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NORTH
M ERIC AN

EXCURSION

ERNEST YOUNG

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NORTH AMERICAN
EXCURSION

EMMA & SYDNEY
WALTON

With memories

of
nearly fifty years

of
unshadowed friendship

NORTH AMERICAN
EXCURSION

ERNEST YOUNG

LONDON

EDWARD ARNOLD & CO.

Printed in the Netherlands by
Holdert & Co. N.V. Amsterdam

CONTENTS

I. THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

Chap. . Page
I THE APPROACH 11

Steamship. Canadian Pacific Steamship Line
"Montclaire" (2747 miles)

II QUEBEC 21

III QUEBEC TO MONTREAL 27

My first bus ride. Bus. Provincial Transport Co.
(179 miles)

IV MONTREAL 34

V THE KING'S HIGHWAY 42

. Montreal to Toronto. Bus. Colonial Coach Line
(348 miles)

II. THE GREAT LAKES

VI THE NIAGARA DETOUR 55

Steamer. Canadian National Steamer Co. Toronto to

Queenstown (34 miles)

On foot. (7 miles)

Bus. Round the falls (18 miles)

Bus. Gray Coach Line. Niagara to Toronto (86 miles)

VII TORONTO TO SAULT STE. MARIE 64

Bus. Gray Coach Line. Toronto to Collingwood

(141 miles)

Taxi. Collingwood to Owen Sound (41 miles)

Steamer. Owen Sound Transport Co. Owen Sound to Sault

Ste. Marie (200 miles)

VIII SAULT STE. MARIE TO DULUTH 75

Steamer. Canadian National Steamship Co. Sault Ste. Marie
to Port Arthur (250 miles)

Bus. International Transit Ltd. Port Arthur to Duluth
(199 miles)

IX HIBBING: THE ORE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD 87

Bus. Greyhound Northland Coach Lines (182 miles)

6 CONTENTS

chap.

X THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI ......... 95

Duluth to Lake Itasca. Bus. Greyhound Northland Coach
Lines (180 miles)

III. THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

XI LAKE ITASCA TO MINNEAPOLIS .......... 103

Bus. Greyhound Northland Lines (359 miles)

XII MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL ........... 117

XIII MINNEAPOLIS TO MUSCATINE .......... 127

Bus. Greyhound Northland Lines. Minneapolis to La

Crosse (154 miles)

Private Car. La Crosse to Prairie du Chien and back

(146 miles)

Bus. Jefferson Coach Line. La Crosse to Dubuque

(176 miles)

Bus. Greyhound Northland Lines. Dubuque to Elizabeth

(28 miles)

Bus. Scenic Stages Line. Elizabeth to Rock Island

(105 miles)

Bus. Burlington Trailways. Rock Island to Muscatine

(29 miles)

XIV MUSCATINE TO ST. LOUIS . . .......... 145

Bus. M. C. Foster Lines (279 miles)

XV DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT ...... 158

Tow Boat. Federal Barge Line. St. Louis to Memphis
(406 miles)

Tow Boat. Misissippi Valley Barge Line. Memphis to New
Orleans (640 miles)

XVI NEW ORLEANS TO THE GULF OF MEXICO ....... 177

Steam Boat (230 miles)

IV. THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL"

XVII OCEAK SPRINGS TO NEW ORLEANS 183

Bus. Greyhound Bus Lines (118 miles)

CONTENTS 7

Chap. Page

XVIII NEW ORLEANS 194

XIX THE EVANGELINE COUNTRY 209

New Orleans to New Iberia. Bus. Greyhound Bus Lines
(148 miles)

XX INTO TEXAS 221

New Iberia to San Antonio. Bus. Greyhound Bus Lines
(465 miles)

XXI SAN ANTONIO VIA CARLSBAD TO EL PASO . 234

Bus. Kerrville Bus Co. San Antonio to Pecos (420 miles)
Bus. Pageway Stage Lines. Pecos to El Paso (249 miles)

XXII EL PASO TO PHOENIX (ARIZONA) 249

Bus. Greyhound Bus Lines (537 miles)

XXIII PHOENIX TO PALM SPRINGS 258

Bus. Greyhound Pacific Bus Lines (288 miles)

XXIV THE DESERT HILLS 269

XXV FROM THE DESERT TO THE OCEAN 284

Palm Springs to San Diego. Bus. Greyhound Pacific Bus
Lines (238 miles)

XXVI SAN DIEGO 293

INDEX 303

ILLUSTRATIONS
Maps and Diagrams

Fig.

The United States, showing the whole route Front Endpaper

1 The Isle of Orleans 14

2 The St. Lawrence and Great Lakes Lowlands 27

3 ROUTE MAP. Quebec to Montreal 29

4 The Site of Montreal ....... 35

5 ROUTE MAP. Montreal to Toronto 43

6 The Thousand Isles 45

7 The Site of Toronto 51

Fig.

8 The Niagara Distict 55

9 Formation of the Niagara Falls 57

10 ROUTE MAP. Toronto to Sault Ste. Marie 65

11 The Soo Canals 75

12 ROUTE MAP. Sault Ste. Marie to Duluth 79

13 The Upper Lake Region 81

14 Duluth Harbour 84

15 The Mines at Hibbing 90

16 Mitchell's Survey 94

17 Lake Itasca 100

18 ROUTE MAP. Lake Itasca to Mineapolis 105

19 Minneapolis and St. Paul 118

20 Diagram of a Flour Mill 122

21 ROUTE MAP. Minneapolis to Muscatine 128

22 ROUTE MAP. Muscatine to St. Louis 146

23 St. Louis as the centre of American Waterways 151

24 ROUTE MAP. St. Louis to New Orleans 165

25 The Site of Cairo 168

26 Cut-offs and Levees of the Lower Mississippi 174

27 The Mississippi Delta 181

28 The Mississippi Gulf Coast 184

29 The Site of New Orleans 195

30 The Port of New Orleans 200

31 New Orleans, Inner Harbour Navigation Canal 202

32 ROUTE MAP. New Orleans to New Iberia 210

33 ROUTE MAP. New Iberia to San Antonio 222

34 ROUTE MAP. San Antonio to El Paso 235

35 ROUTE MAP. El Paso to Phoenix 252

36 ROUTE MAP. Phoenix to Palm Springs 258

37 Palm Springs District 270

38 ROUTE MAP. Palm Springs to San Diego 285

39 San Diego 293

ILLUSTRATLONS

Photographic Plates

Houses and bams, St. Pierre, Isle of Orleans

Typical barn, St. Frangois, Isle of Orleans

French Manor House, St. Jean, Isle of Orleans

Ploughing with oxen, Isle of Orleans

Sous le Cap, Quebec

Coast-to-Coast Bus

Montreal from Mt. Royal

Caleche, Montreal

Outside staircases, Montreal

Shooting the St. Lawrence rapids

The Thousand Isles, River St. Lawrence

The Water Front, Toronto

Aerial car, Niagara Whirlpool

Niagara Falls

University Avenue, Toronto

Residential Street, Owen's Sound

Drying nets, Killarney, Lake Huron

Entrance to Thunder Bay

Pigeon River bridge

Arrowhead country

Ore docks, Duluth

Open iron pit, Hibbing

Lake Itasca

At the source of the Mississippi

The first bridge across the Mississippi

The Mississippi where it leaves Lake Bemidji

Grand Rapids, Minnesota

Minneapolis

The Mississippi Gorge

Fort Snelling, Minneapolis

The Mississippi at Red Wing

Mississippi bluffs and flood plain, Dubuquc

Mississippi islands and channels, Savanna

Mark Twain's house and Tom Sawyer's fence, Hannibal

Water front, St. Louis

Showboat, St. Louis

Tow Boat St. Louis

Erosion of banks, Mississippi

"Hurdles" on the Mississippi

Revetted banks, Mississippi

In the Mississippi Delta

Burwood

Between
page*

32 and 33

64 and 65

128 and 129

192 and 193

CONTENTS

Live oaks and Spanish moss

Sea wall and piers, Pass Christian

Patio, New Orleans

Balconies in Royal Street, New Orleans

Oddfellows' cemetery, New Orleans

On the Levee, New Orleans

Bayou Teche, Louisiana

Breeding platforms for egrets, Avery Island, Louisiana

The Alamo, San Antonio

San Francis de la Espada, San Antonio

Spanish Governor's Palace, San Antonio

San Juan Capistrano, San Antonio

San Jose, San Antonio

Mexican market, San Antonio

The King's Palace, Carlsbad Caves

Desert, El Paso

Street restaurant, Juarez

Market, Juarez

Desert Road

Yucca in bloom

Bisbee, Arizona

The largest cactus in the world, a Giant Saguaro

Palm Springs

The Desert Floor, Palm Springs

Bigelow Cholla, or Teddy Bear cactus

Dead foliage of Washington palm

Wind-drifted sand, Palm Springs

Whitewater Canyon

Snow Creek Canyon

Barrel cactus

Indio, California

Date garden, Indio

Bunch of dates, Indio

The oldest house in San Diego

Serra Museum, San Diego

La Jolla

The Pacific Ocean

Between
pages

192 and 193

224 and 225

238 and 289

PART I
THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

CHAPTER I

THE APPROACH

ON July 21, 1939, I left the train at Liverpool. The date is of no
importance except that it indicates I was not trying to run away
from the war, while the rest of the statement is not without interest
because that train was the last in which I travelled until the war
was over.

I boarded the Canadian Pacific steamer Montclaire, bound via
Belfast and Greenock for Canada. Within twenty minutes three
strangers, male fellow-passengers, had asked me why I was cross-
ing the Atlantic. 'Because', said I, in the words of Hazlitt, 'there
is nothing I like so much as going on a journey; but I like to go
by myself.' They took the hint.

Some people are always offering reasons for leaving home as
if it were necessary to defend the habit. They are, perhaps,
conscious that there are those who, like Petrarch, will say to them,
'It is a queer madness, this desire to be for ever sleeping in a
strange bed' and feel they must explain their actions, in fact
must in some way or other make out that travel, like Guinness,
is 'good for you.'

One of the Earls of Northumberland told his son that the real
object of travel was to learn foreign languages. But I was going
to North America and I had no desire to acquire that trans-
Atlantic variety of my mother tongue which is rapidly becoming
a foreign language or to spoil the purity of my Parisian accent
by wedding it to that of the habitants of Quebec.

Johnson said that 'if a young man is wild and must run after
women and bad company, it had better be done abroad', but I am
not young and I was never wild. Moreover, when I saw the women
passengers on my ship I went straight to the purser and asked him
to put me at a table for 'men only'.

According to the psychologists we travel 'to escape'. But apart
from the fact that I have little use for psychologists those

12 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

inventors of abstruse terms for the purpose of obscuring the
obvious I don't want to escape: to try to escape from myself
would be to go nowhere at all.

For my own desire to roam widely at any time in almost any
direction I have no explanation to offer except that of Hazlitt
1 like it'. .

In the past, almost any journey was an adventure and so made
an appeal to those who loved danger, men and women of bold
and heroic spirit. But I was never bold nor heroic and I have
found, through much experience, that travelling in these days is
so easy that there is no trouble, and seldom much discomfort, in
sailing seas or crossing deserts, though there may be a wealth of
both in scaling snowy summits, penetrating tropical jungles or
wintering in polar seas. If I were looking for adventure I would
stay at home where, like St. Paul, I have oft been in 'peril in the
city'.

With regard to this particular ocean-crossing all I need to say
is that rain was with us as we left England; we had rain and fog
all the way across the Atlantic, with the addition of ice-chilled
winds near Newfoundland; for 2747 miles the weather was,
according to the ship's log, a mixture of unpleasant samples.

We entered the Strait of Belle Isle, the channel between
Labrador and Newfoundland, at three in the morning so that
sleep deprived me of any sight of either shore and, by the time
I rose, a dense blanket of fog had settled over us and hidden
everything. It lasted all day and blotted out the island of Anticosti.
Despite these unfortunate climatic happenings I could not help
feeling the thrill of a real pleasure at the knowledge that we were
approaching the St. Lawrence estuary by the historic route follow-
ed in 1534 by Jacques Cartier, a master-pilot of St. Malo in
Brittany, and experiencing some of the discomforts that ac-
companied him when he made his first voyage in search of a
western water-way to the riches of the Orient.

His voyage was unsuccessful and he went home again by much
the same route. He returned the next year on the second of his
four journeys to this part of the world with a fleet of three ships
and a crew of 110 men. The biggest of the ships, the Grand
Hermoine, was of only 100 tons: our Montclaire was of 16,000

THE APPROACH 13

tons. He anchored in Pillage Bay on the coast of Newfoundland,
opposite the island of Anticosti. He named his anchorage the
Bay of St. Lawrence, a name which afterwards spread to the
gulf and finally to the mighty river.

Still following in his wake we reached Father Point, a well
known landmark, 576 nautical miles from the ocean. This point
is regarded as marking the landward end of the estuary, but the
river is thirty miles wide and looks more like a silver lake than
a flowing stream. Here, in slightly foggy weather, we took on
board the pilot who was to conduct us another 150 nautical miles
to Quebec.

Memories of Cartier were with us all the way, especially at
the mouth of the Saguenay River where he anchored and was
informed by the local Indians that the name denoted a kingdom
'rich and wealthy in precious stones'. He was, at first, undecided
whether to continue up the St. Lawrence or turn aside to follow
the Saguenay which, though he did not know it, comes down
through a mighty slit from the Laurentian plateau. He decided
for the St. Lawrence. We followed him.

In mist and rain we steamed up the river. A last-night dinner
with balloons, caps, squeakers, rattles, toy-trumpets and other
forms of merry-making saw the end of the mist. When we went
on deck again the night was star-lit and clear and there was
enough light to reveal a country of wild beauty, a series of deep
blue silhouettes, with hundreds of gulls, dark against the evening
sky, whirling and driving and squeaking a welcome.

I woke early the next morning to find we were anchored at
Quebec. We had missed the majesty of the approach and, as if
to make an Englishman feel completely at home, it was pouring
with rain. We had also missed something else the green Isle
of Orleans (Fig. 1) which splits the river below Quebec. When
Cartier landed there in 1535 the Indians told him he was in the
kingdom of 'Canada'; the name was, in reality, nothing but the
Huron-Iroquois word for a village.

I felt I must go back to have a look at the island. Cartier had
written 'We found it covered with very fine trees, such as oaks,
elms, pines, cedars and other varieties like our own: and we like-
wise found there a great store of vines, which heretofore we had

THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

not seen in all this region. On that account we named the island
the Isle of Bacchus.* This island is in appearance a fine,
flat land, covered with timber, without any of it being cultivated,

Fig. 1. The Isle of Orleans

except that there are a few small cabins which the Indians use
for fishing'.

Even if I had not been anxious to tread where the great explorer
trod, I should have been induced to visit the island by a fellow
passenger who told me that on it I should find the real spirit of
French Canada and some of the indefinable charm associated
with Brittany and Normandy, that the island was little changed

* Carrier later altered the name of the island, in honour of the Duke of Orleans,
to the one which it bears at present.

THE APPROACH 15

from what it was in early days, little affected by modern ideas
of progress, and that the life of the inhabitants well illustrated
the pride of the French Canadians in keeping alive the memory
and the traditions of their ancestors.

To reach the island I had the choice of a road or a ferry boat.
Until 1935 the only means of communication between island and
mainland was by ferry in summer and the frozen surface of the
river in winter. A bridge now connects the island roads with the
village of Montmorency on the mainland. I boarded the ferry
boat and, in twenty minutes, landed at the village of Ste.
Petronille. I took up my quarters at a hotel where a notice in my
bedroom informed me 'Guests must be well-dressed to go in the
dining room'. Later, one of my fellow guests informed me that
the former owner was so careful about the morals of his visitors
that all young couples had to produce their marriage licences
before he would rent them a room.

The Isle of Orleans is twenty miles long. Round it runs a
modern road connecting, in forty-two miles, the six villages of
Ste. Petronille, St. Laurent, St. Jean, St. Frangois, Ste. Famille
and St. Pierre. Two transverse roads connect respectively
St. Laurent and St. Pierre and St. Jean and Ste. Famille.

I first motored round the island and came back disappointed:
the pace was too rapid. I next walked round it, in sections, going
to or returning from various points by means of a local bus.
One morning, very early, I left Ste. Petronille by a road arched
with rich foliage shading the country homes of residents or
visitors from Quebec. A little stream rippled its 'Good morning'
and a cool wind put courage in my feet. Between the branches of
the trees the St. Lawrence twinkled encouragement. In the woods
the silver birches wove white patterns amongst the maples. Except
for an occasional habitant I was the only pedestrian on the road.

After about a mile or so I entered a vast clearing which extends,
almost without interruption, round the whole of the island. In
this clearing are many farms, each typical not only of the island
but of the whole of the province of Quebec. As these French-
Canadian farms are so uniform in shape and so conspicuous in
the landscape they merit a detailed description.

They begin at the water's edge for purposes of navigation and

16 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

fishing. They then run back, at right angles to the shore, first
through patches of tidal salty meadows which provide hay for
the feeding of stock, then through bottom lands above the tidal
limit which are given over to agriculture, gardens and upland
pastures for cattle, sheep and horses, and end in the tree-covered
hills which supply lumber and fuel. By this arrangement every
farmer has the use of water, marsh, marl and woodland.

On the death of the owner the land is divided amongst his heirs
in such a way as to maintain this kind of land usage and, as the
habitant has usually a large family and some of the farms have
been in the occupation of the same family for eight to ten genera-
tions, the farms are by this time nothing but long, narrow strips,
more like fenced lanes than fields, measurable as to width in
feet and as to length (on the mainland) in miles.

Each farmer lives at the centre of the highway end of his
farm: where the farms are exceedingly narrow, the houses are so
close together that they give the impression of forming a street.

The farms are divided by parallel lines of rail fences. Crops
which grow in rows potatoes for instance are parallel to
the fences. The two transverse roads run in the same direction.
A plan showing the holdings is practically everywhere a series
of long narrow rectangles.

It was some time before I saw a genuine old-time habitant.
He was driving a load of fuel in a mule-cart. 'Bon jour', called
he courteously, after the fashion of his fore-fathers. Then I came
upon two men with a hay cart. They were cutting and harvesting
the grass by the roadside. When I asked for permission to photo-
graph the cart one of the men mounted it while the other tossed
hay to him in order that the picture might be completed. I found
it difficult to understand their old-fashioned French but not
difficult to appreciate their traditional courtesy.

Presently the high glittering silvery steeple of the parish
church of St. Laurent came into view. Silvered spires and many
other things houses, for instance are common in many parts
of America: they have been painted with aluminium paint. In
the sunlit distance they sometimes look as if covered with snow.

St. Laurent is a tidy village of one long street. The entrance
to it is marked by a little hotel and a large figure of the crucified

THE APPROACH 17

Christ with the Virgin and St. John in attendance, just such a
group as may be found at die entrance to thousands of villages
in France, but not in America, except in Quebec. Here wayside
shrines, crosses and images constantly occur, but no shrine that
I saw elsewhere was so elaborate as the one at St. Laurent. The
crosses were mostly plain, though in some examples they carried
representations of ladder, spear and hammer.

Over the little hotel floated the flag of France, not of Canada,
and remembering Carder's Isle of Bacchus I sought a drink, for
the day was hot and the road was hard. Alas; there was nothing
with which to quench my thirst except tea, coffee, milk and a
poisonous-looking assortment of soft drinks. To give a completely
French atmosphere some one should establish little cafes or inns
where one can escape the evil effects of tannin, cafein or sugar
in one's beverage 'breuvage' not 'boisson' in the local dialect.

The street connecting the hotel with the church had little of
the old-world atmosphere suggested by the shrine. The wooden
houses, with sun-porches furnished with hammocks and rocking
chairs, were American not French. The pretty girls in the streets,
neat and trim as the village, wore American frocks. On the other
hand it was evident that there was something not completely
Americanised. Public notices were in French: the children and
young people playing and gossiping in the street spoke French:
and the French flag was more in evidence than that of Canada.
To the French-Canadian the province of Quebec remains a France
conquered, as it were, but yesterday, and he fiercely preserves
the language, the flag and many of the social customs of his
fathers.

Between cottage gardens flaunting their July glory of holly-
hocks and other familiar flowers I went on to the church. By its
side was a brass tablet setting forth in French and English that
here Wolfe landed on July 27, 1759. It was at Ste. Petronille,
however, that he began his preparations for the siege of Quebec.

The task of marking the historic sites and commemorating the
soldiers, priests and explorers who passed in one -long pilgrim-
age from the Atlantic to the Pacific has been undertaken, in
Canada, by the National Parks Bureau assisted by the Historic
Sites and Monuments Board. Local historical societies have also

18 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

shown much interest in the work and have marked many sites of
lesser importance than those which have claimed the attention of
the central authorities. So well has the idea been carried out that
it is impossible to travel far without experiencing the joy which
comes from turning back the pages of time.

Beyond St. Laurent two very intelligent-looking young men
stopped their farm wagon and offered me a lift. The road was
smooth but hard to the feet and the pace of the horse was slow
enough for observation, so I climbed into the cart. My two com-
panions were no better dressed than the farm labourers, but one
of them was a student of the classics and hoped to become a priest
while the other was a prosperous farmer. Our conversation was
not fluent, but I gathered they had seen the King and Queen when
they visited Quebec and both thought the latter angelique. They
asked me if I had ever seen Buckingham Palace. When I replied
that I lived quite near to it my social reputation soared like a
rocket, only to fall ignominiously when I had to confess I had
never been inside.

The young farmer talked mostly about the land. This love of
the soil, handed down from the hardy, pioneering ancestors who
first broke and tamed the wilds, is a not unexpected character-
istic: the French Canadians have the same land hunger as the
peasants of France. My young friend was full of information
about cows and crops, and pointed out to me one thing after
another as worthy of my notice. He, on his part, was surprised
to hear, and scarce believed, that in England we also could grow
hay, oats, apples and strawberries. He was moreover quite dis-
appointed that his own strawberries were finished and his apples
not yet ripe, so that he was unable to prove to me, on the spot,
that the fruits of the island were superior to those grown any-
where else in the world.

I left him at a very substantial prosperous-looking farmhouse
flanked by a huge barn, the upper entrance to which was by an
earthen incline which made access possible during the heavy
snows of winter. Unlike most of the farm-houses on the island
this one was surrounded by trees. He pointed them out with great
pride. 'And', said he, 'there are birds in them. I never shoot the
birds. They call me in the morning with their songs/

THE APPROACH 19

As he wished me farewell he apologised for the slowness with
which we had travelled. This horse is very strong but he is very
lazy and the cart has no springs. If we had come more quickly
you would have been jolted. I could not make you uncomfort-
able.'

By the time I reached St. Jean, about seven and a quarter
miles from St. Laurent, I was still hungering for a house
resembling one of Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Poitou or of any
other region in France whence came the hardy sailors, sturdy
farmers and stalwart soldiers for the peopling of what is now
the province of Quebec. Suddenly the hunger was satisfied by a
stone manor house which might have been transported bodily
from a Norman village.

By the side of meadows sloping to the shore, past farm-houses
gay with flowers, and orchards loaded with tiny ripening
apples, I followed the road to St. Frangois. The island gradually
took on a more Norman aspect. The white-washed houses and
buildings with steep thatched roofs were not American nor were
the women, sheltered by broad-brimmed straw hats, who were
stooping or kneeling as they weeded strawberry beds, nor the
two men who were ploughing with oxen.

The church of St. Frangois still carries the marks of the cannon
balls fired at it by Wolfe before he captured it and turned it into
a hospital. A very elderly habitant told me the story and told it
so simply that I had to feel ashamed. He was quite friendly,
probably guessed I was a visitor from England, and was content
with pointing out the deeds we did without adding any comments
on the nature of our behaviour. He took me to a field by the side
of the church to show me the wooden sheds used in the winter
for the shelter of the horses when the farmers and their families
come to Mass, and even offered me a bed in his house if I wished
to spend the night in the village. When I declined his offer he
left me with a genuine 'A-dieu' and forthwith went to ring the
Angelus.

Between St. Frangois and Ste. Famille a motorist stopped me
and asked:

Is monsieur going far?'

To Ste. Famille.'

20 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

'Monsieur, would he like a ride?'

'Thank you very much indeed but I am walking for pleasure.'

Tor pleasure?'

Tes.'

'Mon Dieu!' said he and stepped on the accelerator.

Ste. Famille has the first windmill built on the island, a church
dating back to 1709 and a convent two hundred and fifty years
old.

Through the same kind of country as that on the south but
with less sophisticated villages, and with the Laurentian moun-
tains forming the sky-line on my right, I arrived one day at
St. Pierre. I asked for an inn but there was none and engaged
in conversation with a man who was not a farmer.

He said, 1 was once a monk.'

'Really', I replied, 'and what happened?'

*I saw a lady over a fence.'

'And then?'

'I wrote to her but the bishop stopped the letters. 5

'And'

'He said I must remain religious or take off the cassock.'

'And then?'

'She was not ugly. I took off the cassock and already I have
two children.'

I rounded the bend leading me back to Ste. Petronille. Near
the bend was a fine house, the former home of the late Horatio
Walker, a distinguished Canadian artist. I had an introduction
to the present owner, a Canadian of British descent. He received
me cordially and showed me his collection of pictures. Before
a portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, he told me the picture, though
by an unknown French painter, could be proved to be a con-
temporary portrait by the beads in the necklace, and added,
*I own the beads. I am the great nephew of Agnes Strickland who
wrote the Queens of England and the beads came to me through
her.'

CHAPTER II

QUEBEC

As you return to Quebec in the ferry boat the river appears to be
a great lake bounded by high cliffs (Fig. 1). Just where those
cliffs are highest the St. Lawrence narrows to a passage less than
three-quarters of a mile wide. Here, too, the River St. Charles
joins the St. Lawrence and provides a sheltered harbour. Wedged
in between the two rivers a high triangular headland, the Heights
of Abraham, the so-called Gibraltar of America, guards the
passage and commands the way to the interior. The narrowing
of the valley at this dominating cliff is a significant fact in the
history of Quebec (the narrows) .

When Cartier arrived in 1535 he found the site occupied by
an Indian village called Stadacona. He mounted the bluff, over
300 feet above the water, and saw one of the most superb river
landscapes in the world. Opposite the rock a black pine forest
came down to the water's edge.- At its foot the majestic river
curved round and led the eye to the purple rim of the Laurentian
plateau. Beyond that edge another forest stretched farther than
any living man had ever ventured.

On the St. Lawrence side the slope falls so rapidly that even
to this day the ascent is made either by a few old narrow winding
streets and stairways or by an elevator, except where one modern
curly road winds its steep way to the summit. On the other side
the ascent from the St. Charles is gentler, but not gentle, and the
streets which lead up the slope have gradients which compel old
people to pause for breath.

In the mouth of the St. Charles Cartier left his two largest ships
while, with the bark and the long boats, he went farther up the
river. The bark foundered. How far he reached with the boats
we shall see anon. Of his visits to Quebec, and his attempt to
found a settlement at Cap Rouge, nine miles farther up the river,
which he abandoned owing to the hostility of the Indians, there

22 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

exists no evidence upon the surface of the land though, at the
base of the cliff, a modern statue preserves the memory of his
exploits.

For the moment we may leave him following his western way
and wait some sixty years for the third coming, in 1608, of
another great French explorer, Samuel Champlain, son of a sea-
captain of Brouage on the Bay of Biscay. Champlain's purpose
was not simply to explore hut to colonise, and he chose the first
and only good site then available. The south shore of the St.
Lawrence was occupied by the valiant Mohawks; the north shore,
below Quebec, owing to the proximity of the Laurentian plateau,
offered no habitable land except one narrow strip; but beyond
Quebec, where the high land recedes, there was a broad stretch
of fertile land along the river bank and at Quebec a natural
position for the inevitable fort. Champlain soon returned to
France, but he was back again three years later (1611) to become
the first governor of Canada.

He then built a combined house and fort known as Champlain's
Habitation in the section of Quebec now called the Lower Town.
In this area a French colony of a kind took root and here Quebec
preserves something of the aspect of a small French provincial
town such as, for instance, St. Malo. Though the factories, banks,
warehouses and commercial offices of this, the business section
of Quebec, have nothing distinctly French about them the narrow
street of Sous le Cap, the little square of Notre Dame and some
stone houses with dormer windows in their peaked roofs are
reminiscent of France.

Sous le Cap is said to be the narrowest street in North America ;
it is so narrow that the people who live in it hang their washing
on lines stretching across it from window to window. Its ram-
shackle buildings are the delight of artists and photographers.

Notre Dame Square, with its cobble paving, its old houses,
formerly the homes of some of the city's leading citizens, and its
centrally placed pedestal bearing a bust of Louis XIV, again
calls to mind memories of similar squares in the smaller provin-
cial towns of France. On one side of it is the church of Notre
Dame des Victoires, the oldest church in Quebec, dating from
1688. Here, too, the name of the great sailor, explorer, trader

QUEBEC 23

and author, who stands for so much in the early history of
Canada, is commemorated in that of the short narrow thorough-
fare Little Champlain Street and of Champlain Square to which
it leads.

Champlain did not long remain a resident at the foot of the
cliff. He went 'upstairs' and on one side of the present Place
d'Armes he built the Chateau St. Louis and another fort. In the
centre of the square stands a fine and imposing statue to his
memory. Facing him is the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's
hotel, the Chateau Frontenac. This modern hotel helps to give
Quebec, from the river, quite a mediaeval aspect. If railway com-
panies the world over had built their hotels and stations with the
same pride and taste, and had so suitably fitted them to their
surroundings, we should be burning incense to them in gratitude
instead of loading them with curses.

The settlement founded by Champlain grew slowly: the French
were not keen colonists and only French Catholics were allowed
to settle. Conditions were unfavourable owing to the presence of
hostile Indians, of thick forest which a man could clear only at
the rate of an acre and a half in a year, and the intense cold of
winter. Up to 1629 there were, except for two families, no people
at Quebec other than officials, priests and fur traders.

Apart from fish, furs are the basis of Canada's oldest
industry and, until about a century ago, her chief export. The
trade was fostered in Europe by the fashion of wearing beaver
hats, and in America by the desire of the Indians for the manu-
factures of Europe. The fur-traders, in their ever widening search
for pelts, became the chief explorers of the American continent,
and the modern traveller is, over a great part of both Canada
and the United States, constantly making contact with places
whose origins were due to their activities.

Of all the chapters in the history of Quebec, each starred with
the names of heroic men and gallant deeds, the most widely
known is the one which tells the story of the capture of the city
by Wolfe in 1759, a victory saddened by the death of both Wolfe
and Montcalm. With commendable impartiality the present city
honours both the conqueror and the conquered. One modest pillar
marks where Wolfe fell: another where Montcalm was fatally

24 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

wounded. The house in which Montcalm lived and the delightful,
high-gabled one which was his headquarters are reverently
preserved.

Like & good pilgrim I left no memorial unvisited. I crossed
the windy plains of Abraham * where the battle was fought,
stood on Earl Grey Terrace which marks its edge, and looked
over to the little bay, Wolfe's Cove, where, under cover of dark-
ness, Wolfe's men climbed up from their boats: a small white
house stands on the spot where the ascent began.

While I was standing on the terrace I fell into conversation
with a French-Canadian upon the subject of Wolfe's victory.
I could not quite understand why Wolfe had been left to complete
his preparations on the Isle of Orleans without being attacked
nor why his men were allowed to 'scale the heights of Quebec'
which, after all is said, are not a very difficult slope. To my
enquiries the descendant of the defeated replied that the Governor
had been a traitor and the sentinel at Wolfe's Cove had been
bribed. With real feeling he said 'We were betrayed or we should
never have been beaten.' That was his view of the events of 1759
and, whether correct or not, he, still a Frenchman at heart, was
after all these years suffering a sense of personal defeat.

When the British came into possession of Quebec they continued
the French policy of fortifying the rock which had been begun by
Champlain. Champlain had built two forts, one at the foot
surrounded by a ditch and provided with a draw-bridge, and
another on the top. These have disappeared. The squat, massive
citadel of the British, with its forty acres of parade ground, its
bastions and entrenchments, still sits frowningly solid on the
heights. The entrance to it is by way of a sunken road designed
as a protection against artillery fire. It could be blocked by the
now unused Chain Gate, a massive portal of wrought iron to
which were bolted the hundreds of heavy, hand-forged links that
gave it its name.

During the French occupation a beginning was made to sur-
round the upper fort with a wall, but the wall was never finished

* Abraham was the name of the farmer who owned the plain at the time of the
battle.

QUEBEC 25

and, like the forts, is no longer in existence. The first British wall,
constructed by the Royal Engineers at the end of the eighteenth
century, has also gone, but of its successor, erected during the
first quarter of the nineteenth century, large sections remain.
They have no present military value but they add to the charm
of the city and serve as a reminder that Quebec is the only walled
city in North America.

Quebec has a distinct atmosphere, a personality not to be found
in any city planned as a series of rectangles. In the older sections
the walls, the steep, cobbled, saint-named streets and the
occasional gabled houses with dormer windows and high, broad
chimneys are a definite attraction, especially to American tourists
who travel about in old-fashioned, high-sprung, horse-drawn
vehicles known as caleches. Even the Victorian villas of the
British garrison days and some of the fretwork-Gothic additions
of about the same period have historic value.

Outside the older sections, however, on the plateau to the west
of the citadel, there is a new residential quarter with wide well-
paved streets whose houses, with sun-porches, rocking chairs,
swinging hammocks and lack of dividing fences, hail neither from
France nor Britain but from the United States. There is little in
modern Quebec to suggest a city of the British Empire except
the Union Jack, and even in this matter of flags the French tri-
colour is the commoner.

Quebec is inhabited chiefly by French-speaking Roman Catho-
lics. Many of them cannot speak English, though the beggars who
accosted me seemed to be equally proficient in both languages.
The dominance of the Roman Catholic faith is seen in the number
of its churches, in many other institutions serving the same faith,
in 'religious shops' for the sale of images, beads and crucifixes,
and in the presence of scores of nuns and monks on the streets.

I was strolling through the graveyard attached to the Protestant
Church of St. Matthew, intending to look at the burial place of
Major Thomas Scott, a brother of Sir Walter Scott, but I hesitated
to approach it very closely as there was some one standing by its
side talking to the verger. When the other visitor had gone away
the verger said to me 'See that man who's just left. He wants me

26 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

to take a photo of this grave to send to his folks at home. He's
the grandson of Major Scott' and, therefore, the great-nephew of
Sir Walter Scott.

CHAPTER III

QUEBEC TO MONTREAL

FROM Quebec to Montreal the distance by road or river is much
the same, but the river journey can be made only at night while
that by land can be made during the day. I can see no reason in
travelling while asleep except when in a hurry. To the business
man, careful of every possible profit-making minute, night
journeying by train may be a boon. He wants, so he says, 'to save
time', but I sometimes wonder whether he is as wise as the negro
who philosophically remarked 'Money may be all right but yo'
sho' kin waste a powerful lot o' time makin' it.'

Even had there been a river service by day so that I might
have continued to follow in the water wake of Cartier and
Champlain, I doubt if I would have taken it. The shores of the
St. Lawrence below Quebec are high and bold, sometimes rising
hundreds of feet above the river, but just beyond Quebec the
cliffs recede: the shores are consequently (Fig. 2) flatter and
the view from the water less attractive.

XijhUmd CHI Lovkmd
Fig. 2. The St. Lawrence and Great Lakes Lowlands

28 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

Having decided to travel by land I had next to make a choice
between train and bus. I elected the bus on the ground that it was
cheaper and slower than the train and would go through places
rather than round them. I sought the bus for Montreal. A Boy
Scout spotted my badge, at once took charge of my luggage, asked
my name, recognised it as that of the author of one of his school
books, smiled with delight and flattered me with 'My word!
Fll tell my teacher Fve met you/

Travelling by bus, for distances up to 3,000 miles or more, is
quite common in America and I soon began to understand why.
Relative cheapness of actual transport is, of course, the major
factor but cheapness enters in other ways. The bus puts you down
and picks you up, in many of the smaller towns, at the very door
of your hotel; hence there are no taxi fares to be paid. The driver
of the bus loads and unloads your baggage with care and does not
expect a tip. The free allowance of 150 Ibs. of baggage is liberally
interpreted: I had three suit cases and never once were they
weighed. Add to all this that the drivers are, without exception,
models of courtesy: their only rivals in this respect are the London
policemen. The American long-distance bus-driver treats his
passengers as if they were his personal friends.

The great disadvantage of the bus is, unless you get a front
seat, the limitation of your view. The high backs of the adjustable
seats, while they make for the bodily comfort of the traveller,
block the vision and restrict the outlook because they are so near
to your face. I was, myself, particularly fortunate. On this excur-
sion I travelled over 5,000 miles by bus and was almost always
in front with an uninterrupted outlook over the countryside.

The western road from Quebec to Montreal, Route 2 of the
Canadian Highway (Fig. 3), was originally laid out as a military
road early in the eighteenth century. To-day it is a great modern
thoroughfare along which, in normal times, a daily procession
of thousands of motor vehicles moves swiftly in both directions.
Near to its exit from Quebec, at the end of the Avenue des
Braves, is a tall column erected to the memory of both victor and
vanquished in the struggle for Canada. It bears the simple in-
scription To the Brave', a worthy memorial to the courage and
the sacrifice shown by both sides in the conflict.

QUEBEC TO MONTREAL

The scenes along the highway were much like those in the Isle
of Orleans but on a larger scale. The narrow strips of farmland,
one after the other, seemed to run straight back to the Laurentian
hills but they were evidently divided parallel to the road as in-
dicated by lines of houses cutting across them in the distance.
There were the same kinds of small woods, the same kinds of
silvered spires, the same kinds of shrines by the roadside. The
predominance of thd French language was emphasised by a notice
1 saw in large letters over a restaurant, 'We Speak English 5 , and

Fig. 3. Quebec to Montreal

by the fact that the names of all the towns and villages, if not
Indian, were never English but French.

For a few miles, at many points, rugs were exposed for sale.
Their interest lay not so much in their colours and designs as in
the fact that they mark a great revival in home-crafts in" the pro-
vince. In many of the farmhouses the wife, when not busy with
other duties, is hard at work trying to meet a demand for home-
spuns. Long-forgotten spinning-wheels have been brought out of
dusty garrets and, in the shops of the larger towns, piles of
hooked rugs, rolls of homespun, embroideries, embossed leather,
bed-spreads and many other examples of handicraft are a tribute
to the deftness of the fingers of the French-Canadian women.

30 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

In some of the small thriving towns and villages there are
factories which employ a considerable part of the population,
but the main interests are agricultural. The gently rolling St.
Lawrence lowlands, west of Quebec, consist of flat-lying shales
and sandstones, much softer than the hard granite rocks lying to
the north and south of them and therefore much more easily
worn away: hence their lower altitude. The shales and sandstones
have weathered into a rich soil which reaches, in places, a depth
of over two hundred feet. In this region an ice-sheet mixed the
loose materials which had been produced by the previous weather-
ing, and to them added potash-bearing ingredients transported
from the granitic area of the Laurentian plateau, thus providing
a soil of great fertility.

The climate is suitable for wheat and other grains, but wheat-
growing has declined in face of western competition. Their place
has been taken by root-crops and hay both of which are fed to
cattle, though there are considerable areas devoted to vegetables
and tobacco.

If it were not for protective tariffs the butter and cheese of the
Canadian dairy-farm would find natural markets in New York
and New England. Because the tariff wall bars these outlets the
Canadian has been forced to seek a market in Britain where he
has had to meet the competition of the dairies of Europe and
New Zealand. Assisted by the Canadian government, which sent
experts to study the kinds of cheese the British like, established
schools to show how these cheeses could be made, and lectured
farmers unceasingly on Britain's need for cheese, there arose
cooperative creameries and cheese-factories, cooperative breeding
and^cow-testing associations, and government inspection of quality
in Canada and of condition on arrival in England. The result is
that dairying has become a major source of revenue for a large
proportion of the agricultural propulation.

In the production of cheese and creamery-butter and such con-
centrates as condensed and powdered milk the province of Ontario
takes the lead, but Quebec comes next and, while there are
creameries in all the Canadian provinces and cheese factories in
all but Nova Scotia, the provinces of Quebec and Ontario produce
ninety-three per cent of Canada's total output of cheese, sixty-

QUEBEC TO MONTREAL 31

two per cent of the creamery butter and the bulk of the con-
centrates. Thus the landscape along Route 2 is predominantly
pastoral and the factories in the little towns are mostly concerned
with the processing of farm produce.

In the late afternoon I arrived at the junction of the St. Maurice
and St. Lawrence Rivers (Fig. 3). Here two narrow islands divide
the mouth of the St. Maurice into three channels on whose banks
rises the city of Three Rivers. I did not know whether the city
was ugly or not, what its hotels were like or whether it had any
present-day attractions worthy of notice by the passing traveller.
But apart from the fact that night was approaching I simply had
to stop at Three Rivers, to stand and walk about on ground which,
to a person with geographical interests, is almost sacred. The bus
put me down at the Hotel Chateau de Blois. In my bedroom one
notice informed me I could hire a radio for fifty cents a day while
another asked me to 'Keep Smiling', In order to observe the
second notice I neglected the first.

At Three Rivers I once more made contact with Cartier and
Champlain. Cartier planted a cross on one of the islands but
founded no settlement: Champlain in 1634, eight years before
the founding of Montreal, sent the Sieur de Laviolette to establish
a fur-trading post. This post was for a long time the extreme out-
post of the French, and was held with much difficulty until
Champlain brought together Hurons, Algonquins, Iroquois and
French and made peace between them all. Unfortunately the
Mohawks, with firearms obtained from the Dutch and the English,
almost exterminated the Hurons and the Algonquins ard pressed
sorely upon the French, who were saved by the arrival of a num-
ber of French soldiers.

Down the St. Maurice Indian tribes came from the interior to
trade furs with the French, and Three Rivers, as a fur trading
post on the then western frontier, became the starting-point of
some of the most important exploring expeditions on the American
continent. It was from Three Rivers that Jean Nicolet set out to
explore the Great Lakes, and that Hennepin, Marquette and others
made their way to the Mississippi and the Middle West of the
United States. It was at Three Rivers that La Verendrye, the
discoverer of the Rocky Mountains, was born.

32 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

In the later development of the province Three Rivers, the
half-way house between Quebec and Montreal, was the halting
place for the night for most of those who travelled by road. It
was in every way a proper place at which I should halt on an
excursion such as mine.

Apart from sentiment and convenience, however, there did not
at first sight appear to be much to detain me. I had read in a local
publication that Three Rivers was a busy mill-town which, by
making full use of the swift waters and the numerous waterfalls
of the St. Maurice for power, had become not only the centre of
the Canadian newsprint industry but the hub of the greatest news-
print manufacturing centre in the world.

Three Rivers has also a considerable trade in lumber and many
of the population earn their living in this industry. They have
been bred in the tradition of the lumber jacks and, with the
courage and resource of their ancestors, fell trees in the forest
and drive logs down rivers. Factory chimneys belching smoke,
and mountains of logs outside the mills emphasised the tale of
great industrial enterprise but did not suggest much of ancient
romance. Yet perforce I must go rambling.

Ambling more or less aimlessly about, I came suddenly upon
a quiet retreat which made me open my eyes and wonder whether
I had not been mysteriously wafted to some backwater of
eighteenth century Europe. The Trifluvians, as the residents of
Three Rivers call themselves, claim that in their city are to be
found the largest number of well-preserved seventeenth and
eighteenth century buildings in America, north of the Rio
Grande.*

In this aesthetically satisfying corner there are, amongst other
buildings, the Monastere de St. Antoine, which belonged to the
Franciscans in the eighteenth century but was taken from them
by George IV and given to the Anglican church; the Ursuline
Convent, built in 1697, whose loftily placed sundial casts shadows
on dazzling white walls; two houses, each nearly two hundred
years old, of dignified Canadian Norman architecture.

Two or three centuries do not, by European measures, consti-

* But see Chapter XX.

Houses and barns, St. Pierre, Isle of Orleans
They run in a long line, near the water's edge and at tbe end of their long, narrow, rectangular farms

Photo: Ernest Tomg

Typical barn, St. Frangois, Isle of Orleans
The entrance, approached by a ramp, is high above the ground to be out of the winter's snows

French Manor House, dating from 1734,
St. Jean, Isle of Orleans

: Erntst Towtg

Ploughing with oxen, Isle of Orleans

Photo: Ernest Ywmg

//' ..

Photo: Prwuue of&wbec Twist i

Shooting the St. Lawrence Rapids

CanatKan Pacific

The Thousand Islands, River St. Lawrence

The Water Front, Toronto

QUEBEC TO MONTREAL 33

lute a great age, but this peaceful, graceful group of buildings,
some of them built with stones carried as ballast in French sailing
ships, nobly maintains a great tradition. It shuts out all the
chimneys and the mills and is as refreshing to the spirit as wine
to the body.

After dinner I sought a French-Canadian and asked him to
explain to me what he thought was the cause of the isolation
which still prevents French and English in Canada from rubbing
shoulders together and so removing that lack of solidarity which,
in very truth, is a human handicap to the full success of both.

He explained that the formal guarantees of the Treaty of Paris
and the Quebec Act which preserved the language, religion and
laws of the French colonists were the origin of the situation. With-
out them the distinct racial separateness which exists would
probably have heen by now much diminished, notwithstanding
the radical differences in temperament and character between
the French and English. What the guarantees began has been
sedulously fostered by every possible means, not the least effect-
ive of which are an able and vigorous literature which preserves
and cultivates the French language, and separate schools for the
children of the two peoples. The political freedom accorded to
the French caused them, at an early stage, to realise that close
union amongst themselves could preserve their influence as a
powerful section of the community.

To these things he added the inherent merits of their civil law,
the descendant, as he remarked, of a jurisprudence which was a
refined science centuries before the birth of Christ, and the ideal,
fostered by the priests, of becoming the foremost and most re-
presentative body of Roman Catholics in North America.

All of which sounded to me true and reasonable and gave me
much to think about and feel sad about as, on the morrow, long
stretches of country, treeless except where Lombardy poplars
encircle the villages, accompanied me to Montreal, the third
largest French city in the world.

CHAPTER IV

MONTREAL

AT Montreal I visited the Hotel Windsor, a house of long and
honourable standing. As I was stepping out of a taxi in front of
it, the driver said to me That's where the King and Queen were
entertained when they came to Montreal. I tried it myself once
but it was too old-fashioned for me!'

Montreal is the biggest city in Canada and, although a thousand
miles from the sea, an Atlantic port. Like all large cities and
ports it owes something to its natural surroundings but quite as
much, perhaps more, to the men who had the vision and the
energy to make use of Nature's gifts.

Montreal's natural position is that of a focus of four traffic
routes of potential importance (Fig. 4), viz. i. From the south,
that is, from New York, by way of the valleys of the River Hud-
son, Lake Champlain and the River Richelieu; ii. From the east,
that is from the Atlantic and, therefore, the world, by the lower
valley of the St. Lawrence; iii. From the west, that is, from the
interior of the continent, by the Great Lakes; iv. Also from the
west from Lake Huron, by the rivers French and Ottawa: this
route, which involved a portage between the two rivers, was much
used by the French as the name of one of them indicates, and by
the Indians long before them.

Montreal is also situated upon an island or rather, with its
suburbs, on a series of islands, so that water-ways not only reach
the front door of the house but also wander through the passages.
Yet it was not merely these things that gave the site its actual
importance and prosperity. When Cartier reached the main island
he found there only the Huron -Iroquois village called Hochelaga,
and even that had disappeared by the time Champlain arrived to
establish a fur-trading post. It was British capital and forethought
which created modern Montreal.

The British deepened the river, blasted channels, and on the

MONTREAL

upper river constructed canals to avoid the different rapids.
Montreal, as a port, -is much more man-made than Nature-made
and man has made a superlatively fine job of it.

Exactly where the village of Hochelaga stood ha& been often

Fig. 4. The Site of Montreal

debated but the question may now be considered settled: on a
small stone, set under the trees on the ground occupied by McGill
University, there is a bronze tablet on which is recorded, in two
languages, 'Near here was the site of the fortified Town of
Hochelaga visited by Jacques Cartier in 1535, abandoned about

36 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

1600. It contained fifty large houses, each lodging several
families who subsisted by cultivation and fishing.'

Behind the village rose the mountain which Cartier called
Mont Real and we know as Mount Royal. He relates how he was
'conducted by several men and women of the place up the ....
mountain' and describes the view from the summit: 'We had a
view of the land for more than thirty leagues round about. Towards
the north there is a range of mountains running east and west and
another range to the south. Between these ranges lies the finest
land it is possible to see, being arable, level and flat. And in the
midst of this flat region one saw the river extending beyond the
spot where we had left our long boats. At that point is the most
violent rapid it is possible to see which we were unable to pass.
And so far as the eye can reach one sees that river, large, wide
and broad.'

The mountains to the north were the Laurentians; those to the
south were the northerly extension of the Appalachians; the rapids
that put an end to Carrier's search for the Orient were the Lachine,
that is, The China' Rapids.

The real foundation, of Montreal began in 164-2 when Paul de
Chomedy, Sieur de Maisonneuve, landed with a little band of
religious colonists near where the Customs House now stands,
but thirty years elapsed before the first regular streets were laid.
At that time the population was simply a picturesque handful of
prifests, soldiers, hunters, trader's and a few farmers.

Near to the spot where Chomedy landed is all that remains,
and it is very little, of old Montreal or, as it was called, Ville
Marie de Montreal. Its protecting walls have disappeared but, as
silent witnesses of the indomitable efforts of the first missionaries,
there remain the Sulpician Seminary and two aged towers stand-
ing in its grounds, part of 'Le Fort des Messieurs'. The fort was
erected to protect from hostile Iroquois those pupils and converts
who came to be taught by the members of the Sulpician order and
the pioneer nuns. Over the gateway of the seminary an inscrip-
tion in Latin records 'Here were evangelised the Indians, 1676'.

Fortunately, as a memorial of the eighteenth century, when
Montreal had the appearance of an impregnable fortress and
soldiers kept constant vigil on its watch-towers, there is the wholly

MONTREAL 37

charming Chateau de Ramezay, erected in 1705 by the French
governor whose name it bears and in the possession of whose
family it remained for forty years. It has had a long period of
usefulness. After the cession of Canada to England it became the
official residence of the Governor of Montreal. In 1775 when the
revolting Britons from over the border captured the city it was
the home of both General Wooster and his successor Benedict
Arnold. To it, the next year, came Benjamin Franklin and Charles
Carroll seeking French-Canadian assistance for the Revolution.
Their mission failed and they returned to Philadelphia to write
their signatures to the Declaration of Independence, but they left
behind them a French prisoner who, within two years, founded
The Gazette, now the leading newspaper of Montreal.

Till nearly the middle of the nineteenth century the chateau
continued to be used by the Governor, after which time it was
successively a court-house, an education office, a normal school,
a part of Laval university, a circuit court and a magistrate's
court. It next became city property and now is the home of a
museum. The Chateau de Ramezay, both for its historic memories
and its architectural richness, is one of Canada's most precious
possessions.

To obtain my first general acquaintance with Montreal I joined
a 'sight-seeing' tour by bus. For two hours I was barked at through
a megaphone, and deluged with a mass of unimportant informa-
tion, chiefly of a statistical character, with reference to the sizes
and costs of the different buildings. The 'barker' was a university
undergraduate earning a little money during his vacation to
enable him to pursue his studies. From him I learned that in the
province of Quebec there is no compulsory education owing to
the opposition of the farmers whose huge families are useful in
the fields.

We visited the outsides of many public buildings and the
interiors of a few churches but these did not hold my attention.
There are times when my tastes are not elevated. I was more
interested in a chemist's shop where a tea-spoon or a table-spoon
was presented with every make-up of a prescription so that the
doses might be accurately taken in accordance with the instruc-
tions of the physician.

38 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

We drove through the highly select residential district of
Westmount, where no cinemas, liquor stores or apartment houses
may be opened. Because the slopes of Westmount are steep,
domestic servants expect to be driven to and from the street cars
by a chauffeur: well-to-do residents often provide a special car
for the use of their employees.

In Westmount, if your garden is not kept in proper order, the
city gardener will attend to it without your permission, and charge
you an official rate for his services. I imagine he does not often
have to operate. I was much struck by the beautiful lawns used
as a feature in garden design. Nothing in a landscape gives a
greater sense of tranquillity, or in a garden forms such a suitable
background for border plants, shrubs or trees as bright, green
grass. In America, where neighbouring stretches of turf are so
often undivided by fences, walls or hedges, they inspire a feeling
of restfulness and give a sense of space which, in a small area,
could be obtained in no other way.

We went still higher but not to the actual summit of Mount
Royal as the local traffic regulations forbid motors to drive to
the top. Only horse-drawn vehicles are allowed and these are,
as often as not, those quaint museum-pieces, the caleches.

From the point where we halted we had the wide panoramic
view described by Cartier but containing newer elements
domes, spires, steeples, bridges, a developed water-front with
miles of magnificent stone quays and piers, long lines of vessels,
grain elevators, rising ranks of warehouses and other commercial
buildings, and the largest cold-storage plant in the world.

The water front has never been private property in Montreal
and no vested interests have ever interfered with its development.
It was ordained from the beginning that the foreshore should be
reserved for all time to the use of the people and that a tow-path
should be left along the bank of the river from the base of the
island to the foot of the Lachine rapids. When it was found that
ice in the river caused this path to be flooded, the right-of-way
was shifted far enough above high-water mark to give the people
of the island free access to the river front.

As we reached the bottom of the hill the barker called our
attention to a huge hole being excavated for a new station of the

MONTREAL 39

Canadian National Railway and told us the government had just
voted three million dollars, not so much to help in the good work,
as "because there's going to be an election'.

Having been duly 'conducted' I took to my feet. I knew that
all the people of Montreal did not live in Westmount and wanted
to see what happened elsewhere. Now just as Quebec in the east
is more French than Montreal in the west so, in Montreal itself,
the east of the city is more French than the west. The differences
between the two ends of the long streets running east and west are
remarkable.

In the east the people are more tightly packed, are less well
dressed and live in poorer houses. Many of the houses are flats
of two or three stories. The ascent to the second story may be
made by means of an outdoor staircase to save room on the lower
floor: the ascent to the third story, however, is always by an
internal staircase. The outer staircases are dangerously slippery
in winter weather and local bye-laws now forbid the erection of
any more of them.

In the east is the old Bonnesecour Market, formerly a great
attraction to tourists on account of the white-capped, gesticulating
French women selling the produce of their farms, and the old-
fashioned habitant-carts which carried both them and their wares.
Much of this is now a thing of the past. Though the show of fruits
and vegetables is still a gaily coloured spectacle, and there is
still some exuberance of manners on the part of the vendors, the
white bonnets are few, and the picturesque carts of the habitants
have been replaced by unromantic motor trucks.

Montreal has, for its size and importance, few good book-
shops. On the other hand it has numerous and excellent sports
out-fitters catering for the angler and the hunter. The presence
of so many of the latter is explained by the fact that the well-
populated areas of both provinces, Quebec and Ontario, are,
compared with their total areas, not much more than clearings
in a great forest. Hence, at a short distance of each of the big
cities is the Laurentian district, where hunting and fishing are
possible through long periods of the year.

Montreal, as I have already said, is much less French than
Quebec and, though all notices are printed in two languages,

40 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

I never met anyone who could not speak English. From external
appearances the greatest non-British influence in the life of the
city would appear to be that of the United States. The porters at
the Canadian Pacific Railway and other stations, as well as many
other workers, are negroes but not such nicely mannered negroes
as their brethren of the Southern States. The big sky-scrapers,
often very handsome, the chain stores, and the habit of calling
lavatories 'Rest Rooms' and 'Wash Rooms' all hail from across
the border. Montreal looks much more like a city of die United
States than one of France or Britain.

Brooding thus I was overjoyed to see, on the playing fields
of McGill University, a cricket game in progress, complete with
umpires in straw hats and long, white coats.

A rest in Dominion Square brought me in contact with a dis-
tressingly large number of beggars. I responded to the appeals
of a few of them until a passer-by said to me 'Don't do it. They're
all professionals!' They certainly knew all the ancient tales of
the brotherhood of mendicants. I could not help contrasting their
whining voices and cringing attitudes with that of a well educated
boy in attendance on a hotel elevator. The gates of the elevator
were heavy and hard to move.

'Makes your arm ache?' I asked.

'Sure', he replied, 'but better an aching arm than an aching
stomach.'

One of the beggars in the square, of Spanish descent and
imperfect English speech, called England 'the old country' but
thought Canada ought to join the United States, I wonder what
would happen to Quebec if she did. Would she be allowed to
continue, for instance, to retain the privileges granted to her by
the British, refuse to adopt compulsory education, and receive
funds from the public purse for the support of denominational
schools?

The restaurants of Montreal are many and varied and make
a feature of offering the French type of cuisine. I was a diligent
student of their efforts. I remember one which tempted me by
calling itself really and truly French and said it provided a
'Diner des Gastronomes', but the first dish on the menu was
Chicken Gumbo, a dish not common at places where they eat in

MONTREAL 41

Paris, and the wine list was limited to a few undated beverages.
Les gastronomes are apt to be particular about the date of their
wine. The omission, however, was the fault of the Quebec Liquor
Commission to whom is confined the purchase and sale of all
alcohol: if they cannot or do not choose to educate their
customers in the matter of wine drinking, the restaurants are
helpless.

The Quebec liquor laws allow alcoholic drinks to be sold only
at shops belonging to the Commission. A customer can buy only
one bottle of spirits at a time, but he can buy as many bottles of
wine as he pleases provided he takes them home. What brand of
wine he may buy depends on the choice of the Commissioners,
who are not all gifted with discriminating palates.

Hotels, restaurants and clubs, if holding permits, may sell
wine and beer with meals but not whisky. Whisky, except by the
bottle, is obtainable only in clubs. Therefore many hotels have
'clubs'. Membership is obtained with no other formality than
signing one's name in the register on entering. No one seems to
take any notice whether the 'member' signs or not and I am bound
to say I never saw anyone pay any attention to what appears to
be a useless formality and an easy way of breaking the law.

CHAPTER V

THE KING'S HIGHWAY
Montreal to Toronto

I bade farewell to Montreal. By unfenced lawns, good buildings
of grey stone or red brick, and open parks where children swung
on swings and shot down chutes, I rolled through the suburbs of
the city. Quite a number of my companions at once set to work
to maintain the profits of various brands of chewing gum, the
youngest of them, affectionate couples, making sheep's eyes at
each other to the accompaniment of their continuous mastication.
I was told that if I did not chew I should be taken for an
immigrant.

We travelled rapidly a winding, rather narrow, tree-shaded
road much like many a one in Europe and were nevei far from
the river with its little harbours full of boats, its yachting and
other clubs and the villas of the rich aligned along its banks.
America is a great land for the rich: I am not so sure it is good
for the poor.

At the seaward end of the Lachine rapids I said good-bye to
Cartier: they stopped his progress but not mine. He returned:
I went on, and his subsequent adventures interested me no more.
At the other end of the rapids is a chapel in honour of Ste. Anne,
the patron saint of the Canadian voyageur, where he made his
confessions and pledged his vows before starting on his dangerous
journey through the turbulent waters in his birch bark canoe.

The birch bark canoe, easily carried on the shoulders over
scores of portages, and able in skilful hands to dare the most
treacherous waters, was the voyageur^ inseparable companion.
He rode in it by day, slept in it by night, and talked and sang
about it at all times and seasons. Without the canoe the history
of the interior of North America would have been very different
from what it is. To-day tourists 'shoot the rapids' in small pleas-

THE KING'S HIGHWAY 43

ure steamers. These steamers return empty, by way of the Soulan-
ges Canal along whose banks we drove.

At Riviere Beaiidette we crossed the frontier between the pro-
vinces of Quebec and Ontario. A few yards beyond the boundary
was a sign which said, I believe, 'Drive slowly. You are now in
Ontario', but I'm not sure as we were going about sixty miles an
hour. Crossing this border is comparable to crossing the English
Channel from Calais to Dover: the countryside, in each case,
shows little difference. The St. Lawrence lowland simply grows
wider, reaching its maximum width on the edge of Lake Ontario
(Fig. 5). But French names for towns and villages and the use

Fig. 5. Montreal to Toronto

of the French language practically disappear. The road signs,
instead of displaying the fleur-de-lis, as in Quebec, proudly carry
the words The King's Highway*, surmounted by the imperial
crown. You sense immediately a new atmosphere although, as
already remarked, the physical environment, for a while, remains
unchanged.

Up to 1783 there was no Ontario; there was, in fact, no Canada
west of Montreal. Beyond that city lay nothing but a wooded,
practically uninhabited wilderness whose only occupants were
a few missionaries and fur-traders. Ontario is the creation of
some thousands of United Empire Loyalists who exiled themselves
from, or were driven out of, the new Republic because they wished
to remain loyal subjects of King George. It was they and their

44 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

successors who, with axe and plough, in conditions calling for
the exercise of almost unparalleled devotion, tamed the wilder-
ness and converted a thin string of fur posts in a virgin forest
into the fairest province of Canada.

Some years after its foundation it received another wave of
settlers, this time from Northern Ireland, imbued with hatred of
Roman Catholicism. To them the Catholics of Canada were as
obnoxious as those of Erin and they felt that their special mission
in this new country was the maintenance of the Protestantism and
Imperialism already established. To-day Ontario, at heart, is
Tory and Imperialist, British and Protestant, no matter what be
the colour of the political party in power. The province is so in-
tensely British in feeling I felt my own patriotism was but as
pink to scarlet. Everybody in Ontario flies the Union Jack and
sings the National Anthem on every possible occasion with a
fervour undreamed of in Britain except at times of great national
stress.

The road from Montreal to Toronto is part of an old post road
which succeeded a trail used by the earliest explorers and
adventurers. Along it are many hotels, 'tourist homes', and tourist
cabins or motels. The motels are the outcome of the demands of
tens of thousands of motorists for cheap accomodation for one
night only. They are common all over the continent, especially
in the United States, where more than 20,000 of them compete
with 20,000 hotels and 200,000 tourist homes for the favour of
over 25,000,000 motorists. Sometimes the cabins are pleasantly
grouped in picturesque surroundings: at other times they may be
close together, perhaps on the edge of a dusty road or in the
middle of an unshaded field, and lack either beauty or privacy.
They also vary in their accommodation; some of them are little
more than large bathing-hut-like cabins, plain and sparsely
furnished; others are comfortable enough and large enough for
a prolonged vacation.

In the whole of Canada there is no road which has so many
old fortifications or so many reminders of past conflicts in the
space of three hundred miles as this one between Montreal and
Kingston. A tablet on a cairn, just east of Johnstown where the
road from Ottawa comes down, records the last stand of the

THE KING'S HIGHWAY

French in Canada; a mile or so further on, a windmill, which
looks like a light-house, marks the last invasion of Canada; in
another two miles is Prescott, the 'Historic Fort Town' where an
old fort with stockade, block house and listening post is maintain-
ed for the curiosity of tourists.

Prescott about marks the end of the St. Lawrence lowlands.
(Fig. 5). From this point, for some distance up stream, the old
hard rocks of the Laurentian plateau swinging across the valley
to join the Adirondacks create the so-called Thousand Islands,

W YORK

Fig. 6. The Thousand Isles

whose actual number is 1692. Twelve miles beyond Prescott, at
Brockville, I halted for the inevitable visit to the Thousand Isles
(Fig. 6), where, according to a Mohawk legend, the Great Spirit
planted his special Earthly Paradise and created treacherous
waters to guard it.

Together with a number of other tourists, I invaded it in a little
launch and skimmed over the blue-green water amongst the grey,
forest-covered rocks which, owing to their number, create the
kind of mystery belonging to a series of apparently countless
winding channels. The islands are of all imaginable shapes, sizes
and appearances. Some are several miles long, others but a few
yards, others but mere dots. Some are bare whale-backs, others
gay with trees and flowers. Together they constitute a fairy-land
of rock and water. On the shores are summer houses, boat houses,

46 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

cabins and tents; between them the water lanes are merry with
rowing boats, canoes and white-sailed yachts.

In some cases citizens of Canada or the United States have
bought whole islands as sites for summer homes. Their names
and social positions bulked large in the information supplied by
the guide. The little folder advertising the tour said that during
the journey the guide would 'explain in detail the interesting
facts of Nature's most beautiful panorama. You will be surprised
at and thrilled at the fascinating things he will tell you about
the Islands.' Unfortunately, all this young gentleman did, for the
space of two hours, was to bawl through a megaphone something
after the following fashion. 'On your right is Manhattan Island
owned by George S. Hasbrouck of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. On
your left Totem Lodge owned by Mrs. Gordon Thring of Ro-
chester, New York.' As I had never heard of any of these people
I did not find the information in any way interesting and would
have preferred silence. Had the guide been wiser or better in-
formed he would have told us of how Champlain and his com-
panions made their adventurous way from island to island, and
of their keen delight in the tree-clad slopes and polished rocks
which marked their passage.

For about fifty miles from Brockville the beautiful 'scenic
highway', a fine example of arterial road building, gave us
changing views of the Thousand Islands and of wide areas of
pasture land in which great bare blocks of granite made pink
and white islands, and little hillocks of the same rocks gave un-
dulations to the surface.

Silos, barns, farmhouses of wood, stone, brick and corrugated
iron, patches of woodland, fields golden red with sheaves of
wheat or green and brown with yet uncut maize took us into
Kingston where we had to change buses. In the bus depot were
two very small, forlorn-looking Boy Scouts. They had just arrived
from camp by another bus whose unpunctuality had caused them
to miss their connection. There would not be another for them till
two in the morning.

'What are you going to do till then?' I asked.

'Wander about', was the reply. 'We've got enough money left
to buy our food/

THE KING'S HIGHWAY 47

'Why not find out the local Scoutmaster and ask him to put
you up for the night?*

'We'd thought of that*, said the smaller of the two, 'but, you
see, we shall have to get up very early and we couldn't interfere
with his sleep!'

The first notice of the site of Kingston comes to us from
Champlain but the real history of the town begins in 1673 when
the then iron-willed Governor of Canada, Count de Frontenac,
acting on his own initiative, built a fort here. To defend his action
he sent his friend La Salle, one of the few men for whom, in his
long life, he ever felt a warm affection, to Paris. He instructed
La Salle to ask, at the same time, for the command of the fort
for himself. His envoy was successful in both respects and on his
return replaced the wooden fort by one of stone. From this time
Fort Frontenac, as it was called, was the point of departure for
those explorers and missionaries who penetrated the middle
western regions of Canada and the Great Lakes region of the
present United States.

The change of the name from Fort Frontenac to Kingston is
associated with the arrival of the United Empire Loyalists. These
immigrants, unlike the French voyageurs, came not singly but in
large numbers, and instead of roaming over wide tracts of country
they settled in isolated groups, chiefly at Niagara, Long Point
on Lake Erie, Amherst (New Windsor) and Fort Frontenac (now
Kingston).

Conflict with the French was followed by conflict with the
United States. During the colossal struggle between Great Britain
and Napoleon, when Great Britain was fighting to prevent the
conquest of the whole continent of Europe by a single power, the
government of the United States, incensed by British interference
with her commerce at sea and by the impressment of American
sailors to fight in the British fleet, declared war. This 'War of
1812', as it is called was, according to two eminent American
historians* 'in many ways one of the most unfortunate events
in American history. For one reason, it was needless; the British
Orders in Council that had caused the moral irritation were being

* Nevins and Commager, Pocket History of the United State.

48 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

unconditionally repealed just as Congress declared war. For
another, the United States suffered internal divisions of the
gravest kind. While the South and West favoured war, New York
and New England in general opposed it, and toward its end im-
portant New England groups went to the very edge of disloyalty.
For a third reason, the war was far from glorious, in a military
sense/ Neither side can be said to have triumphed and frontiers
were left unchanged. The chief result was that on one side the
people became more 'nationally' American and on the other more
intensely British.

When the war was over, the British built a fort at Kingston
to keep their neighbours off Canadian soil. It was never used:
it never could have been used for its specified purpose. The
military authorities in London had made plans for two forts, one
at Kingston, Jamaica, and one at Kingston, Ontario. Somehow
the plans got mixed but, true to British military tradition, orders
were obeyed though they involved building the fort the wrong
way round! It was gradually allowed to fall into ruins till it
ceased to be anything but a mass of crumbling limestone, between
whose carefully hand-cut stones grew grass, weeds and legends.

In recent years the city fathers of Kingston have realised that
a fort on the border would be an added attraction to visitors from
the United States so they have restored it. It now has the appear-
ance of an impressive military work bristling with guns and
defended by ditch, flanking towers and other devices. A sentry,
in the colourful uniform of the period, stands guard at the
entrance, and an official guide points out and explains the
weapons and other equipment, the deep underground tunnels and
the contents of the different living rooms.

The usual tree-shaded boulevard led us out of Kingston and
launched us on another lowland, that of the Great Lakes (Fig. 2) .
This lowland surrounds Lake Ontario but elsewhere is partially
bounded by Lakes Huron and Erie. The long succession of fields
and pastures tempted the eye to other objects and templed the
mind to speculate on other subjects. There was, for instance,
a varied assortment of fences. I fancy the oldest were those of
mere stumps left on the first clearing of the land; these, besides
marking property limits, had also protected seedlings planted

THE KING'S HIGHWAY 49

behind them and allowed them to grow into trees and form a living
boundary. Then there were the rail-fences arranged snake-wise,
easier to make and less wasteful of wood, belonging to a later
date when wood was less abundant. In the sandy districts the rails
were of pine stems; elsewhere they were sections of logs. The
walls of stone, much later still in date, were the result of the
arrival of a group of English and Scottish stone-masons, more
familiar with the mason's mallet than the woodman's axe. The
last of all, cheapest of all, perhaps most efficient of all, but of
no beauty whatever, were of posts and barbed wire.

I found plenty of opportunity for an amusement of mine :
trying to guess, in this New World, the origins and meanings of
the place-names, a fascinating business even if the guesses were
somewhat wide of the mark. Nine miles out of Kingston was
Odessa, in no way resembling anything Russian; but who but a
Russian would have been likely to choose that name? Brighton,
some sixty miles farther on, has local justification for its name
because, like its English namesake, it has a sea (Lake Ontario)
in front and low hills behind. It must certainly have been a Welsh-
man who gave the name of Bangor to a town in Pennsylvania,
where there is one of the biggest slate quarries in the world.

In many instances, as in Odessa, a kindly memory of the home-
land was probably sufficient to prompt the name of a site irrespec-
tive of any resemblance to one across the seas.

Sometimes a memory of school days may be traced as, for
instance, in such names as Rowena, Desdemona, Pickwick in
Texas; Romeo, Juliet in Florida; or Robin Hood in Maine. In
yet other cases purely local circumstances caused flattering or
derisive appellations, the latter being often so unwelcome when
the inhabitants became respectable, that they had to be dropped.
When Hell-for-Sartin, in California, applied to the Post Office
Department for the establishment of a post office, the authorities
revolted and refused the request until a more desirable name was
found for the destination of correspondence.

We stopped for light refreshments at Cobourg and there I made
my first, but by no means my last, acquaintance with a type of
organisation common in the United States. Strolling about the
streets, making personal remarks to often resentful, passing girls,

50 ^ THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

and producing more than their fair share of noise were a number
of men, mostly in their shirt sleeves and braces, wearing Turkish
fezzes embroidered with crescents and scimitars and labelled
"Damascus'. They had yellow labels tagged to their breasts and
were accompanied by a full-throated assortment of brass and
woodwind instruments and a varied collection of sonorous drums.
Their fantastic attire and decorations were so suggestive of a
circus and their behaviour was so hilarious I had to ask some
one who they might be.

Them?' said the young man to whom I addressed myself,
'They're Americans come across the lake for a picnic. I don't
know exactly who they are but you can tell they're good business
men by the clothes they are wearing. They couldn't afford them
clothes if they wasn't good business men.'

Through a grove of pine trees cresting a high hill we dropped
into Fort Hope, where die main street winds through the centre
of a kind of basin and becomes a canal in time of flood, traversed
the valley of the Rouge Hills and came to Toronto, the second
largest city in Canada, typically modern and American in its
aspect. The driver of the bus handed me my baggage as if he
was a friend pleased to render me a favour. Unconsciously I
shook hands with him. He was not a bit surprised: he would,
I believe, have been much more surprised, and possibly a little
offended, had I offered him a tip.

When I had deposited my baggage in a hotel I asked the hall
porter the way to the post office. He said something like 'Go two
blocks north and three blocks west.' This is the American method
of giving directions. Anywhere, in either Canada or the United
States, ask the youngest child or the oldest inhabitant the way
to anywhere and you will get the same kind of reply, except in
the country where 'miles' will be substituted for 'blocks*. This is
a survival of a custom which originated with the pioneers. When
landmarks were un-named a mileage and a compass direction
were the most suitable indications of a route.

The history of Toronto is a little unusual. As already remarked,
the United Empire Loyalists established themselves in several
isolated communities. Because such an assortment of widely
separated independent groups did not facilitate administration,

THE KING'S HIGHWAY

Sinicoe, the first governor of Ontario (then called Upper Canada),
proposed to unite them by means of roads and a capital. One
road, the old post road, along which I had been travelling, was
already in existence. -It ran from Montreal through Kingston to
London and Windsor but not through Toronto; at that time To-
ronto did not exist. The only settlement on the site was a solitary
wigwam. Simcoe's choice for a capital was a bad one London.
Lord Dorchester, then Governor General of Canada, who obvious-
ly had some geographical insight, knew that a well placed capital
should be centrally situated with regard to the people whose

Fig. 7. The Site of Toronto

affairs it would have to administer and not at the end of a long
thin line. He wisely chose the site now occupied by Toronto. The
earliest settlement was called Fort York; Toronto is a better name.
It is an Indian word meaning 'a place of meeting 5 and so indicates
the suitability of the site for a capital and offers a clue to its
modern importance.

Toronto is centrally placed both on the long road from east
to west and also on a natural route connecting the portage at
Niagara with the one at Lake Simcoe, the point of departure for
voyageurs paddling to Georgian Bay and the lakes beyond
(Fig. 7). Unfortunately the portage between Toronto and Lake
Simcoe was long. To remedy this difficulty all that was necessary
was another road along the old portage route. Simcoe began its
construction. When the road was finished it ensured for all time

52 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

the predominance of Toronto as a 'place of meeting', not only
for legislators but for business men as well.

In 1813 Fort York was attacked by a fleet from the United
States. The American forces landed in the morning where the
present amusement park of Sunnyside is situated. The small
defending force of about eight hundred regulars, militia and
Indians, was pressed back across what are now the grounds of
the Canadian National Exhibition the largest annual exhibition
in the world and surrendered, but, as the enemy approached,
a powder magazine exploded and killed three hundred of the
invaders.

The Yankees remained for only a few days during which time
they destroyed the legislative buildings; some of the men, getting
out of hand, looted a certain amount of private property. The
next year, true to the codes of the time, the British retaliated and
burned the public buildings of Washington.

As the provincial capital Toronto contains the parliament build-
ings and the chief university. As the focus of a number of routes
converging at the lake side it is a great railway junction and a
port: despite its distance from the sea it has, in the latter capacity,
outstripped even Quebec. As the centre of a rich farming district
it has manufactures of agricultural machinery. It has, indeed,
become the second largest industrial city in Canada and manu-
factures all varieties of goods from hats and gloves to engines,
boilers and heavy machinery. All this industrial development
has been much aided by the supply, from Niagara, of an abund-
ance of cheap water power.

Fortunately, industry based on electric power does not defile,
and Toronto is a queenly city with beautiful parks, open spaces
and other clean, litter-free, pleasure grounds. In one of the parks,
round the grave of the man who gave the park to the city, is a
part of the original iron railing designed by Sir Christopher Wren
to enclose St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The hotels and clubs
are gay by day and night: the chief hotel, the Royal York, is the
largest in the British Empire and the Royal Canadian Yacht Club
is the largest fresh-water yacht club in the world,

I have already mentioned a number of things which are locally
claimed as the biggest of their kind in the world, and even at the

THE KING'S HIGHWAY 53

risk of being monotonous, I shall have to use the same expression
many times in the following pages. I am not prepared, however,
to justify the claim in all cases; local pride may, occasionally,
be responsible for the neglect of statistical authority. The element
of vastness is one of America's most characteristic features and
offers one clue to the understanding of much in this continent.
Everything is on a stupendous scale. Storms of terrific violence;
floods that turn vast areas into seas; lakes as big as small seas;
a desert which in one place is a thousand miles broad; a mountain
system in the west which, at its widest, is also a thousand miles
broad; rivers which wind their sinuous courses for thousands of
miles across bewilderingly extensive plains; colossal bridges,
buildings and engineering enterprises; all conspire to make size
a standard of quality. One of the greatest compliments that one
American can pay to another is to call him 'a big man* a
figurative reference to his ability, not to his bulk.

In Toronto I experienced my first contact with that openhanded
hospitality coupled with an informality of personal approach
which is as characteristic of America as its vastness. Like the
method of giving directions it owes its origin to the pioneers.
When you lived or wandered in the wilds you dispensed with
both references and introductions. One day, in Toronto, I present-
ed myself, on a pure matter of business, to one of the citizens. He
promptly took me as his guest to a luncheon of the Rotary Club.
There he introduced me to another citizen, a perfect stranger, who
promptly grasped my hand in both of his and exclaimed 'Sure,
Ernest, I'm real glad to meet you/

At that lunch I heard three stories about the King and Queen
when they were in Canada. They may, of course, not be true:
legends grow quickly.

1. There was a little uncertainty, before the royal visit, as
to how the French-Canadians would receive their sovereign: there
was, in fact, in some quarters a fear that the reception might be
cold, perhaps even hostile.

Hence, before setting out on the official drive through Montreal,
the Mayor of that city, not universally popular, said to the King
'If Your Majesty hears any hissing anywhere it's meant for me.'
There was some hissing. At the end of the journey the Mayor said

54 THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE

to the King, Tour Majesty. You remember that corner where
there v/as such a lot of hissing? Well it wasn't all for me. Some
of it was for Mackenzie King. 5

2. As it turned out, the French-Canadian reception at Mon-
treal was, on the whole, so overwhelmingly affectionate that when
the King returned to his private room on the train he broke down
and wept.

3. A clergyman from some small town, on being presented,
said I'm delighted to meet your Majesty and to tell you that I,
too, am from the old country from Coventry.'

1 hope', said the King, 'that you're not going to send me to
Coventry.'

'No', replied the reverend gentleman, 'not with the Queen
as long as Lady Godiva is there.'

THE GREAT LAKES

CHAPTER VI

THE NIAGARA DETOUR

ON a fresh, sparkling, summer morning I left Toronto, by boat,
for a brief visit to Niagara. I had
been there once, more than forty
years before, at the end of De-
cember when the falls .were sur-
rounded by masses of ice, the
telegraph poles were crystal
columns, the branches of the
trees were a filigree of silver
and the paths were carpets of
snow. Now I was to see the same
scenes under the light of an
August sun.

After a short run across the
dazzling waters of Lake Ontario
I disembarked at Queenston
(Fig. 8), on the Canadian side
of the Niagara River as the St.
Lawrence is here called. The
mouth of the river lies between
low banks, green with grass and
trees except where patches of
barrenness reveal underlying red
sandstone. It is wide enough to
be impressive yet small enough
to be friendly, and the placid
stream gives no indication of the
turmoil lying but a few miles
away.

Fig. 8. The Niagara District

In the background, colourless in the heat haze which had begun
to blanket the outlook, rose a steep high wall-like ridge which
was not a ridge but the edge of the plateau on which Lake Erie
lies. At one time the Niagara River fell over the plateau at this
edge to the lower land on which Lake Ontario is situated and the
Niagara Falls were near the site of Queenston. I proposed to fol-
low the river from this point to the present falls on foot, the
distance being only about seven miles.

When the boat docked I slung my rucksac on my back and, by
the aid of some hundreds of wooden steps, wound my way to the
top of the Queenston Heights. The heat was now furnace-like and
I wilted as I walked. When I had recovered my breath and had
finished mopping my almost hairless scalp I looked down over
the edge of the cliff to the lower, level plain of Lake Ontario,
sweltering in the misty heat. It was like gazing at a wide expanse
of lawn and grove from the upper windows of a very high house.

There were hundreds of people picnicking in the park by which
the Heights are crowned but, with the exception of a score of Boy
Scouts and myself, they had all come by some kind of vehicle or
another up a winding concrete road. They seemed to be much
interested in a tall column erected where General Brock fell in
an engagement between British and American forces in 1812.
I had no time to linger over historic memories on this day's excur-
sion, but there is scarcely a mile on either side of the river with-
out some connection with the conflict of 1812-1814.

I left the park and, by a handsome, well-paved boulevard of
very gentle gradient, began to cross the plateau. I soon wandered
away from the road to the gorge through which the river now
flows. Its sides, streaked by a number of almost horizontal layers
of rock, help in the understanding of the way in which the falls
have retreated from below Queenston to their present position.
The topmost layer is of hard, magnesian limestone. Below this,
in succession, are belts of softer shale, limestone, sandstone, more
shale, more limestone and again more shale.

When the river reached and fell over the edge of the plateau
the water struck the ground near its foot with terrific force,
swirled backwards, drove sand and stones against the softer rocks
at the bottom, cut them out and so undermined the hard top layer.

THE NIAGARA DETOUR

(Fig. 9). After a time the unsupported layer fell by its own
weight and there was a notch in the edge. This undercutting at
the bottom and the resultant falling of the top have never ceased.
In January 1931 a huge piece of the top layer broke away from

the edge of the Horse
Shoe Fall and crashed
to the bottom where it
can still be seen. In
August 1934 another
tremendous rock slide
occurred at the same
fall near Terrapin
Point.

The backward move-
ment of the falls is,

Fig. 9. Formation of Niagara Falls however, very slow. It

has taken from 30,000

to 40,000 years to cut the present ravine, or to give a more com-
prehensible figure, the Horse Shoe Fall has receded about five
or six feet since about the middle of the eighteenth century.
Scientists have calculated that in the year 23,053, which is a
long way off, the falls will be at the exit from Lake Erie.

As there was no road along the edge of the gorge I had to
return to the concrete. 'No Hunting on these Lands', said a public
notice. The only thing I had any desire to hunt was shade and of
that there was very little. The road made a wide sweep at the
Hydro-Electric Power Commission's Plant whence radiate soaring
lines of stately pylons. The building was surrounded by a wide,
unf enced, greenish-yellow space across which a short cut seemed
possible but, for a moment, I was deterred by a notice 'Keep off
the Grass'.

'Johnnie', said a mother to her son, 'what is the shortest com-
mandment?'

And he of tender years replied 'Keep off the grass.'

I took the short cut but I did not break the shortest command-
ment. I walked on the dandelions and easily avoided the grass.

I plodded on. 'No Fires', said oft repeated notices. They did
not interest me. I didn't want to make any more fire than there

58 THE GREAT LAKES

was. A car stopped and the driver asked me if he were on the
right road to the falls. As the gorge was on the left hand and there
was no other road to the right I had no hesitation in replying that
he was. He offered me a lift. Thank you', said I 'but I am trying
to be a writer and have to go slowly to gather impressions.' As
he drove away I felt a rivulet of perspiration trickling from my
neck to my legs and I said things to myself about myself which
I should have resented from any one else.

Presently I came to Niagara Glen where a benefactor announc-
ed that he sold light refreshments. I hailed him with glee. I had
walked two and a half miles. Nothing to boast about? Well I
believe I was the only man who that day had done anything of
the kind. I never saw any other soul on foot, and people to whom
I spoke of my tramp regarded it as an unexampled feat and
refused to believe me. In Canada and the United States walking
is almost as dead as the dodo.

The sandwich and coffee shop, a neat, tasteful granite building
which in no way defaced the surroundings, is situated near a
narrow glen of interesting origin. When the falls were at this
point they were unevenly divided by an island even as they are
to-day by Goat Island. The larger of the two streams thus formed
cut its way back more quickly than the other. The smaller one,
in time deprived of water, failed to complete its share in the
making of the gorge and left, instead, a kind of glen. I descended
by a narrow path to the side of the rushing green Niagara River,
maddened into explosions of foam wherever the rocks were near
the surface. High above me, on the American bank, tall factory
chimneys lost much of their natural ugliness in the haze and the
spray. Factories and power plants have done their best to destroy
the charm of the Niagara River. The American side has been
almost completely vulgarised by an almost continuous line of
unlovely chimneys.

While, as a lover of undefiled Nature, I cannot help regretting
the factories and the power stations, I can quite understand that
men of more practical tendencies should writhe at seeing so much
water power going 'to waste'. Engineers had reported that Niagara
would provide four million horse-power of which three-fourths
could be used. Capitalists and engineers asked why throw it away?

THE NIAGARA DETOUR 59

To Canada her resources in water-power are amongst the most
valuable of her national assets. They are present in every province
and inevitably assure to Canada considerable progress as an in-
dustrial country. The cost of water-power is so low that it is
already widely used in all those industries, such as the manu-
facture of pulp and paper and the mining and (extracting of
minerals from ores of low mineral content, which are heavy con-
sumers of power and in which, therefore, abundance of cheap
power is of great economic importance.

Refreshed with eggs and iced tea I again faced the Niagara
Boulevard. On the Canadian bank of the river the Canadians have
set aside a strip of territory thirty-eight miles long which, except
for the town of Niagara Falls, is a beautiful park, threaded for
the benefit of motorists by a fine smooth, paved highway. But
so far as I could see it had no seats for the foot-sore: seats are
not needed where nobody walked but me. I followed it for about
half a mile to St. David's Gorge where the great whirlpool is
situated. There the road was forced to take a big bend, but
stretching across the bend was a cable from which dangled a car.
I took the car. The view from it was amazing one seething,
hissing mass of foam and battling waves whirling round in a
stupendous rocky cauldron whose sides rose straight from the
turmoil, displaying their vari-coloured strata above heaps of
brush-dotted scree.

The next point of interest was the Whirlpool Rapids, the terrific
aftermath of the descent of the river below the falls. The scene
is ^one of intense violence and the view of the turbulent torrent
rushing down the incline compares in impressiveness with that
of the falls themselves. Just then it had an interest of quite another
character. Tlte date was August 19, 1939 and on August 19, 1859,
that is exactly eighty years before, Jean Frangois Gravelet, better
known as Charles Blondin, macle his spectacular passage across
the rapids on a tight rope carrying on his back a chair in which
sat Henry Colcord of Chicago. There was nothing to show that on
August 19, 1939 any one had remembered the date and there
was no celebration of an event which, in its days, had thrilled
the world.

Blondin's contemplated attempt had been so well advertised,

60 THE GREAT LAKES

that thousands of people gathered to see one of the most fool-
hardy adventures ever planned by man. The rope, eleven hundred
feet long, dangled a hundred and sixty feet above the clamorous
waters. As Blondin and his companion started cautiously down
it from the American side men and women, moved as by a single
impulse, held their breath: scores fainted from excitement. The
two performers, on the other hand, were apparently cool and con-
fident. Blondin wore the conventional tights and had chamois
skin mocassins on his feet: Colcord was in full evening dress.

At the beginning of the crossing Colcord placed his hands on
Blondin's head in order to throw the weight of his body on the
acrobat's shoulders. The rope swayed gently from side to side
and gave slightly at each forward step. The vast multitude of
spectators became speechless and motionless from fear. Their
faces whitened as the men swayed on the rope with wreaths of
mist curling up about them from the green thundering volume of
water in the gorge. Three times Colcord had to descend from
Blondin's shoulders to the chair to give his carrier a chance to
rest his muscles.

When the journey was half over the guy-rope staying the main
cable suddenly snapped but Blondin kept his balance and, un-
perturbed, continued on his way. At the end of half an hour lie
reached the Canadian side and the two men were instantly mobbed
by hundreds of excited people screaming for autographs!

Beyond the Whirlpool Rapids lies the domain devoted to the
tripper. Houses advertised 'Rooms for Tourists', shops offered
'Hand Made Rugs' and 'Home Made Pies', and the streets were
thronged with visitors and vehicles. I was wondering whether it
was worth while to walk any farther when, with scarcely a mo-
ment's warning, rain descended as if the Falls were overhead
and I had to finish my journey in a taxi. When the rain was over
I went out to buy a guide-book but failed. Such a book is publish-
ed by the Niagara Parks Commission but it was undiscoverable
in the shops. The lack of small handy pocket-guides is common
in many of the larger towns and show-places all over the con-
tinent. This is another result of the passing of the inquisitive
pedestrian. People who join buses and go on conducted sight-
seeing tours have no need of guide-books.

THE NIAGARA DETOUR 61

In the evening the falls were illuminated by millions of candle
power. It was Saturday and there were thousands of visitors.
I managed to lose the crowd, found a quiet spot above the water's
edge and sat enthralled. The effect of the white light with which
the show opened was, as it spread slowly from one side of the
river to the other round the circling sweep of the cataract, like
the gradual oncoming of dawn but much more brilliant. The
effects produced by the later red, blue and green lights were far
less theatrical and compelling.

In the white light the spray and the torrent flung a great out-
burst of joy at a continuous new birth: all the rejoicing souls of
the universe had gathered as at a great festival, leaping, dancing,
laughing and scintillating in an overwhelming manifestation of
delight. I forgot I was alone in a dark cleft and gradually getting
wetter in the spangled mists and, when I left, I had the same kind
of feeling I had known after seeing Irving play Hamlet and which
I still have whenever I listen to any fine orchestra playing the
Ninth Symphony of Beethoven,

On the Sunday I joined a sight-seeing bus which had few of
the unpleasant characteristics of its class. The ticket covered
a visit to all the chief points of interest and the holder began his
journey wherever he pleased and stayed at any point as long as
he pleased provided he finished the tour in the day. No one bark-
ed at him through a megaphone. There was no hurry and, on the
other hand, there was never any great delay: the buses ran all
day long at intervals of about twenty minutes.

I suppose it is incumbent upon me to try to say something
really descriptive about Niagara Falls, but I am reluctant to add
another attempt to do what so many far more skilful pens than
mine have failed to accomplish. Some record I must set down to
give completion to this chapter but, fortunately, I can please my-
self as to its length and the number of adjectives I put into it.
I propose to content myself with mentioning what seem to me to
be the chief elements in this indescribable manifestation of un-
leashed fury.

The first element is the noise. When I heard it in the winter
I thought of it as the booming of continuous angry thunder: in
the summer it was thunder laughing.

62 THE GREAT LAKES

The next element is the immense volume of the falling water.
One thing that surprised me, yet which I might easily have
expected if I had had more sense, was the shallowness of tlie
water at the edge of the descending flood. In the case of the Ame-
rican Fall it was not more than a foot deep and a garden of green
water-plants was clearly visible, clinging tenaciously to the brown
stone below the surface.

The third is the contrast between the colour of the water in the
two main falls. That at the centre of the Canadian or Horse Shoe
Fall is dark green but it changes almost immediately into an
unbroken gigantic sheet of clearest emerald as it plunges into the
chasm below. The American Fall, separated by Goat Island from
the Canadian Fall, takes the plunge in a series of billowy sweeps
and, after a few feet of descent, breaks into an avalanche of spark-
ling snow-white foam.

The fourth element, the rising water, is as fascinating as that
which cataracts itself into the depths. From the abyss rise columns
or clouds of spray that reach a considerable height before they
scatter themselves and vanish.

Associated with these silvery mists is the fifth element, the
decorations jewels and rainbows. Diamonds sparkle in millions
in broken water; rainbows ceaselessly quiver their bright-hued
welcome. That Sunday morning the wind was blowing towards
the Canadian shore and the road was running with water as during
a heavy rain. Umbrellas and waterproofs were as necessary as in
a downpour, but the sunlight illumined the drenching spray and
rainbows spanned the streets. It seems a pity that the island
formerly known as Iris Island because of the rainbows to be seen
there should have had its name changed to the more prosaic one
of Goat Island, but perhaps it was necessary to honour the courage
of the old goat which remained in sole possession of the island
during the severe winter of 1790.

No visit to Niagara would be complete without a view of the
rapids above the falls, as seen from Three Sisters Island. Here
the river is about half a mile wide and is rushing down a steep
descent, its channel encumbered with boulders. Beyond, however,
it widens out, and for five miles is a broad bright stream of calm
clear water with tree-lined shores and inland bays.

THE NIAGARA DETOUR 63

On my return to Toronto by bus I crossed the Niagara Penin-
sula, a plain bounded on the north by Lake Ontario, on the south
by Lake Erie and on the east by Niagara River. The influence of
all this water in a land where winters are as a rule severe is of
great importance. It helps to keep temperatures so equable that
the peninsula, known as the Fruit Belt, is the home of the greatest
orchards in Canada.

Pears, apples, peaches, cherries, melons, tomatoes and grapes
cover thousands of acres and produce thousands of tons of market-
able fruit. Peaches blushing on the trees or on stalls by the side
of the highway coloured the country like a million tiny Chinese
lanterns, while at one point a poster screamed 'Stop! The World's
Largest Cherries!'

When I reached Toronto I went to the hotel where I had pre-
viously stayed. This time I had no luggage except what was on
my back. The clerk eyed my rucksac with suspicion and made me
pay my rent in advance as a guest without baggage! The hour was
not very late but it was necessary to think about a meal. In South
America if you dine before nine you dine alone. In North America
if you wait till nine you may sometimes not be able to dine at all.
The dining hours are from about five to about eight. Many of
the restaurants and hotel dining-rooms are closed by the latter
hour.

At the restaurant I asked for a Wine List. Said the waiter
I'm sorry but it's Sunday and we cannot supply you.' I could
understand this grandfatherly care for my morals and the rather
puritanical observance of the Lord's Day if the authorities were
consistent in their actions. But outside the hotel, on the nearest
book-stall, I saw a paper called Flash on the front page of which,
in solid one-inch capitals, was 'Waitresses Made to Sin with Men'.
By its side was another called Hush whose chief headline was
1 am a Vile Sin Sister'.

Do the civic authorities of Toronto consider the sale of inevit-
able poison for the soul less immoral than the sale of a little
problematical poison for the body?

CHAPTER VII

TORONTO TO SAULT STE. MARIE

INSTEAD of going west by water, as I had originally intended,
I took a short cut overland to Midland on Georgian Bay, an inlet
of Lake Huron. The bus left Toronto by Bay Street and the historic
Yonge Street designed by Simcoe, and ran straight ahead for
forty miles. The country in many ways reminded me of the rolling
lands around London. Trees and wild flowers appeared similar;
horses were ploughing singly in fields; fields were sometimes
separated by hedges. The land felt English even if one green-
grocer did label his cucumbers 'cukes', and restaurants tried to
tempt my appetite with Tried Onion Dinner' and 'Chicken on
a Bun'. The little towns and villages, however, were typically
American and closely resembled each other.

Midland, like many other small towns on the shores of the
lakes, combines the activities of a marketing and industrial centre
with the attractions of a seaside resort. The presence of cheap
transport on the lakes united with the cheap water-power which,
in so many cases, can be brought to their shores, has given rise
to a number of manufacturing towns which are so prosperous
that in them is concentrated a very considerable fraction of the
entire population of the Dominion and an overwhelming propor-
tion of the industrial employees. Midland, though small, has
flour mills, pulp mills, lumber mills and other kinds of plant,
and much of its water front is lined with elevators, boat-building
yards and warehouses.

Yet, characteristically, it combines with all these invitations to
industry facilities for bathing, boating and fishing* Midland calls
itself the 'Gateway to the Thirty Thousand Islands' area of
Georgian Bay. Rain, unfortunately, prevented my taking the trip
amongst the rock-rimmed channels which separate these islands
or visiting the Martyr's Shrine where certain French missionaries
were burned at the stake by 'cruel' Iroquois. Though somewhat

Canadian Pacific Photograph

General View of Toronto

Residential street, Owen's Sound

Pfcjto: Ernttt Tomg

Business street, Owen's Sound
Thoe arc typical of such streets in hundreds of small town* in Canada and the United States

Photo: Emtsi Toting

Drying nets, Killarney, Lake Huron

Notice the granite boulders and the scattered trees; the huge reels on which nets are wound to dry;
the wooden buildings in which ice is stored to keep the fish fresh in summer

/ ' i '^ t V' > ' j -ikf '

Pltoto: Canadian Government CommilUe

Pigeon River Bridge and the Canadian Custom House

I'ltoto: Minnesota Arrotohtai

The Minnesota Arrowhead Country, just across the border out of Ontario

fhvto: Minumta Art

Duluth: ore docks

Photo: Mmusrta An*ud AwM*

Palisade Head, Lake Superior

This is typical of much of the north shore of Lake Superior. Palisade Head is a massive headland oi
basalt rising 348 feet from the water's edge

Lake Itasca
View from my cabin

THE NIAGARA DETOUR

handicapped by a Presbyterian upbringing I have not a few
piratical and bloodthirsty instincts and my sympathies are with
the Indians. The Iroquois were fighting for 'their own lands and
used the only methods known to them in their endeavour to retain
their property and their freedom. In view of the fate of small
nations and the methods of warfare employed in our own times
I decline to apply any opprobrious epithets to Indians who slew

Fig. 10. Toronto to Sault Ste. Marie

and tortured those invaders who desired to 'take them under their
protection'.

As soon as the weather cleared I hopped on a local bus and
went to a little place called Penetanguishene(Penetang for short),
founded eight years before Quebec, and said to be the second
oldest town in Canada though it looks no older than the rest. My
object in going to Penetang was to meet Champlain again. In his
search for the western way to China he had not only explored the
Saguenay and the St. Lawrence but, by way of the River Ottawa
and Lake Nipissing, he had reached Georgian Bay at this almost
forgotten spot.

Champlain was a very remarkable man: his vision was not,

66 THE GREAT LAKES

like that of his contemporaries and many of his successors, limited
by the fur trade. He knew that agriculture was the only solid
foundation for his colony, and it was due to his action that the
first fanner went to Quebec, there to settle on land part of which
is now occupied by the cathedral. His search for a new way to
the Orient was doomed to failure but its results fill many shining
pages in the history of Canada.

Penetang, under his influence, became a point of departure to
the west by water and for many years held an important position.
In 1773 Simcoe made of it a naval and military station and, as
a bronze tablet records, it was the starting point of Sir John
Franklin when he went on his second expedition to look for the
North West Passage. From here to the Arctic shores he found an
almost complete water route via Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatche-
wan and Mackenzie Rivers.

Penetang seemed a much pleasanter place for a holiday than
Midland, but there were no seats on the water front and there
were too many factories specialising in turning piles of timber
into doors and window-sashes. I decided I would not anchor in
Penetang though, had I been a yachtsman, I might have been of
another mind.

On the Ontario Official Map of the province was marked a
steamer service connecting Owen Sound, another little port a few
miles to the west of Midland, with Lake Superior. It was evident
I had to go to Owen Sound.

Owen Sound is situated at the exit of a fertile valley on the
south shore of Georgian Bay. The valley, enclosed by sheer lime-
stone cliffs about a hundred and fifty feet high, is watered by
the Rivers Sydenham (Sydenham was the original name of the
settlement) and Pottawattamie. The history of the port goes back
to 1615 when Champlain landed on the shores of the bay and,
at the sight which met his eye, exclaimed enthusiastically, 'Mer
douce!' but the first account of it as a modern settlement was not
written till 1842 'An opening in the bush of about an acre in
extent, partially cleared, three log-houses, one occupied by the
Crown Lands Agent and his family, one for the accommodation
of Emigrants, and the third kept as a tavern; about half a mile
of street with the timber chopped down but not cleared off, a deep,

TORONTO TO SAULT STE. MARIE 67

dark, winding river having a dense growth of cedar on either side
with tops overlooking overhead, forming the only channel of
communication with the outside world/

Much has happened since 1842 and, though I could not honestly
write of Owen Sound with the lyrical rapture of the gentleman
who supplies its publicity department with seductive advertise-
ments, it had for me certain definite interests. It is, for instance,
quite typical of hundreds of small towns in the interior of both
Canada and the United States. A description of any one of them
is a description of them all though, naturally, there are differen-
ces in detail, due to different occupations centred in them or to
differences in the character of the site on a lake side, in the
centre of a plain or desert or on the slopes of a hill. To save time
elsewhere I may as well describe Owen Sound and leave the ac-
count with the reader for future reference. The description is so
well known to all Americans as to be common-place and not worth
reading, but it may have for the European reader some elements
of novelty, for nowhere in his continent will he find anything
quite of the same character.

The streets are all at right angles to each other. The main streets
and their connections with those of other towns are paved or con-
creted, hard, dry and smooth. These roads cost a great deal to
make and a great deal to keep in order, especially in districts
subject to severe winters, where they are distorted and twisted by
frost. Some of them, when the stress is over, may return to their
original positions without much apparent damage but usually
defects remain, rendering road maintenance a constantly costly
business. The side streets as soon as they reach the limits of the
town are unpaved, and in times of heavy rain may become quite
impassable.

In the residential areas the side walks have a paved central
foot-way, bordered by narrow strips of grass, one next the road,
the other adjoining the undivided lawns of private houses. No one
walks on the grass and children do not play on it. There are no
formal prohibitions about treading on the grass but no one treads.
The houses have sun porches and verandahs where the family
and the visitors sit in rocking chairs, hammocks and swinging
seats, to see and be seen by all who pass by. Trees are abundant

68 THE GREAT LAKES

and often form an almost complete arch from side to side.

The main shopping street is mean in appearance. It is lined
with buildings whose facades are broken by assortments of urns,
turrets and other meaningless projections. The houses and shops
may be of wood, bricks or, if of recent erection, of steel and con-
crete, but not one single building possesses the slightest architect-
ural merit.

The chief shops are drug stores, usually at the corners of the
streets. They sell not only pills and patent medicines but also
cigars, whisky, meals, magazines, toys, lip stick, face powder
and other aids to beauty. Their rival in popularity is the beauty
parlour of which the very smallest settlement has at least one or
two. In the United States catering to the vanity of females of all
ages was in 1939 the sixth largest industry. There are always
branches of one or more of the chain stores, such as Woolworth's,
displaying the same goods at the same prices in the same way.

There is much less formality about business slogans and signs
than in other countries. Christian names are commonly used, e.g.,
Bill's Garage, Peggy's Restaurant and Sam's Shoeshine Parlour.
The advertisement appeal is more personal and direct.

'We only keep the door shut', says one trader, 'to keep out the
cold. There's a warm welcome for you inside.*

'We need your head*, says a barber, 'to run our business.'

'If your wife can't cook', says a restaurateur, 'don't divorce
her; keep her as a pet and feed here.'

The contents of the shop windows are, however, as in every
other country, an index to local conditions. At Owen Sound 'Skates
made and repaired' indicates the winter. 'Peaches two a penny*
serves the same purpose for the summer. In one window I saw a
notice of a Carnival which was to last for three or four days.
The programme of events was eloquent of a social condition and
a mental outlook belonging to an undeveloped environment. There
were on one day to be both dog races and the dedication of a new
chapel, on another a sacred concert and an exhibition of roping
by cowboys. Two events I could not interpret A Calithumpian
Parade and A Purity Maid Contest.

Every settlement has a hotel. In no country in the world have
hotels and hotel life been developed to such an extent as in North

TORONTO TO SAULT STE. MARIE 69

America. Ever since the first migrations to this continent people
have been more or less nomadic and, as the population has spread,
conditions of work and business have intensified migratory move-
ment. In particular thousands of single men are always on the
move and in need of hotel accommodation, with the result that
beds and meals can be obtained even in very small places.

But these hotels are something more than places in which to
eat and sleep. The hotel lobby is a common meeting ground for
anyone who cares to make use of it, and the lavatory accommoda-
tion is free to the public. In the lobby are rows of big rocking
chairs, especially at the window facing the street where, in hot
weather, perspiring men sit, collarless and coatless, in their shirts
and braces chewing cuds of various kinds, and expectorating, as
in the days of Dickens, into shining brass spittoons. There are
spittoons everywhere from the lobby and the dining room to the
bedroom.

The town always has an ample and apparently undue number
of garages and filling stations. In the United States, where there
are three million miles of fine paved roads there is, on an average,
one filling station to every three miles of highway. Some very
stnall settlements in lonely places contain hardly anything else,
and everywhere, parked along the streets or in special parking
grounds are scores of cars, belonging to some of the millions who
own them and use them, even to go down the street.

In one respect the little towns of America set an example to the
rest of the world. Every one of them has a park or parks and other
spaces with special provision for children. At Owen Sound the
chief park is set between slopes, .wpoded with tall maples and
stately pines, which enclose the valley of the Sydenham River.
The river flows over a pebbly bed; sunlit ripples make a crystal-
edged mosaic of the surface. In its course are islands and islets
where swans glow white against a green background. White
wooden bridges cross it and give it a touch of neatness. Fisher-
men angle on its banks for bass and trout.

The parks are intended for use, not simply for ornament or to
gratify some citizen's pride. They are provided with simple out-
door cooking arrangements, tables and benches. Spaces are set
apart for camping in tents, for large camp kitchens and for park-

70 THE GREAT LAKES

ing cars and trailers. Furnished cottages or cabins, with one or
more rooms, are placed under the trees, and supplied with hot
and cold running water, baths and electric lights. All through the
summer the parks are the homes of tens of thousands of holiday
makers.

As I was aiming my camera at a cabin a woman to one side of
it called out to me 'Why don't you take our cabin with us in front
of it?'

'Because I'm English and I'm shy about taking photos of people
without their permission.'

*Well we're from the Old Country too. Come along.'

They were from Scotland. The men said they never wanted to
return, but the eyes of the oldest woman were dim when she spoke
of the hills and the heather.

Other items in the make-up of the small town are many schools,
churches, clinics, branches of the Young Men's and Young
Women's Christian Associations, an enterprising undertaker who
calls his place of business a Funeral Home, and a Chamber of
Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce exists to 'boost' the town.
It supports an Information Bureau where maps and folders are
freely distributed. One soon learns to discount the adjectives in
the folders but never the courtesy of the officials.

Courtesy to the stranger is one of the commonest and most
delightful characteristics of the American people. Even the over-
critical Dickens admitted, on his second visit to the United States,
that he had been 'received with unsurpassed politeness, delicacy,
sweet temper, hospitality and consideration.' He who visits Ame-
rica and, on his return home, reports differently has been mis-
behaving himself badly and stands self-condemned.

As I was preparing to leave Owen Sound the clerk in the lobby
of my hotel said 'We had another Englishman here last week.'

'Where is he now?'

'He's going from place to place buying up all the apples in
the orchards round Georgian Bay for shipment to England.'

I thought of the Song of Solomon 'Stay me with flagons:
comfort me with apples.' A vain appeal at Owen Sound, for an
Englishman was buying up all the apples and there were no
flagons because the town was 'dry'. There was, however, other

TORONTO TO SAULT STE. MARIE 71

comfort near at hand. That night (August 24) I went aboard the
Caribou, a little boat of just under six hundred tons. At last I was
on the water and in the kind of ship I love no bands or organis-
ed games, no tricks and frills, no 'captain's dinner', simply a tiny
vessel going about her essential business of delivering bricks,
flour, candles, tobacco, boxes, barrels and hundred of bottles of
Coca Cola, the national drink of America. There was a jolly noise
of barrows and trolleys, of iron clanking on iron, of the banging
and dumping of things in the hold.

It was a drowsy summer night and the little funnel-shaped
harbour was at peace. The unruffled surface looked like a dimly
lit wet street striped with scarlet and gold by the lights on shore.
Tall chimneys and elevators lost all their ugliness but emphasised
their symmetry, while a winking red eye in the distance gave a
merry direction as to the way out of the harbour.

During the night the wind rose and the waters of Lake Huron
disturbed some of the passengers. This lake, over two hundred
miles long and over a hundred miles wide, the second of those
inland seas we call the Great Lakes, is big enough to have really
rough water when strong winds blow.

Daybreak brought us to the fishing village of Killarney at the
entrance to a fiord running deep into the Kilkenny Mountains.
The village with its scattered pines and massive, smooth, granite
boulders is a place of great charm if you are fond of elemental
things. I cannot understand why none of the official Information
Bureaus had advised me to stay there. I almost sacrificed my
ticket and stayed.

Killarney has no land connections with the rest of the world:
it is accessible only by boat. During the brief half hour the Caribou
spent loading and unloading I chatted with a weather-beaten
fisherman and learned a little of his hard but healthy life. In
winter the lake is frozen and fishing is carried on under the ice.
The catch has to be carried over the ice for twenty-five miles to
market. There is no doctor in the village but if one is sorely
needed he arrives by aeroplane. I tried to sympathise with the
fisherman over the hardships of his existence but he did not wish
for sympathy. TCillarney's a grand place', he said, 'and the life's
good.'

72 ' THE GREAT LAKES

The most conspicuous objects of human interest in the landscape
are the huge reels on which the nets are wound to dry after they
have been washed, and the big wooden buildings in which ice is
stored to keep the fish fresh in summer.

For a while we followed the lonely coast. Our next stop was
for the purpose of unloading supplies for some men engaged in
mining silica. The mine was in another isolated spot, surrounded
by piles of coal and rubbish, in a forest clearing where the blasts
of explosives and the clanking of heavy machinery drowned the
voice of the wind in the trees. During the whole of the summer
smoke-fumes and steam-streams float above wood and lake, but
with the coming of winter all work ceases. The miners depart and
nature resumes control and hides the whole of die workings under
a dense wrapping of snow.

We left the miners and sought the island of Manitoulin, the
largest fresh water island in the world, a hundred miles long and
forty miles wide. It contains about a hundred lakes, some little
larger than ponds, others as much as twenty miles in length.

Manitou-Lin, or Manitou-Meenie, as the Indians call it, is
another of the homes of the Great Spirit, but its first human in-
habitants were the Ottawa Indians whose descendants still live
on reservations in the island. Ottawa is an Algonquin word mean-
ing trade: the Ottawa Indians were the first to trade with the
French in western furs.

At Manitowaning, the most easterly town and port, we un-
loaded bricks and flour. Most of my fellow passengers went into
the little wooden church. One of them played the harmonium
while the rest sang hymns to his accompaniment. I went to look
at the village.

Though Manitowaning is small it is over a century old.
Houses were erected in 1838 for a commissioner who was in
charge of the settlement, a teacher, a carpenter, a blacksmith,
a cooper and a doctor. There were also a school house, offices
and a general store. The Indians were invited to live at the settle-
ment, receive presents, and learn the ways of civilisation. The
first house, within whose walls the Hon. William McDougall
signed a treaty with several of the Indian chiefs, is still standing.
The isolation of the village was indicated by a hand-written notice

TORONTO TO SAULT STE. MARIE 73

which I saw in a shop window 'Dentistry. Dr. A. C. Hinds will
he at Manitowaning Aug 28.-Aug 31.' Four days in which to
have your teeth filed, stopped or pulled and then no more dental
treatment till the dentist finds it convenient to pay another visit.

We coasted the high, rugged, north shore which overlooks
thousands of islands in the North Channel. The grey clouds which
had hidden the land for some time drifted away through the trees
and revealed patches of cleared land, and tiny lonesome-looking
homesteads amongst the trees and on the pastures. In the narrow
channel the ghosts of the explorers were still with us. Champlain,
La Salle, Joliette and Marquette were paddling on ahead leading
us to the west. At the narrowest part of the passage, between
Manitoulin and La Cloche Island, is the village of Little Current
which, for two centuries, saw the coming and going of eager
voyageurs joyfully trafficking and exploring and making the
silences sing.

We were scheduled to arrive at Little Current at a quarter to
three hut, with that delightful sense of the unimportance of time
which is part of the atmosphere of little boats on business in out
of the way parts of the earth, we did not dock till half past four.
This, however, was of little account as there was nothing much
to see on shore except huge coal wharves. The water, by contrast,
was gay with scores of yachts. The position of Little Current at
the east end of the North Channel makes it the most important of
Canadian yachting centres. In the nearby waters are large areas
of mystery and wonder, inaccessible except by boat, where fish
and wild life abound and where complete isolation from civil-
isation can be obtained. Not all the summer visitors, however,
are in search of isolation.

From late June to early September the harbour of Little Cur-
rent is filled with yachts of many types. The first to arrive are
small cruisers from Detroit and Lake Erie ports. In mid-July
palatial yachts of the ocean-going type make their appearance.
At the end of July come racing yachts under sail. Almost every
known type of the latter is represented and a harbour full of
towering spars and glittering keels in full racing trim is the usual
sight for the first few weeks of August.

Then to Kagawong, another ideal holiday spot for me though

74 THE GREAT LAKES

I know Fll never have the time to go back to it. Just a few wooden
houses on a wooded slope with a trim, white, red-topped, wooden
lighthouse for a monument, crying to you to stay to rest. But there
is not time enough to rest at the call of every charming voice
which greets the roamer in the quiet parts of the earth. And, as
a rule, when the voices chant their seductions one is old and must
pass along. We are wrongly built. We should grow young not old
as we garner the experiences of life.

In the dark we called at other little ports, probably just as
attractive, but of them I obtained no single glimpse for I was
asleep. There ought to be a law to prevent a boat sailing through
the night when it is navigating the waters of enchantment.

Thessalon brought us visitors four wild canaries. They sat
on the deck rails and listened to the winches. Perhaps they were
glad to leave Thessalon for a while and turn their backs on its
untidy mass of yellow planks littering a dull, flat shore. Thessalon
has been the home of a planing mill now going or gone out of
business, which seems a pity for there is still plenty of wood to
be fashioned. A former woollen mill is completely down and out:
this is less surprising unless there are more sheep within reach
of it than appears likely. A decaying industrial settlement is not
a pretty sight. Poverty clings to the ruins: dull failure walks the
streets. At Thessalon some of the remaining inhabitants were
living in sheds, hovels and old boats.

The approach to Sault Ste. Marie is up St. Mary's River, a
winding water lane dotted with picturesque islands.

It has low banks and stretches of sandy shore lined with rows
of beech and poplar. The dredged, navigable channel twinkled
with red buoys placed as regularly as lamp posts, red marks on
rocks and red lights set on red pillars. Red is my favourite colour,
except when artificial on a lady's lips. It is so gay, so full of
spirit, so lusty and so primitive.

The river gives passage way to a constant procession of vessels
of varying character from cheeky, roaring, splashing speed boats
to grave, grim, slowly moving freighters loaded with grain and
ore. Some othe freighters are six hundred feet long. 'If they
make 'em any longer', confided a sailor to me, 'they'll have to
put hinges in their middles so's they can go round the corners/

CHAPTER VIII

SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTH

ST. MARY'S RIVER, by which we have approached Sault (pro-
nounced Soo) Sainte Marie, drains Lake Superior into Lake
Huron. The difference in level between the two lakes, twenty-one
feet, gives rise to rapids which stopped both Champlain and La
Salle. The Ojibway Indians say the rapids were made by a giant
who was building a dam for beaver. He went away to hunt and
left his wife to look after the dam. She neglected her instructions
and the dam rolled down the river. When he returned and saw
the results of her carelessness he threw her into the rapids and,
if you will but listen as you should, you can, at night, hear in the
leaping of the torrent the sound of her dying cries.

O KT ARIO

Fig. 11. The Soo Canals

76 THE GREAT LAKES

To-day the rapids are avoided by the Soo canals (Fig. 11) one
on the Canadian and one on the American side. Through these
two canals, during eight months in every year, pass three times
as many vessels and three times as much tonnage as through the
Suez or Panama Canals in the whole of a year.

Sault Ste. Marie is simply a traffic junction. Almost all I re-
member about it, apart from its geographical position and its
economic function, is a portrait of the Duke of Windsor which
I saw in a shop window. It was accompanied by a letter signed
by his equerry which said 1 am desired by the Duke of Windsor
to thank you for your letter of May 27th and to inform you that
His Royal Highness can see no reason against you paying him
the compliment of naming your billiard hall The Duke of Wind-
sor's Billiard Academy.' The recipient of the letter had, however,
shortened the proposed title and called his establishment The
Duke's Place'.

At the Soo I boarded the Canadian Steamship Company's
Noronic, of 6905 tons, one of the largest and finest tourist boats
on the lake. It had a barber's shop, smoking room, music and
writing rooms, observation rooms, buffet bars and 'a cultured,
experienced Social Hostess: it is her pleasure and privilege to
devote her entire time and energy to promoting the happiness of
our guests.' My tastes being what they are I would have preferred
something less elaborate and costly, but I had no choice. The only
vessels permitted to carry passengers on the St. Lawrence beyond
Montreal and on the Great Lakes appear to be these luxurious
and expensive tourist boats.

We entered the canal. The huge lock gates were closed. We
rose slowly. A shrill whistle sounded and we sailed out towards
the majestic inland sea, Lake Superior, the largest fresh water
lake in the world, as long as the distance from Berwick-on-Tweed
to Land's End and nearly as large as Ireland. Lake Superior is
ocean-like in its excitements as well as in its proportions: it is
so subject to fogs and sudden violent storms that the rates of in-
surance on vessels navigating it are higher than they are qn the
Atlantic. But it lacks the tang of the salty ocean and is so pure
that its water can be used direct from the tap, for storage batteries
and other purposes which ordinarily call for distilled water.

SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTH 77

We were soon out of sight of land as completely as if we had
been at sea. Far away, but invisible, were small mining and
lumbering towns, while to the north of them was an uninhabited
wilderness reaching to the shores of Hudson Bay.

With the dawn came the impressive entry into the harbour of
the twin cities of Port Arthur and Fort William. Mount McKay,
one of the highest peaks of the Laurentian system (1587 feet)
with its cross to the memory of the Indians who fell in World
War I, was catching the first rays of the morning; the Sleeping
Giant lay recumbent across the entrance to Thunder Bay; the huge
white grain elevators were mediaeval castles in the sunlit mists.

I was glad, as I stepped ashore, that I had spent the last four
days on the water and had reached the heart of the continent by
more or less the same route as that of the early explorers. Canada,
with its innumerable streams and lakes, offered thousands of
miles of ready-made highways without which the penetration of
the interior by the French would have been impossible. They still
remain of the greatest value to the commerce of Canada but they
are not quite, as fine as they look on the map. The chief of them,
the Great Lakes St. Lawrence waterway is, as we have seen,
impeded by rapids which compelled the construction of expensive
canals to open it up to its farthest limits, and it also suffers in
being closed by ice for five months of the year. The hotel porter
at Port Arthur told me it was no uncommon occurrence for the
lake to be frozen solid twenty miles from the shore.

The ice is responsible for the importance of Port Arthur and
Fort William as storehouses for grain. Only one-fifth of the wheat
crop of the prairies can, in any given year, reach Montreal before
navigation ceases: all the rest must wait for the coming of the
next spring and summer. The elevators in which it is stored are
colossal: their capacity in bushels mounts into figures which
baffle the imagination.

When the thaw comes, some sixty vessels leave the twin ports
with the dignity of a great naval parade, except that each captain
is doing his level best to beat his rivals in the race to the first
lock where the first delay must take place.

I walked from the business section of Port Arthur up through
a pleasant residential district to a view point in Holland Park.

78 THE GREAT LAKES

The wide-spread panorama, from Mount McKay on the one hand
to the dark silhouette of the Sleeping Giant on the other, is dotted
with gabled houses set amongst trees, factory chimneys, break-
waters, elevators, freighters, whalebacks and more Union Jacks
than London ever shows except on festal days and, of more im-
mediate interest, a number of vast dark looking stains upon the
surface of the lake. The acres of stains are millions of logs.

The logs represent the second phase in the exploitation of the
Upper Lake Region. The first was concerned with fur: the second
with lumber. The Canadian forest has meant different things to
different people. To the Indian it was the source of wood for
boats, houses and fuel, of bark for clothes and canoes, and of
roots for fishing lines. To the French it served also for supplies
of fuel and building materials, and for an early shipbuilding
industry, but more especially it provided them with a kind of
paradise in which they roamed as they listed, hunted, fished,
bartered and, in their spare time, wooed the Indian maidens.

The British, of weaker romantic but stronger commercial in-
stincts, valued the forest first as a source of lumber and then, in
our own times, as a source of wood suitable for the manufacture
of paper pulp. To-day, though much merchantable timber remains,
the forest is commercially most valuable as a storehouse of raw
material for paper and other wood products.

Armed with a personal introduction I went to see the plant of
Provincial Papers Ltd., the largest book-paper mil) in Canada.
I need not, as I soon found out, have bothered to obtain the in-
troduction. Visitors are permitted to view the works without guides.
All they have to do is to ask for a permit at the office and then
follow a series of yellow arrows through the different buildings.
Each building is numbered and a little pamphlet, provided with-
out any charge, explains the operations that are seen.

With the aid of that pamphlet I could give extensive details
about the various technical processes, but I forbear. It will be
sufficient to say that I saw the logs crawl, one by one, out of the
lake, stripped of their bark, chopped into two-foot lengths, ground
between large stones, stewed and bleached and converted into
rolls of paper at the rate of tens of thousands of tons a year. The
only power used is electric of which there is such a super-

SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTH 79

abundance, owing to the water power available, that it is actually
used to produce steam, thus reversing the process, so familiar in
lands of coal, of using steam to produce electricity.

As I left the building my host remarked to me If you want to
see the real Canada go into the country. The cities make the noise
but the country does the work/

I took his advice and stepped into a bus for a little run of
about two hundred miles to Duluth. In the bus was a notice
'Smoking is allowed only on rear seats', but there were ash trays

Fig. 12. Saulte Ste. Marie to Duluth

to every seat. 'This', said the driver, 'is because there are now
always more women than rear seats and the women won't obey
the regulations'. For myself, in a front seat, I decided to observe
the prohibition of the printed word and not accept the invitation
of the ash-tray.

The day was grey and cold. The cold was welcome enough but"
the crying rain that accompanied it was not. The dignified head
of Mount McKay was hidden in the clouds. The road, described
with patriotic but unmistakable exaggeration by the writer of a
folder as 'an unending panorama of scenic grandeur unequalled
in America' is, nevertheless, of some beauty. After leaving Fort
William it turns inland and, for a while, winds its way through

80 THE GREAT LAKES

valleys walled by basalt ridges, bluffs and palisades often several
hundred feet in height. The gentler slopes are clothed with spruce
and balsam mixed with maple, birch and poplar: the steepest
slopes are bare. In the autumn the variegated colouring of the
woods*must rival the hues of a Persian carpet.

We next sped, like an arrow, over long straight roads through
rolling country almost uninhabited except where a few small
clearings for clover and wheat had been made in the thousands
of square miles of untamed forest.

We stopped at pathetic little homesteads to drop a parcel or
a child, and by the road-side to pick up a solitary can of milk or
take aboard a man with a bag of axes going, all by himself, to
fell a few more trees. We passed an occasional church but saw
no towns or villages. Notices along the road 'Spring water,
100 feet' are perhaps not so necessary in these motoring days
as they were in the epoch of the horseman and the covered wagon.

Good bridges gave us passage over many small streams, and
without delay or accident we arrived at Pigeon River, which forms
part of the international boundary between Canada and the United
States. The river received its name from the flocks of pigeons
which once assembled in the forest. Bear this river in mind, for
it once played a part in a highly important matter to which I shall
have to make a later reference (page 93). The valley, upstream
from the bridge, was beautiful with trees and rushing water but
the banks immediately at hand were sparsely wooded: here and
there, such trees as there were, were perched with risky footing
on narrow, rocky ledges.

On the other side of the bridge my baggage was carefully and
courteously examined by the ILS.S, Customs officers and I paid
eight dollars for the privilege of being allowed to stay in the
United States for more than sixty days. I've quite forgotten how
many forms I filled up and signed but the officer who super-
intended the formalities was a kindly soul, even apologetic. He
explained that only during the last two or three years had there
been all this kind of fuss.

My entry into the United States was made at the north-east
corner of Minnesota in what is known, because of its shape, as
the Arrowhead Country (Fig. 13). The head of the triangle is at

SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTH

the bridge; two of the sides are, respectively, Pigeon River and
the rock-bound north shore of Lake Superior. The road, except
for the first few miles, ran parallel with the sparkling shore
through miles of brooding forest which often hid the lake from

view.

A part of this forest, forming the core of the Arrowhead coun-
try, is pne of America's last wildernesses. Within an area cover-

Fig. 13. The Upper Lake Region

ing nearly four million acres there will never be any motor roads,
summer houses or other artificial structures. This clean, fresh
land of lakes and streams, of virgin pine and towering spruce is
the Superior National Forest. At one time Minnesota was all
heavily forested but the lumber men cut out the best accessible
trees over wide areas: the trees one sees from the bus are mostly
natural second growth, leaved in fainter green than the older
wood, shorter in stature and more slender of girth.

The forest's worst enemy, however, is not man but fire. Hence

82 THE GREAT LAKES

the numerous appeals which kept us company along the highway
'Please keep our forests green'. Tlease help prevent forest
fires', 'One tree makes a million matches: one match burns a
million trees'. Fire wastes an enormous amount of mature timber,
destroys the young growth upon which the further supply of lum-
ber depends and much of the sponge-like humus which covers
.the surface of the ground. It ruins the hunting and fishing, spoils
possible camping places, injures the flow of streams and mars
the beauty of the lakes.

In the -Superior National Forest, as in all the other national
forests, a small army of forest officers and rangers protects and
administers the woodland. During the summer, when danger from
fire is greatest, the force is heavily increased. From the tops of
steel towers men are constantly on watch for the first sign of an
outbreak. Within a few minutes after a fire is reported the ranger
is on his way to fight it and, if possible, to find and prosecute
the person responsible for it.

The Forest Service has other duties besides putting out fires.
It aims to market mature timber as a farmer does a wheat crop
and to make room for young, growing trees in order to keep the
forest in a productive condition. The amount of timber now cut
each year is less than the amount grown so that the forest is pre-
served, a constant supply of timber is guaranteed, the game
sanctuaries are safe-guarded, the natural reservoir holds back
flood waters, and the forest remains, with its pine-fringed trails,
its turbulent streams and its placid lakes, a perpetual source of
beauty and inspiration to the soul of man.

Along the lonely road through all this sylvan loveliness we
rode with little sight of hitman habitation until, about a hundred
miles east of Duluth, we reached the thriving village of Grand
Marais. Thence onward the scenery was more varied. At one time
we were travelling over barren rock-bound areas; at another
through beautiful sweeps of virgin timber, threaded by an endless
succession of streams coming down from the highlands. Now we
were on the edge of a precipice, now at the foot of jagged rocks
towering hundreds of feet above us, following curves which led in
and out of innumerable coves where shelter the simple abodes of
the fishermen who dwell upon the shores of the sea like lake.

SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTH 83

After crossing Temperance River, jokingly so-called because
it is the only stream on the north shore of Lake Superior that has
no bar at its mouth, we traversed a ledge on a cliff, Palisade
Head, the highest point on the route, and then descended to Two
Harbours, the shipping point for ore from the Vermillion Iron
Range.

Two Harbours put me in touch with the third phase in the ex-
ploitation of the Upper Lakes Region, that of mining, and near
one of the sources of the freighted ore of which I had seen so
much on the lakes; but as I was going elsewhere to examine mines
and ore docks I let the bus carry me to Duluth, the metropolis
of the Arrowhead country.

As a city Duluth is young but it was the site of Indian settle-
ment in remote times. The surrounding country was well known
to the French pioneers, one of whom, Du Luht, founded a fur-
trading post in it. The post passed into the hands of the British
and then into those of the United States, but its growth was so
slow that in 1856 it was a village of but fourteen buildings. No
railway connected it with the rest of the world till a year after I
was born, yet to-day its harbour is second in total net tonnage
only to New York itself. In the peak year of 1935 over eleven
thousand vessels, during the eight months free from ice, entered
and left the harbour. The explanation of this phenomenal growth
is iron ore.

About one-third of all the iron mines in the United States are
in the north-east of Minnesota and from them is taken sixty-five
per cent of all the iron ore mined in the country. It reaches the
docks by railways laid on high overhead tracks. It comes m special
trucks, as many as eighty-five to one locomotive, that crawl and
wind over these aerial trails like some gigantic, pre-historic
reptile. The train halts, high in the air, by the sides of the docks.
Down below are the freighters waiting. Each freighter is a long
floating box divided into a series of huge compartments or holds
between the bridge at one end and the engine room at the other.

When train and boat are in position a signal is given; the hop-
per at the bottom of each truck opens and die ore slides down
a chute into the holds of the freighter -- one hold and one chute
to one truck. In one of the docks there, are a hundred of these

THE GREAT LAKES

chutes on each side of the track. By such colossal but fundamental-
ly simple arrangements thousands of tons of ore can be unloaded
into the freighters in times measured in minutes. The record
loading was made in 1926 when over a quarter of a million tons
were transferred to twenty-six vessels in twenty-four hours.

The ore docks and their operations are the compelling spectacle
of Duluth. At the invitation of the Vice-President of the Duluth,
Mesabi and Northern Railway I went to see them in operation.
Soon after I entered the main gate I came to a level crossing with
the warning 'Better to wait at this crossing for ten minutes than
a million in the cemetery'; the engineers had made some attempt
to calculate the date of the resurrection.

The process of loading the freighters was pleasant to watch
because the red ore makes no dust as it slides down the chutes
and the machinery itself has the majesty which belongs to multi-
plied symmetry. One man giving a display of physical jerks looks
foolish: mass five hundred men in an arena and turn on the spot-
lights and the spectacle is impressive.

The harbour, the scene of all this activity, is spread out at the
foot of a bluff. Between it and the lake is a narrow peninsula,
Minnesota Point, about seven miles long which stretches from
the north shore towards a similar one, Wisconsin Point, about

three miles long ex-
tending from the
south shore (Fig.
14). Together they
form a perfect land-
locked basin. Into
it flows the River
St. Louis which
broadens out a few
miles from its junc-
tion with the lake
and thus affords
still greater harbour
space.

Its defect, which
Fig. 14. Duluth Harbour it shares with other

SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTH 85

harbours of the Great Lakes, is that it is closed in the winter by
ice. The break up of the ice at the end of the long winter is always
the cause of much local rejoicing; huge crowds assemble to see
the great grey sheets beginning to crumble. To the pioneers, who
had no railways, the opening of navigation was an excuse for
much unconventional behaviour. One church preserves in its
records the story of how, one Sunday morning, towards the close
of an otherwise orderly service, the Keweenaw, the first boat of
the year, blew her whistle. At once the church emptied and the
pastor was left to pray to the pews. At the evening service he
announced 'Service next Sunday morning at half -past two, Prov-
idence permitting and if the whistle of the Keweenaw does not
blow.'

At the back of the harbour, on the face of the steep bluff which
borders the lake, rises the city. The main streets run horizontally
parallel to the lake; the others career straight up exceedingly
steep slopes. The terracing and the grading of the cliffs, for the
formation of these streets, must have been a strenuous and costly
enterprise. In fact the removal of superfluous rock has proved
so difficult that, in some of the horizontal streets, great cliffs rise
up between the houses, dwarfing and apparently threatening them.
The ascent from one level to another is sometimes made by flights
of wooden steps. As a consequence of the difficulties of the site
Duluth has spread out to length of about twenty-four miles while
its width is sometimes less than a mile and never over four.

I have already pointed out that my approach to Duluth was
through an almost unbroken expanse of forest, still the home of
big game, and that the first railway to this busy centre is younger
than I am. Big and important as Duluth now is, it is still on the
edge of the wilderness. In the streets I saw more than one hefty
lumberman with woollen sweater and buck-skin trousers, and
several automobiles carrying canoes. Beyond the utmost verges
of the town you may soon be in touch with sylvan glades that lead
to the home of deer, bear, moose, beaver, porcupine, mink and
fox.

The courteous secretary of the Minnesota Arrowhead Associa-
tion, Mr. V. Saxby, showed me in his office a vicious looking
bob-cat, recently shot on the golf course, and told me of a man

86 THE GREAT LAKES

who came home one evening to find his children playing with a
bear in the garden. In the local paper, on the first evening of my
visit, there was a paragraph about a bear that, at Grand Marais,
had made off with feed stored at a lumber mill, torn clothes from
a wash line and ripped them into shreds, and raided a hen coop.

In the window of the Hotel Duluth, where I stayed, was a
stuffed bear shot in the restaurant as late as 1933. This is the
story of its undoing.

Six o'clock in the morning. A crash of glass was heard. The
night watchman, thinking there had been a motor smash, rushed
out into the street. What he saw was not a car but a huge, black
bear raging about in the restaurant trying to follow the tantalising
smells leading to the kitchen. The watchman climbed the stairway
connecting two levels of the restaurant and hurled a chair at the
hairy visitor. Bruin fell but quickly rose again. By this time a
crowd of sleepy guests and night revellers, excited by the idea
of a bear hunt in a hotel, joined in the fun. One, bolder than the
rest, chased the angry beast round the room with a hammer. The
bear objected and was about to retaliate when a bullet, fired by
a police sergeant who had been summoned by the hotel manager,
whistled through the air and put an end to the adventure.

CHAPTER DC

HIBBING: THE ORE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

I was not satisfied with seeing the iron ore shipped: I wanted to
see it mined because I knew it was mined in a way unfamiliar in
Europe. I was advised to go to Hibbing.

We mounted the steep shoreward-facing cliffs and then, for
nearly a hundred miles, crossed land that once was entirely
forested but over which all the big timber had been felled by
piratical lumber companies. The forest had attempted to reassert
itself and there were again many square miles of woodland, most-
ly clumps of young shrubs or groups of young trees smiling
amongst the stumps of their ancestors.

Here and there the woodland was broken by clearings for small
farms where the stumps lifted their grey butts amongst oats,
potatoes, hay and wheat or in the pastures where cattle grazed.
Most of the houses were of wood, some of them of the old-
fashioned, unsquared logs. These farms, whose owners make on
the whole a poor living, eked out by working in the mines and
towns and, especially in winter, in the woods, mark the fourth
and last successful exploitation of the Upper Lakes Region.

The undulating road rose gradually. We rumbled up one long
easy slope only to see, from the summit, another stretch running
ruler-straight away to the top of yet another gentle incline. The
hundreds of small lakes which spangle the surface were hidden
behind a screen of trees. These trees, mostly black spruce and
tamarack, spoke of the presence of peat bogs and swamp. Where
the marshy land had been cleared and ploughed the heavy sodden
soil was revealed but in many places the ground was carpeted
with peat moss.

People left the bus and disappeared down rutty unpaved roads
which were as straight as the main highways. Said the driver to
one departing passenger, some fifty miles from Duluth, 'I thought
you lived in Duluth.'

88 THE GREAT LAKES

'No', said the man. 'I work in Duluth but my home's three
miles down this road and I'm going there for the week-end.'

Tor a rest?'

'No. To cut wood.'

From time to time we stopped for a few minutes at scheduled
halts. My companions always precipitately sought the little eating
places for refreshments, chiefly coca-cola, coffee, pie and ice
cream. One benevolent looking veteran with shaggy locks and
long white beard came back with two enormous ice cones, one in
each hand, and sampled them alternately with the keen delight
of a little schoolboy. Nowhere in the world do people eat as much
ice cream as in America and nowhere else in the world is the ice
cream so good.

There were no villages and the scene did not change for miles.
These continuous views of country which do not vary, hour after
hour, mile after mile, cause many Europeans to consider the
American landscape, even when it is attractive, rather monoton-
ous. A thousand miles of jagged Matterhorns or of gentle Downs
are more than some people can digest at one sitting. Their attitude
towards such immense helpings even of pure beauty is that of
the Yankee philosopher who remarked that Tish and visitors
spoil after the third day.' I count myself lucky in that I am never
bored. Like Chesterton I can truly say

When all my days are ending

And I have no song to sing
I think I shall not be too old
To stare at everything.

All the same I prefer an occasional change of diet and I was
grateful when a number of long, treeless, level, red plateaus
showed up against the sky line and set me guessing as to what
they might be. They were dumps from the mines.

By the time we reached Eveleth (The Hill Top City) we had
climbed about a thousand feet and the number of red dumps and
other signs of mining had increased, but there was nothing of the
unsightliness usually associated with mines, and there were no
slums in the mining towns we had reached.

HIBBING: THE ORE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD 89

I arrived at Hibbing, the 'ore capital of the world', at lunch
time. I ordered a salad and some cheese. The salad filled a huge
bowl, the little sister of a washing basin: the cheese I weighed
it with a pocket spring balance weighed six ounces. It is
dangerous to order a la carte portions in many American restau-
rants: the helpings would discomfort a Goliath.

Overcome by die combination of a heavy lunch and a tempe-
rature of 82 F. I spent the afternoon in the cool lounge of the
hotel. By six o'clock the temperature had fallen to 72 F. and I
actually felt cold. By eight o'clock it had dropped to 64 F. and
I went to bed glad of warm blankets. These sudden changes of
temperature are common in the inland parts of the continent far
away from the sea. It is on record, for instance, that at Amarillo,
Texas, the temperature on Feb. 7, 1933, dropped overnight from
64 F. to 6 F. a fall of seventy degrees while one slept. Such
changes are trying to the nerves and the constitution.

My proposed visit to the mines was delayed by a Sunday, on
which day I explored the town, and by a Monday which was
Labour Day a national holiday. The Local Labour Party an-
nounced a round of celebrations beginning with sports at eleven
in the morning and ending with a dance at nine in the evening.
The item in the programme which most interested me was one
timed for half past twelve 'Basket Lunch at Bennett Park.
Coffee and Ice Cream free'. With some idea of what would result
in Europe from the free distribution of anything I went to see
the fun. When I arrived at the appointed hour there were not
more than two hundred people present and not one of them looked
as if in search of gratuitous refreshment.

The next day I presented myself at the offices of the Oliver
Iron Mining Company and, in accordance with the usual hospit-
able treatment of the stranger in America, I was put in charge of
the Chief Engineer and taken to see the mine a deep, elongated
hole in the ground (Fig. 15). As I stood on the edge of this
colossal excavation, from Which more than twelve million tons
of ore have been shipped in a working year of eight months. I
was reminded of the Grand Canyon I had seen some years before
and meant to see again. Before me, deep into the earth, descended
terraces of russet, rich red, dark brown, purple, blue-black and

THE GREAT LAKES

ochre yellow rocks. It seemed almost impossible to believe that
man had actually first with hand- and then with power-shovels
created this gigantic slit in the earth's crust. It is now two and a
half miles long and from half a mile to a mile wide and, at one
spot, three hundred and fifty feet deep. Since 1895 more material
has been removed than in the digging of the Panama Canal.

The first mineral hunters in this region came in a typical rush
for gold, but found only 'fool's gold', that is, iron pyrites. In time
most of them trickled sadly back over the rough trails through
the forests. But one of them, a woodsman named Merrit, found
some red iron ore, realised its value, took a packet home and

Susffuehantuf
Mint

Fig. 15. The Mines at Hibbing

taught its value to his sons. The boys grew up, acquired fame as
woodsmen, saved their money and, after twenty years of forest
toil, retired from the timber business to begin their search for

iron.

They were joined by their nephews. The 'Seven Iron Men', as
they were later called, surveyed and mapped the vast area north
of Duluth. Part of the district they so thoroughly explored is
known as the Mesabi Range. The term 'range', be it noted, is used
technically, not for 'hills' which they may or may not be, but for
any district where the deposits of iron ore are sufficiently con-
centrated and lie near enough to the surface to be profitably
mined.

The peculiarity of the Mesabi Range is that at certain points
the gkcial drift, which four successive invasions of ice from

RIBBING: THE ORE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD 91

Canada had pushed on top of the ore deposits, was so thin that
it could simply be shovelled out of the way, and much of the
ore itself was so soft that it, too, could easily be removed by
shovels. There was no need to sink shafts. The mining is carried
on under the heavens, nqt under the earth, and the pit at Hibbing
is the world's largest open-pit iron mine.

By means of steep wooden steps we went down through the
upper layer of glacial drift where great rounded boulders are
stuffed into the clay like raisins in a pudding. Just below us were
men drilling a hole in one of the occasional hard layers pre-
paratory to blasting. While the blasting is in process the work-
men take shelter in yellow-painted pillar boxes with cone-shaped
tops. When the blasting was over the broken material would be
removed by power-shovels. At other points I saw the shovels at
work, lifting twenty tons at a time as easily as a child digging
sand on a shore and dumping them into steel cars each of which
held seventy-five tons. Viewed from above the big arm swinging
a shovel had the slow sweeping movement of an elephant's trunk;
the transportable wheeled engine-houses were no bigger than
bathing huts: the labourers no larger than flies.

The long procession of huge ore wagons, looking however like
toy trains, mounted to the surface by tracks, of which there are
seventy miles, in a series of steep zigzags and spirals. As differ-
ent parts of the mine are excavated these tracks are moved and
relaid by titanic cranes which handle them, seemingly as gently
as a mother handles a child. To fasten them down again a gasoline
engine driving an air compressor operates like a pneumatic
riveting hammer.

The drift is carried away to form hills: the ore with less than
fifty per cent of iron in it is also cast aside to build yet other
hills. These hills are smoothed out by a kind of gigantic scythe,
which levels off a swath twenty-two feet wide to the side of the
track at one sweep.

The operations of this stupendous exhibition of human activity
do not consist solely in loading cars and dumping refuse. There
are elaborate processes of analysing, grading and weighing which
result in the blending of ores to such a degree of accuracy that
any particular blast furnace, anywhere in the world, can depend

92 THE GREAT LAKES

on receiving just the kind of ore needed to produce a certain grade
of pig-iron, with as much assurance as a man ordering any well-
known brand of tea or tobacco in a shop.

In the course of time the mine grew wider and wider at the
top until it reached and surrounded the town of Hibbing on three
sides. How to extract the ore from under the town presented a new
problem. It was tackled in the same spectacular fashion as the
mine itself. The Oliver Iron Mining Company bought forty acres
of the town site, and at once began to move the wooden houses and
buildings to another site a mile and a half to the south. Brick
buildings were wrecked where they stood.

During the moving period it was a common sight, night and
day, to see two, three or even four buildings on wheels being
towed towards new foundations that were already awaiting them.
Some of the occupants remained at home all the time, the fires
alight and the chimneys smoking. Churches with their spires,
pews and decorations all intact and with the sexton at the door
were amongst the most striking features of the cavalcade. Build-
ings which were far too large to be moved in this way had to be
cut into suitably sized slices. The cemetery was 'reverently scoop-
ed up with steam shovels' and its tenants given another resting
place.

The new Hibbing has never been incorporated as a 'city': it
remains, for administrative purposes, a 'village', though it has
a population of close on 20,000. I don't understand exactly what
this means but one result of it is that the owners of the mines
are forced to pay practically all the taxes.

The population of the village includes representatives of forty-
four different nationalities. From Europe have come British,
Swedes, Finns, Italians and various Balkan peoples, from the New
World men of every state in the Union, Canada, Mexico and
South America. Even lonely Iceland, far-away Australia and
China have dropped their contribution into the Hibbing cauldron.
Such facts may be of interest to those amongst us who think that
America is peopled by men of British blood and therefore our
natural ally.

As I made so much use of buses on this North American excur-
sion I cannot omit to mention the fact that Hibbing was the home

HIBBING: THE ORE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD 93

of the founder of the present wide-spread Greyhound bus system
and the headquarters of the first motor-bus route outside New
York City. From a humble beginning, with one touring car, the
Greyhound system has grown until it covers the continent with
a transport network unequalled in any other part of the world.

I should not like to live in Hibbing. Its climate is not all that
a man of free choice would select. Its distance from the sea is
responsible for extremes of temperature. In front of the Memorial
Hall, the summer climate is indicated by a variation of the usual
grass prohibition which runs Tlease give the grass a chance'. The
winter climate is indicated by a notice at the side of a piece of
waste ground, on the edge of the village, "Dump Snow Only'.
Snow needs a wide dumping area when it is piled, as it sometimes
is, so high along the side walks that the tops of the taxis in the
cleared streets are not visible from the doorsteps of the house.

And now for that reference back to Pigeon River of which I
spoke on page 80. The Arrowhead country, in which the fabul-
ously rich iron ranges lie, was once under the sovereignty of
Britain, but British rule ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
In fixing, theoretically, the new boundary between Canada and
the United States, the only map available (Fig. 16) was one
made by John Mitchell over a quarter of a century before.
Mitchell was a London physician, a naturalist, and an authority
on the opossum but a very bad cartographer.

The boundary line to be, based on this map, was described as
running 'through Lake Superior and northward of the isles Royal
and Phellipeaux, to the Long Lake; thence through the middle
of said Long Lake, and the water communication between it and
the Lake of the Woods'. Neither the signers of the Treaty of Paris
nor any one else knew how crude and imperfect was the map
with which they were working. They thought Pigeon River was
the outlet of the Lake of the Woods whereas its source is over two
hundred miles east of that lake. Moreover, they believed, on the
evidence of the Mitchell map, that the source of the Great Lakes
system of waterways was the Lake of the Woods whereas it is
the St. Louis River. Had they known what we know they would
almost certainly have placed the international boundary along
the River St. Louis and not along Pigeon River and the unknown

THE GREAT LAKES

richest iron ore region in the world would have been in Canada
and not in the United States!

I may add that there is no Long Lake, that the Isle Phellipeaux
does not exist and that there are many more than twelve islands

Fig. 16. MitcheU's Survey

in the Apostles group. As a result of all this confusion the line
laid down by the Treaty of Paris could not be marked on the
ground, and it was not till 1842 that the existing boundary was
delimited.

CHAPTER X

THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI

MY next objective was Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi.
So far as bus routes were concerned I could have gone direct
from Hibbirig but, as the bank at Hibbing would not give me any
money on my letter of credit nor change my English Traveller's
Cheques because the outbreak of war had made the currency value
so indefinite, I had to go back to Duluth where my bank had
a branch.

When the porter was putting the passengers' luggage on the
bus he picked up a small case belonging to a young woman, found
it heavier than he expected, winked at me and murmured 'Books.
She's a school teacher.' When he picked up the smallest of mine
he found it still heavier, looked at me and gasped 'And you?'

Tm a writer. That case is half full of papers. I'm collecting
facts.'

'So? I thought maybe you was collectin' rocks/

As the journey from Duluth to Lake Itasca was again through
part of the Upper Lake Region, we again undulated through areas
of second growth and tiny clearings but we saw far more lakes.
Minnesota calls itself the 'Land of Ten Thousand Lakes'; as a
matter of fact there are eleven thousand. They lie in hollows
scooped out by ancient glaciers or in valleys dammed by glacial
debris. A large scale map of the state is so bewilderingly filled
with azure patches as fully to justify the name Minne-Sota
'Land of Skytinted Water'.

Out of these lakes slide or tumble placid or turbulent streams;
round them lie deep forests; by the sides of many of them are
cabins for holiday makers. There are, however, hundreds which
have never yet been reached or named: they have been seen and
mapped only from the air. Those that are known and are access-
ible are a paradise for the angler.

96 THE GREAT LAKES

He riseth up early in the morning,
He disturbeth the whole household.
Great are his preparations.
And he goeth forth, full of hope,
And, in the evening he returneth
Smelling of strong drink, and
The truth is not in him.

A little while before I reached my destination the light failed.
Night crept out of the forest like a black cat. Wrapped in the
skirts of the darkness I was conscious only of tall trees and dark
waters till we drew up at the entrance to Douglas Lodge, the only
hotel in Itasca State Park. The park is another of those great
national playgrounds set apart to preserve for ever, in a primaeval
condition, their flora, fauna and other natural features, yet made
accessible by foot-trails and stream-ways. A small part of most
of such areas is opened up for concentrated use and here visitors
can lodge or camp and park their cars and trailers.

I took up my residence in one of the cabins attached to the
state-owned hotel, Douglas Lodge. The plan of a central hotel
surrounded by independent cabins, cottages and bungalows is
common all over America not only in large national parks but
even in extensive private grounds in the big cities. The cabin
allotted to me in Itasca State Park was a typical one, simply but
delightfully furnished, and so placed on the edge of the lake as
to be apparently quite private. With the aid of a flash lamp I
made my way to it along a narrow trail cushioned with pine
needles. It was too dark to see anything distinctly and as quiet as
an unspoken thought. The very stillness kept me long awake and
1 was abroad before dawn, a most unusual occurrence for me, to
watch the last traces of the dying night creep out of their dusky
sanctuaries beneath the widespread branches of the trees.

In my little cottage, with nothing in front of it to hide the
beautiful blue water nestling deep within a fringe of mammoth
pines, I lived alone for a week. During the day-time I wandered
along forest trails: sometimes these were clear enough but some-
times they could be followed only by marks on the trees and I
stumbled through undergrowth and over fallen timber.

THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI 97

I learned, from one of the rangers, how to distinguish the nar-
row paths by which the deer came down to drink in front of my
cottage every evening when the world went strangely silent, mark-
ing the passing of the day; to tell where the beavers had been at
work making a most unpleasant litter; to find their lodges' which
looked equally untidy; to note the differences between the Nor-
wegian pines whose copper stems are fiery pillars at sunset, and
the white pines whose stems are black, not white; and to pick out
the bright green, short-needled tamaracks which grew in the
swamps. Wild asters flourished in the open spaces; birch trees
flashed a silvery joyfulness amongst the darker timber; pine
needles made a carpet for the feet and ferns flourished luxuriant-
ly in cool and shady places. I grew to keen appreciation of the
call of the bird, of the call of the wind as it set the myriad
branches dancing with glee, and of the magic hush which rained
down into the shadows when the night clothed itself once more
with the serenity of peace.

It was more difficult to see the animals than the trees because
they usually hid at the sound of my footfall. The deer, which
came to quench their thirst almost at my doorstep, fled at the
slightest noise. I found a porcupine but it was dead, killed by a
passing car: over it bent a single tall sunflower wondering what
had happened. Ground hogs were common enough; they eyed me
with suspicion as they sat at the entrances to their burrows ready
to bolt into the ground if unduly alarmed. Squirrels, grey, red
and brown scampered and frolicked up stems and along branches
to safe retreats whence they watched me with their knowing eyes.
One night, as I was coining along the only road in a car, five
pairs of green eyes glared at me seeming to dare me to try to
pass, but they belonged to five raccoons, quite fearless or unaware
of their danger, who were playing with each other on the high-
way. I once saw two bears, hesitated, remembered stories of
escaping by climbing trees, looked for the right tree, crept close
amongst the bushes, got uncomfortably near the bears and then
found they were securely defended from me by a big, wire
enclosure.

The days were cool but sunny; the nights were cold enough for
fires and blankets. The early mornings were much like those in

98 THE GREAT LAKES

early spring in England when there is a tang in the air which
produces sudden resolutions to do things and gives the energy to
make a start.

I think my happiest moments were those when I sat on the
porch of my log cabin and watched the day go into hiding. The
deserted little, white, wooden pier and a few canoes drawn up
on the sandy beach were the only hints of the presence of man.
Of other men except myself or other habitation except my own
there was not the slightest glimpse. It was as lonely as a desert
and it all belonged to me. Yet, near at hand, in hotel and cottage,
were all the comforts for which I could reasonably wish, a fact
which added much to my sense of contentment. It is much easier
to be philosophical, charitable and tolerant when you know that
hunger cannot gnaw at your vitals.

In such a place, especially under the haunting influence of
twilight, come thoughts that rarely, if ever, visit you in the talk-
ing company of your fellow-men. Man cannot live without dream-
ing and here, in a solitude designed for dreams, the dreaming
was undisturbed. It felt good to be able to live, even if it were
but for a little while, where changes were so slow as not to count,
where it appeared to matter so little who ran the rest of the world.
Never, in all time, would these hundreds of shining lakes and
these acres of rock-strewn forest ever become the prey of the
enterprising industrialist in search of profits or of the impertinent
enthusiasms of the landscape gardener improving Nature.

I suppose if a man lived long enough in such an environment
he would become one with Nature herself. The fall of the night,
the light of dawn piloting the rising of the sun, the whistling
arrows of the gale would become a part of him and he would be
for ever at rest, his days unrippled by any social, economic or
international problems.

I asked myself every day shall I stay here for the few years
that possibly lie ahead of me or shall I seek some other sanctuary,
some other haven of peaceful delight elsewhere? I argued that
one does not always eat of the same dish, however pleasing to
the palate: perhaps the soul, like the body, needs a change of diet.
Moreover, whether I liked it or not, I had soon to move. Autumn
was just beginning; the sumach, the earliest plant lo herald the

THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI 99

coming of winter, was burning its finger-tips; the holiday season
was almost over and the lodge was about to close. Only a few
more days were left to me to roam the trails and achieve my
special object of saluting the source of the Mississippi.

I could have reached it, from Douglas Lodge, by a good motor
road but that seemed unromantic. Instead, I followed a narrow
trail under the grateful shade of pine and cedar, of spruce and
balsam, of maple and aspen. America is said to have no more
frontiers and to offer no more opportunities of pioneering, but
as I tramped the sandy path between a sea of boulders, wound
round the edge of the silent, sparkling blue waters, or trudged
over boggy earth where rotting tree trunks gave a doubtful foot-
ing, I felt something of the spirit of those who first wandered in
these woods when, in the absence of all trails and modern con-
veniences, they valiantly challenged the unknown.

At the end of a tunnel of foliage I came to a tiny rivulet, so
quiet it seemed hardly to move, and crossed by a few stepping
stones. On the other side rose a tall column on which was in-
scribed: 'Here, 1475 feet above the ocean the mighty Mississippi
begins to flow on its winding way of 2552 miles to the Gulf of
Mexico.' I had reached the official source of the Mississippi.
But is it really the source?

From time to time there has been some dispute on this question
and, if I had to settle it, I should not put the source of the Father
of Waters exactly at this spot. Lake Itasca lies in $n undulating
glacial moraine which contains numerous other lakes, streams
and springs whose drainage it receives. For instance, by means
of a narrow creek, a few yards long, Chambers Creek, it drains
a big lake, Lake Elk, which in its turn receives yet other streams,
and it seems to me that the true source of the Mississippi is at the
head of the longest river draining into Elk Lake (Fig. 17) .

Besides, I should not wish to deprive Elk Lake of a claim given
to it by Indian legend. According to a story of Chippewa origin
a mammoth elk once reigned supreme over the whole district.
Every year the animals of the north came to visit him, to consult
him about the future and drink of the waters which gave them
protection against famine, accident and disease. One day, how-
ever, a party of Indian hunters, gigantic of stature, arrived from

100

THE GREAT LAKES

the south and, with poisoned arrows, destroyed King Elk. The
heavens were immediately covered with clouds, the wind hissed
and writhed through the forest, and rain descended in such

Fig. 17. Lake Itasca

volume as to fill all the lakes to overflowing and gave rise to a
river which found its grave in the sea.

But since the mineralogist Henry Schoolcraft, in 1832, dis-
covered the outlet from Lake Itasca, at the spot where I was
standing, this point of departure of the collected waters of the
basin has been officially recognised as the source of the Missis-
sippi. Schoolcraft paddled up the lake, landed on an island,
raised the American flag and to the lake gave, so say some, its

THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI 101

present name derived from three syllables of the Latin words
'Veritas caput\ the 'true head'. There are others, and I cannot
argue the matter, who say that the word is the name of the beauti-
ful daughter, Itasca or I-tes-ka, of Hiawatha. She was carried to
the underworld by its ruler Chebiabo and, as she descended into
the regions of darkness, she shed tears which united with the
waters of spring and rivulet to set the Mississippi flowing.

I sat down near this romantic spot, the air full of the invigorat-
ing smell of the pines, to eat my lunch: flies and mosquitoes took
theirs at the same time to the sound of much merry music of their
own making. I looked at the baby river, a few inches deep and
a few feet wide, giving no visible promise of becoming the giant
whose arteries carry the life blood of the vast agricultural store-
houses of the Middle West. This is just as it should be: all begin-
nings are weak. This one was so weak that the next night some
beavers built a dam across it and separated the infant from its
mother, a supreme example of colossal impertinence.

When I left England I had intended to travel entirely by water
up the St. Lawrence and through the Great Lakes to Duluth, but
shipping laws and interests prevented me from doing anything
of the sort. I had also intended to follow the Mississippi from its
source to its mouth and, as far as possible, to follow it in a boat.
Well here I was at the source and, according to the information
on the pillar, had only 2552 miles to go.

A derelict canoe, rotting in some willows on the further bank,
reminded me that it was possible to launch such a frail craft quite
near my feet and, with many laborious portages, make my way
across treacherous lakes, between swamps, and down or round
rapids and so perform a perilous and strenuous trip as far as
Minneapolis where real navigation can begin. Such a journey has
been made more than once. It has far more often been attempted
and abandoned.

I knew it would be useless for me to try, I could not canoe and
I was too old to learn. If any one with sufficient youth, skill and
strength had offered me a passage I should have accepted the
offer at once and, as I now know, been sorry ever after.

There were, however, other possible ways of obtaining an in-
timate acquaintance with the river. I might hire a car and see the

102 THE GREAT LAKES

Mississippi at every point where it was crossed by a bridge or
paralleled by a road, but I am no more efficient in a car than I
am in a canoe. I might walk, for time was of no importance, but
the distances between beds would often be excessive, especially
for one carrying a necessarily heavy ruck-sac. The only practic-
able thing to do was to take once more to the bus and, with
frequent halts for inspection, to go down the valley to some point
where I could obtain a passage in a boat.

PART III
THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

CHAPTER XI

LAKE ITASCA TO MINNEAPOLIS

MY first halt, after leaving Douglas Lodge, was at Bemidji,
thirty : one miles to the north; the Mississippi, one of the biggest
wrigglers on earth, begins its way to the south by going in exactly
the opposite direction. It enters Lake Bemidji by a channel only
a few yards long which connects it with another lake whose name
I did not know. I asked a railway employee what the name might
be. He replied 'I've forgotten but I know it's the name of some
Indian god.' I afterwards learned that it is called Lake Irving.
The outlet from Lake Irving was marked by a long row of posts,
on each one of which sat a mallard duck sleepily keeping watch
over a stream so sleepy that I could not see it move.

The thriving little town of Bemidji, once one of the most law-
less of lumber camps, is now a trade centre, with an active dairy
industry on the clearings which have been made in the forest.
There are still industries connected with timber but the lumber
industry, as such, is dead. All the available big timber was cut
long ago and the nearest logging camp is at least fifty miles away.
There is, however, sufficient timber still left to provide a suitable
side-line for a man who wishes to begin farming. In fact, at
Bemidji, as in so many other towns in the Upper Lake Region,
there is a forest view at the end of almost every street.

The main claim of Bemidji to popular fame is as a summer
resort for those who would fish, boat or idle on the shores of the
beautiful lake, shores once buffeted by rafts of logs and trampled
by swampers but now neat and tidy with parks and gardens. It is
attractively situated near the heart of the big wilderness and has,
by way of advertisement, called this extensive* area of clear lakes,
lonely forests and Indian Reservations, this haunt of anglers and
hunters Paul Bunyan's Playground.

Paul, though a romancer, was no relation of the creator of
Pilgrim's Progress, but a mythical figure, the only one which

104 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

white America has produced. He was the greatest logger and the
biggest liar who ever lived. In every lumbercamp his name is
the father of every exaggeration of any magnitude.

Paul's constant companion was a big blue ox called Blue Babe.
It was as strong as a locomotive. If a logging road were crooked,
Paul hitched the Babe to one end of it and Babe would straighten
it out. Unfortunately he could never be kept more than one night
at any camp because, in one day, he could eat all the feed any
crew could bring to the camp in a year. For a snack between
meals he would eat fifty bales of hay, wire and all, and six men
were constantly employed picking the wire out of his teeth.

Babe was gentle but mischievous. He would upset the weather
by licking all the nicest clouds out of shape. He would creep up
to a river where men were driving logs, drink all the water and
leave the logs high and dry. Every now and then he would run
away, making tracks so deep that a long rope was needed to haul
out any one who fell into them. Once a settler with his wife and
baby tumbled into one of the tracks and the son was fifty-six years
of age when he escaped from the hole to report the accident. These
tracks form the depressions in which lie the thousands of lakes
in Minnesota: the glaciers had nothing to do with them! And it
was Blue Babe who, by tipping over his water-tank, created Lake
Itasca and the Mississippi River.

The deeds of Paul were equally stupendous. He used to make
torches of pine trees, set them alight and toss them into the hills
to melt the snow and so provide the water needed for his log
drives. He climbed offending water-spouts and turned them off.
On one hunting trip he killed a hundred and forty-seven ducks,
each of which weighed, on an average, a little over a ton and
a half. One of his lumber crew was employed to keep his pipe
filled and when the pipe was drawing well the clouds rising from
the bowl were as those from a forest fire.

Of these stories there are scores, but I had no time to listen
to more of them. I was anxious to begin my exploration of the
upper course of the river. I did not expect any spectacular
scenery. The upper course is laid in a region of lakes and marshes.
As far as Minneapolis its valley is shallow and its bed is in a
glacial deposit into which it has not deeply cut.

LAKE ITASCA TO MINNEAPOLIS

105

After the Mississippi enters Lake Bemidji its channel still runs
north as far as Diamond Point on the western side of the lake.
This is the most northerly point of the river's course. The channel

Fig. 18. Lake Itasca to Minneapolis

then swings across the lake to the east and leaves by a small out-
let. I wanted to see that outlet. It was only four and a half miles
away but the day was too hot for walking. At the hotel I talked
the matter over with one of the bell-boys, a young man of twenty-

106 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

four who had passed through the local High School and qualified
for admission to the State University but had entered the state of
matrimony instead.

He asked the manager of the hotel for half a day's holiday
without pay and, in his own car, drove me according to my
directions. I knew more about the country from a study of the
map than he did from personal experience though he had spent
all his life there.

We found the exit from Lake Bemidji easily enough. It was
another short, shallow, narrow channel rimmed with trees and
rushes. From this point the Mississippi, not yet having made up
its mind by which way it wanted to go home, took a turn to the
east, that is, in a generally easterly direction: you can never fore-
cast its actual direction any farther than you can see it. We follow-
ed an easterly road and met the river again where it was blocked
by a dam built in connection with the provision of electric power
for Bemidji. Above the dam the river was a beautiful stretch of
tree-rimmed water: below there was an almost empty rocky valley;
little water was passing. According to the engineer the river, for
two years, had been so low that no water had been spilled during
the whole of that period. The drop, at this point, was twenty-two
feet. I asked the engineer how canoeists starting down the Missis-
sippi from Lake Itasca managed to pass the dam.

'By portage', said he.

This unloading of a canoe and carrying it and all it contains
to some other point where it can again be launched entails great
labour and often great hardship as well. If you are young and
strong and the day be young and fresh it can be great fun the
first time.

By roundabout roads we next found the Mississippi at its exit
from the big Cass Lake: the entry of the river into the lake is not
accessible by road. At the exit there is another dam, built to
maintain the level of the lake. It is a slender structure of round,
brown, water-polished tree trunks over which the stream slides
in quiet silkiness. The drop is only about two or three feet but
canoes cannot pass and a second portage becomes necessary only
a mile or two from the first not so much fun this time!

The river next flows by a narrow rushy channel, infested with

LAKE ITASCA TO MINNEAPOLIS 107

mosquitoes, into a shallow mud-bottomed lake whose name is
spelled Winnibigoshish but is pronounced Winni-by-gosh. By this
time it was growing dark so we returned to Bemidji. I had driven
about fifty miles. For this the bell-boy charged me three dollars
and lost his afternoon's wages into the bargain. I protested at the
smallness of the account. 'I couldn't charge you any more', he
said, 'because I've enjoyed the trip so much. I never knew before
that the Mississippi went these ways.'

In the evening, strolling about the neon-lighted streets, I saw
a bright clean building labelled 'Liquor Store', and entered. I sat
down at a little table and examined the list of beverages. I
hesitated between a Pink Lady, a Gin Buck, a Happy Dream and
a Sky Ride. But when I learned that the Pink Lady was com-
pounded of gin, creme de cacao, lemon, sugar, cream and the
white of an egg I neglected both her and her companions, mounted
a stool at the bar and called for a 'straight drink'* of Scotch. The
bar-tender handed me the bottle and a measure and asked me to
pour out my own drink. In answer to my question for the reason
for this procedure he explained that if he poured out drinks for
Americans himself, his customers would turn their backs on him
and walk out.

Next day the heat was terrific. The bus was said to be air-
conditioned but the condition of the air inside the bus, except
when the motion was rapid, was that of an oven. The cattle in the
clearings were so limp that, unlike some of my companions, they
declined to chew their cuds.

Eighteen miles east of Bemidji we entered the hilly, wooded
country of the Chippewa National Forest where large areas of
barren land have replaced what were once considered inexhaust-
ible sources of timber. Much of this land is, however, now being
re-afforested.

On the western edge of the forest is the village of Cass Lake,
the headquarters of the Chippewa Agencies in the Chippewa In-
dian Reservation. There were, naturally, many Indians in the
streets. Contrary to common opinion the Indians in the United
States are not vanishing, though there are not so many now as
in the days of Columbus. It has been estimated that in his day
there were approximately 846,000. By 1900, owing to a variety

108 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

of causes disease, alcohol, war the number had dropped to
270,000 but this decline stopped during the second half of the
century. Since then there has been first a slow and then a rapid
increase. To-day there are about 342,000 about half of whom
are full-blooded. They are grouped in 200 distinct tribes most of
whom live west of the Mississippi and are wards of the Federal
Government. They occupy for the most part lands, often very
poor lands, specially set aside for them.

I carried in my mind a picture, acquired in my boyhood read-
ing, of feather-crowned, tomahawk-waving braves dwelling in
painted tepis on the shore of the lake. I saw no tepis at
Cass Lake, though I believe they are still in use, only rather
squalid shacks, and the Indians in the streets were dressed much
like other Americans, though some of the older women, fat and
sweaty, wore two long black plaits of hair and most of them were
not well washed. The younger women in bright pink frocks show-
ed more colour and more gaiety. Like their white sisters they had
adopted lip-stick and rouge thereby making a partial return to
the barbaric adornments which distinguished their ancestors. Old
and young drove the most ancient of rusty cars which, when in
motion, gave out ear-splitting noises resembling those of a truck
load of empty biscuits tins.

Cass Lake has at least one story worth repeating. When the
bishop who founded the mission for the Chippewa first came to
the village he asked the chief if he might safely leave his luggage
there. 'Certainly', said the chief, 'there is no other white man in
this part of the country/

About one mile west of Ball Club Lake, so called by the Indians
because the lake has the form of a lacrosse racquet, we crossed
the Mississippi and I left the hus. The river was intricately
meandering between low and marshy banks, its shallow streams
moving slowly as if already tired. The dull green flats with their
muddy edges were an unlovely sight. When the bus had dis-
appeared I was left all alone in uninterrupted wastes of marsh
and sedge. The silence was magnificent, so intense that the cries
of the ducks and the booming of the mosquitoes did little more
than make tiny holes in it.

As I trudged along the empty road, weary and wilted, I saw a

LAKE ITASCA TO MINNEAPOLIS 109

sign in the distance, painted in very big letters 'Shady Rest'.
When I reached it I found underneath, in very tiny letters, '8
miles'. A little farther on I came to an old wooden house, marred
by scars and wounds, bestowed by time and rough treatment, and
sat on the edge of its rotting verandah. Presently a man clad in
a weatherbeaten shirt and much patched dungarees came out of
another cottage and sat on a log close at hand. We talked. I always
talk to strangers in unfamiliar places.

James Howell, who wrote Instructions for Foreign Travel ( 1642 ) ,
the first handbook to the continent of Europe, says of the traveller:
'He may converse with merchants . . . and in a short time one may
suck out of them what they have been many years a-getting',
which puts a simple truth rather coarsely. Every fresh human
contact offers an opportunity to climb out of one's ov,*n groove
and to look down into that of someone else: you do not see a
country if you do not meet its people. 'There you sit', Harry
Lauder used to say to his audiences, 'been side by side for two
hours and not one of you spoke to the fellow in the next seat!'
To understand America you have to learn to speak to the fellow
in the next seat.

The man who had joined me on the edge of the tiny village
was not American born, as was evident by his speech, but I
hesitated to ask him what was his nationality: he might have been
a German with relatives fighting mine and still German in his
sympathies. In many parts of America people of common an-
cestry sometimes tend to cling together, read and speak their
home-land tongue and teach it to their children. Old ties die hard:
the passage of former idealisms and the formation of new sympa-
thies is often slow where there is much segregation.

I asked my fellow idler by the roadside about the Indians
amongst whom he lived. We had to talk about something and a
group of Indian children, just leaving school and hurrying to the
waiting School Bus, decided the topic. He spoke highly of the
fanning and intelligence of the few but was contemptuous of
the mass. Most of them were fit, according to him, only for the
collection of wild rice in the swamps: all they had to do was to
push out in a boat, knock the heads off the rice, one at a time,
and then sell the harvest for eleven cents a pound.

112 . THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

each day. Every mornin' he takes the temperatoor of the water
and similar other useful facts and mails 'em to his boss. When
he's told he opens and shuts the gates to order, but the water's
been so low for so long, his orders don't change much. Of course
he has to mow the lawn but he'd have to do that at home for
nothin'. Sometimes some of his bosses comes down fishin' and
then he works more for he does cookin' and cleanin' for 'em. But
of course he's paid extra for that.'

His information was sprinkled with a lot of words having a
family relationship to the subject under discussion but these I
have omitted.

Below the dam was a chained boom of logs across the river.

'How do canoes get past the dam and the boom?' I asked.

'They portages.'

Not more than another mile away there was another boom and
another portage.

We parted in the evening at Grand Rapids where the river was
again dammed to supply power to a paper-mill. As usual, where
the river is dammed in flattish country, it has expanded to form
a large lake. The lake was choked with thousands of logs. The
banks were hills of logs. Big shell-shaped shovels scooped up a
score or more logs at a single bite and then put them on belt con-
veyors which carried them into the factory.

I wandered, by permission, in the factory yard, ankle deep in
sawdust, taking photographs much to the amusement of some
workmen who could see nothing picturesque or unusual in piles
of pulp wood, a log-encumbered river or machines playing with
logs as a child might play with matches.

Below the dam there was much less noise and bustle: crickets,
sawing out their usual music, were the only noisy things. Great
bunches of scarlet berries flamed the coming of winter: big trees
on undulating slopes made me think of an English park: reeds
and willows of an English stream.

The movement of the river was still slow. In its winding course
of 175 miles to Grand Rapids it had dropped only 150 feet: in
the next 175 miles, to Brainerd (52 miles by road), it would fall
another 150 feet. The rate of descent for at least 350 miles is
fairly uniform.

LAKE ITASCA TO MINNEAPOLIS 113

For companion in the bus which took me to Brainerd I had a
man who came from Iowa. He made scornful remarks about the
soil and the crops, especially about the corn, of Minnesota. In
Iowa corn grew eight to ten feet high: here it was never more
than four feet high and often much less. He talked of pigs, point-
ed out to me the ricks of wild hay which would keep cattle from
starvation in the winter but would not help to produce milk,
pointed out also the little, dark brown sheaves of flax grown for
seed and not for fibre, and the flatness of the land which gave
rise to flooding because the dams would not let the water run
away quickly enough.

Brainerd had more booms, more logs, another paper-mill and,
for the canoeist, another portage. The Mississippi was now begin-
ning to look like a real river quite different from the dismal
thread of the upper marshes* It was wider, and its banks, clothed
with spruce and hemlock, were higher. On the edge of the bluff
on which the town is built is a park with a municipal tourist
camping ground which must be one of the most up-to-date in the
whole country. It was provided with stand-pipes for water, plugs
for electric light and heat. Under the pines were tables, each of
which had a gas-cooker with a movable wind-shield to protect the
flame. The charge for a cabin with all these facilities was as low
as fifty cents a night. If I were a dictator what would I not do
with the parks round London!

Later on the same day, I made another halt at Fort Ripley
where a young man told me that to reach the river I must go
straight ahead in a direction he indicated. I was beaten by pig-
styes and wire fences. Then a cheery young woman who 'taught
school* told me to go back about a mile down the highway where
there was a tourist camp with a view of the stream. The camp,
she said, was called 'Elm Resort* and I asked myself why
elms? I looked about me. There were elms in plenty and there
were no conifers.

Minnesota, as far as its trees are concerned, is roughly divis-
ible into two districts. In the north pine, balsam, cedar and spruce
predominate; in the south maple, elm, hickory and willow. I had
crossed the vegetation boundary without noticing it, for the road
ran through much cleared land.

114 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

Evening brought me to Little Falls, the geographic centre of
Minnesota. It is principally a dairying and agricultural centre
but has a variety of small industries supplied with cheap power
from a dam which has destroyed the falls and converted the river
above it into a beautiful lake, seven miles long. Very little water
was coming over the dam and I went down into the almost dry
bed of the river to see the 'Painted Rocks' of the early French
explorers. On my return I saw a big board marked 'Danger. Keep
out of the river below the dam. Gates may be opened and water
flood the channel at any time.'

I could not leave Little Falls without a visit to the Lindbergh
State Park. I kept to the river bank down stream for about two
miles. The Mississippi, rapidly widening and filling on its south-
ern march, was now a noble stream between heavily embowered
banks. I found the park and in it the house where the famous
aviator spent his boyhood. But what interested me most was the
little wood-burning fire-places or stoves provided by the park
authorities for campers and picnic parties.

The stove was an iron box with one end and the bottom open.
The other three sides were iron plates; the top was a series of
iron bars. It was placed on a concrete floor and could be turned
round to meet wind conditions. By its side was a low, solid, wooden
chair, with the seat about a foot above the ground, for the use of
the cook. Parks in America, as I have said before, are intended
to be used.

A long ride over miles of land as flat as that of the Fens in
eastern England but bounded in the distance by low-looking hills,
and I was at St. Cloud. In the fifties and sixties, St. Cloud was
near to what was then the head of navigation on the Upper Missis-
sippi and the surrounding country was forested. It functioned as
an outfitting post for the fur trade where steamers unloaded
supplies for forts in the wildernesses and even for the distant
Canadian posts of the Hudson's Bay Company.

The town is situated high up above the banks of the river on
a level tract surrounded by wooded hills. The Mississippi, here
containing a number of beautiful islands, flows through the east-
ern part of the town at the foot of a bluff crowned by a tiny park.
In a temperature of over ninety I crawled into this park seeking

LAKE ITASCA TO MINNEAPOLIS 115

shade and a view of the river, but from where I sat my outlook
was bounded by two iron bridges of less than no beauty. A steep
flight of wooden steps led from the bluff to the water, but it was
in bad condition as if little used and I stayed where I was.

And as I rested I asked myself 'What on earth am I doing in
this little town in a heat that is qualifying me for the companion-
ship of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? All that the Missis-
sippi has to show me here is what Fve been seeing for the last
two hundred and fifty miles, and St. Cloud is bound to be exactly
like all the other little towns with which I am already familiar.
St. Cloud is a mistake. Catch the next bus and get out of it!' Then
my tourist conscience pricked me saying 'You must at least take
a look at the main street/ I grumbled but I went.
. Architecturally it was the street I was beginning to know all
too well, but nearly all the names over the shops were Polish,
German or Scandinavian, those of the Poles being in the majority.
The Poles segregate themselves in the western half of the town
and maintain, like the Germans and the Scandinavians, many of
their old national and religious feasts and customs.

I went into the office of the Chamber of Commerce. 'Can you
tell me anything about St. Cloud? I am going to write a book about
North America. Ought I to put anything in it about this city?*

'Well we call it the Granite City.'

That surprises me. I've just come up the main street and all
the shops and houses seemed to me to be of wood and bricks.'

'True, but we have vast deposits of granite in and round the
city; all colours from near white to jet black, red, pink, grey,
twenty of them.'

'But what do you do with it?*

'Do with it? Why, sir, we export some of it for building and
we make funeral monuments out of it. You can put in your book
that we have the largest manufacture of funeral monuments in
the world!'

I then told the courteous secretary I was trying to go down the
Mississippi by water and asked his advice. He agreed that canoe-
ing was more like real hard work than fun and suggested that,
lower down, there were barge-owners who might defy the law
forbidding them to carry passengers and put me on the pay-roll.

116 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

'And of course', he added, 'there'd be no difficulty if you had
a friend who owned any kind of freight boat because he could,
legally, let you travel on his boat as a guest.'

^Splendid', I cried. 'But how do I find the friend?'

'Well', he said, Til give you a letter of introduction to a man
in St. Paul. He knows everybody on the Mississippi and if it can
be done he'll do it.'

This letter sent me running, despite a temperature of 99 F,,
to catch the next bus to the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul!

CHAPTER XII

MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL

-MINNEAPOLIS and St. Paul are known as Twin Cities' but they
are so unlike in history and character that each ought to be dealt
with separately. Each has grown up on both sides of the river but
their 'down town' sections, ten miles apart, are separated by
residential districts, and there is nothing like a closely packed,
side-by-side collection of houses extending from the one city to
the other.

Minneapolis began at the Falls of St. Anthony where there was
power for mills: St. Paul began at a shack where a French Cana-
dian, nicknamed Pig Eye, sold liquor. Says a flippant historian
'Minneapolis was conceived in water: St. Paul was conceived in
whisky'. Mark Twain, on a visit to St. Paid, made the latter fact
the text of some remarks which concluded with 'How solemn and
beautiful is the thought that the earliest pioneer of civilisation,
the van leader, is never the steamboat, never the railroad, never
the newspaper, never the Sabbath School, but always whisky! The
missionary comes after the whisky I mean he arrives after the
whisky has arrived; next the trader, next the miscellaneous rush,
next the gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their
kindred of sin of both sexes, and next the smart chap who has
bought up an old grant that covers all the land; this brings the
lawyer tribe, the vigilante committees, and this brings the under-
taker. All these interests bring the newspaper; the newspaper
starts up politics and a railroad; all hands turn 4 to and build a
church and a jail and behold; Civilisation is established for ever
in the land. Westward the jug of Empire takes its way.'

The Twin Cities have not always been friendly. There has been,
in the past, much rivalry, even much jealousy between them,
Veil indicated by an oft-told story to the effect that one Sunday
evening a Minneapolis minister started his sermon by saying,
1 take my text this evening from St. Paul', whereupon the con-

118

THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

gregation rose en masse and filed out of the church, refusing to
listen to any such doctrine/ *

I found Minneapolis far too interesting to leave in a hurry,
especially as I was in no hurry. In some ways it is unique. It must,
I think, be the only city in the world possessing over twenty
natural lakes and lakelets within its official limits. Most of these
lakes, moreover, are not tiny ponds: the shore lines of some of
them measure as much as four miles. The larger ones are all

Fig. 19. Minneapolis and St. Paul

surrounded by beautiful parks where bridle paths wind in and
out under the shade of magnificent trees.

There are other parks besides these, one hundred and forty-
three in all, providing one acre of open space for every ninety-
two inhabitants. They contain miles of paths where one can take
long country walks right in the heart of a city of close on 400,000
people.

At the end of one of my city promenades, when I had covered
about eight miles of charming roads and trails, I asked a negress
which street car I should have to take to reach my hotel.

* J. Russell Smith, North America.

MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL 119

Tou'se lost?' she enquired, 'Waal I'll take care o' yuh. Tse
a public woman!'

I began to wonder whether I was in fit company or not till she
explained that she was a private nur.se and that her profession
brought her into contact with many people, mostly white.

'Don't you bother', she continued. Tm goin' your way and
this is a friendly city. In Minneapolis Jews, coloured folk, whites,
an' the whites is mos'sly Swedes, is all friends. I'll take care o*
yuh. We'se all friends in Minneapolis. What yuh think o' Hitler?
He's too dog-gone smart, he is. But they'll git him. What yuh
carry that map fo'? Traid o' losin you'self? You don't mind.
I'll take care o' yuh. I won't lose yuh.'

The people in the street car were all laughing, but good natur-
edly: they were all friends in Minneapolis. My nurse kept her
word and led me to the door of my hotel.

'Here yuh are', she said. 'A coloured woman's brought yuh
home an' now a coloured porter is goin' to welcome yuh into the
hotel. See how we coloured folks looks after yo' whites.'

The negro in Minneapolis is very much a part of the picture,
not simply as a porter at a railway station but often as a citizen
of some importance. Negroes form about one-fifth of the popula-
tion of the United States and though they are most numerous in
the south a great many of them have migrated to the north where,
and where only, they are truly free. In the north the negro has
a vote and uses it: in the south, though he is theoretically a citizen
with full rights, means are found of depriving him of some of
them.

Wherever the negroes get a chance of full development they
seem, on the whole, to make good use of it. Though many of them
are still only porters and domestic servants and, in business
houses where they are employed, are 'the last to be hired and the
first to be fired', yet there are many others who have acquired
much wealth and now own land equal in area to the whole of
Scotland. In the south white and black attend separate schools:
in the north they go to school together and many of them graduate
at the universities and take up such professions as teaching,
preaching and the law.

Having shaken hands with my guide I entered the hotel. It was

120 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

packed with Oddfellows and their Rebekahs. Some ten thousand
of them were holding a convention at Minneapolis and making
the streets as bright as the flower-beds in the parks with their
ceremonial garments. There were men in purple fezzes adorned
with gold braid, creamy yellow shirts and scarlet trousers, others
dressed as admirals with plumes in their hats, others radiant in
brass and vermilion, generals flourished swords and scimitars.
Girls and grandmothers, all 'girls' in American parlance, frolick-
ed in long white or scarlet satin robes that billowed round their
evening frocks. As a small boy once said to his mother about a
lady with jaundice, they made a bright spot of colour.

All were thoroughly enjoying themselves. They looked like a
circus procession and took themselves quite as seriously. .They
were temporarily children dressing up and believing, not pre-
tending. This kind of thing is common in America. I fancy it acts
as an outlet for the partially stifled love of formal pomp and
pageantry of the older -countries. I expect the Lord Mayor's pro-
cession in London would look just as comic to an American.

The next day the Funeral Directors met for their weekly lunch.
I would have given much to be present to listen to the jokes.
Joking is often of a specialised character. Lawyers tell legal
stories, anglers tell fishing stories and colonels tell naughty ones.
What do Funeral Directors find humorous in a coffin or a hearse?

Historically, geographically and commercially the most impor-
tant thing in Minneapolis is the Falls of St. Anthony, though there
are no longer any real falls. They have been replaced by a series
of concrete coffers. There are two dams, an upper and a lower,
respectively above and below the spot where water once cascaded
but where it is now controlled and allowed at suitable times to
slide 'down a concrete slope. These dams are two of a series of
twenty-seven which, in a distance of 500 miles, have converted
the Father of Waters into an equal number of navigation pools.
Locks at the sides of the dams permit the passage of the river
craft. There are no tolls and the lock gates are opened as readily
for the passage of a single rowing boat as they are for the largest
craft that sails the stream.

At the foot of the falls are the greatest flour milling plants in
the world. The wheat they grind comes from a mixed farming

MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL 121

region to the north and from the broad spring-wheat area which
stretches from Minneapolis to Winnipeg in Canada and beyond
to the Rocky Mountains.

By permission of General Mills Inc., I visited the Washburn
Crosby 'C Mill. A young university student in agriculture acted
as my guide. He took me to the top of the eight-story building in
an elevator: we walked down.

Flour milling is older than recorded history, yet the principles
on which it is based have never changed. As of old the grain is
still ground between two heavy surfaces, though steel rollers have
now taken the place of stones. Modern skill and appliances, how-
ever, can now sort out the germ o the jseed and its overcoat of
bran and leave the pure white flour demanded by modern ignor-
ance for its bread.

If it had not been for my guide I might have been lost and
bewildered amongst the masses of machinery, yet the processes
were not difficult to follow (Fig. 20). I saw the wheat come into
the mill travelling on an endless band, through a tunnel, from
elevators which can store six million bushels per mill. I watched
it move to the purifiers where seeds of other plants that grew
with the wheat, iron nails, buttons, hair curlers and other foreign
bodies picked up in the harvest field were removed. I followed
the purified product to the scouring mill where rapidly revolving
cylinders cleaned and brightened the grain and to the moistening
and washing plant which rendered easy the separation of the
hard, brittle bran in flakes.

The washed wheat passed through a rolling machine which
slightly crushed the kernels: the tough bran flaked off and was
sifted out. Grinding and sifting: that is the story of white flour.
The sifting is done through one fine meshed silk cloth after
another the meshes becoming gradually smaller and smaller. The
wheat may be ground and sifted as many as fourteen times before
a pure white flour drops down a chute into a hopper which
discharges, at each delivery, just as much as a sack will hold,
after which the sacks are sewn up, mostly by automatic machines.

From start to finish the wheat is never touched by hand and
very few people are seen in the mill because most of the work
is done automatically. There is no dirt, merely a light white pow-

122

THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

der here and there upon the parquet flooring. The solitude and
the efficiency combine to produce an atmosphere more akin to
devilry than joy. The magnitude of the operations is baffling in
its immensity. The mill I visited could, in a single day, use all

Fig. 20. Diagram of a Flour Mill

the wheat that could be grown on twenty thousand acres and pro-
duce enough flour for the making of twenty-four million loaves
of bread.

As one of the greatest dangers is that of explosions due to dust
all the machinery is tightly covered to prevent flour dust from

MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL 123

blowing into the air. Dust collectors, with big, constantly rotating
drums, are located throughout the mill, gather the dust and send
it down metal tubes to the outside.

A trifle stunned I crossed the river to the university where I
was due to lunch with some friends. Following the left bank
through another milling district I came to a bronze tablet fastened
to a granite boulder where I read 'From time immemorial Indians,
traders and explorers among whom were Hennepin and Carver,
have used the Mississippi River as a highway of travel. Unloading
their canoes at the bend just below here they plodded up the por-
tage trail across what is now the University Campus and along
the bluffs to a point about half a mile above the Falls of St.
Anthony/

If they came up the river by canoe to-day they would not have
to portage as they did in the times when, from cliff to cliff across
the valley, they heard the war cries of the Indians but, above the
falls, they would no longer find the river 'a highway of travel*.
All the way from Lake Itasca to Minneapolis I had not seen a
score of canoes or rowing boats except as playthings in the neigh-
bourhood of towns; of larger craft I had seen none at all.

The campus was alive with thousands of freshmen wandering
about, wondering and making friends, for it was registration
week. America is well supplied with universities one hundred
and thirty-seven of them: their students are counted by the million.
The University of Minnesota, the third largest, has 27,000
students. The largest, California, has 40,800 students and 2376
teachers.

These figures are a little misleading because the university in
America teaches many subjects that, in other lands, are taught
by other institutions. The President of the University of Chicago,
one of the finest in the United States, says 'Almost any American
university, in addition to teaching law, medicine, theology
and engineering will offer instruction in journalism, business,
librarianship, social service, education, dentistry, forestry,
diplomacy, pharmacy, veterinary surgery and public administra-
tion . . . They train hotel managers, beauty shop operators, real
estate men, news photographers or anything else for which there
is a large enough demand. An American university will teach

124 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

anything which will attract philanthropy or student fees/

My main interest at Minneapolis was, of course, not its posi-
tion, exactly half way between the North Pole and the Equator,
its flour mills rising above swirling waters, its broad, radiating
avenues, or its powerful university, but the River Mississippi,
here a magnificent river, as full of charm, except for the com-
paratively small section occupied by dams, power plants, mills
and elevators, as when the Indians regarded it with fear and
honoured it with worship.

From its source in Lake Itasca to the Falls of St. Anthony the
Mississippi, as already remarked, lies on a bed of glacial deposit.
At the falls it enters an area which, during the ice invasions, re-
mained uncovered. Generally speaking the valley of the river
now becomes a deep, flat-floored trench, two to six miles wide,
bordered by steep cliffs or bluffs.

Immediately below the Falls of St. Anthony, however, the
valley takes the form of a deep narrow gorge the bridging of
which has laid a heavy tax upon the two cities. On the left bank,
a magnificent boulevard runs along the heights; between the
boulevard and the edge of the bank is a wide space of grass,
trees and shubs through which footpaths trail their shady courses.
Road and path from time to time swing inwards to round the
ravines which etch the limestone plateau, crossing them at their
heads where small falls interrupt the rivulets coming to feed and
lose themselves in the river: all this, be it noted, is within the
city itself.

At one point I came to a path leading down one of the ravines
to the side of the river. I descended by this path and, almost for
the first time in my pilgrimage, could walk at the edge of the
water. Seen against the sun the river was a silver spangled ribbon
between abrupt and thickly wooded cliffs. There was no one about
except a solitary fisher on the opposite bank and, on mine, a
group of schoolboys spending their Saturday morning shying
stones at a floating petrol can.

The path took me into a stone works and dwindled to a tiny
overgrown trail along which I pushed my way amongst burrs and
briars. I clambered back to the boulevard and crossed the river
to Fort Snelling, established in 1819 to protect fur-traders from

MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL 125

Indians, on a bluff rising boldly at the junction of the Mississippi
and the Minnesota Rivers. One grey stone tower remains, a pic-
turesque reminder of an epoch which vanished but yesternight.

On another occasion I visited St. Paul, so different from its
twin. Minneapolis sprawls over level ground and its streets are
broad avenues: St. Paul climbs the hillside and its streets are
narrow and congested. Between the edge of the upland and the
river are two natural terraces. On the lower terrace are the rail-
way yards; on the higher are the commercial houses; on the crest
are the chief residences. The two sides of the gorge are not of
equal height at all cross sections and two of the connecting bridges
are not horizontal as we expect a bridge to be but inclined at
fairly steep gradients.

From the bridges you look down into the trough to islands with
sandy shores, the headquarters of various boating and yachting
clubs. The sight of small boats at the clubs and of barges at the
docks inspired me with hope, and I forthwith went to present the
letter of introduction I had received in St. Cloud to the man who
knew everybody on the Mississippi. He read the letter out aloud
to me. One sentence I remember with amusement and pride
"The bearer is apparently a sincere Englishman/

We discussed my proposed journey. I learned there was an
excursion steamer which came up once a year from New Orleans,
remained at St. Paul to make a few evening trips on the river
with dancing in the moonlight and other attractions for its passen-
gers, and then returned to New Orleans. It had departed the pre-
vious night: its next down-stream trip would be in about twelve
months. If I cared to wait for five months, however, there would
be another excursion steamer which called at St. Louis in con-
nection with a trip from* Cincinnati to New Orleans and back.
There was no other form of passenger service on all these wander-
ing miles of navigable waters!

If I felt sufficiently adventurous I could, so I was told, buy or
hire a shanty-boat, a kind of flat-bottomed house-boat occupied,
usually, by one or more 'water-rats', hire also a reliable veteran
shanty man, if one such could be found, for a few dollars a week
and his food, and navigate the river myself. But my informant
did not recommend this except to those of hardy spirit and great

126 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

physical endurance and looked at me as though he thought I did
not meet the description.

He would, however, give me an introduction to the General
Manager of the Federal Barge Line and I could consult him.
I went to see the General Manager and, American fashion, walked
straight into his office. He was busy. He looked stern and not too
pleased with my intrusion. Without asking who I was or what I
wanted, he opened the interview by saying Tm busy. IVe a lot of
work on hand. Monday's my busiest day.'

I put on my best manners and my most persuasive eloquence
and spoke with brevity but with lucidity and eagerness. I took
only four minutes. When I had finished he said 'Gee! I'd be
tickled to death to help you. The Federal Barge Line has one
tow-boat with a spare room in it and sometimes a very special
person may get permission to use it. I must consult the boss at
St. Louis. Give me to the end of the week.'

I was so elated that, at dinner that night, I ordered wine, ex-
pensive as it was, and silently drank to the Manager's health.
One of the Oddfellows who was sitting with his Rebekah at the
next table, saw me smiling over the ruby liquid and said to her
'Let's try some of that stuff ourselves'. He called the waiter and
said 'What's that guy drinking?' When he was told he ordered
half a bottle; they divided it into two tumblers, poured the whole
of it down their throats as if it were medicine and then drank
water with their dinner! I am sorry to say I celebrated too soon.
At the end of the week my friendly manager sent me a letter he
had received from St. Louis which ran: 'We regret to advise that
because of recent increase in our crews there is absolutely no
spare room on any of our boats operating north of St. Louis and
as a matter of fact, the only boat operating below St. Louis that
has any spare room is the Hoover which runs from St. Louis to
Memphis.'

I repressed my tears, repacked my baggage and rejoined the
bus.

CHAPTER XIII

MINNEAPOLIS TO MUSCATINE

I left Minneapolis on October I. It was really time to depart for
though the weather was sunny the temperature was low except in
the hotel where the steam heaters were in full blast and the rooms
were like ovens.

As far as Hastings the land is flattish or slightly undulating.
The river cannot be seen from the road but its position is marked
by a green line where it is giving life to the trees upon its banks.
Just below Hastings occurred one of the many steam-boat accidents
whose stories fill pages of the history of the navigation of the
Mississippi. It was a common enough accident, a case of running
aground during low water, but the method of refloating the vessel
was unique. She drew only twelve inches of water and the pilot
claimed that he set her free by shifting his 'chaw* of tobacco
from the starboard to the port side of his mouth.

The entry into Red Wing (so named from an Indian chief),
where I halted for the night, is along a curving road which leads
down from the plateau between gentle wooded slopes with the big
Barn Bluff in the background of the picture. Red Wing in its
layout is typical of all the little towns in this section of the Missis-
sippi a series of lines more or less in the direction of the river
arranged in the following order the river promenade with a
tiny narrow park, railroad tracks, grain elevators and factories,
Main Street and other parallel avenues. It does not sound very
attractive but whenever you turn your back on the track and the
elevators and face the river the view is often of great charm. In
this case it reminded me of one of the wooded reaches of the
Thames and did not look much wider, but the appearance was
deceptive as only one of a number of channels was visible: the
land facing me was not the opposite bank of the river but the
nearer shore of Pretzel Island. For many miles, on account of
the numerous islands, one can rarely look right across the

128

THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

Fig. 21 Minneapolis to Muscatine

river from bank to bank without
climbing the bluffs.

Should I climb Barn Bluff,
on the summit of which Red
Wing is buried? I could, upon
his exalted resting place, pay
fitting homage to his memory
and behold the view at the same
time, but I was tired. As I ap-
proached its foot I came upon
an inscription in stone record-
ing that 'Colonel Zebulon Pike,
U.S.A., climbed this bluff in
1805'. That settled it. If I never
crossed Pike's Path again I
could meet him here. I could
not, however, follow exactly in
his footsteps since the ascent is
now made by some hundreds of
steps forming a memorial stair-
way to the pioneers who found-
ed Red Wing. On every step is
the name of a subscriber to the
project. Few of these names are
British.

The climb was worth the
trouble. In front lay the steep-
walled trench, several miles
wide, floored by the flat plain
through which the great river
winds. The sky line of the bluffs,
marking the edge of the plateau,
lay almost level, but the bluffs
themselves had much grace and
variety of form, and the mixture
of bare, white rock with the
dark brown and dull green of
field and woodland was rich

Photo: Entesl Towig

At the source of the Mississippi
The pillar on the right gives the altitude of the spot above sea-level and the length of the river

The first bridge across the Mississippi at the exit from Lake Itasca

The Mississippi
Looking downstream from the exit from Lake Beraidji

Photo: Ernest Toimg

Grand Rapids, Minnesota
ith pul-

Photo: Enusl Tomg

The Mississippi almost choked with pulp-wood. On the left is a paper-mill

Photo: Ernest Toung

Bluffs, flood plain and modern dam on the Mississippi at Dubuque

Typical islands and channels in the Mississippi
From the bluffs in Palisaders Park, Savanna

Photo: Ernest Toung

Photo: Ernst Tomg

Water front, St. Louis

The Showboat at St. Louis
One of the last in existence

Photo: Ernest Young

MINNEAPOLIS TO MUSCATINE 129

with mellow colour. The shining river, in many silver channels
meandering from side to side, gave a sense of irresistible power
and purpose. As I looked at the sun-baked panorama at my feet
I felt an even greater urge than ever to be in a boat. There were
a number of speed-boats, fishing boats and canoes filled with
Sunday holiday makers. Some people were making use, for their
pleasure, of this broad, proudly rolling stream. Why not I?

I went down to the Boat Club, a picturesque collection of hut-
like wooden shelters floating on the river and moored to posts,
in which the larger craft found shelter, but there was no one
about, and even if there had been none of the tiny craft appeared
suitable to my purpose.

I visited a man who inhabited a floating shack with a sign
'Boats and Bait*: the bait indicated the type of the boats. The
man, in answer to my enquiries, said, 'You can't go down this
river as a passenger no ways' and I sadly returned to the bus.

When we reached Frontenac station I wondered whether I
ought to get down to look at the village of Frontenac where the
French first settled in this northern country. I had heard I should
find here traces of France and of French influence but I was
sceptical of finding anything French in an American town. The
system of building in rectangular blocks wipes out the material
evidences of the past and stifles its memories. I had already
found it almost impossible to recapture the romance of a dead
past in these four-square settlements and decided to remain in
the bus.

A little way beyond Frontenac the Mississippi runs into or
widens into Lake Pepin: there is some local dispute as to whether
the 'lake' is a real lake or just a widening of the river channel:
it is between twenty and thirty miles long and has a width of
two and a half miles. The entrance to it is marked by the Maiden
Rock, the scene of an Indian legend. According to the story
Winona, daughter of Red Wing, fell in love with the son of the
chief of the Chippewas, the hereditary enemies of her own tribe.
The lovers planned an elopement, but on the night when they fled
to their hidden canoe they were surprised by a jealous lover to
whom Winona had been promised by her father. A fight ensued
and the Chippewa was slain. Winona took him in her arms, ran

130 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

to the top of the cliff and threw herself and the lifeless body into
the river below. A pretty story but based on a perfectly impossible
physical feat and a fine disregard of the geography of the locality.

Such Indian cliff -love stories are common in America. A scoff-
ing writer says of one of the heroines 'Some of the older
Indians claimed she got drunk and fell over, and a few mountain
men told that her parents backed her over, not to prevent her
marriage but in an effort to hold her down while they washed
her feet/*

The shores of Lake Pepin are steep and rugged in many places
and the scenery was so charming that I dropped off at the small
town of Lake City. At the moment the wind was raising big waves,
and a small sailing boat was struggling hard to reach the shelter
of the little pier. This lake has always been noted for its treachery.
The greatest toll of human life was taken in July 1890 when an
excursion steamer, Sea Wing, capsized during a storm and more
than three hundred people perished.

Lake City calls itself 'Little Switzerland' and, though the claim
is an exaggerated one, spots can be found where the views are
not unlike those of some of the Swiss lakes. One such post is a spit
of wooded, sandy ground where tourists may camp or hire cot-
tages. From this I could see both the lake and the lofty bluffs, and
as the tops of the bluffs were hidden by the trees it was possible
to imagine them as much higher than they really are. The slopes
are so steep that even cedars find it hard to take more than a pre-
carious hold, but in tiny clearings in the intermediate valleys
there is a little farm land and a few houses.

There had been frosts during the previous two or three nights
and the trees had made up their minds it was time they began to
display some of that gorgeous pageantry the blending of yellow
beeches, rusty brown oaks, copper and rose of maples which
belongs to the golden season of the year, and the highway to my
next stopping place, Winona, was bordered with flame orange,
yellow, scarlet, brown and purple: Nature was in her gayest mood.

The river is in full view as far as Wabasha and I think I saw
as much, perhaps more of it from the bus than I could have seen

* H. L. Davis, Honey in the Horn.

MINNEAPOLIS TO MUSCATINE 131

from a boat. It was a most amazingly intricate network of marshes,
green islands and sandy banks laced by the branching river. At
one point I counted eight almost parallel silver channels streaming
their shimmering paths along the flood plain. Above rose the
rounded, pointed or squared outlines of the bordering bluffs.

As the day was fading and the lights along the buoyed channels
were twinkling we rode into the prosperous little town of Winona,
its streets paved with warm-coloured bricks. I took up my quarters
at an old-fashioned hotel which was eloquent of the past. Its red
bricks, spacious lobby, elaborate decorations of coloured glass,
its carved pillars and balcony, and its lofty dining room might
have been built in Victorian England.

Winona, as a town, was soon explored river front, narrow
green strip of park, railway, factories and elevators, First Street,
Second Street and so on were typical. I left the town, crossed the
river by a bridge half a mile long and entered the state of
Wisconsin. On the other side of the bridge was a sign board
Izaak Walton Park*. It pleased me to see our angling philosopher
so honoured so far from home. The park is part of a great area,
three hundred miles long and containing three hundred thousand
acres, which has been saved as a refuge for wild life. The area,
as a whole, is known as the Winnesheik Bottoms and contains
forests, streams, marshes and islands. The wilderness looks much
as it looked when the Indians roamed the country and the 'fur
trader's post was the only sign of the white man's civilisation.
The thickly wooded islands and the swamps, the homes of millions
of wild fowl, and the haunts of beaver and musk-rat, would easily
be recognised as their old happy hunting grounds by the spirits
of the Sioux, Algonquin or Chippewa if ever they wander here
in the shadows.

Two big changes, however, have taken place since their time.
The first is the building of a big dam which holds up much water
and creates a new lake, while the other is a marvel of a railway
track which runs on high embankments through swamps still
thickly inhabited by the musk-rat and the other fur-bearing
animals that attracted the early trappers.

I lazed along with the shaded green pools and cool green glades
of the refuge on one side and the steep bluffs on the other. Seen

132 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

from a distance these bluffs lack variety. Near at hand they are
seen as fantastic cliffs with wooded valleys in between. Some look
like rows of turreted castles: others have been carved by the
weather into almost human forms. One, with a gaunt featured
face, was worshipped by the Indians as the visage of the Great
Spirit, and the white scars on the heights around it are the marks
left by their fires.

The scene is that of the Rhine, but more impressive, and it is
not surprising that the site of Alma, on a narrow strip of level
land at the foot of the bluffs, was chosen by some German settlers
because it reminded them of home.

When I was getting tired a man in a car called 'Want a lift?'
I consented to be lifted and he drove me, past Eagle Bluff the
highest point on the Mississippi, and Indian Rock with its like-
ness to an Indian chief, as far as Fountain City and Alma. The
road was all the more pleasing because it curved. A road which
follows a river is not master of its fate: the river controls its
goings. The curves were littered with corpses one or two hens
and ducks but recently expired, and uncountable snakes. My
sorrow for the fate of the hens and the ducks was drowned in my
glee at that of the snakes.

As already related I once had a passing notion that if I could
not sail the Mississippi I might walk along its banks as I had
walked the shorter ones of the Thames and other rivers. This I
had already discovered would not have been possible. The river
rises and spreads so far in flood time that towns and villages tend
to stand higher up on terraces, and roads usually avoid its edges.

The road from Winoria to La Crosse, however, did follow, for
the most part, the river bank. The mists of a cold, damp, gloomy
morning hid the Wisconsin bluffs from three to six miles away.
Nothing, however, could destroy the beauty of the river with its
mysterious channels, backwaters and islands. The entrance to
La Crosse was through a part of the Winnesheik Bottoms where
the lotus blooms in summer. When I had crossed the river and
reached La Crosse I was again in Wisconsin; on the right bank,
to the south, was Iowa.

La Crosse, so called by French Canadians in honour of their
missionaries, was originally the scene of the winter camps and

MINNEAPOLIS TO MUSCATINE 133

intertribal conferences of the Winnebago Indians. In the intervals
between the pow-wows the tribes played the game, later adopted
and modified by French Canadian traders, now known as lacrosse.
Several Winnebago villages still exist in the neighbourhood and
the annual pow-wow is by no means a thing of the past.

La Crosse, like Winona and a number of other towns to the
south, is paved with purple-red bricks, all of which have come
from one enormous deposit of brick clay. The deposit has been
worked for close on ten years but scarcely any impression has
been made on it.

I was urged by local residents to ascend the craggy dignity of
Grandad Bluff, 550 feet above the river, 1172 feet above the sea.
Where the beautiful residential section of the town ended, I trod,
for a few yards, inches deep in fine sand like that of the seashore
till I regained a paved road and began a winding uphill climb
of about three miles, through a landscape of indescribable beauty.
There was a new and splendid vision at every turn of the high-
way. The still dark green of the oaks acted as a foil to the great
variety of ruddy autumn hues shown by the other trees, while
lacy patterns, made by now bare twigs, were etched against a
fairyland of tinted leaf.

From the summit the river was seen flowing from one lake-
like, island-dotted expanse to another, then behaving as a normal
stream for a few miles, then again becoming a maze of channels.
The midstream islands were generously wooded and variously
coloured. Shimmering lagoons, green as emeralds, nestled amongst
the trees. The sun-illuminated panorama was bewildering.

The bluff itself seemed to be keeping watch over the Coulee
Region to which it belongs, part of that considerable area in the
northern United States which escaped being planed down and
lowered by glaciers. This driftless area, completely surrounded
by glaciated teritory, has 'no lakes to make youthful its counten-
ance; no erratic-strewn rock gardens to freckle the landscape/
It preserves a large sample of what the north and the east of the
United States were like before the glacial period.

The many streams of the region, fed by springs, flow in deep-
cut steep-walled rock trenches called coulees. The plateau has an
almost imperceptible roll: there is no confusion of hills typical

134 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

of the glacial regions to the north. The only changes of surface
have been caused by centuries of slow weathering.

A notice on the bluff informed me of the latitude and longitude
of the place, from which I calculated that, measuring from Lon-
don, I was about one quarter of the way round the globe and
measuring from the North Pole a little more than half way to the
equator.

In order to continue from La Crosse towards the equator by
bus the traveller has to leave the river and go inland for some
little way. He thus misses one or two places of interest on the
Wisconsin bank of the Mississippi. The courteous Secretary of
the Chamber of Commerce at La Crosse, anxious that I should
not miss them, drove me to them in his private car. We motored
through Genoa, settled and named by Italians, where it is said
the water-front with fishing nets drying on the beach is remin-
iscent of the Mediterranean, through Victory at the mouth of
Bad Axe river, the scene of the decisive battle in the Black Hawk
War of 1832 when Indian mothers, to escape the white man's
guns, attempted to swim the Mississippi with their children on
their backs, and at last reached Prairie du Chien.

The history of Prairie du Chien goes back to the days of the
Mound Builders, the predecessors of the historic Indian tribes.
They lived in the Mississippi valley somewhere between 500 and
1000 A.D. but the only record of their existence is to be found
in their mounds and other earth-works The excavation of these
has brought to light evidence to show that the men wore a broad
breech-cloth, leggings and moccasins, and the women knee-length
wrap-round skirts; that they had considerable artistic ability,
made pottery, and fashioned knives, ceremonial spears and arrow-
heads from flint.

In the company of the mayor and a judge I went to see the
largest mound discovered in Wisconsin, but my guides thought
I should be more interested in a house built on the top of it. This
was once the home of Colonel Hercules Dousman, millionaire of
the west, who in pre-civil-war days lived like a baron of feudal
France. My hosts regarded it as one of the landmarks of the past
grandeur of Prairie du Chien and, because it was built in 1815,
as one of great age. Yet amongst its redwood and mahogany

MINNEAPOLIS TO MUSCATINE 135

furniture, its lace curtains, china, paintings and books I was back
in the home of my grandparents and recaptured my earliest boy-
hood when I was dressed, like young Hercules himself, as a girl!

My friends were full of stories of the time when Prairie du
Chien was a. fur trading centre, of the capture of the French
military post by the British and how it passed to the United States
in 1812. I was always corning across those terrible Britishers:
they seemed to have been shedding blood wherever I went.

The most interesting story was told me in front of a bronze
tablet fixed on a fourteen-ton boulder. It concerned a doctor
named Beaumont and a boatman named Alexis St. Martin. The
boatman was accidentally shot in the stomach. Beaumont saved
his life but could never heal the hole in the stomach. Through this
hole, of course with the patient's consent, he pushed in food on a
spoon and studied the digestive processes. Altogether he con-
ducted over two hundred experiments. We can well imagine that
St. Martin was bored, and not be surprised that, when the doctor
wanted to study the effect of alcohol, the patient insisted he would
not permit it to enter his stomach except by way of his mouth.

From La Crosse my bus climbed leisurely up woodland valleys
to a plateau. At Caledonia we changed buses. In the new one was
a notice, 'Do not visit with the driver*. This was not a prohibition
against knowing the man or his family: it was simply the Ame-
rican form of 'Do not talk to the driver'. In the United States
'Come to visit me' means 'Let's have a chat' and is not an offer
of temporary board and lodging.

In a few miles we were in Iowa, a state whose interests are pre-
dominantly hogs and corn: its only rival in these respects is its
eastern neighbour Illinois. As far as the eye could see the land
rolled, patterned with acres of soil, as fertile as any farmer could
desire, black where it had recently been ploughed, dark or light
green where crops were standing or ripening in the fields. The
patchwork was all the more striking on account of its immensity.

This section of the United States, known as the Corn Belt,
covers a quarter of a million square miles. The soil is of almost
stoneless richness. Here the glaciers did much smoothing and
mixing but there are few stones in the mixture. The interest to
the traveller is never of a scenic character: there is nothing

136 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

thrilling in the gently rolling surface and murky streams of Iowa.
But the way in which man has adapted this land for profitable
living is a stirring example of American methods.

Because the land in the Corn Belt is either flat or only gently
rolling it was, for purposes of settlement, laid out in squares,
a mile each way, with the roads running north and south or east
and west. The square mile was divided into four sections each of
one hundred and sixty acres.

Not far from the roadside, on each section, stands the farm-
house two-storied, built of wood, and painted white. It is
usually surrounded by trees which have been planted for shade
from the sun and shelter from the wind. A group of substantial
wooden buildings, close at hand, includes a big barn, a tall silo,
corn cribs, open-faced sheds sheltering farm machinery, wagons,
kegs of nails, yokes for oxen, pig styes and chicken houses: an
outer rim, of wheels, discarded horseshoes and piles of wood, is
an integral part of the picture. All the buildings, except the house,
are painted the same tint of red which one sees in the farm build-
ings of Scandinavia. The rule is that you many paint a barn any
colour you please so long as you paint it red, but the shade of
red seems never to vary except as the result of weathering.

The house is supplied with water pumped from a well by a
windmill: windmills are as much a feature of the landscape as
rummaging birds, turkeys fattening for Thanksgiving Day, Hoi-
stein cattle, and men throwing corn to grunting hogs from a cart.
I saw more than one farmer picking corn by hand and tossing it
into a shallow cart, but machinery is rapidly putting an end to
such toilsome labour. In fact machinery has been so successfully
employed in this and other operations that while the wealth of the
Corn Belt has increased its population has decreased.

For many miles our way lay on the high plateau and I had the
feeling of being on the top of the world. At times we descended
into the valleys of streams which crossed our path to flow into
the Mississippi, a proud end for any stream; but we always went
back to the upland until, about ten miles from Dubuque, we ran
through a narrow valley between hills rising several hundreds
of feet and forming impregnable walls on either side, down to
the cattle-dotted pastures on the brink of the stream.

MINNEAPOLIS TO MUSCATINE 137

Dubuque lies at the foot of huge precipitous bluffs which con-
fine the industrial and business centres, bring many of the side
streets to a sudden stop, and make it necessary for streets ascend-
ing to the residential section on the plateau to wind and not run
straight.

All these riverside towns La Crosse, Prairie du Chien,
Dubuque and so on have much the same kind of history and
therefore the same kinds of stories to tell. Commonest of all are
those that recall the stirring days of the seventeenth century,
when the French hurried both from the north and the south to
trade in the furs and minerals which opened a richer vista than
if the river had been in truth what they once thought it was a
route to Cathay. The choicest story I heard at Dubuque was, how-
ever, about the first schoolmaster, George Cubbage, who began
his mission when the town was little more than a muddy main
street lined with cabins and saloons. Soon afterwards he was
captured by Indians who sold him to a trader for nothing but a
plug of tobacco, not because they wished to disparage his
scholastic attainments, but because he was baldheaded and could
not be scalped!

On a bright but chilly morning I crossed the Mississippi into
Illinois and approached Galena whose name explains its origin
lead mines, though to-day it is more noted for its creameries
and cheese factories. The citizens tell of the time when it was
larger than Chicago, but to-day it has only about 4,000 inhabi-
tants.

Somewhere on this journey and not far from Galena, but I can't
remember where, I saw two plain but solidly built stone cottages
sitting up pugnaciously in a street of rather mean wooden houses.
They had a familiar appearance but not an American one. On
enquiring as to their origin I learned they had been built in the
early days of the mining industry by two Cornishmen who had
left the mines of Cornwall for those of Illinois. Nothing else would
suit them as homes than Cornish cottages, and they built them so
solidly that nothing but dynamite would wreck their handiwork.
Cornishmen have left traces of themselves in Cornish cream,
pasties and saffron cakes all the way across America from the
mines of Illinois and Wisconsin to those of Montana and Califor-

138 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

nia. In fact it is easier to buy saffron cakes amongst the gold
mining towns of California than in Cornwall itself.

From, Galena we wound down through the valley of the beauti-
ful Apple River, skirted numerous rocky cliffs, and ran under
low bluffs divided from each other by shallow valleys and small
ravines: on our right was the damp, cool, flood plain, whose green
meadows were a picture of pastoral loveliness. On the lower
meadows cattle were grazing; on the higher, dryer ones corn and
hay were growing; at the very edge forest vegetation hid the
sparkle of the river.

I arrived in Savanna early enough to see, before lunch, all
there was of this small town of purple-brick streets built at the
foot and on the sides of some very steep slopes. I shed a tear at
the fate of many trees slowly dying in the new lake formed by
one of the new dams, saw with envious eyes a shanty boat being
pushed along by an out-board motor, and was thinking of catching
the next bus south when I saw, in a shop window, some of those
horribly coloured picture post-cards which are either a libel or
a sad comment on American artistic taste. They showed me, how-
ever, something I had missed on the bus. I had been so intent on
looking towards the river on my right that I had been unaware
of the Mississippi Palisades State Park on my left. After lunch
I walked back to the park and lost the afternoon bus.

The park sits on the top of some towering cliffs between which
are numerous, deep, wooded, mossy ravines. It is chacterised by
caves, cyclopean rocks and fantastic rock formations Indian
Head, Twin Sisters and so on which may be reached by gentle
Indian trails amongst trees, ferns and wildflowers or by much
more venturesome rock-climbing up the faces of the cliffs.

From certain view points one sees miles of wild-game refuge
preserving the aboriginal aspect of the river lands. Here the
stately heron preens himself in safety and the blue jays flash and
flicker through the foliage, a ballet scene of Nature's producing
accompanied by arias of the lark and the rich liquid song of the
thrush. The beauty and the splendour of the outlook are so im-
pressive that the railway between the soaring cliffs and the river
becomes of no account and is almost unnoticed except when a
screaming train disturbs the silences.

MINNEAPOLIS TO MUSCATINE 139

There is historic lore for those who seek it hidden amongst the
weather-worn crags, in the dense woods and on the fern-clad
slopes Indian trails and traces of old stage-coach roads, mounds
from whose recesses weapons and other relics have been excavat-
ed, and the cave which was one of Black Hawk's favourite look-
out posts, while, down below amongst the islands and the marsh-
lands, the shadows of La Salle, Marquette, Dubuque, Pike and
many another rover still haunt the river.

Next day I reached Rock Island, situated at the junction of
the Mississippi and Rock Rivers. Rock Island, Davenport, Moline
and East Moline form the 'Quad Cities'. Half of the residential
section of Rock Island lies upon a wooded bluff, a hundred and
fifty feet high: the remainder, together with the business and
industrial districts, occupies a plain sloping gently to the Missis-
sippi.

The story of Rock Island is a particularly rich one, full of
dramatic figures explorers, soldiers, frontiersmen, river cap-
tains, aggressive merchants and manufacturers. Its strategic
position was, in the main, responsible for many of the events
associated with its past. The possession of the island gave a sure
grip on the river and, during the war of 1812-1814, it was forti-
fied by the British.

During the gold rush to California Rock Island was a favourite
point for crossing the Mississippi because of its superior facilities
in the way of ferry accommodation. The first bridge to span the
river, built of wood in 1856, was regarded by different members
of the community with very different feelings. Those who wished
to go from one side of the river to the other hailed it with glee:
ferry-men and men sailing up and down the river cursed it with
fury. Unfortunately, fifteen days after it was opened for traffic,
a downbound steamer, the Effie Afton, crashed against the draw-
span, caught fire and burned not only itself but a section of the
bridge as well.

The owners of the Effie Afton sued the railway company in a
famous case in which Abraham Lincoln, as counsel for the
defence, argued that the right to navigate a stream was no more
fundamental than the right to cross it.

There were enough of 'the biggest things in the world' to have

140 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

kept me quite a long time in Rock Island if the weather had not
turned so cold and the hotels become so hot. The Secretary of the
Chamber of Commerce told me that on no account ought I to leave
Rock Island without seeing the Arsenal, the largest institution of
its kind in the world; the locks and the roller-dam, also the largest
of their kind in the world; the works of the International Harves-
ter Company, the largest manufacturers of tractor plant in the
world; and then, if I had time, I might have a look at one of the
largest wagon factories in the world, at a plough factory where
they could turn out ploughs at the rate of three a minute, and
at the Black Hawk State Park.

As I am not much interested in machinery, and an arsenal
would remind me of much that I wished to forget, I decided to
see the park, for though the name of Black Hawk would revive
memories of conflict, the battles all took place so long ago they
could be contemplated with a fine air of detachment.

The Black Hawk War was one of those struggles once thought
to be inevitable in the march of progress in America. On the one
side was a native race fighting for its ancestral lands; on the
other, settlers and soldiers, determined to banish the fear of the
scalping knife from their cabins and clearings. The hero of the
conflict, Black Hawk, chief of the Sauks and the Foxes, was born
in a village part of which once stood within the limits of the park.
For this village, the metropolis of his tribe, he had a deep ancf
lasting affection, and when various other chiefs of the Sauks and
the Foxes ceded the land on which it stood, he refused to re-
cognise the cession. As years passed and white settlers pressed
upon the village and its adjacent lands tension increased. In 1831
a fight seemed almost certain, but Black Hawk and his people
were induced to withdraw beyond the Mississippi and to promise
not to return without permission. In the spring of 1832 Black
Hawk with 200 warriors and their women and children broke this
promise, again crossed the Mississippi, and made for Rock Island.
At once the frontier sprang to arms. The Illinois militia was called
out and several regiments of U.S. Regulars were sent to the scene:
amongst the officers was Abraham Lincoln. A number of sharp
skirmishes culminated in the decisive defeat of the Indians at
Bad Axe on August 2, 1832. A few days later Black Hawk him-

MINNEAPOLIS TO MUSCATINE 141

self was taken prisoner, but after a few months in custody he was
permitted to return to his people in Iowa and amongst them he
died in 1838.

Black Hawk was a good example of the "noble Indian 5 created
by the novelists. One has only to read the farewell letter he wrote
to his conqueror, General Atkinson, to get some glimpse of his
character.

The changes of many summers have brought old age upon me, and
I cannot expect to survive many moons ... I am now an obscure member
of a nation tbat formerly honored and respected my opinions. The
pathway to glory is rough and many gloomy hours obscure it. May the
Great Spirit shed light on yours; and that you may never experience the
humility that the power of the American government has reduced me to
is the wish of him who, in his native forests, was once as proud and bold
as yourself ... I am now done. A few more moons and I must follow
my fathers to the shades. May the Great Spirit keep our people and the
white always at peace is the sincere wish of

BLACK HAWK.

The American government recognised Black Hawk's high mo-
tives after the treaty of peace was signed. Americans now regard
him as one of the noblest of the Indian chiefs. A huge statue to
his memory stands on a bluff not far from Oregon, Illinois, over-
looking Rock River and the valley he loved so well, while the
Black Hawk State Park at Rock Island is a memorial to both him
and his conqueror.

The park is on the outside of the city on a steeply rolling tract
of country rich in plant and bird life. It contains a museum, built
of local limestone and timber, wherein is housed a fine collection
of Indian relics. When the aged caretaker saw my address in the
visitor's book he almost fell on my neck. I'm delighted to see
you', he said. Tm Belgian. That blasted Hitler!'

I went to Arsenal Island after all. I wanted to photograph a
moss-covered pier, the sole remnant of the wooden bridge to which
I have referred. When I told the guardian at the entrance to the
Arsenal grounds what I wanted to do, he replied 'You can't take
no pictures in 'ere.' I left this ungrammatical representative of
law and order and strolled over to the Clock Tower Building, the
headquarters of the Rock Island district of army engineers who

142 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

have charge of the 'nine-foot' channel programme on the Upper
Mississippi. I was granted, without any formality, an immediate
interview with Captain Matthews, the chief of the corps. My object
in visiting him was, of course, to see if I could travel on the
Mississippi on one of the boats belonging to the engineers.

The captain was courtesy itself, discoursed for nearly an hour
on the history and behaviour of the river but told me it would be
impossible for me to get any form of transport on it before I
reached St. Louis and perhaps not then. He gave me an address
in St. Louis at which to make enquiries and wished me luck.

So, back to the bus and on through the unprepossessing-looking
town of Davenport. The temperature, which, an hour before had
been only twelve degrees above freezing point suddenly began
to rise. The driver took off his coat, extracted a coat-hanger from
a small case and hung the coat over the window to my left thus
shutting out a great deal of the view.

'Go by bus and see more', advertise the coach-lines.

We soon left behind us elevators, quarries and cement works
and re-entered the corn fields. When we arrived at Muscatine it
was two o'clock and I was hungry. As the bus would not wait long
enough for me to lunch I left it and let it roll away. There would
be another in twenty-four hours and I liked the look of Muscatine.

In the cool of the evening I sought the water-front. Moored to
the river bank was a small sloop. I asked a man who owned it
and he replied 'Sea Scouts from down the river 5 . Now I carried
a letter of introduction to all Scout officials in the United States
given me by my friend James West, then the Chief Executive of
the American Boy Scouts Association. I was on that boat inside
three minutes. I saluted, Scout fashion, a lad peeling potatoes.
His reply was a bewildered stare.

Isn't this a Sea Scout boat?'

'No, sir. It belongs to the Naval Reserve.'

'Where is it going?'

'Up stream.'

I hid my chagrin and continued my ramble. I spied a shanty
boat. Smoke was coming out of a funnel; some washing was dry-
ing on a line. Presently a freckled, shabbily-dressed individual
appeared on deck, climbed some steps and came ashore.

MINNEAPOLIS TO MUSCATINE 143

If I bought that boat would you navigate it to New Orleans
for me?' I enquired.

'Depends', was the reply of its Danish owner.

'How much?*

'Five hundred dollars for the boat, my wages and my keep.'

'Five hundred dollars! That's more than a hundred pounds in
English money! Can't afford it.'

Just then the skipper's wife, a strapping young female, appear-
ed. Jokingly I asked 'Would you throw in your wife with the
boat?'

'Missis', called the man, I've just been offered a hundred
pounds for the boat if I sell you with it. What about it?'

'Well you can tell the cheeky guy I ain't for sale.'

The man was quite interested in the idea of sailing to New
Orleans in his floating home. 'If it wasn't so near the fishing
season darned if I wouldn't make the trip', he said. And then we
fell to talking of fishing in the Mississippi and I learned that he
caught chiefly carp and buffalo, the latter in this case being a
fish and not a beast, and sent his catch to Chicago where carp
fetched two cents a pound and buffalo ten cents.'

'But if they was cooked', he commented, 'and put side by side
on two plates, you couldn't tell no difference by the taste. And
say, mister, there ain't no fish in the Mississippi as comes up to
plaice from the North Sea. There ain't no fish, nowhere, like
plaice for taste or for beauty. Just look at the spots on its back/

Then he called my attention to the sunset. The sky was a series
of horizontal rainbow-tinted lines and the river was a mirror
that reflected and doubled their glory.

Tou ever heard of Mark Twain?' asked the fisherman. 'Well
he lived here once and he had a lot to say about the sunsets of
Muscatine but he don't ever say anything about the sunrises.'

In the morning I strolled up the hill and into a field of corn
where the farmer was tossing golden cobs into a mule-drawn cart.
He was as eloquent as the fisherman but his subject was corn
sweet corn, pop corn and just corn. I learned a lot about corn
before I left him to take some photographs attended by a very
playful puppy which would keep lying down in front of me,
rolling on his back and asking me to tickle his tummy.

144 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

At the corner of a road I stopped to look at a dozen or mon
zinc letter boxes arranged on a horizontal shelf for the receptioi
of the mail of a number of houses lying off the road.

'What you looking at? 5 asked a woman who was digging *
patch of garden near a cottage. She was very rotund, massively
buttressed and very red in the face. I explained my interest ii
the letter boxes and, in turn, asked 'What are you digging?'

Tea nuts. You're English you are. Grow any pea nuts in Eng
land? My father was an Englishman, ,Came from Basingstoke.

I replied that I knew Basingstoke and had eaten monkey nuts
as we call them in England, but that we did not grow them. Sh<
then took up the conversation with a discourse on pea-nuts, hov
they grow and what they are good for.

David Grayson says that In every least thing upon the road
side lurks the stuff of adventure'. It is equally true that, to
wandering Englishman in America, every humble person by the
way-side is at least a paragraph and sometimes a page out of t
fascinating encyclopaedia.

CHAPTER XIV

MUSCATINE TO ST. LOUIS

FROM Muscatine we rolled away through more corn country
oceans of corn. We went up and down low hills; from the summit
of every hill could be seen vast areas of flattish land, gold where
the grain was still standing, grey where it had been cut and cattle
were feeding on the stalks, or black where it had recently been
ploughed for the planting of some small grain crop which would
keep the farmer's teams and his hired man busy when corn was
no longer needing his attention.

We crossed the Iowa River, very wide but shallow and showing
broad banks of shining sand. Then came Skunk River. Some of
the names bestowed by the earlier settlers are often more descrip-
tive than flattering Skunk River, Fever River, Smallpox Creek
and the like*

Beyond Fort Madison the valley of the river widened and the
bluffs retreated, but the corn remained in innumerable shocks
marching across the plain between the distant bluffs like the hosts
of Israel crossing the floor of the Red Sea. Here and there the
scene was diversified by melon patches, fruit orchards and veget-
able gardens.

Again the river became a lake forty miles long and over
three miles wide fringed with shallow marshes. Above its
smooth surface rose ghostly groves of dead timber whose bleached
trunks marked obliterated shore lines. The dam responsible for
this lake, at Keokuk, has a lock one-third greater than any lock
on the Panama Canal but it did not interest me very much. My
interest in dams was beginning to fade: there were so many of
them. Besides I was aching to reach Hannibal.

Why Hannibal?

The history of Hannibal as a settlement dates no farther back
than 1817 and the town owes its fame not to any pioneers or mis-
sionaries but to Samuel L. Clemens, the Mississippi pilot known

146

THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

all over the world as Mark Twain. Sam's father, a Virginian,

a man of education, a lawyer
and a dreamer, moved to Han-
nibal in 1839 when the boy was
four years old. Five years later
he bought the house now offi-
cially known as the Mark Twain
Boyhood House.

Sam was not twelve years old
when his father died and he was
apprenticed to the publisher of
the local paper, The Courier, to
learn the printing trade. In later
life he was, by turns, a steam-
boat pilot, thus realising his
chief boyish ambition, a news-
paper reporter, gold miner, pro-
motor and writer. As a writer he
did more than any other man to
popularise the Mississippi but,
in reality, he was never greatly
interested in the river and was,
as he admits in his writings, not
a good pilot. The river figures
prominently in only three of his
works Tom Sawyer, Huckle-
berry Finn and Life on the Mis-
sissippi. These, however, it must
be admitted, are three of his
most popular works.

The chance to visit his house
attracted me, both on account of
my boyhood admiration of Tom
' and Huck and also because I had
had the pleasure of meeting
Mark Twain on his last visit to
England. On the day of his

arrival occured another incident of public interest and the

Fig. 22. Muscatine to St. Louis

MUSCATINE TO ST. LOUIS 147

placard of one London evening newspaper bore the double
announcement

MARK TWAIN ARRIVES
ASCOT CUP STOLEN

His boyhood home is a little five-roomed, white-painted,
wooden structure with green doors and shutters. Here he grew
up and, in the story, here lived Tom with Mary, Aunt Polly, and
the cat that did not like Pain Killer. On one side of it a fence
claims to be that which Tom so generously allowed to be white-
washed by his friends. In the rear of the building, leading to a
second-story room, is the outside stairway down which Tom crept
at night when Aunt Polly imagined he was fast asleep.

Connected with the house is a little museum built of stone.
Both house and museum are filled with rare books, original manu-
scripts, furniture, clothing, statuary and other things once owned
by Mark or some of his contemporaries. In a glass case is the
scarlet gown he wore when the University of Oxford presented
him with the degree of Doctor of Letters. By the side of it is a
photo, taken at the wedding of his daughter, in which he is seen
wearing the robe as a wedding garment, 'at his daughter's request*.

Thence to the foot of Cardiff Hill (Holliday Hill of the books),
where a statue of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn is set to
remind the visitor that this spot was the rendezvous of the author
and his play-mates. A local guide-book states that the statue is
the 'First monument in the history of the world to be erected in
memory of literary characters'. I doubt the truth of this statement
but 1 cannot contradict it.

I next trudged some two miles uphill to the Riverview Park,
beautiful with trees and shrubs all now tinted with the hues of
the ageing year. On the highest point, overlooking the river,
stands a rather sombre statue of Mark Twain: the view is better
than the statue. A party of four sad-faced people in a Ford took
the merest. glance at the sparkling river, and an equally brief one
at the statue, when one dreary member of the quartette exclaimed
'Let's go. There's nothing to see up here but the view/

The stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are both laid

148 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

in Hannibal and the surrounding country, and many of the in-
cidents are founded on actual happenings at definitely known
points. The local Chamber of Commerce, having discovered the
financial value of Mark Twain's memory and associations, has
identified these points and marked them. Hence I had no diffi-
culty in finding the cave in which Tom and Becky were lost and
the gold was buried, the site of the old swimming hole, Jackson
Island where Tom the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main, Huck
the Redhanded and Joe Harper the Terror of the Seas went to
become pirates. It was quite easy to see that the neighbourhood,
with its towering hills, far-reaching stretches of woods, caves with
dark alleys and damp-walled chambers, and a river with bays,
tributary streams, picturesque steam boats, wooded islands, fish-
ing and swimming, was a perfect paradise for adventurous boys,
and an ideal location for the rearing of a man with a gift for
telling stories.

Hannibal thrives on memories of Mark Twain. There is a
Mark Twain Hotel, a Mark Twain Lighthouse and a Mark Twain
Bridge. The bars sell Mark Twain cocktails; the stores offer
Mark Twain shirts, Mark Twain steaks and Mark Twain milk.
Apart from Mark Twain there is nothing to distinguish Hannibal
from many of the other small riverside towns. But it gave me a
real thrill. It took me back to my own boyhood days when I had
slept in a bed, sat on chairs and eaten at a table just like those
shown in Mark's house and had, in the interval between getting
into bed and sleeping, ventured and dared, in spirit, with the boys
of his creation.

My way from Hannibal to St. Louis was still through an un-
dulating corn country, for the state of Missouri is also in the
Corn Belt. There was, however, much more woodland, and lime-
stone cliffs rose high and steep by the side of the road or cropped
up in the middle of some of the fields.

My seat companion in the bus was a young woman who, in
answer to my questions, explained that the haystacks had wooden
poles tied to them with wire to prevent their being blown away
by the winds of winter, and that the straw from the threshing of
wheat and oats was heaped over a frame work to make a winter
shelter for the cattle and, at the same time, provide them with

MUSCATINE TO ST. LOUIS 149

food. She also pointed out the winter wheat, just pushing its head
above the ground and told me stories of life on a Missouri farm.

Mile after mile we traversed farm lands, a huge chess board
of yellow and black, dotted with fat red silos and magnificent
barns, inhabited by staunch, individualistic farmers who study
at agricultural colleges, make sacrifices for cooperative ventures
and poll a heavy vote in defence of their industry. The only settle-
ments were small places where the houses could be counted in
tens or even mere filling stations at road junctions. All this is
characteristic of those parts of North America where develop-
ment has been carried out under the homestead system, one man
to a farm and each farmhouse a mile from the next. In the past
this dispersed type of settlement has caused much social incon-
venience but in these days the radio and the motor car have done
much to ease the situation, and community centres, based on the
school, are being established.

The girl by my side was typically American in that she thought
her own state the finest in the Union. She had travelled widely;
she had seen Florida and California, but neither of them, she
assured me, was to be compared with Missouri. As we neared the
edge of the plateau she pointed to a thick pall of smoke smother-
ing the valley below; That's St. Louis', she said. "There's only
one other smokier town in America Pittsburgh.'

From the best residential quarters, above the smokiest limits,
we descended one of the stream-eroded valleys amongst factories
and warehouses towards the foundries near the river. In this in-
dustrial section interest is centred in boots, shoes, and tobacco
and, most of all, in agricultural implements for use in the vast
farming empire of the Middle West. Such bulky things as huge
ploughs, giant reapers and threshers are most economically made
near the places where they are to be employed in order to save
expensive transport.

On the dressing table in my bedroom at the hotel there was
a folder which opened with a message from the Mayor. 1 bid you
welcome to our great city which lies close to the warm heart of
America. St. Louis is at the cross roads of the nation. In our city
all sections meet and blend. Geographically we are at the centre
of the nation. Snows drift to our gates on the north; cotton fields

150 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

whiten our borders on the south; hracing winds, laden witl
messages from industry and culture, sweep into our windows or
the east; and gentle zephyrs, perfumed with the aroma of farm
lands and forests, fan our cheeks from the west. People have
gathered in our city from all sections and climes, representing
every race,, creed, party, social sentiment and economic interest
Here will you find your friends and cousins from whatever State
you come.

It is our boast that we have garnered into the character of oui
citizenship something of the best of every section. We claim the
typical St. Louisan to be the ideal American; that he has the
hospitality of the Southland in his soul; the strength of the- North-
land in his sinews; the light of the East in his eyes; and the glow
of the West on his brow.

'We bid you welcome, thrice welcome: hang up your hats and
make yourselves at home/

Good. Let us make ourselves at home. We may not be quite
as enthusiastic as the Mayor but we shall be very .dull if we cannot
be interested in the city of St. Louis.

I first Sought the waterside, the natural location from which
4:o begin any exploration of St. Louis because it was the position
of the site with regard to the waterways of America which first
gave it prominence. Figure 23 shows that St. Louis stands very
near the centre of America's navigable waterways, once the most
important commercial roads of the country. They were busy even
when the only power was manpower which wielded huge oars,
strained with towrropes and drove ahead with poles.

In the days of the steamboat the riverside was alive with hurry-
ing drays and crowds of shouting mates and singing negro roust-
abouts loading and unloading the scores of river craft tied nose
in to their respective landing places. White men, brown men,
black men and mules swarmed up the levee from the water's edge
to the warehouses among bales of cotton, kegs, casks, boxes, hogs-
heads and crates. St. Louis was then the indisputable centre of
the United States arid from it almost endless processions of steam-
boats fanned out in all directions, their two tall funnels belching
thick black columns seemingly supporting the roof of smoke over
the city.

MUSCATINE TO ST. LOUIS

151

When the railways came, about 1850, they gave a death-blow
to the river transport but not to St. Louis. The old packets, one
by one, went out of existence, but St. Louis simply gained a new
impetus and grew in size, wealth and importance, as an ever-

Fig. 23, St. Louis as the centre of American waterways

increasing proportion of western products found its way east by
rail instead of south by water.

I walked down to the levee, here paved with cobbles, there
coated with concrete, sloping steeply enough to deal with a thirty-
foot rise and fall of the river. I was looking for possible trans-
port for myself but I saw nothing that promised to be of any use:
the only visible craft were a shabby excursion boat, a few barges,
and a big, squat floating structure on the side of which, in huge
letters was painted SHOW BOAT. Was it a real one?

152 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

A young man was leaving it to come ashore.

Is that a genuine showboat?' I asked. 'I thought they had all
disappeared/

'No', he replied, 'there are still three. This one has been tied
up here for the last two years and there are two others lower down
the river that move from place to place. This is the oldest of the
three.' He told me that it was the showboat of Edna Ferber's novel
and that she had lived and travelled on it for some time to get
the right atmosphere for her book. But Edna Ferber in her auto-
biography says that the boat on which she lived was destroyed
by fire.

The young man took me on board. At the end of the gang plank
was a porch-like deck with pillars supporting its roof. On one
side was the booking office: in the centre was a wide doorway lead-
ing into the entrance hall which gave access not only to the pit
and stalls but also to a stairway leading to an enormous gallery.
This gallery came well out over three quarters of the floor space
below so that those in the back seats could scarcely see or hear.
The unpadded, tip-up seats had once been veneered with some
red painted wood but this was now either gone or cracked. The
walls had once been white and decorated with gilded ornaments
but the white was soiled and the gilt was tarnished. On a raised
platform to the right and left of the main aisles were better chairs
in fenced enclosures representing boxes. The drop-curtain had
more cracks than paint, another distressing evidence of vanished
glory. The floor of the stage, having to conform to the structure
of the boat, had a gentle concave curve. In the orchestral pit, on
the top of the piano, stood an amplifier to make hearing easier
at the back of the theatre. By the side of the stage was a notice
crudely painted in red on a piece of crumpled cardboard, 'After
the Show visit 905. Liquor Stores*. The dressing rooms were about
as big as small box-rooms, dimly lit and badly furnished.

All the company lived on the upper deck and most of it seemed
to be married an arrangement making for economy in space.
Living and working together on a small boat for two or more
years must put a great strain on good nature, but all those mem-
bers of the caste to whom I was introduced seemed merry and
carefree and quite content with showboat life.

154 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

names of every state in the Union. The stage and back-stage are
enormous and the various properties are of the same proportions.

Not far away is the Jefferson Memorial Building where one
wing has been almost entirely given up to the marvellous collec-
tion of gifts which an admiring world laid at the feet of Lindbergh
after his historic flight across the Atlantic. There are over five
thousand offerings, tributes from forty-seven nations.

Three quarters of a mile to the south-west, but in the same
park, is the Art Museum where I lingered a long time, especially
in the Print Room. There were so many works by Frank Short,
Muirhead Bone, Griggs, Strang and other British artists and so
many representations of familiar scenes Egham Lock, Rich-
mond Park, the Yorkshire Dales, the Sussex Downs, the Scottish
Highlands that I grew quite homesick:, the pleasant places
were all so far away and the land was no longer at peace.

As I was leaving, an attendant said, briefly 'English?'

'Yes', I replied.

Well I'm Welsh/

And then he told me how, when he was a young man, he used
to go on Saturday nights to sing at some Welsh chapel in London.
Lloyd George, not then M.P., used to talk and 'we had barrels of
fun/ So I told him how during the Boer War, when Lloyd George,
disguised as a policeman, fled from an infuriated mob at Birming-
ham, he took shelter for the night in the home of one of my rela-
tives.

'All this*, said my Welshman, 'makes me think of home. And
it's funny too. You're from London and I'm from Carnarvon and
here we are talking about Lloyd George in the middle of the
Mississippi valley.'

At night I kept my promise to go to the Show Boat to see The
Drunkard, one of those old-fashioned melodramas, with more
morals than art, which this boat makes a feature of presenting.
The following night the play was to be The Murder in the Red
Barn.

The theatre would, I suppose, seat five or six hundred people
but there were not a hundred present. On the whole the audience
was a well-dressed crowd that came in cars and sat in the best
seats. The crowd was the one genuinely unreal thing about the

MUSCATINE TO ST. LOUIS 155

performance. It had come, of set purpose, to guy the actors. The
hooting, clapping, booing and stamping were not really provoked
by anything happening on the stage. Together with the whistling
and the catcalling they were inspired by an alcoholic idea of a
joyous evening. There was a certain amount of back-chat, occasion-
ally amusing, between audience and actor. For instance, when
the drunkard was taking a long pull at his flask, some one called
out 'Give Cripps (the villain) a drop/ When the lights went out
and kept out for several minutes the merry makers struck matches
and bade the players 'Keep smilinV At times, one or more of the
audience would crawl into the orchestral pit and pretend to be
the conductor or attempt to beat the drum. The gaiety was too
forced to be funny and the laughter of the women was a vulgar
shriek.

As a matter of fact the performance was funny enough in itself*
The actors had developed a very efficient technique. They played
the story seriously but with just sufficient exaggeration of action
and accent to make it a delicious burlesque.

Financial limitations imposed certain economies. 'Props* were
very few. To effect a change from one cottage to another, there
was no change of scenery, merely a change in the curtains over
the window, the position of the table, and the colour of the cloth
that covered it. To keep the company as small as possible and so
cut down the pay roll, everybody had to be versatile. Thus there
were -no definite orchestral performers: for the overture three
members of the caste, already made up for their parts, distributed
music with a drum, fiddle and piano. The drummer (who was
also the juvenile lead and, I believe, the producer) and the fiddler
left just before the curtain rose and the pianist finished alone.
When incidental music was necessary some one came down to play
it and nobody bothered whether it was the hero or the villain.
Everything was as open and simple as in a show produced and
given by little children.

Between the acts there were 'turns' a violin solo, songs and
dances, performances on the xylophone, the Swiss hand bells and
a one-stringed fiddle, and some hearty community singing of
There is a Tavern in the Town and The Dashing Young Man on
the Flying Trapeze.

156 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

When the show was over I foregathered with crew and company
and together we drank coffee on the deck. The lights from a
nearby bridge shed spangles on the muddy river; the show boat's
dog chased rats along the quay; and until a late hour I listened
to stories of the gay days of old when the show boat was a thing
of romance and the audiences were credulous souls who took the
hero and the heroine to their hearts.

On Friday October 20 I suddenly remembered that, on the
following Sunday I should be seventy years of age. How should
I celebrate the day? Being seventy is not really a reason for a
joyous celebration. I felt like H. G. Wells (who once taught me
zoology!) when he was entertained by his admirers on the occasion
of his seventieth birthday. Said he, 'I hate being seventy . . . To-
night I am -very much in the position of a little boy at a lovely
party, who has been given quite a lot of jolly toys and who has
spread his playthings about on the floor. Then comes his nurse.
'Now Master Bertie', she says, 'it's getting late. Time you began
to put away your toys.'

'I don't in the least want to put away my toys. I hate the thought
of leaving. Life is not half long enough for my tasks. Few of my
games are nearly finished and some I feel I have hardly begun/

However, while there's life there's hope. Commodore Vander-
bilt added a hundred million dollars to his fortune after he was
seventy; Cato began to study Greek and Goethe completed Faust
at eighty; Titian was only two years short of a hundred when he
painted the Battle of Lepanto.

What could I do? I could make another attempt to get aboard
a boat on the Mississippi. I went first to the offices of the Missis-
sippi Valley Association. The secretary was away and would not
be back for a week but his deputy sent me, with a letter of in-
troduction, to the Manager of the Federal Barge Line. He received
me kindly but explained that it was practically impossible to
grant me what I wanted without a reference to Washington, and
that would take time. I sat quite still and listened while he talked,
but when he paused I shot out 'Sir, please, I'll be seventy on
Sunday. Can't you let me travel on a tow boat to celebrate the
event?'

He smiled sympathetically and said, 'Well, perhaps that does

MUSCATINE TO ST. LOUIS 157

make a difference. Look here. Pve a boat, the Herbert Hoover,
leaving St. Louis on Monday. It's the only boat in our fleet with
a cabin to spare and it is going only as far as Memphis but 111
take you as a guest as far as Memphis if you can get anyone
else to carry you from Memphis to New Orleans. Go over the
road to the office of the Mississippi Barge Line and see if they'll
do anything for you.'

Over the road I went. I saw an official who said, 'We don't
carry passengers. We can't carry passengers and we won't carry
passengers.' Then I told him about my birthday and extolled the
courtesy of the Federal Barge Line, and at last he said 'Well, as
I told you, we don't carry passengers but if you won't tell any-
body my name and get me bothered with other applications, we
will carry you, as a guest, from Memphis to New Orleans/

I did not wait till Sunday to drink the health of my benefactors
and wish myself Many Happy Returns of the Day.

Tew of my games have nearly finished and some have hardly
begun.'

CHAPTER XV

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT
S*. Louis to New Orleans

ON the Saturday I went to get the necessary passes and instruc-
tions. I didn't feel too certain, even then, that my luck had chang-
ed* The passes, however, were duly forthcoming. I stowed them
in my innermost pocket, in the lining of my waistcoat, walked on
air, was nearly run over three times, and was loudly cursed by
the owners of cars for my merry dodging between the wheels.

The pass of the Federal Barge Line ran This is a free pass,
issued as a gratuity only, and based upon no consideration what-
soever. The person accepting and using this pass, in consideration
of receiving the same, agrees that the Inland Waterways Corpora-
tion, or any of its subsidiaries, shall not be liable under any
circumstances, whether 'of negligence of its or their agents or
others, for any injury to the person or for any loss or damage
to the property of the individual using this pass and that as to
such individual each such company shall not be considered a
common carrier or liable as such.

1 hereby assent to the -above statements and conditions and I
hereby certify that I belong to one of the classes that are permit-
ted to receive free transportation under the Statutes of Congress
and of the several States wherein the pass is good: and I agree
that I will not use this pass at any time in violation of the law/

I had no idea who were the classes permitted to receive free
transportation but I signed with glee.

'Be on board on Monday morning at eight', were my instruc-
tions. Being wise in the ways of freight boats I had no belief that
the Herbert Hoover would sail to time, but I was taking no risks
and arrived at the wharf at half past seven. Because the river
was low the boat lay deep down below the top of the levee. I
descended dozens of steep steps, then a ladder a bit of a trial

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT 159

as I am not very secure on ladders these days crossed a muddy,
stony bit of the sloping bank, climbed another ladder, crawled
along the two-foot outer ledge of a barge, mounted some more
steps and reached the Herbert Hoover and her skipper, Captain
Smith.

The captain promptly made me welcome and put me at my
ease. 'Make yourself at home', he said, 'but don't make a nuisance
of yourself by falling overboard or getting hurt, and come up
into the pilot house whenever you want to/ A deck hand carried
my baggage to my cabin where I found not only a bed but an easy
chair and a writing table; a private bathroom was attached. Within
ten minutes I had shed my city clothes for shorts, a flannel shirt
and sandals, and was wandering about watching the cranes gently
lifting or lowering their loads, listening to the cheerful sounds of
clanking chains, straining ropes and beating pistons. I was again
on a real boat with no frills about it: ships were never invented
to be converted into hotels. I was happy, content, even triumphant.
For, be it remembered, unless you own a boat of your own or
make use of one of the rare excursion boats, you must be a guest
to travel on the Mississippi. I don't suppose that in the last fifty
years a dozen Englishmen and very few Americans have done
what I was about to do.

We left at ten, only two hours after the scheduled time, with
a fine settled look on die day. The view of St. Louis from the river
was not attractive. Sewers, one after the other, pouring out foul
streams from their giant mouths into the water, chimneys pouring
out foul clouds of smoke into the air, colossal machinery dredging
sand from the river for the making of cement, and a colony of
'water rats' housed in hovels constructed of rusty tin and other
scraps collected from refuse dumps were the most significant
details in the picture.

The city is trying to get rid of the human derelicts on the river
banks and has passed a law forbidding the spending of any money
on repairing the hovels in which they live. If rain comes through
a hole in the roof the occupant of the dwelling may catch the
water in a pan: he must not mend the hole.

'How do these people make a living?' I asked.

'By begging, stealing, killing anything but work', said the

160 THE RIYER MISSISSIPPI

captain, adding however, 'there must be some good in some of
them. See that shed yonder where one wall has gone and the roof
is partly resting on the ground. Well that place is full of pets.
There's only an old man there but he's got cats, dogs, rabbits,
monkeys, parrots and I don't know what else. There must be some
good in him.'

Just before noon the musical sound of a gong was heard.
'What's that?' I asked hopefully, for the river air had sharpened
my appetite.

It's the 'ash 'ammer, Sir', said the mess-boy with a grin. 'In
fifteen minutes you eat.'

Later on the mess-boy confided to me that when he had saved
enough money he was going to the university to study Civil En-
gineering. His dropped h's were his little joke. His position on
the boat was far different from what it would have been on any
other craft in any other part of the world. For instance, when he
came up to the pilot house in the afternoon to bring us tea, he
would sit down, join in the conversation and call the pilot by his
Christian name. He was as much at home as any of us. We were
a very democratic society. Everybody was Alf or Joe except the
skipper who was 'cap' to his face and, true to the traditions of
life afloat, 'the old man' behind his back.

The meal hours were fixed to meet the watches of the crew, not
the convenience of an occasional guest. They were 6 a.m., noon,
and 6 p.m. Coffee and sandwiches and other items were served
at nine in the morning and three in the afternoon or at any other
time when anybody wanted a bite. I have never been a believer
in early rising and, at first, found it a little difficult to leave my
bed at half past five, but I soon became accustomed to this un-
healthy custom, and even managed to persuade myself that the
hues of the early morning were delights I ought not to miss.

While on this question of meals I may add that the food was
plentiful and excellent, and that I never saw any body of men eat
so quickly and say so little as the crews of the three tow boats
which carried me to New Orleans.

The name 'tow boat' is not strictly accurate. The American
tow boat does not pull barges; it pushes them, locked into a
solid mass by heavy ropes and cables. The appearance of the

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT 161

boat and its barges resembles that of a hen driving her chickens.

The modern tow boat came into being during the World War
of 1914-1918. The rail service broke down; the government decid-
ed to relieve the congestion by reviving the long unused water-
ways. With the return of peace a definite policy was conceived
of developing river transport. A standard nine-foot channel was
adopted, flood control was undertaken, and modern equipment
was designed.

The Herbert Hoover, like most of the other tow boats, was built
of steel and as flat bottomed as a packing case. She was a stern-
wheeler with engines as powerful as those of many an ocean-
going vessel but drew only seven and a half feet of water. Each
of the larger barges clustered ahead of us could carry as much
as sixteen loaded freight trains but ours were not full. We pushed
a total cargo of about 6,000 tons made up chiefly of flour, oats,
corn, soya beans, beet pulp, drums of oil, tin-plate, iron pipes,
sheet steel, steel billets, tools and implements.

The ease with which the captains of the tow boats put the barges
together, change the position of them in the tow, add a few, drop
a few, rearrange the whole three barges wide for better steering
where the river runs fast, two barges wide to gain speed in slack
water and so on was a wonder to behold. The operation is
comparable to that of shunting railway trucks, but the railway
man does his job on fixed rails and not on a floating stream
which means to have a say in the matter. The engine-driver, more-
over, bumps his trucks against each other roughly and noisily:
the tow boat skipper shifts his barges so quietly and smoothly
that their meeting is as gentle as a mother's kiss.

It is said that the modern barges carry more freight than was
ever carried by the old packets. The usual tow consists of from
four to ten barges each of 1,000 to 2,000 tons capacity, and it
was quite evident that the total amount of freight afloat was con-
siderable. But there is no romance, no gay life aboard a tow boat
as there was on the packet in the days of Mark Twain.

In those days the trip from St. Louis to New Orleans, then a
voyage of about 1200 miles was, to the passengers, quite as full
of excitement as an ocean voyage on a modern liner. Seated in
their chairs on the hurricane deck the men smoothed down their

162 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

silky handle-bar moustaches and flirted with the voluminously-
skirted, leg-of-mutton-sleeved young ladies or listened to the
bearded skipper spinning yarns. In the saloons there was much
gambling for heavy stakes and much drinking, the latter increas-
ing as the boat passed from northern coolness to southern mild-
ness and then into the full heat of the lands of sugar and cotton.
Steam navigation on the Mississippi is now nothing but a stern
business proposition and there are no passengers except an
occasional vagabond like myself or some other privileged tres-
passer.

I spent most of my time either on the deck or in the pilot house.
The latter was perched high up in the air and was reached by
steep narrow steps. Curled up comfortably on a broad settee I
watched, from this gay, roomy, glass-walled vantage point, hun-
dreds of miles of the tawny river coil and uncoil itself like some
vast extended writhing serpent. And I must put it on record that
once for a few minutes I was allowed to steer the boat. I wonder
how many other living Englishmen have ever steered a tow-boat
on the Mississippi!

As we passed beyond the limits of the city of St. Louis great
expanses of golden sand began to appear. They remained with
us all the way to Baton Rouge in the far south. The river, in 1939,
was lower than it had been for forty years, and in parts of its
course there was as much sand as water. In the more dangerous
passages between the shoals we went very slowly, like a timid
person cautiously crossing stepping stones, with one man flinging
the lead and another, on the prow of the foremost barge, bawling
through a megaphone the changing depth of the water. 'Mark
twa-ain', he called in a kind of melancholy chant meaning that
there were twelve feet of water: every mark is a fathom or six
feet. Once the cry came 'Ei-ght f ee-eet'. There was a sudden signal
to the engineer, a harsh grinding sound on the bottom and, with
a shiver like that of a frightened animal, we went aground at the
mouth of the River Oka.

There we remained for three hours while the pilot on duty
executed various manoeuvres which I did not understand and
about which I asked no questions. The captain and the other
pilots were also silent. The rule in such cases is that the pilot on

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT 163

duty is in sole charge; no one offers him any advice unless he
expresses a wish for it.

I asked for a chart: without maps I am lost. The skipper hand-
ed me a complete set of charts of the river saying, as he did so,
f Here you are. Charts a-plenty. But charts are no use on the
Mississippi. You have to learn to read the water/ The 'channel
shifts almost daily in ordinary times and almost hourly in time
of flood. The charts are of greater academic than practical
interest. More valuahle are the reports issued at frequent inter-
vals by the United States Engineers calling attention to present
conditions.

Here is an extract from one of these reports. All its terms may
not be intelligible to the reader, but the fact that the given passage
is merely one of a dozen lines from a report ten pages in length
of foolscap, single spaced typing, will serve to show something of
the difficulty of piloting a boat down this treacherous river.

MADRID BAR AND HAPTONSTALL 9 feet From Morrison
Towhead Lower Light to Madrid Bar Light, 11 feet, between 4 black and
4 red buoys. Till from foot of Morrison Towhead to 100 yards above
Haptonstall Light, 14 feet, to right of 2 red buoys. Then from 25 yards
below Madrid Bar Light to 50 yards open on Kentucky Point Lower
Light, 11 feet, between 2 red and 2 black buoys; black turning buoy in
11 feet. Left-hand draft in this set Till from Morrison Towhead Lowes
Light which will show 100 yards open on Kentucky Point Light to
Haptonstall Light, 10 feet, between 4 red and 6 black buyos, red turning
buoy in 8 feet. Slight right-hand draft in this set In and down shape of
revetment 75 yards off, 9 feet, to right of 4 red buoys. Very close and
strong set below Haptonstall Light

These were the conditions on one short stretch on October 9th.
But they would not necessarily be true on October 10th and the
pilot knew they would almost certainly not be the same when
he returned; the river is as wayward as a fickle woman. One day
we received a wireless message to say a new channel had opened
and the old one closed within the previous three days.

Everywhere the river is constantly eating into its banks on one
side anid depositing them on the other. 'With a simple lash of its
tail, it could wipe a solid island from the face of the earth or
with a convulsion of its huge tawny body spew up a tract of land

164 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

where only water had been/ A man may see his farm gradually
disappearing, either going away down stream or building up that
of his neighbour on the opposite shore. 'Now', said one farmer,
as the last of his fields slid into the current, Tin the greatest
landowner in U.S.A. I've a farm that stretches from Tennessee
to Louisiana', but he did not smile. Some one was always saying
to me, That used to be an island', That was the channel we took
last trip' or last year.

The memory of the pilots with regard to the river is encyclo-
peadic. There is nothing about the behaviour of the bewildering
current they do not know. Currents, depths, landings, banks, reefs,
sandbars, eddies, despite their fickle character, are as familiar
to the Mississippi pilot as the alleys and byways of London are
to a London taxi-driver.

Navigation is difficult enough during the day; it is much worse
at night especially when the skies are dark with bitter rain and
the yellow water is swirling in a frothy torrent, and still more
dangerous when fog is lying low, and the scene is either devoid
of any landmark or all the marks that are visible look exactly
alike. As far as Cairo (pronounced Kay-ro) we tied up most
nights about dusk, mooring ourselves with giant cables to trees
on the banks. One night it was late before we reached a suitable
anchorage and I sat in the pilot house lost in astonishment at the
man who could pick out anything in the shifting black horizon
which looked any different from everything anywhere else. No
wonder the captains are well paid: some of them, in pre-war
days, received a salary of about 1,000 a year.

Conversation in the pilot house was the river-man's 'shop'
the vagaries of the river, accidents to barges, triumphs of pilots
and racing feuds, to which were added older stories of Indians,
explorers and blood-thirsty pirates. Whenever any one spoke of
the river it was always of her, as if she were a human being, one
whom they loved and respected but whom they also feared. I
once suggested the possibility of bathing from one of the sand-
banks and the captain said to me 'Don't, never. She sits in wait
like a spider and she always gets 'em. You walk along; you fall
into a hole; an undercurrent catches you and you're done.'

The captain of the Herbert Hoover, having been on the river

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT 165

for forty years, had a special
fund of information about every-
body who lived within sight of
his boat or even in the country
beyond, their incomes, their
successes, their scandals, in short
all their private affairs.

Below St. Louis there was
some change in the appearance
and character of the river but
first on one side and then on the
other rose, for several days on
end, autumn-tinted limestone
bluffs. In one place there had
been a forest fire, and grey ashy
sneers lay upon the blackened
faces of the cliffs. On some of
the numerous uncovered sand
banks men had built brush shel-
ters behind which they hid in
order to shoot the ducks and
geese migrating to the warm
south for the winter. Flocks of
wooden decoys floated on the
waters or stuck up rigidly in the
sand, and sometimes glasses were
necessary to make out whether
they were real birds or not.

Everywhere, on reefs and
sandbanks and against project-
ing points in the banks, were
piles of debris, stumps, dead
trees, bits of fences, houses and

Fig. 24. St. Louis to New Orleans

wrecked boats which, particularly in times of flood, the churning
current had brought down in a seething mass. Over much of the
wreckage trees, clinging frantically to their last foothold in the
crumbling bank, awaited the next season of high water to add
their despairing limbs to the rotting piles below. One particularly

166 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

bad patch of the river was littered with references to the devil
his baking oven, his table, and his footprints all on a scale in
keeping with his reputation and the nature of the scene.

The greater part of the time I saw no human habitations. The
river, in flood, rises high enough to drown everything between
the bluffs, even though they may be from forty to a hundred miles
apart, unless held back by artificial dykes or levees. No one,
therefore, lives on the low unprotected shores, and the riverside
is as dead as that in a tropical forest even when the land behind
the levee may be thickly populated.

The engineers in charge of the river have three main problems
how to improve the navigation, how to prevent the land from
being washed away and how to prevent farms and towns from
being drowned. To describe their experiments and their works
would take a small library.

Two or three of their efforts are, however, so conspicuous that
no mention of the river can neglect them. For over four hundred
miles from St. Louis there are heavy groins of timber, called
hurdles, sticking out from both banks of the river. They look like
the groins built on coasts to prevent the drift of sand and shingle.
Here they collect sand and drifting timber to form an obstruction
which diverts the current and sends it out towards the middle to
cut the channel deeper. There are so many of these hurdles that
they add a very attractive novelty to many an otherwise uninterest-
ing mile.

Levees made of earth are built to prevent flooding. In some
sections they have reduced the width of the flooded area from
say fifty or even a hundred miles to as little as a mile and a half
and have thus reclaimed thousands of acres for agriculture. At
times, however, the river may sweep away a levee, regain control
of the plain, and deluge vast areas of cultivated land. As a rule
the levees are so far from the edge of the river and so masked
by trees that, from a boat, little or nothing of them is visible for
hundreds of miles.

When a high bluff comes close to the water and so provides
its own defence against the flood there may be a town. On the
third day out from St. Louis we reached such a town, Cape
Girardeau, where a railway makes use of the bit of higher land

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT 167

to help it to cross the river. The town had smoky chimneys, a
church or other building with a dome, factories, and silvery oil
tanks mixed up with trees. Behind the waterfront was the usual
railway, street and promenade: in the street were a terrible
'Gothic' church, its turrets painted with aluminium, and a yellow-
walled, green-roofed college surmounted by a cross. By the side
of the stream a few saw mills. On the stream a barge unloading
timber. And then into the wilderness again. In a straight line we
were now only 600 miles from the Gulf of Orleans but we should
have to travel 1700 miles before we reached it.

As the day drew towards evening a mist arose and a curtain
of luke-warm rain began to fall; the search lights turned the
falling drops into a gentle cascade of gilded crystals. We reached
a narrow passage where the difficulties were so great that our
heavy tow could not be safely navigated in the dark. The captain
decided to 'double trip', that is, to split the tow in half, leave
one section behind and return for it in the morning. We detached
two of the barges and tied them up to trees. Three of the deck
hands, one a youth in his teens, one a giant of middle age, and
one an old greybeard, provided with bedding and a cold supper,
went into one of the barges to keep watch for the night while we
went on to Cairo at the mouth of the River Ohio with the rest of
the fleet. There, with lights flickering above the levee and throw-
ing yellow streaks across the water, we lay till dawn sent the
tow boat back upstream to fetch the other boats.

Cairo (Fig, 25) is at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi
Rivers and in that part of the state of Illinois which is called
Egypt. These names suggest that Cairo in America should, like
Cairo in Egypt, be near the head of the delta of the river and, in
a sense, it is. At one time the Mississippi ran into the sea at this
point. That the sea once extended so far north is proved by the
ancient beaches and shore lines which occur so commonly in the
hills of southern Missouri, northern Arkansas and Kentucky. The
ground on which Cairo stands is low but the city is now serenely
and securely settled behind the immense levees which are here
close to the water.

The Ohio is itself a noble river and the sight of the two giant
arteries coming together to unite their forces for the onward

168

THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

march to the sea is one which has ever stirred the imagination
of the traveller. All the early explorers Hennepin, Joliet,
Marquette, La Salle make reference to it. The union, however,
is not immediately complete. For some distance the clear green
water of the Ohio flows side by side with the dull brown water
of the Mississippi each proudly disdaining to acknowledge the
existence of the other.

South of the Ohio we had Kentucky with us on the left but

Missouri was still with us on
the right. At six in the even-
ing we tied up, as usual,
this time under a high bank
crowned with young cotton-
woods whose bright green
leaves and slender white
stems shone gaily in the
search lights. Low hanging
clouds scurried across the
face of the moon; the dark
crag was outlined against
the stars; a silver shimmer
danced from time to time
upon the muddy current.

The next day's dawn was
chill. The sun, at first an
angry red frown, turned to
a cold yellow stare and

seemed as surprised as I was at being awake at this early hour.
Then, rejoicing at its own uprising, it tried to breathe a caress
into the air but the cold wind laughed and triumphed.

About sixty miles from Cairo we came to one of those terrific
bends which are so conspicuous on maps of the river. The distance
round the curve was twenty miles but when we had completed it
we were only a little over a mile farther south than when we had
entered it. The engineers want to do here what they have done in
many other similar cases, dredge a cut-off across the neck of the
bend and so shorten the journey. The pilots, however, object. They
say there is a drop of thirteen feet between the two ends of the

Fig. 25. The Site of Cairo

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT 169

bend, and the speed of the current through the cut-off would be so
great they would not be able to manage their heavy tows. There
is some evidence to prove that though the contemplated cut-off
would produce a temporary acceleration of the current this would
eventually be corrected by the current scouring out a deeper
channel and thus reducing its speed. When I suggested this to
the captain his anger rose and his remarks about theories, and
engineers thinking in terms of text-books, were too lurid for
publication.

On we went skirting a series of bluffs, passing down lanes of
buoys, the red ones bobbing up and down like cheeky, drunken,
inverted interrogation marks, round sandbars where prostrate,
blackened tree trunks told tales of the devouring monster's ac-
tivities, by apparently deserted shores clothed mistily with silver
green willows, and reached the widest part of the river, some
three or four miles from bank to bank. In many sections the
easily eroded shores had been laboriously revetted with slabs of
concrete, but these were often undermined, broken and ready
to slide.

Points, promontories, islands, bends, wooded shores, and an
almost constantly horizontal sky line brought us to another sunset
halt and we tied up to one of the^ hurdles. Above us, on shore,
two engineers were spending the night in a tent under some
willows. Their camp fire was glowing brightly in the shadows
and sending forth the long remembered faint fragrance of wood
smoke under the stars. During the night, the channel we should
have taken finished filling itself with sand, and we had to wait
while a dredger cleared a way for us. Not till seven o'clock could
we untie our mooring ropes.

Between flat, winding shores, mostly covered with willows, all
low in relief and in colour, but pleasing in the cool, pearly, pastel
shades of the early morning we zigzagged towards the sea. Ken-
tucky gave way to Tennessee and the captain said 'You'll notice
a difference down here. The people in the south aren't like those
in the north: they're slower. I've known people as nice as you
wouldn't want to know better, good church-going folk they were,
but if the lawn wanted mowing they'd get a nigger to mow it,
though there was an eighteen-year old son in the house, and if the

170 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

. * l ..

cook went out they'd go to a restaurant to eat because the woman
couldn't cook a meal/

Just above Chickasaw Bluff, one of the few points on the left
bank where hills approach the river in its southern course, the
river narrowed to about a quarter of a mile and gathered speed.
The steep wooded cliffs of this short section are part of a series
running from Columbus (Kentucky) to Memphis (Tennessee).
Chickasaw Bluff has historic interest; from its summit De Soto,
the Spanish discoverer of the Mississippi, first saw the river in
1541.

Then the captain called my attention to a line of black buoys.
'Where they float was last year's shore. Where you see all that
sand was our channel.' All the concrete slabs which were supposed
to protect the banks were under the water. There was enough sand
to provide a big seaside town with all the bathing beach it could
desire. The fact that in one year there could be so much diversion
of water and so much accumulation of sand was as incredible as
plain truth usually is.

At six, when it was already dark, the captain said to me 'You'll
have to leave us here. I've just had a message to say that I'm to
go no farther. This boat can't get through the channel. Another
smaller boat, the St. Louis, is bringing me my up-stream tow and
taking these barges down.'

Now I knew that the St. Louis had no spare room and I wonder-
ed where I should sleep. When I went on board her and suggested
to Menard, my new skipper, that I could make a bed of the pilot-
house settee, he replied, 'Don't you bother. I'll put you some-
where. 9 When bed-time came he led me to my sleeping quarters.
They were his own! He had given me his cabin and was going
to sleep on a bench!

Menard was somewhat different from the other captains and
pilots whom I met. He was no kinder and I suppose he may not
have been any more skilful but he had wider interests. He had
been to sea and, overseas, he had visited and appreciated what
the older world had to offer. His descriptions of Athens and Pisa
were marked by knowledge and taste!, In his spare time at home
he kept bees; in his spare time aboard he read Hamlet and King
Lear. I was with him but one night. In the morning Memphis, on

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT 171

its high bluff, rose mistily in the distance. Like all the cities with
sky scrapers on the sky line it presented, through the early morn-
ing haze, a view suggestive of mystery and aspiration.

To understand Memphis it must be remembered that the
Mississippi, flowing north and south, is a great barrier to the
natural lines of movement east and west, and a bridge crossing
it is a focal point of great importance. Bridging the Mississippi,
in the plain south of Cairo, is not an easy matter: the banks are
very low and the river may not stay under the bridge. Between
St. Louis and the Gulf of Mexico there were, until comparatively
recently, only two bridges; the last of these was at Memphis.
Hence this city has become the focus of ten trunk railway lines.
The other bridge, at Cape Girardeau, takes nothing but rail traf-
fic: hence Memphis is the focus of five of the great national high-
ways. It is prevailingly a cotton shipping port but it has, natur-
ally, a wide variety of interests. It is the leading city in the United
States for the making of cotton-seed oil and cake, while its local
hardwood forests support saw-inills and the manufacture of fur-
niture, flooring, barrels, boxes, wheels (from hickory) and boat
oars (from ash).

One had no need to be told that Memphis is in the Cotton Belt.
Bales of cotton lie on the sidewalks; specimens of cotton are on
exhibition in office windows; porters whose clothes are fluffy
with cotton fibres push trolleys and wagons loaded with cotton;
people in the hotels talk cotton and a Cotton Exchange caters for
merchants and speculators. There is now, however, a little less
dependence than there was on cotton as the sole crop : the activities
of the farmer are now more varied than they were. The modern
slogan is 'Plant to Prosper' and the plants are vegetables, soya
beans and feed crops, even some coffee, while the number of
hogs, cattle and poultry has largely increased. There is an
awakened appreciation of the wisdom of not putting all one's
eggs in one basket.

The number of black men and women in the streets was
evidence that I had crossed the line dividing negroes from niggers
and I was not surprised to find in a public garden a little building
marked 'MEN. White only'. The separation of the races extends
from the churches and the schools to the public lavatories.

172 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

At Memphis I had to tranship to the tow boat Tennessee of the
Mississippi Valley Barge Line. She was on her way from Cincin-
nati. I went to the office of the Company to enquire when she was
due. 'She will arrive to-morrow at noon and leave almost imme-
diately, but Pll phone/ At eleven the next morning I got a message
The latest news I have is that she will be here at three. You will
go aboard her on a tug and as she may be a little ahead of time
you had better be at the wharf at two-thirty.' I arrived at two-
twenty when a clerk said to me Tm sorry but the Tennessee won't
be here till eight. Leave your baggage in my office and come
again about half -past seven/

I went to the movies, had my dinner, and returned at seven-
thirty. There was no tug and no tow boat. At about nine a small
launch arrived and carried me off. When I went to bed at half-
past ten the Tennessee was still arranging her tow.

The Tennessee was by far the most luxurious of the three tow-
boats on which I travelled. She had a comfortable saloon with
arm-chairs, and standard lamps by which to read: the latter I did
not use. I never read a single word during 'the whole of the jour-
ney. I was always afraid I might be missing something. The food
was the best I had eaten though it was good enough on all the
boats. The breakfast table was always piled with cereals, eggs,
bacon, various kinds of hashes, sausages, prunes, stacks of bread,
hot biscuits, hot corn bread, that is, hot if you went to breakfast
in time.

The captain Robert Haynes was a typical river man. His
father, who was just about to complete fifty years of service on
the river, had begun as a steersman under the direction of his
uncle in the golden days of the old packets. His three sons, of
whom Robert was the second, were all engaged in carrying on
the family tradition of devotion to tow boats and barges. The
oldest began as a deck hand under his father. The youngest went
to college and became a civil engineer but the river called him
so he joined his elder brother. Robert had served under his father
as clerk, steward and steersman. His people tried to discourage
him and sent him to a business college but he, too, came 'home'
again. The mystery, the majesty and the power of the river were
in his blood.

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT 173

I gathered that deck hands, as well as skippers, are also a
distinct and faithful tribe. They have a hard and, at times, a
dangerous life, and are given to cursing the river and everything
connected with it. But they tend to stick; even if they take a job
ashore they are just as likely as not to throw it up and return to
their first and only permanent love.

From Memphis south, as far as the arable land extended, the
farms are guarded by levees some of which run far out of sight
beyond the trees.

Though signs of human occupation were scarce there was plenty
of evidence of traffic and of activities connected with the river
tow boats going down with grain, cotton, iron pipes, wooden bar-
rels, tin cases of insect poison for shipment to Mexico, and cases
of whisky, or going up with sugar and rice; oil-tankers, and rafts
of timber; dredgers pumping up sand and gravel, pouring the
sand and water back into the river and the gravel as 'clean as
washin' ' into barges.

At Helena we bade farewell to the last hills on the right bank.

Below Arkansas City we went through a man-made cut-off
which has left the town of Greenville high and dry, an island in-
stead of a riverside town. Between Arkansas City and the mouth
of the Red River (Fig. 26) there are twelve of these cut offs.
They have shortened the Mississippi by a hundred miles and
caused such an increase in speed that the crest of the great 1937
flood was ten to twelve feet lower in this section than anywhere
else. The appearance of the artificial channels is quite natural
and unless I had been told what they were I should never have
taken them for canals that had been dredged.

On the left bank, somewhere in the state of Mississippi, I saw
a number of round holes in some cliffs. They were the entrances
to caves which human derelicts had themselves excavated in order
to obtain rent-free habitations. On the water, looking like black
rocks till the steamer's whistle disturbed them, were huge flocks
of waterturkeys 'no good to eat*. On the sandbanks, thousands
of ducks migrating from Canada, and called 'honkies' because of
their cries, were resting. Further south they become 'Louisiana
ducks' which may be shot only at certain seasons and under a
licence. If, at night, they are blinded by the search lights they

174

THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

stun themselves against the masts and fall on the deck. They are
then collected and cooked because 'there's no law to compel you
to throw 'em overboard.'

All the time the horizon was one of straight lines bluffs,

Yazoo Basin

mite? for

12 Cutr ofrs -shown fy the-
e length

black Ifrzef, sh&rtsn t

of the river bttovcx Xrkanfos

City and Anaote by 200 miles,

Fig. 26. Cut-offs and Levees of the Lower Mississippi

banks, sandbars and forest tops. From an aeroplane it must have
been an intricate tangle of various curves bars, bends, streams,
lakes and islands.

On Nov. 2., we arrived at Vicksburg. Because it was late we
stayed only long enough to cast off two barges. The lights of the
city showed Vicksburg to be, like all the other riverside towns,

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI ON A TOW BOAT 175

on high land. The map showed it to be bounded on three sides
by a complicated system of hills and streams at the junction of
the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers. The captain told me that close
at hand were thirty-two battlefields and a National Military
Cemetery. And I read in a book an account of a huge working
model of the Lower Mississippi built at Vicksburg by the United
States Engineers. It covers 245 acres of ground and on it the
engineers try out their theories of river control.

The Tennessee had so many Catholics amongst the crew that
the captain had to consider the question of feeding them on the
meatless Friday. At what appeared to be an uninhabited stretch
of the river the pilot pulled a rope; a long piercing cry terrified
the silence and we stopped. In but a few minutes a negro put off
from the distant shore to bring to us a magnificent catch of fine
fish. Most of it was cat-fish so-called on account of its whiskers*
As served by our bulbous-eyed, obese, woolly-haired cook, it
provided a delicious dish.

We came to Natchez, on the usual cliff, here two hundred feet
above the river but with a lower town on the flats known as
Natchez-under-the-Hill. This lower town was once the home of
certain desperadoes whose morals were as unsoundly based as
the mud on which they lived. The river had recently taken another
big bite deep into the shore and half swallowed a mill and some
attendant buildings.

Of Natchez, as of Vicksburg, I sa,w nothing except from the
tow boat. The same luck befel me at Baton Rouge where we moor-
ed some distance from the city to take on fuel oil and deliver a
few barges. There was no chance to go ashore and I don't think
I should have gone had I been given the chance. The weather had
suddenly turned so cold that to leave the over-heated pilot house
was to court death by freezing.

From Baton Rouge to New Orleans, a distance of about, two
Hundred miles, the delta character of the plain of the Mississippi
is apparent in the number of branches which carry 'Ole ManV
waters to their resting pkce in the sea. For ocean ships, drawing
thirty feet of water, there is but one channel and though we need-
ed no such depth this was the channel we took. The banks were
very low; trees came down to the water's edge; the water itself

176 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

was less muddy and was salt. There were no more hills or sand-
banks. I was nearing the end of the river trail. I had come from
the pines of Minnesota, through the corn lands and the lands of
cotton to others of rice and sugar. The chimneys of numerous
sugar mills were sending their smoky offerings into the blue.
Silver-spired village churches were a reminder that here, as in
Quebec, the country was peopled by French Catholics.

On Guy Fawke's Day, through the mists of early morning,
came the pearly sky scrapers of New Orleans rising above the
flat land on which the city is built and over which it stretches for
twenty miles from east to west.

The disembarking was, for me, sheer terror. There was no
proper pier or landing place and the water was low. Holding
tightly to the hand of one of the crew I scrambled up and along
wooden beams not more than a foot wide that sloped at bad
angles and turned at worse ones, the turgid stream slyly winking
at my discomfiture as it dawdled on below. Had I been a paying
passenger I wouldn't have risked that disembarkation. As a guest
I felt I could not ask to be taken to some easier and safer landing
point. It was with a feeling of the greatest relief that I found my-
self at last upon one of the levees which keep the water out of
New Orleans. The city is, normally, from four to seven feet below
river level and as many as eighteen to twenty feet when the water
is high. I entered one of the massive ferry boats which, with slow
dignity, ply between the opposite sides, and crossed to the business
section of a city that claims the honour of being the 'most interest-
ing city in North America',

CHAPTER XVI

NEW ORLEANS TO THE GULF OF MEXICO

I had reached New Orleans but I had not yet finished with the
Mississippi. New Orleans, like London, Glasgow and many
another port of world importance, is not on the sea. I now sought
transport from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico and back. I
could easily have gone to the Gulf of Mexico on some outbound
ocean steamer but then I could not have returned without com-
pleting a voyage to the West Indies, South America or some other
distant part of the globe. There was no barge traffic and there-
fore no tow boats. I visited various tourist agencies and even one
or two official bodies; they all told me the journey I wanted to
make was impossible. There was, they said, no passenger traffic
between New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi.

This seemed to me incredible. In the delta south of New
Orleans there are some farms, a few villages, a pilot station, a
settlement used by the engineers in charge of the navigation and
quite a number of fishermen. Most of the dwellers in the swamps
could not be reached either by rail or road because there was no
railway and, beypnd a certain distance, no road. On the face of
it it was absurd to suppose they could not be reached by boat and
I continued to ask everyone I met where I could find one. After
about three weeks I learned that there was one small boat which
made the return journey, twice a week, between New Orleans
and the last human settlement on the river. I. booked a passage
on her.

Admittedly she was not exactly the kind of boat to which tourist
agencies send clients, but she was a boat and she did carry pas-
sengers. She was a tiny affair of about 150 tons. She had been
painted several times since she was first launched and, as frag-
ments of the original and the additional layers were all visible,
the colour scheme resembled that of Joseph's coat after it had
faded.

178 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

There were three two-berth cabins the beds in which were
covered with grey blankets which would not show the dirt, but
there were no sheets. Two women and an infant occupied one of
the cabins, another male passenger and myself each had one of
the other two. Each cabin had two doors, one of wood with a glass
upper section to let in the light and one of wire netting to keep
out the insects. Half the glass in my door had been broken and
its place taken by a piece of ill-fitting roughly nailed board. The
wire-netted door had no knob and was opened and closed by
pulling on a piece of dirty rag.

There was one 'toilet' for the use of both the passengers and
the white members of the crew. The box-like refuge also contain-
ed the washing arrangements a tap which supplied a dribble
of cold water, and a tin basin in need of a severe cleansing. One
towel for all remained on duty for some time, but this did not
trouble me for, being a seasoned voyager, I always carry one of
my own.

The deck hands were negroes who slept at night either on the
deck or in a dark and dismal hold. The white crew were black-
haired, black-eyed immigrants from Serbia, Dalmatia, Czecho-
slovakia and Italy but all naturalised citizens of the United States.
They were as merry and kind a group of men as one could wish
to have for company on a boat. The captain, in particular, was
a solid mass of good humour, so rotund that he reminded me of
a child's definition of an adult a person who has left off grow-
ing except in the middle. All the crew spoke a variety of English,
but it was so peculiar that I never could understand half of what
any of them said to me. *

I went aboard early enough to watch the loading. The freight-
ing of a boat always fascinates me and the freighting of this one
was no exception. As she was the sole public link between New
Orleans and the people who live in the roadless swamps, our
cargo was a very miscellaneous one ranging from sacks of coffee
and barrels of oil to a laundry basket for some one who could
not or would not do the family washing.

* If the captain ever sees this account of his boat, and I hope he never ,
I beg his pardon for my remarks about it and ask him to accept my thanks for his
personal attention.

NEW ORLEANS TO THE GULF OF MEXICO 179

About five o'clock, as the sun dropped lower and lower behind
New Orleans, it shrouded the tall buildings in a golden haze, and
spread one long glittering avenue of light across the broad breast
of the yellow stream. Overhead floated inky black trails of soot
from the funnels of steamers, ferry boats and tugs. The clouds,
sculptured by a rapidly cooling breeze and headed by flaming
angels, marched in a fiery procession across a sky of pale rose,
green and blue, till at last their glory faded.

As the curtains of night descended the city grew grey but the
stars displayed their diamonds on a canopy of black velvet,
streets lights became a lower firmament, neon lights on taller
buildings glared mockingly at the darkness, the lighted buoys
twinkled little ripples of colour into the water, ferry boats trailed
their illuminated passage from bank to bank and then, long after
the time scheduled for departure, the skipper came aboard, the
whistle shrieked, a white path of foam sprang up in our wake,
and the cook announced that dinner was served.

The officers, the other male passenger and myself entered the
dining saloon and seated ourselves at a table covered with an
aged, cracked, chequer-board patterned piece of linoleum. The
cook's galley was in one corner of the saloon and the negro chef,
attired in orthodox cap and coat, which had once been white,
prepared the meal under our noses. He was elderly, or at least
as wrinkled as any elderly person ever ought to be, and had an
air of wisdom on his wizened face which was not supported by
the results of his culinary experiments.

The food was brought to the table in huge tin pans and washing
basins one basin of olives, another of onions, another of oysters
and so on. Six oysters on their shells are an invitation: hundreds
of them in a soiled tin vessel are a slimy repulsive looking mess.
I had to shut my eyes before I dared taste their delicious fresh-
ness. We had gigantic slabs of meat and huge helpings of a perfect
fish the sheephead. Beans, rice, and hard ship biscuit which
I could neither bite nor cut, supplied the carbohydrate element of
this gargantuan meal. With it we drank vast quantities of a cheap,
sour, red wine, hard to the palate and served iced in jugs.

The two ladies were not summoned to table until we men had
finished. The sight of the luke-wann remnants soon satisfied their

180 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

desire for food; they hastily supped on a cup of coffee and a slice
of dry bread and retired, hungry, to await the dawn.

Next morning, at nine-thirty, I had one of the most unusual
breakfasts I have ever faced in any of my wanderings. Three
courses were served, in the following order:

Irish stew.
Fried sea-mullet.
Fried eggs.

Instead of coffee, tea or milk we again washed the solids down
with flagons of iced red wine. I began to think that if I remained
long enough on board I should need the services of an undertaker
rather than of a cook. The next meal, the only other one of the
day, was served at half -past four in the afternoon. When it came
I was not hungry. My digestive juices were still wrestling with
my breakfast. _

On our way down the river we were a distributing agency. At
one lonely spot we delivered two barrels of oil to a farmer for
use in an engine he possessed; for domestic fuel he had an
abundance of wood. A small hillock of drifted timber had been
brought to him by the river and piled on the bank in front of his
door. At Pilot Town, the home of the Gulf pilots who look after
vessels between this town and the gulf and also of the River pilots
who are responsible for them from the town to New Orleans, we
dropped a rare number of bottles of beer. At the small settlement
of Burwood, where live the engineers who keep the lower channels
in order, we handed out our laundry basket.

Burwood is new, pleasantly planned, and occupied solely by
officials, their staffs and families. It is a kind of oasis in a desert
but has no natural supply of drinking water except that obtained
from the roofs when rain falls. At the rear of every one of the
cheerful, white-walled, green-roofed houses is a huge wooden
cistern for the collection of rain water. Flowers abound. They
never fail the long year through for, at the mouth of the Missis-
sippi, there is never any frost.

I went ashore, visited the school, and at the request of the
school mistress talked to the children. I spoke of England, not

NEW ORLEANS TO THE GULF OF MEXICO 181

of its politics nor its wars, but of its pleasant fields and cosy
villages, its old grey castles and cathedrals, and the charms and

wonders of London.
The children listened
attentively and were,
I hope, impressed.
Outside, however,
the wheeling gulls
screeched derisively
and the pelicans, sit-
ting on posts, looked
down their noses and
winked.

Burwood is the last
inhabited place on the
river and I could go
no further, but I was
near enough to the
Gulf of Mexico to be
able to say that I had
seen the Mississippi
from its cradle to its
grave.

South of Pilot Town
(Fig. 27) the distri-
butaries of the Missis-
sippi are called pass-
es. They spread out
like the bones of a duck's foot, each bounded by a narrow strip
of swampy land. The place of the web is taken by a series of bays.
As the swamp land is low, flat and very narrow you can look
across it on either side to the waves of the gulf. I found it a curi-
ous experience to be on a kind of canal with two very thin, green,
water-bound strips for banks, daringly pushing out into the ocean.
In some places the banks had been pierced by floods, and short,
shallow transverse channels connected the river and the sea.

On the semi-solid land grow tall reeds and long swamp grass,
always bent before the wind, which provides some kind of pasture

Fig'. 27. The Mississippi Delta

182 THE RIVER MISSISSIPPI

for a few cattle. In amongst the reeds are snakes and musk rats;
in the waters are turtles and alligators; both marsh and sky are
full of birds cranes, herons, pelicans, doves and ducks.

During the return journey we were a collecting agency. At
night a light would flash amongst some trees and we would edge
up to a frail wooden pier to see what we were wanted for. Our
first stop in the darkness revealed a swinging lantern and a white
dog: the negro swinging the lantern under the trees was almost
invisible, as were those who presently appeared with loads of
oranges until they came within the track of the beams from the
lights of the boat.

'What's this place?' I asked.

'It isn't a place', said the captain. 'Just one or two houses and
a little orange business.'

Sometimes we were hailed by fishing boats from which we
received sacks of oysters. At one halting place we were in touch
with a road to New Orleans. Here several trucks were being load-
ed with shrimps. The decks of the shrimpers were piled several
feet high with shrimps which men were shovelling vigorously
into barrels much as if they had been feeding coal into a furnace.
When filled, the tops of the barrels were covered with ice, the
barrels were chucked on the trucks and the trucks whisked off
to New Orleans in time for the early market.

Just before I went to bed I noticed bright flames leaping up
in the distance and painting red wide areas of the star-lit sky.
They were caused by the burning of natural gas at the mouth of
oil wells. Because there was no use for the gas, and its consump-
tion was necessary before the oil could be pumped, it had to be
fired: one of the wells had been burning for fifteen months.

I went to the steersman's cabin and made some remark about
waste.

*Waste?' he said. *Why bother? In Louisiana we have plenty
of everything sulphur, oranges, oysters, oil and gas. There's
no state in the country like ours.'

PART IV
'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL 9

CHAPTER XVII

OCEAN SPRINGS TO NEW ORLEANS

IN a tourist agency in New Orleans I picked up a folder called
The Old Spanish Trail'. From it I gathered that in early times,
when roads were few or non-existent, there was a trail, bearing
the above name, which crossed the whole of the southern part
of what is now the United States from St. Augustine (Florida)
on the Atlantic coast to San Diego (California) on the Pacific
coast, a distance of close on 3,000 miles.

Later on I learned that the folder was misleading. There never
was any such old Spanish trail. No Spaniard ever made or could
have made this trans-continental journey: the route would then
have been impassable. There are Spanish cities at either end of
it and along it, and parts of it were traversed by Spanish soldiers
and missionaries, but the so-called Spanish Trail is a modern
road 2,730 miles long, broad, well surfaced, constructed at enorm-
ous cost across swamps, deserts and mountains, and finished in
1929. I did not discover these facts till some months after I
reached the Pacific coast and so travelled under the delusion that
I was treading in the wake of the earliest of the southern pioneers.

Thus the title, 'The Old Spanish Trail', which I have affixed
to the fourth section of this book is not altogether accurate. More-
over, I did not begin my journey along the trail at St. Augustine,
Florida, but at Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Ocean Springs was founded in 1699 by the brothers d'Iberville,
two Frenchmen, not Spaniards, as a little colony where they might
attempt to carry out Louis XIV's instructions 'to breed the buffalo;
to seek for pearls; to examine the wild mulberry with a view to
silk; the timber for ship building; and to seek for mines/

The site of the colony was unfavourable. It was sandy, infertile,
lacking in good water, plagued by heat and insects, and liable to
attacks from Indians and from Spaniards who had settled to the
east of it. To-day it is a popular seaside resort with nothing to

184

'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

remind the visitor either of d'Iberville or of the early privateers
who ruined his settlement. But in a garden I sat under a magnifi-
cent live oak, now known as the 'Ruskin Oak', because John
Ruskin once took tea beneath its spreading branches.

Almost one with Ocean Springs is Biloxi, also founded by
d'Iberville, in 1699, and by him named after a local Indian chief.
Modern Biloxi, with its palatial hotels, hot-dog stands, bill-boards
and tourists' auto-camps, shows nothing of either French or Spa-

Fig. 28. The Mississippi Gulf Coast

nish influence except in the harbour where the fishing schooners
call to mind the Mediterranean.

Owing to the amount of fish food brought to this coast by the
waters of the Mississippi there is fishing of some kind or another
all the year round. Of the commercial fish one of the most popular
is mullet, often referred to as 'Biloxi bacon'. A local saying insists
that anyone who eats mullet at Biloxi will always return. There
is also a local story which relates how a small boy, after the cap-
ture of the port by northern forces during the Civil War, over-
hearing a Federal officer remark that the quickest way to bring
the war to an end would be to starve the Southerners into sub-
mission, confounded him by replying there would be no starvation
in the South as long as Biloxi's waters were so full of mullet.

The port, however, advertises itself as 'the nation's shrimp and

OCEAN SPRINGS TO NEW ORLEANS 185

oyster canner'; it packs, each year, eight million cans with
shrimps and eleven millions with oysters.

Shrimping was at one time done with nets and sailing boats.
The schooners, their white sails taut in the wind, skimmed over
the water as gracefully as gulls the while a man in the bows cast
and recast his try net. As soon as he reported shrimps in abund-
ance, down went the sails and anchor, and skiffs were launched
to lay a quarter mile circle of net round the school. To the jeering
of rival crews and the screaming of the gulls the net was hauled
and the catch piled up on deck. In our time trawls have replaced
the hand net, and the schooner is equipped with an engine instead
of sails. The area that can be fished has widened and the men
may be at sea from ten to thirty days. From bright sunrise to
shadowed sunset men stand at die wheel and drag the trawls;
at intervals of from three to four hours they pour out on the deck
their mixed catch of shrimps, crabs and other forms of marine
life. Freighters, loaded with ice, come out from time to time to
receive the shrimps and carry them to the canneries.

From one of those interested in the shrimp industry I obtained
a recipe for shrimp sauce. I pass it on to my lady readers.

Fry one cup of chopped salt pork in half a cup of cooking oil. Add
three onions, chopped fine, and fry but do not allow to burn. Add one can
of tomato juice, then three cups of boiling water and never let the water
stop boiling. Add one teaspoon of Chili powder, two minced cloves of
garlic, two bay leaves, one sprig of thyme and one teaspoon of celery salt
Cook slowly for about thirty minutes, stirring frequently.

'Sounds like a good sauce to me', I remarked, 'but what if I
have no shrimps?'

That ain't o' no account. Eat just anythin' you got.'

The typical oyster lugger has both sail and engine and draws
a trawl made of steel and cordage, but some oystermen go out in
skiffs and lift their prey with a long-handled tool which suggests
two garden rakes tied teeth together.

Boat building is naturally associated with fishing. The Biloxl
fisherman is adroit with mallet, plane and chisel; between the
oyster and the shrimp seasons he fashions, in his back yard, sturdy
craft which may take two years to build.

186 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

The shrimp and oyster fishers of Biloxi belong to several small
communities such as are common all along this section of the
coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Each community tends to be almost
exclusively of one nationality and tends to preserve its own
customs, language and outlook on life. In this case, however, its
members are either descendants of Slavs, Austrians, Czechs or
French. The French include descendants of both early settlers
and also of those Acadians who were exiled from Nova Scotia.
In addition there are some negroes but, of the sixteen largest
cities in the state of Mississippi, Biloxi has the smallest negro
population.

Further east, in small plots in the forest, there are communities
composed of descendants of Swiss and German colonists who are
engaged in lumbering; nearer at hand are others of French
descent, speaking a French patois, raising poultry and growing
pecan nuts and fruit.

The highway west from Biloxi clings, for about twenty-five
miles, to the water front, winds under arches perpetually green,
and draped with Spanish moss, between whose sturdy pillars are
constant glimpses of a sparkling sea. Trees grow right down to
the edge of the beach. The gnarled, aged water oaks and the
magnolias are indigenous but the chinaberry, azalea, oleander
and eucalyptus have been introduced from other warm parts of
the world. The newcomers thrive luxuriantly in this latitude, are
now completely naturalised, and lend an extra charm to this semi-
tropical country.

The road is protected from the occasional fury of ocean storms
by a concrete wall which is not, like so many of its relatives, an
ugly scar. Instead of a dingy monotonous slope it is moulded in
continuous steps along the curves of the beach and, for forty
miles, shines dazzling white in the sunshine. It would be of
interest purely as a great engineering achievement but its step-
like form gives it the appearance of a great amphitheatre in whose
enclosing arms the drama of the ocean may be viewed with
delight.

In the course of my journey some fellow passenger, realising
I was an appreciative alien, would point out tilings I ought to see
and tell me stories I ought to hear. Through such kindly souls

UCEAN SPRINGS TO NEW ORLEANS 187

I learned that a nice, clean, white, quite ordinary lighthouse was
once painted black as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln when he was
assassinated, and that a house called Beauvoir had once been the
home of Jefferson Davis, the one and only President of the Con-
federate States. The house is now a shrine for the many who still
pay tribute to the lost cause*, a historic museum of heirlooms and
antiquities which belonged to the Davis family.

Just beyond is Gulfport, modern and enterprising, once the
world's leading exporter of the long leaf pine which, a generation
ago, covered the south of the state of Mississippi. Gulfport still
exports creosoted lumber but I fancy its present wealth is in its
canned shrimps and oysters. At Gulfport the longshoremen com-
prise a small number of Greeks, a larger body of thrifty, pro-
gressive, hard-working Italians, and many negroes. The negroes
are so advanced, politically, that they are organised in a power-
ful trade union and work under contract at standard wages. This,
in the south, is a miraculous achievement.

My first longish halt was made at Pass Christian (pronounced
Kristy Ann). The town enjoys the distinction of being the only
one in the world with this name, a fact explained by its history.
When dlberville was at Biloxi he sent two of his followers,
Christian and Marianne TAdnier, to find a channel or pass from
the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Pontchartrain, an arm of the sea
which approaches a bend in the Mississippi near the present site
of New Orleans (Fig. 29).

They travelled west till they encountered the Square Handker-
chief Shoals, when Christian turned shoreward and discovered
the inside pass while Marianne turned towards the sea and dis-
covered the outside pass. On their return the information they
brought back was marked on the charts, and the newly found sea-
lanes were given the first names of their discoverers. Descendants
of the two brothers are still numerous in the neighbourhood of
Pass Christian but their names have been Americanised to Ladnier
or Ladner.

During my first meal at the hotel I passed several dishes. Later
on a lady interviewed me to find out why. She said she was the
hotel dietician and it was her duty to see that no guest died either
of starvation or the consumption of unsuitable food. I explained

188 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

to her the limitations placed upon me by sundry eminent special-
ists, whereupon she said 'Well you just tell me exactly what your
prescribed diet is and I'll see you get it. We often attend to as
many as thirty diets at a time, and wives allow their husbands
to come here alone because they know we won't let their menfolk
eat anything that's going to disagree with them.'

I gave her my foods and their amounts, and the next day she
concocted out of them such varied and delicious meals that I
lingered at Pass Christian for ten days. I should probably have
remained at Pass Christian just as long, in any case, for it is an
unspoiled beauty spot without tourist camps, cabins, hot dog
stands, swings or playgrounds and, except in a short stretch of
small shops at the far end of the village, without any neon lights.

As far as Waveland on the west the chief element of the
population is descended from rich families from New Orleans
who made homes here a century and a half ago, long before there
were any roads or railways, and the only means of communication
were boats. The pride of the modern owners of the fine residences
and picturesque gardens has caused them to resist all so-called
'developments', and to preserve from the blighting influence of
the entertainment caterer a seashore which Nature has clothed
with great beauty.

The little settlement nestles in loving contentment amid moss-
bearded oaks which were old before d'Iberville first turned his
prows into these waters. All that man has done in the after years
has been to build beautiful homes, make the situation accessible
by land, and provide a few quiet, comfortable hotels for dis-
criminating visitors.

A purely literal description of the ky-out of the cities from
Biloxi to Pass Christian does not sound very attractive. The plan
is that of a series of parallel lines the shore, the concrete wall
with a walk on the top of it, a stretch of lawn, a hard paved road,
a pavement and a line or lines of houses. But, as already remark-
ed, the concrete wall is no monstrosity and, as for the sea, calm
and silvery under a rising moon, or with its valleys shining with
sunlit foam, the hollow throb of its surf and the saltiness of its
breeze have long stimulated the imagination and compelled the
admiration of civilised men.

OCEAN SPRINGS TO NEW ORLEANS 189

What, however, gives the Scenic Sea Road, as it is called, its
chief appeal is the houses, the bright flower gardens and the
trees especially the trees, the huge live oaks whose dark,
knotty, far-flung arms carry streams of smoky grey Spanish moss,
and the magnificent magnolias amongst which certain deciduous
trees fling sudden splashes of red and gold. Though it was now
near the end of December the yuccas were in bloom, their bells
swaying in the wind as if they wished to tinkle, the convolvulus
was trailing its purple length upon the coloured sand, while
dahlias with pastel shades, and masses of chrysanthemums of
many hues added their multiple brightnesses to those of the blue
of the sky, the blue of the sea and the white tips of the feathered
foam that curled along the beach.

The white houses, mostly of wood and with coloured roofs,
sometimes small and simple, sometimes large and stately, are
all set in parks and gardens and their verandahs are shaded with
tropical plants. Some of them are of a type known as camel-
backed. They have one story in front and two behind so that the
structure rises like the back of a cameL This form of construction
was the result of a tax which was laid on houses and varied ac-
cording to the number of stories facing the street.

The waters covering the clean, smooth, hard, sandy beach are
so shallow that it is necessary to go far out to find depth enough
for swimming or for the launching of a boat. Hence, in front of
almost every one of the larger houses there is a long, wooden pier
with plank-walk and hand-rails terminated by a shelter fitted
with seats. The* piers are supported by slender piles which time
and salt water have blackened and rendered crooked. The total
effect of all the varieties of construction and stability is as quaint
as it is unusual. In a misty light the piers take on the appearance
of 'bony skeletons reaching out greedily as if the land were
jealous of the sea and wanted to get its fingers on everything it
could possibly grasp/

I devoted many of my waking hours at Pass Christian to loafing
on a long chair under die spreading oaks, sometimes reading but
oftener just blinking, through the greenish light that was sifted
and filtered by the trees on the boulevard, at the curving shore
line, the lapping waters of the Mississippi Sound or the distant

190 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

outline of the Isle of Cats, I might have used them in other
fashions, especially if I had been one of those people with a
mania for killing things.

As it was winter time I could have begun with river fishing:
had it been summer I could have gone fishing in the gulf. Along
the west end of Cat's Island, down the passes at Pelican, Square
Handkerchief and Telegraph reefs, during the summer and the
early months of autumn, swarm tremendous schools of speckled
sea trout, red fish, sea bass, mackerel, ling, cavalla or jack fish,
and tarpon all following close ashore the schools of shrimp and
small fish spawned in the lagoons of the Louisiana marshes. You
may cast for trout, troll for fast-hitting mackerel, harpoon the
giant ray, land large tropic fish with a spoon, or spear flounders
at night by the light of a kerosene torch.

If you want easier amusement in the water you go crabbing.
You put a chunk of smelly meat in a crab-net made of twine
attached to a round hoop, fasten a line to the hoop, throw it as
far out as you can and let it settle down on the sand. Then you
wait a bit: you need not keep quiet because fish have no ears,
but you had better keep still because they feel vibrations. In a
few minutes the crabs, from all directions, come scutting along,
attracted by the foul odour of the bait. One by one they sidle
into the net and fasten their long claws in the luscious morsel;
after which you haul in the net and think of cooking.

I might have gone shooting. The land or semi-land of swamps
and tidal marshes which lies along the Gulf coast is the natural
home of water fowl. Within easy reach of Pass Christian there
are four million acres of marsh, the world's greatest winter feed-
ing ground of geese and ducks. North of Pass Christian are thou-
sands of acres of cut-over lands where quail abound, while along
the Wolf River bottoms you may bag squirrels, wild turkey and
deer.

Fortunately the law prevents the shooting of the many species
of birds which rest in this area on their migrations from the winter
cold of the north. Some of these birds do not remain for more
than a day or so, but while they rest they fill the gardens with
song and colour.

When I felt energetic enough I walked, perhaps down to the

OCEAN SPRINGS TO NEW ORLEANS 191

harbour, a semi-enclosed space half choked with sand, to watch
men opening oysters and landing shrimps, and the blue-green
crabs waving their searching claws. The harbour had all those
lovely smells associated with fishing boats, of tarred ropes, dry-
ing nets, rotting wood, dead fish and other refuse which the un-
initiated landsman mistakes for ozone.

Then there were inland walks to look at the coastal forests and
meadows. These stretch back, in some areas, for a distance of
fifteen miles, are ribbed by sluggish bayous and inhabited by
another of those isolated communities to which I have referred.
Back of Pass Christian the occupiers are descendants of French
lumbermen, but they now make their living as small farmers,
fishermen, and hunters of squirrels and rabbits. The roads are
good, surfaced not with asphalt or concrete but with broken oyster
shells. Even the main coastal highway was so paved until quite
recent times.

One day I crossed the railway line, here flanked by a jungle
of long-needled pines flourishing in the sandy soil, of palms,
ferns and spiky plants. The farther I went the smaller became the
houses. The mansions of the rich disappeared entirely. Their
place was taken by meaner dwellings, gone grey in colour as is
the custom of unpainted pine, and roofed with hand-split shingles
of cypress. They seemed to have three or four small rooms and
they opened, both back and front, on narrow verandahs. Their
heavy wooden shutters and outward opening doors had, unlike
the walls, once been painted and the favourite colour had been
blue.

The occupants looked poorly nourished and were certainly
poorly clad. I afterwards learned that their chief food is an un-
leavened pancake of flour and water baked on the top of an oven
or fried in a pan. Though lacking in the world's goods these
humble toilers are noted for their kindness to each other. They
will share anything they possess with their neighbours, even their
'best clothes', when a wedding or a funeral demands something
better than a collection of rags and patches.

A bright half -moon hung in the sun-lit blue, the graceful pale
grey bare branches of the pecan trees looked even more silvery
than usual against the deep green leaves and the golden lamps

192 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

of the orange trees, and the sun was radiant. Presently I saw five
lumpish objects in a clearing. They were so still I was not sure
whether they were sheep or rocks: I had to fling a few oyster
shells in order to find out. Sheep are very rare in this part of
the world: rocks or stones absolutely absent. Another guest in
my hotel told me that when he was a boy and wanted something
with which to load his catapult for the killing of birds he would
walk as many as ten miles to fill his pockets with small pebbles
which some road-mender was using in making his surface
dressing.

Talking of sheep reminds me that I could never understand
why, in hotels and restaurants all over the United States, mutton
was scarce but lamb chops always plentiful, or why legs of lamb,
when obtainable, were often completely flavourless while chops
of lamb were nearly always toothsome.

I came at last to a sluggish bayou, a sparkling blue strip of
water lying between fields of brown marsh grass on one side and
a green background of pines on the other. Here I turned for
home, down another lane of oyster shells by the side of a forest
of a second growth. In some places the second growth had again
been cut, and poor farm houses were rising amongst the ploughed
fields which lay in black patches by the side of the white-shelled
road.

The stems of many of the younger trees carried advertisements
concerning 'Sweet Feet for Athletes'. America is full of outspoken
advertisements of remedies for unpleasant bodily disturbances.

To the stems of many of the older trees cups were attached for
the collection of resin. Early in the spring an inspector decides
which trees are to be cupped. The sap which collects is transferred
from the cups to large barrels; the barrels are loaded on trucks
and taken to a still. Here negro workers pour the resin into a big
kettle fitted in a brick furnace and, by > processes I need not
describe in detail, fill other barrels with the distilled prbduct.
This hardens into transparent amber, gum-turpentine.

When a tree gives no more sap it is felled and cut into logs.
The stump, eighteen to twenty inches high, is blown up and
shredded, and die last remnants of resin, pine-oil and turpentine
are extracted* In these days when 'conservation of natural resour-

Tow Boat St. Louis

Photo: Ernest Toung

Erosion of banks on the Mississippi

Photo: Ernest Tomg

"Hurdles" on the Mississippi
Part of our tow on left

Photo: Ernest Yomg

Banks revetted with concrete slabs to prevent erosion

Photo Ernest hung

Photo: Ernest Touag

In the Mississippi Delta
Farmer's landing stage and stranded timber

Photo: Ernat Tmtng

Burwood

Live oaks and Spanish moss

Photo: Ernest Twig

Sea wall and piers, Pass Christian

Photo: Enutt Tmg

Odd Fellows' cemetery, New Orleans

Oil the Levee, New Orleans

Photq: Erntsl Towf

Bayou Teche, Louisiana

Photo: Ernest Touag

Statue of Evangeline, St. Martinville, Lousiana

Photo: Erntst Towrg

Photo: Ernest Toitng

Breeding platforms for egrets, Jungle Gardens, Avery Island, Louisiana

OCEAN SPRINGS TO NEW ORLEANS 193

ces' is a national slogan, there is less indiscriminate felling in the
forest than there was and less waste in the treatment of what is
felled.

As an old schoolmaster I was amused to read in a guide-book
to the Mississippi Gulf Coast that the first teachers in this district
were paid in produce 'a sack of potatoes, a sheep, a quarter
of beef, so many jugs of syrup, or squares of sugar boiled down
from cane juice/ At the end of each school term the teacher hired
out to a farmer, or fanned his own land if he had any, and his
skill with an axe or a plough was held more to his credit than
his ability to teach the alphabet or the multiplication table.

West of Pass Cliristian the road leaves the shallow shores of
the Gulf and, by a bridge two miles long, crosses a big inlet of
the sea called the Bay of St. Louis. On December 13, 1814 this
bay witnessed a conflict between American gun boats and British
launches in which twelve hundred seamen and marines took part
and the British were beaten. According to my driver, who told
me the story, the American defenders were rather slow in getting
into action. An invalid old lady, distressed by the delay, went out
to the land force and exclaiming 'My Lord! Colonel! Fire at least
one gun for the honour of the country' herself set off one cannon
with a lighted cigarette.

In entered the town of Bay St. Louis, ran on through the pine
country of the Ozone Belt, crossed the Pearl River which forms
the boundary between the states of Mississippi and Louisiana,
traversed a forest of live oaks and tall pines, crossed the Rigolets
by one of the finest bridges on the road, came to Fort Pike which
once guarded the entrance to Lake Pontchartrain, went through
an area inhabited largely by trappers who, in the summer, dry
thousands of musk rat skins in the sun, was greeted by scores of
small negro boys offering crabs and crayfish for sale and arrived,
for the third time on this journey, in New Orleans.

CHAPTER XVIII

NEW ORLEANS

A well known American author has said that there are only four
'story cities' in the United States. One of these is New Orleans.
Its interests are literary, historical and geographical. Being
geographically inclined I deal first with the nature of the site:
it helps in the understanding of the history.

In order that full advantage should be taken of the thousands
of miles of waterways provided by the Mississippi and its tributa-
ries it is obvious that some point of contact had to be established
between the river and the sea. This could not be at any point on
the wave-lapped edge of the delta where the ground is little better
than unconsolidated mud, and in the old days of the sailing ships
any journey up the river was so difficult and dangerous that the
lower reaches were but little used.

At one point, however, the Mississippi makes a great curve
which brings it near to one arm of the sea called Lake Pontchar-
train (Fig. 29). The lake is really a large bay which has escaped
being filled in by silt from the north. Viewed from the road which
runs along its southern shore it looks like the sea itself, as well
it may, for it covers six hundred square miles. It is also salt, has
seaweed and sea shells, gulls and tides.

At the point referred to above it was possible, by a short por-
tage, to make contact between boats on the river and ships on the
ocean and it was this fact that led Bienville to choose it as the
site of the settlement he established in 1718 and called New
Orleans. The Indians already had a portage across the narrow
strip of land between the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain and
dragged their canoes overland to and from the Bayou St. John
and the river. The line of that portage is marked to-day by the
Garondelet canal which runs, straight as an arrow, from Bayou
St. John to Jackson Square, the centre of old New Orleans.

The site was not an ideal one for a great city. The ground was

NEW ORLEANS

195

low, most of it below high river level. It was covered with
marshes and canebrakes; alligators dived and splashed, barked
and hissed in the meandering waters; huge frogs croaked their
melancholy serenades, and mosquitoes added perpetual torment.
Yet Bienville, with his hard-bitten soldiers, artisans, diggers

Fig. 29. The Site of New Orleans

and surveyors, some of them straight from France, others from
Canada, was not dismayed. Within eight months they built, in
a clearing in the swamps, a number of dwellings, three large
palm-thatched wobden buildings*, and a church of mud, logs and
palm leaves which occupied the site of the present cathedral. At
the end of that time they celebrated, on Christmas Eve, the first
Mass.

196 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

The celebration must have been a picturesque event. In the
roughly built church were a little portable altar, images of Christ
in the manger, of donkeys leaning over the new-born Child to
warm him with their breath, and of the Virgin and St. Joseph.
Through the darkness, guided by the light of flaring torches, there
came across the swamps Canadians in caps of beaver skin with
the fur outside and the tail hanging down like a pig-tail, others
in caps of musk rat skins, all in rough cloth or rougher leather;
Indians in fringed buckskin, decorated with beads and porcupine
quills; soldiers, armed with flint-lock muskets, swords and pikes,
in high jack boots, leather jerkins, steel breastplates and morions;
a few of the better quality in knee-breeches, stockings, buckled
shoes, coats with long skirts and long lapels, and with high stocks
muffling their throats. In the candle-lit church the congregation,
kneeling reverently at the elevation of the Host, was filled with
the spirit of worship.

Shortly after the celebration of this Mass the settlers put up two
barn-like structures of hewn wood and palm thatch, which they
called 'Government Warehouses', to hold their supplies of food
and ammunition. One of these was on the site of the present
Cabildo, the other on the site of the present Presbytery.

All this took place in 1718. About the same time the old city,
now called the Vieux Carre, was laid out. It included the paral-
lelogram extending from Canal Street to Esplanade Avenue and
from Rampart Street to the river. In the middle of the side facing
the river a portion of land, the Place d'Armes, was set aside to
serve as a parade ground. The streets bore French names and a
French impress. The city was surrounded by defensive walls. Be-
yond the walls were the swamps, and the bayou which is now
Canal St.

Towards the end of the Seven Years War France transferred
Louisiana, which then included all the region between the Missis-
sippi and the Rocky mountains, to Spain in order to prevent
its falling into the hands of the British, and for forty years New
Orleans, whose inhabitants were mainly of French extraction, was
governed by Spanish officials. This change, in time, brought
about the mixture of French and Spanish blood called Creole.
The term 'Creole' is proudly used, by those inhabitants entitled

NEW ORLEANS 197

to it, to indicate their descent from the best families of France
and Spain and the purity of their blood, and to distinguish them-
selves from the later American immigrants whom, at first, they
disliked and despised.

The term 'Creole negro' is sometimes, but wrongly and un-
wisely, used to denote both people of mixed blood and those
French-speaking negroes born and bred in Louisiana. 'Creole'
is so significant of excellence that it is employed in the markets
as an indication of quality. If you buy Creole chickens, Creole
eggs or Creole vegetables you should, and usually do, get articles
of local produce which, as any Louisianan will tell you, are much
better than similar articles from beyond the borders of their own
state.

The transfer of the city from France to Spain had another
effect which did not, however, become apparent until two great
fires, one in 1788 and another six years later, nearly destroyed
the whole of the buildings erected by the French. In the course
of rebuilding the city acquired a Spanish impress: the Vieux
Carre is a Spanish rather than a French survival.

The Vieux Carre is unlike anything else in America. Within its
few blocks it covers but a small area are mingled memories
of France, Spain, Africa and Colonial America: modern America
lies beyond its boundaries. The streets are narrow and the houses
are built flush to- the side-walks so that those on one side of the
street can benefit from the shade cast by those on the other. The
original side walks, called banquettes, were a series of raised
planks which served as footways in the days of slushy, water-
soaked streets: the planks are gone but the name remains. The
'best families' lived above their places of business in tremendous
rooms adorned with massive marble mantlepieces and crystal
chandeliers.

Some of these houses still remain. At their latticed windows
senoritas thrilled to the serenades of their lovers. Their arched
entrances and ponderous wooden doors lead to sunny courtyards
where dancing feet once trod fantastic rhythms. The most striking
reminder of the Spanish period of rebuilding, and of the glamor-
ous days of romance and chivalry, is the beautiful but often
begrimed and rust-eaten wrought-iron or cast-iron grilles sm>

198 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

rounding the numerous balconies, especially in Royal Street and
Charles Street. Nearly all the wrought iron was imported from
Spain and, owing to its high carbon content, has suffered com-
paratively little from rust. The cast iron, on the other hand, rusts
easily and is preserved, if preserved at all, by means of paint.
The balconies are a response to the climatic condition of great
summer heat but the grilles were a response to the pride of the
householders who vied with each other in the exhibition of
elaborate designs.

As you walk through the narrow streets and alleys, the narrow-
est in the city, and glance up at the profuse display of craftsman-
ship in iron, the centuries, if you are not too critical, will roll
back and, at night, if you have enough imagination, you may,
recapture some of the gaiety, the romance, the feasting, the love
making and the beauty which set apart, in America, the days
known by old New Orleans. It is not at all difficult to people the
streets with cavaliers, swashbucklers, pirates, and dashing revel-
lers courting lovely dark-eyed maidens who sighed their responses
behind the latticed windows.

In the daytime this self-delusion is not quite so easy: decay
is too evident. The little courts and patios, the quaint roofs and
balconies, the wrinkled faces of the old houses, even at their best,
have a 'solemn look of gentility in rags' and, at their worst, 'a
squalor almost oriental'. At the same time one can quite easily
understand why novelists have so often written stories with the
Vieux Carre as a background and why it ever attracts a multitude
of painters, etchers and photographers.

The patio and the grille are Spanish. French influence is
evidenced in other ways and has Napoleonic associations. One
of the streets bears his name; others commemorate his victories.
In Chartres Street is a house built by a wealthy New Orleans
merchant who planned to rescue the exiled Emperor and bring
him here to live. In Toulouse Street is the Court of Two Lions
enclosed by a high brick wall with massive square gate posts
supporting a wide double wooden gate. On the tops of the posts
are marble lions looking at each other as if they were wondering
what they were doing in this environment. The chief features of
interest, however, are the Egyptian designs on the pilasters sup-

NEW ORLEANS - 199

porting the roof. They are due to a fashion which prevailed in
Europe and some other parts of the world after Napoleon's visit
to Egypt, -a visit that popularised Egyptian pyramids and orna-
ments as features of architectural design.

Amongst the smaller things which attracted my attention, and
still make demands upon my memory, are a balcony from which
Jenny Lind once sang to a crowded street, the house in which
Adeline Patti lived while her voice was making history at the
French Opera House, and Te Olde Pipe Shoppe*, which seems
to have strayed here by accident.

There are few large buildings of any note. The three most im-
portant stand side by side on Jackson Square, originally known
as the Parade or Place d'Armes. The largest of the three buildings
is the cathedral of St. Louis, erected in 1794. It stands on the site
of the first church built in New Orleans and has great interest
for the modern citizens as the scene of many romantic incidents
in their history. But it is not worthy of its heritage: its walls have
cracked and sagged; its proportions are wrong and its interior
decorations are deplorable.

On one side of it stands the Presbytery, on the other the
Cabildo. The Cabildo is, architecturally, the most worthy of the
three, probably the finest erected by the Spaniards in Louisiana.
It was formerly used for administrative purposes but now houses
the State Museum.

In 1803 France once more took formal possession of the city
for twenty days, after which the. French flag was replaced by
the Stars and Stripes. New Orleans, Creole in nature, became
American in name but did not welcome Americans, and a new
New Orleans, independent of the old one, except in matters of
government, began to rise outside the walls.

The dividing line between the two cities is Canal Street
(Fig. 30), a magnificent thoroughfare, one of the widest streets
in the United States. From one side to the other it measures 171
feet. It includes two spacious roadways, wide side-walks and a
central, wider, 'neutral' ground. Like a number of other un-
usually wide streets in New Orleans it owes its width to the fact
that it occupies the space, now filled in, of a former giant open
oanal. Both the side walks and the neutral ground are paved in

200

'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

modernistic style with pink and white terrazo marble which
reflects the brilliant sunlight by day and the flood of electric
light by night. The lamp posts are ornamented with plaques
commemorating the French, Spanish, Confederate and American
administrations. They are so close together and carry such power-
ful arc lamps that Canal Street is reputed to be one of the best
lighted streets in the world: at night the electric lamps and the
neon signs make it a river of light.

Close at hand the effect is a little garish but distance softens

NEW ORLEAKS

Fig. 30. The Port of New Orleans

it and makes it pleasing. Anyway, garish or not, I liked it. Man
is a creature of many moods and, in some of mine, Canal Street,
both by day and night, brought me a cheerful sense of gay colour
and active movement.

Canal Street extends, a distance of three and a half miles, from
the river to the newer cemeteries. These cemeteries there are
quite a number of them are grouped together and cover so
many acres that they form a veritable city of the dead: their
streets and avenues are named and sign-posted as in a city of the
living. In the older ones there is much neglect, all the sadder
because it accompanies much vulgar ostentation: in the newer
ones there is some form of permanent upkeep, less ostentation,

NEW ORLEANS 201

and the orderliness, neatness and colour of a well-kept public
park.

As New Orleans is below the level of the river, the water in
the ground was, in former times, so near the surface that houses
could not have cellars, and graves filled with water as soon as
they were dug. It was, therefore, necessary to bury the dead above
the surface. The coffins were placed in stone or brick houses, in
ovenshaped openings in long walls or in blocks containing such
openings. I counted forty-eight spaces belonging to one family
in one of these tunnelled blocks. In these days, despite the lack
of natural drainage, New Orleans is one of the best drained cities
in the world, and the water level is now so far below the surface
that there is no longer any need to put the dead on shelves above
the ground, but the custom continues: old fashions have outlasted
modern improvements.

Under American government New Orleans, though still sur-
rounded by river, lakes and swamps, has become a closely built
city, with few so-called suburbs, covering two hundred square
miles and containing half a million people. In the older section
you can envisage life as it was in the colourful days of two cen-
turies ago: in the new one are modern monuments to progress
that challenge the admiration, even of those who do not think that
mere size is admirable or that the triumphs of engineering have
brought any advantages to humanity comparable to those we owe
to the fine arts.

The old section sleeps: the modern throbs. There are over a
thousand industrial plants producing more than a thousand dif-
ferent articles. The chief of these plants deal with sugar for
domestic consumption, wood products from the abundant local
supplies of timber, and fertilisers for use in the cotton fields. In
order to encourage manufacturers to establish factories, the civic
authorities have provided buildings with ideal transport facilities,
banished the yellow fever mosquito by the destruction of tens of
thousands of cisterns, and removed the fear of bubonic plague
by the construction of rat-proof warehouses on the river front.

New Orleans, however, is not so much a manufacturing as a
commercial city. It is the gateway to the Mississippi valley and
to all the valleys of the other big rivers of the same basin, and

202

'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL*

ia the value of its foreign trade claims to be the second port of
the United States. To handle this commerce every advantage has
been taken of the possibilities offered by the river. The deep

curve of the river, nine miles
long, provides magnificent facili-
ties (Fig. 30). Opposite the end
of Canal Street it is 2,200 feet
wide and has a depth, even at
low water, so great that the
wharves have no piers, ships lie
practically at the doors of the
warehouses and need no tugs.
From the river to Lake Pontchar-
train a canal, the Inner Harbour
Navigation Canal (Fig. 31) runs
right across the city and adds
about another twelve miles to the
water front. Altogether the har-
bour has a frontage of nearly
fifty, miles.

At the risk of conflict with
monster trucks and hefty negro
porters I watched the forging of
the links of a great international
commercial chain. By invitation
I entered some of the immense
steel and concrete transit sheds,
particularly the cotton ware-
houses covering many acres, the

Lake Pontcfiart:r0ln

n v ' ' f'

Fig. 31. New Orleans,
Inner Harbour Navigation Canal

banana sheds where conveyors transfer from ship to railway
thousands of bundles an hour and the coffee terminals which
operate on the same kind of scale. I gaped, like any yokel, at
elevators capable of holding millions of bushels of grain, at
mountainous dumps of coal and battalions of oil tanks.

The contents of the warehouses are an index to the varied
wealth of the United States. They include vast quantities of
sugar, molasses, rice, tobacco, maize, pork, wheat, oats, flour,
cotton, cotton-seed, hardware, cement, whisky and furs. For all

NEW ORLEANS 203

these things I was more or less prepared, but not for the furs.

I remembered reading that New Orleans had been founded as
a fur-trading post, but that all seemed very remote and I was
much surprised to learn, at the Chamber of Commerce, that New
Orleans is to-day the centre of the greatest fur trading area in
America. According to my informant Louisiana annually exports
more pelts than any other state in the Union, or any one province
of Canada. It has, in some years, produced more pelts than all
the provinces and territories of the Dominion of Canada and
Alaska put together. The fur-bearing animals of the state include
the opossum, racoon, mink, weasel, skunk, little spotted skunk,
wild cat, wolf, grey fox, beaver and musk rat.

In order that visitors may see all the things, both old and new,
of which the city is proud, a Visitors Route, fifty miles long, has
been mapped out and marked by enamelled signs bearing the
fleur-de-lis of France not the Stars and Stripes of America.
Three golden fleurs-de-lis on a field of white were on the flag
carried by Marquette and Joliette when, in 1672, they saw the
Mississippi in the north, by La Salle who, in the name of the
King of France, took possession of Louisiana in 1682, and by the
French-Canadian brothers Pierre le Moyne d'Iberville and Jean
Baptiste le Moyne d'Iberville when they settled in Louisiana in
1699. In Louisiana, as in Quebec, French traditions, in matters
small as well as great, still persist, and the golden fleur-de-lis
remains a part of the arms of the city.

I believe old New Orleans is prouder of its French ancestry
than new New Orleans is of its American development. French
is widely spoken in the streets, and in all the restaurants and
cafes of the Vieux Carre. The New Yorker 9 I think, once had a
story of a business woman who entertained some business men
at a luncheon in a French restaurant in New York. When the
meal was finished and she had to pay the, bill, she whispered to
the waiter 'L'addition, s'il vous plait', to which the waiter replied
'Downstairs to your left, lady'. That story could not have been
told of any French restaurant in the Vieux Carre. One day, with
a beret on my head, I entered such a restaurant and was at once
greeted in French. I had to explain that I was English and more
familiar with that language. The waitress, thinking to pay me a

204 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

compliment, said 'You English? Why you speak English as well
as an American.*

To see the Visitors Route takes four hours, not including stops,
if you travel by car. I walked it, with many stops, and it took me
ahout two weeks. I make no attempt to describe all that I saw.
I must be content with a selection of both sights and impressions.
From a utilitarian point of view I suppose the most important
things are the levees which prevent the city from being flooded.
In some places they are fifty feet wide at the summit and rise
five feet higher than the highest known level of the river. They
hold back the water, not only in the river, but in Lake Pont-
chartrain and the canals as well, so that they are as conspicuous
as they are useful. In the days of the packet boats they were the
scene of much picturesque activity and a common promenade.
Along the harbour this has all been displaced by modern docks
and steel transit sheds, but on the outskirts of the city you can still
walk for several miles upon their broad summits.

The levees are built of earth. They are covered with grass and
slope steeply on the side towards the river. The top is wide enough
for wheeled traffic but vehicles are not permitted to make use
of it. At one place, between the levee and the water, down on some
swampy ground, I found a settlement of negroes and poor whites.
It is not shown to visitors on sight-seeing tours but it is as full of
pictures as of misery.

The houses are of wood, petrol-tins arid rags, are raised above
the damp ground on piles, and connected with the levee by ram-
shackle bridges of planks. At the levee end of each bridge is a
pair of benches, facing each other, one on either side. At almost
any hour of the day are the scene of conversation and laughter.
Numerous scabby, scrubby dogs sunned themselves on the planks
and little children begged me to take their pictures.

As I responded to their request a negress, holding a child by
the hand, asked for alms.

'What's the name of the child?' I asked.

'Cerissa.'

'Are you hungry, Cerissa?'

She did not speak, but her eyes and her shrunken body told a
sorry tale, and I gave the mother a small coin, small but evidently

NEW ORLEANS 205

larger than she expected, for with a kind of pained delight she
muttered, 'May God bless and preserve you.* I never earned such
a heartful benison at so small a cost.

From an artistic point of view the most conspicuous feature
is the fifty miles of floral trails. Many other cities in the United
States are brightened by flowers and planted boulevards but no
other offers so many miles of continuous floral decoration, ever
brilliant against a background of stately old oaks* palatial houses,
sparkling water and beautiful parks. Nearly fifty thousand aza-
leas, dazzling in their array of varied colours, vie with thousands
of camelias, delicately tinted crepe myrtle and spiraea to create
a spectacle of rare and unforgettable beauty. Private citizens
have followed suit, and in their unfenced gardens have planted
so many brilliantly coloured flowers that New Orleans is a tinted
fairy land. There are flowers in New Orleans when many other
parts of the country may be either burned brown by the sun or
whitened by the winter snows.

The parks are of great size and very attractive. They are spe-
cially distinguished by their giant, moss-bearing, live oaks, so
old and freighted with the cares of centuries, that many of their
branches trail long distances on the ground. They are so big that
they may cast a shade a hundred feet in diameter, and the
branches, if they are not to trail on the ground, may have to be
held up by cables. The grey be^rd Spanish moss which floats
from the branches forms the basis of an important local industry:
it is picked, dried in the siin and used for stuffing upholstery.

The well-to-do inhabitants of New Orleans tend to live in in-
dividual houses, often big and roomy, with numerous spacious
verandahs, porches and galleries. They have not, as yet, begun
to pile themselves on one another in tiers in big buildings where
the divine idea of home is buried. Naturally the houses vary in
size and style and in the material with which they are constructed;
the streets in which they stand vary in width and beauty.

Many of the houses are still of wood: the favourite timber used
for this purpose is cypress, which is abundant in the neighbour-
hood and is not affected by damp. Some of these wooden houses
are as charming and dignified as any in stone and brick, but
there are others which are a comic mixture of fretwork and classic

206 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

styles: the architects have mixed up two books of designs with
unhappy results. In the negro quarters the houses are almost in-
variably of wood and one story high. Once upon a time they were
bright with new paint, had windows filled with glass instead of
rags and paper, and walls not yet conspicuous for holes patched
with rusty tin.

Amongst evidences of culture and comfort are a score or more
of good bookshops, not mere magazine stalls or joint repositories
of cheap novels and hair curlers; newstands that display foreign
papers such as The Times Weekly Edition; an official guide book
compiled by schokrs and historians, not hacks; hotels that are
warm without being ovens; French salad dressing without sugar
or pink colouring matter; the offer of wine as an alternative to
milk or water.

The last two remarks bring me to the vastly important subject
of food and wine. New Orleans has a number of delightful old
restaurants with the cuisine and atmosphere of the best of their
class in France. Such are Antoine, Arnaud, Kolb, Gallatoire, and
La Louisiana. Each has its speciality, some of them known to
gourmets wherever these wise folk congregate.

New Orleans had Paris-trained chefs when the rest of America,
in the absence of a frying pan, would have eaten its food raw or
else have starved. In this city, as in France, cooking is an art, and
dining is a ritual not a monotonous habit, a restoration of soul
and body and not an unseemly guzzling race.

This attitude towards the things and manners of the table began
with the French but, in a city with as varied a history as New
Orleans, the actual skill of the best chefs owes something to
Spain, Italy and Germany. Creole dishes are a rich result of many
influences. The great exponents of the tradition, the guardians
of all that is distinctive and famous in this connection, are found
in the best restaurants but not in all the restaurants. You can get
stomach ache and nausea as easily in New Orleans as anywhere
else. Few, however, are the cities where, at the proper price, you
can as easily enter Paradise, hand in hand with the chef.

All the restaurants specialise in 'sea-food' for the excellence
of which the Gulf of Mexico is primarily responsible. The
oysters baked in their shells; the crayfish boiled in white wine

NEW ORLEANS 207

and subsequently pounded into a pulp with the addition of cream,
aromatic herbs and vegetables; the succulent fish, pompano,
cooked in a paper bag with a sauce of crab meat; the shrimp
reinoulade; the crab meat on toast garnished with Parmesan
cheese and anchovies; the trout cooked with almonds in butter-
sauce; all these and many other dishes have given memories to
my palate which will make my mouth water for the rest of my
days. The meats are less delectable, owing to their lack of natural
flavour, but I cannot forget the lamb chops served with a sauce
of chicken livers, mushrooms and sweetbreads. And I can almost
weep when I think that perhaps never again shall I finish my
dinner with the crowning glory of a cup of black coffee burned
with cognac and flavoured with spices.

My only criticism of the restaurants of New Orleans is that
many of them do not offer the wines which should be drunk with
their specialities. In some of them no domestic dry white wine
is to be had though California makes some excellent ones. If the
dry white wines of France or Germany are stocked they are so
expensive that only the very rich can afford to drink them. Until
this defect is remedied the claim of the New Orleans restaurants
that they are as good as the best in Paris or London cannot be
admitted because, as the knowing Frenchman says, 'A good dinner
deserves a good wine; a bad dinner needs it/

My favourite restaurant was Antoine's, where I dined every
Sunday in order that I might fittingly mark the beginning of
another week. Antoine's is no gorgeous saloon plastered with
gold leaf and daubed with gaudy colours where liveried footmen,
grooms and attendants extract begrudged gratuities from the
diner, and jazz bands deafen his sensitive ears and drown all
attempts at sensible conversation, but simply a clean place with
home-like table-ware and linen, efficient multi-lingual waiters
and perfect food and wine. You may go in with the bluest of
blues but the world will be full of roses and sunshine when you
leave.

At the mid week, just to keep my palate in training, I went to
La Louisiana. It occupies one of those old mansions with filigree
balconies, green shutters and white facade which belong to the
early years of the nineteenth century. Like the rest of the famous

208 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

restaurants it keeps and values a visitors' book. I have lost the
names of many of those with whose shades I ate and drank in
other places, but I remember that at La Louisiana I kept com-
pany with General Bertjrand who took Napoleon's body back to
France, of Thackeray who went away to write a poem about
bouillabaisse, of Sara Bernhardt, Suzanne Lenglen, Melba,
Kreisler, Maeterlinck and Coue. I know now where Coue originat-
ed his slogan 'Every day, in every way, I feel better and better/
I have taken off my hat to the restaurants. Now let me salute
the police. One morning I discovered that my two cameras had
disappeared from my bedroom: I felt as mournful as a dawn
drizzle. I called the maid but she knew nothing. The maid called
the housekeeper who also knew nothing. The housekeeper called
the manager who called the police. At seven in the evening I was
interviewed by a detective who asked all the necessary questions.
The next evening, at six o'clock, I was asked to go to the
manager's office. There I found the police, the thief, my two
cameras and an overcoat I had not missed. In a few hours the
police had discovered my property in a suit case at a bus depot
and arrested the thief repeating his exploits in another hotel.

CHAPTER XIX

THE EVANGELINE COUNTRY
New Orleans to New Iberia

MY western route in the South, which had so far led me through
the cotton, lumber, turpentine and pecan nuts of Mississippi to
New Orleans, was now to take me through nearly three hundred
miles of the cotton, rice, sugar and oil lands of the mainly sleepy,
dreamy state of Louisiana.

The early December morning was damp and foggy, something
like a November morning in London, but it did nothing to depress
the most voluble person I have ever met an Irish priest. He
sat in the middle of the bus and in a loud, harsh voice cracked
jokes and held conversation with the driver. From time to time
he strolled from one end of the bus to the other, patting the heads
of the children and, at the top of his voice, blessing them or telling
them funny stories. I was amused but the driver was bothered
and my fellow passengers were annoyed.

Along we went through rich, fertile, river-bottom land devoted
to some of the most prosperous market gardens (or truck gardens
as the Americans call them) in the South. The usual scenery of
any American road huge advertisement boards, filling stations,
tourist cabins and small eating places were at first as predomi-
nant as ever, but soon there were also cattle deep in long grass,
live oaks with silvery-green dripping moss, feathery cypresses
clustered in swamps, thick-leaved water-hyacinths floating on the
streams, mules on the road and negro shacks by the side of it.
The landscape was one of low tones brown grass, grey moss,
and autumn tints which had lost their gaiety in the fog. When the
fog lifted the sun shone down upon a lonesome, awesome land
of melancholy swamp.

We came to a village called Des Allemands founded in 1914
by German farmers from Alsace-Lorraine but bearing no traces

210

'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

of German origin except personal names as seen above the shops.
Such settlements are common all over the United States. They
would appear to demonstrate that the country lays her hands
firmly on all who come to her, breaks their home ties and prints

Fig. 32. New Orleans to New Iberia

upon them her own trademark. But the matter is not quite so
simple as all that.

There are wide areas settled by people most of whom have
migrated from one country Finland, Sweden, Germany and
so on. In such cases though national things are of American
pattern, the ties of the homeland are long retained. The migrant
teaches his children the language of his ancestors, keeps up many
of his native customs, observes his national festivals and main-
tains his national mentality. And even in material things the
change is not always rapid: I know of a Danish settlement in
California where the church and the school are both Danish in
design.

The process of Americanisation is, of course, more rapid where

THE EVAUGELINE COUNTRY 211

there is intermixture and not segregation of the different nation-
alities, but it takes time. Some idea of it may be obtained from
the following quotation from an article in The Saturday Evening
Post. The writer, speaking of an elderly immigrant from Croatia,
says she is essentially 'old fashioned in her ways and purposes
and in her sense of values. Her English is still uncertain. All her
sons talk fluent Croatian and when she is alone with them she
speaks only her native language. Most of her daughters-in-law,
however, and nearly all her grand-children and great-grand-
children know no Croatian and their ways are not Croatian nor
immigrant, but something called 'American', or 'modern', or
'stream-lined*.

'Her daughters-in-law are of several national and racial
streams and of different religions. Tom married a Slovenian
Catholic girl, Steven's first wife was of old New England Protes-
tant stock, while his second wife is a Catholic woman of German
parentage. Joe married a Protestant girl of German-French back-
ground. George, who is the first of the American (born) sons
married a Catholic Irishwoman. John's and Tony's wives are of
German Lutheran descent. Luke's is an American-born girl of
Slovenian origin. Phil and Ted married Croatian Catholic girls
born in Calumet. Frank's wife is of English stock and Fred's is
Welsh.'

In the face of facts like these what is the meaning of the
political Englishman's assertion that Britain and the United
States are bound together by ties of blood? Whose blood?

Beyond Des Allemands the newly arrived sun revealed stumps
of felled trees, stretches of deep mud, and fields with negroes
working in them. Ahead of us on the smooth concrete highway
rose tall, smoky chimneys and the inevitable aluminium-painted
water tower which takes the place of the church spire in an Eng-
lish landscape. We were approaching Bayou La Fourche, the
centre of 32,000 acres of delta land part of which is so threaded
by drainage canals that it is called Little Holland. The chief crop
cultivated in this region is sugar and the field labourer, as is
general in the South, is black. On the outskirts of the town the
sides of the highway are lined with the dirty, shabby, tumble-
down, insanitary shacks of the negro workers.

212 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL*

It was harvest time and I watched, for many miles, all through
the day, the darkies, men and women, cutting the cane with queer-
shaped, long-bladed knives and singing as they worked. In some
of the larger company-owned fields they were loading it on trucks
which ran on privately owned tracks and hauled the freight direct
from field to mill. In the smaller and independently owned fields
the cane was loaded on rack-wagons and drawn by mules or
tractors. The wagons, many of which are billowed out in a semi-
circular shape, will hold from two to five tons each.

The delta land is not really good sugar country owing to
occasional frosts, and to cool, wet weather in the autumn months.
These conditions give rise to a low sugar content in the cane. If
it were not for the import tariff there would probably be little
or no cultivation of sugar in Louisiana, The tariff is, however,
high enough to give the planter about twice as much for his crop
as it would cost to grow it in the West Indies.

The other main occupation of the area seemed to be the catch-
ing and canning of sea-food, and on the waters of the Bayou La
Fourche fishing boats were more prominent than barges carrying
either sugar or oil.

At Morgan City, the 'Home of Sea Food', my interest in
shrimps, oysters and other allied forms of nourishment began to
wane. What did attract me was the bridge over the Atchafalaya
River on which Morgan City stands.

Bridges in Louisiana are numerous but not ancient. The early
roads of this state were waterways: in southern Louisiana alone
there are two thousand miles of a navigable waterway. The
pirogue, a canoe built to hold four people, was the means of travel.

Bridges of any size did not exist: there was no demand for
them. Modern traffic has created that demand but bridge-building
on a big scale is, anywhere in the low-lying south, of great diffi-
culty. The land is so flat that there are no high banks to support
a bridge at either of its ends. For a distance of over six hundred
miles along the 'Old Spanish Trail', most of the towns are less
than twenty feet above sea-level, while New Orleans, the lowest,
is nowhere more than seven. Moreover the rivers which cross the
trail are such an important means of communication that they
must not be blocked.

THE EVANGELINE COUNTRY 213

The Atchaf alaya River, once one of the outlets of the Mississippi
itself, is now the gulf outlet of numerous waterways which together
provide about a thousand miles of navigable water. The construc-
tion of the bridge presented the engineers with a variety of pro-
blems. Morgan City is only ten feet above sea level but the bridge
had to be high enough not to interfere with navigation. On the
other hand the river, at this point, is so deep that one of the piers
is said to have the deepest foundations of any bridge in the world.

Across the bridge I entered the so-called 'Evangeline Country'.
Within a few miles we reached the Bayou Teche, the river made
famous by Longfellow in his poem Evangeline,

.... o'ershadowed by oaks from whose branches
Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe flaunted.
The name Teche is of Indian origin. In remote days an enormous
snake had its home in the bayou. Its great size, its poisonous
breath, and the furious lashing of its tail when it was angered,
dismayed the Indians and spread fear wide over the country. At
last a great crowd of warriors attacked the beast with clubs and
arrows, and killed it; to commemorate their victory, they named
the bayou Teche, or Snake.

The river, which is navigable for eighty miles, passes through
the towns of Franklin and Jeanerette, two of the most important
centres in the Louisiana Sugar Bowl, to New Iberia, St. Martin-
ville and beyond. It is, almost everywhere, a beautiful stream,
bordered by festooned oaks. On its surface float picturesque
house-boats and stern-wheel steamers: scattered along its banks
are the less pleasant dwellings of negro workers.

I had taken a ticket to New Iberia and no farther, partly be-
cause the bus arrived there at tea-time, always a good time for
disembarkation, partly because it advertised itself as the 'Queen
City of the Teche', and partly because it was centrally situated
between two places I wanted to visit. As I left the bus the driver
shook hands with me and said Tm glad to have had you travel
with me.' Why, neither my friends nor I can understand. I tell
the story simply because it indicates the unfailing courtesy of
these American bus drivers.

I found no reason why New Iberia should call herself a 'queen
city*. It is a mediocre place with poor shops, public buildings of

214 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL*

no merit, and a muddy section of the bayou, but it is a convenient
spot from which to visit St. Martinville, the home of Evangeline,
and the Jungle Gardens.

St. Martinville is only ten miles from New Iberia and as there
wa's no bus till noon I made my pilgrimage on foot. Many cars
passed me but no one offered me a lift. Great lumbering wagons
loaded with sugar cane, roared by shedding many canes along
the road. Some of these were rescued by negroes who, knowing
how best to enjoy the juice, chewed the cane and spat out the
woody fibre. There was sugar cane litter all along the highway,
crushed by passing traffic, wasting its sweetness on the concrete
road.

Presently I came to a sign 'Enter St. Martin Parish', a mis-
leading indication of distance 'to an Englishman, because in
Louisiana the word parish means county. A few yards farther on
another sign read 'Evangeline Garden Night Club. Drink, Dine
and Dance' a most unevangelistic exhortation. Evangeline's
name is everywhere. There is an 'Evangeline Hotel', an 'Evan-
geline Cafe. Good Eats' and in the cafe where I lunched at St.
Martinville, a picture poster advertising 'Evangeline Hot Sauce',
with the lady's ghost rising from the bayou as if resurrected by
the strength of the mixture.

The proprietors of the cafe had no intention of allowing any
of their customers to forget the historic significance of St. Martin-
ville. A brief account of the Acadians in general and of Evan-
geline in particular appeared on the back of the menu and, at
greater length, in a leaflet laid beside my plate. The story was
told as it is by Longfellow and is sufficiently biassed to give an
unfair impression of the action of Britain and a much too glowing
account of the Acadians. The simple truth is that in 1713 Acadia
(Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) was ceded by France to Eng-
land and the Acadians were ordered to take the oath of allegiance
to their new overlords. They refused, whereupon six thousand of
them were deported to the British colonies in North America and
scattered at various points from Massachussets to Georgia. About
1500 of them settled in southern Louisiana and of these a con-
siderable number ended their perilous wanderings in the Teche
country.

THE EVANGELINE COUNTRY 215

Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests and fruit-trees;
Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens
Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest.
They who dwell there have named it the Eden of Louisiana.

Here, isolated by wide swamps, deep rivers, innumerable bay-
ous and remoteness from the American frontier of settlement they
preserved their characteristics and their tongue, and never be-
came completely Americanised. Their descendants (now called
Cajians, a term which involves a certain amount of contempt)
still remain in the Teche country and still retain a form of French
speech. At St. Martinville French signs and notices appear in all
the shop windows; children, on entering school have to be taught
English; employees in all stores are compelled to be bi-lingual;
even the darkies speak French and, during World War I, com-
panies of Acadian recruits in the American army had to be drilled
by French-speaking officers.

The hatred of the British, if not so intense as it once was,
is not yet completely dead. On the menu card was a reference to
the 'brutal English' while the leaflet spoke of 'the simple people
whom England with ruthless hand thrust from their homes in far-
off Nova Scotia, who sacrificed all for an ideal, accepting a decree
of banishment rather than suffer the demands of a despot. 9

The memory of Evangeline, whose real name was Emmeline
Labiche, is as sacred to the Acadian as that of Joan of Arc is to
the Frenchman, and St. Martinville, as her home town, is a mecca
for tourists. The church in which she worshipped is, except for
necessary repairs, exactly as it was when built. Outside is her
tomb, now surmounted by a statue, the gift of Dolores Del Rio
after she had finished making a part of the film Evangeline in
this town.

There is, too, the wide-branched oak under which she met her
faithless lover Gabriel (Louis Arcenceaux) and received such a
shock on learning he had married another that she lost her mind,
and thereafter wandered aimlessly for many days along the shad-
ed banks of the Teche until death released her from her misery.
Unfortunately, on its gnarled and twisted trunk is affixed a
warning to visitors that there is a penalty of five hundred dollars

216 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL*

for chipping the bark. It is intended to scare the souvenir hunter.

Americans are the most shameless souvenir hunters in the
world. I cut out of an American magazine the following reference
to this bad habit. 'Hint to Hotel Guests: If you are incorrigibly
light fingered, steal a Bible, and restrain your inclination to stuff
your suit cases with pillow slips and towels. The Gideon Society
replaces every year 23,000 Bibles pilfered from hotel rooms,
but the linen companies are not so accommodating. This gentle
reminder is offered gratuitously in the interest of the hotels
which are too polite to insinuate you might remove anything from
your rooms. ... but you know you probably will/

St. Martinville, slumbering on the rim of .the zone of swamps,
has been described as 'a quaint French town', and as 'a cute Aca-
dian village' but in truth it is, on the whole, very much like any
other American town. At the same time it has a slightly different
atmosphere due to the popular romance with which it is assp-
ciated and the presence of visible things, such as the oak, the
church and the tomb, whereto one's fancies may be anchored.
I think, however, that in my case this atmosphere actually depend-
ed far more on a state of mind than on the story and the relics,
and was all the more powerful because that state of mind had
been strongly impressed upon me in the days of my youth.

After I had seen all that a good tourist would wish to see I
went to call on Andre A. Olivier, a most interesting personality,
the descendant of a noble family of France and of an Acadian
family from Grand Pre. He now keeps a simple store where he
sells postcards, bedsteads, groceries, films, tobacco and a thou-
sand other responses to daily demands. At the back of the shop
he has a museum of old records, spinning wheels, earthenware,
household articles and pictures, all relics of the Acadian days.

He keeps a register of visitors and when I wrote my address
as 'London, ENGLAND', with the name of my country in capitals
because I would show I was proud of it, he was at once my friend.
The 'brutal English' of the past were forgotten in the friendly
'allies' of the moment. With a courtesy born of his personal and
national ancestry he took me to a building at the back of the store,
and, with great pride, told me it was one of the original Acadian
houses which he had bought to preserve.

THE EVANGELINE COUNTRY 217

When he heard I had walked ten miles to see his town and had
now two hours to wait for a bus to take me back again to New
Iberia he insisted on driving me. All the way to my hotel he
chatted of the past, of his grand-aunt tied to a stake to be roasted
and eaten by cannibal Indians but miraculously rescued before
the fire began to blaze; of a tribe of Red Indians who were black
from the waist downwards and red only up above; of the Spanish
who founded New Iberia and left traces of themselves in the good-
looking, olive-skinned girls one sometimes sees in the streets; and,
finally, of American education which he said was ruining the
people by its devotion to non-essentials of which, according to
him, football was the most detestable.

At jhe door of my hotel I said, 'Come and have a drink.'

'O.K.' he replied. Til have a Coca Cola with you/

'No you won't', I laughed. 'Give it another name' and he
gave it.

My second excursion from New Iberia was to Avery Island,
where another portion of the Evangeline film was made. This
time, however, it was not literary associations which tempted me
to set out on a journey, ten miles each way, along a road where
there were no buses. With some trembling and a little shame I
tried my luck at hitch-hiking. I was quite unsuccessful with the
fat and prosperous, but in three successive tin cans, each of which
looked as if it would not last another mile and driven by men
whose clothes harmonised with their cars, I arrived within a mile
or two of Avery Island and finished the journey on foot.

Avery Island is a hill, or rather several small hills, whose
summits, though under two hundred feet above sea level, rise
higher than any other land along the Gulf Coast from Florida to
Mexico. In one of these hills is a plug of salt eight miles deep
and six miles round at the top. Into this salt-filled space you could
put the whole of Mount Everest and a dozen more respectably
sized peaks. It holds the biggest salt mine in the world and con-
tains enought salt to supply the needs of all the people in the
world for a thousand years.

The top of the plug, covered with firm soil, projects above the
level of the reed-crowned marshes and forms 'the island'. On the
top soil are grown the hottest of peppers. From the salt and the

218 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

peppers, together with other ingredients, is made the famous
Tabasco Sauce, the foundation of the fortunes of the Mcllhenny
family whose present representative, Edward Avery Mcllhenny,
is a very remarkable man.

He is an explorer who has taught Eskimo on the frozen tundras
of the most northerly point of. continental North America to play
football; he is e hunter and holds a distinguished position in
the annals of big game hunting; he is an author who has written
two books, on natural history and on negro spirituals; he is a
naturalist who has bred hundreds of varieties of plants, tamed
alligators and kept three of them as pets; and he has saved the
snowy egret from being exterminated by plume hunters.

His hobby is his private garden which covers about three hun-
dred acres. From all over the world he has imported rare and
exotic plants and so mixed them with the natural vegetation that
there is little "evidence, except in a few roads, paths and steps,
of the landscape gardener. The name 'Jungle Garden' is fully
justified the estate is both a jungle and a garden.

By the side of one pool are scores of local live oaks, some o
mammoth proportions, but between the oaks Chinese wistarias
grow into trees up which climb giant wistarias from Japan. At
their feet are flame-coloured daisies from Africa's Mountains
of the Moon. In the iris garden, half a mile long, are seventeen
hundred varieties of this plant, some of them from Siberia.

On the slope of the hill on which the owner lives is a dense
forest of timber bamboos from China: elsewhere there are sixty-
four other varieties ranging from the lace-leaved fern bamboos
to the giants of the family. There are pink-fleshed grapefruit and
finger bananas from Cochin China, lotus and papyrus from the
Upper Nile, papyrus from the American tropics, soap trees from
India, junipers, crepe myrtles, and above all, the world's most
complete collection of camellias.

The camellias, to the number of ten thousand plants, include
five hundred varieties, gathered across the world from France to
Japan, as well as others bred in the garden. They are as a rule
not set out in any strict formal plan but are scattered about like
wild flowers. In one circular clearing, however, they were
massed against a background of palms and bamboos: in the centre

THE EVANGELINE COUNTRY 219

of the clearing a little fountain tinkled a song to the whispering
trees, while the bees buzzed yet another tune amongst a sea of
blossom. In a sunken garden, with the appearance of a natural
hollow, the camellias were, for once, quite formally arranged
about a horse-shoe dyke enclosing an emerald lawn.

Of azaleas, many of them in bloom though mid-December was
near, more than a hundred varieties white, pink, red, purple,
magenta, single and double contributed thirty thousand spe-
cimens to carpet, not a few flower beds, but acres. Other acres
were given over to wild flowers or to thousands of chrysanthemums
margined by clusters of sombre-hued evergreens. A long tunnel
was festooned with wistarias of every shade from pure white at
one end, through delicate gradations of pink and red to deep
purple at the other.

By the sides of some of the roads is the lovely Oriental holly;
on the slopes of the hill are great leather-leaved plants; on the
pools are enormous purple water-lilies from Africa. But the
biggest rarity in the garden is a small Wasi orange tree; only
two other specimens exist, both in the private gardens of the
Emperor of Japan. It appears that on one occasion Mr. Mcllhenny
saved the lives of three high-caste Japanese from a ship-wrecked
whaler in the Arctic. He refused to accept as a thank-offering
either a decoration or any financial reward, but asked for one
of the three sacred Wasi trees, and the Japanese, having heard
of the unique character of his garden, granted his request.

The gardens are almost as full of birds as they are of plants.
Between the hills and surrounded by low trees is a big artificial
lake where, every spring, snowy herons or egrets build twenty
thousand nests and rear some twenty thousand families. This is
'Bird City 5 . It has an interesting origin.

An important British official from India, while visiting Mr.
Mcllhenny, told him of an Indian rajah who, to please his girl
bride, built a vast flying cage of bamboo in which captured exotic
birds were liberated and raised their young. In time the rajah and
his bride died, the cage was neglected, the bamboo rotted and
many of the birds fled, but those that had been born and reared
in the cage returned even though their prison bars had been
removed.

220 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

Captivated by this story, Mr. Mcllhenny built a flying cage
of wire over a small part of the lake, went out into the swamps
himself, caught seven young egrets and then set them free in the
cage. Here, properly fed, they grew, mated, built nests and raised
their young. At the beginning of the next migratory season
Mcllhenny destroyed the cage. The egrets went off to South Ame-
rica for the winter but returned to the Jungle Garden the following
spring. The return habit has never failed and there are now so
many birds that, in order to provide them with nesting material,
thirty truck loads of twigs have to be dumped in the 'city', and
to provide sufficient nesting space the natural woodland fringes
of the lake have had to be supplemented with double-decked
structures of bamboo floored with brush. The newcomers con-
tentedly build their nests with the material provided but the
adults never feed in the lake. They fly wide over the coastal
marshes in search of their own food and leave that in the lake
for the youngest birds who are not yet strong enough to undertake
long flights.

I wandered about the garden till long after hunger had struck
the luncheon gong, but there was no place nearer than New Iberia
where the call could be answered. Knowing the incomparable
hospitality of the Americans I wondered if the owner of the gar-
den might be persuaded to hand me out some bread and cheese
but, as I stood debating the question at the entrance to the avenue
leading to the house, I saw a warning, 'Keep Out. Bad Dogs'.
I always obey warnings about bad dogs.

But as soon as I reached New Iberia, in the car of a friendly
doctor, I sought a restaurant and ordered bacon and eggs.

'How'd you like your eggs?' enquired the waitress, 'up or
over?'

'What's the difference?' I asked.

'Well', said she, 'if they're up they're kind of looking at you
like.'

'Then bring them over', I exclaimed.

I could not face an egg that kind of looked at me like.

CHAPTER XX

INTO TEXAS

New Iberia to San Antonio

The next stage of my journey entailed an early departure, but
when I left the hotel at six in the morning the radio in the lobby
was in full blast*

'When did that start?' I asked.

'It never stops', replied the night clerk.

I think nothing in that hotel ever stopped. The news-stand was
still open, and there were at least as many people about as when
I went to bed the night before.

As far as Lafayette, a town overwhelmingly French in its
population, we were still amongst the sugar plantations, but a
little farther to the west we entered the Rice Bowl of Louisiana.
In the south-west corner of this state rice is almost the only source
of large incomes. In some of the parishes over three quarters of
the cultivated land are used in growing rice. This fact indicates
the kind of country.

The abundant water supply which rice needs is provided by a
heavy rainfall, streams and artesian wells: nearly two fifths come
from wells. That from the streams is lifted by powerful pumps
and distributed by canals which are operated by private com-
panies who furnish the water on a rental basis.

The land is very level, a fact of vital importance, because rice
is grown in flooded fields, and a depth of six inches must be
maintained through a period of at least ten to eleven weeks. The
flatness of the surface permits irrigation over large tracts and
facilitates the construction of low, broad dykes to prevent the
water from running away. Because the dykes are low they offer
no barrier to the heavy machinery which, in the United States,
takes the place of hand labour in China and Japan, in preparing
the soil and harvesting the crop.

222 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

The subsoil is a mottled blue and yellow clay which is ex-
tremely impervious so that the loss of water by seepage is neglig-
ible. If it were not for this impervious layer rice growing would
be unprofitable on account of the expense of maintaining the
proper depth of water,

As we passed through Rayne advertisements of 'Frog Dinners*
were common. Frogs thrive in the rice swamps; in the restaurants
of southern Louisiana frog's legs are a feature of every menu.

Among the passengers who joined us at Rayne were a number
of negroes whose affectionate farewells to relatives were long-
drawn out. The driver grumbled at the delay. There's nothin'
slower than a nigger. They must kiss fifteen children 'fore they

tOU?5IAKA

Fig. 33. New Iberia to San Antonio

board the bus. But I don't let none of 'em kiss me', he said. The
darky passengers grinned widely at his comments and passed to
their places at the back of the bus.

The centre of the Rice Bowl is at Crowley whose county, settled
by wheat fanners from the middle west, produces on large farms
a quarter of the rice grown in the United States. Crowley has a
government experimental rice station and calls its chief hotel
The Rice'.

Westwards for miles the land is so level that its far distant
horizons expand the mind and stimulate a sense of mystery.
Mountains confine the view and suggest boundaries. Plains,
especially when there are few or no trees, carry the imagination
beyond the sky-line to realms where fancy can have her fling, and
where even the feeble in body and spirit may dream of adventures.

INTO TEXAS 223

The harvest was over: I saw nothing of the huge threshing ma-
chines and binders which handle rice in the same way they handle
wheat on the prairies, but there were great heaps of straw where
the threshers had been at work, and hundreds of cattle were feed-
ing upon a stubble so pale in colour that it was almost white.

At Lake Charles we had to change buses. 'Don't forget your
hats, purses, papers and bags*, called the driver, 'and don't
forget your shoes.' The latter caution was intended for his despis-
ed negroes, some of whom, he knew, would have taken off their
footwear to ease their feet.

Road-making across this land of marsh, lakes and lagoons has
been, as already indicated, difficult. A fellow-passenger told me
that ten to fifteen years previously there were places on this route
where the swamp could be crossed only on horse-back or in a
ferry-boat, and even now, on either side of the broad, hard high-
way, the land remains swampy. In times of heavy rains it is under
from five to ten feet of water. The soil, black and sticky and diffi-
cult to drain, is covered with long, coarse grass which provides
only poor pasture.

On the other side of the Sabine River, at the end of a bridge
three miles long, we entered Texas, land of cotton, corn, cactus,
oil and cattle. On the boundary line was a huge model of a long-
horned steer with the legend, *To show you you are now in Texas/

Texas is bigger in area than any European country except
Germany and Russia, and my journey from east to west measured
close on a thousand miles. My first Texas city was Orange,
modern and industrial, situated on a deep water channel. Along
a high embankment through the swamps, bordered by dark pools
which separated us from tall cypresses and marshes dense with
hyacinths, we rolled to Beaumont, the third largest port on the
Gulf of Mexico, with a thirty-four foot channel to the sea: it is
a centre for the production and refining of oil.

Thereafter for many miles we came upon oil derricks and oil
tanks, vile stench of sulphuretted hydrogen with its reminder of
rotten eggs, and flames of natural gas burning at exits from the
ground. Texas is reported to produce more than a third of all the
oil of the United States and to contain more than half its proved
reserves. As the United States supplies the world with sixty per

224 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

cent of its oil, and the price of petrol, in normal times, is largely
determined for the rest of the world by the export from this state,
I could not help, in those days of war, viewing the tanks and the
derricks with more than ordinary interest.

The landscape of the oil-field, however, possesses no scenic
beauty, and many of the small settlements through which we pass-
ed were, like Nome, nothing but highway junctions for the use
of people engaged in developing oil Their sole outfit was filling-
stations, garages and very poor cafes, all, fortunately, painted
white or in cheery colours. In some of the towns the street lamps,
burning natural gas, were alight all day long; the gas is so cheap
that the cost of letting the lamps burn is less than that of paying
someone to turn them on and off.

To the Texan oil is the life of his state. He thinks in terms of
oil, talks of oil, and dreams of fortunes made out of oil. The
lobbies of the hotels throb with oil-field gossip, and the discovery
of a new field is first-page news in all the oil cities of the state.
Even the cattle, as if to show how much they appreciate one benefit
which the industry has conferred on them, have acquired the habit
of wanning themselves at the gas fires of the wells when raw fogs
roll in from the Gulf and lay down a thick blanket of chilly pene-
trating mist.

After about 250 miles of bus-riding I judged it time to alight
and did so at Houston (pronounced Hewston). There is nothing
at Houston which any tourist would deliberately go there to see,
but there are few places which better show the courage, imagina-
tion and industry with which America faces big problems.

Houston lies inland, fifty miles north of Galveston, a port
which has, in some years, ranked second in the United States.
Houston, envious and ambitious, spent twenty million dollars in
turning an old river bed into a great ship canal in the determina-
tion to be her own port and independent of Galveston. To feed
the docks the city has erected huge plants for slaughtering and
meatpacking, for the manufacture of cotton (the state grows more
than a quarter of the country's output and claims that it could
supply the whole world), and cotton-seed products, the cleaning
and polishing of rice and the refining of oil; and has built hun-
dreds of miles of railways and roads.

The Alamo, San Antonio

Photo: Ernest Toting

San Francis de la Espada, San Antonio

The King's Palace, Carlsbad Caves

FT"

Desert 1 Paso

Photo: Bnutt Ttmg

Street Restaurant, Juarez, Mexico

Phto: Enust Vow*

Photo: En* fan

In the market, Juarez, Mexico

Desert Road

Photo: W. J. Mwphree, Hatch, Jfew Menu

Yucca in bloom

Photo: Freshes, Pomona, California

The largest ckfctus in the world, a Giant Saguaro
It is 43 feet high, has 52 branches, weighs about 10 tons and is approximately 250 yean old

INTO TEXAS 225

All this has been done without producing any of the defilement
characterising industrial centres in Europe; Houston is no dirty
Lancashire or Yorkshire manufacturing hive. Its streets are wide,
the shops are handsome and some of the sky scrapers, topped
with spires and turrets, are not without dignity.

Moreover, with all its bustle and business, its interests are not
purely material. It supports a Symphony Orchestra, and has a
number of good book shops where the last and most expensive of
foreign as well as American publications can be bought.

Christmas was approaching and the streets were tastefully
decorated and illuminated with thousands of electric lights, a
custom which has recently captured the cities of the south-west.
It was Sunday and the side walks were crowded with people,
some of whom had come a long distance to see the display. One
visitor exclaimed 'Gosh! If they had our Main Street in New York
it'd make Broadway look like a dark prairie! 1

I left the next morning, rising at six to catch the earliest bus.
The sky was dim with fading stars but the dawn soon began to
break. Light came creeping across the world; shapes emerged
from the fading darkness; the horizon became a soft clear yellow,
changed to orange, flashed with gold, blushed like a rose. The
red eye of the sun rose above the plain, and the earth, derricks
and all, was lit with the loveliness so often seen in flat lands when
the first rays of morning come streaming through the stained
glass windows of the east.

Soon a slight but continuous change in our altitude began. All
the way from Pass Christian we had been but a few feet above
sea leveL At Houston our elevation was only sixty-four feet. Now
we began to rise and when, in the evening, we reached San An-
tonio, 214 miles farther to the west, we had climbed to 716 feet.
This, however, is not a very rapid rise and was almost impercept-
ible. The land, a farming country, with potatoes, corn, hay, cattle,
poultry and pecan nuts looked almost as level as a prairie except
where timber broke the sky line or a group of live oaks clustered
together to make the little green islands which the Texan calls
mattes. The names of the settlements Rosenberg, Weimar,
Schulenberg told a story of German origins.

I alighted at San Antonio, intending only to rest and spend the

226 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

night there, but this city was such a rich and glorious surprise
that I did not resume my western pilgrimage for another week.
Having found a hotel and booked a bed I wandered off into the
city. Unexpectedly I came face to face with a building called the
Alamo and felt what a flag would feel, if it could, when it was
set fluttering in a breeze. In front of me was a small, low building,
of local limestone, flashing white in the sunlight. It was not really
old, for it was built only in 1718, but it is remarkable for the
simplicity and beauty of its design. It is overshadowed by a
modern sky scraper on the edge of its landscaped grounds, but
nothing can defeat its charm as it lies dreaming within the high
walls which enclose also certain other remains of the old mission
buildings. This precious architectural gem, the Alamo, is all that
remains of a mission and a fort whose buildings served, under
the Franciscan padres, as a house of worship, a school for Indian
converts, and a haven for early settlers beset by unconverted red-
skins. The mission ceased to function as a religious institution
in 1793 and the fort fell into decay. The chapel has been repaired
and partially restored but, except for the roof and a stone paved
floor, it is substantially the same as it was when it was built.
Within the walls occurred one of the most dramatic fights in
American or, for that matter, in any history.

In 1821 Mexico threw off the Spanish yokie and Texas, which
was then part of the Spanish domain, became a state of the Re-
public of Mexico, though few Mexicans could be persuaded to
settle in it. In the same year Stephen Austin (after whom the
present capital of the state is named) was given permission to
bring in American colonists. During the next four years nearly
25,000 settlers arrived from the United States, and Mexico began
to fear for her hold on this part of her territory. The newcomers
were treated with great severity. Trial by jury was abolished,
excessive taxes were imposed, the Catholic religion was made
compulsory, and the settlers were placed under military rule.

Rebellion broke out: the Mexican dictator, Santa Anna, march-
ed to suppress it. In February, 1836, with a force of 5,000, he
reached San Antonio. The Americans, a mere handful of 182
men, took refuge first within the surrounding walls of the old
fortress and later in the chapel itself. For two weeks they held out

INTO TEXAS 227

against terrible odds, suffering so much from want of sleep that
they staggered as they walked yet persisting in their resistance
until only one man was left. This last man, alone amongst the
dead and the dying, determined that rather than surrender he
would blow the building to pieces and perish with it. He was just
about to fire the powder supply when he was shot. The last
defender had gone; .the Alamo remains his memorial.

The defeat of this faithful band was, fortunately, followed by
victory elsewhere, and Texas was freed; but it did not imme-
diately become a state of the United States, It established itself
as an independent republic. Eight years later, however, Texas
entered the Union not, as a Texan woman proudly informed me,
'By any kind of conquest but by our own free vote. And we kept
the right to fly our own flag whenever and wherever we pleased/
That explains why, though the Stars and Stripes are flown on all
Federal Buildings, the Texan flag is flown everywhere else either
alone or with the Federal flag.

The Alamo is now always referred to as 'the shrine of Texan
liberty' but it has not always been treated with the respect which
such a shrine deserves. It has been used as a quartermaster's depot
where old saddles, tobacco, blankets for Indians and ammunition
were stored and as a warehouse for groceries and vegetables; in
quite recent years a syndicate of eastern speculators has urged
that 'the unsightly building which has long been an eyescore'
should be pulled down to make way for a tourist hotel and an
amusement palace!

To a slightly later date than the Alamo belongs the Spanish
Governor's Palace, another building which helps to counteract the
spiritual starvation which so often accompanies too much me-
chanical efficiency. The palace is a long, low structure of stone
which has been plastered white, has rectangular iron-barred win-
dows and a fine carved massive entrance door. On the keystone
of the arch above the main door are carved the Hapsburg coat
of arms and the date 1749. From the entrance hall one looks
through a short passage to where a window, above a quaint wind-
ing stone staircase frames a vista of green vines and branches in
the lovely little patio and the garden beyond.

To the left of the entrance is the Sala de Justicia where the

228 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

whip of Spanish viceroy and Mexican governor in turn cracked
over unruly Texans and where, at intervals, gay dances were held.
On the right is the intimate little chapel where the governor and
his family attended Mass. The dining room, refurnished, like the
other rooms, with Spanish or early Colonial furniture, has narrow
tables, numerous candle sconces, a wine chest in the wall and a
stone basin for the washing of hands before eating. The simplicity
of the furniture revives the memory of the frugality of the outpost
capital of Spanish Texas; the wine chest serves to show there
were some compensations, and I have never the slightest doubt
but that, on occasions, the dining room was the scene of banquets
from which frugality was temporarily banished.

The kitchen is delightfully primitive; the necessary cooking
was usually done on an open stone brazier with charcoal. Outside
the kitchen are the baking oven, a herb garden and a wishing
well. Then come the patio with pebbled walks, flowers, a fountain
in whose basin water-lilies bloom, doors arched with grape vines
and a spacious loggia with old tables and benches.

The walls of the main building are three feet thick. The high
ceilings are of squared logs laid closely together on supporting
beams of hand-hewn timber. The roofs are of earth and gravel,
several feet deep to keep the interior cool in summer and warm
in winter. Most of the rooms are floored with flag-stones worn
with the tread of many years, but several of them are laid with
tiles baked in the crude ovens of earlier days.

Like the Alamo this old residence has been rescued from an
ignoble fate. After being a second-hand clothes store, a restaurant,
and a bar room called The Hole in the Wall' it was, in 1929,
purchased by the city and restored. I doubt if there is a more
beautiful house, either old or new, in the whole of the United
States. Under its roof I received exactly the same kind of emo-
tional pleasure and surprise which I had felt at my first sight
of the Alamo.

Even in Europe these two comparatively modern buildings
would command affectionate admiration: in America, where
there are so few buildings of this date and character, the force
of the appeal of their architectural beauty should be tremendous.
Yet, so a resident informed me, there has to be continual vigilance

INTO TEXAS 229

to preserve them. 'We have', said he, 'to fight eternally the people
from the north and the east who have come to live here business
men and the like to maintain the romance of this city.'

The Alamo and the Spanish Governor's Palace by no means
exhaust the attractions of San Antonio. To the same period belong
the remains of four missions, tributes to the courage of the padres
who two centuries ago brought to Texas the possibilities of civil-
isation. They were established on alternate sides of the San An-
tonio River and connected by an irrigation system, part of which
is still in use.

By means of a bus to a starting point, then on foot, and finally
by a lift in a private car, I saw all four of them. They are not,
except in details, very different from Spanish churches of this
date anywhere else, but so many of them in such a small area is
a noteworthy fact and they enrich the heritage of romance which
distinguishes San Antonio from any other American city known
to me.

The first to which I came was the Mission San Juan Capistrano
built in 1731. It demonstrates the plan of a typical mission es-
tablishment, though the work-rooms, living quarters and granary
are either in ruins or in different states of repair. The chapel,
rebuilt in 1920, has such bad pictures, poor statues and tawdry
decorations that if one is not to lose a little of one's enthusiasm
it is perhaps better not to enter.

Thence, to the Mission San Francisco de la Espada, I tramped
through a parched countryside where crops can be grown only
under irrigation: the unirrigated land surrounding the barns and
houses is as bare as an asphalt paving. The poor Mexican farmers
live in hovels which are masterpieces of tin can construction aided
by a little wood. Each house had an outside fireplace, a well and
a roof shelter of poles and grass to protect the cattle from the sun.
Between the feet of the cattle strayed innumerable chickens, while
dogs too lazy to bark and father, prone on his stomach, snoozed
in the heat. The only signs of movement to catch my eye were
several small boys playing marbles and a comely lass washing
her hair in a bucket. Every one to whom I spoke used Spanish as
the mother tongue: some knew no English.

On my way I came to the ruins of the first mill ever built in

230 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

this part of the country for the washing of wool, the dam across
the San Antonio River which produced the power to operate it,
and a number of old rock houses. My next find was one of the
aqueducts built by the friars, still carrying water to a thirsty .land
as it did two centuries ago. The fathers were expert irrigation en-
gineers. They would go up a river two or three miles above each
mission, find a suitable point at which to divert the river into
canals, and so grade their slopes as to ensure a constant flow of
water by gravity.

The Mission of San Francisco de la Espada is on one side of
a big open piece of barren ground which would, in a city, have
been occupied by a flower-adorned plaza. The rough stone chapel
has no bell tower but one of the walls rises into a gable pierced
for three bells. Above the bells is an iron cross reported to have
been made by the padres. The interior is simple: it contains some
crude but realistic statues executed by Indian converts. They are
of wood, have flexible joints, separately cut teeth, and glass eyes.
The fortified tower, with three-foot thick stone walls, strong
buttresses, and loop-holes for rifles and cannons, is said to be the
only mission fort in existence.

By my weary road I plodded on to Mission San Jose, the
'Queen of the Missions'. It was completed in 1731, subsequently
allowed to go to ruin and then sympathetically and authentically
restored. Much can be said for and against such complete restora-
tion, but as I give my admiration not to age but to beauty I have
no objection whatever to seeing what was the appearance of a
building when it was first erected. After all it was built for service
and not as a ruin, however picturesque.

The buildings of San Jose cover a large area and, from many
angles, present an imposing and massive appearance. The walls
of the church are from four to over five feet in thickness. The
west front of the church is baroque in type, a profusion of pillars,
niches, saints, acanthus leaves and mouldings. On the south wall
is a small but elaborate window, carved by a descendant of one
of the builders of the Alhambra in Spain. To ease an aching
heart he spent five years in fashioning what is considered one of
the finest pieces of home-produced sculpture in America. As I
do not like baroque I am not competent to express an opinion.

INTO TEXA.S 231

The three walls which enclosed the main plaza have also been
restored: they are, however, something more than walls. They
are made up of small/ solidly built rooms which open into the
grounds and look towards the church the living quarters of
the Indians who occupied eighty-four of these compartments.
Each has a stone on which to grind corn and a flat piece of iron
on which to cook corn cakes. The granary and the mill have also
been restored. The whole gives a realistic idea of a mission and
its varied functions.

There was still another mission I wanted to visit, the Mission
Concepcion, but I was growing tired. Three ladies were talking
to an. official guide, I approached the group, waited for a lull in
the conversation, and wilily asked the guide where I could take
the bus back to San Antonio, Of course there was no bus, but the
ladies were also going to Mission Concepcion, and in their car
I reached the mission and, finally, my hotel.

The Mission Concepcion is within the city limits and is the
best preserved. The facade is pleasingly simple; the interior has
the original frescoes executed in vegetable and mineral dyes
red, blue and ochre; opening into the arcade which runs south
from the front entrance to the church are the store room where
the meat was cured, the living rooms with two vents, one for
smoke and one for light, and the library with bookshelves of
stone. The Mission Concepcion was a refreshing end to a day of
delights.

I think it should, by now, be obvious why I lingered so long
in San Antonio. If it were not that writers as well as readers can
suffer fatigue and books may have limits I could go on for a long
time. All the same, I cannot run away without touching briefly
on a few other matters.

For instance there is a pleasing use, both in public and private
buildings, not of concrete and steel, but of local stone. The Public
Library, the City Hall, the San Pedro Play House are all of
limestone; the huge and not too successful Court House (Romanes-
que with a green tiled roof and two fort-like towers) is of Pecos
sandstone and red Texas granite. In the Vance and other houses
are fine examples of pre-civil-war building with lumber, and
there are also many examples of the use of adobe.

232 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

Amongst the latter the most interesting are the thick-walled
building where General Cos signed the articles of capitulation
after the Texans captured San Antonio, parts of the Ursuline
Academy, and the little house where once 0. Henry did much
of his work when he was a reporter on a local newspaper.

I wandered many miles up and down the streets not all of
which are broad and straight because they were built along twist-
ing cattle trails. San Antonio has always been one of the leading
cattle markets of a state which supports seven million head of
cattle; cow-boys with ten-gallon hats and high heeled boots are
common in the city.

Finally I arrived at the Mexican quarter where Spanish is the
language of the inhabitants and the movies, and all'public notices
appear in the same language. In this quarter nearly seventy thou-
sand people of mixed or Latin blood follow the customs of
Mexico and certainly are not American even though they are
American citizens. 'Little Mexico' is another world from the rest
of San Antonio dirty, untidy, foreign where things move
at a pace far removed from the hurry of the Americans. In the
streets tiny individual stalls offer for sale pottery, basket work,
candy, balloons, and brilliant paper flowers, such Mexican foods
as tortillas (pancakes) and pan dulce (sweet bread).

Business on a larger scale is carried on in shops and in the
big Haymarket Plaza. This, a busy fruit and vegetable market by
day, becomes at night the centre of the outdoor life of the Quar-
ter. Torches flare over the portable chili stalls which flank the
boundaries of the plaza; people promenade; strolling singers, in
broad-brimmed, high-peaked sombreros, braided jackets, dazzling
multicoloured scarves, flowing ties and skin-tight leather pants,
sing soft and tuneful songs. Here I listened to the Three Canaries',
who serenaded my companion and myself as we sat in her car,
and gratefully accepted by way of reward all the small coins in
my possession.

San Antonio is a blending of the best traditions of colonial
Spain, the old South and the robust South-west. It has something
of the atmosphere of Spain, Mexico, and America with, as I have
shown, a remarkable heritage of romance. The inhabitants, proud-
ly and justifiably, refer to it as The City that is different' but to

INTO TEXAS 233

appreciate the difference and the contrasts between the serene
beauty of the old world and the noisy sky-scraping civilisation
of the new, one must stay longer than an hour or a day and move
to and fro upon unhurried feet.

CHAPTER XXI

SAN ANTONIO VIA CARLSBAD TO EL PASO
With a side trip into Mexico

WHEN I left San Antonio I entered, still in Texas, into that part
of the United States referred to as the South- West. No longer
does one reckon elevations in tens of feet. Between San Antonio
and El Paso the road rises to a height of 4512 feet, though it falls
to a little over 3000 feet at the latter city.

My first day's journey, of 430 miles, about the distance from
Berwick to Lands End, necessitated another of those early risings,
half past five, which I always make with reluctance. A hasty
breakfast in a roadside hut, with rain and foggy gloom outside,
was not the best beginning to a lengthy bus ride, but half an hour
after we left San Antonio the fog, though not the clouds, had
lifted.

The winding road traversed a thinly-wooded limestone country
but the trees were close enough together to give, from a distance,
the appearance of forest. Where these woods ceased the upland
looked very bare but the broad valleys provided scanty pasture
for a number of white-faced cattle. We were soon in Boerne
(pronounced Berney) a clean little country town, itself quite un-
distinguished, but known as the 'Key to the Hill Country'.

The Hill Country is peopled by Germans, Czechs, Poles and
French with the Germans in the majority. Here is another of those
many areas in the United States where segregation prevents com-
plete Americanisatjkm. Many of the towns have German names;
German is taught in the schools; German customs are maintained;
and newspapers are printed in the German language.

Out of a green valley we climbed into a country whose character
is indicated by a sign post pointing the way to 'Stonycreek Farm*.
The surface of the ground was so stony that I sometimes wonder-
ed what the farmers grew or the animals found to eat.

SAN ANTONIO VIA CARLSBAD TO EL PASO 235

The hillsides were bare of grass, and the natural vegetation
of low tufty bushes did not appear a promising form of nourish-
ment for man or beast. We were on our way to the limestone
Edwards Plateau, a deeply eroded country of steep hills and
narrow valleys which occupies the south-central part of Texas.
We made our ascent by means of one of the numerous valleys
which dissect its eastern and southern slopes. Farming, in the
past, has in this area been limited to irrigated patches or to
alluvial land near streams fed by springs in the limestone, but

Fig. 34. San Antonio to 1 Paso

in these days there is a considerable amount of dry fanning. The
contrast between the green of the watered fields and the bare,
grey limestone or the coarse brown grass is as sharp as that
between a ray of sunlight and the shadow on its edge.

The plateau rose and fell in a series of undulations, from the
summit of each of which were wide views of shallow basins sur-
rounded by higher land whose sky line was level except for a few
bumps, here and there, which might have been the heads of war-
riors popping up to search for approaching enemies. Shabby huts
with patches of beans and chili peppers evidenced the presence
of Mexican labour.

My enjoyment was somewhat marred by two women and a man
who sang, with much vigour but little concord, a number of part-

236 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

songs. At first I wondered whether they were Welsh or German
but as, in the course of twenty minutes, they had not sung 'Land
of My Fathers' or The March of the Men of Harlech', I con-
cluded they must he Germans a very annoying people at times.

Our next scheduled stop was at the German-founded town of
Comfort whose chief distinction, so I was told, was that it had the
only armadillo farm in the world. I was prepared to be facetious
about the name of the town and its industry but the name appear-
ed to be well deserved. The town consisted of practically one
long street, like many of the other settlements on this day's route,
had well preserved houses mostly painted white, and was set in
one of those astonishing areas of fertility which, at rare intervals,
bring a smile to the face of the desert. Whenever I saw one I was
lost in admiration of the courage and the vision of the first man
who settled down to attempt to produce the smile.

North-west of Comfort, where cedar-clad hills crowded down
to the highway, there was a region devoted mainly to the raising
of sheep and goats, especially goats: Edwards Plateau is the goat
centre of the United States. The goats are Angoras raised for
their mohair. Goats will eat anything 'from old boots to barbed
wire and soda-water bottles' and do pretty well on the bushes,
though their plaintive cries, the usual language of goats, did not
seem to express complete satisfaction with their fodder. Goats,
as everyone knows, are common in arid or semi-arid lands and,
on this thirsty plateau, could be said to be in their proper place.

But the region was not always quite as desolate as it is now.
In Indian times, in order to preserve the pasture which then exist-
ed, dead grass was burned and shrubs were killed by the flames.
When the first white men arrived there was plenty of grass. The
newcomers, bursting with new ideas, did not fire the grass and
kill the shrubs; they allowed the shrubs to grow and kill the
grass. Then when any heavy rains came they washed the soil off
the slopes and into the valleys leaving a great deal of desolation
up above but depositing in the glades a certain amount of fertile
soil.

We travelled for many miles through this land of goats and
sheep, and then signs of increasing aridity, in the form of clumps
of cacti, began to appear iji the fields. Through Merryville in the

INTO TEXAS 237

'Heart of the Hills', to Ingram, where every house is of stone
stone is plentiful and timber scarce or too valuable to fell and
there is a pleasing air of comfort and stability, we went up and
over land which became ever more thirsty in appearance to a
place called Mountain Home where scattered stones almost cover-
ed the surface, and a notice on a tree 'Spring Water' told
its own story.

In some spots fields were flourishing without water amongst
the seared wastes. The bus driver explained they were the result
of some very successful dry farming. This driver was full of in-
formation. Some of his statements, however, did more credit to
his pride in his state still Texas than they did to his
knowledge, e.g., that Galveston is the second largest and richest
port in the world, and San Angelo on the plateau was, before the
depression, the greatest wool-market in the world!

When we entered the region west of the Edwards Plateau he
stopped the bus from time to time to allow his passengers
there were only four of us to take photographs of the bare
gaunt mountains and the intervening valleys full of waste which
had been washed, by occasional torrential rains, from the neigh-
bouring slopes and summits. Rain serves little useful purpose in
this area. There are no deep roots to hold the soil in place, and
the erosion which occurs is so great that some of the isolated
masses on the valley floors are half buried in their own debris.
Some of them stand out like the level-toppel kopjes of South
Africa; others rise like isolated pyramids in the deserts of Egypt.
As the rains are only occasional they never fill the basins, and
the water never runs out to the sea; all they do is to scatter more
rubbish. In the dry beds of the temporary torrents was the
wreckage of many trees brought down, as the result of some severe
cloud burst, from possibly miles away.

Yet, strangely enough, much of this barren land is used for
raising cattle and sheep, and where it is irrigated, vegetables,
alfalfa and small grains are grown. In the neighbourhood of
Ozona, a small town which grew up round the only water hole for
many miles, there are fine homes belonging to owners of cattle-
ranches, and wherever there is any kind of a stream there are
such trees as oaks, pecans and mesquites on the banks.

238 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

We wound down the steep western face of the highland to cross
the Pecos River, mounted into the region of the Trans-Pecos High-
lands and were again in a ranching region. I saw no sheep, but
on one side of the road, some sixty miles beyond the river, was
a notice 'Please Keep Out While Sheep Are Lambing', Another,
'Watch for Live Stock', drew attention to the fact that these ranch
lands are unfenced. They have to be unfenced so that the cattle
can wander about in search of food. Where they find it was always
a mystery to me. I saw a pathetic looking weary white horse
staring ruefully at a heap of stones possibly speculating as to
where the next single blade of grass might be found.

Of the many kinds of cactus, whose grotesque shapes gave a
fantastic aspect to the landscape, I shall have to say much here-
after. Devilish and spiteful as they seem, they have their uses.

In the late afternoon, when the shadows were deepening
amongst the distant summits, we caught up with a car in distress.
Our driver stopped at once, explaining to us 'Out here we always
try to help any one in trouble*. We couldn't tow the car as no rope
was available but we offered to go slowly and push it. The owner
of the car preferred to sit still on the chance that another would
come along to his help, and we left him lonely but hopeful in
the darkening wilderness.

We turned off the direct route to the west at Fort Stockton,
founded at a spring which now waters 6,500 acres of melons and
vegetables, and went north to Pecos, my chosen halt on the way
to the Carlsbad Caverns. I don't imagine many tourists go to
Pecos and I can think of nothing to say which would induce them
to change their minds.

Pecos was a more interesting town when there was 'no law
west of Pecos', hitching rails lined the street and gun-fighting
cowboys frequented the noisy saloons. The following story illus-
trates its earlier character. One of the tough visitors went to the
local dentist to have a tooth extracted. The dentist accidentally
pulled the wrong tooth. The sufferer drew his gun, forcibly guided
the dentist to the blacksmith's shop and, with the smith's shoeing
forceps, drew every one of the poor man's teeth. Thar*, shouted
the original victim, 'Reckon thet'll lam you not to make any more
mistakes.*

SAN ANTONIO VIA CARLSBAD TO EL PASO 239

After a poor dinner, a series of which should have been fed to
the cook, a punishment for his offences, I went to the bus depot
to enquire about the cost of my next day's journey. A clerk quoted
me a figure which I was quite sure was too high and I protested.
He called another official and they argued the point until they at
last agreed that my fare was f 5.80, The nest morning, after
having breakfasted at half past six, cheered by the news of the
sinking of the Graf Spee, I went to buy the ticket. Another clerk
was now in charge of the office and he said my fare was $ 6.90.
I was about to suggest to him that to quote three different fares
for a journey of but a few hours did not strike me as according
with my ideas of American efficiency, but fearing that any
comment might add another dollar to the cost of my transport
I refrained.

The way to Carlsbad repeated the sparse vegetation scattered
amongst the rocks and dotted about the sand which had been with
me the day before. I was amused by a notice, 'No Sand Hauling
in this Pasture'. There was so much sand one might have thought
hauling some of it out of the way would have helped a traveller
by bus to discover the pasture.

The commonest houses to be seen in the desert are two-roomed
adobe huts or one-roomed log-cabins with a lean-to. They are in-
variably surrounded by piles of debris. Some day they will, like
many of the lower mountains, be half buried in their own rubbish.
In the absence of dust-bins and refuse collectors everything which
decays, breaks or is no longer needed is thrown on the ground.
A chair no longer capable of standing on its legs, or any other
wooden litter is used for fuel, but metal of all kinds cans by
the hundred, bits of ploughs, remnants of cars which were them-
selves but remnants and mounds of broken pottery and bottles
strew the barren earth with memories of vanished usefulness.

We changed buses at Carlsbad, so called because it has a spring
containing the same mineral content as its European namesake,
for the last lap to the Carlsbad Caverns at the foot of Guadalupe
Mountains in the state of New Mexico. These caverns 'the
largest and most spectacular underground wonder in the world*
were discovered in 1901 by a cow-boy named Jim White,
whom I had the pleasure of meeting. One evening he saw a dark,

240 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

moving column, resembling smoke pouring from a chimney-stack,
coming out of a hole in the ground. The column consisted of what
is now estimated at about three million hats winging their way
on a night's forage. Jim went down the hole and did a little ex-
ploring. For twenty years afterwards he was continually telling
people about the beauties and the extent of the underground
palaces he had discovered, but no one believed him: Americans
were only too familiar with boosters and boostings. At last, how-
ever, the government showed some interest, found that Jim was
as truthful as George Washington, took charge of the caverns,
made them into a National Monument and took steps to render
them accessible to the public.

The first visitors found their underground trip an arduous one,
but by the expenditure, in recent years, of nearly a million dol-
lars, much of the fatigue has been eliminated. The authorities are
rapidly being repaid, as over a million and a half visitors have
already paid a dollar and a half each for admission. By means
of an electric elevator the aged, the lame and the lazy are dropped
760 feet below the surface in sixty-seven seconds. Those who
prefer to walk, as I did, await the guides at the cavern mouth.
There were on the day of my visit two hundred and fifty three
of us. We formed up two abreast and by easy, well made, smooth,
dry trails began a five mile tramp through those parts of the
caves which are open to the public. From time to time the chief
guide stopped us and spoke to us in the cultivated, scientific
language of a university professor and explained simply and
lucidly that at which we were looking. While on the march other
equally well-educated men walked up and down the long line of
pilgrims answering questions while one, at the rear, kept watch
to see that no one was left behind.

I admit that this is not the ideal way to see the stupendous
spectacle which these caves present, but it is, in the circumstances,
the only way. I thought we might, perhaps, have walked a little
more slowly, for though the temperature was only 56 F., I had
to shed the overcoat I had been advised to wear.

The various caves together form a great chain of underground
palaces, banqueting halls and amphitheatres, decorated by Nature
with towering spires, massive pillars, slender drinking fountains,

SAN ANTONIO VIA CARLSBAD TO EL PASO 241

giant crystalline curtains, weird replicas of totem poles, lily pads,
frozen waterfalls, chandeliers with a thousand pendants and silent
statues of saints, men and animals.

Fancy names have been given to the different sections, e.g., the
King's Palace, a circular room gleaming with designs in onyx;
the Green Lake Room; the Queen's Chamber, containing a be-
wildering collection of stalactites and stalagmites of amazing
beauty and magnificence; the Papoose Rooms; Fairy Land and
so on, all resplendent and impressive.

About half way along the trail we lunched in one of these sub-
terranean halls, where for fifty cents we were provided with a
good cold lunch.

After a suitable interval we were led into the Big Room. This
is not, as the name might suggest, some large rectangular space
but a number of rooms or passages without any natural divisions
to justify special names for separate parts. The Big Room, more
than three-quarters of a mile long, six hundred and twenty five
feet wide at the widest part and, in places, three hundred feet
high, is easily the biggest room in the world: it would hold the
whole population of London. The floor is littered with enormous,
jagged blocks of limestone which have fallen from the roof and
with natural formations of colossal proportions: amongst them
the Giant Dome, a stalagmite sixty-two feet high and fifteen feet
in diameter, is one of the most striking.

In one part of this room we were halted, told to seat ourselves,
and warned that the lights would be extinguished for thirty
seconds. During that brief time we sat speechless and awed, in
absolute darkness. Then, from somewhere in the distance, a quar-
tette of beautiful voices sang, quietly and with great purity of
tone, the Rock of Ages. We listened in reverential and inspiring
silence. The effect, if theatrical, was simple and superb. I have
never been so thrilled in my life.

Slowly the lights were, turned on, one by one, beginning with
the farthest away. When the cave was once more fully illuminated
the guide said 1 shall now call the roll', and he read out the
names of the states and foreign countries together with the num-
ber of visitors present from each area mentioned, ending with
'England. One/

242 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

I am not sure whether these are the most beautiful caves in the
world or not. I have memories of the Jenolan Caves in Australia
with their enthralling translucent draperies and fantastic forma-
tions. But I can say this, that having seen both the Carlsbad and
the Jenolan caves I am content to see no other but willing, at any
time, if opportunity serves, to see either of them again.

The road from the caves to El Paso continued its desert pil-
grimage amongst the prickly pears, Spanish daggers, Spanish
bayonets, century plants, thorny earth-bound rosettes, mats of
closely set spikes, sand and rocks. We skirted the base of the
steep Guadalupe Peak; wound through the curved Guadalupe
Canyon; descended into the desolate Salt flats, a desert of bleak,
white salt; saw in the distance Signal Peak (9600 feet), the high-
est point in Texas, visible for miles across the plains, the peak
where once the red man lit his signal fires; and, long after sunset,
ran into El Paso (The Pass) at the junction of two of the first
channels of traffic established by white man in America.

El Paso owes its name and most of its historic importance to
its position. It is at the mouth of the lowest and most accessible
crossing of the Rocky Mountains between Canada and Mexico,
one used by Indians, conquistadores in search of gold, black-
robed priests in search of souls, the historic Butterf ield Stage and
the modern rail and car. Here, too, the civilisation of shrewd
Yankee traders coming over the Santa Fe trail from the north
mingled with that of the Spaniard coming up from Mexico.

El Paso has a history comparable with that of San Antonio,
but it has nothing in the way of historic buildings to bring the
past to mind. In fact the most striking edifice, the College of
Mines, is neither old nor Texan: it is copied from an ancient
monastery in Bhutan on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. At
the same time its cream-coloured stuccoed walls, bright coloured
frieze in brick and tile, and its low-pitched roofs covered with
crushed red brick do not, by any means, look out of place. For
the rest, El Paso is almost entirely a .commercial centre for a big
mining and farming region, with the usual chain stores and a few
conspicuous sky scrapers.

While I was at El Paso a furious conflict was taking place
between an artist and a bishop. Amongst the mountains piled in

SAN ANTONIO VIA CARLSBAD TO EL PASO 243

nigged confusion on every horizon is one on whose summit for
many years had stood a wooden cross and up whose rocky sides
barefooted pilgrims had climbed to say their prayers.

On the top of this mountain the devout of El Paso determined
to erect a statue of the crucified Christ that should rival those in
the Andes on the border between Chile and Argentina and on the
Corcovado at Rio de Janeiro. They collected enough money to
buy part of the mountain and to commission Urbici Soller, who
helped to design the Christ of the Andes, to erect a statue twelve
feet higher than the Andean one. The statue, partially completed,
was brought to the mountain in pieces, dragged up by a tractor
and erected with its face towards Mexico (a silent reproof of
Mexican treatment of Catholics) upon a huge, simple base.

Then the bishop had an idea. In order that the pilgrims might
the more easily reach the scene of their devotions he built an
easily graded switchback road to the summit. This infuriated the
sculptor. He said it desecrated the scene and destroyed the effect
of his work. His Spanish soul was torn by indignation and distress
and he refused to finish the statue.

This little incident reminds me that Texas has a reputation for
religious intolerance and is famous for the number of its sects,
preachers, and religious revivals. I gathered that religious
teachers often used their pulpits for political as well as theologic-
al discourses and that their personal conduct was sometimes not
beyond reproach. I have no experience on which to found any
opinion but I can't resist telling one of the stories I heard on the
bus which has some bearing on this matter.

A fanner had to leave home for two or three days at a time
when one of the 'circuit ministers' was due for a visit. The farm-
er's wife begged her husband to stay at home. 'What shall I do?'
she asked. 1 can't talk religion or politics and anyway I've too
much housework to do to try.'

It's easy enough', replied the farmer. If he's a Presbyterian,
give him a Bible and a good fire and leave him alone. If he's a
Baptist give him a jug of water, the sugar bowl and a bottle of
whisky and leave him alone. But if , he's a Methodist you can
send for me. You're still too good-looking to be trusted alone with
a Methodist preacher/

244 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

As to the methods employed by some of these evangelists to
attract a congregation the following notice from a local paper
may be useful as evidence. 'The Fall of a Woman will be the
subject for Sunday evening at the First Baptist Church. Real facts
and truths will be revealed. The eleven fans have been re-con-
ditioned and they will help to cool the building' and the con-
gregation?

El Paso faces Juarez on the other side of the frontier between
the United States and Mexico. I was told that though my passport
was not visaed for Mexico, there would be no trouble about
crossing the frontier, but I put it in my pocket, in case of need,
and walked down to the Rio Grande.

The American approach to the border is, in some ways, as
Mexican as Mexico. The cinemas show films with sub-titles in
Spanish; shop signs and notices are in Spanish; the people speak
Spanish and look Mexican. If this street could be suddenly
dropped down in New York no one would recognise it as part
of the United States.

I came to the bridge over the Rio Grande, paid two cents as
a toll and walked into Mexico where I was greeted by scores of
dirty Mexican children mostly begging, and scores of mangy,
cowed dogs mostly basking in the sun. The first street was lined
with souvenir shops, the gutters were filled with stalls. All pre-
tended to sell genuine Mexican sandals, belts, sombreros and
serapes; weird and primitive baskets, some of them made from
the scaly armour of the armadillo, the tail turned over into the
mouth to form a handle, the inside lined with pink or blue satin;
handicraft in the form of bubble glass, decorated gourds, pottery,
carved wood, tooled leather, hammered silver, wax statuettes,
and pictures in feathers and straw. There were great displays of
cards, with or without verses, suitable for all kinds of greetings
from birthdays to funerals, those for lovers being rich in golden
hearts and Cupids with their arrows. The animal world was
further called upon to supply oyster shell ash trays, stuiTed
horned toads, staffed rattlesnakes, snakeskin pouches and belts.
Hundreds of these worthless things were decorated with crossed
Mexican and United States flags and 'Welcome to Mexico'. For

SAN ANTONIO VIA CARLSBAD TO EL PASO 245

the inner man were fruit and liquor, vividly coloured sweets, and
many varieties of pastries, cakes and biscuits. All the latter were,
surprisingly enough, protected from dust and flies in little glass
cases.

Except for the eatables and drinkables practically everything
looked exceedingly flimsy, cheap and inartistic and I could not
imagine any sensible person carrying anything away even if offer-
ed as a gift.

Mixed up with the souvenir and the liquor shops were numerous
shabby and questionable cafes to which guides from El Paso con-
duct American tourists for a glimpse of Mexican night-life. An
advertising leaflet is responsible for the statement that these cafes
'are known from coast to coast for their music and service and
may be visited with perfect safety'. They acquired considerable
reputation in prohibition days, during which time Juarez became
a famous resort. Any life or prosperity they still enjoy they con-
tinue to draw from the patronage of American visitors.

Taxi touts pursued me everywhere and ridiculed or cursed as
I refused their invitations to take me round the town. After a few
minutes I began to think I had seen quite enough, but I had heard
there were an interesting church, a bull ring and a few other
things which an excursionist should not miss, so I wandered on
hoping I should soon meet with something less shoddy and more
characteristic of Mexico.

At the far end of the long straight street was the plaza, on one
side of which stands the church built by the padres and their
Indian converts. It is approached by a flight of steps which all
day long are lined on either side by the halt and maimed pleading
for alms. The walls, unfortunately, show a lot of crumbling stucco
and the woodwork a lot of peeling paint, signs either of poverty
or neglect. The interior has less of tawdriness and tinsel than is
usual and the carved mahogany beams supporting the roof, the
work of Indian believers instructed by Spanish priests, is of great
charm and merit. These beams were carried, on the backs of con-
verts, across the desert from forests a hundred miles or more
away. The excessive toil thus incurred was, probably, not due so
much to devotion on the part of the faithful as to the severity
with which they were treated by their spiritual fathers.

246 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

The walls of the church are of adobe, the commonest building
material, in early days, in all parts of the arid and semi-arid
south-west. Adobe is a kind of clay. To prepare it for building
purposes it is placed in a shallow pit, mixed with sand and water
and trodden under foot, after which cut straw and more water are
added and the mixture is again worked with the feet. The semi-
mud is then either trodden or hammered into brick-shaped moulds
and dried in the sun.

These mud bricks are, surprisingly, very durable. Moreover
they can, in the hands of Mexican workmen, steeped in the tradi-
tion of their craft, give rise to structures which are the despair
of more precise but less imaginative builders. In this case the
church was erected under European supervision and so has the
appearance typical of the Spanish mission church.

To the north of the church is the market quarter, covering a
wide space of ground and intersected by several streets and alley
ways. It is dirty and squalid but full of 'pictures'. I prepared
my camera for action. The leaflet from which I have already
quoted about the cafes gave a warning about taking photographs
'Do not take pictures derogatory to Mexico. You may be fined
and have your camera confiscated'. With the exception of the
church and the plaza all that was picturesque, characteristic and
worth photographing in Juarez is in this dirty, insanitary shop-
ping quarter and most decidedly derogatory to Mexico. I could
not resist the temptation.

In one spot, devoted to scraggy chickens vigorously scattering
fleas and feathers as they were hauled from wire-fronted cages,
I made my first attempt. Almost before I could raise my camera
to eye-level a small riot broke out. I was surrounded by a number
of unshaven, turbulent villains who told me to 'Get out' and shook
their fists in a way which advised a rapid departure. To the sound
of mingled guffaws, threats and insults I beat my first hurried
retreat.

Then I came to a place where, at the back of a number of dark
holes, women handled pots and pans, and spicy mixtures steamed,
stewed and frizzled. Outside the holes, in the street, at dirty
rickety tables and on backless wooden benches, disreputable look-
ing men and women were scooping culinary messes out of greasy

SAN ANTONIO VIA CARLSBAD TO EL PASO 247

bowls. I hid between two carts and fired a shot. Just as I clicked,
a burly ruffian passed in front of me. 'Did you take my picture?*
he screamed and dropped a box, that he was carrying on his shoul-
ders, to free his arms. I told him, truthfully enough, that his
attractive exterior had not been registered by the camera, but he
kept on repeating his question with ever increasing anger. I was
humble and very much afraid till at last, though I'm sure he
only half believed me, he picked up his box again and toddled
off. At almost every step he turned round to watch me, scowling
most unpleasantly and yelling 'You don't take my picture'.

The market, which sells everything a Mexican could use in the
home, is a wilderness of passages made by building the stalls over
the gutters, thus converting the sidewalks into narrow lanes. The
open front of the stall faces the pathway, the rear is solidly
boarded. A covering of rags stretched from stall to house keeps
out the sun except where holes let through the light. Outside the
passages, in the dust of the streets, bulky things like piles of
oranges, sticks of sugar cane and bundles of herbs are laid on
the ground for sale.

In one alley was a line of shoe-shining booths. It seemed a
waste of money to pay for a shine when the streets are deep in
dust but all the seats were occupied.

On my way back to the frontier I passed some little side streets
which were clean and attractive. The houses were not really
beautiful but their adobe structure gave them a quality marking
them as belonging to the soil; in a word, they fitted. They were
squat, one story high, plastered, painted in pale colours mostly
light blue or pink and had spouts projecting from flat roofs
through holes in a parapet to throw rain water direct into the
gutter. In a climate where there is so little rain the spouts are not
often called upon to perform. In these streets there were no
donkeys, hens or pigs preying around the doorways.

When I once more reached the International Boundary the
Mexican officials said nothing and let me pass, but the Americans
asked for my passport, a very interesting document, almost filled
with the stamps and marks of many different countries. The
officer turned the pages over one after the other, never missing
one and at the end said: 'Boy! You've travelled some. Welcome.'

248 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

As the Rio Grande is not in itself a formidable boundary it is
guarded by numerous border patrols. A man on duty at anyone
of the posts sits high up in the air in a little cabin fastened to
a tall pole. By means of a telescope he carefully surveys the
frontier. He is in wireless connection with the other posts and
any suspicious movement is at once reported and investigated.
Beyond El Paso, all the way to the Pacific coast, the border is
marked by stone or iron markers, so set that any one of them is
visible from the next.

I lingered on the bridge to look at the river. 'He who once
drinks of the waters of the Rio Grande is sure to return: he who
once breathes the pure air of the southern desert will never be
content to live elsewhere/ So they say. Should I go down to the
river and drink? No! I don't want to return to Juarez.

That night, in one of the evening papers I read of a negro who
had been brought before the local court and accused of stealing
a turkey. His defence was unique. He said the bird had flown
straight into his arms and he was taking it to its owner. The judge,
probably moved by the extenuating fact that it was only five more
days to Christmas, let him off with a caution.

CHAPTER XXII

EL PASO TO PHOENIX (ARIZONA)

SOON after leaving El Paso we ran, at last, out of Texas, and
sliced off a corner of the state of New Mexico, a boundless
stretch of red-purple, bare, undulating country, majestic in its
desolation.

In the bus were two women, one with a long stupid face like
a horse, each with a penetrating voice and a shrill, harsh laugh.
One was going to her home in Phoenix, Arizona, the other to visit
a friend in Los Angeles. Said the lady of Phoenix, 'Don't you go
to Los Angeles! Stop in Phoenix. Los Angeles! It's so damp you
can't dry your stockings. You never see a decent car. You can't
keep one clean for the fog.'

This kind of depreciatory comment, when the inhabitants of
one state discuss any other state but their own, is common. When
I was in Minnesota a citizen told me, 'California has sandstorms
and earthquakes. Catch a Californian unawares and he may
whisper in your ear that the fog-horn in Santa Monica will drive
you to distraction, that in Long Beach your car will rust away
and soon fall apart, that Hollywood is old fashioned, down at
the heel and altogether out of date, that San Francisco is too cold
and Los Angeles too hot, that San Pedro is smelly of fish and
Japs, that the oil wells on the beach at Huntington clank horribly
and smear everything you've got, that it is dreary here, sickly
there and safe nowhere.'

Some day I hope to find a Californian to tell me what he thinks
of Minnesota. Personally I am in love with both states.

When the Arizonan woman had finished her remarks about
California she detailed her family history ending with an account
of the death of her husband.

'He broke his neck in three places', she related.

'Did he die?' enquired her fellow passenger.

'No. Not for nine months. You see they put his neck in plaster/

250 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

'But it killed him at last?'

'No it didn't. He died of stomach trouble.' And shrieking with
laughter she added, 'Can you beat it?'

For some distance the desert was marked with patches of
irrigated land where the last picking of cotton was taking place,
cattle were grazing on corn-stubble, cottonwood trees were turning
golden yellow, and bales of alfalfa were standing ready for truck
or train, but in between the patches were dull, dun wastes with
a thin growth of thirsty vegetation or sheets of alkali as white
as snow.

I was fortunate in my neighbour, a fine, strong, intelligent boy
of fourteen. 'I don't suppose you find this country much fun', he
said in an apologetic tone, adding what Stevenson described as
a hoary, hackneyed old falsehood There's nothing to see.' But
when he found I was actually interested in every detail of the
passing scene, he kept up a stream of chatter and information.
That's broom weed', he said, 'no use for anything riot even
brooms. This bit of land's good. The fanner's taken care of it
and not let the cattle eat it bare. He's given it time to rest and
now he's got some grass.' I looked in vain. I couldn't see a blade.

Tou're only allowed to keep so much stock per section but the
inspectors don't come often and some farmers are fools. See those
hillocks. They're the roots of the mesquite holding the soil to-
gether. In a storm the wind and the rain wash away the soil all
round but the mesquite don't care. He can't be beat.'

The mesquite is common along the bottoms of stream courses
or in basins which receive floods. Like many other desert plants,
because of the scarcity of water, it sends its roots deep under-
ground in search of moisture. They are often forty to fifty feet
in length and go down fifteen to twenty feet below the surface
where one would think the occasional rains could never penetrate.
They often reach a yard in thickness and are as resistant as oak.
Because they can be used for uprights and roof-beams in house
building, for poles, and for an excellent fuel which gives a bed
of hot coals and burns to a fluffy white ash, they are in constant
demand; digging for timber is a common occupation.

Above ground the mesquite is thorny, stocky and close-grown;
in some of the low lying sandy areas it forms dense thickets.

EL PASO TO PHOENIX (ARIZONA) 251

There are two varieties, the honey-pod and the screw bean. At its
best the honey-pod grows from fifteen to twenty feet high. Each
variety produces seeds which formerly were a staple article of
diet amongst the Indians of the South-West, and even in these
days of canned foods they are still collected and eaten.

The beans are pounded into meal, boiled to a kind of mush, and
dried in cakes of sulphur colour, so hard that an axe seems the
proper implement for their partition. If fermented in water with
wild honey they give a pleasant mildly intoxicating drink.

To live in the desert one must be able to make the most of the
little the desert provides, and it is stimulating to think that this
unpromising looking shrub is a source of food, fibres, fuel, soap
and medicine.

'The beans', said my encyclopaedic informant, 'aren't bad,
you know, but they're very fattening and they make the Indians
lazy.'

That's yucca', said I, pointing to one of the few plants I re-
cognised and proud to make an intelligent remark; but I imme-
diately spoiled the effect by adding 'but it's no good for anything
is it?'

'Of course it is', snapped the youngster. 'You can make rope,
cord, cloth, sandals, belts and laces from the fibres, needles from
the spines at the ends of the leaves, soap from the roots, sleeping
mats and saddle blankets from the leaves, and what you don't
want for anything else you can grind up for fodder.'

I made a similar unfortunate remark about the lack of water.

'Water!' said the boy. 'There's water everywhere down under
the soil but it costs a lot to pump it. Of course you can have a
windmill but if there's no wind there's no water.'

'It's a pity there isn't more rain', I suggested.

'No mister, it ain't. It's a good thing there ain't more rain.
If there was more rain the fanners'd grab up all the land and
there'd be no more cattle.'

He left me at a place where a sign by the roadside proclaimed
This is God's country. Don't drive through it like hell.'

After a run of a little over two hundred miles along a road so
smooth and level that I could write legibly while the bus was
travelling at fifty miles an hour, we entered Arizona and the

252

*'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

Arizona Highlands, hot and dry, where a cow needs much energy
and much space to get a decent cud to chew.

Arizona is a weird romantic land of stern, harsh desert. In
its low humidity and clearness of atmosphere it resembles
Upper Egypt. It has more sunshine than any other part of the
United States, and in summer the heat, pouring down from the
unclouded sky and bounding up from the soil, burns the skin,
stings the eyes, and reduces man to a stream of ooze though, at
dawn and dark, breezes from the mountains may give a little
relief. The rainfall is scanty and irregular.

This desert area covers not only the whole of New Mexico and

Fig. 35. El Paso to Phoenix

Arizona but extends over much of the bordering states of Texas
and California and beyond into Mexico. It must not be imagined
as an area of absolutely bare rock, sand dunes and alkali flats,
though all these varieties of surface occur from time to time.
Close at hand most of it is barren enough, but the distant view is
often green owing to the presence of much desert vegetation, the
chief forms of which are the amazing, barbaric, terrifying cacti
which make this most extraordinary and fascinating landscape
another kind of world.

The mountains rise up majestically, clothed in soft tints of
amethyst, lilac and pearl but streaked with purple where their
barren faces are wrinkled by chasm and canyon. Lights and

EL PASO TO PHOENIX (ARIZONA) 253

shadows chase each other as the sun moves from dawn to dusk
giving an almost unbelievable variety of effect. The plains and
plateaus, wide expanses stretching away to remote horizons, offer
a mysterious and awe-compelling spectacle of great silence and
grim desolation.

Unpromising as this area appears from the point of view of
human habitation it was occupied sparsely by those Indians call-
ed the Basket Makers, centuries before the Christian era; by cliff
dwellers who preferred eternal sunshine to a regular rainfall,
built irrigation canals, and erected cities and temples of sun-
dried brick; by other Indians who supplanted the cliff dwellers.

Forty years after the discoveries of Columbus, and eighty-one
years before the Pilgrim Fathers landed, the Spaniards had begun
the work of white exploration, colonisation and the founding of
their mission system. In time, trappers and prospectors from the
east became familiar with the lonely wastes; adventurers, miners,
cattle men and fanners followed in their wake, all seeking for-
tunes in strange places, but only the hardiest of them could face
this cruel world of thorny spines, fang of reptile and claw of
beast.

As I was putting my things together preparatory to my descent
for the night at Douglas, one of the mining towns of the Arizona
Highlands, I heard the horse-faced lady telling her companion
that she had just come back from a visit to Europe. 'Switzerland*,
she said, 'is real pretty. And I had two weeks in London. Isn't it
funny that there are no schools in London?' Then I up and spoke
quite a piece and left her almost sobbing, after which I was sorry
for the manner of my corrections, for I have heard English people
make equally silly remarks about 'America 5 , especially those who
have been only to New York or Hollywood and nowhere else.

Near to Douglas a little girl whose mother had touchingly put
her in my charge and told me to see she got off at the right place
said, 'See all them fumes. That's Douglas.' The valley was filled
with dense white clouds from giant copper smelters. As the white-
hot streams of slag were poured on the dumps they threw off
bright flashes of flame turning the clouds into billows of fire.

Douglas is one of a number of towns which have been built in
this part of the world in connection with the exploitation of cop-

254 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

per. Life in some of them depends entirely on copper. If the price
of the metal is high the town flourishes: if it be low the town dies.
There is more than one place on the Arizona Highlands where
the railway lines have been pulled up to be sold for scrap: they
were no longer needed.

I had not, however, come to Douglas to see copper mines or
smelters. In a hotel in another town I had picked up a folder
advertising a hotel at Douglas which said 'Buffalo steaks served
at popular prices every day of the year from our own herd.' My
object at Douglas was to eat buffalo steak, but unfortunately
there was no such steak on the menu that night.

The next morning I rose at^ five and had my breakfast at the
cafe in the bus station. Again I watched the dawn always a
lovely sight in the desert. The craggy peaks which stab upwards
at the sky lost their midnight indigo and flushed pink with the
first indications of the coming day. In a few moments soft rippling
waves of tender light sprang spoke-like through the crumpled
hills, ran down their faces and gave to this harsh land of venom
and thorn a tenderness gripping like a pain.

Twenty miles from Douglas is Bisbee, another mining town,
the highest settlement (5294 feet) on the western trail. It is built
in a gorge between two rich copper mountains. The houses cling
to the slopes like swallows' nests, and the streets, to rise at all,
have to depart from the usual rectangular pattern. In time of
heavy rain a torrent of water tears through the gorge and drowns
the main road. Over red earth and through the thorny vegetation
of the desert we climbed up Tombstone Canyon to a height of a
little over 6,000 feet. The sides of the canyon were dotted with
small bushes as if there had been an epidemic of green measles.

Here and there water was available. Wherever this was the
case the country lost its aspect of fierce defiance and once more
smiled. One village, St. Davids, had a pool of water to every
house, shaded by trees under which cattle rested and chewed but,
on the whole, the farther we went, the more barren became the
face of the land and the bigger the cruel, evil cacti which day
by day struggled for life in these eerie solitudes where with
savage fury the sky pours down a relentless flood of fire.

Tombstone ghastly but appropriate name was once an

EL PASO TO PHOENIX (ARIZONA) 255

iniquitous, profligate town peopled by desperadoes whose gun
play was based on the theory that 'six-shooters is arguments'. The
local paper is The Epitaph] If the spirits of any of the deceased
ruffians who once inhabited Tombstone should ever revisit the
scene of their former exploits they may be surprised to find,
amongst half -starved bushes and under the heat which lies heavy
over the dusty acres, the biggest rose-bush in the world. It spreads
out to cover a space of about two thousand square feet and bears
hundreds of thousands of blossoms. The branches are trained
over a pole-supported roof beneath which the guests of the Rose
Tree Inn dine and drink their Coca Cola.

Thence to Tucson, founded in 1552, where I had thought to
hunt for some reminders of the past but, hearing that the town
was full of film people making pictures in the desert, I changed
my mind and passed on. I am too old to appreciate the charms
of the 'stars' and too poor to pay the extravagant hotel prices
which attend their presence.

As we bowled out of Tucson, the usually clear cut outlines and
sharp shadows of the desert mountains became blurred: the sky
was heavy with clouds. I had but just said to myself 'These clouds
mock the land with promise of rain that rarely falls', when it did
fall, with a force and volume which explain how gravel and rocks
are rolled down the stream beds when the clouds burst. In Bisbee,
as I learned later, not only rain but snow, hail and sleet fell for
over two hours. The temperature slid down, like a skier on a
snowy slope. It dropped to within eight degrees of freezing point;
and I had dressed, appropriately I had thought, for my passage
through a region of severe heat and drought!

The disturbance soon passed: the distant heights rose as islands
in a sea of mist; the pools in the road vanished as if by magic. In
less than half an hour the land was as dry as the moon and we
were in a part of the desert, near Picacho, distinguished by the
giant theatrical saguaro (pronounced sa-wah-ro).

The different kinds of cacti are not scattered uniformly over
the whole of the desert: special areas have special varieties. The
saguaro, for instance, is a familiar sight in southern Arizona but
only isolated specimens are found in the Colorado Desert to which
I was making my way. It is a fearsome plant, fuller of bristles

256 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

than a porcupine, rises like a sentry against the sky in a fluted
green column to a height of forty feet and may live for two hun-
dred years. Cacti, like camels, store water, and the pulpy interior
of the saguaro is a reservoir of moisture, collected whenever rain
falls, by a vast root system near the surface of the ground.

Almost suddenly the desert appeared to vanish. We were in
the Salt River Valley fed by water conserved by the Roosevelt
Dam in the heights of the Arizona Plateau. Everywhere, as far
as the eye could see, broad fields of living green were drinking
from, miles of sunlit threads of water, a fine spectacle in a land
so near to that where the saguaros, the giant barbarians of the
desert, raise their spiky posts into the dry air. Nearly half a mil-
lion acres have been brought under cultivation. The main crops
are oranges, lemons, grape fruit, grapes, melons, long-stapled
cotton, lettuce and other kinds of vegetables. The statistics of
production are colossal. It is indeed impossible to realise what
they mean. The imagination fails to visualise ten thousand huge
railway trucks filled with lettuce or five thousand loaded with
melons leaving the valley year after year.

The centre of the area is Phoenix, founded only two years
before I was born but now having a population of close on
125,000. It is a town of fine shops and department stores, large
office and government buildings, charming houses -with a Spa-
nish air, and broad streets and drives bordered with palms and
orange groves, shrubs and flowers. Everywhere there were signs
of great prosperity. Old shabby buildings were giving way to
new ones, some of great dignity, touched with Spanish and
Mexican features.

The streets, as I saw them, were crowded with Christmas
shoppers, a motley assortment of negroes, Mexicans, Indians,
Americans and at least one Englishman. Spanish was being spoken
as often as English. Almost everybody had arms full of parcels.
Even a blind begar could afford to sit to have his shoes shined,
though I found it difficult to imagine what satisfaction he got
from the polished leather.

Phoenix at Christmas was reasonably cool, but during the four
months of summer, when the sun shafts fall in burning showers
and beat into helplessness any man or beast on whom they strike,

EL PASO TO PHOENIX (ARIZONA) 257

it is a city to be avoided. At such times no man wears a collar:
the rules of polite society allow him, if he so wish, to go about
as bare-necked as a modern woman.

CHAPTER XXIII

PHOENIX TO PALM SPRINGS

I left Phoenix the day before Christinas. The bus was crowded
with people going to visit their friends and relatives, some of
whom lived in very remote places. To a late-comer who fretfully
asked 'Where is there a seat?' the driver replied 'On the floor

Fig. 36. Phoenix to Palm Springs

amongst the parcels.' Whereupon a Boy Scout rose and sat him-
self on a box.

At the crossing of the Hassayampa River I remembered the
legend which records that he who drinks of the waters of this
river, looking up stream, never speaks the truth again. I de-
liberately looked in the opposite direction but as the bus did not
stop and, in any case, there was no water in the river, my desire
to retain my reputation for truthfulness must rest upon some
other basis.

On the opposite side of the river was Wickenburg, the 'Dude

PHOENIX TO PALM SPRINGS 259

Ranch Capital of the World'. Dude ranches are common over all
the ranching areas of the West. They vary widely in their com-
forts and their charges. Some are run as side-lines to the business
of serious ranching; others are run almost entirely for visitors.
At the latter every effort is made to provide luxuries and enter-
tainment.

An idea of one of the most elaborate, Remuda Ranch, may be
gained from its own advertisement 'Just what you expect on
a ranch cows in the hills, corrals full of real horses and sure-
enough cowboys, singing cowboys trick roping and full of
yarns going about their intensely practical concerns while
you look on from your saddle or perhaps from a wide wicker
chair on the sun porch.

'Guest accommodations are very fine: in main building, in Patio
Court, or separate bungalows. All have hot and cold running
water, electric lights, luxurious baths and showers, reading lamps,
large closets, fine heating arrangements, wide windows looking
out on unforgettable views, beds you love and abundant linen.

'Swimming pool, asphalt surfaced tennis court and a dozen
other indoor and outdoor sports. Own rodeo area on ranch. Here
impromptu rodeos are put on for the entertainment of guests.

'An accredited school is maintained for children of guests, in
separate buildings.

'Here the distinguished English writer Priestley wrote several
of his charming books/

We made a stop at Salome, a tiny place founded by Dick Wick
Hall, author of a number of western stories, who said of it "This
would be a good town if it had more people and a fine cattle
country if it had more grass and water/ The gas station offers
'free meals and gas every day the sun does not shine.' A roadside
cafe, decorated with grotesque designs of a slim female proclaims
'This is Salome where She Danced.' On the opposite side of the
road is a white ramshackle wooden structure, the Court House of
Yuma county. In big black letters on its shabby walls it clamours
'Get Married. Never Closed. Step in in the Daytime: Ring the
Bell at Night/ Neither the heat nor the loneliness has been able
to crush the spirits of the two hundred inhabitants of Salome.

By way of Granite Pass we entered a wild region sentinelled

260 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

by the tall fluted saguaro and littered with small blocks of granite
wrenched from the peaks by erosion and forming vast slopes
which, in some cases, reached .half way from base to summit. We
dropped into another basin, with hills like islands on the floor,
rimmed by dark-hued, bare-faced ridges forming a ragged horizon
in every direction.

Then, as if by a miracle, the ground was alive with acres of
a yellow flower which resembled a small Michaelmas daisy, and
I sensed for the first time the floral loveliness which, at certain
times of the year, completely hides the floor of the desert.

Arizona ended at the Colorado River. This muddy stream, 'too
thin to plough, too thick to drink', has had many names the
River of Rafts given by two Franciscan friars because they saw
the Yuma Indians crossing it by this means; the River of Good
Guidance, given by Alarcon, a Spanish explorer; the River of
the Firebrand, given by Melchior Diaz because on its banks he
saw Indians carrying torches: the River of Good Hope; the River
of Martyrs: and, finally, the Colorado or Red River, a name well
deserved on account of the bright red colour of the waters and
the shore. The redness is all the more striking by contrast with
the brilliant green of the poplars and other vegetation on the
banks.

On the Calif omian side we were all turned out of the bus while
our baggage was examined to see that no one was in possession
of citrus or other fruit which might carry plant diseases into that
state and so endanger the fruit crop, valued at five hundred mil-
lion dollars. The delay was short. Off again, across a plain
patterned with green fields of alfalfa, along a road fringed with
feathery tamarisks, and then over a low ridge the Colorado Desert
suddenly shot into view.

The Colorado Desert, so called because of its nearness to the
Colorado River, is but one section of the Great American Desert,
a wide area which includes also, in the east the Arizona Desert
over part of which we had just come, the Mohave Desert north-
east of Los Angeles, the San Bernardino Desert west of Yuma and
the Sonoran Desert east of the Gulf of California.

The Colorado section of this immense and almost unpeopled
waste is a great depression roughly triangular in shape, each leg

PHOENIX TO PALM SPRINGS 261

of the triangle measuring about a hundred and fifty miles. The
base lies along the Mexican border; the apex is at San Gorgonio
Pass near Banning. On the west are the San Jacinto, Santa Rosa,
Santa Ysidro and Laguna ranges of mountains forming a towering
wall that separates the desert from the sea which lies so close at
hand: on the east are lower ranges which include the San Ber-
nardino, the Chocolate and others. The surface drops from a
height of 2,320 feet above sea level at the apex to 246 feet below
sea level at the Salton Sea. It is, of course, habitable only where
water is obtainable.

The amount and nature of the water supply vary in such a
manner as to divide the desert into three distinct sections:

i. San Gorgonio to Palm Springs where water is obtained
from snow-fed supplies in the canyons of the near-by mountains.
The quantity is small and agricultural land is therefore limited.

ii. The Coachella Valley where water is drawn in relative
abundance from wells sunk deeply in the sands and gravels.

iii. The Imperial Valley where constant and ample supplies
are now derived by irrigation from the Colorado River.

I came to anchor, on Christmas Eve, at the oasis of Palm
Springs. This oasis lies at an elevation of 452 feet right at the
base of the San Jacinto Mountains, and receives its water from
streams fed by melting snows. Without them life would be im-
possible and the land surface would be nothing but an unbroken,
treeless expanse strewn with cacti, naked rock and drifting sand.

The oasis offers several different types of attraction which
vary in their attractiveness according to the character of the
visitor. No two people ever see the same scene, even from the
same point, with the same eyes, and the resultant effect upon the
observer becomes even more differentiated if that scene contains
other living members of the human family. To the majority of
the visitors, as many as 8,000 in a good season, the charm of the
place is the new toy village built to satisfy the whims of film
stars and those who wish and can afford to live for a while where
and how the film stars live. A few, but only a few, are called by
the floor of the desert, the canyons or the gaunt, splintered peaks
of the mountain barriers lifting their purple heads above the pale
grave face of the plain.

262 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

As already stated I arrived at Palm Springs on Christmas Eve.
There was snow on the high mountains and Christmas trees
illuminated by fairy lamps in the streets, but somehow there was
no feeling of Christmas, and on the morrow I did not feel I was
missing any of the usual festivities when, to save my purse, I sat
on a high stool at the counter of a drug store and ate my share
of a Christmas turkey in an atmosphere of face-powder and lip-
stick, pills and patent medicines, whisky, magazines, cigars and
dog ointment.

The explanation was not the unfamiliar surroundings of either
the desert or the drug store but the nature of Palm Springs itself.

As a village it is too unreal to suggest any connection with
ordinary human life. It has been developed as an ultra-smart
winter resort for the rich, and looks like a series of settings for
a musical comedy.

The main street, really the only street that matters, runs parallel
and close to the foot of the San Jacinto range. It is three or four
miles long, with a width, on Sundays when packed with cars, of
three or four feet. In it are hotels, business offices, cafes, night
clubs and shops with creamy white, lemon or buff coloured walls,
red, blue or yellow doors and brilliantly coloured roofs. The
pavements are laid with slabs of tinted concrete and bordered by
pink and white oleanders or feathery green tamarisks.

The shops souvenir shops, date shops, candy shops, dress
shops, camera shops sell everything the rich are likely to buy
on a vacation. Conspicuous amongst them are those displaying
silver and pottery of alleged Indian or Mexican workmanship
and those dealing iii women's apparel. Much of the so-called
'native' work had the appearance of cheap factory-made produce:
if it really is genuine it does no credit to any native art: most of
it was ugly and clumsy.

In one of the shops the California dealer presented me with
a card which had on it, 'Nothing is wrong with our State except
that entirely too many of us get up in the morning at the alarm
of a Connecticut clock, button a pair of New York trousers to
Ohio suspenders, put on a pair of shoes made in Massachussets,
wash in a Pittsburgh tin basin, using. Cincinnati soap and a cotton
towelmade in New Hampshire, sit down to a Michigan table and

PHOENIX TO PALM SPRINGS 263

eat pancakes made of Minneapolis flour with Vermont maple
syrup and Kansas City bacon fried on a St. Louis stove. We send
money to Ohio for tyres, and at night, after smoking a Pennsyl-
vania cigar, we crawl under a New Jersey blanket to be kept
awake by a d - - - d dog, the only home product on the place,
wondering all the while why ready money and prosperity are
not more abundant in this wonderful State of ours.'

Shopping is continuous except for intervals devoted to eating:
these intervals were not simply those of the regulation meals. It
was not possible to go down the street without meeting one person
after another, adults as well as children, eating ice creams, salted
nuts, pop corn, pea nut brittle or chocolate bars, and littering the
pavement with cast-off wrappers of gold and silver paper, paper
bags and discarded nut shells.

The visitors, as if to keep up the illusion of a musical comedy,
dressed as if they were members of the chorus. The men inclined
to ordinary suits in extraordinary colours a pale green shirt
witb dark green trousers, a bright yellow shirt with chocolate
collar and trimmings, or to theatrical imitations of cow-boys and
Indians ten gallon hats, embroidered coats, blue jeans and
chequered shirts, bright silk neckerchiefs, silver studded belts
and high black boots with touches of red and high heels.

The women, even frail old grandmothers, were partial to
pyjamas, to trousers that emphasised pronounced curvatures, or
to bare necks and arms, and legs clad in shorts so abbreviated
that they could not possibly be further shortened. The general
result was a close approach to nakedness and much more indecent.
Children masqueraded as miniature cow-boys or Indians, cracked
toy whips and blew toy trumpets.

Honey-mooners, whose names appear as such in the local
papers, strolled about hand in hand or with their arms round each'
other's necks. Children dragged their apologetic parents from
place to place and treated them with little outward respect.
Nothing appeared natural. I wanted to set it -all to music. If a
man with a little baton had suddenly appeared in the street and
lifted his arm I should not have been in the least surprised to see
the whole of the population begin to sing and dance. Palm Springs
is comic opera that does not know it is comic.

264 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL*

Sophistication reigns. The chief store had a drinking basin for
dogs, fashioned like a holy water stoup in the wall of a church,
framed in coloured mosaic and labelled 'Desmond's Dog Bar'.
At night the cocktail bars and restaurants were, as a rule, dimly
lit, often only with candles, so that you might eat or drink in a
gloomy interior, as if it were not possible to be romantic or jolly
except in a tomb or a cellar,

At a restaurant where I asked for rye bread, the waitress looked
at me with an all too knowing eye and enquired 'Are you allergic
to wheat?'

At another, where I was experiencing a little difficulty in
selecting my food, I apologised to the waitress, saying 'You'll
think Fm very fussy. 9

'No', replied the pink-draped maiden with lips and finger
nails in matching tints, 'I think you're lovely', for which agile
lie I raised her tip.

At the counter of the drug store where I of tenest took my tea,
the white-coated attendant asked me 'Where've you been to-day?'
To Whitewater Canyon.'
'Anybody else there?'

'Not a soul. But I didn't mind. I had something to eat, wine to
drink and a book to read*'

'Ah', interrupted the man as he buttered my toast with a brush,
1 see. It was a case of a book of verse, a jug of wine, a loaf of
bread and thou '

'The only snag', said I, interrupting the soda-jerker in his
quotation, 'was that there was no thou.'

Just as one is amused and pleased by a good musical comedy
so I was amused and pleased with this sunny, laughing, artificial
spot in the desert. Psalm Springs is not an ideal place for a poet
or for a philosopher seeking that desert calm in which were born
the great religions of the past but, because the oasis is small, it
can be easily left behind. Most of the visitors who go to Palm
Springs, however, do not wish to leave it behind. They have no
intention of wasting their time trying to capture the lure of over-
whelming silence, the utter crushing loneliness of the uninvaded
wilderness in order to listen to the message that the aged earth
speaks to willing ears. The giddy Hollywood crowd, enjoying its

PHOENIX TO PALM SPRINGS 265

nervous breakdowns, would be completely out of place amongst
the wrinkled mountains, the blazing stretches of sand or the thorny
vegetation which eternally fights for life, and where there is no
excuse for levity.

Visitors to Palm Springs, pursue in the desert the same amuse-
ments riding, tennis, golf, dancing which they could pursue
anywhere else. Some of them motor, between cocktails, dances
and games, to such spots as are easily accessible by road, and
according to their temperaments, go into ecstacies, real or assum-
ed, about the palm-filled canyons or wearily ask, as I heard one
of them, 'What is there to see here?'

A single street separates this amazing oasis, overrun with
people mostly rich and idle, always feverish and gay, from a
small Indian reservation called Agua Caliente, on account of its
hot springs. These springs, now used by white and Indian alike,
have been valued by the Indians for medicinal purposes ever
since the oasis was first inhabited. The Indians, very few in num-
ber, belong to the once widely scattered Coahuilla tribe who
originally occupied the west side of the Coachella valley. In 1883,
however, they were rounded up and placed on this reservation,
the land to the west of it, nearest to the water sources, being
reserved for the white settlement.

The Indians farm little dusty holdings, work for their white
neighbours, hire themselves out at fruit-picking and harvest times
to more fertile areas not too far away and, during the tourist
season, rent out cottages they have built or let some of their
ground as a parking space for trailers. Their wives do laundry
or other household work in the village. Unfortunately they have,
as a rule, lost all their ancient craftmanship and no longer make
baskets, rugs or pottery.

Beyond the reservation you can walk, unhindered, for several
miles across the flat floor of the desert. The walking is easy
going if you take a little care. The ground is firm without being
hard to the feet and there is usually plenty of space between the
plants. Each plant, in fact, owns a certain area around it, as a
kind of personal possession on which it admits no other plant to
trespass. Within quite well-defined limits its iron roots seek
moisture that the eye of man or beast fails to discover.

266 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

Seen from a distance the floor appears a dreary grey, level,
monotonous expanse of dry treeless land where there is no past
and no future, nothing but an everlasting solitude. On closer
acquaintance it shows more attractive features. The vegetation is
far more varied than one would expect and includes not only the
charactistic cacti but flowers, shrubs and even small trees. There
is no way, however, of making this acqauintance except on the
back of a horse or, better still, on foot.

The flowers, of which there are seven hundred species, are
most plentiful from February to May so that, as my visit took
place in December and January, I missed the full glory of the
flower show, though in some sandy stretches millions of verbena
blossoms already covered hundreds of acres with their delicate
rose-purple clusters, and other millions of sunflowers covered
yet other hundreds of acres with a carpet of gold. Later on in the
year, as I afterwards found elsewhere, there would be the same
riotous distribution of desert forms of primrose, lily, heliotrope,
larkspur, lupin, columbine and poppy.

Much of course depends on the weather. For a complete ex-
hibition of the incomparable beauty of the desert wild flowers
there must be a plentiful supply of winter rain, and during the
season set for their blooming the days must not be too hot or
nights too cold. To me it was not the spectacular wide-spread
masses of blossom that were so fascinating as the multitudes of
single, tiny flowers, one here, one there, looking so tragically
lonely and brave that I consciously tried to avoid treading on
their wee sweet faces:

The shrubs, small of leaf and thick of bark to prevent loss of
water, conform to the grey-green toning of the floor. They seldom
grow large: the chief exception is the creosote bush which some-
times reaches heights of from ten to fifteen feet. It is the most
characteristic plant of the desert and thrives where other shrubs
give up the fight against drought and heat. The roots penetrate
deeply but must be widely spaced so that single specimens are
usually several feet apart with a circle of bare sand round them.
The ground close to the base is tunnelled by ground squirrels
and kangaroo rats.

The bushes rise from the ground in a cluster of brittle woody

PHOENIX TO PALM SPRINGS 267

stems, covered with a thick, smooth iron-grey bark, which branch
towards the top and put forth twigs on which grow tiny darkish
green resinous leaves. The vivid green of the shining fretted
foliage is grateful to the eye in the wilderness of other grey green
or greeny white plants. Both the leaves and the wood, especially
after rain, have a refreshing smell of creosote. I was fortunate
enough to find some of the bushes in bloom: the creosote, which
is amongst the earliest of the desert plants to blossom, has bright
yellow flowers followed by fuzzy-covered globular fruits*

Creosote provides a domestic medicine-chest for the Indians:
poultices are made from the boiled leaves; the boiled down liquid
is taken internally as a mild laxative or applied externally as a
tonic for the hair.

The most interesting plants are the cacti. There are close on
forty species indigenous to California and representatives of a
large proportion of these are to be found in the Colorado Desert.
G. W. James, in his 'Wonders of the Colorado Desert*, tells how
he once asked a desert prospector with how many varieties of
cactus he was familiar*

'By Gosh!' said the prospector, 'you city fellers have no idea
how many kinds we got. I know every one of 'em. There's the
'full of stickers', 'all stickers', 'never-fail stickers', 'sticks every-
body', 'the stick and stay-in', 'the sharp stickers', 'the extra-sharp
stickers', 'big stickers', 'little stickers', 'big and little stickers',
'stick while you sleep', 'stick while you wait', 'stick 'em alive',
'stick 'em dead', 'stick unexpectedly', 'stick anyhow*, 'stick
through leather', 'stick through anything', 'the stick in and never
come out', 'the stick and fester cactus', 'the rattlesnake fang
cactus', 'the stick seven ways at once cactus', 'the impartial
sticker', 'the democratic sticker', 'the deep sticker' and a few
others.' Together they make a cheerful lot of companions on a
desert stroll.

Round about Palm Springs I think the commonest one on the
desert floor was the one called the deer-horn or stag-horn on
account of the resemblance between its branches and those of a
deer's horns. As a rule it is rather low, sprawling and much
branched. Its hundreds of wicked needles are a fearsome menace,
typical of the iron hate which is one of the desert's moods even

268 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

as the blossoms on its fierce dry stalks are typical of another,
I only once met any one on the actual floor of the desert though
there were many people in cars on the roads: above them the
dust rose in a stinging blanket. My single human encounter
amongst the cacti was with two very white-skinned gentlemen
who had stripped to the skin and were sun bathing on one of the
wider of the barren patches. They smiled at my unexpected
approach. We exchanged greetings, experiences and names.

'We're Irish', said one. 'My name's Boyle and his is O'Flan-
nagan.'

'Boyle's a good Irish name', I replied, 'but O'Flannagan's a
better.' O'Flannagan hurrahed.

Tm from the north', said Boyle 'and he's from the south.'
'And here in the desert', I added 'you seem to have achieved
a perfectly peaceful union.'

'Yes', responded Boyle 'but we had to go into a desert and an
American one at that to do it.'

CHAPTER XXIV

THE DESERT HILLS

IT was not easy at Palm Springs, even when alone upon the plain,
to get that feeling of the desert which I had experienced with so
much pleasure in other parts of the world. When I turned my
back on the coloured houses, pavements and umbrellas, the beauty
parlours, the silhouette artist, the bowling alleys, the orange
trees, the palms, the garden beds, filled with roses and edged
with pansies, and walked out on the uninvaded earth, I had
counted on renewing a sense of being in touch with the infinite,
but I failed. There were so many hard roads with speeding traffic
that any fear of being lost or of dying from thirst would have
been ridiculous.

Several times I wrapped myself in the star-lit blackness of the
night, seeking that quiet contentment which through all the ages
has been in the desert an inspiration to the imagination of man,
but the sounds of village revelry always reached me and the
neon lights interfered with the stars. I would try the mountains.

Owing to the fact that Palm Springs is built right at the foot
of the slopes of the San Jacinto range, the mountains are easily
reached. San Jacinto range sends out, at Palm Springs, a long
spur which encloses a narrow gulf of sand. Into this gulf open a
number of canyons, mostly approachable by road, which are the
objectives of many tourists. From the mouths of the canyons
spread out wide fans of debris littered with blocks of stone.
These, where there are no roads, are difficult to cross except by
zigzagging between both the stones and a rich growth of the
largest varieties of cactus.

I began with the canyons, the nearest of which is Tahquitz
Canyon. This great gash in the mountain side might have been
formed in a fit of violence by some giant hand ruthlessly ripping
a way through the barriers. I visited it twice. The first time I
missed the easy trail, stumbled and fell amongst the boulders,

270

'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

some as big as cottages, and made frequent contacts with vicious
thorns. The second time I found the proper trail and followed it,

Fig. 37. Palm Springs District

through a gradually narrowing passage whose sides were masses
of loose rock, pink or white or, where varnished by time, dark
shining brown or rusty red, to the head of the canyon. Here,

THE DESERT HILLS 271

where the walls rise sheer for hundreds of feet, I sat me down by
the side of a pool and watched the beautiful Tahquitz waterfall
leap over a cliff of granite. The noise of this fall, together with
that of many rumblings occasionally heard, has given rise to the
legend that this is the home of Tahquitz, the evil spirit of the
Indians.

The basin was surrounded by cottonwood trees, their leaves
then a radiant yellow, proudly raising their heads in disdain of
the more lowly sober-coloured plants lying not far from their
feet. The contrast between the falling water and the tree-bordered
stream on the one hand and the desert at hand's reach on the other
was astonishing. I could have stayed there indefinitely watching
the tree tops and the peaks cutting shadows in the slanting rays
of the sun had it not been for the presence, on the other side of
the stream, of a pair of young lovers, fondly clasped in each
other's arms, oblivious of desert, of torrent and of me.

I fled. I was tempted to follow a faint trail on and up beyond
the falls but it was obviously hazardous. I heard afterwards that
scarcely a year passes when someone does not lose his life in
attempting it. I turned round and slowly descended the canyon,
beyond whose stern dark walls shone the brilliantly lighted plain.
The most conspicuous objects on the plain were two huge, dome-
shaped, absolutely bare sand dunes, winnowed and rippled by
the wind, the higher one about five hundred feet high, lying over
towards the eastern edge. They have been formed by the wind
which blows almost continuously from the sea through the San
Gorgonio Pass. The wind which forms them slowly moves them
for there is little to hinder their progress. When fierce winds take
the place of the more gentle ones the motion of the sand becomes
rapid. Slow or fast, as they travel onwards, they bury whatever
lies in their smothering path.

Instead of going directly back along the road by which I had
reached the chasm I wound my way round the base of the moun-
tain, across the talus, skirting a belt of cactus called the Bigelow
cholla, a variety which favours the southern slopes of barren or
rocky hills. The plant is bushy and not usually more than four
feet high but the trunk is strong. It is the spiniest of all the
chollas and its nickname 'teddy bear' may give some idea

272 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

of the number of the spines. It has to be treated with respect, for
these spines, dark on the lower part of the trunk where they are
dead, pale where they are new and shining like clusters of glass
needles, are fearful to contemplate and worse to touch. One
Bigelow cholla by itself has a venomous appearance: hundreds
or more of them, seen against the sun, with the light glistening
through the needles, form a regiment of perfect fiends scoffing
at you and defying you to advance.

By careful steering I came out on the highroad opposite a little
cafe with a big 'EATS' outside it. The hour made the invitation
acceptable and I entered. The woman behind the counter told
me her mother was Scotch and Irish and her father French and
German but, said she, with a kind of pugnacious pride, Tin pure
American. 5

My next excursion in search of peace was to the Andreas Can-
yon. The going was good enough, along a hard paved road, till
I reached a toll-house. The toll levied for passage beyond this
point is a source of revenue for the Indians of the Palm Springs
reservation. A great part of the canyon area is in the reservation
and the tolls charged for admission are either divided amongst
the holders individually or used for the maintenance of the high-
ways.

The road beyond the toll house was sadly in need of a little
expenditure. It was inches deep in dust. I soon quitted its winding
gritty depths. I cut across the talus slopes, through wash-outs,
crawled between boulders and wind-tossed bushes, guided both
by the mountain wall and the dust rising from cars following the
road. Nothing crossed my path except one animal which went like
the wind, probably a trade rat or pack rat (which is not a rat),
a ground squirrel or an antelope chipmunk: I couldn't tell. And
it went so quickly that I didn't worry, especially as all the little
creatures I have just mentioned are harmless to man.

The really dangerous creature amongst the stones is the rattle-
snake, the best known native reptile in the United States, for it
lives in all of them. The books say that, as a rule, a rattlesnake
is more anxious to avoid a man than a man is to avoid a rattle-
snake. I don't believe them. No rattlesnake could possibly be
half as much afraid of me as I am of it. Rattlesnakes, so I was

THE DESERT HILLS 273

told, were not numerous in this desert, but a single one would
have been quite numerous enough for me. It was also reported
that rattlesnakes hibernate from about October till about April
or May. But how was I to know that I would not wake an odd
one, whom it might be more dangerous to disturb in his winter
slumber than the proverbial sleeping dog. Fortunately I never
saw a rattlesnake either that day or any other round about Palm
Springs, and after a time I began to. believe all the things I had
read in the books, especially the very comforting one that people
rarely die of the bite of a rattlesnake if the bite receives
prompt attention!

After a few miles amongst the Bigelow chollas which, so say
the Indians, 'jump at you', round about and in and out amongst
the boulders, with an occasional excursion up and down the steep,
loose pebbly banks marking where some angry flood had once
ploughed a passage, I saw in the silence a patch of green, brown
and gold, a grove of shining trees.

Trees meant water. I made for them, struck the dirt road again
and reached the mouth of Andreas Canyon. I stepped, as it were,
straight off the desert into a grove of Washington palms with a
clear crystal stream threading its way amongst a jumble of boul-
ders, and gleefully singing to its death in the wastes.

Washington palms are found native only in the Colorado
Desert and in parts of Lower California, and there only in places
where the supply of water never fails by the side of streams,
near springs in foot-hill canyons and at isolated oases where
underground water is near the surface. Full grown specimens may
reach a height of sixty to seventy feet but the average height is
lower than this. The almost uniform column of the trunk bears
a dense crown of longstemmed broad green fronds. New leaves
appear each year at the top of the tree: old dead ones hang down
forming a thick thatch round the trunk. In a grove, such as that
in Andreas Canyon, where the palms are tall and close together,
walking between the sheaths of dead leaves reminds one of walk-
ing between a lot of hayricks. You do not think of the core or the
crown but of the tangled mass of dead straw-yellow foliage.

The canyon was an ideal camping ground for Indians: there
was plenty of good water; the water attracted wild animals which

274 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

could be killed for meat: cottonwood, alder, sycamore, mesquite
and palm provided fuel, shade and building material. On the
flatter rocks one may still see the big holes in which the women
of the Cahuilla tribe, who once inhabited the canyon, ground up
acorns for flour.

The excellence of the site had been discovered by the Boy
Scouts. Under the trees was a camp of four hundred of them.
They hiad spent their Christmas holiday in this bewitching, well-
watered dimple. They had slept on the ground under the shelter
of the palms; they had listened to the call of the coyote, the grey
wolf of the wilderness, and the plaintive, quivering note of the
ground owls; they had seen the desert plants shining in silvery
white patches in the moonlight and the rocky heights rising to
the unclouded glory of the stars.

When I arrived they were packing up, loading trucks, buses
and private cars with camp equipment and personal belongings
and making the palm grove ring with floods of joyous laughter.
It was good to hear them; their merriment completely destroyed
all memories of the dreary sands, bleached bones and savage
desolation lying not a hundred yards away from the palms and
the water hole.

Almost two miles south of Andreas Canyon is Palm Canyon.
To a lonely traveller the distant sight of palms in a desert always
brought die joyful knowledge of the presence of water; the map
is dotted with such names as Palm Springs, Palm Canyon, Seven
Palms, Hidden Palms, Dos Palms, Seventeen Palms, Two Bunch
Palms and Low Palms.

Palm Canyon was, in 1939, one of the outstanding attractions
to visitors to Palm Springs. Here several thousand palms bent in
dreamy beauty over a romantic stream and gave much brightness
to an otherwise sombre ravine. These patriarchal trees were said
to be the ancestors of all the ornamental palms which grace the
gardens and line the boulevards and avenues of California. From
a high ledge, the Hermit's Bench, where the cars parked and a
trading post sold postcards and souvenirs, you looked down upon
the startling contrast between the 'dark, worn, weather-stained
walls of the canyon and the sunshafts streaming across the green
roof which hides the stream, but you would not see it in silence,

THE DESERT HILLS 275

Every hour of the day cars arrived and people chattered. *

I was told of another canyon, Chino Canyon, lying about five
miles north of Palm Springs, which had groves of cottonwoods
and sycamores and two springs, one hot and one cold, bubbling
up side by side. I mounted to this canyon by the roughest road I
had so far trodden but the valley was full of flowers saffron
poppies, yellow daisies, white clover and many others less con-
spicuous for size and beauty. Thirsty and hot I trudged along;
the mouth of the canyon marked by a splash of bright foliage
yawned in front of me promising a restful shade. As the road was
so difficult I felt sure that no one who respected his car would
travel it and I should enjoy the springs in peace.

When I reached the promised haven I was confronted by a high
barbed wire fence, a gate double-padlocked and a notice 'No
Trespassing*. The canyon had been closed to protect an important
source of the domestic water supply of Palm Springs. Being a
law-abiding Englishman I observed the notice, lay down on bare
sand and ate my lunch, with the cottonwoods at my back instead
of over my head and giving me shade.

The cottonwood, like the Washington palm, is not a true desert
tree for it needs a considerable amount of water. In desert areas
it is never found except by the side of canyon streams, water holes
and springs. It is a .big tree, from fifty to seventy-five feet in
height, with thick limbs, drooping branches and a round-topped
open crown. Its leaves in autumn turn a beautiful bright yellow,
about the only real autumn tint to be seen in the desert.

From one horizon to the other there was no cloud to cast a
shadow and being unable to withstand the flood of heat from the
wide oven above me I departed early. Presently I met two middle-
aged people coming towards me: they had left their car farther
down the valley. I at once told them of the locked canyon and
then added 'How strange it is to see two Americans walking! 5 The
lady, rippling with smiles, replied 'But my husband isn't Ame-
rican; he's Scotch and I'm slowly killing myself trying to keep
up with him.'

At the foot of the talus, under the shadow of a great rock, I

* In 1940, fire swept the canyon from end to end and destroyed the stately trees.

276 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

halted to rest. A car passed slowly by trying to navigate the
channels between the stones. In it were two good-looking young
people, a man and a woman, who gave me a cheery 'Hello.'

The shadows of San Jacinto were already lengthening over the
plain and only the tips of the San Bernadino mountains were
alight in the opposite direction when the car reappeared. Its
kindly occupants, seeing me still sitting, guessed I was tired, took
me on board and drove me back to Palm Springs.

That night, New Year's Eve, I sought the Desert Grill, one of
the most popular of the local restaurants. The place was packed
and I had to wait half an hour for a seat. My turn came at last
and the waitress showed me to a table large enough for six people.
I had not even seated myself when the man who had driven me
home in the afternoon was at my side saying, If you are alone
will you join me and my wife and have your meal with us. No
man should dine alone on New Year's Eve.'

That little incident is typical of the United States. I can't
imagine it happening in a smart restaurant anywhere in Europe.

My visit to Chino Canyon was the last one I could possibly
make entirely on foot, but with the help of a local bus service I
managed to see two others and also the Gorgonio Pass. For the
latter I took the bus to Banning and walked back as far as
Cabezon. The pass is flanked by the San Jacinto and San Gor-
gonio mountains, their sides gashed with deep gorges and their
eleven-thousand foot summits covered with snow. It is crossed by
a smooth, wide, modern highroad and a railway line. At Cabezon
the railway trains take on a second engine to help them up the
steep grade. When the railway was made in 1875 the railway com-
pany, to prevent hostilities, had to promise free rides to the local
Cahuilla Indians. I imagine this free transport has now ceased:
hostile Indians are scarce in these day.

The San Gorgonio Pass is noted for its winds. It is generally
said that they blow constantly from the west, but when I walked
over the pass the wind was blowing from the desert and, more-
over, was bitterly cold, not hot. The western winds are responsible
for the sand dunes already noted and for the little mounds of sand
which lie on the lee side of the bushes, reaching almost to the
topmost twigs. They have been known to lift the tops off motor

THE DESERT HILLS 277

cars and, during a single crossing of the pass, to scour off all their
paint with the aid of the sand. They were responsible, in pre-
railway days, for the cessation of stage-coach traffic because the
passengers objected to having to dismount in order to help dig
the coaches out of the sand.

So far I had discovered no genuine solitude. I tried again, this
time in Whitewater Canyon, one of the main drainage canyons
of the San Gorgonio range. The floor of Whitewater Canyon was
nothing but a mass of sand and boulders, through which trickled
a tiny current of water; a dusty rough cart track made walk-
ing possible but tiring. Alone at last I made myself comfortable
on a smooth rock with my back against a boulder and my feet
towards the outlet. In the middle distance was a clump of yellow-
ing cottonwoods; in the background the majestic peak of San
Jacinto, its. massive jaggedness streaked with snows glittering like
rivers of ice. All around me were gigantic boulders amongst
which lay stranded torn, grey, giant stems crashed by floods from
the surrounding heights. In times of high water, or immediately
after, the road up Whitewater is quite impassable, but on that hot
sunny day it was hard to believe that the whitened boulders could
ever be drowned, or the whispered merriment of the tiny stream
become a terrifying growl.

It was easier to realise the value of water to the desert people
especially in the days before there were any dams and water-
works, and why it was their constant thought even in intervals of
leisure. They represented the lightning which came with the rains
by weaving zigzags in their baskets and painting them on their
pots, clothes and bodies. They cherished .the snake because it
guarded the water sources, painted it on their girdles, wove it in
their blankets, shaped it in their rings, carved it in stone and,
with its wavy lines, decorated caves. Their ceremonial dances are
often an appeal for rain or the filling of the springs.

In Whitewater Canyon I was undisturbed. I tried another
Snow Creek Canyon to which a dusty road squirmed its way from
a point near Palm Springs station across the biggest talus slope I
had seen. To cut off the curves and the bends of the road which
crossed it I tried to go straight ahead to the canyon mouth, but
it look me longer to go round the boulders and up and down

278 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

the deep washes than if I had stuck to the apology for a road.

The entrance to the narrow part of the canyon was barred and
locked to protect yet another source of water for Palm Springs.
Outside it, however, there was a grassy, tree-shaded nook through
which the stream came tumbling amongst the rocks. Within its
shelter all I could see was the green of grass, the silver of the
running water and bits of blue sky amongst the arching trees, yet
this haven of rest was not twenty yards long and not a dozen wide.
Beyond its narrow limits was a great expanse of sand and cactus
in whose dry wastes the stream was soon exhausted and out of
which bald mountains rose like so many models in a geological
museum.

I drowsed there through a long, hot afternoon, disembodied,
with all that .hid me from myself dissolved. I wasn't lonesome.
I was too busy looking at and keeping company with myself.
When the day gave signs of going I shouldered my ruck-sac and
passed from the canyon to the road across the plain. Silence lay
lightly on the land and all the details of the distance were sharpen-
ed by the dry clear air which did not seem like air but rather a
thin transparent lilac veil.

As I had now visited all the canyons I could reach on foot and
was not yet minded to quit the oasis I turned my attention to the
mountains leaning down over the village street. I had heard that
if I followed a certain trail it would take me behind the lowest
foothill range and bring me back to Palm Springs in about four
miles. I left about eight in the morning. Clouds, as if bewitched,
stood in a windless air above the eastern mountains and a kind
of Scotch mist was gently falling on those close at hand. I was,
however, assured that there would be no rain.

I mounted slowly for the path was steep. The trail, well mark-
ed by footprints of man and beast, was wide and clear: it. was,
in fact, a very good trail except for the stones and the grade.
I went on and on, winding this way and that, for the path sought
every point of the compass in turn, avoiding the edges of precip-
ices and the cruel cacti waiting to catch and hold me with their
hooks of steel.

I think the most prominent of these vegetative devils, on this
trail, was the barrel cactus or bisnaga, often found in the same

THE DESERT HILLS 279

localities as the Bigelow chollas whose stubby arms always re-
minded me of amputated stumps. I don't know which of these two
varieties of cactus is the worse. The chollas certainly shed joints
which stab the feet of horses and spike pedestrians through their
boots, but they do not look quite so dreadful as their barrel-shaped
companions.

The barrel cactus is a single cylinder, from six to seven feet
high, marked with a number of parallel ridges. Along the ridges
are placed the dark red or yellowish spines, each two or three
inches long, hard as ivory, sharp as needles and usually curved.
Evil as the barrel cacti look they have their good qualities. I was
about to write 'their good points', but the points of a cactus are
all of the devil. The first thing to be said in favour of the barrel
cactus is that as it tends to lean slightly to the south it may be
a help in determining a direction: hence the name, the 'miner's
compass'. The second is that by means of its short, spongy,
shallow roots it can quickly absorb a large quantity of water
during a sudden downpour. Rapid loss of this is prevented by
the cylindrical stem, the reduction of leaves to thorns and the
contraction or expansion of the fluted surface according to the
amount of stored water. Even if uprooted it will live for months
or years on its own supply of moisture. Therefore, if you know
how, you can, in case of need, cut off the head, scoop a depression
in the pulp and obtain at least one long drink of the flat-tasting
liquid which oozes into the hole.

Amongst the barrels and*the chollas were many yuccas bristling
with pointed leaves. The living ones lifted high their big, creamy-
coloured, cone-shaped buds, full of sugary sap, or their fully ma-
tured bell-shaped flowers: the dead ones showed nothing but a
hollow network, a woody skeleton, ghostly enough to make one
feel creepy on a moonlit night.

After quite a long climb I reached a point known as 'Desert
View' but there was not much view: the mist was thickening.
There were now two trails. One fairly obviously led round the
mountain back to Palm Springs but on it there were no footprints
of any kind. The other was well and recently trodden and I
decided to take it. I mounted and mounted until, at about two in
the afternoon, I met four Americans coming down. They said they

280 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

had followed the trail to where it became very bad and had then
thought it best to return: it was their footsteps I had been follow-
ing. I asked them if they had noticed any footprints or hoof-
marks leading beyond the point at which they had turned but
they had not looked to see. I went on. I kept climbing, far beyond
their upper limit, until I topped another ridge and saw in front
of me, on the other side of a valley, a wall of rock that it would
take me a day to surmount. Here and there I could pick out little
bits of the trail winding up amongst the cliffs, losing themselves
in crevices and then wriggling out again to continue their upward
way. It was useless to go on. I, too, had to beat a retreat.

I came down much more quickly than I had gone up and was
back tired and very hungry at Desert View by four o'clock.
By this time the mist had turned to heavy rain and I still had
some way to go. It seemed fairly certain that the trail I had notic-
ed on my ascent, as leading from this spot back to Palm Springs,
must be shorter than the one I had used and would lead me home
before dark. I took it.

It was much steeper than I had anticipated and full of big,
loose stones made slippery by the wet. I fell but sat down as I
tumbled. For some time I was unable to rise. I had been walking
unceasingly for eight hours, had had no food and, as the reader
is aware, was not exactly a young man. When I did manage to
get up my legs were trembling like grass in a breeze. I dithered
along carefully for a little way and then flopped again. By the
time I was ready for another effort night had already filled the
canyons and darkened the slopes.

I could see the lights of Palm Springs not so very far away and
I believed there were no dangerous precipices on this face of the
mountain. The question was how to descend in the dark with legs
which sternly refused to obey my wishes. I adopted much the
same method as that of a timid child going downstairs for the
first time. I sat on the cold wet ground and levered myself down
with my hands and elbows feeling, before each move, either with
my stick or my feet or both, for the next possible foothold. Several
times I saw what I fancied was a trail but it was always nothing
but thorny bushes or jagged stones making fun of me in the night.

Finally, with much damage to the seat of my trousers and a

THE DESERT HILLS 281

fine collection of scars on my knuckles, I came within sight of a
house. There was no light anywhere and no one answered my call:
the house was uninhabited. That removed all fear of efficient
watch dogs. I slid closer and closer till I reached a wall whose
top was under my feet. Beyond this wall was a courtyard hollowed
out of the hillside. How far should I have to drop and what should
I fall on if I did drop? I couldn't tell, so I thought Fd better not
drop.

The joke was "that I couldn't stay where I was. I was hanging
on by my elbows and might slip at any minute. I don't know
exactly how I carried out my next manoeuvres, but I think if they
had been photographed they might have given points to Charlie
Chaplin. I managed to wriggle round on my stomach, fish about
with the handle of my stick for a firmer hold, pull myself over
the nearer boulders and escape a Humpty Dumpty end to my day's
outing. Whereupon, realising what a comic exhibition I must have
been giving by my unconventional athletics, I was forced to laugh
at myself.

After a short breathing space I started another exploratory
expedition. I couldn't strike any matches because I had none. All
I could do was to feel my way with my hands, catching at any
chance hold, clawing with my feet and poking with my stick. As
they say in Vermont I was 'as busy as a cat with two mice'. I was
sure I was actually nearing the road on which the empty house
must stand when I slipped at a spot where neither foot nor stick
could find anything but space beyond. I dared not go forward
and this time I could not go back. I was wedged in between two
steep-sided rocks. To add to my merriment I was sitting in a pool
of water.

So far, the little adventure had had, viewed as a mere incident
of travel, a spice of fun in it, but things now began to assume
a slightly different complexion, especially as I had to face the
possibility of spending the night sitting in a puddle and growing
colder and wetter. A chill might easily be as dangerous as a fall.
What to do about it?

An Indian, at the first hint of anything strange or dangerous,
has learned to be still and keep on being still, but perfect placid-
ity on my part would not solve the difficulties of falling tempera-

282 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

ture and rising rainfall. Then I thought of the story of a negro
who .once explained his habitual calm in all cases of trouble by
saying he had learned jus* to cooperate wid de inevitable', and
I began to think how I might cooperate.

I remembered that earlier in the day, when I was quite high
on the mountain side, I could hear people "calling to each other
on the tennis courts down below. Perhaps if I shouted some one
would hear me. I shouted. No answer: I tried again. I practised
different vowels to find out one which would carry farthest and
that I could also hold on to for a good long yell. I discovered that
for me, this was a pronounced as in Kate. Then I tried it on
various notes of the scale, higher and lower, major and minor,
till I accomplished a fine piercing note with a touch of terror in
it. Believe me or not I became hilariously happy.

My vocal exercises were as funny as my athletic ones but I
was mightily pleased with the result of my experiments and
pitched my shrieks into the valley. At the end of about two hours
a voice came sailing up from amongst the neon lights. It was as
clear as if it had been within a few feet of me though fainter.

'Who's calling?' it said.

'An old man lost on the mountain.'

'Where are you?'

'Back of an empty house behind four palm trees.'

UK. See you later.'

In about a quarter of an hour two members of the local official
rescue squad found me. They had to lift me down from my humid
throne and carry me to the car, for I could neither walk nor stand.
Once inside the car, with the tension removed, I began to shiver
so violently I dared hardly open my mouth for fear one of my
dentures should eject the other. By the time I reached the house
in which I was living I had so far recovered that, with the move-
ments of a very drunken man and the help of my rescuers, I
managed to reach the door. One of the squad, as we careered
along the path, remarked 'A man of your age has no business to
go walking alone in these treacherous mountains. You stick to
the plain. You won't come to any harm there.' I offered a reward
for services rendered but it was refused. 'This kind of thing is
what we're here for', they said.

THE DESERT HILLS 283

No meals were served- at my lodgings and I was desperately
hungry. I drank a stiff whisky, took a hot hath, put on dry clothes,
had another whisky and quivered along to a restaurant where I
dined with one of the bar-tenders who was then off duty. Under
his guidance I sampled three different varieties of alcohol
sherry, burgundy and brandy in substantial quantities and ate
a big steak with suitable accessories. At the end of my gargantuan
meal he asked 'Now d'ye want anything else?'

'Yes', I said, 'I want some one to take me home, kiss me and
put me to bed/

'Well', he replied, Til take you home but I'm damned if I'll
kiss you.'

I woke the next day at two in the afternoon, tired but without
any sign of a cold, and at a loss to determine whether it was the
amount and variety of my liquid refreshment or the desert air
that had averted all evil results.

When my soft-voiced, cheery little darkie maid came to tidy
up my room I apologised to her for all the mess I'd made. The
carpet was a mosaic of wet patches, clods of mud and deposits
of sand and gravel. She looked at it all with a merry twinkle in
her eye and remarked: 'Dirt! I don't mind no dirt. If thay wasn't
no dirt I'd have no job/

CHAPTER XXV

FROM THE DESERT TO THE OCEAN

Palm Springs to San Diego

THOUGH the last stage of my excursion was not a very long one
I broke it twice, at Indio and El Centro respectively, partly out
of curiosity and partly because of awkward bus connections. The
journey was varied in its interests desert and sea, plain and
mountain, cacti and melons. The first section was through the
southern part of the desert trough of the Coachella Valley, a
valley which extends from the pass of San Gorgonio to the Salton
Sea.

At the outset the roadside was more or less bordered with
tamarisks and cottonwoods, interspersed with highly coloured
advertisements inviting the traveller to spend his time at some
dude ranch or to purchase one or more foods, cosmetics or whis-
kies for the satisfaction of some supposedly urgent demand.
Small irrigation canals, fed by wells, crossed and recrossed under
the road.

The words wells and springs, as parts of the names of places,
are scattered over the map of this valley with a frequency which
indicates their importance and also the direction of the old roads
and trails. At Indian Wells the fragments of pottery which strew
the ground around the mesquites give certain evidence of a former
native encampment.

From Indian Wells to Indio the date palm shares with the
tamarisk the honour of bordering and sheltering the highway. As
I dropped off at Indio the police had just arrested two young men
for stealing a car and robbing a store of cigarettes, pea-nuts, bars
of chocolate and bottles of sweets. They had also arrested, on the
ground that they might be accomplices, two shabby individuals
who had travelled as hitch hikers on the same car. As the thieves
had to be sent north to the country jail for detention until their

FROM THE DESERT TO THE OCEAN

285

trial their two innocent but suspected passengers had to keep
them company.

Indio is another oasis, but differs from Palm Springs in being
dependent not on tourists but on dates and on water from wells
and not from springs. Some of the wells are very deep, as much

\\ *

C A L I F^

M E X I C O

Fig. 38. Palm Springs to San Diego

as 2,000 feet, and the water is lifted by electric pumps. It runs
in big pipes to tall cylindrical cement 'stands' from which it is
distributed as required by means of smaller pipes. In the near
future Indio is to receive irrigation water from the Colorado
River.

Many things, far more than I have any intention of mentioning,
are grown with the help of the wells: they include an amazing
variety of fruits, grains and vegetables. The most striking, how-

286 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL"

ever, is the date palm which, as the Arabs say, needs both fire
and water to bring the fruit to maturity. The wells provide the
water: the sun provides the fire. I found Indio much hotter than
Palm Springs. Indio is only twenty four miles south of Palm
Springs but, whereas the elevation of Palm Springs is 430 feet
above sea level, that of Indio is 22 feet below sea level.

The date industry in the United States was organised on a com-
mercial basis as late as 1915 when the government imported off-
shoots from Iraq, Asia Minor and North Africa. The results have
been so .successful that, over thousands of acres, one has the im-
pression of being in Africa except that the palms are planted at
regular intervals like apples in an orchard. But they are still palm
trees and in submitting to this regimentation they have lost nothing
of the poetic charm which belongs to their tapering shafts, their
graceful crowns and their long, drooping, glossy fronds. Where,
as in many instances, grape-fruit is grown between them the regu-
larity of their ordering is obscured and the scene is that of a
gold-spangled, feather-crowned jungle.

The chief variety of date grown commercially at Indio is the
Deglet Noor (the date of light) I famous for its shipping and
keeping qualities, but there are many more. In pursuit of know-
ledge I visited the Shields Date Gardens where a hundred and
nineteen varieties are on view. Each of them is as individual as
a human being: each develops a fruit of special flavour, colour,
shape, size and texture, and seeds of a special shape. One of the
newest varieties is the Black Beauty, sold for five cents a date.
I am not doing any sly advertisement in mentioning this fact be-
cause this date is never shipped and no visitor is allowed to buy
more than one.

A date garden needs a great deal of attention. The tree is so
thirsty that it has to be heavily irrigated twice a month, and as
the seeds will never reproduce their -kind the only way to per-
petuate any desired variety is to propagate its off-shoots. At or
near the base of the parent palm, during the first ten to fifteen
years of -its life, five to twenty-five off -shoots or suckers are
produced. These suckers are severed from their parent when they
have grown a root system of their own and are planted in the
proportion of one male to every forty-females per acre.

FROM THE DESERT TO THE OCEAN 287

The male flower is fragrant and attracts bees: the female has
no fragrance and attracts no bees. Hence the only way to obtain
fertilisation is to collect the pollen and transfer it to the female
by hand. Try to think what this means in careful labour.

When the first heavy bunches of fruit appear they are thinned
and supported on wooden frames. Later on each cluster is en-
closed in a cone of paper or burlap to protect it from its worst
enemy rain! The paper cones, semi-transparent in the sunlight
which filters through the dense green canopy overhead, resemble
big bellshaped flowers. The clusters cannot be cut in a bunch like
grapes or bananas. The individual dates in the cluster do not all
ripen at the same time and they have to be picked, one at a time;
harvesting takes place once a week from September to Christmas,

As if the farmer had not enough trouble with the peculiarities
of the date, the weather sometimes plays him nasty tricks.
Occasionally a heavy rain may wash away the pollen or a light
frost damage the fruit. In these days, when frosts are expected,
warning is given over the air and the fanner rises at four in the
morning to set his smudge pots burning. People who cannot afford
hundreds of smudge pots sometimes use old car tyres, split in
half, and burn gasoline in the circular trough.

The young man who gave me a great deal of this information
was a typical American product. When but a boy he ran away
from home and went to Texas where he worked and earned
enough money to pay for two years' education in a High School.
After that he went home but, finding his parents a little peeved
at his exploit, he ran away again, this time to the state of New
York. There he worked, studied, and paid his way to the end of
the High School course. He received no grants in aid nor did he
whine for public assistance. He just stood on his own feet and
got on with his job. On leaving the High School he spent two
years at sea. At nineteen, when I met him, he was learning to be
a fanner with a view to farming his own land.

Indio, whose main street is an almost unbroken row of gas
stations and garages, was named from the Indians who lived and
worked here when the place was nothing but a railway construc-
tion camp. It then had the reputation of being a 'tough spot* but
it seems quiet enough to-day except for the streams of traffic,

288 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

conspicuous in which are the huge twenty-ton trucks, loaded with
the produce of the fields and gardens, roaring backwards and
forwards every hour of the day and the night.

Nothing in Indio itself or its environment seemed to account
for the fact that practically all the men, young and old, had hairy
faces side whiskers, chin beards, full beards in the process
of sprouting. Of course I had to ask the reason. It appeared that
a Date Festival would soon be held when 'we all go Western:
everybody wears a ten gallon hat, a coloured shirt and some kind
of beard. If you dpn't wear a beard you'll be fined two and a half
dollars/

As I did not wish to play at the American game of 'dressing
up', had no time to grow a beard, and could not afford the fine,
I departed. The man who drove me to the bus depot said, Tour
name's Young. So's mine. I'm Gordon Young and my brother's
Donald but I don't know from what part of England my ancestors

came.'

The bus took us through the struggling village of Coachella
occupied chiefly by Mexican workers employed in the cultivation
oi dates, grape-fruit, cotton, alfalfa and vegetables. Their houses,
like most of those in the other small towns of the valley, are of
the worst type of slum dwelling, and it is not difficult to under-
stand how in these times, when radio and cinema do so much to
awaken hopes and visions, labour agitators find here a fruitful
ground for their activities.

When we were between forty and fifty miles south of Indio,
the man on my left pointed out a sparkling blue stain on the desert
floor and said There's a mirage. Looks just like water.'

It was water, thirty miles of it, the Salton Sea, lying in the
bottom of a deep depression with its surface 246 feet below sea-
level. At one time the whole of the valley was filled by the ocean,
as is proved by the remains of sharks' teeth, corals, large oysters
and other forms of marine life found all the way from White-
water Canyon to Indio and beyond, sometimes at heights of a
thousand feet above the present level of the Salton Sea. And the
water line, formed when the delta of the Colorado River cut off
the inland section of the valley from the ocean and allowed the
formation of a lake, is clearly visible, as clean as a knife-cut,

Palm Springs

Photo: Ernest Tomg

The desert floor, Palm Springs

Wind-drifted sand on the lee side of bushes, Palm Springs

Photo: Ernest Toung

Whitewater Canyon

The oldest house in San Diego

Pfote Ernest Tomg

FhcU: Ernest Tototf

Serra Museum oa Presidio Hill, San Diego

Lajolla

Photo: Ernest Tomg

The Pacific Ocean

Photo: Bnusl Tovng

FROM THE DESERT TO THE OCEAN 289

along the side of the mountains to the right of the road. Another
conspicuous reminder of this epoch is a small hillock of granite
coated in its lower half by travertine when it was an island in
the lake.

This prehistoric lake expanded until its waters spilled over
the barrier into the Gulf of California. In time it evaporated and,
for ages* the Salton Sea held nothing but a crusty bed of salt.
In 1905, however, the Colorado River overflowed into it and
created a new fresh water lake 45 miles long and 83 feet deep.
Two years went by before the flood was brought under control.
The lake that was then left behind is the Salton Sea, smaller now
than it was and, because it has no outlet, no longer fresh but salt,
twice as salt as the ocean. It is now being re-freshened and en-
larged by an inflow of irrigation water: when its area reaches
about 200 square miles the gain from the irrigation water may
balance the loss by evaporation.

Soon after passing Kane Springs, the oldest known water-hole
in the Colorado Desert, the scene changed. Desert gave way to
field, creosote and mesquite to grass and trees. We were in the
Imperial Valley, part of the trough which runs south from the
Salton Sea into Mexico. Hundreds of cattle and sheep were feed-
ing; bales of alfalfa, like stacks of huge bricks, were piled high
for transport; acres of lettuce and sugar-beets, cotton and melons
covered a plain, verdant as far as the eye could reach. Yet the
rainfall in this area of abounding fertility seldom exceeds three
inches a year, often no more than one.

The water comes from the Colorado River where enough water
is impounded by Boulder Dam to supply the valley for five years,
even though not a drop of rain or a flake of snow should fall on
the Colorado watershed in that time. The sun is practically as
stable as the water for it does not fail for more than twenty days
in a year. You can be sure that any resident in Imperial Valley
will tell you, if you ask him, and sooner or later will tell you,
whether you ask him or not, that you are in the presence of the
greatest irrigation enterprise in the New World. If it were not
for the irrigation ditches, on whose edges rise tall lines of sugar-
cane, there would be nothing in the landscape to remind one of
the fate of those who pioneered this region with a faith and a

290 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

courage which never failed, no matter how many bones of man
and beast lay bleaching in the sun to tell the story of past hopes
and failures.

I came to earth at El Centro, 52 feet below sea-level, in the
heart of one of the dryest and hottest areas in the United States.
Of these conditions there is little evidence, so far as flower gar-
dens, trees and parks are concerned, but the arcaded side-walks
and the air chambers under the roofs of marly of the houses give
an inkling of summer heat and made me feel glad my visit was
in the season called winter.

The heat has been responsible for something more serious than
personal discomfort. 'The Yankee field hand shied away from
an area where a summer temperature of 125 F. was not unusual.
The Mexicans who came in were accustomed to the peonage
system and had a very low standard of living; at first they were
glad to get any kind of work for almost any rate of pay and ex-
pected nothing in the way of living accommodation. They camped
along the irrigation ditches, and cooked with and drank the mud-
laden irrigation waters. After the war they were joined by Filip-
inos, Hindus, Japanese and Negroes. The great Middle Western
drought caused an influx of dust-bowl farmers, turned nomad
with their families: they had been blown out of the only jobs they
knew how to do and had turned to the new agricultural El Dorado.
But there were no farms for them here and they became day-
labourers on the factory farms. And they were less tractable than
the older class of Imperial Valley migrants. Before long the
labour unrest that was sweeping the country went below sea-level
and even the non-English-speaking peoples were infected. Heat,
non-resident ownership, the economic depression, labour organ-
isers, and money obligations contracted in pre-depression days,
went into the brew that was soon bubbling madly. * In 1930
strikes began: in 1934 a strike of 8,000 lettuce-pickers resulted
in bloodshed when the police attempted to break up picket lines.

As I left El Centro before the sun rose there was not light
enough to see the country-side distinctly but it was evidently still
irrigated and green. Shortly after dawn, which arrived in a

* California. The American Guide Series.

FROM THE DESERT TO THE OCEAN 291

chariot of flame, we entered the foot-hills of the mountains shut-
ting off the Colorado Desert from the sea. We left the fields of
green lettuce, blue flax and silver cantaloupes, the thousands of
dairy cattle and sheep, and rose into the dry brush-covered moun-
tains.

Near the .bottom were many examples of desert vegetation,
chiefly creosote, ironwood and ocotilla. The ocotilla, also called
Jacob's Staff, or candlewood, is often mistaken for a cactus on
account of its thorns. The stem is very short and often completely
buried. From it rise a number of tall, light, whip-like, thorn-
covered branches, eight to twelve feet long, which look as though
they had been carefully arranged in a vase. In the spring elongat 8
ed clusters of cardinal red flowers appear at their free ends. The
long, thorny branches are occasionally used by the Indians and
ranchers in the making of fences. When they take root and flower
they form novel and attractive barriers, much cheaper than barbed
wire and much more barbed. The stem contains a resin which
burns with a bright flame: the Indians sometimes light the ends
of dead stems and use them as candles or torches.

Amongst the hills are numerous gullies and dry washes eroded
by occasional heavy summer rains. 'Watch for rocks on the pave-
ment', that is, on the paved road, said a notice. The mystery to
me was how the rocks managed to stay on the slopes: apparently
they were ready to cast their gigantic bulk to earth at the slightest
touch.

By many curves we made the ascent of the Inkopah Gorge, a
rocky sterile gap, just wide enough for the road and the bed of
the river. Later our way lay through the Carrizo Gorge, eleven
miles of granite walls spectacular in form and light in colour.
High above us on a winding narrow shelf a branch of the Southern
Pacific Railway trailed its serpentine way through the mountains.

We pushed on into the Cleveland National Forest which covers
more than a quarter of a million acres of mountainous land in
the Santa Anna, Palomar, Cuyamaca and Laguna ranges with
pine, spruce, fir, cedir, oak and elm. At Laguna we reached what
I think is the highest point on this road, a little over four thou-
sand feet*

Thence we descended rapidly through grapes, oranges and

292 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

lemons, as far as the outskirts of San Diego where I saw the
galloping sea-horses tossing their snowy, sunlit manes, inhaled
the unmistakable salt smell of the ocean and completed an ex-
cursion of close upon ten thousand miles from the eastern edge
of the Atlantic to the eastern edge of the Pacific and had never
once set foot in a train since I left the one mentioned in the first
line of this book.

CHAPTER XXVI

SAN DIEGO

THE natural setting of San Diego is full of interest. Seen from
the sea it presents the vast sweep of an amphitheatre rimmed by
foothills and backed by high mountains. Examined in detail it
is found to consist of a number of small mesas or tablelands
divided by steep-sided canyons. On the north side the mesas end
in a sharp steep drop of from two hundred to four hundred feet.

The terrain is not naturally fertile. The mesas are covered
with a deposit filled with cobble stones lying on the top of a clay
layer so tenacious that neither water nor roots penetrate it with
ease. The natural vegetation is sparse: the palms, eucalyptus,
bananas, acacias, pepper trees and other plants which line the
streets and adorn the gardens are all importations and dependent
on irrigation.

On the water-side is a magnificent harbour (Fig. 39) one of

Fig. 39. San Diego

294 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

the ten great harbours of the world, big enough to shelter, as they
say, all the fleets of the world at one time. It is almost landlocked
by the high, seven-mile long promontory of Point Lorna, an island
called North Island and a narrow spit of sand, Silver Strand, ten
miles long. The entrance is narrow and easily defended.

Into this harbour once flowed the waters of the San Diego
River, but as the river threatened to silt up the harbour, the
enterprising citizens just took it by the scruff of the neck and
forced it to discharge its muddy stream into Mission Bay some
distance farther north.

If I wanted to be unfair to San Diego I could dismiss it by
saying that it is an American city with a water-front: that in some
senses describes it. Its inhabitants would, however, and not un-
justly, be much annoyed at this brevity. They would probably
begin by asking why I was making no reference to its historic past
and would remind me of the discovery of the harbour by Cabrillo,
a Portuguese navigator in the employment of Spain, as far back
as 1542, of the arrival of Portola, a soldier, and of Father Juni-
pero Serra, a priest, to build forts and missions in 1769, of how
the British explorer, Vancouver, brought the first foreign ship
into the bay in 1793 and how the Americans took the city from
the Mexicans in 1846.

All I could do would be to confess that I knew the four-century-
long procession of historic events was crowded with picturesque
figures doing gallant deeds and, at the same time, plead that my
limited space would not permit the story to be told.

They would then inform me that the population of San Diego
had doubled every ten years since 1900 and, as that must be
evidence of something very special about either the people or
the place, it ought to be explained. To which I would reply that
I was in complete agreement with my critics and if they would
give me the explanation I would gladly record it.

With lightness in their hearts and music in their voices they
would at once rejoice about the climate. The climate of San Diego
challenges the rest of the world: there are no thunder-storms,
gales or hurricanes; no damp; no excessive fogs; there is sun-
shine every day in the year; the winters are warm and delightful;
the summers are bracing and cool; the temperature is the most

SAN DIEGO 295

equable known. They would produce so many compelling statist-
ics in support of their assertions that I should be compelled to
believe, except in the matter of sunshine; other official records
show that there are, on the average, nine days in the year, during
the summer, when the sun cannot be seen for fog.

Climate is the chief commodity on sale in San Diego and the
customers are tourists, thousands of retired army, navy and marine
officers, and even more thousands of private individuals all of
whom have taken up residence, chiefly on the mesas climbing
up from the sea, in order to enjoy the privilege of living in almost
perfect climatic conditions.

This influx of the elderly and the leisured, coupled with the
persistence of traditions of easy-going inherited from the Spanish
and the Mexicans, has had influences which are quite apparent
in the streets. People do not hurry and traffic moves less rapidly;
there is a never failing courtesy to the pedestrian on the part of
the motorist, strict observance of traffic signals and no mobs of
loungers idling at street corners. San Diego is one of the few
large American cities where I could cross the main thoroughfare
without remembering the wise-crack that 'the only way to cross
a street alive is to be born on the other side.*

The second influence in the growth of San Diego is the harbour,
which attracted fishermen, real fishermen, who fish for a living,
chiefly Portuguese and Italians. Of the former there are about
5,000 living mostly by themselves in the La Playa section of
Point Loma, once called 'Hide Park', on account of its importance
in the hide and tallow industry of an earlier era. * The Por-
tuguese catch tuna. They own their own fleets, recruit their num-
bers from the Azores and Madeira, maintain their own customs,
and live such an isolated existence that many of them can speak
no language but Portuguese.

There are almost as many Italians as Portuguese and they too
occupy a special section of the city but they take a larger part
in its life. Some of them have held important civic offices.

The safe and spacious harbour attracted also the navy and
other branches of the armed forces of the United States. Many

See Dana, Two Years Before the Mast.

296 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

units of the navy cruisers, destroyers, submarines, tenders
and transports are anchored in Man-o'-War Row, while on land
are an enormous combined army and naval aeronautical base,
one of the world's finest naval stations, a coaling station, aero-
nautical works, flying fields, a superb naval hospital and the
home of the west coast marine corps.

The wages of the soldiers and sailors there are never fewer
than ten thousand of them in port help to support a good many
tradesmen and craftsmen and, as more than half the men are
married, they tend to keep a large number of houses on the rent-
roll. *

Just south of Broadway is a distinct area of hash-shops,
honky-tonky shops, drinking saloons, small dance halls and shoot-
ing galleries where Jack ashore can find what he considers desir-
able amusements, shops where he can buy trinkets, souvenirs and
cheap junk for presents for those at home, and pawn-shops where
he can exchange his property for more money with which to
obtain yet more experience of the joys of life on land.

Perhaps it was my peaceful disposition which made me take
more interest in the giant log-rafts and the 'Star of India' than
in the display of military and naval equipment. The rafts, the
largest in the world, nine hundred feet long and bound with huge
chains, are built of Douglas fir on the Columbia River in Oregon
and then towed a thousand miles down the Pacific coast to San
Diego where they are broken up.

The Star of India', a square-rigged wind-jammer, is an old
timer, reminiscent of the bygone days of sailing ships. It was
launched at Ramsay in the Isle of Man in 1863, and was used
for thirty years to carry emigrants from England to New Zealand.
It claims to be the last full-rigged ship afloat but it no longer goes
to sea. It is now owned by the Zoological Society of San Diego
and is used partly as a museum and partly as the headquarters
of the local Sea Scouts.

* This chapter was written before the United States entered the war. With that
entry the population of San Diego increased immensely, great factories were built
for the manufacture of arms, planes and munitions and many other changes took
place. But all this has not sensibly affected the truth of the greater part of this
chapter.

SAN DIEGO 297

Apart from the water-front two things found a lasting place
in my memory, one old the Old Town, and one new Balboa
Park. In the first I spent one day, in the second two, and if the
reader thinks two days excessive for a park let him wait awhile.

The Old Town, in a section all by itself, is quiet and restful,
in fact sleepy compared with the busy city which was built later
round and near the harbour, but it is not to be neglected by the
intelligent visitor. According to the records Presidio Park, in this
section, is the spot where San Diego was founded and Californian
civilisation began. The year was 1769: Carlos III of Spain,
alarmed by reports of Russian activity along the Californian
coast, sent an expedition to establish settlements. As in most of
such Spanish expeditions, the priest and the soldier went side by
side, if not exactly hand in hand. On the top of Presidio Hill the
soldiers built a fort, the priests erected a church. The soldier
raised the Royal Standard: the priest lifted the Cross and
dedicated the Mission San Diego de Alcala, the first Indian mis-
sion, the mother of all the missions in California. The priest in
this case was Junipero Serra, head of the Spanish Franciscans,
a man already old, bent and weak but of supreme faith and in-
tense energy. The soldier was Portola, another determined and
forceful personality.

Round the fort and the mission a protecting wall was built.
Within the wall, in addition to the chapel and quarters for the
soldiers, were storehouses, the residence of the commandant and
a burial ground. All this I knew from earlier reading. How much
had later comers, aided by the weather, managed to destroy in a
hundred and seventy years?

Most of it, but there are signs of repentance. The site has been
excavated, marked and surrounded by a modern adobe wall. The
outlines of the foundations of the chapel are now clearly visible
and there is no difficulty in tracing, by means of remnants of
wall, the positions of the officers 5 quarters and the soldiers' bar-
racks. On the site of the church is a modern Cross, the Serra
Cross, built of bricks and tiles salvaged from the ruins and erect-
ed on consecrated soil to the memory of the heroic missionary.

On the south-east corner of the compound a new concrete
bastion takes the place of the old look-out. From it there is an

298 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL*

extensive view reaching from Point Loma, San Diego and Mission
Bay eastwards to the mountains and the river valley. Down below
on the flats is the Serra Palm, reputed to be the first palm planted
in California and planted by Serra himself. In order that it may
not suffer death at the hands of souvenir hunters it is protected
by an iron fence. This palm marks the beginning of a trail, now
referred to as El Camino Real, along which the padres passed
north beyond San Francisco establishing missions, whose churches
are the most attractive architectural features of California.

Almost facing the Serra statue is a small, modern museum,
the Serra Museum, white-walled, red-tiled, with deeply set win-
dows and doors containing an interesting collection illustrative
of the early history of California. Fortunately, it has been built
in a style resembling that of the missions and actually adds to
the romantic interest of the site.

Presidio Hill is one of those places where, though the evidences
of the past are mere remnants of brick and mortar, it is yet
possible to grasp the vanished whole. The spot is quiet, still enjoys
the same wide vistas, undesecrated by advertisements or modern
buildings. On a sunny day you may rest under the trees and watch
the procession pass the Indians, 'in body vile, ugly, dirty,
careless, smutty and flat-faced', and 'so ill-mannered that to
secure some fish the missionaries have to pay them with beads,
or corn', says Father Font who kept a diary: the Spanish hooded
priests and steel-capped soldiers: ttie cinnamon-faced Mexicans;
and the Americans all fighters so far as Presidio Hill was
concerned.

At the foot of the hill is the sleepy Old Town with a plaza
where trees hide the original aridity and modern buildings have
replaced many of the old adobe buildings: many of the latter
would, in the absence of proper care, already have been but heaps
of crumbled clay.

On the flats, as on the hill, there is left enough of the old to
give this earliest section of San Diego an aspect far different from
that of its younger offshoot. The first house to be built here, a
tile-roofed square box, has been restored; sundry other adobe
houses like the Casa de Estudillo, its roof supported by heavy
rough-hewn timbers bound together with raw hide thongs; the

SAN DIEGO 299

Whaley House, built with bricks made by the builder himself,
plastered with a plaster made from ground sea shells, and timber-
ed with wood which came round the Horn; a little adobe chapel
which has also been used both as a house and a saloon; all these
Help one to piece together the panorama of the past.

Odd incidents characteristic of early times are recalled:
Cobblestone Jail now in ruins, for instance, housed but one
prisoner and he, during the first night, cut his way out and the
next morning appeared at an early hour in one of the popular
bars. If you take time and lounge about the streets of the Old
Town you cannot very well be lonely and, as everything worth
seeing has its appropriate marker, you cannot easily miss the
things to which the civic authorities desire to call your attention.
How long you stay depends on your interests and your speed:
half a day is not too long: a day gives time for contemplation.

And now for Balboa Park where, as I have said, I spent two
full days. The park, as parks go in the United States, is not so
big, only 14,000 acres, but it is no level tree-adorned sward with
pretty flowers and duck-ponds, but an area of mesas and bare-
walled canyons in parts of which you are very close to virgin
Nature.

The central part of it was the site of two important exhibitions,
each of which left a heritage of permanent buildings of great
architectural beauty in the style of the Spanish Renaissance.
These Jbuildings form a long street of cream-walled, lavishly
decorated surprises with shady arcades set amongst foliage which
represents almost all the limitless range embraced in the vege-
tative kingdom of the South- West.

Amongst the more important buildings are the Natural History
Museum; the Botanical Building containing a wealth of semi-
tropical plants; the California Building, the tower of which has
become symbolic of San Diego, full of priceless exhibits of Ame-
rican art, architecture, history and anthropology; the Fine Arts
Gallery, with its small but magnificent collection Rembrandt,
Hals, Perugino, Luini, El Greco, Van Dyck, Corot; an open-air
theatre; and a replica of the old Globe Theatre for which Shake-
speare wrote.

Most of the buildings are not only open free but all feeling of

300 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

restraint or officialdom is removed by the absence of turnstiles
or of attendants collecting canes and cameras. At the Art Gallery,
which I visited on a day when there was a charge for admission,
I asked the collector of fees 'Don't you want me to leave my
camera?'

'No', he replied, 'You can take as many photographs as you
wish, but come and look first at this new Vandyck which we've
just bought from Lord Amesbury's collection in England.'

1 took my lunch at the House of Hospitality. The barrister-
looking manager greeted me with 'Would you like to lunch in
the open?' And being an Englishman not accustomed to open-air
lunches at the beginning of February I readily accepted the
suggestion, whereupon he added 'We shall be delighted to serve
you: the hostess will find you a seat.' Why are courtesies of this
kind so rare in other cities in other lands, my own included?

The stylishly-dressed lady conducted me to a table under the
shelter of a big coloured umbrella: three Mexicans, in flat, black
felt hats, black velvet coats, scarlet sashes and ties talked to me
with guitars and fiddles; a fountain tinkled a silver accompani-
ment. I chose a salad whose composition sounded delicious
grape-fruit, orange, almonds, avocado and lettuce. As a matter
of fact it was a failure: the grape-fruit and the orange were too
much for the delicacy of 'the almonds and the avocado: the latter
might just as well not have been there, poor thing.

After lunch I wandered over to the out-door organ, the largest
pipe-organ ever built, located in a beautiful amphitheatre, to
listen to an hour's recital in the open air. The organist opened
with 'My Country 'tis of Thee' which has the same tune as 'God
Save the King', so I promptly stood to attention and felt as if
Balboa Park had suddenly been incorporated in the British
Empire.

I had much fun in San Diego but I did not sleep there. I stayed
fourteen miles away in the suburb of La Jolla. Now no one has
ever written about La Jolla without denuding the dictionary of
superlatives. The name, pronounced La Hoya, means the jewel.
The kinds of things people say about La Jolla may be indicated
by an extract from an advertisement The Spanish who named
this little spot knew there was no other place on earth quite like

SAN DIEGO 301

it. The mountains, rolling shores of sandy heaches, rugged cliffs
dotted with fantastically formed caves made by the pounding surf
through the countless years, a climate unsurpassed in all the
world form the facets of 'the jewel*.*

Quiet folk who do not write flamboyant advertisements are
heard to say, with conscious pride, 'La Jolla is the home of people
who have all the world to choose from. 5 So far as the climate is
concerned this is undoubtedly true. There are only two seasons,
spring and summer, each hardly to be distinguished from the
other. The heat is never fierce enough to scorch: it invites, not
repels. Rain rarely falls, though during the month I spent in La
Jolla rain fell on four days in torrents that would have made Noah
feel at home. There was, in my hotel, an old lady, eighty-seven
years of age, bent and very frail who walked always with a stick,
whom I liked to tease. I chose the fourth day of the down-pour
as the occasion for some chaffing remarks about the boasted
Californian winter weather, but she silenced me with 'Sir, the
earth is thirsty. It's raining violets/

While I would not go so far as many Californians in their
assertion that La Jolla is the most beautiful spot in the world, I
am willing to agree that it is the most beautiful town, except one,
on the coast of California. It is that unique thing in the state, an
uncommercialised sea-side resort, without a shade of vulgarity,
where no one tries to sell you articles you do not want, all stores
and other business and professional buildings are grouped to-
gether, the homes of the humble are without shabbiness or
meanness and those of the rich are without ostentation.

The style of building, in complete accord with the Mediter-
ranean type of climate and the bluest water this side Nice, is
Spanish or Italian. Houses are white or cream in colour, roofed
with coloured, overlapping, semi-cylindrical tiles, while interior
patios tend to take the place of the usual front porch of an Ame-
rican house.

La Jolla is cheerful with flowers and sunshine, too quiet to
attract a mob. She is a well-dressed, well-mannered, very pretty
girl and I should not be averse to spending the rest of my life
in her company.

At the same time, being an Englishman, and long since past

302 'THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL'

my youth, I could still feel the pull of deeply-rooted old associa-
tions. Had it not been for Hitler I should have taken the next
boat home. 'At his return home', said James Howell in his
Instructions for Foreign Travel (1642), of any one of those of his
country-men who had wandered far from British shores, 'he will
bless God and love England better ever after for the equality, of
the clime, where there is nowhere the like, take all the seasons
of the year together [he did not know La Jolla] though some

would wish she might be pushed a little nearer the sun My

traveller being safely returned to his mother-soil, he may

very well acquiesce in her lap, and terminate his desires from
travel abroad, but be contented to live and die an islander without
treading any more continents.'
I wonder.

INDEX

Abraham, Heights of, 21, 24
Acadians, 214
1'ADNIER, Christian and

Marianne, 187
Agua Caliente (Cal.), 265
Alma (Wis.), 132
Americanisation, 211
Andreas Canyon (Ariz.), 272, 273
Anticosti Island, 12
Appalachian Mts., 36
Apple River, (111.), 138
ARCENCEAUX, .Louis, 215
Arizona, 252, 260

Desert, 255; 260

Plateau, 256

Arkansas City (Ark.), 173
Armadillo farm, 236
ARNOLD, Benedict, 37
Arrowhead Country (Minn.), 80,

Atchafalaya, River, 212, 213
AUSTIN, Stephen, 226
Avery Island (La.), 217

Bacchus Island, 14

Bad Axe, River, 134

Ball Club, Lake, (Minn.), 108

Banning (Cal.), 261

Barn Bluff (Minn.), 127, 128

Baton Rouge (La.), 162, 175

Bayou La Fourche (La.), 211,

212

Beaumont (Tex.), 223
Belle Isle, Strait of, 12
Bemidji (Minn.), 103

Lake, 103

Bigelow cholla, 271
Biloxi (Miss.), 184-186
Bisbee (Ariz.), 254, 255

BLACK HAWK, 140

State Park (111.), 140,

141

BLONDIN, Charles, 59
Boerae (Tex.), 234
Brainerd (Minn.), 113
Brighton (Ontario), 49
Brockville (Ontario), 45
BUNYAN, Paul, 103
Burwood (La.), 180, 181

Cabezon (Cal.), 276

Cacti, 238, 255, 267, 271, 278

279

Cairo (III), 167
Caledonia (Minn.), 135
California, 260

Gulf of, 289

Canoeing, 42

Cape Girardeau (Mo.), 166, 171

Carlsbad (N.M.), 239

Caverns, 239^-242

Carondelet canal (La.), 194
Carrizo Gorge (Cal.), 291
CARROLL, Charles, 37
CARTIER, Jacques, 12, 13, 21, 31,

34-36,42
Cass, Lake, (Minn.), 106, 107,

108
Cats, Isle of (Gulf of Mexico),

190
CHAMPLAIN, Samuel, 22, 24, 31,

65,66

Charles, Lake, (La.), 223
Chickasaw Bluff, on the Missis-
sippi, 170

Cbino Canyon (Ariz.), 275, 276
Chippewa National Forest

(Minft.), 107

INDEX

Chocolate Mts. (Cal.), 261
CHOMEDT, Paul de, 36
Cleveland National Forest (CaL),

291
Coachella (Cal.), 288

valley, 261, 284

Coburg, (Ontario), 49
Cohasset (Minn.), HO
COLCORD, Henry, 59
Colorado Desert, 260261, 267,

273, 289

River, 260, 285, 289

Columbus (Ken.), 170
Comfort (Tex.), 236
Corn Belt, 135, 136, 148
Cornishmen in U.S.A., 137
Copper smelling, 253
Cotton Belt, 171
Cottonwood trees, 275
Coulee Region, 133
Crabbing, 190
Creoles, 196
Creosote, 267
Crowley (La.), 222
CUBBACE, George, 137
Cuyamaca Mts. (Cal.), 291

Dairy fanning (Canada), 30
Date palms, 286287
Davenport (ML), 139
DAVIS, Jefferson, 187
Des Allemands (La.), 209
DE SOTO, Fernando, 170
Diamond Point (Mississippi

River), 105

DORCHESTER, Lord, 51
Douglas (Ariz.), 253
Douglas Lodge (Minn.), 96
DOUSMAN, Col. Hercules, 134
Dubuque (111.), 137
Duluth (Minn.), 79, 8386

Eagle Bluff (Wis.), 132

Earl Gray Terrace (Quebec), 24

East Moline (111.), 139
Edwards Plateau (Tex.), 235, 236
Eerie, Lake, 57
Egypt (111.), 167
El Centro (Cal.), 290
El Paso (Tex.), 242244
Elk, Lake, (Minn.), 99
Eveleth (Minn.), 88

Farm buildings in Iowa, 136
Farms, French Canadian, 15
Father Point, 13
Federal Barge Line (Mississippi

River), 156
FERBER, Edna, 152
Floods on the Mississippi, 132,

163166

Flour milling, 120122
Forest fires, 81
Forest Park (Mo.), 153
Fort Hope (Ontario), 50
Fort Madison (la.), 145
Fort Pike (La.), 193
FortJRipley (Minn.), 113
Fort SneUing (Minn.), 124
Fort Stockton (Tex.), 238
Fort William (Ontario), 77
Fort York (Toronto), 51, 52
Fountain City (Wis.), 132
FRANKLIN, Benjamin, 37
FRANKLIN, Sir John, 66
Franklin (La.), 213
French Canadian farms, 15
Frog dinners, 222
FRONTENAC, Count de, 47
Frontenac (Minn.), 129
Fur trade, 23, 203

Galena (III), 137
Galveston (Tex.), 224, 236
Genoa (Wis.), 134
Georgian Bay (Ontario), 64
Goat Island, (Niagara Falls) 58,
62

INDEX

Goat raising, 236
Grain storehouses, 77
Grandad Bluff (Wis.), 133
Grand Marais (Minn.), 82, 86
Grand Rapids (Mississippi

River), 112
Granite deposits in Minnesota,

115

Granite Pass (Ariz.), 259
GRAVELET, Jean Frangois, 59
Greenville (Miss.), 173
Guadalupe Mts., 238, 242
Gulf of Mexico, 177, 181
Gulfport (Miss.), 187
HALL, Dick Wick, 259
Hamburgers, 110
Hannibal (Mo.), 145148
Hassayampa, River, 258
Hastings (Minn.), 127
HAYNES, Captain Robert, 172
Helena (Ark.), 173
Hibbing (Minn.), 87, 89, 92, 93
Historic Sites and Monuments

Board (Canada), 17
Hochelaga, 34, 35
Horse Shoe Fall (Niagara Falls)

57,62

Houston (Tex.), 224, 225
Huron, Lake, 64, 71, 75

d'lBERVlLLE, Pierre and Jean
Baptiste le Moyne, 183, 203

Illinois, 137

Imperial Valley (Cal), 261, 289

Indian reservation (Cal.), 265

Indian Rock (Wis.), 132

Indian Wells (Cal.), 284

Indians, in U.S.A., 107

Indio (Cal.), 284288

Ingram (Tex.), 237

Inkopah Gorge (Cal.), 291

Inner Harbour Navigation Canal
(La.), 202

Iowa, 135

Iowa, River, 145

Iron mines (U.S.A.), 83, 87,

8992

Iroquois, 36, 65
living, Lake (Minn.), 103
Itasca, Lake (Minn.), 95, 99

State Park, 9698

Izaak Walton Park (Wis.), 131

Jeanerette (La.), 213
Johnstown (Ontario), 44
Juarez ( Mexico), -244r-247
Jungle Garden, 218220

Kagawong (Ontario), 73
Kane Springs (Cal.), 289
Kentucky, 168
Keokuk (la.), 145
Kilkenny Mountains (Ontario), 71
Killarney (Ontario), 71
Kingston (Jamaica), 48
Kingston (Ontario), 44, 46, 47, 48

LABICHE, Emmdine, 215
Lachine Rapids (St. Lawrence),

36,42

La Cloche, Island, (Ontario), 73
La Crosse (Wis.), 132, 133
Lafayette (La.), 221
Laguna Mts., (Cal.), 261, 291
La Jolla (Cal.), 300, 301
Lake City (Minn.), 130
Lake of the Woods, 93
LA SALLE, Robert Cavelier de, 203
Laurentian Mts., 36
LA VERENDRYE, 31
LINCOLN, Abraham, 187
Lindbergh State Park, (Minn.),

114

Little Current (Ontario), 73
Little Falls (Mississippi River),

114

London (Ontario), 51
Louisiana, 209

INDEX

ducks, 143

Lumber trade, 32, 78

McDouGALL, Hon. William, 72
MclLHENNY, Edward Avery,

218220
Maiden Rock (Mississippi River)

129, 130

Manitoulin, Island, 72, 73
Manitowaning (Ontario), 72
MATTHEWS, Captain, 142
Memphis (Tenn.), 170, 171
MENARD, Captain, 170
Mesabi Range (Minn.), 90
Mesquite, 250
Midland (Ontario), 64
Minneapolis (Minn.), 117120,

124, 125
Minnesota, 80, 81, 95

trees of, 113

Point, 84

River, 125

Mission Bay (CaL), 294
Mississippi Barge Line, 157

Palisades State Park (111.),

138

River, 103182

9 fishing in, 143

flooding, 132, 163

166

162

navigation, 162 164
, source, 95, 99, 100
, tow boats on, 160

, upper course, 124

Missouri, 148
MITCHELL, John, 92
Mohave Desert, 260
Mohawks, 22
Moline (111.), 139
MONTCALM, General, 23
Montmorency (Quebec), 15
Montreal (Quebec), 34r-41
, old, 36

, places in, Bonnesecour

Market, 39
, Chateau de Ramezay,

, Dominion Square, 40

-, Fort des Messieurs,

- Hotel Windsor 34

, McGill University, 40

9 Sulpician Seminary,

, Westmount, 38

Morgan City (La.), 212, 213

Motels, 44

Mound Builders, 134

Mount McKay (Ontario), 77, 78

Mount Royal (Quebec), 36

Mountain Home (Tex.), 237

Muscatine (la.), 142

Natchez (Miss.), 175

National Parks Bureau (Canada),

17
Navigation on the Mississippi,

162164

Negroes in U.S.A., 119
New Iberia (La.), 213
New Mexico, 249
New Orleans (La.), 176, 177, 179,

194208, 212

, levees in, 204

, places in, Cabildo, 199

Canal Street, 196,

199, 200

198
196

199

Charles Street, 198
Chartres Street, 198
Court of Two Lions,

Esplanade Avenue,
Jackson Square, 194,
Place d'Armes, 196,

INDEX

199

Presbytery, 199
Rampart Street, 196
Royal Street, 198
St. Louis Cathedral,

Toulouse Street, 198
Vieux Carre, 196, 197

-, River, 238

restaurants, 206208

Newsprint industry (Canada) 32
Niagara Falls, 5662

Peninsula, 63

River, 55, 56, 58

NICOLET, Jean, 31
Nome (Tex.), 224
North Island (Cal.), 294

Ocean Springs (Miss.), 183
Ocotilla (Jacob's Staff or candle-
wood), 291
Odessa (Ontario), 49
Ohio, River, 167, 168
Oil, 223, 224
jib way Indians, 75
Oko, River, 162

Oliver Iron Mining Co., 89, 92
OLIVIER, Andre A., 216
Ontario, 30, 43, 44

, Lake, 43

Orange (Tex.) 223
Orleans, Island, 1320
Ottawa (Ontario), 44

Indians, 72

Owen Sound (Ontario), 6670
Oyster canning, 185

Palisade Head (Minn.), 83
Palm Canyon (Ariz.), 274
Palm Springs (Cal.), 261283,

285, 286

PalomarMts. (Cal.), 291
Paper mills (Canada), 78
Pass Christian (Miss.), 187193
Pearl, River, 193
Pecos (Tex.). 238

Pelican reef (Miss.), 190
Penetanguishene (Ontario), 65, 66
Pepin, Lake, 129
Pepper, 217
Petrol, 224
Phoenix (Ariz.), 256
Picacho (Ariz.), 255
Pigeon, River, 80, 81, 93
PIKE, Col. Zebulon, 128
Pillage Bay (Newfoundland), 13
Pilot Town (La.), 180
Point Loma (Cal.), 294
Pontchartrain, Lake, (La.), 187,

193, 194

Port Arthur (Ontario), 77
Pottawattamie, River, 66
Prairie du Chien (Wis.), 134, 135
Prescott (Ontario), 45
Pretzel Island (Minn.), 127

Quebec, 13, 25

liquor laws, 41

, places in, Avenue des
Braves, 28

, Champlain Square, 23

-, Chateau Frontenac,

23
^ Little Champlain

Street, 23

, Notre Dame, 22

-, Place d'Armes, 23

-, St. Matthew's Church,

, Sous le Cap Street, 22

Queenston (Ontario), 55, 56

Ranches, dude, 259

Rattlesnakes, 272

Rayne (La.), 222

Red, River, 173

Red Wing (Minn.), 127, 128

Rice, 221, 222

, wild, 109

INDEX

Rio Grande, 244, 248
Riverview Park (Mo.), 147
Riviere Beaudette (Quebec), 43
Rock Islands (111.), 139
Rock, River, 139
Roosevelt Bam (Ariz.) 256
Rosenberg (Tex.), 225
Rouge, Cap, 21
Rouge Hills (Ontario), 50
Rug making, 29

Sabine, River, 223
Saguenay, River, 13
St. Anthony, Falls, (Mississippi
River Minn.), 117, 120, 124

Charles, River, 21

Cloud (Minn.), 114, 115

Davids (Ariz.), 254

David's Gorge (Niagara

, Falls), 59

Frangois, (I. of Orleans),

15,19
St Jean (I. of Orleans), 15, 19

Laurent (L of Orleans),

15, 16

Lawrence, Bay, 13

, River, 21, 22, 27, 55

9 estuary, 12

Louis (Mo.), 149157, 159

places in, Old Rock

House, 153

9 Washington

Avenue, 153
Louis, Bay of (Gulf of

Mexico), 193
- Louis, River, 84, 93
Martinville (La.), 213 216

Mary's River, 74, 75

Maurice, River, 31

Paul (Minn.), 117, 125

Pierre (I. of Orleans),

15,20

Ste. Famille (I. of Orleans), 15, 20
Petroville (I. of Orleans), 15

Salome (Ariz.), 259
Salt flats (Tex.), 242

mining, 217

Salt River Valley (Ariz.), 256
Salton Sea (Cal.), 284, 288, 289
San Antonio (Tex.), 225232

, missions in, Concep-

cion, 231

-, San Francisco
de la Espada, 229

, San Jose, 230

9 San Juan

Capistrano, 229

, places in, Alamo, 226,

227

za, 226,

-, Hayrnarket Pla-

, Spanish Gover-

nor's Palace, 227

-, River, 229, 230

260

Bernardino Desert (Cal.),

Mts., 261

Diego (Cal.), 292300

, harbour, 293 295

, places in, Balboa Park,

297, 299300

-, Cobblestone

-, Old Town, 297,
-, Presidio Park,

Jail, 299

298, 299

297, 298

-, River, 294

Gorgonio Mts. (Ariz.), 276
Pass (CaL), 261, 271,

276, 284

Jacinto Mts. (Cal.),

261, 262, 269, 276
Santa Anna Mts. (Cal), 291

Rosa Mts. (CaL), 261

Ysidro Mts. (CaL), 261

Sault Sainte Marie (Ontario)

74, 76

INDEX

Savanna (111.), 138

SAXBY, V., 85

SCHOOLCRAFT, Henry, 100

Schulenberg (Tex.), 225

ScOLLER, Urbici, 243

SCOTT, Major Thomas, 25

SERRA, Junipero, 297

Serra Palm, 298

Shields Date Garden (CaL), 286

Show Boat, 151156

Shrimping, 185

Signal Peak (Tex,), 242

Silver Strand (CaL), 294

SiMCOE, John Graves, 51

Simcoe, Lake, 51

Skunk, River, 145

SMITH, Captain, 159

Snow Creek Canyon (Ariz.), 277

Sonoran Desert, 260

Soo Canals, 76

Soulanges Canal, 43

Square Handkerchief Shoals (Gulf

of Mexico), 187, 190
Stadacona (Quebec), 21
Star of India, windjammer, 296
STRICKLAND, Agnes, 20
Sugar, 211
Superior, Lake, 75, 76, 81

National Forest, 82

Sydenham, River, 66, 69

Tahquitz Canyon (Ariz.), 269

271

Teche, River, 213
Telegraph reef (Miss.), 190
Temperance, River, 83
Tennessee, 169
Terrapin Point (Niagara Falls),

57
Texas, 223, 226, 227, 243

Desert, 238239, 242

Hill Country, 234

Thessalon (Ontario), 74

Thousand Isles (St. Lawrence

River), 45

Three Rivers (Quebec) 31
, places in, St Antoine

monastery, 32

, Ursuline con-
vent, 32
Three Sisters Island (Niagara

Falls), 62

Thunder Bay (L. Superior), 77
Tombstone, (Ariz.), 254, 255
Toronto (Ontario) 5053, 63

, places in, Bay Street, 64

, Royal Canadian

Yacht Club, 52

, Royal York Hotel, 52

9 Yonge Street, 64

Tow boats on the Mississippi,

160162
Trans-Pecos Highlands (Tex.),

238

Tucson (Ariz.), 255
TWAIN, Mark, 146148
Two Harbours (Minn.), 83

United Empire Loyalists, 43, 50
Universities in U.S.A., 123

Vicksburg (Miss,), 174, 175
Victory (Wis.), 134

Wabasha (Minn.), 130
WALKER, Horatio, 20
Washington Palms (Ariz.), 273
Waveland (Miss.), 188
Weimar (Tex.), 225
WEST, James, 142
Wheat, 121
Whirlpool Rapids (Niagara Falls),

WHITE, Jim, 239
Whitewater Canyon (Ariz,), 277
Wickenburg (Ariz.), 258
WINDSOR, Duke of, 76

INDEX

Winnebago Indians, 133 Wolfe, River 190

Winnesheik Botoms, 131 Wolfe's Cove (Quebec), 24

Winnibigoshish, Lake, (Minn.), WoosTER, General, 37

107

Winona (Minn.), 130, 131 Yazoo, River, 175

Wisconsin Point, 84 Yuccas, 251, 279

WOLFE, General, 17, 23 ' Yuma (Ariz.), 259

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