The Legends of San Francisco
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The Legends of San Francisco - George W. (George Walter) Caldwell
Project Gutenberg's The Legends of San Francisco, by George W. Caldwell
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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Title: The Legends of San Francisco
Author: George W. Caldwell
Release Date: April 13, 2009 [EBook #6076]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEGENDS OF SAN FRANCISCO ***
Produced by David Schwan, and David Widger
LEGENDS OF SAN FRANCISCO
Other Books by the Same Author:
Legends of Southern California.
Oriental Rambles.
Rainbow Stories.
The Wizzywab.
By George W. Caldwell, M. D.
Dedication.
My San Francisco on her seven hills is smiling,
Beside an opalescent sunset sea;
There is a magic in her bracing air beguiling,
Yet filling all with tireless energy.
The tingling tang of open sea the breeze is giving;
The fog rolls in and drives heat languors out,
And thrills her loyal subjects with the joy of living,
And puts the love of idleness to rout.
When in the valleys, fervent summer heat oppresses,
And gives no, respite night or day,
There is a City that the cooling fog caresses,
Upon the breezy San Francisco Bay.
When winter rains and sun have wrought in fragrant flowers
A multicolored carpet on the land,
A charm is in her circling hills and redwood bowers
That only those who see can understand.
She has a mystic charm in all the changing seasons—
A lure that brings the stranger to her door,
And in these pages I will give the Indian's reasons
For charms and lures, never told before.
The legends of the hills, the fog, the gulls, the waters
Idealize the beautiful and true;
Allow me, therefore, California's Native Daughters,
To dedicate this book of verse to you.
Contents
The Maid of Tamalpais.
This she told me in the firelight
As I sat beside her campfire,
In a grove of giant redwoods,
On the slope of Tamalpais.
Old she was, and bent and wrinkled,
Lone survivor of the Tamals,
Ancient tribe of Indian people,
Who have left their name and legend
On the mountain they held sacred.
On the ground she sat and brooded,
With a blanket wrapped around her—
Sat and gazed into the campfire.
On her bronze and furrowed features,
On her hair of snowy whiteness,
Played the shadows and the firelight.
Long she gazed into the embers,
And I feared I had offended
In the question I had asked her.
Then she spoke in measured accents,
Slowly, with a mournful cadence,
And long intervals of silence.
"You have asked me why my people
Will not climb Mount Tamalpais—
Why we hold the mountain sacred.
I am old, and when the Raven
Calls my spirit to the Father,
None will know the ancient story,
Sacred legend of the Tamals.
Therefore, I will tell the story,
I will tell and you shall write it,
Else it will be lost forever;
I will tell it that the paleface
May respect our sacred mountain."
"In the morning of creation
All the world was covered over
With the flood of troubled waters.
Only Beaver and the Turtle
Swam about upon the surface.
Beaver said, 'I'm very