Chapter 4

In the universal pean of gladness which the earth at Eastertide raises to the Lord of Life, the wilderness and the solitary place have part, and the desert then does in truth blossom as the rose. And how comforting are the blossoms of the desert when at last they have come! When the sun has sunk behind the rim of the verdure-less range of granite hills that westward bound my view, and the palpitating light of the night's first stars shines out in the tender afterglow, I love to linger on the cooling sands and touch my cheek to the flowers. Now has the desert shaken off the livery of death, and ... is become an abiding place of hope.

CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS, in _Blossoms of the Desert._

APRIL 7.

There had been no hand to lay a wreath upon his tomb. But soon, as if the weeping skies had scattered seeds of pity, tiny flowerets, yellow, blue, red, and white, were sprouting on the sides of the grave. * * * A delicious perfume filled the air. The desert cemetery was now a place of beauty as well as a place of peace. But the silence and solitude remained unbroken, except when a long-tailed lizard scurried through the undergrowth, or a big horned toad, white and black, like patterned enamel, took a blinking peep of melancholy surprise into the yawning ditch that blocked his accustomed way.

EDMUND MITCHELL, in _In Desert Keeping._

APRIL 8.

To those who know the desert's heart, and through years of closest intimacy--have learned to love it in all its moods; it has for them something that is greater than charm, more lasting than beauty a something to which no man can give a name. Speech is not needed, for they who are elect to love these things understand one another without words; and the desert speaks to them through its silence.

IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE, in _Miner's Mirage Land._

At length I struck upon a spot where a little stream of water was oozing out from the bank of sand. As I scraped away the surface I saw something which would have made me dance for joy had I not been weighed down by the long boots. For there, in very truth, was a live Olive, with its graceful shell and a beautiful pearl-colored body.

JOSIAH KEEP, in _West Coast Shells._

APRIL 9.

DESERT DUST.

With all its heat and dust the desert has its charms. The desert dust is dusty dust, but not dirty dust. Compared with the awful organic dust of New York, London, or Paris, it is inorganic and pure. On those strips of the Libyan and Arabian deserts which lie along the Nile, the desert dust is largely made up of the residuum of royalty, of withered Ptolemies, of arid Pharaohs, for the tombs of queens and kings are counted here by the hundreds, and of their royal progeny and their royal retainers by the thousands. These dessicated dynasties have been drying so long that they are now quite antiseptic.

The dust of these dead and gone kings makes extraordinarily fertile soil for vegetable gardens when irrigated with the rich, thick water of the Nile. Their mummies also make excellent pigments for the brush. Rameses and Setos, Cleopatra and Hatasu--all these great ones, dead and turned to clay, are said, when properly ground, to make a rich umber paint highly popular with artists.

JEROME HART, in _A Levantine Log-Book._

APRIL 10.

The mountain wall of the Sierra bounds California on its eastern side. It is rampart, towering and impregnable, between the garden and the desert. From its crest, brooded over by cloud, glittering with crusted snows, the traveler can look over crag and precipice, mounting files of pines and ravines swimming in unfathomable shadow, to where, vast, pale, far-flung in its dreamy adolescence, lies California, the garden.

GERALDINE BONNER, in _The Pioneer._

APRIL 11.

MIRAGE IN THE MOHAVE DESERT.

They hear the rippling waters call; They see the fields of balm; And faint and clear above it all, The shimmer of some silver palm That shines thro' all that stirless calm So near, so near--and yet they fall All scorched with heat and blind with pain, Their faces downward to the plain, Their arms reached toward the mountain wall.

ROSALIE KERCHEVAL.

APRIL 12.

The desert calls to him who has once felt its strange attraction, calls and compels him to return, as the sea compels the sailor to forsake the land. He who has once felt its power can never free himself from the haunting charm of the desert.

GEORGE HAMILTON FITCH, in _Palm Springs, Land of Sunshine Magazine._

IN SANCTUARY.

The wind broke open a rose's heart And scattered her petals far apart. Driven before the churlish blast Some in the meadow brook were cast, Or fell in the tangle of the sedge; Some were impaled on the thorn of the hedge; But one was caught on my dear love's breast Where long ago my heart found rest.

CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS, in _Overland Monthly, July_, 1907.

APRIL 13.

For fifteen months the desert of California had lain athirst. The cattle of the vast ranges had fled from the parched sands, the dying, shriveled shrubs, appealing vainly, mutely, for rain, and had taken refuge in the mountains. They instinctively retreated from the death of the desert and sheltered themselves in the green of the foot-hills. North, east, south, and west, rain had fallen, but here, for miles on either side of the little isolated station * * * the plain had so baked in the semi-tropical sun until even the hardiest sage-brush took on the color of the sand which billowed toward the eastern horizon like an untraveled ocean.

MRS. FREMONT OLDER, in _The Giants._

APRIL 14.

The strong westerly winds drawing in through the Golden Gate sweep with unobstructed force over the channel, and, meeting the outflowing and swiftly moving water, kick up a sea that none but good boats can overcome. To go from San Francisco to the usual cruising grounds the channel must be crossed. There is no way out of it. And it is to this circumstance, most probably, we are indebted for as expert a body of yachtsmen as there is anywhere in the United States. Timid, nervous, unskilled men cannot handle yachts under such conditions of wind and waves. The yachtsmen must have confidence in themselves, and must have boats under them which are seaworthy and staunch enough to keep on their course, regardless of adverse circumstances.

CHARLES G. YALE, in _Yachting in San Francisco Bay_, in _The Californian._

APRIL 15.

THE LIZARD.

I sit among the hoary trees With Aristotle on my knees And turn with serious hand the pages, Lost in the cobweb-hush of ages; When suddenly with no more sound Than any sunbeam on the ground, The little hermit of the place Is peering up into my face-- The slim gray hermit of the rocks, With bright, inquisitive, quick eyes, His life a round of harks and shocks, A little ripple of surprise.

Now lifted up, intense and still, Sprung from the silence of the hill He hangs upon the ledge a-glisten. And his whole body seems to listen! My pages give a little start, And he is gone! to be a part Of the old cedar's crumpled bark. A mottled scar, a weather mark!

EDWIN MARKHAM, in _Lincoln and Other Poems._

APRIL 16.

I lived in a region of remote sounds. On Russian Hill I looked down as from a balloon; all there is of the stir of the city comes in distant bells and whistles, changing their sound, just as scenery moves, according to the state of the atmosphere. The islands shift as if enchanted, now near and plain, then removed and dim. The bay widening, sapphire blue, or narrowing, green and gray, or, before a storm, like quicksilver.

EMMA FRANCES DAWSON, in _An Itinerant House._

APRIL 17.

Although we dread earthquakes with all their resultant destruction, yet it is well to recognize the fact that if it were not for them we would find here in California little of that wonderful scenery of which we are so proud. Our earthquakes are due to movements similar to those which, through hundreds of thousands of years, have been raising the lofty mountains of the Cordilleran region. The Sierra Nevada range, with its abrupt eastern scarp nearly two miles high, faces an important line of fracture along which movements have continued to take place up to the present time.

HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS, in _The Great Earthquake Rift of California._

APRIL 18.

APRIL EIGHTEENTH.

Three years have passed, oh, City! since you lay-- A smoking shambles--stricken by the lust Of Nature's evil passions. In a day I saw your splendor crumble into dust. So vast your desolation, so complete Your tragedy of ruin that there seemed Small hope of rallying from such defeat-- Of seeing you arisen and redeemed. Yet, three short years have marked a sure rebirth To splendid urban might; a higher place Among the ruling cities of the earth And left of your disaster but a trace. Refined in flame and tempered, as a blade Of iron into steel of flawless ring-- City of the Spirit Unafraid! What wondrous destiny the years will bring!

LOUIS J. STELLMAN, in _San Francisco Globe, April_ 18, 1909.

APRIL 19.

O, EVANESCENCE! (SAN FRANCISCO.)

I loved a work of dreams that bloomed from Art; A town and her turrets rose As from the red heart Of the couchant suns where the west wind blows And worlds lie apart. Calm slept the sea-flats; beneath the blue dome Copper and gold and alabaster gleamed, And sea-birds came home. But I woke in a sorrowful day; The vision was scattered away. Ashes and dust lie deep on the dream that I dreamed.

HERMAN SCHEFFAUER, in _Looms of Life._

APRIL 20.

SAN FRANCISCO.

What matters that her multitudinous store-- The garnered fruit of measureless desire-- Sank in the maelstrom of abysmal fire, To be of man beheld on earth no more? Her loyal children, cheery to the core. Quailed not, nor blenched, while she, above the ire Of elemental ragings, dared aspire On victory's wings resplendently to soar. What matters all the losses of the years, Since she can count the subjects as her own That share her fortunes under every fate; Who weave their brightest tissues from her tears, And who, although her best be overthrown, Resolve to make her and to keep her great.

EDWARD ROKESON TAYLOR, in _Sunset Magazine._

APRIL 21.

They could hear the roar and crackle of the fire and the crashing of walls; but even more formidable was that tramping of thousands of feet, the scraping of trunks and furniture on the tracks and stones. * * * It was a well and a carefully dressed crowd, for by this time nearly everyone had recovered from the shock of the earthquake; many forgotten it, no doubt, in the new horror. * * * They pushed trunks to which skates had been attached, or pulled them by ropes; they trundled sewing machines and pieces of small furniture, laden with bundles. Many carried pillow-cases, into which they had stuffed a favorite dress and hat, an extra pair of boots and a change of underclothing, some valuable bibelot or bundle of documents; to say nothing of their jewels and what food they could lay hands on. Several women wore their furs, as an easier way of saving them, and children carried their dolls. Their state of mind was elemental. * * * The refinements of sentiment and all complexity were forgotten; they indulged in nothing so futile as complaint, nor even conversation. And the sense of the common calamity sustained them, no doubt, de-individualized them for the hour.

GERTRUDE ATHERTON, in _Ancestors._

APRIL 22.

The sun is dying; space and room. Serenity, vast sense of rest, Lie bosomed in the orange west Of Orient waters. Hear the boom Of long, strong billows; wave on wave, Like funeral guns above a grave.

JOAQUIN MILLER, in _Collected Poems._

APRIL 23.

SAN FRANCISCO. IN CHRISTMAS TWILIGHT, 1898.

In somber silhouette, against a golden sky, Francisco's city sits as sunbeams die. The serrated hills her throne; the ocean laves her feet: Her jeweled crown the Western zephyrs greet; Their breath is fragrance, sweet as wreath of bride, In winter season as at summer tide.

AFTER APRIL 18, 1906.

Clothed with sack-cloth, strewn with ashes, Seated on a desolate throne 'Mid the spectral walls of stately domes And the skeletons of regal homes, Francisco weeps while westward thrashes Through the wrecks of mansions, stricken prone By the rock of earth and sweep of flame Which, unheralded and unbidden, came In the greatness of her pride full-blown And at the zenith of her matchless fame.

TALIESIN EVANS.

APRIL 24.

And let it be remembered that whatever San Francisco, her citizens and her lovers, do now or neglect to do in this present regeneration will be felt for good or ill to remotest ages. Let us build and rebuild accordingly, bearing in mind that the new San Francisco is to stand forever before the world as the measure of the civic taste and intelligence of her people.

HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT, in _Some Cities and San Francisco._

APRIL 25.

SAN FRANCISCO.

Queen regnant she, and so shall be for aye As long as her still unpolluted sea Shall wash the borders of her brave and free, And mother her incomparable Bay. The pharisees and falsehood-mongers may Be rashly blatant as they care to be, She yet with dauntless, old-time liberty Will hold her own indomitable way. A Royal One, all love and heart can bear. The all of strength that human arm can wield. Are thine devotedly, and ever thine; And thou wilt use them till thy brow shall wear A newer crown by high endeavor sealed With gems emitting brilliances divine.

EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR, in _Sunset Magazine._

APRIL 26.

Until a man paints with the hope or with the wish to stir the minds of his fellows to better thinking and their hearts to better living, or to make some creature happier or wiser, he has not understood the meaning of art.

W.L. JUDSON, in _The Building of a Picture._

CALIFORNIA ON THE PASSING OF TENNYSON.

All silent ... So, he lies in state ... Our redwoods drip and drip with rain ... Against our rock-locked Golden Gate We hear the great, sad, sobbing main. But silent all ... He passed the stars That year the whole world turned to Mars.

JOAQUIN MILLER.

APRIL 27 AND 28.

In ended days, a child, I trod thy sands, The sands unbuilded, rank with brush and brier And blossom--chased the sea-foam on thy strands, Young city of my love and my desire! I saw thy barren hills against the skies, I saw them topped with minaret and spire, On plain and slope thy myriad walls arise, Fair city of my love and my desire. With thee the Orient touched heart and hands; The world's rich argosies lay at thy feet; Queen of the fairest land of all the lands-- Our Sunset-Glory, proud and strong and sweet! I saw thee in thine anguish! tortured, prone. Rent with earth-throes, garmented in fire! Each wound upon thy breast upon my own. Sad city of my love and my desire. Gray wind-blown ashes, broken, toppling wall And ruined hearth--are these thy funeral pyre? Black desolation covering as a pall-- Is this the end, my love and my desire? Nay, strong, undaunted, thoughtless of despair, The Will that builded thee shall build again, And all thy broken promise spring more fair. Thou mighty mother of as mighty men. Thou wilt arise invincible, supreme! The earth to voice thy glory never tire, And song, unborn, shall chant no nobler theme, Proud city of my love and my desire. But I--shall see thee ever as of old! Thy wraith of pearl, wall, minaret and spire, Framed in the mists that veil thy Gate of Gold, Lost city of my love and my desire.

INA D. COOLBRITH.

APRIL 29.

The cataclysmal force to which we owe Our glorious Gate of Gold, through which the sea Rushed in to clasp these shores long, long ago, Came once again to crown our destiny With such a grandeur that in sequent years This period of pain which now appears Pregnant with doubt, shall vanish as when day Drives the foreboding dreams of night away. Born of the womb of Woe, where Sorrow sighs, Fostered by Faith, undaunted by Dismay, Earth's fairest City shall from ashes rise.

LOUIS ALEXANDER ROBERTSON, in _Through Painted Panes._

APRIL 30.

Old San Francisco, which is the San Francisco of only the other day--the day before the earthquake--was divided midway by the Slot. The Slot was an iron crack that ran along the center of Market street, and from the Slot arose the burr of the ceaseless, endless cable that was hitched at will to the cars it dragged up and down. In truth, there were two Slots, but, in the quick grammar of the West, time was saved by calling them, and much more that they stood for, "The Slot." North of the Slot were the theaters, hotels and shipping district, the banks and the staid, respectable business houses. South of the Slot were the factories, slums, laundries, machine shops, boiler works, and the abodes of the working class.

JACK LONDON, in _Saturday Evening Post._

MAY 1.

HAWAII, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1. 1907.

A year ago, Jack and I set out on a horseback trip through the northern counties of California. It just now came to me--not the date itself, but the feel of the sweet country, the sweetness of mountain lilacs, the warm summer-dusty air. * * * And here in Hawaii, I am not sure but I am at home, for our ground is red, too, in the Valley of the Moon, where home is--dear home on the side of Sonoma Mountain, where the colts are, and where the Brown Wolf died.

CHARMIAN K. LONDON, in _Log of the Snark._

MAY 2.

A dull eyed rattlesnake that lay All loathsome, yellow-skinned, and slept, Coil'd tight as pine-knot, in the sun With flat head through the center run, Struck blindly back.

JOAQUIN MILLER.

The air was steeped in the warm fragrance of a California spring. Every crease and wrinkle of the encircling hills was reflected in the blue stillness of the laguna. Patches of poppies blazed like bonfires on the mesa, and higher up the faint smoke of the blossoming buckthorn tangled its drifts in the chaparral. Bees droned in the wild buckwheat, and powdered themselves with the yellow of the mustard, and now and then the clear, staccato voice of the meadow-lark broke into the drowsy quiet--a swift little dagger of sound.

MARGARET COLLIER GRAHAM, in _Stories of the Foothills._

MAY 3.

THE SEA GARDENS AT CATALINA.

The voyager when the glass-bottom boat starts is first regaled with the sandy beach, in three or four feet of water. He sees the wave lines, the effect of waves on soft sand, the delicate shading of the bottom in grays innumerable; now the collar-like egg of a univalve or the sharp eye of a sole or halibut protruding from the sand. A school of smelt dart by, pursued by a bass; and as the water deepens bands of small fish, gleaming like silver, appear; then a black cormorant dashing after them, or perchance a sea-lion browsing on the bottom in pursuit of prey. Suddenly the light grows dimmer; quaint shadows appear on the bottom, and almost without warning the lookers on are in the depths of the kelpian forest.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER, in _Life in the Open._

MAY 4.

THE HIDEOUS OCTOPUS.

From the glass-bottom boat we can see all the fauna of the ocean, and, without question, the most fascinating of them all is the octopus. Timid, constantly changing color, hideous to a degree, having a peculiarly devilish expression, it is well named the _Mephistopheles of the Sea_, and with the bill of a parrot, the power to adapt its color to almost any rock, and to throw out a cloud of smoke or ink, it well deserves the terror it arouses. The average specimen is about two feet across, but I have seen individuals fourteen feet in radial spread, and larger ones have been taken in deep water off shore.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER, in _The Glass Bottom Boat._

MAY 5.

A SIERRA STORM FROM A TREE TOP.

Being accustomed to climb trees in making botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one (a pine about 100 feet high), and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the passionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a bobolink on a reed.

JOHN MUIR, in _The Mountains of California._

MAY 6.

There is a breeziness, a spaciousness, an undefiled ecstasy of purity about the High Sierras. Nature, yet untainted by man, has expressed herself largely in mighty pine-clad, snow-topped blue mountains, and rolling stretches of foot-hills; in rivers whose clarity is as perfect as the first snow-formed drops that heralded them; and a sky of chaste and limpid blue, pale as with awe of the celestial wonders it has gazed upon. But there is an effect of simplicity with it all, an omission of sensational landscape contrasts.

MIRIAM MICHELSON, in _Anthony Overman._

The ocean is a great home. Its waters are full of life. The rocks along its shores are thickly set with living things; the mud and sand of its bays are pierced with innumerable burrows, and even the abyss of the deep sea has its curious inhabitants.

JOSIAH KEEP, in _West Coast Shells._

MAY 7.

THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD. (IN CALIFORNIA.)

It was folded, away from strife, In the beautiful pastoral hills; And the mountain peaks kept watch and ward O'er the peace that the valley fills-- Kept watch and ward lest the bold world pass The fair green rampart of hills.

* * * * *

The rains of the winter fell In benison on its sod; And the smiling fields of the spring looked up, A thanksgiving glad, to God; And the little children laughed to see The wild-flowers star the sod.

* * * * *

Hark! hark! to the thundrous roar! Like a demon of fable old, The fiery steed of the rail hath swept Thro' the ancient mountain-hold. And the green hills shudder to feel his breath-- The challenge of New to Old.

FRANCES MARGARET MILNE, in _For Today._

MAY 8.

JOAQUIN MILLER TO THE MONEY GETTER.

Yes! I am a dreamer.

* * * * *

While you seek gold in the earth, why, I See gold in the steeps of the starry sky; And which do you think has the fairer view Of God in heaven--the dreamer or you?

JOAQUIN MILLER.

MAY 9.

THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT AT CATALINA.

When you land in the beautiful Bay of Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island, you are met, not by hackmen, but by glass-bottom boatmen: "Here you are! Marine Jimmie's boat, only fifty cents." "Take the _Cleopatra_," or "Right away now for the Marine Gardens." These craft, that look like old-fashioned river side-wheelers are made on the Island, and some range from row-boats with glass bottoms to large side-wheel steamers valued at $3000. There is a fleet of them, big and little, and they skim over the kelp beds, and have introduced an altogether new variety of entertainment and zoological study combined.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER. in _The Glass Bottom Boat._

MAY 10.

THE HANGING SEA GARDENS AT CATALINA.