Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/132

104 THE TOURIST'S CALIFORNIA The city is no more famous for its bay than for its eminences. Telegraph Hill, which strag- gles abruptly upward to the right as one ap- proaches from Oakland, formerly carried on its shoulder the semaphore which signalled the ar- rival of incoming vessels to crowds waiting below. A walk around its sides, scarred now by the gouge of contractors' shovels, yields* sunny pictures of rickety galleries a-bloom, and of gay wares ar- rayed before dusk, garlicy shops. The Kearny Street cars bring one close to its base ; from there precipiced paths steep aisles to another world lead past embattled nooks. In one, a Genoese mother idles with her children. Yonder is a young madonna who wears a Sicilian head-kerchief and stitches on little garments of yellow or pink. If the sempstress but raise her eyes she may profit by the view the city march- ing briskly in long, new-builded files ; the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun rife with the pennants of many nations ; the estuaries of two great rivers pouring out their tribute of deep- laden boats ; the rainbow fleet of the fishermen her husband is with them as they push out from the wharf just under the hill; she sees misty blue heights glooming behind Alameda and Oakland and away behind Sausalito and San Rafael; she looks down on the close-drawn shores which leave but a narrow way between bay and ocean, and be-