Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/276



house by  winding  down  its  bare  sides,  now  Broadway and Pacific  streets,  and  leaping  the  slough,  now  Jack- son street, wading  through  the  bay,  now  Montgomery street, up  a  sand  bank,  now  Washington  street,  to  an open  space,  now  Kearney  street  and  the  Plaza,  thence fifty paces  south  to  the  point  of  destination. I can well remember,  also,  when  an  unobtrusive  casa,  com- pared with the  immense  structures  which*  now  rise heavenward here  and  there  at  magnificent  distances, was all  that,  in  the  way  of  internal,  or  for  that  mat- ter, external improvements,  met  the  eye;  when  the Parker house,  the  old  Portsmouth  house,  the  United States hotel,  Howard's  store,  the  venerable  adobe  on the  Plaza,  then  a  custom-house,  afterwards  a  broker's shop,  and  now  no  more,  with  one  or  two  other  shan- ties, looked to  us  immigrants  of  '49  like  palaces;  when seraped natives  chased  the  wild  bullock  over  the  sur- rounding hills, satisfying  a  lean  lank  traffic,  not  com- merce, with the  offering  of  a  hide  or  horn;  when  a Chinepe  was  a  lusus  naturse,  and  a  woman  on  the street — which was  an  imao;inarv  line  drawn  in  red  and blue ink  on  paste-board — an  absolute  and  unmitigated wonder."

The pile-driver,  both  the  man  and  the  machine,  was an institution  of  San  Francisco's  babyhood. Without the driving  of  piles,  the  water-lots  of  the  cove  could not be  reclaimed,  and  without  their  reclamation  own- ership was of  little  avail. The manner  of  it  was  in this  wise :  from  one  end  of  a  lumbering  scow  rose, high in  the  air,  two  perpendicular  beams,  between which played  a  large  lump  of  iron. A primitive  steam- engine, standing  back  of  the  upright  beams,  drove  the machinery. On or  near  the  spot  destined  to  be  re- claimed floated hundreds  of  piles,  that  is,  young  trees, from twelve  to  eighteen  inches  in  diameter,  cut  thirty or forty  feet  in  length,  carefully  trimmed  and  sharp- ened at one  end. With its  claws,  which  were  attached to the  end  of  a  chain,  the  machine  seized  one  of  these floating logs  near  the  large  end,  and  with  a