Class - Book. COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT " A LIMITED EDITION OF FIVE HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED, OF WHICH THIS IS No. INFRA NUBEM The LIGHTS OUTSIDE LA BOCANA BY r *^a ALEXANDER McADIE DECORATIONS BY LUCIA K. MATHEWS FRONTISPIECE BY ARTHUR F. MATHEWS ~jpl)llopolls Series SAN FRANCISCO A. M. ROBERTSON 1909 CCi.A2 5-'- PREFATORY NOTE The three essays constituting this vol- ume are presented for the appreciation of the book-lover through the courtesy of the author Alexander McAdie, and are reprinted from ~pl)ilopoUs magazine of the issues for the months of June 1907, April 1908 and June 1909. ,o o '\£ jOWLED and peni- tent like a Friar of Orders Gray, the City kneels in summer after- noons upon the lower steps of the altar hills. Beneath the cassock of fog — a loose- ly woven serge — are hopes, prayers, truth, and gentle- ness. But also under that robe of gray lurk cunning, greed, pride, and pretense. Like the merciful mantle of charity, the fog covers our many sins. We who love the City, know that the gray covering stretched overhead while it dims the brightness of the sun, is at once our richest asset and our great- est blessing. Would you know some- thing of this mantle, then climb the hills; for the City infra nubem — below the fog — is also a City set upon hills. From some of the upper slopes study this wondrously wrought fabric. Seen from above, it is no longer gray and forbidding, but white as driven snow: a coverlet that throws back into sunlit skies the genial warmth of summer days. Watch it come into being far beyond the Heads. The very soul of the sea, it rises like a spirit from the breast of waters. Through the broad Gate in a full-flowing A tide, it veils the water and the land. Seen from below, a level sweep and monotone of drab; seen from above, a ruffled sea of light and shade, a billowing cradle for the imperious winds. Inland it spreads, and spreading rarer grows, a thin gray line, to die at last — if but the eye could see — upon the burnished wheat fields of the San Joaquin: un, as it stands a moment on the water's rim, ere yet it bids our western coast "good night" sees not a cowled and sad- robed penitent; but a fair City with a silk white scarf loosely waving and far flung. Lover of the City, is there no lesson in this two-fold aspect of the fog? Seen in the humdrum sweep of daily life, in the rush and routine of the business s/^ o. day, your fellow citizens are sombre-hued and unat- tractive. Seen from a high- er vantage ground, fling they not back the genial warmth of their humanity, the sunlight of their truer selves ? And when the page of history shall be turned, and all sad monotones of self dimmed in the sweep of Time, the summed up efforts of our hands will shine resplendent to those who view us from afar. Then may the historian of our time and place write the judgment: 44 Td\)V£ wrought well, who all unknown anb in their several wa?s, built this fair (Tit?, round whose bright breast is wreathed a glorious scarf of love wit!) golden threads of light, truth and justice intertwined/' M City, climbing the western hills about sunset, on a day when the veil of fog is not too closely wrapped around the face of ' 'Our Lady of the Gate' ' can see a stretch of water ex- tending from la punta de los Reyes to the Islands of St. James, better known per- haps as Point Reyes and the Farallones. The glimmer 17 of the western light upon the waters is beautiful be- yond expression; and if it should happen that the moon rises ere yet the watcher turns away, he may be forced, like that lover of Athens in days long past, to cry out: — " So beautiful. 3t almost fyurts/' As night falls, sharp eyes can pick up beyond the Heads the dim beacon on the lightship, while far, far away comes occasionally the flash from the great lens on the Islands Farallones de los Frayles — not inappro- priately named by the Span- iard, the "Lighthouses of the Priests". Three hundred twenty- eight years ago June, 1907, Francis Drake, adventurer, buccaneer, and incidentally sharer of the spoils with some eminently respectable worthies close to the throne of Elizabeth, named the gray cliffs to the north Nuova Albion. Leaving the beach, where for a month he had careened and repaired the stout little Golden Hind, he drove southward across this En- senada de los Farallones, and unaware that the eyes of white men had as yet beheld these pinnacle rocks, m called them the Islands of St. James* Drake's men were probably the first Europeans to land on the Farallones, and it may come as something of an agree- able surprise to the people of San Francisco to learn that twenty-eight years be- fore the English language was spoken at Jamestown, accents of our mother tongue were heard upon the rocky shelves of the Farallones. H But Drake was not the first white man to behold these grim outriders of the fair City of St. Francis. Cabrillo and Ferrelo, in November, 1542, or thirty- seven years before Drake, had traversed la bahia de los Pinos, and from a dis- tance sighted the Islands. Sailors bold they were. Men of blood and bone like ourselves, but thrust- ing out fearlessly upon the unknown sea. Venture- some they were, and brave as any in the long line of those who afterward across the plain or over isthmus, toiled and won. Drake speaks of the Por- tus Novae Albionis — the Gate of New England — and later Spanish explorers speak of la Puerta de San Francisco, but none of these ever saw the Golden Gate or entered in. The land- >< day of the Los (Santos) Reyes, these voyagers pass the Puerto de San Fran- cisco. And the narrative then continues: "The Fragata, conclud- ing there was no necessity to seek a harbor, continued the voyage, and the Capi- tana> thinking they were in company, did not show a light, so in the morning they were not in sight of each other, and the Gen- eral returned with the Capi- tana to the Puerta de San Francisco." Perhaps it was not so easy to display a light as one might imagine. But on all the face of the waters there was not a single light. No friendly gleam telling of human sympathy in the dark. The stars alone were the mariners' friends. We who look out thro' the well lit Gate and mark y* lightship, the flicker from the Farallones and the flash from Point Reyes, may well do silent homage to the memory of those who sailed these seas ere yet there was a City within the Gate, or welcoming lights outside. IERUSALEM had its Golden Gate, which the Turks, with due precaution, keep walled, lest the Giaour come some day, and passing through, conquer and take possession. For so did the prophets of old forecast. Our Golden Gate lies open, all unwalled, save where the hills come down to meet the water. Through it be- 33 liever and unbeliever pass. Alike they enter and depart, and all bear testimony to the glory of our Gate. From the west one does not readily perceive the en- trance to the Bay of San Francisco. The landfall is peculiar, and the Marin hills in friendly fashion lean over and seem to join the crests of the southern pen- insula, while the back- ground, Contra Costa hills, make a continuous sky line. The early explorers failed to discover the Bay from without, and never entered in. Spaniard and English- man sailed by in ignorance and their lookouts saw no sign. From the east the vision is of splendor, unobscured. Seen from the Berkeley hills, La Bocana de la En- senada de los Farallones (the Gate of the Gulf of the Farallones) deserves the praise we lavish on it. Sixty years and more has it borne its present name. Fremont in 1848 marked on his sur- vey sheet the word Chry- sopylae, meaning Golden Gate. But nearly four score years before the pathfinder, came Portola, Crespi and Costanso. They sought a grand estero, the Port of Monterey. They found it, but they knew it not, and M wandered on. Drenched by the early rains, they made camp near where is now Montara. Two day's travel would have brought them to the Gate. The Sergeant and the soldiers hunting, saw on All Saints' Day the southeast portion of the Bay. The General, the Captain and the pious Padre from the camp height saw the outer reaches from Bolinas to Point Pedro. r— T^ ■ s/^> o, Two years pass and still Portola fails to find the Golden Gate. Then on a day in March, Don Pedro Fages, with the Padre Crespi and twelve soldiers toiling slowly along the eastern shore camp at el ar- royo del Bosque, the Oakland estuary. Next day from the hills near Berkeley, clear and distind; the Gate comes into view in line with Alca- traz and the far distant Farallone rocks known for two centuries. The first white men who ever saw our Gate, not inaptly called it, La Bocana. Seen at the close of day, the tide throws back a shimmering flood of light. Prone are we then to liken it to gold, but 'tis a scant and dubious honor to the glorious hues. More fitting did we call it Gate of Light. Stern faced and sombre h )> the Heads frown upon a far flung line of scurrying foam between us and the Lightship, where the bar breaks and sullen waters moan as they spend their > strength. Inside the cliffs, the ruffian billows beat their foaming crests in vain against the unyielding face of Lobos; and joyously we watch their rout. But at Bonita's feet they swirl in play and snarl like angry )U tigers at the whitened tower that warns the careless sea- man not to swing too near the treacherous front. Within the Gate the stately ship dreads neither gale nor shoal. It sails to pleasant moorings through well guarded depths. The anchors hold, there is no straining at the chains. The wayward wanderer of the sea is home and at rest. ■ So may that greater Voyage end in peace for all who come and go our way. One copy del. to Cat. Div. JAN LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 017 187 029 A