United States

In spite of Kyoto's eight hundred temples I could not get any but a materialistic concept of its inhabitants; and elsewhere this impression was emphasised. A stranger cannot, of course, know; he can but record his feelings, without claiming any authority for them. But I am sure I was never in a country where I perceived fewer indications of any spiritual life. Every one is busy; every one seems to be happy or at any rate not discontented; every one chatters and laughs and is, one feels, a fatalist. Sufficient unto the day!

In Chicago the weather was wet and cold, and it was not until after I had left that I learned of the presence there of certain literary collections which I may now perhaps never see. But I spent much time in the Museum, where there is one of the finest Hobbemas in the world, and where two such different creative artists as Claude Monet and Josiah Wedgwood are especially honoured.

Looking back on it all I realise that America never struck me as a new country, although its inhabitants often seemed to be a new people. The cities are more mature than the citizens. New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington - all have an air of permanence and age. The buildings, even the most fantastic, suggest indigenousness, or at least stability; nor would the presence of more ancient structures increase this effect.

There have been seven Delhis; and it required no little courage to establish a new one - the Imperial capital - actually within sight of most of them; but the courage was forthcoming. Originally the position was to be to the north of the present city, where the Coronation Durbar spread its canvas, but Raisina was found to be healthier, and it is there, some five miles to the south-west, that the new palaces are rising from the rock. Fatehpur-Sikri is the only city with which the New Delhi can be compared; but not Akbar himself could devise it on a nobler scale.

I left Kyoto for Yokohama on Wednesday night, March 17, 1920, at eleven, and Thursday, March 18, 1920, thus remains with me as a red-letter day, for it was then, at about half-past seven in the morning, that, lifting the blind of my sleeping compartment, I saw - almost within reach, as it seemed, dazzlingly white under its snow against a clear blue sky, with the sun flooding it with glory - Fujiyama. I was to see it again several times - for I went to Myanoshita for that purpose - but never again so startlingly and wonderfully as this.

We have our cinema theatres in England in some abundance, but the cinema is not yet in the blood here as in America. In America picture-palaces are palaces indeed - with gold and marble, and mural decorations, built to seat thousands - and every newspaper has its cinema page, where the activities of the movie stars in their courses are chronicled every morning. Moreover, America is the home of the industry; and rightly so, for it has, I should say, been abundantly proved that Americans are the only people who really understand both cinema acting and cinema production.

  Capt. Dupont 
  Gen. Kearny 
  The presidio 
  Appointed Alcalde 
  Gen. Kearny's proclamation 
  Arrival of Col. Stevenson's regiment 

  First settlement of the missionaries 
  Population 
  Characteristics of white population 
  Employments 
  Pleasures and amusements 
  Position of women 

A Description of Its Soil, Climate, Productions, and Gold Mines; with the Best Routes and Latest Information for Intending Emigrants. To which is annexed, an Appendix Containing official documents and letters authenticating the accounts of the quantities of gold found, with its actual value ascertained by chemical assay. Also late communications containing accounts of the highest interest and importance from the gold districts.

by Edwin Bryan

1849

The following is an official account of a visit paid to the gold region in July by Colonel Mason, who had been appointed to the military command in California, and made his report to the authorities at Washington. It is dated from head-quarters at Monterey, August 17, 1848.