First impressions of America

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF
AMERICA.

FIRST

IMPRESSIONS
OF AMERICA

BY

DR. WALTER R. HADWEN

LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW.

HAVING been invited in the Spring of 1921 to
undertake a lecturing tour in the United States of
America, I seized the opportunity of jotting down
as I went along my impressions of scenery, places
with historical interest, and manners and customs
of the people which specially appealed to me, and
these impressions were contributed in the form of
articles to the Gloucester Citizen. It is because so
many readers have told me that those articles
gave them a better idea of the States than anything
they had read before, that I ventured, in response
to many requests, to produce them in book form.

This book is not offered to the travelled citizen
of the world, but rather to the rank and file of
Britishers — dwellers in small streets and rural
retreats, and inhabitants of provincial towns — who
know next to nothing of the United States and
whose ignorance is not dissipated after they have
read many books, the writers of which have assumed
their knowledge of details that are usually assimi-
lated by the traveller alone.

In dealing with the great cities of America, I
have in each case selected for notice what seemed
to me the central feature of interest, thus : New
York stands mainly for commercial enterprise ;

5

Foreword

Washington for government ; Philadelphia for
historic associations with William Penn and the
subsequent struggles for freedom ; Boston for its
link with the early New England settlers and the
stories of the Rebellion and Revolution ; Los
Angeles, San Francisco and other cities of the West
for the vigorous youth of the American nation.

These chapters are exactly what they purport
to be — " first impressions." They may assist
intending visitors to the States by laying a foun-
dation upon which their own later impressions
may rest more profitably than upon one of
complete ignorance ; while those whose relatives
and friends dwell in the Western hemisphere may
feel they have been drawn a little nearer to absent
loved ones by a fuller comprehension of the con-
ditions which surround them.

Beyond this I have no purpose in view unless
it be to secure the privilege of acting as the
connecting link for some of those slender threads
of friendship, which, bridging the Atlantic, form
live wires from which glow sparks of sympathetic
interest. That these sparks may glow ever stronger
and brighter is the fervent wish of the author.

WALTER R. HADWEN, M.D., J.P.
Gloucester, 1921.

CONTENTS

CHAPT. PAGE

I. NEW YORK CITY 9

II. CURIOUS AMERICAN FEATURES . . 27

III AMERICAN ESTHETIC TASTE . . 45

IV RELIGIOUS LIFE IN AMERICA . . 59
V SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS . . 77

VI. BOSTON 91

VII. PHILADELPHIA . . . . . . 107

VIII. WASHINGTON . . . . . . 127

IX. LIFE IN A SLEEPING CAR . . . . 147

X. NIAGARA FALLS 161

XI. THE MORMONS . . . . . . 175

XII. SALT LAKE CITY . . . . . . 189

XIII. AMONG THE RED INDIANS . . 201

XIV. THE GRAND CANYON OF THE

COLORADO 221

XV. THE CITY OF THE ANGELS . . .- 237

XVI. THE LAND OF GOLD . . . . 255

XVII. A TRIP TO VENICE 273

XVIII. THE HARBOUR OF THE SUN .- 287

XIX. THE GOLDEN GATE . . . . . . 299

7

CHAPTER I
NEW YORK CITY.

1

k -11 pa:

/~~|(~yO a stranger, New York City is a
city of surprises. One was pre-
pared for bustle and eternal "go," but
not for the masterly ease and sangfroid
with which the bustle and "go" are
achieved. Nobody seems to be in a
hurry, and yet one sees on every hand
the output of stupendous energy and
incessant toil.

One is struck with the efficiency and
clock-work regularity of everything
directly one arrives at the extensive
Customs landing stage at New York.
" Your baggage, sir ? " asks a uniformed official
as you pass the gangway. ' You will find it yonder
under letter ' H.' "

You wend your way to the spot and find that
your baggage, which you had left in charge of the
berth attendant a short while before, has been
removed from the vessel and placed with precision
in its appointed place.

" Customs Officer, sir ? " says another official,
and your baggage is straightway taken for inspec-
tion. You follow, papers are examined, and
baggage marked.

9

io First Impressions of America

" Shall we send it to your hotel ? "

" How long before it is there ? "

" Within an hour."

You are relieved of all anxiety and responsibility ;
there is no confusion, no hurry, no breathless haste ;
you feel as much at ease as if you were among your
own servants within a few yards of home.

Another uniformed official quietly walks up :

" Here is a telegram for you, sir. Do you wish
to send any cablegrams to England ? "

Cablegram forms, pencil, writing board, are all
ready ; you write your messages there and then,
pay the fees and receive an official acknowledgment.

" I expect some friends to meet me/' you remark,
as the official is leaving, " could you tell me where
I can find them ? "

" Certainly, come with me," and after a walk of
two or three hundred yards, the official chatting
pleasantly all the way, you reach a long line of
barriers behind which many scores of friends of
passengers are waiting ; you rapidly scan coun-
tenances as you pass along, then hands are held up
and the official, with a polite bow, wishes you
good day.

I was but one of the many hundreds who walked
down the gangway of the Mauretania ; but every
stranger who needed assistance found it forth-
coming in the same easy, leisurely, practical, good-

New York City n

natured way that it was my own good fortune to
experience.

You go into a bureau or store to institute in-
quiries or to make a purchase. You see at a glance
that a huge business is being carried on ; the very
atmosphere you breathe carries with it the sensation
of ceaseless activity ; a clerk comes to you in the
most leisurely way, speaks to you with familiar
ease, answers every question with deliberation,
enters into details without the slightest hurry,
loads you with printed matter bearing upon the
subject in hand, furnishes you with every useful
hint that may occur to him, and not until all your
difficulties have been solved or your needs met
does he leave you for the next inquirer. When
you look at your watch, you are surprised at the
speed with which so much has been accomplished
in a space of time as brief as it has been profitable.
The American generally seems to understand
business, and what it is to be businesslike, without
conveying the impression that he is turning the
world upside down to oblige you, or that he will be
glad when the interview ends. With one or two
exceptions, I found the same leisurely ease and
obliging attention to detail in every store, every
hotel and every department I entered. The riddle
of accomplishing much whilst apparently doing
little seems to have been effectively solved.

12 First Impressions of America

I was amused by the remark of a gentleman who
was driving me in his automobile (they never say
" motor car " in America).

" I am going to make a pile of money ; it is just
as easy to make a heap as a little."

" I suppose it is," I commented, " if you know
the right way to go to work."

" Oh no," he rejoined, " it is not done by one's
own work ; you must make other people work."

" But," I protested, " everyone I come across
seems to be taking his ease."

" Just so," he answered, " we have the knack in
this country of doing ten times as much as you do
in your country with one tenth of the bustle that
you put into it."

I noticed the enormous number of automobiles
that sometimes blocked the streets, four or five in
a row and five or six deep, as they were being held
up whilst a policeman regulated the traffic.

" Surely," I said to a friend, " everyone in New
York must possess an automobile ; they are in
crowds everywhere."

" There are one million of them in New York
State," he answered.

" What is the population ? " I asked

" Ten millions ; and six tenths of it is in New
York City."

" One automobile to every ten of the population !"

New York City 13

I exclaimed in surprise. " If we reckon five persons
to a family, that means half the population possess
motor cars of their own/'

" Some would have several," he said, " but,
nevertheless, they are very common ; it is an easy
and rapid way of doing business, without making
much fuss."

But gigantic business travels side by side with
pleasure. The provisions for the latter are beyond
conception, and, I am told, can scarcely keep pace
with the demand.

Manhattan Island, the original New York City,
is the great centre of business and amusement.
Wall Street, the world-famed quarter of finance,
lies at the southern end. Packed into a small
space barely two miles wide lie some of the greatest
banking institutions, industrial corporations, and
railroad offices in the world. Jostling with these
immense financial centres are situated the numerous
theatres, railway stations and huge hotels ; and
farther north lie the chief residential sections.
The whole extent of Manhattan Island is 13^ miles,
but it does not exceed a width of two miles in any
part. Less than 300 years ago this little island was
bought from the Indians by the early settlers for
goods valued at 24 dollars — roughly, a five-pound
note. It is now worth about £2,000,000,000, i.e.
the assessed value of its real estate. Its streets
could indeed be paved with its gold.

14 First Impressions of America

As one enters New York Harbour from the sea,
Manhattan Island comes into relief in a remarkable
way. Crowded together on its narrow terminal
strip stand some of the famous skyscrapers of which
everyone has heard so much, and usually in terms
of reproach as " the ugliest structures on earth/'

That was not the way they struck me. They
appealed to me at once as erections of remarkable
beauty. They are certainly unique. They could

not be compared, of course, with any of the famous
buildings in Europe, or with the temples at Karnak
or Luxor on the Nile, for the simple reason that
there can be no comparison between things that
are quite different. Skyscrapers are the product
of modern necessity. The ground space is limited,
business demands are unlimited, so the architects
soar into no man's land above.

About two dozen of these lofty buildings suddenly
meet your gaze as you turn a corner in New York
Harbour. Great structures of different heights
placed at different angles, of varied ornamental

New York City 15

architecture, but all alike in their wonderful sky-
ward elevation, in their countless windows and,
with few exceptions, in their dazzling whiteness.

They seem to increase in height as they recede,
and are flanked by the great Woolworth Building.
This stands 55 stories above the ground, and its
foundation was sunk through 115 feet of quicksand
to bed rock. It forms the most majestic pile I
have ever looked upon ; its great tower and cupola,
rising 570 feet above the side-walk, with its two
projecting wings, present the appearance in the
distance of an immense Cathedral tower with its
naves brought into prominent relief. The value of
the land on which these erections stand is something
about £200 for every square foot.

The hotel at which I stayed in New York is one
of these immense buildings ; my bedroom was on
the 2 ist floor, from which I looked far down over a
considerable portion of the great city ; the number
of my room was 2138. Every room, large and
lofty, is furnished with its own individual bathroom
and with every convenience that can be conceived.

The ground floor, as is the case in every first-class
hotel throughout the States, is of immense size
and height, with galleries all round. Comfortable
divans and luxurious chairs and couches embowered
in trees and shrubs, and statues interspersed with
handsome vases of flowers, are tastefully arranged

16 First Impressions of America

in all directions. Anyone can walk in, at any hour
of the day or night, whether they are staying at the
hotel or not. Tired ladies come in for a rest or to
meet their friends, or they go up in a lift to one of
the galleries and pass an hour or two watching the
panorama below. Business men meet there and
transact their affairs. At the Bureau of Informa-
tion or Transport every question is readily answered
and help given on every conceivable subject.
There are two telegraph offices at these large hotels
with attendance day and night. You can send a
day letter or a night letter of fifty words, at a small
charge, which is delivered at any part of the United
States next morning. There are tables and desks
in the galleries at which you can sit and write,
and writing material, newspapers, books and every
literary and stationery requisite can be obtained at
the department for that purpose. Half a dozen
lifts are going continually. People who wish to
reach the upper floors can travel in an express
lift without any stops. By the side of every lift
on every floor is the letter box which conducts
your missive to the post office on the ground floor.
You pay only for your bedroom as a rule ; there
is an immense restaurant on the establishment
where you can take your meals or you are free to
go elsewhere. There is nobody to interfere with
you or ask questions ; there are plenty of uniformed

New York City 17

men and boys about, but they are only there to do
your bidding and to study your convenience.

The Metropolitan Life Building in Madison
Square is another structural wonder. Its tower
is exquisitely beautiful in design, rising 700 feet
in height. The dials of its clock, which is 350 feet
above the pavement, are 26 J feet in diameter, and
the figures 4 feet high. The minute hand is 17 feet
long and weighs 1,000 pounds. Its chimes, soft
and beautiful, are heard at a great distance, and at
night, in addition to the chimes, the quarter-hours
and hours are flashed in different coloured lights by
electricity. More than 3,000 people are employed
there.

Then there is the Singer Building, not so high —
612 feet ; but its searchlights of 13,000,000 candle-
power make the tower visible for 40 miles. It has
nine acres of floor space, and its boilers require
8,000 tons of coal annually.

These details will give some idea of how business
is done in New York City. The latest skyscraper,
the Equitable Assurance Society Building, which
stands in Broadway, is 537 feet high, and accommo-
dates 15,000 people.

The " skyscrapers " are, of course, everywhere ;
they are the characteristic of New York City. A
stranger might suppose that they would be appalling
in their magnitude, that the neck would be strained

B

i8 First Impressions of America

beyond endurance to look up at them, and that
their beauty — manifested in their bevelled stone-
work, ornamentation and sculpture, Corinthian
pillars, domes, multi-shaped windows and every
device that an architectural mind could devise in
order to relieve the structure of monotony — would
be lost. This is not the case. The immense width
of the streets and avenues, and the clever arrange-
ment of the various erections, brings them all
within the range of vision and adjusts them to
correct proportions. The fact is, everything is
great, and all sense of disproportion is lost in the
well-balanced and well-thought-out building scheme.
The plan of the new part of the city is simple,
and is soon grasped. The great thoroughfares
running straight as an arrow from end to end are
called " avenues," and all the branchings from them
at right angles are called " streets/' The avenues
are numbered as a rule from i upwards, and the
streets are similarly treated. For instance, if you
asked the way to the Flatiron Building — an extra-
ordinary erection, 286 feet high with 21 stories,
standing by itself and well worthy of its name —
you would be told Fifth Avenue East 23rd Street,
and it is the simplest matter in the world to steer
in that direction. An iron standard at the corner
of every street indicates its number. The parts
between each street are called "blocks." If you

New York City 19

ask for a certain shop or hotel in a street, you are
told, for instance : " Four blocks down, turn to
the right and second block."

This rectangular plan was not adopted till 1830,
and in the old part of New York — the first two miles
of the City running North from the South Ferry —
the streets are short, narrow and irregular ; and
they were not numbered, but named without
method in the early Dutch or British days of the
Colony.

The avenues are immense, roughly about seven
miles long. The traffic, which seems to be congested
with motor cars in every direction, is regulated day
and night by coloured lights from elevated signal
towers, supplemented by policemen at the street
intersections ; and when the red light flashes, every
automobile in the avenue stops dead at the nearest
street corner, whilst the traffic from the streets
commences to cross ; every pedestrian is held up
until the way is clear ; the light changes to green,
and on rush the cars to the next point. Everything
is done by a system of clockwork, and the straight
and broad thoroughfares intersecting one another
must make it much simpler for a New York police-
man to exercise control than for his London confrere
with our narrow streets and multitudinous awkward
turnings.

Electric trams run day and night. The cost is

2O First Impressions of America

5 cents (2jd.) for any distance in one direction ;
you can get free transfers from car to car, so long
as you don't go back. You pay the conductor,
drop the ticket he gives you into a box, and that
ends the matter. The expense of ticket inspectors
is thus obviated.

The streets at 12 o'clock at night appeared to me
to be more crowded than by day. The shops,
though closed, keep their lights on just the same,
and some shops never close, they have relays of
assistants. The establishments in the big thorough-
fares possess the most remarkable electric revolving
and changing advertisements I ever saw in my life.
They reach up hundreds of feet to the top of these
mammoth buildings. They were of intense interest
to me, and I enjoyed strolling round late at night
and studying New York life in the peculiar con-
ditions which then presented themselves. Broad-
way is called " The Great White Way " because of
its appearance at night. Owing to these wondrous
advertisements which, every night and all night
long, present a scene such as is witnessed in London
only on occasions of great historical interest — and
even then the London decorations pale before these
ordinary New York illuminations — the night is
turned into day ; you can recognise objects and
persons right across the wide thoroughfares as
clearly as in daylight.

New York City

21

A friend suggested that I might wish to see what
night life was like in New York City.

THE FLAT IRON BUILDIKG

He took me to a restaurant — one out of hundreds
of the same description. It was half -past twelve
at night. We entered a huge hall. Fairy lights
hung in all directions, festoons, flowers, palms — it
looked like a scene from the "Arabian Nights."
The lights were all subdued into a weird, semi-dark,
mysterious shade, but reflecting different coloured

22 First Impressions of America

rays upon the spectacle below. Hundreds of
people sat at little tables, five or six deep around
a great central space, in which, perhaps, a hundred
couples were dancing to jazz music. When one
set of dancers had tired, others took their places.
The women, painted and pencilled, were dressed
in the flimsiest costumes, and the style of dancing
baffled description. At the tables waiters were busy
serving all manner of ices and cakes and drinks
at very high prices. And this, be it remembered,
in a teetotal city.

Yes — a teetotal city. Teetotalism is a practical
reality as far as State ordinance is concerned, and
the Prohibition Law of the United States has had
its effect. It has shut up all the drinking saloons
that were a curse to the better life of the city, and
in Boston especially I saw dancing saloon after
dancing saloon that had put up its shutters, as the
altered conditions had destroyed its trade. And
if scenes such as I have described still exist, they
are, at least, robbed of an element which would
have made them considerably worse.

But there is a very strong line of cleavage between
the parties interested in the Prohibition question.
The " pros " and " antis " are both very pronounced
in their views, but both are emphatically agreed
upon one point, namely, that Prohibition has come
to stay, and that never, never will the Prohibition

New York City 23

Act of the United States be repealed. There are
48 States in the Union, and before that Act could be
repealed no fewer than 36 States would have to be
agreed upon repeal, and this is regarded as a con-
tingency so remote as to be impossible.

Some are very bitter about the new law. One
gentleman — a wealthy man who lives in a mag-
nificent house in New York — opened a closet
door, and showed me his collection of wines. " If
that were known," said he, " it would be con-
fiscated. The effect of the new law is that I have
drunk more alcoholic liquors since Prohibition
came in than I did before." How he had obtained
his stock I did not inquire, but at dinner I noticed
that only iced water, non-alcoholic drinks, and
coffee were provided for the guests.

Those who protest most strongly against the law
are those who are the most bitter about the way in
which it was carried into effect.

" It was done by a trick," said one, " effected
during war-time, when everyone was hysterical,
and prepared for anything so long as victory was
assured."

Others declare that employers of labour realised
that a sober nation would mean more effective and
regular work, and so they strongly advocated
Prohibition as a war-time measure. They were
ready for anything — anything that would win the
war.

24 First Impressions of America

So the great nation went in for Prohibition as a
temporary measure, and when the war was over
and the battle won, and they expected to return to
the old order of things, they discovered to their
chagrin and amazement that such is the Con-
stitution of the United States that the law was as
unalterable as the law of the Medes and Persians.
There it stands on the Statute Book until the crack
of doom, unless a social revolution or a political
earthquake, such as is deemed an impossibility,
brings the drinking saloon and its associations back
to the Land of the Stars and Stripes.

" How it came about is an absolute puzzle," said
a prominent society lady to me. "It seems like a
dream ; it is certainly a mystery ; nobody seems to
understand it. The suggestion was raised by
someone (who quoted the example of Russia) that
Prohibition would win the war. No one knows
who started the suggestion ; it began to be talked
about ; the suggestion became a positive assertion ;
it became more positive every day ; it was flashed
from State to State, from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Coasts ; no one dared to raise his voice against the
slogan ; the politician by some mysterious spell
seemed awed into submission, and voiced its
mandate from platform to platform. The house-
holder bowed ; the working man resigned himself,
he would " make good " when the war was over ;

New York City 25

and so everyone, from the President and officials
of State, from the Senator, the Representative, and
the tub politician down to the hucksters and the
wandering Jew, joined in the cry ' It will win the
war ! ' And thus the battle of Prohibition was
won by little more effort than the waive of a
magician's wand. And then, when the war was
over, the nation awoke to the fact that they were
bound by its edict for ever ! Never will 36 States
unite to restore the liquor traffic. Men and women
would sacrifice their own individual predilections in
favour of liquor rather than risk the probability of
the national industries being crippled by the loss
of time and the incompetence which would follow
the restoration of King Alcohol to his throne. We
are a nation of money-makers, and behind the
Prohibition Law now stands the power of the
Almighty Dollar."

In that vivid account of the situation from the
lips of a lady stands revealed the whole history of
this marvellous achievement.

Of course there are all sorts of attempts to evade
the law. Home-brewed drinks are manufactured,
but it has to be done with considerable caution in
those States which allow this concession, lest the
legal limit permitted, to the private citizen be ex-
ceeded ; and the game is hardly worth the candle.

The chief enemies of the Prohibition Law are the

26 First Impressions of America

medical men, who write prescriptions for alcoholic
liquors. I was not able to find out how far they
went in New York, but in Chicago, which I visited,
I learned that the doctors were writing prescriptions
for 180,000 pints of whiskey every month. It

costs a dollar (45.) a pint,
all of which goes into the
pockets of the city druggists.
Thus about 7 per cent., or
one-fifteenth of the popula-
tion of Chicago, gets its
BROOKLYN BRIDGE whiskey through the agency

of the doctors. I understand that this sort of
thing will be shortly investigated.

At present, in exactly one-half of the States, no
doctor is allowed to prescribe alcoholic liquors at
all. In the other half permits have to be obtained
to prescribe them, but only 22 per cent, of the
medical practitioners of the latter 24 States
have availed themselves of the privilege.

But there is one thing worth noting. Whilst
the confirmed drinkers among adults are in some
instances surreptitiously drinking, the children of
the nation are growing up without alcohol, pro-
paganda against it forming part of the curriculum
in their schools, and in this fact rests the hope of
the future.

CHAPTER II
CURIOUS AMERICAN FEATURES.

[HE object which immediately arrests
the attention of the voyager as he
enters New York Harbour for the
first time is the immense Statue
of Liberty, standing on one of the
many islands separated from one
another by the North and East
Rivers.

When Bartholdi visited the United States, he
noticed how eagerly the immigrants crowded on
deck to gain a first glimpse of the new land they
were so hopefully approaching ; and this incident
suggested to him the proposal that France should
present to the United States a Statue which might
enshrine the great principle of Freedom for which
the New World claimed to stand.

An American gentleman whose acquaintance I
had made on the voyage pointed out to me with
considerable enthusiasm the chief points of interest
as we slowly steamed towards the Customs landing
stage.

" That," said he, "is the largest statue in the
world. You see that torch which the woman holds
in her hand ; it looks uncommonly small, don't it ?
Well, one hundred men could stand on the top of it."

27

28 First Impressions of America

This may be an exaggeration ; but I discovered
later how immense is the size of the Statue. From
the foundation to the torch it reaches 305 feet.
The index finger is 8 feet long and the length of
the hand 16 feet. From the chin to the top of the
head it measures 17 feet, and the length of the right
arm is 42 feet. The waist is 35 feet in circum-
ference, and the nose 4^ feet long. And yet, as one
viewed it from the deck of the Mauretania, it
looked exquisitely graceful and of little more than
lifesize proportions.

On the day after my arrival, at a large public
luncheon given in my honour by the New York
Anti- Vivisection Society in the famous Plaza Hotel,
I could not resist drawing attention to the fact that
America was scarcely consistent with the principle
which this beautiful work of art was intended to
represent.

When, before sailing, I visited the American
Consul at Bristol to get my passport visaed, he
looked with surprise at my name and said :

" Are you Dr. Had wen, of Gloucester ? " On my
replying in the affirmative, he asked me if I were
aware that everybody — first - and second class
passengers included — would have to be vaccinated
before landing on American soil ?

" What ! " I exclaimed, " is that your Land of
Liberty ? "

Curious American Features

29

" Unfortunately it is," said he, " and unless you
are prepared to submit, you will be put on the first
boat for England and sent back."

This was discon-
certing. The obliging
manager of Messrs.
Thos. Cook and Son
kindly made further
inquiries from the
American Ambas-
sador in London, and
from the Cunard
Steamship Company,
whilst I cabled to
New York. The re-
plies were conflicting,
and I decided to take
my chance, hoping
and believing I
should get through somehow.

On our reaching Cherbourg the mystery was
solved. The American gentleman to whom I have
referred above came on board there, and was one
day using rather strong language about having had
to submit to vaccination, from the results of which
he was suffering severely, when I discovered that
the vaccination regulation applied only to foreign
ports, and that all passengers except those from

30 First Impressions of America

England had to be vaccinated by command of the
United States Government before being allowed to
board a vessel for New York. He told me that a
young ' Englishman said to the Medical Officer at
the Cherbourg port : "I don't believe in vaccina-
tion."

" Then we do," was the answer.

" Well, I shan't be done."

" Then stand back," said the doctor, " you
can't go to New York."

I instanced another case of interference with
personal liberty. It was that of an Irish cook,
Mary Mallon by name, commonly known as
" Typhoid Mary," who, because of a foolish medical
dogma, which the Chief Medical Officer of the
London County Council has recently declared to
be supported by no scientific evidence, is confined
as a prisoner for life on an island in New York
Harbour, because she is reputed to be a " germ
carrier." The fallacy of the theory is evidenced
by the fact that thousands of soldiers who have
suffered from typhoid fever during the war (the
majority of whom must be so-called " germ
carriers ") have been scattered widely among the
civil populations of both England and America,
and yet the incidence and fatality of typhoid fever
among the civil populations in both countries is
lower than it has ever been before.

Curious American Features 31

My American friends agreed with me, when I
quoted these and other instances, that their
country was not maintaining those rights of per-
sonal liberty which form the basis of the American
Constitution, and for which the men and women
of the Mayflower had craved and suffered when they
left the land of their forefathers 300 years ago.

As we moved farther up the harbour, my
informant said : "See that clock ; it is the largest
clock in the world," and he began to rattle off the
stupendous dimensions.

Then, excitedly, he turned toward the sky-
scrapers

" See that building over there ? That's the
tallest building in the world," and he ran off at
railroad speed all the details of its immense pro-
portions.

" See that roof," he continued, " that's the
top of the biggest railway station in the world ;
and just over there is a the-a-ter that holds more
people than any two the-a-ters in the whole world
put together."

I could only breathe deeply and exclaim :
" Indeed ! "

I have grown accustomed to all this since then,
but I think the climax was reached when I walked
from the station to my hotel at Chicago, and my
companion exclaimed, as we leisurely and easily
crossed over a moderately busy street :

32 First Impressions of America

" This is the busiest street in the world ! "

I didn't like to ask him if he had ever been outside
Chicago !

When I reached California it was the same
thing :

" That's the Auto-mobile Association housed in
that building ; it has the largest membership in
the world." " See that place over there ? That's
the largest ostrich farm in the world," and so on.

Still, I must admit, America is a very wonderful
country, though, perhaps, not quite so wonderful
in some points as its people believe. They are
very proud of their country, and rightly so. It is
young, and its people are young. Their form of
Government is young and, exultant at the di-
mensions and possibilities of their mighty heritage,
and their ever growing population, the less thought-
ful citizens among them are apt to overrate their
own greatness and to belittle the greatness of
others.

I was amused by a rather pompous American,
who formed one of a small party of us that visited
the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and who had
frequently informed me that this, that or the other
was the "biggest," the "greatest," the "largest,"
the " tallest," or the " heaviest " thing in the world.
Looking down into the depths of the great chasm
he said quite seriously :

Curious American Features 33

" Say, do you know, that the whole of Great
Britain could be dropped down there and com-
pletely lost ? "

" Very likely," I quietly replied, " I hope you'll
come over some day and see the little place ; you
will be able to measure it up."

" By gosh," he added, " but ain't it a wonderful
sight ? Do you know that that's the biggest hole
in the world ? "

I had not been 48 hours in America when my
bedroom telephone bell rang, and on crying "Hilloa"
I was told that Mr. Somebody wanted to see me,
might he come up ?

" Certainly," I replied, and as quickly as the
elevator could rise some 400 feet, two Americans
entered my room, and each informed me that he
represented a big daily newspaper. I asked them
to sit down, and my new experience of the
American interviewer began.

The first question was as to the kind of voyage
I had had. Was this my first visit to America ?

Then asked one, " Can you tell us anything that
is new in medicine ? " That was a bit of a poser !

" Do you intend to lecture right through the
States ? " " How long are you staying in this
country ? " "Is your cause making progress ? "
" Do you think you'll get vivisection and vaccina-
tion abolished in this country ? "

34 First Impressions of America

Questions poured down like rain. Then came
the inevitable interrogatory : " What are your
impressions of Amur-rica ? "

I told them that I had had scarcely time to look
round yet, but I had come to the conclusion from
what I could gather so far that America and every-

thing in it was the biggest thing in the world.
That pleased them !

" Well, doctor," said one of them, " tell us what
has impressed you most so far."

I told them that the two things which had im-
pressed me most were, first, the size and magnificence
of their skyscrapers, and, second, the fact that the
women of America appeared to be of considerably
more importance than the men.

This amused them greatly and they wrote it
down eagerly.

Curious American Features 35

" Now, doctor, what about Prohibition in your
country ; are you going to get it pretty quick ? "

"No," I said, " not for many a long year. Our
statesmen are not so smart as yours, and we are a
very slow-going people."

" But isn't Radicalism very strong with you ?
What about your Labour Party ? " he asked.

" Bless you," I replied, " every Labour man is
a Conservative."

My interviewer looked puzzled. " I don't think
I understand your English politics," said he.

" I am not surprised at that," I remarked, " for
we don't understand them ourselves."

" I thought the Labour Party was opposed to
the Conservative party."

" So it is," I said, " but they are all Conserva-
tives just the same."

He looked more puzzled.

" But what about the Radicals ? " he asked.

" They are all Conservatives, likewise," I
answered. " Every Englishman is a Conservative,
only some are more Conservative than others.
Everybody moves very slowly and very cautiously
in my country, and they generally move in a circle ;
nobody ever gives up a recognised institution,
however rotten, till it comes to the last ditch, and
then something else very much like it is usually
put in its place. Like Nature, English people

36 First Impressions of America

abhor a vacuum, and we love the odour of antiquity
as we love Eau de Cologne/*

My interviewers wrote rapidly, but they were
bent upon more information.

" What about Liberals ? " one asked.

" Just the same/' I replied, " they are all Con-
servatives— Conservatives to the backbone. No
politician ever moves in my country until he is
forced to do so ; he waits to see which way the
people want him to go, and the people are so
conservative that they won't go at all till the
politician has made up his mind which party in
his constituency is likely to poll most votes at the
next election. It ends in his constituents, as a
rule, making up his mind for him/'

" According to that," said my interviewer,
" things remain pretty much at a standstill."

" Yes," I said, " there's been no progress during
the last century, and there won't be any for the
next century, for directly we get rid of one bad
thing, the conservative nature of the English people
compels them instinctively to set up another bad
thing or two to take its place. Every reform
carries its own antidote. English legislation travels
like the lobster in the wrong direction. It's very
much like a game of skittles."

" Re-mark-a-ble," he exclaimed, in his American
drawl.

Curious American Features 37

" What is your view of Mr. Lloyd George ? "
asked one of them.

" Oh," I answered, " he is the most out-and-out
Conservative there is in the British Cabinet."

" You don't say ! " said the interviewer. " I
thought his views were va-a-a-ry pro-gressive."

" He hasn't any views," I answered, " they
change so rapidly he doesn't know what they are
himself ; he always waits to see which way the cat
jumps."

" What politics are you ? " my interviewer
bluntly and pointedly asked.

" I don't think I have any," I answered, " I
can't find much use for them. I expect I am a
bit of a Conservative, like everybody else, and
something of an Independent when I feel it
necessary."

My interviewers seemed inclined to give me up
as a bad job, but decided to have one more try.

" Which is the chief governing force in your
present House of Commons ? " asked one.

" Human nature," I answered, " just the same
as it is in your Congress."

" But which party is the most important in
thrashing out questions ? " he urged.

" There is very seldom anyone in the House of
Commons to thrash them out," I replied. " Unless
a big speech is on, the members live chiefly in the

38 First Impressions of America

smoking-room, dining-room, tea-room, committee-
room, or perhaps in the library, writing evasive
answers to inquisitive correspondents, and they fill
their odd time in taking constituents round the
House and expatiating on its beauties, unless the
division bell rings."

" What happens then ? " he asked.

" Oh, then they all emerge like rabbits from their
burrows into the Lobby and march where their
Whips order them. Heads are counted, and back
they go to their burrows again ; a good many of
them don't know what they've voted for, but they
won't miss a party division if they can help it.
Their attendances thereat are counted up at the
end of the Session and are supposed to stand for
devotedness to their constituents, and for hard
work."

" Then, I suppose, the Government do all the
real work ? " he queried.

" O dear no/* I said, " the Government only do
the talking ; the work is done by the bureaucrats
behind the scenes. England is governed by
bureaucrats, and they are all Conservatives to the
backbone, and they move just as fast as they wish ;
as a rule the motion is too slow to be visible, and
the circumlocution office reigns as supreme as it
did in the days of Dickens. And thus we muddle
on from generation to generation."

Curious American Features 39

My interviewers looked hopeless, and after asking
what States and cities I was visiting and making a
note of them, they shook hands and told me that
they had had " a va-a-ry in-ter-est-ing talk."

And a very funny muddled-up mixture got into
the papers.

The American newspapers are a marvel. Twenty-
four, thirty-six and fifty or more pages for a daily,
and 72 to 150 pages for a Sunday newspaper are
quite the ordinary thing. Headlines with letters
sometimes three or four inches long, of a most
sensational character, are scattered through the
columns of some of them, and anything more than
usually exciting is seized upon with avidity.

For instance, I lectured in one of the chief Halls
of Washington City early in May, and the Medical
Director of the Government Health Laboratories,
with other medical men, came down to hear me.
Some Senators also turned up, and much interest
was evoked. At the close of my lecture — or "talk,"
as every public address is called in America — the
audience was asked by the Chairman to put me
any questions. For some time nobody rose. At
last the Government Medical Director (Dr. McCoy)
was appealed to. He said he would not ask
questions, but if permitted he would expose my
fallacies. Of course, I agreed willingly.

In the ensuing harangue, he flew into a violent

40 First Impressions of America

passion and declared I had told " a damnable
lie." The audience shouted with indignation, and
when the excitement was somewhat subdued I
said, " Perhaps my medical friend will be good
enough to prove his assertion." This landed him
in further trouble, and amid considerable hubbub,
the debate, in which some of the audience took part>
went on till nearly midnight.

This was very late for sedate and highly respect-
able Washington, where dinner parties, theatres,
picture palaces and all other places of public or
private entertainment or instruction are expected
to close promptly by half -past ten.

Next morning the chief official Washington paper
(corresponding to our English Times) had startling
headlines right across the centre of the front page :
" Damnable lie passes as doctors clash on Germs,"
and a lengthy and exceedingly good report of the
proceedings followed. This grotesque incident was
flashed straightway to every newspaper in the
United States. I came across it in journals in
Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, down in
Chicago, and 3,000 miles off in far distant California.
That is the sort of thing an American paper loves.

The American is a voracious reader of his news-
paper. It constitutes the chief educational instru-
ment of the mass of the people. It is true that
America has some very fine universities, colleges,

Curious American Features 41

and schools, but such institutions in any country,
including our own, can only provide the mere
mechanical basis of education. The true education
of an individual depends upon the way in which he
employs his faculties after he has left his school
or university ; upon his rubbing shoulders with
other men ; upon travel and experience ; and to
the great bulk of the American people the daily
newspaper constitutes the one important factor in
moulding taste and directing mentality.

Many of these newspapers, as far as I have been
able to judge, possess little order or arrangement.
The news is shovelled up like coal, and allowed to
sort itself out as best it may among the monster
advertisements ; and anything connected with
crime, scandal, gossip, personalities, and sen-
sationalism forms the principal " stuff " that the
reader has to feed upon. Highly seasoned food of
this kind must make wholesome diet insipid.

There are some excellent specimens of journalistic
literature and some very fine monthlies published
in America, but many of them are of a low standard,
as Americans themselves have admitted to me.

Of some of the sensational headlines an English-
man cannot make head nor tail. Here are a few
specimens from the front sheet of a leading daily
of 38 pages published on the date of writing : —

Body Blow for Hiram.
Blair Confirmed in Bitter Fight.

42 First Impressions of America

Breach Between Johnson and Administration

is now Wider than Ever.
Disgruntled Senator Fails to Get Revenge

On Man Who Voted Against Him
All this in connection with a quite ordinary and
uninteresting political debate in the Washington
Senate.

Here is another specimen on the same page,
spaced enormously and in huge type : —

" Lily Love " Goes to Test.

Juanita Miller's to Give Acid Bath

to the Sincerity of Mate in " Nest."

This forms the introduction to a lurid description

of a divorce suit, accompanied by a melodramatic

portrait of " Juanita " (nine inches long).

One more on the same front page, in startling
type and with big photograph : —
Jealousy was Motive.
Woman in Bronx Shooting Case says

Blackmail Idea was Police Bunk.
Lastly, here are the headlines of another front page
description of an ordinary baseball game : —

Si washes Get Good Clawing.
Tigers Sink Nails Deep into the

Cocky Rainiers.
Wheezer Dell Braces Up After Early

Wildness.

Sensational Fielding Stunts.
Feature Ball Game.

Curious American Features 43

That is the sort of thing that seems to interest and
to form a leading line in the education of the
American public.

" The public/1 said Ruskin, " is a big baby that
only asks to be flattered and amused." That
appears to be specially recognised in America.

A Sunday newspaper should be included among
the seven wonders of the world. I have one in
front of me now. There are no fewer than 156
pages. The sheets measure 24 by 19 inches, and
there are eight columns on a page. The news
columns are copiously illustrated ; it has in addition
12 separate pages of coloured photogravures of fairly
good character, and four additional pages of highly-
coloured pictures, with accompanying letterpress
of low class and silly wit. Religious talk runs side
by side with the latest Divorce Court scandal.
Finance jostles with the latest music-hall ditties,
and theatrical news rubs shoulders with the latest
crime. There is a special literary supplement of
well-written articles, a sensational love story, and
the latest political news of the world dished up with
spicings of a rare blend !

It takes the average American all day long to
get through his 172 pages, and from my brief
experience of an American Sunday he must fairly
well compass the contents of his mammoth news-
paper, which weighs over two and a quarter

44 First Impressions of America

pounds. You see everyone reading it — as he goes
along the street, as he rides on the tram, as he sits
on his doorstep — the white man, the black man, the
yellow man, the Pole, and the Jew. You can see
people devouring its contents as they sit in the open
cafes or lounge in the luxurious divans of the hotels.
They all live on their newspapers, especially the
Sunday edition.

CHAPTER III
AMERICAN AESTHETIC TASTE.

THOUGHT, when I left England,
that New York was a cramped-
up city of ugly buildings,
crowded streets and stifling
courts, where everything that
was aesthetic, tasteful and
refined was sacrificed to the
exigencies of the Almighty
Dollar.

I was disillusioned imme-
diately. A drive with a friend in her comfortable
automobile on the second day of my arrival dispelled
all such ideas. In cities and towns like those of the
Old Country, where houses have gradually grown
around some old monastic institution — an abbey, a
cathedral or a church — and have spread themselves
out as need arose into short streets and alleys with
curves and turnings of endless variety, with all their
interesting associations and historic reminiscences,
we get a result so homely and fascinating that we
fail to realise what a city would be like if we sat
down and planned it from the very commencement,
and sketched it upon paper ere we laid stone and
brick to our foundations.

45

46 First Impressions of America

New York — except in the older portion near the
harbour where the houses and streets are irregularly
built much like any English seaport town — was just
planned to order. It is a city of never-ending
straight lines ; streets and avenues cross one
another as symmetrically and as accurately as
the squares on a chess board. Skyscrapers have
solved the riddle of space ; they have allowed the
laying out of roadways and pavements of enormous
width, and have permitted the planning of immense
squares and parks and open spaces, with luxuriance
of foliage and horticultural beauty where least
expected. Uncle Sam has not forgotten the
aesthetic in the midst of his drive for wealth.

The immense population passing and re-passing
along the exceedingly wide pavements, and the
constant rush of vehicles of every description in
the roads, give an impression of space little more
than that of an English country town, and the
well-regulated traffic creates less difficulty in this
city of six millions than does that of London in
its congested areas.

The oldest park in the city is called Bowling
Green, which stands at the foot of Broadway. It
was a market-place in the old Dutch days, and the
English made a small park of it and put up a leaden
statue of George III. which, when the Revolution
came in 1776, the young Americans pulled to the

American ^Esthetic Taste 47

ground and turned into 42,000 bullets to fire at the
troops of the hated monarch. A statue of Abraham
de Peyster, an old Dutch merchant, now stands
there instead. Bowling Green is quite small, and
is hardly worth calling a park.

Similarly, there is Gramercy Park ; just a
private square which resembles one of our London
squares ; there is no other in New York to compare
with it. It is surrounded by houses in which live
descendants of the old aristocratic families of the
city. I addressed a large company in one of these
fine old mansions, where the great dividing doors
leading from one large, lofty room to the other
were all thrown open, making one handsome
reception room of surprising size.

There are also Union Square, Washington Square
(which occupies nine acres), and the celebrated
Madison Square, besides several extensive parks,
such as Morningside, Mount Morris, Bronx, etc.,
and the Botanical and Zoological Gardens, all
within the radius of the city. But the most interest-
ing of them all is Central Park, which leads on to
Riverside Park, on the banks of the Hudson River.
No one who has visited Central Park, with its
marvellous landscape gardening and beautiful lakes,
its lawns and meadows, could accuse New Yorkers
of sacrificing beauty to wealth. It consists of 879
acres of delightful scenery, with nine miles of roads

48 First Impressions of America

and 28 miles of walks, right in the heart of the great
city. An Egyptian obelisk (corresponding to that
on our Thames Embankment) brought from Helio-
polis by Vanderbilt at a cost of a quarter of a million
pounds sterling, is erected there. This park also
contains an interesting Museum and a Menagerie.

The Ramble, as a portion of this park is called,
takes you right outside all thought of city life and
roar ; you are transported at once to the very
midst of country scenes, where splashing waterfalls,
wooded thickets, gay flowers, singing birds, cave
and woodland beauties of every description greet
the senses. And in another part, every outdoor
game that can be thought of to interest children
has been provided by the wealthy utilitarian fathers
of the city.

I was driven on three occasions by kind friends
in different directions for 20 or 30 or more miles
on roads immediately surrounding New York.
The scenery was rapturous. Remarkable houses
built in woods abutting upon the road, and mile
upon mile of a great arched avenue of trees through
which one passed and which allowed glimpses
beyond of the mighty Hudson and its towering
cliffs, presented a scene more like a dream than a
reality.

There is, in my opinion, a peculiar charm about
the private houses in most American cities. They

American Esthetic Taste 49

have no railings, no walls, no gates. Beautifully
kept green lawns and beds of flowers slope right
down to the road or street. There is not even a
dividing rail between the gardens. You may find
the most luxurious flowers growing right at the
edge of the pavement or side walk, which is usually
set in concrete between beds of grass and flowers,
and everything is open right up to the house, which
is a picture of quaint architectural beauty, always
with a verandah running its length. I have passed
thousands of these houses and gardens, and there
is the same delightful openness everywhere, pre-
senting the picture of a vast garden, and a garden,
too, of ever changing charm. It is the rarest thing
possible to see a wall anywhere. In England
flowers are stolen and beds trampled on, but nobody
thinks of doing it here, I suppose because they can
do it if they like ! Such is the strange contradiction
of human nature — lock your door and cupboard,
and the thief and inqusitive intruder are anxious to
break through or to look inside ; keep the door
and the cupboard open, and the same individuals
are robbed of their inquisitiveness and cupidity.
Conservative human nature in England would take
a long time to accustom itself to this sort of thing,
and I could not have supposed it possible of attain-
ment in any part of the world, least of all in the
land of the Almighty Dollar. But there it is, and

D

5o First Impressions of America

the sight of it filled me with surprise and delight.

At the moment of writing I am sitting at an open
window in one of the large towns of California,
3,000 miles from New York. In front of me is the
open road — a wide road, for half a dozen motor cars
at least could travel abreast — and yet I can scarcely

believe it is a road at all ! It stretches for several
miles in a straight line, but palm trees edge the
pavement and between them are strips of green ;
on this side of the pavement is a beautiful green-
sward leading up to the delightfully old-fashioned
house at which I am staying ; on the lawn are
giant palms, on the house festoons of roses ; tropical
trees and shrubs are studded here and there ; and
across the road it is the same, your eye never tires,
and as far as you can see, this captivating

American ^Esthetic Taste 51

arrangement is everywhere in evidence. Everything
is open ; not a gate, or a rail, or a wall, or a hedge
is visible, and you feel free as the air you breathe.

Turn round the corner and you find an orange
grove ; the rows of orange trees laden with their
golden fruit stretch away as far as the eye can see ;
you walk beside them ; thousands of people in the
course of the day pass by ; there are oranges
which have fallen from the boughs lying around
the stems of the beautiful trees ; you may put out
your hand and take them as you pass ; but no,
the tempting fruit is left for its owner to gather up.

This morning the newspaper man went by in his
automobile. The free and easy youngster charged
with the delivery of the papers just flung them out
on to the pavement as he passed by and left them
for the householder to come right down the long
stretch of his lawn and fetch when so disposed.
Pedestrians pass to and fro along the pavement
flanked with flower beds, step over the newspapers,
and walk on. Nobody touches them. They are
too free to offer any temptation to theft. There
they lie all the way up the road ; only when it is
wet does the newspaper boy condescend to get out
of his automobile and fling the paper on to the
verandah that prettily sweeps the front of the house.
The openness of everything is the same all over the
States— North, South, East, and West.

52 First Impressions of America

New York is no less artistic in its monuments
than in its parks. Every prominent place has its
statue. The only complaint one can make is that
there are so many with frock coats and stove-pipe
trousers, and all the artistic skill in the world will
never create a thrilling sculpture from such a
model. English sculptors can generally turn out
their models in court dress at least, and with a loose

cloak and knee breeches you can make even Crom-
well look aesthetic. But America does not admit
of that sort of thing, and pray, what can be done
with a plain coat and waistcoat and a pair of
trousers ?

Some monuments, however, are magnificent, such
as that to General Grant. It is most impressive.
Externally, 7o-feet-wide granite steps lead up to
the base, which is built like a Doric temple with

American Esthetic Taste 53

double lines of columns, surmounted by the en-
tablature, and above this is a Cupola with Ionic
ornamentation finished off with a pyramidal roof.
Majestically it stands on a mound overlooking the
Hudson River, visible from many points of the city.
You enter it and look down, as you do upon
Napoleon's tomb in Paris, into a crypt, where stands
a great granite sarcophagus hewn from a single
block of old porphyry and closed by a massive lid
of the same material which contains the body of
the national hero ; and you ponder over the simple
inscription, " He stood four-square to all the winds
that blow." In a similar coffin by his side rests
the body of his wife.

I need not refer to the Art Galleries and Museum
of Art, or the Museum of Natural History, or the
great Educational Establishments or the magnifi-
cent marble pile known as the City Hall, or the giant
Municipal building of the skyscraper type, which,
in my opinion, is a thing of ethereal beauty, and
cost, in our money value, about three millions
sterling. In architectural magnificence all these
great edifices leave our own corresponding institu-
tions some distance behind.

As to the railway stations, there are certainly
none in the world to compare with them. The
Grand Central Terminal in Park Avenue is, for
magnitude and beauty, a marvel ; built of granite

54 First Impressions of America

and Indiana limestone, the entrances to it are by
three great openings in form of triumphal arches,
raised upon an immense platform above the street
and entered by a wide bridge leacjing to the central
arch. It opens upon a magnificent waiting-room,
275 feet long, 120 feet wide, and 125 feet high,
where there is every convenience for rest, and
around which are all the necessary offices. The
total area of this station occupies 79 acres.

The Pennsylvania Station is another remarkable
feature ; it has a frontage of 430 feet, composed of

great colonnaded fagades which remind one of
ancient Rome ; and the immense general waiting-
room is built on a model of the famous Roman
baths of Caracalla. The Americans can certainly
give the Old Country points on railway stations.

As to the houses in New York, it must not be
supposed they are all skyscrapers. Nothing is
more interesting than to go down Fifth Avenue and
pass along what is called Millionaires' Row, and
look at their individual houses. Here and in

American Esthetic Taste 55

adjoining streets one sees the architectural wonder-
land where live William Rockefeller, Cornelius
Vanderbilt, Mrs. Goelet, Hamilton Fish, Jay Gould,
Vincent Astor, and a host of others, who together
could possibly buy up all of New York that does
not belong to them already. And scattered about
here and there away from the commercial life of
the City are thousands of exquisite private houses,
all built with an eye to spectacular effect. And the
prominent men and women who live in them and
hold the finances of the world very largely in the
hollow of their hands — from where do they spring ?
A little more than a century ago this mighty
New York was a small town of some sixty thousand
inhabitants, standing at the mouth of the Hudson
River ; there were no paved streets and few street
lights ; it did its business with foreign coins, and
possessed neither a reading-room nor a library.
John Jacob Astor, whose descendant holds high
place in our House of Lords while his wife sits
in the British House of Commons, landed at that
little town as a poor boy with a slender stock of
violins for sale. Roosevelt's forefathers had a small
tannery in this same primitive spot. The original
Vanderbilt was a poor man who squatted on the
land now controlled by the great Central Railway
I have mentioned above. Seventy years ago the
founder of the Gould fortune was a surveyor,

56 First Impressions of America

poor and unknown. It is said he began life by
selling mousetraps. Rockefeller was unknown in
financial circles fifty years ago, but he tapped oil
one day on a bit of waste land, and his wealth has
long since reached a fabulous sum. His special
hobby for the disbursement of his millions appears
to be the upkeep and endowment of the Rockefeller
Foundation, which concerns itself with medical
education, not only in the United States, but in
many other parts of the world. To this no objection
could be raised, were it not that the great Institute
associated with his name has become a centre for
widespread advocacy and practice of experimenta-
tion on living animals, with all its pain and suffering.
The published official records of these experiments
issued by the medical authorities of this Institute
leave no room for doubt as to the cruelties which
have been and are being perpetrated there to no
useful purpose ; and it is remarkable that Mr.
Rockefeller, who holds a prominent position in a
Christian Church, should permit these atrocities to
continue. Let us have scientific and medical
research by all means ; but the exploitation of
sentient and sensitive creatures, which have their
own rights equally with their torturers, should be
altogether eliminated. Nothing has yet been
gained by these revolting and unscientific practices,
and nothing will nor can be gained by them while

American ^Esthetic Taste 57

the world lasts. If the voice of Mr. Rockefeller
and his son were but raised in denunciation of these
crimes against civilization and righteousness, their
name would be handed down to posterity as that
of some of the greatest of the world's humanitarians.

Of such are the families that rule New York
society to-day. It must not be supposed that
New York, with all its talk of " equality," knows
nothing of class distinctions. There is, in my
humble opinion, greater distinction between class
and class in New York than there is in the Home-
land. There is much more freedom and sense of
bonhomie between classes in the Western States
than in the great commercial capital of the East.

In England it is birth, breeding, and education,
which largely make the difference between classes.
In New York it is more generally the dollar. In
England your servants become your friends ; you
become attached to them, and they become
attached to you ; and there are mutual confidences
and trustful reciprocations which frequently bring
different classes together on to a platform of sym-
pathetic equality with a generous recognition of
respective positions which is rarely abused. But
there is nothing of that sort in New York as far as
I could see. Class distinction appeared to me to
be supreme, and more marked than anywhere in
Europe, except perhaps in Germany, where I doubt

58 First Impressions of America

if even the war has made any difference to the
unalterable boorishness and conceit of its " superior
people " and the obsequiousness to them of their
" dependents."

But the obsequiousness of the German " depen-
dent " has no parallel in America. If the educated
Englishman who knows how to conduct himself
receives the respectful title of " Sir " when addressed
in his own country, he must not expect any such
recognition of " class " in New York, unless from
a poor recently imported Pole or Hungarian, say,
who has not yet learned the independence of " the
Land of the Free."

If there is difference of class between the " upper "
and " lower " strata of American " society/' as
soon as the latter begin to make dollars (as they
very rapidly do) they draw no such distinction ;
and as a result courtesy, as understood in England,
is a quality practically unknown in the great com-
mercial hub of the United States.

CHAPTER IV
RELIGIOUS LIFE IN AMERICA.

O walk up Broadway or along
Fifth Avenue or among the
City purlieus on a Sunday afternoon,
or at night, would give one the
rf>~* impression that the religious life
of New York is as dead as Queen
,J Anne. But the streets are almost
equally thronged in the morning, and
chiefly with those who are going to
some " place of worship." When the
] morning is over the great bulk of the
population appears to give itself up to
f, recreation and pleasure : the windows
of the drug and tobacco shops flare
with electric light when dusk comes, and
illuminated advertisements, flashing
from the base to the summit of the
skyscrapers, turn night into day. But even then
a large proportion of the population enter some
religious conventicle — for services do not begin
until 8 o'clock — and all of these, almost without
exception, appear to lay themselves out, by means
of attractive music and trained singers hired for
the purpose, to secure a share of public attention.

59

60 First Impressions of America

There are innumerable magnificent ecclesiastical
buildings, scattered all over New York City, which
point unmistakeably to the fact that it took money
to build them, and they require people to support
them. One of the most wonderful of these buildings
is a Jewish Synagogue — the Temple Emanu-El.
It is an exquisite structure of Moorish design, one
of the most beautiful erections I have seen, and
certainly much more remarkable and ornate than
any edifice I have met with in Morocco itself. It
would almost compete with the grand Alhambra in
Spain.

Perhaps the wealthiest church is Trinity, in
Broadway, facing Wall Street — the great financial
centre of New York. It is built upon land which,
when the English conquered Manhattan Island, was
occupied as a farm, and was handed over to the
clergy for the site of a Colonial Church. A great
deal of the land was subsequently given away for
various purposes, but enough is left to bring in
the comfortable income of £100,000 per annum !
The great bronze doors constitute a memorial to
John Jacob Astor, who attended there in the
romantic days of his early financial triumphs ; and
the altars and reredos were erected to the memory
of W. B. Astor at a cost of some £25,000.

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine will
ultimately be the strangest-looking if not the most

Religious Life in America

61

magnificent in New York. I could not make out
exactly what its object is. Apparently it is to be
an asylum for almost every creed, like the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The only thing I
could discover with certainty was that it is expected
to cost £3,000,000 sterling before it is finished. By

"THE LITTLE CHURCH AROUND THE CORNER"

that time it will be the fourth largest cathedral in
existence, reckoning from St. Peter's at Rome, Seville
and Milan, but I shall not be at all surprised if, before
it is completed, Uncle Sam will make up his mind
that it shall be " the biggest in the world " !

One of the prettiest little churches stowed away
in the heart of the City, and lying in the sweetest
of settings, is " the little Church around the Corner,"
as it is called, in 2Qth Street near Fifth Avenue, a
Protestant Episcopal, known ecclesiastically as The
Church of the Transfiguration. It appears that
some years ago a pastor in Madison Avenue refused

62 First Impressions of America

to perform the burial service over the body of an
aged actor, named George Holland, and told the
messenger he might go to a " little Church around
the corner," where he would probably be accommo-
dated. In the memorial window to the actor who
had been refused burial are inscribed the lines : —

If I ask Him to receive me,
Will He say me " Nay " ?
Not till earth, and not till heaven,
Pass away.

Nearly all the actors and actresses who die in New
York are now buried therefrom.

St. Patrick's Cathedral is a masterpiece of the
Gothic style of architecture, of which Cologne
Cathedral is an outstanding example. It is of
enormous size — 332 feet long and 174 feet wide ;
the spires rise 330 feet. It cost about a quarter of
a million sterling, exclusive of the land.

Needless to say, every kind of religious creed has
its followers in America, and churches of every
description and of every line of thought, orthodox
and unorthodox, are scattered over the city. All
the hotels display in their great central waiting
rooms long lists of Sunday services, with the hours
at which they are to be held, the names of preachers,
and frequently the subjects they propose to take up.

In spite of appearances, America — New York
included — is essentially religious ; of open infidelity

Religious Life in America 63

there is very little ; of claim to morality there is
a good deal. I was very much amused at a con-
versation I had with an American travelling com-
panion on the way out. I asked him some questions
about the American Civil War. He said with a
strong nasal intonation : — " W-a-a-1, you see, it was
this way : When you go to war, you're obliged to
fight about something and it won't do to fight about
nothing, or else you won't get the chaps to fight at
all. The niggers were as good as anything to fight
about, for the South had 'em in grips right enough.
Not that we troubled very much about them, for a
nigger's a nigger wherever he is, and he's got to be
kept in his place or else you'll be knocked out of
yours, and we are finding that out up North pretty
fast. But still, the South had the niggers in grips,
and so we went to war over slavery ; but the rale
purnciple of the thing was that the South wanted
to git right away from the North and we didn't
want 'em to. We wanted to hold the Southern
States and keep up the Union. So we went to war
over slavery and kept the Sta-a-tes. That's just
the facts of the Civil War."

I repeated this conversation to an intellectual
New York lady one day and she was highly amused,
but remarked : " There is after all a good deal of
truth in it. You could never stir the American
people unless you had a great moral question

64 First Impressions of America

behind you ; every political question is bound to
have a moral issue, or it won't succeed/' And she
added laughingly : " There may be as much political
jobbery and corruption and scheming as you please,
but it must have a moral basis ! " So New York is
religious !

On my first Sunday morning I turned into a
dignified-looking ecclesiastical building, and inquired
of a sidesman, who was showing the people into their
seats, of what community was it ? He said it was
the oldest in New York, it dated right back to the
early Dutch settlers and had a continuance of
pastorship from that time onward till the present,
but the form of worship was Presbyterian. The
body of the building, which was very large, led
up to a raised dais terminating in a dome-like
structure of considerable size and of most elaborate
design and workmanship. Two ministers sat on a
lower platform, and two men and two women took
their places on a higher platform. These were
highly-trained singers with absolutely marvellous
voices who, in the course of the service, contributed
solos, duets, and quartettes. There was not much
congregational singing, and what there was was
nearly drowned by the organ. The congregation
was very large, and unquestionably wealthy, in
short, a very fashionably dressed and intelligent
looking company. There was an entire absence of
the working class.

Religious Life in America 65

One of the pastors took as a text for his sermon
the story of the Centurion who petitioned Jesus
for the healing of his servant (Luke vii. 9), " When
Jesus heard these things he marvelled and said :
' I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel/ '

The preacher began by saying that Christ was
only said to marvel on two occasions, and to marvel
or to wonder was an important faculty ; the world
was full of wonders, we lived in a wonderful age,
and a great many wonderful things were being
accomplished. The capacity for wonder was a
very important factor in life. He proceeded to
enumerate some of the wonders of the universe,
such as the number of miles to the nearest star ;
and he waxed very warm and raised his voice to a
pitch that destroyed clear enunciation as he de-
veloped his idea of " wonder," until I began to
" wonder " what his object was and when he was
coming to close quarters with his text. I suppose
his congregation did not need the latter, but pre-
ferred a dissertation upon wonderful natural
phenomena ; and whether he forgot his text or only
wished to use it as a peg on which to hang a sermon
consisting largely of extracts, it subsequently
appeared, from some recently published book on
" wonder," I cannot say. Anyhow, if the congre-
gation received spiritual stimulation from the
discourse, it was more than I did.

E

66

First Impressions of America

On another occasion I attended a Christian
Science Church, or as was written in great letters
over the commanding portico : — " The Church of
Christ Scientist." It was a truly magnificent
erection, simple in design, of solid stonework and
most imposing. It was reached by many steps that

led up from the roadway into a spacious vestibule,
and doors beyond opened into a vast hall arranged
in tiers, theatre fashion, surmounted by an immense
domed roof, and at one end, from which all the
seats radiated, was a long straight platform with
two white marble reading desks. Behind these was
a long velvet-covered couch in which the two
" readers " — a lady and gentleman — sank visibly.
The seats in the immense church were all equally
comfortable, and every inch of floor space was
covered with a soft green carpet. The congregation

Religious Life in America 67

was, as far as one could judge from outward appear-
ance, wealthy, aristocratic, and intellectual ; the
number present was, from a rough calculation I
made, about 2,000, and there was not, I should
think, a single poor person amongst them.

There was no sermon ; I understand this is the
invariable rule. There was no audible prayer, but
once in the course of the service a few moments
were allotted for the congregation to pray in silence.
The service consisted mainly of alternate readings
from the Old and New Testaments, with com-
mentaries thereon from the writings of Mrs. Eddy,
the founder of the sect. The lady reader read
the Scriptures and the male reader read the
Comments. Interspersed there was congregational
singing which was very hearty, and set to very
beautiful tunes, led by a special lady singer, accom-
panied by a small but exquisite organ, most beauti-
fully played. It was real congregational singing.
Passages from a psalm were alternately read aloud
by the lady reader and the congregation, and two
solos were sung in a powerful but most mellifluous
voice by the above-mentioned singer, who came on
to the platform specially on each occasion and stood
by the side of one of the reading desks, and
disappeared when her solo was concluded.

The whole service occupied an hour. Both
readers performed their parts with clearness of

68 First Impressions of America

diction and correct emphasis, and their voices
could be heard throughout the entire building.
The dominant idea in the teaching which forms the
basis of their cult may be gathered from one example
to which I listened attentively.

The lady reader took the nth chapter of St.
John, and recounted the history of the Raising of
Lazarus from the dead. Then the gentleman
reader took up the running and gave Mrs. Eddy's
commentary thereon as follows : —

" Jesus said of Lazarus : ' Our friend Lazarus
sleepeth, but I go, that I may awake him out of
sleep/ Jesus restored Lazarus by the under-
standing that Lazarus had never died, not by an
admission that his body had died and then lived
again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived
or died in his body, the Master would have stood
on the same plane of belief as those who buried
the body, and He could not have resuscitated it.
When you can awaken yourself or others out of the
belief that all must die, you can then exercise
Jesus' spiritual power to reproduce the presence of
those who thought they had died — but not other-
wise/'

I felt that that was a bit beyond me, and I should
think no Christian Scientist has, as yet, reached
the level of " Jesus' spiritual power " enabling
him to resurrect those who " thought they died."

Religious Life in America 69

I have never yet seen a corpse, especially one of
whom it could be said, " He hath been dead four
days and by this time he stinketh," that could be
restored to life ! I don't think there is any history
of Mrs. Eddy's success in the direction of " repro-
ducing the presence of those who thought they died."
It would perhaps be urged that no one has yet
reached the right " plane of belief " to accomplish
this result.

By way of contrast to these orthodox and un-
orthodox gatherings, I next time wended my way
to a Negro Worship Meeting. I was the only white
man among a great crowd of negroes and negresses,
most of whom were black as coal.

There was no green pile carpet here ; no ornate
building, no comfortable cushioned seats. They
were bare benches fixed in a plain hall, but theatre
fashion, starting from a height and sloping down-
wards to the far end where was a rostrum. A wide
platform was divided in two. The right-hand
half formed a small hall partly hidden by a curtain.
The left-hand half rose by stages from the floor until
flanked right at the back by an organ.

Not knowing the hour the service commenced, I
arrived half an hour too soon. Only two ancient
negresses were there before me, one of whom told
me on inquiry that the service began at 8 o'clock.
But a meeting of young folk was being held on the

70 First Impressions of America

right-hand half of the platform, part of which was
hidden from my view by the curtain, although a
considerable portion was visible ; so I sat still and
listened. A negro lad prayed earnestly ; the
company then sang a hymn together very sweetly
to a most bewitching tune which made me quite

long to be amongst them, and when it was finished
a little negro girl with very big eyes and enormously
thick lips and coal black skin stood up and read a
paper. I could not gather what it was about, as
I was too far off, but there was a good deal in
it about " the Kingdom of Heaven." Then a
quaint-looking little negress in a big beflowered
hat came down to the floor of the hall and sat at a

Religious Life in America 71

piano and played and sang a solo, which, for touching
pathos and plain tiveness, outshone all I had heard
from the skilled songstresses either at the old Dutch
orthodox or the Christian Science church, and all
the young negroes and negresses came from behind
the curtain on the platform and joined in the
chorus. The part-singing, as the harmonious voices
rose and fell, was haunting ; I bent forward in my
seat spellbound. Then the little negress got up
from her seat at the piano, they all retired behind
the curtain, another young negro prayed, and all
was over.

A negro boy looked furtively from behind the
curtain away up at me. There were half a dozen
others in the hall by that time, and he bashfully
approached me ; on his black face was a broad
grin, which played around a set of shining white
ivories, and hesitatingly he held out a plate. " What
is this for, my lad ? " I asked. " Christian Endeb-
bar, Saar," said he. So I dropped into his plate
a dollar note, and he literally ran back to the stage,
and two or three of the black kiddies peeped from
behind the curtain at the white stranger, who had
given them, apparently, an unaccustomed donation.

The black men and women began rapidly to come
in. By 8 o'clock the hall was practically full, and
I found myself surrounded by a strange company.
I was struck by the fact that, almost without

72 First Impressions of America

exception, negroes and negresses alike were built
in splendid muscular proportions. Scores of the
negresses were five feet and eight or ten inches or
more in height. It was a strange sight — that mass
of black faces with the kinkley-woolley heads of
the men and the showy hats of the women. The
majority were well dressed, the negroes being
particularly smart and well groomed. Some were
evidently very poor.

I was told by a negro beside me that it was a
Methodist Community.

Punctually at 8 o'clock I heard some subdued
singing in the distance. A door opened which led
on to a lower front stage of the platform, and the
negro pastor, a man of about fifty, who, although
very dark, evidently had a dash of " white blood "
in him, entered, followed by an old, very black,
white-headed negro. The pastor sat at a reading
desk, and the old negro sat on a stool against the
wall to his right. The singing grew louder, when
through a door on the right came five negresses in
white surplices, walking very, very slowly, and
through the door on the left four negroes similarly
dressed, singing softly and sweetly. They filed
past one another, and took their seats.

The service began with a hymn from " Songs of
Awakening." A negro sat at the organ and we all
sang. It was a hymn with a charming tune, and

Religious Life in America 73

composed of good, sound words. Then the pastor
called upon the old negro on his right to pray. The
old chap was very much in earnest. He got a bit
mixed sometimes, repeated himself fairly often, gave
God an " uncommon " lot of unnecessary informa-
tion, and, being rather fat, he perspired a good deal
over it, but I enjoyed his prayer for all that. The
pastor read a Scripture and prayed. We had more
of the delightful singing — aye, these black folk can
sing, and always in harmony — and then came the
sermon : " God is our refuge and strength, and an
ever-present help in the time of trouble." The
preacher began by saying : " Friends are very
good as long as you hab plenty of money in your
pocket and you don't need 'em, but dey ain't much
good when you habn't got nothing. Brudders are
all very well when tings go slick, but you want
somebody who'll stick closer dan a brudder when
tings don't go slick." He traced out quite elo-
quently and very fluently without a single note a
number of scenes in life where every hope was lost
and every resource gone — " Den we turn to God,
and in our extremity we find a refuge and a strength
which nebber fails."

At times he got very excited, but never lost
control of himself ; he waved his arms and stamped
the floor, and raised his voice, but his diction was
always clear and his sentences modulated with

74 First Impressions of America

ease, and no matter how rapidly at times he flung
out his quaint aphorisms, distinctness never failed
him. At last it came to the peroration ; he had
worked up his subject in masterly style from point
to point : God as a refuge to the sinner, a refuge
to the saint, a strength to the weary, to the troubled,
to the tried ; a hope to the hopeless, sunshine in
the darkness, a resource in everything. And then
he concluded : " People say Christianity hab
failed. No, my friends, Christianity habn't failed.
If dey tell me civilisation hab failed I'll believe
'em, for civilisation hab failed, and science hab
failed, and philosophy hab failed, but dose who
says Christianity hab failed is dose who hab never
tried it."

The choir immediately sang some plaintive
appropriate air about " God alone can help you,
won't you come to Him ? " They sang sitting,
with bowed heads, and all the congregation bowed
their black curly heads too, and when it came to the
refrain at the last everybody rose — it seemed
spontaneously — and literally swung every passion
into harmony, with the organ chiming in, until a
sense of uncanny weirdness pervaded the very
atmosphere.

Then the pastor descended from his stage, amid
breathless silence, and two old negresses, dressed in
white, stood one on either side of him, and he said :

Religious Life in America

75

" Now, would any inquirer like to come along ? " —
a pause — " Would anyone like to come and be a
probationer and work his way gradually up into de
Church ? " No response ; so the pastor and the
two elderly dames sang a trio, the pastor marking
time with his arms and hands. I was watching the

women — their great mouths and tremendously thick
lips and white teeth, which seemed literally to
play music as they sang. They swayed their
bodies backwards and forwards, and threw their
whole souls into the weird, ringing, compelling
tune, but nobody came forward.

So the pastor said " Now we will take de collec-
tion, and if any ob you have any o' that thaar
dollar money 'bout you, just put 'em in de plate ;
it will do yaar good to get rid ob 'em."

76 First Impressions of America

The plate came round, and sure enough there
was some " o' that thaar dollar money " in the plate,
and although I had my fingers on a 25 cent, piece
I listened to an inner voice that pleaded for a dollar
note, obediently searched for a " green back " and
" got rid ob it."

CHAPTER V

SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS.

F ever there was a Cosmo-
politan City in the world,
it is New York. It may be
said : " Surely it cannot be
more cosmopolitan than Lon-
don." Of course, if you go
to certain parts of London you
may find representatives of
every nation under the sun, but in the main streets
of the West End, or of the City itself, you will not
meet many foreigners. But wherever you turn in
New York you are face to face with foreigners, or
persons of foreign extraction.

To commence with, Hebrews are everywhere.
Twenty-five to thirty per cent, of the whole popu-
lation of New York City is composed of them.
Practically all the Jews of America concentrate
in New York, and some of the trades, such as those
of tailors and jewellers, are almost entirely in their
hands. They own most of the cinemas and
theatres, and that they have much to do with
finance goes without saying. The poorer Jews
have their own special quarter in New York, where
the bulk of them live, and it is the most crowded

77

78 First Impressions of America

spot in the whole city. There are six and seven-
storied buildings packed to the roof with humanity.
One square mile in this part is said to contain a
quarter of a million inhabitants, and a gentleman
told me jokingly that they all have to take it in
turns to go to bed in shifts of eight hours each,
as it is impossible for them all to sleep at the same
time. A stroll in this part of the city is very
fascinating ; you meet Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
Ruth and Rebecca, Martha, Mary and Lazarus, at
every street corner and on every doorstep.

Then there are the negroes. They are there in
hundreds of thousands, and their numerical advance,
combined with their liberty of franchise and in-
creasing power, is becoming a very serious problem
which the United States will yet have to face.
The negroes are being educated, and though,
generally speaking, the black man is inferior in-
tellectually to the white man, there are, neverthe-
less, many exceptions in which individual members
of the negro race show a marked intellectual
superiority over the average white. They are
beginning to know and to appreciate their power.
They conduct numerous business houses. A million
farms in the States are owned by them, and this
number is increasing. They control banks, and
expend millions of dollars in education. They
possess eighty-six million dollars' worth of church

Some American Problems 79

property alone, and eleven hundred millions' worth
of private property. Immense sections in the
South belong to them, and some of the wealthy
negroes are among the largest taxpayers. Their
aggregate wealth is enormous. They have their
own social distinctions among themselves ; they
even have their clubs suited to these differing social
conditions ; they have their Societies formed for
intellectual advancement, with black presidents,
black committees, black secretaries and black
lecturers, and there is no subject of learning left
out of their curriculum.

In several of the houses of friends with whom I
stayed, negro servants waited at table, but one lady
told me that unless kept in their place they soon
take advantage. She related of a negro servant
whom she had recently employed, that her brother
made great friends with him and joked and laughed
with him, so the negro promptly took to calling
him "Charlie" and behaving on terms of equality.
I call to mind an incident in my own experience :
after travelling three or four days on a train I
went off one day for some sight-seeing. When I
again boarded the train I found my negro porter
dressed up and also just returned from a day's
outing. As the result, I suppose, of long con-
versations I had had with him, he clapped me
familiarly on the back as we met, and said : " Waal,
and 'ow did yah enj'y yerself ? "

80 First Impressions of America

" Oh," I said, " very well indeed, thank yoi
how have you got on ? "

" Jolly foine ; sorry I didn't meet yah ! "
In^Chicago, they tell me, the blacks are dominatii
the elections, and politicia:
are pandering to them f
their votes. They, too, ha^
a quarter of their own
New York City. There yc
meet all the different class
//of negroes and negresse
from the heavy swell wii
his eye-glass, white Trill:
hat, button-hole, and late
cut in clothes, to the humb
woolly-headed negro or the old scantily-dress*
negress in big spectacles. I liked nothing bett
than a slow drive through this district ; and
found the negroes very interesting.

Then there are the Irish ; there are very larj
numbers of them in New York. Practically all tl
police are Irish. Politics are run largely by the Iris!
In Boston two-thirds of the population are Iris
and they have an Irish Mayor, and the America]
themselves — the genuine Americans, I mean-
whilst they all deplored the reprisal policy of tl
British Government toward Ireland, admitted th«
but for American money the Irish rebellion wou]

Some American Problems 81

cease to exist. But there is growing up in America
a very strong party which appears to have its head-
quarters in Boston, and which is seeking to bring
about a vital rapprochement between England
and America in opposition to an attempt made in
other quarters to create dissension between the
two nations on the question of Ireland.

Then there are the Chinese and the Japanese.
Though the Japs are not loved in America, they
are very numerous, and you meet them everywhere.
In some hotels all the waiters are Japs. In others
they are all negroes. In others they are mixed
whites of all nations.

The Chinese do not seem to be numerous in New
York streets ; though they are frequently met
with, they confine themselves chiefly to their Own
quarter of the city.

I paid a visit to Chinatown with a guide late one
night. I left the city about 10 o'clock and half an
hour later found myself among the lodging houses
and restaurants, the joss houses and business
establishments, and Chinese men and women. I
was at once struck by the cleanliness of everything
both in the houses and persons of the natives.
They are a quiet, hard working, very intelligent
lot, and are said to be most dependable.

A visit to their Joss House was interesting. It
is not a large room ; it is reached by a flight of

F

82 First Impressions of America

rickety stairs. One side is filled with a great
shrine at which the natives worship ; its arrange-
ment presents the appearance of a tiny theatre.
Gwan Owing Te, the original God of the Chinese,
and Lee Poo, his secretary, and Ju Chong, the
ferocious-looking bodyguard, are each represented.
A row of candles illumines the altar, and on a
massive carved table in front are arranged the joss
sticks, sandalwood urns, brass jars and every
requisite for worship. Here the Chinaman lights
his incense sticks and sacred paper, pours out his
offering of rice wine, and repeats his prayers. I
was introduced to the High Priest, who wanted to
tell me my fortune, but as I probably knew more
about that than he did, I did not think it worth
while to pay him for his ignorance.

I saw very few Hindoos in New York, but a fair
number of Mexicans. Of course, it is on the South
and West Coasts that the Mexicans gather ; there
they are in vast numbers ; the citizens are very
thankful for them, for they work well and more
cheaply than other people, and they will do work
that a white man considers beneath him.

Besides those I have named, every other nation
will be represented, Germans especially, Hungarians,
Italians, Russians, Poles — that is as far as these
latter can be separated from the Hebrews. There
is a special Russian quarter, where many a refugee
is in hiding.

Some American Problems 83

It is becoming a serious question with the
American Government as to how far the interests
of these various foreign nationalities are likely to
swamp those of the old American element. It
does not follow that naturalisation is synonymous
with loyalty to the Constitution, especially at a
time when crucial questions of Administration or
political urgency may arise.

In my opinion, the calling out of the great army
of Americans in the late war was a wonderful feat
in a country whose population is composed of so
many races ; and we in England are accustomed
to suppose that ex-President Wilson, in view of
his success in that direction, is looked upon as
a hero in this mighty land. It has been one of the
great surprises of my visit to America to discover
that he is, perhaps, the most unpopular man in the
United States. I have discussed him with many
scores of people, and I have not yet heard one
solitary individual say a good word for him.

Three things seem to have militated against his
reputation : (i) That he dilly-dallied with Germany
when he ought to have struck the blow many
months before — immediately, in fact, on the viola-
tion of Belgium's neutrality, in the maintenance of
which America was as much interested, if not
pledged, as were England and France ; (2) that he
was obstinate and pigheaded and would not listen

84 First Impressions of America

to the advice of others, but acted autocratically
and independently ; (3) that he left his country in
face of strong protestations and in opposition to the
fundamental rules of the American Constitution,
and went over to France to join in the Peace Con-
ferences, when he should have stayed at home and
sent a representative — so his opponents declare —
better fitted for the job than he.

I did not catch sight of him when I was in
Washington, but I was told he drives out most
days, and that he looks a complete physical wreck,
crushed and broken, with never a smile upon his
pale face. But he receives no pity from anyone,
as far as I can gather. It seems a sad ending to
a great career pursued by an apparently high-
principled man. It is only in the records of future
history, when the prejudices of present-day party
politics and strife will have disappeared, and events
will be looked at in their true perspective, that the
facts will be rightly adjusted. But — the actors in
and the subjects of the tragedy will by that time
have passed from the stage for ever !

Now that the war is over, and the men have
returned, the same kind of thing is happening in
America as is happening in England — the soldiers
are complaining of neglect, and are looking for posts
which do not turn up, many of which have been
filled by others who were making their pile at home

Some American Problems 85

while their comrades were wearing their lives out
in the trenches on insignificant pay. Immigrants
still pour in to complicate matters, but in spite of
slackness of work, the demand for high wages
continues, and the conditions of unemployment and
its causes seem to be much the same the world
over. Wages, however, are fast coming down in
proportion as the cost of living lessens.

The servant difficulty, too, is the same as in
England, perhaps rather worse. According to
published official statistics, only six per cent, of
the population of the United States now keep
servants. The householders say they have come
to prefer doing without servants altogether and are
getting used to the new mode of life. Some employ
a man once a week : he drives up in his own auto-
mobile, brings his patent electric carpet sweeper
with him, goes through every room in the house,
cleans and dusts it thoroughly, and puts the whole
place tidy in a few hours.

The women, as in England, have been spoiled
for the old-fashioned domestic's life by the excessive
wages they earned and the free life they experienced
at the munition factories during the war, and they
decline to return to former conditions. So the lady
members of the household divide up the work
between them, or close their houses, and live in.
hotels, or in flats served by the landlady. Every

86 First Impressions of America

kind of labour-saving device is brought into play,
and it is amazing how well the American ladies
carry on.

I was told of one small residential place of 4,000
inhabitants in New York State, where in pre-war
days every household without exception kept one
or more servants ; there are now only three families
in the whole town who keep servants, and they are
very wealthy people.

At a large mansion standing in 35 acres of orna-
mental grounds at which I stayed, there was only
one male servant kept — a Dane — who cooked the
meals and did the odd jobs. To live in the house,
servants were asking my friend 130 dollars a month
— about £350 a year — and as a matter of principle
he simply would not give it, in spite of his being
well off ; so his wife turns to, and with the help of
married women from cottages on the estate, she
gets through the work, and things seem to jog on
very well. There are very few servants immigrat-
ing into America now, as compared with former
times.

The American woman is a very remarkable
piece of humanity. She is like no woman I have
met elsewhere. It may be that the climate has
an invigorating and stimulating effect upon her
mental and physical capacity, but, whatever it is,
she is a curious combination of all that is virile and

Some American Problems 87

entertaining. " Smart " is perhaps the best word
for her. There are English women, of course, as
smart as she is, but they are the exception, not the
rule. She seems to be ready for any emergency ;
can turn from the wash tub or the cooking stove to
the platform or a drawing-room reception at five
minutes' notice. She is well educated, her brain is
well stocked with general information ; she has
usually travelled, understands all the ins and outs
of social and political life, and if she does not
actually take the lead in all that is considered worth
doing, you may depend upon it she is behind the
scenes pulling the strings. She enjoys a freedom
in America that is denied to women elewhere, and
consequently she has confidence in herself.

The American woman was to me one of my
most interesting and diverting studies from the
first hour of my landing ; her resource and versatility
are incomparable. She has not found the servant
difficulty so great a problem as have her English
sisters. She just goes through with it with a
bright face and cheery smile, and keeps up all her
social duties as if no servant problem had ever
existed. Nothing seems to disconcert her. A
young American woman was standing on a public
platform some time ago giving a lecture on Woman's
Suffrage, when a man in the audience rudely re-
marked :

" Don't you wish you were a man ? "

88 First Impressions of America

Quick as a flash she answered : " Don't you ? "

That is the type of the American woman.

Of American welcome and unstinting hospitality

I can find no words to express my surprise and

appreciation. I travelled thousands of miles and

met and conversed with thousands of people, and

I found the same spirit everywhere. The Americans
of the old stock are all proud of their English lineage,
and they love to trace back their ancestry to the
Old Country ; and as a consequence wherever I went
I was met by friends, who took endless pains to
save me all inconvenience. Their motor cars were
placed freely at my disposal, and everything of
importance that was to be seen they spared no pains
in showing me. In every city or town, no matter
how short the notice, a public luncheon or dinner

Some American Problems 89

was prepared at some hotel to welcome me, and 50
or 100, in one case over 200 guests came together ;
and for all of the arrangements the smart and
energetic ladies would be responsible. When the
feeding and speechifying were over, it seemed to
be an American institution, to which I at last
became accustomed, for all the guests to file past
one, shake hands, and make pretty congratulatory
speeches of welcome and cheer.

There seems to be but little of the cautious,
reticent, retiring element of the English character
in the American. The American just bubbles over
with hospitality and kindness. I dare say there
are some very bad-tempered people in America, as
there are everywhere else, but all I can say is I
have not yet come across them — with one ex-
ception. This was a waitress who grumbled at
having to get me some special vegetarian food not
included in the table d'hote menu. Three or four
Americans at the table at once offered the most
ample apologies, saying : " Take no notice, she is
not an American, she is a Mexican ; you can see
that by the way the corners of her mouth drop.
Mexicans are a sour-tempered lot."

CHAPTER VI
BOSTON.

'HEN I reached Boston I felt I
had got to the heart of things.
A friend met me at the railway
station and drove me in his
automobile to his house seven miles
distant. The whole way there was a
succession of houses, shops, tramcars,
and automobiles galore — it was all
Boston, representing a population of
three-quarters of a million. Little more than
a century ago it had a population of
only 14,000. And two centuries before that — on
Sunday, November 22nd, 1620 — the little Mayflower,
with its precious burden of 102 souls (of whom 51
died by the end of the first year) sailed along that
coast and landed just below there to form the
nucleus of one of the greatest and most virile and
rapidly growing nations the world has ever seen.

Yes, it was just a few miles down the coast, at
New Plymouth, that the Pilgrim Fathers founded
their pioneer colony of New England ! If they
could see it to-day !

A century ago the population of the whole of the
United States was estimated at only 2j millions,
to-day it stands at over 106 millions. And here it

91

92 First Impressions of America

was, in the year 1630, on the banks of the Charles
and Mystic Rivers which empty their waters into
Massachusetts Bay, that a little group of English
Colonists entered " Shawmut " (" Living Waters "),
as it was then called by the Indians — ten years
after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers lower down
the coast — and re-christening the peninsula by the
name of Boston, squatted on 783 acres of virgin soil.

To-day, it embraces more than 30,000 acres
and stretches 13 miles in length and nine in breadth.
Like all American cities, Boston, when once you
are outside the business portion, is truly a " garden
city." My friend's house lay in a wood, and it
seemed so strange to drive up turning after turning
of wooded pathways, in a light subdued by over-
hanging trees, by the side of rocks and glens,
to catch glimpses of houses in all directions having
no pretence at party walls or railings, and to find
that all these woodland and secluded roadways,
bordered by stately trees and shrubs and ferns and
wild flowers, and looking down upon running
rivulets, were called " streets."

It is all typical of that air of freedom which the
Pilgrims longed to breathe when they left the land
of their fathers on that fateful August i5th, 1620,
asking only for " liberty to worship God as their
conscience dictated." They were a fine company
of men and women — those early English settlers.

Boston 93

I am not at all surprised at the anxiety of the New
Englanders to trace their ancestry back to that
little group which sailed in the Mayflower three
centuries ago ; and if, as one becomes acquainted
with the stupendous number of descendants who
claim lineage from the Pilgrim Fathers, one quietly
and discreetly wonders at the amazing procreative
powers of that tiny group — well, it matters little ;
everyone should be proud who by hook or by crook
can link on with the heroes and the heroines of the
Mayflower. But " The General Society of May-
flower Descendants " is taking care that everyone who
claims to be enrolled upon their scroll of honour shall
trace an unbroken line from the worthies of 1620.

We little realise to-day what things were like
in the Old Country in those days when judicial
sentences were of the most barbarous nature ;
when men and women were tortured in order to
extract evidence ; when heretics were burned ; when
men were hanged for advocating Congregationalism ;
and when kings and queens were steeped to the
neck in superstition and advertised special days
when they would "touch" for the "King's Evil."
An ancestress of my own, Alice Had wen, was com-
mitted to gaol for a month simply for having
attended a Congregational Conventicle ; and when
we remember what the gaols were like in those days
— more loathsome than can be described — we can

94 First Impressions of America

judge somewhat the condition of things that drove
out these men and women to seek for freedom else-
where. And think of the difficulties, too, that faced
them ! No steam power then, no electricity, no
photography, the sciences in their infancy, and the
laws of Nature practically unknown. But Con-
science was greater than Circumstance. Nothing
daunted, they took their lives in their hands and
sailed for the New World.

These people were not Puritans, as is frequently
supposed — a fact which Bostonians are anxious to
impress upon strangers. They were oppressed and
maligned by the Puritans. The latter clung to the
national church from first to last. The Pilgrim
Fathers were Separatists. And though in funda-
mental doctrines the Separatists and the Puritans
were agreed, they differed materially as to discipline.
It was the rarest thing in the world for a Puritan
to be sent to gaol for his non-conformity, but the
Separatists were swept into prison in batches and
numbers of them died of gaol fever.

The early struggles of the Pilgrims — a name
which they bestowed upon themselves — when they
landed at New Plymouth, their contests with the
natives, their search for food and water, and their
difficulties in finding shelter, constitute a romance
stranger than fiction, before which De Foe's
" Robinson Crusoe " pales. When I looked at the

Boston 95

miles of stately homesteads which I passed in this
year of 1921 and then remembered that in 1621
there existed only seven rough buildings with
thatched roofs a few miles round yonder coast, I
marvelled. The old street is still there — called
Leyden Street — where each family built its first
home with a plot of land attached, three rods long
and half a rod broad for each of its members, the
last solitary survivor of whom closed the sacred roll in
1699. That little street still runs up from the sea to
the hill, which is now studded with the graves of the
generations who once lived under the shadow of it.

The native owners of Plymouth were all dead
when the Pilgrim Fathers landed there, so they
had no price to pay for it ; all other land they
bought by fair contract from the native Indians,
and it became their private property. By a just
bargain they entered into treaty with the Indians
and recognised them as the proprietors by right of
the soil, as William Penn did later on.

I was told by a friend as I got into the train at
New York for Boston : " The central characteristic
of New York is the pride of the Dollar ; that of
Boston is the pride of Literary Genius ; that of
Philadelphia is the pride of Ancestry. Of Washing-
ton I don't know what to say, unless it is the
pride of Politics, and that is the last thing that
anyone need be proud of in the United States ! "

96 First Impressions of America

Well, I found those four characteristics fairly
equally distributed everywhere, but, certainly,
Boston can claim a place in literature of which few
modern cities can boast. Lowell, Emerson, Long-
fellow, Whittier, Hawthorne, Poe, Thoreau, Oliver
Wendell Holmes — are some of the names of the
famous New England men who brought American
literature into front rank.

And America will never forget the sturdy battle
that New England fought, too, both in the Revolu-
tion and the Rebellion ! Neither could have been
won but for New England, and New England is
proud of the part she played in the emancipation of
her land, and proud of the men who carried that
emancipation through. At the same time it should
be remembered that as far as Abolition of Slavery
was concerned it did not commence at Boston. At
the outset some of the most highly respected members
of her community dragged William Lloyd Garrison
(whose descendant I had the pleasure of meeting)
about the streets with a rope round his waist !

It is said that Boston lives upon her past reputa-
tion, and that literature now finds its home in New
York. I am not prepared to argue that point.
I can only say that I met many delightful people,
with unquestionable literary tastes, all proud of
their city and its history, proud of their ancestry,
and never forgetful of the handful of brave men

Boston

97

and women who laid the foundation of their wealth
and prosperity on the inhospitable shores of New
Plymouth some three centuries ago.

Boston itself has in some parts narrow and
crowded streets, but is surrounded by a splendid

system of parks. The most interesting points,
however, are the old monuments and buildings and
graveyards that speak of the days of yore.

Perhaps the most thrilling of all sights to an
Englishman is the Bunker Hill Monument in the
Charlestown district, one mile out of Boston. It is

98 First Impressions of America

an obelisk 221 feet high, and bears the name of
Prescott, the American Commander. It stands on
the spot where he stood at the opening of the battle
on June 17, 1775. Oliver Wendell Holmes in his
"Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle as
she saw it from the Belfry," tells the thrilling
narrative of which here are two or three stray
stanzas : —

" I had heard the muskets rattle of the April running battle.
Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see their red coats still ;
But a deadly chill comes o'er me, as the day looms up before

me
When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes of Bunker

Hill." ....

" At eleven the streets were swarming, for the redcoats' ranks

were forming ;

At noon in marching order they were moving to the piers ;
How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we looked far

down and listened
To the trampling and the drum-beat of the belted

grenadiers ! " . . . .

" So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backward to

the water,
The Pigots* running heroes and the frightened braves of

Howe ;
And we shout, * At last they're done for ; it's their barges

they have run for,

They are beaten, beaten, beaten ; and the battle's over
now ' ! "

Boston 99

But it was not over by a long way. The British
braves fought on, and the sturdy New Englanders
laid down life after life till the sun set on Bunker
Hill. The battle was a long and bloody fight for
American Independence against the soldiers of the
hated English King ; the English won at last, but
were beleaguered for 12 months until, worn out,
they had to surrender ; for what nation, however
powerful, can rule by tyranny ? Force can never
stifle the cry for liberty which comes from the heart
of a people who are longing to be free.

The city that produced Oliver Wendell Holmes
must always be interesting : that " plain little
dapper man," as David Macrae describes him, " his
short hair brushed down like a boy's, a trifle of
furzy hair under his ears ; a powerful jaw and a
thick, strong under-lip which gives decision to his
look," who used to say gaily to his friends, when he
commenced his medical career : " Fevers will be
thankfully received ! "

He describes his own house in Bosworth Street
in which he wrote his " Autocrat " papers, and
recounts as " the Professor " one of his walks with
the Schoolmistress : " We came opposite the head
of a place or court running eastward from the main
street. ' Look down there,' I said, ' my friend, the
Professor, lived in that house at the left hand next
the further corner for years and years. He died

ioo First Impressions of America

out of it the other day.' ' Died ? ' said the School-
mistress. ' Certainly/ said I. ' We die out of
houses just as we die out of our bodies. . . .
The Professor lived in that house a long time — not
twenty years, but pretty near it. When he entered
that door two shadows glided over the threshold ;
five lingered in the doorway when he passed through
it for the last time, and one of the shadows was
claimed by its owner to be larger than his own.
What changes he saw in that quiet place ! '

" The Last Leaf " was Oliver Wendell Holmes's
favourite poem. Abraham Lincoln used to repeat
it from memory, and the fastidious Edgar Allan
Poe made an autograph copy of it. When Holmes
died, our London " Punch " referred to it : —

" ' The Last Leaf ! ' Can it be true
We have turned it, and on you,

Friend of all ?

That the years at last have power ?
That life's foliage and flower
Fade and fall ? "

He died in his chair and was buried from Old King's
Chapel, on the northern wall of which hangs a tablet
to his memory.

Many interesting monuments are scattered over
the town. Not the least interesting is a sitting figure
in bronze of William Lloyd Garrison, which bears
an inscription copied from the salutatory of his

Boston 101

newspaper, " The Liberator." " I am in earnest ;
I will not equivocate ; I will not excuse ; I will not
retreat a single inch ; and I will be heard."

The site of the birthplace of Benjamin Franklin
is duly recorded, and that of the shop where he
worked for his father at candlemaking !

I opened a large and beautifully illustrated
Edition de luxe of Longfellow's poems which stood
on a shelf of my hostess's library, and found therein
a long and original manuscript letter of Longfellow's
dated April I7th, 1844, which he had written to her
grandfather. He was a neat and clear writer, and
the letter concerned the offer of the publisher to
bring out this very edition. My hostess (who had
no idea the letter was there) kindly allows me to
quote one or two interesting extracts from it. In
the course of it Longfellow says : —

" I should wish to have all the engravings original,
and designed expressly for the work, and would
suggest one or two which, I think, may strike you,
particularly of local scenes, as the Shop of the
Village Blacksmith, as it really stands here under the
chestnut tree, the Craigie House and Charles River,
etc., etc., which realities would, in my opinion,
give greater interest and value to the work, than any
of the fancy designs which might be introduced. "

I may say that the Blacksmith's shop was re-
moved and the chestnut tree cut down by the

IO2 First Impressions of America

unpoetic authorities long, long ago, in order to

widen the street !

The poet adds : " As to
remuneration, I suppose you
would be able to pay me 50
cents (2s.) a copy ; and give
me in addition ten or twelve
copies of the book to be dis-
tributed. This is less than
Owen pays me ; and would
not make the price too high/'

He concludes by a reference
to his Dante work. " With
the ' Book of Translations '
we are going on slowly, but
surely. The quantity of work
in it is quite appalling."

As a private, unpublished,
and very human document,
this letter struck me as most
interesting.

And oh ! how Longfellow
(who was born and bred, and
lived and died, on the out-
skirts of Boston) has made
the very stones of the old
houses of the city to speak.
The historic walls re-echo

Boston 103

with the songs of the Rebellion and the Revolution,
the hills and valleys reverberate with the legends of
the past, and the old streets clatter with the hoofs
of the horses and resound with the shouts of the
riders whose ghosts seem to haunt them still.

There is that fine old North Church tower, with
its belfry, just as it was on that famous night
which Longfellow has immortalised in the poem
known to every schoolboy the world over : —

" Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere."

Who conld regard unmoved the little house of
wood, marked as the home of Paul Revere in North
Street ? Or look up at that tall steeple which dis-
played Revere's lanterns on the night of April 18,
*775> without a thrill ?

" He said to his friend, ' If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night.
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light —
One, if by land, and two, if by sea ;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Read y to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and arm. . .
Then he said ' Good Night ! ' and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore."

104 First Impressions of America

The friend watches till he hears : —

" The sound of arms and the tramp of feet
And the measured tread of the grenadiers.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church
Up the wooden stairs with a stealthy tread.
To the belfry chamber overhead."

We are next taken to the silent, weird, watching
figure waiting on horseback across the river, and
are told how : —

" he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still."

The lamps in the old belfry shone out — one —
two, then : —

" A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet.
That was all ! And yet through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night."

And here are the very roads ! They literally
live as we drive over them !

" It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Melford town. . . ."

" It was one by the village clock
When he galloped into Lexington. . . ."

" It was two by the village clock
When he came to the bridge in Concord town."

Boston 105

On those roads to-day it is not the snug villages,
the trees, the verdure, the flitting warblers, the
browsing cattle, which claim attention. No, one
sees nothing but that solitary man riding for life
on that dark night a century and a-half ago, and : —

" borne on the night wind of the past
Through all our history to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere."

" Here's Longfellow's Bridge," said a lady who
was motoring me home one night after a prolonged
public meeting and subsequent supper which had
made us very late. " See," she continued, " there's
the old church tower and the identical moon behind
it, just as Longfellow saw it."

" Oh, stop," I cried, " wait, wait ! " I could
hardly believe that I was crossing the very spot
which inspired the poem that I had so often recited
as a boy. And to think that I should stand on
that bridge on another June night three score years
after it was penned ! Somehow I had never before
thought of the poem as a living picture. It was
all in front of me and beneath me now.

" I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour.
And the moon rose o'er the city
Behind the dark church tower.

106 First Impressions of America

" I saw her bright reflection
In the waters under me
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.

" And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the flaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.

" Among the long black rafters
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away.

" As sweeping and eddying through them,
Rose the belated tide.
And streaming into the moonlight,
The seaweed floated wide "

And when I got back that night I slipped off
quickly to bed, but not to sleep. I was haunted
with the thought that—

" I stood on the bridge at midnight
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city
Behind the dark church tower."

CHAPTER VII
PHILADELPHIA.

has been said : " When you have
seen one American city you have
seen them all." That is scarcely
correct, even if the question
of planning alone be taken into
consideration : Washington, for
instance, will not compare
with any other American city ;
and most other cities have
certain characteristics of
their own which distinguish
them the one from the
other. But there is one
quality which gives to every city its own distinctive
place, namely, its history and associations. It is
impossible to divest locality of the sentiment
attached to it.

Philadelphia will be known for all time as the
city of William Penn, and however much time may
make inroads upon its old institutions and its
ancient landmarks, it will ever be remembered as
the Quaker City, founded in 1682, in a Quaker
Colony, on land purchased by fair dealing from
the native Indians who owned it, and secured by
an agreement which rested solely upon the word of

I07

io8 First Impressions of America

mouth uttered by the two contracting parties.
When William Penn sketched the plan of that city
on the soil of Pennsylvania two hundred and forty
years ago, it was a fair name he gave to it — the
Land of " Brotherly Love."

I stayed in Philadelphia with Mr. Robert Logan,
descendant of William Penn's secretary, James
Logan, who was Deputy-Governor of the Colony
of those old days and Chief Justice of the Province
of Pennsylvania, and managed all William Penn's
affairs for him when the latter was in England ;
and he took me over the old home of his ancestors,
in which the furniture and family relics have been
carefully preserved — the books having been con-
signed to the Loganian Library. The houses both of
William Penn and of Mr. Logan have been purchased
by the State and are open to the public. They
serve not only as reminders of a romantic past,
but also as examples of the old colonial style of
architecture. William Penn's house was the first
brick structure erected in Philadelphia.

Mr. Logan also showed me the camping ground
on the estate of his forbears, where the Indians
used to stay in the early days when they passed to
and fro or paid visits to the neighbourhood. And
" over yonder stood the tree under which," said
Mr. Logan, " William Penn made the only treaty
with Indians that was ever made between savage

Philadelphia 109

and Christian not ratified by an oath or by a written
agreement, and the only one that was never broken."
Mr. Logan told me this on the morning of my
leaving Philadelphia, and it was not until I was in
the train speeding for Washington that it occurred
to me that Voltaire had immortalised that fact in
one of his writings.

Goodwin, the author of the " Pilgrim Republic,"
who, in his large work of over 600 pages, gives the
fascinating history of the Mayflower settlers, says
Voltaire was wrong in his statement, as the Pilgrims
made a treaty with native Indians which wras un-
broken in their life-time and was unconfirmed by
an oath, long before William Penn was born. But
both Voltaire and Goodwin apparently omit the
essential fact which Mr. Logan supplied and which
makes the Penn treaty the more remarkable,
namely, that the latter was made only by word of
mouth. It was a written agreement by which the
Pilgrim Fathers entered into treaty with the Indians
on the Plymouth coast ; it was a verbal agreement
with which Penn concluded his treaty in Phila-
delphia. The white man trusted the word of the
red man, and the red man trusted that of the white,
and honour found her votaries unrestricted either
by colour or by race.

I was struck, immediately I arrived in the city,
by its architectural beauty, its long and stately

no First Impressions of America

streets, and by the wealth of marble which entered
into the composition of its buildings, giving dignity
and simplicity to the whole.

As William Penn originally planned the city, the
main streets ran diagonally, and this plan has been
continued as far as those particular streets are
concerned ; but later, in the newer thoroughfares,
the American plan of rectangular streets was
followed. There is a peculiarity in the naming of
some of them after certain trees which grew on the
spot before the builder began to alter the face of the
countryside. Hence we have Chestnut Street,
Filbert, Cherry, Vine, Poplar, Laurel, Walnut, Pine,
Juniper, and so on.

One prominent feature of William Penn's planning
is the number of small parks and squares which
he provided all over the city. There are 56 of these
altogether, besides a large number of playgrounds
for children, equipped with every requisite for their
enjoyment.

It may be noted that there were Dutch and
Swedes in the vicinity before William Penn's
arrival. The Dutch settlers built their first village
in 1623, and the Swedes laid out some land in 1631,
and a few Quakers settled there in 1675, that is,
seven years before William Penn himself landed at
New Castle, which was on October 27th, 1682.

It is rather paradoxical that this Quaker City,

Philadelphia in

founded upon the principles of peace, should in less
than a century have been the storm-centre where
the chief official steps were taken in connection with
the great Revolution of Independence.

Mr. Logan told me a quaint story in connection
with William Penn and his Quaker views. On one
of his voyages to the New World on board a sailing
vessel they saw in the distance a ship bearing
down upon them. They believed it to be a Spanish
vessel which would shortly overtake them. James
Logan said " We must prepare to defend our-
selves," and shutting William Penn and other non-
combatants in the cabins below he mustered all
the firearms they possessed, closed down the
hatches, and remained on deck with the sailors to
await events. At last the supposed enemy vessel
altered its course and disappeared, to their great
relief. James Logan went down and reported the
news with much glee, when William Penn upbraided
him most severely for resorting to carnal weapons,
saying he should have left them alone and trusted
God. " But," said his trusty secretary, " thee
did'st say nought when thee did'st think danger
was nigh, and now that danger is past and the
enemy has vanished thee dost upbraid me for doing
what I could for thee in thy defence." How
William Penn took this rebuke my friend did not
know.

H2 First Impressions of America

An immense statue of William Penn surmounts
the City Hall. This magnificent building covers
4J acres of ground. Its tower was reputed to be the

INDEPENDENCE HALL.

highest building in the world until the Woolworth
and Singer skyscrapers of New York robbed it of
this glory. The height of the Penn statue is 37
feet, and the diameter of the Quaker hat 9 feet.
Every button on the coat is 6 inches wide, and the
circumference of the calf of the leg is over 8 feet.

Philadelphia 113

But whilst the man of peace majestically
dominates the situation, the Esplanade surrounding
the Hall is filled with statues of the heroes of war !
One of them, who possessed a fine collection of
Scriptural names — Major-General John Peter
Gabriel Muklenberg — was a Lutheran minister.
When the War began he said to his congregation :
" There is a time for all things, a time to preach and
a time to fight, and now is the time to fight "—and
when he had finished his sermon, he tore off his gown
and revealed himself in full uniform as a Colonel.
He straightway read out his commission, and sent
all the drummer boys of his regiment pleading for
volunteers. I wonder what William Penn would
have said to that !

The feature of which the Philadelphians appear
to be most proud is their Fairmount Park, said to
be " the largest city park in the world/' Every
city in the States has the " biggest " something or
other, and I have no reason to doubt the claim in
the majority of instances. This park occupies
3,000 acres, and extends for four miles along both
banks of the Schuylkill River. Mr. Logan motored
me as far as the automobile was allowed to go ;
there are some wonderful gorges of singular loveli-
ness scattered along the romantic valley, beyond
the limit of the motor track, which I had no time to
see, but what I did see was natural sylvan beauty
H

114 First Impressions of America

unspoiled by works of art. I described in a former
chapter the magnificent Central Park of New York,
with its miles upon miles of roads, and its exquisite
scenery and landscape gardening. Well, Phila-
delphia, in addition to all its small parks (designed
chiefly by William Penn), can boast of this immense
resort, which is three times the size of the New York
wonder.

The suburbs of Philadelphia are very beautiful.
We motored through Germantown, which contains
some of the most interesting old houses I have seen
in the States. In fact, I felt I was in an old-
fashioned English village, except that the absence
of railings and gates and walls threw trees and
gardens and swards into the roadways, and, as the
latter curved, and turned, and circuited in and out
among the houses, the whole suburb presented the
appearance of one great garden sprinkled with
ornamental outhouses. The effect was delightful.
I came to the conclusion that the designers of our
English garden-cities have an immense lot yet to
learn from our more daringly original Amercian
cousins.

Nothing could be prettier than the old Mermaid
Inn. The first Bible in the European tongue was
printed here in 1743. In one old house which is
pointed out, Peter Keyser, a Mennonite preacher,
once lived. He knew his Bible so well that he

Philadelphia 115

could repeat it, so the story goes, from the first
verse in Genesis to the last verse in Revelation with-
out making a single mistake.

Germantown has its historical interest, too, for
here it was that Washington was defeated by Lord
Howe in 1777, and on the walls of the quaint old
Chew House, marks of cannon balls still exist.

Of course, the elm tree under which Penn made
his treaty with the Red Indians in 1682 has long
disappeared. It was blown down in 1810 ; but in
its stead there is a small Penn Treaty monument in
Penn Treaty Park on the banks of the Delaware
River.

To me, the most interesting attraction in Phila-
delphia was Independence Hall, or the old State
House, although I must say I felt particularly
drawn to two other relics : one, a little shop in
Arch Street in which Betsy Ross made the first
American flag in 1777 (then 13 stars and 13 stripes) ;
the other, a little railed opening in a wall in the same
street which revealed the flat tombstones of
Benjamin Franklin and his wife.

The former is a little old-fashioned shop with one
small window of six panes of glass and a double
door opening at its side. On the fascia board
just below the shuttered first floor windows is
written : " Birthplace of Old Glory," and from
the dormer window above floats the Standard of
the American Republic.

n6 First Impressions of America

What a place the Flag holds in the life of a
nation ! How men have lived for it, fought for
it, died for it ! It expresses, perhaps, as a symbol

of national life and loyalty, of pride and self-
sacrifice, the strongest and best sentiments of a
people. In its very simplicity and silence lies its
power. No other national symbol can compare
with it in its mysterious influence over the passions

Philadelphia 117

of the populace unless it be — the Drum. No
music of brass or silver or of stringed instrument
can stir like the latter the martial spirit of a
nation. The sight of the national flag and the
sound of the military drum have together done
more through the centuries to stimulate to deeds
of heroism and to shape the destiny of a Common-
wealth, than the finest oratory that ever fell from
human lips, or the most herculean efforts of
patriotic zeal that ever characterized a leader.
They have made and marred civilization a thousand
times. They have a language all their own —
mysterious in its appeal, inarticulate in its ex-
pression, unfathomable in its meaning, and yet
possessing an influence that holds spell-bound
the noblest and basest of mankind.

It is only natural that when the population and
resources of a colony increase there should be a
desire for self-government. But the separation of
America from England was certainly not desired
by the former ; America was driven to take the
course she did by the foolish action of Britain in the
enforcement of obnoxious taxes. The American
Colony would not submit to the arbitrary exactions
of the British Government, and the war with
England was the result.

They were a fine set of men, those early leaders
of American Independence who met in Independence

Ii8 First Impressions of America

Hall in Philadelphia to discuss their position a
century and a half ago. William Pitt wrote of
them at the time :—

" I must declare that in all my reading and
observation, for solidity of reasoning, force of
sagacity and wisdom of conclusion, under such
a complication of difficult circumstances, no body
of men could stand before the National Congress
of Philadelphia."

As I went up the steps of the plain, unassuming,
but substantial building in Chestnut Street, and
turned into the large room on the left where the
Declaration of Independence was signed, I felt
almost on sacred ground. It has been left, except
for new flooring, just as it was on the memorable
day in 1773 when George Washington, Patrick
Henry, John Adams, and Jefferson, among 58
delegates from the North American Colonies, met
in their first Congress to consider their grievances.
Separation from England had not then been
thought of. They believed that if a proper repre-
sentation were made to the British Government,
fairness and justice would be the response ; and it
was when the report of that Congress, with its
closely-reasoned arguments, reached England, that
Lord Chatham declared : "All attempts to impose
servitude upon such men, to establish despotism
over such a mighty Continental nation, must be

Philadelphia 119

vain — must be fatal." Chatham's earnest words
were treated with contempt ; foolish King George
III. declared them to be "a tempest of sedition,"
and so forced his own autocratic will against that
of his advisers that when the second Congress met
in this same Independence Hall in Philadelphia on
May loth, 1775, it was to assume the functions of
sovereignty and to issue a decree for the raising of a
standing army, with Washington as Chief of
Command.

Even then, they did not think of separation.
They considered it an evil to be avoided rather than
a good to be attained. They stood only for the
defence of their liberties. Twelve months later
however, on the ever-memorable July 4th, 1776,
the American Declaration of Independence was
signed. On the wall behind the President's chair in
the historic hall, hangs a facsimile of that manifesto,
the original of which is preserved in the Depart-
ment of State at Washington. Around the walls
hang portraits of all but twelve of the signatories
of the Declaration, and there too hang the original
" Rattlesnake " flags of the Union bearing the
motto " Don't tread on me." The chairs and table
are those which were there during those stirring
days, and on the latter rests the original silver ink-
stand— with its quill box and sand shaker — from
which the men who autographed the world-famed

I2O First Impressions of America

document dipped the ink. There are fourteen more
of the original chairs arranged around the room.

That manifesto has taken no small part in mould-
ing the political sentiments of the American nation.
It has been charged against the signers of that
Declaration that their statements were inaccurate,
inasmuch as George III. was regarded by them as

CONGRESS HALL.

an absolute monarch and he alone was held re-
sponsible for the unjust act of his Government.

I have discussed this matter with a great many
Americans, and all are agreed that this fixing of
the blame upon the King himself was deliberate,
and that it was done to show that the people of the
American Colony had no quarrel with the men and
women of their own flesh and blood across the sea.

Philadelphia 121

Their quarrel was with the bigoted and foolish
King who forced his own will upon his Government
under the pretence of acting as a constitutional
sovereign.

To this day America holds to the view that but
for King George III., she would never have separated
from the old country. Her celebration of " the
glorious Fourth of July " (when the Declaration
of Independence was signed) is no menace to the
English people : it is her rejoicing in being freed
from the obstinate and hated despotism of a
Monarchy that was but slightly removed from the
feudalism of mediaeval times. In such rejoicings,
English people themselves, who live under a happier
and more enlightened monarchical regime than
" when George the III. was King," can heartily
join.

But July 4th is not now kept as formerly. I
contrived to be in New York City on July 4th of
this year. Beyond its being a general holiday there
was no fuss. There were a couple of big pro-
cessions— one composed of about 8,000 protesters
against the prohibition of alcoholic liquors, mainly
Germans and Italians — but I saw no horse-play,
and beyond a few patriotic speeches, in prominent
spots, on liberty, there was nothing to distinguish
the 4th of July from any other workless day of the
year. And as a better understanding between

122 First Impressions of America

America and England is cultivated, the 4th of July
will lose its significance, except as a warning to
future kings.

John Adams, whose name appears so frequently
in American Revolutionary history, was the first
Ambassador appointed by the United States to
the British Court in 1785. In view of the then
slender resources of his Government, he took rooms
on the first floor of a bookseller's shop in Piccadilly
— some contrast to the present American Embassy !
When he was presented to King George III., the
latter said in reply to the new Ambassador's speech :
" I will be very frank with you. I was the last to
consent to the separation, but the separation having
been made, and having become inevitable, I have
always said, and I say now, that I would be the first
to meet the friendship of the United States as an
independent power." Later, Adams became Presi-
dent of the United States.

Strange to say, both John Adams and Jefferson,
who succeeded him as President, died on July 4th !
When Adams was dying (he was then 91 years of
age) he was awakened to consciousness by the
rejoicing in the streets and the bell-ringing from all
the church towers.

" Do you know what it means ? " he was asked.

" Yes/' he answered, "it is the glorious 4th of
July. God bless it. God bless you all."

Philadelphia 123

And thereupon he crossed the borderland with
the smile of the victor on his face.

These are tit-bits of history that crowd into one's
memory as one stands in the old Independence Hall
in Chestnut Street, Philadelphia ; the compara-
tively small and humble room that witnessed so
many thrilling scenes in those momentous days,
seems alive with the spirits of the heroes who
founded the great American Republic. In his
speech from the Throne to Parliament on December
5th, 1772, when the final separation of America was
announced, King George said : I make it my humble
and earnest prayer to Almighty God . . . that
America may be free from the calamities which
have formerly proved in the mother country how
essential monarchy is to the enjoyment of con-
stitutional liberty." Perhaps, the least that can
be said is that so far his Majesty's prayer has been
answered, though monarchy has not been found
" essential " to its fulfilment !

In a small room just behind the historic hall,
which forms the shrine of a nation's patriotism,
hangs from its original beam, within an ornamental
frame, the old Liberty Bell, whose tongue first
announced the Declaration of Independence. In-
scribed upon it are the words : — " Proclaim Liberty
throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof. — Lev. xxv., v. x."

124 First Impressions of America

It was rung only at times of great national
importance. When the " Royal Charlotte," under
convoy of an English man-of-war, came up the
Delaware River in 1765, carrying stamps for the
State, for which the latter was being heavily taxed,
the old bell was muffled and tolled a funeral dirge.

When the Stamp Act was put into force, it again

tolled its muffled peal.

In 1768 the famous Bell called a town meeting,

and the following resolution was passed : —

Thus are the Colonies reduced to the level of
slaves. The produce of their toil is at the dis-
posal of others to whom they never entrusted
power and over whom they have no control.
Justice is administered, government is exercised,

Philadelphia 125

and a standing army maintained at the expense of
the people, and yet without the least dependence
on them ; nay, the money which we have earned
with sweat and toil and labour being taken from
us without our knowledge or consent, is given
away in pensions to venal slaves, who have shown
a readiness to assist in riveting the chains on their
brethren and children.

This resolution, in few words, presented the case
for America.

The old Bell called the people together again in
February, 1771, when the outraged citizens
petitioned the King for a repeal of the duty on
tea ; and again summoned them when they decided
that the tea in the ship Polly should not be landed,
and the vessel was sent back to England, tea and
all ! It rang a peal of rejoicing when Lord Corn-
wallis surrendered to the American troops in 1781,
and clanged for all it was worth when peace was
proclaimed in 1783. After that it only rang its
merry joy notes when July 4th came round and on
each New Year's Day.

Its other duty was to toll mournfully for the
honoured dead. When engaged in this last sad
rite on July 8th, 1835, it cracked, and now it rests —
its work done — by the stairway at the back of the
old Independence Hall, guarded as a priceless
treasure ; and the American of to-day visits it,

126 First Impressions of America

gazes on it, almost talks to it as if it were an old
friend who had passed with him through all the
joys and sorrows of his national life. And he thinks
of it as a loved companion whose voice mingled
with the smiles and tears of his forefathers in the
greatest, the brightest, and the blackest days of
their history.

Yes, Philadelphia is a fine old city — as America
reckons age. It has lived its life as no other
American city has had the opportunity of living
it. But beautiful as are its old houses and the
traditions that belong to them ; refreshing and
invigorating as are its many sylvan retreats ;
interesting and startling as are some of its huge
commercial establishments, and patriotic and
English-loving as are its people, the charm that will
for ever linger with treasured and inspiring memories
over this fascinating spot is its association with
William Penn, and the thrilling reminiscences that
haunt the precincts of the old State Hall and its
silent Bell.

CHAPTER VIII
WASHINGTON.

WAS always bad at geography.
At school, when it came to that
subject, I was a failure ; I have
only become partially acquaint-
ed with some of its mysteries
by the very pleasant, though
rather expensive, method of
travel, and I humbly confess
I had a very hazy idea as to where Washington was
situated until I came to America. It had not
occurred to me to study its location on a map ;
perhaps I was not sufficiently interested to do so.
I was aware that New York was the hub of the
United States, and I presumed that its seat of
Government would not be very far off. I could not
think of London or Paris or Berlin apart from its
great centre of constitutional administration, and
I presumed that Washington with its Capitol, the
White House and its President, must be somewhere
or other just around one of the corners of New York
City. Judge of my surprise when I found they were
situated at least 250 miles away !

Tis true that is not thought very far in America,
where everybody who is anybody runs an auto-
mobile and pays only one shilling per gallon for

127

128 First Impressions of America

the spirit that drives it. One day a gentleman said
to me, " My wife and I are going to motor down to
Greenwich after 6 o'clock in the evening to see an
uncle and aunt, and we shall be so glad if you will
accompany us." It was a distance of over 38 miles
from New York, but going there and back in one
evening was considered merely a pleasant drive.

When Washington is reached, the contrast
between it and New York is the first arresting
feature. It is, I should say, the most beautiful
city in the States. Directly you get out of the
train and pass into the truly marvellous waiting-
room at the station (which is said to be the " largest
room in the world "), and then out into the orna-
mental flower-gardened and tree-bedecked thorough-
fare, you are struck by the stateliness, beauty, and
calmness of everything, compared with the thronged
streets and busy life of the mighty New York City.

It has been called " The City of Magnificent
Distances." I think it should be called "The
City of White Palaces," for the imposing erections
of white granite and marble which meet one at
every turn, and the garden-like arrangement of all
the promenades, give one the impression of having
been suddenly transported from the drabness of
ordinary business life to the luxuriousness of royal
pomp and ease.

Some years ago the Manx Government asked

Washington 129

me to visit the Isle of Man and give evidence before
the Upper House on the Vaccination question, in
order to assist its members in coming to a conclusion
as to whether compulsion should be done away
with. Before the inquiry began I had a long chat
with the Governor, Lord Raglan, and I asked him
in the course of conversation what was the chief
industry of the Island. He promptly replied,
" Letting lodgings." I laughed and remarked,
" That's a queer ' industry/ " " Well," he said,
" we've nothing else, and that is why we sent for
you ; for if small-pox broke out here we should be
ruined ; and we want to get all the best evidence
we possibly can on the subject before we act."

I thought of this incident when I became ac-
quainted with Washington. It possesses only one
" industry." There are no great factory chimneys
to be seen, no smoking shafts, no huge gates belching
out their thousands of grimy male and female
" hands " at meal hours. No, it is just a City of
about 400,000 inhabitants (perhaps 90,000 of them
negroes) consisting of a few private residents, and
the remainder, some 100,000, military, naval and
civil officials of the Government, with their wives
and families, and the necessary tradespeople to
supply their needs. Its " industry " consists of
housing Government employees and looking after
them.

130 First Impressions of America

This world-famed Elysium is situated on the
left bank of the historic Potomac River and was
designed by a French officer of Engineers, Major
L' Enfant. His plan or arrangement consisted in
making the Capitol a centre from which all avenues
should radiate, whilst its streets should be marked
out in the usual rectangular fashion of all American
cities, hence the ground plan presents the appear-
ance of a wheel laid upon a gridiron.

The Avenues are named after the different States ;
they are all lined with trees and flowers ; and open
greenswards lead up to the houses, so that every
flowered and leafy garden, unrailed and unwalled,
is thrown into the general plan of the thoroughfare.
The streets as usual are designated by numbers.
Where the streets and avenues intersect, circles are
formed, and these are converted into gardens or
rustic retreats. This arrangement forms one of the
most charming features of the city, and is, as far
as I have seen, unique.

The Capitol and the Washington National Monu-
ment— a huge obelisk of white marble 555 feet high
— dominate everything, and can be seen from all
quarters of the city. The public buildings, monu-
ments, leafy squares, and garden circles are so
arranged with due regard to artistic and aesthetic
effect that the whole of the central portion of this
Edenic metropolis, instead of being, as one might

Washington 131

suppose, a bustling centre of business activity, looks
more like one huge ornamental pleasure garden,
where everything is designed to gratify a taste for
leisurely ease and refined enjoyment.

The City of Washington is co-extensive with
what is called the District of Columbia, and occupies
about 69 square miles. It is ruled directly by the
President and Congress through a Board of Com-
missioners, and the peculiarity of it is that the
inhabitants belong to no State, and therefore have
no voice in national or local government.

I visited Washington twice. On the first occasion
I went there to lecture. I returned a month later
after my visit to California, a special Committee
of the Senate having been appointed in the mean-
while to hear me in support of the Bill for the
Abolition of the Vivisection of Dogs. Two years
before, when a Committee had been appointed by
the Senate to take evidence, vivisect ors from all
over the country, about 60 in number, headed by
Dr. Simon Flexner of the Rockefeller Institute,
poured into the Capitol, and they quite over-
whelmed the representatives of the opposite opinion
who were mainly " lay " people. It was felt, as a
matter of justice, that I, as what was euphemistically
termed " an expert," should now be heard on behalf
of the Bill. On this occasion not more than seven
or eight vivisectors were present, including Dr. G.

132 First Impressions of America

McCoy, the Director of the Hygienic Laboratory,
Washington, Dr. G. Kober, Dean of the Georgetown
University, Dr. Reid Hunt, Professor of Pharma-
cology, Harvard University, and several others,
but, unlike the previous occasion (when they
continually interrupted every speaker throughout
the sitting), they were absolutely silent while I
developed my case, the only cross-examination
coming from the Senators who constituted the
Committee. The inquiry occupied four hours, two
in the morning and two in the afternoon, during
which an immense amount of ground was covered,
and it proved a most interesting time which I
thoroughly enjoyed. But unfortunately the German
Peace Bill came up for discussion in the Senate
House late in the afternoon, and the Senators were
imperatively sent for, so I was unable to finish.
I was, however, informed that I could add
anything further when the official stenographer's
notes were supplied to me. No official steno-
grapher's notes were sent me however, nor was I
afforded the opportunity of completing my case
prior to the publication of the report of the
proceedings.

This second visit gave me the opportunity, under
the genial guidance of Senator Myers, of Montana,
of thoroughly exploring the Capitol. It is a wonder-
ful building. Standing upon a hill ninety-seven

Washington

133

feet above the level of the Potomac, and approached
over gently rising lawns up flights of immensely
wide steps, it dominates the whole district, and is,
I consider, one of the most beautiful structures in

the world. It covers an area of three and a half
acres. The central edifice is built of sandstone
painted white. The 24 columns of the grand
middle portico are monoliths of Maryland sand-
stone. The wings are of white marble. Its hundred
columns are monoliths of Maryland marble. It
was expected that the city would spread towards
the east, so the principal fagade looks in that direc-
tion ; but the city, on the contrary, spread towards

134 First Impressions of America

the west, so on the latter side a fine marble terrace,
884 feet long, has been constructed, approached by
two broad flights of steps, all of which add con-
siderable dignity to the building. The great dome
over the central portion, rising to a height of 287
feet and springing from a peristyle of fluted
Corinthian columns, is the crowning glory of the
whole. It is surmounted by a majestic bronze
statue of Liberty. The entire length of the building
is 751 feet, and its breadth 350 feet. No words can
express the stately grandeur and beauty of this
imposing structure. It must be seen for its
magnificence to be realised.

The statuary and the paintings scattered through-
out its interior are all reminiscent of some of the
most stirring events of American history. In the
Hall of Statuary, where America's greatest heroes
are represented, I was arrested by one effigy — that
of the only woman among them all. It was the
statue of Frances Elizabeth Willard, of Illinois,
Founder and President of the World's Women's
Christian Temperance Union, and for many years
Dean of the Woman's College of the North- Western
University, Illinois, lecturer and author. On the
pedestal was inscribed Miss Willard's eloquent plea
as follows : —

" Ah, it is women who have given the costliest

hostages to fortune, when to the battle of life

Washington 135

they have sent their best beloved with fearful
odds against them. Oh, by the dangers they
have dared, by the hours of patient watching over
beds where helpless children lay, by the incense
of ten thousand prayers wafted from their gentle
lips to heaven — I charge you to give them power
to protect, along life's treacherous highway, those
whom they have so loved."

The chief centres of interest to me in the Capitol
were the Debating Chambers, consisting of the
House of Representatives and the Senate (corre-
sponding respectively to our House of Commons
and House of Lords) which together constitute
the Congress. The former is composed of about
400 members, and the latter of 96, two for each
State. The members of both Houses are paid.
The number in the House of Representatives for a
population of 106 millions is small compared with
the 600 or 700 in our House of Commons, which
represents only about 40,000,000, and the American
" House of Lords " is still smaller in proportion to
our own.

I was privileged to hear debates in both Houses,
and in spite of the great size of these chambers
found the acoustic properties excellent in each.

The arrangement of the seats is quite different
from that in our own Houses of Parliament. In
the House of Representatives, the Speaker's desk

136 First Impressions of America

of white marble occupies an elevated position in
the centre of the South side, and the seats of the
representatives are arranged around it in con-
centric semi-circles, with radiating aisles. Every
seat has a silver plate attached to it with the owner's
name engraved on it, hence there is no confusion

as in our own House of Commons when a full-dress
debate takes place. Instead of the small space
allowed for visitors in St. Stephen's, there are
galleries open to the public right around the whole
building, so that the accommodation is immense
and unrestricted. The Speaker's Mace, which
consists of a bundle of ebony rods, bound together
with bands of silver, with a silver globe on top sur-
mounted by a silver eagle, is laid on its pedestal of

Washington 137

Vermont marble at the right of the desk. On either
side of the Speaker's desk against the wall hang full
length portraits of Washington and Lafayette, and
in between is spread a great flag of the Stars and
Stripes. Each member who is going to speak leaves
his seat and walks down to the floor of the House
and standing with his back to the Speaker addresses
his colleagues. This is in striking contrast to our
own method of procedure.

I heard several speeches. Most of the speakers
addressed the Assembly without notes and as a
rule very vigorously, some excitedly, but all of
them well, briefly and to the point, though none
that I heard were what might be termed eloquent.
There was a good deal of the tub-thumping,
electioneering style about the orations, but there
was none of the verbosity and " airy nothings "
which characterise so many of our own House of
Commons speeches. The speakers all seemed in
earnest and business-like and anxious to get to
rock bottom on every question. On the whole, their
manner was quite different from that of our own
Members of Parliament.

The Senate Chamber, or " House of Lords," has
none of the huge luxurious velvet couches in which
the blue-blooded nobility of the nation sink in our
own Purple Chamber. It is very spacious, about 113
feet long and 82 feet wide. The Senators' seats are

138 First Impressions of America

arranged, in like manner to those of the Repre-
sentatives, in concentric rows, with aisles radiating
from the dais of the President's desk which is
situated on the north side ; but, instead of con-
tinuous desks as in the Lower House, each Senator
has a separate desk to himself marked with his name
on a silver plate, and when he speaks, he speaks
from his desk and does not go out on to the floor
as do the Representatives. The style of speaking,
too, was entirely different from that of the House
below. There was a subdued air about the whole
proceedings, more deliberation and an appearance
of grave responsibility. The matter of the speeches
was in each instance exceedingly good, and in some
cases the language and delivery rose to heights of
forensic skill. The meetings of both Houses com-
mence in the morning and end in the afternoon,
another great contrast from our own Parliament,
which begins in the afternoon, and may go on till
midnight — or even, later, especially if the Govern-
ment wants to tire out the members and hurry some
questionable Bill through by a trick at the last
moment. On my second visit to the Senate
Chamber, the President's chair was occupied by
Senator Shortridge, an eminent Californian lawyer,
who also presided over the Committee before which
I gave evidence. I may mention that he kindly
went out of his way to come to me at the conclusion

Washington 139

of the latter inquiry, heartily shaking hands and
entering into a friendly chat for some little time. I
refer to this, as such geniality is unheard of in
English official quarters in similar circumstances.
But it seems to be just in keeping with the general
hospitable nature of the American people.

The Senate Chamber is decorated with a screen
of Ionic columns of Potomac marble ; the white
capitals are modelled after those of the Temple of
Minerva. They form a kind of loggia, and have
their use in the support of a gallery. As in the
House of Representatives, galleries extend right
around the House for the benefit of the public ;
there is nothing of the exclusiveness characteristic
of our own corresponding Chamber. The walls
are richly decorated with gold arabesques on
delicately-tinted backgrounds, with buff panels ;
and the glass of the ceiling is filled with symbols of
War, Peace, Union, Progress, the Arts, Sciences
and Industries. In wall niches around the galleries
are marble busts of former Presidents of the Senate.
The President's chair is occupied by the Vice-
President of the Republic (in the instance I
mentioned above, Senator Short ridge had occupied
the Chair in the Vice-President's absence). The
present Vice-President is Mr. Coolidge, formerly
Governor of Massachusetts, a very young-looking
man of about forty. If the President suddenly

140 First Impressions of America

went out of office by reason of death, disability or
other cause, the Vice-President would finish out
the term as President.

One special room in the Capitol is set apart for
the President of the United States on his visits ;
it is that in which, at the close of the session, he
signs the last Bills before the adjournment. It is a
very handsomely decorated room, the walls of which
are adorned with portraits of Washington and
his first Cabinet, and with Emblems of Discovery,
Exploration, Religion and History, represented
respectively by portraits of Columbus, Vespucius,
Brewster and Benjamin Franklin. The figure of
Religion is very striking ; it appears to turn to-
wards one from whatever part of the room one
looks at it.

In one of the dining halls of the Capitol I was
treated to a first-rate vegetarian lunch, and was
introduced to some of the Senators and Repre-
sentatives.

The Treasury Building in Pennsylvania Avenue
is second only to the Capitol itself in architectural
beauty. It is 450 feet long, and is adorned with a
colonnade of stately Ionic columns after those of
the Temple of Minerva at Athens, and on the north,
west and south fronts are porticoes of similar
columns. The architect intended this beautiful
building to be set in grounds of equal charm instead

Washington 141

of its being erected upon the street, but it appears
that President Jackson, growing impatient at the
delay in choosing a site, one day stuck his walking-
stick in the ground, and said " Build it here."
And " here " it is ! I regret I could not spare the
time to go over all its wonderful departments.

To describe the many other Government white
marble and granite palaces scattered throughout

this beautiful Garden City would fill a volume. I
will, therefore, only briefly refer to that world-
famed building " The White House " and its
present occupants.

The White House, with its Departments of
State, is about two miles from the Capitol. The
latter literally turns its back upon the former and
is separated from it by the immense Pennsylvania
Avenue. The White House may " propose," but
Congress alone can " dispose." The President's
power is limited. The chief characteristic of The

142 First Impressions of America

White House is its stately simplicity. It was the
first public building erected at the new seat of
Government, and was completed in 1799. Washing-
ton selected the site and laid the corner-stone in
1792, and the architect drew his plans closely after
those of the seat of the Dukes of Leinster near
Dublin. The famous John Adams was the first
occupant in 1800. It is built of Virginian freestone,
and is 170 feet long and 86 feet deep. It has a rustic
basement, two storeys and an attic, the whole
surrounded by an ornamental balustrade. It is
enshrined in noble trees and gardens, and a circular
pond of water, from which a fountain plays, lies
in front. Altogether the President's grounds
occupy about 80 acres, which are freely open to the
public.

An enormous negro in livery opened the front
door and admitted us into a large hall about 80
feet long by 40 feet wide, and thence up the stair-
case to the apartments. There is nothing about
the latter which calls for remark except that the
furniture is all comfortable and simple, and the
walls are decorated chiefly with portraits.

Passing to the Executive Office, Senator Myers
showed me the President's room where he meets
with his Cabinet of some eight members twice a
week to discuss important national affairs ; it is
only just about large enough to hold the good-sized
table at which they sit.

Washington 143

Senator Myers had arranged for me an interview
with the President when my meeting with the
Committee of the Senate at the Capitol was con-
cluded. I was also invited to join half a dozen
ladies who were calling on Mrs. Harding in order
to present her with some photographs of a recent
procession of Humane Societies in which the
President's famous Airedale took part. I accom-
panied them to The White House and waited for
some time in the Green Room, but as Mrs. Harding
was still engaged when the hour arrived for my
introduction to the President, I had, reluctantly, to
leave my friends and forego the pleasure of meeting
the President's wife. When I met them afterwards,
they described to me the interesting time they had
had, in the course of which Mrs. Harding said :
" That is one thing I want money for. I would like
to be at the head of a Humane Society and prosecute
in every case of cruelty to animals, myself." I
have no doubt that will be arranged !

At the stroke of the clock we were ushered into
the room of President Harding.

He is about 5 ft. n inches in height, of a some-
what powerful, muscular build, and has a Napoleonic
type of face. Turning to me, as my name was
mentioned, he shook my hand with a strong grip,
saying, " Delighted to welcome you to our country,
Dr. Hadwen." After a few general remarks had

144 First Impressions of America

passed between us, Senator Myers introduced the
subject of one of the main objects of my visit to
America, and remarked to the President : " You
know, I go in rather for the regulation of vivi-
section and the abolition of certain portions of it ;
probably I don't know sufficient of the subject.
But Dr. Hadwen is uncompromising hi every detail ;
he demands its total abolition, neck and crop."
I said : " Well, Mr. President, I consider I am
fully justified in taking that course, for I maintain
and I am prepared to prove to the full that nothing
whatever has been gained from the vivisection of
animals that has been of the slightest benefit in
the amelioration or cure of any human disease.
And what, logically, can be done with a cruel,
unscientific, and useless practice but to get rid of
it?"

" You ought to see Mrs. Harding," said the
President, " she is heart and soul with you on that
subject."

After a few words about my visit to the Capitol
and to the Senate, the President shook my hand
again very heartily and we left.

It is not difficult to understand the popularity
enjoyed by the President of the United States. It
is generally conceded that he is one of the most
popular Presidents who has ever occupied The
White House. He has a strong face and a very

Washington 145

open expression, and there is, perhaps, less of the
back stairs work going on under his leadership than
has characterized some regimes. Anyhow, he enters
into every matter that makes for the public welfare,
and in doing so is ably assisted by his wife, who is,
from all accounts, the most popular woman in
America.

Needless to say, I left Washington next morning
with a feeling of admiration for the magnificent city
which constitutes the centre of administrative
power of the great American Republic and for the
President who controls its destinies.

CHAPTER IX
LIFE IN A SLEEPING CAR.

1HEN I left New York for the
West, I made my first acquain-
tance with an American
sleeping car, on which I had
to spend nearly a week —
excepting two or three excur-
sions therefrom. I was very curious to see what
an American sleeping car was like.

The train itself was of enormous length ; it
looked nearly a quarter of a mile long. The car
into which I was introduced was very long and
narrow, and had a passage running down the centre
with seats upon either side capable of holding two
persons each ; there were no compartments, but
the seats were in pairs, facing one another. There
were sixteen of these four seated inlets. I wondered
where the beds were to come from, for there was
nothing to be seen but comfortably cushioned
mahogany-coloured seats and a sloping mahogany-
coloured roof, and certainly no evidence of privacy.
So I decided to go on a tour of investigation.

I passed down car after car, car after car, each
occupied to the full with passengers, some un-
packing, some playing with children, some eating
fruit, and a large number working their jaws un-
ceasingly as if they had a nerve irritation which

147

148 First Impressions of America

they were unable to control, and in every car I
inhaled the odour of peppermint. When I passed
the porter, as he is called — that is, the negro atten-
dant attached to each car — the peppermint odour
was particularly strong, and the big negro jaws
were working vigorously.

At last I reached what was called the observation
car, which was furnished with comfortable seats
and lounges, a piano, writing desk, pens, ink and
paper, together with copies of the latest American
magazines ; at the farther end, a door opened on
to an open-air platform, guarded by a railing,
where several ladies and gentlemen were sitting.
I went out into the fresh air — or at least as fresh
as it could be with tobacco smoke blowing in one's
face from each quarter — and noticed that when the
gentlemen were not indulging in the extraordinary
pastime (the joys of which I have never been able
to understand) of drawing in smoke and puffing it
out again, their jaws were in a perpetual motion.

I addressed a young man who looked essentially
English, and who was not apparently suffering
from this jaw affection, and after a few preliminaries
I said :

" Can you tell me what is the matter with these
Americans : their jaws are continually on the go ?"

He smiled and said : " Oh, they are enjoying
their chewing gum ; that's a very common habit in

Life in a Sleeping Car 149

the States. If they are not smoking they are
chewing."

I had noticed automatic machines for the supply
of " chewing gum " in all the streets of New York,
and had wondered what it was, but my curiosity
was not fully satisfied until I reached the Pacific
Coast, when a lady gave me a sample packet to
try. The gum consisted of long, thin strips, each
wrapped in tinfoil paper. When put into your
mouth the substance quickly dissolves, until a
certain portion like india-rubber is left behind, and
you can go on chewing that residue day and night
for eternity — it never dissolves.

I had not found the sleeping compartments
yet, so I turned round and retraced my footsteps.
At the end of my own car I found a room with
washing basins and mirrors, hot and cold water
laid on, and another tap which supplied liquid soap ;
and outside, in a corner, was a tap for drinking-
water also a number of drinking cups in the form of
envelopes made of cartridge paper, which when
used were thrown away.

I prosecuted my search, car after car, until I
reached the dining saloon. I went no farther, but
returned to my aeat to await events. Just then a
uniformed messenger came through shouting, to
my surprise, "Dr. Had wen." He had a telegram
in his hand addressed to the train — a very un-
English practice.

150 First Impressions of America

As the shadows deepened, I was sitting on the
numbered seat allotted to me, reading, when the
darky came up, and with a broad grin, said " Git
ter bed ! " I said it was a bit early, but I had no
objection to turn in, so he pointed to the seats
opposite, on one of which a lady was sitting, and
just said, " Sit dere," and I did as I was told.

In less than no time, he had turned the two seats
facing one another into a complete bed ; he dropped
down the mahogany roof in a twinkling, a mattress,
pillows, sheets, blankets all appeared like magic,
and in less time than it takes to write, he had
metamorphosed the space into upper and lower
sleeping compartments, each with curtains drawn
in front, racks at both ends for the deposit of goods,
and a long bag of netting at the side. When he had
finished, I pulled aside the curtains and saw there
was an electric lamp in the corner. I lighted up
and gazed on the interior. I was puzzled.

I found that the Englishman whose acquaintance
I had made on the platform at the rear of the car,
was near me, and as the black necromancer was
going from seat to seat rapidly transforming the
situation, I asked my fellow countryman if he had
ever travelled in that way before.

" Oh, yes," said he, " many times/'

" Well," I inquired, looking askance at the lady
who sat right opposite my curtained bed — " Where
on earth are we to undress ? "

Life in a Sleeping Car

" You will have to crawl inside and manage the
best way you can/' said he, " it's a horrid business,

but you get used to it, you know, like you do to
everything else."

" But/' I remarked, " there's a lady right
opposite my bunk."

152 First Impressions of America

" That's nothing," said he, "I've got a lady on
top of mine ; she'll have to mount right up there
after I've gone to bed."

" How will she manage it ? " I inquired.

" Oh, darky will bring along a staircase directly,"
he explained, " And look what I've got next door
to me," he continued, " that mother has to undress
her squally youngster as well as herself inside there,
and she's so tall, that she can't put her head erect
without touching the bottom of the bed above her."

" Good gracious ! " I cried, " and a week of
this ! How on earth shall we dress in the morning ? "

" Same way," said he, " stoop down, sit on your
bed, put all your things on best way you can, then
walk down the corridor and complete your toilet."

" It won't be very pleasant," I remarked, " to
meet the ladies on the road."

" O, bless you," he laughed, " they don't mind.
They'll meet you in their nightdresses or dressing
gowns and won't think anything about it."

So I turned in and tried to get used to it !

But I was the first to rise every morning — after
peering cautiously through the curtains to see if
my lady opposite was moving — and I usually
contrived to get my toilet completed each day
before anyone else was about. Then I sauntered
off to the outdoor platform, until the negro had done
another conjuring trick by transforming my sleeping

Life in a Sleeping Car 153

bunk once more into two seats facing one another,
and as I had no neighbours on the top storey, I
enjoyed the privilege of claiming both seats at
once. I cannot say that I look back with any
pleasure to that experience.

The upper berths are much less expensive than
the lower ; but the latter are much more in demand
and for the long journeys they have to be booked,
as a rule, some time ahead. A passenger who could
not quite understand the difference between the
two situations is said to have had the matter care-
fully and lucidly explained to him by a conductor,
as follows : —

" The lower is higher than the upper. The
higher price is for the lower. If you want it
lower you'll have to go higher. We sell the
upper lower than the lower. Most people don't
like the upper, although it is lower, on account of
being higher. When you occupy an upper you
have to get up to go to bed and get down to get
up."

Before the next day had gone by I had become
friendly with most of my car companions ; there
were some very nice Americans amongst them, and
I was greatly interested. Two things struck me
more particularly than anything else — the in-
quisitiveness of the men and the dress of the women.
I could not enter into conversation with anyone

154 First Impressions of America

of the male sex for five minutes before he would
say : " What's your business ? "

When I had satisfied him on the point he would
ask me where I lived, how large the place was, and
if my business was pretty big. He would then go
on to ask if I was married, and had any children.
Following on these inquiries he would want to know
what brought me to the States and how long I was
going to stay, and then would come the inevitable
question, " What do you think of Amur-rica ? "
I dare say they wondered why I never inquired into
their private affairs, although that was really quite
unnecessary, for, as a rule, when they had finished
catechising me and were satisfied with my answers,
they began to tell me all about themselves. One
man, resplendent in watch chain and rings
galore, actually told me what his income was and
how he had invested his money — he had made his
pile out of a dry goods store and was very proud of
the fact that he had " started with nothing but
what he stood up in."

The ladies were quite modestly dressed during
the day, but some of them dressed very lightly
when they went in to dinner ; and the rings ! — I
never saw anything in England to compete with
the enormously large rings of gold filagree work and
jewels which hid the fingers of some of these ladies.
Nearly all the fingers on each hand of the wife of

Life in a Sleeping Car 155

my dry goods friend were lost beneath their
sparkling glory. There were some quiet American
ladies who made no display, but I must say they
were the exception on this occasion, and unlike the
rest of their fellow countrywomen, they were
subdued in their conversation instead of making
their voices heard in a babel of sounds from one end
of the car to the other.

It was when we got out of the train for a few
hours that one was able to study dress. Some of
the ladies of indefinite age had a remarkable knack
of making themselves look exceedingly young, but
the young ones contrived to make themselves look
younger. Of the latter, few had dresses which
came below the knee. One girl of about 20 or 21,
who slept in my car, presented a masterpiece of
American fashion. Her chest was as bare as it
was possible to be, and the garment (of black silk)
was cut fairly far down the back likewise ; the
substance of her dress came no lower than the top
of her thighs, and was finished off with thick black
fringes that stopped short just below the knees,
and when the wind blew in that direction there was
displayed a pair of flesh-coloured breeches under-
neath. The stockings were of flesh-coloured silk. It
must have been cool, to say the least of it, and was
as close a copy of the unassuming dress of the
aboriginal ladies of Central Africa as it was possible
to devise in a civilised community.

156 First Impressions of America

I had found her a very agreeable companion
when conversing with her on board the train.
She was free and unconventional as all American
women are, but there was nothing immodest in
her manners or conversation ; she talked intelli-
gently on several topics ; had done the tour of
Europe and climbed the pyramids of Egypt, and
had formed her own views about most things,
which she discussed quite learnedly through her
nose while she puffed at a cigarette. The latter
is, of course, deemed the natural concomitant of
the American society lady. She seemed innocent
with an utter absence of self-consciousness ; whilst
her travelling dress called for no criticism. She
was the most curious mixture I had met, though
most American women seem to be possessed of a
similar easy-going style. It is just " fashion " or
" custom."

There had been some talk of forming parties

for seeing the Grand
Canyon ; fortunately
nothing was definitely
settled, and directly I saw
my interesting young
friend dressed up for the
occasion in her African
war paint I quietly slipped
off to a less fashionable

Life in a Sleeping Car 157

company ! The next time I saw her was 2,000
or 3,000 feet down the Grand Canyon riding
astride on the back of a mule, but the guide
had evidently persuaded her to put on a suit of
blue overalls. She waved her hand to me and said,
" I am gwi-ing strong." Later, she was posing
for a photograph. When we had got on board once
more and she had changed her costume I took her
in to dinner, for she was travelling alone — American
girls are rarely chaperoned anywhere ; they are
taught to be absolutely self-dependent, and are
quite capable of taking care of themselves — and
she at once commenced a dissertation on the causes
and formations of the great Gorge we had visited,
and I found that her geological knowledge was of
no mean order. Intellectually, she is a fair speci-
men of the average educated American girl I came
across, which is an average above that of the
ordinary educated English girl of similar age and
station in life.

The accent of American women varies. It
depends a good deal upon what part of the States
they come from. You meet some in whom the
accent is quite pretty, just enough of an intonation
to lend a pleasing touch to the English. One
realises the same thing in the accent of an educated
Irishman, but the broadest Irish brogue could never
reach the strangeness of the unadulterated broad

158 First Impressions of America

accent which one frequently comes across in America.

I was amused one day when I sat chatting in
the train with an American gentleman evidently in
very comfortable circumstances ; he suddenly re-
marked, " You have a va-ary broad English ac-cent."

I was taken aback for a moment, but nothing of
this sort is considered rude in America ; it is all
thoroughly well meant.

I replied, " I am not supposed to have any accent
at all, but to speak fairly pure English without any
provincialism."

" Oh, but yer have," he insisted, " yer've a
turr'ble strong brogue."

" I am very interested to hear you say so," I
remarked. ' You would naturally be a good
judge."

' Yes," said he, " I'm an uncommon good judge
of ac-cent. I can tell every Sta-ate a man comes
from, and some of them's turr'ble. Now, you
notice my talk. Mine is the pur-est Amurr'can
there is in the Sta-ates. I haven't got the touch
of an ac-cent in me."

As my friend had about the strongest and most
unpleasant nasal drawl I had ever listened to — so
much so that I sometimes found it quite difficult
to understand him — I was somewhat embarrassed
when he suddenly said : "I guess yer haven't
heard a pur-er talk than mine ever since yer've
been in the Sta-ates."

Life in a Sleeping Car 159

"It is certainly most interesting," I cautiously
remarked ; " it is quite a pleasure to listen to you."

And he commenced to tell me where the " worst
talkers " came from. I have not met any of them
yet!

Everything is called " talk/' Whether it is a
sermon, a public lecture, a demonstration on science
or philosophy, it is always a " talk." I was
announced to give what in England we should call
a " lecture " on "A Century of Progress in Health
and Sanitation." The secretary, prior to its being
delivered, said " That's good talk ! " He simply
meant the subject. Even a book is called " talk."

The meals on board the train were well served,
and I found no difficulty, as I was warned before-
hand would be the case, in getting my vegetarian
tastes met. But prices were stiff, and you were
expected to tip proportionately.

America presents one universal system of tipping.
An American in the train said to me : " This
tipping in my country makes life a perpetual
burden."

When I went to my first hotel in New York I
put my boots outside the door at night to be cleaned.
I had just got into bed, when somebody abruptly
opened the door, plumped the boots inside, and
said, " Yer mustn't put these air shoes out here ;
the val-lay will see to them." But as the valet

160 First Impressions of America

didn't turn up, I went next day to the lady clerk
who sits at a desk on every floor to superintend
the work of that part of the establishment, and she
said, " Oh, if you want your shoes shined you will
have to make arrangements with the val-lay.
Would you like me to call him up ? "

I said, " Yes, please ; and shall I have to tip
him every time he fetches my boots ? "

" Yes," she answered ; " every individu-al ser-
vice is sepa-rate-ly paid for in this country."

" Then what have I to give him ? " I said.

" Oh," she answered soothingly, " he will be
satisfied, I think, with about 15 or 20 cents (gd. to
is.), but you can, of course, come to an arrangement
with the val-lay for the whole time you are here if
you like."

I discovered a way of polishing my own boots
without taking up the precious time of the "val-lay!"

CHAPTER X
NIAGARA FALLS.

very many instances visitors
to remarkable scenes have con-
fessed themselves disappointed
with their first experiences.
That has rarely been the case
with me, for I have never
expected too much, and in the
chief events of my life I have
'usually found anticipation
surpassed by realisation. Niagara was no exception
to this rule.

Pictures of the Falls were familiar to me, travellers
had described them to me again and again. I was
fairly well acquainted with the legends which hang
around them and clothe them with mystery, but
no power on earth can convey any adequate con-
ception of the appalling grandeur and sublime
impressiveness of Niagara, except an actual visit
to the Falls themselves.

I took train from New York to Buffalo, and
thence to Niagara. Tramcars were waiting outside
the Station, which did the round trip at a round
price, and these were rapidly filled. I preferred
going alone and taking my time, so hailed an auto-
mobile ; and after I had interrogated the driver
L 161

1 62 First Impressions of America

to make sure he knew his job, we struck a bargain
and started on a five hours' trip.

The driver was a naturalised American, born in
Canada of English parentage, and proved to be a
very intelligent man. His pride of English birth,
as is the case with everyone I met in the States,
was colossal. Every American of British extrac-
tion, no matter how far back his or her lineage
goes, burns with pride at his origin. These English
descendants are the genuine American nation, and
in any crisis it is their voice that will be heard.
Americans complain that England " stands off,"
" patronises " them, and treats them with reserve
and suspicion. They wish to be friends ; and, in
my humble opinion, the cultivation of the closest
friendship with America will prove the solution of
many political problems.

My driver's first bit of local information was
that the pretty musical word Niagara, like many
other sweet-sounding names in the States, was
of Indian origin ; it means " The Thunderer of the
Waters/' His second contribution was that the
whole of the district around the Falls, comprising
107 acres, had been bought from private owners
by New York State and thrown open to the public
in 1885. Every trace of commercialism had been
removed, and the whole of the surrounding lands
restored as far as possible to their pristine beauty

Niagara Falls

and ruggedness. This big tract of land is now
included in Niagara Park.

We made our first stop at Prospect Park, which
is a pretty wooded expanse of some ten acres,
running for 1,000 feet along the river chasm and

164 First Impressions of America

about 500 feet by the side of the Upper Rapids,
which rush and tumble and foam over great boulders
above the American Falls. I got out and walked
to Prospect Point, where I had my first sight — or
rather my first thrilling realisation — of Niagara.

Here one is suddenly confronted with a wonderful
panoramic view of the American Falls, the Luna
Falls, and the Canadian Horse Shoe Falls upon the
opposite side of the mighty chasm ; they are
separated from one another by islands. In front
are the frowning cliffs of the Canadian escarpment ;
to the right the International bridges spanning the
awe-inspiring Gorge ; and in the far distance one
sees the first line of breakers, which indicate the
beginning of that terrible stretch of waters called
the Whirlpool Rapids.

The thunder of the waters is deafening, and the
sense of omnipotence almost overpowering. After
a prolonged look at this wonderful scene, I went
down lower to what is called Hennepin Point,
named after Father Louis Hennepin, who in 1678
drew the first picture of Niagara Falls.

It was a marvellous sight. I stood on the edge
of a rock between the two gigantic Falls. To
the right and almost on a level with my feet came
a great sheet of water speeding along with immense
velocity, its surface calm and placid and smooth as
glass, and then it bounded over the cliff to a depth

Niagara Falls 165

of some 1 60 feet below. On the left, nine feet above
me, a similar view was presented, and one looked
down with instinctive horror into the awful chasm
into which the waters rushed. The length of the
crest of the American Fall is 1,030 feet ; that of the
Horseshoe Fall is more than double.

The story goes that every year in the old days
a Red Indian maiden guided her canoe over those
terrible American Falls and sacrificed herself to the
God of the mysterious waters. In the hotel where
I stayed, painted upon the wall was a beautiful
10 feet panel depicting the strange legend.

I returned to the automobile, looking back again
and again at the sublime spectacle, and was then
driven on to Goat Island. After walking over some
rocky, wooded ground, I stood on the Bridge and
gazed at the Upper Rapids. It was almost nerve-
splitting to look out upon these tumultuous waters
as they came bounding on like white steeds, in end-
less cascades, in dashing foaming billows, eddying
around rocks, flinging the foam into the air, and
twirling great boulders and tree trunks around
and around like straws. The white crests appeared
so human in their rush ; one seemed to hear them
laughing in their sport and shrieking in their anger
as they came on wildly, dashing themselves against
one another, never staying an instant to take breath,
until they flung themselves with wild fury into the

i66 First Impressions of America

Gorge below. The whole scene seemed alive. I
literally trembled with excitement as the maddened
waters dashed by me and plunged onward to their
doom.

Once again entering the automobile, we drove
through Goat Island, which separates the American
from the Canadian Falls. It is a romantic spot of
70 acres of wood and glen, where the Indians
believed the Great Spirit lived, and where, my
guide told me, the bodies of the chiefs of their
tribes and those of the maidens who made the
annual sacrificial trip over the Falls were reverently
buried. The name of the island is derived from
the incident that when it was first bought from the
Seneca Indians the owner put a number of animals
thereon to preserve them from the wolves which
infested the neighbourhood ; the winter was so
severe that all the animals died except a goat.

And here my guide beguiled the time as we
drove slowly along to the next vantage point, by
telling me that " away up yonder, the British, in
December, 1837, seized the steamer ' Caroline,' set
it on fire, and sent it drifting over the Falls."
" Over there on the Canadian side," he went on,
" was fought the battle of Chippawa in 1814, and
on Queenstown Heights, where a monument is
erected to the memory of Sir Isaac Brock, the British
General who fell, a battle was fought in 1812."

Niagara Falls 167

" Down below there is the Devil's Hole/' he told
me, " where in 1763 a British force of 90 men was
ambuscaded by Seneca Indians and all but three
were annihilated. They were hurled with bag and
baggage over the cliffs. One drummer boy was
saved through being caught by his braces in the
branch of a tree."

We stopped at Luna Island — there are any
number of islands scattered about the 412 acres
of the Niagara reservation — it was reached by a
stone staircase and a rustic stone bridge. Here
the view of the Falls was surpassingly beautiful.
The great cataract tumbled its waters at one's
feet, and as the spray splashed up in the sunlight
perfect semi-circles of rainbows were formed on a
level with one's eyes.

Hard by here is the " Cave of the Winds," where
the visitor can walk right under the Falls. My
guide advised me not to go. ' You will have to
strip to the skin, put on a flannel suit and a water-
proof and will get thoroughly drenched ; it isn't
worth it, you'll have a better experience on the
Canadian side." So I contented myself with look-
ing down at a number of men and even women in
oil skins struggling along delicate-looking bridges
irom rock to rock in showers of spray and dis-
appearing among the rocks behind the tumbling
waters.

168 First Impressions of America

After going round Goat Island, we came to Three
Sisters Island, connected with Goat Island by
picturesque bridges. At the foot of the Third
Sister Island is a small unconnected islet called
Little Brother Island, which looked very neglected.

Harking back to the waiting automobile I had a
long riverside drive ; it was a delightful spin, with
the mighty Falls almost continuously in sight, and
their roar ever in my ears. I had spent a long time
— some hours — in trying to take in these scenes of
appalling grandeur, and found them so fascinating
I could with difficulty tear myself away from them.

We then passed over the great bridge to the
Canadian side, and entering a curio shop in the
wall of which is inserted an immense sheet of plate
glass, I looked straight ahead through this picture
frame at the Canadian Falls. It was a marvellous
sight. Near here is a tunnel down which I went
in an elevator, a sheer descent of 100 feet ; and
going into a small room I took off my boots and
socks, put on a pair of rubbers reaching up to the
thighs, covered myself with oilskins and waterproof
hat with drooping brim, and thence passed down a
narrow, slippery descending passage, cut through
the rocks and lighted by electric lamps, which
extended for about a quarter of a mile, until I came
under the Falls. Here I and the other sightseers
passed out to three different spots successively, and

Niagara Falls 169

as we stood upon projecting rocks (guarded by rails)
the mighty waters dashed down over our heads in
front of us from the heights above into the abyss
immediately below. It was an extraordinary ex-
perience. We were almost blinded by spray, and
the roar was deafening. Three English girls came
down besides myself, and very pluckily went through
this curious adventure.

Another lengthy drive and we came to a spot
which led down a tunnel that brought us to a path
cut in the rocks bordering the Whirlpool Rapids.

How shall I describe them ?

Consider for a moment the incalculable volume of
water pouring over those mighty cliffs from the
several gigantic Falls into the gaping Gorge below.
Contemplate the fact that that entire volume of
water from the upper lakes before it passes out
into the sea has to pass through a narrow channel
which contracts into a width of less than 300 feet.
Note that at this narrow chasm through which this
appalling volume of water from these dizzy heights
has to pass, the granite rocks, rising a sheer acclivity
of 300 feet, make a sudden curve, and so partially
bar its egress.

Now, watch the mighty waters approaching at
their furious dare-devil speed with a deafening
roar, and you perceive that just as they are about
to gain their freedom, they are baulked by this

170 First Impressions of America

solid wall of granite. Against it they impotent ly
hurl themselves ! The result can be imagined.
The waters are flung back defiantly by the im-
perious rock — back, back they rebound for an
enormous distance only to meet the other onrushing
sweep of water, whilst the towering Falls above

continue to pour their millions of gallons of liquid
relentlessly into the seething cauldron below.

The back-wash from the granite rocks and the
on-rush from the giant cliffs fight each other like
demons let loose from hell, and throughout the
whole sixty acres over which this scene of grim
warfare spreads, the battle of the waters fumes
and rages and struggles and groans until you can
hear the hoarse cries of the vanquished and the

Niagara Falls 171

shouts of the victors, and can watch the never-
ending multitude of reserves brought up on both
sides to continue the deathless struggle. Hour
after hour, aye, age after age, while the centuries
roll, this battle of giants goes on.

There is a gigantic tree yonder ; it has been
washed over one of the terrible rims whence the
placid waters above have carried it. You see it
in the distance coming towards you, floating down,
a great grim hulk, as if to survey the battlefield
and stem the torrent of ferocity that holds the
foes in its grip. It comes nearer and nearer ; it
begins to swerve and tremble as the opposing forces
shake in their rage, and struggle in their anger ;
then suddenly it is lifted right up in the air like a
toy in the hands of a giant, and the next instant it
is sucked under and disappears.

Big rocks lift their heads here and there above
the raging waters. Around these unmoved and
unmovable obstacles the forces which are driven
from below and those that come from above chase
one another in maddened fury. Fuming and
foaming, the white-crested waves rise high above
the impregnable rock, spend themselves in anger,
and helplessly descend in scintillating spray. But
nothing can stay the forces from above. On they
come in never-ceasing battle array, and in seeking
to escape their angered foes they swing round and

172 First Impressions of America

round and round in a prodigious whirlpool or series
of whirlpools, chasing each other at close quarters
until escape is secured, and then with a roar and
a dash through the narrow opening the erstwhile
opponents pass on together to the sea.

That is the story of the Whirlpool Rapids.

Here it was that Captain Webb courted death
in a foolhardy attempt to swim them. This is
the spot where the daring Bristol man recently
boasted that he could defy the forces of nature by
riding through the maelstrom in a barrel !

Of the various view-points of Niagara I have
tried to describe, the spectacle of the Whirlpool
Rapids is the one that appeals to me as the most
thrilling. As long as I live I shall never forget the
overpowering sense of horror, excitement, fascina-
tion, and awe that laid hold of me while watching
that weird, uncanny scene. I stood for an hour
on a commanding rock about five feet above the
battle of the waters. Every nerve of my body
pulsated with emotion as I watched the combat.
I could not drag myself away, but was held spell-
bound by a mysterious power that was irresistible ;
my eyes were rivetted on the watery battlefield.
Away up to the right I looked at the forces coming
on ; away down to the left I looked at the forces
coming back. " Which will win ? " I asked myself
again and again. Never in my life before felt I so

Niagara Falls 173

utterly awed as when standing in the presence of this
overwhelming spectacle. Even when I had turned
my back upon it and had gone on some distance
toward the waiting automobile, I had to retrace my
steps and take one last look. If ever I re-visit
America, it will be to Niagara that I shall again
wend my way. The call of the Whirlpool Rapids
will haunt me till I die.

CHAPTER XI
THE MORMONS.

E were steaming toward the
world-famed Salt Lake City,
and were just about to cross the
low bridge over the Great Salt
Lake, which took an hour for the
engine to traverse. Opposite me
sat a young American girl with whom I had been
conversing on general topics, when I suddenly
discovered she was a Mormon. Those who suppose
that Mormons in their native haunts are to be
distinguished from the rest of the world by any
peculiarity of dress or manner or conversation will
be speedily disillusioned. They will find nothing
of the Puritanical or any other " unworldly "
element about them.

If it be not too rash to judge a lady's age, I
should say she was about twenty-five. She talked
through her nose and at the top of her voice. She
wore her hair in " bobbed " effect, that is, with a big
knob like a yellow bun fixed mysteriously over each
ear (for even a Mormon girl follows the fashion) ;
her dress was of the latest cut, and displayed some-
what ostentatiously a pair of lower limbs, the
muscular development of which did her credit ;

175

176 First Impressions of America

and she carried with her the invariable accompani-
ment of the majority of American women — a well-
filled case of toilet requisites, including an oblong
mirror fitted into the lid, a powder puff and powder,
eyebrow pencil, rouge stick for tipping the lips,
nail trimmers, and a few other odds and ends that a

mere man " does not pro-
fess to know anything about .
It is quite a common
sight to see an American
woman of any age stop
dead in the street with her
face toward a shop window,
open her little case, hold
it up, puff her nose and
cheeks, and then hurry on.
They do it hi the tram
cars, in the railway trains, and in public assemblies.
Suddenly up goes the mirror, an affectionate tap is
bestowed upon the side curls, the stray hairs are
fixed up, the cheeks powdered, and the case slung
deftly back again upon the arm.

My young Mormon companion was no exception
to the rule.

I asked her to tell me exactly what was the
basis of the Mormon faith.

" Well/' said she, with an easy nonchalant air,
while she dabbed her nose with her powder-puff,

The Mormons 177

"it is this : There was a prophet named Joseph
Smith, who had a special revelation from God about
the Book of Mormon, and it is that book which
forms the basis of our faith. "

" Then you don't believe in the Bible ? " I
inquired.

" Oh, yes/' she replied, " we believe in the Bible,
but the Book of Mormon is a later revelation. You
may say it completes the Bible."

" Do you believe the Bible to be inspired ? "

" Oh, yes, certainly/' she answered, as she went
on titivating herself, " the Bible is inspired, and so
is the Book of Mormon. We need both."

" Do you believe in Christ ? "

" Certainly ; we believe in God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost."

" And what about the Atonement of Christ ? "

" Oh, we believe in that, too." And my young
friend drew a little coloured stick out of her case,
and with the aid of the mirror began carefully to
pencil her eyebrows. " There are four steps in our
salvation," she continued, peering over the top of
her looking glass. " First, faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ ; second, repentance ; third, baptism — that
is by immersion, you know ; it must be by immer-
sion ; we are very great on immersion. Fourth,
laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost."
She paused, and resumed her pencilling.

M

178 First Impressions of America

" Then do you believe the Book of Mormon to be
the Word of God ? "

"Oh, certainly," she promptly replied ; " it is
part of it. It teaches us to be honest, and chaste,
and virtuous, and to do nothing but what is good."
And with a final look at herself as she held the
mirror up in all directions, and a final dab of the
powder puff, she closed the lid, and settled down
for further questions.

" Then who was Joseph Smith ? " I asked.

" He was an American who didn't know what
to believe in, or what sect to join, and he had a
heavenly vision, and was told to form a church of
his own," she replied.

" Can you tell me when, where, and how he
received this heavenly vision ? " I asked.

" Oh, certainly I can," she responded alertly.
" I shall be most pleased to tell you all about it.
He had several visions. The first was when he was
a young lad. He had gone out into a wood alone
to pray, and he saw a great light like a pillar, and
it came and settled down upon him. Then he saw
two persons standing in the air, and one of them
called out, ' Joseph Smith,' and pointing to the
other said, ' This is my beloved Son. Hear him/
So he asked them to tell him which sect was right,
and which one he had better join, and they told
him they were all wrong, and that all the religious
teachers were a bad lot ! "

The Mormons 179

" That was rather sweeping," I remarked ; "I
should think Joseph Smith must have felt a bit
worried/'

" Yes, he was," she went on. " But then he
had another vision after that. He was in bed this
time, and a great light came into the room, and
another messenger came and stood in the air by
his bed-side, and told him that his name was Moroni,
and God had sent him to let him know that He had
a great work for him to do among all nations."

" I don't think Moroni's name is in the Bible,"
I remarked.

" Perhaps not," said my companion ; "he was
the son of Mormon, and he went on to tell Joseph
Smith that there was a book written on gold plates
hidden away in the mountains, which would give
an account of an ancient people who formerly
inhabited the American Continent."

" Where did these ancient people spring from ? "
I asked.

" Oh, they came from Jerusalem 600 years before
Christ, and were led by a prophet named Lehi.
They had a lot of prophets, and kept records.
Mormon was one of the last of the prophets, and
he wrote an abridgment of all the records on gold
plates, and gave them to his son Moroni. Christ
came to America before He was crucified, and
visited the Colony."

180 First Impressions of America

" That is very interesting/' I remarked. " Then
did Moroni tell Joseph Smith where he could find
those gold plates ? "

" Yes/' replied my companion, " he told him he
would find them in a mountain called Cumorah, in
New York State. He also told him he would find
two stones in silver bows, fastened to a breastplate,
called Urim and Thummim, deposited with the
plates, and those stones were what is called ' seers/
which would enable him to translate what was
written on the golden plates."

" Do you know what has become of this ancient
race ? " I asked.

" The American Indians are their descendants,"
she promptly replied. " That's all we know about
them, but their history was told on the gold plates."

" Have you seen those gold plates ? " I asked.
" I suppose you have them carefully guarded in
your Temple ? "

" Oh, no," said my young friend ; " Moroni told
Joseph Smith he was not to show them to anyone
except those he was commanded to show them to,
and when Joseph Smith had finished translating
them Moroni called for them and took them away,
and nobody has seen them since. But it doesn't
matter," she confidently added, " we've got the
translation, you see."

" How did Joseph Smith know where to find the
plates ? " I asked.

The Mormons 181

" Oh, he had a vision," said she ; " there was no
difficulty about that. Moroni showed him the exact
spot, and he went straight there. It was on the
west side of the hill, not far from the top, under a
big stone, and the plates were in a stone box. He
had rather a bother to get at it. He had to get a
lever, and use all his strength to hoist up the stone,
but when he had succeeded there were the gold
plates and the Urim and Thummim and the breast
plate."

" That was a lucky find," I remarked, " but I
should have been glad to have seen them. I
suppose Joseph Smith carried them home in high
glee."

" Oh, no," she answered ; " the heavenly
messenger, Moroni, came whilst he was there, and
told him he wasn't to take them away until he
was told. He was to go to the same place at the
same time every year for four years. Every time
he went the angel gave him fresh revelations, and
then at last he took them home."

" Can you tell me the date of that ? " I asked.

Quick as lightning my companion answered :
" September 22nd, 1827."

" And do you know when Moroni fetched them
away ? "

Without a moment's hesitation she answered :
" May 2nd, 1838."

182 First Impressions of America

" So it took him eleven years to translate them,"
I commented. " Didn't he hear anything from
heaven all that time? "

" Oh, yes/' said my friend. " John the Baptist
came to him about twelve months after he had the
plates. Joseph Smith had become acquainted with
a schoolmaster named Mr. Cowdery ; he did the
writing and Joseph Smith did the translating ; and
these two were praying in some woods in Pennsyl-
vania, when John the Baptist came to them, and
in the name of the Messiah he conferred upon them
both the Priesthood of Aaron. You see," added
my companion, " this was an addition to the priest-
hood of the Jews, for it gave Joseph Smith and
Oliver Cowdery, after they had been baptised, the
power of conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost."

" But who baptised them ? " I asked.

" They baptised one another," she promptly
answered. " Joseph Smith first baptised Mr.
Cowdery, and then Mr. Cowdery baptised Joseph
Smith."

" I suppose they were quite sure that the
heavenly messenger was John the Baptist ? " I
cautiously inquired.

" Oh, yes," she answered brightly ; " there was
no mistake about that, for he told them he had
come under the direction of Peter, James and John,
who held the keys of the Priesthood of Melchizedek ;

The Mormons 183

and he told Joseph Smith he was to have this priest-
hood and form a church, and he was to be the first
elder, and Oliver Cowdery the second."

" I suppose, then, these two men were divine
as well as human after this ? " I asked.

" Pretty much like it, I guess," she replied,
" for when Mr. Cowdery was baptised the Holy
Ghost fell upon him, and he prophesied a lot ; and
when Joseph Smith was baptised the Holy Ghost
fell upon him, and he did a lot more prophesying."

"It is a pity," I remarked, " that there was
no one else there to see and hear all this."

' Yes, it would have been nice," she said ; " but
it didn't matter much."

' Then I suppose these two prophets, Smith and
Cowdery, had to wait until they had finished the
translation before they founded the Mormon
Church ? " I asked.

" Oh, no," said my companion, who had dates
at her finger tips. " Moroni didn't come for the
plates till May 2nd, 1838, but they commenced the
church April 6th, 1830, twelve months after John
the Baptist gave them the keys of the Melchizedek
Priesthood."

" Did any other notable persons from the next
world visit them besides John the Baptist?" I
asked.

" Oh, lor, yes," she airily replied ; " I guess they

184 First Impressions of America

did indeed. The Saviour Himself came to them
for one. He accepted the first Holy House they
built, and promised a lot of blessings if they kept
the Temple free from pollution. Nobody can go
inside our Temple who smokes," she added ; " and
you mustn't drink tea, coffee, or alcohol."

" That must be rather rough on some people/'
I remarked.

" Oh, but there are a lot of nice drinks you can
have," she said encouragingly.

" Did any other notable persons visit them ? "
I asked.

" Lots," she answered. ' There was Moses.
He gave them the keys of the gathering of Israel,
and the bringing of the Ten Tribes from the North
Country. Elias also visited them, and he gave
them the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham ;
and then there was Elijah, the prophet, he gave
them the keys to turn the hearts of the children to
their fathers."

" What became of Smith and Cowdery ? " I
inquired.

" Shot," she answered tragically. " Shot in
prison. Martyred for the truth of God ! "

" What happened then ? " I asked.

" The twelve Apostles elected Brigham Young
as the President of the whole Church."

" That was the gentleman who had so many
wives ? " I cautiously remarked.

The Mormons 185

' Yes," she said unabashed, " he felt it necessary
for the blessing of the church, but anybody who
takes more than one wife now is excommunicated."

At this juncture my sprightly young friend
looked at her watch. " We shall soon be in Salt
Lake City," she remarked ; and her hand in-
stinctively grasped the little reticule by her side.
As she opened it she said, " This is a wonderful
inland sea we are crossing over, isn't it ? Like the
Dead Sea in Palestine, no one can sink in it. It
contains 22 per cent, of salt, and no outlet is known ;
it is 70 miles one way, and about 50 miles the other."

Then she drew out her powder puff, and lifted
up the mirror. Presently she laid the little box of
indispensables on her knee, with the mirror con-
veniently placed, and the patting and trimming of
the hair recommenced, with the subsequent appli-
cation of the rouge stick to her already red lips.
As we were drawing near to the station, and I was
thirsting for more information, I said, " Now
supposing I wished to join your Mormon Church,
should I be accepted ? "

" Certainly," she said, as she put the finishing
touches to the corners of her mouth. " Certainly,
only you must be saved before we could admit
you." And she carefully put back her rouge stick
and gave another look at herself on all sides, with
the powder puff in her hand.

186 First Impressions of America

" And what have I to do then ? "

" Well," said she, " I suppose you believe in the
Bible ? "

" Yes."

" That's all right," she commented soothingly.
" Then all you have to do is to believe in the Book
of Mormon. That is, you know, the American New
Testament. Do you smoke ? "

"No," I said. " I neither smoke nor drink
intoxicating liquors ; but I am very fond of a cup
of tea."

" Yes," she remarked, " I believe the English
gentiles are ; but you are three-parts a Mormon
already, and the tea don't matter much. Well,
then, you've got to repent, you know ! "

" What does that consist of in your church ? "
I asked.

" Oh, well, you've just got to say you're sorry
for anything you've done wrong. It isn't much,
that. The principal thing is getting baptised.
Immersion, you know ; it must be immersion.
And then laying on of hands. That's all. It's
very simple. Directly you get out of the train, go
straight up to the De-pot in the Temple Grounds,
and ask for lit'ature, and you'll learn all about it.
Good bye-e-e ! "

And we shook hands heartily.

I watched my little Mormon maiden, as she

The Mormons 187

skipped gaily off the train, and a tall, well-dressed
young man came forward to help her down. I
thought he might be her brother, but evidently he
was somebody else's brother, for on reaching a
pillar behind which they thought they were safe
from observation, he rapturously kissed her, and
I felt sorry for the starch powder. I concluded that
Mormons were very human, after all.

CHAPTER XII

SALT LAKE CITY.

_JJAILING an automobile, I told
the chauffeur to drive me to
the Temple Grounds, and I
entered the " De-pot " of the
Mormon Church. Attached
to it was a small museum,

containing relics of the early days of the Mormons ;
one of the most interesting of these is the first log
cabin that was erected in Utah. There is also the
printing press on which the first newspaper of the
West was printed, as well as the bodies of the old
cliff-dwellers in their sepulchral wrappings of fur
and feathers, with weapons, tools, etc., that were,
according to custom, buried with the dead.

Within a small, well-kept area outside stands all
that is most sacred to the Mormon Church. The
manner in which the chief buildings are concen-
trated in one spot reminded me of Pisa. They
consist of the Assembly Hall, the Tabernacle and
the Temple, besides which are monuments to
Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, and the Sea-
gull monument — a lofty pedestal surmounted by
two bronze seagulls. It appears that in 1848 the
Early Colonists, just when about to gather their
first harvest, were visited with a plague of crickets.

189

190 First Impressions of America

The black armies came on in millions of millions ;
no efforts at destruction were of any avail in re-
ducing their numbers, and the crops were at their
mercy. At this juncture, " in answer to prayer/'
the air suddenly became filled with flocks of seagulls
which swooped down upon the crickets, gorged,
disgorged and feasted again, until the remainder
of the crops was saved. The Mormons believe it
to have been a miracle of Divine interposition.
Rome has her sacred geese ; Utah has her sacred
gulls. A rigid law forbids any slaying of seagulls.

The Assembly Hall seats about 2,000 people,
and is used for meetings which are too small for
the Tabernacle. All seats are free, there is no paid
ministry, and there are no collections. Every
Mormon is expected to follow the Jewish plan of
giving one-tenth of his income to the Church ;
consequently it is the wealthiest Church in existence.

The world-famed Tabernacle is elliptic in shape
and seats 10,000 people. Going in at the western
door and surveying the immense building from the
pulpit end, the vastness of the place, with its
seemingly endless rows of seats, is quite awe-
inspiring. It measures 250 feet long by 150 feet
wide, and 80 feet high, and the floor slopes up-
wards, thus forming a great amphitheatre. Its
self-supporting wooden roof, resting upon buttresses
of red sandstone, is a clever piece of work. These

Salt Lake City

191

buttresses support wooden arches 10 feet thick and
having a span of 150 feet ; they are secured by
wooden pins, no iron nails having been used in any
part of the framework. It was planned by Brigham
Young, who was a carpenter, and he invented a
method which makes its acoustic properties most

THE TEMPLE AND DOME OF THE TABERNACLE.

remarkable. Taking me to the farthest end of the
building — a distance of about 200 feet — my guide
asked the custodian to drop a pin on the table at
the other end, also to whisper with his back to us,
and to rub his hands, all of which could be heard
distinctly. By asking my guide some questions, I
elicited that Brigham Young is regarded as a
prophet of God and the divinely chosen successor
of Prophet Joseph Smith.

The Temple is a massive structure with six
majestic spires, the whole built of granite, and again

192 First Impressions of America

designed by Brigham Young. It took 40 years
to complete from the time of laying the first foun-
dations. Until 1873 there was no railway to the
granite quarries, and up to that time the huge
blocks of stone were hauled by ox teams ; some-
times it took four yoke of oxen four days to
transport a single stone.

No " Gentiles " are allowed inside the Temple,
nor, indeed, is any Mormon admitted unless of
" good standing." " It would not matter," said
my guide, " if a Mormon were worth ten million
dollars, if he were known to smoke he could not go
inside that Temple ; we are enjoined by the Saviour
in His message to Joseph Smith to keep it free from
all pollution."

When I questioned him further, he answered :
" Solomon's Temple was held sacred to the Jews ;
the Courts of the Gentiles were outside, and we
adopt the same exclusion."

" Why do you consider it so holy ? " I asked.

"It is the place where our sacred ordinances
are held — baptism and marriage and the laying
on of hands, and especially baptism for the dead."

I asked him to explain the latter, and he said the
Apostle Paul mentioned it in the I5th chapter of
Corinthians, and in Peter's Epistle we are told
Christ preached to the spirits in prison. " We
believe everybody has a second chance ; they have

Salt Lake City 193

the privilege of hearing the gospel of forgiveness
in the next world ; even a murderer stands a
chance there, and as baptism is necessary to salva-
tion, we baptise for the dead, so if those for whom
we are baptised accept the gospel in the next world
they will be saved."

" Then," I said, " some of you must be baptised
pretty often."

" Yes," said he, " we get baptised vicariously for
all our ancestors of whom we can think ; it is
part of our mission to act as proxies for our dead
relatives."

I suggested the possibility of a different inter-
pretation being put upon the passages he had
quoted, but my guide would not hear of it. Moroni
had explained it all to Joseph Smith, and that
settled everything. " These are precious truths,"
he said, " which have been restored by revelation
to the Church of Christ of the Latter Day Saints."
The font in the temple, he told me, is a copy of
that in Solomon's Temple (I. Kings vii., 23-25),
and is supported by twelve brazen oxen.

" And there is no possible chance of my seeing
it," I asked, " even if I get you a sheaf of good
testimonials ? "

" No," said he, " impossible unless you become
a Mormon."

Temple marriages, he said, were only allowed to

N

194 First Impressions of America

take place between parties who are beyond re-
proach ; all marriages performed in that sacred
building are perpetuated throughout eternity.
Those performed elsewhere only last for this life.
That mistakes are made, however, even under these
immaculate conditions, is evidenced by the fact
which I elicited, that divorces occasionally take
place. " The Church which has power to bind is
the Church which has power to loose/' was the
somewhat inconsistent excuse of my informant.

The Mormons appear to have a marvellous
system of visiting. Salt Lake City is divided into
wards, with ward chapels, each presided over by
one president and two counsellors, under whom
an army of visitors called " teachers " work.
Every member in the ward is visited at least once
a month, and his or her spiritual and temporal
condition carefully inquired into. No poverty is
allowed to exist.

The great organ called, like everything American,
" the most wonderful in the world," is certainly an
extraordinary-looking instrument. The choir is
also said to be " the largest enrolled choir in the
world."

The grounds in which the sacred buildings are
situated are most beautifully laid out and kept,
and whatever may have been in former days the
hardships and persecutions of the Mormons — on

Salt Lake City 195

which my guide dwelt with considerable emphasis —
their lines now appear to have fallen in pleasant
places.

Calling at a public garage, or what is called in
America a " Transfer Office/1 I asked the proprietor
to let me have a good man who knew all about
Salt Lake City to drive me to the chief points of
interest ; and a very excellent and droll fellow was
supplied.

I had years ago read the thrilling story of the
long, weary trek of the early Mormon pioneers,
who, having been driven from city to city, wandered
on and on until they reached the Wasatch range of
mountains, whence Brigham Young and his hapless
followers looked down for the first time into the
great Salt Lake Valley. So calling my chauffeur
out into the middle of the road, whence a fine view
of the mountains could be obtained, I asked him
to point out to me the exact spot where the Mormons
first appeared upon the scene in the memorable
July, 1847.

" They came along that trek yonder," said he,
pointing to a gap between two mountain peaks.

" Then drive me there as far as you can go, or
at least high enough to command the whole country.
We'll see about details afterwards."

We reached a high plateau, at which I said
" Stop." A wonderful panorama was opened up.

196 First Impressions of America

Salt Lake City presented a vast amphitheatre,
completely surrounded by giant mountain peaks,
which even in the month of June were capped with
snow. It was easy to see how water could be
conducted from those snowy heights into the valley,
and a desert thereby converted into a paradise.

" What a wonderful situation ! " I exclaimed.

1 Yes, it is," said my chauffeur, " but it needed
a clever chap to see it seventy-four years ago. We
can all see a thing when it's been accomplished."

" Why was it so clever ? " I asked.

" Because no water had been trained into the
valley, and there was nothing but a great desert
in front studded with sage-brush. I guess Brigham
Young knew what very few people know — that
where sage-brush grows anything in the world will
grow if you give it water. They were all the finest
farmers that America ever produced, and a steady,
upright set of men into the bargain."

" Do you know how many there were in that
advance party ? " I asked.

" Yes ; 143 men, 3 women and 2 children, and
before they had camped a single hour they had
found water, conduited it on to a piece of land and
sown wheat and potatoes. They were the first
men to start irrigation farming in America. In 12
months they had 8,000 acres under cultivation,
and had planned out the whole valley into streets
and avenues just as you see it to-day."

Salt Lake City 197

" I was struck as we drove along/' I remarked,
" by the very wide streets and the wide, green lawns
between the pavements and the houses, and the
abundance of clear water running down the sides
of the main streets."

" Yes," said my man, " I guess they are the
widest streets of any city in America for its size,
and the storage and the distribution of the plentiful
supply of water has turned the whole city into a
great public park. It is the purest, clearest water
you will find anywhere, and there's enough to supply
millions of people. But nobody knew it till Brigham
Young found it out. Every explorer before him
had said it was a worthless waste."

" Do the Mormons now rule the city ? " I asked.

" Not necessarily," said he. " It is the usual
democratic form of Government, and the people
can elect anyone they please. The Mormons only
form 45 per cent, of the population ; the Roman
Catholics come next ; they are running them very
close. That's why the Mormons are so anxious
for their members to come and settle here. Most
of them come from England. Last year the Chief
of the city was a Jew. See those enormous build-
ings over there ? That's the Roman Catholic
Cathedral, and that's the State House."

" What is the staple industry of the State ? "
I asked.

igS First Impressions of America

" Ask me what isn't," he laughed. " There are
some of the biggest copper mines in the world up
there. Fruit growing is now quite a big thing.
There is every description of agriculture. Dairy-
farming and ranching have increased, too. Wheat
covers thousands of acres. They have turned that
old Dead Sea into a gold mine, for visitors come
from all over the States to bathe in it, and salt is
exported all over the States for commerce. Then
there's the beet-sugar industry, and Utah produces
five millions of bituminous coal annually, besides
doing a respectable business in gold and silver.
Ah, America has something to thank that little
handful of Mormon farmers, for ! "

" Yes, indeed," I said, " and now let us move on."
The business part of the city is just like any other
American city — handsome shops, places of amuse-
ment, busy streets filled with tramcars and auto-
mobiles. We motored down the streets, and I
noted the fruit groves, the parks, and the hand-
some public buildings, as I stopped here and there
to listen to my guide's sage descriptions.
We went to the residential spots : —
" That's where Brigham Young's first wife
lived." " That's where he got his second." " That's
where some more of 'em lived. You can always
tell how many wives lived in a house by the number
of chimneys — a cosy fireside corner for each."

Salt Lake City

199

" That's Brigham Young's mansion where he lived
last of all ; he had become a gent when he built
that/' " That's where he lived first of all ; con-
trast, ain't it ? " " That's his grave." " That
place is where the old wives put up when they were
neglected." " That's Brigham
Young himself on top o' that
monument . " So he rattled on .
" That's where the Mormons
teach dancing."

" Dancing ! " I exclaimed.
" O yes," he answered,
'•' that's the chief accomplish-
ment of the young ladies ;
JOSEPH SMITH. all Mormon girls are great
dancers." " Here's the Park, see what a fine lake
we have, and all those boats on it ; hardly believe
that lovely spot was a desert not so long ago,
would you ? " " That's the recreation ground for
the kiddies, they've every amusement under the sun."
" What is the population ? " I asked.
" One hundred and twenty-five thousand.
That's the old mill where they crushed their first
wheat. They don't do it that style now, you bet."
" How old was Brigham Young when he died ? "
I asked.

" Seventy-seven ; not old as we reckon it to-day ;
but he had too many wives to look after. One's
enough for anybody to manage."

20O First Impressions of America

" How many had he ? " I inquired.

" When he died he had had 19 wives and 18
mothers-in-law and 52 children — two of them were
adopted."

" That was a lot to provide for/' I commented.

" The old chap left 20,000 dollars and a house
to each wife ; 5,000 dollars (but no house) to each
mother-in-law ; and 10,000 dollars to each child.
So he had feathered his nest all right."

I thanked my driver heartily for his entertaining
drive, and I left Salt Lake City with a very high
opinion of the agricultural, economic, commercial,
communistic and political instincts of the Mormon
settlers, whatever I may have thought of their
religion.

R CHAPTER XIII

p
AMONG THE RED INDIANS.

1^=7 TURNED on the electric lamp
which hung in the corner of
my berth on the Pullman car
and looked at my wrist watch ;
J^s it was 4.45 a.m. There are
~S? two windows in the berth ;
one against the head, which is
kept closed at night, usually
with the blind drawn ; the other is wide open for
ventilation, but covered with very fine gauze to
guard against flies, mosquitoes, sand and smoke.
The light that struggled through told me that the
morn was waking.

The heat had been stifling all night, and I had
lain there without any covering, but it seemed a
little chillier now and I drew a sheet over me.
The train went slowly, and I wondered why ; and
as I felt restless and thirsty, and longed for a
breath of fresh air, I decided to get up. Peering
through the curtains and finding all was still, I
put on my nether garments and repaired to the
dressing-room for my morning douche. On the
sofa lay Sambo, the negro attendant, fast asleep.
Just as I had finished shaving he awoke with a
broad grin and said, " Oop airly, Saar." I told

2OI

202 First Impressions of America

him to go to sleep again, and depositing my brush
and comb and other belongings in my berth, I
started off through the long corridor from car to
car until I reached the extremity of the train, and
opening the door passed out on to the little railed-in
platform which is open to the air and is capable of
accommodating about eight persons.

It was 5.30 and I was all alone. I sat down
bareheaded on a deck chair, with the fresh air
playing all around me. Oh, it was refreshing after
the stifling atmosphere of the sleeping berth !
Two days before we had left Lake Michigan and
crossed over the north central part of Illinois and a
corner of Iowa to Kansas City, and the whole of
the previous day we had been steaming over miles
upon miles of alfalfa and barley fields until the sight
of them grew monotonous. The line ran along the
route of the old caravan trail which commenced to
traverse the prairies for the first time just a century
ago. Every mile was dangerous then. Buffalo Bill
has immortalised those early days when the pack
mules and oxen, doing about 15 miles a day, dragged
their heavy wagons over the rough roads in the
valleys and the still rougher passes on the mountains
to the dreary music of the cowboys' merciless whip
and the bang of the old-fashioned firearms of the
Indian braves.

During the night we had crossed the eastern

Among the Red Indians 203

corner of Colorado and were now slowly climbing
the steep gradient in New Mexico ; already we had
reached 3,000 feet above sea-level and were still
ascending. A vast stretch of wild country spread
itself in every direction, great hillocks were dotted
over the extensive plains, and huge mountain peaks,
some 13,000 feet in height, formed the background.
Red clay predominated everywhere, and the whole
scene was flushed with colour. The air was ex-
quisite and seemed to stimulate every fibre in one's
frame. We reached a comparatively level plateau,
and here and there were scattered about strange
square-built adobe huts made of sun-dried bricks ;
and the queer-looking American Indians who dwelt
in them came out from their quaint doorways to see
the train pass by. I waved my hand to them, but
they stood immobile, like statues, and took no
notice of my salute.

The landscape here was studded with diminutive
pine trees and bushes of fairly good size ; and these
were interspersed with large and small boulders,
which looked as if they had been flung helter skelter.

We now began going up again ; we passed a
strangely romantic spot where hills rise tier above
tier in bewildering beauty and behind stands a great
semi-circle of mountains. Along a single line of
rails we proceeded through what appeared to be
a wholly deserted country and as far as the eye

204 First Impressions of America

could reach not a living soul, not a solitary dwelling,
not one adobe hut was to be seen. It was wild,
majestic, and inspiring in its grandeur. In the far
distance peak upon peak of the mountain range
seemed to reach the sky. Oh, how I pitied my fellow
travellers in their stifling berths ! Hundreds on
board and I alone revelling in this glorious panorama!

We mounted higher. We had now reached a
height of nearly 5,000 feet. The clouds touched
the tops of the mountains around which we were
winding, and snow was lying on every side, yet it
was not cold ; indeed the sun threw its rays down the
slopes with cheering warmth. And here were
more adobe huts, and a mountain path wound
almost side by side with the rail-line ; rough hewn
bridges had been flung over deep gullies and quite
a little village of Red Indians nestled on the summit.

We passed over an immense plateau surrounded
by sugar loaf hills, and the sun was warm and the
scenery exquisitely beautiful. Mile after mile the
great train sped on until we came to larger trees —
tall and imposing firs clustering together into
woods. There were a few horses grazing — long
thin lanky horses — but all this time I had seen no
birds. We still wound round and round the
mountains and the great train dragged its way
slowly and heavily up the gradient. Here and
there were huts built much like those in Switzer-

Among the Red Indians 205

land, and the whole scene, in fact, had a Swiss
setting.

We reached the summit, about 7,000 feet above
sea level. The beds of big lakes — now dry — were
seen all around, and there was also an encampment
of American Indians. I was watching them with
keen interest when I felt a draught of air, and
turning round I found my " boy " — every negro is
called a " boy " even if his kinkley hair is bleached
like the crown of the Nevada mountains — standing
with a broad grin on his face, announcing we were
to stop " ten me-noots."

So I sprang out of my chair and was soon steering
for a little low wall that bounded a bridge over an
immense chasm. Adjusting my Kodak as I went
along, in case anything of interest turned up, I
laid it on the parapet and was soon entranced with
the scene below and around me.

I thought I felt the presence of someone two or
three minutes later, and looking round saw close
beside me a short, thick-set man, with an old billy-
cock hat on his head, wearing a greasy pea jacket
and a pair of very loose blue trousers. His face
was of a dark mahogany colour, absolutely ex-
pressionless, with high cheek bones, and eyes black
as coal deep set in their sockets ; whilst his hair,
as dark and glossy as a raven's wing, hung over his
shoulders and down his back. I was startled for

206 First Impressions of America

the moment at this strange apparition, for I had
become so absorbed in my surroundings that I had
not heard the stealthy tread of his shoeless feet ;
and when I found him at my elbow he had hold of
my camera, and was examining it closely.

Recovering from my surprise I said, " Do you
understand that instrument ? "

He made no response, but just turned it about,
looked through the focussing lens, and then put it
down again with an air of such abstract imper-
turbability that I believe if an earthquake shock
had occurred that moment it would have left him
completely unconcerned.

" Do you live about here ? " I inquired. He
fastened two dark inscrutable eyes upon me, but
said nothing. His face was as impassive as a lump
of moulded bronze, and without a word he turned
abruptly away.

I then discovered that two women were standing
near, who at once joined him, and entered into a
low toned conversation. They were watching me
with the same expressionless black beady eyes that
I had noticed in the man, and they possessed the
same stolidity of countenance. Striped blankets,
very ragged and very dirty, were thrown round their
bodies, and their dark mahogany faces looked out
from great masses of unkempt, glossy black hair.
One of them (the younger) had a red handkerchief

Among the Red Indians

207

tied over her head, and I noticed a blotch of red
paint on each cheek.

Directly I saw these ladies I smiled and lifted my
hat. They only looked at me like pieces of coloured

rock, and with absolute impassiveness they turned
and slowly walked away with their male companion.
It was my first close acquaintance with American
Indians.

The bell rang, and I hurried away to board the
train. Passing the trio I again lifted my hat, but

208 First Impressions of America

only a passionless stare rewarded my efforts at
politeness.

When I reached the train there were several more
of these Red Indian women gathered around the
footboards with bits of pottery in their hands for
sale, but nobody bought. There was no time for
bargaining, and such articles were not easy to carry.

Two of the squaws carried their babies on their
backs in their papoose bags. Curious looking little
creatures they were. One that was nearest to me
was wrapped in blue cloth, which was tied round
and round with cord upon a sheet of light wood or
wicker-work of some sort, the cord being brought
under the feet to prevent the child from slipping.
The whole was slung from the mother's back by a
piece of the same cord brought round her chest.
Above the little one's head a wicker basket with a
cloth covering was fixed, to protect it from the sun.
Its arms hung helplessly outside the bag, and the
round head and fat brown solemn face with its
quaint little black eyes presented such a pretty
comical picture that I am sure — in spite of the dirt
and smell — I should have wanted to kiss it had I
been near enough. As it was, I could not resist
the temptation of pointing to the little chap and
giving the mother a quarter of a dollar for him.
Then for the first time I caught a smile on a Red
Indian face. It was worth at least four times

Among the Red Indians

209

that price ! The train moved off, the mother still
stood there, and the last I saw of her was the smile.
Some hours later in the day we reached Albu-
querque, and here we were in the midst of the
Indian Reservations ; right
opposite the station was the
railway hotel, which contained
a wonderful collection of Indian
and Mexican relics, and the
whole roadway toward it was
lined with American Indians,
men, women and children, most
of them sitting on their
-^haunches, some standing or
^lolling about, but all having
; - something to sell — baskets,
trinkets, pottery, blankets and
mats woven by themselves,
and all kinds of odds and ends.
They were a strange looking company, with the
same smileless, stolid, immovable faces, and some
of them absolutely repulsive looking.

As we were passing them a young American took
hold of my arm and said : "By arrll that this world
ever produced did you ever see such a tarnationally
ugly face as that old woman's got ? By gum, it's
the most awful specimen of ugliness I ever set
eyes on."
o

2io First Impressions of America

Whether the old lady understood what was said
or not I can't say. It was said loud enough for
her to hear ; and several others who heard the
remark gave a glance at the immovable features
of the old lady and then passed on laughing.
But I noticed that the deep-set, black eyes that
glistened from out the mahogany face were steadily
fixed upon my companion. He was busy getting
his Kodak out of the case and putting it into
working order.

" By gosh/1 he repeated, " I must snap her,
that face is the most superb piece of ugliness I've
ever seen in arrll my existence."

The old lady still watched him keenly. Those
black eyes followed every movement. At last he
was ready ; he trained the lens upon the matchless
object in front of him, and looked down into the
finder to focus his prey. As he did so, the old lady
quietly lifted up her shawl and covered her face !

" Here, get out o' that," cried the youthful
photographer, " put your blessed shawl down. I
want to snap you and display your beauty to the
universe ! " From behind the shawl came a
strange, soft voice : " Twanty-five shents ! "

I roared with laughter and cried " Bravo, she's
a match for you, my boy. She has reached the
very pink of American civilisation ; you ought to
be proud of her ! "

Among the Red Indians

211

" Golly ! " exclaimed the young American in
staggered amazement, " Who'd ha* thought it ! "

I only laughed the more, giving the old girl a
congratulatory pat on her head, as she carefully
looked with one black eye out of the corner of her
shawl to see if the " twanty-five shents " were
forthcoming.

My friend almost collapsed. His puzzled ex-
pression was comical to a degree as he stood, still
holding the Kodak in his hand, repeating " My
golly ! " At last he looked at me and said :

" Say ! Do you think she's worth it ? "

212 First Impressions of America

" Worth it ! " I cried ; " why, she's worth two
dollars at the very least to an appreciative taste
like yours/'

" Arr bright," he exclaimed resignedly, " here
y'are old cherubim, here's your twenty-five cents ";
and the mahogany fingers clutched the quarter
dollar piece, whilst the unexpressive face, solemn as
ever, and as unfathomable as the Egyptian Sphynx,
came from behind the scarlet and yellow striped
shawl, and she was " snapped."

" Aren't you going to have a shot at her ? "
appealed my friend to me.

" No, thank you," said I. "I see her in yonder
window on a postcard, coloured, at two cents."

" Why so she is ! My golly," he cried. " I wish
I'd known that ; I wouldn't ha' wasted twenty-five
cents on that old bit of polished ugliness."

" Don't worry over it," I laughed. " She
thoroughly deserved the twenty-five cents, and you
equally deserved to lose it."

With a very subdued air he went inside, and
following my example paid two cents for the
coloured portrait of the Red Indian beauty.

As we returned, to my intense amusement, my
young friend cast a sheepish glance at the old girl
as she still sat there with the same stolid coun-
tenance.

Going up to her I picked up a pretty little basket
and asked :

Among the Red Indians 213

" Did you make this ? "

" Yerrup," she answered, in a very soft and
rather pretty voice.

" How much is it ? "

" One dollar, twanty five shents."

" Then let me have it," I said. " I should like
something by which to remember you."

And with the same serious air, she gave me the
basket and took the money.

These children of the desert are strange creatures ;
fanciful legends clothe their every thought, and
superstition governs their lives ; magic and mystery,
medicine bags and traditions, the Red Man is as
much of a puzzle to-day as he was when the Spaniard
first discovered him. Ritchi-Manitou, their Great
Good Spirit, lives in heaven, their Matehi-Manitou,
or Bad Spirit, lives somewhere on the earth. The
Red Indian sees his personal god or fetish in any-
thing that strikes his fancy. He passes by a rock
one day exhausted with fatigue, and his imaginative
mind traces a face in its scarred surface and it
seems to nod to him as he wearily looks at it, and
that becomes forthwith his personal Manitou to
which he appeals in every emergency. Or he sees
a piece of metal shining among the moss that grows
by his adobe dwelling, or hears the wind sighing
and whispering among the leaves of a pine tree in
the glen, and that metal or that tree becomes his

214 First Impressions of America

" Hope " for the future — the nearest approach to
divinity with which this world can furnish him.

As everyone knows, the names of the Indian
tribesmen are as extraordinary as their creeds.
There is no consultation among relatives as to the
name which shall be bestowed upon a child, nor
does it enter the head of these primitive, mysterious
people that it would be advisable to name it after
some relative or friend who may be of advantage
to it in after years. No, the parents wait until
some striking event occurs in the life of the little
papoose. A raven, for instance, may suddenly
settle on a branch of a tree where the papoose bag
hangs, and the little one will be known by the name
of The Black Raven ever afterwards. A squirrel
may dart across its path one day and commence
cracking a nut to the delight of the little pickaninny ;
its mother notices the fact with glee, and from
henceforth her boy is known as The Bush-tailed
Squirrel. A dark cloud comes along as the mother
sits knitting by the door of her wigwam ; she
watches it anxiously as it draws nearer and nearer
until it seems to stop right over the spot where her
little one lies cooing, and for the rest of his life he
will be known as The Black Rain Cloud. Or the
father dreams — many of the names of their off-
spring are settled in dreams — and he sees a white
otter or a yellow fox or a startled hare, and they

Among the Red Indians 215

become the messages sent to him by his Manitou
from the unseen world to tell him the title by which
his new-born babe shall be known throughout its
future life.

Dreams are the source of inspiration in every
step of their life's journey. The young Indian as
he approaches maturity is led out into the forest,
and the topmost branches of a great tree are inter-
laced, a new mat is placed thereon, and there he
is left to fast and dream. The wild imaginings
generated by the solitude, by the hunger and thirst,
and the weird surroundings, as he rocks to and fro
amid the rustling leaves and whispering winds
and ghostly shadows, shape themselves into a kind
of humanized oracle, and he there and then decides
upon his life's destiny, and returns home with his
plans for the future fixed and irrevocable.

American Indians have received the name of
" Red Indians," not because of the natural colour
of the skin, but because of the paint with which
they cover it. It was the colour best known to
the early pioneers on the American Continent, for
when the Indian braves went out to war against the
trespassers of their rights, their faces were painted
a fiery red, the colour of blood, and they must have
been terrible to behold in their war paint and eagle
feathers, and all the multi-coloured trappings of the
battlefield. But in sorrow the colourings are

216 First Impressions of America

different. Half the face may be painted black for
mourning and the other half in various hues ; if a
distant loss has been sustained rambling lines of
black with parti-coloured lines between will
announce the fact, and the colours are graduated
according to distance of relationship. Dandies
will change their paint frequently, just as their
" civilized " brothers change their waistcoats and
neckties. We show our own depth of appreciation
for our lost ones by the gradation in the colour of
our clothes ; it is a very thin line after all between
" civilization " and " savagery.'* We dream, too,
and draw our imaginary pictures and shape our
lives on quite as slender material as the super-
stitious Indians of the American Continent.

In the American census results just published the
Indian population is given as 242,959, which is a
decrease of 22,000 during the last 10 years, but I
notice that the Rev. Dr. Higley, superintendent of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, denies this, and
says the Indians are increasing and muster over
333,000. The difference may be accounted for in
some measure by the fact that in the 1910 census
Indians of all shades of mixture were called Indians,
but in 1920 those in which the trace of Indian blood
is but slight were all reckoned as whites.

These Indians speak 57 different languages.
Each tribe stands by itself, and whether it be the

Among the Red Indians 217

Sioux (pronounced Soo), Apache, Chippeway, Hopi,
Crow, Blackfoot, Ojibbeway, Iroquois, Huron, or any
other tribe, each has a distinct language, though
they believe they will all have but one in Heaven.
In that Happy Land there is to be no more
righting, no more hunting ; only dancing, singing,
eating, and playing. Strange to say, however, by
an extraordinary system of sign language all of the
Indian tribes are able to communicate with one
another even now. They may not understand a
word of each other's language or dialect, but they
can make themselves perfectly understood by
means of their ten fingers, and can even tell long
stories and crack jokes. One finger thrust straight
forward from the mouth signifies truth ; but two
fingers parted and moved from the mouth like the
forked tongue of a snake means lying. Two
fingers of the right hand placed astride over the
fingers of the left hand and moved rapidly represent
a journey on horseback. A river is shown by
serpentine lines on the ground, and a mountain
by the hands moved up and down in the air ; and
so on. The attempts at a universal language by
means of Esperanto have not proved a success.
The Indian method is the only one that has so far
been successful ; and it is, after all, but the counter-
part of the hieroglyphic or coloured picture writing
of the Ancient Egyptians which we can find traced

2i8 First Impressions of America

on the walls of their 3,000 or 4,000 year-old tombs,
and on the pillars of their great temples.

We may well ask ourselves if the symbols of the
savage Indian in his forest home do not bear some
relation to the stone-cut signs sculptured by the
mighty Pharaohs along the Nile Valley in the far-
away days of Egyptian civilisation.

But these American Indians, though still super-
stitious by nature, are by no means unintelligent.
They are not allowed to vote, but they are full-
fledged citizens of the United States, and the
Pueblo Indians of New Mexico own no less than
900,000 acres of land. Many are not only pros-
perous farmers but are even wealthy, and some are
well educated. But whatever their education, and
whatever their " conversion " to the Christian
faith (which consists in " soap, sanitation, and
salvation ") may be, the Red Indian merely makes
a concession to the authority under which he lives.
He still remains the same inscrutable, mysterious,
dusky citizen of the wilds, plunged in the pathetic
darkness and beauty of his ancient rites. Two-
thirds of the Red Indians to-day know nothing of
the English language, and they maintain in all
particulars the integrity of their own individuality.

I went into a Hopi house (Hopi means good or
peaceful), and the visit was interesting, though there
was little to be seen beyond bare walls and flooring.

Among the Red Indians

219

The chief characteristic of these particular Indian
houses is their being perched high, like fortresses
upon rocks, thus maintaining the old conservative
custom of seeking protection from their tribal foes
by inaccessibility. They are keen, like all Indians,
on dancing, and these Hopi Indians favoured a few

of us with an impromptu
Snake and Eagle Dance.

The Snake Dance was
very grim and weird. The
.performers were loaded with
snakes, some said to be very
venomous. They followed
one another round and
round to the noise of a
beaten drum, shouting,
dancing, gesticulating, contorting, and shaking
hand rattles. They were decorated in all manner
of strange head-dresses, their bodies being semi-nude.
They evidently sang some sort of rhythmic song
which, in my ignorance, I could not appreciate nor
understand, but I gather that the snake dance
consists chiefly of messages and beseechings to
the underworld to send them rain.

The Eagle Dance, when every Indian wore
a head-dress of eagle feathers, and carried the
spread-out wings of eagles in the hands or across
the shoulders, was very interesting. The natives

22O First Impressions of America

worked themselves up to a pitch of the most intense
excitement, and the medicine man especially was
in great prominence.

The latter has a large following in every tribe,
and his bag of charms, made of the skin of some
animal, is gruesome. His remedies appear to
consist of incantations written on slips of paper,
much as we write our prescriptions in cabalistic
signs in Latin, and his preparations consist almost
entirely of the different organs of animals, which are
administered for the cure of diseases of the corre-
sponding organs in his human patient. As this is
the most up-to-date method of modern medicine
in this and other countries, for the " discovery " of
which a good many knighthoods and baronetcies
have been distributed of late years, and for which
honours galore have been poured upon medical
men in all parts of the civilised world, the illustra-
tion only provides one more bit of evidence to show
how exceedingly thin is the veil which separates
the highest " civilisation " from the most grotesque
savagery.

CHAPTER XIV
THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO.

EFORE I went to America I
had never heard of ' The
Grand Canyon " ; when I
reached the United States and
spoke of going on to California, I
heard of very little else. " You
must see the Grand Canyon "
was on everybody's lips. " You
will have to cross the great Arizona desert and be
nearly baked alive with heat and dust for a good
twenty-four hours at least, but it is worth it ; you
must not think of returning to England until you
have seen the Grand Canyon."

I wanted to know what it was like, but the only
intelligible answer I could get in reply was : "It
is a huge Canyon ! " In my ignorance, I wanted to
know what " a Canyon " meant. " A great gorge,"
said one ; "A big chasm," said another.

" Then, what is the difference between the Grand
Canyon and any other Canyon ? " I inquired.

" Because there is no other Canyon like it in the
whole world ! "

That was as much information as I could obtain.
If I asked for a description, I was told : " It is
indescribable, you must see it for yourself ; we never

221

222 First Impressions of America

knew anyone yet who could describe it. It must
be seen to be understood, and even then you won't
understand."

Well, I have seen a good many chasms in my
time. I have looked down into the smoking mouth
of Vesuvius, scoured the larval craters of Mount
Etna, shuddered at the precipices and crevasses of
the Alpine range, marvelled at the fitful fiery
ebullitions of Stromboli, gazed with awe at the dizzy
gorges of Teneriffe, tracked the Grand Curral of the
Island of Madeira, and wandered along the brim
and into the hollows of many another gigantic
break in the Earth's crust, and I could not for the
life of me see that one more gorge or one more
chasm, however " grand/' could be very different
from the rest. But " take my advice/' said friend
after friend, " go and see the Grand Canyon, and —
die ; there's nothing else like it in the world.
Everything else will sink into insignificance beside
it." "

I asked for photographs that I might get some
idea of what it was like. I was shown them.
They only mystified me the more. I asked what
the many coloured castellated and turreted erections
that peeped out of those big hollows meant. I was
told " They are part of the Grand Canyon ! We
cannot explain it, and it is no use trying to do so,
you must go and see it for yourself."

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado 223

I attended a " Reception " in New York a few
days after I landed. As one after another shook
hands with me, they said " We hear you are going
on to California. Which way are you going ? "
" I have not yet decided," was my answer. " Oh,
take my advice/' was the cry of one and all," travel
by the Santa Fe" line, and go and see the Grand
Canyon ; you must see the Grand Canyon." So
I yielded ; I went by the Santa Fe, and decided to
steal a day out of my long six days' railway journey
westward to visit the Grand Canyon of the Colorado !

From New Mexico we passed right through the
centre of Arizona. If Arizona means Arid Zone,
it deserves its name. We went over hundreds of
miles of dreary desert ; the heat was oppressive,
and the driving sand was suffocating. I was
washing my hands and face every two hours.

We stopped at a town called Williams. The
special Grand Canyon Pullman cars were here
disconnected, so that the remainder of the train
should go on to California. In the early morning
we found our cars had been re-engined, and when
we peeped out of our sleeping berth windows, dis-
covered that we had been carried along a side line
of about 64 miles, which brought us within walking
distance of the object of our journey — the Grand
Canyon of the Colorado.

It was quite early morning. We hastily washed

224 First Impressions of America

and dressed, and leaving the cars, sauntered up
several flights of terraced steps to the El Tovar
Hotel, where we ordered breakfast — and a very
good breakfast it was. Through the windows and
corridors of this rather extensive building we
caught sight again and again of what appeared to
be some very curious structures, but decided to
satisfy our appetites first and to leave curiosity
to be satisfied subsequently.

Breakfast over, we walked out on to the
macadamised terrace which surrounded the hotel,
and to our amazement we came, quite suddenly
and unexpectedly, face to face with the Grand
Canyon ! The hotel had been built upon its very
rim !

The suddenness of the view, the staggering sight
which presented itself, the bewildering scene of
indescribable and mysterious grandeur which
stretched in front, the ever-changing vista of
colour that disported itself in the light of the
morning sun, the almost horrifying spectacle of a
sheer cliff of rock descending to the depth of a mile
below our feet, and the great range of mysterious,
stupendous, multi-coloured mountains, painted as
it were by a scenic artist in all the colours of the
rainbow, that lifted their gigantic heads from the
floor of this titanic gorge, constituted something
that, without question, stood alone in the universe

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado 225

—something that, for the moment, held everyone
who saw it for the first time, spell-bound ! I then
understood as I could have understood in no other
way, what was meant when on every hand was
rung in my ears, " You must see the Grand
Canyon !"

The Queen of Sheba could not have been more
startled than I was. When she saw the glory of
King Solomon, " the house that he had built, the
sitting of his servants, the attendance of his
ministers and their apparel, the ascent by which
he went up unto the House of the Lord, there was
no more spirit left in her ! " She said to the King :
" It was a true report that I heard. Howbeit I
believed not the words, until I came and my eyes
had seen ; and behold the half was not told me ...
it exceedeth the fame which I heard." That was
my position.

I said to an American travelling companion :
" What does all this mean ? "

" Heaven only knows — I don't," he answered,
" I never saw anything to match it in my life.
My people are always bragging about something
or other being the biggest thing in the world ; I
always like to be on the safe side and say, ' the
second biggest.' But I guess I shall be right here
in putting this on top. It is just stupendous ! "

Well, let me try to describe it from the spot

p

226 First Impressions of America

where I first saw it — on the terrace of the El Tovar
Hotel.

I stood there leaning against a low stone wall
surmounted by a flat coping, and I looked sheer
down along a scarred, jagged, precipitous chasm that
descended to a depth of 6,000 to 7,000 feet. Put
it the other way, and try to think what a mountain
of 6,000 feet in height means. We generally look
up at the wonders of the world ; this was a novelty
such as only an aeroplane could furnish ; one

looked down into the very heart of the earth.
Moving a few yards to the right, I gazed across this
enormous rent to the opposite rim of the chasm ; it
looked like a mile across, everything was so clear
in the morning air. And all was so fresh and still,
except for the flitting of the numerous humming
birds and the little rustle among the pine leaves

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado 227

when a saucy squirrel poked out his head and looked
at one inquiringly.

Just then an Englishman walked up to me and
said : " Isn't this simply wonderful ? I can't
grasp it. Do you know the distance to that opposite
cliff ? "

" About a mile, I should think," I answered,
" perhaps less."

" That is what I thought," said he, " but it is
1 8 miles across ! Fancy being able to see a distance
of 18 miles as clearly and closely as that ; and think
of what that awful gash means — 18 miles wide ! "

I could make no reply. I was just awed.

Then my eyes followed the length of the chasm ;
it stretched as far as the eye could reach, until
lost in the distance.

" Do you know how far this gigantic gulf ex-
tends ? " I asked my companion as we stood gazing
at the immensity.

" Yes," he replied, " about 200 miles."

" Good gracious ! " I exclaimed. " Why England
itself is less than 300 miles from end to end ! Is it
this width all the way ? "

" No," said my friend, " it runs, I believe, from
9 to 13 miles wide on the average. But as it reaches
its limit it is little more than a great narrow pre-
cipitous gash in the earth's crust."

I then viewed the strange structures of which

228 First Impressions of America

I had caught a glimpse from the hotel windows.
Rising up from the bed of the mighty hollow stood
extraordinary architectural erections ; from my
vantage ground scores of them came within the
line of vision. Were they monster castles, or
turreted battlements that belonged to mediaeval
times ? Were those jagged pinnacles and terraced
perpendicular walls the remnants of long lines of
ruined fortifications left by Titans of other days ?
The panorama was overpowering. The sun was
rising high over the edge of the gigantic gorge and
its rays were reflected in the mighty masses of
masonry that lifted their heads from the depths
below. Every colour of the rainbow shone from
those mysterious walls, and one enormous elevation
was deep red as if the whole structure had been
dyed with blood. The stillness was so intense
that I started violently as I heard a scream above
me, and saw a great golden eagle swoop down into
a crevasse behind one of those rocky glens.

Gradually the whole scene came into strange
relief. As the sun rose higher, light and shadow
leaped from gorge to gorge, crag to crag, and battle-
ment to battlement, until all was ablaze, and peak
after peak lifted its glittering summit as if by
magic and disclosed these great coloured mountains
— for such they were — whose giant heads were no
higher than the level of one's feet, and yet were

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado 229

taller than the tallest mountain among the Wilds of
the Rockies !

What must have been the emotions of the Spanish
discoverers who, five hundred years ago, gazed for
the first time upon this geological wonderland !
And how far back in the history of this globe was
this mighty architectural work wrought ? And
how was it accomplished ? Who can tell ?

There must have been in the world's remote
history some gigantic upheaval of this immense
mass of rock ; and the swift -flowing Colorado
River that sweeps along its base, the rain and
tempests, and the gradual erosion of the surface
did the rest. The effects of erosion would account
for the chief results. Water and air would wear
away the surfaces of the gigantic rock, scoop them
out into every possible fantastic shape, and mould
them into towers and minarets, citadels and escarp-
ments, terraces and battlements, and all the weird
designs which present themselves, just as one sees
the same thing on a small scale in the erosions on
the banks of an ordinary ditch.

The marvellous colourings are easily accounted
for by the differences in the strata. The tints of
the successive layers of deposit during the millions
of years of formation of the earth's crust, present
no difficulty. The red, amber, orange, grey, white,
blue, yellow, green, and brown, correspond with

230 First Impressions of America

the minerals which lie buried in Nature's womb.
Some of the giant mountains in this immense chasm
are shaped like Egyptian pyramids, and the strati-
fications are so regular and horizontal that it is
difficult not to believe that the great structures of
thousands of feet in height were built by the hands
of some mighty pre-historic race who painted them
in different colours to give effect to the landscape
and attractiveness to the monument.

But Nature wrought and painted to her own
designs in the hidden recesses of her curious
factories, unaided by the art of Man. When she
had finished, she tore asunder the veil that hid her
beauty and she laid bare the secrets which she had
treasured throughout the long ages before any
human eye could gaze in wonder upon her. She
has since battled with the elements that would
destroy her charms, and she has grown old and
seamed with a million wrinkles which give evidence
of the tragedies through which she has passed.

Serene and dignified, Nature, in the Grand Canyon,
looks down from her throne with a face that pre-
sents many a scar received in deadly combat with
her foes. But those scars, which tell of the stubborn-
ness with which she defended herself against the
onslaughts of her enemies, have given to her features
a beauty that is all their own, a beauty at which
the traveller of centuries hence will still stand and

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado 231

wonder, for it is a beauty that only age and
struggle could bestow.

ft

A small party of us — five men and one girl —
decided to explore the Grand Canyon itself, and
after engaging a stalwart cowboy as guide, we each

232 First Impressions of America

mounted a mule and commenced the descent. I
had no idea what it would be like when I started, or
I should not have gone, and I certainly shall never
go again. It was the most nerve-racking experience
I ever remember. We took the Bright Angel
Trail, which, from the hotel to the Colorado River
that flows at the bottom, is seven miles long.

The path for the first two or three miles was
nothing more nor less than a narrow ledge just wide
enough for a mule to walk on, cut out of an almost
perpendicular wall. The gradient was so steep
that I felt as if I must inevitably be flung forward
over the mule's head, but I stretched my legs
straight, planted my feet firmly in the stirrups,
grasped the reins tightly, and keeping myself back
with knees in the mule's ribs, clung on for dear life !
All of us were silent, as if we were in a funeral
procession. Outside the narrow ledge was the sheer
precipice. I simply dared not look down, but kept
my eyes steadfastly gazing at the back of the mule's
head ! The most tragic moments to me were when
we turned the sharp corners of the trail, and this
we did on the zigzag path every two or three
minutes. It seemed as if nothing could save one.
How on earth the mule twisted his lithe body and
negotiated those corners I cannot tell. Again and
again I felt as if I must stop, but it was useless
thinking about it ; there were the mules moving

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado 233

slowly down the steep descent in single file in front
and the remainder coming on behind. There was
no turning or getting off unless one fell into the
abyss at one's side. The perspiration poured down
my cheeks, and my soft collar was soon soaking,
but I dared not reach for my pocket handkerchief !
I felt if I let go my grip of the reins I should fall
over. Of course, I need not have troubled, the
sure-footed mule makes no mistakes, and can be
safely trusted. I am told there never has been
an accident. Nevertheless, to the inexperienced
mountain rider it was nerve-splitting, and I should
have been heartily ashamed of my tremors had
I not discovered that everyone else suffered from
them as badly as I did.

Apparently the only exception was the young
American girl, who turned the whole thing into
a joke, and declared it to have been " the j oiliest
ride of her life." But that was when it was all
over ; she was as quiet as the rest of us as we
were descending that steep narrow gradient of the
" Devil's Corkscrew " trail ; but whatever may
have been her feelings, she was too smart to let
anyone know about them ! The men were all
frank enough ; nobody wanted a second edition —
once was sufficient for a lifetime ; we each decided
if we came again, neither the Bright Angel Trail
nor the Hermit Trail would allure us, but we would

234 First Impressions of America

take a comfortable automobile drive round the rim
at the top. Whatever Jacob's Ladder was like,
and however it may have been fixed, in the vision
vouchsafed to the progenitor of the Israelitish
race, it could scarcely have been more bewildering
than that path down this declivity of some 6,000
feet.

We were all thankful when we reached the
Indian Garden a little over 3,000 feet down, and
were able to dismount, wipe the perspiration from
our faces, and get a drink of ice-cold water from, a
running mountain stream. Our legs ached with
the effort of the long ride, and we were in no hurry
to remount our steeds, although the remainder of
the journey necessitated much less strain on the
nervous system. When we did reach the bottom
we were thankful, and a long rest and some refresh-
ment that we had brought with us were appreciated
to the full. We were told that at such a depth —
a mile from the rim into the bowels of the earth —
some people feel the strain upon their hearts, but
none of us suffered any inconvenience on that score.

The journey back was not so bad, except that we
were all very stiff and tired ; but we had become
accustomed to some extent to this form of mountain
climbing ; we had learned to trust our faithful
and intelligent animals, and we were going up
instead of down. I found myself able to look over

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado 235

the precipices with some confidence ; but when I
looked up a distance of 2,500 feet at a perfectly
perpendicular wall of rock, against which not a
solitary inch of footing was visible, and when I
realised that up the face of that cliff we had to
travel on the same narrow ledge down which we
had come, I must confess I felt somewhat appalled.

On the return journey, wherever we reached a
spot just wide enough to allow us to dismount we
did so, in order to rest the mules and to exercise
our own limbs. When we did at last reach El
Tovar, we found it difficult to walk for a while,
and were glad enough to sit down and drink some
iced water, followed by a cup of tea and a hearty
meal.

Refreshed and rested, we came out on to the
terrace again, and had another look down into that
huge paint pot of riotous colour.

At one point on the rim of the gorge, upon a
projecting rock, stood an Observatory with a
telescope trained upon the mighty multi-coloured
mountains that arose from the bed of the Canyon,
and on the summit of one of them I noticed an
American flag. A plucky American girl had climbed
its apparently inaccessible walls a few weeks before
and planted it there.

The sun was sinking low in the west, and the
blood-red ball was sending its rays over the great

236 First Impressions of America

rocky fastnesses of the battlement ed scene. There
was only one expression on every lip as the gold,
red, blue, green, orange, purple, brown, grey, white
of the scarred mountains in the titanic canyon were
lit up afresh with the glory of the departing day —
" Isn't it wonderful ? "

No artist ever painted such a picture on his
canvas as Nature painted there. No kaleidoscope
ever revealed such a series of rapidly changing tints
as presented themselves to our gaze in the silence
of that closing scene. It was awesome in its
grandeur, terrific in its immensity, overpowering
in its inspiration. The very soul seemed subdued
by the eloquence of such silent expression of omni-
potence.

Then the sun went down, the moon appeared
over the rocky precipices ; the stars shone and
glittered above, and in the silver light that streamed
across the ghostly gorge ten thousand spectral
forms haunted the gloom of the mountains, while
the enchanted, mysterious underworld slumbered
and slept.

CHAPTER XV
THE CITY OF THE ANGELS."

CALIFORNIA is a wonderful country,
and Los Angeles — " the city of
the Angels" — is the most talked
of city in the United States,
for this commercial metropolis
of Southern California has in-
creased its population from 11,000 to 750,000 in the
course of 35 years, and it is still going strong. On
an average there are only twelve days in the year
without sunshine. There are no extremes of summer
heat or winter cold. Thunder and lightning, snow
and hail are practically unknown. The brightest
flowers bloom all the year round, and in the middle
of winter the sun still smiles.

An Englishman who took me out in his car one

day for a drive asked me, as he jumped in like a

young man of 30, " How old do you think I am ? "

Wishing to be complimentary I answered, " I

should say you are quite fifty."

' Yes," said he, " everybody thinks I'm a
youngster. Well, I am 86. I came here to end
my days, but the marvellous climate has so meta-
morphosed me that I am beginning to wonder if
my days will ever end."

237

238 First Impressions of America

Los Angeles was founded 140 years ago by a
mixed lot of colonists numbering 141 in all. Seventy
years later the population had not increased to
more than 1,500, and 25 years ago there was not a
paved street in the city. To-day it will compare
in up-to-dateness with any city in America. "Mush-
room growth " hardly expresses the marvellous
rate at which things have moved, and still move, in
this wonderful city of three-quarters of a million souls.

I was driving by a magnificent hotel one day.
It was several stories high, and must have contained
many hundreds of rooms, all of which were furnished
and in occupation. It looked like a big palace
and was in full working order. Huge palm trees,
pepper trees, eucalyptus trees, semi-tropical shrubs,
and luxuriously laid out gardens with endless
ornamental flower beds surrounded it. To all
appearances it was the development of half a
century at least.

" Twelve months ago," said the friend who was
driving me, " all that area was bare land. Those
great palm trees were brought there bodily a short
time ago, and planted as you see them. Those
fine lawns are the growth of a few weeks ; there
wasn't a patch of grass six months ago."

That is how they do things " in the West " !

But the whole history of California reads like a
romance. It was not admitted into the Union

The City of the Angels 239

until 1850 — just 71 years ago. The State was then
little more than a desert, and Los Angeles merely
a big village. You can drive through the main
street of that " village " to-day for fourteen miles
on end ; it has immensely broad roads and wide

pavements, bordered with grass plots and flower
beds, which lead on either side by green swards
and sloping lawns to thousands of houses of archi-
tectural beauty, not two of which are alike ; and
you can tread miles upon miles of streets lined with
magnificent shops, many of which are equal to the
best in any capital of Europe. Los Angeles — a city
50 miles long and 30 miles wide — is, I should say,
in size and rapid growth unquestionably " the
biggest thing " of its kind in the world.

Not only has the commercial side of life been
considered, but everywhere in the States the
aesthetic and healthful requirements of the people

240 First Impressions of America

have been kept constantly in view ; and, in nothing
is this fact more fully exemplified than in its
wonderful parks.

The parks of the city of Los Angeles cover alto-
gether about 5,000 acres. They are marvels of
exquisite beauty and design. Their development is
largely due to the skill and energy of a Scotsman,
Mr. Frank Shearer, a graduate of Edinburgh
University.

Every day he motors to some of these immense
breathing spaces, of which he is the official superin-
tendent, watching and directing their cultivation
with all the zeal of an enthusiast.

He took me with him on one of these excursions,
and we spent a whole day motoring through some
of the marvellous creations which this horticultural
wizard has raised in the course of a few years from
out the desert.

I found Mr. Shearer an interesting companion,
a clever raconteur, one of the most versatile yet
unassuming men I met in the States, and possessed
of a large, rare, and varied experience. His whole
heart is centred in the children he has raised
in the Californian wilds — children that turn their
exquisite floral faces toward him from greensward
and flower bed, and shady nook ; and beam upon
him from out the glass-roofed wonder-houses of
tropical vegetation, that extend for miles.

The City of the Angels 241

In the latter the rarest ferns, the choicest orchids,
and the richest specimens of floral beauty from the
tropics flourish ; and on the banks of dainty
ponds, or creeping over cleverly contrived walls
they impose their delicate fronds, their quaint
forms, and delightful odours, upon the attention.

There were hundreds of species, thousands upon
thousands of varieties, and Mr. Shearer knew them
all by name, and had a story to tell about many of
them ; he proved to be a veritable storehouse of
information and of plant-lore.

The variety in the parks is as astonishing as the
beauty.

Here is a glen through which a stream of water
has been diverted so as to fall in little cascades
down the side of a mountain. You walk by high
moss grown and flower-bedecked banks, under over-
hanging trees, along narrow green paths, across
rustic bridges ; and then you rise higher and higher
on the rugged and rocky slopes of this romantic
retreat — always in the pleasant subdued light of the
shadows.

Here, again, is a wood in which picnic devotees
may spend the day. In a great cleared space water
has been laid on, and every convenience for boiling
it provided. Benches, even tables, and every-
thing else that can be thought of or desired to render
a day's outing easy and enjoyable has been supplied.

242 First Impressions of America

Next is found a many-acred space under a hill
clothed with majestic trees, where automobiles and
tents by the score spread themselves in all direc-
tions. The owners have travelled perhaps many
miles with their families to " camp out " on plots
provided by the City Fathers for that purpose ;
the time allowed to each family being limited to a
fortnight. Here they are, as busy as possible,
cooking, washing, feeding, playing, basking in the
sunshine, squatting and chatting on this big camp-
ing ground where the " simple life " is lived among
the trees in the beauteous landscape California so
lavishly supplies.

Farther on we come to a mountain. The whole
mountain has been turned into a park. It rises
three to four thousand feet in height ; acres and
acres of its bare sides have been planted with trees ;
and around and around that great mountain has
been cut, from base to summit, a road wide enough
to take two automobiles abreast ; and driving
round and round, up and up this mountain road,
one looks out upon ever varying scenes, as orange
and lemon groves, vine-clad valleys and picturesque
cities come into view.

The children are not forgotten. Perhaps no-
where in America are the children more carefully
considered than in the City of the Angels. There
is even a special Playground Commission devoted

The City of the Angels 243

to their interests. Nearly a dozen playground
parks flourish at different centres in Los Angeles ;
in these are wading pools and sand courts, swings
and bowling alleys, swimming baths and gymnastic
apparatus of every description ; and in some places
trained instructors of both sexes are engaged to
superintend the frolics of the children. More per
head is spent in this city on education than in any
other city in the United States.

I must not omit one park of 3,000 acres called,
after the name of its donor, Griffith Park, past
which a river flows. There are within its boun-
daries forests, mountains, deep canyons, and
an indescribable wealth of shrubs and flowers.

It is a beautifully preserved specimen of original
Calif ornian landscape, over which elk and deer
roam in primitive freedom.

Los Angeles has a water supply sufficient for five
millions of people, which is brought along an
aqueduct from the Sierra Nevada mountains a
distance of 250 miles away. The fall to the city
level is utilized to work a hydro-electric plant,
which is said to be " the greatest inter-urban
electric system in the world." It has over a
thousand miles of tracks which radiate like the
spokes of a wheel from the heart of the city. Six
hundred thousand horse power of current is
generated, which is retailed at the absurdly low

244 First Impressions of America

price of £ to i cent per unit ! There is enough
power produced to work all the trams in the city,
in addition to heavy plants of every description.

The people of the West appear to be quite different
from those of the East. The latter are Anglo-
Americans, of the old sturdy stork of the Pilgrim
Fathers and the early English colonists who inter-
mixed with other races, chiefly Dutch, which
gathered upon the soil of the New World. The
Westerners, however, consist largely of the new
" American nation " that trekked from the East
toward the golden land 70 years ago. The East
acknowledges that the West is the centre of the
go-aheadism of their great nation. One prominent
American in New York said to me on one occasion :
" The East is being played out, we are becoming
effete, we are getting cramped, narrowed up,
moving in a circle and sinking into the demoralising
influences of luxury and ease ; but the West is all
life, energy, vigour, soul. It is going to be the
moving power of the States in the future/'

All this was too pessimistic ; I think he had had
too heavy a dinner ; but the fact remains : " East
is East and West is West." The Eastern American
and the Western American are altogether different
creations. The contrasts are a study of the most
interesting nature, especially as portrayed in the
women.

The City of the Angels

245

All American women are warm-hearted. Whether
they belong to North, South, East, or West, there
is a freedom and generosity and good nature,
combined with smartness and general intelligence,
that compare favourably with the qualities of any
women I have come across in any other part of the
world. It is due, no doubt, to the greater liberty

which has been
accorded them, the
better opportunity
they have found
for mental training,
te the fuller responsi-
bility which they
have had to assume,
and the newness of
everything in a new
country which creates an interest in all that is going
on — a sense which is apt to diminish as the age of a
State, or that of an individual, increases. The
American woman has almost been forced, at least she
has been drawn, into consideration of all the vital
problems which concern the growth of her country ;
and as States were added to States, and question after
question arising in the course of their development
assumed a prominent place in the considerations of
political and social life, every homestead became
more or less affected and woman took her place in

246 First Impressions of America

the ordering and the building up of the Common-
wealth.

She seized her opportunity as only woman knows
how, and to-day, in my opinion, the woman is the
greatest force in American life. It is in America
more than anywhere else, that the aphorism holds
true : " The hand that rocks the cradle rules the
world."

Side by side with this fact, however, I have been
struck by another : the greater the liberty which is
given to woman and the more liberty she takes, the
more willing she appears to be to give man his place
as nominal leader, and then to drudge for him for
all she is worth. Nowhere in the world, I believe,
are the finer qualities of women better displayed
than on the American continent, and nowhere, so
far as I have been able to see, does sex find itself
more equably and rightly apportioned. Of course,
there will always be found women who, indi-
vidually, will abuse their privileges, just as there
will be found men who will do the same ; but let
women as a class be given their head, and they
speedily discover their limitations, and the majority
will have sense enough to abide by them. In this
respect America is a magnificent object-lesson.

It is not that man is superior to woman, or that
woman is superior to man. They are two distinct
and definite orders of creation, their respective

The City of the Angels 247

places are not interchangeable. The mentality of
the one is as high as the mentality of the other, but
it is of a different order. It has been the curse of
the world from earliest times that men have
dictated to women what their sphere should be,
instead of allowing them to find it for themselves ;
and men have bound women down to the level of
their own ideas of subservience and inferiority and
driven them into moulds of their own making,
instead of affording them opportunity for free self-
development.

America has produced a free woman. It is the
only place in the world, as far as my knowledge goes,
where man can hold his place without being grudged
it by woman, and where woman can hold her place
with the full accord and satisfaction of her male
admirer.

And yet, as I have remarked, the woman of the
East differs from the woman of the West, as the
woman of America differs from the woman of
England ; it is not so much a difference of race as a
difference of climate, opportunity, and outlook,
combined with the fact that the West is newer,
younger, and more vigorous than the East. In the
West perhaps there has also been an admixture of
the warmer blood of the Southern races with the
sturdy stock that sprang from New England soil.
But be that as it may there has been produced in

248 First Impressions of America

the West a special type of race which is seen more
fully developed in the woman than in the man.
Striking as are the American women of the North
(that is, if we divide up America in a general way
into North and South), and warm and generous
and impulsive as they undoubtedly are, they are
cold compared with their sisters of the South.
They lack the romance and the poetry of the
Southerner. There is more of the stolidity and
caution of the old English stock in the North, and
more buoyancy, optimism, and fire in the South.

I spent a month in California. I spoke at a
large number of meetings, to all classes of people,
and mixed with a great many in their social and
daily life, and I was simply amazed at the place the
women of California held everywhere, at the respect
and unfailing courtesy afforded them by the men
with the apparent lack of all sex jealousy, and at
the readiness with which the women yielded to the
men the places of honour in their own sphere. I
saw nothing of the rivalry, the bickering and the
little-mindedness between the sexes which one
observes in the Old Country.

On one occasion I had the privilege and honour
of addressing the Women's City Club at Los Angeles.
There were some 300 women assembled, and I
was amazed at the truly masterly and business-like
way in which affairs were conducted. They had

The City of the Angels 249

before them on that occasion, prior to my address,
the question of the erection of a library in connection
with the Club, and they discussed the site, the
arrangements, the architecture and endless details,
and proposed and carried resolutions in a smart,
intellectual, and businesslike manner that no City
Council of men in the Old Country could excel and
few could equal. There was no waste of time, no
one was allowed to occupy a moment beyond the
time limit, each speaker stuck to the point, and the
President conducted the whole proceedings with a
precision that was a marvel of decorum and skill.
Our own House of Commons was not in it when
compared with the well-trained members in their
obedience to the chair and their respect for the rules
of debate. They went through it with the regularity
of a machine, and yet no point was lost, no weak
link in the chain was missed, no flaw in the proposals
or objections escaped criticism, and every woman
seemed alert and alive to every detail that claimed
attention. I honestly do not believe, judging by
my own experience, that any society of men in
England could have conducted such a discussion
without wandering off somewhere into extraneous
matter that had no direct bearing upon the subject
in hand.

From the limited opportunity afforded me of
judging of the men of California under similar

250 First Impressions of America

circumstances, I confess they did not score to the
same extent ; but all that I wish to put on record
here is the prowess of the very fine and able women
in Los Angeles, and the part they play in the
cultured life of the city.

A lady was motoring me one day right out to
the far boundaries of Los Angeles. We had passed
miles upon miles of orange and lemon groves, miles
upon miles of verdant lawns and sun-kissed flower
beds and delightful bungalows, and were nearing

the great mountains which guard the City of the
Angels. We reached an immense stretch of prac-
tically barren country where pine trees and stray
palms and monster Yuccas grow wild, where the
sage-brush flourishes among rocks and stones, and
where mountain streams flow here and there across
the rugged path, descending from the melting snows
on the summits. I noticed numbers of tents
scattered about, with now and then a stone house,
and there were motor cars in all directions.

" Why," I remarked, " I thought we should have
been out of the world here, but apparently the
farther we get away from civilisation the more we
get into it. What is the meaning of all this ? "

The City of the Angels 251

" That is the way of the West," my friend replied'
41 The first thing a man thinks about is to buy an
automobile, that comes before everything. Then
he motors out to a no-man's land like this, and fixes
up a tent and puts his wife in it (if he has one) to
cook for him. He motors backwards and forwards
to business by day — distance is nothing here — and
spends his spare time in the early morning, and after
he gets back in the evening, in running his auto-
mobile around picking up stones. You see a big
pile of them over there, and there are some more
yonder. And when he has collected enough stones
he beds them in concrete one on top of another,
just as you see in that patch, and builds a house for
himself and settles down."

" But what an awful time is wasted," I remarked,
" in going backwards and forwards all those miles
to business."

" No," she said, with the usual directness of the
American girl, ' ; it is not wasted ; it is just that
which makes the difference between the East and
the West. The East is getting cramped up and
overgrown, and with the cramping up of the body
you get the cramping up of the mind and the con-
tracting of the soul. The West is the land of
freedom. You get out like this into the great open,
under the shadow of those big rough mountains,
you breathe a free, pure air, you enjoy freedom of

252 First Impressions of America

soul and body, you can think and dream and plan
and act, and you feel that life is worth living and
that the world is your own and everything in it.
And that is why the West is more progressive than
the East, and why the West resents the shackles
with which the East is content to be bound. The
mind grows and develops, in my opinion, in pro-
portion to its outlook ; give it a big outlook, as we
have it here, and it will flourish like a bay tree at
the water's edge ; give it a cramped-up range on
which to fix itself and you get a stunted growth."

That was the mature judgment of a girl of twenty
summers ! She herself was a girl from the East,
born of New England stock, but she had imbibed
the infectious spirit of the West. She was a type
of the Western woman in her ideas, which she ex-
pressed in the logical matter of fact language of the
East ; but deeply interesting as she was as a study,
there was still room for the romance and poetry of
the West.

I attended a meeting smaller than that of the
City Club, but none the less interesting. Again it
was a woman who presided. She was a tall, stately
woman, with keen black eyes and raven hair.
Gracefully lifting her right hand she said : " As I
looked out of my bedroom window this early
morning while it was yet dark, I saw a solitary star
glistening in the heavens ; it was the Morning Star

The City of the Angels 253

that God Almighty had left shining there to tell
me that the night was passing and the dawn would
soon be here ; and I looked from that mighty
impenetrable space to my own little homestead
and it seemed to me so small, so I turned again to
the great realm where God sits upon His Throne and
fixed my eye there — there — out from the globe on
which I lived — out to that star, the emblem of His
message for me ; and then as I looked, the star
slowly flickered away, and the great red glow of the
sun shone out and took its place, and I thanked God
for the lesson. ' Hitch your wagon to a star/ we
have been told. Yes, but let it be the Morning
Star ; it lingers in the darkness till the morning
breaks — it is the harbinger of the coming day."

I heard some good speeches from the lips of
women in the East, but not one like that ; that was
the breathing of the spirit of poetic imagery peculiar
to the romantic daughter of the City of the Angels
which sits enthroned by the Western Sea.

CHAPTER XVI
" THE LAND OF GOLD."

H ! What a wonderful sight,"
I cried, as I sat on a jutting
rock overlooking an immense
golden plain stretching almost
as far as the eye could reach.
It was a field of Calif ornian poppies.

" That is the flower which has given our land its
name ; we call it the Land of Gold/' said a friend
who sat beside me.

" I question that interpretation," said her matter-
of-fact husband. " I believe it received that title
from the fact that gold was found here."

" But the ' Land of Gold ' is only the fancy name/'

I remarked, " what is the origin of ' California ' ? "

The lady suggested two words : " Calyx and

Forma — the form of the calyx of the Californian

poppy/' she explained.

" But/' I said, laughing, " that would only give
the form and not the colour. I am afraid that is
too fanciful."

Another friend of the party said, " How would
Calida Formax do — that is, 'A Hot Furnace ? '
We must remember that everything here is of
Spanish origin ; and what application could be

255

256 First Impressions of America

more suitable to the hot desert as the Spaniards
found it than Calida Formax, which could easily
be contracted into California."

We all agreed that that was the best solution of
the problem, unless the name had been derived
from some old Spanish romance, the origin of
which has been lost and buried in the centuries that
have gone.

But it was not all desert when the Spaniards
first set eyes on the Land of Gold. No. The
immense central valley of California, which is about
400 miles long and 50 to 60 miles wide, is guarded
by the great Sierra Nevada range of mountains at
the back, and by that mighty Coast Range which
looks out over the sandy shores of the blue Pacific
in front. The valley itself is watered by the life-
giving Sacramento and St. Joaquin rivers.

Oh ! those majestic Sierra Nevada mountains !
Ascending ten to fifteen thousand feet above sea-
level and stretching five hundred miles in length,
they arrest one's very soul with their stupendous
grandeur and their marvellous fertility.

You pass over monster snow-clad mountain
summits ; creep under miles of heavy snow-sheds
which protect the train from avalanches and snow-
drifts ; you look out on stupendous glacier-bound
peaks that are silhouetted in gaunt and fantastic
shapes against the sky ; you gaze down into gigantic

The Land of Gold

257

canyons, carved into multitudinous forms as by a
wizard's hand ; you listen to roaring cataracts
which foam and tumble over naked rocks and wash
the sandy strata where the gold-digger seeks for
wealth ; you climb rocks of ever- varying nature

and colour — granite, limestones, slate, sand-stones,
basalts, porphyries — which preach their sermons
and tell their stories of primeval days of unrecorded
history ; you peer into mysterious purple pine
forests which for generations have furnished the
Red Indian with his legends and filled his mind
with traditions of superstitious folk-lore ; you look
up to the dizzy tops of the mighty trees 300 feet
in height that must have been seedlings when man
himself was young ; you pass by lakes and streams

258 First Impressions of America

and waterfalls away in the very heart of the
mountain wilds ; and when you near a chance cliff
and can gaze at the landscape far below, you see
where the life-stream from the towering heights has
found its way into orchards where apples of gold
hang on dark green trees, where bananas and peaches
ripen under a sky of cloudless blue, where flowers
display all the colours of the rainbow and turn a
wilderness into fairy-land, and where all that is
beautiful in nature has found a resting-place and
a home.

It was over these pitiless snow-clad mountains
and giant rocky elevations, and along passes un-
trodden except by the stealthy Indian, that, weary
and footsore, hungry and thirsty, battered and
torn, the old pioneers came in '49 — that year
which will never be forgotten in Californian history
— to seek for the mines of gold. Over mountain
ranges and scorched plains for thousands of miles
the gold hunters journeyed on, fighting the Indians,
fighting wild beasts, sometimes fighting one another,
leaving trails of suffering and death behind them ;
but buoyed up ever by the lure of hidden treasure
the dauntless survivors struggled on.

At a spot called Sutler's Mill, some specks of gold
had been discovered in the mill race, and the news
spread like wildfire to the far end of the Northern
States, and on came in their thousands men with

The Land of Gold 259

pick and shovel to Southern Oregon and California,
to tunnel the hills, to dig the land, and to wrest
from gravel and mountain stream the ever-coveted
" gold."

The news spread the wide world over, and every
nation provided its quota of eager humanity which
steered for " The Land of Gold."

And now — broken huts, ruined habitations, huge
chasms where the gravel was washed away in the
feverish quest, and a few broken-down descendants
of those early adventurers, are all that remain to
remind the present-day traveller of the Gold Fever
of '49. But that wild rush laid the foundations
for the commencement of Californian prosperity.

The next year, 1850, California received its
charter as a State, and that huge tract of country,
about a thousand miles in length and over 200 in
width — the largest State, I believe, in America,
unless Texas can claim a slightly bigger area —
embracing both ranges of mountains and the whole
coast -line from San Diego to the border of Oregon
State, was pressed to the bosom of the great
Republic.

Then the iron horse appeared upon the scene—
that power of harnessed steam which, more than
any other force, has knit together the remotest
borders of the earth, and made the world what it is
to-day. I came across, when in California, the first

260 First Impressions of America

copy of the " Pullman's Hotel Express/' issued on
May 24, 1870. America is nothing if not original,
and this newspaper was the first paper ever com-
posed, printed, and published on a railway train !
Among the items of news was the announcement that
that day was the birthday of Queen Victoria. Its
leading article was headed " All Aboard for San
Francisco ! " and it was dated from Niagara Falls.
That was a wonderful day for America, and it
is not surprising that the excited editor did get a
bit mixed ! This is how he exulted : —

"The 'Yes' of Helen to Paris was the cause
of a ten years' war ; the ' Up, Guards, and at
them ! ' of Wellington annihilated an Empire ;
and these words, ' All Aboard for San Fran-
cisco ! ' meant that the most magnificent train
produced by American art was starting on its
passage over the longest line of rails operated by
any nation."

It was enough to make any editor lose his head !
It was a stupendous feat to cross those gigantic
snow mountains with a railway at a height of over
8,000 feet above sea-level. But Americans do
nothing by halves ; they believe in that good old
motto : " The best way to do a thing is to do it."

When they wanted to put down a rebellion, they
just raised a million men and they did it.

When they decided to wipe off a war debt they

The Land of Gold 261

accomplished it at the rate of thirty million pounds
a year. When France had failed at Panama and
Uncle Sam realised that the Atlantic and the
Pacific must, for the benefit of the world and
civilisation, be united, he took the matter in hand,
and without a moment's hesitation, put a few score
thousand men on the job and made the Panama
Canal a wonderful achievement.

When Americans at length made up their minds
to cast the weight of their immense power into the
scale that was trembling in the balance of the Great
War, neither the cosmopolitan nature of the in-
habitants of their vast Republic, nor the distance
of 3,000 miles to the European battlefields, nor the
probable cost in blood and treasure, nor the herculean
task of providing food, clothing and war material
for their warrior-hosts, stood in the way for an
instant. They neither expected nor demanded
nor took reward or compensation for their losses ;
they just flung themselves into the seething cauldron
determined that wrong should be avenged ; and
then calmly returned to their ordinary avocations
as plain American citizens.

And in the same spirit, when once they had
decided to extend their iron rails across the great
deserts and over two huge piles of mountain ranges,
they did it. They dashed on, ten and twelve miles
a day, over those great prairies and steep acclivities ;

262 First Impressions of America

thousands went in front and levelled the track,
thousands more came on with sleepers and rails,
and overtook the other workers as they went along ;
there was neither strike nor " ca' canny," they
sped right ahead for the 3,400 miles until the last
rivet — a silver rivet — had been driven into its
socket in California. Then they had a great feast ;
they fixed their artillery on the shores of the mighty
oceans East and West ; and when speeches had
been delivered, a prayer to Almighty God for His
blessing was offered up at each end of the great
continent, and the telegraph wires carried " Amen "
from one signal station to the other ; and then the
artillery crashed its thunder from the Atlantic to
the Pacific and from the Pacific to the Atlantic,
and East and West clasped hands over the iron
rail.

The train started — May 24, 1870 ! In eight days
the distance was covered. And another ceremony
followed — -a poetic ceremony — which I doubt not
had its origin in the romantic West. Water bottled
from the Atlantic Ocean was poured upon the
bosom of the Pacific, and water bottled from the
Pacific Ocean was poured upon the bosom of the
Atlantic, and from the throats of hundreds of
thousands of bare-headed citizens who stood upon
those shores, East and West, went up a shout of
rejoicing and triumph that echoed in every throb-
bing heart in that great continent.

The Land of Gold 263

From that time forth California, generally, has
gone ahead by leaps and bounds similarly to the
way, as I show, that Los Angeles and other cities
have prospered in the Southern portion of the
State.

But there has been a factor in the prosperity
and charm of California which, in my opinion,
outweighs the influence exercised by the countless
hordes infected with the gold fever, or that of the
union of East and West by means of the iron rail.
I refer to the influence of the old Spanish Missions.

Centuries before the flag of the Stars and Stripes
floated over the City Halls of California, the
Spaniard had planted his ensign on its rocky
crags and sun-scorched plains, and had waved his
sword over the blue Pacific and claimed it in the
name of his King. Countries, like individuals, owe
more than they are apt to realise to the unconscious
influences which are brought to bear upon them in
their earliest years, and to the lessons which are
wrought in their mind at a time when impressions
are most easily made and are the most likely to
endure.

It is four centuries since Christopher Columbus
sailed from the Spanish coast and discovered the
American continent. It is said that Scandinavian
explorers had discovered it four centuries pre-
viously, but of that we have no absolutely authentic

264 First Impressions of America

record. As far as we know the first European man
to gaze on that wonderful land was Columbus ;
and his primary act was to plant a cross upon its
soil, to call his men around him, and to kneel down
upon the beach and praise God. That initial pro-
ceeding was typical of all the subsequent early
history of the land that lay along the Pacific coast.
At that time America was peopled by the Indians.
How long had they been there ? Where did they
come from ? What was their origin ? All these
questions must remain unanswered. When the
King of Babylon was erecting his hanging gardens
on the plains of Mesopotamia, and the Pharaohs
of Egypt were building their pyramids and temples,
the mahogany-coloured natives of the American
continent were weaving their legends and formulat-
ing their creeds of mysticism, and worshipping the
same " unknown God " : and among the fastnesses
buried deep in American soil, are remnants of ruined
cities which tell of a people who apparently did not
belong to the Indian tribes, and who passed away
leaving not a shred of history behind them.

It was some twenty years after Columbus had
spied out the land that Balboa, the Spanish Con-
quistador, set foot on the Pacific Coast ; and one
Spanish adventurer after another visited it, and
departed again, satisfied, apparently, that the land
itself and its Indian inhabitants had been added to

The Land of Gold 265

the Crown of Spain — then the mightiest nation in
Europe.

Half a century later Spain was disturbed from
her peaceful serenity by the news that English
buccaneers were searching the Pacific Coast. It
was on December I3th, 1577, that Francis Drake,
with the permission of Queen Elizabeth, left
Plymouth with a squadron of five ships, and, sailing
west, took one Spanish galleon after another, laden
with gold and silver, until, on June I7th, 1579,
entering a bay a few miles north of the Golden Gate
of San Francisco, he claimed the land of Upper
California for his English Sovereign, and giving it
the name of " New Albion "—left it !

Eleven years later the sea power of Spain had
been crushed by the overthrow of the Invincible
Armada, and the sea power of Britain dominated the
world.

But the Spaniard, who had already gained a
footing on the Pacific Coast itself, lured by the lust
of gold and silver, yet with something of the
fanaticism of the Crusader, carrying the sword in
one hand and the Cross in the other, pursued a
pioneer work among the Indian natives on the
Californian Coast for nearly two centuries, and he
has left his mark through the length and breadth of
the State. Mountain and valley, city and town-
ship, river and fortress bear pretty musical Spanish

266 First Impressions of America

names, and the romance and poetry of Spain has
been mingled interminably with the legends and
traditions of California. England was busy else-
where, and Spain quietly pursued her way. The
Spaniards of the better class prided themselves on
their pure Castilian descent, and declined to intermix
with the native races, but the soldiery and lower
classes took Indian women for their wives, and
became known as Mexicans, or a " mixed " race.

In the meantime, the Pilgrim Fathers had sailed
for the North American Continent — that was
toward the close of 1620. Three years later the
Dutch had repaired there also, and Scandinavians
followed. In 1675 the Quakers arrived, and in
1682 William Penn landed, and " New England "
became a centre from whence the Anglo-Saxon race
began to spread and to make itself felt. But the
English colonists were far too busily occupied in
developing their new-found treasure in the East
to ever give a thought to the land by the Western
Sea. So the Spaniards were left in quiet possession,
and California dreamed on under their religious
and peaceful domination for another century.

It was about the middle of the i8th century —
to be exact, in the year 1769 — that the Spanish
king, anxious to colonise the whole country, in-
duced the Franciscan monks to establish missions
throughout California, so as to encourage Spanish

The Land of Gold

267

emigration. A very devoted man, Junipera Serra,
was chosen to take charge of the work, and he
founded his first mission — now in ruins, but a very
interesting ruin — in San Diego, and proceeded to
form one mission after another right along the coast
line — twenty-one in all — reaching as far north as

San Francisco. The
San Juan Capis-
trano mission was
erected in 1776, then
the San Buena Ven-
tura, San Fernando,
San Luis Rey, and
Santa Barbara.
The last has solid
walls and is well buttressed, with two-storey towers
and chimes of bells. I was disappointed in not being
able to visit it, for monks live there, and tend the
gardens just as was the case over a century ago.
The distance between these old mission stations
was reckoned as a day's journey, and the worthy
Father who superintended them, and whose name
is spoken of with reverence to-day throughout
California (I heard him mentioned scores of times)
used to tramp the whole distance on foot from
station to station, year in and year out, and the
Californian Railway to-day follows the same old
trail between these missions for hundreds of miles.

268 First Impressions of America

I visited the San Fernando Mission, the ruins of
which are very extensive, but are, comparatively
speaking, well preserved. The chapel is still stand-
ing also several entire parts of the monastery.
The arched corridor which stands in front of the
monastery with its fine tile-paved floor is intact,
and a large fountain and basin stand in the court-

yard. There are many rooms in the lower part of
the main building, and a number above them, con-
cerning the use of which one's imagination may
play at will. The buildings extend for more than
a mile and a half, and the area of the cultivated
land was immense, one extensive field of 20,000
acres having been devoted entirely to wheat. And
there is the old graveyard of the honoured padres,
and the remains of the cactus hedge and the old
adobe wall that once surrounded the enclosure.
This will give an idea of the immense extent of

The Land of Gold 269

these missions, and of the work they provided for
the native Indians who toiled for the padres in
thousands.

The labour entailed in the erection of these
missions must have been enormous. Stones had
to be quarried, and wood brought on mens*
shoulders over trackless mountains sometimes miles
distant. The main object of the padres was to
win the Indians to Christianity and civilisation.
Every kind of trade was carried on, woollen work,
wood-craft, and all manner of manufactures. They
introduced the orange, olive, banana, date, fig, and
all sorts of other sub-tropical fruits from sunny
Spain. So they lived, a great happy community
where strife was unknown, and prosperity reigned,
in the sacred atmosphere and under the fostering
care of the devoted padres.

It is this influence that has done, perhaps, more
than anything else to shape life and character in
the Land of Gold. While America was growing into
greatness on the Atlantic side, these simple religious
Franciscan friars were striving, according to their
light, to assist the poor Indian on the Pacific coast
to reach a form of civilisation to which he had been
a stranger. It was a time when no one ever
dreamed that the United States would reach to far
distant California !

The very architecture of these old Mission

270 First Impressions of America

Stations has been copied into countless houses,
private and public, throughout the State.

Spanish is still largely spoken, and a good many
of the better class Spaniards, who naturally declined
to enter into matrimony with the Indians, became
the husbands or wives of American colonists, who
came to California when the gold fever raged or
followed on when the steam engine linked East and
West together.

But the character of the people is essentially
English, though touched everywhere with the
romance and vivacity of Spain. And the people
love England. Again and again, I heard the
remarks : " We owe everything to England/'
" We can depend on England as we can on no other
country in the world."

And oh, how they love their own land ! They are
proud of their great mountains, their beautiful
scenery, their matchless climate ; they bury their
houses in roses and clematis and border their pave-
ments with elegant palm trees, graceful pepper
trees and with miles of geranium blossom, and tend
them as if they were their children. In midwinter
the roses still nourish, the geraniums still bloom,
the clematis still weaves its garlands of flowers.

The beauty and variety of Nature's wealth, and
the musical ring of the saints' names attached to
the hills and rivers and glens and mountain passes

The Land of Gold 271

and valleys, ever and anon must carry the mind of
the thoughtful back to the days when that which
was material was subordinated to the spiritual, and
when the calmness of religious zeal prevailed over
the bustle of commercial life.

The business man of California may not know
it ; he may be indifferent, perhaps, to the romantic
elements of Spanish individuality and vitality
which are stamped on architecture, land, produce,
nomenclature, language, spirit, poetry, imagery
and every quality of culture that has blended itself
with the rougher, sterner, more matter-of-fact
elements that constitute the make-up of the Anglo-
Saxon race. He may think, perhaps, that the
secularisation of those famous Mission Stations was
a righteous act ; that the banishment of the Fathers
from the scene of their years of self-sacrificing toil,
and the scattering of the Indians to their forest
homes to resume, in many instances, their aboriginal
life, were necessary to the development of the
country ; that the breaking up of the property into
smaller parts and selling the results of other men's
labours to the highest bidder were all as it should
be in this best of all possible worlds ; that the dis-
persion of the life of consecration that was associated
with the sound of those fine old bells, now silenced
for ever, and the disorganisation of that romantic
community, memories of which still cling to those

272 First Impressions of America

now broken arches and crumbling walls, are the
price that must be paid for progress and higher
civilisation. But, in spite of himself, those ruins,
their history and all their refining associations,
must still have their influence on him ; and as they
have been, so they ever will be, in my humble
opinion, one of the greatest factors in moulding —
quite unconsciously, perhaps — the character and
destiny of the inhabitants of the " Land of Gold."

CHAPTER XVII

A TRIP TO VENICE.

'T is a generally accepted dictum
that " when the mountain
cannot go to Mohammet,
Mohammet must go to the
mountain ; " but Uncle Sam
does not look at it in that
way at all. He just says
"The mountain must come,"
and consequently, when
California found it a bit too
far to go to Venice, Venice
was brought to California. And that ended the
difficulty.

When a good friend offered to take me to
" Venice," I looked up with surprise and asked :
" Where ? " He, upon his part, seemed to be
surprised at my supposing that Venice existed
anywhere else than in the United States of America ;
at all events he assured me that Venice was quite
within get-at-able distance, and that it was absurd
to suppose it necessary to go all the way to Italy
to see Venice, for Venice lay almost at his back
door, "just 20 or 30 miles — which in an automobile
is a mere bagatelle — and there you are." So I
s 273

274 First Impressions of America

readily accepted his kind invitation to " run down
and see Venice."

There were plenty of magnificent mountains on
the way, and no Italian will dispute the fact, when
once he has seen them, that Uncle Sam can hold his
own in mountains. I do not mean to say that the
Californian Coast Range itself surpasses the Italian
Alps, but of course you cannot put everything in
one place ; Uncle Sam never supposed you could,
he believes in a very wide distribution of his pro-
perties ; and besides that, the Venice that lies
away down by the Adriatic cannot boast of any
mountains at all. Uncle Sam's up-to-date Venice
has a fine range of mountains right at the very back
of it, which are as old as any in Italy. In fact, I
am quite sure, if you inquired of him on the subject,
Uncle Sam would tell you they are not only a
" good deal older " but that, without doubt, they
are the " very oldest in the world ! "

These mountains are noted for something that
you will not find in Italy. They are the home
of the movie show hunters ! Here you will find
in and out among the steep crags and mountain
trails, flanked by primeval forests and fairy glens,
where mysterious hollows and deep crevasses make
you creep, all sorts of old castles and feudal ruins
(all of which must be haunted, by the look of
them), and if you cannot find the dungeons which

A Trip to Venice 275

ought to be there, and which you know exist in the
Italian Venice, you have no difficulty whatever in
fancying that they must be there somewhere. For
there is the frowning gateway, and the gaunt
portcullis, and the drawbridge and the moat, and
gigantic castellated walls that nobody would dare
to scale, and the lofty watch-towers, and a look-out
or two in shining armour peering over the battle-
ments. What more do you want ? It is of no use
telling the cinema-goer who sits in his cheap
seat enthralled at the awful scenes enacted in the
year 1546, that they were not enacted, when the
movies say they were, nor would it be possible to
persuade that competent judge of mediae valism
that a penny popgun could do a terrible lot of
damage to that fine old structure ; indeed when
you drive by in your automobile and catch sight
of this old world castle, which, by the look of it,
must have a fearsome history, resting calmly in its
mountain stronghold, you naturally hold your
breath and stop dead to look at it and to inquire
what old baron it belongs to. For you are apt to
forget that Columbus did not come over with
William the Conqueror or that the United States
has not — at present — distributed coronets among
successful property holders. Of course, we know
that " brigands " belong especially to Italian
mountain passes, but there is that man in shirt

276 First Impressions of America

sleeves with a long ladder and a paint pot, a slouch
hat and a pair of blue trousers hitched up with a
black leather belt, climbing through that mysterious
looking barred window, and if he is not a brigand
what else can he be ? No, it is of no use to tell us
in these days that the New World cannot compete
with the Old in castles.

And that is not the only arresting scene. You
have scarcely got over the sensation that fine old
baronial masterpiece gave you, than your attention
is held by the awful spectacle of two men struggling
together at the very edge of a mighty precipice.
Again and again it seems as if one or other must be
hurled to destruction. The combatants dash for
one another with all the ferocity of tigers. One
or both must go over directly, you say ; nothing
can save them. You see them at last struggling
on the ground together ; one puts his foot against
the rock behind to give him leverage for a final
swing upon his opponent, but the latter by a clever
move suddenly reverses the order of things, and the
conflict increases in intensity. " How will it
end ? " we breathlessly ask, and behold, as we
wind round the base of the hill, we catch sight of
half a dozen men hidden in a hollow just below the
combatants with a canvas sheet held firmly
between them, and we pass on with a laugh, and
leave the strugglers still fiercely contending on the
mountain pass.

A Trip to Venice 277

When we reach the seashore we find ourselves
transported to a village in Central Africa. There
are the tall date palms, of quite recent growth, and
the oasis in the desert with its pools of water, and
the remnants of native huts ; they had finished
their history the previous night, when the whole
village had been in a blaze, and the dark-skinned
natives had dashed out of their burning homesteads
in all directions in a state of terror, while the cine-
matograph operators turned the handles of their
machines with unconcerned composure. No such
asset as this is possessed by the Italian Venice !

This neighbourhood, too, is the home of the
distinguished Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford,
who certainly do not belong to Italy. This loss
does not, perhaps, disturb Italy's equanimity. I
was entertained with information as to the amount
of money these notorieties made respectively in the
course of a year, the palatial residences in which
they lived, and many other details which would
take the breath out of an Italian.

At length we are in Venice. When I told my
kind hostess at the breakfast table that I was going
to Venice, she smiled and said, " It ought to be
called Venus."

I asked her, " Why ? "

She only smiled again, and said, " You must wait
till you get there, and find out for yourself." So

278 First Impressions of America

I was naturally very curious upon the subject. At
first I could see nothing to call forth my hostess's
remark, unless it were that the goddess of beauty
presided over such a charmed area as Uncle Sam's
Venice.

Having been to Venice in Italy, I was able to
compare notes. There were the canals sure
enough, any number of them, winding in and out
among brilliant pink moss banks such as you will
not find in Italy ; but the water struck me as being
somewhat cleaner than that found among the

A Trip to Venice 279

labyrinths of its Italian competitor. I think Uncle
Sam leans a bit more towards the sanitary side of
things than they do away down in the European
quarter, for I saw no mothers in the Californian
Venice sitting on their doorsteps carefully searching
their little ones' heads with tooth-combs. But there
were the lofty bridges spanning the canals ; nobody
could possibly distinguish them from the fine old
artistic elevations that span the liquid streets of
the Adriatic beauty spot, only that time or colour-
wash will be needed before Uncle Sam can make
his Venice look as ancient as its Italian namesake.

Still, there are the gondolas — there is no mis-
taking them. They are the same shape and the
same size and the same colour, and they are rowed
in the same way by equally picturesque gondoliers
— surely it must be Italy !

The only thing missing in " Venice " is a Doge's
Palace. Moreover, Uncle Sam prefers keeping his
feet dry, so he has improved upon Italy by intro-
ducing flower beds and green banks between the
canal and his residence, so that the bungalows do
not rise sheer out of the water.

But there is St. Mark's Plaza — as good an imita-
tion as you could expect to get in California — but
you miss the little shops in the square where you can
buy bags of biscuits with which to feed the pigeons
that alight on your head and shoulders and arms and

280 First Impressions of America

hands and fly all around you by the score, and pluck
biscuits out of your mouth and make friends with
you as if they had known you all their life. And
there are no little shops where they sell the pretty
coloured beads made of Venetian glass which every
lady commissions you to buy when she hears you
are going to Venice in Italy.

But then, on the other hand, Uncle Sam has a
big bath — and Italy does not believe in that sort
of thing ; she only gives you a few tablespoonfuls
of water in which to wash yourself, and provides
you with a towel about the size of a table napkin.
Uncle Sam tells you he can provide you with " the
largest heated and filtered salt-water plunge in the
world," and just close by is " the world's greatest
dancing pavilion," and such revolutionary ideas as
these would turn the hair of any Italian Venetian
grey in one night.

There is no form of amusement ever conceived
since the world began that you will not find in the
Venice that shimmers on the Pacific Coast ; they
are far too sedate on the Adriatic to think of that
sort of thing. The one city is as busy making money
as the other, but they make it in a different way.
Uncle Sam caters for his poor relations as well as
the rich ; he believes as much in the nimble ten
cent piece as he does in the almighty dollar, for he
knows the former is much more numerous and more

A Trip to Venice 281

easily secured. So all his nephews and nieces go
down to Venice to profit by his bounty. They go
by tens of thousands, and he provides them with
all they need according to the varied length of their
pockets ; but those who think they can be similarly
treated at the other Venice will find themselves
woefully mistaken. They want no poor people
there, nor even the moderately rich ; everybody
who speaks English is supposed to be a millionaire
when he reaches the Adriatic, and is treated accord-
ingly, and if you have not been skinned by the time
you leave an Italian Venetian hotel it will not be
the fault of the proprietor and his staff. If Uncle
Sam does get all he can out of you, he gives you
plenty of fun for your money, but you will not get
that in Italy.

You can travel a couple of miles in a little train
up and down the canals and the plazas and the
squares and over the bridges of Uncle Sam's city,
for Venice is a city — just as is the Venice of the
Italian King — and it is no toy concern, but a big
city of probably 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants.

But when you talk of a " city " in California,
you must remember that it may be a very different
sort of thing from a city elsewhere. California is
quite a law unto itself. So is every American
State for the matter of that. " State Rights "
are immensely real in America. America is a

282 First Impressions of America

particularly accommodating country. As to " cities, ' '
however, I think California stands by itself, for it
is composed of nothing else. It possesses neither
towns, nor villages, nor hamlets ; its dignity declines
to recognise anything short of a " city/'

It is said that if two Englishmen were cast upon
a desert island, the first thing they would do would
be to call a meeting and elect a chairman ; but
California would call a meeting and elect a mayor.
It matters not how small the community, the
Californian believes in absolute equality and in
beginning as he intends to go on. So when a dozen
or twenty men and women (perhaps in America
one ought to put the women first) who have taken
a piece of waste land and have replaced their canvas
tents with houses built of cobble stones and cement,
decide that they will claim a certain area of so
many miles and turn it into a city, they come
together, and confer upon one another the dignities
of Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors, appoint the
necessary officials, and then invite the world to
come and settle down, and profit by their enlightened
policy.

So Venice is a city with all a city's honours and
responsibilities.

I was greatly struck, as I walked those parts of
Venice which are dry land, at the number of hatless
ladies in loose cloaks ; and steering in the general

A Trip to Venice

283

direction, and leaving all the multitudinous places
of amusement behind me, I found they wandered
toward the beach, where cloaks were at once dis-
carded and thrown into tents. In all directions —
walking, standing, lying, paddling, playing, climb-
ing the rocks, exploring the canyons — were these
ladies, and I then for the first time understood

why it was suggested to
me that Venice should be
caUed " Venus " ! Tis true
they each had on a skin-
tight coloured jersey, which
reached from just above the
breasts to the hip joint,
but with that exception
_ they would have made very
good models of Venus —
as far as nudity was concerned. Mr. Clarke, who
was commissioned by the " Daily Mail " to write
articles on his visits to various bathing places on
the English coast, was very much shocked at ladies
who wore bathing drawers which reached half-way
down their thighs, but what would he say and
where would he put himself were he to go to
Venice ! There was no thigh covering beyond the
pin-bones.

Most people would say this was very indecent,
some may remark — " immoral." I do not know

284 First Impressions of America

that I should call it either. I think the best term,
from the English standpoint, would be " indelicate,"
but it was such a commonplace — men being garbed
in precisely the same way — that, apparently, no
one thought anything about it at all. The upper-
most sentiment in my own mind was that of regret,
for I did not consider the sight of these hundreds
of women in scanty garb by any means attractive.
I have sufficient admiration for women to wish that
they should not spoil themselves. This sort of
thing did not add to the beauties of Venice, for
the anatomical structure of the female figure does
not lend itself to this kind of display ; the width of
the female pelvis is fatal to such exhibitions. The
Adriatic Venice provides no opportunity for such
extravagances, for they have no such immense
stretches of beach, but there is plenty of statuary
there, and no master would have cared to reproduce
any of these American ladies in their upright
attitudes, however well-proportioned might be their
figures, or however fine might be their muscular
development. I have spent many hours in the
Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and many more hours
gazing at the sculptures beneath the Loggia in the
great Piazza, where Michael Angelo sat hour after
hour in his declining years gazing upon the
creations of his genius, and I was struck by the
fact that every female figure was carefully draped

A Trip to Venice 285

or elegantly posed so that the sharp pelvic corners
might be avoided.

But, turning from these strange exhibitions, I
was attracted by my friend's little girl who came
running up to me as we were picnicing on the beach
and gave me some dull looking stones she had found
among the pebbles. Her father said, " These are
our Calif ornian jewels, they only require polishing ;
we have moonstones, jaspers, turquoises and all
sorts of other beautiful stones on this beach." And
when I was leaving California and saying farewell to
my friends, he handed me a little box and said
" Put that in your pocket, it is a memento of a
pleasant day's outing." When I opened it I found
therein a note as follows : " The enclosed stones I
found on the beach and had polished. The light-
coloured ones are moonstones, the red ones are
sardonyx and the greenish-coloured one is a jasper.
Please accept them as a memento of the beach.
Yours, Geo. Starr White."

I was amazed at their beauty.

It would be difficult to know what Uncle Sam
does not possess ! Nature has been very rich in
her bounties towards him. He has accepted from
Nature what treasures she can yield, has added his
genius to her wealth, and so turned a desert into a
paradise.

CHAPTER XVIII
"THE HARBOUR OF THE SUN."

"HT was in the harbour of San Diego
/^l&\ — " tne harbour of the Sun "
^^Lil — that the first white man

anchored his ship on the Cali-
fornian Coast 379 years ago
(1542). His name was Cabrillo,
and he was the first of the
famous Spanish navigators who
had ventured thus far along
the shores of this hitherto unknown land. San
Diego has, therefore, a particular interest for the
American, especially for the American of the " Land
of Gold."

But more interesting still is the fact that here
the white man just a century and a half ago (1769)
built his first settlement on the shores of the Western
Sea. Here it was that the Franciscan friars erected
their earliest mission and gathered around them
the uncivilised tribes of native Indians who at that
time held free and undisputed sway throughout the
whole Western territory of America.

What changes have taken place in that century
and a half ! San Diego would have been sufficient in
itself to establish the reputation of the white man
for progress and civilisation ; but if we track his

287

288 First Impressions of America

pathway along the line of the old Spanish missions,
from the very first one founded in 1769 by the
" Harbour of the Sun " at San Diego to the last
one erected by the " Golden Gate " at San Francisco
in 1776, and note those magnificent thriving cities
with their teeming populations, stretching for a
thousand miles along the coast, spreading farther
and farther inland and ever forming fresh States
until West meets East and East meets West, it is
then that we get some idea of what has been accom-
plished in the course of one hundred and fifty years.

When Cabrillo dropped his anchor in San Diego
Bay nearly four centuries ago, he declared he had
" found a good harbour " — how good he had then
no idea, nor did he know anything of the country
beyond. If he scaled the nearest range of moun-
tains, as he probably did, and looked away over the
great plains, he must have been struck by the fact
that it was a vast treeless region as seen from the
San Diego coast, where rock and sand and sage-
brush held high court. But for the ingenuity of
man, who has watered and tilled the soil, that vast
area, once the bed of the ocean, would still be a
desert. It is irrigation alone which has changed
the whole face of the district.

I went to San Diego by train in the early morn-
ing ; it was a four hours' run from Los Angeles
to the Coast ; and directly after we emerged from

The Harbour of the Sun 289

the station we passed through avenues of green
trees laden with their golden fruit, which extended
for miles ; following upon the orange groves were
walnut trees and extensive fields of beet and acres
upon acres of bright green alfalfa. Pretty bunga-
lows embowered in roses peeped out here and there
from between elegant palm trees, and all around
were the greyish green orchards of olives, leading
on to miles of wheat fields bordered with the
tall feathery golden mustard plant. Irrigation has
worked this miracle and " turned a desert into a
paradise," for the rainfall throughout the year is
slight, and from May to October there is no rain at
all.

In the distance, shadowed against the blue of a
Californian sky, rose the giant purple mountain
ranges whence the water flows which man has
harnessed to his service, and nearer were multitudes
of hills whose sides literally glittered in the light
of the morning sun with their patches of golden
mustard. And here numbers of graceful pepper
trees garnished the meadows, forming quite a little
forest in yonder valley ; the first one was planted
by a Franciscan monk with his own hands in this
spot just 120 years ago, and they now ornament
the drives and parks and border the city streets from
one end of the State of California to the other.

Toiling up among the mountains, the train at

290 First Impressions of America

last reaches the summit, and beneath us we get
a sight of San Diego, where the brown-robed
Franciscan monks in their sandalled feet planted
the first palm tree brought from sunny Spain,
where the vine and olive first found a home in
Calif ornian soil, where the first field in the whole
of this charmed land underwent cultivation, where
the first imported orange tree bloomed, and where
native Indians were taught for the first time the
lessons of culture and civilisation to the music of
the mission bells that echoed across the valley from
those arched openings in yonder now crumbling
walls. Around those ruins linger the dreams of the
Old World ; beneath us and around us lie the
realities of the New.

San Diego to-day is "no mean city/' It has
a population of over 80,000 and extends for a
distance of 25 miles northward along the coast.
It possesses nearly a hundred miles of immensely
wide streets and pavements, adorned by magnificent
shops and stately residences ; and yet fifty years
ago San Diego, as such, was non-existent !

The vandalism which followed the secularisation
(as it was called) of the Mission Stations had long
left the little Spanish community in the northern
part of the harbour scattered and helpless. In
1867, however, Alonzo Horton, who had saved a
few hundred dollars out of his profits in a San

The Harbour of the Sun 291

Francisco furniture shop, came to San Diego, and
saw the possibilities of founding a city. He invested
all the money he had in buying land at one shilling
an acre. Practically the whole of the land upon
which San Diego was subsequently built became
his property. He divided his acres into lots,
advertised them, and sold them at £20 apiece.
Those £20 lots are now worth £100,000. He is
well called the Father of San Diego !

To see its fine railway stations, its electric tram-
cars plying the streets in all directions, its library of
70,000 volumes, its magnificent public schools, its
numberless churches, its great hotels (some of which
cost half a million sterling) replete with every possible
up-to-date requirement, its fine banks and great
business houses, its big printing establishments
which run five daily newspapers, its noble public
buildings, its multitudes of uncrowded homes, where
indiarubber trees, palms, and magnolias stand by
every door, where heliotrope and fuchsias climb
over the windows and brilliant geraniums flourish
everywhere, is to leave one dumbfounded at the
fact that fifty years ago there was not a solitary
house or street in all that great area !

Right in the very heart of the city is Balboa
Park, covering 1,460 acres. It is a lovely spot,
with rugged rocks, deep gorges, and picturesque
valleys, of which every advantage has been taken

292 First Impressions of America

to develop schemes of landscape gardening.
Thousands upon thousands of rare trees have been
planted in all directions, and the architecture of
the buildings scattered about is chiefly an imitation
of the delightful old Spanish Mission Stations. By
damming a canyon, a multi-branched lagoon has
been formed, ornamented by flowers and shrubs of
every description. There are several other parks,
gay with flowers, presenting shady walks, comfort-
able seats and endless sources of pleasure.

For many miles all around the Bay of San Diego
the City Fathers have reclaimed immense tracts of
land from the shallow, swampy borders of the
Harbour. They have done the same in Chicago by
the banks of Lake Michigan, and turned the sur-
roundings of the City — practically swamps — into
beautiful ornamental parks, and they are still
working at it. The " System of Parks " is a live
scheme in every American city : one of the first
things the authorities think about. America not
only knows how to make her dollars, but she also
knows how to spend them wisely.

Marvellous as is the transformation scene which
has taken place on one side of the harbour of San
Diego, I shall not easily forget my surprise when,
at the invitation of Madame Tingley, the leader of
the Theosophical movement, I one day paid a visit
to Lomaland, and the famous International Head-

The Harbour of the Sun 293

quarters of the " Universal Brotherhood," on the
other side of the bay. It is as near an approach to
wonderland as anything can be ; and is situated at
Point Loma, which stretches out a long way into
the sea and thus forms the northern boundary of
the crescent-shaped harbour.

Not more than twenty years ago the whole of
Lomaland (which lies eight miles distant from, but
is within the boundary of, the city of San Diego)
was a bare wilderness given up to sage-brush and
chapparal. To-day it is a veritable paradise where
domes and cupolas that cover temples of Oriental
magnificence lift their heads from the midst of
luxurious vegetation, and look out upon the bound-
less waters of the blue Pacific that bathe its feet
for two miles along the coast.

Passing through a massive and elegant white
gateway of, apparently, Egyptian design, we
ascended through avenues of palms (presenting
vistas here and there of sub-tropical vegetation
and beds of rare exotics) and approached the front
of a temple of curious shape shrouded in luxurious
verdure which made a striking contrast with the
pure white of the building. The door of the Temple
opened, and I found myself in a beautifully decorated
circular hall surrounded by white pillars and
covered by a large dome of green glass. In front
of me, opposite the entrance, some fifty children

294 First Impressions of America

were seated, and to the right and left a number of
ladies and gentlemen ; and I discovered that an
entertainment by the children of the Raj a- Yoga
College, founded by Madame Tingley, had been

arranged for my welcome. The display of musical,
elocutionary and dramatic talent by children of
such tender years was remarkable.

The grounds of the Theosophical Headquarters
are very extensive, and the residents and students
live in beautiful bungalows of simple but exquisite
designs which are scattered in large numbers amid
the rich sub-tropical foliage that flourishes on every
hand. The children were part of the school of 300
pupils, ranging from those of tender years up to
others attending the College and University courses,
all trained by Madame Tingley according to a

The Harbour of the Sun 295

special system of her own devising ; her aim is to
draw out from them the best that is in them ;
instead of letting them run in formal and pre-
arranged ruts which have been furrowed by others,
she seeks to develop what is original and to cultivate
the latent powers of each individual. Music con-
stitutes a prominent part of this teaching, not
necessarily to cultivate musicians, but rather to
develop the thoughtful, critical, and finer faculties
which, in Madame Tingley's view, go to build up
character. In this she is anatomically and physio-
logically correct. A high moral tone is associated
with all that is taught. No fewer than twenty-four
nationalities are represented among these students.

When the interesting and remarkable entertain-
ment to which I have referred was over, Mr.
Fussell, the Secretary of the Society, took me to
the Greek Theatre situated at the head of a canyon
— a faithful imitation of the famous erection at
Syracuse. From here I went to the workshops,
passing by canyons, natural rockeries, wild flower
reservations, and endless winding pathways and
rustic retreats.

In the printing department where all the most
up-to-date machinery is installed (for from this
centre is turned out the leading literature of the
cult for the world's supply) the most beautiful
engraving and colour printing is done as well as
elegant book-binding.

296 First Impressions of America

All the clothes for students and residents, both
male and female, are made in other workshops.
There are forestry, agricultural, carpentering, and
arts and crafts departments. There is a meteoro-
logical station, fitted with delicate seismographic
recording apparatus, and from it weather reports
are sent to the Bureau at Washington daily.

Not a soul receives payment, all are volunteer
workers ; they live an ideal life, each working for
all and all for each. They dine in a common hall,
and some are trained in all the various details of
domestic life.

On this occasion I was asked to dine in one of the
bungalows with a few refined and cultured leaders
of the movement, and I had a very delightful time.

Later, we were summoned by a bugle call to the
Temple of Music — another beautiful erection sur-
mounted by a great purple glass dome. There are
several of these fairy-like edifices, all of which were
designed by Madame Tingley, and decorated by
the students — all call themselves " students," no
matter of what age. Here a concert had been
arranged, and fifty or more musicians of different
nationalities stood by their instruments, which were
of every conceivable kind. The large Temple was
filled with an audience of 200 to 300 people.

When I entered the vestibule a gentleman came
forward, and holding out his hand said, " Well, you

The Harbour of the Sun 297

haven't changed one bit." To my surprise I
found him to be the brother of a fellow medical
student whom I had known over 30 years ago !
He was now a " student " at the International
Theosophical Headquarters. One could not help
remarking how small the world is, after all !

The concert was opened with a few kind words
of welcome to me, the eloquent speaker adding some
interesting details connected with the work carried
on by Madame Tingley. The music itself was a
marvellous exhibition of talent. The musicians,
many of whom I recognised again, having seen them
in the workshops, had been trained to a high point of
excellence ; and in the final theme the wild, im-
passioned notes of the instruments were made
practically to speak. I never remember anything
which, by its overpowering passion, so impressed
me. When the music was over, I was asked to
address the company. I gladly complied with this
request, and, after many a hearty farewell, motored
back to the City.

The next evening I dined with Dr. and Mrs.
Woodward at their beautiful home on Point Loma.
" Come with me," said my genial host, " if you
would like to see San Diego Harbour and San
Diego City to advantage, come down to the terrace
at the back of my house and you will see a sight
which you will never forget." And, indeed, it was

298 First Impressions of America

a wonderful sight. The bay, which has a total area
of twenty-two square miles, lay in front. Point
Loma, on which we stood, stretched its long arm
across the north and north-west. From the
southern shore came a silver strand which pro-
tected the bay on the west. Deep-draught vessels
were lying in the harbour, smaller vessels were
gliding swiftly by, away to the right were the
distant mountains, and over the other side of the
harbour rose that City of miraculous growth reared
on the site of the " Birthplace of California." It
looked much like Malta when viewed from the
Mediterranean, with its white houses rising on the
sides of the rock-hewn hills, and the sun blazing
down on the fairy-like scene, lighting up the
harbour and its surroundings with golden splendour.
Later in the evening, as I motored towards the
city where I was to lecture that night, I turned to
the West and watched the great ball of fire drop
into the waters of the Pacific. It was much like a
Mediterranean sunset in the varied colours it threw
up from the skyline. I noticed it shooting out its
yellow and purple and orange tints in an all-
embracing glow over the land-locked bay, and
reflecting its shadows in a dim mysterious light
upon the buildings that rose from the pebbled beach,
then I understood to some extent why that silent
sheet of transparent blue has been called " The
Harbour of the Sun/'

CHAPTER XIX
"THE GOLDEN GATE."

|F the reader will look at a map
of the United States and run
his eye along that portion of
the Coast which borders the
State of California, he will see
nothing at first sight to lead
him to suppose other than
that it forms one continuous
line from its southern to its northern extremity.

And yet about mid-way along that coast there is
a small opening, scarcely one mile wide, situated
between long ranges of towering rocks. That open-
ing permits ingress to and egress from the largest
and most remarkable inland sea in the whole world.
It is called the Bay of San Francisco, and is a
land-locked harbour of such magnitude that the
combined fleets of the civilised world could be
anchored in it with ease, and practically at any time
the flag of every nation may be seen there.

Stand where you will upon the widely-separated
shores of that inland sea at sunset and turn your
gaze toward that small opening (for it appears to
be very, very small in the distance), and your
attention will be at once arrested by a truly

299

300 First Impressions of America

marvellous sight. All around the north, south and
east of the great harbour rise hill upon hill stretch-
ing one behind the other like " the hills around
Jerusalem," and out toward the west the immense
gaunt black mountains that guard the coast lift
themselves in solemn grandeur. There is but one

rift in the rapidly-gathering darkness of night.
Immediately behind that small gap in the western
rocks the sun dips into the boundless Pacific, and
while its colourings of shaded crimson illuminate
the sky and spread themselves as a canopy above
the dark rocks which stand out like battlements
against it, the full blaze of the setting sun itself in
all its royal splendour bursts through the opening
between the towering crags and presents to the
wondering gaze of the onlooker the dazzling
spectacle of " The Golden Gate."

The Golden Gate 301

This " Gate " is a strait bounded by the moun-
tains on either side for a distance of five miles
before opening out into the harbour ; it has an
average width of two miles, and at low water the
depth reaches from 55 to 67 feet.

This remarkable entrance may be termed the
front door to California, the back door consisting of
the Southern Pacific Railway, the route and history
of which I have already described. The concealed
harbour has an area of four hundred and twenty
square miles, and has a shore line of 100 miles. It
lies upon the trade route of the world. Toward
" The Golden Gate " the produce of the Calif ornian
Valley pours its wealth upon the one hand, and the
ships of all nations with their merchandise gravitate
toward it upon the other. Practically every ship
coming from Europe and the Atlantic via Panama,
and bound for the Orient stops at San Francisco for
fresh water and supplies.

And yet centuries passed ere that strange cleft
in the rocks was known to civilised man. Sir
Francis Drake raided all up and down the Pacific
Coast without discovering its whereabouts. Even
Captain Cook had failed to find that entrance to
the Land of Gold, although the native Indians
brought their seal skins to his ships and went back-
ward and forward in their canoes through the
mysterious " Gate." Spanish adventurers came

302 First Impressions of America

and went without San Francisco yielding up to
them her secret. Once again it was left to the
brown-robed, sandal-footed Franciscan Friar to
discover what the boldest and bravest spirits of
the past had failed to find.

It was in 1772 that a party headed by a padre
from San Diego crossed the Californian foot-hills
in the hope of finding Monterey Bay, which had
been described by a Spanish explorer 160 years
before. Having failed in their search, they pro-
ceeded northward, and ascending the mountains
overlooking the sea discovered for the first time
the great harbour and its exit through " The Golden
Gate."

Two years later another expedition headed by a
Franciscan monk climbed the scarred rocks which
overhang the " Gate," and in solemn appeal asked
the blessing of Almighty God upon their enterprise,
and planted a cross upon the summit of the crags.
Twelve months later, the San Carlos sailed through
" The Golden Gate," and the ship of the white man
entered for the first time that wonderful bay, the
knowledge of which had been locked for centuries
in the red man's breast. And as they gazed upon
the towering hills looking calmly down upon that
peaceful sea, they decided to call it after the name
of their patron saint St. Francis d'Assissi, and it
has been known to the world as San Francisco ever
since.

The Golden Gate 303

It was not until more than seventy years after
this event that America came upon the scene. The
Old Mission founded in 1776 went on its quiet way
with its devoted Friars and their Red Indian
followers, and British ships with business men on
board did a big trade in seal skins, buying them
from the natives at 6d. apiece and selling them in
Canton for £20.

The Congress at Washington was constantly
petitioned to establish governments on the coast,
but the appeals met with a blank refusal. There
were the " Expansionists " and the " Anti-expan-
sionists/' One American Senator cried, " Nature
has fixed the limits of our nation," and referring
to the Rocky Mountains, he eloquently described
them as "a western boundary of inaccessible
mountains, whose base Nature has skirted with
irreclaimable deserts of sand " !

The troubles between England and America in
the East, to which I have referred, became accen-
tuated in the West when England claimed the
Columbia River as a boundary in order to secure
her rights in connection with her fur trade. Most
of those difficulties were settled when peace was
declared between England and America in 1782.
The Columbia River became Anglo-American, and
then it was that America began to look about her
and to decide upon expansion. In 1803 she

304 First Impressions of America

purchased all Louisiania from France. In 1819 she
acquired Oregon and Washington State, and this
brought her down to the Pacific Coast. It was
practically all barren desert, but America more
than doubled her original area. At the same time
she purchased Florida from Spain ; this brought
her down to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1845 Texas
joined the United States. In 1848 came the
Mexican cession, which embraced the whole of
California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.
This brought the United States again to the Pacific
further down toward the south, with a total coast
line of 1,500 miles ; 1853 saw the Gadsden purchase
of a small disputed strip on the Southern boundary,
and thus she completed her territory north and
south in almost straight lines right across the map.
Since then she has purchased Alaska from Russia.
That was in 1867. As the result of the war with
Spain she occupied Cuba, Porto Rico, and the
Philippines, previous to which she had secured
Hawaii and Samoa. The American diplomat during
the last century has shown that he possesses the
same bold, enterprising, adventurous spirit which
guided the hand and brain of his ancestors, and
which has led to three-fourths of the habitable
globe being painted in flaming red.

The United States has become a great world
power, and her position in the Pacific brings her

The Golden Gate 305

cheek-by-jowl with Russia, China, Japan, Austra-
lasia, and the Dutch East Indies. In all the great
Pacific and Asiatic questions of the future, the
United States must become a tremendous factor,
and her voice will have to be listened to. English
statesmanship, it seems to me, should be directed
to one essential point, if peace is to be secured and
political and territorial ambitions kept within
bounds, namely, to the cultivation of closest friend-
ship, to the fullest extent of its resources, with the
American people. England may coquette with
France, and play with Germany, and replenish the
coffers of Italy ; but I am certain of this, that the
trump card for the British Empire is a clear under-
standing and the very best relations with the
American Republic.

America is, from her position on her Western
Coast, in a specially favoured situation for doing
an enormous trade with all the Pacific-Asiatic
countries I have mentioned, and as she still further
develops her immense virgin resources she will
have to be reckoned with. She has not the abun-
dant harbours which Great Britain possesses in
British Columbia and Canada. Nevertheless she
has San Francisco, Puget Sound, and San Diego.
I have put these in their order of importance. San
Francisco stands first and foremost. Puget Sound
is in Washington ; and the famous " Oregon Pine "

u

306 First Impressions of America

from the inexhaustible forests of that State is
conveyed from the Port of Olympia, which stands
at the head of the American portion of the Sound,
to every part of the world ; and as this port is
300 miles nearer Canton and other Chinese ports
than San Francisco it shares with the latter the
traffic carried on between America and the " Flowery
Land." And then last, but not least, there is
Seattle, the chief city from which the great ships sail.

The critical American statesman, to whom I
have already referred, told the Washington Congress
some seventy years ago that he " would not give
a pinch of snuff for the whole territory/' that is, of
Oregon and Washington, which together embraces
500 miles of coast line. I wonder what he would
say now !

It must be remembered that the State of Washing-
ton on the West Coast is more than 3,000 miles
distant from the City of Washington, D.C. (District
of Columbia) in the East. That fact must cause
endless confusion to the Post Office authorities, as
to other people.

This inland sea of Puget Sound is shared by the
British, for it extends from the American territory
of Washington into that of British Columbia, which,
since America purchased the huge territory of
Alaska from Russia, is wedged in between Alaska
and Washington State.

The Golden Gate 307

It is around the harbours of the world that
population and commerce will ever gather, and it
is to the harbours especially that the eye naturally
turns when the possibilities of trade and the de-
velopments of a country are to be considered.
Puget Sound in the northern part of the American
Pacific Coast and San Diego in the south, both
constitute magnificent harbours because of their
size and depth ; but the bay of San Francisco is
faciles princeps, for it lies centrally along the coast,
is of enormous dimensions and great depth, and is
in immediate connection with the direct railway
routes to the Atlantic. Moreover, it is conveniently
situated on the line of Uncle Sam's cleverly fixed-up
stepping stones in the Pacific Ocean. First, there
is Hawaii, which forms a central base ; Samoa
lies on the way to Australia ; Guam and the
Philippines command China, Siam, Borneo, Java
and other islands ; whilst San Francisco itself is,
without any intervening land, in a direct straight
line with Japan. In my own opinion, San Francisco
is destined to be in the near future one of the greatest
cities yet founded. As an American poet has sung :

" She sits at the gates of the world where the

nations shall gather and meet,
And the East and the West at her bidding
shall lie in a leash at her feet."

308 First Impressions of America

Her rise, fall, and resurrection read like a romance.

When in 1776 the Franciscan friars and a handful
of soldiers and colonists landed on the shores of
the harbour of San Francisco, their first idea was
to erect a Mission, and within a few months the
adobe building was completed. The main building,
" The Mission Dolores," still stands in remarkable
preservation, almost the last vestige of San
Franciscan antiquity. Around it in the old days
were gathered the native Indian dwellings, con-
structed chiefly of willow poles covered with native-
woven cloth or skins. The old Mission house now
lies packed between modern dwellings.

In the year 1844 — that, let us remember, was
only 77 years ago — there were only 14 houses in
San Francisco with 60 inhabitants ! It began to
attract the attention of some adventurous Americans
and in 1847 the population had risen to 500. Then
came the cry of " Gold in California," and the on-
rush of prospectors, which I have already described,
called " The Gold Fever of '49." Vessels dashed
into the harbour with fevered haste from all quarters
of the globe, and gold-seekers tramped over the
mountains from the East. In February of 1849,
the population had quadrupled — namely, 2,000 ;
by August it had increased to 5,000 ; and by the
following April it had jumped up to 67,000 — 60,000
of them being gold-seeking emigrants ! It now
has a population of more than half a million.

The Golden Gate 309

Cosmopolitan as is New York City, it is not to
be compared in this respect with San Francisco.
Every nation of the world is gathered here among
the inhabitants of what is virtually a city of only
70 years' growth. Men of all nations have been
swept together ; their varying policies have been
pooled and strained for the benefit of the com-
munity as a whole, and thus there has been evolved
from this heterogeneous mixture a really magnificent
ideal of virile citizenship.

One fine characteristic of the American mind
consists in its receptiveness. The genuine American
is always ready to learn : and, although essentially
original (as we all know by his inventive genius)
he is, nevertheless, always prepared to adapt to his
own requirements and institutions the best he can
discover in the methods and ideas of others. Senti-
ment runs high in his composition, but he is none
the worse for that ; and with all his hard-headed
business-like activities, there is ever a tender side
to his nature which softens what might otherwise
be considered harsh.

I do not know that this could be better illustrated
than by a very common-place incident which
occurred in San Francisco some years ago, and which
is still narrated by its warm-hearted inhabitants.
There were two dogs in the city, named Bummer
and Lazarus, (their names were conferred upon

310 First Impressions of America

them by the public, as descriptive of their respective
qualities). The former was a big dog, a sort of
vagrant that everybody liked but which nobody
could coax into domestic life and responsibility.
The other was a wretched looking, mangy little
half-starved cur that nobody troubled about or

cared for. One day poor little Lazarus was attacked
by other dogs, when Bummer, declining to allow an
outcast like himself to be illtreated by civilised
ruffians, went to his rescue and the enemy beat a
hasty retreat. A firm friendship was at once
established between Bummer and Lazarus, and
they were never after seen apart. All San Francisco
knew them. They could always be seen at definite
hours of the day toddling along in certain directions
side by side. Bummer had been accustomed to
go the round of restaurants, where he could always
rely upon a warm welcome and a tit-bit, and when

The Golden Gate 311

Lazarus and he swore eternal friendship, Bummer
took his friend round with him and introduced him
to his human friends, until the little fellow grew
plump and healthy, for Bummer was always most
careful that all the choicest morsels should go to
Lazarus.

On a certain day one of those stupid periodical
scares about rabies was raised hi the State, and the
Legislature, by the advice of its hide-bound medical
officers, introduced to the Senate the usual senseless
Bill for the muzzling of every dog. Legislators
consider themselves, as a rule, compelled to abide
by so-called " expert-advice " on such occasions,
no matter how absurd they may feel that advice
to be, and consequently the Bill passed into an
Act. But a special clause was introduced into it,
in accordance with a popular wish, that against
Bummer and Lazarus the law was not to be en-
forced ! Perhaps in no Legislative Assembly in the
whole world outside America would senators in
solemn conclave deign to discuss the question of
the exemption of two homeless dogs from the
rigours of an enactment passed with a view to the
safeguarding of human life !

At last poor old faithful Bummer died, and the
very next day little Lazarus was found lying by his
side with his head pressed hard against the heart
that had beat for him and for him alone during their

312 First Impressions of America

years of close companionship. He was dead too.
They stuffed the bodies of Bummer and Lazarus,
which had contained two such faithful souls, to
keep as memorials of canine love and human
sympathy.

The fall of San Francisco was as dramatic as
its rise. It was in 1906 that the great earthquake
came ; the tall skyscrapers swung like hammocks,
and all the great buildings and small ones, the
churches and offices, the Chinese drinking saloons
and gambling dens, were shaken as by the hand
of a giant, were toppled over, and the streets were
crumpled up like matchboard. I know what the
results of an earthquake are like, for I was in
Messina within three weeks after that awful disaster
of 1909, which in three seconds had crushed and
buried alive 90,000 persons. But San Francisco's
trouble did not end with the shock ; it was followed
by a fire which had all its own way, for the earth-
quake which fissured the rocks for 300 miles, dis-
located the water mains and rendered the firemen
powerless. I heard many lurid accounts of the
awful catastrophe from those who went through it.

What struck me particularly was the calmness
with which the stories were narrated, and everybody
assured me that no sign of despair was noticed on
any face during the catastrophe itself, even though
the fire rushed along the streets like a tornado

The Golden Gate 313

sweeping everything before it. The nearest
approach to despair one told me, came from a big
cage which stood on a pavement, and from which
rose a queer sound like the broken sobs of a woman,
crying " Poor Polly, Poor Polly." My informant
found the little creature huddled up in its feathers,
so he picked up the cage as he dashed along in
front of the flames and hurried on with it, " Poor
Polly's " sobs ringing in his ears all the way !

The picturesque Chinese quarter, with its 40,000
inhabitants, was swept bare ; the wooden shanties
only offered fuel for the flame. But yet these
strange people were placid and imperturbed as
ever. A friend went up to one to condole with
him upon the homeless state of his people ; the
Chinaman calmly replied : " We build all new
presently."

The American method of doing things was never
seen to better advantage than in this awful disaster.
From every quarter came help. The Los Angeles
Relief Camp was there and in full working order
within twenty-four hours. In one week there had
been erected a sufficient number of wooden depots
to hold 27,000 tons of food. Every State in the
Union poured in its help, and the military carried
out the work of distribution with masterly precision.

The earthquake and fire left San Francisco, with
little exception, a heap of ruins. To-day — in fifteen

314 First Impressions of America

years — the city has been completely rebuilt. There
is not a vestige of the ruin to be seen ; lofty sky-
scrapers rear themselves in all directions, handsome
shops line the great streets. The four public build-
ings— City Hall, Public Library, State Building and
Exposition Auditorium — cost two millions sterling.
The great lecture hall holds 12,000 people ; it cost
half a million sterling, and it has an organ which
cost £13,000. It would have taken any English
municipal authority all the fifteen years to decide
upon that purchase alone ! The great banks and
hotels seem innumerable ; together, the latter are
computed to accommodate 50,000 people.

I was fortunate in making the acquaintance of
Professor Kimo Esanon, a talented Hawaiian Pro-
fessor of Music who kindly motored me and three or
four friends to all the chief attractions of the City.
The Hawaiians are great favourites with the American
public. The Professor is about 5ft. nins. in height,
but immensely muscular ; his dark skin sets off a fine
row of white teeth, and his pleasant, boyish face
is always lighted up with a good-natured smile.
His lofty forehead and large head are surmounted
by an immense crown of frizzy jet-black hair that
rises up like a monster halo. His hat seemed to
be poised upon black billows of hair.

It is very interesting to contrast the various
types of hair in different nationalities. The Red

The Golden Gate

315

Indian, for instance, with his long straight black shiny
hair ; then the negro with his close kinkley-woolley
crop, and the Hawaiian so different from either.

When I was in New York I had pointed out to
me a splendid house in which an old negress lived in
luxurious ease surrounded by a retinue of black
servants ; she had " made her pile " by inventing a
preparation to take the kinkle out of the negros'
hair. Sambo is very sensitive on that point, it is
his badge of slavery, and he prefers to have hair like

316 First Impressions of America

Massa. So he pays frequent visits to his black hair-
dresser to get the kinkle taken out. The specialty
which does the trick is a sticky, waxy salve ; after
it is rubbed on, a hot flat-iron has to be passed over
the scalp, and when finished Sambo walks proudly
out with a head as smooth and round and shiny
as a black billiard ball.

The streets of San Francisco, like those of every
other American city, are full of life and bustle,
but their peculiarity lies in the fact that there is
scarcely a level spot to be found. It is uphill and
downhill all the time, and the hills are of the
steepest, so that when you get to the top of one you
look down into people's chimney pots at the bottom.
Down at the bottom the sunlight is very uneven
in its distribution. Hence, "a sunny spot" always
forms a special attraction in a house agent's ad-
vertisement. But from the top of these hills the
panorama is magnificent.

Golden Gate Park is a marvellous beauty spot.
The waves of the Pacific rolled there a few years
ago ; it covers a thousand acres, practically all of
which have been reclaimed from the sea. Numerous
lakes — every one of them artificial — spanned by
picturesque stone bridges, and studded with islands,
lie in the midst of a vast number of beautiful trees
and shrubs brought from all parts of the world.
Richly coloured flowers which, I am told, bloom

The Golden Gate

317

throughout the year — winter as well as summer —
adorn all the walks. One can hardly believe that
the scene of this wonderful and extensive achieve-
ment of landscape gardening was nothing but a
swampy desert a few years ago !

We lunched at the Cliff House, which stands on
a rock at one end of the bay and commands a view
of the inland sea as far as the eye can reach. The
sun was shining brilliantly upon the immense sheet
of water, and within a stone's throw from the
window at which I sat rose a picturesque mass of
broken crags on which scores of seals were disporting

CLIFF HOUSE.

themselves. It was intensely interesting and
amusing to watch these graceful creatures. Some
were of enormous size, others quite small ; one
tremendous fat old barnacled patriarch had quite
a dozen baby seals around him — or her — floundering
about, or rolling over one another, and tumbling
into the water, and others lay watching the fun ;
while each and all at times barked in glee like dogs.
The Japanese Tea Garden hard by is a very
delightful spot, a bit of old Yeddo transplanted

318 First Impressions of America

to the New World. In the midst of dense greenery
are quaint bridges spanning dark pools, where fat
frogs sun themselves on the leaves of water lilies
and croak for all they are worth. Dwarf pines and
cedars jostle with cherry trees full of white and
pink blossoms ; and tiny Japanese houses, wherein
dwell Japanese people in Japanese costumes, bask
in an atmosphere of sweet smelling odours.

I was somewhat disappointed in China Town. The
Chinese quarter of San Francisco has been talked
about the wide world over, with its picturesque
wooden houses, its opium dens, its underground
chambers with their labyrinth of galleries running in
all directions, plunged in subterranean darkness but
for flickering dips. All this is changed. The under
world is closed. Opium smoking is forbidden by law.
Some of the Chinese shops are truly magnificent in
their size and display, but only the doorkeepers and
other menials in these leading establishments are
dressed in Chinese costume ; the young ladies with
almond shaped eyes and small feet, assume European
style and fashion behind the counters. Here and there
in the street you may perchance see a pigtail escaping
from beneath a black ornamented skull cap and
resting placidly upon a long black or blue robe, but
such symbols of nationality are exceptionally rare ;
the children appear to be, if anything, less dis-
tinguishable by their dress than their fellow country
folk in New York.

The Golden Gate 319

The Latin quarter is crowded with Italians,
Spaniards and French. They congregate largely
about Telegraph Hill, which is so steep that it is
only mounted by steps as is the case in Malta.
The dwellings of the poorer Italians seem practically
to hang on the heights as if they were about to
topple over.

Across the harbour opposite San Francisco stands
Oakland. Farther on is Berkeley, the site of the
famous Calif ornian University. Mrs. Hearst and her
son, the famous newspaper proprietors, have lavished
enormous sums of money on these stately buildings.

Of all the wonders of California the greatest is the
climate. Talk of it to any American inside or outside
of California, and the usual remark which bursts
from his very soul is, " Ah, it is God's country ! "

But California and the " City of the Golden
Gate " are only parts of one great whole. Every
State and city that I visited has its own peculiar
charm, and yet they together represent a com-
bination of qualities which it would be difficult to
find elsewhere.

The American is proud of his country, and he
likes to hear it well spoken of. He believes in it.
He rejoices in its .past. He has confidence in its
future. His buoyancy of spirit turns his geese into
swans, and leads him to gild sombre details with a
golden hue. There is something childlike in the