The most dramatic event of recent years has been the earthquake of 1906, which was followed by a great fire, when for three days the city was a mass of flames.
We arrived at San Francisco on December 14th, 1915. The bay recalls in some degree that of Rio de Janeiro, the ocean has in the same way penetrated through a narrow channel into a low district surrounded by mountains and formed it into an inland sea. There, however, the resemblance stops. The Bay of San Francisco runs, for its major portion, parallel to the sea, and thus forms a peninsula on either side of the entrance, the well-known Golden Gate. The tract on the southern side is sufficiently level to allow of the site of a town. The main frontage of the city is on the bay, but it extends to the seaward side. The population has also spread across the bay, and the suburbs have attained to the magnitude of towns. The large ferry boats which ply across the water are marked features of San Francisco life.
There was nothing in the present fine city to recall the fact that ten years before it had been laid low by the great fire, but any building dating back more than a score of years is treated with respectful interest. A professional guide, who escorts tourists in a motor char-à-bancs, solemnly stated that such and such houses were “in the style of thirty-five years ago,” or that a church was “one hundred years old, but still used for service.”
It is not, however, in such matters that the youth of California most strikes a visitor from an older country. Its inhabitants appear to him to resemble children who have discovered a new playground, and who are busily occupied in seeing what each can find there. They seem, with notable exceptions, to have little time to spare for those deeper studies and questionings which form part of life in lands where the earlier stage has long been passed. There are, no doubt, in the gay crowd many profound thinkers, numbers with unsatisfied longings and broken hearts, but they are not obvious in the general cheerful absorption as to how much everything costs and everybody is worth. The stranger also, however much theoretically prepared, experiences a shock in finding how little a population formed from manifold races has as yet amalgamated; the owner of a shop, for instance, may not be able to speak even intelligibly the language of the country of his adoption. Depressing accounts were given of the type of man who thought it worth while to take up political life, and the consequent short-sightedness of some of the legislative measures. We were frankly told that we were much better off with our British monarchy, and once an American-born citizen was even heard to regret the War of Independence.
With regard to the Great War we were told that at that time ninety-five per cent. of the population of San Francisco were pro-Ally, though a few professors still looked to Germany as the home of culture. Conversation on the subject was definitely discouraged, and one man, who spoke to us for a few minutes concerning the struggle, ended by saying, “I have not talked so much about the war for months.” It was naturally impossible to appreciate at so great a distance the feeling which pervaded Europe. A high authority, whom we consulted as to where we could see some Indian life, recommended us to go to a certain German mission and “ask for hospitality from the Fathers”; that we should prefer not to do so he obviously thought most narrow-minded. Affairs in Mexico where some Americans had just been killed by the insurgents were much more interesting. Even Japan and Australia appeared more closely connected with every-day life, and not only seemed nearer than Europe, but than the Eastern States themselves. So was brought home the truth of the saying that “oceans unite, not divide”; also that the Pacific and its seaboard are really an entity, however much the atlas may prefer to give a contrary impression. Later it was impossible to think without deep sympathy of this young community plunged whole-heartedly with all its fresh ardour and keen intelligence into the solemn crucible of war.
We received welcome help and hospitality from Mr. Ross, our Consul-General, Mr. Barneson, the Commodore of the leading yacht club, and other kind friends. Mr. Adamson, of Messrs. Balfour & Guthrie, a firm allied to our Chilean friends Williamson & Balfour, came opportunely to our assistance when the censor felt that a cabled draft from England was too dangerous a document to pass without many days of consideration.
We were naturally much interested in making the acquaintance of our anthropological confrères of the University of California, Dr. Waterman and Mr. Gifford, and in hearing of their important work among the surviving Indians. A luncheon party at the University buildings at Berkeley, one of the suburbs on the other side of the bay, was both pleasant and enlarging to the mind. It is a mixed university, with some five or six thousand students; situated in beautiful surroundings and with an enviable library. One of the guests at luncheon was a German professor, who was at work in New Guinea when the war broke out; the account runs that the British troops, hearing there was an expedition in the mountains, went there expecting to encounter an armed force. He was detained in California, unable to get home.
FIG. 134.
SAN FRANCISCO,
From Mount Tamalpais, looking across the Golden Gate.
Christmas, the third since we left England, we spent in an hotel on the top of Mount Tamalpais, which is on the other side of the Golden Gate, and directly opposite to San Francisco. It is reached by a mountain railway, and gives most beautiful panoramic views of ocean, city, and bay. The management have hit on the ingenious plan of pointing out special sights, by placing tubes on the walks round the mountain, at the level of the eye, oriented on particular places and labelled accordingly. At night the scene is marvellous; the city appears as a blaze of illumination, and lights in every direction are reflected in the still water of the Bay. While on Mount Tamalpais we received a telephone message to say that Mana was coming through the Gate. She had taken two days less to do the distance from Honolulu than a four-masted barque which left about the same time. We could not get down before her arrival, so left Mr. Gillam to grapple with the usual officials; and not least with the reporters, seventeen of whom, he declared, came on board.