Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/478

 Years Before the Mast," now the site of a Chinese fishing village. To the right is brand-new "National City," the location of the shops and extensive depot grounds for the new railway. In the centre, at about four miles from either, lies "New Town," San Diego proper. All together have a population of about five thousand.

As we came up to the wharf a locomotive, starting from National City on the new track, made the circuit of the water-front, with one long, shrill scream, which was taken up by the hills and echoed back. Gods and men were no longer to remain ignorant that San Diego had at last caught up with its future and had its railroad. It was cruelly disappointed when it was to be the terminus of the Texas Pacific, transcontinental, road. The panic of '73 prevented the capitalist "Tom Scott" from negotiating the foreign loan which was needed for its completion. That enterprise was abandoned, and a half-mile of graded road-bed alone remains as a sort of tumulus to the blighted hopes and bitter memories of the time. The name of the unfortunate "Tom Scott"—since defunct—remains also a byword and a reproach. Now, however, the "California Southern" is actually at work, and under contract to complete the one hundred and sixteen miles necessary to meet the Southern Pacific, at a point near San Bernardino, within a short time. It is to be a link in the new "Atlantic and Pacific," which is to follow the thirty-fifth parallel, and become a trans-continental road by means of connection with the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé.

The capital and management of the California Southern are largely supplied by the same Boston company directing the Mexican Central, the line to Guaymas from the Arizona frontier, and others. A farther road is projected