In our wanderings about the city the sleeping places of the dead naturally attracted our attention; and where, especially, on Sunday afternoons, the living congregate to mourn over their loved ones, to scatter flowers on their graves, or to while away an hour amid scenes which have a melancholy interest and tend to sobriety and remind one of another land where there is no death for those who pass through the Golden Gate of eternity. Cemeteries have always attracted the living to their solemn precincts at stated times, anniversaries and fiestas. It is so in all lands, among all peoples no matter what their creed, and in all ages. Jew and Gentile alike, Mohammedan and Christian, by visiting tomb or grassy mound with some token of their affection, the prayer uttered, the tear shed, the blossoms laid on sacred soil, after this manner cherish the memories of the departed. And it is well! Scenes which the traveller may witness in the Campo Santo of Genoa or in the Koimeteria of Athens, on Sundays, in the Mezâristans of Skutari on the Bosphorus and Eyûb on the Golden Horn, on Friday afternoons, and in the Kibroth of old Tiberias by the Sea of Galilee or outside of the walls of Jerusalem, on Saturday or in the Cimenterios of Mexico City on fiestas, all testify to the universality of the deep and tender feelings of reverence and affection which animate the human heart and make all men as one in thought and sentiment as they stand on time's shores and follow the receding forms of their kindred and friends with wishful eyes bedimmed with tears across the Dark River!
While there is a Burial Place for the soldiers who die for their country or in their country's cause, on the grounds of the Presidio, the principal cemeteries of San Francisco seem to cluster around Lone Mountain in the northwestern part of the city and south of the Military Reservation. These are Laurel Hill, Calvary, Masonic and Odd Fellows. The Jews have their special burying ground between Eighteenth and Twentieth streets, and the old Mission cemetery where some of the early Indian converts and Franciscan Fathers sleep their last sleep, is close by the Mission Dolores, on the south side.
The group around Lone Mountain is dominated by a conspicuous cross on the hill top, which, as a sentinel looks down with a benison on the resting places of the dead, and, in heat and cold, in storm and sunshine, seems to speak to the heart about Him "Who died, and was buried, and rose again for us." To this picturesque spot too the Chinese have been attracted, and they bury their departed west of Laurel Hill, with all the rites peculiar to the followers of Confucius.
But what thrilling histories of men from many lands are entombed in all these tens of thousands of graves, what fond hopes are buried here, what withered blossoms of life mingle with this consecrated soil by the waters of the Pacific! Many a one who sought the Golden West in pursuit of fortune found all too soon his goal here with unfulfilled desire, while anxious friends and relatives beyond the seas and the mountains or on the other side of the continent awaited his home coming for years in vain. Here, indeed, are no rolls of papyrus, no hieroglyphics, as in Egyptian tombs, to tell us the story of the past, but it is written in the experiences of the gold seekers, it is interwoven with the life of the city, now the mistress of the great ocean which laves her feet, and it is burned into the memories of many living witnesses.
If yonder grave could tell its tale it would speak to you of a misspent life which might have been a blessing—of midnight revels and mad excesses and Circe's feasts, the ruin of soul and body. And this grave could talk to you about one who, far away from home and kindred, had pined and wasted away in his loneliness, and had died of homesickness. But while you are touched with the pathetic recital, that grave near by reads you a lesson of patience, of heroism, of faith, of purity of soul and body preserved in the midst of fiery temptations, even while strong men were yielding themselves up to "fleshly lusts which war against the soul."
The shrubs and trees and flowers on which you gaze, and which are green and blossom the year round, now beautify all and mother earth softens with her ministries the severities of the past, and sunlit skies bend over the dead, as of old in many lands, and star-bedecked heavens tell still to the living, as once to those whose bodies mouldered here, the story of the life beyond, where glory and riches and honour are the heritage of the faithful!
CHAPTER V
THEN AND NOW, OR EIGHTEEN HUNDRED FORTY-NINE AND NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE
Triangular Section of San Francisco—Clay Banks, Mud and Rats
in 1849—Streets at That Time—Desperate Characters—Gambling
Houses—Thirst for Gold—Saloons and Sirens—The Bella Union—The
Leaven of the Church—Robbers' Dens and Justice in Mining Camps—The
Vigilance Committee and What It Did—San Francisco Well Governed
Now—Highway Robbers and the Courts—Chief of Police Wittman and His
Men—A Visit to Police Headquarters—The Cells—A Murderer—A Chinese
Woman in Tears—A Hardened Offender.
The traveller to the City of the Golden Gate, as he approaches it, having crossed the great bay from Oakland, notices that the hundreds of streets which greet his gaze run from east to west, and cross each other at right angles, except a triangular section of this metropolis of the west. This part of the city may be compared to a great wedge with the broad end on the bay. It begins at the Market Street Ferry house and runs south as far as South Street at the lower end of China Basin. This triangle is bounded on the north by Market Street, which follows a line west by southwest, and on the south by Channel and Ridley Streets, the latter crossing Market Street at the sharp end of the wedge-shaped section. The portion of the city within the triangle embraces in its water-front the Mission, Howard, Folsom, Stewart, Spear, Fremont, and Merrimac Piers, together with Mail and Hay Docks. Here you may see steamships and sailing vessels from all parts of the world moored at their piers, while others are riding at anchor a little way out from the land. The whole scene is at once picturesque and animated and suggests great activity. We must remember, however, that where now are these massive piers with their richly laden ships and noble argosies, as far back only as 1849 there were no stable docks, no properly constructed wharfs, no convenient landing places. Here only were clay banks, which gave no promise of the great future with its commercial grandeur, and everything was insecure and unsatisfactory, especially in rainy weather, which began in November and continued with more or less interruption until April. The new comer, not cautious to secure a sure footing would sometimes sink deep in the soft mud or even disappear in the spongy earth. With the ships too came not only the gold-seekers from many lands, but rats also as if they had a right and title to the rising city. These swarmed along the primitive wharfs, and at times they would invade the houses and tents of the people and go up on their beds or find a lodging-place in vessels and cup-boards. Some of these rodents which followed in the wake of the new civilisation were from China and Japan, while others, gray and black, came in ships from Europe and from American cities on the Atlantic seaboard. Even wells had to be closed except at the time of the drawing of water, in order to keep out these pests which made the life of many a householder well nigh intolerable.