Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter XXV

IN WHICH A SLIGHT GLIMPSE IS HAD OF SAN FRAN­CIS­CO

It was sev­en in the morn­ing when Mr. Fogg, Aou­da, and Passep­artout set foot up­on the Amer­ican con­ti­nent, if this name can be giv­en to the float­ing quay up­on which they dis­em­barked. These quays, ris­ing and falling with the tide, thus fa­cil­itate the load­ing and un­load­ing of ves­sels. Along­side them were clip­pers of all sizes, steam­ers of all na­tion­al­ities, and the steam­boats, with sev­er­al decks ris­ing one above the oth­er, which ply on the Sacra­men­to and its trib­utaries. There were al­so heaped up the prod­ucts of a com­merce which ex­tends to Mex­ico, Chili, Pe­ru, Brazil, Eu­rope, Asia, and all the Pa­cif­ic is­lands.

Passep­artout, in his joy on reach­ing at last the Amer­ican con­ti­nent, thought he would man­ifest it by ex­ecut­ing a per­ilous vault in fine style; but, tum­bling up­on some worm-​eat­en planks, he fell through them. Put out of coun­te­nance by the man­ner in which he thus “set foot” up­on the New World, he ut­tered a loud cry, which so fright­ened the in­nu­mer­able cor­morants and pel­icans that are al­ways perched up­on these mov­able quays, that they flew nois­ily away.

Mr. Fogg, on reach­ing shore, pro­ceed­ed to find out at what hour the first train left for New York, and learned that this was at six o'clock p.m.; he had, there­fore, an en­tire day to spend in the Cal­ifor­ni­an cap­ital. Tak­ing a car­riage at a charge of three dol­lars, he and Aou­da en­tered it, while Passep­artout mount­ed the box be­side the driv­er, and they set out for the In­ter­na­tion­al Ho­tel.

From his ex­alt­ed po­si­tion Passep­artout ob­served with much cu­rios­ity the wide streets, the low, even­ly ranged hous­es, the An­glo-​Sax­on Goth­ic church­es, the great docks, the pala­tial wood­en and brick ware­hous­es, the nu­mer­ous con­veyances, om­nibus­es, horse-​cars, and up­on the side-​walks, not on­ly Amer­icans and Eu­ro­peans, but Chi­nese and In­di­ans. Passep­artout was sur­prised at all he saw. San Fran­cis­co was no longer the leg­endary city of 1849--a city of ban­dit­ti, as­sas­sins, and in­cen­di­aries, who had flocked hith­er in crowds in pur­suit of plun­der; a par­adise of out­laws, where they gam­bled with gold-​dust, a re­volver in one hand and a bowie-​knife in the oth­er: it was now a great com­mer­cial em­po­ri­um.

The lofty tow­er of its City Hall over­looked the whole panora­ma of the streets and av­enues, which cut each oth­er at right-​an­gles, and in the midst of which ap­peared pleas­ant, ver­dant squares, while be­yond ap­peared the Chi­nese quar­ter, seem­ing­ly im­port­ed from the Ce­les­tial Em­pire in a toy-​box. Som­breros and red shirts and plumed In­di­ans were rarely to be seen; but there were silk hats and black coats ev­ery­where worn by a mul­ti­tude of ner­vous­ly ac­tive, gen­tle­man­ly-​look­ing men. Some of the streets--es­pe­cial­ly Mont­gomery Street, which is to San Fran­cis­co what Re­gent Street is to Lon­don, the Boule­vard des Ital­iens to Paris, and Broad­way to New York--were lined with splen­did and spa­cious stores, which ex­posed in their win­dows the prod­ucts of the en­tire world.

When Passep­artout reached the In­ter­na­tion­al Ho­tel, it did not seem to him as if he had left Eng­land at all.

The ground floor of the ho­tel was oc­cu­pied by a large bar, a sort of restau­rant freely open to all passers-​by, who might par­take of dried beef, oys­ter soup, bis­cuits, and cheese, with­out tak­ing out their purs­es. Pay­ment was made on­ly for the ale, porter, or sher­ry which was drunk. This seemed “very Amer­ican” to Passep­artout. The ho­tel re­fresh­ment-​rooms were com­fort­able, and Mr. Fogg and Aou­da, in­stalling them­selves at a ta­ble, were abun­dant­ly served on diminu­tive plates by ne­groes of dark­est hue.

Af­ter break­fast, Mr. Fogg, ac­com­pa­nied by Aou­da, start­ed for the En­glish con­sulate to have his pass­port visaed. As he was go­ing out, he met Passep­artout, who asked him if it would not be well, be­fore tak­ing the train, to pur­chase some dozens of En­field ri­fles and Colt's re­volvers. He had been lis­ten­ing to sto­ries of at­tacks up­on the trains by the Sioux and Pawnees. Mr. Fogg thought it a use­less pre­cau­tion, but told him to do as he thought best, and went on to the con­sulate.

He had not pro­ceed­ed two hun­dred steps, how­ev­er, when, “by the great­est chance in the world,” he met Fix. The de­tec­tive seemed whol­ly tak­en by sur­prise. What! Had Mr. Fogg and him­self crossed the Pa­cif­ic to­geth­er, and not met on the steam­er! At least Fix felt hon­oured to be­hold once more the gen­tle­man to whom he owed so much, and, as his busi­ness re­called him to Eu­rope, he should be de­light­ed to con­tin­ue the jour­ney in such pleas­ant com­pa­ny.

Mr. Fogg replied that the hon­our would be his; and the de­tec­tive--who was de­ter­mined not to lose sight of him--begged per­mis­sion to ac­com­pa­ny them in their walk about San Fran­cis­co--a re­quest which Mr. Fogg read­ily grant­ed.

They soon found them­selves in Mont­gomery Street, where a great crowd was col­lect­ed; the side-​walks, street, horse­car rails, the shop-​doors, the win­dows of the hous­es, and even the roofs, were full of peo­ple. Men were go­ing about car­ry­ing large posters, and flags and stream­ers were float­ing in the wind; while loud cries were heard on ev­ery hand.

“Hur­rah for Camer­field!”

“Hur­rah for Mandi­boy!”

It was a po­lit­ical meet­ing; at least so Fix con­jec­tured, who said to Mr. Fogg, “Per­haps we had bet­ter not min­gle with the crowd. There may be dan­ger in it.”

“Yes,” re­turned Mr. Fogg; “and blows, even if they are po­lit­ical are still blows.”

Fix smiled at this re­mark; and, in or­der to be able to see with­out be­ing jos­tled about, the par­ty took up a po­si­tion on the top of a flight of steps sit­uat­ed at the up­per end of Mont­gomery Street. Op­po­site them, on the oth­er side of the street, be­tween a coal wharf and a petroleum ware­house, a large plat­form had been erect­ed in the open air, to­wards which the cur­rent of the crowd seemed to be di­rect­ed.

For what pur­pose was this meet­ing? What was the oc­ca­sion of this ex­cit­ed as­sem­blage? Phileas Fogg could not imag­ine. Was it to nom­inate some high of­fi­cial--a gov­er­nor or mem­ber of Congress? It was not im­prob­able, so ag­itat­ed was the mul­ti­tude be­fore them.

Just at this mo­ment there was an un­usu­al stir in the hu­man mass. All the hands were raised in the air. Some, tight­ly closed, seemed to dis­ap­pear sud­den­ly in the midst of the cries--an en­er­get­ic way, no doubt, of cast­ing a vote. The crowd swayed back, the ban­ners and flags wa­vered, dis­ap­peared an in­stant, then reap­peared in tat­ters. The un­du­la­tions of the hu­man surge reached the steps, while all the heads floun­dered on the sur­face like a sea ag­itat­ed by a squall. Many of the black hats dis­ap­peared, and the greater part of the crowd seemed to have di­min­ished in height.

“It is ev­ident­ly a meet­ing,” said Fix, “and its ob­ject must be an ex­cit­ing one. I should not won­der if it were about the Al­aba­ma, de­spite the fact that that ques­tion is set­tled.”

“Per­haps,” replied Mr. Fogg, sim­ply.

“At least, there are two cham­pi­ons in pres­ence of each oth­er, the Hon­ourable Mr. Camer­field and the Hon­ourable Mr. Mandi­boy.”

Aou­da, lean­ing up­on Mr. Fogg's arm, ob­served the tu­mul­tuous scene with sur­prise, while Fix asked a man near him what the cause of it all was. Be­fore the man could re­ply, a fresh ag­ita­tion arose; hur­rahs and ex­cit­ed shouts were heard; the staffs of the ban­ners be­gan to be used as of­fen­sive weapons; and fists flew about in ev­ery di­rec­tion. Thumps were ex­changed from the tops of the car­riages and om­nibus­es which had been blocked up in the crowd. Boots and shoes went whirling through the air, and Mr. Fogg thought he even heard the crack of re­volvers min­gling in the din, the rout ap­proached the stair­way, and flowed over the low­er step. One of the par­ties had ev­ident­ly been re­pulsed; but the mere look­ers-​on could not tell whether Mandi­boy or Camer­field had gained the up­per hand.

“It would be pru­dent for us to re­tire,” said Fix, who was anx­ious that Mr. Fogg should not re­ceive any in­jury, at least un­til they got back to Lon­don. “If there is any ques­tion about Eng­land in all this, and we were recog­nised, I fear it would go hard with us.”

“An En­glish sub­ject--” be­gan Mr. Fogg.

He did not fin­ish his sen­tence; for a ter­rif­ic hub­bub now arose on the ter­race be­hind the flight of steps where they stood, and there were fran­tic shouts of, “Hur­rah for Mandi­boy! Hip, hip, hur­rah!”

It was a band of vot­ers com­ing to the res­cue of their al­lies, and tak­ing the Camer­field forces in flank. Mr. Fogg, Aou­da, and Fix found them­selves be­tween two fires; it was too late to es­cape. The tor­rent of men, armed with load­ed canes and sticks, was ir­re­sistible. Phileas Fogg and Fix were rough­ly hus­tled in their at­tempts to pro­tect their fair com­pan­ion; the for­mer, as cool as ev­er, tried to de­fend him­self with the weapons which na­ture has placed at the end of ev­ery En­glish­man's arm, but in vain. A big brawny fel­low with a red beard, flushed face, and broad shoul­ders, who seemed to be the chief of the band, raised his clenched fist to strike Mr. Fogg, whom he would have giv­en a crush­ing blow, had not Fix rushed in and re­ceived it in his stead. An enor­mous bruise im­me­di­ate­ly made its ap­pear­ance un­der the de­tec­tive's silk hat, which was com­plete­ly smashed in.

“Yan­kee!” ex­claimed Mr. Fogg, dart­ing a con­temp­tu­ous look at the ruf­fi­an.

“En­glish­man!” re­turned the oth­er. “We will meet again!”

“When you please.”

“What is your name?”

“Phileas Fogg. And yours?”

“Colonel Stamp Proc­tor.”

The hu­man tide now swept by, af­ter over­turn­ing Fix, who speed­ily got up­on his feet again, though with tat­tered clothes. Hap­pi­ly, he was not se­ri­ous­ly hurt. His trav­el­ling over­coat was di­vid­ed in­to two un­equal parts, and his trousers re­sem­bled those of cer­tain In­di­ans, which fit less com­pact­ly than they are easy to put on. Aou­da had es­caped un­harmed, and Fix alone bore marks of the fray in his black and blue bruise.

“Thanks,” said Mr. Fogg to the de­tec­tive, as soon as they were out of the crowd.

“No thanks are nec­es­sary,” replied. Fix; “but let us go.”

“Where?”

“To a tai­lor's.”

Such a vis­it was, in­deed, op­por­tune. The cloth­ing of both Mr. Fogg and Fix was in rags, as if they had them­selves been ac­tive­ly en­gaged in the con­test be­tween Camer­field and Mandi­boy. An hour af­ter, they were once more suit­ably at­tired, and with Aou­da re­turned to the In­ter­na­tion­al Ho­tel.

Passep­artout was wait­ing for his mas­ter, armed with half a dozen six-​bar­relled re­volvers. When he per­ceived Fix, he knit his brows; but Aou­da hav­ing, in a few words, told him of their ad­ven­ture, his coun­te­nance re­sumed its placid ex­pres­sion. Fix ev­ident­ly was no longer an en­emy, but an al­ly; he was faith­ful­ly keep­ing his word.

Din­ner over, the coach which was to con­vey the pas­sen­gers and their lug­gage to the sta­tion drew up to the door. As he was get­ting in, Mr. Fogg said to Fix, “You have not seen this Colonel Proc­tor again?”

“No.”

“I will come back to Amer­ica to find him,” said Phileas Fogg calm­ly. “It would not be right for an En­glish­man to per­mit him­self to be treat­ed in that way, with­out re­tal­iat­ing.”

The de­tec­tive smiled, but did not re­ply. It was clear that Mr. Fogg was one of those En­glish­men who, while they do not tol­er­ate du­elling at home, fight abroad when their hon­our is at­tacked.

At a quar­ter be­fore six the trav­ellers reached the sta­tion, and found the train ready to de­part. As he was about to en­ter it, Mr. Fogg called a porter, and said to him: “My friend, was there not some trou­ble to-​day in San Fran­cis­co?”

“It was a po­lit­ical meet­ing, sir,” replied the porter.

“But I thought there was a great deal of dis­tur­bance in the streets.”

“It was on­ly a meet­ing as­sem­bled for an elec­tion.”

“The elec­tion of a gen­er­al-​in-​chief, no doubt?” asked Mr. Fogg.

“No, sir; of a jus­tice of the peace.”

Phileas Fogg got in­to the train, which start­ed off at full speed.