Travel Letters from America

1885

Alfred Deakin

January 6 1885

Auckland is something between Ballarat & Sandhurst, a prosperous place on a large bay & with

pleasant suburbs. About three-quarters of an hour drive takes one to the top of an extinct

volcano with a beautifully defined crater & though it is only some 500 ft high, you gain from its

summit one of the most beautiful views. On one side, rises the narrow, long bay of Auckland,

on the other, running the opposite way exactly the equally long & narrow Bay of Onehunga,

beyond each of these again, one sees the Ocean for there one looks right across a narrow neck

of the North Island. On a third side you see Rangitoto & a group of blue islands stretching away

with the ocean distance, & on the opposite side an amphitheatre of blue hills. The landscapes

bounded by the bays & hills which on account of the rainy character of the place keeps a most

lovely green & one looks down on houses standing in their little pocket handkerchief pastures

on either hand. Within view are some 50 extinct craters with their rounded shapes imparting a

singular grace to the scene. Under ones feet lies Auckland & around it the leafy suburbs which

bound the Bay. So beautiful was the scene as a storm of rain only gave us a glimpse of it in the

morning. I went up again with the Captain after lunch. When we had a clear delight in it.

Leaving Auckland at 4 p.m.

Tuesday January 6

We sighted Tutuila about 50 miles from Samoa late on the 10th & though we saw a whale boat

full of natives did not stop & only enjoyed the outline of the island during dusk.

Wednesday January 7, 8 p.m.

Crossed the Equator. The Pleiades glittering bright overhead & Orion by their side.

No longer cabined, cribbed confined & nauseated for the blue mist on the horizon is [?]ahie. As

we near it its peaks thrust themselves up 1,500–2,000 ft into the sky. Creatures of fiery floods in

the days gone by with craterlike forms & fierceness of outline. Nearer, the prevailing hue is a

yellowybrown & the town on a flat at the foot of the hills lies wrapt in verdure. Very like

Greece, one traveller pronounces it, “The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece where burning

Sappho lived & sung.” Such an introduction is an inspiration. Presently the disappointment at

the brown hues dies away as a close view reveals a thin skin of grass & shrubs drawn on the

mountainside & clustering thickly in its furrowed slopes. The tinting is very delicate & aerial &

the town is found to run up a valley. On each side of us stretches a long beach.

There is no harbor worthy the name. A narrow channel leads us to a wharf crowded with

people, most of dusky skin. The men in European dress much disfigured except when they

adopt a garibaldian planter style of dress. The women in coloured gowns fat & pleasant looking,

both have good eyes but no special beauty, at the best swarthy, often flat-nosed Italian in type.

After a tedious delay we are pulled alongside & I am first to shore. A noisy babble &

bargaining with buggy drivers lasts a quarter of an hour; finally Pattie Cunningham, Joy & I are

off in the first trap. Two dollars a head to the Pali & back. In five minutes we are in a narrow

street between fine rather curious offices. This is the European quarter, but the street winds &

we are in a Chinese quarter. Chinese shops & Chinese buyers & sellers on each hand though it

is quiet being Sunday afternoon. Another turn & we are amidst the vegetation, cocoa-nut palms,

& bananas, brilliant creepers & ferns with fine wooden villas & little shops. This is the natives

quarter or the suburbs. Europeans here number only about 2,000, Chinese (I should guess)

10,000 & Hawaiians 6,000. The road winds here & there, everywhere among trees, crossed at

all angles by other streets winding just as wonderfully every way, but everywhere the glorious

tropic trees. Cocoa-nuts above our heads guavas wild on the roadside, bananas within reach.

Rich well watered swards of grassy shade, quaint houses verandahed & often shuttered all

round of all sizes & designs. Gardens gardens everywhere. Everywhere shade & beauty. So we

began to ascend what Mr. Derry describes as a beautiful mixture of Rangoon & Cingalese

towns, sparkling streams of water cross the roads. A plain stone chapel is the Mausoleum where

lie the ashes of Hawaiian Kings. There are curious feathered plumes before it, the sea lies

gleaming behind us, down comes a cavalcade of natives. Women astride of the horses with their

bright coloured gowns disposed so as to cover each leg down the ankles, broad hats, the men,

some of them in half Spanish dress with Mexican saddles stirrups & cruel spurs, every one

smoking cigars or cigarettes. Our driver, a greater swell than any of us, suddenly pulls up,

alights & purchases cigars which he generously offers so that we suspect that after all the fare

must be exorbitant. Still up we go. The trees are fewer. Small plantations of this[?] underwater,

& pasturage with cattle & horses now appear. More Chinamen pass us walking & riding, one

with his hat bound on by a brilliant crimson silk handkerchief dashes before us–native children

play in the fields. Higher, the houses cease, the valley narrows to a gorge. On each side of us

there is a thick impenetrable jungle resembling in its knotted thickets the mangroves that fringe

the rivers of Fiji.

Higher still we are between nearly perpendicular cliffs of lava rock all the way. Cut as sharp at

the top as a knife blade, fringed with thin green herbages & underneath of a soft brown. Here a

most beautiful & to me unique charm discovers itself. As you look at the brown rounded ribs of

these cliffs you see the flashes sunshine running rapidly away in a twinkling flock of glistening

ripples with short half-moon curves, like those on the sea beach, & yet the surface seems as

glossy as a horse’s groomed skin, & they dance as stars do in clear running water, for they are

ripples of golden aura that break round the base of the cliff & run all over them in flashes of

flowing light & flowing shade.

As we rise, the cliffs below, perhaps a thousand feet high, are here only a few hundred. We

leave our vehicle, climb a steep hill as it were to look at the clouds, follow a winding road cut in

the rock & suddenly through a V cleft in the rock, look down upon a great glassy plain under

one’s feet & stretching away to where the ocean lifts itself in great white rollers on the beach

many miles away. Wind on a few more steps & look down upon it from the top of an immense

wall that shuts it in from one side of the island. A wall from 1,300–2,000 ft high buttressed all

along with deeply rifted & yet rounded sides & studded with pinnacles, it stretches far out of

sight. The road cut in the rock going down from our feet along the precipice until it drops into a

red road below on which horses look like mice & men like pygmies, while the road streak

winds away through fields & plantations to a little hamlet far off on the sea shore. A group of

hills with smooth green surfaces, crater like hollows & a rolling meadow of immense extent lie

all before us. This is the Pali, the high cliff over which Kamehameha?, the great conqueror in

the Waterloo of Hawaii drove his flying foes so that they flung themselves from his spears over

this precipice & died with this lovely vision flashing before their eyes. Back again through the

fairy land, the dream like towns of gardens & villas & strange dress & strange speech. Back to

the shop to purchase fruit & hurry on board. Fascinated & full of regret at departure because the

night is closing down, it is winter & dark at 6 p.m. & to leave it with the witchery of sunset

spreading over its hills making them glow again in golden brown haloes of colour & exquisite

hues of light & shade, & to spread our wings under the new moon with its thin ring above &

bright sphere below away into the starlight of the open tossing sea — to more heaving up &

down, more monotony — more slavery to a ship.

Sunday January 29, Midday

The Continent appeared on the horizon & about 4 p.m., passed the Faullines [?] two or three

rocky and very picturesque islands which seemed bathed in the sunshine. The coast grew bold

as we advanced though bare, yet as we neared it becoming prettier like that of Honululu.

The Golden Gate is about the width of the Heads but finer in outline. Just as you turn in you see

one end of the city of San Francisco running over a steep hill on an inner point. There are

several islands before you & around a very spacious & beautiful bay with minor bays like that

of Sydney on a larger scale - it runs up 60 miles inland to the North & could contain all the

navies of the world in safety. The waters are yellow instead of blue like Sydney.

The wharves or rather piers, called docks here - are all private & most of them covered in.

Leaving the pier about dusk we were surrounded by a crowd of yelling cabmen who threatened

to tear us to pieces, but having secured a close carriage, which is the larger kind of vehicle here,

we were soon banged over the rough stones of the street. It was Sunday night but the shops

were open here & there & many others having no shutters are left with the gas burning. There

was also the noise of a band or two. Shows in the off streets, cigar shops, hotels & even grocers

in full swing as usual, as well as the second rate theatres to one of which we males went after

dinner. I left after the first act. This is a great city, straight streets though one or two at an angle

with the others. Wide pavements of mixed wood, stones or asphalt according to the taste of the

house owner who makes it.

Streets paved with stones each as large as my two fists, making frightful work for the horses &

those riding in vehicles — tram rails in most streets, four lines in Market St. under our corridor

— very numerous shops not specially fine but bright & attractive — electric light here & there,

fine warehouses — mostly brick now in the City, but many wood & very handsome & higher

than ours. Most private residences are of wood, at least two stories & often charming. Swiss,

Elizabethan & Gothic in style, richly decorated within & without. We have no idea in

Melbourne what wood is capable of. The Hotels are the finest buildings in the City. The Palace,

seven stories high & this the Baldwin five & facade clean. Government House gives only a faint

suggestion of them & it is small in comparison. They are all mirrors & carpets, passages & all

Lofty — 14–15 ft high — very comfortable. The dining room is paved & about 200 ft long,

high & ornamental on the ceiling, all mirrors — tables to accommodate eight. This room takes

200 people. There are over 400 rooms, here, over you in the Palace, which covers a whole

block, towers to an immense height & has a court yard in the centre on which balconies from

every storey look down, running right around. The rooms are immense. The variety at the tables

surprising, all sorts of new dishes added to the old. All black waiters. They carry loaded trays

on the outspread fingers of their hands when turned back & up. Are attentive but slow. No salt

spoons. Sometimes the salt is in a kind of pepper box. Thick china. At Sacramento, cups

without handles. Often plate-handled knives. Few tumblers, caraffes, iced water always, tiny

salt cellars, butter dishes for each person. Each person requires a small table to hold the 6 or 8

dishes which contain a portion of the meal. Most people are stout here. Meals are enormous &

very rich — most women especially eat a great deal — The women are to our taste overdressed

& in the towns paint almost universally. The men dress well & nearly all shave. Chief

distinguishing feature, the brightness of the eyes, & the quiet assurance which seem to say

American. One has here the sentiments of travel in a strange new country & yet the

convenience of hearing one’s own tongue, though with curious mannerisms. It is winter, but the

climate of San Francisco was at its best & good everywhere.

In Los Angeles it is perfect, a hot sun & cool breezes & almost chilly night & morning. San

Francisco as a city seems busier & brighter than Melbourne because it has no suburban shops as

good as ours & its city contains as well as its larger warehouses the Smith St, Hotham, Prahran

& Carlton shops of Melbourne. The city is one & not like Melbourne, the centre of a number of

minor cities each having a supply system of its own. Between San Francisco & Sacramento the

country is very like Ballarat (that new). Everywhere in California one meets groves & forests of

blue gums, a good many acacias & some wattles helping the likeness. In Los Angeles one sees

nothing but gums & Pepper Trees.

After returning to San Francisco for a few days, we left for Bakersfield, spending our first night

in a Pullman sleeping car. I like them very much but do not care for their ordinary carriages.

Their lines run smoothly & the management is very good. We were roused at daybreak to drive

to a great estate of 300,000 acres, carrying a great amount of stock & divided into different

ranches (stations or farms) one for horses, another for cattle, another for sheep & so on. Here

we found a queer jumble of races & nationalities, English, American, French, German,

Negroes, Mexicans, Chinese & half breeds. The lasso & Mexican Saddle. The ranches are all

two storied double closed with view open to the air. Some raised from the ground, pretty &

after the Southern planter fashion. Los Angeles — a plain only made beautiful as far as nature

goes by the abrupt hills on two sides of it. For the rest of its charm, which is great, is all

artificial irrigation has done it all & now we find here a brick town, full of fine buildings wide

streets & electric light, like Castlemaine revived & improved which is elbowing away the low

adobe houses of the Mexicans. Like Venice, it is built upon water, in this case figuratively, for

all around lie the orangeries, vineyards, orchards upon which the whole prosperity of the place

rests, & very beautiful the great dark green orange trees tipped with the lighter hues of young

shoots here & there & laden with oranges of rich deep golden tints. Often quite unfenced houses

& all — the houses neat & pretty times at present bare, but everything highly cultivated. The

lots small & water winding in little gutters everywhere. There is the beauty of orchard

everywhere, otherwise the place would be as poor as any settlement upon our northern plains.

On our way here we passed the largest railway engine in the world, weighing 115 tons & had

the whole of our train carried across the great Sacramento River by the largest ferry (steam)

boat in the world — covering an acre.

Coming across the coast range into Southern California over a loop where the line emerging

from a tunnel winds around the hill & returning upon itself crosses over the tunnel higher up.

Tunnels in any number on the way & some bits of fine scenery but nothing better in engineering

or in scenery than the Blue Mountains. Drove to Pasadena Sierra Madre & San Gabriel where

there is an old [illegible] more than a century old, with four out of its six bells brought from

Spain still hanging. Beautiful orange groves & vineyards & bits of exquisite scenery between,

around & beyond them. This place has been likened to Paradise, but it is of man’s making &

has been called the Garden of Eden, deserving the name though created & maintained only by

continuous labor & intelligence. In the ‘Colonies’ of Passadena & San Gabriel the desert has

been made to blossom like the rose.

Wednesday February 11

Left Los Angeles at 2 p.m., arrived at Ontario 3:30. W. Chaffey, one of two brothers who are

founding a colony here, drove us over the estate, up an avenue planted with four lines of trees,

blue gums & Grevillea Robusta. Straight up from the railway, 7 miles long to the foot of the

mountains. Saw tunnel & canals for supply of water, all carried through pipes. 10,000 acres in

the estate. 2,500 acres sold to 85 families returned to Temperance Hotel. This is a temperance

settlement so far as the township is concerned. Took immigrant train to Coltow arriving at

midnight.

Thursday February 12

Up at 6 a.m., took buggy to Riverside, passed through big & desolate plains for 7 miles only

beautified by the mountains which are close on either side. A plain, consisting of pretty houses

hidden by orange trees & surrounded by vineyards water running everywhere through it. Very

dusty as it happened, but wonderfully pretty. The houses generally much more tasteful than

ours. Called on Mr. Holt slitrs[?] who drove us down the famous Magnolia Avenue. Shinus

Molle & some trees everywhere also Fan Palm & grevilleas. Splendid oranges, perfectly clean.

Called at Crawford’s. Canadians like the Chaffeys. Dried apricots, very nice. Charming houses

& fine houses. Land planted with oranges, $1,000 per acre. Back to Colton. To San Bernardino,

a Mexican settlement turned Yankee. Plenty of Mexicans with their dark skins & strange dress.

Back to Colton. Train onwards. No sleeping car to be had. Obliged to rough it on the benches

after playing cards ‘till nearly midnight.

Friday February 13

Roused at 6 a.m. at Maricopa in the midst of the desert plain, with only a sort of saltbush on it

stretching to the hills. The town, about a dozen wooden cottages in a row, all around bare to the

horizon. Breakfast. Coach & a very cold wind to face. Passed numbers of Cacti, 25 & 30 ft

high, like great green rough cigars often with smaller cigars sticking out of them. Coach taken

over the Gila River on a ferry pulled by ropes. Road sandy & dreadfully dusty. Reached an

Indian settlement. Houses like caves & covered with earth. Only possible to crawl into them &

not possible for me to stand in the centre. Men wear blue broad trousers & shirts, often red.

Long black hair. Copper skin. Flat noses. Women a sort of petticoat & upper garment. Girls in

the hut rather pleasant — earthenware vessels like [illegible] irrigation here — more desert.

Indian boys with bows — arrows in a Cactus. They had been shooting birds. Crossed through

branches of the river by fording. Getting hot. More Indians, Mexicans — Phoenix at 1 p.m.

rough herdsmen & Mexicans — one longish street of wooden houses, like our bush towns.

Took buggy & drove to Arizona Canal works. 40 miles. Cost $300,000. Back late.

Saturday February 14

Collecting information as to irrigation. Bought three photos. Left [illegible] to return by same

route. Coach to Maricopa again, terribly dusty, grimy & white as millers, passed a rocky hill

upon which is the giant likeness of an imperial human head called Montezuma’s head, really

very striking. Hotel at 4 p.m.

Sunday February 15

Today there was to be a Mexican race at Phoenix — 20 mile run, 6 horses allowed to each man.

Up at 6 a.m. Train due at 6.30, no sign of it at 9 am. Fine mirage in the East, first adding new

mountains then changing to a lighthouse & long forts, then to turrets & balloons, then gradually

changing away. Everyone, everywhere strongly against Railway Monopoly. Man here pays 1

cent per 100 pounds per mile for 3,000 miles or 48 cents for 2,000 & $2.38 for 300 or 15 cents

per mile for the last 300 — this kills intermediate stations — no one has any faith in the

legislatures; States or National, all can be bought. Maricopa Indians & [illegible] we saw

yesterday. Rough fellows but often fine manly type. Most armed. Shirts. Broad hats. Trousers

tucked into high boots, all humourous. Train three & a half hours late. Started 10 a.m. Hours of

desert travel. Playing poker. Tucson. Mexican adobe houses. Flat roofed, small light brown

boxes. That is all. More desert until dark. Large views over plains & snowstreaked hills. Tea at

Bruce Supper[?]. Arrived El Paso, 1 a.m. Filthy with dust. This is the worst feature of railway

travelling in this country. Every passenger becomes grimy from head to foot, while boxes, coats

& everything are thickly coated with fine dust. It makes one feel miserable & is ruinous to

clothes. Caused I think by the light ballast used. Country a good deal like our Northern plains

all the way but in its best parts below our average. Passed no water to speak of on the way.

Monday February 16

El Paso is a new American town sprung up at the Railway Station El Paso del Norte. The old

Mexican town lies across the Rio Grande which marks the Mexican border. This is not the great

stream its name seems to imply. It is never very deep & no wider than the Yarra near its mouth.

The town is quite new — American, straggling lines of adobe buildings plastered white — one

room deep & opening in courtyards. Flat roofs, grass grown. Swarthy women & children

crouching on the floor over little fires or riding little donkeys called burros. The men wear short

blankets as cloaks twisted around their shoulders — the women a lighter kind as head dress,

veil & cloak. Are bright eyed when young but soon look very old. All gardens & fields here are

irrigated for 18 miles over 5,000 acres at $2 or $2.25 (Mexican) per acre. Good results. Mostly

wheat & corn. Wheat $1.25. Canal 8 ft broad. Old mission church, century old. Birds flying

within from altar to ornaments & pigeons cooing on the roof made the stillness within very

soothing.

Railway Station very quiet quadrangular. Returned to El Paso to change American for Mexican

money. Mexican pesos 15% less than U.S. dollar. No gold. Paper only of provincial circulation.

Had to take 119 Mexican silver dollars each as large as 5 shilling pieces & heavier. Required a

bag & weighed about 2 pounds. Never felt the weight of wealth so much before. Returned to

Paso del Norte — another stroll among irrigating ditches & winding streets. Great struggle for

tickets, quite an amount of stamping for the Government. My ticket has 3 stamps on it

apparently duty stamps & the Pullman can ticket the same. Played poker. Comfortable cars.

Tuesday February 17

Woke before 5 a.m. Roused at 6 a.m, for breakfast at 6.45. No refreshment rooms open yet so

breakfasted in a railroad car with rough table at Chihuhua. 4,600 ft above the sea & sharply

cold. Hurried to get a view of the town — two centuries old lying in a plain ringed around by

hills of varying heights & volcanic rounded character. Houses white flat & the Cathedral built

out of tribute from a mine towers over the whole place just as the church here towers over the

mass of the people who are very ignorant. One sees it very clearly from the train with its

ornamented front & two high towers at each angle of the front & a dome behind. Sunrise was

just tinting the mountains as we arrived & I watched it stealing over the town from the clear

Australian sky lighting up piece by piece. But it seemed significant that the whole place was

steeped in a faint rose hue before even the towers of the Cathedral were tipped with its rays &

when we steamed away the shadow still rested on the body of the great white building. From

this passed by irrigating channels & a small aqueduct of solid masonry. By going so far south

we have reached the East. The brilliant dress colours the absence of head dress the enveloping

gaudy cloak. But for the cut of the clothing one could believe oneself in Palestine. The

cloudless sky, the burned brown earth & treeless hills, the flat brown box buildings, the colour

of swallows nests & of the same material — the wide stretching plain almost without verdure!

The rude irrigating channel, the wooden plough used in Egypt 2,000 years ago & here as in

Syria today.

The balancing of vessels on women’s heads. Almost naked brown children & some of the

women & men with refined sad eastern faces & spare supple forms — the clustered houses on a

flat hill top with inhabitants basking idly in the sun, all bring back the old Bible pictures of

which exact reproductions meet one at every turn, even to the church towers often like the

minarets of a mosque. Late in the evening as the day died behind the purple peaks we were

whirled through immense tracts of flat irrigated land which is bearing huge crops of cotton &

corn. Though now bare as it is seed time & early in the evening as the young moon dropped out

of sight we plunged into a gorge between precipitous peaks & all night, though we were already

high upwards often steadily climbed.

Wednesday February 18

Morning found us 8,250 ft above the sea — 2,000 ft higher than the highest mountain in

Victoria. Sunny, bright & bracing — long fields with many teams of oxen. At the towns,

country roads with troops of burros & then high on the crown of broken peaks near the crest of

which the railway line runs the [illegible] to Xacatecas [Zacatecas].

A French Count who is with us tells us he believes himself in Spain as he looks about — the

hills are bare & steep & the white town of flat houses, stone arched aqueducts & roads hewn out

of the solid rock lies in the valley while above it rises its Cathedral & churches, its palace &

public buildings of the Spanish renaissance order while the swarthy crowds that throng its

streets in the bright colours, with soldiers in blue cavalry upon small horses, the ever present

burros & troops of children move like dots underneath us. There was a great battle in 1876

when the citadel upon the saddle of a steep, precipitous hill shooting up a thousand feet above

the town was occupied by a usurping governor, Garcia de la Cadena, with 7,000 or 8,000 men.

He was attacked here by a General Rocha for the government with an equal force, climbed the

precipitous wall & after five hours fighting took the heights, fired down into the citadel,

captured it & ended the struggle when 3,000 dead were upon the field. We wound along the

heights, seeing a band of convicts at work guarded by a ring of sentries. They scooped up the

earth with a little scoop, filled a matting bag with it & carried it about 30 yards to tumble it

down a great hollow, they carried apparently about 4 pounds per trip. Free men would be paid

18 & three-quarter cents Mexican or 15c American. Some of them half naked & with rude

sandals only — all Mexicans here go armed. Revolvers of great size from hang from every belt

— many of the belts lined with cartridges. The whites are all armed too but there appears to be

little shooting. Of the population of 10,000,000, only one-tenth are whites, mostly Spanish by

descent or birth. Half are natives descended from the old people who were the lower class of

Aztecs & the other four- fifths consists of the mixed races sprung from whites, Indians & some

Negroes. Hardly anyone understands English & many do not understand Spanish, though there

is a Spanish complexion upon everything. Nothing outside the railroads to America. We are in a

foreign country just as much as if we were in the centre of Spain.

All is new, strange, picturesque & fascinating. Lunched in style at Aquas Calientes, (Hot

Springs) — hot mineral springs & many churches. They have no tapering spires like ours but

towers or minarets or domes often of great size — & sometimes two or three towers of different

size or frequently two minarets & a dome. Later, we pass by Encarnacion, whose verdure is

pleasant to the eye, a small town but with three or four great churches. It runs up & down the

sides of a steep valley which we cross on a light bridge, 150 ft high. Magueys (prickly pear) in

forests & also aloes with the Palma, a kind of tree screw palm. Leon in the distance. Next

morning at daybreak, Tula the Toltec city ante dating the Aztec rule. The Cut of Nochistingo

which cost 60,000 Indian lives to make & then the City of Mexico.

Thursday February 19

Mexico is the land of mystery & imagination, of wonder & of contradictions that together unite

to make it a land of dreams. It has seen several civilisations but whence they rose & why they

fell is an impenetrable mystery. The strange & startling character of its catastrophes together

with the imperfection of its records render its appeals to the imagination constant & irresistible

— these together surround it with an atmosphere of wonder which the boldness of its physical

features & the magnitude of its ruins continues to feed. Its history is of peoples who were at

once civilised & savage, amiable & bloody. It presents all the contrasts of all the zones of the

physical world in immediate contiguity & to-day it displays at every turn the 15th & the 19th

centuries side by side, as are also side by side the splendour & squalor of the East. No past has

the apparent discontinuity & aloofness of a dream. Its people today seem to live in a dream of a

future that may prove to be baseless as a dream.

In Mexico, history is romance & narration, poetry of a vivid & barbaric type. The core of life &

thought is still as unsubdued & as original as in the days of the Aztec rule. Its outside is Spanish

— its dress, its official language, its ceremonial religion — but the heart of it untamed &

untameable even when it submits to fate & consents to cease to be, is beyond the reach of the

Caucasian touch.

The mound buildings of the remote ages have passed & only by the overgrown mounds do we

know or name them. The Toltecs, a great & learned people have vanished & left as little sign —

Of the mighty Aztec Empire, nothing remains save a few stones, a few legends, and a few pages

of picture writing.

By & by the Spanish era will have left just as slight a trace & this land like the Ocean will leave

no line upon its countenance which will tell the antiquary of the future what fearful storms &

lovely calms have swept across its unalterable surface. Nowhere in the world is there a sadder

lesson of the mutability of human things or of the awful sacrifice of millions upon millions

before shrines which whatever their title seem to have been barren of all permanent blessing.

Feb[February] 19. This to me will ever be a day of memories as it seems a day of dreams. Far

away & long after I may realise it but here I am incapable of grasping its meaning or its features

which as soon as I regard them seem to dissipate into thin air & leave one musing instead of

observing & yet I am here. I have seen & will remember & yet paint what I cannot now look

upon & be sure that I see. The city of Mexico to-day is as entirely Spanish as Madrid or Seville

& as utterly remote from everything Anglo–Saxon. It stands upon the site of the famous Aztec

capital of which not a visible fragment remains. The Spanish monk has been more destructive

even than the Spanish soldier, & not a vestige of the ancient people which was known to him &

which could be broken or burned has been allowed to remain & for this vandalism the

malediction of the future will forever rest upon him & his class.

There are as many records of the antecedent civilisation preceding the Aztec as of the Aztec

which only began to be known about the end of the 13 century.

The Aztecs were a tribe ruling many tribes — of the Aztecs few remain & more than half of the

Mexico of to-day is peopled by the descendants of the tribes over whom they reigned or with

whom they were in alliance — the injection of Spanish blood will never be more than an

infusion. The European element will be assimilated by the native. In 300 years they were kept

in the condition of abject serfdom by the Spaniards & since then they have been staggering

along trying to recover their balance. They have not done so yet for though there is more

stability in the government to-day — which, backed by a strong army, can repress disorder &

rebellion — there is little justice or freedom. Mexico is a military despotism, its democracy is a

farce. No-one votes & no-one is really elected. The poor are many & they are miserably poor.

The few, the very few, have a feudal dominion over them such as exists in Russia. It is doubtful

if the people will be able to do much for themselves until the Anglo–Saxon invasion comes.

This may not be for a century but come it must and then the problem how to deal with the

Mexican will be something like the problem what to do with the Negro was after the war. At

present the American element is limited almost to the railways. Slip off the car anywhere & you

are in the midst of old Europe. The appearance of things is that of the 16th century, the condition

of the people that of the peasants of the 16th century. & the misfortune to the native is the charm

to the sightseer. In Mexico one sees the European dress frequently but even then the multitude

are dressed in an entirely different garb. The gaudy serape, a cloak blanket, sandalled feet,

sombrero on the head & light scanty clothing are set off by the long straight streets with narrow

footpaths roughly paved roadway & barred prison-like houses running down each side of it built

of stone or massive brick & stuccoed to an uniform dull white — are like nothing we see. The

thoroughfares are narrow & crowded with jostling, dusky skinned, often barefooted people —

porters with enormous loads upon their backs, mules drawing lumbering vehicles, burros laden

to the ground or horses driven pack fashion while every now & then a horseman with gorgeous

silver ornaments down his leather or cloth wide trousers with short braided jacket & brilliant

sombrero sitting upon his gorgeous Mexican saddle with machete (sword) at his hand, &

flowing over its flanks a handsome saddle cloth dashes along, his heavily spurred feet resting in

close stirrups whose fringes nearly sweep the ground. The Senoritas wear no hats — only the

graceful mantilla or a serape which does for hat & mantle with the less wealthy. They nearly all

have very fine eyes, but poor features & poor figures. I saw no striking Spanish women in

Mexico.

The Aztec races are often as good looking, & I saw better looking native women than Spanish

— one or two really very pretty, but the average are decidedly plain. The men are as a rule

better looking both in face & figure, but they too are very small, especially the natives, so that

in a crowd of them I felt almost like a Son of Anak. There are no suburbs in our sense in

Mexico — Everyone lives in the town & even wealthy families let their ground floors to

business houses or even to shops. There are few shop windows & generally very poor stocks.

The native poor live in courts or little terraces with a room or two to a family — The better

houses are entered by a hall & have a court in the centre often beautifully decorated with pot

plants & flowers. All the houses are massive & rather gloomy. The Café Anglais at which we

stayed was like being behind the scenes in a theatre.

The doors to the rooms just like stage doors & as insecure, rooms lofty, & scantily furnished,

while mine had a little projection from French windows fenced in with iron bars from which

one could see the streets. From these or at mass or driving in the Paseo, the Mexican ladies

derive their ideas of the world. They are kept as in Spain or Turkey so much out of sight that

they are always in the hands of mischief makers & live in an atmosphere of outward restraint,

which not only imprisons them but their faculties. They are as a consequence pasty-faced &

inclined to corpulence — & report has it, to intrigues but of this, of course, we saw nothing.

Behind the window bars or in the street, in church, they are always rigidly decorous.

Confectionery & cigarettes appear to be the staple commodities of the city. One for the women

& the other for the men, one might say were it not that they are really both enoyed by both —

everybody smokes — the men all day, women below the middle class often in public — ladies

not in public, & judging by the number of retailers they, both eat sweetmeats hourly — what I

tasted I did not relish. Tobacco in all its forms is very cheap & largely produced here. Soldiers

are bivouacked here & there all through the city, but are kept under great restraint. Escorts

accompany many of the trains, though the precaution is now said to be quite unnecessary. Every

policeman & most citizens carry revolvers on view — though I do not hear of them being

bought much into requisition — The military are by no means an imposing body physically.

The wholesale business of the city seems small. The number of retailers infinite. Houses are

sometimes built over the footpaths forming an arcade underneath called portales — there are

block of these & at Toluca they form four sides of a block. In these & many others, crowds of

men, women & children set up their little stalls. The business of buying here is quite unique &

ridiculously protracted. You take up an article & say, “Quanto? How much?” The dealer at once

says, “Cuatro pesos” or “cinco reals”; 16/8 or 2/6, as the case may be. You look disgusted, &

pitch down the article. He picks it up (languidly) tenderly & enquires as a matter of course,

“Quanto da V?” (V is the way of writing “usted”) “How much will you give?” You say,

“Cincuento centasos” 2/ or “dos reales” 1/ as the case may be. It is then his turn to shrug his

shoulders, cast up his eyes & show his depreciation of such an offer. He comes down to tres

pesos or tres reales, at once you perhaps raise a little if you think worthwhile & so haggle till a

bargain is made or missed — yesterday I got for one real which I was asked six reales for, & we

have become quite expert in bluffing — giving away & being chased down the street by the

excited vendor who sees you making for a rival stall. All this very amusing at first, but very

wearisome when you really want to buy at once.

Another custom is that of giving small fees on every occasion. Even when you bargain with a

cabman or rather a carriage man (for there are only carriages here as in the States) for a certain

fare you are always expected to give him something else for himself. Fortunately in this respect,

though not in others, there is a great quantity of small coin in circulation here. I have never seen

a gold piece in anyone’s possession. Native dealings are in Centavos, cents, half [illegible]

chipped in pieces with a hatchet — circulating jagged fragments of copper. These are handy

because of the number of beggars who assail you on every hand, some of them horribly

deformed; mendicancy appears to be profession of quite a class of people who trade on their

misfortune or their impudence. Dozens of others hang about so that under some pretext of doing

you a little service they may ask alms. Apart from this, all appear very courteous & obliging. To

the majority, geography is entirely unknown & every stranger is an American if he is not a

Spaniard. Considering how the Americans beat them in 1846 & took away an immense

territory, this is commendable to say the least of it. On account of the jealousy with which the

women are guarded, there is little society in the City of Mexico & none outside of it — very

few parties or balls very little calling, apparently. A man never really meets a women not of his

own family until he marries her & very little of anyone else’s wife or he would be liable to get

into trouble. What society there is affects a French rather than a Spanish colouring & it is not a

very desirable thing to imitate. French literature, music, & opera are comparatively in the

ascendant but everything of the kind has a very restricted area — outside the Theatre there is

the Bull-fight, & the Paseo, a wide handsome drive planted with Eucalyptus trees to which the

whole of aristocratic Mexico resorts from 4.30 to 6 p.m. One sees scores of carriages & a few

American & English outfits ? driving up & down a mile of it from a pure bronze equestrian

statue of Charles III of Spain, to another of marble of Columbus. The occupants rarely speak to

each other but simply drive past bowing to those they know — all dressed in their best & all the

women or nearly all either painted or powdered.

Society in Mexico therefore is dull — the women stop at home & gossip or play or paint while

the men stroll out to Café’s or other resorts to smoke or gamble, or find other amusements.

We did not see any gambling & no more vice than is usual in great cities intruded itself. The

Mexican Financier is the only good paper published here but it, like all the others, is in the pay

of the government & consequently worthless as an organ of public opinion. There is no public

opinion in the country — The density of ignorance among the masses is more marked than their

piety. The great national wastepipe is fed with pulque, a juice extracted from the maguey, which

we call the American aloe. It is white, like milk, unless coloured & tastes much like Kava. Or a

mixture of lager beer & sour milk. It only keeps for 36 hours — Enormous quantities are drunk.

The chief crop of whole districts is maguey. Almost every corner shop in Mexico is a Pulqueria

& one cannot walk 50 yards in any direction without meeting at least one, if not two. They are

gaudily decorated — both men & women drink it to excess & are said to spend the greater part

of their earnings upon it. They may be frequently seen intoxicated & stupid with it — the

women even with their babies on their backs, the universal way of carrying them. One thing in

its favour is that either its qualities or the disposition of the natives render it stupefying rather

than exciting. None of them seem to be made ferocious or nervous but simply helpless by it.

Thousands of barrels are drunk every day in the city alone. The prevailing influence in Mexico

are Pulquey & Piety — for the Catholic church has taken a strong hold upon the people to judge

by their attendance at worship & yet the Church has been no friend to the natives, excluding

them from its rites for 300 years, excommunicating all who fought for independence &

afterwards disturbing the State continually, solely for its own ends. The consequence was that

the first great native leader squarely[?] laid heavy hands upon it. There were 365 churches in

the city alone these are now probably not more than 200, & these have been shorn of much of

their riches & splendour & priests are not allowed to parade the streets in clerical dress &

generally the church appears to be kept well under subjection by the powers that be. Its press

organ rages against the Civil Authority just as the Victorian Advocate does & many of the

simple peoples still contribute largely to the churches which are palaces among the hovels, &

keep shrines with lamps burning before them in their poor houses. Churches are as conspicuous

as pulque shops in every hamlet & town. One meets them everywhere in Mexico & there are

still many places in which the street shrines may still be seen, though most of them are desolate.

The city of Mexico is situated on a great plain 2,000 ft higher than the highest mountain in

Victoria & hence, though in the tropics, its delightful climate all the year round. The plain is

called a valley because it has a slight slope to the two lakes which once were five & surrounded

the city.

The city is now amidst dry land & the lakes are some miles away. It is ringed around by

mountains from 4,000 ft to 10,000 ft above the plain. Two of them, Popocatapetl & Ixtacuhuatl,

are clad in eternal snow & the first, being 17,700 ft above sea-level, is the highest mountain in

North America. The plain is as rich as the mountains are beautiful & almost the whole of it on

the side by which we approach is under cultivation, & it is intersected by innumerable irrigation

channels, for here in Mexico water does everything & the green fields & copses of green trees

divided up, & very fertile, with here & there pretty houses & fine churches made up a delightful

spectacle & gave us greatest expectation of the city into which we ran at 8.30 a.m.

Thursday February 19

We were jolted over rough roads for a mile into the heart of the city, of which our glimpses

showed us churches, courtyards, & houses of an entirely foreign type. It might have been

Verona or Padua into which we had penetrated. We took a hasty breakfast in our hotel were the

courtyard had been roofed with glass shaded with an awning & turned into a dining room, with

a centre stand of plants & a gallery going around at the next storey by which the inside rooms

are reached. We were very fortunate in having with us throughout the whole trip the Pullman

car conductor, an active youngish American very smart, knowing the town & speaking Spanish

fluently. Otherwise we should have been dreadfully helpless, for not one person in a thousand

understands English. It is strange how few Americans seem to have been here. We hurried to

the Cathedral which faces the Zocalo, a great square is built of whitish stone & has two towers,

from one of which we obtained a fine view of the city. Its front must be nearly three times that

of St Patricks while it joins on the side the Sagrario, or Parish Church, which has an exquisitely

carved stone front & is itself two-thirds as large as St Francis now is. The outward appearance

of both is large than beautiful & together they take up the whole of one side of the Zocalo.

Within, the building looms up immense. The human figure is dwarfed & dwindles in its

perspective, the massive pillars soar to the roof, so that one has to bend the head right back to

see the splendidly painted dome. Within the building are six distinct chapels, most of them lined

with oil-paintings set in richly carved wood-work with elaborately gilded ornamentation rich

vessels, gorgeously dressed figures of Saints & magnificence of colour & outline. Sublimity of

size & wealth of decoration distinguish this, the greatest Cathedral in America & the rival of the

finest in the old World. It was begun more than 300 years ago & finished 200 years since. It is

built largely of the material of the great Aztec teocalli (temple) upon whose site it stands & cost

$2,000,000 with labour at 1 shilling per day & material for next to nothing — one of the statues

which it formerly possessed was of solid gold set with precious stones & worth as much as the

building cost — a gold lamp 23 ft high paid for all the damage done by the earthquake of 1837.

There are still great gold lamps & altar railings chiefly gold which latter weigh 26 tons — one

pix has 104 ounces of gold & 1676 large diamonds — one center has 5,872 diamonds & is of

solid gold — another contains 704 ounces of gold & is ornamented with 2,650 emeralds, 106

amethysts, 44 rubies & 8 sapphires. There are 62 life size statues as chandeliers — & amid all

this splendour are dogs, children & beggars mixed with devotees. But the building itself is

enormous & the high altar one blaze of gold, gilt & precious stones.

In the west wall, looking to the place of the palace in which Cortes & his mare are housed, is

the great Aztec Calendar Stone of black Basalt, 11 ft in diameter & weighing 25 tons, most

curiously carved will all the signs of the Zodiac in regular procession of the circle. Thence we

hurried to where in the Museum we beheld the Great Sacrificial Stone, about the same size but

twice as thick, carved all around & with a cavity in the centre to receive the blood of the victim.

It is believed that tens of thousands of captives were murdered on this very stone. Looking

down upon it is a great black idol, finely cut though of shapeless form & facing both ways

about 10 ft high. In another room, just fitted up, we saw a host of other idols & curious remains.

Upstairs there were many more relics, idols, weapons vessels, ornaments & picture writing —

part of the armour of Alvarado (Cortes’ lieutenant) of Cortes, bust of Maximilian, & a gilt

coach of his said to have cost $10,000. From here was but another step to the Academy San

Carlos where we saw some reputed Murillos & pictures full of promise from the Mexican

school, which promises to possess great (talent) merit. Also in sculpture. After lunch & some

business, drove to the Castle of Chapultepec, the site of Montezuma’s favourite palace retreat;

here one sees some Ahuehuetes ? (a kind of cypress) which were centuries old when

Montezuma resided here. One, 4 years old, was only 18 inches high while the oldest of these

took twenty one steps of mine to encompass it. This is called Montezuma’s tree. Two others

took 19 steps each. Part of the Castle dates back to the day of Cortes — in part of it

Maximilian’s wife resided.

From here, he himself escaped by a subterranean passage which we saw — when he was

besieged by the Republican party — The Americans stormed it in 1847 when it was bravely

defended by its cadets to whom many a monument has been erected below. There is a military

college here still, & the old part is being rebuilt to fit it for the President’s residence & make it

the White House of Mexico. The present President, like the illustrious Juarez, is an Aztec & is

reputed a strong man. His predecessor Gonsales stole millions of the public money & there are

those who think Diaz was Gonsales’ master & that he is not much better. But of these things

one hears only gossip, & that from foreigners not anyway dependant upon the state. We

returned by way of the Paseo, which we did in the orthodox style with other carriages also the

Alameda ? & large garden in a square. All the women who were not driving in carriages were

peering out of their little barred & often curtained balconies. In the evening, we strolled in the

Zocalo, also planted with trees & paved paths & here with throngs of people mostly of the

poorer classes, we listened to good music from a military band. It was just a scene from an

opera & I expected every moment to see the play go on. The dresses, the music, the entourage

were all as theatrical & strange. To make it more romantic, as we were returning we fell in with

a company of the best young men of Spanish blood in the city, who have a musical club after

the fashion of the students in the Spanish Universities. Their dress consisted of knee breeches &

doublets of black velvet, black silk stockings & shoes with buckles, & rosettes; a rosette of red

on the right shoulder & black velvet Napoleon like cap with a wooden spoon fastened upon it.

They had a splendid band of tambourines, guitars, castanets, violins & other instruments. A

chorus of fine voices. They marched, playing & singing to a theatre at which they were

performing in aid of a charity. In these old streets & with these surroundings it was a

charmingly antique spectacle. The others followed them to the theatre, but I had seen enough &

walked home alone to bed, so ending my first day in Mexico.

Friday February 20

Up early & away to the market, something like Paddy’s of old time, only with a dense throng of

natives crushing & haggling on every side of us. We had to take time to push our way through

the crowd of fish-sellers, fruit sellers, meat sellers, earthenware basket & woodwork sellers,

nearly all the fish, fruit & utensils strange to us. Then we hired a flat scow & 2 boatmen who

pushed it along with poles à la gondolier to take us down the Vega Canal, a stream of very dirty

water about 30 ft wide with no appreciable current, so we slowly drifted down by which was

once the causeway along which Cortes first entered the city of Mexico, until we arrived at a

little place called Santa Anita, where we landed & crossed to another set of canals about 6 ft

wide & were punted along between long oblong beds of rich earth all under hand cultivation,

producing very rich crops. Those were once the chinampas or floating gardens built upon rafts

for which Mexico was famous — now what with the subsidence of the waters & the striking

down of tree roots fast anchored in place. After lunch went by horsecar to the shrine of the

patron saint of Mexico St Maria de Guadaloupe, where the Virgin appeared several times to a

peasant in 1530 & stamped her image upon his blanket, copies of which image are to be seen in

many houses of the place, in many streets & frequently throughout all Mexico. The Cathedral

has still a beautiful white interior of great size & charm of outline & also an altar railing of

great length size & value as it is made of solid silver. It has the prettiest effect inside of any

church we have seen. Upon the walls are a number of rude pictures presented by grateful

votaries whose deliverance from the perils of land & sea believed to be due to the intercession

of this lady are roughly depicted therein. Some 250 yards away is another chapel, dedicated to

the same saint, built over a well of mineral water supposed to have sprung up for the healing of

the people at the Virgin’s mandate. Here we were fortunate enough to witness a dance of Indian

children — gaudily dressed & decorated in garments of many colors & feather head dresses —

in honour of the Virgin. The dancing was poor but evidently a relic of the old idolatrous

ceremonial of the Aztecs. Right up a steep-staired hill, immediately above the Cathedral, is the

veritable spot upon which the said Virgin appeared to the said peasant. Upon which is erected

yet another shrine with more pictures of deliverance. In the Cathedral are a number of crutches

which would awaken Milner Stephen’s envy, deposited by those who believed their recovery

due to the grace of Santa Maria. On our return we visited the Church of San Domingo, once

very rich & still much decorated. This was the headquarters of the Dominicans who controlled

the Inquisition in Mexico & who by an underground passage reached the Inquisition building

now, appropriately enough, the medical school, into whose courtyard we penetrated for a few

moments. Skeletons & bodies of victims were found beneath when the Goverment seized the

place. It makes one proud to belong to the Liberal party, to learn that whenever the Church has

been robbed of its ill gotten jewels & plate, it has been by the incursion of the great Liberal

party, here as elsewhere always short of cash when it has to carry on the government. In the

evening, another stroll in the Plaza, listening to the music & watching the crowds. The poorer

classes are very public in their love-making and, indeed, in all their affairs.

Saturday February 21

Took train on Vera Cruz line to Apiseco [Apizaco]. On the way saw Lake Tezcucu [Texcoco] &

the battlefield of Otumba, where Cortes & his army were so nearly overwhelmed. Also the two

pyramids of Teotihuacan, among the oldest monuments in Mexico. Was fortunate enough to

obtain from a boy on the platform a relic in the shape of a little Aztec idol which seems

genuine. Had a magnificent view of the two great volcanoes & also saw the third great peak

Orizaba in the distance. Arrived at Puebla & finding it impossible to get to Cholula & back in

time for the train — very discontentedly yielded to fate & drove half way, then climbed an

abrupt hill surrounded by an old Spanish fortress; from here we looked down upon the famous

pyramid of Cholula, which has a larger base than the great pyramid of Cheops & which is the

oldest monument of Mexico. Of Cholula the Sacred City of the Aztecs nothing except this now

remains, & it has a Christian Church instead of a teocalli upon its summit. Don & I had a fine

view of the whole valley. It was in this city that Cortes struck terror into the hearts of the

natives by his discovery of their plot & the massacre of some thousands of the people. We then

returned to Puebla, one of the oldest cities founded by the Spaniards (in 1531) & one of the

finest towns in the Republic. With a fierce haste & energy that astonished the natives, we

stormed the tower of its Cathedral from which we had a fine view of the town. It was here that

the Mexicans repulsed the French army & it is said that here are still the marks of the shot upon

the Cathedral, which is a splendid building & second only to that of Mexico. Judge of our

chagrin to find it locked & to be unable, even by bribes, to find the holder of the keys. For once,

we felt like dynamitards. We did not reach Mexico until 9.30, but were fortunate enough to fall

in again with the Spanish Estudiantes who paraded the streets serenading certain houses very

charmingly & romantically.

I omitted our visit to the National Palace, which we made on Thursday, & by favour of the

Governor’s Secretary inspected it. One portion was built by Cortes when he was made a

Marquis & has outer walls more than 6 ft thick of solid masonry & projecting windows which

made it in past a fortress. After glancing through the State Chambers, we visited the garden, a

little spot forming part of the famous original garden of Montezuma where doubtless he often

walked. Here grows a curious flower called the hand flower, because its pistil has exactly the

shape of a human hand & fingers even to the nails. It is very rare; no others are of the kind,

being in this state & very few elsewhere, also some violets plucked for the mistress of the place.

Sunday February 22

Up before 6 & alone to early mass in the Cathedral & again admired its vast proportions &

richness. Train to Toluca, crossing the hills we had a back view of the valley of Mexico, one of

the loveliest I have ever beheld. It consisted of a number of valleys within the greater valley,

each of these divided by growing fences of maguey into small plots of cultivation. It was as if a

great gulf of earth was repeated in smaller gulfs, each with its own beauties & yet all

harmonizing into a greater beauty, so that when one’s eye passed from range to range, one

reached at last a vista of the plain of Mexico with its city & lakes melted into a bluish haze that

rounded off the crystalline clearness of atmosphere which surrounded us as the train seemed to

leap from height to height. There were gaily dressed troops of natives resting or moving at the

side of the track, there were pure streams of glistening water leaping along beside us, & above

us the castellated crags of [illegible] here against the blue sky, with their regular ranks of

marching pines ranging along their steep slopes down to the patches of greenward, along the

edge of which we passed until we plunged into the pass & gorge at the summit & shot down

upon the field where the great leader of Mexican Independence, Hidalgo, with his host of ill-

armed & undisciplined peasants, was overthrown by the disciplined & merciless Spanish

soldiery. As we descended upon the other side through wild glens, we passed a town so

underneath us as we ran along the ridge that we could have tossed a coin upon the flat roofs. We

soon reached Toluca & after a glance at its Vera Cruz & Churches, the latter very fine, strolled

under its portales, & purchased a 15/5 Sallush very cheap. Then to the Plaza des Toros or

Bullring — a wooden amphitheatre holding 4–5,000 people with an arena some 180 ft across,

which men were watering. There must have been nearly 2,500 people present when the

matador, the 3 picadors, the 4 toreadors & the 2 banderillos entered the ring. When the first bull

was admitted, he rushed fiercely into the arena; when the toreadors, waving their large bright

colored cloaks, tempted him to run after them, & when pushed, either dropped their cloaks or

ran behind a little wooden barricade. The picadors, who are mounted on the sorriest steeds &

armed with wooden lances with small spikes, only intended to irritate the bull, then advanced &

to our horror seemed only anxious to get the bull to rush at & gore their unfortunate & blinded

horses.

This he soon did & we turned sick as we saw part of the wretched creatures entrails protruding

as it was spurred on against the bull once more. We could scarcely look on or contain our

indignation, though presently the horse was led away to have the wound sewn up & then be

used again. Several times, the bull rushed & gored the horses, often dashing horse & rider to the

ground, though the cowardly riders always sheltered themselves & left the poor, patient, pitiful

horses to be gored. It was amazing, considering the length & sharpness of the bull’s horns, how

little they were wounded; the more the horses were gashed, the more delighted was the crowd,

until at length one of the banderillos was admitted, who, on foot & armed only with darts, gaily

bedighted with coloured papers & ribands, faced the bull & planted them in his neck, leaping

dexterously aside as he did it, the barbs keeping the darts affixed in the unfortunate animal’s

neck. This he did with consummate skill until five or six were fixed. Then came the matador,

with a red cloak on his arm with which he attracted the bull, & a sword on the other, with which

he aimed at despatching him. He too displayed great address, but it took some time & three

thrusts before the gallant bull, his shoulders dappled with blood, his eyes staring defiance & his

tongue lolling from his mouth, felt his knees give way & fell dead in the arena.

Such was the tale repeated with five bulls that afternoon while the crowd yelled with delight at

the butchery & I sat sick & wretched determined to see it through.

One horseman, who planted the darts in the bull at full gallop & saved his horse, gave a

splendid exhibition of horsemanship & the banderillos were very graceful & expert. Two

horsemen who lassoed the bulls which could not attack the horses & took them away were also

very skilful, but these are not redeeming points — the whole exhibition was barbarous brutal &

bloody. The bull made a gallant stand & beat both toreadors & the matador, but instead of

giving him his life they lassoed him when weary & stabbed him or rather pitted him when on

the ground.

I have seen one bull fight. I never wish to see another. All this too on a Sunday, under a

cloudless sky & with women & children looking on. My faith in humanity was badly shaken

that day. The dresses were brilliant but the moral atmosphere was black as hell.

Returning, we had views of scenery by moonlight & then a glimpse of a masquerade ball from

which I was glad to get away — & this was my Sunday in Mexico.

Tuesday February 24

Made some purchases of photos & then to Noche Triste Tree under which Cortes wept for his

lost soldiers when only one half of them, without guns or ammunition, rallied around him after

they had fought their way out of Mexico on the sad night just before the battle of Otumba.

In the afternoon took a farewell look at the Calendar stone, the Sagrario, the Sacrifical Stone &

the Aztec Gods – the last look I shall ever give upon those mysterious creations of a past in

which the same bloody instincts & the same attractive romance which appear in the Mexico of

today then flourished as strangely.

Goodbye to the Zocalo, which has again & again been heaped with dead, to the City of

Montezuma & the palace of Cortes, the Cathedral of the great church. We passed through the

Cut of Nochistongo by moonlight & very awful it seemed, & we were away from Mexico in our

Pullman Car.

The veil has dropped.

The vision has faded.

The dream has become a memory.

Tuesday February 24

Still in the irrigation country. Mexican natives use Egyptian mills, lifting the water as they grind

corn by hand. & so past churches & hamlets. Rich Celaya & picturesque Xacatecas & pleasant

Aguas Calientes. Everywhere throngs of beggars & retail traders. We knew them all now — I

doubt much if any party ever saw so much of Mexico in so short a time; we sometimes

paralysed the natives by our activity & energy & determination to get through at any cost.

Wednesday February 25

Out through the gorge into the Lagune district, abundance of irrigation. Great canals — fields

flooded as before, then into the desert, a desert only because it lacks water.

Thursday February 26

Up at 6 a.m. Preparation for Custom House Officers — through El Paso del Norte all right, but

first stopped at El Paso. Breakfast — changed Mexican money. Train then through the desert of

New Mexico, much resembling that of Old Mexico. Running by & crossing Rio Grande higher

up, a fine but shallow stream.

Friday February 27

I see many sunrises from the window of the car as lie in bed & some pretty moonlight views.

This morning, I woke to find patches of snow on the sides of the hillocks & greater patches on

the hills – exquisitely pure, creamy & soft — we are still in the South. But at an elevation of

over 6,000 ft.

Breakfast at Las Vegas. Spent time at Watrous among the irrigation ranches — snow lying in

shady places — made my first snowball & bombarded Don. Train for the night. Left New

Mexico — after passing through Mora Canõn, among the mountains of Colorado – moonlight

on the snow–covered cliffs, lovely.

Saturday February 28

Out on the infinite prairies

bleak & cold — got out at Garden City & inspected irrigation works during the day — snow in

heaps in hollows river & ditches & frozen. Broke the ice & let it float down in masses — in

evening saw cowboys — walked in the moonlight to keep warm & awake.

Sunday March 1

Took train at 12.30 a.m. Very cold, bright moonlight — the rolling prairies here without a

habitation — very snug in the Pullman. Woke in the settled prairies, still treeless, but all under

cultivtion as far as the eye can see, rich black soil & farms for two or three hundred miles, pools

all frozen — rivers thawing — sunny but outside the car the wind is biting cold. Little

townships frequent now, growing larger & larger. Fifteen years ago, this was the wild west,

where massacres by the Indians were of regular occurrence. Since Las Vegas we have been

keeping along the track of the old Santa Fe, every mile of which has often been reddened with

blood. The reign of the Indian is over & has left no trace, but it was a reign of only yesterday.

Later in the day we skirted the banks of the Missouri for a considerable time. It was frozen right

across for miles, though here & there the thaw had begun. In bends of the river there were

ridges composed of rough ice blocks often six inches thick. In the evening, arrived at the great

Kansas Railway with its numerous lines — three or four competing to Chicago. Took the Alton

line & found upon it cars with arm chairs that can be bent to any angle or turned in any

direction, the usual Pullman sleeping car & a dining car which one gets a capital meal from

black waiters for 75 cents.

This is not travelling, it is luxury. The sunset over the city & its snows was very pretty as we

left it. Felicitated ourselves on this splendid introduction to the great East.

Monday March 2

Woken among fields covered white with snow & realised how much we lose in its absence in

Australia. Breakfast in the car — line roughened by the snow — arrived at Chicago an hour

late. The new quarter of the town all consists of splendid buildings from 7 to 10 stories high &

of fine architecture. A bigger & more solid San Francisco. The Grand Pacific Hotel, much

bigger basement than the Baldwin. People very busy & it struck me are careworn. Had a

glimpse before dinner, saw the Iroquois Club, (political) start for Washington. Evening by

invitation to the Columbia theatre, a very splendid & well arranged building - only 2 circles,

both very light & deep — building like a well. Entrance hall decorated very richly walls

imitation of rough brass — pictures worth $90,000. All good works. Damrosch’s German Opera

Co. — all Germans, some of them had been with Wagner — gave a fine rendering of

Lohengrin. Orchestra very fine — the principals & the setting all a degree better than in

Melbourne & completer in styles. A rare treat — enjoyed it immensely.

Tuesday March 3

Up late. Shown over the Burlington & <space> R.R. Office which has as many miles of line of

its own as the colony of Victoria & has an interest in twice as many more. After lunch, went

down to the lake, which lay white, stiff & still as far as the eye could see, thus giving one a

good idea of Polar scenery. The streets are full of slush as the thaw is just beginning — men

breaking the ice with picks & shoveling ice & snow into drays to cart it away. The city

therefore seen at its worst. Saw a fine building lately burned, quite gutted but the frame still

standing & covered with the most beautiful icicles formed by the water played upon the flames

by the firemen who had to have their feet dug out of the ice every 30 minutes — never was such

a winter in Chicago. Saw very fine private houses — all three or four stories high — some

massive arched gray stone — copies of old English Gothic manor houses — very fine. Took

Lake Shore? line at 5 p.m for Buffalo, skirting again the shores of Lake Michigan & passing

snow-covered fields on either hand.

Wednesday March 4

Inauguration Day. Skirting the shores of Lake Erie, also quite frozen. Early breakfast at

Cleveland (Ohio), a very extensive and very fine city. Snow more patchy here & wet, cold

wind. Lunch at Buffalo, Cleveland’s City, where he made his reputation as Mayor — & then

train for Niagara, a growing town stretching above & below the Falls on the American side &

thus interfering a great deal with the romance of the situation. On the Canadian side is a road

fronted by private houses, mostly small. Every point of vantage appears to be in private hands

& one has to pay through the nose at every turn as well as be persecuted by pedlars &

photographers. We were much more plundered at Niagara than even in Mexico. The spirit is the

same, but civilisation can always beat the barbarian at his own games. In summer, one doubtless

gets the effects of a gigantic waterfall much more grandly, but in winter as we saw it there is

infinitely more beauty.

A quarter of a mile below the falls there was some 30 ft thick of ice across the river, & the falls

themselves were frozen where the rush over the lip was shallowest. Still there was an enormous

body of water coming over & of course not only the falls but the rapids above them, the

whirlpool below & the lower rapids nearly a mile below them were all too fiercely torn &

tossed to be frozen at all. The river is broad & without high banks until the falls are reached,

when it precipitates itself into a great gorge & then flows steep in a steep incline below banks

nearly 200 ft high for a great distance. The river divides into several branches & the largest of

these makes the American fall, which would be thought very great if it were not so

overshadowed by its neighbour. It was much more frozen than the other when we saw it — the

falling spray having condensed into great peaks of conical ice that rose half way up the falls

hiding it in parts. But the river itself, collecting all its forces, comes over the Canadian fall,

which is the highest & three times as large as the American. It is horse-shoe shaped quite like

this [large upside-down U] while the American fall is at right angles with the left side of it. We

had a dull but clear day, the clearest for 4 weeks & the water as it turned to fall was of a

beautiful bright green. There is a long, steep, rocky incline just above & another a mile below

the falls & in each of these the river rushes like a race horse & tosses its mane into huge crest-

like waves which change their shape every instant as they tear along — then it takes its terrible

leap, clear & strong & so gracefully that now when the snow deadens its roar it seems scarcely

dreadful until one notices the swift gleam of the rush, the heavy cloud of steam that slowly

floats high up from the lithe, dull, writhing, dreadful whirlpool down below. Around us all is

winter, the roofs of the houses covered by a thick series of thin leaf-like layers of the pure soft,

exquisite snow that hangs in long delicate icicles from the eaves & makes even a cabin look like

a snow palace when it is not quite buried beneath the drifts. Long icicles, a 100 ft long, of the

most charming outline droop like reversed spires all down the cliffs while great ice stalagmites

rise to meet them. The ground is covered deep with snow. Every vehicle has doffed its wheels

& runs on sledges. The bells are tinkling in the clear cold air, the trees are burdened with a

weight of crystalline snow that clings like a creeping animal to the underside of branches &

trunks. A gray sky overhangs a white world of the most fairy like forms, except when the dark

river flashes into white foam or, burnishing itself into gleaming green harness, rushes headlong

into the fathom-less depths of the gulf below to tear down under the ice, with the prey it

swallows here thrown up afterwards miles & miles away. Only less wonderful than nature’s

frost work is the web like suspension bridge that, as if from a few threads, swings high over the

cloven gorge without a pier to rest on, while below this again some distance two other less

pretty but still marvels of construction connect the lower town with the Canadians. We were

two or three hours on British soil, sleighing merrily along or skating involuntarily over the snow

covered paths & rushing hastily from sight to sight, trying hard to realise the hidden awfulness

of Niagara. Clothed in oil-skins from head to foot & with creepers fastened over my rubbers,

which consist of iron spikes under the instep to give me a footing upon the ice, we descended

100 ft or so straight down a round tower until we reached the ice under the thin parts of the

falls, now only running in showers of spray, & crept along under the cliffs upon the frozen

surface & under & among the great icicles. Here it was that we enjoyed, amid blinding showers,

a close view of the deep falls of the towering rocks & of the rushing, twisting, curling, sucking

whirlpool. From the roof of the house we obtained a good general view & from a window of the

tower, deeply incrusted with ice, we had an exquisite vista. We crossed the bridges to the

islands and down the river side to the upper & lower rapids by hydraulic railways like cable

cars & down an almost perpendicular slope; we also descended to the river bed under the

American falls & walked nearly across on the ice, although it was their twilight & having

surveyed the scene from every point of view, hurried back to the train thence to Buffalo & then

to the sleeping cars again for New York. Scarcely sobered yet from the spectacle of Niagara.

Thursday March 5

Awoke at 2 a.m. & looked out by moonlight upon fine snow scenes. White wild & wide, mile

after mile, clothed only with the shadow of houses & trees & fences here & there. Refreshments

10 minutes at Poughkeepsie from which A.J. Davies came — for miles along the course of the

Hudson, frozen all over till even river boats frozen in — sledge boats on every hand. Little

towns clustering on the hills. Very pretty indeed, & in this Indian Summer I should say far more

beautiful than the Hawkesbury, which has no colouring to speak of & of which the form, though

bolder, higher & perhaps in parts somewhat grander, is no more beautiful. Cannot be nearly as

beautiful as this is. The hills on the further side are most distinctly rounded & backed by higher

& bolder hills beyond. It is Rip Van Winkles’ country, the famous picturesque Catskill & well

worthy the reputation. After a time we are shot through a large tunnel into miles (mile after

mile) of streets, first of splendid dwelling houses, then of great warehouses, shops & hotels of

good solid style, rising ten stories high, as fine as Chicago though not so stylish & seeming

infinite in extent.

For the first time, I realise what is a great city, about the 3rd or 4th of this civilised world — as I

go to the Post Office, through square after square, avenue after avenue, packed with life, filled

with buildings, overflowing with bustle. Below the tram cars, above the elevated railway —

everywhere hurrying crowds or crowds of dense population.

Tuesday March 3, New York

The first incident of arrival proved an enlightener. Anxious for letters, I enquired the way to the

P.O. & it was rather by chance than reason that I jumped into the horse car which passed it, for

as I had come a long distance from the railway station, through splendid streets crowded with

splendid houses, I concluded that I must be but a block or two from the P.O., which is generally

a central point. When, however, I had already gone as far as I had come & found the streets

growing busier & finer, I was astonished, & when I had gone as far again & still great massive

buildings multiplied themselves, I began to realise how small and unfit I was & with what small

ideas of a great city. Afterwards walked down Broadway or rather a part of it between 3 & 4

miles, every inch of it finer than the finest part of Collins St except for width & with streets

intersecting it just as fine at every 40 or 50 yards. Seen from the tower of Produce Exchange,

one sees a tongue of land with a broad estuary on either side & a grand harbor in front of it. The

tongue of land is black with high buildings as far as the eye can reach. On one side of the

estuary stretches the city of Brooklyn to the far horizon, too. On the other appears the smoke of

several populous settlements. The anchorage is perfect & as at Sydney, only to a far greater

extent the cities are lined with ships. Chief of all the features of the city is the greatest

achievement of modern bridge engineering — Brooklyn Suspension, which by means of 4 steel

wire cables, 2 ft in diameter, stretched over two piers of solid granite, 268 ft above & 90 ft

below water line, as big as the front of a cathedral, & a number of others woven across it each

as thick as my wrist, balances against bridge over the arm of the sea called East River, though it

is actually the channel between Long Island & the main land. One ascends by stairs to the

heights equal to that of a 3 storied house to begin with & from this you rise on the solid part of

the Causeway to a height from which you look down upon on houses 6 & 7 stories high, still

rising, though very gently, you leave the shores at a height above a 12 storied house, 135 ft &

still rising sweep over the flood so far above them that you are on a level with the highest

steeples & have the cities of New York & Brooklyn spread out in a vast panorama before you.

The bridge is nearly three-quarters of a mile long. It is broad enough to carry 4 distinct tracks,

one for cable cars going & the coming one for vehicles going & one coming & in the centre a

footway — the whole of these suspended 1,600 ft over a quarter mile above the flood by cables

only. This a marvellous & beautiful bridge & there is nothing in the world like it. Of public

edifices I need not speak; architecturally they are very imposing, uniting size & style in nearly

every case. Private buildings very often push them hard in magnitude & beauty. Bigger banks,

bigger offices & bigger shops by far than in Melbourne — much larger & richer & you have

them.

Elevated railroads are simple, of iron, with pretty little villa pigeon house stations, but as part of

the streets they are hideously ugly, especially in the narrower ones which they cover in, though

not solidly, but darkening the whole traffic way from curb to curb. As they run on a level with

the 2nd & 3rd storey windows, according to heights of the storeys you get views of domestic &

workshop interiors not always attractive. They are immensely convenient, quick, clean,

comfortable, & are much preferable to Sydney steam trains. Hotels are of course palatial &

theatres at almost every turn — not specially large, but beautifully decorated; one, the Casino, is

carved woodwork & imitation stamped brass work every inch of it. Most have the ante-rooms

hung with pictures or engravings, many very valuable as at Chicago, & in the Saloons (bars)

they are often richly decorated & ornamented same way. Everything that we have in way of fine

buildings, fine furnishing or fine ornament is but a hint of what is heaped up in New York, in a

profusion that tells of incalculable wealth & enormous population. London & Paris alone

surpass it & it is said to be becoming a rival even to them. The streets are kept very clean but

being stone paved are rough & noisy. Some few are wide but most narrow.

Horse cars are numerous but slow on account of heavy traffic. It was very cold while I was

there, with one or two very light snow storms. It bit my ears until I thought they would have

dropped off. The people here, as in Chicago, look busy rather than happy, but a happy

expression is not to be found, in my experience, of either side of the Pacific.

Women of richer order dress very richly but in quiet colours. I was particularly struck with the

way the old women dressed & decorated themselves. There is no girlhood that I can see; young

women look old & old women dress young & refuse to resign the field to their juniors. I was

equally struck with the number of such old women I saw gadding about. They considerably

outnumbered the young women in several places. Men dress well too. Women are distinctly

stylish & attractive in a certain way, not my way, but not so fast as in San Francisco. Of course,

my stay was very short & my experience in a single channel, but such is the impression left on

me. Thursday afternoon, did some business, then went solus through streets with magnificent

tenement houses to the Central Park, a place most admirably adapted by art for a driving park.

There are several lawns for games played by certain clubs on certain days. There is a museum

& a menagerie situated upon the extensive piece of undulating ground, enclosed & planted with

fine trees, all leafless when I was there. But for a considerable portion, the ground of granite

formation is very broken, & advantage has been taken of this to make the splendid drives round

in & out & by means of hedges[?], cross each other continually at different levels with the

prettiest effect. Some driving parties & a few lady riders are to be seen.

After tea went to Daly’s Theatre, the Comedy Theatre of New York, where I saw the first half

of an amusing piece called, “A Night Off ”. Very finely acted, leaving District of Columbia

there & catching 10 o’clock night train.

Friday — Monday

Woke up at 6 a.m. in Boston, hurriedly obtaining direction to Concord, the main end of my

visit; rushed off to another depot where I was surprised to find that Concord was in New

Hampshire, hearing of no other, I of course took tickets & a 3 hours ride through a grey green

granite country covered with snow, very rugged, with frozen streams on either hand & pretty

bits of water scenery. Arrived, I soon found to my consternation that this was not the Concord,

but another, the Capital of New Hampshire. Only the thought of Emerson enabled me to bear up

against this blow, the first lost day of the whole trip. However, I did so, & visited the old

cemetery, where I found the grave of Count Rumford’s only daughter & old graves dating back

to 1759.

One of the later stones was reared to the memory of Charles Walker 1798–1843 of whom in the

course of a long epitaph it quaintly remarked — “that though never married he was fully alive

to all human charities”, a pretty direct slap at bachelordom in general. After this, wrote letter &

took train back. In the evening, went to the Museum, the oldest theatre in Boston, reached

though a museum of stuffed birds, old prints, paintings & busts. The play was by Shiels, entitled

the “Apostate”, as silly a piece of artificial bombast & threadbare sentiment as it has ever been

my lot to see.

The maudlin hero was played perfectly by Barrow, the sickly heroine perfectly also by Miss

Clarke & the demon of this piece perfectly also by the great Edwin Booth. The play gave him

less scope even than the others — he was just the least bit stagey in parts but like the others

elevated the part to the highest possible pitch, but as they did the same his peculiar luminence

was not manifested.

Lost my way in the winding streets going back to my hotel — the United States.

Saturday March 7

Up at 6 & out to the famous Bunker Hill Monument, which records the British victory that

became a defeat by its lessons. Saw the harbor into which the tea was thrown, thus precipitating

the Revolution. After breakfast took train to the right Concord from the same depot, only 18

miles distant; a rather remote little hamlet on a great suburban line through a pretty, rather

marshy rolling country on which the sun still lingered. By & by I came to Lexington, the little

town through which the dispirited British soldiers retired from their first encounter with the

Provincials who harassed them in their retreat so that they lost 300 men. Then came Walden

Pond, little larger apparently than Albert Park lagoon, a little deeper but rendered pretty by

hoary hills & cliffs & broken stones.

Reached Concord. I was the only passenger to alight from a nearly empty train, though it

seemed to me that there ought to be a daily pilgrimage to the tomb of Emerson. Engaging the

one vehicle of the village, which consists of a short street of small shops, a deserted hotel & and

a dozen or two two-storey houses & gardens — all the buildings being of wood together with a

church, a hall, & a country house of more imposing appearance, I quickly passed the two old

cemeteries in this village & reached the cemetery most aptly & poetically named Sleepy Hollow

Cemetery where two or three steep little ridges clothed with pines run together at abrupt angles

& make the most charming of resting-places, even with the snow thick on the hollows & the

trees bare & sere. There on the crest of the ridge are the stones that mark the graves of the

Emerson family.

Those of Ralph Waldo’s family are unmarked. Between two pines there is a long green mound

& underneath that green mound lies all that was mortal of Emerson. A little to the right along

the same ridge lies Hawthorne — a little half-moonstone at the head & foot. On the same

narrow slope lies Thoreau, whose headstone is among those of his family. There are around a

few costly monuments that bear the names of the unknown rich. The grave of Emerson has no

stone, no name. The scene from his grave is a pretty piece of woodland friendly in feature, cold

& wild perhaps but with the wildness that has been tamed by man.

I shall see it long. From here drove to his house, a two storied plain white wooden structure the

worse for wear standing in a couple of acres of bare ground. It had nothing architectural about it

but was as bare & hard & devoid of beauty as that style of house always is.

Even Hawthorne’s Old Manse to which I next went where he wrote his “Mosses” & Emerson

his “Nature”, differs only in having a squat sloping 3rd storey & a couple of painted windows;

otherwise it too is bare, gaunt & almost hideously utilitarian. Of course, it was winter & without

verdure, but at the best of times all the romance of this house could not make it the least

attractive. The scene is a pretty pastoral, the trees when budded may be fair, but that is all. The

charm of the building is brought from reverence & memory. Here too I stood on the spot where

the first shot was fired in the war of Revolution — here by the low stone fence which surrounds

the old Manse. About 3 ft high is the grave of the two nameless English soldiers who fell at the

first. There is a monument where the British stood & another of a farmer with Emerson’s lines

upon it.

“Here the embattled farmers stood

And fired the shot heard round the world”.

Between them is the little stream about 10 yards wide, & over it a reproduction of the little

bridge which stood there a century ago. After this, visited one of the old cemeteries where I

found a grave dating back to 1649 — a monument to Emerson’s grand father & a quaint epitaph

or two of which I made note.

Lunched in an old room of old Wright’s Tavern built in 1747 & saw the bar-room in which the

British soldiers drank on the day of the fight. Took train back to Boston, hurried to the famous

Fanteuil [Faneuil] Hall in which so many great speeches have been made.

It is only the size of the Athenaeum squared & has some old paintings in it. Then to the old

State House, where the Gov. presided in the old Colonial days, saw the windows from which

English coronations were announced & the Declaration of Independence read. The old Council

room and General Hall with cannon, arms, books & relics of the revolution days. From here,

visited Christchurch in Salem St, the oldest church in the city, from steeple of which Paul

Revere hung his warning light the night when the soldiers marched to Concord. Thence to the

old Smith St Chapel, filled with relics of the old colonial days next in age to Christchurch,

where many popular meetings were held during the struggle & where the English stabled their

horses while occupying Boston.

To a matinee in which Booth took the part of Don Caesar de Bazan, playing with a dash,

lightness & brightness which showed the great resources of his art & versatility. The rest of the

actors were not notable. Then visited Old Boston Common, where Pirates & Witches have been

hanged & duels fought in the old days, to the statues of the famous Liberty Tree, under whose

boughs the revolutionists used to meet.

Boston Theatre after tea one, of the largest in the States, in which Barrett was acting in

Francesca da Rimini. It was a superb spectacle & his acting was very fine indeed, though not

equal to Booth’s & more stagey. Rushed to sleeping car & bade goodbye to Boston. A very

handsome clean town of great extent magnificent harbor & some great buildings that decorate

New York & Chicago. Women struck me as looking more ladylike & being prettier than any I

had seen. Book stores good. Suburbs apparently very pretty — altogether a very fine &

remarkably interesting city of many historic memories, handsome & admirably situated.

Sunday March 8

Reached New York early, breakfast & hastened to Brooklyn, crossing famous high level bridge,

by far the most wonderful piece of engineering yet seen.

Plymouth Church, a very plain square red-brick building of great capacity & packed in every

corner as were a little late. However, we had splendid seats. Beecher was of middle height,

stoutish, clean shaved — no black clothes nor white in?, dark frock coat with velvet collar &

black tie, just an ordinary walking suit.

He opened with a long & eloquent prayer in which he referred to the desert state of most hearts.

“Long spaces of unfruitfulness with only here & there a palm & a fountain,” & in a simile as to

the coming of spring into the world melting the frozen streams to life & freedom, he admirably

pictured the coming of divine light upon the soul. The best prayer I remember. His text for

sermon was Christ cursing the fig tree because it bore no fruit.

He spoke slowly with the saving of physical energy of age & without elocutionary display —

but it was the best sermon I ever heard.

It was upon love as the core & life of religion without it all was leaves, it alone was the fruit of

religion, without it all was worthless. He was plain in style, apt in language but not gorgeous;

pretty familiar & racy by times. Now & then he dramatised, now & then he was sarcastic, now

& then profoundly serious, always hit the mark, not a word nor gesture too much or too little.

He spoke of a boy needing boots in the winter & clothes “in a mixed school” & of Christ

“making up his Cabinet” when Zebedee’s mother urged that her sons might be glorified by him.

Likened his congregation to a swarm of bees disturbed in their hive because they did not

approve his politics & reading [Corinthians] 13. Referred to professional speakers as the

“sounding brass & trilling Cymbal”, adding he had read the passage so often he was ashamed to

read it again “especially seeing how little good he had done them”.

He circled round his subject, hitting at intolerance of infidels, the worthlessness of ceremony,

the failure of everything except love in a most masterly manner. Much of it may be old but it

was a perfect sermon perfectly delivered.

Spoke to him afterwards for a few minutes & was invited to his house, but did not trouble him.

After lunch went all up the East river past Hill Gate & the prisons & round under the Bridge to

the foundations of the Great Liberty Statue & then back. In the evening to lecture of Ingersoll

on “Liberty for man, woman & child”, an old lecture with new touches. He looks like an

English farmer, speaks very slowly & impressively with effective gesture. Is very simple &

pictorial in style. Cold & clear. Nothing of the heroic fond of using the word “honest”, full of

rough satire & humour that kept the audience in roars. It was an able lecture, but in a different

atmosphere in a different grade to Beecher’s which forbids comparison. His was not

spontaneous & one could not help speculating how much was earnest or real. With Beecher

such a thought could never arise. The one man is so superior to the other that there is no

measuring the distance. Still, Ingersoll was very clear & very astute. Still the day was not done.

Looked in at the Casino, a theatre decorated in the French style. Every inch of its interior

stamped & carved, the daintiest I ever saw. Then called at the Lotos Club, to which all literary

& theatrical celebrities belong & of which we were made temporary members.

Monday March 9

Walked over wonderful Brooklyn bridge, at which I never tire of looking. In the afternoon over

magnificent Produce Exchange, had a grand view of the City & harbor from its summit.

Walked back about 3 miles along Broadway. After tea by myself to see “Eugene Aram”. Irving

& Ellen Terry are by far the most complete & perfect actors I have ever seen. The piece, not

very good, but brought both into prominence & gave Irving a place on the stage abroad[?] the

whole time. His performance wonderful. Not a detail wrong, not a detail absent. & yet the

intensity of passion & suffering wrought to the very highest pitch. His figure & style exactly

suit the character. As for Ellen Terry, she was the sweetest, most natural & yet most admirable

second to him — second only because the piece so placed her — not in merit. A wonderful

performance from the greatest down to the minutest particular. Caught midnight train with

Dom.

Tuesday March 10

Woke up at Washington, called on British Consul & then to the various departments where we

were very kindly received.

Ascended Washington Monument, 550 ft. The highest artificial structure in the globe; had a

splendid view of the whole country. Smithsonian Institute— a museum very good in the

Anthropological part. Thence to Capitol, outside not as pretty a design, in my opinion, as that

for our Parliament House — inside rendered very rich, with marbles & historic pictures of great

value & interest. Left cards at White House. To Hotel for dinner while a string band gave us

excellent music. Watch stopped & set it by Dom’s. To Theatre, “A bunch of Keys”, a poor

farcical thing. Fairly played. Last train. Dom’s watch wrong, of course. First train missed in the

country. Very savage.

Wednesday March 11

To the Patent Office. Very fine building, containing 300,000 models embracing almost every

conceivable thing. Passed through Lands Office, most of clerks ladies, some not only young but

pretty & stylish.

Train through pretty New England scenery by Baltimore on its hills over Susquehanna & other

fine rivers, skirting the great City Pennsylvania, with its fine stone villas & noble buildings.

New York at 6 p.m. Hasty meal. Hurried to Star Theatre. Good seats 12/- a piece. “Much Ado

About Nothing”, of course the mounting was superb & whole piece perfect in every detail.

Church Scene, a richly decorated chapel off the main cathedral stretching away in the

background for an indefinite distance.

Irving’s performance necessarily first class. A faultless reading of the parts. Kept in its due

subordinations to the main currents of the play. Benedick is not a great hero, but a gentleman, a

soldier, & a scholar & such Irving most perfectly represented him. Beatrice has a part with

greater charm in it, & E. Terry is the one perfect Beatrice of one’s dream.

One cannot conceive anything better. All the archness, brightness, dash, spirit wit & beauty of

the character were mirrored in her. No eulogy could overstrain her quality of merit. It was

simply inapproachable. I have seen no actress that is even second to her.

Thursday March 12

Prepared to go, but having business to do concluded to wait another day. Mr Alfred Sellman

accompanied me to the large [illegible] Works. Examining the implements. Saw the north end

of New York, where the city is growing, not as it does with us by an advance guard of cottages

& villas but in terraces & great tenement houses just such as one sees in the city avenues — far

the best part of the city for residence & the scenery on the Harlem River at Washington Heights

is very wild & pretty. Travelled on the elevated railroad, in places over 70 ft above the street.

These roads carry cars & the ferries & many restaurants run all night as well as all day, every

day in the year 365. A bite for dinner & then to “Merchant of Venice” with a mounting even

finer than that of the previous night — “Venice reproduced”. The Canal streets, the waters,

gondolas, maskers & singers, crooked streets, strollers, vendors of melons. In all Irving’s plays

there are no set exits & entrances people drift on & off the stage, enter & leave with the most

perfect ease, variety & naturalness. In this play Irving had the greater part & was equal to it —

E. Terry’s Portia was a masterpiece but had not the same utter perfection to the last shade which

belonged to her Beatrice. It far surpasses every other actress but does not surpass the un-

surpassable Beatrice. There is no starring it in either Irving or E. Terry both make their parts

perfect to the last line but stop exactly there & intrude not one inch upon the parts of others. Her

Portia was dignified & yet joyously merry with the same exquisite grace, eloquence of gesture

& expression, the same rich & abounding life as her Beatrice. If I had not seen the Beatrice I

should have thought it her very part. It is not less perfect but the part of Beatrice apparently

coincides even more closely than this does with her own natural tastes & abilities — I wish I

had not seen them so close together — yet I would rather have seen them than anything else I

have ever seen. Irving was fiendish & again his physique & mannerisms fitted the part better

than that of Benedick though this too was perfect. “This is the Jew that Shakespeare drew” & I

doubt if the representation has ever been surpassed or equalled. The trial scene held me

breathless & the climax was so quiet and

yet so intense that it held me spell-bound. At his worst Shylock raged with a dreadful growl like

that of a wild beast — when he left the stage it was with the sobbing wail of the cowed, crushed

animal, he was relentless, inexorably bitter, vindictive, & deadly without a gleam of charity or

affection. It was a magnificent creation & the performance as a whole was the high watermark

of my theatrical experience.

Supper with Sellman at the famous Delmonico’s — most famous & said to be best in the world,

filled with gentlemen in evening dress & ladies glittering from the theatres, even the smoking

room where we supped, of carved oak & metallic ceiling one mass of ornamentation yet not

gaudy, rich harmonious subdued.

Friday March 13

Packing. Watch gone to the dogs, had to borrow one. Train. Goodbye to New York.

Along the banks of the beautiful Hudson, still frozen, man skating. Hills still whitened though

showing foliage & black chequered sides. The views at the Hudson Highlands really lovely.

Who would live in New York who could come here & yet be so near to it? As we progressed

there was a fine rocky gorge & valley before Utica was reached, but as evening came the snow

commenced falling fast & it was very cold & bleak. Played with a little girl & boy in the car.

Saturday March 14

Still damp & gloomy. Appetite not good, pleasing the children showing photos. More snow

scenery roofs of houses white, farm fields all snow, not only a severe but a long winter, expect

to find it milder West. Quite big towns along the route especially Cleveland & Buffalo. Wintry

rain. Playing with children. The longest day since I left. Impatient for return.

Chicago Saturday March 14

Went to German Opera, saw good performance of Don Juan — nothing special — to bed.

Sunday March 15

Panorama of battle of Gettysburg. Train. Chicago to L [?] — prairies & farms Solitaire —

dining car good. Roads rather rough now as we are in Wild West again.

Monday March 16

Crossed Missouri — prairies & farms. Cold. Though the snow has gone — saw partial eclipse

of the sun very distinctly. Snow storm in the afternoon — Solitaire.

Tuesday March 17

Arrived at Denver. Very fine city of 70,000 inhabitants. Sprang up in 15 yrs. Paying business

calls, inspecting canals all day. From the heights outside the town had a magnificent view over

rolling country — much like our own, broken plains of the enormous chain of the Rocky

Mountains. Broken snow clad impenetrable under the changing lights of the afternoon sun, the

immense tract of country lying right in view backed by these tempestuous looking giants was

very grand.

In evening to splendid Opera House, one of the finest in the States, with about the worst

melodrama it was ever my misfortune to see.

Wednesday March 18

Up at 6 a.m, took train on one of the by-routes to go to Greeley, rolling prairies stretching away

for miles to the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

Greeley a pretty place in spring time lies in a hollow — out of the little town which has good

buildings & is planted with trees the settlers often have their houses half or three parts below

the surface of the ground for protection against the fierce winds which blow here at certain

seasons. Fine buildings & a prosperous place altogether dependant on irrigation. Drove out to

the Mill & had a look round, then back to town & by train to Fort Collins another settlement

higher up the valley of much the same class.

Thursday March 19

Agricultural College. One of the best in the States & certainly one of the best institutions I have

ever seen. Pupils of both sexes receive here a splendid practical education, including industrial,

agricultural & general. Such as ought to turn out fine men & women by & by. Drove out to the

Irrigation Works, after inspecting them returned & took train back to Denver. The centre of this

region. In the evening discussed irrigation with prominent men.

Friday March 20

A lovely day train to Platte Canyon with a fine view of the snow streaked foot hills, here rugged

& romantic. Walked up Canyon & along the flumes [illegible] to the weir which I inspected

with tunnel [illegible]. Back to camp. Reading Washington story [illegible]. Train back to

Denver. After tea to skating rink. Looked on only. Roller skating.

Saturday March 21

Weather threatening. Up at 6 a.m, train to Fort Collins & drove to the North Poudre Canõn, one

of the loveliest spots any eyes ever beheld. The gorge is here very narrow & precipitous. So

narrow we had to climb the hills to get over into the Canõn which is shut in by very precipitous

rocks some 300 or 400 ft high. It is narrow all the way up. Could throw a stone across

anywhere. Peaks & walls & precipices of striking outline & most exquisite colors. I even beheld

a rock so rich & rare as any flower could be. The spot was as wild as the wildest & as beautiful

as the most beautiful in the Fairy Bower & Witches Glen of the Blue Mountains in N.S.W, but

instead of mica grey rock the cliffs were composed of a thousand variegated shades (delicate)

setting off each other. Every tint of yellow, from bright sun flower to old gold chrome, grass

green, sea green, blue grey, mauve pink, red, purple amber & russet all mingled so exquisitely

in these mossy crags that the scene even under a dull grey sky was rapturously lovely. In the

setting sun it must be the divine ideal of a painter poet. Had some risky climbing along these

cliffs to the finest weir & works we have seen in America. Reluctantly back after rolling stones

over the precipices & hearing them crash into the depths below. Drove to a very clean, neat,

comfortable little house hidden in this solitary region tea & talk till bedtime.

Sunday March 22

Woke at 5 a.m, found it sunny — early breakfast start at 7.40 in face of blinding sleet & the

bitterest most biting wind I ever felt. Four & a half hours of it, & though well wrapped in

buffalo skins & rugs my [illegible] was nearly frozen. My beard filled with snow & frozen so

stiffly that it tied my jaws & freezing on my eyelids closed them too for a time. Still we had to

face it mid-day, the snow drifting into the buggy whitening us all over & hanging icicles under

our noses. We were thoroughly iced before we reached the settlement again seeing the reservoir

on the way. Thence train back to Denver & made final packing for San Francisco to which we

were drawing so close.

Spent evening in preparation & settling up affairs — glad to see moon shining & snow storm

apparently inclined to pass over.

Monday March 23

Early train along the foothills of the Rockies with a fine view of Pike’s Peak, the highest

mountain in the States, snow-clad over 14,000 ft high. Lunch at Pueblo, where was the section

of a tree supposed to be over 200 years old, a landmark in the past under which 36 people were

massacred by Indians not many years ago. In afternoon ran up Grand Canõn the Arkansas

where the stream comes rushing out of the Mountains, down narrow gorges shut in on either

side by broken & precipitous heights, shooting sheer into the sky for hundreds of ft & assuming

the wildest forms. The colouring was reddish & dark brown, very picturesque but not nearly so

beautiful as that of the North Poudre Canyon, although that was on a smaller scale in size. Often

the great rocks seemed to hang right over us & at one place where no space was left between

the precipices the railway runs on a bridge hung from the rocks on iron girders which are run

into the rock on either side. The road all along has been made by blasting the cliff so as to

secure a tiny way for the narrow gauge track which has the foaming mountain stream pushing

beside it all the way. This scenery lasts for a mile or two every turn presenting fresh pictures of

a royal kind. After this we ran along the plains riding slowly until turning into into the hills

again. The train, drawn by 2 powerful engines, climbed in for two hours higher & higher into

the snow white mountains with their straggling troops of pines often loaded with snow. The

grade was astonishingly steep & twisted back upon itself almost like the zig-zag but with larger

& bolder sweeps. Every now & then we passed through snowsheds & finally rested in a few

moments at the summit of Marshall Pass, 10,800 ft above sea in a cutting made through solid

rock & covered in from snow, making it like a great snow shed. From here we had a grand view

such as we got in the Blue Mountains over range after range of countless hills only these were

higher & sheeted in pure white snow. The sun dipped as we reached the top & then we rushed

down the other side. By & by the moon rose & soon after 10.30 we reached the Black Canõn of

the Jamison, a much longer & bigger Canõn than the other but not so striking to my eye, though

the beetling cliffs & towering hills & dazzling white stream frozen still for part of the way with

black shadows lying heavily between, the misty moonlight of a muffled moon steeped in clouds

was very grand & imposing I stood out watching it ‘till nearly midnight.

Tuesday March 24

Put into the desert, through the Book Cliffs, water worn & water built structures that take on

strange shapes as of ruins of a far antiquity in which the outlines of amphitheatres, castles, and

towns can be distinguished on the horizon. Very remarkable but barren & desolate & not to

compare with the Canõns[Canyons]. Then entered Price’s Canõn[Canyon], a mountainous

desert narrow valley in wh[which] is the famous Castle gate where one gt[great] mass & a pillar

of rock rises 500 ft on each side of a narrow opening. The one looks like a fort & the others like

two towers & hence the name. Emerging from this we came upon the valley of Utah with its

fresh water lakes in the centre & its Mts[mountains]. Snow streaked almost to the plain running

at a rapid incline right into it & displaying all their beauties at a gaze. The loveliest valley of its

size I have ever seen, all dotted over with its little Mormon farms. Passing out of this over a low

divide we swept into another & greater valley, still

half-circled too by splendid snow-clad crest mountains but drawing away to the Great Salt

Lakes out of sight & close under the hills to the North East the clustering houses of the famous

Salt Lake City, settled in 1847 while this was still Mexican Territory. About 30,000 inhabitants

in the town, it is spread over a great space, the streets planted with trees now leafless & with

water running down the sides — irrigation everywhere the whole country lives upon it & a large

part of the city consists really of small 10 or 15 acre farms. Leaving our belongings at the hotel

we started at once for the famous Temple Block where stands the egg-shaped Tabernacle, a low

looking but really lofty structure shaped thus [sketch of building] It holds nearly 10,000 people

& its acoustic properties are so splendid that we could hear each other speak & even a pin drop

from one end to the other. Close by it is the new Temple or Endowment House where the

Mormon mysteries are performed. It is of grey granite of great height & massiveness like a big

oblong box with pilasters at each side & is to cost (so say its builders) $6,000,000. The

foundations are 16 ft thick. It yet lacks its roof & towers. In the same ground is the Assembly

Hall, a very pretty college building, the ceiling of which has paintings of Joseph Smith

receiving his celestial visitation & also of his consecration by scriptural personages. In a further

corner a plain little dwelling house is the present Endowment House, a small two storey house

like an ordinary dwelling house. This block is surrounded by a wall about 12 ft high of adobe &

on the opposite sides of the street surrounded by a lower wall of the same kind built in the early

days as a protection against Indians, is the Tithing House where every Mormon has to pay 1/10

of all his produce each year. Beyond this again is Brigham Young’s house & his Eagle House

where the existing President Taylor lives when at home — at present he is in hiding from the

persecution? of polygamists now going on. Next day visited Presidents Room, a plain, meanly

furnished apartment containing portraits of Mormon celebrities from Joseph Smith, the founder,

down. Here also is the Eagle gate with its great figure of an eagle. The houses here are just

American houses & the people of the style one meets everywhere.

One sees several women, apparently wives in a few houses & that is all to distinguish the place.

That night called on the gentile Editor, very bitter against the Mormons & I think unjust.

Wednesday March 25

Paid visits & collected irrigation information. Several of the leading Mormons highly intelligent

but pitiably fanatical. Train at 5 p.m, had a fine view of the Great Salt Lakes, a great sheet of

water stretching to the foot of the snow covered peaks. The Dead Sea of America. Changed cars

at Ogden & then through hilly desert country out of Utah & into the State of Nevada. Bright

moonlight & fine weather, much warmer this side of the Rockies.

Thursday March 26

Across Nevada desert. Somewhat picturesque owing to the bold contours of its hills. The Canõn

of the Humboldt leading to the lake in which the Humboldt disappears. Dreadfully dusty.

Stopped off at Reno.

Friday March 27

Woke at 5 a.m, up at 6 & took train to Carson City. A lovely morning routes through pretty

hills. Arrived found steamer not running, so have to return the same roads. Took stage over the

hills. fine view of Carson Valley & hills. Steep ascent over 2,000 ft— trees unfortunately been

denuded of timber — at last saw the blue water glittering through the Canõn bordered with

pines as we wound our way among the peaks, it grew broader & bluer, bluer though of a lighter

blue than the Equatorial sea; descended rapidly to a little hamlet & after lunch was rowed out so

as to get a view of the whole which is 21 miles long & 12 broad, surrounded by hills capped,

streaked or patched with snow & with high rocky peaks which make of this a lovely scene.

The water is exquisitely clear, so that when still one can see the bottom at 100 ft, so cold &

deep in the centre that the bodies of those drowned are never recovered. It is 6,200 ft above the

sea, as high as Victoria’s highest mountain & is 1,650 ft deep. A perfect mountain glen,

enjewelled in a most beautiful setting of hills, which indeed gives it the beauty for which it is

famed. Coached back to Carson City & then hurried to the Prison, where I was shown some fine

fossils & what was still more remarkable a floor of thin slate which had been protected by a

narrow bed of clay & covered in by from 12 to 30 ft of sandstone & other rock. Upon this slate,

which extended over the whole prison yard were remarkable tracks of birds, deer, wolves,

horses & animals like a cow. The mammoth elephant one of whom died here & left his skeleton

to be discovered & crumble away & also strangest of all the unmistakeable tracks of men & of a

child leading along for several yards, some of them traceable right across the prison yard so that

by taking a long stride you can put your feet in them & walk in the tracks of people who upon

the lowest estimates have passed away 240,000 years ago.

The footprints are very large evidently made by roughly covered feet in slippery mud which has

then dried in the sun & formed a perfect mould into which the clay has run & thus preserved the

prints. This was evidently a piece of shore & the valley now lying beneath it was once a lake to

which wild beasts & wild men resorted. Hot springs have also left their traces perfectly plain.

The spot has been visited by many scientific men and is certainly the most marvellous &

interesting phenomenon of this class that I have seen.

Tram back to Reno & caught Pacific Express. A lovely moonlight night. Stopped up till eleven

looking at & over the Sierras. The Canõn of the seething foaming Truckee & pine clad heights

— to sleep.

Saturday March 28th

Woke at 2 a.m, got up & dressed to look out over great ranges of hills. Just like Blue Mountains

scenery only much more picturesque in that it was covered with pine forests. Every here &

there we looked down hundreds of feet into a canõn half revealed & half concealed by

moonlight with a thin streak of silvering? water or bright shield-like lake amid the hills. About

4 a.m, reached Cape Horn, the great sight of the road where the track runs right along the edge

of a steep Canõn so that one looks down over a thousand feet under the mysterious light of a

sinking moon. Had a fine view of it & its pine clad heights. The fir is very plentiful at Tahoe &

probably here & is often very pretty. Many of the pines are not individually pretty, though in

the mass they always are & stand out splendidly against the snow which had vanished from

these Sierras. To sleep for an hour & then rise, finding a bright sunny morning upon rich grassy

flats with lines Oak trees in their beautiful spring dress & so to Sacramento. Over green

marshes & green plains, the river & great steam ferry to San Francisco. After lunch with Patti to

see Patti in Faust. Orchestra good. Choruses good. Gianni [Giannini] the Faust good singer but

poor actor. Cherubini Mephistopheles, a good actor but not a melodious singer. De Anna as

Valentine very good voice. Martha fair. The cathedral scene was omitted. Stage management

poor. A presentation of screens & floral emblems & jewels introduced into the garden scene

with a ridiculous high falutin speech by a man in everyday dress showed great want of artistic

feeling. Scalchi as Siebel had only song but gave proof of being a most powerful & exquisite

contralto. Patti, small & slight, getting old. A splendid actress when fired, the marvellousness of

her singing not being apparent in the volume or clarion quality of tone but indicated by the

delicacy purity & softness & sweetness of tone & by the finely subdued style of her singing.

She sang Home Sweet Home with almost perfect feeling & quite perfect expressions, her voice

being like the down upon a dove’s breast. This was very fine but the piece as a whole a little

disappointing. Spent the evening at home writing.

Sunday March 29

Preparations. In the afternoon Mrs Small, Pattie & Ivy with me to the Sulphur Springs at

Piedmont, as pretty as the prettiest parts of Kew & deliciously green. Called at Bennett's in the

evening.

Monday March 30

Arranged for bath. Called on Mr Kay. All photographed at Bradley & Rulofsens [Rulofson's],

with Mrs S. Pattie & Ivy took train for Modena, arrived at 11.20 p.m, to bed.

Tuesday March 31

Up at 4 a.m, took coach across plains, foothills into the Sierra Nevada; fine gorges & ranges

like the Blue Mountains but clothed with the most superb forests Cedar. Pine & Fir. Sugar Pine.

Yellow Pine Hard pine. Balsam Fir, 150–200 ft high with rich dark green foliage here & there

intermingled with the lighter green of spring shoots. Road along chasms & by precipices from

250 to 750 ft high miles of forest. The firs wrapping their plume like plumage about them. The

pines straight & tall as the masts of “some great arrival” hardy & bold. The cedars with more

clothed & brighter beauty, a smaller but richer natured tree & then the balsam fir with a fine

regularity reminding one of the Norfolk Island Pine but with a lighter gayer air. The mountains

owing to this splendour of vegetation surpass anything Australian except the fern glens, a

bolder beauty with boldness instead of their delicacy & finish. Stopped at Cork’s Big Tree

Hotel, saw Hill’s pictures of Yosemite.

Wednesday April 1

Up at 6 a.m. Coach again, up steep ascents with wider vistas & again the glorious forests. The

view from Inspiration Point, striking but disappointing, because all seems on the same scale of

magnitude. It is too early yet for the foliage here & consequently parts of it are bare. Then the

colors of the rock are pale grey, yellowish with sombre scrub upon their sides here & there. The

left side of the valley is thus dull in color & not remarkable in form. The right or shady side is

much darker, richer & more various in form & this is everywhere beautiful. But at first even

this does not appear very remarkable. One cannot take in these immense magnitudes for a long

while. Looked at from Inspiration Point the valley is a narrower bolder Govett’s Leap, with firs

instead of Eucalypti. Descending, one finds a valley such as might have been shaped in a poet’s

dream. It is almost perfectly level covered with fine turf & shadowed with lovely trees that give

it a park like appearance. Every here & there are masses of granite rock broken from the cliffs

& plunged into picturesque confusion. As of Stonehenge heaped together. Through the centre of

this perfect place runs a stream of the purest & most crystalline snow water, fifteen or twenty

yards wide & rippling quickly over clear sands & dainty pebbles bordered by fine trees. It

begins in a limpid lake of most exquisite transparency, reflecting peaks thousands of feet high

with all their winds & snows & windings in its unsullied face then winds through great grey

rocks of mossy antiquity & after turning around, all the point of the valley rushes down grand

cascades in a wild [illegible] like Canyon & is gone. On all sides of the valley, the most white

& wonderful falls, trickle [?] creep, slip rush or roar down into the valley to feed it. First the

Nevada Falls & Vernal Falls come plunging into one of the upper forks of the valley, the one

700 ft & the other 350 ft high of soft woolly, foaming water. Then down thundering cascades in

the fork it swells & swirls into the lake & from the lake on to unite with the sister stream. Then

on the left side comes the Yosemite Fall, 1,500 ft in its first great spring from a narrow stream

opening, like a fan one third open into a cloudy swaying pointed set of fleecy streams then half

hidden for 50 ft & finally rushing in one broad mass 500 ft down into the river 2,000 ft in all.

Below again are the ever-streaming Bachelor’s Tears, rolling down rocky cheeks, like rushing

Virgin’s Tears (more properly Wife’s Tears) then moderate Widow’s Tears, which only run six

months in the year & then are still. The Virgin’s Tears drop 2,300 ft in one long riband like line.

Loveliest of all, because perhaps best seen, is the wonderful Bridal Veil, 900 ft falls of the

softest, pearliest rockets of woven water lace & faery like fading clouds of purest opaline

whiteness, sinking into rolling clouds of finest floating spray, barred in the evening by a

glorious greenish rainbow of many hues & rushing down the rocky bed in three fine streams of

water.

Anything lovelier than these in waterfalls is scarcely to be imagined. Their immense height is

all lost in their delicate beauty & yet the height transforms them. The upper part of the

Yosemite fall where at first it bursts upon the view appears like a very thick cable & yet it is

probably 20 or 25 ft wide, but at an altitude of 2,600 ft which is a distance of half a mile from

the foot this is the effect. It rapidly broadens & ends its first great leap in wide spread sheets of

curling foam rush. It requires time & an effort to begin to realise the measurements. Only when

you see in a small cleft on the side of El Capitan which bears the same relation to the whole

mass which a waistcoat pocket bears to a man & then observe that in this little scar there is a

pine tree growing apparently about 6 inches high but which is really nearly 150 ft high, & this

when only one-third up the cliff that the size of this gigantic rock mountain dawns upon one.

The Washington Monument is the highest structure ever built by the hand of man, 555 ft & yet

six of them placed one upon another would not reach the crest of this mass. Thirty three Palace

Hotels piled one upon another would just reach it & then be but a narrow band upon its breadth

tapering to a riband like streak at the top, & this in rock 3,300 ft high is topped all around by

others ranging up to nearly twice that height almost all with <blank> sides. Some rough &

serrated, others with a sheer sweep of smooth precipice for hundreds & hundreds of feet. The

splendid South dome looks as rounded as any artificial structure. The Cathedral is more than a

mile long & nearly three quarters of a mile high, its two spires standing each over 800 ft above

the main body, broken with buttresses & recesses for windows. The Three brothers & the Three

Graces are of enormous bulk & height on opposite sides of the valley El Capitan, so called

because of a face most distinctly carved by nature upon its side looking very small in

comparison with its surface but very clear, with a smoking [?] cap upon its head & a cloak

about its form. The Cap of Liberty is another superb peak of solid rock rising with rounded crest

some 1,500 ft above its turning cliff bases. The Washington Column stands out for a height of

[illegible] feet [illegible] its background & so Titanic pillar beyond pillar, peak after peak, cliff

after cliff shut in the whole of this enchanted grounds. The clouds creep down their sides & rest

upon their summits, shutting it in as the most glorious prison devised by nature’s self for her

chosen souls upon this earth. The trees upon the summits look as large as little fingers & down

the sides as high as a span & yet they are from 100 to 150 ft high, a man would be a dot upon

their surface if visible at all, the eye fails to grasp, the mind to realise what one sees, though a

full half of the heavens are forever hid from the inhabitants of the valley by the walls on an

average of about a mile apart which environs it.

To relieve the magnificent severity there is Mirror Lake to let one’s spirits through realms peaks

of light & shade & color. A sort of supernatural outlet, the birthplace of endless poetic myth &

mystic dreams. So clear, so still, reflecting so perfectly the beautiful world around & yet

seeming to open into another & brighter sphere. There is pastoral peace, quietness & beauty by

the river & on the little grassy plains & in the lake & there is all of the sublime & beautiful

around them, so that here in reality, apart from the colors of romance when one recovers from

the shock of seeing an ideal die & rise again more beautiful in its resurrection into reality —

there is here all the mind of man could desire if he were content to forego the ocean & the

works of men. The clouds that shut in its summits shut out little in the shape of beauty that is

not represented & well represented here & the sun which passes along it from end to end,

seeming a kind of fellow to its peaks & cliffs sees nothing now marvellous in all his mighty

gathering around the world. On our drive thither we had some rain all day, the clouds often

falling & parting very gracefully on the Tuesday. Next day fine & on arrival we drove down the

lower head of the valley to the grand cascades & around to the Hotel by nightfall.

Thursday April 2

Openly gloriously with heavy rain, nevertheless we set off for Mirror Lake & though much

disturbed by raindrops, it settled enough to give us a good idea of what it can be under better

circumstances. After admiring the grandeur here struck off with two Frenchmen and climbed to

the Nevada & Vernal Falls where the narrow river comes over into the wild gorge very finely &

with a mass of water. Saw a young brown bear on the way, as big as a retriever, it ran up the

rocks quickly but was in sight for about two minutes. After lunch with Pattie & Ivy to the

Yosemite Falls, drinking in their beauty which gains upon one more & more. To Mr Hutchens

& his specimens then back to Hotel. He called in the evening & had a very interesting chat

about his arrival in the Valley. Adventures in the snow & in mining camps & about his book.

Friday April 3

Opened very wet but clearing up, by & by the males took horses & faced a three hours climb up

a very narrow & terribly steep trail winding all the way along the edges of the precipices up to

jagged peaks with exquisite snow patches upon their rugged sharp clifted sides & spires. At

Union Point we had a fine view of the valley & at Glacier Point a still more extensive one when

the valley becomes but one among many ranges of hills, rising higher & higher with granite

peaks & great rocky chasms.

A magnificently extensive view, showing the Nevada & Vernal Falls beautifully, also the lower

part of the valley & Yosemite Falls, giving one a fine idea of the whole country. Coming down,

the storm clouds roofed the valley in & clouds swept below us, blotting it from view. We had a

snow storm & the trail passed through snow banks often as high as my head. We were the first

party up this season. Gallop back to hotel. The pines above being fine. Rested. Early to bed.

Saturday April 4

One week more in America. Up at 5 a.m. A fine clear morning. Took box seats at 6 a.m. Having

a last view of the beauties as we drove along. Walked up a good deal of the steep climb of 4

miles out of the valley & we drank in a succession of splendid scenes. This place is not lonely,

it is peopled with pines & firs. The nobility of nature. It is filled with the muffled noise of

waters. As you pass along & the thunder of one fall dies another takes up the strain with

perhaps a gentler chorus, a sibillant rushing, splashing of peace or else the roar of the pent up

torrent on the leaping cascade on the bubbling brook breaks into their tunes. Vocal always &

always beautiful, at last it dies away & again plunging through magnificent forests the day sets

in wet & cloudy as in the afternoon, we wind into the sanctuary of the Sequoia of the Big Trees.

They are much more graceful than their pictures appear. The bole of the giants being rent as

with muscular strain, but for the most part their mighty trunks are almost perfectly round & they

soar up like great towers. Living castles three feet into the air. Their branches, one of which in

Grizzly [?] Giant is six ft, though do not look at all disproportionate & their piny foliage fits

them well. They may date back in their family tree to the Saurians but if they are as Titanic they

are far more beautiful. There are five or six hundred of them & the younger ones are very

symmetrical — many of them are named. Most of the monsters the Grizzly Giants I stepped &

found that going with easy steps a [illegible] made it 41 of my steps. The Faithful Couple,

which consists of two trees grown together, took 43 steps. The first of these is said to be at least

2,000 years old, the oldest living thing perhaps in the planet. It has seen the birth of all modern

states & all their religions & may yet see many or all of these pass away. For though buried at

its foot, as many are it still appears hale & vigorous. Long may it reign! There are other groves

notably that of Calaveras but this of Mariposa ranks with it at the top of the list. There 32

couples can dance upon a stump here. We drove with coach & four right through one of them

which has been cut out thus [sketch] & the road taken through it. But these are tricks unworthy

of these ancient Druids, surrounded as they are with a magnificent forest of fir, cedar, & pine.

There should be nothing but worship here. Among the beautiful things which I have seen, a

very foremost place must be given to these forests. Not that our own have not their beauty now

to me clearer than before, but these are richer, more varied, & more majestic, more hospitable &

yet more solemn. Yosemite itself were not half Yosemite were it not for the forests that

surround & creeps into it.

Sunday April 5

A long & dreary drive after we left the beautiful hills, Pattie returned to San Francisco, I took

train 11.40 pm for Fresno arriving at 1 a.m.

Monday April 6

Drove around vineyards & colonies studying irrigation with Hall.

Tuesday April 7

Drove to King River works.

Wednesday April 8

Train at 2 a.m, back to San Francisco. The rest will be preparation, hurry worry & bare business

& so to end as old Chaucer ends one of his exquisite stories.

“There is no more to say”.

Irving & Ellen Terry in New York March[?] — 85 [comment above printed clipping] Rough

jotting not[?] intended to be printed but used by I.L.D. in a muddled way [printed clipping ,

square bracketing by author in this case] [Henry Irving, with his Lyceum Company from

London, including Ellen Terry, was performing an engagement at Wallack’s Star Theatre, & out

of my limited number of evenings in the city I managed to see him in three characters -

Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice; Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing; & Eugene Aram,

in the play of that title.] A great artist as great, if not a greater, manager; & Ellen Terry’s Portia,

Beatrice, & Ruth Meadows in the pieces named must be described as representations by as great

an actress as Irving is an actor. “He is long & gaunt; he is full of mannerisms; his thin odd-

looking legs are absolutely ludicrous;” this & much more one hears from the critics, who are

nothing if not critical, but for me I confess to having been so spell-bound by the genius of this

man that I forgot all about the gauntness or the manner-isms, or the odd-looking legs. If asked

what is Irving’s chief characteristic, I should say antithesis to rant; a quiet self-contained power.

Where some actors indulge in boisterous declamation he secures his points by so total an

absence of demonstration, so unostentatious an exhibition of the “business” depended upon for

effect by many other great artists that you are continually speculating upon what can be the

secret of his power. That is, when he is off the stage you thus speculate, for as long as he is on

the boards, just so long does he hold great masses of hushed humanity in complete subjection,

& plays upon the whole gamut of human passion with irresistible power. With all this, however,

has to be taken into account his masterly talent of arrangement as a manager. Every scene is

mounted with a completeness & accuracy of detail, combined with a gorgeousness of setting,

that lends an air of absolute reality to the business of the play. In this connection might be noted

as examples the accuracy of the cathedral & chapel in Much Ado; the melon sellers, the

gondolas & maskers in Venice; the forest & garden scenes, the real flowers; the incense in the

cathedral; the shrine over the bridge in Merchant of Venice; the muffled music behind the

scenes, forming so exquisite a symphony to some of the dialogues; & the general accuracy of

dress & ceremony. This completeness is further carried out in the fact that the whole company

exhibit a capacity & unity of action from Irving & Terry down to the least important character,

giving testimony as to individual merit of a high class made perfect by long continued playing

together. [margin] yet by unceasing “business” of the much appropriate [illegible] The story is

that of Lytton’s novel & Hood’s poem Aram, in which a reckless youth has murdered a thievish

debauchee who had robbed him of the woman he loved & murdered her. He strives, by years of

patient labor as the schoolmaster of a quiet village, to expiate his crime, & in so doing wins the

esteem of all, & the love of the vicar’s daughter. When the play opens it is the even- ing before

their marriage. An accomplice, in want, returns to the scene of the murder to dig for coin buried

in the grave of the murdered man; is detected in the act, and, having found Aram by accident,

accuses him of the deed. Aram, ovecome by a storm of remorse & guilty horror, after a terrible

struggle with himself, is unable to look upon the body, but, hiding himself in the cemetery by

night in a state bordering upon madness, is found by his betrothed, & dies in her arms as the

dawn streams up the sky. The play is prettily written & constructed. It passes at evening from

the garden of the parsonage, overgrown with flowers, which are not artificial, into the quiet

home with its fireside at twilight, & then in the darkness of night to the solemn graveyard.

Irving’s physique, mannerisms, gaunt brown face, stoop & sobered head lend themselves well

to this character as to Shylock, but in it he has opportunities for sustained tempestuous passion

of a tenderer kind than Shylock’s. In the first act he is lovingly melancholy, haunted by the

tender fear, not of discovery, but that if his secret were known his betrothed would not love

him. When encountered suddenly by his blustering, coarse, bullying accomplice he finds

himself in a position long foreseen, & rallying all his powers bears himself with such collected

daring & intellectual energy that he fairly crushes the truculent bravado of the man who holds

his life in his hands, & assumes by right of natural supremacy dominion over him. All would

have been well if it had ended here, but with the discovery of the body the publicity of the

charge against him, & a superstitious feeling of the inexorable march of fateful Justice, he

wavers & falls, rallies, & falls again until, when confronted with the corpse, his nerve gives way

altogether, his physical strength deserts him, horrors crowd upon him; he heats the heavens with

wild prayers for mercy, and, in the assurance of the devoted love of the woman that would have

been his wife that day, dies with a gleam of peace & hope upon him. It may be noted that both

Irving & Ellen Terry are perfect in elocution — not too perfect, so as to mouth as many tragic

actors do, but so perfect that you never think about the elocution; you hear every word distinctly

given at the right pitch, in the right time,and with the right gesture. Benedick is comedy,

Shylock is tragedy; but Eugene Aram holds a place specially of its own. In each of the first

there is a fine pictorial setting of the dress, architecture, manners & associations of a long past

time. Eugene Aram is devoid of these — its picturesqueness is that of nature, the dress, though

that of the early part of the century, is very plain. Here one sees the art & genius of the actor, as

it were, naked. The piece is not Shakspearean, is not complex, is poetic in form, but is

simplicity itself. Everything in it depends on Eugene Aram — he has many solliloquies & the

whole essence & interest of the play rest with him. In Aram, Irving’s voice in the first happy act

was delicately musical. Both he & Miss Terry are marvellous in byplay. Rarely is this language

silent — always eloquent — yet never strained or forced; motion, gesture, speech, entrance, exit

— all are notably easy, graceful, carefully careless, & the same in a relative degree is true of the

subordinates. He & she are always acting while they are on the stage yet never acting. When

necessary he can stand like an obelisk for minutes, without moving a muscle; but his expression

is always a study, & his facial power of utterance amazing. It is unnecessary to say that his

readings are always classical; everything is thought out, down to the position of his shoe buckle;

it is the absolute supremacy of art.

[top half of page empty] This is only a criticism of Eugene Aram intended to be used by I.L.D.

(who did not see it) to help him to criticise the other two pieces. It was the best piece to exhibit

Irvings personal fame — the best I fancy of all he plays unless Mathias in the “Bells” be better.

[Newspaper article] Ellen Terry is more a miracle of nature. She has so much life & buoyancy

that it gives her art wings, & makes it nature; she is all lightness & brightness, sunshine &

spirit, womanliness & witchery, daintiness & queenliness in one. In Aram her part is simply that

of a country girl. It is beyond praise for its modesty, gentleness & lovingness, with just the

faintest & most charming touch of rusticity. In Beatrice, all is wit, roguishness, & high spirits;

in Portia, the same qualities are tempered by dignity & responsibility. She excels Benedick as

Beatrice; he excels Portia as Shylock, because in each case the part offers great opportunities.

While filling a character they do not overflow on to other people’s premises, but keep strictly to

their proportionate positions in the play. He is more intense, she more vivid, he more

thoughtful, she more spontaneous; she has an eager & abounding life & passion of warm blood,

full of rapid & brilliant variety & almost mercurial activity. Irving’s Shylock has a good deal of

the wild beast in it; all ferocity, no affection visible for any human being; he is the incarnation

of the Mosaic law. When raging at his losses he growls inarticulately, like a tiger, & when at

last,dazed by sudden reverses, & almost crazed with losses & disappointments, he staggers from

the court, it is with the deep sigh that is almost the sob of a deer struck to the heart. Aram is of a

far higher but weaker type, & the portrayal of the fierce conflict of his remorseful passion is a

terrible ordeal; his cry for a sign of mercy from Heaven partakes of the grandeur of Lear, & of

the magnificent appeal to the gods of Oedipus. In these scenes Irving’s whole form is

convulsed. His long arms are tossed about like bare branches in a storm, the long hair falls over

his wan face, always sad & thin & even wretched; his long lean quivering fingers are stretched

& clasped, & wrung as he beats his breast in ceaseless torture, like the creatures in Dante, who

with their hands try to keep off the rain of flame flakes from their naked bodies. The whole

theatre was profoundly affected; stilled to awe; & when at last he panted out of life like a

hunted thing, there were many wet eyes that saw a blurred stage. [Annotation in margin

referring to the two in text-latter?]

[Cutting from newspaper] THE BISHOP OF MELBOURNE In his humble judgement Mr.

Deakin, & the members of the Government who are setting themselves to carry out the work of

irrigation, were preparing the way for better times for the working classes of Victoria. He (the

Bishop) believed the day was not far distant, when in many regions of Victoria a fair return for

honest labor would become a certainty. He did not desire to be political, & was only so in so far

as politics concerned the comfort & elevation of our population. (Applause.) He ventured to say

that in his humble judgment no Government had done so much towards promoting the

prosperity of Victoria as the present Government since he had been in the colony, & he hoped

whatever men were sent to occupy their places in the future would continue the work which had

been so well begun in diminishing temptations to drink — (applause) — in protecting the virtue

of our young men — (applause) — & in utilising wisely every drop of water that the Australian

Alps send down into our plains. (Loud applause.) If those hopes were realised they would mean

a vast increase in spiritual work