A la California - Chapter XIII



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CHAPTER XIII. FROM THE ORIENT DIRECT. 
Arrival of a China Steamer at San Francisco.--Her Passengers and Cargo.--A 
Horseback Trip to Mount Diablo.--Ascending the Mountain.--The Magnificent 
view from the Summit. 

WELL, what next? We have done the Mission Dolores and its quaint old red 
tile-roofed, adobe walled, and curiously ornamented altar, standing amid 
the graves of the pious fathers, whose faith led them here and helped them 
to rear this structure on the far confines of heathendom, generations ago. 
We have galloped over the broad macadamized road--out past Lone Mountain, 
with its City of the Dead gathered around the tall, white shaft which 
marks the resting-place of the gallant Broderick, and Mount Calvary, with 
another City of the Dead gathering around the white cross gleaming from 
its summit--to Point Lobos, where we have seen the ships from Europe, 
Asia, Australia, the Atlantic ports, and the islands of the Pacific, come 
sailing in through the Golden Gate. From the balcony of the Cliff House, 
overhanging the roaring breakers, we have looked down for hours with never-
flagging interest, upon those strange monster survivors of the World 
Before the Flood, the sea-lions, as they crawled from the 

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depths of the slimy sea upon the rugged rocks, writhing and wriggling as 
if in mortal agony, fighting and howling in infernal chorus, over the 
degeneracy of the days upon which, through some mistake never fully 
explained, they have fallen, ages and ages after their co-inhabitants of 
the primeval world bad perished. Fruit we have indulged in to a surfeit. 
Wine? We went round through the cellars yesterday until our heads were, or 
felt as if they were, as large and as full as the great casks holding 
thousands of gallons, in which the champagne was being prepared for 
bottling. The Barbary Coast, with its reeking vice, seething crime, and 
nameless, unutterable human degradation, we did last night; this evening 
we do the Chinese Theatre; to-morrow the Geysers; next week the Big Trees 
and Yosemite. But what to-day? 

There is a small white flag, inscribed with the letters U. S. M., flying 
from each of the San Francisco street cars as it passes; a mail steamer 
from some part of the world has entered the Golden Gate. From the 
direction of North Beach, a messenger of the Merchants' Exchange comes 
galloping at full speed along Stockton street, his half wild Spanish 
horse--with head erect, nostrils distended, and lustrous eyes (the glory 
alike of Spanish steeds and women) that flash like coals of fire--bounding 
over the rough pavement as proudly as if conscious that he bore the fate 
of Ceasar and his empire. "What is it?" we call out as the messenger flies 
past us. "The Great Republic, from China and Japan," is the answer he 
gives, without even turning his head to see who asked; and the 

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loud report echoing over the city tells us that the proud steamer, which 
has borne our starry flag to the uttermost parts of the earth, is safe in 
port, and is rounding Telegraph Hill on her way up the harbor to the 
wharves of the P. M. S. S. Co., at Rincon Point. Eureka! here is the 
wished-for sensation. Let us be off for South Beach! 

Looking down from Rincon Hill, we see the long shed-covered wharf of the 
Pacific Mail Steamship Company stretching far out into Mission Bay to the 
southward, huge steamers lying in the docks, or at anchor in the stream, a 
stone's throw off, and in front, outside the high, closed gates, a vast 
crowd of Europeans, Americans, and Asiatics commingled, and a jam of 
vehicles of every description, gathered in anticipation of the steamer's 
arrival at her wharf. Descending the hill and making our way slowly 
through the crowd, we reach the gates at last; and approaching the group 
of police-officers on duty, offer the card inscribed, " Admit the Bearer 
on Great Republic," which was received at the company's office on 
Sacramento street, as a special courtesy from the great corporation. The 
officer has already recognized our companion as a member of the San 
Francisco "press-gang," and passes us through the side door with a quiet 
nod, not even condescending to look at our ticket. Passing down the long 
wharf, between the great steamers lying on either hand, we find in waiting 
a few vehicles--hacks sent to bring away some particular persons known to 
be on board, the United States mail and express wagons--some gentlemen 

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and ladies who, having friends on board, have secured passes to go inside 
the gates, a crowd of custom-house officers, detectives in the employ of 
the company, the captain of the San Francisco police, with his entire 
watch, in grey uniforms, and armed with clubs and revolvers, and fifty to 
one hundred leading Chinese merchants, consignees of the cargo, or 
representatives of the "Six Companies," to whom all the Celestial 
emigrants or immigrants are consigned. 

The "Great Republic," flying the flag of our country, that of the P. M. S. 
S. Co., and the yellow dragon of China, has meantime rounded Rincon Point, 
and is lying in the stream, off the southern end of the wharf, with 
hawsers out, vainly endeavoring, against the strong ebb tide, to warp into 
her berth on the western side. The bow hawser parts at last, and she 
drifts out towards Yerba Buena Island, then swings slowly round under 
steam, heads towards San Jose, and then, when about half a mile away, 
turns gracefully, and, with her monster wheels beating the bay into a 
foam, comes rushing at full speed directly down toward the wharf. The 
picket gates which separate the southern end of the shed from the section 
of open wharf beyond, are opened in an instant by the officers, and the 
people rush at their utmost speed down towards the northern gateway, 
apprehensive lest the leviathan, now approaching with the fleetness of a 
racehorse, should miss the point aimed at by a few feet, knock the pine-
timber built wharf into kindling-wood, and send those upon it into Davy 
Jones' locker in an instant. Needless alarm! The monster of the deep 

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obeys her helm to perfection, comes rushing swiftly into her berth right 
alongside the wharf, and, before we have ceased wondering at the immense 
proportions of this magnificent specimen of American marine architecture, 
her wheels are reversed, and she has ceased to move. Then, for the first 
time, we observe that her main deck is packed with Chinamen--every foot of 
space being occupied by them--who are gazing in silent wonder at the new 
land whose fame had reached them beyond the seas, and whose riches these 
swart representatives of the toiling millions of Asia have come to 
develop. The great gangway-planks--bridges they might be called more 
appropriately-are run out from the wharf and hoisted into place; the 
health-officer, who had boarded the steamer off "the Heads," comes down 
bowing and smiling as he parts with the officers of the vessel, the custom-
house officers ascend to the decks, the detectives and policemen range 
themselves at the gangways fore and aft, and--hats off in front!--the 
grand panorama of the Orient is about to be unrolled! 

The forward gangway is reserved for the disembarkation of Chinamen 
exclusively; the after gangway is for the cabin passengers, mostly 
Americans and Europeans. Several Chinese merchants, neatly-dressed and 
quiet, gentlemanly-behaved men, attempt to go on board by the after gang-
plank, and are hurled back with, it would seem, needless violence by the 
officers stationed there. The sub-agents and employs of the Six Companies, 
who attempt to reach the main-deck by the forward gangway, are repulsed 

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with even greater rudeness and force: the orders are that none shall be 
allowed to go on board until the custom-house officers have done their 
work. Half a dozen United States Navy officers, from the squadron in 
Chinese and Japanese waters, coming home on leave of absence, come down 
the after-gangway, and are told to get their luggage all together in one 
place on the wharf, and it will be passed immediately by the officers. 
Their lacquered boxes, trunks, open-work, rattan chairs and lounges for 
reclining upon in a tropipical climate, boxes of rare plants, and small 
collections of "curios" from the far East-West it seems to us-are soon run 
through, and chalked with the names of the examining officers, and they 
enter carriages in waiting, and are driven away to the hotels. A stout-
built, manly-looking American, forty years of age or thereabouts, comes 
down the plank, and a fair-faced woman, who, with her four half-grown-up 
children around her, has been standing patiently for hours in a corner of 
the building on the wharf, grows suddenly pale in the face, runs towards 
him, and with the single exclamation, "O Joe!" has her arms around his 
neck in an instant. A few ladies and gentlemen, looking curiously about 
them, issue from the cabin, point out their luggage on the wharf, receive 
the proper directions, and, entering carriages admitted through the gates 
one at a time to receive them, are hurried away, apparently half glad at 
finding themselves standing on the solid land once more, half-sorry to 
part from those with whom they have voyaged across the broad Pacific, and 
dared the perils of 

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the sea And now from the cabin emerges a tiny creature, clad in costly 
robes of satin, richly embroidered, and stands at the upper end of the 
plank in the gangway opening, as if in doubt which way to turn or how to 
proceed. She is not more than four feet in height--slender and graceful of 
figure. Her lustrous blue-black hair is puffed out at the sides and 
fashioned into a wonderful rudder-shaped structure behind, supported with 
gold and silver skewer-like ornaments thrust through it; and her head, 
guiltless of hat or bonnet, is surmounted by a small wreath of bright-
colored artificial flowers. Her face is really pretty--the features being 
delicately formed--despite the obliquity of the almond-shaped eyes, and 
the slight projection of the anything but Grecian nose. Her complexion, 
naturally whiter than that of the common working people of her country, 
has been so cunningly improved by her maid-servant-who could teach our 
enamellers and beautifiers the first rudiments of their profession--that 
she is as' fair to look upon as the blonde beauties of our race, and you 
would hesitate long before you would swear whether the red which tinges 
her cheeks and lips is real or the work of "high art" in its-perfection. 
Her tunic or sacque is of sky-blue satin, embroidered with flowers in 
bright-colored silk; her wide, loose trousers of darker blue satin, 
similarly but more elaborately embroidered; and her dainty little feet are 
encased in slippers of blue satin, with gold-bullion embroidery and thick 
white felt soles, with thin bottoms of polished wood. In her hand she 
holds two fans, with which she endeavors 

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to keep her face hidden as far as possible from the public gaze. Timid to 
the last degree she seems, and probably is, and she looks neither to the 
right nor the left, but keeps her eyes fixed on the plank beneath her, as 
if anxious to avoid the sight of every-thing else in the world. As she 
stands there in the open gangway, she looks the perfect counterpart of 
something we have seen, or dreamed of, before. Ah, yes; we remember now! 
Thirty years ago-fifteen or Sixteen years before this little thing was 
born-our big cousin came home from a sailing voyage round the world, and 
among the curious things he brought with him was a book of rice-paper, 
white as snow and soft as velvet, each leaf of which bore a single, 
wonderfully elaborate little picture, in colors more brilliant than the 
rainbow; her picture, correct and perfect in the most minute detail, was 
there; no one could fail to recognize it at a glance. She is the bride of 
an opulent Chinese merchant of San Francisco, who has been home to get 
her; his parents selected her for him from one of the most respectable 
families in the Central Flowery Empire, and he had no trouble with 
courting and such like Caucasian nonsense. He leads her down the plank, 
the bracelets and bangles of silver and green semi-transparent stone which 
encircle her wrists and ankles, clinking musically as she walks; and at 
the wharf a policeman, detailed for the purpose, receives and escorts the 
party through the crowd, which opens respectfully before the end of his 
club, and they enter a carriage. Another and another come down the plank; 
the last two are accompanied 

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by bright-eyed, richly-dressed children, who follow mechanically in their 
mother's footsteps, furtively glancing at the strange crowd as they pass 
through it. These are the wives and offspring of Chinese merchants 
resident here, who married before coming to California; you had better 
take a good look at them now, while you can, for they--the women and 
female children--will be kept in the strictest seclusion from the moment 
they set foot in their husbands' and fathers' houses, and they may live 
many years, and die, here in the midst of a great Christian City, and yet 
never be looked upon by Caucasian eyes. You may purchase exquisite 
pictures, on rice-paper, of these "first-chop" Chinese ladies, at the 
bazaar of Chy Lung & Co., on Sacramento street, but the living married 
Chinese women or respectable young girls you will never so much as catch a 
glimpse of, except on such an occasion as this. 

Following the Chinese ladies comes an Englishman returning from the 
Indies, a broad, burly fellow, with dogged resolution, self-complacency, 
and a stout, unconquerable determination to grumble at everything he meets 
in "this blarsted country, you know," traced upon every lineament. His 
feet are encased in clumsy thick-soled gaiters, his nether limbs in gray, 
very scant cassimere pantaloons, which hang limp as withered cabbage 
leaves round his ankles; a coat, broader than it is long, covers his 
shoulders, and reaches down just below his waist, and on his head is a 
hideous Monitor-shaped hat, as large as the shell of a green turtle, and 
as unmanageable and badly out of place 

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in the San Francisco summer trade-winds as a balloon in a western tornado. 
Surely we have seen somewhere the counterpart of this figure also; yes, it 
was years ago, when we were laid up with a.broken leg, and the fever of 
our waking hours was followed by the nightmare in our troubled sleep. 

The custom-house officers have done their work here quickly, and perhaps 
effectually, and now all is ready at the forward gangway. A living stream 
of the blue-coated men of Asia, bearing long bamboo poles across their 
shoulders, from which depend packages of bedding, matting, clothing, and 
things of which we know neither the names nor the uses, pours down the 
plank the moment that the word is given, "All ready!" They appear to be of 
an average age of twenty-five years--very few being under fifteen, and 
none apparently over forty years--and though somewhat less in stature than 
Caucasians, healthy, active, and able-bodied to a man. As they come down 
upon the wharf, they separate into messes or gangs of ten, twenty, or 
thirty each, and, being recognized through some (to us) incomprehensible 
freemasonry system of signs by the agents of the "Six Companies" as they 
come, are assigned places on the long, broad-shedded wharf which has been 
cleared especially for their accommodation and the convenience of the 
customs officers. Each man carries on his shoulders, or in his hands, his 
entire earthly possessions, and few are overloaded. There are no merchants 
or business men among them, all being of the coolie or laboring class. 
They are all dressed in 

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coarse but clean and new blue cotton blouses and loose baggy breeches, 
blue cotton-cloth stockings which reach to the knee, and slippers or shoes 
with heavy wooden soles; these last they will discard for American boots 
when they go up country to work in the dust and mud; and most of them 
carry one or two broad-brimmed hats of split bamboo, and huge palm-leaf 
fans, to shield them from the burning sun in the mountains or valleys of 
California, or the fertile fields of the south, towards which many of them 
will eventually direct their steps. There is a babel of uncouth cries and 
harsh discordant yells, accompanied by whimsically energetic gestures and 
convulsive facial distortions, as the members of the different gangs 
recognize each other in the crowd, and search out the places assigned 
them. The luggage is deposited on the wharf, and each group squat on the 
planking, or stand silently beside their little property, waiting in 
patience and perfectly soldier-like order the arrival of the officers who 
are to search them for smuggled goods. "Here, this way!" "Here, here on 
this side!" "There, over there on that side!" shout the policemen, as they 
swing their clubs about and frantically endeavor to direct the tide, often 
really creating disorder among these most orderly and methodical people, 
who would get things straightened twice as quickly without such 
assistance. For two mortal hours the blue stream pours down from the 
steamer upon the wharf; a regiment has landed already, and still they 
come. The wharf is covered with them so densely that the passage-way for 
carriages 

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through the centre can with difficulty be kept open, and yet the stream is 
not broken for a single moment. You wonder where such a swarm of human 
beings found stowage room-the bulk seems greater than that of the steamer-
and wonder still more when told that the vessel with all these on board 
had still room for a cargo of thousands of tons; her freight-capacity 
being some six thousand tons, and her custom house registry measurement 
between four and five thousand. This steamer actually brought one thousand 
two hundred and seventy-two Chinamen; last week one thousand two hundred 
came by sailing vessels, and behind them are yet four hundred millions of 
the most patient, ready, apt, and industrious toilers on the face of the 
earth. 

The writer shares none of the prejudice against this people which is 
manifested so strongly by the lower order of the European-born residents 
of California, and leads to so many disgraceful acts of violence and 
outrage; but such a sight as this awakens curious thoughts, and suggests 
doubts of the future in the mind of every one who has made political 
economy and free institutions a study to any extent. The Chinese-labor 
question is destined within the next ten years--five years, perhaps--to 
become what the slavery question was a few years since, to break down, 
revolutionize, and reorganize parties, completely change the industrial 
system of many of our States and Territories, and modify the destiny of 
our country for generations to come. Educated, thinking men do not, as a 
rule, fear the result, nor see in 

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this vast semi-civilized immigration any danger to republican 
institutions; nevertheless, it is a movement fraught with mighty 
consequences for good or ill, and the question demands and must receive a 
most careful consideration in all its bearings. Commerce, religion, 
politics, capital and labor, education, our whole social fabric, must be 
affected more or less. Occident and Orient stand face to face at last, and 
the meeting must signalize a notable era in the history of mankind. 

The customs agents search the person of every Chinaman as he lands, and go 
through the luggage of every group or mess as thoroughly as possible, in 
quest of opium, the one blighting curse of China, for which she may thank 
Christian England, and for which her children will run any risk and bear 
any privation. The deadly drug is so costly in proportion to its bulk, 
that, next to gold and precious stones, it offers the greatest inducement 
for smuggling; and on the arrival of every steamer and sailing vessel from 
China, large seizures are made by the officers. On this occasion one 
officer detected and confiscated forty boxes of opium, each worth eight or 
ten dollars in coin, which had been concealed in the false bottom of a box 
containing merchandise of comparatively small value. To do them justice, 
we should say that one of the Chinese companies' agents directed the 
officer's attention to the box, and so caused him to make the discovery. 
Another officer discovered a suspicious protuberance on the person of a 
Chinaman, and had just reached out his hand to examine 

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it, when the frightened Celestial flung from him into the bay half a dozen 
boxes of the poison. Bladders of it, flattened out like pancakes, were 
found concealed in the linings of blankets or bed-quilts, and the stuffed 
under-garments worn by some of the men. In all, several thousand dollars' 
worth thus fell into the hands of the officers, and a moiety of its value 
will go into the treasury of Uncle Sam, if the costs cannot be made large 
enough to swallow up all his share. 

Fifteen or twenty Chinese girls--the poor raft and boat born women of 
Canton, trained, from childhood, to lewdness, and as utterly ignorant of 
the ways of virtue or any sense of shame or moral responsibility as so 
many blocks of wood-were landed also; some steamers bring them by 
hundreds, in spite of the efforts of the "Six Companies" to discourage the 
traffic. These women signed contracts, in China, to serve their masters a 
given number of years for their passage-money, board and clothing, and, 
despite our laws, will submit to live and die in a slavery more horrible 
than any other that ever existed on earth; all efforts of our authorities 
to break it up having proved utterly unavailing. As they land, they are 
searched in no delicate manner by the officers, and then received by their 
purchasers, and delivered into the charge of the sallow old hags in black 
costume, with bunches of keys in the girdles at their waists, who are 
called "old mothers," and who will hold them in horrible bondage and 
collect the wages of their sin--if they who have no moral responsibility 
can be said 

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to sin--for the remainder of their days. The girls are dressed in silk or 
cotton tunics and trousers, similar in shape and color to those worn by 
the married ladies, but far less costly, are painted gaudily on cheeks and 
lips, and wear on their heads the checked cotton handkerchiefs which are 
the badge of prostitution. They are jeered and "hi-hied" by the crowd of 
common Chinamen waiting outside the gates, as they pass out to enter the 
open express wagons waiting to receive them and carry them away to the 
dens in Murderers' Alley and along the Barbary Coast. As fast as the 
groups of coolies have been successively searched, they are turned out of 
the gates, and hurried away towards the Chinese quarter of the city by the 
agents of the "Six Companies." Some go in wagons, more on foot; and the 
streets leading up that way are lined with them, running in "Indian file," 
and carrying their luggage suspended from the ends of the bamboo poles 
slung across their shoulders. By nightfall the throng has dispersed, the 
work of the officers is over, and the vast wharf is cleared for the 
delivery of the immense cargo in the hold of the steamer. 

This cargo is made up of articles in a great measure strange to the people 
of the Atlantic States; and for their benefit the list is copied out in 
full from the manifest, as follows: 

For San Francisco: 90 packages cassia; 940 packages coffee, from Java and 
Manila; 192 packages fire-crackers 30 packages dried fish, cuttle-fish, 
shark's fins, etc.; 400 packages hemp; 116 packages 

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miscellaneous merchandise, lacquered goods, porcelain-ware, and things for 
which we have no special names; 53 packages medicines; 18 packages opium; 
16 packages plants; 20 packages potatoes; 25 packages rattans; 2,755 
packages rice; 1,238 packages sundries--chow-chow, preserved fruits, 
salted melon-seeds, dried ducks, pickled duck's eggs, cabbage sprouts in 
brine, candied citron, dates, dwarf oranges, ginger, smoked oysters, and a 
hundred other Chinese edibles and table luxuries; 824 packages sugar; 20 
packages silks; 203 packages sago and tapioca; 5,463 packages tea; 27 
packages tin. 

For New York; 2 packages merchandise; 21 packages sundries; 150 packages 
silks; 465 packages teas; 144 packages rhubarb; 9 packages hardware. 

For Panama, 1 package opium; 1 package sundries; 115 packages tea. 

It is not the tea season, and this cargo is consequently a small one 
comparatively--nothing, in fact, to what is sometimes landed from a China 
steamer; though, as will be seen from the foregoing manifest, it comprises 
no less than 13,354 packages of merchandise, many of them of large size-a 
small mountain in the aggregate. 

Having enjoyed to the utmost the pleasure of a new sensation, we leave the 
wharf, meditating on the strange scene which we have beheld, and wondering 
what is to be the end of all this, and wend our way back to Montgomery 
street. Sitting by the fruit-laden table in our own room in the evening, 
and breathing the air charged with the odors of the fairest 

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flowers that bloom, a doubt arises in our mind, and eve begin to inquire 
if there was in sober truth any such scene as we fancy we have been 
witnessing. Was that little oval-faced woman, clad in blue, purple, 
crimson and gold, shrinking in speechless fear from the strange throng 
around her, a being of flesh and blood after all, or a creature of the 
imagination? Did we actually see her come out of the great black steamer's 
cabin and stand there hesitating in the gangway, or have we been gazing at 
some brilliantly-tinted picture from the land where Marco Polo journeyed 
centuries ago, until one of the figures took on itself the semblance of 
life and action, and walked forth from its frame? Was it not in fact a"l a 
dream? A dream, we would almost swear! And yet a dream it could not have 
been, we find when we come to reflect upon it. There is the card of 
admission to the wharf, still lying on the table before us; that is 
tangible and real at least. The sunlight which the waters of the bay of 
San Francisco glistened under, and which flooded with its golden glory the 
mountains of Contra Costa and Alameda, looked and felt real. We can still 
hear the roar of many voices shouting in an unknown tongue, and see the 
stream of men in blue blouses, with shaven foreheads, and with long 
braided queues of glossy black hair and silk hanging down their backs. The 
strange odor of Asiatic tobacco, spices, opium-- 

"Mandragora, 
And all the drowsy syrups of the world," 

which pervaded ship and cargo, still clings to our 

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clothing, and finds its way into our nostrils. It was real, wholly real, 
after all! We have indeed stood on the farther shore of the New World, and 
seen the human tides which have surged round the globe from opposite 
directions meet and commingle, and have beheld the yellow flag, emblazoned 
with the red-dragon, emblem of the "Lord of the whole Earth and Brother of 
the Sun and Moon"--master of the oldest nation which the sun shines upon--
and the starry emblem of a sovereign people, "By the Grace of God Free and 
Independent," floating side by side. It was a sight worth living long and 
coming far to look upon-a scene to wonder at, to ponder over and reflect 
upon--to gaze upon once and remember through all the coming years of life--
a scene such as our fathers never beheld nor dreamed of, and of which our 
children's children only may know the full import and meaning. 

The rainy season is over at last, and we are thankful for it. We are weary 
of the city, its vices, its crimes and its follies, already. All cities 
are much alike after all, varying only in minor details, but the 
mountains; God be praised for them. There we shall find change and beauty, 
sunshine, pure air, freedom, and rest. 

As the steamer approaches the Golden Gate, one of the most striking 
features of the glorious landscape which unfolds itself before the eyes of 
the traveler, Is the bold crest of Mount Diablo standing out clear and 
sharp against the blue sky. over beyond the Contra Costa hills to the 
eastward of the Bay of San 

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Francisco. As he walks the streets of the Golden City he sees it still 
before him, and as he ascends the Sacramento or San Joaquin, it confronts 
at every turn and bend of the winding stream, every change in his position 
revealing some new feature in the scene. 

When he ascends the Sierra Nevada, on his way to the Yosemite, or climbs 
farther up to the line of eternal snow, and looks back toward the Pacific, 
the dark mountain looms up grander and more beautiful than ever, seeming 
to have increased in size while he has been climbing heavenward, and 
looming up apparently thousands of feet higher in the blue, hazy 
atmosphere than when he stood at its base in the valley miles and miles 
below. Located near the junction of the two great rivers which drain the 
vast interior basin of California between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast 
Range, it rises abruptly from the plain to a height of nearly 4,000 feet; 
and standing isolated and solitary, with no rivals to dwarf it by 
comparison or detract from the effect of the picture--it is pre-eminently 
the great central feature of the landscape, travel which way you may. 
Placed by the side of Mount Shasta, or the high peaks of the Sierra, Mount 
Diablo would sink into insignificance, but standing alone in solitary 
grandeur, he is monarch of the land. No other mountain peak in America, 
perhaps in the world, commands a view of such wide extent of country and 
so wonderful and varied scenery; and he who has not ascended to its 
summit, certainly has not seen and can form no clear idea of California. 

Old Californians of Spanish-American origin will 

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tell you, with an earnestness which impresses you with the sincerity of 
their belief in what they say, that three fourths of a century ago a 
vaquero, chasing a stray band of cattle, ascended the mountain nearly to 
the summit, when he came suddenly upon a cavern from which issued great 
sheets of flame and clouds of sulphurous smoke, and he felt at once that 
he stood at the door of the abode of the Enemy of Mankind. Crossing 
himself with trembling hand, he devoutly repeated a prayer to Mary Mother, 
and turning his horse's head, rode regardless of risk to life and limb, 
looking not backward until he stood among his friends in the valley below, 
and told them of the wonder he had seen. From that time the mountain bore 
the name of him who was supposed to make his abode in its depths, and no 
man's foot intruded among its lonely defiles and savage caons until the 
Los Americanos, who feared neither God, man, nor devil, came and possessed 
the land, carried their surveying instruments to its summit, and there set 
up a rude monument of stone, which serves as a base for the surveys 
throughout all Alta California. The fire which the vaquero beheld, or 
thought he beheld, has burned out long years ago, if it ever existed; the 
cavern, if ever there was a cavern, has been closed to human eyes, and the 
superstitious dread with which the mountain was regarded has passed away 
with the simple people we have dispossessed, and the order of things which 
we have overturned. Thus much for the mountain as we see it at a distance, 
and the name it bears. 

It was a pleasant afternoon early in the month 

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of May, 1866, when a party of four, including the writer, went on board 
the Oakland ferry steamer "Washoe," at San Francisco, bound for Mount 
Diablo. The swift steamer in half an hour landed us at the Oakland 
railroad wharf, and we started off for the ride across the country. Two of 
the party, Dr. James Murphy and Dr. James D. Whitney, Jr., eminent men in 
their profession in San Francisco, rode in a light carriage, with a span 
of fast-trotting horses; while R. H. Lloyd, Esq., a prominent young 
lawyer, and myself were on horseback. Lloyd rode a beautiful, spirited, 
and very fleet-footed California horse, of a pale gold color, and with a 
mane and tail like spun silver--"Silvertail" they called him; while I was 
mounted on my pet, "Juanita," a bright bay California mare,;with great 
brown eyes, widely distended nostrils and clean limbs, which could carry 
her over the ground as fast as any mortal man would care to ride. 

Poor Juanita! How bitterly do I remember springing to my feet, after a 
troubled sleep, one glorious moonlight night a year later, in the Great 
Colorado Valley, and at a glance discovering that she had been stolen from 
beside me as I slept! I ran out into the open ground and called aloud, 
"Juanita! Juanita!" but there came no answer. Half frantic, I searched all 
around for tracks, and soon found the prints of her dainty hoofs in the 
soft soil. Alas! a long-pointed moccassin track was beside them, and a 
little farther on I discovered where the accursed Chimahuevis thief had 
mounted her and ridden off at a gallop across the 

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sandy desert toward the desolate Chimahuevis mountains; and I knew that 
pursuit was useless, for long ere I could have reached the rancheria of 
the accursed tribe, their long sharp knives had slashed her silky throat, 
and her plump, round form had furnished food for the savages, to whom I 
also then owed a debt of hatred and revenge. I paid it well in after days; 
but let us turn back towards Mount Diablo. 

From the landing at Oakland to Clayton, at the foot of the mountain, is 
thirty miles, up hill and down. We ride at a gallop through the quiet 
streets of Oakland, the most beautiful and flourishing of the suburban 
towns around San Francisco Bay; passing elegant residences standing 
embowered among the great spreading live oaks, which gave the place its 
name; deep green acacias, which in this climate never shed their feathery 
leaves; rose trees, loaded down with flowers of every hue, the fragrance 
of which pervades the dreamy, soft, voluptuous, languid air; fuschias, 
hanging like banners of living flame from trellis-work, arbor and broad 
veranda; and, in short, all the flowers which, gathered from every land 
beneath the sun, have become acclimated here; passing churches, school-
houses, and college-buildings, through a long, wide lane, leading between 
thrifty orchards filled with ripening cherries, apricots, plums, 
nectarines, peaches, apples, pears, and wide acres covered with richly-
bearing strawberry, blackberry and raspberry plants, where the Chinese 
laborers are at work in their broad bamboo hats and blue blouses, in rows 
like Louisianian slaves in the "good old 

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time," now gone forever, gathering the luscious fruit for the San 
Francisco market and emerge at last on the open farming country which 
stretches up to the high hills of Alameda, over which our road leads. At 
the foot of the hills we halt a moment, to rest and water man and beast, 
then strike into a winding caon, which leads us up by an easy grade toward 
the summit of the hills. A little stream of pure, bright water comes down 
the caon, and, as we splash through it from time to time, we catch 
glimpses of hares and rabbits scudding away into the chapparal, and the 
beautiful tufted quail of California rise in pairs and whirr away to the 
leafy coverts where their nests are concealed. The sides of the caon are 
densely covered with the vine-like shrub known as the "poison-oak" which 
affects some people so terribly, even the wind blowing over it poisoning 
them so as to produce frightful swellings and eruptions of the face and 
glands. blindness, deafness, and sometimes even death itself. This plant 
has no effect whatever on any animal, nor on many men. The writer has 
chewed its fresh leaves, and handled it with perfect impunity. There are 
dog-roses and many wild flowers of brilliant hue, of which we do not know 
the names The summit reached at last, we stop at a roadside inn to rest 
and "recruit"--gentle reader, if you ever travel in California you will 
learn what that means--and look back for a few minutes at the glorious 
panorama of the Bay of San Francisco and its surroundings: the white-
winged ships coming and going from and to the uttermost parts of the 
earth--the steamers threading 

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the blue waters, and the thousand evidences of life and progress developed 
in a few short years by the indomitable energy of our people on this outer 
edge of the continent--this western outpost of the Great Republic; on 
again, down a broad, graded road, which is cut along the side of a caon, 
leading eastward among beautifully-rounded hills, covered with a dense 
growth of wild oats to their very summits, across a narrow valley, and up 
over the broken hill-range of Las Trampas, and down once more into a 
broad, beautiful valley, filled with farm-houses and wide fields of 
ripening grain, which seem wonderfully like those of the prairie country 
of Illinois. We pass through two or three country villages, each 
consisting of a store or two, post-office and express-office combined, a 
hotel, billiard-saloon, and two or three small rum-mills, and stop to 
refresh at each. 

The sun is sinking behind the Western hills when we pass up by a short cut 
through a winding caon filled with wild mustard plants, as high as our 
horses' heads, through which we push our animals with difficulty, and 
emerge on a gravelly, unfenced and uncultivated plain, which stretches 
away to the foot of Mount Diablo, and catch a glimpse of Clayton, where we 
propose to pass the night. The company all together, we propose a taste of 
fragrant pisco (Peruvian white brandy) all round, sundry bottles of that 
and other refreshments having been stowed away under the seat of the 
carriage in which the doctors are riding. Something knocks Dr. Murphy's 
hat off, and I, Greaser style, swing down from my saddle, catch 

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it from the ground, and slip it over my own. A laugh at his expense, and 
he offers me a chance at the bottle of pisco for the hat. I take the 
bottle and jump back just in time to avoid a swinging cut from his 
horsewhip, and in an instant we are off on a race across the plain. The 
doctor binds his head with a handkerchief, giving himself the air of a 
Bedouin of the desert, and lashes his horses into a "dead run" to over-
take me, but in vain, and he coaxes and threatens by turns, as we allow 
him to get almost alongside of us to tantalize him, and then dash off 
again at a gallop. Silvertail and Juanita are mad for another brush, and 
Lloyd and myself leave the doctors far behind, and "go in" with a will to 
see who shall reach Clayton first, Now Silvertail makes a sudden dash and 
passes ahead, sending the gravel flying back from his hoofs in such 
volleys that I must perforce shield my eyes and get to one side as soon as 
possible; then Juanita, with a snort, closes into the work and shoots 
ahead, compelling him to yield the road in turn. Just as the day is 
closing and the soft twilight falls, we dash neck and neck into Clayton, 
rein up our panting steeds before the "Ironclad Hotel," and dismount, 
having ridden over the mountains and across two hill-ranges, thirty good 
miles, in just three hours and forty-five minutes, stoppages included. 

Round, red, and full the moon rises over the eastern hills and floods the 
landscape with golden glory, bringing out the peaks of the mountain, and 
every rock, hill, and glen in masses of sharply contrasted light and 
shadow, very grand to behold. Supper 

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over, we sit, chat, and smoke our cigarritos around the doorway until 
bedtime; then give orders for a guide, an early breakfast and a lunch to 
take with us up the mountain, and retire to rest. 

Daybreak sees us up and making ready for the as- cent of the mountain 
which looms up right before us with its wails of rugged rock, which look 
altogether impassable. A good breakfast disposed of and we are all in the 
saddle--no carriage can ascend the mountain--and away up a little valley, 
dotted with patches of vineyards and young orchards, into a deep, dark 
caon which leads right into the depths of the mountain. Larks and robins 
are singing in the black beech and water-maple trees by the roadside, as 
we gallop along; and, as we ascend the defile, we look down upon the 
bright waters of a purling brook coming out of the mountain, in which we 
see the spotted mountain trout of California playing as we used to see 
them in the brooks of New England so long ago that we do not care--I might 
say do not dare--to count the years between. Soon the road leaves the bed 
of the stream, and becomes a narrow path, cut-with infinite labor along 
the side of a precipice, over which you can look as you ride along, and 
drop a stone down hundreds of feet before it strikes the rocks, and goes 
bounding and awakening echoes down to the bottom of the caon. There is no 
room for two horses to go abreast, and we wind along in Indian file up, 
up, up, toward the blue sky above us. The bridle-path becomes at last a 
mere trail--dim and indistinct; but we press on, passing the first peak, 
and arrive at a 

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point where our horses must be recinched, to prevent the saddles slipping 
over their tails and dumping us over the precipice, as they go up an 
acclivity steeper and more difficult of ascent than any we have as yet 
encountered. This matter of cinching a California mustang is no trifling 
feat for a green hand to essay. The wide band of woven horsehair, known as 
the cinch, is drawn up by the powerful purchase on the ltigo strap until 
it deeply imbeds itself in the animal's belly, causing him to swell 
himself up like a toad to resist the pressure, and not unfrequently--
especially if he sees that you are a stranger at the business--to commence 
a rearing, plunging, kicking, and biting performance, involving danger to 
life and limb. 

We soon reached Deer Flat, a little park-like plateau, in a sheltered nook 
within a mile of the top of the mountain, and stopped for a breathing 
spell. A few years ago, when all California was wild with excitement and 
everybody was getting rich-on paper from wild-cat mining stocks, every 
hill and mountain around San Francisco was bored, and tunnelled, and 
drifted in search of gold and silver bearing quartz. Claims were actually 
staked off in the streets of San Francisco, and companies formed to work 
them, on the strength of a few wandering bits of metalliferous rock having 
been picked up here and there. The prospectors pushed their way up here 
into the rocky defiles of Mount Diablo, and finding traces of gold, silver 
and copper, organized dozens of companies to work the "leads." For months 
the deep gorges of the mountain echoed the sound of the sledge, the 

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pick and the drill, and the loud reports of the blasts let off to 
disengage the rock which hid from the eager eyes of the miners boundless 
stores of imaginary wealth. It is all over now and silent as the grave, 
save when a wandering party of pleasure-seekers penetrates here, as we 
have done, or the hunter climbs the rocky peaks in search of deer or a 
stray grizzly bear, and awakes the mountain echoes with the sharp crack of 
his rifle. Here, at Deer Flat, a comfortable house had been erected, and 
the superintendent of a mine, a Mexican, had made his headquarters. A 
vegetable-garden, run to weeds and climbing vines, a field of volunteer 
barley--into which we turn our panting horses without a question--and a 
trellised arbor, covered with sweet peas and climbing plants in full 
bloom, which a woman's loving hand must have planted and trained, tell of 
the industry and taste of those who once made their home in this wild 
mountain eyrie. A drink of cold water from a running spring, with the 
chill taken off it by an admixture of pisco, is heartily enjoyed after the 
hard ride, and we are soon ready for another climb. Up a steep hillside, 
past tall pine trees, like those of the Sierra Nevada, along a steep, 
narrow "hog-back" of crumbling, shelvy stone, running through a waste of 
the bitter, worthless chemisal, a plant which grows only on land too 
barren to support anything else; then up another sharper and more stony 
hill, and we pass through a scrubby thicket, and suddenly emerge on the 
summit of the mountain. 

We stand for a moment in silence, looking down 

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on the world at our feet. Words utterly fail to convey the faintest idea 
of the grandeur of the scene which bursts on our startled vision. I have 
ascended mountains higher than this, but never beheld such a scene as that 
below me, as I stood looking down, as upon a map, upon the vast country 
spread out on every side. The view was unbroken from the mountains to the 
sea, and what a scene! The sun was high in the heavens; it was nine 
o'clock, and the whole landscape was bathed in his glory. Turning 
naturally eastward at first, we see in the far distance the whole vast 
range of the Sierra Nevada; mountain piled on mountain, stretching to the 
limits of the vision north and south, with summits white with snow, 
glistening in the rays of the summer sun, beneath which the dwellers in 
the valleys are sweating at their toil. Northward the black buttes of 
Marysville, far away in Yuba county, bound the view. Southward you look 
away over the billowy hills and fresh smiling valleys to the mountains of 
the Coast Range, old Loma Prieta, a hundred miles or more away in Santa 
Cruz, being the last object distinguishable. Westward the ranges of Las 
Trampas and Alameda, and over them, the high peak of Tamalpais to the 
northward of the Golden Gate. Far away to the northwest, where Napa, Lake, 
and Sonoma counties meet, is dimly discernible the summit of Mount St. 
Helens. A white mist is on the western horizon, but, even as we gaze, the 
curtain unrolls and lifts from the scene, and we see the city of the 
Pacific, proud San Francisco, the Golden Gate, and the blue 

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ocean beyond, aye, even a steamer far out at sea, heading for the portal 
of the golden land. The bay of San Francisco is only partly visible, but 
we see on its bosom the dark form of Yerba Buena Island, and the steamers 
Washoe and Alameda plying to and from Oakland and the Encinal de Alameda, 
crowded with pleasure-seekers going over the bay for a Sunday's amusement, 
the shipping lying thickly around the wharves upon the city front. The 
rock fortress of Alcatraz, bristling with heavy guns, rising tier on tier 
from the water's edge, and surmounted with barracks and officers' 
quarters, painted of a peach bloom color, can be readily distinguished, 
and as a heavy bank of mist drifts in and covers it for a few minutes, we 
almost fancy that our ears catch the deep booming of the fog bell, 

"The weary warden that o'er sea and marshes 
Monotonously calls, 
The challenge to the foe whose stealthy marches 
Invest the city's walls." 

A fog-bank, white as driven snow, drifts swiftly up the Marin county 
shore, slides over Lime Point, and fills the defiles of Tamalpais, whose 
summit, cut off from his base, apparently rocks and pitches in the surging 
billows like the wreck of some proud ship, tossed in the breakers on a 
stormy coast. The mist is gone again, and the Presidio of San Francisco, 
with its long lines of barracks, and Fort Point, with its red brick 
fortress, stand out so plainly, that we look in momentary expectation of 
seeing the glinting of the muskets of the sentries in the sunlight, as 
they turn in their silent round and glance seaward for the foe 

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who never comes. The bay of San Pablo is nearly all visible, and the bay 
of Suisun, with its surface dotted with sails, lies uncovered before us. 
The blue of the sky overhead mingles with the blue of the sea in the west, 
all the middle ground is emerald green, and white and cold gleam the 
summits of the Sierra along the whole eastern horizon. Martinez, Pacheco, 
Alamo, San Ramon, Lafayette and Clayton lie at our feet; it seems as if 
you might toss a stone into either of them from where we stand; and, on 
the other side of the straits of Carquinez, Benicia, and Vallejo, with 
every building plain and distinct, are to be seen. Suisun, Rio Vista and 
Freeport, farther northward, are plainly visible, and we see Sacramento, 
embowered in shade trees, distinctly in the northeast. Nearer where we 
stand, we see long threads of yellow water twisting and winding among tule 
marshes and low plains. It seems hardly possible that one of these is the 
lordly Sacramento, whose waters are thick with the earth from a thousand 
hills, being washed down by the miners in their search for gold, and on 
whose bosom is borne the commerce and treasure of the State, and the lands 
beyond the Sierra Coming in from the southwest is another winding stream 
of somewhat purer water, and the eye follows it up through vast, treeless 
plains to the southward, until the limit of vision is reached, and it 
glitters in the sunlight on the edge of the horizon like a broken bit of 
rainbow on a cloud; this is the San Joaquin. The dozen lesser rivers 
emptying into one or the other are hardly distinguishable in the bayous 
and natural 

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canals which cut up the tule marshes in all directions. Eternal Winter 
looks down from the snow-capped summits of the Sierra Nevada on Summer, in 
all her riches, in the valleys below us, and we, looking at both by turns, 
have but to cast our eyes toward San Francisco, where summer heat is never 
fully felt, and winter's cold never comes, to see eternal Spring. Tropical 
heat is felt, and tropical fruits flourish in the valleys of Sacramento 
and the San Joaquin, and up on yonder mountains, near the limit of human 
habitation, the climate and productions of New England may be found. The 
gold placers of the foothills, the quartz ranges of the mountains, the 
wide valleys and rich alluvial bottom lands, resembling those of the Delta 
of the Mississippi, along the Sacramento and San Joaquin, the vine-clad 
hills of Napa and Sonoma, the great pine forests of the upper mountains, 
the boundless pastures of Contra Costa and Alameda, all lie before us. 
Without Le Sage's demon's gift, we look down into the dooryards, and upon 
the roofs of half the dwellers in all the goodly land of California. 
Pacheco Valley, rich with the broad acres of ripening grain, where the 
reapers are already at work; Moragua Valley, green as an emerald lake, 
where the haymakers are; Livermore, San Ramon, Nashau, Marsh, Walnut, and 
a dozen other valleys, are around us. There is grass enough standing in 
the valleys beneath us, to feed countless thousands of cattle, but since 
the great drouth of 1863-4, the country is almost stripped of live stock, 
and we look over miles on miles of pasture, in which we cannot discern a 
single animal. To 

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the southwest, half way down the mountain side, we see a lovely little 
lake, which seems the abode of fairies. No human habitation is within 
miles of it, and it is the haunt of wild game, hare, rabbits, quail, 
doves, even grizzly bears it is said, are sometimes to be found there. As 
we look down upon it, we see a herd of brown deer wading around in its 
clear waters, or lying at ease under the broad spreading live oaks around 
it. We could sit and gaze and dream for days, if we had the time to spare, 
and even then not be able to recount the half of the glories and the 
beauties of the wondrous panorama of mountain, plain, river, ocean, city, 
village, bay, forest, and boundless valley spread before us. 

But the sun is already climbing high overhead, and approaching the 
meridian, and we have at least forty good miles ride yet before nightfall; 
so we hastily discuss our luncheon, wondering all the time, as we look 
down from the heights to which we have climbed, at the stupidity of those 
who dwell in the land below us. Of the two hundred and fifty thousand 
people who glance up at the peak where we are sitting, every day of their 
lives, not a thousand ever stood where we are standing, and beheld what we 
behold And yet people leave San Francisco by every steamer to travel over 
Europe, or climb the pigmy heights of Mount Washington or the Catskills in 
search of the grand and beautiful in nature, and the "Colfax party" 
crossed the continent in search of wonders, and missed the grandest scene 
of all. Well, this is a very queer world. 

Luncheon finished, we make a punch from the last 

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of the pisco, and on the principle of always speaking well of the person 
whose hospitality you are enjoying, solemnly drink the health of "San 
Diablo," fancying to ourselves the wink and chuckle in which the old 
gentleman indulged when he heard that pious prefix to his name announced. 
One more look all around the horizon--over at the ocean to the westward--
across the great interior valley of California to the great Sierra on the 
eastward, where delicate coral hues arc beginning to flush the snow-fields 
glittering in the noonday sun; southward and northward to where the earth 
and sky joined to shut off the vision--then loosened the cinches of our 
Spanish saddles, and rearranged them to prevent their sliding forward over 
the horses' heads in the descent, and regretfully started down the 
mountain. We had gone but a few rods, when somebody gave a yell, and off 
went all the horses on a gallop over rocks and shelving hillsides, where 
to stumble was to insure a broken neck, and to fall was a joke not to be 
endured twice in a lifetime. As we went helter-skelter down the hogback, 
"I heard something fall with a dull thud, and looking tip, discovered 
Juanita standing over me with the saddle under her neck, waiting patiently 
for me to recover my senses. I remounted as soon as possible, and rejoined 
my friends at Deer Flat, where they were waiting, not knowing what had 
become of me. Again we are off, and as we strike the bridle-path cut along 
the face of the precipice, yell after yell, and whoop la Apache succeeds 
whoop la Camanche, while the horses break into a gallop, and we turn in 

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and out the winding road, and dash down the steep declivity with something 
of the sensation which the hawk or eagle must feel as he sets his wings at 
an angle, and slides down with arrowy swiftness from the realms of ether 
toward the lower earth. Stones dislodged by our horses' feet go over the 
precipice, and we hear them bound and crack from rock to rock down to the 
very bottom of the caon, hundreds of feet below; but the sense of danger 
seems to give fresh, zest to the excitement of man and horse, and the mad 
gallop is not broken until we reach the wagon-road in the bed of the 
creek, or the bottom of the great ravine by which we entered the mountain. 
Then the guide and myself run our horses across an irrigating dam, strike 
a hard, smooth mesa, dotted with live oaks like an orchard, and leaving 
our friends to go round by the road, ride at the full speed of our 
mustangs down it, only halting when we have reached the stable at Clayton, 
and dismount to order dinner. 

Dinner over, we re-saddle and hitch up, and are off at two P. M. for San 
Francisco, by the road we came on the previous day. An occasional race, 
pistol shooting at quail or hare, a lunch by a mountain spring by the 
roadside, and occasional halts for "refreshments," only diversifying the 
ride homewards, and at six P. M. we are again on board the Washoe at 
Oakland, steaming across the Bay of San Francisco, having ridden fifty 
miles up and down mountains and across the valleys since sunrIse. 

Reader, it would pay you to make the trip, and may you be with us when 
next we mount our fiery and untamed caballos to ride up and down Mount 
Diablo.