which had created this huge pier, crowned with the really splendid ferry-house, and a ferry-house is no uninteresting thing. How little do we think that the whole ferry business in the United States, especially in great centres such as New York, presents the most distinctively American thing we have; the very triumph of common sense and directness of means to the proposed end.
We availed ourselves of the splendid ferry here at Oakland, for a little run once more in San Francisco. My errand was to try and hunt up the Russo-Greek church, and see something of it. I got to the place, and saw the exterior of what was once a magnificent residence, but now a decayed mansion in an unfashionable part of the city. It was given an ecclesiastical effect by being topped with several melon-shaped domes of zinc, brightly painted; these, and the pale blue on walls and doors and windows, gave quite the effect of Russia. My visit, however, was fruitless. The fathers were all out, and a servitor in attendance opened the door, only a few inches, for a cautious parley. That glimpse showed me some rather rich paintings in the interior of the dwelling, but I had to rush back to our car without waiting for the return of the fathers, or the view of the church, which, I am sure, they would be glad to show me.
Once off from Oakland, we were indeed on the home-stretch, but we had the mountains to climb, and much more to see.
We passed through Sacramento, the capital of the State, merely giving it a glance, as we journeyed on into the glory of the mountains.