I wondered at the large and handsome hotels in Pasadena, although
Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego all have good hotels. In
Pasadena there was the Maryland with its pergola, a Spanish appendage
covered with climbing flower vines which was very attractive; also
the Green and the Raymond. There is little to be seen of the original
inhabitants of this country, that is to say, of their descendants. It
put me in mind of our own Indians, of the remnant of the Songhees
tribe. They are all seemingly half or quarter breeds, and work as
laborers for the railway company. I have already given in my boyhood
experiences in San Francisco an account of a flag incident, and
strange to say, I nearly had another in Los Angeles. One day I saw
what might be an English flag flying from a high building, and the
sight stirred me. So to make sure I threaded my way through the crowd
for some distance and when opposite the building I walked off the
sidewalk and craned my neck to look up six stories to make sure if it
were really a Union Jack. Well, well! I thought, is it up so high to
protect it from molestation, or is it that they are more
liberal-minded here? I felt pleased, but when I espied what turned
out to be the British coat-of-arms below the flag I saw the reason
why. Just then along came a motor cycle and a motor car, and in the
opposite direction a street car, and I recovered myself and got out
of the way in quick time. It was the office of the British Consul,
and that is why it waved. I consoled myself with the thought that it
was after all only a certain class of American who would not tolerate
any other flag in this country but his own, and I shall try and
always think this.
We left Los Angeles and Redlands March 24th for San Francisco, where
we arrived March 25th. In San Francisco I met an old Victorian, Tom
Burnes, brother of William Burnes, H. M. customs. I had not seen him
for years, and we started to explore the Plaza on Kearney and
Washington Streets. This was the most familiar part of San Francisco
to me, as I have passed through this part often as a boy. It is now
known as Portman Square. I looked for the "Monumental" engine house
from which I had run to fires in the early fifties. A blank space was
pointed out where it had been, but the fire had destroyed this
ancient landmark. In the Plaza Mr. Burnes showed me a monument to
Robert Louis Stevenson, the English writer of such interesting sea
stories. On the top was a ship of the time of Elizabeth, with the
high poop deck, which must have represented something in one of his
stories, and an inscription:
"To Remember Robert L. Stevenson.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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