Press of
Commercial Publishing Co.
34 California St., S.F.
_FRAU JULIE FISCHER._
_geb. von Seckendorff-Gutend._
_Die beifolgenden, widme ich Ihnen, als Beweis in welch' unvergesslicher
Erinnerung, die von mir in Beyern verlebte Zeit, gehalten wird, und
besonders die unvergleichlichen Tage welche ich im Rothem Schloss zu
Obernzeen zubringen durfte, Tage welche zu den schoensten meines Lebens
zaehlten, und nie aus meinem Herzen verwischt werden koennen._
_Charles A. Gunnison._
_San Francisco, Cal., Xmas, 1892._
California.
This is thy form, dear, native home of mine,--
A gold-net hammock swung from palm to pine,
Moved by the breezes of the peaceful sea,
And in the net, smiling so drowsily,
My mother California, queen divine,
Rests, while the poppy garlands her entwine.
In her warm arms, 'neath cloudless summer skies,
As child I heard her bee-hummed lullabies,
Saw her red malvas, blue nemophylæ,
Pink manzanitas, deep-hued laurel tree,
And what were marvels to my childish eyes,
Her mariposas, (tethered butterflies).
What of the rich and wondrous foreign things
Which each new tide to her in tribute brings!
Although from olive, orange, fig, and vine,
Her own fond children all their wealth consign,
'Tis Flora's gifts my royal mother sings,
As, joined to palm and pine, her hammock swings.
In Macao.
_A Story from the "Grasshopper's Library."_
I was seated one pleasant day in the garden, which was given to the city
of Macao by the Marcos family, near the grotto sacred to the poet
Camoens, when a Portuguese priest came from among the wilderness of
flowers and sat beside me. He spoke English with a pleasant accent and
we read Bowring's effusion together, as it is engraved on the marble
slab nearby. Scarcely had we finished, and the father was telling me of
Goa in India, when my uncle Robert came from beneath the great banyan
tree and stood before us. The father jumped to his feet, and throwing
back his brown robe, rushed forward toward my uncle with a stilletto
held ready for an upward stroke. Quickly my uncle drew a revolver and
fired--and the father fell dead at my feet.
I
To those who have been in Southern Europe and have seen the towns along
the Riviera, the first view of Macao, as the steamboat approaches from
Hong Kong, gives the impression of having been suddenly transported to
the sunny Mediterranean. Were it not for the colour of the water, and
the Chinese junks, Macao would indeed be a perfect representation of any
of those lovely spots, as she lies along her crescent bay, from Mount
Nillau to Mount Charil, defended by the frowning forts of Sam Francisco
and Our Lady of Bom Parto. Beautiful as this picture is, it was doubly
so in the brilliant sunset colouring of a certain March day, as the
steamer slowly came to her wharf and the passengers stepped ashore
beneath the blue and white flag of Portugal, in this, her farthest
eastern possession. The houses with their delicate washings of pink,
blue, yellow or green, with white stucco ornaments, now golden in the
light, had a warmth of colouring well set off by the dark foliage of
camphor and banyan trees showing above the garden walls. The few
passengers soon dispersed, in chairs or on foot, leaving but one of
their number upon the wharf. He was apparently expecting some one to
come for him, for he refused all offers of assistance from the coolies
and seated himself just outside the gate. American, of medium height,
brown haired and tanned by a tropical sun, Robert Adams was as good a
specimen of Anglo Saxon youth as England herself could boast of. He was
the last descendant of a New England family, which had preserved its
purity for three centuries as unmixed with continental blood as though
the three centuries had been passed in the quiet vales of Devon, instead
of in the New World with its broken barriers.
For three years, after a successful college course, he had been in the
only shipping house in Hong Kong which sickly American commerce of the
day was able to support in the once flourishing China trade. A small
fortune and a good salary, a constitution which even an Eastern summer
could not break down, and above all, the heart of the girl he loved,
were surely possessions which any king might envy him. Presently a neat
bamboo chair borne by three liveried coolies came at a trot down the
street, and being placed before this last of the passengers, carried him
away into the darkness which, with the suddenness of the tropics, had
fallen upon the city. The stillness was broken only by the noise of
escaping steam from the boat and the regular patter of the barefooted
chair carriers. When the chair had disappeared up the narrow, winding
street, a Portuguese wrapped in a black cloak came from behind a wall,
then by another way walked rapidly over the hill and down the other
side to the Praya, arriving in front of one of the largest houses on
that most beautiful promenade just as the coolies put down their burden.
The oil lamps along the Praya had been lighted, stretching out to the
Estrada Sam Francisco, where the bright windows in the hospital of Sam
Januarius seemed to be the lake of lights into which this long stream
flowed. No one was abroad, no steps sounded along the pavement except
those of the sentry as he walked, and _smoked_, before the neighbouring
residence of the Governor. Death at night and sleep in the day time are
the characteristics of Macao. No one seems to work, play, sing, dance or
even read unless the latter indeed may be done in what Alphonse Daudet
calls _la Bibliotheque des cigales_.
As Robert Adams stepped from the chair, the Portuguese came forward with
outstretched hand saying: "What is the news Dom Robert in Hong Kong?"
"Oh, Dom Pedro, you came out so suddenly I thought I was attacked. No
news, unless it is that the rector of St. John's is to join me to the
loveliest girl in Macao or the world, in just three weeks." "I hope you
won't disappoint him Dom Robert, you came very near doing so to-night,"
said Pedro de Amaral with a laugh. "How, pray?" asked Adams as they
entered the now unbarred gate. "You were within three feet of the water,
if you had fallen in, that would have disappointed him. Not? Three feet
is near. Not?" "Yes, and the boiler might have burst," replied Adams
laughing. "Or more improbable yet the Portuguese government might have
revived Macao, which would kill me with astonishment my dear Amaral."
Having entered the house he was followed by Dom Pedro, who bent upon him
such a look of hatred as only the eyes of Latin races can give. The
Portuguese turned to the right to his own apartments and Adams following
a servant to the left, was soon in the dimly lighted library of Dom Luiz
de Amaral the father of Dom Pedro. There were not many books on the
shelves but a superb collection of Oriental swords and knives was
arranged in the cases from which the shelves had been taken. Two old
engravings, one of the poet Camoens and the other of Catarina de Atayde,
his beloved, who died of grief at his banishment, hung on the wall; the
rest of the furnishings was of that cosmopolitan character which is sure
to collect in the home of a European resident in the far East.
"Can't you see me Robert?" said a laughing voice of great sweetness from
a corner of the study. "One would think that both your eyes had met the
same fate that the right one of poor Camoens did in Morocco." "My
darling Priscilla how could I see you ten feet away from the light? You
know olive oil don't give the brightest illumination. But its enough
though." "Don't!" "Just one," and then a sound not unknown to many of us
put a stop to the conversation. "Shall I leave the room children?" came
in merry tones from another corner and immediately an old lady came
forward giving both hands to him. "That miserable oil of Dom Amaral's
has put me into a pretty mess," said Adams half annoyed, but laughing as
he greeted the lady. "Don't berate me before my face dear friend about
my light, especially when you are so soon to take our brightest light
away from us." "Fairly trapped, Dom Amaral," cried Adams laughing
heartily at this third interruption. "And here is Dom Pedro dressed for
dinner," he continued as the younger Amaral entered the room. "I'll be
with you presently and have my eyes toned down to your Macao standard."
Being so constant a visitor, Robert Adams had his own rooms at Dom
Amaral's, where he found his bags unpacked and the clothes laid out by
those deftest of servants, the Chinese. According to custom the dinner
of Macao was served at the late hour of nine.
Dom Luiz Diego de Amaral was one of the wealthiest Portuguese in the
city, having, unlike most of his fellow citizens, investments abroad
which brought him a considerable income after the birth of Hong Kong
killed Macao and left it a city of the past, of poverty and pride.
Having in his youth married a Spanish woman who bore him one son, Pedro,
he was left a widower before the age of twenty-five.
Some years after, being in Boston where he then had large shipping
interests, he took a second wife, Priscilla Harvey, and returned to
Macao. Madam de Amaral's only sister, wife of Captain Fernald had one
child which was left an orphan at an early age by the drowning of both
parents in Portsmouth harbour.
This orphan, Priscilla Fernald, was taken to her aunt in China and
became a member of the household of Dom Amaral. It was a strange
transplanting for such a flower from the cold coast of Puritan New
England to the tropical, Roman Catholic colony in the heart of
heathendom. But the flower of so sturdy a stock remained true. It was
long accepted by all, even by the maiden Priscilla, that young Amaral
was to be her husband though nothing had been said on the subject.
Later, the small circle of Macao society, of which poverty and pride
were the ruling features, became too dull for the young girl and her
foster parents took her often to Hong Kong where she met with those of
the outer world.
In that hospitable society of the "city of the fragrant streams," where
the dinner table seems to be the only rendezvous, save a garden party
now and then, a Tarrantella dance or a Government House ball, the fair
Priscilla met young Robert Adams, a native of her far away and almost
unknown home. The acquaintance blossomed into friendship and ripened
into love. The lover was accepted, and now a courtship of two years was
in three weeks to see them married. There were many disappointed youths
and envious of Robert Adams, but all took their misfortune as in the way
of the world, except young Amaral, who, in silence, had watched the
course of events and now hated the happy suitor with all the fierceness
of his Southern blood.
That night Robert Adams, unlike the conventional lover, but like a
healthy, light-hearted fellow, fell asleep without a sigh, listening to
the waves as they broke regularly on the stone embankment before his
window. In the room below, Dom Pedro walked until the early morning, no
beating of waves could lull him to sleep, for his head ached and his
eyes burned in the fever of jealousy. Thus he brooded over his loss till
the sun gilded the hermitage fort of Our Lady of Guia.