The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1876-06-10
LETTER FROM CALIFORNIA.

! VIC ~oIi ibSG. "aS piaCCu III idui ny IL
| friend, and l was soon made aware of the
sayings and doings in the quiet little town
under the hills-at sunrise.
Seven days and nights of monotonous
car riding set me down in this metropolis
of the Pacific, on Monday afternoon last.
scarcely know how to begin your readers
letter, there is so much that | might tell
them about that would be new and inter-
estng. But we will go back on the Union
Pacific Railroad to Omaha, and from that
city tc Ogden, ,032 miles, there is scarcely
as much cutting as was done in making the
p, W. 4 B. r. II. from Chester to Gray's
Ferry. There was little else to do than
throw up the bed of the road foot or two
above the surface of the plain, and lay
down crosS-ties and rails, so uniform and
gradual is the rise to Sherman, of s, 242
feet in a distance of $40 miles. From this,
the most elevated point, to Ogden the grade
diminishes to 4, $40 feet. Between Sher-
man and Ogden the grade is not so uni
form, reaching, at some points, upwards
of 1000 feet. At Echo and Weber Canons
way for the iron track seems to have
been designedly prepared by nature, by
running these long valleys through the
midst of the towering Rocky Mountains on
either hand, with apparently the same mi
form grade.
At Ogden the Central Pacific division of
the great trans continental railroad begins.
On this portion Of the road which reaches
the Pacific heavy rock cutting was required
This part of the road passes through some
grand mountain scenery, the most famous
view being what is termed Cape Horn.
Here the road winds sharply round the
brow of mountain, and the train is halt
ed on the very edge of a precipice, from
the bottom of which green valley winds
away among mountain peaks and spurs.
You may imagine something similar to the
view from "Cape Horn, if train of cars
were perched on the summit of Mount
Ararat and the Susquehanna was green
valley shut in by lofty mountains. The
last days run Is from Glands of snow to
lands of SUM- From landscape covered
with snow in the morning we gradually
dropped down among semi-tropical verdure
In the Sacramento Valley farms and
chards began to eucroach on the wilder
ness. Large fields of wild oats were seen
on every hand, mown and cooked up for
hay. Without danger from rain, the oats
hay lies in lunches on the fields till the
farmers pack it into bales and send it to
market. The wheat and barley fields were
in head as we passed along, some green
and others turning brown, almost ready for
the reaper, or header, for their reaping
machines cut off the heads here and leave
the straw on the ground.
San Francisco is a city of wonderful
growth, having a population of $4,000,
which is rapidly increasing. Many of the
sand hills which formerly occupied the site
of the city have been removed by ma
chinery driven by steam, and valleys filled
up, but there are many hills of rock several
hundred feet high, over which the steep
streets run, and the houses are built to the
tops of these eminences. After climbing
one of these steep streets many of which
are 'paved' with four-inch red wood
plank, while the sidewalks are laid with
thinner boards, many of the houses are
reached by flights of steps, which wind as
high above the street as the dome of Elk
ton Court House. Such climbing is hard
on wind and limbs, as l can affirm from
actual experiment.
This is cosmopolitan city. There are
more foreigners here than native Ameri-
cans, and like many cities of the Old
World, Sunday is the great holiday. The
people visit the gardens and places of
amusement on Sunday by thousands The
weather here is rainless, except three or
four months in Winter, and the tempera-
ture decidedly COOL about what May with
out rain or clouds would be in Cecil. AL
most every day strong sea breeze blows
from the ocean, which makes winter cloth
ing comfortable the year round. | am
wearing the same clothing that l wore last
Winter, and SO cool is the climate that
even in climbing the steep streets in the
sun it is a rare thing to find little per-
spiration on the forehead. The tempera-
ture, judge, ranges about Coz to 651
pretty nearly all the time.
Mining and wheat are the principal
money inter ests of the country, and mining
stocks are the great eXctements here
Like the oil stock fever used to rage in the
East, the gold and silver mine stocks are the
sensation here. Every body has some min
ing stocks waiting for rise, but catching
fall oftener than the former. There are
a great many men here worth several mil
lions of dollars each and live in wooden
palaces perched up on the high streets and
lofty eminences. The buildings here are
principally of red wood, frame houses be-
ing the safest where earthquakes occur.
John Chinaman draws the " color line "
here, and he is hated by many of the citi-
zens as the devil is said to hate holy water.
His social habits are denounced as very
bad, and in his housekeeping he is filthy
beyond comparison. When he occupies a
building like the skunk, he is said to stink
all his white neis hbors out, and gradually
absorbs possession of whole blocks by his
stencil in the nostris of his white friends.
They all dress alike. A pair of loose blue
trowsers of jeans or similar stuff and
short blouse or shirt of the same. His feet
are shod with cloth shoes, which have very
thick soles, which appear to be composed
of paper. They glide along noselessly in
groups, chatting lively with each other,
and almost every one has plat of hair
hanging down his back reaching the calves
of his legs. They work necessarily, night
and day, by relays or gangs as our iron
manufacturers do in busy seasons. They