We had been but a few days in San Francisco when a new-found friend,
scarcely my senior, but who was a comparatively old settler, took me by
the hand and led me forth to view the town. He was my neighbor, and a
right good fellow, with the surprising composure--for one of his
years--that is so early, so easily, and so naturally acquired by those
living in camps and border-lands.
We descended Telegraph Hill by Dupont Street as far as Pacific Street.
So steep was the way that, at intervals, the modern fire-escape would
have been a welcome aid to our progress. Sidewalks, always of plank and
often not broader than two boards placed longitudinally, led on to steps
that plunged headlong from one terrace to another. From the veranda of
one house one might have leaped to the roof of the house just below--if
so disposed,--for the houses seemed to be set one upon another, so acute
was the angle of their base-line. The town stood on end just there, and
at the foot of it was a foreign quarter.
In those days there were at least four foreign quarters--Spanish,
French, Italian, and Chinese. We knew the Spanish Quarter at the foot of
the hill by the human types that inhabited it; by the balconies like
hanging gardens, clamorous with parrots; and by the dark-eyed senoritas,
with lace mantillas drawn over their blue-black hair; by the shop
windows filled with Mexican pottery; the long strings of cardinal-red
peppers that swung under the awnings over the doors of the sellers of
spicy things; and also by the delicious odors that were wafted to us
from the tables where Mexicans, Spaniards, Chilians, Peruvians, and
Hispano-Americans were discussing the steaming _tamal_, the fragrant
_frijol_, and other fiery dishes that might put to the blush the
ineffectual pepper-pot.
Everywhere we heard the most mellifluous of languages--the "lovely
lingo," we used to call it; everywhere we saw the people of the quarter
lounging in doorways or windows or on galleries, dressed as if they were
about to appear in a rendition of the opera of "The Barber of Seville,"
or at a fancy-dress ball. Figaros were on every hand, and Rosinas and
Dons of all degrees. At times a magnificent Caballero dashed by on a
half-tamed bronco. He rode in the shade of a sombrero a yard wide,
crusted with silver embroidery. His Mexican saddle was embossed with
huge Mexican dollars; his jacket as gaily ornamented as a
bull-fighter's; his trousers open from the hip, and with a chain of
silver buttons down their flapping hems; his spurs, huge wheels with
murderous spikes, were fringed with little bells that jangled as he
rode,--and this to the accompaniment of much strumming of guitars and
the incense of cigarros.
Near the Spanish Quarter ran the Barbary Coast. There were the dives
beneath the pavement, where it was not wise to enter; blood was on those
thresholds, and within hovered the shadow of death. Beyond, we entered
Chinatown, as rare a bit of old China as is to be found without the
Great Wall itself. Chinatown has grown amazingly within the last forty
years, but it has in reality gained little in interest. There is more of
it: that is the only difference; and what there is of it is more
difficult of approach. The Joss House, the theatre, with its great
original "continuous performance"--its tragedy half a year in
length,--flourished there. The glittering, spectacular restaurant was
wide open to the public, and so was everything else. That fact made all
the difference between Chinatown in the Fifties and Chinatown forty
years later.
My companion and I tarried long on Dupont Street, between Pacific and
Sacramento Streets. The shops were like peep shows on a larger scale.
How bright they were! how gay with color! how rich with carvings and
curios. Each was like a set-scene on the stage. The shopkeepers and
their aids were like actors in a play. They seemed really to be playing
and not trying to engage in any serious business. Surely it would have
been quite beneath the dignity of such distinguished gentlemen to take
the smallest interest in the affairs of trade. They were clad in silks
and satins and furs of great value; they had a little finger-nail as
long as a slice of quill pen; they had tea on tables of carved teak; and
they had impossible pipes that breathed unspeakable odors. They wore
bracelets of priceless jade. They had private boxes, which hung from the
ceiling and looked like cages for some unclassified bird; and they could
go up into those boxes when life at the tea-table became tiresome, and
get quite another point of view. There they could look down upon the
world of traffic that never did anything in their shops, as far as we
could see; and, still murmuring to themselves in a tongue that sounds
untranslatable and a voice that was never known to rise above a stage
whisper, they could at one and the same moment regard with scorn the
Christian, keep an eye on the cash-boy, and make perfect pictures of
themselves.
[Illustration: Interior of the El Dorado]
In some parts of that strange street, where everybody was very busy but
apparently never accomplished anything, there were no fronts to the
rooms on the groundfloor. If those rooms were ever closed--it seemed to
me they never were,--some one kindly put up a long row of shutters, and
that end was accomplished. When the shutters were down the whole place
was wide open, and anybody, everybody, could enter and depart at his own
sweet will. This is exactly what he did; we did it ourselves, but we
didn't know why we did it. The others seemed to know all about it.
There was a long table in the centre of each room; it was always
surrounded by swarms of Chinamen. Not a few foreigners of various
nationalities were there. They were all intensely interested in some
game that was being played upon that table. We heard the "chink" of
money; and as the players came and went some were glad and some were sad
and some were mad. These were the gambling halls of Chinatown. They were
not at all beautiful or alluring to the eye, but they cast a spell over
the minds and the pockets of men that was irresistible. Nowadays the
place is kept under lock and key, and you must give the countersign or
you will be turned away from the door thereof by a Chinaman whose face
is the image of injured innocence.
The authors of the annals of San Francisco, 1854, say:
"During 1853, most of the moral, intellectual, and social
characteristics of the inhabitants of San Francisco were nearly as
already described in the reviews of previous years. There was still the
old reckless energy, the old love of pleasure, the fast making and fast
spending of money; the old hard labor and wild delights; jobberies,
official and political corruption; thefts, robberies, and violent
assaults; murders, duels and suicides; gambling, drinking, and general
extravagance and dissipation.... The people had wealth at command, and
all the passions of youth were burning within them; and they often,
therefore, outraged public decency. Yet somehow the oldest residenters
and the very family-men loved the place, with all its brave wickedness
and splendid folly."
I can testify that the town knew little or no change in the two years
that followed. The "El Dorado" on the plaza, and the "Arcade" and
"Polka" on Commercial Street, were still in full blast. How came I aware
of that fact? I was a child; my guide, philosopher and friend was a
child, and we were both as innocent as children should be. It is
written, "Children and fools speak the truth." I may add, "Children and
'fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'" The doors of "El Dorado,"
of the "Arcade," and the "Polka" were ever open to the public. We saw
from the sidewalk gaily-decorated interiors; we heard enchanting music,
and there seemed to be a vast deal of jollity within. No one tried to
prevent our entering; we merely followed the others; and, indeed, it was
all a mystery to us. Cards were being dealt at the faro tables, and
dealt by beautiful women in bewildering attire. They also turned the
wheels of fortune or misfortune, and threw dice, and were skilled in all
the arts that beguile and betray the innocent. The town was filled with
such resorts; some were devoted to the patronage of the more exclusive
set; many were traps into which the miner from the mountain gulches fell
and where he soon lost his bag of "dust,"--his whole fortune, for which
he had been so long and so wearily toiling. There he was shoulder to
shoulder with the greaser and the lascar, the "shoulder-striker" and the
hoodlum; and they were all busy with monte, faro, rondo, and
rouge-et-noir.
There was no limit to the gambling in those days. There was no question
of age or color or sex: opportunity lay in wait for inclination at the
street corners and in the highways and the byways. The wonder is that
there were not more victims driven to madness or suicide.
The pictures were not all so gloomy. Six times San Francisco was
devastated by fire, and all within two years--or, to speak accurately,
within eighteen months. Many millions were lost; many enterprising and
successful citizens were in a few hours rendered penniless. Some were
again and again "burned out"; but they seemed to spring like the famed
bird, who shall for once be nameless, from their own ashes.
It became evident that an efficient fire department was an immediate and
imperative necessity. The best men of the city--men prominent in every
trade, calling and profession--volunteered their services, and headed a
subscription list that swelled at once into the thousands. Perhaps there
never was a finer volunteer fire department than that which was for many
years the pride and glory of San Francisco. On the Fourth of July it was
the star feature of the procession; and it paraded most of the streets
that were level enough for wheels to run on--and when the mud was
navigable, for they turned out even in the rainy season on days of civic
festivity. Their engines and hose carts and hook and ladder trucks were
so lavishly ornamented with flowers, banners, streamers, and even pet
eagles, dogs, and other mascots, that they might without hesitation have
engaged in any floral battle on any Riviera and been sure of victory.
The magnificence of the silver trumpets and the quantity and splendor of
the silver trappings of those fire companies pass all belief. It begins
to seem to me now, as I write, that I must have dreamed it,--it was all
so much too fine for any ordinary use. But I know that I did not dream
it; that there was never anything truer or better or more efficient
anywhere under the sun than the San Francisco fire department in the
brave days of old. Representatives of almost every nation on earth could
testify to this, and did repeatedly testify to it in almost every
language known to the human tongue; for there never was a more cosmical
commonwealth than sprang out of chaos on that Pacific coast; and there
never was a city less given to following in the footsteps of its elder
and more experienced sisters. Nor was there ever a more spontaneous
outburst of happy-go-luckiness than that which made of young San
Francisco a very Babel and a bouncing baby Babylon.
[Illustration: Warner's at Meigg's Wharf]