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A fast run brings me back in time to take leave of the few I knew and who knew me, and to reach the steamer before she sails. A last look yes, last for life to the beach, the hills, the low point, the distant town, as we round Point Loma and the first beams of the light-house strike out towards the setting sun. Wednesday, August 24th. At anchor at San Pedro by daylight.
If you can imagine an American several hundred years from now one in which Point Loma had never been; several hundred years more unromantic than this one; an America fallen and grown haggard and toothless; with all impulse to progress and invention gone; with centrifugal tendencies always loosening the bond of union; advancing, and having steadily advanced, further from all religious sanctions, from anything she may retain of the atmosphere of mystery and folklore and the poetry of racial childhood; you may get a picture of the mental state of that China.
Loma lay smoking, a city of ruin, behind them, all its defenders dead; there was no one left to pursue them, and yet their Indian instincts told them that all was scarcely well. They had gone three days along that narrow ledge: mountain quite smooth, incredible, above them, and precipice as smooth and as far below.
I done that odd times the year I was on the place. The sheep I sold; sheep's a good price now. I only had seventeen coyotes and greasers, they kep' stealin' 'em on me, or I'd 'n' had more. I'd 'a' lost 'em all, I guess, if it hadn't been for Loma dog I got with me. Them " Peter looked at his watch in that furtive way which polite persons employ when time presses and a companion is garrulous.
From the Mexican line to San Diego is not far a matter of twenty miles or so. Across the mouth of San Diego bay, on the inner shore of which sits the town, North Island stretches itself like a huge alligator lying with its back above water; a long, low, sandy expanse of barrenness that leaves only a narrow inlet between its westernmost tip and the long rocky finger of Point Loma.
The entrance was very narrow. On the left jutted out a high, brown, brushy point named Point Loma, with a solid white lighthouse, built long ago by the Spaniards, standing forth as a landmark on the very nose. On the right was what looked to be a long, low, sandy island, fringed by the dazzling surf, and shimmering in the sun.
People who go burrowing into that are again seeking a substitute for Vision, and a very poisonous one. If I may speak of a personal experience: coming to Point Loma from London was like coming from the bottom of the sea into the upper ether.
"I'm getting at the Count. What do you know about him?" "Nothing. I know nothing about him. I've met him, that's all." "Have you ever visited his home at Point Loma, San Diego?" Schwinn stared at me without answering. "Have you ever been there?" I repeated. "Yes," he said slowly.
"Yes, Anza christened it in 1776 when he climbed up here for a view after selecting the sites for the Presidio and the Mission. He called it La Loma Alta, and the High Hill it remained until the Americans put it to commercial use in forty-nine.
The beauty of the sea and shore was almost indescribable: on one side rose Point Loma, grim and gloomy as a fortress wall; before me stretched away to the horizon the ocean with its miles of breakers curling into foam; between the surf and the city, wrapped in its dark blue mantle, lay the sleeping bay; eastward, the mingled yellow, red, and white of San Diego's buildings glistened in the sunlight like a bed of coleus; beyond the city heaved the rolling plains, rich in their garb of golden brown, from which rose distant mountains, tier on tier, wearing the purple veil which Nature here loves oftenest to weave for them; while, in the foreground, like a jewel in a brilliant setting, stood the Coronado.
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