The Pacific slope has a wonderful which has been but little studied. Here wonderful ferns and grow the whole year round. With few exceptions all the plants are new and strange. One of the most beautiful trees on the coast is the madrona, and stately, its red trunk contrasting oddly with its green . The dandelion is here but puts on such airs and graces that unless you are quite familiar with him you would never take him for the common weed he is at home. He grows several in a cluster on a delicate stem twelve to fifteen inches long. He is the pale yellow of California gold. His white head when he goes to seed is more frowsy than with us, and the seeds are a little different in shape, but he wings himself over onto people’s lawns with the and grace of his Illinois brother.
There are many points of interest in San[174] Francisco and not the least of these is China Town, which has a population of thirty thousand people. A Chinese school is a place of interest. The boys (girls are not sent to school in China Town) stand at long tables running across the room. The pupils all study aloud. Besides their books each pupil is provided with a small camel’s hair brush and a pot of ink with which he writes out his lessons in the characters of his native language. The paper used is very red, while the ink is very black. This is a priest’s school and these little almond-eyed Orientals in their caps and gowns are all studying for the priesthood. They laugh and whisper too, when the teacher’s attention is engaged elsewhere, just like American children. One boy painted a Chinese character on another’s face, then they all laughed and the first boy wiped it angrily off. The teacher had not seen it, so no one was punished. The teacher, a fine looking man in the native dress of his country, with a few strokes of his brush painted for us on red paper an advertisement of his school. Teacher and pupils bowed a good morning as we departed.
At the Mission the Chinese minister,[175] a man of much intelligence, greeted us cordially, asking where we were from. He knew where Chicago was and something about it. He was sorry that the services were over and asked us to come again next Sunday at ten o’clock.
The tea house, which is the club room, is the finest oriental club house in America. The beautiful tables and chairs are all inlaid with marble and pearl.
The Joss House, which is the temple, is magnificently and decorated. A cup of tea, which of course evaporates, is kept setting in front of the god, but his worshipers believe he drinks it. Lamps and are kept burning all the time to keep the evil spirits away. The worshipers come and go at all hours. No regular services are held except at New Years and on feast days. Upon request, however, the priest will accompany an individual to the temple and conduct services for him.
The home of an aristocratic Chinaman is full of interest to an American. In the home in which we visited everything except the chairs came from China, and these looked oddly out hostess and her daughter. Our hostess was a large woman, but she proudly displayed her tiny feet, the mark of true aristocracy. She hobbled bravely about on these feet only four inches long and did the honors of her house.
When in exchange for the compliment of seeing these aristocratic feet I quite as proudly thrust out my American ones encased in No. 6 broad-soled mountain climbers, the dear lady bowed and smiled, but made no comment. The six-year-old daughter of the house was suffering the tortures of having her feet bound. When the Chinese become they abandon this practice.
In an an old showed us how he smoked the fateful drug. He first took a large lump of opium on a long needle and holding it in the flame of a candle, burnt the poison out of it, then thrust it into the cup of his long pipe, the tiny opening of which he held near the lighted candle, sucking the blue smoke into his lungs and it through his .
In the drug store the druggist was putting up a for a sick Chinaman who was near. He took down four different bottles and took some roots out of each. Telling the man to make a tea of them he tied them up and handed them over the counter and received his pay. There were and there also to be made into medicine.
In the store four goldsmiths were at work making rings, and , all by hand.
In the market all sorts of fish and birds were offered for sale. A big fat pig roasted whole looked indeed. Beans, which had been kept damp until they had , the an inch to two inches long were ready to be made into a tempting salad. There were baskets of green watermelons the size of an orange.
This being Sunday the streets were with Chinese in native holiday dress, who sauntered along or gathered in groups chatting away in their native tongue. Their long queues tied with black ribbon hung down the back or were tucked into the side pocket of the . Here and there an Oriental who had some of the American energy hurried along dressed in the business suit of the American, his closely cropped hair, mustache and American shoes making a strange contrast to the groups on the corner.
There is no Sunday in the calendar of these almond-eyed Orientals,—the stores, markets and opium were all open.
Presently the music of the Army broke on our ears. Down the street came the Chinese Salvation band, dressed in American costume, the leader carrying the American flag.
When the first Chinese came to California the Indians were very curious about them. A dispute arose among them as to what country the strangers might hail from, and whether or not they were Indians.
The Indians, wise as the Puritans of old, would apply the water test. If the accused swam they were witches, if they drowned they were innocent.
One day a party of Indians met a party of Chinamen approaching a little stream.
The strangers approached the bridge and started across. The Indians too filed across and meeting the Chinamen in mid-stream pushed two of them into the angry, spuming current below. The test was . They could not swim. They were not Indians.
In the fire department are exhibited two queer old engines. One was purchased in New York in 1849 and brought around the Horn. The other is a hand engine a little more modern in make. These engines are carefully guarded and never taken out except on rare occasions.
Down toward the there stands a quaint old building, the material for which was brought around Horn in 1850. This was San Francisco’s first hotel.
In the wild days of the early history of this little city, nestled among the and sand hills, Mount Diablo looked down on weird scenes on the in front of this old hotel. Here the famous vigilance committee out justice to and alike.
In the early history of California the eighth day of July, 1846, stands out . On that day the Brooklyn dropped h............