Between the Gates. by Benjamin F. Taylor
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Between the gates. By Benjamin F. Taylor THE GOLDEN GATE. BETWEEN THE GATES. BY BENJ. F. TAYLOR. AUTHOR OF “SONGS OF YESTERDAY,” “OLD-TIME PICTURES,” “WORLD ON WHEELS,” “CAMP AND FIELD,” ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. CHICAGO: S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY. 1878. COPYRIGHT, 1878, BY S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY. TO MRS. MARY SCRANTON BRADFORD, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, WHOSE DAILY DEEDS OF NOBLE KINDNESS HAVE Between the gates. By Benjamin F. Taylor http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.100 BRIGHTENED MANY A LIFE AND BEAUTIFIED HER OWN, THIS BOOK OF DAYS OF SUNSHINE IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY HER RELATIVE AND FRIEND. CONFIDENTIAL. THE only care-free, cloudless summer of my life, since childhood, was spent in California. The going there was a delight, and the leaving there a regret. This gypsy of a book has few facts and not a word of fiction; not so much as a dry fagot of statistics or a wing-feather of a fancy. “How do you like California?” was the daily question, and to the uniform reply came the quick rejoinder: “Ah, but you should see it in the winter, for the summer is in the winter.” The writer sympathizes with any reader who misses what he seeks in this small volume, and can only soften “the winter of our discontent” by saying: Ah, but you should know “what pain it was to drown” what had to be omitted! Perhaps we two may meet again in the groves of Los Angeles, when the oranges are in the gold and the almond blossoms shine. CONTENTS. PREFACE. OVERLAND TRAIN 9 CHAPTER I. “SET SAIL” 21 CHAPTER II. FROM VALLEY TO MOUNTAIN 28 CHAPTER III. WONDERLAND TO BUGLE CAñON 38 CHAPTER IV. THE DESERT, THE DEVIL AND CAPE HORN 48 CHAPTER V. FROM WINTER TO Between the gates. By Benjamin F. Taylor http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.100 SUMMER 61 CHAPTER VI. SAN FRANCISCO STREET SCENES 71 CHAPTER VII. THE ANIMAL, MAN 81 “John,” the Heathen 84 “Hoodlum,” the Christian 88 Picnics 91 6 CHAPTER VIII. COAST, FORTY-NINERS AND CLIMATE 94 The Pacific Breezes 101 Weather on Man 103 CHAPTER IX. GOING TO CHINA 106 A Chinese Restaurant 108 “We'll All Take Tea” 109 The Joss-House and the Gods 110 “Twelve Packs in his Sleeve” 114 An Opium Den 115 The Opium-Smoker's Dream 116 “The Royal China Theatre” 118 “The Play's the Thing” 119 The Orchestra 121 CHAPTER X. MISSION DOLORES AND THE SAINTS 124 The Old Graveyard 126 The Saints 128 CHAPTER XI. VALLEY RAMBLES AND A CLIMB 131 A Dead Lift at a Live Weight 133 On the High Seas 140 The Hog's Back 143 CHAPTER XII. THE GEYSERS 146 CHAPTER XIII. THE PETRIFIED FOREST 156 7 CHAPTER XIV. HIGHER AND FIRE 166 CHAPTER XV. A MINT OF MONEY 174 Aladdin's Cave 177 Is it Worth it 180 Washing-Day 182 Midas's Kitchen 183 Bricks and Hoop-Poles 184 Weighing Live Stock 189 “The Golden Dustman” 190 CHAPTER XVI. BOUND FOR THE YO SEMITE 192 Taking a Mountain 200 A Mountain Choir 201 “The Ayes Have It” 202 Down the Mountains 203 The Big Trees 205 A Forest Ride 209 First Glimpse of the Yo Semite 210 Through the Valley 214 The Grand Register 217 El Capitan 221 The Bridal Veil 222 Mirror Lake 224 Up a Trail 227 Yo Semite Fall and Sun Time 232 Breaking up Camp 236 8 CHAPTER XVII. WHALES, LIONS AND WAR DOGS 240 Seals 242 The Golden Gate 245 CHAPTER XVIII. A TRIP TO THE TROPIC 249 A Difficult Sunrise 250 The Tehachapi Love- Knot 251 The Mojave Desert 254 A Vegetable Acrobat 255 The Mirage 257 The City of the Angels 259 The Orange Groves 262 The Vineyards 264 “A Bee Ranch” 266 The Mission of San Gabriel 269 The Garden 271 CHAPTER XIX. KINGS OF SOCIETY 276 Latitudes 281 The Spirit of California 283 The Men and Women 287 Home Again 291 9 Between the gates. By Benjamin F. Taylor http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.100 OVERLAND TRAIN. I. FROM Hell Gate to Gold Gate And the Sabbath unbroken, A sweep continental And the Saxon yet spoken! By seas with no tears in them, Fresh and sweet as Spring rains, By seas with no fears in them, God's garmented plains, Where deserts lie down in the prairies' broad calms, Where lake links to lake like the music of psalms. II. Meeting rivers bound East Like the shadows at night, Chasing rivers bound West Like the break- of-day light, Crossing rivers bound South From dead winter to June, From the marble-old snows To perennial noon— Cosmopolitan rivers, Mississippi, Missouri, That travel the planet like Jordan through Jewry. 10 III. Through the kingdoms of corn, Through the empires of grain, Through dominions of forest Drives the thundering train— Through fields where God's cattle Are turned out to grass, And His poultry whirl up From the wheels as we pass; Through level horizons as still as the moon, With the wilds fast asleep and the winds in a swoon. IV. There's a thrill in the air Like the tingle of wine, Like a bugle-blown blast When the scimiters shine And the sky-line is broken By the Mountains Divine! Where the planet stands up Body- guard before God, And to cloud-land and glory Transfigures the sod. Ah! to see the grand forms' Magnificent lift In their sandals of daisies And turbans of drift. Ah! to see the dull globe brought sublime to its feet, Where in mantles of blue the two monarchies meet, The azure of grace bending low in its place, 11 And this world glancing back with a colorless face. Who marvels Mount Sinai was the State House of God? Who wonders the Sermon down old Galilee flowed? That the Father and Son each hallowed a height Where the lightnings were red and the roses were white! Oh, Mountains that lift us to the realm of the Throne, A Sabbath-day's journey without leaving our own, All day ye Between the gates. By Benjamin F. Taylor http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.100 have cumbered and beclouded the West, Low glooming, high looming, like a storm at its best, By distance struck speechless and the thunder at rest. V. All day and all night It is rattle and clank, All night and all day Smiting space in the flank, And no token those clouds Will ever break rank. Still the engines' bright arms Are bared to the shoulder In the long level pull Till the mountains grow bolder. Ah! we strike the up grade! We are climbing the world! And it rallies the soul Like volcanoes unfurled, Where it looks like the cloud that led Moses of old, And the pillar of fire born and wove in one fold From the womb and the loom of abysses untold. 12 VI. We strike the Great Desert With its wilderness howl, With its cactus and sage, With its serpent and owl, And its pools of dead water, Its torpid old streams, The corpse of an earth And the nightmare of dreams; And the dim rusty trail Of the old Forty-nine, That they wore as they went To the mountain and mine, With graves for their milestones; How slowly they crept, Like the shade on a dial Where the sun never slept, But unwinking, unblinking, from his quiver of ire Like a desolate besom the wilderness swept With his arrows of fire. VII. Now we pull up the globe! It is grander than flying, ‘Mid glimpses of wonder that are grander than dying, Through the gloomy arcades shedding winter and drift, By the bastions and towers of omnipotent lift, Through tunnels of thunder with a long sullen roar, Night ever at home and grim Death at the door. We swing round a headland, Ah! the track is not there! 13 It has melted away Like a rainbow in air! Man the brakes! Hold her hard! We are leaving the world! Red flag and red lantern unlighted and furled. Lo, the earth has gone down like the set of the sun— Broad rivers unraveled turn to rills as they run— Great monarchs of forest dwindle feeble and old— Wide fields flock together like the lambs in a fold— Yon head-stone a snow-flake lost out of the sky That lingered behind when some winter went by! Ah, we creep round a ledge On the world's very edge, On a shelf of the rock Where an eagle might nest, And the heart's double knock Dies away in the breast— >We have rounded Cape Horn! Grand Pacific, good morn! Between the gates. By Benjamin F. Taylor http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.100 VIII. Now the world slopes away to the afternoon sun— Steady one! Steady all! The down grade has begun. Let the engines take breath, they have nothing to do, For the law that swings worlds will whirl the train through. Streams of fire from the wheels, Like flashes from fountains; And the dizzy train reels As it swoops down the mountains: And fiercer and faster 14 As if demons drove tandem Engines “Death” and “Disaster!” From dumb Winter to Spring in one wonderful hour; From Nevada's white wing to Creation in flower! December at morning tossing wild in its might— A June without warning and blown roses at night! DOUBLING CAPE HORN. Above us are snow-drifts a hundred years old, Behind us are placers with their pockets of gold, And mountains of bullion that would whiten a noon, That would silver the face of the Harvesters' moon.