Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific CoastRusling, James Fowler
History
Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific Coast
Rusling, James Fowler
Overland journeys to the Pacific; Pacific States -- Description and travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
But a few years before, it was a common thing for ships to go East
empty or in ballast, for want of a return cargo; but in 1867 San
Francisco shipped grain alone to the amount of thirteen millions
of dollars, and of manufactures about as much more. Here are some
other statistics that are worth one's considering. In 1849, then
called Yerba Buena, she numbered perhaps 1,000 souls, all told; in
1869, nearly 200,000. In 1868, 59,000 passengers arrived by sea,
and only 25,000 departed, leaving a net gain of 34,000. The vessels
which entered the bay that year, numbered 3,300, and measured over
1,000,000 tons. She exported 4,000,000 sacks of wheat that year, and
half a million barrels of flour. Her total exports of all kinds were
estimated at not less than $70,000,000, and her imports about the
same. Her sales of real-estate aggregated $27,000,000, and of mining
and other stocks $115,000,000, on which she paid over $5,000,000
of dividends. The cash value of her real and personal property was
estimated at $200,000,000. She sent away six tons of gold, and forty
tons of silver every month, and in all since 1849 had poured into the
coffers of the world not less than $1,030,000,000.[15] Her net-work
of far-reaching and gigantic enterprises already embraced the whole
Pacific Coast, northward to Alaska and southward to Panama, while
beyond she stretched out her invisible arms to Japan and China, and
shook hands with the Orient.
One cloudless morning, after days of dismal drizzle, an enthusiastic
Forty-Niner took me up Telegraph Hill, and bade me "view the landscape
o'er!" I remembered when a school-boy reading Dana's "Two Years before
the Mast," in which he speaks so contemptuously of Yerba Buena, and
its Mexican Rip Van Winkles. What a change here since then! Off to
the west rolled the blue Pacific, sea and sky meeting everywhere. Then
came Fort Point, with its formidable batteries, commanding the Golden
Gate; and then the old Presidio, with the stars and stripes waving over
it. Farther inland were the stunted live-oaks and gleaming marbles of
Lone Mountain Cemetery, with the Broderick Monument rising over all.
Then came the live, busy, bustling, pushing city, with its quarter of
a million of inhabitants nearly, soon to be a million, its wharves
thronged with the ships of all nations, but with harbor-room to spare
sufficient to float the navies of the world. Beyond, lay Oakland,
loveliest of suburbs, smiling in verdure and beauty, with Mount
Diabolo towering in the distance--his snow-crowned summit flashing in
the sunlight. The Sacramento and Stockton boats, from the heart of
California were already in. Past the Golden Gate, and up the noble bay,
with boom of welcoming cannon, came the Hong Kong steamer fresh from
Japan. The Panama steamer, with her fires banked and flag flying, was
just ready to cast off. While off to the south, a long train of cars,
from down the bay and San Josè, came thundering in. A hundred church
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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