The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-09-13
The West and California.
BY ROSCOE W. eoRMAN.

', tai, 1t is down hill ride of a hundred miles 10 San Francisco. We are in sight or the Sacramento valley most of the way and 1t grows much cooler. At Port Costa,
 thirty miles from Frisco, we crossed the
 bay on the largest ferry boat in the world. It was 46O feet long, 160 feet wide and holds % Pullman or passenger cars and four mammoth engines at one time | There was bar room, hotel. restaurant and railroad yaid It is a beautiful sight ! crossing this body of water with the pale blue mountains on either hand. An hours ride and we are at the Golden Gate. See Rome and die, it has been l said. See San Francisco, and live.
 Here, indeed, is the most beautiful city the writer has ever seen. On one side beats the great Pacific all around 1t are mountains and beautiful valleys. It nes- l ties In boquet of flowers and is crowned with climate as near perfection as can be found. Chinatown, a part of the city devoted to the Chinese, is a wonder. Some of the stores have stocks worth million dollars. The city is built on great hills in many places, and the cable cars carry you at times directly toward the sky. There are beautiful sights here [ Sutro Park, bit of paradise worth $5,- OO0,OOO is the gift of a rich resident to ! the city. Golden Gate Park, seemingly as large as an ordinary county, is an- | other place where one could wander for month and see new sights each mo- ment. The great military encampment of the west. the navy yard, the drill grounds are here. There is a gateway where the tide of travel to our new colonial posses sions passes in and out. Here Is the coming city of the world between China and New York.
 Out at the Cliff House, hotel on the coast we saw countless seals at play. 1 We saw fuschias, geraniums and helio- trope, s well as palms that were as i large as trees Here nature runs riot in It's mad abandon, and the result that has made California famous goes for song. Cherries as large as a small peach for five cents pound. Large boquets of cut flowers are for sale on the streets at ten ! cents bunch. In one of the parks is granite band stand that cost $250OO0 the gift of Claus Spreckles, the sugar king. Alabama and Georgia helped pay for It. We saw four thousand troops on parade. At the wharf and in the bay we saw a half dozen war vessels, the essence and vitality of the Monroe Doctrine We saw vessel from China and Japan come in, the Korea mass of white and gold and mahogany. It was of 1990O tons dis. placement, 576 feet wide, 6S feet broad, made speed or twenty knots, and had 25O saloon passengers and 400 Chinese and Japanese. There were ten thousand tors of tea on board as well as all the other wares the Orient sends westward
 In one of the museums we saw many wonderful! relics A throne from Spain that once was Used for royalty also the things of torture. which they used for recalcitrant subjects who did not believe in divine right. We saw piece of wood with a large bullet in 1t fired from the Alabama, the wondrous vessel of war that wrote the name of the confederacy in blood and flame on every water of the world. It was a bullet from the Dashing Wave. some ill-starred northern vessel that suddenly net it's fate. We saw the furniture from the room of the great Na- poleon. the god of war, who rode the wave of almost omnipotent power until he was pitted full and fair against the cold, calculating Anglo-Saxon. There is no end to the attractions in San Francis CO., One can not get there soon enough or stay long enough. It has no beautiful cemeteries like the older cities. People live there.
 We were awakened by a tremendous earthquake one morning at six. and at ten we were on our way to Los Angeles. Earthquakes may be novelty but the gripings in the bowling void are un- canny. unpleasant and serious. There are practically to negroes out west. They