Round the World | Page 4

fresh California grapes and
salmon; the former black Hamburgs not to be excelled by the best
hot-house grapes of England; and what a bagful for a quarter! We tried
the native white wine at dinner, and found it a fair Sauterne. With such
grapes and climate, it must surely be only a question of a few years
before the true American wine makes its appearance, and then what
shall we have to import? Silks and woollens are going, watches and
jewelry have already gone, and in this connection I think I may venture
to say good-bye to foreign iron and steel; cotton goods went long ago.
Now if wines, and especially champagne--that creature of
fashion--should go, what shall we have to tax? What if America, which
has given to mankind so many political lessons, should be destined to
show a government living up to the very highest dictate of political
economy, viz., supported by direct taxation! No, there remain our home
products, whiskey and tobacco; let us be satisfied to do the next best

thing and make these pay the entire cost of government. The day is not
far distant when out of these two so-called luxuries we shall collect all
our taxes; and those virtuous citizens who use neither shall escape
scot-free. Although these sentences were written years ago, now since
we approach the threshold of fulfilment I am not sure that upon the
whole the total abolition of the internal revenue system is not
preferable. We should thus dispense with four thousand officials. In
government, the fewer the better.
No greater contrast can be imagined than that from the barren desert to
the fertile plains below; oleanders and geraniums greet us with their
welcome smiles; grapes, pears, peaches, all in profusion; we are indeed
in the Italy of America at last, and Sacramento is reached by half-past
ten. Since the great flood which almost ruined it some years ago,
extensive dykes have been built, walling in the city, which so far have
proved a sufficient barrier against the rapid swellings of the American
River, that pours down its torrents from the mountains; but if
Sacramento be now secure against flood, it is certainly vulnerable to
the attacks of the not less terrible demon of fire. Such a mass of
combustible material piled together and called a city I never saw before:
it is a tinder-box, and we are to hear of its destruction some day.
Prepare for an extra: "Great fire in Sacramento; the city in ashes;" but
then, don't let us call it accidental.
What a valley we rush through for the hundred miles which separate
Sacramento from San Francisco! It is about sixty miles wide, and as
level as a billiard-table. Here are the famous wheat fields: as far as the
eye can reach on either side we see nothing but the golden straw
standing, minus the heads of wheat which have been cut off, the straw
being left to be burned down as a fertilizer. Fancy a Western prairie,
substitute golden grain for corn, and you have before you the California
harvest; for four hundred miles this valley extends, and it is wheat from
one end to the other--nothing but wheat. Granted sufficient rain in the
rainy season--that is, from November till February--and the
husbandman seeks nothing more; Nature does all the rest, and a
bountiful harvest is a certainty. In some years there is a scarcity of rain,
but to provide against even this sole remaining contingency the rivers
have but to be properly used for irrigation; with this done, the wheat
crop of the Pacific coast will outstrip in value, year after year, all the

gold and silver that can be mined. Douglas Jerrold's famous saying
applies to no other land so well as to this, for it indeed needs only "to
be tickled with a hoe to smile with a harvest."
We reached Oakland, the Jersey City of San Francisco, on time to the
minute; the ferry-boat starts, and there lies before us the New York of
the Pacific: but instead of the bright sparkling city we had pictured,
sinking to rest with its tall spires suffused by the glories of the setting
sun, imagine our surprise when not even our own smoky Pittsburgh
could boast a denser canopy of smoke. A friend who had kindly met us
upon arrival at Oakland tried to explain that this was not all smoke; it
was mostly fog, and a peculiar wind which sometimes had this effect;
but we could scarcely be mistaken upon that point. No, no, Mr. O'B.,
you may know all about "Frisco," the Chinese, the mines, and the
Yosemite, but do allow me to know something about smoke. We
reached our hotel, from the seven days' trip, and, after a bath and a