BANCROFT 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 < 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK 
 
 BY 
 
 A LONDON PARSON. 
 
 r |4-aj~r. ; 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF 
 
 THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, 
 
 APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING 
 
 CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE; 
 
 SOLD AT THE DEPOSITORIES : 
 
 77, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS; 
 
 4, ROYAL EXCHANGE ; 48, PICCADILLY ; 
 
 AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 " 
 

 [Reprinted from the "People's Magazine."] 
 
 LONDON- 
 
 PRINTED BY JAS. TRUSCOTT AND Sow, 
 Suffolk Lane, City. 
 
Bancroft Library 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. The Voyage Out 1 
 
 II. First Walk about New York 11 
 
 III. Niagara to Chicago ........ 23 
 
 IV. From Chicago to San Francisco 32 
 
 V. The Great Railroad 48 
 
 VI. San Francisco 67 
 
 VII. The Yo Semite Valley 84 
 
 Vin. To the Forest 100 
 
 IX. The Mormon City 114 
 
 X. The Salt Lake City 135 
 
 XI. Eeturn Journey . . . * . . . . 150 
 
 XII. Pauperism Negro Labour 159 
 
 XHL Cincinnati and Philadelphia 164 
 
 XIV. A Short Run Southward 177 
 
 XV. Religion in the United States 195 
 
 XVI. Some account of the Landing and Treatment of 
 
 Emigrants in New York 210 
 
 13 
 
TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 THE VOYAGE OUT. 
 
 THOUGH what forms an agreeable recollection to me 
 revives the memory of wearisome hours to not a few, 
 some of our readers may care to know the impression 
 which an ocean voyage made upon one who had never 
 crossed the Atlantic, or indeed any of the great seas, 
 before. Fortunately for me, I am in- one respect a 
 good sailor, and entirely escaped the misery in which 
 the majority of my fellow-passengers passed the first 
 few days of our voyage. 
 
 By getting to Liverpool betimes, and immediately 
 going on board the " China " in her tender, which 
 happened to be leaving the landing-stage as I reached 
 it, I secured an early chance of a room to myself a 
 great luxury, for two berths in a cabin of about eight 
 feet square is close work, especially when shared for 
 some nine or ten days. 
 
 B 
 
2 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 We went on board on a Saturday, in a small 
 steamer, another carrying the luggage. The mail 
 came out afterwards in a separate tender. We had a 
 perfectly smooth sail to Queenstown, where we were 
 delayed eleven hours for the last mail from London 
 via Holyhead. The long ship lay out in Queenstown 
 Harbour, standing as steady as a pier in the flat 
 water, while a fringe of wailing gulls hung round us 
 for scraps, and showed into what clean and graceful 
 shapes even the garbage of a steamboat may be trans- 
 formed. But we sorely grudged the delay, as it drew 
 heavily upon our chances of fine weather. At last 
 the mail came off in a tender eighty-four sacks of 
 letters and, as soon as this vessel was made fast 
 alongside, was run on board by a train of men as fast 
 as they could trot. We began to move while this 
 process was being carried on. Then our pilot stepped 
 on board the small steamer, which left us. We had 
 still one link left to the Old World, in the shape of a 
 shore boat. This clung to us for some time, probably 
 in hopes of picking up a job in the shape of some 
 forgotten message or parcel. 
 
 At last the order came from deck, " Let go ! " and 
 though those of our readers who are familiar with 
 the passage to America may smile at my sentiment, 
 it was a touching moment when this last home tie 
 was loosened and the boat fell astern, dancing in the 
 foam of our screw. 
 
THE VOYAGE OUT. 3 
 
 " Full speed" was now marked by the indicator on 
 deck. Leaving the last lighthouse on the Irish coast, 
 our head was pointed for New York, and our engines 
 throbbed day and night like a great iron heart which 
 sent its pulse through every beam and plank and spar, 
 till it paused to pick up our pilot on the other side 
 of the Atlantic. 
 
 Our first experience of the ocean was so it looked 
 a boundless midnight plain of molten lead. There 
 was not the faintest whisper of a wind. The red 
 August moon came out and laid a track of gold upon 
 the water, while two bright lines of sapphire light 
 sprang from the ship's bows, "We were passing 
 through a highly phosphorescent sea. The sight was 
 most beautiful. 
 
 Soon, however, the bright fabric of hope that we 
 should carry this weather with us was rudely dis- 
 sipated. The " China " is some 320 feet in length, over 
 all. Her upper deck is flush or unbroken for about 
 300 feet. Next morning, as I stood by the taffrail, 
 this long deck rose like a hill in a straight white road, 
 and then, as we topped the crests of the great moving 
 ranges of water, slid down as if the world were sink- 
 ing. It was our first experience of the Atlantic 
 " swell." At first we saw no ships. Though on the 
 high road between Europe and America, we passed 
 day after day without seeing a single sail. Of course 
 if the ocean were flat, and vessels made the straightest 
 B 2 
 
4 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 run from point to point, we should have seen many. 
 The world, however, being round, gives a choice of 
 courses from Liverpool to New York about equal in 
 distance. Some captains always take a southern one, 
 while others, when there is not much ice, go far 
 enough north to sight Cape Kace. The loneliness of 
 the ocean is most touching. Morning after morning 
 as I went on deck there was the same round horizon, 
 in which the great waves sometimes showed like 
 islands, and yet not a dot of a sail was to be seen. 
 Mother Carey's chickens kept us company, and now 
 and then a solitary gull visited us in mid-ocean. 
 But our chief external signs of life were whales, of 
 which we saw divers. One morning early I was 
 standing in the ship's bows, looking westward, when 
 a fine fellow heaved his long brown back up, and 
 spouted, apparently not more than eighty yards before 
 us. He seemed so near that I thought I could have 
 thrown a stone upon him. His alarm, however, at 
 seeing the " China " under full steam rushing at him 
 at a rate of some fifteen miles an hour, was excusably 
 great. So he dived faster than he rose, and I have 
 no doubt has made a most exaggerated yarn out of 
 the fright he got among the whales of his society. 
 
 On board these fine Cunard ships everything is 
 carried on with the greatest regularity. The meals 
 provided for such passengers as can eat them are 
 numerous and excellent. Breakfast at half-past eight, 
 
THE VOYAGE OUT. 5 
 
 lunch at twelve, dinner at four, tea at seven, and 
 supper at nine, are a mockery to some, but those who 
 do not suffer find the sea air wonderfully appetising. 
 The ship's company, all told, consisted of 120 men, 
 of whom 30 or 40 were stokers. There are seven 
 engineers, and the captain has four officers and a 
 purser and a surgeon under him. We found these 
 gentlemen very obliging. 
 
 I expected to be called upon to say the service on 
 Sundays ; but owing to some misunderstanding, a rule 
 had recently, so I was told, been made or followed, 
 that the captain or surgeon should read the service. 
 The crew attended, but as there was no singing, and 
 the noise of the throbbing screw nearly drowned the 
 reader's voice, it was but a dreary act of worship. 
 
 The temperature of the air well out on the Atlantic 
 remains nearly the same, about 48 or 50, summer 
 and winter. "We know no seasons here," said the 
 first officer to me one day; " they are made for the 
 land. Whether I leave New York half frozen, or with 
 the thermometer at 120, it is all the same. When 
 we get 400 or 500 miles out the mercury stands at 
 about 50." 
 
 The winds are most capricious. They veer about 
 and shift from soft to strong, and back again, con- 
 tinually. The fact is that the sudden changes ex- 
 perienced here often arise not so much from the wind 
 falling or rising as from the ship's passage from one 
 
D TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 "belt" of weather to another. One morning we 
 would be tearing through the water under sail and 
 steam, with heavy plunging, but a dry deck. Then 
 we would pass into lumpy, windless water, " like a 
 boiling pot," as the mate said, and soon afterwards 
 have to face a head sea which sent waves tumbling 
 in over the ship's bows and rushing along the main 
 deck nearly to the stern. One carried off in its 
 passage great store of the cook's apparatus, and 
 made a sudden wreck of pans and potatoes. 
 
 The chief, indeed the ever seriously recognised 
 dangers, arise from fog, during which, in some seasons 
 of the year and in some places, the ship runs the risk 
 of encountering icebergs, especially on the banks of 
 Newfoundland, and, when shore is being reached, 
 ships. But when fog comes, they still drive on "full 
 speed." That brings the ship out of it sooner, and 
 enables it to answer the helm better if occasion should 
 arise. In fog a horrible whistle, if it may be called a 
 whistle, is kept going. But it sounds more like the 
 scream of a mad bull, with a sore throat. 
 
 We had experience of this ; and there is something 
 awful in the sensation while you stand in the ship's 
 bows, seeing nothing, but rushing onwards with a 
 speed and force that would smash up the whole 
 concern if an iceberg were struck, or make a collision 
 with another vessel horrible. 
 
 At last we cleared the fog. When about 400 miles 
 
THE VOYAGE OUT. 7 
 
 from port there came dancing up from the horizon a 
 yacht-like schooner with large white sails. This held 
 our pilot. The mainsail of his boat had an enormous 
 black 1 marked upon it. The deciphering of the 
 number of the pilot-boat was a matter of anxiety to 
 twenty-four of our passengers, who had made a sweep- 
 stake of 11. each, and drawn their numbers betimes. 
 Curiously enough two acquaintances of mine, fellow- 
 travellers, had drawn respectively Nos. 1 and 17. 
 The one who drew No. 17 bought an interest in No. 2, 
 to be, as he said, near his friend. The first pilot-boat 
 was No. 1 : it supplied us with a pilot. The next 
 two numbers we saw were 2 and 17. The chances 
 against this coincidence are almost incalculable. 
 However, we got our pilot betimes. He was a little 
 man, in a landsman's dress, with a wide-awake hat, 
 and one small gray eye. As the first who comes is 
 taken, the New-Yorkers push out far for a chance. 
 I was told that the pilot got 150 dollars, or about 30Z., 
 for bringing us in. 
 
 The first sign of land was the Fire Island Light- 
 house ; then came the low hills of Long Island ; and 
 at about four o'clock on Tuesday, August 31, we 
 steamed into the grand harbour of New York, alive 
 with great white steam ferries, whose engines worked 
 above deck. 
 
 The surgeon from the Quarantine, in a white straw 
 hat, boarded us, and brought news that Oxford had 
 
8 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 won the boat-race. Every one seemed wholly possessed 
 and penetrated with this event. The Custom-house 
 officer began talking about it directly he got on deck ; 
 the driver of the coach to the hotel brimmed with the 
 subject ; and the waiters at supper found time to have 
 their say upon the matter. 
 
 I ought to mention how we mainly spent our time 
 on board. There were men of divers nations, but 
 most were Americans. Among the passengers were 
 a few of some distinction. We had a parcel of eager 
 Yankee children who incessantly played " sea quoits" 
 in which the quoit is a small ring of rope pitched 
 at a wooden peg, and not counted unless it is a ringer. 
 And as if the plunging of the ship were not enough, 
 they must needs have swings. But the quoits and 
 swings were in no request for the first three or four 
 days. Many of the passengers played at " shovel- 
 board." But pleasant conversation with fresh and 
 agreeable acquaintances was the business of the day. 
 It must do any man good, if not a settled misanthrope, 
 to be thus thrown into the company of utter strangers. 
 He is sure to meet some who look at facts from 
 another point of view than that to which he is ac- 
 customed, and who put forward their opinions with 
 intelligence. We had a world of talk, and nothing 
 could make an approach to America more wholesome 
 than the kindly 'sentiments of the Americans whom 
 an Englishman is sure to meet in his voyage to their 
 
THE VOYAGE OUT. 9 
 
 country. We English had a good deal of pleasant 
 joking with our cousins at a very peremptory notice 
 stuck up in the ship that we should write our ages, 
 occupation, last legal residence, proposed domicile, 
 &c., on the back of our tickets, hy order of the 
 Government of the United States. We told them it 
 reminded us of an entrance into Austria, whereas we 
 thought we had been going to a land of freedom. 
 But the Americans are an eminently law-loving 
 people, and very fond of regulations. In my bedroom 
 at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, I found nailed inside the 
 door not only a card with the usual directions con- 
 cerning the conduct of the house, but extracts from 
 Acts of Congress respecting the liabilities of inn- 
 keepers and hotel-keepers, and sections of an "Act to 
 prevent fraud or fraudulent practices upon or by " 
 them. At the Custom-house, too, we had each to 
 enter in a printed form the number, nature, and 
 contents of our " pieces" of luggage, and sign it before 
 they were examined. All was most orderly and 
 precise. There were, on that occasion at least, no 
 screaming "touters" and hackney-coach drivers. We 
 went quietly enough to our vehicle, and the luggage 
 was put upon its roof by civil attendants of the hotel 
 without any hint of a "tip." The only fuss was a 
 little squeezing from some of the friends of the pas- 
 sengers who wanted to get to them in the Custom- 
 house. I happened to go back for a parcel, and the 
 
10 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 way in which the officer at the gate said, " Passenger : 
 pass him in," showed the quickness with which those 
 who had just arrived were noticed. At this hotel all 
 went on with the regularity of clockwork. It is an 
 immense establishment, and eminently American. 
 Everything was beautifully clean, and I found the 
 attendants very civil. It holds 1,100 guests, and 
 appears to be quite full. Four of us English arrived 
 there together. When we sat down to dinner, an 
 official came with a request from the managers that 
 we would accept from them a bottle of excellent 
 champagne, as a compliment to us on our arrival. 
 We seemed to be almost the only Englishmen in the 
 hotel. 
 
11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FIRST WALK ABOUT NEW YORK. 
 
 LET me try to give you some of my impressions of 
 New York with the bloom on them. In visiting a 
 new country there are many surface details to which 
 the tourist soon becomes accustomed, but which at 
 first strike him with all the interesting freshness of 
 contrast. I do not pretend to provide statistics of 
 population and commerce, or to furnish grave political 
 intelligence, but simply to say what caught my eye in 
 two days' prowling about New York. I hoped to 
 return to it on my way back from the West, and, 
 using introductions, to see something of its religious 
 and educational institutions. At first I merely 
 prowled, with curiosity alive to those little features of 
 outside life which it presented to one who had just 
 landed in America for the first time, and a pleasant 
 sense of the facility with which the English traveller 
 is able to take in at once by eye and ear foreign im- 
 pressions made in his own tongue. Thus I simply 
 jot down the impressions which come uppermost as I 
 recal them. 
 
12 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 The city struck me as having a Parisian air. The 
 bright sky, the trees in the streets, the abundance of 
 green shutters, the panes of bad glass in many of the 
 shop windows, the roomy white -painted saloons or 
 cafes, the white straw hats with black ribbons worn 
 by many of the men, the large-lettered, many-coloured 
 advertisements and notices, the loose harnessing of 
 the horses, had a French appearance. 
 
 The next thing which I found myself noticing was 
 the slowness of the pace at which the vehicles moved. 
 Contrary to my expectation, there was not that strife 
 and bustle which marks the outside of London life. 
 The omnibuses, here called stages, and all painted 
 white, do little more than creep. They have no con- 
 ductors, and no seats outside. You know the sharpness 
 with which in London you are invited to go to the 
 " Bank " or " Eoyal Oak," and the peremptory smack, 
 stamp, or ring with which the conductor stops or 
 starts the 'bus. Here the driver makes no sign, but 
 crawls along as if he had no interest in a fare. You 
 hail him, get in behind, pay him through a hole in 
 the roof with a bank-note for 10 cents, or 5d. (the 
 fixed fare for all courses), when you enter the vehicle. 
 Then you rumble and bump over, I should think, the 
 worst paving-stones in the world till you want to 
 alight, giving a signal for the purpose by pulling 
 a bell inside. There are no cabs, but, beside the 
 " stages," a large number of street cars, seating about 
 
FIRST WALK ABOUT NEW YORK. 13 
 
 twenty-five persons inside and none out. These run 
 on tramways in the chief streets, and move somewhat 
 faster than the 'buses. The fares of hackney-coaches, 
 mostly with two horses, are absurdly high, and the 
 drivers are the most extortionate rascals in the world. 
 I did not employ them ; but every one, none more 
 than Americans themselves, speaks ill of the race. A 
 Hansom cab company is being established in New 
 York. 
 
 The police wear blue cloth sacks, with a metal 
 badge on the breast, and, in summer, wide-brimmed 
 white straw hats. They are all thin, and seem chosen 
 for their inches, which are many. 
 
 There are at least I saw no street beggars, 
 wandering organ-grinders, or Punches. Everybody 
 seems bent upon an errand, though he does not bustle. 
 I missed at once the tattered men who loaf about 
 London ; also the blear-eyed, sodden groups outside 
 public-houses, and the street Arabs. 
 
 There is, no doubt, plenty of vice and debauchery 
 in New York, but in strolling by night about its 
 streets I can only say that I did not detect that class 
 which pollutes the great arteries of London. This 
 surprised me, for some of the papers in the hotel 
 reading-room contain many advertisements which a 
 respectable English journal would not publish. But 
 I must say what I saw. 
 
 With regard to other street features, I was much 
 
14 TO SAX FBJL 
 
 struck with the condition of the 
 way, which is the chief 
 nearly parallel to the Fifth Ai 
 fufl of grand, mostly 
 private residences. In starting 
 morning towards the "Central Park" the Hyde 
 Park and Kensington Gardens efthe place I walked 
 op Broadway, which is tiafctaed by numbers of 
 omnibuses, and in this part by can. I MOB noticed 
 grass growing in the gotten and bitwuM the stones 
 of the pavement. The patches of this became larger, 
 tfll at last I came to three geese, a cow, and a celt j 
 contentedly grazing in the Oxford Street of this great 
 city. The houses die down to wretched white-washed 
 wooden cabins, set anyhow, and inhabited by Irish, 
 before the most fashionable resort of the citizens is 
 reached. The park itself not ''central" as yet, though 
 called such is admirably laid out with walks, drives, 
 shrubberies, and ornamental pieces of water; but the 
 city is not built up to it At the other emd of Broad- 
 way, "down town," every inch of ground seeaM prev 
 but the "West-end," as it were, before jt get to the 
 park, is strikingly incomplete. The New-Yorkers 
 are, I suppose, too busy to smarten it up till 
 want it in earnest. Thus a portion is left to an 
 irregular settlement of hotels and their poor tenants. 
 Yet, as I said, the poorest people haw all appar 
 work to do. Some of the can are driwn 1 
 
15 
 
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16 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 a population about one-fourth that of London. Parallel 
 avenues traverse it lengthways ; these are cut at right 
 angles hy streets. The traffic between the city and 
 its suburbs Jersey City and Brooklyn is carried on 
 by immense and numerous white ferry-boats, which 
 can take some fifteen or twenty vehicles, horses and 
 afl, under cover, besides a large number of foot- 
 passengers, for whom covered accommodation is found 
 in another part of the boat. The fare by them for 
 foot-passengers is 3 cents, or ~Ld. Their engines 
 work aboveboard, and they move with as much steadi- 
 ness as if they were sliding on ice. 
 
 Besides these there are many river steamers. Their 
 size and equipment are amazing. Let me try to de- 
 scribe the "St. John," which plies on the Hudson. It 
 is 417 feet long, 80 feet wide, and has three decks. 
 It is larger than the largest ocean Cunard steamship. 
 Its saloons are furnished as sumptuously as any 
 drawing-room, having prints, expensive photographs, 
 stereoscopes, &c., on the tables. It has bedroom 
 accommodation for 600 persons, and will carry, they 
 say, 3,000. One saloon, surrounded with cabins, that 
 I looked into, was about 150 feet long, 20 feet high, 
 and lit with magnificent clustered gas chandeliers. 
 The dining-rooms are elaborately provided with every- 
 thing seen in a first-class hotel. Crowds of civil 
 negroes, in spotless white jackets, wait at the tables, 
 which are ornamented with artificial flowers. There 
 
FIKST WALK ABOUT NEW YORK. 17 
 
 are, of course, extensive kitchens, cellars, and ice- 
 houses. Ornamental fountains or taps of iced water- 
 are dispersed through the ship. There are bars where 
 you can order any kind of drink you please, hair- 
 dressers' shops, bookstalls, &c., in these vessels. 
 Large mirrors, soft-piled carpets, the most exquisite 
 cleanliness (even the door of the stoke-hole was of 
 white panel, with white china handles, and quite 
 clean), entirely remove the idea of your being on 
 board a river steamer. Other appliances for comfort 
 and convenience are perfect. The washing apparatus 
 is as good as that in a London club-house. Smoking 
 is strictly prohibited, except in certain portions of the 
 ship. The arrangements for tickets, baggage, &c., are 
 admirable. There is no noise or bustle. I ascended 
 the Hudson to Albany in one of these floating hotels. 
 The pace at which they move through the water is 
 prodigious. With the tide, the one I was in would 
 go twenty-five miles an hour, 
 
 I fancy that some of your readers will think I am 
 exaggerating in this account of the New York river 
 boats ; but I am not. Americans are justly proud of 
 them ; and although I had heard they were excellent, 
 they took me entirely by surprise. The whole of 
 these monster ships are painted white, even to the 
 decks. Altogether the fares are very reasonable. 
 First, second, and third classes are supposed to be 
 unknown here, though in fact on some of the railways 
 
 c 
 
18 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 there are tickets marked " first class," and if you use 
 a sleeping-car you pay a little more. On board the 
 steamers the poorest people fight shy of the luxurious 
 saloons. But there seemed to he no poor passengers 
 on hoard the boat I travelled in from New York to 
 Albany. Where, I asked myself, are the ill-dressed, 
 ill-mannered people one might expect to meet where 
 hundreds share the same journey ? I looked for them 
 in vain. There is, indeed, one notorious American 
 habit which is recognised on board the steamer by an 
 abundant supply of white china spittoons. Fewer, 
 much fewer, indulged in this habit than I expected. 
 I am bound to say, however, that an American who 
 does spit "whips creation." For inexhaustible 
 fertility of juiciness commend me to an American 
 spitter. 
 
 The scenery on the Hudson is very beautiful. 
 Villas and mansions stud its banks. We stopped a 
 few hours at Albany, the metropolis of New York 
 State. Here was the same bad pavement, the same 
 complete occupation of the people. I saw no roughs, 
 loafers, or Arabs. Once, turning a corner, I came 
 on a pair of bare dirty legs, the body which belonged to 
 them being concealed in a doorway. Here is an Arab, 
 thought I. But he was sitting down reading a news- 
 paper. 
 
 To go back to the steamer for a minute. We had 
 negro melodists on board, with the banjo and familiar 
 
FIRST WALK ABOUT NEW YORK. 19 
 
 tunes but the real thing, with wonderful mouths and 
 teeth. I must tell you, too, of the negro "barbers in 
 the hairdresser's shop in the ship. I had my hair 
 cut by one, and it was a new sensation. You are laid 
 back in a chair with your legs on a high stool. 
 Sambo is curiously deliberate. He cruises about you 
 with little flips and touches before he begins. Then 
 he scratches your head lazily with his own fingers and 
 slow sympathetic sleepiness. Time is no object to 
 him. He pauses to look out of the window. When 
 he has scratched your head, he brings a dish of rose- 
 water and washes your face, ej T es, neck, and ears, with 
 the gentlest and most searching touch possible. He 
 stops to smile on you, and fetch some other bottle of 
 scent. This washing, by the way, is a most exquisite 
 refreshment at a railway station, where Sambo is sure 
 to appear. Then he completes the process with the 
 same smiling gravity, as if you were the last he 
 should ever have the chance of operating on after 
 the manner that he loves. At some places you may 
 have your shoes blacked at the same time that your 
 head is dressed. 
 
 At Albany, we, in American phrase, "went on board 
 the train " for Niagara Falls. The train started at 
 11 P.M. There was a sleeping-car attached to it, with 
 regular beds, pillows, sheets, washing-basins, shoe- 
 blacking, and all the rest of it. I was too sleepy to 
 go to bed, and went off soundly at once, directly I had 
 c 2 
 
20 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 taken my place in the first seat, till the next morning. 
 I woke at a quarter to five, to find myself in a compart- 
 ment fifty feet long and nine feet high, fitted with 
 
 AMERICAN LOCOMOTIVE. 
 
 velvet-padded seats, most roomy and comfortable. A 
 cord hung along the roof for any passengers to call the 
 guard. A street, as it were, runs the entire length of 
 
FIRST WALK ABOUT NEW YORK. 21 
 
 the train, so that you may walk from one end to the 
 other. I had heard a great deal of the jolting in the 
 American " cars," but I was able to write and read 
 easily. At Syracuse, by five o'clock in the morning 
 boys boarded the train with the newspapers. I bought 
 one, and found extracts from the leaders in the Times 
 and other London papers of the day before, furnished 
 by the Atlantic Cable ; also the Berlin news of the 
 same date. Yet Syracuse, of which I dare say many 
 of our readers never heard before, is only a provincial 
 town. Before six the train was traversed four times 
 by boys selling familiar English novels, periodicals, 
 maps, prints, eatables, &c., &c. They gave you the 
 novel or periodical to read for a few minutes, and 
 then took it away without a word if you did not 
 choose to buy it. There was no pressing to purchase 
 anything. All was done in silence. A man in the 
 next seat to mine opened several packets of prints, 
 looked them over, and laid them down. The boy 
 carried them away without a remark. A carpenter, 
 with trousers patched at the knees, came and sat by 
 me. We had a good deal of conversation. He said 
 that numbers of New England farmers were breaking 
 up their homes to go South, where land was to be 
 bought at a small fractional part of the price it cost 
 there. He was polite, full of information, and tobacco. 
 At Eochester we stopped to breakfast, elaborately, and 
 found Sambo with the irrepressible rose-water and 
 
22 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 smiles. The country through which we passed was 
 undulatory, and studded with farms. The farming 
 was coarse, but apparently successful. The cows and 
 sheep were English, the former of Devonshire breed, 
 the latter black-faced. The horses are inferior 
 animals, ewe-necked and leggy. There are no gates 
 or road-keepers at crossings, but a notice in large 
 letters says : " Kail way crossing. Look out for the 
 cars." The trains ran naked through part of the 
 town of Kochester, a big bell like a church bell, on the 
 engine, being tolled as we rushed down the streets. 
 
 At 12.30 we reached^ the Niagara Falls. I was 
 quite prepared to be disappointed, but was not. 
 The way in which the river turns slowly over the 
 precipice, like a great green wheel of water, before it 
 thunders down on the rocks below, is most overwhelm- 
 ing. I cannot describe the Falls, or the play of rain- 
 bows in the mist, or the gravity of the plunge. There 
 is little noise, but a fulness of sound which you notice 
 in a few minutes. Cataract is too pert a word to use. 
 As a gentleman said to me, the scene was oceanic. 
 After dinner we were rowed across the river in the 
 face of the Falls, and, in oilskin suits, went to the 
 farthest accessible spot, not far, under them. We 
 had to bellow into one another's ears to be heard, 
 and were blinded and drenched for our pains. 
 
23 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 NIAGARA TO CHICAGO. 
 
 I TRAVELLED through part of Canada on my way, and 
 experienced the sensation of seeing settlements in the 
 state of formation in my route. The settler, his log 
 hut, and heavy labour with the axe, have been so long 
 familiar to my mind's eye, that it was with a sort of 
 anxious curiosity I looked for him in the body. Ay, 
 there it was, when I woke up in the train where I 
 slept, and the morning sun showed a new world going 
 into the crucible of industry. There was the primaeval 
 forest right and left, so like an ordinary English wood 
 with coarse grass and undergrowth, that I had to ask 
 myself, "Is this the untouched wild where timber is a 
 ' drug ' ? " Presently we came to an opening. Yes ! 
 there was the log hut, and the settler, axe in hand, 
 was making a clearing. Some trees were down, some 
 were doomed, with the fatal ring cut in their bark 
 about two or three feet from the ground. This soon 
 became a familiar sight. I saw villages where the log 
 hut had passed into a framed house, and the framed 
 house was being superseded by the brick building. 
 
24 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 Then came a town, or "city," a straggling set of 
 tenements through which the train rushed tolling its 
 bell, and sometimes tooting sharply with its whistle 
 (only the whistles here are trumpets) to scare some 
 children off the line, which ran as bare as a path 
 across a field. 
 
 Thus we rushed for some eighteen hours, passing 
 'into Michigan at Detroit. The country was flat and 
 productive. The crops were mainly of maize. I saw 
 seed clover and abundance of apple-trees. The wheat 
 and other corn had been housed. The fields were 
 studded with the stumps of trees ; the fences zigzag 
 what they call " snake " or " worm " fences here. It 
 struck me that Michigan showed a more advanced 
 civilisation than the part of Canada I had traversed. 
 There were very few log houses, the towns and villages 
 looked more prosperous, and the farming was better. 
 
 Still it was nature not yet subdued. 
 
 - 
 
 As the time-table indicated that we must be drawing 
 near to it, I began to look out for Chicago, lately a 
 settlement in the Far West, now a thriving city. I 
 got out on the platform of the "car" and gazed 
 eagerly westward. A black cloud hung over the flat 
 land ahead. " That must be the place," I thought. 
 My expectations were far exceeded when, after a close 
 view of Lake Michigan, with its sea-like horizon, 
 studded with sails and streaked with steamer-smoke, 
 I plunged into a city with great stone and brick-built 
 
NIAGARA TO CHICAGO. 25 
 
 houses, six storeys high, roaring streets as broad as 
 Pall Mall, brimful of strong life, crowded with grand 
 plate-glass-windowed shops, and a tide of men pouring 
 along their sides like the endless processions on the 
 pavements in Cheapside. Thirty years ago there were 
 few better buildings than a log house in Chicago, but 
 they tell me this is the growth of some ten or twelve 
 years. When Lord Palmerston was an elderly man' 
 there were some twenty houses, and between 100 and 
 200 people, in the place. It is now not only a 
 thriving mercantile city, but possesses all the luxuries 
 of civilisation, down to the little nicknacks of artificial 
 ease which you find in Oxford Street. I was long 
 wandering about, bewildered at this miracle of 
 growth. The railway termini astonished me, and 
 the number of rails which enter them. At one, I 
 forget which, I counted the iron rails I stepped over : 
 there were fifty- two. I really cannot tell you how 
 many termini there are. My map says eleven. These 
 pour in grain from a district of prodigious fertility. 
 The produce is not all of grain, though. The stock- 
 yards are a marvel of the place. Pigs are a great 
 item in the trade. They are killed by machinery. 
 One establishment, when in full work, kills and 
 " packs" 2,500 hogs a-day. Piggy is made into 
 pork before he has time to begin squeaking. Peaches, 
 too, are abundant. Some streets were lined with 
 baskets of them, brought from the other side of Lake 
 
26 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 Michigan, and about to be sent away. I counted 
 several squares of baskets, and tried to calculate the 
 number which were being packed, but gave it up, and 
 in the course of the evening asked a gentleman to 
 whom I was introduced what the exportation of 
 peaches was. He said that they had sent off about 
 twenty thousand half-bushels in the course of the 
 day. But this is only one small phase of the trade 
 of Chicago. 
 
 I was struck with the preponderance of men in the 
 streets, and I hardly saw an old man among them. 
 These Westerners, moreover, are a tall, fine-grown 
 race. Every one is busy, and the people walk faster 
 than in New York. Everything seems being done 
 orderly. There were policemen at the corners with 
 stout sticks in their hands, who made openings in the 
 procession of vehicles for foot-passengers to cross. 
 Much of the city is paved with wood, and more of 
 this pavement is being laid down. They have a 
 curious custom of anchoring the horses here. No 
 one has time to stand at a horse's head, so the driver 
 carries a lump of iron, like a squat four-stone weight, 
 which is fastened by a thong to the bridle. When 
 he stops to load or unload he flings this out, and the 
 horse is what they call " hitched " at once. 
 
 But I should not have time to describe the details 
 which strike a stranger. Even the shoe-blacks, 
 though they are behind ours in not working with 
 
NIAGARA TO CHICAGO. 27 
 
 two brushes at once, seem possessed with an ex- 
 ceptional vigour. They are not content with the 
 familiar importunity of the invitation to " Shine your 
 boots, sir." One morning I was standing at the door 
 of my hotel the Sherman House somewhat dust- 
 footed. Blackey, of course, assailed me. I moved 
 on, not wanting him. He ran along on all-fours by 
 my side with flying sweeps and shots at my boots, 
 challenging the verdict of opinion like a true Yankee, 
 and crying, " Won't charge a cent, sir, if you don't 
 like 'em." 
 
 I will now, once for all, go back to the railroad and 
 describe the way in which travelling arrangements 
 are made here. I started from Niagara Suspension 
 Bridge at night. I had, following a national custom, 
 previously taken my ticket through to Chicago at an 
 office adjoining the hotel. On reaching the station I 
 was asked if I wanted a sleeping-berth. "Yes," said 
 I, and bought one for the lower tier. Then I handed 
 my luggage to the porter, who hung a brass label to 
 it, giving me a corresponding one. Next I was civilly 
 informed that the sleeping-car would be ready before 
 the train started, so that any one who wanted to go to 
 bed before the car was coupled on might do so. I 
 entered the car, which was about 50 feet long, with 
 two tiers of beds and a pathway between them. They 
 were bona fide beds, with pillows, sheets, &c., &c. 
 Mine was about three feet wide and six feet long. It 
 
28 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 had two double windows looking out of the train, 
 with a handsomely-framed mirror between them. The 
 berth was of dark wood, carved, fitted with electro- 
 plated metal, and had thick-patterned woollen curtains 
 to secure privacy. A number of ladies and gentlemen 
 were my companions in the car, which had a separate 
 washing-place and divers other conveniences at one 
 end. The party of travellers soon melted off into the 
 beds, putting their boots and shoes outside their re- 
 spective berths. 
 
 I did not " turn in " at once, but travelled some 
 time on the platform at the end of the car in conver- 
 sation with an agreeable American gentleman. 
 
 Next morning, after we had all got up, I went on 
 the platform again for the view and fresh air. When 
 I re-entered the car, the beds had all disappeared, as 
 if by magic, being replaced by a number of most com- 
 fortable sofas, the top tier having been turned back to 
 the roof, and the sheets, &c., all stowed away by the 
 negro in attendance. American railway tickets are of 
 paper, not card. When in the train my ticket was 
 taken from me, and a card, with the names of the 
 stations and their distances from our starting-place 
 printed upon it, given me instead. Then a notice 
 was hung up stating where we stopped for dinner. 
 At dinner we had some of the ordinary American 
 dishes, with coffee or weak tea. No one took wine 
 or beer. The meal cost 75 cents. As we neared 
 
NIAGARA TO CHICAGO. 29 
 
 Chicago the conductor furnished a ticket for the 
 omnibus to the hotel, and took down the destination 
 of my carpet-bag, which in due time made its appear- 
 ance in my bed-room. There was no asking for 
 " tips," but when I reached the terminus, being freed 
 from all concern about my luggage, I was directed to 
 the first stage or 'bus for the Sherman House, where 
 ready attendants carried in my traps. 
 
 Thus you see the traveller is well looked after here. 
 A word as to the defects in American railway travel- 
 ling. The conductor and guard seemed too indifferent 
 to the breaks. They walked about the train, or sat 
 down to read the paper, though we were running at 
 extra speed to make up for lost time ; and I did not 
 see how, if there had been sudden need for them, the 
 breaks could have been applied. 
 
 When I got into the hotel a smiling negro came at 
 once into my bed-room to brush American and Cana- 
 dian dust off my clothes, and suggest a visit to the 
 hairdresser's shop in the hotel, before dinner. At 
 dinner a list of fifty-seven dishes, all ready, and 
 printed for that day's meal, was popped before me, 
 and I sat down at one of sixteen tables, each holding 
 fourteen gentlemen, all of whom appeared to drink 
 only iced water, followed by a cup of coffee. 
 
 This is surely a temperate country in the matter of 
 drink. I have sauntered about by night and day in 
 all manner of places, but I have not seen a drunken 
 
30 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 person, nor have I heard a hrawl, though there are 
 hundreds of Lager-heer saloons in the town. These 
 are mainly used hy Germans, who sit there often with 
 their families, and listen to music while they smoke, 
 and sip a moderate cup. Of course there is drunken- 
 ness here; but in comparing this city of the West, 
 with its young, eager life, to London, the gin-shops 
 of the latter, and their fringe of sots, sorely humbled 
 me. 
 
 Near Niagara I had a long talk with a blacksmith 
 who sat by me on a bench, and asked him about the 
 amount of drinking which prevailed. " Sir," said he, 
 " if the foreman knew that one of the men in our shop 
 had got drunk on the Sunday, he would be turned 
 out on Monday morning." 
 
 On the other hand, a policeman here told me there 
 were divers places where rioting and stabbing went on. 
 That I should have supposed ; but, having a tolerably 
 quick eye for rough London life, and wandering late 
 about the streets which were fullest of " saloons," all 
 I can say is, that I saw nothing of any intemperance 
 or disorder. 
 
 The arrangements for notice of fire here are ex- 
 cellent. The city is divided into numbered wards, in 
 each of which there are divers means of communication 
 with the City Hall. There men sit day and night by 
 a big bell. When a signal of fire comes, this big bell 
 tolls the number of the ward, so that all the inhabi- 
 
NIAGARA TO CHICAGO. 81 
 
 tants know at once where the fire is. Suppose the 
 number of ward in which the fire has broken out is 
 27, the bell tolls twice for 2, and seven times for 7. 
 If the fire is a large one, this signal is repeated several 
 times. My hotel was close to the City Hall, and the 
 fire signal sounded while I was there. I looked out 
 of my window, an upper one, and saw a number of 
 people get out of their trap-doors on their flat roofs 
 and gaze in the same direction, at once. A man 
 working at a window opposite mine laid down his 
 tools, apparently to count the strokes on the big bell, 
 which were peremptorily repeated. Then his head 
 came up through the roof, and he looked out west- 
 ward directly ; but as the fire seemed to make no 
 show, he went down again to his work. 
 
 I must reserve for another chapter what I have 
 seen and learnt of the working of the Church here. 
 The Bishop of Illinois was very kind, favouring me 
 with a long interview and asking me to take part in 
 the services of the cathedral one Sunday, when he 
 had both an Ordination and a Confirmation. I 
 shortly afterwards set off for California, by the new 
 Atlantic and Pacific Kailway. 
 
 
32 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 FROM CHICAGO TO SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 As the train from Chicago did not reach Omaha till 
 five hours after time, we had our long railway journey 
 relieved hy one night's stoppage in this latter place. 
 This delay was mainly caused by our having in the 
 rear of our train an unfinished, hut superlatively deco- 
 rated drawing-room Pullman's car, to be exhibited at 
 San Francisco, and for the privilege of riding in which 
 a private party paid a special price. We had not gone 
 far before all the wheel-boxes grew so hot that we 
 pulled up to doctor them. This stoppage was re- 
 peated so often that we soon lost some hours and 
 much patience. At last our conductor said, " Guess 
 it will cool itself running;" and we ran. At about 
 11 o'clock P.M. a man put his head into my car, which 
 was next to the splendid defaulter, and cried out, 
 "The train is on fire!" Then he screwed up the 
 breaks, which anybody can get at, rang the bell, and 
 jumped clean off into the night. I went out on the 
 platform at the end of the car, and found one of the 
 wheel-boxes in full blaze, and the conductor loosening 
 
FBOM CHICAGO TO SAN FRANCISCO. 33 
 
 the breaks. He had no notion of stopping then. 
 The man who had given the alarm was a would-be 
 " stowaway," who had caught and climbed up into 
 our train in the dark, and then becoming, or pretend- 
 ing to be, frightened, had acted as I have described. 
 " Confound him ! " said our attendant (only he used 
 very much stronger language), "he has nearly stopped 
 the train!" "What has become of him?" said I, 
 looking down into the road, strewn apparently with 
 logs, into which he had leapt. " Guess he ain't 
 hurt," said the man. "But how about the wheel- 
 box?" I inquired. " Guess we'll put it out at " 
 
 I forget the name of the station. So we blazed on. 
 Next morning, on awaking at 6, I said to the negro 
 attendant in our car, " How is the box?" "Guess 
 it's burnt itself out now," said he. 
 
 But we were obliged to drop it astern shortly before 
 we reached " Council Bluffs," the station on the east 
 side of the Missouri, Omaha being on the west. We 
 were detained, however, not only by fire ; heavy rain 
 had fallen, and laid part of the road under water. 
 Now, as the rails are nailed to sleepers placed simply 
 on prairie soil, which when wet turns to black mud, 
 we had to go very cautiously for a considerable dis- 
 tance. The rails were covered with water, but we 
 churned up the mud on either side with such effect, 
 the car next to mine following with foam at its bows 
 like a barge, that every minute we expected to stick 
 
34 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 fast. But we crept through, getting to Council Bluffs 
 five hours behind our time. Then, after being ferried 
 across the Missouri, we ploughed up to this place in 
 a stage, which at last stood still in a hole, the gentle- 
 men passengers being all obliged to alight. However, 
 with four horses, and men at the wheels, we got out. 
 
 We were fairly in the West then. The country 
 from Chicago to Omaha not long ago was simple 
 prairie. Much of it is settled, and we passed many 
 villages of white wooden houses and scattered farms. 
 But in Iowa there is still a large tract of land unoccu- 
 pied. The soil throughout is deep and black, with 
 apparently not a stone in it. There are, however, 
 occasional mounds of gravelly sand, which seem as if 
 they had been shed or tilted upon it (is this done by 
 ice?), and many small trees, which seem to have 
 grown since the original prairie was reclaimed. These 
 trees, except by the sides of watercourses, almost 
 ceased as farms became rarer towards Omaha. The 
 country is not so flat as it seems to be from a dis- 
 tance, but has gentle undulations. 
 
 We had crossed the Mississippi by a very long 
 wooden bridge. It was my first sight of that famous 
 river. I looked out of the window and saw it suddenly. 
 A coffee-coloured, smooth- surfaced river, with low 
 banks. A large, high-backed white steamboat was 
 ascending it, like a dirty swan without a neck. 
 
 In the train was a party of emigrants ; and I found 
 
FROM CHICAGO TO SAN FRANCISCO. : 85 
 
 that there are three classes on American railways as 
 well as on our own. My ticket was marked "First 
 Class." This, however, became practically second, as 
 I paid something extra for a seat in a Pullman's 
 Palace car. Besides these, there was a car for 
 emigrants. I walked the whole length of the train, 
 and came upon dozens of them, men, women, and 
 children, lying fast asleep on the floor of the carriage. 
 They were near to their new home. 
 
 We put down some at a little station with a few 
 wooden houses by it. As we pulled up I saw a fine 
 "Western boy," in broad-brimmed hat and high 
 boots, staring with all his eyes at the car. There 
 tumbled out a woman and three children. " Ah, 
 Bill ! " she cried, as she caught sight of the bearded 
 giant ; and he hugged and kissed her then and there 
 with enthusiasm. It was a husband who had gone 
 out first to provide a home ; and, for farmers, what a 
 home it is ! The first thing they do is to mow the 
 prairie. We saw many stacks of rough hay thus 
 provided. Then comes the plough, turning up the 
 black soil with a cut as clean as that of a knife 
 through butter. 
 
 We crossed many streams or rivers, all black, and 
 passed shallow lakes with black rims, and wild-fowl 
 scared by our train. Many herds of cattle, mostly 
 red, grazed knee-deep in the prairie grass. Birds 
 were scarce. I saw swallows, several hawks, two 
 D 2 
 
36 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 flocks of what seemed to be starlings, but tbey were 
 not, and some birds like oyster-catchers, flying low 
 and following the course of the streams. 
 
 Our company was American, with the exception of 
 an artillery officer from Toronto, whom we presently 
 dropped at Fort Kearney, to shoot buffaloes and elks. 
 He was a very agreeable companion, and I wish he 
 had gone on to San Francisco with me. We talked 
 "Indians" and "buffaloes" late into the evening 
 with an American, in a spare saloon, which we con- 
 verted into a smoking-carriage. The Indians were, 
 they said, out on the war-path then ; lately, they had 
 crossed the line and cut the telegraph wires ; but I 
 doubt whether they have tools heavy enough to take 
 up any of the rails. 
 
 The Pullman's Palace cars are very comfortable. I 
 had a sofa to myself, with a table and lamp. The 
 sofas are widened and made into beds at night. My 
 berth was three feet three inches wide, and six feet 
 three inches long. It had two windows looking out 
 of the train, a handsome mirror, and was well fur- 
 nished with bedding and curtains. Some of the pas- 
 sengers went to bed with great orthodoxy. 
 
 I do not believe that hotel cars are run every day 
 for ordinary passengers on the Pacific Kailway. 
 Sometimes a party charters one, but they are really 
 little better than the ordinary Palace cars. As there 
 are plenty of stations where food is procured, the 
 
FROM CHICAGO TO SAX FRANCISCO. 37 
 
 train stops for breakfast, dinner, and supper. It is 
 well, however, to be furnished with some additional 
 provisions, as, from the specimens we have already 
 had, the punctuality of the stoppages is not to be 
 altogether depended upon. 
 
 The Missouri is yellow, with many shifting sand- 
 banks. Its waters were very low, in spite of the rain. 
 I was told that we should reach dry regions as the 
 road rose towards the Rocky Mountains. We were 
 soon to enter on the great plains of Nebraska, and a 
 gentleman who had lately traversed the whole route 
 said that the track was much better westward than we 
 had found it as yet. Omaha was then the muddiest 
 place I ever saw, and the number of dirty boots with 
 legs inside them tilted up round the stove in the office 
 below where the clerk, too, had his heels on his desk 
 when I fetched my oil lamp to go to bed by was 
 enough to gladden the heart of the yawning negro 
 who acts as shoeblack, for he charged 15 cents a pair. 
 They say, however, that mud is rare in Omaha. The 
 roads are generally deep with dust. The men, ap- 
 parently far outnumbering the women, are mostly tall, 
 strapping fellows, with broad-brimmed hats, and blue 
 trousers stuck into their boots. The houses, as a 
 rule, are of wood, painted white. The main street 
 was, when I saw it, a slough, navigated by one car on 
 rails, which plied perpetually up and down. The 
 horses were excellent, and splashed to their ears. 
 
38 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 At Omaha we took the train for San Francisco 
 direct, and, with the exception of an occasional stop- 
 page for a few minutes, and two hours at Promontory, 
 travelled day and night for nearly five days, or 110 
 hours. Before very long we found ourselves in the 
 prairie ; and, as the freshest impressions are some- 
 times the best, I will here copy a letter which I wrote 
 home from the train, at one of the convenient little 
 tables with which the car was furnished : 
 
 " I now date from the train, and you can see by my 
 writing that we travel with considerable steadiness. 
 We are passing through the prairie. On my right 
 hand as I look out of the window I see an ocean of 
 coarse hay-grass ; this is broken to my left by a few 
 scattered trees which mark the course of the North 
 Platte River, which we have followed for a long dis- 
 tance. Beyond the river the grass appears again and 
 stretches to the horizon, unbroken by any tree, but 
 undulating like the Atlantic with a heavy ground- 
 swell. The prairie is much like what I expected to 
 see, though the grass is shorter than I thought it 
 was ; but the continual progress through a boundless 
 plain without a hedge or mark of any sort produces 
 an impression it is hard to describe. You almost 
 think the train must be standing still, and that you 
 are looking at the small section of a hayfield which 
 could be seen through a window. But the talk in the 
 train is that the buffaloes are coming north for this 
 
40 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 short, sweet grass, and the Indians after them. In 
 writing this last sentence I am appropriately reminded 
 that the view from my car is laid in no long-civilised 
 park, for I look up and see a bona fide Indian, in 
 paint and Indian dress, who has alighted from his 
 horse hy the roadside, and is staring at the train and 
 smoking a pipe. I have laid down my pen for a few 
 minutes, and take it up again to remark that the view 
 over the prairie from the right-hand window of my 
 car has hecome more striking. The horizon is per- 
 fectly flat, and the most distant portion of the plain 
 exactly resembles the sea. Several of my companions, 
 who, like me, have never seen this sight before, are 
 now looking out of the car and talking of the perfect 
 resemblance of the prairie horizon to that of water. 
 The waving of the grass under the wind adds to the 
 deception. We have just passed a herd of antelopes." 
 At the risk of a certain amount of repetition, I will 
 reserve for the next chapter a more consecutive ac- 
 count of our journey. Now I will give you merely 
 general impressions. We reached San Francisco 
 safely in five days. The whole of the railroad to 
 this city was really not quite finished, but from 
 Omaha to Sacramento was in excellent order. True, 
 the wooden bridges over the canons (pronounced 
 canyons) were temporary, and looked from a distance 
 as if they were built of lucifer matches. The trains 
 creep slowly over them, and they creak terribly; but 
 
FROM CHICAGO TO SAN FRANCISCO. 41 
 
 on the solid ground the road-bed is firm, the track 
 smooth, the time fairly kept, the ' attendance good, 
 and the provision at the stopping-places on the line 
 excellent, considering the difficulties which must be 
 met in supplying it. We ran through more than 
 1,000 miles from Omaha to Promontory, a place so 
 called because it juts out into the Great Salt Lake. 
 Then we entered the cars of the Central Pacific, 
 which we did not quit till we reached Sacramento. 
 This latter portion of the line is made by Chinese. 
 We passed scores of these "navvies," in Chinese 
 suits, long pigtails, and hats like crushed beehives. 
 
 When we reached Sacramento we were shifted to 
 the new line, 134 miles long, between that place and 
 San Francisco. It was not yet completed, since we 
 had to take the ferry across the bay for half-an-hour. 
 Indeed, part of that which we passed over was not 
 made when we reached it. The sleepers were flung 
 upon the ground ; the rails, however, were not only 
 not fastened down, but not even laid in their places. 
 As the train stopped I looked out of a window, and 
 became aware of a mixed party of Irishmen and 
 Chinese hammering, digging, shouting, cackling 
 (Chinese cackle), in advance of us. I stepped out and 
 walked on, to find the line in the state I have de- 
 scribed. 
 
 Lighting my cigar and sitting down on the trunk 
 of a tree by the road-side, I saw it finished in an hour, 
 
42 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 at high pressure. A quarter of a mile, at the very 
 least, including a portion over a long bridge, was laid 
 as fast as ever the rails could be steadied on the 
 sleepers, with the greatest economy of nails. At last 
 a chief Paddy laid down the hammer which he had 
 been wielding with the precision and force of a small 
 steam-engine, and shouted out, " Come along wid 
 ye ! " And we came, a train of ten cars. Then the 
 engine-driver said, "Is it all right further on ? " " All 
 right," said Paddy; and away we went, 25 miles an 
 hour, presently, under a full moon so bright that on 
 stopping at one of the stations I was enabled to read 
 a book by it. But the road was decidedly rough. 
 "Kough!" said one of my Yankee companions; 
 "cussed if I think there is any track at all; it goes 
 like a scared bullock." 
 
 I am bound, however, to say that this is the only 
 portion of the great Atlantic and Pacific line to which 
 such language could be applied. This will soon be 
 put into good order, and the rest is as smooth and 
 firm as could be wished. Indeed, it showed a very 
 marked contrast to the Chicago and North-Western, 
 by which I travelled to Omaha. A word about the 
 cars before I proceed to attempt some detailed de- 
 scription of this wonderful route. Those on the first 
 part from Omaha to Promontory are decidedly the 
 best. The Pullman hotel cars were not then running 
 on the line for ordinary passengers, but were expected 
 
FROM CHICAGO TO SAN FRANCISCO. 43 
 
 to do so in about a fortnight. We brought the in- 
 flammable Drawing-room Palace car with us after all. 
 It heated two or three times west of Omaha, but had 
 to succumb to the exigencies of its position, and ran 
 well the rest of the way. For a time, though, we 
 thought it would mar our journey, for we had to make 
 up the time spent in doctoring it, and special speed is 
 not pleasant. But all went right, and a very agree- 
 able gentleman, who is connected with the Company 
 and travelled in it, met our murmuring with much 
 good temper. I came in a "Pullman's Palace sleeping 
 car." It held twelve bottom and twelve upper berths, 
 the former of which were converted into sofas during 
 the day. There was a washing place, &c., at one end, 
 and the berths were more roomy than in the " Silver 
 Palace cars " of the Central Pacific. The track, 
 however, on both portions of the line is equally good, 
 which is commendable, considering the pace at which 
 it was made. Indeed, for some hundred miles in the 
 middle of the Great Kocky Mountain desert the lines 
 were pushed on with such a speed that they overshot 
 each other. The object of each rival company was to 
 get as many rails laid as possible. They were each 
 to enjoy the Government grant up to the spot where 
 they met in working order. Thus the lines were 
 graded i.e., prepared for the sleepers and rails as 
 far on in advance of their actual completion as they 
 could be ; and, as I said, when we got into the cars of 
 
44 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 th Central Pacific we passed some 100 miles, it may 
 be more or less, of the Atlantic and Pacific, which 
 could not he covered with sleepers and rails before the 
 line was met, with an engine upon it. The lines run 
 in some places within a few yards of each other, and 
 imagination must be left to picture the comments of 
 the Irish navvies on the Chinese as they worked in 
 rivalry almost side by side. There is no good feeling 
 between these classes of labourers. We came in one 
 place to the charred remains of some railway works, 
 and on inquiring the cause of them I was told that 
 they were burnt because they had been built by 
 Chinese. But the "children of the sun" are content 
 to work hard if they can earn money, and I suppose 
 do not feel the degradation of a kick. Certainly, 
 nothing could be more cheerful than their manner 
 when they crowded, as they did in one or two places, 
 to exchange many signs and a few English words with 
 the passengers in the train. The greeting from the 
 cars was, "John ! build railway? " " Tchess/' says 
 John, nodding and grinning. "Good," says Uncle 
 Sam ; and that was about all they had to say to each 
 other. 
 
 The company "on board" our train was almost 
 entirely American. I have mentioned that we carried 
 an English artillery officer to a small station about 
 six miles from Fort Kearney, where he was turned 
 out with his rifle in his hand, a fur -coat, a bag, and 
 
FROM CHICAGO TO SAN FRANCISCO. 45 
 
 good store of Cavendish tobacco, to shoot buffaloes 
 and elks on the prairie. He was quite alone, but 
 counted on making the acquaintance of some United 
 States officers at the fort. It was rather touching, 
 though, leaving him there as we did in the dark, 
 especially as we heard that a tribe of Indians, out for 
 mischief, had crosse.d the line a night or two before 
 and taken the direction which he intended to pursue. 
 Six companies, with some friendly Pawnees, were 
 reported to have left in pursuit of them that day. 
 "Ever been out in the plains, sir?" said a passenger 
 to this gentleman. " No," replied he quietly. I was 
 glad to find, when I got out of the train to shake 
 hands with him as he departed on his errand, that he 
 had already made friends with an American officer 
 who, with six soldiers, was guarding the station. 
 
 We saw no other Englishmen till we reached 
 Promontory, where three came on board from Salt 
 Lake, but left us before we had crossed the Sierra. 
 The rest of our passengers, including divers ladies and 
 children, were very agreeable. A week's journey in 
 the same train makes many friends. Kailway travel- 
 ling in America is much less tedious than in England, 
 You can walk about, stand on the platform at either 
 end of the cars, and make visits to other parts of the 
 train. The engine even is accessible, though I 
 suspect this is rather a stretch. Descending the 
 Sierra Nevada, however, where the sharpest curves 
 
46 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 occur, and the train, steam being shut off, runs hy its 
 own weight down 6,000 feet into the Sacramento 
 Valley, I made friends with the driver, and got a seat 
 by his side. The line is perhaps most interesting 
 here, and I much enjoyed the descent, my intelligent 
 new friend pointing out the various surface gold mines 
 as we passed, and other features of the road. 
 
 As for the rest, time was wiled away by cards, 
 conversation, and reading. We had an abundant 
 supply of books and newspapers. A boy frequently 
 traversed the train with a good store of novels, mostly 
 English, periodicals, &c. Even at Chyenne, a place 
 seemingly built half of canvas on the prairie, at the 
 foot of the Rocky Mountains, and exhibiting a 
 dangerous-looking population of miners, &c., in big 
 boots, broad-brimmed hats, and revolvers, the 
 Chyenne Leader of that morning, which I bought, 
 and which now lies open before me, had an extract 
 from a leader in the Times on the (Ecumenical 
 Council at Rome, dated the day before, and news that 
 heavy storms had prevailed throughout England. 
 The way in which the Atlantic Cable is used by the 
 American Press in the most unlikely places, goes to 
 show one phase of the hunger for reading which 
 affects our brethren on this side of the Atlantic ; but 
 English books and mere extracts from English news- 
 papers are not the only signs of English literature one 
 meets with here. The first publication I saw on the 
 
FBOM CHICAGO TO SAN FRANCISCO. 47 
 
 first bookstall I met with in San Francisco was 
 Punch. 
 
 I must make use of the jottings and consecutive 
 wayside notes of my route and journey in another 
 chapter. The country we traversed was even wilder 
 than I had expected. With the exception of the 
 thriving Mormon villages and farms in the Great Salt 
 Lake Valley, we seemed to pass through a desert, that 
 portion of it between Chyenne and the Sierra being in 
 many places most dreary, and even in a sense awful, 
 with its lifeless alkaline plains. We rushed through 
 these hour after hour, the lips of the passengers in 
 some cases becoming almost sore with the dry soda 
 dust which we whirled up from the white snow-like 
 soil traversed by the train. 
 
48 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 - THE GREAT RAILROAD. 
 
 ABOUT two-thirds of the American continent are 
 traversed by the road, which has only one line of rails 
 The plains that come first rise almost imperceptibly 
 from Omaha to an altitude of 7,040 feet above th< 
 sea-level in 516 miles, when Chyenne, at the foot o 
 the Rocky Mountains, is reached. Then the ascen: 
 is rapid to Sherman, the highest elevation, whicl 
 Bancroft's Guide, from which I take my figures, puts 
 at 8,424 feet, 33 miles distant from Chyenne. Fron 
 Sherman there is high barren table mountain land fo] 
 about 500 miles farther, when the Great Salt Lak< 
 Valley is reached, with an elevation of 4,320 feet 
 The road rises again from this to a height of betweer 
 6,000 and 7,000, and then drops to about 4,00( 
 before it crosses the Sierra, at an elevation of 7,042 
 From the summit of this range the descent tc 
 Sacramento is rapid, the train running down mainl} 
 by its own weight to the sea- level in 105 miles, some 
 parts of this road being much steeper than others, 
 Steam is used for about 30 miles of this distance, 
 
THE GREAT RAILROAD. 49 
 
 With Sacramento level ground is reached ; the length 
 of the combined Atlantic and Pacific and Central 
 Pacific lines being from Omaha to Sacramento 1,774 
 miles, and to San Francisco 1,908. 154 stations are 
 marked in my guide-book, many of them being mere 
 tanks for watering the engine, with sometimes only a 
 tent beside them. The express trains do not stop at 
 all of these. Nothing which deserves the name of a 
 town, though some are called cities, is seen between 
 Omaha and Sacramento. Chyenne, the largest, has 
 not emerged from the board and canvas stage, and 
 divers others consist of tents. There are, however, 
 solid erections in several places for the purposes of the 
 railway, and a few of these will in time grow into 
 permanent towns ; but a long portion of the route is 
 so hopelessly barren that I doubt if it will ever do 
 more than carry the track. 
 
 We left Omaha at nine o'clock one Wednesday 
 morning. At first the country showed much the same 
 degree of civilisation seen the other side of the Mis- 
 souri, but in about four hours the farms died away, 
 with the exception of some adventurous dots of houses, 
 which were dropped on the outskirts of the settle- 
 ments. These, however, soon ceased, and we ran in a 
 perfectly straight track, with an interminable row of 
 telegraph posts by our side, across the prairie. I 
 have already described its appearance. Its horizon 
 so closely resembled the sea that it was hard to 
 
 E 
 
50 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 believe we were looking over a plain which, in time, 
 will he ploughed and reaped. Here is a prospective 
 cornfield some 500 miles wide and 1,000 long. It is 
 impossible to forecast the future of Kansas, Nebraska, 
 and the watered regions north and south of them, into 
 which the tide of agricultural emigration is creeping 
 from Europe and the Eastern States. New England 
 finds for itself a yet newer life in these inexhaustibly 
 fertile territories, still mainly occupied by the Indian, 
 the elk, and the buffalo. " A big country, ours," said 
 several of my companions to me over and over again, 
 with an air of satisfaction which could not have been 
 greater if they had made it themselves. But it is not 
 the bigness which makes it precious. The British 
 possessions to the north of it are as large. Its soil 
 and sun and rivers give it worth and a weight which 
 the Union must be trimmed carefully to carry. I do 
 not say that throughout the whole route I came across 
 any serious sentiment of independence, but distant 
 California, with its gold and grain, sneers and swears 
 at greenbacks. " I know nothing," said a prosperous 
 man to me in the train, " of promises to pay; " and 
 wayside fruitsellers, to whom I, having then no specie, 
 offered notes for pears, &c., cursed them with a will. 
 But most of the Americans with whom I conversed 
 were apparently united at heart. 
 
 The sun set over the prairie before our first night 
 in the train, shining last upon a western cloud till it 
 
THE GREAT RAILROAD. 51 
 
 looked like a firmament of gold. Lamps were lit ; 
 cards, reading, and conversation still went on in the 
 little slice of civilisation which was rushing through 
 the prairie, now stopping at a station where the 
 soldiers who guarded it came on hoard and hegged 
 for any papers we could spare, and told us how not 
 long ago they had had a brush with the Indians, and, 
 to use their own words, "taken sixty scalps" and 
 then scaring antelopes into the safe darkness of 
 distance. At last the attendant came round to con- 
 vert the sofas into beds, and let down the upper 
 berths. It was an odd experience, that going to bed 
 of some thirty ladies, gentlemen, and children, in, 
 practically, one room. For two nights I had a young 
 married couple sleeping in the berth above mine. 
 The lady turned in first, and presently her gown was 
 hung out over the rail to which her bed curtains were 
 fastened. But further processes of unrobing were 
 indicated by the agitation of the drapery which con- 
 cealed her nest. As the same curtain served for 
 both berths hers and mine the gentleman held her 
 portion together over my head when it was necessary 
 for me to retire. At last all were housed, and some 
 snores rose above the rattle of the train. I did not 
 sleep much the first night, but looked over the moonlit 
 prairie from my pillow. We were then passing through 
 the great buffalo country. Before the week was spent, 
 however, we had all become as used to the exigencies 
 
 E 2 
 
52 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 of our position as if we had been born and bred in a 
 Pullman's car. The ladies slid out of their berths 
 in a very tumbled toilet, and, getting out their 
 combs, toothbrushes, and sponges, did such delibe- 
 rate justice to their charms as circumstances would 
 permit. 
 
 On Thursday morning I woke early, to see the 
 grass on the plains shorter, and the ground broken 
 by juttings of rock. It was bitterly cold, and I was 
 very glad of the red blanket with which my berth was 
 furnished. I looked out of the window and saw a 
 string of antelopes cantering off in the early sunshine. 
 If you have never dressed on your back in a box two 
 feet high, you can, at least, suppose that it is incon- 
 venient to do so. 
 
 We breakfasted at Chyenne, and had tea, coffee, 
 antelope, beef, mutton, trout, ham, eggs, &c. This 
 is the current bill of fare on the line. The chops 
 were generally as tough as hanks of whipcord, and 
 the knives as blunt as bricklayers' trowels. One of 
 our hosts told me that he kept three fishermen and 
 two hunters to provide food for the trains. I told 
 him I wished he would keep his meat a little, too. 
 No wine or beer was seen till we reached Promontory, 
 when Californian claret made its appearance. "We had 
 weak tea with our dinner. 
 
 I might as well tell you here something about 
 American cookery. It is rather unintelligible. Gumbo 
 
54 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 soup, hominy, squash pie, sweet potatoes, and corn 
 heads boiled whole, seem to be favourite dishes. The 
 beef is good, the mutton not so well-flavoured as ours. 
 Turkey appears everywhere, and eggs have a hundred 
 forms. The bread is not hearty; the tea is bad. 
 Claret is reasonably cheap, but, with this exception, 
 the price of wines is prodigious. Nobody calls for 
 port or sherry. Most people drink only iced water at 
 meals. Oysters are abundant, and dressed in count- 
 less ways. Clam soup is excellent. Breakfast is 
 made a great meal of in America, and is, correctly, 
 on the eastern side of the continent, finished with 
 huge slices' of melon. In California you eat melon 
 before your proper breakfast is brought. There are 
 great stalls of peaches in the streets, but they are 
 not half so good as ours in England. Meals are 
 taken early. Each guest has a separate dish of what 
 he calls for. No extra charge is made for ice-creams, 
 &c. : the waiter puts a whole shape before you, and 
 you may take what you like. The ices are better 
 than ours. 
 
 Our stopping-place for breakfast was the point of 
 departure for divers of our fellow-passengers to Denver 
 and the mines in Colorado. We took up also several 
 miners for the Sweetwater Gold Mines in Wyoming, 
 the stages for which left the route at Bryan. It was 
 curious to see a rough-booted, broad-brimmed fellow 
 strutting up and down the train with his revolver 
 
THE GREAT RAILROAD. 55 
 
 slung behind him like a short blunt tail. The breaks- 
 man of our train said to me, "Ah, sir, we don't 
 care for Indians : these boys on the line are more 
 dangerous ; you are obliged to be very careful : there 
 is no law here. I always carry a revolver." But, of 
 course, if you leave them alone they don't meddle 
 with you. They only shoot their friends and acquaint- 
 ances, as a rule. I was entertained with a conver- 
 sation between two of them which I happened to 
 overhear one day in my car. The first words I caught 
 were, " Well, sir, I must say you are a curious 
 individual; I always pull on my man first." "You 
 see," replied his companion, "it happened thus. I 
 was dining" he mentioned some place known to 
 them both " and there were two dogs fighting in 
 the room. So I kicked them out and sat down 
 again. He " this referred to some acquaintance 
 " you know him ; well, he came up and said, * I hope 
 you enjoy your dinner.' * Yes,' says I, * but why ? ' 
 ' Well,' says he, ' one of them dogs was mine, and as 
 sure as you live that is the last dinner you will ever 
 eat. I'll shoot you down as soon as you cross the 
 threshold.' Well, so I finished my dinner and went 
 out. Sure enough he let fly at me, but he was too 
 close : I knocked his hand up, and the ball went into 
 the ceiling. So I ran back into the parlour and called 
 the missus. ' Missus,' says I, ' will you lend me a 
 pistol?' So she fetched one out of a drawer, but 
 
56 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 it warn't no good one of them little things. So I 
 bolted out as quick as I could, for I knew there was 
 a friend of mine t'other side of the road who would 
 lend me a good 'un. Well, he let fly at me again 
 and missed, but I got into " he mentioned the name 
 of his friend's house "and then I . . . ." Here, 
 some noise made me lose the exact end of the story, 
 but I gathered that he got a good pistol and shot the 
 owner of the dog. 
 
 Several of my companions of this sort were enter- 
 taining fellows. I had a good deal of talk with some, 
 and heard the ups and downs of mining adventure : 
 how such and such a mine, now of incalculable worth, 
 was sold for a pistol ; how such and such members of 
 my informant's party were shot by Indians : how he, 
 in a place he pointed out, had himself shot so and so. 
 Some gentlemen in the train were fountains of tobacco- 
 juice, and one in remarkably full play was pointed 
 out to me as a leading member of his state govern- 
 ment. I talked to him as he sat with his legs cocked 
 up over the back of a sofa. " Been to such and such 
 a mine, sir," said he, "and it's dusty; look here; " 
 and he slapped the leg of his trousers, which gave out 
 a white cloud around him as if he had patted a flour 
 sack. 
 
 The sun grew hot with the day, and we reached the 
 highest elevation in the Kocky Mountains crossed by 
 the train, at about 11. The engine panted slowly up 
 
THE GREAT RAILROAD. 57 
 
 to this, but the road presented no great engineering 
 difficulties. The summit reached, we took a northerly 
 direction through a bleak country covered with a 
 number of granite heaps, in many cases exactly 
 resembling the tors on Dartmoor. The old emigrant 
 road frequently showed itself to the right or the left, 
 and we passed a toiling team of Mormons on their 
 way to the Great Salt Lake. We got to Laramie at 
 twenty minutes after 1'2, and, crossing the Laramie 
 plains, over which the Kocky Mountains showed 
 grandly on our left, spent the rest of the day in pass- 
 ing through a miserable wilderness, broken by edges 
 of strata, and occasionally spotted with the skulls, 
 skeletons, and withered carcases of cattle that had 
 perished in crossing them. 
 
 Towards evening patches of alkaline soil began to 
 show themselves, and I could in some slight measure 
 imagine the privations to which the emigrants are 
 exposed who cross this region on foot. It is not 
 barren, however, in all senses, for it abounds with 
 coal, and at Carbon (well named) we fed the engine 
 straight from the mine, shortly afterwards passing 
 through strata of coal, which cropped out above the 
 surface of the ground. We crossed the North Platte 
 again near Eawlings, at 6 P.M., by a temporary bridge 
 of timber, which looked unpleasantly fragile, but, 
 being traversed slowly, carried us well over. These 
 trestle bridges are common. They are to be replaced 
 
58 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 by firmer structures, but answered their purpose. 
 Some creaked as if they were made of wickerwork. 
 
 The view over the broken plains by moonlight, 
 which lit up their patches of white soda soil, was very 
 .striking, but the dust was painfully unpleasant. The 
 only herbage consisted of sage grass or brush. When 
 the construction train was engaged upon this region, 
 water had to be fetched from a considerable distance, 
 and the names of two of the stations, " Bitter Creek " 
 and " Salt Wells," indicated the destitution of the 
 route. 
 
 We woke up early on Friday, to the same high, 
 broken, dreary plains ; but there was a little eatable 
 grass. We passed a party of Indians with their 
 squaws and children in full paint, and the lamest 
 horses I ever saw in my life. The streams which we 
 accompanied flowed down towards the Great Salt 
 Lake. We had crossed the watershed of the Eocky 
 Mountains, and at about 9 A.M. reached Echo Canon, 
 with high red granite cliffs on our right hand, snow- 
 patched mountains having previously shown them- 
 selves on our left. Echo was soon reached, and we 
 entered Weber Canon at 10 A.M. This is a fine gorge. 
 We followed a bright, tumbling stream, passing the 
 " 1,000-mile tree," and running through a gap called 
 the Devil's Gate, into a wide, flat bottom, like some 
 parts of the Valley of the Rhone, at 11. This was 
 the beginning of the Great Salt Lake Yalley, the 
 
60 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 mountains which surround it soon showing themselves 
 in beautiful variety of shape and colour. Here a 
 revelation awaited us. We came shortly upon the 
 shore of the lake. Smiling farms, neat small stations, 
 white and brown cottages, children selling melons and 
 milk, squared fields, English stacks, herds of cattle, 
 trim fences, appeared as if by magic a cheerful 
 contrast to the wilderness through which we had 
 passed. The bright blue waves of the lake, the finely- 
 formed mountains around, with villages nestling at 
 their foot, and little streams brought down from their 
 inner stores of fresh water, gave an air of loveliness to 
 the whole scene. This was Mormon Land. The 
 mountain streams, led hither and thither, have made 
 it what it is. The dreary sage grass was passing 
 away for the cornfield, but the absence of timber still 
 showed one great want of the land. The settlers, 
 however, have planted fruit trees extensively; and 
 each cottage has its orchard of pears, peaches, and 
 apples. Now this healthy-looking, busy, English- 
 chattering crowd at the station, with ladies in parasols 
 and chignons, was Mormon. Say what we will about the 
 errors of Brigham Young, I could 'not but honour the 
 wisdom which had recognised the depth of soil that 
 lay under this plain whose surface was in many 
 places whitened with saline incrustations, but was 
 rendered fertile with fresh water drawn from the 
 hills and the perception of beauty which had led 
 
THE GREAT RAILROAD. 61 
 
 him to choose so lovely a surrounding for his 
 converts. 
 
 We stopped at a station where a party #f emigrants 
 had just arrived. Their luggage lay on the ground. 
 The children were playing ahout, the men and women 
 standing in groups or sitting on their trunks and 
 hoxes, gazing on the bright blue lake with its fringe 
 of mountain, which they had reached at last. It 
 must have seemed a paradise to them. I cannot 
 convey to you the sense of relief with which the eye 
 looked upon cornfields, cottages, and glittering ripple 
 after only two days' prospect of dry desolation. We 
 skirted the water for a few hours, and then the 
 wilderness came upon us again on our way to the 
 Sierra Nevada, and I think the moonlight journey of 
 the next night and the whole of the succeeding day 
 revealed as barren a prospect as I ever beheld. True, 
 we ran partly by the Humboidt, which irrigates a 
 narrow strip of land, and has a few ranches, with some 
 herds of cattle and horses, by its side; but the 
 predominant scenery was most desolate, the river 
 itself at last disappearing into the ground. Hour 
 after hour we looked from our windows upon the dry 
 sage-brush-covered waste, and the dry mountain-tops 
 beyond it. There was no life to speak of on the 
 plains. We saw a few herdsmen on horseback, with 
 broad hats and Mexican stirrups ; and once, when we 
 stopped at a small station for water, a party of 
 
62 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 hideously painted Indian squaws, with brown, half- 
 naked children, came up to beg. But they begged 
 with little energy, holding out their hands in silence 
 for scraps of food, which they clutched after a half- 
 shy, half- savage fashion. 
 
 The real natives of the country appeared to be 
 Chinese, who have built the railway eastward up to 
 the Salt Lake. We soon found ourselves among 
 these, and passed many of their encampments, out- 
 side of which in the evening they were cooking and 
 chattering in groups. I should say that the upper 
 part of the Salt Lake, which is over 100 miles long 
 and 35 wide, is skirted by unreclaimed, dreary white 
 wastes of saline crust, similar, I imagine, to those 
 seen on the borders of the Dead Sea. It lies at an 
 elevation of somewhat more than 4,000 feet above the 
 ocean-level. The City of the Saints lies about 30 
 miles off the line, and was reached by stages from 
 Uintah. A railway, however, has now been built to 
 replace the road. 
 
 I saw no boat on the lake, but there were many 
 gulls, and cattle grazed in the saltings close to its 
 edge. It smells much like the Essex marshes, though 
 a gentleman in the train fancied there was a sul- 
 phureous taint in the air. It was only by thinking 
 about it and sniffing that I detected the saline odour 
 of the breeze. The people looked very healthy. 
 
 We passed through a God-forsaken-looking country 
 
THE GREAT RAILROAD. 63 
 
 all that Friday night, and dropped one poor fellow 
 near a ranche, but far from anything like a village. 
 I did not know why the train was stopped, or I 
 suppose I should have given him a dollar or so. I 
 was taking my evening stroll up the train about 
 9 P.M.; the moon was shining brightly, and I had 
 stopped on the platform of one of the forward cars, 
 when we pulled up and set down a man with a 
 blanket rolled up on his shoulder. I heard him say, 
 
 "I've had nothing to eat since ." Then he 
 
 added, to the guard, " Much obliged for your polite- 
 ness. I've got a dollar." "That won't help you 
 much," said the man ; " get down." So he got down, 
 and we were off before I realised that the poor wretch 
 had been dropped in the wilderness, having been 
 found out in the attempt to ride without a ticket. 
 
 It was bitterly cold when I awoke the next morning 
 (Saturday) to find the train still in the same horrible 
 desert. We parted with a crowd of miners at Elko 
 for the White Pine district, where, they say, silver 
 can be cut out of the rock with a chisel. The riches 
 of this district are concealed under a fcvbidding out- 
 side. People said that the mineral wealth of the 
 region through which we were passing was incalcu- 
 lable, but comparatively untouched. Hour after hour 
 we rushed on through the sage-brush plains skirted 
 by these precious mountains. We saw a few wander- 
 ing Shoshones. The alkaline dust annoyed us again, 
 
64 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 and my finger nails by this time had become quite 
 brittle. We were all in a wearisome humour through 
 this day, and were glad to get to bed. 
 
 Early next morning (Sunday) we found ourselves 
 ascending the Sierra by a number of sharp curves. 
 The steepest gradient is 116 feet in the mile, and 
 some curves have a radius of only 600 feet. There 
 are, they say, 40 miles of curves with a radius of less 
 than 1,000 feet. In some places the train seemed to 
 make an half-circle. It was freezing sharply on the 
 summit. Kumour asserts that political interests have 
 taken the line over a needlessly difficult ridge, and 
 that a much better pass could have been found to San 
 Francisco if Sacramento had not insisted on being 
 made the first terminus of the line. 
 
 The scenery to the right, where several lakes show 
 themselves far below the track, is very beautiful ; but 
 it is spoilt by the snow-sheds, which cover the line for 
 some forty miles, and afford only glimpses of the 
 country far beneath the traveller. These sheds are 
 made of sawed pine timber, covered with plank, and 
 a more convenient arrangement for a long bonfire I 
 never saw. This part of the line must be burnt some 
 day, as the chimney of every engine goes fizzing 
 through it like a squib, and the woodwork is as dry as 
 a bone. 
 
 For some time from the summit we passed through 
 mountains wholly covered with pine and cedar, and 
 
THE GREAT RAILROAD. 65 
 
 ran carefully round the heads of valleys and spurs of 
 the range. As I have said, steam was shut off, and 
 men were put at all the breaks. It struck me that 
 there was greater care shown by the officials in this 
 part of our route. The breaksmen and conductors 
 had hitherto smoked and chewed whenever they could, 
 which was almost always ; but when I offered a cigar to a 
 fresh Californian breaksman here he said, " Thank you, 
 sir, but it's against the rules to smoke while on duty." 
 Presently we came down to sawmills and cows, the 
 effect being strikingly Swiss when the Chinese were 
 not in sight. Then we reached the surface gold 
 mines, where the soil on both sides was pitted with 
 diggings, and many water-troughs led streams for the 
 miners to wash for the metal. At last we got a 
 glimpse of the yellow Californian plain, and soon found 
 ourselves on the flats park-like breadths of grass and 
 cornland, studded with scrub oaks and blazing in the 
 sunshine. We reached Sacramento a hot, dusty 
 town between 12 and 1. Magnificent pears, grapes, 
 &c., were offered at the left hand window of our train, 
 while on the right we saw the yellow river with its 
 white steamboats. Here we were shifted to the cars 
 of the unfinished portion of the rail, and took ten 
 hours to reach San Francisco, though the distance 
 traversed is only 134 miles. Part of the route lay 
 over a perfectly flat plain covered with cornfields and 
 cattle, and skirted by distant hills on either side, the 
 
 F 
 
66 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 river lying some distance off on our right. The value 
 of these plains is increasing yearly ; they are very 
 extensive, one corn valley alone leading off from them 
 with a flat bottom 17 miles wide and nearly 200 long. 
 A few years ago these priceless fields could have 
 heen secured on the Government terms of a dollar 
 and a-quarter an acre, Not only is the soil rich and 
 deep, hut the farmer may be sure of sunshine during 
 harvest. The corn is not even put into sheaves, but 
 gathered up to the steam threshing machine from 
 where it lies. The straw is burnt, as no one thinks 
 of using manure. Towns and villages are springing 
 up like beds of mushrooms along the railway which 
 traverses this precious district, and already the Cali- 
 fornian sells his wheat at a profit in Liverpool. 
 
 The latter part of the road lies through a country 
 of mounds, and a ferry is taken across the bay for 
 half-an-hour to San Francisco. We left a straight 
 wake in the smooth bay, as under a glorious moon we 
 steamed towards the twinkling lights of the city, 
 having the Golden Gate or entrance to the harbour on 
 our right. It was past 11 when I reached my hotel, 
 but, though so late, I got at once what the sense of a 
 week's racket, accumulated soda dust, and engine 
 smoke, had made me long for a delicious, roomy 
 warm bath and enjoyed a chamber more than two 
 feet high. I will tell you something about San 
 Francisco in my next chapter. 
 
67 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 THIS is, I should think, the most hilly town in the 
 world. Laid out in squares, like other American 
 cities, almost every vista presents a slope, with some- 
 times a gradient of one in six, inasmuch as the ground 
 on which it is built is simply a collection of steep 
 sandhills. The inconvenience of this is, of course, 
 very great; and though it may he a fine thing in 
 theory to defy the ups and downs of nature and show 
 a map as rectangular as that of Philadelphia, the San 
 Franciscans are beginning to make cuttings in their 
 city. This, however, leaves the houses which lined 
 the street high up in the air. I called on the Bishop 
 of California one afternoon. The " Directory " said he 
 lived at 348 Second Street. So I went to Second 
 Street, and found in the part where his house ought 
 to have been, a fresh-made cliff, 50 feet high, on 
 either side, and a crowd of navvies carting away stuff. 
 It was impossible to reach the Bishop's nest from the 
 street, so I beat round to get to the back of it. On 
 arriving at the spot I asked where the Bishop lived. 
 F 2 
 
68 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 " The Bishop ? " said a jolly-looking gentleman to 
 me ; "why, his house has tumbled down into the street. 
 But come with me : I know some one who will tell 
 you where he has gone to." And he turned into a 
 bar, saying, "Sir, what will you drink?" It is 
 mortal offence to refuse such an invitation, so I "put 
 a name" to some American liquid. "Now, then," 
 said he to the bar-keeper, "tell the gentleman where 
 the Bishop lives ; " and I found that he had flitted to 
 the other end of the city, but I had to go elsewhere 
 for his address. 
 
 One advantage, if it be such, in this perpendicular 
 style of architecture, is that in whichever direction 
 you walk you soon have a bird's-eye view of the place. 
 It is well situated on the bay ; but the beach, at least 
 that portion of it frequented by the inhabitants, is 
 some six miles off. The shore of the bay by the 
 town is full of busy wharves, and set thick with 
 masts. The hotels, churches, and other public 
 buildings in the centre of San Francisco, have large 
 pretensions, some of them being really very fine ; but 
 as the city stretches out in readiness to grow to any 
 size, the streets soon pass into steep sandy roads, in 
 which the wind makes deep drifts, and the wheels of 
 the " spider waggons " common in America sink half- 
 way up to the axle. Many street cars ply in the most 
 navigable thoroughfares. As usual, there are no 
 cabs, but lumbering " silver-plated " hackney coaches 
 
SAN FRANCISCO. 69 
 
 with two horses, for riding in one of which from the 
 landing-stage of the ferry to the hotel I was charged 
 two dollars and a-half. 
 
 The pavement of Montgomery Street, the chief 
 thoroughfare, is thronged by crowds of men who all 
 seem busy and in the prime of life. It combines 
 business and pleasure, being at once the Wall Street 
 and Broadway of the city. Every nation and tongue 
 has representatives here. Californians, merchants 
 and miners, Mexicans I have seen them, with high- 
 peaked saddle and lasso, riding by negroes, the 
 broadest Irish, Germans, and Chinese make up the 
 multitude. Sudden fortunes bring the miner into 
 the best hotels. The man sitting near you at dinner 
 may be well dressed, but he may have hands horny 
 and brown as a navigator's, and a navigator's appetite. 
 In the same room, perhaps at the same table, are 
 elegant Californian belles. The way in which society, 
 as seen in the streets and inns, is jumbled up here, 
 is very striking. But though there are evil-looking, 
 underground, gas-lit saloons, in which sirens sit to 
 greet any visitor, close to the best hotels, the be- 
 haviour of the people in the streets is outwardly 
 decent, and you seldom see a policeman. 
 
 The quarter of the Chinese up Sacramento Street 
 is very curious. They live here in thousands, and 
 have made a portion of the city almost their own, 
 having theatres and joss-houses, or temples, where 
 
70 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 they play and pray in the most orthodox national 
 fashion. I spent many hours in prowling and shop- 
 ping among them. They say you may buy rats to 
 eat, but most unpleasant-looking pork seems to be 
 their chief meat. All is done after Chinese ways. 
 The signs of the shops are written and the books 
 kept in Chinese. I bought a pair of shoes and a 
 wonderful hat of " Wo Cum," who tied up my parcel 
 with a strip of grass, and entered the transaction at 
 the wrong end of a rice-paper book, with a brush 
 dipped in Indian ink rubbed on a saucer, in compli- 
 cated letters an inch square. Then I wanted a 
 Chinese coat. He showed me a silk one. " Inglis 
 good," said Wo Cum. "No," replied I; "no 
 Inglis, give Chinaman's." And he despised me for 
 buying one of native fabric and manufacture. 
 
 I was very anxious to see a joss-house. Cali- 
 fornians seem to treat such places with contempt, 
 and I asked in vain some half-dozen persons whether 
 they could direct me to one. So I went into the shop 
 of "Loo Sing," who, far from being jealous of a 
 Christian going to see his house of prayer, sold me, 
 nodding and smiling, a bundle of joss-sticks, things 
 like thin bulrushes, made of pastil, and burnt before 
 idols. Then said I, adopting his own Chinese 
 English, " Want see joss-house, Chinaman's god." 
 "Oh! ah! Tchess," said John, grinning; "I show." 
 But even when he had directed me to the right corner 
 
SAN FRANCISCO. 71 
 
 of the street I was still at a loss, seeing nothing but 
 ordinary houses. At last I caught a passing China- 
 man, and made him take me to the sanctuaVy. It 
 was approached through a shop. We went up-stairs 
 and along a passage ; then he waved his hand as he 
 led me into a good-sized darkened chamber, where I 
 found myself for the first time in my life in the pre- 
 sence of real heathen idolatry. The air was heavy 
 with incense. An altar, some 8 feet by 3 feet, and 
 3 feet high, draped in embroidered cloth, with twp 
 mats for kneeling before it, stood at one end of the 
 chamber. It had upon it two burning lamps with 
 slender stems, two candlesticks, a vessel with smoul- 
 dering incense, and two vases of artificial flowers. 
 Immediately behind it, in a shallow recess, was the 
 idol, with drapery concealing all but the small wooden 
 face of a doll, whose dark hair was parted in the 
 middle. At the first glance there was little to dis- 
 tinguish what I saw from a dirty altar in a dark 
 Roman Catholic chapel. The incense, the drapery, 
 the vases of artificial flowers, the burning lamps, the 
 joss-sticks of worshippers stuck in front like tapers, 
 and the wooden shrouded doll, at once illustrated an 
 anecdote, which I had disbelieved, of a Chinaman who 
 visited a Jesuit chapel, and came out, saying, "Good, 
 joss-house same." " This Chinaman's god ?" said I 
 to my guide. " Tchess," replied he, " Chinaman's 
 god ;" and some new thoughts came into my mind. 
 
72 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 I visited the Chinese theatre, and was fortunate in 
 being present on a benefit night, when the entertain- 
 ment was wholly for the Chinese. I was the only 
 white man present, with the exception of a police- 
 man in plain clothes, who turned out to be a native 
 of my own county, Suffolk, in England. I gave him 
 a cigar, which he smoked then and there while on 
 duty. 
 
 The play was so far intelligible that it involved 
 love and jealousy. The theatre was crammed; the 
 actors who did not play in the piece sitting on either 
 side of the stage. There was apparently a religious 
 element in the drama, for an altar stood in the 
 middle of the stage, and the two chief performers, 
 dressed in long straight embroidered robes, with 
 loose sleeves, knelt down before it for a minute 
 with their backs to the audience. There appeared to 
 be an Emperor and his Queen, who quarrelled be- 
 cause of some attentions paid by the former to a 
 young lady, who sang a song accompanied by a gong, 
 bones, and a sort of fiddle. The Queen pulled the 
 Emperor's beard, whereupon he beat her. Then 
 came, gorgeously dressed, the Council of State, who 
 drank tea from tiny cups with his Majesty. But 
 something went amiss, for the Queen enlisted their 
 services in her favour, and they pulled the Emperor 
 about the stage by his hind legs. Then he sang a 
 comic song, and the mandarins played at leapfrog. 
 

 SAN FRANCISCO. 73 
 
 The play was followed by a tumbling performance, 
 in which, the chief feat of the tumblers was to jump 
 off two tables, set one upon another, and fall flat 
 upon their backs with a thud which ought to have 
 broken their ribs. But they got up and did it again. 
 
 The whole business was a caricature of a pantomime, 
 in which all in turn were clowns and pantaloons. The 
 audience appeared to be gratified, for they laughed 
 much. The price for the whole theatre, exclusive of 
 two boxes tenanted by Chinese aristocrats, was the 
 same half a dollar, and barbarous music was kept 
 up throughout the performance. 
 
 The Chinese are making progress here. They have 
 built the Central Pacific Railway, but they do more 
 than supply hands for hard work. There are wealthy 
 mercantile houses owned and carried on by Chinese 
 merchants. You not only see the humble laundry of 
 Ho Ki, where the proprieter himself, in spectacles 
 and pigtail, is patiently ironing a shirt by the window, 
 but large wholesale establishments and offices with 
 " Ho Sing, Wo Chung & Co." announced over the 
 doors. They are fighting Californians with their own 
 weapons and on their own ground ; and they are 
 making such way that a popular comic placard in the 
 town, representing the Irishman and the Chinaman 
 with the head and boots of the American in their 
 respective mouths, ends by picturing the Chinaman as 
 having swallowed both Paddy and Uncle Sam. " Ah, 
 
74 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 sir," several persons said to me here, "the Chinese will 
 soon reach New York, and presently you will see them 
 in London." Their numbers do not increase very 
 much, however, at present ; but when once the China- 
 man comes, not only with his gods and his theatre, 
 but with his family, and gives up the sentiment which 
 now makes him stipulate that his bones shall be re- 
 stored to his own land, it is impossible to speculate 
 on the Chinese flood which may pour into America. 
 
 No wonder an industrious, money-loving people like 
 the Chinese admire California. This country, twice 
 the size of Great Britain, possesses everything which 
 makes a nation rich. Mountains and plains the 
 former covered with magnificent timber and filled with 
 all mineral wealth, the latter deep with fertile soil, 
 sea-board rivers, a most genial climate, and a position 
 commanding the American and Eastern continents 
 make California the pregnant terminus of the first 
 Atlantic and Pacific Railway. Great as has been its 
 growth, it is still in its infancy. The consciousness 
 of having unbounded opportunities gives the Cali- 
 fornian an appetite for progressive change so great, and 
 a craving for a fiercer speed so keen, that a native said 
 to me one day, " We enjoy earthquakes." This, of 
 course, is not true, but the sentiment is suggestive. 
 Earthquakes are the flies in the ointment here. People 
 were then looking out for one, as the weather had been 
 peculiarly oppressive ; and I saw many handsome 
 
SAN FRANCISCO. 75 
 
 houses being built of wood, as least likely to be thrown 
 down. A gentleman resident there came into my room 
 while I was writing, and told me the street talk was 
 then of earthquakes. You heard the word from groups 
 at the corners. He said "Last October travellers 
 would not come into this hotel for a month." As I 
 inhabited an apartment in the top story, I expected to 
 have the sensation at its height if it had come. 
 
 Besides earthquakes, San Francisco is very appre- 
 hensive of fire, and the arrangements for the assem- 
 blage of engines (steamers), and notice to the inha- 
 bitants, are excellent. As elsewhere in America, the 
 city is divided into wards, and its parts are numbered, 
 the San Franciscan pocket-books having the numbers 
 in them. Frequent telegraph signals communicate 
 with a central building, which has a large bell. I 
 have already referred to the procedure in case of fire. 
 Suppose I live near telegraph station No. 56, and my 
 house catches fire, I give a signal at once. The big 
 bell tolls five times quickly, and then after a pause 
 six times. The firemen all know where to go, and 
 people in the street turn to their pocket-books to see 
 where the fire has broken out. This tocsin is repeated 
 to make the warning sure. It rang sometimes twice 
 a night. 
 
 An industrial exhibition was open while I was there, 
 and set forth well the resources of the country. I was 
 struck by the abundance and apparent excellence of 
 
76 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 the machinery. The products, however, which first 
 take the eye on a hot summer day are fruit and wine ; 
 the former is excellent and abundant. Strawberries are 
 grown the whole year round; and the grapes, figs, pears, 
 melons, limes, and peaches might make the mouth of 
 a statue water. Melons are mostly eaten before break- 
 fast. The waiter brings you one, say a foot and a 
 half round, to begin with, as soon as you take your 
 seat at the table. One morning I saw a gentleman 
 break his fast with half a sphere which would have 
 served for a dinner party of a dozen in London. I 
 laid down my knife and fork to look at him, and he 
 ate it up with a spoon. The other fare was good. 
 Venison, and occasionally turtle, salmon, smelts, 
 perch, cod, oysters, frogs, squirrels, quails, turkeys, 
 beef, mutton, pork, &c. ; with pastry and ice creams, 
 Indian corn (of which the green ear is boiled whole, 
 buttered and eaten as a dog gnaws a bone), sweet 
 potatoes, huge tomatoes, 'and other vegetables, formed 
 our ordinary dinner. Breakfast is similarly abundant, 
 and lasts from 6 to 12. Luncheon comes on from 
 12.30, to 2.30, dinner from 4 to 7, tea from 7.30 to 
 9, supper from 9 to 12. 
 
 Though labour is dear here, food is not; the 
 charge for daily board at this, which is one of the 
 best hotels, being three dollars. Salaries are not 
 bad, as the head waiter, who had been servant 
 in a gentleman's family in England, told me he 
 
SAN FRANCISCO. 77 
 
 received eighty dollars a month, or about 240Z. a year. 
 But trifles are dear. " A hit," or 6d., seemed the 
 smallest current coin. You have a hottle, or rather 
 glass, of soda water. " How much ?" "A hit," and 
 so on. 
 
 Education is made much of here. Some of the 
 schools are very fine. I went over the Lincoln 
 " grammar," or, as we should call it, " national " 
 school, though the scholars remain longer than they 
 do with us. It has more than 1,000 hoys in attend- 
 ance, and is divided into ten grades or standards, the 
 lowest heing the tenth. All hut two are taught by 
 mistresses. It is curious to see strapping young 
 fellows of sixteen, with an incipient moustache, 
 quietly ohedient to a woman. The discipline is ex- 
 cellent. I never saw a school in better order. The 
 writing of the tenth grade, where the children were 
 six or seven years of age, was very good. The attain- 
 ments of the scholars, so far as I could examine into 
 them in two visits, were about equal to those of a very 
 good national school in England. I asked one of the 
 mistresses what work most of the children in her 
 " grade " were intended for. " Work ! " she replied, 
 " we don't work here, we use our brains." The 
 spelling was rather weak, the geography very fair, the 
 arithmetic good and quickly done. More subjects, or 
 at least, subjects with more names, were taught than 
 with us. The first grade was having a lesson in 
 
78 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 "philosophy" while I was present. One hoy was 
 called upon to explain the construction of the kaleido- 
 scope. Many common things were taught ; hut when 
 I asked one of the elder scholars, a polite young man 
 with a ring on his finger, whether they learnt 
 " Euclid," he did not know what I meant. On my 
 explaining the question, he said that geometry was 
 taught in the High School. The hoys were all bright, 
 neat, and remarkably quiet. The frames of their 
 slates were mostly covered with baize, lest they should 
 rattle against the desks. I was kindly welcomed in 
 the room of every grade, and the superintendent, who 
 explained the processes of the school to me, was most 
 courteous. He said that in several respects he pre- 
 ferred the English system. 
 
 San Franciscans, in common with all Americans, 
 are great readers, especially of newspapers. There 
 are many of these, but the advertisements in some 
 suggest great credulity on the part of the Californian 
 public. The Daily Call is now open before me, and 
 I see in one page seven advertisements of astrologers, 
 one of which, as a specimen, announces that "Pro- 
 fessor is the only practical planetary and elec- 
 trical astrologer in the State. He can be consulted 
 upon all sorts of business, law, robbery, sickness, 
 love, or journeys by sea or land ; fee, two dollars ; by 
 letter, three. Send the month of birth and year." 
 Others profess " pure Arabian talismans for dis- 
 
SAN FRANCISCO. 79 
 
 covering rich mines." This does not indicate great 
 progress in sound popular education. 
 
 San Francisco has many churches and chapels. I 
 attended the service in six of them one Sunday. 
 None were full. Nowhere, except in the Episcopal 
 churches, was there any provision for kneeling, 
 but the seats were all softly cushioned and very 
 comfortable. A full-blooded negro conducted the 
 evening service in the Baptist chapel. The con- 
 gregation was very small, there being only about 42 
 people in the building, which would hold 500. But 
 the preacher's language was superbly polysyllabic. 
 An excellent sermon was being preached in one of the 
 Presbyterian churches, which had the best congre- 
 gation of all. Everywhere the proportion of men in 
 the congregation was great. The Jews' synagogue is 
 the most imposing religious edifice in the city, and 
 the Eoman Catholics have the largest number of 
 adherents. I did not, however, visit any of their 
 churches. In two of the churches, Baptist and Pres- 
 byterian, the congregation seemed to take no part 
 whatever in the singing, but sat, the ladies all fan- 
 ning themselves, and listened to a small choir, 
 though hymns, not anthems, were sung, and the 
 people held books in their hands. In both cases 
 there was an organ. One Episcopal church had a 
 surpliced choir, and full choral service. 
 
 Other public buildings are large, and have an air 
 
80 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 of long-established success. Nothing, however, is 
 more striking than the frequency with which you are 
 reminded of the youth of the city. You may meet 
 men in the prime of life who came here before the 
 first house in San Francisco was built. And now 
 it is a thriving city, and .spreads like fire. One 
 curious feature in its shifting growth is seen in the 
 moving of whole houses down the streets from one 
 part of the city to another. No wonder that the 
 opening of the Atlantic and Pacific Railway has 
 turned the eyes of America to this place, with its bay 
 50 or 60 miles long, and its varied incalculable possi- 
 bilities of climate, position, and natural wealth. I 
 met with very few travelling Englishmen while I was 
 there. I searched the books of the Lick House and 
 Occidental, leading hotels, to find in page after page 
 no entry of an English arrival. The rush of visitors 
 is American, and, as I conversed with many, I per- 
 ceived that they came with a feeling that they were 
 visiting almost another country. A gentleman said 
 to me, "I can hardly believe that I am in America." 
 The fame of California, however, is fast receiving a 
 fresh impulse throughout the continent. There was 
 during part of my visit a large party or deputation of 
 "Odd Fellows" from all the States in the Union. 
 They came in a special train, and the city newspapers 
 were filled with accounts of the various sights and 
 civilities which were shown to them by the authorities 
 
82 TO SAN FKANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 of the place. Wherever you went you met a man 
 with a ribbon in his button-hole, stating that he was 
 member of such and such a Lodge in such and such a 
 State. These gentlemen all seemed portly, prosperous, 
 and full of the impressions which they were soon to 
 take back to their own homes. 
 
 I have no space to tell you of the various excursions 
 to be made in the beautiful bay of San Francisco. 
 Its suburbs are stretching out miles away. I steamed 
 and drove east and west, and the number of villas, 
 &c., with wide gardens already occupied by men of 
 business there was surprising. 
 
 The drive which pleased me most was that to the 
 beach by the Cliffe House, about six miles off. I 
 shall not soon forget my first sight of the shore of the 
 Pacific. .An American gentleman drove me in a 
 " spider waggon," or "buggy," as it is called here, 
 for miles along the beach. Our sharp wheels hardly 
 made a track. 
 
 I never saw waves more translucent. The light 
 shone through them till they broke with a pale 
 emerald crest upon the clean hard sand. The sun set 
 in the Pacific with a curious refraction which made 
 it appear double, and then floods of purple, copper, 
 and orange light were poured upon the sea and shore, 
 which made the scene marvellously beautiful for a few 
 minutes. Its strangeness was heightened to me by 
 scores of seals, which were barking like Newfoundland 
 
SAN FRANCISCO. 83 
 
 dogs on the rocks, and strings of pelicans, which flew 
 heavily over the waves. 
 
 From San Francisco I took one of the "excursions" 
 of the place, to the Yo Semite Valley and the hig 
 trees. This impressed me again with the size of the 
 country I was visiting. Everything is on a large 
 scale. The route we followed was 250 miles in length, 
 and it took twice as long to get into the heauties of 
 the valley as it does to reach Switzerland from 
 London. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. 
 
 WE left San Francisco on a Tuesday afternoon, and 
 reached the bottom of the Yo Semite Valley at 3.40 
 P.M. on a Friday, getting to the first house (there are 
 only two) at 5.20. We took the. Mariposa route, 
 which is a little the longest, hut passes through the 
 finest scenery. It also enables the tourist to visit the 
 largest group of big trees, which lie about five miles 
 off the road. We had not seen them then, for we 
 made the journey as fast as it could be conveniently 
 accomplished. Indeed, a party which started from 
 San Francisco a day before us, and which turned 
 aside to visit the big trees, did not arrive till many 
 hours after us. 
 
 Now for the route. We left San Francisco on 
 Tuesday, at 4 P.M., in the Stockton boat, my com- 
 panion being a very agreeable American gentleman, 
 whom I will call G. There was a most glorious sun- 
 set on the bay, the mountains around which seemed 
 to take every shade of violet, purple, and orange : 
 passing divers steamboats propelled by one huge hind 
 
THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. 85 
 
 wheel, and watching the heavy flight of pelicans which 
 abound here, we soon reached night. In the absence 
 of the moon, the stars showed the river sides, and the 
 lights of Benicia indicated the whereabouts of that 
 pugilistic city. We met two or three monstrous 
 hotel steamers, each of which looked like the side of 
 a street afloat as they went by us with lamps shining 
 from their tiers of windows. At last we turned in and 
 woke the next morning at five to find our boat along- 
 side the pier at Stockton, and one of the American 
 " stages," with six horses, waiting to carry us on 
 towards Mariposa. These vehicles are something 
 like overgrown stage coaches, carrying nine inside 
 and as many outside as can be piled upon the roof. 
 Including the driver, our load was twenty-five. We 
 started at six in the morning, and reached Hornitos, 
 where the stage sleeps, at 8.30 P.M., the distance 
 being 72 miles. The road no, there was no road 
 the track lay across the dustiest flat ground I ever saw 
 in my life. We made as much dust as half a dozen 
 harrows on a dry ploughed field in August, and, as 
 we went with the wind, we carried the dust with us 
 all the way. Sometimes, while sitting outside, I 
 could not see the leading horses I mean that I could 
 not have told whether we had leaders or not. The 
 driver's face was as dirty as a clod of earth nay, 
 dirtier, for the dust had grown upon it like a fungus ; 
 and when I washed mine in a tin basin before dinner 
 
86 TO SAN FBANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 at noon the water instantly became the colour of pea- 
 soup. I never saw or heard of such dust. 
 
 In our case, however, the dust was mixed with a 
 great store of oaths. The driver and his companion, 
 who sat immediately before me, while I was outside, 
 swore with an ingenious fertility of expletive discourse, 
 which became at last as artistic as it was unpleasant. 
 The way in which, when the main stream of decorated 
 conversation flagged, they popped in little fragments 
 of a curse just big enough to fill up a gap, showed 
 the proficiency in swearing which must have been the 
 result of long and skilful practice. I am bound to say 
 that this performance was confined to a duet, the rest 
 of the passengers being decent enough. One of them, 
 however, was an example pf the curious mixture 
 which may be found in some of these Western parts. 
 He sat opposite to me at dinner and ate like a hog. 
 While his mouth was full he helped himself with his 
 own knife and fork from all the dishes within his 
 reach, placing food upon his plate in total disregard 
 to the usual sequence or connection of courses. His 
 hands were as dirty as yes as a scavenger's. Irish 
 stew and apple pie, plum cake and pickles, mutton 
 chops and cheese, all came and went together. When 
 we were summoned to the stage, he sighed, and said, 
 " That, sir, is a good square meal." And this 
 trencherman turned out to be remarkably well in- 
 formed and well behaved in conversation. I sat next 
 
THE YO SEMITE YALLEY. 87 
 
 to him after dinner, and listened to an argument lie 
 had with a fellow-passenger on the comparative 
 advantages of a paper and specie circulation. He 
 astonished me hy his choice of words, their abundance, 
 and the precision with which they were used. He 
 spoke, too, with that slow, deliberate articulation and 
 careful completion of every sentence which often 
 marks the roughest-looking of some of these Western 
 men. He talked as a prosperous man with plenty of 
 money in his purse. 
 
 The scenery on this part of our route was dull 
 enough. Eight and left lay boundless breadths of 
 corn-land, in which the large waggons, called here 
 "prairie schooners," drawn by twelve horses, showed 
 like ships. One farm we passed through consisted of 
 10,000 acres : the owner of this, a Mr. John Jones, 
 letting in addition to tenants, who pay in kind, some 
 12,000 acres more. Some few years ago he had only 
 fifty-three dollars and two yoke of cattle. 
 
 We passed large flocks of sheep, which are watched 
 not only by shepherds but by turkey-buzzards, who, 
 when a sheep drops, appear out of space and eat him. 
 There were, besides, countless ground-squirrels, who 
 live in harmony with little owls, many of which we 
 saw sitting on their common mounds. There were 
 no villages or towns in sight all day. We changed 
 horses and dined at solitary ranches, one of which, 
 " Bean Kanche," took its name from a habit which 
 
88 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 its owner once had of charging two dollars a head for 
 dinner and giving his guests nothing but beans. We 
 did not stop there, but dined excellently in the middle 
 of the day at a place close to the Tuolumne river, 
 which has the colour of carrot soup. This we crossed 
 by a ferry, as we did two or three other streams. 
 When we reached Hornitos at 8.30 we were so weary 
 of the stage and unwilling to face the dust for five 
 hours the next morning that we engaged a carriage, 
 and, after a hasty supper, drove on to Mariposa, a 
 place of much the same size as Hornitos, with a 
 population of about 300 souls. We were very glad to 
 get out of the stage, which, beside the dust it raised, 
 showed a constant disposition to turn over, the road 
 itself being exceeded in badness by its holes. In 
 some places and for some distance this was mended 
 with straw, as if the country side had been ill ; but, 
 mostty, the holes were left to grow as they liked, and 
 when they were hopelessly impassable the stage took 
 a turn into the field to avoid them. 
 
 We reached Mariposa at 2.15 A.M. on Thursday 
 morning. There was one building with lights in the 
 windows. " Is that the inn ?" asked I of our driver* 
 "No, sir," he replied, "it is a saloon. They are 
 playing cards." However, we found the inn, with the 
 door open. Entering, we shouted till somebody came 
 and showed us our rooms, when we were asleep in 
 five minutes. 
 
THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. 89 
 
 Kising at about seven, we first visited the gold mine 
 of Mariposa, and a civil Cornish miner gave me some 
 quartz which contained gold at the rate of 200 dollars 
 a ton. But some is very much richer. There is 
 little "placer," or surface-digging, now. Most of the 
 mines are worked by companies, and the quartz 
 crushed at considerable expense. Here we saw the 
 quartz reduced to white powder, then silted over 
 copper plates smeared with quicksilver. The gold- 
 dust unites itself with this. The amalgam is then 
 scraped off and squeezed in a cloth till the quicksilver 
 is pressed out, and a lump, from which the gold is 
 finally extracted, left in the hands of the operator. 
 Outside Mariposa we rode up to a party of Chinese 
 surface diggers, and rashly proposed to buy what gold 
 they had got. Fo, Fi, Fum & Co. rested on their 
 spades and looked sadly at us till an interpreter came 
 forward and conveyed to them the meaning of our 
 pantomimic offers. They then shook their heads and 
 went on patiently digging. They had found nothing 
 but exercise in their labours, but had cast up a 
 pyramid of dirt some twenty feet high. 
 
 After visiting the quartz mines we hired horses and 
 a guide for an excursion to the Yo Semite, which 
 takes a week at the least. Our guide was a very well- 
 mannered young fellow, who took his meals with us 
 on the route, and proved himself an excellent shot 
 with a revolver. Our horses were hardy, sagacious 
 
90 TO SAN FKANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 greys, fitted with Mexican saddles. These are very 
 uncomfortable at first, as you are ohliged to ride with 
 a long stirrup, and sit without varying your position 
 in what might be the fork of a tree, the pommel rising 
 in a way that would be more than disagreeable if the 
 horse were to rear. 
 
 We had a ride of two long days through a forest 
 which we entered shortly after leaving Mariposa. 
 We reached a house called White and Hatch's about 
 noon the first day. From that to the Yo Semite 
 Valley we saw but one ranche " Clark's " where we 
 slept. During the whole of the second day we met 
 only one man, and he was on horseback, with a heavy 
 rifle, hunting grizzly bears. We saw another man 
 some little way off, building another ranche, which 
 would probably be ready for tourists next year. Near 
 Clark's, too, there were some wigwams of digger 
 Indians, who had wonderful mops of coal-black hair 
 on their shoulders, and earn a trifle by selling fish 
 and other game. But they are a miserable race, 
 eating, they say, not only acorns, but worms. Small 
 parties, remnants of tribes, are scattered about these 
 ridges of the Sierra Nevada, and exhibit the worst 
 phases of a degraded disappearance. Squaws wan- 
 dered about in front of me as I sat writing at the door 
 of the ranche in the valley, and we tried to coax some 
 round-headed, black-haired, staring brats, but they 
 would have none of us, and ran away. 
 
THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. 91 
 
 To return to our ride. It was unlike anything I 
 had ever experienced. The trail was " blazed " i.e., 
 marked by cuttings in the bark of trees. We wound 
 round mountain sides, and crawled up and down slopes 
 which tried the sureness of our horses' feet, as at last 
 they had to pass in the dark among stones and pieces 
 of rock lying in a trail which sometimes seemed as if 
 inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees, though, 
 of course, the descent was nowhere so steep. The 
 character of the scenery was unlike anything in Switzer- 
 land or the Tyrol, the mountains in one or other of 
 which countries I have visited for several summers. 
 It was, I think, chiefly marked by the absence of 
 underwood and the great size of the trees, chiefly pines, 
 cedars, and firs, which frequently rose as straight as 
 a stick without any indication of roots,, out of a white 
 sandy soil. A very large number of the trees were 
 between 200 and 300 feet high. Gr. and I calculated 
 by means of its shadow the altitude of a tree sixteen 
 feet in circumference four feet six inches from the 
 ground, which stood a few yards from the door of our 
 ranche. I made it 204 feet high ; he made it the 
 same all but a few inches. The height given by pro- 
 fessor Whitney, one of the State Commissioners in 
 charge of this and the Mariposa tract, is, we learnt 
 from the keeper of the ranche, 208 feet. Now, this is 
 by no means an exceptional tree. Many among those 
 through which we wound our way as we rode were 
 
92 TO SAN FKANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 much higher. I believe that this proportion of large 
 trees is caused hy fires which fail to destroy those 
 which have attained a considerable growth. We saw 
 many big trees flourishing with scorched trunks. One 
 very dark evening we had a fine scene presented to us. 
 The night came on before we got to the place where 
 we slept, and a portion of the forest on our left was in 
 flames. It was a grand, solemn sight. Trees 100 feet 
 high or more made pillars of fire which pointed up into 
 a red sky. On our right and in front the darkness 
 was great. I could sometimes see the grey horse of 
 our guide when he was close before me. Then for a 
 few minutes I could perceive nothing but the outline 
 of some of the tree tops against the starlight. I hung 
 my reins on the pommel of my saddle, and let my 
 horse suit himself, which he did admirably, though 
 sometimes his heels appeared to be higher than his 
 head. When we got near our ranche we fired our 
 pistols as a signal, and our guide, reaching the flat in 
 which the house lay, broke into a hand gallop, and took 
 us in with great effect, though I, for one, could not 
 see the ground over which we were passing. 
 
 That was on our reaching Clark's ranche. The 
 next day we rode still from 7 A.M. till 5.20, includ- 
 ing stoppages for rest ; but, as I said, we passed no 
 house and met only one man a bear hunter. The 
 scenery was much the same with the exception of 
 some sandy openings in the forest, which we 
 
THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. 93 
 
 cantered briskly over, and a few meadows of coarse 
 grass, set round with high, straight cedar and pine 
 trunks till we reached Inspiration Point, at 12.40, 
 where the first view is got of the Yo Semite Valley. 
 I was disappointed. The prospect was obscured by 
 smoke from a burning portion of the forest, and the 
 sky-line of the mountains was more uniform than I 
 had expected. We looked down into a narrow valley 
 thick set with trees between nearly perpendicular 
 cliffs 3,000 feet high. The view was not nearly so 
 fine as many in Switzerland, though I do not 
 remember any place surrounded by such precipitous 
 rocks. These are of white granite. One which 
 faced us as we descended by a very steep, rough, and 
 dusty track presented what appears to be a perfectly 
 unbroken perpendicular wall of 3,000 feet. There 
 was no snow left, but the sky-line was jagged with 
 scattered pines. It was not till we had fairly 
 descended into the valley that we appreciated the 
 singular feature of the scenery of the Yo Semite. 
 The height of the trees conceals the slope of rubbish 
 at the bottom of the cliffs, and thus they seem to rise 
 sheer out of the ground like the sides of a house. 
 A thin purple haze gave such a softness to the view 
 that it was hard to believe we were looking upon the 
 face of granite. The special beauty of the Yo Semite 
 valley must be sought for in the spring, or at 
 least early in the summer. The waterfalls, for 
 
94 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 which it is famous, are to be seen in their perfection 
 only while the snow is melting. The Yo Semite Fall 
 has, when it exists in perfection, one clear plunge of 
 1,600 feet. This is the highest, several of the others 
 being repeatedly broken by ledges of rock. Some of 
 the cascades were dry or reduced to a mere mockery 
 of a dribble for some time, and would not reappear 
 till the November rains gave them some substance. 
 Their full beauty, however, is reserved for the spring 
 thaw. Then, too, the valley is thick set with flowers. 
 In summer it is dusty, and what grass there is is 
 burnt brown. Still, the view of the granite cliffs over 
 the green pine tops is always grand, and more 
 continuously precipitous than any that I have ever 
 seen. The valley is about seven miles long. There 
 are in it two hotels, as they call themselves, but the 
 accommodation is very rough. When G. and I were 
 shown to our bedroom the first night we found that it 
 consisted of a quarter of a shed screened off by split 
 planks, which rose about eight or ten feet from the 
 ground, and enabled us to hear everything that went 
 on in the other "rooms," which were simply stalls in 
 the same shed. Ours had no window, but we could 
 see the stars through the roof. The door, opening 
 out into the forest, was fastened with cow-hinges of 
 skin with the hair on, and a little leather strap which 
 hooked on to a nail. We boasted a rough, gaping 
 floor, but several of the other bed-rooms were only 
 
THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. 95 
 
 strewed with branches of arbor vitae. As a grizzly 
 bear had lately been seen wandering about a few 
 hundred yards from our "hotel," we took the 
 precaution of putting our revolvers under our pillows. 
 I dare say this was needless, as the bears have mostly 
 retired to the upper part of the valley, a few miles off, 
 but it gave a finish to our toilet which had the charm 
 of novelty. Next morning, however, seeing the 
 keeper of the ranche with his six-shooter in his hand, 
 and noticing that it was heavily loaded, I asked him 
 why he used so much powder. " Oh," said he, " I've 
 loaded it for bears." 
 
 At first G. and I were the only visitors at this 
 house, but several were at the other one about half a 
 mile off, and more were soon expected. Altogether 
 some 800 persons visited the valley this year. Out of 
 the 368 whose names were entered in the book here 
 I found those of only three English people and one 
 Scotchman. The number of tourists had largely 
 increased that summer, but I do not think very many 
 will come till a railroad has been made to Mariposa 
 from Stockton, and the discomfiture of the middle 
 passage over the dusty plains thus obviated. 
 
 There are, as I have said, a few Indians in the 
 valley, but they belong to the Mono Tribe, which has 
 driven out that of the Yo Semite. Indeed, only 
 one man of these was left, and he expected to be 
 shot before long, for the remnants of these miserable 
 
96 TO SAN FEANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 tribes were still at war with each other. The last of 
 the Yo Semite Indians had fled from the home of his 
 ancestors, and lived with three squaws in a hark 
 wigwam close to Clark's ranche, where we slept on 
 our way. We saw him as we passed. Those then 
 there were, I helieve, Monoes. Not far off from the 
 "hotel," the squaws I saw were pounding acorns for 
 their winter food, two or three of their lords and 
 masters looking on. We paid them a visit during the 
 course of our sojourn in the valley, and they scowled 
 at us horribly. No wonder, poor wretches ; for 
 though they turned out the Yo Semite tribe, they are 
 themselves finally disappearing before the white man, 
 who has come into this, which was to the Indians one 
 of their most famous retreats. Some few years ago 
 the Yo Semite natives killed several of a party of 
 miners, and then were foolish enough to boast that 
 they lived in a valley safe from the white man ; but a 
 traitor of another tribe took the avengers into this 
 place. I had the honour of being introduced to him 
 on my way there, but did not know then that he had 
 played the Judas to the redfaces. I met him in the 
 forest. He was riding, while three of his ladies were 
 toiling alongside on foot, through the deep dust, with 
 heavy burdens on their backs. It seems that I 
 resemble some officer of weight and size whom he 
 once honoured. "Whew! whew!" whistled he as I 
 rode past. "Who this?" he then asked of our 
 
THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. 97 
 
 guide. "Great Captain? whew! whew! Hew dew 
 dew?" added he to your humhle servant, stopping 
 to shake hands. "Hew dew dew? Wheeew 
 wheeeeew." 
 
 I add a few lines ahout the remainder of our visit 
 to the valley, leaving that to the big trees for another 
 chapter. During the three days we were there we 
 wandered ahout and found the permanent features of 
 the scenery grow upon us. The granite cliffs are 
 wonderful. We looked in vain, though, for our 
 grizzly hear. One night we thought we had perhaps 
 found him. G. and I strolled out into the forest with 
 our revolvers, and presently disturbed something 
 which made a crackling and brushing in the long dry 
 undergrowth, and seemed to go up a tree. It was too 
 dark to see any object distinctly, for we had only 
 starlight to guide us. So we- fired up into the 
 branches whence the noise came, but got only 
 prolonged echoes among the cliffs for our pains. One 
 of our visitors, though, came upon a lynx not far from 
 our house, and several deer were killed and brought 
 in by the Indians ; and one man told us he had shot 
 fifty-eight bears in the last four years. 
 
 There is but very little cultivation in the valley. 
 One enterprising man had planted a spot with 
 vegetables, and pear, apple, plum, and peach trees. 
 Where he found a market for their produce it was 
 hard to say, unless, as is probable, he relied upon 
 
 H 
 
98 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 selling to visitors what he could not eat. His orchard 
 had no fence, and he himself was not to be found 
 when we paid it a visit. Outside a little hut, 
 however, close by, was a paper, with the following 
 notice : " Any one helping himself to a mess of fruit 
 from my patch will please put 2 Bits through a hole 
 in my door, and oblige J. C. Lemon." We helped 
 ourselves liberally to peaches and apples, and 
 complied with his request, adding a little more for 
 the pocketfuls we took away. 
 
 One day we climbed as far into the recess behind 
 the Yo Semite falls as we could reach, and realised 
 the great size of the cavity. The pleasure of strolling 
 and sitting about in these parts is somewhat marred 
 by rattlesnakes, whose trails are seen in the dust, and 
 which you may find coiled up on a stone that seems 
 to offer a pleasant seat. Nothing is now to be feared 
 from the Indians, who were once the most dangerous 
 inhabitants of the valley. There is, indeed, no 
 serious reason why a peaceful traveller should carry 
 firearms in these parts. We were tempted to bring 
 ours for the possible chance of a shot at a lynx or a 
 grizzly bear. In a few years the last of these will 
 have retired before the stream of tourists. A railway 
 will be built to the foot of the Sierra, a shorter trail 
 made to the Yo Semite from Mariposa, and it will be 
 difficult to realise the loneliness and roughness of our 
 ride through the forest to this place. All the Arne- 
 
THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. 99 
 
 ricans I have seen are very proud of it, and some less 
 well informed than the rest have been almost offended 
 at my saying that much grander mountain views 
 could be found in the Alps. I was far more impressed 
 with the forest than with the valley, though I had not 
 then seen the famous big trees. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TO THE FOBEST. 
 
 I HAVE just returned to Sacramento from our Yo Semite- 
 excursion. Though the valley has disappointed me, 
 I am more than glad to have taken our forest ride and 
 visited the hig trees in the Mariposa district. They 
 are monstrous. We left the valley on Monday morn- 
 ing at 7 A.M., riding to " Clark's" that day by the same 
 route as the one followed on our entrance. The forest 
 grew upon us. My companion said to me, "I seem 
 never to have seen trees before," and yet those through 
 which we rode were of no uncommon size for these 
 parts. As we passed by one I said, "Now, that is 
 not an exceptional tree ; let us measure it." So we 
 got off our horses, and, taking out my tape, I found it 
 was, breast high, 1SJ feet in circumference. The 
 trunks of many pines, too, run up far as clean as a 
 mast. The sun striking on these, which are of a light 
 yellowish brown colour, and on those of the cedars, 
 which are very large, clean, and reddish, gives mar- 
 vellous vistas in the forest. Some trees are also 
 loaded with bright green moss, and as the arlor vitoe 
 
TO THE FOREST. 101 
 
 reaches a great height say, 50 feet or 60 feet its 
 dark foliage adds to the play of colour which surrounds 
 the traveller in these immense belts of timber. Large 
 fallen rotten trunks and charred stumps are seen in 
 all directions, and the sentiment of loneliness is in- 
 creased by the thought that one might ride a thousand 
 miles through the same scenes by following the course 
 of the Sierra. But the grandest of all are, I think, 
 reserved for the night. We had eaten our supper at 
 Clark's ranche, and I was sitting within doors by a 
 roaring log fire smoking my cigar, for it was cold, when 
 G. called to me to come out. Part of the mountain 
 which we had been descending for hours, and which, 
 covered with huge trees, rose high up from our resting- 
 place, was on fire. We had been aware of much smoke 
 during the day, but our track had not led us near the 
 scene of the conflagration. The sight was infinitely 
 grand. High up, as it were, in the sky, we saw walls, 
 towers, and pinnacles of fire. In some places it smoul- 
 dered in long banks and lines of glowing red, and then 
 arose in crackling pillars of flame, as some great tree 
 broke into a blaze. Here and there huge ladders of 
 light seemed to reach up to the fiery firmament from 
 the earth. The shifting of the flashes, as a trunk fell 
 or some fresh branches were caught, gave an appear- 
 ance as if some monster forms were moving about in 
 the middle of the furnace. We stood long in silence 
 looking at it. The fire was not very far off, perhaps 
 
102 TO SAN FBANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 two hours' ride, and reached only for some few miles. 
 It had heen burning for a month. The way in 
 which it was piled upon itself, and had crept up the 
 mountain side, leaving great trunks to smoulder 
 and glare for weeks beneath its course, gave it a 
 perspective like that of Martin's pictures. We said 
 it was worth coming to the Yo Semite if it were 
 only to behold such a scene as that. Altogether, 
 what with the burning forest, the bark wigwams by 
 which we stood, and the roaring log fire outside 
 the ranche, around which rough men sat as if in 
 a picture of Rembrandt, that evening was one of 
 the most marked in our ten days' excursion to the 
 valley. 
 
 A word about Mr. Clark before I pass on. I suppose 
 he might be called a pioneer of settlers and back- 
 woodsmen. One of his dependants told me that he 
 frequently preferred a blanket by the wood fire under 
 the stars to a bed in the house which is known by his 
 name hard by. To look at him, with his rough dress, 
 rougher beard, and trousers, Western fashion, stuck 
 into his boots, you might carelessly put him down for 
 a coarse, tobacco -chewing, swearing son of the forest. 
 But take a flower or a fir cone in your hand and ask 
 him what it is. He will give you at once its Latin 
 name in soft measured speech and with courteous 
 rejoinder. He had a few books in the window of the 
 ranche. I laid my hand at once on Gothe's " Faust " 
 
TO THE FOREST. 103 
 
 and Kobertson's Sermons. Again and again we met 
 with combinations or contrasts of character in the 
 same individual which, I think, could hardly be found 
 in the Old World. Here, if anywhere, is the place to 
 learn that people are not always what they seem. 
 The exigencies of border life involve the roughest 
 outside and the hardest hand; but, at the same time, 
 they weed out those who have nothing but bone and 
 sinew to help them. A pioneer must not only have 
 a thick skull, but keen brains inside it. Moreover, 
 the love of adventure and the sense of battle done 
 with mine, forest, and plain, let alone Indians and 
 "grizzlies," have drawn divers men of good educa- 
 tion and prophetic soul out of smoothed civilised 
 society, where they fretted at small proprieties, 
 and they rejoice at having full fling for their 
 wits and limbs by laying down a way for their 
 nation to follow into the incalculable stores of a 
 new world. 
 
 Next morning we started shortly after sunrise for 
 the big trees. It was very cold, and we enjoyed the 
 gallop which a comparatively level track gave us 
 through the first part of the forest which we entered. 
 Soon our path grew too steep for more than a footpace. 
 We went up and down among the trees for about two 
 hours, until our guide cried out, "We shall come to 
 one directly;" and sure enough there stood a red- 
 barked monster, dwarfing the large trunks among 
 
104 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 which it grew, as a full-grown tree does a crowd of 
 saplings. Where were our pines, with their 18 feet 
 girth, by the side of a giant some 100 feet round 
 breast high ? Of course the great size of the ordinary 
 forest timber in which these huge growths are found 
 takes off from their immense proportions, but if one 
 were set upon a plain it would show like the Eddy- 
 stone Lighthouse. To speak for myself, it was hard 
 to realise that what we saw were trees. Their trunks, 
 when we stood close to them, had almost the appear- 
 ance of artificial structures. One that had fallen was 
 hollow, and had been broken by its fall. We rode 
 into the break and through the prostrate fragment as 
 if it had been a tunnel. We climbed up on the trunk 
 of another, also fallen, and when I had stepped 55 
 yards upon it I measured its circumference and found 
 it to be over 25 feet. Thus, with its bark on it 
 had been stripped it would have been at least 
 some 30 feet in girth at a height of 170 feet from 
 the ground. But these were not the biggest that 
 we saw. 
 
 The bark of these trees is red, and about a foot 
 thick. It lies on the trunk in rough longitudinal 
 ridges like huge muscles, but it is so soft that with 
 my pocket knife I cut off two great hunks from a 
 portion which had been detached, and lay upon the 
 ground. The branches are short, and spring mainly 
 from the upper part of the tree. The foliage is scant 
 
106 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 in proportion to the trunk, and the cones are little 
 bigger than plovers' eggs. The tree itself is said to 
 be a species of gigantic cedar; but -it spends its 
 strength in growing more wood than leaves. There 
 are about 600 of these cedars, of different sizes, some 
 being comparatively small, in the Mariposa groups. 
 I do not know the greatest height reached by any one 
 of these, but in another grove the altitude of one is 
 found to be 335 feet, and there also a fallen hollow 
 trunk can be ridden through on horseback for a 
 distance of 25 yards. One fallen tree is said to 
 measure upwards of 420 feet, but I doubt this. The 
 Mariposa group is not so well known as several others, 
 and consequently has not suffered from the enterprise 
 of some shrewd settler in these parts who profanes 
 the scene with a catchpenny "hotel," like a "camera 
 obscura " on the beach at Margate. I see by photo- 
 graphs that several giant trees have these parasites at 
 their feet. Here we met with no such offence, but 
 rode about from trunk to trunk by a trail which was 
 occasionally almost lost and sometimes left. The 
 fancy of visitors has been to give names to the largest. 
 "This," said our guide, "is 'Grant;' this is 'John- 
 son/ because it leans to the South," and so on. But 
 the trees themselves were not thus labelled, and in 
 spite of this prattle, which could not be stopped, we 
 carried away a deep impression of these wonderful 
 growths. 
 
TO THE FOREST. 107 
 
 After spending as long a time as we could spare 
 in visiting and measuring this group, we rode back 
 to Clark's, as we had to push on that afternoon to 
 "White and Hatch's," the next house on the way 
 towards Mariposa. I had made such a collection of 
 pieces of wood, hark, cones, &c., that it had to he 
 packed up before and behind me when I got into 
 the saddle. This made our progress slow, for it is 
 not easy to trot or gallop with a woodstack around 
 you, and the night came on before we got to our 
 quarters. 
 
 Next night we rode into Mariposa betimes to catch 
 the stage for Stockton; and I hope, for the sake of 
 any future visitors to the district, that this may be 
 superseded by a railway before long. I never in my 
 life heard of any one who had gone through the jolting 
 which we were condemned to for five hours. The 
 stage had no springs, and the road, "graded," or 
 roughly cut on the sides of the spurs of the Sierra, 
 had not been made. I dare say it never will be, for 
 when an American has got so far with a track as to 
 make it just passable for wheels he is content. Our 
 route looked at a distance as good as that over any of 
 the lower Swiss passes ; but, since the floor of the 
 rock which had been laid bare for it by pick or blast 
 was simply left to level itself, the result was merely 
 a rough sketch of a road. There were eight of us in 
 the stage, which had a leathern roof supported by 
 
108 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 strong uprights. We all held on by these, or we 
 should have heen a mere conglomerate of travellers 
 before the journey ended. Up-hill it was not so bad, 
 for we went very slowly; but when our driver had 
 reached the top of the zigzags which lead down to 
 Hornitos he drove as fast, I suppose, as he could, 
 and the result inside was ludicrously disagreeable. 
 At Hornitos we had to wait some six hours for the 
 next start of the stage; only now it was a "Concord" 
 coach with six horses, nine inside passengers, and 
 any number out. Here the jolting and bad manage- 
 ment were in some respects worse, for they became 
 dangerous. Our driver had provided himself with a 
 store of whisky, which he soon drank. Then an 
 outside passenger was foolish enough to give him a 
 flask full in addition. The result was that he drove 
 off the track into the country. Now, as this hap- 
 pened in the middle of a dark, moonless night, and 
 as the country consisted of rounded hills, with occa- 
 sional watercourses, the detour was not agreeable. 
 It was so dark that even our tipsy driver was com- 
 pelled to stop two or three times and get down to the 
 ground to search for wheel marks or any indication of 
 a road. At last we struck the track, and away he 
 went with his six horses as hard as he could pelt. 
 There was nothing to be done. We were wedged in 
 so tight that we could not move or even jolt about 
 inside, but the lumbering vehicle bounded along as if 
 
TO THE FOREST. 109 
 
 it were as drunk as the coachman . By all the rules 
 of dynamics we ought to have been turned over half- 
 a-dozen times. One provoking feature of the per- 
 formance was the praise which a fellow -Irishman 
 bestowed on the driver for not upsetting us when he 
 left the road. 
 
 The scenery through which the traveller passes on 
 his way to the forest on the sides of the Sierra is not 
 pleasing. It reminded me of the least agreeable 
 phases of a summer Italian prospect. The grass was 
 burnt brown, and the short stunted oaks had the 
 roundness and monotony of olive trees. I can well 
 imagine that the spring here is lovely, but six months' 
 roasting sun so pulverises the soil that it becomes 
 coated, not with sand, but with the finest powder, 
 which rises in clouds round every footfall, and, once 
 raised, shows no more disposition to settle down 
 again than smoke does. It obscures the horizon, and 
 dims the outline of even near objects with a choking 
 yellow haze. And yet this dun-coloured soil becomes 
 almost black when irrigated. One spot by the road- 
 side was cheered by a Chinaman's garden. He had 
 brought a little stream to his aid, and his cabbages 
 stood up as clean and bright out of the dark mould 
 as they do in a Chinese picture. The neatness and 
 regularity of this plot were all the more striking as 
 our way along ran by the side of deserted surface 
 gold mines. Nothing can exceed the desolate look of 
 
110 TO SAN FKANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 these. It seemed as if those who had dug had been 
 so fierce for gain as to dig wildly. No vestige of 
 order or method survived. The object of the miners 
 was to wash every likely spot along the valley, and 
 as they came upon a good " find," to turn up every 
 foot around it, greedily careless about leaving their 
 work as ragged as possible. Their "tailings" had 
 been picked over by successors, often with as much 
 success as some of the first eager diggers met 
 with; and now patient Chinese were to be seen in 
 places turning over and "washing" the tormented 
 earth for such gleanings of gold as it still con- 
 tained. But each generation of miners has made 
 the scene more scraggy and desolate. The poor 
 valley has no sooner begun to clothe some of its 
 sores with vegetation than they are rudely scratched 
 open again. 
 
 As I said, however, this "placer" mining has 
 mostly been superseded by the quartz mill, which is 
 fed from the shaft. The true surface mines of Cali- 
 fornia are its corn-fields, gardens, and vineyards. I 
 have already referred to these, but I do not think 
 that I mentioned one "garden" which has forty acres 
 of strawberries. Judicious irrigation, in a climate 
 which really has no winter, enables this fruit to be 
 provided the whole year round. 
 
 Before I close this chapter I must say something 
 about the cost of a trip to the Yo Semite. The 
 
112 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 barest expenses for the excursion from San Francisco 
 amount to more than 100 dollars, gold. The charge 
 for living on the route and in the valley is exorbi- 
 tant. We paid three dollars and a-half each per day 
 for the sorriest lodging and the simplest fare. We 
 had, moreover, to pay the same for our guide, in 
 addition to his own wage. Then extras were charged. 
 The toll over a rude bridge was one dollar a horse. 
 Altogether the visitor must expect to be squeezed as 
 dry as possible. Probably competition will change 
 this before long, but at present all concerned in ex- 
 hibiting the Yo Semite combine to get as much as 
 they can out of the sight-seer. You are obliged to 
 ride, at least in the summer and autumn. Dust 
 would make a walking tour there intolerable. As it 
 is, the inside of the legs of your trousers become like 
 that of an old flower-pot. Almost all who live there 
 wear high boots, with their trousers stuck in them. 
 This is by far the best foot gear for these parts. 
 But, however shod, no one walks. You must have 
 a horse for your guide, for which you pay extra ; and 
 if you have anything like luggage, you must have a 
 horse for that too. 
 
 Of course, if any one were to make a lengthened 
 tour or sojourn in and about the Sierra, he would 
 take his tent and camp out, but now ordinary tourists 
 or travellers have no choice but to submit to extor- 
 tion or keep clear of the Yo Semite. 
 
TO THE FOREST. 
 
 113 
 
 I ought to add that we found the people we had to 
 do with civil ; our guide especially was a very well- 
 behaved young fellow. We were charged high for 
 almost everything, but there was no help for it, and 
 if one is squeezed, it is as well to be squeezed as 
 pleasantly as possible. 
 
 ( \ 
 
114 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE MOBMON CITY. 
 
 MY return journey eastward from California was 
 broken by a visit to the Salt Lake City, and as by 
 the failure of the Union Pacific Railway to keep its 
 time I was obliged to wait at Omaha for a night, I 
 took the opportunity of putting down on paper some- 
 thing about the Mormons. 
 
 I cannot affect to arrange my impressions in- a 
 manner which shall give you distinct tabulated in- 
 formation under such different heads as politics, 
 religion, agriculture, and the like I can best set 
 down what comes uppermost in what I saw and heard 
 during an eight days' sojourn in the City of the 
 Saints. 
 
 The Atlantic and Pacific Railway, though it skirts 
 the Great Salt Lake, nowhere runs within thirty-five 
 miles of the Salt Lake City. A coach took you to it 
 by an abominable road from Uintah. A branch rail- 
 way, however, was opened not long after my visit, 
 and now the seclusion of Brigham Young's famous 
 town has been impaired for ever. Some Mormons 
 
THE MORMON CITY. 115 
 
 affected to be pleased with the prospect of this 
 publicity, but I didn't believe them. Certainly, no 
 sign of a desire to be visited was then shown by their 
 authorities, if we may judge by the state of the road 
 which led to the city from the Uintah Station. It is 
 more full of deep holes than any I ever traversed. 
 Two stages ran daily one meeting the eastward and 
 the other the westward train ; but the influx of 
 strangers by these was inconsiderable in a city of some 
 20,000 inhabitants. Since the branch railway has 
 been opened, hundreds have been tempted to have a 
 passing look at the City of the Saints, where one 
 submitted to the long jolting imposed once upon 
 visitors. There seems no reason, moreover, why, 
 having once been invaded by the rail, the Mormons 
 should not see it carried by the Valley of the Jordan 
 and the Utah Lake through their country settlements. 
 However their rulers may wish to remain isolated, the 
 people will see the superiority of a train to the old 
 tedious waggon, and will probably prefer being hanged 
 for a sheep rather than for a lamb. The deed is 
 done. The iron road has bored its way through the 
 shell of Mormonism, and the Saints must make the 
 best of it. Rumour says that Brigham has already 
 made a very good thing of it indeed, as he took the 
 contract for many miles of the Union Pacific. 
 
 We left Uintah Station at about noon, the train 
 steaming off on its single line of rail for its solitary 
 i 2 
 
116 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 journey over the wilderness. Having secured two 
 seats outside the stage, we looked with special interest 
 on our route and its surroundings. The road ran at 
 the foot of hills on our left. On our right lay a flat 
 country dotted with Mormon farms ; beyond it the 
 beautiful Salt Lake twinkled in the sun ; and across 
 this, some forty miles off, rose a grand range of snow- 
 patched mountains. 
 
 We met a large number almost a procession of 
 tilted carts, each driven by an elderly, shaven, sour- 
 faced man. In the carts were beds, kettles, baskets, 
 &c., among which sat one or more of the sour-faced 
 men's wives. Not to mince the matter, I never saw 
 such a collection of ugly, shrivelled, melancholy- 
 looking women in my life. They wore long poke 
 bonnets, like the tilted carts they rode in, from under 
 the roofs of which they scowled at the stage as their 
 lords and masters drew on one side to let us pass. 
 We learnt from our driver, a surly fellow, that they 
 were leaving the half-yearly conference, which had 
 just broken up, and that some of them had come 200 
 or 300 miles to attend it. Hence the beds, kettles, 
 &c. At first we were sorry to have missed this 
 gathering, but perhaps it was for the best, as we 
 came upon much sentiment which the conference had 
 just aroused. 
 
 The scene remained the same for several hours. 
 At last, on reaching the top of a rise in our road, 
 

 I 
 
118 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 we saw sloping gently from the hill on our left 
 what appeared to be a long shrubbery, thick-set 
 with gables, walls, and chimneys, and in the midst of 
 it a huge white oval rounded roof, like a monstrous 
 egg. This was the City of the Saints, and the egg 
 was the Tabernacle. We soon entered the town. 
 Each house, as a rule, stands in an orchard of small 
 trees. The streets are very wide, unlighted, unpaved, 
 and skirted on either side by small streams of water. 
 They are, as is usual in American towns, at right 
 angles to each other, and on three sides the slope of 
 the hills prevents the streets going far on the fourth 
 side stretch out towards the plain ready for any 
 extension of the city, and pointing towards the still 
 unoccupied valley flats. The extreme perspective of 
 these streets is very striking. Shortly after we were 
 put down at the Townsend House, a hotel kept by a 
 man of that name and his three wives, I strolled into 
 the city. As I stood looking down one of these wide 
 thoroughfares, I perceived a cloud of dust in the 
 distance, and waited to see what it would bring forth. 
 Presently horsemen became visible, and before long a 
 tribe of Indians revealed itself. The chief rode first. 
 Then came a mixed multitude of warriors and 
 squaws, almost all riding, the latter astride like the 
 men, with children seated behind, holding on. It 
 was a picturesque troop, but all were repulsively ugly. 
 They were moving camp, and had come into the town 
 
THE MORMON CITY. 119 
 
 to trade by the way. I saw in some shops stores of 
 glass beads, which the saints, at a very considerable 
 profit, used as precious coin in their transactions with 
 these people. Among the things sold by the Indians 
 are buffalo robes, admirably dressed by the squaws. 
 As I bought one for six dollars and a-half, and have 
 no doubt the vendor did not lose by the sale, the 
 Indians do not receive a very high price for their 
 work. 
 
 But to return to the Mormons. I took every 
 opportunity of conversing with them and seeing what 
 was going on. We had the honour of an interview 
 with Brigham Young. He sent word that he would 
 be ready to see us at 10 A.M., two days after our 
 arrival. Picture a broad, white, dusty road, lined 
 with two rows of low trees, and a graystone wall on 
 the left-hand side. Behind this lay Brigham's two 
 houses, and the detached school-room which he has 
 built for his many children. One house, the first as 
 you approach, has the figure of a recumbent lion on 
 the top. This is the Lion House. The next is 
 crowned by a bee-hive. This is the Bee-hive House. 
 The next, approached by an arch over which stands 
 the large effigy of a bird with outspread wings, is the 
 "Eagle," or school-house. We saw him in the 
 Bee-hive. There are three doorways in the wall, from 
 which a few steps lead to three separate entrances. 
 One opens into the telegraph office Saints must 
 
120 TO SAN FEANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 send their messages through that; another into the 
 reception-room of the President, as he is called. We 
 entered "by this, and found ourselves in a good-sized 
 apartment, with brown sofas, a table with stereoscopic 
 slides, &c., upon it, and pictures in oil of the twelve 
 Apostles (Mormon) hung upon the walls. There 
 were also a few photographs of some places on the 
 Union Pacific, and a glaring advertisement of a 
 steam fire-engine. The farther part of the room was 
 shut off by a low screen with a glass top. Behind it, 
 at the end, were oil paintings of Joseph and Hiram 
 Smith, a clock, a few books of reference, and 
 Brigham's desk, with a number of letters upon it 
 waiting his arrival. His private secretary took our 
 cards in, and presently the great man himself entered 
 by a side door, and, shaking hands, begged us to be 
 seated on a sofa, while he took a chair in front and 
 conversed with us. He was dressed in a black frock- 
 coat and trousers, with a white waistcoat. He is 
 about five feet eight inches in height, thick- set, with 
 whiskers of light brown hair meeting under his chin. 
 He has small light-blue eyes, a slightly aquiline nose, 
 a square business-like head, a tight-set mouth, and a 
 strong jaw. I was much struck, however, with his 
 jaded, weary look. They say he has aged much in 
 the last six months, being now in his seventieth year. 
 He evidently considered us bores, if not spies. We 
 had some general conversation about Hepworth 
 
THE MORMON CITY. 121 
 
 Dixon's book, which he said he didn't like the 
 extension of the city, the Pacific Union Kailway, and 
 the advantages enjoyed by those who had emigrated 
 to the Salt Lake, concerning which he asked me the 
 names of some poor people whom I knew formerly in 
 London, and said if they did right they would fare 
 well. Then we made our bow, and went away, the 
 President politely shaking hands with us again at our 
 departure. Whilst there, I may remark that divers 
 of his children were running about, and he took one 
 pretty girl between his knees as he sat receiving us. 
 
 We saw him and a bevy of his wives another day 
 at the theatre, where he has a rocking-chair to 
 himself in the middle of the pit. He did not occupy 
 it, however, on that occasion, but sat in the stage-box 
 with a lady who they said was ,his favourite wife 
 Amelia. Other wives, with a swarm of his children, 
 sat elsewhere. There are twenty- three of the former 
 living, beside a number to whom he is merely 
 " sealed," and I believe about forty of the latter, 
 mostly girls. I tried hard to get photographs of 
 some of his wives, but, though they have been taken, 
 they are forbidden to be sold. The theatre is large 
 and badly lit. There is nothing in its arrangements 
 to mark its difference from any other. It has a pit 
 and three galleries, and looks very dirty. The pit is 
 apparently appropriated by resident Mormon families. 
 We saw divers men coming in with their three, four, 
 
122 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 or more wives. Nobody dresses for the performance, 
 and there is a good deal of talking between whiles. 
 The piece was " A New Way to Pay Old Debts." It 
 was badly acted, but the audience laughed on small 
 provocation, and seemed to enjoy itself. Gentiles 
 and Mormons were present. Those sitting close by 
 us in the front of the lower gallery were, I suppose, 
 Gentiles. They seemed to know each other. A 
 young man next me, levelling his opera-glass at 
 Brigham when he entered his box, said to his 
 companions, "Ah! there is the old devil; who has 
 he got with him to-night ? Oh, it 's Amelia." 
 
 From what I saw and heard, I much doubt if 
 Brigham's popularity among a minority of the 
 Mormons is very strong. Lately Mormon workmen 
 held mass -meetings to protest against his lowering 
 their wages, and carried their, point. I was credibly 
 assured that he tried to take half-a-dollar off their 
 daily pay. Moreover, Mormon labour is not paid 
 fully in money. I asked divers working Saints what 
 they got. "Well," they said, "we get so much." 
 "But do you see the money?" I inquired. "No, 
 not all," they replied ; " part is paid in orders on the 
 stores." Thus they are tied by the tooth, and find it 
 hard to get away, especially as when they receive 
 notes they are of Salt Lake currency, useless beyond 
 the territory. These, however, they can change for 
 greenbacks, at least in small quantities. I am 
 
124 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 convinced that many Mormons feel the pressure of 
 their inquisitorial government more than they like to 
 admit. They wriggle about under cross-questioning, 
 and make a poor business of putting a good face on 
 the matter. The city is divided into I think it is 
 twenty-one wards. Over each of these a Bishop 
 presides. Thus a Bishop looks after about 1,000 
 people. He is aided by a number of teachers, who 
 call upon each family once a-month and report on 
 their conduct. 
 
 I give a specimen of the sort of conversation I had 
 with Mormons in one that I held with a young man 
 whom I knew in London, and who, indeed, with much 
 expression of surprise at seeing me there, hailed me 
 in the street. "Now," said I, "tell me what the 
 teacher does." "Why, he comes in and we all sit 
 round the room." "What does he do then?" 
 "Well, he asks us questions." "Of what kind?" 
 " Oh, whether we have attended to our prayers, paid 
 our tithing, and been to meeting, and such like." 
 "Anything else?" "Well, he will speak to us if 
 the floor is not clean, and such like." " Can't you 
 shut him out?" "Guess not." "What would 
 happen if you declined to see him?" "Why, he 
 would report us to the Bishop, and if we wouldn't let 
 him in we should be cut off from the Church." "A 
 man can't call his house his castle here, then ?" He 
 looked at me and shook his head. 
 
THE MORMON CITY. 125 
 
 This "cutting off from the Church" is a serious 
 thing, for it means no work to be had of Mormons, 
 no help, no charity, no pity. Curiously enough, I 
 stumhled upon an old man who had heen servant in 
 the family of a great-aunt of mine. He had given 
 up Mormonism, and found employment with the 
 rector of the Episcopal mission here. I asked him 
 how he had fared. He had been a devout Mormon, 
 and was one of those who in former days had actually 
 crossed the plains on foot, dragging a hand-truck with 
 his goods and leading his wife. "Sir," he said, "I 
 got on well for some time ; then I left some of my 
 flour behind .me. Many died. I thought I should 
 not mini lying down to die myself. I was wore out. 
 Then I stopped at one of the places where the 
 overland stage changed horses, and hired myself to 
 cook for passengers. There was very good wages, for 
 the cook was killed about every five months by the 
 Indians ; but somehow I got on well with the Indians. 
 I stayed there till I had saved 800 dollars in gold. 
 Then I started again for Salt Lake City and bought, 
 as I thought, a lot of ground; but there worn't no 
 written paper about it, so he took my money and I 
 didn't get my lot. That worn't right, sir, so I 
 guv it up." 
 
 Now this is a true story. Such things, of course, 
 shake the confidence of some Mormons, and I was 
 not surprised to hear many complaints; but the 
 
126 TO SAN FBANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 chief source of possible division arises just now from 
 the two sons of Joseph Smith, David and Alexander, 
 who are lecturing against polygamy i.e., against 
 Brigham Young in the Salt Lake City. We heard 
 them both, and had some private conversation with 
 Alexander. I will allude now, however, only to what 
 occurred in public. On Sunday afternoon I attended 
 the service in the Tabernacle, where I heard a violent 
 sermon by Mr. Smith, Brigham's first councillor, 
 mainly on the exclusiveness, isolation, or peculiar 
 sanctity of the Saints, and polygamy. First, he 
 praised Brigham Young. He reminded them of what 
 their President had done, and the persecutions 
 through which they had passed. He urged their 
 respect for him. This looked suspicious, for if the 
 congregation had heartily loved him they would not 
 have wanted such recommendations as I heard given. 
 They sounded like excuses rather than praise. Then 
 he went on .to urge the necessity of separation and 
 the danger of Gentile influence. He rated them 
 soundly for the readiness with which some of them 
 followed Gentile fashions. Then he pressed upon 
 the people the holiness of polygamy. I sat facing 
 hundreds of melancholy-looking women, who occupied 
 the seats in the middle of the building, and narrowly 
 watched the array of sad faces to see if I could detect 
 a responsive glance. But there was none, though, as 
 I fancied, a look of deeper sadness came upon those 
 
THE MORMON CITY. 127 
 
 who were nearest to me. He thundered on about 
 polygamy. He instanced, of course, Abraham, David, 
 and Solomon Mormons are rather shy of talking 
 about Adam, who only had one Eve given to him 
 he assured them that the Fathers were divinely and 
 specially right in having many wives; and, after 
 declaring that unless polygamy were of God's 
 appointment every Bible ought to be burnt, wound up 
 by dragging in Christ among the supporters of that 
 practice, and triumphantly concluded his sermon with 
 the sentence from the Book of Eevelation : " I am 
 the root and offspring of David, the bright and morn- 
 ing star," as a characteristic saying of Jesus, who 
 thus "nobly boasted of his descent from the great 
 polygamist." 
 
 Full of this deliverance, I rushed off to the 
 Independence Hall, where David and Alexander 
 Smith were then holding forth. I found the place 
 crowded with Mormons, and could not get a seat. 
 David was preaching, and there was little in his 
 sermon which differed much from what might be 
 heard at a highly-spiced Methodist meeting. Then 
 Alexander 'began the business of the afternoon. He 
 showed that polygamy was forbidden by the Book of 
 ^lormon, which they had in their hands. He waxed 
 warm. He cried, " Shame upon it, and upon the 
 author (Brigham Young) of this confusion ! " He 
 called his teaching "foul, false, and corrupt." I had 
 
128 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 my note-book, and put down the words at the time. 
 Nothing could exceed the plainness with which he 
 denounced polygamy. The audience listened with 
 the deepest interest. One Mormon standing hy me 
 
 muttered once, " That is a lie," though the 
 
 Saints are specially prohibited from swearing. 
 
 I might mention that, in the conversation which 
 we had afterwards with this Alexander Smith, he 
 complained that Brigham had refused to lend him 
 the Tabernacle I didn't wonder at that but had 
 actually lent it, on the same day that he (Smith) had 
 applied for it, to a sectarian minister I think a 
 Methodist. This shows that Smith thoroughly 
 believes himself, and expects others to admit his 
 claim, to be a pure Mormon. And thus, with the 
 prestige which belongs to him as a son of the founder 
 of the Mormon faith, he is a formidable opponent to 
 the President. And, we may inquire, if polygamy 
 goes, what will become of Mormonism ? I asked 
 several Mormons, and they said it would perish. 
 Others said it would not. One thing I was convinced 
 of many of the married women detest polygamy. 
 Of course it is the interest of Brigham and his 
 chiefs to urge men to take more than one wife. By 
 doing this they are tied up; for if polygamy were 
 discarded as an essential item in Mormon practice, 
 the position of men with more wives than one would 
 be very unpleasant, and the poor wives would find 
 
THE MORMON CITY. 129 
 
 themselves worse than nowhere. But I doubt if 
 polygamy grows. I asked divers Mormons who argued 
 for it if they practised it themselves. "No," they 
 said, "but we might if we chose, and we will if we 
 like." To one or two I said, " Tut, tut, man ; the 
 reason is simply that you dare not. Your wife 
 wouldn't let you." In mentioning this, I cannot help 
 remarking the freedom with which Mormons now 
 submit to Gentile criticisms. I ever spoke quite 
 openly, drawing their attention to the mess into 
 which the community was getting itself should the 
 United States' Government interfere. Some scowled, 
 some grinned. The Pacific Railroad has so impressed 
 them with a sense that their fortifications have been 
 carried, that, in the Salt Lake City at least, you may 
 pick up a Mormon in the streets and get him theo- 
 logically, socially, or politically into a hole, without, I 
 suppose, much risk. Some time ago you would 
 possibly have been shot. Now the Mormons are 
 quarrelling among themselves, and are obliged to 
 allow a certain expression of difference from strangers. 
 One day while we were there a large party of 
 Americans, excursionists by rail, came from Delaware. 
 They stayed at our hotel. In the evening a zealous 
 Mormon was tempted to try his tongue on this mass 
 of Gentiles. He had one of the ante-rooms full to 
 listen to him. A gentleman of the Delaware party, 
 apparently a lawyer, sat down in a chair, and, cocking 
 
130 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 his legs up, laid a series of theological and social 
 traps for this zealot, into which he made a number of 
 dangerous falls. 
 
 The situation of the town is lovely. The industry 
 of the people is commendable, though no better than 
 that of many settlers, and not so great as that of the 
 man who has to clear the soil from trees before he 
 can plough his field. When I came to look into it, I 
 found that the barrenness of the plain is exaggerated. 
 There is abundance of excellent soil and water. I 
 had occasion to go into the middle of the valley to 
 look for flint implements in some old Indian mounds, 
 and on my way passed through divers farms. The 
 settler had simply to plough his lot and burn the sage- 
 grass which grew upon it. Elsewhere I found good 
 natural herbage, which the cattle were enjoying. 
 Thus the Mormon farmer may thrive well, especially 
 as he may take four or five extra wives, whom he 
 sends out into the fields to work, and thus gets labour 
 at small cost ; but as for any special difficulties which 
 he encounters in settling himself when once in the 
 valley, I do not believe in them. The soil grows 
 everything. Perhaps the chief natural drawback to 
 farming here arises from the number of insects. The 
 breaking up of the land, however, and the planting 
 of trees, will probably bring more small birds, which 
 will tend to set the balance straight. The valley 
 produces cotton, sugar-cane I saw them crushing 
 
THE MORMON CITY. 131 
 
 the canes silk, besides all kinds of fruit and corn. 
 This is inconsistent with what we have heard about 
 the place being naturally a wilderness. It has deep 
 mould, a glorious sun, and fresh- water streams 
 pouring into it from all sides, and is thus a very 
 paradise for a settler as far as Nature is concerned. 
 
 But in this paradise is gathered the cream of 
 European, specially British, fanaticism. None but 
 those hungering after or weakly open to strongly 
 sensational religious demands are likely to listen to 
 Mormonism as a spiritual creed. How many embrace 
 or adhere to it on carnal grounds it would be difficult 
 to say. At any rate, the bulk of Mormons, from 
 one cause or another, find themselves committed to a 
 policy of seclusion or separatism which is repugnant 
 to the bulk of Christians, and obviously alien to the 
 sentiment of the United States. Either they are 
 polygamists, or supporters of the despotic inquisitorial 
 spiritual government of Mormonism, or they are both. 
 Thus, though they may, and do, quarrel bitterly 
 among themselves, any severe handling of them by 
 Americans would produce a large party ready to resist 
 to the death if they would preserve their institutions 
 at all. They are fanatics by nature and choice, and 
 would fight with the desperation of fanatics. I 
 believe that large numbers will fall away from 
 Mormonism, but that a body will be left sufficiently 
 formidable to cause serious embarrassment to the 
 K 2 
 
132 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 authorities of the Kepublic. Surely the best way to 
 correct their influence and isolated self-esteem and, 
 what is of great importance, to provide an escape for 
 those who repent of Mormonism is not to assail it 
 by force, but to introduce and support Christian, or, 
 as Mormons would call them, Gentile, churches in 
 the territory. One such has been already started, 
 amid great opposition, in the Salt Lake City. Two 
 years and a-half ago the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 of America sent a mission to the town. A school was 
 opened, and 16 scholars presented themselves. Their 
 numbers soon grew to 60. Then the Mormon 
 authorities denounced the mission, and the school 
 received a severe check. Presently, however, the 
 people got over the alarm, and, in 1869, there were 
 130 children in the school, and the teachers could 
 admit many more if they had room for them. Divers 
 of the scholars were children of professing Mormons. 
 The sanitary condition of the city is questionable. 
 I repeatedly asked what diseases were prevalent, and 
 was told they were diphtheria, scarlet fever, ague, 
 diarrhoea, and dysentery. The fact is that the lovely 
 limpid streams that "flash through the city" are 
 open sewers, and propagate disease among the 
 inhabitants. I asked a man whom I knew as a 
 resident in one of the most crowded spots in 
 Westminster how he kept his health in Salt Lake 
 City. " Sir," he said, " I never had a day's illness in 
 
THE MORMON CITY. 133 
 
 London, but here I have had four or five spells." 
 " What do you drink ?" I asked. " Why, the water 
 that flows by my door." No wonder he was ill ! 
 Another said, " The grown-up people live, but lots of 
 children die." Poor little things ! I was given to 
 understand that in many cases their parents sent for 
 the elders of the Church to anoint them with oil, but 
 that in their own sicknesses they took physic. I went 
 to the chief druggist to ask, and he said he made up 
 a great deal of medicine specially for diarrhoea ; and, 
 according to the " Salt Lake Directory," there are 
 eight medical men residing in the city. But the 
 babies had, I suppose, a small voice in the matter. 
 
 Another nuisance in the place, besides mischief- 
 making surface water, arises from the flies. I never 
 saw so many flies in my life. They crawled over our 
 faces at breakfast by hundreds; they spotted the 
 cloth, drowned themselves in the milk, buzzed among 
 the dishes ; and it was not until night, when they 
 retired in black lumps to sleep upon the ceiling, that 
 we were freed from the extreme annoyance they 
 occasioned. These flies have their own way through 
 the summer and autumn, and the residents seem to 
 have made up their minds to endure their tickling 
 inquisitiveness without complaint. 
 
 However, in spite of its drawbacks, we were deeply 
 interested in our visit to the Mormons, especially as 
 the present time seems to show a crisis in their 
 
134 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 history. They had just " called " about two hundred 
 fresh missionaries, all but three of whom were to be 
 sent out to preach in the United States. This is wise 
 on their part, for though they make but comparatively 
 few converts among the Yankees, it serves their 
 purpose well to show their best side among a people 
 who profess a strong desire for religious freedom and 
 are yet suspected of a wish to lay heavy hands upon 
 them before long, and "put down" polygamy, now 
 that slavery has been swept away. But, as I have 
 said, Brigham does not depend upon the persuasive 
 powers of his missionaries alone. He has, Mormons 
 say, thousands of rifles at his service in a few days if 
 need should arise ; and they will be in the hands of 
 hardy men, who are committed, if once they begin, to 
 fight to the last. 
 
135 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SALT LAKE CITY. 
 
 I HAVE been asked to furnish another account of my 
 visit to the Salt Lake City, and I furnish it at the 
 risk of some repetition; but as I mention several 
 matters not contained in that which precedes this, I 
 may as well let it stand. I have said that the city 
 lies about forty miles off the great Atlantic and Pacific 
 Railway, but by this time is connected with it by a 
 branch line. The railway runs by the side of the 
 lake, which stretches far away on the left hand as you 
 travel westward. It is one hundred miles long, by 
 about thirty broad. Not a sail or boat was to be seen 
 as I passed it on my way to California. The waves, 
 however, twinkled merrily, and many gulls were flying 
 about, while herds of cattle grazed in the saltings 
 between the rail and the edge of the lake. Mormon 
 farms were scattered over the plain on our right, 
 beyond which there rose some few miles off a fine 
 mountain range. Other mountains, patched with 
 snow, showed themselves in the distance across the 
 water. 
 
136 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 The two companies whose lines together make what 
 we call the Atlantic and Pacific Kailway, meet at 
 Promontory this station being so named because it 
 is on a point which juts out into the Salt Lake. I 
 stopped to visit the City of the Saints on my way 
 back, getting down at a little station called Uintah. 
 The Salt Lake stage, with four greys, was waiting to 
 take us on at once. We got seats outside, and 
 started under a brilliant sun at twenty minutes to 
 twelve. The lake lay on the right of our course ; a 
 range of mountains, whose lower wooded slopes were 
 in a blaze with the bright tints of an American 
 autumn, rose on our left. The road was the worst I 
 ever saw. Every now and then I wondered how we 
 could get over the watercourses, some dry, some wet, 
 which made downright ditches athwart our track. 
 Some we took with a rush that involved a fearful 
 bump, for which we prepared by holding on hard ; 
 others we crossed slowly, letting the front wheels in, 
 and then dragging them out with much straining and 
 lashing, the hind ones following as well as they could, 
 but at the best with a jerk which nearly " chucked" 
 us who sat in front up into the air. I was never 
 more jolted in my life, but I never took a drive the 
 end of which I looked forward to with more interest, 
 independently of its relief from rough riding. Pre- 
 sently we drew away from the lake, and kept closer 
 under the hills on our left. After changing horses 
 
THE SALT LAKE CITY. 137 
 
 twice, and meeting many tilted carts with Mormons 
 returning from their autumn gathering at the Salt 
 Lake City, we turned a corner and saw it before us 
 on a slope of the mountains, a grand range of which 
 showed themselves beyond. The valley of Utah, 
 traversed by the Jordan, and backed by another range 
 about twenty miles off, lay on the right. As almost 
 every house in the city has a garden and orchard, it 
 covers a considerable space, and in the distance looks 
 like a low wood, studded with roofs and gables. In 
 the midst stands the Tabernacle, white and oval, like 
 a Brobdingnag dish- cover. Last time I compared it 
 to an egg ; but whatever it may resemble, it is unlike 
 any other building I ever saw. It has no tower, spire, 
 or ornament of any kind within or without, but is 
 simply a whited dish-cover, holding about 5,000 
 people on the floor, in benches which look towards 
 the pulpit or platform where Brigham Young and the 
 twelve " Apostles" sit, a large organ being behind 
 them. 
 
 The streets of the city are very wide, unpaved and 
 unlit. They run at right angles to each other, and 
 on three sides die off into straight roads traversing 
 the flat valley. The stage stopped at the post-office, 
 and then put us down at the Townsend House, kept 
 by a Mormon and his three wives. He has been a 
 missionary in England, and I believe his wives are 
 English. He was generally to be found sitting in an 
 
138 TO SAN FBANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 arm-chair in the verandah before his house, and was 
 very polite ; while one of his dames, rather a stout 
 and stately lady in a black silk dress, looked after the 
 maids who waited upon the guests. Mr. Townsend 
 is a placid old gentleman, who talked freely about 
 Mormonism to me, and took criticisms with a quiet 
 smile. He is a man of substance. I was conversing 
 with him one day about the schism caused by Alex- 
 ander and David Smith, the sons of the founder of the 
 "faith," when he admitted it all with the philosophic 
 remark, " You will never find a community, sir, with- 
 out divisions. We are like others in that respect." 
 This, however, involves a serious concession; since 
 Mormons pique themselves on unity and exclusiveness. 
 
 Many of the houses in the city, which contains 
 about 20,000 inhabitants, are white, though some are 
 built of "adobe," or brown sun-dried brick, there 
 abbreviated, and pronounced " dubby." Some are 
 large, and have their grounds fenced with high stone 
 walls. 
 
 Streams of water run in the gutters of every street. 
 I mentioned before that this must have an injurious 
 sanitary effect on those who drink of them, since the 
 seeds of disease are specially likely to be conveyed by 
 water. I was told again and again that dysentery, 
 diarrhoea, and fever prevailed in the place. There 
 had been a great mortality among infants, and many 
 residents complained of bad health. The air of the 
 
140 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 place is very clear, and the sunset is generally 
 magnificent; but a sudden trying chill comes on 
 immediately after it, however hot the day has been, 
 and I was not surprised at being told that ague was 
 troublesome there. The downpour of heat on the flat 
 valley seemed to bring out a malarious haze in the 
 evening. 
 
 We spent a good deal of our time in conversation 
 with " promiscuous " Mormons in the stores and 
 streets. They held much variety of opinion about 
 polygamy, and the prospective relations of the com- 
 munity to the United States. Some declared that if 
 polygamy were put down, Mormonism would perish 
 too, and spoke very confidently about fighting the 
 Government. I particularly remember the positive- 
 ness of one little man with a face like a weasel's. I 
 said, " Surely you don't think you could stand against 
 the force of the whole country ? " " Sir," he replied, 
 " the -Lord will deliver us." " How ? " I asked. He 
 twinkled at me and said, " I believe that He would 
 raise up a war between England and America, if the 
 Government were to try and put us down by force." 
 I suggested that I did not think England would feel 
 gratified at such an arrangement, but he stuck fast to 
 his notion. 
 
 Some shirked the question of polygamy by asserting 
 that they would never think of taking more than one 
 wife. Others admitted that though they approved of 
 
THE SALT LAKE CITY. 141 
 
 the practice, they had not adopted it in their own 
 cases, and tried to turn off with a laugh the suggestion 
 that they would not dare to risk the anger of the 
 single wives they had. 
 
 I feel confident that the women, as a hody, do not 
 approve of polygamy. Of course it would he very 
 difficult to get this admission, and indeed a stranger 
 could not on a hare introduction ask a Mormon lady 
 in a drawing-room whether she liked the fractional 
 possession of a hushand; hut yet I heard something 
 ahout it from sources which I could not douht ; and 
 casual witness was occasionally borne to the deep 
 aversion of the wives to this custom. 
 
 Let me give one instance of what I refer to. A 
 Mormon of whom I had asked some questions ahout 
 their prison, broke out saying that I must not suppose 
 that Mormons ever committed crimes. " Indeed ! " 
 said I. "No, sir," he rejoined; "and I'll give you 
 a case to show how falsely we are estimated. A man 
 I knew was accused of embezzling his master's goods, 
 and when the charge was gone into they found out 
 that his wife had contrived it because he was going to 
 marry another. It was only her spite." 
 
 I was struck how on several occasions Mormons 
 proved too much. One day I was talking to two men, 
 hot fanatics, about drunkenness. I asked how they 
 punished it. "Well," one said, "we hardly ever 
 have drunkards ; but when we have we impose a fine, 
 
142 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 and in default of payment set them to work on the 
 roads with a ball and chain." " I have not seen 
 anything of that," I replied. " Not seen that ! " he 
 cried; "why, there are lots. Ain't there, Jack?" 
 he asked, appealing to his companion. I am hound 
 to say that I did not see any drunkenness in the 
 streets, though there are drinking-hars in the city. 
 But no more did I even in several places where it 
 might have been expected. However they may injure 
 themselves by "cocktails" and "cobblers," "rum 
 bitters " and whisky drams between meals, I must 
 allow that throughout America I saw no gross display 
 of intemperance in the streets. I was very much 
 struck with the absence of this everywhere ; and 
 though I believe that Mormons are much more free 
 from this vice than some other Western settlers, they 
 are not unique among Americans in abstaining from 
 public exhibitions of it. 
 
 I am inclined to believe, moreover, that fanaticism 
 is sometimes a sort of alternative to material intoxica- 
 tion. People who are filled with a pressing sense of 
 strong and peculiar religious convictions are less 
 subject to that craving and depression which affects 
 those who lead a dull, spiritless life. There is no 
 doubt of the sincerity with which the bulk of Mormons 
 hold their strange creed. It is a very strange one 
 indeed, but it has stimulated many of them not only 
 to break away from their old life, but in some 
 
THE SALT LAKE CITY. 143 
 
 instances to make their journey to Utah a sort of 
 religious pilgrimage. Thus they are delivered more 
 or less from a yearning for physical stimulants. 
 
 It might be suggested that in the practice of poly- 
 gamy they find another species of indulgence ; and in 
 some instances no doubt this is true, especially since 
 plural marriage is not part of their original code of 
 life, and many have adopted it with readiness on the 
 ground of a later revelation. I can find no directions 
 for it in the "Book of Mormon" which I purchased 
 at the Salt Lake City, while it is distinctly forbidden 
 in the " Book of Doctrine and Covenants " in circula- 
 tion in the territory of Utah now. The words I 
 quote from the copy I bought there are in section 
 cix., on "Marriage," and run thus "Inasmuch as 
 this Church of Christ has been reproached with the 
 crime of fornication, and polygamy ; we declare that 
 we believe that one man should have one wife, and 
 one woman but one husband, except in case of death, 
 when either is at .liberty to marry again." This is 
 " selected from the Eevelations of God, by Joseph 
 Smith, President," and is in the stereotyped edition, 
 published in 1854. 
 
 Now, when Brigham Young announced that he had 
 in his possession a revelation superseding this and 
 recommending polygamy, which revelation he said he 
 had kept back because the Church was not ripe to 
 receive it, we must assume a monstrous readiness to 
 
144 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 adopt a practice which is said to prevail among ahout 
 sixty thousand of the Mormon community at the 
 present day. These polygamists have committed 
 themselves in the face of the prohibition which still 
 stands in the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants" 
 current among them. 
 
 I am afraid that unbridled passions have had a 
 good deal to do with what is now defended .among 
 many as a Divine duty, and that though Mormons are 
 not drunkards, some have seriously damaged their 
 character for temperance by their unblushing adoption 
 of a practice that is more than bigamous. 
 
 I do not want to paint any one blacker than he is, 
 but it is notorious that some Mormons, pure and 
 simple, represented mainly by the sons of the original 
 prophet, two of whom, David and Alexander Smith, 
 were at the Salt Lake City, protest against poly- 
 gamy. I mentioned in a previous chapter that I 
 heard Alexander Smith, at a crowded meeting of 
 Mormons, denounce Brigham Young's teaching in 
 this matter as "false, foul, and corrupt." 
 
 Mormons are now divided into " Josephites" and 
 " Brighamites," the former of whom denounce the 
 latter unsparingly. Here is native internal testi- 
 mony to the corrupt morality of the sect. No 
 language can express a sense of the " abomination " 
 of polygamy more strongly than that which is now 
 being used by the original Mormons, who are the 
 
THE SALT LAKE CITY. 145 
 
 opponents of Brigham Young in the very heart of his 
 empire. 
 
 I say empire, because he undoubtedly exercises 
 imperial power over a very large section of the 
 Mormons, and is backed by all those who have been 
 induced by his example and precepts to take more 
 wives than one. If polygamy were abolished, they 
 would be in a social strait. Thus they are prepared 
 to fight for I can hardly call it their liberty but 
 their license. I was told that they had some 18,000 
 men well armed and organised. They were preparing 
 to assemble when I was in Utah. This was intended 
 as a hint of what would happen if the United States 
 were to attempt to put down polygamy by force. I 
 have no doubt that forcible suppression of this practice 
 is contemplated by many Americans. Divers said to 
 me, " Well, sir, we shall fix this matter up before 
 long." But it will be, if tried, a serious business. 
 I have since learned that measures have been taken 
 to suppress the Mormon militia. Still they have 
 pugnacity among them. Many, as I have remarked, 
 believe now that if polygamy were suppressed, Mor- 
 monism would perish. Thus they have social and 
 religious motives to support them. Moreover the 
 ecclesiastical system pursued by Brigham Young is so 
 minutely imperious that he has more than the poly- 
 gamists under his thumb. Organised subdivision of 
 the " Church," under apostles, bishops, and teachers, 
 
 L 
 
146 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 enables him to check at once any material opposition 
 or conspiracy. No one can move freely. The sons 
 of Joseph Smith are listened to; but it is hard to 
 begin any revolution. Families and individuals are 
 watched and reported upon. If disobedient they are 
 excommunicated, and that means that they are denied 
 work and help. 
 
 It is difficult to see how the compact body of poly- 
 gamists, and that society of non-polygamists who are 
 subjected with them to the same tyrannical super- 
 vision, can be broken up. I believe that there are 
 elements of dissolution in the growth of the schism 
 fostered by the sons of Joseph Smith. This is likely 
 to encourage the belief that there are two sides to 
 Mormonism. Then comes in the influence of other 
 teaching, shown already by the success which has 
 attended the efforts of the Episcopal clergy in the 
 heart of Utah. But, if hard pressed, divided Mor- 
 mons may shake hands again. 
 
 Extract from a Letter, dated Nov. 4, 1870, to the 
 Author of " San Francisco and Back." 
 
 THE writer, the Eev. G. W. Foote, the Hector of the 
 Church Mission at the Salt Lake City, after speaking 
 of the need he has for help to complete the building 
 of his church, with schools, clergy-house, &c., says : 
 " The Mormon problem is being gradually solved 
 
THE SALT LAKE CITY. 147 
 
 by the constant defections of the people. . . . The 
 United States courts have recently declared all Mor- 
 mon courts illegal, and their actions null and void. 
 Our new governor . . . has forbidden the Mormon 
 militia to meet, and has taken the power into his own 
 hands, reducing Brigham Young to a mere ecclesias- 
 tical head of Mormonism. "We have also obtained 
 good judges and a ' Gentile ' jury. These judges 
 refuse to naturalise polygamists or those who believe 
 in polygamy, and our juries have indicted some 
 prominent Mormons (a bishop among them) for 
 murders committed years ago. 
 
 " The mines (silver) all about our city are attract- 
 ing much attention, and we expect that thousands of 
 people will rush in here next spring. Already the 
 territory is fast filling up with ' Gentile ' miners, and 
 thousands of dollars are being taken from the mines. 
 The Mormon railway is completed from Ogden to this 
 city, and hundreds of travellers pass through here 
 weekly. 
 
 " Our congregations have increased in numbers, 
 and our school has been enlarged also ; we now have 
 six teachers and 230 pupils." 
 
 I must say a word on the natural resources of the 
 place. Much has been made of the transformation 
 by the Saints of a barren wilderness into a blooming 
 field. This is nonsense. Of course land will not 
 
 L 2 
 
148 TO SAN FEANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 grow useful crops before it is sown. But little more 
 is needed in the valley of Utah than to till and plant 
 soil aided by a magnificent sun and supplies of water 
 from all sides. I have open before me now the "Salt 
 Lake Directory," given to me there by a Mormon, 
 and which contains their own account of their progress 
 in that region. The " Chronological Events of Utah'* 
 has this as its first statement : " 1847. July 24. 
 Pioneers, numbering 143 men, enter Salt Lake 
 Y alley, having left the Missouri Kiver April 14th. 
 The day of their arrival they commenced ploughing 
 and planting potatoes. A thunder- shower wet the 
 ground slightly in the afternoon." A few lines below 
 this we read : " July 31. Great Salt Lake City laid 
 out in square blocks of ten acres each." A few lines 
 lower still: "August 26. The colonists had laid off 
 a fort, built twenty-seven log houses, ploughed and 
 planted eighty-four acres with corn, potatoes, beans, 
 buck-wheat, turnips, &c., and had manufactured 125 
 bushels of salt." The salt they got from the lake 
 pools. The bringing eighty-four acres under cultiva- 
 tion a month after their arrival proves that they found 
 soil ready for farming. Such is the case on their 
 own showing. Utah is a grand field for agriculture. 
 The triumph of saintly labour over stubborn Nature is 
 a mere myth. Everything was as ready for them as 
 it could be. While I was there I saw Mormon 
 farmers breaking up fresh soil. They simply ploughed 
 
THE SALT LAKE CITY. 149 
 
 it. I should add that Nature herself provides much 
 grass for pasturage. 
 
 I drove and walked about the neighbourhood of the 
 city, which is beautifully situated. The territory 
 produces almost everything fruit, corn, roots, sugar- 
 cane, cotton, silk, coal, ores. It is not a reclaimed 
 wilderness, but was in one sense an unclaimed 
 paradise when the Mormons entered it. 
 
 Its seclusion is now gone. But the railroad had to 
 creep more than a thousand miles from the banks of 
 the Missouri, across plains in which the buffalo and 
 Eed Indian still wander, over the Kocky Mountains, 
 and through the barren, stony land which lies beyond 
 them, before the snort of the engine was heard in the 
 smiling valley of Utah. My companion and myself 
 were among the last to traverse the vile road between 
 the main line and the Salt Lake City. Now a branch 
 is opened, and you may go by rail into the heart of 
 the town. I am much mistaken if some summer 
 tourists will not change their trip among the familiar 
 scenes of Europe for a visit to this place, and see for 
 themselves the homes of the " Latter-day Saints : " 
 of them we have heard much and shall hear more. 
 
150 
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 RETURN JOURNEY. 
 
 I TURNED off to St. Louis on the Missouri from the 
 terminus of the Pacific Union line at Omaha. On 
 my way hack from the Salt Lake City I was even 
 more impressed with the solitary amhition of the line 
 which has pushed its way across the continent than I 
 was in my outward journey, for I happened to travel 
 in the end car of the train, and could thus see the 
 straight thin track, looking at last no higger than a 
 piece of string stretched across, say Dartmoor, or 
 Salisbury Plain. On our return, too, we saw the 
 prairie on fire ; hut it was daytime, and the effect was 
 simply an horizon of smoke. The fire had passed 
 close to the line ; indeed, some of it was blazing 
 only a few hundred yards off. The flames were in 
 places about ten or twelve feet high, but, curiously 
 enough, many of the tall, strong bents of grass 
 were left standing in the blackened track of the con- 
 flagration. 
 
 When we got back to Omaha, I left the direct route 
 to Chicago and turned down the Missouri by the 
 
152 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 Hannibal and St. Joseph Railway, which runs along 
 what is called the Missouri Bottom. A word about 
 this line. It is abominable. Accidents occur about 
 once a-week. I happened to say to a fellow-passenger, 
 " We shall get to St. Joseph, I suppose, about such 
 and such an hour." " Well, yes," he replied, " if 
 they don't run off the track." My first indication of 
 this habit of the train here occurred when I took my 
 ticket for a sleeping-berth. The clerk gave me one 
 for a Pullman car. On going on the platform I saw 
 no Pullman, but one of another sort. " How's this?" 
 I asked of the conductor; "I've got a ticket for a 
 Pullman." "Well, sir/' said he/ "if you have got 
 the ticket you should have the car." He didn't tell 
 me that their one Pullman had just been left standing 
 on its head at the bottom of an embankment. How- 
 ever, we started, and had not gone far before our train 
 ran off the line too. One poor fellow had both his 
 thighs broken, and we were detained about three 
 hours, and had to leave our engine. I believe it was 
 in a ditch, but being fast asleep all through the 
 accident, I did not learn about it till some hours 
 afterwards. It is curious how one can sleep through 
 such a jar as we had. Soon after I woke we just 
 missed an ugly collision. I was on the platform at 
 the end of the car, and seeing the train coming, 
 jumped off, naturally; but the danger was averted. 
 As many as could, though, jumped out of the train, 
 
RETURN JOURNEY. 153 
 
 there being no risk in so doing, as our part was 
 hardly moving. 
 
 The route by the Missouri is very dismal in places, 
 The river is probably one of the ugliest in the world 
 a muddy, shallow, wide stream, with great expanse of 
 mud banks bristling with the trunks and arms of dead 
 trees. Ague reigns supreme here. Again and again 
 we passed by the site of the Eden in "Martin 
 Chuzzlewit." There were great breadths of flat, wet 
 shore, indented by lagoons of deadly-looking water, 
 in which stood a tangled growth of trees surrounded 
 by rotting fallen branches and slimy weeds, the site 
 of which desolation had never been touched since the 
 continent of America rose out of the primeval seas. 
 
 But where the waters had subsided and left arable 
 soil the crops were monstrous. I do not know 
 whether my readers will believe me, but yet it is a 
 fact that some of the stalks of the Indian corn were 
 15 feet high. As I sat in the train while it passed 
 along an embankment, the tops of the stems growing 
 in the field below rose in several instances above my 
 head. A friend, an accurate and trustworthy man, 
 told me he had measured stalks of corn which were 
 17 feet long. Indeed, the energy and resource of 
 some of these virgin soils are almost incredible. 
 
 Our progress was slow through the Missouri Bot- 
 tom, as the line runs in part through coarse pastures, 
 and there being no fence, the cattle were constantly 
 
154 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 getting on the line. These had to be "tooted "at 
 emphatically by our trumpet -whistle, and sometimes 
 the train was pulled up, since the cows simply set off 
 waddling down the line before us, as if, naturally 
 enough, they thought they could go at least as 
 fast as anything on the Hannibal and St. Joseph 
 Railway. 
 
 At last, late in the second day, we reached St. 
 Charles, about 20 miles from St. Louis, where the 
 Missouri had to be crossed by the train. There was 
 no bridge, but a huge dirty ferry-boat, with all its 
 machinery above deck. This, churning up the yellow 
 water, took over three cars at a time, each about 50 
 feet long. The Missouri flows into the Mississippi 
 about four or five miles below this. It was quite dark 
 before we got off on the other side of the river, and 
 all we saw of St. Louis on entering was a twinkle of 
 lights. 
 
 This is a busy city, with main avenues running 
 parallel to the Mississippi, and intersected by streets 
 at right angles to it. It is smokier than any part of 
 London, and therefore dirty. It is a steady rival to 
 Chicago, and there is much interchange of jealous 
 comparisons between the two cities, but Chicago is by 
 far the most thriving place. St. Louis is, in fact, 
 quite ancient, being some 100 years old. The day 
 after my arrival I went down at once to look at the 
 famous river. A heavy cloud of smoke and fog hung 
 
156 TO SAN FBANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 over it, and on the St. Louis side lay a fringe of great 
 white high-pressure steamboats, with tiers of decks 
 and two tall funnels each. I had intended to descend 
 the river from this place to Cairo, but desisted, not 
 fancying the steamboats. And thus I was possibly 
 saved from being one of the passengers on board one 
 which I looked at as it lay ready to sail. It was 
 burned on that very trip, and some 150 passengers 
 lost their lives. 
 
 I spent the Sunday in St. Louis. It is called by 
 some the City of Churches. The Episcopal Church 
 here, though, is weak. I asked the clerk in the 
 office of the Planters' House where I stopped, who 
 were the great preachers in the town. He replied 
 that they were all burning and shining lights ; so I 
 went to one large Episcopal church, where it struck 
 me, however, that there was not much warmth. 
 After visiting the Sunday-school, I took my place in 
 a very fashionable congregation; the church, like 
 almost all I have seen in America, being made as 
 comfortable as stoves, carpets, and cushions could 
 make it. The choir, as usual, sat in the organ-loft, 
 and consisted of ladies and gentlemen, who were but 
 little accompanied by the congregation. The sermon 
 was quiet and practical, but the whole tone of the 
 service was coldly respectable. The street in which 
 the church stood seemed to be almost dedicated to 
 religion, and they told me its title was to be changed 
 
RETURN JOURNEY. 157 
 
 from "Locust," a favourite street name in the States, 
 to "Church" Street. The large number of places of 
 worship in all American cities is very striking. The 
 newness of them is as remarkable as their abundance. 
 Many look as if they had been finished last week. 
 Though young, they are built to last, being in most 
 cases in the cities constructed of brick or stone. 
 Country churches are generally built of wood, and 
 as ugly as they can be built. In this respect they 
 are like almost all the houses in the country, which 
 are wooden and painted white, seeming, as one 
 remarks, to have no root in the ground. 
 
 I have said that the service in the Episcopal 
 Church I worshipped in at St. Louis was coldly 
 respectable. By this, however, 1 do not mean that it 
 seemed worse than that in those of other denomi- 
 nations. In one Western city I looked into I think 
 it was eight churches and chapels on the Sunday. 
 Everywhere appeared the same extreme comfort in the 
 matter of seats and carpets, but with the exception of 
 one, a Baptist chapel, where the singing was fairly 
 congregational, all had the same chilly religious 
 atmosphere. Indeed, there is a silence and sadness 
 about most American assemblages, so far as I have 
 seen them. And this includes the gatherings for 
 meals in hotels. A hundred Americans dining in 
 public do so generally with an air more suited to an 
 examination in mathematics than to a meal which 
 
158 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 ought to be cheery. I have repeatedly been struck, 
 by contrast, with the character which we have as 
 natives of " merry" England. Almost all Americans 
 take iced water or weak tea at dinner, and no wine or 
 beer. But at odd times they drink oceans of " bitters" 
 and " syrups." No wonder they are melancholy ! 
 
159 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PAUPERISM. NEGRO LABOUR. 
 
 AFTER a day or two in St. Louis, I took my ticket for 
 Philadelphia, a singularly rectangular city, by Cincin- 
 nati and Pittsburg, along what is called the Pan Handle 
 route so named because it crosses a narrow neck of 
 Virginia, like, on the map, the handle of a frying-pan. 
 The road is good. We came at an excellent pace, and 
 were only about two hours after our time. 
 
 The country is flat or slightly undulating most of 
 the way, till you begin to draw towards the Alleghanies, 
 some kindred ranges of which run through the eastern, 
 central, and southern parts of Pennsylvania. But I 
 have a word more about St. Louis before I get to Cin- 
 cinati on my way into this State. I occupied myself 
 before I started from St. Louis with inquiries about 
 the price of provisions, going into the baker's shops, 
 stopping the milkman on his rounds, &c. The milk 
 was eight cents a quart : a cent is about a halfpenny. 
 I was surprised at the price of bread ten cents for a 
 loaf a little less than 21b. weight. I wandered into the 
 poorest part of the town, and felt that any emigrating 
 
160 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 from the slums of our cities might easily find them- 
 selves at home in the close alleys and rooms of this 
 place. The smells, moreover, of the poor parts of 
 every American city I have been in are much the 
 same as in London ; in divers cases worse. Indeed, 
 I think that the sanitary condition of some of the 
 poor parts of London, as far as my observations have 
 guided me, is ahead of those in the New World. I 
 am speaking of such as exhibit signs of science and 
 care. The much-praised and beautifully placed Salt 
 Lake City is miserably arranged, as far as health 
 goes. The streams which flow through the streets 
 are simply sewers. They run fast and twinkle in the 
 sun, but for all that they carry the seeds of disease 
 about the place. But the City of the Saints is no 
 fair test of American progress. It has not, e.g., even 
 a lamp in the streets. I am speaking of such towns 
 as St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia. I have 
 prowled about these, and come on smells which 
 brought the Seven Dials forcibly to mind. With all 
 this, I am bound to say that I have not found 
 anywhere the sodden, tattered element of population 
 which disgraces London. Nor, with the exception of 
 two beggars in Philadelphia who stopped me in the 
 street, have I as yet been asked by any one for alms. 
 I ought to mention, though, that blind men some- 
 times board the trains, and little children come into 
 the reading-rooms of the hotels for what they can 
 
PAUPERISM. 161 
 
 get. But they do not pester you. They simply come 
 in with a suppliant face and walk round, holding out 
 their hands. The philanthropy of Philadelphia and 
 New York is, however, producing its harvest of 
 paupers, and they say that during the winter the 
 begging in these places, specially the latter, has 
 already grown to he very considerable. Once here- 
 abouts, on being introduced to an active philanthropist, 
 he said to me, "We have not the destitution of 
 London here, sir : " as if, like the manager of a 
 performance, he were apologising for some imper- 
 fection, I ventured to console him by saying that I 
 thought he and his friends were manufacturing it fast. 
 He didn't seem to see it, and looked surprised at my 
 rejoinder. But though, with the enthusiasm of 
 nascent impulsive philanthropy, he could not deny 
 that beggary was growing, he looked as if he would 
 have liked to question my comment and I have had 
 considerable experience in begging and the careless 
 " charity" which promotes it but he made no reply. 
 I hope he thought the more. The beggars, though, 
 have not shown themselves, as in London, wherever I 
 have been in America, nor are there any crossing- 
 sweepers. The slow, splashed, dilapidated men who 
 sweep the streets early in the morning are, I suppose, 
 cosmopolitan. I have, in America, come on gangs 
 of them precisely similar to our own in London ; and 
 they get much about the same wages as with us. I 
 
 M 
 
162 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 think I have already mentioned that I did not see 
 or hear an itinerant organ grinder. There were a few 
 street organs, but they were ground mostly by maimed 
 soldiers, who were fixed to one corner of a street and 
 sat, with their instruments, on the ground. I once 
 saw two on the opposite corners of the same thorough- 
 fare. They had placards saying in what battle they 
 were wounded, and each played different tunes all 
 day, at the same time, at either end of the same 
 crossing. 
 
 To return. Knowing that the country was quite 
 level between St. Louis and Cincinnati, I crossed it 
 by night in a sleeping-car, and woke to find myself 
 on a dead flat, set with patches of small timber, the 
 everlasting Indian corn, and pumpkins. The road 
 ran as straight as an arrow, and the same white 
 wooden houses and villages as ever were scattered 
 about the country. There was not a hill, mound, or 
 eminence of any sort in sight ; and all the farming, 
 as usual, was coarse and untidy. 
 
 There were, however, many signs that we had left 
 the rough West for a State which had long been 
 settled. The character of the crowd of wayfarers and 
 men about the stations was changed. There were no 
 unkempt "boys" with wide hat, flannel shirt, trousers 
 stuck into boots, and strong leather belt, suggestive 
 of the six-shooter and knife which hung behind. 
 People, however, are emigrating from Ohio into the 
 
NEGRO LABOUR. 163 
 
 wondrous West. The New England farmers, on the 
 contrary, are in many cases selling all that they have 
 and buying land in the South, where it might he had, 
 of the hest, while I was there, for eight or ten dollars 
 an acre, and negro labour could be obtained for some 
 ten dollars a month and coarse board meal and 
 bacon; whereas in the West the labourer, in the 
 summer, often gets thirty dollars a month, and better 
 board than is given to the negro. Moreover the New 
 Englander, by going south, has not to put up with 
 the loss of civilisation like the man who leaves an old 
 settled district to make a fresh home in the new 
 districts of Nebraska, Kansas, and the like. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CINCINNATI AND PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 I got to Cincinnati at a little after nine in the 
 morning, and, thanks to the covenient usage in the 
 matter of railway tickets, "lay over" there for a day. 
 The American plan, hy which you can huy a ticket at 
 your hotel if you like, or at least in some office hard 
 hy, is much hetter than ours. For instance, at San 
 Francisco I hought my ticket for New York, paying 
 no more for coming round hy St. Louis. I used it 
 first to Stockton. Then I had it in my pocket-book 
 during a ten days' excursion into the Sierra Nevada 
 on horsehack. On striking the line again, I was not 
 obliged to have it stamped or re-dated, hut at every 
 station it came out as good as new; and I might 
 have stopped for three months, and still travelled on 
 without troubling myself more than to show it, when 
 called upon, to the conductor of the train. At the 
 risk of more repetition, too, I must record the 
 perpetually repeated favourable impression caused by 
 the luggage system. I had a trunk, bought in San 
 Francisco, which I choked with a lot of things from 
 
CINCINNATI AND PHILADELPHIA. 165 
 
 Chinese shops, the Yo Semite Valley cones, bark, 
 &c., a heavy parcel, containing buffalo robes, &c., and 
 a bag. My trunk, &c., I sent on 2,000 miles. My 
 bag I kept with me. Whenever I wanted to stop a 
 day or two at a place, I had only to speak to an 
 authorised "express man" on board the train. I 
 handed him the brass check which had a corresponding 
 one on the bag, and when I had secured my room at 
 the hotel, my bag walked in at once without more 
 ado. Moreover, while travelling, I several times 
 wanted something out of my big bag. I had only to 
 walk along inside the train to the baggage-van, knock 
 at the door, and, showing my check, ask leave to open 
 my luggage and take out what I needed. Every 
 facility is thus given to travellers in the matter of 
 tickets and baggage, and the people who look after 
 your interests are always civil. When I got near New 
 York I had only to give my checks to the polite 
 " express man," and I then simply handed him my 
 railway-rug and hand-bag in the train, some half-hour 
 before my arrival. I then only took a street car, six 
 cents, to my hotel, and my things were laid out in 
 my room for me as soon as possible. Any one, 
 however, who tried, as some do at first, to look after 
 his luggage in the English fashion, would be sorely 
 perplexed. Generally the stations seem to be without 
 porters, and you don't know whom to ask any 
 question of. You must settle all your luggage 
 
166 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 business before you get out of the train. If you 
 think to keep guard over your own things and see 
 them put into the van without checks, intending to 
 see them taken out, you will be disappointed. The 
 luggage -master in the train will simply put them out 
 at the next station on the platform, and leave them 
 there. This is a land of minute regulations. Any 
 assertion of British independence in the matter of 
 self-protection is quietly ignored. I saw all the 
 luggage of one man turned out by the wayside at a 
 station in the West, because he had neglected to 
 observe the usual routine. A departure from this 
 will surely get the traveller into trouble. 
 
 Cincinnati is a religious city, though the reading of 
 the Bible was some time ago, by an unholy combina- 
 tion of Jews, Freethinkers, and Koman Catholics, 
 excluded from the common schools.* I had two sets 
 of tracts and cards put into my hands before I got 
 outside the railway station. 
 
 I turned my steps at once to the Ohio, which is 
 here crossed by a suspension bridge of 1,200 feet 
 span, at a great height above the river. The water 
 was rather low, and the business of smoothing and 
 paving the wide sloping banks was going busily on. 
 There was, as usual in these river-side American 
 cities, a border of white, large, high-backed steamers, 
 
 * This act of exclusion has, I understand, since then been 
 rescinded. 
 
CINCINNATI AND PHILADELPHIA. 167 
 
 with double funnel, and the machinery naked above 
 deck; the pilot's steering-box, like a smart little 
 summer-house in a tea-garden, being raised up on 
 high, and "dominating" the whole concern in the 
 midst. I was going to say that Cincinnati was the 
 smokiest town I ever saw, but Pittsburgh beats it in 
 floating dirt. It calls itself the " Queen City of the 
 West," but is often named "Porcopolis," being 
 a great centre of hog slaughtering. Of course, here 
 I expected to find pork cheap, but was astonished to 
 find that it sells at eighteen cents per pound. I am 
 at a loss to account for the very high retail price of 
 provisions wherever I go. At Chicago mutton was 
 decidedly cheap by the carcase, but small quantities 
 of meat are everywhere dear. At New York they pay 
 from thirty-five to forty cents per pound for beef- 
 steaks, not so good as English. At Cincinnati I 
 found prime cuts of beef and mutton were fifteen 
 cents a pound, potatoes sixty cents a bushel, brown 
 sugar seventeen or eighteen cents a pound, bread five 
 cents, coffee thirty to thirty-five, tea a dollar and a 
 half, and "table" butter forty-five cents. I got these 
 prices by going into shops, like a customer, and 
 asking the prices. Wages are higher than with us. 
 A bricklayer gets six dollars a day, but is generally 
 out of work half the year. Carpenters have four 
 dollars a day; ordinary labourers about two dollars. 
 Kents are very high. I asked a man who served me 
 
168 TO SAN FBANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 in a shop what he paid. He said three rooms on the 
 second floor cost him fifteen dollars a month, and 
 that a cottage with three rooms and a kitchen was 
 twenty dollars a month. A working man paid twelve 
 dollars a month for two rooms, or about ten shillings 
 a week, allowing for the depreciation of the currency. 
 All the prices I have given are in currency, but they 
 seem to show that in cities it is doubtful if artisans 
 gain by emigration from England to America. I 
 should add that clothing is about three times as dear 
 there as with us, Here, though, I found no squalid 
 class. All seem to have work, and the city was full 
 of business. A barber, however, who brushed my 
 hair, talked of improving his condition by going to 
 England. I have been very much struck again and 
 again by the respectful way in which people speak of 
 the old country. 
 
 I have talked in the train, in steamboats, in shops, 
 hotels, and at street corners, with men of all sorts 
 with, indeed, everyone who would enter into conversa- 
 tion with me : in America you generally have to break 
 the ice yourself, since very few people speak to their 
 travelling neighbours, whether native or not; and 
 almost invariably free complaint is made of the heavy, 
 provoking taxes which are laid upon the people, the 
 jobbery of officials, and the corruption of justice. 
 These are the three leading phases of grumbling. 
 Almost every one says that Judges and members 
 
CINCINNATI AND PHILADELPHIA. 169 
 
 of Congress can be bribed. They may be right or 
 wrong in their persuasion, but all I can say is that I 
 have hardly talked with an American on these 
 matters who did not thus abuse the working of the 
 institutions of his country. He will dwell upon its 
 resources, its bigness, its power, its incalculable 
 future, but he will have his fling at the Legislature. 
 
 While at Sacramento I strolled into a place of 
 entertainment where comic dialogues were held 
 between coloured men, and almost all the jokes, those 
 which drew most applause, were levelled at the rulers 
 of the land. A " curiosity" long discussed turned 
 out to be " a Massachusetts General who did not steal 
 spoons." Another man injured his brains by an 
 accident and left them to be mended at a shop, but 
 forgot to call for them because he happened to be 
 elected as a national legislator and did not observe 
 their absence, &c. Thus joke after joke was turned 
 against the Legislature, or the Army, or the absurdity 
 of asking for Alabama "clams," or a "Finnicom" 
 invasion of Canada when the English soldiers 
 "arrested" everything down to what was very like 
 the vermin which accompanied the invaders. 
 
 On the subject of Fenians I was much interested. 
 I pulled out the Fenian stop on every possible 
 occasion, and I never met with an American who did 
 not speak of Fenians with the strongest contempt. 
 They dislike them much, but find their vote con- 
 
170 TO SAN FBANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 venient on the eve of elections. Of course, divers 
 Irishmen had a different opinion of Fenianism. 
 
 When practicable, I also drew the conversation 
 to the subject of repudiation, and altogether I met 
 with only two who desired it. I need hardly say that 
 an American has generally an opinion, and is never 
 slow to admit it when asked ; but over and over again 
 I have heard some such sentiments as this 
 " Kepudiate, sir ! Nonsense ; where would the credit 
 of the country be?" There is, we know, a party 
 which advocates repudiation, but I must say what I 
 have heard. 
 
 I mention this now because on the journey from 
 St. Louis I happened to have an extra amount of 
 conversation with my fellow travellers on political 
 affairs. 
 
 Another thing that struck me on this journey was 
 the number of rivers which water the country in 
 these parts. Besides the Susquehanna, the Juniata, 
 the Schuylkill, the Delaware, the Ohio, &c., we saw 
 or crossed many of which my fellow passengers could 
 not tell me the names. 
 
 The Alleghanies form a very picturesque range of 
 mountains, but are tame. They are mostly wooded, 
 and the autumn tints of the leaves were exceedingly 
 beautiful, yet they present no striking forms on the 
 sky-line, and are very much like themselves. Many 
 portions of our route, though, especially where the 
 
CINCINNATI AND PHILADELPHIA. 171 
 
 railroad followed the course of rivers, were more than 
 pretty. I was much amused by a fellow-traveller who, 
 as we came on a remarkably fine and distant valley 
 view, with cliffs of rock, &c., said to me, " There, sir; 
 there is nothing to beat that in Switzerland." I said 
 I missed the mountains and the snow and the ice and 
 the lakes, and asked him to which part of Switzerland 
 he referred. "Well, sir," he replied; "I have been 
 there." " So have I," I rejoined, and ran through 
 the names of some dozen or so of Swiss districts with 
 which I am familiar. He got up and walked off to 
 the other end of the car in disgust, which, if not un- 
 speakable, was, at least on this occasion, unspoken. 
 
 I did not come across much bragging, but when I 
 did find some, it was full-grown. 
 
 Philadelphia, where I stayed, is a distressingly 
 correct and beautiful city. The houses are mostly of 
 red brick, and brilliant with advertisements. The 
 vistas down the main streets are fine, the shops are 
 excellent, and the people all seem respectable. 
 Numerous street-cars run in every thoroughfare, and 
 the foot pavements are in places of red brick, like 
 the houses. There are many trees in the city, their 
 green contrasting beautifully with the prevailing red 
 of the houses. 
 
 I will not pause to tell you of divers stock sights 
 which I went to see, comprising among other things the 
 table on which the Declaration of Independence was 
 
172 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 signed, &c., for these are the standing dishes of 
 Philadelphia; but I must make mention of my 
 visit to the Sunday- School Jubilee of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, which was held during my stay 
 here in the Academy of music in other words a large 
 theatre. 
 
 The "Methodist Episcopal Church" is the most 
 numerous Protestant community in the United States, 
 numbering about five times as many as the "Protestant 
 Episcopal." Bishop Simpson is, I believe, its senior 
 at least its chief pastor. He was to be present at this 
 Jubilee : and as President Grant is also a member of 
 this Church, and was then a visitor in the city, his 
 presence was also secured at the Jubilee, which thus 
 became of special importance and interest. I took my 
 place in the theatre, one among 4,000 or 5,000 who 
 filled every corner and gallery of the building. A 
 portion of the Sunday- School scholars from a number 
 of chapels were seated on the stage. They comprised 
 1,100 girls, many of them grown young women, in 
 white dresses, and the crowd of them reached as far 
 back as the space behind the footlights could be 
 cleared out to accommodate them. They entirely 
 covered the floor of the stage, and as they mostly 
 fanned themselves as they sat ready for the proceed- 
 ings to begin, the sight, from the middle of the 
 lower gallery, where I sat, was very striking. One 
 of the stage boxes was reserved for the President, 
 

 PHILADELPHIA (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH). 
 
174 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 and the hum of conversation broke into clapping of 
 hands and cheers when he appeared and took his 
 seat, accompanied by Mrs. Grant and a party of 
 friends. 
 
 Bishop Simpson then stood facing the audience in 
 front of the conductor's seat and offered a short 
 sensible prayer, and the proceedings, which consisted 
 of songs and recitations by the scholars, some 
 religious, some comic, commenced. The singing was 
 not good; it lacked the fulness and the light and 
 shade of similar school choruses in England. Part 
 of it, moreover, was simply painful, at least to myself. 
 On more than one occasion two scholars were brought 
 forward to sing a duet. They were horribly frightened, 
 poor girls, and made no more noise than two mice in 
 a barn. Of course, their untrained voices could not 
 fill the building. They were heard and seen, that 
 was all ; and some of the audience cheered good- 
 humouredly. But the sense of failure was somewhat 
 effaced by about thirty infant scholars, who sang a 
 song called the " Jolly little Clacker." These little 
 trots had no sense of shyness, and did their very best, 
 standing in a row behind the foot-lights, and clapping 
 their hands in accompaniment to the refrain which 
 was 
 
 Click, click, click, clack, clack, clack, 
 
 Jolly little clacker, with your clack, clack, clack. 
 
 Then they all bobbed a curtsey, and were trooped out 
 
CINCINNATI AND PHILADELPHIA. 175 
 
 by a teacher. The clacker is, I believe, an American 
 bird. 
 
 But the President was there, and the chance of 
 dragging him into the performance was too great to 
 be lost. He is very shy and reserved, but he is the 
 President, and a member of the " Methodist Episcopal 
 Church," so he had to gratify his friends. 
 
 One of the songs, far on in the programme, was 
 " See the conquering hero," &c. This they took out 
 of its turn, and compelled the President to assist in 
 rendering effective. They led him out of his box and 
 set him behind one of the scenes about one-third of 
 the way down the stage. There he stood looking very 
 uncomfortable till the verse began " See the god-like 
 youth advancing/' Then he marched out to a chair 
 in the middle, directly in front of the footlights, and 
 sat down with a big nosegay in his hand, looking still 
 more out of his element. After the song, the people 
 insisted on a speech from him. He is a very wise 
 man, and seldom speaks in public ; but they were too 
 much for him on this occasion. He therefore got up 
 and made a few remarks, in a tone so low that some 
 of the audience were rude enough to shout " Speak 
 louder!" But he did not, choosing rather to shut 
 his mouth and sit down. Then he was asked to walk 
 towards the back of the stage, and either see or show 
 himself to the scholars, the young ladies in white. 
 This he did ; but the temptation was too strong for 
 
176 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 the damsels, who presently made a rush upon him and 
 devoured him, falling upon him in such force that 
 presently I could see only the top of his head he is 
 very short in a whirlpool of white muslin. The 
 scene was so ludicrous that a general cackle of 
 laughter rose from the whole audience, and the poor 
 President swam out as fast as he could, leaving the 
 theatre immediately afterwards. The spectators were 
 much pleased, a lady next me passing into a state of 
 great excitement at the osculation, and lending me 
 her opera-glass that I might see it hetter. The whole 
 thing was a success, and an Institution for the Aged 
 and Infirm reaped a good harvest from the receipts. 
 I paid half-a -dollar for admission. 
 
177 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A SHOBT BUN SOUTHWARD. 
 
 I was enabled to pay a short visit to Washington and 
 Eichmond. I went by night straight to the latter 
 place from New York, and stopped in Washington on 
 my way back. The convenience of these sleeping- 
 cars, &c., cannot be mentioned too often, as, say what 
 we will, England must learn a lesson from America 
 in the matter of material provision for the comfort of 
 travellers; while I wish she may learn from us to 
 provide a more careful set of officials to drive and 
 conduct trains. The carriages, &c., are excellent, but 
 the staff is often frightfully careless of injury to public 
 limbs and life. And then the papers do not report 
 accidents as they ought. Shortly after I had crossed 
 the continent by the Atlantic and Pacific rail a terrible 
 collision occurred upon it, for accounts of which I 
 looked in vain into the columns of the New York 
 Times, Herald, and Tribune. The accident was 
 caused by gross neglect. A passenger train had run 
 off the rails in consequence of a defective switch, 
 which had been reported so I heard as out of 
 
 N 
 
178 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 order. It was got on again after some hours, mes- 
 sengers with signals being sent hack. But the driver 
 of an emigrant train wholly disregarded them, and 
 running full smash into the stationary passenger 
 train, killed six or seven persons, and wounded many 
 others. The voice of public opinion at least ought to 
 have been heard loudly on such an occasion ; but, as 
 I said, I looked for it in vain. I may have missed 
 comments which were made; I did not find them. 
 A gentleman who was present at the disaster told us 
 that on asking the conductor what mischief was done, 
 he received the reply, " One passenger and six Mor- 
 mons killed, and twenty wounded." The accident 
 happened in a most dreary part of the route, where 
 the poor people had to wait for hours before a surgeon 
 could be got, and he was found only among the 
 passengers of another train. 
 
 To return, I took my berth in a sleeping-car in the 
 train which left New York at 9 P.M., and after travel- 
 ling 226 miles while asleep, woke in Washington. 
 Then I went at once on board a steamer, which runs 
 about sixty miles down the Potomac to Acquia Creek, 
 the water base of the long military operations against 
 the lines of Richmond. 
 
 The Potomac has slightly elevated wooded banks, 
 and is a broad, beautiful river, looking, I fancied, 
 even wider than it is. Here were no mud shores 
 bristling with dead timber as on the Mississippi and 
 
A SHORT BUN SOUTHWARD. 179 
 
 the Missouri, but headlands rich with autumn-tinted 
 trees. We steamed rapidly down, and soon reached 
 our landing-place, now a mere railway station on a 
 wooden pier. A large number of charred piles hold- 
 ing their black heads above the water showed where 
 the Government stores had stood. People in the boat 
 said they had been burnt by Federals in office after 
 the war, in order to secure a price for their contents 
 to some contractors. 
 
 I had looked forward with much interest to the 
 seeing of some relics of the war, and now we had 
 to cross a country which had long been the scene of 
 repeated battle. It is undulating, and very desolate. 
 Farmers before the war had worked their land till it 
 lost heart, and now it waits for Northern capital. 
 The scattered patches of corn were most miserable in 
 comparison with what I had seen along the Missouri 
 bottom. I should correct an impression which may 
 perhaps have been made by my statement that some 
 of the corn-stalks there were fifteen feet high. I 
 referred to maize, which is always called " corn " in 
 America; other grain being known only as wheat, 
 barley, and the like. 
 
 " On board " the train from Acquia Creek to Rich- 
 mond I found myself for the first time during my tour 
 among those with Southern opinions. On happening 
 to ask a gentleman as we landed whether he had been 
 in the war, he replied, "Yes, sir; I was a rebel, and 
 N 2 
 
180 TO SAN FKANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 you will soon see the graveyards I helped to fill." 
 Then he chuckled, and added, "But we can't do 
 without the North now. They have the capital, we 
 have land and lahour." 
 
 Signs of war soon showed themselves in breast- 
 works, &c., looking almost as fresh as when they were 
 made. We stopped some little time at Fredericks- 
 burg, on the opposite bank of the Kappahannock, a 
 comparatively narrow river for America. The town 
 is now well mended, though there are many patches ; 
 and I saw one or two skeletons of houses still un- 
 touched. I was struck by the very great increase in 
 the number of negroes visible everywhere. My bitter 
 Southern companion said they lived by stealing. We 
 saw the cemetery, filled mainly after the battle of 
 Fredericksburg. It is kept in most scrupulous order, 
 each grave being marked by a white headstone with 
 the names, where they could be ascertained, of the 
 soldiers buried in them. As these white memorials 
 were placed in rows at equal distances and covered 
 several acres, the effect was unpleasantly prim, the 
 place looking like a large nursery ground stuck full 
 of labels. It sorely wanted the air of consecration 
 which is associated with the resting-places of the dead. 
 All was clean, neat, and uniform, but staring and 
 unmournful. It seemed at the first glance to have no 
 indication of individual sorrow, but it was certainly 
 marked by the sign of national care. Here I may 
 
182 TO SAN FBANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 say that whilst descending the Potomac the bell of 
 the steamer tolled as we passed Mount Vernon, the 
 home and tomb of Washington. The rail between 
 Acquia Creek and Kichmond has been repaired 
 throughout since the war, but, as usual, has no fence. 
 Hence we were checked in several places by cattle 
 on the line, and once we ran foul of a poor beast 
 of a bull, which we cut down, the "cow-catcher" 
 on the bows of the engine flinging it off the track. 
 Occasionally the cattle are avenged by keeping 
 their own carcases on the line and throwing the 
 train off. 
 
 The part of Virginia we passed through had much 
 the same appearance all along the route. The lines 
 of Richmond, of yellow earth, are mostly as marked 
 as ever ; and when I looked back from the top of the 
 Capitol at the country we had crossed, I saw them 
 stretching away right and left out of sight. The 
 situation of Kichmond is very picturesque, the James 
 River above the town being thickly studded with 
 islands. The burnt district is mainly rebuilt, and 
 the whole city was alive with a fair or exhibition, in 
 which agricultural implements and produce held a 
 very prominent place. Plasterers and whitewashers, 
 too, were, as a negro there said, " fixing up " the 
 Capitol " a bit." It is of Grecian architecture, and 
 the most conspicuous object in the city, being set on a 
 hill, whence it commands a fine view of the town and 
 
A SHORT RUN SOUTHWARD. 183 
 
 its surroundings. It has, however, both inside and 
 out, an air of desolation and decay. 
 
 We visited the Libby Prison, on the river-bank, a 
 square dismal edifice, with three large floors. In one 
 sense it keeps up the sentiment of its business when 
 it was crowded with half-famished Federal prisoners, 
 for it is converted into a bone-crushing manufactory. 
 There was a propriety, too, in the use now made of 
 the old slave-market. There it stood, the same as 
 ever; only, instead of offering "hands" for sale, it 
 was bright with a great advertisement of "Excelsior 
 reaping mowing-machines," and the floor was cum- 
 bered with good store of agricultural implements. I 
 noticed also divers shops devoted to the provision of 
 farm seeds, &c. Altogether Richmond seems to have 
 made a great rise out of its fall, and the buildings 
 erected on the site of the burnt district, though the 
 walls are patchy with the blackened bricks used in 
 their construction, indicate a prosperous commercial 
 future. The suburbs and outer streets of the city, 
 with their sober-looking, weather-worn red brick 
 detached houses, reminded me more of an old English 
 town than anything I had seen in America. The 
 inn, too, had some air of the old country, the landlord 
 making a point of thanking us when we left his 
 house a piece of politeness which you are not likely 
 to hear from the attendants or managers of a large 
 roaring hotel, however civil they may be. 
 
184 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 I returned to Washington in a train filled with 
 people who had visited the fair, but as I happened to 
 travel in a car fitted, as some are, with cane easy 
 chairs, instead of the usual seats, there was no 
 crowding, each passenger having a place to himself. 
 These chairs are very luxurious, as you can let down 
 the back to your own angle, and have plenty of room 
 to stretch your legs. 
 
 Washington, called the " city of magnificent dis- 
 tances," is a very striking sketch of a metropolis. 
 The streets are wider than any I ever saw, and being 
 both very long and straight, fill you with a sense of 
 perspective. Everything is on the largest scale, but 
 it is a skeleton, the number of houses bearing a small 
 proportion to the site of the city. The public build- 
 ings are very fine, but almost painfully white. The 
 streets are so arranged that many vistas are closed by 
 one of these edifices, the Capitol being everywhere 
 most conspicuous. It is an immense structure, but 
 very grand in its proportions. It looks as if it had 
 been finished the day before, and washed that morn- 
 ing. The appearance of its dome is familiar to our 
 readers, but its whiteness is even more staring than I 
 had expected. Of course I climbed to the top, 
 whence, from the gallery above the dome, the idea of 
 what the city is, or was intended to be, reveals itself. 
 The Washington Monument, designed to be 600 feet 
 high, is perhaps the most striking sign of incomplete- 
 
186 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 ness seen from the Capitol, for it has stopped short 
 at 170 feet, and looks like what it is, the stump of a 
 column. I went into the House of Kepresentatives 
 and the Senate, which flank the Capitol, and are 
 approached by doors and passages from the rotunda 
 under the dome. They are ohlong chambers, the 
 House of Kepresentatives being 139 feet by 93, and a 
 little larger than the other ; but they both look very 
 low, since they are only 30 feet high. I believe, 
 however, that they suit the voice. The seats are 
 spread out like a fan from the Speaker's chair. 
 Reporters are excellently placed, and galleries afford 
 seats to some 1,200 persons. This may sometimes 
 be a questionable convenience, as the directness of 
 debate is likely to be affected by the presence of 
 a crowd, none of whom need " members' orders " 
 for admission to the House. The ceilings are 
 panelled and decorated, and desks are provided for 
 members. 
 
 The Patent Office is an immense building. Ameri- 
 cans are inventive, and here a model is shown of 
 every patent taken out and rejected. These last are 
 placed together. Somehow I had omitted noticing 
 this fact in the guide book I consulted, and where I 
 saw it stated after I had left the place. The models 
 are made to scale, but as they are all small, the 
 collection has rather a toyish appearance. Any visitor 
 can have a model he wishes to examine brought out 
 
A SHORT RUN SOUTHWARD. 187 
 
 for him. Intending patentees, therefore, may look 
 through the class of models to which their projected 
 invention belongs, and calculate the chances of its 
 novelty. Great facilities are afforded to inventors, 
 and an American patent is, I believe, altogether the 
 cheapest and most secure in the world. The clerks 
 and attendants are ready in giving all information 
 needed. No fees are asked or expected from visitors 
 to this or any other public building in Washington. 
 No soldiers mount guard anywhere. All Departments 
 are open to- the public from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M., a 
 permit from the Secretary of the Treasury being 
 needed only for the inspection of the printing of 
 " greenbacks." 
 
 The Treasury is another huge, roomy place, about 
 500 feet long and a little under 300 broad. I was 
 too late when I visited this, but saw the White House. 
 I did not, indeed, intend to seek admission into it, 
 for the President was at home, and I thought it 
 might be closed. However, I walked up to look at 
 the outside. It deserves the name of the White 
 House, even in a city of white edifices, for everything 
 about it the glaring road, the blinds, the door 
 itself helped to claim the title. I saw no one about, 
 no sentries, no servants of any kind. A soldier's 
 horse was tied up at the entrance, but everything 
 stood quiet and still in the bright sunshine. Pre- 
 sently four persons, Americans, whom I had seen 
 
188 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 doing the sights of Washington, and whom, indeed, 
 I had not long before directed to the spiral staircase 
 which leads up the dome of the Capitol, came saunter- 
 ing out. They walked away, and the door was shut 
 behind them. Another orderly rode up, tied his 
 horse to a ring in the portico, and walked in. I 
 turned aside, and was strolling off, supposing the 
 White House was closed to visitors for the day, 
 when an old negress came smiling out by some side 
 door. 
 
 16 Mornin', sar," said she. " Mornin', marm," said I. 
 I supposed her to be a sort of Aunt Sally among 
 the servants, and asked her if the house was still open. 
 "Bless, you, sar," she replied, "I've been there 
 three hours ; but I didn't see the President after all." 
 "Did you want to see him?" "Yes, sar; wages 
 very low, work scarce." "Did you expect him to 
 find you any?" "Well, sar, I thought I'd go and 
 see, but he is busy." Then she volunteered her 
 opinion on his fitness for his post, and praised 
 Lincoln. " Ah ! I do believe he was a Christian." 
 
 Negroes are monstrously communicative. Unlike 
 Americans, they frequently begin the conversation, 
 and are generally very ambitious in their choice of 
 subjects. The negro's talk is as large as his lips. 
 He is always contemplating a long journey, or deliver- 
 ing himself about the greatest matters and the biggest 
 people. The black barber talks of setting up business 
 
A SHORT RUN SOUTHWARD. 189 
 
 in London. The boots at the hotel discusses the 
 relation between Canada and the United States. A 
 man who sold pears to us in the train to Richmond 
 mixed up his opinion of Henry Clay, a propos to 
 nothing, with his offers of fruit. This negress laid 
 down the law about the qualification of the Chief 
 Magistrate with most entertaining decision, and was 
 quite sincere in intending to place her special neces- 
 sities before none less than the President himself. 
 There was a grotesque pathos in the faith she felt in 
 her appeal to the head of the Government. 
 
 But he was busy. Busy ! I should think so, if he 
 has to listen to every personal tale. However, Aunt 
 Sally provoked me at least to look into the house, so I 
 retraced my steps and rang the front bell. A servant 
 out of livery opened the door at once, and began 
 showing me over the place. I said I was an English- 
 man passing through Washington, and hoped I was 
 not too late to see the "White House. " no, sir," 
 he replied, " but you must not expect to see such a 
 palace as you have in England." "While we were 
 looking about I said, "I suppose the President is 
 much pressed upon by visitors." " Well," he rejoined, 
 "there are pretty many, but I am sure he would see 
 you if you walked up-stairs." " I won't trouble him," 
 said I; " besides, I have not come prepared to seek a 
 presentation." I referred to my dress wideawake 
 and overcoat, which I wore because the wind was 
 
190 TO SAN FBANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 keen, though the sun was bright. He saw what I 
 meant and laughed, adding, "We don't think ahout 
 that here, sir." So I strolled up the stairs, which 
 were puhlic, and found myself, without introduction, 
 
 in a large room, where General was hearing an 
 
 application from some contractor at a tahle, a secretary 
 sitting at another, and an old gentleman standing 
 before the fire with an unlit cigar in his mouth. A 
 negro porter sat by a door on the other side of the 
 room. 
 
 The General, too, asked me most courteously if I 
 wanted to see the President. I replied that had I 
 known he received that day I would have sought, 
 with others, the honour of making my bow to him, 
 but that I did not like to go in as I was. He smiled, 
 and said that made no difference, and added, " Send 
 your card in. Sit down." So I gave him my card 
 and sat down, while he went on with his business. 
 In a minute or two I was called into an inner room, 
 and found the President standing before the fire 
 smoking a cigar. He was exceedingly courteous, and 
 honoured me with some conversation about Utah and 
 the great line, the former of which he knew much 
 about personally, having been there. Then I made 
 my bow, he shook hands, and I went out certainly 
 much impressed with the extreme facility of access 
 granted by the head of the Government to visitors. 
 The whole thing was so unexpectedly informal that I 
 
192 TO SAN FKANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 felt it difficult to realise that I had had an interview 
 with so great a personage as the President of the 
 United States. He is a very gentlemanly man, with 
 a quiet, deliberate voice, and an eye that looks 
 straight at you when he speaks. He wore an 
 ordinary morning dress, almost scrupulously well- 
 fitting; and I noticed that, like the majority of 
 Americans, he had a small white hand and very neat 
 hoots. 
 
 There can he no greater mistake than to represent 
 the conventional American in a tail coat and bulgy 
 boots. I did not notice a tail coat worn in the morn- 
 ing while in America, nor did I ever see a more clean 
 heeled race in my life. Even in the rough West, 
 where trousers are worn stuffed into " Wellingtons " 
 though they are not known by that name there 
 the boots were almost invariably neatly built. Our 
 guide in the Sierra wore a high-heeled pair, which 
 might have come out of the most fashionable shop in 
 Kegent Street. 
 
 The President is exposed to much detail of work, 
 which must be very wearisome. He receives, I forget 
 whether it is twice or three times a week, and is, of 
 course, constantly pestered with personal applications 
 for office. It was exceedingly good-natured in him to 
 see me, a wandering Englishman, as he did after the 
 reception hours had passed. No one, moreover, 
 could be more pleasantly courteous than General , 
 
A SHORT BUN SOUTHWARD. 193 
 
 with whom, before I left, I had some very agreeable 
 conversation. And this courtesy descends to lower 
 officials. Again and again I ventured to introduce 
 myself to such as the officers of Public Charity and 
 Correction, and Emigration, and nowhere did I find a 
 " Jack in office." All everywhere offered me all the 
 facilities in their power, often putting themselves to 
 trouble in showing me what I wanted to see. The 
 ordinary attendants, moreover, never seemed to expect 
 a fee. Only once did I have a hint of the kind, and 
 that was from a convict boat crew, in party-coloured 
 dresses, when their officer offered to row me across 
 the East River from the Penitentiary. They suggested 
 that they had no "baccy." 
 
 The absence of formality in American institutions 
 is very striking. Perhaps it is most so in the law 
 courts. We find it difficult to realise a judge on the 
 bench in a frock coat and pointed moustache. And 
 as the prisoner stands on the floor of the court, which 
 is covered with chairs, in which the counsel sit in all 
 manner of beards and easy morning dress, it is 
 somewhat difficult at first to realise who is who and 
 what is going on. The friends of the prisoner sit 
 below, close by the counsel, in a place reserved for 
 them. 
 
 But I must close this rambling chapter. I left 
 Washington impressed with a mingled sense of 
 magnificence, incompleteness, and simplicity. No 
 
194 
 
 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 place has a finer Capitol, no nation has a more 
 accessible chief magistrate, and I should think no 
 city is as yet so imperfectly realised as the metropolis 
 of the United States of America. 
 
 PRESIDENT GRANT. 
 
195 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 I SIT down to devote a chapter to the aspect of 
 religion in the United States, specially in reference 
 to the Episcopal Church ; and I do so with some 
 hesitation, for though I have seen and heard a good 
 deal of the working of that church, I cannot allow 
 my pen to run so freely on these matters as I have on 
 such outside phases of daily life as present themselves 
 to the ordinary tourist in America. Let me, how- 
 ever, set down some of the impressions I have 
 received. 
 
 I was not prepared to find such strong evidences of 
 popular respect for religion as met me everywhere 
 during my tour. I found them not only in the city 
 and the country, hut in the forest, the steamboat, and 
 the railway station. While in the Yo Semite Valley 
 I was at once asked to hold a service on Sunday. 
 The Californian steamboat had a notice full of godly 
 advice to young men posted in the saloon; and, to 
 give a characteristic instance of the importunity with 
 which religion occasionally presents itself in the 
 o 2 
 
196 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 United States, let me tell you that when I bought a 
 sleeping-car ticket at Sacramento for my long journey 
 eastward across the Continent, the clerk, on learning 
 I was a clergyman, took me to ta.sk for travelling by 
 a train in which I should have to spend the Sunday. 
 Of course I did not choose Sunday travelling, but in 
 these long journeys it is sometimes very difficult to 
 avoid it ; and when once I tried to do so, starting on 
 a Monday morning, I did not get away from the train 
 till the following Sunday night. However, on the 
 occasion to which I refer, the clerk, knowing the 
 length of the journey, and not knowing or asking 
 what my engagements were, took upon himself to 
 rebuke me for securing a sleeping berth when I did. 
 The man was perfectly sincere, and I mention the 
 matter to show how religious feeling rises to the 
 surface in America. This was far from being a 
 solitary instance of similar punctiliousness. Indeed, 
 a clergyman using the simple natural freedom of an 
 English Christian must expect to find Americans 
 sometimes provokingly exacting when he travels in 
 their country. Again and again I came across phases 
 of religious severity which were strikingly importunate, 
 if not always radically matured. There is a sort of 
 tartness, like that of unripe fruit, in some growths of 
 American religion. The old Puritan stock still bears 
 strong crops, and spiritual food is frequently given 
 before it has time to mellow. Americans . are very 
 
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES. 197 
 
 fond of rules and regulations, and this taste shows 
 itself often in the conventional codes of piety which 
 are adopted by the various Churches. In their 
 country private judgment is more or less limited to 
 the choice of some particular community, the members 
 of which profess the same opinions and look sharply 
 after each other. I am hound to say, however, that 
 one Church will receive members from another ; but 
 the names of applicants are submitted to the congre- 
 gation with whom they wish to be in communion. 
 I have heard them read out on Sunday. All this 
 shows the prevalence of a minute ecclesiastical super- 
 vision which runs through the whole mass of pro- 
 fessing Christians in America. I except, of course, 
 the Romish Church, which holds no communion with 
 others ; and I have reason to believe that the " Pro- 
 testant Episcopal," or, as it is more generally called, 
 the " Episcopal," takes a more exclusive attitude than 
 other Protestant communities. All, however, are 
 called "Churches." The term "Dissenter" or 
 "Nonconformist" is, of course, unknown; and a 
 " chapel " is merely the building attached to a church 
 for the purpose of meetings, lectures, subsidiary 
 services, Sunday-schools, &c. There is no body 
 corresponding to a national church which admits 
 catholicity of views among its members. Churches 
 and parties are sharply defined, though, as I have 
 said, among the chief Protestant communities there 
 
198 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 is some interchange of membership, and ministers 
 frequently unite in the prosecution of some common 
 object. But the views of the majority prevail in each 
 church. A congregation of Episcopalians is, I think, 
 throughout the country, more distinctly high or low 
 than with us. I say "congregation," because the 
 word "parish," as understood in England, has no 
 meaning in America. It is constantly used, but in a 
 congregational, not territorial, sense. And there 
 seems to be no real representation of the minority 
 in the government of any church. The minority 
 must conform or depart. There is practically no 
 historical code or supreme court to which appeal may 
 be made by such as cannot trim their sentiments to 
 any which may possess the current or prevailing 
 majority. A margin of a few High or Low Church- 
 men among the Episcopalians can by their votes 
 colour the whole government of the church, and 
 procure the promotion of the adherents of their own 
 party alone. One effect, however, of the American 
 system is to promote schism. A party gets pre- 
 eminence and keeps the other out of place. And this 
 is a process which accumulates in intensity till the 
 baffled minority breaks off and forms a new com- 
 munity for itself. When that is done, there may be 
 an interchange of some offices between the two bodies, 
 but till then the member of a church who cannot 
 always think according to order is in a somewhat 
 
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES. 199 
 
 depressed and irritating position. I have, for in- 
 stance, been struck with the paucity, if not absence, 
 of those whom we call "Broad" in the American 
 Episcopal Church. I was almost going to say that 
 they were " nowhere " in that body. And from what 
 I could make out, this applies in some measure to all 
 American religious communities. A man belongs to 
 some party, and that party has a representative 
 " church " which holds some friendly relations with 
 others, but expects its own members to think in 
 unison far more than the members of the Church of 
 England do. There is more choice of opinions than 
 individual liberty of judgment. 
 
 The result of this is a conglomeration of sects 
 which forms the nearest approach to a national 
 Church. Among these there is in the main some 
 informal good understanding, but no one would care 
 to claim or allow anything like authoritative pre- 
 eminence, except, of course, the Romish Church, 
 which recognises nothing but itself. Each governs 
 itself; there is no fixed common representative ac- 
 credited body. Some may unite for a passing purpose, 
 but such union is only temporary. The American 
 Church, in the largest sense, is a congeries of religious 
 republics which have no permanent federation. 
 
 Each being, however, as.it were, a republic, wide 
 religious provision is made for the masses of the 
 people. There is little in America corresponding to 
 
200 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 the provision of the means of Divine worship for the 
 " poor " of which we hear in England. I have heard 
 this brought as a charge against American Churches. 
 But the real answer, to speak generally, is that there 
 are few "poor," as we understand the word. Large 
 numbers of the working classes who might be loosely 
 classed as " poor " with us are, as far as my obser- 
 vation has gone and I have attended many services, 
 or looked in while they were being held in the habit 
 of attending some place of worship. I have seen 
 congregations of Methodists or Baptists where any one 
 with an eye for the social position of the material of a 
 crowd could perceive at once that those present did 
 not belong to what we, perhaps, would call the upper 
 or middle classes. 
 
 Moreover, we are too ready to foriri an opinion on 
 the general religious provision for the "masses" in 
 America from what we see in cities. The sub-division 
 of the land into small parcels, each worked by the 
 owner of the soil, his family, and some "farmers," 
 as agricultural labourers are called in America (these 
 last sometimes living in the land-owner's house), 
 provides a class which to a great extent occupies the 
 place and does the work of such as are commonly 
 known as poor in England. Thus the bulk of the 
 real American people are found in the country. The 
 city poor are mainly Irish Roman Catholics, who are 
 looked after by their own priests with nmeh external 
 
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES. 201 
 
 success, if I may judge by the character of the con- 
 gregations I have seen in Roman Catholic churches. 
 Hence the religious provision for many who look poor 
 in the streets of a city is accounted for. Then there 
 are the negroes, who are chiefly Baptists, and have 
 their own places of worship. Then consider, as I 
 have said, how the real masses of Americans are 
 spread over the country. Look at the little wooden 
 church in every village. See how the spire or tower, 
 staring with paint and aesthetically ugly as possible, 
 shows itself in a new settlement, and ask, " Who 
 build these who attend them ? " The real " working 
 men " of America. 
 
 The people have reversed the process with which 
 we are familiar in England. Instead of having money 
 begged for them by others for a church, they build it 
 themselves ; and instead of having a parson set 
 amongst them, they look about and " call '' some one 
 to be their minister. It is the same in education. 
 Here the parson begs and scrapes to get a school 
 built there he looks out of his window and sees the 
 thing done without his moving a finger. 
 
 No doubt there are outlying or isolated settlements, 
 or half nomadic gatherings of miners, where difficulty 
 is felt in making provision for public worship and 
 pastoral ministrations. The Episcopal Church is 
 exerting itself much to meet cases of this kind, 
 especially in the mining districts of the West. But 
 
202 TO SAN FKANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 the bulk of the people look after themselves, and 
 churches in the main are self-feeding. We have one 
 very exceptional case in the Church Mission in the 
 Salt Lake City. There the great want is a house of 
 refuge, as it might he called, for those many of them 
 once poor members of the Church of England who 
 are growing weary of their perversion to Mormonism. 
 They can hardly form a community strong and rich 
 enough to build a church. They are specially ham- 
 pered, and it is hoped that some help may be sent 
 from the old country, whence a large proportion of 
 Mormons have been recruited. 
 
 The American clergy work at high pressure. They 
 have I speak now of the Episcopal to keep an 
 account of all the services they have held, sermons 
 they have preached, lectures they have delivered, &c., 
 &c., which, with the numbers of those baptized, con- 
 firmed, and admitted to the Holy Communion, is 
 printed, and public property. This is likely, in some 
 cases, to induce an unwholesome air of competition, 
 and several times I heard remarks made upon the 
 report of such and such a clergyman as not exhibiting 
 a genuine test of the work accomplished. But what- 
 ever a man does or leaves undone is exposed to lay 
 and clerical scrutiny. Every minister of religion lives 
 and works in the full glare of the public eye, and 
 runs his course with the spur of public opinion in 
 his side. 
 
EELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES. 203 
 
 I confess that I did not like divers of the services 
 in the Episcopal church which I attended. Any of 
 our brethren in America who may read this must for- 
 give me when I say, that I was sometimes struck to 
 the backbone by their coldness. Kespectability seemed 
 to rein supreme. That is, however, an essential fea- 
 ture in American religious gatherings. In church 
 there was frequently but little responding. The choir, 
 consisting generally of ladies and gentlemen in a 
 gallery, as a rule sings to the congregation, which 
 listens. Some of the clergy feel this painfully. At 
 one church where I assisted in the service, on being 
 asked some question afterwards in the vestry, I could 
 not help saying that I thought the Te Deum rather 
 long. It was very elaborately sung, one young lady 
 taking a prominent solo part. " Te Deum!" said 
 the Kector ; " it is what I call Tedious." The failure 
 in congregational music is more striking in some 
 Episcopal churches, from the habit which some of the 
 congregations have of sitting while the hymns are sung 
 to them. The best congregational singing I heard in 
 America was in Mr. Ward Beecher's church in Brook- 
 lyn. The next to that was in an Episcopal church at 
 the corner of Sixth Avenue and Twentieth Street, 
 in New York. This church is, I believe, almost 
 unique in its way. The seats are all free and unap- 
 propriated. There is not much of what is called 
 ritual, since the choir of men and boys who chant 
 
204 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 antiphonally in choir seats at the east end are not 
 even surpliced. 
 
 One thing which struck me in almost all the con- 
 gregations I saw was the large, in some instances 
 very large, proportion of men present. The defect in 
 responding does not, I believe, arise from indifference 
 to the service, but rather from the silence, which is a 
 striking feature of American gatherings. Religion 
 there is an eminently pressing nay, sometimes im- 
 portunate matter of general public concern, and men 
 do not leave its observances to be attended by what 
 have been called " bonnets and babies." The man 
 element is very conspicuous. I went to the St. 
 Alban's so named of New York, where the service 
 is highly ritualistic, candles being lighted on the 
 altar during celebration, banners carried, wafer bread 
 used, &c. Here the seats are free and unappro- 
 priated ; but as there were, at least where I myself 
 worshipped, no kneeling-boards or hassocks, many sat 
 during prayers. The church is small, there being 
 possibly room to seat 300. It struck me that the 
 proportion of women was greater here than elsewhere. 
 I am inclined to suspect that "ritualism" will not 
 commend itself much to Americans ; but whatever 
 else may be thought about it, the service at St. 
 Alban's in New York is a bold attempt to break 
 through the cold crust of public worship in the States. 
 I should say that one of the warmest services I 
 
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES. 205 
 
 attended in America was in the cathedral at Chicago, 
 which has a surpliced choir, without what we under- 
 stand by ritualism. There was a fine congregation, 
 and, especially in the evening, a hearty congregational 
 service. As far as I could understand it, however, 
 generally the style of service in the Episcopal Church 
 was what is sometimes called "high and dry" with 
 us. Again I remark, that the coldness I noticed 
 must be attributed more to what appeared to me a 
 national spirit of silence, if not sadness, than to indif- 
 ference. Americans struck me as naturally pre-occu- 
 pied and reserved, and their reserve shows itself when 
 they are particularly serious. I shall not easily forget 
 the impression I received in one Presbyterian church. 
 I went in while the singing was going on, and any- 
 thing more dismal I have seldom seen or heard. 
 
 Almost alt the churches I saw were extremely 
 comfortable. The seats, and in some cases the backs, 
 were softly cushioned. The best sermons, at least 
 those which appeared heartiest, were in Presbyterian 
 and'Congregationalist places of worship. But what I 
 think surprised me most was the "orthodoxy" of 
 sentiments I heard in a Unitarian and Universalist 
 church. In the latter, where there was a magnificent 
 congregation with a large proportion of men, the 
 minister laid down the doctrine of the Atonement 
 with extreme minuteness of detail. In another, a 
 non-Episcopalian church I really cannot say to what 
 
206 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 denomination it belonged I heard, I think, the 
 driest, boniest sermon I ever listened to, and that is 
 saying much. The preacher was discoursing on the 
 verse in the sixth chapter of St. John " Except ye 
 eat the flesh of the Son of Man," &c. He said : 
 " This cannot be understood literally, for such a sup- 
 position would offend the best feelings of propriety." 
 The congregation looked as if especially accessible to 
 such an appeal. The most magniloquent sermon I 
 heard was by a black minister in a negro Baptist 
 church. 
 
 Episcopalians have the character of presenting the 
 most " respectable" congregations. I cannot say 
 that I perceived this. A large proportion of the most 
 educated classes are, however, said to belong to the 
 Episcopal Church. It is decidedly influential, but 
 comes low in the list, if we may judge by the number 
 of its adherents. Methodist, Baptist, Congrega- 
 tionalist, and Presbyterian Churches are much more 
 numerous, the two former at least counting five or 
 six among their followers where the Episcopal Church 
 counts one. The latter, however, is generally admitted 
 to be growing; and it has lately exhibited a fresh 
 movement in the support of home missionary work, 
 and it numbers notoriously some most devoted men 
 among its bishops and ministers. 
 
 I must be allowed to state that the clergy in 
 America would not generally be considered by Eng- 
 
208 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 lishmen as clerical in their appearance. I have seen 
 the rector of an eminent Episcopal church wear a 
 hlack neckcloth while officiating on Sunday. This 
 applies also to ministers of other denominations. It 
 is frequently very difficult to distinguish a clergyman 
 hy his dress. My impression for some time was that 
 no clergymen were to he met in the streets. 
 
 It struck me that clergymen are treated with great 
 respect in America. I have, unasked, had an abate- 
 ment made in the price of an article because I was a 
 clergyman. Some railways carry ministers free, and 
 I was told it was not an unusual thing for a company 
 to present a bishop with a free pass over all its lines. 
 Indeed, I was advised myself always to mention my 
 cloth in taking a ticket, as 25 per cent, would be 
 deducted from its price. I did not do this, and so 
 cannot vouch from experience for the effect of the 
 statement. 
 
 From lay and clerical sources I gathered that the 
 clergy, as a rule, are far from being ill-paid in the 
 United States. In some cases congregations even 
 meet the expenses of a tour when their minister is in 
 need of exceptional rest, and provide funds for a sub- 
 stitute while he is away. Americans do not grudge 
 their clergy liberal stipends when they like them, 
 but an unpopular man feels his unpopularity in a 
 material sense. 
 
 I cannot conclude this chapter without saying that 
 
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES. 209 
 
 nothing could surpass the kindness of those Episcopal 
 clergy I met. With no exception they all spoke in 
 the handsomest and friendliest manner of the Church 
 of England; and, as far as I was personally con- 
 cerned, I can never thank them enough for the 
 cordiality with which they held out their hands to a 
 mere stranger like myself. 
 
210 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LANDING AND TREATMENT OF 
 EMIGRANTS IN NEW YORK. 
 
 As popular interest in emigration is increasing, per- 
 haps our readers may like an account of the reception 
 and treatment of emigrants at New York. I assisted 
 in the landing and disposal of some 1,200. 
 
 They set foot first in America on the tip of the 
 tongue of land on which New York is situated. A 
 large heavy circular building stands there. It was 
 once a fort, but is now called " Castle Gardens," and is 
 the receiving-house of the Emigration Commissioners. 
 It will shelter many hundred emigrants. Outside it, 
 towards the bay, is a wooden landing-stage. The 
 emigrant ships lie some distance off, and send their 
 loads on shore in steam-tenders. 
 
 Having, on a comparatively blank day at Castle 
 Gardens, presented an introduction to the general 
 agent, Mr. Casserly, he kindly put 'me into the hands 
 of a gentleman, who took me round and showed me 
 to all the officers, as one with the privilege of entry. 
 This was needful, as otherwise I was liable to be 
 
p 2 
 
212 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 summarily turned out if found on the premises while 
 emigrants were being landed, or I should have had no 
 time to exhibit a pass and justify my presence all 
 about the place during the bustle of a reception-day. 
 I was shown the landing-stage, the passage from it 
 into the Kotunda, the desks at which the clerks sat 
 to greet the new-comers, the various counters at which 
 different kinds of information were given, the waiting- 
 room of friends, the refreshment place, and Labour 
 Exchange. The whole process of the reception of 
 emigrants was then explained to me, that I might 
 know what to look for and what to do when I 
 came. 
 
 Next morning I went down to see the establish- 
 ment at work. I found it quite empty of all but the 
 officials, who were at their posts with books open, 
 ready to begin. Two large ships, full of emigrants, 
 were lying in the bay about three-quarters of a mile 
 off. The tender was alongside one of them, taking 
 in her load. I walked to the bare landing-stage and 
 waited. The tender soon left the ship, her deck being 
 apparently heaped with people like currants on a tray. 
 She came slowly up towards the quay, and presently 
 I perceived a bank of white faces, all turned one way, 
 and a thousand eyes all straining at the shore. As 
 she bumped gently against the stage, and a railed 
 plank was run out to her deck, there was a sway and 
 rush among the emigrants to get on land. " Gently 
 
EMIGRANTS IN NEW YOEK. 213 
 
 there ! " cried the officer in command ; " one at a 
 time, please." After I had seen the stream begin to 
 pour out, I ran hack into the building, and took my 
 place behind a counter by a clerk whose business it 
 was to put down the names. The passage to this 
 admitted the people in single file. The first face 
 soon came, looking very bewildered. " Name, 
 please," said the clerk kindly. " Bridget Nolan, sir." 
 " Where do you come from, Bridget ?" and his cheery 
 voice calmed her face down at once. " Mayo, sir." 
 "Ever been here before, Bridget?" "No, sir." 
 " Where are you going, eh ? " " Illinois." Thus he 
 inquired all about her, and putting the particulars 
 down as quick as lightning, pointed to where she 
 should wait. The string of emigrants hearing all 
 this, and seeing how the thing was managed so far, 
 came up primed with their answers. There were 
 men and women of all ages, some quite old. Pre- 
 sently there appeared two tiny heads hardly reaching 
 to the counter. They were those of a little boy and 
 girl about eight and nine years of age. She was the 
 eldest, and held her brother's hand in her left, while 
 she clutched tightly in her right the brass check 
 which had been given them for their one small piece 
 of luggage. 
 
 " Anybody with these children?" said the clerk. 
 " No, sir," replied a woman, who had six of her own 
 crowding close behind her; "but they have been 
 
214 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 along with, mine in the ship, and I have done what I 
 could by them." " How old are you, my dears ?" 
 asked the clerk, leaning over towards them. They 
 shook their heads ; they didn't know. " Come in 
 here," said he. Then I brought the two trots inside 
 the counter, and set them down by the fire. They 
 held one another very tight. On asking if they were 
 hungry, they nodded, both of them. So I got them a 
 good hunch of bread and meat from the refreshment 
 place, and went back to my post by the clerk, while 
 they fell to at once, in silence. 
 
 The putting down of the names was soon over. 
 Practice does wonders in this business. Thus all 
 were registered, and waited in the wide space in the 
 Eotunda, outside the counter. Then those who had 
 money to buy railway tickets had them supplied. 
 After this, a clerk got into a sort of pulpit, and 
 desiring the attention of the emigrants, told them 
 that he was going to call out the names of those who 
 had letters or money orders waiting for them. As 
 they answered, these were put into their hands. 
 Then he called out the names of those who had 
 friends in another room, where they were taken, as 
 they answered, by an official. These processes were 
 repeated, lest any at the first roll-call should have 
 missed their names. 
 
 At last the crowd was sifted down to those who had 
 no money of their own, no letters, and no friends. 
 
EMIGRANTS IN NEW YORK. 215 
 
 More about these presently. Those who had paid for 
 their tickets were packed off the same day to their 
 destination in the country. Those who wanted to 
 stay in New York, and could pay for their main- 
 tenance, were introduced to special respectable lodg- 
 ing-house keepers, licensed by the Mayor, and carried 
 off by them. Those who had friends in the waiting- 
 room were let go on being claimed, but not without, 
 in several instances, careful examination of both 
 parties by an officer as to whether the claim was true. 
 This part of the business was very touching. I went 
 with the introducing official. Generally the recogni- 
 tion was obviously genuine. Eyes met, and people 
 rushed together. The woman with the six children, 
 who had been kind to the two babes on the voyage, 
 pounced on me in the Rotunda, eagerly asking, 
 " Where is my husband ? I know he must be some- 
 where about ; I saw him rowing round the ship in a 
 little boat: I thought he would be here." "All 
 right, mother," said I, " he is in the next room;" 
 and I took her in. She was far too grateful to think 
 of thanking me. There he was, and a cheery, broad- 
 shouldered fellow he was, too. How they all blocked 
 up the passage with their family embrace ! They 
 made quite a little mob. How he kissed her and 
 hugged the children all round! How they leaped 
 upon him ! " Come now," said the officer, good- 
 humouredly, " you really must let these other people 
 
216 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 get at their friends." So they trooped out, all flus- 
 tered with joy. 
 
 Some who had no particular destination, hut in- 
 tended simply to seek work in America, went at once, 
 free of charge, into the Labour Exchange, a large 
 office in Castle Gardens, where employers or their 
 agents were waiting to engage labour. Clerks sat 
 behind counters, over which were written up the 
 names of the various trades in which work was then 
 to be found. The wages being given that day were 
 Labourers, 1 dollar 75 cents to 2 dollars a day; 
 tailors, up to 20 dollars a week ; carpenters, 25 dol- 
 lars a month and board, or 18 dollars a week without 
 board; bricklayers, 5 dollars a day; farmers, i.e., 
 agricultural labourers, 12 to 14 dollars a month and 
 board; shoemakers, 6 to 15 dollars a week. These 
 were the figures I took down from the clerks. " Far- 
 mers" get more in the summer, sometimes as much 
 as 25 or 30 dollars a month with board, in the West. 
 Tailors and shoemakers, whose maximum wages were 
 20 and 15 dollars, received in many cases much less, 
 the claims of some to work at their respective trades 
 being almost nominal. 
 
 So much for the Labour Exchange, which seemed 
 to be conducted with much care and to do a great deal 
 of business. Some of the newly landed emigrants 
 found work at once through this institution, a record 
 being kept of the various engagements entered into 
 
EMIGRANTS IN NEW YORK. 217 
 
 by its means, thus affording the Commissioners of 
 Emigration an easy method of reference in case of 
 complaint, and the emigrants a convenient mode of 
 tracing friends who had gone before thempgucfof 
 
 The baggage of those thus engaged, as well as of 
 those who were sent off by rail or otherwise disposed 
 of, having been examined on board ship, was given to 
 them afterwards. They had checks for it, being 
 allowed to bring none but hand-parcels into the 
 Rotunda. I should add, that, beside provision of 
 railway tickets, there were counters for general infor- 
 mation, assistance in letter-writing, telegraphic mes- 
 sages, and exchange of money. Clerks in attendance 
 spoke and wrote the various Continental languages. 
 
 Let us now go back to those without money, letters, 
 or friends. They formed a dismal party, and had to 
 shake down that night as well as they could, under 
 supervision, in the Rotunda. Next day they were put 
 on board a steamer and sent to Ward's Island, about 
 an hour off, up the river. I went with them. Divers 
 were in tears. One woman in particular was loud in 
 her sorrow. She had expected to find her husband, 
 and found neither him nor any message. She had 
 four or five small children with her. The officers 
 told me that the friends of emigrants in America often 
 waited till they saw in the papers the arrival of the 
 ship in which their relations were to come, and, know- 
 ing that they would be cared for by the Emigration 
 
218 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 Commissioners, did not write or make their appear- 
 ance for a day or two. Thus I was glad to learn that 
 the two lone children would he accounted for. They 
 had a father in the States, who had caused them to he 
 shipped for America, like parcels, to he kept till called 
 for. But this woman would not be comforted. As 
 she was embracing her children, and lamenting in the 
 broadest Devonshire accent, I said to her, " Don't be 
 frightened, my good friend ; from what part of Devon- 
 shire do you come ? " This touched the vein of her 
 sorrow. She turned to me as to a deliverer, and dried 
 her tears when she found that I knew something of 
 her home. I explained all about the place she was 
 going to, the strong probability of her being soon 
 fetched away by her husband, and cheered her won- 
 derfully. 
 
 Among the emigrants was an Irishman, shrewd 
 enough in some things, but rather bewildered at what 
 was being done with him. He thought he was going 
 to some workhouse. He told me where he came from, 
 and said that he had expected letters. I made him 
 more comfortable in mind, and gave him some tobacco. 
 "Now," said I, "tell me all about it." I give his 
 story, translated from the strongest brogue, but very 
 touchingly narrated by him. 
 
 " Sir," he said, " I have had two brothers in 
 America for some years. I thought I would stay 
 behind, as I had fourteen acres of land, and thought 
 
EMIGRANTS IN NEW YORK. 219 
 
 it would go hard if I could not get my living out 
 of it. So I dug and drained, and all promised well. 
 Then, one day, the agent came to me, and, says 
 he, 'I can get double the rent for that land now, 
 Mike, and you must pay it or go.' So I went. 
 But I have given all that work to the landlord for 
 nothing. I assure you, sir," he continued, " I know 
 violence is wrong, hut when these things are done, a 
 man's mind is upset ; he forgets himself." 
 
 Then he paused for a moment, spat into the river, 
 and added, " Sir, I've known 'em lie behind a hedge 
 with a revolver men like me. I know it 's wrong. I 
 said to myself, 'I'll go. I'll leave this place and go 
 to the Land of God.' So I am here, though I have 
 only feasted my eyes upon the shore, and not set foot 
 upon it yet." It was a hard case. 
 
 Along with the other passengers were some dregs of 
 emigration : tattered, greasy, blear-eyed. The Com- 
 missioners bind themselves to provide shelter in the 
 State of New York to emigrants for some time after 
 they land, in case they are in tribulation. And some 
 prefer chronic tribulation. They earn a little money, 
 drink, are turned off, and throw themselves upon the 
 Commissioners. There were two or three of these 
 poor rascals on board. Besides them were sick emi- 
 grants going to the hospital on Ward's Island. Pre- 
 sently we landed, and all trooped up to the receiving 
 office. There I presented my introduction, and was 
 
220 TO SAN FKANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 asked to take ,a seat by the chief behind his counter. 
 The party was soon disposed of. Some were sent to 
 the refuge, where they had work to do, but were fed 
 and lodged. Some were dismissed to the hospital. 
 The children were sent to school, but not separated 
 from their parents. Then came the turn of the most 
 prominent rascal. The officer glanced up. "Drunk 
 again, I suppose." " Yes, sir," said the man, sheep- 
 ishly. " Go into that corner," replied the officer. 
 They make the place uncomfortable to these gentry, 
 though the Commissioners are obliged to feed them. 
 
 When the crowd was melted down, the officer took 
 me over the establishment. It appeared to me to be 
 well managed. The Commissioners hold more than 
 one-half of the island, or about 121 acres. The build- 
 ings are the refuge, and the hospital proper, reserved 
 exclusively for non-contagious diseases and surgical 
 cases ; there are also fever hospitals placed near the 
 water and isolated, the lunatic asylum, dispensary, 
 barracks, nursery, surgical wards, and residences for 
 the officers. There are two chapels, one Episcopal, and 
 one Roman Catholic, each holding about 500. Repre- 
 sentatives of religious bodies and societies may distri- 
 bute religious books and papers among the emigrants, 
 and may report to the officers any wants not of a 
 religious nature. They may also visit any sick in the 
 hospital as often as their presence is desired by 
 patients. 
 
EMIGRANTS IN NEW YORK. 221 
 
 The lunatic asylum was especially distressing. 
 The poor sufferers appeared to be treated with much 
 kindness, but the proportion of lunatics is great. 
 I was told that some who had built their hopes on 
 emigration, and come out with vague ideas of meet- 
 ing friends at once, had gone mad, on finding their 
 hopes suddenly dashed to the ground. 
 
 Attached to the refuge is a farm, on which many 
 emigrants are set to work till they can get employment. 
 In the previous year, the total number of inmates 
 cared for and treated in all the various establishments, 
 including hospitals and refuge, was 14,250 ; the total 
 number dead or discharged in the same period being 
 12,249. Thus 2,001 were left in December, 1868. 
 These destitute, sick, or temporarily friendless, form a 
 small proportion of the emigrants received and dis- 
 posed of by the Commissioneers in the twelve months. 
 The total number landed was, in 1868, 213,686. 
 
 I will not weary our readers with statistics, which I 
 take out of the published report of the Commissioners 
 to the Legislature of the State of New York, but I 
 might mention that there was in 1868 a decrease in 
 alien emigration of 29,045 from the number received 
 in 1867 ; but an increase over the average of the 
 previous twenty years, of 22,421. Germans came in 
 proportionately larger numbers. These amounted to 
 101,989 ; Irish to 47,571 ; English to 29,695 ; and 
 all other countries together to 34,431 ; showing a 
 
222 TO SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK. 
 
 decrease of 37,182 in the emigration from Germany, 
 Ireland, and England together, but an increase of 
 8,137 in the miscellaneous emigration. The most 
 marked feature in this latter item is the great number 
 of emigrants from Sweden. Among the year's arrivals 
 were 7,390 Scotch, 2,811 French, 699 Welsh, 268 
 Poles, 149 Belgians, 33 Australians, 22 Turks, 10 
 Africans, 3 Japanese, and 1 Sardinian. 
 
 The advantages held out to emigrants by the 
 Commissioners are very great. The chief one is care 
 for some time after landing, in case they become sick 
 or fail in getting employment, either in Ward's Island 
 or in places throughout the State of New York where 
 such help is needed. The Commissioners keep an 
 account with country agents and institutions, to whom 
 the needy emigrants apply. 
 
 The revenues of the institution arises from the pay- 
 ment by ship-owners to the Commissioners of about 
 five shillings a head. This is virtually paid by the 
 emigrants, being included in their passage-money. 
 
 The result is that the Commissioners have some 
 control over ship-owners, and can care for the comfort 
 of emigrants on board ship. By an Act of the Legis- 
 lature of the State of New York passed in 1867, the 
 Commissioners are generally invested with the power 
 (subject to certain conditions) of examining under 
 oath any witness respecting complaints; and such 
 testimony, if made in the presence of the persons 
 
EMIGRANTS IN NEW YORK. 223 
 
 complained of, may be used as evidence in any subse- 
 quent action between any of tbe passengers and the 
 owners, masters, or charterers of the ship. 
 
 The financial position of this great institution is 
 good. The Commissioners had, on January 1, 1868, 
 a balance of 6,865,013 dollars. 
 
 There are many interesting details in the " Eeport 
 of the Commissioners of Emigration of the State of 
 New York." I have tried to give a general idea of 
 their work and position, which is not so well known 
 as it should be. 
 
 I must add that nothing could exceed the courtesy 
 with which I was treated by all the officials. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 AS. Tauscorr AND So* 
 Suffolk Lane, City. 
 
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