The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-21

that OF Indian summer In the F,tst. Jan
uary ia the month when the roses are at their
brightest.
II BEAUTIFUL HILL
So much for the strange climate, which
invites out OF doors and which has played
its part in making the character OF the
people. The externals of the city are-or
were, for they are no m%ore-just as curious
One usually entered the city by way Of
San Francisco Bay. Across its yellow
food, covered with the fleets from the
strange seas of the Pacific, San Francisco
presented itself in a hill panorama. Prob
ably no other city Of the world could be 30
viewed and inspected at first sight. It
rose above the passenger, as he reached
dookage, in a succession OF hill terraces.
At one side was Telegraph Hill. the end
Of the peninsula, a height 40 abrupt that
ii had a 200 foot sheer cliff on its seward
frontage. Further along lay Mob Hill,
crowned with the Mark Hopkins mansion,
which had the effect of a citadel. and in
later years by the great. white Paramount.
Further along was Russian Hill, the highest
point. Below was the business district,
whose low site caused all the trouble.
Except for the modern buildings, the
fruit Of the last ten years, the own pre-
sented at first sight a disreputable ap-
p~earance. Most OF the buildings we're
low and Of wood. In the middle period
Of the '7C's, when a great part Of San Fran
cisco was building, there was some atrocious
architecture perpetrated. In that time.
too, every one put bow windows on his
house, to catch all of the morning sunlight
fhnt waa nnyninn ihrDlluh the foo and
those little houses. with bow windows and
fancy work all dow their fronts, were
characteristic Of the middle class residence
districts.
Then the Italians, who tumbled over
Telegraph Hill, had built as they listed
and with little regard for streets. and their
houses hung crazily on a side hill which
was little less. han a precipice. For the
most part. the Chinese, although they
occupied an abandoned business district,
had remade the houses Chinese fashion,
and the Mexicans and Spaniards had added
to their houses those little balconies with
out which life is not life to a Spauiard.
sEA GRAY coLoRING OF THE CITY.
Yet the most characteristic thing after
all was the ooloring. For the sea fog had a
trick Of painting every exposed object a
sea gray which had a tinge Of dull green
in it. This, under the leaden sky of a San
Francisco morning, had a depressing effect
on lrst sight and afterward became a de-
light to the eye. For the color was soft,
gentle and infinitely attractive in mass.
The hills are steep beyond conception.
Where Vallejo street ran up Russian Hill
it progressed for four blocks by regular
- HI n.-LN 7
sary to say that no teams ever came up
this street or any other like it, and grass
grew long among the paving stones until
the Italians who live thereabouts tool ad-
vantage of this to pasture a COW or two.
At the end of the four blocks, the PAYERS
had given it up and the last stage to the
summit was a winding path. On the very
top, a colony of artists lived in little villas
of houses whose windows got the whole
panorama Of the bay. Luckily for these
people, a cable car climbed the hill on the
other side, 30 that 1t was not much OF a
climb to home.
With these hills, with the ~strangeness Of
the architecture and with the green gray
tinge over everything, the city fell always
into vistas and pictures, a setting for the
romance which hung over everything,
which has always hung over life In San
Francisco since the padres came and gath
cred the Indians about Mission Dolores.
RESORT OF L RACES,
And it was a city of romano and a gate
way TO adventure. 1t opened out on the
mysterious Pacific, the untamed ocean,, and
most OF China, Japan, the South Sea Islands
Lower California, the west coast OF Central
America, Australia that zane to this country
passed in through the Golden Gate. There
was a sprinkling, too, Of Alaska and Siberia,
From his windows on Russian Hill one saw
always something strange and suggestive
creeping through the mists Of the bay. 1t
would be q South Sea Island brig, bringing In
copra, to take out cottons and idols; a
Chinese junk with fanlike sails, back from
an expedition after sharks livers; an old
whaler, which seemed to drip oil, back from
a year Of cruising in the Arctic. Even the
tramp w~indjammers we're deep ohested
craft, capable Of rounding h Horn or Of
oiroumnavigating the globe: and they came
in streaked and picturese que from their
long voyaging.
In the orange colored dawn which always
comes through the mists Of that bay, the
fishing fleet would crawl in under triangular
lateen sails, for the fishermen of San Fran
cisco Bay are all Neapolitans who have
brought their costumes and their customs
and sail with lateen rigs shaped like the
ear of a horse when the wind fills them
and stained an orange brown.
Along the waterfront the people OF these
craft met. 'The smelling pot Of the races"
Stevenson called it,; and this was always
the city Of his soul There are black Gilbert
Islanders, almost indistinguishable from
negroes; lighter Kanakas from Hawaii or
Samoa; Lascars in turbans; thickset Rus
sian sailors; wild Chinese with unbraided
hair; Italian fishermen in tam O. shanters,
loud shirts and blue sashes; Greeks, Alaska
Indians, little bay Spanish-Americans,
together with men Of all the European
races. These came in and out from among
the queer craft, to lose themselves in the
disreputable, tumbledown, but always
mysterious shanties and small saloons.
In the back rooms Of these saloons
South Sea Island traders and captains,
fresh from the lands Of romance, whaling
masters, people who were trying to get up
traasure e1peditions. flbusters, Alaskan