GOING HOME.
After sixteen years of exile in California, I found myself rolling
seaward and homeward through the Golden Gate in the Panama steamer
Sacramento. The parting gun had been fired, the captain, naval cloak,
cap, eye-glass and all, had descended from his perch of command on the
paddle-box, the engine settled steadily to its work, Telegraph Hill,
Meigg’s Wharf, Black Point, Alcatraz, Lime Point, Fort Point, one by one
receded and crept into the depressing gloomy fog, the mantle in which
San Francisco loves so well to wrap herself. The heave of the Pacific
began to be plainly felt, and with it the customary misery.
The first two days out are devoted to sea and homesickness. Everybody is
wretched about something. No sooner is the steamer a mile beyond the
Heads than we, who for years have been awaiting a blessed deliverance
from California, are seized with unutterable longings to return. All at
once we discover how pleasant is the land and its people. We review its
associations, its life, its peculiar excitements, and the warm
friendships we have made there. And now it is all fading in the fog: the
Cliff House is disappearing, it is going, it is gone. Heart and stomach
are contemporaneously wretched: we bury ourselves in our berths; we
call upon the steward and stewardess; we wish ardently that some
accident may befall the ship and oblige her to put back. No! Not more
inexorable, certain and inevitable is the earth in its revolution, the
moon in its orbit, or one’s landlord when the rent is overdue, than is
the course of the stately vessel south. South, day after day, she
plunges; the North Star sinks, the sky becomes fairer, the air milder,
the ocean of a softer blue; the sunsets develop the tints of Fairyland;
the sunrise mocks all human ornamentation in its gorgeousness. Light
coats and muslin dresses blossom on the promenade-deck; the colored
waiters develop white linen suits and faultless neckties. The sea air on
the northern edge of the tropic zone is a balm for every wound, and
forces us into content against our perverse wills.
We had a medley on board. There was a batch of sea-captains going East,
some with wives, some without; one of the maritime madams, they said,
could navigate a vessel as well as her husband; she certainly had a
sailor balance in walking the deck in rough weather. There was a tall
Mephistophelic-looking German youth, who daily took up a position on
deck, fortified by a novel, a cigar, and a field-glass, never spoke a
word to any one, and was reported to be a baron. There were a dogmatic
young Englishman with a heavy burr in his voice, who seemed making a
business of seeing the world; a stocky young fellow, one of Morgan’s men
during the war, and another who had seen his term of service on the
Federal side; a stout lady, dissatisfied with everything, sick of
travelling, dragging about with her a thin-legged husband well stricken
in years, who interfered feebly with her tantrums; and a young man who
at the commencement of the trip started out with amazing celerity and
success in making himself popular. This last was a cheery, chippery
young fellow; his stock in trade was small, but he knew how to display
it to the best advantage. It gave out in about ten days, and everybody
voted him a bore. He took seriously to drinking brandy ere we arrived in
New York. And then came the rank and file, without sufficient
individuality as yet developed to be even disagreeable.
But there was one other, a well-to-do Dutchess County farmer, who had
travelled across the continent to see “Californy,” and concluded to take
the steamer on his way home to observe as much as he might of Central
America; a man who had served the Empire State in her legislature; a man
mighty in reading. Such a walking encyclopædia of facts, figures,
history, poetry, metaphysics and philosophy I never met before. He could
quote Seward, Bancroft, Carl Schurz, Clay, and Webster by the hour. His
voice was of the sonorous, nasal order, with a genuine Yankee twang. I
tried in vain to spring on him some subject whereof he should appear
ignorant. One might as well have endeavored to show Noah Webster a new
word in the English language. And all this knowledge during the trip he
ground out in lots to order. It fell from his lips dry and dusty. It
lacked soul. It smelt overmuch of histories, biographies, and political
pamphlets. He turned it all out in that mechanical way, as though it
were ground through a coffee-mill. Even his admiration was dry and
lifeless. So was his enthusiasm. He kept both measured out for
occasions. It is a pleasant sail along the Central American coast, to
see the shores lined with forests so green, with palms and cocoanuts,
and in the background dark voltanic cones; and this man, in a
respectable black suit, a standing collar and a beaver hat, would gaze
thereon by the hour and grind out his dusty admiration. Among the
steerage passengers was a bugler who every night gave a free
entertainment. He played with taste and feeling, and when once we had
all allowed our souls to drift away in “The Last Rose of Summer,” the
Grinder in the midst of the beautiful strain brought us plump to earth
by turning out the remark that “a bewgle made abeout as nice music as
any instrument goin’, ef it was well played.” Had he been thrown
overboard he would have drifted ashore, and bored the natives to death
with a long and lifeless story of his escape from drowning.
Dames Rumor and Gossip are at home on the high seas. They commence
operations as soon as their stomachs are on sea-legs. Everybody then
undergoes an inspection from everybody else, and we report to each
other. Mrs. Bluster! Mrs. Bluster’s conduct is perfectly scandalous
before we have been out a week: she nibbling around young men of
one-half--ay, one-fourth--her age! The young miss who came on board in
charge of an elderly couple has seceded from them; promenades the
hurricane-deck very late with a dashing young Californian; but then
birds of a feather, male and female, will flock together. Mr. Bleareye
is full of brandy every morning before ten o’clock; and the “catamaran”
with the thin-legged and subjected husband does nothing but talk of her
home in ----. We know the color and pattern of her carpets, the number
of her servants, the quality of her plate, and yesterday she brought out
her jewelry and made thereof a public exhibition in the saloon. All this
is faithfully and promptly borne per rail over the Isthmus, and goes
over to the Atlantic steamer. I am conscientious in this matter of
gossip: I had made resolutions. There was a lady likewise conscientious
on board, and one night upon the quarter-deck, when we had talked
propriety threadbare, when we were both bursting with our fill of
observation, we met each other halfway and confessed that unless we
indulged ourselves also in a little scandal we should die, and then, the
flood-gates being opened, how we riddled them! But there is a difference
between criticism of character and downright scandal, you know; in that
way did we poultice our bruised consciences.
On a voyage everybody has confidences to make, private griefs to
disclose, to everybody else. This is especially the case during the
first few days out. We feel so lone and lorn; we have all undergone the
misery of parting, the breaking of tender ties; we seem a huddle of
human units shaken by chance into the same box, yet scarcely are we
therein settled when we begin putting forth feelers of sympathy and
recognition. There was one young man who seemed to me a master in the
art of making desirable acquaintances for the trip. He entered upon his
work ere the Golden Gate had sunk below the horizon. He had a friendly
word for all. His approach and address were prepossessing. He spoke to
me kindly. I was miserable and flung myself upon him for sympathy. The
wretch was merely testing me as a _compagnon de voyage_. He found me
unsuitable. He flung me from him with easy but cold politeness, and
consorted with an “educated German gentleman.” I revenged myself by
playing the same tactics on a sea-and love-sick German carriage-maker.
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” you know.
We touched at Magdalena Bay and Punta Arenas. We expected to stay at
Punta Arenas twelve hours to discharge a quantity of flour. Four times
twelve hours we remained there. Everybody became very tired of Costa
Rica. The Costa Rican is not hurried in his movements. He took his own
time in sending the necessary lighters for that flour. A boat load went
off once in four hours. The Costa Ricans came on board, men and women,
great and small, inspected the _Sacramento_, enjoyed themselves, went on
shore again, lay down in the shade of their cocoanut palms, smoked their
cigarettes and slept soundly, while the restless, uneasy load of
humanity on the American steamer fretted, fumed, perspired, scolded at
Costa Rican laziness and ridiculed the Costa Rican government, which
revolutionizes once in six months, changes its flag once a year, taxes
all improvements, and acts up to the principle that government was made
for the benefit of those who govern. Many of the passengers went on
shore. Some came back laden with tropical flowers, others full of
brandy. The blossoms filled the vessel the whole night with perfume,
while the brandy produced noise and badly-sung popular melodies.
The Grinder went on shore with the rest. On returning he expressed
disgust at the Costa Ricans. He thought that “nothing could ever be made
of them.” He had no desire that the United States should ever assimilate
with any portion of the Torrid Zone. He predicted that such a fusion
would prove destructive to American energy and intelligence. We had
enough southern territory and torpor already. The man has no
appreciation of the indolence and repose of the tropics. He knows not
that the most delicious of enjoyments is the waking dream under the
feathery palm, care and restlessness flung aside, while the soul through
the eye loses itself in the blue depths above. He would doom us to an
eternal rack of civilization and Progress-work--grind, jerk, hurry,
twist and strain, until our nerves, by exhaustion unstrung and
shattered, allow no repose of mind or body; and even when we die our
bones are so infected by restlessness and goaheaditiveness that they
rattle uneasily in our coffins.
Panama sums up thus: An ancient, walled, red-tiled city, full of
convents and churches; the ramparts half ruined; weeds springing atop
the steeples and belfries; a fleet of small boats in front of the city;
Progress a little on one side in the guise of the Isthmus Railroad
depot, cars, engines, ferry-boat, and red, iron lighters; a straggling
guard of parti-colored, tawdry and most slovenly-uniformed soldiers,
with French muskets and sabre bayonets, drawn up at the landing,
commanded by an officer smartly dressed in blue, gold, kepi, brass
buttons and stripes, with a villainous squint eye, smoking a cigar.
About the car windows a chattering crowd of blacks, half blacks, quarter
blacks, coffee, molasses, brown, nankeen and straw colored natives,
thrusting skinny arms in at the windows, and at the end of those arms
parrots, large and small, in cages and out, monkeys, shells, oranges,
bananas, carved work, and pearls in various kinds of gold setting; all
of which were sorely tempting to some of the ladies, but ere many
bargains were concluded the train clattered off, and we were crossing
the continent.
The Isthmus is a panorama of tropical jungle; it seems an excess, a
dissipation of vegetation. It is a place favorable also for the study of
external black anatomy. The natives kept undressing more and more as we
rolled on. For a mile or two after leaving Panama they did affect the
shirt. Beyond this, that garment seemed to have become unfashionable,
and they stood at their open doors with the same unclothed dignity that
characterized Adam in the Garden of Eden before his matrimonial troubles
commenced. Several young ladies in our care first looked up, then down,
then across, then sideways: then they looked very grave, and finally all
looked at each other and unanimously tittered.
Aspinwall! The cars stop; a black-and-tan battalion charge among us,
offering to carry baggage. They pursue us to the gate of the P. M. S. S.
depot; there they stop; we pass through one more cluster of orange,
banana, and cigar selling women; we push and jam into the depot, show
our tickets, and are on board the _Ocean Queen_. We are on the Atlantic
side! It comes over us half in awe, half in wonder, that this boat will,
if she do not reach the bottom first, carry us straight to a dock in New
York. The anticipation of years is developing into tangibility.
We cross the Caribbean. It is a stormy sea. Our second day thereon was
one of general nausea and depression. You have perhaps heard the air,
“Sister, what are the wild waves saying?” On that black Friday many of
our passengers seemed to be earnestly saying something over the _Ocean
Queen’s_ side to the “wild, wild waves.” The Grinder went down with the
rest. I gazed triumphantly over his prostrate form laid out at full
length on a cabin settee. Seward, Bancroft, politics, metaphysics,
poetry, and philosophy were hushed at last. Both enthusiasm and
patriotism find an uneasy perch on a nauseated stomach.
But steam has not robbed navigation of all its romance. We find some
poetry in smoke, smoke stacks, pipes, funnels, and paddles, as well as
in the “bellying sails” and the “white-winged messengers of commerce.” I
have a sort of worship for our ponderous walking-beam, which swings its
many tons of iron upon its axis as lightly as a lady’s parasol held
’twixt thumb and finger. It is an embodiment of strength, grace, and
faithfulness. Night and day, mid rain and sunshine, be the sea smooth or
tempestuous, still that giant arm is at its work, not swerving the
fractional part of an inch from its appointed sphere of revolution. It
is no dead metallic thing: it is a something rejoicing in power and use.
It crunches the ocean ’neath its wheels with that pride and pleasure of
power which a strong man feels when he fights his way through some
ignoble crowd. The milder powers of upper air more feebly impel yon
ship; in our hold are the powers of earth, the gnomes and goblins, the
subjects of Pluto and Vulcan, begrimed with soot and sweat, and the
elements for millions and millions of years imprisoned in the coal are
being steadily set free. Every shovelful generates a monster born of
flame. As he flies sighing and groaning through the wide-mouthed
smokestack into the upper air, he gives our hull a parting shove
forward.
A death in the steerage--a passenger taken on board sick at Aspinwall.
All day long an inanimate shape wrapped in the American flag lies near
the gangway. At four <small>P.M.</small> an assemblage from cabin and steerage gather
with uncovered heads. The surgeon reads the service for the dead; a
plank is lifted up; with a last shrill whirl that which was once a man
is shot into the blue waters; in an instant it is out of sight and far
behind, and we retire to our state-rooms, thinking and solemnly
wondering about that body sinking, sinking, sinking in the depths of the
Caribbean; of the sea monsters that curiously approach and examine it;
of the gradual decay of the corpse’s canvas envelope; and far into the
night, as the _Ocean Queen_ shoots ahead, our thoughts wander back in
the blackness to the buried yet unburied dead.
The Torrid Zone is no more. This morning a blast from the north sweeps
down upon us. Cold, brassy clouds are in the sky; the ocean’s blue has
turned to a dark, angry brown, flecked with white caps and swept by
blasts fresh from the home of the northern floe and iceberg. The
majority of the passengers gather about the cabin-registers, like the
house-flies benumbed by the first cold snap of autumn in our northern
kitchens. Light coats, pumps and other summer apparel have given way to
heavy boots, over-coats, fur caps and pea-jackets. A home look settles
on the faces of the North Americans. They snuff their native atmosphere:
they feel its bracing influence. But the tawny-skinned Central Americans
who have gradually accumulated on board from the Pacific ports and
Aspinwall, settle inactively into corners or remain ensconced in their
berths. The air which kindles our energies wilts theirs. The
hurricane-deck is shorn of its awnings. Only a few old “shell-back”
passengers maintain their place upon it, and yet five days ago we sat
there in midsummer moonlit evenings.
We are now about one hundred miles from Cape Hatteras. Old Mr. Poddle
and his wife are travelling for pleasure. Came to California by rail,
concluded to return by the Isthmus. Ever since we started Cape Hatteras
has loomed up fearfully in their imaginations. Old Mr. Poddle looks
knowingly at passing vessels through his field-glass, but doesn’t know a
fore-and-aft schooner from a man-of-war. Mrs. Poddle once a day inquires
if there’s any danger. Mr. Poddle does not talk so much, but evidently
in private meditates largely on hurricanes, gales, cyclones, sinking and
burning vessels. Last night we came in the neighborhood of the Gulf
Stream. There were flashes of lightning, “mare’s tails” in the sky, a
freshening breeze and an increasing sea. About eleven old Mr. Poddle
came on deck. Mrs. Poddle, haunted by Hatteras, had sent him out to see
if “there was any danger;” for it is evident that Mrs. Poddle is
dictatress of the domestic empire. Mr. Poddle ascended to the
hurricane-deck, looked nervously to leeward, and just then an old
passenger salt standing by, who had during the entire passage
comprehended and enjoyed the Poddletonian dreads, remarked, “This is
nothing to what we shall have by morning.” This shot sent Poddle below.
This morning at breakfast the pair looked harassed and fatigued.
The great question now agitating the mind of this floating community is,
“Shall we reach the New York pier at the foot of Canal street by
Saturday noon?” If we do, there is for us all long life, prosperity and
happiness: if we do not, it is desolation and misery. For Monday is New
Year’s Day. On Sunday we may not be able to leave the city: to be forced
to stay in New York over Sunday is a dreadful thought for solitary
contemplation. We study and turn it over in our minds for hours as we
pace the deck. We live over and over again the land-journey to our
hearthstones at Boston, Syracuse, and Cincinnati. We meet in thought our
long-expectant relatives, so that at last our air-castles become stale
and monotonous, and we fear that the reality may be robbed of half its
anticipated pleasure from being so often lived over in imagination.
Nine o’clock, Friday evening. The excitement increases. Barnegat Light
is in sight. Half the cabin passengers are up all night, indulging in
unprofitable talk and weariness, merely because we are so near home.
Four o’clock, and the faithful engine stops, the cable rattles
overboard, and everything is still. We are at anchor off Staten Island.
By the first laggard streak of winter’s dawn I am on the hurricane-deck.
I am curious to see my native North. It comes by degrees out of the cold
blue fog on either side of the bay. Miles of houses, spotted with
patches of bushy-looking woodland--bushy in appearance to a Californian,
whose oaks grow large and widely apart from each other, as in an English
park. There comes a shrieking and groaning and bellowing of
steam-whistles from the monster city nine miles away. Soon we weigh
anchor and move up toward it. Tugs dart fiercely about, or laboriously
puff with heavilyladen vessels in tow. Stately ocean steamers surge
past, outward bound. We become a mere fragment of the mass of floating
life. We near the foot of Canal street. There is a great deal of
shouting and bawling and counter-shouting and counter-bawling, with
expectant faces on the wharf, and recognitions from shore to steamer and
from steamer to shore. The young woman who flirted so ardently with the
young Californian turns out to be married, and that business-looking,
middle-aged man on the pier is her husband. Well, I never! Why, you are
slow, my friend, says inward reflection. You are not versed in the
customs of the East. At last the gangway plank is flung out. We walk on
shore. It is now eighteen years since that little floating world society
cemented by a month’s association scattered forever from each other’s
sight at the Canal street pier.
* * * * *
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Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
so may ghastly heaps=> so many ghastly heaps {pg 46}
Is is ornamented=> It is ornamented {pg 117}
Theyr’e no use in bizness=> They’re no use in bizness {pg 151}
envied of many=> envy of many {pg 182}
many another county=> many another counties {pg 188}
as general propector=> as general prospector {pg 200}
succedeed in getting=> succeeded in getting {pg 200}
their first instalment=> their first installment {pg 200}
an aceptance of=> an acceptance of {pg 272}
well have endeavroed=> well have endeavored {pg 289}
came on broad=> came on board {pg 290}
fleecked with white caps=> flecked with white caps {pg 296}