320 Beyond the Sierras. 



It is well towards night-fall when our train aiiproaches San Diego. 

 There is a little flurry of preparation, a little excitemont for a view of the 

 ocean on our right, and here we are. The greater number are expected at 

 the Hotel St. James; but a few of us take the ferry, cross the bay, and make 

 with ;ill speed for the famous Del Coronado. Time is not for anything, 

 tonight, except to provide for the morrow's comfort and pleasure. 



Those of us who crossed the harbor to spend the night on the Coronado 

 beach were astonished, on entering our rooms at the hotel, to hear a sort of 

 thunder and roar as if a battle and rain-storm had combined their energies 

 outside. Up with the window, and here it is. The Pacific lies below, tum- 

 bling and roaring against the very battlements of the hotel. All night long 

 the sublime symphony goes on and on, as it has done for infinite ages — even 

 before the epoch ©f man. Welcome to its roar ! Welcome to its majestic 

 thunder, its rhythm of the surf and its perpetual beating on the shore ! It 

 was the throb of the sunny sea, the p'Jyphloisbuia Thdussa of Homer on the 

 sands of the jEgean Islands, and around the coasts of the ancient Pelopon- 

 nesus that put into the ears and spirits of the Hellenic bards of old time 

 the pulse-beat and music of their sounding hexameters. 



With the morning light we are all astir, on both sides of the bay, to see 

 what things soever San Diego has to offer. The writer, in early morning, 

 took the street-cars and ascended to the highland north of the city, from 

 which a fine view can be had of all below. The car that carried him up to 

 the summit was propelled by electricity. Even so it is that we have lived 

 so long, and journeyed from the older States of the Union, deep-rooted by 

 time and development, and boasting much of the accumulation of the pro- 

 gressive forces of society, to this far southwest and extreme verge of our 

 country, to what was an old Spanish town, to take our first ride in an electric 

 car. Perhaps, after a while, the street-cars in Boston will be propelled in 

 like manner; but not yet. Albeit, if San Diego had remained a Spanish- 

 Mexican town, a century would not have brought the electric railway to her 

 streets. It is the tumbling surf of American life that flings such things into 

 the thoroughfares and plazas of old towns. 



San Diego is a living competitor with her fellow cities of the California 

 valleys for the prizes of the future. I had expected, however, to see a better 

 equipoise to Los Angeles in population and enterprise than San Diego is able 

 to present. The Queen of the Angels has fully three times as many peoi)le, 

 according to my estimate, and the southern city will have to travel far 

 before she comes up with her rival. Nevertheless, many things may be 

 truthfully said of the vigor recently displayed in the development of the city 

 of the south, and to the efforts which her citizens are putting forth to raise 

 her rank and influence must be added the ever-memorable fact of her mag- 

 nificent harbor. I have already remarked upon the scarcity of havens along 

 the Pacific coast, and have said something as to the relative merits of the 

 bay of San Diego and that of San Francisco. I repeat that the former is, for 

 its extent, as fine and safe a sheet of water as may be found on the shore of 



