Part 4 (2/2)
Another matter, though a small one. At meals, in America, as pepper is shaken out lightly from a perforated castor over food, so can you do with the salt, which is in similar receptacles. This is a great improvement over our English salt-cellars. We have the salt castors in India too; we call them m.u.f.fineers there. In India, as a rule, each individual has both a salt and pepper m.u.f.fineer before his plate. If you doubt how far it is an improvement, just try it.
The steamer we came down in was a very fairly comfortable, well-appointed, and quick boat, but as she went down much farther south, she would not be due on her way back for some days, and I cared not to wait. A small pa.s.senger-steamer, on the way to San Francisco, was expected next day, and we returned in her. She was in every way a most miserable craft. She called at all the coast stations, and took forty-eight hours _en route_. There were many Americans on board, but few of a good cla.s.s. The saloon was as dirty as any pig-sty, and the table-cloth must have been in use many days to judge by its coloured appearance. It could not have been designedly, but there was a capital gravy map of North America in the centre. Knives were much in vogue, to the exclusion of forks and spoons. It really was wonderful the practice some had attained with the weapon. A combination of meat and vegetables was carefully, but quickly, adjusted on the said knife, and then a slight turn of the wrist, and _presto_--it disappeared. As the performer's mouth was nowhere near, what had become of the greasy ma.s.s at first puzzled me, but watching closely, for the sleight-of-hand was marvellous and the pa.s.sage between knife and mouth instantaneous, I realized it all!
”You can't say these people _eat_ with their knives,” I said to a nice and exceptional American by me.
”No,” he replied, laughing, ”you must go to Germany to see that. _My_ countrymen--I hope, however, we don't all do it--have left that vulgar and dangerous practice far behind. The knife, you see, is used only as a propeller, and very neatly they do it.”
”It must take a lot of practice,” I added.
”Doubtless, and so does a Yankee's power of spitting. Their aim in that way far beats the knife exhibition,” he replied with gusto. He was a Southerner, and evidently no friend to Yankees. ”Ah now,” he continued, ”that's bad, and I object.”
”Yes,” I replied, ”so do I,” as a fat man opposite sucked his knife first to clean it, and then helped himself to b.u.t.ter. ”The liberty of the subject ent.i.tles him to do as he will with his own food, but scarcely with that of the ma.s.ses,” I added.
As other knives were shortly used in the same way, neither my companion nor I cared to have b.u.t.ter, and contented ourselves with cheese, which luckily was cut at a side-table, and presented to us in large blocks, in the shape of dice, mathematically correct as to planes and angles.
I shall never forget the berth I was given on board that steamer. It was a lower one, and as to sheets and bedding clean enough, but the cabin, a deck one, was very low, and thus the s.p.a.ce for two berths, one above the other, was confined. There was only about fifteen inches' s.p.a.ce between the two, entailing when lying down a painful sensation of confinement. But to get in at all was the difficulty, only exceeded by the difficulty of getting out. The only way of getting in practicable was by lying quite flat on the projecting board, considerately, I presume, placed there for the purpose, and wriggling in like a worm; to get out much the same, except that the upper sheet and blankets came out with you, and increased the difficulty. They say one gets used to everything, but this I do deny; I should never have got used to that berth, for entering or leaving it was a gymnastic and painful puzzle.
There was an American stewardess on board, to whom I complained of the berth in my cabin. She bristled up dreadfully as she replied, ”Cabin! I guess you're a Britisher. I presume you mean your state-room. As for the berth, I guess again it whips what you're accustomed to the other side of the water,” and she sailed off with great dignity.
I felt crushed, of course, but I called after her, ”Well, it _is_ a state-room in one sense, for the state I get into before I succeed in crawling in quite--” But she had slammed the saloon door, and could hear no more. True, I had the last word, still I did not feel I had come off victorious.
The Americans know the value of time; anyhow the way they despatch their meals argues it. When the bell rings for dinner on board s.h.i.+p or at an hotel, there is a strange scene. As the time approaches, so eager is the expectation, conversation lulls. Some, anxious to get a good start, congregate near the companion ladder or the door. Tingle, tingle, at last goes the bell; every one jumps up, and away they go to the dining-room pell-mell, as men crush in for the best seats in the pit of a theatre. Seated, they devour their food as if eating against time, and the stranger who cares not to be left a course or two behind, has to look sharp too. Dinner is naturally soon over, and then they lounge out in striking contrast to their mode of entrance.
Half an hour at the outside, and the table is clear. I asked my American friend, a travelled man, to account for it all, striking as it is in its contrast to the European mode.
”I can't do so,” he replied, ”for of course here on board s.h.i.+p they have nothing to do afterwards, and at hotels most of them lounge about for an hour or two after dinner. It can only be habit; but it does not hold in good society anywhere in the States, and down south, whatever the society, meals are taken in a leisurely way.”
It is a great mistake to suppose the antagonism between north and south has died out. Of course I know not what it _was_, but it exists very plainly now. They are really separate races in thoughts and habits, and will not easily amalgamate. Courtesy is the rule in the south, the exception in the north, and the southerners naturally resent this, both for their own sakes and the national credit.
Will the United States continue for all time as one united republic?
I doubt it, if for no other reason, because of its size. Were all Europe one united kingdom, should we expect it so to remain? And yet the cases are nearly alike. Leave out one-third of Russia, and the two areas are about the same. Nevertheless all works well now.
What to do after my return to San Francis...o...b..came a question. My sons, from all they had seen in America, liked the idea of breeding cattle best, and thought to possess a good ranche was the best way to make money. I was inclined to the same opinion, and discussing the matter after my return, we decided that a ranche should carry the day. But California is not the country for ranches, and we determined to go elsewhere. They had both been a long time in Colorado, and seen many ranches in that state. There, they said, was any amount of gra.s.s, making Colorado one of the best, if not _the_ best, ranch country. I had heard much the same from others, and Colorado was eventually decided on. Between decision and departure not many days elapsed. Our stay at San Francisco had still further limited my means, there was a ranche to buy and pay for, and thus economy was more necessary than ever. We took third-cla.s.s tickets to Denver, the capital of Colorado, and for a part of the way, luckily, got an emigrant car, in which we could find room for our mattresses, and so managed to sleep at night. But, as I have said before, accommodation for emigrants is given westward only, and I know not why this exception was made over a part of the line; but this I do know, when, during the last two nights and one day of the journey, we were put into a second-cla.s.s carriage because there was no third, and had to sit up on seats all night, it was very trying.
Every one knows the Americans spit a good deal, but few know the extent to which they carry the nasty habit. The second-cla.s.s carriage was far worse in this respect than the emigrant car. The floor was literally covered with saliva, and sit where you would, for it was crowded, you did not feel safe. True, they are good shots, and can generally make sure to three square inches of the spot they aim at; still, when you are surrounded with shooters, as we were in this car, you feel nervous, especially at night when the dim light makes it more than ever hazardous. In the Pullman car spitting on the floor is not allowed; the cla.s.s so travelling are naturally more considerate in this way, nay, possibly, we will hope, steer clear of the habit, but to some even there it is a necessity, and entails an open window or frequent rushes to the spittoon, put considerately out of the way, so that in the Pullman car you avoid the nuisance.
I may as well group nasty subjects together, then the fastidious reader can skip them. The toothpick is more in vogue in America than in any country I have seen. A prolonged use of it is made after each meal, but some people are never without it. It is held in the hand when an argument is enforced with manual action, and when the speaker is satisfied he has proved his case, it is transferred to the lips, as if that was its natural place, while the owner leans back and surveys you blandly. If you are convinced, it probably remains there; if you are not (though some have acquired the power of speaking without removing it), the hand grasps it once more, and brandishes it like a dagger. I must though, in justice to the American, state that the most inveterate toothpick-man I ever met was an Englishman who had been in America since boyhood, and crossed the Atlantic with me on my return. He always, morning, noon, and night, had one either in his hand or projecting out of his mouth. It signified not what was his occupation, the little stiletto was always to the fore. We used to speculate on board if he so slept, and the ayes were in the majority.
California is about 800 miles from north to south, but across, from west to east, the average width is only, perhaps, 200 miles. The rail line, the direct one from San Francisco to New York, was the line I ought to have taken when bound west, as I explained before. Owing to the northerly course the rail takes after leaving San Francisco, some 300 miles in California, not 200, has to be traversed ere you reach the next state, Nevada, and having left the western capital in the afternoon we crossed the boundary next morning. I could not, of course, see much of the Californian scenery at night, but the general character of the country we pa.s.sed through seemed to be much as I had seen in other parts of that state, very fertile where water for irrigation was at command, but barren otherwise.
Before finally leaving California I must add the last I heard of that ”almighty swindle” (so styled by an American I met, who was one of the victims) the Antelope Valley. Every one who could leave it had done so, but there were many who could not, who had spent their all to get there. Some of these had wives and children, and their condition was of course most pitiable. There was naturally no work to be had there, and I heard that many of them were living on charity.
The hotel-keeper in the valley, a most charitable man, and his good wife, did all in their power to mitigate the suffering, which was excessive. What became of the colony after I left I know not. Some who departed to return to England vowed they would be revenged on the agent in London, and if there was no legal redress (which I imagine is the case) thrash him well! I hope they did, but I have heard nothing, except that I saw in the paper one of the victims appeared before a London magistrate, and detailed the case. How he had sold up everything in England to go there, induced to do so by the said agent's representations, and on arrival found himself landed in a vast desert. But it did not appear that the magistrate could help him.
I can only hope the Antelope Valley episode will be a warning to emigrants. The United States is too well known, the country too much explored, to make it likely that any spot, or El Dorado, with the advantages the Antelope Valley was said to possess _can_ exist unutilized. The Americans are far ”too cute,” if they found such a place, to tout for occupants from England.
As this is the last I have to say about California, I will close this chapter.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] Always excepting the pavements. These are bad, but not as bad as in New York.
<script>