I Particularly Noticed One Of His Fields Of
Wheat, Comprising 2,000 Acres, As Level And Clean As A Well-Kept Lady's
Flower Garden In England.
The Americans have a greater variety of foods served at their meals than
we do, but I never got the flavour of meat cut from a joint to equal
that which, when really well roasted and served, we get in England.
As
to bread, I never tasted bread worth the name, from the time I left
London to the time I returned to it. Alike on the Cunard steamers, cars,
hotels, etc., you can get no wholemeal bread. French and Vienna breads,
and other very white abortions of that kind are obtainable in abundance,
and even a kind of brown bread, and "Graham's" bread, but good honest
wholemeal bread, containing all the properties of the full kernel of the
wheat, it is impossible to get, and this to me was a very great
deprivation, as my principal article of food is real wholemeal
bread.
The system of the custody of letters at the large American hotels
appeared to me rather unsafe. A visitor asks for letters, whereupon
there are handed to him all the letters in the pigeon-hole marked with
the initial of which the visitor's name commences. The visitor then
proceeds to look through them, and takes what he chooses, and hands the
rest back. The official is too busy, or it is not customary for him, to
look through them for the visitor, or even to watch the visitor in his
process of selection. I noticed one gentleman with a packet of letters,
I should think considerably over a hundred, every now and then slip one
into his breast pocket and give a furtive glance, which did not inspire
confidence, but probably this is a well accustomed habit of the people,
and the letters, perhaps, are as safe as the newspapers I frequently saw
deposited on the tops of the street letter boxes (outside the boxes),
because they were too large to be put inside; of course anyone could
have taken them, but the custom not to touch them is probably honourably
recognized. The street letter boxes are quite small square boxes, not
large pillar boxes as are ours in this country.
I should like to have remarked more generally on America, but both time
and space fail me. Of course, as most people know, the (to us)
disgusting practice of spitting is common in America; spittoons are
universally provided in public and private places. At Merced Court House
is this notice: "Gentlemen will not, and others should not spit upon the
floors." Huge spittoons are provided there.
The awful guttural which precedes the constant expectoration of
Americans is most trying. It excites in persons near them and who are
unaccustomed to it, a sensation of necessity to vomit, as it conveys a
fear that your neighbour is about to vomit over you. It is not the
excusable expectoration arising from an accumalation in the air
passages, but a continuous fusilade of saliva. It is a disgusting
practice, and I believe will die out in America as its citizens travel
more in the old countries and become used to manners more refined than
such a one as this. I observed that my clients in California, who have
travelled in Europe, and other travelled Americans, are not guilty of
this odious practice.
I would say to Englishmen travelling in America, don't condescend to the
"guessing" and other loose styles of expression, and don't affect the
nasal twang. Americans, with all their boast of one man being as good as
another, are greatly pleased to entertain or travel with Englishmen
having a title, and they pay a marked respect to Britishers who speak in
a classical style, and who, while being devoid of foppishness, bounce,
or vulgarity, conduct themselves with a genial dignity.
=California.=
I will now say something about California, and then proceed to describe
the lands for sale, and the prospects of those who will settle upon
them.
California lies on the genial coast of the Pacific Ocean, midway between
the too cold regions of the North and the too hot regions of the South.
To be exact, the mean temperature in San Francisco in the month of
January, averages about 49 deg.. It has varied from 53 deg. to 39 deg.. The record
of 32 years shows that between sunrise and sunset it has not been so low
as 32 deg. on more than 10 days. Snow is sometimes seen to fall, but it
melts immediately.
California has a bright, genial climate, and is described as
"pre-eminently a sunny land." The early spring, commencing about the
middle of February and lasting about six weeks, is a very pleasant part
of the year, but April is described as the "cheeriest." December and
January are the least pleasant, because it is the rainy and winter
season.
Thunderstorms are rare, and no hurricane has ever been known there. The
rainfall of California is about twenty inches, and the rainy days number
about sixty in the year, or about half the number of rainy days
experienced in the Atlantic States or Central Europe.
Amongst the fruits grown in abundance are the orange, grape, peach,
apricot, plum, cherry, apple, nectarine, fig, lemon, lime, olive, date,
and all the berries of value.
Besides the immense growth of choice and luscious Fruits, for which
California is famous all over the globe, it claims to have the largest
milk, butter, and cheese dairies in the world. It is also renowned for
its mineral riches, its immense mercantile business, its manufacturing
industries, its production of wool, its gigantic timber, its wealth of
beauty in flowers, its fast horses, its grand scenery, embracing lofty
mountains, deep valleys, expansive fertile plains, and all the
variations of a beautiful country, with many rivers, and a magnificent
sea coast, whilst the "coast range" and the slopes of the "Sierra" offer
to the sportsman such game in abundance as grizzly and cinnamon bears
and Californian lions.
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