A Floating Hermit's Morning Devotions

1896

Hermits who make their homes in the caves and forests of California are plentiful, but a hermit who makes his home on the water is not so common.

The first one that has ever been seen in the bay of San Francisco is now living in a small scow, or ark, in the cove near Black Point. There he spends his days, and with the exception of an occasional drifting cruise along the front in a small skiff he never leaves the home he has made of the old, battered craft, which is named "Southern Pacific."

Every morning, rain or shine, he is up before sunrise. Climbing a ladder raised against an impromptu mast he reaches a small platform. On this he kneels and begins his morning orisons. First he sings a hymn. Sometimes his voice can be heard, chanting the melody at Black Point, and at other times he can barely be heard by the fishermen who are waiting the turn on tide in Black Point Cove. Then he will read a chapter from the Bible and after that he prays that the kingdom of the Messiah may come and that heaven be established on earth.

If it is a fine morning the sun by this time is well up in the heavens and the sun rise gun has been fired half an hour previously. The hermit descends from his lofty perch and pumps out his frail craft, in order to keep her afloat for another twenty-four hours. — San Francisco Call.