Excerpt from San Francisco

There is more life on the Bay than there has been for many years. Steamers and ships come and go continually. The war has brought back sail, ing ships, possibly for only a time, but they are a pleasing sight with their new white sails. The ferry boats, no doubt, will always be. They exist on the North and East Rivers in New York in spite of the under/river tubes, and so many that have crossed the ferry from Oakland have received their first imf pression of San Francisco from the deck of one of these boats. They are a great feature in the life of the City, and have been since its beginning.

Today the focus of the principal business life of the City lies within the blocks surrounding Market and Kearny Streets. Here we find the greatest traffic and two notable architectural features. One is Lotta's Fountain, given by the actress to the City at an early date, commemorative of her gratitude for the people's enthusiastic spirit. It expresses the departed pioneer life. The Call Building is the other notable feature architecturally. It is one of the successfully beautifully tall buildings in the country. The line of its dome and the relation of its width to its height make it a pleasing sight seen from a dis' tance or near by. In this district there is a hurrying and increasing life. It is very different from the deliberation of step and demeanor one sees in the Chinese quarter.

It is impossible to forget, when thinking of San Francisco, that within a few blocks from the most important business district is found the Chinese Town. There is found that curious mingling of Oriental and Western ideas which we know from experience is superficial. For though this is one of the oldest of the Chinese settlements, or the first in the Western world, these foreigners persist in continuing their lives untouched by American ideas. Only the clothes have been changed. The brilliant Cantonese costumes that were once a distinctive feature of the street life of Chinatown have vanished. The fashions of Canton, like those of Paris, change. Now, when a man or womanappears in the costume of his country, the brightly relieved embroidery is seen to have been changed to simple silken patterns in flat colors. Chinatown is a charming place to wander in by night or day. There is an attempt at Oriental architecture, an atmosphere of balconies, brilliant lettering and swinging lanf terns, and there is no place in the City in which the fire escape has been made such a feature. One looks at these useful adjuncts of architecture, and feels glad about them on account of the flower pots on the landings and the beauti' ful shadows cast. On a warm night the air is filled with odors unmistakably Chinese and no district of an Occidental city wafts smells so curious. You can hear the plaintive sounds of Chinese tunes blown on a reed. Is there some' thing Slavic about these melodies? Curious squeaks of the stringed instruments played by a bow, and the delicate tinkle of a kind of zither. So closely are the tones divided that our ears are not finely enough attuned to catch the divisions of tone into eighths and sixteenths. The lights of suspended lanterns, the leisurely walk of the men and women, the immobility of the figures that sit in doorways and shops, the calm of the faces in repose, the dreaminess of their eyes, which make you think that in their minds are visions of distant Oriental lands.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com