 | Phœnixiana; or, Sketches and burlesques |  |
PHŒNIX IN SAN DIEGO.
The Bay of San Diego is shaped like a boot, the leg
forming the entrance from the sea, and the toe extending
some twelve miles inland at right angles to it, as a matter of
course, points southward to the latter end of Mexico, from
which it is distant at present, precisely three miles!
The three villages then, which go to make up the great
city of San Diego, are the “Playa,” “Old Town,” and “New
Town,” or “Davis's Folly.” At the “Playa” there are but
few buildings at present, and these not remarkable for size or
architectural beauty of design. A long, low, one-storied
tenement, near the base of the hills, once occupied by rollicking
Captain Magruder, and the officers under his command,
is now the place where Judge Witherby, like Matthew,
patiently “sits at the receipt of customs.” But few customers
appear, for with the exception of the mail steamers once a
fortnight, and the Goliah and Ohio, two little coasting
steamers that wheeze in and out once or twice a month, the
cutwater from one year's end to another. Such a thing as
a foreign bottom has never made its appearance to gladden
the Collector's heart; in this respect, the harbor has indeed
proved bottomless. Two crazy old hulks riding at anchor,
and the barque Clarissa Andrews (filled with coal for P. M.
S. S. Co.), wherein dwells Captain Bogart, like a second
Robinson Crusoe, with a man Friday, who is mate, cook,
steward and all hands, make up the amount of shipping at
the “Playa.” Then there is the “Ocean House” (that's
Donahoe's), and a store marked Gardiner & Bleeker, than
the inside of which nothing could be bleaker, for “there's
nothing in it,” and an odd-looking little building on stilts out
in the water, where a savan named Sabot, in the employ of
the U. S. Engineers, makes mysterious observations on the
tide; and these with three other small buildings, unoccupied,
a fence and a grave-yard, constitute all the “improvements”
that have been made at the “Playa.” The ruins of two old
hide-houses, immortalized by Dana in his “Two Years before
the Mast,” are still standing, one bearing the weather-beaten
name of Tasso. We examined these and got well bitten by
fleas for our trouble. We also examined the other great
curiosity of the Playa—a natural one—being a cleft in the
adjacent hills, some hundred feet in depth, with a smooth,
hard floor of white sand, and its walls of indurated clay, perforated
with cavities, wherein dwell countless numbers of
great white owls, from which circumstance, Captain Bogart
calls it “Owldom.”
Through this cleft we marched into the bowels of the
land without impediment, for nearly half a mile, when being
brought to a stand still by a high, smooth wall, McAuburn
did proceed to carve thereon a name. But as he laid out his
work on too extensive a scale, the letters being about three
feet in length—though he worked with amazing energy—he
got no farther than this—JO, when his knife broke and the
inscription remained incomplete. Whether, therefore, it was
intended to perpetuate to posterity the memory of the great
Joseph Bowers, or one of his girls, we may never know, as
Mac showed no disposition to be communicative, and indeed
requested me to “dry up,” when I questioned him on the
subject. From present appearances, one would be little disposed
to imagine that the “Playa” in five or six years might
become a city of the size of Louisville, with brick buildings,
paved streets, gas lights, theatres, gambling houses, and so
forth. It is not at all improbable, however, should the great
Pacific Railroad terminate at San Diego, an event within the
range of probability, the “Playa” must be the depot, and as
such will become a point of great importance. The landholders
about here are well aware of this fact, and consequently
affix already incredible prices to very unprepossessing
pieces of land. Lots of one hundred and fifty feet front, not
situated in particularly eligible places either, have been sold
within the last few weeks for five hundred dollars apiece.
“De gustibus,” &c. At present I confess I should prefer
the money to the real estate. While at the Playa, I had the
pleasure of forming an acquaintance with the Pilot, Captain
wish to see. He was a lieutenant in the Texas navy, under
the celebrated Moore, and told me many yarns concerning
that gallant commander. Great injustice, I think, has been
done in not giving to these officers the rank to which they are
entitled in our service. Captain Oliver would do honor to
any navy in the world, for beside being a thorough seaman,
he is an accomplished and agreeable gentleman. Leaving the
Playa in a wagon drawn by two wild mules, driven at the top
of their speed, by the intrepid Donaho, Mac and I were
whirled over a hard road, smooth and even as a ball-room
floor, on our way to “Old Town.” Five miles from the
“Playa” we passed the estate of the Hon. John Hays,
County Judge of San Diego, an old Texian, and a most
amiable gentleman. The judge has a fine farm of eighty or
one hundred acres, under high cultivation, and what few gentlemen
in California can boast of—a private fish pond! He
has enclosed some twenty acres of the flats near his residence,
having a small outlet, with a net attached, from which he
daily makes a haul almost equalling the miraculous draught
on the Lake Gennesaret.
The old town of San Diego is pleasantly situated on the
left bank of the little river that bears its name. It contains,
perhaps, a hundred houses, some of wood, but mostly of the
“Adoban” or “Gresan” order of architecture. A small
Plaza forms the centre of the town, one side of which is occupied
by a little adobe building used as a court room, the
“Colorado House,” a wooden structure, whereof the second
bearing that legend informed us, and the Exchange, a hostelry,
at which we stopped. This establishment is kept by
Hoof (familiarly known as Johnny, but whom I once christened
Cloven), and Tibbetts, who is also called Two bitts, in
honorable distinction from an unworthy partner he once had,
who obtained unenviable notoriety as “Picayune Smith.”
On entering, we found ourselves in a large bar and billiard
room fitted up with customary pictures and mirrors. Here
I saw Lieut. Derby, of the Topograpical Engineers, an elderly
gentleman of emaciated appearance, and serious cast of
features. Constant study and unremitting attention to his
laborious duties have reduced him almost to a skeleton, but
there are not wanting those who say that an unrequited
attachment in his earlier days, is the cause of his care-worn
appearance.
He was sent out from Washington some months since, “to
dam the San Diego River,” and he informed me with a deep
sigh and melancholy smile, that he had done it (mentally)
several times since his arrival. Here, also, I made the acquaintance
of Squire Moon, a jovial, middle-aged gentleman
from the State of Georgia, who replied to my inquiries concerning
his health, that he was “as fine as silk, but not half
so well beliked by the ladies.” After partaking of supper,
which meal was served up in the rear of the billiard room,
al fresco, from a clothless table, upon an earthen floor, I fell
in conversation with Judge Ames, the talented, good-hearted
but eccentric editor of the San Diego Herald, of whom the
once profanely sang as follows:
His aims were aims of mystery;
His story odd, I think by—
Would make a famous history.”
I found “the Judge” exceedingly agreeable, urbane and
well informed, and obtained from him much valuable information
regarding San Diego and its statistics. San Diego contains
at present about seven hundred inhabitants, two-thirds
of whom are “native and to the manor born,” the remainder,
a mixture of American, English, German, Hebrew and Pike
County. There are seven stores or shops in the village, where
any thing may be obtained from a fine-tooth comb to a horse
rake, two public houses, a Catholic church which meets in
a private residence, and a Protestant ditto, to which the Rev.
Dr. Reynolds, chaplain of the military post six miles distant,
communicates religious intelligence every Sunday afternoon.
San Diego is the residence of Don Juan Bandini, whose
mansion fronts on one side of the Plaza. He is well known
to the early settlers of California as a gentleman of distin
guished politeness and hospitality. His wife and daughters
are among the most beautiful and accomplished ladies of our
State. One of the latter is married to Mr. Stearns, a very
wealthy and distinguished resident of Los Angelos, another
to Col. Couts, late a Lieutenant in the first regiment of U.
S. dragoons, and another to Mr. Charles Johnson, who for a
place. The whole family is highly connected and universally
respected.
Having smoked the pipe of contemplation, and played a
game of billiards with a young gentleman who remarked,
“he could give me fifty and beat me,” which he certainly did,
with a celerity that led me to conclude “he couldn't do any
thing else,” I retired for the night, but not to sleep, as I
fondly imagined. Fleas? rather! I say nothing at present;
my feelings of indignation against those wretched insects are
too deep for utterance. On another occasion, when in a milder
mood, I intend to write a letter concerning and condemnatory
of them, and publish it. Yes, by Heaven, if I have to pay
for it as an advertisement!
The next morning, bright and early, I parted with my
young military friend McAuburn, who was about to join his
company at the Gila River. “Good bye, Phœnix,” says he,
“God bless you, old fellow! And look here, if you go to
San Francisco, tell her—no, by George! you always make
fun of every thing. Good bye.” So he wrung my hand and
galloped away, and I stood looking after him till his prancing
horse and graceful figure were hid by the projecting hills of
the old Presidio. “Blessings go with you my boy!” said I,
“for a fine, honest, noble-hearted young chap, you haven't
many superiors in the U. S. Army; and happy, in my opinion,
is the woman who gets you.”
How I went to a Baile, and visited “New Town,” and
rode forth to the Mission, and attended a Fiesta, and the extraordinary
subject of a future epistle; at present my time is too much
occupied, for lo, I am an editor! Hasn't Ames gone to San
Francisco (with this very letter in his pocket), leaving a notice
in his last edition, “that during his absence an able literary
friend will assume his position as editor of the Herald,” and
am I not that able literary friend? (Heaven save the mark.)
“You'd better believe it.” I've been writing a “leader” and
funny anecdotes all day (which will account for the dryness
of this production), and such a “leader,” and such anecdotes.
I'll send you the paper next week, and if you don't allow that
there's been no such publication, weekly or serial, since the
days of the “Bunkum Flagstaff,” I'll craw fish, and take to
reading Johnson's Dictionary. Fraternally—ahem!
| Phœnixiana; or, Sketches and burlesques | |