--

THE GOLDEN GATE.

BENJ. F. TAYLOR,

AUTHOR OF "SONGS OF YESTERDAY," "OLD-TIME PICTURES," "WORLD ON
WHEELS," "CAMP AND FIELD" ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

CHICAGO:
S. C. G-RIGGS AND COMPANY.
1878.

MRS. MARY SCRANTON BRADFORD,
OF CLEVELAND, OHIO,

WHOSE DAILY DEEDS OF NOBLE KINDNESS HAVE
BRIGHTENED MANY A LIFE AND BEAUTIFIED
HER OWN, THIS BOOK OF DAYS OF
SUNSHINE IS AFFECTIONATELY
INSCRIBED BY HER

RELATIVE AND FRIEND.

CONFIDENTIAL.

THE only care-free, cloudless summer of my life, since childhood, was spent in California. The going there was a delight, and the leaving there a regret.

This gypsy of a book has few facts and not a word of fiction; not so much as a dry fagot of statistics or a wing-feather of a fancy.

" How do you like California?" was the daily question, and to the uniform reply came the quick rejoinder: "Ah, but you should see it in the winter, for the summer is in the winter."

The writer sympathizes with any reader who misses what he seeks in this small volume, and can only soften " the winter of our discontent" by saying: Ah, but you should know "what pain it was to drown" what had to be omitted!

Perhaps we two may meet again in the groves of Los Angeles, when the oranges are in the gold and the almond blossoms shine.

CONTENTS.

OVERLAND TRAIN

" SET SAIL"

PREFACE. CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II.

FROM VALLEY TO MOUNTAIN -

CHAPTER III.

WONDERLAND TO BUGLE CANON -

CHAPTER IV.

THE DESERT, THE DEVIL AND CAPE HORN

CHAPTER V.

FROM WINTER TO SUMMER

CHAPTER VI.

SAN FRANCISCO STREET SCENES

CHAPTER VII.

THE ANIMAL, MAN -   -

"John," the Heathen

" Hoodlum," the Christian Picnics   -   -

CONTENTS.   7

CHAPTER XIV.

HIGHER AND FIRE

CHAPTER XV.

A MINT OF MONEY

Aladdin's Cave

Is it Worth it   - Washing-Day

Midas's Kitchen - Bricks and Hoop-Poles Weighing Live Stock "The Golden Dustman"

CHAPTER XVI.

BOUND FOR THE YO SEMITE   -

Taking a Mountain A Mountain Choir

"The Ayes Have It" Down the Mountains The Big Trees   -

A Forest Ride   -

First Glimpse of the Yo Semite Through the Valley   - The Grand Register -

El Capitan   - The Bridal Veil

Mirror Lake

Up a Trail

Yo Semite Fall and Sun Time Breaking up Camp -

166

174 177 180 182 183 184 189 190

192 200 201 ' 202 203 205 209 210 214 217 221 222 224 227 232 236

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XVII. WHALES, LIONS AND WAR DOGS

Seals   -   - The Golden Gate

CHAPTER XVIII. A TRIP TO THE TROPIC

A Difficult Sunrise

The Tehachapi Love-Knot

The Mojave Desert A Vegetable Acrobat

The Mirage   -   -

The City of the Angels The Orange Groves The Vineyards

"A Bee Ranch" -

The Mission of San Gabriel

The Garden   -

CHAPTER XIX. KINGS OF SOCIETY

Latitudes -

The Spirit of California The Men and Women Home Again -

BETWEEN THE GATES.

OVERLAND TRAIN.

1.

FROM Hell Gate to Gold Gate FROM

the Sabbath unbroken, A sweep continental

And the Saxon yet spoken!

By seas with no tears in them,

Fresh and sweet as Spring rains,

By seas with no fears in them,

God's garmented plains,

Where deserts lie down in the prairies' broad calms, Where lake links to lake like the music of psalms.

II.

Meeting rivers bound East

Like the shadows at night,

Chasing rivers bound West

Like the break-of-day light,

Crossing rivers bound South

From dead winter to June,

From the marble-old snows

To perennial noon — Cosmopolitan rivers, Mississippi, Missouri,

That travel the planet like Jordan through Jewry.

9

OVERLAND TRAIN.   11

And this world glancing back with a colorless face. Who marvels Mount Sinai was the State House of God? Who wonders the Sermon down old Galilee flowed? That the Father and Son each hallowed a height Where the lightnings were red and the roses were white! Oh, Mountains that lift us to the realm of the Throne, A Sabbath-day's journey without leaving our own, All day ye have cumbered and beclouded the West, Low glooming, high looming, like a storm at its best, By distance struck speechless and the thunder at rest.

v.

All day and all night

It is rattle and clank, All night and all day

Smiting space in the flank,

And no token those clouds Will ever break rank. Still the engines' bright arms

Are bared to the shoulder

In the long level pull

Till the mountains grow bolder.

Ah! we strike the up grade!

We are climbing the world!

And it rallies the soul

Like volcanoes unfurled,

Where it looks like the cloud that led Moses of old, And the pillar of fire born and wove in one fold From the womb and the loom of abysses untold.

12   BETWEEN THE GATES.

VI.

We strike the Great Desert

With its wilderness howl, With its cactus and sage,

With its serpent and owl, And its pools of dead water,

Its torpid old streams, The corpse of an earth

And the nightmare of dreams;

And the dim rusty trail

Of the old Forty-nine,
That they wore as they went

To the mountain and mine,
With graves for their milestones;

How slowly they crept,

Like the shade on a dial

Where the sun never slept,

But unwinking, unblinking, from his quiver of ire Like a desolate besom the wilderness swept

With his arrows of fire.

VII.

Now we pull up the globe! It is grander than flying, 'Mid glimpses of wonder that are grander than dying, Through the gloomy arcades shedding winter and drift, By the bastions and towers of omnipotent lift, Through tunnels of thunder with a long sullen roar, Night ever at home and grim Death at the door.

We swing round a headland,

Ah! the track is not there!

OVERLAND TRAIN.   13

It has melted away

Like a rainbow in air!

Man the brakes! Hold her hard! We are leaving the world!

Red flag and red lantern unlighted and furled.

Lo, the earth has gone down like the set of the sun—Broad rivers unraveled turn to rills as they run—Great monarchs of forest dwindle feeble and old — Wide fields flock together like the lambs in a fold — Yon head-stone a snow-flake lost out of the sky That lingered behind when some winter went by!

Ah, we creep round a ledge

On the world's very edge,

On a shelf of the rock

Where an eagle might nest,

And the heart's double knock

Dies away in the breast

We have rounded Cape Horn! Grand Pacific, good morn!

VIII.

Now the world slopes away to the afternoon sun — Steady one! Steady all! The down grade has begun. Let the engines take breath, they have nothing to do, For the law that swings worlds will whirl the train

through.

Streams of fire from the wheels,

Like flashes from fountains;