Backwards March. 327 



The traveler about to return from a tour in California will find many 

 things to hold him back. He feels a good deal like those little figures of 

 men and animals with iron feet which I have sometimes seen standing 

 immovable on different parts of a magnetic globe. You can slip them, but 

 hardl}' pick them up. So your traveler in this country, yearning to be at 

 home again, still finds some object to detain him. Like Goldsmith's pil- 

 grim in the Europe of a hundred years ago — 



" He drags at each remove a lengthening chain." 



The best proof, which I had for myself, of the general merits of California 

 was my reluctence at the last to leave its scenes and places. I found that,^ 

 half unconsciously to myself, a vast and interesting panorama had passed be- 

 fore me, and that unexpected associations of interest had sprung up here 

 and there which, I confess, it cost me a pang to break. 



In the first place, the writer tarried for three or four days in Los Ange- 

 les. Here he extended and rectified his impressions of the city, which have 

 already been given in a former chapter. An incident of this our third visit 

 to the Queen of the Angels may be of interest. It was the Chinese New- 

 Year, and all Chinatown was in a state of jubilation. Every mother's son 

 was clad in his best, and taking a holiday. Chinese headquarters in Los 

 Angeles are on the southeast corner of the plaza. It is a kind of hotel and 

 joss-house combined. Other local centers here and there gave token of 

 their existence by minor volcanoes of noise ; but the great eruption was on 

 the plaza. Here, on my arrival, in the middle of the afternoon, some ten or 

 fifteen thousand people were gathered to witness the display from the bal- 

 conies of the alleged hotel where John was doing his work. Gay banners 

 were hung out over the balustrade and from the eaves of the house ; but the 

 principal fact was the explosion of fire crackers and torpedoes. I am sure 

 that in the course of the hour which I wasted in this crowd there were 

 more fire-crackers annihilated than I ever saw before in my life. The Chi- 

 nese arrange these little diabolical explosives in a great cable, the fuse of 

 each cracker running into the center. The cable itself, which is several 

 rods in length, has a fuse in its center, from end to end, so that when the 

 great fuse is tired the infinity of smaller fuses are ignited, and every indi- 

 vidual cracker and torpedo goes oS ad libitum. Four or five of these cables 

 were hanging out from the balcony when I arrived on the grounds, and all 

 were in a state of active eruption at once. It was a din to wake the dead. 

 It will convey some idea of the extent of these explosions when I say that 

 the whole street running along the south side of the plaza was almost shoe- 

 mouth deep with the litter of the combustion. 



Why is a fire cracker red, anyhow? For this good reason : The Old 

 Bad One, according to the Chinese theology, is always greatly interested 

 with anything that is red. He never passes a red object without stopping 

 to examine it. No bit of red paper is ever omitted from his scrutiny. The 

 Chinese theory is that by a plentiful distribution of red things up and down 

 the pathways of this world the operations of his majesty are retarded. His 



