Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific Coast

by James Fowler Rusling

SAN FRANCISCO TO LOS ANGELOS.

We left San Francisco, Feb. 9th, on the good ship Orizaba, for southern California and Arizona. She was a first-class side-wheel steamer, with good accommodations, and belonged to the California Steam Navigation Company—a corporation that then monopolized or controlled all the navigable waters of California, besides running coast-wise lines North and South. She was one of a line, that ran semi-monthly to San Diego and return, touching at Santa Barbara and San Pedro, and seemed to be paying very well. We might have gone southward from San Francisco to San Josè by railroad, and thence by stage to Los Angelos and Fort Yuma; but our long stage-rides, from the Missouri to Salt Lake and thence to the Columbia, had worn the romance off of stage-coaching, and we infinitely preferred to proceed by steamer. It was a superb day, with sea and sky both "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue"—a day of the kind Californians always mean, when they brag about their climate—as we flung off our lines at San Francisco, and steamed down the harbor broadside with the Golden Age en route for Panama. We passed by Alcatraz and through the Golden Gate neck and neck, with the decks of both vessels crowded with excited passengers; but once across the bar, the Orizaba drew steadily ahead, and long before sunset we left the Golden Age hull down astern. I don't say this was a race, indeed. Perhaps their leaving together was quite accidental. But the Orizaba soon showed her mettle, all hands were eager and excited, and her officers were in ecstasies at the results.

Once fairly at sea, our steamer turned her prow sharply south, and all the way down followed the coast from headland to headland. Usually we steamed along some five or six miles off shore, with the land itself always in view, and the ocean everywhere like a millpond. From the Columbia to the Golden Gate in December, we had found the Pacific to belie its name; but now steaming farther south, we saw it in its calmness and beauty, and felt like christening it anew. Most of the way, the sky was magnificently clear, the weather moderate, the air bracing and stimulating, while the whole Coast was a shifting panorama of beauty and grandeur. The ocean too smooth for sea-sickness, we strolled about the deck by twos and fours, or lolled for hours on the settees, inhaling life and vigor at every breath, until we almost seemed to be navigating fabled seas or voyaging into paradise. The Coast itself, never out of sight, rose generally in abrupt hills or mountains, and these were now green and gold to their summits. In places, whole hillsides seemed alive with wild-flowers of every hue, while here and there flocks and herds dotted the landscape far and near. Now and then an adobe house gleamed out of some sheltered nook; but, as a rule, houses were infrequent, and trees and shrubbery very scarce. A few stunted oaks and cedars fringed the ravines here and there, but as a forest they were nothing to speak of. The Coast Mountains lifted themselves everywhere, smooth to the summit as if shaven, with no glory of trees to shelter or crown them; and in summer, when their verdure dries up and blows away, they must seem very bald and desolate.

At Santa Barbara, some three hundred miles down the Coast, we touched for an hour or two, and put ashore several passengers, and some thirty tons of freight. While discharging the latter, we sauntered up into the town, and found it to be a pleasant place of some fifteen hundred inhabitants—county-seat to a county of the same name. The buildings were mostly adobe, of course, and all quite old; but the town had an appearance of comfort and respectability, if not of thrift, and the few Americans we met were sanguine of its future. The Santa Barbara plains, just back of the town, consist of a broad and beautiful valley, enclosed by two imposing mountain ranges, that here jut obliquely into the ocean, and they have a climate that is no doubt seldom equalled even on the Pacific Coast. As a sanatarium, Santa Barbara was already being much resorted to by invalids, and doubtless will become more so when better known. With great evenness of temperature the year round,[18] without either snow or frost, or intense heat, the grape, fig, orange, peach, pomegranate, olive, all nourish here in the open air; and Nature seems so prodigal of her gifts, the Santa Barbarans appear exempted from the primal curse, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, etc." Mountain streams from the neighboring ranges, they had, however, trained into irrigating ditches, and by these cultivated a considerable breadth of land. They said, they had water sufficient to irrigate thousands of acres more, and needed only capital and population to build up a prosperous and thriving community. In old times—"before the flood," as a Forty-Niner would say—the Jesuit Fathers had one of their most flourishing Missions here, and their old Mission Church on a plateau back of the town was still standing, though now used chiefly as a school. Dr. O. formerly of the Army, but now married to a señorita and settled at Santa Barbara, escorted us through the town, and afterwards regaled us with wine from his own vineyard, of an excellent brand. He pronounced Santa Barbara, with its fruits and its flowers, a second paradise, the only place fit to live in—where one would about never die—and half persuaded some of us to the same way of thinking. The petroleum wells near there, as yet, had produced but little; but there seemed no doubt of the petroleum being there in large quantities. We had noticed it floating on the sea for miles before reaching Santa Barbara; and, if it issues beneath the sea sufficient for this purpose, it ought to be struck somewhere in that vicinity in paying quantities. The Santa Barbarans by no means despaired of doing this yet, and thus hoped to add another item to their already large and growing products. . At San Pedro, the seaport of Los Angelos, a hundred miles or so farther down the Coast, we put off some four hundred tons of freight, and parted with the bulk of our passengers. Of this place, more hereafter. Thence, past Anaheim, a settlement of German wine-growers, we steamed on down a hundred miles farther, and halted at last at San Diego. A stiff breeze, freshening into a gale, and a rough swell, followed us into San Diego; but once inside the jaws of the harbor, we found the bay almost unruffled, while all outside was wild and threatening. The harbor, indeed, is quite land-locked, and after San Francisco is the finest on the Pacific Coast, below Puget Sound. But a few hundred yards in width at the entrance, it soon spreads out into a broad and handsome bay, one or two miles wide by ten or twelve long, and with a depth of water close in shore sufficient to float the largest vessels. A bold promontory running obliquely into the sea, as all the headlands on this coast do, shelters the harbor perfectly from all north and northwest winds, and contributes much to make San Diego what it is. In the old Mexican times, before the days of '49, San Diego was a leading Mission on the Coast, and the chief seaport of California, whence she shipped wool, hides, etc., and where she received supplies. San Francisco, gushing young metropolis now, was then only sterile Yerba Buena, and practically nowhere.[19] When the rush of miners to California came in '49, San Diego still held her own for awhile, quite courageously. The Panama steamers then touched here in going and coming. A large city was projected, and built—on paper, with "water-fronts," "corner-lots," and the like, quite in extenso. But there was no sufficient back country—no mines or agricultural resources to speak of—to support a town, and so in the end San Diego incontinently collapsed. Poor Derby of the engineers, immortal as John Phœnix, flourished here in those days, and afterwards used to say in his own inimitable style, he "Thanked heaven his lot was not cast in San Diego; it had been, but was sold for taxes!" We anchored off the old wharf, then fallen to decay, where in other days the Panama steamers had floated proudly, and after rowing well in were carried ashore on the shoulders of Mexican peons. The U. S. barracks and corral, now empty and without a watchman even, and a score or so of other buildings, were grouped near the landing, constituting New San Diego; but the main town, or Old San Diego, was three miles off up the bay. A rickety old ambulance, once U. S. property, but long since condemned and sold, carried us up to the town, where we spent several hours. Formerly numbering two or three thousand inhabitants, and a pretty stirring place, it now had only about two or three hundred, and was a good illustration of some of California's changes. Its buildings, of course, were all one-story adobe, but partly inhabited, and these were grouped about a squalid, Plaza, that reminded one of Mexico or Spain, rather than the United States. Being the county-seat, of course, it had a court-house and a jail—the one, a tumble-down adobe—the other, literally a cage, made of boiler-iron, six or seven feet square at the farthest. The day we were there three men were brought in, arrested for horse-stealing, or something of the sort; but as the jail would accommodate only two—crowded at that—the judge discharged the third, with an appropriate reprimand. At least, we supposed it "appropriate;" but as it was in Californicè, and the judge a native, we could make nothing of it. In hot weather, this iron jail-cage must be a miniature tophet; but, no doubt, it remains generally empty. On a hill just back of the town, commanding it and the harbor, were the remains of Fort Stockton, which our Jersey commodore of that name built and garrisoned with his gallant Jack-Tars, during the Mexican war, and held against all comers. Beyond it still, were the ruins of the old Mexican Presidio, with palm and olive trees scattered here and there, but all now desolate and forsaken. The general broken-down, dilapidated, "played out" appearance of the town, was certainly most forlorn. And yet, the San Diegoans, like all good Californians, had still a profound faith in their future, and swore by their handsome bay as stoutly as ever. They knew San Diego would yet be the western terminus of the Southern Pacific Railroad, whenever this got itself built; and with this, they fondly believed, would come population, prosperity, power (the three great p's of modern civilization), and come to stay. With the exception of a handful of Americans and Jews, engaged chiefly in merchandizing, the inhabitants consisted mainly of native Californians, in all stages of impecuniosity. Being steamer-day, several Americans—most of them ex-army officers—had galloped in from their neighboring ranches, some coming ten and twenty miles for this purpose, and all were as hospitable and warm-hearted, as men leading such a life usually are. They laughed and chatted over their California experiences, predicted great things for San Diego yet, and offered a hundred acres or more from their leagues-square ranches, to any American who would come and settle among them. All united in pronouncing the climate simply perfect, though a little warm in summer; and, I must say, it really seemed so, when we were there. They declared the thermometer never varied more than twenty degrees the year round, and maintained people never died there, except from the knife or bullet. When reminded of a Mr. S. who had died that morning, they replied, he came there too late—a confirmed consumptive; otherwise, he would have got well, and in the end have shrivelled up and evaporated, like the rest of their aged people.

As to business, the town really seemed to have none, except a little merchandizing and whiskey-drinking, and these only gave signs of life, because it was "steamer-day." The country immediately about the town was dull and barren, from want of water to irrigate and cultivate it. The great ranches were at a distance, and these depended on streams from the Coast Range, that mostly disappeared before reaching the harbor. Here horses, cattle, and sheep were raised in considerable numbers; but the breadth of valuable land was not considered large, and the population of the section seemed to be on the stand-still, if not decrease. A railroad from the Atlantic States, and another north to San Francisco, would of course soon change all this; but these were yet in the future. The splendid harbor, however, is there—the second as I have said, on the California Coast—and it will be passing strange, if the future does not evolve something, that will give it vitality and importance. Its noble waters, surely, cannot lie idle forever. With its superb anchorage and far-stretching shores, it seemed already the prophecy of great things to come, and I sincerely trust the San Diegoans may speedily realize them.[20]

Down by the mouth of the harbor, were several fishermen's huts, whose owners, it was said, gained a precarious living by whaling. Off the harbor, for miles up and down the coast, we noticed a heavy growth of kelp or sea-weed, and this we were told the whales frequented in certain seasons of the year, as a feeding ground. We kept a sharp lookout for them, both coming down and returning; but were rewarded by seeing only a single dead one, which had been harpooned and left floating near shore, with a buoy attached. Capt. Thorne, of the Orizaba, reported these whales as quite numerous off the coast sometimes, and thought this business might readily be made much more lucrative, than it was.

Here at San Diego, we were about five hundred miles south of San Francisco, and less than one hundred and fifty from Fort Yuma. We had expected to find a stage thence to Fort Yuma; but the line had recently been withdrawn,[21] from want of business, and we were compelled to return again up the coast to San Pedro and Los Angelos. On the evening of Feb. 14th, we accordingly bade good-bye to San Diego, and the next morning, when we came on deck, found the Orizaba at anchor again off San Pedro. This, as I have before said, is the old seaport or landing for Los Angelos, and all the country about there, whence supplies were then wagoned into Arizona, Southern Nevada, and even Utah. The Salt Lake merchants, then barred from the East in winter by the heavy snows on the Rocky Mountains, were in the habit of eking out their stocks by purchases in San Francisco, which they shipped 400 miles down the coast to San Pedro, and from here wagoned them via San Bernardino and Cajon Pass, through Southern Nevada, 800 miles more to Great Salt Lake. Of course, the completion of the Pacific Railroad has changed all this. San Pedro itself, unfortunately, has no harbor, but is a mere open roadstead, where vessels may ride at anchor in fine weather, but when storms come must slip to sea. From here a slough or gut of the sea sets up to Wilmington, some six miles through a tide-water marsh, where we found a Mr. Phineas Banning doing his "level best"—and it was a big "best"—to build up a nascent city. Formerly, everything was lightered ashore at San Pedro; but recently, Mr. Banning had introduced steam-tugs, and with these at high tide he carried everything to Wilmington, where he had wharves, store-houses, shops, stages, wagon-trains, and about everything else, on a large scale. He was an enterprising Delawarean, but without much regard for "the eyes of Delaware;" had failed two or three times, but was still wide-awake and keen for business; had come to California a common stage-driver, but now ran lines of stages and freight-wagons of his own all over southern California and Arizona, for eight hundred and a thousand miles; had married a native señorita, with several leagues of land, and made her a good husband; was now state senator on the Republican side, and talked of for governor; and, in short, was a good second edition of Mr. Ben Holliday, yet without his bad politics. His town of Wilmington consisted of a hundred or two frame buildings, in true border style, with perhaps five hundred inhabitants, all more or less in his service, or employed at Drum Barracks, the U. S. military post there. A man of large and liberal ideas, with great native force of character and power of endurance, he was invaluable to Southern California and Arizona, and both of these sections owe him a debt of gratitude, which they never can repay. His "latch-string" was always out to all strangers in that latitude; there was no public interest with which he was not prominently identified; and from San Pedro to Tucson, and back again, via Prescott and Fort Mojave, through some fifteen hundred miles of border travel, there was scarcely a day in which we did not see his teams or stages, or touch his enterprises somewhere.

Here at Wilmington, in the village barber, we found another good illustration of the adaptativeness of the average American. Originally from Independence, Mo., he had emigrated thence to Oregon, thence to San Francisco, and thence to Wilmington. In Missouri, he was a farmer by occupation; in Oregon, a cattle-drover; in San Francisco, a teamster; in Wilmington, he was now regularly a barber, but occasionally cobbled shoes, or worked as a blacksmith, and on a pinch also practiced medicine. He had not preached, or edited a newspaper yet; but doubtless would have had no objection to trying his hand at either or both of these, should opportunity offer or necessity occur! But such men, after all, are our Representative Americans—real pioneers of empire and champions of civilization—and history will not forget to recognize and respect them accordingly.

Back of Wilmington, some thirty miles wide by seventy-five long, from the Pacific to the Mountains, stretch the great Los Angelos plains, than which there are few finer sights on the Coast, at the proper season. Just now they were green with herbage and gemmed with wild flowers in all directions, from the Mountains to the ocean, a perfect sea of verdure, with flocks and herds roaming over them at will, under the guidance of native rancheros. The latter, mounted on gamey little horses, full-blooded mustangs, with saddles that nearly covered their steeds, and tinkling spurs that almost swept the ground, galloped hither and yon as occasion needed, or lolled for hours on the ground, basking in the sun, while their cattle and sheep fed peacefully about them. The landscape one day, when Gen. Banning drove us over to Los Angelos, to see the vineyards and orange-groves there, with the Pacific rolling in the distance, the Mountains towering before us, and the Plains stretching all about us, in green and purple and gold, was a perfect idyllic scene, which lingers in my memory yet, as one of the fairest recollections of a life-time. Just then, the marshes about Wilmington, and the Plains beyond, were a halting place for vast flocks of wild-geese, on their annual migration north, and they thronged the country in countless thousands. Off on the Plains, where they were feeding on the young and succulent grass, they whitened the ground sometimes for acres, and were so careless of danger, you might knock them over with a club. Gen. Banning said, they were even more numerous in former years, but even as they were, we had never seen anything to equal them. As we drove along, they rose up by the roadside in flocks of thousands, and fairly deafened the air with their multitudinous konkings. Further on, we found the grass rank and luxuriant, and it seemed impossible to believe, that when summer came, all this wealth of vegetation would wither up, and substantially blow away. Yet this seemed to be the fact—these broad and beautiful Plains, beneath their then rainless sky, becoming everywhere a barren desert, save where acequias (Mexican for "water-ditches") regularly irrigate and vitalize them.

We struck the acequias several miles out from Los Angelos, and followed them into the town, our road winding about among and crossing them several times. They are simply water-ditches, four or five feet wide by one deep, the same as those at Salt Lake, but most of them far older. They were begun a century ago, by the old Spanish Jesuits, who formerly had one of their largest and most flourishing Missions here, and are kept in repair and regulated by the city corporation—the water being farmed out, at fixed rates. Their source of supply is the Los Angelos river, a little stream that issues from the Coast Range some miles away, and sinks again, I believe, before reaching the ocean. If husbanded properly, with the same care exercised at Salt Lake, it might be made to irrigate many times the present breadth of land, it would seem; but as it is, it suffices to vitalize hundreds, if not thousands, of acres about the town, where they grow wheat, barley, oats, the grape, the orange, the lemon, citron, olive, peach, pear, and almost everything else, in great profusion and of the finest character. Along the road, and skirting all the main acequias, willows have been planted, and these growing rapidly serve for both fencing and fuel. Here and there wild flowers also have been planted, or have sprung up naturally among the hedges, and these shower their wealth of bloom and fragrance almost the year round. The robin, the blue-bird, the oriole, abounded here; and the whole air seemed vocal with song, as we whirled along through the suburbs, and up into the town.