The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-31
A VIEW FROM THE HEIGHTS.

A VIEW FROM THE HEIGHTS.
The possibilities for drawing wonderful
results from the topography of San Fran
cisco have as yet been hardly dreamt Of.
Before the invention of the cable roads the
broken range of steep hills traversing the
peninsula from north to south were
deemed barrier to the spreading of the
City from the bay to the ocean. That is an
old story now, for the cable long ago took
the old City on the bay shore in its grasp
and spread the beauty of it all over the
lofty SUBMITS that overlook the channel
and the Golden Gate. With the coming of
the cable much of the old aristocracy of
South Park and Rincon Hill betook itself
to the heights of the Western Addition,
and the glory of the old bay region was
gone.
Living upon the heights has taught the
people lesson, and there is many an
aspiring soul that longs to climb still
higher. and thus obtain still broader
view of the wonderful things that are re-
vealed in the view from the higher alti-
tudes. Europeans, and especially English
men, who visit San Francisco are fas-
cinated by these towering hills, and they
wonder that we lack the aspiration which
should lead us not only to take frequent
walks to these noble heights, but to con-
struct winding roads to the SUBMITS.
The view from Lone Mountain, with its
great white wooden cross cleaning in the
sun; or from Mount Olympus, with its
forest Of pines and eucalyptus sweeping in
dark-green waves over its majestic contour;
or from Twin Peaks, with their hard, bold
lines and verdureless seyerity-wha at nobler
sight could all the cities of Christendom
reveal? There is a wide and splendid as
semblage, not of small and pretty details,
though these abound in plenty, but of vast
and impressive elements in amazing
variety.
Far away to the south roll the hills of
San Mateo. and beyond and in line with
them tower the deep blue heights of the
Santa Cruz Mountains, where the red
woods gather their brood of strange shad-
ows in the canyons.
On the north, far below US, and SEEM
ingly SO near that we are careful lest we
fall into it, is the deep green channel
which connects the bay of San Francisco
with the Pacific Ocean, and beyond it rise
the hills and mountains of Marin, over
topped by the sharp, stern peak of Tamal-
pals. The old brick fort is seen squatting
like fat toad at the Golden Gate and it
and the flag that waves from Black Point,
and, the stern military prison on Alcatraz
Island, in the middle of the stream, re-
mind US that the spirit of murder which
abides in the hearts of men has found
place in this noble picture that has issued
from the atelier of the gods.
The eastern view is broader and more
wonderful still. Beneath our feet begins
the great City with struggling houses,
which further away grow larger and more
compact, like grosser mushrooms thriving
in richer soil. This mass, cut by the sharp
lines of the streets, has its own charms its
own varieties of color and strength of tone,
and it gives evidence of various kinds that
aristocrats live here and plutoerats there, |
and that wealth here as elsewhere holds
back its skirts from contact with the rags
of the poor. The great City, which never
roars and groans in the agony of human
endeavor, is silent to the viewer on these
distant heights, and he sees only the bright
red of the apple, caring nothing now for
the worm that lies fattening in the core.
Thus the City rolls sadly down to the bay
whose calm blue surface is fretted with
masts from every corner of the world--a
vast bay, with whose generous dimensions
some people associate the idea of miles.
On the further shore humanity begins
again where God had left off. and other
cities, all with names, spread over the as
eendlng plain like soft white cloud.
Then come the Contra Costa hills, russell
or green, as the season is, and beautiful in
the distance; and beyond them is reared
the dark, solemn bulk of Mount Diablo.
In the west we find the mountain on
which we stand receding in a succession of
graduated hills to great stretch of yell
lowish-gray sand-dunes, a bald and monot-
onous sea of sand, thrown into pillows and
ripples by the wind. Where the gray of
the sand ends and the green of the ocean
begins there is long line of shining white
surf, and far out at sea is found lonely
sail here and there bearing sturdily away
to the lands of Oriental mystery. If the
sun is setting a most glorious spectacle is
seen. The great yellow bali, as it APP
proaches the ocean horizon, gains in size
what it loses in fervor, and as it fingers in
the lap OF the purple sea its yellow becomes
glowing copper, which softens into gold
and then sinks as great fattened orange
into the silent deep. And then comes the
glory of the sky, with its wide burst of
orange light, changing gradually into gold
and then into splendid deep crimson that
is not of this earth.
ORR EXnHANGES.