By the Golden Gate Part 6

The effect of pictures is well ill.u.s.trated by a scene in the ninth century, as when, in answer to the request of Bogoris, King of the Bulgarians, the Emperor Michael, of Constantinople, sent to him a painter to decorate the hall of his palace with subjects of a terrible character. It was Methodius, the monk, who was despatched to the Bulgarian court on this mission, and he took for his theme the Last Judgment as being the most terrible of all scenes. The representation of h.e.l.l so alarmed the king that he cast aside his idols, and many of his subjects were converted. The Franciscans in their work both in Mexico and in California understood well the value of pictures in convincing the untutored mind. Hence it was the custom to have pictures of heaven and h.e.l.l on the walls of the Missions. They were better than sermons. The name of the Mission here was at first, simply San Francisco de Asis. Then in time Dolores was added to indicate its locality, because it was west of a Laguna bordered with "Weeping Willows" or because three Indians had been seen weeping in its vicinity. Naturally the t.i.tle of the Virgin would be applied to the Mission,--Nuestra Senora de Los Dolores, "Our Lady of Sorrows." In this Mission, as well as in the others, the Indians were in a certain sense slaves, as the Fathers controlled all their movements. The religious instruction was of the simplest character. The life of the convert also was somewhat childlike, in marked contrast with his experience in his savage condition. His breakfast consisted of a kind of gruel made of corn, called Atole. The dinner was Pozoli, and the supper the same as breakfast. The Christian Indians lived in adobe huts--of which the Padres kept the keys. Some of the Missions were noted for their wealth. For example, as you may read in the Annals of San Francisco, the Mission Dolores, in its palmiest days, about the year 1825, possessed 76,000 head of cattle, 950 tame horses, 2,000 breeding mares, 84 stud of choice breed, 820 mules, 79,000 sheep, 2,000 hogs, 456 yoke of working oxen, 18,000 bushels of wheat and barley, $35,000 in merchandise and $25,000 in specie.

Such prosperity in time was fatal to the Missions. The spiritual life was deadened, and in time it might be said that Ichabod was written on them. The glory has departed. The early Franciscans were men of deep, religious fervour, self-denying and G.o.dly. They did a splendid work among the Indians in California. Father Junipero was a saintly man, full of labour, enduring hards.h.i.+ps for Christ's sake, and he is worthy of being ranked with the saints of old. Padre Palott was a man of like character, and there were others who caught the inspiration of his life. When Junipero knew that his pilgrimage was about ended he wrote a farewell letter to his Franciscans; and then, on the 28th of August, 1784, having bade good-bye to his fellow-labourer, Padre Palou, he closed his eyes in the last sleep, and was laid to rest at San Carlos.

The lives of such men make a bright spot in the early history of California; and as most of its towns and cities have San or Santa as a part of their names it is well to recall the fact that the word Saint was not unmeaning on the lips of those Franciscan Missionaries who laboured on these sh.o.r.es and taught the ignorant savage the way of life. On the day when Doctor Ashton and I visited the Mission Dolores we were deeply impressed with what we saw. There stood the old building, partly overshadowed by the new edifice erected recently just north of it. Yonder were the hills, north and south and west, which from the first had looked down upon it; but the old gardens and olive trees which had surrounded it for many years were gone, and instead the eye fell on blocks of comfortable houses and streets suggestive of the new life which had taken place of the old. The bull-fights which used to take place near this spot on Sunday afternoons are things of the past happily, and the gay, moving throngs, with picturesque costume of Spanish make and Mexican hue, have forever vanished. The old graveyard with its high walls on the south side of the Church remains. Tall gra.s.s bends over the prostrate tombstones, a willow tree serves as a mourning sentinel here and there, while the odours of flowers, emblems of undying hopes, are wafted to us on the balmy air as we stand, with memories of the past rus.h.i.+ng on the mind, and gaze silently on the scene. The building looks very quaint in the midst of the modern life which surrounds it. It is a monument of by-gone days with its adobe walls and tiled roof. Its front has in it a suggestion of an Egyptian temple. Its architecture is Spanish and Mexican and old Californian combined. You can not fail to carry away its picture in your memory, for without any effort on your part it is photographed on your mind for the remainder of your days. These old Mission buildings of California and of Mexico too are all very similar in their construction. Some have the tower which reminds you of the Minaret of a mosque. I fancy, as the idea of the Mission building with its rectangular grounds, generally walled, came from Spain, that the mosque, with its square enclosure and houses for its attendants, was its model. The Moors of Spain have left their impress behind them in architecture as well as in other things. They borrowed from Constantinople, and the City of the Golden Horn has extended its influence in one way and another over all the civilised world. But Dolores is crumbling, and its services, still held, and its "Bells,"

of which Bret Harte sang so sweetly years ago, can not arrest its decay. In it is seen "the dying glow of Spanish glory," which once, like a cimeter, flashed forth here. Yet, though a building fall and a nation be uprooted, "the Church of Jesus constant will remain,"

shedding its glory on generation after generation and beautifying the human race!

Let us now pursue our walk in a northwesterly direction to the Presidio. The descendants of the old Spanish families in San Francisco p.r.o.nounce the word still in the Castilian way, with the vowels long, and the full continental sound is given. This makes the name very musical as it is syllabled on their lips. What is the Presidio? This was originally the Military Post of the Spaniards, but it is now the Military Reservation of the United States. We are carried back to the old Spanish days as we tread the well kept walks of this garrisoned post. It was on Sept. 17, 1776, as we learn that it was established.

There were four of these Presidios in California, one at San Diego, the second at Santa Barbara, the third at Monterey, and the fourth here by the waters of the Golden Gate. They were built on the lines of a square, three hundred feet long on each side, and the walls were made of adobes formed of ashes and earth. Within this enclosure were the necessary buildings, of the simplest construction, such as the Commandante's house, the barracks, the store house, the shops and the jail. The government buildings as a rule were whitewashed. The chief object of the Presidios was to give protection to the Missionaries and guard them against the Indians. The full complement of soldiers in each Presidio was two hundred and fifty--but the number rarely reached as high as this. The soldiers in those early days were not, as a rule, of the highest standing. Many of them were from the dregs of the Mexican army, and among them were men sometimes who had committed crime and were in a measure in banishment.

There could be no greater contrast possible than that between the Presidio of Spanish days and the Presidio of the present time, both as to the place and the personnel of the officers and men of the garrison. As you look around you now your eyes rest on wide and handsome parade grounds, on beautiful gardens where flowers bloom in luxuriance, on groups of the Monterey Cypress, on neatly trimmed hedges, on walks in many places bordered with cannon b.a.l.l.s, on attractive buildings which have a homelike aspect with vines climbing the walls, on barracks where the soldiers are made comfortable. The Presidio looks like a settlement in itself, and is very picturesque.

I will not soon forget the beautiful, balmy afternoon, when I walked through the grounds on my way to the hills above the ocean. Here everything was suggestive of forethought, of care, of order, of dignity. The Reservation stretched out on every hand and over to the sh.o.r.e of the Bay northward where it has a water frontage of at least a mile and a half. In all its area it embraces a landscape, varied and undulating, of one thousand, five hundred and forty-two acres. It is a n.o.ble park in itself and well may the nation be proud of it. The Presidio was first occupied by United States troops in 1847, on March 4th, when the sword was trembling in the weak hands of Spain. On November 6th, 1850, President Millard Fillmore set these grounds apart forever as a Military Reservation. As I walked on, before me to the west, rose hundreds of tents in which were soldiers, some of whom had returned from the Philippine Islands, and others of them were soon to embark for the Orient. Yonder too is the cemetery, where, as on Arlington Heights above the Potomac, sleep the Nation's dead; and

"There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay."

After your visit to the Presidio you will naturally desire to go to the Cliff House, that world renowned resort on Point Lobos south of the Golden Gate, and about seven miles distant from the City Hall.

Thousands frequent this favoured spot annually, and especially on Sat.u.r.day afternoons is it thronged. You can reach the Cliff either by the street cars going by Golden Gate Park, or by the electric railway which skirts the rocky heights of the Golden Gate. This last was our route, and the return journey was by the street railway. A Mr. Black and a Mr. Norton, two of San Francisco's prosperous business-men, were going thither also, and, seeing that we were strangers, they with true California courtesy gave us much information and showed us favours which we valued highly. As we sped westward, on our right was Fort Point just rising above tide water with its granite and brick walls and strong fortifications and powerful guns guarding the entrance to the Bay of San Francisco.

Close by the Cliff House, and north of it, are the famous Sutro Baths, always well patronised; and the lofty, vaulted building in which they are located impresses you greatly as you enter it. It stands on the sh.o.r.e of the sea, reaching out into the deep; and the waters, which fill the swimming pools of various depths, flow in from old ocean in all their virgin purity. Here you will find all the best equipments and conveniences of a bath house.

After bathing you may ascend to a long gallery of the building, where is a museum with a valuable collection of Indian relics and stuffed animals and archaeological specimens, and even mummies from old Egypt in their well preserved cases. The view from the heights above the Cliff House is magnificent. Almost at your feet, about two hundred and fifty yards from the sh.o.r.e, are the Seal Rocks rising up in their h.o.a.ry forms from the sea and against whose sides the waves dash from time to time in rythmical cadence. Here are hundreds of sea-lions, young and old, basking in the sun or disporting themselves in the waters, and ever and anon you hear their roaring, reminding you that here is nature's grand aquarium. As you look northward you see the rocky sh.o.r.es of the ocean for miles, while to the south your eyes rest on a receding beach; and in a direct line some twenty miles westward are the Farallones or Needles, a group of seven islands consisting of barren rocks, the largest of which, comprising some two acres in area, has a spring of pure water and is surmounted by a lighthouse. Here too are vast numbers of sea-lions and wild birds of the sea, which make these islets their home, nothing daunted by the billows which roll over them in wind and storm. Surely it is a picture of the steadfast soul in the midst of commotions, when the waves of the sea of human pa.s.sions "are mighty and rage horribly!" As you look out toward the Farallones, as lights and shadows fall on them, you almost imagine that they are s.h.i.+ps from distant sh.o.r.es ploughing their way to the Golden Gate. But what of the Golden Gate, on which our eyes now rest?

The name naturally recalls to mind the "Golden Gate" in the wall of Theodosius, in Constantinople, with its three arches and twin, marble towers, now indeed walled up to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy that the Christian Conqueror who is to take the city will enter through it. A similar belief prevails concerning the Golden Gate of the Temple Area in Jerusalem, which is also effectually barred. But whoever named it doubtless had in mind the "Golden Horn," that n.o.ble right arm of the Bosphorus, embracing Stamboul and its suburbs for five miles up to the "Sweet Waters of Europe." There are indeed some correspondences between the two. As the wealth of the Orient flows into the Golden Horn, the harbour of Constantinople for many centuries, so the riches of commerce, the products of great states west of the Rocky Mountains, and the treasures of the Pacific, pa.s.s through the Golden Gate. The Golden Gate too is about five miles in length, although at its entrance it is a little over a mile wide and widens out as you sail into the great Bay of which it is the outlet.

This is located in lat.i.tude 37 48' north and in longitude 122 24'

32" west of Greenwich, and has a depth of thirty feet on the bar while inside of its mouth it ranges from sixty to one hundred feet. The sh.o.r.es are a striking feature, and on the south side range from three hundred to four hundred feet in height, while on the north the hills, in places, attain an alt.i.tude of two thousand feet; and these adamantine walls, witnesses of many a stirring event in the history of California, are clothed in green in spring-time, while in autumn they are brown, and from the distance resemble huge lions, couchant, guardians of the Gate. But who gave it its name, and why is it so called? These were my questions. Among the residents of San Francisco, whom I asked, was a Senora whose countenance plainly indicated her Spanish descent, and she said it took its name from the Golden Poppy of California. This was the Gateway to the land of the Golden Poppy.

The Poppy is called Chryseis at times, after one of the characters of Homer; and it is also known by the Spanish name, especially in the early days, Caliz de Oro, Chalice of Gold. Another designation, used by the poets, is Copa de Oro, Cup of Gold; while in Indian legends it has sometimes been styled, "Fire-Flower" and "Great Spirit Flower." It was the belief among the Indians, when they saw the people flocking for gold from all directions, that the petals of the "Great Spirit Flower," dropping year after year into the earth, had been turned into yellow gold. The Golden Poppy, the State Flower of California, blooms in great profusion and with marvellous beauty on hillside in plain and valley, in field and garden, by lake and river, from the Sierras to the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific, and it is especially abundant on the hills which skirt the sh.o.r.es of the Golden Gate. Indeed in spring time these are one ma.s.s of gold; and hence it would not require much imagination to coin the magic name by which the gateway to one of the grandest Bays in the world is known. An old Californian song well describes the beauty and luxuriance of this suggestive Flower.

"O'er the foothills, through the meadows, Midst the canons' lights and shadows, Spreading with their amber glow, Lo, the golden poppies grow!

Golden poppies, deep and hollow, Golden poppies, rich and mellow, Radiant in their robes of yellow, Lo, the golden poppies grow!"

The honour of having named the Gate, however, is generally conceded to General John C. Fremont. In his "Memoirs" he says: "To this Gate I gave the name of Chrysopylae or Golden Gate, for the same reasons that the harbour of Byzantium (Constantinople) was named the Golden Horn (Chrysoceras)." It has been hinted nevertheless that Sir Francis Drake gave it its appellation; and if this be so the euphonious name would be suggested by his s.h.i.+p in which he sailed along this coast, the _Golden Hind._ At first the s.h.i.+p bore the name of _Pelican_, but at Cape Virgins, at the entrance to the Straits of Magellan, Drake changed it to the _Golden Hind_, in honour of his patron Sir Christopher Hatton, on whose coat of arms was a Golden Hind. Not without interest do we follow the fortunes of this s.h.i.+p. When finally she was moored in her English port after her voyages, and was put out of commission as unseaworthy, and fell into decay, though guarded with care, John Davis, the English navigator, had a chair made out of her timbers, which he presented to the University of Oxford, still guarded sacredly in the Bodleian Library. No wonder that Cowley, while sitting in it, wrote his stirring lines, and apostrophised it as "Great Relic!" How n.o.ble this thought.

"The straits of time too narrow are for thee-- Launch forth into an undiscovered sea, And steer the endless course of vast eternity; Take for thy sail, this verse, and for thy pilot, me!"

Had we stood on these lofty sh.o.r.es by the Golden Gate in the early summer of 1579 we would have descried the _Golden Hind_ ploughing the waters of the Pacific northward. Her course was as far north as lat.i.tude 42 on June 3rd. Owing, however, to the cold weather Drake returned southward to find a "convenient and fit harbour" for rest and refitting of the vessel; and, as one of the narrators of the voyage writes, "It pleased G.o.d to send us into a fair and good bay, with a good wind to enter the same." Was this what is known as Drake's Bay or popularly as Jack's Bay, southeast of Point los Reyes, or was it the Bay of San Francisco? Justin Winsor, in his Narrative and Critical History of America, and Hubert Howe Bancroft, in his History of California, discuss this matter in an exhaustive manner; and the reader after sifting all the evidence afforded, will still be free to form his own judgment. Some writers, wis.h.i.+ng to give the glory to the Spaniards, arrive at conclusions hastily, though of course a name like that of Bancroft carries great weight and his arguments deserve the highest consideration. The question then is, Was the _Golden Hind_ the first s.h.i.+p to cross the bar and pa.s.s through the Golden Gate, in the name of Queen Elizabeth of England? Or was it Juan Bautista de Ayala's s.h.i.+p, _San Carlos_, in August, 1775, in the name of Charles III. of Spain?

It seems to the writer that a man of Drake's discernment and perception and experience would not be likely to pa.s.s by the Golden Gate without seeing it and entering it. True, it may have been veiled in fog, such as you may see the trade winds driving into the Bay to-day often in the afternoon, but there are many hours when the Gate is clear and when it could hardly escape the notice of an experienced seaman. The intercourse of Drake with the Indians who crowned him as king, the services used on these sh.o.r.es out of the old Book of Common Prayer by "Master Fletcher," the _Golden Hind's_ chaplain, the naming of the country Albion from its white cliffs in honour of Britain's ancient t.i.tle, and the taking possession of it in the Queen's name, and many other interesting things, are all told in the old narratives, as you may find the story in Hakluyt's Collection; and most edifying is it, opening up a new world and making a romantic chapter in the early history of California. The centuries have rolled on since that time: California has become one of the brightest jewels in the crown of the Republic; San Francisco has been born and has attained greatness never dreamed of by those pioneers who laid her foundations, and before her is a grand career owing to her position and character.

She is the child of destiny, with her sceptre extended over the seas which bind to her the great Orient. When John C. Calhoun was Secretary of State he laid his finger on the map where San Francisco stands now, and said: "There, when this Bay comes into our possession, will spring up the great rival of New York." Give San Francisco a history as long as that of New York, and then see what mighty force she will develop.

Has she not at her feet all the great States which stretch out beyond the Rocky Mountains? Has she not the homage of all the Pacific coast lands with their untold wealth? And are not her perpetuity and greatness a.s.sured? "Whoever," says Sir Walter Raleigh, "commands the sea commands the trade of the world, and whoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself." True is it that San Francisco commands the riches of Alaska, the commerce of China and j.a.pan, the wealth of the Sandwich Islands and of the Philippine Archipelago as well as the products of the South Seas, and what more can she desire? Her cup, a golden cup, is full to overflowing; and I see the years coming, in the visions of the future, when the city will cover, like a jewelled robe, the whole Peninsula as far south as San Jose and will embrace within her government the flouris.h.i.+ng towns upon the beautiful sh.o.r.es of her great Bay. Yes, Alameda and Oakland, Berkeley and Benicia, Vallejo and Saucelito, and the villages as far north as San Rafael with all their rich fruitage, will sparkle in her diadem, and teeming millions will be enrolled within her borders rejoicing in her prosperity and her grandeur. All the advantages of Tyre and Corinth and Alexandria, of the ancient world, are her heritage without the elements of decay which led to their downfall; and if she but hold fast the principles of righteousness, which are the best bulwarks of a city or state, she will continue to reign as a queen to latest generations, sitting on her exalted throne by the Golden Gate!