Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (Charles City, Iowa) 1861-1864, 1862-02-20
or the Charles City Intelligence
Letter from California.
SAN FRANcIsCo, Dec. 81, /!

DEAR HupRErH 1T is the last day
Of the year, and | am looking out of
my window upon the most fascinating
landscape have seen from it since
have lived in San Francisco. The
distant hills that hem the bay are
robed in plum color. The bay itself
stretches off southwards into dreamy
peace, making me pinch myself to
prove that am not sitting in the
porch of the Sentcr House and looking
upon the pavement Of the Winnipiseo-
gee, half sapphire and half silver,
(mixed, mean, not joined And the
nearer hills, one range three miles
and another nearly ten miles away,
are green to their crcsts,-bright
green, with a burnish as of satin, on
their smooth slopes, when the sun
breaks through the April clouds that
sail over them; dark, rich, velvet
green, in the canons that SO plentiful
ly plough their sides.
1t is an Intoxicating day for beauty.
But don't envy us or covct. You
need not. We have no show, no
ice, and therefore none of their
splcndor on the landscape. And we
take our April in December, getting
it premature. We pay for all this in
July. When you are surrounded by
the pomp of summer vegetation, our
eyes are afflicted with universal grey
and brown. Yet, it IS queer, isn't
it to write to you from room with
no fire in it, OH the last day of Decem-
bcr, and to look ont upon mountains
two thousand feet high with verdure
clad" Our rains began earlier than
usual this season, and spring opens
upon US in full luxurance as the year
dies.
But the rains that have covered our
hills around this city with beauty,
have dealt differently with the great
interior valleys. The foods have lift
ed up their voice. The Sierra have
taken less snow than usual, and have
been drenchcd with warm storms,
which they have poured off in fury
upon the immense level basin in the
centre of the State. Think of large
rivers forty feet above low water
mark, and mountain rivulcts turned
into torrents Fifty feet deep! The i'm
mensc valley of the Sacramento has
been q lake. The State is striped
with ravage. From the upper line Of
Oregon to the latitude of our city, the
waters have had free sweep over all
the lowlands. On the mail route be-
tween Sacramento and the Columbia
river. five hundred bridges, it is said
have been torn away by the flood.
People have studied the eleventh verse
of the ninth chapter of Genesis with
intense interest, to see if they could
discover any conditions to its promise,
and wondering whether the gracious
words were to become bankrupt now.
In the interior they began 20 think OF
new Noahs, and Of saving enough
from the drowning calves, and pigs,
| and fowls, and the pumpkins that ami
mated the waste with abundant splcn-
dor, to set up a new pastoral civiliza-
tion from arks that might rest on the
top of Shasta.
San Francisco is city set on a hill
We can't be drowned. We shall soon.
er have the fate of the Sphinx and be
buried in driving sand. Drought is
our enemy, not storm and we have
suffered only by sympathy, and
through the serious crippling and dis
arrangement of business. Sacramen.
to, the capital, has been the most Sc.
verely scourged by the forty days
dspcnsation of rain Whoever want
cd to see Venice could do SO by going
there. Only in Venice they don't have
houses turned over on the side, houses
turned bottom up, houses floating,
and bobbing. and surging, and knock
ing each other, and going on the
rampage generally. And there they
don't allow pianos to eddy around the
parlor,--and sofas and looking-glas-
ses, and ctageres to wander at their
own sweet will. They do their boat
ing in Venice out of doors, not indis-
criminately in streets and in halls.
And there, also, they do not feel rich
enough to gild all their household fur
niture and utensils with precious dust
fresh from the mines. Sacramento has
been encrusted up to the second story
with placer diggings" just imported
from the sides of the Sierra, and most
impartially distributed to the first
| floors and walls Of rich and poor.
The suffering has been very severe
Hundreds Of families have been strip
ped of competence, or the near pros
pcct Of it, and been reduced to want.