What I call the “Exodus” fled down Van Ness avenue to the water front, thence along the Barbary Coast and tough water front by an enormously long detour to the ferries; it was the only way, the town streets being on fire and closed by the military.
The farther you went along the more conglomerate the throng became. The inhabitants of the foreign quarters began pouring out to join the flight.
I was so tired with a long day spent walking about the burning city that it seemed an impossibility that I should keep on. Every step was actual physical pain.
Twenty passing cabs, returning from the ferries, I stopped and tried to charter. The drivers, after bigger game, would wave me aside and say “Nothin’ doin’.”
One cabby said that he had to hurry out to the other end of the city to rescue his own family who were in danger. Another young autocrat on the cabby’s box took a long puff on his cigarette before he replied to my appeal.
“Fellow, you couldn’t hire this hack for a million dollars,” he said.
There was one amusing feature in the terrible procession. She was a haughty dame from Van Ness avenue. All that she could save she had stuffed into a big striped bed tick. She was trying to drag this along, and at the same time trying to maintain the dignity of a perfect lady. Candidly, it was not a success. One can stick pretty nearly everything into a striped bed quilt, but not dignity.
All along the way were women who had dropped out from exhaustion and were sitting there with their bundles in utter despair.