XV

Through Santa Clara Valley.--Arrival at San Jose.--Old Friends.--

Semi-tropical Climate.--An Excursion to the Stars.--The Lick

Observatory.--Our Journey There.--Sunset on the Summit.--With the

Great Telescope.--The Tomb of James Lick.--The Midnight Ride Down

the Mountain.

After leaving Palo Alto, our journey revealed to us an ideal

Californian landscape. We passed through the lovely Santa Clara Valley.

Rich cultivation met our eye on every side, interspersed with fine

forest trees, all hemmed in by the ranges of the surrounding mountains.

These vast masses enclosed the whole view with their ever-varying

outlines, soft and purple in the distance, while the foreground of

orchards, with their rich herbage, was all of the deepest green. It was

a picture to take away with one as, indeed, that of a happy valley. But

in this connection the word valley must not be construed in any limited

sense. It was a vast champaign of almost boundless extent, which the

fairy-like coloring of the mountains, softened by their great distance,

enclosed, as it were, with banks of unmoving clouds. Through this

delightful country we sped on rapidly, until at the evening hour, we

reached San Jose, and once more, came to our night anchorage in the

station.

We had had a full day of it, and, as if by mutual consent, we separated

into various groups to wander at will through the strange streets of

the pretty place. It was pleasant to look at the rose-covered cottages

and the well-kept lawns, seen by the glitter of the electric light; as

also it was pleasant to stroll through the busy streets with the shops

all aglow, and the people lounging about in happy leisure.

I wandered off, all alone, to hunt up some friends who had moved to San

Jose from distant Illinois, years and years ago. I found the street and

number in a drug-store directory, and strolled on and on under the deep

shadows of the overarching trees, losing myself once or twice, but

after some inquiry, I was soon piloted to the place and rang the bell.

There is always a little trepidation in such an adventure. Will one be

remembered? Will the friends be much changed? Will one be welcome? But

soon all doubts vanished when my good friend, Mrs. G----, stood in the

doorway, lamp in hand. Yes, she was changed; but the years had made her

look more and more like her dear mother, whose face I could never

forget. Instantly my name was spoken and I was at home. The whole house

was rather topsy-turvy; carpets all up, and everything in that state of

desolation which house cleaning involves. But what did that matter? We

had a long and good talk over all the past. I was told how, when they

came to San Jose in the early days, they had first to go to New York,

then take a steamer to the Isthmus, to cross that, and then once more

embark on the Pacific for San Francisco, and from thence come here by

team. I was shown the pictures of the five lovely girls and the boy, a

man grown--all Californians--and I saw that happiness and prosperity,

which rejoiced me much, had come to these my friends.

The evening hours lengthened out while our chat went on, until I had to

retrace my steps once more under the overarching trees to the

"Lucania," after promising that I should dine with the family on the

coming Sunday. This I did, and saw them all, and enjoyed the hour to

the fullest. The Chinese man-servant, cook and butler in one, was

noiseless perfection in his attendance, and the works of his art which

he placed before us, were well worthy of our attention; while

California claret, of tenderest texture, helped to whet our appetites

and loosen our tongues.

But we must return to the Saturday which intervened before that dinner.

The morning was spent in a drive through the town--through the garden

would better describe it, for it was all a garden, with rose-embowered

roofs or stately mansions framed in by towering palms and stately

growths of other graceful trees. It is strange to see the effect which

this semi-tropical climate produces on familiar plants. The sweet

geranium towers up until it becomes almost a tree, covering the whole

ends of houses with its perfumed leaves, and the English lavender

emerges from its island modesty, and stands up on this American soil

with all the self-assertion of an independent shrub. In one of the

parks we saw the little English daisy, but that was the same "wee

crimson-tipped flower" that it ever was. It brought tears to the eyes

of some of our party, as the springs of home memories welled up within

the breast. What volumes do blossoms ever speak to us! A bunch of red

primroses, discovered once by chance among the myriad common yellow

blooms which gladdened the woods all about us, stands out forever in

our memory, as a sudden revelation of beauty--and all for us who found

it--which no subsequent possession of far greater worth, has ever yet

excelled.

But the friends, the flowers, the fruits, and the foliage of San Jose,

charming as they all were, could not detain us. We were bound for the

stars; and at noon or thereabouts, a happy party of us took passage in

a large brake, with four horses, for the Lick Observatory on Mount

Hamilton. We were armed with an introduction to Professor Schaeberle,

the astronomer in charge, and the electric wire had flashed also our

coming, beforehand.

It was a merry party that rattled out of San Jose and looked down on

the orchards on either hand as we whirled by. Our ascent was gradual at

first, but soon the magnificent, winding roadway, which cost Santa

Clara County nearly $100,000 to construct, took us up, and up, ever

extending our view, and giving us fresh vistas of surprise, as we

dashed by curves and grades which made the nervous among us more

nervous still. But there was little to fear with such good drivers and

well-trained animals. They knew their business, and were as careful of

themselves as if we were not in existence. The ever-increasing panorama

of the mountains was full of interest. The great, swelling foothills

were yielding and soft-looking in their brown outline, dotted over by

huge, woolly-looking, dark green live-oaks and other trees. The whole

effect was like a gigantic piece of old Flemish tapestry. If some giant

horsemen with winding horns and bounding dogs of like vast scale, and a

stag with antlers touching the mountain-tops, and a castle like

Walhalla were in our vision, the thing would have been the ancient

tapestry, indeed, in true Californian proportions. It was all beautiful

as it was, the mossy brown of the mountains, and the dark green of the

trees, and over all a cloudless sky, and in our lungs the clear, pure

air, full of elation and vigorous life.

Of course in such a mountain drive we changed horses frequently, and

at Smith Creek we made a long halt for supper. It seemed that that

much-desired meal would never arrive, and the fear that we would miss

the sunset view from the summit, added to our impatience. It so

happened that there was a rush of visitors that day, and we had to wait

our turn while the limited domestic force in this isolated spot,

renewed their labors in cooking and serving another meal.

The perfect imperturbability of our host was a thing to admire. No

amount of muttered discontent moved him a particle. He did not show

impatience even, when we lined up at the dining-room door; by this

action, and the rush which it intimated, suggesting that we felt he

might come some game upon us, and let some more favored ones in first.

When we did make the rush, and saw the well-filled tables, and saw also

the patient wife and daughter, neither of them over-robust, who had to

do all the work, no "help" wishing to stay up there, we almost felt

ashamed of ourselves for our grumbling.

We soon got through our eating, and once more were _en route_ for

the summit. We got there before sunset all right, and were received in

most hospitable fashion by Professor Schaeberle, who showed us through

the long halls and into the library, where transparencies and

photographs of eclipses and double stars, and various other celestial

phenomena charmed us, until at last it was announced that the royal

presence of the sun was about to sink to its rest, in the distant west.

Then all were soon out on the grand terrace, and as we watched the

great, round orb vanish from our sight, a silence fell upon us all, the

cause of which it would be hard to put into words. We had seen the

great mystery of life move on a point. We thought, perhaps, of the

angel trumpeter, who some day will say so that all will hear, "Time

shall be no more!" We thought, perhaps, of that day when we should

close our eyes upon the earthly sun forever, and days for us should be

at an end.

As the darkness settled down, so solemnly and grandly on the mountains,

we retraced our steps to the Observatory, and followed our kind guide

through its many mysteries.

We first looked through some of the smaller telescopes. In one of

these, while the glow was still in the heavens, we saw Venus, the

evening star, in all its beauty. The earth currents, through which we

had to look, gave the glowing planet a purplish tinge and a sort of

vibratory motion, which quite suggested the floating movements of the

goddess, as she figures in Virgil's verse.

We saw all sorts of instruments, of the most delicate and yet simple

character, for recording seismic disturbances of any kind, or, as we

might call them in plainer speech, earthquakes. It is most interesting

to note how a glass disk, a little lamp-black, a spring or two, a bit

of clockwork, and a tracing-pen, will do the work automatically, and

record the direction, the duration, and the time of any seismic

disturbance at any hour of day or night. The brain which contrived all

this cunning machinery, can go to rest and take its needed sleep, but

the wires and traps set to catch the shakes of the old globe, are

always wide awake, animated ever by the intelligence of the brain which

sleeps, and can sleep in peace; for, when the brain wakes, it will find

that the machine has faithfully recorded every quiver of this old,

trembling world. Professor Schaeberle told me, with quiet humor, that

earthquakes of some kind were always going on, but so slight that

machinery alone could detect them.

After seeing the many minor attractions of transit instruments and

meridians and other affairs, which some of us wondered at, in complete,

but polite and interested ignorance, we were at last ushered into the

presence of the great Lick telescope. The immense dim space in which we

stood, the half-seen figures of the visitors, the professor and his

attendants, with lanterns in their hands, accenting the gloom by the

very light itself, made up a weird picture. Then, towering over all,

was the movable dome, with the great notch from top to bottom of its

curved surface, open to the sky, for the great telescope to reach

through; while the great instrument itself, in its huge proportions,

its intricate machinery, and the wonderful ease of its movements, as it

yielded to the slightest touch of a hand, seemed like some living

thing, some being of superior intelligence from some other sphere,

captive and at work for our pleasure and our profit. Who can ever

forget the mystery of it all in the silent darkness of that night!

But before looking through the great tube, the professor, with quite

unintended, but most dramatic effect, called our attention to a

black-looking object at the base of the great pier, on which the

telescope stands. It was like an altar, as we saw it in the dimness,

but a lantern flash upon the front showed us it was a monument above

the last resting-place of James Lick, by whose munificent bequest of

seven hundred thousand dollars, the Observatory on Mount Hamilton, with

all its wonderful instruments, has been established for all time.

It was a thrilling thing to see there in the dimness that plain,

unpretending tomb, and to read thereon the short and simple record: