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wmmmm^mmmi 


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ETWEEN 


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THE  LIBRARY 


OF 


THE 


OF 


LOS 


UNIVERSITY 
CALIFORNIA 
ANGELES 


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BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 


BEI^J.  F.  TAYLOR, 

Author  op  "Songs  of  Yesterday."  "Old-Time  Pictures,"  "World  on 
Wheels,"  "  Camp  and  Field,"  etc. 


WITH  ILL USTRA  TIONS. 


CHICAGO: 
S.  C.  GRIGGS    AND    COMPANY. 

18T8. 


Copyright,  1878, 
By  8.  C.  GRIGGS  AND  COMPANY. 


I     KHIGHT   R  LEONARD  .  I 


Donohne  A  Henneberrv,  Binden 


Colleg« 
library 


1^ 

1^1    .ir 


&Gq, 


TO 

MRS.  MARY  SCRANTON  BRADFORD, 

of  cleveland,  ohio, 

whose  daily  deeds  of  noble  kindness  have 

brightened  many  a  life  and  beautified 

her   own,  this   book    of    days    of 

sunshine  is  affectionately 

inscribed  by  her 

Relative  and  Friend. 


883348 


Colleg* 
Libraiy, 


^U 


\ 
CONFIDENTIAL. 


rr^HE  only  care-free,  cloudless  summer  of  my  life,  since 
childhood,  was  spent  in  California.  The  going  there 
was  a  delight,  and  the  leaving  there  a  regret. 

This  gypsy  of  a  book  has  few  facts  and  not  a  word  of 
fiction;  not  so  much  as  a  dry  fagot  of  statistics  or  a  wing- 
feather  of  a  fancy. 

"How  do  you  like  California?"  was  the  daily  question, 
and  to  the  uniform  reply  came  the  quick  rejoinder:  "Ah, 
but  you  should  see  it  in  the  winter,  for  the  summer  is  in 
the  winter." 

The  writer  sympathizes  with  any  reader  who  misses 
what  he  seeks  in  this  small  volume,  and  can  only  soften 
"the  winter  of  our  discontent"  by  saying:  Ah,  but  you 
should  know  "what  pain  it  was  to  drown"  what  had  to 
be  omitted! 

Perhaps  we  two  may  meet  again  in  the  groves  of  Los 
Angeles,  when  the  oi-anges  are  in  the  gold  and  the  almond 
blossoms  shine. 


CONTENTS. 


PREFACE. 
OvERLAin)  Train  .....  9 

CHAPTER  I. 
"Set  Sail"      -  -  -  ...  21 

CHAPTER  II. 
From  Valley  to  Mountain       -  -  -  -  28 

CHAPTER  Hi. 
Wonderland  to  Bugle  Ca:Son       ...  33 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Desert,  the  Devil  and  Cape  Horn       -  -  48 

CHAPTER  V. 
From  Winter  to  Summer  ...  61 

CHAPTER  VI. 
San  Francisco  Street  Scenes  ...  71 

CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Animal,  Man      -  -  -  .  .  81 

"John,"  the  Heathen  ....  84 

"Hoodlum,"  the  Christian  ...  88 

Picnics  ......  91 


6  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

CoABT.  Forty- NINER8  a  no  Climate            .           -  94 

The  Pacific  Breezes                   -            -            -           -  101 

Weather  on  Man               ....  103 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Going  to  China                .....  106 

A  Chinese  Restaurant        ....  108 

••We'll  All  Take  Tea"           ....  109 

The  Joss-House  and  the  Gods      ...  HQ 

"Twelve  Packs  in  his  Sleeve"           -           -           -  114 

An  Opium  Den       -            -            .            .            .  115 

The  Opium-Smoker's  Dream                ...  ng 

"The  Royal  China  Theatre"        -           -           -  118 

'•The  Play's  the  Thing"        -           »           -           -  110 

The  Orchestra 121 

CHAPTER  X. 

Mission  Dolores  and  the  Saints         ...  124 

The  Old  Graveyard            ....  126 

The  Saints 128 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Vaixey  Rambles  and  a  Climb              ...  131 

A  Dead  Lift  at  a  Live  Weight                -           -  183 

On  the  High  Seas        .....  140 

The  Hog's  Back                -           -      .     -           -  148 

CHAPTER  Xn. 

The  Geysers         ---...  146 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

The  Petrified  Forest          ....  15g 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER  XIV. 


Higher  and  Fire 


166 


CHAPTER  XV. 

A  Mint  of  Money      -            -            -            - '         ■  ^"^ 

Aladdin's  Cave              ...            -            -            -  1"" 

Is  it  Worth  it 1^0 

Washing-Day ^^^ 

Midas's  Kitchen      -----  183 

Bricks  and  Hoop-Poles             -            .            -            -  184 

Weighing  Live  Stock         -            -            -            -  189 

"The  Golden  Dustman"         ...            -  190 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Bound  for  the  Yo  Semite              -           ■            -  192 

Taking  a  Mountain      -----  200 

A  Mountain  Choir              ••     .      -            -            -  201 

"Tlie  Ayes  Have  It"               -            -            -            -  202 

Down  the  Mountains          .            -            -            -  203 

The  Big  Trees 205 

A  Forest  Ride 209 

First  Glimpse  of  the  Yo  Semite         -  -  -    .       210 

Through  the  Valley            -            -            -            -  214 

The  Grand  Register     -----  217 

El  Capitan 221 

The  Bridal  Veil            -           ••           -           -           -  222 

Mirror  Lake            -           -        ^  -           -           -  224 

Up  a  Trail 227 

Yo  Semite  Fall  and  Sun  Time     -           -           -  232 

Breaking  up  Camp       -----  236 


8  CONTENTS. 

CHAPl'ER  XVn. 

Whales,  Lions  and  War  Dogs      -                      -  240 

Seals -           242 

The  Golden  Gate               ....  245 

• 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

A  Tnip  TO  THE  Tropic    -          -          ...  .          249 

A  Difficult  Sunrise             ....  250 

The  Tehachapi  Love-Knot      -           -           -  -           251 

The  Mojave  Desert            ....  254 

A  Vegetable  Acrobat              ....  255 

The  Mirage 257 

The  City  of  the  Angels           -           -           -  -           259 

The  Orange  Groves           ....  262 

The  Vineyards             -           -           -           -  -           264 

"A  Bee  Ranch" 266 

The  Mission  of  San  Gabriel    -           -           -  -           269 

The  Garden 271 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Kings  op  Society             .....  276 

Latitudes     -...--  281 

The  Spirit  of  California   "        -           -           -  -           288 

The  Men  and  Women       ....  287 

Home  Again     .----.  291 


BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 


OVERLAND    TRAIN. 


TPROM  Hell  Gate  to  Gold  Gate 
-J-     And  the  Sabbath  uribi'oken, 
A  sweep  continental 

And  the  Saxon  yet  spoken! 
By  seas  with  no  tears  in  them, 

Fresh  and  sweet  as  Spring  rains, 
By  seas  with  no  fears  in  them, 
God's  garmented  plains, 
Where  deserts  lie  down  in  the  prairies'  broad  calms, 
Where  lake  links  to  lake  like  the  music  of  psalms. 

II. 
Meeting  rivers  bound  East 

Like  the  shadows  at  night. 
Chasing  rivers  bound  West 

Like  the  break-of-day  light, 
Crossing  rivers  bound  South 

From  dead  winter  to  June, 
From  the  marble-old  snows 
To  perennial  noon  — 
Cosmopolitan  rivers,  Mississippi,  Missouri, 
That  travel  the  planet  like  Jordan  through  Jewry. 


10  HKTWKKN    TlIK    liATES. 

III. 

Through  the  kingdoms  of  corn, 

Through  the  empires  of  grain, 
Through  dominions  of  forest 

Drives  the  thundering  train  — 
Through  fields  where  God's  cattle 

Are  turned  out  to  grass, 
And 'His  poultry  whirl  up 

From  the  wheels  as  we  pass; 
Through  level  horizons  as  still  as  the  moon, 
With  the  wilds  fast  asleep  and  the  winds  in  a  swoon. 

IV. 

There's  a  thrill  in  the  air 

Like  the  tingle  of  wine, 
Like  a  bugle-blown  blast 

When  the  scimiters  shine 
And  the  sky-line  is  broken 

By  the  Mountains  Divine! 
Where  the  planet  stands  up 

Body-guard  before  God, 
And  to  cloud-land  and  glory 

Transfigures  the  sod. 
Ah!  to  see  the  grand  forms' 

Magnificent  lift 
In  their  sandals  of  daisies 

And  turbans  of  drift. 
Ah!  to  see  the  dull  globe  brought  sublime  to  its  feet, 
Where  in  mantles  of  blue  the  two  monarchies  meetj 
The  azure  of  grace  bending  low  in  its  place. 


OVERLAND  TRAIN.  11 

And  this  world  glancing  back  with  a  colorless  face. 
Who  marvels  Mount  Sinai  was  the  State  House  of  God? 
Who  wonders  the  Sermon  down  old  Galilee  flowed? 
That  the  Father  and  Son  each  hallowed  a  height 
Where  the  lightnings  were  red  and  the  roses  were  white ! 
Oh,  Mountains  that  lift  us  to  the  realm  of  the  Throne, 
A  Sabbath-day's  journey  without  leaving  our  own, 
All  day  ye  have  cumbered  and  beclouded  the  West, 
Low  glooming,  high  looming,  like  a  storm  at  its  best, 
By  distance  struck  speechless  and  the  thunder  at  rest. 

V. 

All  day  and  all  night 

It  is  rattle  and  clank, 
All  night  and  all  day 

Smiting  space  in  the  flank. 
And  no  token  those  clouds 

Will  ever  break  rank. 
Still  the  engines'  bright  arms 

Are  bared  to  the  shoulder 
In  the  long  level  pull 

Till  the  mountains  grow  bolder. 
Ah!  we  strike  the  up  grade! 

We  are  climbing  the  world! 
And  it  rallies  the  soul 

Like  volcanoes  unfurled. 
Where  it  looks  like  the  cloud  that  led  Moses  of  old. 
And  the  pillar  of  fire  born  and  wove  in  one  fold 
From  the  womb  and  the  loom  of  abysses  untold. 


12  BETWKEN    THE   GATES. 

VI. 

We  strike  the  Great  Desert 

With  its  wilderness  howl, 
With  its  cactus  and  sage, 

With  its  serpent  and  owl, 
And  its  pools  of  dead  water, 

Its  torpid  old  streams, 
The  corpse  of  an  earth 

And  the  nightmare  of  dreams; 
And  the  dim  rusty  trail 

Of  the  old  Forty-nine, 
That  they  wore  as  they  went 

To  the  mountain  and  mine. 
With  graves  for  their  milestones; 

How  slowly  they  crept, 
Like  the  shade  on  a  dial 

Where  the  sun  never  slept, 
But  unwinking,  unblinking,  from  his  quiver  of  ire 
Like  a  desolate  besom  the  wilderness  swept 

With  his  arrows  of  fire. 


Now  we  pull  up  the  globe!     It  is  gi-ander  than  flying, 
'Mid  glimpses  of  wonder  that  are  grander  than  dying. 
Through  the  gloomy  arcades  shedding  winter  and  drift. 
By  the  bastions  and  towers  of  omnipotent  lift. 
Through  tunnels  of  thunder  with  a  long  sullen  roar, 
Night  ever  at  home  and  grim  Death  at  the  door. 
We  swing  round  a  headland. 
Ah!  the  track  is  not  there! 


OVERLAND   TRAIN.  13 

It  has  melted  away 

Like  a  rainbow  in  air! 
Man  the  brakes!      Hold   her   hard!      We  are  leaving  the 

world ! 
Red  flag  and  red  lantern  unlighted  and  furled. 
Lo,  the  earth  has  gone  down  like  the  set  of  the  sun  — 
Broad  rivers  unraveled  turn  to  rills  as  they  run  — 
Great  monarchs  of  forest  dwindle  feeble  and  old  — 
Wide  fields  flock  together  like  the  lambs  in  a  fold  — 
Yon  head-stone  a  snow-flake  lost  out  of  the  sky 
That  lingered  behind  when  some  winter  went  by! 
Ah,  we  creep  round  a  ledge 
On  the  world's  very  edge, 
On  a  shelf  of  the  rock 

Where  an  eagle  might  nest, 
And  the  heart's  double  knock 
Dies  away  in  the  breast  — 
We  have  rounded  Cape  Horn!    Grand  Pacific,  good  morn! 

VIII. 

Now  the  world  slopes  away  to  the  afternoon  sun  — 
Steady  one!-    Steady  all!     The  down  grade  has  begun. 
Let  the  engines  take  breath,  they  have  nothing  to  do, 
For    the    law  that    swings   worlds    will    whirl    the    train 
through. 

Streams  of  fire  from  the  wheels, 

Like  flashes  from  fountains; 
And  the  dizzy  train  reels 

As  it  swoops  down  the  mountains : 
And  fiercer  and  faster 


14 


BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 


As  if  demons  drove  tandem 
Engines  "Death"  and  "Disaster!" 
From  dumb  Winter  to  Spring  in  one  wonderful  hour; 
From  Nevada's  white  wing  to  Creation  in  flower! 
December  at  morning  tossing  wild  in  its  might  — 
A  June  without  warning  and  blown  roses  at  night! 


DOUBLING  CAFE  HOUN. 


Above  us  are  snow-drifts  a  hundred  years  old, 
Behind  us  are  placers  with  their  pockets  of  gold, 
And  mountains  of  bullion  that  would  whiten  a  noon, 
That  would  silver  the  face  of  the  Harvesters'  moon. 
Around-  us  are  vineyards  with  their  jewels  and  gems, 


OVERLAND   TRAIN.  15 

Living  trinkets  of  wine  blushing  warm  on  the  stems, 
And  the  leaves  all  afire 
With  the  purple  of  Tyre. 
Beyond  us  are  oceans  of  ripple  and  gold, 
Where  the  bread  cast  abroad  rolls  a  myriad  fold  — 
Seas  of  grain  and  of  answer  to  the  prayer  of  mankind, 
And  the  orange  in  blossom  makes  a  bride  of  the  wind, 
And  the  almond  tree  shines  like  a  Scripture  in  bloom, 
And  the  bees  are  abroad  with  their  blunder  and  boom  — 
Never  blunder  amiss,  for  there's  something  to  kiss 
Where  the  flowers  out-of-doors  can  smile  in  all  weather, 
And  bud,  blossom  and  fruit  grace  the  gardens  together. 
Thereaway  to  the  South,  without  fences  and  bars, 
Flocks  freckle  the  plains  like  the  thick  of  the  stars; 
Hereaway  to  the  North,  a  magnificent  wild. 
With  dimples  of  cafions,  as  if  Universe  smiled. 
Ah!  valleys  of  Vision, 

Delectable  Mountains 
As  grand  as  old  Bunyan's, 
And  opals  of  fountains, 
And  garnets  of  landscapes. 
And  sapphires  of  skies. 
Where  through  agates  of  clouds 
Shine  the  diamond  eyes. 

IX. 

We  die  out  of  Winter  in  the  flash  of  an  eye, 

Into  Eden  of  earth,  into  Heaven  of  sky; 

Sacramento's  fair  vale  with  its  parlors  of  God, 

Where  the  souls  of  the  flowers  rise  and  di-ift  all  abroad, 


16  BETWEEN   THE  GATES. 

As  if  resurrection  were  all  the  year  round 
And  the  writing  of  Christ  sprang  alive  from  the  ground, 
VVlien  He  said  to  the  woman  those  words  that  will  last 
When  the  globe  shall  grow  human  with  the  dead  it  has 

clasped. 
Live-oaks  in  their  orchards,  rare  exotics  run  wild. 
No  orphan  among  them,  each  Nature's  own  child. 
Oh,  wonderful  land  where  the  turbulent  sand 
Will  burst  into  bloom  at  the  touch  of  a  hand. 

And  a  desert  baptized 

Prove  an  Eden  disguised. 

X. 

There's  a  breath  from  Japan 

Of  an  ocean-born  air, 
Like  the  blue- water  smell 

In  an  Argonaut's  hair! 
'Tis  a  carol  of  joy 

With  a  sweep  wild  and  free; 
And  the  mountains  deploy 

Round  the  Queen  of  the  West, 
Where  she  sits  by  the  sea  — 
By  the  Occident  sea — 

In  her  Orient  vest, 
Babel  Earth  at  her  knee, 
And  the  heart  of  all  nations 

Alive  in  her  breast  — 
Where  she  sits  by  the  Gate 

With  its  lintels  of  rock, 

And  the  key  in  the  lock  — 


OVERLAND   TRAIN.  17 

By  the  Lord's  Golden  Gate, 

With  its  crystal-floored  chamber, 

And  its  threshold  of  amber, 

Where  encamped  like  a  king, 

The  broad  world  on  the  wing. 
Her  grand  will  can  await. 
Where  now  are  the  dunes, 
The  tawny  half- moons 
Of  the  sands  ever  drifting, 
Of  the  sands  ever  sifting. 
By  the  shore  and  the  sweep 
Of  the  sea  in  its  sleep? 
W^here  now  are  the  tents. 
With  their  stains  and  their  rents. 
All  landward  and  seaward 

Like  white  butterflies  blown? 
All  drifted  to  leeward, 

All  scattered  and  gone. 
And  this  uttermost  post 

Of  earth's  end  is  the  throne 
Of  the  Queen  of  the  Coast, 
Who  has  loosened  her  robe 
And  girdled  the  globe 

With  her  radiant  zone  — 
The  throb  of  her  pulses 

Has  fevered  the  Age  — 
She  has  silvered  and  gilded 

All  history's  page! 
She  has  spoken  mankind, 
1* 


18  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

And  has  uttered  her  ships 
Like  the  eloquent  words 

From  most  eloquent  lips  — 
They  have  flown  all  abroad 
Like- the  angels  of  God! 
Sails  fleck  the  world's  waters 

All  bound  for  the  Gate, 
All  their  bows  to  the  Bay, 

Like  the  finger  of  Fate. 
Child  of  the  wilderness 

By  deserts  confined. 
Wide  waters  before  her, 

Wild  mountains  behind, 
She  unlocks  her  treasures 

To  the  gaze  of  mankind. 
Her  name  is  translated  into  each  human  tongue, 
Her  fame  round  the  cux've  of  the  planet  is  sung. 
And  she  thinks  through  its  swerve 
By  the  telegraph  nerve. 


When  the  leaf  of  the  mulberry  is  spun  into  thread. 
Then  the  spinner  is  shrouded  and  the  weaver  is  dead; 
And  that  shroud  is  unwound  by  the  fingers  of  girls, 
And  the  films  of  pale  gold  clasp  the  spool  as  it  whirls, 
As  it  ripens  and  rounds 

Like  some  exquisite  fruit 
In  the  tropical  bounds. 

In  air  sweet  as  a  lute, 
Till  the  shroud  and  the  tomb, 


OVERLAND   TRAIN.  19 

Dyed  in  rainbow  and  bloom, 
Glisten  forth  from  the  loom 
Into  garments  of  pride, 
Into  robes  for  a  bride, 
Into  lace-woven  air 
That  an  angel  might  wear. 
Ah!  marvelous  space 
'Twixt  the  leaf  and  the  lace, 

From  the  mulberry  worm 
To  the  magical  grace 

Of  the  fabric  and  form! 
Oh,  Imperial  State, 

Splendid  empire  in  leaf, 
That  grows  grand  on  the  way 

To  the  sky  and  the  day. 
Like  the  coralline  reef 

To  be  royally  great. 
Dead  gold  is  barbaric,  but  its  threads  can  be  woven 
Into  harmonies  fine,  like  the  tones  of  Beethoven, 
Can  be  raveled  and  wrought 

Into  love-knots  of  faith 

For  the  daughters  of  Ruth  — 
Into  garments  of  thought, 

Into  pinions  for  truth  — 
And  be  turned  from  the  wraith 

Of  a  misty  ideal 
That  may  vanish  in  night. 

To  things  royal  and  real 
That  shall  live  out  the  light. 


20 


BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 


So  the  true  golden  days 

Shall  be  kindled  at  last, 
And  this  realm  shall  rule  on 
When  the  twilights  are  gone, 
In  the  grandeur  of  truth 
And  the  beauty  of  youth 
Till  long  ages  have  passed! 


CHAPTER  I. 


"SET  SAIL." 

ON  a  bright  Spring  morning  we  set  sail  from  Chicago 
for  the  Golden  Gate.  Nothing  on  solid  land  is  the 
twin  of  an  ocean  voyage  but  a  trans-continental  trip  by 
rail.  There  is  a  sort  of  "  through "  look  about  Pacific- 
bound  passengers.  The  shaggy  blanket;  the  bruin  of  an 
overcoat;  the  valise  not  black  and  glossy,  but  the  color  of  a 
sea-lion;  the  William  Penn  of  a  hat,  broad  as  to  its  brim 
as  the  phylacteries  of  the  Pharisees;  the  ticket  that  shuts 
over  and  over  like  a  Chinese  book;  the  capacious  lunch 
basket  where,  amid  sardines,  cheese,  dried  beef,  bread, 
pickles  and  pots  of  butter,  protrude  bottles  with  slender 
necks  like  Mary's,  Queen  of  Scots,  and  young  teapots  with 
impudent  noses;  the  settling  into  place  like  geese  for  a 
three- weeks'  anchorage  —  all  these  betoken,  not  a  flitting, 
but  a  flight. 

The  splendid  train  of  the  Chicago  and  Northwestern 
road,  that  controls  a  line  of  more  than  three  thousand 
miles,  and  traverses  six  states  and  territories,  steams  out 
of  the  "Garden  City's"  ragged  edges  that  refine  and 
soften  away  into  rural  scenes,  and  meets  many  a  lovely 
village  hurrying  toward  the  town.  It  rings  its  brazen 
clangor  of  salute.  Shrubbery  and  stations  clear  the  way. 
The  horizons  curve  broadly  out.  We  are  fairly  at  sea 
amid  the  rolling  glory  of  Illinois.     The  eastward  world 

21 


22  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

slips  away  beneath  the  wheels,  like  the  white  wake  at  a 
schooner's  heels. 

And  then  I  think  of  another  day  in  the  year  '49,  and 
the  stormy  month  of  March,  when  the  tatters  of  white 
winter  half-hid  eai'th's  chilly  nakedness,  and  Euroclydon 
blew  out  of  the  keen  East  like  the  King's  trumpeter,  and 
a  little  procession  of  wagons  was  drawn  up  facing  West 
on  Lake  street,  Chicago,  and  daring  fellows  were  snapping 
revolvers  and  casing  rifles,  and  making  ready  for  the 
long,  dim  trail  through  wilderness,  desert  and  cafion, 
through  delay,  danger  and  darkness  —  a  trail  drawn  across 
the  continent  like  the  tremulous  writing  of  a  death- 
warrant  when  Mercy  holds  the  pen.  The  horses'  heads 
were  toward  the  sunset,  and  the  stalwart  boys  were  ready, 
the  gold-seekers  of  the  early  day.  There  were  women  on 
the  sidewalks,  there  were  children  lifted  in  men's  stout 
arms  that  might  never  clasp  them  more. 

The  captain  gave  the  word,  and  the  cavalcade  drew 
slowly  out,  the  last  canvas-covered  wain  dwindled  to  an 
ant's  white  egg,  and  the  pioneers  were  gone;  gone  into  a 
silence  as  profound  as  the  grave's.  Spring  should  come 
and  go,  June  should  shed  its  roses,  autumn  roll  its  golden 
sea  and  break  into  the  barn's  broad  bays  in  the  high- 
tides  of  abundance;  the  winter  fire*  should  glow  again, 
and  yet  no  word  from  the  Argonauts,  no  lock  from  the 
Golden  Fleece  of  the  new-found  El  Dorado  of  the  farthest 
West.  Ah,  the  weary  waitings,  the  hopes  deferred,  the 
letters  soiled  and  wrinkled  and  old,  that  crept  by  return- 
ing trains,  or  doubled  the  Cape  or  crossed  the  Isthmus, 
that  the  readers  thanked  God  for  and  took  courage,  be- 
cause the  writers  were  not  dead  last  year. 

And  now  it  is  a  six  days'  sweep  as  on  wings  of  eagles 


"SET   SAIL."  23 

from  the  Prairies  of  Garden  Gate  to  Pacific's  Golden  Gate! 
Verily  Galileo's  whisper  has  swelled  to  a  joyful  shout: 
"The  world  moves!"  Fox  river,  Rock  river,  Mississippi, 
the  old  Father  of  them  all,  are  crossed  in  one  sunshine. 
The  Cedar  is  reached  by  tea-time ;  we  are  riding  the 
breezy  swells  of  Iowa;  the  second  morning  finds  us  giv- 
ing Council  Bluffs  a  cold  shoulder,  and  making  for  "  The 
Big  Muddy,"  which  is  the  prose  for  that  ancient  maiden, 
Missouri.  Council  Bluffs  is  the  old  Kanesville,  where  the 
Mormons  advanced  the  first  parallel  in  their  long  siege 
to  take  the  parched  desert  of  Utah,  with  its  strange 
mimicry  of  the  salted  ocean  that  slakes  no  thirst,  and  to 
make  a  blooming  garden  with  streams  of  living  water. 

Omaha  goes  between  wind  and  water,  a  bad  region 
for  a  solid  shot  to  strike  a  ship,  but  a  good  thing  for 
a  town.  It  was  the  base  of  supplies  for  the  bearded 
mountain-men  who  bundled  their  furs  down  to  the  river. 
It  was  the  point  of  departure  for  the  Pike's  Peakers  and 
the  caravans  "  Frisco  "-bound.  It  has  hot  water  on  both 
sides  of  it,  from  ocean  to  ocean.  It  has  cold  water,  such 
as  it  is,  "slab  and  good,"  like  witches'  broth,  in  the 
Missouri  that,  allied  with  the  Mississippi,  flows  from  the 
regions  of  the  rude  North,  up  the  round  world  to  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  sea.  And  it  has  wind.  Caves  ( f 
iEolus!  How  it  blows!  If  the  wild  asses  of  Scripture 
times  could  live  on  the  East  wind,  they  would  fairly  fat- 
ten on  the  Zephyrs  of  Omaha. 

The  bridge  over  the  Missouri,  swung  in  the  air  like 
a  rainbow  with  no  colors  in  it,  and  almost  three  thousand 
feet  long,  is  a  great  gateway  to  the  West.  It-  has  tri- 
umphed over  the  uneasiest  sands  that  ever  slipped  out 
from  under  a  foundation,  and  the  worst  river  to  drown 


24  BETWEEN    THE    GATES. 

geographies  that  ever  went  anywhere.  I  have  crossed 
that  river  in  a  stage-coach,  in  a  boat,  and  on  foot.  It 
gets  up  and  lies  down  in  a  new  place  oftener  than  any 
other  running  water  in  America.  It  changes  beds  like 
a  fidgety  man  in  a  sultry  night.  It  is  as  worthless  for 
a  boundary-line  as  a  clothes-line.  It  has  been  known  to 
slice  out  an  Iowa  county-seat,  and  leave  it  within  the 
limit.5  of  Nebraska,  as  a  sort  of  lawyer's  lunch,  to  be 
wrangled  over. 

Fort  Calhoun,  some  two  hours'  drive  up  the  river  from 
Omaha,  is  the  point  whence  Lewis  and  Clark  set  forth, 
seventy-three  years  ago,  into  a  wilderness  that  howled, 
and  discovered  that  great  watery  trident  of  the  Columbia, 
and  named  it  Lewis,  Clark  and  Multnomah.  A  while  ago 
I  visited  the  Fort,  and  the  stump  of  the  flag-staff  yet 
remained  whence  the  old  colors  drifted  out  in  the  morn- 
ing light,  when  the  Discoverers  set  forth.  In  their  day 
the  Fort  stood  on  the  river's  bank,  and  in  case  of  in- 
vestment from  the  landward  side,  water  could  be  drawn 
up  in  buckets  from  the  Missouri,  and  so  they  wet  their 
throats  and  kept  their  powder  dry.  In  mij  day,  I  looked 
from  the  old  site  upon  a  forest  of  cotton  woods  about  a 
Sabbath-day's  journey  in  breadth!  That  river  had  gotten 
up  and  lain  down  again  at  a  quiet  and  comfortable  dis- 
tance from  the  click  of  locks  and  clank  of  scabbards. 
What  it  will  do  next  nobody  can  tell. 

The  Union  Pacific  train  is  just  ready  to  move  out. 
The  bright-hued  cars  of  the  Northwestern  are  succeeded 
by  the  soberly-painted  coaches  of  the  Union  Pacific.  They 
have  taken  the  tint  of  ocean-going  steamers.  Men  and 
women  are  bundling  aboard  with  bags  and  baskets.  The 
spacious  Depot  is  thronged  with  crowds    in   motley  wear. 


SET  sail; 


25 


A  breeze  draws  through  the  great  building  like  the  blast 
of  a  furnace.  At  one  hawk-like  swoop  it  catches  up  a 
woman's  bonnet  and  dishevels  her  head,  and  blows  her 
ticket  out  at  one  door 
while  her  urchin  of 
a  boy  trundles  out  at 
another.  Her  des- 
peration is  logical. 
She  grasps  for  the 
hat,  plunges  for  the 
ticket,  and  proceeds 
to  look  up  the  baby. 
Let  no  indignant 
matron  deny  the  soft 
impeachment.  The 
fact  remains :  bon- 
net, ticket,  baby. 

Here,  a  Norwe- 
gian sits  upon  a 
knapsack  colored  like 
an  alligator,  his  leather  breeches  polished  as  a  razor- 
strap,  and  his  hair  gone  to  seed.  There,  an  Indian  with 
his  capillary  midnight  flowing  down  each  side  of  his  ole- 
aginous face,  as  if  he  had  ambushed  in  a  horse's  tail  and 
forgot  his  body  was  in  sight. 

Yonder,  a  pair  of  Saxons  just  escaped  from  a  band- 
box, fit  for  the  shady  side  of  Broadway,  but  not  for  the 
long  trail. 

Now,  an  Englishman  in  tweed,  and  sensible  shoes  with 

soles  as  thick  as  a  shortcake,  an  inevitable  white  hat,  and 

a  vest  that  nobody  would   think  of  asking  him  to  "  pull 

down,"   for  a  little  more  waistcoat,  and   pantaloons  could 

2  ' 


26  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

go  out  of  fashion.  Then,  a  girl  with  a  portfolio  in  a 
strap,  who  means  to  be  "a  chiel  amang  us  takin'  notes," 
when  she  ought  to  be  using  her  bright  eyes  and  giving 
''  Faber  No.  2 "  a  blessed  rest. 

The  Depot  bubbles  and  boils  like  a  caldron.  The 
engine  backs,  clanging  down  with  a  cloud  and  a  rush. 
People  climb  on  and  climb  off  the  laden  cars  crazier 
than  ever.  They  are  giving  old  ladies  a  lift  from  behind. 
They  are  tugging  up  carpet-bags  like  cats  with  their  last 
kittens.  They  are  all  colors  with  excitement  and  hurry. 
It  strikes  you  queerly  that  everybody  is  going,  and  no- 
•body  is  staying.  The  demon  of  unrest  is  the  reigning 
king.  "  Long  live  the  king ! "  for  life  is  motion.  Still 
life  is  death's  first  cousin.  A  Babel  of  trunks  is  surging 
toward  the  baggage-cars.  Trucks  are  piled  like  drome- 
daries. There's  the  Saratoga  that  might  be  lived  in  if 
it  only  had  a  chimney,  and  the  iron-bound  chest  of  the 
mistletoe-bough  tragedy,  and  the  dapper  satchel  as  sleek 
and  black  as  a  wet  mink,  and  the  little  brindled  hair- 
trunk  with  its  brazen  lettering  of  nail-heads,  and  the 
canvas  sack  as  rusty  as  an  elephant.  And  so  they  tum- 
ble aboard  with  an  infinite  jingle  of  checks;  an  acrobatic, 
jolly  troop,  the  heart's  delight  of  the  trunk-makers.  You 
see  your  own  property,  bought  new  for  the  occasion, 
rolling  over  and  over  corner-wise  like  a  possessed  por- 
poise. Alas,  for  any  pigments  or  unguents  or  dilutions 
or  perfumes  that  may  break  loose  in  that  somerset,  and 
make  colored  maps  of  the  five  continents  upon  your 
wedding  vest  or  your  snowy  wrapper.  Last,  the  leathern 
purses  of  the  United  States  Mail  fly  from  the  red  wagons 
like  chaff  from  a  fanning- mill.  The  engine's  steam  and 
impatience  are  blown  off   in  a  whistle  together.     It  spits 


"SET   SAIL.'*  27 

spitefully  on  one  side  and  the  other,  like  a  schoolboy  out 
of  the  corners  of  his  mouth. 

And  amid  the  whirl  of  the  Maelstrom  —  for  if  Nor- 
way has  none,  at  least  Omaha  has  one  —  there  are  only 
two  living  things  that  are  quiet  and  serene.  The  one  is 
a  youthful  descendant  of  Ham,  with  a  heel  like  the  head 
of  a  clawhammer  —  five  claws  instead  of  a  pair  —  lying 
on  a  truck  upon  a  stomach  that,  like  an  angleworm's, 
pervades  the  whole  physical  man,  and  the  descendant 
turned  up  at  both  ends,  like  a  rampant  mud-turtle,  his 
mouth  full  of  ivory  and  his  eyes  round  with  content. 

The  other  is  the  " last  man" — not  Montgomery's,  but 
an  earlier  product  —  that  man  in  gray,  in  a  silk  cap,  and 
taking  lazy  whiffs  at  a  cigar  that  has  about  crumbled  to 
ashes.  He  is  as  calm  as  the  Sphinx,  but  neither  so  grand 
nor  so  grim.  He  is  going  to  San  Francisco  when  —  the 
train  goes,  and  he  patiently  bides  his  time.  He  is  an  old 
traveler,  and  watches  with  an  amused  eye  the  human 
vortex.  He  has  seen  it  before  at  Gibraltar,  at  Canton, 
and  now  at  Omaha. 

At  last  the  conductor  gives  the  word  "All  aboard!" 
signals  the  engineer  who  has  been  leaning  with  his  head 
over  his  shoulder,  the  bell  lurches  from  side  to  side  with 
a  clang,  your  last  man  gives  his  cigar  a  careless  toss  and 
swings  himself  upon  the  rear  platform,  and  the  train 
with  its  black  banners  and  white  flung  aloft  pulls  out, 
and  we  are  off  for  the  plains  and  the  deserts,  and  the 
gorges  and  the  mountains,  and  the  Western  sea. 


CHAPTER  II. 


FROM  VALLEY  TO  MOUNTAIN. 

IP  a  man  cannot  stay  at  home,  traveling  in  a  Pullman 
palace  car  is  the  most  like  staying  there  of  any- 
thing in  the  world.  It  takes  about  an  hour  to  get  set- 
tled in  a  train  bound  for  a  five  days'  voyage,  and  some 
people  never  do.  See  the  man  across  the  way.  He  has 
turned  that  carpet-bag  over  and  over  like  a  flapjack, 
and  set  it  before  him  as  a  Christian  does  the  law  of  the 
Lord,  and  had  it  under  his  feet,  and  tried  to  hang  it  up 
somewhere.  It  is  as  restless  as  a  San  Francisco  flea.  And 
then  his  overcoat  has  been  folded  with  each  side  out,  and 
his  blanket  vexes  him,  and  his  hat  is  an  affliction,  and 
he  is  a  nephew-in-law  of  Martha,  who  was  "  troubled 
about  many  things."  There  is  a  sort  of  solar-system 
genius  about  some  men  in  the  adjustment  of  their  rail- 
way belongings  that  is  pleasant  to  see:  everything  with 
a  sort  of  gravitation  to  it;  all  at  hand  and  nothing  in 
the  way. 

When  people  leave  Omaha  for  the  West  they  usually 
have  eyes  for  nothing  but  the  scenery.  There  was  one 
man  in  our  car  who  kept  his  nose  in  a  book,  like  a  pig's 
in  a  trough,  and  he  had  never  traveled  the  route,  and 
he  was  a  tourist!  An  asylum  for  idiots  ought  to  seem 
like  home  to  him! 

The  sun  was  borrowed  from  an  Easter-day.      The  air 


FROM   VALLEY   TO   MOUNTAIif.  29 

is  transparent.  The  willows  show  the  green.  The  mean- 
der of  emerald  on  the  hillsides  paints  the  route  of  the 
water-courses.  We  are  overtaking  the  Spring.  Behind 
us,  Winter  was  begging  at  the  door.  The  trees  were  as 
dumb  as  an  obelisk.  Around  us  are  tokens  of  May  and 
whispers  of  June.  You  are  turning  into  a  cuckoo  —  Lo- 
gan's cuckoo;  not  General  Logan,  of  the  Boys  in  Blue, 
nor  Logan,  the  last  of  his  race,  who  used  dolefully  to 
say  in  the  declamation  of  our  boyhood,  "  not  a  drop  of  my 
blood  flows  in  the  veins  of  any  living  creature,"  but  Logan 
the  poet,  who  apostrophized  the  bird,  "  Companion  of  the 
Spring,"  and  said: 

"  Sweet  bird,  thy  bower  is  ever  green, 
Thy  eky  is  ever  clear, 
There  is  no  sadness  in  thy  song. 
No  winter  in  thy  year!" 

We  strike  the  bottom  lands  of  Nebraska,  as  rich  as 
Egypt.  We  are  following  the  trail  of  Lewis  and  Clark, 
for  here  is  a  stream  they  christened  Papilion,  from  the 
clouds  of  butterflies,  those  "  winged  flowers "  that  blos- 
somed in  the  air  as  they  went.  The  men  are  gone,  but 
the  breath  of  a  name  remains.  Sixty  miles  from  Omaha, 
and  no  sign  of  wilderness.  Towns,  farms,  rural  homes  — 
I  confess  to  a  covert  feeling  of  disappointment.  I  expected 
to  be  knocked  in  the  head  with  the  hammer  of  admiration 
upon  the  anvil  of  sublimity  right  away.  We  have  entered 
the  great  Valley  of  the  Platte,  the  old  highway  of  the 
emigrants,  who  paid  fearful  toll  as  they  went.  The  world 
widens  out  into  one  of  the  grandest  plains  you  ever  be- 
held, and  in  the  midst  of  it,  lying  flat  as  a  whipped 
spaniel,  is  the  Platte,  a  river  that  burrows  sometimes 
like  a  prairie  dog,  and  runs  under  ground  like  a  mole, 


30  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

and  sometimes  broadens  into  a  sea  that  can  neither  be 
forded  or  navigated  —  a  river  as  lawless  as  the  Bedouins. 
It  would  not  be  so  much  of  a  misnomer  to  rechristen  it 
the  Flat.  And  the  thread  of  a  train  moves  through  this 
magnificent  hall  for  hundreds  of  miles,  with  its  sweeps 
of  green  and  its  touches  of  russet  grass  here  and  there, 
as  if  flashes  of  sunshine  had  rusted  thereon  in  wet  weather. 
Herds  of  cattle  freckle  the  distance.  An  Indian  village 
of  smoky  tents  is  pitched  beside  the  track,  and  the  occu- 
pants are  all  out,  from  the  caliper-legged  old  grizzly  to 
the  bead-eyed  papoose  sprouting  behind  a  squaw  from 
"  the  fearful  hollow  "  of  his  mother's  dingy  blanket.  They 
are  here  to  get  the  wreck  of  the  lunch-baskets  flung  from 
the  windows  of  the  eastward  trains.  The  chemistry  of 
civilization  has  bleached  some  of  them.  It  is  a  village 
of  beggars. 

Clouds  fly.  low  in  the  Valley  of  the  Platte,  and  thun- 
der-storms have  the  right  of  way.  It  was  wearing  toward 
sundown  when  great  leaden  clouds  with  white  edges 
.showed  in  the  route  of  the  train.  They  looked  like  a 
solid  wall  with  irregular  seams  of  mortar,  built  up  from 
earth  to  heaven.  Then  the  wind  came  out  of  the  wall, 
and  the  careening  cars  hugged  the  left-hand  rail,  and  the 
hail  played  tattoo  upon  the  dim  windows,  and  the  engine 
"  slowed,"  for  we  were  running  in  the  teeth  of  the  storm, 
and  darkness  fell  down  on  the  Valley  like  a  mantle.  The 
lightning  hung  all  about  in  tangled  skeins,  like  Spanish 
moss  from  the  live-oaks,  and  played  like  shuttles  of  fire 
between  heaven  and  earth,  carrying  threads  of  white  and 
red,  as  if  it  were  weaving  a  garment  of  destruction 
There  were  evidently  but  two  travelers  in  the  Valley, 
the  storm  and  the  train.     And  the  thunder  did  not  go 


FROM    VALLEY   TO    MOUNTAIN.  31 

lowing  and  bellowing  about  like  the  bulls  of  Bashan,  as 
it  does  among  the  Catskills  and  the  Cumberlands,  but  it 
crashed  short  and  sharp,  like  shotted  guns,  that  have  a 
meaning  to  them,  and  not  like  blank  cartridges,  "  full  of 
sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing."  The  scene  was  sub- 
lime. The  pant  of  the  engine  and  the  grind  of  the  car- 
wheels  were  inaudible.  We  were  traversing  a  battle- 
field. It  was  crash,  rattle  and  flash.  The  "  thunder-drum 
of  heaven  "  must  have  had  a  drum-major  to  beat  the  long- 
roll  that  day. 

There  was  a  young  lady  in  our  car,  California-born,  who 
was  returning  home  from  an  Eastern  visit.  She  had  never 
heard  the  thunder  nor  seen  the  lightning  in  all  her  life. 
She  had  lived  in  a  cloudless  land  of  everlasting  serenity. 
The  pedal-bass  of  the  skies  and  the  opening  and  shutting 
of  the  doors  up  aloft  filled  her  with  alarm,  and  when 
the  storm  died  down  to  great  fitful  sighs,  the  lightest 
heart  in  all  the  train  was  her  own.  . 

We  had  hoped  to  see  a  prairie-fire  somewhere  on  the 
way,  if  only  it  would  not  harm  any  body  or  thing  —  one 
of  those  flying  artilleries  of  flame  that  sweep  the  plains  in 
close  order  from  rim  to  rim  of  the  round  world,  but  we 
were  only  indulged  with  a  rehearsal.  Just  before  the 
storm  a  fringe  of  fire  showed  in  the  Northwest,  like  an 
arc  of  the  horizon  in  flames.  It  was  as  if  Day,  getting 
ready  for  bed,  had  trimmed  it  with  a  valance  of  fire;  but 
it  was  "out,"  like  Shakspeare's  "brief  candle,"  under  the 
weight  of  the  tempest. 

We  go  to  supper  at  Grand  Island  in  sheets,  like  so 
many  unbound  books,  albeit  they  were  sheets  of  rain,  and 
it' was  pleasant  to  get  back  to  the  lighted  car,  with  its 
homelike  groups  and  its  summer  hum  of  talk.     Prepara- 


82  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

tions  for  going  to  bed  are  in  order.  Sofas  turn  couches, 
and  couches  alcoves.  The  lean  man  shelves  himself  as  a 
saber  is  slipped  into  its  scabbard.  The  fat  man,  condemned 
to  the  upper  berth,  is  pulling  himself  up  the  side  as  an 
awkward  bear  boai'ds  a  boat.  There  is  a  flitting  of  female 
shapes  behind  the  restless  curtains;  one  bulge  in  the  crim- 
son and  the  woman  is  unbuttoning  her  shoes;  another 
bulge  and  she  says,  "Good-by,  proud  world,  I'm  going 
home,"  and  she  turns  her  back  upon  us  and  bounces  into 
bed  —  "to  sleep,  perchance  to  dream." 

The  steady  clank-it-e-clank  of  the  wheels  grows  plain 
in  the  silence,  like  the  roar  below  the  dam  of  a  village 
mill  at  night.  There  is  something  wonderfully  sedative 
about  the  regular  motion  of  the  Overland  Train.  Its  reg- 
ular twenty  and  twenty-two  miles  an  hour  are  as  restful 
as  a  lullaby.  There  is  no  fatigue  about  it.  The  nervous 
dashes  of  a  devil's-darning-needle  of  a  train  are  as  catch- 
ing as  the  whooping-cough.  They  make  you  nervous  also. 
As  twenty-two  miles  is  to  forty-five  miles,  so  is  one  worry 
to  the  other,  is  the  Rule-of-Three  of  the  I'oad. 

It  is  not  usual  for  anybody  to  get  up  in  the  morning 
higher  than  he  went  to  bed  at  night,  but  if  you  sleep 
from  Grand  Island  and  supper  to  Sidney  and  breakfast, 
you  will  have  slept  yourself  more  than  two  thousand  feet 
higher  than  the  sea  level  when  you  gave  that  pillow  its 
last  double  and  fell  asleep. 

The  morning  is  splendid,  and  everybody  is  on  the 
alert.  '''^ Prairie  dogs!''''  cries  some  watchful  lookout,  and 
every  window  frames  as  many  eager  faces  as  it  will  hold. 
And  there,  to  be  sure,  they  are;  the  fat,  rollicking,  sandy 
dogs,  as  big  as  exaggerated  rats,  but  with  tails  of  their 
own.      They   sit  up   straight   as   tenpins   and   watch   the 


FROM   VALLEY   TO   MOUNTAIN. 


33 


train.  Their  fore  paws  hang  down  from  the  wrists  in  a 
deprecating,  mock-solemn  way,  as  if  they  had  just  washed 
their  hands  of  you,  and  said,  "There  they  are;  more  of 
them;  jogging  along  to  California."  They  fling  up  a  pair 
of  heels  and  dive  into  their  holes.  They  appear  as  much 
at  home  o'n  one  end  as  the  other.  Travelers  say  they 
bark  at  the  trains,  but  they  didn't  bark  at  ours,  unless 
they  "roared  us  gently."  Soon  there  is  another  cry  of 
^^ Antelope!''  and  again  the  car  is  in  commotion.  There 
the  graceful  fellows  are,  showing  the  white  feather  behind, 
as  they  dash  off  a  little  way,  then  turn  and  look  at  us  with 
lifted  head,  then  bound  down  the  little  hollows  and  out 
of  sight.  Prairie  dogs  and  antelopes,  in  their  native  land, 
were  better  than  two  consolidated  menageries  at  the  East. 
To  the  tame  passengers  of  the  party,  whereof  this  writer 
was  one,  there  was  a  wilderness  flavor  about  it  quite 
strange  and  delightful.  But  there  was  a  couple  on  board, 
a  British  lion  and  his  mate,  that  never  ventured  an  eye  on 
the  picture.  They  were 
Bible  people,  for  "  their 
strength  was  in  sitting 
still,"  and  in  keeping  still 
withal.  The  lion  parted 
his  hair  in  the  middle,  and 
his  eyebrows  were  arched 
into  the  very  Gothic  of 
superciliousness.  Escaped 
from  the  sound  of  Bow 
Bells,  he  was  a  cockney  at 
large,  and  of  all  poultry 
an  exclusive  cockney  is  the  cheapest.  The  figure  is  a 
little  mixed,  but  then  there  was  a  gallinaceous  strain  in 


34  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

his  leonine  veins.  Together  they  made  about  as  lively  a 
brace  of  beings  for  the  general  company  as  a  couple  of 
luunnnics  direct  from  the  pyramid  of  Cephren  would  have 
been  I  respect  the  noble,  hearty  Briton  of  Motherland;  I 
pray  always  that  peace  may  dwell  in  her  palaces — but  the 
lion,  in  his  best  estate,  is  apt  to  fall  off  a  little  in  the 
hinder  quarters,  tlis  front  view  is  the  grander  view,  but 
when  those  quarters  are  finished  out  before  with  the  brow 
and  bearing  of  a  snob,  it  becomes  an  unendurable  animal 
whose  ancestors  never  would  have  been  admitted  into 
the  Ark. 

There  is  a  mightier  lift  to  the  land.  The  bluffs  and 
peaks  begin  to  rise  in  the  distance.  The  horizon  is  scol- 
loped around  as  if  some  cabinet-maker  had  tried  to  dove- 
tail earth  and  sky  together.  To  eyes  that  have  looked 
restfully  upon  the  rank  green  pastures  of  the  East,  these 
billowy  sweeps  of  tawny  landscape  seem  just  the  grazing 
that  Pharaoh's  lean  kine  starved  upon,  but  they  are  really 
in  about  the  finest  grass  country  in  America.  Watch 
those  dots  on  the  hillsides  at  the  right.  They  are  sheep, 
and  there  are  thousands  if  there  is  so  much  as  one 
"Mary's  little  lamb."  Those  spots  on  the  distant  left, 
like  swarms  of  bees,  will  develop,  under  the  field-glass, 
into  herds  of  "the  cattle  upon  a  thousand  hills." 

We  are  pulling  up  the  world,  and  away  to  the  North, 
like  thunder-heads  at  anchor,  rise  the  sullen  ranges  of 
the  Black  Hills,  a  glimpse  or  two  of  surly  Alps.  The 
first  snow-shed  is  in  sight.  It  looks  like  an  old  rope- 
walk  slipped  down  the  mountain  on  a  land-slide,  and  we 
rumble  through  it  while  the  unglazed  windows  wink  day- 
light at  us  in  a  sinister  way  that  is  new,  but  not  nice. 

The  first  glimpse  of  Winter  watching  the  world  from 


FROM  VALLEY  TO  MOUNTAIN.  35 

the  crest  of  Colorado  is  a  poem.  There  he  stands  in 
the  clear  Southwest,  calm  and  motionless  as  Orion.  Long's 
Peak  is  in  sight!  It  seems  near  enough  for  a  neighbor. 
It  is  eighty  miles  away.  Its  crown  of  snow  is  as  serenely 
white  in  the  sunshine  as  if  there  had  been  a  coronation 
this  very  morning,  and  it  had  freshly  fallen  from  the 
fingers  of  the  Lord,  and  the  height  made  King  of  the 
Silver  State,  the  Centennial  child  of  the  Republic. 

They  say  I  shall  see  grander  mountains,  but  that 
day  and  that  scene  will  be  bright  in  my  memory  as  the 
hour  and  the  picture  of  perfect  purity  and  peace. 

I  think  of  other  eyes  than  mine  —  weary  eyes  —  that 
brightened  as  they  caught  sight  of  that  December  in 
the  sky.  I  think  of  the  caravans  of  the  long  ago;  of 
the  heroes  of  the  trail;  of  the  oxen  that  swung  slowly 
from  side  to  side  in  their  yokes,  as  if,  like  pendulums, 
they  would  never  advance;  of  the  days  they  traveled 
toward  the  Peak  that  never  seemed  to  grow  nearer,  like 
a  star  in  far  heaven.  And  I  see  at  the  right  of  the 
train  the  old  trail  they  wore,  and  the  years  vanish  away, 
and  the  camp-fires  of  the  cactus  and  grass  are  twinkling 
again,  and  I  lie  down  beside  them  under  the  sky  that 
is  naked  and  strange,  and  I  hear  the  cayote's  wild  cry 
and  the  alarms  of  the  night. 

An  untraveled  man's  idea  of  a  mountain  is  of  a  tre- 
mendous, heaven-kissing  sui'ge  of  rock,  earth  and  snow, 
rolling  up  at  once  from  the  dull  plain  like  a  tenth  wave 
of  a  breaker,  and  fairly  taking  your  breath  away.  But 
a  mountain  range  grows  upon  you  gradually.  It  some- 
how gets  under  your  feet  before  you  know  it,  until  the 
tingling  sweep  of  the  light  air  startles  you  with  the 
truth  that  you  are  above  the  world. 


36  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

Here  is  an  apparent  plain,  but  in  twenty  miles  you 
begin  to  encounter  the  globe's  I'ough  weather  again.  The 
tandem  engines,  panting  and  pulling  together  like  a  per- 
fect match,  labor  up  the  Black  Hills.  The  dimples  of 
valleys  are  green  as  emeralds.  The  rugged  heights  are 
tumbled  thick  with  gray  granite,  and  sprinkled  with 
dwarfs  of  pines  that  stand  timidly  about  as  if  at  a  loss 
what  to  do  next.  A  round  eight  thousand  feet  above 
the  sea,  where  water  boils  with  slight  provocation,  and 
you  begin  to  feel  a  little  as  if  you  had  swallowed  a  bal- 
loon just  as  they  made  ready  to  inflate  it,  and  the  pro- 
cess went  on,  and  you  are  at  Sherman.  It  is  the  highest 
altitude  the  engine  reaches  between  the*  two  oceans. 
Strange  that  the  skill  of  a  civil  engineer  can  teach  a 
locomotive  how  to  fly  without  wings;  can  idle  it  up  by 
zigzags  and  spirals  along  the  craggy  heights  and  through 
the  air,  fairly  defrauding  the  attraction  of  gravitation 
out  of  its  just  due. 

The  train  halted,  and  everybody  disembarked,  much  as 
Noah's  live  cargo  might  have  done  on  Ararat.  We 
wanted  to  set  foot  on  the  solid  ground  at  high  tide  like 
the  sea,  but  we  all  discovered  that  it  took  a  great  deal  of 
air  to  do  a  little  breathing  with.  Nothing  was  disdained 
for  a  souvenir.  Pebbles  that  little  David  would  have 
despised  were  picked  up  and  pocketed,  and  one  of  the 
party,  more  fortunate  than  the  rest — it  was  the  writer's 
alter  ego  —  found  a  dainty  little  horseshoe  on  that  tip-top 
of  railroad  things  in  North  America,  and  bore  it  cheer- 
fully away — for  doesn't  it  make  us  witch  and  wizard 
proof?  We  accepted  it  as  a  good  omen,  but  who  wore 
it?  Perhaps  the  winged  horse,  Pegasus,  made  a  landing 
there   and   cast  a  shoe  —  if  he  was  ever  shod.      Sherman 


FROM   VALLEY   TO   MOUNTAIN". 


37 


was  named   after   the    brilliant   General  who  marched  to 
the  Sea. 

Beyond  the  hemlock  shadows  of  the  spruce  pine  and 
the  scraggy  ridges,  where  giants  played  "jack-stones" 
when  giants  were,  seventy  miles  away  to  the  South,  glit- 
ters Pike's  Peak,  whose  name  was  inked  across  many  a 
canvas-covered  wain  in  the  old  time,  and  whose  cold  and 
deathless  light  has  kindled  ardor  in  many  a  toiler's  tired 
heart.  Long's  Peak,  to  the  west  of  it,  and  three  days' 
journey  off  as  the  mules  go,  is  near  us  still. 


CHAPTER  III. 


WONDERLAND  TO  BUGLE  CANON. 

TO  get  away  from  great  mountains  in  white  cloaks  is 
about  as  difficult  as  to  escape  from  the  fixed  stars. 
We  travel  all  day  with  ridges  of  snow  on  our  left,  bil- 
lowing away  into  magnificent  ocean  scenery,  as  if  the 
Arctic  had  been  lashed  into  foaming  fuiy,  and  then  frozen 
to  death  with  all  its  icebergs,  drifts  and  cafions  imperish- 
able as  adamant.  They  were  thirty  miles  away,  yet  so 
distinct  and  clear-cut  against  the  blue,  so  palpably  pres- 
ent as  seen  thi'ough  air  that  might  blow  on  the  plains 
of  Heaven  unforbidden,  that  almost  anybody  on  the  train 
fancied  he  could  walk  near  enough  to  make  a  snowball 
before  breakfast!  This  mountain  atmosphere  is  a  perpet- 
ual illusion.  Among  these  gorges  are  those  graceful  cats 
with  the  long  stride,  to  whom  men  are  mice,  the  moun- 
tain lions  —  you  will  see  a  pair  of  them  caged  at  the 
next  station  —  and  here  are  those  huge  but  rather  amia- 
ble and  aromatic  brutes,  the  cinnamon  bears,  the  blondes 
among  the  bruins. 

The  train  works  its  way  between  the  Black  Hills  and 
the  Rockies,  and  you  half  fancy,  as  you  watch  the  silent 
plunge-down  of  their  shaggy  sides,  and  the  gloomy  gorges, 
and  the  inaccessible  crags,  that  the  grizzlies  must  have 
been  born  of  mountains,  not  of  bears.  You  can  hardly 
realize   that   those  monstrous  dromedaries  of  hills,   those 


WONDERLAND   TO    BUGLE   CASON.  39 

stone  mastodons  lying  about,  with  streaks  of  Winter  here 
and  there,  really  belong  to  the  backbone  of  the  continent. 

Among  those  sombre  hills  the  thunders  have  their 
nests,  and  when  the  broods  come  off,  as  they  do  sometimes, 
five  at  once,  the  flapping  of  their  wings  is  something  to 
be  remembered.  Think  of  five  thunder-storms  let  loose  in 
the  air  together,  all  distinctly  outlined  like  men-of-war! 

Nature  has  its  compensations,  and  so  you  are  not  sur- 
prised to  know  that  rainbows  are  about  two  fingers 
broader  here  than  they  are  in  the  East,  and  the  colors 
deeper  and  brighter.  There  is  no  lack  of  material  for 
making  those  gorgeous  old  seals  of  the  covenant.  But  I 
did  not  see  enough  ribbon  of  a  bow  to  make  a  girl's 
necktie,  nor  hear  thunder  enough  to  stock  a  Fourth-of- 
July  oration. 

Before  setting  oat  for  the  Golden  Coast,  I  thought  a 
young  earthquake  would  be  pleasant  to  write  about,  and 
there  is  the  Bohemian  instinct.  I  have  changed  my  mind. 
People  who  are  acquainted  with  them  tell  me  that  no 
novice  needs  an  introduction  when  he  experiences  one  of 
those  planetary  ague-thrills.  He  knows  it  as  well  as  if 
he  had  been  rocked  in  the  same  cradle  and  brought  up 
with  an  earthquake  all  his  life.  It  jars  his  ideas  of 
earthly  stability  all  to  pieces.  Who  is  it  says  that  the 
globe  is  swung  by  a  golden  chain  out  from  the  throne 
of  God,  and  that  sometimes  a  careless  angel  on  some 
errand  bound,  just  touches  that  chain  with  the  tip  of  his 
long  wings,  and  it  vibrates  through  all  its  links,  and  so 
we  have  the  little  shiver  men  call  earthquake?  I  fancy 
that  writer  regarded  the  phenomenon  through  the  long- 
range  telescope  of  sentimental  poetry.  "  Let  us  have 
peace." 


40  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

The  tribes  and  nations  of  bright-hued  flowers  every- 
where are  wonderful  to  behold.  No  chasm  so  dark,  no 
mountain  so  rude,  that  these  fearless  children  of  Eden 
are  not  there.  They  smile  back  at  you  with  their  quaint 
faces  from  rugged  spots  where  a  Canada  thistle  would 
have  a  tug  for  its  life.  They  ring  blue-bells  at  you. 
They  salute  you  with  whole  belfries  of  pink  and  purple 
chimes.  They  swing  in  delicate  necklaces  from  grim 
rocks.  They  flare  like  little  flames  in  unexpected  places. 
You  see  old  favorites  of  the  household  magnified  and 
glorified  almost  beyond  recognition.  It  is  as  if  a  poor 
little  aster  should  full  like  the  moon  and  be  a  dahlia. 
The  inmates  of  the  Eastern  conservatories  are  running 
about  wild,  like  children  freed  from  school.  And  it  does 
not  look  eflfeminate  to  see  a  broad-breasted,  wrinkled 
rock  with  a  live  posy  in  its  button-hole.  I  think  every 
human  bosom,  however  rude  and  rough,  has  some  sweet 
little  flower  of  thought  or  memory  or  affection  that  it 
wears  and  cherishes,  though  no  man  knows  it.  Let  us 
have  charity. 

Hark!  There  is  nothing  to  hear!  The  engines  run 
as  still  as  your  grandmother's  little  wheel  with  her  foot 
on  the  treadle.  The  tandem  team  is  holding  its  breath 
a  little.  It  is  not  exactly /aa7 is  est  descensus  Averni,  but 
in  plain  talk  we  are  going  down  hill.  We  are  making  for 
the  Laramie  Plains.  They  open  out  before  us  into  four 
thousand  square  miles  of  wild  pasture.  They  sweep  from 
the  Black  Hills  to  the  range  of  the  Medicine  Bow. 
Where  are  your  Kohinoors,  your  "  mountains  of  light," 
now?  Yonder  are  the  gorgeous  Sultans,  the  Diamond 
Peaks  cut  by  the  great  Lapidary  of  the  Universe.  And 
yet   they  may  be   tents,  those   radiant  cones,  pitched   by 


WONDERLAND  TO  BUGLE  CASoN.         41 

celestial  shepherds  on  that  lofty  height.  Did  evei'  earthly 
pastures  have  such  regal  watch  and  ward?  See  there, 
away  beyond  the  jeweled  encampment,  where  the  Snow}^ 
Range  lifts  into  the  bright  air,  as  if  it  were  a  ghostly 
echo  of  the  Diamond  Peaks  at  hand. 

All  the  country  is  rich  in  mineral  wealth  as  a  thou- 
sand government  mints.  The  Bank  of  England,  "the  Old 
Lady  of  Threadneedle  street,"  could  lay  the  very  founda- 
tions of  her  building  upon  a  specie  basis  should  she  move 
it  hither.  Those  suspicious  holes  far  up  the  mountain  sides 
and  away  down  in  the  valleys,  with  their  chronic  yawn 
of  darkness,  are  not  the  burrows  of  beai's  nor  the  dens 
of  beclawed  and  bewhiskered  creatures  that  make  night 
hideous  with  complaint.  They  are  the  entrances  to  mines 
of  gold,  silver,  copper,  lead  and  cinnabar.  Cinnabar  is 
the  red- faced  mother  of  white  quicksilver,  but  she  has  a 
ruddy  daughter  that  inherits  the  family  complexion.  You 
have  seen  her  on  sweeter  kissing  places  than  these  rude 
mountain  heights.  She  shows  at  times  upon  a  woman's 
cheek,  and  her  name  is  Vermilion. 

You  see  all  along,  ruined  castles,  solitary  towers,  tri- 
umphal columns,  dismantled  battlements,  broken  arches, 
some  red  as  with  perpetual  sunset,  and  some  gray  with 
the  grime  of  uncounted  years.  At  the  mouth  of  that 
cafion,  far  up  the  crags,  stands  a  Gibraltar  of  desolation, 
a  speechless  city  where  no  smokes  pillar  to  the  skies,  no 
wheels  jar  the  rocky  streets,  no  banners  float  from  min- 
aret or  dome.  It  is  the  city  of  No-man's-land.  Its 
builders  are  the  volcanic  blacksmiths.  How  the  forges 
roared  and  glowed  to  make  it!  Its  sculpture  is  the  work 
of  frost  and  rain  and  time.  It  has  been  founded  a  thou- 
sand years. 
2* 


42  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

The  coarse  bunches  of  buffalo  grass  dot  the  plains  here 
and  there.  A  mule  would  carry  his  ears  at  "trail  arras" 
if  it  were  offered  him  for  breakfast,  but  it  is  sweet  to 
the  raspy  tongues  of  the  beef-cattle  of  the  wilderness.  It 
is  the  buffalo's  correlative:  first  the  grass,  then  the  beast. 
Where  are  the  stately  herds,  fronted  like  the  curly-headed 
god  of  wine  or  the  Numidian  lion,  that  in  columns  myriad 
strong  trampled  out  ground-thunder  as  they  marched? 
Gone  to  gratify  the  greed  of  lawless  butchers  who  turned 
a  ton  of  beef  into  a  vulture's  dinner  for  the  sake  of  a 
dozen  pounds  of  tongue.  Cowper's  man  who  shot  the 
trembling  hare  was  a  prince  to  such  fellows. 

Sage-brush  has  the  freedom  of  the  desert,  highland 
and  lowland.  You  see  its  clumps  of  green  everywhere. 
It  is  the  rank  seasoning,  the  summer-?«Jsavory  for  the 
sage-hen.  Though  without  beauty,  you  regard  it  with 
affection.  It  was  the  fuel  of  the  old  pioneers.  It  has 
cooked  the  buffalo-steak,  and  boiled  the  coffee,  and  baked 
the  wheaten  cake.  Women  with  babes  in  their  arms 
have  gathered  around  the  sage-brush  fire  in  the  chill 
nights  and  thanked  God.  Strange,  indeed,  that  the  more 
we  receive  the  more  ungrateful  we  grow!  And  there  are 
the  cactuses,  the  green  pincushions  of  the  desert,  the  points 
all  ready  to  the  heedless  hand. 

By  Point  of  Rocks,  where  stand  the  columns  of  the 
American  Parthenon,  four  hundred  feet  high,  a  thousand 
feet  in  the  air,  and  grander  than  any  Grecian  ruin  that 
ever  crumbled;  over  Green  river,  lighted  up  by  its  fine 
green  shale  McAdam  as  an  old  pasture  brightens  in  May; 
through  clefts  where  rock  and  ridge  run  riot;  sunless 
gorges  where  crags  frown  down  upon  the  train  from  the 
top  of  the  sky;  swinging  from  cliff  to  cliff,  as  spiders  float 


WONDERLAND  TO    BUGLE    CAlSON.  43 

on  their  flying  bridges;  booming  through  snow-sheds,  witli 
their  flitter  of  sunshine;  on  tracks  looped  around  upon 
themselves  like  love-knots  for  Vulcan;  railroad  above  you 
and  railroad  below;  by  giants'  clubs,  and  bishops'  mitres, 
and  Cleopatra's  Needles,  and  Pompey's  Pillars,  and  mono- 
liths of  Pyramids  older  than  Cheops,  founded  with  a 
breath  and  builded  with  a  touch;  up  on  the  swell  and 
down  in  the  trough  of  the  boisterous  old  mountains,  as 
a  ship  rides  the  sea;  past  the  mouths  of  grim  cafions  that 
swallow  the  day;  through  tunnels  of  midnight  that  never 
knew  dawn;  cutting  flourish  and  capital,  swings  the  long, 
supple  train. 

Through  a  gate  in  the  Wahsatch  Mountains  we  plunge 
into  Echo  Canon  and  Utah  together;  Utah,  the  tenth  sov- 
ereignty on  our  route  from  New  York;  Utah,  Turkey  the 
second,  and  the  land  of  harems  —  much  as  if  you  should 
bind  up  a  leaf  or  two  of  the  Koran  with  the  books  of 
Moses — a  region  where  the  Scripture  is  reversed,  and  one 
man  lays  hold  of  seven  women.  You  look  to  see  the  red 
fez  and  the  Turkish  veil,  and  you  do  see  dwellings  with 
a  row  of  front  doors  that  seem  to  have  been  added,  one 
after  another,  as  the  new  brides  came  into  the  family; 
a  door  a  bride,  which  is  pretty  much  all  the  adoration 
any  of  the  poor  creatures  get. 

Yonder,  in  a  row  before  a  house  with  three  doors,  sit 
a  man  and  three  women,  and  around  them  a  group  of 
children  of  assorted  lengths,  like  the  strings  of  David's 
harp.  Here,  for  the  first  time,  I  see  a  Mormon  store  with 
its  sanctimonious  sign.  It  almost  seems  to  talk  through 
its  nose  at  you  with  the  twang  that  often  issues  from  an 
empty  head  and  seldom  from  a  full  heart,  and  it  whines 
these  words:   "Holiness  to  the  Lord"  —  here   the   picture 


44  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

of  an  eye  —  "Zion's  Co-operative  Mercantile  Institution," 
and  the  profits  of  it  are  the  prophet's,  and  his  name  was 
Brigham  Young. 

The  train  is  just  swinging  around  a  bold  battlement 
of  rock,  beside  which  Sir  Christopher  Wren's  St.  Paul's 
would  be  nothing  more  than  the  sexton's  cottage.  You 
see  at  its  base  a  well-worn  wagon-road,  that  looks  enough 
like  a  bit  of  an  old  New  York  thoroughfare  to  be  an  emi- 
grant. It  is  the  stage  road  and  trail  of  the  elder  time. 
You  catch  a  glimpse  of  irregular  heaps  of  stone  piled 
upon  the  edge  of  the  precipice  five  hundred  feet  aloft. 
They  are  the  solid  shot  of  the  Mormon  artillery.  Twenty 
years  ago,  when  the  United  States  troops  were  marching 
to  Salt  Lake,  with  inquisitive  bayonets,  curious  to  know 
whether  the  Federal  Government  included  the  heathen- 
dom as  well  as  the  Christendom  of  the  United  States, 
they  must  pass  by  that  rugged  throat  of  a  road,  and 
under  the  frown  of  the  mountain,  and  here  the  Nauvoo 
Legion  proposed  to  crush  them  with  a  tempest  of  rock, 
but  the  army  halted  by  the  way  and  the  ammunition 
remains. 

The  train  seems  hopelessly  bewildered.  It  makes  for 
a  mountain  wall  eight  hundred  feet  high,  just  doubles  it 
by  a  hand's-breadth,  sweeps  around  a  curve,  plunges  into 
a  gorge  that  is  so  narrow  you  think  it  must  strangle 
itself  if  it  swallows  the  train;  red  rocks  everywhere  huge 
as  great  thunder-clouds  touched  by  the  sun,  and  big 
enough  for  the  kernel  of  such  a  baby  planet  as  Mars; 
monuments,  graven  by  the  winds;  terraces,  along  whose 
mighty  steps  the  sun  goes  up  to  bed;  the  glow  of  his 
crimson  sandal  on  the  topmost  stair,  and  it  is  twilight  in 
the  valley  and    midnight   in    the   gorge.      It  is  a  fearful 


WONDEELAND   TO   BUGLE   CASON^.  45 

nightmare  of  stone  giants.  Weird  witches  in  gray  groups, 
whispering  together  in  the  hollow  winds  of  the  moun- 
tains; witches'  bottles  for  high  revel;  Egyptian  tombs; 
fortresses  that  can  never  be  stormed.  Yonder,  a  thousand 
years  ago,  they  were  launching  a  ship  six  hundred  feet 
high  in  the  air,  but  it  holds  fast  to  "  the  ways "  still ! 
Its  stately  red  bow  carries  a  cedar  at  the  fore  for  a  flag. 
It  is  a  craft  without  an  admiral.  Some  day  an  earth- 
quake out  of  business  will  turn  shipwright,  put  a  shoulder 
to  the  hull,  and  leviathan  will  be  seen  no  more. 

If  you  want  to  reduce  yourself  to  a  sort  of  human 
duodecimo,  handy  to  carry  in  the  pocket,  you  can  effect 
the  abridgment  as  you  make  the  plunge  with  bated  breath 
into  the  canon.  It  is  a  splendid  day,  old  Herbert's  sky 
above  and  a  Titanic  carnival  below.  Echo  Canon,  where 
voices  answer  voice  from  clifi'  and  wall  and  chasm,  and 
talk  all  around  the  jagged  and  gnarled  and  crushed  hori- 
zon.    Just  the  place  for  Tennyson's  bugle; 

"The  Bpleudur  falls  on  castle  walls, 
And  snowy  summits  old  in  story—" 

and  here  is  Castle  Rock,  with  its  red  lintels  and  its  gray 
arches,  and  the  mighty  Cathedral  that  no  man  has  builded, 
with  its  sculptures  and  its  towers;  and  yonder  is  the 
Pulpit,  ten  thousand  tons  of  stone  heaved  up  a  hundred 
feet  into  the  air,  where  Gog  and  Magog  might  stand  and 
be  pigmies;  and  there  are  the  white  lifts  of  the  Wah- 
satch  Range: 

"The  long  light  shakes  across  the  lakes, 
And  the  wild  cataract  leaps  in  glory. 
Blow,  bugle,  blow,  set  the  wild  echoes  flying. 
Blow,  bugle;  answer,  echoes,  dying,  dying,  dying. 

"O,  hark,  O  hear!  how  thin  and  clear. 
And  thinner,  clearer,  farther  going! 


46  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

O,  sweet  and  far  from  clifl'  and  scar 

The  horns  of  Elfland  faintly  blowing! 
Blow,  let  us  hear  the  purple  gleus  replying: 
Blow,  bugle;   answer,  echoes,  dying,  dying,  dying — "  ^ 

and  here  are  glen  and  cliff,  and  here  is  Elfland.  The 
engine  gives  a  single  scream,  and  airy  trains  are  answer- 
ing from  crag  and  crown,  from  gulf  and  rock,  as  if 
engines  had  turned  eagles  and  taken  wing  from  a  hun- 
dred mountain  eyries. 

"  O  love,  they  die  in  yon  rich  sky," 

and  here  is  that  same  sky  above  us,  affluent  with  the 
flowing  gold  of  the  afternoon  sun;  an  unenvious  sky  that 
lets  you  look  through  into  heaven  itself;  an  ethereal 
azure  like  the  glance  of  a  blue-eyed  angel; 

"They  faint  on  hill,  on  field,  on  river;" 

and  here  beside  us  the  Weber  River  rolls  rejoicing,  and 
the  hills  are  not  casting  their  everlasting  shadows  upon 
us  like  the  veil  of  the  temple  that  could  not  be  rent. 
And  then  come  the  last  lines,  that,  thanks  unto  God,  are 
true  the  world  over: 

"Owr  echoes  roll  from  soul  to  soul, 
And  grow  forever  and  forever. 
Blow,  bugle,  blow,  set  the  wild  echoes  flying. 
And  answer,  echoes,  answer,  dying,  dying,  dying." 

Let  the  lyric  be  known  as  the  Song  of  Echo  Canon.  In 
my  memory  the  twain  will  be  always  one. 

This  being  afraid  of  a  motionless  rock  when  there  is 
no  more  danger  of  its  falling  than  there  is  of  the  moon 
crushing  your  hat  in,  is  a  new  feeling,  and  yet  it  is  an 
emotion  akin  to  fear.  So  vast,  so  rude,  so  planetary  in 
magnitude,  such  ghostly  and  ghastly  and  unreal  shapes, 
you  fancy  some  enchantment  holds  strange  beings  locked 


WONDERLAND  TO  BUGLE   CAffON.  47 

in  stone;  that,  some  day,  there  will  be  a  general  jail- 
delivery,  and  the  spell  will  be  broken.  To  me,  as  I  re- 
member that  valley  of  illusions,  they  seem  the  monstrous 
petrifications  of  a  wild  and  riotous  imagination.  I  am 
glad  I  saw  that  huge  stoneyard  of  the  gods,  but  I  have 
no  desire  to  dwell  in  it.  To  have  heard  a  bugle  blown 
in  it  would  have  been  something  to  remember,  but  I 
should  have  wanted  it  to  sound  "  boots  and  saddles,"  and 
then  be  the  first  man  to  mount.  To  carry  those  boulders 
about  mentally  requires  an  atlas  of  a  fancy,  so  I  will 
just  leave  them  where  I  found  them,  monuments  to  the 
memory  of  patient  centuries  and  imperishable  power. 
Weber  River  and  the  Pacific  train  are  both  doing  their 
best  to  get  out  of  these  enchanted  mountains,  but  they 
stand  before  us,  and  close  up  behind  us,  and  draw  in 
around  us,  and  offer  us  gorges  to  hide  in,  and  water  to 
drown  in,  and  gulfs  to  tumble  in,  and  anvils  to  dash  our 
brains  out,  and  —  there!  the  escape  is  accomplished!  The 
rugged  canon  vanishes  like  a  dream  of  the  night,  and  a 
valley  of  surpassing  loveliness,  sweet  as  the  vale  of  Ras- 
selas  or  Avoca,  a  little  parlor  of  the  Lord,  guarded  by 
gentle  mountains  and  carpeted  with  the  fine  tapestry  of 
cultivation,  and  dwelt  in  by  peace,  has  taken  us  in. 
Have  you  ever,  when  walking  along  a  woodland  path  in 
i  summer  night,  discovered  a  dewdrop  at  your  feet  by 
the  light  of  a  star  that  shone  in  it?  So  is  that  valley, 
fallen  amid  those  scenes  of  ruggedness  and  wonder. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


THE  DESERT,  THE  DEVIL  AND  CAPE  HORN. 

"  rr^HE  Thousand-mile  Tree!''  So  cried  everybody. 
-■-  There  it  stands  beside  the  track,  with  its  arras  in 
their  evergreen  sleeves  spread  wide  in  perennial  greeting. 
A  thousand  miles  from  Omaha  and  twenty-five  hundred 
from  New  York.  No  stately  tree  with  a  Mariposa  ambi- 
tion, yet,  after  the  Oak  of  the  Charter  and  the  Elm  of 
the  Treaty,  few  on  the  continent  are  worthier  of  historic 
fame.  Forty  years  ago,  defended  round  about  by  two 
thousand  miles  of  wilderness,  a  wilderness  as  broad  as 
the  face  of  the  moon  at  the  full  !  To-day  it  is  almost 
like  the  tree  of  knowledge,  "  in  the  midst  of  the  garden." 
The  articulate  lightnings  run  to  and  fro  upon  their  sin- 
gle rail,  almost  within  reach  of  its  arms,  from  Ocean  to 
Ocean.  Hamlets  and  cities  make  the  transit  of  the  wil- 
derness like  Venus  crossing  the  sun.  Millions  of  eyes 
shall  look  upon  it  with  a  sentiment  of  affection.  It  stands 
in  its  vigorous  life  for  the  Thousandth  Milepost  on  the 
route  of  Empire. 

Why  so  many  grand  things  in  the.  Far  West  go  to 
the  Devil  by  default  nobody  knows.  I  think  it  high 
time  he  proved  his  title.  Thus,  "  Devil's  Gate  "  names  a 
Gothic  pass  in  the  cleft  mountains,  through  which,  be- 
tween rocky  portals  lifting  up  and  up  to  the  snow-line, 
the  mad  and  crested  waters  of  the  Weber  River  plunge 
in  tumultuous  crowds.     They  seem  a  forlorn  hope  storm- 

48 


THE    DESERT,   THE    DEVIL   AND    CAPE   HORN.  49 

ing  some  tremendous  Ticonderoga.  "  The  Devil's  Slide  " 
is  a  Druidical  raceway  seven  hundred  feet  up  on  the 
mountain  side,  twelve  feet  wide,  pitched  at  an  angle  of 
fifty  degrees,  and  dry  as  a  powder-house.  It  is  bounded 
by  parallel  blocks  of  granite  lifted  upon  their  edges,  and 
projecting  from  the  mountain  from  twenty  to  forty  feet. 
A  ponderous  piece  of  work,  but  who  was  the  stone-mason? 
Instead  of  being   a   slide,  it   seems   to   me   about  such  a 


THOUSAND-MILE  TREE. 

pig-trough  as  Cedric  the  Saxon  would  have  hewn,  in  the 
days  before  "hog"  turned  "pork"  and  "calf"  was  "veal." 
If  it  belongs  to  the  Devil  at  all,  it  must  have  been  the 
identical  table-ware  he  pitched  after  the  herd  of  possessed 
swine  that  ran  down  into  the  sea,  and  here  it  lies  high 
and  dry  even  until  this  day. 

At  Ogden  we  take  the  Silver  Palace-cars  of  the  Cen- 
tral Pacific.  Let  nobody  forget  what  toil,  danger,  priva- 
tion, death  and  clear  grit  it  cost  to  bring  the  twenty 
miles  an  hour  within  human  possibilities;  that  everything 
from  a  pound  of  powder  and  a  pickax  to  a  railroad  bar 
8 


60  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

followed  the  track  of  the  whalers  of  old  Nantucket  and 
doubled  Cape  Horn;  a  hundred  miles  and  a  lift  of  seven 
thousand  feet  heavenward ;  a  hundred  miles  and  not  a  drop 
to  drink  for  engine  or  engineer;  a  thousand  miles  and 
hardly  an  Anglo-Saxon  dweller.  Two  thousand  feet  of 
solid  granite  barred  the  way  upon  the  mountain  top 
where  eagles  were  at  home.  The  Chinese  Wall  waS  a  toy 
beside  it.  It  could  neither  be  surmounted  nor  doubled, 
and  so  they  tunneled  what  looks  like  a  bank-swallow's 
hole  from  a  thousand  feet  below.  Powder  enough  was 
expended  in  persuading  the  iron  crags  and  cliffs  to  be  a 
thoroughfare  to  fight  half  the  battles  of  the  Revolution. 
It  was  in  its  time  the  topmost  triumph  of  engineering 
nerve  and  skill  in  all  th6  world.  It  stitched  the  East  and 
the  West  lovingly  together,  and  who  shall  say  that  we  are 
not  a  United  States? 

The  level  rays  of  the  setting  sun  glorified  the  scene 
as  we  steamed  out  a  few  miles,  until  at  our  left,  a  sea  of 
glass,  lay  the  Great  Salt  Lake,  a  fishless  sea,  and  as  full 
of  things  in  "  um "  as  an  old  time  Water  Cure  used  to 
be  of  isms,  with  its  calcium,  magnesium  and  sodium.  A 
man  cannot  drown  in  it  comfortably.  No  decent  bird 
will  swim  in  it.  If  Jonah,  the  i-unaway  minister,  had 
been  pitched  into  it,  that  lake  would  have  tumbled  him 
ashore  before  he  had  time  to  take  lodgings  at  the  sign  of 
*'  The  Whale."  It  absolutely  rejects  everything  but  some- 
thing in  "  wm."  It  ought  to  be  the  "  dulce  domum  "  for 
Lot's  wife.  Everybody  passes  Promontory  Point  in  the 
night,  the  memorable  spot  where,  on  that  May  day,  1869, 
the  East  and  the  West  were  wedded,  and  the  blows  that 
sent  home  the  spikes  of  silver  and  gold  securing  the  last 
rail  in  the  laurel  were  repeated   by  lightning  at  Wash- 


THE   DESERT,  THE    DEVIL   AND    CAPE   HORJf.  51 

ington  and  San  Francisco,  in  the  length  of  a  heart-beat; 
blow  for  blow,  from  the  Potomac  to  the  Pacific.  Think 
of  echo  answering  echo  through  a  sweep  of  more  than 
three  thousand  miles!  All  in  all,  after  the  signing  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  it  was  the  most  impressive 
and  thoughtful  ceremony  that  ever  graced  the  continent. 
It  was  electric  with  the  spirit  of  the  New  Era. 

Tally  Eleven !  We  are  in  Nevada,  eleventh  sovereignty 
from  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  We  have  struck  the  Great 
American  Desert.  I  wish  I  could  give,  with  a  few  brief 
touches,  the  scenery  of  the  spreads  of  utter  desolation, 
strangely  relieved  by  glimpses  of  valleys  of  clover  that 
smell  of  home,  and  conjure  up  the  little  buglers  of  the 
dear  East,  that  in  their  black  and  buff  trimmed  uniforms 
and  their  rapiers  in  their  coat-tail  pockets,  used  to  cam- 
paign it  over  the  fields  of  white  clover  where  we  all 
went  Maying;  sights  of  little  islands  of  bright  greenery, 
as  at  Humboldt,  as  much  the  gift  of  irrigation  as  Egypt 
is  of  the  Nile;  great  everlasting  clouds  of  mountains, 
tipped  as  to  their  upper  edges  with  snow  as  with  an  eter- 
nal dawn;  patches  ghastly  white  with  alkali  as  if  earth 
were  a  leper,  and  yellow  with  sulphur  as  if  the  brimstone 
fire  of  the  Cities  of  the  Plain  had  been  raining  here,  and 
salt  had  been  sown  and  the  ground  accursed  forever. 

Tumble  in  upon  these  alkali  plains  a  few  myriads  of 
the  buffalo  that  have  been  wantonly  slaughtei-ed,  and 
with  the  steady  fire  of  the  unwinking,  unrelenting,  lid- 
less  sun  that  glares  down  upon  the  dismal  scene  as  if 
he  would  like  to  stare  it  out  of  existence,  you  would 
have  the  most  stupendous  soap- fad  or  ij  in  the  universe,  to 
which  the  establishments  of  the  Colgates  and  the  Babbitts 
would  be   as   insignificant  as   the   little   inverted   conical 


62  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

leach  of  our  grandmothers,  wherewith  they  did  all  the 
hjeing  the  dear  simple  souls  were  guilty  of. 

Fancy  an  immense  batch  of  wheaten  dough  hundreds 
of  miles  across,  wet  up,  perhaps,  before  Columbus  discov- 
ered America,  permeating  and  discoloring  and  tumefying 
in  the  sun  through  five  centuries;  strown  with  careless 
handfuls  of  salt  and  sprinkles  of  mustard,  and  garnished, 
like  the  mouth  of  a  roasted  pig,  with  parsley-looking 
sage-brush,  and  tufis  of  withered  grass,  and  rusty  cac- 
tuses, and  veins  of  dead  water  sluggish  as  postprandial 
serpents;  and  whiflFs  of  hot  steam  from  fissures  in  the 
unseemly  and  ill-omened  mass;  a  corpse  of  a  planet  wel- 
tering and  sweltering,  with  whom  gentle  Time  has  not 
yet  begun;  no  May  to  quicken  it,  no  June  to  glorify  it, 
no  Autumn  to  gild  it. 

Then  fancy  all  this  in  a  huge  basin  wnose  red  and 
rusty  rim,  broken  and  melted  out  of  shape,  you  see  here 
and  there  in  the  northern  horizon  —  fancy  all  this,  and 
yet  there  is  nothing  but  "the  sight  of  the  eyes"  that 
will  "  afiFect  the  heart."  Miners  and  mountain  men  have 
been  lavishly  liberal  in  giving  things  to  the  Devil.  If 
he  must  have  something  in  the  way  of  estate,  give  him 
this  bleached  batch  of  desert  dough  for  his  own  con- 
sumption ! 

You  will  take  notice  that  in  this  description  of  waste 
places  I  have  not  mentioned  Tadmor  nor  ^  alluded  to 
Thebes.  A  man  cannot  very  well  be  reminded  of  things 
he  never  saw;  neither  have  I  quoted  anything  from  Os- 
sian  about  lonely  foxes  and  disconsolate  thistles  waving 
in  the  wind.  All  these  things  have  been  mentioned  once 
or  twice,  and  the  American  Desert  needs  no  foreign  im- 
portations of  Fingals  to  make  it  poetically  horrible. 


THE  DESERT,  THE   DEVIL   AND   CAPE  HORN".  53 

You  nave  gone  over  it  in  a  palace.  You  have  eaten 
from  tables  that  would  be  banquets  in  the  great  centres 
of  civilization.  You  have  slept  upon  a  pleasant  couch 
"with  none  to  molest  or  make  you  afraid."  You  have 
drank  water  tinkling  with  ice  like  the  chime  of  sleigh- 
bells  in  a  winter  night — water  brought  from  mountains 
fifteen,  twenty,  thirty  miles  away.  You  have  retired 
without  weariness  and  risen  without  anxiety.  Now,  I 
want  you  to  remember  the  men  and  women  without 
whom  there  would  be  nothing  worth  seeing  that  could 
be  seen,  on  the  Pacific  Slope;  the  men  and  women  who 
crossed  these  plains  in  wagons  whose  very  ivheels  clamored 
for  water  as  they  creaked;  those  men  and  women  who 
toiled  on  through  this  realm  of  disaster,  parched,  fam- 
ished, dying  yet  not  despairing,  to  whom  every  day  was 
only  another  child  of  the  Summer  Solstice,  and  who  said 
every  morning,  "Would  to  God  it  were  night!"  Some 
made  their  graves  by  the  way,  and  some  lived  to  look 
upon  the  Pacific  sea,  and  I  want  you  to  believe  that  in 
our  time  there  has  never  been  a  sturdier  manhood, 
a  ruggeder  resolution,  a  more  Miles  Standish  sort  of 
courage,  than  marked  the  career  of  the  pioneers  to  the 
West. 

Tally  Twelve!  Twelfth  empire  from  the  Atlantic. 
Less  than  three  hundred  miles  from  the  Pacific.  We  are 
in  California  —  the  old  Spanish  land  of  the  fiery  furnace. 
The  turbaned  mountains  rise  to  the  right,  and  the  dark 
cedars  and  pines  in  long  lines  single  file,  like  Knight 
Templars  in  circular  cloaks,  seem  marching  up  the 
heights. 

You  feel,  somehow,  that  though  not  a  pine-needle 
vibrates,  the  wind  must  be  "  blowing  great   guns,"  so  to 


54  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

ruffle  up  and  chafe  the  solid  world.  Across  ravines  that 
sink  away  to  China  like  a  man  falling  in  a  nightmare, 
and  then  the  swooning  chasms  suddenly  swell  to  cliffs 
and  heights  gloomy  with  evergreens  and  bright  with 
Decembers  that  never  come  to  Christmas,  the  train  pur- 
sues its  assui'ed  way  like  a  comet.  It  circles  and  swoops 
and  soars  and  vibrates  like  a  sea-eagle  when  the  storm 
is  abroad.  Mingled  feelings  of  awe,  admiration  and  sub- 
limity possess  you.  Sensations  of  flying,  falling,  climbing, 
dying,  master  you.  The  sun  is  just  rising  over  your  left 
shoulder.  It  touches  up  the  peaks  and  towers  of  ten 
thousand  feet,  till  they  seem  altars  glowing  to  the  glory 
of  the  great  God.  You  hold  your  breath  as  you  dart  out 
over  the  gulfs,  with  their  dizzy  samphire  heights  and 
depths.  You  exult  as  you  ride  over  a  swell.  Going  up, 
you  expand.  Coming  down,  you  shrink  like  the  kernel  of 
a  last  year's  filbert.  We  are  in  the  Sierras  Nevada!  The 
teeth  of  the  glittering  saws  with  their  silver  steel  of  ever- 
lasting frost  cut  their  way  up  through  the  blue  air  —  up 
to  the  snow-line  —  up  to  the  angel-line  between  two 
worlds. 

It  was  day  an  instant  ago,  and  now  it  is  dark  night. 
The  train  has  burrowed  in  a  tunnel  to  escape  the  speech- 
less magnificence.  It  is  roaring  through  the  snow-sheds. 
It  is  rumbling  over  the  bridges.  Who  shall  say  to  these 
breakers  of  sod  and  billows  of  rock,  "Peace,  be  still!" 
and  the  tempest  shall  be  stayed  and  the  globe  shall  be 
at  rest? 

And  all  at  once  a  snow-storm  drives  over  your  head. 
The  air  is  gray  with  the  slanting  lines  of  the  crazy, 
sleety  drift.  Some  mountain  gale  that  never  touches  the 
lower  world,  but,  like  a  stormy  petrel,  is  forever  on  the 


THE    DESERT,   THE    DEVIL   AND   CAPE   HORlSr. 


55 


wing  and  never  making  land,  has  caught  off  the  white 
caps  and  turbans  from  some  ambitious  peaks,  and  whipped 
them  whirling  through  the  air.  You  clap  your  hands 
like  a  boy,  whose  sled  has  been  hanging  by  the  ears  in 
the  woodshed  all  summer,  at  his  sight  of  the  first  snow. 
But  the  howling,  drifting  storm  goes  by,  and  out  flares 
the  sun,  and  the  cliffs  are  crimson  and  silver. 


You  think  you  have  climbed  to  the  crown  of  the 
world,  but  lo,  there,  as  if  broke  loose  from  the  chains  of 
gravitation,  "Alps  on  Alps  arise."  Look  away  on  and  on, 
at  the  white  undulations  to  the  uttermost  verge  of  vision, 
as  if  a  flock  of  white-plumed  mountains  had  taken  wing 
and  flown  away. 

A  chaos  of  summers  and  winters  and  days  and  nights 
and  calms  and  storms  is  tumbled  into  these  gulches  and 
gorges  and  rugged  seams  of  scars.  Rocks  are  poised 
midway  gulfward  that  awaken  a  pair  of  perpetual  won- 
ders: how  they  ever  came  to  stop,  and  how  they  ever  got 
under  way.  With  such  momentum  they  never  should 
have  halted:    with  such   inertia  they  never   should   have 


66  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

started.  Great  trees  lie  head-downward  in  the  gulfs. 
Shouting  torrents  leap  up  at  rocky  walls  as  if  they  meant 
to  climb  them.  See  these  herds  of  broad-backed  recum- 
l»ent  hills  around  us,  lying  down  like  elephants  to  be 
laden.  See  the  bales  of  rocks  and  the  howdahs  of  crags 
heaped  upon  them.  They  are  John  Milton's  own  beasts 
of  burden,  when  he  said,  "  elephants  endorsed  with  towers," 
and  such  an  endorsement  should  make  anybody's  note 
good  for  a  million. 

Do  you  remember  the  old  covered  bridges  that  used 
to  stand  with  their  feet  in  the  streams  like  cows  in  mid- 
summer, and  had  little  windows  all  along  for  the  fitful 
checkers  of  light?  Imagine  those  bridges  grown  to  giants, 
from  five  hundred  to  two  thousand  feet  long,  and  strong 
ai,  a  fort.  Imagine  some  of  them  bent  into  immense  curves 
that,  as  you  enter,  dwindle  away  in  the  distance  like  the 
inside  of  a  mighty  powder-horn,  and  then  lay  forty-five 
miles  of  them  zigzag  up  and  down  the  Sierras  and  the 
Rockies,  and  wherever  the  snow  drifts  wildest  and  deep- 
est, and  you  have  the  snow-sheds  of  the  mountains,  with- 
out which  the  cloudy  pantings  of  the  engines  would  be 
as  powerless  as  the  breath  of  a  singing  sparrow.  They 
are  just  bridges  the  other  side  up.  They  are  made  to  lift 
the  white  winter  and  shoulder  the  avalanche.  But  you 
can  hardly  tell  how  provoking  they  are  sometimes,  when 
they  clip  off  the  prospect  as  a  pair  of  shears  snips  a 
thread,  just  as  a  love  of  a  valley  or  a  dread  of  a  canon, 
or  something  deeper  or  grander  or  higher  or  ruder  catches 
your  eye,  "  Out,  brief  candle ! "  and  your  sight  is  extin- 
guished in  a  snow-shed.  But  why  complain  amid  these 
wonders  because  you  have  to  tcink! 

Summit  Station  is   reached,  with  its  sky  parlors,  and 


THE   DESERT,   THE   DEVIL   AND   CAPE    HORN.  57 

grand  Mount  Lincoln,  from  whose  summit  it  is  two  miles 
"plumb  down"  to  the  city  by  the  sea,  and  we  have  a 
mile  and  a  half  of  it  to  swoop.  The  two  engines  begin 
to  talk  a  little.  One  says,  "  Brakes ! "  and  the  other,  "All 
right!"  "Take  a  rest!"  says  the  leader.  "Done!"  says 
the  wheeler,  and  they  just  let  go  their  nervous  breaths, 
and  respire  as  gently  as  a  pair  of  twin  infants.  The 
brakes  grasp  the  wheels  like  a  gigantic  thumb  and  finger, 
the  engines  hold  back  in  the  breeching,  but  down  we  go, 
into  the  hollows  of  the  mountains;  along  craggy  spines, 
as  angry  as  a  porcupine's  and  narrow  as  the  way  to 
glory;  out  upon  breezy  hills  red  as  fields  of  battle;  off 
upon  Dariens  of  isthmuses  that  inspire  a  feeling  that 
wings  will  be  next  in  order.  Sparks  fly  from  the  trucks 
like  fiery  fountains  from  the  knife-grinder's  wheel,  there 
is  a  sullen  gride  of  expostulation  beneath  the  cars,  but 
down  we  go.  Should  the  water  freeze  in  the  engines' 
stomachs,  "  the  law  that  swings  worlds  would  whirl  the 
train  through ! " 

The  country  looks  as  if  a  herd  of  mastodons  with 
swinish  curiosity  had  been  turned  loose  to  root  it  inside 
out.  It  is  the  search  for  gold.  Mountains  have  been 
rummaged  like  so  many  potato-hills.  When  pickax  and 
powder  and  cradles  fail,  and  the  "  wash-bowl  on  my 
knee  "  becomes  what  Celestial  John  talks  —  broken  China 
—  then  as  yonder!  Do  you  see  those  streams  of  water 
playing  from  iron  pipes  upon  the  red  hill's  broad  side? 
They  are  bombarding  it  with  water,  and  washing  it  all 
away.  The  six-inch  batteries  throw  water  about  as  solid 
under  the  pressure  as  cannon-shot.  A  blow  from  it  would 
kill  you  as  quick  as  the  club  of  Hercules.  Boulders 
dance  about  in  it   like  kernels   in  a  corn-popper.     I  give 


68  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

the  earnest  artillerymen  a  toast:  "Success  to  the  douche! 
The  heavier  the  nugget  the  lighter  the  heart." 

The  train  is  swaying  from  side  to  side  along  'the 
ridges,  like  a  swift  skater  upon  a  lake.  It  is  four 
thousand  feet  above  the  sea.  It  shoulders  the  mountains 
to  the  right  and  left.  It  swings  around  this  one,  and 
doubles  back  upon  that  one  like  a  hunted  fox,  and  drives 
bows-on  at  another  like  a  mad  ship.  Verily,  it  is  the 
world's  high-tide!  You  have  been  watching  a  surly  old 
giant  ahead.  There  is  no  climbing  him,  nor  routing 
him,  nor  piercing  him;  but  the  engines  run  right  on  as 
if  they  didn't  see  him.  Everybody  wears  an  air  of 
anxious  expectancy.  We  know  we  are  nearing  the  spot 
where  they  let  men  down  the  precipice  by  ropes  from 
the  mountain-top,  like  so  many  gatherers  of  samphire, 
and  they  nicked  and  niched  a  foothold  in  the  dizzy  wall, 
and  carved  a  shelf  like  the  ledge  of  a  curved  mantel- 
piece, and  scared  away  the  eagles  to  let  the  train  swing 
I'ound. 

The  mountains  at  our  left  begin  to  stand  oflF,  as  if  to 
get  a  good  view  of  the  catastrophe.  The  broad  canons 
dwindle  to  galleries  and  alcoves,  with  the  depth  and  the 
distance.  You  look  down  upon  the  top  of  a  forest,  upon 
a  strange  spectacle.  It  resembles  a  green  and  crinkled 
sea  full  of  little  scalloped  billows,  as  if  it  had  been 
overlaid  with  shells  shading  out  from  richest  emerald  to 
lightest  green.  J^ature  is  making  ready  for  something. 
The  road  grows  narrower  and  wilder.  It  ends  in  empty 
air  There  is  nothing  beyond  but  the  blue!  And  yet 
the  engines  pull  stolidly  on. 

Down  brakes!  We  have  reached  the  edge  of  the 
world,  and   beyond   is   the   empyrean!     You   stand   upon 


THE    DESERT,   THE    DEVIL   AND    CAPE   HORN.  59 

the  platform.  The  engines  are  out  of  sight.  They  are 
gone.  The  train  doubles  the  headland,  halts  upon  the 
frontlet  of  Cape  Horn !  —  clings  to  the  face  of  the  preci- 
pice like  a  swallow's-nest. 

The  Grand  Canon  is  beneath  you.  It  opens  out  as 
with  visible  motion.  The  sun  sweeps  aslant  the  valley 
,like  a  driving  rain  of  gold,  and  strikes  the  side  of  the 
mountain  a  thousand  feet  from  the  base.  There,  twenty- 
five  hundred  feet  sheer  down,  and  that  means  almost  a 
half  mile  of  precipice,  flows  in  placid  beauty  the  Ameri- 
can River.  You  ventl^re  to  the  nervous  verge.  You  see 
two  parallel  hair-lines  in  the  bottom  of  the  valley.  They 
are  the  rails  of  a  narrow-gauge  railroad.  You  see  bushes 
that  are  trees,  martin-boxes  that  are  houses,  broidered 
handkerchiefs  that  are  gardens,  checked  counterpanes  that 
.are  fields,  cattle  that  are  cats,  sheep  that  are  prairie- 
dogs,  sparrows  that  are  poultry.  You  look  away  into  the 
unfloored  chambers  of  mid-air  with  a  pained  thought  that 
the  world  has  escaped  you,  has  gone  down  like  a  setting 
star,  has  died  and  left  you  alive !  Then  you  can  say  with 
John  Keats  upon  a  far  different  scene,  when  he  opened 
Chapman's  magnificent  edition  of  Homer: 

"Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken; 

Or  like  stout  Cortez  when  with  eagle  eyes 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific,  and  all  his  men 

Looked  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise  — 
Silent  upon  a  peak  in  Darien." 

Queer  people  travel.  Returning  to  the  car  I  saw  a 
broad-gauge  Teuton,  with  the  complacent  bovine  expres- 
sion of  a  ruminating  cow,  eating  a  musical  Bologna 
lunch  of  "  linked  sweetness  long  drawn  out,"  and  I  said 
to*him,  "Did  you  see  Cape  Horn?"     "Cabe  Hornd?  Vat 


60 


BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 


is  she?''^  One  of  those  difficult  old-bachelor  questions 
that  will  never  find  anybody  to  answer.  Everything  in 
this  world  but  sausage  and  lager 

"A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him, 
And  it  was  nothing  more." 


CHAPTER  V. 


FEOM  WINTER  TO  SUMMER. 

A  CALIFORNIA  train  is  a  human  museum.  Here  now, 
upon  ours,  are  the  stray  Governor  of  Virginia,  an 
army  captain  going  to  his  company  in  Arizona,  a  trader 
from  the  Sandwich  Islands,  a  woman  from  New  Zealand, 
a  clergyman  in  search  of  a  pastorate,  an  invalid  looking 
for  health,  a  pair  of  snobs,  Mongolians  with  tails  depend- 
ing from  between  their  ears,  the  proprietor  of  an  Oregon 
salmon-fishery,  a  gold-digger,  a  man  whose  children  were 
born  in  Canton  while  his  wife  lived  in  San  Francisco, 
some  Shoshones  and  dogs  in  the  baggage  car,  and  a  fam- 
ily who  ate  by  the  day,  breakfasted,  dined,  supped,  lunched, 
picked  and  nibbled  without  benefit  of  clergy.  It  would 
take  a  chaplain  in  full  work  just  to  "say  grace"  for 
that  party.  Victuals  and  death  were  alike  to  them.  Both 
had  "all  seasons  for  their  own."  They  ate  straight  across 
the  continent.  If  they  continue  to  make  grist-mills  of 
themselves,  crape  for  that  family  will  be  in  order  at  an 
early  day. 

At  some  station  in  the  Desert  where  we  halted  for 
water,  there  sat,  huddled  upon  the  platform,  some  Sho- 
shone Indians,  about  as  gaudy  and  filthy  as  dirt  and  red 
blankets  could  make  them,  and  papooses  near  enough 
like  little  images  of  Hindoo  gods  to  be  cousins  to  the 
whole    mythology.     One   of   the   squaws,   with    an   ashen 

61 


62  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

gray  face  and  white  hair,  a  forehead  like  a  hawk's,  an 
eye  like  a  lizard's,  an  arm  like  a  ganglion  of  fiddle- 
strings,  and  a  claw  of  a  hand,  looked  to  be  a  hundred 
years  old,  and  her  voice  was  as  hollow  as  if  she  had  an 
inverted  kettle  for  the  roof  of  her  mouth,  and  talked 
under  it.  Near  by,  on  the  same  platform,  an  English- 
man was  pacing  to  and  fro,  putting  down  his  well-shod 
feet  as  if  he  had  taken  the  country  in  the  name  of  the 
queen  of  'ome  and  the  Empress  of  India.  A  Frenchman, 
in  a  round  cap  with  a  tassel  to  it,  stands  with  the  wind 
astern  and  his  brow  bent  like  a  meditative  Bonaparte, 
trying  to  light  a  twisted  roll  of  paper  in  the  hollow  of 
his  hand.  Two  Chinamen  in  blue,  broad-sleeved  blouses, 
their  shiny  black  cues  swinging  behind  like  bell-ropes  in 
mourning,  stood  near,  shying  their  ebony  almonds  at  the 
whole  scene.  On  the  track,  waiting  for  a  shake  of  the 
bridle,  waited  the  engine,  breathing  a  little  louder  now 
and  then,  like  a  man  turning  over  in  his  sleep. 

Regarded  with  thoughtful  eyes,  the  grouping  was 
impressive.  Here  in  the  Desert,  as  far  away  from  blue 
water  as  they  could  possibly  get,  standing  upon  the  same 
hundred  square  feet  of  platform,  were  Mongolians  from 
the  pagoda-land  of  "the  drowsy  East,"  aborigines  from 
the  heart  of  the  continent,  men  from  Fatherland  and 
Motherland,  and  the  lands  of  the  lilies,  the  storks,  the 
long  nights,  the  broad  days  and  the  —  interrogation-points, 
all  met  and  mingled  here  for  a  little  minute,  and  the 
cause  of  it  is  the  wonder  of  it.  There  it  stands  upon  the 
track.  It  is  number  110.  It  is  the  locomotive,  at  once 
a  beast  of  burden,  a  royal  charger,  a  civilizer  and  a  cir- 
cuit-rider. 

At  stations  throughout  the  way,  in  places  unutterably 


FROM   WINTER  TO    SUMMER.  63 

dismal  and  desolate,  wagon  roads,  stage  routes  and  horse 
trails  make  for  the  mountains.  No  man  not  gifted  with 
geological  eyes,  which  means  a  pair  of  organs  that  can 
see  through  millstones  before  they  are  picked,,  would  ever 
suspect  what  floods  of  disguised  mercury,  what  billions 
of  blue-pills  and  boluses,  what  caverns  of  honest  silver, 
what  spangled  nuggets  of  clean  gold,  what  Pactolian  sands, 
what  wealth  of  agates  of  price,  what  life-giving  springs, 
what  Cracows  of  salt,  what  fountains  of  soda,  lurk  in  all 
impossible  places,  as  if  the  planet  had  gone  into  bank- 
ruptcy and  hidden  its  assets  in  these  regions.  You  pass 
through  a  place  without  knowing  it  whence  seventy-five 
millions  of  pure  gold  have  been  taken,  with  a  two-mill- 
ion income  to-day,  and  the  world  is  there  still  —  not  so 
much  as  an  eyelet-hole  through  it. 

Unless  you  have  been  made  cosmopolitan  by  travel, 
the  Overland  Voyage  gives  you  a  lonely  far-away  feeling 
it  will  puzzle  you  to  describe.  The  air  is  so  clear,  the 
horizon  so  broad,  the  world  so  strange,  the  tune  of  life 
keyed  two  or  three  notes  higher  than  you  ever  played  it 
before,  that  you  catch  yourself  wishing  for  a  lounge  on 
some  old  native  sod  where,  if  your  name  is  not  "  McGregor," 
at  least  it  is  Richard  when  he  was  ^''himself  again,"  beneath 
a  rock  maple  that  gives  you  sugar  in  April,  shade  in 
June  and  beauty  in  October. 

We  have  rounded  Cape  Horn!  Grand  Pacific,  good 
morn!  Rattling  down  the  ridges,  bringing  up  with  a 
sweep  in  niches  of  valleys,  like  a  four-in-hand  before 
stage-houses  with  room  for  the  cut  of  a  figure  8.  A 
half-mile  down  and  one  hundred  and  ninety-three  out, 
and  there  is  The  Golden  Gate.  We  are  plunging  into  a 
carnival  of  flowers.     They  hold  up  their  dear  little  faces 


« 

64  .     BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

everywhere  to  be  admired,  and  why  not?  Snow-storm  in 
the  morning  and  midsummer  at  noon!  Read  over  the 
old  stories  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  believe  evei-y  Avord 
of  them.  The  chaparral  of  little  evergreen  oaks  shows 
bright  along  the  hills,  and  the  air  is  sweet  with  the  white 
blossoms.  You  pass  settlements  of  a  tree  that  has  orig- 
inal ways  of  its  own.  Like  the  Manzanita  tree,  it  does 
not  grow  in  Webster's  Dictionary.  It  is  the  Madrona.  It 
has  no  fall  of  the  leaf,  but  it  strips  off  its  clothes  like 
a  boy  bound  for  a  swim,  for  it  slips  out  of  its  old  bark 
and  is  fitted  to  a  new  suit.  It  borrowed  the  fashion  from 
the  Garden  of  Eden.  Its  wood  is  crooked  enough  for  a 
politician,  and  it  has  as  much  the  look  of  a  foreign  land 
as  a  date-palm.  Many  trees  and  shrubs  in  California  are 
evergreen,  though  there  is  nothing  about  them  to  make 
you  suspect  it,  and  the  reason  they  are,  is  that  the 
weather  is  so  wonderful  from  January  to  December  they 
never  know  the  proper  time  to  shed  their  leaves,  and  so 
"wear  green  on  their  coats"  and  never  change  their 
clothes  all  the  year  roundj 

The  valley  of  the  Sacramento  is  a  garden,  and  Sacra- 
mento is  the  "  urbs  in  Jiorto  "  of  it.  It  is  our  first  glimpse 
of  the  Celestial  Flowery  Kingdom  of  the  Christian  world. 
Roses  never  die.  Rare  exotics  that  we  at  the  East  cher- 
ish as  if  they  were  infants,  and  bend  over  like  new-made 
fathers  and  mothers,  are  distrained  for  conservatory  rent 
and  turned  out-of-doors.  The  white  dome  of  the  State 
Capitol  rises  like  a  pale  planet  above  the  green  surges 
and  waving  banners  of  semi-tropic  luxuriance  —  a  planet 
with  one  mansion,  the  Temple  of  Liberty,  and  one  inhab- 
itant, an  unprotected  female,  Power's  Genius  of  California, 


FROM  WINTER  TO  SUMMER.  65 

and  the  blue  dome  of  Mount  Diablo  lifts  in  the  far 
hoi'izon. 

These  are  the  spacious  parlors  with  their  seventeen 
thousand  square  miles,  and  all  carpeted  with  beauty  from 
the  silver  Sierras  "  at  the  eastward  of  Eden "  to  the  thin 
apparition  of  the  Coast  Range  in  the  West.  The  orange 
blossoms  are  abroad,  and  the  fruit  is  as  golden  as  the  three 
pawnbroker  planets,  and  as  green  as  a  walnut  in  its  first 
round-about,  all  at  once.  They  that  dwell  here  sit  under 
their  own  vine  and  fig-tree,  and  the  palm  waves  over 
their  heads.  The  stately  orchards  of  live-oaks,  in  their 
chapeaux  of  green,  stand  at  ease  in  the  picture,  to  coun- 
terfeit the  royal  parks  of  Old  England.  The  Sacramento 
River  wanders  down  on  the  way  to  the  sea,  while  cloudlets 
of  steam  and  flicker  of  flag  and  of  wing  mark  the  route. 
Taste  and  wealth  have  conspired  with  Nature.  There  is 
no  fairer  landscape  between  the  Tropics. 

And  what  a  blessed  country  for  Don  Quixote!  How 
"  the  knight  of  the  sorrowful  countenance  "  would  brighten 
at  sight  of  California!  The  Castilian  Alexander  sighing 
for  more  windmills  to  conquer,  would  have  them  here. 
Every  well-ordered  family  may  keep  a  dog,  a  cat,  or  some 
children,  but  the  windmill  is  sure  to  be  the  pet  of  the 
household.  It  is  an  odd  sight,  fifty  windmills  in  a  broad 
landscape,  all  going  at  once;  some  painted  green  as  dragon- 
flies,  some  red,  white  and  blue;  these  with  hoods,  those 
with  their  arms  bare  to  the  shoulder;  facing  different 
ways,  looking  square  at  you,  or  askance,  or  not  seeing 
you  at  all.  Insects  out  of  some  gigantic  entomology, 
whirling  their  antennae  at  you,  to  beckon  you  or  frighten 
you,  or  halt  you  or  start  you.  Then  with  a  little  whisk 
of  wind,  one  will  whip   about   like  a  cat   and   front   the 


66  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

other  way.  Some  of  them  have  tails  like  a  fish.  Others, 
in  the  rolling  country,  have  long  slender  bodies  of  wooden 
aqueducts  that  suggest  devirs-darning-needles,  only  they 
have  long,  thin  legs,  sometimes  four,  and  then  a  dozen, 
just  to  keep  their  dropsical  bodies  at  the  right  altitude 
for  irrigation.  These  fellows  turn  their  heads  like  hooded 
owls  on  a  perch,  and  it  would  not  astonish  you  much  to 
see  any  of  them  develop  wings  and  fly  away,  if  only  it 
was  not  your  way.  They  are  as  thick  in  California  as 
the  little  white  and  yellow  butterflies  around  a  wet  place 
in  the  road.  It  would  have  puzzled  Agassiz  to  classify 
them,  but  they  are  the  home-made  rain-storms  of  the  Cal- 
ifornia summer.  Look  at  those  coppery  hills  yonder,  dried 
to  tinder  point.  See  the  dust,  fine  as  Scotch  mist,  rolling 
around  the  wagons  and  enveloping  them  in  clouds  as 
was  old  -^neas.  But  how  brilliant  the  green  fields,  how 
new  the  flowers,  how  glittering  the  trees,  how  rank  the 
corn  fi'esh  from 
the  baptism  of  the 
precious  bugs  of 
windmills.  How 
sweet  the  air  as 
with  the  smell  of 
rain!  This  is  a 
rainless  land  from  ''~"^^'^'  '*4.1|.WP*^'^  '■J>DyQu^xore^7^'<*'"^^ 

spring  to   fall,  but  like  other   Ships  of  State  it  runs  by 
wind  and  water  all  the  same. 

You  plunge  into  a  tunnel  a  thousand  feet  long,  are 
gone  a  minute  in  a  kind  of  short  night  with  noon  at  one 
end  of  it  and  sunshine  at  the  other.  You  emerge  into 
valley  after  valley  with  picturesque  halls  between,  the 
mountains   keeping   company   as  you   go.     Diablo   draws 


FROM  WINTER  TO  SUMMER.  67 

near,  gashed  with  gorges,  his  robe  of  mountain  blue  folded 
away,  and  the  cowl  of  a  ghostly  Franciscan  flung  over  his 
head.  The  salt  sea  breezes,  such  as  Dibdin  could  have 
sung  a  rousing  song  about,  come  rushing  up  to  welcome 
the  stranger  from  the  alkali  air  and  the  shimmering  heat 
and  the  giddy  heights  and  the  everlasting  snow.  There 
are  pansies  by  the  way,  broad-faced  like  little  moons  — 
pansies,  and  that's  for  thought  of  thankfulness.  There  are 
poppies  scattered  abroad  —  poppies,  and  that's  for  forget- 
fulness  of  all  things  that  weary.  There  are  wild  lupins, 
true  blue,  and  buttercups  that  take  you  back  to  child- 
hood and  home  pastures,  where  the  reflected  tint  of  the 
floral  gold  upon  your  chin  told  the  secret  of  your  love, 
not  of  beauty  but  of  butter.  At  last!  the  bay  of  San 
Francisco,  with  its  gems  of  islands,  its  waters  doubling 
the  flags  of  all  nations;  the  Queen,  with  her  face  to  the 
Golden  Gate,  and  her  hair  wet  with  the  breath  of  the 
Pacific.  It  is  seven  miles  to  San  Francisco.  Say  it  is 
one  of  the  finest  voyages  you  ever  made.  Thank  God 
you  are  yet  in  the  United  States.  There  floats  the  twin 
of  the  flag  you  left  three  thousand  miles  ago.  The  denser, 
richer,  more  gracious  air  comes  to  you  like  a  familiar 
friend. 

But  let  us  not  ride  high-horses  to  bed.  The  sun  is 
sliding  down  into  what  you  never  saw  it  drown  in  before 
—  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  last  time  you  saw  it  meet  with 
a  like  calamity,  it  fell  into  Lake  Michigan.  It  has  strength 
enough  left  to  show  what  manner  of  person  you  are:  as 
dusty  as  an  elephant,  a  smutch  on  your  face,  a  kink  in 
your  hat,  and  your  ungloved  hand  shaded  like  some  smoky 
work  of  the  old  masters.  Let  us  leave  scenery  for  soap, 
and  beauty  for  broom  brushes. 


68  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

The  car  is  an  aggravated  case  of  the  First  of  May. 
Everybody  is  making  ready  to  move.  Leather  valises,  cot- 
ton trunks,  carpet-bags  of  the  style  that  it  takes  two  to 
show  the  pattern,  are  repacked,  the  wrecks  and  bones  of 
departed  luncheons  tossed  from  the  window,  cloaks  and 
wraps  shaken  out  of  wrinkle,  traveling-caps  wadded  and 
pocketed.  Dusky  porters  are  alert,  whisking  half  dollars 
from  coats  with  a  wisp-broom,  leaving  the  dust  undis- 
turbed, as  if  they  thought  California  tourists  carried  the 
sacred  ashes  of  their  forefathers  about  with  them.  A 
woman  is  polishing  her  front  hair  with  a  licked  finger. 
One  mother  is  washing  a  family  of  three  with  Desde- 
mona's  handkerchief. 

Everybody  is  going  everywhere,  one  to  Puget  Sound, 
that  looked  very  dim  and  other- worldish  on  the  old  maps; 
another  to  the  Halls  of  the  Montezumas,  where  the  grand 
old  hero  of  Lundy's  Lane  went;  a  third  to  Japan.  You 
open  upon  a  new  page  of  the  geography,  and  hear  more 
names  of  far-away  regions  in  an  hour  than  you  ever 
heard  in  your  life.  They  talk  in  a  neighborly  way  of  up 
the  coast  to  Oregon,  and  down  the  coast  to  Callao,  and 
over  to  Honolulu,  as  if  it  were  just  across  a  four-rod 
street. 

The  train  runs  through  Oakland,  a  lovely  live-oak 
suburb  of  San  Francisco,  thirty  thousand  strong,  where 
a  thousand  houses  a  year  has  been  the  recent  rate  of 
growth.  You  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  tropical  glories.  You 
see  hedges  of  fuchsias  and  walls  of  scarlet  geraniums 
twelve  feet  high,  blazing  like  the  Burning  Bush.  You 
see  walls  of  evergreen  carved  into  arches  and  alcoves 
and  gateways,  as  if  they  were  green  marble.  You  see 
the  California  quail  in  his  neat  uniform  and  his  quaint 


FROM   WINTER  TO   SUMMER.  69 

crest  running  about  the  door-yards  of  the  city,  as  domes- 
tic as  witty-legged  bantams.  You  see  bits  of  velvet  lawn 
as  emei-ald  as  emeralds,  and  intense  as  green  fire.  You 
see  ealla-lilies  as  large  and  i^ure  as  holy  chalices.  You 
see  a  cloud  of  foliage  on  a  distant  hill  as  blue  as  if  a  bit 
of  clear  sky  had  fallen  down  upon  green  trees  and  dyed 
them  the  color  of  heaven.  It  is  the  blue  gum-tree.  You 
see  Australian  shrubbery  that  never  knows  it  is  an  exile. 

At  last  you  go  to  sea  on  the  cars.  You  run  three 
miles  out  in  salt  water  upon  a  pier.  You  are  in  the 
midst  of  ocean-going  ships,  and  saucy  tugs,  and  fishing- 
smacks  and  rollicking  jolly-boats.  Men-of-war  lie  quiet 
with  cables  in  their  noses  and  anchors  at  the  end  of 
them,  nasal  charms  of  gigantic  dimensions.  You  see  the 
double-headed  fowl  of  the  imperial  standard  of  the  Czar, 
and  the  tricolor  of  France,  and  the  tawny  moon  of  Japan 
in  a  brick-red  sky,  and  the  calico-pattern  of  the  Hawaiian 
Islands,  and  the  splendid  flag  you  were  born  under,  more 
beautiful  than  all.  You  hear  fitful  blasts  of  music  from 
the  distant  decks.  You  see  lines  of  ports  like  the  finger- 
holes  of  flutes  along  the  ships'  sides.  They  are  the  bur- 
rows of  thunder  and  lightning. 

The    little    company   here    separate.      Good-byes    and 

good  wishes  interchange,  and  we  part  with  a  figurative 

"  cup  of  kindness "  at  our  lips,  and  few,  I  dare  say,  left 

the  train  who  could  not  have  joined  in  the  sad  old  song 

of  the  "Three  Friends:" 

"And  in  fancy's  wide  domain 
There  we  all  shall  meet  again."' 

I  do  not  know  Pythias,  and  I  did  not  see  Damon  on  the 
train,  but  I  do  know  that  just  in  proportion  as  men  be- 
come truly  human,  they  grow  frank  and  friendly. 


70  BKTWEEN   THE   GATES. 

You  board  one  of  the  grandest  ferry-boats  in  Ameri- 
can waters,  El  Capitan,  vast  parloi's  on  a  bridge  that 
crosses  while  you  sit  still,  whereon  four  thousand  people 
can  be  borne  without  a  battle  of  the  bones.  Everything 
is  sweet  and  tidy  as  a  nice  little  bride's  first  house-keep- 
ing. I  recall  the  old  steamer  "Nile,"  Commodore  Blake, 
that  used  to  sail  the  fresh- water  seas,  with  a  pair  of 
golden  lizards  at  the  bow  for  a  figure-head.  It  was 
thought  grand  with  its  owlish  saloons  and  its  stuffy 
cabins,  and  its  hissings  and  sputterings  and  rumblings  of 
hot  water  everywhere,  and  its  perpetual  palsy  like  an 
irritable  volcano  with  an  uneasy  digestion.  You  could 
have  put  the  habitable  part  of  that  Nile,  crocodiles  and 
all,  into  El  Capitari's  back  parlor. 

You  left  the  runners  and  hackmen  of  the  East  in  four- 
and-twenty-blackbird  rows,  all  their  mouths  wide  open 
like  young  robins,  all  hailing  you  together  in  gusts  of 
Northeasters,  to  ride  somewhere  and  stay  somewhere,  and 
they  are  always  "  going  right  up."  Here,  they  meet  you 
on  the  boat.  They  accost  you  confidentially,  they  touch 
you  in  a  velvety  way  on  the  elbow  with  "kerridge,  sir?" 
They  are  "the  mildest-mannered  men  that  ever" — asked 
a  fare.  I  am  not  sure  I  quite  like  it.  I  take  a  kind 
of  malicious  satisfaction  in  watching  the  howling  der- 
vishes, as  they  stand  just  the  other  side  "the  dead  line" 
of  the  curbstone  or  the  rope  railings,  and  howl.  It  is 
delicious  to  think  they  cannot  get  at  me  and  pull  me 
apart,  and  rend  my  baggage,  and  send  me  around  to 
various  hotels  a  morsel  apiece,  even  as  they  feed  lions 
and  variegated  cats  in  a  menagerie. 


CHAPTEK  YI. 


SAN  FRANCISCO  STREET  SCENES. 

SAN  FRANCISCO!  Crowned  with  palaces  and  dense 
with  business  houses  as  a  redwood  forest,  six  cur- 
rents of  life  surging  along  her  congested  streets  that  jar 
with  the  endless  thunder  of  commerce,  four  on  the  side- 
walks and  two  on  the  cars;  the  ships  of  the  world  cour- 
tesy ing  through  the  Golden  Gate  and  sailing  into  the 
Bay  like  stately  old  dowagers  entering  the  recejition-roora 
of  a  monarch.  And  then  remember  it  was  a  desert  of 
sand-dunes,  strown  with  seaweed  and  white  bones,  and 
desolate  as  an  old  African  Gold  Coast  thirty  years  ago,  a 
time  hardly  long  enough  for  a  century-plant  to  get  a 
good  ready  for  blossoming,  and  now  more  than  three 
hundred  thousand  strong,  it  faces  both  ways  and  con- 
fronts the  world! 

The  stranger's  home  is  the  hotel.  There  are  lions  and 
lions,  and  no  lack  of  them  in  San  Francisco.  The  Grand, 
The  Lick,  The  Occidental,  The  Russ,  The  Baldwin,  The 
Cosmoix)litan,  The  Commercial  and  *The  Palace.  With 
the  affectionate  republican  weakness  for  simplicity  you 
go  direct  to  The  Palace.  It  is  a  house  full  of  houses,  a 
kind  of  architectural  Surinam  toad  that  swallows  un- 
counted broods  of  little  toads  to  keep  them  out  of  danger. 
The  comparison  is  not  appetizing,  but  it  will  serve.  Five 
such  hotels  would  have  bought  all  Florida  at  the  time  of 

71 


72  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

the  Government  purchase.  It  has  seven  stories,  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  rooms,  eighteen  acres  of  floor,  and  has 
broken  out  with  bay  windows  till  it  is  knobby  as  an  old- 
fashioned  bank-vault  door,  and  full  of  eyes  as  a  field 
of  potatoes,  or  a  peacock's  tail,  or  an  overwhelming 
affirmative.  If  you  wish  to  hide  from  an  enemy  who 
dwells  at  The  Palace,  the  safest  thing  to  do  is  to  board 
there  yourself.  There  is  slight  chance  of  your  ever  meet- 
ing him.  The  table,  attendance,  rooms  and  prices  are  all 
first  class,  but  why  a  man  is  any  happier  on  a  vulgar 
fraction  of  eighteen  acres,  than  on  some  cozy  corner  of 
an  acre  and  a  half,  and  why  he  is  willing  to  pay  more 
for  it,  is,  perhaps,  a  vulgar  question  concerning  a  vulgar 
fraction.     It  is  annexing  a  State  to  get  a  bedroom. 

A  certain  degree  of  elegance  comports  with  the  com- 
fort of  the  average  man,  but  the  elegance  may  attain  an 
uneasy  magnificence,  as  when  the  luxurious  pile  of  the 
carpet  you  tread  yields  to  your  foot,  resembling  a  leis- 
urely stroll  on  an  immense  feather  bed,  or  as  when  a 
man  unused  to  dwelling  in  a  huge  looking-glass,  is  con- 
stantly hastening  to  meet  himself  and  be  introduced  to 
himself  and  be  polite  to  himself.  This  incessant  meeting 
with  the  identical  stranger  gets  monotonous  after  awhile, 
particularly  if  you  wish  to  room  alone. 

The  bay-window  order  of  architecture  prevails  to  a 
degree  that  suggests  the  proverb  about  glass  houses  and 
geological  restlessness.  It  is  the  first  featui-e  the  stranger 
observes,  and  it  gives  the  city  a  Venetian-balconied  look, 
hinting  moons,  flutes  and  troubadours.  You  think  of 
Juliet  when  that  love-lorn  fanatic  of  a  Romeo  declared, 
in  defiance  of  rhetoric  and  gender,  "  and  Juliet  is  the 
sun!" 


SASf    FRAKClSCO   STREET  SCENES.  73 

You  have  only  to  look  at  the  stately  fronts  mile  after 
mile,  with  all  the  windows  gracefully  leaping  out  of 
themselves,  to  read  the  weather  record.  They  are  an 
almanac  far  more  accurate  than  Poor  Richard's.  The  sun 
of  California  is  a  power.  There  is  nothing  to  dim  a  fire- 
fly between  the  king  and  the  Californian.  But  the  win- 
dows tell  you  the  people  crave  the  sun.  "  Pleasant,  shady 
rooms  to  let,"  says  the  New  York  Herald.  "  Bright, 
cheerful  apartments,  with  the  sun  all  day,"  says  the  San 
Francisco  Chronicle,  though  how  that  can  be  is  not  quite 
so  plain,  unless  you  live  in  a  lighthouse.  The  reason  for 
this  love  of  basking  is  a  misty  reason  for  one  so  clear. 
The  fogs  from  the  Pacific  seldom  rise  a  thousand  feet, 
and  the  Coast  Range  of  mountains,  lifting  its  magnificent 
sea-wall,  defends  the  land  from  these  ghosts  of  the  ocean. 
But  they  icill  drive  down  the  Coast  and  chai;ge  through 
the  Golden  Gate  like  clouds  of  shadowy  horse,  and  roll 
over  the  city  and  sweep  up  the  valleys.  Again  you  learn 
from  the  street  fronts  that  demoralized  glaciers  never 
bombard  the  city  with  hail-storms,  else  there  would  be 
"a  wreck  of  matter"  and  a  crash  of  glass.  You  look  in 
vain  for  one  of  the  old  tallow  chandler's  fixed  bayonets. 
No  thunder-clouds  open  ports  upon  San  Francisco,  and 
you  rejoice  that  you  have  escaped  the  lightning-rod  man, 
who  with  the  book-canvasser  and  the  insurance  agent, 
constitutes  the  three  deadly  sins  against  a  quiet  life. 

Street  life  in  San  Francisco  is  a  kaleidoscope  that  is 
never  at  rest.  There  is  nothing  like  it  on  the  continent. 
The  flower-stands  with  their  gorgeous*  array,  the  open- 
fronted  alcoves  fairly  heaped  with  floral  beauty,  as  if  Eve 
had  just  moved  in  and  had  no  time  to  arrange  her 
"things";  the  glimpses  of  bright  color  from  leaf  and 
4 


74  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

blossom,  that  catch  the  eye  everywhere,  in  mansion,  shop 
and  shed;  the  bits  of  bouquets  you  see  on  draymen's 
coat-collars,  and  blooming  from  broken  cups  in  tinkers' 
dens  and  smithies;  smiling  in  churches  in  prayer-time; 
adorning  brides  with  genuine  orange  blossoms;  strewing 
coffins  with  everlasting  June. 

Then  the  fruit-stands  that  are  never  out  of  sight,  with 
the  mosaics  of  beauty  spread  upon  them,  as  if  Pomona's 
own  self  presided  at  the  board.  Rubies  of  tomatoes,  plums 
and  cherries;  varnished  apples  from  Oregon,  as  cheeky 
and  ruddy  as  "a  fine  ould  Irish  gentleman";  pears, 
peaches,  apricots,  nectarines,  oranges,  and  those  cunning 
Lilliputs  of  lemons,  the  limes;  strawberries,  blackberries 
and  raspberries,  that  melt  at  a  touch  of  your  tongue; 
fresh  figs,  looking  like  little  dark  leather  purses,  and  full 
of  seeds  and  sugar  —  all  these  grouped  upon  the  same 
broad  table;  everything  from  all  the  year  round  but 
snowballs,  as  if  the  gifts  of  the  seasons  were  converged, 
like  sunbeams  through  a  lens,  upon  one  luscious  spot  of 
summer  luxury  and  brilliance.  You  halt  if  you  are  not 
hungry,  for  you  have  learned  that  the  richest  beauty  is 
not  always  in  the  flower.  You  find  that  fruit  goes  by 
avoirdupois;  peaches  are  in  pounds  and  not  in  pecks;  that 
it  is  not  much  cheaper  than  it  is  three  thousand  miles 
away;  that  your  dimes  have  turned  into  "short  bits," 
your  quarters  into  "two  bits";  that  three  "bits"  are 
thirty-seven  and  a  half  cents,  and  it  takes  forty  cents  to 
make  it;  that  pennies  are  curiosities,  and  poor  little  nickels 
nowhere;  if  an  article  is  not  five  cents  it  is  nothing;  if 
it  is  twelve  cents  it  is  fifteen.  So  you  buy  something  at 
a  "  bit "  a  bite  and  move  on. 

This   is   the   paradise   of   bootblacks,    the    rainless-sky 


SAN"   FRANCISCO   STREET   SCENES.  75 

'weather  from  spring  to  fall  rendering  "a  shine"  a  good 
investment.  These  artists  on  leather  have  little  wardrobes 
of  affairs  set  against  the  buildings  along  the  sidewalks, 
furnished  with  easy-chairs  and  foot-rests,  and  often  car- 
peted and  adorned  with  mirrors  and  pictures.  At  the 
first  glance,  they  remind  you  of  the  wayside  niches  in 
foreign  countries  wherein  some  saintly  image  is  enshrined, 
but  a  second  look,  and  the  saint  is  resolved  into  a  very 
earthly  piece  of  human  ware,  armed  with  brushes  and 
French  polish,  to  make  looking-glasses  of  your  upper 
leathers.  And  these  Mother  Hubbard's  cupboards  of  places 
are  as  good  as  a  weather-gauge  to  a  stranger,  telling  him 
that  the  year  is  one  long  genial  season,  neither  summer 
nor  winter,  but  the  tonic  of  the  one  and  the  glow  of  the 
other. 

And  there  come  some  strolling  players  that  are  not 
Hamlet's,  to  confirm  the  story,  with  their  harps  and  fiddles 
stripped  of  the  green-baize  jackets  of  more  inclement 
skies,  and  naked  to  the  very  bones  and  tendons. 

You  notice  in  the  ever-moving  tides  of  street  life  an 
absence  of  the  rainbow  tints  and  the  flickering  white  of 
woman's  Eastern  apparel.  The  hues  are  soberer.  Seldom 
a  day  in  a  whole  year  that  fur  sacques,  shawls  and  over- 
coats are  not  in  order  at  some  hour  between  sunrise  and 
bed-time.  It  is  July,  but  see  the  fur-trimmed  garments 
and  the  dark  cloaks  and  the  heavy  veils  go  flitting  along, 
and  the  sun  just  emptying  his  quiver  of  golden  arrows 
all  the  while. 

There,  drawn  by  a  span  of  horses,  is  a  mill.  By  the 
wheel,  five  feet  in  diameter,  you  would  say  it  is  a  grist- 
mill and  runs  by  water,  but  the  glimpse  of  a  couple  of 
big  dogs  chained   behind   discloses   the  power  that  moves 


76  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

that  wheel,  for  they  travel  in  it  without  going  an  inch. 
Some  animals  with  less  feet  than  Tray  and  Blanche  make 
incessant  efforts  to  advance  with  a  like  result.  Tied  to  a 
post,  they  can  travel  all  day  without  slipping  the  halter. 
That  mill  is  a  huge  machine  for  sharpening  shears,  scis- 
sors, swords  and  chopping-knives.  It  has  power  enough 
to  put  an  edge  on  the  battle-ax  of  young  Lochinvar. 

A  couple  of  breezy  voices  with  a  touch  of  the  fore- 
castle in  them  raise  a  song  above  the  din  and  roar  and 
sharp  Castanet  accompaniment  of  iron  shoe  and  flinty 
street.  You  turn  and  see  something  that  might  have 
been  copied  out  of  an  old  English  seaport  picture;  a  pair 
of  tall,  broad,  rolling  sailors  in  neat  blue,  with  the  flat 
tasseled  caps  and  the  neckerchief  in  the  conventional  salt- 
water knot.  Each  has  but  a  single  leg  to  go  upon,  and 
you  catch  yourself  looking  to  see  if  the  missing  member 
is  not  shut  up  like  a  jack-knife,  which  might  be  the  thing 
for  a  jack-tar;  but  no,  it  is  clean  gone,  carried  away, 
perhaps,  by  a  cannon-shot,  or  else  shut  together  like  the 
tube  of  a  telescope.  Well,  the  two  messmates  with  the 
one  pair  of  legs,  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  street, 
are  singing  jolly  old  sea-songs  as  salt  as  a  mackerel,  and 
swinging  about  on  crutch  and  cane  as  the  flakes  of  silver 
bits  rattle  down  upon  the  pavement.  Passing  children 
bring  out  their  dots  of  half  dimes,  and  hurrying  passers- 
by  remember  the  old  boys  of  the  blue  roundabout.  It 
was  a  pleasant  little  touch  of  kindly  feeling  worth  the 
time  it  took  to  see  it. 

You  miss  the  trim-looking  fellows  in  belted  blue,  sil- 
ver buttoned,  becapped,  armed  with  clubs,  and  blazing 
with  stars  as  big  as  Venus  on  the  breasts  of  their  coats. 
They  are  not  here,  but  in  their  stead  men  in  gray,  neither 


SAN   FRANCISCO   STREET   SCENES.  77 

showy  nor  obtrusive.  The  streets  are  safe  to  walk  in  by 
night  and  by  day,  and  the  city  seems  to  a  stranger  to 
govern  itself. 

Here  comes  a  covered  wagon  emblazoned  "  Flying 
Bakery" — a  sort  of  flying  battery  of  batter.  It  contains 
a  table,  chairs,  stove,  cook  and  driver.  You  step  aboard, 
and  in  the  turn  of  a  hand,  muf&ns  are  served  up  to  you, 
as  light  as  a  wisp  of  fog  and  fresh  from  the  fire.  Brisk 
little  two-wheelers  go  darting  about  jolly  as  a  jaunting- 
car,  and  they  are  flying  butteries,  laden  with  butter  in 
rolls  shaped  like  a  fruit-can,  wrapped  in  tissue-paper  and 
sweet  as  a  field  of  red  clover.  Elephantine  four-in-hands 
drawing  huge  wagons  to  match,  are  forever  going  and 
coming.  Basket  phaetons  i-esembling  runaway  cradles  are 
working  in  and  out  amid  the  great  crashing  wains  and  the 
saucy  coaches  and  the  cars  of  all  colors,  as  busy  as  red 
ants  in  a  flurry,  that  meet  and  cross  and  run  side  by 
side  and  swing  about  each  other  in  a  free-and-easy  fash- 
ion. The  streets  are  gridironed  with  tracks.  You  see 
thoroughfares  lying  up  against  the  tall  horizon,  steep  as 
a  house  roof,  but  the  wagons  go  rattling  down  them  at 
a  reckless  rate.  You  see  a  car  at  the  foot  of  a  hill,  laden 
with  passengers,  and  waiting  behind  a  platform  car  with 
a  lever  in  the  middle  of  it,  and  an  engineer  without  any 
engine.  While  you  wait  for  the  horses,  that  platform 
starts  of  its  own  accord,  and  tugs  the  car  up  that  hill. 
It  looks  like  a  piece  of  witchcraft.  The  wooden  horse  of 
the  Arab  that  went  by  a  peg  in  his  ear  was  not  more 
magical.  You  see  another  car  coming  down  without  horse 
or  hold-back.  You  are  tempted  to  cry  out,  "  The  cars  are 
running  away  with  themselves!"  The  traction  is  an  end- 
less chain  beneath  the  track,  the  power  a  stationary  engine 


78  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

on  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  it  draws  up  the  cars  like  so 
many  buckets  of  passengers.  Looking  at  the  cars  black 
with  people  to  the  platforms,  you  say:  everybody  rides. 
Working  your  way  through  the  counter-currents  that 
How  and  eddy  and  whirl  around  the  corners,  you  say: 
everybody  walks.  Regarding  both  cars  and  pavements 
you  say:  everybody  rides  and  the  rest  walk.  The  Italian 
fruit  wagons  are  banging  about;  equestrians  dashing  to 
and  fro  upon  horses  that  were  born  free  and  caught  with 
a  lariat  —  wiry  fellows  that  will  gallop  all  day  without 
turning  a  hair. 

Sometimes  painters  used  to  go  to  Gibraltar  to  copy 
the  costumes  of  far  countries  that  set  the  streets  in  a 
blaze;  but  to  see  nations,  come  to  San  Francisco!  You 
meet  a  Spaniard  in  a  wide  hat,  an  Italian  with  ink  in 
his  hair,  a  correlative  of  frogs  and  soupe-maigre,  all  in  a 
minute.  A  California  Indian  in  still  shoes,  a  moon-faced 
Mexican  in  partial  eclipse  and  a  sort  of  African  by  brevet, 
a  Russian  with  a  square  chin  and  a  furry  look,  all  in 
three  squares.  You  elbow  South  Americans,  Australians, 
New  Zealanders.  You  accost  a  man  who  was  born  in 
Brazil,  who  hails  from  Good  Hope,  v/ho  trades  in  Hono- 
lulu. One  of  the  great  Chinese  merchants  with  an  easy 
gait,  an  erect  head  and  a  boyish  face,  is  coming  around 
the  corner.  A  man  from  Calcutta  is  behind  you.  "  An 
Israelite  in  whom  is  no  guile  "  is  before  you.  The  Scotch- 
man is  here  with  the  high  cheek  bones,  the  blue  eyes, 
and  the  cutty-pipe  and  a  word  from  Robby  Burns  in  his 
mouth.  The  Dutch  have  taken  us,  and  the  Irish,  do  they 
not  "  thravel  the  round  wurrld  "?  Of  course,  New-England 
is  here,  and  New  York  and  the  South.  They  are  every- 
where, but  show  us  your  Colombians  and   Peruvians  and 


SAN    FRANCISCO   STREET   SCENES.  79 

Sea-Islanders,  and  all  sorts  of  people  from  the  outer 
edges  of  geographies  and  the  far  borders  of  atlases,  as 
here.  Japanese  and  Chinese  signs  grow  familiar  to  you 
in  a  week.  Sclavonians  and  Mongolians  are  as  thick  as 
red  pepper  in  East  India  curry.  It  is  a  tremendous 
Polyglot. 

I  write  in  the  "  Metropolitan  Temple."  It  is  built  of 
pine  from  "  the  wild  where  rolls  the  Oregon,"  of  fir,  of 
sequoia,  the  giant  redwood  of  California.  Nothing  com- 
posing the  structure  is  familiar  to  Eastern  eyes.  We 
walk  upon  Portland  stone,  we  drink  melted  ice  from  the 
Sierras,  we  write  upon  a  portfolio  from  China,  on  paper 
kept  in  a  cabinet  from  Japan,  with  a  pen  of  California 
gold.  We  step  upon  a  mat  from  Central  America,  recline 
upon  a  pillow  woven  of  grass  from  the  ocean,  eat  the 
eggs  of  sea-birds  with  shells  clouded  like  Egyptian  mar- 
ble, sit  in  the  shade  of  an  Australian  tree,  and  swing  in 
a  hammock  from  the  Sandwich  Islands. 

"Stock  three  papers  for  ten  cents!"  is  what  the  dart- 
ing newsboys  say  to  you  when  you  land  in  San  Francisco 
from  the  Overland  Ferry,  The  swift  Mercuries  of  the 
press  are  cleaner  faced  and  better  clothed  than  in  the 
East.  They  are  not  gamins  in  any  Parisian  sense.  They 
are  vitalized  atoms  of  California  "stock!"  and  that  is  the 
key-note  to  everything  on  The  Coast.  It  is  a  household 
word  from  the  top  of  the  Sierras  to  tide-water.  The 
touchy  and  uncertain  thermometers  of  California  Street 
are  read  off  in  lonely  ranches  and  in  country  cities. 
Almost  everybody  is  interested  —  has  made  money,  lost 
money,  hoped  money,  in  mining  stocks.  He  has  a  bulletin- 
board  on  his  gate-post.  It  is  as  if  Wall  Street  were 
lengthened  and  widened  to  take  in  the  whole  of  the  Em- 


80  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

pire  State.  In  San  Francisco  they  deal  in  the  raw  mate- 
rial; bricks,  bars,  ingots,  right  from  the  mine;  wealth  in 
the  original  package;  in  what  the  mines  promise;  in  what 
they  perform.  East,  it  is  "  cash  down,"  it  is  "  stamps." 
West,  it  is  "  out  with  the  coin,"  "  down  with  the  dust." 
You  get  forty  dollars  in  silver.  Thei'e  are  eighty  pieces; 
forty  in  the  right  pocket,  forty  in  the  left  pocket,  and 
there  you  are,  an  ass  between  two  panniers,  albeit  it  is  a 
silver  lading.  How  deftly  your  Californian  pairs  out  the 
half  dollars!  They  slip  from  one  hand  into  the  other  as 
the  creatures  went  into  the  ark,  and  as  if  they  were  born 
twins.  On  the  Atlantic,  money  is  as  sonorous,  to  use  old 
President  Backus's  simile,  as  if  you  should  make  a  bell  of 
a  buff  cap  with  a  lamb's  tail  in  it.  On  the  Pacific,  it  is 
jingle  and  ring  week  in  and  week  out.  You  pay  as  you 
go.  A  half  dollar  sheds  its  scales  in  no  time,  and  nothing 
is  left  of  it  but  "  a  short  bit."  It  looks  larger  to  you 
than  a  withered  leaf  of  postal  currency.  It  is  more  dig- 
nified, because  its  gravity  is  greater. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  ANIMAL,   MAN. 

SAN  FRANCISCO  is  a  city  where  people  are  never 
any  more  abroad  than  when  they  are  at  home.  They 
support  three  hundred  and  fifty  Restaurants,  where  all 
the  delicacies  and  luxuries  of  this  season  or  any  other  can 
be  obtained  at  prices  low  enough  to  throw  a  Chicago 
caterer  into  bankruptcy.  Not  less  than  fifty  thousand 
people  eat  at  Restaurants,  and  live  in  lodgings;  perhaps 
thirty  thousand  more  at  the  ninety  hotels  and  the  eight 
hundred  lodging-houses  and  the  six  hundred  boarding- 
places  of  the  city,  besides  a  herd  of  five  thousand  that 
drift  from  lunch  table  to  lunch  table,  like  so  many  cattle 
grazing  in  a  range.  It  is  a  Teutonic  paradise,  there 
being  forty-two  breweries;  and  as  for  liquors,  there  are 
enough  to  make  a  pretty  heady  punch  of  the  Bay  of  San 
Francisco,  if  only  they  should  play  Boston  Tea-Party  with 
the  stock  in  trade  all  at  once,  and  rouse  a  fearful  revel 
in  the  sign  of  Pisces,  the  Fishes,  giving  an  extra  tumble 
to  the  porpoises,  and  putting  the  sharks  hors  de  combat. 
They  tell  of  "  dry  statistics,"  but  here  is  a  bit  of  the  wet 
variety:  there  are  drinking-places  so  many,  that  a  copper- 
lined  man  can  take  an  observation  through  the  bottom  of 
his  drained  glass  once  a  day  for  teti  years,  and  not  visit 
the  same  place  twice! 

And  there  are  two  hundred  and  sixty  bakeries,  enough 
81 


82  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

to  make  dough  of  a  small  harvest  in  a  week.  "  Our  daily 
bread "  is  tumbled  out  of  the  ovens  by  the  ton.  Seeing 
the  fruit  and  vegetables  everywhere,  in  a  profusion  and 
variety  before  unknown,  you  infer  that  this  is  a  gram- 
inivorous people;  but  being  nearly  run  down  and  made 
meat  of  yourself,  by  uncounted  butchers'  four-in-hands 
and  dashing  carts,  a  dozen  times  in  a  couple  of  days,  and 
learning  that  there  are  four  hundred  and  fifty  knights 
of  the  white  apron,  butcher-knife  and  cleaver,  you  are 
morally  certain  this  community  is  as  carnivorous  as  a 
Royal  Bengal  tiger. 

And  then  you  go  to  one  after  another  of  the  thirteen 
Public  Markets,  and  there  you  read  the  whole  story  at  a 
glance.  San  Francisco  is  undoubtedly  omnivorous.  A 
stroll  through  the  "  California,"  the  "  Washington,"  or  the 
"  Grand  Central,"  will  give  a  dyspeptic  man  a  desire  to 
go  out  and  hang  himself.  Everything  edible  that  creeps, 
swims,  crawls,  runs  or  flies  is  here.  Forty-pound  salmon, 
the  grand  fish  of  the  Coast,  are  heaped  in  great  red  slabs 
like  planks  of  the  red  sequoia;  sturgeon  hauled  out  of 
the  Bay  from  fifty  pounds  weight  to  four  hundred;  rock- 
trout  with  their  dappled  sides;  smelts  of  slender  silver; 
soles  that  look  as  if  they  grew  in  slices;  those  piscatorial 
infants,  the  white-bait;  calves'  heads,  their  smooth  cheeks 
and  chins  clean  shaven  as  friars.  There  is  one  now  with 
a  curious  Chinese  smile,  calf-like  "and  bland";  mouthfuls 
of  sparrows  rolled  up  in  their  little  jackets  and  passing 
for  reed-birds;  rabbits  that  simulate  rats;  lobsters  all 
claws  like  a  legislative  bill.  Here  is  a  table  that  runs 
to  tongues,  toes  and  brains.  Regardless  of  the  "  R's "  in 
the  names  of  the  months,  oysters   are  in  order  the  year 


THE    ANIMAL,   MAN. 


83 


round;  clams  likewise,  but  if  they  fail  it  is  not  so  much 
matter,  as  morsels  of  leather  well-seasoned  will  do. 

Shrimps — you  know  shrimps  —  are  heaped  about  by 
the  bushel.  They  are  ten-legged,  long-tailed  crustaceans, 
with  whiskers  enough  for  one  of  Campbell's  "  whiskered 
pandours."  A  plate  of  those  vermin  is  set  before  you  at 
a  restaurant  —  by  way  of  recreation,  while  you  are  wait- 
ing for  something  to  eat.  It  is  all  right,  but  how  mvich 
more  amusing  it  would  be  to  have  them  alive!  You 
could  plague  them  with  a  stick,  the  precious  bugs,  and 
the  restaurants  could  use  them  again.  Here  are  box  ter- 
rapins about  the  size 
of  the  old  Congres- 
sional snuff-box,  with 

a  head   at   one   end  ^    ^ 

and  a  taper  tail  at    ^^^^&^      .<       \  )  a?^^' 

the  other ;  sausages  0^^K^^^g^\^/^'~~^  i  ^  ' 
— "  the  savory  meat"  ^^^^^^^l^^^^^n  i  rf 
of  the  cad  Testament  ^B^^^H-^^S^* 
—  of  every  color  and 
size,  from  chimney-black  to  poppy-red,  and  from  puppy  to 
hippopotamus.  Mottled  and  speckled  and  marbled  and 
freckled,  they  are  the  very  mosaic  of  meat.  There  is  one 
that  looks  like  an  elephant's  foot. 

Everything  from  the  gardens  of  the  year  round  is 
here.  I  count  twenty-two  varieties  of  vegetables  upon  a 
single  stand.  Upon  another  are  cocoanuts,  oranges,  lemons, 
limes,  melons,  pineapples,  plums,  figs,  blackberries,  rasp- 
berries, strawberries,  apricots,  pears,  peaches,  nectarines, 
tomatoes,  grapes,  apples,  cherries.  Now  add  anything  you 
happen  to  think  of,  and  it  is  there.  Do  you  know  gumbo? 
A  green,  fluted,  West- Indies  pod,  coming  to  a  point  like 


84  BETWEEN    THE    GATES. 

a  spontoon.  A  little  persuasion  turns  it  into  soup.  By 
its  name  it  ought  to  come  from  Guinea.  Here  are  gor- 
geous flowers;  and  beneath  them  cages  of  dogs  and  doves. 
California  chickens  are  mostly  of  the  breed  that  Pharaoh 
had  when  his  coru'crop  failed,  and  their  corn-crops  also, 
but  ducks,  geese  and  turkeys  are  desirable. 

"JOHN,"  THE  HEATHEN. 

You  seem  to  be  in  the  sign  of  Libra,  the  Scales. 
There  is  John,  the  taper-eyed,  with  his  blue  shirt  and 
his  wapsy  trousers,  and  snubby  shoes,  and  his  black  braid 
of  stub  and  twist,  thirty  thousand  of  him,  going  about 
with  a  springy  pole  balanced  upon  his  shoulder,  and  a 
deep  bushel  basket  swung  from  each  end,  filled  with 
"  garden  truck."  Libra,  the  Scales,  catches  the  spring  of 
that  pole  in  his  knee-joints,  and  goes  teetering  about  in 
the  most  outre  and  monkeyish  manner.  If  you  leave  the 
city  and  plunge  into  a  caflon,  you  meet  John  with  his 
pole  and  his  panniers,  a  peripatetic  pair  of  scales.  He 
is  the  only  man  in  the  world  who  makes  a  trunk  of  a 
spring-pole. 

John  always  forgets  to  tuck  in  his  shirt,  and  if  he  is 
well-to-do  he  wears  two,  white  beneath  and  blue  or  black 
without.  He  finishes  dressing  where  the  rest  of  mankind 
begin.  What  would  you  have?  He  advances  backward 
and  retreats  forward,  and  falls  upward  and  rises  down- 
ward. He  is  the  animal  man  inverted,  subverted,  per- 
verted, and  everything  but  converted.  Discover  how  the 
world  always  does  anything,  and  that  is  precisely  the  way 
John  never  does  it.  Thus,  the  other  day  he  was  arrested 
for  stabbing  a  countryman,  and  where  do  you  suppose  he 


THE   ANIMAL,   MAN.  85 

struck  him?     Why,  in  the  sole  of  his  foot,  and  that  is 
the  Chinese  of  it. 

To  me  he  looks  as  much  alike  as  a  flock  of  sheep. 
Shepherds  tell  me  they  can  distinguish  any  one  in  a  flock 
of  a  thousand  by  its  face,  but  John  is  too  much  alike 
for  me.  I  pass  him  on  the  street,  and  then  in  a  minute 
I  meet  him.  To  be  sure  he  has  changed  his  shirt  and 
his  shoes,  but  he  has  kept  his  face.  He  took  some  soiled 
handkerchiefs  of  mine  one  day  to  wash,  which  he  did 
not  return,  and  his  name  it  was  Foo  Ling.  So  I  went 
out  to  find  him.  I  succeeded  in  three  minutes.  I  over- 
took him,  and  passed  him,  and  met  him.  He  had  those 
little  wipers-away  of  tears,  as  white  and  square  as  so 
many  satin  invitations  to  a  wedding,  in  his  hand,  in  a 
towel,  in  a  basket,  but  he  said  he  was  not  he,  and  I  was 
somebody  else.  It  was  a  fearful  case  of  mistaken  identity. 
The  streets  were  crowded  with  him, —  but  alas  for  Foo 
Ling,  it  was  fooling  he  was.  It  was  one  of  his  "  ways 
that  are  dark."  If  the  devil  should  have  his  due,  why 
not  John?  Without  him  the  Central  Pacific  road  would 
have  waited  completion  many  a  long  day.  Without  him 
San  Francisco  would  not  be  the  cleanest-collared  and 
cufffed  and  bosomed  city  in  America.  Its  inhabitants 
are  as  white  around  the  edges  as  the  brim  of  a  lily. 
Neither  in  New  York  nor  Chicago  do  you  see  faultless 
linen  so  universal.  A  laborer's  clothes  may  be  out  at 
the  knees  or  the  elbows,  or  any  other  exposed  point  to 
wear  and  tear,  but  he  is  quite  sure  to  show  a  bosom 
and  collar  immaculate.  John  is  a  laundry.  He  can  wash, 
iron,  crimp  and  flute  fit  for  an  angel.  He  is  handier  than 
Bridget.  He  is  master  of  suds,  an  artist  in  starch,  and 
a  marvel  to  sprinkle.     You   should    see   him   do   it.     He 


86  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

takes  up  a  mouthful  of  water  as  your  horse  drinks,  and 
out  it  plays  in  a  spray  so  fine  that  were  it  a  breath 
mistier  it  would  float  away  in  a  cloud.  People  have 
unfortunate  ways  of  putting  things.  They  say  he  spits 
on  the  clothes.  It.  is  as  little  like  it  as  the  feathery 
spray  of  a  garden  fountain.  People  visiting  China,  as 
you  and  I  will,  look  through  the  Celestial  markets  for 
rats.  They  hunt  the  file-tailed  rodent  like  Scotch  terriers, 
They  expect  to  find  him  hung  by  the  heels  to  a  perch, 
just  as  good  Christians  bestride  that  same  roost  with  the 
delicate  and  infantile  hinder  legs  of  Batrachians,  which 
are  frogs,  which  are  tadpoles,  which  are  polliwogs,  which 
are  the  verdant  scum  called  spawn.  Let  us  play  leap- 
frog and  be  happy!  Let  us  suffer  him  to  make  a  bonne- 
bouche  of  hen's  feet  while  we  dispose  of  the  gizzards,  and 
serve  up  his  bird's  nests  at  will  while  we  eat  pinfeathery 
squabs  with  not  a  bone  in  their  bodies. 

John  is  a  problem  that  never  got  into  Euclid.  We 
speak  slightingly  of  him,  we  despise  his  effeminate  look, 
his  insignificant  stature,  his  shirt,  his  slouch,  and  the 
three  feet  of  heathenism  in  his  back-hair.  We  scout  him 
altogether.  But  somehow  he  has  gotten  into  every  crack 
and  crevice  of  the  Pacific  Coast.  Like  an  invasion  of 
ants,  he  is  everywhere  under  foot.  He  is  born  into  this 
country,  not  one  at  a  time,  but  five  hundred  at  a  birth. 
He  has  made  himself  useful  within  doors  and  without. 
We  eat  of  his  cookery,  we  wear  the  garments  he  has 
kissed  with  a  hot  iron,  we  ride  over  the  railroads  he  has 
builded,  and  lie  upon  the  pillow  he  has  smoothed.  Dogs 
have  been  known  to  take  to  cats  instead  of  after  them, 
but  it  is  not  the  rule.  Americans  have  been  known  to 
love  John,  but  it  is  seldom.     The  sight  of  him  seems  to 


THE   ANIMAL,    MAN. 


.87 


rouse    something    of   the    ugliness    that   lurks    in    almost 
everybody. 

But  his  position  and  destiny  have  assumed  a  dignity 
that  commands  respect.  John  has  gotten  into  Congress, 
and  inspired  a  virulent  hatred  in  the  breasts  of  thou- 
sands. They  would  organize  him  out  of  existence  with 
the  Anti-Coolie  Societies,  and  the  Caucasian  Orders,  and 
the  White  Leagues.  But  he  is  here,  spring-poles,  baskets, 
opium,    pig-tail,    idols    and    all.     He    came    legally.      He 


?^««^ 


^af^,  Tue^"* 


LiS 


remains  lawfully.  He  labors  assiduously.  The  only  gen- 
eral sentiment  of  admiration  he  inspires  is  when  he  dies 
and  goes  to  —  China.  Sensible  men  want  some  of  him, 
but  not  the  five  hundred  millions  behind.  Those  mighty 
magnates  of  hot  water,  the  railroad  kings,  and  the  mighty 
ranchmen  who  cannot  look  upon  their  ranges  in  a  day's 
ride,  and  whose  flocks  and  herds  are  uncounted  —  these 
men,  these  monstrous  and  unnatural  products  of  the 
Pacific  Slope,  want  all  they  can  get  of  him.  They  would 
elide  the  true    "  golden  mean "    of   American  society,  the 


88  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

white  Christians  who  toil  with  their  hands,  and  leave 
Midases  at  one  end  of  humanity  and  heathens  and  slaves 
at  the  other  —  a  social  state  that  is  a  libel  on  the  age, 
a  disgrace  to  man  and  a  dishonor  to  God. 

"HOODLUM,"  THE  CHRISTIAN? 

Should  a  skittish  horse  come  suddenly  upon  the  word 
"Hoodlum,"  and  it  looked  and  sounded  to  equine  organs 
as  it  looks  and  sounds  to  mine,  that  horse  would  take 
fright  and  run  away.  You  instinctively  infer  it  names 
some  creature  of  the  cat  kind,  monstrous  and  anomalous, 
as  if  a  puma  should  swap  heads  with  the  great  horned 
owl.  The  very  tvord  looks  as  if  it  might  have  a  verbal 
lair  all  by  itself,  and  prowl  through  the  unprotected 
language  by  night.  It  is  never  found  in  a  place  so  rep- 
utable as  Webster's  Dictionary. 

The  thing  it  names  is  a  two-footed,  human,  semi- 
tropical  animal,  but  he  is  neither  the  rowdy,  the  Five- 
Poiuter,  the  wharf  rat,  the  Bowery  boy  or  the  bummer. 
They  are  his  congeners,  but  he  is  a  creature  of  finer 
grain,  of  hotter  blood,  of  better  breed  as  breeds  go,  and 
infinitely  more  of  a  power.  He  roams  San  Francisco  like 
the  ownerless  dogs  of  Constantinople.  He  is  never  alone. 
He  goes  in  packs.  He  is  from  twelve  to  twenty-two 
years  of  age,  and  seldom  gets  any  older.  He  doesn't  die, 
but,  like  the  fawn,  he  loses  his  spots.  I  beg  pardon  of 
the  fawn! 

You  see  him,  a  slender,  wiry,  active  fellow  with  some 
affectation  of  style,  a  jaunty  way  with  his  hat,  a  saucy 
jerk  with  his  elbow,  an  alert  and  saucy  eye;  a  free,  let- 
all-go  stride  like  a  panther's;  a  sharp-edged  chin  that 
can   pull  out    upon    occasion    like  a   wash-stand   drawer; 


THE   ANIMAL,    MAN.  89 

lean  in  the  flank  and  lean  all  over.  As  Christopher  North 
would  say,  he  is  "  scranky."  A  fat  Hoodlum  would  be 
as  great  a  curiosity  as  a  plethoric  greyhound.  He  often 
wears  good  clothes,  and  may  be  the  son  of  most  respect- 
able parents.  There  is  about  one  flight  of  stairs  below 
him  in  the  cellars  of  human  degradation.  He  has  a  ready 
tongue,  a  ready  knife,  and  a  hand  that  turns  to  knuckles 
any  minute.  Always  reckless  and  shameless,  often  des- 
perate, tyrannical  by  nature,  and  apprenticed  to  the  devil 
by  his  own  consent,  he  makes  night  hideous  and  darkness 
dangerous.  No  roystering  sailors  ashore,  no  bullies  on  the 
rampage,  can  compare  with  a  pack  of  Hoodlums. 

He  is  a  creature  impossible  in  any  country  with  a 
New  England  winter  and  the  homes  that  are  born  of  it. 
He  is  the  product  of  two  causes:  an  out-of-door  climate 
where  January  and  June  are  all  one,  and  the  loose,  no- 
madic life  of  the  Restaurants.  Home  has  neither  charm 
nor  restraint  for  him.  He  eats  where  it  chances,  he  sleeps 
where  "  the  wee  sma'  hours  ayont  the  'twal "  overtake 
him.  The  Chinaman  is  a  heathen  at  one  end  of  the  human 
race,  the  Hoodlum  is  a  heathen  at  the  other,  and  extremes 
meet.  In  their  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  they  are  a 
match.  Should  the  Hoodlums  increase  like  the  wielders 
of  joss-sticks,  it  would  take  a  standing  army  to  keep  the 
peace.  A  home-made  heathen  in  a  Christian  land  is  an 
utter  heathen. 

But  the  Hoodlum  may  partially  atone  for  his  damaging 
existence,  by  furnishing  the  only  check  to  excessive  immi- 
gration that  exists.  John  fears  him,  and  rumors  of  his 
fame  have  gone  back  to  the  Flowery  Kingdom.  The  rep- 
resentative of  "  cheap  labor"  is  the  object  of  his  malignant 
abuse,  in  part,  perhaps,  because  John  will  do  man's  work 
4* 


90  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

at  boys'  prices,  and  in  part,  because  of  the  devil  of  which 
the  Hoodlum  is  seized  and  possessed.  He  rings  John  by 
the  cue  as  if  he  were  a  fire-bell.  He  jostles  him  from 
the  sidewalk,  robs  him,  and  occasionally  kills  him,  to  keep 
his  hand  in.  It  is  a  little  as  if  the  government  kept  a 
pack  of  dogs  to  worry  John  out  of  America. 

Yesterday  I  saw  a  ten-year-old  Hoodlum  in  a  narrow 
street  with  a  troop  of  urchins  of  low  degree.  He  had  a 
pistol  and  a  chin,  and  just  as  I  passed,  he  ground  out 
through  his  set  teeth,  "I'm  a  bloody  robber!"  and  fell 
upon  one  of  the  boys  and  stole  his  hat.  The  villainous 
look  on  that  lad's  face  was  twenty  years  old  if  it  was  a 
minute.  Altogether,  San  Francisco  has  two  sorts  of 
heathen  —  the  domestic  and  the  imported.  If  she  could 
only  trade  with  China  six  Hoodlums  for  one  John,  she 
would  be  doing  a  living  business,  and  ameliorating  in  a 
local  way  the  condition  of  the  human  race.  As  it  is,  what 
with  debarking  from  foreign  ships  and  clambering  out  of 
home  cradles,  "  the  Greeks  are  at  her  doors,"  and  on  both 
sides  of  them  at  that! 

I  have  before  me  a  characteristic  visiting  card  that 
illustrates  the  possibility  of  eyes  changing  color,  though 
the  Ethiopian  must  keep  to  the  shady  side  and  the  leopard 
stick  to  the  old  spots.     It  runs  thus: 

BLACK    EYES, 

OK    ANY    DISCOLORATION    OF    THE    FACE, 

CAREF0LLY    PAINTED    OVER. 

PARTIES    TREATED    AT    THEIR    RESIDENCES. 

What  a  card  for  a  Donnybrook  Fair,  and  what  a  trump 
this  frescoer  of  human  top-lights  would  be,  to  be  sure! 
I  know  few  better  places  for  such  a  card  than  the  Hoodlum 
letter-box. 


THE   AXIMAL,   MAN.  91 

PICNICS. 

The  weather  has  a  singular  effect  on  the  calendar. 
Thus  a  California  week  begins  on  Monday,  and  the  rest 
of  the  days  are  Tuesday,  Wednesday,  Thursday,  Friday, 
Saturday,  and  Picnic-day.  Picnics  are  as  sure  as  a  Sharpe's 
rifle,  and  no  rain  ever  wets  the  powder.  A  girl  can  go 
in  satin  shoes  with  impunity,  and  her  "  fellow "  wear  a 
sky-blue  necktie  that,  if  it  could  rain,  would  make  the 
front  of  him  look  like  a  blue  gum-tree  in  full  leaf.  He 
has  as  little  need  of  an  umbrella  as  a  rainbow.  Nearly 
all  the  picnics  go  by  water,  but  never  in  it.  They  cross 
the  Bay  to  all  sorts  of  resorts  and  parks  and  gardens,  but 
they  never  get  wet  —  outside. 

Californians  are  gregarious  as  pigeons  and  clannish 
as  Highlanders.  Everybody  is  sorted  out,  from  tinkers 
to  architects,  and  distributed  into  Societies,  like  so  much 
type,  apparently  to  be  semper  paratus  for  a  picnic,  as  the 
"Minute  Men"  of  Concord  were  for  a  fight;  and,  like 
printers'  types,  they  sometimes  get  "set  up"  just  to  carry 
out  the  figure,  and  are  carried  out  themselves.  There 
ai-e  three  hundred  and  eighty-five  Societies  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, evei-y  one  of  which  is  bound  to  picnic  at  least  once 
a  year,  and  they  bear  all  the  names  ever  known  on  the 
Atlantic  seaboard,  and  some  besides.  There  are  "  Foresters," 
"  Red  Men,"  "  Knights  of  the  Red  Branch,"  "  Caucasians," 
"Janissaries  of  Light,"  "Oak  Leaf,"  "Ivy,"  "Pioneers," 
"  Kong  Chow,"  "  Twilight,"  "  Greek  Russian  Slavonian  So- 
ciety," the  names  of  its  officers  all  ending  in  vich,  as 
Zenovich,  Radovich;  and  those  amiable  animals,  "The 
Benevolent  Elks" — think  of  amiable  elks!  and  then  the 
Sons  of  nearly  everybody  —  Liberty,  Golden  States,  Golden 
Gate,  Golden  West,  Faderland,  Motherland,  Revolutionary 


92  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

Sires;  and  closing  up  the  column  with  Patrons  and  Sov- 
ereigns and  Grangers  and  Ranchers  that  seem  about  as 
much  in  place  in  the  city  as  a  camel  would,  swimming 
the  Hellespont.  This  passion  for  cutting  people  up  into 
orders  is  carried  almost  within  range  of  the  atomic 
theory.  If  one  man  could  be  subdivided  into  several 
orders  and  institutions,  by  reducing  him  to  vulgar  frac- 
tions, and  giving  him  all  sorts  of  names,  such  as  the 
order  of  the  Red  Right  Hand,  The  Good  Liver  Club,  The 
True  Hearts,  The  Knights  of  Shinbone  Alley  —  could  this 
be  done  without  killing  him  outright,  they  would  have 
put  him  in  a  condition  to  envy  the  unhappy  man  who 
used  to  stand  with  his  feet  apart  like  the  Colossus  of 
Rhodes  on  the  first  page  of  the  old  almanac,  to  be  butted 
by  Aries,  gored  by  Taurus,  roared  at  by  Leo,  shot  at  by 
Sagittarius,  and  abused  by  the  whole  twelve  signs  of  the 
Zodiac. 

One  of  my  first  experiences  countryward  was  a  church 
picnic,  by  steamer  and  rail,  to  a  lovely  place  called  Fair- 
fax, owned  by  descendants  of  the  Fairfaxes  of  old  Vir- 
ginia, and  neighbors  within  breakfast  range  of  George 
Washington.  The  boat  swarmed  with  men,  women  and 
children.  The  church  sang  hymns,  and  the  band  played 
"  The  Devil  among  the  Tailors."  Arrived  at  the  grounds, 
the  crowd  scattered  away  in  groups,  some  to  eat,  some  to 
swing,  some  to  dance.  The  band  struck  up  while  sinners 
danced  and  saints  looked  on.  The  instruments  of  brass 
and  the  instruments  of  ten  strings  whirled  away  in  the 
dizzy  waltz,  and  "  Hold  the  Fort "  and  "  The  Evergreen 
Mountains  of  Life"  floated  up  from  the  hollow  of  the 
little  valley's  hand,  and  were  swallowed  by  the  big  bas- 
soon,    Sunday-school  children  ran  round  and  round  and 


THE   ANIMAL,   MAN". 


93 


in  and  out  among  the  whirling  sets  like  squirrels  in  a 
wheel.  The  church  drank  coffee  and  the  world  drank 
lager,  the  song  went  up  and  the  band  went  on.  Nobody 
quarreled  or  collided.  If  JonahVwas  in  the  crowd  no- 
body threw  him  overboard,  for  the  heavens  and  the  earth 
were  fair  and  calm  as  old  Ben  Adhem's  dream  of  peace. 
It  was  a  curious  spectacle.  It  was  a  sort  of  Happy 
Family.  It  was  a  little  as  if  the  leopard  lay  down  with 
the  lamb  and  didn't  eat  it,  and  the  little  child  interviewed 
the  lion  without  a  scratch,  and  the  fatling  became  a  great 
calf.  What  sort  of  vignette  for  a  Millennium  Hymn  the 
scene  would  make,  would  take  an  artist's  eye  to  see,  but 
at  least  it  was  worth  the  record,  as  showing  how  climate 
expands  latitudes  tlntil  every  degree  is  a  hundred  miles 
long. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 


COAST,  FORTY-NINERS  AND  CLIMATE. 

THE  geographies  have  been  amended  so  that  there  is 
but  one  ocean,  and  the  ocean  has  but  one  coast, 
and  the  coast  is  California- — the  widest,  longest,  liveliest, 
richest,  grandest  coast  that  ever  had  an  edge  in  salt 
water  —  nine  hundred  miles  one  way  by  a  thousand  the 
other.  It  would  seem  to  a  modest  Eastern  eye  that  nine 
hundred  thousand  square  miles  of  nothing  but  continen- 
tal selvedge  must  lap  inland  territory  pretty  broadly,  but 
it  does  not.  The  world  is  divided  into  Europe,  Asia, 
Africa,  South  America,  Madagascar,  British  America,  the 
United  States  and  California,  and  the  last  is  like  charity — 
it  is  the  greatest. 

"  The  Coast."  That  is  what  they  call  it,  and  to  him 
who  sees  it  to-day  and  remembers  it  twenty-nine  years 
ago,  the  sublime  assurance  of  the  emphatic  phrase  seems 
pardonable,  and  resentment  is  succeeded  by  an  amiable 
smile.  A  sort  of  defiant  self-reliance  characterizes  your 
genuine  Californian.  He  was  educated  to  it  in  the  tough- 
est and  rudest  of  schools.  He  found  himself  divorced 
from  the  world  —  and  sometimes  from  his  wife  —  by  an 
ox-team  trail  of  two  thousand  miles  through  deserts  and 
over  mountains  on  the  one  side,  and  a  voyage  on  two 
oceans  through  a  couple  of  zones  and  around  Cape  Horn 
on  the  other.     He  was  about  as  naked-handed  as  Robin- 

94 


COAST,    FORTY-NINERS   AND   CLIMATE.  95 

son  Crusoe  before  he  caught  his  first  goat.'  From  the 
time  he  wanted  it  to  the  time  he  got  it  made  everything 
a  year  old  when  it  was  born  into  California.  What  he 
did,  this  great  city,  this  marvelous  country  shows  forth 
on  every  hand.  He  fell  to  and  made  everything  himself. 
You  find  San  Francisco,  in  art,  invention,  production, 
science,  about  as  self-sustaining  as  an  independent  planet. 
He  began  with  tents.  He  ended  with  palaces.  His  wife 
wanted  silk  for  a  dress.  He  made  it.  His  daughter  de- 
sired a  piano.  He  made  it.  His  children  play  "jack- 
stones"  with  agates.  He  grows  gold.  He  cultivates 
silver.  He  bottles  mercury.  He  raises  stock  country- 
ward  and  stocks  cityward.  He  has  gone  to  manufactur- 
ing doctors,  lawyers  and  preachers.  He  has  raised  Mil- 
tons  that  are  "  inglorious  "  because  they  are  not  *'  mute." 
He  has  not  reared  anybody  to  his  prime  yet.  He  hasn't 
had  time.  You  can  raise  perfect  women  in  twenty-five 
years,  but  men  that  are  going  to  stand  late  frosts  and 
blights  and  early  Autumns  and  Northers,  do  not  get  ripe 
at  twenty-seven.  They  taste  of  the  rind,  the  husk,  the 
shell,  or  whatever  kind  of  human  fruit  they  are  meant 
to  make. 

The  Californian  twenty-two  carats  fine  is  twenty-nine 
years  old  in  this  year  of  grace  '78.  No  matter  how  old 
he  was  when  he  came  here.  If  he  came  in  '49,  that's  the 
year  of  his  birth  by  California  noon-marks  and  calendars. 
He  forgets  that  he  was  ever  born  before,  or  born  any- 
where else.  He  forgets  what  he  left  behind  him,  even 
to  the  girl,  sometimes,  and  like  the  last  fowl  that  left 
the  Ark,  he  never  returns.  You  meet  him  every  day. 
He  tells  you  he  has  not  been  East  in  twenty  years,  and 
he  has  no  idea  of  going  in  twenty  more.     He  knows  as 


96  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

much  of  the  trans-continental  railroad  as  he  does  of  the 
stage- route  to  Jericho. 

There  is  an  association  of  Forty-niners  called  The 
Pioneers.  "  The  king  can  do  no  wrong,"  and  they  all  be- 
long to  the  royal  family,  eldest  sons,  every  man  of  them. 
They  have  kept  pace  with  "  The  Coast,"  and  it  has  been 
a  round  one,  but  they  have  not  marched  abreast  with  the 
Eastern  vrorld.  They  are  ignorant  what  gigantic  strides 
the  Atlantic  coast  —  let  us  be  modest,  and  bridle  it  with 
an  adjective  and  humble  it  v^rith  a  little  "  c " — and  the 
inter-ocean  empires  are  making.  They  came  when  Cali- 
fornia Was  not  a  State,  but  a  predicament;  when  it  was  a 
Spanish-Russian-Indian-Mexican  wilderness,  and  about  as 
hideous  and  inhospitable  as  an  Hyrcanian  tiger.  They 
spoke  of  home  as  "the  States,"  and  it  has  descended  as 
a  tradition,  and  so  you  hear  the  suckling  California  neo- 
phytes of  half-a-dozen  years  talk  flippantly  of  "  the  States." 
The  impudent  infants  should  be  sent,  but  not  exactly 
with  palm  branches  in  their  hands,  supperless  to  bed. 

But  for  your  genuine  old  Forty-niner,  covered  with 
Spanish  moss  and  mistletoe,  there  is  some  apology  when 
he  says  "  the  States."  It  is  a  fragment  of  his  ancient 
talk.  And  yet  there  is  an  evident  relish  in  it  to  him, 
as  if  California  were  not  in  the  Union  at  all,  but  an  in- 
dependent existence.  He  scorns  its  greenbacks,  its  nickels 
and  its  copper  goddesses  of  Liberty.  He  is  impatient  of 
criticism.  He  thinks  you  an  infant,  and  therefore  speech- 
less, because  you  are  new  to  California.  Should  he  find 
a  toad  in  the  center  of  a  Coast  boulder,  he  would  doff 
his  hat  to  him  as  to  a  Californian  older  than  himself. 

The  hearty,  enthusiastic,  unreasoning  love  of  Califor- 
nia that  inspires  almost  everybody  in  it  is  refreshing  be- 


COAST,    FORTY-NINERS   AND   CLIMATE.  97 

cause  it  is  genuine.  You  cannot  be  around  with  it  a 
great  wliile  without  catching  it  yourself.  It  is  a  sort  of 
condensed  abridgment  of  old  John  Adams  patriotism, 
bound  like  a  book  in  the  covei'S  of  California.  They 
cheer  "  old  glory "  with  the  ardor  of  a  perennial  Fourth 
of  July,  but  it  looks  grander  and  lovelier,  flaring  like  a 
flame  of  fire  in  the  gales  from  the  Pacific,  than  drooping 
from  its  staft'  over  the  dome  of  the  Federal  Capitol.  It 
quite  startles  you  to  hear  a  band  strike  up  "  Hail  Co- 
lumbia," as  if  they  knew  it,  and  not  "  Hail  California,''^ 
as  if  it  played  of  its  own  accord.  The  wonder  is,  that 
there  has  not  been  a  Coast  Anthem  before  now,  a  sort 
of  private  "  Marseillaise  "  of  their  own. 

The  climate  of  the  Coast  stimulates  men  and  women 
like  wine.  It  gives  them  courage  that  is  not  Dutch  but 
weather,  and  confidence  that  is  not  conceit  but  intoxi- 
cation. It  quickens  the  pulse  and  the  step  and  the 
brain.  It  sends  them  wild  for  pleasurable  excitement. 
It  strengthens  the  passions.  It  keeps  everybody  under 
whip  and  spur.  It  makes  him  impatient  of  patience. 
You  live  ten  years  in  five,  and  it  is  scored  against  you. 
It  is  a  debt  with  inevitable  payment.  A  man  who  has 
not  attained  his  mental  growth  can  come  here  and  shoot 
up  for  ten  years  like  a  rocket.  But  alas,  when  he  comes 
down,  it  is  sudden,  abrupt,  like  "  the  stick."  A  man  who 
has  reached  his  law  of  limitation  can  migrate  to  Cali- 
fornia, and  flash  up  brilliantly  a  little  longer. 

Watch  bricklayers,  brisk  in  their  motions  as  busy 
ants.  Those  men  at  the  East  would  move  with  the  de- 
liberation of  an  old  hall-clock  pendulum  with  the  weights 
just  running  down.  It  is  the  climate.  Seventy  miles  in 
twenty-four  hours  at  the  East,  over  a  satin  road  in  De- 
5 


98  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

cember,  is  a  Jehu  of  a  drive.  Here  sixty  miles  before 
sunset  hurts  nobody.  Your  horse  has  been  drinking  Cali- 
fornia air.  He  will  do  his  best,  or  die  a-trying.  But 
he  will  not  last,  any  more  than  his  master.  He  will 
want  an  exti'a  feed.  The  driver  will  want  an  exti'a 
drink.  He  cannot  be  a  chameleon.  He  cannot  live  for- 
ever on  air.  He  looks  in  a  tumbler  for  a  stimulant. 
By-and-by  he  flickers,  and  it  is  "o»/,  brief  candle!"  It 
is  the  climate.     It  sharpens  appetite. 

Boys  and  girls  are  born  with  percussion  caps  on. 
Touch  them  and  they  explode.  They  ripen  early,  in  this 
sun  and  tonic  air,  into  manhood  and  womanhood.  You 
can  see  mothers  of  fourteen,  and  see  no  marvel.  About 
forty  thousand  pupils  are  enrolled  in  the  fifty-six  public 
schools  of  San  Francisco,  and  seven  thousand  in  the  hun- 
dred and  twenty  private  schools  and  colleges.  It  is  quite 
as  difficult  to  govern  the  young  human  California  animal 
as  it  is  to  catch  up  a  globule  of  quicksilver  from  a  mar- 
ble table  with  a  thumb  and  finger.  Is  it  a  boy?  He 
shouts,  runs,  leaps,  struggles,  just  as  his  pulse  beats  — 
because  he  cannot  stop  it.  He  has  opinions,  though  his 
beard  is  a  peachy  down.  He  is  as  positive  as  a  trip- 
hammer. Is  it  a  girl?  She  is  as  volatile  as  Cologne,  her 
voice  is  joyous,  her  step  a  dancer's,  her  laugh  contagious. 
She  is  as  dashing  as  a  yacht  in  a  white-cap  breeze. 

I  live  neighbor  to  the  Lincoln  School,  as  fine  a  struc- 
ture as  you  will  find  anywhere,  and  set  in  the  midst  of 
a  semi-tropical  garden.  You  should  see  the  twelve  hun- 
dred boys  and  girls  "let  out"  at  noon,  and  then  let 
themselves  out.  Swallows  coursing  a  mill-pond;  ephemera 
dancing  in  sunbeams;  bees  swarming  when  the  hive  is 
full;  happy  as  speckled  trout  in  the  spring  brooks,  Izaak 


COAST,    FORTY-NIJiTERS   AND   CLIMATE.  99 

Walton  dead  and  the  anglers  gone  away;  not  boisterous, 
but  breezy;  not  rude,  but  effervescent.  You  would  not 
be  surprised  if  the  mercury  in  their  veins  should  distance 
the  mercury  in  the  thermometer  and  stand  at  110°. 
Quick-eyed,  quick-footed,  quick-witted,  they  are  forever 
on  a  "  spree,"  they  exult  in  a  state  of  chronic  climatic 
intoxication.  They  are  languid  as  lizards,  clumsy  as 
humming-birds,  and  idle  as  beavers  in  high  water.  Lazi- 
ness is  tried  out  of  you  and  blown  out  of  you  by  cloud- 
less suns  and  trade- winds. 

The  weather  is  as  varied  in  California  as  the  mind 
of  desultory  man.  Three  hundred  heroes  at  the  Pass  of 
Thermopylae  withstood  a  hostile  world.  Excluding  those 
that  wear  wool,  there  are  as  many  weathers  on  the  Pacific 
Slope.  When  the  king  of  Dahomey  and  an  Arctic  bear 
can  breakfast  together  in  the  morning,  and  each  reach 
his  own  climate  befoi'e  decent  Puritan  bed-time  without 
leaving  the  State,  the  man  who  fails  to  be  suited  knows 
too  little  to  be  happy,  and  the  bear  should  be  eaten  by 
the  "  forty  children "  who  alluded  to  the  Prophet's  ca- 
pillary destitution.  All  the  zones  come  to  California  for 
rehearsal,  and  then  they  go  home  to  delight  Hottentots 
and  Laplanders,  eider  ducks  and  cassowaries,  and  all  the 
sons  of  Shem,  Ham  and  Japheth. 

Nowhere  in  America  are  the  seasons  so  neighborly  as 
in  California.  *  The  impropriety  of  Winter  sitting  in  the 
lap  of  Spring  has  made  a  public  scandal,  but  when  Sep- 
tember is  on  whispering  terms  with  May,  and  January 
borrows  June's  clothes,  and  July  gives  all  her  rainbows 
to  November,  it  is  high  time  to  talk!  The  Winter  is  in 
the  Summer  and  the  Spring  is  in  the  Winter,  and  harvest 
is  in  seed-time,  and  Autumn  is  lost  out  of  the  calendar 


100  KETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

altogether;  and  the  siroccos  blow  from  the  North  and 
the  cold  winds  from  the  South,  and  you  must  sail  by 
the  almanac  or  lose  your  reckoning  and  get  lost  in  the 
weather. 

The  effect  of  this  loose  state  of  society  among  the 
Seasons  is  delightfully  apparent.  You  never  saw  such 
ignorant  roses  in  all  your  life.  They  bud  and  blossom 
the  year  round,  and  never  stop  to  undress  or  take  a 
wink  of  sleep.  Ripening  fruit  and  baby  blossoms  show 
on  the  same  bush  at  once  as  they  do  in  well- blest  human 
families.  Cherry  ti*ees  go  into  the  ruby  business  in  April 
and  keep  it  up  until  October.  The  hills  are  emerald  in  the 
Winter.  Ireland  would  glory  in  them,  and  the  shamrock 
grow  as  big  as  burdocks.  The  hills  are  tawny  as  African 
lions  or  Sahara  sands  in  the  Summer.  The  grasses  look 
withered  and  dry  as  tinder,  but  they  hold  the  concen- 
trated richness  of  the  year  cooked  down  by  lire.  Turn 
out  an  emaciated  old  ox  that  resembles  a  hoop-skirt  with 
a  hide  on,  and  though  you  would  make  affidavit  that  on 
such  fare  he  will  i-esemble  a  hoop-skirt  with  the  hide  off 
in  six  weeks,  yet  the  old  yoke-bearer  will  grow  fat,  smooth 
and  round  as  a  silk  hat.  The  cattle  of  California  are  un- 
excelled for  breed  and  beauty.  Go  where  you  will,  the 
splendid  "  milky  mothers  of  the  herd "  look  handsome 
enough  to  sit  to  Landseer.  Rosa  Bonheur  would  be 
tempted  to  desert  her  kind  and  live  with  them.  The 
butter  of  the  Coast  is  as  sweet  as  the  dew  of  June. 

The  dry  spiry  grass  you  see  is  hay.  You  do  not 
think  that  Balaam's  beast  would  covet  it.  It  was  cured 
without  cutting.  There  is  no  rain  to  wash  out  its 
strength,  and  it  just  stands  there,  desiccated  grass,  wait- 
ing for  somebody  to  eat  it.     You  do  not  have  to  tickle 


COAST,    FORTY-NINERS    AND   CLIMATE.  101 

it  with  a  fork  and  toss  it  about  the  lot,  and  comb  it 
with  a  rake,  as  they  do  at  the  East.  Wheat  cut  green 
and  stacked  is  used  in  place  of  timothy.  California  is 
the  paradise  for  laziness  and  grangers.  There's  a  field 
of  wheat  ripe  unto  whiteness,  ripe  unto  redness.  No  rain 
to  rust  it,  no  thieves  to  steal  it,  no  touch  to  shell  it; 
there  it  stands  waiting  for  its  master.  It  would  stand 
all  summer.  It  is  faithful  as  Ulysses'  dog.  It  is  not 
lugged  to  the  barn,  and  tugged  out  of  wagons  and 
"  boosted "  in  again.  In  this  field  they  are  threshing. 
In  that  field  they  are  bagging,  and  those  plethoric  sacks 
will  lie  there  as  safe  from   rain  as  a  heap  of  boulders. 

That  grain  will  never  know  its  owner  has  a  barn. 

if 

THE  PACIFIC  BREEZES. 

For  Eastern  blood  the  continent  has  no  Summer  cli- 
mate equal  to  that  of  San  Francisco.  No  languid  days, 
no  enervating  nights,  no  steam  to  breathe,  no  lightning 
flash  to  dodge.  It  is  in  the  route  of  the  trade-winds, 
that  make  a  friendly  call  every  day  for  half  the  year. 
They  come  through  The  Golden  Gate  like  the  king's 
trumpeters,  in  a  hurry,  but  never  hurry  enough  for  a 
hurricane.  More  tonic  weather  passes  that  gate  in  the 
afternoon  than  all  the  lungs  and  windmills  in  America 
could  dispose  of.  To  the  stranger  it  is  at  first  a  little 
strong.  Cold  catches  him.  He  growls  and  barks.  He 
thinks  he  has  that  musical  instrument  called  catarrh,  but 
wait  awhile,  and  it  will  turn  into  something  pleasant; 
the  catarrh  is  a  guitar,  and  the  cheering,  invigorating 
wind  welcome  as  the  "  one  blast  upon  his  bugle-horn " 
that  was  worth  "  a  thousand  men."  Often  in  the  morning 
it   looks   like   rain   and   you  think  umbrella.     You  fancy 


102  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

the  dark  and  angry  clouds  are  threatening,  but  they  are 
no  more  clouds  than  a  Scotch  mist  is  a  thunder  shower. 
It  is  only  fog  from  the  Pacific  that  rolled  in  last  night. 
It  will  all  be  neatly  reefed  by  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
like  a  ship's  top-hamper,  and  out  of  sight.  You  see  it 
coming  in,  leaving  the  tops  of  the  hills  and  swinging 
about  below  in  wreathy,  gray  gauze,  like  a  woman's  veil 
in  the  wind.  It  settles  upon  the  city.  You  button  your 
overcoat  against  it.  You  walk  briskly  and  breast  it.  It 
does  not  taste  like  the  fog  of  "The  States."  It  comes 
from  the  salted  sea,  a  sort  of  pickled  relish,  as  if  Lot's 
wife  should  become  deliquescent;  not  close  and  smother- 
ing, but  crisp  and  bracing.  And  this  fog  is  the  summer 
rain  of  the  Pacific.  The  spotted  flowers  revel  in  it  like 
speckled  trout  in  brook  water.  It  washes  the  air  out  as  a 
dexterous  hand  wipes  a  crystal  globe.  This  is  all  true  of 
San  Francisco,  but  right  in  the  midst  of  the  afternoon 
zephyr,  you  can  go  to  Oakland  in  thirty  minutes,  where 
there  is  not  wind  enough  to  flutter  a  flounce.  The  sub- 
urbs are  fairly  dappled  with  weather.  Take  your  choice 
and  be  happy. 

The  tourist  to  California  is  anxious  about  what  he 
shall  wear,  and  the  writer  being  here  to  tell  him,  is 
bound  to  be  explicit.  Leave  all  your  Winter  clothes  at 
home  and  bring  your  Summer  clothes.  To  be  emphatic, 
let  me  say  it  again:  Leave  all  your  Summer  clothes  at 
home  and  bring  your  Winter  clothes.  If  a  month's  travel 
in  the  State  could  not  make  this  vexatious  pair  of  con- 
tradictions as  harmonious  as  the  Four  Gospels,  then  leave 
all  your  clothes  at  home  and  stay  to  keep  them  com- 
pany. You  see  furs,  feathers  and  gauzes,  shirt-sleeves 
and  overcoats  all  Summer  long,  but  nobody  in  San  Fran- 


COAST,    FORTY-NINERS    AND    CLIMATE. 


103 


CISCO  ever  has  a  chilblain  or  a  sunstroke.  The  mercury 
ranges  from  60°  to  75"  during  the  average  year,  and  it 
never  drops  down  cellar  or  flies  out  of  the  chimney. 
Once  acclimated,  people  change  little  but  their  linen  and 
their  opinions  during  the  twelve  months. 

WEATHER  ON  MAN. 

Having  always  had  man  on  the  weather,  why  not 
reverse  the  authorship  and  have  weather  on  the  man? 
It  has  become  an  axiom  that  "  circumstances  make  the 
man."  Have  you  not 
been  puzzled,  some- 
times, to  think  how  one 
of  these  sayings  got  a 
seat  among  the  axioms 
and  nobody  objected? 
And  then  you  felt  a 
little  as  Haman  did 
when  he  saw  Mordecai, 
the  Jew,  sitting  in  the 

king's  gate. '    If  climate  

is  a  circumstance,  then  ^Nvntjct^^^ 

the  axiom  is  an  axiom.  A  poet  of  the  rude  Northern 
frozen  nations  is  called  a  scald,  because,  perhaps,  that  is 
the  pleasantest  thing  a  man  can  think  of  who  has  to  fight 
frost  for  a  lifetime;  but  did  you  ever  hear  of  a  great 
Laplander  or  an  intellectual  Hottentot?  Neither  refrig- 
erators nor  furnaces  are  precisely  the  places  to  develop 
standard  men.  Now  California  weather  will  make  a  man 
belligerent  and  aggressive.  It  will  put  new  springs  in 
his  temper,  and  make  it  as  quick  as  a  steel  trap.  It 
will  take  your  Eastern  neighbor,  who  used  to  go  about 


104  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

with  his  long  gray  coat,  like  old  Grimes's,  "all  buttoned 
down  before,"  and  compel  him  to  unbutton  that  garment, 
and  exchange  a  heavy  waistcoat  for  a  white  vest,  and  set 
him  sailing  down  the  street  like  a  sloop  with  a  brand-new 
foresail.  He  was  a  trifle  too  affectionate  to  the  American 
eagle,  especially  when  that  bird  was  perched  upon  a  coin, 
but  the  weather  makes  him  generous,  opens  his  heart  and 
hand  as  it  opened  his  overcoat.  And  there  is  the  other 
man  who  went  about  from  June  to  September,  his  shirted 
back  marked  with  the  visible  X  of  his  suspenders  like  a 
cask  of  low-grade  ale,  and  looking  for  cool  places,  and 
what  with  being  dizzy  in  the  sun  and  lazy  in  the  shade, 
was  quite  unable  to  master  anything  but  fans  and  ice- 
water.  He  would  be  delighted  to  look  for  truth  in  the 
bottom  of  a  well  if  he  could  only  stay  there.  He  is 
energetic  as  two  hundred  pounds  of  putty.  Now  this  other 
man  comes  to  California,  and  the  next  you  know  of  him 
he  is  up  and  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind,  marching  in 
the  blaze  of  noon  as  happy  as  a  sunflower,  and  never 
dreaming  that  oranges  grow  golden  in  the  very  weather 
he  exults  in,  and  he  mentally  adapting  the  beatitude  of 
Sancho  Panza  upon  the  man  who  invented  sleep:  blessed 
be  he  who  invented  a  San  Francisco  Summer!  But  even 
the  perfect  weather  does  not  make  a  heaven. 

San  Francisco  is  "of  the  eai-th,  earthy."  It  has  two 
atoms  of  things  that  are  both  in  a  lively  state  of  unrest 
in  Summer  time.  They  are  fleas  and  dust,  and  both 
products  of  the  blessed  weather;  but  the  first  are  only 
innocent  dots  of  acrobats,  the  mustard-seed  of  full-grown 
circuses,  and  the  last  will  leave  no  darker- trace  upon 
a  lady's  garments  than  a  pinch  of  salt.  The  first  day 
of  your    arrival,  when    you    are    filling   and  tacking  and 


COAST,   FORTY-NINERS   AND    CLIMATE.  105 

beating  up  the  breeze,  and  bowing  to  it  as  if  it  were 
a  friend,  and  blinking  at  the  dust  that  waltzes  at  you 
round  the  corners,  and  bears  down  upon  you  at  an  ana- 
pestic  gait,  as  Byron's  Assyrian  came,  and  you  winking 
at  it  all  as  if  you  had  just  made  a  joke  and  were  pleased 
with  it,  you  vow  you  will  go  home  to-morrow.  And 
when  you  are  hunting  from  chin  to  gaiters  for  the  prince 
of  leapers,  and  assuring  yourself  that  "  the  wicked  flee 
when  no  man  pursueth "  is  not  the  kind  of  insect  that 
has  just  doubled  the  cape  of  your  left  shoulder,  and 
taking  yourself  to  pieces  at  all  hours  and  never  catching 
anything  but  a  cold,  you  declare  you  will  go  home 
to-night.  But  the  weeks  go  on,  and  the  winds  blow  on, 
and  the  fleas  leap  on,  and  you  stay  on,  at  first  resigned, 
at  last  delighted. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


GOING  TO  CHINA. 

YOU  can  reach  China  and  not  "  go  down  to  the  sea 
in  ships."  I  went  one  night  and  returned  before 
the  cock  crowed  midnight.  Missionaries  used  to  sail  away 
to  Pagan  lands,  and  drop  slowly  down  into  the  underworld 
behind  the  great  waves  that  lapped  the  horizon.  Now, 
they  can  visit  the  "  Central  Flowery  Kingdom "  without 
wetting  their  feet.  We  boys  used  to  fancy  that  somewhere 
or  other  there  was  a  hole  through  the  globe  direct  to 
China,  if  only  we  could  find  it  —  a  sort  of  flue  for  the 
fragrant  cloud  supposed  to  rise  from  the  world's  tremen- 
dous teapot.  I  remember  looking  for  it  in  boyhood,  and 
flushing  with  a  discovery  supposing  myself  a  small  Chris- 
topher Columbus.  It  was  not  a  Chinaman  at  the  bottom 
of  that  burrow,  but  a  woodchuck. 

That  hole  has  been  found.  The  city  of  the  Golden 
Gate  happened  to  be  built  just  around  its  mouth,  and 
John  has  swarmed  up  out  of  it  like  swallows  from  a 
sooty  chimney.  Through  the  courtesy  of  the  chief  of 
police  a  party  of  friends,  of  whom  I  was  one,  was  fur- 
nished with  passports  to  Hong  Kong  or  Peking  or  Nanking, 
and  with  a  special  officer  of  intelligence,  we  sailed.  Fancy 
yourself  walking  along  the  gay  streets  of  San  Francisco 
in  the  edge  of  the  evening  —  streets  bright  with  light, 
pleasant  with  familiar  forms,  musical  with  English  speech, 

106 


GOING   TO   CHINA.  107 

and  feeling  all  the  while,  that  under  the  patriotic  flight 
of  July  flags  as  thick  as  pigeons  and  as  gay  as  redbirds, 
you  were  still  at  home  though  thousands  of  miles  away  — 
fancy  this,  and  then  at  the  turn  of  a  corner  and  the 
breadth  of  a  street,  think  of  dropping  with  the  abrupt- 
ness of  a  shifting  dream  into  China,  beneath  the  standard 
of  Hoang-ti  who  sits  upon  the  dragon  throne  —  that  tri- 
angle of  a  flag  with  its  blue  monster  rampant  in  a  yellow 
sea.  And  it  is  China,  unmitigated,  debased,  idolatrous; 
unmoved  as  a  rock  in  the  ocean,  with  the  surges  of  Chris- 
tian civilization  washing  the  walls  of  its  dwellings. 

A  strange  chatter  as  of  foreign  birds  in  an  aviary  con- 
fuses the  air.  A  surf  of  blue  and  black  shirts  and  inky 
heads  with  tails  to  them  is  rolling  along  the  sidewalks. 
Colored  lantei-ns  begin  to  twinkle.  Black-lettered  red 
signs  all  length  and  no  breadth,  the  gnarled  and  crooked 
characters  heaped  one  above  another  like  a  pile  of  ebony 
chair-frames,  catch  the  eye.  You  halt  at  a  building  tin- 
seled into  cheap  magnificence,  and  hung  with  gaudy  paper 
glims.  The  old,  far  away  smell  of  the  lead-lined  tea- 
chest  comes  back  to  you  —  the  pale  green  chest,  of  whose 
leaden  cuticle  you  made  "  sinkers  "  when  you  fished  with 
a  pin,  that  u.sed  to  be  tumbled  round  the  world  to  reach 
you,  with  Old  Hyson,  Young  Hyson  old  Hyson's  son,  Hyson- 
skin  and  Bohea. 

The  creak  of  a  Chinese  fiddle  shaped  a  little  like  a 
barometer  all  bulb  and  little  body,  scrapes  through  a 
crack  in  a  door,  as  if  it  was  rasped  in  getting  out. 
Lights  stream  up  from  cellar  stairs.  Odors  that  are  not 
light  steam  up  with  them. 


108  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

A  CHINESE  RESTAURANT. 
Yoii  enter  the  Restaurant.  It  is  the  "  Banquet  Saloon" 
of  Yune  Fong.  And  there  is  Yune  Feng  himself,  a  be- 
nign, double-chinned  old  boy  who  is  of  a  bigness  from 
end  to  end.  He  sits  by  a  counter,  at  which  small  bits  of 
human  China  are  busy  setting  words  on  their  heads. 
Under  his  hand  is  a  well-thumbed  arithmeticon,  a  family 
of  boys'  marbles  strung  like  beads  upon  parallel  wires 
and  set  in  a  frame,  wherewith  Fong  cyphers  out  your 
indebtedness  and  his  profits.  This  floor  is  a  helter-skelter 
of  store-house,  kitchen  and  reception  room.  China  jars 
and  things  in  matting  and  things  in  tinsel  and  things  in 
packs,  and  seats  as  hard  as  the  fellow's  perch  who  was 
"sitting  on  the  stile,  Mary."  It  is  the  eating  place  for 
the  sort  of  people  we  are  said  to  have  always  with  us, 
to  wit,  the  poor.  Things  have  a  smoky,  oleaginous, 
flitch-of-bacon  look.  The  lights  are  feeble,  as  if  there 
were  nothing  worth  their  while  to  shine  on.  You  climb 
stairs  into  an  improved  edition  of  the  ground  floor.  The 
furniture  is  faintly  tidier  and  better,  the  table-ware  cost- 
lier. This  is  the  resort  of  the  happier  John  whose  "  short 
bit"  is  a  quarter.  One  more  lift  and  you  are  in  large 
and  elegant  apartments  with  partitions  of  glass,  a  sort  of 
oriental  Delmonico's;  gilded  and  colored  and  flowered  and 
latticed  like  a  costly  work-box  or  a  fancy  valentine.  The 
furniture  is  of  Chinese  wood  dark  as  mahogany  at  a 
hundred  years  old.  The  chairs  are  square  and  ponderous 
as  those  at  Mount  Vernon,  their  seats  inlaid  with  marble 
and  covered  with  mat-like  cushions;  the  tables,  rich  marble 
mosaics.  Lacquered  boxes  and  curious  cabinets  abound. 
Musical  instruments,  of  patterns  as  quaint  as  any  that 
Miriam  ever  sang  to,  hang  upon  the  walls.     There  is  one 


GOING   TO   CHINA.  109 

of  them.  You  can  get  an  idea  of  it  by  fancying  a  paddle 
of  a  pudding-stick  turning  into  a  fiddle.  The  Chinese  like 
to  have  their  ears  abused  while  they  regale  their  palates. 
A  carpeted  platform  at  one  end  of  a  banqueting  room  is 
a  couch,  and  garnished  with  two  cubic  pillows  of  some 
sea-grass  material,  about  as  hard  as  Jacob's  pillow  in  the 
Wilderness,  and  ingeniously  uncomfortable.  But  you  can 
see  a  ruder  sort  down-stairs:  hard  blocks  scooped  out  to 
fit  —  a  kind  of  wooden  dish  for  a  block-head,  and  nearer 
like  Jack  Ketch's  execution  block  than  anything  else  an 
unhappy  man  ever  lay  down  upon  and  fell  asleep. 

"WE'LL  ALL  TAKE  TEA." 
You  call  for  tea,  and  a 
couple  of  waiters  border  a 
circular  table  with  a  Zodiac 
of  tiny  blue-flowered  cups  each 
with  a  cover,  and  a  China 
spoon  as  broad  as  a  boy's 
tongue.  Pale  cakes  with  a  waxen  look,  full  of  meats,  are 
brought  out.  They  are  sausages  in  disguise.  Then  more 
cakes  full  of  seeds  as  a  fig.  Then  giblets  of  you-never- 
know-what,  maybe  gizzards,  possibly  livers,  perhaps  toes, 
but  not  a  rat.  You  must  be  as  crazy  as  Hamlet  to  fancy 
you  even  hear  one  in  the  wainscot.  Then  preserved  gin- 
ger and  Chinese  chestnuts  and  prepared  rice.  Last  and 
greatest,  tea.  The  drawings  are  in  the  cups,  and  Aquarius, 
the  water-bearer,  floods  them  with  hot  water,  replaces 
the  covers,  and  then  a  fragrant  breath  as  from  a  rare 
bouquet  fills  the  air.  This  is  tea,  genuine,  delicate,  strong 
as  old  wine  of  the  cob-webbed  vintage  of  '36.  This  is 
what  our  grandmothers  who  chinked  up  their  hearts  on 


110  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

"  washing-days  "  with  Cowper's  "  cup  that  cheers,"  sighed 
for,  and  like  the  ancient  leader,  died  without  the  sight. 
It  sets  tongues  running.  The  weak  are  mighty,  and  the 
weary  comforted.  The  pi'ecious  leaf  is  worth  five  dollars 
a  pound.  This  third-floor  restaurant  is  for  magnates;  it 
is  a  region  rarefied  to  "  four  bits."  What  you  leave  of 
the  tea  descends  to  the  next  floor,  takes  another  dash  of 
hot  water  and  is  served  up  again  for  "  two  bits."  The 
unhappy  grounds  drop  another  flight  of  stairs,  the  last 
pennyweight  of  strength  is  drowned  out,  and  "a  short 
bit"  will  buy  the  syncope  of  a  dilution.  Everything  goes 
down  this  curious  thermometer  in  the  same  way,  and, 
among  them,  they  come  within  one  of  eating  what  has 
been  eaten  before. 

THE  JOSS-HOUSE  AND  THE  GODS. 

You  descend  to  the  fresh  air.  Fong  'smiles  you  gra- 
ciously out;  you  cross  a  street  and  enter  a  narrow  and 
noisome  alley.  It  is  Stout's  alley,  and  the  scene  of  most 
of  the  murders  in  the  Chinese  Quarters,  and  the  causes 
are  women  and  gambling.  The  alley  grows  dimmer, 
and  full  of  Chinamen  as  an  ant-hill  is  of  ants.  Doors 
to  little  bazars,  to  nooks  of  sleeping  places,  to  alcoves  of 
shops,  stand  wide.  You  count  ten  in  a  den  where 
Damon  and  Pythias  could  hardly  have  dwelt  a  week, 
unless  they  were  both  bed-ridden,  without  quarreling 
about  cruelty  to  each  other's  toes.  Here,  they  are  fluting 
clothes.  There,  a  Chinese  tailor  is  chalking  a  pair  of 
trousers  on  a  table  as  if  he  were  drawing  a  map.  John 
does  everything  backward.  He  is  the  dorsal  fln  of  man- 
kind. He  is  a  human  obliquity.  He  might  have  attended 
a  school  for  crabs.      In  fact,  he  is  one  of  "  Crabb's    Syn- 


GOING   TO   CHINA.  Ill 

onyms."  Yonder,  a  fellow  is  cooking  in  a  dog-kennel  of  a 
place.  Unmusical  sounds  from  unmusical  instruments 
abound. 

Just  here  you  fraternize  with  the  policeman  and 
pluck  his  gray  coat  by  the  sleeve.  You  see  he  wears  no 
star.  You  ask  him  if  he  doesn't  have  that  silver  bit  of 
astronomy?  He  laughs.  "Oh,  yes;  here  it  is  in  my 
pocket;  but  all  the  Chinamen  know  me.''  And  you  see 
they  do.  They  crowd  up  toward  the  party,  but  getting 
a  glimpse  of  him,  they  execute  a  concentric  as  the  water 
in  a  mill-pond  does  when  a  pebble  strikes  it.  They  give 
us  an  horizon  of  shirts  with  legs  to  them.  The  white 
soles  of  their  shoes  show  in  the  uncertain  light.  It  is 
the  only  soul  about  them  of  just  that  color.  We  are 
lost  in  a  zig-zag  of  dingy  stairs.  We  are  surrounded  by 
dark  walls.  We  look  down  into  courts  that  are  black. 
Twinkles  show  faint  like  fire-flies  in  a  cloudy  night.  The 
murky  air  reeks  like  Gehenna.  Like  the  city  of  Cologne, 
there  are  seventy  smells,  and  not  one  is  cologne.  Within 
the  space  of  a  few  squares  are  twenty  thousand  Chinese. 
The  place  is  a  live  honeycomb,  barring  the  honey.  They 
are  packed  like  sardines  in  a  box.  Our  guiding  star 
whips  out  a  candle  he  has  bought,  strikes  a  match  on 
the  toe  of  a  heathen  god  and  lights  it.  We  are  reduced 
to  the  glimmer  of  other  days.  In  a  city  filled  with  light 
and  beauty  and  Christian  churches,  we  ai-e  groping  around 
in  the  dens  and  cul-de-sacs  of  a  foreign  and  idolatrous 
land  by  the  flare  of  a  tallow  candle.  It  is  gloomy  as 
grim  Charon's  ferry-house. 

Up  a  few  steps,  down  a  few  steps,  round  a  corner,  up 
a  whole  flight,  along  a  gallery  as  dumb  as  a  tomb,  we 
reach  the  door  of  the  Joss-House,  one  of  eleven  heathen 


112  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

temples  in  San  Francisco.  It  is  never  closed,  and  we 
enter.  Floating  lights  in  glass  tumblers  but  dimly  reveal 
the  place.  "Dim,"  but  not  "religious."  Gothic  flower- 
supports  of  white  metal,  resembling  square  candlesticks 
for  giants,  stand  in  rows.  The  inevitable  flare  of  bril- 
liant red  and  gold  and  silver  tinsel,  and  gew-gaws,  and 
huge  paper  bouquets,  and  black  writing  on  the  walls,  and 
spai'kling  rosettes  all  about,  as  if  everything  had  been 
washed  out  in  rainbows  and  the  tints  proved  fast  colors. 
In  the  great  shrines  are  rows  of  sinister  gods  with  trail- 
ing black  beard  and  moustache.  One  of  them,  a  trucu- 
lent fellow,  in  an  embroidered  night-gown,  who  might 
have  been  modeled  from  some  Chinese- Tartary  brigand, 
is  the  god  of  War.  Here  is  a  life-size  figure  holding  a 
small  grape-shot  between  a  thumb  and  finger.  He  is  the 
deity  of  Medicine,  the  Chinese  Esculapius,  with  a  most 
bilious  and  unhealthy  look  himself,  and  that  missile  is  a 
pill.  If  it  ever  found  a  lodgment  in  the  stomach  of  any- 
body blessed  with  only  ordinary  powers  of  deglutition,  it 
must  be  from  the  mouth  of  a  howitzer.  There  is  the 
god  of  Fortune,  with  a  nugget  of  gold  in  one  hand,  and 
John  sacrifices  to  him  with  great  fidelity.  You  pass  into 
another  apartment  where  are  two  lay  figures  of  young 
women  in  gorgeous  apparel,  canary-colored  and  gold. 
They  are  the  goddesses  of  Love  and  Beauty  —  but  which 
is  which?  One  of  them  is  watching  the  bridge  of  her 
own  nose  with  both  eyes,  as  if  they  kept  toll-houses  at 
both  ends  of  the  bridge,  and  were  looking  out,  or  rather 
looking  in,  lest  somebody  should  "  run  the  gates."  And 
the  other  looks  as  if  she  had  been  dragged  up  from  the 
Chinese  heaven  by  her  hair,  and  she  had  no  time  to  fix 
it;  but  there  she  sits  with  her  lifted  eyebrows  as  if  her 


GOING   TO   CHIISrA.  113 

head-dress  were  sleek  as  patience  and  pomatum  could 
make  it. 

And  now  we  come  to  three  idols  —  they  are  the  ele- 
ments. That  party  with  the  florid  face,  like  a  harvest 
moon,  is  supposed  to  be  Fire.  Seated  next  him  is  the 
dropsical  divinity  of  Water,  and  the  unethereal  neighbor 
at  his  right  is  the  deity  of  Air.  As  for  Earth,  there  is 
quite  enough  of  her  in  the  form  of  dust.  Possibly  they 
made  a  grist  of  the  goddess  and  sprinkled  her  over  the 
whole.  In  a  corner  low  down,  is  a  cross  between  a  small 
scare-crow  and  a  "  Dandy  Jack."  It  is  the  great  Ground 
Devil,  and  looks  as  if  he  might  be  his  own  rag  baby. 
He  can  raise  the  mischief,  which  is  the  devil,  with  sick 
people,  if  he  does  not  receive  proper  attention.  Before 
him  is  a  little  altar,  whereon  food  designed  for  invalids 
must  be  jilaced,  and  whence  he  adroitly  extracts  all  dele- 
terious qualities.  Thus  colic  is  eliminated  from  withered 
cabbage,  dyspepsia  from  toasted  cheese,  and  shark's  fins 
are  made  to  agree  charmingly  with  the  eater.  Near  the 
entrance  is  a  sort  of  mongrel  Vishnu,  seated  cross-legged 
like  a  journeyman  tailor. 

In  a  large  shrine  sits  the  god  of  Beasts,  a  sort  of 
Nimrod,  and  beside  him  a  brindled  cur  of  unamiable  mien, 
who  accompanies  his  master  when  he  goes  out  upon  mytho- 
logical business.  -But,  as  one  of  the  party  remarked,  "  a 
little  of  this  will  go  a  great  way." 

Not  a  window  visible  in  this  China  Closet  of  gods 
supernal,  infernal  and  mixed.  Doors  are  open  on  one 
side  and  another,  where  by  the  feeble  lights  you  see  John 
watching  you,  or  walking  near  you^as  stealthily  as  a  shad- 
ow. One  scene,  framed  in  a  doorway,  might  have  been 
painted  by  Rembrandt  already:  a  Chinese  Doctor  in  his 
5* 


114  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

robe   bending    over   a   book,    and    resembling   a   piece    of 
dumb  bronze  in  meditation. 

And  this  is  what  men  are  left  to  do!  These  garish 
figures  are  actually  worshiped  here  and  now  within  an 
hour,  by  human  beings  in  their  blind  gropings  for  superior 
powers.  You  cannot  believe  it.  Here  are  the  little  altars 
of  sand  wherein  the  small  gummy  cylinders  of  fragrant 
woods,  called  joss-sticks,  are  set  up  and  burned  before  the 
gods.  Here  are  some  now  but  half  consumed.  Their 
worship  is  of  the  economical  order.  They  give  the  divin- 
ities what  they  themselves  can  neither  use  nor  give  away. 
Their  board  does  not  cost  them  a  copper  cash  with  a 
hole  in  it. 

"TWELVE  PACKS  IN  HIS  SLEEVE." 

John  has  a  cunning  hand  with  a  good  memory.  Cards 
are  his  affinity."  He  does  not  laugh  in  his  bell-mouthed 
flowing  sleeves,  but  he  shuffles  cards  into  them  with  the 
adroitness  of  a  wizard.  You  see  the  smoky  dens  as  you 
pass.  The  gamblers  sit  around  the  table  which  is  classic 
but  fallen,  covered,  as  it  is,  with  grease,  "  but  living  grease 
no  more."  His  features  come  to  a  focus  like  a  fox's  as 
he  watches  the  play  of  the  cards.  His  mouth  puckers 
with  expectancy.  He  is  furtive  but  fierce.  His  eye  never 
brightens.  It  snaps  its  delight  when  the  four  bits  are  his 
by  the  turn  of  the  game.  He  will  wager  everything  he 
possesses,  wife,  children,  friends,  anything  but  his  cue, 
when  the  "cash"  gives  out.  He  is  not  fair.  He  is  not 
square.  He  doesn't  read  Latin,  and  so  he  misunderstands 
the  difference  between  nteum  and  tuum.  He  thinks  meum 
is  his  and  tuutn  his  own,  when  he  can  get  it.  His  "  pick- 
ers and  stealers"  are  deft  and  adroit,  and  you  are  daft 


GOING   TO   CHIXA.  115 

if  you  trust  him  much  beyond  the  range  of  an  ordinary 
telescope.  He  will  wear  a  close  cap  under  a  hat,  and 
when,  having  committed  a  theft,  he  is  pursued,  he  pockets 
his  hat  and,  behold,  he  is  another  manner  of  man.  He  is 
John  with  the  skull-cap.  His  tricks  are  as  old  as  the 
dynasty  of  Hoang-ti,  and  he  plays  them  well. 

AN  OPIUM  DEN. 

Blundering  our  way  out  we  pass  a  hanging  gallery, 
and,  as  the  song  of  Captain  Kidd  has  it,  "down,  down, 
derry  down"  stairs  that  are  crooked  and  dark,  into  a 
court  black  as  Erebus,  by  the  one  light,  but  "  how  far  a 
little  candle  throws  its 
beams,"  and  the  place 
looks  better  in  the  dark 
than  in  the  blaze  of 
chandeliers.  The  odors 
creep  up  from  the  din- 
gy floors  as  we  walk. 
The  royal  Dane,  had  he  been  of  the  party,  would  have 
repeated  a  phrase  of  his  talk  in  the  graveyard,  "  and  smells 
so !  Pah ! "  Our  trusty  guide  went  right  along  with  an 
assured  stride.  Black  figures  were  stealing  about  in  the 
gloom.  Nobody  would  wish  to  be  an  owl  anywhere  else. 
It  gets  inkier  and  murkier,  but  the  policeman  pushes 
open  a  door  and  lets  out  a  little  light. 

We  enter  a  small  box  about  eight  by  ten,  not  much 
larger  than  some  window-panes.  As  for  window,  this 
room  has  not  so  much  as  a  snuff-box  has.  Compared  with 
it  the  tomb  of  the  Capulets  is  light  and  airy  as  a  belfry. 
A  table  in  the  center  holds  a  lamp.  The  sides  of  the 
room  are  fitted  up  with  stationary  bunks.     The  proprietor 


116  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

sits  curled  up  in  a  lower  one,  smoking  tobacco,  for  even 
this  cul-de-sac  of  creation  has  an  owner.  You  are  in  an 
opium  den.  A  guest  lies  at  length  upon  his  shelf,  cun- 
ningly taking  up  on  a  wire,  drop  after  drop  of  crude  opium, 
black  as  old-time  molasses,  and  by  the  flame  of  a  little 
lamp  beside  him  he  heats  it  and  rolls  it  round  the  point 
of  the  wire,  until  at  last  it  is  a  little  bead  the  size  of  a 
marrowfat  pea.  The  bowl  of  the  rosewood  pipe  has  a 
cover  perforated  in  the  center,  with  a  hole  somewhat 
smaller,  if  anything,  than  the  room  you  are  in.  He 
thrusts  the  bead  into  the  aperture,  lights  it,  and  then 
putting  a  stem  like  the  little  end  of  a  fife  to  his  lips, 
he  pulls  for  a  breath  of  the  drowsy  god.  The  drug  hisses 
like  a  fragment  of  frying  meat,  but  he  draws  steadily 
till  the  narcotic  smoke  begins  to  roll  from  his  mouth 
and  nose  in  clear  blue  volumes. 

THE  OPIUM-SMOKER'S  DREAM. 
His  head  reposes  upon  the  block.  He  begins  to  be  at 
peace.  You  ask  him,  "How  many  smoke?"  "Ten  mo'," 
he  says.  The  night's  luxury  will  cost  him  "  six  bits," 
which  includes  bed,  board  and  bliss.  He  has  visions,  but 
he  never  tells  them.  He  sees  a  pagoda  of  gold  that  is 
his,  and  the  gods  that  are  in  it  are  his,  and  they  rustle 
in  cloth  of  gold,  and  jewels  glitter  like  restless  eyes  upon 
their  breasts.  For  the  little  insignificant  box,  he  has 
great  jars  of  opium  in  his  cabinet,  and  the  mouth-piece 
of  his  pipe  is  of  amber,  and  the  bowl  has  the  name, 
which  is  his,  of  See  Ling,  in  mother-of-pearl,  and  he 
rides  in  a  palanquin  with  curtains  of  silk  and  fringes 
of  gold,  which  is  his,  with  six  coolies  to  bear  him  and 
two  maidens  to  fan  him.     He  dwells  by  the  Kin-sha-kiang, 


GOING   TO   CHINA.  117 

which  is  the  river  of  the  golden  sand,  and  his  wife  has 
the  feet  of  a  mouse.  The  fragrance  of  bird's-nest 
soup  is  in  his  nostrils  and  the  voice  of  the  fowls  of  the 
nankeen  legs  makes  music  in  his  ears.  His  tea  is  bi-ewed 
from  the  chests  of  the  king.  And  then  the  visions  are 
all  folded  in  silk  that  is  crimson,  and  the  miisic  of  cym- 
bals is  faint,  and  he  lies  upon  a  cloud  that  is  silver  and 
down,  and  floats  gently  away,  and  with  a  murmur  of 
"blessed  be  poppies!"  the  last  whiflF  of  forgetfulness  gone 
out,  he  lapses  into  a  sleep  that  is  dreamless,  and  strange 
as  the  rhythm  of  Coleridge, 

"  In  Xauadu  did  Kubla  Khan 

A  spacious  pleasure-dome  decree, 
Where  Alph  the  sacred  river  ran 
Prom  caverns  fathomless  to  man 

Down  to  a  sunless  sea." 

The  den  grows  heavy  with  the  ghost  of  opium.  Your 
head  seems  inflating  like  a  balloon,  as  if  it  were  about  to 
make  an  unauthorized  ascension  and  leave  you  to  look 
after  yourself.  The  forms  of  your  friends,  albeit  some 
of  them  are  "  reverend  seigniors,"  begin  to  sail-  ofi"  in  a 
solemn  waltz.  You  are  a  second-hand  opium  smoker,  and 
so,  none  too  soon,  the  creaky  door  is  pulled  open,  and  we 
go  out  into  a  darkness  that  is  cheerful  compared  with 
the  drowsy  haziness  within,  and  breathe  undiluted  what 
De  Quincey  calls  "  the  mephitic  regions  of  carbonic  acid 
gas." 

You  push  open  the  door  of  a  second  den  where  every 
head  has  come  to  the  block  of  oblivion,  give  a  look  and 
move  on. 

There  are  dens  and  dens.  Once  more  in  a  choked 
alley  that  seems  a  Broadway  to  the  dungeon  behind,  you 
see  a  fresh   young    face,  wily  as  some  of  those  in  Rem- 


118  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

brandt  Peale's  "  Court  of  Death,"  framed  in  a  little 
wicket  window,  which  is  also  a  tricked  window.  She  is  one 
of  more  than  a  thousand  women,  few  of  whom  bear  the 
least  resemblance  to  what  Caesar's  wife  should  be ;  degraded, 
•shameless  and,  strange  to  say,  content.  Woman  must  have 
something  to  cling  to.  She  is  naturally  religious.  She 
believes  in  an  ideal  world.  From  before  Ruth's  time 
she  has  craved  something  to  trust.  Recall  the  monsters 
of  the  Joss-House,  and  tell  me  if  a  woman  kneeling  at 
the  shrine  of  such  pitiful  idols,  with  not  a  touch  nor  a 
trace  of  the  classic  grace  of  Venus,  or  the  severe  purity 
of  Diana,  or  the  manhood  of  Apollo,  can  be  anything 
herself  but  a  wanton  and  a  wile?  And  the  girl  you  saw 
is  as  much  a  slave  as  ever  gathered  the  snow  of  a  cotton 
field.  There  are  dens  with  a  "lower  deep"  than  the 
gloomy  chambers  of  Papaver. 

"THE  ROYAL  CHINA  THEATRE." 

With  a  sense  of  relief  we  slip  out  of  the  alleys  that, 
with  their  narrowness  and  darkness  and  abomination,  seem 
to  catch  us  by  the  throat,  but  we  have  by  no  means  got 
back  to  America.  We  are  in  China  still.  Entering  a 
well-lighted  hall,  garnished  on  one  side  with  all  sorts  of 
celestial  tit-bits  and  relishes,  we  pay  our  four  bits  and 
enter  what  great  gorgeous  letters  over  the  proscenium 
give  a  kind  of  typogi*aphical  shout  at  us  and  name  "  The 
Royal  China  Theatre,"  and  the  royal  is  less  apparent  than 
the  China. 

It  has  a  gallery,  but  we  go  into  the  pit  or  the  dress- 
circle,  or  what,  with  the  black  heads  and  the  black  blouses 
and  the  black  hats,  looks  most  like  a  parquet  filled  with 
mourners   at  a  funeral.      Not   a   trace   of  color   in   that 


GOING    TO    CHINA.  119 

audience,  not  a  streak  of  white.  It  is  a  case  of  total 
absorption.      Nothing  lacking  but  weeds  and  weepers. 

The  play  is  in  full  caper.  I  use  the  frisky  word  after 
considerable  meditation.  It  is  the  right  one.  The  play 
is  a  compound  of  tragedy,  comedy,  farce,  caravan  and 
circus,  and  the  last  was  the  best.  I  think  celestial 
Thespians'  strongest  theatrical  hold  is  their  feet  and  legs. 
And  the  name  of  the  jDlay  was  a  compound  of  pork  and 
carbonate  of  lime,  for  it  was  "  Horn-Mun-Sow."  I  know 
what  it  was  about,  but  I  never  mean  to  tell.  They  began 
it  at  seven  o'clock,  and  they  played  right  through  to  one 
in  the  morning,  which  is  nothing  for  them.  A  drama 
has  been  produced  at  that  theatre  consuming  three  weeks 
in  the  performance,  seculars  and  Sundays,  in  sessions  of 
five  hours  each;  a  solid  week  of  histrionic  distress. 

The  price  of  admission  to  the  theatre  is  graduated  by 
the  time  you  endure  it.  First  of  the  feast,  four  bits; 
ten  o'clock,  three  bits;  midnight,  two  bits;  and  when  it 
gets  down  to  the  very  toes  of  tragedy  or  the  heel-taps  of 
comedy,  it  is  a  dime. 

Apparently  it  was  a  troupe  where  the  women  were  all 
men  and  the  men  were  all  women,  though  you  doubted 
at  last  whether  either  were  either.  Of  course  there  was 
no  curtain  to  fall  upon  anything,  and  the  actors  entered 
from  apartments  at  the  sides.  Of  course  the  orchestra 
was  not  in  front  and  below  the  stage,  but  upon  it  and 
beyond  the  grand  stride-ground  of  sock  and  buskin. 
What  would  you  have? 

"THE  PLAY'S  THE  THING." 
If  you  can  fancy  a  flock  of  gorgeous  cockatoos   in  a 
state  of  anarchy,  and  nobody  to  read  "  the  riot  act, "  all 


120  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

chattering  in  falsetto  —  not  an  honest,  manly  bass  tone 
the  wliole  night;  if  you  can  suppose  the  chief  of  a  band 
of  robbers,  with  the  tail  of  a  bird-of-paradise  waving  from 
the  back  of  his  head,  and  a  pair  of  white  wings  at  his 
shoulder-blades,  and  a  fan  in  his  hand,  and  whisking  about 
in  an  embossed  and  brocaded  petticoat,  with  a  cackle  of  a 
voice,  as  when  a  hen  lays  an  egg  or  sees  a  hawk  or  tries 
to  crow,  and  a  face  painted  to  counterfeit  a  death's-head 
moth,  and  finished  out  with  the  beard  of  a  billy-goat; 
if  you  can  picture  a  bench  of  high  officials  in  the  full 
"  pomp  and  circumstance  of"  a  state  council,  all  at  once 
setting  off  in  pirouettes  and  pigeon-wings,  and  whirling 
like  teetotums,  and  swinging  round  like  boomerangs,  and 
frisking  away  in  fandangoes,  attacked  with  Saint  Vitus's 
dance,  spouting  a  tragic  passage  and  executing  a  double 
shuffle  in  the  same  minute;  hopping  off"  in  a  coupee,  which 
means  doing  your  walking  on  one  leg,  and  then,  with  the 
knee  of  the  other  a  little  bent  and  the  foot  lifted,  advanc- 
ing upon  nothing  with  a  continuous  and  imaginary  kick; 
swinging  two  swords  like  the  remaining  arms  of  a  dilap- 
idated windmill;  then  abasing  themselves  with  their  brows 
upon  the  floor  of  the  sanded  stage  like  worshiping  Orient- 
als; then  snapping  erect  like  so  many  spring-bladed  Bowie- 
knives,  and  all  appareled  in  variegated  macaw, —  then  you 
will  have  a  genuine  spectacular  Chinese  astonishment. 

After  that,  a  battle,  when,  with  the  most  wonderful 
crowing  and  cackling  that  Reynard's  advent  ever  roused 
in  a  populous  barn-yard,  they  flew  at  each  other  like 
enraged  and  rampant  butterflies,  with  a  blending  and 
confusion  of  tints  as  if  the  seven  primary  colors  had 
been  struck  with  a  chromatic  Babel,  and  would  never  in 
all  this  world  be  sorted  out  into  rainbows  again. 


GOING   TO    CHINA.  121 

Had  you  fallen  down  and  worshiped  the  whole  thing 
it  would  have  been  no  sin,  for  it  was  the  semblance  of 
nothing  "  in  the  heavens  above  or  the  earth  beneath  or 
the  waters  under  the  earth." 

After  that  the  entire  talent  broke  to  pieces  and  ex- 
ploded like  fireworks  into  wheels  and  rockets  and  flying 
leaps.  They  turned  into  acrobats,  and  the  circus  began. 
And  it  was  truly  wonderful.  Fancy  a  man  throwing 
himself  from  the  height  of  a  dozen  feet  and  falling  flat 
upon  his  back  and  as  straight  as  a  rail  upon  the  uncar- 
peted  floor.  The  dull  thug  as  he  fell  was  unmistakable. 
And  then  he  was  not  padded,  unless  with  a  mustard 
plaster,  for  he  was  about  as  thin  as  a  Johnny-cake.  Or 
fancy  three  or  four  of  them  in  the  air  at  once,  turning 
over  and  over  as  if  in  jjursuit  of  their  toes.  How  they 
could  be  wheels  and  not  turn  on  an  axle  and  not  be 
driven  by  wind  or  water  or  something,  nobody  can  tell. 

THE  ORCHESTRA. 

But  that  orchestra!  Hogarth's  enraged  musician  never 
heard  its  match.  There  were  ticks  and  clucks  and  jingles 
and  squeaks,  and  tinkles  of  bells,  and  a  frog-and-locust 
interlude,  and  emaciated  fiddles;  but  when  the  battle 
began  they  all  struck  out  like  Sandwich  Islanders  in  the 
surf,  into  a  roar  of  gongs  and  a  clash  of  cymbals  shining 
and  ringing  like  the  shield  of  Achilles.  Sometimes  the 
tune  seemed  to  be  "  The  Arkansas  Traveler "  or  "  Old 
Rosin  the  Bow,"  and  then  those  instruments  leaped  over 
the  musical  bars  and  ran  away.  The  music  and  the 
acting  were  alike  —  a  marvelous  jumble.  It  was  as  if  a 
medley  had  swallowed  itself. 

I  am  inclined  to  think   that  this  fashion  of  mingling 
6 


132  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

heterogeneous  elements,  a  kind  of  miniature  "  chaos  come 
again,"  is  contagious.  Thus,  the  last  Independence  Day 
was  observed  with  splendid  pageantry  and  fine  literary 
exercises  at  the  "  California  Theatre."  They  had  "  The 
Star-Spangled  Banner,"  and  Drake's  bugle-voiced  address 
to  the  Flag,  but  between  the  "Long  may  it  wave  o'er 
the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave"  and  the 
solemn,  almost  sublime,  words  of  the  Declaration,  begin- 
ning "  When  in  the  course  of  human  events,"  something 
was  sandwiched;  and  what  do  you  think  it  was?  Not 
"Yankee  Doodle,"  or  "Hail  Columbia,"  or  "The  Red,. 
White  and  Blue,"  but  the  little  Julietish  song  of  "  Good- 
by.  Sweetheart"!  Could  they  do  anything  better  in 
China? 

While  I  have  only  made  a  faithful  record  of  the  dra- 
matic scenes  and  sounds,  with  not  one  touch  of  exaggera- 
tion, a  fact  to  which  one  Doctor  of  Divinity,  two  traveling 
missionaries  and  one  neophyte  can  bear  witness,  yet  it  must 
be  frankly  admitted  that,  on  reading  it  over,  I  hardly 
believe  it  myself,  but  it  is  severely  true  for  all  that. 

Out  at  last  and  for  good  and  all,  we  cross  from  China 
into  America,  under  a  starry  sky,  and  breathing  an  air 
fresh  and  free  from  beyond  the  Golden  Gate.  It  was  like 
emerging  from  a  total  eclipse  into  broad  and  blessed  day, 
and  I  recalled  the  words  of  Tennyson  with  all  the  vivid- 
ness of  poetic  creation.  It  was  as  if  I  had  written  the 
lines  myself: 

"  Through  the  shadow  of  the  globe  we  sweep  into  the  younger  day, 
Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay!  " 

Harems  in  Utah  and  idols  in  San  Francisco  —  idols  set 
up  like  ten-pins,  and  no  man  bowls  them  down.  Who 
says  this  is  not  emphatically  the  land  of  latitudes?     There 


GOING   TO   CHINA.  123 

have  been  ages  when  the  Crusaders  would  have  effaced 
them  from  the  continent,  like  a  writing  from  a  slate,  with 
a  wet  finger,  albeit  the  finger  was  wet  with  fresh  blood. 
We  sailed  to  Pagans,  and  now  Pagans  sail  to  us.  They 
have  dropped  into  Christendom  like  a  great  black  diamond. 
They  are  anthracite. 

We  have  regarded  John  as  a  sort  of  overgrown  boy, 
a  kind  of  cushiony  creature.  You  can  thrust  your  finger 
anywhere  into  his  character.  You  withdraw  it,  and  it 
retains  no  print  of  it,  any  more  than  the  water  into  which 
you  plunge  your  hand.  Within  that  apparently  yielding 
characterlessness  is  a  spine  of  heathen  iron,  and  tough  as 
the  worst  of  it.  A  bridge  made  of  such  material  would 
last  the  world  out.  And  as  for  that  rigid,  jointless  spine, 
who  can  wonder  that  it  exists?  Here,  now,  is  a  man  who 
represents  and  believes  a  religion  that  runs  back  to  pre- 
historic ages;  to  whom  the  name  of  the  Chinese  Moses  is 
as  familiar  to-day  as  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  in  Bible 
lands;  whose  eye  brightens  at  the  syllables  Kung-fu-tse, 
as  at  a  welcome  household  word.  It  names  Confucius  to 
Chinese  ears,  a  man  who  died  twenty-three  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago,  whose  descendants,  in  undoubted  line,  live 
to-day,  the  eightieth  generation  from  the  great  philosopher 
who  died  before  Socrates  began  to  teach,  and  his  works 
remain  "  eveft  until  this  day."  Is  it  any  marvel  that  a 
religion  indurated  through  the  ages,  unyielding  and  change- 
less as  if  absolute  truth,  wrought  into  the  life,  thought, 
custom  and  tradition  of  this  man  John,  should  harden 
into  a  firm  and  almost  sullen  disbelief  in  all  the  world 
besides?  That  there  should  be  hardly  a  vanishing  point 
of  contact  between  him  and  the  out-world  races,  to  make 
him  a  full  and  free-born  member  of  the  human  family? 


CHAPTER  X. 


MISSION  DOLORES  AND  THE  SAINTS. 

TO-DAY  there  are  one  hundred  and  ten  churches, 
chapels  and  missions  in  San  Francisco,  giving  one 
place  of  worship  to  every  three  thousand  people,  exclusive 
of  "the  strangers  within  the  gates,"  and  services  are 
conducted  in  French,  Spanish,  Russian,  Scandinavian, 
Italian,  German,  Hebrew,  Welsh,  English  and  Chinese. 
You  should  hear  the  Chinamen  in  full  tongue  in  a  Sunday 
school.  After  that  you  can  tell  where  the  idea  of  a  gong 
came  from.  It  is  as  original  as  a  tremendous  echo;  and 
sounds  as  if  the  names  of  all  the  rivers  had  got  away 
and  ran  in  together — Yang-tse-kiang-Hoang-ho-kiang-ku- 
Kin-sha-kiang-Ya-long-kiang-Z>/H<7-Z)o«y.' 

It  was  one  of  those  perfect  San  Francisco  days  with 
which  the  year  is  almost  filled,  when  the  sun  and  the 
ocean  conspire  to  sweeten  and  temper  the  air  with  beams 
and  bi'eezes,  when  the  hills  grow  friendly  and  draw  near, 
and  so  we  went  to  the  Mission  Dolores,  founded  by  tlie 
Simnish  Friars  on  the  9th  of  October,  1776,  when  much  of 
the  land  on  which  the  city  stands  had  not  yet  come  out 
of  the  sea,  and  the  shore  was  a  wide  waste  of  dunes. 

Here,  one  hundred  years  ago,  civilization's  farthest 
outpost,  half  church  and  half  fortress,  was  established, 
and  its  patron  Saint  Francis  was  to  give  the  Yerba  Buena 
of  the  old  maps  the  new  name  of  San  Francisco.     Built 

134 


MISSIOJS"   DOLORES    AND   THE   SAINTS.  125 

about  by  spacious  structures  of  modern  date,  faced  by  the 
Convent  of  Notre  Dame,  the  old  church  remains  like  a 
rusted  hatchet  struck  into  some  sapling  in  the  elder  day, 
and  grown  around  by  the  living  column  of  a  stately  tree. 
Here  two  ages  meet.  You  see  the  recent  redwood  dwell- 
ing, and  the  old  adobe  house  of  brick  baked  without  fire  * 
standing  by  its  side,  whose  walls  resemble  the  swallows'- 
nests  that  dotted  the  rafter-peaks  of  ancient  barns  as 
with  cottages  of  mud.  You  see  roofs  fluted  with  red  tiles 
resembling  organ-pipes  that  have  tarnished  and  rusted  in 
a  thousand  rains  and  suns. 

And  there  is  the  old  chapel,  with  its  columned  front 
fair  to  see  as  a  white  nun,  and  there,  in  three  square 
port-holes,  hangs  a  chime  of  three  bells  brought  from 
Castile  many  a  year  ago,  rung,  perhaps,  within  hearing  of 
the  sunlit  towers  of  my  Chateaux  en  Espagne — ah,  those 
castles  in  Spain!  —  and  now  green  with  i-ust.  Those  bells 
rang  out  the  old  century,  rang  in  the  new.  You  enter 
the  low-arched  doorway  into  the  chapel,  a  hundred  feet 
from  altar-place  to  threshold;  and  where  are  the  hands 
that  set  the  keystone,  and  where  the  priests  that  blessed 
the  place,  and  where  the  hidalgos  that  stood  around? 
The  hands  held  flowers  that  drank  them  up. 

"The  good  swords  rust; 
Their  souls  are  with  the  saints,  we  trust." 

But  here  are  the  walls  of  stone  and  unburned  clay, 
four  feet  thick,  and  here  the  mullioned  windows,  woven 
with  fan-light  sash  like  spider's  web;  and  here  the  Spanish 
linen  canvas  with  its  pictures  of  The  Last  Supper  and 
the  saints ;  and  here  two  grand  shrines  of  painted  wood 
from  Spain,  with  figures  of  Saint  Francis,  Saint  Joseph  and 
all ;  there  the  Madonna  and  the  Christ  that  came  over  the 


126  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

sea.  And  beyond  is  a  heavy  arch  bearing  the  legend: 
"How  terrible  is  this  place.  This  is  no  other  than  the 
house  of  God  and  the  gate  of  heaven."  You  sit  in  a 
wooden  chair  as  hard  as  stone  and  older  than  our  Fourth 
of  July.  Above  you  is  the  gallery  floor  tessellated  with  a 
paint-brush — a  puncheon  floor  hewn  out  with  broad-axes. 
Here,  for  a  hundred  years  have  matin  prayer  and 
vesper  song  and  grand  high  mass  been  rung  and  chanted, 
said  and  sung.  Here,  priests  from  Spain,  from  Rome, 
from  France,  have  lifted  hand  and  blessed  the  people, 
while  Indians  and  Mexicans  and  old  Peruvians  stood 
around.  Here  brave  nuns  have  breached  their  Ave  Marias 
in  the  wilderness.  Vanished  all,  like  light  from  dials 
when  the  sun  goes  down.  Think  of  the  long-dead  day 
when  a  Spanish  guard  was  stationed  here  to  protect  the 
Mission.  And  the  desert  is  a  city  and  the  city  a  mart, 
and  Spain  has  ceased  to  be  the  Motherland,  and  Mexico 
her  Daughter-in-law,  and  no  blue-blooded  Castilians  come 
to  their  outlying  dependency  any  more.  The  face  of  the 
world  is  changed  as  if  fire  had  swept  and  God  created 
it  anew. 

THE  OLD  GRAVEYARD. 

The  graveyard  of  a  hundred-and-one  years  adjoins  the 
church.  You  pass  under  the  cross  that  surmounts  the 
gate,  and  are  in  the  city  of  "  the  houses  that  shall  last 
till  doomsday."  The  earth  is  rich  with  the  uncounted 
dead.  You  tread  upon  them  in  the  alleyways.  There 
are  hundreds  and  then  hundreds.  Nameless  Indians  with 
their  heads  to  the  rising  sun  lie  here  by  bands  and  tribes. 
The  old  sexton  unearths  them  sometimes  wrapped  in  the 
hides  of  wild  cattle  for  shrouds.  Soldiers  of  the  blue  and 
the  scarlet,  English,  American,  Russian,  Spanish,  Mexican, 


MISSION"    DOLORES   AND   THE   SAINTS.  137 

have  bidden  "  farewell  to  the  big  wars,"  and  gone  into 
camp  together.  Descendants  of  Spanish  willows  vainly 
weep  over  alley  and  grave.  Irish  yew  and  English  haw- 
thorn are  ever  "  wearing  of  the  green."  Trees  in  ever- 
lasting bud  and  bloom  give  Christmas  roses,  and  bouquets 
for  June.  The  ivy's  glossy  leaves  caress  the  graves.  How 
rich  and  rank  they  grow!  Let  us  hope  the  dead  have 
gained  the  crown,  for  behold,  the  crosses  they  have  left 
behind.  And  still  they  come!  There  goes  the  sexton 
with  his  spade.  The  place  is  full  of  angels,  altars,  lambs, 
tombs,  urns  and  shrines,  in  wood  washed  blank  of  letter 
and  device,  in  marble  and  in  granite.  You  stand  by  the 
grave  of  the  first  Spanish  Governor  of  California,  and  you 
read:  "Aqui  yacen  restos  De  Capitan  Don  Louis  Antonio 
Argulla,  Prima  Gobernador  del  Alta  California."  He  lies 
in  the  sacristy  of  the  old  church,  the  granite  chamber 
where  they  kept  chalices  and  censers  for  frankincense  and 
wine;  a  right  stout  lodging,  and  time-proof  as  the  globe. 
Reading  monument  after  monument,  you  feel  as  if  in  a 
foreign  land.  The  names  are  no  "household  words"  of 
ours.  Here  is  a  slab  bearing  the  name,  "James  Sullivan," 
the  "  Yankee "  Sullivan  of  whom  the  world  has  heard, 
and  the  words,  "  who  died  by  the  hands  of  the  V.  C.  1856." 
That  V.  C.  is  graven  upon  other  marbles  here,  and  means 
Vigilance  Committee,  and  revives  the  memory  of  wild  and 
lawless  times.  Following  the  name  are  these  significant 
words:  "In  Thy  mercy  Thou  shalt  destroy  mine  enemies!  " 
At  last,  beside  the  old  adobe  wall,  the  sexton  shows 
an  unsuspected  grave,  no  slab  nor  mound  nor  coverlet  of 
grass.  Beside  it  is  another,  with  turf  subsided  like  a 
tired  wave.  It  is  surrounded  by  a  bleached  and  sagging 
fence  of  pickets.     Over  these  two  graves  a  small  historic 


128  BETWEEN   THE   OATES. 

war  has  been  waged.  Within  six  months  after  the  Sign- 
ing of  the  Declaration  they  had  two  funerals;  an  Indian 
and  a  Spaniard  were  buried  here.  Now,  which  was  buried 
first?  One  has  one  grave,  and  one  the  other  —  and  which 
the  honor  of  the  first  inhabitant?  Over  what  trifles  will 
even  wise  men  fight!  The  name  and  story  of  each  had 
fallen  out  of  human  speech  and  memory  as  long  ago  as 
gray-haired  men  were  in  their  swaddling  bands.  What 
matters  who  or  when?  The  poet  Montgomery  wrote  the 
epitaph  for  the  broad  world's  men:  "There  lived  a  man." 

As  you  turn  to  leave  the  place,  the  marble  figure  of 
a  suppliant  woman  with  lifted  hands  and  sad  and  sight- 
less eyes  turned  heavenward,  impresses  you  like  a  spoken 
word.  So  ai'e  these  all  beneath  the  sod,  all  but  the  lifted 
hands.  Speechless,  heljiless,  front-face  to  Heaven,  here 
they  lie  and  wait.  God  save  the  world!  Let  us  go  out 
at  the  time-stained  gate,  and  into  the  ever-flowing  tides 
of  living  creatures.  We  had  almost  forgotten  the-  glad 
sun  and  the  crystal  air,  and  even  the  roses  the  sexton 
gathered  from  some  graves  to  give  us,  seemed  to  shed  a 
sad,  funereal  fragrance,  as  of  crape,  and  the  vexed  and 
troubled  earth  that,  for  the  graves  they  make  within  it, 
has  little  rest. 

Quick!  There's  a  Valencia  street  car.  "So  dies  in 
human  hearts  the  thought  of  death." 

THE  SAINTS, 

California  geography  has  the  true  old  Mexican  and 
Castilian  stamp  upon  mountain,  town,  vale  and  river.  It 
is  genuine  as  the  silver  Spanish  quarter  of  other  days. 
To  be  sure,  it  does  not  bear  the  pillars  of  Hercules,  but 
the  Saints  have  stepped  down  from  niche  and  shrine,  and 


MISSION    DOLORES   AND   THE   SAINTS.  129 

seated  themselves  in  the  open  air.  Thus  you  have  San 
Quentin,  with  a  prison  on  his  shoulders,  Santa  Rosa,  the 
city  of  the  holy  roses,  where  we  saw  a  rose-tree  twenty 
feet  high,  with  a  sturdy  trunk,  and  starred  like  the  Milky 
Way  with  a  thousand  full-blown  flowers;  San  Jose,  with  a 
city  in  his  lap.  Then  there  are  San  Benito,  San  Rafael, 
San  Diego,  San  Pedro,  San  Leandro,  San  Juan  —  not  the 
Don, —  San  Mateo,  San  Andreas,  and  the  rest.  Sometimes 
they  take  to  the  water,  as  San  Joaquin  River  and  San 
Pablo  Bay.  Then  Santa  Barbara,  Santa  Clara,  Santa 
Cruz  and  San  Francisco.  The  principal  part  of  the  popu- 
lation of  the  Calendar  seems  to  have  been  lured  out-of- 
dooi'S  by  the  weather  and  never  gone  in  again.  Then  if 
they  are  not  saints  they  are  angels,  as  Los  Angeles,  and 
if  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  then  an  Island  in  the 
Bay  talks  English  and  says  "Angel,"  and  a  city  and  a 
river  cry  out  in  concert,  "Sacramento!"  Altogether,  if 
a  man  meant  to  make  a  compact  sentence  unburdened 
with  adverbs,  he  could  say,  California  is  a  country  where 
the  places  are  all  Saints  and  the  people  are  all  sinners. 

The  names  the  miners  gave  their  camps  and  claims 
are  almost  always  hooks  to  hang  a  history  on.  Hell's 
Delight  and  Devil's  Basin  are  an  antipodal  offset  to 
Christian  Flat  and  Gospel  Gialch.  Slapjack  Bar  and  Nut- 
cake  Camp  commemorate  some  dainty  dishes.  Shirt-tail 
Cafion  and  Petticoat  Slide  belong  to  the  wardrobe,  while 
Piety  Hill  probably  christened  a  vantage  ground  that  no 
Christian  ever  went  to  if  he  could  keep  away. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how,  as  among  the  old  Saxons,  names 
grow  out  of  callings.  Thus  in  Sonoma  county  there  are 
four  John  Taylors,  and  not  one  of  them  "John  Taylor 
of    Caroline."      Three     are     known    by     the    way    they 


130  BETWEEN  THE   OATES. 

made  their  fortunes,  and  the  roster  runs  thus:  Whisky 
John,  who  never  drinks;  Sheep  John,  who  is  bold  as  a 
lion;  Hog  John,  who  is  no  miser;  and  John.  Abolish 
books  and  records,  and  let  these  names  go  down  tossing 
carelessly  about  in  a  traditionary  way  for  a  couple  of 
generations,  and  the  children  of  the  first  would  be 
Whiskies;  of  the  second.  Sheep,  if  not  lambs;  of  the 
third,  Hogs,  if  not  pigs;  and  the  fourth,  undoubted 
descendants  of  plain  John  Taylor. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


VALLEY  RAMBLES  AND   A   CLTMB. 

IP  you  wish  to  be  acquainted  with  California,  fall  in 
love  with  its  valleys,  smell  its  flowers,  taste  its  fruits, 
know  its  people,  breathe  its  air,  you  must  not  sit  in  a 
railroad  car  contemplating  somebody's  back-hair,  or  won- 
dering whether  the  observer  next  behind  you  sees  any- 
thing wrong  in  the  nape  of  your  neck;  but  you  must  go 
in  a  big  covered  wagon  as  strong  as  a  mill,  with  a 
pleasant  company,  and  such  a  friend  and  Palinurus  as  I 
had,  in  the  person  of  a  gentleman  who  can  preach  a 
sermon,  give  a  lecture,  edit  a  paper,  build  a  temple,  found 
a  college,  and  run  a  railroad.  But  none  of  these  abilities 
would  have  mattered  the  crack  of  a  whip  if  he  had  not 
known  how  to  drive.,  and  how  to  "  suffer  and  be  strong." 
He  could  drive,  he  did  suffer,  he  was  strong.  It  is  curious 
how  many-sided  a  man  may  be,  a  human  dodecagon,  if 
you  will,  and  yet  be  put  in  a  place  any  minute  where  he 
is  as  useless  as  the  half  of  a  pair  of  shears. 

Crossing  San  Francisco  Bay,  all  snug  and  stowed,  full 
of  lunch-baskets  and  expectation,  we  struck  into  the  Sonoma 
Valley,  bound  for  the  Petrified  Trees  and  the  Geysers. 
Though  it  never  rains  here  except  by  programme,  yet  it 
rained.  They  tried  to  persuade  me  it  was  a  fog,  but  a  fog 
that  has  a  body  to  it  and  tumbles  all  to  pieces  in  rattling 
saucy  water,  inspires  the  hope  that  there  will  be  no  such 

181 


132  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

thing  as  California  rain  until  I  am  safe  beyond  the  moun- 
tain^  As  a  boy  would  say,  it  was  a  level  rain.  The 
wind  blew  it  straight  out,  and  the  couple  on  the  front 
seat  were  blue  likewise.  Those  behind,  all  snug  and  dry 
as  chickens  under  a  hen,  were  as  merry  as  grigs.  When 
the  water  goes  drip,  drip,  upon  your  nose  from  the  fore- 
piece  of  a  cap,  and  spatters  from  that  promontory  into 
your  eyes,  and  runs  down  your  indignant  bosom,  you  feel 
like  praying  for  a  longer  visor  or  an  abridged  nose,  but 
if  anybody  thought  good  words  in  bad  places,  nobody 
said  them. 

It  had  only  been  a  day  since  I  was  wishing  for  the 
fragrance  and  the  music  of  a  dear  old  June  shower, 
bound  about  its  forehead  with  a  rainbow  as  with  a  fillet; 
the  flowei's  nodding  sweet  approval  and  the  leaves  lap- 
ping it  like  tongues  that  are  athirst,  and  here  it  was, 
all  but  the  fillet,  and  I  was  not  content.  It  is  hard  to 
tell  precisely  what  we  do  want.  But  it  is  due  to  the 
blessed  Coast  to  add  that  you  might  live  on  it  for  ten 
years  and  see  no  such  misplaced  rain.  The  winters,  with 
their  long  and  amiable  rains,  would  have  been  a  paradise 
to  the  frogs  of  Homer,  and  they  would  have  broken  forth 
in  Greek  more  eloquently  than  ever:  "  brek-ek-ek-koax- 
koax."  But  riding  through  the  valleys  in  the  summer, 
where  it  has  been  as  dry  as  the  shower  on  the  old  cities 
of  the  plain,  you  will  marvel  at  the  glossy  green  and 
fresh  look  of  shrub  and  tree,  as  if  everything,  like  the 
rose  of  the  "  English  Reader,"  had  been  washed, 

"just  washed  in  a  shower. 
That  Mary  to  Anna  conveyed'." 


VALLEY    RAMBLES    AND    A   CLIMB. 


133 


A  DEAD  LIFT  AT  A  LIVE  WEIGHT. 

At  last,  on  a  slippery  grade,  the  near- wheeler  sat 
down,  inserted  two  feet  between  the  spokes  of  a  fore- 
wheel,  two  more  right  under  the  vehicle,  and  had  he 
been  as  well  oflF  for  legs  as  a  house-fly,  and  had  another 
couple,  they  would  probably  have  got  into  the  carriage. 
As  it  was,  they  were  distributed  about  like  the  multiplied 
codicils  of  a  legacy.  That  wagon  was  emptied  as  green 
peas  pursued  by  a  thumb-nail  fly  out  of  a  pod,  and  there 
they  stood  like  so  many 
bedraggled  poultry,  all 
but  one  mother  and 
two  chickens  who  scud- 
ded away  through  the 
driving  rain  to  a  dis- 
tant cabin  for  help.  I 
wish  to  place  it  upon 
record  just  here,  that 
in  fifty  or  sixty  years 
that  mother  will  "  with 
the  angels  stand,"  for  if  anything  will  dispose  a  woman 
to  wickedness  it  is  when  she  gets  damp  around  the 
ankles,  and  her  skirts  swash  about  her  footsteps  like  a 
frantic  dishcloth,  and  her  watery  gaiters  squeak  as  she 
walks  like  a  morsel  of  cheese  curd.  When  we  overtook 
her  the  bright  smile  that  she  wore  should  have  kindled 
a  rainbow. 

There  lay  twelve  hundred  pounds  of  horse  and  no 
derrick.  The  party  stood  about  like  monuments  dripping 
in  the  rain,  while  the  many-sided  man  addressed  himself 
to  the  stern  reality  of  the  occasion,  or  to  be  accurate, 
of  the  wheeler  dormant.      He  bowed  himself  like  Samson 


134  BETWEEN   THE  GATES. 

upon  the  pillars.  He  emulated  the  "  I  am  thy  father's 
ghost!"  of  Hamlet,  and  did  that  horse's  "tail  unfold." 
It  was  a  stern  pull,  a  long  pull,  and  a  pull  in  detail; 
and  that  beast,  suspended  like  several  swords  of  Damocles 
upon  hair,  swung  slowly  round  as  if  he  were  on  a  rail- 
road turn-table,  scrambled  up  looking  as  if  the  wagon 
had  been  drawing  him,  not  he  the  wagon,  and  we  were 
once  more  under  way.  The  misery  of  it  was  the  music 
of  it,  and  various  versions  of  the  story  were  retailed 
about  to  beguile  the  long  day  we  sat  under  the  rainy 
eaves  of  the  sky,  and  I  hereby  entail  it  on  the  heirs  and 
assigns  of  the  Star  who  played  "  the  heavy  part." 

The  next  morning  was  a  delight.  The  valley  swept 
out  twelve  miles  to  the  mountains  that  were  draped  in 
their  Sunday  blue.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  walked 
among  the  peach's  first-cousins,  the  almond  trees,  the 
orchard  of  Ecclesiastes,  but  the  blossoms  had  ceased  to 
shine,  and  the  limbs  were  full  of  fruit.  Five  varieties  of 
stately  oaks  stood  around  the  house,  but  the  live-oak  was 
the  grandest.  Spanish  moss  hung  in  festoons  and  lambre- 
quins of  gray  lace  from  the  limbs,  and  solemnly  swung 
in  the  morning  air.  They  gave  a  weird  and  graceful, 
but  a  sad  look  to  the  landscape,  and  reminded  me  of  faded 
mourning,  draping  some  old  manorial  hall  for  the  dead 
lord  or  the  lost  lady. 

"0,  the  mistletoe  bough!"  and  there  it  is.  All  about 
upon  the  oaks  hang  globes  of  the  Druidical  parasite,  like 
orreries  of  green  planets,  and  I  felt  that  I  was  in  a 
foreign  land.  I  had  seen  a  parasite  in  the  army  that 
showed  gray  on  the  blue  blouse,  but  failed  to  show  well; 
and  a  parasite  at  the  table  of  his  friends;  and  never  one 
before   that   kindled   a  spark  of   poetry;    but  those  little 


VALLEY    RAMBLES   AND   A    CLIMB.  135 

emerald  worlds  on  the  oaks  lighted  the  way  through  the 
halls  of  deserted  years,  and  with  the  Hebrew  backward 
stejD  I  walked  near  enough  to  hear  a  voice,  clear  as  a 
meadow  lai'k's,  strike  up,  when  that  old  song  was  new, 

''The  mistletoe  hung  in  the  castle  hall, 
The  holly-brauch  shone  on  the  old  oak  wall," 

but  the  cry  of  "All  aboard ! '"  scared  the  voice  away,  and 
the  light  of  the  green  planets  went  out. 

The  children  of  the  party  gathered  a  heap  of  moss 
that  would  fill  a  bed  fat  enough  for  a  Mohawk  Dutchman, 
in  the  vain  hope  of  carrying  it  home.  Do  you  know  that 
children  are  capital  baggage  to  take  along  upon  a  journey? 
They  ballast  the  grown  people,  and  keep  them  on  an  even 
keel.  It  took  two  to  steady  our  craft.  They  are  full  of 
exuberance  as  picnic  satchels  are  of  luncheons,  and  you 
can  take  a  little  out  now  and  then,  when  you  feel  old 
about  the  heart,  to  make  you  young  again,  and  nobody 
will  miss  it.  Let  their  names  be  "  entered  of  record " : 
Carrie,  the  lassie  with  the  gentle  grace  of  patience,  and 
Knapp,  the  lad  who  was  never  caught  napping.  May  they 
live  to  be  gray  as  the  Spanish  moss  they  coveted. 

The  contrasts  of  scenery  in  California  are  as  wonderful 
as  if  you  should  enter  a  house  by  one  door  and  leave  it 
all  wilderness  and  winter  in  the  front  yard,  then  go  out 
at  another  to  find  it  all  summer  and  flowers  in  the  garden. 
I  had  such  a  transition  within  an  hour.  We  climbed  along 
the  edges  and  shelves  of  rugged  mountains,  above  rivers 
in  everlasting  quarrel  with  ragged  rocks;  below  heights 
walled  up  with  stone  ruins  from  the  beginning,  and  fin- 
ished out  with  the  shaggy,  russet  backs  of  a  thousand 
dromedaries;  meeting  nobody  but  horsemen  with  lariats 
swinging   at   their   saddles;    seeing   no   human    dwelling; 


136  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

fearing  night  would  come  down  upon  us  and  no  "  pillar 
of  fire"  to  guide.  A  few  r.attling  downward  dashes,  and 
we  descended  into  Knight's  Valley,  with  its  homes  and  its 
harvests,  its  fruits  and  its  flowers,  its  broad  parks  peopled 
with  the  weeping  oaks.  Fancy  a  fragile,  feminine  English 
willow,  droojjing,  swaying,  married  to  a  husband  to  match 
her,  and  that  husband  would  be  the  weeping  oak.  It  is 
the  blended  grace  and  strength  of  the  vegetable  world. 
A  sturdy  trunk,  a  broad  crown,  a  dense  foliage,  and  then 
that  jjendent  fringe  of  green,  almost  sweeping  the  ground 
as  it  swings  in  the  wind.  The  level  rays  of  the  sinking 
sun  touched  everything  with  the  hazy  glory  of  a  gold-dust 
air.  You  wonder  how  many  years  it  is  and  how  many 
degrees  away,  since  you  were  cautiously  creeping  along 
the  brinks  of  cafions,  and  it  was  only  an  hour  ago. 

Santa  Rosa  is  a  city  lost  in  a  flower-bed.  You  can 
find  it  by  climbing  a  rose-tree  as  high  as  a  house,  and 
obe^dng  Sir  Christopher  Wren's  marble  injunction,  "  Look 
around !  "  It  has  a  congregation  of  three  or  four  hundred, 
that,  like  Zaccheus,  worships  in  a  tree,  only  his  was  a 
sycamore  tree.  It  is  the  Baptist  church,  a  quaint  edifice 
of  unpainted  wood,  pleasantly  suggesting  a  rural  chapel 
in  England,  and  you  think  of  the  ancient  yew-tree  and 
the  rooks  that  should  be  calling.  That  house  was  made 
of  a  single  redwood;  and  the  interior,  from  the  floor  to 
the  ribbed  ceiling,  was  once  wrapped  in  the  same  bark 
jacket. 

And  then  you  cross  a  street  to  see  a  friend  of  childhood, 
a  bush  that  grew  by  the  roadside  and  showed  its  sweet 
white  umbrellas  of  flowers  in  spring,  and  its  dark  red 
berries  in  fall,  whereof  a  wine  was  brewed,  harmless  as 
the  milk  of  old  Brindle;  a  bush  of  whose  wood  you  made 


VALLEY    RAMliLES   AND    A    CLIMB.  137 

your  first  "deadly  weapon,"  the  pop-gun — the  elder  of 
the  East.  And  here  is  a  tree  more  than  four  feet  in 
cii'cumference,  and  shading  the  eaves  of  a  two-story  dwell- 
ing.    It  is  the  elder  of  the  old  days. 

You  traverse  the  Santa  Clara  Valley,  where  adobe 
dwellings  linger  still,  through  Alameda  avenue  of  i)oplars 
and  willows  planted  by  Jesuit  hands  a  century  ago,  to 
San  Jose,  and  from  the  vantage-ground  of  the  Court- 
House  dome  you  see  the  horizon  of  mountains  rising, 
sinking,  receding,  nearing,  like  the  billows  of  the  sea, 
and  just  one  little  way  through,  down  the  royal  road  you 
came;  and  circled  by  that  turbulent  horizon,  you  look 
down  upon  a  thousand  square  miles  of  semi-tropic  beauty. 
You  see  the  sinless  inhabitants  of  the  Indies,  Australia, 
Mexico,  the  Sandwich  Islands  and  Peru,  from  the  stately 
palm  with  such  a  far-away  look  that  it  would  hardly 
surprise  you  to  see  a  castled  elephant  move  out  from  its 
shadow,  to  the  painted  leaves  of  Brazil,  appearing  as  if 
leopards  and  tigers  had  lain  down  upon  them  and  printed 
them  off  in  duplicate. 

You  look  down  upon  the  jAaza  which  is  the  public 
square,  rich  as  the  National  Conservatory  with  foreign 
loveliness.  You  gaze  away  at  the  checker- work'  of  ranches 
which  are  farms.  The  mallows  —  the  humble  thing  that 
grew  about  your  feet  in  the  East,  with  its  tiny  blossoms 
no  bigger  than  a  vest  button,  the  dairy  plant  of  childhood, 
whence  you  used  to  gather  the  little  green  "cheeses" — 
is  grown  into  a  tree,  and  the  birds'-eyes  of  flowers  have 
thired  out  like  wild  roses,  and  challenge  you  on  tip-toe 
to  reach  them.  Booted  boys  swing  by  vines  an  infant 
could  have  broken.  You  look  at  familiar  things  through 
a  mysterious  magnifier.     Like  urchins  you  have  not  seen 

'  6* 


138  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

in  ten  years,  they  have  all  grown  out  of  your  knowl- 
edge. 

A  Yankee  examines  the  soil  and  despises  it.  He  pre- 
fers the  hillsides  of  Stonington.  The  man  from  Illinois 
prairies,  who  lugs  a  couple  of  pounds  of  mud  into  the 
house  to  his  wife  every  time  it  rains,  remembers  his 
level  acres  in  their  total  eclipse  of  Ethiopian  richness, 
and  ^regards  with  contempt  the  tawny,  dusty  landscape 
before  him.  He  shall  see  it  in  winter  time,  when  the 
Lord  works  miracles  with  the  treasures  of  His  clouds; 
when  the  miracle  at  the  w^edding  in  Cana,  where  ''the 
conscious  water  knew  its  God  and  blushed,"  grows  familiar 
and  annual,  and  the  water  is  turned  into  the  wine  of 
the  vine,  yea,  into  bread  and  to  wine.  He  shall  see  an 
electric  energy  in  this  soil  that  will  startle  and  charm 
him;  at  night  that  the  grain  has  visibly  grown  —  has 
made  a  Sabbath-day's  journey  toward  the  new  harvest; 
at  morning  he  shall  see  that  the  plants  that  went  only 
budded  to  bed  have  blossomed  out  in  the  dark.  He  won- 
ders if  Jonah  was  not  here  before  Jason,  and  if  seeds 
fx'om  his  gourd  yet  remain.  Why  not?  Grains  of  wheat 
three  thousand  years  old,  taken  from  the  robe  of  a  mum- 
my, were  sown  and  were  grown,  and  were  molded  into 
bread. 

And  writing  of  times  so  long  gone  they  get  new. 
You  may  see  at  the  United  States  mint  in  San  Francisco 
a  golden  spoon,  of  as  quaint  and  delicate  workmanship 
as  any  of  the  trinkets  of  Her  Majesty  of  Sheba.  Its  bowl 
is  a  leaf,  and  its  handle  the  wreathed  stem  it  grew  on. 
It  is  frail  and  exquisite  enough  for  the  tea-set  of  young 
Cupid.  Now  the  numismatist,  if  that  is  the  man  and 
I  have  hot  mistaken  the   name,  declares  he  has  evidence 


VALLEY   RAMBLES   AND   A   CLIMB.  139 

that  the  spoon  was  among  the  belongings  of  Solomon!  If 
so,  have  those  pennyweights  of  pale  gold  come  back  at 
last,  after  all  the  centuries,  to  their  native  land?  Did 
Solomon's  ships  ever  beat  up  the  Pacific  coast,  and  lie  oif 
and  on  in  sight  of  the  sands  of  San  Francisco?  As  the 
Spanish  would  say^  Quien  sabe? 

"  Cherry  ripe ! "  her  lips  do  cry,  and  here  you  are  in 
one  of  the  great  cherry  orchards  of  California.  The  trees 
are  shaped  like  little  Lombardy  poplars,  with  dense  dark 
foliage  growing  down  the  trunks  like  green  pantalettes. 
You  see  thousands  of  them  of  as  uniform  height  as  the 
Queen's  Highlanders.  The  inevitable  John  is  jDicking  the 
fruit  and  white  men  are  boxing  it  for  market,  in  black, 
red  and  gold  tinted  mosaics.  They  handle  each  cherry 
tenderly  as  if  it  were  glass.  Twenty  tons  have  been 
forwarded,  and  they  will  gather  thirty  more  during  the 
season.  By  the  little  hatchet  of  Washington,  fifty  tons 
from  a  single  orchard,  and  not  a  cherry  too  many,  at 
the  highest  of  prices.  What  an  Eden  for  the  robin  to 
rob  in! 

One  or  two  of  the  party  who  disposed  of  a  dollar's 
worth  of  rubies  at  a  sitting,  suffered  a  slight  unpleasant- 
ness that  could  have  been  covered  by  an  apron  without 
being  alleviated.  Those  cherries  tasted  like  the  little 
book  that  John  the  Revelator  ate,  "sweet  as  honey," 
but  —  alas ! 

There  is  a  thistle.  At  least  it  would  be  in  the  East, 
and  the  farmer  would  be  after  it  with  the  hoe  of  destruc- 
tion, but  here  it  has  expanded  and  brightened  into  a 
brilliant  scarlet  flower,  large  and  handsome  enough  to 
trick  out  a  general's  chapeau  with  a  feather.  Now,  if  a 
New  York  girl  had  that  thistle  she  would  welcome  it  to 


140  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

her  flower-garden,  give  it  a  new  name  ending  in  "  iV," 
like  her  own,  and  make  a  prince  of  it. 

The  air  is  sweet  with  the  yellow  glory  of  the  Scottish 
broom  and  strange  with  the  odor  of  the  Australian  euca- 
lyptus, with  its  leathery  leaves  held  both  sides  to  the 
light;  a  tree  that  does  not  grow  soberly,  but  springs  to 
the  height  of  fifty  feet  while  your  boy  is  reaching  three. 
The  valley  is  Elysian,  the  day  is  Halcyon,  as  we  set  forth 
for  a  mountain  ride.  The  grain  in  gi'een,  yellow,  white 
and  gold  unrolls  on  every  hand.  We  pass  fai-m  after 
farm  rich  with  the  fevidences  of  high  cultivation,  and  not 
a  laborer  in  view;  home  after  home  with  their  broad 
verandas,  and  window  and  door  wide  open,  and  not  a 
soul  in  sight.  Horses  by  scores,  cattle  by  hundreds,  sheep 
by  thousands,  and  not  a  master  or  a  shepherd  visible. 
Flowers  that  seem  to  be  keeping  house,  their  pleasant 
faces  toward  the  road;  vines  that  show  the  gentle  lead 
of  woman's  hand,  and  not  a  chick  of  a  child  or  a  flirt 
of  a  petticoat.  It  is  as  if  everybody  had  gone  in  a 
minute,  "died  and  made  no  sign."  Notwithstanding  the 
lovely  landscape  and  the  bright  air,  a  feeling  of  loneli- 
ness "overcomes  you  like  a  summer  cloud" — and  an  im- 
ported cloud  at  that.  You  are  in  a  land  where  weeds 
are  in  the  minority,  and  Nature  does  the  work.  The 
country  in  the  wildest  jilaces,  where  man  never  scarred 
it  with  iDlowshai'e,  seems  to  be  a  thousand  years  old. 
You  cannot  abandon  the  notion  that  this  field  has  been 
tilled  and  that  grove  planted  by  human  hands. 

ON  THE  HIGH  SEAS. 
The  road  grows  narrower  and  more  rugged.      We  go 
down  ravines  that  spread  out  into  little  bays  of  greenery. 


VALLEY    RAMBLES    AND   A    CLIMB.  141 

and  then  commit  suicide  by  throttling  themselves  into 
gorges.  We  begin  to  climb.  The  mountains  grow 
saucier  and  wilder.  They  act  as  if  they  would  be  glad 
to  shoulder  us  out  of  existence.  The  ledge  of  a  road  is 
notched  into  precipices  that  tumble  a  thousand  feet  down. 
It  looks  like  a  clock-shelf.  It  is  now  rock  at  the  right, 
abyss  at  the  left,  and  now  rock  at  the  left,  abyss  at  the 
right.  The  mountains  are  executing  a  solemn  daijpe,  and 
as  they  cross  over  and  back  we  are  lost  in  the  mazes  of 
the  measure.  Tall  trees  lift  their  crowns  almost  within 
reach,  as  if  they  grew  from  the  under-world.  Somewhere 
below,  their  roots  are  holding  on  with  the  clutch  of  a 
mighty  hand.  Rocks  hang  poised  midway  above,  only 
waiting  for  the  passage  of  the  carriage  to  let  all  go,  and 
be  aerolites.  You  fancy  the  tremendous  ricochet  when, 
with  thunder  and  fire,  they  shall  crash  down  the  gulf, 
through  splintering  of  timber  as  of  hurricanes,  and  rush- 
ing of  leaves  as  of  driving  rains.  Then  come  the  zigzag 
lifts  one  after  one,  and  when  you  reach  them  you  have 
reached  the  last  letter  in  the  alphabet  of  free-and-easy 
traveling.      They  are  the  Z's  of  all  thoroughfares. 

You  see  that  little  nick  on  the  brow  of  a  loftier  Alp, 
like  the  scar  of  a  sabre-stroke  on  a  trooper's  forehead. 
That  little  nick  is  the  road  you  are  going!  It  is  getting 
to  be  nervous  work.  In  places,  you  can  di'op  a  lead  and 
line  plumb  down  from  the  wagon's  side  into  the  sunless 
depth.  All  along,  fearless  flowers,  the  Indian  pinks,  the 
wild  roses,  the  honeysuckles,  the  violets,  the  azaleas,  the 
blue-bells,  the  giant  asters,  cling  within  reach  of  your  hand 
on  one  side,  and  smile  in  their  still  way  as  if  they  said, 
"Who's  afraid?"  but  on  the  other  —  thin  blue  emptiness. 
The  old  familiar  horizons,  that  have  always  clasped  you 


142  BETWEEN   THE    GATES. 

and  kept  you  from  being  lonely  in  the  wide  world,  have 
grown  alienated  and  deserted  you.  See  them  retreating 
away  at  your  left  and  behind  you,  slipping  off  from  the 
planet  and  revealing  something  of  what  Satan  showed 
the  Savior,  "  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of 
them."  And  what  a  stormy  world  it  is!  And  you  climb- 
ing a  mighty  surge  and  looking  across  a  tumbling  ocean 
of  troubled  mountains.  You  feel  as  if  you  were  some- 
how escaping  from  yourself  into  the  rarer  atmosphere  — 
a  kind  of  dying  without  death.  Here  and  there  little 
cities,  the  spangled  breast-pins  of  civilization,  glitter  in 
the  troughs  of  the  sea.  It  would  not  surprise  you  much 
to  see  them  riding  the  next  wave  that  comes.  Russian 
River  trails  along  like  a  streamer  lost  overboard.  The 
shaded  greens  and  blues  of  oak  and  evergreen,  and  vines 
and  flowers,  are  "  woi-ked  down,"  as  painters  say,  like  an 
ivory  picture.  Yonder  is  old  Saint  Helena,  in  whose 
shadow  you  traveled  for  hours,  and  then  climbing  over 
his  hip  slipped  down  on  this  side  of  him.  You  thought 
him  mighty,  but  every  ravine  is  dwindled  to  a  wrinkle, 
a  mere  bit  of  deeper  color,  and  altogether  he  is  shriveled 
down  to  the  haystack  in  the  home  meadow.  Here  are 
tawny  sweeps  with  the  green  spray  washed  off,  and 
you  think  of  streaks  of  lurid  light  from  a  sun  you  can- 
not see.  There,  tall  cliffs  in  ethereal  robes  azure  as  a 
bluebird;  yonder,  the  horizon  has  broken  utterly  away, 
and  the  world  dim  and  dimmer  is  flowing  through  like 
the  floating  of  a  veil  of  gossamer.  Pine  Mountain  in 
his  dark  cloak  is  in  sight.  He  is  a  monk  among  them. 
High  up  the  acclivities  are  scars,  as  if  received  in  some 
old  bombardment.  They  are  entrances  to  the  quicksilver 
mines.     The  roads  to  them  are  hair-lines  in  the  distance. 


"  VALLEY    KAMBLES    AND    A    CLIMB.  143 

THE  HOG'S  BACK. 

Five  miles  across,  and  apparently  within  the  toss  of  a 
stone,  is  the  Hog's  Back,  a  spine  of  a  mountain  bridging 
the  valley  from  side  to  side,  and  standing  at  an  angle  of 
forty  degrees.  Some  hirsute  keeper  of  swine  must  have 
named  this  gigantic  highway.  It  is  complimentary  to  the 
hog,  but  a  libel  on  the  mountain.  Think  of  a  mastodon 
weighing  a  hundred  million  tons  forever  crossing  the 
valley  and  never  leaving  it,  his  gray  sides  and  ridged 
back  lifting  vast  and  bare  amid  the  visible  thunders  of 
the  gorges  —  for  have  you  not  seen  mountains  that  looked 
thunder  as  you  watched  them,  as  if  any  moment  they 
might  give  tongue  and  go  bellowing  down  the  world?  — 
and  then  think  of  riding  after  a  four-in-hand  lashed  out 
to  the  reckless,  rattling  gait  of  the  wild  steeds  of  the 
pampas,  down  that  lifted  and  angry  spine,  with  a  sway, 
a  swing  and  a  sweep,  the  slopes  falling  away  like  a  horse's 
mane  from  the  ridge,  and  no  more  chance  of  a  halt  than 
if  you  were  riding  a  cannon-shot.  If  you  can  do  it  and 
not  feel  a  cold  wave  shudder  down  that  spine  of  your 
own,  you  are  fit  to  sit  upon  the  box  with  Phoebus,  when 
he  drives  his  golden  chariot  down  the  sky. 

The  road  comes  to  emphatic  pauses  before  and  above 
you.  It  runs  out  into  the  air  every  little  way,  and  dis- 
appears like  a  whitf  of  yellow  dust.  You  meet  it  coming 
back  with  a  bewildered  look  on  the  other  side  of  a  gorge, 
as  if  it  were  lost  or  discouraged,  and  were  making  the 
best  of  its  way  home.  You  are  sorry  for  the  road  and 
a  little  sorry  for  yourself,  but  you  double  back  on  the 
trail  as  if  the  dogs  were  after  you  in  full  cry,  and  follow 
on.  Some  of  the  party  are  afraid  to  look  down  and 
afraid  to  look  up,  but  nobody  is  reluctant  to  look  off.     It 


144  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

is  going  to  sea  without  leaving  the  shore.  At  intervals 
there  are  ticklish  turnouts  projected  over  the  precipice, 
with  exactly  as  much  railing  to  them  as  there  is  to  Cape 
Horn,  where  you  doubt  whether  you  want  either  the  rock 
side  or  the  air  side.  What  if  we  meet  somebody  on  the 
tape-line  of  a  road  between!  And  we  do!  Around  that 
headland  come  a  pair  of  noses,  and  there  is  a  simultaneous 
cry  of  "  team !  *'  The  witch  of  Endor  would  have  been  a 
more  welcome  apparition,  for  we  could  have  driven  throuyh 
her  and  not  broken  a  bone.  The  noses'  owners  tugged  a 
wagon  into  sight  with  a  man  and  woman  in  it.  It  looked 
like  a  dead-lock.  Were  it  not  for  somebody  else  the.  writer 
might  have  been  there  yet.  You  should  have  seen  them 
lift  that  wagon,  woman  and  all,  and  set  two  wheels  of  it 
just  over  the  edge  of  the  precipice.  Had  so  much  as  an 
eye  snapped  with  the  quick  winks  some  of  us  executed, 
and  started  those  horses,  that  woman  might  better  have 
been  dropped  from  the  talons  of  an  eagle  into  its  nest,  for 
then  she  would  have  been  some  comfort  to  "  the  young 
eagles  when  they  cry,"  She  was  as  indifferent  as  a  lay- 
figure  at  a  dressmaker's.  It  seemed  to  me  like  threading 
a  needle  with  only  one  chance  to  do  it,  and  a  stitch  lost 
a  life  lost.  But  they  hemmed  the  edge,  and  as  she  rode 
around  the  rocky  elbow,  that  woman's  square  flat  back 
was  as  full  of  expression  as  her  face.  They  were  a  match. 
Then  we  made  a  plunge  down  the  road,  and  began  to 
learn  our  letters  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountains.  It 
was  the  mightiest  hornbook  that  ever  went  without  covers. 
The  many-sided  man  had  a  foot  on  the  brake,  for  they 
drive  with  brakes  and  not  with  reins  in  California,  and 
the  horses  traveled  around  the  outer  edge  of  visible  things 
with  great  humility.     In  these  tremendous  ups  and  downs 


VALLEY    RAMBLES    AND    A    CLIMB.  145 

I  think  the  downs  have  it.  There  is  such  a  tension  of 
feeling  about  the  ascent;  such  a  twanging  of  violin  sti'ings 
in  the  nervous  music,  as  the  keys  go  around  and  the  wheels 
go  up ;  such  a  thinking  that  yoii  are  climbing  away  from 
home  and  out  of  the  solid  world;  that  you  are  losing 
your  standing-room  on  the  planet  every  long  and  creeping 
minute,  as  you  take  the  bold  diagonals  of  the  mountain 
stairs;  —  all  these  things  temper  the  grandeur  with  a  touch 
of  awe,  and  render  the  exultation  something  too  solemn 
for  delight.  But  your  eyes  are  couched  in  the  clearer 
air,  and  the  winds  sweeping  from  crag  to  crag  again,  the 
broad-winged  free-commoners  of  Heaven,  inspire  you  with 
a  kind  of  Independence-Day  elation.  You  set  Byron's 
live  thunders  to  leaping.  The  Vale  of  Chamouni  subliming, 
"  The  waters  coming  down  at  Lodore,"  and  the  Waldensian 
Song  in  full  chorus;  but  you  are  not  apt  to  do  it  until 
you  have  gotten  a  couple  of  miles  nearer  the  earth's 
center  of  gravity,  and  are  regaling  yourself  with  coffee 
and  tongue-sandwiches  by  the  roadside. 
7 


CHAPTER  XII. 


THE  GEYSERS. 

HAVING  ridden  for  hours  the  mountains'  heavy  seas, 
all  at  once,  with  slackened  trace  and  tightened 
rein  and  brake  hard  down,  we  begin  to  sink  without 
drowning.  It  is  something  like  driving  a  four-in-hand  of 
nightmares.  Down  we  go,  a  thousand  feet  a  mile,  now 
circling  a  hill,  now  balancing  as  if  on  the  left  wing  and 
now  on  the  right;  then  with  swift  dashes  and  i^ounces, 
another  thousand  feet  another  mile,  and  then  a  final 
plunge,  and  we  bring  up  with  a  rattling  of  bolts,  a  jin- 
gling of  chains  and  a  sense  of  satisfaction  at  the  mouth 
of  Pluton  Cafion,  and  in  front  of  a  spacious  hotel,  with 
its  broad  hospitable  verandas,  and  its  doors  and  windows 
all  set  wide  in  welcome,  like  so  many  pleasant  faces 
under  two  rows  of  broad-brimmed  hats.  In  all  California 
you  will  find  no  house  of  refuge  combining  more  of  rest- 
ful comfort,  courteous  attention,  lavish  abundance,  and 
the  neatness  of  a  young  Quakeress.  Amid  great  oaks  and 
beautiful  flowers  stands  the  very  inn  the  poet  Shenstone 
would  have  loved. 

So  this  is  The  Geysers.  You  have  descended  to  it 
with  a  bold  flight,  and  it  is  seventeen  hundred  feet  yet 
to  the  level  of  the  Pacific.  You  are  in  a  nook  of  the 
world.  Around  you  the  mountains  lift  three  and  four 
thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  and  watch  each  other  across 

146 


THE   GEYSERS.  147 

the  three-mile  chasm.  Before  you  is  a  gulf  with  zigzag 
paths  hidden  beneath  a  luxuriant  wealth  of  foliage.  Laurel, 
oak,  fir,  madrona,  vine,  shrub  and  flower,  are  fairly  wran- 
gling together  in  their  rivalry  to  see  which  shall  grow  the 
fastest.  You  take  an  alpenstock  and  a  guide,  a  garrulous 
old  fellow,  who  has  looked  into  volcanoes  and  groped  in 
caves,  and  turned  his  memory  into  a  laboratory  for  all 
sorts  of  loose  mineral  specimens  and  facts.  You  settle 
down  in  your  holdbacks,  and  walk  on  your  heels.  The 
mountain  shows  its  elbows  all  along,  as  if'  to  nudge  you 
off  the  path.  You  come  to  a  rustic  bridge  across  a  lively 
stream  of  clear  cold  water.  It  is  the  Pluton  River. 
There  are  "  books  in  the  running  brooks "  that  swell  it, 
and,  what  Shakespeare  never  saw,  the  speckled  trout;  for 
if  he  had,  he  would  haye  named  it  on  some  of  his  lords' 
and  ladies'  bills  of  fax'e.  The  flash  of  its  dappled  beauty 
might  have  diverted  Ophelia  from  her  "  rooted  sorrow," 
and  even  my  Lady  Macbeth  forgotten  for  an  instant  that 
"damned  spot,"  as  she  freed  with  her  little  hands  the 
rich  flakes  from  their  crisp  and  golden  binding.  There 
are  "sermons  in  stones"  withal,  for  the  Pluton  lifts  its 
voice  in  loud  and  cheerful  talk  as  it  runs  on.  A  stealthy, 
speechless  river,  like  a  spy  in  moccasins,  never  commanded 
my  admiration. 

You  stand  upon  the  bridge  and  look.  The  mountain 
seems  shut  before  you,  and  no  "Sesame"  at  hand  where- 
with to  open  it.  But  you  listen.  The  rumble  of  a  grist- 
mill, the  tumble  of  a  water-power,  the  hissing  of  an 
engine,  the  bubble  of  boiling  caldrons,  the  jar  of  a  dis- 
tant train.  It  is  as  if  the  murmuring  echoes  of  a  live 
world  were  locked  up  in  the  heart  of  these  mountains, 
and  the    disembodied  voices    were    clamoring    for   escape. 


148  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

You  listen  as  at  the  sealed  den  of  some  mountain  mon- 
ster with  eyes  that  light  his  gloomy  cavern.  You  hear 
the  craunch  as  he  grinds  a  bison's  bones,  and  his  heavy 
snuffing  breaths  of  satisfaction  as  he  rolls  them  over. 

A  sudden  turn,  and  the  mouth  of  the  caflon  swallows 
you  before  you  have  quite  made  up  your  mind  that 
"  Barkis  is  willing."  You  follow  the  crooked  trail  and 
reach  the  Geyser  River,  warm  for  water  but  cool  for  tea, 
that  seems  in  a  tumultuous  hurry  to  get  away,  for  it 
tumbles  down  the  giant  stairs  like  the  rabble  rush  of  an 
unruly  school.  The  great  green  bay-trees,  that  flourish 
like  the  wicked,  roof  you  in.  The  crooked  way  grows 
narrower  and  wilder.  You  enter,  a  craggy  grotto  of 
romance,  and  from  ledge  to  ledge  piirsue  your  upward 
way.  The  California  fashion  of  giving  everything  to  the 
devil  prevails  here  —  a  fashion  "more  honored  in  the 
breach  than  in  the  observance."  The  air  begins  to  smell 
like  the  right  end  of  a  lucifer  match.  You  are  in  the 
"  Devil's  Office."  It  is  an  apothecary  shop.  Epsom  salts 
hang  in  crystals  from  the  walls  of  rock;  rows  of  mineral 
springs,  some  of  sulphur,  some  of  salt,  a  trace  of  soda 
hei'e,  of  iron,  there,  of  alum  yonder,  each  more  unpalat- 
able than'  the  other,  no  matter  which  end  of  the  stock 
you  begin  at.  Here  is  a  stone  pot  of  eyewater  that,  like 
the  widow's  cruse,  never  gives  out.  People  think  it 
strengthens  the  eyes,  and  "  as  a  man  thinketh  so  is  he." 

GOING  UP  THE  CANON. 

The  narrow  caflon  opens  like  a  fan.  Leaf  and  shrub 
disappear.  It  is  getting  serious  and  sulphurous.  Rock 
and  earth  break  out  with  a  most  extraordinary  rash. 
The  whole    family  of  sulphur,  ates,  ites   and   ets,   black. 


THE   GEYSERS.  149 

yellow,  white  and  red,  are  everywhere.  All  tints  of  copper, 
all  shades  of  iron,  strong  with  ammonia,  white  with  mag- 
nesia, gray  with  borax,  crystal  with  alum.  It  is  as  if 
there  had  been  a  universal  wreck  by  earthquake  of  all 
the  chemical  warehouses  in  America,  and  the  debris  had 
been  tumbled  into  this  canon  right  over  an  everlasting 
furnace,  and  kept  hot,  like  the  restaurants  that  promise 
"warm  meals  at  all  hours."  The  rocks  that  bound  the 
narrow  gulf  are  as  full  of  holes  as  a  bank-swallows'  vil- 
lage. Puffs  of  steam  issue  from  them  like  breath  from 
the  lazy  nostrils  of  slumbering  mastodons.  You  are 
climbing  all  the  while  from  crag  to  stepping-stone,  up 
rude  stairs  of  rock,  around  sharp  angles,  by  boiling  cal- 
drons, over  streams  of  smoking  water.  The  ground  is 
hot  under  your  feet.  Volumes  of  steam  rise  in  everlast- 
ing torment.  Here  at  your  right,  in  a  room  without  a 
door,  and  no  place  for  one,  somebody  is  churning.  You 
hear  the  dull  thud  of  the  dasher.  You  stand  by  a  stone 
hopper  whose  jarring,  rumbling  jolt  assures  you  they  are 
grinding  a  grist  that  nobody  has  sent  you  for.  As  for 
the  miller,  he  is  not  in  sight,  and  you  are  not  curious. 
His  punch-bowl  is  even  full,  his  alum  kettle  on  the  boil, 
it  makes  your  mouth  pucker  to  smell  it ;  his  arm-chair 
of  solid  rock  is  empty,  and  you  occupy  it,  the  only  thing 
among  his  possessions  you  seem  to  covet,  except  his  ink- 
stand, a  broad,  liberal  piece  of  furniture  filled  with  a 
liquid  as  ebony  as  "  Maynard  and  Noyes'  best  black." 
We  come  to  the  miller's  family  kettle,  the  Witches'  Cal- 
dron, twenty-five  feet  around,  with  a  temperature  of  a 
couple  of  hundred  degrees,  and  filled  with  a  tumbling 
ocean  of  smut  tea.  It  is  the  busiest  place  you  were  ever 
in;  a  paradise  of  a  kitchen  for  an  imps'  boarding-house. 


150  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

Under  every  foot  of  ground,  behind  every  rock,  within 
every  crevice,  something  is  frying,  simmering,  boiling, 
gurgling,  steaming,  fuming.  You  think  the  spoons  for 
supping  here  should  have  long  handles. 

Here  is  the  escape-pipe  of  a  Geyser  steamboat.  It 
rejects  the  sticks  and  stones  you  throw  into  it,  and  blows 
oflf  steam  at  times  with  great  resentment.  They  set  it  to 
playing  a  boatswain's  whistle,  but  it  piped  "all  hands  on 
deck  "  so  relentlessly  by  night  and  by  day  that  the  weary 
guests  at  the  hotel,  a  half  mile  distant,  petitioned  that 
the  miller's  trumpeter  be  permitted  to  lick  his  lips  and 
smooth  them  out  of  pucker  for  a  long  vacation. 

The  soles  of  your  feet  burn.  Some  chemical  rodents 
and  mordants  arc  gnawing  at  the  leather.  And  then  you 
go  up  a  flight  of  stairs  cut  and  nicked  in  the  face  of  a 
rocky  promontoi-y,  and  climb  to  the  top  of  a  stone  column 
with  a  pulpit  upon  it  a  hundred  feet  high,  and  rugged 
as  any  a  persecuted  old  Covenanter  ever  preached  from. 
A  flag-staff  is  set  ujd  therein,  but  the  flag  that  floated 
there  grew  as  yellow  in  the  brimstone  as  a  pestilence 
signal,  and  frittered  away. 

Not  satisfied  with  endowing  Satan  with  everything, 
they  have  proceeded  to  ordain  him,  for  this  is  the  Devil's 
Pulpit.  You  gaze  down  from  the  lofty  look-out  upon  a 
winding  hall  sloping  rapidly  away  toward  the  bottom  of 
the  caflon,  and  showing  the  unrailed  galleries  and  slip- 
pery stairways  whereby  you  came,  and  all  one  blotch  of 
confused  colors  like  a  wagon-painter's  shop-door.  You 
look  through  spirals,  wisps  and  clouds  of  steam,  of  whiff's 
from  rocks  that  have  sat  down  on  themselves  and  fallen 
to  smoking  their  pipes.  Your  mouth  tastes  as  if  you 
had   lunched    from  a  box  of  matches.     You    smell    as    if 


THE   GEYSERS.  151 

you  had  been  out  in  Sodom's  brimstone  rain  without  an 
umbrella.  You  feel  as  if  you  had  escaped  from  Tophet's 
open  mouth;  and  if  not  quite  so  intensely,  then  as  if 
you  had  been  basted  with  brimstone  for  the  cutaneous 
effects  of  that  uneasy  animal  called  acarus  scabiei.  How 
much  more  harmless  a  thing  may  be  when  disguised  with 
words  of  which  nobody  knows  the  meaning! 

The  scene  is  weird.  Macbeth's  witches,  a«?/body's 
witches,  would  be  at  home  there,  and  set  about  making 
broth  of  "  eye  of  newt  and  toe  of  frog  "  without  so  much 
as  a  hint  from  the  miller.  Leaving  the  pulpit,  you  go 
down  over  the  shoulder  of  the  mountain  by  a  pleasant 
shady  way  to  Temperance  Spring,  an  artery  of  splendid 
water  that  the  roots  of  the  big  trees  have  vainly  tried  to 
hold  in  their  crooked  fingers.  You  are  in  a  cool  and  un- 
suggestive  atmosphere.  Some  crimson  linnets  are  singing 
in  the  trees,  but  no  bird  ever  flew  into  the  grim  cathe- 
dral or  rested  in  the  blotched  cloisters  of  the  canon  you 
have  left.  You  halt  at  the  Lovers'  Post-Office,  where  a 
rustic  seat  and  a  bended  tree  and  a  gracious  shade  invite 
you.  The  great  hollow  of  an  oak  is  filled  with  cai'ds  and 
letters  deposited  there  by  travelers  from  all  the  world; 
you  read  names  from  New-Zealand,  Australia,  Brazil, 
Hong  Kong.      It  is  a  cousin    of  the  Charter  Oak  of   old. 

Then  catching  up  the  broken  thread  of  the  trail,  you 
descend  into  the  unshapely  dish  of  a  dead  volcano.  You 
walk  on  the  lava  beds  where  the  earth  yields  noiselessly 
to  your  foot.  A  cane  is  thrust  into  it  as  easily  as  into 
so  much  bakers'  dough,  and  when  withdrawn  a  puff  of 
steam  lazily  follows.  It  would  hardly  surprise  you  to 
hear  a  discontented  snore  at  the  disturbance.  One  of  the 
ladies  cries  "  Don't,"  and  you  don't.    The  volcano  may  not 


152  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

be  dead,  but  sleeping;  let  us  treat  it  with  respect.  We 
walk  amid  the  gray  Hour  of  calcined  rocks  that  would 
have  held  an  inscription  for  a  thousand  years,  but  they 
came  centuries  ago  grists  to  this  mill.  True  it  is,  "  the 
mills  of  the  gods  grind  slowly,  but  they  grind  exceeding 
small."  You  walk  across  the  debatable  ground  of  the 
crater  with  the  tiptoe  feeling  with  which  you  used  to 
teeter  into  church  in  prayer-time,  and  come  on  the  side 
of  the  volcano  to  a  hot  sweat-and-mud  bath  where  the 
Indians  used  to  bring  their  sick  to  be  healed.  It  must 
be  the  original  office  of  Dr.  Thompson,  the  ancient  prince 
of  steam-doctors,  and  himself  in  high  esteem.  The  mill- 
er's tea-kettle  with  its  rattling  lid  above,  and  its  rush  of 
steam  and  its  tumbling  brewing  below,  is  the  last  of  the 
miller's  hardware  that  we  visit.  The  orderly  strata  of 
the  rocks  are  torn  and  twisted  out  of  shape,  like  a  book 
of  tattered  leaves.  Bleached,  encrusted,  spangled  like 
nuggets,  resembling  petrified  honeycomb,  slate,  sandstone, 
everything,  all  tumbled  out  together. 

People  come  here  and  take  a  hurried  look.  They  lift 
their  skirts,  and  worry  about  their  boots,  and  fresh  from 
Icelandic  Geyser  pictures  with  their  hundred  feet  of  col- 
umned water,  they  think  this  but  a  wreck  of  a  chemist's 
kitchen.  But  let  them  linger;  see  that  mountain  fairly 
cleft  from  peak  to  lowest  depth;  watch  these  rocky  books 
rent  from  their  covers  and  tumbled  into  heaps  of  chaos; 
sift  through  their  thoughtful  fingers  the  pale  affrighted 
dust  of  stone,  ground  fine  as  pollen  from  a  flower;  strug- 
gle around  these  quaking,  trembling,  rumbling,  stifling 
crags  and  peaks,  like  a  little  steamboat  shaking  with  the 
ague  of  an  engine  too  big  for  its  body;  think  of  these 
mountains  "  rock-ribbed  and  ancient  as  the  sufi,"  riddled 


THE   GEYSERS.  153 

with  fires  and  forces  no  man  can  estimate;  imagine  the 
intensity  of  the  agencies  that  keep  this  wreck  of  matter 
glowing,  and  these  rocks  bubbling  like  the  sap  in  the 
sugar-camps  in  spring;  fancy  what  ruin  would  be  wrought 
were  these  safety-valves  to  shut;  go  to  the  bath-house 
beside  the  Pluton,  and  grope  in  the  chamber  gray  with 
clouds  of  steam,  or  plunge  into  water  hot  from  the  boilers 
of  a  thousand  years ;  —  think,  see,  and  do  all  this,  and  you 
are  inspired  with  a  reverence  for  these  reserved  powers 
that  mutter  beneath  your  feet.  See  the  trees  that  stand 
like  tall  hall-clocks  upon  the  very  rim  and  wreck  of  vol- 
canic ruin,  and  time  the  long-gone  day  when  its  grim 
thunders  ceased,  for  lo,  they  have  grown  grand  since 
these  giants  always  turning  over  fell    into  restless  sleep! 

BEAUTY  IN  THE  CANON. 

But  even  the  grimmest  deep  of  the  canon  gives  birth 
to  beauty.  I  first  saw  the  steam's  white  plumes  droop- 
ing and  drifting  away  over  a  mountain  shoulder,  and 
touched  with  the  morning  sun.  There  was  the  suspicion 
of  a  bow  of  promise  on  the  clouds.  I  saw  them  again 
when  the  day  went  down  the  western  slope.  There  was 
a  flush  of  glory  on  the  smokes  of  the  old  camp-fires. 

And  all  around  this  place  are  nooks  and  alcoves, 
picturesque  and  beautiful.  There  is  one,  "  The  Lovers' 
Rest,"  a  sort  of  shrine  beneath  the  laurel's  royal  roof, 
where  sun  and  shade  play  hide-and-seek  together,  and 
floor  the  alcove  with  curves  of  green  and  gold.  It  hangs 
like  a  balcony  above  the  Pluton  River,  whose  voice  comes 
up  with  laughter  from  its  rocky  stx'eet.  Vines  drape  the 
trees,  and  wild  flowers  smile  from  rugged  clefts  and  swing 
above  the  water.     Gray  rocks  lie  quietly  about  like  flocks 


lr»4  BETWEEN   THE   fJATES. 

in  the  fold  at  night.  A  mountain  clad  in  broidered  uni- 
form stands  guard  to  keep  the  grim-mouthed  canon  out. 
You  could  not  tell  it  is  within  a  thousand  miles. 

It  was  just  here  that  an  anniversary  overtook  us  so 
strictly  personal  that  the  writer  hesitated  to  name  it,  until 
he  remembered  it  was  an  oifense  he  could  commit  but 
once  in  a  quarter  of  a  century.  His  Silver  Wedding-day 
found  him  and  his  at  the  Geysers,  and  their  kind  fellow- 
mountaineers  made  it  memorable  w^ith  cordial  words  and 
pleasant  deeds,  and  under  the  shade  of  the  laurel,  the 
voice  of  mountain  birds  and  Geyser  river  clear  and  strong, 
the  air  bright  with  sun  and  sweet  with  flowers,  the  sev- 
enth of  June  straight  down  from  Heaven,  the  wedding 
feast  set  forth,  the  valued  friends  around,  these  lines, 
written  where  the  miner's  wash-bowl  used  to  be  in  the 
old  song,  "  upon  my  knee,"  were  read,  and  then  "  The 
Lovers'  Rest"  was  left  to  its  loveliness  and  loneliness, 
and  the  wedding  guests  are  scattered  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific.     "  Here's  a  health  to  them  that's  awa' ! " 

Five  and  twenty  years  ago 

And  two  thousand  miles  away. 
With  a  mingled  gleam  and  glow 
As  of  roses  in  the  snow. 
Shines  a  day! 

Only  day  that  never  set 

In  all  this  world  of  sorrow, — 
Only  day  that  ever  let 
Weary,  wayside  hearts  forget 
To-morrow. 

All  the  world  was  wondrous  fair 

To  the  bridegroom  and  the  bride, 
With  the  lilacs  in  the  air 
And  the  roses  all  at  prayer 
Side  by  side. 

In  the  door  stood  golden  day. 

Washed  the  noon-mark  out  with  light, 
Larks  half  sang  their  souls  away — 
Who  dreamed  the  morning  would  not  stay 
Until  night? 


THE   GEYSERS.  155 

Dim  and  bright  and  far  and  near 

le  the  homestead  where  we  met — 
Friends  around  no  longer  here, 
Rainbow  light  in  every  tear — 
Together  yet! 

Ah,  the  graves  since  we  were  wed 

That  have  made  that  June  day  dim — 
Golden  crown  and  silver  head 
Always  dying,  never  dead, 

Like  some  hymn- 
Some  sweet  breath  of  olden  days: 

Lips  are  dust— on  goes  the  song!  * 

Soft  in  plaint  and  grand  in  praise. 
Living  brooks  by  dusty  ways 
All  along! 

Wandered  wide  the  loving  feet, 

Some  have  made  the  lilies  grow, 
And  have  walked  the  golden  street 
Where  the  missing  mornings  meet 
From  below. 

Night  the  weaver  waits  to  weave. 

Facing  north  I  see  unfurled 
Shadows  on  my  Eastern  sleeve- 
Crape  of  night,  but  never  grieve 
For  the  world. 

Now,  dear  heart,  thy  hand  in  mine, 

Through  clear  and  cloudy  weather, 
Crowned  with  blessings  half  divine 
We'll  drink  the  cup  of  life's  old  wine 
Together. 

In  this  "  Lovers'  "  perfect  "  Rest," 

Beside  the  Geyser  river. 
Where  mountains  heap  the  burning  breast 
Of  giants  with  the  plumy  crest 
Forever, 

New  friends  grace  this  Silver  Day, 

Apples  gold  in  pictures  fair, 
Bringing  back  a  royal  ray 
From  the  everlasting  May 
Over  there. 

We  lift  the  prayer  of  tiny  Tim, 
"God  bless  us  every  one!" 
Crown  life's  goblet  to  the  brim, 
While  across  its  Western  rim 
Shines  the  Sun. 


CHAPTEK  XTII. 


THE  PETRIFIED  FOREST. 

DELIGHTFUL  as  it  is  to  go  a-gypsying  by  private 
conveyance,  you  want  a  touch  of  the  four  or  six- 
in-hand  broad  mountain  stages,  good  for  a  dozen  and  no 
crowding.  I  had  such  an  experience  with  W.  C.  Van 
Arnira,  a  knight  of  the  road,  not  a  brigand,  but  master 
of  the  whip  and  ribbons.  He  can  play  on  the  reins  as 
if  they  were  harp-strings.  He  gathers  them  up  until  he 
feels  every  mouth  with  his  fingers,  and  is  en  rapport,  as 
the  mesmerizers  say,  with  all  of  the  six.  Then  that  whip 
throws  out  fifteen  feet  of  lash  with  an  electric  explosion 
at  the  end  of  it  done  up  in  a  silk  snapper,  and  he  flicks 
the  near  leader's  ear  as  accurately  as  you  can  lay  an 
argumentative  point  on  one  thumb-nail  and  secure  it 
with  the  other.  The  team  gives  a  step  or  two  of  a  dance, 
and  is  oflf.  It  plunges  up  the  pitches  like  a  charge  of 
cavalry.  It  dashes  around  the  capes  as  swallows  over  a 
mill-pond.  The  leaders  have  doubled  a  cape  that  juts  out 
above  a  precipice.  The  wheelers  are  making  straight  for 
the  chasm  at  a  swinging  trot.  The  leaders  are  wowhere. 
You  clutch  the  seat  as  the  man  overboard  grasps  a  hen- 
coop, and  shrink  to  the  rock  side  with  a  pinched  feeling 
of  apprehension. 

And  yet  it  is  wonderful  to  see  the  earth  letting  itself 
down   two  thousand    feet,   and   holding   on   with   scarred 

156 


THE    PETRIFIED   FOREST.  157 

fingers  and  rocky  knuckles  to  the  shelf  you  are  riding 
upon.  You  look  down.  It  has  taken  a  river  with  it,  and 
never  spilled  a  drop,  and  there  it  is  hurrying  along  as  if 
nothing  had  happened.  You  look  across  the  aerial  gulf 
all  free  and  clear  to  another  world  beyond.  Sometimes 
you  feel  a  disposition  to  fly,  and  sometimes  you  feel  as 
if  you  should  fly  in  spite  of  yourself.  You  thought  all 
this  since  we  lost  the  leaders,  for  a  man  thinks  fast  when 
he  is  going  to  be  hanged  or  drowned,  or  tumbled  from  a 
precipice.  Those  leaders  are  headed  for  a  point  at  right 
angles  to  the  stage.  They  must  not  pull  a  pound,  and 
you  see  why  —  should  they  draw,  the  hind  wheels  would 
be  swung  around  over  the  gulf,  and  so  you  watch  the 
driver  as  he  flngers  out  a  pair  of  reins  and  hauls  them 
taut.  The  next  pair  are  slackened  upon  the  wheelers' 
backs. 

Yonder  are  four  great  S's  in  a  row,  two  boldly  curv- 
ing toward  the  gulf,  and  two  hugging  the  mountain  with 
the  convex  side.  We  strike  the  first  and  swing  in  on  a 
scurrying  trot ;  the  next  and  sweep  out ;  and  so  till  we 
have  dashed  off  the  S's.  It  is  alcove  and  column,  column 
and  alcove;  we  whirl  around  the  cornices  and  dodge  into 
the  recesses,  but  the  gulf  fits  the  scallop  like  a  glove. 
There  is  no  getting  rid  of  it. 

You  say  to  Van  Arnim  in  a  deprecatory  way,  a  sort 
of  pray-don't-laugh'at-me  air,  "  Isn't  the  road  pretty  nar- 
I'ow?"  giving  a  furtive  look  at  the-  wheel  under  your 
hand,  that  rims  along  the  very  selvedge  with  a  little 
crumbling  craunch. 

"  I  have  all  I  can  use,"  is  the  common-sense  reply,  as 
he  touches  up  the  off  leader.  By-and-by  we  meet  a 
heavily-laden    wagon    in    the    narrowest    of    places.      Its 


158  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

driver  sees  our  cavalcade  of  horses,  halts  square  in  the 
road  —  as  who  would  not?  —  and  nervously  jerks  the  lines 
this  way  and  that,  and  his  horses  swing  their  heads  from 
side  to  side  like  a  garden  gate  with  a  boy  on  it,  but  the 
bodies  never  move  an  inch. 

"  Well,"  says  our  driver  in  a  generous  way,  "  which 
side  of  the  road  do  you  want?  Take  your  choice,  and 
get  out  of  the  middle  of  it,"  That  sounds  fair,  but 
then — .  At  last,  after  some  backing  and  sheering  and 
muttering,  the  wagon  is  shelved,  and  the  stage  just  sways 
astride  of  the  gulf's  brink  and  pulls  through.  Who  ever 
heard  of  breaking  a  precipice  to  the  saddle!  And  so,  up 
and  down,  in  and  out,  over  and  under,  we  go.  It  is  as 
graceful  as  flying. 

The  road  from  the  Geysers  to  Cloverdale  is  like  the 
undulations  of  a  strain  in  Homer.  I  think  a  Grecian 
could  learn  to  scan  it.  And  there  were  curious  things 
on  the  way.  Perched  upon  a  tree  over  the  road  is  a 
specimen  of  the  peacock  of  the  West  —  a  rare  bird,  and 
larger  than  an  ostrich.  This  one  had  been  repeatedly 
shot  at  by  ardent  tourists,  but  they  never  ruffled  a 
feather.  It  is  perched  there  yet.  It  is  a  formation  of 
a  redwood  limb,  and  a  most  remarkable  portrait,  even 
to  the  tail  and  the  detail  of  Juno's  favorite  poultry.  Far- 
ther on,  at  the  left  of  the  road,  is  a  lean  mountain, 
its  spine  showing  sharp  as  a  wedge,  and  gaunt  as  a 
starved  wolf. 

At  the  end  of  this  spine,  about  five  hundred  feet  in 
the  air,  is  the  profile  of  a  Turk.  The  face  is  about 
five  yards  long — face  enough  for  a  vender  of  lightning- 
I'ods.  The  low  forehead,  the  aquiline  nose,  the  mous- 
tached  lip,  the  imperial  on  the  chin,  and  even   the  eye- 


THE    PETRIFIED   FOREST.  159 

lashes,  are  plainly  seen  without  the  help  of  keen  optics 

"  To  see  things  uot  to  be  seen." 

The  whole  is  surmounted  by  the  folds  of  a  turban  wound 
about  with  Oriental  grace,  and  Nature  has  thrust  a  little 
evergreen  in  it  for  a  plume  —  or  for  a  joke,  either  or 
both.  What  innumerable  rains  have  trickled  down  that 
patient  nose,  is  the  first  thought;  and  the  second,  what 
touches  of  wind  and  water  have  shaped  those  features 
into  everlasting  immobility;  of  what  earthquake  shock 
was  that  old  man  of  the  mountain  born,  who  keeps  end- 
less watch  and  ward  over  the  brawling  canon.  It  might 
have  been  there  when  King  Alfred  v/as  making  lanterns. 
And  it  is  less  than  a  dozen  years  since  the  Turk  swelled 
the  census  by  one.  When  the  laborers  were  building 
the  road,  the  foreman  used  to  watch  the  cliff  as  you 
would  the  gnomon  of  a  garden  dial  for  the  time.  The 
sun  struck  a  little  promontory  at  eleven  o'clock,  and 
one  day,  in  an  instant,  he  discovered  the  whole  face, 
and  found  it  was  the  tip  of  another  man's  nose  across 
which  he  had  been  taking  sight  for  noontime. 

We  rattle  down  the  last  declivity  of  the  mountain,  ford 
the  Russian  River,  and  are  again  within  lightning-stroke 
of  the  world;  for  yonder  is  a  telegraph  wire,  and  this  is 
Cloverdale  and  dinner,  where  the  food  was  cooked  first,  and 
the  guests  were  cooked  just  after  they  arrived.  The  land- 
lord, who  called  himself  a  double-headed  Dutchman,  which 
means  he  was  High  and  Low,  if  not  Jack  and  the  Game, 
had  hidden  his  thermometer  for  the  comfort  of  his  pa- 
trons, but  it  would  have  read  the  temperature  up  to  par 
in  the  shade,  if  it  could  read  at  all. 

The  day  we  reached  the  Petrified  Trees  was  a  glarer. 


160  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

The  sun  blazed  steadily  down  upon  a  responsive  earth 
that  blazed  back  again,  and  we  were  between  two  fires. 
It  is  the  cemetery  of  dead  redwoods,  solemn  as  the  cata- 
combs and  looking  older  than  the  pyramids.  It  is  a 
graveyard  where  every  fallen  giant  is  struck  with  a  rocky 
immortality.  You  are  back  in  the  Stone  Age.  You  look 
upon  the  seamed,  arid  and  naked  hills  covered  with  un- 
lettered monuments,  for  the  face  of  some  Sphinx  that  has 
been  staring  the  centuries  out  of  countenance  with  its 
unspeculative  eyeballs.  You  are  met  by  Evans,  the  Pet- 
rified Charley  of  the  tourists,  whose  fathers  were  subjects 
of  the  Great  Frederick  ;  a  tough  old  sailor  aforetime, 
who  having  tossed  about  upon  all  seas  has  anchored  here 
and  turned  Sexton.  His  home  is  a  bit  of  a  ship's  cabin, 
snug  and  holy-stoned.  His  slender-waisted  fiddle  and 
some  nautical  instruments  garnish  the  walls.  The  bunk 
where  he  "turns  in"  is  neat  as  a  new  tablecloth.  His 
companions  are  a  dog,  "  Rascal,"  and  a  venerable,  inquis- 
itive and  aggressive  goat,  called  "  Billy." 

Now  there  was  a  lady  in  the  party  as  active  as  an 
antelope  and  enduring  as  young  hickory.  In  the  best  of 
senses  she  would  make  a  "  daughter  of  the  regiment," 
that  would  carry  the  boys  by  storm  if  the  enemy  failed. 
Sparkling  with  vivacity,  ready  to  scale  a  mountain  or 
catch  a  chicken,  she  was  an  antidote  to  the  blues  and  a 
dyspepsia  exterminator.  Baron  Munchausen  would  have 
delighted  in  her,  not  because  she  told  stories,  but  because 
she  told  facts  as  if  they  were  fictions.  "  Billy "  was 
especially  deputed  to  meet  this  lady,  and  they  met.  The 
meeting  was  touching  in  the  extreme.  She  sprang  from 
the  wagon  and  grasped  him  saucily  by  his  venerable 
beard  —  a    salutation    to   which    he    sternly  replied    with 


THE    PETRIFIED    FOREST. 


161 


bowed  head,  she  having  given  him  the  cold  shoulder  an 
instant  before.  She  indulged  in  a  slight  retrospect,  and 
Billy  gave  her  a  lesson  in  disjunctive  conjunctions  begin- 
ning with  "  but."  For  a  man  who  owns  no  cow,  Evans 
has  an  abundance  of  butter.  The  lady  sat  down  upon  the 
impression  her  lesson  had  made,  and  meditated.  I  could 
hardly  abridge  my  story  without  omitting  the  abutment. 

A  kind  of  reception-room  —  or,  to  carry  out  the  figure, 
a  receiving- vault  —  is  filled  with  curiosities  of  redwood 
mortality.  Here  is 
a  coiled  snake,  the 
blood-vessels  distinct, 
every  detail  perfect, 
struck  with  petrifac- 
tion while  taking  a 
nap.  Twigs,  walking- 
sticks,  knots,  bark,  all 
as  stony  as  if  Medusa 
had  given  them  one 
of  her  lithographs  of  ^ 
a  look.  There  is  no  j(; 
revelry  hei'e.  You 
would  as  soon  think 
of  waltzing  with  a  mummy  that  had  dined  once  or  twice 
with  one  of  the  Pharaohs.-  Around  us  are  wooded  moun- 
tains that  shorten  the  sunshine  a  couple  of  hours  every 
day,  relieving  the  place  of  a  whole  month  of  glow  and 
glare  in  a  year. 

You  climb  rocky  paths,  and  up  and  down  over  knobs 
and  knolls  of  bare  earth,  grass  and  shrub,  and  reach  the 
cemetery,  a  rough  area  of  twenty  acres,  where  three  hun- 
dred   stone    redwoods  —  sequoias  —  lie    heads    down    from 
7* 


--y^y 


162  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

North  to  South  at  an  angle  of  35°,  the  roots  all  being  up 
the  mountain  sides,  and  unpleasantly  suggesting  apoplexy 
had  there  been  any  blood  or  any  sap  or  anything  alive 
in  centuries.  Some  of  them  have  been  exhumed  from 
the  ashen  and  thirsty  soil  by  the  industrious  old  Sexton, 
and  some  resemble  long  graves  with  their  covering  of 
earth.  The  old  man  regards  these  stolid  logs  as  a  shep- 
herd so  many  pet  lambs.  He  sees  grains  of  gold  in  them 
where  you  only  see  streaks  of  gray.  They  are  his  bread- 
winners. He  lives  with  them  summers  when  you  visit 
him;  he  lives  with  them  winters  when  nobody  visits  him. 
Like  the  hero  of  Juan  Fernandez  he  has  a  goat  and  a 
dog,  but  no  "  man  Friday,"  and  no  more  wife  than  Mungo 
Park  had  in  the  African  desert.  He  pinches  in  an  affec- 
tionate way  the  corrugated  bark  of  these  tumbled  mono- 
liths that  once  had  life,  as  if  they  could  take  a  joke.  He 
picks  up  a  few  little  stone  chips  and  gives  you,  but  he 
is  prudent,  for  he  sees  thousands  like  yourself  who  will 
come  for  more  chips. 

You  clamber  upon  a  fallen  monarch  with  its  thirty- 
four  feet  girth  and  sixty-eight  feet  exhumed.  Here  are 
the  bark,  the  scars,  the  knots,  as  in  life,  and  its  rings 
chronicle  a  thousand  years!  In  its  glory  it  must  have 
been  two  hundred  feet  high.  Where  are  the  birds  to  fit 
this  monster  —  the  birds  that  nested  in  its  branches  — 
and  what  their  length  and  strength  of  wing  and  talon? 
The  breezes  that  waved  its  foliage  may  have  been  dead 
five  centuries  when  the  little  fleet  of  Admiral  Columbus 
felt  for  wind  with  their  mildewed  sails  in  1492. 

Some  of  the  trees  were  scathed  by  flames  before  they 
put  Insurance  Agents  at  a  discount  and  became  fire-proof, 
and   here  are  blocks  of  charcoal  turned  to  stone.     Noth- 


THE    PETRIFIED    FOEEST.  163 

Ing  was  spared  by  the  solemn,  silent  spell.  The  scene 
brings  back  the  fable  of  the  enchanted  palace  of  Arab 
story,  where  all  was  stricken  with  a  paralysis  of  mar- 
ble. Several  trunks  are  divided  into  sections  of  equal 
lengths,  and  about  right  to  build  the  generous  fires  of 
our  grandfathers;  the  yule  logs  of  old  English  Christmas 
Eves  Some  say  they  broke  in  falling,  driving,  drifting, 
but  there  is  too  much  "method  in  the  madness."  Those 
trees  were  severed  by  human  hands.  Whose  hands?  God 
only  knows.     By  what   gales  of  the   elder   time,  blowing 


out  of  the  fierce  North,  were  those  gigantic  corpses  of 
ashen  gray  uprooted  and  swept  South?  Did  a  volcano 
shroud  them  in  immortality?  Did  a  cloud  from  some 
mysterious  alembic  chill  and  deaden  them  to  stone?  If 
these  desolate  heaps  of  flint  and  pebbly  sand  and  thin 
pinched  soil  were  once  a  volcano's  troubled  mouth,  the 
furnace  fires  went  out  perhaps  before  the  Conqueror's 
curfew  rang  in  Saxon  England.  What  a  rocking  of  the 
cradle  there  must  have  been  when  the  earth  quaked,  and 
lava  put  these  trees  in  flinty  armor,  and  transfused  their 


164  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

veins  with  dumbness!  If  Agassiz  could  have  been  pil- 
grim here  before  he  went  abroad,  we  might  have  known 
— perhaps. 

You  pick  up  chips  that  are  rocks,  write  your  name 
uix)n  bark  as  uiwn  a  slate,  and  your  first  feeling  as  you 
traverse  the  graveyard  is  disappointment.  But  the  grand- 
eur of  the  scene  grows  u^wn  you  as  you  look  and  think. 
Here  is  something  out  of  the  common  reckoning.  The 
silence  of  the  place  is  eloquent  as  speech.  These  head- 
long trees  are  the  heroes  of  old  elemental  wars.  They 
are  dgad  on  the  field.     They  are  pre-historic  giants. 

Young  oaks,  but  older  than  the  Declaration,  have 
crowded  up  through  the  shattered  and  helpless  dead. 
They  exult  amid  the  wrecks  of  a  grander  time,  like 
young  Mariuses  amid  Rome's  ruins.  They  are  the  living 
dogs,  and  are  they  not  better  than  the  dead  lions  beneath 
them?  Then,  all  at  once,  it  occurs  to  you  that  these 
redwoods  are  the  fallen  columns  of  classic  temples,  "  God's 
first  temples."  What  would  you  not  give  to  know  the 
story  of  this  necromantic  place!  Did  any  eye  that  ever 
wept  in  human  sympathy  behold  the  transformation  ? 
Did  mortal  music  ever  ring  amid  the  columned  arches  of 
this  wood?     Who  sang,  what  tongue,  what  theme? 

You  turn  from  the  rent  and  rigid  earth,  no  springs 
of  living  water  at  your  feet,  no  shadow  overhead;  from  a 
spot  where  some  mysterious  force  in  the  gone  ages  cried 
"halt!"  to  life  —  and  life,  with  pulses  turned  to  rock  and 
pliant  limb  to  adamant,  obeyed.  Life  halted,  but  death  did 
not  succeed  it;  death  which  is  change,  which  falters  at 
time's  touch  into  dust  that  is  driven  to  and  fro  of  winds 
in  helpless,  hopeless  atoms.  They  are  old  as  the  hills,  and 
yet  were   born   into  the  knowledge   of  modern  man   but 


THE    PETRIFIED   FOREST. 


165 


sixteen  years  ago.  You  are  glad  to  get  away  from  Na- 
ture out  of  business;  Nature  that  has  closed  accounts 
with  life  and  time. 

Altogether,  to  a  thoughtful  man,  the  Petrified  Trees 
are  the  most  impressive  things  in  California.  They  over- 
whelm your  vanity  with  gray  cairns  of  what  once  danced 
in  the  rain,  whispered  in  the  wind,  blossomed  in  the  sun. 
We  need  not  go  to  the  realms  of  spirit  to  apply  the 
words  of  Hamlet.  The  royal  Dane  would  have  said  them 
here  had  he  walked  in  this  graveyard :  "  There  are  more 
things  in  heaven  and  earth,  Horatio,  than  are  dreamed 
of   in  our  philosophy!" 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


HIGHER  AND  FIRE. 

THE  Russian  River  Valley  is  fertile  as  Egypt  and  fair 
as  Italy.  It  is  two  hours  from  San  Francisco,  but 
two  weeks  nearer  the  Equator.  We  halted  at  Healdsburg, 
a  pleasant  town  that  gave  us  a  welcome  warm  enough  to 
cook  an  omelet.  "Sotoyome"  names  a  hotel,  but  as  it 
means  valley  of  flowers,  it  might  well  christen  the  whole 
region.  We  stopped  at  the  "Sotoyome."  There  is  a  funny 
little  affectation  of  grandeur  in  the  way  of  announcing 
arrivals  at  modern  caravansaries.  Thus  you  read  that 
A  B  has  "  taken  rooms "  at  the  Cosmopolitan.  You  call 
on  A  B,  and  you  find  him  in  number  196,  fourth  floor 
back,  quite  above  the  jurisdiction  of  the  State,  and  higher 
than  you  have  ever  gotten  since  you  took  the  pledge; 
one  chair,  one  pillow,  and  eyed  like  a  Cyclops  with  one 
window;  a  room  as  hopelessly  single  as  Adam  seemed  in 
his  bachelorhood.  But  "rooms"  is  statelier,  and  we  all 
enjoy  it  except  A  B,  who  skips  edgewise  to  and  fro 
between  trunk  and  bed,  as  if  he  were  balancing  to  an 
invisible  partner. 

The  Russian  River,  which  is  not  a  rushing  river  in 
Summer,  courses  its  way  oceanward.  This  country  has  a 
history.  As  late  as  1845  the  Russians  laid  claim  to  it  and 
erected  a  fortress  and  raised  wheat,  and  placed  a  tablet 
upon  Mount  Saint  Helena  that  shows  his  blue-caped  shoul- 

106 


HIGHER   AND    FIRE.  167 

der  at  the  eastward,  and  inlaid  an  engraved  plate  of 
copper  bearing  some  household  words  from  Moscow,  and 
pronounced  it  a  goodly  land  and  desired  it  for  their  own. 
Meanwhile  the  Spanish  Governor  dovvn  the  Coast  was 
fulminating  with  his  Toledo  blade,  because  of  the  inroad 
of  the  furry  bears  of  the  North.  The  svibjects  of  the 
Czar  have  gone,  but  they  left  their  name  on  the  river. 

Thermometers  run  highest  in  low  latitudes.  Once  find 
out  that  peojjle  Atlanticward  go  into  country  places  to 
get  cool,  and  you  may  be  sure  that  on  the  Pacific  they 
v/ill  travel  in  the  opposite  direction  for  the  same  purpose. 
They  do.  We  had  left  blankets  by  night  and  flannels 
by  day  for  several  degrees  of  the  temperature  that  all 
Christians  pray  against.  That  ambitious  young  man, 
Longfellow's  Excelsior,  must  have  fired  the  mercury  with 
a  passion  to  look  down  upon  hira.  It  ran  up  the  degrees 
as  the  nimblest  member  of  Hook-and-Ladder  Company 
Number  One  climbs  a  ladder  at  a  fire.  It  stood  on  tlie 
hundredth  round  in  the  shade,  and  everybody  shed  his 
coat  and  jacket.  Like  an  onion,  he  came  off  rind  by 
rind.     He  husked  himself  like  an  ear  of  corn. 

I  sat  under  the  vine  and  fig-tree  of  a  friend  —  it  was 
a  Smyrna  fig  and  full  of  fruit,  and  I  fancied  I  was  in 
Smyrna.  "In  the  name  of  the  prophet,  figs!"  His  first 
look  at  a  fig-tree  takes  a  man  back  to  the  day  when, 
with  his  two  unclouded  eyes  even  with  the  counter,  like 
a  pair  of  planets  just  ready  to  rise,  he  produced  a  cent 
and  demanded  a  fig.  There  were  more  cents'-worths  of 
comfort  in  tliat  drum  of  figs  than  in  a  whole  orchestra 
to-day.  The  tree  was  Eve's  live  clothes-line.  She  found 
her  aprons  on  it,  though  she  never  hung  them  there.  Its 
name  has  been  upon  the  Savior's. lips.    It  is  a  Bible  tree. 


168  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

It  is  strange  to  see  it  growing  by  the  roadside,  with  its 
dark  green  grape-vine  leaves  and  its  pear-shaped  fruit. 
You  smile  to  find  the  little  figs,  each  with  its  own  apron, 
come  right  out  of  the  tree  complete  from  the  first,  and 
no  announcing  flourish  of  blossom.     Once  a  fig,  always  a 

fig. 

Oranges  were  ripening  near  by.     I  made  believe  I  was 

in  Florida.  The  thermometer  went  up  to  106°,  and  I  saw 
a  cactus  that  had  grown  by  diagonals,  until  the  topmost 
pin-cushion  was  eighteen  feet  from  the  gi'ound,  and  edged 
with  a  fringe  of  pink  tassels  of  flowers,  and  I  dreamed  I 
was  in  the  Bishop's  garden  in  Havana.  The  silver  marrow 
in  that  glass  spine  stood  at  110°,  between  two  thicknesses 
of  trees  and  a  vine.  A  thermometer  is  a  damage  in  hot 
weather.  It  heats  and  aggravates  the  observer  with  a 
sort  of  metallic  maliciousness.  I  put  it  in  the  sun  to 
kill  it.  There  it  stood,  straight  as  a  bamboo,  not  ten 
feet  from  my  chair,  and  grew  to  140°  in  six  minutes, 
and  was  as  sound  as  ever.  I  brought  it  back  in  my 
wrath  and  watched  it  go  down,  and  so  did  a  crimson 
linnet  who  sat  on  a  cherry-tree,  with  his  wings  at  trail 
arms  and  his  mouth  open.  The  volatile  god  sank  to  110° 
and —  stood  still.  I  thought  of  going  for  a  piece  of  ice 
to  make  him  reasonable;  thought  if  I  could  only  see  that 
glittering  column  at  a  comfortable  ninety,  I  should  be 
more  comfortable  myself.  There  was  a  pomegranate  in 
bright  blossom  at  my  left,  and  a  nectarine  doing  its  best, 
and  I  was  away  in  Palestine  in  a  minute.  That  thermom- 
eter embraced  the  opportunity  to  try  another  round,  and 
stood  at  112°. 

A  tree  with  its  fruit  of  violet  green  was  not  far  ofl'. 
It  was  an  olive.     Noah  had  seen  a  branch  from  another 


HIGHER   AND    FIRE. 


169 


just  like  it,  borne  back  by  the  bird  to  the  boat  that  was 
waiting  for  land.  It  has  ever  been  the  emblem  of  peace 
since  it  brought  joy  to  the  heart  of  the  first  Admiral 
that  ever  floated.  What  are  olives  in  pickle  and  olives 
in  oil  to  the  living  tree !  And  while  I  was  gone  to  Italy, 
the  mercury  watched  its  chance  and  the  premium  on  quick- 
silver was  fourteen  per  cent.  It 
stood  at  114°.  I  looked  between 
the  trees  upon  the  plaza  and  saw 
the  hot  air  dancing  up  and  down 
in  the  sun  as  if,  like  some  old 
Peruvian,  it  was  a  worshiper  of  fire. 
I  thought  I  would  go  to  the  next 
corner,  took  an  umbrella  and  went 
two  rods.  Nobody  could  tell  which 
was  the  hotter,  the  sun  or  the  earth. 
The  ground  flared  like  the  throb- 
bing breath  of  an  engine  with  the 
furnace  door  open  and  its  red  vitals 
inflamed  by  a  gale  of  forty  miles 
an  hour.  Then  I  knew  I  was  in 
Arabia,  and  looked  out  for  some 
stray  sheik  with  a  fleet  of  the 
"  ships  of  the  desert."  It  always 
appeared  to  me  a  piece  of  cruelty 
to  make  a  beast  of  burden  of  a  camel,  when  the  poor 
animal  has  to  carry  the  most  of  himself  packed  in  bales 
upon  his  own  back.     It  is  an  ungenerous  indorsement. 

As  I  went  that  two  rods,  and  it  seemed  as  if  my 
umbrella  would  wilt  like  a  poppy,  I  understood  for  the 
first  time  the   dignity  of  the   African    potentate,    one   of 

whose  titles  is  "  Lord  of  the  Four-and-Twenty  Umbrellas." 
8 


170  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

I  knew  why  he  has  so  many.  It  is  the  census  of  his 
entire  wai'drobe.  With  the  air  at  145°  and  the  earth 
you  walk  on  trying  to  get  as  hot  as  the  sun,  one  poor 
little  parasol  is  worthless.  What  you  want  in  such  a 
country  is  a  pair  —  an  umbrella  at  each  end:  one  to  keep 
the  earth  off,  and  one  to  keep  the  sun  off.  It  was  some 
comfort  when  the  lightning  came  along  the  wire  with  the 
word  that  at  Cloverdale,  sixteen  miles  distant,  the  mer- 
cury was  118°  and  everybody  alive  but  those  that  were 
dead  before;  and  that  at  Skagg's  Springs,  where  people 
go  to  be  hai)py,  it  was  100°  at  bed-time,  and  bed-time 
was  postponed  till  morning. 

It  helped  me,  too,  when  a  lady  of  our  party,  a  moral 
niece  of  George  Washington,  and  as  incapable  of  telling 
a  lie  as  her  uncle  was,  assured  me  that  it  has  been  liot- 
ter  out  of  the  place  that  the  Three  Worthies  occupied, 
and  in  this  region  also,  than  we  were  being  "  done 
brown"  in;  that  she  saw  a  little  prisoner  of  a  ground- 
squirrel,  whose  cage  was  hung  In  the  sun  against  a  wall 
and  forgotten,  actually  melted  to  death  by  the  blaze,  like 
a  candle  in  the  fire. 

How  much  better  we  can  bear  other  people's  sorrows 
than  our  own!  How  resigned  we  are  at  their  bereave- 
ments, aftd  how  nobly  we  withstand  their  temptations! 
If,  with  the  same  set  of  qualities,  we  could  only  be 
"  other  i^eople,"  what  a  model  of  human  kind  every  one 
of  us  would  be! 

Some  fruit  was  baked  on  the  sunny  side,  some  flowers 
wilted,  but  altogether  those  furnace  days  spurred  vegeta- 
tion into  a  Cantei'bury  gallop.  And  the  wind  blew  out 
of  the  North,  and  the  harder  it  blew,  the  hotter  it  grew. 
It  was  as  enlivening  as  the  Sirocco.  It  was  the  Sirocco 
if  it  was  not  a  Simoom. 


HIGHER   AND    FIRE.  171 

Going  that  two  rods,  I  saw  two  young  human  animals; 
one  had  legs  like  a  pair  of  parentheses  (  ),  and  an  abridg- 
ment of  a  blue  calico  frock;  the  legs  of  the  other  were 
straight  as  the  arrows  of  Apollo,  and  her  dress  was  bright 
and  gauzy  as  a  June  cloud.  The  first  was  a  Digger 
Indian's  papoose,  with  beady  eyes,  a  crafty  look,  hair  cat- 
black  and  "  banged."  The  last  had  eyes  blue  as  a  lupin 
and  clear  as  a  China  saucer,  wavy  hair  almost  the  color 
of  corn  silk,  and  the  complexion  of  a  sea-shell.  I  felt 
in  the  case  of  the  papoose  that  it  would  hardly  be  a  sin 
to  set  a  trap  for  it,  and  yet  the  dusky  mother  flung  it 
over  her  shoulder  and  nursed  it  as  if  it  were  worth 
saving!  "What  numberless  degrees  between  the  pet  and 
the  papoose,  and  where  shall  we  look  for  the  link?  They 
were  both  fire-proof,  played  bare-headed  in  the  sun  and 
were  not  consumed. 

A  band  of  Digger  Indians  in  the  valley  gave  an 
opportunity  for  the  pursuit  of  Natural  History.  Several 
squaws  were  pursuing  minute  specimens  of  it  also,  as, 
like  deck-passage  ideas,  they  swarmed  the  heads  of  the 
papooses.  But  there  is  no  room  for  anything  in  the 
hold.  I  saw  foreheads  belonging  to  stalwart  fellows  that 
were  barely  an  inch  high,  and  the  hair  grew  boldly 
down,  like  a  bison's,  almost  to  the  brink  of  the  eyes.  It 
is  surprising  that  John  has  not  caught  one  of  them  and 
made  an  idol  of  him. 

We  hear  of  people  dying  violent  deaths.  Under  the 
impulsive  temperature  of  some  California  valleys,  I  think 
it  may  be  said  that  the  animal  and  vegetable  world  live 
violent  lives.  Something  bit  ray  hand  under  a  snug  kid 
glove  one  of  those  torrid  days.  It  was  a  vicious  bite, 
sharp  as  a  trout's.     The  glove  came  off,  and  there  was  a 


172  BETWEEN   THE  GATES. 

little  beast  that  looked  like  a  flax-seed,  but  the  hot  weather 
had  given  him  the  voracity  and  vivacity  of  a  shark.  He 
didn't  mean  anything.  It  was  only  liis  incisive  way  of 
speaking  to  me. 

We  boys,  you  know,  used  to  thrust  a  sprig  of  live- 
forever  in  the  crack  of  the  wall  to  see  it  grow,  and 
thought  it  wonderful  that  a  poplar  whip  or  a  currant 
slip  would  furnish  its  own  root,  and  go  into  the  business 
of  independent  living.  In  California  you  can  thrust  a 
peach  limb  in  the  ground,  and  it  will  turn  into  a  tree. 
An  old  resident  on  the  Pacific  Coast  and  an  older  friend 
of  mine,  set  a  bit  of  a  budded  branch  in  the  earth  one 
November,  and  the  next  July  it  bore  a  peach  as  large  as 
a  big  fist.  A  cast  was  made  of  the  prodigy,  and  when 
I  saw  it  a  sentiment  of  gratification  possessed  me  that 
my  cane  is  tipped  with  an  iron  ferrule,  lest  it  should 
take  root  while  I  halt  to  greet  a  friend,  and  give  me 
trouble!  If  there  is  one  place  better  than  another  for 
people  given  to  lying,  it  is  California;  for  no  matter  how 
strange  the  story  they  tell,  it  is  pretty  sure  to  be  verified 
somewhere  in  the  State.  Example:  A  calla-lily  may  be 
in  full  chalice  out-of-doors,  and  the  ocean  fog  may  case 
its  leaves  in  ice  till  it  looks  like  a  lily  of  glass  and  frail 
as  a  damaged  reputation.  But  that  lily  is  no  more 
harmed  by  it  than  it  would  be  by  a  summer  dew  in 
New  York.  The  sun  comes  up  and  the  ice  melts,  and  the 
flower  is  as  fresh  as  ever.  And  thus  you  have  a  sort  of 
January-and-June  Millennium. 

There  is  no  gradual  shading  out  of  anything  in  Cali- 
fornia. The  rapidity  of  the  contrasts  is  the  wonder  of 
them.  A  boy  is  a  man,  a  girl  is  a  woman,  before  you 
know  it.     You  are  kept  in  ceaseless  astonishment  because 


HIGHER   AND    FIRE.  173 

everything  young  is  so  old,  and  everything  old  is  so 
young.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  tell  what  anything  will 
be  till  it  is. 

In  San  Francisco  there  is  no  long-subsiding  Eastern 
twilight,  that  goes  down  like  a  great  maple-and-hickory 
fire,  to  a  bed  of  glow,  then  red  shadows,  then  memory, 
then  the  dead  past,  then  night,  without  startling  you. 
It  is  the  turn  of  a  wrist.  Day  is  shut  off  and  darkness 
turned  on.  You  wake  up  in  the  night,  and  all  at  once 
it  has  got  to  be  day.  There  are  no  twilight  lovers  on 
The  Coast.  The  whispered  momentous  nothings,  that 
seem  to .  require  a  little  toning  down  of  the  light  in 
other  countries,  are  uttered  here  in  broad  day,  without 
so  much  as  the  protection  of  a  parasol.  It  is  an  open- 
handed,  open-spoken,  open-hearted  land.  There  are  fewer 
back-doors  than  elsewhere.  Vice  goes  in  and  out  of 
mansions  whose  tenants'  names  are  done  in  silver  upon 
the  panels  of  the  front  enti-ance:  "Rose,"  "Jenny," 
"Kitty";  but  not  the  names  their  mothers  called  them 
by,  and  a  "rose  by  any  other  name  smells"  just  the 
same.  People  see  more  and  look  less  than  in  lands 
nearer  the  North  Pole. 

Elsewhere  people  covet  the  shade.  Here  they  sit  in 
the  sun.  The  beautiful  parks  where  trees  shed  grateful 
shadows  are  not  resorts,  unless  they  can  find  some  happy 
spot  just  ready  to  take  fire  with  the  noontide  blaze. 
They  are  baskers,  and  when  the  stranger  thinks  it  a 
perfect  temperature,  San  Francisco  goes  country  ward  to 
boil  its  blood  down  in  a  semi-tropical  kettle,  and  make 
it  a  little  thicker  and   richer. 

And  it  was  at  Healdsburg  that  we  got  into  the 
kettle! 


CHAPTER  XV. 


A  MINT  OF  MONEY. 

MY  rooms  front  a  massive  building  of  British  Colum- 
bia and  California  granite.  Its  severe  and  classic 
fa9ade  with  six  huge  stone  columns  like  fluted  and  petrified 
pines,  and  its  ponderous  doors  of  iron,  contrasts  too  vio- 
lently with  the  light  and  uncertain  architecture  of  a  city 
of  wood.  There  is  rock  enough  in  the  steps  to  make  a 
score  of  Plymouths,  a  geological  fragment  that,  according 
to  the  euphemism  of  the  poet,  "welcomed  our  sires."  It 
was  about  such  a  greeting  as  the  royal  boy  with  his 
clever  sling  and  a  paving-stone  from  the  brook  Kedron 
gave  the  giant. 

The  building  is  called  by  one  of  Juno's  nicknames. 
Like  the  modern  young  woman  that  can  afford  it,  she  had 
several  surnames  —  her  mother  never  knew  the  half  of 
them, —  and  one  of  them  was  Moneta,  coi'rupted  by  her 
intimate  friends  into  "  Mint."  When  the  Caesars  and  the 
gods  were  in  power,  money  was  coined  in  her  temple  at 
Rome,  which  was  handy  for  her  when  Jupiter  fulminated 
about  her  pin-money.  From  this  bit  of  Latin  history 
anybody  can  see  that  it  is  the  United  States  Temple  of 
Juno  of  which  I  am  writing.  It  is  one  of  the  largest 
and  most  complete  in  the  world. 

Sometimes  the  gray  front,  as  you  watch  it,  takes  a 
yellowish  tint  as  if  a  marked  case  of  jaundice  had  struck 

174 


A    MINT   OF   MONEY.  175 

through  three  feet  of  stone  from  the  bilious  treasure 
within.  It  is  the  reflection  of  a  cloud  overhead.  You 
look  up  and  see  plumes  of  golden  smoke  floating  from 
one  tall  hat  of  a  chimney,  and  silver  ones  from  another. 
There  is  a  laboratory  suspicion  in  the  air  as  if  there  were 
trouble  in  the  acid  family,  and  Nitric,  Sulphuric  and 
Muriatic  were  quarreling  with  somebody.  To  talk  of 
gold  and  silver  smokes  from  a  mint  is  no  cheap  magnifi- 
cence. That  smoke  starts  for  the  outer  air  with  precious 
things  that  do  not  belong  to  it.  Silver  and  gold  get 
wonderfully  volatile  when  you  crowd  them  with  fire, 
and  become  "  the  riches  that  take  to  themselves  wings 
and  fly  away."  Before  that  smoke  escapes,  they  tire  it 
out  by  compelling  it  to  travel  a  zigzag  hall  of  a  flue, 
and  drown  it  two  or  three  times  in  reservoirs  on  the 
way,  so  that  the  precious  particles  tangled  in  its  folds 
may  drop  down  in  the  water,  and  leave  the  impoverished 
vapor  to  take  care  of  itself.  A  mint  chimney  is  a  sort 
of  pipe  for  Midas  to  smoke. 

The  precious  metals  are  baking,  boiling,  frying,  in  the 
furnaces  below.  To  call  the  smoke  golden  is  no  fancy. 
Little  fortunes  go  up  in  those  cloudy  volumes  sometimes. 
The  dust  that  had  .settled  upon  the  asphalt  roof  of  the 
Philadelphia  Mint  in  a  quarter  of  a  century  was  recently 
removed,  and  almost  a  thousand  dollars  in  gold  and  silver 
that  had  fallen  out  of  the  smoke  were  obtained.  But 
then  you  have  seen  plain  blue  smokes  issuing  from  a 
man's  mouth,  that  in  three  years  carried  off  a  thousand 
dollars,  though  not  a  dime  of  it  ever  fell  anywhere. 

I  watched  the  Mint  several  days  before  I  ventured 
to  go  into  it,  lest  it  might  make  me  covetous,  or  avaricious, 
or  discontented  with  the  sort  of  postal-currency  fortune 


176 


BETWEEN"  THE  GATES. 


I  possess.  There  was  always  something  going  up  and 
coming  down  that  cruel  pile  of  stone  steps.  Every  day, 
Express  wagons  and  huge  drays  with  elephantine  horses 
came  and  went.  They  brought  tons  of  silver  bricks  and 
loads  of  gold  bullion.  They  drew  away  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars  in  coin.  I  saw  the  great  horses 
gather  themselves  up  for  a  scratch  of  a  pull  when  they 
started  the  solid  load  on  the  level  pavement.  Every  day, 
men  and  boys  with  shouldered  canvas  bags  of  coin  went 


Qoc 


^^'^ Cataract  of  7-//£-  oqq^  step& 


up  and  down.  A  bag  of  bullion  on  a  shoulder  is  as 
common  as  a  gold  epaulette  was  in  the  Mexican  war. 
Every  day  a  wooden  spout,  a  great  eaves-trough,  was 
laid  from  the  top  of  the  steps  to  the  waiting  wagons, 
and  bags  of  silver  and  boxes  of  gold  were  shot  down 
the  trough  with  a  metallic  chink  sweeter  to  most  ears 
than  the  chimes  of  old  Trinity,  until  the  great  dray  was 
packed  as  snug  with  bags  as  ever  was  a  miller's  wagon 
with  flour.  1  noticed  that  pedestrians  hastening  by  came 
to  a  halt  and  helped  me  watch;  that  horsemen  drew  rein 


A    MINT   OF   MONEY.  177 

and  looked;  that  eddies  of  people  whirled  around  the 
wagons  and  stood  still,  like  friends  reverently  regarding 
the  face  of  the  dead;  that  little  girls  and  boys  ran  up 
and  down  the  steps  beside  the  auroduct  —  that  word  is 
private  property  —  the  treasure-spout,  and  touched  the 
bags  as  they  tumbled  their  way  down,  as  if  there  were 
healing  in  them  like  a  touch  of  the  king's  garments. 
Gold  and  silver  inspire  pr-ofound  respect.  They  are  the 
better  part  to  most  men  as  they  are  the  better  part  of 
some  men.  It  may  be  true  that  "a  fool  and  his  money 
are  soon  parted,"  but  it  is  equally  true  that  a  fool  married 
to  his  money  ought  to  be  divorced. 

For  twenty-five  years  the  Pacific  Slope  furnished  four- 
fifths  of  all  the  gold  produced.  For  twenty-seven  days 
of  July,  1877,  there  were  one  hundred  and  sixty-five 
meltings  of  $60,000  each,  giving  sixty-six  hundred  ingots, 
or  almost  ten  millions  of  gold.  During  the  four  years 
ending  July,  1877,  thirty-five  hundred  and  twenty-two 
tons  of  silver  were  received,  and  eight  hundred  and  twen- 
ty-three tons  of  gold.  The  coinage  for  1876-7  reached 
fifty  millions  of  dollars. 

But  you  do  not  wait  for  me,  but  cross  over  to  the 
Mint. 

ALADDIN'S   CAVE. 

You  climb  the  pyramid  of  steps  and  enter  halls  and' 
rooms  that  with  their  stone  floors,  walls  and  ceilings  are 
rocky  as  the  Mammoth  Cave.  Everything  reverberates. 
The  voice  has  a  sepulchral  ring.  If  you  can  fancy  a 
vehement  ghost  calling  the  cows,  you  know  how  it  sounds. 
Your  gentle-spoken  friend  talks  so  loud  you  cannot  hear 
him.  You  are  in  the  mill  where  money  is  made.  You  see 
the  raw  material,  fresh  from  the  mines,  piled  around  like 


178  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

bricks  in  a  kiln.  They  ore  bricks.  Here  is  enough  in 
this  vault  to  build  a  stone  wall  of  gold  around  your  gar- 
den spot  It  is  an  Emerald  bull,  but  it  gives  the  idea. 
The  precious  metals  run  to  brick  here  —  brick  without 
straw.  Ah,  if  the  poor  Israelites  had  possessed  such  ma- 
terial to  work,  there  would  have  been  no  complaint  in 
Pharaoh's  brick-yard.  Here  are  four  gold  cubes.  They 
weigh  about  ninety  pounds  apiece.  You  can  carry  a 
couple  for  the  gift  of  them,  and  you  would  have  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars.  Yonder  are  two  pieces  of  hardware  from 
Mexico.  They  are  gold  and  silver  together,  and  shaped 
a  little  like  blacksmiths'  anvils  before  their  horns  are 
grown.  They  are  awkward  things  to  handle,  for  they 
have  no  bails  to  them,  and  they  weigh  more  than  five 
hundred  pounds  apiece.  They  are  made  to  be  robber- 
proof,  for  if  Mexican  bandits  attacked  the  train,  they 
could  not  very  well  get  off  with  such  hardware  at  their 
saddle-bows. 

You  get  used  to  the  solid  real  of  poor  Clarence's 
dream  — "  great  heaps  of  gold  " — in  an  astonishingly  short 
time.  The  avaricious  man  who  sees  blocks  of  silver  piled 
as  high  as  his  head,  and  double  bricks  of  yellow  gold 
heaped  about,  is  apt  to  swallow  a  little,  as  a  hungry  dog 
does  when  he  sees  his  master  eating  a  good  dinner  and 
never  tossing  him  a  bone.  But  the  ordinary  soul  grows 
familiar  with  it  at  once.  You  see  a  million  in  one  little 
windowless  chamber,  a  half  million  in  another.  You  see 
it  in  grains,  dust,  ingots,  chips,  nuggets,  bars.  You  see 
scalloped  sheets  of  silver  and  gold,  resembling  the  tin- 
ner's scraps  when  he  has  been  cutting  out  the  bottoms 
of  little  patty-pans.  Out  of  them  came  the  birds  called 
eagles,  and    the    bantam    poultry  of   fives,   trade   dollars, 


A    MINT   OF   MONEY.  179 

halves,  and  the  chickens  of  quarters  and  dimes.  You  see 
little  iron-wheeled  one-man-power  trucks  called  coaches, 
drawn  about  from  room  to  room.  Here  are  two  laden 
with  gold  bars.-  You  are  engine  enough  to  draw  the  two 
en  train,  and  your  freight  is  worth  $250,000.  You  see 
every  day  silver  sufficient  to  make  a  new  sarcophagus  for 
St.  Alexander  Newsky,  at  Moscow,  the  solid  silver  trinket 
that  weighs  three  thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds. 
Nothing  here  puzzles  you  like  values.  They  are  con- 
densed into  a  wonderfully  small  compass.  You  are  in 
the  gold  ingot  room,  and  you  pick  up  a  bar  about  a  foot 
long,  an  inch  and  a  half  wide,  and  three  times  as  thick 
as  the  snug-setting  maple  ruler  with  which  you  used  to 
be  ferruled.  You  could  slip  it  up  your  sleeve  if  that 
gray-eyed  man,  who  would  be  your  "  man  of  destiny "  if 
you  did  it,  were  not  looking  at  you.  You  mentally  cut 
it  into  eagles  as  you  hold  it,  and  it  turns  out  sixty  of 
them,  but  the  melter  quietly  tells  you  it  is  worth  fifteen 
hundred  dollars.  I  laid  mine  down  immediately.  Dia- 
monds never  impress  me  at  all.  When  I  hold  one  that 
is  worth  twenty  thousand  dollars,  it  inspires  no  respect. 
I  am  not  well  enough  acquainted  with  the  pure  carbon, 
but  gold  in  any  unfamiliar  shape  perplexes  me.  You  see 
little  wedges  of  gold  weighing  five  or  six  pounds,  that 
could  split  a  tough  knot  of  financial  difficulty  for  you 
without  a  blow  of  the  beetle.  Here  is  gold  in  amalgam. 
Quicksilver,  or  lead,  or  something  base,  lurks  in  it.  Every- 
thing that  lurks  is  base.  It  has  about  the  glory  of  yel- 
low ochre,  and  looks  a  little  like  a  cake  of  beeswax.  The 
average  weight  of  a  silver  bar  is  twelve  hundred  ounces. 
If  you  can  get  away  with  one,  you  have  stolen  thirteen 
hundred  dollars,  but  so  long  as  it  is  bullion  it  is  an  ele- 


180  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

phant.  You  cannot  pocket  it,  nor  chip  it  for  daily  use, 
nor  put  it  in  your  hat.  You  dislike  to-  leave  it  at  home, 
and  you  cannot  take  it  abroad.  You  can  do  as  "  the 
People"  did  —  set  it  up  and  worship  it,  and  make  a  calf 
of  yourself.     It  is  merchandise. 

IS   IT  WORTH  IT? 

Go  down  into  the  mine  for  treasure.*  Consider  the 
blasting,  the  digging,  the  groping  in  the  sunless  dens  of 
Plutus.  Think  of  the  slippery  Grecian  god,  lame  in  the 
feet  and  slow  to  come  to  you;  swift  in  the  wing  and 
fast  to  §y  from  you;  blind  in  both  eyes  and  weak  in 
the  head.  See  the  cradling,  the  panning,  the  crushing. 
Hear  the  craunch  of  the  quartz  mills  that  grind  the 
golden  samp.  See  it  subjected  to  fire  and  water,  moulded, 
weighed,  stamped,  packed  on  mules,  borne  in  great  wagons 
through  gorges,  down  mountains,  until  at  last,  the  next 
heaviest  thing  to  sin,  it  is  delivered  at  the  Mint,  to  be 
turned  into  the  magic  something  that  will  off-set  all  the 
products  and  possessions  and  covetings  of  man,  from  a 
violin  to  a  vote.  There  are  four  things  it  will  not  pro- 
cure, because  they  are  never  for  sale:  honor,  honesty, 
happiness,  and  content. 

And  here  we  will  take  it  at  the  door  of  the  Mint 
and  follow  it  through  sultry  baths  and  glowing  tires,  and 
crushing  presses  and  gentle  touches,  where  strength  han- 
dles it,  and  science  assays  it,  and  law  adjusts  it,  and  skill 
finishes  it  into  the  sparkling  clean-cut  disc  at  last,  and 
we  shall  say  that  the  stricken  coin  is  the  perfection  of 
humail  handiwork,  and  shall  almost  doubt  whether  it  is 
worth  the  toil  and  time  and  danger  it  has  cost. 

You  enter    the   Receiving   Room,  where  the   precious 


A   MIKT   OF   MONEY.  181 

metals  in  every  form,  from  ponderous  brick  to  little 
packages  of  scraps,  grains  and  dust,  broken  rings,  trinkets, 
everything  in  gold  and  silver,  are  received,  weighed, 
checked  and  recorded.  Before  the  counter  stand  miner. 
Chinaman,  messenger,  agent,  with  bags  and  purses,  each 
waiting  his  turn.  If  he  comes  to-morrow,  he  can  get 
the  value  of  his  venture  in  coin  of  the  realm,  sparkling 
and  bright.  Here  they  can  weigh  the  hundredth  of  an 
ounce.  No  sooner  do  a  few  grains  of  gold  enter  here 
than  they  are  beset  and  followed  and  watched  every  step 
of  their  travels,  by  check,  tag  and  way-bill,  "  up-stairs, 
down-stairs  and  in  ray  lady's  chamber";  when  they  go 
into  the  little  iron  boxes,  when  they  are  locked  in  the 
little  trunks;  when  they  tumble  into  the  crucible;  when 
they  come  out  of  the  fire;  when  they  flow  into  the  mould; 
when  they  plunge  into  the  water;  when  they  roll  out 
into  ribbons;  when  they  are  cut  into  wheels. 

In  twenty-seven  days  there  have  been  nine  hundred 
and  sixty-seven  deposits.  They  involve  eleven  thousand 
six  hundred  and  four  records,  entries,  checks,  tags.  They 
appear  in  all  sorts  of  books,  big  and  little,  expressed  in 
all  sorts  of  ways;  their  chemical  biography  is  written 
out,  their  weights  and  values  are  computed.  They  assume 
Protean  shapes.  They  are  solids,  they  are  fluids,  they  are 
almost .  volatile.  They  boil  as  water,  they  float  as  vapor, 
they  bend  as  steel.  They  change  colors  as  chameleons. 
There  is  a  glass  of  green  liquid  —  it  is  silver.  Here  is  a 
little  bottle  of  red  wine  —  it  is  chloride  of  gold.  It  would 
cost  eighty  dollars  and  a  life  to  drink  it. 

You  follow  a  brick  of  gold  into  the  Melting  Depart- 
ment. Here  is  weather  for  you!  The  twelve  furnaces 
are  glowing   all   about   you.      The  iron  eyelid  of  one  of 


182  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

them  is  thrown  up,  and  the  very  essence  of  fire  winks  at 
you.  When  you  are  108°  it  is  your  last  fever.  When 
the  steam  is  212®,  away  dashes  the  locomotive.  But  here 
is  a  crucible  in  the  heart  of  a  fire  urged  to  a  volcanic 
glow  of  2112°.  In  the  crucible  is  gold,  and  the  gold 
boils  like  a  tea-kettle.  If  you  are  curious  to  know  what 
the  salamander  of  a  crucible  is  made  of,  it  is  sand  and 
plumbago.  The  air  you  breathe  before  the  fui-nace  doors 
is  130°.  The  men,  some  of  them  are  giants,  are  stripped 
like  athletes.  Sweat  rolls  off  like  rain.  The  floor  is 
stone,  and  carpeted  with  iron  lattice.  Every  day  this  is 
removed,  the  dust  swept  tip  and  saved  for  the  precious 
particles  that  may  be  in  it.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  trifle  in  this  mint.  A  grain  of  gold  inspires  as  much 
respect  as  an  ingot. 

WASHING  DAY. 

Gold  and  silver  are  in  unsuspected  places.  They  are 
in  the  air,  in  the  water,  under  foot.  There  is  little  you 
can  call  "  dirt "  in  most  parts  of  the  Mint  without  being 
guilty  of  a  misnomer.  And  just  here  we  may  as  well 
gossip  by  the  way  about  the  curious  domestic  fashions 
within  these  walls.  For  one  of  them,  they  wash  their 
clothes  once  a  year!  The  rough  dresses  of  the  men  in 
the  furnace  rooms,  and  out  of  which  they  husk,  them- 
selves daily  after  the  work  is  done,  never  leave  the  Mint 
after  they  enter  it,  until  they  have  been  washed  span- 
clean.  The  aprons  worn  by  the  seventy  ladies  —  to  whom 
you  will  be  presented  by-and-by  —  are  also  washed  in  the 
Mint  laundry.  The  method  of  washing  is  unique.  They 
just  put  them  in  the  furnaces,  and  they  are  cleansed  in  a 
twinkling.     A  ten-dollar  suit  may  be  worth   five  after  it 


A    MINT   OF   MONEY.  183 

is  burned  up,  and  an  old  apron  bring  money  enough  to 
buy  a  new  one.  When  they  take  up  carpets  they  do  not 
chastise  them  with  whips  and  broomsticks,  after  the  man- 
ner of  good  housewives,  filling  their  lungs  with  dust  and 
the  premises  with  confusion,  but  they  just  bundle  them 
bodily  into  the  fire;  and  it  is  generally  calculated  that 
the  destruction  of  an  old  carpet,  after  three  years  of 
wear,  will  about  buy  a  new  one.  A  mint  is  the  only 
place  in  the  world  where  a  conflagration  produces  its 
pwn  insurance  money.  The  ashes  of  these  clothes  and 
carpets  are  carefully  gathered,  sifted  and  washed,,  and  out 
come  the  truant  gold  and  silver  they  contain.  This  will 
seem  strange  to  nobody  who  remembers  how  the  Pillars 
of  Hercules  on  the  old  Spanish  quarters  were  worn  away, 
particle  by  particle,  by  thumbs  and  fingers. 

MIDAS'S  KITCHEN. 
But  we  are  yet  in  the  Melting  Department,  which  is 
a  melting  department.  They  take  the  pots  of  fluid  gold 
and  silver  out  of  the  fires  with  tongs.  They  pour  them 
into  iron  moulds.  They  stamp  them  with  a  number. 
They  refresh  them  with  a  bath.  They  scrub  them  with 
diluted  sulphuric  acid  for  soap,  as  zealous  mothers  wash 
their  children  on  Saturday  nights  with  Colegate  and  water. 
They  are  ingots  at  last.  Here  a  man  is  sweeping  up  the 
dust  and  ashes  before  a  furnace.  He  is  scraping  out  the 
dross  from  the  empty  crucibles.  They  are  ground  under 
a  pair  of  iron  grind.9tones,  called  a  Chile-mill.  It  looks 
like  an  awkward  cart  forever  starting  to  go  somewhere 
and  never  going.  The  crushed  rubbish  is  swept  out  into 
copper  wash-bowls,  water  is  let  on,  and  the  old  twirl  of 
the  pan  clears   the  metal   from  dust  and   disguise.     It  is 


184  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

the  process  of  the  early  miners.  The  "  color "  begins  to 
show.  White  and  yellow  particles  sparkle  in  the  basins. 
It  "  pans  out "  well.  And  that  is  melted  and  follows  the 
bar  as  a  jolly-boat  tags  a  frigate. 

BRICKS  AND  HOOP-POLES. 

Here  are  gold  and  silver  bricks.  Two  little  chips 
have  been  nicked  out  by  the  assayer  and  tested.  He 
knows  their  fineness  to  a  thousandth.  They  are  parceled 
out  each  with  its  little  red  copper  cake  and  crumbs  of 
alloy,  that  look  good  enough  to  be  eaten.  They  come 
out  of  the  furnaces  and  turn  into  ingots  which  are  rul- 
ers. They  are  the  color  of  Gunter's  Scale,  but  four  times 
as  thick.     You  follow  them  to  the  drawing  room. 

A  wry-mouthed  machine,  looking  as  if  an  effort  to 
laugh  was  distressing  it,  is  waiting  there  for  a  bite  at 
one  end  of  each  ingot.  The  monster  being  satisfied,  the 
unfortunate  ingots  are  then  run  over  and  under  by  two 
cylinders,  that  draw  them  into  hoops  three  and  a  half 
feet  long  and  one  and  a  half  inches  wide.  You  fancy 
Bacchus's  private  keg  might  be  girded  with  them.  They 
are  locked  up  in  copper  tubes,  that  might  be  the  corpses 
of  telescopes,  thrust  into  ovens  and  baked  till  the  yellow 
gold  is  white  with  wrath  and  caloric.  They  are  relieved 
with  a  cold  bath,  which  comforts  you,  and  then  are  drawn 
into  splendid  ribbons,  richer  than  any  in  the  window  of 
the  Queen's  milliner,  and  worth,  some  of  them,  five  hun- 
dred dollars  a  yard.  Not  satisfied  yet,  the  workmen 
throw  them  into  another  annealing  fever,  to  warm  all 
the  brittleness  out  of  them.  Then  they  anoint  the  silver 
ribbons  and  wax  the  gold  ones,  that  they  may  run  with- 
out complaint  between  a  pair  of  steel  rollers  that  travel 


A    MINT   OF   MONEY.  185 

as  true  as  a  consistent  christian,  and  are  at  last  finished 
to  a  mathematical  nicety.  You  follow  the  ribbons  —  as 
you  have  often  done  before  you  ever  saw  a  mint  —  follow 
them  to  the  cutter,  where  the  little  white  and  yellow 
wheels  are  riddled  out  that  keep  the  great  woi'ld  rolling. 
You  may  talk  of  machinery,  but  the  motive  power  of  the 
commercial  world  is  a  wheel  without  steam,  axle,  crank 
or  patent,  that  you  can  carry  in  your  pocket. 

The  wheel  of  the  magnificent  engine  in  the  Mint,  the 
heart  of  all  its  mechanical  motions,  and  as  good  as  a 
team  of  two  hundred  and  forty  horses  —  an  engine  that 
looks  like  the  portico  of  a  Greek  temple  —  that  wheel 
weighs  forty-five  thousand  pounds,  and  the  double  eagle 
in  your  pocket  has  more  power  than  the  wheel. 

The  little  wheels  are  called  planchets,  but  they  resem- 
ble big  blind  buttons  more  than  money;  of  course  I  mean 
buttons  with  no  eyes.  You  watch  the  four  cutters  that 
play  like  the  tick  of  French  clocks  in  a  race.  See  the 
silver  for  dimes  dance  out  like  rain  drops,  two  hundred 
and  sixty  in  a  minute.  Watch  the  double  eagles  rattle 
f'(;wn  in  a  golden  shower,  at  the  rate  of  fourteen  thou- 
sand an  hour,  two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  dollars 
in  sixty  minutes.  Yonder,  smooth-faced  quarters  glitter 
like  the  scales  on  a  whitefish. 

The  planchets  pursue  their  pilgrimage  to  the  wash- 
room, that,  with  its  copper  tubs  and  steaming  suds,  is  a 
great  laundry*  Here  their  stupid  faces  are  washed,  then 
shuffled  into  pans  filled-  with  sawdust  from  the  German 
linden,  as  country  girls  wash  their  faces  in  bran  to  get 
off  the  tan.  Then  they  are  shoveled  up  and  borne  away 
to  the  Adjusters.  There  are  seventy  of  them  and  they 
are  ladies.  There  they  sit  in  long  rows  before  tables, 
8* 


186  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

each  with  a  little  pair  of  scales  before  her,  like  so  many 
goddesses  of  justice,  only  they  are  not  blindfold,  as  you 
may  know  by  the  glance  of  their  eyes.  Each  is  armed 
with  a-  file.  She  weighs  each  piece.  If  too  light  she 
casts  it  aside.  If  too  heavy  she  cunningly  twirls  it  be- 
tween a  fore-fijiger  and  thumb  and  touches  the  edge  so 
delicately  with  the  file  that  it  would  hardly  rasp  away 
the  dust  from  a  butterfly's  wing.  An  instant  touch 
brings  the  piece  to  the  standard.  The  dust  of  the  filings 
falls  upon  an  apron  and  into  a  zinc  drawer.  At  the 
year's  end  the  contents,  finer  than  pollen,  are  made  into 
a  bar.  Thirty  ladies  will  adjust  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars  in  a  day,  and  thirty-five  will  bring 
forty  thousand  trade  dollars  to  the  standard.  The  trade 
dollar  is  a  large  silver  coin,  as  handsome  as  a  medal, 
chiefly  used  in  the  traffic  with  China,  and  worth  nearly 
a  hundred  and  nine  cents.  Women's  fingers  grow  won- 
derfully swift.  Three  ladies  sit  in  that  corner  who  assort 
the  .planchets,  throwing  out  the  defective  ones,  at  the 
rate  of  twenty  thousand  half  dollars  in  eight  hours;  sixty 
thousand  pieces  for  the  trio. 

You  follow  the  planchets  to  the  milling  machine,  where 
they  are  squeezed  in  a  half  circle  of  a  waltz  so  vigorously  as 
to  raise  the  edge  on  the  two  sides  of  the  coin.  In  the  Mint 
vernacular  it  has  ceased  to  be  a  planchet  and  becomes  a 
blank,  takes  another  washing  to  make  it  tender-hearted, 
ind  here  it  lies  at  last  with  a  face  and  no  more  metal- 
lic lustre  in  it  than  an  ivory  button.  It  has  been  fright- 
ened white  by  an  acid,  and  is  ready  for  the  great  trial 
of  its  life.  It  is  to  be  coined.  There  stands  the  machine 
to  give  "  head  and  tail  to  it,"  endow  it  with  the  angel 
of  Liberty  on  one  side  and   the  eagle  on    the  other,  and 


A    MINT   OF   MONEY.  187 

fit  it  with  its  corrugated  edge  like  one  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's collars,  all  in  an  instant  with  a  single  motion,  and 
a  pressure  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  tons.  A  pair 
of  automatic  steel  fingers  seizes  each  piece,  passes  it  for- 
ward to  be  stamped  at  the  rate  of  eighty  a  minute. 
There  the  half  dollars  come  sparkling  out,  pressed  into 
brilliance  and  beauty.  They  have  ceased  to  be  blanks. 
They  are  money  at  last,  and  eagle  and  angel  are  ready 
to  fly.  You  stand  by  a  stamping  machine  that  has  been 
kissing  gold  for  twenty-four  years,  into  double  eagles. 
In  that  time  it  has  osculated  four  hundred  millions  of 
dollars  into  being.  You  saw  it  kiss  a  blank  just  now 
with  all  the  perfection  of  its  first  touch.  And  that 
gentleman  with  silver  in  his  hair  has  superintended  for 
all  these  years  these  tremendous  salutations,  and  he  is 
as  true  as  the  dies  of  steel. 

Yonder  is  a  counting  board.  It  resembles  a  great 
motherly  washboard.  It  holds  a  thousand  quarters  in 
the  furrows  between  the  little  ridges.  The  coins  are 
shoveled  upon  it,  and  the  operator  just  shakes  the  board 
this  way  and  that,  and  the  glittering  discs  arrange  them- 
selves in  columns  as  if  they  were  alive.  The  board  is 
filled  and  he  has  counted  a  thousand  in  a  minute;  sixty 
thousand  an  hour. 

Nothing  impresses  you  so  forcibly  as  the  relentless 
pursuit  of  gold  and  silver,  from  rock  to  coin.  Science 
with  its  most  delicate  manipulations  is  put  upon  their 
track.  Silver  is  united  with  gold  in  a  union  apparently 
indissoluble.  Nitric  acid  is  sent  to  look  for  it.  It  eats 
it  out  of  the  gold,  leaving  its  hiding  place  as  porous  as 
a  sponge,  and  you  have  nitrate  of  silver.  It  is  yet  as 
far  oft"  from  being  the  familiar  metal  as  a  dish  of  soup 


188  BKTWEEN  THE   GATES. 

is  from  being  a  soup-ladle.  You  sot  chloride  of  sodium, 
which  is  Lot's  wife  after  she  was  halted  into  a  monument, 
which  is  common  salt,  to  catch  that  acid.  The  silver  tum- 
bles down  in  a  milky  sediment.  You  have  chloride  of 
silver.  You  put  zinc  on  the  track  to  woi*k  out  the  salt. 
You  have  a  white  curd.  You  drench  it  and  dry  it,  and 
you  have  a  crumbling  brown  sand,  with  the  precious 
look  of  an  ash-heap,  for  your  trouble.  Unscientific  man 
would  feel  humbled  at  this  "dust  to  dust"  ending  of  the 
whole  thing.  But  that  dirt  is  silver  at  last.  It  is  put 
into  an  iron  hoop  and  receives  a  pressure  of  four  hun- 
dred tons  in  a  hydraulic  press.  It  comes  out  a  thirty- 
five  pound  cheese  with  the  dingiest,  dustiest  rind  you  ever 
saw.  The  dairyman  scrapes  it  with  a  knife,  and  there  is 
the  shining  metal.  It  is  a  silver  cheese.  It  is  worth 
four  hundred  dollars.  It  goes  into  an  oven  to  be  baked. 
There  is  moisture  in  it  that  if  not  banished  would  make 
a  way  for  itself  in  the  furnace  and  explode  like  a  shell. 
The  baking  done,  the  cheese  is  sent  to  the  Melter.  He 
brings  it  to  its  right  complexion.  It  becomes  a  bar. 
The  bar  is  an  ingot,  and  the  ingot  travels  away  on  the 
road  we  have  gone,  to  be  money.  At  first  a  fugitive, 
then  a  liquid,  then  a  sediment,  then  a  whitish  cloud,  then 
a  curd,  then  plain  brown  earth,  then  a  cheese,  then  the 
standai-d  metal  nine  hundred  strong.  Who  says  Proteus 
is  a  myth? 

The  assay  room  is  the  Detective  Office  of  Science.  It 
puts  cheap  rogues  of  chemicals  together  with  suspected 
silver  and  gold.  When  the  rogues  fall  out,  the  treasure 
is  detected,  analyzed,  rated.  You  see  pellets  as  big  as  a 
June  pea  in  the  bottom  of  little  bone-ash  cupels,  which 
are  nothing   more   than   tiny  flower-pots,  about  right  for 


A    MINT   OF   MOSTEY.  189 

Lilliput.  You  see  little  green  and  red  liquids  bubbling 
away  in  rows  of  glass  flasks.  You  see  them  patiently 
standing  in  sand  baths.  Everything  is  done  to  extort  the 
truth,  and  the  truth  is  pure  gold  and  clean  silver. 

WEIGHING  LIVE  STOCK. 

You  see  scales,  the  most  delicate  pieces  of  mechanism. 
The  wave  of  a  butterfly's  wing  could  blow  the  truth 
away  from  them.  They  hang  in  glass  houses  of  their 
own.  I  said  to  Alexander  Martin,  Esq.,  the  Master  Melter 
and  Refiner,  who  kindly  exhibited  the  balance,  and  dain- 
tily picked  up  little  weights  of  silver  with  steel  fingers, 
six  of  which  could  be  packed  in  a  dewdrop,  "  Let  us  weigh 
an  —  animal!  Let  us  go  hunting.  Let  us  catch  a  fly." 
We  captured  a  victim  and  drove  him  upon  the  scale  as 
if  he  were  a  bullock.  A  weight  was  put  in  the  other 
dish,  and  our  mammoth  made  it  kick  the  beam.  The 
long,  slender  index  depending  from  the  balancing  point, 
and  describing  an  arc  on  the  graduated  ivory  when  the 
scales  are  inoved,  swung  through  ten  spaces  when  the 
monster  was  put  aboard  !  The  brown  house-fly  pulled 
down  the  dish  at  thirty-one  thousandths  of  seven  and  a 
half  grains  —  and  he  was  only  in  good  flying  order  at 
that !  Then  one  wing  was  lifted  upon  the  scale,  and  it 
astonished  us  to  see  what  a  regiment  of  heavy  figures  it 
took  to  tell  how  light  it  was,  that  bit  of  an  atmospheric 
oar. 

Have  you  never  thought  that  things  may  be  so  enor- 
mously little  as  to  be  tremendously  great  ?  We  go  to 
the  Assaying  Department,  where  they  weigh  next  to  noth- 
ing and  keep  an  account  of  it.  Here  are  scales  where  a 
girl's  eyelash  will  give  the  index  the  swing  of  a  pendu- 


190  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

lura.  The  smallest  woisfht  is  an  atom  of  aluminum,  the 
lightest  of  the  mineral  family,  that  you  could  carry  in 
your  eye  and  not  think  there  was  a  beam  in  it.  Its 
weight  is  -^  of  j^  of  J  of  ^  of  one  ounce!  It  would 
take  ninety-six  hundred  of  those  metallic  motes  to  weigh 
a  humming-bird. 

"THE  GOLDEN  DUSTMAN." 
To  go  out  at  the  door  of  the  department  of  dust  and 
ashes  is  an  inglorious  exit,  but  you  are  in  the  basement, 
surrounded  by  sheet  iron  pails  and  barrels  filled  with 
cinders,  ashes,  and  broken  crucibles.  It  looks  like  the 
wreck  and  refuse  of  a  fire.  A  pair  of  great  iron  wheels, 
an  overgrown  Chile-mill,  is  grinding  dirt.  If  not  that 
article,  then  you  are  no  judge  of  it.  It  is  a  mill  where 
the  grain  is  trash  and  the  grist  the  ashes  of  mortifica- 
tion. The  courteous  millers  are  clothed  with  them,  but 
dispense  with  the  sackcloth.  They  are  the  sweepings  of 
the  floors,  the  scrapings  of  the  crucibles,  lumps  of  slag. 
Possibly  Dickens'  golden  dustman  would  oiFer  one  pound 
ten  for  the  total  contents,  barrels  and  all.  Stray  gold 
and  silver  have  been  searched  out  and  chased  all  over  the 
building,  until  it  is  fairly  run  to  earth  in  the  cellar. 
Here  the  refuse  is  ground,  drowned,  sifted  and  washed, 
until  the  last  precious  grain  that  will  come  to  terms  here 
has  surrendered.  The  remainder  is  barreled,  and  probed 
and  tested  as  they  try  butter  in  the  firkin,  and  then  sold 
to  smelters  and  refiners.  In  the  year  1876-7  five  hundred 
and  forty-three  barrels  were  sold,  producing  gold  and  sil- 
ver worth  seventeen  thousand  dollars.  Some  one  said  to 
a  card  player  with  hands  heavily  shaded,  "  If  dirt  were 
trumps,  what  a   hand   you  would    have ! "      Here   dirt  is 


A   MINT   OF   MONEY.  191 

trumps,  and  you  leave  the  Mint  with  an  increased  respect 
for  dust  and  ashes. 

As,  standing  in  the  engine  room,  you  admire  the  ele- 
gant power  that  graces  it  —  for,  after  all,  what  is  hand- 
somer than  steel  when  wielded  or  fashioned  in  a  good 
cause? — perhaps  you  see  a  tablet  on  the  wall,  bearing  a 
medallion  portrait,  a  name,  some  words  of  birth  and  death. 
It  is  the  record  of  the  one  sad  event  that  forever  con- 
nects itself  with  the  Opening  Day.  John  Michael  Eck- 
feldt,  whose  name  you  read,  was  the  man  who  devised, 
arranged  and  adjusted  much  of  the  exquisite  mechanism 
you  have  seen,  and  perfected  its  connections  with  this 
noiseless  giant  here;  mechanism  so  wonderfully  ingenious, 
faithful  and  true,  that  it  fills  this  great  building  with 
the  wit  and  force  of  two  thousand  busy  men. 

He  had  brought  it  all  up  to  the  starting  point.  Band, 
shaft,  axle,  all  in  place.  It  was  an  untried  problem.  It 
had  cost  him  toil,  anxiety,  sleepless  thought.  Would  it 
spring  to  harmonious  life  at  the  word  of  command,  or 
would  it  jar  horrible  discord  ?  Ten  o'clock  one  morning 
would  have  seen  him  a  glad,  exultant  man.  But  the 
more  delicate  and  subtle  machinery  of  his  brain  gave 
way  too  soon.  At  eight  o'clock  that  morning,  he  had 
gone  beyond  all  earthly  triumphs,  and  here  these  wheels 
revolve  to-daj^  these  engines  do  their  perfect  work.  It 
is  the  one  story  of  human  sadness  linked  with  all  this 
heartless  mechanism  and  these  glittering  piles  of  gold 
and  silver  with  their  chill  and  pulseless  touch. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


BOUND  FOR  THE  YO  SEMITE. 

BOUND  for  the  Yo  Semite!  In  the  Indian  tongue 
the  Great  Grizzly  Bear,  but  a  zoological  blunder, 
for  among  the  zodiacal  wonders  of  California  it  is  "  Leo 
the  Lion."  Hardly  had  I  reached  the  Coast  before  they 
began  to  say  with  all  sorts  of  rising  and  falling  slides 
known  to  wonder,  surprise,  persuasion,  indignation: 
"What!  Not  yet!"  "Not  been  to  the  Yo  Semite?" 
"Not  going  to  the  Yo  Semite?"  "Leave  California  and 
not  see  the  Yo  Semite!"  I  saw  there  might  be  a  vii'tue 
in  not  being  a  pilgrim  to  this  Mecca  of  the  mountains, 
and  a/chance  for  a  bit  of  originality,  but  being  equal  to 
neither,  I  went.  ^ 

Through  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Secretary  E.  H.  Miller, 
jr.,  of  the  Central  Pacific  Railway,  which  means  three 
thousand  miles  by  rail  and  steamer,  and  Mr.  0.  C.  Wheeler, 
an  officer  of  the  same  great  thoroughfare,  who  cleared 
the  way  with  all  sorts  of  "  open  sesames  "  known  to  liberal 
souls  and  gentlemen,  we  could  have  gone  like  the  travel- 
ing preachers  of  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era, 
with  no  scrip  for  the  journey,  nor  "  two  coats  apiece," 
unless  a  linen  duster,  the  kind  of  shirt  that  strikes  through 
your  clothes  and  appears  upon  the  surface  like  a  case  of 
well-developed  nankeen  night-gown,  be  a  coat  within  the 
meaning  of  the  sartorial  statute.     The  great  steamer  El 


BOUND  FOR  THE  YO  SEMITE.  193 

Capitan  took  us  across  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco  like  a 
sea-gull.  The  Central  Pacific  train  bore  us  swiftly  to 
Merced,  where  the  capital  hotel  El  Capitan  gave  us  "  rest 
and  shelter,  food  and"  —  a  fan.  Merced  is  the  place  whence 
we  leave  for  the  Sierras,  though,  except  in  one  direction 
where  a  dark  blue  looming  behind  us,  a  sort  of  everlasting 
outlined  night,  betrayed  Mount  Diablo  a  hundred  miles 
away,  there  is  no  suspicion  of  a  hill.  It  is  the  grand 
valley  of  San  Joaquin. 

After  a  toaster  of  a  night,  the  morning  sun  blazed  us 
awake  before  light,  as  an  Irishman  would  say.  The  bulg- 
ing hats  of  wasp's-nest  gray,  the  leathern  saddle-bags, 
the  strapped  blankets,  the  Babel  tongues,  proclaim  tourists 
from  many  lands.  We  have  a  special  coach  with  a  four- 
in-hand,  and  a  four  inside,  and  crack,  dash,  in  a  feu-de- 
joie  of  a  style,  and  a  cloud  of  tawny  dust,  away  we  go, 
and  out  upon  a  plain  about  as  flat  and  dry  as  a  Fifth- 
of-July  oration.  Nobody  could  dream  that  this  thirsty, 
dusty,  stone-pelted  plain  would  glow  with  green  in  the 
October  rain,  but  it  will.  You  wonder  where  the  ground 
squirrels,  about  the  size  of  an  Eastern  gray,  that  track 
the  desert  everywhere,  get  their  plumpness  with  such  a 
dust-and-ashes  fare,  but  somehow  fatness  has  slipped  out 
of  their  side  pockets  and  lined  their  whole  persons.  You 
wonder  whether  the  poor  hare  in  the  distance,  that  one 
of  a  brace  of  dogs  has  just  run  down  to  death,  is  not  a 
little  glad  for  his  tragic  taking  off.  You  wonder  where 
the  hounds  got  their  viciousness  and  vim.  The  wind  is 
astern  and  the  dust  travels  with  us,  gets  into  the  stage 
and  rides.  The  sun  beats  down  and  the  earth  strikes 
back.  Everybody's  face  is  covered  with  maps  of  inky 
rivers.  We  are  a  four-spot  of  dirty  spades.  For  once 
9 


194  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

we  "see  oursels  as  ithers  see  us,"  for  we  all  look  alike. 
One  or  two  of  us  are  in  good  order.  We  have  equatorial 
dimensions.  We  clamber  in  and  out  of  the  coach  like 
seals  up  and  down  a  rock.  The  curtains  smell  of  leather, 
the  wood-work  smells  of  paint.  The  rough  road  jolts 
depravity  out  of  us.  Amiability  is  smothered  like  the 
little  princes  in  the  tower.  It  costs  nothing  to  be  good 
when  it  costs  nothing,  and  so  there  is  nothing  to  credit 
on  the  book  of  your  behavior.  The  frequent  fording  of 
dry  creeks  does  not  appear  to  refresh  us.  These  rough 
McAdams  seam  the  rolling  plain,  showing  where  the  water 
and  the  warble  go  in  the  rainy  time.  Big  pebbles  worn 
into  spheres  lie  in  the  dimples  of  the  landscape,  suggest- 
ing "  the  pocket  full  of  rocks "  the  old  miners  told  of. 

We  meet  a  freighter  with  two  wagons  en  train,  and  by 
the  count  of  the  ears  drawn  by  twelve-mule  power.  Our 
driver  is  "a  whip"  of  twenty-two  years'  sitting.  He  is 
lean  and  long  —  should  he  grow  longer  he  will  be  leaner 
—  and  one  of  the  kings  of  the  road,  and  his  name  is 
Buifalo  Jem.  He  is  full  of  strong  horse  sense  and  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature.  He  measures  his  passengers  as 
accurately  as  he  does  the  length  of  his  whip-lash  when 
he  flicks  the  oiF  leader's  nigh  ear.  If  you  ride  in  the 
stage  make  friends  with  the  driver.     It  pays. 

We  are  stumbling  over  the  toes  of  the  foot-hills. 
"Jem "  is  full  of  quaint  phrases.  He  says  "  the  horses 
pant  like  lizards."  Watch  that  nimble  fellow  as  he  halts 
a  minute  on  a  rock,  his  sides  palpitating  in  the  sun,  and 
you  will  see  how  true  is  the  driver's  simile.  He  picks 
up  his  rhetoric  as  he  goes  along. 

A  jarring,  rumbling  sound  proclaims  a  stamp-mill  for 
trampling  gold  quartz   into  powder.      It  is  the  Washing- 


BOUND    FOR   THE    YO   SEMITE.  195 

ton  Mill.  It  has  twenty  iron  tramplers.  They  are  churn- 
dashers.  Chinamen,  clothed  principally  with  perspiration, 
are  shoveling  the  quartz  to  be  trodden.  Water  is  let  in 
upon  it  and  thirty  tons  flow  out  in  a  chalky  stream  every 
day.  It  is  a  place  filled  with  din,  dirt,  gold,  silver  and 
discomfort. 

Domes  begin  to  rise  beyond  us  as  if  somebody  had 
been  mowing  the  big  hills  and  heaping  them  into  cocks 
for  easy  handling.  The  earth  is  burrowed  all  along, 
carved  with  ditches,  hollowed  into  caves,  scooped  out  in 
cellars.  It  is  the  visible  route  of  the  old  gold  hunters. 
If  these  ghastly  scars  could  talk,  what  tales  of  hardship, 
heart-ache,  death,  they  all  would  tell!  There  is  a  lonely 
grave  this  minute,  surrounded  by  a  fence.  He  that  lies 
there  was  waited  for  by  somebody  beyond  the  mountains 
as  if  she  could  never  give  him  up.  He  was  mourned 
for  as  if  she  would  always  wear  the  Avillow.  He  was 
forgotten  as  if  she  never  loved  him.  And  it  is  well.  It 
seems  to  get  hotter.  It  really  grows  rougher.  Have  you 
noticed  how  a  man  in  a  sultry  day  will  take  off  his  hat, 
look  into  it  for  an  instant  as  if  he  expected  to  find  some- 
thing refreshing,  then  don  it  with  a  disappointed  air,  only 
to  doff  it  again?  So  ray  vis-a-vis  interrogated  his  hat 
and  said  nothing.  But  a  disappointed  air  is  better  than 
none  at  all  in  a  dead  calm. 

The  landscape  is  getting  full  of  tombstones.  The 
rocks  are  set  up  on  edge  by  thousands;  tablets  and 
monuments.  The  gray  slabs,  mossy,  sculptured,  stained, 
need  some  Old  Mortality  to  work  upon  them.  You  listen 
for  the  clink  of  his  hammer  and  chisel  through  the 
silence.  You  look  about  for  his  shaggy  pony  snorting 
the    powdery   earth    from    his   nostrils   as   he  nips   for  a 


196  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

spire  or  two  of  yellow  grass.  These  stones  were  set  up 
in  a  convulsive  time;  crowded  from  the  ledges  where 
they  lay  by  the  shouldering  lift  of  some  Lieutenant  of 
Omnipotence.  Lo,  a  grander  than  the  graves  of  dead 
Covenanters  are  here!  They  are  the  tombs  of  giant 
forces  that  have  fallen  on  their  faces  in  the  region  where 
they  raged,  and  here  they  hold  their  monuments  above 
their  prostrate  heads  in  dumb  abasement.  The  splendid 
sky  of  California  bends  over  a  scene  desolate  and  lone, 
and  you  feel  that  some  clouds  trailing  their  dim  shadows 
along,  and  weeping  rain  as  they  go,  would  soften  the 
ghastly  outlines  of  the  picture. 

We  pass  the  dismantled  buildings  of  the  first  mining 
settlement  in  all  the  region;  a  store  with  nothing  but  a 
pretentious  front,  like  the  shirtless  man  that  wears  a 
"dickey";  the  dry  and  broken  race-way:  the  gold  mine 
on  the  mountain,  with  its  disused  road,  tacking  up  the 
acclivity  like  a  ship  that  beats  against  the  wind.  We 
plunge  down  at  a  roystering  rate  into  rugged  Bear  Val- 
ley, a  pleasant  hamlet  in  the  green  pocket  of  the  moun- 
tains. We  have  struck  the  great  Mexican  land  grant  to 
Frefraont,  "  the  Pathfinder "  of  the  old  days.  Two  thou- 
sand feet  above  us,  his  Jessie  had  her  summer  residence. 

At  last,  dusty  as  a  caravan  of  camels,  we  dash  into 
Mariposa,  aforetime  the  rendezvous  of  the  miners  who 
possessed  the  town  on  Saturday  nights  with  bags  of  gold, 
long  knives  and  great  oaths,  swarming  down  from  those 
burrows  you  see  on  the  frown  of  the  mountain,  but  now 
as  deserted  as  the  home  of  the  nursery  woodchuck  that 
perished  in  a  spasm  "  over  the  hills  and  a  great  way  off." 
It  is  nothing  but  a  shuck  of  a  town,  the  kernel  eaten  out 
long  ago.     From  the  door  of  the  excellent  hotel  I  count 


BOUND    FOR  THE    YO   SEMITE.  197 

thirteen  mountain  peaks  investing  it  so  closely  on  every 
hand  that  it  puzzles  me  to  tell  how  we  ever  got  here, 
and  it  puzzles  echoes  to  get  out,  or  to  get  quiet.  The 
roosters  begin  to  blow  their  "  shrill  clarions  "  here  about 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  but  how  long  they  keep  it 
up  nobody  knows,  for  every  height  and  hollow  and  cliff 
and  cation  begins  to  crow  at  the  same  time,  and  it  takes 
two  hours  for  all  those  crows  to  escape  from  this  horizon. 

Pack-horses  laden  with  grapes  that  "  set  the  children's 
teeth  on  edge,"  come  shambling  into  town.  We  meet 
grown  girls  from  the  hills  bestriding  their  horses  as 
manfully  as  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes.  We  see  the  dirtiest 
Piutes  with  neither  second  story  nor  garret  to  their  black- 
thatched  heads,  go  stealing  about. 

They  have  queer  ways  in  the  mountains.  Wells, 
Fargo  and  Company  are  the  great  express,  mail  and 
money  carriers  of  California.  You  see  their  gi-een  wood- 
en, padlocked  boxes  on  every  stage.  The  post-office  and 
saloon  may  be  attended  by  the  same  clerks,  and  highway- 
men are  euphemistically  called  "  road-agents."  There  was 
some  talk  we  might  meet  them,  and  I  rather  hoped  we 
would,  for  it  would  be  something  quite  out  of  a  book  to 
be  bidden  "  stand  and  deliver."  It  would  have  been  a 
cheap  and  bloodless  entertainment. 

At  Mariposa  I  saw  some  of  the  productions  of  the 
region.  They  have  a  pleasant  collection  of  them  at  the 
hotel.  Here  is  a  thistle  with  a  blossom  two  feet  and  a 
half  in  circumference.  Scotland  should  transplant,  adopt, 
and  name  it  the  noli  me  tangere  gigantea  of  California. 
Next,  a  family  of  scorpions,  dark-brown  creatures  two 
or  three  inches  in  length.  They  are  so  many  pairs 
of  slender  forceps  —  a  sort  of  devilish  sugar-tongs  —  the 


198  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

handles  fringed  with  legs.  Yonder  is  a  hairy-backed 
tarantula,  the  size  of  a  large  quail's  egg,  and  a  spread 
of  eight  lovely  feet  that  would  stand  easily  around  the 
edge  of  a  teacup.  Its  house  is  an  ingenious  chamber 
lined  with  white  satin  and  closed  by  a  door  with  a  hinge 
to  it,  the  hardware  being  made  of  hair  from  his  own 
blessed  back.  That  door  shuts  after  him  as  snugly  as 
the  lid  of  your  grandmother's  snufi-box.  Near  the  tai-an- 
tulas  is  a  yellow-winged  fly  with  a  black  rapier,  the  sworn 
enemy  of  the  spider,  and  so,  ex-officio,  the  friend  of  bare- 
footed humanity.  It  is  the  tarantula-hawk,  that  pounces 
upon  his  victim  and  makes  a  needle-cushion  of  him  at 
sight.  Here  is  the  vine  of  the  mountain  laurel  with  its 
long  thorns,  often  used  for  shawl  pins.  There  is  a  tradi- 
tion that  the  Savior's  crown  of  thorns  was  made  of  this 
armed  plant,  and  as  it  hangs  upon  the  wall,  bare  of  leaf 
and  verdure,  its  weapons  cruel  and  unsheathed,  it  resem- 
bles the  delineations  of  the  crown  of  Calvary,  as  painted 
by  the  old  masters. 

And  now  leaving  Mariposa  we  begin  to  climb.  We 
have  passed  the  foot-hills.  We  are  nearing  the  Sierras. 
The  everlasting  sun  blazes  relentlessly.  Oh,  for  a  little 
shadow,  a  dash  of  rain,  a  touch  of  gloom,  to  relieve  the 
glare.  The  glory  grows  oppressive.  I  have  no  envy  for 
the  mountain  with  "  eternal  sunshine  settling  round  its 
head."  The  air  is  aromatic  with  the  resinous  pines.  It 
sweeps  right  across  from  mountain  throne  to  mountain 
throne.  It  has  never  been  breathed.  It  tingles  in  your 
veins.  It  is  a  sort  of  inspiration.  Bevies  of  mountain 
quail  scud  gracefully  along  in  the  road  before  us.  The 
ears  of  Jack  Rabbit,  supported  by  a  body  and  four  feet, 
sprout  beside   the  track,  shut   back   like  a  knife-blade  at 


BOUND   FOR   THE    TO   SEMITE.  199 

hearing  the  wheels,  and  away  it  bounds,  ears  and  all. 
Loquacious  magpies  talk  baby-crow  as  they  flit  about 
with  plumage  done  like  a  legal  document,  "  in  black  and 
white."  The  wheels  run  fragrant  and  still  on  the  carpet 
of  pine  needles.  The  ground  is  strown  with  huge  cones. 
Shadows  fall  gratefully  upon  the  quivering  road.  Buz- 
zards sit  motionless  upon  the  limbs  of  burned  trees,  the 
only  charcoal  sketches  in  all  the  region.* 

The  trunks  of  great  pines  are  thickly  tattooed  with 
holes  like  a  New  Zealander's  skin.  It  is  the  work  of 
those  wild  carpenters,  the  woodpeckers,  that  drill  each 
hole  and  drive  an  acorn  into  it.  It  is  a  boarding-house, 
but  not  for  birds.  A  worm  fattens  upon  the  acorn,  and 
when  he  is  in  edible  order  the  carpenter  disposes  of  him, 
and  a  rare  morsel  he  is.  This  gathering  grain  and 
housing  it  out  of  harm's  way,  and  fattening  stock  upon 
it  for  home  consumption  —  what  does  it  lack  of  being  the 
thing  called  reasoning?  There  are  house-building,  har- 
vesting, sheltering,'  feeding,  and  waiting,  five  consecutive 
steps,  and  then  a  feast! 

We  look  across  the  world  that  lies  embayed  in  the 
green  surges  of  enduring  Summer,  two  thousand  feet 
below;  across  from  height  to  height.  Earth  is  one  great 
rough  emerald  with  uncounted  shades.  Three  kinds  of 
pines  run  skyward,  the  yellow,  the  contorta,  the  sugar  — 
and  the  last  is  the  grandest.  Imagine  a  tree  as  full  of 
plumage  as  a  bird  of  paradise,  straight  as  an  arrow,  shot 
into  the  air  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet,  and  only  halting 
for  orders.  Think  of  it  surmounted  by  a  great  living 
umbrella  of  green,  and  cones  a  foot  in  length  and  resem- 
bling roasting  ears  pendent  from  its  sleeved  arms;  a  tree 
that  talks  to  you  of  the  most  vigorous  and  luxuriant  life 
you  ever  imagined,  and  you  have  the  sugar  pine. 


200  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

TAKING    A   MOUNTAIN. 

Now  stand  with  me  upon  this  daring  promontory, 
Point  Lookout,  where  a  turn  in  tlie  road  and  a  lull  in 
the  timber  reveal  the  sunken  world.  There,  far  below,  the 
Merced  River,  like  a  thread  of  silver  clue,  makes  Qut  its 
winding  way.  You  gaze  down  upon  the  tops  of  forest  mon- 
archs,  with  their  feet  in  the  water.  They  are  two  hun- 
dred feet  high, 'but  they  crouch  like  asparagus.  Beside 
their  crowns,  another  rank  is  rooted  upon  the  mountain 
side,  and  towers  away  two  hundred  and  fifty  more. 
Above  it,  still  a  third  line  scales  the  precipice  in  this 
excelsior  struggle  of  the  serried  woods.  A  fourth,  a  fifth, 
begin  where  the  third  and  fourth  have  ended,  and  upon 
the  tops  of  all  the  five  you  look  down  as  upon  currant 
bushes  from  a  chamber  window!  The  summit  of  the  sixth 
is  even  with  your  eyes.  The  seventh  two  hundred  feet 
aloft.  The  eighth  is  in  the  van.  The  mountain  is  taken 
at  last,  and  see  where  the  ninth  is  —  a  broom  to  sweep 
the  cobwebs  out  of  the  sky.  What  magnificent  apparatus 
for  measuring  heights  and  distances  is  here!  Nine  regi- 
ments of  giants  have  grown  their  way  up  more  than  two 
thousand  feet  from  lower  earth  to  mountain,  and  from 
mountain-top  to  sky. 

That  silent  assault  of  the  woods  upon  the  heights  I 
shall  never  forget.  They  had  been  ages  making  it,  and 
they  carried  them  all  at  last.  See  where  the  green  ban- 
ners toss  triumphant.  Give  one  ringing,  human  cheer 
for  the  giant  mountaineers!  Tally  one  !  Tally  two  ! 
Think  how  they  measured  off  the  centuries  as  they  grew. 

There  are  oaks,  black  and  scrub;  here  a  fii^here  a 
Douglass  spruce,  yonder  a  chestnut.  You  miss  the  elm 
and  maple,  those  glories  of  the  East,  but  what  would  you 


BOUND   FOR   THE   YO   SEMITE.  201 

have?  A  thin  veil  of  blue  smoke  spiritualizes  the  scene, 
tones  it  down  from  the  yellow  blaze  of  day.  Four  lines 
of  mountain  ranges,  one  beyond  another,  seem  to  have 
been  marching  down  into  the  valley,  and  just  halted  as 
you  look,  in  the  act  of  passing  each  other  in  grand 
review.  Indeed,  the  martial  splendors  of  this  day  excel 
all  "  pomp  and  circumstance "  of  human  war. 

A   MOUNTAIN   CHOIR. 

The»e  is  a  hush  upon  the  heights.  The  signal  of  the 
cicada's  cousin  sounds  loud  and  clear.  And  now,  at  last, 
you  hear  the  everlasting  music  of  the  pines;  the  mourn- 
ful sighing  of  which  the  poets  sing;  the  pedal  base  of 
mountain  choirs,  rolling  up  from  the  depths,  rolling  down 
from  the  heights ;  the  lingering  ghosts  of  winds  long 
gone  and  died  away.  It  is  solemn  as  all  the  funeral 
anthems  of  the  world  in  one.  Of  a  truth,  it  is  like  the 
music  of  Ossian,  "  pleasant  but  mournful  to  the  soul." 

Beside  the  way  are  groups  of  neat,  symmetrical  little 
pines,  resembling  a  choir  of  Sunday-school  children,  that, 
standing  all  by  themselves,  sing  a  tiny  note  or  two  into 
the  great  anthem.  Listen,  and  you  shall  hear  the  fine 
treble  of  the  young  pines,  like  the  music  of  a  small  bird's 
wing  as  it  flutters  on  the  edge  of  a  storm. 

You  see  that  varnished  tree,  smooth  as  a  tomato  and 
a  rich  maroon.  It  is  so  crooked  you  think  it  must  be 
doubting  whether  or  not  to.  grow  all  ways  at  once.  It 
is  a  Samson  of  a  tree.  It  has  come  up  through  that 
solid  rock,  cleft  it  as  it  came,  and  with  its  claret-colored 
arms  seems  struggling  like  the  Old  Testament  lion -tamer 
to  wrench  its  jaws  more  widely  apart  than  ever.  Yonder 
is  another  rock-splitter.     You  can  almost  see  the  struggle 


202  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

between  the  vegetable  and  the  mineral.  But  life  will 
win.  A  banyan  tree,  they  say,  is  lifting  the  temple  of 
Juggernaut.  The  name  of  the  maroon  is  "  Manzanita." 
"Two  to  one  the  tree  will  come  out  best  in  the  fight!" 
says  a  passenger.  It  is  the  liveliest  picture  of  still  life 
imaginable.  You  almost  look  for  an  outburst  of  audible 
quarrel.  Somehow  it  suggests  the  statue  of  Laocoon. 
On  the  bark  of  the  conqueror  some  gallant  tourist,  when 
they  halted  in  the  shade,  carved  the  name  ''''Maggie  Pres- 
ton.""     Did    he    marry    her,    or    "oh!     arc    ye    sleeping, 

Maggie?" 

"THE  AYES  HAVE  IT." 

We  met  the  out-coming  stage  and  exchanged  drivers, 
taking  George  Monroe  —  everybody's  George  —  a  capital 
fellow  and  a  born  reinsman,  for  our  Jehu.  We  halted 
at  a  watering-place  for  man  and  beast,  called  Cold  Spring, 
where,  under  a  dingy  veranda,  sat  and  stood  as  motley  a 
group  as  ever  wore  clothes.  Grizzly  men  under  worn-out 
straw  bee-hives  of  hats;  greasers  that  "tried  out"  with- 
out fire;  thin-flanked  hunters  in  belt,  knife  and  rifle; 
dogs  dozing  about,  working  their  mouths  in  dreams  of 
barking  that  never  came  true;  shaggy  ponies  and  hammer- 
headed  horses  that  drooped  alike  at  both  ends.  There  was 
no  premium  on  dirt  in  the  crowd.  It  was  too  plenty. 
Not  one  of  them  spoke  a  word  while  the  stage  remained, 
but  just  watched  us.  They  covinted  ears,  beginning  with 
the  horses  —  eight  eqtius,  fourteen  homo,  total,  twenty- 
two;  and  then  noses,  eleven;  and  then  eyes,  twenty-two. 
After  that,  they  seemed  to  be  gathering  up  the  ayes  and 
noes  and  'ears  in  an  unparliamentary  way  in  one  grand 
total,  fifty-five.  When  they  were  done  we  were  finished. 
You  could  feel  their  silent  eyes  sliding  all  over  you  like 


BOUND    FOR   THE    YO   SEMITE.  203 

drops  of  cold  rain  trickling  down  your  back.  They  might 
have  been  harmless  as  doves,  but  I  was  privately  glad 
when  George  swung  himself  up  to  the  box,  whirled  his 
whip  from  the  top  of  the  coach  with  a  pistol-shot  at  the 
end  of  it,  and  away  we  went  like  the  king's  couriers. 

DOWN  THE  MOUNTAINS. 

After  a  succession  of  ups  and  downs,  we  came  at  last 
to  the  descensus  Averni  of  the  journey,  and  George  made 
it  facilis.  When  we  struck  the  summit  and  rolled  over 
the  verge  —  have  you  ever  shot  the  rapids  of  the  St. 
Lawrence? — well,  when  we  went  over  the  dam,  that  whip 
began  to  fire  platoons,  and  those  four  horses  hollowed 
their  backs  and  their  ears  blew  flat  upon  their  necks, 
and  we  met  the  great  pines  and  redwoods  going  up  the 
mountain  as  if  bound  to  storm  something  on  the  top  of 
it.  George  talked  to  the  four-in-hand  one  after  another, 
to  the  tune  of  "  get  out  of  the  way,  you  are  all  un- 
lucky," and  that  is  it  to  a  minim.  That  team  couldn't 
run  away.  It  had  all  it  could  do  to  keep  the  road  clear, 
for  the  stage  went  of  itself.  Wheels,  axles,  chains,  bolts, 
rattled  like  a  fanning-mill  in  a  fever.  The  chaff"  of  dust 
flew  out  behind  us  as  if  we  were  kicking  the  mountain 
to  atoms,  the  curtains  blew  out  like  wings.  We  all  sat 
still  as  mice.  One  passenger  said  it  was  "  splendid,"  but 
his  voice  sounded  as  if  he  had  whistled  it  through  a 
key-liole.  The  Man-not- Afraid  always  makes  one  in  a 
full  coach.  He  is  the  hero  that  has  slid  down  a  rainbow 
without  tearing  his  trousers. 

Most  mountains  have  elbows,  some  of  them  like  Bri- 
areus,  a  hundred,  and  they  hold  their  arms  akimbo  like 
a    nervous    woman  with    a    big    washing.      The    mantel- 


204 


BETWgEN   THE   GATES. 


shelves  of  roads  are  built  along  the  edges  of  these  arms 
out  to  the  angle  zig!  in  to  the  shoulder  zag!  There 
were  about  fifty  elbows  to  that  grade,  and  the  horses 
made  for  every  one  of  them  at  a  dead  run,  as  if  the 
centrifugal  force  had  got  away  with  them.  They  struck 
"  the  crazy-bone "  and  George  reined  them  in  just  in 
time — it  was  crazy-bone  pretty  much  all  the  way — and 

then  shot  into  the 
pocket  of  the  arm-pit 
like  a  billiard  ball. 
First  you  wince  to  the 
right  and  then  to  the 
left,  as  the  stage  swings 
and  sways.  Given  an 
old-fashioned  rail  fence 

straight  up  a  hill,  at 
an  angle  of  about  forty 
degrees,  and  then  scare 
a  red  squirrel  down 
the  top  rails  from  the 
summit  to  the  bottom, 
and  you  will  know 
how  we  went.  But 
we  reached  the  last 
pocket  as  safely  as  if  we  had  been  so  many  young  kan- 
garoos in  the  maternal  pouch,  and  we  had  made  the  five- 
mile  run,  and  taken  the  chances,  in  twenty  minutes, 
which  is  a  geometrical  tumble  of  five  miles  endwise  at 
the  rate  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour.  Now  seven  men  will 
rise  up  and  solemnly  say  they  descended  that  grade  in 
ten  minutes.      No  tombstone  can   possibly  object  to  bear 


BOUND  FOR  THE  YO  SEMITE.  205 

an   inscription  to  that  effect,  with  their  names  appended. 
There  are  liers  and  liars. 

The  arrival  at  Big  Tree  Station — Washburne's  —  a 
delightful  place,  ended  the  most  luxurious  inountain  ride 
I  ever  enjoyed,  and  "  the  evening  and  the  morning  were 
the  third  day."  After  luncheon  the  company  took  a 
mountain  trail  as  narrow  as  the  path  whereon  they  call 
the  cattle  home,  for  the  Mariposa  grove  of  giant  se- 
quoias, the  biggest  vegetables  in  the  known  world.  It 
was  a  ride  of  fourteen  miles,  the  return  through  the 
dense  green  darkness  of  the  pine  woods,  with  a  very 
timid  moon  that  did  not  dare  to  light  the  way.  My  next 
best  friend  braved  the  journey  like  a  heroine,  and  return- 
ing ambitiously  desired  to  be  placed  on  some  "standing 
committee"  for  life. 

THE  BIG  TREES. 
The  California  Indians  have  a  saying  that  other  trees 
grow,  but  the  Great  Spirit  created  the  seqiaoias  out  of 
hand.  It  is  the  savage  way  of  calling  them  miracles. 
And  they  are,  for  how  a  tree  from  twenty-five  to  thirty 
stories  high,  and  with  room,  if  hollowed,  to  shelter  three 
hundred  guests,  and  leave  stabling  quarters  on  the  ground 
floor  for  a  dozen  horses,  could  have  pumped  from  the  earth 
and  inspired  from  the  air  material  enough  to  build  itself 
along  without  waiting,  is  incomi^rehensible.  To  be  sure, 
some  of  them  have  been  a  thousand  years  going  up,  and 
others  a  score  of  centuries,  which  would  date  them  back 
to  the  time  when  Julius  Caesar  was  drubbing  the  Druid- 
ical  savages  of  Great  Britain.  It  gives  you  a  queer  feel- 
ing to  look  at  a  tree  in  full  plumage  that  might  have 
been   flaunting  its  green  needles  when  there  was   not  as 


206  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

much  as  a  neck  of  land  in  the  known  world  between 
Liverpool  and  Honolulu. 

Whoever  expects  to  be  astonished  at  a  big  tree  will 
be  disappointed.  When  your  imagination  has  climbed 
two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  of  tree,  an  additional  hundred 
or  two  will  not  matter  a  carpenter's  rule  to  it,  nor  add 
a  cubit  to  the  grandeur  of  the  vegetable.  The  truth  is, 
our  imaginations  have  got  so  snugly  fitted  to  the  average 
of  great  trees,  that  they  are  no  match  for  monsters,  and 
ten  chances  to  one  we  will  find  the  faculty  we  are  so 
proud  of  perched  in  the  first  fork  for  a  rest.  "  I  had  to 
look  twice  before  I  saw  the  top  of  it,"  is  the  careless, 
colloquial  way  of  describing  a  great  height.  Like  many 
another  random  phrase,  there  is  method  in  it  and  philos- 
ophy withal.  We  must  look  many  times  to  realize  how 
far  off  the  plumes  of  a  sequoia  twenty-two  rods  high 
really  are.  The  bark  is  a  sort  of  Indian  red  from  one  to 
three  feet  thick,  resembling  butternut-colored  shoddy. 

Riding  along  through  woods  where  all  is  stately,  you 
know  a  sequoia  without  an  introduction,  and  everybody 
calls  out,  "  There's  a  big  tree ! "  It  is  not  as  handsome 
as  the  pines,  it  is  corrugated,  it  lacks  the  symmetiy, 
and  you  wonder  it  is  dumb.  If  ever  a  tree  .should  have 
a  tongue,  it  is  the  Sequoia  gigantea,  the  king  of  the  red- 
woods. Somehow  it  seems  to  you  such  vastness  should 
appeal  to  more  senses  than  one.  Years  ago,  I  wrote  sev- 
eral lines  with  bells  on  their  toes,  about  what  was  mis- 
named a  California  oak,  to  the  effect  that  some  Vandal 
girdled  it  and  it  never  knew  it  for  three  years,  but  grew 
right  on  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  I  have  detected 
the  blunder.  The  oak  was  a  giant  sequoia.  I  saw  the 
tree  in  the  Merced    family.      It  was   struck    by  lightning 


BOUND   FOB   THE    YO    SEMITE.  20-7 

two  years  ago,  and  twigs  three  feet  in  diameter  blocked 
the  stage-road.  It  was  scorched  and  rived,  but  it  lived 
and  was  in  full  feather  when  I  saw  it.  The  pumps  were 
manned  so  mightily,  the  tides  of  life  yet  flowed  up  the 
majestic  column.  The  news  had  not  i-eached  the  green 
eaves,  dim,  misty,  and  so  far  away.  It  did  not  know 
that  it  ought  to  be  dead.  Fourteen  horsemen  ringed 
that  tree  like  the  zodiacal  signs,  and  no  crowding.  Set 
the  "Father  of  the  Forest"  upright,  that  prostrate  mon- 
arch of  the  Calaveras  grove,  in  the  circus  ring  where 
master  and  clown  pelt  each  other  with  fossilized  jests  of 
the  Silurian  age,  and  there  would  be  scant  room  for  the 
calico  horses  to  canter  round  the  trunk  without  tramp- 
ling the  toes  of  the  spectators,  or  grazing  the  flesh- 
<;olored  legs  of  the  centaurs  of  the  circus.  Think  of 
taking  a  horseback  ride  of  five  rods  into  the  hollow  of  a 
tree,  with  head  erect  as  becomes  the  knight  cap-a-pie  who 
enters  the  redwood  hall  of  a  single  timber.  A  cave  is 
burned  out  of  one  of  the  Maraposa  family,  and  seven  of 
our  party  rode  into  it. 

Fires  and  fools  have  wrought  sad  havoc  with  these 
sinless  towers  of  Babel  that  have  kept  on  growing  through 
the  centuries  sti'aight  toward  heaven,  and  no  confusion 
of  tongues  to  stop  the  business,  but  they  are  now  the 
wards  of  the  Government.  A  boy  —  and  now  and  then  a 
man  —  would  naturally  suppose  that  the  tree  that  can 
hold  its  fruit  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  the  air 
should  hold  up  something  worth  while,  say  the  size  of  a 
bee-hive  or,  at  least,  of  Cotton  Mather's  hat,  but  the  cone 
of  the  sequoia  is  not  much  larger  than  the  egg  of  a 
talented  pullet,  and  among  the  smallest  of  the  conifers. 
Writers   have   printed   their   groundless   fears   that   these 


208 >  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

royal  dukes  of  the  wilderness  will  become  extinct,  but 
the  earth  around  them  is  alive  with  baby  sequoias  from 
a  few  inches  in  diameter  to  six  feet.  Only  give  them  a 
few  centuries  and  protect  them  from  rogues  and  ruin, 
and  the  tourists  of  the  year  of  our  Lord  2500,  who  visit 
the  western  slope  of  the  Sierras  by  aerial  ship  and  elec- 
tric car,  will  wonder  at  the  vigorous  giants,  young  at  a 
thousand  years  old,  that  lift  their  green  coronals  in  the 
thin  air,  and  will  talk  viva  voce  across  the  continent  to 
the  friends  they  left  a  day  or  two  ago. 

"What  shadows  we  are!"  But  think  how  the  djusky 
double  of  a  tree  four  hundred  feet  high  will  single  you 
out,  while  the  sun  goes  down,  as  if  the  index  finger  of 
purple  darkness  were  pointing  the  route  of  the  Eastward- 
coming  Night,  that  shall  blot  you  out  like  a  misspelled 
word  from  a  day-book.  It  grows  along  the  landscape. 
The  earth  has  lost  the  sun,  but  there  upon  the  redwood's 
crown  shines  a  crimson  flame.  It  is  the  bedroom  candle 
just  lighted  by  the  drowsy  day. 

A  man  whose  ax  used  to  tick  like  a  lively  clock  in 
"  the  sounding  woods  of  Maine "  asks  "  how  much  cord- 
wood  will  one  of  the  big  fellows  make?"  The  answer, 
if  snugly  piled  along  the  roadside  would  extend  twenty- 
eight  hundred  feet,  and  if  twenty-five  cords  a  winter  of 
such  fuel  will  keep  his  kitchen  chimney  roaring  with 
satisfaction,  one  tree  would  last  him  sixteen  years. 

One  after  another  the  wonder-stories  of  childhood 
prove  true.  Lemuel  Gulliver's  talent  for  vegetable  lying 
in  his  most  Brobdingnagian  mood  would  not  have  added 
moi'e  than  two  hundred  feet  to  the  tallest  sequoia,  which 
is  a  very  short  range  for  anybody  with  a  gift  for  draw- 
ing the  long  bow. 


BOUND   FOR   THE   YO   SEMITE.  209 

A  FOREST    RIDE. 

"Who's  going  in  to-day?"  That  is  what  I  heard  the 
next  morning  after  we  had  slept  off  the  giants.  The 
question  was  answered  in  a  minute,  for  Mott,  a  skilled 
driver,  whirled  up  to  the  front  of  Washburne's  hotel,  and 
we  were  off.  California  stages  are  prompt  to  the  minute. 
They  I'un  on  schedule  time.  That  "going  in"  recalls 
the  old  army  life  at  the  Front,  The  blue-coats  were 
always  talking  of  "  going  in,"  when  they  waded  knee- 
deep  into  the  thick  of  the  battle.  We  were  nearing  the 
Valley. 

Another  day  of  forest  magnificence.  You  can  form 
little  idea  of  the  stateliness  of  these  woods.  Golden 
mosses  drape  and  spangle  the  dead  trees  with  the  color 
of  Ophir.  For  miles,  arcades  of  columns  two  hundred 
feet  high,  dressed  in  rainbows,  aflame  with  scarlet,  afire 
with  crimson,  aglow  with  gold,  running  up,  and  up,  a 
thought's  flight  without  a  limb.  Should  an  artist  paint 
them  as  they  are,  you  would  doubt  your  own  eyes  or 
discredit  the  painter.  They  were  the  wild  woods  in  a 
Roman  carnival.  With  the  grandeur  of  the  trees,  the 
colored  mosses,  and  the  painted  creepers,  it  was  a  picture 
all  brilliance,  as  if  the  columns  of  a  thousand  Greek  tem- 
ples, decorated  with  garlands,  had  fallen  into  lines  in  a 
great  procession,  and  were  ready  to  march.  Not  a  brown 
shaft  in  sight.  It  was  a  sort  of  revelry  of  the  spectrum. 
The  bark  of  many  of  the  trees  resembles  tortoise-shell. 
It  .suggests  the  empty  skins  of  the  huge  Brazilian  ser- 
pents you  saw  at  the  Centennial  Exhibition.  You  are  in 
a  gorgeous  land,  whither  you  have  sailed  without  going 
to  sea.  You  long  for  a  glimpse  of  an  American  flag  to 
assure  you  you  are  yet  at  home,  and  you  find  it.  On 
9* 


210  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

the  peak  of  a  little  cur  of  a  barn  —  though  what  there 
could  ever  be  to  put  in  a  barn  but  pine  cones  is  a  mys- 
tery—  is  a  handkerchief  of  a  flag  that  has  about  flut- 
tered itself  to  pieces;  but  there  are  a  star  and  a  stripe 
left,  and  you  are  comforted. 

FIRST  GLIMPSE  OF  THE  YO  SEMITE. 
At  three  o'clock,  afternoon,  we  had  climbed  almost  to 
Inspiration  Point  without  knowing  it,  whence  the  Valley 
of  the  Yo  Semite  appears  to  you  —  there  is  no  other 
word;  "breaks,"  and  "bursts,"  are  terms  of  feeble  vio- 
lence to  express  the  truth.  If  day  broke  in  a  noisy  way; 
if  these  pines  around  us  grew  with  sound  of  hammers, 
the  grandeur  would  be  gone.  We  have  just  seen  an  am- 
phitheatre ten  thousand  times  as  large  as  Vespasian's  at 
Rome  ;  have  looked  across  the  blue  spaces  at  the  semi- 
circular ranges  of  rocky  seats,  curve  above  curve,  sweep 
beyond  sweep,  and  fancied  the  pines  that  fronted  them 
were  senators  risen  to  their  feet  as  the  Imperator  entered 
the  Coliseum.  But  there  was  no  hint  that  we  were  near- 
ing  the  brink  of  the  valley  of  the  granite  gods.  The 
precipices  that  took  our  breath  away  had  disappeared. 
The  great  chasms  of  empty  azure  that  we  had  looked  ofl" 
upon  till  we  felt  almosl  lost  in  an  ethereal  ocean,  were 
closed  behind  us  by  merciful  walls  and  curtains  of  dense 
green.  We  had  blundered  up  into  the  garret  dormitory 
where  the  mountains  were  lying  down  all  around  us  in 
"  the  sixth  hour  sleep."  The  stage  crept  over  a  recum- 
bent shoulder  without  waking  the  owner,  rolled  out  upon 
the  i)oint  where  the  drowsing  giant  would  have  worn  an 
epaulette  had  he  been  in  uniform,  moved  a  few  steps 
farther,  came  to  a  halt,  and  there,  lighted   by  the  after- 


BOUND   FOR  THE    YO   SEMITE.  211 

noon  sun  behind  iis,  speechless,  near,  far,  nothing  doubt- 
ful, nothing  dim,  the  Yo  Semite  awaited  us  without  warn- 
ing, met  us  without  coming. 

Spectral  white  in  the  glancing  of  the  sun,  the  first 
thought  was  that  the  granite  ledges  of  all  the  msuntains 
had  come  to  resurrection,  and  were  standing  pale  and 
dumb  before  the  Lord.  We  had  emerged  in  an  instant 
from  a  world  of  life,  motion  and  warm,  rich  color  into 
the  presence  of  a  bloodless  world,  a  mighty  place  of  graves 
and  monuments  where  no  mortal  ever  died.  It  looked  a 
little  as  I  used  to  fancy  those  Arctic  wonders  looked  to 
Dr.  Kane,  glaciers,  icy  peaks  and  turrets,  turned  imper- 
ishable in  the  golden  touch  of  a  Tropic  sun.  For  the 
first  few  instants  I  saw  nothing  in  detail.  I  had  been 
making  ready  for  it  for  weeks;  not  reading  such  dull 
descriptions  as  my  own;  not  reading  anything;  only 
fancying,  dreaming,  wondering,  and  here  it  took  me  by 
surprise  at  last!  It  seemed  a  glimpse  into  another  and 
an  inaccessible  kingdom.  I  am  ashamed  to  say  for  one 
moment  I  was  disappointed,  for  another  afraid,  in  an- 
other astounded.  I  had  nothing  to  say,  nobody  had  any- 
thing to  say,  but  a  linnet  that  never  minded  it  at  all. 
The  driver  began  to  introduce  the  congregation  to  us  by 
name.  I  thought  at  first  he  was  about  to  present  us  to 
the  congregation  —  and  I  got  out  of  his  reach.  It  was 
much  as  if,  when  the  three  angels  made  a  call  at  Abram's 
tent  on  the  plains  of  Mamre,  the  Patriarch  had  whipped 
out  a  two- foot  rule  and  measured  and  written  down  the 
length  of  their  wings. 

Almost  four  thousand  feet  below  us  was  the  Valley 
with  its  green  meadows,  its  rich  foliage,  and  its  river 
Merced.     We   looked   down    upon   the   road  we  must   go, 


212  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

looped  backward  and  forward  upon  the  side  of  the  wall, 
track  under  track,  like  the  bow-knots  of  flourishes  boys 
used  to  cut  under  their  names,  when  writing-masters 
nibbed  their  pens  and  boys  ran  out  their  tongues.  We 
looked  two  miles  across  the  air  and  saw  the  sculptured 
fortresses  no  man  had  made;  saw  a  great  heraldic  shield, 
bare  of  inscription,  a  thousand  feet  from  the  ground. 
Upon  that  shield  the  coat-of-arms  of  the  United  States 
should  be  emblazoned.  It  would  be  the  grandest  escutch- 
eon on  earth.  We  saw  traced  upon  the  wall  beneath  it 
a  chalk  line  that  went  to  and  fro,  as  if,  bewildered  and 
dizzy  it  did  not  know  where  to  go.  That  chalk  line  is  a 
wagon  road  out  of  the  Valley.  If  anybody  had  told  you 
it  was  an  illiterate  giant's  first  attempt  at  writing  coarse 
hand  it  would  have  seemed  more  probable.  Looking  down 
the  chasm  behind  you,  the  river  is  foaming  on  towai'd  the 
base  of  a  mountain,  to  escape  from  the  vale  of  enchant- 
ment, till  it  roars  its  way  into  a  yawn  of  a  mouth  that 
seems  no  larger  than  the  entrance  to  a  wolf's  den,  but 
which,  if  you  ever  escape  from  this  region,  you  will  find 
is  a  broad  caflon. 

I  noted  all  these  minor  things  with  a  strange  irrele- 
vancy. It  was  an  instinctive  resistance  to  being  wrenched 
from  the  every-day  world  of  seeming  trifles  to  which  I 
belong,  for  I  assure  you,  when  the  Valley  is  finally  reached, 
all  such  things  as  trifles  will  vanish  away.  And  while  I 
was  doing  these  nothings,  Yo  Semite  was  standing  before 
me  and  waiting. 

I  turned  to  it  again,  and  began  to  see  the  towers, 
the  domes,  the  spires,  the  battlements,  the  arches  and  the 
white  clouds  of  solid  granite,  surging  up  into  the  air  and 
come  to  everlasting  anchor  till    "the  mountains  shall    be 


BOUND   FOR   THE   YO   SEMITE.  213 

moved."  The  horizon  had  been  cleft  and  taken  down  to 
make  room  for  this  capital  of  the  wilderness,  and  for  the 
first  time  in  my  life  I  saw  a  walled  way  out  of  the  azure 
circle  that  had  always  ringed  me  in. 

Just  then,  the  coach  we  were  to  meet  came  creeping 
like  an  eight-footed  insect  up  the  mountain.  It  cut  a 
poorer  figure  than  the  fly  that  traveled  along  the  curve 
of  the  Ejihesian  dome.  The  party  leaped  out  with  laugh 
and  chatter,  and  a  girl  of  eighteen  ran  to  this  vantage 
ground  of  glory,  took  an  instant  look  and  said  —  her 
hands  unclasped,  not  an  eye  fine,  frenzied  or  revolving, 
it  was  a  saccharine  adverb  and  an  adjective  too  soft  to 
provoke  an  echo  that  she  used  —  and  said,  "It  is  sweetly 
pretty ! "  and  with  a  little  cluck  of  satisfaction  she  munched 
a  sandwich.  Now  as  between  an  idiot  and  an  affected 
actress  there  is  much  space  and  little  choice.  Perhaps, 
after  all,  it  was  as  well  as  anything,  for  I  begin  to  mis- 
trust I  cannot  make  anybody  see  the  Yo  Semite  who  does 
not  go  himself.  Judge  B  had  been  here.  He  met  his 
friend  C,  who  a^Rd  a  description  of  the  Valley.  The 
Judge  had  traveled  in  foreign  lands,  and  was  able  to 
compare,  and  so  he  began :  "  Why,  my  dear  sir,  the  Yo 
Semite  is  as  much  superior  to  —  as  much  superior  to 
as  —  as  much  gi'ander  than  —  well,  than  —  but  what's  the 
use  of  trying?  Let's  take  a  drink!"  But  who  ever  was 
warned  and  took  heed?  Not  the  land-lubbers  that  Noah 
left  ashore,  not  Lot's  old  neighbors,  not  the  pilgrim  to 
the  Yo  Semite,  not  amjhodiy. 

"  Let  us  down  easy,  George,"  for  our  old  driver  was 
going  back  with  the  coach.  He  generally  untied  the 
double-bows  of  the  road  "  by  the  run,"  but  he  just 
walked   the    horses   every   foot   of   the   way,   and   spelled 


214  BETWEEN   THE   GATES.  ' 

down  the  Z's  like  an  urchin  laboring  through  a  hard 
word  by  the  help  of  a  schoolma'am's  index  finger.  It 
was  easy  as  swinging  down  in  a  basket,  but  it  was  not 
heroic.  And  to  think  that  when  we  got  down,  we  were 
yet  four-fifths  of  a  mile  above  the  sea! 

THROUGH  THE  VALLEY. 
The  ride  of  three  miles  up  the  Valley  was  restful  as 
"  the  beauty  sleep "  of  forty  winks  that  girls  take  after 
the  call  to  breakfast.  The  twanging  nerves  that  were 
keyed  to  "C  sharp"  on  the  heights,  let  down  a  little. 
The  Valley,  seven  miles  long,  with  a  varying  width  of 
a  half  mile  to  a  mile  and  a  quarter,  is  as  wild  as  you 
want  it.  The  Merced,  that  crystal  river  of  Mercy,  in 
endless  quarrel  with  rock  and  rubble,  foaming,  flashing, 
roaring,  dashing,  meets  you  all  along,  in  its  desperate 
haste  to  get  out  of  the  caiion.  And  when  you  see  what 
tremendous  accidents  are  always  happening  to  it  —  now 
slipping  from  the  verge  of  precipices  a  mile  high,  and 
tumbling  hundreds  of  fathoms  sheer  down,  with  nothing 
to  hold  by,  till  it  grows  gauzy  as  a  bridal  veil  and  white 
as  silver,  you  can  hardly  wonder  at  its  desperation.  You 
are  a  little  sorry  for  its  misfortunes,  as  if  it  were  some- 
thing human,  and  then  a  little  glad  it  has  had  the  prov- 
ocation to  show  its  torrent  temper  and  angry  beauty. 
You  drive  through  broad  natural  meadows,  dotted  with 
tangles  of  shrubbery,  feathery  with  ferns,  and  impudent 
with  wild  flowers  that  fear  nothing;  amid  pines  that  are 
trying  to  grow  up  out  of  the  tremendous  gorge  into  the 
world;  beneath  avenues  of  live-oaks,  among  the  junipers, 
the  buckeyes  and  the  buckthorns;  here  a  mountain  lilac, 
a  manzanita,  or  a  nutmeg;   there  a  cluster  of  silver  firs 


^  BOUND    FOR  THE   YO    SEMITE.  215 

or  mountain  alders;  yonder  a  balm  of  Gilead,  a  maple, 
or  a  dogwood.  Azaleas,  bluebells,  honeysuckles  abound. 
The  woods  that  grow  in  the  Yo  Semite  are  all  precious 
woods,  taking  the  polish  and  showing  the  clouded  beau- 
ties of  the  finest  marbles;  mountain  mahogany,  rosewood, 
Indian  arrow,  laurel,  ash. 

The  quaking  aspen,  trembling  like  a  timid  girl  at 
nothing  at  all,  is  a  feminine  figure  in  the  landscape. 
"  What  is  that  shivering  tree,  shaking  without  any  wind?" 
asked  an  English  tourist  of  a  raw  and  ignorant  guide. 
"  I  doant  roightly  know,"  was  the  reply,  "  but  it  is  a 
wobblin'  asj^,  or  somethink  that  away '" ;  and  "  wobblin' 
asp "  became  a  synonym  in  the  Valley  for  forty-fathom 
stupidity. 

You  hasten  on  ;  towers,  spires,  battlements,  castles, 
dizzy  walls,  sculptures  at  either  hand;  you  hear  the  winds 
intoning  in  the  choral  galleries  a  mile  above  your  head; 
you  hear  the  crash  of  waters  as  of  cataracts  in  the  sky; 
you  trample  upon  broad  shadows  that  have  fallen  thou- 
sands of  feet  down,  like  the  cast-off  garments  of  descend- 
ing Night.  The  three  great  geological  theories  of  this 
cleft's  formation  —  that  the  bottom  fell  out  and  let  things 
down;  that  earthquake  tongs  and  volcanic  fires  melted 
the  crags  and  rent  them  asunder;  that  the  softer  and 
more  edible  parts  of  rock  and  mountain  were  eaten  out 
by  rains,  and  frosts,  and  rivers,  leaving  the  stupendous 
bones  bleaching  through  the  centuries — you  would  not 
toss  coppers  for  the  choice  of  them.  All  you  know  is 
that  you  are  in  a  tremendous  rock-jawed  yawn  of  the 
globe,  and  the  most  you  hope  is,  that  it  will  keep  on 
yawning  till  you  are  safely  out  of  its  mouth.  Jonah  was 
never  one  of   your    great   exemplars.     You    pass    two    or 


216 


BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 


three  inns  and  modest  dwellings,  and  are  set  down  at 
Barnard's  capital  Yo  Semite  Falls  Hotel,  where  you  find 
a  Highland  welcome  and  a  bounteous  table.  Nothing  in 
the  whole  animal  kingdom  is  recognized  here  but  the 
tourist.  Wells  &  Fargo  have  an  express-office  for  him, 
and  a  post-office  for  him,  and  educated  lightning  strikes 
him  in  all   languages.     There  are  collectors  of  ferns  and 

flowers,  cuttei's  of  canes 
and  workers  in  woods, 
dealers  in  tit-bits  of  fern- 
prints,  foot-prints,  stone 
fish,  trilobites,  stalactites, 
and  bonne-bouches  of  ta- 
rantula nests;  there  are 
guides  with  spurs  like 
game-cocks,  scrambling 
mountain  horses,  Mexi- 
can saddles,  and  wooden 
baskets  of  stirrups :  there 
are  straggling  Indians 
with  tangled  manes  over 
their  eyes,  and  strings  of 
speckled  trout  in  their 
hands;  there  is  the  ubi- 
quitous, aggressive  photographer,  who  is  always  ambush- 
ing his  head  and  taking  sight  with  his  Cyclopean  eye  at 
every  visible  thing  that  will  wait  to  be  looked  at.  Some- 
times I  wonder  if  we  really  want  him;  if  he  is  not  a 
multiplier  of  illusions,  a  sort  of  traveling  agent  for  the 
diffusion  of  delusive  knowledge.  I  am  sure  he  is,  when 
I  compare  his  Yo  Semite  with  the  Lord's.  Few  photo- 
graphed landscapes  ever  convey  a  new  idea.      They  only 


BOUND   FOK  THE    YO    SEMITE.  217 

recall  an  old  one.  One  of  these  artists  has  set  his  sky- 
light kennel  in  front  of  the  Yo  Semite  Fall,  and  blazons 
in  big  letters:  "Photographs  taken  with  the  Yo  Semite 
in  the  background !  " 

Think  of  the  impudence  of  the  thing!  Offering  to 
throw  in  twenty-six  hundred  feet  of  cataract;  pairing  oflF 
your  little  dot  of  a  face  and  figure  with  a  half  mile  of 
tumbling  glory,  and  selling  cascade  and  tourist  for  eight 
dollars  a  dozen.  The  "eternal  fitness  of  things"  is  a  lit- 
tle out  of  plumb. 

The  first  thing  I  did  was  a  sentimental  improbability. 
I  ran  down  the  balcony  stairs  to  congratulate  the  poor 
River  of  Mercy  on  having  a  few  rods  of  rest.  There  it 
was,  lurking  behind  the  hotel,  as  smooth  as  a  looking- 
glass,  and  a  fleet  of  ten  ducks  afloat  upon  it,  ten  above 
and  ten  below,  and  not  so  much  as  a  duckling's  breast 
shattered  by  wind  or  water.  Listening  a  minute,  I  heard 
it  in  full  quarrel  a  mile  below.  Persecuted,  perplexed, 
pugnacious  Mercy.  No  tourist  forgets  the  admirably 
appointed  Cosmopolitan  Baths,  owned  by  a  gentleman  with 
the  singular  name  of  John  Smith  —  John  Smith  sundered 
by  a  C.     Here  is 

THE  GRAND  REGISTER. 
It  is  a  ponderous  book,  containing  several  solid  feet 
of  paper,  bound  in  morocco,  mounted  with  rich  plates  of 
silver  worth  eight  hundred  dollars,  and  is  a  big  lift.  The 
pages  are  apportioned  to  every  State,  and  almost  every 
country  but  Patagonia.  That  book  furnishes  reading  so 
ridiculous  as  to  be  ludici'ous  —  "  infinite  platitude,"  rhymes 
thick  as  sleigh-bells  in  New  England  winters,  flashes  of 
wit,  and  whole  nights  of  .stupidity. 
10 


218  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

The  disposition  to  patronize  the  Yo  Semite  is  remark- 
able, as  is  also  the  fact  that  almost  everybody  arrived 
by  the  first  stage.  One  tourist  with  the  dental  name  of 
Toothaker,  and  one  with  the  rascally  name  of  Turpin, 
figure  on  the  same  page.  The  latter  writes:  "Seen  the 
Bridal  Veil.  Slept  next  to  the  man  that  snores."  Here 
a  tourist  declares:  "  The  miteist  work  of  man  is  dwarfed," 
unconscious  that  he  is  comparing  a  lively  cheese  and 
mountain  magnificence. 

A  writer  "  made  futile  efibrts  to  reach  the  Valley 
October  12,  '75,  but  in  vain."  Does  the  man  mean  to 
say  that  he  failed?  One  mercifully  says:  "Words  fail 
me";  and  a  lady  declares,  sorrowfully:  "Can't  express  my 
language." 

"  You  need  not  go  round  the  world.  When  you  have 
seen  Glacier  Point  and  Cloud's  Rest,  go  home  and  rest 
yo«/\se//."  A  poor  Tray  confesses:  "Came  with  three 
Western  legislators  —  never  stole  anything — will  never 
be  guilty  of  the  same  indiscretion  again."  A  sensible 
man  remarks:  "  I  leave  my  hard  but  modest  name,  A 
Flint."  An  impressible  young  woman  is  "  blissfully  hap- 
py." Another  leaves  a  certificate :  "  Not  disappointed !  " 
"  Top-side  below,"  ejaculates  an  angular  man  from  Maine. 

Massachusetts  is  very  reticent  —  pages  of  names,  and 
not  a  word  of  comment,  only  this :  "  Plymouth  Rock  to 
the  Rocks  of  the  Yo  Semite,  which  in  their  grandeur 
illustrate  the  sublime  events  and  principles  of  which  it 
is  itself  a  symbol,  greeting ! "  An  equestrian  who  had 
been  making  a  hammer  of  himself  asserts:  "God  made 
the  mountains,  but  man  made  the  saddles."  Connecticut 
"  did  not  find  it  more  than  his  imagination  had  pictured 
it."  New  Hampshire  leaves  a  neat  sentiment:  "  The 
Granite  State  to  El  Capitan  sends  greeting!" 


BOUND   FOR   THE   YO   SEMITE.  219 

Here  is  verse  —  Tis-sa-ack  is  the  South  Dome: 

"  Tis-sa-ack's  caught  the  homed  moon. 

And  holds  it  pendent  in  the  air, 
Where  calm  its  silver  shallop  rests, 

By  airy  sailors  anchored  there. 
Time  travels  gray-brow'd  o'er  each  height. 

And  holds  his  scroll  against  the  sun, 
And  says,  '  come  view  my  heaven-  born  might. 

And  what  my  air-edged  chisel's  done.'  " 

Little  Rhody  shouts  "Hail  Colombia!"  Here  is  some- 
thing in  Russian,  here  a  scrawl  in  short-hand,  there  a 
capacious  Mi-ssourian  "took  it  all  in!"  Ohio's  imagina- 
tion goes  by  water:  "Cannot  realize  the  grandeur  of  the 
falls,  the  water  being  low."  Put  in  an  overshot  wheel. 
A  prodigal  son  of  adjectives  cries:  "Grand,  beautiful, 
picturesque!"  fairly  offset  by  an  eloquent  fellow  who 
says:  "  Dumb  as  an  oyster."  "  Superbe,  Yo  Semite  !  "  and 
France  salutes.  "  Hoofed  it  to  the  Valley,"  is  an  old 
soldier's  memorandum.  Who  wouldn't  be  glad  that  Liv- 
erpool is  "much  pleased  so  far!"  How  encouraging  to 
Nature  to  hold  out  and  pass  muster!  Some  tourist 
weaves  in  everybody's  pronunciation  of  Yo  Semite: 

"At  half-past  five  o'clock  at  night. 
Our  party  reached  the  Yo  Semite, 
Glad  ere  the  evening  lamps  were  lit. 
To  see  the  Valley  Yo  Semj/e. 
Who  that  has  seen  it  can  condemn  it. 
The  wondrous  beauty  of  Yo  Semite^ 
This  verse  I  dedicate  to  thee. 
Oh,  world-renowned  Yo  Sem-i-tel  " 

A  Baltimore  girl  effusively  exclaims:  "Let  me  em- 
brace thee,  beautiful  Valley.  A  kiss  to  thee!"  "Take 
off  your  shoes,"  quotes  another,  "  for  the  ground  whereon 
you  stand  is  holy  ground."  Can  there  be  much  doubt 
that  the  Mississippian  who  left  the  record,  "Let  us  go 
and   see   the   monkey,"   is   himself  the   missing   link?     A 


220  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

lovely  maiden  testifies:  "My  eyes  devour  the  crags!"  and 
a  young  man  makes  love  to  the  Bridal  Veil  Fall.  Fancy 
him  courting  a  young  woman  nine  hundred  feet  high, 
with  hair  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow. 

The  names  upon  these  broad  pages  represent  the  world. 
Here  are  lords,  barons,  viscounts,  counts,  members  of 
parliament,  one  solitary  duke,  a  sprig  of  princes,  great 
generals,  world-famed  savans,  statesmen,  Lady  Franklin, 
Mrs.  Partington,  and  nobodies.  Australia  is  here  with  the 
verdict,  "  America  is  the  dirtiest  country  in  the  world." 
We  regret  that  he  put  an  i  out  with  his  adjective.  If 
he  will  only  write  it  again  and  put  out  the  other,  he 
will  be  as  discerning  a  tourist  as  ever.  Peru,  Japan, 
Egypt,  New  South  Wales,  are  all  represented.  Ceylon, 
of  the  spicy  breezes,  writes,  "  Beautifle."  New  Zealand 
declares  it  mathematically :  "  Switzerland  minus  its  moun- 
tains." Pennsylvania  gives  a  good-natured  Low  Dutch 
groan:  "Weak  and  wounded,  sick  and  sore" — then  down 
he  comes  with  his  avoirdupois  —  "weight  260  pounds." 
Then  comes  a  record:  "This  invalid  lady  was  packed  in 
a  chair  twenty-seven  miles,  on  the  backs  of  four  China- 
men "  —  the  best  proof  in  all  the  book  of  an  earnest  love 
of  Nature.  And  so  they  run.  "  This  day  Freddie  Strong, 
six  years  old,  rode  thirty-eight  miles  on  horseback."  Give 
the  little  mountaineer  a  record. 

There  is  no  sin  in  "  a  little  nonsense  now  and  then," 
but  the  Sinbads  the  sailors,  who  come  hither  under  pre- 
tense of  seeing  the  strength  of  the  hills,  and  bring  a  sor- 
did "  old  man  of  the  sea,"  pick-a-pack,  with  his  legs  tied 
in  a  bow-knot  under  their  chins  for  a  cravat,  and  make 
business  directories  of  the  big  book,  and  placard  the  ma- 
je.stic  rocks  with  cries  of   "Cream   yeast!"   "Sewing  ma- 


BOUND    FOR  THE    YO   SEMITE.  221 

chines!"  " Farm  wagons !"  and  "Liver  pills!"  commit  an 
outrage  demanding  indignant  protest.  It  is  the  money- 
changers  in   the  Temple  over  again,  and   nobody  to  cast 

them  out. 

EL  CAPITAN. 

The  most  impressive  granite  wonder  in  the  Valley  is 
the  great  rock  El  Capitan,  gray  in  the  shadow  and  white 
in  the  sun.  Standing  out,  a  vast  cube  with  a  half  mile 
front,  a  half  mile  side,  three-fifths  of  a  mile  high,  and 
seventy-three  hundred  feet  above  the  sea,  it  is  almost  the 
crowning  triumph  of  solid  geometry.  Thirty  "  Palace 
Hotels,"  seven  stories  each,  piled  one  above  another, 
would  just  reach  the  hanging  eaves  of  El  Capitan;  two 
hundred  and  ten  granite  stories  by  lawful  count.  Well 
did  the  Indians  christen  him  Tu-toch-ah-nu-lah  —  Great 
Chief  of  the  Valley.  He  fronts  you  when  you  catch  your 
first  glimpse  from  Inspiration  Point.  Had  there  been  any 
fourteenth-story  windows,  you  would  have  looked  squarely 
into  them.  When  you  reach  the  Valley  he  towers  above 
you  on  the  left.  He  grows  grander  and  more  solemn 
every  step  of  the  way.  When  you  stand  beneath  him  he 
blocks  out  the  world.  When  you  near  the  base  he  roofs 
out  the  sky;  for  though  the  wall  seems  to  stand  upright, 
the  eaves  project  one  hundred  and  three  feet,  a  granite 
hood  five  hundred  feet  thick,  but  in  the  vastness  you 
never  see  it.  Get  as  far  from  him  as  you  can,  he  never 
diminishes.  He  follows  you  as  you  go.  He  is  the  over- 
whelming presence  of  the  place.  A  record  in  the  Grand 
Register  runs  thus:  "A  lady  fellow-traveler,  struck  by 
the  constant  appearance  of  El  Capitan  in  the  Valley, 
suggested  that  it  recalls  the  Rabbinical  legend,  '  The  Rock 
that  followed  them  was  Christ.' " 


222  BETWEEN"  THE  GATES. 

You  never  tire  of  seeing  eastern  sunshine  move  down 
the  front,  like  a  smile  on  a  human  face.  You  never  tire 
of  seeing  the  great  shadows  roll  out  across  the  broad 
meadows  as  the  sun  descends,  and  rise,  like  the  tide  in 
Fundy's  Bay,  till  the  Valley  is  half  filled  with  night,  and 
the  tips  of  the  tall  trees  are  dipped  like  pens  in  ink. 
You  never  weai'y  of  watching  the  light  from  a  moon  you 
cannot  see,  as  it  silvers  the  cornices  and  brightens  the 
dusky  front,  as  if  wizards  were  painting  their  way  down 
without  stage  or  scaffold.  A  dark  spot  starts  out  in  the 
light.  It  turns  into  a  great  cedar.  Pines  that  stand 
about  the  base  resemble  shrubs  along  a  garden  wall. 
They  are  two  hundred  feet  high.  A  few  men  have  crept 
out  to  the  eaves  of  El  Capitan,  looked  over,  and  crept 
back  again.  Little  white  clouds  sail  silently  toward  the 
lofty  eaves  and  are  gone,  as  to  a  dove-cote  in  a  garret. 
And  yet  an  earthquake  in  1872  rocked  him  like  a  cradle, 
and  the  clocks  in  the  Valley  all  stopped,  as  though  when 
El  Capitan  was  moved,  then  "  time  should  be  no  longer." 

THE  BRIDAL  VEIL. 
The  Bridal  Veil  Fall  —  the  Indian  Pohono,  or  Spirit 
of  the  Evil  Wind  —  has  been  talked  at  and  raved  about 
till  it  is  famous  as  Niagara.  A  clergyman  has  been 
known  to  take  it  home  with  him,  and  carry  it  around 
to  weddings  and  funerals,  and  preach  it  for  a  bissextile 
year.  As  you  enter  the  Valley,  you  see  upon  the  right 
almost  a  thousand  feet  of  unbent  rainbow,  thirteen  yards 
wide,  hanging  over  the  edge  of  a  precipice.  In  midsum- 
mer, when  there  is  less  need  of  a  token,  the  broad  scarf 
of  the  spectrum  is  narrowed  to  ribbons  bright  enough 
for  a  queen  of    May.      It   curves   out  over   the  cliff   and 


BOUND    FOR   THE    YO    SEMITE.  223 

plunges  down  to  the  tumbled  boulders  below,  and  shat- 
ters to  spraj»  that  blossoms  into  rainbows,  arching  the 
gloom, —  a  bouquet  of  flowers  for  the  Spirit  of  the 
mountain. 

Now  the  cataract  begins  to  swing  majestically  to  and 
fro,  like  a  gridiron  pendulum,  and  the  tick  of  a  moun- 
tain clock  would  not  surprise  you.  And  now  it  is  twisted 
into  colored  bell-cords  and  finished  out  with  downy  tas- 
sels, as  if  somebody  were  making  ready  to  ring  the  chimes 
of  Heaven.  Then  the  fingers  of  the  wind  weave  it  into 
a  gossamer  veil  of  thirty-nine  hundred  square  yards,  that 
falls  with  fairy  grace  over  the  face  of  the  mountain  and 
down  to  its  feet,  and  the  Wedding  March  is  the  music 
for  the  moment.  Then  the  veil  is  swept  aside,  and  lifted, 
and  flung  up  around  the  brow  of  the  cliff",  in  the  folds  of 
a  white  turban,  touched  up  with  tints  of  color  like  the 
head-dress  of  some  queen  of  the  Orient.  Nothing  more 
delicate  than  this  veil  ever  came  from  the  looms  of  India, 
and  where  you  stand  it  is  silent  as  a  picture;  no  more 
crash  than  there  is  to  the  broidered  lace  that  flows  down 
a  woman's  arms  and  falls  upon  her  wrists.  It  looks 
aerial  enough  to  be  rolled  up  to  the  verge  of  the  precipice, 
and  then  drift  away  like  a  commodore's  broad  pennant 
swept  from  the  mast-head  in  a  gale.  It  is  a  tributary  of 
the  Merced  River  in  disguise. 

And  yet,  while  you  gaze  upon  this  glorified  Spirit  of 
all  cataracts,  somebody  beside  you  will  be  pretty  sure  to 
break  the  spell  by  saying,  "  But  you  ought  to  see  it  in 
May,  when  there  was  more  water,  or  in  June,  when  there 
will  be  less,"  or  some  more  blessed  tiipe  which  never 
happens  to  be  now.  Such  people  should  be  apprenticed 
for  life  as  gate-tenders  to  the  flume  of  a  grist-mill,  where 


224  BETWEEN   THE   OATES. 

they  can    let.   the  water    on    at  will.      "  From    pestilence, 
famine  and   Madame  Malapropos,  good  Lord  deliver  us!" 

MIRROR  LAKE. 

The  professional  tourist  is  a  vagrant  animal.  You 
know  him  at  sight.  He  has  elbows,  and  they  are  never 
trussed.  A  place  wide  enough  to- let  them  through  will 
let  him  through.  He  dresses  to  please  himself,  and  never 
mistakes  your  eyes  for  a  looking-glass.  You  see  him  in 
a  tweed  coat,  always  too  short  or  too  long,  pantaloons 
that  fit  like  a  couple  of  extinguishers,  gray  gaiters  splay- 
ing out  into  roomy  shoes  that  would  track  in  the  snow 
like  the  grizzliest  of  plantigrades,  and  crowned  with  a 
disreputable  hat  with  a  green  brim  that  appears  to  have 
been  blasted  before  it  could  get  ripe.  The  small  worry 
of  his  life  is  not  that  he  may  be  cheated,  but  that  any- 
body should  think  it  possible.  He  will  forgive  the  theft 
but  not  the  thought.  His  outside  is  his  rough  side.  Get 
at  him  and  he  is  kind-hearted,  rich  in  strong  sense  and 
pleasant  information.  He  bestrides  a  pony  with  his  long 
legs,  and  the  little  beast  has  as  many  feet  as  a  house-fly 
in  a  minute.  He  cuts  a  club  of  a  cane  as  if  he  were 
going  to  have  a  bout  with  Hercules,  and  stalks  away  up 
the  mountain.  He  is  never  more  at  home  than  when  he 
is  abroad. 

The  sunrise  pilgrimage  to  Mirror  Lake,  three  miles 
up  the  Valley  from  the  hotel,  is  one  of  the  most  delight- 
ful. The  lake  is  a  sheet  of  water  with  an  area  of  six  or 
eight  acres  in  midsummer,  and  waveless  in  the  morning 
as  a  silver  floor.  Insignificant  of  itself,  it  betrayed  the 
professional  tourist  into  a  premature  spasm  of  contempt, 
and  he  exclaimed,  his  head  running  on  Lakes  Geneva  and 


BOUND    FOR   THE    YO   SEMITE.  225 

Tahoe,  "  Why  it's  nothing  but  a  blarsted  poodle  after 
all!"  "But  it  reflects  the  mountains,"  interposed  some- 
body, and  the  tourist  snuffed  him  out  with,  "^m/  poodle 
can  cast  a  shadow." 

Big  or  little,  Mirror  Lake  is  the  toilet-glass  of  Maj- 
esty. Had  there  been  such  a  piece  of  furniture  in  Pal- 
estine, Satan  could  have  saved  his  mountain  climb,  for 
he  would  have  showed  the  Savior  the  glory  of  the  world, 
if  not  its  kingdoms,  reflected  in  this  breathless  trinket  of 
water.  At  the  left  and  three  miles  distant,  Mt.  Watkins 
lifts  eight  thousand  feet  above  the  sea  —  who  is  Mr. 
Watkins?  —  and  yonder  is  South  Dome,  a  half  loaf  of 
solid  rock,  ten  thousand  feet  above  salt  water,  cut  on  the 
severed  side  to  a  precipice  that  swoons  away  almost  a 
dizzy  mile.  In  front,  and  six  miles  away,  like  snowy  cu- 
muli at  anchor,  tower  the  granite  glories  of  Cloud's  Rest, 
a  mile  and  a  quarter  above  the  Valley  and  two  above  the 
sea. 

The  rising  sun  shows  a  flag  upon  the  summit  of 
Cloud's  Rest.  It  is  answered  from  the  South  Dome. 
There  is  gold  on  the  Cathedral  Spires.  There  is  crimson 
on  Glacier  Point.  There  is  fire  on  El  Capitan.  Did  you 
ever  see  a  cataract  of  morning  light?  Look  along  that 
castellated  ridge.  See  the  sort  of  rayed  and  smoky  glory 
rolling  like  a  rapid  river  over  the  brink;  it  is  the  spray 
of  morning  playing  on  the  granite. 

Now  gaze  down  into  Mirror  Lake,  and  you  shall  be- 
hold the  mountain  heights  draw  near  each  other;  the 
lofty  crowns  and  far-off  peaks  incline  their  stately  heads 
together  to  whisper  "morning!"  round  the  land.  The 
curve  of  the  great  dome  like  the  fragment  of  an  azi- 
muth, the  outline  of   crag  and    cliff,  the  trees   that  cling 


226  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

like  sailors  in  the  shrouds,  the  changing  lights,  the  shoot- 
ing, shortening,  shifting  shadows,  all  doubled  in  the  water 
at  your  feet. 

Looking  at  the  gigantic  group  in  the  little  mirror, 
you  begin  to  gain  a  new  idea  of  the  magnitude  of 
mountains  and  the  size  of — yourself.  Here  are  giants 
that,  ranged  around  in  a  twelve-mile  sweep,  could  all  look 
into  the  .same  well  together,  like  Jacob  and  Rachel  at  old 
Haran. 

As  we  were  watching  the  dissolving  views  we  should 
never  see  again,  a  Cassius  of  a  fellow  with  an  African 
antecedent  appeared  with  a  battered  bugle,  rheumatic  as 
to  its  keys,  patched  with  pewter  and  asthmatic  beyond 
relief.  It  might  have  been  blown  by  The  Cid's  bugler  in 
the  eleventh  century  to  scare  the  Moors  away,  and  look 
not  a  century  older.  Cassius  wanted  to  play  for  fifty 
cents,  and  the  echoes.  To  have  the  crags  open  mouth 
upon  us  in  harmony  with  that  instrument  of  torture  was 
not  to  be  thought  of.  So  one  of  the  party  lifted  up  his 
head  and  called  cuck-o-o!  and  every  rocky  face  and  alcove 
and  wooded  wall  gave  back  the  word  —  treble,  alto,  tenor, 
bass, —  and  when  we  thought  they  were  all  done,  a  faint 
voice  from  a  far  ledge  faltered  "cuckoo.'' 

For  a  lumbering  old  mountain  weighing  two  or  three 
hundred  million  tons,  and  whose  .shoulder  an  able-bodied 
star  could  not  get  high  enough  to  look  over  without  a 
two  hours'  climb  from  the  level  of  the  sea,  to  stand  there 
and  say  "  cuckoo "  after  you  was  absurd  to  a  degree.  It 
was  paltry  business  to  bandy  a  word  about  that  names 
a  bird  too  mean  to  hatch  its  own  chickens,  and  so  Boa- 
nerges was  desired  to  shout  "Liberty!"  and  the  rousing 
trisyllable  came  bounding   back  from  the  responsive  con- 


BOUND   FOR  THE    YO   SEMITE.  227 

gregation.  A  crag  called  "  Lib,"  a  wall  put  in  the  "  er," 
and  somebody  in  a  turret  shouted  "^e/"  and  then  far  and 
near,  high  and  low,  the  syllables  came  straggling  along, 
the  articulation  growing  fainter  and  slower,  and  "  the 
daugliter  of  voice  "•  was  silent. 

And  then  a  breath  from  down  the  valley  struck  the 
water,  and  the  Dome  was  wrinkled  and  the  Cap  of  Lib- 
erty was  ruffled  like  a  French  night-eap.  Cloud's  Rest 
trembled  out  of  sight,  and  the  pageant  was  ended. 

UP  A  TRAIL. 

On  horseback  or  on  foot,  there  never  was  anything  in 
a  champagne  bottle  so  exhilarating  as  climbing  a  mountain 
trail.  I  tried  to  read  these  trails  inscribed  like  the  mys- 
terious writing  on  Belshazzar's  palace  walls,  for  a  day  or 
two.  I  watched  an  apparently  perpendicular  rock  a  thou- 
sand feet  in  the  air,  and  saw  a  chalk  line.  All  at  once 
from  a  fringe  of  trees  mid-air  there  emerged  three  horse- 
men single  file,  and  toed  it,  and  crept  like  flies  along  the 
mountain  side  where  there  seemed  no  foothold  for  a 
chamois.  Then  with  one  accord  they  rode  straight  out 
to  the  angle  of  the  precipice,  as  if  they  had  concluded  to 
make  a  cataract  of  themselves,  and  a  Tarpeian  rock  of  it. 
Then  one  of  them  climbed  to  the  left,  and  two  of  them 
scrambled  to  the  right.  They  had  parted  company.  In 
ten  minutes  they  reunited  and  were  headed  the  same 
way  and  upward  still.  And  so  they  kept  meeting  and 
parting,  meeting  and  parting;  the  thousand  feet  was  fif- 
teen hundred,  the  fifteen  hundred  two  thousand,  and  then 
they  went  into  a  hole  and  I  never  saw  them  come  out; 
but  after  a  couple  of  hours,  upon  a  pinnacle  were  three 
rats   that  were  horses,  and  three  glove  fingers  that  were 


228  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

men.  They  had  been  traveling  on  two  sides  of  a  ladder 
of  flat  Z's,  and  had  slowly  spelled  themselves  to  the  sum- 
mit. 

The  next  morning,  a  four-in-hand  took  us  two  miles 
up  the  Valley,  through  scenery  that,  with  tree  and  vine, 
rock  and  river,  tangle  and  shadow,  was  wild  as  the  most 
exacting  Dryad  or  Naiad  could  wish,  to  the  horse-trail, 
a  crooked,  dusty  trough,  strown  with  stones,  streaked 
with  the  stroke  of  horse-shoes  striking  fire,  ribbed  with 
gnarled  roots,  jostled  by  rocks,  bordered  by  precipices  that 
tumble  down  into  holes  through  the  world,  set  up  end- 
wise, tilted  edgewise,  and  wide  as  a  stair  carpet.  We 
reached  Register  Rock,  with  a  shadow  in  a  weary  land, 
like  its  Old  Testament  twin.  It  is  about  the  size  of  a 
Pennsylvania  Dutchman's  barn,  and  scrawled  over  with 
"cream  yeast"  atrocities,  and  mammon  and  harlequin 
possess  it.  It  tells  us  that  a  flock  of  seventy-three 
Bloomers  alighted  here  in  one  day;  that  Bierstadt  and 
Moran  halted  for  a  mountain  drink;  that  "Bob  of  Chili," 
"  the  noblest  Roman  of  them  all,"  has  been  here. 

From  this  rock  the  horse-trail  climbs  to  the  right 
for  Nevada  Fall,  and  a  fine-hand  affair,  a  foot-trail, 
trends  up  to  the  left  for  Vernal  Fall.  We  take  the  lat- 
ter, a  crazy  screw  of  a  track,  where  the  thread  turns 
both  ways  in  three  minutes;  a  wall  of  earth  and  rock  on 
one  side,  a  gulf  on  the  other,  where  the  persecuted  and 
mystified  Merced  is  roaring  and  raving  from  its  last 
tumble, —  the  unha2)piest,  jolliest,  liveliest  river  in  the 
geography.  You  put  your  feet  side  by  side  at  first,  and 
then  Indian  file,  as  boys  walk  a  crack;  doiibling  head- 
lands, climbing  jagged  stairs,  crossing  unrailed  balconies. 
It   is   nervous   enough.     The   hungry   Merced   is   tearing 


BOUND   FOR  THE    YO   SEMITE.  229 

down  the  gulf  at  your  left.  The  boulders  lift  their 
brown  sea-lion  heads  flecked  with  foam.  You  wish  your 
right  ear  weighed  four  pounds,  for  a  balance  on  the  safe 
side.  You  are  not  sure  but  it  does  —  and 
the  other  ear  also — for  as  you  turned  in 
upon  the  trail,  a  placarded  tree  exclaimed : 


THIS  IS  NOT  A 
HORSE-TRAIL. 


If  the  Athenians  really  voted  that  asses  should  be  horses,  it 
was  never  carried.  You  gi'asp  the  laurel's  shining  leaves 
as  you  climb,  and  they  reward  you  with  the  refreshing 
fragrance  of  bay-rum.  You  pass  round  an  angle,  and 
Vernal  Fall,  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high,  is  tum- 
bling out  of  the  air.  It  is  no  more  vernal  than  a  Lap- 
land January  is  110°  in  the  shade.  It  is  a  cascade  of 
crystals.  The  rocks  are  spattered  with  the  broken  crock- 
ery of  the  spectrum. 

Water  Falls  do  not  talk  alike.  They  roar,  growl, 
crash,  grind,  rush.  The  voice  of  the  Vernal  is  grum, 
like  a  mill,  one  minute,  and  then  rough,  like  the  grate 
of  coach  wheels  in  the  gravel,  the  next;  but  the  Nevada 
Fall  slides  with  a  smooth,  soft,  lulling  sound,  and  a 
faint  tone  like  the  moan  of  a  bell  that  has  just  done 
ringing.  You  creep  over  a  lean  shoulder,  and  two  flights 
of  stairs,  straight  as  Jacob's  ladder,  confront  you.  At 
the  first  glance  you  think  you  would  about  as  soon  climb 
by  the  curve  of  a  notched  rainbow.  In  some  places  the 
path  has  an  outer  edge  bare  as  the  hem  of  a  handker- 
chief. In  others,  a  fringe  of  grass  two  or  three  inches 
high  borders  the  trail,  and  how  that  mere  nap  of  vege- 
tation helps  you  keep  your  balance  is  truly  wonderful, 
when  there  is  no  more  protection  in  it  than  there  would 
be  in  a  railing  of  spider's  web,  but  you  walk  with  a 
braver,  surer  step. 


230  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

Fern  Grotto,  at  tlie  foot  of  the  stairs,  is  a  dilapidated 
hood  of  rock,  apparently  just  ready  to  tumble  upon  any 
forty  or  fifty  heads  that  may  get  into  it.  Every  maiden- 
hair fern  within  reach  had  been  plucked  or  wrenched 
away  by  the  roots,  and  some,  on  the  rocky  shelves  out  of 
harm's  way,  had  evidently  been  stoned  as  boys  stone  a 
treed  squirrel.  Climbing  the  stairs,  you  land  upon  a  broad, 
smooth  rock  floor,  with  a  stone  balustrade  built  by  giants, 
whence  you  watch  at  your  leisure  the  first  silent,  polished 
plunge  of  the  curving  and  jeweled  water  over  the  verge. 
Then  we  go  down  the  stairs,  back  over  the  hair-line, 
which  is  an  'air-line  on  the  brink  side,  to  Register  Rock, 
where  we  take  to  the  elbowed  arms  of  the  horse  trail, 
and  tack  and  tug  slowly  up  the  mountain.  Every  other 
arm,  we  are  in  the  full  glare  of  sunshine.  Every  other 
arm,  we  are  in  the  shade.  The  valley  falls  away  as  we 
rise.  The  mountains  settle  down  like  motherly  hens  and 
brood  the  little  hills.  The  horizon  ripples  away  and  takes 
in  more  and  more  of  the  world.  The  trails  double  above 
each  other  like  hanging  balconies. 

Just  now  a  ringing  mountain  cry  comes  from  below. 
It  is  answered   or   echoed  far   over   our   heads.     Queerly 

enough,  the  highland  shout  is  an  inarticulate      ^  it    

cuck-oo,  a  variation  of  the  Swiss  yodel.  Here  pj^  T'r~ 
is  the  score  of  the  musical  cry:  •^ 

These  signal  and  warning  cries  are  not  only  pleasant 
everywhere,  but  necessary  upon  the  narrow  trails,  and 
prevent  many  an  accident  and  awkward  meeting.  In 
twenty  minutes  the  owner  of  the  voice  followed  the 
shout.  He  was  a  mounted  guide  with  two  ladies  and  a 
bit  of  a  girl  whose  horse  he  led  with  a  lariat.  The 
horses  went  with   their   noses  down  as   if   following   the 


BOUND   FOR   THE    YO    SEMITE.  231 

trail  by  scent,  carried  their  tails  like  Bo-peep's  sheep 
and  scrambled,  sure-footed  as  goats,  up  the  steei:)S.  The 
ladies  were  picturesque  in  sea-side  hats,  two  stirrups 
apiece  and  a  foot  in  each  of  them.  Some  of  the  best 
trails  had  the  cows  for  engineers.  Few  suspect  what 
ambitious  heights  the  lumbering  mothers  of  the  herd  can 
reach  for  a  tuft  of  grass. 

Four  miles  on  the  crooked  hypothenuse  of  a  triangle 
brought  us  out  at  last  upon  a  sun-bombarded,  scraggy 
plateau,  and  in  front  of  us,  as  if  a  rock  in  the  sky  had 
been  smitten  like  the  one  in  the  Wilderness,  the  Nevada 
Fall  poured  its  snowy  waters.  Softly  sliding  in  silken 
scallops,  some  fast,  some  slow,  waters  over  waters,  silk 
over  satin,  and  only  four  steps  in  a  seven-hundred-feet 
stone  stairway,  it  gracefully  descended  with  a  rustle  of 
white  garments,  to  the  paved  street  that  led  down  to 
Vernal  Fall  and  the  valley  and  the  canon  and  the  sea. 

Towering  two  thousand  feet  above  the  head  of  the 
grand  staircase,  like  a  sentinel  four  thousand  feet  high, 
stands,  rigid,  soldierly,  erect,  The  Cap  of  Liberty.  Shaggy 
Bearskin  Point  is  in  sight,  which  Miss  Anna  Dickinson, 
with  a  slight  godmother  experience  of  baptismal  fonts, 
strove  to  rechristen  Crinoline  Point.  A  sightly  place  to 
hang  a  petticoat! 

There  has  been  some  atrocious  naming  of  the  moun- 
tains. Neither  poet  nor  soldier  has  so  much  as  a  peak  to 
himself,  but  a  photographer  is  his  Eminence  by  virtue  of 
a  crag,  and  there  is  a  whole  mountain  by  the  name  of 
Gabb!  Think  of  filling  Fame's  sounding  trumpet  with  a 
sonorous  —  gabble!  Coming  up  the  Valley  from  the  Bridal 
Veil,  you  see  at  the  left  three  grotesque  crags,  four  thou- 
sand feet  high,  that   turn  their  heads  as  you  near  them 


232  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

and  change  their  shapes  as  you  leave  them.  Some  fra- 
ternally-inclined soul  named  them  the  Three  Brothers  — 
why  not  the  three  blind  mice? — when  the  Indians  had 
recognized  and  christened  them  as  well  as  Adam  could 
have  done  it,  Pom-pom-pasus,  the  mountains  playing  leap- 
frog, and  there,  to  be  sure,  they  sit,  the  granite  batra- 
chians,  each  behind  the  other,  their  arms  on  their  thighs, 
their  chuckle  heads  lifted,  and  forever  making  ready  to 
jump. 

We  shambled  and  heeled  it,  and  sometimes  manibus 
pedibusque,  down  the  trail  into  the  Valley,  where  saddle- 
horses  overtook  us,  a  stage  met  us  and  friends  greeted 
us.  We  had  enjoyed  a  climb,  a  hold-back,  a  saddle,  and 
a  stage  ride, —  fourteen  miles,  all  told;  had  been  in  sight 
of  the  I'aftered  garret  of  North  America;  had  seen  hori- 
zons, now  crushed  like  a  broken  hoop,  and  now  built 
far  out,  broad,  round  and  perfect, —  a  vast  amphitheater 
peopled  with  a  senate  of  mountains.  It  was  a  white  day. 
It  is  so  set  down  in  the  calendar. 

YO  SEMITE  FALL  AND  SUN  TIME. 
In  midsummer  the  Yo  Semite  is  less  a  fall  than  a  fall- 
away,  and  there  is  no  more  tumult  about  it  than  there 
is  in  the  drooping  grace  of  a  weeping  willow.  A  streak 
of  water  and  a  broad,  dark  line  on  the  face  of  the  rock, 
a  sort  of  dull  lithographic  map,  show  the  route  of  the 
cataract.  It  is  a  perpendicular  half  mile  from  the  brink 
of  the  fall  to  the  base,  and  there  are  times  when  the 
tumbling  thunders  of  the  melting  snows  from  the  Gothic 
towers  beyond,  plunge  through  the  cleft  with  a  head- 
long leap  of  fifteen  hundred  feet,  strike  a  granite  stair, 
and   then,  girdled  and   hooded  with  foam  and   fury,  des- 


BOUND    FOR  THE   YO   SEMITE.  233 

perately  slip  and  slide  foui-  hundred  more,  and  then  make 
a  clean  and  final  leap  of  more  than  forty  rods  down  to 
the  Valley,  a  total  twenty-six  hundred  feet  of  cataract 
It  is  a  drove  of  up-country  rain  storms  and  snows,  herded 
by  the  shepherds  of  the  Sierras,  and  driven  "  down  a  steep 
place  into  the"  valley. 

There  are  times  when  the  ice  and  snow  are  piled  at 
its  base  to  a  height  of  four  hundred  feet,  as  if  Yo  Sem- 
ite had  pocketed  a  young  Arctic  ;  but  it  is  sure  to  slip 
through  its  fingers  in  June.  The  wettest  thing  I  saw 
was  a  small  white  cloud,  as  diy  as  Jason's  golden  fleece, 
that  came  to  the  cleft,  took  a  look,  and  disappeai'ed. 

A  dweller  in  the  Valley  can  see  the  sun  rise  several 
times  in  the  same  morning,  and  not  travel  more  than  a 
mile  to  witness  it.  There  seems  to  be  a  granite  con- 
spiracy to  prevent  his  rising  at  all,  and  he  acts  as  if  he 
were  assaulting  point  after  point  for  a  weak  spot.  Over 
this  peak,  beyond  that  cliflF,  above  -yonder  crag,  along 
that  wall,  he  shows  fight;  but  he  scales  them  all  at  last, 
and  bombards  the  canon  with  his  golden  batteries.  Eight, 
nine,  ten,  eleven  —  he  is  an  accommodating  sun,  and  the 
laziest  man  in  the  world  is  glad  to  see  him  before  night. 
I  stood  near  an  old  cabin  where  he  does  not  rise  in 
December  until  half-past  one,  and  sets  at  half-past  three. 
An  old-time  preacher's  election  sermon  would  pack  such 
a  day  eVen-full  of  doctrine,  and  leave  not  a  minute  for 
dinner  or  doxology.  The  man  was  no  dormouse;  two 
hours'  day  were  not  enough;  he  moved  a  mile  and  got 
eight.  It  is  the  sort  of  sun  that  would  have  delighted 
the   soul  of   Gentle    Elia.      "  You    come  very  late  in    the 

morning,  Mr.  Lamb,"  said  the  chief  of  the    India  House 
10* 


234  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

to  the  immortal  clerk.  "  Yes,"  was  the  poet's  reply, 
"but  then  I  go  home  very  early  in  the  afternoon!" 

There  never  was  a  grander  place  to  put  up  chronom- 
eters, from  the  great  cathedral  clock  to  the  mantel-shelf 
aftair  that  ticks  like  a  harvest-fly.  There  are  not  ten 
minutes  of  sunshine  that  it  does  not  touch  some  salient 
point,  or  a  shadow  extend  a  finger  and  lay  it  on  a  spire, 
a  tower,  or  a  mountain  fir,  that,  once  noted,  is  always 
remembered.  The  face  of  the  rocks  could  be  mentally 
covered  with  clock  dials  that  would  tell  the  hour  as 
perfectly  as  the  giant  of  Strasburg.  Once  set  these  time- 
pieces for  the  season,  and  you  may  leave  your  watch 
under  your  pillow. 

While  we  were  in  the  Valley,  the  Evening  Star  had 
a  habit  of  passing  a  rugged  embrasure  on  the  summit  of 
Sentinel  Rock,  three  thousand  feet  up,  and  it  was  better 
than  one  of  Shakspeare's  plays  to  watch  it.  First  it 
passed  into  a  castle  cell,  behind  the  wall.  Then  you 
knew  it  was  coming,  for  you  saw  a  small  dawn  growing 
on  the  sill  of  the  battle-window.  Last,  it  glided  into 
sight,  clear  and  strong,  passed  straight  across  the  field  of 
view,  and  was  lost  in  the  donjon. 

The  moonlight  sometimes  reveals  more  than  broad 
noon.  Thus  you  may  be  watching  a  mountain  wall  all 
day  that  has  seemed  a  smooth  and  finished  face  of  ma- 
sonwork;  but  when  the  moon  swings  farther  round, 
shadows  from  some  undetected  high- relief  of  rock  start 
out  and  run  five  hundred  feet  along  the  mountain;  or 
what  has  always  looked  a  whisker  of  a  bush  projects 
the  double  of  a  great  tree  upon  the  wall.  There  is  a 
hand-shaped  crag  on  Yo  Semite  Point,  rudely  resembling 
the    four    fingers    and    palm   in   a   gray  mitten,  and   the 


BOUND    FOR   THE   YO   SEMITE.  235 

thumb  is  kindly  furnished  by  a  scrubby  pine,  that  seems 
to  spring  from  the  side  of  the  hand,  and  you  estimate 
the  height  of  the  tree  at  sixteen  feet,  when  it  is  two 
hundred  by  actual  measurement,  and  one  hundred  and 
ten  feet  from  its  base  to  the  cold  and  uncharitable  hand, 
and  yet  not  the  slightest  dislocation  is  apparent.  These 
unaccustomed  heights  work  surgical  miracles. 

In  low  and  level  regions,  a  man  is  accurately  located 
if  you  give  his  latitude  and  longitude;  but  among  the 
mountains  a  third  factor  is  necessary  —  his  altitude  —  how 
far  East  or  West,  North  or  South,  how  far  Up.  In  Chi- 
cago, not  a  man  in  ten  thousand  thinks  about  his  geog- 
raphy above  the  sea  level;  but  in  the  high  lands  you 
pick  up  a  hotel  card,  as  at  Denver,  and  read,  "  altitude, 
6,000  feet."  There  are  other  evidences  of  altitude  where 
the  stage  routes  are  strown  with  broken  bottles  of  all 
colors  and  nations,  from  the  stocky  porter  to  the  slender- 
necked  champagne.  They  exemplify  a  certain  kind  of 
high  civilization. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  cast  of  Oberlin's  head,  that  sugar- 
loaf  of  a  head,  full  of  sweet  thoughts  as  a  bee-hive  is  of 
honey?  That  is  about  the  shape  of  the  South  Dome.  Its 
organ  of  veneration  is  tremendous;  there  are  six  or  eight 
acres  of  it,  six  thousand  feet  high,  and  solid  rock  through 
and  through.  It  is  a  small  petrifaction  of  the  overarch- 
ing sky.  Agassiz  would  have  delighted,  in  some  fanciful 
mood,  to  construct  it.  He  would  have  set  this  skull  upon 
shoulders  a  mile  and  a  half  broad,  and  built  up  a  human 
figure  six  miles  high  to  carry  it.  Three  kinds  of  pines 
and  a  few  scattered  grasses  grow  upon  the  reverential 
Arabia  Petrea.  It  was  only  toward  the  close  of  the 
year  '75  that  a  Montrose  Scotchman,  George  S.  Anderson, 


236  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

climbed  off  with  the  lionor  of  being  the  first  man  to  set 
foot  upon  the  summit.  He  drove  iron  pins  into  the 
drilled  rock,  extended  nearly  a  thousand  feet  of  rope,  and 
hand  over  hand  pulled  himself  up,  and  then  backed  in- 
gloriously  dow^n.  It  is  a  kind  of  rope  ferry  to  the  skies. 
While  we  were  in  the  Valley,  a  ewe  and  her  lamb  unac- 
countably reached  the  high  pasture.  Had  it  been  in 
South  America,  we  should  have  said  the  condors  gave 
them  a  lift  with  a  view  to  future  mutton.  How  to  get 
the  ambitious  lanifers  down  was  a  problem. 

BREAKING  UP  CAMP. 

The  sojourn  in  the  Valley  was  made  instructive  and 
delightful  by  Mr.  J.  M.  Hutchings,  whose  name  is  indis- 
solubly  linked  with  the  history  of  the  Yo  Semite,  and 
who  has  done  more  than  all  other  men,  and  done  it  bet- 
ter, to  acquaint  the  world  with  its  wonders.  A  gentle- 
man of  culture,  he  is  an  enthusiastic  lover  of  the  region 
wherein  he  has  passed  so  many  years.  Tall,  spare,  made 
of  whip-cord  and  grit,  he  is  a  revised  and  improved  edi- 
tion of  Cooper's  Leather  Stocking.  His  gray  hair  does 
not  suggest  age,  but  like  a  horse  iron-gray,  means  endur- 
ance. Tent  life,  mountain  trails,  adventure  and  shaggy 
canons  have  charms  for  him  that  make  the  wilderness  a 
perpetual  delight.  He  was  about  breaking  up  camp  to 
lead  a  party  a  three  weeks'  mountaineering,  and  we  went 
over  to  the  ground  to  see  the  flitting. 

His  camp  was  pitched  beside  a  beautiful  stream  near 
the  foot  of  the  Yo  Semite,  a  grassy  place  with  luxuriant 
shade. 

The  party  was  composed  of  ladies,  old  and  young,  two 
or   three   strong   men,    a   photographic    artist,   and   some 


BOUND   FOR   THE   YO   SEMITE.  237 

bright,  smart  bits  of  boys  and  girls.  They  had  just  had 
breakfast,  and  were  busy  as  bees.  The  scene  was  pictur- 
esque. A  dozen  horses  were  standing  about,  "all  saddled 
and  bridled  and  ready  to  ride";  the  tents  were  coming 
down  by  the  run,  and  rolling  up  as  handily  as  you  would 
shut  an  umbrella;  a  lady  of  sixty-five,  and  who,  by  the 
way,  went  up  that  sky-ferry  on  the  Dome  much  as  if  she 
had  skipped  to  the  mast-head  on  shipboard,  was  packing 
pans  and  plates;  girls  were  baling  blankets,  slinging  tin 
cups  to  the  saddles,  and  petting  or  plaguing  the  horses. 

The  pack  animals,  whereof  the  mule  Molly  was  chief, 
were  taking  on  a  deck-load  of  cargo.  She  made  a  saw- 
buck  of  her  legs  when  the  men  began  to  tighten  the 
long  cords  over  the  load  on  one  side  and  the  other  with 
a  foot  braced  against  her  for  -a  strong  pull.  Trunks, 
boxes,  bedding,  a  whole  kitchen  of  culinary  ware,  were 
balanced  in  the  great  panniers,  till  the  cargo  was  as  big 
as  herself.  Sometimes  she  wearied  of  being  a  saw-buck, 
and  took  to  rearing  up  behind  and  before  at  about  the 
same  instant,  which  rendered  things  uneasy  and  made 
lively  times  for  the  stevedores  of  the  queer  craft.  Mr. 
Hutchings  was  the  ruling  spirit,  tightening  a  girth,  giv- 
ing a  snugger  reef  to  a  tent,  condemning  things  they 
could  do  without,  showing  it  was  more  of  a  science  to 
know  what  you  do  not  want  than  what  you  do.  At 
length  the  camp  was  clear,  the  brands  of  the  fire  were 
stamped  out,  the  last  pack  animal  was  a  little  elephant  or 
a  big  camel,  and  the  order  to  mount  peopled  the  saddles 
as  if  it  had  been  done  by  a  bugle.  Florence  Hutchings, 
and  her  brother  whose  short  legs  were  projected  to  lar- 
board and  starboard  from  the  saddle  —  they  were  about 
long   enough   to  bestride  the  back  of  a  jack-knife  —  and 


238  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

made  an  inverted  capital  T  of  him  thus,  1,  led  off  the 
cavalcade.  Let  us  give  the  girl,  for  her  own  and  her 
father's  sake,  some  graceful  mountain  height,  and  let  it 
be  called  Mt.  Florence. 

The  party  then  deployed  in  a  circle  around  the  car- 
riage that  brought  their  guests,  and  sang  ^^Vive  VCom- 
panie''  till  the  birds  listened,  the  health  of  everybody  was 
drank  in  water  "qualified"  like  a  Justice  of  the  Peace, 
and  one  after  another  they  filed  away,  the  little  elephants 
and  dromedaries  giving  an  oriental  look  to  the  caravan, 
and  as  they  streamed  out  through  the  meadow  toward 
the  bridge  over  the  Merced  they  struck  up,  with  one 
accord,  "Where  now  are  the  Hebrew  children?"  And 
where  are  they?  That  night  upon  the  mountain  height, 
five  miles  as  the  crow  flies,  and  ten  miles  as  the  trail 
went,  we  saw  through  the  wind-swayed  cedars  their  camp 
blaze,  like  a  fire-fly's  intermittent  light.  But  the  bright- 
eyed  girls,  the  gentle  women  and  the  stalwart  men,  we 
saw  no  more.  Mr.  Hutchings  and  a  San  Francisco  girl 
kept  us  company  for  awhile,  halted  with  us  at  a  mineral 
spring,  where  we  took  a  parting  stirrup-cup  of  something 
in  ate,  ite  and  et,  the  Yo  Semite  Leather  Stocking  told 
sparkling  and  pathetic  stories,  one  after  another,  taking 
ofl"  the  curse  of  sentiraentalism,  every  now  and  then,  with, 

"And  they  all  flapped  their  wingB, 
Singing  Filly  McGrce  McGraw," 

and  then,  putting  foot  in  the  stirrup,  away  went  the 
genial  mountaineer  and  the  merry  maiden  at  a  hand 
gallop,  through  the  trees  and  up  the  trail  and  round  a 
curve  and  out  of  sight.  Good  fortune  and  good  night 
to  the  gypsies  of  the  Yo  Semite!  And  then  we  made 
our  way  out  of  the  marvelous  Valley,  and  our  last  look 


BOUND    FOR   THE    YO   SEMITE. 


239 


was  at  El  Capitan,  and  as  we  rode  over  the  ridges  and 
climbed  the  crags,  the  August  sun  blazing  with  all  its 
fires,  we  turned  and  saw  the  sheen  of  the  snows,  drift 
above  drift,  like  the  clouds  of  Magellan,  everlastingly 
there,  and  then,  with  benisons  on  the  Valley  and  regret 
for  the  friends  and  the  glories  we  were  leaving,  we  set 
pur  faces  toward  the  Western  sea  and  the  Bay  of  San 
Francisco,  and  that  new  Athens  of  the  Occident. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


WHALES,  LIONS  AND  WAR  DOGS. 

SAN  FRANCISCO  has  lions,  and  now  and  then  a  whale. 
For  several  days  the  street  cars  had  been  carrying 
"  a  banner  with  the  strange  device " — "  To  the  Whale," 
and  we  entered  one  of  those  crowded  cars  bound  to 
ride  until  somebody  said  "  whale."  But  everybody  said 
"  whale, 'J  and  persevered  in  it  to  such  a  degree  that  we 
asked  the  driver  —  the  car  was  one  of  those  Insurance- 
Company  self-paying  institutions  —  to  say  "whale"  him- 
self just  once  when  the  time  came.  He  did,  and  we 
bundled  out  of  the  car  and  followed  the  crowd.  And 
there  he  was,  the  fin-back,  seventy-six  feet  long  and 
moored  to  the  dock  like  a  dismasted  ship  of  the  line. 
We  never  got  much  idea  of  the  monster  from  the  pic- 
tures we  used  to  have.  They  represented  a  big,  bulging 
rubber  overshoe,  in  the  days  when  they  called  them 
"  gums,"  with  a  weeping  willow  turned  to  water  grow- 
ing out  of  the  toe. 

But  here  was  the  genuine  sea-side  tenement  of  the 
Prophet  Jonah,  with  its  arched  door  and  seventeen-feet 
posts,  but  not  a  place  for  a  bell-pull  or  a  door-plate,  the 
only  evidence  of  high  life  being  fixtures  for  a  fountain 
in  the  front  yard.  But  its  blowing  days  were  past.  Roses 
blow,  and  so  do  whales.  Being  a  whale  of  seventy-six, 
he  was  a  Revolutionary  aquatic,  for  he  lay  upon  his  back 

240 


WHALES,    LIONS   AND   WAR   DOGS.  241 

and  looked  like  the  ribbed  bottom  of  an  awkward  boat 
painted  one  coat  of  dirty  white.  He  was  moored  stem 
and  stern  and  slowly  surged  with  the  sea. 

The  crowd  were  as  much  of  a  wonder  as  the  whale. 
"Where's  his  flippers?"  said  one;  "his  fins?"  another; 
"his  teeth?"  a  third;  "Oh,  hasn't  he  any  ears?"  whined 
a  little  lubber;  "Did  he  really  swallow  Jonah,  ma?" 
asked  a  good  little  Sunday-school  girl;  and  so  it  went. 
Some  women  were  looking  for  a  mouth  full  of  corset 
frames,  but  there  being  a  doubt  to  which  end  the  head 
belonged,  they  never  found  "  those  skeletons  of  the  closet." 
An  old  whaler  stubbing  about  estimated  him  at  sixty  bar- 
rels. And  this  was  the  sort  of  beast  for  which  all  tar- 
paulined Nantucket  went  round  the  Horn  and  widowed 
the  women;  the  mountain  of  blubber  that  could  thresh  a 
boat  like  grain  with  one  end  and  drown  the  crew  with 
the  other;  the  floating  oil-well  for  the  light  of  other 
days. 

Polonius  would  not  have  said,  "  it  is  barked  like  a 
whale,"  for  there  was  no  ocular  proof  it  ever  had  a  back; 
but  he  could  have  declared,  "it  hath  an  ancient  and  fish- 
like smell,"  for  it  suggested  a  whiflf  of  the  smoky  lamp 
of  japanned  tin  that  stood  on  the  stand  with  a  snuff-box 
and  the  family  bible.  A  herd  of  whales  going  to  "  school " 
in  mid-ocean,  with  the  plumes  of  water  waving  and  the 
great  flukes  lashing  the  sea  into  foam,  must  be  a  grand 
sight,  but  this  ill-shapen  wi'eck  of  oleaginous  exanimation 
was  not  a  success.  Let  us  give  it  a  bad  name  and  be 
gone:  the  great  northern  rorqual  of  the  genus  Balcenop- 
teru,  class  of  mammals, —  think  of  its  having  calves! — of 
the  family  of  cetacea  and  the  tribe  of  mutilates,  and  that 
is  what  it  is,  and  badly  mutilated  too!  The  fishermen 
11 


242  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

caught  the  whale,  the  whale  caught  us,  and  we  caught 
the  first  car  for  home.  Moral:  "If  you  want  to  see  a 
whale,  ship  before  the  mast  for  a  three  years'  voyage. 

SEALS. 

A  seal-skin  sacque  with  a  snug  woman  inside  and  a 
snug  winter  outside,  is  as  pretty  a  sight  as  a  snow-bird 
in  its  season.  But  a  seal  in  its  own  jacket  would  not 
catch  "  the  apple  of  discord  "  in  the  competition  for  beauty 
with  anything  you  ever  saw  pulled  out  of  the  sea.  It  is 
an  exaggerated  garden  slug,  weighing  from  one  hundred 
pounds  to  four  thousand,  dog-headed,  ox-eyed,  whiskers 
Spanish  and  sparse,  a  benign  countenance  and  a  pair  of 
flippers.  Seal  Rocks,  six  miles  from  San  Francisco  and  a 
few  hundred  feet  from  the  headland,  are  three  huge 
cairns  with  a  Druidical  look,  piled  up  in  the  sea,  the 
blarney-stones  of  San  Francisco  and  the  paradise  of  seals. 
They  are  the  wards  of  the  State,  protected  by  law,  and 
the  piscatorial  triumphs  of  the  Coast. 

You  ride  through  Golden  Gate  Park,  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  drives  in  the  world,  with  its  winding  sweeps 
of  magnificent  distances,  bowl  up  to  the  Clift"  House  and 
make  for  the  balcony.  Befoi*e  you,  blue  and  scintillant 
as  frosty  steel,  is  the  Pacific,  flaunting  its  white  fringes 
and  flounces  along  the  shore  at  your  feet,  and  dying 
away  into  the  sky  afar  ofif.  As  the  great  waves  come  slid- 
ing up  the  slopes  of  gray  sand  and  fling  themselves  down 
upon  the  land  with  thunder  in  the  rustle  of  their  gar- 
ments, you  think  what  a  royal  fool  Canute  was.  Some 
flies  with  filmy  wings  are  creeping  along  the  curve  of 
the  horizon.  They  seem  to  move  as  the  grass  grows. 
They  are  ships  from  South  America,  from  Oregon,  from 


WHALES,   LIONS   AND   WAR    DOGS.  243 

round  the  Horn.  Some  tobacco  smokes  are  rolling  up 
in  the  distance.  They  are  ocean-going  steamers  from 
Honolulu  and  Cathay.  Some  fragments  of  white  love- 
notes  are  flickering  in  the  air.     They  are  sea-birds. 

Before  you  rises  the  acropolis  of  seals.  There  are 
other  inhabitants  of  the  rocky  fastnesses,  but  you  do  not 
notice  them  at  first.  There  the  seals  are,  some  of  them 
coming  up  sleek  and  dark  out  of  the  sea;  some  lying 
about  with  lifted  heads,  quarreling,  gossiping,  playing 
with  their  young;  some  working  their  way  up  the  crags 
like  so  many  portly  men  tied  up  in  tawny  bags  from 
head  to  heel.  You  are  half  sorry  for  their  helpless- 
ness at  first,  but  when  you  see  them  climbing  where 
you  could  not  scramble  for  your  life,  your  sympathy  is 
lost  in  admiration.  Their  voices  are  a  hoarse  confusion 
of  the  bark  of  puppies,  the  creak  of  dry  cart-wheels,  the 
clatter  of  guinea-hens.  You  vainly  try  to  translate  the 
jargon  into  English.  It  rises  above  the  roar  of  the  sea 
and  drives  against  the  wind.  These  seals  have  a  peren- 
nial cold  and  live  an  everlasting  Friday,  for  their  food 
is  fish.  They  do  their  own  angling,  and  twelve  thousand 
pounds  is  no  extravagant  estimate  for  the  monthly  rations 
of  the  whole  community.  The  fishing  fleets  would  be 
delighted  to  work  up  the  last  skin  of  them  all  into  caps. 
Fish,  likewise  eggs:  for  you  begin  to  see  the  birds  dot- 
ting the  rocks,  sitting  in  drowsy  rows,  rising  in  freckled 
clouds,  settling  down  to  the  sea  like  big  snow-flakes  in 
the  dusk.  There  are  gulls,  pelicans,  sea-parrots,  sea- 
pigeons,  guillemots;  some  swift,  some  slow,  and  all  lazy. 
They  lay  their  eggs  heedlessly  about  among  the  rocks, 
and  the  seals  help  themselves.  The  eggs  are  clouded  and 
colored  marbles,  pretty  enough  to  pave  the  king's  court- 


244 


BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 


yard,  and  no  two  alike.  They  are  nourishing  inside  and 
neat  outside.  Fish  and  eggs!  What  intellectual  folk  the 
seals  should  be,  with  nothing  but  edible  phosphorus  on 
the  bill  of  fare! 

The  Seal  Rocks  are  a  sort  of  domestic  Juan  Fernan- 
dez, but  nothing  could  be  wilder.  To  see  Crusoe's  Capri- 
cornus  come  round  a  corner  would  not  surprise  you.  The 
clamor  of  the  waves,  the  crying  of  the  disconsolate  winds, 
the  screaming  of  the  birds,  the  strident  talk  of  the  seals, 
give  you  the  cast-away  feeling  of  a  shipwrecked  mariner. 


With  any  other  surroundings  such  a  Babel  would  be 
hideous,  but  delicate  ladies  sit  by  the  hour  and  listen  as 
to  bassos  with  subterranean  voices  and  "larks  of  prima- 
donnas.  California  is  proud  of  its  seals  and  its  seal.  The 
Legislature  tossed  out  a  thousand-dollar  bag  of  gold  for 
the  design,  like  the  rich  uncle  in  the  play,  when  they 
could  have  bought  a  live  bear  and  hired  a  live  miner 
for  half  the  money,  while  the  bath-tub  exclamation  of 
Archimedes,  ^'^ Eureka!'"  is  everybody's,  and  Minerva  the 
Romans  had  done  with  long  ago.  But  it  is  wonderfully 
appropriate    and    peculiarly   Californian.      Contrast   with 


WHALES,    LIONS   AND    WAR   DOGS.  245 

this  exultant  device  the  arms  of  Washington  Territory, 
with  its  cheerful  young  woman,  her  hand  uplifted,  an 
anchor  at  her  feet,  a  cabin  and  a  capitol  in  the  distance, 
the  rising  sun  opening  a  fan  of  glory  over  the  picture, 
and  the  modest,  hopeful  word,  borrowed  not  from  classic 
Greek  but  savage  Indian,  "Al-ki!" — by  and  by. 

THE  GOLDEN  GATE. 

It  was  a  memorable  day  when  we  visited  the  Cliff 
and  The  Golden  Gate.  The  Lord  made  it  that  morning 
and  pronounced  it  good.  Even  the  bare  sand  dunes  are 
beautiful  with  the  pictured  waves  and  ripples  of  watered 
silk.  Two  mountain  ranges,  the  nearer,  russet,  the  far- 
ther, blue,  are  in  sight,  and  Diablo  lifts  his  three  thou- 
sand feet  of  smoky  grandeur.  And  looking  upon  the 
purple  hills  and  the  blue  and  golden  lights  upon  the 
water,  we  thought  that  if  ever  a  spot  could  dispute  with 
Athens  her  ancient  title,  it  is  San  Francisco.  Oh,  "  City 
of  the  Violet  Crown,"  all  hail! 

Flocks  of  all  river  and  ocean  craft  are  coming  and 
going.  Here,  a  great  steamer  ploughs  squarely  out,  leav- 
ing a  highway  of  wake  and  a  line  of  drifted  foam  each 
side  of  the  road.  There,  a  fellow  with  one  white  wing 
lifted  and  body  a-tilt,  is  skimming  obliquely  across  the 
Bay. 

Yonder,  a  little  African  of  a  tug  with  his  nose  out 
of  water  and  his  great  fleece  of  black  wool  bigger  than 
his  body,  has  a  leviathan  by  the  halter,  and  is  leading 
him  up  to  the  wharf.  Now,  a  surly  man-of-war  comes 
in  view,  or  a  Chinese  water-bug  of  a  craft  puts  out  its 
long  antennae  this  way  .and  that,  feeling  for  something, 
or   a  ship  with    her   top-hami)er    piled    in  volumes  white 


246  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

and  high,  as  if  she  had  taken  on  a  cargo  of  summer 
clouds  for  a  dry  market;  or  a  schooner  sits  motionless  on 
the  water  asleep  in  its  bare  bones,  or  a  long  lean  boat  darts 
about  like  a  midge,  with  oars  as  slender  in  the  distance 
as  a  fine-tooth  comb.  San  Francisco  Bay  is  a  grand 
parlor  with  a  crystal  flooring  of  six  or  seven  hundred 
square  miles.  The  Bay  is  divided  somewhat  as  General 
Lee  of  the  Revolution  partitioned  off  his  one  room  into 
several  apartments,  with  a  piece  of  chalk  and  a  garden 
line,  into  San  Pablo  and  Suisun.  And  this  grand  recep- 
tion chamber  has  furniture.  There  are  Alcatras  and 
Angel  Islands,  and  Black  Point,  all  parlor  organs  with 
iron  batteries  of  pipes  for  pedal  bass,  that  can  pitch  a 
tune  and  a  shot  at  the  same  instant.  San  Francisco  was 
ambitious  to  be  an  island  itself,  but  the  best  it  could  do 
was  to  become  a  peninsula  thirty  miles  long  with  the 
city  upon  its  northeastern  end,  like  a  big  word  on  the 
tip  of  a  tongue. 

And  the  parlor  opens  out  upon  the  Pacific.  Its  front 
door  is  The  Golden  Gate.  In  fact,  it  is  a  hall  five  miles 
long  and  one  and  a  half  miles  broad.  Its  gate-posts  are 
Foi*t  Point  and  Lime  Point,  a  mile  apart,  and  not  the 
least  like  the  pillars  of  Hercules,  and  a  greater  than 
Samson  lifted  the  Gate  from  its  hinges  and  flung  it  into 
the  sea.  It  is  the  strait  of  Chrysopolae,  and  the  name  was 
prophetic,  for  early  in  1848,  before  the  discovery  of  gold, 
Fremont,  the  Pathfinder,  because  of  the  fertile  shores  to 
which  it  led,  christened  it  The  Golden  Gate.  At  the 
South  portal  is  a  lock.  It  is  Fort  Point,  a  grim  struct- 
ure with  eight-feet  walls  of  brick  and  stone,  mounting 
one  hundred  and  twenty-three  guns,  and  the  Fortress 
Monroe  of  the  farthest  West.     A  solitary  sergeant  opened 


WHALES,    LIONS   AND    WAR    DOGS.  247 

a  ponderous  little  door  in  a  ponderous  big  door,  and  let 
us  in.  We  passed  through  the  hollow  arched  ways;  went 
up  and  down  the  rusty  iron  stairs;  crossed  the  echoing 
courts;  paused  in  the  cave-like  alcoves  where  the  cannon 
dwell,  and  slowly  paced  the  iron  arc  of  death  upon  the 
floor  whereon  the  great  guns  swing  round  when  they 
look  out  at  the  windows  for  the  canvas-winged  enemy, 
and  speak  to  him  in  crashes  of  thunder;  stood  by  the 
furnace  where  they  cook  cannon  balls,  and  deliver  the 
glowing  planets  "  all  hot,"  like  the  cross-buns  of  the  Lon- 
don cries,  on  board  the  hostile  ships;  patted  the  black- 
mouthed  monsters  that  forever  watch  the  cobwebbed  win- 
dows, waiting  for  something  to  say,  and  talking  in  mono- 
syllables when  they  talk  at  all;  listened  at  the  locked- 
up  dungeon  of  thunder  and  lightning;  sat  upon  a  twelve- 
feet  Spanish  gun,  adorned  with  the  Castilian  arms,  and 
dated  1673,  that  spoke  Spanish,  perhaps,  where  Toledo 
blades  are  born,  and  came  to  this  wilderness  a  century 
ago.     Very  silent,  very  solemn,  is  the  place. 

And  then  we  saw  how  the  guns  from  fort,  island  and 
point  coiild  send  their  iron  shuttles  to  and  fro  across  the 
hall,  and  string  great  ships,  like  beads,  upon  their  fiery 
warp  and  woof.  And  then  we  went  out  and  saw  the 
fog-bell,  shaped  like  an  iron  lupin  or  a  Puritan's  hat, 
hanging  with  its  dead  weight  run  down,  voiceless,  by  the 
wall.  Think  of  a  hat  weighing  two  tons!  And  then, 
climbing  the  craggy  hills  above,  we  saw  great  kennels, 
and  big  dogs  of  war  crouched  in  the  sand,  and  their 
noses  smutted  with  "  villainous  saltpetre,"  all  pointed 
toward  the  Pacific. 

And  then  we  thought  what  a  weary  while  ago  it  was, 
three  hundred  and  one  years,  since  Sir  Francis  Drake,  with 


248  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

a  ruff  round  his  neck,  lace  in  his  sleeves,  and  a  silk  doub- 
let, discovered  the  bay  of  St.  Francis,,  and  in  the  name 
of  the  Virgin  Queen  —  who  was  no  duck  —  named  the  land 
New  Albion,  and  set  a  plate  upon  "a  faire  great  jioste, 
wherein  was  engraven  her  Majesty's  name  and  yeere." 

And  then  we  took  a  long  look  at  the  battered  door- 
posts of  rock  and  mountain,  and  the  dim  ocean  beyond, 
and  saw  a  ship  weighing  and  balancing  in  the  offing,  a 
wing  spread  here  and  a  wing  spread  there,  and  curtsy- 
ing through  the  Gate  into  the  blue  parlor  of  the  Bay. 
And  then  we  thought  how  the  gray  mists  swept  down, 
sometimes,  upon  crag  and  water,  and  blotted  and  brooded 
them  all  out.  And  then  we  turned  away  and  passed 
Lone  Mountain,  the  everlasting  camping  ground  of  dead 
Californians,  and  struck  into  the  clattering  streets  of  the 
living,  and  the  music  of  a  band  swayed  to  and  fro,  and 
near  and  far,  and  loud  and  low,  in  the  wind,  and  we 
met  fellows  invested  principally  in  vests,  with  their  feet 
apart,  like  an  inverted  Y,  A,  and  the  ribbons  twisted 
like  yarn,  getting  out  of  the  roan  and  the  bay  all  there 
was  in  them,  and  shouting:  "Hi!"  as  the  spokes  grew 
dense  in  the  dizzy  wheels.  And  then  we  saw  a  placarded 
window  that  might  have  said,  "Coffin  plates  purchased," 
when  it  did  say,  "  Wedding  presents  bought  or  exchanged  " ; 
and  at  a  street  corner,  "  A.  Goldmann "  declares  himself 
"Mender  of  Broken  Articles,"  a  piece  of  information  that 
many  a  verdict  of  "  twelve  good  and  lawful  men  "  has  ap- 
plied to  tattered  affections  and  fractured  hearts,  making 
them  toughest  and  strongest  at  the  spot  that  was  weakest. 

And  then  the  sea  breeze  bore  down  upon  us  in  a 
shower  of  sand  like  a  troop  of  Bedouins,  and  the  sky  was 
Coventry-blue,  and  the  day  by  the  sea  was  ended. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 


A  TRIP  TO  THE  TROPIC. 

^T^HE  valleys  radiating  from  the  Bay  are  among  the 
•-■-  chief  glories  of  the  State:  those  spacious  halls  of 
beauty  and  abundance,  San  Joaquin,  Sacramento,  Napa, 
Santa  Clara,  forever  opening  into  chambers  along  the 
way,  and  meaning  bread  for  the  Continent,  flowers  for 
its  festivals,  fruit  for  its  tables,  and  the  climates  of  all 
hospitable  lands. 

The  Central  and  Southern  Pacific  Railroads  took  us 
over  nearly  five  hundred  miles  to  Los  Angeles,  the  capital 
of  Semi-tropical  California.  To  build  the  thoroughfare 
through  an  appalling  desert  and  over  a  rude  and  rugged 
rabble  of  disorderly  mountains  was  a  bold  project,  but  it 
proved  a  triumph.  The  equipments  are  "  express  and 
admirable,"  the  ofiicers  courteous.  No  more  delightful 
winter  trip  than  this  can  be  found  without  inventing 
a  geography.  Leaving  the  Bay,  the  train  runs  through 
miles  of  perpetual  gardens.  Think  of  one  horizon  full  of 
currants,  another  red  with  plums  and  cherries;  a  level 
world  set  with  vegetables  like  a  sunflower  disc  with 
seeds. 

You  set  forth  from  San  Francisco  yesterday  afternoon. 
At  this  morning's  dawn  you  have  left  three  hundred 
miles  behind,  and  are  up  betimes  to  see  the  glories  and 
diificulties   of  sunrise.     It   is  August,    and  you   look   out 

249 


250  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

upon  great,  tawny  plains  dotted  and  tied  down  with  tufts 
of  sage-green  grass,  as  were  your  grandmother's  com- 
forters with  yarn.  Those  slate-colored  thunder-clouds  at 
your  riglit  are  mountains.  They  look  as  smooth  as  a 
new  monument.  There  are  more  mountains  ahead  in 
the  way  of  the  train,  but  it  makes  for  them  as  if  there 
was  nobody  there.  You  are  in  the  region  where  the 
Sierras  and  the  Coast  Range  meet.  It  is  the  trysting- 
place  for  grandeur. 

A  DIFFICULT  SUNRISE. 

The  day  is  yet  in  the  gray.  A  flock  of  magpies  have 
been  racing  with  the  train  for  ten  minutes.  They  just 
showed  what  they  could  do  and  switched  off.  You  see  a 
Chinaman  asleep  in  the  open  air  on  a  flamingo-legged 
bedstead.  He  has  achieved  a  second  story  without  going 
upstairs.  The  arrangement  suggests  creeping  things  with 
.shorter  legs  but  more  of  them. 

The  shadows  of  the  mountains  begin  to  show  along 
the  plain.  There  is  something  beyond.  As  the  light 
grows,  the  heights  retreat  before  the  coming  train.  They 
had  drawn  near  in  the  dark  to  keep  each  other  company, 
but  courage  returns  with  the  dawn.  The  light  strikes 
through  a  cleft  between  two  lines  of  mountains,  fires 
over  your  head,  takes  the  landscape  behind  you  at  long 
range,  while  you  are  yet  jarring  on  in  the  shadow.-  It 
is  the  phenomenon  of  clouds  in  a  clear  sky.  The  peaks 
in  the  West  respond.  They  are  covered  with  pinks  in 
full  blossom.  It  is  as  if  Yesterday  were  pursuing  you 
and  To-day  were  heading  you  off.  At  last,  the  unrisen 
sun  begins  to  define  the  edges  of  the  mountains.  He 
ravels    them  out   into  fringes  of   trees,  and   sharpens  the 


A   TRIP   TO   THE   TROPIC.  251 

rocks  into  angles.  You  think  he  is  about  to  rise  here, 
and  then  a  cliff  crimsons  somewhere  else,  and  you  are 
sure  he  will  appear  yonder.  The  sky  is  steadily  growing 
golden  red,  like  the  ripening  fruit  of  the  Hesperian  or- 
chards. The  sun  seems  to  be  looking  for  a  low  place  to 
rise  in,  and  trying  one  notch  after  another  in  the  jagged 
horizon.  You  see  his  upper  edge  an  instant,  and  then  he 
sinks  back  as  you  near  him.  The  train  swings  round  a 
curve  and  finds  the  canon  where  he  must  have  halted 
for  breakfast.  An  hour  more  and  it  is  sunrise  all 
abroad.  The  mountains'  night-clothes  that  strewed  the 
ground  are  rolled  up  and  put  away.  The  king  of  day 
has  come  to  his  own  again. 

THE  TEHACHAPI  LOVE-KNOT. 
Tehacha,pi\  is  not  a  sneeze,  but  the  name  of  a  mob 
of  mountain  peaks  and  crags  that  disputed  the  right  of 
way  with  the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad.  The  heights 
were  impracticable,  the  rocks  were  immovable,  and  so  the 
train  climbed  as  high  as  it  could,  and  crept  into  a  bur- 
row like  a  fox.  It  was  an  eyelet-hole  drilled  through 
and  through,  and  so  the  train  came  out  on  the  mount- 
ain's other  side,  found  a  shelf  and  climbed  again,  entered 
a  second  tunnel,  a  third,  a  fourth,  swinging  round  and 
up  and  over  and  through.  It  is  a  tremendous  screw  cut 
out  of  mountains  just  to  let  that  train  run  up  the  thread. 
So  we  go,  skirting  one  peak,  running  to  earth  in  an- 
other, whipping  through  seventeen  tunnels,  taking  seven- 
teen stitches  in  the  ragged  selvedge,  in  the  distance  of 
ten  miles,  the  engine  and  the  train  in  two  burrows  at 
once.  Now  we  look  down  upon  four  tracks  we  have 
come,  and   now  we    look   up   upon    three   tracks  we   are 


252  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

going,  that  are   forever   crossing   themselves   like   a  con- 
fused witness. 

The  little  roasted  village  of  Caliente  lies  in  the  valley 
four  thousand  feet  below  us,  and  we  have  been  circling 
above  that  cigar-box  of  a  town  like  a  hawk  over  a  barn- 
yard. We  bid  it  a  final  farewell  as  often  as  a  star  actor 
takes  leave  of  the  public,  and  round  we  swing  again,  and 
there  is  bewitching  Caliente!  It  is  a  single  mile  distant, 
but  we  have  gyrated  six  miles  to  make  it.  One  curve  of 
three-fourths  of  a  mile  lifts  us  seventy-eight  feet  above  our 
own  heads.  We  seem  to  be  constantly  meeting  ourselves, 
pursuing  ourselves,  contradicting  ourselves.  The  summit 
of  Tehachapi  is  five-sixths  of  a  mile  above  the  sea,  and 
the  train  climbs  one  hundred  and  sixteen  feet  to  the  mile 
for  twenty-five  miles.  The  engine  does  some  tough  tag- 
ging hereabouts,  but  then,  going  one  way  it  runs  forty- 
seven  miles  without  pulling  a  pound.  All  it  wants  is  a 
snaffle-bit  and  a  hold-back.  It  boxes  the  compass  in  sixty 
minutes. 

■  You  have  seen  a  cat  feeling  her  cautious  way  through 
the  currant  bushes  with  her  whiskers?  If  they  touch, 
she  tries  another  opening;  if  they  clear,  she  disappears 
in  the  greenery;  for  she  knows  she  carries  the  measure 
of  her  fur  clothes  at  the  corners  of  her  mouth.  This 
train,  prowling  and  feeling  its  way  among  the  crags  of 
the  knobbed  world,  has  a  cat-like  way  of  its  own.  High- 
land and  lowland,  that  engine  is  a  wonderful  civilizer, 
and  there  are  only  two  hundred  thousand  of  her  on  the 
globe,  but  they  represent  the  physical  force  of  a  hundred 
millions  of  men,  and  a  spanking  team  of  twelve  millions 
of  horses.  The  double-stranded  thread  on  which  these 
heights   are   strung,    called   the    Loop,  is   three   thousand 


A    TRIP  TO   THE   TROPIC. 


253 


seven    hundred    and    ninety-five  feet  long,  a  great  double 
bow-knot  of  steel. 

The  tunnels  are  about  as  thick  as  woodchuck  holes 
in  a  New  York  pasture,  and  looking  back  upon  the 
craggy  mouth  of  one  you  have  just  threaded,  you  wonder 
how  the  cat  made  it  without  bending  her  whiskers  and 
rasping  her  sides.  There-  is  some  beauty  about  these  bur- 
rows if  you  watch  for  it.  Standing  upon  the  rear  plat- 
form as  the  train  enters  the  great  tunnel  of  San  Fer- 
nando, a  mile  and  seventeen  hundred   feet   long,  you  see 


first  a  round  frame  with  the  picture  of  a  rock  and  a  tree 
in  it.  It  is  a  i-are  medallion.  It  grows  finer  and  finer, 
but  clear  as  an  artist's  proof  all  the  while,  and  then  it 
changes  into  a  great  harvest  moon  in  the  horizon,  and 
the  umber-colored  smoke  tints  it  down  to  lunar  light. 
Then  as  the  train  descends  the  grade  of  seventy  feet  in 
the  tunnel,  that  moon  begins  to  rise,  and  lessen  as  it 
climbs.  The  clouds  sweep  over  its  face,  but  leave  no 
stain.  That  moon-rise  in  the  mountain  heart,  with  its 
undrilled  welkin  of  solid  rock,  is  a  magical  and  beautiful 
illusion.     You  watch  it  with  anxious  eagerness  as  you  are 


254  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

borne  away  into  the  rumbling  Erebus  of  the  sunless  hall. 
At  last  it  is  only  a  star  of  the  fourth  magnitude,  a  spark 
of  light,  then  gone.  Meanwhile  the  system  of  compensa- 
tions sets  another  planet  waxing  at  the  other  end  of  the 
tunnel;  and  so  there  are  a  pair  of  moons  doing  escort 
duty  for  every  passing  train. 

You  have  noticed  a  hen  before  now,  standing  on  one 
foot  in  a  drizzly,  lazy  day,  and  you  saw  a  sort  of  filmy 
curtain  draw  slowly  over  an  eye  about  as  intelligent  as 
a  glass  bead,  while  the  outside  blind  was  wide  open.  Go- 
ing through  tunnel  No.  5  of  the  Loop,  I  saw  that  pul- 
let's eye  magnified  and  glorified,  and  that  same  curtain 
—  but  made  of  yellow  smoke  this  time  —  drawn  slowly 
over  the  unspeculative  optic  in  the  absurdest  way,  while 
the  great  rocky  eyelid  remained  lifted  under  the  shaggy 
brow.  There  is  something  unaccountably  ridiculous  about 
both  of  them. 

THE  MOJAVE  DESERT. 

It  is  at  mid-day,  under  a  sky  cloudless  as  the  shield  of 
Achilles,  that  we  strike  into  the  great  desert  of  Mojave. 
I  fancied  I  crossed  a  desert  on  the  Overland  Train,  but 
it  was  a  blunder.  It  was  nothing  but  a  batch  of  Satanic 
dough.  But  here  are  the  cruel,  glittering  plains,  flinty 
to  the  feet,  fiery  to  the  eye,  "  and  not  a  drop  to  drink," 
thousands  of  square  miles  of  desolation.  No  ruins  here 
but  the  wrecks  and  ruins  of  all  the  Christian  seasons  of 
the  year,  shut  out  from  the  blessed  promises  of  seed-time 
and  harvest,  and  sending  back  fierce  answer  to  the  noon. 
It  is  the  crumbling  skeleton  of  Nature,  hopeless  of  liurial 
and  bleaching  in  the  sun. 

I  cannot  realize  this  transit  of  the  desert  in  a  palace- 


A   TRIP  TO   THE   TROPIC.  255 

car,  this  turning  a  howling  Tadrnor  into  a  luxury.  It 
I'obs  the  route  of  all  daring  and  adventure.  I  am  sorry 
I  cannot  be  as  sorry  as  I  was,  for  Mungo  Park  and 
Bruce,  and  the  rest,  who,  foot-sore  and  camel-back,  wan- 
dered hungry  and  athirst  in  the  trackless  sands.  I  can 
believe  all  they  tell  me  of  starvation  and  death;  of  trains 
bewildered  and  lost;  of  the  lakes  of  delusion  with  which 
the  mirage  beguiled  them  miles  from  their  way,  only  to 
sink  down  in  the  arid  waste  disconsolate;  of  the  dumb 
despair  that  lashed  to  desperate  deeds.  Only  a  few  days 
before,  a  Colonel  of  the  Army  had  told  me  of  leading  his 
command  of  infantry  through  this  Desert,  and  eighteen 
days  on  the  way;  of  the  steel  blade  that  could  lie  upon 
the  ground  the  night  out  without  a  tarnish;  of  the  wagons 
that  tumbled  to  pieces  without  wearing  out. 

Away  at  the  left,  a  sweep  of  two  hundred  miles,  it  is 
lost  in  the  distance,  and  far  to  the  front  it  touches  the 
mountains.  Tufts  of  raspy  grass  rigid  as  knitting-needles 
are  sparsely  sprinkled  about  among  leprous  patches  of 
white  earth.  Everything  that  grows  here  is  covered  with 
thorns,  or  spikes,  or  stings,  and  seems  making  a  stub- 
born fight  for  its  life.  What  they  want  to  live  at  all 
for  nobody  knows. 

A  VEGETABLE  ACROBAT. 

But  the  Yucca  is  the  triumph  of  the  Desert,  and 
there  are  thousands  of  it.  Fancy  trees  from  twelve  to 
twenty  feet  high,  growing  in  the  most  fantastic  shapes, 
and  covered  with  deep-green  bottle-brushes  of  foliage, 
never  fading,  but  bristling  all  ways  in  the  most  irritable 
manner;  their  gnarled  figures,  dark  as  the  black  cypress, 
showing   in    mournful    relief   against    the   ghastly    plains 


256  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

and  the  brazen  skies,  and  you  have  the  Yucca.  It  looks 
as  if  it  might  be  an  exaggerated  cousin  of  the  cactus 
family.  The  trunks'  of  the  chicken  Yuccas  are  covered 
with  coarse  plumage,  a  little  like  the  covering  of  a  pine- 
apple, down  to  the  ground,  like  so  many  Bantams  feath- 
ered along  the  legs. 

Nothing  more  grotesque  in  the  vegetable  world  can 
be  conceived:  the  limbs  growing  out  jiist  as  it  happens, 
from  the  trunk  and  from  each  other,  sometimes  live  ball- 
clubs  with  the  big  ends  farthest  from  the  tree,  and  some- 
times oven-brooms  for  the  wind  to  swing,  if  there  were 
any  more  swing  to  them  than  there  is  to  the  tines  of  a 
pitch-fork  in  a  breeze.  Now  you  see  a  tree  that  oddly 
suggests  one  of  the  useless  and  ornamental  waiters  that 
infest  hotels  with  their  whisk  brooms  and  open  palms, 
but  sprouted  out  all  over  with  arms  and  legs,  and  the 
tip  of  every  finger  and  toe  finished  off  with  a  green 
brush.  But  the  mosi;  resemble  acrobats.  Here  a  family 
of  limbs  make  a  slender-bodied,  long-legged  fellow  with 
his  lean  arms  resting  on  a  branch  beneath  him,  and  just 
ready  to  leap  over  the  top  of  the  tree,  which  he  never 
does.  If  we  were  not  quite  sure  the  Lord  made  the 
Yucca  to  fight  and  frolic  in  the  Desert,  we  should  lay 
its  manufacture  to  a  Chinaman.  It  has  a  grotesque- 
ness  quite  "  celestial "  but  not  heavenly.  Who  knows 
but  these  trees  are  transmigrated  champion  equestians  of 
the  ring,  and  Mojave  a  sort  of  circus-riders'  paradise? 
You  have  little  idea  how  those  Yucca  fellows  beguile  the 
way,  and  I  can  hardly  help  thinking  of  them  now  as 
some  tribe  of  East  Indian  jugglers  turned  vegetables. 

The  Yucca  has  its  uses,  the  trees  are  being  swiftly 
slain,  and  a  short   time  will   see   the   plains   utterly  de- 


A   TRIP   TO   THE   TROPIC.  257 

nuded.  Who  would  suspect  that  closely  folded  in  those 
eccentric  trunks  were  reams  of  bank-note  paper?  And 
yet  I  have  before  me  a  piece  of  the  fibrous  wood  and  a 
sheet  of  the  firm,  smooth  fabric  they  wove  of  it. 

THE  MIRAGE. 

We  had  been  hoping  for  the  phantasm  of  the  mirage, 
and  we  were  not  disappointed.  Some  one  cried  "mfVe- 
idge!"  and  some  one  coi*rected,  "ml-razh!'"  and  there 
indeed  it  was,  a  beautiful  lake  of  blue  water  at  the  left 
of  the  train  and  five  miles  away.  We  must  surely  run 
along  the  edge  of  its  white  beach.  We  must  rest  our 
eyes  with  a  near  look  of  the  rank  sedge,  but  we  never 
did.  The  splendid  waters  rippled  in  the  wind  and  re- 
freshed the  fancy,  but  as  we  approached  they  vanished, 
and  the  thirsty  plain  lay  parched  and  rigid  where  the 
waves  had  glittered  and  glassed  in  the  sun!  We  had 
seen  one  charming  picture  of  aerial  geography,  one  shore 
that  never  meandered,  one  lake  that  never  was  named, 
one  world  that  was  never  mapped.  And  to  think  of  the 
hundreds  of  travelers  with  blackened  lips  that  had  sought 
these  seas  of  delusion,  and  died  with  dry  eyes  before  they 
reached  them ! 

The  train  halted  at  a  Station,  desolate  as  a  light- 
house and  as  guiltless  of  door-yard  as  a  gibbet,  and  a 
dilapidated  stage,  a  sort  of  tattered  tent  on  wheels,  was 
waiting  there  for  a  victim.  It  looked  just  fit  to  connect 
with  Charon's  ferry  and  carry  second-class  passengers  and 
dead-heads.  One  man  with  a  pair  of  saddle-bags  climbed 
into  it,  and  we  wondei'ed  if  he  meant  to  cross  the  river 
Styx  after  he  left  the  coach.  A  little  while  after,  we  saw 
an  eight-mule  team,  the  wagon  under  bare  hoops,  like  a 
11* 


258  BETWEEN   THE  GATES. 

woman's  dismantled  skirt,  creeping  along  in  the  distance 
like  a  procession  of  rats.  Whether  the  canvas  was  burned 
off  or  blown  off  no  one  could  tell.  Somebody  said  they 
were  going  to  a  mining  camp  in  the  mountains,  and 
they  are  quite  welcome  to  everything  they  can  get.  One 
man  said:  "Things  look  barren  as  Sarah,"  meaning  the 
African  Sahara  of  the  blundering  old  geographies.  An- 
other man  said:  "That's  so!  Barren  as  Sarah  —  before  she 
was  ninety  years  old!"  The  other  man  had  been  made 
mad  by  the  desolation,  and  a  Yucca  beside  the  track 
held  up  two  hands  full  of  brushes  in  deprecation  and  dis- 
tress. 

A  field  at  the  right  of  the  train,  white  as  a  cambric 
handkerchief,  sent  everybody  to  the  ice-pitcher  with  thirst. 
It  was  a  lake  of  salt.  A  drier  piece  of  waterscape  can- 
not be  found  between  Cancer  and  Capricorn.  The  salt 
was  piled  upon  the  shores  of  what  was  no  sea,  like  the 
snow-forts  of  the  Yankee  boys  in  New  England  winters, 
and  two  wagons  were  there  taking  on  a  load  of  chloride 
of  sodium.  Sodom  would  have  been  at  home  in  it,  and 
Gomorrah  also. 

This  traversing  a  desert  reclining  upon  a  sofa,  with 
your  lazy  feet  on  an  ottoman,  defrauds  a  man  out  of 
the  luxury  of  remembered  deprivation  and  danger.  We 
should  have  enjoyed  its  memory  more  had  there  been 
anything  struggled  through  and  escaped.  Set  a  fellow 
on  foot  behind  a  mule  bankrupt  of  thistles  and  with 
ears  wilted  down  with  the  drouth;  let  the  fellow's  hair 
turn  the  color  of  corn-silk  in  the  sun,  and  the  canteen 
at  his  side  tinkle  loudly  with  emptiness,  and  he  tighten 
his  belt  another  hole  to  gii-d  up  his  leanness  —  let  him 
come  to  some  blessed   edge   of   the   green  world   at   last, 


A   TRIP   TO   THE   TROPIC.  259 

with  a  soul   in    his   body  and   yet   to    be    saved,  and   his 
recollections  are  worth  keeping  and  telling. 

We  are  nearing  the  mountain  range  of  San  Fernando. 
The  entrance  of  the  tunnel  yawns  for  us  with  hospitable 
darkness.  We  enter  it  without  misgiving.  The  disas- 
tered  night  is  welcome.  The  avant-courier  of  a  moon 
rises  before  us  at  the  distant  end  of  the  tunnel.  It 
broadens  from  sickle  to  crescent,  from  crescent  to  full. 
We  pass  out  of  eclipse  into  what  Richelieu  always  de- 
clared there  is — "another  and  a  better  world." 

THE  CITY  OF  THE  ANGELS. 
Entering  the  tunnel  was  a  sort  of  dying  out  of  the 
waste  places,  and  emerging  on  the  other  side  was  a 
little  like  being  born  into  an  emerald  world.  We  hardly 
knew  how  much  we  missed  the  green  fields,  the  clear 
waters  and  the  human  homes,  till  we  saw  them  again. 
Could  the  moon  be  towed  alongside  the  earth  and  the 
twain  connected  by  an  unlighted  hall  a  mile  and  a  third 
long,  through  which  a  lunatic  could  come  toll-free  in 
ten  minutes,  the  contrast  could  hardly  be  finer.  And 
yet  to  see  the  valley  and  plains  of  Los  Angeles  in  mid- 
summer sometimes  throws  dust  in  the  eyes  of  enthusi- 
asm. Tree  and  shrub,  except  where  transfigured  with 
the  witchery  of  water,  are  powdery  as  a  miller's  coat, 
and  the  dry  fields  and  highways  are  thickly  and  waste- 
fully  strewed  with  Graham  flour  that  rises  without  yeast. 
Palm  leaves  are  as  gray  as  an  elephant's  ears,  and  por- 
tions of  the  landscape  have  a  disused  air,  as  if  beauty 
was  about  going  out  of  business  and  moving  away, 
while  the  heat  dances  a  hot- footed  hornpipe  upon  the  top 
of  your   hat,  and    gives  you   the    feeling    that   somebody 


260  BETWEEN   THE   OATES. 

has  slyly  slipped  an  athletic  and  attractive  mustard- 
plaster  between  your  shoulder-blades. 

I  can  almost  see  the  fur  of  indignation  rise  as  some 
Angelian  reads  this  paragraph,  but  then  we  reached  the 
city  of  "  Our  Lady "  at  high  noon  of  an  August  day, 
when  everything  is  in  curl-papers  like  a  woman's  hair 
before  breakfast,  and  it  was  an  hour  too  early  for  the 
salted  breeze  to  begin  to  blow  from  the  sea,  and  the 
grim  maps  of  the  benighted  regions  of  the  heathen  to 
be  washed  from  our  heated  faces,  and  the  cool  tinkling 
of  the  fountain  in  the  "  Pico  House  "  court  to  be  heard, 
where  tropic  vines  we  had  never  seen  were  climbing 
easily  and  noiselessly  about  in  cool  jackets  of  green. 

Then  there  is  ground  for  suspicion  that  the  warm 
welcome  we  received  from  Mr.  John  Osborne,  of  the 
Overland  Transfer  Company,  and  Colonel  Samuel  C.  Hough, 
of  the  "  Pico  House,"  to  both  of  whom  we  are  indebted 
for  attentions,  as  unwearied  as  they  were  grateful,  may 
have  given  the  thermometers  an  additional  lift  and  made 
us  a  few  degrees  warmer  than  if  they  had  turned  the 
cold  shoulder.  In  an  action  for  slander,  let  the  jury 
bring  me  in:  "Not  guilty,  and  so  say  we  all!" 

Whoever  asks  where  Los  Angeles  is,  to  him  I  shall 
say:  across  a  desert  without  wearying,  beyond  a  moun- 
tain without  climbing;  where  heights  stand  away  from 
it,  where  ocean  winds  breathe  upon  it,  where  the  gold- 
mounted  lime-hedges  border  it;  where  the  flowers  catch 
fire  with  beauty;  among  the  orange  groves;  beside  the 
olive  trees;  where  the  pomegranates  -vyear  calyx  crowns; 
where  the  figs  of  Smyrna  are  turning;  where  the  ba- 
nanas of  Honolulu  are  blossoming;  where  the  chestnuts 
of  Italy  are  dropping;  where  Sicilian  lemons  are  ripen- 


A   TKIP  TO   THE   TROPIC.  261 

ing;  wbere  the  almond  trees  are  shining;  through  that 
Alameda  of  walnuts  and  apricots;  through  this  avenue  of 
willows  and  poplars;  in  vineyards  six  Sabbath-days'  jour- 
neys across  them;  in  the  midst  of  a  garden  of  thirty-six 
square  miles  —  there  is  Los  Angeles. 

The  city  is  the  product  of  one  era  of  barbarism,  two 
or  three  kinds  of  civilizations,  and  an  interregnum, 
and  is  about  as  old  as  Washington's  body-servant  when 
he  died  the  last  time,  for  it  is  in  its  ninety-seventh  year. 
You  meet  native  Californians,  wide-hatted  Mexicans,  now 
and  then  a  Spaniard  of  the  old  blue  stock,  a  sprinkle  of 
Indians  and  the  trousered  man  in  his  shirt  and  cue.  You 
see  the  old  broad-brimmed,  thick-walled  adobes  that  be- 
tray the  early  day.  You  hear  somebody  swearing  Span- 
ish, grumbling  German,  vociferating  Italian,  parleying  in 
French,  rattling  China  and  talking  English. 

You  read  Spanish,  French,  German  and  English  news- 
papers, all  printed  in  Los  Angeles.  It  is  many-tongued 
as  a  Mediterranean  sea-port,  and  hospitable  as  a  grandee. 

Yesterday  and  to-day  are  strangely  blended.  You 
stroll  among  thousands  of  vines  that  are  ninety  years 
old  and  yet  in  full  bearing.  You  pass  a  garden  just 
redeemed  from  the  dust  and  ashes  of  the  wilderness. 
You  pluck  an  orange  from  a  tree  that  was  venerable 
when  Charles  the  Fourth  was  king  of  Spain,  and  you 
meet  a  man  who  has  sat  down  to  wait  six  years  for  his 
first  fruit.  A  drive  through  the  old  quarter  of  the  city 
takes  you  to  the  heart  of  Mexico,  with  the  low-eaved 
fronts,  the  windows  sunk  like  niches  in  the  walls,  the 
Italic-faced  old  porticoes,  the  lazy  dogs  dozing  about  in 
the  sun.  In  ten  minutes  you  are  whirled  between 
two  long  lines  of  new-made  Edens  whence  Eve  was  never 


3()2  BETWEEN   THE   P.ATES. 

driven;  such  wealth  of  color,  such  clouds  of  fragrance, 
such  luxuriance  of  vegetation,  and  nothing  nearer  like 
the  "  waving  sword  at  the  Eastward "  of  the  first  home- 
stead than  the  slashed  sabre-like  leaves  of  the  banana 
that  holds  up  its  rich,  strange,  liver-colored  blossoms  as 
if  it  were  proud  of  them. 

The  Pueblo  of  flie  Queen  of  the  Angels  was  founded 
by  the  proclamation  of  Governor  Felipe  De  Nieve,  almost 
a  century  ago,  and  was  the  Mexican  capital  of  Alta  Cal- 
ifornia. You  are  startled  the  first  morning  by  a  battle 
of  cracked  bells,  as  if  ringing  from  the  necks  of  a  gal- 
loping and  demoralized  herd  of  cattle  stampeding  through 
the  city  streets.  It  is  the  pitiful  complaint  of  the  disabled 
chime  of  green  bells  in  the  old  Parish  Church  of  Los 
Angeles,  and  you  stroll  over  to  look  at  the  ancient 
structure.  A  gray-haired  padre,  leaning  heavily  upon  a 
young  priest,  "  all  shaven  and  shorn,"  comes  slowly  out. 
The  inscription  over  the  jjortal  is:  "Los  Fieles  de  esta 
PaiToquia  a  la  Reina  de  Los  Angeles'''' — The  Faithful  of 
this  Parish  to  the  Queen  of  the  Angels.  The  church 
has  a  stoi'y  and  has  been  restored.  The  inscription  for- 
merly ran:  ^^Los  Pohres"" — the  poor,  instead  of  the  faith- 
ful, shadowing  the  fact  that  at  one  time  it  was  the  mite 
of  the  widow  and  not  the  wealth  of  the  hidalgo  that 
sustained  the  mission. 

THE  ORANGE  GROVES. 
My  idea  of  an  orange  grove  was  of  an  orchard  where 
the  trees  laden  with  golden  fruit  sprang  up  from  a  smooth, 
green  turf  "of  broken  emeralds,"  that  invited  you  to  sit 
down  on  the  dapple  of  a  shadow  every  few  minutes  and 
be   happy;   of  ti'ees  with    a   tropic   brightness   of    foliage 


A    TRIP  TO   THE   TROPIC.  263 

that  would  dispose  me  to  listen  to  such  fowls  as  the  bul- 
bul  and  sing  gay  little  canzonets  in  two  parts.  Now  an 
apple  orchard  is  a  cheerful  place;  it  is  spangled  with 
clover;  its  fruit  is  of  all  colors  but  indigo;  it  has  rob- 
ins and  sparrows;  its  sturdy  arms  extend  over  you  in  a 
sort  of  pomonic  benediction  and  invite  you  to  perch  in 
the  Seek-no-further  —  or,  as  we  called  it,  the  signifider, 
but  what  signifies?  —  or  the  Pound  Sweeting. 

Nothing  of  all  this  belongs  to  an  oi'ange  grove.  The 
trees  are  tall,  straight,  symmetrical,  not  friendly  in  their 
way  but  a  little  stately,  as  if  they  should  say:  "Behold, 
we  are  oranges!"  and  not  much  more  shadow  about  their 
roots  than  a  Lombardy  Poplar.  There  is  no  individual- 
ity. Every  tree  resembles  every  other  tree.  The  earth 
is  bare  and  tilled  like  a  garden.  When  you  feel  like 
reposing  in  a  well-weeded  onion  bed  you  can  take  lodg- 
ings in  an  orange  grove.  Driving  through  the  splendid 
lines  of  trees  numbering  up  to  the  tens  of  thousands, 
the  whole  year  hung  upon  a  single  one,  from  the  deli- 
cate white  blossom  that  graces  the  bridal  veil  to  the 
baby  fruit,  small  as  a  walnut;  to  the  tint  of  yellow 
struggling  through  the  green;  to  the  untarnished  gold  of 
the  rounded  and  ripened  fruit;  the  air,  like  a  swinging 
censer,  heavy  with  fragrance,  and  filled  with  the  hum  of 
bees;  the  lighter-leafed  regiments  of  lemons,  with  their 
bright  gilt  orreries  of  fruit;  the  lime  hedges,  dotted 
with  diamond  editions  of  the  full-grown  mothers  of  lem- 
onade; the  cactus  fences,  all  alive,  slowly  climbing  over 
themselves  in  diagonals  of  serried  pin-cushions;  the  ba- 
nanas bursting  into  barbaric  luxuriance;  the  earth  ter- 
raced ofl"  for  the  water  to  flow  in,  and,  this  moment, 
coursing  along  the  checker-work  of  channels  and  shining 


264  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

in  the  sun;  the  feathery  plumage  of  the  pepper  tree, 
touched  up  with  spangles  and  bugles  of  brilliant  crimson 
and  red;  the  fan-palms  slowly  lifting  and  lowering  their 
great  hands  in  perpetual  salute, —  all  these  scenes,  lovely 
as  anything  in  the  vale  of  Cashmere,  seem  to  rebuke 
your  dear  rugged  home  at  the  Eastward  of  Eden,  and 
you  grow  grave  when  you  meant  to  be  gay,  and  are  not 
quite  sure  a  Rhode  Island  Greening,  and  a  dough-nut 
with  an  orthodox  twist,  are  not  better  than  oranges,  ba- 
nanas and  June  all  the  year  long.  Here  is  an  orangery 
of  six  acres,  and  five  hundred  trees  fourteen  years  old, 
that  filled  thirty-eight  hundred  boxes  the  last  season,  and 
its  owner  sold  the  crop  for  six  thousand  dollars  in  ad- 
vance. A  man  with  a  counterpane  of  a  farm  and  six 
hundred  orange  trees  can  sit  in  the  shade  and  draw  a 
Star-preacher's  salary  without  passing  the  plate.  The 
orange  is  the  true  jMmum  aurantium  of  California,  the 
"apples  of  gold"  of  the  old  Scriptures. 

THE  VINEYARDS. 
The  tillage  of  the  vine  is  the  oldest  in  the  world.  It 
grows  in  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New.  It  is  a  native  of 
the  Odes  of  Horace,  and  thrives  in  Grecian  song.  "  Vine  " 
and  "  wine "  have  stood  up  to  be  married  by  rhymsters 
■}  wkTe,  t^o  hundred  thousand  times  in  twenty  years.  If  to 
one  city  more  than  another,  of  all  cities  I  have  seen,  belongs 
the  iirhs  in  horto  of  Chicago's  seal,  Los  Angeles  is  the 
place.  It  is  not  only  a  city  in  the  garden,  but  a  garden 
in  the  city.  The  two  are  interwoven  like  the  blossoming 
warp  and  woof  of  a  Wilton  carpet.  We  visited  the  vine- 
yard and  wine-presses  of  Don  Matteo  Keller.  It  is  in 
the  heart  of  the  city,  and  contains  one  hundred  and  thirty- 


A   TRIP   TO   THE   TROPIC.  265 

seven  acres,  and  has  two  hundred  and  ten  varieties  of 
grapes.  In  the  season  ten  thousand  gallons  of  wine  are 
produced  daily,  and  there  were  two  hundred  thousand 
gallons  ripening  in  the  vaults.  I  looked  upon  "the  wine 
when  it  is  red,"  when  it  "  moveth  itself  aright,"  like  pure 
amber  in  the  cup;  when  it  looked  like  the  golden  haze 
of  Indian  Summer.  White,  port,  sherry,  Angelica,  are 
among  the  wines.  The  semi-tropical  zone  of  Los  Angeles 
county  contains  twenty-eight  hundred  square  miles,  of 
which  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  are  under  cultiva- 
tion. It  is  the  zone  of  three  rivers,  the  Los  Angeles,  the 
San  Gabriel,  and  the  Santa  Ana,  and  is  guarded  by  two 
mountain  ranges,  the  San  Bernardino  and  San  Gabriel, 
four  being  saints,  and  one  full  of  angels.  The  Spanish- 
Mexican  race  beat  the  world  in  verbal  magnificence.  They 
will  bankrupt  Castile,  Aragon,  and  the  Halls  of  the  Mon- 
tezumas,  to  christen  an  adobe  chapel,  primitive  as  a  Dutch 
tile,  with  saintly  names  enough  to  man  St.  Peter's,  at 
Rome.  Sometimes  their  religion  is  imposing,  and  their 
piety  an  imposition. 

A  vineyard  is  a  torrid  region  in  August,  with  hardly 
shadow  enough  to  shelter  a  sheep.  The  broad  leaves  of  the 
vines  shining  in  the  sun  are  warm  to  look  at;  the  great 
purple  clusters,  like  those  the  two  pictured  Israelites  are 
bringing  home  from  the  Promised  Land  swung  upon  a 
pole,  and  the  tip  grapes  of  the  pyramids  touching  the 
ground,  are  all  about  you  as  you  walk.  You  are  in  Col- 
onel B.  D.  Wilson's  vineyard  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
acres,  a  quarter  of  a  million  vines  around  you,  two  and  a 
half  million  pounds  of  grapes  slung  up  by  the  stems,  and 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  gallons  of  wine  "  in  the 
original  package." 
12 


266  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

Let  us  escape  to  a  great  willow.  Let  us  strike  into 
the  stately  hall  with  its  walls  of  live  orange  and  its  cor- 
nices of  leaves.  You  are  a  little  afraid  of  scorpions,  but 
people  tell  you  that  while  not  much,  in  the  way  of  per- 
sonal beauty,  they  are  not  near  so  fatal  as  Daniel  Boone's 
rifle.  Looking  in  the  Dictionary,  you  find  it  is  "  a  pedi- 
palpous,  pulmonary  arachnidan,"  with  a  pair  of  forceps 
coming  out  of  its  forehead.  This  is  certainly  pretty  bad, 
but  in  the  next  sentence  Webster  comforts  you  with  — 
"  very  seldom  destructive  of  life."  Tarantulas  also.  My 
friend  cracked  one  over  "  the  dead  line "  with  his  whijj- 
lash  just  now,  and  the  party  flung  its  eyes  about 
regardless  of  expense  as  it  strolled  over  a  dry  plain.  But 
then,  to  balance  the  books,  we  have  —  Los  Angeles:  Cr. 
by  musquitoes,  none;   frost-bitten  ears,  none. 

"A  BEE  RANCH." 

I  quote  it  because  it  is  none  of  my  verbal  sins.  To 
call  a  place  where  bees  are  harbored  and  robbed,  a  ranch, 
is  about  as  bad  as  to  name  the  grazing  range  of  lowing 
herds  a  cattle  academy.  But  to  quote  Webster  at  a  Cali- 
fornian  because  he  confounds  hacienda  with  rancho  would 
only  be  to  provoke  him  to  make  a  Dictionary  of  his  own ; 
so  I  leave  him  to  "  band "  his  sheep  and  herd  his  bees 
as  he  pleases.  If  bees  are  either  cattle,  sheep  or  hoi*ses, 
then  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  bee  ranch. 

The  sun  beat,  like  a  drummer  in  a  spasm,  upon  the 
parchment-dry  earth  as  we  rode  ten  miles  out  to  a  bee 
village.  It  was  some  comfort  to  see  the  mountain,  "  Gray 
Back,"  snowy  as  a  bride's  cake,  with  its  undated  frosting, 
even  if  it  was  ninety  miles  away;  and  a  grand  orange- 
tree  avenue  to  a  vineyard,  with    its   deep  green   foliage, 


A   TRIP   TO   THE   TROPIC.  267 

suggested  a  sort  of  "  Abraham's-  bosom "  Paradise  to  us 
poor  feverish  children  of  Dives  in  the  valley  below. 

Stumbling  over  the  mountain  toes,  and  up  to  the  in- 
step of  the  foot-hills,  we  entered  a  Bee  Town.  There,  were 
the  white,  flat-roofed  cottages,  hundreds  of  them,  in  reg- 
ular streets,  and  the  bees,  Italian  hybrids,  with  less  gold 
lace  on  their  uniforms  than  our  Eastern  pagans  of  the 
old  straw  hives,  were  coming  and  going.  If  you  can 
keep  from  sneezing,  and  are  not  taken  with  St.  Vitus's 
dance,  and  your  horses  never  emulate  Job's  chargers,  and 
say  "  ha  ha ! "  you  are  as  safe  as  if  nobody  in  that  com- 
munity carried  concealed  weapons.  The  population  of  this 
village  —  it  was  never  incorporated  on  account  of  the 
taxes  —  is  not  less  than  five  millions.  New  York,  with 
all  its  dependencies,  would  be  a  mere  suburb.  The  pro- 
prietor is  a  courteous  Southron,  lean,  and  long  in  the 
flank  as  a  panther,  and  children  as  thick  about  him  as 
the  young  shoots  of  a  cottonwood.  The  bee  is  the  most 
overworked  animal  in  California,  and  is  miserably  im- 
posed upon  by  the  only  creature  that  can  match  him  in 
geometry. 

His  working  day  begins  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing and  lasts  fifteen  hours.  Often  so  far  from  home  at 
sunset  that  he  cannot  return,  he  puts  up  for  the  night 
at  some  wayside  inn,  and  you  often  see  him  coming 
slowly  in  at  sunrise  with  his  heavy  burden.  In  more 
inclement  climates  a  night  out  is  a  life  out,  for  the  bee 
"  that  hesitates  is  lost."  His  usual  foraging  range  is  a 
circle  about  twelve  miles  in  diameter,  and  he  pasturas 
upon  plains  and  mountains  that  a  crow  of  modei*ate 
means  would  never  halt  at.  He  extracts  honey  from  the 
wild  sage,  willow,  wild  buckwheat,  barberry,  coflFee  bean, 


268  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

sumac;  and  the  greasewood,  a  disagreeable  plant,  as  open 
to  a  honey  suspicion  as  a  lump  of  putty,  affords  an  excel- 
lent article.  That  of  the  orange  blossom  is  golden  and 
oily,  and  good  enough  to  follow  the  flower  and  sweeten 
the  honeymoon.  "  How,"  said  I  to  the  patroon  of  the  town, 
"  is  it  that  the  bee  derives  the  harmless  luxury  from 
noxious  weeds?"  "Ah,"  he  replied,  "bees  are  the  best 
chemists  in  the  world.  They  never  err.  They  can  get 
« the  unadulterated  honey  safely  out  and  leave  a  strychnine 
crystal  untouched.  Bees  are  not  like  folks.  Did  you  ever 
hear  of  their  committing  suicide?" 

"  Yes,  we  keep  'em  to  work.  When  the  comb  is  filled 
and  capped,  we  just  uncap  it  by  passing  a  hot  knife-blade 
over  it,  fasten  the  comb  in  this  hollow  cylinder  here,  set 
it  going,  the  honey  is  all  whirled  out  into  a  reservoir 
below,  we  restore  the  empty  cells,  and  the  puzzled  bees 
go  at  it  again." 

A  curious  case  of  litigation  just  then  was  exciting  a 
little  interest.  The  owner  of  a  vineyard  was  the  apia- 
rist's next  neighbor.  Now  a  bee  will  not  puncture  an 
unbroken  grape,  but  when  it  is  crushed  the  honey-maker 
is  its  best  customer.  He  drinks  like  a  Rhinelander. 
When  the  season  for  wine-making  came,  a  few  bees  went 
over  in  a  friendly  way,  though  taking  their  rapiers 
along,  returned  to  the  village  with  a  good  report,  and 
the  whole  community  never  stood  "  on  the  order  of  their 
going,"  but  made  for  the  press,  drove  off  the  workmen 
and  took  possession.  The  air  was  fairly  dusty  with  bees. 
Where  the  grapes  are  trodden  out  as  in  Bible  times,  and 
as  sometimes  in  California,  though  nobody  owns  it,  the 
lazy,  bare-foot  tramp  is  accelerated  to  a  quick-step  out  of 
the  neighborhood.     Therefore  the  patroon  was  ordered  to 


A   TRIP  TO   THE  TROPIC.  269 

keep  his  bees  at  home  and  sued  for  trespass.  But  how 
can  such  unruly  flocks  and  herds  be  fenced  in?  And  so 
the  defendant  rejoined  that  the  vine-dresser  could  protect 
his  press  with  a  wire  gauze  that  would  keep  the  busy 
aggressors  on  the  right  side  of  it,  which  is  the  outside. 
The  case  of  Wine  versus  Honey  is  one  of  tlje  legal 
novelties  of  the  farthest  West.  Looking  down  street  I 
noticed  a  boiling  cloud  of  bees  apparently  in  excited  con- 
sultation, and  suggested  to  my  friends  that  "  to  be  or  not 
to  be "  was  the  question,  and  "  wouldn't  we  better  be 
going?"  and  we  got  safely  out  of  town.  Each  swarm 
last  year  put  up  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  that 
brought  twelve  dollars.  To  be  the  owner  of  five  hun- 
dred hives  is  better  than  to  be  a  member  of  the  Cabinet. 

THE  MISSION  OF  SAN  GABRIEL. 

It  was  a  splendid  pilgrimage  ten  miles  out,  into  the 
valley  of  San  Gabriel  and  the  old  Mission.  To  the  north 
is  the  Coast  Range  with  a  white  proof-sheet  of  winter 
pinned  upon  Gray  Back  like  a  vandyke,  beyond  us  a 
rolling  plain  with  samples,  you  would  say,  of  all  sorts  of 
soil  from  cinder-and-ashes  and  gravel  to  dark  loam,  a 
sort  of  jumble  of  the  remnants  of  a  geological  ware- 
house. But  no  matter  about  the  soil.  All  you  want  is 
a  watering-pot  or  a  waterspout,  or  something  rather  wet. 
All  fruits  and  flowers  are  spelled  out  with  the  one  word 
irrigation.  On  this  plain,  where  the  horses'  hoofs  tick  like 
nail  hammers,  too  hard-baked  for  a  cracker  and  not  quite 
hard  enough  for  a  brick,  grass  springs  rank  and  strong 
from  December  to  June,  then  makes  hay  of  itself  of  its 
own  accord,  and  lasts  out  the  year. 

We    begin    to    see    orchards,  vineyards,  cottages;    the 


270  BETWEEN   THE  GATES. 

magnificent  orange  Alamedas,  the  walnut  walks,  the  fig- 
tree  lanes.  At  last  we  reach  the  quaint  old  Mission  vil- 
lage where  the  adobe  dwellings  like  last  year's  birds' 
nests  are  lost  and  forgotten  in  shrubs,  vines  and  flowers. 
Some  Indians  and  squaws  were  sauntering  about.  It  was 
hot  as  Cayenne  and  quiet  as  Sleepy  Hollow.  We  were  at 
one  of  the  ancient  posts  in  the  picket-lines  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan Fathers.  We  looked  at  the  clock.  It  marked  the 
year  of  our  Lord  1774.  Here,  one  hundred  and  four 
years  ago,  the  Mission  was  established  in  the  uttermost 
wilderness.  Not  a  handful  of  clay  had  been  moulded  for 
any  City  of  the  Angels.  We  approach  the  gray  Gothic 
church  of  San  Gabriel,  the  buttresses  projecting  at  inter- 
vals along  walls  that  are  five  and  a  half  feet  thick, 
whose  foundations  were  laid  before  the  Minute-men  of 
Concord  and  Lexington  had  rallied  out. 

A  woman  unlocked  the  ancient  door,  and  bare-headed 
and  silent  we  entered  in.  Some  neophyte  had  written, 
"  Hats  oflF.  Pray  don't  talk,"  but  with  the  thoughtful 
there  was  no  need.  Hollow  as  a  cave  and  solemn  as  a 
tomb,  the  floor  spoke  back  to  the  footfall.  We  saw  the 
censers  and  the  saints,  the  crosses  and  the  crowns,  the 
tattered  tapestries  that  came  from  Spain  to  be  unrolled 
in  the  desert,  all  faded  like  an  old  man's  eyes.  We 
stood,  and  not  irreverently,  upon  the  worn  stone  dished 
like  the  scale  of  Justice,  by  feet  that  turned  long  ago 
into  leaves  and  flowers.  Here  clouds  of  incense  and  ves- 
pers rose  harmonious,  and  the  nocturn,  a  sweet  song  in 
the  night,  deepened  into  matins  in  the  morning.  We  did 
not  hear  the  chime  of  bells  that  came  from  the  Span- 
ish furnace  rich  with  gold  and  silver  offerings  that  were 
flung  into  it,  and  are  heard   in   every  tone  of  the  neck- 


A   TRIP   TO   THE   TROPIC.  271 

lace  of  melody  even  until  this  day.  They  are  trinkets 
as  safe  from  all  thieves  as  treasures  laid  up  in  Heaven. 
Borne  across  the  sea  to  a  wilderness  without  a  name, 
they  have  rung  out  upon  the  charmed  air  for  a  hundred 
years  like  three  bell-birds  of  Brazil.  But  as  has  been 
well  said  by  Major  Ben.  C.  Trumajt,  of  Los  Angeles,  they 
are  only  links  in  the  endless  chain  of  melody  flung  from 
San  Diego  to  the  Red  River  of  the  North. 

"The  bells  of  the  Roman  Mission 
That  call  from  their  turrets  twain, 
To  the  boatman  on  the  river. 
To  the  hunter  on  the  plain." 

We  went  through  a  side  door  into  the  poor,  neglected 
city  of  the  silent.  It  has  survived  grief  and  friends.  It 
is  too  old.  Gray,  wooden  crosses  lean  this  way  and  that, 
over  graves  that  are  nameless.  Sealed  tombs  are  crum- 
bling. It  lies  there  under  the  church  wall  in  the  glare  of 
the  sun,  the  autograph  of  death  and  desolation  scrawled 
upon  the  dusty,  thirsty  and  insatiate  earth.  It  is  conse- 
crated ground,  but  dishonored  by  neglect.  What  would 
we  have?  Is  there  more  than  one  man  that  can  weep  at 
the  grave  of  Adam?  Does  anybody  set  pansies  on  the 
grave  of  his  mother-in-law's  mother-in-law? 

THE  GARDEN. 

The  Mission  Garden  is  not  as  old  as  the  Garden  of 
Eden,  but  it  was  a  cultivated  spot,  for  all  that,  when 
there  was  not  a  State  between  Pennsylvania  and  the 
Pacific  ocean  but  the  state  of  Nature,  and  when  saddles, 
bateaux,  dug-outs  and  moccasins  were  the  only  means  of 
conveyance.  We  came  to  a  high  wall  and  a  low  adobe, 
and  halted  in  the  shade  of  a  great  palm  seventy  feet 
high    planted   by  a  Franciscan   two   generations   ago.     It 


272  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

was  my  first  acquaintance  with  the  tree  where  it  seemed 
to  be  at  home.  Its  trunk  was  curiously  fluted,  and  it 
spread  its  great  palms  as  if  it  felt  and  enjoyed  the  sun- 
shine. Our  knocks  at  the  gate  brought  the  reply  of  a 
couple  of  dogs,  and  if  I  can  judge  of  the  canine  gamut, 
I  should  say  those  dogs  were  hungry,  and  barked  in  the 
key  of  C  sharp.  They  leaped,  and  looked  through  the 
cracks  of  the  wall,  and  snuffed  like  a  camel  that  smells 
water,  barking  their  way  up  and  down  those  cracks  as  a 
boy  runs  his  mouth  along  the  holes  of  a  harmonica  and 
blows.  It  was  a  good  thing  for  them  that  the  wall  was 
too  high  for  me  to  get  at  them,  and  I  said,  my  voice 
trembling  with  compassion,  "Let  us  not  worry  those 
poor" — I  was  just  about  to  say  "dumb  brutes"  when 
one  of  them  put  his  mouth  to  a  crevice  not  more  than 
a  foot  from  my  ear  and  barked  me  six  feet  from  the 
fence  at  one  jump  —  so  I  said,  "poor  brutes  any  more. 
Let  us  go  away.  The  merciful  man  is  merciful  to  the 
beast." 

My  humane  counsel -prevailed,  and  we  all  went  to  the 
low  door  of  the  adobe.  A  battered  old  hatchet  tethered 
by  a  string  hung  from  the  door-post  for  a  knocker,  and 
some  one  lifted  it  and  smote  the  heavy  gray  portal,  and 
a  Spanish  woman  opened  it  and  admitted  us  with  a  smile. 
She  was  eighty,  and  no  dentist's  window  ever  showed  so 
handsome  a  set  of  teeth,  even,  white,  none  gone,  and  hers 
by  birthi'ight;  and  her  hair,  just  silvered  to  the  tint  of 
beauty,  was  as  rich  and  heavy  as  the  mane  of  Bucephalus. 
We  saw  the  fire-place  wide  and  deep  as  a  cave  and  the 
quaint   smoky  furniture,  and  went  out   into   the   garden. 

Here  we  were,  where  the  Franciscan  Fathers  had 
paced,  and  veiled   sisters   flitted   in  the  morning  twilight 


A   TRIP  TO   THE   TROPIC.  273 

of  the  present  century;  in  the  early  afternoon  of  the  last. 
Here  was  the  garden  of  olives.  We  stood  under  fig-trees 
hung  with  money-purses  filled  with  seeds,  that  paid  their 
way  with  just  such  coin  when  the  janitrix  of  fourscore 
was  a  baby  in  arms.  Here  were  orange-trees  that  were 
bearing  in  1800,  and  sweet  lemons  and  sweet  limes  from 
Barcelona.  The  scabbards  of  Toledo  blades  have  clanked 
along  these  rambling  alleys,  and  boots  of  Cordovan  leather 
printed  oflP  the  dust.  Here  was  a  Mission  grape  vine 
with  a  gnarled  trunk  like  a  great  tree,  and  mother  of 
the  vines  of  the  valley,  that  came  over  from  Spain  in  a 
three-storied  castle  of  a  galleon  in  1798,  and  beat  grandly 
up  the  bay  to  the  embarcadero  of  the  Mission  of  San 
Gabriel.  But  it  is  not  worth  while  to  waste  any  senti- 
ment upon  the  place,  for,  truth  to  tell,  it  is  not  a  bit 
more  like  Irving's  Alhambra  than  a  Scotch  kale  patch  is 
like  the  Queen's  gardens  at  Kew. 

There  is  no  implement  on  the  premises  less  than  a 
half  century  old.  The  walks  are  dusty,  the  borders  are 
ragged,  the  trees  have  grown  wanton  and  willful.  Every- 
thing is  a  hundred  years  old  but  the  madre  and  the 
dogs.  Those  dogs!  Come  to  see  them,  one  weighs  less 
than  eight  pounds,  and  his  bark  is  bigger  than  his  body. 
But  the  earth  has  not  forgotten  its  cunning,  nor  the  sun 
been  shorn 'of  his  glory.  There  is  no  hurry  here  in  any- 
thing but  growing.  Kill  the  dogs,  and  Sterne's  starling 
would  never  have  sung  here  to  get  out,  and  Cowper's  hare 
would  have  slept  undisturbed  in  her  form.  The  old  glo- 
ries of  the  Mission  have  departed.  As  we  filed  out  of  the 
door  some  one  said  a  friendly  word  to  the  woman.  I  can 
see  her  pleasant  mouth  as,  with  a  smile  flickering  across 
her  white  teeth,  as  if  some  one   passed   by  with  a  light, 


274  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

and  a  hand  pvishing  back  her  silver  hair,  she  said  "Gra- 
cias,  t\  Dios!"  and  so  we  went  out  from  the  old  garden 
on  an  errand. 

Went  out  to  see  a  girl!  And  her  name,  it  is  Ulailie 
Perez  Geuillen.  Her  father  was  a  .soldier  in  Lower  Cali- 
fornia, her  mother  followed  the  regiment,  and  she  was 
born  in  the  Presidio  Loretta.  But  the  girl  had  gone 
visiting,  and  she  has  figured  in  a  lawsuit.  She  had  some 
friends  who  wanted  to  take  her  to  the  Centennial  Expo- 
sition, and  others  who  resisted.  So,  one  party  stole  her, 
and  the  other  replevied  her.  When  the  Mission  church 
was  built  and  the  Mission  garden  was  planted,  Ulailie 
was  old  enough  to  catch  a  bee  in  a  hollyhock,  to  tell  her 
beads  and  say  her  paternoster.  She  is  seven  years  older 
than  the  United  States  of  America,  for  she  was  born  in 
1769.  She  retains  her  faculties,  for  though  she  has  not 
danced  a  fandango  or  beat  the  castanets  in  eighty  or  nine- 
ty years,  she  knows  a  tai'antula  from  a  tortilla  with  the 
naked  eye.  She  can  read  as  readily  without  spectacles 
as  she  did  at  eighteen.  The  fact,  however,  is  not  so 
noteworthy  as  it  would  be  had  Ulailie  ever  learned  to 
read  at  all. 

The  return  to  Los  Angeles  was  in  the  burden  and 
heat  of  the  day,  and  the  "  Pico  House"  was  grateful  as 
the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land.  Thinking 
over  the  facts,  I  must  express  the  conviction  that  no 
place  between  the  oceans  and  Noi'th  of  the  Gulf  of  Mex- 
ico offers  so  delightful  a  refuge  from  the  inclemency  of 
hyperborean  winters  as  Los  Angeles,  and  I  trust  it  will 
prove  in  the  future  as  it  has  been  in  the  past,  the  city 
of  good  angels  to  thousands  of  fugitives  from  the  "  tem- 
pestuous wind  called  Euroclydon." 


A   TRIP  TO   THE   TROPIC. 


275 


Returning  from  San  Gabriel  to  the  city  a-flying,  we 
sat  in  the  pleasant  court  of  the  "Pico  House"  with 
pleasant  friends,  and  heard  the  story  of  a  running  vine 
that  is  yet  hurrying  about,  looking  for  Longfellow's  im- 
mortal Latin  comparative.  The  runner,  on  a  growing  night, 
mounted  a  ladder  of  pencil-marks  on  the  frame,  at  the 
rate  of  an  inch  an  hour,  and  several  truthful  gentlemen 
watched  it  go  up,  and  not  one  of  them  could  have  over- 
taken that  vine  in  all  night  if  he  had  been  compelled 
to  climb  the  same  ladder! 

Our  brief  visit  was  ended,  and  bidding  good-by  to  the 
friends  we'  had  found,  we  betook  ourselves  to  the  moun- 
tains and  the  desert  and  the  valleys,  and  with  bright 
memories  of  the  old  Franciscan  paradise,  we  became  San 
Franciscans  ourselves. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 


KINGS  OF  SOCIETY. 

IN  old  California  the  Agamemnons,  the  kings  of  men, 
were  the  cattle-kings.  They  were  the  leaders  of  soci- 
ety. Their  daughters  were  the  belles  of  balls  by  virtue 
of  the  herds  their  fathers  owned.  The  crack  of  the  herd- 
er's whip  was  music.  Over  tens  of  thousands  of  acres, 
tens  of  thousands  of  cattle  ranged  at  will.  The  ranches 
were  principalities  and  duchies.  In  Europe  their  masters 
would  have  been  dukes  and  princes.  The  blue  blood  of 
California  was  the  blood  of  a  bullock.  Below  them  in 
the  social  scale  were  the  owners  of  swine,  but  bristles 
had  no  entrance  into  the  bellowing  realm  where  tossing 
horns  were  the  cornucopias.  Bitter  were  the  envyings  of 
the  daughters  of  the  household  of  pork,  and  many  a 
swineherd  has  yielded  to  their  importunities  and  turned 
bacon  into  beef.  And  why  is  not  beef  as  good  a  basis 
for  position  as  bullion?  "Answer  me  that  and  unyoke!" 
Then  came  the  mining  monarchs  and  the  mighty  shep- 
herds, and  the  grain  potentates,  and  the  railroad  mag- 
nates. Fortunes  of  silver  and  gold  in  a  week;  broad  har- 
vests controlled  by  the  scratch  of  one  man's  awkward 
pen.  A  railroad  must  traverse  the  broad  State,  or  it  is 
a  bagatelle.  In  all  this  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  safe 
mediocrity.  Think  of  a  country  where  it  is  possible  to 
say,  as  of  Colonel  W.  W.  Hollister,  of  Santa  Barbara:  "  He 
used  to  be  in  the  sheep  business,  but  is  now  nearly  out  of 

876  /. 


KIKGS   OF   SOCIETY.  277 

it,  having  only  fifty  thousand  left,  a  remnant  of  his  won- 
derful bands,"  and  this  because  he  must  look  after  his 
almond  orchard  of  fifty-four  thousand  trees.  What  is  a 
ranchman  of  tvCo  hundred  pitiful  acres,  that  are  just 
standing  room  for  his  feet  to  save  his  being  crowded  out 
of  social  existence?  The  four  B's  of  California  are  bread, 
beef,  bacon  and  bullion. 

Visit  Dr.  Glenn's  "little farm  well  tilled,"  lying  on 
the  west  bank  of  the  Sacramento,  with  a  river  front  of 
thirty  miles,  with  its  twenty-three  .thousand  acres  under 
cultivation,  fifteen  thousand  of  wheat  and  six  hundred 
of  barley,  its  fifteen  hundred  horses  and  mules,  and  its 
hundreds  of  men.  Think  of  forty-nine  gang-plows  going 
at  once;  harvest  machinery  driven  by  three  engines;  har- 
rows enough  to  demand  the  muscle  and  patience  of  two 
hundred  mules.  Think  of  a  harvest  time  kindly  distrib- 
uted through  the  year,  from  the  fifteenth  of  May  to  the 
first  of  October,  making  all  these  things  possible.  See 
that  field  of  alfalfa.  It  yielded  two  tons  an  acre  in 
March,  and  was  cut  six  times  during  the  season. 

What  would  Joel  Barlow,  poet-laureate  of  maize,  have 
said  to  such  a  grouping  of  the  seasons  in  one  landscape 
and  day,  as  this:  Corn  in  the  blade,  corn  in  the  tassel, 
corn  in  the  silk,  corn  in  the  milk,  corn  in  the  gold,  corn 
in  the  heap?  And  the  first  shall  overtake  the  second,  and 
the  second  the  third  —  a  sort  of  Grecian  torch  race  along 
the  line  of  almost  perennial  harvests.  Make  us  up  a  bou- 
quet of  May,  June,  July,  and  September,  and  tie  them  with 
a  ribbon  of  Longfellow's  verse  to  grace  this  story: 

"And  the  maize-field  grew  and  ripened. 
Till  it  stood  in  all  the  gplendor 
Of  its  garments  green  and  yellow, 
Of  its  tassels  and  its  plumage.' 


278  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

Think  of  a  single  vine  in  Yuba  County  bearing  twen- 
ty-six hundred  pounds  of  genuine  squash  in  a  year,  equal 
to  the  manufacture  of  two  thousand  Thanksgiving  pies; 
of  a  eucalyptus  four  feet  in  diameter  and  sixty  feet  high, 
that  was  in  the  seed  six  years  ago;  of  a  tomato  plant 
laden  with  love-apples  the  fourth  year  of  its  bearing;  of 
onions  twenty-two  inches  about,  that  old  Connecticut 
Wethersfield  would  have  wept  over  with  exceeding  joy; 
of  a  sixteen-pounder  of  a  potato;  of  cabbages  weighing 
fifty  pounds  a  head,  that  in  Wolfert  Webber's  time  would 
have  made  him  a  burgerm6ester  of  New  Amstez'dam  — 
and  these  cabbage  plants,  if  not  watched,  will  turn  into 
perennials,  attaining  the  height  of  six  feet,  and  yet  grow- 
ing; of  a  rose  in  the  public-school  grounds  at  Hay  ward's, 
blooming  in  February  and  March,  a  hundred  feet  in  cir- 
cumference; of  building  a  cottage  in  it  thirty  feet  square 
and  fourteen  feet  high,  and  nobody  needing  to  know  it 
is  there,  with  the  thousands  of  flowers  looming  up  like 
a  fragrant  pink  cloud  on  every  side. 

If  Nature  lengthens  the  harvest  time  to  suit  the  con- 
venience of  the  grain  kings  of  California,  yet  nowhere 
in  the  world  has  a  plate  of  light  wliite  biscuits  been 
brought  a  minute  nearer  to  the  standing  grain  rustling 
with  ripeness.  One  five  o'clock  in  the  inorning  of  a  sum- 
mer day  in  1877,  on  the  Rancho  Chico,  the  first  header 
wagon  brought  a  load  of  wheat  to  the  machine  to  be 
threshed;  two  sacks  were  thrown  into  a  wagon,  whirled 
away  two  miles  to  mill,  turned  into  flour,  and  a  house- 
wife's clean  knuckles  were  kneading  it  and  moulding  it 
at  half-past  six,  and  at  seven  the  biscuits  were  heaped 
upon  a  plate  ready  for  butter  and  appetite. 

Nowhere   else   in  America   but   in   San  Francisco  can 


KINGS   OF   SOCIETY.  279 

you  see  mansions  of  regal  splendor  costing  from  $200,000 
to  $800,000  each,  with  kittens  of  dwellings  almost  under 
the  shadow  of  their  walls  that  would  attract  no  atten- 
tion in  a  country  village.  A  rusty  old  calash-topped  car- 
ryall, painted  last  in  the  days  of  the  Argonauts,  gives 
only  half  the  way  to  the  carriage  glossy  as  a  cricket,  a 
mirror  on  wheels  without,  a  boudoir  within,  gold-mounted 
horses,  and  servants  sewed  to  big  buttons.  The  occupant 
commands  neither  attention  nor  respect.  The  faded  wom- 
an who  walks  apologetically  along  the  sidewalk  was  once 
a  peeress  of  the  i-ealm  in  which  my  lady  of  the  carriage 
reigns  to-day.  The  world  goes  up  and  the  world  goes 
down,  and  nowhere  with  more  startling  rapidity  than  in 
California.  It  is  a  rocket  under  saddle.  There  is  no 
abject  worship  of  wealth.  It  is  never  accepted  as  legal 
tender  for  brains  or  culture.  Of  the  older  residents, 
nearly  every  one  has  had  plenty  of  money.  He  knows 
just  what  it  brought  him  and  cost  him  and  lost  him. 

Enormous  wealth  suddenly  acquired,  wealth  that  dis- 
tances the  fables  of  the  Orient,  exists  on  "  the  Coast,"  and 
enormous  wealth  is  one  of  the  most  barbarous  and  cruel 
things  on  earth.  It  does  not  spare  its  possessors.  It  is 
relentless.  It  chills  them  with  anxiety  and  chains  them 
with  cares.  They  fill  their  own  horizons,  and  there  is 
nothing  visible  beyond.  It  is  a  monarch  reigning  over 
itself.  It  is  selfishness  crowned  king.  Such  wealth  seldom 
does  a  generous  thing,  and  seldom  thinks  a  wise  one. 
We  ^wonder  why,  but  in  its  place  we  should  find  it  as 
natural  as  breathing.  Nobody  is  so  liberal  as  he  that 
has  little  to  give,  and  nobody  so  grasping  as  he  who  holds 
the  world  in  his  hand.  In  the  unstable  footing  of  these 
behemoths  of  Plutus  is  the  universal  salvation  of  society. 


280 


BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 


One  after  another,  sooner  or  later,  they  must  come 
down,  and  their  loss  will  make  a  gainer  of  the  world. 
Then  for  the  first  time  they  will  forgive  people  for  being 
poor,  and  listen  for  somebody  to  say  to  them,  "Go  and 
sin  no  more."  When  Croesus  gives  munificently  he  gives 
for  Croesus'  sake.  His  name  must  christen  the  charity, 
be  graven  upon  the  tablet.  It  is  his  right.  It  is  the 
luxury  that  his  princely  coffers 
can  procure  him,  and  who  shall 
pass  sumptuary  laws  to  restrain 
him?  The  genuine  Californian  is 
proud  of  his  golden  lions,  but  he 
does  not  bend  the  knee  to  them. 
Some  time  or  another  he  has 
been  a  lion  himself,  and  famili- 
arity is  not  the  mother  of  rever- 
ence. To  modify  the  proverb, 
when  a  man  is  his  own  valet 
he  never  takes  off  his  hat  to 
himself. 

There  is  nothing  here  if  it  is  not  tremendous.  It  is 
a  sort  of  feudal  system  revived  upon  the  Pacific  Coast. 
And  here  comes  in  the  question  of  cheap  labor.  Here 
the  temptation  to  fill  the  land  with  heathendom;  to 
make  labor  degrading  because  the  business  of  serfs  and 
coolies,  and  to  banish  the  white  toiler  from  California. 
There  is  a  sentimental  view  of  the  situation,  made  up  of 
references  to  all  sorts  of  Fathers,  Pilgrim,  Revolutionary 
and  Declaration,  that  denounces  any  prohibition  of  Chi- 
nese immigration,  and  spreads  an  eagle  over  it,  and  makes 
America  the  welcome  home  of  everything  from  a  grass- 
hopper to  a  coolie,  and  fashions  a  capital  piece  of  dema- 


KINGS  OF  SOCIETY.  281 

gogic  eloquence  out  of  the  whole  thing.  It  is  simply  a 
question  of  Christendom  versus  Heathendom.  It  may  be 
defen-ed,  but  sooner  or  later  it  must  be  squarely  met. 

LATITUDES. 

I  can  hardly  repress  a  smile  when  I  think  of  the  up- 
lifted hands  of  horror  with  which  the  dear  old  fathers  of 
the  Eastern  churches  would  have  regarded  things  here 
that  hardly  excite  a  comment.  They  would  have  looked 
for  Noah  or  a  life-preserver  or  an  asbestos  clothing-store, 
or  some  other  defense  against  fire  and  water.  They  could 
not  have  understood  what  a  difference  it  makes  with  a 
man  whether  his  pulses  beat  with  blood  or  quicksilver. 
But  those  who  sail  over  the  old  parallels  of  latitude  by- 
and-large  believe  in  fair  play.  In  no  State  of  the  Union 
is  a  camp-meeting  or  a  religious  assembly  more  exempt 
from  interference  than  in  California.  Convene  it  in  a 
caiion  adjoining  a  mining-camp,  or  in  some  suburban  re- 
sort, and  it  is  safe  from  all  harm.  "Give  every  man  a 
chance"  is  incorporated  in  the  proverbial  philosophy  of 
the  land.  The  man  who  has  just  tipped  a  tumbler  of 
what  he  calls  in  his  random  recklessness,  "  The  coal- 
burner's  ecstasy"  or  "The  sheep-herder's  delight,"  or 
taken  a  chew  of  the  lovely  narcotic  called  "  The  Terrible 
Temptation,"  will  tighten  his  belt  another  hole  at  the 
first  symptom  of  anybody's  disturbing  a  religious  meet- 
ing, and  sail  in  with  "  Give  the  parson  a  chance,"  or 
"  the  devil  his  due,"  or  whatever  expression  he  is  most 
familiar  with,  to  express  his  advocacy  of  fair  play.  It  is 
a  rough  sense  of  honor  with  the  bark  on. 

Nearly  everything  will  grow  in  California  but  rever- 
ence. It  seldom  gets  knee-high.  And  yet  nothing  is 
12* 


282  BETWEEN   THK   GATES. 

easier  than  to  do  this  people  wrong.  A  sterling  old  man 
from  some  Eastern  rural  district  came  not  long  ago  to 
see  the  land  of  gold.  He  had  one  of  those  simple,  trans- 
parent natures,  and  loved  his  fellow-men.  A  Californian 
rendered  him  several  little  services  in  San  Francisco,  for 
which  he  was  very  grateful,  and  at  parting  he  took  the 
friendly  stranger  by  the  hand,  and  with  a  doubting  man- 
ner said: 

"  There  is  something  I  want  to  say  to  you,  if  I  can  do 
it  without  giving  offense." 

"What  is  it?"  asked  his  companion;  "I  am  sure  it 
cannot  be  anything  unpleasant."  He  still  hesitated,  but 
finally  brought  it  out  thus:  "If  you  wouldn't  mind  it — 
I  should  like  —  to  say  —  God  bless  you!" 

"  Why,  of  course,"  replied  the  amused  recipient  of  the 
beatitude;  "  why  shouldn't  I  like  it?  What  idea  can  you 
have  of  us  out  here?" 

"Ah,  but,"  replied  the  old  man,  "  I  said  it  to  a  per- 
son up  in  the  country,  and  be  flew  into  a  passion  and 
swore  frightfully,  and  I  was  afraid  I  had  done  him  more 
harm  than  good." 

No  city  in  America  is  governed  more  easily  and  with 
less  show  of  authority  than  San  Francisco.  It  seems  to 
govern  itself.  With  elements  enough  to  make  a  second 
Babel  more  confused  than  the  first,  it  is  comparatively 
quiet  and  well  ordered.  Policemen  are  seldom  seen.  The 
mayor  appears  to  be  a  sort  of  ornamental  figure-head. 
The  aldermen  are  nowhere.  The  city  moves  peacefully 
on.  Theft  is  rare;  bold  robbery  a  thing  almost  unknown. 
Every  day  you  see  slender  boys  darting  about  the  city 
shouldering  canvas  bags;  old  men  laboring  under  canvas 
bags  that  seem  heavy  enough  to  have  a  package  of   con- 


KINGS   OF   SOCIETY.  283 

centrated  attraction  of  gravitation  in  them;  everywhere 
canvas  bags.  Those  little  grists  are  money-purses  con- 
taining gold  and  silver  coin.  Scores  of  thousands  of 
dollars  are  flirted  about  the  city  every  day.  There  goes 
an  old  expressman  with  twenty  thousand  in  gold  lying 
exposed  in  his  i-ickety  old  vehicle.  He  is  going  across 
the  city  with  it.  Everybody  sees,  nobody  minds.  You 
can  set  a  bag  down  on  a  sidewalk  or  in  an  office,  and 
chat  with  a  friend.  It  may  contain  thousands,  and  it  will 
be  waiting  for  you  when  you  are  done  talking.  Try  this 
whisking  about  of  bags  of  money  in  Eastern  cities,  and 
see  what  will  come  of  it!  You  seek  the  reason  of  this 
security,  and  you  find  it  in  three  things:  the  I'ough  sense 
of  honor  inherited  from  the  old  days;  the  fact  that  almost 
every  long  resident  has  had  the  handling  and  ownership 
of  just  such  bags  himself;  the  salutary  traditions,  neither 
dim  nor  distant,  of  that  tremendous  institution,  the  Vigi- 
lance Committee,  which  punished  the  beginning  of  offenses 
with  the  ending  of  the  law,  which  is  the  rope's-end. 
That  institution  was  the  spirit  of  the  law  made  swift  to 
execute.  Its  treatment  was  heroic,  but  it  has  been  a 
blessing  to  The  Coast.  Its  ghost  yet  walks  abroad,  and  as 
Spiritualists  say,  it  could  be  "  materialized  "  any  day  of  the 
seven,  and  wo  to  the  culprit  upon  whom  it  lays  its  hand. 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

The  spirit  of  California  has  been  grossly  caricatured. 
It  is  not  a  land  of  profanity  and  slang.  The  Dutch  Flat 
and  Mining  Camp  literature  that  has  been  dished  up  in 
equal  parts  of  bad  grammar,  shrewdness  and  blasphemy, 
and  called  touches  of  nature;  the  villains  that  have  been 
rhetorically  made  up,  girdled  with  zodiacs  of  knives  and 


2iB4  BETWEEN  THE  GATES. 

revolvers,  tobacco,  bad  speeches  and  whisky,  each  worse 
than  the  other,  in  their  mouths,  and  then  tricked  out 
with  some  school  -  girlish  posy  of  tender  sentiment  for 
something  or  somebody,  to  make  the  injudicious  think 
that  the  best  way  to  brighten  a  little  virtue  is  to  pin  it 
upon  the  dirty  blouse  of  a  vulgar  renegade  —  whom  noth- 
ing saves  from  a  prison  but  the  lack  of  one  —  these  absurd- 
ities have  tinged  and  tainted  many  a  man's  thought  of  the 
country,  until  when  he  comes  to  see  it  he  cannot  recog- 
nize it  as  the  original  of  his  grotesque  ideal,  wherein 
revolting  oaths  have  been  seasoned  to  the  taste  with  adroit 
dashes  of  angelic  nature,  and  murdei's  condoned  for  the 
tears  of  sympathy  the  rascals  shed  for  the  widows  of  their 
victims. 

That  the  old  stock  was  rough,  venturous,  dreamy  and 
visionary,  the  fact  that  they  dared  savage  nature  and  more 
savage  savages  to  get  here  is  ample  proof;  that  the  traces 
of  the  free  consciences  that  slipped  their  bridles  and  ran 
wild  in  the  new  land  yet  remain,  nobody  can  deny.  Peo- 
ple sow  their  wild  oats  here  eai'lier  and  later,  and  har- 
vest them  oftener  than  elsewhere.  But  is  it  to  be  wondered 
at,  when  Nature  herself  has  not  done  sowing  her  own? 
You  can  see  them  by  hundreds  of  acres  among  the  moun- 
tains. They  are  beef  and  mutton  in  disguise.  Let  us 
hope  something  quite  as  good  for  the  wild  oats  of  human- 
ity. The  world  they  left  has  gone  on  without  them.  They 
have  developed  a  new  and  peculiar  civilization,  whose 
points  of  contact  with  the  old  are  very  few  and  very 
slight  indeed.  It  is  easy  to  be  respectable  in  California, 
but  it  is  the  most  difficult  thing  to  be  famous.  A  twenty- 
thousand  ox-team  power  will  draw  you  to  the  pinnacle. 
Get  into  the  one  dish  of  the  scales  and  put  a  million  in 


KINGS   OF   SOCIETY.  285 

the  other,  and  you  will  kick  the  beam  as  quick  as  a  man 
can  cock  a  revolver.  But  people  here  look  all  v^ays  at 
once.  There  is  no  agreed  pride  in  anything  but  Califor- 
nia. They  resent  criticism.  No  Bantam  cock  of  the  w^alk 
ever  ruffled  quicker  than  they  at  invidious  comparisons, 
and  yet  they  are  the  only  beings  I  ever  saw  who  will 
never  swallow  eulogy  with  their  eyes  shut.  They  want 
to  see  if  you  believe  it;  if  you  say  it  as  if  you  couldn't 
helj)  it;  and  if  they  think  you  do,  they  just  score  one  for 
California,  and  commiserate  you  that  you  have  not  been 
there  long  enough  to  be  a  fraction  of  the  State,  and  so 
the  recipient  of  your  own  jDraise  of  yourself. 

The  unadulterated  Californian  is  hopelessly  himself, 
and  by  this  I  mean  that  there  is  nobody  like  him  East 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  He  is  imaginative,  prospective. 
What  he  left  behind  him  he  brought  with  him.  What 
he  brought  with  him  he  has  forgotten.  He  left  his 
youth  there  years  ago,  but  he  has  renewed  it  here.  He 
brought  certain  staid  old  notions  of  life  and  labor  upon 
a  plan;  of  giving  six  days  to  work  and  the  seventh  to 
the  Lord;  of  having  a  family  board  and  children  ranged 
around  it  like  pansies  in  a  garden  border,  when  you 
might  as  well  set  the  table  £or  a  flock  of  quails  and  ring 
the  bell  for  dinner.  All  these  things  he  lost  out  of  his 
knapsack  on  the  plains.  In  such  a  country  Christians 
need  more  lead  in  their  shoes  or  more  grace  in  their 
hearts.  To  be  steadfast  when  everything  has  tripped  the 
anchor,  and  the  very  seasons  have  free  range  of  the 
whole  year,  is  a  difficult  achievement. 

Out  of  the  elements  of  character  sketched  in  these 
pages,  the  reader  will  rightly  infer  that  the  genuine 
Californian  is  a  lover  of  poetry.     He  prefers  it  to  prose; 


286  BETWEEN    THE   GATES. 

sips  it  with  the  soup,  aud  munches  it  with  the  filberts. 
It  is  verse  ab  ovo  usque  ad  mala.  He  calls  for  it  on 
public  occasions;  his  daughters  write  it,  also  his  wife, 
likewise  his  hired  man,  otherwise,  himself.  I  have  seen 
two  dogs  that  could  sing,  but  they  never  learned  to 
write.  His  papers  are  filled  with  poems.  Many  columns 
look  as  if  the  language  had  turned  bellman  and  fallen  to 
ringing  chimes. 

There  are  more  writers  of  verse  in  San  Francisco  and 
its  suburbs  than  in  the  whole  State  of  New  York.  They 
have  poems  at  picnics  and  clam  -  bakes.  Farther  East, 
poetry  on  a  public  occasion  is  generally  regarded  like 
an  extra  length  of  tail  to  a  cat  —  of  no  special  util- 
ity, for  it  does  not  help  her  to  catch  mice  —  and  people 
speak  of  a  poem  much  as  a  lion  would  sniff  at  a  pink 
when  he  is  waiting  for  a  beef- steak.  California  is  the 
rhymster's  paradise. 

A  Black  Sea  of  ink  floods  acres  of  paper  in  San 
Francisco.  Of  dailies,  weeklies  and  monthlies  there  are 
ninety,  and  it  takes  eight  languages  to  go  round  —  En- 
glish, German,  Scandinavian,  French,  Italian,  Spanish, 
Chinese,  and  a  touch  of  Hebrew.  The  newspapers,  as  a 
race,  are  bright,  sharp,  aggressive,  Californian.  You  miss 
the  old  familiar  names  of  Tribune,  Herald,  Times,  Sun, 
World,  appended  to  quoted  articles,  and  you  wonder  at 
it  till  you  think  how  old  an  Eastern  paper  gets  to  be 
before  it  reaches  California.  Two  days  more  would  give 
sight  to  a  puppy,  and  ripen  bean  -  porridge  to  the  fine 
perfection  of  "  nine  days  old."  The  news  of  the  world 
reaches  California,  not  by  steam,  but  by  lightning.  The 
flash  tears  out  its  spirit  and  flies  away  with  it,  and  the 
remains  come  slowly  and  reverently  after  by  railroad. 


KINGS   OF   SOCIETY.  287 

THE  MEN  AND  WOMEN. 
In  any  Eastern  sense  there  is  no  rural  life  in  Cali- 
fornia, and  the  thing  called  rustic  simplicity  is  unknown. 
To  be  sure,  you  can  finS  a  miner  coiled  in  a  hole  in  the 
hill  like  a  woodchuck  at  home.  You  can  find  places 
where  it  is  always  border  land  and  camp-life.  You  can 
share  somebody's  shake-down  with  your  feet  to  the  fire, 
walled  in  with  mud  like  a  barn  swallow.  But  the  instant 
you  rise  to  the  dignity  of  a  home,  with  women  and  com- 
forts in  it,  fig-leaves  disappear  and  Eve's  flounces  grow 
artistic.  You  meet  farmers  on  California  street,  which  is 
the  Wall  street  of  San  Francisco,  and  you  cannot  distin- 
guish them  from  the  habitues  of  the  place.  There  is  no 
rustic  cast  to  their  coats,  no  hay  in  their  hair,  nor  is  it 
gnawed  square  across  with'  the  family  sheai'S.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  city  is  the  vernacular  of  the  country.  Pro- 
vincialisms are  as  rare  as  gold  eagles  in  contribution 
boxes.  Rural  simplicity,  which  means  living  and  doing 
like  their  grandmothers,  does  not  exist.  They  have  done 
with  their  grandmothers.  Find  a  place  that  seems  as 
isolated  as  a  mid-ocean  island,  with  neither  lightning  nor 
steam,  and  the  dwellers  are  not  prisoners.  There  is  not 
a  slip  of  a  girl  in  the  house  but  can  mount  a  horse,  as 
vicious  at  both  ends  as  an  Irishman's  shillelah  and  chron- 
ically .  wound  up  for  a  twelve  hours'  gallop,  and  ride  to 
Vanity  Fair  without  minding  it.  People  that  are  born 
on  horseback,  in  countries  where  there  is  any  place  to 
ride  to,  can  never  be  very  primitive.  And  so  it  is  that 
bits  of  city  life  and  talk  and  notions  can  be  found  any- 
where in  the  State,  and  the  tint  of  green  that  Webster's 
milkmaid  meant  to  have  is  worn  by  nobody.     I  have  not 


288  BETWEEN   THE   GATES. 

seen  one  in  the  State  whom  the  color  became,  unless  he 
was  somebody  fresh  from  the  East. 

California  is  wonderful  in  wonders.  There  is  every- 
thing in  gold  but  the  "golden  .mean."  Her  trees  keep 
on  growing  like  Babel's  tower,  and  as  if  the  law  had  for- 
gotten them.  The  Eastern  dots  of  flowers  are  discs.  They 
wax  like  crescent  moons.  Her  springs  expand  to  sum- 
mers, and  her  summers  are  all  the  year.  Her  face  is 
eloquent  with  the  charm  of  valleys,  the  sweep  of  plains 
and  the  might  of  mountains.  It  is  a  sweet,  strong  face, 
full  of  character  and  never  to  be  forgotten,  where  desert 
and  wilderness,  beauty  and  grandeur,  age  and  youth,  for- 
ever struggle  for  the  mastery  and  never  triumph.  As 
Talleyrand  said  of  Spain,  California  "  is  a  country  in  which 
two  and  two  make  five." 

But  men  and  women  are  the  most  wonderful  product 
of  California,  and  the  problem  of  the  continent.  If  not 
actually  born  there,  she  adopts  them  in  five  years  into 
full  brother  and  sisterhood. 

If  ever  anywhere  men  needed  one  "  pull-back "  and 
women  two,  it  is  in  California.  In  a  hundred  years, 
unless  men  of  brains  in  the  right  region  take  the  helm, 
the  Coast  will  be  a  land  whose  luxurious  wickedness  will 
be  equaled  only  by  its  energy,  its  liberality  and  its  cour- 
age. It  will  have  great  poets  and  painters.  It  will  have 
grand  sculptors  and  musicians.  They  must  come,  for  the 
climate  craves  them,  but  the  poets  will  sing  of  love  like 
Anacreon,  and  Cleopatra  will  sit  oftener  than  Ruth  for 
her  picture,  and  poor  Dorcas  not  at  all,  and  the  "  Peep- 
ing Toms"  of  Coventry  will  go  unrebuked.  The  sculptors 
will  lend  to  lip  and  limb  a  semi-tropical  languor  that  is 
not  weakness,  and  the  musicians  will  score  new  measures. 


KINGS    OF   SOCIETY.  289 

but  not  a  Dead  March  in  Saul.  There  is  no  such  field 
under  the  sun  wherein  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  Pan- 
theon for  the  Christian  arts  and  the  Christian  muses  as 
California,  and  I  believe  the  master  builders  are  there 
who  have  the  inspiration  of  unquestioned  power  to  exact 
respect  and  to  command  success. 

The  children  that  are  springing  into  maturity  with- 
out permission,  and  without  waiting  for  time,  are  electric 
with  vitality.  You  think,  sometimes,  that  a  dozen  of 
them  would  make  a  battery  strong  enough  to  send  a  tele- 
gram around  the  world.  And  they  will  be  heard  for 
right  or  wrong,  for  good  or  ill.  If  you  ever  go  among 
the  redwoods,  where  the  columns  stand  in  close  order, 
dense  as  corn,  and  you  fear  they  must  pump  the  earth 
into  hopeless  poverty,  you  will  see  the  ruins  of  trees  that 
have  been  felled.  Around  them,  hurrying  up  from  the 
ground,  nimble  as  squirrels,  are  the  shoots  and  slips  of 
young  redwoods.  They  dart  out  from  the  base,  with  a 
crook  here  and  a  crook  there,  to  get  up  to  the  light. 
They  are  so  bright  and  saucy,  they  look  at  you  so  impu- 
dently, as  if  they  had  eyes  that  never  winked,  that  it 
requires  little  fancy  to  think  them  vigorous  young  ani- 
mals instead  of  living  riding-whips  that  can  get  another 
mile  an  hour  out  of  your  lagging  horse.  The  young 
pioneers  are  the  young  redwoods  of  mankind.  They  need 
a  law  to  grow  by  to  be  straight  and  grand.  They  are 
sure  to  lash  another  mile  an  hour  out  of  the  horse  "Cal- 
ifornia," no  matter  what  the  pace  she  was  going  when 
they  took  the  saddle.  Let  us  hope  that  so  gracious  an 
air,  so  responsive  an  earth,  where  the  new  Jacob  gets 
Esau's  birthright  and  the  pottage  besides,  may  develop 
them  into  a  statelier  manhood. 
13 


290  BETWEEN  THE   GATES. 

When  the  mines  shall  be  impoverished  and  the  men 
who  worked  them  pass  into  tradition,  the  State  will  not 
be  bankrupt,  for  the  seasons  will  turn  miners,  and  silver 
and  gold  will  grow  from  the  ground  over  countless  acres 
now  lazily  sleeping  in  the  sun.  The  wild  and  mistj' 
imaginings  of  the  adventurer  will  vanish  before  the 
broader,  steadier  light  of  a  better  day,  when  men  will 
toil  under  an  enduring  promise  that  summer  and  winter, 
seed-time  and  harvest,  shall  not  fail.  The  training  of 
the  mountains  in  chemistry  and  hydraulics  will  set  foun- 
tains playing  and  grasses  growing  where  waters  never 
fell  nor  herbage  sprung.  What  ought  not  the  world  to 
demand  of  a  land  v/here  music,  poetry,  painting  and 
architecture  can  flourish  in  the  open  air;  where  the  stars 
march  in  splendor  and  review  before  the  eyes  of  Science 
for  half  the  year,  through  cloudless  skies;  where  man  has 
nothing  to  fight  but  indolence  and  himself  ? 

If  the  ten  talents  are  shaken  from  the  napkin,  and 
California  is  true  to  her  opportiinity,  the  world  will 
wonder  at  the  new  civilization,  and  the  evening  sun,  as 
he  puts  to  sea,  with  his  royal  standard  dipping  and  its 
glory  trailing  along  the  threshold  of  the  Golden  Gate, 
will  bid  good  night  to  no  truer  Promised  Land  in  the 
round  world.  The  words  of  Bishop  Berkeley  will  be 
born  again  in  all  the  beauty  of  a  fresh  inspiration,  and 
inscribed  to  this  Ultima  Thule  of  the  new  geography 
according  to  man: 

"Westward  the  Star  of  Empire  takes  its  way: 
The  first  four  acts  already  past, 
The  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  of  the  day, 
The  noblest  and  the  last!" 


HOME    AGAIN.  291 


HOME  AGAIN. 


It  is  a  bright  winter  morning;  the  snow  is  clean  and 
crisp  under  foot  as  a  new  bank-note;  the  smokes  from  the 
kitchen  fires  go  straight  up  and  kindle  and  are  glorified 
in  the  sun;  a  cloud  of  snow-birds  has  rained  merrily 
down  and  dotted  a  drift;  I  am  writing  the  closing  para- 
graphs of  this  rambling  book. 

The  broad  days  of  sunshine  rise  in  the  West  full  upon 
my  thought;  the  stately  trees,  the  royal  mountains,  the 
revel  of  the  flowers,  the  tonic  of  the  air,  the  breezes  of 
the  sea,  the  loveliness  of  the  valleys,  the  welcome  of  the 
friends.  And  yet  the  charm  of  a  beech-and-maple  fire, 
with  the  andirons  leg-deep  in  the  fallen  rubies,  and  the 
robin-mouthed  tea-kettle  on  the  crane,  and  a  brick  in  the 
jamb  dished  out  by  the  tongs,  the  faithful  old  pair!  that, 
leaning  so  long  in  one  place,  have  grown  magnetic  in  both 
legs,  fits  my  fancy  better  than  a  marble  mantel  set  on 
fire  with  flowers  that  are  never  quenched;  and  the  cleft 
logs  in  a  glow,  which  were  shafts  aforetime  with  sugar 
running  down  within  and  squirrels  running  up  without, 
warm  my  hands  and  my  heart  as  well. 

One  of  the  most  suggestive  objects  in  California  is  not 
Shasta,  but  the  granite  rock  in  the  Yo  Semite  that  some 
day  gave  a  lunge  into  the  air  and  never  came  down. 
And  because  almost  every  pilgrim  yawl  of  cloud  idling 
about  in  the  valley's  offing  is  pretty  sure  to  touch  at 
that  granite  landing  in  the  sky,  it  is  called  Cloud's  Rest. 
I  myself  have  seen  a  small  white  craft,  the  only  one  in 
sight,  make  the  aerial  wharf  and  wait  until  the  freshen- 
ing wind  drifted  the  waif  away.  I  named  it  Abde-el, 
which  is  the  Cloud  of  God. 


292 


RETWEEN  THE   GATES. 


It  is  pleasant  to  go  sailing  on  the  sea.  It  is  delight- 
ful to  go  gypsy ing  on  the  land,  but  there  comes  a  time 
when  we  crave  an  anchorage,  some  blessed  Salem  or 
Manoah,  some  place  of  rest.  I  was  sorry  for  the  little 
Abde-el  that  it  could  not  tarry  at  the  landing  in  the  blue, 
and  so,  whatever  it  be,  a  bank  of  violets  or  a  drift  of 
snow,  I  join  the  world  in  the  restful  song  of 


S^^Pilipi 


Tbkbb's     no      place  like  HomeI 


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TAYLOR-SONGS  OF  YESTERDAY.  By  Benj.  F. Taylor. 
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BACON -A  MANUAL  OF  GESTURE.  With  loo  Figures, 
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BOISE -FIRST  LESSONS  IN  CREEK.  Adapted  to  Good 
win's,  to  Hadley's  Larger  and  Smaller  Greek  Grammars,  and 
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JONES -FIRST  LESSONS  IN  LATIN.  Adapted  to  the 
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PETERSON -NORWEGIAN-DANISH  CRAMMAR  AND 
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