BB
•BB
University of California • Berkeley
A SUMMER'S OUTING
AND
THE OLD MAN'S STORY
BY
CARTER H. HARRISON.
CHICAGO :
DIBBLE PUBLISHING CO.
1891.
COPYRIGHTED BY
DIBBLE PUBLISHING CO
1891
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
G. M. D. LIBBY
PRINTER AND ELECTROTYPER
CHICAGO
PREFACE.
" A Summer's Outing " comprises letters has-
tily written while the writer was on the wing.
Being printed in the CHICAGO TRIBUNE they
weie favorably received by many friends,, who
have urged their being published in book form,
as a thing now needed by would-be tourists to
the Yellowstone National Park and to Alaska.
To this end they were revised and somewhat
enlarged. If the little book be of little value,
the apology is offered that it will be, too, of little
cost.
" The Old Man's Story " is thrown in as fill-
ing between two covers, and need not be read
except by those who find an idle hour hard to
dispose of.
CARTER H. HARRISON.
231 Ashland Boulevard,
Chicago, May 6th, 1891.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
The Writer Indulges in Fancies 9
LETTER I.
A Run Through Pretty Wisconsin and Minnesota —
Beautiful St. Paul — Jealousy Between Twin Cities —
An Indignant St. Paul Democrat and a Careless
Seattle Man — Dakota and the Dirty Missouri River
— A Dissertation on Waste of Land and Destruc-
tion of Trees — The Bad Lands — The Yellowstone
River — Gateway to National Park and its Guar-
dian Eagle , 15
LETTER II.
The National Park, " The Wonderland of the Globe"—
The Home of the Evil One — Steam Vents— Geys-
ers—The Grotto— The Giant — The Bee-Hive—
The Castle and Old Faithful in the Upper Geyser
Basin 27
LETTER III.
Mammoth Hot Springs — A Wonderful Formation — The
White Elephant — A Theory Accounting for the
Hot Springs and Geysers — Mud Geysers — Marvel-
ous Colorings of Some Pools 45
5
6 TABLE OF CONTENTS.
LETTER IV.
How to do the Park — Hotels and Vehicles — My Inno-
cents— Charming Scenery — Natural Meadows — Wild
Animals — Beautiful Flowers — Debts to the Devil-
Camp Life and Fishing — Wonderful Canyon —
Painted Rocks — Glorious Waterfalls — Nature Gro-
tesque and Beautiful 59
LETTER V.
We Leave the Park Satisfied— Helena— Its Gold Bear-
ing Foundations — Broadwater — A Magnificent Nat-
atoriurn — A Wild Ride Through Town — Crossing
the Rockies — Spokane — A Busy Town — Midnight
Picnic — Fine Agricultural Country — Sage Bush a
Blessing — Picturesque Run Over the Cascades —
Acres of Malt Liquors — Tacoma — A Startling-
Vision of Mt. Renier (Tacoma) — Washington, a
Great State... ...82
LETTER VI.
Thriving and Picturesque Seattle — Two Curious Meet-
ings— Victoria and its Flowers — Esquimault and the
Warspite — Two Broken Hearted Girls — Charming
Sail on the Island Sea — Picturesque Mountains —
Growth of Alaska — Whales and their Sports — Na-
tive Alaskans — Their Homes, Habits, Food, Feasts
and Wild Music — Baskets and Blankets — Salmon
Fisheries — Mines and Dogs 102
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 7
LETTER VII.
Steaming up the Ice-Packed Fiords and Channels of the
Arctic Country owned by Uncle Sam — Salmon Can-
neries— Canoe Building by Natives — Ascent of the
" Muir" Glacier, an Ice Cliff 300 Feet High — Fan-
tastic Ice Formations at Takou — Summer and Win-
ter Climates — - Impudent Crows and Oratorical
Ravens 134
LETTER VIII.
Vancouver — A Picturesque, Growing City — A Run over
the Canadian Pacific — Magnificent Scenery met with
from the Start — A Glorious Ride — Fraser River
Glutted with Salmon — A Never-Tiring View from
Glacier House, Four Thousand Feet above the Sea
— Rugged, Precipitous Grandeur of the Selkirks and
Rockies — Natural Beauties of Banff — Reflections at
the "Soo."' 162
CHAPTER IX.
The St. Mary's River — Charming Scenery — The Locality
for Summer Homes — An Episode — Mackinaw —
Grand Rapids, a Beautiful City 196
PART II.
"THE OLD MAN'S STORY."
The Secret of the Big Rock 203
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
CARTER H. HARRISON, (Frontispiece.)
TERRACE, MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS Page 16
THE GIANT, UPPER GEYSER BASIN " 32
JUPITER TERRACE, MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS.... " 48
MAP ILLUSTRATING GEYSER ACTIONS " 54
THE GROTTO, UPPER GEYSER BASIN " 64
THE BISCUIT BOWL, UPPER BASIN " 80
OLD FAITHFUL " 9°
GRAND CANYON... " 112
8
INTRODUCTION.
THE WRITER INDULGES IN FANCIES.
The summer outing is a fad — a necessity of
fashion. Reigning beauty bares its brow on
ocean waves and climbs mountain heig'hts, court-
ing sun-kisses. Jaunty sailor hats and narrow
visored caps are donned, that the amber burning
of the summer's excursion may be displayed at
early assemblies of heraldic Four Hundred.
Anglo-mania has taught at least one good les-
son— that the russet cheek of romping health is
more kiss-tempting than the rose-in-cream of
beauty lolling on downy cushions. Blite closes
its massive doors and draws down front window
shades ; Paterfamilias sweats in his struggle to
force a balance to the credit side, and mothers
and daughters sit at back windows in glare of
sunlight, wooing sun-beams, while notices of
u Out of town" are already placarded on front
stoops.
The summer outing is urged by honest doc-
tors, with the admission that change of air and
scene is oftentimes worth more than all the nos-
trums doled out over apothecaries' counters.
Motion is nature's first inexorable law. A tiny
drop of water is pressed between two plates of
glass, apparently rendering the slightest motion
impossible. The microscope fills it with scores
IO INTRODUCTION.
or hundreds of beings full of life and energy,
disporting in pleasure or waging deadly battle.
Around us and about us nothing is still. The
grasses grow in refreshing green and spring be-
neath the feet, but ere the wane of day, wither
and crackle under the tread. Flowers bloom in
beauty and within the hour fade in ugliness.
The rock ribs of earth expand and contract
under tidal commands of sun and moon, and
continents lift from, or are sinking beneath
briny oceans.
The gleaming sun, so rounded in glowing
calmness as he gently circles across the vaulted
sky, is a raging mass of countless millions boil-
ing, dashing, burning jets, in anyone of which
fiery Vesuvius would be lost as a dim spark.
Myriads of starry spheres flecking the midnight
sky, are mighty suns tortured by inconceivable
convulsions. Far off beyond them the telescopic
lens dips up from limitless space countless suns,
all boiling, roaring and raging in unending,
monstrous motion.
Motion evolves change. Change goes on
everywhere, declares science! Change, cries
orthodoxy, is universal save in One — the ever-
lasting, unchangeable maker of all things!
Orthodoxy tells us that man — man the soul
— , was made in God's image and was by him
pronounced good. The "good" in God's eye must
INTRODUCTION. II
be perfect. We know that man — the soul man —
grows — the perfect therefore grows and perfection
becomes more perfect. A Paradox ! So is that
mathematical truth that two parallel lines drawn
towards infinity, meet.
The deathless soul emanates from God.
Is the question irreverent? May not the
Eternal who started then and keeps all things
moving and growing — may not He grow in per-
fection ? May not the Omnipotent become more
potent, the Omniscient wiser ? Being given to
digression, I give this in advance to save the
reader one later on.
In obedience to fashion's and nature's law, I
would put myself in motion and would seek
change. I will take an " outing " in this sum-
mer of A. D. 1890.
My daughter, a school girl, will go with me.
The old and those growing old, should attach to
themselves the young. Old tree trunks in
tropical climes wrap themselves in thrifty grow-
ing vines. The green mantle wards off the sun's
hot rays, and prevents to some extent too rapid
evaporation. Gray-haired grandfathers often-
times delight to promenade with toddling grand-
children. This is good for momentary divertise-
ment, but for steady regimen it is a mistake.
Callow childhood furnishes not to the old, proper
companionship. The unfledged but intense vi-
12 INTRODUCTION.
tality of the one may sap the slow-running cur-
rent of the other, and reduce it to the lower
level — to second childhood. Age should tie to
itself ripening youth. Then heart and spring-
tide is absorbed by the older, and ripe experience
given to the younger in exchange.
We resolve to do the Yellowstone National
Park, by way of the Northern Pacific Railroad,
thence onward to Puget Sound and Alaska to re-
turn by the Canadian Pacific. We hope for
health, pleasure and brain food. I shall write
of our goings and comings, that my friends at
home may through our eyes feel that they are
voyaging with us.
A beautiful or grand scene is doubly enjoyed
when one feels he may through a letter have
hundreds see what he sees and as he sees. They
become his companions and hold sweet com-
munion with him, though thousands of miles
may lie between them. This is sympathy, and
sympathy makes the joy of life. The tete-a-tete
between lovers ''beneath the milk-white thorn
that scents the evening gale," is delicious. But not
more sweet than the communion between the
orator and the mighty audience which he sways
and bends at will. He holds a tete-a tete with
each of his listeners.
Byron swore he " loved not the world, nor the
world him." The bard was self-deceived. He
INTRODUCTION. 13
wrote that he might win the sympathy of mil-
lions. Bayard Taylor told the writer once that he
wrote from an irresistible impulse. His warm,
generous nature yearned for the sympathy of a
reading world. I shall write that a few hundred
may see through my eyes — may feel when my
heart beats, and for a few brief hours may be in
sympathy with me. Some one possibly may
sneer " Cacoethes Scribendi." Catch the retort,
u Honi soit qui Mal-y-pense."
LETTER I.
A RUN THROUGH PRETTY WISCONSIN AND MINNE-
SOTA. BEAUTIFUL ST. PAUL. JEALOUSY BE-
TWEEN TWIN CITIES. AN INDIGNANT ST.
PAUL DEMOCRAT AND A CARELESS SEATTLE
MAN. DAKOTA AND THE DIRTY MISSOURI
RIVER. A DISSERTATION ON WASTE OF LAND
AND DESTRUCTION OF TREES. THE BAD
LANDS. THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER. GATE-
WAY TO NATIONAL PARK AND ITS GUARDIAN
EAGLE.
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, July 17, 1890.
We left Chicago by the Wisconsin Central
Railroad for St. Paul. From the beginning the
run was interesting, especially to one who re-
members what the country was thirty-five years
ago — an almost flat prairie of tangled grass, in
which the water was held as in a morass, prom-
ising but little to the ambitious earth -tiller. I
recall a remark of Senator Douglas when the
future of our flat prairies was being discussed in
my presence thirty-five years ago : " People do
not realize that the drainage problem is being
now daily solved. The leader of a herd of cattle
browsing the prairies, is an engineer, and his
followers faithful laborers in making ditches.
When going to and from their grazing grounds,
they march in line and tread down paths which.
I5
16 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
make no mean drains. The cattle of Illinois are
annually lifting millions of acres out of the
swamp into good arable lands."
As soon as the Des Plaines was crossed, good
farms began, and comfortable farm houses were
always in sight ; oats bent and waved in light
green, and corn stood sturdy in emerald, where
a third of a century ago, even in July, a pedes-
trian was compelled to step from ant-hill to
ant-hill to keep his ankles dry. Copses of
young wood relieved the monotony of too much
flatness, and in a few hours after our start, pretty
lakes shimmered in the sinking sun light, and
sweetly homelike villas were ever in view. We
crossed the Wisconsin line, and hill and vale or
gentle undulations with • wooded heights and
flowing streams, and villages and saw mills en-
livened the journey.
In the distant future when population shall
become abundant, and tasteful homesteads shall
replace somewhat speculative shanties, few coun-
tries of the world will be more pleasingly rural
than southern and middle Wisconsin.
Books should be carried by the tourist in his
trunk, and newspapers should be religiously dis-
carded throughout the run to St. Paul. The
country traversed opens many a pleasing page
during the summer months, and glowing pic-
tures are spread before him on nature's living
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. 17
canvass. He unfortunately loses much when
the curtain of night is drawn over God's own
impartial book : the book which never misleads
if carefully read and studiously digested.
At St. Paul we had some hours to ride about
the pretty town, before boarding the Northern
Pacific railroad for our long journey to Puget's
Sound. This great road has the singular char-
acteristic of having double termini at each end,
and between each of the twins there exists a
feud rarely found except between cities engaged
in actual war with ea*ch other.
Athens and Sparta hated each other not as do
St. Paul and Minneapolis.. Just now, owing to
the taking of the census, there is blood in the
eye of every St. Paulite. An elderly gentleman
introduced himself to me the other day at the
station. After a while he said: " It is a
shame the way the United States is treating St.
Paul. I am a Democrat, sir, and can stand a
little stuffing of the ballot-box, but I draw the
line there. I can't stand the stuffing of the cen-
sus. We are willing to concede to Minneapolis
10,000 more population than we have, but Har-
rison ought to be turned out of office for running
it up to 40,000. It is a fraud, sir — a miserable
Republican fraud. We will be revenged, sir,
and will show our teeth next fall and don't you
forget it." I sympathized with him and felt like
1 8 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
marching to Washington at once to send my
cousin Ben back to Hoosierdom.
In the National Park I saw at four different
hotels the names of Mr. - - Mrs. - - and two
little blanks. There was a bracket after the
names, but the writer had evidently forgotten to
write in the address. The name preceding his
on the first book was from Boston. At the next
place the preceding person was from New York,
and again from some other city. The fourth
day at dinner I was introduced to the head of
the family. He was from Seattle. I asked him
why it was he had not put in his address, declar-
ing I would tell it on him at Tacoma. " Good
Heavens ! " he exclaimed, " have I done that?"
He rushed back to the register and wrote
" Seattle " as big as a John Hancock. The next
time we met in a crowd, I twitted him about the
thing. He then declared he must have left out
the address instinctively from a natural aversion
to being known to come from any spot so close
to Tacoma. Considerable jealousy of St. Paul
on the part of her twin city is natural, for it is a
beautiful town. Its residences on the hills are
very fine, and their locations lovely beyond
those of all but few cities. The entire town was
very clean, and in the hill portion bright and
cheerful. The residences are generally sur-
rounded by considerable grounds, filled with
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. 19
trees and shrubbery, in much variety and in
luxuriant growth. The young girl with me fell
so completely in love with the clean, pretty
place, that she declared, if she ever got married
it would be to a St. Paul man.
The run through Minnesota is as if through
a great park. Everything is green and bright.
Copse, meadow and field are as fresh as a May
morning. The natural location of frequent
wooded clumps, of prairie openings and of lakes,
could hardly be improved by a landscape engi-
neer. We passed the great wheat fields of Da-
kota at night, but I thought there was far less
of barren plain and alkali patches as we ap-
proached the Missouri river, than I saw there
seven years ago.
How different the feelings with which we ap-
proached the Missouri from those experienced as
we drew near the Mississippi ! One cannot get
up a feeling of respect for the tortuous, treach-
erous, muddy, long and snake-like ditch. One
takes off his hat to the Father of Waters, but
feels like kicking, if he had a place to kick, this
lengthy, nasty thing. No one can see any real
use for it, except as a tributary to and feeder of
the Mississippi. It has not and never had a
placid infancy. Several of its upper feeders are
beautiful, clear, rapid, purling streams. But
some of them apparently without rhyme or
20 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
reason suddenly become flowing mud. One
dashes on a train along one and wishes he could
alight to cast a fly for a speckled beauty. The
road takes a turn around a mountain spur, and
lo! the crystal stream has become liquid mud, to
prepare itself, I suppose, for the mucky thing it
will soon join. Possibly and probably, these
transformations are owing to a miner's camp and
a placer washing on the other side of the spur.
North Dakota has not become settled along
the railroad, after quitting the great wheat belt,
as I expected. Farms are very scattered, and
when seen are small and wear an air of neglect.
Yet the native plains are cheerful looking and
roll off in green undulations. The Forest
Commissioners, if there be any, must find some
more hardy species of trees than those now used
to enable them to grow brakes for warding off
the winds and blizzards. The railroad people
have planted many trees, but they do not thrive.
They seem alive about the roots, but dead after
reaching one or two feet. Possibly a blanket of
snow lies about the roots in winter and protects
them ; but the alternation of cold and hot winds
apparently kills the sap as it rises higher up.
Government should inaugurate a thorough
system of arboriculture, inviting and encouraging
a real science.
The Socialists say the Nation should own the
land. To a certain degree the Socialists are
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. 21
right. The fountain of land ownership is in the
Government. It should maintain such owner-
ship to a certain extent throughout all time.
"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness there-
of." Government is and should be the lord of
the domain, and should never part with such con-
trol as may prevent private owners from destroy-
ing the land which is to be the heritage of the
people to the latest generation. It should forbid
and prevent a waste of land. To this end it
should force the husbanding of all resources for
the improvement of that which is to support the
people for all time. No private owner should be
allowed to destroy wantonly that which comes
from mother earth. What comes from the bosom
of the land, and is not essential to feed and
maintain the cultivator, should be given back to
it. A man should be fined who burns manure.
Man should not cut timber to such an extent as
to reduce a necessary rainfall. Commissioners
should determine from scientific data, how much
of forest is necessary in fixed districts of the
country, and when so determined no one should
be permitted to cut a tree without replacing it
by a young one. In the Old World millions of
acres are now worthless which once supported
teeming populations; all because they have been
denuded of trees. Nearly all European countries
as well as India are now, and have been for some
22 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
years, earnestly endeavoring to check this evil.
Commissioners of Forestry, earnest and educated
men, have been appointed. Schools of Forestry
are fostered by the state. The betterment has
been so marked, that the ordinary pleasure seek-
ing traveler sees a wonderful change between
visits separated b}^ twenty or thirty years.
America has countless millions of acres scarcely
capable of supporting a human being, which
could be made to wave in cereals or grow fat in
edible roots, if only trees were grown to induce
a somewhat regular rainfall.
The arid plains of the Great West have the
richest of known soils, if a little human sweat
mixed with water in sufficient quantity could
be kneaded into ft. Government as the lord
paramount of its domain, should force the grow-
ing of trees and should prevent the destruction
of timber wherever the same is necessary to keep
u*p or improve the land. It has parted with the
title to the soil, but still retains the power to use
it for its own support. It levies and collects
taxes from lands as the paramount owner. The
same power exists to prevent the waste of that
from which its taxes spring or through which its
people may live.
" No one is a man," says the Arab maxim,
u until he has planted a tree, dug a well, and
grown a boy." The nation is an aggregation of
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. 23
men and should follow the maxim. The states-
man who devises a good system of taxation is
entitled to the praises of all men, but he is but
a pigmy to the man who turns sterile deserts
into places of plenty, or who make many blades
of grass grow where now only one springs up.
I am ready to bow down before the man who will
maintain and improve the soil of our Eastern
States, or will shower over the West a copious
rainfall.
Bismark was disappointing. It has not im-
proved as could have been expected since we
helped to lay the corner-stone of its Capitol
seven years ago.
BAD LANDS OR " MAUVAJSES TERRES."
The " bad lands " are as God- forsaken in ap-
pearance as they were years since. There the
very earth has been burned and the Evil One
seems to have set his foot-print on every rod.
Men do live in them, but more blessed is he who
dies in genial surroundings ! What a hold
upon us has the love of life ! So short and such
a bauble ! How worthless when robbed, as it
must be in this bleak tract, of every concomitant
of the joyful! Only the All-powerful can re-
claim the soil of the u bad lands," and not until a
cataclysm has carried it 1,000 fathoms beneath
the sea, will it be fitted for sunlight and readjfrto
24 A SUMMERS OUTING.
support life. It has been burned up with the
coals and lignites which underlaid the surface.
After striking the Yellowstone Valley the ride
westward becomes pretty. The mountains are
bold, with fine outlines, often lifting in pictur-
esque precipices from the water's edge. Great
strata of coal are frequently seen stretching in
level parallel lines for considerable distances.
Snow appears in seams and gorges on the
loftiest heights. While not offering as grand
displays as are seen in one or two points of
other across-the-continent roads, the Northern
Pacific presents more varied scenery, and far
more that is pleasing and restful to the eye, than
any other except the Canadian Pacific.
To most travelers much of the scenery of the
Northern Pacific until Helena is reached is mo-
notonous. But to one disposed to be a student
of nature and a lover of its varied forms, many
instructive lessons can be conned from the car
window, and many pleasing pictures hastily en-
joyed. The Yellowstone, along whose banks
the road runs for three hundred and fifty miles,
is a cheerful stream. When first reached it is
muddy, but after the mouths of one or two large
affluents have been passed it becomes clear and
limpid. Its flow is almost constantly rapid and
turbulent. But few still reaches are seen, and
are rarely over a mile or so in length. On
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINCzS. 25
one or the other bank considerable mountains
lift from the water's edge, in lofty, clea.-cut
precipices. The upper slopes have but few
trees and rarely any clumps or masses, but of-
fer much variety in earth coloring. Light
brown, sometimes deepening into chocolate, is
the dominant tone. There are frequent stretches
of yellow, here and there flecked with patches or
bands of Venetian red. This latter sometimes
takes a tint so bright as to merit being called
vermilion.
At Livingston, a thousand and odd miles from
St. Paul, we left the Northern Pacific, and by a
narrow-gauge road continued vip the Yellow-
stone, fifty-one miles to Cinnabar; thence by
Park coaches, wagonettes and surreys, eight
miles along the wildly rushing Gardner river,
and through a narrow defile hemmed in by
lofty precipices beneath frowning crags — the
gateway to the park — to the " Mammoth Hot
Springs." Near the gateway on a lofty pinnacled
rock, so slender as at first to be mistaken for
the trunk of a huge tree, sat an eagle upon its
eyrie, keeping watch and ward over the entrance
to the people's pleasure ground. The bird's
nest is built of loose sticks laid upon the rocky
point, which is not broader than a good-sized
tree stump. How it withstands the dash of
storms, which often rage through the narrow
26 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
pass, is a marvel. Yet it has been there for
many years, and each year sends forth it young
brood. I regret to say this eagle is not the gen-
uine American screamer, which so grandly
spreads its wings upon the daddy's dollar, but is
the great white-headed fish-hawk. He is easily
mistaken for the bald eagle, but is smaller and a
somewhat sociable bird, building his home near
by those of others of his species. The true eagle is
sullen and solitary, and chooses his eyrie many
miles removed from his fellows. Indeed he
spurns all fellowship with his kind.
All tourists delight to look at the "Devils
Slide" in the Gardner canyon. It is from five
to six hundred feet high, a few feet broad, be-
tween thin slate dykes; and as smooth as a tobog-
gan way. As there is no record that the father
of lies was acquainted with sand paper, there is
a peculiar pleasure in imagining the grinding
away of the seat of his trousers, while he was
polishing down his coaching slide. In spite of
what the preachers say, there is no doubt that
man, woman and child hate the devil, and are
delighted by any evidence of annoyance to him.
LETTER II.
THE NATIONAL PARK, "THE WONDERLAND OF
THE GLOBE." THE HOME OF THE EVIL ONE.
STEAM VENTS. GEYSERS. THE GROTTO.
THE GIANT. THE BEE HIVE. THE CASTLE
AND OLD FAITHFUL IN THE UPPER GEYSER
BASIN.
GRAND CANYON,
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, July 22.
American dudes of both sexes wandering
about the world have been sorely perplexed be-
cause Uncle Sam has had no huge ships of war
with which to display his grandeur in foreign
ports, and no embassadorial residences in which
Yankee heels may air themselves to advantage.
When foreigners have, made allusion to our
poverty in this regard, and their own wealth of
splendor, we have been forced to fall back upon
the Yankee's retort, "Yes; but you hain't got
no Niagary." Luckily but few of those who
taunted us were aware that Niagara was simply
located in the United States but did not belong
to it. But now we can throw back at the
effete denizens of other lands " the wonderland
of the globe," — The Yellowstone National Park —
in which there is more of the marvelous sports
of nature than exists in the entire outer world
besides. We can tell them of these wonders, and
27
28 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
can then say that these marvels are the Nation's,
and that this park of over 3,500 square miles is
maintained by the Nation for the people, for
their amusement and recreation. It is to be re-
gretted that more of the surplus which has been
lying idle in the treasury vaults has not been ex-
pended to enable the people to better enjoy their
wealth of wonders. The people may read of
their treasures ; they may see folios of illustra-
tions, but no one can comprehend them without
seeing them ; no pen pictures can bring them
before the eye of one who has not been here ; no
photograph can display their forms and then dye
them in their wondrous colors ; no painter can
spread them upon canvas, for he would at once
be put down as an artistic liar. The simple
truth is an exaggeration, and a precise copy is a
distortion of nature's molds.
THE EVIL SPIRIT'S ABODE.
No wonder the Indians have given this sec-
tion of the country a wide berth, for well might
they believe it the home of the evil spirit. One of
them straying here might wander for days and
never mount an elevated point without being
able to count scores of columns of white steam
lifting above the trees from different points of
the forest, telling him of the wigwams of the
evil one. If he stole along the valleys, he
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 29
would come upon pools of water of crystal clear-
ness tempting in appearance to the thirsty ; some
of them not larger than the blanket which cov-
ered his shoulders, others so large that the
tepees of half his tribe would not cover their
area; some mere jagged holes in the rock, oth-
ers with rims a foot or so in height, and as reg-
ular as his pipe of peace. Here are some a few
inches or a few feet in depth, with bottoms and
sides painted in rainbow tints ; there are others
with deep sunken walls embossed and tufted, and
dyed with the colors of the setting sun, and with
dark throats so deep that they seem to be
yawning from fathomless depths. Here they
are as placid as the eye of the papoose
hanging at the squaw mother's back. Our
Indian pauses at the painted brink of one,
dips his hand into the tempting fluid -
jerks it back quickly, but perhaps not before
it is scalded. There they boil up one, two, three
or more feet and appear as though they would
pour -out a flood from below, but not a drop
passes over the rim of the pool. The boiling
motion is from volumes of steam working its
way through the waters from the bowels of the
earth and spreading upon the breeze. Boiling
water elsewhere wastes itself away, but these pools
boil and boil from year to year, and scarcely
vary perceptibly in height. Our untutored
30 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
tourist turns his eye upon the mountain border-
ing the valley, whose sides are so encrusted with
geyserite deposit that it appears to have
been formed of this material, and to have been
erected by boiling springs ; along its whitened
side and far up on its crest are springs
or vents, from which arise columns of lifting
steam and the mountain seems to roar ; startled,
he hears close to his feet, a gurgling sound such
as comes from an animal whose throat is newly
cut. His eye seeks the spot whence comes this
sound of death. He sees an orifice in the ground
not large enough to take in his body, but from
it comes the death rattle a hundred times louder
than the largest buffalo could make when
pierced about its heart. The Evil Spirit is slay-
ing an animal so huge that if he were on the
ground its tread would shake the earth.
A WONDERFUL PLATEAU.
He climbs over a mountain spur and sees
spread before him a white plateau of several
hundred acres. Jets of steam are pouring from
a thousand points of its surface, some rising only
a few feet, others lifting 500 feet into the air ;
here from fountains boiling merely, or spouting
up to one, two, or more feet; there from simple
vent holes in the nearly level surface of the
plain. Some pour from fantastic forms — great
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 31
stumps of trees with one side torn away ; from
piles of downy cushions ; from great platters of
biscuit, a part as white as dough, others crisp
and brown ; from ruined castles ; from orifices
bordered by mighty, parted, Ethiopian lips of
whitish gray tone or painted red and brown.
One is fashioned like an old time conical straw
bee-hive. So well is the model copied, that no
great stretch of imagination would be required
to enable one to hear the buzz of busy
honey makers swarming aboiit it. Another
is a rude cabin chimney with steam lifting
from its top, in lieu of smoke curling
from a woodman's fire.
He approaches one which might once have
been a grotto, with stalagmites and stalactites
forming its ribs and roof, but the super-
incumbent earth having been removed, the
stony skeleton is laid bare, partly a dozen
or more feet above the ground and partly
sunken below. From its hollow pit comes a
roaring sound not unlike the growl of a lion
when feeding, only of a king of beasts many
fold enlarged. He hears close by it a noise he
takes to be the call of a familiar bird. There is
no bird in sight, but near his feet in the rocky
platform is a small vent he could close with his
thumb ; it is breathing, but its breath is high
heated steam ; its inspiration is a gentle gurgle,
its expiration'is the blue jay's call.
32 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
Its breath comes from deep below, from the
lungs of the monster whose stertorous breathing
is an indication that he is turning over in his
hidden lair ; and as he turns he belches forth a
mouthful of steam and water through the
grotto. He has evidently eaten something dis-
agreeable and is sick in the regions of the maw,
for up comes another and a larger mouthful ;
and then another and more, until he pours out
his very insides in tons of boiling water.
Through every opening of the grotto's frame,
water and steam rush forth in mighty volume.
Thousands of gallons to the minute lift in jets
ten to thirty feet through each opening, and run
in great streams to the crystal river a little way
below. The monster bellows, the vents about
the grotto's base whistle, the water splashes, and
the steam rushes, scalding hot. After a while
— perhaps in twenty or thirty minutes — all flow-
ing ceases, and a column of steam pours out for
perhaps an hour and lifts several hundred feet
into the air.
" THE GIANT " IN ACTION.
While this strange action is being seen, close
by, a rumbling noise is heard in the depths of
u The Giant," 200 or 300 yards away. The
noise increases, not unlike that of an approach-
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 33
ing railroad train, and is soon accompanied by a
discharge of water three or more feet in diameter
at the geyser nozzle, lifted in an almost vertical
column 150 to 200 feet high, all enveloped in a
veil of steam. This pours through the top of a
geyserite formation some ten feet high, and a
dozen or fifteen from out to out — a monster
stump, broken and jagged as if a monarch of
the forest had been snapped off by a mighty
storm blast.
The flood drops all about in spray, veiling
the lifted column, and is of such quantity that
the river nearly seventy-five feet wide, is doubled
in depth when the monster is in action.
Our accidental red tourist has lost his
Indian stoicism, and wishes to see something
more of the Devil's doings. The "Giant" having
become silent, he steals along the white forma-
tion a few hundred yards, when, from a small
hole in the ground, without any warning, up
shoots a beautiful little geyser about twenty feet
high, a perfect spreading jet d'eau, accompanied
by no steam and lasting only perhaps a quarter
of a minute. The action of this little jet over,
every drop of its lifted water flows back into its
mouth and disappears down its throat ; but not
for long, for it again shoots up in four minutes,
and is so regular in its action, that it has been
christened "Young Faithful."
34 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
The plateau here spoken of — "The upper geyser
basin" — is two or more miles long andof irregular
width, probably averaging a third of a mile. It
is all white with encrusted geyserite deposit
often giving out a hollow sound to the tread.
This deposit varies in thickness from a few
inches to several feet. It is grayish white,
resembling tarnished frozen snow.
THE SPLENDID — 2OO FEET HIGH.
But see that noble column spouting 200 feet
high in a somewhat slanting stream not far
from a quarter of a mile away. Close by a smaller
jet shoots obliquely, mingling its spray with the
larger one. The tourist is too far removed to
see the brilliant rainbow formed in the ming-
ling spray. But let him wait some hours and he
may visit it again to witness another active erup-
tion from the "Splendid Geyser," which pours
four times a day from a simple hole in the rock,
and has as yet builded himself no geyserite
nozzle. A short walk brings one to the
"Devil's Punch Bowl," where the old Fiend
takes his nocturnal nip, from a basin a few feet
in diameter, inclosed by an embossed rim a foot
high and as regular as the raised edge of a
Dresden punch bowl, and always boiling and
seething to keep the tipple hot and ready.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 35
In this plateau are hundreds of pools of exquis-
ite colorings, and scores of geysers lifting more or
less regularly and at shorter or longer intervals;
some of the intervals being of hours, others of
days and others still measured only by minutes.
The geysers are all named in accordance with
a supposed resemblance of their formation to
some known thing, or to the character, size or
quality of their eruptions ; "The Queen," "The
King," "The Bee-hive," "The Castle," "The
Princess," "Old Faithful," "The Excelsior,"
"The Splendid" and so on. The pools take their
names generally from the colorings of their rims
or sides, or of the water held in them, as "The
"Emerald," "The Amethyst," "The Sunset,"
"The Rainbow" and "The Morning Glory."
Some of the pools are named from the nature of
their boilings, others from the rock formation in
their throats and about their sides; "The
Biscuit Bowl," "The Snow-ball," "The Spouter."
Many of the names are by no means far fetched.
The "Biscuit Bowl," for example, resembles a
mass of well formed monster breakfast rolls,
some in whitened dough, others in all stages of
brown from the half done to the well baked.
The tourist approaches a flattened cone, with a
base 600 or 800 feet in circumference, and fifty feet
high, surmounted by the ruins of an old castle.
The owner of the" Castle" has been growlingall day
36 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
and emiting an tinsual amount of steam. He is
evidently preparing to erupt, which he does at
intervals of several days. His terrific growlings
increase as the day wears on, and angry spurts
of boiling water accompanied by steam show he
is getting his temper up to white heat. He has
been quiet for an unusual time of late and when
aroused, like Othello, he will be fearfully moved.
He makes a few angry premonitory belches and
bellows. The noise is accompanied by a tremb-
ling of the earth for hundreds of yards. A mass
of water is then ejected from 50 to 100 feet up,
mixed with steam in dense mass. The flow of
water is of short duration; but is of thousands of
tons, and is followed by an emission of steam
large enough to run an ocean steamer. This
steam escape can be heard for a mile or more, and
sounds like the roar made by a Long Island Sound
steamer blowing salt from its boilers. The noise
is continuous for an hour ; it gradually lessens,
however, until it ceases entirely. Steam is then
lazily emitted continuously, and a loud gurgling
noise is constant deep down in the Geyser throat.
This is more or less the case with nearly all of
the geysers. A few, however, become so quiet,
that very close attention is necessary to catch
any boiling noise. The "Castle" geyser blows
off for hours before his steam generators are
cleaned.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 37
IT SCARES THE WHITE MAN.
Our red cheeked tourist has stoicism, but he
cannot stay over this Devil's kitchen long enough
to see half of the mighty vents in action. One,
which but rarely plays, shakes the very earth.
A good white man, who flatters himself that he
is a child of God and believes in sovereign reign-
ing grace, is struck by it with awe akin to terror.
But there is one geyser which becomes famil-
iar to the civilized tourist and seems to win from
him a sort of affection, because of his consci-
entious behavior. His very regularity, however,
would strike the more terror into the heart of
the untutored red man. He has built his home
under a mound 300 yards in circumference and
twenty or so feet high at its apex, upon which he
has cast a geyserite chimney ten to fifteen feet
high and six or eight in diameter. This chimney
he has ornamented within and without with
huge tufted beads, and painted those within
with rose and white, orange and brown, red and
grey. These adjuncts, however, do not compare
to those of many others, for some of them seem
to have wrapped their throats in great pillows,
hard as gypsum, but looking as soft and tufty
as if made of swans down, while others have
painted their inside linings with all the tints of
the rainbow; and their crystal clear water seems
to have caught the cerulean blue from the heav-
ens and are holding it in solution.
38 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
But to return to this geyser; for nearly an hour
he has been as quiet as a lamb, just enough of
steam arising from his throat to show he is gent-
ly breathing. The steam breath gradually
grows and is exhaled with more vigor. Present-
ly he belches up a barrel or so of water which
falls back into his throat. Then in a minute
come two or three such little spasms, when up
lifts a rounded column two or three feet in diam-
eter, rising higher and higher in exact perpen-
dicularity 150 feet high. The jet breaks more
or less as it rises into pointed sprays, which,
when there is no wind blowing, fall with almost
precise regularity about the up going column.
WATCHES ARE SET BY IT.
In about five minutes the jet of water ceases,
but is followed by considerable steam emis-
sions for a quarter of an hour, when one can
look down into his throat and see the crystal
water ten to fifteen feet below the apex, and all
quiet and still. So regular is the action of this
geyser that one could, by watching it, almost
dispense with a watch. He never plays in less
than sixty-three minutes, and never delays ac-
tion longer than seventy. Indeed, some of his
most constant admirers declare these variations
are the fault of watches, not of u Old Faithful."
Thus he is named, and as such is known far
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 39
and near. There are several of these geyser-
basins scattered over the park from ten to twenty-
five miles apart, the principal ones being the "Nor-
ris," the " Lower Geyser Basin" and the " Up-
per Geyser Basin." These are reached in suc-
cession on the tonrist road from u Mammoth
Hot Springs."
The regular tourist, starting from Mammoth
Hotel, dines at the u Norris " and sleeps at the
u Lower Basin." The next day, if he prefers to
go on with his coach, he passes the u Excelsior,"
which is the hugest of all the geysers, and has
been for two or three years nearly quiet, but
this year is in tolerable eruption. It is a vast
pool, possibly over two hundred feet in diameter.
When quiet, water about twenty feet below the
pool rim boils, seethes and tosses in horrible mo-
tion. It erupted just as our party reached it,
but not in one of its grand actions. A mass of
water possibly many feet in diameter was lifted
fifty or more feet in the air. It is said that when
in full eruption the height of the column is from
two to three hundred feet. This I doubt. The
mass of steam enveloping the jet is so great that
the water column is entirely hidden, and has
given rise to exaggeration on the part of those
who have seen it at its best. The basin of the
Excelsior is called " Hell's half acre," and it is
by no means a misnomer, for the earth trembles,
40 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
and the roar when the geyser is in action is that
of an earthquake, while great stones are scattered
about for several hundred feet. Close by it are
the " Prismatic Springs " and the u Turquoise."
The first is two or more hundred feet in diame-
ter and is a placid mass of scalding water. It
has various depths ; in the center where very
deep, it is of an indigo blue which shades off
into a bluish green ; then where very shallow,
it runs off into yellow, orange, red and brown,
while some circles are white. It is a marvel of
beauty. The color of the Turquoise is precisely
described by its name.
The whole park plateau is filled with hot
springs, which are building up elevations
with their deposit and mounting them as they
build. The water is all clear as crystal, but
holds in solution lime, iron, sulphur and other
minerals, which it deposits sufficiently fast to
encrust a key, horseshoe, or other piece of metal
in three or four days with a solid enamel — say
the sixteenth of an inch in thickness — and of
the appearance of second-class white sugar.
The geysers eject, when in action, large
quantities of water, but the springs, though
boiling and spouting, and appearing to be lifting
much water, flow over their rims in very small
streams. As they flow they build up their mar-
gins, which are thus made almost exactly level.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 41
This gentle flow runs off in wavy ripples gener-
ally; not in little rivulets, but in thin sheets, de-
positing the solid matter they have held in solu-
tion while below, which is freed by the action of
the atmosphere. In this way the springs lift
themselves, and build lofty hills. The deposit
when fresh is hard, but when dry becomes gen-
erally friable, though there are cases where it
maintains great hardness. These deposits often
times wear beautiful colors, and nearly always
do so when being made or while under water.
Some of the quiet pools are over 100 feet in di-
ameter. The outer edges when shallow are of a
deep brown, followed by a lighter brown or red,
then blending into a yellow and followed by a
yellow olive, and deepening as they sink into
dark olive, while in the deep throats they are al-
most black. The water before it makes the
deepest point, in some is of emerald greenness,
in others of exquisite blue ; along the steep slop-
ing walls assuming a rich amethyst or tinted in
exquisite sapphire.
All deposits take either a wavy or a tufted
form, whether on gentle slopes or on perpendic-
ular walls. Some steep walls are not unlike
slightly tufted fleeces of wool. The tufts are of
all sizes, from that of an orange up to others as
large as a bushel basket. One can scarcely
realize that these tufts are hard. They appear
42 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
beneath the water to be as light and soft as
newly fallen snow upon an evergreen bush.
Some of them are creamy white, others yellow,
orange and all shades of brown. In one of the
Geyser basins is a large pool actually used by
the hotel people as a laundry tub. If you will
promise not to mention it I will confess two evi-
dences on my part of weakness. I always shed
tears at the theatres, and I washed some hand-
kerchiefs in this boiling pool and they came
out nicely white.
NATURE'S PAINT-POTS.
To many, the paint-pots at the " Lower
Basin " are the most curious things seen in the
park. Imagine somewhat rounded pits of all
sizes from those a few inches in diameter to
others of forty and even sixty feet across, filled
with fine white mud or mortar, such as plaster-
ers call putty, and used by them for hard finish.
This is boiling and plopping (I coin this word)
like mush in huge pots, or thick soap in mighty
caldrons. In boiling, the big bubbles lazily lift
several inches high, and more lazily burst with
a mufHed noise, and sputter dabs of thick paste
several feet into the air. Falling upon the rim
of the pool, these erect a wall — now smooth as a
plastered wall — and then in rough grotesque
finish. No mortar made up for a first-class plas-
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 43
ter finish was ever tempered as is this natural
paste. When dry and pulverized it is an almost
impalpable powder. The paste is sometimes
white, but more often is of a pale scotch gray.
One large pool is half white or whitish grey,
the other half of a delicate peach blow. In one
pot the putty was a pretty pink salmon. Put-
ting these three colors on a cardboard to dry, I
found that much of the coloring disappeared
after exposure to the atmosphere. At one basin
between the Yellowstone canyon and the great
Yellowstone Lake, the mortar is of dark mud,
pure and simple, and is lifted many feet in the
air, and falling, is sucked back into a monster
throat with horrible gurgling sound. Go to a
slaughter house to see a stuck pig breathing his
last. Multiply his agonizing throes several hun-
dred fold and a good idea can be had of the
struggle of these hidden monsters. One of the
mud geysers is said at times to be so violent in
its action, that the earth trembles for a very
considerable distance, when the monster is in
full eruption. Curiously there will sometimes
be found a pool of crystal pure water boiling or
spouting not many feet away, and in one in-
stance, close to a mud boiling pool is a large
spring of pure cold water. One is tempted to
wish to turn one of these into the mouth of the
mud geyser to wash down its throat and ease its
44 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
agony. Neither the mud nor the white mortar in
these craters overflow, but bubble, sputter,
and plop year after year. The particles are as
impalpable as the fine ground paint upon an
artist's easel.
All kinds of pools, geysers and paint-pots are
heated more or less highly, all of them nearly
up to, and some much above boiling point. The
heating is not from the visible water being near
to any fire or heated surface, but from super-
heated steam, generated far below, being forced
through the surface water. Sometimes only
steam escapes through the surface orifices.
These are called vents. The steam coining
from some of these is so hot that the skin would
be taken from the hand by a single instant-
aneous application. They seem to be a sort of
safety valves from the great steam generators in
the bowels of the earth. No wonder the Indian
gives this country a clear berth, or that a good
schoolmarm tourist constantly had on her lips
Hades! Hades!! Hades!!! To be candid, I
think she used the old fashioned word.
LETTER III.
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. A WONDERFUL FOR-
MATION. THE WHITE ELEPHANT. A THEORY
ACCOUNTING FOR THE HOT SPRINGS AND
GEYSERS. MUD GEYSERS. MARVELOUS COL-
ORINGS OF SOME POOLS.
The tourist entering the National Park by
way of Livingston through the Gardner Canyon,
and rocky Gateway, at about sixty miles reaches
the "Mammoth Hot Springs". Here he sees a
surprising formation. Before him rises in ter-
races each from twenty to thirty feet high, a
great white cataract looking mass, several hun-
dred feet high, bulging out into the valley. The
center projects with rounded contour far beyond
the wings, which recede on either side, and to be
seen must be skirted. The entire bent crest is
not far from three miles in length. When first
approached, it strikes the eye as a succession
of water falls tumbling from terrace to ter-
race. To a second glance it appears a system
of falls one above the other hardened into
dirty ice. To one who has visited lofty snow clad
mountains, an act of deliberation is required to
prevent him believing that the terraces are a
part of a glacier of more or less purity.
The crests of the different terraces are almost
level — some of them apparently exactly so. They
are built by water, and, water here levels as it
45
46 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
builds, for if there be a depression it seeks it,
and depositing the solid matter held in solution,
levels it up with the rest. From the crest of the
upper terrace runs back a plateau of silicious
incrustation covering 300 to 400 acres. Scat-
tered over this, are shallow pools of hot water of
a bluish white tinge. About their shallow sides
these pools have concentric, tinted borders, some
a few inches wide, others of one or two feet.
These are bent to conform to the irregular shape
of the pools, one within the other, and are several
deep. The borders differ from each other in
color, being red, orange, yellow and brown and
of intermediate shades.
Near the front bulge of the upper terrace, lifts
the principal spring or pool on its individual
terrace, high above the main plateau. It looks
like a turret when seen from below. Flowing in
thin sheets over the margin, sometimes a simple
ooze, the water from each pool makes a deposit
as it spreads over the surrounding surface. At
the foot and in front of the great precipice, stand
two isolated slender pillars of geyserite, one of
them about forty feet high. They are hollow
and are the cones or nozzles of extinct geysers.
One is called the "Liberty Cap" the other the
"Devil's Thumb." They lift sheer up from the
level in front of the great formation, and are a
sort of sentinels keeping watch and ward over
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 47
the wonderful picture. A large part of the pre-
cipitous projection of each terrace is moist from
slowly trickling water.
At the rear of the great plateau half hidden
among scattered trees, is a long fissure in the
solid rock foundation of the mountain slope.
Through this has poured up hot water from
below, building, as it flowed, a huge white forma-
tion two to three hundred feet long, ten to fifteen
feet high, and about as broad, rounded and
smooth on its crest. This is supposed to resemble
an elephant in recumbent position and has been
aptly named "The White Elephant." If one
pauses to listen, he will hear a gurgling of run-
ning water down in the leviathan's inside, not
unlike that made when its living namesake
pours a draught of water from his trunk down
into his throat. Here, as everywhere else in
active spring formations, the sound of running
water can be heard beneath the surface incrus-
tation. In some instances the ear must be bent
down to catch a gentle rippling ; in others it
deepens into a hoarse gurgle.
The silicious crest of all of the plateaux
on which a person walks, gives out so hollow
a sound, that one is apt to feel somewhat
anxious lest it break beneath his weight. I sus-
pect, however, if it should do so, the bottom
would be found generally at only a few inches,
48 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
and a crimped shoe would be the most injurious
result. Occasionally, however, the crest may
cover a deep pool, but not often. When a pool
is very still a film of solid matter spreads over
its margin as grease does over cool water. This
attaches itself to the edge and spreads towards
the center. Gentle ripples then overflow this but
do not break it down, but thicken it by further
deposits. Sometimes one sees these edges pro-
jecting well over a deep pool, and strong enough
to bear up the weight of several men ; some of
these may at some time be the cause of very
scalding accidents. The principal danger, how-
ever, to a moderately prudent tourist is to his
shoe leather. One frequently steps into a little
puddle after a geyser ceases to act, or walks into
a thin sheet to see more closely the coloring of a
pool. Bither of such imprudences may cost a
pair of good shoes. The safest course is to wear
old ones for a ramble and to keep a good dry
pair at the hotel.
THEORIES ABOUT THE FORMATIONS.
It may not be amiss to suggest some solution
of the problems under which the silicious in-
crustations are produced and the active geysers
act.
The entire Yellowstone Park is an elevated
plateau thrown up by volcanic eruption, or more
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 49
probably was left when the plains sank beneath
the ocean, leaving the crumpled back bone of
the continent pushed far above. The rocky ribs
of earth were pitched here into a more or less
vertical position, leaving seams and fissures run-
ning deep down into the bowels of the earth in
the neighborhood of intense internal fires. Vol-
canic "forces have left their marks throughout
the Park. The hot springs and geysers are
their feeble remnants.
On the mountain heights, melting snows and
rains fill great lakes and copious flowing rivers.
These send veins more or less large, or percolate
down into the earth crust, supplying the intensely
heated rocks with moisture for a vast volume of
super-heated steam. The steam seeks an outlet
through fissures made in the plutonic rocks by
volcanic forces and through seams in the upper
crumpled and pitched stratified formations. Pass-
ing through these latter this intensively heated
steam erodes the softer rocks into throats, re-
cesses and pockets, and taking up minerals in
chenficals solution bears them upward, meeting
the cooler crust and mingling with percolations
from melting snows and rains, it becomes more
or less condensed and pours out in small springs.
These as they now, deposit the silicious and
other mineral matter held in solution, building
up the lower side of the spring, until the rim is
50 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
level. Thus the spring becomes a more or less
rounded pool.
The over flow now becomes very gentle
and even over the entire rim. The atmos-
phere reaches the whole of the overflow as
it spreads over the surface of the ground and
causes rapid precipitation. The constant out-
pour causes a constant lifting of the pool and of
the incrustations about it. This spreading crust
is in laminae or thin sheets. As the pool rim
lifts, the weight of the column of water forces
some of it between the sheets and carries it hot
and rich in mineral and earthy solid matter to
the outer edges of the formation, where it escapes
to spread the incrustation wider and wider.
The streams beneath the crust gradually wear
away their channels leaving open spaces above
them, which give out a hollow sound when one
walks over them, and in them the rippling or
gurgling of flowing water is to be heard more or
less, beneath the crust.
When such underflowing streams cut a
large enough channel, they frequently b'uild
up new small pools more or less removed
from the parent spring. In other words one
vein of hot water coming from below may
be the source of several pools. Yet there
are many only a few yards apart, which have
sources far removed from each other, or at least
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 5!
the steam which, supplies them with their heat
and solid matter in solution, has passed through
widely different and distant rock formations.
This is shown by the different and distinct min-
erals which color the water and the formations
deposited by them.
The water in one pool will be compara-
tively pure, while close by, is that of an-
other strongly impregnated with sulphur, depos-
iting great tufts in yellow and brown, and still
another with red borders and olive throat full of
oxide of iron. Here will be a pool beautifully
green, with exquisitely tinted formations, prov-
ing that copper or arsenic are held in solution ;
and then within a half stone's throw is still an-
other of intense cerulean blue and a third of
most delicate sapphire.
In one of the paint pots, in the "Lower basin"
not over forty feet in diameter, about half of the
putty is pearl gray, while the other half is a
rich peach blow. I said that the overflow of the
pools was generally small. I recall several small
ones and a few fully thirty or more feet in dia-
meter, from which the overflow in a calm day
was almost uniform from the entire veins, and
nowhere thicker than a very thin sheet of glass.
And in some instances the out put was so thin as
to be a simple ooze. And yet in many of such
pools the boiling action in the centre was great
52 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
enough to lift bubbles and turbulations many
inches high. In one pool called the "Spouter"
there are constant large jets lifting from a few
inches up to three or more feet, a wild fearful
boiling and still only a small stream ran from it.
And still others which boiled furiously but had no
outflow at all. It is not improbable that from
these latter there are water exists below the
crusts, which have been lifted up as rims or pool
margins. The bubbles and turbulations are not
strictly speaking from boiling hot water, but
from steam rushing up and striving to escape.
MARVELOUS COLORINGS.
No ordinary stretch of imagination will enable
one who has not seen them to realize the variety
and exquisiteness of the tints and colorings of
many of the pools. The caves of Capri near
Naples, furnish not a more wondrous blue, and
the grottoes of tropical seas do not afford such
variety. The tints are partly derived from the
minerals held in solution by the water, but are
probably owing more to the reflected tones of the
geyserite formation surrounding the throats,
walls and margins.
One can easily understand the solution of
the problem resulting in the formation and
actions of the pools, and of the building of
the encrustations of the plateaux, which
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 53
extend over hundreds of acres. But the actions
of geysers are so weird and strange that
science has probably not fully explained them.
I confes3 myself too much of a tyro to fully
comprehend the more scientific elucidation,
which explains the action on chemical prin-
ciples. I can, however, comprehend the more
practical but possibly less scientific theory,
which is sufficient for me and will probably also
be so for the majority of my readers. The pools
and hot springs are formed at all elevations in
the valleys and on mountain slopes.
THEORIES AS TO GEYSER ACTION.
The Geysers are always in the valleys and
generally contiguous to the lowest points. When
lifted up they are probably so raised by their
own energies as builders.
On the following page is a cut showing a sec-
tion of the earth crust, running across a valley
and up the mountain side. Along its lowest
point flows rapidly a stream of cold clear water
fed by melting snows and dews on mountains
towering above and more or less distant.
"£" is a geyser cone. Below is the geyser
throat or well sinking down to " W\
"S" is a shaft more or less vertical opening
into the geyser well and running far down into
the softer rocks to UC" a somewhat horizontal
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 55
continuation leading into "R" a recess or pocket
in the softer upper rocks of sufficient capacity
in some cases to hold hundreds or thousands of
tons of water.
"P" is another recess opening into u^" near
its apex. These recesses or pockets have been
scooped out by superheated steam pouring up
from far below through plutonic rocks contiguous
to living central fires. Such steam is generated
from veins and percolations of water always
sinking from the earth's surface and from
moisture believed to exist in or about all rocks.
"/}" " '/?" and u/9" are reservoirs on the sur-
face of the earth or beneath it high up on the
mountains, perennially supplied by rains and
melting snows.
a y» u y» u y» are yeins through which water
flows from reservoirs "/?" "Z?" "£>" into recess
uj?" at "X". These veins are also fed by per-
colations throughout the formations through
which they run. "7^" "/7» are fissures or seams
in the upper rocks running into and extending
deep down in the primative or igneus rocks
below, along which highly heated steam gen-
erated near the internal fires underlying earth's
solid crust, rushes upward into recess or pocket
"P". We will assume that there are no veins
conveying cold water into this latter recess or
pocket.
56 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
Now we assume also that at a given moment
recesses "/?" and "/>" and shaft "S" and its
continuation "C" are free or nearly free of water.
Steam, however, is rushing from them and out
of geyser "61" in hot, roaring volume. In recess
u/v" it is encountering cold water flowing .in at
UJ\"" and rapidly loses its high temperature and
is being condensed. As such condensation goes
on, the horizontal' continuation UC" is being
filled. As it fills the escape of steam at "£" les-
sens rapidly, until continuation "C' becoming
full of water, it ceases entirely or only a small
amount lifts lazily up from the hot shaft "S".
The inflow at "X" and condensation fills recess
UR" with water more or less cool. The steam
coming up through "T7", "/^" no longer having
an escape, heats the water in "A"' until it reaches
a line u£" in recess "7?," where it becomes
so hot as no longer to condense steam or does it
to a very small extent. The pressure of the
high heated steam now stops a further inflow at
"X" and forces the water upward into shaft ">S"
and is capable of sustaining the column at the
geyser throat "£F" and the column in veins
UF:) at a like height. Condensation having
ceased the steam in u^" above UZ" and in "P"
becomes superheated and acquires enormous ex-
pansive power. Finally its energy is so vast
that a sudden expansion or explosion takes
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL TARK. 57
place. The water at "Z" is pressed enormously
downward and the contents of recess ".#" are
forced upward through shaft "S" into the geyser
well and then through the contracted nozzle at
"£" in a mighty jet high into the open air. The
action of suddenly expanded or exploded steam
is spasmodic and immediate. All of the water in
recess "7?" is therefore rapidly thrown out at "G".
The water gone, fearfully hot steam follows it
through "£r" until its spasmodic energy ceases
almost if not quite as suddenly as it was at first
aroused. Immediately the steam, now coming
from recess UR" begins to go through the cooling
process before described, until again the shaft is
closed at UC" and again a repetition of the erup-
tion is brought about.
This series of actions is more or less regular in
all geysers. In old "Faithful" the round is com-
pleted in about sixty-three minutes. The recesses
or pockets are of various sizes in different geysers
requiring different periods of time to be filled.
The time taken to empty them, and in some meas-
ure the height of the jets depend probably very
largely upon the size of the throat and of the noz-
zle of the geysers. "Old Faithful" has a compara-
tively small nozzle. His jet continues for several
minutes and mounts to a great height. The
same is true of the "Splendid." The Castle
spurts up a very much larger volume of water ;
58 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
but not nearly so high, from a huge throat and
in very much less time. The "Excelsior" has a
throat many feet in diameter, and ejects a
column proportionately large. Its actions are
not regular and indeed it is rather a water vol-
cano than a geyser, throwing up large stones
and gravel.
" Young Faithful" emits no steam. It is
probably only a sort of adjunct of some of the
violently boiling pocrls near by. Steam, which
in some of these cause violent turbulations
at regular intervals, forces water through
lateral shafts up through this little gem. Its
throat is very small. A considerable body of
water passing from behind with only a moderate
force, yet finding only the small throat, makes
a jet of considerable height. Jets resembling it
are frequently seen on low rocky cliffs on the
sea shore, caused by the ocean swell passing into
grottoes and caverns and forcing water up along
small fissures through the overhanging rock,
called "puffing holes". The foregoing theory
of geyser action may not bear the test of close
criticism, but it is probable that such criticism
may be answered by hypotheses not here alluded
to. At all events it may be sufficiently satisfac-
tory for the ordinary mind.
LETTER iv.
HOW TO DO THE PARK. HOTELS AND VEHICLES.
MY INNOCENTS. CHARMING SCENERY. NAT-
URAL MEADOWS. WILD ANIMALS. BEAUTI-
FUL BLOWERS. DEBTS TO THE DEVIL. CAMP
LIFE AND FISHING. WONDERFUL CANYON.
PAINTED ROCKS. GLORIOUS WATERFALLS.
NATURE GROTESQUE AND BEAUTIFUL.
GRAND CANYON,
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, July 24, 1890.
I will say at the beginning of this letter, a
few words as to how the Park's wonders can be
seen. There are associations under leases from
the Government and supposed to be under its
control, which regulate the movements of reg-
ular tourists, in and through the park ; one for
transportation alone, and the other for feeding
and housing.
The latter has five hotels, two of them com-
pleted— two others sufficiently so to house their
guests. The completed houses are, one at
"Mammoth Hot Springs," the other at " Grand
Canyon." These are fairly appointed hotels
and each is capable of nicely accommodating
several hundred guests. Aside from these there
are two where a tourist can live in comfort, pro-
vided he be not over fastidious. The largest and
best hotel is at " Mammoth Hot Springs," at an
59
60 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
elevation of 6,200 feet. The next best and
next largest one is at " Grand Canyon," 7,500
feetnp. Several other hotels are partially finished.
The transportation company has some sev-
enty five vehicles, two-thirds, if not three-fourths
of them Concord stages and wagonettes car-
rying six to seven passengers, but capable of
carrying three or four more by placing three on
a seat ; the other vehicles are four-passenger sur-
reys. The coaches and wagonettes each have
four horses, the surreys two. The tourist pur-
chases tickets for the round trip. Forty dollars
carries one from Livingston on the railroad to
Mammoth Hot Springs and then around the
park, occupying five and a quarter days. This
includes hotel expenses. One thus sees every-
thing in the grand tour, but somewhat hur-
riedly. However, quite a number stop over at
the " Upper Geyser Basin " and at " Grand Can-
yon;" the stop-overs thus making room for those
who had halted the day before. There are at
this time tourists enough to start out each day
from Mammoth Hot Springs about five coaches
and several surreys all leaving at a fixed hour
and reaching points of interests or other hotels
close together, each vehicle maintaining its po-
sition in the line throughout the tour. Thus
racing is prevented. A great mistake is made
in keeping the vehicles in line too close together.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 6 1
For at times the dust on some of the roads is
very deep, causing passengers in some of the
vehicles to be choked and rendered very un-
comfortable. It rains frequently throughout
the park ; but for this the tour would be almost
unbearable. Our party was in this respect very
fortunate
The management very foolishly discour-
ages individual stop-overs, but suggests a
stage or surrey party to hold over the vehicle.
This is expensive and parties are not always of
one mind. I stopped and now stop over, taking
my diances for a vacancy in a coach. This
should be encouraged by the management, for a
person can spend several days of pleasure and
instruction at two, three or more points.
" Grand Canyon " from which this letter is
started, would make a charming resort for parties
for days, or even weeks, and two orthree daysshould
be taken to study the " Upper Geyser Basin." But
the entire management is yet in an embryo
state, and too great an endeavor is made to make
both ends meet, with a profitable balance at the
end of the season. Some travelers complain bit-
terly of the accommodations furnished at the
hotels. They are, however, I suspect, of those
who expect the comforts of home, or the luxuries
of first-class city hotels where ever they go.
Those who are prepared to make the most of
62 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
life, and to pick up pleasure wherever to be
found, can spend several weeks in the Park,
without loss of flesh and with instruction regard-
ing the sports and freaks of nature to be found
no where else. The wonders are unique and
the marvels unequaled elsewhere in the world.
Some tourists are so unfortunate as to arrive
at the park when very large excursion parties
from the East make their entry. Then the
hotels become necessarily crowded. No prudent
provision can make preparation for an extra
hundred pouring in on top of the regular travel.
At such times one is compelled to take a bed in
a room with several others and may even be
forced to crowd two in a bed. That happened
once to our party. But none of the travelers
had the small pox or itch, so no great harm re-
sulted. By hugging the outer rail of a bed, in-
stead of the bed fellow, the necessity of tumbling
two in a bed is not altogether a catastrophe.
Besides those who make the regular tours, there
are many who hire carriages and wagons at Cin-
nabar for a leisurely excursion, which may be
longer or shorter to suit disposable time and the
fullness of purses. Parties too, besides hiring
carriages and horses, frequently take tents and
enjoy a regular roughing life. We encountered
many of these. Some were of a man and his
family, others of two or three young men, and
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 63
still others of men and ladies by the dozen or
two, and in one instance thirty or forty were in
the party. The large parties have a nnmber of
attendants who generally go ahead to prepare
the camps for the night, while the tourists loiter
along the way to inspect the marvels or to bota-
nize. The small parties we saw, pitched their
tents when practicable, near a trout stream, sev-
eral of which furnished fine sport. Throughout
the Park we noticed that at and about localities
usually chosen for camping ground, warnings
were nailed upon the trees, u Put out the fires. "
Destructive forest fires have resulted from care-
lessness of campers. Soldiers in pairs ride along
several of the roads daily to see that these regu-
lations are observed, and to prevent injurious
results from non-observance. Twice we saw
blue coats extinguishing smouldering fires left
by reckless people.
My personal stage party up to this point, has
been my daughter and some intelligent school-
marms from New York, one of them, however,
resenting the appellation of " schoolmarm." She
is a principal. Woman-like, they seemed glad
when I assumed command of the party. Queer,
how even the brightest and most independent
woman takes to a sort of master. Show me one
who will not submit to the yoke, and ten to one
she is one few men desire to boss. I call my
64 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
party, " my Innocents," and all move with alac-
rity when I cry out, " Come girls !"
Between us, it has been several years since the
youngest of them wore short dresses. I mean
this in good part, for girls just getting into long
skirts are very like the rinsing fluid into which
the wash-woman dips her clean laundry, and
called " blue water " — rather thin !
All my Innocents are good, but can stand a
straight shot in sensible English. One quotes
with a sigh the remark of a friend, who wrhen in
the park, had but one word — the word translated
"sheol" in the revised version. Quotation marks
are convenient when one wishes to say some-
thing a little naughty. The Rev. Thomas
Beecher, who is one of our daily party, but not
in our coach, and who by the way is something
of a wag, and is not averse to having a learned
theological discussion with one who, like him-
self, was intended for an Evangelist, speaking of
the huge amount of solid matter brought here
above ground, declares he must look up Bob
Ingersoll to tell him the Devil is making some
mighty big holes down below. For my part if
the Devil is doing all this, I shall begin to
cultivate high respect for him as an artist, and
would only ask him not to let the bottom drop
out until my friends to the third and fourth
generation may come and see. After them it
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 65
matters not. Let the deluge come. It is evident
from the names given to many points about the
park that the Devil's friends have done much of
the christening in this region.
Now, having to some extent touched upon the
marvelous antics of Nature in Uncle Sam's
domain, I will say something of those things
nearly as interesting, and which make this tour
charming as a simple road excursion. The park
is full of beauties. The drives are often through
delightful pine forests. The trees are small, but
straight as arrows, tall and lading the air with
delicious perfumes. Many hundred, or rather
hundreds of thousands of acres are dead : Some
from forest fires, but in many cases apparently
from a species of blight, possibly from a failure
of nourishment in the thin soil on the mountain
slopes for the trees after they have attained any
size. Tracks of fierce mountain storms are fre-
quently seen ; miles upon miles of forests are
thrown down, the trees all lying in one direction,
showing that the devastation was done by
straight running winds, and not by tornadoes.
There are noble mountains constantly towering
above us, although we are ourselves sometimes
nearly nine thousand feet above the sea, and
never after leaving Mammoth Hot Springs,
under 7000. Many of the mountains have bands
of snow stretching far below their pinnacles, and
66 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
some of them are properly entitled, snow-capped.
The mountains and slopes are fairly well treed ;
and the small plains or plateaux show beautiful
downs bordered with forest and cut by copses.
These downs are green and so smooth in the
distance that it is difficult to realize that man
has had nothing to do with laying them out.
Several level valleys are very pretty and when
seen from eminences remind one of valleys over
which people go into ecstasies in foreign lands.
If there were here a church spire, and there a
mill and a sprinkling of hamlets, they would be
as happy valleys as the vaunted ones abroad.
The utter absence of habitations on the long
drives is a striking peculiarity. The roads being
tolerably good and entirely artificial, makes one
expect to see hamlets, and he involuntarily finds
himself looking for a farm house, when the coach
emerges from a forest, and comes upon a broad
stretch of clean looking well grassed native
meadow land. A turn of a mountain spur along
a crystal stream, which has deepened into a pool,
suggests a mill-pond, and that a water wheel
will soon come into view. A grassy plain all
sun-lighted causes one to look for a herd of cattle
lazily lying in a wooded copse on its margin.
But no habitation othei than the regular hotels,
are to be found within the wonder land.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 67
The park is comparatively a free and safe
home for many varieties of wild animals. Guns
and pistols are forb'^en, except to the soldiers
and to the scouts who are a sort of a police corps,
whose duty is to see that trespassers do not enter
upon the Government preserve. Elk, deer,
mountain sheep, bear black and cinnamon, buf-
falo and other animals indigenous to the Rocky
mountains, range freely over the hills without
molestation ; and beaver build their dams close
by the hotels. How many buffalo are yet
denizens of the park, I could not definitely learn,
but was told that there are from fifty to a hun-
dred. Squirrels and chipmunks are very numerous
in several varieties, and very gentle. The bear
are becoming too numerous for the safety of such
animals as they prey upon. On this account the
scouts are destroying many of them.
I said there are no domestic animals, except
a few about the hotels. The result is, the
grasses are fine and the flowers in great pro-
fusion and very beautiful — patches of larkspur
as blue as indigo, acres of lupin of various
tints, generally blue and lilac with eyes of
white ; gentians so rich and purple that one
feels that they have been dipped in Tyrian
dyes ; sunflowers and buttercups, making acres
look as if they had been sprinkled with gold ;
and many other beautiful flowers, whose names
68 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
I know not. But one thistle I must not forget
to mention. It is short and heavy from the
ground, not unlike the edible thistle of Japan,
with leaves and stalks of flesh colored pink,
bleached into a sort of mixture of white, green
and rose, with clustered flowers in compact head
of exquisite rose and pink. It is a rarely beau-
tiful flower. One flower of delicate lavender,
thickly strewn along branching spikes, was
wholly unknown to all of our party and is
acknowledged of great beauty. Its leaf and
small flowers lead me to think it a wild holly-
hock.
STUPENDOUS SOUNDS OF FALLING FLOODS.
As I sit at my window the roar of the glorious
Yellowstone falls filling my ear, I look out across
the deep river canyon, to an upper plateau of
several thousands of acres of beautiful meadow,
some miles away, with here and there a copse of
young pines, and all fringed by rich forest, and
feel I should see a herd of fallow deer wandering
over some ancient, lordly park. It is true that
my glass shows that much of the velvety softness
of the down is from green sagebush, which is so
softened down by the distance that from here it
resembles well cut grass. It is very beautiful.
Guide books tell us not to drink the water. I
think their writers were in collusion with the
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 69
hotel management to force guests to buy lager
and apollinaris at 50 cents a bottle. By the way,
there is on the first days drive an .apollinaris
spring. It seems to me the simon pure thing.
We drank freely of it at the spring and after-
wards from bottles carried for several hours. One
of the bottles was tightly corked, and, when
opened, popped as if well charged. At another
spring — a little thing immediately on the edge
of the road on the Beaver river and in the cool
and beautiful Beaver canyon, we had soda water
flavoured with lime juice. At least, it reminded
me very distinctly of soda water with which the
juice of the lime had been mingled in Ceylon.
The bar-tenders in the "Flowery Isle" call it
"lemon squoze." It was our favorite beverage
in hot Colombo. Both of these springs are small,
but from them could be bottled many cases a
day. A gentleman in the party who has drank
only Apollinaris since he came into the Park,
tasted from my bottle and declared it quite equal
to the pure stuff. PAeeling the need of an altera-
tive, I twice drank several glasses from a hot
spring with decided benefits ; and have partaken
freely throughout the tour of the springs (except
those whose brilliant green showed them largely
impregnated with arsenic or copper,) and with
no perceptible injurious effects. The hotel people
are inclined to disparage the waters of the springs
yo A SUMMER'S OUTING.
generally, and discourage their use, thereby and
possibly for that purpose, largely increasing the
consumption of lager and bottled waters, which
sell at fifty cents a bottle. The enormous
number of empty bottles along the road sides and
at the hotels testify to the thirst and timidity of
the traveling public. The coach drivers call the
empty bottles along the road "dead soldiers."
The "peg" i. e. whisky soda is the bane of the
Buropean in India. The disposition to make
"dead soldiers" in the National Park very pro-
bably does more harm to the tourist than the
native waters would if judiciously used.
When the government does its duty — makes
abundant roads and bridges about its marvelous
domain here, and analyzes thoroughly its hot
springs — I doubt not there will be found many
of them of great hygienic value, and sanitariums
will be established to make the park a blessing
to the afflicted of the country.
One good housewife whom I met frequently at
the different halting-places, sighed deeply at the
enormous waste of hot water, declaring there
was enough here to laundry all America, and to
wash the poor of all our big cities. The good
people tell us everything was made for 'man. I
doubt it. He is not worth the good things lavished
upon him. He is a part of the mighty plan and
will be followed after the next cataclysm by
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 71
beings as much above him as he is above the
chimpanzee. But if the good people be correct,
Congress ought to take immediate steps to enable
the people more fully to utilize the mighty
Hygea located within the bounds of this park.
Surrounded by bare and bleak mountains and
hot and arid plains, here at this elevation rains
are abundant, and dews are sufficient; trees clothe
mountain top and slope ; grass is green and fat-
tening, and flowers deck the open downs and
shade the forest land. And yet the air is dry
and beneficial to all except those whose lungs
require an atmosphere less light. We have seen
several consumptives who have come here for
their health. The rarified atmosphere makes
their breathing very laborious and painful. Pos-
bly in the early stages of the disease, benefits
may be derived from a sojourn here, but in its
later stages, the poor victims suffer fearfully.
The majority of those whom we have seen here
for health, are camping out and seem to be
having a good time. They have their horses,
and spend their time fishing and riding.
On the road from the lower Geyser basin to
Grand Canyon we halted at a little rivulet to
water our stock. The stream cut its way deep
down in a grassy plain, and was so narrow that
one could easily jump over it. A small camp-
ing party had just pitched its tents close by.
72 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
While the tent lines were being stretched, the
gentleman of the party came to the rivulet near
ns to angle for his supper. He cast his fly a
few times, when there was a u rise " to it not
twenty feet from our coach, and a two pound
beauty, speckled and plump was landed. I en-
vied the camper.
In some localities in the Yellowstone, and es-
pecially in and about the great lake, parasites so
infest the fish as to unfit them for the table.
The infected fish, however, are easily known and
may be discarded, while the good are retained.
A gentleman who has fished throughout the
park informed me, that as a rule, the fish were
good. Like the trout in all the Rocky moun-
tains and Pacific regions, the fish caught here
lack the delicate flavour of the brook trout taken
in the Adirondacks and throughout the New
England States.
We regret we could not visit the Great Yellow-
stone Lake. The hotels there being unfinished,
the regular stage route does not yet take it in.
It is at an altitude of 7700 feet, and is over
twenty miles long from the North-west to the
South-east and fifteen from North-east to South-
west, covering an area of 150 or more square
miles . It is very irregular in its form and said
to be a beautiful sheet. Excepting the lake in
the Andes it is much the largest lake in the
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 73
world at so great elevation. A large hotel is
being erected on its margin. When finished it
will make a very attractive addition to the Park
tour, and will furnish a stop over for days or
weeks to those who have time at their command.
One is surprised to find how quickly he be-
comes fatigued by a short climb, until his lungs
become accustomed to the rare medium he is
taking in. One old man, I need not name,
stepped jauntily by the side of a pretty school-
marm and swore he was 32, but the climb of a
mile made him, with blushes which tinged the
cuticle of his bald head, acknowledge he was
past 65. He was somewhat relieved, when he
saw how the sweet innocent was panting at his
side.
There is here what I am told exists nowhere
else in the world — a mountain of glass — vol-
canic obsidian — monster masses resembling the
molten opaque blocks left by the Chicago great
fire in the ruins of a glass warehouse. We
drove along a road of shivered glass. The en-
gineers built fires over great obsidian bowlders,
and then threw cold water from the stream close
by over the heated mass, breaking it into glass
gravel. Chipmunks of several varieties, gray
pine squirrels, hop about barking within a few
feet of one ; robins are almost as gentle as spar-
rows, and bears come down near to one of the
74 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
hotels nightly to be fed for the amusement of
the tourists. Beavers have their dams close by
our hotel and can at dusk be seen swimming
about and feeding. A small herd of buffalos,
since we have been here, rushed across the road
just in front of an excursion party, giving the
stage horses a fright and nearly creating a
panic. No gun is allowed in the park, except
to the military and scouts, and no one can kill
an animal, except when driven to it for want of
necessary food. Two companies of soldiers
patrol the regular routes to enforce the regula-
tions and to serve as voluntary guides for the
ladies of the daily parties. They forbid the
smallest specimen to be carried off. I had even
to hide the little dabs of mud I took from a
paint-pot. Uncle Sam is cultivating good nature
among men and beasts within this, his unique
domain. Even the devil may grow good-na-
tured, and may cut up his didos and antics after
a while only for the people's amusement.
THE CLIMAX OF GRANDEUR AND BEAUTY.
Having told you of the freaks and sports of
nature which make the more striking marvels
of this wonderland ; and having spoken of the
softer and sweeter characteristics of the Park, I
now come to what the majority of the travelers
consider its gem.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 75
A Soudanese wise man is said to have swal-
lowed the tale of Jonah and the whale without
making a wry face, but grew fighting mad when
asked to believe the story of snow and ice in
northern lands. The genii might easily send
a man through a whale's belly, but Allah him-
telf could not make water hard and dry. So it is
easy to tell of the monstrosities of the park, and
hope for credence. They are simply montrosi-
ties — the work of demoniac power, and are cred-
ible. But who can make another believe that
huge precipices, one and two thousand feet high,
have been painted with all the colors of the set-
ting sun ; that the rainbow has settled upon
miles of rocks and left its sweet tints upon their
rugged sides? And yet this and these are true
of the Yellowstone canyon.
We approached it from the South on a road run-
ning near the river. On a pretty grassy bank we
rode along the stream, here over a hundred yards
wide, rolling swiftly yet smoothly along in green
depths, preparing to make its two plunges into the
chasm below. Swift and swifter it hurried on-
ward in quickened dignity. Presently the rock
walls on either side grew contracted to a hun-
dred or so feet, and then the green stream rushed
in smooth slope to a gateway of eighty feet in
width, through which, with parabolic swoop, it
leaps 112 feet with such depth on its brink, that
76 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
the deep-emerald green is not lost till it strikes
a ledge at the bottom, where a large part of the
falling sheet is shot off at an angle into the air,
half as high up as the fall itself. The two sides
of the river at the brink of the fall rnsh against
precipitous walls and are bent and curled up-
wards into a veil six or eight feet high over the
green center — a veil of countless millions of
crystal drops — over the main stream of emerald
more than half hidden in a mighty shower of
diamonds. ' Standing immediately on the edge,
one can imagine how Niagara's Horseshoe would
look if one could get within a few feet of it.
This fall is not very lofty nor wide, but is one of
the most beautiful in the world. The river after the
first fall rushes in foamy swirl a half mile further,
between cliffs which on either side lift 1,500 feet
high, and growing higher and higher, and then
with one wild leap plunges 300 feet into the rocky
gorge below.
As it drops the emerald and the diamond
struggle for supremacy, but the brighter crystal
gains the ascendency before all is lost in the
lace-like mist which envelopes the depths. The
whole when seen from a little distance looks as
light as a gem-decked veil of lace, but so vast is
the body of the water which makes the leap, and
so great the fall, that to one standing a mile
away, with a point of land intervening between
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 77
him and the fall, shutting off the noise of the
splashing water, there comes a deep and mellow
bass, richer than any I ever heard before
made by a water fall. It is not an angry tone
like Niagara's roar, but is as deep and mellow as
distant rolling thunder when heard in a moun-
tain gorge.
These falls are beautiful in the extreme, but
the beholder soon forgets them in wonder of
the canyon which bends between the towering
cliffs for four miles. Far under him, at least
1500 feet down, the river leaps and tears, now -in
green, and then in snowy foam, between pre.
cipices at whose feet no human foot ever did or
can safely tread. The rocks lift on either side
in mighty buttresses like giant cathedral walls.
Standing out before the walls are towers and
pointed spires of most artistic form, all painted
in exquisite tints. The upper walls are of
yellow and orange hue, with here and there
towers and bulwarks of chalky white or of black
lava over which is a film of Venetian red. The
upper yellow walls, sink and contract between
the lifting buttresses, which at their base are of
lava black, running first into dark umber, and
then into chocolate bordered with black and
stained with red, often so bright as to be vermil-
lion. In some places the main walls are broken
down, where some long-ago slide has carried
78 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
their steepness into the river below, but with
slopes far too steep for human tread. Some of
these slopes are orange and yellow as if coated
with sulphur; others are painted in vertical bands
of brown and red, with between them narrow
stripes of" pearl gray and yellow, and of orange
stretching for hundreds of feet, and at one
point for a half mile in extent ; one of these
slopes look as if a banner with these several
colors, had been spread over it, and then being
removed, the colors of the drapery had been
left upon the soft velvety rock. The buttresses
and spires lift now fifteen to a hundred feet apart,
and then they are spread so that the golden wall
between shows 150 to 200 feet. All of the colors
except the yellow seem to be in and of the rock.
The yellow looks as if made by blowing thous-
ands of tons of flowers of sulphur upon the walls,
the flowers having clung when the wall had some
incline, but having dropped off from the vertical
rock.
These painted rocks extend along the canyon
for about four miles ; then the gorge grows more
somber and dark, and so continues some twenty
miles. This lower part seems to be of a harder
rock. It was cut through myriads of ages ago
and has grown darkly gray, while the painted
part is of a much later period and is of soft rocks
— so soft that they seem to be composed of
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 79
somewhat indurated volcanic ash, sulphur being
the predominating mass. The red coloring is from
oxide of iron. These blending together make
other tints. Burnt Umber, often deepened into
a rich chocolate is the dominating one. The
buttresses are of a harder yet still a rather soft
lava, of a yellowish brown tint near the summits,
red and brown below, and finally towards their
bases almost black. Sometimes there are slopes
of white lime and several towers, nearly 2, coo
feet high sheer up from the river, are so white
that one could think them chalk. Half way down
the heights are great points, like the sharpened
spires of a cathedral, colored as if a mighty pot
of Venetian red had been empted over them and
had run in streaks down the rocky sides. Had
an artist tried to sell me a picture of these cliffs,
before I had seen them, in no way exaggerated
in coloring, I would have called him a fraud,
and would have thought he had taken me for a
fool. I have seen now and then pictures which
I considered daubs, which I now know did not in
the least overdo Nature in its freak of rock-paint-
ing. I quit the park glad that I came, but feel
that the rush and labor of going through it would
hardly repay a second hasty visit, at least for
several years. Yet I can recall no excursion of
the same length in any part of the world half
so full of surprises. Could we have made it
80 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
leisurely, our enjoyment would have been
greatly enhanced. We have met some tour-
ists who think the labor and annoyance of
the thing over-balance the profit and pleasure.
Burns says '' Man was made to mourn." In my
weary round, I have frequently been convinced
that about half of the travelers of the world were
made to growl, or at least half think they fail to
show their "raisin" unless they do growl.
Equanimity of temper is the most valuable of
all human characteristics for happiness. It is
absolutely necessary to the traveler, who desires
to learn much, and to enjoy what he sees. A
plain traveling suit on one's back, a resolution
to make the most of every thing in one's mind,
and the least possible luggage to carry, are the
three indispensables for a good traveler. The
park people may not do all they should for the
public ; indeed, I fear they have many short-com-
ings, but I for one, am very glad they are here,
and that they do as much as they do.
The hotels at Mammoth Hot Springs and at
Yellowstone canyon are large, each capable of
housing two or three hundred guests. The beds
are clean and soft, the table fair and the attend-
ance quite good. I have only one complaint to
make. At the first named hotel they will insist
on a brass band's tooting a good part of the time.
The noise it made was execrable. There is no
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 8 1
such thing as bad music, it is either music or it
is noise. At Norris, the hotel is poor and the
managers impolite. At the Lower and at the
Upper Geyser Basin* the houses are unfinished,
and the rooms not sufficient in number, but the
people do their best to please. This endeavor
should cover a multitude of sins.
LETTER V.
WE LEAVE THE PARK SATISFIED. HELENA. ITS
GOLD BEARING FOUNDATIONS. BROADWATER.
A MAGNIFICENT NATATORIUM. A WILD RIDE
THROUGH TOWN. CROSSING THE ROCKIES.
SPOKANE. A BUSY TOWN. MIDNIGHT PIC-
NIC. FINE AGRICULTURAL COUNTRY. SAGE
BUSH A BLESSING. PICTURESQUE RUN OVER
THE CASCADES. ACRES OF MALT LIQUORS.
TACOMA. A STARTLING VISION OF MT.
RENIER (TACOMA). WASHINGTON, A GREAT
STATE.
TACOMA, WASHINGTON, July 31, 1890.
Familiarity is said to breed contempt ; cer-
tainly it robs strange things of much that at
first seems marvelous. On our return from the
excursion around the Park, the formation at
Mammoth Hot Springs had lost much of that
which on our first visit struck us as so wonder-
ful and charming. We had seen other things
greatly more wonderful with which to compare
them. The encrustations seemed not so white
and the colorings of the water had lost some of
their prismatic variety and perfection.
The impressions made upon the mind by Ni-
agara grow on succeeding visits. A storm at
sea arouses no less awe because several have been
before passed through. Niagara and the ocean
82
TACOMA. 83
are in eternal motion. Motion irresistably sug-
gests change, and change precludes monotony.
One does not lose his feeling of awe, after look-
ing for many times upon the towering heights of
the Yungfrau or of Kinchinjinga. Their inacces
sible peaks and eternal snows repel every dispo-
sition to close communion. I doubt not, however,
if a safe railroad could be run up to mighty Ever-
est's loftiest pinnacle, that tourists would snap
their fingers at the world's monarch when stand-
ing in warm furs 29,000 feet above the sea.
The still and apparently unchangeable incrus-
tations at Mammoth Hot Springs, were looked
upon on our final visit without awe or surprise.
A large party of us left the hotel for Cinnabar
closely packed in the coaches and surreys on a
bright sunny afternoon, glad we had seen the
wonderland, but quite satisfied to leave our labors
behind us. As we dashed down the defile near
the park line, we doffed our hats and bade adieu
to the eagle sitting on its eyrie as we had seen
him on our entrance. The downward ride was
quite rapid, and some of us who had been drawn
into somewhat close communion during the past
week were almost sorry when we so soon reached
Livingston — some to go eastward and others
westward, all to part most probably forever.
From Livingston to Helena the run was made
at night. We found the latter a bustling place
84 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
and well worth a visit. There is an air about a
mining camp which can be seen in no old coun-
try, and Helena though now full of city airs yet
has many of the characteristics of the camp. Its
foundations rest upon gold bearing earth, and
even now in digging cellars, quite in the town,
pay dirt is found. Nearly the entire site of the
city has been dug over by the miner. It was in
one of its gulches, now a street, that a prospector
wearied out by unsuccessful tramps and reduced
to his last dollar, stuck in his pick to try for a
" last chance." He had no expectation of reward,
but dug down in sheer desperation before going
off a pauper. The result was "The last chance
mine," one of the richest ever discovered.
We stopped at the Helena hotel and found it
quite equal to any in large eastern cities.
The Broadwater Hotel, however, some three
to four miles out of town, is now the lion of the
place. It is a cottage-built house, with 200 fine
rooms, all finished in hardwoods and elegantly
furnished. Its bathrooms, with huge porcelain
tubs and large dressing-rooms attached to each,
are especially fine and the baths are said to be
medicinally good.
THE SWIMMING BATH OF THE WORLD.
But these dwindle when compared with its
huge swimming bath. The natatorium building
TACOMA. 85
is about 350 feet long by 150, with a roof TOO
feet high, supported by light arches in single
spans. The tank is 300 feet by 100; at one end
about four feet deep, and running to ten or more
at the other. Natural hot and cold waters pour
over a precipice of cyclopean masses of granite
at one end, about fifty feet wide and forty high.
This precipice is pierced by three large openings
over which the water pours in great sheets, and
so artistically that one would easily believe it
a series of natural falls. The flow is so large
that the tank is replenished several times a day.
The temperature was to me rather high — about
86 degrees. A swim in its deep waters, however,
was very fine. The whole is lighted by day
through windows high up, of cathedral glass in
different tints, terra cotta predominating. The
hotel, with its 200 rooms, and the tank-house
and grounds are illuminated at night by incan-
descent lights. We saw it only by day, but
could easily imagine how beautiful it must look
and how gay a scene it must offer when 300 or
400 people are in at night — men and gay ladies.
Very decorous bathing suits are furnished to
bathers, and those bringing their own, are com-
pelled to have them of conventional modesty.
I was told that 300 bathers of an evening
is not an unusual number, and that it is
largely frequented during nine months of the
86 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
year and by the very best people of the city.
The charge is fifty cents for an entrance, so
as to keep out the riff-raff. Col. Broadwater
has expended half a million on the house and
grounds, bringing his hot water from a min-
eral hot spring some four miles up a gorge,
and a large supply of cold pure water also from
the hills. The hotel was full. We took lunch
with the Colonel and some friends, and found it
like everything else, first class. A steam and an
electric motor road leads from the city to the
hotel. By the way, why do the street car people
not put in electrical motors in Chicago? At St.
Paul, Helena and Spokane we have ridden upon
them and were delighted. A car looks as if it
were out fishing with a fishing rod springing
from its top, bent just as if it were playing a
gamy fish.
The hospitalities of the Broadwater very
nearly cost us our connection at the railroad.
We gave ourselves but little time, expecting to
find a carriage ordered to be in waiting at the
electric road city terminus. It was not there
and we walked to our hotel to find we had but
eleven minutes to get our luggage on a carriage
and to reach the railroad station a mile and a
half away. The porter said it was impossible to
reach it in time. We ordered our traps brought
'down and rushed to our rooms for our small
TACOMA. 87
pieces. At the office were a crowd of newly
arrived travelers. I called to the clerk saying
I had no time to pay hotel bills. He smiled.
Taking advantage of his good humor we mounted
the carnage telling the driver to make the train
or die. He said he would land us on the train or
in — naming a rather hot place. He tore through
the town at a full gallop. People in shop
doors looked at us and smiled. Possibly they
suspected an old gray beard was getting away
with a young girl. The jehu and his horses
were plucky. The station house as we drove
up hid the train from us, and hid us from
it. We turned the building, the train was
well in motion, the engineer checked up but
the train continued to move. We jumped down ;
the driver threw our trunk into the baggage
car; I landed my valise on the platform of
the next car; my daughter got her satchel on the
next and she climbed up on the third. I caught
on and climbed the fourth and threw the fare to
the driver. Quite a crowd of people about the
station admired our pluck, and when our driver
yelled out "Hurrah for Chicago" a generous
response went up from a score or more of throats.
Success is admired everywhere, but out west it
is the cure all. Every man at that station would
at that moment have voted for me for — pound
master. Shortly after leaving Helena the climb
88 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
is commenced in scaling the real Rocky Moun-
tains. The road bends and winds over many
magnificent curves and loops, rapidly climbing
upward. Now we look far above us, at a locomo-
tive slowly creeping along the mountain side,
and we look down upon the road we had a few
moments before puffed along, but already hun-
dreds of feet immediately under us. The moun-
tains towered above us, covered by great black
precipices, and mighty detached rocks standing
alone or in groups. This is the true backbone
of the continent, and the black scattered rocks
might be vertebrae pushing through the worn
cuticle. We could understand here why these
are called the rocky mountains. Rough towers
and jagged turrets black with the weather wear
of ages are the salient features of the heights
and slopes. Here they are in great groups,
there isolated. Now they are compacted into
massive precipices, frowning and repellent, and
then scattered as if dropped by icebergs. They
are, however, not mighty loose boulders, but are
moored to and are a part of the mountain's
foundation rocks.
We crossed some lofty trestle bridges and
looked down upon a stream thick with mud from
a gold washing camp near by. At length we
reached the summit. Our extra locomotive was
side tracked and we breathed an atmosphere
TACOMA. 89
perceptibly different from that we had left on the
eastern side of the range. We were now upon
the Pacific slope.
We halted for a few minutes at Missoula. The
fine valley was bathed in the glowing red of sun-
set. We lost at night much beautiful wooded
scenery which I once before enjoyed so much.
To one simply going to Puget Sound it is worth
while to stop over at Missoula and then to run
down Clark's Fork by day. But we wished to
have a full day at our next stopping place.
Of all the cities we have seen, the busiest was
Spokane — pronounced as if there were no " e "
at the end and the ua" quite broad. Seven
years ago I was there. Then it had but 800
dwellers. Now there are in the neighborhood of
25,000. There are several streets with elegant
business blocks, finished or being completed, of
four, five, and six stories in height, comparing
favorably with those of any Eastern city in arch-
itectural design and finish. The heart of the
city reminds one of Chicago the spring after the
great fire, and the people seem to have the same
pluck, and energy, and confidence that so marked
our people at that time. Some of the private
houses on the steep, hugely-bowldered slope of a
high hill on one side of the city are models of
elegance. We visited two which were real chefs
croeuvres of architectural design — one a Swiss
90 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
chalet, the other Mooresque in design. Every-
thing was after the original models, even to
mr ch of the furniture. I have never seen ex-
cept in some model houses abroad such complete
specimens. The outside of several others which
we did not visit are quite as fine. Mrs. Cutter,
the proud mother of the architect, exhibited her
house with great hospitality, and Mrs. Moore
seemed to feel that she had no right to hide her
gem of a residence.
At evening we were invited to a fete cham-
petre on a fine lake some forty miles north of
the city and 800 feet elevated above it. About
300 of the elite of the town went out by rail,
danced, and had supper, returning to town by
i o'clock in the morning. The young girl with
me enjoyed it greatly. A severe cold just caught
forbade my appreciating anything but the sweet,
sincere hospitality shown us. Judge Kinnaiid,
the son of one of the friends of my early Ken-
tucky boyhood, got us the entree of Spokane's
"four hundred." This is destined to continue a
thriving city, but lots at $1,000, four miles from
the heart of the city, will burn badly some real
estate speculators. It is said a mining trade of
nearly $50,000 a day naturally belongs to the
town. I fear, however, there will be a bursting
of a bubble when the burnt district shall be re-
stored. A large trade will be necessary to support
OLD FAITHFUL, AT UPPER GEYSER BASIN. (SEE PAGE 36.)
TACOMA. 91
the great number of mechanics and laborers
now lifting the town from its ashes. Hotel
Spokane is a very large and good house.
Very fine crops are grown in the Spokane
Valley. The crops of oats and wheat sown for
hay was being harvested and proved a very
heavy yield. Washington claims she will har-
vest over 20,000,000 bushels of wheat this year.
I was surprised to see fine fields of grain on the
rolling plains in the great bend of the Columbia
river. I remember speaking of the richness of
this soil in the "Race with the Sun," but thought
artificial irrigation would be necessary to make
it yield. This year there are fine crops where
only nature's watering can ever be availed of.
One of the stations, quite removed from any
water course, has grown into a thriving town,
showing that the country around is prosperous.
I suspect that a fair rainfall cannot be relied
upon from year to year. It will, however, be-
come more and more reliable, for it has been the
rule throughout the world and probably through
all ages, that rains follow cultivation, and man's
presence and industry calls down Heaven's aid.
The answer of Hercules to the cartman would
be the reply of Ceres as well to the prayers of
her votaries.
The ash colored sage bush was thought by
the early men of the great plains to be poison to
92 A SUMMER S OUTING.
the land. It however was one of God's bounties
to man. It prevented the soil from being blown
away and where it grew the most lavishly, is
now found to be the best of soils. Sage bush
not only keeps the winds away, but when dead
and rotten fills up sand pockets with material
rich for all of the small grains. The people of
the Yakima valley on the eastern slope of the
Cascade mountains, boast that theirs is the gar-
den spot of the Pacific country. They certainly
do produce fine fruits, melons and garden vege-
tables, but I have not been struck favorably with
the outlook of the locality in either of my trips
through the land.
The run from Ellensburg over the Cascades is
a magnificent ride. The enormous mass of for-
est, prevents many extended views, but those
seen are very fine. Every break in the forests
would reveal lofty mountains slopes clothed
in forests of marvelous richness, and now and
then snowy heights would tower aloft. Once a
fine view of Renier is caught, the monarch of
the grand range. Robed in his snowy ermine
he stands out a sceptered hermit wrapped in his
isolation. Seen from the sound he is one of the
most picturesque peaked mountains of the
world, and from all inland points of view he is
a grand towering mass of ever living snow and
ice.
TACOMA. 93
ARKANSAS HOT SPRINGS, RIVALED.
Having done considerable hard work on the
trip so far, we resolved to take a rest at the hot
springs, three and-a-half hours from Tacoma, on
Green River. Three years ago my boys and I
fished here pleasantly for several days. The
place is unpretentious, but the waters possess
apparently the same properties as those of the
Arkansas hot springs. The place is some four-
teen hundred and fifty feet above Tacoma. Dur-
ing our present three days stop, an overcoat has
been comfortable in the evenings, and we sleep
under three blankets. A cold batch of air drops
down the valley from Mount Reniers (Tacoma
calls him Mount Tacoma; Renier is his name),
14,400 feet of snowy peak, driving away all sum-
mer sultriness. A bath in the medicinal waters
of seven minutes and then a pack causes the
perspiration to flow from one quite as heavily as
the same course would do in Arkansas. Before
leaving home I had a large and painful carbun-
cle on the back of my neck. The sign of the
cross was cut deeply into it, and as it healed it
proved a nest-egg for several smaller jewels near
by. These I cauterized with pure carbolic in
the park, but still they annoyed me much. Four
baths here have at least temporarily dried them
up. Men who came here three or four weeks
94 A SUMMER S OUTING.
ago on crutches from rheumatism, are walking
about freely and feel themselves able to buckle
down to work.
A WONDERFUL GROWTH OF TIMBER.
A sight of the magnificent cedar and fir for-
ests here would amply repay an Easterner for a
day's stop-over. I have been among them before
several times, yet at each visit they surprise me
as they did at first. Fifty thousand shingles are
made from a single cedar. I counted twenty- one
firs on a space considerably less than a quarter
of an acre. The owner, a sawyer, assured me
they would cut over five thousand feet of board
each. He owns a quarter of a section about his
mill and expects to market 15,000,000 feet of
lumber from his land. He said the railroad com-
pany had cut 30,000,000 feet from its right of
way of 400 feet by ten miles in this locality. I
saw on a quarter of an acre a cluster of twenty
odd trees from four and-a-half feet to over six in
diameter and 300 high. They ran up about 150
feet before reaching a limb. Mighty logs lie
upon the ground so thickly that even a good
woodsman can walk but little over a mile an
hour. Cedar logs, moss-covered and sodden,
stretch 100 feet in the tangled undergrowth, and
have lain there so long that one often sees a fir
tree, growing with its roots straddled over them
50 to 100 years old.
TACOMA. 95
We were pleased to find among the guests of
the springs one of Chicago's fairest daughters,
now living at Tacoma, whose pulled-candy tresses
three years ago out-glistened the fiber of her
bridal veil, and whose eyes are bluer than the
turquoise in her talismanic ring. I like little
unpretentious Green River, Hot Springs, even if
its table is not of the Delmonico order.
MALT LIQUORS IN THE ORIGINAL PACKAGE.
A pretty drop of fourteen hundred and odd
feet through wild rocky gorges and thickly
treed glades, along the rapid green waters of the
river, in which trout abound, between lofty
heights, brought us to the world-famous hop
yards of the Puyallup Valley. What masses of
green lift upon the closely-set hop-poles ! I in-
voluntarily cried " Prosit und Gesundheit " as
we whizzed through them. Twenty-three or four
years ago, the first hop root was planted in the
soil of this marvelous valley. Now in this val-
ley and others in this locality, two hundred and
fifty thousand acres are giving forth each year
<"rops unknown in any other hop land. Two
.housand pounds to the acre are not unusual,
and some yields have been nearly if not quite
double that. Thousands of barrels of malt
liquors were green about us in original pack-
ages.
96 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
When we alighted at Tacoma, from which I
date this letter, I was most agreeably surprised
to find that Mr. Winston and his two fair daugh-
ters were on the same train. They had intended
going with us into the Yellowstone Park, but
were unavoidably detained. They have done
the Park more rapidly than we did and here
overtook us. To-morrow we will be fellow-pas-
sengers for Uncle Sam's ice-bound Eldorado,
Alaska. Tacoma has been and is growing with
great rapidity. A great suburb covers a wide
slope on the upper end of the town, which at
night, when I was here three years ago, had the
appearance of a Titanic camp-fire. Fires gleamed
along great logs ; fires burnt on sides and tops
of lofty stumps, and fires belched forth from
burning trees fifty and more feet from the
ground. Diagonal auger holes had been bored
near the root into the heart of a tree. Two
holes meet at the heart thus causing a draught.
Fire was put in, igniting the inflammable pitch,
always richest near the ground. It then bored
its way up the heart to break out as from a flue,
often a hundred feet from the roots.
Tacoma was a cluster of shanties with a small
population, barely among the thousands, seven
years ago. It was a dusty, scattered, ungainly
big village of 12,000 three years ago. Now the
census gives it about 40,000 population. The
TACOMA. 97
Northern Pacific company is filling the five-mile
flat marsh along the Puyallup P.iver which emp-
ties into the bay, in front of the town. A large
part of this belongs to the Indian Reservation,
and is covered by several feet of water during
the high tides, which come up the Sound. The
filling is being done by a powerful pumping
dredge, which pours each day a vast quantity of
sand and silt from the deeper part of the river
upon the flats to be filled. My friends Christy
and Wise of the Illinois Club, Chicago, are part
owners of the powerful dredge, and I suspect are
making a big thing of it. The reclaimed land
will, when high and dry, be worth millions, and
will be the seat of the best business portion of
the future city. The generous way in which
this great railroad company has taken possession
of and is appropriating the fat of this place re-
minds one forcibly of what is or may be going
on in a city between this and the Atlantic. Co-
lumbian World's Fair Commissioners, Directors,
and City Councils may possibly be sometimes
just a little too generous, as Congresses are and
have been. The people may sometimes permit
their patriotic fervor to make them somewhat
unobservant of the wide reach and tenacious
grasp of monopoly. Corporations are said to
have no souls. Railroad corporations are as
voracious as their iron horses and have con-
sciences as cold as their iron rails.
98 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
The big hotel here is now crowded with trav-
elers, the most of them just returned from or
about to sail for Alaska. Cots are doubled up
in many rooms. The wide veranda, overlooking
the sound, last night was full of gay pronie-
naders from many quarters of the Union ; they
enjoyed very fair music from the house band,
while they watched with delight the unique
spectacle of what appeared to be a new moon
arising in the east with its crescent bent down-
ward instead of upward. Fair Luna arose to us
immediately over the sharp rounded pinnacle of
lofty Mount Tacoma. She presented a narrow
silver crescent — a mere thread at first, but wax-
ing by a rapid crescendo movement, she showed
her first, her second, and her third quarter, and
then her full rounded self in all of her cold glory
many degrees, up in the sky. The proud moun-
tain having played his short role of eclipsing a
planet at once sank into gray nothingness. It
seemed a pity the moon's movement was so rapid.
She is a cold, frickle jade and is said to be
from rim to core hard in eternal frost. It was
but fitting she should rest awhile on yonder
pinnacled home of eternal ice and snow.
During the afternoon of yesterday after our
arrival, all of the mountain's lower mass, more
than two-thirds of its height, was absolutely in-
visible, veiled in translucent, unclouded haze.
TACOMA. 99
No one could have guessed a mountain was
there, but high up some four to five thousand
feet of his ice-locked lofty summit hung like a
gigantic ^balloon, thinly silvered and delicately
burnished, floating on airy nothingness some ten
degrees above the horizon. To those who have
never seen this effect of a snow-clad mountain,
the picture was startling and to all was weird in
the extreme. Few mountain chiefs in the world
are seen to such advantage as Tacoma from this
point on a clear day. The beholder standing on
a level of the sea sees the whole of the cone in
all of the majesty of fourteen thousand four
hundred and odd feet, over 6,000 feet of this be-
ing clothed in eternal snow. We were lucky in
seeing the floating summit yesterday, for a
change of wind has since then brought the
smoke from forest fires down into the valley to-
day, and a compass is necessary to fix the great
mountain's exact location. He may keep him-
self impenetrably veiled for several weeks. If I
be not mistaken, I was told he was invisible last
year for nearly if not quite three months.
Mr. Clint Snowden, the Secretary of the Board
of Trade, has been our cicerone, as the board
was our host, in showing us about the city to-
day. Its growth one could scarcely comprehend
from the information as the increase of popula-
tion. Seeing has shown the naked truth. The
ioo A SUMMER'S OUTING.
great kindness to me in the past of friends in
Seattle has made me rather a Seattler. But I
tremble lest it may not be able to keep pace with
its pushing rival. Will the country be able to
support two big cities ? I have great faith in
the country. Three years ago I said there would
be a mighty empire along the Pacific slope — that
is, a mighty part of the great Nation of the
continent. Each visit here more and more im-
presses me that my prophecy will be fulfilled.
I recalled the fact that we once thought it an
outrage that " the Father of his country " should
have his state-namesake off in an out of the
way corner of the country, and that corner a
mountainous mass of worthless land; but now
one can realize that Washington will be the
most picturesque state in the Union, and when
America becomes densely populated, it will be
one of the richest. The yield of all kinds ; lum-
ber, coal, hops, wheat and oats, fish and fruits
will this year equal that of many of the eastern
states. The state will ere many years have gone
by, prove a magnificent namesake of the Father
of his country.
Dust is one of the most serious impedimenta
of the Pacific slope ; for three months of the
year it makes one's throat and lungs a sort of
mortar bed, but the soil which so easily turns to
impalable powder and in such quantities as to be
TACOMA. IOI
almost solid along some of the roads, is of mar-
velous richness. The trees are nearly as impos-
ing monarchs as are the mountains ; the flowers
are as beautiful as the rivers are clear and
pearly ; the fruits are glorious and the climate
is delicious. Though the noon-day sun is so
hot as to make a broad-brimmed hat or an um-
brella a necessity, yet the nights are so cold that
one gets chilled under less than three blankets.
Speaking of fruits, we must say that excepting
in the Caucasus the world has no equal for the
cherries of this locality — so pulpy and so big.
A peddler selling some, captured his purchaser
when he cried out: u But, then, sir; them's
cherries, not apples." While writing this the
sun marches deeply into the West. We must
soon board the steamer which sails before day to-
morrow.
LETTER VI.
THRIVING AND PICTURESQUE SEATTLE. TWO
CURIOUS MEETINGS. VICTORIA AND ITS
FLOWERS. ESOUIMAULT AND THE WARSPITE.
TWO BROKEN HEARTED GIRLS. CHARMING
SAIL ON THE INLAND SEA. PICTURESQUE
MOUNTAINS. GROWTH OF ALASKA. WHALES
AND THEIR SPORTS. NATIVE ALASKANS.
THEIR HOMES, HABITS, FOOD, FEASTS AND
WILD MUSIC. BASKETS AND BLANKETS. SAL-
MON FISHERIES. MINES AND DOGS.
STEAMER QUEEN, Aug. 10, 1890.
I wrote voluminously from the Yellowstone
National Park, quite at large on the run on the
Northern Pacific railroad, and expected to make
a big letter on the Alaskan excursion. But I
am discouraged. If all the pencils seen making
copious notes and extracting from route and
other books on this steamer were preparing let-
ters, and if a like proportion on the other regular
steamers do the same, then the thing will be
written into the ground during this season alone.
I will, however, commence a short letter; the
humor of my pen may make it a long one.
We boarded the "Queen" at Tacoma the night
of the 3ist of July. Before morning we cleared
the port, and at six landed at Seattle for a two
hours stop. It was too early for us to see any of
102
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 103
our friends, but giving us time to mark the won-
derful growth of the last three years. In my
last, the possibility of Tacoma taking the lead of
Seattle was expressed. When one sees the ele-
gant houses going up or gone up here since the
fire of a year ago ; looks over the hills which
were three years since clothed with forests but
now are covered with beautiful residences ; drives
over paved streets where he so short a time since
was choked by dust ; and glides in cable and
electric cars smoothly up grades which make a
walk laborious and caused the horses in his car-
riage to pant and blow — when one sees all these
things and recalls the pluck of these people when
they let the world know they wanted no help
from outside when their city lay in ashes, then
he feels Tacoma will have a mighty struggle even
with the Northern Pacific's help to catch and
lead Seattle.
The Tacoma people claim that the United
States census gives them the larger population.
This the Seattleite denies, and I suspect with
justice. He claims his city will have over
43,000 population, all within the compact boun-
daries of the town, and several thousands in the
suburbs. Many may be there helping to build
the place up out of its ashes. The greater pro-
portion of them will probably remain perma-
nently, for Seattle has a great trade. Before the
io4 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
fire a year ago it was rather over crowded. The
large warehouses and hotels now gone up, are
not in advance of the demand. I was, the day
before while driving about Tacoma, almost a
Tacoma man. But as our ship bent out of her
rival's harbor, I was again a Seattler.
The view of the city perched upon its terraced
hills is very imposing from the bay, and recalls
a long ago prospect from the sea at Genoa.
While the Queen was steaming out of the bay
into the open sound, I mounted to the hurricane
deck for a parting view of the picturesque place.
At the foot of the upper gang way I paused to
let a gentleman and lady pass me on their de-
scent from above. The gentleman held out his
hand saying " Mr. Harrison, I think ; we never
met but once before. We were vis-a-vis at the
dinner table in Colombo, Ceylon. My wife and I
had just landed from the " Rome " on our way
from Australia. You were about to embark on
her for Suez." Indeed if I be not mistaken I
got the state room he had vacated. Mr. Sargent
and his wife, had a few days ago arrived at San
Francisco from Japan and were then on their
way to Alaska before going to their home in
New Haven, from which they had been absent
for several years. This meeting made a singu-
lar co-incidence with another of the day before
at Tacoma. As I was crossing the rotunda of
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 105
the Tacoma hotel, a stranger accosted me, and
at the same time held out his hand, saying
"This is Mr. Harrison of Chicago, is it not?" I
replied "Yes". "We never met but once Mr.
Harrison, and that was at the supper table at
Agra, India. We sat side by side and talked of
the Taj." This gentleman was from New York
and was too, on his way to Alaska. He had just
come from the East and had expected to sail on
the Queen, but not being able to secure a berth,
was about to go aboard the. George W. Elder,
which had been crippled on a rock the week
before, and sailed from Tacoma the evening of
the 3 1 st. It was pleasant thus to meet these
people — utter strangers to each other, whom I
had encountered on the other side of the world.
It is remarkable how often such chance meetings
come to voyagers in distant regions. It shows
how the love of travel grows upon one. Seeing
begets a desire for seeing. A large number of
our fellow passengers on this excursion have
been world wanderers.
We tied to the pier at Port Townsend for a
couple of hours. We had time for a hasty run over
the town and to measure the march of its improve-
ment during the past three years. It has grown
very considerably and improved much. Its people
make huge calculations as to its future, but have no
expectation of their town being a rival of the other
io6 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
two cities. It has been the port of entry for the
Soundv which has given it considerable advan-
tages. This exclusive privilege it will hereafter
have to share with one or both of the others.
Back of it lies the unexplored Olympian moun-
tains, in which many think rich gold mines will
be found. If this should be the case, then Port
Townsend will forge ahead.
Our far northern excursion is now coining to
a close. We have done Alaska and are again
sailing through British waters. Vancouver Isle
stretches to our right. We can easily imagine
that a turn of a headland may reveal the War-
spite, with her guns, throwing 3OO-pound shot,
ready to knock us into pi should our Yankee in-
clinations tempt us to give a too short twist on
the lion's tail. By the way, the ironclad bearer
of the Admiral's broad pennant, is a ferocious
looking monster.
Having three hours at our command before
dark on our arrival at Victoria the first of
the month, we drove about the staid and
orderly town, drinking in air laden with the
breath of honeysuckle embowering lattice and
cottage ; exclaiming in delight at sight of roses
hanging in mighty clusters and festooning
porches and verandas, or lifting their faces six
inches from out to out on strong stems in the
gardens ; and having our eyes refreshed by par-
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 107
terres of dahlias, nasturtiums, feverfews, and
many delicate flowers in white or of every tint.
This town was evidently settled directly from
England. The love evinced, for cottage adorn-
ment would have been lost in a passage through
the Canuck settlements of the East. The sweet
embowered cottage is an English institution,
as thoroughly as is "magna charta." Wherever
either exists we know it to be a heritage from
the seagirt isle.
THE FAIRY-LIKE HARBOR OF THE BRITISH
FLEET.
Our drive brought us about six o'clock to Es-
quimault, the fairy-like harbor of the British
fleet of the North Pacific. What a little gem it
is ! A rounded patch of sea, a few hundred
yards in diameter, lifted up and dropped thirty
fathoms deep among well-wooded, sloping hills
and connected by a short, deep channel less than
a hundred feet wide, with the mighty ocean.
This channel is in fact a gateway with smooth
granite buttresses, of bowlder-like surface, lift-
ing a few feet above high tide. These buttres-
ses were built by no human hand, but were born
of the molten mass poured up from the earth's
fiery center. The very globe shook and reeled
in volcanic spasms at their birth. Here, in this
quiet little harbor, thoroughly protected from
io8 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
the outer sea, lay the fearful man of war War-
spite, a sleeping Titan, surrounded by several
others less formidable, but yet of ugly dimen-
sions. Close by the entrance of the harbor is a
great dry dock, in which American vessels have
been courteously repaired. Near this is a little
hamlet where one can get a fair meal and can
take rowing boat to visit the great ships.
The drive from town to the harbor is very
charming; through pretty woods, on good roads,
overlooking green arms of the sea which run
back into the hills, in crystal clearness. One
can well say these sea-creeks run back into the
hills, for the incoming tides send currents up
them of great strength. Pretty villas are built
along the well kept roads, and acres of wild roses
scent the air, while the red barked Arbutis leans
over the cool streams with knarled bronze like
arms and branches. The excursion steamers all
anchor at Victoria long enough to permit tour-
ists to take this and other drives.
When we reached the neighborhood of the
man-of-war, it was so late that we had no expec-
tation of going aboard, but our hackman desirous
of putting in as much time as possible, and a
boatsman in want of a job assured us we would
be received aboard the Warspite. A large num-
ber of her 600 complement were leaning over
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 109
the bulwarks, and gold lace and brass buttons
shone upon the eyes of our two young girls.
Their little hearts fluttered as no glacier of the
Arctic zone could have made them do. Ah!
what a wondrous spell the glitter on the shoul-
ders of soldier or sailor works upon the female
heart! Even the married woman of our party
had a heightened color as we approached the
gangway of the mighty ship. Fancy the two
broken hearts of the girls and the composed, sad
face of the matron when a sailor came down the
gangway to inform us the hour for visitors was
past, that no one was received after five o'clock.
One of the men of our party told him the next
time we came we would board his ship from the
deck of the ''Chicago." He laughed. There is
no taint of a quarrel between the brave tars of
an English and an American man-of-war. We
rowed slowly away. The music from the band
poured down upon us from the decks and was
caught in sweel^ echo by the hills around. How
I pitied the girls ! They are just on the edge of
society, and what tales they could have told their
schoolmates ! Chicago's late representative at
the Court of the Shah of Persia smiled as only
one who had been at a court could smile. But
the girls uttered sighs which smote the writer's
too sympathetic soul.
no A SUMMER'S OUTING.
WHEN WE GOBBLE UP CANADA.
The Warspite lies at Esquimault (up here
called Squimal) ready to shake the icebergs of
Behring Sea. A word to President Harrison and
Secretary Elaine : Don't tell England that our
blood is up to fighting heat, until we are ready
to gobble down Canada and the Canadian Pacific
railway at a mouthful. It can be done and not
at the expense of a very wry face. Then let
England roam about the oceans to her hearts
content, while we Yankees will play base-ball
with a continent for our grounds, with basemen
and shortstops between the two oceans, and out-
fielders on the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic
seas.
SAILING THROUGH THE ISLES OF THE PACIFIC.
We are now on our tenth day from Tacoma.
The ship will reach her home Tuesday, the
twelfth day, having sailed over 2,100 miles ;
some ten hours of this was in the open Pacific,
from Glacier Bay to Sitka, and then from that
port south to Clarence Strait. The remainder
of the distance was in the interior channels, and
across perhaps a half-dozen short openings into
the sea. The several channels have fixed names
and are of various breadths, from 200 or 300
yards to four or five miles. Sometimes we were
next the broad continent, but often small islands
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. Ill
lay between the straits and the mainland, with
large islands or smaller ones several deep, to-
wards the sea. The sailing along the watery
road was plain and easy except in two narrow
straits, where the ship had to slow np frequently,
while she bent in and ont to avoid rocks. These
are taken partly as cut-offs and partly for the
beauty of the scenery. The islands are all
mountains lifted from the water ; all are more or
less tree-clad, with peaks on the tallest, rocky,
jagged, and oftentimes with streamers of snow
stretching downward in their npper gorges.
Vancouver Island is 300 miles long, covered
by a broad, lofty range of mountains in pile be-
hind pile, broken and in some instances with
heads wrapped in perpetual snow. North of
this along the way are four irregularly shaped
long islands, around each of which a good
steamer would require nearly a day to sail.
These, too, are a mass of rugged, jagged, sharply
pointed and peaked mountains in very confused
mass, with no valleys, but with narrow gorges
and small flats, along many of which pour pel-
lucid streams from snowy heights. Seen from
the south, the mountains are green up to a
height of two or more thousand feet, with rock'y
summits flecked with snow or banded in the
long downward gorges. Viewed from the north,
the snow often lies in broad fields and always is
ii2 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
in greater profusion then when seen from other
points of the compass. The smaller island
mountains are not so lofty, but are beyond the
dignity of hills, being from 1,500 to 2,000 and
some of them 3,000 feet high.
AWE-INSPIRING MOUNTAINS.
To the eastward the mainland presents one
continuous mass of mountains ; never in even
ranges, but all broken, toothed and needled, with
foothills next the water green and rounded.
The loftier masses behind shoot their rocky
height into the blue sky from 3,000 to nearly
5,000 feet above the sea. Flecks and bands of
snow are never absent from these, and often the
smooth upper heights are wrapped in pure man-
tles of white.
Into the mainland enter many crooked, deep
inlets antlered in form, the counterparts of the
fiords of Norway with this difference, those of
Norway have generally lofty precipices lifting
directly from the water ; here there are fewer
precipices. The mountains, however, lift up
very steep, with wooded slopes, but permitting
their pinnacles to be seen. Some prospectors
abroad told us that the scenery on these fiords
was majestic in the extreme. And well it may
be, for nearly all of the inlets are flanked by
notched and peaked mountains, shooting into
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN.
the sky with shoulders and necks wrapped in
eternal frosts. When our great Republic shall
have its boundary lines marked only by oceans
and seas, then these bold highlands should be
set apart as a continental park for the free peo-
ple of the Western hemisphere.
The mountains of both mainland and islands
are thoroughly picturesque, with rugged upper
members topped out in sharp points and rocky
pinnacles, such as are seen nowhere in the old
states of our country and but rarely in the new
ones or in any of the old Territories. There are
no deciduous or hardwood trees, and but few
hardwood shrubs. Firs, balsams, and hemlocks
cover the mountain sides, and cedars sometimes
are seen in the small flats next the sea or up the
gullies. The forests on mountains slopes are of
small trees, and no track of the fire fiend is ever
seen. The air is so humid along the entire outer
sea coast from the mouth of the Columbia to
Behring Strait that one cannot avail himself of
forest fires to help clear the land. Should the
trees be deadened and fall, they would lie sodden
and wet until destroyed by sluggish rot, while
tangled undergrowth and young forests would
spring up in almost impenetrable maze. On
many mountain slopes more than half of the
trees are dead but still standing, while often are
seen great belts of bare, dead trunks, with not a
ii4 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
single live one, but a green carpet of fresh after-
growth spreading over the ground. The soil is
so thin upon the rocky mass of the mountain
that sustenance is not afforded for any but young
and vigorous forests. After a few years' growth
the living die to make a soil for larger ones to
come. Thus ever do the young feed upon the
old. A man works, accumulates and dies, for
his children to feed upon his hoarded fat, per-
haps to squander it in riotous living. One fre-
quently sees here the footprints of avalanches
which have swept the accumulations of long
years, trees and soil, into the sea or gorges, leav-
ing the rock bare as it was in its primal up-
heaval. So, too, misfortunes and unavoidable
shocks sweep away the heritage of worthy sous
from worthy sires.
THE RUINS OF MIGHTY FORESTS.
On the more gentle slopes and in the small
valleys of Alaska, fallen timber builds up a rich
soil. The trees, however, lie for many years
piled one upon another, the newer upon the
older, and all heavily covered with moss and
yielding to slow decay. When decayed, they
make a soil so uneven in surface that a walk
over it is an arduous task. When a tree falls it
lies and moulders for long years ; heavy, rich
moss wraps it as in thick blankets. In this way
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 115
the ground becomes covered by hummocks sev-
eral feet high. These hummocks are as thick
as graves in an old cemetery. We saw an up-
turned tree back of Sitka ten to twelve feet in
diameter some distance from its roots. Saplings
ten inches in diameter were growing among its
upturned roots fifteen feet from the ground.
Moss six inches thick lay like a winding sheet
about the trunk. Half of the lower trunk had
been slabbed off, I suspect by natives for ma-
terial for their carved wood work, for it was
perfectly sound.
Another large tree lay prone at great length.
A fir over three feet in diameter was sitting
astride it, sending its roots down to the
ground on either side. A trail running across
it made it necessary to cut down into the old
trunk. The wood left at the bottom was per-
fectly sound. Again I saw a large tree perched
some feet np upon an old stump, its roots
having found the ground down in the hollow.
The majority of the large trees on the flats
have grotesque trunks for several feet from
the ground, showing that they had been dis-
torted by old trunks, in whose moss-covered
sides the seed from which they sprang had ger-
minated. The air is so full of moisture that
moss soon covers a fallen tree and furnishes the
best bed for sprouting the delicate seed of
n6 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
coniferae. The expense of clearing such land as
might be fitted for cultivation will retard for
a long time any agricultural pursuits in Alaska.
A well-posted man assured me it would cost $600
per acre.
Live stock would thrive here if lands could
be opened. Grasses are rich and luxuriant,
and the few horses and cows seen were sleek
and fat. But I do not think from what
we saw and heard that either as an agricul-
tural or as a grazing country Alaska ever will
or can be a success. Cauliflowers, lettuce, pota-
toes, and several other garden vegetables looked
well at Sitka and Fort Wrangel but in small
patches. A few beds of poppies and daisies were
very fine, and several other flowers were
brightly yellow in the little gardens.
" THERE SHE BLOWS ! "
We have had charming weather — the Captain
says the best trip of the season. Several of our
passengers give your correspondent credit for
being the mascot of the party — a compliment
very complacently accepted. The good, sunny
days have not only enabled us to enjov hugely
the beautiful and often sublime scenery, but
have given us many opportunities for studying
some of the mannerisms of the leviathans of the
deep. We have seen many whales, several
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 117
times ten to twenty at once, and at close range.
They rolled themselves in grand dignity tip out
of the water a few hundred yards from us, and,
slowly bending, threw their flukes several feet
into the air. Then they would spurt great geys-
ers ten or more feet high, making a noise not un-
like that made by elephants when blowing dust
over themselves, but far louder. Indeed, when
some blew a hundred yards away from us, it
sounded like a somewhat continuous emission
from a steam stack.
To-day several fine fellows were very near
us, and one apparently young one threw him-
self several feet entirely into the air. He
seemed from twelve to eighteen feet long.
The passengers thought it a baby whale sport-
ing for the amusement of its dam. But a glass
happening to catch him on the fly it was discov-
ered he had a decided snout. Some of us then
decided it to be a Greenland shark, which has
an underjaw provided with very sharp, rather
protruding teeth, with which it scoops out of a
whale great chunks of blubber. Close by where
it leaped a large whale lifted its fluke almost
perpendicularly out of the water and thrashed it
into foam. This was kept up for several hun-
dred yards till we got too far away to see it well.
This we are told is sometimes done in a kind of
wanton sport, but I suspect in this instance the
n8 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
monster was trying to defend itself from one of
its inveterate enemies. At any rate our passen-
gers were afforded a very unusual sight.
THE NATIVE ALASKANS.
Of the animated nature, however, exhibited
for our amusement and study, the native Alas-
kans were the most interesting part. They are
very improperly called Indians, being of a dis-
tinct race from the American red men. I went
into several shacks or native houses. They are
built by the natives, and under no outside advice
or architectural interference. I saw the manner
of arrangement of their little stock of furniture.
I saw them preparing their food and eating their
meals ; heard them talk, and watched the play
of their features when trading and when having
some sport. I thought I saw cropping out
everywhere decided Japanese characteristics. It
is difficult to name or enumerate the points of
resemblance. But they exist, and are to me far
more marked than any resemblance between the
Japanese and the Chinese, who are supposed by
most ethnologists to be of cognate families. These
people are to me degraded descendants of the
land of the rising sun who entered America
through the Aleutian Isles.
The Alaskan shacks are generally located
near the water, in somewhat orderly rows, one
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 119
behind the other. They usually, as far as I
could see, consist of a single room occupying the
entire house. At or near the center of the build-
ing is a square, covered with dirt when the
house is raised up, or if the house be low down,
then on the ground, whereon the fire burns.
Around this square is a somewhat raised
platform, as in a Japanese house; on this, the
different members of the family, or the several
families have their separate locations, with their
boxes, beds and other individual property. Fre-
quently the room is thirty to forty feet square,
and houses ten, twenty, and often forty or more
people. These are members of a large family or
of a sub-tribe. By the way a woman is fre-
quently chief of a tribe, and one reads over the
door in large letters the name of "Blank (a
woman) chief." The Indians seem to evince a
sort of boastfulness in the numberings on their
houses, which at Sitka run from 3,000 or 4,000
up to five and six. It is barely possible this may
be a part of a S3'stem of enumeration running
through several colonies or tribes, and through-
out the land wherever such tribes live. But a
white man living in the territory told us it arose
from the native desire to look big and to appear
as one of a great multitude.
The individual possessions of the different
members of a family, are kept in boxes and piled
i2o A SUMMER'S OUTING.
upon them. I looked into several of these boxes.
Every thing- was thrown in pell-mell — shoes,
skins, scarfs, tools, pails and even iron pots and
axes. The packing of a box looked as if it had
been done in a hurry. The women and children
when indoors were found, except at meal time,
squatted about the several platforms. When at
meals they were huddled on their haunches on
the earthen square about the open fire. There
are no chimneys to the houses. The fire being
built in the center of the squares, the smoke goes
out as in Japan through openings in the center
of the roof, and to a considerable extent through
the doors. About and above the openings in the
roof are a sort of screen which may be shifted ac-
cording to the direction of the wind.
In several small shacks at Juneau, old fash-
ioned iron stoves were seen, with stove pipes
leading above the roof. The inside of a shack is
an omnium gatherum, not only of people of both
sexes and of all ages, but of fishing nets, axes
and saws, boat paddles, and blocks on which
wooden work was being done. Dried fish and
pelts stretched are on the walls and hanging
from the roof poles.
The natives are very dark and swarthy, and
have rather a yellow tinge in their complexions
than red; have large heads and huge, broad,
flat, stolid faces, long bodies, short, ill-shaped
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 121
legs, and ungainly gaits. The habit of squat-
ting when a.t rest, and when propelling their
canoes and fishing, has developed unduly the
upper body at the great expense of the lower
limbs. They obtain their livelihood from the
sea, and spend much more than half of their
waking hours in their dugouts. They have no
thwarts in their canoes to sit upon, but squat
down upon the bottom, or bend on their knees.
This causes the legs to dwindle when young and
to become decidedly crooked. This, too, is the
cause of their decidedly shambling gait when
walking. They do not look bright, but are
skilled in all things they understand, and learn
with great rapidity, not by imitation as the Chi-
nese do, but from inborn aptitude like that of the
Japanese. Their blankets, made of the wool of
the mountain goat, are marvels of closely woven
fabrics, and their baskets of. a kind of tough
grass are as close as the finest Panama hats and
very harmoniously colored. They carve fairly in'
wood, their totems and small ware being quite
artistic. In silver ornamentation they excel.
Blankets are the medium of exchange ; not the
native ornamental blankets, but those introduced
by the Hudson Bay people. The old traders
bought furs, and pelts, paying for them in
woolen blankets. A pile of furs was worth so
many blankets. From what I can learn the skill
122 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
of a native trader has always been in his ability
to demand a large number of blankets for his
goods, and then to maintain as long as possible
the stolidity of his countenance, during the hig-
gling necessary to meet the views of the shrewd
Hudson Bay fellow. About the places we visited
only silver coin is taken in trade, and a native
man or woman rarely drops a peg from the price
first demanded.
THE HOME AT SITKA.
At a school, u The Home," in Sitka, under the
control of a church organization in the States,
are a large number of girls and boys of all sizes.
They are neat, intelligent in feature, recite
fluently and feelingly simple speeches and
verses, and sing sweetly and as if they felt not
only the sense but the harmony of their hymns.
A band of twenty youths plays brass instru-
ments well and with great precision in time.
'They have all pleasant low voices and the girls
exceedingly sweet ones. I noticed the same
characteristics among some wholely uneducated
and semi-savage women when singing to a wild
uncouth dance of the men.
A party of about sixty of a certain family re-
turned in canoes from ber^ing while we were in
Sitka. They went through uncouth motions
while in the boats and then danced in savage
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 123
grotesqueness on the shore, where they were re-
ceived by the men and women of other families
in wild glee. It was a berry " potlach " or feast.
The women's voices could be heard singing in
low, weird but sweet monotone. After dancing
and distributing pieces of calico among certain
of the berrying people, a party of over a hun-
dred entered a large shack, closing the door to
us white outsiders. There they went through
some long ceremonies. I managed to get inside
and for a few minutes was not disturbed. All
were squatted around the great room, in the
center of which was a fire, the smoke going out
of an aperature in the roof. When I entered all
were singing in so low a tone that it could al-
most be termed crooning. The whole thing was
'weird and wild, but the singing was not lacking
in untutored melody. Some other tourists see-
ing me get in also entered, opening the door so
widely that the wind drove the smoke back into
the room. A sort of head man who was next
the fire leading the song, got angry — gave the
word, when all got up hurriedly, and each tak-
ing a large basket or bowl full of berries went
off to their respective homes.
From what I could learn, a whole sub-tribe
takes boats and visits some locality possibly a
day or more's sail away, where the berry crop is
known to be good. They remain until their
124 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
canoes are well filled. When they return some
of the men stand np in the canoes arrayed in
showy colored calico or other bright stuff — and
shout and sing and wildly gesticulate. By this,
those in the village at once understand whether
or not the excursion has been successful. In
accordance therewith the returning party is met
on the landing. If unsuccessful with dirges and
lamentations. If successful with a" "potlatch,"
a species of joyous fete.
The party we saw were in high feather. Be-
dizened fellows stood in the prows of the boats,
going through gesticulations and contortions
which, had they been white men, would have
overturned the treacherous dugouts. They
shouted and chanted in wild glee. Their songs
were returned from the shore. There were forty
to sixty in the returning party. As soon as
their keels touched the strand, they poured out,
a few in uncouth antics, but the bulk of them in
solemn decorousness. When landed one two or
more sang in wild weird tones, the women- join-
ing in the chorus. After going through certain
formalities, presents were given to members of
the returning party, of coin, and of strips or
pieces one or more yards long of calico in red or
other bright colors. Then the singing was con-
tinued, and the berries were removed from the
canoes and carried into a large shack where
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 125
other ceremonies were gone through. No white
people were allowed to enter. A couple of na-
tives stood guard at the door, and grufly if not
angrily turned off all who attempted to gain in-
gress. The ceremonies were continued within
for two or three hours. It was at the later end
of this that I gained admission, as above stated,
while the attention of the guards was removed.
The whole thing seemed very ridiculous, es-
pecially when one remembered that at best only
a few bushels of huckleberries were the occasion
of the rejoicing. Our Grecco-maniacs, however,
should not deem the thing small. For accord-
ing to Homer, the immediate success of the dem-
igods of Greece — the heroes who gyrated in that
wonderful tempest-in-a-tea-pot, the Trojan war,
did quite as silly things over just as pitiful suc-
cesses. After all, too, it is not the size of a
thing which makes it valuable, but the size the
possessor thinks it possesses. A bushel of huck-
leberries to an Alaskan is quite as large, as a
schooner load of wheat would be to old Hutch,
or a dozen car load of pigs would be to P. D. A.
THE DELICACIES OF THE TABLE.
I went into a house at Juneau ; a woman and
several children with one man were squatted
around the fire taking their dinners. This con-
sisted of a large dried salmon. A woman held
126 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
it in her hand before the hot fire, screening her
hand by a fold of the fish. When it was cooked
on one side enough to burn her hand, she turned
another fold and when satisfied with her culi-
nary art, tore it apart in a large wooden bowl.
The fish was in fact scarcely at all cooked, but
was simply made very hot. This, however,
seemed satisfactory to the feasters. Each mem-
ber of the family tore a piece off with fingers or
teeth. The hands of the young girls were soaked
with the oil exuding from the hot and fat sal-
nion. They wiped them clean several times
during the meal upon their luxuriant tresses,
which hung down their backs in massive braids.
I think I must have a good-natured face, for I
have never in any land offended when making
such domiciliary visits. In this instance the
woman wished me to join them in their feast, as-
suring me it was good. At least I so took the
words with the expressions of face used. They
had no bread of any sort. After they had suffic-
iently filled themselves, each took a long draught
of water, from a native wooden pail.
Salmon is the staple article of food, and hangs
drying by the scores and hundreds on racks in
front of each shack or house and upon the walls
within. The fish on the racks seemed small,
possibly such are reserved for home consump-
tion, while the larger ones had been sold to the
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 127
canneries. The Alaskan salmon, however, is
not a large one. It must be fattening food, for
men and women are generally plnrnp and the
children as rounded as well-fed pigs. The little
ones are as frisky and happy as in Japan, which
I thought the paradise of babies. I was struck
by the full rounded paunches of the little ones.
This, too, is remarkable among their little
cousins in the land of the rising sun ; possibly
a result of fish diet. During the summer season
the Indians consume large quantities of berries
—blue or huckleberries and salmon berries.
The English call the latter, cloud berry in Nor-
way. I saw a basket full of a white clustered
root in front of a shack ; a sort of bunch of
small seed like bulbs compacted into a single
bulb, very white, not unlike a mass of snow-
drops glued together into a ball walnut-sized.
I asked a woman who was washing them if they
were good. She grinned and put a handful into
her mouth as answer, at the same time handing
me some. They tasted like a starchy paste
made from impalpable flour. I asked the name.
She replied " Chinook (Indian) lice." They
cannot pronounce the " r," but Chinese-like
substitute " 1 "-for it.
Another delicacy is a kind of very small fish
egg, deposited by a sort of herring on fine twigs
of hemlock placed by the natives in certain
128 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
places in the sea for the purpose. The eggs are
clustered on the twigs until they are as big as
one's thumb, thousands upon thousands, upon a
small branched limb. The branches are hung
up to dry. When used they are soaked in fresh
water and the eggs stripped off by the hand.
The eggs when soaked swell till they seem per-
fectly fresh. I asked the woman I saw soaking
them if they were good. A smile from ear to
ear illumined her face ; she offered me some and
then opened her capacious mouth into which she
threw a handful which she crushed with evident
delight. Though of an enquiring mind, I ab-
stained heroically from accepting the proffered
hospitality. Had the eggs been fried I doubt
not they would have made a good dish. The
dry ones were shriveled and as dead looking as
the roe in a smoked herring, yet when soaked
they seemed as plump and fresh as if just taken
from the mother fish.
GUM-CHEWING AMONG THE NATIVES.
When selling berries to the ship passengers
the women are either all the while eating of
their goods or are chewing some kind of gum,
generally the latter. Why should not Alaska's
400 chew gum as well as our own. One of their
fashions is very grotesque. We saw several
women with their faces, necks, arms and hands
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 129
stained almost black. Whether this was done
for ornamentation, or as a sort of mourning
badge, I could not definitely learn. Both solu-
tions were given us by people residing among
them. If the latter, it furnished another evi-
dence of Japanese origin. A Japanese married
woman blackens her teeth, and plucks her eye
brows and lashes to make herself unattractive,
as a proof of her love for her lord. These
women carry out the same idea when in sorrow.
Their grief is certainly much more economical
than in politer lands where, robes de deul are
both nobby and costly.
At each town visited by us lines of women
with some men were crouched down on their
haunches, with their wares for sale ; dressed
skins, carved wood, spoons, totems, and uncouth
images of animals ; baskets beautifully woven of
a kind of grass, very close, very strong, and
decorated in bold, natural colors. They have
what so many untutored but somewhat self-
cultured half savage people have, a thorough
conception of harmony of color. At first,
to our cultivated estheticism, the coloring
used by them is too glaring, but when toned
down by time, or when seen at a little distance,
110 civilized people can surpass them.
The baskets made by the people of a sort of
strong grass probably mixed with some kind of
130 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
bark, are very strong and so closely woven, that
they will hold water. They can be folded
tightly without breaking the fiber. I had consid-
erable difficulty in getting a native to part with an
old one. It would seem they recognize the soft-
ness lent by age. I offered several women two
or three times as much for old ones, which they
had in use, as they asked for new ones. The
one I succeeded in getting was from a woman who
had no new ones for sale. It probably had held
rather unsavory messes, but its coloring is ex-
quisitely soft and mellow. A passenger asked
what I wanted with the dirty thing. Its soft
tone being pointed out, she spent over an hour
going from shack to shack fruitlessly endeavor-
ing to obtain one.
The same difference is observable between old
and new Turkish rugs. Their beauty is not in
the texture or weight but in the harmony of
color, which no European has yet been able to
surpass, if equal. The high art of France has
not yet learned to create in large ungraceful
figures the result found in rugs laboriously
made by the half civilized people of Eastern
Turkey and of the Caucasus. The French attain
it only by grouping small figures of graceful de-
sign. The Thlinkets are the most numerous of
the native tribes, and are the ones which so re-
semble the Japanese. A Thlinket when playing
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 131
merchant to the tourist visitors offers his wares
with an utter indifference and apparently never
drops a tittle from his first price. If you pur-
chase he or she seems pleased ; if you decline his
air is of one utterly indifferent. We saw a large
number at work about the Treadwell mines in
different capacities, and in drilling and quarry-
ing the quartz. They seem to work as well as
the average white man.
By the way, the Treadwell mine is an extraor-
dinary thing. Gold-bearing quartz is quarried like
common stone. The vein, if it can be so termed,
is 500 feet wide, open upon the surface and extend-
ing to an unknown depth. It is of low grade ore,
yielding only from four to eight dollars per ton, but
is soeasily reached and worked with such cheapness
that many think it the most valuable mine in the
world. The mine runs 240 stamps, being the
largest number in existence under one roof. It
is controlled by so close a corporation that the
yield is never divulged and its value is a secret.
It is said, however, that an offer of $15,000,000
to $20,000,000 has been refused. Its machinery
is almost if not entirely run by water power fur-
nished by a mountain stream tumbling from a
lofty height immediately behind and over the
mine. It is on Douglas Island, which is separ-
ated from the main land at Juneau by a channel
about a mile in width.
132 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
Other paying mines are being worked about
Juneau, and promising claims have been located
in many parts of the Territory. The seal produce
of the land is too well known to need any com-
ment, but it will probably surprise the majority
of our people when they learn that the salmon
crop of last year was of about 750,000 cases.
Each case I believe, holds two dozen cans. When
one considers the fact that the waste of fish at
the great packing canneries is enormous, not
more than half of an eight pound sock-eye sal-
mon— the best of all — being used, and then con-
siders the number caught by the natives for
themselves and for their dogs, we can easily
marvel at the vast schools which frequent these
Northern waters. The waste spoken of is not
because more cannot be saved, but because the
middle part of the fish cans best and is saved
with a minimum of labor. The back with its
fin is removed by one stroke of the knife, then
the same is done with the belly. The head and
tail is then cut so deep into the body that only
four pounds of an eight-pounder is left. This
is divided into four equal parts. One part is
then rolled and pressed by the hand into a can.
The cans are closed and placed in great vats,
where they are boiled. When about done they
are taken out and pricked to let the air out, and
again soldered. They go again into vats to be
NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 133
boiled an hour and a half. This long cooking in
air-tight cans causes the bones to be absorbed
without wasting the juices and flavor of the fish.
When this is done, each can is again examined
and any one at all puffed up is again pricked to
let all air escape and is again boiled. They are
then cooled for boxing. Some canneries on the
Pacific pack from forty all the way up to a hun-
dred thousand fish a day.
I spoke of dogs. There are a great many in
the Indian villages. They are all more or less
mixed of Esquimaux breed. They exceed the
number of children, are all wolf-like, and are on
the best of terms with the people. It is amusing
to set one of them to barking, especially if the
bark be of the howl kind, for immediately it is
caught up by his nearest neighbor and carried
on until every dog in the camp is squatting on
his haunches and lifting his voice to its highest
pitch. The medley of sounds, from the pup's
quaver through the whole gamut of different
ages to the sober howls of the grandfather, is
very droll, especially when the hearer sees the
performers in their dead earnestness. They lift
their heads and look so solemn, and howl in so
lugubrious a key, that one feels that in this
dogish art at least they are unequaled by the
canines of any other part of the world.
LETTER VIL
STEAMING UP THE ICE-PACKED FIORDS AND
CHANNELS OF THE ARCTIC COUNTRY OWNED
BY UNCLE SAM. SALMON CANNERIES. CANOE
BUILDING BY NATIVES. ASCENT OF THE
" MUIR" GLACIER, 3 CO FEET ABOVE WATER.
FANTASTIC ICE FORMATIONS AT TAKOU.
SUMMER AND WINTER CLIMATES. IMPUDENT
CROWS AND ORATORICAL RAVENS.
STEAMER QUEEN,
GULF OF GEORGIA, Aug. 10.
The salmon canneries of Alaska are not all in
the neighborhood of the towns at which the ex-
cursion steamer calls, but are at or near every
considerable stream which flows into the straits,
channels and inlets. The instinct of the fish
send them at regular seasons into fresh water,
where and near which, they are caught in vast
numbers. Other steamers, some of them carrying
passengers and requiring a week longer to make
the trip, call at stated times at several places, to
which the Queen does not go, to take on and
unload freight. The natives are the principal fish-
ermen using, both nets and hooks from their trim
canoes. These 'are dug out from a single log,
some barely holding a man, others carrying with
safety fifty or more. A log of two feet diameter
will make a canoe nearly twice as large at its
134
ALASKAN CANOES. 135
waist. When dug out to a thin shell almost as
light as birch bark, the frame is filled with water,
into which hot stones are thrown until the
wooden walls are thoroughly steamed, hot and
pliable. Sticks of different lengths, the longest
at the canoe waist, are then set into the frame,
which is spread out into a fine, cutter-shaped
keel. A high prow and somewhat raised stern
are cut out of the log or set into it. Some of
the crafts present finely modeled keels. The
shell of a canoe holding over sixty people, is
often less than a half inch thick, and so light
that two people can easily pull it high on dry
land. The native squats in the bottom of his
canoe and paddles it with great speed.
We saw a boat not twenty feet long, the whole
filled to the top with light firewood. On this were
perched two men, three women, a dog, a small
tent, and the cooking utensils of the family.
They were sailing from Jurieau to another vil-
lage several miles away. A native gets into his
canoe as lightly and carefully as if he were
treading on eggs. In this instance, the boat
sank until its upper line was not four inches out
of water. We expected to see it swamped, for
there was a light wind and a few white caps.
We watched it with our glasses until safely
landed at a village several miles away. The
natives, of villages quite distant from the towns
136 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
at which, the steamers call, bring their wives,
dogs, and household utensils, together with what
they may have to sell in the curio line to these
places on the day the steamers are due. They
pitch their tents on the shore not far from the
steamboat pier, draw their canoes upon the
strand above high water mark, and seem as
much at home as if regularly domiciled. They
remain as long as they see a chance for trade
and then fold their tents and silently seal
away. They require only a few minutes to get
themselves and their worldly possessions aboard
their little dugouts. At Juneau there were sev-
eral of these temporary inhabitants. They all
embarked after sundown, and with the long twi-
light were able to reach their permanent abodes
before well-set dark.
The people catch fish at or near their respec-
tive villages. The canneries each have a small
steambarge, which is sent to several villages
daily to pick up the catch. In this way the sal-
mon are landed at the packing-places when per-
fectly fresh. The Alaskan salmon is as a rule
small, averaging only about six pounds, while
a sock eye " of the Frazer River run evenly at
eight pounds, and the Columbia River furnishes
an average of nearly twenty pounds. Large
fish, however, were brought to our steward, also
magnificent halibut, which the passengers
A THRIFTY WOMAN. 137
enj oyed greatly. One soon becomes satiated with
salmon on the Pacific Coast. It is as thoroughly
an every day food, as is the hog and hominy on
a southern plantation. Except to the Indian, it
does not seem to be as good for a steady diet as
the southerner's homely fare. Several other
varieties of salt water fish furnish a less surfeit-
ing every day food than this famous beauty.
We hailed with pleasure, the change to halibut
given us by our steward when we reached
Alaska. No where is this solid denizen of the
sea, found in better kelter than up here.
A PICTURE OF SITKA.
Our ship on the excursion stops at Seattle and
Port-Townsend, in Washington ; Victoria and
Nanaimo, on Vancouver's Island ; and at Fort
Wrangle, Juneau, and Sitka, in Alaska ; at each
long enough to afford passengers full time to
satisfy themselves. Juneau is the largest place
owing to the rich mines in the vicinity. All
have large canneries near by, which employ
natives, many of whom have acquired considera-
ble property. A native woman, widow to a white
trader, and her daughter were passengers from
Juneau to Chilkat. She is a sort of Merchant,
continuing the business of her defunct husband.
She bore herself most decorously in her half
mourning, and seemed quite able to steer her
138 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
own bark through the remaining voyage of life.
She is reputed to be worth several thousand dol-
lars, and manages her affairs shrewdly. Her
eligibility was suggested to the late friend of
Persia's shah. His eyes rested more fondly
upon her plump daughter, who displayed much
agility and a trim ankle when she descended the
gangway in a high sea out side of Chilkat.
Sitka has one of the prettiest sites and harbors
in the world, and its climate just now is simply
delicious. It is built on slightly rising ground
on a bay running some miles from the sea, with
beautiful little islands, clustered in large num-
ber in front of the town. These lift with rounded
rocky foundations naked and water-washed at
low tide, but are clothed in rich green shrubbery
above high water mark. They would make an
exquisite water park for a large city. Over one
edge of this park lifts a few miles away, Mount
Edgecumbe, a perfect volcanic cone about 3,000
feet high. Its lower two thirds are clothed in
green. Its upper third, beneath its broad ex-
tinct crater, is of rich red rock. Long points of
the red run down into the green, while points of
the green run up into the red. It reminds one
much of famous Fuji-yama in Japan. The god-
mountain of Japan is over four times as high,
but Edgecumbe is seen so close that the contrast
does not entirely belittle it.
FINE SCENERY. 1.39
Around and behind Sitka are lofty foot
bills clothed in forests, making a perfect amphi-
theater, while behind them rear pointed, rocky
mountains more or less snow flecked. The
town is on the great island of Baranoff, which
is a mass of pinnacled mountains, the northern
slopes of which are always white with sheets
of snow. When we sailed, a few days before,
northward through Prince Frederick Sound,
these mountains formed a wonderfully beau-
tiful background. Prince Frederick Sound is
about twenty by thirty odd miles. All around
it lie grand mountains of exceeding ruggedness
on their highest peaks, but green below, with
stripes, bands and patches of white. Through a
break to the south the sound stretches some
miles further, backed by the Baranoff range,
rising in innumerable sharply pointed pinnacles,
and about their shoulders as purely white as
loftiest Alpine heights. All the mountains are
comparatively uncovered when seen on their
southern, western, and eastern exposures, while
those seen from the north although not more
lofty, are clothed in blankets of white, as if to
protect them from the northern blasts.
The entire Alaskan trip presents a constant
succession of gorgeous scenery, and if the
weather be fine, it is worth the time taken and the
cost in money to one who loves the picturesque
140 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
and enjoys the rugged grandeur of nature,
even if they were no grand glaciers. The time is
not far distant, when commodious hotels will be
maintained in these northern possessions as
summer resorts. Many people will then' spend
weeks in them, and with the aid of small excur-
sion barges will find health and delights.
An intelligent man who has resided for several
years in Sitka, assured me he much preferred
its winter climate to that of southern Ohio,
where he had grown up to mature manhood.
The average winter climate is rather milder than
that of Washington, but with no extreme of
cold. The frequent rainy days during the sum-
mer are a great draw back to the pleasure of ex-
cursion tourists. The chances are decidedly
that he will find everything wet when he ar-
rives. Our party was one of the lucky ones.
The air was clear and balmy. The sun made a
parasol agreeable to the ladies. I lolled for an
hour on the stoop of a deserted house, with my
head in shade, but my body and lower limbs
warmed by a delicious sun bath, while my eyes
feasted upon the glorious picture spread before
me of mountain peak and green slopes, and
gently rippling water as the tide slowly crept
up the soft beach of the little bay behind the town.
Except when sailing across four entrances or
broad straits running out to the open sea, the
MIRROR-LIKE SKA. 141
entire voyage to and from Alaska, usually is and
always may be through straits, canals, and fiords
so thoroughly protected from the ocean's angry
waters that the smallest steamer can hardly feel
a toss. On this excursion of ours, the briny
depths below us were often as smooth as glass,
reflecting the mountains, as from a mirror. As
the swell from our steamer would roll off in
smooth, rounded and diverging lines, they would
weave fantastic forms, upon their mirror like
surface, of green forest, rugged rocks, or snow
caps. Towards the land beyond the effect of the
swell, the mountains would often be so perfectly
delineated upon the mirror, that a photograph of
them would show them as distinctly below as
above. The picture could be turned upside
down with but little detriment to the view. Near
the steamer the rounded crest of the swell would
reflect long weird lines of forest, which would
spread out behind us as the swell sank to a lower
level.
At night millions of small fish, probably
herrings, would be disturbed in their schools,
and fluttering and hurrying from the ship's
prow would make the water blaze in brilliant
phosphorescence. Now and then a large fish
would dart through these schools, leaving behind
him a bright wake of flame. As he dashed
through them, the herrings would scatter their
142 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
flame work into myriads of sparkling diamonds.
When onr ship would push into the school, the
alarm seemed to be given to quite a distance
in the mass. The dense pack of little fellows
forward the ship's bow, would break the sea into
chaotic burning mass, as they sped in haste be-
fore the great monster chasing them. The line
to the right and left then bent aft, weaving
the sea into a waving network of fire. Farther
off the brightness was toned down to a glis-
tening shimmer, and then was lost in the
distance. The schools we saw were moving in
great lines in the direction we were sailing.
They were composed of millions of little finny
flutterers.
PANORAMA ON LAND AND WATER.
Frequently as we sailed over the placid sea,
little diving ducks would flap the waters in a
race from the ship's hull, and when a hundred
feet off would dive for a score or more feet, per-
fectly satisfied that by their dive they had hidden
their tracks from the mighty monster. Droves
of porpoise rolled about us, and now and
then one would race with us for a mile or so and
seem really to understand and enjoy the contest.
Asiatic crows cawed around us when we were
ashore most familiarly, and with the cute impu-
dence, so characteristic of his brethern in Eastern
CROWS AND RAVENS. 143
Asia. When we landed at Muir Glacier, a
young school marm and I wandered along the
shore then bare from the receding tide, up to the
icy precipice. A couple of crows espied us and
flew about us cawing, and finally perched on a
rock close by. I told the fair one that these
birds instinctively saw that we were to be caught
by the incoming tide or under an ice fall, and
were awaiting a feast. Their cawing was so con-
stant, that she become superstitious, and de-
clared she could not stand it. I had to shy a
pebble at them to allay her timidity. The crow
is a familiar bird up here, but the raven is an
Alaskan institution. If I be not mistaken he is
held by the natives in a sort of veneration. He
is twice or more as large as our crow ; has a
huge roman nosed -beak, which occasionally
snaps with a report nearly as loud as the snaps
of a pelican's bill. His coat is of shiny,
burnished bottle green black, and his eye has
an expression queerly mixed of vacuous imbecil-
ity, and cunning impudent rascality. He is a
genuine stump speaker, and as fond of his own
orations as a famous eastern after dinner talker
is of his pretty speeches.
When we strolled in the deep shade of the
dense forest behind Sitka, some of these impu-
dent fellows settled in adjoining trees and held
dialogues and debates, possibly upon our human
144 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
characteristics. They would harange and then
seem to crack coarse jokes, when one of them
would almost laugh in low gutturals, not unlike
the gurgling of water running from a two gal-
lon jug. A wag among us declared they were
making ward stump-speeches, and was willing to
wager that if ravens language could be under-
stood, we should find that some of the jokes
were utterly unfit for polite ears. Those we saw
were rather jolly good fellows, and were not of
the family of which one appeared to Edgar Poe
in his hashish dreams.
I said that the simple, beautiful scenery pre-
sented by the Alaskan excursion, well repays
the loss of time and money expended upon it.
Many of the mountain-flanked channels are
wonderfully beautiful. The Linn or Chilkat
Canal is surpassed by nothing of the sort we
have ever seen. It is about four miles wide and
probably 30 long. On either side tower moun-
tains, say 3,000 feet high, rising from the water
like great receding buttresses, clothed thickly
in forest below, with scattered copses toward the
upper slopes, and flecked with openings of low
shrubbery in pale green, artistically contrasting
with the dark tone of firs and spruce. All are
topped by rocks, those near us gray, and the
most distant ones of an undertone of purple,
while in the far distance, the mountains on
TAKOU GLACIERS. 145
either shore become first blue-gray, and then
blend off into sweet opalescent tints. Over and
above all, towered at no great distance mighty
snow fields and glaciered heights. Crillon, Fair-
weather, and La Peronse to the west cut the
clear blue sky with their points 15,000 and
nearly 16,000 feet above us; mantels of clouds
here and there fell about their titantic shoulders,
and light veils of mist wound and unwound
about them just under their snowy pinnacles.
Into this glorious fiord we steamed to its head at
Chilkat, and then back to enter Glacier Bay, the
acme of Alaska's wonderful exhibitions.
Fully nine Alaskan tourists out of ten go
for its glaciers, which are seen in a jnagnitude
and grandeur inducing one to pass as scarcely
worthy of notice, the best of any other country
which is possible of approach. They are seen
in icy hardness on distant summits shortly after
passing the boundary of British Columbia.
They increase in frequency as one goes further
north, until on a clear and cloudless day one is
scarcely ever out of sight. The first visited by us
was that at the head of Takou inlet south of
Juneau. It is comparatively small, less than a
mile wide at its foot, but running back several
miles. Its foot presents a perpendicular wall of
ice 150 to 200 feet high, rising out of water sev-
eral hundred feet deep. Its face is irregular;
146 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
here supported by icy buttresses, and there sink-
ing back into icy recesses ; now with irregular
pilasters and projections of soft snowy appear-
ance and then with broken columns, recesses,
and caves of every tint of blue from the flitting
opalescent to transparent ultra-marine and deep
indigo.
FANTASTIC GRANDEUR OF THE GLACIERS.
Now is seen a mass of closely welded crystals
of diamond whiteness glistening under the kiss
of the sun, like monster piles of precious gems ;
then a huge broken and fissured wall compactly
studded with turquoise and amethysts and gems
so green as to be almost emeralds forming the icy
cliffs. Loud reports as of rifle guns would fill
the ear, coming from the cracking behind of the
solid moving mass as it pushed onward in its
descent. Hark ! A rattle of musketry ! You
look and see a mere hat full of snowy ice tumb-
ling from the upper edge. As it falls it becomes
a cart full, a house full, and then with a report
as loud as that of a heavy cannon, a section of
the wall's face separates from the mass behind
and tumbles into the deep water with a splash
which scatters spray one or two hundred feet
around, and the air is filled as with the bellow-
ing of thunder echoed from projecting ice walls
and from the lofty mountains hemming in the
DIVING ICE. 147
narrow inlet. The fallen mass disappears below
the surface. But look ! See that monster lifting
from the water a half hundred feet away from
where the tumbling ice fell ! It is a dome-like
pinnacle of ice. Up it rises slowly, revealing
the most exquisite tints as its shoulders broaden ;
ten feet, twenty, fifty, aye, nearly a hundred
feet ! For a moment it poses a solidified mass
of ultramarine. Sparkling waters pour in cas-
cades from its uplifted dome. But see ! It leans
a little ; it leans a little more ; and tumbles with
a mighty noise and sends geysers up to the
brink of the icy precipice and wide around for
several hundred feet. As its upper member or
crest topples over, a huge section many times
more bulky than the part we had seen above
water, lifts, and then lies stretched three or
more hundred feet, and exposed .above the sur-
face nearly thirty feet. The huge mass of pos-
sibly a hundred thousand tons weight came only
to a small extent from the icy wall standing be-
fore and above us ; but the fissure above ex-
tended— three or more hundred feet down into
the glacier below water, and rested on the
ground. For one end was covered with mud
and for many feet was deeply stained.
An officer of the ship declared this was the
finest exhibition of the sort he had ever seen,
and that the iceberg thus made and now slowly
148 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
floated out by the receding tide weighed far more
than a hundred thousand tons. Our ship was
lying with its bow toward the glacier not a
thousand feet away. The vessel rocked and
reeled from stem to stern as the great waves
made by the glacier avalanche rolled under her.
We lay there two hours listening to constant re-
ports and seeing a succession of ice slides.
While so resting for the enjoyment of passen-
gers, the captain was laying in ice enough for
his next round trip. Icebergs of all sizes, from
those weighing only a ton up to others half as
big as the steamer, were floating all about us.
Some of crystal whiteness and as clear as the
lens of a telescope. Others were of every tone of
blue, deepening sometimes into translucent
olive. The most of the bergs were of delicious
purity, but a few were full of mud brought from
the bed hundreds of feet under water. In some
were seen good sized cobble stones ; in one a
boulder weighing probably a quarter of a ton.
Sailors in a boat picked from these masses
chunks of perfect clearness, passed grappling
ropes under them, and then hoisted them by the
steam derrick upon the main deck. Sometimes
the piece seen above water was not larger than
a barrel, but when lifted into full view it
weighed one, two or more tons. For every foot
of ice seen in an iceberg above water eight lie
OUR ICE SUPPLY. 149
below. Thus when a berg floated close to us
showing thirty feet above water, it had, if of
even form, 240 feet below.
CLIMBING THE FAMOUS u MUIR."
Some of the passengers felt uneasy, fearing
another mighty tumble might occur immediately
in front of us, and that the mass might shoot
outward below water, and might come up be-
neath, or uncomfortably close to us. The cap-
tain, however, stood upon the bridge ready to
send his ship rapidly backward should anything
look untoward. The engines were kept in
gentle motion holding our bow steadily toward
the glacier precipice. The captain, by the way,
thinks the Takou the most interesting of the ap-
proachable glaciers. The ice gathered was of
great solidity. It did not break under an ice pick
in straight cleavage, but irregularly, showing its
peculiar characteristic of being formed, not from
water simply freezing, but from snow compacted
under irresistible pressure. Two chunks of per-
haps each two tons weight lay between decks
supplying the entire ship's wants for four or five
days. It may have been imagination, but I
thought this ice more agreeable for eating than
that made by ordinary process. It was more fri-
able and broke and crumbled in the mouth in
shorter pieces and not in long spiculae as ordi-
nary ice does.
150 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
We passed on our run close to several other
huge glaciers, some of them running quite down
to the water ; among them the " Stephens "
which though very large, reaches the sea in a
slope and not with a perpendicular precipice.
We, however, stopped only at the celebrated
" Muir." We lay in front of it from 6 a. m. to
2 p. m. — a half hour in rather dangerous prox-
imity, and then anchored a mile off for pas-
sengers to land and climb its banks. The Muir
presents a precipice to the head of the inlet
nearly 300 feet high and over a mile long. Two
years ago it bent outward with a very decided
convex front ; last year it was nearly straight.
Now it is a very open horseshoe. We took
soundings when the Queen lay a thousand feet
from the front and found under us 720 feet. It
possibly shallows considerably close to the wall,
say to 400 feet. The glacier is certainly over
200 feet high ; this makes, with what is under
water, 600 feet. But give it the low estimate of
an average across the inlet of 400 feet. It
moves steadily downward forty feet a day, and
gradually recedes. Thus it will be found that
it tumbles into the sea a mass of ice, 40x5 2 Sox
400 feet, or of at least 84,000,000 cubic feet a
day.
After wandering for several hours over the
surface of the glacier, along a sort of granite
CLIMBING A GLACIER. 151
road way varying in depth from a few inches up
to very many feet thick lying upon it ; among
blocks of granite weighing tons brought down
upon the solid frozen river j across narrow cre-
vices, into whose depths we could look a hun-
dred feet down, into pure ice of all tints of blue
from the pearl blue of a southern sky to ultra-
marine and indigo — tints so beautiful that one
involuntarily groaned in pleased admiration ;
along chasms where our iron-pointed alpenstocks
were necessary to prevent a slip, which would
have sent us down into glacial gravesx; looking
over pinnacles, domes and valleys of ice in con-
fused profusion; over grotesque forms, over which
no one person could safely go, but a dozen
attached to each other by ropes, with shoes iron-
nailed, might with hazard venture. Then up
and before us spread the mighty glacier, 25
miles by 30, fed by many smaller ones. Morains
of rock lifted above the surface in long even
lines running back for miles, showing the edge
of each of the frozen rivers, which have united to
make the mighty single one.
The theory explaining the medial moraines of
glaciers, is that two or more glaciers come down
the gorges and upper valleys of the mountain.
Each of these gather up broken rock and moun-
tain debris on their two sides. When two such
glaciers meet and run into and form one, then
152 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
the inner lateral moraines unite and are borne
along by the enlarged glacier. As it flows these
two morains, now become u medial," are appar-
ently pressed upward to and upon the surface.
This, however, is probably only apparent, for the
ice melting under the summer sun's heat, simply
leaves the rock debris on the surface.
The Muir is the result of several upper feed-
ing glaciers. Each two uniting formed from
their inner lateral moraines, one medial. Sev-
eral medial ones are observable on the surface
of the great glacier, some of them uniting lower
down, when the bed of the icy stream becomes
contracted — where the valley becomes narrow.
Several medial moraines retain their individual
line until the great precipice is reached. The
mass of the debris forming a moraine is of com-
paratively small broken granite ; not broken and
rounded by glacial action, but simply irregular
pieces thrown off from granite precipices high
in the mountains by frost forces. Now and then
a few rounded pebbles, and small boulders are
seen, worn on the under surface of upper glacier
streams. Quite a number of very large masses
of granite are being borne down by the Muir
moraines. One I estimated to weigh several
tons. Its cleavage sides and edges were fresh
and sharp as if it were just broken from its par-
ent rock.
STRANDED ICEBERGS. 153
The medial morains on some of the glaciers
seen at a distance, have a singular effect. They
can be seen in long apparently parallel lines and
seemingly close enough together, to be the walls
of a long smooth road. A wag declared that one
of them was the road from an Indian village to
the little red school house in an upper valley.
After exploring the surface of the glacier, we
found that the tide having reached its ebb, we
could approach the foot of the ice-precipice.
Three of us had approached it somewhat nearly
before when the tide was but half out. We
walked up the shingly shore through stranded
icebergs of all sizes, and hundreds in number.
Some were not larger than a barrel, others
larger than a railroad car, and of all intermediate
sizes. Now we threaded our way through a cor-
don of huge blocks as clear as crystal, from
which we chipped with the spikes of our alpen-
stocks, chunks delicious to eat. Then we were
among others of various tints, colored by the
earthy matter caught by them when flowing
near to or upon the valley bed. One mass
weighing probably a thousand tons was resting
upon a point so small as to be a mere pivot. I
cut from it a smooth rounded cobble stone for a
paper weigh t, and was glad when my task was
finished, for I was somewhat uneasy lest the
slight hammering might topple over the bulky
mass.
154 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
We reached the foot of the glacier. Here the
picture was wonderfully fine. The ice-precipice
from which so many newly broken bergs had
tumbled, was far more beautiful than when seen
from several hundred yards away. We looked
into grottoes many yards recessed into the frozen
cliff. Here in one was every shade of blue ; all
tints of green were resplendent in another ; and
then the sun would discolor these shades, and
weave them into the sweet tones which paint an
opal's cheek. Now an upper member of a newly
broken recess under the sun rays sparkled as
with million diamonds, and then another looked
like a mass of crystalized olive tints. From out
of a deep grotto at the base of the cliff flowed a
strong river, which had been pent within its icy
house, and now reaching the free air bounded
and rushed to join the mighty sea.
Since our arrival in the morning the tide had
fallen fully twenty feet, taking away considerable
support from the hanging mass, so that the fall
of icebergs was almost continuous. The thun-
der while so close to a tumbling mass, was ter-
rific and sublime. The inlet was full of rjergs,
so that the ship in turning out had to pick its
way carefully. How exquisitely beautiful they
were as they glistened in the sun's rays, dis-
playing their iridescent crystals! As we steamed
out of the inlet among a scattered ice floe we
MONSTER ICEBERGS. 155
thought we had seen all that a grand glacier
could present. Imagine our surprise when we
had gone about ten miles to find ourselves at the
entrance to another inlet which was packed al-
most solidly with icebergs. With our glasses we
could see the huge "Pacific glacier," about thirty
miles away, with a precipice of ice 600 to 800
feet high and five miles long. Although it was
quite three times as far from us as the "Muir",
yet its icy front showed to us higher out of
water. The inlet running up to it was literally
packed with ice, into which no steamer, unless
armored for Arctic seas, would dare to venture.
A passenger lately taken on, who had spent a
season prospecting in this immediate neighbor-
hood, assured us that the fall of ice from this
glacier was absolutely continuous, and that
masses would tumble a half mile long. He had
seen one floating three miles long. He admitted
he had no means of measuring it, and gave us
the result of a rather hasty guess. He said
it stranded at each low tide, but would be lifted
at each flood and was by degrees broken up suf-
ficiently to get out of the inlet. " Why," said
this passenger, " the Muir is a baby by the side
of the Pacific. For every iceberg coming
from the one five hundred come from the other."
The statement was credible, for while just above
this inlet the strait had only scattered bergs,
156 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
below it was almost a pack of ice. The majority
of the icebergs, which had fallen from the Muir,
were melted away before reaching the mouth of
the Pacific inlet. Looking np this, the icebergs
seemed almost in solid mass; of all sizes from a
few feet broad, to others covering a quarter of
an acre ; and from a few feet in height up to
twenty, thirty and forty. Out side of the inlet
and below its mouth, monster masses were all
about us, some of them hundreds of feet across
and several fully fifty feet above water.
The George W. Elder, which sailed from Ta-
coma the night we did, reached the Muir while
we were there and sailed out with us. We thus
had a genuine Arctic picture. The two ships
picked their way slowly, less than a mile apart.
The Elder was frequently hidden from us en-
tirely by mighty icebergs. For miles we stole
our way through the floe, delighted with the
novel scene. Two fine ships in this icy sea gave
us a realization of the pictures we had seen of
the Thetis and her comrade in the frozen pack
beyond the Arctic circle. Mighty Crillon, Fair-
weather, and La Perouse the sources of the great
fields of frozen snow around us here pour their
icy floods into the sea. The last is 14,000 feet
high ; the other respectively 15,900 and 15,500.
They present the same amount of white above
the snow line as does Mount Everest. That is
IMMENSE GLACIERS. 157
about 12,000 feet on its southern slope. In
Alaska the snow line toward the south is
reached at 3,000 feet, while in the Himalayas the
tree line mounts to 17,000 feet.
When I looked upon these great icebergs
which had tumbled from the huge ice-cliffs we
had lately seen, and then recalled the fact that
they were but snow balls when compared to
some which have been sighted in far northern
and in southern seas — some which were from
two to three miles square and seven to eight
hundred feet high above water, and nearly if not
quite a mile deep below the water line — when I
recalled these facts I was lost in trying to specu-
late upon the vastness of the glaciers existing in
Greenland and in Antarctic continents. Judg-
ing from what we know of those about us, we
have to suppose there are glaciers in the world
two or three aye six or seven miles high above
water, sinking miles below the surface, and
stretching in awful grandeur their frozen cliffs
for many miles along the sea.
The Pacific glacier is from six to eight hun-
dred feet high at its brink, and five miles long,
yet among the bergs we saw — and the captain
said he had never seen a finer display in the lo-
cality— there were none which were a half acre
in size and none over sixty feet high. Icebergs
are said to have been seen covering an area of
158 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
from 2,500 to 4,000 acres, and twelve times as
high as the highest about us. The glacier from
which such monsters fell, was to the " Muir " as
Niagara is to a mill dam. Are the mighty snow
and ice mountains of the far south growing, or
are they melting and breaking away from their
moorings? If growing, when will they tumble
through the crust of the earth, and send a raging
sea over the habitable part of the globe? A guar-
anteed ticket for a berth in the coming Noah's
ark may be a handy thing to have about the
house. With one, the possessor could be quite
content to let the other fellow do the swimming.
What a grand mind picture is presented to us,
when we realize that glaciers once covered the
northern half of this continent — glaciers whose
sources were about Baffins Bay and within the
Arctic circle, and whose feet stretched from the
Alleghanies to the Rocky mountains — from
Pennsylvania to Colorado ! glaciers so vast that
they built up moraines over a thousand feet deep!
It is these thoughts which show us man's little-
ness and his vanity in boasting himself fashioned
in God's image.
A good clergyman we met in the National
Park, in all seriousness expressed a fear that the
enormous sky scrapers our people are erecting
in Chicago might destroy the equilibrium of the
earth, and cause it to oscillate eccentricaly upon
A STIFF PARTY. 159
its axis. A conscientious Chicagoan informed
his reverence, that we were building our city of
such weight that it would counterbalance the
undue growth of ice mountains about the south-
ern pole.
CLIMATE OF THE FROZEN REGION.
We have a pleasant company aboard — several
being from Chicago. There is less of stiffness
than is generally found on ocean steamers.
There is an amusing party of over twenty from
the city of brotherly love. They are all nice —
very nice, and evidently have made a vow to hold
themselves aloof from all others. They sit on
deck in rows four deep, and follow the lead of
one lady as a sort of bell-wether. When she
smiles all laugh ; when she feels a cold in her
head all sneeze.
Perhaps I should say something further about
the climate of our frozen territory. Few things
are less understood. The Sitka winters are not
unlike those of Norfolk, Va., rarely getting
much below freezing. The nights there are very
long, as the days are in summer. The suu was
hot while we were there, but the shades were de-
licious. Three blankets were quite comfortable
at night. In the straits and inlets the weather
is not quite so mild as on the open seashore, but
nowhere are there severe winters until the coast
160 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
mountain range is crossed. There the sun in the
summer days is piercing hot and mosquitoes are
so thick that they are almost unbearable. There
the long winters lock everything up in thick
ribbed ice.
We know that nothing can be more delight-
ful than what we found for summer. How-
ever, we have been fortunate. The rainfall
is great and rains and fogs frequent. We have
escaped both. Warm clothing, umbrellas, water-
proofs, and water-tight shoes are recommended
by those who advise how to go to Alaska. We
have needed neither except the shoes when
climbing the glacier. We have worn overcoats
aboard ship when the wind was against us, for
a slight breeze and the wind made by the speed
of the ship causes a decided chilliness when on
deck. When the ship is lying still we have re-
quired no extra clothing.
We expect to reach Nanaimo early to-morrow
morning where the ship will coal. I hope we
will be in early enough for myself and daughter
to catch the little steamer running to Vancouver.
Before closing, however, permit me to give
one of the most valuable points in the art of
traveling. When you leave home drop its cares
entirely and trustfully. ' Let your friends write
nothing about your business unless it be such as
they know should hurry you back and for that
GOOD ADVICE. l6l
intended. Look on the bright side of everything
before you, and do not complain because you
have not the comforts of your home. Profitable
travel is often laborious, and like all well ap-
plied labor, pays. As a young man I spent two
years abroad and heard not a word as to my affairs.
Since then I have made three trips to Europe
and a long one around the world. Not a word
on either of them did I hear of my business.
Once a month during a Globe Circuit we received
a cablegram telling us of the health of the loved
ones at home.
To this policy I have ascribed the happiness
and much of the benefits received. People we
met in various quarters of the world looked
regularly for and got advices on their affairs
and were often uneasy and miserable, but
were powerless to correct anything going wrong.
Passengers on this ship are fretting about letters
they expect to get at Victoria. I have heard
nothing for a month and expect nothing until I
wire home. If one' keeps himself hopeful he
can adopt as his traveling motto, u No news is
good news." Try this and you will confess you
owe me a good fee for sound advice.
LETTER VIII.
VANCOUVER. A PICTURESQUE, GROWING CITY.
A RUN OVER THE CANADIAN PACIFIC. MAG-
NIFICENT SCENERY MET WITH FROM THE
START. A GLORIOUS RIDE. FRASER RIVER
GLUTTED WITH SALMON. A NEVER-TIRING
VIEW FROM GLACIER HOUSE, FOUR THOUSAND
FEET ABOVE THE SEA. RUGGED, PRECIPITOUS
GRANDEUR OF THE SULK IRKS AND ROCKIES.
NATURAL BEAUTIES OF BANFF. REFLECTIONS
AT THE u SOO."
CANADIAN PACIFIC STEAMER ALBERTA,
AT SAULT STE. MARIE, Aug. 23, '90.
Three years ago I wrote quite largely on a
trip over the Canadian Pacific Railway, running
from east to west. Perhaps by now writing of it
beginning at the western terminus, an appear-
ance of plagiarism upon myself may be avoided.
It is so grand a road, however, and the magnifi-
cence and variety of scenery offered by it to the
traveler are so great, that considerable repetition
may be permissible, especially as the probabili-
ties are that only a few ever read or now remem-
bers what I said before.
My Alaskan letter was ended at Nanaimo. A
sail of three hours on a little steamer owned in
New Zealand and lately brought from Bombay
brought us to Vancouver. It seemed some-
162
WRECK OF THE BEAVER. 163
what singular that we should be voyaging on a
short local run in North-west America on a small
steamer owned and lately doing service in a land
so far away, and that land, too, one which we are
prone to regard as our ultima thule, whose in-
habitants are but one degree removed from the
ragged edge of savagery. The world has so rap-
idly progressed since many of us studied geogra-
phy, that we have scarcely been able to keep
pace with its strides. We have to pause and
think to be able to realize that New Zealand is
no longer the land of savages, but is populated
by a highly cultivated and energetic people, and
abounds in splendid cities.
Before reaching Vancouver we saw high on
the rocks the hull of the old steamer " Beaver".
It was the first steamer to cross the broad Pacific
brought here long ago by the Hudson Bay com-
pany from Bombay. It was wrecked only last
year, but is already in this humid climate green
with moss and ocean weed.
Vancouver has grown marvelously. Five years
since its site was covered by a forest of enormous
cedars and firs. Three years ago when I visited
there, it had only seven or eight hundred popu-
lation. Now it boasts having about 15,000. It
has well graded streets, a few of them paved and
several well planked; fine water brought in from
a distance ; blocks of handsome stone houses
164 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
and office buildings ; commodious and elegant
hotels, and many handsome residences. If I be
not mistaken I suggested it three years ago as
a good place for safe speculation. Had it not
been for the long voyage then before me I should
have dropped a thousand or two into its lots,
and would have been considerably richer by the
venture.
High mountains of picturesque contours al-
most surround the city. It is a sad fact that at
this season of the year a dense shroud of smoke
usually envelopes the bulk of the uplands.
Fortunately a copious rain cleared up the at-
mosphere just before our arrival. We passed
through the town three years ago twice, and af-
terwards lay at its pier three days, while our
ship was getting ready to sail for Japan ; and all
the while supposed the place was a great forest
plain, until the morning of our departure, when
a rain washed down the smoke and revealed
magnificent mountain scenery close about us.
To one taking the train at Vancouver for the
East, fine scenery faces him as he emerges from
the station and then continues to greet the eye,
varying and growing for the next 600 miles,
never once tame, often beautiful or grand and
sublime, and frequently terrible. It changes
rapidly and as unexpectedly as the pictures
presented by a revolving kaleidoscope. Lofty
FRASER RIVER. 165
mountains, lifted up in rounded forms of granite,
gneiss and other igneous rocks, massive and
grand, like mighty boulders welded together,
with monster trees in the valley below, and tall
and straight ones high above wherever a ledge
or a fissure affords their hardy roots chance to
take hold, flank the road for the first ninety
miles. On the north side of the Frazer River,
whose broad white stream is soon reached, and
which for the first 90 miles runs from East to
West, these mountains arise immediately from
the road. Across the river to the south more or
less removed, from one to several miles, they
show themselves in all their solid grandeur.
Rounded boulder shaped mountains of granite
or igneous rocks are to me far more impressive
than much taller ones of other formations. One
feels that they are solid, and are welded to the
central foundations of earth; that they were the
offsprings of primal overpowering heat, while
the others are made up of tiny particles of dis-
integrated igneous stone, loosely thrown together
by glacial moraines or dropped at ocean's bot-
tom, and after eons of time compressed into
hardness. Their walls were uplifted by the pres-
sure from below of belching granite, or were
crumbled together by the -cramped earth, and
their points, pinnacles, and needless were fash-
ioned by rains and slow chemical processes.
i66 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
They are the offspring of other than their own
power and are shaped by pnny causes acting
through untold ages. The rounded granite moun-
tains, however, lifted themselves and rushed
forth from the seat of earth's central fires,
moved by their own inherent forces.
One feels that mountains of secondary rocks are
a mass of tiny things thrown aloft as the creation
of other than their own powers. They may tower
far above the snow line, and may pierce the vaulted
sky with their sharp needles and tooth like pin-
nacles in the silent regions of eternal ice ; but
we know that their loftiest horns once lay be-
neath the ocean's wave, and after being hoisted
as an impotent mass, have been cut and fash-
ioned into sharpness by the gnawing tooth of
frost. We know that they were borne up upon
the breast of boiling, seething primitive rocks,
and that they now rest upon the shoulders of
granite titans. We know that they are crumb-
ling day by day, and are being borne away upon
pigmy streams into ocean depths. They are
perishable and are perishing.
But yonder rounded form whose smooth head
barely reaches the clouds, has its foundations
welded by inconceivably fierce fires ; fires kin-
dled when this earth was rounded by the will of
God from a formless void — welded to the very
base and heart of the globe. It rose upon the
A GRAND CANYON. lj
crest of a molten sea, rending and tearing away
everything its way, and now in adamantine cold-
ness, seems the fit emblem of eternal duration.
One may be terrified by the pinnacled mon-
ster, but I am awed by the rounded giant.
The Canadian Pacific road furnishes observation
cars through its grand mountain scenery, from
a point some sixty miles from Vancouver to and
into the plains east of the Rockies or for six
hundred miles. This thoughtful provision
should be imitated by all railroads traversing
fine scenery.
A GRAND CANYON.
About ninety miles from Vancouver the milky
Fraser rushes from the canyon which has held
it in a close embrace for a hundred miles ; from
a chasm where the mountains have been split
asunder, and now tower two or more thousand
feet high, their feet washed in the turbulent
stream, their heads cutting the sky in pictur-
esque lines. The mountains along the canyon
are all of metamorphic rock, splintered and
shivered by too rapid cooling. In the course of
some millions of yeais they have been washed
down, so that what were once perpendicular
walls have become precipitous heights, with
every ledge and projection and all slopes which
can hold soil, covered by dark green conifirae,
i68 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
and now and then by light green patches of de-
ciduous shrubbery and small hardwood trees.
Down toward the water the rocks are harder,
and through it the river cuts its way between
walls from fifty to one or more hundred feet
high. These walls have defied the flood, and
the river bends and winds through narrow fis-
sures fifty to eighty feet wide, along which
the white fluid rushes, almost with cascade force.
Many of the projecting points and buttresses
are grotesque and picturesque in the extreme.
For many miles along the canyon an old
government stage road hangs on escarped walls
or dips down to the waters. At one point,
at a height of a thousand feet, it almost hangs
over the gorge, serving now but one purpose, to
make lady tourists exclaim upon the cruelty of
making even gold seekers so risk themselves as
did the passengers of stage coaches a score or so
years ago. I said the old road almost hangs
over the gorge. In fact it does frequently en-
tirely hang. For it was timbered out so that
while one wheel might be over solid rock, the
other would be upon wooden sills from which a
pebble could be dropped a hundred feet or more
below. The stage road cost a vast sum, and is
now among the many exhibitions of the destruc-
tiveness of capital as it works out new improve-
ments. Every valuable creation of capital
A RIVER FULL OF SALMON. 169
wrecks all others whose place it takes. The older
ones have performed their tasks, and now be-
come comparatively useless.
A RIVER BLACK WITH FISH.
We had remarkably visible evidences of the
strange and irresistible instinct of the salmon to
climb steep waters from the sea. For many
miles the Fraser runs or rather rushes with
great speed. Below every projecting rock there
is an eddy more or less large. In these eddies
salmon were congregated by the thousands,
showing their black backs and fins an inch or
two above the surface. These little swirling
pools are generally many feet deep, and the finny
voyagers must have been piled several deep one
on the other. Over one crystal stream running
into the river the road passes on a short bridge.
In a pool in this creek, say twenty by fifty feet,
the fish were so thickly packed that a man could
almost have walked dry shod across the stream
on salmon backs. In the ascent of the fish they
fail often to overcome the rapid current and stop
to rest in the eddies. I do not think I exagger-
ate in saying we saw hundreds of thousands,
possibly millions, in a part of our run not ex-
ceeding thirty or forty miles. The fish looked
small to us, for only a few inches of their backs
could be seen. A fellow passenger, however,
170 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
assured us that such as we saw ran from six to
nine pounds. They were the sock-eye salmon,
the fattest and best variety for canning. We saw
no Indians fishing as there were three years ago.
Their stock is already laid in and stored away
in caches built upon high posts or up among the
branches of spreading trees.
A hundred and eighty thousand fish averaging
about eight pounds weight were caught in one
day last week at New Westminster. A gentle-
man of the locality told us that now was but the
beginning of the running season, and in three
weeks there would be a hundred thousand where
there was one now. A scientist was probably
not mistaken when he asserted that the water of
the world could produce more food for man, acre
for acre, than the land. I fear the canneries are
causing too many to be killed now.
An unitiated person would have thought that
great sport could be had just now on the Fraser
with rod and line. In this, had he made the ex-
periment, he would have been grievously mis-
taken. The salmon when on the run never rise
to the fly or takes any food. They start from
the ocean very fat and live on their fat until the
spawning season is over, by which time they be-
come so lean as to be scarcely edible. Indeed,
the great bulk -of them die of injuries suffered
on their upward run or of starvation. Thousands
NATURE'S QUEER WAYS. 171
are seen floating later in the season down
the upper streams, bruised, torn and emaciated.
The people out here have the impression that a
salmon never feeds again after leaving the sea
in its spawning journey, and that none of the
vast millions which commence the voyage ever
return. They spawn and die. This fish will
spawn in a few weeks in the clear brooks and
streams high up among the mountains. The
eggs lie dormant until the warmth of next
years' sun hatches them out. The small fry
has then the clear water to commence its life in.
It feeds, grows and runs down to the sea there-
after to do and die as its progenitors have been
doing since the race began.
Nature's ways are very queer, and it seems to
permit more inconceivable things to be done by
its creatures beneath the water than upon the
land. A fish disporting itself in a limpid
stream or gently propelling itself deep down in
the transparent sea, appears to be absolutely en-
joying existence — to be reveling in his "dolce far
niente," and yet it would seem that the whole
finny family is spawned to bear the whips and
spurs of most cruel fate. From the instant a
little fellow emerges from the egg up to his ful-
lest growth, he is always on the ragged edge of
some bigger fish's maw. He climbs with inten-
sest labor the rushing stream from the instinct
172 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
of procreation, and then begins to die from slow
inanition — the cruelest of deaths. Experiment
has shown that the fish learns nothing by study
— everything is from instinct ; that he has no
sense whatever. Lucky fish : for surely to him
ignorance is bliss.
TWO HUNDRED MILES ON A COWCATCHER.
Three }'ears ago I rode along a part of Thomp-
son Canyon and down the whole of Fraser into
Vancouver, some 200 miles, on the cowcatcher.
It is the most delightful of all railroad running.
We are ahead of the train. We seem not to be
on wheels, but simply to be gliding along the
iron way, propelled by an invisible impulse.
There is no jar, no dust nor cinders. Over
trestles a hundred feet high of frail and creak-
ing timbers we rush without the least uneasiness
or anxiety, for the machine and train being be-
hind us and unseen we do not realize that hun-
dreds of tons are being whirled over the frail
bridge-work, and forget that there is anything
heavier upon them than our own weight ; onward
we slide ; a turn brings us face to face with a
mighty precipice; we are rushing headlong
against the rocky barrier when a sudden bend
around a jutting point, reveals before us a hole
in the rocky mass ; into it we are shot — into
the dark ; a roar is heard behind us as if a thousand
MOUNTAINS AND TUNNELS. 173
demons are after us in full chase; a glimmer
of light steals along the iron ribbons before
us, and then we burst into the broad day with a
new and beautiful scene pictured for our delight;
down below us rushes the river through deep
fissures between the rocky walls ; high above us
lift mountains cutting the sky with bands of
snow along the upper heights ; past Indian ham-
lets, near which sits a squaw or two and lounges
a lazy buck, while their children look at us as
we fly along in indolent carelessness. Tunnel
after tunnel, about thirty in all, swallow and
then throw us forth. Once on the Thompson,
the iron ribbons ahead rest one on the ground,
the other on timbers projecting over a precipice.
Over it we glide. Fifteen hundred feet below
runs the silvery stream, so nearly under us that
we think we could pitch a penny into it. But
so lightly do we skim along that we feel no
tremor. Ah ! mine was a beautiful ride. It was
three years ago, but as I looked at the same road
as we passed along it a few days ago, the whole
picture came back to me, and I feel sure the
memory of it will live with me while I live.
Up the Thompson we came now, and saw
some beautiful valley farms early at daybreak,
with bright wheat fields, cozy homes, and sleek-
looking stock. The mountains above were
mighty uplifted long mounds, not rocky, broken
i74 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
nor peaked. Pines were scattered over them as
if they were planted in upland parks — isolated
trees, just enough to make parks bright, while
over the ground was spread a carpet of velvet
of a brownish drab. This effect was from the
low bunch grass, now dried into hay. This grass
is short, but sustains all winter through cattle
in oily fat. The Thompson finally came up to
a level with us, and was a clear and dignified
river, making the meadows green. After a
while it broadened into a great lake — the
" Shuswap " — along whose pebbly shore, under
great sloping mountains, we ran for over a third
of a hundred miles. The Shuswap is an irreg-
ular sheet with long arms. No where is it
much if any over a mile wide. High mountains
lift from the water and mount upward in gentle
slopes, well wooded. In a few places there are
tiny plains at their feet. On these are the wig-
wams of the Shuswap tribe of Indians.
Leaving this beautiful sheet we entered a
range of mountains lofty and grand, with now
and then a shoulder mantled with snow. Three
years ago this range was all green with noble
trees ; now, as far as we could see, the fire fiend
has done its work, leaving forests of tall trunks
in gray, with a fresh undergrowth beginning to
spring. Even yet, however, the Gold Mountains
are a noble range.
A PICTURE OF MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 175
It would seem we had seen enough of the
grand. But wait. We reach a broad flowing
river coming from the north. It is white with
detritus ground from the eternal ribs of earth by
the irresistible march of glaciers. It is our
own Columbia, which has been paying hei
Majesty's American land a short visit before it
sweeps with majesty towards the Pacific. We
cross this and enter upon a wealth of mountain
scenery, which belittles what we have passed
through, though we thought it so fine. High to
the right lifts a monarch capped with snow.
High to our left is a huge pair of twins, the
double head of a monster.
Our iron horse pants along a rushing river cut-
ting with foaming torrent through chasms so nar-
row that the father of our land could have leaped
across them in the spring-tide of his manhood. Up,
up we climb, twenty-eight hundred feet in less than
fifty miles. The river along which we climb is
always lashing itself into creamy foam ; now in
rushing rapids, then in a succession of leaps one
after the other, as if in mad frolic ; now almost
throwing its spray into our faces ; then two or
three hundred feet down in rocky canyons, and at
one place through a notched and jagged cleft in
the rock, over two hundred feet deep, and only
twenty-five feet wide at the top. This is the
Albert Canyon. Mountains tower over us, pile
176 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
upon pile, thickly tree clad below, but to a larger
extent gray with lofty trunks all dead and bare
from forest fires. I do not know but these fires
have been a friend to the tourist. For his vision
is widened.
When I was there three years since, there
had been in the Selkirks but few destruct-
ive fires. The forests were so dense that we
often lost fine bits of view, which are now free
to us. We look aloft and see great snow-fields,
glimmering through openings between the
mountains nearest us. We put our glasses up
and catch the green tints in furrowed snow
masses which tell us we are looking at glaciers.
Up ! up ! The mountains become higher and
the precipices bolder and the torrent at our feet
more fierce and foaming. We halt for a moment
at Illecillewact, said to be a rich mining camp.
Far over us thousands feet, on the side of the
mountain, so steep that it seems to us a sheer
precipice, we see what looks like a mere burrow
for a wild animal. Men are delving through it
in quest of silver ore.
After a while we see what appears to be an-
other railroad coming down the mountain side
parallel to ours, and a couple of hundred feet
above us. A wise one smiles and tells us it is
our own road which here makes a letter " S " — a
loop almost doubling upon itself, and a large
A CROOKED ROAD. 177
part of it on winding trestles. The trestles
creak and groan beneath us, but we bend around
and back upon them, and soon our whistle
screams. A quick turn around a spur reveals a
frozen stream bending over a lofty mountain
brow, like a curtain of white with irregular
streaks of pale green, and sending its foot almost
down to our level. But bend your head back.
Far up over us is Sir Donald piercing the sky ;
a sharp pointed three-faced rock lifting over
11,500 feet, under whose shadow we will halt at
Glacier House, over 4,000 feet above the sea,
while the pointed peak above us, all rock, stands
about a mile and a half higher and so close that
one would think a man on its pinnacle could al-
most throw a stone to the platform on which
stands the pretty hotel.
We stop a day here. I spent three or four
days there three years ago and would never pass
it without a few hours' pause. Few spots on
earth afford a sublimer picture than is seen from
Glacier House in the Selkirks. It is a vast aud-
itorium; stage and audience-hall, not a half mile
wide, with lofty mountains stretching along either
side six of seven miles — all covered by noble
trees below and snow sheeted above. Sir Donald
cold and rocky, is on one side, glaciered heights
on the other.
178 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
HEMMED IN BY ROCKY HEIGHTS.
A mighty glacier hangs down like a snowy
drop curtain over the rear of the auditorium,
while a straight line of mountain heights en-
closes the stage. This line is jagged and toothed
on its crest, with lofty glaciers glistening under
the pinnacles. Sitting on the platform in front
of the pretty station hotel just before sunset,
watching the sunlight climb the rocky heights
eastward, while those to the west were sinking into
grayness, and then a little later as the daylight
dodges into twilight and all becomes first a
mellow gray, cold and repellent, except over the
snow, which seems to emit a light all its own —
sitting thus one sees a picture equaled in few
spots of the world.
The entire scene is enclosed by mountains, as
in a great oblong pit with corners rounded off,
no outlet being apparent. The mountains seem
to close in upon the glorious picture. It should
be seen just before and after sunset and until the
lessening twilight is swallowed up, and then in
the morning, when the grayness high above seems
crystallized. The very light encircling the peaks
seem frozen until a sun ray kisses Sir Donald's
peak. The cold rocks then catch a yellow glow
and the snows below ere long are tinted with pink.
Three years ago I looked at it morning and evening
SELKIRKS AND ROCKIES. 179
for three or four days, and on this trip one morn-
ing and evening.
A short run brings the Eastward bound trav-
eler to Rogers pass, one of the ruggedest ever
traversed by railroad. Lofty rocky mountains are
all around with cold glaciers hanging near their
crests.
The drop down to the eastward from the sum-
mit of the Selkirk Mountains to the western edge
of the Rockies is all the way grand. We again
cross the Columbia, which runs north skirt-
ing the Selkirk range, and flows again south-
ward past the point crossed by us two days be-
fore and seventy miles back but a hundred and
twenty five around. Then for some miles we
look upon these two mighty ranges, one on our
right and the other on our left. Both are lofty,
broken, and pinnacled, and snow clothes many
summits of each, yet they are strangely unlike
each other — as much so as if belonging to widely
distant regions.
As we ran up the Columbia the day grew hot, un-
til at Golden it was absolutely sweltering. We had
felt nothing like it for nearly a month. We were
glad to quit the Columbia and enter a mighty gorge
cooled by the sprays from the Kicking Horse, a
wildly rushing river coming down from the sum-
mit of the Rockies. Up this foaming torrent,
between lofty mountains, along gorges barely wide
180 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
enough to permit the river to leap between, the
road cuts its way in galleries of rocks ; through
tunnels now on one side of the river, then on the
other, and enters and winds high up a broad
valley between great mountains stretching north
and south. It would seem the climb was ended,
but not so. We have to take some fifteen or
more miles among the loftiest mountains of the
great backbone of the continent, looking up ever
at gray rocks piercing the sky 6,000 to 8,000 feet
almost sheer over us ; looking down into narrow
valleys or rather gorges 1,000 and 2,000 feet
below us. Almost overwhelmed by nature's
grandeur, we climb, while a great engine puffs
and groans before us, and another pants and
wheezes pushing behind. Even with these two
great iron horses, tugging behind and* before,
we make not much more speed than a rapid pe-
destrian could walk were he on the level. We
are climbing a grade of about 200 feet in the
mile.
SILVER LADEN MT. STEPHEN.
But see that line of timbering hugging the face
of Mt. Stephen. A prospector from across the
mighty gorge saw with his glass a quartz vein on
Stephen. By perilous climbing along ledges he
visited it, to find a rich ledge of silver ore. Yon-
der long gallery carved out of the rock's face is
SILVER MINES. l8l
for miners to go to the vein to bore into the
mountain's heart or wherever the vein leads
them. They would tunnel through the fiery
walls of Hades if pure free silver were floating
on the top of the Devil's soup boiler.
I wronder if those fellows up in yonder gallery
ever pause to take in the grandeur of the scenery
thrown about them. The mighty Giver of Good
heaped up those piles of grandeur and beauty.
The preachers intimate that the imp of darkness
tempts us poor mortals with gold and silver. Be-
lieving as they do in the existence of a personal
devil outside of man's nature, they should bow
down and beg him to be good natured until their
race be safe. They are powerless to hurt him.
Luther'sbible biternpty air; to abuse the devilonly
makes one's throat sore, and some people really
grow savage in their denunciation of Old Nick.
I once met a really good, pious woman who
hated bad words, but did not disdain to utter
real cuss words when denouncing his Satanic
Majesty. The Arab tribe call Satan the name-
less one. Some preachers should follow suit.
Abusing the devil has been done for countless
ages, and to all appearances the old knave has
as much power as when he poured sweet poison
into Mother Eve's too willing ears. Poor thing !
She was not used to apples, a^nd a golden pippin
was tempting. In these latter days it takes
182 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
apples of real gold to win a woman, at least among
the " four hundred." But my eye ! a shower of
such fruit can twine her plump arms about the
devil's neck even when blue blazes are pouring
from his benzine distilling lungs. But, pshaw !
What a disposition a pious man has to preach.
I must quit it.
It is hard to determine which affords the
grandest scenery, the Selkirks or the Rockies.
On a first run on this road probably nine out of
ten would say the former, but the second or the
third trip would put the latter fully up. They
are of as different types as if separated by a
continent. Both are broken, notched and peaked,
yet they affect the beholder differently. The
Selkirks are grand and terrible, the Rockies
majestic and gloomy.
The Illiclliwact (Indian for rapid water) and
the Kicking Horse, the two rivers which rush
from the two ranges westward — the former
into the Columbia at Revelstoke, the other
into the same river a hundred and odd
miles above at Golden — are somewhat different
types of torrent rivers. The Kicking Horse on
the summit at Hector, springs from a deep, dark,
but calm lake a mile above the sea. A mile or
so eastward, and a half a dozen feet higher at
the actual summit, is a shallow little lake, or
rather a system of short, deep morasses. A
BANFF. 183
mild wind from the west would take their waters
into the Bow River, which flows into the Sas-
katchewan, then through Lake Winnipeg and
on to Hudson Bay, while a breeze from the East
carries a part of their currents into the grand
Columbia and then into the mighty Pacific.
How like the fate of men ! A shower or a cloud
of dust sent a mighty one to pine on a bleak isle
in a far-off sea, and made another moderate man
the idol of a nation and its chosen Nestor. An
invisible line with a name separated the birth-
places of two men, and this simple separation
made one of them the leader of a lost cause but
the idol of millions, and the other the victorious
hero whom history may call the savior of a na-
tion. In our every-day life in modest places, we
see the most trivial circumstances, mere straws,
turning the fortunes of nearly all whom we have
known intimately. It would probably amaze
most people to find how small the thing was
which sent them to high fortune, or led their feet
into paths of mediocrity or on the road to adver-
sity.
A run from nine to ten hours from Glacier,
always through grand and majestic scenery and
often among terrible and gloomy heights and
gorges, brought us to Banff, near the western
slope of the Rockies. Shortly after leaving
Vancouver, we had mounted the observation car,
184 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
and continued on one of them except at night, until
well into the great plains east of the mountains.
This system adds greatly to the pleasure of pass-
ing through fine scenery.
PANORAMIC BEAUTIES OF BANFF.
Banff is by many considered the gem of this
great road, because of its beautiful location and
also because of its warm and hot mineral springs.
The Canadian Pacific company has erected here
the most elegant and best appointed hotel which
can be found in a wild mountainous region prob-
ably in the world. Indeed it will compare favor-
ably with the best hostelries in the neighbor-
hood of large cities.
Here in a wild basin of the mighty backbone of
the continent, 2,300 miles from Montreal, nearly
1,000 from Winnipeg, and 6co from Vancouver,
with no populous or productive lands contiguous,
but surrounded by nature's boldest and roughest
works, in which are the haunts of wild beasts —
here one finds all the elegances and comforts of
a city's suburbs; all of the delicacies and luxuries
of a city hotel, coupled with the hygiene of a sani-
tarium, the ozone and bracing atmosphere of a
lofty altitude, and the glorious scenery of a
mountain fastness. The house is architecturally
very fine and all its appointments are first class.
It has a French Chef presiding over the kitchen,
• PICTURESQUE SCENERY. 185
who sends to the table dishes to satisfy an epi-
cure. The house and grounds are lighted by
electricity which adds greatly to the beauty of
the place at night. In the drawing rooms, sur-
rounded by costly furniture, one can listen to
music from a superb piano, and in the dining
saloon can satisfy the most voracious or the most
epicurean taste.
One can loiter lazily around the broad piazzas
girdling the great hotel, and let vision lose itself
among lofty, rocky, grotesque mountains, or sit
in graceful Kiosk observatories overlooking a
bold river tumbling near by in a furious cascade.
One can watch the limpid, green waters of a
large mountain stream meeting and unwillingly
mingling with those of a milk-white, glacier-fed
river, just below the vortex under the cascade.
One can wander in pretty pine woods on gentle
slopes; can drive or ride along well- graveled
roads through the National Park, now along
limpid streams, then on winding curves or
mounting by zig-zag bold rocky heights; can
bathe in porcelain tubs filled by hot mineral
waters just from plutonic laboratories far below
the mountain's foundations, and then sweat in
soft blankets almost as white as snow, or can by
a tunnel through lava rocks reach a grotto or
cave scooped out by agencies of hot water — a
veritable gothic room in the rock, lighted dimly
i86 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
from a small aperture in the apex. Here in this
gem of a natatorium one can swim in water above
blood heat, five feet deep and twenty-five from
rim to rim. When satiated with his warm bath
in this glorious pool, he can mount a great sta-
lagmite on one side — a stalagmite resembling a
huge mushroom — and a shower of cool water
from a natural spring tumbles from above upon
him, or he can stand waist deep in the warm em-
brace of the fluid while the cool sprays fall upon
his head and shoulders.
If one prefers an outdoor swim he can splash in
asulphur spring forty feet across, of Nature's fash-
ioning, while bubbling through sands at his feet
water heated to 95 degrees rises and lures him to
swimming depth. If he prefer a real genuine swim
he finds it near the back door of the hotel in a tank a
hundred feet long, in fresh cold water with the
air barely taken off. In his room he has a soft
bed to sleep upon, surrounded by tasty furni-
ture, and eats in a large dining room attended by
silent waiters, and provided with fruits, wines
and viands fit to satisfy the most fastidious.
Close under the hotel an angler now and then
catches a trout of over a pound weight, and in a
lake a few miles off in the park is rewarded with
speckled fellows of fine size, and with lake trout
not infrequently running up to forty pounds. I
met at Glacier Mr. E. S. P., of Chicago, with his
MOUNTAIN PALACES. 187
family going west. He caught a fine lot of fish
in Devil's Lake near Banff, one a lake trout
weighing thirty-six pounds. There are few
mountain resorts offering so many natural at-
tractions as this Rocky Mountain hot spring.
The mountains around are nearly all built of
horizontal stratified rocks. Some of them present
curious resemblances. One is a mighty palace of
several stories — each upper one recedingbackfrom
the one below. It reminds me much of old orien-
tal palaces visited when we were making our race
with the sun. This palace-like appearance is,
however, lost upon the majority of tourists, be-
cause one end of the mountain presents the like-
ness of a huge templar warrior reclining in
miles of stature. This picture is so grotesque,
that the other passes unobserved.
I cannot recall anywhere else in the world, a
group of mountains, whose rocks are so distinctly
horizontal in their beds, as those in this part of the
Rockies. They look as if there had once been a
vast upland plateau, which had been partly
abraded and washed away, leaving lofty moun-
tains more or less snow covered throughout the
year, and many of them always clothed in
mantles of white. The wear of countless eons
of rains and frosts have made deep valleys and
gorges and the beds of beautiful rivers, and
rushing torrents, leaving the slopes of the
1 88 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
mountains generally not too steep to afford foot-
ing for thick forests or for bands and copses of
firs and pines. Now and then the mountains
are so broken down as to present mighty preci-
pices— clean cut cleavages, as if a single moun-
tain had been split and sundered in two.
NORTHWESTERN PLAINS FRUITFUL.
My friend, the late visitor from Chicago to the
Shah of Persia, whom we left, with his daugh-
ters, aboard ship at Nanaimo, overtook us at
Banff, where we spent two days. He rarely
enthuses over scenery and has little love of
Nature or its beauties. Switzerland is to him
worth one visit, but no more, and Tyrol is a
bore. He loves travel, but to travel among the
haunts of men and women, not of Nature. Ber-
lin and London are pleasant places, but Paris is
his paradise. He had been filled with ennui on
the whole Alaskan journey, and had uttered but
once an exclamation of pleasure, and that was
when we sailed out of Glacier Bay. He then
cried out, u Thank heaven our ship is turned
homeward." Even he is really somewhat enthu-
siastic over the beauties of the Canadian road
and is charmed by Banff. I suspect, however,
all because of getting through quickly. He
could enjoy the rush through towering moun-
tains, because he was getting where he could
revel in rising stocks.
BUFFALO WALLOWS. 189
The plains east of the mountains on this road
are beautiful. Great sweeps of land in more or
less lifting benches stretch north and south as
far as the eye can reach ; not bleak or parched
or covered with the dead ash color of sage brush, as
the same plains are south of our boundary, but
fairly green and restful to the eye. We tried
to go back in fancy to long ago years, when
countless thousands buffalo marched in single
file along the trails which they cut down into the
hard soil, and which are yet seen crossing our
road nearly north and south. We tried to count
the deep buffalo wallows, bored by horns and
scooped out by hoofs, where the shaggy bulls
tossed the dust and sent up clouds which made
the air thick for many a mile around. We saw
in fancy the heavy maned bulls and heard their
bellowings, which won the gaze and admiration
of the mild eyed cows. We recalled how these
thousands of wallows would be filled by the next
rains, and how succeeding herds would bathe in
the mud, and then march onward a moving mass
of thick mortar. Thousands of these wallows
are seen, and for several hundred miles the fur-
rowed trails are rarely out of sight for many
miles. They generally run in nearly parallel
lines from north to south ; now and then de-
flected to get around an Alkali lake or pool : or
where old leaders had scented pure water ahead
190 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
and bent their way toward it, and all of the
mighty hosts following the lead. What count-
less thousands there must have been ! The In-
dians killed them, but killed them for food or
for raiment. The white man came ; he who was
fashioned in the image of his God ; he who
claims to be a follower of Him who taught
charity to all things and gentleness of spirit —
he came in his boasted civilization — born of
families whose pedigrees run back a thousand
years — and killed and slew in the mere love of
killing — killed and slew simply because he
could kill and slay. One of the crudest wars
ever waged, was the insane crusade against the
bison of the plains. Now these plains will know
no more forever their old tenants.
Occasionally troops of horses and herds of
cattle are seen, but for nearly a day's ride there
are only scattered farms, and they are as yet not
prosperous ; but in Bastern Assiniboia and in
Manitoba farms became more frequent and crops
looked well, until finally in the latter province
broad fields of fine wheat and oats and farm-
houses covered the prairie as far as we could see.
The improvement in the prairie land, running
some 200 miles on our line, has wonderfully
grown since I was there three years ago. The
breadth of grain standing or being harvested is
great. I am told there will be a yield this year
GOOD FISHING.
of twenty million bushels. These people boast
that their hard-shell wheat is decidedly superior
to that of Dakota and Minnesota. It is now
very cold and frosts are feared. The wheat is
largely out of danger, but oats need some two or
more weeks of good weather yet. Root crops
seem good on the plains where wheat is not yet
a success. The plains are in Assiniboia, the
prairies in Manitoba.
At Winnipeg my friends went south. I con-
tinued on the rail to Port Arthur. There is not
much worth seeing east of Winnipeg. Thin
pine land of small trees are seen, generally flat,
with rounded rising ground back from the road ;
all more or less covered with bowlders of granite,
many of great size. Lakes and lakelets abound.
My daughter remarked that in Yellowstone Park
there was a fearful waste of hot water, in Alaska
of ice, and here of gray granite. The country
back of Port Arthur is said to be rich in mines.
I can believe it. Nothing is made in vain, and
this county is evidently fit for nothing else ex-
cept mines. The public rooms of the hotels
seem to be frequented by only two classes of
men — miners and fishers. Here a knot talked
of minerals and claims, there of three or four and
six pounders. The Nipigon, near by, is said to
be the finest of trout streams. Mr. Higin-
botham, of Chicago, and sons left the day before
192 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
our arrival after having made fine catches. The
people seemed much amused at their anxiety to
save a pailful. They chartered a steamer to
take them and their fry, quickly to Duluth.
PORT ARTHUR AND LAKE SUPERIOR.
Port Arthur has a beautiful site on a gentle
slope, with an elevated bench behind for resi-
dences. If it were in the States it would be
boomed. It is Canada's only port on Lake
Superior, and in Thunder Bay has a grand
harbor. The weather is so cool, throughout the
summer, that evening fires are rarely dispensed
with. This should be considered a terminus for
the C. P. R. R., at least for all heavy freights
and grain. The road has now two or three
1,200,000 bushel capacity elevators, and I am
informed intends immediately to build several
more. These will enable it to move the grain
from Manitoba, and hold it during the winter
and until the opening of navigation.
We had intended continuing by rail to Sud-
bury, north of Lake Huron, but finding that we
should pass all the interesting country by night
we halted a day and then boarded the Alberta,
the Canadian Pacific railroad steamer, a Clyde-
built vessel of some 2,000 tonnage, with clean
and comfortable rooms, polite officers and ser-
vants, and in every way first-class. The break
RAILROAD COURTESIES. 193
on the great run from ocean to ocean on this
longest of the world's trunk lines, by taking
steamer between Owen Sound on Georgian Bay
and Port Arthur, is a most agreeable one.
It is charming to sail on a good ship on this
the mightiest of fresh-water seas, and to lose
sight of land while skimming over its dark
green depths. We have had a smooth sea and
delicious bracing air, and find nothing to com-
plain of and much to commend. Before closing
I wish to say something of the remarkable civil-
ity of the officers and employes of this great
road. The managers evidently know the value
of politeness on the part of those who cater to
the traveling community, the hardest and most
difficult to satisfy of all others. Four out of five
of them pack their trunks for a trip and expect
to find the comforts of their home while on the
go, and find fault at every turn. This Van
Home seems to know, and has so drilled his
people, from the highest to the lowest, that cour-
tesy, the cheapest of valuable commodities, is
never lacking.
I am finishing this letter while our ship lies
in the great lock at the uSoo." We are again
under the protection of the Stars and Stripes.
The rush of waters of the great "Sault" fills the
air with its roar. This was a few moments since
deadened by the greater turmoil from some
194 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
twenty dynamite blasts in the hard rock through
which Uncle Sam is cutting for the huge lock,
which is to aid the present one in passing to and
fro the mighty traffic of our great system of
fresh-water seas. The present lock is wholly
inadequate, and steamers often wait for five hours
for their turn, and that, too. although it admits
several vessels at a time. Over beyond the cas-
cade the Dominion is erecting a vast system of
locks on its own ground. The near future will
need them all.
A PLEA FOR RECIPROCITY.
We look across the foamy river and see a
beautiful little town, the "Canadian Soo." Be-
hind it lifts a gently rising land, all clothed in
sweet verdure and making an exquisite picture.
There, for thousands of miles east and west
and extending several hundreds of miles to the
north, are a people in every way our kinsmen.
We wander among them and feel that we are
among friends of our own clan, and yet I cannot
take my satchel ashore without submitting it to
the inspection of our custom-house officers. How
long will this thing last? Why should two
people so closely united by every bond except
that of so-called nationality, submit to this ham-
pering of their kindly relations? When will
the bars be thrown down so that the Canuck and
AT THE " SOO." 195
the Yankee can trade as brothers and friends? I
may not be a statesman, but what little of state-
craft I possess, tells me there should be absolute
reciprocity between Americans from the Gulf of
Mexico to the frozen seas ; reciprocity at least
for all productions of the respective countries.
I look out of my window ; the ship is sinking
down between the massive walls of the lock. In
a few moments we will be on a level with Lake
Huron, and just below the lock we will land in
Michigan. So now we bid adieu to the hospitali-
ties of President Van Home, and will commend
his iron highway to all who love nature and its
grand works, and who delight in its sublimest
displays.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ST. MARY'S RIVER. CHARMING SCENERY.
THE LOCALITY FOR SUMMER HOMES. AN
EPISODE. MACKINAW. GRAND RAPIDS, A
BEAUTIFUL CITY.
At Sault Ste. Marie, we took steamer for
Mackinaw. The steamer was comfortable, and
the trip a charming one.
The run down the Ste. Marie into Lake
Huron, has few equals in sweet, gentle, and at
times picturesque scenery. Low lying hills lie
on both banks of the river, some of them lifting
from the water. Now and then, a promentory or
an island point lifts the general quiet tone into
something of boldness. These are washed and
laved by waters of pallucid purity. The hills,
both however, generally lie back from the river on
banks with pretty plains under them ; here, wide
enough for a small field, or garden ; there, giving
space for a pretty farm. The uplands rise from
the small bottoms in easy flowing slopes, green
in fresh growth. There are on both slopes oc-
casional farms and small hamlets, affording life
and movement to the pretty picture.
When this continent shall become a single
nation — one grand Republic ; the frozen arms of
an Arctic ice-floe enfolding its northern boun-
dary ; the warm breath of the Gulf of Mexico
196
GEORGIAN BAY. 197
reddening the cheek of the orange and covering
Magnolia groves with snowy bloom along its
southern shores ; the mighty Pacific pouring its
sonorous swell on its western confines from Beh-
ring's sea to the Tropic of Cancer, and the storm
breeding Atlantic roaring along its shores, from
Lincoln Sea to Key West ; when brothers shall
clasp hands across the deep waters of the lakes
without the espionage of a custom collector,
then these low-lying hills and sweet plains at
their feet — these pretty islands and rugged pro-
mentories, will become the summer homes of the
rich of the mighty land, and the green waters
will reflect the villas and cottages of the wealthy
and the well to do, along the entire river ; and
the world will know no more beautiful and
sweetly rural locality.
I was leaning on the taffrail of our boat, enjoy-
ing the sweet prospect — the long reach of
Georgian Bay, lying to the east — and some bold
points lifting about us, when I heard a gentle-
man call the attention of a lad by his side, to a
rock they could see in the distance through their
glasses.*
uAt the foot of that rock, I caught twenty
black bass in an hour," said the gentleman.
A deep groan close by my side caught my ear.
I turned to find a gray headed old man, also
*The reader may take all reference to this gentleman as fact or
fiction, as his own fancy suggests.
198 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
leaning on the rail, whose glass was turned in
the same direction as those of the gentleman and
lad. The man of the groan, was evidently
seventy odd years old, with a gentle face, but
now in deep and painful thought ; tears were
coursing down his cheeks, and when he lowered
his glasses, showed eyes red with weeping. His
face looked so wan that I feared he was sick. I
spoke to him gently.
He answered me kindly, and then said: I was
watching through my glass a spot in the dis-
tance beyond the rock adverted to by the gentle-
man to that boy, and when he spoke of catching
fish at its base, a long ago past was weighing on
my mind. His words brought up the groan you
heard and not any illness of my own — a past
connected with a big rock near the spot I was
looking at, and of a tragedy which deeply dis-
tressed me, and changed the course of my
life."
I very naturally asked: "Are the matters you
refer to, such that you cannot speak of them ?''
I handed him, at the same time, my card. He
looked up saying "Ah, yes! I know of you. A
few days since I read some letters of yours in
the Chicago Tribune, from the National Park.
They made me half resolve to go there next
year." He asked me if I intended publishing
them in book form ; that he thought such a
MACKINAW. 199
book, just now, would be acceptable; that he
had preserved my letters for use, should he
make the excursion. A man who has published
any thing, is as easily captured by a kindly
word for his bantling, as ever mother was by
praise for her first baby. I told him that my
letters, even if enlarged as I might see fit, would
hardly make a book of fit size for publication.
The elderly gentlemen landed at Mackinaw
with us. After wandering over this pretty old
island, visiting its places of interest which well
repay a visit — after listening to a few dozen promi-
nent lawyers, judges, merchants and physicians
talking through their noses — all of them victims
of hay-fever — I was lazily resting on the hotel
piazza, awaiting the hour for taking the ferry boat
to reach the train for home, when my new made
friend of the boat came to me and said : " Mr.
Harrison, you say your letters are not enough to
make a book of publishing size. I spoke to you
of a tragedy, which changed the course of my
life. I have at home, but will send it to you, a
manuscript, touching that sad affair, which would
not be inappropriate in a letter touching a trip
from the Soo to Chicago. The manuscript is a
plain and faithful story of the events narrated ;
you can, however, supply fictitious names, and
alter certain immaterial points and touch up the
whole. I thanked him, and assured him I would
200 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
probably gladly use his material. He afterward
sent to me " The Secret of the Big Rock," which
will be found following this letter.
A night's run brought us to Grand Rapids.
Its people ought to be proud of it. It is not only
a thriving, busy tow7n, growing with great rapid-
ity, but is one of the prettiest cities in America.
Its business quarters are fine and wear a metro-
politan air, but its residence portion is very
pretty. The streets are lined with trees, which
grow with such luxuriance park commissioners
might envy.
We spent a half day in the charming place
and in a few hours reached home, having enjoyed
a glorious " outing," which I freely recommend
every one who can, to make, and as early as pos-
sible. If I had to choose between a trip to
Europe of two or three months, and the excur-
sion we have just made, and were compelled to
forego one or the other, I would forego the Euro-
pean one.
PART II.
THE OLD MAN'S STORY.
CHAPTER I.
THE SECRET OF THE BIG ROCK.
In the spring of 185- I was head bookkeeper
and confidential clerk of a Cincinnati firm, hav-
ing a large trade with the Cotton States. I had
an adored wife, and two fine children, who were
our pride and our delight. Not ambitious for
wealth, I was perfectly satisfied if my endeavors
conduced to the prosperity of my employers. My
salary was sufficient for our wants. None of us
had ever been sick and the family physician was
rather a friend than an adviser. The firm was
prosperous ; my employers, always kind and
considerate ; my modest home was cheerful, and
I believed myself the happiest of men.
Cholera was that year prevalent, and toward
the first of June, threatened to become epidemic
in our city. My employers hurried with their
families to the country, leaving me in full
charge of the house. Continuous immunity
from sickness, made my wife and myself so con-
fident, that had we been able to strike the sign
of the passover on our door posts, we would
scarcely have thought the precaution necessary.
Even the dread scourge, cholera, had few terrors
for us.
203
204 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
Going home one Saturday afternoon, I read
on the Bulletin Board of a newspaper office, that
the physicians believed Cincinnati had passed
the crisis ; that no epidemic need be feared.
I had a habit, when walking alone, of whist-
ling softly. Near my house a neighbor smiled,
as he said, "he was glad to see my mouth in so
fine a pucker, for it spoke well of the day.
My wife met me at the door, as usual, but told
me she felt quite sick ; seeing my face become
clouded, she assured me it was not much, and
laughingly repeated a witty speech of our little
girl. Hardly had she finished, when she almost
screamed with pain. In twenty-four hours, she
was a corpse; and Monday, at noon, I was wife-
less and childless.
I did not pray to die, believing that God knew
and did what was best for his children ; but I
would have greeted with a smile the grim mon-
ster, had he reached out his hand for me.
In two days I was at my desk, for there were
important matters to be attended to. The neces-
sity for work, kept me from falling by the way-
side. My mother had taught me, "that man's
highest duty is, to do his duty." This saying
had been adopted as my motto.
The next week, my employers returned to
town, and ordered me to Fort Mackinaw for a
couple of months' vacation, presenting me
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 205
with a thousand dollar check, to cover my expen-
ses. Two months between the Island and the Soo
were passed in fishing, with such benefits result-
ing, that the excursion has been renewed when-
ever an absolute necessity for a change has been
felt.
My employers on my return, seeing the good
effects upon me, of the water and the rod, pre-
sented me with a nice skiff, telling me to take
every Thursday afternoon for a holiday, and to
keep them supplied with fish for Friday ; at the
same time, kindly informing me, that a plate
would always be at one or the other of their tables
for me to help enjoy my catch.
Being a man of almost machine like habits of
regularity, my boat was always seen on the
proper afternoon, rain or shine, during the fish-
ing seasons for several years.
It was in '58 that I accidentally threw my line
in a deep pool or hole, in the Licking river, a
mile or two from the Ohio, and almost immedi-
ately struck a fine gaspergou perch, or as the
people in Kentucky called it, a "New Light."
This fish was first seen in the state, when the
forerunners of the present Cambellite, or Chris-
tian church, the "New Lights," were creating
much enthusiasm in the Kentucky religious
world.
2o6 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
The catch was followed by several others,
when a terrible splashing was made close to my
hook by an out-rigger rowed by a stalwart
negro. The Ethiopian scowled npon me as he
shot by. In a few moments he returned and
caught a crab, letting an oar back water about
the same place on his run down stream. The
disturbance drove all the fish from the locality ;
at least I had no more bites.
The two following Thursdays, I tried the
same pool, but my darkey was again rowing
about the ground, and no fish were to be had.
About a month later, there was a press of
business at the store. At the request of our
senior to forego my usual holiday, I worked all
Thursday afternoon, with the understanding I
was to take the next day and bring in my fish
for Friday's supper. I started early and rowed
some distance up the Licking, to what were con-
sidered good fishing grounds. In passing the
spot where my sport had been twice disturbed,
I saw the outrigger handled by the sable oars-
man, while a handsome young man in the stern
drew up a fine black bass. The negro again
scowled at me.
I reached my ground, and was having but in-
different success, when almost without a ripple
the outrigger drew up close to my side.
THE OLD MAN'S STORY.
"What luck?" demanded the gentleman, in a
clear, sweetly modulated voice, which made me
for a minute forget the colored man's evident ill
will.
"Rather poor ; nothing to what I was enjoy-
ing four weeks ago, before your boat drove all
the fish away from the hole where I saw you an
hour ago. I have a notion your man had a
method in his madness."
The gentleman laughed a laugh so breezy
and cheery, that it drew me at once to him.
"Yes, Jim told me of his exploit, and we have
come up to invite you back to u our hole " as he
calls it."
I could not refuse an offer so cordially extended.
The gentleman as we gently floated down the
stream informed me, that Jim had selected u our
hole" as one little likely to attract Cincinnati
Waltons, and regularly every Friday left in it a
fine feed for fish ; that Jim was almost amphibi-
ous and seemed to know how to draw the finny
denizens of the river to whatever spot he selected
and at fixed times ; that he was surprised to
learn I had found fish in the place on Thursday,
when there should have been none until Friday ;
that the sable conjuror was not so much put out,
because I had found the spot, as because the fish
had lost their reckoning and were a day ahead
of time.
2o8 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
" I am supposed to be Jim's boss," he smilingly
went on, "- but in fact, on the water, am governed
by Jim ; his rod is one of iron."
At " our hole " we lay too, and in an hour had
a fine mess of bass and new lights — as many as
we needed.
Felden, was the name my new acquaintance
gave me as his — "Jack Felden " he said, u and
this coon is Jim Madison."
Jim grinned' and was the very personification
of the free and easy, yet servile southern " body
servant."
Mr. Felden said, u I make it a rule, Mr. Jami-
son, never to kill a single fish I can not consume
either myself or through a few friends, to whom
I now and then send a mess. The poor things
have a right to their pursuit of life, health and
happiness, and should not be killed in wanton
love of killing, As one of the dominant animals
of this earth, I claim the right to take fish for
my uses. I enjoy the sport of angling ; but
when enough are caught the sport ends, and I
reel in my line, and silently steal away."
' You are a sportsman of my own kidney," I
rejoined " we have enough."
Jim then emptied a pail of fish feed into the
river, saying :
" Dey'll guzzle all dat afore dark, and termor-
rer dey'll come here and find nuthin', and dey'll
. THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 209
go away, but shuali as death and 'ligeon dey'll be
back here nex' Friday. Dis niggah skeert em
de las' fo' weeks, a Thursdays."
Jim grinned in my face as he said this, and I
was forced to commend his prudence, though it
had been at my cost.
The following Thursday, I tried the hole, but
Jiin was right ; no fish took my bait ; he was
seen, however, scudding along in Feldeu's out-
rigger. He grinned at me and asked, " how is
de hole?"
The following week, to my gratification, I
found Mr. Felden on the river. We fished at
" our hole " with some success : Jim then fed the
fish, while his master informed me that he had
concluded to go shares with me. Hereafter, he
would meet me on Thursday, so as to enable me
to gratify the Catholic appetites of my employ-
ers. Thus he would have the pleasure of bet-
tering our acquaintance. He paid me the com-
pliment of saying that he had circled the globe,
associating with men in all lands, and felt we
ought to be friends.
Our friendship grew into intimacy, before the
season was over. He invited me to his den. It
was a plain cottage, externally ; but within
sumptuous ; skins of lions, tigers, leopards of
every variety of spots, and of other animals
covering the floors of hard wood at that time
210 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
rarely seen. Several of trie pelts, lie said, were
the trophies of his own skill with the rifle. The
walls were tapestried with rare draperies, and
rugs, all of them valuable souvenirs of Eastern
lands. One room was given up to cabinets, in
which curios and objects de vertu sparkled in ori-
ental beauty. All was arranged with rare taste.
I hinted to my host, that his house was a temp-
tation to the burglar. He went to the door and
whistled gently. In rushed two fine dogs ; no-
ble specimens of monster mastiffs.
" These are my guardians. Woe to the thief
that gets into this house ; if he escapes Jim and
me, these fellows would tear him into fish bait.
Wouldn't you my Mogul?" One of the huge
mastiffs sprang up with a growl that startled me.
"Now Akbar ! 3^ou and Queen salute this
gentleman. He is my friend and must be yours."
The two dogs came up to me, smelt all about
me, then one of them laid a great paw in my
lap, while the other put both feet on my should-
ers, yawning mightly in my face .showed fangs
long enough and strong enough to give the
king of the forest no mean battle.
I spent a charming evening with my new
friend, and found him one I could gladly call
such.
During the following winter, I dined with
Jack — I had accepted his request to address him
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 211
thus familiarly — at least one day in each week.
His dinners were at the then unusual hour of
seven, a habit acquired as he informed me in
India. Jim was butler, and Dinah, his wife was
cook. She was an artist of a kind to be found
nowhere in the world, outside of old southern
plantation halls. The table service was of pure
china and cut glass. The menu was never ex-
tensive, thereby not conducing to over-indul-
gence, but everything was perfect of its kind, and
cooked absolutely to a " T ". A single bottle of
wine was always served for us two, either of
Rhine or one of the best clarets. My host and
I never emptied more than two glasses each.
At the end of each meal, Dinah andjini came in
as the table was being cleared off, and drank to
our healths in glasses of the same set, and from
the same wine used by the master.
Mr. Felden never smoked cigars at table, but
we each had a jasmine Turkish pipe and
puffed delicious Ladikiyah, received by him
from Beyrout in hermetically sealed cans.
One evening when we were lolling back on
softest chairs and enjoying to our full the frag-
rant weed, Jack said to me, (i Paul," (this was
the irust and almost the only time, he thus
called me, " you have told me the sad, sweet
story of your life. I propose, if you wish, to
give you mine."
A SUMMER'S OUTING.
" I am very glad of it, and have been hoping
you would."
For some minutes he was silent, and his noble
face was lighted with what seemed an illumina-
tion from within, wholly different from that laid
upon it by the mellow glow from the candelabra.
" I am thirty years old ; have light auburn
and very curly hair." I started, for his hair
and beard were dark brown, almost black, and
without even a wave. Without noticing my
surprise, he continued, " My complexion is florid
and my face without a scar."
" My goodness, Jack, you are making sport of
me," I cried, for the man before me had a com-
plexion of richest olive, and a terrible scar had
been cut across his cheek, as he once laughingly
intimated, by a tiger's claw.
" No, I am telling you simple facts. I am the
son of a rich planter in ," he did not
name the state ; u my father and my uncle
owned adjoining estates of great value, and were
as proud as they were rich. I was an only child.
My uncle had but one, and that a daughter. Our
parents inherited their fortunes from my grand-
father, and at an early date they determined to
unite the family wealth again by a marriage be-
tween my cousin Belle and myself. She was a
pure blonde, one year my senior, very stately,
very cold, and intensely proud. We grew up
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 213
to consider ourselves as indissolubly betrothed.
Belle treated it as calmly as if we had been mar-
ried for years. This she did as soon as she was
out of the school room. She never seemed to
doubt the propriety of our engagement. She
loved ' Clifton' and i Brandon' — I will thus call
the two plantations — she loved the two estates
next to her father. Him she worshipped. These
two loves filled her soul, and left no room for
any other genuine affection. Yes ; she loved
herself, our name, our lineage, and her pride."
For awhile he was silent, and his soul seemed
to be working in his face ; then, with a sigh of
pain, he continued :
" I graduated from one of the best colleges in
the land at twenty, and at once with a learned
tutor, was sent abroad. We traveled in conti-
nental Europe for a few months and I was in-
tensely happy. Before the first year had half
ran out, we were summoned home. My father
was ill, and would probably not live to see me.
This was my first great pain, for my mother had
died at my birth. We hurried to New York by
the first steamer, then by rail and coach we flew
southward without having heard a word from
home. We were too late ; my poor father had
been dead nearly a fortnight. I had loved him
with intense devotion.
A SUMMER'S OUTING.
My uncle having died three years before, Belle
had been living since then with my father at Clif-
ton. She met me at the door, enveloped in black,
and looking the very embodiment of decorous grief.
She kissed me on the forehead, and when within
told me in a voice as calm as ice of my poor father's
last illness, of his death, and of the immensely at-
tended funeral. She opened her writing desk,
read letter after letter of condolence, and with a
fitting sigh spoke of the gratification we should
feel, ' that dear uncle had so many admirers
among the best people of the south.' Her well-
poised calmness nearly stifled me. Yearning for
love and sympathy, all I received from the only
relative I had on earth, at least of near degree,
were congratulations that my father had found
in death the cold esteem of friends.
" As soon as I could decently leave the house,
I hurried to the negro quarters to see my foster
mother, Dinah, and her husband, Jim. There I
found loving hearts, and for many minutes was
clasped in the arms of her who had nursed me
on her bosom through my babyhood. I lay
upon a settee, given Dinah by myself as a
Christmas present years before, and with my
head on the old negress' lap, let her comb the
hair over my aching brow. Soothed and rested
by the kind, homely sympathy, I lay with closed
eyes, when the cabin became redolent of that pe-
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 215
culiar odor given out by genuine crepe, and
Belle walked in. In calm, cold words she said
she was sorry John could not find some one at
the house to brush his head.
" The next day my cousin handed me a letter,
i the last/ she said 4 Uncle had ever written.' It
told me where I would find his will ; that every-
thing he possessed was left to me, and asked, as
a dying request, that I should marry my cousin
the day I became twenty-one. He told me how
all the love he had borne my mother had been
centered upon me; gave me a few words of ad-
vice, but said he felt advice unnecessary, as he
knew how good his only son was.
" When I had finished reading I handed the
letter to Belle, saying there was something in it
concerning her. I watched her through my fingers
and saw that her reading was simply perfunc-
tory ; she had evidently read it before. She
sighed, came to my seat, put her arms about my
neck — called me her dear John, and kissed me
on the lips. I felt like one fettered and power-
less. My heart was filled with a sort of numb-
ness— despair. Two facts were as clear to me
as daylight: that I did not love my cousin, that
she did not love me ; she was incapable of real
passion. I turned to her and said :
" ' Belle you have read my father's letter,
what do you suggest ? '
2i6 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
" ' Why, of course, John, we will be married
on the 20th day of February. We have a month
to get ready, besides we need not much prepara-
tion, for we will at once go to Europe for a year,
until the sad events of the past few weeks shall
have been obliterated from our minds.'
"Good God! she could speculate on the death
of grief. I hated her. But I would as soon
have thought of exhuming my father's body and
scattering it to the four winds of heaven, as to
think of not obeying his wishes.
u Well, we were married, and at once went
abroad. I tried to and did respect my wife. She
attracted great attention, for she was superbly
beautiful — queenly. But there was never a mo-
ment when I felt like pressing her stately form
to my breast; never had the slightest inclination
to kiss her lips ; never once felt I could look
into her great blue eyes, and breathe out my
life on her bosom.
" A marble statue would as quickly have
aroused a feeling of passion in my heart. She
was cold and did not seem to realize that I was
not a model husband, for I was her attentive
and watchful companion. She seemed thorough-
ly satisfied, while my heart was hardening into
stone.
In July we visited a flower show in Regent's
Park, accompanied by two English ladies, both
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 21 7
married, romantic and full of sentiment. In our
rounds, we met a lady in company with a gentle-
man and a little boy. She was about eighteen
years old, with dark melting eyes under a per-
fectly arched brow, and a broad low forehead,
over which her black hair was banded in massive
silken waves. Her complexion was so deeply
brunette as to be almost olive. The blood was
rich and flowing in her cheeks, and her lips
were two full ripe riven cherries, when she spoke
parting over large pearly teeth. Her hand was
exquisitely poised on shoulders of superb mould,
and her form and gait queenly. We were on
the opposite side of a wonderful erica admiring
its masses of pink flowers. Our eyes met. I
stood as if spell bound. I had never before seen
a perfect beauty and all of my own chosen type.
She was exactly my opposite, I, high florid ; she
intensely brunette.
The color came into her cheek and mounted
to her very hair when she caught my fixed gaze.
One of our English friends noticed this. After-
wards in our walks, we met again and again the
lady in the brown shawl — for so our friends
called her. Whenever we met, my eyes in-
stinctively sought those of the unknown, and
always caught her glance in return, and at every
such encounter her face crimsoned. This was
remarked by our two lady friends and caused
2i8 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
them to banter me. They told my wife to be on
her guard ; that if I were not already married,
they would say I had certainly met my fate.
" Ah ! little did they dream they were speak-
ing truth — that this girl was my fate for weal or
for woe ! I heard the unknown's voice several
times without catching her words. It sank into,
my very soul. I became absent minded through-
out the remainder of the day. Belle joined the
ladies in declaring that the " brown shawl " had
bewitched me.
Mr. Jamison, I have a very decided theory of
true marriage. The Bible is a mass of oriental
rubbish ! Forgive me, I do not mean to offend.
I reverence the bible, but not every word of it.
It is made np of ingots of gold covered and al-
most1 hidden within masses of sand — grains of
truth and Godly wisdom, in bulks of chaff. It
is made up of God's wisdom and oriental fable ?
legend and poetry. You reverence the gold, the
grains — the sands and the chaff. I wash out the
sand, and pick out the gold ; winnow away the
chaff, and gather up the rich grains.
Nothing to me in the book of Genesis, reveals
more deep knowledge of human nature, than the
account of the creation of Adam ; he was made
from the dust of the ground, and his soul was
breathed into him by the breath of God. When
a man dies, his body returns to the dust, his soul
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 219
goes back to its maker. God created man! male
and female, created he them ! They were then
good. He afterward separated the female from
the male. Each thus became imperfect — each
became a part and not a whole. There is a
constant yearning in them for reunion. When
the true Eve unites with her Adam, they become
one, and their union is bliss. When so united,
no man shall put them asunder. The union is
founded directly on natural and, not on moral or
religious laws. The natural laws speak within,
and draw irresistibly two hearts to be mated.
Whoever obeys the impulse find a Heaven on
earth. Others, falsely-mated, may not find ab-
solute misery, but, it is equally certain, true
happiness is never theirs. Men and women are
made for each other ; not one man for one cer-
tain woman, but in classes. A man finds his
physicial mate in one of a certain class. If her
moral qualities be not fitted by education, he
should wait with a well grounded hope of find-
ing another in the same class, whose bringing
up will have better fitted her for him.
Now, the woman in the brown shawl was my
mate, that is one of the proper class. I could
not get her out of rny mind, and my wife's cold-
ness, constantly made me yearn for her. Travel
was distasteful to Belle, so that before the fall
had set in, we were again at home. I did not
220 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
love my wife, she did not love me. She was
fully satisfied to live with me in the proud dig-
nity given us by our vast estates.
Besides his plantation, negroes and stock, my
father had left me largely over a hundred thous-
and dollars in money and convertible bonds and
mortgages. I resolved to turn all of these into
cash, and to abandon wife and country. I got all
in readiness ; executed and left with my lawyers
papers conveying every thing else to Belle ;
went to New York on some pretended business
and sailed for Europe, writing home that I
would never return. I sought the American
colonies and hotels in every country, in a sort of
vague hope that I could find the woman in the
brown shawl. She was my fate. I was mad with
the one idea. I was no libertine, Mr. Jamison.
I simply yearned for her, not asking what the
result would be should she be found. I drifted
into the East and wandered through Russia,
Turkey, Greece, Palestine and Egypt. I did
not meet her ; and could get no tidings of her.
CHAPTER II.
I resolved to lose myself in the far East. I
went to India ; hunted in the jungles, reckless
of life and danger. I was successful in overcom-
ing the monsters of the wilds ; and escaped
dreadful fevers because I seemed to bear a
charmed life. It was worthless to me, and a
bad penny could not be lost.
In India I met with a cunning native, who
changed my locks from light to their -present
color, curly to straight ; my complexion from
florid to its olive hue. He taught me how to put
a scar on my cheek that would deceive the eyes
of a surgeon, but from which I could at any time
free myself in a single night, diid renew at will.
So perfectly was my disguise, that my Indian
servant, who had been with me for a year, failed
to recognize me. He never knew me again.
With my skin I changed my name. I was a
stranger even when in my most frequented
haunts, and as you see, am still disguised. I
visited Siam, Burmah, China and Borneo. I
wandered five years in the far East, and returned
to America by the Pacific and Panama, and thence
to New Orleans.
In that city, I went to a Mardi-Gras ball. On
entering the brilliant assembly room, I was al-
221
222 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
most stunned by. the sight of my wife, standing
close by my side. She looked at me without re-
cognition. She was the same cold, queenly
woman. I was presented and talked to her of her
husband, whom I had met in the far East. She
seemed considerably interested in me, but did
not evince the slightest emotion when I spoke of
her husband and told her I had heard of his
death in India. She said in chilling tones she
felt sure it was a false rumor. Had she shown
any feejing, I think I would have tried to get
her into my heart.
I went to my old home, and pretending to be
shooting and belated, went to Jim Madison's
cabin about sun-down and talked to him and
Dinah. Neither of them recognized me, but when
her back was to me I spoke ; she started, for my
voice reached her memory. They were both true
to Mars John, whom I told them I had known at
college. Dinah shed bitter tears, because she
could never see him again, and Jim would be
like Simeon of old, if his eyes could rest upon
him once more. They were to be trusted.
I went to the cabin door and finding there was
no one in the neighborhood, I drew my hat over
my face and said in my natural voice: "Jim,
Dinah, don't you know me?"
They sprang to me at once, with a cry, u Oh
bress de Lord, it's him, — it's him — it's Mars
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 2,2,$
John" and for minutes I was pressed in their
arms, while they shed tears and gave thanks to
the good God. The two lowly hearts were true as
steel to me, and would be willing to follow me to
the ends of the earth. Jim was a teamster and
had to draw a load of cotton to the nearest steam
boat landing on the following day.
In my boyhood his aquatic qualities won my
admiration and were the wonder of the negroes
for many miles around. To my inquiry as to his
ability in that line now, he proudly stated that
" he was a duck a-top the water, an' a musrat
under it." I then told him to be on the lookout,
when on the wharf boat the next day ; that I
'would be there ; would manage to tumble into
the river ; he was to rescue me, and out of grati-
tude I would purchase him and Dinah, and take
them north to freedom.
We performed our comedy admirably. Water
could scarcely drown me, for from childhood, I
had been a water-dog, and when Jim made his
wonderful dive, and brought me from the bot-
tom, to which I had conveniently sunken the
third time, I acted the drowned man so well,
that the negroes around nearly killed me by
rolling me on a barrel to get the water out of my
stomach. I managed to be properly resusci-
tated, and in three days Jim and Dinah, paid for,
were on their way north. They had no children,
224 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
and left no ties behind. Jim says, " he is a
bigger slave than ever, for I am always on his
mind."
We reached Cincinnati last spring, and I feel
certain my identity can never be discovered. I
have my two oldest earthly friends with me, and
now my newest, and almost only other one. I am
trying to recover a part of my fortune, for I had
but little left when I reached this city. I came
here because, the only words I ever distinctly
caught from my brown shawled mate and her
companions were, when the boy said, " but Cin-
cinnati, you know " that was all. I am
here making a little money speculating in grain;
using Jim's rheumatism to inform me as to
weather probabilities and if prices will go up or
down — and keeping my eyes always open for the
only woman I have ever seen whom I can love.
" And now fill up your chilbouque and let us
have a glass of beer." He rang a bell and told
Jim to open a couple of bottles of ale.
I was deeply impressed by the story — more
so, than I cared my friend to see. To open up a
light vein of conversation I asked :
" What was that you said abou Jim's rheuma-
tism?"
" I spoke in earnest ;" answered Jack, " last
summer and fall I used Jim's ankles to tell me
if the weather would be favorable for crops. He
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 225
believes implicitly in his rheumatic prognostica-
tions. To humor him I follow his advice, and
so far have never failed to make a good deal by
so doing.
I thanked Felden for his story, and went home
pondering upon his notions and pluck. It was
strange to see a man who evidently so enjoyed
lavish luxury, living as he did, when a beautiful
wife, a vast fortune and high position were wait-
ing for him, whenever he should acknowledge
his proud name.
Toward the end of the winter, a messenger
brought me, from Mr. Felden a request for the
address of a first class physician, and telling me
Dinah was much indisposed. The next evening
I dropped in at his house, but he begged to be
excused. The message brought to the door by
Jim, made me feel my visits were not desired for
the time being. Ten days elapsed without any
news from him, when I met Dr. J. and inquired
as to the condition of his dusty patient.
"Oh! ho! Then I owe to you this new patient !
I stated the circumstances.
" Well, Mr. Jamison, I thank you, for I have
had a revelation at that bedside, for which I
would not take a thousand dollars. "
I expressed gratification and some surprise.
"You know," the genial doctor continued,
" you know that I am an old time abolitionist,
and one of the straightest kind."
226 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
I replied, I had often regretted the fact.
Scarcely noticing my remark he went on :
" I have received a revelation, Mr. Jamison,
and one that God willing ! will make me a more
charitable — a braver, perhaps a better man.
Think of it sir : I went to see this black woman,
expecting to find her in charge of some other ig-
norant woman of her color. But instead of that,
there was an elegant gentleman sitting at her
bed side ; his hand was upon her hot forehead,
and every now and then he whispered, " Don't
be afraid Mammy, little John is by you, and he
will take care of you." The poor creature was
delirious. She thought herself on a southern
plantation, and that some one was trying to do
her bodily harm.
"When I stepped forward, he motioned me to
be still. I am generally an autocrat in a sick
room, but that man's look and gesture made me
a regular sucking babe."
I laughed at the 'thought.
" You needn't laugh, sir. I am telling God's
truth. Well ! when he had quieted her, he took
ine into an adjoining room, and gave me his di-
agnosis of the case. It was the opinion of a man
of science, absolutely correct. I left my prescrip-
tion, promising to be on hand as early as pos-
sible the next morning. Would you believe it,
sir, I was there before day-light? I wanted to
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 227
see that man. I found him seated as he had been
the night before, and learned he had been there
ever since I left. She was still out of her
head.
Something she said caused the gentleman to
say, "She must be saved. She and her husband
are all that are left to me of a great plantation
and five hundred negroes."
"Instead of feeling disgust for the owner of
five hundred human beings, I felt they had lost
a friend when they lost their master. For a
whole week, that man never took off his clothes,
and as far as I could see, never left that lowty
bed side. I never saw such devotion. It pulled
her through ; my drugs were a humbug, sir.
That Christian gentleman saved her life."
The doctor took off his hat and mopped his
brow. It was wet from the energy of his
speech.
u It was a revelation to me, sir. Think of it !
A man can own human beings, and still be a
Christian. If our Saviour has a true follower on
this earth, that born slave owner is of his chosen
ones."
I told this to Felden a few days later. He
smiled and said, UI thank the good doctor.
Don't tell him I am a worshipper of the one un-
known, and unknownable God. I reverence Jesus
of Nazareth — I reverence Sidartha, the Buddh —
228 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
I reverence Zoroaster. They were the greatest
of men, whom long meditation sublimated and
lifted above their kind. But there is only one
God. No one of woman born, ever could, or can
conceive his form.
The best and purest Christian I ever met was
a Hindoo, not only in race, but in religion. Yet,
he was a Christian in the true sense of the word.
He lived and acted the life inculcated by Jesus.
The next best was a Parsee worshipper of the
sun. He did unto his kind as he would they
should do unto him. He clothed the naked, fed
the hungry and healed the sick ; yet he gave the
body of his beautiful and idolized daughter to
be devoured by vultures on the Tower of Silence.
One of the genuine Christians I have met, was a
Chinaman, who worshipped Joss, and daily knelt
at a shrine erected to him in the back of his shop.
He washed the wounds of a stranger, and nursed
him for weeks, though his house was shunned
as the home of pestilence.
" Forgive them Father, they know not what
they do," might be offered up in behalf of fully
one half of the good people of this Christian land.
They wrap themselves up in their egotism and
their bigotry. They follow the blind lead of nar-
row minded preachers and make the pulpit their
fetich. Bah ! how I hate cant and hypocricy !
Poor Dinah is as black as the ace of spades, but
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 229
under her dusky breast is as white a soul as
ever came from the breath of God ; and I am
supposed to be a good man, simply because I did
not leave her to die like a crippled dog."
" No, Mr. Jamison, I am no better than I ought
to be. Dinah nursed me on her breast and fed
me from her life's blood, when I was helpless. I
was only a man when I nursed her through this
illness. I came to tell you she is nearly well
again, and Jim wishes you to eat a dinner of his
cooking to-morrow evening. Good day." And
with that he showed me his straight back and
massive shoulders as he walked with swinging
strides from the store.
We commenced fishing in March and spent
many a pleasant hour together, on the water by
day, and in his den at evening. Early in May,
I went as per agreement to dine with him. Jim
handed me a note. It read, "Dear Jamison, go
in and make the most of the dinner. I am off
for how long, I know not. I met to-day, my fate
of the brown shawl. I follow wherever it may
lead me, never tc stop until my doom be
found.
Yours, in the height of folly,
JACK."
Jim informed me his master had come in a
half hour before ; after hurriedly filling a valise
and satchel, he had jumped into the carriage,
230 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
which brought him home, saying " Goodbye old
folks, take care of the dogs, and expect me
home, when you see me."
Jim added, " He's all right up here sah,"
touching his head, " but his heart's sort'er crazy."
I could scarcely taste the food, for I felt that
there was over Jack, and thus over me, an im-
pending disaster. I had become deeply attached
to him. One knowing the intense nature of
the man could not but fear he was following
an ignis fatuus to his doom. Here Avas a
married man, who had schooled his heart and
reason to the belief he was not wedded — that his
marriage was a fiction of the law, and not bind-
ing on his conscience. I was a religious man,
and shudderd lest my friend with his marvel-
ous fascinations, and goaded by a mad passion,
might do some act abhorrent to my notions of
right.
Days and weeks of uneasiness on my own
part, and apparently of distress on the part of
the two colored servants passed by, without a
word from the absent one. At first I went to
his house repeatedly to rest and to think of him,
but finally satisfied myself with inquiries at the
door.
About two months after his disappearance, it
became necessary for me to make a journey to a
distant state in the interest of our house. I was
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 231
absent over a fortnight. Immediately upon my
return, I visited the den (I had learned to call it
thus). A white woman met me at the door with
the information that she was the present tenant.
She knew nothing of the late occupants, but re-
ferred me to a real estate firm as her landlords.
I went to them. They knew nothing of the late
tenants of the cottage, farther than, that Mr.
Jack Felden had sent them the keys, and the
rent to the end of the term. They found the
premises in fine condition, but nothing to indi-
cate where the people had gone.
It was evident that Felden had, what he con-
sidered good reasons for not communicating
with me. I was sure he sincerely liked me, and
would not thus act, unless he desired to cover
his tracks. I respected his wishes and did not
afterwards refer to him. Desiring to work off
my anxiety I went to the river for a hard trial at
rowing. The man in charge of my boat handed
me a note written he said, by himself at Jim's
dictation. It simply said, " Mars Jack axes you
to take his canoe for yersef. He won't want it
no more. Good bye, sah, may de Lord be good
to you, for Mars Jack loved you.
his
Jim X Madison
mark"
232 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
I soon learned to scull the outrigger called by
Jim, canoe, and used it for years, but its late
owner was seen by me no more in Cincinnati.
By degrees I ceased to expect him again. I
often thought of him, and a prayer for his hap-
piness, became a part of my nightly supplica-
tion, before the throne of grace.
CHAPTER III.
Nearly a year after Felden's disappearance, I
was surprised by the following letter from him :
"Dear old Jamison :
I know you thought and think me a scape
grace, but when you read what I shall write, you
will forgive me as a simple madcap. To get you
into a proper state of mind, I will at once pro-
ceed a tale to unfold.
The day of my departure from Cincinnati, I
went to the Burnett to discuss a business venture
with a guest of the house. He was in the din-
ing-room at 5 o'clock dinner. I sat by his side
discussing our business, when I was startled by
the tones of a voice near by. I sought it.
There just opposite to me the " brown shawl''
was being seated. An elderly lady accompanied
her.
My vis-a-vis, was a young girl, not over eigh-
teen, but in every respect the woman I met in
'50, at the flower-show in Regent's Park. There
was one difference it is true — in her coiffure ; as
I took it, the result of change of fashion. So
vividly was the photograph of years ago im-
pressed on my memory, and so exactly was it
copied, that the incongruity of time and added
years never crossed my brain. I was dazed by
233
234 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
the sudden apparation of my dream. No thought
entered my mind that it was contrary to the laws
of nature, that a woman of 18 in '50 was still
only 18 now ; nor did the idea occur to me that
I was laboring under an hallucination, or was
the victim of mistaken identity. The woman I
had worshipped for long years was there before
me, in every feature the same as memory
pictured her. She was no older, and was altered
only as change of fashion had altered her. I
did not reason on the subject.
I overheard that the two ladies were on their
way to Boston ; and were to leave on the 7:30
train, going East. They examined a time table,
and speculated as to their stops for meals before
reaching their destination. The elder was ad-
dressed as "Auntie," the younger one as "Rita."
In an hour I was at the station with my lug-
gage. I saw them enter the cars, and knew
whenever they left it at eating stations. At Bos-
ton I made my cab driver follow their carriage
and took the number of the dwelling and the
name of the street. The next day I watched
the house. At noon Rita with a lady, both in
calling costume took a carriage at the door, and
Rita, for so I already called her in my thoughts
threw a kiss to a child who had followed them
from the house.
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 235
I determined this was her home, and felt no
longer any necessity for constant watching. To-
wards sundown I was was walking in the Com-
mon, where she and I met face to face. She
looked at me, but as one to her an indifferent
stranger. A girl, probably of five years was her
companion. While the latter sailed a toy boat
on the pond, the young lady sat on a seat not
far away.
The little girl dropped her hat in the water,
and called out, " Oh, Aunt Rita ! I've lost my
hat." They tried to reach it with her parasol.
I ran to a man raking grass, took his rake and
rescued the hat. When I put it on the child's
head, the aunt thanked me, with a smile that
was a ray of sunshine. Her voice, modulated to
express thanks, was simply music.
Resolved to take advantage of any and every
opportunity to make her acquaintance, I took
off my hat saying, "Pardon me, but we have met
before. It was in London, in 1850."
She replied, with a smile, "Your memory must
be wonderful, for at that time, I was — let me see —
and she counted the years on her fingers, "I was
then nine years old, and very small for my age."
I was dumbfounded, for as yet I had not thought
of the anachronism I had been guilty of. I said,
" it is strange" — my voice sounded hollow to my-
self— "but a young lady, your very image, I met
236 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
a dozen times, and what is stranger still, she wore
the self same brown shawl which covered your
shoulders at the Burnett house, a few days since."
She did not notice my allusion to the Burnett
house but burst out in a hearty laugh and clapped
her hands so loudly, that the little girl ran to her.
" I see it all," she cried ; " Minnie, my sister,
was in London that year, and wore that shawl.
Her picture was taken in it about the same time,
and when I grew up I was so wonderfully like
her, that she gave it to me ; when I fix my hair
as hers was, and put on that wrap, every one de-
clares the picture to be the very image of my-
self.
I had broken the ice rather unconventionally,
and was determined not to recede. I said "But
she was with her father and a little boy." I felt
I was treading on thin ice, but if it were not her
father, I would manage in some way to get out
of my mistake.
"Yes !" she replied. "Yes ! my poor dear
father and dear little Ralph were with her. I
was at school at home. Poor papa — poor Ralph."
Her eyes became suffused. "Papa and Minnie
went abroad for brother Ralph's health. Poor
boy, he did not live to get home, and papa died
the next year."
It was not right, but I could not resist it. I
knew that grief admits a friend more readily
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 237
than gaiety, so I said: " Yes ! Ralph looked
very frail, but your father was the picture of
health. I was abroad after that for several
years and lost sight of them."
She paused a while, and then continued,
"dear papa was never sick, but his troubles broke
his heart and killed him. You know it was a
terrible thing to be cheated of all he possessed
by the man he thought his best friend."
I saw she had an idea, I had known her father
and of his affairs. I was villian enough not to
undeceive her. What is more, I felt I had a
right to be free with this girl. I had worshipped
her sister for years, and in every land. She and
her sister were now become as one, and that one
was designed by nature for me.
The child ran up and pulled her hand. "Lets
go home, aunt Rita, I am hungry."
She arose, and nodding me a polite good even-
ing, said:
" I suppose you will come to see Minnie.
Her house is No. . My aunt and I are
visiting her."
I promised to do so, and passed a sleepless
night, racking my brain to discover some way
of getting into No. without taking advantage
of this sweet girl's unconventional innocence.
Could I tell a lie ? Would it be a lie to excuse
myself on the plea of having a slight acquaint-
238 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
ance with the dead father? I lived a lie ; was
indeed a living lie, but I had as yet to my recol-
lection never uttered a direct one.
On the next day I called, asking for the la-
dies. I sent in a card with an assumed name
and wrote under it, "An acquaintance of years
ago." Rita and Mrs. Wilton, her sister, came in
together. I stood for several minutes speech-
less. There were the two sisters. Apparently
there was ten years difference in their ages, and
the disparity was patent. Yet I looked from
one to the other, and for a while was hardly able
to determine that it was the elder I had pre-
viously met. I hid my confusion. They seemed
never to question my having been a friend of
their father. Neither evinced the slightest emo-
tion when our eyes met. I had while abroad, the
entre of many noble houses. I used this fact as
a sort of credential and succeeded so well that
Mr. Wilton called at my hotel and invited me to
dine with his family.
The visit was repeated ; and I was well re-
ceived. I honored the wife — but loved the young
sister. It seemed to me it was she I had been
carrying all of these years in my heart ; and I
did not stop to think what all this might lead to.
When I changed my skin in India I became the
man I pretended to be. I was the homeless Jack
Feldeu. I was madly infatuated, and what may
THE: OLD MAN'S STORY. 239
seem strange, while I trembled when I looked at
or touched the younger sister, I felt not a single
tremor, when the elder walked to a concert at
night with her hand on my arm ; not an emo-
tion, when she looked me in the face. I loved
her years ago, I loved her sister now because
she and her sister had become one, and that one
was the younger.
I watched Rita and could not find that I
aroused one single feeling of reciprocation in her
breast. I grew mad at the thought, and at uight
cried aloud in agony. Was it true — could it be
true, that after all, I was nothing to this woman
who, I believed, was made for me?
I spoke one day of the episode at the flower
show, intimating nothing which could connect
them with it. Minnie told how she, too, once had
fallen in love the same way ; suddenly she
started and fixed her eyes on my black hair and
olive hue. The look seemed to recall her ; she
had no suspicion.
I pondered on the thing. Years ago my
glance sent the blood crimson to her brow. The
sister now affected me as she had formerly done,
but I seemed to be nothing to her. I spent
sleepless nights trying to account for this. I
reached the conclusion at last that love — passion-
ate love, was a physicial as well as a spiritual
240 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
emotion ; that I was wearing a mask covering
niy true self, and to win Rita I must unmask.
I have told you I could remove and replace
my scar in a day, but to change the color of my
hair or complexion requires from four to six
months. I learned that Rita, with her aunt,
whom I did not meet, would return to their home
in Tennessee within a month, and she would
then be a village fixture for perhaps a year. I
grew madly jealous lest some one should love
and win her before I could appear properly be-
fore her.
I swore to have her, and when won, I felt sure
she would never change, but would wait and
wait until she could be mine. I bade the sisters
goodbye with a heavy heart — all the heavier,
because on their part leave-taking was only
kindly.
I hurried to Cincinnati ; avoided places where
I could meet you ; gathered together my guns
and fishing-tackle, my cosmetics and wardrobe
sufficient for several months absence; arranged
my bank account and went to Chicago, where I
thought the Ethiopian might change his skin
without observation. Jim being able to read my
writing when in plain characters, was directed
to pack up all my valuables and to hold himself
in readiness to come to me at once on receipt of
a letter.
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 241
He and his wife finally joined me. I sent
him to Tennessee to learn the lay of the land in
the town in which Rita'a annt resided. To escape
any difficulties a Northern negro might encounter
in a small Southern town, he went as a boat
hand on a steamer running from St. Louis ;
managed to get sick when was reached,
and was necessarily put ashore. In a month he
returned full of the information I desired.
I learned that the father of the two sisters,
Mr. Dixon, had been a wealthy merchant in one
of the large southern cities. He was an English-
man by birth and had lost his wife, a high-born
Spanish lady, when Rita was a small child.
They had no relations in America, except the
aunt, under whose care the youngest daughter
was living and upon whom she was dependent.
When the family was in England for Ralph's
health in '50, the partner of Mr. Dixon contrived
to raise a very large sum of money and de-
camped. Mr. Dixon reached home to find him-
self an absolute pauper. The blow prostrated
him, and in a few months he was laid beside his
wife. Rita had only a village education, but
was a great reader and a good musician. Her
aunt, Mrs. Allen, had been governess in a noble-
man's house in England, was literary and de-
cidedly uppish and withal intensely avaricious.
242 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
Mr. Wilton was the Boston correspondent of
the mined firm, and in the course of settling with
it met and won Minnie. Rita's aunt, or rather,
aunt-in-law, the widow of her father's only
brother, took charge of her and made her home
an unhappy one, not by direct unkindness, but
by her querulous, carping and sarcastic disposi-
tion and manner. She would long since have
gone to her sister but for a dislike of Wilton,
who, though most kind to his wife, was a selfish
man, and had given his young sister-in-law some
great offense for which the Spanish blood, so hot
in her veins, forbade forgiveness.
I do not remember ever to have told you that
Jim Madison, the obedient servant and devoted
slave of his once master, is a man of great
native intellect. When a boy, I taught him to
read a little and in Cincinnati spent much time
trying to educate him. He was wonderfully apt
and occasionally with strangers uses good Bng-
lish, but with me and my intimates prefers to be
the negro servant and to use plantation language.
He is intensely loving, absolutely honest, and at
times startles me by an almost savage dignity
inherited through a short line from his African
forefathers. Reared among a thousand negroes,
for Clifton and Brandon people mingled almost
as if of one plantation — jolly and light in his
heart, he courted popularity among his kind and
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 243
became one of the most astute diplomats. I
love him as my servant and honor him as a
true and honest man ; respect, and if he were
not my friend, would almost fear him as a shrewd,
self poised, ever alert diplomatist. I had known
his qualities before, yet the thoroughness of his
information brought me from amazed me.
He managed to get a job of sawing a load of fire-
wood and packing it in the aunt's yard, and from
that he became domiciled in a room over the
kitchen. With his open but shrewd honesty, he
became almost a confident of Miss Rita.
You who have never lived in the South cannot
understand how closely drawn together are kind
masters and mistresses and humble but faithful
servants.
The cunning Hindoo who gave me my raven
locks and olive complexion, gave me also in-
gredients to restore my original appearance more
rapidly than nature, unassisted, would do, and
at the same time, cosmetics, which would enable
me to conceal the change while going on. The
effects of the cosmetics were entirely temporary,
and easily removable.
When Jim returned, I was ready to reassume
my skin. When emerging from my bath one
morning, I was no longer Jack Felden, but John
of Clifton, . Jim and Dinah shed
tears of joy, crying together " Bress de Lord! oh
244 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
bress de Lord — its Mars John — its hisself
shuali "; and they hugged me again and again.
Dinah sat down in a rocking chair and said,
" Come to Mammy, honey ; jes let Mammy nuss
her baby boy one more time, and I'se ready to go
to glory.
I lay my head on the loving creature's lap,
while she combed out niy hair and tried to curl
it around her fingers. The curls of my youth,
however, were gone forever.
When I looked into the glass, and saw my
changed appearance, a sudden revulsion of feel-
ing came over me. I was John : I was
the unhappy husband of my cold cousin. A
gulf arose between Rita and myself. How dare
I think of winning the love of that pure girl !
I, who was bound by the law of man to another,
even though my reason and my heart told me, I
was free. So thoroughly had I indentified my-
self with the character of Jack Felden, while
wearing his hair and complexion, that the recol-
lection of my real name and position was blurred.
It is true, my unfortunate marriage was never
entirely forgotten, but I felt myself a new man,
with new lights and different possibilities. The
husband of Belle had become an unreal shadow —
the figment of a disordered imagination. The life
I had been living for years began in the Bengalee
village, when the cunning Hindoo made me a
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 245
stranger to my servant — ;all before that was a
drearn. Now having laid aside my mask, I was
the dead man come back to life, with all his
memories and his hated ties.
I took long walks at night out into the open
country. I fought the demon of memory ; I
fought the commands of conscience. But con-
science would not down. The blood spot would
not out. Despair filled me.
Aided by my temporary cosmetics, I again be-
came Jack Felden, but the change was only par-
tial. My glass told me I was he, my conscience
whispered, I was John . Mine was a dual
being. The hopes of the masquerader were de-
pressed by the fears of the real man. I decided
to send Jim to Clifton to learn something of Belle,
resolved if she were still clinging to her pride,
to speculate boldly — to win a fortune and give
it to Rita as a restitution coming from her
father's swindler.
You know something of my success in Cin-
cinnati. Jim had been my lucky stone ; his
rheumatic limbs were my barometer, telling
me what the season would be from week to week,
and though I did not believe in it, I had specu-
lated on what his joints foretold and was now
the possessor of a fair competency — I would
risk my all, court fortune's smile to make or
break. If fortune should favor me, all would be
246 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
Rita's ; I would avoid her forever ; if the fickle
jade failed me, Jim and I could gain a livelihood
in new endeavors.
While shedding my skin, I had made several
small successful ventures in corn and wheat.
Jim and I put our heads together (or rather, I
put my head to his shins) and we arrived at con-
clusions, which should lead to wealth, or to pov-
erty. I put aside a couple of thousands for Jim
and Dinah, staking all the rest of my fortune
in margins. I won from the first. I pushed
my luck with reckless daring, turning my profits
into margins and new ventures. At the end of
two weeks, my means were doubled.
I was eating my dinner — one of the best Dinah
ever prepared — when Akbor and Queen watch-
ing me close by my chair, suddenly sprang up,
and rushed to the door whining and uttering
low barks. Jim entered, to be overthrown by
the delighted animals. Gathering himself up
quickly, he held out his hand to me, an unusual
familiarity, for Jim is my friend, yet my slavish
servant, and rarely loses the demeanor of the
servant.
" Bress de Lord, Mars Jack ; shout glory hal-
lelujer Dineh, you black niggar ! We'se free !
and created equal as shuah as Tom Jeffersom
printed de declaratium !"
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 247
I made him sit down and tell his story. He
told me all he thought of interest regarding the
dear home of my childhood.
I tried to get him to the point on which I
most desired information, but he could not be
induced to alter the thread of his narration in the
least detail. Finally I learned that Belle, who
had gone abroad twelve months before, was to be
married in a month to an Italian Lord.
"Jess think of it Dineh — git it through yo'
wool, ole gal. — over dah dey calls men lords. I
don't wonnah dat Sodum and Gomorrah was
guv up to fire and brimstone. I specks dar
was lords in dem days. The reel Lord will make
Miss Belle a piller of salt — shuah ! stick dat in
yo' craw, Dineh — dar is one Lord, and he tells
us in de book, dat he am a jellus God."
Jim then spread before me a newspaper printed
in It announced, as a most important
event — "That the beautiful and queenly Mrs.
Belle whose husband, Mr. John
had mysteriously disappeared in 185-, supposed
to have died of cholera in India, had become a
Catholic and was about to be married to the
Marquis of in Rome. Mrs. —
had with hopeful love for her husband, for all
these years refused to credit the report of his
death ; even now, she was unwilling to act on in-
formation she had gained at great expense, from
248 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
India ; information which every one else thought
thoroughly reliable. She had therefore applied
to the Pope for a dispensation ; that as soon as
the formalities necessary at the Vatican were
completed, she would at once become the Mar-
chionness of . The marriage was to
occur on the day — , just one month from
the day of the publication of this paper."
Oh Jamison, old fellow, that was a happy
hour for me. I had that day closed very success-
ful deals. I was almost rich and could win and
wear Rita. I did not for a moment doubt she
would be mine, for I honestly believed her my
mate. All impatience to fly to her, I made an
arrangement to travel south for a Chicago firm,
to be paid out of commission alone. Jim in-
formed me that Rita's aunt sometimes rented
her front parlor and a bed-room attached, to
traveling men with samples; that it was a source
of much mortification to the niece, for the el-
derly lady was rich and had no children, rent-
ing the room out of pure avarice. I resolved to
lease it, for it would bring me close to Rita and
would arouse her animosity, out of which I would
snatch victory.
I washed every vestige of Jack Felden from
my hair and skin, but put a scar on my cheek,
which with a full beard and straight hair, I
thought would insure me against all recognition,
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 249
should chance bring me in contact with some
one I had known in early manhood. On reach-
ing , leaving my luggage and sample boxes
at the wharf, I went at once to the home of the
aunt; secured the rooms and agreed to pay a
large price for my breakfast and supper in the
house. Thus the best of treatment was secured,
for the avaricious old lady would try to keep me
as long as possible.
My first meal in the house, was supper.
When Rita came to the table, she scarcely
deigned to notice me. She disliked me for taking
the parlor.
Mrs. Allen, the aunt, was a screw, but she was
an epicure. Her old cook was an artist. Like
all genuine gourmets, the old lady was a table
talker, and a good one. I resolved to return
Miss Rita's disdain, by ignoring her presence,
and if possible to arouse her interest in me,
against her will.
When the aunt served me with tea, she said:
"Mr. Felden, there is a cup which I am sure
you cannot equal in Chicago. New made people
can soon become good judges of coffee, but a
connoiseur in tea must have blue blood in his
veins."
"I do not boast a long line of ancestry," I re-
joined, "but my palate must be the heritage of
good blood, for I enjoy the Chinese drink
250 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
greatly, and am very particular as to the brand.
There is only one country in the world where
good tea is almost universal. A bad cup in Rus-
sia, I found the exception."
uAh," she said, "but it is in England, that it
is always above the average."
"Yes," I acknowledged, "as a food, not as a
beverage. English tea is good to eat — that is to
mix with, and wash down your muffins. In
Russia tea is a drink, and is even jealous of a
thing so coarse as sugar. I learned there to put
into my cup only a soupcon of sweet."
• "You have been in the land of the Czar then,
have you?"
"I spent some time within his dominions," I
replied.
"You have been a traveler, then I suppose.
What other countries have you visited ? Pardon
my seeming impertinence, but I have found it a
good beginning to an acquaintance, to learn
where each has been. I have myself, wandered
considerably, but only in Europe."
"I have visited nearly every European land;"
I said, for I was determined to please her and at
the same time to win the attention of the niece,
who so far, had only noticed me by casual
glances, " have hunted the tiger in Indian jun-
gles and laved my limbs in holy Ganges among
its devotees. "
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 251
" Oh, how charming ! " the good lady ex-
claimed. " I thought I was getting only a lib-
eral lodger and I find I may be entertaining a
savant."
" To get myself on the best footing, dear
Madam," I rejoined," I will say I have straddled
the equator, and have used the Arctic Circle for
a trapeze."
She clapped her hands, saying, "That's capi-
tal, is it not, Rita ? What else, and where else,
Mr. Traveler?"
u In Burmah I have ogled beauties with huge
cigars piercing the lobes of their ears, and have
worshipped Soudanise ladies closely veiled on the
upper Nile, awakening from my dream of adora-
tion to find the Yashmac of my divinities cover-
ing ebony coloured features."
" Go on, dear sir, go on, I am wrapt in pro-
found attention," and the old wizened eyes
sparkled with pleasure.
u I have been in ," I glanced at Rita, she
was listening with intense interest ; I grew
ashamed of the game and paused. But knowing
how a woman's nature clothes the mysterious
man in brightest garments, and is ready to find
the prince in beggar's raiment, I resolved to
show her a despised drummer, who had been in
all lands, and even an actor in wild and danger-
ous adventures.
252 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
" I have crossed the dark teak forests of Siam,
where jungle fever kills its victims in a single
day, and escaped its venom by swallowing qui-
nine by the handfnl and by sleeping in the
hondah on my elephant's back. A single night
on the ground would have been death."
Rita changed her seat to become my vis-a-vis
and from then never removed her eyes from my
face.
I continued : " In Cambodia I lived a week in
a grand palace, surrounded by huge temples of
fine architectural beauty ; temples and palaces
covering a mile square; and excepting my ser-
vants, I was the only tenant of a magnificent lost
city. Trees were rooting on the friezes of noble
porticos and splitting their marble members
asunder.
" I was once caged in a small cave near old Gol-
conda, and my guard of honor was a huge tiger,
who lay across the entrance to the den, and
strove to tear down the barricade I had erected
to keep him out. His fierce growls as he wildly
scratched against the granite wall, curdled the
blood in my veins and his breath came hot upon
my face, the winding crevices in the barricade
permitting this, while not allowing me to shoot
through them. I sat rifle in hand, expecting
every minute that my protection would give way,
and then barely hoping that I might send a
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 253
bullet into the monster's brain. Finally the wall
toppled — he crouched for the fatal spring, when
a shell from my faithful gun pierced his heart,
and I sank in a swoon from long excitement, and
physical exhaustion."
A sweet voice of intense emotion came across
the table.
"And — and — please tell me how long did you
lie in the swoon ?"
Ah, how I did long to press to my bosom that
dear, sympathetic heart !
I replied, " I do not know, but when I came
to, I felt I was dying from thirst. I crept
through the opening and with the tiger's blood
not yet cold, moistened my parching tongue. I
lapped it in a sort of revenge."
" That was grand ! Oh, why am I not a man ?"
she exclaimed.
I leaned towards her, my heart spoke in tones
she did not mistake. " Thank God ! thank God !
you are not."
She started, her eyes met mine, every drop of
blood seemed to leave her cheek, she was so pale ;
our eyes looked into our eyes. Her face crim-
soned, and she rushed out of the room.
Mrs. Allen apolegetically — " do not mind that
child, Mr. Felden, she's an idiot," and then, her
face became nearly malignant, u Yes, she's an
idiot, a plague and a nuisance."
254 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
How I hated her ! How I gloated over the
idea, that I would take the plague from her,
resolved never to ask her consent. For several
days the young lady's manner was constrained
but not haughty. I was differential but reserved.
Indeed I felt a sort of timidity when she was
present. I avoided every appearance of throw-
ing myself into her company.
I spent some time in the business quarter of
town and soon secured some capital orders for
my employers. This gave me real pleasure.
You, old Jamison, who are so true to your firm,
understand this feeling. I made excursions to
other towns where I was somewhat successful.
The fourth Sunday was a glorious sunny day,
just the one for a long ramble in the country.
At breakfast I asked Rita to join me in a con-
stitutional. The aunt spoke up, u Of course
she will, I would go myself, but my lame foot
forbids it."
I proposed going to the hotel to get a lunch.
"No! No! "the old lady said. " No ! I will
put you up a nice basket. In a few days you
will take me out for a long promenade a voiture."
I consented by a nod.
With basket in hand, we left the house
early. My companion wore a charming but
plain walking habit ; a boy's straw hat sat jaunt-
ily on her head. I was sure I had never seen
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 255
anything half so beautiful, as was this dark, yet
fair young girl. Rita was a glorious walker.
Hers was not the gliding swimming motion
which in America and especially in the South,
has been regarded as the ne plus ultra of female
grace ; but the light springing movement, with
which fair Eve tripped over Eden's bloom be-
spangled glens, when she gathered flowers of
every sweet odor and of every native tint to deck
her bridal bed ; when she tripped over nature's
parterres and scarcely brushed away the dews
sparkling on their wealth of fragrant bloom.
We walked and gaily chatted. She lost all
the reserve, which since I became an inmate of
her auntie's home had more or less marked her
demeanor. She was the young village maiden,
who had in artless innocence, at Boston's old
frog pond, laughingly talked with the respectful
stranger. But when our eyes met, her soul
spoke unconsciously through them, telling me
that she read my heart and was full of sym-
pathy.
We reached a high tree-clad bluff, which over-
looked a wide river bend. The sun was warm,
but sent upon us no burning rays ; rather shim-
mering his light through the leafy shade.
Across the stream, a broad bottom lay, waving
in grass and grain, and bright here and there
with opening cotton bloom. We sat side by side
256 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
on a fallen tree, and drank in the beauty of a
picture painted from colors worked upon nature's
pallette.
We descended toward the river bank to a pretty
little spring which Rita had before oftentimes
visited. We partook of the lunch Mrs. Allen
had put up for us, or as Rita said, u for her gold
paying lodger, who was a traveled savant."
She made the welkin ring with her merry
laugh, as she took the wrapping paper from a
dusty bottle of claret.
" Oh ! my generous aunty ! see, here is genu-
ine Chateau Lafitte ! I knew she had it, but I
have seen a bottle of it but once on her table,
and that was when President Polk dined with
us, a good while ago. Poor aunty ! You have
surely bewitched her, Mr. Felden."
The lunch was delicious, and we did it ample
justice. " See, Mr. Felden, here is real spring
chicken broiled to a " T." Poor aunt; strangely
inconsistent aunty. A lavish miser ! a generous
lover of self! A born epicure."
We wandered among little gorges : she was
happy, for she was a joyous young girl, set free
in nature's haunts. I was happy because by my
side was my own — my Heaven given mate, the
rib taken from my long ago progenitor, and now
given back to me. Grown somewhat tired, we
sat upon the grass covered root of an upturned
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 257
tree. I said something, I remember not what,
my companion started ; I noticed and adverted to
to it.
" Mr. Felden, do you know you frequently
startle me. I seem to hear in your voice a tone
I have heard before, or have listened to in my
dreams." I felt the hour had come.
" Miss Rita. I owe to you a confession. I am
not what I am." I spoke with all the pathos
practice among wild and dangerous people had
made me master of.
" Listen to me, Rita, pardon my familiarity:
but you will forgive me when I have finished."
I rapidily gave her the story of my life, and
dwelt upon the meeting with her sister at the
flower show, and the hold it took upon me.
Again she started, and was about to speak, when
with a motion, I stilled her tongue. I spoke
of my long wanderings, and then of my seeing
her at the Burnett and thinking her the lady of
the flower show.
I told her of my visit to Boston. The color
left her face, and she faltered out — " I knew it —
I see it now, you are Mr. Ford," and crimsoned
from neck to the roots of her glossy hair.
" Yes, Rita, I am John . I am Jack Ford;
and now Jack Felden tells you that he loves you
—he worships you and would make you his
wife and would be happy, — would make you his
258 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
wife, liis Queen — and would, too, make you
happy."
I paused and grasped her hand — she did not
withdraw it. For a moment she was silent, and
then raising her dark confiding eyes to mine,
she said in low tones:
" Thank God, Jack, I have not dreamed and
prayed in vain. I will be your wife — I will cling
to you through life, and will rest by your side
in death."
I drew her unresisting form to rny heart, I
kissed her lips in one long kiss, and saw, within
the gates ajar, the paradise awaiting me.
We arose, and hand in hand, silent, but with
heart speaking to heart, walked slowly home-
ward. We scarcely spoke. Speech was un-
necessary. There was a silent communion of
souls, still, yet eloquent. We were one. We
were as Adam, when first created, male and
female ; our simple reunion was bliss.
We are to start together next week for Bos-
ton, to be married in the presence of Minnie.
Mrs. Allen is glad to be freed from the expense
of Rita's outfit. She regrets that " a great
traveler, who ought to be wiser, can tie himself
down to a chit of a girl." I go to Chicago to-
morrow to close up my affairs, and to bring Jim
and his wife here. This climate will suit them
better than that of Chicago. We will halt in
THE OLD MAN'S STORY, 259
Cincinnati long enough to see you, old fellow,
and when married we will go abroad for a year.
Congratulate me, dear Jamison, for I am the
happiest of men. Yours, never again to perpet-
uate a folly. JACK.
I, too, was happy, for I loved Felden as I had
loved no one since my wife and little ones went
to Heaven.
Imagine my astonishment, my terror, when
some weeks later, I received a short letter mailed
at St. Louis.
" Dear Jamison, my true and honest friend:
"Forget me forever! Do not try to look me
up ; never inquire for me ; never again mention
my name. Henceforth I am dead to the world.
Your friend, JACK."
I did not try to understand these terrible lines.
I honored my friend and felt sure he had good
reasons for his request. I complied with his
demands, except one, I could not forget.
CHAPTER V.
Years passed by, but brought no tidings from
Jack Felden. I made no inquiries for him; his
last request came to me as from the grave and
was sacred. Had we met on the street, I would
have passed him unheeded, unless the first ad-
vance had come from him.
I said no tidings came from him ; that is, no
direct or positive tidings.
On the first of May following his letter, a case
of Chateau Lafitte, a jasmine turkish pipe and
six sealed cans of Ladikiyeh tobacco came to my
room. Tacked to the box was an envelope con-
taining this message: " On the first day of May
and November of every year, drink to the health
of a lost friend who loved you. May the cares
of life lift from your heart as lightly as the
smoke curls from your chibouque." Regularly
after that, on November ist and May ist, a case
of finest claret and a half dozen cans of Turkish
tobacco sent from a great wine house in New
York, was placed in my room by an 'express
messenger, and never after that did I fail to drink
in silence to my friend. Whoever sent the wine
and tobacco evidently kept note of my life, for
my residence was changed three times, once to a
distant city ; the messenger found me wherever
I was domiciled.
260
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 261
Not long after Felden's disappearance, the
troubles which had been brewing between the
North and the South broke out into open war.
Our house was among the first to close its busi-
ness as it was wholly dependent on Southern
trade. We paid up every dollar we owed and
both heads of the firm retired to the country.
Service was offered me under another firm, but
as I had become a part of the machinery of the
old house, I. felt such a change would prove un-
congenial.
I volunteered in answer to Mr. Lincoln's first
call for troops and was sent into camp in Ken-
tucky. In a month I was sick and ordered dis-
charged by the surgeon. A complaint, hitherto
unknown to me, forbade active and hard work,
but the consolation was offered me that with
light, healthful exercise, generous food and
abstinence from any nervous strain, I might live
to old age. I was given a clerkship in the com-
missary department, and in '62 was transferred
to Washington city. When the war was over I
was retained in my position. Close confinement
affected my health.
One of my pleasantest memories was of a
summer spent in fishing and boating in the
neighborhood of Mackinaw. Something im-
pelled me to renew my old friendship with the
well-remembered scenes. After a brief stay on
262 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
the island I became a denizen of a lumber camp
located a few miles from the rock which brought
me to your acquaintance. Alone in a light row-
boat which I had purchased at Buffalo on my
way up the lakes, a large part of each day was
spent on the water.
One bright day I anchored my boat near the
u Rock " I mentioned to you, on the boat coin-
ing from the Soo, and wandered in the woods
stretching behind it. The forest was of small
trees, with here and there an old timer spared by
the loggers. Every thing about me was wild,
and excepting stumps and upper members of
trees from which saw-logs had been removed,
there was nothing to indicate fellowship with
men. Emerging from a small ravine I came
upon an opening in the wood on the edge of
which was a cluster of three tents, one appar-
ently for the occupancy of a luxurious owner ; a
plainer one for servant or servants and a third
for a kitchen with a stove pipe projecting through
its apex. In front of the principal tent was a soi t
of porch or shed covered with light boards to
keep out the rain, and over-topped with boughs
giving it a sylvan character.
• I walked toward the tent when a huge old
mastiff, fat and unwieldly, sprang toward me
with a bark and growl which brought me to a
sudden halt. The beast rushed toward me
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 263
angrily, but all at once paused and smelt about
me with his bristles erect. These, however
soon smoothed down and the dog whined as if I
was not unknown to him. A gentleman and
lady stepped from the large tent. Imagine my
intense surprise when I recognized before me
the stately form of Jack Felden. I repressed all
evidences of recognition and with a bow and low
apology was about to turn away, when Jack in
his old cheery tone, cried out :
" Don't go, Paul, chance has brought you to
me ; why old Akbar recognized you and wishes
you to stop ; come back ! " His words were
kindly and his tone almost loving. I ran to him
and for a moment our arms were about each others
shoulders and our eyes were moistened by tears.
The lady came forward, saying:
" It is Mr. Jamison, Jack, is it not? But I
need not ask, for no man, but you Mr. Jamison,
would be thus met by my husband."
We were soon seated before that tent in that
sweet intercourse which arises only between gen-
uine friends. It was difficult to realize that
years had elapsed since I had last seen Jack. He
was the same open hearted, genial and dignified
man. Shortly afterward, the dog got up lazily,
and trotting toward the little ravine, met a gray
bearded negro — the Jim Madison who so dis-
turbed me on the Licking river. His pleasure
264 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
at seeing me seated with Felden and his wife,
seemed unbounded. When I repeated to him
what I had told his master of my location in the
logging camp, he said, in atone that showed the
thing was a matter of course :
" Well! Mars Jack, I'll jes' take de boat an' go
to de camp an' fotch Mr. Jamison's things over."
Jack laughed, " Yes, Jim, your hospitality has
only run ahead of mine. Jamison must come
and make his home with us in ' Big Rock Camp.' "
Before night I was in possession of Jim's tent
and he had fixed his cot in a corner of the
kitchen. We spent the next few days fishing,
walking and talking. The late afternoons and
evenings were delightful. Jack sang gloriously
to the guitar, and his wife could discourse
charming music from that most inharmious of
instruments, the banjo. She had a rich con-
tralto voice and sang with what is higher than
all art — exquisite tenderness and deep feeling.
Jack was usually as gay as I had ever known
him, but occasionally his face had a tinge of in-
tense sadness, which he evidently struggled to
suppress. This expression was never shown in
his wife's sight. With her he was a rolicking,
joyous man, and every act and word showed him
a loving, an idolatrous husband. But when her
back was turned he occasionally regarded her
with a look of such pain that my heart went out
toward him and ached for him.
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 265
About a week after my arrival Jack and I were
fishing at some distance from the camp, our low
conversation had flagged, when he suddenly said :
" Mr. Jamison, you must have thought me a
brute all of these years."
I quickly responded, " No, Jack! I never
doubted you had good reasons for your silence,
and nothing would have tempted me here had I
dreamed I would meet you."
" I am so glad you came ! I have wanted to
see you more than you can think." His voice
was exquisitely modulated while saying this.
u I wish now to tell you every thing. Rita
wishes me to do so. Your great discretion will
teach you how far you must hereafter be reticent
in her presence. The one great object of my
life is to save her pain — to make her happy."
" When I wrote you my long letter I was
about to be married and was to call to see you
on our way to Boston; am I not right?" I
nodded.
" Well, in a week Rita received a letter from
her sister saying she was not well, and suggest-
ing that it would be better we should be married
in Tennessee. This letter altered our plans. A
few days later a dispatch came from Wilton,
telling us, that poor Minnie had died suddenly,
she and her baby at the same time. Mrs. Allen
was a great stickler for what she called the pro-
266 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
prieties of life, and though she had not in her
heart a spark of affection for her nieces, she in-
sisted our marriage should be postponed for at
least three months.
Rita had been in her care since childhood ; it
is true the care was of no gentle kind, but she
was grateful and did not wish to displease her
Aunt. I went to Chicago to get my affairs into
shape. Before the time I was to have returned,
my darling wrote me that her shrewd worldly-
wise Aunt had become suddenly alarmed by the
shape political matters were rapidly taking ; had
determined to convert all she owned into money
and to go to her relatives in England for the
remainder of her days. The dear girl begged
me to come to her as soon as possible. Her wish
was my law. I started the next day ; for I had
acquired the habit of being always ready for a
change of base.
Reaching I found the shrewish old wo-
man up to her eyes in affairs. I lent her all the
assistance possible, and in one month she was
ready for her departure. With her and another
for witnesses, Rita and I were made one. She
dowered her niece with five thousand dollars,
kissing her most decorously on the forehead. In
a half hour after the ceremony she started north,
and we west. Her last words were, "Adieu !
Don't write to me. If I ever care to hear from
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 267
you I will write." She thus passed out of our
lives and we know not whether she be alive or
dead.
My bride and I went to Memphis and thence
to St. Louis. We were absolutely happy. The
world was bright and rosy to us both. My wife
was, as fully as I, imbued with the belief that
we were mated, dovetailed together ; were as
thorough^ one as Adam or Shiva were one, be-
fore Eve or Parvati were taken from them.
Possessed as we were of perfect health, physi-
cally we might have been models to an artist for
robust, untainted manhood and womanhood.
Not a cloud flecked our sky — not a shadow, we
thought, could possibly lurk beneath the hori-
zon. At St. Louis, the day after our arrival, we
had been out for a walk and on returning I went
to the hotel reading room, while Rita gaily
tripped up stairs toward our room, kissing her
hand to me from the upper landing. I picked
up a paper, chance-dropped by some traveller,
published in the town near my home ; the same
which Jim had brought me with the announce-
ment of Belle's marriage. Almost the first
thing I saw was an editorial statement that " the
marriage between the beautiful Mrs. Belle
and the Marquis of in Rome had been
positively and permanently abandoned." My
eyes were riveted to the horrible column. It
268 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
continued : l The proud uncrowned Queen of
discovered before it was too late, the titled
groom desired the gems and gold in the bride's
strong box, far more than the jewels and pure
metal so eifulgently shining in her form and
rich in her character, etc., etc." I was stunned —
my blood stood still in my heart. I leaned over
upon a table and was blind from intense agony.
I thought of my own misery, but Great God !
what would become of my poor wife ! My limbs
seemed powerless ; I did not move until a light
hand rested upon my head.
My wife had come down to find me. u Oh,
darling, what is it, what is it?1' I took her
hand and slowly .staggered to our room. I knelt
at her feet. I prayed her to forgive me. I hid
my face in her lap and sobbed as a broken
hearted child. She smoothed my hair and for
some minutes with sweetest of all sympathy let
my grief flow. Then she lifted my head.
" Tell me what it is, my husband."
I looked into her dear pale face and cried, " I
cannot — I cannot break your heart, my poor
wife."
" Break my heart, darling ! It can never
break while it has yours to dwell in."
" But," I gasped, u we must part."
" Part ! part ! Oh, God! Jack ! what is it
you say? part! no, no! Never, never!" She
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 269
was as colorless as the lace about her neck. I
then told her all.
When I had finished, she laid her arm around
my neck, drew my cheek to hers, and said in a
firm, brave voice, " No, Jack, my darling, we
will not part. I am your wife, wedded in Hea-
ven. God was witness to our betrothal under
the open sky. God was sponsor to our marriage.
We are man and wife and no man or woman can
ever separate us. I am your Eve darling and
with you would live in Eden, but if driven out,
I will be by your side and wherever we go, there
will be my paradise. You have not offended the
law. You thought yourself free and no one can
blame you."
I pressed her to my heart and cried, " My
Rita, my noble Rita ! "
u No, 110 ! Jack, I am your Rita, but not your
noble Rita. I am simply a woman ; I am your
wife and do no more or no less than any loving
woman should do."
We resolved to go to Chicago, to live in seclu-
sion while I should do all I could to increase my
fortune, and then we would go off to some far off
land, where there could be no possibility of hav-
ing scandal's finger pointed at us. I then wrote
you to forget me.
I again became Jack Felden, and my wife
learned to like uiy olive hue and my dark hair
270 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
better than my natural complexion. Chicago
became our home. I courted fortune on change.
For a while I was but indifferently successful.
One year on almost the last day of August, Jim
hurriedly entered my office saying:
" Mars Jack, your time is come. My ole
ankles tells me thar will be a killing frost dis
night; the corn will be cotched. I knows what
I tells you. I run all way down town to tell you.
Go out now, dis very minit, an' buy all de
corn you can carry ; put your las' dollar up and
make a fortune. You'll win, Mars Jack ; if you
fails, you kin sell me for a ole grinnin possum."
The honest face of my old friend was ashy
from excitement. With one word — " Jim I'll do
it," I went on the board and before night nearly
every dollar I owned on earth was up in margins
on corn. That night there was a frost, corn
went up several cents ; this gave me additional
margins, and I risked all. One month later I
had cleared a handsome fortune.
The next year Rita and I went abroad to re-
main for two years. A boy was born to us in
Egypt. We wanted Jim and' Dinah to see him.
For though they were our servants, we loved
them as our best friends. I knew how Dinah
would yearn to hold little Jack on her bosom ; to
live over in her deep loving fancy the days when
her baby John drew his life from her breast.
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 271
She had prayed that Miss Rita would let her
nuss Mars John's Baby. She never saw him. In
London he was exhaled as a dew drop. It was
a sad blow ; but my wife did not grieve as I
feared she would.
She said " it is best Jack. He would have been
nameless in the eyes of the law. We will live
for each other.'7 It would have been better had
she shed more tears ; for there are times when
her very fortitude alarms me.
We returned to Chicago. Rita was quietly
happy in her little secluded home. I am always
happy, when her face is unclouded.
My disguise as Jack Felden precludes any
ambition either social or otherwise. Our little
family lives for each other, and is perfectly
satisfied to know only a few necessary acquaint-
ances. We go to theatres and concerts and keep
ourselves abreast of progress and of life. We
are school teachers, Jim being our pupil. His
life is inwoven with ours. We are both fond of
books. People we often meet at places of amuse-
ment and on our drives look at us inquiringly,
and occasionally some have tried to break into
our seclusion. We have met the kindly ad-
vances courteously, but continue to live within
ourselves. Our city being made up of people
new to each other, makes this easy.
272 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
Once in New York at the opera I saw Belle ;
she was the admired occupant of a box. Her
opera glass was bent upon us several times. I
think she recognized her acquaintance of the
New Orleans ball-room. She was still queenly,
cold, and I could see selfishness had laid its mark
upon more than one of her perfectly modeled
features. She was still the proud rich widow.
Rita looked at her through her glass, and said
to me "Jack dear, look at that magnificent
blonde ; she is perfect in form, and her features
are faultless, but she could never be a follower
of the Buddh ; she could tread the life out of
living beings, and care not if she only did not
soil her skirts." With that she turned so as not
to see her again. I kept my counsels. Belle
was not again referred to.
Last spring Rita lost a little girl at its birth;
she did not recuperate. The Doctor advised a
tent life for the summer. Dinah was not well
enough to accompany us. If Rita be not fully
recovered by the middle of autumn, we will go
to the upper Nile. I have an idea its climate
must prove beneficial to her.
As I said, we keep to ourselves ; at first, feeling
it necessary because we were over a social vol-
cano, but lately from choice. I cannot help
thinking that Belle will some day grow weary
of her widowed life and will make me free ; she
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 273
can get a decree of divorce, I cannot. I would
not commit a fraud to win one, and she would
not permit me to obtain it otherwise. Now
Jamison, you know why I have so long neglected
you."
" Yes, Jack, I not only know, but fully ap-
preciate your feelings, and though I try to be a
religious man, I cannot blame you for your
course." With that he pressed my hand in
warm and grateful affection."
Felden seemed to have told all he wished to
tell at that time. That there was something
still untold, I suspected.
CHAPTER VI.
That night, never to be forgotten by me, we
were kept entirely within doors, by a deluging
rain. The winds shrieked through the groan-
ing trees. The thunder rolled in constant and
awe inspiring reverberations. The lightning
kept the tent in a continuous blaze. Thoroughly
protected, we were silenced by the awful voice of
the tempest. A storm is never so grand as to
the occupants of a tent in a wild forest, one
seems then so close to Him who rides the winds
and speaks in the roar of the thunder.
Just as nature seemed wearied of the intense
exertion, the old mastiff sprang up with a growl
and rushed toward the tightly closed tent door.
The curtain was drawn aside, when he sprang
out into the night, and was soon in pursuit of
some wild animal, evidently of considerable size,
for we heard its flying tread in the darkness.
When the storm abated, Jim reported that a
fine mess of bass we had caught just before dark
had been stolen. Mrs. Felden expressed regret,
for several of the fish had been taken by her.
Jack laughingly offered to go down to the Rock
at day break, and bring back a mess in time for
breakfast at seven.
When I awoke, the next morning the sun
was quite high in the heavens. Mrs. Felden
274
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 275
and Jim were already out, and evinced some im-
patience, because Jack had not returned with the
promised breakfast. When seven o'clock came,
the wife sent the old man to call her husband
home, fish or no fish.
"Tell him," said she, uthat the storm has
made us ravenous."
When Jim also failed to return in due time,
Mrs. Felden became alarmed and asked me to
follow him. I set out, and although the ground
was sopping wet, she joined me, in spite of my
gentle remonstrances. We soon met Jim hurry-
ing towards us. His face was of an ashen hue.
"Where is Jack, Jim — Oh where is my hus-
band?" shrieked the mistress, as she rushed past
the negro toward the water.
The man caught her arm, "Stop Miss Rita,
stop Miss Rita, fer de Lord sake stop. I'll tell
you, Miss Rita, please stop."
She tried to tear herself from his grasp. "Oh
my God, he's dead — my husband is dead. Tell
me — Jim, where is my husband?"
The negro forced her down on a boulder, and
catching her hand covered it with tears and
kisses. "Miss Rita, my dear Misses, be good
an' I'll tell you all." She attempted in vain to
arise, for a powerful arm held her firmly, but
gently back.
276 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
I sat by her side, and lay my hand soothingly
on her shoulder, saying — "Tell her, Jim, she is
a brave woman and can bear the Lord's will.
Tell her all."
The negro's face showed oniy too plainly that
her worst fears were true. "Miss Rita — I'll tell
you all. Be a good chile Miss Rita; jess be
Mars Jack's wife, Miss Rita, an' I'll keep nothin'
back."
"I will Jim — tell me the worst;" she uttered
between choking sobs.
In a voice of intense grief -and solemnity, Jim
then said, "Be a good chile, Miss Rita; be de wife
of de grandes' man what ever lived; Jim Madi-
son never tole his marster an' mistis a lie. God
is good, Miss Rita; his ways is unscrubable; he
knows whats bes', for his chilluiis. He wanted
Mars Jack hisself ; he done took him to his side.
Mars Jack's drownded."
A wild shriek rang through the woods — a
shriek of agony which caused the blood to run
cold in my veins. The bereaved wroman stared
into vacancy, as though seeking her husband's
form. She arose from her seat almost rigid, and
without a word, fell in a dead swoon at our feet.
So still did she lie and so long, that I feared she
had passed away.
After a quarter of an hour, as it seemed to us,
Mrs. Felden recovered a semi-consciousness —
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 277
staring first at one of us and then at the other
with piteously questioning eyes. When the
horrible reality again dawned upon her awaken-
ing mind, the forest was filled with heart rend-
ing cries, silence only coming when she once
more fainted away. I chafed her hands while Jim
ran to the tents for camphor and brandy. We
bathed her face and neck; fanned her; poured
brandy between her parted lips — did all that
suggested itself to our terrified minds. The
swoon lasted so long that we had almost aban-
doned hope, when she breathed and opened her
eyes — they were vacant.
She wept no more, but in low sweet tones
murmured "Jack darling, don't be lonesome; I
will come to you! Yes, Jack, I'll come."
These were repeated again and again, as we
bore her to the tents and laid her on her bed.
She immediately fell into a sleep lasting for
hours, and only interrupted by sobs and moans.
I watched by her bedside while Jim went off
saying he had work on hand which must be
done at once. When the poor lady awoke and
looked into my face, I thanked the Giver of all,
that she was herself again in mind, though her
strength seemed quite broken.
Upon Jim's return she said in tones so calm,
so gentle and so full of deep suffering, that they
278 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
pained me almost as much as had her more ac-
tive grief :
"Sit down Jim and tell me all about it. You
said you would tell me all. You see I am calm.
You see I can bear anything — everything
bravely."
He replied in his simple caressing manner,
"not ter day, my chile, you jes eat an' sleep an'
git strong; ter morrer I'll tell you everything.
You'se weak now, Miss Rita, — wait till ter
morrer."
"I will Jim." She hardly spoke again during
the day or following night.
When he brought her supper, she tried like
an obedient child to eat all he urged upon her,
saying in answer to his words of encouragement,
"Yes, Jim; I must eat and be strong. I need all
my strength."
When at dark, she seemed to sink into sleep^
the negro and I sat outside the tent so that we
could watch within, but far enough off we
thought, to prevent our conversation reaching
her ears. 0
He then told me that on going to the rock in
the morning he saw that a large part of it weigh-
ing a ton. or more, had fallen since the day before
into the deep water at the precipice's base ; there
had beena thin crevice or fissure running through
the rock, in which a few vines and small bushes
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 279
had taken root. Into this crack the heavy rain
of the night had swept, eating away the last
puny tie which held the two parts together.
Jack's weight in the morning was too much
for it.
Jim found his rod floating at the base, the
hook having caught on a small bush growing
nigh. About half way down a part of his coat
sleeve was hanging to a rough corner of the
jagged rock. As the falling man went down on
the broken mass, he had evidently clutched at
the projection; had wrapped his arm about it,
but had in some way been caught and forced
downward tearing the sleeve from the arm.
Jim who was a keen observer, understood at
once that his master was down below among the
ruins of the fallen mass. He threw off his
clothes and dived to the bottom. In the second
dive he discovered what he sought. He found
his master's body lying on its back, held and
pinioned by a massive stone weighing tons. Af-
ter making this discovery, he had returned to
meet us. But while his mistress slept in the af-
ternoon, leaving me to watch by her side, he had
again visited the Rock. He wore heavy flannels
to protect himself as much as possible from the
chilly water.
He found the body above the knees was free.
He tried to draw it out, only to learn to his
280 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
sorrow, that it could not be removed except by
rending it from the lower limbs. The bottom
was of gravel so compacted as to be nearly as
hard as stone. The dead man had been caught
below the knees in a recess or depression in the
falling rock. Jim expressed great joy that this
depression while holding his master's limbs as
in a vise, had protected them from being
crushed.
"We'll cut up de wings of de kitchen tent an'
sew 'em tergedder three or fo' thick wid twine,
and spread 'em over Mar's Jack an' den I'll put
rocks on de canvas, an' down thar under de
clean water it '11 stay till de blessed Jesus calls
his chilluns home."
I expressed great gratification that he had
thought of this, and suggested that he could
send for some loggers to give us aid.
He quickly stopped me. " No ! No ! Mr. Jam-
ison ! Mars Jack's been wearin' masks all dese
long years. He's been hidin' from men. No
man must' know his las' restin' place. No man
but you an' me."
I honored this tender solicitude for his master's
secret and at once acquiesced, telling him that,
when Mrs. Felden's condition would admit of
our both leaving her, I would aid him in his
pious endeavors.
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 281
" Dat's right Mr. Jamison, me an' you must
nuss dat darlin' chile — you an' me an' her an'
Dinah knows his secrut. You an' me an' her an'
Dinah mus' keep his secrut to our graves. If
eny body helps us here, de officers and de news-
papers '11 be sticking dar oar in. I'd ruther see
you an' Miss Rita down dar along side 'er Mars
Jack, dan anybody should meddle in his matters."
He said this in subdued tones, but there was
on his face a gleam of almost savage determina-
tion.
The next day Mrs. Felden was perfectly calm ;
her mind apparently clear, but there was a far
away expression in her eyes that gave me un-
easiness.
When Jim had removed the little breakfast
table from her bedside, she said, " I am strong
to-day, Jim ; see how calm I am. I can hear and
bear everything, as my husband's wife should
do."
He told her all he had discovered, to the min-
utest detail. He controlled his voice and man-
ner so as not to show the deep emotion with
which his loving heart was almost breaking.
His voice was low, sweet, and sympathetic.
Having finished his account, he said, " Now
chile, be a brave good oman. 'Member what a
great big man Mars Jack was, an' how he loved
his wife mor'n hisself. He's up thar, Miss Rita;
282 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
his eyes is clar, for Jesus is by his side and
makes him see everything ; he sees you dis
minit, an' knows you'll soon be beside 'im.
Don't let him see you miserble."
Mrs. Felden's calmness astonished me. She
listened in silence ; tears rolled down her cheeks ;
her breast heaved with low deep sighs, but there
was a strange light in her eyes, which looked
afar off, and seemed to see her husband as the
man described him. When the faithful negro
had finished, he had her hand in his. For long
minutes she uttered not a word. Her spirit was
in that far off land beyond the skies or more
probably at the foot of the rock. We watched
her in silence.
At last she said, "Jim is right, Mr. Jamison.
If my husband could speak to us now, he would
bid us keep his secret." Her keenly attmed
ears had evidently overheard Jim when he so
urgently insisted that no one should help us.
u No one must know what has happened — no
one but ourselves ; we must do all. I will help
for I am strong now. A few loggers have
passed our camp, if they come again and make
any inquiries, they must be made to believe my
husband has gone away, and that he is coming
back. No human being must ever know our
grave " she quickly added," " where he sleeps."
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 283
She paused, her face brightened with unnatu-
ral light, and with a voice of exquisite sweetness,
she whispered, " sleep well Jack ! sleep well my
husband, your wife will soon be with you."
Jim at once proceeded to his task. He asked
me to row to the nearest store, for some sea-
grass cord, and all the chains I could buy, with-
out arousing suspicion.
I found no difficulty in completing my share
of the preparations. Jim, in the meanwhile,
made two sheets eight to nine feet square,
and of four thicknesses of strong canvas,
cutting up the wings of the tents for the pur-
pose. We carried in the large boat, several
hundred weight of boulders, as heavy as we
could handle, to the shore near where poor
Felden lay. These were to anchor down, for all
time his last winding sheet. Two log chains
were fastened securely around the edges of the
canvas sheets ; a mass of strong boughs were
made ready for anchoring over and around the
watery grave, so that accretions of sand and
gravel collected and held by them, would guard
Jack's body securely and well.
CHAPTER VII.
We determined that as soon as these last ser-
vices to the dead should be concluded, we would
at once strike the camp and return to Chicago.
When the labors required the strength of both
Jim and myself, Mrs. Felden accompanied us.
I was unwilling to leave her alone. Her calm-
ness rather alarmed than assured me. It was
the calmness, not of resignation, but of despair.
When all was as I thought, in readiness, Jim
asked me to get several bags of shot; I remem-
bered afterwards, he did not state for what pur-
pose they were needed.
On my return before night, I noticed him and
his mistress talking apart from me more than
usual. She had, too, strangely altered. Instead
of the look of agonized calmness worn by her
face for the past few days, her appearance was
almost cheerful. I could not help wondering,
if after all this woman, apparently so passionate
and intense, was of the shallow ones of her sex.
She seemed to enjoy her dinner which was late,
and ate more heartily than I had known her
ever to eat before.
She retired early. Jim and I sat up rather
late ; he seemed loth for me to go to bed. When
he retired, I lay awake for hours pondering over
284
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 285
the change in Mrs. Felden. Wearied at last,
a profound slumber overcame me.
I awoke in the morning to see the sun already
several hours high. Jim was engaged in setting
breakfast. I took a short walk. He soon blew
the whistle — it was the call to meals. Mrs.
Felden did not come out of her tent. There
was only one plate on the table. To my enquir-
ies, if she were not coming, he simply answered
that I would eat alone. I had slept so well
during the night that my appetite was good, and
I did full justice to the meal. In answer to my
question whether Mrs. Felden would not like
something, the negro seated himself before me,
the first time I had ever known him to do so of
his own volition, and said, " Mr. Jamison, Miss
Rita '11 eat no more. She lies by Mars Jack in
the deep water. Her soul is wid his at de foot
of de Throne of Grace ; de blessed Jesus I be-
lieve has brushed away her las' sin, if it wur a
sin — de las' and almos' only one she ever done."
The truth flashed across my mind at once. I
sprang to my feet, and in angry horrified tones
demanded — "Jim, has Mrs. Felden drowned her-
self, and you have done nothing to prevent her
mad act ?"
" Yes, Mr. Jamison, Miss Rita my mistress,
who I loved nex' to my niaister, is gone ter God,
an' I seen her go, an' ain't lifted a finger or said
286 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
a word fer ter stop 'er an' more'ii that I helpt
her.
" Jiin Madison, yon are a murderer ! " I cried
in anger. The negro arose. His eyes dilated
and his form seemed to expand. His demeanor
lost every vestige of the servant. He stood be-
fore me a man, black, but of over-powering dig-
nity. His face was stern, but not angry. From
his six feet, he seemed to look down upon me ;
he spoke to me ungrammatically, but in words
almost free from negroism, save in the intonation
of his voice. He was my equal, and seemed to
feel himself my superior. The servant had de-
parted, and in his place was a man, — a man
whose every look and gesture bespoke virile
power and self-confidence.
" Mr. Jamison, your words an' indignation
ain't uncalled for. In your eyes I am a aider in
murder. In my eyes what I done wus right.
You try to be a Christian gentleman, Mr. Jami-
son, an' I ain't ever seen a single act to make
me doubt your goodness. I've professed Christ,
and I want to walk in the paths He laid for me,
an' as far as a sinful man can, to be a follower
of Jesus. If the Saviour '11 forgive my old sins,
I ain't got no fear he will hole me to account for
what I done, an' seen done to-day.
"Mr. Felden told me the day before he died,
that you knowed everything about him but one
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 287
fact. If the Lord could 'er spared him he'd 'er
told you all.
" The las' day he lived he couldn't help feelin'
that some great misfortune was comin'. He told
me that if anythin' happened to him to get you
to be a frien' to his wife ; if anything happened
to 'em both, that you an' me was to be friens in
all things. He didn't tell you he feared his wife's
mind hung on a hinge, an' it might be easy
broken ; that fear made him so keerful of her.
He's been afeared ever since little Jack died in
Lunnun, les' some sudden shock might drive her
out her head. He said if he los' her he had
some duties to perform for the colored race which
gave him his two trues' friens, an' if him an'
Miss Rita both died I was to do it. If it wasn't
that I knowed I ought to carry out his plans,
I'd wish I was by his side at the bottom of the
lake.
"When Miss Rita found whar her husban'
laid, she wanted to go to his side. You 'member
how calm she got. It was 'cause she made up
her min' and was at peace. She tole me what
she wanted. I knowed she'd carry it out. To
her mine it wus right. Her mind you'll say
wusn't balanced. But who can prove it ? I'd
er killed any man who tried to steal her liberty,
and to lock her up."
288 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
His eyes gleamed as if the blood of his savage
African ancestors was surging in his heart. "She
asked me to help 'er ; what could I do ? If I
refused, she'd go alone. If we used force here to
prevent her, she'd come back, an' then she
couldn't reach him to clasp him in her arms in
death, as she promised she'd do when he told
her their marriage wasn't legal. I says to myself,
I can't prevent her, ain't it best for me to help
her ? It was self-destruction, but my conscience
didn't make a single objection. When you went
fur the shot, I helped her make a canvas gown,
which covered all her body 'cept her arms. The
shot you brought I run in pockets all about the
dress, I rowed her to the rock in the canoe. I
held the boat to the right place.
" Just before she dropt out, she cried, ( I'm
comin' my husban', I'm comin' ! ' After she
sunk, I jumped in an' follered her. She laid by
her husban's side, with her breas' on his, an'
her cheek close 'gainst his face. One arm was
on his shoulder. I bent it roun' his neck. I
told her I would. I expect she held her breath
an' kep' her will till she was ready, an' then she
died. She was Mars Jack's brave wife. I helpt
her before she went down, and I helpt her
down thar. I had to dive down five times afore
I got it all right. The water was cold, but I
didn't feel it."
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 289
He paused a few minutes and then continued :
" Mr. Jamison, the man who could 'er resisted
Miss Rita's pleadin' when she begged me to help
her, would 'er been hard hearteder than me. I
I done it, an' I thank God I done it good.
"Mars John when he was a school boy tole me
an Dineli about a good man before Christ come
to save us sinners. That man took some sort
'er tea"— "Was it hemlock?" I interjected.
" Yes, that wus it ; he took hemlock tea, kaze the
city ordered it. Mars John said that nobody
ever 'cused that good man of suicide. He told
.us of a great many good men a long while ago
who killed thar selves an' nobody called it sui-
cide. He tole us of one great man running on
a sword held out by his servant an' nobody ain't
'cused that servant of murder. Miss Rita done
what the good man done a long while ago. She
didn't drown herself; she went to her husband
kaze she heard him callin' her. I didn't commit
murder. I held the sword as 'er faithful servant
oughter do."
"Now Mr. Jamison, is it better she'd be alive,
the widow of a unmarried-bed; married in
Heaven, but her marriage not by the law; the
widow of no lawful husban'; to be pinted at by
the finger of scorn? Would it be better fur her
to be here, with madness peraps in her mine-
maybe in a lunatic sylum, or by her husban's
side, down thar in the bottom of the lake?"
290 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
"Men will be judged, Jim, I believe according
to their lights," I answered.
With a sigh he returned, ul'm willin' to be
judged ! Now, sir, we must finish our task."
We labored four days. Jim dived down and
anchored long poles to guide our work. By
means of these and by diving he spread the can-
vas sheets over the bodies. He anchored them
safely with the chains and boulders. We let the
heavy stones down by cords gently to prevent
th»em from falling upon the bodies. The Big
Rock arises in a small land locked cove, thor-
oughly protected from outer-waves, and almost
hidden from view lake-ward. But for this we
could not have performed our task. We strewed
the boughs over the canvas, securing them in
turn so as to catch the sands and gravels over the
last resting place of our loved ones. Chilled
though he was to the very bones, the determined
negro would not desist from his labours, until
thoroughly satisfied.
When all was finished, with uncovered head
the negro threw a handful of dirt into the water,
saying, his voice broken with sobs: "Dust to
dust ! Dust to dust!"
We sang a hymn while tears streamed down
our faces, and left the dear dead to Him who cre-
ated them, and to Him who died that man might
be redeemed.
THE OLD MAN'S STORY.
It was dusk on Saturday, the fourth day, when
our work was ended. When we reached the
camp old Akbar who had been sick since the
night of the rain, lay dead before the tent. We
buried him that night near the rock.
Never was Sabbath rest more needed, than by
us the next day. For days we had labored under
intense excitement. The strain removed, we
were limp and nerveless. Jim advised hot drinks,
very warm clothing and wraps and absolute
rest.
He covered himself head and all, sleeping
heavily for nearly twenty-four hours. Monday
morning found him rested but " stiff in der
jints."
When we were about to abandon the camp, I
intimated that it was necessary for me to go to
Chicago, to see to winding up my friend's estate.
The negro said with great dignity, "No! Mr.
Jamison it is not necessary, but I want you to
go. Mr. Felden lef a paper that makes every-
thing mine. Thar wur three copies of it. One
is in the safe in Chicago. Miss Rita had one in
a belt on her waist and the other is in a rubber
bag here."
He pointed to his waist.
"Ef Miss Rita had er lived every thing would
er been hers, excep a good livin for Dineh and
me. But now I must take every thing to make
292 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
good poor colored people happy. The paper tells
me how to do it. We don't have to go to the
court. Mr. Felden didn't want nobody to know
that his wife did not have his lawful name, and
fixed it so I can take every thing."
Fora few moments he was silent and then con-
tinued, "Mr. Felden the day before he died told
me a honester man never lived than Mr. Paul
Jamison, and ef any thing happened to him he
wanted you to be a friend to his wife. Now Mr.
Jamison I am rich, but I am a steward an' must
use every dollar jis like my marster said I must.
Ef you will help me, I will give you a good sa-
lary and you kin carry out a noble purpose.
I reflected a few moments and said, "Jim, I
accept your proposition, 'and will devote all of
my energies to the cause Mr. Felden had at
heart. It is a noble one; one which at this junc-
ture is as worthy as any other on earth. I will,
however, take of the salary you offer only what
I need for a comfortable life."
He seemed greatly pleased, saying: "I need
you Mr. Jamison. In Cincinnati an' in Chicago
my master began to educate me. I studied
hard, and it was hard work, but I've liked best
when I was a servant, to be a humble negro.
But now I must be a man, with grave sponser-
bilities, and must forgit what I was, in what I
am. When I ac' the part of a negro servant, I
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 293
talk like a servant. It comes natral to me an' I
likes it. But now I am a servant no more, an' I
spose I can change my speech onbeknownst jess
like Mars Jack. When he wus rosy and light
haired he was John , when he wus dark
an' black headed, he was Jack Felden.
My granfather was brung from Africy a boy.
He allers claimed he wus a great chief — a king.
My young master John used to call me "King
Jim." He said the Africin heathen cropped out
'er me. I've studied, but I'm ignorant. I know
nothing of the world but what he learned me. I
learned to read, so I could read his letters. I
learned how to talk to fit me to do business for
Mr. Felden. My learnin' ain't much, an' that's
what I want you for, to help me do my work."
We reached Chicago in due time. Dinah was
almost inconsolable when her husband told of
the double tragedy. She began to droop and pine
away. We rapidly arranged our affairs, finding
no difficulty in doing so, for nearly everything was
in good stocks and bonds. The bank settled with
Madison as per written orders from Mr. Felden,
found in his safe; making no inquiries except
kindly ones as to his health. These Madison
evaded adroitly.
When all was finished, we took Dinah to a
warmer climate. Madison needed the change al-
most as much as she. His natural predisposition
294 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
to rheumatism had been greatly aggravated by
his exposure to the chilly water at the foot of
the Rock. Indeed he suffered for many years
greatly from that cause. Change of climate did
him good, but poor Dinah's complaint, no
human agency or climatic influence could reach.
One evening about four months after the sad
event at the camp, she went out as a burning
candle — a flicker, and all was over. Her hus-
band said "She didn't die, she jess went to
Jesus an' to her foster-chile.'1
We earnestly set to work to carry out Mr.
Felden's wishes, greatly, I think to the benefits
of a down trodden race. We kept only enough
to support ourselves economically through the
remainder of life. The old negro never per-
mitted anyone to know whence benefits sprang,
or who gave out charities. He said, uMr. John
died long ago in India ; Mr. Jack Felden
an' his wife sleep in their unknown grave ; no
one but us knows who he wus, nor what he did,
in fact, you don't know his real name ; no body
except me knows that ; and no body but us mus
know what he is doing now he's dead. If he
looks down on us an' sees what we are doin'
with what helef,his spirit rejoices that we don't
ask no thanks for him, but are doin' our best to
make some sufferin' black folks happy.
THE OLD MAN'S STORY.
295
A short while before I met you, Madison
and I went from Mackinaw to pay what would
most probably be our last visit to the scenes
hallowed by so many sad, yet endearing memo-
ries. We stopped at and rowed to the
Big Rock a few miles away. It lifted from the
water dark and frowning as it appeared to us a
score of years before. Lichens and moss parti-
ally covered the space from which the mass fell
when Felden was carried to his death. The
fresher cleavage was to us a tablet memorial of
the sad event.
With a long pole to which he had attached an
iron hook, Jim probed the secrets of the deep.
His gratification was unbounded when he dis-
covered that not only were the boulders holding
down the canvas winding sheets entirely under
sand and gravel, but the accumulations nearly
covered the boughs and brush placed over the
grave.
Madison's aged head whitened by eighty-two
winters was lifted erect upon his broad should-
ers ; and a mild August breeze coming in from
the lake and gently circling around the little
cove, bore upon its wings his sweetly modulated
thanks 'to the Almighty God for his many
mercies.'
For a while we sat silent in deep thought, and
then he said, " Let's go now, Mr. Jamison, I
296 A SUMMER'S OUTING.
feels secure that Mr. Jack Felden and his wife
down thar under the sand and water, will sleep
undisturbed.
I rowed out of the cove, the old negro keeping
his sad eyes rivited upon the fatal rock. We
turned the point which hid it from the lake ; he
seized an oar and working manfully, uttered not
a word until we drew up under the village.
The mental and bodily strain, however, had
been too much for the old man. I was compelled
to call for aid to support his tottering steps to
our room. He staggered and fell upon his bed ;
his massive form gave way, like a glass shattered
by a blow.
His mind and speech remained unimpaired.
He positively refused to have a physician called,
declaring if it was the Lord's will he should
go, he would obey the will of the Lord. He lay
for several days without a murmur or a com-
plaint. One night I was awakened by a deep
groan; hurrying to his bedside, a single glance
told me his end was nearly come. For several
hours he lay in a dull stupor, his labored breath-
ing alone showing that life was still in his
breast. His breathing grew fainter and fainter,
until just as the rising sun poured through the
window, it seemed to die away. I hastened to
his side to close the tired faithful eyes in their
last long sleep, when the wan lips opened to
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 297
whisper, "Good-bye Mr. Jamison, good-bye"!
and then as if by mere will power he sat erect
on his bed and cried in a loud voice " Bress de
Lord! I see Mars John! Diner! Jim's gwine
home;" and then he died.
Two Finns, fresh immigrants in the land,
rowed me with the body to the cove. There on
the shore in a spot shadowed at evening by the
Big Rock we buried him. The sun hovering
above the whispering maples lighted the last sad
rites to the end. The waves from the lake
stealing into the cove in mild ripples, sang with
mysterious cadence a sweet, loving requiem.
The dying day, the whispering breeze, the sigh-
ing wavelets and the solitude seemed to my
over-wrought senses to promise a fulfillment of
the negro's prophecy "; that the sleepers below
would rest undisturbed until summoned on the
last and final call ; that until then u The Big
Rock would keep its sad secret."
In giving this story to the world, I feel guilt-
less of violating any pledge of secrecy. There
is nothing in the names mentioned to enable any
one to probe the mystery of John - - . The
terrible events of the war about his old home,
scattered its residents, and to-day the places that
knew them know them no more.
A RACE WITH THE SUN.
Round the World in Sixteen Months
BY
HON. CARTER H. HARRISON.
32 FULL-PAGE HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS.
This bewitching.y charming story told in the simplest and
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lightful volume.
The pen pictures of Mountains, Lakes, Rivers, Waterfalls,
Forests, Fountains, Flowers, Monuments, Cities, Inhabitants, in
fact every conceivable thing that goes to make up the countries
visited, are so beautifully portrayed by the pen of the author, that
we had almost forgotten to mention the thirty-one elegantly
superb full page Photogravure pictures, which of themselves form
an art collection worth far more than the price of the work, and all
bound in the most elegant and substantial manner known to the
art of book making. It contains 569 pages.
If you are not so fortunate as to be able to visit all parts of the
world in person, and desire to converse intelligently with those you
meet, whose good fortune has enabled them to visit any other coun-
try, state, or territory, you could not read a better book, as a better
has not yet been made. The author has carefully photographed
everything from the smallest object of interest to the loftiest peaks,
and grandest mountain ranges. In fact he has given a perfect in-
ventory of a wide belt of the globe, beginning at Chicago, and run-
ning west around the world, until Chicago, the great marvel of the
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CONTENTS.
Vol. i. — EARLY COLONIAL LITERATURE, 1607-1675.
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Ar , ) LITERATURE OF THE REPUBLIC, Constitutional
/ Period, 1788-1820.
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