All night we tossed on the bosom of the lake between San Carlos, at the source of the San Juan river, and Virgin Bay, on the opposite sh.o.r.e. The lake is on a table-land a hundred feet or more above the sea; it is a hundred miles in length and forty-five in width. Our track lay diagonally across it, a stretch of eighty miles; and when the morning broke upon us we were upon the point of dropping anchor under the cool shadow of cloud-capped mountains and in a most refreshing temperature.

Oh, the purple light of dawn that flooded the Bay of the Blessed Virgin!

Of course the night was a horror, and it was our second in transit; but we were nearing the end of the journey across the Isthmus and were shortly to embark for San Francisco. I fear we children regretted the fact. Our life for three days had been like a veritable "Jungle Book."

It almost out-Kiplinged Kipling. We might never again float through Monkey Land, with clouds of parrots hovering over us and a whole menagerie of extraordinary creatures making side-shows of themselves on every hand.

At Virgin Bay we were crowded like sheep into lighters, that were speedily overladen. Very serious accidents have happened in consequence.

A year before our journey an overcrowded barge was swamped at Virgin Bay and four and twenty pa.s.sengers were drowned. The "Transit Company,"

supposed to be responsible for the life and safety of each one of us, seemed to trouble itself very little concerning our fate. The truth was they had been paid in full before we boarded the Star of the West at Pier No. 2, North River.

Having landed in safety, in spite of the negligence of the "Transit Company," our next move was to secure some means of transportation over the mountain and down to San Juan del Sur. We were each provided with a ticket calling for a seat in the saddle or on a bench in a springless wagon. Naturally, the women and children were relegated to the wagons, and were there huddled together like so much live stock destined for the market. The men scrambled and even fought for the diminutive donkeys that were to bear them over the mountain pa.s.s. A circus knows no comedy like ours on that occasion. It is true we had but twelve miles to traverse, and some of these were level; but by and by the road dipped and climbed and swerved and plunged into the depths, only to soar again along the giddy verge of some precipice that overhung a fathomless abyss. That is how it seemed to us as we clung to the hard benches of our wagon with its four-mule attachment.

Once a wagon just ahead of us, having refused to answer to its brakes, went rushing down a fearful grade and was hurled into a tangle of underbrush,--which is doubtless what saved the lives of its occupants, for they landed as lightly as if on feather-beds. From that hour our hearts were in our throats. Even the thatched lodges of the natives, swarming with bare brown babies, and often having tame monkeys and parrots in the doorways, could not beguile us; nor all the fruits, were they never so tempting; nor the flowers, though they were past belief for size and shape and color and perfume.

Over the shining heights the wind scudded, behatting many a head that went bare thereafter. Out of the gorges ascended the voice of the waters, dashing noisily but invisibly on their joyous way to the sea.

From one of those heights, looking westward over groves of bread-fruit trees and fixed fountains of feathery bamboo, over palms that towered like plumes in s.p.a.ce and made silhouettes against the sky, we saw a long, level line of blue--as blue and bluer than the sky itself,--and we knew it was the Pacific! We were little fellows in those days, we children; yet I fancy that we felt not unlike Balboa when we knelt upon that peak in Darien and thanked G.o.d that he had the glory of discovering a new and unnamed ocean.

Why, I wonder, did Keats, in his famous sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," make his historical mistake when he sang--

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout _Cortez_ when with eagle eyes, He stared at the Pacific,--and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

It mattered not to us whether our name was Cortez or Balboa. With any other name we would have been just as jolly; for we were looking for the first time upon a sea that was to us as good as undiscovered, and we were shortly to brave it in a vessel bound for the Golden Gate. At our time of life that smacked a little of circ.u.mnavigation.

San Juan del Sur! It was scarcely to be called a village,--a mere handful of huts scattered upon the sh.o.r.e of a small bay and almost surrounded by mountains. It had no street, unless the sea sands it fronted upon could be called such. It had no church, no school, no public buildings. Its hotels were barns where the gold-seekers were fed without ceremony on beans and hardtack. Fruits were plentiful, and that was fortunate.

There, as in every settlement in Central America, the eaves of the dwellings were lined with Turkey buzzards. These huge birds are regarded with something akin to veneration. They are never molested; indeed, like the pariah dogs of the Orient, they have the right of way; and they are evidently conscious of the fact, for they are tamer than barnyard fowls.

They are the scavengers of the tropics. They sit upon the housetop and among the branches of the trees, awaiting the hour when the refuse of the domestic meal is thrown into the street. There is no drainage in those villages; strange to say, even in the larger cities there is none.

Offal of every description is cast forth into the highways and byways; and at that moment, with one accord, down sweep the grim sentinels to devour it. They feast upon carrion and every form of filth. They are polution personified, and yet they are the salvation of the indolent people, who would, but for the timely service of these ravenous birds, soon be wallowing in fetid refuse and putrefaction under the fierce rays of their merciless sun.

In the twilight we wandered by a crescent sh.o.r.e that was thickly strewn with sh.e.l.ls. They were not the tribute of northern waters: they were as delicately fashioned and as variously tinted as flowers. All that they lacked was fragrance; and this we realized as we stored them carefully away, resolving that they should become the nucleus of a museum of natural history as soon as we got settled in our California home.

We had crossed the Isthmus in safety. Yonder, in the offing, the ship that was to carry us northward to San Francisco lay at anchor. For three days we had suffered the joys of travel and adventure. On the San Juan river we had again and again touched points along the varying routes proposed, by the Maritime Ca.n.a.l Company of Nicaragua and the Walker Commission, as being practical for the construction of a great ship ca.n.a.l that shall join the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. We had pa.s.sed from sea to sea, a distance of about two hundred miles.

The San Juan river, one hundred and twenty miles in length, has a fall of one foot to the mile. This will necessitate the introduction of at least six ma.s.sive locks between the Atlantic and the lake. Sometimes the river can be utilized, but not without dredging; for it is shallow from beginning to end, and near its mouth is ribbed with sand-bars. For seventy miles the lake is navigable for vessels of the heaviest draught.

Beyond the lake there must be a clean-cut over or through the mountains to the Pacific, and here six locks are reckoned sufficient. Cross-cuts from one bend in the river to another can be constructed at the rate of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or less, per mile. The ca.n.a.l must be sunk or raised at intervals; there will, therefore, at various points be the need of a wall of great strength and durability, from one hundred and thirty to three hundred feet in height or depth.

The annual rain-fall in the river region between Lake Nicaragua and the Caribbean Sea is twenty feet; annual evaporation, three feet. These points must be considered in the construction and feeding of the ca.n.a.l, even though it is to vary in width. The dimensions of the proposed ca.n.a.l, as recommended by the Walker Government Commission, are as follows: total length, one hundred and eighty-nine miles; minimum depth of water at all stages, thirty feet; width, one hundred feet in rock-cuts, elsewhere varying from one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet--except in Lake Nicaragua, where one end of the channel will be made six hundred feet wide.

Nearly fifty years ago, when a ca.n.a.l was projected, the Childs survey set the cost at thirty-seven million dollars. Now the commissioners differ on the question of total cost, the several estimates ranging from one hundred and eighteen million to one hundred and thirty-five million dollars. The United States Congress at its last session authorized the expenditure of one million by a new commission "to investigate the merits of all suggested locations and develop a project for an Isthmus Ca.n.a.l."

And so we left the land of the lizard. What wonders they are! From an inch to two feet in length, slim, slippery, and of many and changeful colors, they literally inhabit the land, and are as much at home in a house as out of it; indeed, the houses are never free of them. They sailed up the river with us, and crossed the lake in our company, and sat by the mountain wayside awaiting our arrival; for they are curious and sociable little beasts. As for the San Juan river, 'tis like the Ocklawaha of Florida many times multiplied, and with all its original attractions in a state of perfect preservation.

All the way up the coast we literally hugged the sh.o.r.e; only during the hours when we were crossing the yawning mouth of the Gulf of California were we for a single moment out of sight of land. I know not if this was a saving in time and distance, and therefore a saving in fuel and provender; or if our ship, the John L. Stevens, was thought to be overloaded and unsafe, and was kept within easy reach of sh.o.r.e for fear of accident. We steamed for two weeks between a landscape and a seascape that afforded constant diversion. At night we sometimes saw flame-tipped volcanoes; there was ever the undulating outline of the Sierra Nevada Mountains through Central America, Mexico, and California.

Just once did we pause on the way. One evening our ship turned in its course and made directly for the land. It seemed that we must be dashed upon the headlands we were approaching, but as we drew nearer they parted, and we entered the land-locked harbor of Acapulco, the chief Mexican port on the Pacific. It was an amphitheatre dotted with twinkling lights. Our ship was speedily surrounded by small boats of all descriptions, wherein sat merchants noisily calling upon us to purchase their wares. They had abundant fruits, sh.e.l.ls, corals, curios. They flashed them in the light of their torches; they baited us to bargain with them. It was a Venetian _fete_ with a vengeance; for the hawkers were sometimes more impertinent than polite. It was a feast of lanterns, and not without the accompaniment of guitars and castanets, and rich, soft voices.

After that we were eager for the end of it all. There was Santa Catalina, off the California coast, then an uninhabited island given over to sunshine and wild goats, now one of the most popular and populous of California summer and winter resorts--for 'tis all the same on the Pacific coast; one season is damper than the other, that is the only difference. The coast grew bare and bleak; the wind freshened and we were glad to put on our wraps. And then at last, after a journey of nearly five thousand miles, we slowed up in a fog so dense it dripped from the scuppers of the ship; we heard the boom of the surf pounding upon the invisible sh.o.r.e, and the hoa.r.s.e bark of a chorus of sea-lions, and were told we were at the threshold of the Golden Gate, and should enter it as soon as the fog lifted and made room for us.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fort Point at the Golden Gate]

IV.

IN THE WAKE OF DRAKE

We were buried alive in fathomless depths of fog. We were a fixture until that fog lifted. It was an impenetrable barrier. Upon the point of entering one of the most wonderful harbors in the world, the glory of the newest of new lands, we found ourselves prisoners, and for a time at least involved in the mazes of ancient history.

In 1535 Cortez coasted both sides of the Gulf of California--first called the Sea of Cortez; or the Vermilion Sea, perhaps from its resemblance to the Red Sea between Arabia and Egypt; or possibly from the discoloration of its waters near the mouth of the Rio Colorado, or Red River.

In 1577 Captain Drake, even then distinguished as a navigator, fitted out a buccaneering expedition against the Spaniards; it was a wild-goose chase and led him round the globe. In those days the wealth of the Philippines was shipped annually in a galleon from Manila to Acapulco, Mexico, on its way to Europe. Drake hoped to intercept one of these richly laden galleons, and he therefore threaded the Straits of Magellan, and, sailing northward, found himself, in 1579, within sight of the coast of California. All along the Pacific sh.o.r.e from Patagonia to California he was busily occupied in capturing and plundering Spanish settlements and Spanish ships. Wishing to turn home with his treasure, and fearing he might be waylaid by his enemies if he were again to thread the Straits of Magellan, he thought to reach England by the Cape of Good Hope. This was in the autumn of 1579. To quote the language of an old chronicler of the voyage:

"He was obliged to sail toward the north; in which course having continued six hundred leagues, and being got into forty-three degrees north lat.i.tude, they found it intolerably cold; upon which they steered southward till they got into thirty-eight degrees north lat.i.tude, where they discovered a country which, from its white cliffs, they called Nova Albion, though it is now known by the name of California.

"They here discovered a bay, which entering with a favorable gale, they found several huts by the waterside, well defended from the severity of the weather. Going on sh.o.r.e, they found a fire in the middle of each house, and the people lying around it upon rushes. The men go quite naked, but the women have a deerskin over their shoulders, and round their waist a covering of bulrushes after the manner of hemp.

"These people bringing the Admiral [Captain Drake] a present of feathers and cauls of network, he entertained them so kindly and generously that they were extremely pleased; and afterward they sent him a present of feathers and bags of tobacco. A number of them coming to deliver it, gathered themselves together at the top of a small hill, from the highest point of which one of them harangued the Admiral, whose tent was placed at the bottom. When the speech was ended they laid down their arms and came down, offering their presents; at the same time returning what the Admiral had given them. The women remaining on the hill, tearing their hair and making dreadful howlings, the Admiral supposed they were engaged in making sacrifices, and thereupon ordered divine service to be performed at his tent, at which these people attended with astonishment.

"The arrival of the English in California being soon known through the country, two persons in the character of amba.s.sadors came to the Admiral and informed him, in the best manner they were able, that the king would visit him, if he might be a.s.sured of coming in safety. Being satisfied on this point, a numerous company soon appeared, in front of which was a very comely person bearing a kind of sceptre, on which hung two crowns, and three chains of great length. The chains were of bones, and the crowns of network, curiously wrought with feathers of many colors.

"Next to sceptre-bearer came the king, a handsome, majestic person, surrounded by a number of tall men dressed in skins, who were followed by the common people, who, to make the grander appearance, had painted their faces of various colors; and all of them, even the children, being loaded with presents.

"The men being drawn up in line of battle, the Admiral stood ready to receive the king within the fences of his tent. The company halted at a distance, and the sceptre-bearer made a speech half an hour long; at the end of which he began singing and dancing, in which he was followed by the king and all the people; who, continuing to sing and dance, came quite up to the tent; when, sitting down, the king took off his crown of feathers, placed it on the Admiral's head, and put on him the other ensigns of royalty; and it is said he made him a solemn tender of his whole kingdom; all which the Admiral accepted in the name of the Queen his sovereign, in hope that these proceedings might, one time or other, contribute to the advantage of England.

"The people, dispersing themselves among the Admiral's tents, professed the utmost admiration and esteem for the English, whom they looked upon as more than mortal; and accordingly prepared to offer sacrifices to them, which the English rejected with abhorrence; directing them, by various signs, that their religious worship was alone due to the supreme Maker and Preserver of all things....

"The Admiral, at his departure, set up a pillar with a large plate on it, on which were engraved her Majesty's name, picture, arms, and t.i.tle to the country; together with the Admiral's name and the time of his arrival there."

Pinkerton says in his description of Drake's voyage: "The land is so rich in gold and silver that upon the slightest turning it up with a spade these rich materials plainly appear mixed with the mould." It is not strange, if this were the case, that the natives--who, though apparently gentle and well disposed, were barbarians--should naturally have possessed the taste so characteristic of a barbarous people, and have loved to decorate themselves even lavishly with ornaments rudely fashioned in this rare metal. Yet they seemed to know little of its value, and to care less for it than for fuss and feathers. Either they were a singularly stupid race, simpler even than the child of ordinary intelligence, or they scorned the allurements of a metal that so few are able to resist.

Drake was not the first navigator to touch upon those sh.o.r.es. The explorer Juan Cabrillo, in 1542-43, visited the coast of Upper California. A number of landings were made at different points along the coast and on the islands near Santa Barbara. Cabrillo died during the expedition; but his successor, Ferralo, continued the voyage as far north as lat.i.tude 42. Probably Drake had no knowledge of the discovery of California by the Spaniards six and thirty years before he dropped anchor in the bay that now bears his name, and for many years he was looked upon as the first discoverer of the Golden State. Even to this day there are those who give him all the credit. Queen Elizabeth knighted him for his services in this and his previous expeditions; telling him, as his chronicler records, "that his actions did him more honor than his t.i.tle." Her Majesty seems not to have been much impressed by his tales of the riches of the New World--if, indeed, they ever came to the royal ear,--for she made no effort to develop the resources of her territory. No adventurous argonauts set sail for the Pacific coast in search of gold till two hundred and seventy years later.

There seems to have been a spell cast over the land and the sea. We are sure that Sir Francis Drake did not enter the Bay of San Francisco, and that he had no knowledge of its existence, though he was almost within sight of it. In one of the records of his voyage we read of the chilly air and of the dense fogs that prevailed in that region; of the "white banks and cliffs which lie toward the sea"; and of islands which are known as the Farallones, and which lie about thirty miles off the coast and opposite the Golden Gate.

In 1587 Captain Thomas Cavendish, afterward knighted by Queen Elizabeth, touched upon Cape St. Lucas, at the extremity of Lower California. He was a privateer lying in wait for the galleon laden with the wealth of the Philippines and bound for Acapulco. When she hove in sight there was a chase, a hot engagement, and a capture by the English Admiral. "This prize," says the historian of the voyage, "contained one hundred and twenty-two thousand _pesos_ of gold, besides great quant.i.ties of rich silks, satins, damasks, and musk, with a good stock of provisions." In those romantic and adventurous days piracy was legalized by formal license; the spoils were supposed to consist of gold and silver only, or of light movable goods.

The next English filibuster to visit the California coast was Captain Woodes Rogers--arriving in November, 1709. He described the natives of the California peninsula as being "quite naked, and strangers to the European manner of trafficking. They lived in huts made of boughs and leaves, erected in the form of bowers; with a fire before the door, round which they lay and slept. Some of the women wore pearls about their necks, which they fastened with a string of silk gra.s.s, having first notched them round." Captain Rogers imagined that the wearers of the pearls did not know how to bore them, and it is more than likely that they did not. Neither did they know the value of these pearls; for "they were mixed with sticks, bits of sh.e.l.ls, and berries, which they thought so great an ornament that they would not accept gla.s.s beads of various colors, which the English offered them."

The narrator says: "The men are straight and well built, having long black hair, and are of a dark brown complexion. They live by hunting and fishing. They use bows and arrows and are excellent marksmen. The women, whose features are rather disagreeable, are employed in making fishing-lines, or in gathering grain, which they grind upon a stone. The people were willing to a.s.sist the English in filling water, and would supply them with whatever they could get; they were a very honest people, and would not take the least thing without permission."

Such were the aborigines of California. Captain Woodes Rogers did not hesitate to take whatever he could lay his hands on. He captured the "great Manila ship," as the chronicle records. "The prize was called Nuestra Senora de la Incarnacion, commanded by Sir John Pichberty, a gallant Frenchman. The prisoners said that the cargo in India amounted to two millions of dollars. She carried one hundred and ninety-three men, and mounted twenty guns."

The exact locality of Drake's Bay was for years a vexed question. So able an authority as Alexander von Humboldt says: "The port of San Francisco is frequently confounded by geographers with the Port of Drake, farther north, under 38 10' of lat.i.tude, called by the Spaniards the Puerto de Bodega."

The truth is, Bodega Bay lies some miles north of Drake's Bay--or Jack's Harbor, as the sailors call it; the latter, according to the log of the Admiral, may be found in lat.i.tude 37 59' 5"; longitude 122 57-1/2'.

The cliffs about Drake's Bay resemble in height and color, those of Great Britain in the English Channel at Brighton and Dover; therefore it seems quite natural that Sir Francis should have called the land New Albion. As for the origin of the name California, some etymologists contend that it is derived from two Latin words: _calida fornax_; or, as the Spanish put it, _caliente fornalla_,--a hot furnace. Certainly it is hot enough in the interior, though the coast is ever cool. The name seems to have been applied to Lower California between 1535 and 1539.