Reminiscences of the South Seas
John La Farge
9781613109786
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
San Francisco was the same place, with the same curious feeling of its being cold while one felt the heat; but there was neither place, time nor anything for me; there were things to buy and replace—all sorts of things had been forgotten, and now more than ever I realize that it is well to be overloaded—even if I believe that later I should feel it. What I want I want badly, and San Francisco is not a place to get it in. And then there was a pleasant club, with the usual hideous decoration, but very comfortable and with such a good table, and such a real one—meats that were meats, and fish that was fish, and fruits in quantity, and fruits are not fruits for pleasure unless they be in quantity; and good wine and champagne of a kind that is not ours; and a Mr. Cutler who took us there and talked of things he had done or would do, that were interesting, and the contrast between the smoothness of life there, and the apparent difficulties outside. I say apparent because many of them are based upon a feeling of indifference or “look out for yourself” in any event outside. Yes, the Union Club was a good waster of time. And then I am not yet well recovered at all from the strain of the beginning of the month; and I felt as if I had sea-legs and gait from the motion of the car. So that I shall say nothing of the great bay, nor its mountainsides, that look at this time as if they were nothing but those we have seen all along, but with the sea rolling in. We got off on Saturday, not at noon as stated, but waiting for a couple of hours in dock, the little steamer filled with people and with very pretty girls, who, alas! were not to accompany us. But we have a circus troupe “à la Buffalo Bill”; an impresario with the nose and figure head of the “boy,” and his wife, or lady, the usual “variety blonde” to match, joining, like the telegraph, (through the seas and continent of America), furthest Australia and the Singing Hall of London. Long-haired cowboys see them off, one of them fair-haired and boyish and “sixty-two.” There are Indians, one long-haired, saturnine, and yet smiling, with the usual length of jaw and hair (so that his back runs up from his waist to his hat), who sits with some female, perhaps a dancer, and talks sentiment evidently, in his way, to my great delight—and hers, too, whatever she might say. They sit with one blanket around them, and he points gracefully, and puts things in her hair—and draws presents out of his pockets, wrapped up in paper, and puts them back to pull them out again. She sits against him, and smiles at him ironically, and laughs, and generally looks like a pretty cat lapping cream. The cowboys meander about and go to the bar-room too frequently, especially one, a fair-haired one, who feels the first attack of sea-sickness, and sits with his head on his hand—and resents his comrades’ begging him to come below, telling them that they have mistaken the man he is, that he is a Pawnee medicine man, he is, and that he will wipe the floor with them; and then he subsides again—so that my expected row does not occur. Then everybody subsides, even the cheerful young Englishmen and old Englishmen, and the middle-aged Englishmen, who pervade a good part of the ship and utter all their small stock of remarks with slowness and power. There are others—the teacher going back for her vacation, to the seminary at Hawaii—the young German I suspect of being an R.C. priest, and the Scotchman who has carefully talked for the last hour on the advantage of our system of “checking” baggage, which as he says allows you to go on without getting off at any station to see if the “guard” has the things all right. But as he remarks, for the hand luggage, a “mon” can take care of that himself, otherwise he would not be fit to take care of MONEY!!
