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University of California • Berkeley
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THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS
THROUGH
STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS
WHAT FOUR PEOPLE SAW ON A JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOUTHWEST TO THE PACIFIC COAST.
BY
H. S. KNEEDLER.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS,
CINCINNATI: THE A. H. PUGH PRINTING Co
OCTOBER, i8g8.
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY H. S. KNEKDLER.
P11
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.— A Parting Look at New Orleans— The River Scene, Quaint Life — The " Sunset Limited "—Off for the Pacific Coast— The Bayou des Allemands and its Traditions — Gibson and the Indian Mounds 7
CHAPTER II. — Morgan City and its Peculiar Industries— Fort Star, Oneonta Park and the Baron Natili — Plantation Homes upon the Teche 21
CHAPTER III.— The Great Salt Mine of Petit Anse— Its Geology and History— Where Tabasco Sauce is Made — The Islands of the Gulf Coast — The Prairie Home of the Acadians — An Ideal Home 27
CHAPTER IV. — New Iberia and St. Martinsville— Ex-Lieutenant Governor Mouton and the Narrative of Early Acadian Occupancy— Glimpses of Life in the Bayou Region in the Early Part of the Century — A Land of Fertile Prom- ise, as the Settler has Discovered 37
CHAPTER V.— Traditions of La Fitte, the Pirate of the Gulf, that Adhere to the Region Traversed— Exploits about Lafayette and on the Mermentau and Calcasieu — Digging for Buried Treasure — Playing on Popular Credulity 4!
CHAPTER VI.— Crowley and Lake Charles — A Life Romance that Runs Back to the French Rebellion in Canada — The Thrifty City that has Grown up where once the Rio Hondo Claims Excited Interest — A Pioneer's Reminiscence — The Sulphur Mine 47
CHAPTER VII. — In the Great Pine Districts of Western Louisiana and Eastern Texas — The Original Forests of the Continent — How the Lumber Interests have been Developed — The Emigration of an Industry 51
CHAPTER VIII. — From the Texas Border to San Antonio — Sour Lake — Thrifty Towns upon the Way — A Word About the Road You Travel Over — The Busy Commercial Center of Houston — The Colonel Relapses into Statistics 55
CHAPTER IX. — San Antonio, the Gem City of the Southwest — Its Ancient Missions — The Alamo — In the Mexican Quarter — The Curio Vender Appears — The Birth of the Opal 61
CHAPTER X.— On to Devil's River — The Home of the Mocking Bird— The Land of Promise when Water is Used— The Arid Region 'of the Continent — I'lant Life of the Plains— Sabinal and its Kaoline Deposits— Uvalde — Cline and its New Industry — Spofford, the Junction Point for Mexico 69
CHAPTER XI. — Del Rio and the Springs of San Felipi — Fertility of the Soil Demonstrated — A Sulphur Water — Duval West's Hunting Story — Along the Banks of the Rio Grande, with Mexico in Sight — Devil's River — Santa Rosa Mountains — Rarity of the Atmosphere— The Old Stage Routes Across the Plains — The Great Pecos Bridge — A Girl's Intrepidity — The Fortitude of a Mexican Teamster 75
CHAPTER XII.— Roy Bean and Langtry— " The Law West of the Pecos"- Anec- dotes of an Erratic Jurist in Adapting Law to the Requirements of the Fron- tier ; Divorces People. Fines Dead Men for Carrying Concealed Weapons, and Knows no Law that Makes it a Crime to Kill a Chinaman 81
CHAPTER XIII.— The Detectives of the Wilderness— Where Hold Ups used to Occur— Silver Mines — A Woman's Courage and Affection — Down the Le Sano Pass — Paisano, the Summit of the Sunset Route, elevation 5,082 feet — Sierra Blanca and the Howard Massacre 9r
4 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
PAGB
CHAPTER XIV.— El Paso and the Ancient Mexican Town of Ciudad Juarez— The Thrilling Early Life of the Place — Crossing the Plains when the Apaches were Raiding— The Old Church and its Venerable Priest — The Smelter- Monuments on the National Boundary Line 99
CHAPTER XV.— Across New Mexico— The Mirage— Possibilities and Wealth of the Territory — The Climate — Early Court Incident— The Spanish Discoverers — Deming — Through Stein's Pass into Arizona — Cochise's Head upon the Mountain Top — Cacti and its Uses — Benson, the Junction Point for Guaymas and Tombstone — Cieneta River Canon— Va-ls and its Bat Caves 107
CHAPTER XVI.— Tucson and the Ancient Mission of San Xavier— A City with a Wild Past and Thrifty Present — Warm Valleys where Corn Tassels in a Month — The Imposing Church under the Shadow of the Rincon Mountains — The Indian School — Papago Reservation — Lost Civilizations of Arizona— The Casa Grande Ruins and the Vast Irrigating Canals— Maricopa, the Junction Point for Phoenix— The Painted Rocks of the Gila River — A Gila Monster — Lost Mines — Yuma and its History 115
CHAPTER XVII.— First Glimpses of California— The Colorado Desert— Two Hun- dred and Sixty-three Feet Below Sea Level — Bubbling Mud Volcanoes— Salton and its Great Salt Sea — Nomads of the Desert— Indio, the Vidette of Verdure- clad California — San Gorgonio Pass — The Snow Peaks of San Jacinto and San Bernardino— Some Figures about California and a Bit of History — The Climate — Redlands — Riverside and San Bernardino — A Veteran Politician 129
CHAPTER XVIII. — Los Angeles, its Flower-embowered Homes and Busy Com- mercial Life — Fremont's Ride to Monterey— Santa Monica and its Surf Bath- ing— Soldiers' Home and Ostrich Farms — Up the Great Incline Railway to Mt. Lowe — Pasadena— Port Los Angeles — San Pedro and the Fair Island of Santa Catalina — The Growler Feels Badly — An Ocean-hemmed Paradise 143
CHAPTER XIX.— Up the Main Line Through the Tehachapi Pass and the San Joaquin Valley to San Francisco — The San Fernando Tunnel — How Banning Drove Over the Line — Saugus, the Junction Point for Santa Barbara — The Soledad Canon — A Bit of Mojave Desert — Wealth and Extent of the Great San Joaquin Valley — The Wild Flowers— Irrigation Canals and Lumber Flumes — Berenda and the Yosemite — First Glimpses of the Bays — Looking Out Through the Golden Gate 155
CHAPTER XX.— San Francisco— The Story of a Great Capital's Growth Told in Brief — The Golden Gate Park — Buffaloes and Grizzly— Seal Rocks and Sutro Heights — A Vision of Far Isles — An Inspection of the Curious Sights and Out- of-the-Way Places of Chinatown — The Stores, Artisans, Street Life, Opium Dens, Underground Dives, Theatre, Joss House and Restaurant — Pen Picture of a Sail About the Bay 167
CHAPTER XXL— On the Way to Portland and the Columbia River via the Shasta Route, with a Long "Side Trip" to Ogden and Salt Lake — The Valley of the Sacramento— Castle !Crags, Mossbrae Falls. Soda Springs — The Climb up the Mountain and the Vision of Shasta— Over the Siskiyous into Rogue River Val- ley— Portland — Across the Sierras— The Snow Sheds — Reno and the Truckee River — Sink of the Humboldt — Indians by the Way— Ogden — Salt Lake and its Sights 179
CHAPTER XXII. — Down the Coast Line to Santa Barbara — Stanford University — The Santa Clara Valley — San Jose— Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory — Over the Narrow Gauge to Santa Cruz— The Big Trees and San Lorenzo River Canon — The City by the Sea — Monterey and the Great Del Monte — Its Won- derful Gardens and Drives — Paso del Robles and its Hot Springs — Over the San Lucia Range to San Luis Obispo — Pacific Coast Railway and Stage Ride — Pismo Beach — Santa Barbara and its Venerable Mission — Along the Surf Line to Saugus — And the Girl says " Yes" 193
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION.
MOST of us are egotists — and none more so than he whose pretense makes him a good listener. So all of us profess, in a general way, a knowledge of our own land. Yet few of us really do know any part of it well, and it is akin to vanity to put forth the claim.
Now this modest brochure is the recital of some of those things which one may see and learn on a trip from New Orleans to the Pacific Coast over the lines of the Southern Pacific Company. Every traveler will note points of interest and learn many new facts appealing particularly to him which have been overlooked or ignored here. But when you grow critical, remember that the author was not writing merely for "our set," nor endeavoring to supply an encyclopedia.
All this would be dreadfully dry reading if put in the form of prosaic narrative, so it has'bsen told in dialogue to break the monotony, and the characters introduced have a purpose related to the facts which are sought to be brought out. Nor do the people go to bed at conventional hours, as in most well-regulated books of travel ; for if they did, the continuity of the narrative would be broken, and, like the Persian prince who travels on the enchanted carpet, you might miss much of interest while they slept.
The description takes you where the road leads — from the quaint his- toric city of New Orleans through the bayou region of Louisiana, where summer lingers and poetry is the hand-maiden of romance, across the sugar and rice and cotton country, into the cathedral aisles of the vast pine forests. Then beyond, where the great plains of Texas reach to far-off sky lines, through quaint towns and cities, where foreign speech and manners mingle with our Anglo-Saxon civilization. By the pillared Canon of the Rio Grande the way leads, and past the sepulchral cleft which the Pecos has worn in the bosom of the earth. On farther yet are the dim blue mount- ains and cacti-covered, tradition-fraught plains of New Mexico and Ari- zona ; the sand-girdled Gila and the implacable, mysterious Colorado that steadfastly rolls to its union with the California Gulf. Then comes the wonderland of the Pacific Coast — the jeweled, flower-begirt valleys and snow-clad peaks of California ; the glint of azure skies and sapphire seas ; of vine-clad hills and rose-embowered homes amid encircling groves of olive and of orange. Up the great San Joaquin Valley you go, and down the coast line, with many places of interest on the way to claim attention.
6 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
There is a tour of San Francisco, with pen pictures of its points of interest ; a suggestion of the beauties to be seen on a run up the valley of the mad Sacramento ; close skirting Shasta's rugged sides ; the passage of the Sis- kiyous, down Rogue River Valley to Portland and the majestic Columbia. Then, too, the story takes you eastward beyond the Sierras, by Donner's Lake, the wild Truckee River, the mysterious sink of the Humboldt, and to Ogden and Salt Lake City, lying close by the Dead Sea of America.
The temptation is to be discursive, because there is so much that appeals- to one by reason of its novelty and charm. But if the writer had cultivated such microscopic fidelity, this book would have been expanded into many volumes, and you, my reader, would have put the work aside until the prospective leisure of old age afforded opportunity to read it. So, in spite of its shortcomings, the free-hand sketch is better for our uses, and if it shall serve the purpose of inducing you to widen your mental perspective by seeing those things it suggests and describes in the wonderland of our country, it shall have accomplished its purpose. And in that hope it goes forth with its message.
THE AUTHOR.
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
CHAPTER I.
WHEREIN OUR TOURISTS TAKE A PARTING LOOK AT THE CRESCENT CITY AND THEN HIE THEM WESTWARD.
P^HE Girl insisted on going out on the bow of They take a X the boat. The Growler said something about ft^ew^rieans the fresh spring breeze from the Gulf and possible twinges of rheumatism, but the Girl poohooed it. The Colonel struck his umbrella sharply on the deck and said, " Confound it, sir, you're out of the rheumatic latitudes now, sir," and we all went forward to get a last glimpse of the great yellow river, the ship-lined levees and the encircling city of the crescent. Spire and tower and frowning sugar refineries, implacable grain elevators and smoky oil mills, with their flanking of cotton sheds and blanket-like expanse of roofs beyond, great low- lying steamers and pennant-be- decked ships that made one's thought run to far off seas and conjured up visions of busy spin- its exports and
NEW ORLEANS.
dies in Lowell and Leeds and Man- more than Chester, where the fleece of southern fields is woven into snowy fabrics ; white river steamers that are the carriers of commerce on many a
thousand miles of swift river and placid bayou in the great Valley of the Mississippi ; brown-canvased luggers manned by brawny Italians who ply their trade as oyster-men and fishermen upon the gulf, dusky stevedores who, with weird song, lighten their labor and link the traditions of far-off times in African jungles to the melody of to-day's toil as they roll corpulent
8
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The Girl grows enthusiastic.
The Growler's first growl.
Gallant defense by the Colonel.
hogsheads of sugar or bulging bales of cotton — so the panorama of the city, with its harmonious and incongruous details, blended and softened by distance, was merged into one composite picture that grew softer and fainter as the great transfer boat crossed toward the Algiers shore.
"Good-bye, old city," said the Girl, radiantly. "I love your quaint old streets and shops and piazza-befrilled French homes, and most of all your French opera and your rare abundance of summer goods, for," she added, pensively, "there is no place in the world where one can buy so many and such beautiful things for warm weather wear. Why, the organdies and muslins and dimities —
" It's a great pity we don't all wear petticoats," broke in the Growler, with dyspeptic irony. " For my part I can't imagine what there is to admire
LOADING COTTON ON THE NEW ORLKANS LEVEE.
about the place. It's as poky as a village in Flanders, and it must be as hot as the tropics in the summer."
"There you go again," replied the Colonel. "I don't want to bore you with statistics, but you have not seen as much of this old city as I have, nor studied it as closely. Why, confound it, sir, you find no end of fault with our English or Gallic cousins who come over to the United States, make a flying trip from New York to San Francisco, and go home in three months to write a book upon our social conditions. But here you are, after spend- ing three days in a very cursory inspection of the city, passing peremptory judgment upon it. You have only seen the surface, and mighty little of
A PARTING LOOK AT THE CRESCENT CITY.
9
that. Of course it gets warm in summer, but I can prove by any well- Not the same regulated thermometer that it don't get as hot as it does north of Mason and Dixon's line. It has nine months of the most delightful weather in the world, and when you are courting pneumonia every time you put your nose out of doors, the balm of its sunshine and the ozone of its breezes would mean prolonged life and health to you. The New Orleans you persistently keep in mind is the New Orleans you read about when you were a boy. HOW cities That city is fast disappearing — and confound it, sir, I'm more than half sorry it is, for it was a mighty good place in many respects. But now foreign capital is supplementing local wealth in building here the great
modern metropolis justified by its loca- tion and commercial
groy
THE FRENCH MARKET.
p to
importance. Sites for great commercial centers are not deliberately chosen beforehand and cities built to order.
"They are the unlocked for expansion of trade conditions, of which The city of
. to-day is up
their founders could ordinarily have no adequate conception, or are devel- date, oped by the necessities of a commerce which forced their location to some readily accessible distributing point. The New Orleans of your vision was a ragged town of hideously inadequate streets, dilapidated street cars drawn by deliberately moving mules, — a town where sanitary conditions were neglected, where business was carried on in a leisurely fashion, and people were content to do pretty much as their fathers and grandfathers had done. But the New Orleans of to-day has a couple of hundred miles of street paved with granite from the hills of New Hampshire and Massa- chusetts, it has a hundred and fifty miles of electric street railway, it will Audits
commerce is
soon have one of the most wonderful sewage systems in the world, and its out of sight cleanliness is already amply provided for. Its new hotels are thoroughly
10
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
But its future is its own.
modern, as are its great shops. Its musical and dramatic interests are catered to by the best talent of the world. The homes that have spread with wonderful rapidity of late years over large areas to the westward have con- verted great districts into charming places of residence. Its business is with the whole world. The railways that radiate from it and the hundreds of steam and sailing craft that tie to its twelve miles of docks carry goods to its customers all over the great Mississippi Valley, and bring their wealth-producing raw products in to reship them to every seaport of importance in the world. Great as it has been in the past, it will be greater in
A CITY OF THE DEAD IN NEW ORLEANS.
Why we of the North like it.
the future, for now it links with its traditions of chivalry and hospitality, and to the romance of its history, all the spirit and enterprise that modern methods and accumulating wealth hold forth as an incentive to progress in industry and comfort in living. It will be more potent in the years to come than it has been in the past, for it appeals both to the investor, the man of affairs who has the foresight to see its expanding opportunities for wealth- getting, and to the pleasure seeker of the North who flies to it to discover in its cosmopolitan life and Latin graces the relaxation he needs, and finds here, too, the invigoration of a climate as seductive as the shores of the Mediterranean. Tired of the rigor of those merciless northern winters, the tourist will come here in increasing numbers, to find in this delightful city, with its historic and romantic memories, or along the pine-fringed, island-
A PARTING LOOK AT THE CRESCENT CITY.
11
girdled gulf coast, the surcease from physical discomfort which a snow- mantled, blizzard-invested northern climate implies. Why — "
The Colonel had forgotten how closely the transfer had been getting to Almost shaken the Algiers shore while he talked, and just at this point, as its broad prow c swung against the dock head, he was almost jostled off his feet. I steadied him and said :
" I'm with you, in all you say, my dear Colonel, and you haven't put it a jot too strongly. It's the only city in the Union that isn't like every other city, and I hope that it will never get so _^s • V$\j
big or so modern that it will lose its distinctive
THE FRENCH QUARTER OF NKW ORLEANS.
characteristics. If its French quarter is ever abolished and its old shops Likes the old wiped out, its Cathedral modernized and its picturesque population smoothed and smothered by the process of assimilation, I'll stop running down here for a month every winter, and not even the gaiety and glamor of Mardi Gras shall tempt me."
"Yes, you will," replied the Girl, emphatically; "you would keep on Ah! a tender coming just the same, and continue to bore us as usual by persistently singing the praises of its oysters and fish and gumbo."
" Have no alarm," said the Growler, who seemed determined to have the last word ; " the charming results of assimilation will have no perceptible effect, young man, upon the characteristic elements of the population which you admire. In a hundred years from now your alleged picturesque darkey
12
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The pessimist refuses to be downed.
The "Sunset Limited " awaited them.
For the first time the ladies have a loung- ing parlor of their own.
will be as careless of to-morrow, and every whit as ragged and vocal, and your Italian fisherman will wear the same blue shirt and red bandanna, live on the same diet of claret and hard bread, and return to his beloved Italy with his savings, as he does now ; and if you are here at that time to prowl
to buy rickety old furniture, moth- I doubt not you will be the object voraciously await the unwary." but he didn't have time. The big
about your old shops and continue eaten hangings and cracked china, of attack by the same fleas that now
The Colonel was about to reply, boat jostled into her berth, the our luggage and started for the awaiting to bear us toward the far at night.
On the track, awaiting us, stood solid vestibuled train of Pullman ers the 2,489 miles between New seventy-five hours. " You must the world," the Colonel had said, length. Back of the massive, tion car — a baggage com- bath-room and toilet acces in the center, and ing-room in the rear was in quartered oak, fawn -colored plush, invited to restfulness, desk equipped with all tempted one to pursue
,,, , THE LEE MONUMENT IN NEW .,
ence. 1 h rough the ORLEANS. vestibule we stepped
into the Ladies' parlor, the whole width of the compartment car, the forward apartment of which was a commodious lounging-room for the use of ladies, who thus, for the first time on any railway, enjoy the same priv- ileges as the men. The windows at the sides are of plate glass, so generous in size that no part of the fleeting landscape is obscured. The great com- fortable chairs, like the hangings and curtains, were upholstered in slate- green plush ; the woodwork of the car was in rich vermilion wood, trop- ically soft and warm in its coloring. Seven drawing-rooms followed, each capable of occupancy singly or en suite ; each complete in itself. In these the harmonious colors of the blue, olive and maroon plush harmonized with the mahogany, vermilion and curly walnut of the wood finish. Still beyond these were ample toilet-rooms. Then through two sumptuous ten- section sleeping cars we went. Each of these had double drawing-rooms, together with smoking compartments and toilet-rooms for gentlemen and
gates were opened, we all seized train that seemed to be impatiently off sea where the sun goes to rest
the splendid "Sunset Limited," the cars, which, in its swift flight, cov- Orleans and San Francisco in see the finest up-to-date train in and we walked through its entire restless engine was the combina- partment in front, barber shop, sories with luxurious fittings smoking and loung- end. The woodwork the upholstering in Wide wicker chairs while a commodious epistolary accessories neglected correspond-
A PARTING LOOK AT THE CRESCENT CITY.
13
saloon and toilets for ladies. The bodies of the cars were in vermilion wood and fawn-colored plush ; the drawing-rooms in red plush with white mahogany wood work. Last of all was the dining car in quartered oak, with individual chairs at the mahogany tables, potted plants in artistic alcoves, and a sheen of snowy linen, glistening silver and cut-glass every- where.
"This train," said the Girl, with a little gasp of delight as she settled TheGiri
speaks her
herself, "is certainly the exemplification of all that is the outgrowth of mind about the modern luxury. The Wilton carpets one treads, the artistic folds of the train, draperies, the satiny finish of rare woods, the polish of the brass and silver, the bevel of the plate glass windows — all the little things that satisfy one's esthetic sense as well as the greater that minister to one's comfort — from the harmony of color that pleases the eye to the menu that satisfies the palate,
THE CYPRESS SWAMP.
and the setting apart of a drawing-room that gratifies the vanity and minis- ters to the comfort of womankind — all contribute to the pleasure of the transcontinental tourist by the Sunset Route. And while you men are getting shaved in your wheeled barber shop or lounging in your smoking- room, we women now have a drawing-room all our own, wherein we can peruse a well-selected library, pursue our music, or write our letters on the daintiest of stationery furnished by the Southern Pacific Company at escri- toires so adjusted that the oscillation of the train cannot affect them. It's
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Settling for the journey.
an affluent home on wheels, that's what it is, and I predict the ladies will show their appreciation of the delicate compliment paid them."
The wise traveler, with a long journey in prospect, settles himself in his car as soon after he gets into it as possible. Taking possession of his own berth, he disposes his belongings about him with a view to having available those in most demand. The Colonel, who sat with the Girl on the right, arranged his luggage as the porter brought it in. His walking stick and umbrella, his small traveling case with toilet accessories, and his corpulent leather grip were put out of the way. Then he laid a time table and a few pocket maps and a book or two carefully on the seat beside him. The Girl had tucked back a stray lock or two that the river breeze had playfully disengaged, adjusted her jaunty hat, smoothed out her gloves and composed herself bv the window. The Growler and
He didn't need much baggage then.
OLD LOUISIANA PLANTATION HOMKS.
I had the seats oppo- site, and when the train started the former was remark- ing that no one had any business to travel with as much luggage
as I had, tho' there were only two grips, an umbrella, a portable camera, an overcoat and a few minor articles.
" I've traveled across this country with nothing but a blanket, a rifle and a frying pan, before the railroad was built," he remarked.
"You've added to your equipage of late years," I replied, glancing scornfully at the numerous satchels which now accompanied him.
The long train was moving swiftly out of the yards, past the big shop with its oval front mantled in clinging ivy, jolting over switches and hurrying
A PARTING LOOK AT NEW ORLEANS.
15
Bayou.
by long lines of freight cars. Now we catch a glimpse of the elevators, off for the the river with its double fringe of shipping, and the dark masses of the city S beyond. The picture is but for a moment and the train rattles through Gretna, and in a little time is in a path cut through the great cypress for- ests. Here the foliage luxuriates and runs riot. The trees are draped in the long, silvery Spanish moss; vines twine like interminable serpents and The German swing from limb to limb; the ground is carpeted with a thousand shrubs. Now and again it opens into meadowy vistas where the succulent grasses seem to invite to fat pasturage. Presently the train is crossing a bridge, and to the right and left the windings of a deep waterway sinuously lead into the distance. There are overhanging trees and boats moored to the shore, and a darkey is pensively fishing.
"The Bayou des Allemands," remarked the Growler. "I once met a most interesting character when I was exploring on this stream some years
ago — old Felix Roux, an Acadian hunter and fisherman, a man who has lived his life close to Nature and as much away from the haunts of men as possible. He knows every voice of the forest and every denizen of the water, and is himself known throughout all this region. He has never had a photograph taken, and if you could get a shot at him with your camera it would be worth a hundred such things as you will snap it on."
"A very interesting region this, too," chimed in the Colonel; "we will Premonitions
,......,. of the I^and of
soon be m the land of the Acadians, and when we are I shall tell you of theAcadians. some I know."
"Oh, I want to know all about them," said the Girl. "I've re-read
16
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
He calls
" Evangeline'
a chestnut.
The exploits of an early Napoleon of finance.
Evangeline specially in preparation for this part of the trip, and I want to learn all about those dear romantic people."
"Heaven preserve us from that threadbare story!" said the Growler. " If ever there was a chestnut, that is. One can't mention the Acadians without having some one come naively to the fore with a quotation from Evangeline. Goodness knows, the people are interesting enough of them- selves, both in their historic past and quaint present, without lugging in that lachrymose fiction."
"You're horrid — there isn't a particle of romance in your soul/' replied the Girl. "If it hadn't been for Evangeline I'd like to know who would ever have heard of the Acadians."
" To me," spoke the Colonel, "tfi< Bavou des
SUGAR HOUSES OF LOUISIANA.
Allemands recalls some- thing of early history. You may,
perchance, remember that notorious scoundrel — that Napoleon of finance of the eighteenth century — John Law, the Scotch gambler, who, taking advantage of the depleted condition of the French treasury at the beginning of the reign of Louis XV, organized the Banque Royale, and, under the title of 'the Company of the West,' secured a concession to control all the trade of this vast Mississippi Valley. The Chevalier d'Arensbourg, who had been aide-de-camp to Charles XII of Sweden, and who had entered the French military service after the defeat of the Swedish king at Poltava, was sent to this country by Law in charge of some 230 families of colonists, principally from Alsace. When Law's
A PARTING LOOK AT NEW ORLEANS.
17
schemes went to smash, and he fled from Paris one stormy December night But they staid,
„.-..., , . and are here
to and safety in exile in Venice, the emigrants were completely discouraged yet.
and prepared to return home.
But Bienville induced them to remain, and
presented each family with a tract of land fronting on the river above New Orleans. That part of the river is still known as ' La Cote des Allemands' (the German Coast), and the generic
A notable family history.
AN OLD PLANTATION IIOMK.
name has ex- tended to the bayou and to the other geographical features of the country."
"And their descendants live hereabouts to this day?" I asked.
"Scattered all through this section," replied the Colonel. "The Chevalier d'Arensbourg, who led them here, was the head of a large and honorable line of direct and collateral descendants, and some of the great families of Louisiana — like the Delhommer — trace their lineage directly back to him. He fails into a It is an interesting fact, and one not generally known, that Mrs. Lincoln, mood"5' the wife of Abraham Lincoln, was related to the family, her brother having married a direct descendent of the Chevalier."
The Colonel continued to talk for some time about the old families of Louisiana, and as great sugar plantations, which now succeeded the cypress forests, were passed, almost each one seemed to recall to him some anecdote or historic incident or suggestive reminiscence which linked the lovingly dwelt-on past with the present. "The old places have changed hands." he said, " and new blood and new methods have come in with the new conditions which the war implied. But all this region of Southwest Louisiana is a fertile garden and in the near future every acre of it will be under tillage. Down along the border of the gulf between the Mississippi and the Sabine rivers there is perhaps five thousand square miles of sea marsh. It is largely subject to tidal overflow, is intersected by innumerable bayous and arms of the sea, and is covered with tall rank grass from which rise occasional islands The wonderful
,,.,_. . sweep of the
of live oak. It is the sportsman s paradise, and Jack there (the Colonel seamarsh.
OLD PLANTATION DARKEY.
A PARTING LOOK AT NEW ORLEANS.
19
glanced at me affectionately) could find finer fishing than he ever dreamed where sport of elsewhere. Every variety of fish known to the gulf is to be caught, while hllSdfn hand bear and deer, ducks and geese are to be had in abundance. That Kansas man who bought a million acres of it at a single stroke, not long since, knew what he was about, and he didn't buy it for hunting purposes, either. It is one of the finest winter cattle ranges in the world. The soil is incredibly rich, made so by the decomposition of marine shells, dead fish and the salt overflows of the gulf. In the years to come the oyster, terrapin and shrimp industries will make the whole coast of incalculable value, and give profit- The same as able employment to thousands of men as it now does in Maryland and other ] points."
"Ah, those terrapin !" said the Growler, musingly, his face relaxing into something like a smile.
" Not the genuine diamond-backs ? " I asked, incredulously.
"The same," responded the Growler; "the genuine article, as you find
them in the Delaware and Chesapeake. If we had time
and much cheaper.
THE HRIDGK ACROSS
to stop over at Morgan City you could sample some, for thousands are shipped from there annually. Besides, the Baron Natili has successfully propagated them in his artificial ponds near the depot."
"We'll be there presently," said the Girl, who was consulting a map. "This is Gibson."
"Gibson?" queried the Growler. " There are some remarkable Indian mounds near Fandel's saw mill over there. I don't know much about arch- aeology, but Dr. Joseph Jones, of New Orleans, has made an exhaustive study of them and finds them of great interest."
" But look here, Colonel," I said ; "you were sidetracked in your descrip- tion of this section of Louisiana ; there is not much sea marsh to be seen from here."
"No, and you won't see any of it from the cars," replied the Colonel, "it lies off there to the south. The Southern Pacific line runs through a superbly fertile prairie country which, as you will see, deepens into great
Remains of a lost race at Gibson.
20
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
it isn't a desert pine forests on the western edge of the state. The farms are given over means/' to sugar, cotton and rice, while corn, oats, potatoes, beans, etc., grow lux- uriantly, as do all the semi-tropic and temperate fruits. The resources of this country have attracted, of late years, thousands of settlers from the North, and tho' I have
Unfortunately people have to work here too.
AN OT.D HOME ON RAYOU RAMOS, NEAR MORGAN CITY, LA.
traveled extensively among them, I have yet to find one who is dissatisfied or who would wish to return to his old home. No profitable crop grows here without labor — I haven't yet found the place where it does — but I believe the rewards of well directed industry are larger here, and the life of the agriculturist more endurable, than in any other place in the Missis- sippi Valley."
CHAPTER II.
AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE TECHE — THE NOVEL INDUSTRIES OF MORGAN CITY THE OLD FORT, ONEONTA PARK AND THE BARON.
"G
OMIN' into Morgan City, sah," said that prince of porters, John Blackston.
"So we are," remarked the Growler. "By the way, notice the old A Monument earthwork here on the left, just as we run into town. It is known as Fort Star, and it has a unique place in history. There have been more extensive and more important intrenchmerits — tho' this is by no means small or unin- teresting. Here, July 4, 1893, a great popular demonstration took place, the stars and stripes were run up on the old fort, saluted by the roar from ancient Confederate guns and by the Washington Artillery of New Orleans. That historic and honorable body performed a memorable deed that day, when, under command of its veteran Colonel, John B. Richardson, it rededi- cated the old fort to the age of peace."
The Girl came over to our side to see the fort, which was but a hundred yards away — a star-shaped earthwork, the sloping walls rising thirty feet above the level of the encompassing ground.
The Southern Pacific Company restored the old works to their original A bit of history condition some years ago, and mounted upon its walls the guns from Fort sentiment. Chene, which was located eight miles away, at the junction of the bayous Boufe and Chene.
To-day this is one of the few perfect relics of the great war. Built by the Federal forces early in the struggle, it was in 1863 garrisoned by 3,000 infantry, mostly colored regiments. Late in that year Captain Blair, of the Eighteenth Louisiana, brought his forces across the river in sugar coolers, for want of better transports, attacked the town in the rear and captured it. The garrison took shelter on the gunboats in the river and escaped. The Confederates soon abandoned the place and the Federal forces occupied it until the close of the war. Then it was given over to decay until restored in '93, and dedicated to the age of peace by a touching ceremony of patri- otic purport.
"What a beautiful little park," exclaimed the Girl, rapturously, still she likes one- looking out of the window on our side of the car, "and see the steamships and the river beyond."
" The park," said the Growler, " is the creation of Baron Natili, who has
21
22
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Steamer line to the Texas coast.
Of course you recognize the Baron.
charge of the Southern Pacific and Morgan line business at this point. The Colonel is an old personal friend of the Baron and can tell you stories about him by the hour. As to the park, it makes a spot of beauty in what was once a desert place, and is named ' Oneonta ' in honor of the birth- place of the president of the system, C. P. Huntington. Over on the other side of the track is a zoological garden. The steamers you see at the wharf are those of the Morgan line, belonging to the Southern Pacific road, and running from here to Brownsville, Texas. Their fleet of river steamers and barges navigate the Teche and its affluents, and bring down huge
A LIVE OAK IN THE TECHE.
Atchafalaya River and Ber- wick Bay.
quantities of sugar and cotton, and carry in return the supplies which the plantations consume. But let us go out on the platform for a few moments. There are a good many things worth seeing."
When we alighted from the car we found the Colonel, who had preceded us, talking to a stout, handsome, gray-whiskered gentleman. They were too much engrossed with each other to notice us, and we strolled to the end of the platform. Before us was a splendid body of water sweeping majestically under the long iron railway bridge on its stately way to the gulf.
"The Atchafalaya," said the Growler, "which here so widens that it is called Berwick Bay. The river is something like half a mile wide and a
THE NOVEL INDUSTRIES OF MORGAN CITY. 23
hundred feet deep at this point. Thirty miles below it empties into the gulf. Nine miles above it receives the waters of the Teche."
''What a beautiful plantation," said the Girl, looking up the river to a great white house embowered in trees and flanked by a huge sugar house and rows of white cabins in the " Quarters."
"That is 'Fairview,' the home of J. N. Pharr," responded the Growler, some typical "and across here," he continued, turning to look down the stream, "you Lames.10' can just catch a glimpse of another typical place, 'Avoca' — meaning, 'the meeting of the waters,' for it stands on a point where Bayou Chene enters Bayou Boufe. All about are lovely places worthy of this paradise. The roads here are waterways, to use a Hibernianism, for this whole section is intersected by an intricate system of bayous, — deep, narrow, navigable streams which are to the country what the canals are to Venice. It would The mystery of
..... ..... ... the waterways.
take a man a lifetime to learn all their sinuous combinations, and then there would be a few left over that he had not discovered. Capt. T. L. Morse, who has command of the S. P. fleet here, comes about as near knowing them as any man that ever held a wheel."
"Why, those great white banks I have been looking at are oyster shells," I said, pointing up to where huge white mounds marked the river front of the tow-n.
"Yes," replied the Growler, "millions of the finest oysters in the world They "shuck"
, . ,1-1 rr-i i the unresisting
are annually shipped from the packing establishments here. 1 hese luggers bivalve.
tied to the bank are engaged in the trade. The bivalves are brought from
inexhaustible beds out in the gulf, a sloop carrying from 125 to 250 barrels,
which bring a dollar a barrel at the factories. It requires from a week to
two weeks for the lugger to make a trip, and it is work that enlists a hardy
set of men, for it is often hazardous as well as arduous. The fish industry But th
is also an important one, tho' it will surprise you to learn that very few of cftlsh
the splendid salt-water fish which could be taken here in infinite variety Profitable- toa
and abundance are in demand. The humble but toothsome catfish, caught
in great quantities in Grand Lake, some thirty miles above, are shipped to
consumers all over Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana and Arkansas. It is
an interesting study for one to follow even so humble an occupation from
its source to its conclusion — to see the primitive fishermen in their cabin
boats on the lake hauling in their seines, the tugs of the dealers collecting
from them the spoils of their endeavor and towing the fish down in
huge floating crates, and finally to watch the expert dressers prepare them
for shipment at the rate of one a minute/'
"Skin and dress a catfish in a minute?" I said, incredulously.
"In a minute and less," replied the Growler ; "and these are not the sort of fish you caught on your pin-hook when a boy, either. The darkey our colored
:,. brother is at
expert will seize a twenty-five-pound catfish, swing it up on a hook, lop on home here.
AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE TECHE.
25
its fins, slip its skin off in three pieces, and have it disemboweled and its head and tail chopped off before the fish really knows what is the matter. There used to be another flourishing industry here in the collection and shipment of alligator hides, but the supply is pretty well exhausted and the demand is not now so great. At one time as many as thirty thousand hides were shipped from here annually. But there goes the bell, and we had better get back in our car."
"Where's papa?" said the Girl, looking around.
"Oh, he'll take care of himself," responded the Growler.
In fact the Colonel and his friend were wringing each other's hands affectionately. "Take care of yourself," the Colonel shouted, as he swung himself on the step. " Good-bye, old boy, God bless you," the gray-whis- kered gentleman on the platform responded enthusiastically, waving his hat.
"A most royal gentleman," quoth the Colonel radiantly, as he sat down. "A man among a million — a scholar with the soul of an artist, the courtesy of a Chesterfield, of infinite wit and resource, and unfailing industry in setting the world a lesson of the best companionship."
" Who was it, .Colonel ? " I asked.
"Randolph Natili," was the response; "by unani- mous consent and deservedly dubbed 'The Baron,' who, for seventeen years, has had charge of the Morgan Line and Southern Pacific business at this point. Some time I'll tell you of the Baron's won- derful collection of Old Masters and the romance of discovery that attaches to some of his pictures, as, for instance, to that one known as the Venus Ana- dyomene by Domenico Feti, which was discovered in an Italian lodging- house in New Orleans, or that other, a Madonna, believed to have been the last one painted by Titian, on the order of Philip II of Spain, and long lost. And when I tell you of the pictures I'll not forget to tell you of some of the pranks the Baron has played, for the stories of his practical jokes would fill a book, and would be incredible if they were narrated of any one else than Randolph Natili. What would you think, for instance, of a man who could deceive the whole city of New Orleans by palming off a couple of Chinese laundrymen as court dignitaries from China, and holding a popular levee for them at the French Opera House, where a performance was stopped to give them a public reception ; or of a man who, on first meeting a lady in her home, would simulate a fit and fall in her arms, with apparently just enough consciousness left to gurgle an appeal for champagne, which was promptly administered,
AH affectionate parting.
Natili owns some pictures.
THE HAKON. RANDOLPH NATILI
But he will be remembered as the practical joker.
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
A touch of jeal- ousy, perhaps.
This is the way into the Teche country.
Glimpses in the Land of Romance.
You get it all in this way.
or to do any of a hundred equally amusing things which I could recall from memory as the exploits of this man who is beloved by all who know him, who is equally at home in any of our great cities, and whose acquaintanceship belts the globe."
" He's awfully nice looking," said the Girl.
" He's a grandfather," replied the Growler, with a grim smile of satis- faction.
" So this is the way you go to get into the famous Teche," I remarked tentatively, to avoid a clash which seemed imminent between the Girl and the Growler.
"The best way," replied the Colonel. "There are others but they are long and tedious. By this route a short ride of eighty miles from New Orleans brings one to Morgan City, where steamers can be taken and the trip made in a couple of days with every concomitant of comfort. Leaving out all the element of poetic romance, with which Longfellow has environed this waterway, it is one of the most enjoyable outings imaginable, and the tourist who fails to take it when he gets as far as New Orleans does himself a serious injustice. The Teche country is 'The Sugar Bowl ' of Louisiana. Past the beautiful old towns of Pattersonville, Franklin, Jeanerette, New Iberia and St. Martinville, it takes its way — a deep and narrow bayou — lined with splendid plantations, great manorial homes, quaint negro quar- ters, huge sugar houses. Here and there it is spanned with odd wooden bridges which are swung back by hand to give passage to the steamer. The live oaks almost meet overhead at times, and the boat brushes the foliage on the banks as it passes. Here and there wide cane fields stretch out as far as one can see, or vistas intervene where pensive cattle graze in wood- environed meadows. If your captain happens to be a man like Capt. R. H. Allen, a veteran in the service, he will invest every mile of the trip with interest by pointing out some feature of historic or romantic note, and the novelty and charm of the journey will be recalled with gusto for years to come."
CHAPTER III.
THE SALT MINE OF PETIT ANSE AND THE PROBLEMS IT HAS CONFRONTED SCIENCE WITH — A BIT OF HISTORY AND A GLIMPSE OF PARADISE.
I
WISH," said the Colonel meditatively, "we had time to drop off at Newibenaand
•K.T TI • ^.u 1^ • » the salt mine.
New Iberia and run over to the salt mine.
" Never went through before without doing it," said the Growler. " Ah, there is your traditional Southern home — the best of its famous class — where wealth is the companion of culture, and hospitality is gilded by every refinement of good taste. Talk about your perfect places of abode — well, it is complete."
" I have heard papa talk about it so often," said the Girl, " but it seemed so far away I never paid much attention to it ; now I want to know all about it."
"You'll never know all about it until you go there," responded the Growler. "This is a case where words are inadequate to do the subject justice."
"Well, tell me about the salt mine, anyhow, Colonel," I ventured.
"Avery's Island, or Petit Anse, meaning ' Little Goose,' as it was origin- petit Anse and
... , ... the other coast
ally called, responded the Colonel, after some moments of thought, " is islands, one of five so-called islands upon the gulf coast, south of New Iberia. They are not now islands in the present sense, but rather knolls that rise from the level of the surrounding marshes. On the other hand, they are indeed such, from the fact that they are surrounded by narrow bayous. Belle Isle, Cote Blanche, Weeks, and Jefferson's, or Orange Island, are the others of the group. Their geology is peculiar, but Avery's is the most remarkable of the five. I have its history from Capt. Dudley Avery, the present owner, whose family has held possession of it for three genera- tions. Under Spanish grants running back to 1765 it was originally par- celled out to a number of holders. After the early French voyageurs came Here's its the Acadians, and later the Spanish settlers from the Iberian peninsula. nrst°timeande On the abolition of slavery in New Jersey in the beginning of the century, "8"
John C. Marsh, the grandfather of the present owner, came south with his slaves. He bought out John Hayes, who was the first actual settler, having located on the island in 1791, and Jesse McCall. Mr. Marsh at once began clearing up a plantation, for at that time the entire island was heavily wooded. Salt springs were known to exist before then, the discovery
37
28 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Howthesait having been made by John Hayes in 179=5. At that time Hayes was a
cameto be first . , ,.
discovered. youth living with his mother, who was of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. Young Hayes made his discovery by accident. He had been out hunting, had killed a fine buck, and was carrying it home on his shoulders. The day was warm, and when he came to a clear, beautiful spring under a great oak, he threw the deer up in the forks of a tree and stooped to get a drink. He was chagrined to find the water intensely salt. When he reached home he told his mother of the incident. Now salt was a very scarce com- modity in those days, and the old lady shrewdly realized that the saline it's a fluid might be made available for domestic use. She accordingly dis-
thuigto patched the boy for a jug full of the water, boiled it down and obtained the
depend upon T . . .... . .
water as a salt. In this way the family continued to get their suppiy of the article.
see?ra? Mr. Marsh pursued the practice after he obtained possession, and during the
War of 1812-14 wells some twelve or sixteen feet deep were sunk and the water boiled. The planter continued this primitive practice until 1828, all the time clearing the land and cultivating sugar cane. In the year men- tioned the price of salt was so low and the difficulty of getting it to market from the island so great that it did not pay to manufacture it, and opera-
SCKNK ON THK TECHE.
tions were abandoned. The existence of the salt wells became almost a saitwas worth tradition until 1861, when the price of salt was $11.00 a barrel in New Orleans. In December of that year John A very, a brother of Capt. Avery, and then a youth of seventeen, asked his father to allow him to repair the old kettles and begin again the manufacture of salt. The request was wil- lingly granted, and the boy soon had his crude plant in operation. He was able to make ten barrels per day, and could sell it readily on the ground for $9.00 per barrel. The profits were tempting, and young Avery was
THE SALT MINE OF PETIT ANSE.
29
fired with an ambition to increase his output. So he took the kettles from The ancient an old sugar house and set up a much larger plant. But he then discovered the front at • that his capacity was greater than the supply of brine ; the flow of the momlnt. spring was not sufficient to keep the kettles going. At this juncture an old darkey, Bill Odell, who had been one of the original slaves brought by Mr. Marsh from New Jersey, and who lived until about 1892, came forward and related that there had once been another well, at the bottom of which a pork barrel had been sunk as a curbing. The well had been filled up years before, but Bill remembered the place and pointed it out. On digging at
the spot the old barrel was discovered as the ancient slave had predicted, but the well was dry. Young A very determined to go deeper in the hope
LOOKING DOWN THK BAYOU TECHK.
of striking the flow of water, and while so engaged, at a depth of about Thegreat sixteen feet, one of the workmen reported that he had struck a stump that laid bare, covered the entire bottom of the well. Mr. A very himself went down, and with a pick managed to dislodge a piece of the ' stump,' which, when he took it to the surface and washed it, proved to be pure rock salt; so pure, in fact, that all analysis show it to be ninety-eight per cent pure chloride of sodium. Various shafts were at once sunk in the neighborhood and the great mass of solid rock-salt uncovered ; the old process of evaporation was of course abandoned, and the mining of the article begun."
" The discovery must have created somewhat of a sensation when salt was so scarce," I remarked.
30 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
There were "It did," replied the Colonel; "it at once attracted the attention of the
millions 111
sight, as coi. whole country as the South was in great need of salt, and as soon as the say. s Confederate government heard of the find it dispatched a special agent,
Major Broadwell, to the island, and he negotiated a contract with L). D.
Avery, the father of the present owner, by which a certain part of the it was a property was set aside to be worked by the Confederate government for the
bonanza for the
confederacy. supply of the army. The several states were deeply interested, too, and Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi sent commissioners who made similar arrangements that their people might be provided for. A scene of great activity ensued. Many hundreds of men were at work, and at times as many as 500 wagons loaded with the product left the island in a day. Some of these ox-drawn wagons made long trips into Texas and northward, while a great deal of salt was hauled to the Atchafalaya river, thence
A big business shipped to Vicksburg by boat and from there distributed by rail. So great
boom was on J
at once. was the rush that all else on the island was abandoned. A magnificent
crop of cane was left uncultivated and uncut in the fields. The price was fixed at $9.00 per barrel, gold basis, and remained at that until after the close of the war."
"And what a bonanza that would have been if the owner had only demanded gold or turned his Confederate money into something of perma- nent value," said the Growler.
Had enough "Unfortunately, he didn't," continued the Colonel, "and when the Con-
stock on hand to start a paper federacy succumbed he had $3,000,000 of this worthless paper on hand.
In April, 1863, the Hebrews of Houston offered him a doiiar in gold for each three dollars in paper, because they could use it for the purchase of cotton, but he unfortunately declined. Even 2,000 bales of cotton, which the Confederate government had given him in part payment, and which was stored on the Red River, was, through the complicity of dishonest officials, lost to him."
"It's a wonder the Federals didn't try to capture the salt works," said the Girl. The Federals " They did," responded the Colonel. "When Banks moved up the Teche
make a call at
the salt works, in 1863 he drove the Confederates out, and destroyed the salt works. A brigade was sent down from New Iberia for that purpose, but after they left repairs were instituted and the work went on. The process of getting out the salt at that time was entirely different than at the present ; the deposit • would be uncovered over a space of thirty or forty feet square and the salt taken out of the bottom. Now shafts are sunk and galleries run as in any
Some of the mine. In 1868 a St. Louis firm, Choteau & Price, took hold of the work. it0 They sunk a shaft and opened the main galleries on the first or upper level. Later the American Salt Co., of New York, leased the property and worked the mine very extensively. They dug a canal through the marsh to the gul'
THE SALT MINE OF PETIT ANSE. 31
and secured the twelve miie branch of the Southern Pacific, which had by that time been extended from Morgan City to New Iberia and beyond. Later, under a royalty, the present company, Myles & Bro., of New Orleans, control the output and operate the property."
" But isn't the supply likely to be exhausted ?" I asked.
"Not during your lifetime, young man," the Growler replied, with a Notiikeiyto tinge of sarcasm. "The deposit is known to be half a mile square, and has 8 been bored into to a depth of 1,200 feet without touching bottom. That's pure, solid salt. Let's figure." The Growler extracted a pencil from his pocket and looked about for something to " figure " on. I gave him a card. The Growler " The salt weighs 140 pounds to the cubic foot," he began. " Now suppose fancy figuring, we say it is only 800 feet thick, tho' we know it to be half again as thick, and it may be a mile. But we'll take half a mile square and 800 feet deep." The Growler knit his brows and figured. "Give me another card," he said presently. I handed him one and he labored for a few minutes longer, then breathed a sigh of relief and said :
"Well, on that basis we have 1,609,432,346 tons of salt in sight. Do you think there is any likelihood of its running short ? "
I had nothing to say, but presently the Girl, who had been engaged in meditation for an unusually long period, remarked :
" Well, what I want to know is how the salt got there."
•'Just what a lot of other curious people who are not content to accept The green- Nature's pranks and practical jokes as they find them, but must go poking fisfup^s^Sp. about to discover how the old dame played them, have been wanting to know," responded the Growler. " It's all guess work. But the most reason- able theory is that during the Eocene period, when a great sea stretched over all this region, the present mine was an enclosed lagoon. Through some process the salt water it contained was evaporated, the lake was again filled, again evaporated, and so on, each successive stage depositing a strata HOW the salt of salt, until the lagoon was filled. Then came a great overflow from the fuesseTat. northward which brought a deposit of soil and left it there like a big blanket over the salt. At some period there was a convulsion of Nature which crumpled the whole mass. There were probably successive overflows at long intervals of time, for there are evidences of prehistoric occupation, many of which are now among the treasures of the Smithsonian Institution, prehistoric A basket, woven of rushes, was found fifteen feet below the surface, with a sa?t?too.n great oak growing over it. Successive stratas of broken pottery seem to show that perhaps prehistoric man reverted here during long ages to get salt. But the most interesting finds have been in the direction of animal life. Preserved by the proximity of the salt these relics are of inestimable value to the blue-goggled scientists, who have had all their preconceived and cob-webbed theories knocked into smithereens by them. The fossil
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The sloth, the remains of the sloth and tapir were found on the island before it was known
tapir and the ,11 • j • . .
horse in pickle, they had ever existed on this continent Later, their remains were found on the Brazos. The skeleton of the mastodon was unearthed sixteen feet below the surface, and among the bones, preserved by the salt, were the masti- cated remains of his last meal — the succulent ends of cane, etc. Professor Marsh examined the jaw and teeth of the horse which were taken out at a
it was the first similar depth, and pronounced them as belonging to the Equus Fraternus, or ' Friendly horse,' closely resembling the equine as we know him to-day. And yet we have not even a tradition of the animal existing on this conti- nent prior to the Spanish invasion. Near the remains of the horse was found a hickory nut so perfectly preserved that it showed the marks of a squirrel's teeth as freshly cut as tho' he had but just dropped it from a tree-top."
This is not a fish story.
How it looks down in the mine.
ViKWS ALONG THK TKCHE.
" You are sure it wasn't a chest- nut, are you ?" I asked. But the Growler only looked at me scornfully and continued :
"There is a deposit of lignite on the island eighteen feet thick, large beds of fine fire clay, kaoline in small quantities, and mineral salts are believed to exist, though as yet none have been found."
"What does a salt mine look like, anyhow?" the Girl asked; "is it any- thing like a coal mine?"
"I shall never forget my visit to the Avery's Island mine," the Colonel responded, meditatively. "The exploit was no less beautiful than novel. We were dropped down a shaft 180 feet deep. The first workings were 100 feet below the surface, but have been abandoned, owing to the existence of surface water, due to a fracture of the roof while blasting, for dynamite is used to get the salt out. From the lower level great galleries radiate, of a uniform width of eighty feet and a height of sixty feet. For a quarter of
THE SALT MINE OF i'L TIT ANSE.
33
a mile they stretch out in cavernous recesses like colossal ice caves. The walls glisten with a bluish radiance as the lights of the workmen fall upon them. Beneath one's feet the white salt crunches like frost. Far off in the black depths the ruddy tapers of the miners twinkle, and the figures dimly moving about are like those of gnomes busy with some supernatural task. It is weird and spectral. Suddenly a dozen sticks of dynamite are ignited, and a blue radiance lights up the abysmal caverns. The walls glow in a green sheen like the impalpable light of an arctic aurora. A million diamond-like crystals flash from roof and floor. It is all a colossal A fairy scene fairy scene, and infinitely more dazzling and superb and inspiring than any- inferno thing the mind could conjure up. Then the lights go out, and the Pluto- nian darkness, with its occasional glint of cold blue color, and the flitting red lamps that glimmer qrewsomely, move one with a touch of the spectral
spirit of Dante and the weird L-gendsot the Inferno. You go back to the surface to see
THK SALT WORKS ON AVERY'S ISLAND.
the salt crushe and sifted into grades, and to learn that the crystalized cubes that look like per- fect squares of transparent glass
an inch on each angle, are used by the northern packers to cap the barrels of pork designed for export, and, indeed, to get a deal of useful information from all the courteous attendants."
"What a wonderful place it is," said the Girl.
"You haven't heard of half its wonders," replied the Growler. "The That's where pepperly Tabasco sauce which you find on tables all over the world, and Tabasco saatx, which those of us who eat soups and oysters regard as indispensable, is made on the island, and on the island only. It has a history quite as romantic as the sauce is ' hot.' "
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The Growler gives the youth a rap.
" Give us the history," I said, " but spare us any more hickory nuts of the Eocene period."
"If you do not know more at the end of this trip than you do at pres- ent," replied the Growler, with dignity, " it will not be my fault. The Tabasco pepper is a native of the state of that name in Mexico. It is as high tempered as are the natives of that region. In fact it is the very con- centration of all that is demoniacal in pepper. When our troops returned from the Mexican campaign, one of them, who was a friend of Mr. Mcll- henny, a member of the Avery family residing on the island, brought that gentleman some of these peppers. The plant was cultivated on the island for a number of years and the product employed simply for domestic use.
Something of the history of a famous sauce, now for the first time put in print.
They are little, but, Oh, my !
isr -oro
WOODEN BRIDGE ON THE TKCIIK.
Mansell White, a well-known gentleman of New Orleans, for a number of years made, for the use of himself and friends, a very fine sauce, the chief ingredients of which were bird's-eye and Chili peppers. At the close of the war this source of supply was cut off, and Mr. Mcllhenny began making what has come to be known as Tabasco sauce. He had been a refugee in Texas, and during his absence the cultivation of the pepper had been neg- lected and only a few wild plants had by chance survived in a neglected hedge where birds had dropped the seeds. Gradually as the fame of the sauce spread and the demand for it increased, Mr. Mcllhenny engaged in its manufacture commercially until now twenty-five acres are given over to its culture, and from 75,000 to 125,000 plants are set out. It requires much care and patience. The seed is sown in March, and the young shoots set out in April. They are protected from the early chill winds by spreading moss over them until strong enough to stand the weather. The picking begins early in September and lasts until the first killing frost."
" Are they like our mangoes ? " asked the Girl.
" Not at all," replied the Growler ; " they are from half an inch to an inch long, very slender and very red. Besides they do not hang pendant on the branches of the plant, but stand upright as though conscious of their strength. After being picked when dead-ripe they are packed in barrels of
A GLIMPSE OF PARADISE.
35
strong brine and can be kept indefinitely. When wanted for use they are macerated, the mucilaginous pulp, which is pure pepper, is extracted and with the addition of a preservative is bottled ready for the market. The seeds and pulp which form the residue are ground up and sold as a flavor- ing condiment for soups. The sauce has won three gold medals — at Ne\v Orleans in '84, and at Chicago and Atlanta in '93.
" Quite a place where the residents can find their own supplies of pepper and salt," I said.
" And their own sugar and cotton, fruits, grains and vegetables," replied
How the hot stuff is made.
THE HOME OVERLOOKING THE GULF ON AVERY'S ISLAND.
the Growler. " Where they raise their own beef and pork and mutton, kill Anindepend-
deer and bear in their own cane brakes, and can catch the finest fish in course.'
abundance, or shoot wild ducks and geese and snipe by myriads with little
effort. In fact it's an ideal place, reached by a half hour's ride over the
great marshes. Then the land begins to grow higher ; oak covered hills
rise on either side of the track, the highest point reaching an altitude of
1 80 feet. There are 3,000 acres of arable land besides I don't know how
much timber. Picturesque valleys and miniature plateaus are surrounded
or hemmed in by these billowy hills. The great oak trees have stood for
hundreds of years bedecked with trailing veils of moss and the tendrils of
wild vines. On the southeast side of the island is the sugar plantation and
the home of Capt. Avery. On the southwestern edge, on an elevation of
100 feet, the home of the other members of the family. The art and iitera-
36
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
get them.
And the island ture of three generations of culture are gathered here, in a mansion where paradise as we presidents, poets and statesmen have been guests. From its broad piazzas one can look off through the cathedral arches of the great trees to what seems is the very edge of the planet. To the south and west the salt marshes stretch in infinite expanse that rests the eye. Slender bayous like tangled strands interlace in a confused skein. Far out is a glimpse of azure where Vermilion Bay throws its arm about the marsh to woo it to the billowy gulf beyond. On the west 'Orange Island,' the home of Joseph Jefferson, rises like a blue mound from the sea of undulating marsh grass. To the west and north is the original home of the Acadians, those simple folk whose lives are prose, but whose history is poetry and pathos. On Grege, Carline, Vermilion and Petit Anse prairies, bounded by Avery's Island on the east, Vermilion on the west, and New Iberia on the north, are the descendants of those original settlers who fled before a military mandate from their Acadian homes on the far northeast coast and trans- planted to a sunny land the simple ways of thought and life they held a century ago."
"Good, good/' cried the Girl, clapping her hands ; "you're just lovely, if you are a Growler, and you ought to write a book or a poem, or deliver a lecture, or — or — something of that sort."
The original home ofthe wanderers.
All of which arouses the enthusiasm of the Girl.
CHAPTER IV
NEW IBERIA AND THE LAND OF THE ACADIANS — WITH SOME REFERENCE TO THEIR PAST AND MUCH AS TO THEIR PRESENT.
" T T ERE'S a thrifty town of the new school grown out of the old," said Newiberia,
1 I the Colonel, as the train drew up to the station at New Iberia. " It ought to be a good town, for it is in the center of the richest agricultural ^80" at section in the world — the very heart of the sugar lands of Louisiana. From the depot to Bayou Teche is only a few blocks. The town is built between these two arteries of its commerce. To all the characteristics of old time comfort it adds a stirring life of manufacture and trade. From here one can run down on the branch line to Abbeville a town, which com- bines an ancient air of quaintness with much of modern thrift."
" But now that we are right in the land of the Acadians, I want to hear something about them," said the Girl.
"And so do I," I chimed in, "about their past and their present."
" Well," said the Growler, " I'll let the Colonel do most of the talking, for he has seen more of them than I have, but before he begins I'll tell you of a very delightful interview I had with a splendid representative of the race the last time
EX-LIEUT. GOVERNOR MOUTON.
I went over the road. I refer to the Hon. C. H.
Mouton, who was Lieutenant-Governor of Louisiana, 1855-58, during the A bit of
governorship of Robert C. Wickliff. Mr. Mouton, who is now nearly genealogy.
seventy-three years of age, lived at Lafayette, which was earlier called
Vermilionville, until about twelve years ago, when he moved to St. Mar-
tinsville, where he now resides. He has practiced law for upwards of
half a century. Imagine a tall, straight old gentleman, with clear-cut,
intellectual face and bright gray eyes, and you have a picture of my subject.
The vigor of his intellect has been in no wise impaired by the years that
have come and gone. In talking with him of the Acadians Mr. Mouton
said that among the original settlers of this section were the Moutons,
Herberts, Duhons, Trahans, Le Blancs and Broussards. I recall that he
also told me that in his family there was a tradition that the real name of
37
38 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
TheMouto* Longfellow's Evangeline was Emmeline Labiche, and that, as preserved in
family have a.. ... ....... ,.
tradition of this legend, the story of her life corresponded m the mam with the story Evangeline. of Longfellow's Evangeline. Mr. Mouton's maternal grandmother, whose name was Robichead, came to this section of Louisiana in 1765. Her journey from Acadia was not one a woman would be likely to take now- adays, for she came as far as Baltimore by vessel, and from there to New Orleans on foot. She married in the parish of St. Martin an ex-surgeon of the French army, named Bordea. They had three daughters: one of these married John Mouton, who became the father of the chivalrous Gav^ Alexandre Mouton, United States Senator, and in 1842 Governor of
sont"t§ltheled Louisiana; one married David Guidry, and one a man named Castille, and later, after his death, the heroic Colonel Alcibiades de Blanc, of St. Mar- tinsville, who became a distinguished Confederate commander, and after- wards served on the supreme bench of the state. Besides the John Mouton referred to, there was another brother, and from these two sprang the hundreds of Moutons who fill the Vermilionville country. As an evidence of the rapidity of the growth of the family, Mr. Mouton told me that he had himself fourteen children, and that when the widow of Edward A prolific Mouton died a few years ago, she was mourned by three living children
and ninety-seven grandchildren. You will pardon this genealogical digres- sion. I have narrated it because it throws some light on one of the oldest and most numerous of the original Acadian families in all this part of Louisiana."
" Now to give you a glimpse of life in those times as related to me by Mr. Mouton. All was wild prairie when his grandfather opened his store, for he was engaged in trade with the Choctaw Indians, who then filled the country. They were a peaceable race, and had not been spoiled by the Theytraveied white man's whisky as our present Indians have been. Once a year his grandfather would load a flatboat with peltries and other products, with
of "The Sunset , ., ....
Limited." flour and sausages and meats to provide them on the way, and with his family and his negro servants would voyage to New Orleans to replenish his stock and enjoy the diversions of the city. It was atrip that consumed a month or two, and was, of course, a great event in the domestic life. The traders who did business at what is now known as Washington, but which was then known by the less euphonious name of Niggertown, because of its large population of free colored people, had an even more arduous task to reach the city. Their flatboats went down the Bayou Court a Blanc, to the Atchafalaya River, from there to Butte a la Rose and into Grand River, and along that stream to Indian Village on Bayou Plaquemine. From
And it was a Indian Village to the Mississippi it was nine miles against the current, and
slow process, , ,
too, as you can the boats were 'cordelled, or drawn up by ropes from the craft to the bank. The rope would be fastened to a tree on the shore and the boat drawn up
THE LAND OF THE ACADIANS. 39
to it, and the operation repeated again and again until the distance was covered. Sometimes a capstan was fixed on the boat and oxen used to draw it up. From the mouth of the bayou the boats were floated down on the broad bosom of the Mississippi to New Orleans. A round trip by this now almost forgotten route not infrequently consumed five and six months. Mr. Mouton also told me the family traditions of La Fitte, but I'll reserve that until later, and let the Colonel tell you more about the Acadians, because we will soon be out of their country, while we have La Fitte with us from the time we leave New Orleans until we get past Lake Charles, so he'll keep, you know."
" How the Acadians were expelled from what we now know as *Nova Acadian
. . „,. . . history, but
Scotia in 1755, said the Colonel, "is an old story. Ihe more humanitarian not enough to thought of our day regards it as an act of tyranny and brutality. The con- science of that time could easily excuse it on the ground of military neces- sity, because, tho' the Acadians were practically English subjects, they per- sistently declined to take the oath of allegiance to the Crown, and were regarded as a perpetual menace to the perpetuity of the colony. However, under the governorship of Charles Lawrence, they were summarily deported after the confiscation of their estates, stock and garnered crops — the accu- mulations of a century and a half of industry. Scattered far and wide throughout the American colonies, many of them made their way to Louisi- They knew a ana, to be under the protection of France. But in this they were dis- when they saw- appointed, for Spain had but just acquired control. However, they were kindly received and provided for. They settled in what is now St. James parish and scattered largely through the Attakapas country, populating most generally what are the present parishes of St. Landry, Acadia, Vermil- ion, Lafayette, St. Martin and Iberia. Here they live to-day much as their forefathers lived on the Basin of Minas and the Prairie of Grand Pre. Their simple
ways of living
With a few notable exceptions, they are indifferent to the appeals of ambi- and homely
tion and to the allurements of affluence. Their homes are simple cottages,
very plainly furnished with the bare necessities of living. Their fare is
frugal in the extreme. Among the masses education is neglected. The
Acadian French, with the Creole patois, is their language. They marry at a
very early age and set up housekeeping in a modest cot, where the absence
of furniture is soon made up by a numerous progeny. Honest, industrious
as needs be to supply their own simple necessities, and religious to a
degree, they have few wants and fewer cares, and if their women do most
of the work, the men are kept reasonably busy rolling cigarettes for their
own consumption. They preserve but one industry peculiar to themselves,
and this is in the weaving of cottonades from the nankeen cotton which The primitive
. . , , industry
they grow. The fiber of this nankeen cotton is of a brownish golden color, peculiar to the Woven by the women upon hand-looms in their own homes, a durable and l
40
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Didn't know how to make the most of their
opportunities.
At this juncture a shrewd northerner came in
Average value of products to the acre, $20.
pleasing fabric is produced in a variety of patterns. Up to the time of the Exposition of 1884 in New Orleans the industry was in a state of decadence, but Mrs. Sarah Avery Leeds, who took an active interest in the preserva- tion of the handicraft and the welfare of the simple people, devoted herself to encouraging the humble workers, and through the agency of the Chris- tian Woman's Exchange of New Orleans directed attention to and found a market for their wares. The people might all have been possessed of wealth had they been reasonably industrious and acquisitive. They took possession of a paradise, and for a hundred years and more were content to find a frugal living. A few years ago the adventurous northerner, restless and discouraged by the severity of his climate, came and looked at the country. S. L. Gary, who came down to Jennings from Iowa, saw all its possibilities and began telling the world of them. He found the land could be bought .for a dollar or two an acre. The natives lassoed long-horned cattle, shot razor-backed hogs, planted the same seed over and over again, and were serene in the enjoyment of what a couple of acres poorly cultivated would produce. The northerner was discouraged by what the natives said of the country, for they averred he'd starve. Nevertheless he pinned his faith to Gary, came and brought his relatives and friends, and now they own, populate and make productive some hundreds of thousands of acres. He found a fertile soil awaiting intelligent treatment. There were no stumps or stones to test his patience. He could get good water at from ten to twenty feet through clay. Bermuda and Japanese clover grew to perfection. Sugar cane yields twenty tons to the acre, rice ten barrels, worth $3.00 per barrel. Hardy vegetables, like radishes, turnips, lettuce and cabbage, grow all winter. Figs and oranges thrive and are profitable. Poultry and stock are at home. With an average altitude of say seventy- five feet, an evenly distributed rainfall of fifty-five inches, a death rate the lowest of any of the states (8 to the 1000), and an immunity from a score of diseases the northerner dreads, it is no wonder that thousands of northern people have come and are annually coming to Southwest Louisiana, and supplanting by magnificent estates the limited and poorly cultivated 'patches' of the Acadian. There are homes here for the millions who in the East and North are looking about for opportunity to better their condi- tion, and, thank goodness, they are beginning to realize it."
CHAPTER V.
THE TRADITIONS OF LA FITTE THAT ADHERE TO THE COUNTRY BEING
TRAVERSED.
" T~"* VERY waterway we cross and all the bayous 'and harbors on the where
I s gulf coast to the south of us, from Barataria Bay to the Sabine thedpVr°a°?ca^
River, are redolent with traditions of La Fitte, the pirate of the gulf," said H the Colonel. "The Mermentau, which we cross just beyond Crowley, and
IN THE BAYOU COUNTRY OF LOUISIANA.
the Calcasieu, at Lake Charles, are peculiarly fraught with local legends of the freebooter's presence, and whether he ever visited them or not, their banks have been liberally dug up by the treasure-seeker, and the stories of his visitations are cherished with wonderful tenacity."
" And more unwarranted fiction of the yellow-backed variety has been written about La Fitte than any other character that we have ever had in evidence," remarked the Growler, savagely.
"The more I come to know of La Fitte the more respect I have for The pirate had him," replied the Colonel. "Of course I don't admire his character, but," he added, musingly, " he had his good points. It seems a pity that history should cruelly rob our cherished pirate of so many of the ferocious charac-
42 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
teristics that appealed to our youtuful but sanguinary imagination. Instead of being the rollicking and reckless sailor we pictured him, he was merely a shrewd blacksmith, doing business in the early part of the century at a little shop on Bourbon street in New Orleans. The unsettled condition of the where the times in which he flourished made his subsequent career possible. Follow-
freebooter got . . . .
in his fine ing the cession of Louisiana to the United States, France and Spain became embroiled in war. Then the United States of Colombia declared their independence of Spain. In the first of these struggles privateers commis- sioned by the French authorities at Martinique and Guadalupe swarmed upon the gulf and Caribbean Sea to prey upon the Spanish commerce. Colombia took its cue from this example, and invited privateers to outfit at Carthagena and sail under her flag for the same purpose. A surprising number of excellent people who esteemed themselves eminently respectable
when the engaged in this very profitable industry. The line between the privateers-
had"owaikUie man and the pirate is necessarily an elusive one, for with a little practice the former finds it extremely difficult to distinguish between the vessel which is his legitimate prey and the rich merchantman of any other nation- ality. Jean La Fitte, the blacksmith, became one of the active and intelli- gent agents in New Orleans of the gulf privateersmen, for it was obviously important that, after capturing a vessel laden with goods, its cargo should be disposed of to achieve the rewards of their industry. By degrees he acquired influence and eminence among them, until in 1813-14 we find him the undisputed leader, with a fortified post on Barataria Bay, a large fleet, hundreds of men under his command, and an organization so complete that
Butfinaiiythey its ramifications extended all over the country. In spite of the protests of
tave La Fitte ts. the reputable citizens of New Orleans, and of repeated efforts to bring him
to justice, it was not until 1814 that an expedition dislodged him, captured and confiscated the accumulated plunder and effectually scattered the band, and this final demolition of the coterie grew out of La Fitte's indig- nant rejection of the overtures of the English who sought to enlist his aid in their descent on the country, and which overtures he communicated to the state authorities, at the same time protesting his loyalty to the govern- ment and denying the charges of piracy brought against him. But if La Fitte was not the bold freebooter we used to believe him, there was cer- tainly enough of piracy connected with the men of his fleet and the opera- tions of his vessels to stock every bay and bayou with traditions that will last for centuries to come."
A brisk "And that they were slavers, too, I have no doubt," added the Growler,
biackcargoes. " for Ex-Lieut. Governor Mouton, of whom I told you, related to me incidents
in the experience of his own family which go to prove it. La Fitte was often
reported to be at the mouth of the Mermentau, and vessels of his fleet
ascended the river and disposed of slaves to the planters. Mr. Mouton's
THE TRADITIONS OF LA FITTE.
43
father had owned two slaves bought in this way. One time when hunting in the canebrake not more than two miles from the present site of Lafay- ette, the elder Mouton had been startled by a wild clamor among the hounds ahead of him. Spurring his horse through the brush he came upon a party of twenty slaves, men and women, in charge of one of the pirates named Gamble. They were absolutely without clothing and terribly frightened by the uproar of the dogs. At another time, in the same vicinity, Gambie was taking a party of slaves northward in the winter time. He had them in an ox cart, and they had no protection from the weather, were naked and almost starved. One night there was a heavy frost and several of the unfortunate blacks died from the unwonted inclemency of the weather. The penalty on slaving was so heavy that the greatest caution was exercised in disposing of the Africans, and a purchaser never really knew of whom he bought his slave. The Mermentau and Calcasieti rivers were favorite retreats for the slaver, but once when Gambie ran his schooner into the Nezpiguie, he had to sink it to avoid capture, and one can still pick up on the spot, iron pots, broken crockery, and other relics of the destroyed vessel. .Mr. Mouton had often heard his father and other older men talk of meeting 'Gambie,' 'Paul Clustine,' 'Corse,' 'Triest,' and others of the lieutenants of La Fitte. I was interested in Mr. Mouton's telling me that he had owned one of these original slaves so brought in, and he described his character as being very admirable. He said that the idea of whipping him had never sug- gested itself to any one, and that it was no unusual thing for the black to 'take the stick' to the white children when they offended him."
"And did La Fitte really bury any of his treasure about here?" asked the Girl.
" I should not like to invest much on the strength of such a speculation," replied the Growler, "tho" there are plenty of people who are satisfied that pots of gold are planted indiscriminately along the gulf coast and its trib- utary bayous. I don't believe La Fitte buried any, or he would have taken it with him when he sailed away in 1817 to find a place of refuge. If he did take it it is lost, for the noted privateer and his vessel went down in a terrible storm. However, the gulf coast has been pretty well explored and excavated, and people still have a try at it from time to time. Fitful lights glow on the banks of these bayous at night, and mysterious parties go forth
Slaves in the cane where Lafayette
now is.
It was a business that required discretion.
BILL ODELL, THE HUNTER OF AVERY'S ISLAND.
The old darkey stood on his dignity.
Hunting for I«a Fitte's buried treasure.
44
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
These are the fellows who buy gold bricks and buck the three- card-monte man, too.
He had $700.00 worth of faith.
But these fellows really made a haul.
The
government discouraged their industry.
Slaves were cheap, but money was scarce.
with time-stained charts to seek treasure trove. The most barefaced impos- tures are practiced on the innocent, too. I remember an incident that occurred near Crowley. Not long since an affable fellow visited the farm of a rich and intelligent settler who lived on the Bayou Queue de Tortue, near there. He had a divining-rod that would invariably and remorselessly point to hidden gold ; and he confidentially gave the farmer the address of the party in Denver who made and sold them for $700.00. Of course he had made a fortune in a short time by its use. The gullible agriculturist engaged him to look for La Fitte's treasure, first testing the power of the rod by burying in the garden a lot of jewelry belonging to his wife, while the man with the divining-rod was in the house. The fellow with the rod went right to the spot, a feat of divination doubtless due to successful peeping through some convenient crack or window. Then the search for the piratical treasure began. After several days the rod began to 'work'. At this juncture the 'diviner' suddenly announced that he had to leave. The farmer 'laid out/ as he described it, in the woods fora week, fully convinced that the rod had located a barrel of gold, and that its owner proposed to return by stealth and appropriate it. This project the farmer determined to thwart, and as he said ' he'd kill that 'ere feller ef he tried to rob him.' Then he came into Crowley, mortgaged his place for $700.00, and sent the cash to Denver to get a divining-rod."
" And did he get it ? " I asked.
"Oh, yes," replied the Growler; ''but I haven't heard that he has found anything with it yet."
" There is one place where I believe treasure has been found," chimed in the Colonel, " and that is on the Calcasieu below Lake Charles. There is living in that flourishing town a very old and very intelligent man by the name of Jacob Ryan, whose present home looks out over the beautiful little lake. He came to Calcasieu Parish in 1817, when he was a child of one year, his father settling at Rose Bluff, twelve miles below the present site of the town. There were few settlers in the country then, and those few were Acadians engaged in raising stock. All the country belonged to the parish of St. Landry. The people were poor and money was scarce. Taxes were a sixteenth of one per cent, with low rates of valuation. Directly after Mr. Ryan's father moved to this place the United States gunboat Bull Dog, Captain Ferrygood, came into the river and lay there a long time, so that the pirates had no chance. Before that a good deal of traffic was carried on in slaves and contraband goods, but Ryan, to whom I have talked, scoffs at the idea that La Fitte ever made it much of a headquarters. There was little market for the slaves brought in by the slavers, and they were taken through to the Red River country where the planters had more means. The slaves sold for from $250.00 to $300.00. But this was a good deal of
THE TRADITIONS OF LA FITTE.
45
money to a man who could only get $10.00 for a cow and calf, or $12.00 for a steer. Still some were bought by people there, and at least one of these yet lives, known as Guinea Nigger Thompson. Some of the settlers also received slaves in payment for service in helping to run the darkies through. But the search for the La Fitte treasure began early and has lasted ever since. In 1830 two men, Moore and Queen, were reported to have found three thousand doubloons in an old iron pot on Keogh's Island. They reached The lucky
,.,,,.., . , fellows and
there on a small schooner which they hired from its owner, a man named their find on Kelsey, and he sailed it for them. They worked according to the directions of a chart which they possessed. Kelsey helped them a little in their dig- ping, but one day they sent him to the garrison at Lake Charles to get rome supplies. When he returned with the schooner they came on board with two corpulent saddle-bags so heavy that they could
scarcely lift them. They then told Kelsey they
A LOUISIANA SCENE.
had determined to abandon the search, and on arrival at Lake Charles hired Found
discretion and
Louis Reon and James Pithon to take them to Opelusas. Pithon and Reon silence the noticed the heavy saddle-bags. Both Moore and Queen came back several treasure weeks later, spent the remainder of their days in Lake Charles, lived in idleness and always seemed to have plenty of money. Neither of them ever revealed the source of their wealth or the result of their search. Queen died of yellow fever some years afterwards, and Moore was blown up in a steamboat explosion while returning from a visit to a brother in Kentucky."
" But how did the gold get there ? " I asked.
"Mr Ryan said it was hidden by a party of pirates who were chased Howthegoid
™, got there.
into the river by a government cutter in 1812 or 13. The water was too shallow for the cutter to follow the light draft schooner and she stood off the entrance ; after a council the pirates buried the treasure and attempted to slip past the cutter, one demurred and elected to take his chances in the
46
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
marsh. After the schooner sailed he stood on the shore and watched the cutter overtake and sink her, and every man captured was hung to the yard- Became a good arm. The pirate, lucky enough to consider discretion and the swamp the
§ irate on his . *"
eathbed and better part of valor, made his way to New Orleans, was taken ill and before
gave the thing away,
AT THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC DOCKS IN ALGIERS.
dying gave a chart of the place to Moore and Queen for a consideration sufficient to make his last hours comfortable. Now Ryan is a hard-headed old fellow not given to illusions, and while he says he has never been able to trace down any other discoveries, he believes that in this case the find was genuine."
CHAPTER VI.
CROWLEY AND LAKE CHARLES — A ROMANTIC LIFE — SOME PIONEER CON- TRASTS— THE SULPHUR MINE AND PETROLEUM DEPOSITS.
ELL, this section is certainly one redolent of romance," I said. AH sorts ot
T^ i -n -i romance it
tor, between the pathos and tragedy of trench and Spanish stock, exploration and settlement, the story of the Acadians, the melodramatic career of La Fitte and his followers, and the chivalrous exploits of the people on many occasions, it would be difficult to find a locality of more graphic interest."
"While the stories of exploits of great bodies of men fill a larger place in the eyes of the world, I have always had a fondness for the extraordi- nary in family history and the tragedy of individual careers," replied the Growler; " and you can often find the capacity for noble deeds and stirring action under the- most unassuming exterior. There could be no romance of greater interest nor any more dramatic recital penned than the stories that could be culled from the family histories of this section of Louisiana. For instance, here is Crowley, which we have passed while we talked. From here the Eunice branch runs northward through a section of wonder- ful beauty and fertility, which invites the settler by every promise that can appeal to his ambition or his comfort. Crowley is a new town, built up Crowley, a since 1887 by the remarkable enterprise of the Duson Brothers. The land class of
. . , hustlers.
was then worth from $1.00 to $4.00 per acre. Ihey laid out the place, built a big schoolhouse, got people to come there, secured the county seat, and now they have a flourishing town and the land is worth $30.00 an acre. Their career shows the wonderful influence of great personal enterprise, and their family history embalms one of those remarkable romances I have spoken about. Their father, Cornelius Duson, as he was known in Louisi- The story ot ana, was born at Point Levis, on the St. Lawrence River, in Canada, in 1819. He' was the youngest of a family of six sons, and the only one who, when the French rose against the English in 1837, sided with the rebels. Through the influence of a lifelong companion, S. Lombert, young Duson, as we will call him, joined the French revolutionists. This caused a dis- agreement with his family, and he left home saying they would never hear of him again until the grass was growing on his grave. With a party of nine other patriots he started up the Ottawa River to enlist the woodmen and trappers in the cause, but the whole party fell into the hands of the
47
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The jailer don't indulge enough to lose his wits.
English. Duson escaped, but the others were imprisoned at Ottawa. Our hero determined to effect their release, and took up his residence in the town, cultivated the acquaintance of the turnkey, and sought to get him intoxicated. Failing in this, the jailor's suspicions were aroused, and he ordered young Duson to leave the jail. With a pretense of complying the youthful revolutionist picked his hat up off the floor, and with it a stick of wood, with which he felled the jailor, took his keys, released the imprisoned patriots, and all started to cross the river at Kingston. They were over-
taken by a party of English soldiers, them killed, others recaptured, but Duson, wounded in the thigh ball, managed to
pursuers, hid
some of though by a rifle- elude h i s in the hut of a wood- man until well enough
to travel, and then made his way to Boston, finally settling on the Mermen- tau River in the parish of St. Landry.
"The English offered a reward • for his capture, dead or alive, but in peaceful security he married, reared his family and amassed a competence. He told his family many incidents of his early life, of his people and friends in far-off Canada, but he never told them that the name of Duson was not his real name. It was evident that he intended Never revealed to reseive this revelation until his last hour, but the opportunity for making MS name. the confession never came, as death overtook him suddenly and while away
from home in 1857. In 1884 his two elder sons, C. C. and W. W. Duson, made a visit to Canada, and hunted out the places of which their father had so often spoken. The)' could find no one who remembered him. At last they searched out the aged companion of his youth, S. Lombert, but he said he had never known any one by the name of Duson. The visitors insisted, and related the incidents of their parent's childhood, his association with Lombert, and gave the Christian names of their father's brothers. Then the The ancient feeble old man burst into tears, and rising to his feet with an effort exclaimed,
friend recalls , XT .,
thefact. No, no, I see it all now. Your name is not Duson, but McNaughton.
• Let me lead you to your people.' And thus the family was reunited and
BRANCH OF THE TABASCO PEPPER PLANT.
LAKE CHARLES. 4:9
the fact brought to light that the youth who had cast his fortunes with the French cause, though he was of Scotch-Irish stock, had changed his name, and for twenty years had maintained his secret and kept to the letter the vow that his family should not hear of him until the grass grew on his grave."
The Colonel and the Growler retired to the smoking compartment for a time. The Girl was engrossed with a magazine, and I looked out of the window at the wide prairies that open out to the horizon, dotted with com- fortable looking homes, and fringed with blue masses of trees which mark The prairie with cypress, hickory, ash, oak and gum, the margins of the bayous. The southwest landscape recalls that of Northwest Iowa, or of Minnesota, with the possi- L°U1 ble difference that it is much better wooded. Presently great pine trees began to appear, growing more dense as the train sped on until the wide forest stretched on either hand and we could look off through cool vistas of green as through the pillared colonnades of some great temple whose fretted arches let in the sifted sunlight, and through whose airy roof the mocking birds and finches fluttered with a revelry of song and color.
As the train ran into a station where the air was vocal with the urgent appeals of hackmen, and where every indication pointed to the activities of a flourishing city, the Colonel and the Growler returned, and the. former said : Lake Charles,
"This is Lake Charles — the best town on the road between New Orleans pe^pfeUke'To and Houston. It is essentially a northern city, with a population of some ' 7,000 people. Well built, with plenty of enterprise, fine stores and business blocks, an ideal climate and every accessory to add comfort to living, it is no wonder it is growing rapidly, and that people like to come here. Its location on one of the most beautiful lakes in the country — a body of clear deep water, two and a half miles long and about as wide, through which flows the Calcasieu River on its way to the gulf — is admirable. The river from the lake to the gulf is broad and deep, affording uninterrupted navi- gation, and the present Government improvements to the harbor at its mouth will make it a splendid anchorage for craft of any draft. Lake Charles is the capital of a parish which is as large as the State of Delaware or the Kingdom of Denmark. The accomplishments of its people are The marvelous when one recalls that as late as the declaration of independence of ti by Texas, both Mexico and the United States laid claim to the territory years- lying between the Calcasieu — or Rio Hondo, as it was then called — and the Sabine River. The settlers who came here were given titles to 640 acres. Up to as late as twenty years ago these claims, called Rio Hondo claims, could sometimes be bought for a few dollars. The lake, and later the town, were named for Charles Sallier, a Swiss, who settled there in 1816. The early settlers were a social and law-abiding class, who thought nothing of visiting a neighbor or going to a dance twenty miles away. Marriage cere- monies were at first regarded as luxuries because at that time it was a
50
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
too.
pioneeringhad journey of ioo miles to Opelousas where a license could be procured. The cattle they raised were driven through the swamps to New Orleans. But in spite of these pioneer discouragements the population increased, and to-day the people look back with pride upon the achievements of the past."
As the train drew away from the station, skirted the head of the lake, and plunged into the pine woods beyond, the Growler said :
" The sulphur mine is but ten miles beyond."
" What sulphur mine ?" asked the Girl.
"There is a very remarkable deposit of sulphur at the point indicated/'
The sulphur and petroleum fields.
Early known but little used.
CRKOLK WOMEN WEAVING COTTONADE.
was the reply. " Petroleum of an excellent quality for lubricating purposes has been struck at the same place. The oil region extends over some 200,000 acres, and on the coast, thirty miles from the sulphur borings, it is poured out upon the gulf waters in quantities sufficient to cover several square miles. The sulphur strata is sixty feet in thickness, but it was long protected by several beds of quicksand overlying it. In vain fortunes were spent trying to sink shafts for the purpose of reaching and mining the product. But at last the Standard Oil people purchased the property, and sent down an expert, who drove a tubing into the strata, and by pumping down water is enabled to pump the mineral up. As far back as 1820 the settlers knew of the existence of petroleum, and they resorted to- the places where it oozed from the ground as a black and pasty mass to gather it, tho' their only use for it was to grease the axles of their wagons and to protect their implements from rust."
CHAPTER VII.
THE GREAT LUMBER DISTRICTS OF WESTERN LOUISIANA AND TEXAS — THE FORESIGHT THAT GAVE THEM TO THE WORLD.
AKE CHARLES, Louisiana, and Beaumont, Texas, are the eastern and Lumber
western boundaries of the denser of those great pine districts which southwestern fringe the Calcasieu, Pabine. Neches and Trinity rivers. The Southern j£"ternna and Pacific runs through this splendid timber belt for a distance which may be Texas approximately set down as two hundred and fifty miles, and at the towns named and others, the tourist catches a glimpse of the great mills which annually transform rough logs into hundreds of millions of feet of mer- chantable lumber. At no other points in the world are the operations con- ducted upon a vaster scale. The capacity of the great mills is fabulous, their machinery is of the latest design, and with a single circular they often cut from 100,000 to 120,000 feet per day. Two hundred varieties of valu- able timber are at their disposal, tho' the yellow pine is by far the most abundant.
" Did you ever go into a large modern sawmill?" the Growler asked me.
I replied in the negative, and he said :
" It is a sight you would not be likely to forget. Rafted down from the The way they the place where it is cut, the great logs lie in booms, a chain drags them into the mill, where steel fingers toss them on a sliding table. With incon- ceivable rapidity they are thrown backward and forward against the great circular saw which goes through them as tho' they were so much butter. The three or four colored experts, who stand on this platform and operate the levers that control the log, work like demons and look like them, as they are dashed to and fro through the cloud of sawdust. The roar of the machinery, the terrible gnawing of the saw, the mad plunging of the log, all make up a scene of indescribable interest, and unconsciously one's thoughts are directed to the innumerable processes by which the needs of civilized man are ministered to."
When the train stopped at Orange a portly gentleman boarded the car. The lumber- The Colonel rose and greeted him as an old acquaintance, and introduced the train, him to the rest of us as Mr. Henry J. Lutcher. " Mr. Lutcher has been so closely identified with the development of the lumber interests here that he can tell us something that will be of interest, I know," said the Colonel,
51
THE GREAT LUMBER DISTRICTS.
53
after that gentleman had explained that he was going over to Houston on a brief business trip.
" If I did that, I should have to tell you my own experience," replied Mr. L.
" It will doubtless be instructive," the Colonel said.
"Well," replied the lumber king of Orange, "up to the time I was six- And sketches
, , , • ., f ....... the history of a
teen years of age Maine was the great source of supply for lumber in this great industry, country. Monopolies soon secured control of the output, for shrewd men came to realize its value. Then the Adirondacks were taken possession of, and later, in the early '505, the timber on the Susquehanna and in the Alle- gheny region was levied upon. By 1865, Williamsport, Pa., which was my home, had become the great lumber center of the country. I can recall the long trains of wagons
A WESTERN LOUISIANA HOME.
that, carrying this product, went west by what was known as the ' Cherry Tree' route, across the headwaters of the Susquehanna. Then with cheap freights on the lakes Michigan became pre-eminently the source of supply. In 1877 I had a mill at Williamsport, but recognized that to achieve any large measure of success one must have the advantage of cheap stumpage and profit by the increase of values."
"And how was your attention directed to this then far-off point?" inquired the Growler.
"Almost by chance, if not entirely so," replied Mr. Lutcher. "I was Uke drawing talking the matter over one day with my parter, who fully agreed with me. lottery. 'But where shall we go?' he asked. I happened to look down into the waste-basket which stood beside my desk, and my eye fell on the word 'Texas' in a newspaper. I picked the sheet up, and it contained a map of
Original forest of the Mississippi Valley.
Timber in this district sometimes runs as high as 30,000 feet to the acre.
54 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
the Sabine River and a reference to its timber supply. At once the thought of putting up mills and wing dams on these streams struck me. Both my partner and I made a trip to Washington to consult the Texas congressmen, and Judge Ragan told us the finest timber on earth was in Eastern Texas. We came south early in 1877, found the railroad only built as far east as Beaumont, took horses and spent five or six weeks in the great forests. We went up the western side of the Sabine and were delighted ; but when we crossed at Bird's Ferry and came down on the Louisiana side, we found the finest body of timber that I had ever seen. Later I looked upon what I believe was the original forest of this valley, on the Red River, in Cataboola and Wind parishes, where the trees were all three and one-half to four feet in diameter, but of so great an age that they were rotten at the heart. Of this Sabine River timber we bought great tracts at $1.25 an acre, but not until I instituted an investigation and found that the total Texas consumption of lumber was about 70,000,000 feet, of which at least 40,000,000 feet was imported. The largest mill in the state had at that time a capacity of 10,000 feet per day. In the spring of that same year I landed with a mill which had a capacity of 100,000 feet per day, and put it up and begun operations in three months. People thought we were crazy, but," Mr. Lutcher added, with a smile, " we were not, and to-day ships leave the Sabine Pass carrying lumber to Europe and all South American countries."
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM THE TEXAS BORDER TO THE CITY OF THE ALAMO, WITH POSSIBLE REFERENCES TO THINGS ALONG THE WAY.
HAT a funny name for a station!" said the Girl, consulting a guide.
"What is it?" I asked.
" Sour Lake."
"It has the merit of being expressive," replied the Colonel. "Seven Here's the miles off the line of the road, and connecting with trains by stage, is Sour ?ompiexion°U Lake itself, so named because of the quality of its water and the soil upon . its margin. The water and mud baths here have wonderful curative prop- erties in cases of skin disease, and perhaps in other ailments. In the hands of parties who had the money and enterprise to provide more modern and adequate accommodations and better facilities for reaching the lake, it would develop into a noted health resort. At present it is not so widely known as its merits warrant, but it is destined to become a Mecca for cer- tain classes of invalids."
From the Sabine to San Antonio there are a succession of thrifty towns which bespeak local prosperity and enterprise. The roadway itself is a delight to the tourist. Like the equipment of the trains and the service of the employes, it is a very near approach to perfection. There is in all the A modest word
, . . . . r \ r^ about the road
country no more superb roadbed than that which the trains of the Southern you travel over. Pacific traverse in their flight from the Crescent City to the Golden Gate. Ballasted with rock, the greatest attention has been bestowed upon the per- manence of its construction. The tourist may stand for hours upon the rear platform of the train, anywhere across the wide plains of Texas or Arizona, and see the same long, even, substantial line of rock ballast stretch- ing out behind, each stone apparently laid with scrupulous care. At regular intervals are attractive and commodious section-houses, neat in the glory of bright paint and immaculate whitewash, each with its trim garden plot about it and the refreshing green of near-by trees. At the station-houses bits of garden brighten the landscape, and the sunset symbol of the company is conspicuously wrought in stone to diversify some otherwise waste place.
It was near Crosby, eighty-four miles west of the Louisiana line, that the battle of San Jacinto was fought April 12, 1836, and the independence of Texas practically secured.
55
56
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Texas.
We all know that Texas is a big state. We have heard that since we
toddled to school in early infancy. But we are apt to forget just how great
an empire it is. Even when we recall that it is 800 miles from east to west,
just to give you and 750 north and south, it does not give us so clear an idea as to remember
a faint idea of . . . . , . .
the size of that either of these distances is almost equivalent to a journey from New
York to Chicago, or from ^_ ^ Chicago to New
Orleans, or from ^^"~ ~^--^ San Francisco
to Salt Lake City. .ggjjj ^v Texas is eleven
times as large as ^| | >^ the State of
New York. It is two hundred and eleven
COURT HOUSE, HOUSTON.
times the size of Rhode Island. It has four hundred and eleven miles of coast line : its navigable rivers equal those of any other five states, and within the 265,780 square miles of its domain are 9,500 miles of railroad. The value of its agricultural and manufactured products reach the sum of $185,000,000, and it has a permanent school fund of $100,000,000. We think of it as an agricultural state, but it has vast deposits of coal, iron, copper, gypsum, rock salt, asphaltum, mica, granite and petroleum. The resources of its great forests are almost as inexhaustible as those of its rich soil, which affords the greatest diversity of crops in abundant reward to the farmer.
When our party reached Houston we all got out at the big and bustling
FROM THE TEXAS BORDER TO THE CITY OF THE ALAMO. 57
station to look at the beautiful park and get a momentary insight into the Houston, 362
... . . miles from
DUSy life Of the town. New Orleans.
"This is, in my judgment, the future great city of this part of the country," said the Growler. " Named for a man whose life history is as strange as the phantasies of a delirium, it has become the center of a sub stantial and expanding commerce. Sam Houston was a brilliant and brave man, who had the distinction of being a renowned soldier, the governor of Named for the
.. . hero of San
two states, a member of congress and the President of 1 exas when it jacinto. achieved its independence through the decisive blow which he struck in the battle of San Jacinto where he annihilated the Mexican army. The only blot upon his reputation — and whether that was one or not we can only guess — was his strange abandonment of his wife and career in Tennessee and his alliance with the Cherokee Indians. What i motives impelled him, or what crisis prompted to i so extreme an act
he never told, and perhaps we dgtfHfl JjJJK-ll,. had better
not guess."
" At any rate a great and growing city has sprung up here in sixty years," replied the Colonel. "The fortv thousand
MARKKT AND CITY HALL, HOUSTON.
people who live here A thrifty giant
. among our
to-day enjoy every ad- cities, vantage of municipal life. The pines that fringe it about are the western sentinels of the great forests we have been passing through. Wide reaches
of primeval oak, in the somber drapery of the Spanish moss, are near at hand, interspersed with sycamore, pecan, hickory, ash and cypress. Here the magnolia grandiflora attains a luxuriance I know not of anywhere else. It is but forty miles by air line to the gulf, and the summer heats are cooled and winter chill dissipated by the equable breezes that blow
FROiM THE TEXAS BORDER TO THE CITY OF THE ALAMO. 59
from that great body of water. The city is at the head of tide-water on Buffalo Bayou, which has from ten to twenty-three feet of water between this point and the gulf. But, as the great railway center of the state, it is pre-eminent as a receiving and distributing depot, for eleven trunk lines enter here. I could give you some statis- tics which might be useful if you did not think them dry."
" Give us the statis- tics, Colonel," I said.
" But not too many, papa." the Girl added.
"A woman rarely sees the advantage of figures," the Colonel commenced, referring to a little book he car- ried, " but they convey facts in a condensed way as no other form
MAIN STREET, FROM CAPITOL HILL, HOUSTON. r -11
of statement possibly
can. For instance, it is easy enough to announce that the climate of a The colonel particular place is equable, but it conveys a more rational impression when the'tempt^tion I say that the average temperature in Houston in summer is 80° and in *£"' winter 60°. The actual valuation of property would probably be consider- ably above fifty millions of dollars. As a cotton market Houston outranks all the other cities of the Southwest, being exceeded only by New Orleans in point of receipts. Upon the floor of its cotton exchange can be found English, French and German dealers, as well as local buyers who represent foreign houses. The receipts of the staple are in excess of 400,000 bales per year. It will soon be a great rice center as well. Her lumber trade amounts to over $15,000,000 per annum, and the extent of her miscellaneous manufacturing can be understood when I say that there are about two
60 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
hundred establishments, with a total invested capital exceeding $4,000,000 and an output of over $7,000,000, and giving employment to more than 5,000 employes. The great machine and car shops employ 2,000 men. The jobbing trade of the city reaches throughout the entire Southwest and is esti- mated at $30,000,000 a year. As a final summing up of these few random figures, I might say that the volume of business transacted in the local clearing house is about $250,000,000 per year."
Butwhatshe "Well," said the Girl, with a sigh of relief, "I'm glad you didn't go into
know was— the subject any more fully, and I don't remember a single one of your old totals. What I want to know is, what kind of a place is it to live in ? "
" I'm sure I scarcely know how to answer," replied the Colonel, who was somewhat disconcerted at the effect his statistics had produced upon his daughter. " It's a very charming city, with a compact, handsomely built business center, and lovely residence streets stretching into delightful sub- urbs. It has the finest system of electric street railways, electric lights, and water and sewage systems you will find anywhere. There are a great many delightful places of resort about the city, and its people are cultivated and hospitable. Now what else could I say?"
"Not a thing," said the Girl, laughingly; "you have done splendidly, papa, and in spite of your dry statistics I believe I wouldn't mind living in Houston."
I
CHAPTER IX.
SAN ANTONIO ITS OLD-TIME INTEREST AND LATTER-DAY PROGRESS —
THE MISSIONS THE BIRTH OF THE OPAL.
T was part of our plan to stop over a day in San Antonio. The San Antonio, Growler had protested that it would be just as well to go right Ne^orteans!1 through as to devote but a day to the most beautiful city in all the long feet.at1' stretch of country between New Orleans and Los Angeles, but the Colonel, while he acquiesced in all the Growler said as to the fascinations of the place, protested that it was much better to make a hurried inspection than to see nothing.
"We will lose no time," said he, and putting this resolution into prac tice, he had a carriage at the door of our hotel almost as soon as the affable clerk had assigned us to our rooms.
" Where away ? " he. inquired.
" To the Missions ! " exclaimed the Girl.
We assented, and the driver whipped up his horses. Through the paved on the way to
the Missions.
business streets lined with handsome stores, past the exquisite little plaza that, like a gem, is set down in the heart of the city ; the white stone government building, with its romanesque architecture, its mediaeval tower and bold-angled turret, and its row of arches and arcades that belie the accusation that federal architecture is a failure ; and then on into the suburbs, through tree-embossed cottages, we rode. Then the highway crept sinuously into the country, taking its way through cool and pretty bits of woodland and across the pebbly beds of running streams, until the gray, severe walls of the Mission of the Conception came into view two The miles from the plaza. The general plan is that of a cruciform church, joined the first. on the south by the monastery and sacristy buildings. Above the square double doors is a triangular facade, and in angular spaces a Latin legend invokes homage to the Mission patroness and princess. On each corner of the western end is a square tower, but the bells that once hung in them are gone.
" It must have been gorgeous long ago," said the Growler, pointing with his cane to the front of the edifice. ''One can still discover traces of the gaudy yellow frescoes representing dressed stones, ornamented with red and blue quartrefoil crosses."
As we drove on the Colonel pointed out the spot, near the crossing of
61
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Where a blow was struck for freedom.
Looking off from the tower of San Jose.
the San Antonio River, where was fought in 1835 tne ^rst battle for Texas independence.
"The Mission of San Jose, the oldest and richest of them all," he said, as the second ruin came in sight. " It was completed March 5, 1731. The grand fagade, at the main entrance, shows what cunning workmen were the priests, for it is a delicate piece of carving, rising in pillared arch from the foundation, and culminating above in a wreath of acanthus-like curves and conchoids. On either side were statues of saints, and above a representa- tion of the Immaculate Conception. The massive doors were of native cedar, with panels of mesquite carved in high relief."
We climbed the steep winding stairway made of self-supporting slabs of oak that led into the tower at the southwest corner, and looked out over the scene at our feet. All about the old Mission, with its range of cloisters and cells, was silent. The deserted and crumbling walls were spectral. In December, 1868, the falling of the main dome and roof made wreck of this fair place.
Still two miles farther, and near by the San Juan ford of the river, the Mission of San Juan de Capistrano, named for a Franciscan friar born in Capistrano, Italy, in 1386, came into view. One bell still swings in the pierced arch high above the eastern wall. The almost entirely obliterated
THE CATHEDRAL IN SAN ANTONIO.
frescoes convey but little idea of their once great beauty, but in the glory- The rewards of days of the church they were famous far and wide, yet now even the name such.ari of the artist whose brush wrought them is forgotten. About the old walls is
a cluster of Mexican huts where children play and men lounge about smoking cigarettes. Directly across the river is an old adobe saloon, where a gaudy sign announces the cock fight that takes place every Sunday.
SAN ANTONIO.
63
The Mission of San Francisco de la Espada is the last of the chain extending southward. This was the first camping ground of the Texas army, and it was here that Stephen F. Austin took command of the forces. Forty years ago the church was almost a complete ruin when Father Boucher, the liuie French padre, came to lead the devo- tions of the SCat- A/^^ \^^ — < -—^ tered flock. He worked as
TYPICAL MEXICAN JACAL NEAR SAN ANTONIO.
restored it, and while he ha? been pastor and schoolmaster, he has likewise been carpenter and stonemason.
As we turned to drive back to the city by a different way, the Colonel looked out over the landscape and said : "What devotion and self-renun- ciation all this labor stands for. These Franciscans came into the wilder- ness and bound its then uttermost parts to the world by their chain of Missions, and hemmed the fringe of civilization upon the ragged garment of savagery."
"And this is civilization ! " replied the Growler, pessimistically, as we passed the splendid buildings of the State Insane Asylum.
"Yes this is civilization, if you will," the Colonel responded; "a humani- what we really
i i • i • i_ i. > i j need is more of
tarian socialism where man recognizes that he is his brother s keeper and them, cares for him in the time of his distress."
Just before reaching the city we came to the Army post — Camp Sam Houston— occupying an eligible site of 162 acres overlooking the city. Its extensive buildings of stone, its wide sweep of perfectly level parade- ground, and the high and graceful clock tower which rises from the quad- rangular plaza, make it an interesting place for the visitor.
" This is the new — now for the old ! " exclaimed the Colonel. " Here
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The Alamo and its sacred memories.
Begun as a church in 1716, occupied as a military post in 1718.
is the substantial beauty of structure and the suggestiveness of modern power — the visible sign of a great nation. Now let us go to where a few old walls make hallowed ground to those who venerate the heroism of men who could die for a principle."
"The Alamo?" I asked.
"The Alamo!" the Colonel responded. "If deeds of daring sanctify the soil that witnesses them that should be to every American one of the sacred places of the land."
We soon alighted in front of the old church and entered its broad portal. A hundred and seventy-nine years have elapsed since its foundations were
begun. Its early history would be filled with the interest of tradition were it not for the fact that one glorious deed of sacrifice dwarfs all that went before. Here on March 6, 1836, one hundred and eighty-one citizen- soldiers, untrained to war, fought more than twenty times their number, and scorning to retreat deliberately chose to die. The fight began February 23d, when the Mexican army under Santa Anna began the assault. The attack was continued day and night, and each time the Mexican column was hurled back with frightful loss. Each day witnessed supreme examples of heroism on the part of the beleagured men. One of the most inspiring of these was the sacrifice of James Butler Bonham, a native of South Carolina, and the friend of Colonel Travis, who commanded the Alamo forces. He had been sent to Fannin and the government with appeals for aid, which were unavail- ing. On March 2d, he reached, on his return, a hill overlooking the scene of the siege, accompanied by two companions. Realizing the situation these associates saw no necessity for further progress, and demanded of Bonham that they retire. The reply of Bonham immortalizes him. He said, " I will
SAN ANTONIO.
65
The bloodshed that glorified the old church.
report the result of my mission to Colonel Travis. He expects it of me. I have to tell him there is no prospect of reinforcements, that he has but to die in defending his cause, and that I come to die with him." Then bidding farewell to his companions, mounted on a cream-colored horse, through the lines of the enemy and amid showers of bullets, this gallant son of South Carolina rode to his death. The gates of the fortress opened to receive him, and he presented himself to his chief, the noblest incident in history of stern adherence to solemn duty without regard to person. On the morn- ing of the 6th of March a general assault took place. Slowly the noble Texans were driven back until inside the church they made their last stand. No quarter was asked, none granted. Each Texan died desperately, in hand- to-hand conflict with overpower- ing numbers. Col. James Bowie, sick and unable to rise, was bay- oneted in his bed. Col. David Crockett died amid a circle of slaughtered foes. Travis fell upon the wall where he was giv- ing inspiration to his men. When the last Texan died the floor was
nearly ankle-deep in blood, and ghastly corpses were heaped everywhere. By order of Santa Ana the bodies were piled in heaps and burned. On the monument to these immortal dead Texas writes an inscription so great that it makes the heart stand still : "Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat — the Alamo had none."
Our party scattered after this. The Growler said he was going out to San Pedro Springs to see the park and the menagerie, but I suspected that he had in mind the excellences of the famous San Antonio beer, rather than any desire to study zoology or seek communion with nature.
The Colonel and the Girl started out to visit the great Cathedral of San The cathedral Fernando on the military plaza. It was begun in 1734 and reconstructed in large part in 1868. It contains the beautiful old altar rescued from the ruins of the Mission of San Jose.
A MISSION DOOR.
Every man died fighting, and none asked for quarter.
SAN ANTONIO.
67
As for myself I strolled idly about the city, charmed by its architecture, its modern bustle and life, the intense cleanliness of the city, which in part is due to the white stone and creamy brick so generally used in its buildings, and in part to its excellent sanitary care. The San Antonio River, a deep, Thecityandit* narrow stream, whose water is a wonderful turquois-blue, winds in and out rwer*~fe< all through the city, spanned by fifteen or sixteen bridges. Then I looked in at the splendid new county court house and city hall, leisurely strolled through the residence streets lined with handsome houses, embowered in a wealth of shrubbery and perfumed by the flowers that riot on the lawns. And finally I drifted back to the San Antonio Club, whose luxurious quar- ters overlooking the delightful plaza are a joy forever to the clubman.
That evening we did what all tourists do — made a trip through the Mexican quarter of the town. We had seen their houses, or jacals of stone and adobe or of mud and sticks ; we had seen the people in picturesque groups in their doorways, but in the evening on Milam Square we found them in the characteristic attitudes of idleness. Here long tables were scenes in the spread, illuminated by large mediaeval-looking lanterns stuck upon posts, quarter'of the and spread with chili-concarne, tamales, frijoles, enchiladas, chili verde and tortillas, so hot with cayenne pepper that a mouthful feels like a mustard
THE TOWER AT THE ARMY TOST, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.
plaster to an American stomach. Dark-eyed and gaily dressed girls, or witch-like old crones generally preside at the tables, though sometimes a man who looks like a Sicilian brigand is doing the honors and taking in the coppers.
When, late at night, tired but triumphant, we returned to the hotel, the Girl displayed her purchases of the afternoon. "I was foolish enough to
68 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The old take her into Meyer's curio store," the Colonel said, "and you see the
focketbook8 result." The result was a big Mexican sombrero, trimmed with silver braid. "Isn't it swagger," the Girl said, holding it up triumphantly. Then there were wax figures, horned toads, a gaily colored serapa, some filagree silver work and a half dozen opals that held scintillating red and green fires in their bosoms. "Aren't they lovely," said the Girl rapturously, as she moved them about that the light might fall upon them. "But they are stones of bad omen," said the Growler. " Pshaw, I'm not superstitious," replied the Girl, with a toss of her head. "I don't think there will be any bad luck about them, if papa consents to have one or two of them set in diamonds/'
"You have heard how Ella Wheeler Wilcox accounts for "The Birth ot the Opal ? " I asked, and, for fear some one would too readily assent, I quoted the poem :
The Sunbeam loved the Moonbeam
And followed her high and low,
But the Moonbeam fled and hid her head,
She was so shy— so shy.
The Sunbeam woed with passion,
Ah, he was a lover bold,
And his heart was afire with a mad desire
For the Moonbeam pale and cold.
She fled like a dream before him,
Her hair was a shining sheen,
And O ! that fate would annihilate
The space that lay between
Just as the day lay panting
In the arms of the twilight dim
The Sunbeam caught the one he sought
And drew her close to him.
And out of his warm arms startled
And stirred by love's first shock
She sprang afraid like a trembling maid
And hid in a niche of rock.
But the Sunbeam followed and found her
And led her to love's own feast,
And they were wed on that rocky bed
And the dying day was their priest.
And lo ! the beautiful Opal,
That rare and wondrous gem,
Where the Moon and Sun blend into one
Is the child that was born to them.
CHAPTER X.
BETWEEN SAN ANTONIO AND DEVIL'S RIVER IRRIGATION AND MINERAL
INTERESTS — SOME POINTS BY THE WAY.
" A MOCKING-BIRD sang under my window this morning," said the /\. Girl. We were bowling along westward of San Antonio, and the broad prairies swept to the horizon outside of the car.
"This is a great country for mocking-birds," replied the Growler. Native haunts "There is a belt fifty miles north and as much south of San Antonio where songster" they seem to be at home. There is a peculiar fact which I learned while camping in this section on hunting trips, and that is that the mocking-bird preempts his farm."
"Come, come, Growler," I said ; "this is too much." " It is true, just the same," was the response. " Each mocking-bird has his own range, whrch will supply berries enough to last him until spring. The boundaries of the tract are determined with as much accuracy as a mining prospector locates his claim. It varies from say fifty to a hundred yards square. The mocking-bird defends this possession jealously. He He's a selfish
... ..... .... fellow, too.
takes his position in the top of the highest tree or bush when not feeding, and woe to the 'tramp* bird that seeks to 'squat' upon his premises. On the first alarm he is in the air ready to fight and pursue the intruder until he drives him away. He is a selfish fellow, too, and in the winter turns his mate out of house and home to look for a range of her own, lest his food supply prove inadequate."
"You spoke about the hunting. Is it good in Texas?" I asked.
"There are plenty of deer as well as quail and other game birds, while jack-rabbit shooting is good sport," was the reply. "Of course coyotes, what the wolves and foxes don't count, but you can find bear and panther if you I know where to look for them. But for the fisherman there is equal attrac- tion, for from the trout streams to the home of the tarpon all along the gulf coast, and particularly at Rockport and Corpus Christi, one can get all the amusement desired."
"What a country for stock," said the Colonel, meditatively, as he looked out of the window where the high level plain — or Llano Alto, as the Mexi- cans call it — grown thick with its peculiar herbage, but looking dry and barren in places, was inanimate except for here and there a herd of cattle.
69
70
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Water will make it bloom =><* the rose.
The arid regions ot America.
"With water it will bloom as the rose," replied the Growler, "and some day there will be great farms all through here. Two million of our young men and women reach their majority every year. They want homes of their own. The naturally watered lands will soon be exhausted, or too high for struggling industry to acquire. In California, in Utah and in Arizona we have seen the desert converted into a garden by artificial application of water. It will be so here. Few people really realize how great is the scope of arid country in the United States."
" I will confess I .' # / do not," I said.
MISSIONS NKAR SAN ANTONH
" It is half the whole country." " Not so much as that, surely," I an- swered, in surprise.
" Yes," said the Growler, "it is really half of all America, excepting Alaska. It can be defined in this way: If you com- mence on the ninety-seventh meridian, on the west end of the Gulf of Mexico, and run north to the British Possessions, then run a thousand miles west to the one hundred and fifteenth meridian, at the east line of Idaho, dropping down one hundred miles, then run west to the top of the Cascade Mountains, in Washington, one hundred miles from the Pacific coast ; then turning south, run along the top of the Cascade Mountains until you get forty miles below San Francisco, then turn west and run to the Pacific coast and follow that coast down to Old Mexico, then turning follow along the north line of Old Mexico down the Rio Grande and around to the place of beginning, you will have gone around arid America, and you will have gone around a tract of country half as big as all the United States In the settle- ment of arid America, as it was commenced in 1854, we never asked what the country was when we set foot upon it, and it is only within the last few years that we have come to admit to the world that Western Kansas, Western Nebraska, the Dakotas, one-third part of Texas and Western Oklahoma, and all of the great region extending from the warm waters of the gulf to
BETWEEN SAN ANTONIO AND DEVIL'S RIVER.
71
the British Possessions, cannot be settled and cannot support a population in peace and happiness unless it be reclaimed by irrigation. Now," con- tinued the Growler, " this bit of country has cost us a lot of money. We paid first to Old Mexico, in 1848, $15,000,000 for New Mexico and Cali- fornia. We afterward paid Old Mexico $10,000,000 for the 45,000 square miles embraced in what is known as the Gadsden Purchase. We afterward paid Texas $10,000,000 for releasing her claims to that portion of New Mexico which lies east of the Rio Grande. It? strikes me that the Govern- ment, having invested so much, should put in a few more millions to develop it, and make this vast area the home of the contented and prosperous millions who could be supported here."
"Well," said the Colonel, "if the Government is not doing very much, private enterprise is. And as we shall see before we get through with this trip, it has made a garden out of Southern Califor- nia, and has progressed favorably in the same direction with respect to many points in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico."
" But there seems to be a good deal of verdure out on those plains," I said.
" Yes," replied the Colonel, "the soil is so rich that grass grows with the slightest encour- agement. Cattle in vast numbers graze here and find abundant pas- turage. Besides that there are some forage plants peculiar to the soil and climate. For instance, there is the grease plant, which, even when green, burns as tho' saturated with kerosene. The Siempre Viva or Plant of Eternal Life, or resurrection plant, as it is variously called, often has the appearance of being dead, but opens up in water, and becomes green and thrifty even after years. The most peculiar growth is that which is called the loco plant. It comes out in the early spring before the grass sprouts, and when cattle eat it a species of insanity seizes them. It affects horses in the same way, and the plainsmen describe the mania by
A good many millions of acres that cost us a great many millions of dollars.
A MISSION WINDOW, SAN ANTONIO.
Private enter- prise is taking the matter in hand.
Herbage . peculiar to the Texas plains.
SOME POINTS BY THE WAY. 73
saying they see ghosts. The symptoms indicate a sort of hallucination, such as the inebriate is seized with when we say he has delirium tremens."
"Sabinal will be the seat of an important enterprise some day," remarked sabtnai, 643 the Colonel, as the train passed that station. " Fifty miles from here there are New^oTfeans. very extensive deposits of a high grade of kaoline. Several thousand dol- and alsphaJt lars have already been spent by St. Louis parties in prospecting and opening it, and tho' the rough and mountainous country in which it is situated, and its remoteness from railroads, are discouraging factors, I look for its profitable development in the future. Four miles from here an asphalt mine is being opened up. The whole country is full of this valuable min- eral, and it is only a question of time when it will be profitably worked. I also understand that silver-bearing ore has been discovered in paying quan- tities near the town."
" In reference to the arid lands we were talking about awhile ago," said the Growler, as the train drew up to the station of Uvalde, twenty-three miles beyond Sabinal, " I am reminded of a big irrigating project which is now approaching completion here. The Uvalde Irrigation, Manufacturing and Water Co., of which Capt. B. F. Buzard is president, owns 25,000 acres of uvaide'sbig land lying north and south of the Southern Pacific track between the scheme. Nueces River on. the west and the Leona River on the east. Like all the land in this part of .Texas, the soil is very fertile. The irrigation scheme contemplates the drawing of water from the Nueces River at a point on the hills about twenty miles north of the town. The river there, tho' for the most part fed from great springs, presents all the aspects of a mountain torrent, having a fall of about twenty feet to the mile. Here a dam has been built, and through cement-lined canals and wooden flumes the water is carried over the land. There is water enough available to irrigate more than 80,000 acres. Assuming that one cubic foot of water per second will Millions in
, water and
irrigate 350 acres, and that it is worth for that purpose $1,000 per miners homes fbrthe inch, or $50,000 per cubic foot as estimated in California, the present com- pany at one-fifth of this estimate will be able to supply $2,500,000 worth of water per annum. Their plan is to sell their irrigated lands in small par- cels to actual settlers, and I regard it as one of the methods which are so important to the development of our country."
"All these places have something more than local interest," chimed in ciine, 682 miles
, . . . west of New
the Colonel. " Now, here is Cline, for instance. To the ordinary tourist it Orleans; does not suggest anything. But it is the seat of a very important interest. feet.a its' new The Litho-Carbon Rubber Co., whose stock is chiefly -held by New York capitalists, owns some 17,000 acres of land five and a half miles southeast of the station. This land contains vast deposits of a new mineral discov- ered four years ago, and called by the geological department at Washington Litho-Carbon. The company has expended upwards of $200,000 in the
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The rock gives forth a paint compound and paving material.
An original and ingenious process.
Ho! for Mexico and its curious cities and people.
last couple of years in putting up an extraction plant and mastic works. The bitumen which is extracted from the rock finds a ready market among the paint and varnish manufacturers in this country and Europe, and the present capacity of this plant has recently been increased from fifty tons per week to eighty tons per day. The company also makes a compound for rubber and an insulating material for electric wires and electrical machinery. The mastic plant is a distinct business, the product being extensively used for laying sidewalks and roadways in cities. During the past year the company contracted for several thousand tons toi put upon the streets of Houston. The daily capacity of this plant is fifty tons. The rock deposit crops up above the soil on the company's property and is easily mined, six charges of dynamite dislodging some 200 tons. In ap- pearance the rock is similar to bituminous limestone. The ex- traction is made with oil, under a very ingenious process patented by the company. So far as the plant is concerned it would be a model one in any of our great industrial centers as well as out here on the Texas plains, for it has its own arc and incan- descent electric lights, a ten-ton ice plant, comfortable quarters for its sev- enty-five employes, and every facility for profitably doing business."
Spofford, 705 miles west of New Orleans, is the junction point for Mexico, the Southern Pacific running a through sleeping car service via Spofford to the City of Mexico. " It is a most delightful trip," said the Growler. "The Mexican International is struck at Eagle Pass, and one goes via Torreon. Coming from the west the tourist takes the Mexican Central at El Paso. The service throughout is excellent, the roads and their equipment perfect, and the novelty of the people one meets and the sights one sees are a large reward for the small cost and additional time consumed. It's a wonder to me that more of our people do not make the tour through Mexico, where so much that is quaint and interesting invites them. At every station one sees groups of natives full of picturesqueness. The landscape is a great pleasure, for even the flat-topped mountains are different from anything we have, and the old towns with their domed cathe- drals are like cities in Palestine."
CARRIERS OF THE COUNTRY.
CHAPTER XI.
DEL RIO AND THE GREAT SPRINGS OF SAN FELIPI DEVIL'S RIVER CA5TON
A HUNTING STORY THE FORTITUDE OF A MEXICAN TEAMSTER.
" TT^vEL RIO !" said the Girl, "that has a Spanish sound."
L_y "I like the old name of the place best," responded the Colonel; Dei Rio, 741
. miles west of
"it was San Felipi. There are some wonderful springs a mile northeast of New Orleans, the town. They burst from the foot of low, rocky hills, and so great is springs of San their flow that, besides furnishing water for the town and the railroad, for ice factory, cotton gins and grist mills, and irrigating 3,000 acres of land, a great volume runs to waste in a swift, bold stream that flows toward the Rio Grande. There are abundant deposits of red and yellow ochre a mile east of town, and a thorough geological survey will doubtless reveal other mineral wealth." .
"The system of irrigation here proves what can be done in this soil and what can be
done when you
climate," remarked the Growler. "Something like 8,000 or 10,000 acres get water on
this soil.
are in cultivation. The soil is a rich loam and produces all sorts of fruits, vegetables and grains. I have seen sixty bushels of corn, or one and a half bales of cotton, or four hundred bushels of potatoes grown to the acre. It is a great grape district, the Lenore or Black Spanish grape flourishing with almost unexampled luxuriance, producing as high as 20,000 pounds to the acre. A great deal of wine is made here, and sells at $1.00 per gallon when new."
"Isn't there a mineral spring hereabouts, too?" I asked.
"Yes," said the Growler, " on the southern limits of the town there is a A spring for
the healing of
famous mineral well, of which Prof. Everhart made the following statement : the nations. ' So far as my own experience goes, there is only one sulphur water in the state that possesses all the qualities of a first-class water, and that is one found at Del Rio. This water stood for over six weeks in my labora- tory without losing appreciably any of its properties. Taking everything into consideration, it stands at the head of any sulphur water found in the United States, and is probably equal to any found elsewhere in the world."
" I never think of Del Rio without recalling the hunting story that Duval oneof Duvai
West's hunting
West, of San Antonio, tells. West is as truthful as most lawyers, and 1 really yarns. think he believes this," said the Colonel. " He says that a couple of years ago a party, of which he was one, went by way of Del Rio for a hunting
75
76
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
trip into Mexico. Their chosen ground was on the Sabinas River, eighty miles south of this point, where deer, turkey and the wild Mexican hog are plentiful. A very wealthy New Orleans cotton broker, whom we will call Jones because that was not his name, was in the party. After leaving Del Rio, they traveled for two days over a very dry and dusty plain. There was not a tree in sight and scarcely a blade of grass. The cotton broker lost heart, and said to Comstock, an Englishman who was in the party, and who had never been known to kill anything, 'Comstock, I'll bet von
ON MII.AM SQUARE, SAN ANTONIO.
Took big odds $1,500.00 to $i.oo that you do not shoot a deer to-morrow.' The bet was of °por°SS1 course taken. Then Jones said to another member of the party who was a
fairly good sportsman, 'I will bet you $1,000.00 to $1.00 that you don't kill a deer to-morrow,' and to West, '1 will bet you $500.00 to $1.00 that you do not kill a deer to-morrow.' These bets were taken, and to the guide who was a famous shot, and who had been talking a great deal about the superb turkey shooting, he said, 'I will bet you $100.00 to $1.00 you don't get a turkey.' That night they reached the hunting grounds, and bright and early the next morning each member of the party went forth, determined, if possible, to win the big purses hung up as incentives to success. West said that after tramp- ing for five or six miles he got a good shot at a doe at one hundred yards, took deliberate aim and blazed away. The doe fell and disappeared over a west was sure little swale in the ground. Confident that he had killed it he walked up winner. leisurely only to find when he reached the place that the wounded animal
had escaped. That was the only shot that he got that day. Comstock fired point-blank at a deer at sixty yards and missed it. He protested that if it had not been for the nervousness produced by the consciousness of the bet, he would have killed his game ; but he made a clean miss. The other member of the party got a good shot at a deer but also missed. The guide
DEVIL S RIVER CANON.
77
was the only one who did not see any game, so that tho' they killed plenty of deer and turkey during every other day of their stay, Jones who stood to lose over $3,000.00 as against a winning of $4.00, took in all the bets."
Six miles beyond Del Rio the road enters a cutting and begins to skirt the bank of the Rio Grande. At times the waters of the river wash the shelf of stone upon which the track is laid. On the right the great wall of gray rock rises in castellated turrets, sometimes projecting in roof-like masses that overhang the track. Here and there, from the cavernous mouths of caves, great flocks of swallows and bats issue forth as the train clatters by. With affrighted cries they circle about for a time and then retreat into the dark and mysterious recesses again. Off to the left are the misty blue mountains of Mexico. Here the two republics confront each other belligerently and with the menace of stern granite walls, while between the placid river flows. Ten miles beyond, and Devil's River, an affluent of the Rio Grande, is crossed. Its crystal clear waters abound in trout that tempt the sportsmen. After crossing the river the train runs through Seminole Cave Canon. Here again the great primeval rocks rise like the b'uttressed walls of a castle in Lombardy. They are honeycombed with caves, the interior walls of which are daubed in places with paint and
X
ON THE SAN ANTONIO RIVER.
But Jones took in all the purses
Caves on the banks of the Rio Grande.
A good place for scientists and Apaches.
marked by indecipherable hieroglyphics. In these caves the roaming bands of Apaches once sought shelter when too closely pursued by the troops, and were wont to lie in secure hiding while the soldiers were mystified by their sudden disappearance.
When Comstock is reached, the Santa Rosa Mountains can be seen, The
. , T. T . . Santa Rosa
towering blue and bold, seventy miles away in Mexico. Here one begins Mountains.
THE FORTITUDE OF A MEXICAN TEAMSTER.
79
to realize the purity and rarity of the atmosphere on these high plains. HOW the eye is The eye acquires a power lost to it in other latitudes. That hill over there is thirty miles away, but you would aver that it was only five at most. To the foot of those bluffs is twenty miles, but if you relied upon vision you would say you could walk to them in half an hour. Continually one is deceived by this foreshortening of distance.
"We start upon a trip from New Orleans to San Francisco with indifference The old stage
. , , „ , ,, , ,-,-,• routes across
now. said the Growler, "but it was very different when I used to go over the continent, the route before the railway was built. I have crossed here when the stage line was in operation, and it followed a route but a few miles north of the road at this point. We had six and eight mule teams and covered the six
LOOKING OVER THE BUSINESS PART OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.
hundred and thirty miles from San Antonio to El Paso in six days, which was not slow for that mode of conveyance. The fare per passenger was $40.00, and he carried his own life insurance, an extra-hazardous policy for the insurance companies, too, for the Apaches made things lively. You can imagine how a man felt after six days and nights in a stage. Why, he could fall down and sleep anywhere."
"It was a little expensive traveling, too; was it not?" I inquired.
"The last time I came that way," replied the Growler, "was on the eastern trip. It was by sea from San Francisco to Santa Monica, $14.00 ; thence to Los Angeles by rail, $1.00; from Los Angeles to Yuma by rail, $23.00. There I took the old Southern Pacific mail stage line of Kerens and Mitchell to Mesilla, N. M., and by way of Tucson and El Paso to San Antonio, the total fare by stage being something over $200.00."
80
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The Pecos bridge, one of the highest in the world.
Patty and her mustang.
Let his arm be burned off and never whimpered.
The Pecos bridge, one of the most remarkable structures of the kind in the world, is crossed just beyond Comstock. Its long steel spans, the mid- dle one 185 feet in length, look like spider webs against the great depths it crosses. The bridge is 2,184 feet long and 321 feet above the bed of the river, which far below winds like an azure ribbon through its steep walled chasm of rock.
Mr. J. R. Moorehouse, a former paymaster of the Pennsylvania Railroad system, lives on the east bank of the Pecos, and has an extensive sheep ranch. His young daughter, Patty, used to ride her mustang across the narrow footway of the bridge, a feat so perilous that the railway company finally put up a wire fence to prevent the hazardous undertaking.
"One of the most superb evidences of fortitude took place in Howard's Well Canon, forty miles north of here, in 1876," said the Colonel, musingly. "The occasion was one of those plains tragedies which were all too frequent up to that date. A long Mexican wagon train was making its way north- ward when it was attacked by Apaches in Howard's Well Canon. The men were overpowered and most of them killed, the survivors tied to the wagon wheels, and the train rifled and the wagons set on fire. Only one man escaped to tell the story — a Mexican teamster, who had been shot through the breast. As he lay upon the ground feigning death, an Apache brave, who was going about convincing himself that the slaughter was complete, kicked him toward the fire. The Mexican's hand fell among the blazing embers. To have moved would have been to have invited death, and he lay there and let his hand and arm shrivel to a cinder. When the Indians rode away he crawled for ten miles to a ranch and tc id the story of disaster."
CHAPTER XII.
ROY BEAN OF LANGTRY — "THE LAW WEST OF THE PECOS" A PLAINSMAN
WHO RULES WITHOUT REGARD TO STATUTE.
THE train drew up to the little station where a big brown tank awaited Langtry, 806 to refresh the thirsty engine. The conductor said we would have ten minutes, and we stepped out on the platform. The stony hills swept away on the right and left, opening before us into narrow valleys toward which the shining rails led. Half-encircling the little group of houses was the deep Canon of the Rio , Grande, a precipitous cleft
in the ground, where
THE ARSENAL, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.
the walls have a sheer fall of two hundred feet from the level of the mesa to the bed of the river. Across to the right, fifty yards away, was a low, broad, white frame building, with a shaky veranda in front and a roof that sloped flatly to the eaves. A big black bear, in an iron-barred cage, paced restlessly to and fro. Over the front of the saloon, for such it was, a big sign flaunted, bearing the legend, " The Jersey Lily."
" Well," said the Girl, deliberately, as she cast her eye over the landscape and finally fixed them on the little cluster of houses ; "it would be hard to find anything of interest about this place."
The Colonel chuckled and replied: "This is one of the most interesting The home of points on the line. It is the home of one of the most original characters Of the
82
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Pen picture *he " Jedge.
A recital of frontier life.
the frontier has given birth to — Roy Bean, by courtesy and reason of his office called the Judge, and known throughout Texas as 'The law west of the Pecos.' There he is now."
of A rather stout man of perhaps sixty years came out of the door of " The Jersey Lily" and stood upon the porch watching the train. He was of medium height. As he took off an old sombrero a splendidly shaped head, covered with an unkempt shock of gray hair, was visible. His bearded face was kindly, and had manifestly been handsome in his early manhood. He wore a check shirt open at the throat and a pair of trousers supported by a single suspender.
" Take a good look at the Judge," said the Growler, affectionately; "you will never see another man like him."
When we had resumed our seats and the train was speeding on, I reminded the Colonel of his promise to tell us something of Judge Bean, and he answered :
"The whole story of Roy Bean's life is a recital of frontier exploit. It seems far away to us because the times that made it possible have passed forever. No quainter, ______ _ __ ^ -— — _ more original or self-
assertive "-•*•-__ character
PLAZA, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.
ever lived, and none who has drawn a larger stock of common sense from the hard school of experience. In the history of the southwest frontier he will fill an important niche. Roy is a Kentuckian, born in 1829, but moving to Independence, Missouri, soon after. When sixteen he made a trip to Santa Fe, and in 1846 went into Mexico with General Donaphan. From then on, for forty years, his life was one of wild adventure. How he was first
ROY BEAN OF LANGTRY. 83
arrested for shooting a Mexican, who tried to rob his Drotner's store in Chihuahua, his novel-like adventures in El Paso, Tucson and other points, would fill a book. Finally after running a gambling saloon and dance house in 1850-51, at San Gabriel Mission, near Los Angeles, and selling whisky at the Peno Alto mines in Arizona, he drifted back to Texas, and during the war freighted cotton from Allerton, the terminus of the first little railroad in the state, to Lodi, Eagle Pass and Brownsville, bringing opened a on his return trips supplies for the Confederate government. When the be'c^me Southern Pacific was being built across these plains he was prompted to open p^ce6 a saloon and follow the camps. He first located at a place east of the Pecos, to which he gave the name of Vinegerone. Here he piled up rock walls, stretched a canvas awning across for a roof and sold whisky to the thirsty laborers. Here, too, he began his celebrated judicial career. Gam- blers flocked in and there was so much shooting and such a rapid increase in the population of the little cemetery, that the contractor in charge of the works wrote to Governor Ireland and had Roy commissioned as a jus- tice of the peace, and a company of rangers detailed to assist him. From then on Roy's course was marked by those extraordinary decisions which are notorious, and I have sat by the hour, and the Growler there has, too, and listened to Roy tell about them, while we shook with laughter at each ludicrous result."
"Tell us some of them." I said; "I should like to know by what pro- cesses the Judge has achieved such fame."
" Tell the Chinaman story," said the Colonel, turning to the Growler.
"When there were six thousand Chinamen working along here building Found no the road," was the response, " it was pretty difficult to hold them in check, madeira*1 They were divided off into gangs and over each of these subdivisions there chhlaman!" * was a white boss. One day the Chinamen in one gang made an assault upon the foreman, who retaliated by shooting and killing a Celestial. Another white employe, who had a pique at the man who had done the killing, pre- ferred a charge against him before Justice Roy Bean. The rangers were sent . out and duly arrested him. That afternoon a large party of white men from the camp, heavily armed, rode over and demanded an immediate trial of the prisoner, their intention being to release him in the event the court did not. Roy told them that the inquiry would be held the next afternoon, and invited them to picket their horses and to make themselves at home in the meantime. They proceeded to do so, with the expected result that they spent a great deal of money in Roy's saloon. The next day that able jurist convened court, and taking his position on the counter in his saloon, where he always sits while conducting the trial of a case, announced with great dignity that he had carefully, studied the statutes but that the most diligent search failed to show that it was a crime to kill a
84
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Pined a dead man for carrying concealed weapons.
Didn't mind divorcing people, either.
Chinaman; that if any one couid show him where it was made a misdemeanor to take the life of a Chinaman he would hold the accused, but that otherwise he should be compelled to discharge him — and discharge him he did."
" He rendered a verdict at a coroner's inquest which is also historic," said the Colonel. " While the Pecos bridge was in course of construction, one of the men fell from it and was killed. Roy was summoned to view the remains, and in examining the person of the deceased to find possible clews to his identity, he discovered a small revolver and a time-check for $40.00 which was good to bearer. The Judge impaneled a jury, who listened to the evidence and promptlybrought in
JVKR THE CITY AND Till CORPUS CHRIST!, TEXAS
BEACH AT
dental death. The spectators started to disperse, but Roy called themto order, and said: ' This is not all, gentlemen. The deceased came to his death by accident, but there is another matter to be attended to. I find upon the body a revolver and forty dollars. Now it is contrary to the laws of Texas, and to the peace and dignity of the state, to carry con- cealed weapons. I therefore confiscate the pistol and fine the deceased forty dollars for this breach of law.' and he coolly pocketed the proceeds, and laughs about it to this day."
" I never remember but one instance where the Judge's decisions brought him into conflict with the higher authorities," remarked the Growler. " He had married two Mexican couples — and, by the way, in all this region they won't have anybody but him perform the ceremony. In a month or two they came back, and said they could not agree and wanted to 'swap ' wives. Roy listened to the recital of their marital woes, and then with a pretense
THE LAW WEST OF THE PECOS."
85
of some sort of ceremony declared them divorced. Then he collected $15.00 from each released husband and they started away, the women simply changing protectors and evidently designing to cling to the new spouse. But Roy called them back and declared that this would not do ; that it was contrary to law, and that they must be remarried under the new assign- ment. He performed the double ceremony and charged each one an additional $5.00. When Judge T. A. Falvey of El Paso, who is upon the bench of this judicial district, heard of the affair, he wrote to Roy and said, ' It is all right this time, but, for God's sake, don't divorce any more couples.' "
"I used to know a young telegraph operator who was employed at Langtry," continued the Growler, " and once he got into trouble with a Mexican citizen, and apprehending that Roy did not like him and might fix a severe punishment, hurriedly left for Sanderson. >«pfi!te^ The Mexi- can swore out a warrant, but the guilty party was gone. Roy strolled down to the agent and /""^
ISH PASS, TEXAS.
He
told him he had fled Roy refuses to
i 1 TMI i issue a second
' Pshaw, said Roy, ' have him come back, I 11 take warrant.
asked him what had become of the operator. for fear of punishment, care of him.' The young fellow reappeared the next day and the Mexican at once sought out Roy and demanded his arrest, but that dignitary gravely informed him that the first warrant having been returned unsatisfied, the constable not being able to serve it, a second warrant could not be issued, as the law declared that a man could not twice be put in jeopardy of his life. Another of the Judge's favorite and profitable methods of inflicting
86
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
His favorite punishment is popular with the natives.
But he insists that the guilty shall buy their beer of him.
The Judge enjoys the joke, too.
punishment is to fine the convicted party, where the offense is not grave, a couple of dozen bottles of beer, which, of course, are bought and paid for on the spot at the rate of fifty cents each. There is a Mexican by the name of Torreonewho runs an opposition saloon in Langtry, and naturally he and Roy are bitter rivals. | BMHUI mm IM , , mf Some time ago Torreone
was arrested by a fellow- citizen whom he had as- saulted. He demanded a trial by jury, and after a good deal of effort enough men were mustered up to compose the panel. When the evi- dence was all in they deliber- ated for some time and finally returned a ver- dict of guilty, and fixed the fine at two doz- en bottles of beer. Elated at getting off so easily the prisoner sprang up and said, 'All right, boys, come over to my place and have the beer.' ' No you don't,' responded Judge Bean, promptly and firm- ly. 'The fines im- posed in this yere court are paid right here, and don't you forget it,' and he compelled the discomfited Torreone to patronize his bar, and pay the full retail price, too."
"There are a hundred incidents of this kind I could relate," said the Colonel meditatively, "and all of them have the advantage of being abso- lutely true. Absurd as they seem, and as they are, they are based upon
JUDGE ROY BEAN OF LANCiTRY, TEX; ''THE LAW WEST OF THE PKCOS."
RULES WITHOUT REGARD TO STATUTE.
87
the same principles of law that actuated Solomon — good common sense.
Roy Bean's court is a product of the country, and his decisions are adapted
to the necessities of the life about him. Nobody enjoys the recital of these
legal comedies more than Roy himself, and the twinkle in his eye as he
quaintly narrates them shows his own keen appreciation of humor. One of
the best stories of Roy Bean's early career is told by Major Horace Bell, in
his book entitled 'Reminiscences of a Ranger,' published some fifteen years
ago, and dealing with the California life of the 5o's. At that time Roy
was running his saloon at the San Gabriel Mission, and it was one of the
toughest of its class. On one Sunday some three thousand people had
gathered around the old Mission to amuse themselves in various ways. The
list of amusements included a horse race, monte games and cock fights. It
was a rough assemblage, the most of the crowd being Americans, all des- An incident in
perate fellows, who cared nothing for killing a man. While the celebration u°e.S(
was at its height a smooth-faced young man, of exceedingly polite and
graceful demeanor, rode up, dismounted and entered the saloon kept by
COWBOYS ON THK TEXAS PLAINS
Roy. The new comer leaned against the bar and carelessly surveyed the scene. While quietly looking on he was roughly accosted by a ruffianly looking man, who, taking a position directly in front of the young fellow, and surveying him from head to foot, said, with a contemptuous grin :
"'Well, whar in hell did you come from?'
" ' I !' replied the young man in a pleasant voice , ' why, I just arrived from Los Angeles.'
" 'You weren't raised thar, war ye?' asked the bully.
" ' No ; I came from New York.'
" ' I jest don't know whar New York is ; I reckon it's way up north some- whar, whar you pries the sun up with a hand-spike.'
RULES WITHOUT REGARD TO STATUTE. 89
" 'The sun never sets in New York,' was the response.
"The quiet demeanor of the young man enraged the bully, and he be- The wiidwoif came still more overbearing, declaring himself to be the 'Wild Wolf of the Arkansas. Arkansas.'
" ' I was the bloodiest man in the Cherokee Nation,' said he; 'lama half-breed Cherokee, I am, and I belong to the Ridge party. I killed three Mexicans on my way out here. I killed a soldier at Fort Yuma, and I have
ALONG THE PECOS IN TEXAS.
been here three weeks and ain't killed anybody yet. I'm going to give He announces
his intention to
these Mexicans a chance to have a funeral, and if you open your mouth do some killing I'll kill you.'
" 'Please, sir, don't bury me alive,' said the young man, ironically. " ' Be keerful, stranger ; I shoot, cut and kill, I do.' " Roy was watching the proceedings from behind the bar. His sympa- thies were all with the young man, and quietly slipping up to him he placed a small derringer in his hand. The youth turned his hand so as to secrete the weapon, and when the bully again continued his insulting remarks and threats he coolly looked at him, and said :
"'You are not dangerous, and I don't think you will hurt me.' "This caused the storm to break forth, and the bully jumped up, and, cracking his heels, cried out to the crowd :
90
THROUGH STORVLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The youth did not seem alarmed.
But found he had struck the wrong tenderfoot.
And the cigar goes up his proboscis.
" ' Get out of the way, I'm going to shoot.'
"A general rush was made for the doors, and, as the desperado reached to draw his pistol, the young man with a quick movement placed the barrel of the derringer, which he had been holding in his hand, against the breast of the bully, and said in a firm tone :
" ' My dear sir, hold up your hands, or I will kill you.'
"The bully found that he had met his master, and mechanically obeyed the command.
" ' Now,' said the young man, 'unbuckle that belt and let your six-shooter fall,' which command was obeyed without a murmur.
" 'Now take a position at that corner of the room,' continued the young fellow, pointing to the place indicated. The cowed bully obeyed, and his conqueror picked up the six-shooter and calling for a cigar quietly lighted it. The crowd was watching the scene with mute wonder. After thoroughly lighting the cigar, keeping a drop on the bully all the time, he walked up to his cowed victim, and thrusting the pistol in his face, said :
" ' Hold your hands behind your back ; I'm going to stick the fiery end of this cigar in your nose, and you must let it remain until it goes out. If you flinch or attempt to take it out, I'll make a funeral for these Mexicans.'
"This threat was put into execution, and stepping back to the bar, the young hero said :
'"Gentlemen, resume your games ; there will be no further trouble,' still keeping a deadly aim on the bully.
"'My name is Joe Stokes, and I can whip any man in California who don't like me. I like to lay for such soft snaps as 'The Wild Wolf of the Arkansas/ '
'•The young hero then went out, and mounting his horse, rode off amid the wild cheers of the crowd. This was a brother of Ed Stokes of New York."
CHAPTER XIII
FROM LANGTRY TO EL PASO, WITH SOME PASSING COMMENT UPON THE
NATURAL AND HISTORIC POINTS ON THE WAY TRAGEDIES
OF THE BORDER A WOMAN'S HEROISM, ETC.
FROM Langtry to El Paso every foot of the way seemed to suggest The landscape something of romantic interest connected with the pioneer life of the country to the Colonel or to the Growler. The wide sweep of verdure-clad or barren landscape, the rugged near-by butts or far-off blue chains of towering mountains, the presence of a frontier fort, with its trim buildings
PAISAINO PASS, SUMMIT OF THE SUNSET ROUTE.
and flying colors, everything revived incidents that added an element of acute interest to the journey.
" They have all the train robberies" up north now, but we used to have a few down here in the early days of lawlessness," said the Colonel when we reached Samuels. " The train robbers soon gave up the business though, because through this part of the country it was too easy to catch them."
" I should think they could get away very readily on these great plains and among these mountain fastnesses," I said.
" Not at all," was the reply. " Throughout all this country the presence Men become
, , . . . skilled in the
of a stranger creates comment, and every movement is closely scrutinized art of by a people given to the most minute observation. The man himself, the clothes he wears, his accoutrements and the horse he rides — every peculiar- ity is made mental note of. Thus it is easy to trace him. Cattlemen and
91
92
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Windy Smith taken by surprise.
A wild chase after the bandits.
prospectors are always wandering about on the plains or in the mountains, and the solitary life they lead develops an acuteness of observation and a shrewdness of deduction which would put a detective to the blush. Now a bold hold-up occurred just a mile east of Samuels a few years ago. Horse- shoes were placed on the track, and when the engine began bumping over them, of course the engineer put on the brakes. The bandits raided the express car where ' Windy ' Smith was in charge. ' Windy ' was a brave fellow, and had killed two robbers who attacked his car the year before ; but he was taken by surprise, and his safe relieved of $3,600. He was so chagrined that he resigned at once and left the service of the Wells-Fargo Co. Immediately after securing the booty the men, John Flynt, Jack Wel- lington, Tom Fields and Jim Lansford, fled across the Rio Grande. Pur- sued by a party of rangers under Capt. Frank Jones, they recrossed, bury- ing the money at a camp near Bullis Crossing. The chase lasted some three weeks, and finally the robbers were overtaken in the spurs of the Sra. Charrote Mountains in Crockett county. A running fight took place. Flynt, the leader, had declared that ._, he would never be taken alive and
INTERIOR OF THE OLD INDIAN CHURCH AT YSLETA, TEXAS.
refused to surrender. His horse was shot under him, and as he fell to the ground a bullet struck him in the heart. Raising himself on his elbow as he lay dying upon the ground, he put his own pistol to his head and blew out his brains. He was buried where he fell. Wellington's horse was shot under him and he dodged behind a rock. Twice he leveled .his pistol and took aim at Jones, who dashed in pursuit of him, but each time he dropped the weapon without firing, saying afterwards that ' tho' a robber and a thief, he was not a murderer and could not take life.' The three men were
A WOMAN'S HEROISM.
93
captured, and are now serving life sentences in the United States peniten- tiary at Detroit. There was a mystery about the robbery which has never been cleared up. The footprints of five men and five horses were found. One of the human footprints showed a very small foot. Lansford, who turned state's evidence, protested that there were only four in the gang, but the rangers hold to this day that there was a fifth person who, for some unknown reason, was shielded and escaped."
"Marathon is another place with a history," remarked the Colonel. " By the way, they have struck some
Capture of the robbers by the rangers.
Marathon, 939 miles from New Orleans; altitude, 4,043 feet.
mighty rich silver mines in Mexico, about eighty miles southwest of here. The ore
THB RIO GRANDE AT EL PASO.
is brought across the Rio
Grande at Boquells, by team to Marathon, shipped thence in bond to Eagle Pass, and from there to Monterey where it is smelted."
"But that isn't the history, is it, papa?" asked the Girl.
"No, the story I had in mind deals with the courage and devotion of a Thestoryot woman," replied the Colonel. "W. T. Henderson, who formerly lived here, courage and was extensively engaged in the stock business. There was great temptation to smuggle cattle or horses across the Rio Grande, because, while steers in this country might be worth $20.00 a head, in Mexico they could be bought for six or seven dollars. It was the same with horses. There was a duty of something like $15.00 a head, and a man was making money pretty fast who could run them over without encountering the custom-house authorities. The river forms the frontier for 1,300 miles, and while the revenue officers and river guard are vigilant and brave, there are not enough of them to form an effectual cordon. In October, 1893, Henderson was arrested for having eighty-seven head of smuggled horses in his possession. I should not like to say, of course, that he knew they were smuggled, but anyhow he was sentenced to two years in Kings county prison in New York. Just
94 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
before his conviction at El Paso for the offense referred to, his wife was the heroine of a remarkable exploit. She had been a school teacher in Mara- Shewas thon before her marriage, and in addition to being a bright and cultivated
a gun. y 1 woman, was very 'handy,' as they say hereabouts, with a Winchester. Hen- derson and one of his Mexican cowboys were on the other side of the river, herding some cattle, when thirteen soldiers of the sister republic, detailed to protect certain American ranchmen there, who were enemies of Hender- son, made an atack upon that gentleman, and drove him into a canon in the mountains. Here the pursued held the soldiers at bay for a time, but finding his ammunition running low, the vaquero slipped out, evaded the soldiers, and rode to Marathon, where he notified Mrs. Henderson of the situation. The Mexican was too much exhausted to return, and she took A night nde oi a supply of ammunition and started alone to her husband's rescue. She
eighty miles to . . . . ......
the rescue. rode the eighty miles, mostly by night, joined her husband, and together they fought and put to flight the thirteen soldiers, and escaped to their home."
The summit of From Paisano to Marfa the road runs through the beautiful Le Sano
Route, 984 Pass of the Santa del Muerto Mountains for fourteen miles. Paisano is the
Newborieans. summit of the Sunset Route, glorying in an altitude of 5,082 feet. The
whole pass varies but little from this high altitude. On either hand the
precipitous bluffs rise at an acute angle thirteen hundred feet higher.
Their steep sides are covered with a dense growth of live oaks that makes
a shimmering carpeting of living green all the year. The scenery is
m the van exquisite throughout the entire distance. From Marfa to Sierra Blanca —
ninety miles — the line follows the great Van Home Valley. The spurs of
the Eagle Mountains are on the left — the Caresas or Santa del Muerto's
on the right — and the valley, maintaining an average width of twenty
miles, is as level as a floor, the elevation above the sea being 4,512 feet at
the highest point and 4,012 at the lowest. The soil is as fertile as any in
the world, but the absence of water makes it unproductive. At Fay, almost
A deep well. midway of the valley, the Southern Pacific sank a well to a depth of 2,012
feet, but secured even then a very indifferent flow of the much sought fluid.
This is the favorite grazing ground of the antelope, and often herds of them
can be seen from the car window. •
sierra Bianca, "Sierra Blanca, just east of which is the monument marking the i2oth
of Howard.1 er meridian of west longitude, is associated with the historic tragedy which culminated with the massacre of Charley Howard and others, in December, 1877," remarked the Growler. "It was an atrocity that will never be for- gotten throughout all this region. Howard had achieved a good deal of distinction and had been judge of the Twentieth judicial district. He had necessarily incurred political and other enmities. His bitterest enemy was a prominent Italian named Cardise, who had defeated him as delegate to the
TRAGEDIES OF THE BORDER.
95
miles east of El protection of a stationed there.
constitutional convention of 1876. Their animosity culminated in a shoot- ing affray in Schut's store, in El Paso, in which Cardise was killed. This would not have aroused the populace of the country had it not been for another circumstance. North of Sierra Blanca are extensive salt lakes to which the Mexicans had been in the habit of resorting for generations. Howard had acquired control of the adjacent property and objected to the natives running over it. They were very bitter ^£SjS&jtSs*>^ on this account. After the killing of Cardise, Howard ^^ |^^ went
to Mexico for a time, and when he returned on his way to attend court at Fort Davis, he learned, after passing San Elizario, that a large party of Mexi- cans had assembled for the purpose of waylaying him. He turned back to San Elizario, which we will pass twenty
Paso, and sought the
company of rangers The Mexicans pur- sued Howard, and gathered in the town five or six hundred strong. Howard and the rangers retreated to the corral and held their assailants at bay for four or five days, a desultory fight being kept up all the time. During this time Charley Ellis, a resident of the place who had
not retreated to the corral, was caught, INTERIOR OF THE OLD CHURCH AT JUAREZ.
killed and his body thrown into a well where it was found many clays after- ward. At the end of five days communication was established between the two forces, and on the promise that their lives should be spared the beleaguered party surrendered. Disregarding their pledge the Mexicans at once proceeded to a viva-voce trial of their prisoners to determine whether they should be executed or not. The verdict in Howard's case, the first one to be tried, was death, and he was immediately led to a stone wall and riddled with bullets. A Mexican named Desedario Appadoca sprang forward as he fell, and placing his bare foot upon the dead man's breast, aimed a blow at his throat with a macheta for the purpose of cutting his head off, but the stroke was misdirected, and Appadoca's great toe was cut off instead. John McBride was the next man tried. When he surrendered the Mexicans had taken $i 1,000 which was in his possession. He was condemned to death, and after being jeered at when he reminded them of the promised protec- tion, he indignantly exclaimed: 'Shoot, then, damn you, and shoot high.' The shots from the first volley struck him in the abdomen, and he called
Shot his political antagonist
Brought to bay at San Elizario.
Imposing the death sentence by popular vote.
" Shoot, damn you, and shoot high."
THE TRAGEDIES OF THE BORDER. 97
out: 'Shoot higher, you infernal cowards.' The next volley pierced his breast, but as he lay upon the ground, torn by a score of bullets, he raised himself a little and pointed to his head. A blaze of rifles followed, and at last he was dead. Charlie Atkinson was next shot to death, and then, sick of the cruel slaughter, the Mexican leader checked his atrocious followers, and declared that if another life was taken it should be his. The Mexicans dispersed soon after, most of them crossing to their native soil, and though several hundred indictments were returned none of the murderers were ever brought to trial."
"Oh, how horrible!" said the Girl. "And do these awful things happen yet ?" "Oh, no," replied the Growler; "they belong to the past of the country, Theybeiongto before society had become organized. This was the history of all new l countries. To-day life is as safe in Texas as anywhere, and a man can travel all over it unarmed and secure'."
"While we are on the subject," said the Colonel, "it was just fifteen AnearK- miles north of the little station of Fay that the Graham family was mur- massacre dered by the Victorio band of Apaches in June, 1880. Mr. and Mrs. Graham were in a wagon train and on their way to Silver City, then in the heyday of its prosperous boom. They, with their wagons, were cut off from the rest of the party and killed in Bass' Canon, named after Sam Bass, a famous Texas outlaw of early days. General Grierson, in command of the loth Cavalry, took up the pursuit of the Apaches, and on August 2d had a fight with them at the eighteen-mile water-hole west of Eagle Springs. During the night the redskins broke camp and escaped, heading for the Guadalupe Mountains, in whose fastnesses they would have been comparatively safe from pursuit. But General Grierson, by a forced night march, headed them off and drove them across the Rio Grande at Fort Quitman. A month later the Mexican troops fell upon the band and anni- hilated them. After the Indians had been driven into Mexico, Major J. R. Livermore, in command of Troop K of the 8th Cavalry, operating with General Grierson, did some engineering work in this part of Texas, and among other things measured, in September, 1880, the peak which bears The measuring
. . . . of Livermore's
his name, and which it so conspicuous, towering over against the Quitman Peak. Mountains, seen beyond Sierra Blanca. It is the highest on the Sunset Line, rising to a height of 8,200 feet.
" Here's Malone Station ; come out on the platform, and see the horse- shoe curve," said the Colonel.
The horseshoe is one of the most remarkable pieces of engineering on The great
horseshoe
this part of the road. On the wild sweep of broken and mountain-hemmed curve near
. . Malone.
plain it describes an almost complete circle — a ten-degree curve with a one per cent grade all the way. It is a mile around, and after forming the loop is less than two hundred yards between tracks.
98
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Where the Mission grape grows.
Ysleta and its quaint Indian population.
A tradition and an inference.
For fifty miles on each side of El Paso is a country susceptible, with irri- gation, of the highest cultivation. It is the natural home of the Mission grape, which from the peculiarities of soil and atmosphere and climate here takes on a flavor equaled by no other grown elsewhere. These grapes were originally brought from Spain by the early Catholic priests, and have flourished here ever since. Much wine was once made in the region, but now so great is the demand for the product for table use that almost all are shipped for that purpose as they ripen. The average altitude of the district is 3,700 feet, but beside the vine, all varieties of fruit, including quinces, peaches and pears, grow to perfection.
At Ysleta, a quaint town of adobe houses set down in broad green fields and shady orchards, an ancient irrigating system shows what can be done with even primitive agricultural methods. Here lives the remnant of an old tribe of Indians be- longing to the Pueblos, maintaining their language, Catholic in their belief, but preserving their ancient traditions in spite of the innovation in their faith, and celebrating, with weird rites and spectral fires upon the mountain tops, the season of harvest and of sowing. They keep to themselves, and will take no part in any mining, tho' credited with a knowledge as to the location of rich and virgin veins. The story goes that when the Spaniards A NATIVE OF JUAREZ. conquered Mexico, the forefathers of these Indians of Ysleta were among the natives who were confined in the silver mines and compelled to work, ill fed and oppressed by a slavery that was the death of thousands. After the Spaniards were driven out, the aborigines entered into a compact never to show a mine to any one nor to work in one them- selves. They even filled with dirt and rocks the old shafts which were the scenes of their sufferings, and planted trees and cacti over them to hide all traces of their existence. And the traveler who looks out of his window at the bronzed and stolid faces in the fields must wonder whether under those grim and expressionless features is hidden a memory of their wrongs and the secret of wealth locked up in the somber hills that buttress the world hereabouts.
CHAPTER XIV.
EL PASO, JUAREZ AND THE GATEWAY TO MEXICO — THE MECCA FOR
THE INVALID THE ROMANCE OF ITS EARLY FOUNDING
THE SANTA FE EXPEDITION.
UNDER the shadow of Mt. Franklin, and with the blue peaks of the EI Paso, the Organ, Hueco and Guadalupe Mountains grimly guarding it on gateway to the north and east, and the Sierra Madre standing like a wall far off to the mfilsfrom94 south — girdled about by the turbid Rio Grande, and fringed with a scat- NewOrleans- tered tracery of low adobes — El Paso stands as the western gateway to Mexico. Across the river is the old Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez, or Paso del Norte, as it was set down in the geographies of our boy- hood. In its ancient church built more than three .^IBfl^^ r- is the ancient hundred years ago, and dedicated now to the Lady ^f juare£°f of Guadalupe, the worshipers come and go as they have for ten generations, kneeling or crouching picturesquely upon the puncheon floor, in the dim light and before the tinseled altar with its twink- ling tapers. On the rude walls are the pictures of saints, and above is the ceiling of wondrously carved logs that were carried in on the backs of
burros. Overhead in the squat tower, surmounted NOT PRETTY% BUT HE-S A by a tall cross, the clamor of harsh bells rings out, GOOD INDIAN-
to be softened into faint melody as the sound is borne to the fields beyond, where the humble tiller of the soil looks up from his work to reverently cross himself. Here, for sixty years, Cour Ortiz has said mass and done good deeds of charity among his simple flock, and with his kindly face will greet you heartily, if you go that way.
There is a wonderland all about El Paso that the uninformed tourist The fruitful wots not of. Indeed, it is yet a sealed book, but to the few. To the north and northeast, in New Mexico, are wild mountain chains with snow-capped summits, twelve thousand feet in height, clad to the verdure line with the long-leaf yellow pine, with spruce and cedar, juniper and oak. Game abounds, and the swift streams are filled with trout. It is a region wonder- fully rich in mineral, with vast deposits of gypsum, gold, silver, lead, copper,
99
100
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Wealth locked up in the mountains.
Don't think of El Paso as a slow place.
You can have any kind of time you want
nickel, coal, salt, crystalized borax, sulphur, etc. Under the spurs of the Sacramento .Mountains, Tiffany, the New York jeweler, owns a turquois mine so rich that two men working in it sixty days each year bring to the surface $25,000.00 worth of the precious stone, and for the rest of the year, lest the market be overstocked, the mine remains locked up. In the shel- tered valleys of this region fruits and every field product grow abundantly. One hundred and twenty-five miles southwest, in the Valley of Corralltas, in the Sierra Madres, is another region of wealth, where the richest silver and copper veins await development. Of this region, of which. El Paso is the commercial center, comprising the states of Chihuahua, Sonora and Durango, in Mexico, and of Arizona and New Mexico, in the United States, Humboldt said it included the greatest and most varied mineral deposits in the world.
El Paso, with its present population of 11,000, was first connected with the world by rail when the Southern Pacific reached there May 13, 1881. It is now the most progressive, substantial and enterprising city between San Antonio and the coast, and the progress of its past is only a foreshad- owing of the greatness of its future. Everything about it is modern, its superb business blocks, handsome Federal building, its homes, its shops and stores, its municipal administration. And in addition to all this, it has the best climate in the world for people suffering from pulmonary affections.
The only thing perplexing about El Paso is the time. It has four brands of time, and the citizen takes his choice. They used to have four or five
other varieties, but so many people became insane in the attempt to keep their
FT. ULISS, EL PASO, TEXAS
meet appointments that now they have only four. Between New Orleans and El Paso Central time is adhered to, Pacific time from there west. The difference is two hours, so if you arrive at El Paso at 11.15 A. M. and wait there an hour and three-quarters, you still get away at n.oo A. M., and experience no delay. Then there is local time and Mexican time besides.
This Valley of the Rio Grande, of which El Paso is a little north of the center, extends from Rincon to the Quitman Mountains — a distance of 190
EL PASO. 101
miles, and with an average width of three. At present it has a population Thevaiieyof of about sixty thousand people. With irrigation its fine alluvial soil will Grande, support millions. There are several propositions for more extensive irri- gating schemes than are now used.
We were all glad that our train stopped here long enough for the Colonel to introduce us to Judge J. F. Crosby, who fortunately happened to be at the station, and we were glad to chat with him about the early life of the place.
"This was all known as Ponce's ranch when I came here in May, 1852," The story of remarked the Judge. "It was the property of a somewhat distinguished times""3 Mexican named Ponce de Leon. A few Americans had preceded me, drift- ing here after the close of the Mexican War when General Sterling Price and Colonel Donaphan had marched through here. The old adobe buildings of the hacienda were clustered close to where the Southern Pacific depot now stands. Franklin Kuntz had bought the ranch in 1850, but failed to pay for it, and after the death of Ponce, in 1857, the estate was purchased by W. T. Smith. In the same year I was elected Judge of all the territory lying west of the Pecos River. In 1859 I organized a syndicate of St. Louis The real-estate parties, bought the estate and laid off forty acres in town lots. The coming Slfthe^ene! on of the war balked our financial venture for the time, but in spite of all vicissitudes the place throve."
" Pretty rough in those days, was it not, Judge ? " I asked.
"Well," said the Judge, with a sly glance at the Girl, " I was married in Abridaitour Austin in 1856, and it required a journey of sixty-five days for my seventeen- year-old bride and myself to reach home."
"What a wedding trip! " exclaimed the Girl.
" Yes, and it was one made exciting by the constant menace of hostile Apaches, as well as irksome by the cruel jolting of the wagons," was the reply. "Between the years 1852 and 1862 I crossed the plains twenty-two times, and never made the trip in less than fifty days. Now you think noth- ing, of going from New Orleans to San Francisco on the 'Sunset Limited' in seventy-seven hours, with sumptuous palace cars at your disposal, a perfect cuisine, library, barber shop and smoking compartments; you go to bed Your scalp is when you feel disposed and get up when you please, knowing that perfect tmveTnow. service to satisfy all needs awaits you, but we had the rough experience of jolting wagons or stages, camp-fire cooking, constant menace from warlike Indians, and often a scarcity of palatable water."
"How did you keep in touch with the outside world ? " I asked.
"Fairly well," replied the Judge. " We did not then seem to need the Thisistheway daily telegraphic report. The first mail service we had brought in the mail fromt every two months. Then it was made monthly, and finally, at the break- ing out of the war, made semi-weekly from San Antonio to Fort Smith.
102
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The mail route — by stage, of course — was from San Antonio to Fort Clarke, then to Fort Hudson, on Devil's River, thence to Fort Lancaster, near where the Southern Pacific now crosses the Pecos, then up that stream and westerly to Fort Stockton, then on to Fort Davis, ten miles from the present site of Marfa, then to Fort Quitman, San Elsiana, Fort Bliss and El Paso. Six or eight guards were carried on the mail coaches and the passengers, who were all armed, were expected to take their turn at guard
A STREKT SCENE IN JUAREZ, OPPOSITK El, PASO.
duty. In 1852 there was not a human habitation from Fort Clarke. 130 miles west of San Antonio, to El Paso. The Apaches, Comanches and Mescalero Indians roamed the plains, and no one went beyond the outskirts of the settlements without the menace of massacre."
" But there must have been plenty cf business of some sort here to draw Americans," I ventured.
"An immense traffic grew up," was the reply. "Long wagon trains
came in from Independence, Missouri, over the Santa Fe trail. These were
loaded with dry goods, groceries and hardware, and here met the equally
extensive shipments of bullion and othe* products of Mexico. It was not
unusual for a single store to sell $100,000 worth of goods in a day, and
Money was the money was actually more plentiful than any of the commodities demanded
oommodi?ydan* m daily living. We paid fifty cents per pound for coffee, sugar and rice;
twenty-five cents a yard for calicoes and domestics, and twenty dollars a
pair for boots."
" What was the character of your population then, Judge ? " I asked. The feiiow "Border outlaws were numerous and vicious, for when the vigilance
was there" committees drove them out of California they sought this as neutral ground.
EL PASO. 103
They did not steal, were deferential to women and lenient with men of family, but shooting and killing affrays were of daily occurrence, and mur- derers were seldom, if ever, convicted ; for it was an understood principle that as each man knew what was likely to occur and went prepared, he con- stituted a law unto himself. Yet, even in that lawless era, property was so secure and honor so highly esteemed that there was not a safe in the coun- try, and mortgages were unknown. The failure to pay a debt or meet an obligation, when it matured, was tantamount to ostracism and compelled the defaulter to leave."
" There is a fact in Judge Crosby's life which should be remembered," waswiththe said the Colonel, reflectively; "because it is a curious circumstance, and fitVyears lr perhaps a unique one. He was the attorney of the Southern Pacific Rail- bui°t!ei way Company thirty-five years before it was built."
The Judge smiled, and replied : "That is true, and the circumstance is a peculiar one. The Southern Pacific was the first of the transcontinental railways to be projected. The proposition took shape during the adminis- tration of Franklin Pierce, in 1853, when Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War. The latter took much interest in it, and Senators Rusk and Houston were its earnest advocates. The company was organized in New York, and John C. Fremont was sent to France to float the bonds. In the Texas
MEXICAN VILLAGE SCENE NEAR EL PASO.
legislature of 1854, of which I was a member, a charter was granted, Levy S. Chatfield, of New York, the president of the company, being in Austin to help influence the members. After the close of the session I was employed as attorney for the road at El Paso, and instructed to investigate the probable resources of the country tributary to the line. For this pur- pose I made an extensive trip into Mexico, as well as through Arizona and New Mexico, and duly forwarded my report to the capitalists interested. A controversy over the bond issue, and the coming on of the war, delayed
104
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Time squared the account.
An Indian fighter with a record.
Where the National boundary line luns.
The Santa Fe expedition.
A pleasant walk of 2,000 miles.
the actual work of construction and led to the disorganization of the orig- inal company, but twenty-five years later, in 1870, I was instrumental in helping to build the old Texas & New Orleans R. R. from Houston to the Sabine River, and it afterwards became a link in the great Southern Pacific system as it exists to day."
" There is a typical frontiersman," said the Girl, pointing to a bronzed, wiry looking man who had just ridden up to the depot.
"That," said the Growler, " is George Herold, one of the noted Indian fighters of the West. You can find many men like him hereabouts, and their lives would read like romances of the most vividly yellow-backed order. He spent twenty years as a scout and Indian fighter, part of the time employed by the United States, and part by the Mexican government. He has been shot a dozen times. He was present at the fight in which Victorio was killed in the Custac Mountains, two hundred miles southwest of El Paso. In that memorable encounter ninety-eight Indians were killed and ninety-four captured, and the most desperate band of Apaches thus quieted. Herold was the first man to reach Victorio after he fell, and took his scalp, which he carried to the City of Mexico, where the government paid him $250 for it, as they did for all Indian scalps at that time. He scouted after Geronimo twice, and was with Lieutenant Finley at the time of his capture."
Three miles out of El Paso, set down among the sand bluffs, is the great smelter of the Consolidated Kansas City Smelting and Refining Co., and but a little further on one catches .sight, in the river bottom and on the distant hilltop, of the first and second of those stone monuments which mark the boundary between the two countries, and which are set down every few miles from here to the Pacific Ocean.
" No more graphic story of suffering could be written," said the Colonel, "than that which was enacted hereabouts in 1841. Under the presidency of Mirabeau B. Lamar, of the Texas republic, an expedition, composed of some 350 adventurers, was fitted out at Austin, then the extreme western limit of settlement, to establish trade relations with the people in this sec- tion. Texas claimed the country, and so did Mexico. The expedition, after suffering untold hardships, and being subject to continuous harassing of the Indians until their number was reduced to two hundred, fell into the hands of the Mexicans, who marched them to the City of Mexico, more than two thousand miles away, where the survivors were imprisoned. The horrors of that march are indescribable. Before starting on their long journey the prisoners were paraded on the plaza of the little town of San Miguel, and two of their number shot as a sort of object-lesson. These poor fellows were compelled to kneel and be shot in the back by a file of soldiers at six paces. One of them, Howland by name, had his ear and a
THE SANTA FE EXPEDITION.
105
portion of his cheek cut off by a sword, and, though bloody and disfigured, showed them walked proudly to his death. He was thus murdered while protesting could die. against the indignity of dying 'face to rear,' but with a firm 'good-bye, boys,' upon his lips.
" The story of the weary tramp to Paso del Norte (now El Paso), with its accompaniment of brutalities, the lack of food and clothing, of hunger, would be long in telling. These unfortunates depended
THE SMELTER AT EL PASO.
Took their ears as vouchers.
almost entirely upon the charity of the noble women of the country through which they passed for food and succor. The crowning atrocities of the creature Salazar, who was in command of the guard, were perpetrated to the northeast of where the Southern Pacific Railroad crosses the Rio Grande, and during the few days marches before arriving at El Paso. A man named Earnest died of fatigue and starvation. His ears were cut off and care- fully preserved, as evidence of the fact that he had not escaped.
'' Shortly afterwards something even more horrible occurred. A tall Tennesseean, by the name of McAllister, had sprained his ankle, and was besides so exhausted and footsore as to be incapacitated from further marching. McAllister declared his inability to proceed on foot. Salazar drew his sword and peremptorily ordered him to hurry on ; and this when there were half a dozen led mules, upon either of which he could have placed the unfortunate man. Again McAllister, pointing to his swollen and inflamed ankle, declared himself unable to walk. Once more the blood- thirsty savage, pointing to the main body of the prisoners, ordered the cripple to hurry forward and overtake them. He could not. 'Forward,' Murdered said Salazar, now wrought up to a fit of frenzy; ' Forward, or I'll shoot you couldn't walk. on the spot.'
" ' Then shoot,' replied McAllister, throwing off his blanket and exposing his breast; 'and the quicker the better.'
" Salazar took him at his word, and a single ball sent as brave a man as ever trod the earth to eternity. His ears were then cut off his shirt and
106
THROUGH STURYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Knocked his brains out this time.
And such as these made settlement possible.
pantaloons stripped from him, and his body thrown by the wayside as food for the wolves.
"Another man named Golpin, a merchant, who had joined the expedi- tion with a small amount of goods, was shot by the rear guard for no other reason than that he was too sick and weak to keep up.
"Yet another instance: A man named Griffith, who had been wounded by the Indians, too lame and weak to go further, sank down. A soldier told him to rise. He made a last feeble but ineffectual effort, casting an imploring look at the soldier, and while doing so the miscreant knocked his brains out with a musket. His blanket was torn from him, as the reward of his murderer, his ears cut off, and he was thrown by the roadside, another feast for the buzzards and wolves. These atrocities are facts testified to by more than two hundred witnesses.
INTERNATIONAL CROSSING ON THE RIO GRANDE JUST WEST OF EL PASO.
'•'A few miles out from El Paso, about where the smelter now stands, yet another poor devil succumbed to the hardships. His body was stripped, Salazar taking his usual voucher as evidence of his not having escaped.
"Arriving in El Paso, or rather Paso del Norte, now known as Juarez, the prisoners were treated by the whole population with exceeding kindness. Salazar was removed from the command and imprisoned. The journey from El Paso to the City of Mexico was, as compared with the horrors endured before, but an evening promenade."
CHAPTER XV.
SOME NOTES ON THE LINE ACROSS NEW MEXICO — A FRONTIER COURT INCIDENT — MOUNTAIN CHAINS AND FERTILE VALLEYS.
I
A NATIVE OF THF. COUNTRY.
N a few minutes after leaving the smelter the train passes over the iron bridge of the Rio Grande, and the tourist is in New Mexico, across the southwestern corner of which the road runs for some 250 miles. For a long time the track follows closely the windings of the river, amid blue lines of hills, while far-off high peaks stand like solitary sentinels. Then yellow and white sand plains intervene, clad in scant verdure of cacti, spear-grass and mesquite.
"What a beautiful lake!" exclaimed the Girl, suddenly. " See its little islands and the fringe of cool-looking trees along the shore."
The Colonel laughed softly. "You will see charming lakes from now on at intervals until we get across the desert of the Colorado, well into Cali- fornia," said he. " They are such stuff as dreams are made of. There is no water here, no dreamy isles, no fringe of foliage, nothing but the desert sands and the palpitating air that makes the illusion. Your lake is a mirage, and you will see many such."
"The people scarcely know what the possibilities of the territory are," remarked the Growler. " Her limits comprise some seventy-eight million acres, and the population is perhaps two hundred thousand. It has great valleys, susceptible of the highest cultivation, and its fruit and live stock interests are as extensive as its mining and timber industries. The wool clip of 1894 was over twelve million pounds, the coal fields are extensive, the timber districts vast and profitable. Besides, it is a land of blue skies and sunshine, where in winter it is not uncomfortably cool in the sun and in summer never disagreeably warm in the shade, where the dryness of the climate is not intermittent but perpetual, and the average relative humidity is from twenty-nine to forty-three per cent, against sixty-nine per cent in Boston and seventy-three per cent in Buffalo. Practically the climate is the same as Arizona, where, in the Salt River Valley, the average spring tem-
A cross New Mexico.
The mirage shows up.
A territory few know much about.
A climate that is death to microbes.
108
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Pioneer justice in Donna Ana county.
The attorney makes a grave charge.
perature is 70°, summer 90°, autumn 73°, winter 56°; highest ever recorded, 115°, lowest 22°, average annual 72°."
" We are just now in Donna Ana county," said the Colonel. " It extends from the boundary line almost to Deming, and was for a good many years a pretty wild region. There was a trial here at one time which had about
as humorous a A Mexican whom he was well rather touchy man whom
C
denouement as I recall. I will call Dorengo, as related and his kin are about him yet, killed a he had forbidden to meet his daughter; just took a double-barreled shotgun and went into a neighbor's house, where the young fellow was sitting with the girl on his lap, and blew the top of his head off. Colonel Rynerson was prosecut- ing attorney at the time, and Colonel Fountain was employed by the defense, thus putting the two leading criminal lawyers against each other in a bat- tle royal.
Colonel Fountain soon found that if he relied on facts and evi- dence to clear or even postpone the fate of his client, he would be 'up a tree,' so he cast about for other means of getting his man off, but apparently to no purpose.
"At last the day of the trial came, and the court-room was crowded. The examination of the witnesses for the prosecution was over, and Colonel Fountain arose and addressed the court. Said he: ' May it please the court, if any one had told me that an attorney of the standing and reputation of Colonel Rynerson would stoop so low for the sake of the paltry praise that might come to him for the conviction of my poor client here as to browbeat and intimidate my witnesses, suborn others — I say it boldly — and thus procure the absence of any testimony
GLIMPSES OF NATIVE LIFE IN NEW MEXICO.
NOTES ON THE LINE ACROSS NEW MEXICO.
109
which might be used in our favor, I should have repelled the accuser and his accusation with scorn, but here I stand without a witness to-day, and the attorney for the prosecution knows why.'
"With that Colonel Rynerson sprang to his feet shouting : ' It's a d — d lie,' and leaped at Colonel Fountain.
" Both men were old frontiersmen and ex-officers of the famous California Legion, who had each gained fame for personal bravery during the war, and had added to their reputation for courage in the turbulent years that suc- ceeded the close of the conflict, and every one in the court-room was on tiptoe to see the two men come together, for they knew that blood would flow. The sheriff and his deputies crowded between them and pandemo- nium reigned for a time, when Colonel Fountain was heard addressing the court. Quiet was in a measure restored, and the Colonel said :
"'Your honor, I am at a loss to understand the violent language and the threatening attitude of the attorney for the prosecution toward me, as I am not conscious of having said anything calculated to provoke any such demonstration.'
"'In the name of Jupiter Ammon, if such charges as you just made were not sufficient provocation, what would you think would be, you infernal hound?' roared Colonel Rynerson.
'"May it please the court,' replied Colonel Fountain, 'I think your honor will bear me out in . - , — what I am about to say; that
A CATTLE ROUND UP.
It is promptly resented and bloodshed is imminent.
Feigns a childlike innocence.
The
explanation and the apology.
is, I made no charges against Colonel Rynerson. So far from it was I that I stated that if any one had brought such accusations against him I should have indignantly refused to listen, and I further started to say that I was without a witness for the defense to-day, and the prosecution was aware of the fact that it was simply because we had none to bring, and that we would rest our case and rely upon the mercy of the court, when Colonel
110
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
But the prisoner had fled.
A set of curious coincidences.
Spanish exploration and early myths.
Rynerson sprang up and interrupted me and all this uproar began. I am sure if anything I said has unintentionally on my part wounded the feelings of Colonel Rynerson, he will accept my sincere regrets and count it unsaid.' "Colonel Rynerson declared himself fully satisfied with the explanation made by Colonel Fountain, who also expressed his own regret at having been touched so easily, hoping his words, used in the heat of passion, would be forgotten. The case was then taken up, and as Colonel Fountain arose to announce formally that the case for the defense would rest, the Judge
BRINGING IN WOOD ON BURROS.
cried : 'Where is the prisoner?' All eyes turned to the dock, but it was empty. There is a statutory provision in New Mexico that no man shall be brought to trial in irons. He must be absolutely free in the court-room, subject only to the vigilance of the officers.
" During the intense excitement, when every eye was straining in the direction of the belligerent attorneys, the prisoner had quietly walked out of the room, and by a strange coincidence found a fast horse awaiting him, and by a set of similar coincidences, he found such a horse about every five miles until the Mexican border and safety were reached.
" Rynerson always said that was one of the shrewdest legal moves he ever knew of being resorted to."
" Didn't you tell me the old Spaniards explored this region in a very early day, papa?" asked the Girl.
" Yes, and we have in our whole national area no section more fraught with picturesque adventure. About 1530, when Nuno de Guzman was gov-
ans, * Jfa\
MOUNTAIN CHAINS AND FERTILE VALLEYS. Ill
ernor of New Spain, word was first given to the world of this region. It was called the country of the Seven Cities, and was reputed to be fabulously rich. Guzman tried to explore it and dismally failed. Then eight years later Alvar Nunes Cabeza de Baca and three companions, survivors of the unfortunate expedition of Navarez for the conquest of Florida, wandered overland to Culiacan, bringing tidings of the region. In 1540 came Coronado, with whose name all the region is associated, and from whose Theremainsof explorations we have learned so much of its early life. He came with three hundred adventurous cavaliers and eight hundred friendly Indians, and spent a couple of years campaigning through the region, sub- duing the belligerent natives, establishing posts and writing in his reports a very fair account of things as he discovered them. He found, in the great pueblos then existing, an industrious race who raised maize, beans, cotton and pumpkins, wove their own clothing, made pottery, lived under a well-regulated social order, and were disposed towards the customs of civilization. From then on the story of the country was linked with the narrative of Spanish conquest Greed for the pos- session of its rich, mines overreached itself, and the A CHILD OF DESTINY. natives were continually revolting and driving their oppressors out. After the region fell into the possession of the United States under the Gadsden Purchase a new era dawned, and to-day its resources are being developed by a far-sighted and energetic race, who are building here a great common- wealth."
Bevond Deming — an advantageously situated point, with branch lines Deming, 1,283
... mi'es from
northeast to Nutt and northwest to Silver — is the same succession of high New Orleans
plains with scant vegetation. Water is easily obtained, but not always feeT
good, a strong alkali impregnation sometimes destroying its palatability.
At Deming, however, splendid water is found at a depth of forty feet. At
Lordsburg the railroad draws its supply from the mountains, piping the
useful fluid for a distance of more than four miles. Beyond Lordsburg
the road bisects Playes, Animas and San Simon Valleys, and between sansimon
* Valley and
Stein's Pass and Vanarman crosses the line into Arizona. The rugged ste< i's Pass grandeur of the scenery at Stein's Pass is refreshing. The bold crags rise on the right in pinnacles of red rock, seamed and disjointed by the weather- wear of centuries. On the left the valley opens out with receding lines of purpling hills that grow fainter and fainter upon the far horizon. Looking off across San Simon Valley one sees in the far southwest, where the sky-line meets the earth, the outlines of a great face turned upward. The profile is called "Cochise's Head," and has long been a landmark. Cochise was the greatest of that long line of Apache chiefs whose fame upon the border lin-
112
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Those herds ol cattle graze here.
Cacti— the fruit and timber of the desert.
gers in traditions of their subtlety and cruelty. With a Napoleonic regard for strategy, and with an absolute knowledge of the mountain fastnesses he inhabited, he combined a marvelous control of the people he ruled. Over beyond the range, whose rocky profile outlines his face against the sky, is a great cavern where the scattered remnants of his tribe yet resort to invoke with weird ceremony the spirit of their great leader, and amid wild incantations renew the allegiance which once, in their days of power, gave them undisputed possession of a wide region.
" Looks dry, don't it ? " I said, as the train bowled along. "Looks that way," replied the Growler, "but it isn't. Here, at San Simon, is the center of a vast cattle interest. The San Simon Cattle Com- pany alone has a herd of 75,000 head. Back in all these valleys there is good grazing, the nutri- tious gama grass growing everywhere. Off there to the south, in the Chiricahua Mountains —
A NEW MEXICO OLLA MAKER.
great piles of syenite, paleozoic strata and porphyry — was the favorite rendezvous of the latest bad Apache Indian, the Arizona Kid, to whose door all the depredations of stray scoundrels has been laid."
" What wonderful cacti !" exclaimed the Girl, enthusiastically. "How luxuriantly it grows, and how many varieties there are of it ! "
" Gives the landscape a weird and grewsome sort of appearance, don't it?" I said.
"A very useful plant, too," spoke the Colonel.
" Useful ? " asked the Girl. " Why, it's only an ornament, isn't it ? "
"Yes, with the ladies of the North who cultivate a little bulb for years, and are excessively proud of the prickly growth if it assumes the propor- tions of a cocoanut. But here it is quite different. You see that big sahaura ?'
MOUNTAIN CHAINS AND FERTILE VALLEYS.
113
We looked quickly out of the window to where a great cacti reared its stunted head forty feet in the air — a sturdy, branchless, bulbous growth.
"That," continued the Colonel, "is only one of some sixty or seventy TheCoionei varieties of the family. It bears in its season a large white flower, that of th™ many CW opens like a chestnut, and has inside a red, flesh-like pulp, of which the Mexicans and Indians are very fond. It has a sweetish, insipid flavor. The stalks of the sahaura are divided through their length by strong white ribs, which the natives use as beams for the roofs of their houses. Of the other members of the cacti family which you will see, is the cholla, a bush-shaped plant covered with white spines ; the bisnaga, low and round, and contain- ing no woody fiber. The spines with which the bisnaga are covered are barbed like a fish hook, and woe to the unwary who gets them into his flesh. The Mexicans cut the white pulp of the plant into small pieces, boil them in sugar and obtain a confection of which they are very fond. The datil Fruit and flour grows to a height of five or six feet, with branches that diverge at right * angles. Its fruit resembles a cucumber, and contains a black seed which
ON THE CACTI PLAINS.
the Indians grind for flour. The petella is the greatest of the fruit pro- ducers — you will frequently see it with twenty stems springing from a single root. The — "
"Never mind, papa," the Girl broke in; "I'm sure I couldn't remember any more. What place is this ? "
Benson, 1,458
"Benson," replied the Colonel, a little stiffly. " It is the junction of the New Orleans.
New Mexico & Arizona and the Arizona & Southeastern railroads. The
114
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Canon ol the Cieneta.
Vails and its guano filled cave.
former runs down to Nogales, where it connects with the Sonora R. R. for Guayamas, and the latter runs out to the celebrated Copper Queen mine." From here Tombstone, the most famous, or shall we say notorious, town in all the Southwest, is reached.
"I have always thought this a pretty bit of scenery," the Growler said, calling our attention to the Cieneta River Canon, twenty-four miles east of Tucson. We agreed with him, for, as the train whirled along the brink of the deep [j^^ narrow gorge we could look down to where its turbid waters boiled far below.
"Near the little station of Vails," the Colonel remarked, " is a curious dimensions filled with guano. It home of myriads of bats since time and a great deposit of fertilizer has The cave was opened some three or and a company organized to make
cave of great has been the immemorial, accu m ulated. four years ago shipments. For prosecuted, and
NATIVES OF NEW MEXICO.
some reason the venture was not after about seventy-five car loads
had been forwarded to Los Angeles and San Francisco operations were suspended."
CHAPTER XVI.
TUCSON AND THE ANCIENT MISSION OF SAN XAVIER — ARIZONA AND ITS
LOST CIVILIZATIONS.
" A H-! we should stop here," the Growler said, as the train, passing the Tucson, 1,506 /"\ Territorial -University and Indian School on the right, ran into the Ne^orieLs. station at Tucson. "It is the quaintest old place you will find in the United g^tion a-39» States. The fringe of trees over there marks the windings of the Santa
Cruz River. The mountains to the north
and east are
CLIFF DWELLINGS IN THE ARIZONA MOUNTAINS.
the Santa Catalina's and Rincon's, and those to the northwest the Tortola's. Thank goodness, the train schedule gives us time enough to get a glimpse of the queer place, even if we cannot spend a few days here, which would well repay us."
It would not be far wrong to put down the population- of Tucson at xA,efirst 7,000. There is a large infusion of progressive Americans, who have " ' theppiace!n ° carried into the commercial life of the town an aggressive ; spirit of en-t'e'r- prise, extended its trade into Mexico, planted manufacturing industries, and given it the comforts of modern municipal life. But, all the;bizarrie characteristics of quaintness adhere to it. The narrow streets are lined
115
116
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Second oldest city in the United States.
American invasion and Apache attention.
The ancient Mission of San Xavier de Bac.
with buildings whose architecture often seems mediaeval. In the residence portion the stolid fronts of adobes give the passer-by no idea of the ample and luxuriously furnished apartments within, where everything that culti- vated taste can suggest adds to the luxury of living.
" What an awfully old place it must be ?" the Girl remarked
"Well, I should say so," the Colonel replied ; "we only have one older
in the whole country — Santa Fe. Some historians claim a settlement here
as early as 1560. . It was a Spanish and Mexican presidio, or fortified town.
In the center was the universal plaza, surrounded by a high wall, against
which all the
wall was some
resist attack
their assailants
Later, a fort
from
1847
found
days
houses were built, so as to face the square. The four feet higher than the roofs, so the natives could from their safe vantage point, shooting down upon while themselves in a measure protected, built outside the walls, and separate the presidio, gave further protection. In the Americans took the town, but the fort too strong for them. In the of the California gold excitement the place became a sort of half-way house for immigrants from the South. After the war Amer- icans began to drift in in increasing numbers, and it had all the elements of a frontier camp. Soldiers, teamsters and miners soaked themselves with the fiery poison of the mescal shops, and were ready for any deviltry. The Apaches made life miserable for those who ventured outside of the walls, or, rather, did not give them a chance to be miserable for very long when once they got hold of them.'' "And don't forget the old Mis- sion," the Growler remarked, sen- tentiously.
"What! more old Missions?" said the Girl.
" Nine miles south of here is what I consider the most interesting mis- sion in the country," replied the Colonel; "the Mission of San Xavier. The best authority goes to show that the original building was constructed in 1690. The present structure, which occupies the same site and is prob-
THE GIANT SAHAURA.
THE ANCIENT MISSION OF SAN XAVIER.
117
ably an enlargement of the former, was begun in 1768 and finished many years later. The Jesuit map of 1698, which is recognized as wonderfully accurate, marks a mission here."
" Did you ever visit it ?" I asked. -
" Yes, I drove over one delightful day in early spring, through the fertile Fertility of the and cultivated fields that line the Santa Cruz River — so valley
fertile that potatoes blossom in seven- teen days, radishes
FT. BO\VIE.
RINCON MOUNTAINS, NEAR TUCSON.
table in less than three weeks from the seed, and corn tassels in a month. Why, these valleys are merely vast canons that have been filled with the debris carried down in past ages. In the Santa Rosa Valley borings 520 feet deep go down all the way through rich soil mixed with bowlders."
"Come back to the Mission, papa," said the Girl, who saw that the Colonel was wandering from the subject.
"Oh, yes. Well, as I was saying, I drove down through these fields, and Mexicans and across the higher plains, beyond where the road winds through low hills mee?on?he covered with forests of giant sahaura. Here you pass sombreroed Mexi- cans with trains of loaded burros, or driving flocks of sheep, and Indian women carrying on their backs great loads of pottery of their own manu- facture. By and by the reservation of the Papago Indians is reached, their village of squat reed wigwams scattered over the plain near by the church. The great edifice itself seems solemn and imposing in that wide landscape, where the Sierreta, Rincon and St. Catalina mountains hem it about. On The Mission as a low, rocky, cone-shaped hill, just back of the church, a high wooden cross stands, outlined against the sky. The church, built of brick, is of Saracenic
ARIZONA AND ITS LOST CIVILIZATIONS.
119
architecture. The front is covered with rich ornamentation in fanciful patterns, and a lofty bell-tower rises at each corner, one capped by a dome. Over the rear chapel is a large dome also. Off to the side stretches the cloisters, and here two sweet-faced, gentle Sisters of Charity, leaving the cities of the east, which were their homes, have immured themselves to teach two-score brown-faced Indian children. The interior of the church is in the form of a Latin cross, the foot being to the south, in which direction the edifice faces. The main altar is at the north end. The walls are covered with frescoes, once garish perhaps, but now subdued by time, until their tints blend into a harmonious color scheme. Four large paintings represent the Annunciation, the Visitation of the Virgin to Elizabeth, the Nativity of Christ and the Adoration of the Magi. The altar work and all the cornices are done in cement, as are also the six
arched ceilings overhead, the main which is fifty feet above the floor. In fact, the whole mission, in all its details of decoration and architec- ture, is complete, and the edifice would be an ornament in any capital."
"I have heard the Papagos ' have always been the friends of the whites," I said.
"So they have," replied the Growler, " and they ought to have some credit for it ; there are about 600 of them living on the reservation the Colonel just mentioned. They cultivate a little land, and when the Apaches were killing the white settlers hereabouts, they were most of the fighting, and chasing
Warlike tribe On all occasions. But RISING GENERATION OF THE SOUTHWEST, all this
country was settled by an earlier race than any of the present Indians."
" How do you know ? "
"The cliffs all through these Arizona mountains are covered with hiero- glyphics and pictographs. The Salt and Gila River valleys are full of old ruins of early occupancy. There are artificial mounds hundreds of feet long, extensive canals for irrigating purposes, and vast debris — all a class of work the present races are unfamiliar with. The most wonderful — or at least the best known of all these ruins — lies three hours by stage north of
Teaching the papooses of th« Papagos.
The art of altar walls.
The friends of the whites for 300 years.
Civilizations that have come and gone.
120
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The ruins of the Casa Grande.
The ancient irrigating system of vast extent.
The remote age in which they lived.
the station of Casa Grande (65 miles west of Tucson). Father Niza, who, in 1539, visited the country, heard of these ruins, which were then regarded with awe and veneration by the native tribes. Coronado's people visited them in 1540, and since then many explorers have come and gone, and left descriptions to tell us what they were and are. As they exist to-day they still show ^^the towering adobe walls that once are believed to have ^«M^fl HS^.. been seven stories in height.
Some of the rooms were thirty and forty feet long. Archaeologists and ethnologists have puzzled over these ruins for ages. To-day, with their remains of great irrigating ditches all about them, they present a hard nut for scientists to crack. However, we must stand amazed at the extent of these ruins. One of these great canals tapped the Salt River on the south side near the mouth of the Verde. For three and a half miles it passes through an artificial gorge in the Superstition Moun- tains, cut out of the solid rock to a depth of a hundred feet. After passing the mountains it divides into four branches whose aggregate length is 120 miles, independent of the distributing ditches. This system of canals irri- gated i, 600 square miles of country. The engineering is perfect."
"And isn't there a trace of these people that would give us a clue to them ?"
"Not even a tradition," was the reply. "We only know that at a period fixed by scientists as 2,000 years ago, the Bradshaw Mountains were active volcanoes, and the lava making its way through Black Canon flowed into these canals. Still later, a great deluge flowed over McDowell Mountains, segregating their granite sides and depositing their wash over the upper valley and the canals to a depth of from three to five feet. This gives us testimony as to the age of these vast works, but it tells us nothing of the
ARIZONA AND ITS LOST CIVILIZATIONS. 121
millions of people who must have once lived here in a high state of civil- ization."
"What in the world do people go to Europe to find ancient civilizations for, when they can get them right here at home? " exclaimed the Girl.
" Because it is a fad," said the Growler. " It's all right to go to Europe, why not know of course, but it makes me have 'that tired feeling' when I see people country first? rushing over there who have no adequate knowledge of their own country. There isn't any thing in history more fascinating than the story of the con- quest of this very region we are traveling through. There is a dramatic recital of Spanish occupancy reaching back 280 years beyond the Guada- lupe-Hidalgo treaty of '46. The gold and silver hungry Madrid govern- The romance ment was pretty nearly pushed out by the Indian outbreak of 1802, the Spanish Mexican revolution twenty years later, and the Apache uprising of 1827. ° The country became a wilderness almost, until from 1845 to 1860 hardy settlers forced their way into the rich valleys, established homes and began developing again the resources of the
country. Then our war
came
on, protec-
CASA GRANDE RUINS IN ARIZONA. tion was withdrawn, the
Apaches swooped down, and it took ten years to undo their work and begin again the building of a commonwealth. Now here's an empire as large as the six New England states with New York thrown in. Its climate, Arizona a« it la scenery and fauna are so varied that they appeal to every interest. All the semi-tropical plants grow in the southern valleys, while the peaks of its northern mountains are clad in perpetual snow. Here is the awe-inspiring Canon of the Colorado, the greatest and most mavelous cleft in the mountains of the world. You can see a petrified forest here, with the Thetreasure. trees congealed into stone, rearing their rugged trunks fifty and seventy wonderland.
122
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Connection for Phocnii.
feet in the air. What else does man want than that which he can find in Arizona ? It is rich in mines, in timber, grazing land, soil for fruit culture, the best climate to be found any- where. T h e wealth of the territory is more than
a hundred mil- lions of dol- lars, and is in- creasing with won- derful rapidity as people are coming to know its lim- itless resources."
At Maricopa theSouthern Pacific makes connection with the Maricopa & Phoenix Railroad, reaching that city after a run of thirty-five
ARIZONA CACTI.
ARIZONA AND ITS LOST CIVILIZATIONS.
123
miles through a region which, beyond Tempe, wears all the aspect of an old and thrifty agricultural region.
"I don't know whether Phoenix is fortunately situated, or whether the Salt River Valley has been made by it," said the Colonel, "but I do know ^ that it is in the center of some of the greatest irrigation schemes that have been undertaken . -^T\ /"^--^^ in our age. It used
to be that ^-<j^B A / Sl&fck^ the consump-
tive had - '~*--j£& ' -B' . ||irjp^---fr Phoenix all
to himself. He[ ; went there and the
climate gave him | _ life and health,
but of late years THE GILA RIVER AND THE HERBAGE the agriculturist
OF THE PLAINS.
and fruit-raiser and the bee-keeper
have crowded him pretty closely, so that now you find the thrifty modern city set down among groves of orange and lemon and plum and apricot and peach trees that make a paradise out of all that beautiful valley, so that men find there not only health but wealth."
"There's the first station name that recalls the Aztecs," I said, when we reached Montezuma.
"We have Montezuma himself right north of us, in the Estrella Moun- Mountain tains," said the Colonel. " There is a mountain top clearly cut in the Montezuma. image of a man, and the Indians say it is Montezuma asleep, and that some day he will awaken to gather his people together in the empire of which the hidalgos robbed him."
"Why is this place called 'Painted Rocks' ?" I asked.
" Just because some very celebrated painted rocks are scattered along painted rocks the Gila River near here," replied the Growler. "The characters on the River, rocks are not really painted, but engraved with some coarse instrument, by which the soft and rather thin coating of oxide of manganese was scraped off. The stones themselves are hard bowlders, of entirely different char- acter from the partially decomposed granite of which the small peak upon which they rest is constituted. Nor, indeed, are the adjacent mountain
124
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The Gila monster, pronounced "Hela."
ranges composed of any similar material. I presume they were carried there by the energetic action of water at a remote period. The inscriptions probably commemorated some battle or other important event pertaining to intertribal relations. The strangest thing about the rocks is that a magnetic compass placed on top of of them ver- tically over its center of gravity is un-
PRISON YARD AI
LORADO RIVER SCENE AT YUMA, ARIZONA.
disturbed in its polarity, but this fact is nearly reversed when the compass is placed near the ends. It was while examining them that I first saw a Gila monster."
" What in the world is a Gila monster ? " asked the Girl.
"An overgrown variegated lizard, to which all sorts of deadly attributes used to be ascribed, but which has been unjustly accused," was the reply. "It is certainly a most hideous creature, sometimes almost three feet long, sluggish, puffy, and with a frightful mouth."
" Perhaps it was from Arizona Montezuma drew some of his treasure," I said.
" Well, we know that a good many million dollars have been taken out since his time anyhow. It would set your mind ablaze to listen to the stories
ARIZONA AND ITS LOST CIVILIZATIONS.
125
of lost mines of fabulous richness, which every prospector expects to find Fables of lent some day. One of the most famous of Arizona's 'lost mines' was the Planchas de Plata, or planks of silver. A Yaqui Indian first made the mine known, and the Spanish records show that some five tons of silver were actu- ally taken out near the surface of the ground, the silver being found in large sheets of pure metal, reputed to weigh, in some instances, more than a ton. The Madrid government seized this fine lot of virgin ore, appropriated it as the property of the crown, and declared the mine confiscated to the same end, and this summary proceeding naturally discouraged operations to such an extent that the mine was abandoned and subsequently forgotten."
Following close and closer the Valley of the Gila, our way to Yuma winds Along the down from an altitude of 2,390 feet at Tucson to 140 at the bank of the Colorado Riv- er, a distance of 250 miles. Always moun- tains are with- in sight or near by — now the Su- perstition, theEstrella.
e
the Eagle Tail orthe Lunas Ne- gras. Through patchesofdes- ert,andbyAn- telope Peak, the Southern leads untilthe white Yuma is reached on the mysterious Colorado, which through its great mountain gorge to mingle its waters with those of the California Gulf. Beyond the big airy station, with its green expanse of garden, you will see the fort-like waiis of the territorial penitentiary crowning a low eminence. Your train TheCoiprada, stops right at the river bank, and the other end of the long steel bridge beyond.
Pacific town of banks of that has cut its way
SOUTHERN PACIFIC DEPOT AND TERRI- TORIAL PRISON AT YUMA, ARIZONA.
ARIZONA AND ITS LOST CIVILIZATIONS.
127
rests on the soil of California. Steamboats that ply up and down the turbid,
swift-flowing stream are anchored to the bank, and at the station you will
always find a picturesque group of the Yuma Indians, whose reservation is
just across the river. Their copper-colored faces glow with stripes of ver- Yuma Indians
milion and green paint laid on in fanciful patterns, and they wear gay fab- t
rics that heighten blacknessof their There will be a selling willow His face is as and as immobile nance of the dream, and you quarter wares iu?t
the lustrous eyes and hair, tall oldmanthere bows and arrows, nobly chisel ed as the counte- Indian of your will pay him a for his
chance to talk J\fc^ Wzffl with him- He is
acounterpartof j Pasqual, the
greatest Indian j chieftain of any
age, and who i j made the Yumas
feared through L *r,'- J all the land. At
Y ARIZONA IRRIGATING DITCHKS.
uma the atmosphere in-
spires you, it is so dry and so surcharged with ozone. The sky is a clear blue — the atmosphere as translucent as a jewel. The moun- tain tops — Castle Domes, the Chimney Peak, the Purple Hills, Cargo Muchacho — tower all around. Your mind is diverted alike by the story of the wild past of the place — its romance of Indian and frontier times — and by its busy present. As early as 1771 a detachment of Franciscan friars settled opposite the present site of the town and sought to Christianize the aborigines. However, the Indians made it so decidedly hot for them that they were glad to get away — that is, the few left alive after the natives got through. Then came the gold fever and a ferry was established. The government built a fort, the town spread, and afterward the railway came.
A glimpse of the surroundings.
128
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
In its early days.
What a little water will do. i
Here the temperature has reached 118° in the shade, but no one has ever been known to be sunstruck. The Southern Pacific has large interests in the place, which is an important division headquarters, maintaining ex- tensive yards and depot of supplies, ice house, water works that furnishes
employes, and it
the town as well as the trains, a reading-room for etc. A large irrigating scheme is being worked out, should be profitable, for here the orange, lime and lemon, cotton, the fig and pomegranate, grape, olive, date, plum, apricot and sugar-cane grow profitably. Wheat, barley and corn are the staple field products, and vegetables thrive all the year round with an abundance un- known elsewhere. It is in the center of a rich gold, silver and lead region, where the mines have been long and remuneratively worked, for here the granite ribs of the mountains, like the alluvial carried down by the Gila and Colorado, is affluent in the ele- ments of wealth. But the traveler looks impatiently beyond, for there California, with all the interests that lay hold of us, awaits the guest who comes to share in the prodigal pleasures that it pours out.
YUMA BILL, A CHARACTER OF YUMA.
CHAPTER XVII.
FIRST GLIMPSES OF CALIFORNIA NOT PREPOSSESSING, BUT FULL OF WONDERS
-THE MUD VOLCANOES AND THE DEAD SEA OF SALTON —
A TRINITY OF BEAUTIFUL TOWNS.
I
S this California ? " said the Girl, with a strong accent on the "this."
We had left Yuma behind us, and were traversing a region of absolute First glimpse
, . , . . , .of California.
desert. A thin herbage scantily covered the waste of sand. The mountain chain upon the right looked bare and bald.
"No," replied the Colonel, "this is only a little bit of California. We are crossing the Colorado Desert, and beyond here an hour or two's ride will bring us into the paradise you have thought so much about. But you will see wonders on this bit of desert you never dreamed of, perhaps. Beginning at Flowing. Well and continuing sixty-one miles, the railroad passes over what was once the bed of an ancient sea. It has left the water Below sea level
, ... . in the bed of an
mark upon the hills to show where for ages its surf-line beat upon their ancient ocean. granite walls. From Flowing Well, which is five feet above sea-level, to Volcano Springs, a distance of ten miles, we drop to 225 feet below the tide- line. At Salton we reach the lowest point — 263 feet — and from then on we climb upwards until at a point some two miles beyond Indio the level is again reached. It is supposed that once the Gulf of California extended up and flowed all over this region, and there is an ancient tradition that once this section was fertile and populous, the seat of a great city, the cap- ital of a race that has disappeared."
"What sort of a place is Volcano Springs?" I asked.
" Quite remarkable in its way," replied the Colonel. " There is a per- petual mirage in view, which spreads a beautiful lake off to the south. From the windows of the car you can see many mud volcanoes or springs, The mud which bubble up to a height of from five to twenty feet. They are cone- shaped, and very curious, tho' dangerous to approach, owing to the thin- ness of the earth crust about them. Venturesome explorers have been badly burned by breaking through this crust in the attempt to examine them too closely. Sulphur, soda and salt impregnate the mud discharged, and some of the springs emit a strong odor of sulphur gas and send up d'scolored bubbles, which, as they burst, discharge little puffs of bluish
130
THROUGH STORVLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
a sanitarium, this
smoke. There are also circular pools filled with water, and, like the mud springs, some of these are cold and others hot." " Does the volume of the flow vary?" I asked.
"It is greater in summer than in winter I have been told," was the response. Great place for "A good place for a sanitarium I should think," remarked the Girl.
"All this old sea-bed would be a good place for a sanitarium," replied the Growler. ^ ^— — -- ^^_^ " Indio already has a wonderful
reputation *s^ ^^^ as a favorable resort for consump-
tives. S ^^^ I have known men who came
out to points along here in what certainly appear- ed to be the last stages of phthisis, and who recovered. The desert is a rain- less and cloudless region, with but six- teen or seventeen per cent of humidity in the atmosphere, and that atmosphere charged with chlo- rine gas arising from its immense fields of salt. These elements have restored many to health who had long despaired of re- covery."
We watched with wonder the mud vol- canoes at the place of that name, , and the Colonel and the Growler entertained with stories of
us
Death's Valley far to
AN ARIZONA MOUNTAIN RAVINE.
til 6
Of
Death's valley where the great borax mines are situated, where emigrants have oftentimes
till seek for the mythical Peg-Legged
'
perished, and where prospectors Smith or Gunsight mines.
FIRST GLIMPSES OF CALIFORNIA.
131
"There are prospectors wlxo constantly roam all through this section," Nomads of the
said the Growler. "I've sat by the hour and listened to their yarns, and there is nothing they like better than to get hold of a tenderfoot and prevail on him to grub-stake them for a sixty or ninety-day prospecting tour. This is a veritable picnic for these nomads of the desert. A hundred dollars will buy a couple of bronchos and a stock of flour, coffee, sugar, pork and beans.
desert.
A GLIMPSE OF RIVERSIDE
Then they go off into the mountains, find a quiet spring, and grow fat while they loaf about. When the provisions are gone they return with some pieces of ore picked up at a mine, tell a few fairy stories about a rich ledge or a big vein, and 'strike' the tenderfoot for another stake to develop it. These men know the desert as no one else possibly can, because they spend their lives upon it, and while others would perish they are acquainted with every water-hole, and can get along with as little. of that fluid as a camel."
"Beg pardon," said the Colonel ; "but here is Salton, and we must get out and take a look at the salt sea."
To the south of the railway track, a couple of miles away, lies the remarkable salt lake — a sheet of snowlike whiteness that glistens in the sun. It is thirty miles long and ten miles wide. So clear is the air that you look across it and would swear the further shore was not more than two miles away. It is a vast marsh, fed by thousands of springs that rise, perhaps, in the far-off mountains, and whose waters are rapidly evaporated as they reach the surface, leaving over the whole lake or marsh a white expanse of pure salt that sparkles like a vast rippled field of ice. The marsh is seventeen feet lower than the rest of the valley, and is thus a
"Working" the gullible tenderfoot.
Salton, the lowest spot on the continent, 1,851 miles from New Orleans.
The great sea
of salt.
132
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
How the saline fields are worked
When the Colorado flooded all the region
Got a new pair of lungs and will help others.
natural sink or basin. The salt is packed and shipped upon a large scale, extensive works having been erected. A portable railway runs out three miles from the shore-line, and here a steam plow gathers the white harvest, which is carried to the mill on cars, ground and put in packages for mar- keting. The company, whose interests are looked after on the ground by Vice-President and General Manager J. W. Durbrow, has a capacity for taking off eight hundred tons per day and for stor- ing twelve thousand tons. As Nature replaces the salt as rapidly as it is gathered, the supply is inex- haustible. The work is done by Cahuilla Indians, who live in a little village near the station. They endure the blinding glare and excessive heat of the salt sea as no other laborers could, and are faithful and industrious. It was upon Salton that the eyes of the world were turned in June, 1891, when the Colorado, breaking its banks below Yuma, backed up through the low valleys until it flooded all this region. There was vast agitation among the wise men then, for they professed a belief that the alleged sea might be permanent, and the climate of the whole region undergo a consequent change. But the dry desert air took the water in hand, and it absorbed the prospective sea in a very few months, so that the coyote soon came back and the horned toad took possession of his lair again.
" I knew Durbrow when he came here first, eight or nine years ago, an almost help- less consumptive," said the Colonel. "Now he is as well and strong as anybody. That is what the climate has done for him. If he can, by sinking an artesian well, find good water, he proposes to put up a hotel at this point, specially adapted for persons suffering from pulmonary complaints. He has prepared a plan for a house with hollow tile walls, through which cold air can be pumped, and supplied to the rooms, so as to maintain an equable temperature at night. In the daytime he says his patients must be kept out in the air. At present the water is all brought in here ; that which flows from the springs being too saline for use. The railway company hauls water cars, to supply its engines, across the arid stretch."
"To see the splendor of this region you should be here on a moonlight
TUNNEL ON AN IRRIGATING DITCH AT RIVERSIDE
FIRST GLIMPSES OF CALIFORNIA.
133
night," said peaks of dred
the Growler, "and see the snow-mantled
Jacinto, eleven thousand five hun- Dawn and
10 , . sunset on the
teet, and San Bernardino, ten Colorado
thousand feet, glorified by the white light, while their vast black shadows reach far out over the illumi- nated width of the
' \
'
Desert.
plain
or be here to rise with the sun and
' watch the
pinnacles of the great ba- salt ridges glow M redder and red- JP| derwith the fire of the coming day, while all the colors of the spec- trum mingle in the cloudless sky."
A few miles farther on we reached Indio — a verdure-clad gem set down as a vi- dette upon the out- sk i r ts of fertile California. Here an abundance of good water ap- plied to the soil has created an oasis so productive that a grape vine made a growth of thirty- six feet in a year. Just beyond Indio the road traverses
PROSPECTORS AND AN OLD OLIVE MILL, CALIFORNIA.
the San Gorgonio Pass through the San Bernardino
FIRST GLIMPSES OF CALIFORNIA.
135
Range, and reaches an altitude of 2,560 feet. All about are rugged cliffs of indio.the syenite, and gneiss and basalt, that in Miocene times were thrust skyward, v^dure^iad while the eye catches the foamy spume of a mountain torrent that swirls Cahforma beside the track and is lost among the cliffs.
While we were still admiring the rugged scenery, the Girl turned to the Colonel, and said :
"It seems to me you should have a little something to tell us about A word about California. Here we are now on the threshold of it, and if you have any particularly poky information it would be a good time to give it to us."
The Colonel looked aggrieved. "I am sure," he said, "that I have Difficulties of
i • i -^u T>I ui sugar-coating
dealt very leniently with you. 1 he trouble seems to be that you always dry facts
want a sort of caramel enlight- enment. In other
NATIVES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
words, you want mighty little and you want that little sugar-coated. How in the world do you think any one could condense the history and resources of a great and diversified commonwealth like this into a few words? To these shores first came Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator, who sailed under the Span- ish flag. That was in 1542. Then fifty-four years later came Sebastian Visca- ino, and after him, in 1769, Junipero Sierra, and planted the first mission at Early Spanish what is now Old Town. The different Catholic orders had been importun-
136
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The Dons took things easy
Then the
"Gringos'
came.
ing the crown for authority to establish missions for a long time, and at last, to balk Russia, which threatened to occupy the country, Carlos III sent out a military command and after them followed the zealous priests. How the colony, if such it could be called, drifted on would be a very long story. By the year 1800 the sixteen padres had 13,500 Indian converts, and many of these had been trained to useful pursuits, and were fairly skilled in handicraft. The Spanish settlers did little to develop the country. They had great r-~ 3 .- -,.,
herds of cattle
Treasures of mine and field.
and horses, but the cultivation of the soil was neglected, and civilization did not materially progress. In August, 1833, the Mexican congress passed the order of secularization, and the missions, which had been gain- ing wealth at the rate of more than two million dollars per year, lasped into a condition bordering on ruin, as we find so many of them to-day. After this date came the thrilling story of American oc- IN LOS ANGELES. cupancy, the gold fever of the Argonauts,
and the later developments of the agricultural resources. The California of to-day has a length of 770 miles and a breadth of 330. It has fifty million acres of arable land and twenty million of forest."
" Having produced over a billion and a quarter dollars in gold, it is no wonder it is a rich state, with the largest per capita wealth in the Union," I said.
"Yes, but its wealth is in its fields and orchards," replied the Colonel. " It raises more than forty million bushels of wheat, fifteen million bushels
FIRST GLIMPSES OF CALIFORNIA. 137
of barley, seventy million pounds of raisins, thirty million pounds of prunes, and eight thousand carloads of oranges ; wine, twenty million gallons ; beet- sugar, twenty-six million pounds; wool, forty million pounds; hops, forty- five thousand bales ; petroleum, six hundred thousand barrels ; olive oil, four thousand five hundred gallons, and a multitude of other products for export and home consumption. Everything grows here. It affords any sort of climate and every possible soil, and its waste places need only water to transform them into orchards and gardens. It has hundreds of square miles covered with orchards of citrus fruits, which make its valleys so beautiful that, to the eastern tourist, they seem like a vision of Hesperides."
"But, after all, its climate is its chief attraction," I said.
"As one can readily understand when one knows that the eastern tourists what eastern
tourists pay for
who winter here spend some five million dollars in the state annually, climate.
said the Growler. "That shows appreciation of climate. Some of them
have a wrong idea of it. They think if they get anywhere in California
they are safe. They do not pause to consider that the great state runs
through many degrees of latitude, with every range of temperature and
humidity made possible by high mountain chains, deep valleys, sea-coast
and plain. But there are certain peculiar features which obtain all over the
state. In the first, place, the division of the year into two seasons — a dry
and rainy one — is the most marked general characteristic of the Calif or-
nian climate. But as one goes further north, the rains are found to begin
earlier and last longer ; while on the other hand, the southeastern corner of climate as you
find it here.
the state is almost rainless. Again, the climate of the Pacific coast along the whole length is milder and more uniform than that of the states in a corresponding latitude east of the mountains. Thus, we have to go as far north as Sitka, in latitude 57, to find the same mean yearly temperature as that of Halifax, N. S., in latitude 44° 39'. And in going south along the variations
c T \ i jo produced by
coast, we observe that the mean temperature of Los Angeles and ban local Diego is six or seven degrees less than that of Charleston and Vicksburg, topog which are nearly in the same latitude, and situated one on the Atlantic coast, the other on the Mississippi River. But. in addition, we notice that the means of summer and winter are much nearer the mean of the year in California than in the east. Thus, comparing Washington and San Fran- cisco, we have :
Mean of Mean of Mean of
Year. Summer. Winter.
San Francisco 5^- 6°- 51-
Washington 56-°7 76-3 36-°5
" This condition of things is not so marked as we advance into the interior summer and
, winter.
of California, but everywhere in the state the winters are comparatively mild, and the heat of summer is much less disagreeable in its effects, because the air is exceedingly dry and the evaporation proportionately rapid."
THE GREAT INCLINE UP MT. LOWE.
A TRINITY OF BEAUTIFUL TOWNS.
139
" Enough of speculation and deduction," exclaimed the Colonel, as the jeweisofthe Growler paused. " Here we are at Redlands Junction. R'edlands is the valley, younger and easternmost of those three jewels of the Santa Ana Valley — the other two being Riverside and San Bernardino. Its growth has been wholly since 1887, and yet it now has alm6st four thousand acres of orange orchards. In eight years it has developed ~£*^m nothing into a town of paved streets, sewered, lighted by electricity, and adorned by handsome Redlands. homes and every public improvement. The other two towns are reached by a motor line in a ride of a few minutes from Colton. The three towns form a triangle. Their charms, are well nigh equal. The pioneer settlers located at Riverside in 1871. Then it was a desert. Now it has 7,500 people, and the assessed valuation is upwards of $6,000,000. You have all heard of Magnolia Avenue in Riverside — that broad thoroughfare which Riverside, for ten miles is lined with magnolia, pepper, palm and euca- lyptus trees, and flanked by ten thousand acres of mag- nificent orange groves. The hard-graveled road rings under your horse's feet, and the homes that line this
great highway are worthy of their surroundings. The
AMONG THE SEMI-TROPIC HOMES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
extensive irri- gating systems which have made this desert
blossom now furnish water for twenty-five thousand acres of land. The city of San Bernardino, which has an altitude of a thousand feet, was originally San a Mormon town, planned after Salt Lake City. Long since the Mormons lost their hold and went back to Utah, and now successive avenues fringed with hedges and feathery palms, and lined by great orchards, nestling affluent homes, bespeak prosperity. The business center of the city is substantially built, and everything indicates order and progression. These three towns are the fit representatives of the great orange industry, and I have never known any one who visited here who did not feel a longing
Bernardino.
A TRINITY OF BEAUTIFUL TOWNS. 141
to take up his residence in some one of them, and enjoy the delights of liv- ing under such attractive conditions."
"While we are running through this land of perpetual bloom, I am An anecdote of reminded of an amusing story my friend Horace Bell used to tell, of a time, when everything was very different," remarked the Growler. " It was a true incident, occurred right here, and will give you an illustration of the social order of early California. There was in the early 50*5 a doctor who had come to California with Stevenson's pioneer regiment. He was a useful character, who soon won local distinction as a Democratic politician and filled sundry municipal offices. In the Presidential canvass of 1852, the two parties, Whig and Democrat, were warmly arrayed one against the other. The Democratic outlook was good except in one particular precinct, that of Jurupa — and it is here proper to say that Los Angeles county at that time embraced all the territory of San Bernardino, the division having been The field oi made in 1854. Old Louis Roubideaux was the lord of Jurupa, that is, he owned and occupied the Jurupa Rancho, and he was a Whig, and could not be won over in any way. The case seemed hopeless, and the Doctor was sent out with his saddle-bags full of Democratic tickets to act as a forlorn hope in the cause. Then and there was where the transcendent genius of the embryo politician cropped out. About half way from Jurupa, which was then a military post, to San Bernardino was situated the most beautiful little settlement I ever saw. It was called ' Agua Mansa,' meaning gentle "AguaMansa,"
. . . T •».• • a place of unso-
watei, and was composed entirely of emigrants from New Mexico, number- phisticated ing some two hundred souls — simple, good souls they were, too ; primitive in their style of living, kind and hospitable to strangers, rich in all that went to make people happy and content, never having been, up to that time, vexed by the unceremonious calls of the tax collector, owing allegiance to none save the simple, kind-hearted old priest who looked after their spiritual wellfare. In the winter of 1862 a flood in the Santa Ana River swept away their houses, gardens, orchards, vineyards, in fact all of their splendid agricultural lands, leaving nothing save a hideous plain of black boulders and cobble-stones to mark the place where once stood this modern minia- ture Eden.
" There must have been at least fifty voters at Agua Mansa, which had The wily been designated as the voting place for the Jurupa precinct. So to this arrives o" the place hied the noble Doctor as the avaunt courier of American civilization, to give this primitive people their first lesson in the mysteries of citizenship.
"The Doctor was a New Yorker, and may have had past experience in the management of elections. In this instance he not only proved himself an adept, but a perfect master of the business. Arriving at Agua Mansa, His religious he dismounted, tied his hungry mustang, divested himself of his leather manifested Mexican leggings and jingling spurs, and with the sacred saddle-bags on
142 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
his arm, with solemn step and downcast eyes, he bent his way to the little adobe church that stood on a mound in the center of the village. Arriv- ing^-al the door he piously uncovered, reverently crossed himself, entered The old priest and prostrated himself in front of the little altar, and was then and there trap.m discovered by the simple old priest, who sprinkled him with holy water and
offered him sweet words of consolation. Within the next hour the Doctor informed the priest that his piety (the priest's, not the Doctor's) had a world- wide fame, and that in the distant land of New York the sacred name of Friar Juan of Agua Mansa was a household word among all good Catho- lics, and he, the Doctor, had made a pilgrimage hither to invoke the prayers of the saintly Juan for the repose of the soul of his mother (the Doctor's mother, not the priest's), at which period the Doctor slipped a 'slug' into the palm of the astonished Juan.
And the people " Suffice it to say that prayers and masses were the order of the day, and ^ on the following morning, at the breakfast table, the Doctor informed the priest that an election would be held on that day for President of the United States ; that one candidate, General Scott, was a great heretic, and was the tyrant who made war on the Catholics of Mexico ; and that it would be a great calamity to the Catholic world should Scott be elected; that Pierce, the other candidate, was a good Catholic, and if elected would build Catholic churches all over the world, and that it therefore behooved them, as good Catholics, to see that Agua Mansa cast its vote for Pierce. And Agua Mansa did, under the pious instructions of the saintly Juan, subject to the satanic Doctor, vote early and all day for the Democratic candidate, to the great chagrin of old Louis Roubideaux, who felt, for the first time, that he had lost his influence with the gentle people of Agua Mansa."
CHAPTER XVIII.
IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS, TOGETHER WITH SOME SIDE TRIPS TO
PASADENA AND MT. LOWE, SANTA MONICA AND ITS GREAT
WHARF, AND THE ISLAND OF SANTA CATALINA.
F
ROM now on the road was through the great orange district — past Past the old
....... . »„•• Mission of San
Pomona and through the San Gabriel Valley where is the Mission Gabriel. which Padres Somera and Cambon established in August, 1771. Under the very shadow of its chapel General Kearney defeated the Mexican forces in his memorable battle. The Girl was in a continuous ecstacy of delight, and she went into raptures over the beautiful views from the window. The Colonel was pointing out the different varieties of fruit, and explaining something of their cultivation and profit. Even the Growler wore a com- placent look — a sort of " Isn't-it-all-I-told-you" air. In an hour or two — in the very midst of bur enjoyment of it all — the train ran into the environs of a city, and presently came to a standstill in a great cool depot — the And into LOS Arcade at Los Angeles. As we were driven through the busy streets, with m'iifs'ftxfni their tall modern buildings, their hurry of electric cars and bustle of com- merce, the Colonel said :
" Looking now at this metropolis of 75,000 people it is pretty hard to realize that it was a thriving pueblo when the Franciscan Fathers estab- lished their Mission in 1781. The name given to it ' The Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles/ or town of the queen of the angels — bespoke the impression- the early beauty of the place made upon its founders. Here, in 1822, the first American came, brought as a prisoner. In 1835 the place became the capital of California, and in August, 1846, Commodore Robert F. Stockton and Maj. John C. Fremont marched in and raised the stars and stripes on Fort Hill. When, in 1847, Fremont became Governor he established his headquarters here. It was from here he made his famous mustang ride to The city before Monterey — a round trip of a thousand miles, which he covered in just eight and a half days — an average of nearly one hundred and twenty-five miles per day. Through the first stormy years, when lawlessness was more or less prevalent, the town grew by gradual accretions of a more desirable class, and with the usual adventurous circumstances attending the building of a city, it increased in importance until when in 1881 it celebrated its centen- nial thirty thousand people were in line. From then on the growth of the
143
144
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
NOW it is city was rapid and its improvement marked. To-day its limits comprise an
todrateghly UP area of thirty-six square miles, through which flows the Los Angeles River. The municipality controls a very extensive irrigating plant as well as a system for the supply of water for domestic purposes. In every element that goes to make up city life, it is not surpassed by any place in the country. The cleanliness of its well-paved streets, the architecture of its business center, and the charm of its residence thoroughfares, where hedges
Easy to get around.
Plans for seeing things.
CALIFORNIA INDIANS IN CAMP
of calla lilies supplant fences, and great rose trees hide roofs and walls and clamber in a clinging mass over porches — all make up a picture which can- not anywhere be duplicated."
During the two or three days that we spent there we found our time fully occupied. The extensive cable and electric lines make all parts of the city and the adjacent suburbs easily accessible. The parks, the gardens, the places of public amusement, kept us busy in our tour of sight-seeing.
Then, one evening, when the Colonel said : " Now we must prepare to visit a few of the points of interest about here," we were ready to hear what else there possibly could be more interesting than that which we had seen.
"In the first place," he continued, deliberately, "Los Angeles is the center of a great many attractions, and it is the strategic base to move on them, from which the tourist naturally makes headquarters. As we came past Riverside, Redlands and San Bernardino, and will stop and visit them on our way back, we need not make a special trip there now, tho' they are points which every traveler will wish to inspect. But we will take a run over to Pasadena and Mt. Lowe ; go down to Santa Monica, over to Santa Catalina Island, and on our way northward will slip over to Santa Barbara. If we had time we would take a run down to San Diego and Coronado Beach, which are reached from here by an easy run of a few hours."
" That's a list of attractions that no other point can offer," said the
IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS.
145
•Growler. "The most sublime mountain scenery and a ride up to it on the Attractions
.... . . .. , . near Los
steepest railway in the world, a glimpse of one of the greatest piers ever Angeles, •constructed, and a dip in the surf of the Pacific at a place where you can take a header in the breakers all the year round without discomfort ; a thirty-mile sail over the bluest of seas, and an island harbor at the end of the ride which would delight any lover of nature."
" Let's have the surf-bath first ! " cried the Girl.
"All right ; then it's Santa Monica we go to," replied the Colonel. " It's •only a run of an hour and it's almost due west of here. The Southern Pacific runs frequent trains to Port Los Angeles, just beyond, where it has its big wharf, and does an immense excursion business."
We went down to Santa Monica the next day, visiting the soldiers' home ^anta Monica and the famous ostrich farm on the way. At Santa Monica the train runs wharf into a flower-bespangled park, while just beyond the sea beats upon a wide beach of white sand. The ride, all the way down, is through the rural beauties of the orange country. The shore line of the bay has a graceful sweep. In the summer the /*>«w cool winds from the
northwest are / diverted by the
\jfj . " >^ Sierra Santa
^N^
*X^ Monica,
a billowy range
of coast mountains
shore. Hencetheocean
and the breakers are
beautiful eucalyptus SCENES IN LOS ANGELES.
lying along the northern swell is long and gentle, never annoying. There are gr0ves, an(} the streets of the
old town are lined with trees, while the admirable Hotel Arcadia, with
every concomitant of elegant comfort, stands upon the beach with a
perpetual invitation to guests to linger for a time. There is besides
the unexcelled surf bathing, a great bath-house where huge pools invite
those who refuse the ruder play of the waves. Gathering shells and moss, Delights of the
bathing in the surf, and visiting the great Southern Pacific wharf, at Port
Los Angeles, 4,600 feet long, that curves out into the turquois waters, occu-
pied our time. The wharf is a huge structure, with coal bunkers that will
hold more than 8,000 tons, depot buildings and freight sheds that will
146
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Pasadena and Mt. Lowe.
Into Rubio Canon.
Difficulties of
construction
illustrated.
Up the Great Incline, where the grade is 62 per cent.
accommodate the longest trains. The next day was given over to Pasadena and Mt. Lowe. Pasadena, the gem of the San Gabriel Valley, with sts twelve thousand people, nestles between the Sierra Madre Range and the Puente Hills. Here, where once the indolent dons had their ranches and the jovial friars cared for the docile Indians, the Anglo-Saxon has built a beautiful city. Here wild flowers bespangte the fields, and rugged old trees of native growth mingle with the orchards of orange, lemon and olive. Here the clouds only obscure the sun on fourteen days of the year, and the mean of the thermometer is 59°. Winter does not exist and summer is not a season to be dreaded. The homes all wear an air of cheerful content and plenty, while many of them bear evidence of the wealth of their occupants. The newly opened line of the Southern Pacific soon carried us from Los Angeles to and through Pasadena, and the electric line took us into Rubio Canon, named for the venerable padre of ihe Mis- sion of San Buenaventura. The line winds about the base of the hills, higher and higher, crossing gorges and through deep cuts in the spurs that jut out. At the foot of the Great Incline we alighted and walked up Rubio Canon, half a mile or more.
" I'm out of breath ! " the Girl exclaimed.
" Shall we go back ? " the Colonel asked.
" No, indeed, it is too lovely — I want to see it all," was the response.
The pathway leads through deep gorges, where the gray and mossy walls rise on each side to shut the canon in. We are following up a mountain brook that dashes madly along. In places the way is blocked by a sheer precipice, over which the stream falls in foamy spray, but here wooden steps clinging to the precipice makes progress possible.
" Every bit of this timber was carried in here on the shoulders of men," says the Growler.
At last we turn an abrupt angle of the rock wall, and before us a silvery, veil-like mist of water falls from a hundred feet or more above. At our feet is a pool so clear that every shining grain of sand at its bottom is visible. All about the tall cliffs hem us in, their cool black faces blotched with green mosses. After standing in silent admiration for a long time, we turn and retrace our steps.
" I never will go up there," said the Girl, firmly, as we stood at the foot of the Great Incline ready to take the car.
" It is perfectly safe, my dear, or I would not trust you to it," replied the Colonel, persuasively.
" This," said the Growler, craning his neck to look up to where the track disappeared over the hill ahead, " is what Count Commodensky, imperial superintendent of the military roads of Russia, pronounced the most won-
IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS. 147
derful engineering feat he had seen anywhere. In a length of 3,000 it makes a direct ascent of over 1,300 feet."
By the time the conductor called "all aboard," we had taken our places Thestartfor in the open car, which is so arranged that the seats are always on a level, Mountain. ° regardless of the steep grade. There was a signal by wire to the motor- house on the mountain, the long steel cable tightened and we moved upward. At every foot the panorama of seamed and rugged mountain grew beneath us, and then we caught glimpses -^ of the
great valley that spread below, with /< j^ its
clustering houses and its shining reser- voirs. When we stepped out on the plateau at the top, where a commodious hotel awaited us, it was to have an unex- ampled pano- rama unfold- ed at our feet, for here one looks off across the intervening valleys to the far The panorama Pacific, and sees the islands whose green heights rise from the waves thirty beiow.va miles off shore. Field and garden and orchard are lying below like the squares of a vast checker-board ; and one waits on the wide verandas or walks along the edge of the high ridges to rest the eye upon this changeful picture of delight.
" Well, I know there is nothing more beautiful than this ! " said the Girl, at last.
" It is only one of the wonders California is so prodigal in," was the Colonel's reply. "You will say that same thing a hundred times before we leave the state."
"That's the trouble!" chimed in the Growler. "There is so much to The perplexity
11- T , , • i i • • i r r , , i • i °f to° many
see and admire. It s like looking at good pictures. A few of them delight good things, one, and you can restfully enjoy them, but when you visit a great gallery crowded with superb canvases the senses become dulled and one grows weary."
"Well, well," responded the Colonel, "never fear, we won't see half the wonders of California, try as we will, and each place is so different in its beauty or its character of novelty from all the others that there is not much chance of getting tired."
On up the mountain, to the very summit of tall Mt. Lowe, an electric
THE WILD FLOWERS OF CALIFORNIA.
148
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
San Pedro.
Off for Santa
Catalina
Island.
A paradise in the Pacific.
Cabrillo spied it out in 1542.
railway runs — a marvelous piece of construction, which, at times, juts out from the sheer face of a precipice, while one looks out of the car window into chasms thousands of feet deep.
We took the train for San Pedro the next morning, and another ride of sixty minutes landed us at the pretty little seaport town with its island- sheltered bay and its white lighthouse. The steamer was awaiting us and as we went on the upper deck, the Growler looked about ecstatically, and,, with a genuflexion of his arm toward the sea, exclaimed :
"Ah, this is something like it — nothing like the sea to brace you up, my boy ! Why, this trip will make us all feel younger."
" How far out is it to Santa Catalina, the isle of summer, you have been talking about so much, papa ? " the Girl asked, looking a little timorously at. the long ocean swell outside.
"It lies about nineteen miles off the coast," the Colonel replied, "and far enough south of here to make the voyage one of almost thirty miles. But don't be alarmed ; you know you are on the Pacific now." " How much of an island is it ? " I asked.
"Well, say twenty-three miles long, with a breadth of from eight miles to
half a mile. Its hills rise to a height of three thousand feet, and they shelter lovely valleys, woodlands, and in fact a great diversity of natural scenery. James Lick bought the island from the Government in 1864 for $12,000 and made a mighty good bargain. It is now owned by the Banning Brothers of Los- Angeles, and is one of the most resorts on the whole coast." course its discovery was due to the old navigators?" I said; "they seem to have monopoly of discovery in the South and
A CATALINA ISLAND MOUNTAIN SHEEP.
replied the Colonel. "Cabrillo, when looking for the mythical Straits of came upon Santa Catalina in September,. 1542. Cabrillo died on one of the islands of the Santa Barbara channel ; but his pilot, Ferrello, has left a diary which tells us that a large Indian village was located on what is now known as Avalon Bay on the south side of the Cata- lina. Doubtless Drake, Woods, Rogers, Sherlocke, and the buccaneers who- were much in evidence shortly afterwards, all visited the place, but it was not
IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS.
149
until sixty years later, when the expedition which Philip III sent out under Sebastian Vizcaino landed there and gave it its name, that we hear much
SOUTHERN PACIFIC WHARF AT PORT LOS ANGELES.
the
of it. The large native population deserted, at the instigation oi Franciscan fathers, about the middle of the last century."
"And more's the pity," said the Growler ; "for they left a lovely home The natives and a life of independence to take up peonage under their religious task- thingUp masters. But the island shows ample evidence of an older civilization, and one which presents a good many problems to the ethnologist."
" Well, don't let's have any problems," exclaimed the Girl : " the sea and the day are too delightful."
It was, indeed, a charming day, and for a quarter century an annually
IN Till-; CITY OF THE ANGELS.
151
growing throng of tourists have been singing the praises of the voyage.
The sea is wimpied in great billowy undulations that shade off in every
range of color — from turquois, as you look over the side of the vessel, to
emerald, where heaven clasps it far away. White sea-gulls follow close
behind the steamer, or sweep ahead and over it in long graceful curves of
flight. In the water you discern great masses of kelp that some far-off The voyage to
storm has dislodged from ocean caves perhaps a thousand fathoms deep.
Flying fish rise in swift flight and skim the surface for a hundred yards
until their gossamer wings fail them and they fall back into their element.
There was just enough sea to be exhilarating, and we were all somewhat
surprised to notice the Growler rise a little shakily from his chair just as
ARROYA SECO, NORTH FROM PASADENA.'
the island was coming well into view and say, with the aspect of a man who is going to keep his secret if he dies for it :
" Excuse me, please; I will go down on the lower deck and look over the The Growler
, ., disappears
Vessel. below.
" Don't look over the side," said the Girl, airily; " you might fall over, you know."
"I have no intention of looking over the side," replied the Growler, with pale dignity. " I have been to sea too often to indulge in any such tom- foolery."
"The Growler's sea-sick," said the Girl, heartlessly ; " won't we tease him, tho'."
" Don't be too sure you won't be in the same condition yourself," replied her father.
IN THE CITY OF THE ANGELS.
153
The little town of Avalon clusters close under the encircling hills upon Avaion and its
the sheltered bay of the same name. On either hand the bold promontories push themselves out into the sea, and offer a front of rock to the great billows that beat against them. Behind and on either side of the scattered
sheltered bay.
the
slope sharply, with here and there a nodding tree, everywhere the vivid green of thick grass and the brilli- wild flowers. The boats of the fishermen are drawn on the white strand, and on the beach their nets are spread. The shells they gather upon the Cata- lina shores are wonderful in their variety, and more wonderful in the diversity of their color-
| ing-
&• ^ " It all seems like a pretty bit of stage- setting," said the Girl, delightedly, as the steamer drew close to the dock. " What an ideal place it is, to be sure ! "
The Growler was standing paie, but on the lower deck when we prepared to disembark. He looked pretty pale, and there was a sad, far-away gleam in I tried to be jocose, and ex- " Nothing like a sea trip to one up, eh ! makes us feel don't it?" But our comrade humor for badinage, and he re- " There are certain conditions system when the oldest sailor uncomfortable, but — have time to finish and I was I really pitied the Growler, and badly. But we were at the dock,
and
his eyes, claimed: brace » j younger, V* was in no plied : /
of the is apt to feel He did not glad of it, for I knew he felt
and while we walked up to the hotel the Girl chatted away at a rate which soon smoothed things over. It was four or five days before we could induce the Growler to start on the return trip. The Girl sided with him and wanted to stay, and it did no good for the Colonel to protest that we would not get back home in a year unless we cut our sight-seeing shorter, and it was only when I intimated that he was afraid of the return voyage to San Pedro that he showed a willingness to go. That touched his vanity. I confess I was in no hurry to leave myself, for after we took the famous coach ride from Avalon to the isthmus, through Middle Ranch Canon, winding about the
They all wanted to stay.
154
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Sports of the island.
The island goat.
Treasures of the sea and air.
Cabrillo Range, under the shadow of the Peaks of Orizaba and Viscaino, there was plenty to occupy our time. We tried to catch a jew-fish, but didn't succeed. However, we had no end of sport with yellow-tail — the salmon of these waters — and caught barracuda, rock-bass, white-fish, grouper and tuna enough to supply the hotel. The Growler and I s-pent a day in the mountains in chase of the agile mountain goat, which here abounds. It was a long tramp, but it had its rewards, for we bagged a fine specimen. We both caught sight of him at the same time, and made a long detour to crawl up within rifle shot. He stood like a sentinel guarding a little flock that was feeding in a hollow below. The Growler and I both fired at the same time, and the goat, with a high bound in the air, fell dead. A shot had struck him just back of the left shoulder. I protested that I had killed him, but the Growler said he knew it was his shot because he always fired for the left shoulder when hunting big game. To settle the matter we agreed to have the head mounted and give it to the Girl as a souvenir of the trip.
Everything tempted us — the gray rocks covered with sea anemones of varied colors, and with star-fish hiding in the crannies ; the jelly-fish which, in bulky mass or long glass-like tendrils, floated in on the tide ; the brown pelicans that haunt the shore with lumbering flight ; the loon, and gulls, and eagles. So it was small wonder that we saw the fair shores of Santa Catalina fade, and the mists, that distance drops like a curtain, hide the island head- lands from our sight.
CHAPTER XIX.
UP THE MAIN LINE, THROUGH THE TEHACHAPI PASS AND THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY TO SAN FRANCISCO.
I
'VE got a better plan for seeing California," the Colonel announced
the night before we left Los Angeles. Of course we were all attention at once, for we knew the Colonel would devise the best methods for systematic sight-seeing.
" The main line of the Southern Pacific," he continued, " runs the full southern
.... Pacific lines in
length of the state, entering at its northern line and leaving it at the south- California, east corner, traversing the entire central part of the commonwealth. It also has a coast line, which runs south from San Francisco, and soon to be connected at Elwood with the present road from that point to Saugus on
ON A CALIFORNIA OSTRICH FARM.
the main line. The many branches of the system which diverge from these principal lines, without speaking of the Union Pacific to Ogden, make every point of California readily accessible. Now we will go up on the main line to San Francisco, perhaps take a run up to Portland, Oregon, out to Salt Lake, Utah, and when we are ready to come home we will return via the coast line. In this way we shall save doubling back over the same road and will see the whole country."
155
156
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The "Couldn't be better," said the Growler. " Now that's the advantage of
advantages of .
a great system, this great system. It is so extensive that it reaches every point of interest, making the very best of connections and being in the hands of our friends, as it were, all the time. '
Leaving Los Angeles the road follows for a time the bank of the beautiful river, and then commences its
Through the climb of the valleys of the Los Angeles
funn^i.rna and San Fernando until, twenty-six miles
Driving over the trail before the railroad was built.
from the city, and r , 2 o o feet above it, or at an alti-
UldCOf 1,469
feet, it goes through the great San Fernando tunnel in the range of that name. The tunnel is 6,967 feet long. Across here the old Mexican pack- trail led, and in the years before the railroad had projected its daring feat long strings of burros, loaded with the products of the country, wended their devious way through the mountain defile. When Fort Tejon was established, the firm of Alexander & Banning, pioneer stage operators of Los Angeles, determined to run a six-horse stage over the old trail. People pronounced the project visionary and no driver could be found who would assume the responsibility. Then Phineas Banning himself declared that he would drive the stage and prove that the road was practicable. So one day in December, 1854, found him seated on the box at the summit of the San Fernando. His six panting mustangs were covered with foam, and his nine passengers looked at the seemingly sheer precipice of hundreds of feet which was before them, and chose to walk. But nothing could terrify Banning. With a crack of the whip and a tightening of the reins, he urged his trembling mustangs forward. They gave a tug and the stage started down the mountain side — rackety, crash, bang, it went, sometimes the horses ahead of the stage, and sometimes the stage ahead of the horses,.
UP THE MAIN LINE.
157
until it landed in a thicket of chaparral at the foot of old San Fernando, a wild conglomeration of harness, coach, mustangs, and Banning. " Didn't I tell you so, gentlemen," the driver exclaimed, as he extricated himself from the wreck. "A beautiful descent; far less difficult than I anticipated. I intended that staging to Fort Tejon and Kern River should be a success,
and, you see, my judgment was correct." And right, for later on the road was improved to such staging was not attended by imminent risk to
" This is where we would leave the main going direct to Santa Barbara," said the Growler, when Saugus, thirty-two miles from Los Angeles, was reached. "It is the junction with "j the Santa Barbara branch and a delightful run. But we will come down on the coast line and see it all, here reaching the main line again on our return."
Beyond Saugus the line follows for the most part the Soledad Canon through the San Gabriel Range, with the headwaters of the Santa Clara ,..". : close at hand, until at Alpine it enters * ernmost corner of the Mojave JDesert. ^ vation is greater (twenty-seven hun- than the Colorado Desert, but it wears same aspect. Here the yucca palm grows, seem to the ordinary tourist as tho' it had no add to the dreariness of the scene, it is made English firm who manufacture from it quality of printing paper. One sees the great desert which stretches off to the west
THE CALIFORNIA POPPY.
the west- - The ele- P dred feet) much the
and tho' it might other use than to available by an an excellent but little of far into Arizona and
Nevada. There are thrifty looking towns at intervals, and at Mojave a junction is formed with the Atlantic & Pacific Railway.
"I want you all to be on the alert now," said the Colonel, when the road began winding along Cache Creek and among the spurs of the Tehachapi Range. " This mountain chain was long the serious barrier which prevented access by railroad to the southern part of the state, and one of the most remarkable triumphs of railway engineering ever achieved in any part of the world is just ahead of us. North of the summit, which has an elevation of 3,964 feet, a group of mountain peaks and vast crags belonging to the terminating southwestern spur of the Sierra Nevada disputed the advance
He got there just the same.
Banning was an extent that neck and limb, line if we were
Saugus, the junction point for Santa Barbara.
Through Soledad Canon
The Mojave Desert.
The Pass of the TehachapL
CASCADE FALLS.
1HKEE HROTHERS.
NORTH DOME. IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.
EL CAPITAN.
THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY.
AMONG THE POPPIES.
of the steel highway, but by a series of complex and bewildering curves, and finally by actually making a turn where the road crosses itself at the famous ' Loop,' the pathway was made."
" There was a hardy class of settlers here in early days, and antelope and deer were abundant and, indeed, may be yet in the small valleys and romantic canons scattered through the range ; the forests of pine and spreading oaks and groves of evergreen giving them safe retreat, while the many springs and brooks afford delightful camping grounds under the shelter of rugged crags. During the dark days of the civil war a desperado named Mason collected about him a gang of cut- throats who robbed and murdered all who failed to pay them tribute. They made the Pass their head- quarters, and terrorized the country until Mason was killed by one of his own men, when the organization was broken up and a good many of the members expiated their crimes on the gallows."
"The scenery is too beautiful to listen to those horrid stories," said the Girl. " Every view from the window is different — now a glimpse of a verdant valley through great canon walls, and now a dashing brook or a colossal mountain mass that makes one feel subdued."
"Impossible !" replied the Growler. "Certainly nothing could have that effect upon a woman."
" Well, the trip to Catalina had that effect upon you," retorted the Girl, and the Growler subsided.
Now we entered the great San Joaquin Valley, that vast basin bounded on the east by the Sierra Nevada, and on the west by the Coast Range, a great arable plain seventy miles wide, and stretching four hundred and eighty miles north and south, from Mt. Shasta to Tehachapi Pass. Watered by the Sacramento and its tributaries in the north, and by the San Joaquin and King's rivers and their tributaries in the south, sheltered by its mountain chains, and with a variety of soil and climate found nowhere else, it is the granary of the Pacific coast and one of the great fruit centers of the world. The six counties into which the lower 250 miles of the valley are divided would each make a state larger than Connecticut, individually capable of supporting, as its commercial center, a city of more than 50,000 people. The average rainfall of this section is ten inches, but agriculture is expedited by irrigation on a stupendous scale, the main canal alone of one system tapping the Merced River is over twenty-seven miles long, ten feet deep, one hundred feet wide at the top and seventy feet at the bottom. Its
The famous " Loop."
It was a bandit stronghold once.
Through the Great San Joaquin Valley.
The granary and vineyard of the coast.
%
GLACIER POINT, YOSEMITE VALLEY.
THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY.
161
carrying capacity is 3,400 cubic feet per second. This canal, which is but one of many in this immense valley, was constructed at a cost of $3,242,000 to benefit the territory in its wide neighborhood.
The temperature of this section rarely falls below 30°. The fertility of the soil is amazing, and the profits of agriculture almost beyond credulity. Here are orange groves producing eight hundred dollars per acre per annum, and blackberry and strawberry gardens yielding to their owners up to $1,500 per acre. The vineyards and fruit orchards are measured by miles square, and their great size corresponds with the almost fabulous yearly revenues derived from them. Among them are scattered edifices which resemble the suburban homes of capitalists rather than farm houses, which they are — the homes of the owners.
The local attractions have naturally drawn hither a large number of
THE FERRY SLIP AT PORT COSTA.
wealthy people, including many high class and enterprising English ; and the money spent by such settlers has enhanced the value of neighboring as well as their own property.
Phenomenal natural advantages, industrious development, sagacious expenditure, such are the elements that have made of the San Joaquin Valley a picture of prosperity, whether seen as a sea of green in early verdure or glistening with the brown richness of harvest time.
As the train ran on mile after mile through this wide sweep of fields, the Girl broke forth in exclamations of delight.
irrigating
schemes.
Everything on a large scale.
The homes it
offers.
162
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The field flowers of California.
Bakersfield.
"Oh, what wild flowers! " she exclaimed. "Why the fields are carpeted with them! "
While the train stopped at a station I got out, and gathered an armful to bring in to her, and the Colonel said :
"This is the land of flowers as well as fruits, you know. The poppy, or eschscholtzia California, is the flower emblem of the state. Its petals are sometimes _ larger than your hand, a bright yellow
shading off into a brilliant orange at .\ the center. It is in evidence every- where, with a range from gold to ! scarlet,
WHARF AND FERRY LANDING AT SAN FRANCISCO.
and gionfy'ng
alike their
genus and the
fields where
they grow. Then there is the violet and the primrose, the sweet-clover that
ranges from yellow to purple and rose, and the wild geranium, the blue
larkspur and the scarlet silene. Mingling with the green of the fields they
make a vivid carpeting that would delight Pan and his attendant satyrs in
their sylvan revels."
Talking thus we passed on our way many thrifty towns and cities, the Colonel and the Growler indulging in a friendly rivalry as to which should give us the most useful information.
At Bakersfield the Colonel said : " The people of Kern county, of which this is the prosperous capital, have turned a river on their farms, for they have made Buena Vista Lake a storage reservoir for water, and diverted
SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY.
163
Fresno and its great raisin interests.
Kern River from its natural bed and compelled it to pour its waters on their fields."
When we reached Fresno the Growler took a hand and remarked: " Now here's a good city, a railroad center and a manufacturing point. From here comes one-half of California's enormous crop of raisins. They will soon be shipping 4,000,000 boxes a year and it isn't any wonder, for ten and fifteen tons of grapes to the acre is nothing unusual hereabouts. A little way eastward, in the same county, are vast forests of pine, spruce, hemlock and cedar, among which are scattered many specimens of the sequoia gigantea, those giants of the forest which attain a diameter of from twenty-five to forty feet and grow to a height of five hundred feet sometimes. You should see how they bring the timber down from the mountain forests into the mills at Madera, which is our next stop."
" How do they do it ? " I asked.
" Well, the timber is cut up in the mountains, and of course a long way off Logging by the railroad. Ordinary means of transportation would not be available, so a flumes- V-shaped wooded flume has been constructed, - The one
running to Madera is the longest in the world, sixty miles. A torrent of water pours through
it and the logs are floated down it. The water not only transports the logs, but it furnishes power for the mill which cuts them up and for a number of other industries, and is finally made to serve a good purpose in irrigating a large area of land."
" But don't the logs stick sometimes," I queried.
164
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The millions locked up in the forests.
" I never Beard of them doing so/' was the reply. " You would not think they would stick at anything if you saw them come down. It is with a rush that would send them right through a brick block. The flume has a carrying capacity of 350,000 feet per day. Just to give you
an idea of the timber resources of
California, x^ £ ( ^\lt: 's wel" to state tnat a
careful J?M \ estimate of Fresno
on the basis of is eighty million dollars."
county's timber interests,
ten dollars per thousand, ON NOB HILL- SAN
At Berenda, three hundred and four miles from Los Angeles and less than two hundred miles from San Francisco, the Colonel said :
"This is the junction point for Raymond, beyond which lies the Yosemite and the Mariposa big trees, the veritable Garden of the Gods. It is but a short rail ride to Raymond, and from there by stage into the wonderland of the Yosemite, that great cleft in the Sierras, over whose creation scientists have vainly puzzled for so long. The floor of the valley is four thousand feet above the sea level, and its towering walls rise five thousand feet higher, in sublime massiveness like El Capitan — the fit corner- stone on which to set a world — or in spire-like peaks as at the Cathedrals. All about are great earth masses, Mt. Dana, Tenaya Peak, South Dome, Cloud's Rest, and a score of others, from ten to fourteen thousand feet high. Its waterfalls are like veils of mist dropping from their great heights of a thousand and sixteen hundred feet ; its pellucid lakes and the brawling Merced River, its still forests, all these things have been sung by a host of poets, dwelt on lovingly by many writers and made famous on canvas by artists like Bierstadt, Hill, and Hertzog. In the Mariposa Grove are 450
SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY.
165
of the sequoia gigantea, where specimens of trees thirty feet in diameter and three hundred feet tall are not uncommon."
So we drifted on, crossing presently the San Joaquin River after leaving Lathrop, where the main line swings to the left while a branch continues on to Stockton and Sacramento. Before long we look off across wide meadows where the rank water-grass grows. A pleasant, moist, saline odor steals into the air, which tells of the near-by ocean, and then we see the white sails of moving craft, whose hulls we cannot discern, sunk in the devious waterways that are hidden from us by the lush growth of waving tule. Presently the glint of blue water comes to us, and before many minutes Suisun Bay breaks upon our vision. The delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin is but a little way back of us. The line hugs the coast closely now all the way into Oakland, the little waves sometimes lapping the roadway almost beneath the car windows. Constantly the waterscape is changing — always it is lovely. At the Straits of Carquinez, through which the waters of Suisun Bay discharge themselves into San Pablo and hence into San Francisco's broad harbor, we find a line of tall-masted ships and black-hulled steamers lying. They are the grain carriers loading wheat from the monster elevators of the Southern Pacific Company to carry it to all parts of the world. At Port Costa you can get a glimpse of the largest ferry boat in the world. It is used to carry trains across in their flight to Sacramento and Ogden. On the other side of the bay, on the shelving promontory, is the old town of Benicia, which once hopefully anticipated commercial and politi- cal greatness. At San Pablo station, as we skirt the bay of that name, we look across to the harbor of San Fran- cisco and out through the portals of the Gol- den Gate to where the broad Pacific stretches to the Orient. It is a glorious vision, look at it when you will — in the dim light of early morning, the glow of afternoon, when it is gilded by the splendor of the sunset, or mysteriously veiled in the shadows of the gathering dusk. To the right is the rocky peak of Alcatraz Island, crowned with frowning guns and the gloomy walls of the military prison. On the left Goat Island, with its white buoy station
Drawing neat the bays.
BUFFALO IN GOLDEN GATE PARK.
By the shores of Suisun and San Pablo bays.
Ships that carry the bread stuffs to the world.
Port Costa and Benicia.
166 THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The vision of and light-house, while beyond it rises Telegraph Hill, with the crowding
Gate.° ' city pressing all about it — to the water front and farther back than the
eye can follow toward the great park and the cliffs beyond. And while
you are drinking in all the beauty and majesty of the splendid panorama,
the train sweeps into the outskirts of Oakland and down the whole length
of the mile-long pier to where the huge ferry waits to carry you to the place
of your hopes, to the city where all that is picturesque and fascinating in
And this is San anomalous ways of living and traits of national life invite to sight-seeing
and study and enjoyment — San Francisco.
CHAPTER XX.
A LOOK ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO THE SEAL ROCKS- CHINATOWN, ETC.
GOLDEN GATE PARK,
her hair and was refreshing "Who could i t s inception claimed the
ON the many hills that give to it pic- turesqueness and variety, San Fran- cisco clambers back from the dock line front- ing the bay where the carriers of its com- merce lie, toward the beautiful park of the Golden Gate that stretches well to the westward where the great white sand dunes lead to the Cliff House and Sutro Park. The ^, promontory on which the city stands is swept in summer by the winds from the west and southwest, and in winter by those that blow from the south- east and north. It is but little colder in winter than in sum- mer, the mean of the temper- ature being from 55° to 57°. Invariably the trade wind springs up in the morning, and tho' the Girl was distressed by its want of consideration for milinery, we all agreed that it and invigorating, realize that this great center had within a short lifetime/' ex- Coionel, as we sat on one of the
JOSS-tlOUSE AND FORTUNE-TELLER
cable cars on our way to the Cliff House and Golden Gate Park. "The obscure little Spanish village of Yerba Buenaof 1835 has become the great metropolis of sixty years later. There were probably not five hundred people here when, in January, 1848, James W. Marshall made his gold discovery, forty-five miles northeast of Sacramento. Then the current of immigration turned
167
San Francisco, area 48 square miles ; population 350,000. From New Orleans 2,489 miles.
The
accomplish- ment of a lifetime.
168
THROUGH STORY LAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Days of its early growth.
Characteristics in which it is alone.
this way, and in the last ten months of 1849 nearly 40.000 people landed here. The story of its turbulent early years, of the prodigal richness of the mines and placers that flowed a stream of wealth in here to make men mad, of the five great fires that nearly annihilated it, of the fluctuations that made stagnation follow eras of activity — but always led to more enduring prosperity ; of its millionaires, its sand-lot disturbances, its Chinese agita- tion ; these things are matters of common knowledge, for, in a peculiar sense, all men have had their thoughts turned to San Francisco, and so people who come here for the first time are not surprised either at the splendid solidity of the city, its great enterprises or its cosmopolitan life, yet the vividness of the charm and novelty of its individuality impress us at the beginning and we never quite escape it."
" Does it differ materially from any other great city in those respects, Colonel ?" I asked.
"Very materially," was the response. "Where will you find another Chinatown, for instance — a foreign city, where the natives dress and live in
every essential respect just as they do at home — in the heart of a thoroughly
GOLDEN GATE PARK, SAN FRANCISCO.
American city. In my judgment Chinatown is the greatest show-place in the country — it is worth a trip across the continent to see it any time. Golden Gate Park — tho' it is one of the most beautiful in the world — does not, perhaps, differ so radically from any other great public pleasure ground. But when you think that it has been created upon what twenty-five years ago were bare and shifting sand dunes, the fact impresses you. The city street-life takes its coloring from the cosmopolitan character of the population, and this infusion of many nationalities and tastes runs into all its public life — the diversity and degree of its restaurants, the
A LOOK ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO.
169
characters one sees on the streets and about the wharves, its amusements, Features of a etc. But these things you will learn for yourselves better than I can tell potation.1* you."
"I think it is so delightful to see all those flower sellers about the Lotta Fountain," said the Girl. "Where else could one get an armful of roses or sweet peas for twenty-five cents?"
"Well, \iere is where you will see flowers," remarked the Growler, as we Golden Gate
. . , . , Park, 1,000 •
alighted at the park entrance acres of
and
strolled in. The band was playing in the pa- vilion, and a great crowd was listening with manifest
garden.
STREET MERCHANTS IN CHINATOWN.
enjoyment to the excellent music. We listened, too, for a little time, and
then went on to view some of the beauties of the place — the impressive
statuary, the great aviaries with their fairy host of flitting birds, native
and exotic, that here have so wide a range, with running streams of water
and trees that nod above close thickets that they do not know they are
captive, and fly about or rear their young in all the abandon of outdoor life;
the deer glen, where elk and antelope browse complacently ; the great cage, Buffalo and
where is the monster grizzly bear — now so fallen from his high estate that
he opens his great jaws for expected morsels of candy ; the park, where a
herd of buffalo graze and shake their massive, shaggy heads in simulated
ferociousness ; the parks and sylvan solitudes, where the feathery fronds of
lace-like ferns hide in the crevices of dripping rocks, or bright-hued flowers
lure one to trespass the injunction not to pick them.
170
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
ciiffHouse, From here we went out to the Cliff House, and, walking up the winding
tutroRparkSand roadway cut into the rugged face of the promontory, stood watching the great sea-lions that swarmed upon the rocks just off shore.
The seals are
privileged
characters.
"It wouldn't be hard to get a sealskin coat here," said the Girl. "Any- body could go out there and capture a seal."
" No, they couldn't," replied the Growler. " The authorities take good
FLASH-LIGHT PICTURES IN THE OPIUM DENS OF CHINATOWN.
care of those fellows, and tho' the fishermen complain that they eat the salmon the people are too fond of their pets to permit them to be harmed. You wouldn't find another city that could invite you to come and see its seals in their native element like this."
Strolling through the sightly Sutro Gardens that crown the cliff, we sat down finally, overlooking the blue ocean.
A LOOK ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO. 171
" I see islands far out there," said the Girl.
"I used to be able to," her father replied, "but my eyes are not as The "land's strong as they once were. The islands are those of the Farallones, the coast.0 veritable ' land's end ' of America, and they are good places for the mariner to keep away from in bad weather."
"I'm so anxious to see Chinatown that I don't want to risk postponing it by enjoying this lovely view another minute," said the Girl.
" Not to-night ; I am tired," said the Colonel.
"It don't matter — you must go," replied his daughter, inexorably, she insists "You've been talking Chinatown to me ever since I could walk, and now I chilfatown want to see it." at once.
It goes without saying that she had her way — the Girl generally does — and that night found us strolling down Dupont Street in charge of a "guide," a wholly useless personage, unless one wants to see more of the she saw the seamy side of Mongolian life than he would care to open to the view of the but'noV'the' ladies of his acquaintance. " I want to see it all," the Girl announced, and worst she really believes to this day that she saw it all, tho' a sly twinkle is dis- cernible in the Growler's eye when she mentions it, and I suspect there were a good many things the guide did not show us on that or subsequent occasions. But, goodness knows, some of them were bad enough.
For three blocks after you reach the confines of Chinatown, below Cali- where the fornia Street, Dupont is lined with stores given up to the sale of wares keep>.dealer from the Flowery Kingdom. You can buy anything — from silk embroid- eries to tea, and from carved ivory to cloisone and satsuma ware. There is such a variety of things, and they all seem so cheap, when the Mongolian gets down to the bottom of his sliding scale of prices, that one is tempted to buy everything in sight. I pitied the Colonel, for the Girl made heavy TheCoionei
drafts on his exchequer, but he stood it like a stoic, and, as the Growler mUanup remarked, "he never even whimpered."
The streets we wandered through were thronged with Chinamen — the poorer classes dressed in cotton blouses over their wide trousers, the mer- chants in softly rustling silks or shiny black cambric jackets, in whose ample folds they looked like grotesque manikins. From the little conical caps, surmounted with a scarlet knot of braided cord, to the slipshod san- dals in which they shuffled along the pavements, their apparel was quaintly striking, and as they stood in little groups at the corners or hurried along intent on business, the tenor of their conversation or the salutations they street scenes exchanged were those one would hear in Canton or upon the streets of ' Hong Kong. Now and again a woman toddled by, her mincing gait made unsteady by the high convex shoes she wore, her well oiled black hair fan- tastically braided and coiled ; or olive-tinted infants, just old enough to walk, perhaps, yet perfect fac-similes of their elders in all the details of their cos-
RAG PICKERS' ALLEY, CHINATOWN.
A LOOK ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO. 173
tumes, would cause the Girl to exclaim, "Well, if they are not the cunning- est little things! — wouldn't I like to take one home, tho'."
We went into a drug store where the most conspicuous object in the what the window was a featherless chicken in a bottle of blood-stained alcohol — a take, sovereign remedy, this, for certain affections we were told. The almond- eyed pharmacist was compounding a prescription which would have filled a half-peck measure when he got all the ingredients together — a handful of moss from one box, and a double handful of bark from another, a piece of reindeer horn, the leg of a frog, a few choice dried beetles and a multitude of other stuff, all to be boiled and the resulting liquid administered to the unfortunate patient.
The Girl was interested enough in the grocery stores, where were The tid-bits ot displayed dried bats extended upon sticks, and rats smoked until they looked store™ like attenuated slices of well cured bacon ; curious roots grown in China and various preparations imported from the same far-off home to tempt the Celestial epicure to in- dulgence— I say she was interested in all this and .in the narrow and crowded little shops where all sorts of handicraft were carried on — in the sil- versmiths and shoemakers and pipe repairers who prosecuted their avocations at wee benches in the street with supreme indifference to the passing throng — but when the odors from an underground restaurant were wafted to her nostrils she took her nose firmly in her hand and quickened her gait.
1 J-CJ J U i'Cl A CHERUB OF CHINATOWN.
She was vastly edified, and somewhat mystified
to boot, bv the fortune-teller who, sitting- in his stuffy little room, with The prophecy
of the seer hits
the mysterious symbols of his craft upon the walls and the odor of burning the mark.
incense hovering about him, told her " past and future," with creditable
accuracy, as to the past anyhow. Then a peep into the Chinese theatre, At the theatre
, it was bad
where we sat upon the stage and watched the actors whose mimicry of enough, emotion struck us as even more ludicrous than the infernal din of the orchestra that thumped and shrieked at intervals. From here the guide led Rag-pickers' us into the underground dens and noisome alleys, where squalor lurks and opfum dens.e vice hides itself in the gloom of out-of-the-way places.
" Oh, this gives me the shivers ! " exclaimed the Girl, in an awe-struck whisper, as she raised her skirts to keep them off the filthy floors. "We'll all be murdered ; I know we will."
We were groping down a dimly lighted alley, with tall walls all where they about us, the stain of years upon them, and overhanging balconies of wood that seemed on the eve of tumbling down. Then we turned into a stone- paved area, went down a couple of flights of rickety steps and through a
174
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
She wanted to get out then.iD
In the
underground
places.
passage-way, at the end of which a sputtering lamp gave faint light. Through a door and we were in an opium den where the air was heavy and blue with the pungent odor and fumes of the narcotic. On the low couches men lay in trance-like stupor that was the counterfeit of death, or in the stolidity of waning consciousness puffed uncertainly at their long pipes, while they held the bowl over the flame of small tapers, or worked with nervous manipulation the little globules of black paste to make it ready for the drowning of their senses.
"Let's go out," said the Girl ; "I don't want to see any more of it — I can't breathe in here."
"And yet," said the Growler, "white women do come to these hideous dens and 'hit the pipe,' in the inelegant vernacular of the habit."
Through underground rooms, where men herded like cattle and with less of the instinct of cleanliness than the beast of the field, we went, seeing the old blind woman who, with a room full of cats, inhabits a miserable hole
A CHINKSE RESTAURANT.
under the very street ; now looking on at greedy-eyed gamblers who, with fierce guttural ejaculations of rage or gratification, watched the turn of the cards, and again picking our way past groups that huddled in corners to divide the spoil gathered in ash heaps and the choice morsels rescued from refuse barrels.
A LOOK ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO. 175
"To the joss-house and the restaurant, and then to the hotel and to bed," said the Colonel at last.
" I've seen all of this locality I want to," said the Girl ; " but I'm coming to Chinatown to look through the stores every night we stay here, and I think some of these Chinese merchants are just as nice as they can be."
There are half a dozen joss-houses in Chinatown, but the one we visited where the on this first night was the temple of Kwan Kung, on the west side of worship false Waverly Street, between Clay and Sacramento. The guide explained that it 8 was in connection with the Ning Yeung Company, the richest and most powerful Chinese guild in California. The entrance bears the inscription, "Purify thyself by fasting and self-denial," and the walls of the staircase are covered with thousands of slips of red laper that bear the names of adherents who have posted them that they may be borne in kindly remembrance by their deity. The walls are hung with emblazoned banners, and covered with purple and crimson tablets and rich embroideries. The Kwan Kung's
.. ...._. . throne room a
pagentry of royal courts in the far East is recalled by elaborate carvings, gorgeous and there are stands of spears and battle axes, while brass dragons and v bronze bells and great metal bowls, and images of gods are everywhere. Beyond the splendid altars, with their costly service of urns and vases and censers, enthroned -in an odor of incense, is the image of Kwan Kung, the god of war, the flower of the chivalry of far Cathay.
"He isn't very handsome, is he ?" remarked the Girl, irreverently, as she it did not gazed upon the hideous features and the seated figure decked in all the reverence, finery of gorgeous apparel.
"And wouldn't the wind play havoc with those whiskers ?" replied the Colonel, pointing to the jetty hirsute that swept over the bosom of Kwan even unto his waist.
It was only a few steps round to the restaurant where we designed taking The Chinese
, . , n . . restaurant.
tea — a spacious apartment on the third floor, approached by an imposing staircase. Carved dragons amid intricately wrought foliage — all done in ebony — formed a frieze around the walls ; colored lanterns shed a soft glow over the apartment, which was reflected back from the gorgeous scrolls of golden embroidery on the walls. The chairs and tables were of ebony, inlaid with pearl.
" This tea," said the Growler, balancing one of the delicate little cups, " is the perfumed, flowery pekoe. The aroma is delicious."
"So is the flavor," said the Girl; "but what is this?"
"Rice cake," was the reply; "and these are 'lichee' nuts in this saucer. Fiowerypekoe Here's a confection — strips of cocoanut, melon rind and other preserves niinor ev of a like character. I confess I'm not fond of them myself."
"With due notice we could have had a genuine Chinese banquet here," said the Colonel, " the bill of fare would have doubtless included shark's
176
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Epicurean possibilities not realized.
Nob Hill atid other sightb.
fins and bird-nest soup, pickled eggs and spiced duck heads direct from China, varnished pig and a few other delicacies of the kind, with sweet- meats first to cloy the appetite and 'sham shu ' or rice brandy to give piquancy to the gastronomic revelry."
" I think you and the Growler could eat anything," remarked the Girl ; " but as for me I'm too tired to even think, and I propose that we take the shortest way to get to bed."
It would require too much time to tell all we saw in San Francisco — the palatial homes of the millionaires on Nob Hill, the mammoth in the Academy of Sciences, the Mint, the great collection of the State Mining Bureau, where one can profitably spend hours; the theatres and gardens, the Board of Trade display, etc. We went down one day to see the starting of a China steamer, an event which is always significant and interesting to the stranger. There is all the ordinary bustle attendant upon such an occasion, and in addition to this there is the scramble of departing Chinamen to get on board. They must have their identification papers examined by the custom's officers, who sit at a long _^^ffSS'^^>_ table and inspect them one by one. Then they run the gauntlet of the representa- «. lives of
FISHERMAN'S WHARF, SAN FRANCISCO.
sailing of a the Six Companies, to whom they exhibit the proofs that all their dues are ier' paid and that they owe nothing to these organizations, which, for a certain fixed amount, have perhaps defrayed their passage out here, agreed to care for them if ill and ship their bones back home should they die abroad. These preliminaries disposed of they go on board, preempt a bunk in the quarters set apart for them and prepare for the long voyage ahead.
And before we left the city we " did " Oakland and Berkeley and Alameda,
A LOOK ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO.
177
and visited the great navy yard at Mares Island, and saw where the iron Mecca of the men-of-war are built up the bay, and visited the fishermen's dock where the luggers lie and the swarthy fisher-folk mend their nets and talk in the accent of many tongues; and ^^sf!^-^~ :~;==^;^s-_ tnen we drove down to Fort Mason and ^^-' ^.^ the Presidio,
where £|^ the army
ALCATRAZ, WITH SEAWARD POINTED GUNS.
posts are situated, with coxy homes for the officers and comfortable quarters for the men, and where grim-visaged War, as represented by frowning para- pets and big black guns, is hidden under the green of shorn lawns and the shade of many trees.
And finally, on the last day of all, when the Colonel was well nigh out of patience with our repeated postponement of the date of departure, we took a sail on the bay.
"You could spread Rhode Island down in San Francisco Bay and have plenty of room left," said the Growler. "It's the finest harbor in the country, with an admirable entrance, plenty of room for the navies of the world, and depth to float any ship and leave a few fathoms under her keel. Coming in from the Golden Gate it spreads southward to within a few miles of San Jose and Santa Clara, with the bay cities of Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley opposite its entrance, occupying there a portion of the old San Antonio Rancho, which was in 1820 granted to Luis Maria Peralta. Northward and eastward it stretches off into San Pablo and Suisun bays, with hundreds of miles of connecting straits and rivers all about."
From the Heads we came down through the Golden Gate, where the great modern guns were being mounted on an eminence, as a warning to hostile
The guardians of the harbor.
The panorama of the great bay.
Sailing in through the Heads.
178
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The bay extends 25 miles north and 40 miles south of the city, and has an average width of 8 miles.
Far vistas beautified.
The vision of a land that flows with milk and honey.
fleets, should such, perchance, approach with a menace to the safety of the city.
As we sailed swiftly inward the wide expanse of dancing water and far- off shore unfolded like a scroll. Here to the right was the green garden of the Presidio, and just beyond the jutting headland of Fort Mason, with its vine-clad cottages perched on the shrubbery-hung cliff. Beyond the massed buildings with their cobwebby network of cable railways climbing the steep incline. Off to the left was Sausalito and Tiburn hiding back of Angel Island, with tall Mt. Tamalpais in the background. Before us were the grim wave-girt walls of Alcatraz, with seaward pointed guns. The coloring of the water you will see nowhere else, for it partakes of the wonderful transparency of the sunlight and the opalescent atmosphere and the azure of the sky. The hues drift and shade into each other continually, and the creamy crestings of the waves are but a satiny frill upon the changeable greens and blues of the expanding flood. When we got upon a line between Alcatraz and Goat Island we could look northward to where the sister bays led off beyond Red Rock and San Quentin ; across to the growing centers of population that spread toward the foot-hills of Mt. Diablo, and south along the shining, shimmering pathway flecked by white sails and skimming gulls that soared and dipped to where the water kissed the sky this side of the vast Valley of the Santa Clara. Around us were ten thousand happy homes that nestled among the foliage of perpetual bloom ; tall city spires and streets that ran between grim blocks of brick and stone like white lanes ; mountain peaks and hill tops guarding with jealous care the sheltered valleys that lay within their strong embrace ; and the soft breeze that blew — no less than the sunlight that was over and about us — brought to mind a prophecy of the olive orchards and the vine-clad steeps, the ripening peach and orange and the waving fields of dimpling grain, that make this the capital of what to the elder seer athirst upon Judean plains was the veritable vision of the land that flowed with milk and honey.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE VERY MUCH CONDENSED NARRATIVE OF TWO TRIPS OUR PARTY MADE
ON SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES TO PORTLAND, OREGON,
AND SALT LAKE, UTAH.
T
HERE is a poignant grief in recalling the heartlessness of publishers it is thus the
good things
who inevitably compel struggling authors to condense or eliminate go.
the very best of their throbbing thoughts. Thus the narrator finds the
limitations of his space forcing him to draw his recital of a transconti- nental journey to a close and tell in brief of the two trips our party made from San Fran- ' cisco before starting home — the one to Port- land, O r egon, ;;""*j traveling
slowly over what is" known as the beauti- ful "Shasta Route"— the other to Ogden and Salt Lake City on the
Central Pacific division. CLIMBING THE SISKIYOUS.
We got away from San Francisco on the evening train, and while we slept were hurried up through the great Valley of the Sacramento, through the capital of the state, and by
HEADWATERS OF THE SACRAMENTO.
180
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
From San Francisco to Sacramento, the distance is i
90 miles. be grown.
There is plenty to be seen all the way.
The glory of the upper Sacramento River.
The railroad crosses it eighteen times.
many thrifty cities and towns. Here there are immense grain fields, luxuri- ant orchards and vineyards where the world's wine supply will some day Marysville is the center of great hydraulic mining enterprises, whereby hills were torn down and washed away to get at their gold; Chico, where General Bidwell's _^— — _____extensive orchards demon- strate the possibilities^ """"""-x^that await the fruit grower; Red ^^ ^X^Bluff, where lumber ^m llkv is floated
MX. SHASTA, FROM SISSON.
from the distant mountain sides to meet the needs of commerce, and a score of other points well worth seeing, until at Redding we got up to find the Sacramento River winding close to the track. Now for eighty miles the scenery was a perpetual delight. About us were the Shasta and Mc- Cloud mountains and the road follows a narrow rift that winds deviously through them. Always the Sacramento is alongside — now on the right hand and now on the left — a stream of infinite beauty. It is a mad moun- tain torrent that grows wilder and more impetuous as you near 'its head- waters far up toward the timber-line of Shasta. Over its rocky bed, ob- structed by massive black bowlders, it churns itself into foam. It dashes furiously against granite walls that impede its progress, or swirls in green eddies beneath the protecting flanks of cliffs where deep pools invite the angler to the finest trout fishing. The road crosses and recrosses it eighteen times in all before we finally leave it far up in the higher ranges.
" There are ragged peaks for you! " I said, as the train stopped.
" And look at that green dell, and the beautiful house ! " said the Girl.
TRIP TO PORTLAND, OREGON.
181
"Castle Crags — a naked ridge of granite," remarked the Growler. TheCastie "That far high peak is 6,100 feet high and it towers more than 4,000 feet above the river bed. The Crags belong to the Trinity Range, a spur of the Sierra Nevadas, and the dividing line between Shasta and Siskiyou counties crosses them. Col. Hastings was the first owner of Soda Springs ranche back in 1844. Since then the Indians and miners and hardy trappers have had their day, and there have been bloody battles and ambuscades and solitary duels that the world will never know of. Now the tavern of Castle Crags invites the dilettante to spend his hours of idleness here, in the enjoyment of the finest hunting and fishing to be found anywhere and the revelry of a climate unsurpassed. And now for the Soda Springs."
It would be a thankless task to attempt a description of Mossbrae Falls Mossbrae Fails and Shasta Soda Springs. Imagine a great mountain canon with pine clad !£da springs, sides that reach hundreds on hundreds of feet above your head. At the left the dashing river — on your right a sheet of water that pours across the face of a cliff hung with the green tendrils of dense moss. And a little way beyond are the Soda Springs — the sharp hillside broken by rills that toss madly down from far
CASTLE CRAGS AND SHASTA LILIES. _,..jp
heights, while in places jets of water spout up eighty or a hundred feet and fall in plume-like showers of glisten- ing spray.
" It isn't really soda water ? " the Girl asked, incredulously.
"Get out and see," replied the Growler, and we did, drinking deep from carbonated the stone-walled spring under the pavilion. The pure carbonated and thateyouf«iy. ferruginous water was as cold as though it flowed from the icy heart of the mountain.
"I think this is the most beautiful spot on earth," said the Colonel, as
182
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The climb to Shasta's •widespread base.
AtSisson the best view is to be had.
there is upon the
we walked slowly back to the train. "There is every element that could add charm to the landscape. Four and a half miles from here, at eigh- teenth crossing, we will part company with the Sacramento. The elevation
2,818 feet, and we enter mountain climb in earnest." did. The road swings about bend and runs for five and a to reach the next station — In this distance we have five hundred and thirty feet. The scenery is impress- ive. Through black tun- nels the way winds, now on . the edge of dizzy gorges, where far below the deep canon yawns. The grade is two and a half feet to the hun- dred, and grows even steeper be- fore you drop into the valleys of Ore- gon that await you. The building of the road through this colossal bar- rier was a vast un- dertaking, deemed an engineering and financial im- possibility for a longtime. But the
SHASTA SODA SPRINGS AND MOSSBRAK FALLS. tWO pOWCrflll lOCO-
motives draw us steadily upward until at Sisson the great view of Shasta breaks upon us in all its majesty. Fourteen thousand four hundred and forty feet it lifts itself, the vast old volcanic pile. At its base the dense chapparel clusters with spruce and pine and cedar, sentinel-like, towering above the lower growth. Then come the firs, the stunted tree stalks and the scant litchen that encroach upon the bald peak. Above, about the great extinct crater, the crown of snow lies glowing in the sunlight.
half miles McCloud. climbed
TRIP TO PORTLAND, OREGON.
183
The longest observed lines in the world were taken from the summit of Baseofiongest
. ...... geodetic line
Shasta to connect the lines of the main tnangulation, of the coast and in the world, geodetic surveys — from Mt. Shasta to Mt. St. Helena, one hundred and ninety miles as the crow flies. On the summit Capt. A. F. Rodgers set up the geodetic monument twenty years ago — an iron column carried up in sections on the backs of Indians. It is from Sisson that parties start to make the ascent of Shasta. In talking about the feat, the Growler said:
"The trail is up through the great lava trough off there on the right. HOW the ascent The distance from snow or timber line to Thumb Rock (a sharp projection on the crest of the south flank of the mountain) is between four and five
is made.
NORTH FORK CASCADE, ON THK SHASTA ROUTE.
from
miles ; from Thumb Rock to the summit, three-quarters of a mile there to Shastina or Crater Peak on the north, say a mile and a half.
" A relic of the ancient volcanic fires is to be found a few hundred feet below the main summit, in the shape of a hot steam solfatara. The ascent is not dangerous, and to persons in sound health and possessing will-power not very difficult ; yet quite a large percentage of starters never reach the highest point, the reason, no doubt, being that the sensations produced by severe exercise in high altitudes are sometimes alarming. The general rule is to leave Sisson about noon, or in time to reach the upper camp by nightfall, to which point there is a good saddle trail. An early start is made the following morning, while the snow crust is strong, and after from six to eight hours of tramping, the summit is reached. The view from the crown, it is needless to observe, is one of boundless sublimity: the Modoc
Relic of the old volcanic fires.
The panorama from the top.
184
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Mountain tops like tents all about.
The beauties of the
Siskiyous.
lava beds, the giants of the Southern Cascade Range, the Siskiyou, Salmon and Scott ranges, Castle Crags and the deep gorge of the Sacramento, Lassen's Peak and the receding snowy shafts of the Sierra on the south, and on the east a far-reaching panorama of mountain, lake and forest. The eye is gorged with visions of grandeur and magnificence. The time to climb the old peak is from the first of June to the last of September."
All the way down the long plateau of Strawberry Valley we watched the great pinnacle whose majestic summit was eleven thousand feet above us. Off to the west were the Scott Mountains whose main cloud cap gives birth to three rivers. To the north is Black Butte or Muir's Peak. In the south- west the serrated columns of Castle Crags rise above their setting of pine.
On the Siskiyous the grade reaches one hundred and seventy-four feet to the mile, and from Gregory to Ashland is a continuous succession of awe-inspiring pictures. Up and ^- •— „ up the road
climbs to the summit, and / ^^fer- then it creeps
sinuously down the great /v slopes,
turning on itself
Ten pounds of air on the
brakes.
again until you look from your •J^5$w| Pl^^ window to see
three lines of rails on successive LOOKING INTO ROGUE RIVER VAL- steps of the
. , LEY FROM THE SISKIYOUS. . ,
mountain side below. There are wide chasms
spanned by trestles, from whose clear heights one looks off over the tops of tall pines to the Valley of the Rogue River spread beneath. When the train stops at Ashland and one of the engines is detached, inspectors tap the car- wheels and feel them furtively, while the engineer, in his blue overalls, says: " It takes ten pounds of air on the brakes comin' down there, and some- times the wheels are red-hot when we get to the bottom."
TRIP TO PORTLAND, OREGON.
185
"There are many tempting things about Rogue River Valley," said the Colonel. "It is not only a sheltered and fertile garden spot, but it has natural wonders singular to it. Of course you know that it was up in the
WILLIAMETTE FALLS, OREGON.
north end of it that 'Old Joe Lane' fought the Indians and pretty nearly in the Rogue
. River Valley.
wiped them out. From Medford you can reach by team Crater Lake, lying on the summit of the
Cascade Range Here is a
PORTLAND AND ITS SNOW-CLAD SENTINEL.
great cup hollowed out of the primeval rock, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is twenty miles in circumference and a mile deep, and is half full of the purest water you ever saw. The walls of rock rise to a sheer height of from one to two thousand feet above the surface. The Klamath
TRIP TO PORTLAND, OREGON.
187
Indians have a superstition that no member of their tribe can look upon this lake and live."
Through the Umpqua and Calapooya mountains into the Valley of the Williamette, down which stream we follow — past Oregon City, where the wide white fall of tumbling water charms us, and at last into Portland we
steam — Portland, with its mountain-set- ting and its near-by Columbia that rolls majestically to the sea, capable of carry- ing any commerce on its broad bosom, and hiding in its depths the vast wealth of the salmon fisheries. Hu- man vision never rest- ed on a fairer spot for a city — a plateau be- side the Williamette, where the great busi- ness center stands, with its perpetual tes- timony of wealth and enterprise, and rising into the thorough- fares of homes that climb to the overlook- ing heights. Off in the distance three snow-clad peaks raise their wide-famed brows dauntlessly — Mt. St. Helen, Mt. Adams and Mt. Ranier. From here the Southern Pacific tourist may easily run over to Taco- ma and Seattle, the twin emporiums that stand guard over Puget Sound, there to take a steamer voyage of a night over the most entrancing of waters to Vic- toria and Vancouver, to tread the soil of Her Britannic Majesty. Or he can find near by Portland enough of sight-seeing to occupy many days — on the Columbia River, which for sixty miles above, to the Dalles, runs through colossal cliffs that dwarf the Palisades of the Hudson into insignificance ; where waterfalls eight hundred feet high toss their milky veils into the air ;
MAIDEN HAIR FALLS, NEAR PORTLAND, OREGON.
By the Williamette into Portland.
Where the city is built.
The Sound Country invites one.
Up and down the Wonderland of the Columbia.
188
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The 833 mile trip from San Francisco to Ogden.
In the warm valleys sheltered by the Sierras
where islands of curious form rise, pine-begirt, from the swift, broad river ; seeing the salmon fishers, whose slow wheels compel the river current to do their work. Or on the lower reaches toward Astoria he can visit the great canneries and see the fleet of fisher-boats that sail out across the treacherous bar to make capture of the silver-armored fish.
Nor was our trip to Ogden and Salt Lake a whit less filled with vivid interest and the novelty of new sensations awakened by the changing scenes
upon the way. The building of this line in 1 863-9 completed the first of the great transcontinental railways, made pos- sible the vast de- velopment of the Pacific Coast,
STREET SCENE AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN OGDEN, UTAH.
and awakened new inspiration throughout the nation. The march of empire took its way across the inland realm, which Lewis and Clark and Bonneville and the argonauts of '49 had found so strange and terrible.
In the warm valleys beyond Sacramento the orchards of olive and orange sleep, with every fruit and flower of the Mediterranean zone finding a congenial home, while but a little way beyond the pine-clad Sierras are dotted by crystal lakes. At Bucklin we are two hundred and forty-nine feet above the sea, and now the road begins its ascent of the mountains, for the elevation rises swiftly until at Summit, one hundred and ninety-five
TO OGDEN AND SALT LAKK.
189
miles from San Francisco, we are seven thousand and seventeen feet above tide water. Off from Colfax one may take the narrow gauge into Grass Val- ley and Nevada City, where deep mining can best be seen and where the rich quartz ledges seem inexhaustible. Between Colfax and Cisco, thirty- eight miles, the ascent is thirty-five hundred and twelve feet. Whirling The snow through the snow sheds, catching glimpses of Donner Lake, lying like a great DonnefsLake. sapphire in its pine setting among the clustering crags. At the summit we got out to have a snow-balling bout in the tunnel-like sheds.
At Truckee, the Growler said :
"This is the favorite point of departure for fishermen who seek Donner, The
sportsman's
Tahoe, Webber and the other lakes, or the innumerable trout streams within paradise. a radius of a few miles. You should eat these trout, fresh from their cold element, broiled in camp style, to know what a fish can taste like."
Then the road begins its long descent of the mountains, with the serene handiwork of the Creator all about — the great buttresses of rock carved in every fantastic shape — the fir-clothed steeps whose bold heads are lost in the clouds, the mountain streams that swirl and eddy madly beside the track or are lost like metallic threads at the bottom of profound abysses in canons into whose precipitous depths you look for a
fleeting sf instant as
the
tram
goes by. At Reno you feel as tho' you had reached the lowlands again, but the elevation is forty-fourhundred and ninety-seven feet, and the great plateau varies little from this for six hundred miles — until you reach the end of the road at Ogden. Reno is the thriftiest city in Nevada'. The commercial me- Reno, Nevada,
and the
tropolis — made beautiful by the Truckee River that divides the town — the Truckee loveliest stream upon the continent, if we except only the upper Sacramento. "There's another thing we can't afford to miss, but must," said the
TRIP TO PORTLAND, OREGON.
191
Lode.
Colonel. "The trip to Carson and the great Bonanza mines upon the famous Thebigmines Comstock Lode at Gold Hill and Virginia City." comltock
" Is this the point of departure ?" I inquired.
"Yes," was the reply. "It is only a run of a few country the like of which you will never see elsewhere.
hours through a Toward the end of the line, at Virginia City, the road winds about the mountain •-•> tops, on Yt some of
heaviest grades known, until you look1
Upon the great LAKES TAHOE AND DONNER.
'Camps' which have, in something like thirty years, added four hundred mil- lion dollars in gold and silver to the wealth of the world. To make the descent The
underground
into one of these mines, dropping, say eighteen hundred feet — tho' some world, where
the precious
have been worked as deep as thirty-three hundred feet — and then explore a metaishide. part of the vast underground city which has been excavated, the galleries where the heat is so intense that men could not work in them but for the constant supply of air pumped in under great pressure ; the Sutro tunnel that pierces the mountains for a distance of five miles to drain the mines, labyrinthine passages which lead forbiddingly in every direction — is indeed an experience never to be forgotten, but one made wholly agreeable by the courtesy of all you meet."
• ' There were picturesquely dressed but sore-eyed Indians at Reno, and Piutesand from now on a little group of them appeared at each station almost — the privileges.
19*
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
God's
of the Hurnboldt.
The City of the Saints by the Dead Sea of Utah.
old crones begging, the men standing about with an expression of stolid indifference. They ride without money and without price on the trains of the Central Pacific, confining themselves to flat cars or the platforms of passenger coaches, however. Wadsworth is the point of departure for the Pyramid Lake region, and beyond this the great sage brush desert reaches out. On the gray hills juniper grows, but it disappears as you get farther east- ward. There is plenty to attract attention, however — the sink of the Hum- boldt River where it loses itself in the desert sands; the lake of the same name, lying in a region which once, science declares, was made fertile by copious rains after the great sea that covered it had subsided ; the sharp hewn hills of blue, and the clear high table-lands, until Ogden is reached, with its stir of metropolitan life, and but a few miles beyond, Salt Lake City, near by the Dead Sea of America.
Here the traveler finds much to interest. He wants to see the Bee Hive house and -the grave of Brigham Young, the great Salt Lake itself, the splendid temple with its airy angel on the topmost pinnacle, the tabernacle where the thousands of Latter Day Saints congregate to hear their laws expounded, and the huge choir sing; ^^***"BI-HB*IBl*^nta^ the govern- mentpostupontheoverlooking ^^^ ^^^^ hill, and,
above all, the city itself, with ^r ^^ its one
hundred and
thirty-two-foot wide streets, shaded with swaying trees and flanked by flowing water brought hither from its far- off sources in the hills. It is a city with every modern charm set down in what was a desert when Brigham Young and his enthusiasts came upon it in their pilgrimage, and one who looks upon it has a startling awakening as to what courage and labor can accomplish upon these great plains of our arid region.
PALISADES OF THE HUMBOLDT.
CHAPTER XXH.
DOWN THE COAST LINE TO SANTA BARBARA, WITH SIDE TRIPS TO MT.
HAMILTON, THE BIG TREES, SANTA CRUZ, DEL MONTE
AND OTHER POINTS ON THE WAY.
w
HEN we turned our faces homeward after weeks of wandering, we Down the took the Coast line of the Southern Pacific. "You have seen the
garden and the granary of the world in our tour through California," said the Colonel; "now you will get a glimpse of Elysium. The Coast division runs through a section which to California is what the rest of the state is to the blizzard-haunted Dakotas. It's a little nearer perfection than any other portion of the slope."
" Every body talks so much about the great hotels that I don't believe there's a thing to be seen all the way down to Saugus but big resorts," said the Girl, saucily.
"Wait and see," replied the Growler, and straightway relapsed into silence.
The Southern Pacific's Coast division is the only road having a depot Through the
,. . • ^ r ^ T- • o-r environs of
and running directly into the city of ban trancisco. Starting from the the city. Townsend Street station the train winds out through the city and over the low hills, which, rib-like, jut across the isthmus. We pass the great ceme- teries, wisely set well out from the tenements of the living, and presently are in the Santa Clara Valley, passing suburban towns, where handsome residences, hidden in great clumps of foliage, suggest how affluence has added art and luxury to the comforts of the country.
"There is a beautiful drive which one can take, starting say from San Meniopart Mateo or Menlo Park," remarked the Colonel, "and leading through the itonaire*. loveliest of highways past the houses of some of the great millionaires They have been generous in expending their millions upon their homes and in the grounds about them, and have carried the art of the landscape gar- dener to its highest perfection.
"The Spring Valley Water Works, located in this county, supply the A dam that greater portion of the water consumed in San Francisco, and the dam which holds the gathered stock is one of the remarkable things of the kind in the world — two hundred and sixty-five feet high."
Just beyond here, at Mayfield, is the Stanford University, with an
193
194
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
The Stanford ^Diversity.
endowment of twenty million dollars from Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford. Created but a few years ago, it already ranks as one of the foremost schools of the world, and in no essential other than its architec-
ture does it differ from any great institution of learning. The buildings conform to the climatic conditions> and are ar- ranged with a view to indefinite
SEAT. ROCKS AND BEACH
expansion. They are of gray stone, massive, mostly one story, with
tile roofs, and wholly harmonious in design and the details of construction. " To me this is the jewel of the whole coast," said the Colonel, that even- ing, as we sat upon the broad veranda of the sumptuous flower-begirdled Besureand Vendome in San Jose. "I know no lovelier place than this to which the
pronounce this _ ., ... _ .........
'San Ho-say." bpamsh soldiers first came with their families as a protection to the Santa Clara Mission in 1777. Subsequent generations have confirmed the good taste of those first settlers and have built here a city distinguished for its costly and imposing public and private buildings. The people who live here like to call this the 'Athens of the Pacific Coast,' because it is the seat of so many places of learning, but I like it for the activity of its business life, the charm of its shaded and well kept streets and for the beauty of all its environments. Off there a few miles is the richest quicksilver mine in the world, the famous Almeden. The level valley and the foot-hills which
The Valley of the Santa Clara.
DOWN THE COAST LINE TO SANTA BARBARA.
195
rise upon either side are the homes of the contented fruit-grower and farmer, who find them inexpressibly productive."
"For a little while after the meeting of the Legislature of 1849 San Jose was the capital of the state," spoke the Growler, reminiscently, "and it has kept on growing ever since with no apparent regret that Sacramento won its statesmen away from it."
At seven o'clock the next morning we were off to Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory. F. H. Ross, Sr., was there himself to see the passengers of his stage line get under way. And Frank Ross, Jr., was there, too. Every- body who visits Mt. Hamilton — and everybody who visits San Jose does — knows the Ross family, and it is wonderful how their courtesy and care has impressed itself upon those who have made that ideal journey. Well, they bundled us into the long, comfortable stage, gave a few parting instructions to the driver " to be sure and point out" such and such a feature, of the way- side. The grizzled Jehu nods a gruff but kindly promise to care for us, cracks his long whip over the heads of the leaders, and we are off. Now we rattle through the streets, down miles of shady avenue on Alum Rock Highway and then into the foothills, up which we wind amid orchards and vineyards until at Grand View House the panorama of the Santa Clara
Valley is laid before
Growler
held his
"Off
tains, and Sierra MO-
BIT OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY ARCHITECTURE.
Mt. Hamilton and Lick Observatory
Stage ride across the ranges.
us. The Girl was in ecstacies. the complacent, and the Colonel, as he hat in his hand, said : there are the Gavilan Moun- there the Santa Cruz and there the rena. That silvery sheen far off is San Francisco Bay."
Below us- the valley lay like a vast checker- board with the city in the middle distance — the deep brown of the new plowed fields harmonizing with the vivid greens of the expanses where young grain waved and with the darker shadings of the budding orchards. Then the road wound down into Hall's Valley, up again around Cape Horn and into Santa Ysabel Canon. Then the seven mile climb of Mt. Hamilton begins. More than three hundred times the road turns upon itself — winding now on the brink of great gorges, and again zig-zagging through narrow canons or on the wide shelf of sloping hillsides beneath which the landscape unrolls and the eye looks
The view of the valley below.
196
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Like a bit of some other sphere.
Things that one recalls.
off over the valley and woodland and low-lying pasture with the great white dome above, seemingly as evanescent and unreachable as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. At last we are at the summit, beside the world- known institution which that stolid, reserved man, James Lick, created by
his bequest of seven hundred t h ousand dollars.
" There's something uncanny about all this," said the Girl, \v h e n the courteous guide had
through,
and we stood
again upon
the wide portico
in front of the main
building. "It don't
seem as tho' it really belonged
to the earth and was of things earthly." ON THE ROAD T0 THE LICK OBSERVATORY.
"I feel like a boy who has had a hard lesson at school," I replied. " I remember that the dome containing the great thirty-six-inch equatorial has a diameter of seventy-five feet and weighs a hundred and thirty tons; that it, like the great fifty-six foot telescope could be moved by a child. I can recall how the earthquake register works, and something about the meridian circle, the photographic telescope, and even have a faint recollection of the horizontal photo-heliograph, but that's absolutely the limit."
SANTA CRUZ.
197
" But none of us will forget the tomb of James Lick," replied the The Colonel. " As I stood before the simple slab that covered the mausoleum JJS in the base of the great telescope where his ashes sleep, I felt that nobler burial or greater monument could no man have, and that the kings of earth might envy the shrewd old miller who had builded for himself a tomb so noble."
The next morning we took the narrow gauge to Santa Cruz. The ride
THE CANON OF THE SAN LORENZO RIVER, CALIFORNIA.
is one which rivals anything upon the Shasta division or over the Sierras, for tho' the mountain groups are not so massive the effects are equally fine. The line follows a mountain gorge so deep and sinuous and narrow that there is just room for the roadway and a brawling brook that boisterously disputes every inch of the way. At the big trees we left the train to drive To the big over with M. C. Hopkins, the tourist stage man of Santa Cruz, who awaited samn cm- us. One spends an hour, with admiration that merges into wonder, in the great grove of Powder Hill Canon, where the sequois sempervirens grow. These colossal forest giants that spring three hundred feet skyward, and measure sometimes twenty feet in diameter, awe one. There is a reveren- tial silence that steals upon the consciousness like the recollection of the lullaby your mother crooned in the eventides of long ago, and one feels that, indeed, these were the trees among which God's first temples were. Then Down the the six-mile drive to Santa Cruz is one of infinite delight. The way is San Lorenzo through the Canon of the San Lorenzo River. Hundreds of feet below the river dashes — a white ribbon, foam-flecked and mad with the revelry of
198
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Early Spanish visitors made note of it.
Shore-line sketches.
near-by commingling with the sea. On each side the sheer cliffs rise, or pine- clad slopes that seem too steep for mountain goat to climb.
When Juan Cabrillo came in 1542, he noted the wooded mountains that rose back of where Santa Cruz now stands. Sir Francis Drake made men- tion of the place and so did Viscaino, but it was not until 1791 that Padres Salazar and Lopez established the Mission of the Holy Cross. If we should travel "due east" — of Santa Cruz, we would pass say seventy-five miles south of St. Louis, would strike St. Vincent, the extreme southern point
Portugal, then south of Seville, and but a little north of Gibraltar, while Nice and Cannes and Mentone and all the famous Ri- viera would lie four hundred miles to the north of the direct line pursued.
Beyond where the town lies under the shelter of the mountains and stretches towards the sea, the wide blue Pacific expands. Toward the north the shore line rises into cliffs, where the breakers have worn caves and natural archways, into which the long rollers crash with reverberant boom and the lashings of spray. To the south, where the sightly and homelike Sea Beach Hotel stands in its bankings of flowers, the shelving whi^e beach of the bay sweeps like the curved blade of a scimiter.
ON THE BEACH AT SANTA CRUZ.
THE DEL MONTE. 19 1)
"And now for Del Monte," exclaimed the Girl. "What times we'll have Ah!
f Monte, at last.
there! — why, I ve been wanting to see it for years.
'• There is no danger of our discounting your enjoyment by talking of it," said the Colonel ; "it will be all that you expect. We could have come down here via Carnadero and the Canon of the Pajaro had we been disposed to have missed Santa Cruz."
"Well, it's near Monterey, isn't it?" I asked.
"Just a mile," was the reply, "and a strange old town it is, founded by old town of the Spanish long before Shakespeare wrote. It became the birthplace of the commonwealth of California. The old mission, which stands near by, was established in 1770. Here Commodore Jones planted the American flag in 1842, and Fremont was succeeded by Commodore Sloat in 1846. But however quaint and interesting the old town is, the modern art which has fashioned the great pleasure-ground there has given it more fame. The ocean does not bite deeply into the land. The great Del Monte stands in a grove of ancient oaks but a few hundred yards from the surf-line. North- Thecedarsand ward the splendid beach spreads, affording a drive equal to that at Galves- ton. To the south and west, where the peninsula reaches out, the coast is wild and rocky, On the peninsula the Santa Lucia Mountains find their northern terminus, and here the pines grow, a species resembling the cedars of Lebanon. In the summer the soft trade winds blow in from the far northern ice fields, tempered by the Japan current, which brings the balm of Asia to our shores. In the winter the winds come from the south, with their tropic heats cooled by the great expanse of sea over which they travel."
"But Del Monte, and its gardens and drives!" exclaimed the Girl, impatiently.
"Oh, those are things you must see to appreciate," was the suave reply.
If you care to get at the old Spanish significance of the name of the Local Hotel Del Monte you will find it means " Hotel of the Forest." It was very ofthename. wise to preserve in its nomenclature the characteristics of the place, for the oaks and pines of incalculable age, among which it is set, possess a perennial charm. Gnarled and distorted, voluptuous with abundant glaucous foliage, grotesque in whimsical distortion, or aggressive in their serene and implacable individuality, the hoary oaks cluster thick, while Ancient oaks among them are the dignified, symmetrical and shadowy pines, with the pines"11 exudations of their balsam, the fragrance of their breath and the crooning of their boughs, in whose harp-like melody the storm and the summer zephyr sound their requiem or their vesper hymn. The great hotel, where five hundred guests may find a home, stands in the midst of a garden of a hundred and twenty-six acres — a garden that would experience no lessened dignity in a competition with those of Kew or Kensington. All the year
THROUGH THE SALINAS. 201
round myriads of flowers bloom and run riot in the glory of color and Theiuxuriance fragrance. From every country in the world and every tropic they have been gathered, and scientific hybridization in the extensive propagating houses has evolved unique varieties of great beauty.
What a delight it all was ! How we lost ourselves in the cypress maze, The maze, the roamed on the Laguna del Rey, or "Lake of the King;" studied with great d^ivlhe renewed interest the hundreds of curious fauna that grow in the Arizona garden, reveled in the sylvan delights of the seventeen-mile drive, where every phase of scenic effect reveals itself ; bathed in the breakers on the beach or in the great pools of the enclosed, glass-covered, palm-decorated bathhouse. The days drifted by in the enjoyment of it all, until there came the poignant realization that there was a limit to our time, and we left it regretfully and with many inward promises chat we should come again.
Now down through the Salinas Valley our way led, the molten thread Southward by
r , , , „_,. , . the Salinas.
of the river near by most of the time. The names of the stations were imbued with the euphony of their Spanish derivation that gave a liquid softness to their pronunciation, even in the speech of the brakeman who bawled them in at the car door.
"This means 'The Pass of the Oaks,'" the Colonel said, when the Paso del Robies brakeman called "Paso del Robies," shortly after he had pointed out the springs, old Mission of San Miguel. " It is a good place to come to," he added, pointing up to the -great hotel in its setting of encompassing lawn. The hot sulphur and mud baths here have a world-wide fame, and for the cure of rheumatism and a score of other diseases are unsurpassed. Indeed, this is a region of springs. There is one of sand not far, off with a temperature of one hundred and forty-six degrees, soda and white sulphur, and an iron or chalybeate spring.
"And there are plenty of things to interest a well person, too," chimed Things to be
i /-, ,, T , • seen near by.
in the Growler. "It is any easy drive over to Morro Bay, on the coast. The Adelaide quicksilver mines are near ; so, too, are the Painted Rocks, the trout fishing of Santa Rosa creek, the great prune orchards, the glens and canons of the mountains, the diversified landscape of the ranches and the oak-clad valleys and hillsides that stretch away in every direction."
"This whole country is Nature's wonderland," said the Colonel, as we overthe stood on the rear platform of the car, approaching San Luis Obispo. The sang£u\s° line is another marvelous piece of railway construction as it scales the Santa Lucia Range. Within a few miles there are seven tunnels, the longest a mile and a quarter. Swinging down from the last declivity the road makes a ten per cent curve with a grade of one hundred and sixty feet to the mile. The climb over these heights is of continuous interest. The clouds seem not far off, and below, far, far down in the depths of green canons, or upon the
202
THROUGH STORYLAND TO SUNSET SEAS.
Pismo Beach and other wouders.
A spread for any one.
Treasures of the hills.
distant hillsides, one sees the white trail of the old stage road winding ser- pent-like.
"San Luis is a place to be remembered," the Colonel continued, -'per- haps not because it is a pretty town or the seat of the old mission merely, but because of all its environments. Twenty miles away, through the love- liest of mountain drives — where you see ^ ~""~~---^ flowing
gas and- sulphur wells, or mountains of bituminous rock so skillfully com- pounded in the labora- tory of na- ture that it only needs
to be heated \ and laid to make a perfect street- paving — and you come t o Pismo
Beach, the most magnificent sweep of sand in the world, twenty miles long, hundreds of feet wide and hard as a floor."
"And what clams one can gather there," said the Growler, with a remi- niscent twinkle in his eye. " Each tide brings in thousands of them, of a flavor I have never known equaled. Some day great summer resorts will make this beach known to every lover of the sea."
" Why, you can find anything in these hills," continued the Growler. " Cinnabar, quicksilver, silica, chromium, asphaltum, gold, silver, irpn, cop-
ON THE SHORE LINE AND DRIVE AT DEL MONTE.
SANTA BARBARA.
203
per, coal and alabaster. Vast fortunes are awaiting development. Now, if I was younger ! "
"Younger," said the Girl ; "why, you dear old creature, I wouldn't want you to be a day younger/"
" No, I suppose not," replied the Growler, with a pretense of sadness.
The Southern Pacific line is being built through from San Luis to join the Santa Barbara division. Already it is some thirty or forty miles beyond, but one can take the Pacific Coast Railway, which extends from San Luis to Los Olivos, through a region of romantic beauty, and at Los Olivos board By coast line
....... . and stage to
a stage for a ride of forty miles across the mountains to Santa Barbara, santa Barbara.
The drive is one to be made by every tourist, for it is over the rugged
summits of the mountains, with visions of the far Pacific and its jewel-like
islands, of wooded hillsides and fertile valleys in between. And when the
coach rolls into Santa Barbara there is the final reward of an unrivaled
and a splendid scene. Three hundred and fifty years of romance and the
pathos of many life tragedies cling about this lovely spot, where now
handsome modern homes and wide paved streets and busy shops hem in
the great gray mission, where the cowled monks walk the stone corridors
SAN LUIS OBISPO.
with whispering footsteps and guard with zealous care their prim garden ThisiittieJ.it
TT a • j <.u • of paradist at
where no woman dare enter. Here flowers not everywhere, and there is a glance, music that is echoed from bower-ensconsed villas to rakish yachts and white men-of-war that lie at anchor in the offing. The annual average temperature is 72° and neither summer sun nor winter chill ever comes to enervate or affright the happy mortal who tarries here beneath the embrace of the Santa Ynez.
AT THE SANTA BARI'.ARA
AND SHE SAID " YES.
205
Beyond here on our way to Saugus the track follows close to the sea-line for miles and miles — carved now and again out of the very face of the rocky bluff at whose feet the green surges beat and churn themselves into foam. Then a little way and we come to places where pure bitumen oozes from the ground, and further on run for an hour or more through an orchard-dotted valley, where every landscape that meets the eye is a pastoral miniature, as By the sea to perfect as color and grouping and the fertile master-mind can make it. And when we catch the train at Saugus and the porter disposes the luggage in our section in the New Orleans car, and our faces are turned toward the east once more, the Girl looks out of the window with something of sadness as she says :
"It has all been like a pleasant dream, and — and Tack and I will take it Not the least
important
all over again some day, won t we? result of the
And I squeezed the dear Girl's hand a little bit harder than need be, perhaps, and whispered "On our wedding trip."