I declined the prepared betel, lime, cocoa-nut and leaf, but took a bit of the sliced betel plain, and chewed it. It had a slightly astringent effect on the mouth, and though without any very strongly perceptible flavor, soon produced a slight choking sensation in the throat, and a rather strongly marked palpitation of the heart. I don’t think I like betel. It is evidently an “acquired taste,” as the Englishman remarked about wild turkey, when a party of western practical jokers played off buzzard on him for the noblest bird of the American forest.
“THE BARBARY COAST.”
They said that the officers had all gone over upon the “Barbary Coast”—another of San Francisco specialties—as there had been a shooting scrape over there. We went on through Dupont Street, to that part of Pacific Street known as the Barbary Coast. The locality is the favorite resort of the dregs of the population of the Golden City—thieves, robbers, prostitutes, and loafers of the very lowest class, and of every color and nationality represented on the earth, Africa, Asia, all Spanish America, the West Indies, the islands of the Pacific, all Europe and North America, having each contributed its quota to make up the mass of vice, crime, and utter rottenness which surges up and down that horrible “coast.” It well deserves its name.
We met the officers coming back with their prisoner, a drunken loafer from Australia, who was making night hideous with his yells as they hustled him along towards the calaboose, followed by a motley crowd, whose aimless curiosity led them to rush along pell-mell in their wake.
One of the specials, whom my companion familiarly addressed as “Shrimp,”—probably on account of his elephantine proportions,—consented to come back and pilot us to our destination as soon as the party reached the calaboose. Meantime we went into a Spanish cigar shop, bearing the high-sounding and pœtical name “La Flor de la Mariposa,” literally “The Flower of the Butterfly,” and bought some villanous cigars, the colonel and the proprietor becoming involved in an animated dispute in Spanish over the revolt against the Juarez government in Mexico.
Out on the street once more, the colonel wanted us to go through the dens on the “coast.” He would take us to the “Bull Run,” the “Cock of the Walk,” the “Roaring Gimlet,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” and a few similar resorts, and convince me that we had nothing like them in New York. Rather than make the visit, I conceded all he claimed as to the superior and in fact unapproachable depravity of this part of San Francisco; and we retraced our steps to Jackson Street, where, in the heart of the Chinese quarter of the town, we found our officer, and set about the work of investigation, for which we had started out in the early part of the evening.
A DANGEROUS LOCALITY.
“Better go down and see how some of these people live, before you go to see how they die,” said the officer, leading the way into a dark passage running from the streets into the centre of the block. We stumbled along the passage for some fifty feet or more, and came to a rickety, dirty stairway, which we descended, feeling our way along step by step, until we stood in a court-yard surrounded with high brick buildings on all sides. We could see nothing round us for the moment; but the stench was almost overpowering, and the chattering, which was going on in all directions, convinced us that we were in a locality literally swarming with the lowest class of the Mongolian population. The officer struck a match against the wall, and with it lighted a piece of candle, which he drew from his pocket. Immediately curious faces peeped out at us from behind old gunny-sacks, which took the place of windows and doors in the low basement walls, and a dozen or two dirty, dilapidated, demoralized looking Celestials came out from different corners, and stood with their hands in their pockets, regarding us with evident suspicion as unauthorized intruders.
A DEN OF THIEVES.