.^m^.;.--- •. -»« ^f^5^^f^^!!^^^|[®g^»S^^^S^K.. Zi't^SSS^i 'IOoooJkIii/E/ By IxA>fDA>!D,$EA. -^s^m^, SSS^Si^^^^^^ 1 17) ► ' Vi I0,000 MILES BY LAND AND SEA. v^ rV^ BY REV. W. W/ROSS. TORONTO : JAMES CAMPBELL & SON. 1876. Ubraiy TO A DISTINGUISHED STATESMAN AND TRUE FRIEND, MOST HONORED WHERE BEST KNOWN, THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, WITH SENTIMENTS OF THE HIGHEST ESTEEM, BY '^U %ViX\xtsx, Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/10000milesbyland00rossrich PREFACE. . only RAVEL ! said the physician j and a very pleasant prescription it was. But where ? Europe by all means ; everybody goes there, said others. There is a '^ time to every purpose under the sun ; " but is it a time to go a-gleaning in foreign fields when the harvest at home stands ungathered ? Lack of culture there may often be, even exceeding roughness, and yet the virgin soil of this New World shall yield a rich return. Dwellers in cities, shrinking from the din and dust of thoroughfares, consumed with the fever of a fast age, pining for pure air, long for a change — to go aside into desert places, or to climb, if for a little space, to mountain scenes and soHtude — ' Where rose the mountains there to him were friends ; Where rolled the ocean thereon was his home ; Where a blue sky and glowing clime extends, He had the passion and the power to roam ; The desert, forest, cavern, breakers' foam, Were unto him companionship." VI PREFACE. All this '' companionship '* shall the Childe Harold of to- day find unsurpassed in our Western World. The Trans- Continental Railroad has brought within easy reach a land as full of fascination as ever the scenes of Arabian Nights were to our youthful years. That many notions of the country beyond the Rocky Mountains are false, or at the best but crude, there is no denying. The traveller cannot "take stock" — to use their own pet phrase — in the statements of every West- erner ; not that there is always an intention to deceive, but the high pressure under which they have lived for the last twenty-five years has produced what an American himself has aptly termed an " exaggerated Yankee." Still, on travelling through the land one finds variety of character, peculiarity of custom, freaks of nature, productiveness of soil, wealth of minerals, breadth of prairie, grandeur of forest and magnificence of mountain scenery often exceed- ing the most enlarged expectation. Who has ever pictured the Yosemite ? Watkins has photographed it ; Bierstadt painted it ; ready pen and eloquent tongue have described it, — and yet all have failed. The half has not been told us. It is well worth while to come from afar to see for one's self. Not knowing that anything concerning the Far West has been pubHshed in a permanent form within the Dominion, ai^d hoping that what I have written will give some pleasure to all, as well as furnish a portion of wholesome food to hungering youth, I venture, without farther plea, to add these gleanings of travel to the goodly sheaves of other literature already gathered by Canadian hands. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Lakes 9 CHAPTER II. The Prairies ..., 19 CHAPTER III. Midway ACROSS the Continent 28 CHAPTER IV. Missouri to the Mountains 36 CHAPTER V. Across the Mountains 50 CHAPTER VI. Mormondom 58 CHAPTER VII. A Magnificent Achievement ^^ CHAPTER VIII. Sierras to the Sea 93 VIU CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAGE San Francisco no CHAPTER X. The Children's Chapter 125 CHAPTER XI. The Chinese 143 CHAPTER XII. Mining 159 CHAPTER XIII. Agriculture 166 CHAPTER XIV. The Digger Indians 178 CHAPTER XV. The Geysers 7 ....: 185 CHAPTER XVI. The Big Trees 198 CHAPTER XVII. The Yosemite 209 CHAPTER XVIII. On the Pacific 237 CHAPTER XIX. Panama 254 CHAPTER XX. Across the Isthmus » 261 CHAPTER XXI. On the Atlantic 79 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. CHAPTER I. THE LAKES. |N the eve of Dominion Day, 1874, I started Westward. Taking, as tourists having time usually do, the route of the Northern Lakes, we run by rail to Sarnia, and there change to steamer for the head of Lake Superior. As it is one trip too early for summer travel through these chilly waters, the pleasure-seekers are few ; the com- pany is composed chiefly of emigrants bound for Manitoba. A few are going by the Red River route, but more overland, from Thunder Bay. Among them is a party sent out by the Government on a Geological Survey, their destination being hundreds of miles beyond Fort Garry. If prospered in the way, lO TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. they will probably be absent four or five years. Some leave behind wives and children. At times they make merry over the matter ; at other times there is no mis- taking the sound — " at each remove they drag a lengthen- ing chain." Suffering is the price of progress. The foundations of civilized lands are laid in the pains of the pioneer. When the fathers have fallen in the far North-West, and the children, " as princes," shall dwell in that land of plenty, let them remember the sowing in tears. Goderich, Kincardine, Southampton, all prosperous places, where we touch to take on freight and passengers, are swarming with excursionists — the whole country seems to have come to town. Passing Great Manitouhn and other islands, we sight Bruce Mines, on the north shore of Lake Huron, wearing in the distance a sleepy look. What a wintry welcome — neither man nor boy, not even a dog at the wharf. The steamer signals our coming with shrill prolonged screaming. The long line of shore, the receding hills, the far away mountains, all answer back, but there is no sign from man or beast. Dwellings are scattered along the shore, but the dwellers have departed. At last, there is the show of life, at least its outline. In an open door-way, stock-still, like Pompeii's petrified sentinel, stands a human form. Landing a man to take the ropes, we managed to make fast to a rickety old wharf. Clambering over a pile of cordwood — the only tokens of trade at this end of the THE LAKES. it town — we reach the rotten planks, and by various leap- ings and windings, escape the holes, and stand on terra firma. Keeping close to the mail-bag, we made for the other end of the town, where there is life and considerable activity. The Wellington Mines, which absorbed the Bruce, are worked with some vigor. Around us are vast piles of refuse ore, quartz crushed to the fineness of grains of wheat — " invaluable," a passenger suggested, " for gravelling garden walks." Healthy, rosy-cheeked children just out from school flock around us, offering for sale well-worn bits of copper ore. Churches abound — a needless number even at the height of prosperity — but all are deserted save one. This place is another monument of the " ups and downs " of mining interests. A few miles bring us into the St. Mary's River, a nar- row, winding stream with grassy and well- wooded shores, presenting a great variety of charming scenery. Naviga- tion being too dangerous in the darkness that has over- taken us, the steamer lays-to till morning at Garden River. On the American side is the French population, quickly recognised by their trim whitewashed houses. On the Canada side is a mixture of many nationalities, the Scotch, perhaps, predominating. The place owes its prosperity, which is very considerable, to lumbering interests. With the first streak of day we are on the move, reach- ing Sault Ste. Marie while it is yet early morning. What 12 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. a Striking difference in the two towns at first sight — the Canadian side still asleep — their cousins just across the stream wide awake ! They certainly get the start of us in many a scheme, and in some boundary land settle- ments ; and yet, I am not so sure that their strength is as lasting as ours. In spite of early rising, their business, and ours too, for that matter, often gives out during the day. The American shops, numerous and well-stocked, would do no discredit to city merchandizing. The wharf and walks are thronged with people. But there is reason to fear lest this prosperity, chiefly owing to the building of a ship canal, should prove ephemeral. The valuable water- fall of the Sault — about sixteen feet — will, in time, doubt- less be taken advantage of for manufacturing pur- poses. The two hours taken to make the passage through the locks gave us a good opportunity for observing the Indians catching white-fish in the rapids. Each bark canoe held two occupants — one at the stern poling it up the stream, the other at the prow using the dip net. It required all the nerve and skill which few but an Indian possess to steady so frail a craft in such wild waters. Before we were out of the locks they were on board offering for sale a basket of these delicious fish. Never did I enjoy fish more unless the first salmon of the season on the river Saguenay. A few miles farther, and we are in Superior — 30,000 THE LAKES. 13 square miles of fresh water — the grandest of inland seas. I expect to be thrilled with a similar but sublimer sensa- tion only when out upon the Pacific. After a long stretch of unbroken waters — 350 miles in a direct line — the fogs roll away, and reveal to our delighted eyes Silver Islet thirty miles ahead. The Islet, off the main shore about a mile, was, originally, a naked rock, fifteen yards square, and rising out of the water little more than enough to discover the precious ore. Formerly it was owned by Montrealers, but through over-caution or lack of push — hardly lack of funds — it passed from them to an American com- pany. The new proprietors, taking hold of it with characteristic energy, speedily transported material from the mainland, and broadened the Islet into a base from which there now rise a half-dozen goodly-sized buildings, viz., boarding-house, reading-room, office, etc. One hun- dred and fifty men are usually employed. The shaft has been sunk nearly 600 feet. It is jealously guarded — comers and goers, especially workmen, having to pass through a search-room. Occasionally specimens of ore are ingeniously concealed, one fellow secreting a lump in the enormous knot of a necktie. Like most other mines, its fortunes are fluctuating, sometimes the " show " so poor that stocks are a drug in the market ; again, so rich that shareholders pocket large profits. Off" to the right, at the east end of the bay, fronted by a carefully kept lawn extending to the water's 14 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. edge, is the handsome residence of Colonel Shibley, the President of the Company. Scattered along the rocky shore, in some instances built right against the beetling cliffs, are a number of rough-and-ready dwellings. On the face of one of these bluffs, well-nigh perpendicular, a hopeful housewife was trying to coax into existence a potato-patch. We continue our way westward along the prostrate form of the Sleeping Indian, a natural breakwater of Titanic proportions running for miles parallel with the main-land. Rounding the extremity called Thunder Cape, rising nearly 2,000 feet high, the steamer heads straight for the north shore. At our left, over against the Cape, rises an island of magnificent upward dimensions.' Beyond this again, to the north, another navigable chan- nel coming between, is an imposing, singular formation, called Pie Island. It looks like a huge round pie inverted. Within this grandly guarded place is the now famous Thunder Bay, containing an area of 200 square miles. Directly, ahead, on a rising shore, is Prince Arthur's Landing, the southern terminus of the overland route to Manitoba. A well-built wharf, making up in length what it lacks in breadth, is thronged with people ; the town, at least the lying-about-loose parts — and they are legion just now — having come down to meet us. The coming of a steamer is the event of the week. Unrecognised myself in the unclerical grey, I easily recognised a number of THE LAKES. 1 5 persons, not as well disguised, from distant parts of the Dominion ; some cheery, as though they were getting near the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow ; some Micaw- ber-like, with a sort of waiting-to-turn-up look ; and some with the same discouraged look worn in other places. I will not jest with these sad faces. They had fulfilled the law of labor, but through imprudence had reaped a scanty store. One of them — the saddest of all — toiled hard as an agent for one of the many inventions which promise to make a man's fortune in a day. It brought to him, as to many another, ;;z/j-fortune. If speculators would stop hunting after Capt. Kidd's treasures, — shifting as a will-o'-the-wisp, — and dig at home, they would find their bread both surer and sweeter. Here comes a character ! face burnt and bloated — well on in years — still showing, both of brain and body, rough, shaggy strength, not unlike the granite of his native hills. He wears the clannish cap, but not the kilt. Who is he ? " The brother, sir, of a distinguished Professor in a Scottish University ; came to Canada many years ago, is un- married, and lives a hermit life more than half the year. In the fall he goes away alone into the far back-woods to trap and hunt ; keeps sober till spring, then comes out, sells his pelts, gets drunk, and so remains till his money is gone and trapping time calls him back again to his forest home." Another character ! — a lawyer, very respectably con- nected, and of considerable promise at one time ; but here, 1 6 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. as I had often seen him elsewhere, staggering along the streets, too drunk to walk straight, and yet with sense enough remaining to know and feel his shame. Approach- ing the hotel on the balcony of which we were sitting, he makes desperate efforts to appear sober. After several attempts he succeeds in coming to a standstill, then nod- ding his head knowingly, as if considering a *' case," he makes the " points'' on the palms of his hands; finally, folding the arms across the breast, and fixing the eyes upon the walk, he goes into a prolonged meditative mood. Passing the place some time after, I saw him again emerg- ing from the bar-room, but now utterly lost to self-respect, pitching across the walk like the helpless hulk of a noble ship on troubled waters. Nature has done much for Prince Arthur's Landing. Favored with a spacious harbor, occupying a command- ing outlook, fanned by reinvigorating breezes from off the grandest of lakes, the streets watered by streams flowing from unfailing fountains in the distant hills, a soil eminently suited for gardens and the growth of trees — these advantages, combined with those conferred by the coming railroad, will, if haste to be rich and the curse of strong drink do not blast bright hopes, make the Landing in years to come a charming summer resort. Five miles west of this, on the Kaministiquia river, two and a half miles from its mouth, is Fort William, an old- established trading post of the Hudson Bay Company, and possibly (since fixed upon) the Lake Superior ter- THE LAKES. 1 7 minus of the Pacific Railway. The river, about 300 feet wide, with an average depth of fifteen feet, will, with some dredging, be navigable for large vessels six or eight miles above its mouth. Leaving behind the most of our company and freight, we enter upon our last 200 miles of the voyage. In the afternoon of the Sabbath day we reach the steamer's desti- nation — Duluth. Here is the receipt of custom. The officer, of whom the Captain has spoken well combines in a rare degree, courtesy with conscientiousness. If he judge the passenger honest, the luggage is passed un- opened ; if he suspect smuggling, and contraband goods are discovered, instead of confiscating them, duty is ex- acted on the spot, and they are passed. Duluth is a promising place — if the through Northern Pacific Railroad be built. It is beautifully situated — not unlike Prince Arthur's Landing, but on a more rapid and higher rise. The streets are broad and regularly laid out, those running back from the water showing finely from the steamer's deck miles away. Many of the buildings are costly and elegant, some of them rising up in the midst of burnt rocks and blackened stumps. The German and Scandinavian elements prevail, and so does lager bier. It is a city of churches and saloons. '* Wherever God erects a bouse of prayer, The devil always builds a chapel there ; And 'twill be found upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation." 1 8 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. I attended service in an exceedingly neat and spacious church, the congregation numbering fifteen 1 A Young Men's Christian Association is doing a good work, espe- cially in keeping down the saloons. Duluth, in its earlier days, like most frontier towns of rapid growth, was infested by desperadoes. Remembering this, and scanning closely the unprepossessing throng await- ing us at the wharf, I had little reason to suppose the place very much improved. Giving my baggage checks to the most respectable runner, which by chance led to the best " 'bus," I hoped for pleasant quarters. Mine host put me in what he may have considered his best room. It was all I could have desired except a second door opening into it from I know not where, and over which I had no control. True, it was fastened, but who held the keys? To sleep under such circumstances was out of the question, and to betray any suspicions of being ill at ease, by asking for the key, was undesirable. What is to be done ? Fears of evil quicken the powers of invention. Taking a cord from my baggage, I tie one end to the door knob ; then placing the water jug on the stand, at its very edge, I fasten the other end to the handle. Opening the door one half inch would bring the catastrophe. Re- joicing in my ingenuity, half eager to see the experiment tested, I went to bed, and lay awake to hear the crash. The precaution was unnecessary, but not unsuggestive. Warring elements and the Wicked One were against Noah, but all in vain — the Ark had only 07ie door, and God shut it. A after west, CHAPTER II. THE PRAIRIES. HE next morning I took train for St. Paul, on the Mississippi, 150 miles to the south-west. For the first 40 miles our way is through the woods, sometimes over yawning chasms on lofty elevations of trestle-work, and again along the beautiful dales of the St. Louis river. Fond-du- lac and other names on the line recall the days of La Salle and other early French explorers. Little remains beyond the name to attest the achieve- ments of these heroic adventurers. Among the passengers who joined us from the Red River are two nuns returninghome to Montreal, an absence of 15 years on a mission in the North- 1,500 miles north of Winnipeg. One, the Lady Su- 20 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. perioress, is, in decision and force of character, eminently fitted for her position. Unlike the sisterhood in general, she is unreserved, and even eager to converse. Returning to civilization, and rejoicing in the thought of soon seeing old friends and familiar places, she is quite carried away with her emotions. When not conversing, but silently pic- turing to herself the coming joys, she is frequently con- vulsed with suppressed laughter, heartily shared in by us all. Rush City, Pine City, and possibly others which I did not see, and could not, are along the line, or are said to be. A score of houses, more or less — oftener less — make a city in the West. Emerging from the timber, we enter the " openings " — semi-prairie lands. Scattered with lavish hand, and stretch- ing away as far as the eye can reach, are wild convolvuli, tiger lilies, and other flowers of brilliant hues. In other parts of the State through which I passed these" openings " were without flowers or undergrowth of any kind except grass, the only wood being scrub oak, very much the shape and size of an apple tree, presenting the appearance of a vast and irregularly planted orchard. Nearing St. Paul we pass several favorite summer resorts, small lakes — purest gems in emerald settings — all abounding with fish and fowl. All hail ! thou Father of Waters. One of the ambitions of life is attained. Before us rolls the Mississippi — great and long river. St. Paul, rising on a bend in the river THE PRAIRIES. 4i overlooks it from lofty bluffs. The business part of the city is mostly built on an elevated plateau, its principal street running down to the levee. Rising round about the plateau, in great variety of elevation and outlook, are much sought-after sites, crowned with the finer class of residences. The city excels in the number of its unique, commanding locations. Its business suffered badly in the common crises of '5 7 and '62. House after house, among the oldest and wealthiest, went down ; but, full of spring, they have risen from their ruins to a new life and healthier, one house during '73 doing a business of three and another of four million dollars. Centrally situated to a vast and fertile field, and fed both by the Mississippi and the iron arteries of rapidly multiply- ing railroads, St. Paul must become a great commercial centre. It is scarcely a western city except geographically, a large proportion of its citizens, in quest of health or lost fortunes, having come from New York, Boston and Phila- delphia, Catching the spirit of western breadth and enterprise, whilst retaining the excellence of the east, they quickly succeed in winning the admiration of all comers. The Americans, given to hospitality, are often a prey to impostors ; still, an open door and hearty greetings are abiding characteristics. Induced to prolong my stay in St. Paul from days into weeks, I proved the princely, hos- pitality of its citizens. 11 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. A few miles further up the river, at the Falls of St. An- thony — presenting one of the finest water powers in the world — is Minneapolis, famous for its milling and factory interests. A woollen mill, second to none, it is said, turns out blan- kets having only one objection — liability to dirt — their thickness rendering washing by ordinary methods quite out of the question. Some that I saw, ranging from $15 to $40, were marvels of beauty and warmth. The saw mills are seldom surpassed ; whilst the flouring mills claim to be unrivalled, one of massive masonry, several stories high, having forty runs of stones, with a capacity of turning out 2,000 barrels of flour per day. The machinery is mostly hidden, and works noiselessly — common charac- teristics, it is said, of great pov/ers generally. Those in charge of the mills, jealously guarding the secrets of manufacture, are slow at first in showing stran- gers through them,but when assured that we were not from Egypt, sent to spy out the land, nothing could exceed their courtesy and painstaking. The mill that has gained the highest reputation is al Dundas, a small place a few miles below St. Paul. The proprietor, a Mr. Archibald, of Scotch birth, and subse- quently from near Montreal, discovered a new method of manufacture, by which out of Minnesota spring wheat is produced the finest flour in the world. It commands in the, Eastern markets the highest prices. Midway between Minneapolis and St. Paul, at the con- THE PRAIRIES. 2^ fluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota, stands Fort Snelling, built in troublous times for protection against the Indians. Then a regiment was quartered here, now only a company — the Sioux, the most savage and treacher- ous of the tribes, having retreated beyond the State. Fort Snelling is wanting in the Gibraltar strength and sublimity of the citadel in Quebec ; yet it affords one of the most charming views east of the Rocky Mountains. Standing within the look-out tower, rising from the brow of the bluff, and overhanging the river, you see directly under your feet, winding around the fort, a train of cars running along a track cut from the perpendicular walls. Raising the eyes, and looking to the left, you sweep past the picturesque, old-fashioned ferry, between lofty wooded banks up the Mississippi. Doubling back upon its vision, the eye follows the same river in its downward but broad- ened course till it rests at the bend on St. Paul. On the south shore, directly opposite, an emerald isle coming be- tween, lies Mendota, the residence of the first Governor of the State. The house, built of stone, and wearing a well-to-do, farmer-like look, is still standing. Mendota was selected by Stephen N. Douglas for the capital, and strenuously pressed before Congress, but wiser counsels prevailed in favor of St. Paul. To the right, stretching away many a mile westward until lost in the distance, is one of the gardens of the State, Minnesota valley, watered by the river bearing the same name — in summer little larger than a brook — all but lost in the luxuriant vegetation skirt- 24 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. ing its shores, but at high water navigable for 150 miles. In the rear — a not unfitting background to the exquisite picture — lies Minneapolis, lurking behind rolling " Reser- vation lands." Continuing our way westward from Fort Snelling, a half- hour's drive brings us to a classic spot immortalized in the verse of Longfellow — Minnehaha. The gem is still there, " Gleaming, glancing through the branches ; " but its Indian settings have for ever disappeared. The wild wood has given way to fertile fields and trim gar- dens ; the wigwam, to an elegant costly hotel ; the "an- cient arrow-maker," to the shrewd, enterprising American ; solitude, to the scream of the locomotive, and the throng- ing tread of ten thousand pilgrim feet. True to life was the red man's vision. Well were they called the Laugh- ing Waters — not the laugh of the ogress, loud and harsh, but of the sylph, subdued and silvery. Coyly hiding be- hind its screen of branches, it " Laughs and leaps into the valley." Halting here in his homeward way from battle, " plea- sant the landscape around him, pleasant the air above him, the bitterness of anger wholly departed, from out his brain the thought of vengeance, and from the heart the burning fever," — it was but natural that the dark-eyed daughter of the Dacotahs should fill the heart of Hiawatha with dreams of beauty. Was it strange that, charmed and captivated, he should return to woo the maiden, whose flowing tresses, THE PRAIRIES. 25 rippling laughter, shade and sunshine, were but the image and the echoes of the beautiful waters whose name she bore? Journeying westward through Southern Minnesota, the most prosperous portion of the State, and across the corn- covered prairies of Iowa, I found two topics engrossing a large share of public attention — the Grangers and the Grasshoppers -, the former, secret societies composed ex- clusively of farmers, were a plague to railroad monopo- lies, grain corners, and rings generally ] the latter were a plague to the Grangers. At one of the State Fairs I saw on exhibition these grasshopper pests, of all sizes from 1 1^ inch downwards. They look like our eastern grasshopper, but are stronger on the wing, with an incredible capacity for food. Driven by the drought out of the mountains eastward, sweeping over the whole of the nearer States and portions of the remoter, they devour everything the drought has left. Thousands of acres of corn — their favorite food — are stripped to the naked stalk — not an ear left to the reaper ; tender trees -are left leafless and limbless ; gar- dens — potatoes, onions, cabbages, etc. — all disappear like morning dew ; turnips are hollowed out to the rind ; still unsatisfied, these ghouls devour their dead, and then fall foul of the first that limps or halts by the way. Swarming in the air, darkening the heavens, covering the earth, crawling through the houses, choking the flues, foul- ing the waters, sending forth a sickening stench, crushed C 26 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. under foot and wheel, even clogging, it is averred, the course of the cars on the Kansas Pacific Railroad — " going forth all of them together," sometimes a mass of loo square miles — they are truly, like the locusts of Egypt, " very grievous." The land where corn was sold for 17c. per bushel, where a waggon load was the price of shoeing a span of horses, where in years of plenty and a poor market it was used for fuel, is to-day sending forth its cry for bread ! And yet Providence has sent the plague for a purpose. One is that God has given the ground, those broad, inex- haustible prairies, not for partial productions — not for the sole growth of corn from year to year. He sent the plague to protest ; to stop the violence done to nature ; to restore equilibrium to her laws by utterly destroying the great offence, corn. " Nature abhors monopolies. She always breaks them up. Each vegetable is only a distil- lery for a certain gas for the support of animal life. The potato distils one gas, the hop another, and wheat another. Nature fights against a monopoly of hops in New York and Wisconsin by bringing the hop louse ; the potato rot warns Ireland ; the cucumber bug breaks up the twenty- acre fields of cucumbers in Russia." In Canada and elsewhere, tempted by the productive- ness of the soil and the high price of flour, we ran to ex- tremes in the growth of wheat ; the insect came. We re- sorted to other varieties of seed. Which was proof against the pest ? Every expedient was a failure. Na- THE PRAIRIES. 27 ture could not be cheated or forced. He who giveth seedtime and harvest — the God of the whole earth — would not suffer violence to be done to one part through the selfishness of another. We were driven to the growth of other grains. - CHAPTER III. ^ MIDWAY ACROSS THE CONTINENT. HE Pilgrim Fathers, soon after the settle- ment of Boston, sent out parties to explore westward, and lay out public roads. In due time they returned and reported their work ac- complished, as far as would ever be necessary, about seven ftiiles west of the Colleges at Cambridge. " They were men of giant soul ; Men of faith and deeds sublime ; Men whose acts will reach their goal In the mighty depths of time." Still their vision was narrow ; they did not fore- cast the future. They thought only of themselves. God thought of the race. They were sent forth to open up a New World, into which should pour, in the centuries to come, the overflowing population of the Old. Soon the MIDWAY ACROSS THE CONTINENT. 29 lines drawn by the Pilgrims were too " narrow by reason of the inhabitants ; they broke forth on the right hand and on the left." Westward ho ! was the irrepressible cry. Forests disappeared, savage beasts and more savage men fell or fled before the surging tide ; the hurrying feet of millions were heard beyond the Mississippi, swarming over the broad prairies to the banks of the Missouri. God " hastened " it. ^' The little one has become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation." The heart of the Continent, a mythical land to our fathers but ftfty years ago, possessed by untamed tribes and wild beasts, is to-day studded with schools and churches, thickly sown with flourishing cities, the home of millions, and the highway of the world. The Far West has ceased to be. The East and the West are one. Behind us, on the eastern bank of the Missouri, a bor- der town of Western Iowa, is Council Bluffs, so caHed because the common conference ground of the Indians in former days. Before us, on the western bank, a border town of Ne- braska, is Omaha^ which 25 years ago consisted of one house, the post-office being the crown of Squire Jones's hat ; to-day it boasts a population of 20,000, with many fine buildings, the finest devoted to educational purposes. The Missouri is navigable from its mouth at St. Louis to Fort Benton, in Montana, a distance of 3,000 miles. Its waters, according to the grim humor of the West, 30 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. " too thick to swim in, and not thick enough to walk on," deposit, in a few moments, a thick sediment on the bot- tom of your drinking cup. Hence the name Big Muddy, by which the river is generally known outside of the geographies. Seldom restrained by high banks on both sides, but flowing through low lands, its course is way- ward as the Wandering Jew — here to-day, but where in a twelvemonth ? Pioneers have pre-empted land along its banks, built a "claim" cabin, and left, returning to find the channel changed and their possessions in another State ! Lots purchased in the distant prairies are worn away, carried down the stream, and " delivered at St. Louis." Shifting, spreading waters were the dread of ancient settlers on *' The fruitful shore of muddy Nile ;" but sjiags are the evil genius of the Missourian settler and navigator. Seized and uprooted in the river's forays, they are scattered up and down in vast numbers, their roots firmly imbedded in the bottom, and their tops stripped of limbs, worn sharp as pike-staffs ; skulking near the surface, as if seeking revenge, they impale the unsuspecting steamer, piercing the hulk and coming out on the hurricane deck. There was, a few years ago, and is still perhaps, a snag in the river near St. Louis that cost steamboat com- panies $250,000. The low banks and consequent shifting tendencies of MIDWAY ACROSS THE CONTINENT. 3 1 the river was one of the chief difficulties with which the railroad had to contend. For the first years they ferried the river ; but engineering skill, at a cost of three million dollars at least, succeeded in mastering the Missouri. Across it stretches an iron bridge a mile long, supported by wrought-iron columns, filled with concrete and masonry, sunk to the solid rock 80 feet below the river's bed — another addition to the magnificent achievements of modern times. We cross the river to Omaha, at the southern suburbs, called Traintown, after that strange mixture of fox-and- goose, the "irrepressible George Francis." Years ago, believing that Nebraska was the coming centre of the Union, and of the universe too, he bought here, at a low figure, a large tract of land. It has made him a millionaire. Omaha is most widely known as the eastern terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. Eventful has been the history of the last 350 years touching the Trans-Conti- nental, the interest intensifying in its nearer approach until culminating in the completion of the great railroad in 1869. Cabeca-de-Vaca, a Spaniard, led a little band from the mouth of the Mississippi westward in 1528; after eight years of wanderings, having undergone incredible hard- ships, they dragged themselves to the goal of their ambi- tion — the shores of the Pacific. tThe first to foreshadow a highway across the conti- 32 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. nent was Jonathan Carver, a British officer who had helped in the conquest of the Canadas. Burning with ambition to extend the bounds of the Empire, and ensure to it, by speedier communication, settlements already formed in the East Indies and China, he started westward in 1758, reaching as far as Dacotah. Forced to return from lack of means, and denied help by unbelieving England, to which he had gone, he gave up the project in despair, but, like the dying swan, uttering at the last the most marvellous notes. " That the completion of the scheme I have had the honor of first planning and attempting will some time or other be effected, I make no doubt. Whenever it is, and the execution of it car- ried on with propriety, those who are so fortunate as to succeed will reap, exclusive of the national advantages that must ensue, emoluments beyond their most san- guine expectations. And whilst their spirits are elevated by success, perhaps they may bestow some commenda- tion and blessings on the person that first pointed out to them the way. . . Mighty kingdoms will emerge from these wildernesses, and stately palaces and solemn tem- ples with gilded spires supplant the Indian huts whose only decorations are the barbarous trophies of their van- quished enemies." Seventy years ago, after the United States had purchased the French possessions in America, including the present State of Louisiana and all the territory beyond the Mis- sissippi, the Governor sent forth two officers, Lewis and Midway across the coNTiNENt. 33 Clark, to spy out the land, the chief object being to find whether or not a highway could be hewn across the Con- tinent. Richardson, in his " Beyond the Mississippi," to which I am indebted for important information, says, "It was unconsciously the pioneer movement for a Pacific Rail- way. . . A modern Argonautic pursuit of the Golden Fleece of the future.'' The first to cross with waggons was Bonneville's expe- dition in 1832. Others soon followed ; among them the Donner party in 1846, part of whom perished in the winter snows of the Sierras after fearful sufferings. The following year, 1847, the Mormons, driven from Nauvoo, moved west 1,000 miles to Salt Lake Valley, a few continuing their way on into California. Then following close on the heels of the discovery of gold in 1848, thirty thousand undertook to cross, but many were massacred by the Indians, whilst others died in the Great American Desert of thirst and starvation. The country was stirred by the story of their sufferings. The far-seeing talked of a railway, but capitalists shrugged their shoulders and turned away to tighten the strings on their money bags. Government frowned ; "It couldn't be done, and if it could it wouldn't pay." And yet, during the twenty years preceding the building of the railway, the hauHng of military stores — the accumulated expense of 34 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Indian wars along the line — cost the country enough to build a double track across the Continent. True, men may go round the " Horn," but the voyage is tedious and unsafe. Across the isthmus is much shorter, but then emigrants prefer the " plains, " with all their risks, to the horrors of the " middle passage." What is to be done ? The prairies of the west, productive as broad, are open to all. But no ; men are frenzied by the gold fever. California is the watchword. Go they will. Government moves. In 1850, " Old Bullion," Ben- ton, introduces into Congress the first Pacific Railway Bill. Crossing the mountains with cars was considered out of the question. Hence the Bill provided that wag- gon roads were to complete the connection. Within the next four years nine routes were surveyed across the Continentbetween British America and Mexico. In 1859, Government gave charters for building three roads, the Northern, Southern and Central, accompanying them with large grants of land. Then came the civil war. In the great struggle, slavery or no slavery, the enterprise was suspended. But the very evil that stopped the scheme started it again. Cali- fornia, beyond all price to the North, is not less coveted by the South. How shall she be defended by the Federal Government? The transportation of troops will take a month. How shall she be kept in sympathy with the North? Only by constant communication. The railway is a necessity. The distant and but lately adopted daugh- MIDWAY ACROSS THE CONTINENT. 3^ ter must be grappled to the mother's heart — by bands of steel. Thus out of the direst calamity, war, comes more speedily a nation's, a world's gain. ** The night is mother of the day, The winter of the spring ; And ever upon old decay The greenest mosses cling. Behind the cloud the starlight lurks ; Through showers the sunbeams fall ; For God, who loveth all His works, Has left his hope with all." The Government granted to the Union Pacific Railroad line, which was to extend from Omaha to Promontory Point, 1,084 miles, the following subsidy : $16,000 per mile on the plains, $32,000 among the foot-hills, and $48,000 on the mountains, besides thirteen and a quarter million acres of land. Sod was broken at Omaha, Nov. 5th, 1865. The charter required the completion of the road July ist, 1876. All supplies had to be brought from the Eastern States. The nearest railroad to Omaha was 150 miles away. Provisions, railroad ties, engines — every- thing had to be transported all this distance by waggons. Soon 12,000 men were employed. They were directed by telegraph from the Company's head-quarters in New York. The work went rapidly on. At the celebration of " breaking ground," a speaker prophesied the laying of the last tie within five years — half the time allotted by the charter. He was ridiculed. The road was completed in three years ^ six months and ten days. CHAPTER IV. MISSOURI TO THE MOUNTAINS. A LL is bustle and activity. The station is swarming with a multitude poured into it ^ from the steamers of the Missouri and the ^^ several railroads converging here — feeders of the great union artery running through the heart of the Continent. Omaha and San Francisco are to the land lying between — 2,000 miles — what New York and Liverpool are to the Atlantic — gateways of the world. First, tickets must be purchased, if not already secured, price $100 greenbacks ; palace car, in- cluding sleeping berth by night and drawing-room car by day, $14 extra. If sleep, purer air, greater room- iness, more select compagiions de voyage^ a porter to look after your wants and give information ; if a great gain in comfort generally for five days — the time taken to cross Ji MISSOURI TO THE MOUNTAINS. 37 from Omaha — be worthy of consideration, then the charge will be cheerfully paid. Next, ticket in hand — it must be shown to officials — look sharp after your luggage ; it must be re-checked and weighed, all beyond loo lbs. per passenger being charged extra at the rate of $15 per 100 lbs. Now, if hitherto unattended to through ignorance or inability, and if there be time — which there probably will be, as several hours are usually taken to effect the transfer — look after lunch ; I mean a well-stocked basket. Between Chicago and Omaha they run hotel cars — a very Fifth Avenue hotel on wheels. Beyond Omaha, American en- terprise has performed prodigies, opening the way and building along the entire line eating-houses — in some in- stances elegant and spacious hotels. But oftentimes the appetite, unwhetted by exercise, will endure but a morsel, much less a " square meal ;" spare your stomach and save the silver. In sight-seeing be insatiable — spare not — but in eating and drinking economize ; and if economy be anything to you — and it is to most men — it will leave you a snug little sum to lay out in Chinese curiosities for the " loved ones at home." The fact is, these refreshment rooms let you in for nothing, take you in if hurried or not hungry, and let you out only on payment of $1 ; not an exorbitant charge, by any means, if '* justice is done," considering all the circumstances — the excellence and abundance of food, as well as the cost of transportation hundreds of miles. 38 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. There are at many of the stations cheap eating- houses — meals for 50 cts. But, as the railroad company- advise, not as a mere selfish outlook, but of prudence, don't go to them. They are not as convenient to the cars — a minute makes a difference if you are left behind ; the food is inferior, and you are never sure of coming out as you went in. Wordy, witty decoys await the arrival of the train ; but in this case, as in some others, " don't be- lieve anything you hear, and only half you see." These houses are not unfrequently " vent holes of hell." One of our passengers, an unsuspecting emigrant, was decoyed into one of these dens ; his companions, suspecting all was not right, followed after, and found him drinking and tempted to gamble. Already the worse of liquor, and re- fusing to leave, his friends laid hold upon him to drag him out, when a gambler threw a spike which grazed the head of an emigrant, and fastened itself in the wall ! Sometimes the regular eating stations are ill-timed, coming too early or too late in the day. Besides, some of the stations are rich in sight-seeing, and the time taken for refreshments — half an hour — will give you an oppor- tunity, if wide-awake and active, to add to your knowledge. By all means, then, before starting from home get a gen- erous-sized basket, and let mother or Maggie do the rest ; , its stores can be replenished by the way. Now, tickets secured, baggage checked, lunch basket on board, and Crofutt's Trans-Continental Guide Book in . our pocket, we are ready to start, but probably not the MISSOURI TO THE MOUNTAINS. 39 train. The time need not be lost. Let us improve it by- strolling up and down the platform studying the crowd, — and such a study one seldom has outside the Western world. Restless, ingenious, intensely in earnest, hasten- ing to be rich, not always scrupulous as to means and modes, independent as the 4th of July, every man as good as his neighbour, and sometimes a little better, the angu- larities and oddities of all nations coming together in all imaginable pursuits and relationships, they present, like the kaleidoscope, a wonderful variety of distinctions and combinations. Modern facilities for travel, by opening up to daily communication the remotest places, have a strong ten- dency to destroy local traits and customs. The railroad is a great leveller in life, as well as in land. But owing to the vast stretch of territory, the deeply ingrained peculi- arities of the fixed population, and the constant in-pouring of a mighty multitude from many lands, the West remains, and will for years to come, what Grace Greenwood aptly called New Life in a New World. Lo, the poor Indian, mingles with the crowd, and will often come into notice on the way. Kicked and cursed, shot down like- a dog, the object of all but universal vengeance, devoted to speedy and utter extermination — such is the fate of the original owner of these broad lands. The " War Policy " is not only inhuman and unchristian, but it does not pay — it does not pay from the lowest level, the sordid standpoint of dollars and cents. Only a 40 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. few months ago, Senator Harman, of Ohio, stated before Congress that " one of the Indian expeditions cost $6,000,000, and the officer in command officially reported that they had killed one Indian. But the Express Agent denied the accuracy of the report, and claimed that they had killed the Indian themselves. And the Traders stated that both the parties were mistaken, as the Indian was still alive I " Lo is not the least noteworthy in this motley crowd. Some wear a shred of clothing — nothing to speak of — beyond the outfit furnished by Mother Nature. Others rejoice in ragged, rotten garments, the cast-off clothing of immigrants, picked up on the prairies, and held together by ropes and strips of bark. A few coming to the fron- tier for the first time, or clinging to savage customs, are painted and bedizened in buckskin, elaborately and ex- quisitely wrought. Is there no evil to be feared from the Indians in crossing ? Not now. During the building of the road there was some fighting. Construction trains and others, even after the road was completed, ran for a while armed to the teeth. Once or twice trains were thrown off the track. One of the present conductors on the Pacific Central end is wanting a scalp which the red skins got, and left him for dead at Donner Lake, where he had gone a-fishing. Much as the Western white ridicules the " noble red man," and damns him as the most deceitful, drunken, depraved of all creatures, yet in crossing MISSOURI TO THE MOUNTAINS. 41 one has far less to fear from them than from the gambling, cut-throat whites who still lurk along the line. " All aboard ! " two or three impatient snorts from the iron horse, and we are off — locomotive, tender, two bag- gage, express, five common and three palace — a train of thirteen cars. Our course is southerly for the first fifty- miles, when we make an elbow bend westward, running for several hundred miles along one of the finest natural rail- way routes in the world — the Valley of the Platte. It is nearly a dead level, the rise being only seven feet to the mile for five hundred miles. The river, as its name signifies, is shallow, navigable *' only for shingles " — its average depth six inches. And yet it has proved to many an emi- grant, ignorant of its fords, and unsuspicious of its sands, a slough of despond. In dry seasons emigrants have been obliged to dig into its bed for a supply of water. The valley, with an average width of ten miles, was the favorite hunting grounds of the Pawnees. Beginning 150 miles from Omaha, and extending 200 miles westward, is the Buffalo Belt, over which, a few years ago, immense numbers of these animals were wont to pass northward in the spring, again southward in the fall ; sometimes the herds were so vast that emigrant trains were delayed for hours waiting for their passing. Seventy years ago, when the first explorers across the central part of the Continent came to the Missouri, they found it choked up for a mile with passing herds. Once these noble creatures were as plentiful as domes- 42 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. tic cattle, and were found as far east as Lake Champlain ; now, sometimes swept away by winter storms, and inces- santly preyed upon by both Indians and whites — often by the latter in utter wantonness — they are fast disappear- ing in the remotest western wilds. It is nearly fifty years since the last one was killed east of the Mississippi. They are still seen in season on the Kansas Pacific, running from St. Louis to Denver. I met in California with a party of Pennsylvania railroad directors, who, cross- ing in their own car, had stopped at pleasure to hunt along the railroad line. They succeeded in capturing alive a calf, which was expressed back to Philadelphia. The history of the Platte Valley has its chapter of horrors — Indian atrocities. Here, the Pawnee Loups offered human sacrifices to the star Venus. Here, in the earlier days of emigration, midway between the Missouri and Rocky Mountains, the great Indian rendezvous and stronghold, the Cheyennes, Arapahoes and savage Sioux committed many of their bloodiest deeds. Three hundred miles from Omaha we come to a succes- sion of sand hills running north and south ; here also we enter the first alkali belt, extending westward 70 miles to Julesburg. As this now deserted town will serve as a specimen of life along the line in other days, we may de- lay a little upon its history. Up to '68, while it remained a terminal town of the railroad, Julesburg was a flourish- ing place of 4,000 inhabitants. It was the most noted rendezvous of roughs on the road. Its buildings were MISSOURI TO THE MOUNTAINS. 43 chiefly dance-houses and gambling-hells. Thieves, gam- blers, cut-throats, prostitutes, stalked brazen-faced in broad day through the streets. " A man for breakfast" was an all but daily bill of fare. " Morality and honesty " — if ever there — " clasped hands, and departed the place.'* Ever moving westward with the road, these Sodoms were aptly called " Hell on wheels." But that which makes Julesburg most noted was the death of its founder, Jules Berg, at the hands of Jack Slade. Slade came of a good family in Illinois, and was endowed by nature with extra- ordinary gifts. Born to command, and yet a slave to his own passions, he killed a man in a quarrel, fled westward, and entered upon a course of crime which has rendered his career the most notorious in the records of the Rocky Mountains. He succeeded in securing a superintendency in the Overland Stage Company, and was at the same time captain of a band of road agents — robbers and cut- throats — the terror of all travellers in those days. He was idoHzed by his followers, and eulogized by those whom he had befriended in chivalric and generous moods ; but, with these exceptions, he was more feared in the Far West than the Almighty Himself. Daring, reckless, ambitious to reign supreme on the road, he fell out with the equally unprincipled Jules Berg, also in the employ of the Stage Company. In the first fight Berg got the better of Slade, leaving in his body a charge of buckshot, which he car- ried to the day of his death. After a while Slade's fol- lowers " corralled " the foe 50 miles from home, sent for 44 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. their leader, who, like the son of Nimshi, thirsting for the blood of Jezebel, "rode furiously" all night, until he reached his enemy. He found him tied like a beast to a post in the corral. Slade, surrounded by seven kindred spirits, for a while did little but mock the miserable wretch. A perfect pistol shot, he took good care not to kill him too soon ; but telling his victim where he would hit him next, cursing and drinking between the shots, he lengthened out the torture until twenty-two bullets were lodged in his body. Finally, in a frenzy of blood, he thrust the muzzle into his mouth and blew his head to pieces ; then cutting off the ears and putting them in his pocket, he carried them about the country, often flinging them down upon the bar-room counter, and demanding the " drinks " on his bloody pledges. He was never denied. He continued his course westward, adding victim to victim, none daring to withstand the monster, until he reached Virginia City, in Montana. Like the troubled sea casting up mire and dirt, he could not rest. He was drunken with blood. He and his followers were fast turning the city into a hell. Besides innumerable lesser crimes, he was known to have killed thirteen persons. His cup of iniquity was full. The citizens, driven to des- peration, and weary of waiting for the strong arm of the law to be lifted in their defence, took the matter into their own hands. Lynch was elected Judge by acclamation. The people were empanelled as jury. When Jack Slade arrived in the city, and commenced a new chapter in crime, he MISSOURI TO THE MOUNTAINS. 45 found the " Vigilantes " organized. They were roused and irresistible. Slade was seized. A messenger, mounted on the fleetest of horses, sped with the news of the arrest across the mountains to the passionately devoted wife. Springing into the saddle, armed with a derringer, resolved to shoot her husband rather than see him die like a dog, she flew over the rocky path with all the energy of love and despair, only to find him dangling from the gate posts of a corral. It was a wild scene, the dead desperado and the frantic shrieking wife. But justice had at last triumphed. The chief of the road agents had met his fate ; the rule of the roughs was ended ; the plague was, stayed; the atmosphere was purified, and the peo- ple began to breathe more freely. Civilization was in the ascendency. Plague spots in society there still are, but they do not imperil life as before. Vice, with its hectic flush and bloody hand, no longer stalks through the streets unchal- lenged. If foul within, it is forced to be fair without. The Vigilantes have given place to a well-appointed judi- ciary and a vigorous executive. Schools are at work, bringing brute force under the reins of reason. Churches warning of rock and wrecker, pointing to port and anchorage, are springing up all over the West, keeping pace with the population. *' The chaos of a mighty world Is rounding into form." About 450 miles west of Omaha we first catch a glimpse 46 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. of the coyote, an under-sized species of wolf. Sneaking, treacherous, voracious, they are among beasts what this- tles are among grain — a curse, and hard to kill. Still there is the '^ soul of good in things evil " — the old hunters pronouncing " wolf mutton " not unsavory in " hard times." The flavor, I suspect, is not in the flesh, but in the " times." Next and near the coyote, of which they are sometimes the prey, we pass several spotted antelopes, keeping com- pany with the cattle of the plains. We had a good oppor- tunity to observe them, as they were near the track, and, like the cattle, seemed to care little for the cars. Symme- trical, sleek, plump, prettily marked and graceful in their movements, they are exceedingly beautiful. I found their flesh, with which we were frequently regaled, more juicy than venison — excepting always that of Minnesota. But what interested us most of all were the prairie dogs. They are about the size of a large grey squirrel, but plumper and of a light reddish-brown color. Being of a social disposition, they congregate in cities, which have been found covering an area of three square miles, with houses crowded as close together as hillocks in a potato- patch. They burrow in the ground, casting up the dirt into little mounds at the mouth of their holes. It is said there is a vast net-work of underground connections, abounding in tortuous windings and abrupt turnings so as to baflle a pursuer. The owl, a small ground species, and snakes are frequently found sharing their hospitality, MISSOURI TO THE MOUNTAINS. 47 whether by invitation or invasion has not yet been settled by the savans. At the approach of winter the dogs stop the mouth of their holes, dig deeper and hybernate till spring. Their chief food being roots, they wisely found their cities on grassy portions of the prairies convenient to water. Much sought after by the coyote, and even to men a more savory morsel than squirrel, they find it necessary to be on the alert for life. They forage for food in sets, seldom venturing more than half a mile from home ; and yet, so successful are their forays that they look like little bundles of blubber rolled up in brown skin, their cheeks sticking out with fatness. Though the Union Pacific Railroad has been running through their cities for five years, and never so much as once stopped to disturb them, yet universal confi- dence is far from established ; the coming of each train creates fresh commotion and scamper. A goodly number, undisturbed in the more distant streets, are passing to and fro paying neighborly visits ; others are making for their holes and disappearing as fast as their short legs will let them ; and others, having made good their escape, are reappearing the length of their nose ; but the funniest sight of all are the numbers sitting, each on his own mound, bolt upright, stiff as a stone statue — all except the wisp of a tail. All the energies of this energetic little creature are intensified in the tail, suggesting that some- where about its roots might be hidden the principle of per- petual motion. 48 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. We are now fairly within what enthusiastic herdsmen call the " best grass country in the world" — we must always except the Saskatchewan — a vast belt running 700 miles north and south, with an average width of 200 miles. The country, though wearing a parched and starved look in summer and fall, really yields a luxuriant growth of gramma or bunch grass, never without nourishment sum- mer or winter. Whether owing to some peculiarity in the grass, soil or atmosphere, or to their combined qualities, I know not ; but it is certain that stock with no care ex- cept herding, fatten quickly on the Rocky Mountains as well as on the prairies. Where to the eye of the traveller it seems impossible to eke out more than the scantiest subsistence, the herds are sleek and plump, ready for market. Old oxen, worn out with waggon-work across the plains, have been turned out to winter on grass grow- ing wild, and found in good condition by the following summer. We have left the valley of the Platte and are ascending a commanding plateau. The September air is marvel- lously clear. Neither tree nor shrub breaks the sweep of the eye. In the far distance a few fleecy clouds are airily coquetting along the line dividing earth and sky. Not a note from bird or beast disturbs the solemn stillness — only the subdued rumble of the cars, to which we have now grown insensible. The sun, high in the heavens, within fifteen minutes of the meridian, as if rejoicing in the scene, is shining down upon us and all the world without a MISSOURI TO THE MOUNTAINS. 49 frown. There is an eager, expectant look on every face. Guide-books are consulted. Hasty questions are asked and answered. The porter is interrogated and passes on. Heads are thrust out of the windows. The platform is crowded with excited passengers. " I see them ! " is the simultaneous shout. Before us rise God's pyramids, the Rocky Mountains ! Off to the right, stretching away till lost in the distance, are the Black Hills reputed rich in recent gold discoveries. To the left of the road, but in the far distance, its snow-clad sides and summits shining in the sun, rising solemnly, grandly above its fellows, is Long's Peak. Farther to the south, 175 miles away, its crest also crowned with perpetual snow, is one of the highest mountains in America, the famous Pike's Peak. All this time we have been rolling onward and upward. We have reached Cheyenne, in Wyoming, 516 miles from Omaha, and 6,041 feet above the sea. CHAPTER V. ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. HEYENNE is the most stirring city between Omaha and Ogden. On the 4th July, '67, there was only one house ; before the road was completed its population numbered 6,000 — a large proportion of these, as usual, desperadoes. Now and then the Vigilantes purged the place. There was a promptitude and freshness about their methods of administering justice quite in keeping with the times; no putting ofif the case till "next term ;" no appeals to higher courts ; no time for bribery or gaol breaking ; on the spot the case was tried and sentence executed. A notorious thief was tried for stealing ; the evidence proving insufficient, this was th^ verdict returned : " We find the prisoner not guilty ; but, if he is smart, he will leave this town within twenty-four hours." He left. ACkOSS THE MOUNTAINS. 5I The road moved westward, and with it the floating por- tions of the population. Though reduced in numbers one-half, the city had gained in moral tone and stability. The Gospel is represented by an unusual number of churches, and the Law by a court-house costing $40,000. Several newspapers and a magazine are well sustained. One of the most remarkable manufactures is moss agate jewellery, Wyoming abounding in this beautiful stone. The city is situated in an open, treeless plateau. The soil, like that still westward for hundreds of miles, is gravelly, with more or less of loam. The sub-soil, as well as the surface here and there, shows volcanic action with interminglings of marine fossils. Near the highest point of the mountains I secured a fine specimen of fossil fish. The atmosphere is surpassingly clear. Distance is des- troyed. Again and again parties familiar with the dis- tances set us a-guessing them. The misses were amusing. The shot falls short of that peak seventy-five miles, instead of twenty-five miles, as guessed. It is 100 miles away. The atmosphere is so dry that meat cut in strips and hung up will cure without smoke or salt ; and dead bodies do not decay, but dry up. As the mountainous sections of the central part of the continent become better known the health-seeking tide will turn from the tropics to these more healthful regions. We received quite an accession to our company at Cheyenne, where the road forms a junction with the Denver road running south to that city, at which place, in 52 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. turn, it connects with the Kansas Pacific Railroad coming from St. Louis. Some, especially sportsmen, prefer this route, as buffalo and other game abound along the Kansas line. Seven miles west of Cheyenne we reach Sherman, the highest station on the Central Pacific Railroad ; it is called after Gen. Sherman, the tallest general in the United States service. Rushing out of the cars, we are soon standing on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, back-bone of the American continent, 8,242 feet above the sea ! A thousand questions are hurriedly asked. " And you were really astride the back-bone ? Does it stick up sharp and knotty? Had you any trouble holding on? Any danger of sHpping off and ending below in jelly or impalpable powder? Any birds or beasts there ? Of course there is no fish ; and as for vegetation, that too is out of the question. The top of the Rocky Mountains must be covered with snow all the year round." There is no snow except in winter, and then the fall is light. The record of '68-69 showed that the deepest snow that fell at one time, or laid on the ground any length of time, was in the month of May, and only three inches deep. The sheds and fences built along the line at this point are reared, not because of the quantity of snow falling, but to keep the cuts clear of drifts, which are heaped up by terrific winds. On the coldest day of that year, January 29th, the thermometer marked only 8° ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. 53 below zero, whilst here in Canada, even as I write, it ranges from 1 5° to 40° below zero. The ravines and hills round about abound in a species of hardy mountain pine ; a very considerable traffic in lumber being carried on since the opening of the railroad. The plains are covered with grass, whilst over three hundred varieties of flowers, growing in this and adjoining sections, have been classi- fied. Grouse, deer, antelope and bear abound; and as for trout, there is no place on the whole road to equal the summit. The streams, which are numerous, swarm with the speckled beauties. In the waters run- ning west of the "divide," the spots on the trout are black ; in those running east, red. Hunters and trap- pers, if lost, catch a trout, and by the colour of the spots determine on which side of the divide they are. The sight-seer and sportsman can spend days hereabouts with the liveliest satisfaction. The bracing air, the novel sur- roundings, the wild dark landscape, the isolation from human kind, the utter loneliness and awful grandeur — all conspire to give the summit a weird, never-to-be-forgotten fascination. These heights, insurmountable to Congressmen at Washington, when approached, are scaled with scarce an effort. Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre ? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away. How shall we go over this Jordan ? They followed on to know the Lord, and passed over dryshod. How shall we pass to Capernaum ? 54 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. The winds are contrary to us. The Master comes to the toilers, and they walk the shore on the other side. Who art thou O great mountain ? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain. O, toiler up life's steep ! gird up thy loins afresh. Fix thine eye on the mountain top : let no Delilah lure thee to her lap — no earthly comforts coax thee from a Christly course ; upward, ever upward, in summer's heat and winter's cold. Never rest till thy feet press the summit. " Through Christ which strengtheneth us, we can do all things." We have reached Laramie, the City of the Plains. Here the first woman jury was empannelled — the first, it may be, in the world. Invoking guidance of God, they fearlessly brought in their verdict, to the consterna- tion of desperadoes. Sweeping westward through sand, sage brush and sale- ratus, waking up one morning and looking out of the win- dow to find the ground white with alkali ! — through the Valley of Bitter Creek, whose waters, charged with salts, can neither be drunk nor even used in the engine, wa- ter having to be carried in a tender for 150 miles — past Car- ter's Station, leading to Fort Bridger, named after the most noted of the Rocky Mountain hunters and guides, James Bridger, but most famous as the spot where, November, 1 85 7, General Johnston's supply waggons, with 230 souls, on their way to Salt Lake City, were surprised by the Mor- mons, cut off from the main body, despoiled and bidden back again whence they came, eight only reaching their ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. 55 homes alive, storms, savages and starvation destroying the rest — by Bear River City, in early railroad days populous and prosperous, where the roughs, driven westward or following the extending line, made a halt and swore they would go no farther, but fight it out. Retreating to the hills, they organized a raid on the town, but three of their number, noted garotters and murderers, staying behind, were seized by the citizens and strung up on the spot. The raiders swooped down upon the city, loosed some of their fellows from the gaol, and raised a general riot. A score of lives were lost, but the roughs were made to ^' move on." Now nothing remains to mark even the site of the city save a few weather-worn posts, tumble-down chimneys, piles of old boots, broken bottles and oystercans. Soon we were rushing down Echo Canyon, 25 miles long. Through it runs a stream fringed with the greenest of grass. Here and there on a fertile spot nestles the cabin of a herdsman. The left side is grassy, sloping smoothly upward ; but the right is a marvellous conglom- eration of red rocks, rising abrupt, irregular, to great heights, cast up by the Cyclopean powers of past centuries, and worn by the warring elements of wind and water into all imaginable formations — gateways, pillars, bastions, ramparts, parapets, tower and dome. Now and then the Canyon is cut by lateral ones, into whose deep, dark openings, half-shuddering, you cast a hurried look, as into the mouth of some fabled monster of the mountains. 56 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Here, in stage days, snow-slides frequently overwhelmed the traveller. On the edge of the wall, rising i,ooo feet perpendicu- larly over our heads, are the remains of fortifications built by the Mormons, in 1857, to hinder the march of General Johnston, to whom we have already referred. The design was to hurl down upon the troops a shower of rocks — a design never carried out. The ruins remain another monument of Mormon folly. Passing Pulpit Rock, overhanging the Canyon at its foot, we enter Echo City, the border town of the Mor- mon Territory of Utah. Settlers are thickly scattered over the narrow but fertile flats on the eastern side of the Wasatch Mountains. We are soon in Weber Can- yon, twin to Echo, and, like it, of indescribable grandeur. Near its mouth we pass a solitary pine, to which is nailed a board bearing the inscription, " 1,000 miles from Omaha." In a few moments, as if halting to hold a parley with the Genus of the place, or repentant of rash- ness in rushing into his domains, we stop at the foot- of his reputed play-ground — the Devil's Slide — one of the most singular freaks of nature. Starting from the summit of the mountains, rising on edge from 50 to 200 feet high, and running parallel with each other, about ten feet apart, down to the river's edge, are two rocky slabs, forced upward by some mighty internal convulsion. Continuing our way through this wonderful gorge, winding round the mountains, skirting or spanning the ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. 57 Stream, creeping through tunnels black as Erebus, rush- ing down declivities, never waiting for Charon's coming to ferry us over, but leaping the wild waters of the Weber, we thunder past the Devil's Gate out into the great Salt Lake Valley— the " City of the Saints." CHAPTER VI. MORMONDOM. ^GDEN, a little off the station, at the mouth of the Weber Canyon, 1,032 miles from Omaha, and 882 from San Francisco, is a stirring city of several thousand inhabitants, mostly Mormon. Here we change to the Utah Central for Salt Lake City, 36 miles south. As it is Satur- day evening, the cars are crowded ; travellers anx- ious to see the " peculiar institution " to the best advantage aim at spending Sunday in the capital of Mormondom. The absorbing topic of conversation ^ — with bated breath, for we know not who may be T listening to us — is the Latter Day Saints. The rail- road is owned and officered by them, Brigham Young him- self being President, as, indeed, he is of almost everything else in Utah. After running a few miles, I make for the rear platform of the last car, accompanied by an American MORMON DOM. 59 to whom every object is familiar, this being his seventeenth trip across the Continent. The air is indescribably de- licious. The winds have fallen asleep. The muffled roll of the cars is the only noise disturbing the stillness. The moon, " With her one white eye " wide open, is staring down upon the landscape ; whilst off to the right, near at hand, is Great Salt Lake, shining like a sea of silver. A few islands break its waters, but no sail disturbs the sleep of this Dead Sea. A few years ago a steamer of 300 tons burden was placed upon it, to ply be- tween Ogden and Salt Lake City ; but the building of the Utah Central, connecting these two cities, drew away all the business, leaving the steamer idle, " As a painted ship upon a painted ocean." The lake is supposed to be the remains of an inland sea, once fining the vast basin between the Rocky and- the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It is 120 miles long and 40 wide, its waters being the saltest of all seas, excepting the Dead, holding in solution 20 per cent, of pure salt, the Dead Sea 24 per cent. Pork pickled in its brine twenty- four hours is sufficiently salted to keep. The statement of its being so dense that a swimmer can- not sink, if he try, is a " traveller's story," not borne out by facts. Some are of the opinion that originally the lake was a body of fresh water, and point to the existence of fresh- 6o TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Welter shells as proof. The present saltness, they assert is caused by the washings of saline substances out of the soil down into the basin of the lake. Others are of the opinion that the lake rests on a vast salt bed. Though I saw on the day of my return thousands of ducks on its waters, still it contains no animal life. Fish, sometimes carried into it by fresh-water streams, quickly die. It has four river inlets besides numerous streamlets, all fresh water, but no outlet. For miles along the mountains, hundreds of feet above the valley, the most unscientific eye can clearly trace an old water-line, showing that some time in the past the lake was from one to two thousand feet higher than at present. The theory of its fall and rise is that the waters were at their greatest height during the glacial age; then succeeded a warmer period, reducing them by evaporation ; a colder period is again creeping over the Continent, reducing in turn the evaporation. Consequently the lake is slowly rising, having risen twelve feet within the last twenty years. Further, the fall of rain is annually increasing, having doubled within the last dozen years. If the Mormon problem is not solved by present forces. Salt Lake, slow moving but sure, may itself settle the vexed question. The " saints " must either escape to the moun- tains or share the fate of Sodom. Leaving the lake behind, the next prominent point of interest is the " big toe of Wasatch," or Ensign Peak, two miles north-east of the city. On its summit; overlooking MORMONDOM. 6 1 the site of the future city, Brigham Young professed to see in a vision the spirit of the martyred Joe Smith pointing to the spot where the Temple was to be built. The circumstances of our arrival at the " New Jerusa- lem " are material and gross ; hacks, 'buses, street cars, all wait expectant. Hustling hackmen and bawling 'bus- boys contend for the comers. The Townsend House — Mormon — with an eye to the main chance, sends a run- ner to meet every train at Ogden ; by the time we reached Salt Lake City he had thoroughly canvassed the passen- gers. The crowd, moved not a little by morbid curio- sity, go to the Townsend, and importune me to do the same ; but my mind is made up in favor of the Gentile Walker House. On comparing notes afterwards, it was found that I had fared the better. The sudden change from unpopulated, parched plains to a great city, the gas-lights shining among the green leaves of the locust and cottonwood, streams rippling musically down the streets and sparkling in the moon- light, shops brilliantly lit up, citizens gaily dressed and thronging the broad walks — all these things opening on me abruptly, and in violent contrast to what we had so lately left behind, seemed more like a creation of Alad- din's Lamp than the result of patient toil. My first im- pressions of Salt Lake City were delightful. Is all this but the whited sepulchre, beautiful without, but within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness ? Have not travellers been prejudiced ? Have not writers written 62 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. from hearsay ? Sinned this people have, but have they not been more sinned against ? Thus I queried that Saturday night whilst I gazed on the hectic flush of ex- citement glowing on the cheek of disease. When the morning came, bringing with it the quiet, sober colors of the Sabbath day, I walked forth into a worn and weary city, sending up one great cry, " O Lord, how long ? " And yet, within this rotten carcase there is honey. The Mormons have set the world an example of devotion and indomitable energy. Driven from their homes for the fourth time in '46, their prophet slain, their Temple burnt, turning their backs on Nauvoo, halting for breath at Council Bluffs, on the banks of the Missouri, they set their faces towards the Great American Desert, not know- ing, as they declare, whither they went, but resolved to die in the desert before giving up their religion. On the 24th of July, 1847, ^^ advance body entered Great Salt Lake Valley. Five days after 150 more arrived ; two days later, July 31st, the city was laid out. They found a tree- less desert, yielding httle beyond alkali. A few Digger Indians — the most degraded of the race — supported a miserable existence on devil's brush and grasshoppers. The only white man within hundreds of miles was an old trapper, who laughed at their living in such a place. So incredulous was he as to the resources of the soil, that he offered them $i;ooo for the first ear of corn. Nothing daunted, they planted as they prayed. Faith and works will feed the hungry. Brigham's sharp eye saw the golden MORMONDOM. 63 sheaves of Ceres shining'in those mountain streams. The waters were poured into the thirsty land. The sleeping soil leaped with life. " The pastures were covered over with flocks ; the valleys also were covered over with corn." The desert had blossomed as the rose. Under a high state of cultivation 93 bushels of wheat have been yielded to the acre. Within the Tabernacle — of which more anon — I saw two arches, remains of a re- cent celebration, symbolizing the productions of the soil at two different periods— -viz., '47, when they arrived, and '74, the present. The first was chiefly composed of sage brush and wild sunflower ; the second, of branches of the trees adorning the streets, the various grains, including corn and sorghum — all prettily set ofl" by various flowers common to European countries from which the emigrants had come. The site of the city is well chosen, whether indicated by reason or revelation. On the west side of the Wasatch ; on the uplands of their lower declivity, aflbrding ample drainage towards the Jordan ; easily supplied from the mountains with an abundance of the purest water ; fronted by a valley 60 miles long and 25 wide, capable, under careful cultiva- tion, of almost incredible returns ; embosomed by the loveliest of mountain ranges, rich in precious ore ; and favored with an atmosphere proverbially pure, the site of Salt Lake City is one of the most charming in the world. The city covers about 3,000 acres. Its streets are 128 64 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. feet broad, and laid out at right angles. Through every street run living waters, under the control of Commis- sioners. Every lot has rights of irrigation and general supply. The houses, mostly of adobe — sun-dried bricks — rise up in the midst of gardens and fruit trees — apples, cherries, plums, peaches, pears, apricots, etc. Several varieties of shade trees adorn the public thoroughfares. The population numbers 25,000, four-fifths being Mor- mons. The entire territory of Utah numbers 125,000, mostly Mormons, and is steadily increasing, through immi- gration, at the rate of 5,000 annually. Five hundred ar- rived from European countries while I was there. As soon as they come in sight of the Holy City, if journeying in waggons, they alight and prostrate themselves upon the ground, rapturously kissing the sacred soil. The immigrants are composed chiefly of Danes, Swedes, Norwegians and English — the last, from the lowest classes, forming two-thirds of the number. The Mormon missionaries address themselves exclusively to the igno- rant and impoverished. Painting in glowing colors the promised land flowing with milk and honey, offering them a free passage over the Atlantic and a safe transit across the Continent, with immediate help on their arrival in Utah — all which is faithfully fulfilled — it is not surprising that, presenting such inducements, they should gain over so many to Mormonism. But there is another side to this much-boasted benevolence. Every dollar expended on their emigration is charged to them on the Church MORMONDOM. 65 books, and at such rates of interest as renders payment, with tithes additional, all but impossible ; the result is, the mass remain serfs in the service of the Church. Within the Temple grounds I met a burly Englishman who had been in the "land of promise" eleven years. He was evidently a sincere believer in the doctrines of the Church, but ill at ease in her temporalities. When he learned I was from the Queen's dominions, he took fire and went off in a genuine burst of loyalty to the old land. " No, sir, there is no place in the world like old England ; but I had to come here to get the pure Gospel." Mormon missionaries seldom or never make a convert out of an Irish Roman Catholic. I leave the solution of this to the thoughtful. The city is laid out in 260 squares, of 10 acres each. Brigham's block, on the east, running up the mountain side, the most commanding site in the city, is enclosed by a solid stone wall eleven feet high, and contains tithing- house, offices, harem, barns, mill and factories. Prying eyes may not penetrate the secrets of the seraglio. Brig- ham himself is usually accessible to visitors, and much gratified by their attentions ; but sickness and fears of assassination had closed the door some time prior to my coming. I was not disappointed. I did not seek " to pay my respects to him, because I had no respects to pay.'' However, in passing one day I unconsciously turned my eyes to an open door in the wall, and saw within a withered wife and several sickly " olive plants " 66 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. about her. The number of his wives have been variously stated from 17 to 70. They occupy several houses, all within the enclosure. Directly opposite, across the street, he was just completing, for his youngest and favorite wife, Amelia Folsom, a very palace, costing $100,000. Not one quarter of the Mormons are polygamists, for the simple reason they are too poor to support more than one wife. The men are usually enthusiastic advocates of the plurality doctrine, but the women, with few excep- tions, are against it. Brigham's own daughters declare they will never marry a man with a second wife. The women generally endure it as a cross, in hope of the higher happiness which it ensures in heaven. The wives, though coming largely from the ruddy- faced, robust classes in the old country, are, notwith- standing, prematurely aged ; a dejected, disconsolate look is all but universal. The children are chiefly of Saxon eyes and hair, but ill-formed, and wear a wizened look. The men are a motley mass, but, on the whole, the better looking. Let us hasten to the Temple block. It lies alongside of Brigham's — separated by a street — between South Temple Street and the mountain. It also is en- closed by a massive stone wall. The old tabernacle has been taken down, but in its stead rises the new, a huge stone structure, turtle-shaped. It is 250 feet long and 150 wide, with a height, from floor to ceiling, of 65 feet. The roof is supported at the rim by 46 columns or but- tresses running round the walls. Within, not a solitary MORMONDOM. 67 pillar breaks the sweep of the splendid arch. Next to the Central Depot in New York, and the Military Drill Shed in St. Petersburg, it is the largest self-supporting root in the world. A spacious gallery surrounds it on two sides and one end, but is never used except on special occasions, when the *' tribes" come up to worship at " Mount Zion." The seats, unpainted pine and uncushioned, rise as they recede. A few steps from the front, in the midst of the fathers and mothers in " Israel," are seats reserved for strangers — Gentile travellers ; they are always full. The entire sitting capacity is 13,000 ; the ordinary congrega- tion ranges from 6,000 to 10,000. Twenty-two double doors afford ample means of in- gress and egress. The time taken in getting out by a congregation of 6,000, on an ordinary occasion, was six seconds less than three minutes, The acoustic properties are perfect. In order to test the matter, on entering I took my seat in the rear, 200 feet from the choir and speaker. Every note and utter- ance were distinctly heard. Just before the sermon began I slipped out and re-entered farther up, taking my place in the Gentile pews. The sexes sit both separate and together. The front of the galleries, the walls, the ceiling are all elaborately deco- rated with evergreens and mottoes, the remains of a recent Sabbath school celebration. Among the mottoes are a few immortalizing the memory of their " martyred pro- 68 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. phet," Joe Smith. Brigham is exalted beyond measure. That which attracted the most attention from the Gentiles, creating not a little amusement, was — " Utah's best crop — the children." I never saw before such a " multitude of impotent folk, blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the waters." I do not desire to jest with the deformities of the af- flicted; but it does seem as if Mormonism, ill-favored itself, attracts to " Zion " few of the Rachels, but many of the ill-favored Leahs. At the north end of the tabernacle, facing the congre- gation, is the organ, built by an Englishman, taking five years. It is the third largest in the world. Converging at the organ's front are the two wings of singers, number- ing ICO. The leader, standing at the back of the organist, faces the choir at an angle, and the congregation in full. Next the choir, divided in half, and forming a block to the outer ends of the letter V formed by the singers, is the Council of Seventy ; they are composed of seniors, with a sprinkling of sleek, meek-eyed youths. Directly in the mouth of the letter V is the President's pulpit. Brigham only ministers in this. In front of this, and a little lower down, is the common pulpit, in which his subordinates hold forth. In front of that again, and still lower, is pulpit number three, in which prayers are offered and announce- ments made. Still lower, and next the congregation, is the altar on which the " elements " are spread. The communion, in MORMONDOM. 69 bread and water — never wine — is celebrated every Sab- bath. About these pulpits and altar, up and down, according to their dignity, are seated "dignitaries" — Apostles, Bishops and Elders. There are two or three intellectual-looking faces ; the rest range downwards to utter shallowness. The organ is mellow as a flute, or grand as thunder. The singing, for clearness of utterance and brilliancy, is unsurpassed by any choir efforts to which I ever listened. A New York lady sitting at my side, who had spent a por- tion of her life in England and on the Continent, was en- raptured with the marvellous melody, rolling, swelling, filling every part of the vast edifice. For the time one forgot the dread delusion, and was lifted into a higher life. The preacher of the day is George A. Smith, nephew of Joe, and first counsellor to Brigham, also his probable successor. He is a large man of full habit, and possess- ing very considerable animal magnetism. His oratory is of the " stump " order, more vigorous than refined. The physical rather than the spiritual predominates. I should say — perhaps I am wrong — that he " makes provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." The text is from the Bible, Acts ii. 37, 38 ; the sermon, from everywhere but heaven above. It is made up of hash and slash. All the Christian sects come in for a " cutting up." John Wesley, honored by the Dean of Westminster with a niche in the Abbey, is pilloried in the Mormon tabernacle by this 70 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. righter of religion. Whenever he makes a " hit," the eyes of the " Council " and congregation are turned to- wards the Gentile seats to see the effects of the shot. The " faithful " show their appreciation by giggles, nods and winks, itchings and shuffling feet. To the devout, the sermon is "husks," and its delivery a desecration of the Sabbath day ; to the worldly, a farce almost as good as going to the theatre. The service closes with another hymn, the grandest of all, which somewhat softens down the asperities of the sermon. Near the tabernacle, to the south, is the temple, its foundations having been laid as long ago as 1853. " They began to build and were not able to finish," and many are the mockers. It is a magnificent structure — on paper — claiming to be the finest in the world. It is of Gothic architecture, 186^ feet long and 99 wide, with six spires. The material is cut stone, quarried from the mountains 16 miles distant. It is to be devoted, not to public worship, but to the peculiar ordinances of their religion — sealing in marriage. Already one million dollars have been expend- ed on it. The bleeding saints declare they have contri- buted enough to build it to the clouds ; and yet it has risen hardly a man's height above ground. Where has the money gone ? Where ? Why, to the same place that a great deal more, wrung by tithes and special assessments from a deluded, industrious people, has gone — into the coffers of the Church, which are the capacious pockets of the prophet-president. Brigham Young is the Church. Mormon DOM. 7 1 Still the work is going on, and a patient people respond to the cry, " Give ! give ! '' Will the temple ever be finished ? No ; if the signs of the times mean anything, they declare the days of this de- lusion and lie numbered. The eye of a long-suffering God followed them as they " journeyed from the East," and has been looking down upon them " in the plain in the land of Shinar"all the while of their labor to make them a name. The day of confusion is coming. The scatter- ing is sure. They shall leave off to build the city. The tower shall never reach unto heaven. Already is Babel written on their work. The railroad is introducing into Mormondom elements of disintegration. A tide of travel, each individual adding impetus to the encroaching sea, is daily pouring into the city. Whether they come to stay or depart, their influence remains. Gentile dress and man- ners are rapidly corrupting the " daughters of Zion," in spite of the disgust and denunciations of prophet and priest. The Church, for years a deadly Upas to all Gentile in- dustry, issued an edict in '68 requiring every Mormon shop to paint upon its front a large eye, with the words " Holiness to the Lord ; Zion's Co-operative Association." Here, and nowhere else, the " faithful " were to trade, The then few Gentiles were forced, from want of custom. ** To fold their tents, like the Arabs, And, as silently, steal away." One man, however, a plucky auctioneer, procured the 72 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. painting of a Gentile sign highly symbolical, and placed it on his shop front in the morning. In the evening it was pulled down and dragged through the streets by en- raged Mormons. He, too, succumbed, and started. That was in '69, the beginning of a new and more liberal era — the completion of the Trans-Continental Railroad. Now the best hotel and many of the most flourishing places of business are Gentile. The irrepressible John Chinaman is here, squeezing himself into any hole having front enough to swing a sign — " Washing and Ironing, by Chung Foo." For years Brigham prohibited prospecting for precious metals, under pain of excommunication ; now, prospec- tors, stock speculators, and operators in all imaginable patents and undertakings, swarm through the streets and among the mountains. The theatre still stands, but is no longer under Mormon but Gentile control. Brigham seldom goes. His daughters have disappeared from the " boards." The Court-house remains, an object of hatred to the Mormons, but of respect to every true lover of law and or- der. In '63, Congress passed a law making polygamy a crime. Judge McKean was sent out to Utah to enforce it and other wholesome measures. He may, as some assert, be lackmg in prudence, but not in push. Though his pro- ceedings have not always been endorsed by the Supreme Court at Washington, still he is continued in office for the same reason that Butler was kept in New Orleans — to cleanse the Augean stable. The eagle, neither asleep nor MORMONDOM. 73 blinking in its distant eyrie, but thoroughly roused to the interests involved, hovers over the " hills of Zion." "All the nobility " — the chief himself, even Brigham — has been in " durance vile." Cannon, a " great one," and delegate to Congress, has been brought to bar. Neither gold, nor cunning, nor threats avail. None are feared, none are passed by. Camp Douglas, on a " bench " of the moun- tains, and commanding the city, is ever on the alert, brist- ling with open-mouthed cannon. The stars and stripes float over the autocrat of Utah whether he will or not. Free speech and a fearless press are as common in the City of Mormondom as in the Capitol at Washington. What a few years ago had to be spoken in the closet is now proclaimed on the house-top. The Episcopalians, Presby- terians, Methodists and Congregationalists have opened Sabbath schools, built churches, and are otherwise vigor- ously at work undermining the " man of sin." Vice-Presi- dent Colfax harangues the multitude against Brigham Young from the balcony of the chief Mormon hotel. Dr. Newman, Methodist Chaplain to the U. S. Senate, de- bates with Elder Orson Pratt against polygamy in the Mormon Tabernacle. On the public street I met a big German, who openly cursed the day of his coming among the " saints." " They have," said he, " too much religion of the wrong kind." On my way to a Christian church, on Sabbath morning, I fell in with an intelligent Englishman, who at home had been a preacher of the Gospel, but was proselytized by 74 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Mormon missionaries, and induced to emigrate — a poor prodigal in a far land, on his way this Lord's day to a saloon. He stopped for a few minutes to talk with me, bitterly denouncing Mormonism as a system of oppression and robbery for the enrichment of the hierarchy. Before the day was over, the "little children " of the "Church" were uttering some of the sharpest sayings against the sys- tem that I heard. Anti-Mormon publications are freely circulated. The Tribune^ an eight-page anti-Mormon paper, published every Saturday, is charged with scorn and sting. The wife of a poor laborer in the service of the " Church " ap- plied at the tithing house on Saturday night for the week's dues. It was "after hours," but the clerk was there. She pleaded her children's needs — not food enough to last through the Sabbath day. The plea fell on unpitying ears. Listen to the Tribime's comment thereon : " That clerk smiled at her distress with such a leer of satisfaction as ghouls are said to enjoy over weird and horrible jokes. Tears and humble entreaties followed, as this helpless mother begged a crumb of her husband's earnings to keep the httle ones alive over Sunday, but all to no purpose. That fiend in charge of the capacious bins of flour was obdurate as his master, and drove the woman off to starve in the midst of her famishing offspring. .. . . On that same Sunday the clerk of the tithing house attended the Tabernacle services, and with bowed head said 'Amen' when the gluttonous Pharisee blasphemed the Almighty in MORMONDOM. 75 boasting that ' they were not like other men.' And such is the ' kingdom of God,' and its greedy gourmands who de- fraud the laborer of his wages, and steal from the mouths of hungry children." Not only is there open outside hostility, but what is worse, rebellion in the camp. The boasted unity of Mormonism is a rope of sand. The one-man power, once absolute, is going to pieces. The Church is rent by discords. There are three different sects calling them- selves Mormon, and a growing number of out-and-out apostates. Elder Stenhouse, one of their most energetic and successful missionaries ever sent into other lands, has cast off all allegiance to the " refuge of lies," and on the spot is turning his powerful artillery of pen and tongue against the stronghold. Whilst I was in San Francisco, Ann Eliza Young, having left Brigham's " bed and board," was lecturing against her late lord and master to crowded houses. A man named Hicks, for thirty years a Mormon, came out in a letter to the Tribune denouncing Brigham " as knowing and conniving at many of the crimes of blood which were attributed to the Indians by the Mormons." In other years cunning and violence were the means employed to close the mouth or prevent the escape of apostates. At first when Fort Douglas was established by the Government, the fugitives fled to the cover of its guns, and were conveyed out of Utah under military escort. If they attempted to escape in any other way. 76 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. they had to steal away or go in sufficient numbers for self-defence. On his seventieth birth-day Brigham received the con- gratulations of a delegation of Apostles, Bishops and Elders. In their oration he was addressed as "sovereign,'^ and assured that "' he should live to see the day when all the kings of the earth would come to Zion to seek his advice." Not long ago, searched out and hemmed in by his enemies, he talked of a hegira to the Saskatchewan, and now, in '74, to New Mexico ; but Mormonism has made its last move. Pressed at every point without by apostates, railroads. Christian Churches and rigorous laws ; rent by contending factions within ; the chief himself, the greatest governing power in the body, ready to drop into the grave, Mormonism, after a brief but ill-spent life, pale and palsied, hastens to its dissolution. I entered the city under auspicious circumstances ; I left it in disgust. I have seen enough of the monstrous system. I never want to look upon the spot again until cleansed of its leprosy. It is a " whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness." " And such is man ; a soil which breeds Or sweetest flowers or vilest weeds j Flowers lovely as the morning light, Weeds deadly as the aconite ; Just as his heart is trained to bear, The poisonous weed or flowret fair. " CHAPTER VII. A MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. HE vast country lying between British Amer- ica and Northern Mexico, Western Kansas and California, was marked on the old maps The Great American Desert." It was pronounced incapable of producing anything beyond sage-brush, grease-wood, coarse cactus, dwarfed pines and ■^ alkali. All these are still found, from the uplands of the Rocky Mountains on the east to the slopes of the Sierras on the west, a distance of i,ooo miles ; but recent enterprise has brought to light, in the midst of these wastes, inexhaustible beds of coal and iron. Further experiments of irrigation have proved that the soil is highly productive of all the ordinary grains and grasses. At Humboldt, in the midst of lava deposits, alkali, sand and sage-brush, I found the purest water and the greenest garden on the entire road. Flowers, grasses. 78 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. vegetables, com and fruit trees, refreshed by unfailing fountains in their midst, were flourishing to the wonder of everybody. " The parched ground had become a pool ; it blossomed abundantly." It is not at all improbable that, in the course of time, the glory of Lebanon and the excellency of Carmel and Sharon shall be given to these now barren heights. The question is so often asked, by those ignorant of its latent resources, " Why did the Almighty ever make the Great American Desert ? " Mark Twain is said to have answered : " To run the Great Overland Railroad through ; " and it is certainly the distinguishing feature of the desert to-day. We came as far as Ogden by the Union Pacific Railroad ; there we changed to the Central Pacific, run- ning through to San Francisco. Though 150 miles shorter than the Union, it is, in view of greater obstacles overcome in building, by far the grander achievement. Its history, a twice-told tale, will never lose its lustre while the world admires the high heroism that, risking everything for a worthy end, undertakes and accomplishes the unpo- pular and impossible. Not to Government, but to private individuals, Californians, belongs the credit of conceiving and carrying to completion this splendid scheme — helped, it is true, at the last, and generously, by Government grants. Men had talked railroad and Legislatures had approved, but nothing had been done. To an obscure but far-see- ing engineer, bearing the name of Judah, belongs the honor A MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. 79 of actually inaugurating the enterprize. He commenced the campaign in the shop of Huntingdon and Hopkins, a well-to-do but cautious firm in the then insignificant city of Sacramento. During the long winter evenings he talked the matter up. At first he was laughed at, then pitied; " He has gone mountain-mad — railroad-crazy, "said the unbelieving. Nothing daunted, glowing with enthu- siasm, sanguine of success, he talked on. The fire spread. Huntingdon was converted. Now there were two to talk. Then Hopkins came over, and soon two or three more, making up a half dozen — the army bound to march against the mountains ! They gave $50 each towards a survey over the Sierras. As soon as summer melted the snows, Judah and his assistants were at work. In winter they returned, ragged, but rich in hope. Their report inspired more general confidence. Public meetings were held to furnish information and raise money. Business was unsettled. It was the days of " ups and downs." Men were among mines ; they never knew whether the next move would be a "find" or a "blow up." To lessen liability to the latter, and save the simple from unscrupulous adventurers, the State passed a law making every shareholder answerable for the debts of a company. As the debts were sure, and dividends not, men were cautious about putting their names on the stock books. Hence there were no subscribers to the survey, only unwritten gifts from $5 upwards. Enough was given to go on with the work. 8o TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. The following summer found the engineer and his assis- tants once more among the mountains. Their second report confirmed the first : " We have found a pass — the road can be built." All this is but preliminary. A thorough survey, a safe line for the builder to follow and a good guarantee to capitalists, remains to be run. But where is the money to come from ? Sacramento, suffering from a flood, has as much as she can do to keep her own head above water. San Francisco, sitting among her bags of gold, swallows down mining stock ad infinitum, but strains at this scheme, and finally spews it out \ she never gives a dollar. Judah returns from his mission disap- pointed, but not discouraged. The little band, not to be beaten, bound themselves into a compact for three years, agreeing therein to pay all necessary expenses of a com- plete survey out of their own pockets. In 1862 Judah went to Washington — $135,000, the sum necessary to secure a charter, having been pledged. He had an " axe to grind " well worth the grinding. He lob- bied, he "log rolled," he spread information, charts, maps ; clear and conclusive data in abundance were left on tables, put in the seats, hung on the walls ; wherever the "members" turned they were met by the great rail- road scheme. Attention was thoroughly roused. The extreme east and the remotest west stood side by side in the struggle. Morrill of Maine and Sargent of San Francisco joined hands. One with them were Colfax, Vice-Presi- dent to be, and Campbell, of Pennsylvania, both idolized A MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. 8 1 to-day in California. Week after week they argued and battled for the Bill. Sage, Senator from Illinois, sneer- ingly said to Sargent : " Do I understand the gentleman from California to say that he actually expects this road to be built ? " "The gentleman from Illinois may understand me to predict that, if this Bill is passed, the road will be finished within ten years," was the reply. The Bill was gaining ground. Still, how strange ! Congress could not see any commercial gain in the enter- prize. The country was rent by rebellion, and they could see the motions of the red hand of war. The eyes of the South were fixed on the golden shores of the Pacific. Mexico was not yet reconciled to her loss. It was hinted, but afterwards withdrawn, that England was casting wistful eyes westward. The war had " developed some low mut- terings about a Pacific Republic." At last, as a military necessity, the Bill was passed ; in July, 1862, the road was chartered from the Missouri to the Pacific. The endow- ments were munificent, being the same to the Central as to the Union, as already stated in a previous chapter. Judah is jubilant, but not blind. Over the wires flashes the message : " The Bill has passed and we have drawn the elephant." What is to be done with it? Congress has voted help — to be given when the toiler is well up the mountain. Before they can have a dollar of the Govern- ment grant, the road must be built forty miles, embracing a good portion of the heavier work up into the Sierras, 82 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. and stocked at a cost of $4,000,000 ! Where are these millions to come from ? They set forth the survey which shows the scheme feasible ; they figure up the profits that must accrue to the shareholders and State ; they hold up the charter with its royal endowments ; and then they appeal to the country for capital. Stock books were opened. Subscriptions to the amount of eight and a-half million dollars — sufficient to build the road to Lake Tahoe, the State line on the summit of the Sierras — were asked for. Once more they sought San Francisco. The wealth if not the wisdom of Solomon was there. The great dis- covery of 1848 had made "gold as plenteous in the streets as stones. '^ But capital was mostly in the hands- of Southerners and monopolists. The building of the road was the last thing that either desired ; it would blast the hopes of the Secessionists centring west of the Rocky Mountains, and as surely break up monopolies. A second time they gave the scheme the go-by ; worse, they ridiculed it — they assailed it in the public prints as a money-making scheme for the enrichment of a handful of Republican adventurers. They were charged to begone as common, or rather uncommon, swindlers ; and they went, not as swindlers, but as slandered, shaking off the " venomous viper " only as they disappeared from view — over the summit of the Sierras. Only two San Franciscans took shares, and one of these was a woman. One person in Nevada — standing A MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. §3 on its inexhaustible silver mines, waiting to be opened up by the road — had faith enough to take one share. A few more ventured to invest in the " swindle," until $600 were subscribed to build a road across the Continent ! One man, a banker, friendly to the undertaking, but aware of the influential opposition that existed, refused to lend help, alleging that if it were known that he was giving any countenance to that " South Sea Bubble," the bank might share the fate of the bubble. It must have been a searching hour to the promoters of the scheme when the shares taken were summed up — $600 towards building a road to cost $200,000,000 ! It is three years since these men were converted to the scheme. Men, like its fruits, grow fast in California. The little band had strengthened with the struggle ; they had risen under the burden into a hardier manhood. To- day, when the scheme is enveloped in a darkness that might be felt, they rise their highest and see the farthest. Soon the great heart of Xh^ people — the bone and sinew of the land, the working men and working women scattered over the State — beats in sympathy with the shares ; they had been in sympathy with the scheme all along ; it had been the watchword at the polls ; no man who was anti- railroad could get to Congress. Now the people are ready to take stock as well as give their votes. But in these times they were still poor — they could do but little — only a drop in the bucket. If the leaders had not been men of profound foresight 84 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. and iron nerve, the struggling scheme had died of sheer starvation in a land of gold. It was a long time before the shares ran up to a million and a half of dollars. Some- thing more must be done. There is little hope at home ; even if they could borrow round about them, where every- thing is fabulously dear, the high rate of interest would be ruinous — two per cent, a month ! The road is long, and it will be years, at the earliest, before it can make returns. They can never stand the interest in the meantime. Some one with skill and courage must go East, among the " Bulls and Bears " of Wall Street. The first convert, now Vice-President of the road and Financial Manager, is the man. Huntingdon goes. He is greeted with growls on the one hand and horns on the other. Nothing daunted, but armed with facts and figures, he slays the bear that threatened his lamb, and fearlessly takes the bull by the horns. Pledging his own and his associates' pri- vate fortunes to the last cent, he gets the money. Old fogies saw only a shining shell, and " buttoned up their pockets," but young America, wide awake, saw a " big thing " therein. The firm of Fisk and Hatch took hold of the scheme vigorously. From five to twenty million dollars per year were wanted. It was promised. The Company's bonds were put upon the market. One of the cleverest journalists of the day was employed to write them up. The newspaper is the great power of America. Every- body reads the papers, whether they go to church or not. A MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. 85 Soon the great railroad was the common topic, from the fish -mongers of Fulton Ferry to the princely up-town mer- chants. Seven days to San Francisco, instead of twenty-one by the Isthmus — escape from the sea and the " horrors of the middle passage " — the opening up of a vast territory to the settler and to the miner — mountains rich in minerals — the furnishing facilities for protecting more effectually possessions on the Pacific Coast — a more attractive channel to at least a portion of the $500,000,000 of the annual foreign commerce of China — all these gains, with the Government securities, were set in glowing terms before the people. The scheme took. Funds came in faster and faster, until the prices of bonds had to be rapidly raised to keep them from selling too fast. The clouds were emptying themselves upon the earth after the long and weary drought. The Nile was overflowing its banks with superabundant wealth. At last, European capitalists, who have invested so largely in New World interests, and been sometimes badly bitten too, closed the books by subscribing at once for five millions worth. Again the scene shifts to Sacramento. Whilst the city which had given birth to the scheme and carefully nursed it until now was still unrecovered from a fearful flood ; whilst the whole land was rent by civil war ; whilst labor was scarce and wages high ; whilst pro- phets of evil were predicting "black failure;" whilst 86 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. almost everything argued the undertaking born out of due season, and eminent engineers also argued before Govern- ment Committees that the scheme had no business to be born at all — that, in fine, it was utterly impracticable — under these circumstances, the President of the road, Governor Stanford, all undaunted, and sustained by kindred spirits, turned the first sod at Sacramento the 22nd of February, 1863. Tried and tempted, they pre- served their integrity. When their " bonds " were " all the rage " in the market, merchants were eager to sell them material. " Buy of me," said one, " and I'll pay a handsome commission into your private purse." " Never," said the clean-handed Huntingdon; " I want all the commissions I can get, but they must be put in the bill ; this road must be built without any stealings." Picks, powder, iron, even to every spike, locomotives, everything has to be brought from the East by way of Cape Horn, 16,000 miles, running great risks and taking from eight to ten months. Irish laborers are brought from the East and Celestials from the West. Ten thousand Chinese are put upon the road ; faithful, quick to learn, working cheaper than the others, they are found invaluable. The workmen are promptly paid, and a regu- lation is passed prohibiting the use of strong drink. The Chinese did not need the prohibition— they do not drink. Though the Chinese swarm, saloons and groggeries go down j but the Irishmeu did need the regulation. The A MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. 87 work goes on. It reaches the Sierras. Long grades of 1 16 feet rise to the mile have to be overcome. Here and there the track can find a passage only by doubling on itself ; again only by crossing canyons on trestle work 265 feet high. In one place the way is 1,500 feet above a black gorge, and on a mountain side so steep that workmen have to be let down from above by ropes, and held until they can pick a foothold. Sometimes, in a ' single night, thousands of tons of soil and stone slide down upon the track. At the summit, 7,017 feet above the sea, snow fell sixty feet deep ; they had to tunnel through it to their work, and seven miles of it had to be shovelled off the track. Thirteen tunnels had to be cut through solid gra- nite, an aggregate length of 6,050 feet — over a mile — the longest one at the summit, 1,659 feet, causing a delay of thirteen months. So difficult was it to reach the summit that the road had to diverge seven miles out of the direct course. The snow belt of the Sierras required the erection of more than forty miles of sheds, at a cost of $10,000 per mile. Four years are consumed in crossing the Sierras ; but these, like other hindrances, are left behind. No longer cramped, but rejoicing in enlargement, the road stretches out across the Great American Desert. A new difficulty meets it here. The soil is saturated with alkali, poison- ing all the streams. Water has to be brought forty miles ; wood, twenty. But what is this to men who have overcome mountains ? Faster and faster the line is laid. All hands 88 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. work as if intoxicated with success. At the last, under the influence of a $10,000 wager between the Union and the Central, now nearing each other, ten miles are laid in one day — eight men walking ten miles, and handling 1,000 tons of iron each. In the " merry month of May," the loth day, 1869, the roads meet at Promontory Point, in the middle of the Desert, 830 miles from San Francisco, and 1,084 from Omaha. On Monday morning two long trains of cars approach each other, one from the east, the other from the west, both filled with an eager company gathered from all parts of this and other lands, even from far China ! We look in vain for one face now familiar. Judah is not there. Worn-out and penniless, he fell before the goal was reached, but not uncommemorated. He has reared his own monument. Over the wastes of sand and alkali swarm the excited crowd. But what are deserts and mountains to these men ? Only memorials of the miracles of patience and energy which subdued them for the weal of man. Hand shakings and warm congratulations brighten the picture. The story of the scheme — its feeble beginnings, its obstruc- tions, its enemies, its faithful friends — is told over and over again. The speed and comfort of travel, the golden gains, the world-wide prestige, are all painted in glowing colors. There are no cavillers, no prophets of evil now ; only one spirit stirs that throng — the spirit of splendid success. They are not to rejoice alone. Arrangements A MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. 89 have been made with the telegraph lines running side by side with the track across the Continent, by which, at the finishing stroke, a simultaneous burst of gladness shall go up from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Golden State, brimful of joy, like a boy let out from school with task well done, attaches the wires to the great fire alarm bel suspended in the City tower of San Francisco. The last tie, a piece of the beautiful Californian laurel, exquisitely finished and bearing a silver plate with suitable inscrip- tion, is laid in its place. Three spikes, one of gold from CaHfornia, one of silver from Nevada, and one of gold, silver and iron from Arizona, are ready for their place. The sun is mounting to the zenith. The final moment draws near. The crowd presses closer round the charmed spot. A solemn stillness settles down upon them. An unseen Presence is strangely felt. With uncovered heads they give God thanks and crave His continued blessing. Then, lifting their eyes upward, they see the sun in the midst of the heavens looking straight down upon them from the '* Father of lights," as if He were answering while they are yet speaking. At mid-day to a minute, the President of the Central Pacific, who turned the first sod in Sacramento six years before, takes a silver mallet, with telegraph wires attached to the handle, and drives the last spike. Every stroke thrills throughout the land. Swifter than winged winds fly the tidings — the work is done — the roads are joined— the East and West are bound 90 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. together by iron bands — the iron horse has an unbroken course across the Continent. Starting westward from the Atlantic ; rolling over the St. Lawrence ; spanning Niagara ; racing across the prai- ries ; climbing the Rocky Mountains ; sweeping through the Great American Desert ; piercing the " everlasting hills ; " winding round the summit of the Sierras ; rushing down their western declivity ; stretching, like a mettled courser, with unslackened speed, across the Sacramento valley to San Francisco, one unbroken run of 4,000 miles, speeding men e7i route around the world, is an achievement before which one stands amazed — appalled at the power given unto man. Fire and water, no longer given over to the government of mythical gods, have be- come man's subjects and man's servants. From ocean to ocean, from continent to continent, girdling the globe with one unbroken strain, is heard the triumphant Song of Steam : — *' Harness me down with your iron bands, Be sure of your curb and rein, For I scorn the strength of your puny hands, As the tempest scorns a chain. How I laughed as I lay concealed from sight For many a countless hour, At the childish boasts of human might, And the pride of human power. " When I saw an army upon the land, A navy upon the seas, Creeping along, a snail-like band, Or waiting a wayward breeze ; A MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. 9 1 When I saw the peasant reel With the burden he faintly bore, As he turned at the tardy wheel, Or toiled at the weary oar. When I measured the panting courser's speed. The flight of the carrier dove. As they bore the law a king decreed, Or the lines of impatient love, — I could but think how the world would feel As these were outstripped afar. When I should be bound to the rushing keel, Or chained to the flying car. ' Ha ! ha ! ha ! they found me at last ; They invited me forth at length, And I rushed to my throne with a thunder blast. And laughed in my iron strength ! Oh ! then ye saw a wondrous change On the earth and ocean wide, Where now my fiery armies range, Nor wait for wind or tide. '* Hurrah ! hurrah ! the waters o'er, The mountain's steep decline ; Time — space — have yielded to my power — The world ! the world is mine ! The rivers the sun hath earliest blest, Or those where his beams decline ; The giant streams of the queenly West, Or the Orient's floods divine. '* The ocean pales where'er I sweep, To hear my strength rejoice, And monsters of the briny deep Cower, trembling, at my voice. 92 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. I can-y the wealth and ore of earth, The thought of the God-like mind ; The wind lags after my going forth, The lightning is left behind. " In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine My tireless arm doth play, Where the rocks ne'er saw the sun's decline Or the dawn of the glorious day ; I bring earth's glittering jewels up From the hidden caves below. And I make the fountain's granite cup With a crystal gush o'erflow. ** I blow the bellows, I forge the steel In all the shops of trade ; I hammer the ore, and turn the wheel Where my arms of strength are made ; I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint — I carry, I spin, I weave, , And all my doings I put in print On every Saturday eve. " I've no muscles to weary, no breast to decay. No bones to be "laid on the shelf," And soon I intend you may "go and play," While I manage the world myself. But hammer me down with your iron bands, Be sure of your curb and rein. For I scorn the strength of your puny hands As the tempest scorns a chain." CHAPTER VIII. SIERRAS TO THE SEA. ^lERRA (saw) — the name given by Spaniards to mountains generally — and Nevada (snowy) — Sierra Nevada — was the name applied by the old Castilian conquerors of California to the magnificent snow-capped range running 500 miles south-east and north-west, along the eastern line of the State. Its width varies from 60 to 100 miles, with an average height of 7,000 feet, some of the peaks rising much higher ; Shasta, on the north, being 14,444 feet, and Whitney, on the south, near the Yosemite, 15,088 feet. Though the Sierras are less known, they present greater variety and far grander scenery than the Rocky Mountains. Incalculable^mineral wealth — especially sil- ver — is buried in their bowels, whilst they are covered with the most magnificent pine forests in America. A 94 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Story is told of a lumberman from Maine, who, in crossing the Continent, was observed to grow more and more silent amid the sands and sage-brush of the desert. At last, emerging into the pineries of the mountain, the spell was broken ; deeply affected, he sprang from his seat, ex- claiming, " Thank God, I smell pitch once more." The eastern foot-hills of the Sierras begin about Wads- worth, on the western borders of the desert. A run of 36 miles brings us to Reno, a rise of nearly 400 feet. South of this station — in a direct line 21 miles, by rail 48 — is one of the most stirring centres on the Continent — Virginia City. This city in Nevada must not be con- founded with one of the same name in Montana, to which the traveller diverges at Corunna, near Great Salt Lake. The city in Nevada, unlike most mining towns, is not in a gulch, but is perched among the mountain rocks, 6,200 feet above the sea. It owes its existence to mining in- terests, chiefly silver. Its foundations are honeycombed by seaichers after "hid treasure." The streets swarm with speculators ; sometimes the crowd before the offices of stockbrokers being so great that all traffic comes to a stand-still. The city rests on the richest silver bed known, the celebrated Comstock lode, discovered fifteen years ago. A party prospecting for gold struck a strange ore ; un- able to determine what it was, they sent specimens to San Francisco. It proved to be silver-bearing quartz of surpassing richness. The news of discovery flew like the wind. An immense rush followed. Other discoveries SIERRAS TO THE SEA. 95 were made. Cities sprang up as if by magic. The spirit of speculation, like those ocean waves that suddenly up- rise and submerge cities, broke through all bounds and swept over the mountains, enriching a few, but impover- ishing many. While *' the fever was on." one speculator in stocks made $25,000 per month. The shares of one Company rose from $2 50 each to $410 ; of another, from $1 to $490, or over five millions for the mine. ** Ten years after the discovery, the Comstock showed signs of giving out ; the yield was falling off from five to ten millions per annum ; machinery began to be removed to other and more promising places ; but recent develop- ments of " drift " have revealed deposits of amazing rich- ness. Even while I write the old excitement has broken out afresh with more than former fury. The experienced money kings of San Francisco, and Irish servant girls, with their hard-earned savings drawn from the banks for pur- poses of speculation, are all alike crazed — hastening to be rich. This mine, bought for $3,000, yielded last year — 1874 — 22 million dollars; altogether, since discovery, 175 million dollars; half as much as the famous Veta Madre — mother vein — of Mexico, worked for 300 years, and reputed the richest in the world, until the discovery of the Comstock. Returning to Reno, we continue the ascent of the Sierras. Following up a canyon first on one side, then on the other, of the Truckee river roaring through it, we soon cross the line into California ; a few miles further 96 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. and we are at Truckee, a city of several thousand inhabi- tants, but most noted to the sight-seer as the point of divergence to LakeTahoe, twelve miles south, pronounced " by far the most beautiful lake in the United States." Leading to it is a carriage road of rare excellence, running through enchanting scenery. The lake is nearly 6,000 feet above the sea, twenty-two miles long and ten wide ; through it runs the dividing line between the silver State of Nevada and the golden State of California. Its waters, 1,700 feet deep, are clear as crystal, showing ob- jects on the bottom, distinctly from fifty to one hundred feet below the surface. They abound with several spe- cies of fish, especially the silver trout, weighing from one to twenty-five lbs. A steamer, specially for pleasure parties, plies to every part. Tahoe was once the mouth of a restless volcano, belch- ing forth fire and death ; now, transformed into a fountain, fringed with fir and flowers, mirroring slope and snowy summit, teeming with finny tribes, slaking the thirst of the mountain deer, its pure and peaceful bosom kissed by the clouds, it is what it well merits to be, the charming resort of thousands. Some years ago, when San Francisco was in its frenzy of prosperity, a scheme was set on foot to tunnel the Sierras 100 miles away, and supply the city with water from Lake Tahoe. It was a splendid scheme, worthy the days of old Imperial Rome ; and some day, when one SIERRAS TO THE SEA. 97 arises upon whom has fallen the mantle of the departed Judah, it, like the railroad, will be un fait accompli. Returning to Truckee, we diverge once more, this time two and a half miles north-west, to the smaller but even lovelier Donner Lake — the " gem of the Sierras," and, like Tahoe, set in the crater of an extinct volcano. The fur- nace blast of the Cyclops has given place to the shouts of San Francisco " schoolmarms," whom the railroad gen- erously *' passes" from year to year during summer vacation. But this lovely lake will be longest remembered, it may be, not from its pleasure parties and summer songs, but from the dreadful fate of the Donners, after whom it is named. A party of emigrants from Illinois undertook to cross the mountains late in the fall of 1846. Their guide, an old trapper familiar with the terrible snow storms, hur- ried them forward. The majority pressed on and passed safely over ; but Donner himself, driving a lot of cattle, and kept in company by a party of sixteen, made no haste. Anticipating no danger, he disregarded all warn- ings, and quietly encamped on the shores of the lake. In the night the storm burst upon them with the fury of loosened demons. The hurricane howled and raged among the pines, whilst the snow fell fast and thick. At last the morning broke, but brought no abatement of the storm. The most of the cattle and horses had broken from their fastenings and fled. With the few that remain they may yet escape, but Donner is unable or unwilling 98 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. to move till the storm stops, and his devoted wife refuses to go and leave him behind. A German resolves to re- main with them. The rest, placing the four children of the Donners on horses, start for the other side of the mountains ; after many days of toil and peril, they suc- ceed in reaching the valley in safety. The storm continues for weeks with scarcely any cessa- tion. For the imprisoned to get out or deliverers to get in is impossible. No power but a spring sun can ever open a way of escape. In the early spring, as soon as there is any hope of succeeding, a party starts to their as- sistance. After weeks of labor and suffering, they succeed in reaching the camp ; but what a sight meets their horri- fied gaze ! Before the fire sits a solitary man tearing the flesh from a roasted arm. It is the German, and he is raving mad. At the sound of steps he springs to his feet, confronting them with a terrified look, and clutching, like a beast of prey, the remains of his repast. They spring upon him, wrench away the food, and pinion down his arms. The remains of the Donners are found and buried. The German recovered his reason, and declared his in- nocency ; but whether the Donners died a natural death, or were murdered by the madman, may remain a mystery until the " Judge of all the earth shall make known." From Truckee to the* summit, in a straight Hne, is only eight miles, but the rise is nearly 1,200 feet. The engineer knew right well that this Goliath could never be conquered by any straight. ahead shot ; like a wily warrior, he over- SIERRAS TO THE SEA. 99 came by strategy. Harnessing to the train three locomo- tives of well-tried metal, he begins manoeuvring in the mists of early morning ; now outflanking the foe by run- ning along the base, now attacking from one side at an easy angle, and now charging full in the face, escaping the avalanche by stealing under snow-sheds, gradually gaining ground, until finally the iron horse, "rejoicing in his strength" and "mocking at fear," cleaves right through the solid granite for over i,6oo feet, and comes forth snorting on the summit of the Sierras. Oh ! it is a glorious achievement. The spirits that entered into the struggle now rejoice together. The excitement of the as- cent, the bracing mountain air, and the magnificent scenery, can hardly fail to stir up the most stagnant soul. Above us rise snow-capped peaks — hoary-headed senti- nels of the ages on whose brow '* Summer and winter circling came and went, Bringing no change of scene. " Off to the right, its deep gashed sides thickly clad with evergreens — as if to hide the scars of some great and sore struggle — is a vast gorge through which Yuba river, rejoicing in an opening, is laughing and leaping in numer- ous cascades and waterfalls. Ahead, and hiding the Mecca of our pilgrimage, is a broad mountain belt, over which the eye wanders conjecturing our course. Turn whichever way we will, there meets the eye some new ob- ject of beauty or sublimity — towering peaks stained and lOO TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. weatherworn, lofty ranges forest-clad from foot to crown, bluffs dark and defiant, moss-covered crags and naked granite glistening in the morning sun, yawning chasms cleft by Titan forces, sleeping lakelets, sparkling stream- lets, foaming rivers and thundering cataracts — these are some of the features belonging to the marvellous scenery of the Sierras. To thoroughly enjoy these enchanting heights one should spend a few days at the Summit House, where he will find ample and excellent accommodation. The view from the car windows is much broken by the great extent of tunnel and snow-sheds. Still, by being on the alert for every opening, and by rushing out of the car at every station, the traveller may get more than passing glimpses. The snow-sheds, without which it would be quite im- possible to cross the mountains in winter, will well repay a careful inspection. An account of their cost and ex- tent was given in the preceding chapter. When we remember the immense fall of snow on the Sierras — from 20 to 30 feet, sometimes as deep as 60 feet—, also the vast avalanches which, loosed by a spring sun, come sweeping from the summit across the track, then will be clearly seen the importance of strongly-built sheds. And they are of enormous strength. The frame is of heavy timber, sawed or round, and the roof usually of iron. Where the line crosses a "divide," or level lands, not exposed to avalanches, the roof is sharp and steep, like SIERRAS TO THE SEA. tOI our houses in Lower Canada. Where the track runs along the mountain side, exposed to slides, the roof is one-sided, sloping sharp up against the rocks. Hence, the avalanche passes harmlessly over'on its way down the declivity. Every possible precaution is taken against fires in the summer season. Stationed at the summit is a train of water-cars attached to a locomotive with steam always up, ready at a moment's notice to fly to any point of danger. From the Summit to Sacramento is 104 miles, but the fall is 7,000 feet. Some idea of the down grade may be gathered from the fact that, a few days before I crossed, a runaway freight car struck a snow-shed in an advanced stage of construction, and knocked down 300 yards of it. From the Summit to the foot-hills we pass through the grand timber belt of the Sierras. A particular account of the forests of California will be found in the " Big Tree " chapter. Thirty miles from the Summit we enter the Great American Canyon. Winding along walls 2,000 feet high ; clinging to sides rising so steep from the water's edge that even a footman is unable to pick a passage through ; look- ing down upon the dark river, foam-flecked and writhing like a huge serpent hemmed in and tortured, is a scene seldom surpassed in the wild and thrilling. Issuing from the canyon, we enter the mining regions. Here and there running along the track are flumes, tap- I02 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. ping rivers near their sources in the region of eternal snows, and conducting their waters — sometimes as far as fifteen miles — to mills and mines. Dutch Flat, You Bet, Red Dog, Gold Run, are all mining towns in the midst of " diggins." Every gulch and river-bed has been searched, pan by pan, and the very mountains washed down by hydraulic processes. But more of mining hereafter. One more Sierra scene opens to us at Cape Horn. The difficulties of " rounding " this mountain have doubt- less given it the name applied by Magellan to that southern point of South America, so fraught with terror to the voyager before the building of the railroad. To give passengers the opportunity of fairly taking in the scene, the train considerately stops at an impressive spot — the same where the workmen building the road had to be held with ropes until they had hewed for themselves a footing. A few, with real or assumed courage, rush tumultuously forth, the rest more cautiously — all under the watchful eye of the conductor. The sight is thrilling beyond description. Above our heads rise rocky crests, over which even the cunning savage failed to make a trail. The rugged, overhanging mass unpleasantly sug- gests the possibility of a slide at any moment. Below — only " a step between us and death " — is a precipice from whose sharp edge weak nerves draw back dizzied and shuddering. There is an uneasy, ill-defined feeling ; something might happen — you hardly know what. The track may give way ; the rocks may be loosened from SIERRAS TO THE SEA. lO^ above ; men or mountains may fall over. With many a one the memories of that spot will remain when the "mountains have fled away." " All aboard ! " comes hardly too soon ; we move away with a sense of relief We can see that our course lies on the other side of the canyon; but where shall we cross over? Twining round the mountain, and coyly taking for a time an opposite direction, we reach a lower and more advantageous position ; then, turning to the left, we cross the canyon on trestle work, and double back upon our track of the other side, obtaining one of the best views to be had of the Cape we have rounded — a scene pronounced the " grandest on the whole Hne of the Trans-Continental Railroad." Rushing, thundering down the mountains, thrilled at every turn by fresh beauties, we soon reach the lowlier but fertile foot-hills. Hamlets and homesteads nestle in the most charming spots. On the Atlantic board it is the season of the '' sere and yellow leaf ; " here trees are evergreens, and flowers bloom the year round. Growing as a common shrub at the side of an humble cabin are oleanders of Oriental splendor. Orchards and vineyards appear. Fruit-sellers swarm at the stations. Passing Rocklin, its granite quarries supplying the cities with their best building material, we leave the foot-hills be- hind, and enter the beautiful Sacramento valley, fast filling up with a settled and prosperous people. The stillness of the desert has given way to the hum of 104 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. the hives of industry. Everybody is on the alert and wears a wide-awake look. Evidences of approach to some great centre are rapidly increasing. In the dis- tance, on the left, and arresting every eye, is a splendid structure of white marble, its graceful dome resting against the soft sunny sky : it can belong to no mean city, and it does not. We have reached the capital of California, Sacramento, situated at the head of tide water on the Sacramento river, 120 miles from its mouth. As usual here, a multitude await our arrival. Hundreds of eager eyes interview the strangers from the other side of the Continent. If what we see is a fair specimen of the spirit of the city, then we no longer wonder that the insignificant hamlet of a few years ago has grown to its present greatness in spite of repeated laying waste by flames and freshets, or that here was born and nur- tured the great Central Pacific Railroad. Men cannot escape liability to fire, build where they will; but they may build above the flood. Why then was there founded on the banks of the Sacramento river a city sub- ject to destructive inundations ? When the site was chosen, in 1849, the overflowing of the river was a thing unknown — the banks rose far above high-water mark. But the multitude of miners dug down the mountains, washing their debris into the American, Feather, Bear, Yuba and other rivers feeding the Sacramento, until its bed was raised from ten to twenty feet above the ordinary level. The channel of the river, already filled by heavy winter SIERRAS TO THE SEA. I05 rains, could not contain the vast masses of melted snow which a spring sun sent pouring down the mountains. Con- sequently, the swollen waters, bursting over the banks, swept across the valley, doing a vast amount of damage ; cattle perished ; vineyards were laid waste ; houses floated away ; while ships went sailing down the streets of Sacra- mento. This was in 1852. When the flood was over, the citizens, nothing daunted, went to work and surrounded the city with levees. A decade passed in peace. But in 1861-62 came another inundation, laughing at the levees and deluging the city as before. When the waters sub- sided, the citizens set to work raising the foundations of the houses as well as repairing and strengthening the levees. To-day the city stands ten feet higher than when founded, presenting, thus far, an effectual barrier to the fiercest flood. Built at first of wood, the city has more than once been destroyed by fire ; but, phoenix-like, each time there has sprung from its ashes more beautiful structures, at once the pride and praise of a people un- conquerable by fire or flood. Not the least to the credit of the capital and Railroad Company is the Central Pacific Railroad Hospital, costing $60,000, and supported by a weekly contribution of fifty cents each from every one connected with the road, from the chief officer down. According to the State Reports, it is conducted on the most approved principles, is in keep- ing with the general management of the railroad, and H I06 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. conduces greatly to the comfort of the employees and their continuance in the Company's service. Sacramento will well repay a more protracted stay, but, impatient to look upon the Pacific, we hasten on. Novel sights and peculiar modes of doing things meet the eye all along the rapidly rolling panorama. If knight errantry were now the fashion, California would be a paradise to Quixotic crusaders ; it is a land of wind mills. You see them everywhere — ^in the city and in the country. Stock- ton, fifty miles west of Sacramento, is called the " Wind- mill City," and in San Francisco itself you find them in large numbers. The mill usually stands over the com- mon or artesian well, and pumps the water through pipes to all parts of the premises, and sometimes beyond into the gardens and fields. Frequently the water is forced into tanks at the top of the houses, whence it is easily distributed to every room. Here and there are hydrants supplying sprinklers, so placed as to shower the lawns and shrubbery. The rainless season, extending from May to November, makes artificial methods of supplying ^dXtx d. sine qua nofi. The absence of frost renders the laying of pipes anywhere perfectly safe ; and the winds coming from the ocean through the Golden Gate, and prevailing a part of the day in every valley and gorge, furnish cheap and effective pumping power. Neatly built and prettily painted, some- times at a stand-still and sometimes a huge wheel whirl- ing in the air like a giant turning somersaults, they are, to SIERRAS TO THE SEA. 107 Strangers, a striking sight, enlivening the landscape as well as contributing to the comfort and wealth of the country. Another institution peculiar to California is the " Prai- rie Schooner," a leviathan waggon drawn by mules, from six to sixteen being attached to each waggon. Before railroad days an immense amount of freight was trans- ported by this means to and from the mines. I often met them carrying enormous loads of merchandise to the mountains, or returning laden with wood — the plains pro- ducing few trees except the growth of the settlers' plant- ings. But steam is fast hastening the mule's millennium. Continuing our way, crossing the valley of San Joaquin (San Waw-keen), with its rich bottom lands extending north and south as far as the eye can reach, we head directly for the Contra Costa Mountains, looming up and running right and left, as if to bar our further progress to the Pacific. But this obstruction is only child's play after what we have passed — a spider's web compared to the granite-ribbed Sierras. This beautiful range of mountains, extending up and down the coast for hundreds of miles, its soft and purple summits carved by elemental action into the loveliest outlines, was never reared to check the course of the Trans-Continental Railroad, but to shelter those charming valleys from the hostile influence of old Ocean. Reinforced for the effort by a second locomotive, we begin climbing their sides and threading our way among canyons, until, reaching a down grade, we plunge into the loS TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. bowels of the mountains, black as midnight, and emerge at Altamonte, on the western side. The sun has set, but there is light enough left to show that we are sweeping down one of the loveliest little valleys I ever beheld. On each side, close by, are the mountains, sloping gracefully upward and dotted over with evergreen oaks, whilst nest- ling between — gems befitting such beautiful settings — are cozy homes, in the midst of orchards, gardens and vine- yards. It is now dark and raining ; we can see nothing ; but if there be anything in a name, then the places we passed on the western slopes of the Contra Costa range, some of them embracing many " out of town " residences of the wealthy, must indeed be very beautiful. Pleasanton, Decoto, Lorenzo, San Leandro, Melrose, are the soft and musical names following close on each other. An express man engaging to deliver luggage, wherever or- dered, has already passed through the cars, taking our checks and giving guarantees in return. The smell of salt water is in the air. Ten thousand lights from out the thick darkness are gleaming on land and water. We have reached Oakland Point, on the eastern shore of the Bay of San Francisco. Sup- ported by splendid piers, we continue our way across the Bay two and a half miles, to the terminus of the great Trans-Continental Railroad, where we connect with steamer for San Francisco three miles farther. The ferry- boat is thronged almost as much as those plying between SIERRAS TO THE SEA. IO9 New York and Brooklyn. Runners and hackraen swarm thick with honey and sting. Be on your guard against them ; though not as noisy as those of Chicago twenty years ago, yet they are every whit as unscrupulous. If not thoughtless or purse-proud, you have beforehand posted yourself as to hotels, modes of conveyance and fares. Now, if you do not want to be bored or bitten by these vampires, ask them no questions, and assume an air of ease, even of indifference, as if quite at home. Only strangers are leeched. Our goal is reached. The Continent is crossed. We are standing on the shores of the Pacific. :-^ CHAPTER IX. SAN FRANCISCO. ,AN FRANCISCO is one of the marvels of America. In 1849 it consisted of a few wooden buildings and one of brick ; all told, there were not five hundred whites within as many miles. There were no wharfs, no piers, no commerce worth the name. But in that year arrived the " forty miners," as the pioneers proudly call themselves. These were soon followed by a vast multitude from every land, drawn by the dis- covery of gold. Houses sprang up like mushrooms — fast but fragile. From 1849 to 1852 the city was laid in ashes six different times, involving a loss of twenty-six million dollars. But, as in Sacramento so here, better buildings took the place of those burnt. Earthquakes opened the ground, cracked walls, shook SAN FRANCISCO. Ill down houses, killed some of the people and drove others away, destroying in 1868 five millions of dollars ; but the runaways returned, rebuilt the houses and more than re- trieved their losses. Financial panics, the result of overwrought specula- tions, have in a day worse than beggared multitudes of the wealthiest. No longer ago than the loth of May, 1872, there came a sudden crisis, crushing house after house, supposed to be, and which were, among the very strongest. Scarcely any investment escaped ; the hard-earned savings of the daily laborer, and the princely fortune of the specu- lator were swept away together by the one common flood. Up to noon on that " Black Friday," stocks depreciated 47 million dollars. And yet no one sits down to cry. There is no time for it. Before the waters have fairly assuaged or the fires cooled, they begin laying the founda- tions afresh — "organizing victory out of defeat." It, beyond all other cities in the New World, abounds in the " ups and downs " of life. While I was there, an educated Russian of aristocratic connections at home, un- able to obtain employment and ashamed to beg, rather than steal or starve drowned himself. A few years ago, a cabin boy on the Mississippi, born to better things as he believed, followed his star westward. To-day he is one of the heaviest stock speculators and real estate owners in the city ; is building a palatial resi- dence ; owns an extensive ranche — stocked with horses and cattle of the rarest breed j keeps there, as he pur- 112 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. poses to do in his city palace when completed, open house ; and is the popular President of the Gold Bank of California. Proud of his country, as all Californians are, he takes special delight in entertaining Easterners and Europeans, showing them on his own estate the wonder- ful resources of the land. He built a splendid road from the city to his country residence ; and every afternoon at the close of banking hours drives out to it a coach and four, carrying from ten to thirty guests, followed some- times by additional carriages containing others. By hav- ing in readiness relays of horses, he makes the distance in railroad time. The Inspector of Banks, the Honorable N. P. Lang- ford — to whom I fortunately had letters of introduction — and others who had shared his hospitality, gave me the most glowing accounts of its costly magnificence. This princely entertainment has given rise to frequent rumours that the bank of which he is president voted him, as a mere financial speculation, $150,000 annually for pur- poses of hospitality. Though the charge remains un- proven, one thing is generally conceded — the strongest Bank in the West owes not a little of its increase to the scatterings of its chief. With the public generally he bears the name of high- toned integrity in business relationships. One day there came into the bank a man whom the President knew to be guilty of some gross outrage against business usages ; coming from behind the counter he forced the offender SAN FRANCISCO. II3 upon a stool ; then stepping to the door and calling in the passers-by he exposed his misdeeds, denounced him as utterly unprincipled, and capped the climax by kick- ing him into the street. He went forth as if bearing the brand of Cain, shunned by everyone. ' The punishment was sore, as sentence was summary and speedily executed. His business was ruined. No one who cared for his credit would have dealings with a man whom the Gold Bank of California had kicked out of its doors. How startHng and melancholy! Since writing the above, and on the eve of sending it to press, the Conti- nent is thrilled with the message — The Bank of California has failed — Ralston, the President, has been guilty of the wildest speculation in its stocks — his defalcation amounts to millions — he is dead — drowned whilst bathing — accident or suicide. A few weeks ago a foremost man in public enterprise, considered a model of integrity and success, courted and flattered on every hand ; to-day bankrupt in principle and property, guilty of the grossest abuse of millions of money entrusted to his care — dead — whilst over his " cast-out " name hangs a dread cloud — did he or did he not die a self- murderer ? San Francisco is situated on the east side of the north end of a peninsula seven miles wide, running up between the bay and ocean. On the highest elevation of the land's end called Point Lobos, is a telegraph station, from which is announced the arrival of ocean steamers as soon 114 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. as they appear in sight. Across the channel three and a half miles to the north is Point Bonita, on which rises a lighthouse of invaluable service on this broken coast. The extremes of the two peninsulas, directly opposite each other, are called Lime Point and Fort Point. Be- tween these is the entrance to the harbor, the famous Golden Gate which, according to Indian tradition, is an opening in the Coast Range, occasioned by an earthquake which convulsed the Continent centuries ago. The name "Golden Gate" was not given because of the precious metal, as it bore the name prior to the discovery of gold ; but because of the fertiUty of the land to which the open- ing led. The channel is a mile wide, thirty feet deep, with a flow and ebb about six knots an hour, and is usually fretful and stormy. Neptune sits in the gap ex- acting tribute from many a one whom he lets go free out upon the Pacific. Stretching across its mouth is a sand bar, not always safe in low water to vessels of heavy draught. The city is built on a series of sand-hills ; several of them, rising nearly 400 feet, overlook the magnificent harbor capable of accommodating the combined shipping of the world. The ascent of the hills is sometimes tire- some, but the climber is amply compensated by variety of location, the most commanding views, and what is of far greater worth in a crowded city, an unlimited supply of the purest air. Street cars run through the chief thorough- fares, and sometimes up the steepest hills. On one of SAN FRANCISCO. II5 these hills the car connected with underground chains and pulleys is drawn up by a stationary steam engine at the top. It worked smoothly and seemingly to the satisfac- tion of everybody, especially the horses. The streets are usually paved or planked ; still a great annoyance is the fine red sand abounding everywhere' and always on the move when the wind is abroad, and it is usually able to be up and stirring in San Francisco. Boreas, a late riser and late in retiring, begins to blow through the Golden Gate towards noon, increasing in vigor till long into night. My first impressions of the climate of the city were anything but pleasant — the day being dark, damp and chilly. On my second visit it was even worse — foggy, drizzly, dismal — too warm for a fire and too cold to be without one. Within twenty-four hours of my arrival, I retreated a secondtime in disgust to the in- terior ; but a bright, warm sun shining in a sky of marvel- lous beauty greeted me on my third visit, and continued with slight variations to the end of my stay. I was quickly acclimated, and found the atmosphere not simply bearable, but extremely bracing. It may be too strong and cutting for throat and lung affeciions, but it acts like a charm on shattered nerves and lazy livers. Men restless and hastening to be rich, living a lottery life, drawing many blanks and few prizes, usually present a worn and wasted appearance; but here they are sprightly at fifty, full and fresh. The overflowing humor, the sparkling wit, the English faces, the well-preserved ap- Il6 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. pearance generally, is doubtless owing in part to the in- fusion of foreign blood, and also to the highly stimulating climate. I suppose there are few places in the world where, with- in an equal area, there is such a variety of climate as in California. On the western slopes of the coast range there are marked variations ; on the eastern, in the valleys, the air is soft and balmy ; on the Sierras it is clear and strong, but still different from the sea air of the coast ; whilst be- tween northern and southern California there are also marked variations. It is asserted that there is scarcely an ailment or temperament but can be suited somewhere in the State. The climate in San Francisco is very equable, seldom varying more than ten degrees the year round. Weather statistics from 1850 to 1872 showthat on the coldest day the thermometer fell to 25^, and on the warmest it rose to 98^ ; the average of winter is 50^ ; of summer, 57^, showing a mean difference of only 7 degrees Fahrenheit between sum- mer and winter. Snow seldom falls, and ice has to be brought from a distance. The winter climate of the Pacific Coast is as warm as that of the Atlantic 500 miles farther south. Why this difference ? It is supposed to be caused by warm currents from the Indian Ocean striking the coast of California and flowing northward — even as the atmosphere of the Atlantic coast is affected by the course of the Gulf Stream. The most delicate flowers grow exposed in the gardens SAN FkANClSCO. II7 all the year round. There is seldom a day in summer when it is too warm at mid-day ; and yet there are few days when you do not feel the need of fire or wraps during some portion of the day. " The oldest inhabitant cannot remember a night when blankets were not necessary for a comfortable sleep." The sea, holding in contempt Canute and his courtiers, usually encroaches on the land ; but San Francisco, like Chicago, has reversed the rule. Large portions of its busi- ness sections have been built where once ships of heavy tonnage used to ride at anchor. Years ago, when few men ever so much as dreamed of the city passing beyond a certain swampy spot bordering on the bay, J. Lick, Esq., seeing the golden possibilities buried in the bog, bought the waste for a small sum, and now lives to see it, with adjoining waters, closely covered by warehouses, and himself one of the wealthiest citizens. The buildings erected since the great fires are chiefly of brick, stone and iron ; still, as if forgetful of their fiery lessons, I found not a few of the finest structures, and of recent erection too, built of wood. To save from over- throw by earthquakes, they build low ; whilst this secures safety, it makes against superior style, giving the city — were it not for those hills — a squat appearance. Many of the buildings are very fine, the United States Mint, just completed, taking the lead, having cost one and a quarter million of dollars. The hotels come next. There are several first class, the Grand, for style, being at the head. Il8 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Directly opposite, in course of erection and to be run in connection with the Grand, is a hotel claiming to be, on completion, the finest in the world. The '• Friscans," bound to lead, spare no expense in carrying out their ambitious schemes. Whatever sins may lie at their door, penurious- ness is certainly not in the catalogue ; if they are wrecked it will rather be on the golden sands of extravagance. On their persons, as on their property, there is often the most lavish expenditure. The desire for precious stones has grown into a mania, and as for " Gold ! gold ! gold ! gold ! Bright and yellow, hard and cold, Molten, graven, hammered and rolled," it is everywhere — great cable chains, massive rings (and many of them exquisitely wrought), heavy-headed canes, and trinkets ad hifijiitum. As to refinement of taste in styles of dress there will ever be a diversity of opinion ; but as to richness of ma- terial, there is no room to question. Montgomery and Kearney Streets, both rivals of Broadway, present in dress and beauty as dazzling a sight as any sister city of the older East. The schools are their pride and boast. There are about a dozen daily papers, with a corresponding number of weeklies and monthlies. But the public libraries — the number and character of the books, the excellence of the management and the multitudes who resort to them — im- pressed me as one of the finest features of the city. I SAN FRANCISCO. 119 spent some time in the " Mechanics' " and the " Mer- chants'." The rooms were spacious and elegantly furnished. Intelligent, attentive librarians, and other officials, were always at hand. Light and airy, at night brilliantly lit up by gas, quiet and convenient — thoroughly comfortable — it is no wonder that they are attractive places, keeping many a one, it may be, from haunts of sin. I remembered with shame the shabby apartments and ill-stocked shelves of some of our Dominion Libraries. San Francisco is a city of Societies — some seeking to perpetuate their national peculiarities ; others, of a broader view, seeking to blend into one brotherhood the motley mass ; still others band- ing together against some foe or for some common good. There are Masons, Oddfellows, B'nai B'rith, American Protestant Associations, American Mechanics, Seven Wise Men, Knights of Pythias, Independent Red Men, Im- proved Red Men, Ancient Order of Knights, and doubt- less others of whose names I was not informed. Not a little attention is being paid to the Fine Arts. The beautiful skies and unsurpassed scenery of the Sierras and of the Pacific coast, with the charming val- leys lying between them, have given birth to painters who have already attained to considerable celebrity. Bierstadt and others are artists known to fame beyond their own land. What of morality ? How does the city compare with former years when " every man did that which was right in his own eyes ? " In the early days of the gold dis- I20 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. covery it was a common saying among those starting westward, " God doesn't hold a man responsible after he crosses the Missouri." Morals are much mended since then. A law has been lately passed in Healdsburg, in the northern part of the State, requiring the arrest of all boys under the age of sixteen years who are found on the streets at night, after nine o'clock in summer and eight o'clock in winter ; it is said to work admirably. Yet there are multitudes who act on the old maxim, "God will not require it." There are in the city twenty-eight Protestant, ten Roman Catholic, two Jewish and six Buddhist places of worship ; and yet I heard it stated before a crowded house, at the an- niversary of the Young Men's Christian Association, that only 40,000 out of a population of 200,000 ever put foot inside of a Christian church. On Sabbath mornings the congregations are generally good j in the evening it is difficult to sustain a service, the attendance being so small. The love of display, a spirit of speculation, a greed of gold, are the '' contrary winds " that cause the disciples of the Lord to " toil in rowing." Sabbath evening is high- harvest season with the theatres, operas and billiard saloons. I found the billiard rooms connected with the hotels thronged at this hour. Billiard tables are an insti- tution of the land, and they are used not simply for recreation but for gambling. They are to be found, large and costly, even in the remote Yosemite, having been carried over the mountains, on the backs of mules, piece- meal. SAN FRANCISCO. 121 Law and order prevail generally ; still, stabbing and shooting on private account are not altogether of the past. In the vestibule of the hotel where I spent one night — then changed quarters — a lady shot a prominent physician : cause, " unrequited aifection,'' said the papers. On the return voyage I made the acquaintance of certain New Yorkers who were returning after several years' residence in San Francisco. They gave a dismal account of its social and religious life. One lady, origin- ally from Montreal, accompanied by two clever daughters in their teens, was fleeing, she assured me, from the moral contagion, seeking the purer atmosphere of the east in which to educate her family. The demoralizing custom of breaking up home and living in hotels, which obtains so largely in the eastern States, is carried even further here. The best hotels are, to a large extent, filled by " Friscan " families. Others, usually not so well to do, take rooms in lodging-houses and go to restaurants for meals ; this city, beyond all other American ones, abounding in these two classes of houses. The latter plan is decidedly the cheapest mode of living, especially for visitors ; but for residents it is far from help- ful to home life. At my first visit I went to a hotel, pay- ing $3 per day, the uniform rate at all the first-class houses ; but on my last visit I took rooms — a parlor and bedroom, both well furnished, including gas — in a central part of the city, paying only $i per day. One can get, on every hand an excellent meal for 25 cents — quite a saving I 122 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. even on the low rates of the hotels, besides giving increased comfort and better opportunities for sight-seeing. You start out in the morning, and take your meals wher- ever the hour or hunger finds you. Are these details infra dig. ? My apology is, if you ever visit San Francisco, unless of plethoric purse, you may find it profitable to your pocket to remember what is written. Greenbacks receive little honor in this land of gold. When first issued, California refused to receive them as currency, standing stoutly by the gold basis. The Gold Bank of CaHfornia, with a capital of five million dollars, is the proud symbol of their polity and independence. The Bank has issued gold notes which, among them- selves, are equal in value to the gold itself ; they are a great convenience within the State, but strangers, on departing, will do well to leave them behind ; they will be held outside of California as greenbacks are inside — at a discount. I narrowly escaped an unpleasant alterca- tion regarding them on settling a hotel bill. Handing the clerk a double eagle, he tendered change in " notes," which I refused. He blusteringly called on the crowd to testify to their worth " all the world over," which they promptly did. Californians stand up for their country and institutions with a fiery zeal that is not always tem- pered with knowledge. Of course, when they consider only their own gain, they strive to get these notes out of the country, most pleased to think they shall see them no SAN FRANCISCO. 123 more. Having, however, carefully informed myself be- forehand as to the facts, I demanded the gold and got it. There is neither "cent " nor " shin- plaster " in the State — the five cent silver piece being the smallest, and very few of them. A " bit" is twelve and a half cents, but as there are very few of these, a " short bit," ten cents, is the smallest money in plentiful circulation. Fifteen cents are a *' long bit." If the purchase is but a pennyworth, you must pay five or ten cents for it ; if it amounts to eleven cents you are expected to pay the " long bit," fifteen cents j if only ten cents are offered, it is counted " short," and your- self " small." Some people praise the " horn of plenty " only when the big end is towards themselves. San Francisco, like Liverpool, rests its hopes of great- ness chiefly on its commercial connections. To say noth- ing of the wealth to which she is the outlet, that to which she is the inlet, from Alaska to Patagonia, from the Islands of the Pacific, from Asiatic and even European shores, is enormous. When the country was ceded to the United States in 1848, scarcely one ship a year passed through the Golden Gate. Through all the sleeping years of Spanish rule, and Mexican too, the waters of that splendid harbor were unploughed. Now they are never sufiered to settle. Besides the hundreds of sailing craft of every description, plying to all parts, there are dozens of first-class steamers connecting regularly with the principal points on the coasts of North and South America, with the Sandwich Islands, 124 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. New Zealand, Australia, China and Japan. In passing through the Golden Gate T counted thirty-three vessels, all in sight at the same time, either entering or leaving the harbor's mouth. The mild and equable climate ; the agricultural resources of the State ; the cosmopolitan character of the citizens, drawing to her the sympathies of all nations ; the emi- nently American spirit, far-seeing and active ; above all, the commanding commercial position — the trans-conti- nental railroad and ocean connections giving her, Janus- like, to look both ways — combine to make San Francisco one of the world's great cities. " Serene, indifferent to Hate, Thou sittest at the Western Gate ; Upon the heights so lately won Still slant the banners of the sun. Thou seest the white seas strike their tents, O warden of two Continents ; And, scornful of the peace that flies Thy angry waves and sullen skies, Thou d rawest all things small and great To thee beside the Western Gate." t CHAPTER X. THE CHILDREN'S CHAPTER. iAYARD TAYLOR, the great traveller, says that when a boy he had a strong de- sire to see the world. He could not travel, but he could climb. So, full of Yankee ingenuity and daring, he managed to get on the top of the house, seated himself astride the ridge of the roof, and looked and looked, wondering how big the world was ! I find that boys, and girls too, are mostly aUke the world over, in wanting to climb on the tops of the houses, and over their fathers' fences into their neighbors' fields ; they want to see farther than the old farm and the old school-house. To all such I give a hearty invitation to come with me across the Continent to San Francisco. I promise you plenty of wonders, and 126 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. perfect safety from savages, smash-ups, shipwrecks and sea- sickness. How are we to get there ? I remember reading long years ago about a Persian carpet that had the wonderful power of carrying those who sat upon it wherever they wished in the twinkling of an eye. When dragging along a muddy road, or waiting up all hours of the night for trains behind time ; when stuck in a snow drift, with plenty of frost and little food ; or worse, when far from land, driven with the wind and tossed, sick — oh ! so sea-sick, how often I have thought of this pretty story and wished it were true, and that I had the carpet. That was an idle tale told to amuse the evening hours of an eastern king in olden times ; but this is a truth — God has put within us a power more wonderful still, something that outflies the winged winds and the darting lightnings ; something that is never seen, never heard, and never dies — the power of thought. Come with me in thought, and I will show you some of the sights in the greatest city on the Pacific coast, between Alaska on the north and Patagonia on the south. First, we will pay a visit to Woodward's Gardens, in the western outskirts of the city. Mr. Woodward, after whom the Gardens are named, had a refined taste and a large fortune with which to gratify it. He resolved to build himself a beautiful home, and furnish it with paint- ings, sculpture, flowers, plants, trees, birds, beasts, fishes ; in fine, with everything curious or beautiful that he could THE CHILDREN S CHAPTER. I27 gather in any part of the world. In i860 five acres of land were enclosed and laid out, artificial lakes formed, fountains opened, grottoes dug out, and a great deal more done, making it a most charming spot. The people, proud of the place and longing to enjoy its delights, plead with the owner to open it to the public. No, he never would. But the Great American War opened the gates — that blood-gorged lion which devoured so many, not only slew slavery, but, in God's wonderful providence, yields many a sweet beside. The groans of bleeding soldiers, and the cries of the orphan and widow, were the magic " sesame" at whose utterance the door to the hidden trea- sure flew wide open. Money must be had. The Sani- tary Fund — that noble scheme for helping both body and soul of the sick and wounded — was low and the needy were increased. To help this fund the Gardens were opened, all the entrance fees going into its coffers. The income was princely. Multitudes visited the place — some for their own pleasure, others more to help the suffering. The war ended, but the Gardens were never closed. By the payment of twenty-five cents — children I think half- price — one can spend all day in them, and get ten times the worth of his money. Now we'll start; but you had better bring along the lunch basket, for I intend to keep you in the Gardens until you are pretty hungry. A half hour's ride in the street cars brings us right to the gates. Don't be afraid ; those bears sitting on their haunches by the gates are like 128 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. a great many others that frighten big as well as little folks — only bugbears, made of wood. Is it not a pretty place ? Green grass, beautiful flowers, carefully-trimmed shrubbery, shady trees, lovely little lakes, playing foun- tains sending up a stream that spreads and gracefully curves like a snowy dome falling in silvery showers on flowers and grassy lawns, rockeries covered with flowering vines and mossy tufts, little hills crowned with some new beauty, quiet dells cool and shady, here and there in cozy corners rustic seats inviting the weary, with many a well- swept walk winding "In and out and round about." These are some of the charms that meet the eye on en- tering. Directly before us is the Museum ; we enter through the jaws of a whale ! They stand on end-arching over the entrance from fifteen to twenty feet high. Just inside the entrance is the disagreeable dopr-keeper — a huge alligator ! If he were alive, either he or I would not be there ; but as his skin is stuffed with straw, we shall not take to our heels. I saw hundreds of these ugly creatures in Florida ; the swamps and rivers swarm with them. They greatly enjoy a dinner of dog when they can get it. At Palatka, on the St. John's river, an old dog used to go several times a day down to the water's edge, and walk to the farthest end of a little bridge that ran out over the river for some distance ; then, seating himself, as the manner of dogs is, THE CHILDREN S CHAPTER. 1 29 he would bark up a lot of alligators, big and little ; when their ugly noses were sticking up all about him, sniffing the savory meal, he would quietly rise and trot back to the house. Next, in the Museum, is a case of snakes, some of them big enough to crush a buffalo ; but having a great dislike to all serpents, dead or alive, we hasten away, gratefully remembering the precious promise given in the garden of old — " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." What a big bear — and white too, white as snow from nose to tail ! He is nine feet long, with legs as big as the body of a small boy ; would be an " ugly customer " at close quarters — one hug would squeeze all the breath out of your body. If the two bears that came forth out of the wood and tare forty and two children who mocked God's prophet, had claws and teeth anything like this monster, I can easily believe what the Bible says about them. This one was shot swimming, twenty-five miles from shore, towards the St. Lawrence Island, in the Northern Sea. What odd-looking animals are these armadilloes from South America ! They are clad in coat of mail ; from nose to tail they are covered with scales about the size of a cent, closely overlapping each other. This is their defence. God, who is good to all, has given even the meanest of His creatures some power of self-protection : the bee has its sting, the bird beak and talon, the turtle a shell, the pole-cat its scent-bag, the cuttle-fish its ink-pot from which it blackens the waters before its pursuers. 1^0 TEN THOUSAND MILES BV LAND AND SEA. What Strange sheep, having five horns — two crooking back behind the ears, two crooking forward before the ears, and one, coming out of the centre of the forehead, makes a graceful curve and grows into the nose ! There are hundreds of stuffed birds, but one of the strangest and most beautiful is the flamingo, from Africa. It is made with long legs, like a crane's, for wading in the water ; web-footed like a duck, to keep it from sinking in the soft mud, and with a big pouchy bill on a long swan-like neck, that it may dive deep after food ; its color is pure white, except the wings, which are delicately tinged with pink. We have not seen the half, but we must hasten away. From a large round building on a rising ground there come shouts of laughter. " What is going on inside. Sir ? " I asked of a man working near. "Skating." " What ! is this a skating rink ? " " Yes." " May we go in ? " " O ! yes ; anybody can go in." So in we go, full of wonder — no snow, no ice, even in winter, and yet skating in summer ! Yes ; with wooden skates on wooden floors. Instead of the usual steel run- ners, under the foot are four small wooden wheels. The floor, worn slippery as ice, often brings down both "house" and beginner. Some nice young men, with THE CHILDREN S CHAPTER. I31 exquisite kids, and tight trousers come down with very- heavy falls and rise with very red faces. This kind of skating has two great advantages — the skater is never in danger of freezing or drowning. Under the same roof with the rink is a restaurant, where, if you have not brought the lunch-basket along, refreshments may be had at very reasonable rates. Under the same wide-spreading roof is a large hall in which con- certs and other performances are held, often on Sabbath evenings. This is one of the wicked things in Wood- ward's Gardens. In fact, there are few gardens into which the devil does not get. Now we will visit the aviary ; here are real live birds, some silent, some singing, and a few screeching, chatter- ing or croaking. You will not soon forget these macaws, a species of parrot from South America, pretty, but mis- chievous as monkeys ; with their horny, hooked bills, they soon pick a hole through their wooden cage, unless it is lined with zinc. The prettiest of all the parrots, to my mind, is the sulphur-crested from Australia ; it is snow- white — all except a sulphur-colored tuft springing out of the back part of the head, the tip curving gracefully to- wards the bill. This tuft is fan-shaped, opening and shutting as the parrot pleases. The silver and golden pheasants are also exceedingly pretty. The mandarin duck from China, a small, quiet creature, is so gorgeously colored, with the lines so distinctly drawn, that it looks 132 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. more like a brilliantly painted piece of carved wood than a living bird. Ah ! here is the Happy Family. They have a comfort- able home in a lofty well-lit cage, its floor the soft sand, with a fountain playing in the centre. There are "many birds of many kinds," Guinea pigs, turtles, a small alliga- tor and a snake. The turtles are burrowing in the sand or straddling awkwardly over it, as if on stilts. The alli- gator and birds are on the best of terms, a dove standing nearly all its time perched on the back of its scaly friend. He is stretched sprawling on the sand pretending to be asleep, but is only making believe ; I can see him slyly peeping from a narrow opening between his eyelids at his playful visitor's pecking at his skin. A wee Guinea pig, his tail towards the alligator's nose, is hiding his head be- tween two big brothers, and shivering as if he feared being eaten. The snake is lying by the fountain, a part of his body in the water and part on the sand ; now and then he raises his head and runs out a forked tongue. Perhaps it is his way of showing that he, too, is happy. Well, it is a fine sight, and foreshadows the good time coming when " the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed ; their young ones shall lie down together ; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall T^33 put its hand on the cocatrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain ; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Passing on, we soon enter a grotto, partly built up, and partly dug out of the hill-side. It is cool and shady, well supplied with little round tables and seats, all made of rustic-work strongly fastened together. This is a delightful spot in which to rest awhile and take our lunch. Close by, and elsewhere throughout the grounds, are drink- ing fountains, to which a metal cup is attached by a small chain. Continuing our way we enter a second grotto, smaller and darker than the first. At the far end, shut in by a wire screen, are several owls of different species, all looking wondrous wise out of their great big round eyes. The most singular is that one with a couple of feathery tufts springing straight up out of the head, and giving him quite a dignified as well as wise look ; he is called the horned owl. The wee one of all, like the runt pig of a litter, keeps up a constant squeaking,. as if his life depend- ed on his making a noise. See yonder crowd gathered about that little pond en- closed by a high fence ; they are looking at the sea lions. One old fellow, with a half human look, is furious, plung- ing about, and roaring like a bull. See ! here he comes straight towards the crowd, eyes bloodshot and glaring ; rising suddenly out of the water he springs against the fence, scattering the crowd pell-mell and screaming in all 134 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. directions. The old lion has been so teased by visitors that he has grown bold and savage ; those great teeth would crunch a man's bones as if they were pipe stems. There is a law now against vexing them. Near by this pond, and under ground, a strong stone arch supporting the earth overhead, is the Aquarium. Here, indeed, is a beautiful sight. On each side of the walk, breast-high, are water tanks containing a great many kinds of fish common to both salt and fresh water — bass, flounders, turbot, cat-fish, speckled trout, salmon, etc. The side of the bank next to us is one piece of heavy plate glass, through which we can see every movement of the fish ; whilst through an opening directly over the water just enough light is let in to make the fish appear as they would were we all down in the waters of the sea. Leaving this interesting place, we just take a peep into the Picture Gallery, then step, for a moment only, inside of the Herbarium, where there are strange trees, and plants, and flowers from all countries, growing under a glass roof in furnace heat, that soon brings out great beads of sweat upon the brow. The gardener, who is trimming the trees, gives me a piece of the India-rubber tree, which I put in my pocket with thanks, and escape to cooler air. We now pass through a strong partition into the Zoolo- gical Gardens. Here there are no grass and fountains, only a sandy space with a Liberty pole in the centre ; whilst ranged round the outer edge, against high and strong enclosures are cages containing wild beasts. THE CHILDREN S CHAPTER. 135 From this spot, only the Sabbath before our visit, a godless German went up in a balloon, was blown against the rocks not far off, and all but killed ; it was beHeved he would die. Men who break God's day will be broken themselves. On one side of the grounds are stalls opening into small open yards, where the quieter animals are kept. Here are buffaloes, their powerful fore-quarters covered with long shaggy hair, small bright eyes glistening down in the depths, short stubby horns just showing their tips, and a pate so hard that a leaden bullet flattens harmlessly against it. In the next stall is a huge elephant, with dark, dirty, hairless hide, great round ungainly feet, ears big as a shoemaker's apron, flapping about, large shining tusks of ivory, and between them the long, writh- ing, rubbery trunk, with which he is gathering up wisps of straw and thrusting them into his mouth ; with this trunk he both feeds himself and fights. This biggest of living brutes has a very small eye, but it is very full of intelli- gence. Now and then he utters a rough, rumbling roar. Next to him, again, is the ungainly but useful camel — meek, patient, enduring. Some have a hump on the back before, some behind, and some in the middle, whilst others have one before and another behind, with a hollow between. I think if I were crossing the desert on one I should choose the last ; the saddle would fit nicely in the hollow, and there would be no danger of slipping off. flere also is the sacred cow of the Hindoos ; she too 136 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. has a hump on the back, just behind the shoulders. She is quietly chewing the cud like common cows, wears a meek barn-yard look, and seems as if she might make a good milker and nothing more. Passing on to the cages, we come to a pretty one look- ing like a summer-house, standing by itself on the sand. It has several apartments containing a variety of the smaller animals, two kinds specially taking our fancy — the funny little prairie dogs and a lot of grinning mon- keys — all rooming together ; they are ill-assorted chums, the monkeys leading the dogs a hard life. The little fel- lows, industrious as on their native prairies, are digging holes in the sand, which fill-up again as fast as dug; still the exercise keeps them healthy and fat. Do see that monkey ! Without any provocation, with no offence calling for chastisement — a piece of sheer wickedness on his part — he swings himself down by the tail, and gives the unsuspecting little digger a cuff on the side of the head that stretches him dead on the sand ! No, not dead, but lying as still as if he were, and slyly watching the movements of the monkey. I suspect he is shamming, that he may escape his tormentor. These dogs, like the conies, are a " feeble folk," but exceeding wise. Let us have a good look at this Californian vulture, the largest bird of prey in North America, and next to the condor of the Andes, in South America, the largest bird that flies in the world. The length of this one is four feet, and its breadth between the tips of the outspread wings, THE CHILDREN S CHAPTER. 137 ten feet. It is a bold, powerful bird. One swooped down upon a good-sized calf in the midst of the herd, carried it up twenty feet, and then dropped it badly hurt ; the terrified boy tending the herd, waiting to see no more, took to his heels. You have heard of the terrible grizzlies, the biggest of bears ; I might have showed you in the Museum a stuffed baby grizzly about the size of a sucking pig ; but look at this huge fellow before us, four feet high, seven feet long, and weighing 2,000 lbs. He is a great big, clumsy, awk- ward, shuffling creature ; but let him have his liberty and he will- run nearly as fast as a horse. It is hard to kill them unless the bullet hits back of the shoulder about the heart. Hunters and miners would rather meet any other beast than a grizzly. When I was among the mountains, a man who had been living there for twenty years told me that a miner started out in the morning with pick and pan to look for gold ; not returning for two or three days, his friends formed a party of search ; they found him dead under a pile of leaves and brush. After a careful exami- nation of the spot they arrived at these facts : searching for gold up a gulch, he crawled on his hands and knees under some chapparal — tangled thorny brush — which pre- vented him seeing danger until he came suddenly on a bear's den containing a grizzly and cubs ; having killed him, she dragged the body away some distance and covered it over as it was found. Continuing our way along the cages, we pass badgers, J 138 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. wolves, Opossums, ant-eaters, black, red, white and silver foxes, panthers, Californian, Asiatic and African lions, with a great many other animals which we cannot stay to de- scribe. One more cage, however, and we will say good- bye to the Gardens. It contains the Unhappy Family. In it are a cat, a '*' coon," a pig, and a lot of the most mischiev- ous of monkeys. The cat and ^coon are a match for the monkeys, so they are left in peace ; but the poor pig has no rest ; not a minute but some monkey is playing pranks on him. It is pork in purgatory. They pluck out his hair, whole paw-fulls at a pull ; the pig squeals, the mon- keys wink, make faces, dance around their victim, and — pull again. The tormented porker raises himself half up on his fore-feet, and sleepily looks around for a quieter corner ; pulling away more vigorously than ever, the tor- mentors soon succeed in getting him fully up — ^just what they wanted from the start ; in the twinkling of an eye every monkey is down upon him, one sitting between his ears face forward, another sitting on his rump face back- ward, and holding on to the tail, whilst his back and sides are swarming with as many as can stick, some solemn, some grinning — all having a jolly good ride ! We pity the pig, and cry out against the cruelty ; and yet, at the same time, he is so fat and flourishing we cannot help laughing till our sides are sore and the tears running down our face. Now we will return to the city and get a good night's rest. Early the next morning, before the winds are up to THE children's CHAPTER. 130 blind us with clouds of sand, we are off to the Cliff House, the favorite resort of the " Friscans," on the sea-ward side of the peninsula overlooking the Grand Pacific Ocean. '* The sea ! the sea ! its lonely shore ; Its billows crested white ; The clouds which flit its bosom o'er, Or sunbeams d^^ncing bright ; The breakers bursting on the strand, In thunder to the ear ; The frowning cliff, the silvery sand — Each, all, to me are dear." A ride of two-and-a-half miles on the street cars brings us to Lone Mountain, on whose top is planted a huge cross, seen far out at sea. From the mountain is to be had one of the best views of San Francisco and its sur- roundings. Here we connect with busses starting every half-hour — if they carry out their advertised arrangements, which they do not always do — for the beach, four-and-a- miles farther on. The broad road, smooth and firm as a floor, runs over rolling ground, their heights giving us glimpses of the Golden Gate off to the right, with the lovely mountains rising beyond ; on our left are several cemeteries — Protestant, Roman Catholic and Chinese. All around us are now barren sandhills, but ere long this desert will blossom as the rose ; the entire drive from the city to the sea will be through the charming villas of^ wealthy citizens. Spinning along the smoothest of roads, stirred by the novelties of surroundings, stimulated by the strong sea air, I40 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. fairly trembling with delight and expectation, it is hard to keep down a shout as we rise to the top of the last hill, and there bursts upon us the grandest of oceans ! But a hush comes over us as we look upon it sleeping in the morn- ing sun, its heaving bosom studded with shining sails, beating softly against the bluffs, or sobbing on the sands over some unforgotten storm-sorrow ; ever glorious, power- ful as pacific, it stretches away and away until its waves surge and sing along the shores whence came the human race, civilization and Christianity. With mingled emotions and tumultuous thoughts we dash down the hill and rein up before the Cliff House. Hastening through the hall, we are soon standing on the spacious piazza overhanging the sea. Oh ! it is a thrill- ing hour. But hark ! a strange sound comes across the waters ; it is unlike the gurgling, sucking sound of the sea running in and out among the rocks under our feet ; it is the voice of the sea-lions. Directly out from us, a gun-shot off, are the celebrated seal rocks. There are several of them, naked, rugged, steep — rising from fifty to a hundred feet. They are the property and resort of a vast number of sea-lions. It is a strange sight, those denizens of the deep gathering here daily under the eyes of men closely watching them, and yet as indifferent to their presence as if the world were all their own. This is doubtless owing to great natural courage and freedom from molestation — the laws protecting them from all disturbance under heavy penalties. They are buff, brown and greyj some are THE CHILDREN S CHAPTER. 14I small, others large — one, a scarred veteran, ugly and over- bearing, has been christened by Southerners, Ben Butler ; he is not less than nine feet long, and will weigh between two and three thousand pounds. Another large one, sleek and peaceable, is called Sumner, after the accom- plished slavery-hating Senator from Massachusetts. The sea elephant sometimes, though seldom, seen on these shores, is a very leviathan of the deep, measuring eighteen feet in length and weighing 5,000 pounds ; it yields as much as 180 gallons of oil. The lions that we see on these rocks come in May and stay until November, disappearing during winter no one knows where. They spend their summer here very much as do visitors to the sea-side — eating, sleeping, swimming, climbing the rocks, sunning themselves, making a good deal of noise, with some crowding, bickering and back- biting. They are wonderful climbers. These slimy creatures, with never a foot but fins, will squirm and wriggle them- selves up slippery steeps which no boy, not even Jack the Giant Killer, could climb. They are sleeping and sun- ning themselves all over the rocks, one huge fellow being stretched on the very summit. As you see, they are very fat, feeding on fish and fowl. Hundreds of the latter, especially gulls, are always about, some on the water, some on the wing and others on the rocks — when they can get leave and room. The seals are as cunning at catching the gulls as the fox that caught the goose by 142 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. swimming out among the flock under cover of a piece of moss. When they see a gull in the water, they dive deep and swim beneath the unsuspecting bird ; then, darting straight up, they seize the legs, dragging the owner under. When they see one hovering over the water in search of food, they swim near the surface and break the water like a fish. If the water is rough, the gull, unable to detect the trick, swoops down to catch the fish, and catches — *'a tartar." CHAPTER XI. THE CHINESE. HE Chinese, like the Argonauts of old, left their land and crossed the seas in quest of the Golden Fleece. The discovery of gold in California was the Magnetic Mountain that first drew John from his native shores. Some come free and independent, to push their fortunes ; others, and ^ ^ the majority perhaps, come out under contract to large Chinese Companies who engage to give them a certain sum per month for a number of years, and then, on their arrival in California, farm out their labor at large profits to the Company. Though their remuneration is low — often less than $8 per month — and unprincipled speculators are rapidly enriched by the sweat of their brow, still, it is said they seldom break a contract. These Companies have in San Francisco a large 144 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. building where all those whom they bring out are lodged and fed until placed. They rendered invaluable service in building the Cen- tral Pacific Railroad; 10,000 were brought over and placed upon the line. It is questionable if the road had ever been built without them. There are still employed upon the road, keeping it in repair and otherwise engaged, 1,200 — a Chinaman and a half to every mile. For years their coming was bitterly denounced by certain classes in the community. Ready to go anywhere and to do anything, and with admirable success too, at unprece- dentedly low wages, their arrival was hailed with hope by employers, and with stones and curses by the laboring classes. John often had to board up his windows to keep out the cobble stones, whilst his employers were assassinated. So wide-spread and influential did the Chinese question become, that political candidates for office would harangue against the new-comers on the hust- ings, but in private frankly confess it was a piece of necessary demagogueism to secure election ; the Chinese were really needed for the development of the country. Disability laws directed against them were passed, partly to appease popular clamor, and partly as a precau- tion against the strange untried population pouring into their midst. A treaty formed with China gave them the right of coming to this country, of living here and engaging in business, but denied them privileges of naturalization. They had no votes, could elect no officers, and could not THE CHINESE. 1 45 testify in a court of law. Restrictions, however, are being gradually removed, and additional privileges granted. San Francisco has abolished the system of Separate Schools, and opened all alike to American, Chinese, Indians and Negroes ; whilst already a Chinese young woman has applied for a position as teacher. Sa- cramento is following the example of her sister city. At first sometimes turbulent, they are now generally set- tling down into a peaceful, law-abiding element. Still, on every hand you will find their coming cursed, and their going rejoiced over. While I was in San Francisco one of the public papers endorsed as " an admirable address" the following utter- ances of a Jesuit priest in a Romish church :— " I say, if they (the Chinese) should ever become domiciled in our country, your posterity will be doomed to a miserable fate, against which it will be useless for them to struggle, for it will not have power to resist it ; and bitter, aye, bit- ter will be the curses on your memory when you are gone, for the legacy which you have left to it." These things have created in the Chinese who have come to the United States, an intense hatred towards the Americans. Many of them have the idea that the " Melican man," not the Jews, crucified Christ ; and when John is angered by them he is not slow to cast it in their teeth. In spite of all opposition, John comes and stays. Chinese character is not easily turned from its purpose. Whether the aim is high or low, it plods and waits and 146 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. wins ; whilst hundreds of others, boasting their own supe- riority, and sneering at the snail, miss the goal. There are in San Francisco alone 25,000 Chinese, whilst double that number are scattered over the State from the coast to the summit of the Sierras. I found them in the Yosemite. *' They number one quarter of the male adults of California, and are flocking into the State faster than ever.'' A steamer arrived while I was there, bringing 500 ; sometimes a single vessel brings 1,000. Within the month in which I write nearly 5,000 arrived. There is room for three millions in California ; but they are not confining themselves to the Golden State, they are rapidly spreading themselves over the adjoining States and Territories, and even across the Continent. A good idea of their industry and success may be gathered from the fact that the Chinese in the mines dig six million dollars annually, being one-third of the entire gold yield of the State. And this six million is rarely the result of any great "find," but often the reward of deserted washings washed over for the twentieth time. I often found John panning away in places which had been gone over as far back as '49 ; and yet, again and again he would gather from this refuse a bigger " pile " at the year's end than many a miner less plodding and painstaking would gather from far richer diggings. John is a " jack of all trades." In the city, as will hereafter be seen, he is variously engaged ; in the country you will find him in the vineyards, tending the flocks and THE CHINESE. I47 herds, driving team, tilling the soil, digging ditches, build- ing roads, in the kitchen, in the laundry giving new gloss to old linen, waiting at the table, doing duty as chamber- maid ; in fine, he has made himself necessary and accept- able in every department of service. The Chinese are imitators rather than originators ; their power of imitation is proverbial. They take your photograph away and, in a very short time return with your portrait in oil admirably executed — if you will excuse a certain mechanical stiffness, the usual characteristic of imitators. A lady of Macao sat to a Chinese artist for her portrait. As the work proceeded she grew more and more dissatis- fied with its lack of pleasing expression. " Suppose," said the artist, " you smile a little, he look better." " He " didn't smile, only frowned the darker — all of which was scrupulously transferred to the canvas. When the por- trait was finished the lady's indignation knew no bounds ; whilst the exasperated artist cried out — " If handsome face no got, how handsome face can make ? " A housewife in Vancouver, teaching her Chinese cook to make a pudding, found that the third egg she broke was bad, and threw it away. The cook had learned his lesson only too well — he faithfully threw every third egg away, good or bad. Some one tells of a traveller giving to a Chinese tailor an order for twelve pairs of nankin pants, leaving with him, at the same time, for a pattern, an old pair with a 148 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. patch on the knee ; the order was faithfully executed and the pants delivered on board ship, every pair with a patch on the knee. I do not know very much about their habits of inter- course among themselves ; but in their dealings with the whites they are usually quiet and good-natured. They have a school-boy fondness for knives, which are their chief methods of defence ; they always carry one or two hidden away under their blouse. They never fight with their fists, but sometimes scratch, leaving behind ugly wounds with their bird-claw nails. As the United States Government places no restriction upon their use of opium, they give themselves up very generally to the destructive indulgence. Large quanti- ties of it are smuggled into the country. Smoking is the favorite method of using it. The pipe is a bamboo stick perhaps two feet long; two-thirds of the way down the stem from the mouth-piece is fixed a small china bowl, into which is placed a very small quantity of opium, which is smoked out in half a minute. Opium dens abound in San Francisco. Arranged along the sides of the rooms are tiers of shelves, on which the smokers are stowed side by side, two or three on a shelf, and supplied with opium-charged pipes, when they give themselves up to delicious sensations, dreams, drunkenness and deli- rium. It is a costly as well as ruinous indulgence, the price of opium being $18 per ounce. They never " take tobacco, snuff nor drams," but they THE CHINESE. 149 are a race of inveterate gamblers. The hard-earned, care- fully-hoarded gains are readily risked under the influence of this fascinating vice. Gambling dens, like those for opium-smoking, abound in San Francisco ; but the per- nicious practice is not confined to these places : every- where, whenever they get a moment's respite from labor, they resort to their favorite pursuit. . The great mass of those who come to this Continent are from the lowest classes, with very unsettled notions of the morals of meiim and tuum. They are such adepts at theft and concealment that it is exceedingly difficult for a detective to ferret them out unless one of themselves turn traitor. The Chief of the Water Police one day point- ed out to me a certain Ah Fook,whose piercing eye, and quick but cautious movements, at once marked him out as no ordinary man. '' That fellow," said the chief, " is the sharpest Chinaman in America. He renders us sometimes great service \ if he helps us we are pretty sure of working up any case we undertake ; but if he refuse, we may as well give it up." It is said that a peculiar custom prevails among them at the close of the year. The debtor on that day pays the largest per centage he can. On New Year's Day the creditor cancels the unpaid portion, embraces the debtor, and tells him he is free. Afterwards the debtor pays, if possible, the amount cancelled — not as an obligation, but as a matter of pride. Two or three hundred dollars is, to the most of them, 150 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. a fortune ; at all events a splendid start towards it. The height of their ambition in coming to America is to se- cure that sum and then return. Coming in large numbers, losing no time on their arrival, living cheaply — chiefly on fish and rice ; dressing as economically — their clothing, nankin breeches and cotton blouse ; spending the least possible outside of themselves, they thus manage to accu- mulate, in the aggregate, millions of money annually, and all this is carefully sent or carried back to China. This selfish sponge policy is one thing that tends to embitter the American mind against them, and it is a worthy cause of complaint. But there is another side to the question : they are faithful, efficient laborers in every department of industry ; they have reduced the price of labor to reason- able rates ; they are, in fine, absolutely necessary to the opening up of all the important interests of the country. As far as dollars and cents are concerned, Jonathan owes quite as much to John as John does to Jonathan. No Chinaman ever comes to stay ; if he did, it would imperil his hopes of heaven. If he die in a foreign land his bones must be carried back, and placed in the sepul- chre of his fathers. Hundreds do die here, but every steamer carries back their remains — the poor having returned to dust, the rich preserved by embalming. Their religion is chiefly Buddhism — the worship of Buddha, an image in human form. Practically a large THE CHINESE. I5I proportion of them are Atheists. They observe no Sabbath, and their temples are seldom attended except on fete days, and then but thinly. Having obtained this general information, we are quite prepared now for a visit to China-town, the Chinese quarters in the heart of San Francisco embracing Dupont, Cahfornia, and Jackson Streets, with their lanes and alleys. If you visit the place after night-fall, it will be well to secure the services of Policeman Woodruff, on Jackson Street, who has special charge of this section, and to whom all the " ins and outs " are well known. A douceur of two or three dollars will give him silent satisfaction, but five dollars will make him demonstrative. If you do not wish to penetrate into the vilest holes, dayHght will do, and the policeman's services may be dispensed with. You are perfectly safe during the day, and will see enough, it may be, to engross your attention during all the time you have to spend. Walking down Montgomery Street — the Broadway of San Francisco — to where California or Jackson Street in- tersects it, we turn to the left up the hill and, are at once in China-town. Leaving behind the firm of Nill & Finck, the last representatives of the English and German popu- lation, and, judging from the name, the last link connect- ing with the Celestials, we are introduced to Messrs. Kie Wo, Man Shing, Chong Fook Tong, Tung Kee, Yuen Hang, Yu Henn Choy, Quong Tuck, Man Wo, Tuck Wo, Sing Wo, Hung Wo Tong, Hung Yet, Quong 152 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Yek Chong, Hang Lung, and a host of other names equally elegant and euphonious. The place swarms with Celestials ; it is a very hive of industry, with, I should say, few drones. The shops are all open on Sunday as on Saturday ; there is no difference in the days except that business is brisker on the Lord's day than during the week. Thousands out at service, being freed on the Sabbath, gather here on that day which adds to the bustle and business. The eating saloons, opium dens, gambling hells and theatres do a specially good business on this day. You are struck, at the very outset, with the absence of women. There are not over one thousand Chinese women in America, and but few of these are wives. Many of the men are married, but they leave their wives in China. No respectable man would be willing to bring his wife into such a place as China-town. Fine-looking men are exceedingly rare, judging them either from a European stand-point, or comparing them with themselves. I saw only one in all the land who could fairly lay claim to noble looks. They are almost invariably undersized, of sallow complexion — not a pure olive — sunken features, flat-chested and lean. I saw but one man who approached six feet in height, and he was the very picture of misery — a wrecked opium eater. There is, at first sight, to the eye of a stranger, great uniformity in their appearance ; but, after a while, he can easily draw distinctions — some standing out in marked THE CHINESE. 1 53 individuality. They are not an undeveloped people — in some directions. They are, however, slow to leave off native habits and take on new. You seldom see them wearing an American dress. The usual habit is the loose nankin breeches of blue, enclosed at the knee in white hozen j a blouse of the same color and material as the breeches, or better, closely fitting round the neck and buttoned on one side, falling loosely down to the thighs ; and shoes of cloth uppers and wooden soles. Sometimes a greasy skull cap of cotton is worn bagging down be- hind, sometimes a shallow jaunty hat; but very often John goes about uncovered, yet most scrupulously protecting his pigtail, upon whose perpetuity and length his happiness hereafter is, in some mysterious way, sus- pended. Economical to miserliness, they crowd together in a disgusting state of dirt and disorder. Not an inch of space is lost. In the same cellar, opening out upon the street, it is not uncommon to see barbering, carpentering, cooking, confection making and other industries, all going on at the same time. Exposed in the open windows, and thickly strung about the doors, are sausages of unknown contents, fish and swine's flesh variously prepared, fowls' gizzards and livers, with innumerable ducks pressed flat as pancakes and preserved in oil. These are some of their merchandise which a stranger may recognise ; there are other articles of food of whose ingredients he can only conjecture. I desired to take one meal in a Chinese K 154 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. restaurant, but after a close inspection of dishes on exhi- bition, found myself lacking in both tooth and trust. Here is a first-class restaurant with balconies extending over the street. Profusely painted and gilded, it presents a gaudy, glittering front. It is thronged by men, with whom mingle a few painted, showily-dressed women. Whilst their diet is usually cheap and simple, the Chinese, nevertheless, pride themselves on being able to prepare the most recherche entertainments. Sea and land, regard- less of cost, are ransacked that their dishes — known to number over 300 at one banquet — may do honor to some distinguished guest. Black tea is used — never green. They have not yet accustomed themselves to the use of bread, but keep to rice, eating it with chop-sticks ; these they use with as much ease and effect as we our spoon and fork. They usually trade in companies numbering from three to ten — some of the firms embracing a large amount of wealth. One was pointed out to me of such high repu- tation that their cheque for $50,000 would be as readily cashed as that of any American merchant. They deal chiefly in silks, teas, rice, and various Chinese and Japanese wares. It is a rare treat, well repaying the time spent, to go through the establishment of one of the wealthier merchants. The ingenuity and patience evi- dent in the production of many things is truly marvel- lous. Fans of sandal wood, card cases of ivory, cabinets of inlaid woods exquisitely wrought, the most elegant THE CHINESE. ^55 lacquered wares, ornamental and useful, are some of the articles sought after by strangers as souvenirs to be borne to wondering eyes in far distant homes. Here are mag- nificent vases of delicately raised figures, fit to grace the rooms of royalty, ranging from $200 up to $800 per pair. The Chinese are slaves to superstition. A settlement of them in the southern part of the State had suffered severely from malaria. They send for their doctors from San Francisco, who come and prescribe, but their patients are nothing the better. They send for their priests ; they too come, but bring no relief. Finally they band together, subscribe $i,ooo to pay expenses, obtain a band of music, and four hundred of them turn out in procession, armed with banners, swords, knives and other insignia of war. In order to accomplish their purpose more effectually, they make hideous images and bear them aloft on poles ; they are determined to drive the devil out of their village or die in the attempt. Passing along the streets of China-town, I was struck with the number of whole roasted hogs hanging from hooks outside the door ; they were in good demand, the dealer, without taking the carcase down, separating a por- tion with a huge cleaver for his customer. These hogs had already rendered service out at the Chinese Cemetery in a barbecue, a religious ceremony consisting in ^^^Z;/^ the dead. Whole roast hogs, with rice and other dishes, are placed upon the graves, either for the refreshment of the departed or the propitiation of evil spirits ; after a 156 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. while they gather up their offering and eat it themselves. The Indians of the mountains often profited by this singu- lar custom during the building of the railroad ; from under cover they would watch the Chinese deposit their offer- ings on the graves of those who had died along the line ; at the first opportunity they would slip out and steal the sacrifice. I visited a Joss House in China-town. It is in an out-of- the-way place, with nothing in the externals to attract the eye. Ascending several flights of stairs of the commonest kind, we reach the room devoted to the god Joss. The idol is a huge carving of wood in human form, plentifully covered with paint and gilt. Besides this are several images, one especially noteworthy — a hideous figure — the Man kicked out of Heaven. The substance of their re- ligion, as here practised, is : there are two Spirits — the good and the l)ad ; the good cannot do harm, and the bad cannot do good, and may not, if propitiated, do harm. Hence they feed him well. Then, following certain tra- ditions and rules, they hope to dwell hereafter in peace and happiness. But even in heaven they are still on trial ; they must have a constant care lest they be kicked out, and become like the ugly figure set up in the Joss House for their warning. The room is profusely decorated with gaudy trappings and symbolical representations. On the floor and be- fore the idols are dishes of food and burning Joss-sticks, made of sandal wood or bamboo covered with odorife- THE CHINESE. 157 rous dust. The place is fragrant from the aromatic fumes. There are only two persons present besides myself — a caretaker (possibly a priest) and a common Chinaman. They pay little regard to their duty or the sanctity of the place ; as, if under the influence of opium, their hurried jabbering rises to angry altercation. In this nineteenth century of the Christian era, in the very heart of an avowedly Christian city, on this Christian continent, giving its millions annually for the conversion of Pagans in other lands ; — yes, in the very midst of Christian homes and Christian churches, rise heathen temples ! Idols are set up in the high places ; Ashtaroth is enthroned on Mount Zion, and looks down with haughty contempt on the deserted courts of the sanctuary. " O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance." What is to become of them ? Are they to be cast out or converted ? May not their coming to us be the solution of that pro- blem — How are the 400,000,000 of China to be Chris- tianized ? So serious are the obstructions within the Empire that missionary movements gain ground slowly. Is Providence overruling the love of money to the bring- ing of these "Gentiles to the light?" One hundred thousand are already scattered over this Continent, and still they come in increasing numbers. All these, and others who may come, are destined to return to their native land. Has God no higher purpose than the serving of mere material interests in this wonderful movement ? The Gospel, not gold, are the riches which He desires 158 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. this people shall carry back to China. California must Christianize the Chinese, or the Chinese will unchristianize California. CHAPTER XII. MINING. jHAT about the mines? Are there many mines now in California ? or is mining played out? are questions often asked. When Humboldt visited these shores in 1803, he ^ predicted the finding of gold. The traveller from the East, as he sweeps down the western slopes of the Sierras, sees for the first time, at Gold Run and other places, abundant evidence that the great savant was no false prophet. Sixty-eight miles from Sacramento, a little north of east, at Coloma, Eldorado County, on January 1 2th, 1848, gold was first discovered by one Mar- shall, in the mill-race of Capt. Sutter. Since then millions upon millions of the precious metal have been taken out, and deserted diggings are to be found all through the mining regions, and yet the gold yield is far l6o TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. from exhausted ; the annual yield of the State is about $18,000,000. Any day, waggons loaded with gold and silver may be seen in the streets of San Francisco. The City ships every month forty tons of silver and six tons of gold, all in bars. Mining is not played out, but some of the methods of mining are. The placer or surface method has had its day, except as carried on chiefly by the Chinese and Indians among the " slums '^ — the tail- ings of former washings. It is believed by many that in the far past — possibly in the pre-Adamite period — a mighty river flowed through the valleys, gathering to itself, by means of melting snows and heavy rains, rich deposits from the auriferous quartz of the Sierra Range. To obtain the gold found in these deposits surface diggings were instituted, the water often being brought long distances from the mountains for washing purposes. Until late years this was the general as well as the cheapest method of mining. But the bed of every brooklet and every river having been gone over again and again, the miners turned from the placer pro- cess to the hydraulic — a somewhat similar system, but on grander scale. Along the Sierras' base is a range of foot hills extending north and south a distance of 500 miles. In these, as in the ancient river bed, are found deposits of gold. Rib- bed by no continuous rocky ranges, only abounding in huge boulders imbedded in loose debris, they can be easily mined down by the hydraulic process. As the MINING. l6l Stream of water used for the purpose nears its des- tination, it is conducted through a wooden tunnel com- posed of stout staves bound together by iron bands ; from the wooden tunnel it is conveyed, with a fall of from thirty to three hundred feet, through a canvas duck hose, a volume of twenty inches, issuing finally from a brass or iron nozzle with terrific force against the mass to be undermined ; it does its work quickly and well. The operators need look sharply to themselves lest they be overtaken by the falling mass. Large sections have been levelled by this process and vast quantities of gold extracted. This is the method in operation at Gold Run, and other places, on the Central Pacific Railroad. Again there are the River Diggings. A dam is thrown across the river's course changing its channel ; then tap- ping the river above the dam to obtain the necessary supply of water, the miner washes the original river bed. Again there are the Dry Diggings. These are worked during the rainless season, from May to November, when all the smaller streams, and even rivers, are dried up. If the miner can succeed in bringing to his help a small supply of water, he will often during his six months' harvest reap rich returns. But all these methods of min- ing will soon have been processes of the past. The gold yield of the future must be from quartz mining. " The peak where burns the flush of morn, The glen in which a torrent rolled, The crater where the De'il was born, Are hemmed and stratified with gold ; 1 62 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. And e'en the quartz which bind the shore, Sweat out at times the precious ore." The foot-hills. and every yard of alluvial land contain- ing gold will soon have been sifted over and over ; but the mountains remain. True, quartz mining requires the largest capital, and often long patience, for the precious fruit of the rocks ; but, on the whole, in the hands of the experienced and patient, it is the safest and the most re- munerative of mining. Before closing this short chapter, it may not be unin- teresting to my readers if I take them on a tour to a decayed mining town. To save time and expense — for it is very expensive to a stranger and tourist in California — we will visit Mariposa on our way to the Big Trees and Yosemite. Mariposa, a half day's drive from Merced, on the railroad, is situated among the foot-hills of the Sierras. It is famous for being the Government grant to General Fremont, the man who, more than any other, first awakened an interest in this Western world. The location of the land was left to himself; but the dis- covery of gold greatly perplexed him in putting down the stakes. Several times it was asserted he had made his selection ; but the discovery of richer diggings outside his lines kept his grant, like Gulliver's island in the air, a shifting possession. Though the property has mostly passed from Fremont's hands into those of ^Eastern spe- culators, it is difficult to determine, even to this day, its exact location. MINING. 163 Evidences of decayed mining interests meet us miles before we reach Mariposa town. There is a quartz mine at Princeton, a town consisting chiefly of a few deserted dweUings and shops, with one inhabited tavern kept by a Sandwich Islander. Extensive works and great piles of refuse ore meet the eye, but no miners ; they left, not from any failure in the mines, but from failure in their pockets. Continuing our way we pass old surface diggings in which a celibate, solitary Irishman with pick and pan is leading a not altogether forlorn hope. A few days before he had found a nugget worth $167. As the foot-hills begin to rise into mountains we reach Mariposa, formerly and still the county town. All around us the ground has been worked over. In the suburbs we passed the place of one Devaney, who, like many another, had found a fortune in his potato patch. In the winter, when the streams were full, he changed the course of one down the mountain, directing it towards his acre ; in two months, from around his door, he took out $19,000, and was now hopefully waiting for the return of the rainy season to renew his operations. This, however, was but an oasis in the desert. Farther on, in the heart of the town, down in the almost dry bed of the river, we found a squad of Chinamen patiently going over " slums " that had been gone over before, no telling how many times ; and they were making it pay too — $4 to $7 per day. This was about the extent of mining in a 164 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. region once swarming with miners, and considered among the most productive portions of California. There still remained among the more striking buildings of the town a creditable number of neat churches, now little used ; a gaol empty and falling into ruins ; several brick shops with iron doors and shutters but, in spite of all, the fire fiend had entered some, and adversity others, leaving them the mocking memorials of the blasted hopes of better days. One shop, still occupied and very well stocked, had cost $10,000 ; but the proprietor assured me, if he wanted to sell, it would not fetch $500. One or two taverns seemed to be eking out a scanty subsis- tence through the custom of well-taxed tourists. A few idlers — quondam miners and speculators — too poor or too lazy to leave, were lounging around the tavern, waiting for something to turn up. The situation of Mariposa is charming. Flocks of sheep are feeding on the slopes even up to the very summits. The climate is delightful and salubrious — sickness of any kind scarcely known. The soil is eminently fertile to the highest points, and is suited to the growth of almost every- thing. Delicious grapes, pears, peaches, pomegranates, etc., are rotting in the gardens — the yield being generous, the local demand small, and market beyond, none. Such is a fair sketch of many like scenes in California. There are other mining interests in the State besides those of gold, of immense value. The quicksilver mines of Alma- den, etc., are said to be unsurpassed by even those of Peru. MINING. 165 Fresh discoveries, full of promise, are being constantly made, especially in the northern part of the State, on the Coast Range. What California has most to fear is, not the failure of the gold yield, but the recklessness of her speculators. If ever ruin comes, it will not be from exhausted mines, but from the gambling stockbrokers of San Francisco. Cali- fornia Street, the Wall Street of the West, is the battle- field of the " Bulls and Bears," to whom, more than all else, are owing the disasters that have come upon the country from time to time. As late as the early part of last January, 1875, stocks under " Ring " pressure went up to their culminating point. Men were mad. Hasting to be rich they fell into a snare. Before the month was over stock had depreciated in the aggregate $100,000,000. What a gambling hell ! and a hell of man's own making. Hardly six months have passed away, and there come across the wires, even as I write, accounts of another crash as bad or worse. California Street is thronged with an excited multitude whose all is swallowed up where millions have disappeared before — in the maelstrom of speculation. The city is convulsed with fear or failure. Almost every bank or broker has closed the door. In the great cities of the Continent, from ocean to ocean, and even beyond the sea, in European marts, is felt the pain- ful throb. Might it not be to the country a boon of untold value if the mines ivere " played out ? " CHAPTER XIII. AGRICULTURE. ^HEN gold was first discovered in California, popular opinion, formed from hearsay, held it to be a narrow peninsula on the Pacific Coast, of little importance except as gold diggings ; as soon as those were exhausted, the country would be abandoned to the Indians and wild beasts. The pioneer " forty-niners," on their arrival, were as- tonished to find a land 700 miles long and over 200 wide ; but arriving in the rainless season, the parched appearance which everywhere met the eye led them to look upon the entire land, ex- cepting the irrigated gardens, as a worthless waste. Time and trial have corrected all these false impressions. California contains an area of ninety-nine million acres, two-thirds of which are suitable for agriculture and stock- raising. In fact, the earliest staple of the country was AGRICULTURE. 1 67 cattle, not gold. Vast herds roamed over the valleys, rapidly enriching their owners at the price of little pains and less outlay. The climate is pre-eminently adapted to sheep raising, the long dry season being so favorable to the fleece that often a second shearing, amounting to one-third of the annual yield, is clipped in the fall. After the rainless season has set in, leaving the pasturage dry and scant, the sheep, in vast numbers, are driven first to the foot- hills, then long distances into the mountains where the herbage remains juicy and inviting. On our way into the Yosemite, all along the trail we observed the mountains neatly terraced to their summits with narrow and well-trodden walks. On enquiring the cause from the guide, he told us it was occasioned by the vast flocks of sheep which were annually driven in and out. Remarking to him, at the same time, the openness of the woods, he added that was owing to the shepherds, on coming out, at the close of the season, setting fire to the underbrush behind them, thereby lessening the loss of wool by the way. We were assured by intelligent authorities that during the present season there were not less than 200,000 sheep in the Sierras along this one line. Flocks were often scattered and large numbers lost, being eventually devoured by bears. One shepherd coming out as we were going in, lost 300 in the vicinity of the Yo- semite. He spent several days searching for them with ill- success. It was nearing November, and he was anxious to 1 68 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. reach the valleys ; so he sold out all claim on the lot to a Yosemite man for $io. The next day, the purchaser, guessing with Yankee shrewdness the where- abouts of the stray sheep, sallied forth with an assistant ; they returned at nightfall with forty ! — one of them a valuable merino, worth many times the amount he had paid for the lot. He took me out to the yard, and, with significant winks and other highly expres- sive signs of satisfaction, pointed to the safely folded flock. Notwithstanding these and other losses, sheep- raising, well conducted, is one of the most profitable employments in the State. In 1853, a man from Ohio, burdened with debt, came to California with 300 sheep. He said that each of these sheep netted him $1,000. He is now one of the largest sheep owners in the State, and the possessor of 100,000 acres of land. In "Nordhoff's California," it is stated that "Cattle can be more easily and profitably soiled " in this climate than elsewhere. A quarter of an acre of beets, planted as the beets are used, will keep two cows ; and the beet grows in California not only the whole year, but for two years if it is kept in the ground. Corn and other fodder may be sown in every month, and a wise farmer can stall-feed stock of all kinds here more cheaply and easily than in any other State. Of alfalfa, the Chilian clover, a quarter of an acre will keep a cow in hay by successive cuttings, nine months in the year," AGRICULTURE. 1 69 The yellow, dried-up grass covering the country in the rainless season is not so void of nourishment as a stranger would naturally suppose. It cures uncut, retaining a very considerable amount of nutriment ; it is never absolutely dead ; long thread-like roots shooting down to the mois- ture below preserves its life until the early rains come, when it quickly revives, covering the whole country with a brilliant carpet of emerald. But it is to agriculture rather than stock-raising that California chiefly looks for her future wealth. Mining is a lottery with many blanks and few prizes ; but farming gives bread enough and to spare to every indus- trious, honest toiler. The earth, if faithfully served, is a generous mother to us all. California is overstocked with clerks, merchants, speculators, but there is plenty of room for farmers. Thomas Carlyle is reported as recently closing an interview with the London correspon- dent of the San Francisco Chronicle with these words : — " You are doing no good there ; you are harming the world. Cover over your mines, leave your gold in the earth, and go to planting potatoes. Every man who gives a potato to the world is a benefactor of his race ; but you with your gold are overturning society, making the ignoble prominent, increasing everywhere the expen- ses of living, and confusing all things." Doubtless there is a dash of Carlylian cynicism in these utterances, and yet wrapped up in them is a principle of the soundest philosophy. Not in her mines, but in her L lyo TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. fields, lies buried the secret of future permanency and prosperity. And the country is fairly waking up to this fact. State statistics show that whilst the gross products arising from the mines are in the proportion of sixteen per cent., those arising from farming are forty-five per cent., and steadily increasing. Last year California pro- duced, in proportion to its population, more wheat and wool than any other State in the Union. The soil, generally a gravelly clay and rich sandy loam, with suitable irrigation, or even deep ploughing — which it seldom gets — may be rendered eminently productive. A farm of 20,000 acres lets for five years at an annual rent of $49,000. A Dr. Glenn, said to be the most extensive farmer in the State, sold the present year's crop of grain for nearly half a million dollars in gold. Wheat is the staple. There are farms of 40,000 acres, and all in wheat. Much has been said about the wonderful yield per acre of wheat and other grains, and yet, on comparing their figures with ours, I find that Canada does not suffer either in quantity or quality. In one point they are fre- quently at a disadvantage — unseasonable and severe droughts ; in another point they have a sure and great advantage over us — the most charming weather for har- vesting. So dry is the season that grain is threshed in the fields, put in sacks and left standing on the spot for weeks, until ready for shipment, when it is conveyed to market in open cars. Again, they have a great advan- tage over most countries in this : in the more southerly AGRICULTURE. I 7 I parts of the State as many as five crops have been gathered from the same field in the same season, three very frequently, and two are commonly looked for, the second crop being, not unusually, better than the first. The alfalfa grass, on which sheep, cows, hogs and horses alike fatten, may be cut six times and even oftener during the year, the yield rising as high as fifteen tons to the acre. I take that to be, not the yield of a single cutting, but of the entire year. The soil is so rich in its depths that it is not easily exhausted, the after crops, without manur- ing, often surpassing the first. But farming very fre- quently, specially in the great San Joaquin valley, which contains seven miUion acres of the finest of grain-growing lands, is almost as much behind the times, in its appli- ances and methods, as that of the habitans in Lower Canada. Here, where there is no rain from May to No- vember, where irrigation is often difficult and costly, and where deep ploughing is almost certain of supplying the lack and securing good crops, so unenterprising or igno- rant are the population that a subsoil plough is seldom seen. It may be asked, what do they do for fencing and fuel in these treeless valleys ? As for the first, they mostly do without them, the law requiring animals to be shut in by their owners rather than shut out by their neighbors. In agriculture, as in morals, more fencing is often needed to keep out the bad than keep in the good. If a fence be desired, it may be constructed of wire, or, better still, the 172 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. planting of willow and cotton-wood trees will in two years — so rai^id is the growth — afford at once a fence and fuel — enough being spared from it for the latter purpose. But as for fuel, little is needed, save for culinary pur- poses, where there is no winter. To meet whatever want exists, in addition to the clippings from the hedges, some- times coal is used, andsometimes the "Prairie schooners," on their return from the mountains, whither they have carried supplies to the merchants and miners, are laden with wood gathered from the foot-hills. " Grangers " are numerous, and, in fighting the grain " Rings," are exhibiting a degree of pluck and enterprise that quite casts into the shade their brethren of the East. They have made arrangements for the direct shipment of their grain to Europe. An agent from the Grangers' Business Association was sent to Liverpool last year, with instructions to charter such vessels as might be necessary and arrange for receipts and sales. Communications are kept up by cable in cypher. Before dismissing this subject, let us take a glance at other productions of the soil — flowers, fruits and vege- tables. Eastern in-door plants of dwarfish dimensions here flourish out of doors the year round, and grow to gigantic proportions. Snow seldom falls in the central part of the State, and when it does, quickly disappears at altitudes less than 3,000 feet above the sea ; this elevation brings us to the higher slopes of the Sierras. The California papers have lately been describing a AGRICULTURE. 1 73 rose belonging to Santa Barbara, on the sea-board, 500 miles south of San Francisco. It is sixteen and three- quarter inches in circumference, its shortest diameter five inches, and the measurement in various directions from tip to tip of petals over six inches. The depth is three inches. This they claim to be the largest rose on record. It is called the Marechal Neil, a cupped variety, of lemon tint and delightfully fragrant. " California Taylor " (Rev. W.) speaks of Irish potatoes weighing seven pounds, sweet potatoes ten pounds, cabba- ges seventy pounds, pumpkins nearlytvvo hundred and fifty pounds. I heard an M.D. assert he once saw a pumpkin that weighed four hundred and eighty-two pounds. I did not contradict him, as he was " bigger than I,'' and also wanting, I judged, in sound principles ; but I silently set him down as a second Sinbad, and put his pumpkin with the roc's egg. Still, any traveller may see on every hand vegetables of enormous growth. Almost every kind of fruit grown in the world, from a " pineapple to a peanut," is, or may be, grown in Cali- fornia. Even in the northern part of the State I found growing in a garden, besides all the common kinds of fruit, oranges, lemons, olives, bananas, figs, etc. Figs grow luxuriantly, yielding even three crops in a season, but as yet little use is made of them ; they are grown more for variety's sake and ornament than for use. A great variety of nuts, including almonds, walnuts, chest- nuts, etc., is grown in the more southerly parts. Peaches 174 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. and apples are inferior to those of the East ; the latter, though large, are lacking in the flavour of our Canadian apple. It is conceded by the first fruit-growers in New York State, and it may be further claimed, that there are no apples grown on the Continent equalling some grown on the Island of Montreal. In former years California was more interested in the size and quantity rather than in the quality of its productions. Latterly, however, they are paying, not less attention to the former, but more to the latter. From one great affliction they are as yet free : there are no worms in the apples, no curculio in the plums, no weevil in the wheat. The glory of Calif ornia fruit are its grapes and pears. Of the latter I need not speak, as we often meet with them in our own market, large and luscious, ranging from twenty-five cents to forty cents apiece ; but here, not un- frequently, they are a drug in the market. Of the grapes I will speak at length. They are ever reminding one of the grapes of Eshcol. Those of the Levant are not finer. Those grown in American and European hot-houses, and sold for one dollar per pound are not a whit better, if as good as those grown out of doors all over the land and sold forafew cents a pound. Not only the valleys, but especially the foot-hills of the Sierras, stretching from Mount Shasta on the north to Santiago on the south, present one of the finest grape-growing regions in the WprlcJ. AGRICULTURE. 175 There are over 200 varieties cultivated in California. The Mission grape, a large black variety, is the most ex- tensively cultivated. It received its name. Mission, from the old Spanish missionaries, who, unable to obtain wine from abroad for sacramental purposes, introduced the cultivation of this grape to supply the want. It is a de- licious fruit and easily grown. So abundant is the yield that at the time of my visit they were carted twenty-five miles and sold for fifteen dollars per ton — three-quarters of a cent per pound. Wine — the pure juice of the grape — the better class of dealers, anxious to establish a reputation abroad, have not yet learnt to adulterate it, — pure wine is sold in large quantities at from thirty to forty-five cents per gal- lon. The best wine is made from the White Muscat or Black St. Peter. The White Muscat of Alexandria is, perhaps, the most delicious grape grown. In small quantities they are usually sold three pounds for two "bits " — twenty-five cents. On landing in New York, with a keen longing for the grapes left behind, one of the first fruits I saw was the White Muscat, but of inferior size to those of California. I priced them, and then, metaphorically, " put a knife to my throat," — they were fifty cents a pound! The manufacture of raisins last year in CaUfornia is said to have yielded a profit of $500,000 in gold. The manufacture this year promises an increase of three or fourfold. In France and Germany Irom twelve to twenty acres of 176 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. vineyard are considered a rich heritage ; but here the vineyards range from twenty to hundreds of acres ; twenty- five and thirty acres are common. I was told of one vineyard containing four hundred acres. The vines are planted eight feet apart, and yield an average of eight pounds each. At the State Fair held in Sacramento there was on ex- hibition one bunch of grapes— not all on one stem, but the growth of one vine, so interlaced in the growth as to be inseparable and called one bunch : that weighed ninety- six pounds. But the most marvellous grape-vine in the State, if not in the world, is at Santa Barbara— it is the Mission variety. Over fifty years ago i t was a slip stuck in the ground by a Spanish lady, to whom it had been given by her lover for a riding whip. Another version states that it was planted by Dona Maria Marcelina de Dominguez at the birth of a child, according to the custom of the country. At the height of eight feet it measures round four feet eight inches ; it here divides into several branches eighteen inches round, spreading themselves over 4,000 square feet of trellis work. The vine yields from 8,000 to 10,000 pounds annually, reaching one year, it is said, 14,000 pounds. In its fruitage California is the Goshen of America. It is a land of plenty. Nature is generous to prodigality. Friends have frequently asked me, particularly during the unexampled cold Canadian winter which followed my return, "Are you not inclined to go back and make Cali- AGRICULTURE. 1 77 fornia your home ? " No ; not while there is an inheri- tance for me in the house of my fathers. I have gone from the Lakes to the Gulf, from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; I have rejoiced in the garden spots of the East, and spent delightful weeks in the cities and wilds of the West ; I remember, and ever shall, the generous trust, the princely hospitality, the homes I have found in American family circles ; I think of all these things with undiminished admiration and affectionate regard ; and yet, with greater love I turn to " that true North," my native Canadian home, content to " dwell _among mine own people.'^ CHAPTER XIV. THE DIGGER INDIANS. ^- jALIFORNIA contains about 25,000 Indians, scattered over the State from the Pacific coast to the summit of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They are divided into two great classes — the Mountain and the Mission Indians. The latter are converts of the old Spanish Padres. The Jesuits planted a mission at San Diego as early as 1697. (Some authorities say the Franciscans were the first to enter the field, and that not until the year 1769.) Though the material was of the most unpromising kind, yet with their accustomed energy they entered upon the work. The Indians were turned from a nomad life to settled and peaceful pursuits, many attain- ing to very considerable skill in the cultivation of the soil and other industries. Trained somewhat after the tradi- tions of men and the rudiments of the world, still they THE DIGGER INDIANS. 1 79 learned enough of Christ to be gathered into churches, and conformed to Christian modes of worship. The missions soon became self-sustaining. But the Jesuits, ambitious for political as well as religious rule, were speedily suppressed. Their work passed into the hands of the Franciscans and Dominicans, under whose labors the converts increased to 30, coo. For fifty years these workers had the field all to themselves ; they multiplied missions, twenty-five miles apart, all the way from San Diego to San Francisco, and rapidly accumulated vast wealth. Then came a revolution. In 1822 Mexico wrested the land from Spain, broke up the missions, and suifered their works to fall into decay. Their ruins are objects of interest to the tourist of to-day. In ten years under Mexican rule the Christian Indians dwindled down to 5,000. The remnants are distributed chiefly along the coast of Southern California. Some are independent, living on their own lands ; others are employed on ranches; the rest are gathered on reservation lands, housed and fed by the Government. Those who work for themselves are the best off; those who work for others come next ; those who work neither for themselves nor anybody else are vagabonds. They are all given to drunk- enness ; the latter are seldom sober; the former are sober from Monday morning until Saturday night, but always drunk on Sunday. The ranchero encourages this Sab- bath drinking, and freely sells them liquor, excusing him- self by saying it is the only way he can retain their ser- l8o TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. vices. Whatever their prosperity in the past, at present they are sadly demoralized — their religion is a mixture of pagan and popish superstitions. Their priests are not unfrequently lower fallen than the flock. Twenty-five years ago, through purchase and conquest, the country was ceded to the United States. But absorbed by the greed of gold, and taxed for the conversion of the white savage on these shores, comparatively little has been done as yet by either Protestant or Roman Catholic to- wards the resuscitation of the old, or the planting of new missions among the aborigines. The Mountain Indians, composed of various tribes, are pagan. The name Digger is given to those tribes which dig into the ground for their dwellings. Having thrown out the soil to the depth of three or four feet, they cover the hole with poles, thatching them with boughs and earth. They crawl into this den and live like so many beasts. Dirt and depravity are distinguishing character- istics. I met them first at Clark's Ranche, among the mountains, near the Mariposa grove of big trees ; and again, a larger encampment, in the Yosemite. They are no longer dwellers in this valley — only visitors. A few are always to be found here in summer and autumn. It is a favorite resort for fishing and laying in the winter's store of food. The men are of average height, lank and low-browed ; the women undersized, quiet, soft-voiced, ever wearing the unimpassioned, aimless look of a drudge - — a nobody. Their dress is a mixture of the savage and THE DIGGER INDIANS. 151 civilized — chiefly the cast-off clothing of the whites, worn without any regard to the fitness of things. Children and half-starved curs, in about equal number, are trotting round or rolling together in the dirt. The lord and master is usually away fishing and hunting, whilst the squaw-slave, if not sick or sleeping, is at work gathering and grinding acorns. These with the pignon, a nut taken from the cone of the nut-pine, constitute their chief bread food. , Large sacks filled with acorns are piled on the top of boulders or scaffolding, to keep them from unprincipled pigs and donkeys. One of the women is grinding at the mill — a huge piece of granite fallen from the walls about us. The surface is flat, with several cavities capable of holding from a quart to a gallon. The acorns are first roasted and peeled, then ground in these holes by pound- ing with a stone pestle. Though not a treadmill, the bare feet are employed to keep the meal in the mortar. The stomach of an Indian, like the gizzard of an ostrich, is proverbially tough ; yet there is one thing they cannot digest — the tannin of oak. This is removed by pouring hot water on the meal, after which it is put into a wire- grass basket, and mixed with water. How can it be cooked? — the basket, though water-tight, is not fire- proof. Cobble stones are heated, and dropped hissing hot into the mess. When cooled they are taken out, put into the fire again, and, without brushing off the dirt and ashes, returned to the basket. This is repeated till the mess is cooked. It has an ashen look, not unlike oatmeal 1 82 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. porridge, but is less palatable, and productive of inferior men. What shall they do for sauce ? Far away over the mountains, within the crater of an extinct volcano, is one of the marvels of nature — Lake Mono — on whose shores gathers a heavy froth, in which a certain fly lays its eggs ; when hatched, the Indians gather it up, wash away the froth, and dry the larv3e in the sun. This is called Ke-cha-ve, and is sprinkled on the mush ! The Diggers also make bread of their acorn meal. The oven is a hole in the ground, eighteen inches deep. First, red-hot stones are placed at the bottom ; over these a sprinkling of sand, followed by a layer of dry leaves ; on these the paste is poured two or three inches deep. This is covered by a second layer of leaves, more sand, hot stones, and lastly, earth. In a few hours the oven has cooled down, and the bread is taken out — a shapeless loaf, liberally mixed with leaves and dirt. Clover is a great luxury. They pull it up in handfuls, eating leaves and stalks, as well as blossoms. They fatten on it. When the whites were fighting the Indians of the Yosem- ite, in 185 1, they captured the old chief Ten-ie-ya. He soon tired of the white man's food. " It was," he said, " the season for grass and clover." To be in sight of such abundance, and not suffered to taste it, greatly distressed this Tantalus, and he pined away. Captain Boling, in command, good-humoredly said he should have a ton if he wanted it. So a rope was tied round the old man's body, and he was led out to grass, when he fell to THE DIGGER INDIANS. 1 83 grazing with the gusto of long-stabled kine. An immedi- ate improvement took place in his condition, — in a few- days he was a new man. These Indians also relish dried bugs, grubs, and caterpillars, and are very fond of snakes and Hzards. Some of the tribes poison their arrows. They procure a live rattlesnake and a fresh deer's liver. Having irri- tated the snake, they hold towards it the liver, which is bitten until charged with poison. It is then buried and left to putrefy, when it is dug up and the arrow-heads dipped into it. Well dried, it is a lasting and deadly poison. A man or beast wounded with one of these arrows, ever so slightly, will die within twenty-four hours. It is said, however, that one may eat with safety the flesh of an animal killed by one of them — the poison of the rattlesnake being harmless when taken into a sound stomach, but poisonous when received into the blood. Their belief, like their language, is not unlike that of the Chinese. Some ethnologists claim that they came from the land of the Celestials, by the way of Behring's Straits. They believe in two Great Spirits — the Evil and the Good. They do not fear the Good ; therefore pay him no attention. But fearing the Evil, they have for him a very great regard. If he can be propitiated or outwitted, the soul may escape to a happy hereafter. If they bury their dead, however, the chances of their escape are greatly lessened. Hence they do not bury, but always burn the body, the nearest of kin having the privilege of applying 184 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. the torch to the funereal pyre. Surrounding the blazing pile, making all manner of hideous noises, and giving way to the wildest antics — a very pandemonium let loose — they hope so to distract the attention of the Evil One that the soul shall get safely away. When the body is con- sumed they gather up the ashes and charred remains, grind them to a powder, and mix it with the pitch of the pine. Then, having first cut their coarse black hair within an inch of the scalp, this horrible mixture is rubbed over the head, neck and breast. It is the token of their grief, and when worn away their mourning is ended. Filthy and disgusting at any time, they are doubly so when mourning for their dead. Do I turn away with loathing ? " God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Do I despair of flesh that has so corrupted its way? Jesus comes "travelling in the greatness of his strength, mighty to save." CHAPTER XV. THE GEYSERS. HE traveller need no longer go to " high latitudes " to see boiling springs of thrilling interest. California, surpassing all other States of the Union in variety, as well as in sublimity of scenery, contains a large number, discovered by a hunter in 1847. They are situated ninety miles north-east of San Francisco, in the County of Sonoma, among the mountains of the Coast Range. Starting from "Frisco" — the name by which the city is familiarly called — we take steamer across San Pablo Bay for Vallego, con- necting here with cars for Calistoga, running through the beautiful Napa valley. Calistoga — the Sara- toga of the State — is charmingly situated at the head of the valley, within the shadow of evergreen-clad moun- M 1 86 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. tains. The town itself, owing to the carelessness or close- ness of one man to whom it mostly belongs, wears a starved, shabby look, in striking contrast to the exuberant generosity of nature. Still, it is the resort of many, drawn hither by its healing waters. Five miles to the south-east of the Springs is the Petri- fied Forest, in which large trees have been turned to stone, having been entombed, it is supposed, some time in the far past by volcanic eruptions. At CaHstoga we connect with stage for the Geysers. Foss, the proprietor, and for many years the driver, is famous, far and near, for furious but skilful driving over the most perilous places down the mountains. Since a serious accident last season he has grown nervous with the reins. On the mountains, where danger is imminent, he escaped ; in the valley, where it is not thought of, he ran against a stone, upset- ting the stage, killing one person and maiming others. He seldom drives now, but is devoting himself to fitting up his home for tourists — a lovely spot in Knight's valley, five miles on our way. Having passed through the valley we begin the eight miles ascent of the mountains. Our progress is slow, but not tedious. The driver is intelligent and communica- tive ; on every hand are the " burrowing toilers of the mine ; " every step broadens and diversifies the view ; whilst the manzanita, the mountain mahogany, the flower- ing madrona, the fragrant laurel, and the wide-spreading chapparal are to us ''companionship." Off to the right, THE GEYSERS. 1 87 in the rear, is Mount St. Helena, if not the loftiest, the loveliest in California. Tradition says that on its summit is buried a copper plate, bearing an inscription in com- memoration of some event in the history of its discoverers, the Spaniards. At last we halt on the " divide," and look back. The sight is v/ell worth all the climber's toil. Spread out before us, well watered "even as the garden of the Lord," beautified with carefully cultivated farms and charming villas, are the Russian River and the Santa Rosa valleys. Embosoming them on three sides, shelter- ing them from north-easterly and ocean winds, is the Coast Range with its soft and purple summits. Away, beyond, seventy miles to the south-west, is the beau- tiful bay of San Francisco and the waters of the Pacific. We may not longer linger over a landscape such as one rarely sees in any land. The crack of the driver's whip and the whirl of wheels down the mountain break the spell, and excite very different feefings. The road is good, but alarmingly narrow— a few inches further, and we are over— dashed, it seems, to certain death. At first, it takes the breath away. With half-closed eyes and quiver- ing lids, half on and half off the seat, in a very unsettled, uncertain state, not knowing where this Jehu, in his zeal, is going to land us, we nervously catch at something, per- haps the reins or the hands that hold them ; but we swing safely round each successive spur ; there is always a safe margin between the wheel and the precipice, and nothing 1 88 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. gives way. A persuasion of safety gradually possesses us. We fix ourselves more easily in the seat. The eyes are slowly opened in admiration of the manner in which the " knight of the whip " handles the " ribbons." We begin to enjoy it. The spirit of the steeds thrills through the passengers. Soon we are in full sympathy with the rush, and, all but impatient with the slowness of our pace, are ready to shout, like the madman in the balloon — " faster ! faster ! " Half way down we pass the small Geysers, near at hand, but out of sight. The water is abundant and very hot, but contains no unusual element save a small trace of iron. They are seldom visited. Continuing our way at the same dashing rate, we catch a glimpse, through the evergreens, of the white gable end of a house. Sweep- ing round a bend, the steaming horses are reined up op- posite the Geyser Hotel. Facing the hotel, and running up a quarter of a mile, at right angles to the canyon down which we have come, is the Geyser Gulch. Its springs number three hundred, and are spread over an area of two hundred acres ; they are seventeen hundred feet above the sea, and surrounded by mountains from three to four thousand feet high. In the early morning the steam rises hundreds of feet, and covers the canyon ; but in the later hours of the day it has mostly disappeared, dissipated by the sun. A Babel of sounds can be heard at all hours, and some of them at long distances. We lunch, change our clothes for coarse ones, shoes THE GEYSERS. 1 89 for Wellington boots, then, staff in hand, start for the Springs, a guide leading the way. A few rods' descent brings us to Pluton River, running across the foot of the Geyser canyon. When this stream first strikes the waters of the Geysers it is cold, and abounds in trout ; by the time it has passed them it has risen to 140°, Having crossed the Pluton, after a few steps to the left down the stream, we turn and strike boldly up the mountains, directly into what is called the " Devil's Dominions." Whether the name is in good or bad taste is debatable ; but this desolate region seems to have been dedicated to Satan, and by many is believed fo be of that wicked one. In mythology it might easily be the mouth of Tartarus. Before proceeding further we turn aside, according to custom, to clear our vision at the Eye-Water Spring. Its waters are covered with an oxide of iron, their other chief ingredients being alum and saltpetre. They have proved a pool of Siloam to some sore eyes. We are next intro- duced to Proserpine's Grotto ; and, as far as I am ac- quainted with Pluto's wife, it seemed a suitable retreat. A few steps further takes us into " Beelzebub's Labora- tory." Satan is a scientist, and no idler in his studies. It is always class day, and a strange medley of experiments is ever going on. Noise and fum^s fill the air. Some of the odors are pleasant, and others not so pleasant ; the latter are the same as those issuing from city sewers and aged eggs. Water holding iron in solution comes in con- tact with other water containing sulphuretted hydrogen, 190 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. forming a new compound, setting the sulphuretted hydro- gen free; this gas gives forth the abominable smell alluded to. These waters boiled an egg in four minutes. Convenient to the Laboratory is " Satan's Inkstand." Its contents, sometimes used in the hotel register, are inky black, and never run dry. Within a short distance of this spot is a pure Alum Spring. Five feet further is another spring of Tartaric Acid, which makes an excellent glass of lemonade. Near by, if unfortunately given to strong drink, the visitor can be satisfied with a draught from " Mephistopheles' Punch Bowl." Next the Bowl is what is known as the " Devil's Kitchen." All is culinary confusion ; every pot and pan is in use ; the furnace is in full blast ; issuing from it are the usual sounds — boiling, frying, simmering, steaming, sputtering, hissing. I boiled a second egg in its water in four minutes. A few feet above the Kitchen is the Safety-Valve, letting off steam with great power. Climb- ing as near the spot as the heat will suffer me, I fling dirt and stones into the opening, which instantly spits them out with wrathful vehemence. Unless a hasty retreat is beaten, one may receive the rejected stuff back into his face, dripping with hot water and acids. Now, in the wildest, hottest part, we come to the greatest wonder of the place — commonly called the *' Witch's Caldron." It is seven feet across, and of un- known depth. The water, black and wrathful, rises three or four feet. At times you are enveloped in steam, un- tHE GEYSERS. 191 able to see anything. A small cool stream is ever patiently- pouring into it its troubled waters, as if to soothe and quiet them. In 1861 this caldron, from some unknown cause, was emptied of water and filled with steam. The hotel-keeper, fearing to lose one of the greatest attrac- tions to tourists, caused a stream of cold water to be led into it. The instant it came in contact with the lower cavity of the caldron a wild commotion ensued. The ground, for several rods around, shook violently. In a few minutes after, the cold water was thrown out with stunning reports to the height of a hundred feet. In about three hours after the cold water was shut off, the hot water returned, filled the bowl, and has continued to boil ever since. Its temperature is 200° Fahrenheit. We now turn to a familar sound, issuing from the top of a cone, up in the side of the canyon ; it proceeds from the "Steamboat Geyser." Through the opening, about two feet in diameter, a body of steam is constantly ejected, suffi- cient, if it could be controlled, to drive a large amount of machinery. The noise has been likened to a "high pressure seven-boiler boat blowing off steam.^' I climbed to the top and managed to get a hurried look into the fiery mouth, as the wind blew the steam from me ; but, without a moment's warning, it tacked right round and blew a suffocating blast fair in my face. I staggered down, " distance lending enchantment to the view." The steam rises to a height of three hundred feet, but is so hot on escaping as to be invisible for five or six feet 192 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. above the opening. A few steps bring us to the head of the canyon, where rising above us to a considerable height is an imposing cone called the " Devil's Pulpit." We will not ascend it now, but, retracing our steps, return to it by another route. Reaching again the bridge over the Pluton, and facing round as at the first towards the Springs, we turn to the right up the stream. After a few rods we begin a second time the ascent of " the mountain of fire." We pass on our right, by the river's edge, the Geyser Baths ; these, as well as some other parts of the premises, are somewhat shabby, owing to the property being in a state of litigation. By means of metal pipes connecting with the Springs, the Baths are supplied with water, hot and cold, pure and medicated. A variety of baths is at your command — shower and sponge, sitz and sheet, douche and duck, pack and plunge. Whilst yet in the stage, descending the mountains, a clear and continuous whistle reached us, echoing through the canyon. Just before us is its source, " Pluto's Tea Kettle." Some genius, enjoying a whistle, but not wish- ing to pay too dear for it, inserted in the mouth of the Geyser a leaden pipe, fitting to it a second in the shape of a whistle. The rushing steam produces a prolonged, shrill sound, heard high over every other. Removing the whistle, and placing the tip of my staff against the spout, I involuntarily sprang back with a cry ; it was instantly and fiercely blown away. A few feet further on is a simi- THE GEYSERS. 1 93 lar spring called " Pluto's Signal." Leaving this and circling to the left, towards the head of the canyon, reached before by the other route, we come to what is supposed to be the crater of this extinct volcano. In its upper side is a noted spring — the Indian Steam Bath. Lying arou"nd are the rude remains of the red man's bath- house. The Indians were wont to bring to it their sick, sometimes long distances over the mountains. Many and marvellous cures are said to have been wrought, which we can easily believe ; if not killed, the patient was hkely to be cured. The temperature is i8o°. A few rods further bring us to a point, projecting over a deep, steaming chasm, called the " Lovers' Leap." Bad enough are the pangs of unrequited love, without adding a leap like that ; in classic phrase, it would be — " out of the frying pan into the fire." Happily, it is not known that any one was ever yet driven to fh's verge of despair. Proceeding on our way, we next pass through the " Lovers' Retreat." A knot-hole in the trunk of a low bent tree, on which the happy swain and sweetheart are supposed to swing, is labelled " Post Office ; " it is a well filled museum of curious cards and amusing sentiments. The Retreat, according to the novelist, is, of course, a sheltered spot, with a cozy corner, by a laughing brook ; in fine, highly romantic, an elysium for lovers. The fact is, like another Eden, it harbors the serpent ; it is the resort of rattle- snakes ! I brought away the rattle of one, twelve years old, killed in the vicinity by a man who, struck at, only 194 TEN THOUSAND MILE? BY LAND AND SEA. escaped being bitten by the agility of his movements. These reptiles are plentiful in some parts of the State. In another section the guide pointed out to me a spot where a party of tourists found a family of them at home in a hollow tree. Setting fire to the tree, dry as tinder in the rainless season, they soon heard a horrible hissing mingling with the crackling of the flames ; a few glided through the fire and escaped, but more, it is believed, perished within their castle. Continuing our way, a few steps further complete the circle — we have come again to the head of the canyon. Beautiful type ! a brook of pure cold water is flowing at our feet. Springing from a fountain higher up, swift to undo the destroyer's work, striking the evil at its very source, the stream follows it step by step all the way, down its destructive career. Even such is the River of Life : " Everything shall live whither the river cometh." We now ascend the cone, obtaining from its top an all- commanding view of the canyon, the hotel opposite with its beautiful back-ground of mountains sloping to the south, and covered to their very summits with a variety of evergreens. Seated on the cinders of the cone we may, at our leisure, dwell on points of interest as yet untouched. The steam is rising around us. The marl is warm under our feet. I run my staff into it, up to the handle ; then, drawing it out, thoughtless thrust my finger into the hole ; thoughtful, I jerk it out ; it is scalding hot. We are sit- ting over subterranean fires ; and fires that are neither far ofl" nor slumbering. Are we safe ? On first entering THE GEYSERS. 1 95 this fiery region a stranger hesitates. The spot is more suspicious, seemingly, than the sHme pits of Sodom. The fliish of fire and the smell of brimstone are disagreeably suggestive. But led by our Virgil we wander through this Inferno. After a while, excited by the strange, wild scenes, and listening to the story of the guide, one grows thoughtless of self, scarce considering his ways — hardened as through the deceitfulness of sin — until with intrepid daring the explorer boldly mounts the " Devil's Pulpit." But there is danger. Earthquakes are frequent. Almost anywhere you may run your staff into the soil and steam will issue forth. In all directions hot water is bubbling up, and angry underground rumblings are heard. The surface is strewn with rocky cinders, burnt light as cork. Persons living here since the discovery of the Geysers in '47 say the ground has sunk forty feet in twenty -five years. Heated waters and acids dissolve the solid rock below. As decomposition goes on the crust goes down. Occasional eruptions throw the cinders to the surface, open up new vents, and give the whole region a disor- dered, desolate look. In one place are hot and cold waters issuing from springs but a few feet apart. In other places waters issue from the same orifice, and seemingly from the same source but essentially differing in taste, color, smell and chemical composition. Different springs hold different salts in solution ; when they flow together there are violent chemical reactions there, emitting various gases, depositing a variety of salts, vividly coloring, and 196 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. sometimes consuming the rocks. The rocks are chiefly sandstone and silicious slate. The silica of the slate is thoroughly bleached out by hot alkaline solutions, and forms large deposits. There are deposits of alum, saltpetre, magnesia, ammonia, epsom salts, tartaric acid, sulphate of iron, and sulphur, red, white, black, and blue. Some of these can be gathered by waggon loads ; sulphur espe- cially abounds, and may, in time to come, be of consi- derable value in commerce. Singular coincidence ! whilst I am sitting in the Pulpit taking notes, a moving shadow falls across the canyon ; it is a scavenger bird. Bird of evil, it hovers over the spot on worn and ragged wing, peering down into the horrible pit, passing through the smoke again and again in search of prey. This filthiest of birds seemed certain of finding fitting food in so foul a place. '' Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." " Can life be sustained in such a spot ? Can any green thing grow in such a soil ? Yes : these boiling springs are fringed with foliage and flowers, flourishing luxuriantly the year round. It is said, I think in the State Survey, that in the waters of some springs, 200° Fahrenheit, and in others where the waters are sufficiently acid to burn leather to tinder, a species of water plant takes root and grows abundantly. I myself found a healthy tuft of green growing on the very verge of that horrible hole, the "Witches' Caldron." "Many, O Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts THE GEYSERS. 1 97 which are to us-ward." God renews the faihng trust of the traveller over the desert by showing him a bunch of living moss springing from burning sands. The seed wafted by His winds or borne by the fowls of the air is lodged in the smallest seams of the rocky wall ; nourished — one hardly knows how — it sprouts and spreads until a generous foliage beautifies the barrenness. The ivy clings to crumbling ruins. Flinty rocks gush with living waters. Aaron's rod, dry and dead, buds and blossoms into beauty. Life feeds upon death. "O grave, where is thy victory ? " CHAPTER XVI. THE BIG TREES. one feet, from with ALIFORNIA abounds in big trees. Here common trees grow to uncommon size. The oak is found ten feet in diameter, and cedars as thick, but loftier. The pines are one of the glories of the land. There are twenty species, some casting their cones every year, some every other year, whilst others cast them only once in ten or twenty years. The chief varieties are the yellow and sugar pines, both magnificent trees, usually of equal size, but to the latter is commonly accorded the palm. It owes its name to its gum, which in course of time becomes bleached and sweet as sugar. It often girths twenty- feet, sometimes thirty, and rises to a height of 250 The roots being all buried out of sight, it shoots the soil a clean shaft, rising without branch, and scarcely any perceptible diminution in size for 150 THE BIG TREES. 1 99 feet. Its cones are of extraordinary size, usually measur- ing from a foot to fifteen inches in length, sometimes twenty-one inches ; and have been found, said my guide, even three feet long. These trees, covering thousands of square miles, are confined to the mountains of the inte- rior. This vast treasure of timber, as yet untouched, pre- sents an inexhaustible supply for ages. The red wood, a still larger tree, is confined to the Pacific slopes. They fringe the coast from Los Angelos on the south for hundreds of miles north into Oregon, but are fast disappearing ; their excellence and ease of access causing all supplies to be gathered from their magnificent stores. We now turn to the Big Trees proper, the Sequoia Gigantea. They received their name in memory of one George Guess, an ingenious half-breed of the Cherokee Nation, whose Indian name, ^Sequoia, was given him in honor of his having invented an alphabet used for many years among his people. The trees were first discovered, as in the case of the Geysers, by a hunter in 1852. He was out hunting for a camping company when he made the discovery ; filled with wonder and excitement, he gave up the chase, and immediately returned to tell his story. They laughed at him ; he was trying to play ofi"a practical joke — it was a Munchausen. Incredulous, they refused not only to believe, but to go and see for themselves. To induce them to go he resorted to intrigue. The following day 200 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. he went out hunting as usual, but in a few hours returned in an excited state, saying he had shot a grizzly and wanted help to bring it in. Believing the " bear story," they readily followed him, and were led to the Big Trees. The news of the discovery spread fast and far. No plant — which, I suppose, it is proper to call them — has ever attracted so much attention, or attained to such cele- brity. References have been made to them in over two hundred scientific works, whilst almost every newspaper in Christendom has had something to say about them. Though resembling very closely, in some respects, the cedar, they are a distinct tree, and, at the time of their discovery, nowhere to be found save in the Sierras. Now growing from their seeds are thousands more in different parts of the world. The original groves are found in limited numbers, some- what widely separated, from Calaveras County on the north to Tule River in the south. There are ten groves ; the ear- liest discovered, and perhaps the most widely known, being the Calaveras. In this grove are a hundred trees and more, within an area of fifty acres. In 1854, two years after their discovery, it was determined to fell one. The giant could not be cut down by the ordinary wood- man's axe. No man could swing the axe half-way across the trunk. It was bored by pump augers, taking five men nineteen days and a-half. Being perpendicular, the breadth of its base caused it to remain standing after it was THE BIG TREES. 201 fully severed from the stump. It took two days and a half longer to overthrow it, by driving in wedges with bat- tering-rams made of logs. The tree was 302 feet long, ninety-six feet in circumference, and sound to the core. On the prostrate trunk a long double bowling alley was constructed. On the stump was placed a printing press, from which was issued, for a time, the Big Tree Bulletin. Some one has made this estimate : on the stump could be built a house of the following size — parlor 16x12, dining-room 15X10, kitchen 12X10, two bedrooms 10 X 10, pantry 8x4, and closet 4X2 — quite a house to be built on a stump, and yet there is room enough left for a small garden ! Among other trees still standing are Hercules, the Hermit, the Old Maid, the Old Bachelor, Siamese Twins, Mother and Son, Uncle Tom's Cabin, the Two Guardians, the Three Sisters, and the Pride of the Forest : the last, one of the most beautiful trees ever discovered. The Mother of the Forest, before she fell, was estimated to contain 537,000 feet of sound inch-lumber. The traveller naturally turns next to where lies the fallen Father of the Forest. As is meet, this tree is the biggest of all. It girths at the roots no feet, and is 200 feet to the first branch ; 300 feet from the roots it girths fifty-four feet; its height when standing is estimated at 435 feet. Through its hollow a man can walk erect 200 feet. I did not visit this grove, but from repeated conversa- N 202 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. tions with those who were familiar with it, I have every reason to beUeve that the above figures are correct and sufficiently full. We have not time to visit all the groves ; indeed it is seldom that any traveller undertakes to " do " more than one ; but we will make a careful visit to the Mariposa. This, like the Calaveras, was discovered by a hunter three years later, in 1855. It is fifty miles south of the Cala- veras, and within a few miles of the Yosemite. Pro- perly speaking, the grove is divided into two parts, the upper and lower, covering nearly two square miles, and containing 365 trees. The trees of the Calaveras are higher, but not so huge. Taking all in all, the Mariposa may be considered the most worthy of a visit. Congress gave it to California " to be held to all time, inaUenable, for public resort, use and recreation." The State ap- pointed a guardian, whose intelligence, courage and enthusiastic love of forest life singularly fit him for the position. Mr. Galen Clark, who lives on a lovely ranche nestling among the pine-clad mountains, hard by his cherished charge, entertains travellers with good cheer and good conversation. We spend the night with him, and the morning, after the sun has rolled away the fog, reveals to us the bluest of skies — the " floor of heaven." Breakfast over, we are soon in the saddle, and off to the grove at full gallop. A gallop over the mountains on an October morning, through the grandest of pineries, and under such a sky, all but touching the tree tops, is a rare THE BIG TREES. 203 treat — exhilarating. These pines are well worth a visit, even if no nobler trees rose beyond. We are 6,500 feet above the sea on mountain summits, and yet the soil is deep and strong, giving growth to giants. Four miles and a half brings us to the Big Trees. Every mule is spurred and every eye is strained to catch the first sight of a Se- quoia. I see a towering top — yes, it is one of them — the hair of a Hercules waving in the wind ! Thrilled, ex. cited, we urge our way down into the Big Tree Basin, and with awe and reverence rein up before the first of the forest — the Fallen Monarch. His huge sides are deep en- graven with the names of a multitude who seek immor- tality, not by their own merits, but at the cost of the world's kings. There he lies, fallen greatness, but great in his fall, awe- ing, overcoming, even in ruins. We ride up to his side, but are still beneath him ; we dismount, and walk up and down and about the prostrate form with growing wonder, learning from the dead lessons for the living — the greatest may fall, and at the last lie side by side with the small. Grouped around are a score of followers, still standing — steadfast pillars of state. Leaving these, and passing with regretful glance huge trunks which the fires have laid low and half consumed, we come to the famous Grizzly Giant. Like Goliath strid- ing forth from the Philistines, he stands alone. The fires have fought him from below and the winds from above ; still, there he stands, scarred, it is true, but the living hero 204 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. of many a hundred years. Sixteen of us, mounted on mules, head to tail, surround his trunk, pressing close as the gnarled roots will allow ; and yet it will take three mules more to complete the circle ! Three feet from the ground he girths over loo feet; loo feet high he throws out an arm eighteen feet around, which running out twenty feet turns up like an elbow, suggesting, as some one has said, "a gladiator showing his muscle." We now begin the ascent to the second grove ; midway w e pass a small group, among them Winonah — first-born ; also the Faithful Couple ; betrothed from their birth, straight and symmetrical in old age as in youth, ever cleav- ing close, they have stood together through all their Me- thusaleh years. ** God of the forests, solemn shade ! The grandeur of the lonely tree, That wrestles singly with the gale, Lifts up admiring eyes to Thee ; But more majestic far they stand, When side by side their ranks they form And fight their battles with the storm." We have now reached a basin plateau several hundred feet higher than the first, and in which is the second and larger grove. The first trees we come to are called the Diamond Group, a cluster of unsurpassed symmetry. Pro- ceeding on our way, we pass a noble tree, off to the right, named in honor of the Suez Canal Engineer — Ferdinand de Lesseps. Near by is — fallen Andy Johnston, so named THE BIG TREES. 205 because it " leaned to the South." Though fallen, he is not spared ; knives keen as Naseby's Toledo blade are fast cutting him to pieces. All about are trees of the largest size, variously named, some after places and others after persons. On a pleasant spot in their midst, the guardian, Mr. Clark, has reared a comfortable cabin for the convenience of lunchers and lodgers. The door is ever open to all. At the front, issuing from the roots of the Fountain Tree, is a spring of the purest ice-cold water. Whilst resting here and regaling ourselves, as thousands before us have done, we diligently take notes that nothing be lost through fast crowding wonders. Continuing our way, bewildered by the prodigality of wealth displayed in the number and magnificence of the trees, each succeeding one seeming larger than the last — or our capacity of comprehension is increasing — we reach the rim of the basin on which is enthroned the last of the Big Trees — the Forest Queen. Here you are struck by a singular coincidence, undesigned, I was assured, and un- til now unnoticed. The first of this grand forest is the Fallen Monarch ; the last is the Forest Queen — now, alas ! widowed. Even Republics must have their Kings and Queens. Between these two are gathered all the Royal Family ; whilst surrounding them are pines, firs, spruce and cedars — a nobility of Nature well worthy the Royal group. Let us now return to the Lodge, rest awhile and study these marvels more closely. The guide has been dis- 2o6 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. missed, followed by all the company save myself and another, with whom I "took sweet comis el" sitting in the shadows or strolling through the aisles of this sublime temple of Nature. How old are these trees? From 1,000 to 3,000 years ; some were baby plants in the reign of Charlemagne, and some in the reign of Solomon. Their age may be arrived at by counting the concentric circles of the trunk ; each circle is the growth of one year. Nearly 3,000 circles have been counted ; hence 3,000 years old. " This," says a high authority, " may well be true if the tree does not grow above two inches in diameter in twenty years, which we believe to be the fact." The bark is constructed on a different plan from that of most other trees, being fluted like a Corinthian column. The ridges are of a hard texture, while the spaces between are packed with an elastic spongy substance of a reddish brown, and very thick. I have seen it twenty-one inches thick. The wood is soft, elastic, straight-grained, free-splitting, light when dry, and red in color. It is an evergreen and all but everlasting. Its tenacity of life is truly^ extraordinary. In 1854 the Mother of the Forest in the Calaveras Grove was stripped of its bark to the height of 120 feet, and yet it continued green and flourishing for two years and a half afterwards ; nor, indeed, did it show signs of dying until stricken with the severe frosts which prevailed some years later. Seven years passed before it died. The tree may owe its vitality and longevity not a little to a dark gummy substance, of an acid taste, which exudes from its THE BIG TREES. ioj body. This gum probably preserves it both from the ravages of insects and the wasting effect of time. The leaves are more like those of the cedar than of any other tree. They are of two kinds : those on the lower limbs being about five-eighths of an inch long and one-eighth wide, and set in pairs opposite each other on little stems ; whilst the other leaves grow on branches that have borne flowers, and are triangular in shape, about one- eighth of an inch long, and lie close to the stem. The cone is one of the most curious and contradictory things about the tree. Whilst that of the sugar pine averages from ten to twenty inches in length, this of the Sequoia ranges only from one to two inches in length ; it is much the size and shape of our common butternut. Within these diminutive cones are the seeds, about a quarter of an inch long, one-sixth of an inch wide, and almost as thin as writing paper, taking 50,000 to weigh a pound. From these insignificant seeds spring the Sequoia giants I There they stand, not fossilized, but living survivors of a " mastodon age." " From one trunk you may hew a hull larger than the " Mayflower " of the Pilgrims, or the "Santa Maria" with which Columbus crossed the ocean." Taller trees there are, but of lesser girth ; trees of greater girth there are, but not so tall. Take them all in all, the Sequoias of the Sierras are the Anakim among trees — ^' great and tall" — the most wonderful growth of the vegetable world. 2o8 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. *' These giant trees, in silent majesty, Like pillars stand 'neath heaven's mighty dome, 'Twould seem that perched upon their topmost bough, With outstretched finger, man might touch the stars ; Yet could he gain that height, the boundless sky Were still as far beyond his utmost reach As from the burrowing toilers in a mine. Their age unknown, into what depths of time Might Fancy wander sportively, and deem Some Monarch-Father of this grove set forth His tiny shoot when the primeval flood Receded from the old and changed earth ; Perhaps coeval with Assyrian kings, His branches in dominion spread ; from age To age his sapling heirs with empires grew. When Time those patriarchs' leafy tresses strewed Upon the earth, while Art and Science slept. And ruthless hordes drove back Improvement's stream, Their sturdy oaklings throve, and, in their turn. Rose, when Columbus gave to Spain a world. How many races, savage or refined. Have dwelt beneath their shelter ! Who shall say (If hand irreverent molest them not) But they may shadow mighty cities, reared E'en at their roots, in centuries to come. Till with the ' Everlasting Hills ' they bow, When ' Time shall be no longer ! ' " CHAPTER XVII. THE YOSEMITE. HIS trip will tax your time, your purse, your strength — your time ten days, your purse $ioo, your strength till stiff and sore— if you 'do it thoroughly ; but it " will pay." The Yosemite is 150 miles south-east of San Francisco and thirty-six miles in among the moun- tains, being midway between the eastern and west- ern slopes of the Sierras — a great gash, as from the sword of a Titan, laying open their very heart. It is a valley of wondrous walls and cataracts, and has been likened to a huge trough sunk in the Sierras at nearly right angles to their regular trends ; its length seven miles, with a width varying from half a mile to a mile and a quarter. Its earliest Indian name was Ah-wah-ne ; its later, Yo-Hamite ; its latest Yo-Semite, which signifies Big 2IO TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Grizzly Bear, the most terrible thing in nature known to the Indian. The original owners and occupants were the Ah-wah-n^-chees, of whom little is known except that they were driven out by the Yo-Semite, a mixed race, made up of the disaffected of all the tribes between the Tuo- lumne and King's Rivers. Forced to fly from their ene- mies, the whites, they took refuge on the east side of the mountains among the Mono Indians, whose hospitality they rewarded by stealing their horses and running them into the Yosemite. The Monos, enraged beyond all bounds by this flagrant breach of hospitality, came down upon them like the whirlwind, and all but exterminated them, leaving only eight braves and a few old men and women. The valley has never been occupied by Indians since, save transiently by a few in summer and autumn. In 1850, there was much trouble between the miners and Indians, on account of the depredations of the latter ; whenever threatened with punishment, they would hint at a rocky refuge inaccessible to the white man. The miners, unable to endure their atrocities longer, organized them- selves into a military band, and followed them to their fastness ; this was in 185 1, and these were the first whites who ever saw the Yosemite. Its first regular visitors were a small company headed by Hutchings, now of the Yosemite Hotel; this was in 1855. Though their state- ments were far short of the facts, as afterwards ascertained, still they were so marvellous that men, for a while, classed them with Gulliver's Travels. The place is now visited THE YOSEMITE. , 211 annually by thousands from all parts of the world. The time for the trip is from May to November. Occasionally a hardy, heroic adventurer finds his way in over winter snows. The multitude prefer the spring, with its flowers and overflowing waters ; a few the autumn with its fruits, freedom from crowds, and dryer getting about. Starting from San Francisco, a few hours' ride on the Central Pacific brings us to Lathrop, where we change cars for Merced, sixty miles south. Arriving at the latter place we spend the night in the Station Hotel, which, built by the Road specially for tourists, is lacking neither in magnificence nor mosquitoes. Amongst the guests whom we met the next morning on the piazza was a well-known ex-Finance Minister, who, judging from his cynical remarks about the country he was in, gave good promise of being as unpopular here as at home in England ; he was evi- dently less impressed by the sight of his eyes than by the loss of his supper. Arriving the evening before, " after hours," the autocrat of the supper-table refused to unlock the door, leaving him to fast or forage as he pleased. He ordered, explained, insisted, but to no purpose ; the white-aproned official stuck to his " red-tapeism ;" possibly his Independence blood led him to take ungenerous ad- vantage of circumstances to snub and starve an English- man. " All aboard for the mountains ! " is the cheery cry in the early morning. Three large stages, drawn by four or six horses each, are crowded with passengers. Among 212 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. my fellow-travellers are two foreigners making a tour of the world : the one is surly, but sensible ; the other sweet, but not so sensible. The latter, coming, as he did, from the great commercial city of the United Kingdom, and being a man not unknown in the sporting world, led me to expect, at least, an average share of intelligence, but with the utmost simplicity he expressed his surprise to find on landing in San Francisco that the Americans spoke English ! Who is. to have the box seat beside the driver ? If you are travelling in the interests of the public, as newsp^er correspondent or prospective lecturer gathering material, that may justly give a superior claim. If all should be travelling in such capacity — as may happen now-a-days — why then each must esteem others better than himself, and act accordingly. One word — do not demand the seat, unless you enjoy being snubbed. Defer to the driver ; he is king of the coach. A polite request will secure the seat, if not pre-engaged. Our way is across the San Joaquin valley, the largest in California, once considered an arid waste, but now proven productive in the highest degree. Two hours' drive brings us to the foot-hills. The grass on these is a russet brown, relieved by the evergreen of. scattered oaks ; this is the first timber belt of the western slopes of the Sierras. Here and there we cross canals, now dry, but in winter full of water conducted long distances to the gold diggings. Far away up the hills, off" to the right, on a commanding THE YOSEMITE. 213 plateau between lofty peaks is the retreat of the once no- torious bandit, Joaquin, for whose capture, dead or alive, Government offered a reward of $20,000. We make Mariposa for dinner. By night we reach Rose's, at the foot of the Chowchilla mountains. Every rose has its thorn, but this has several ; there is no place to sleep, nothing to eat, the man of the house away, his wife sick, and it is ten miles to the next house, and up the mountains too. Such was the alarming situation which presented itself to the tired, hungry passengers, as they poured pell-mell into the little front room. There is no alternative ; we must go on, and at a snail's pace, for hours until we reach the summit of the Chowchillas. Now and then a semi-opening in the trees, at some turn in the road, lets in light enough to show us we are missing many a glorious outlook. Between riding and walking — occasion- ally startled by a suspicious crackling of dry sticks near the way-side, which, in one instance, an old guide confi- dently assured us was caused by the movements of a Grizzly, making the less courageous of the company beat a hasty retreat to the cover of the coach — we while away the hours, and work our way upward until we stand, panting, at midnight, on the "divide," 5,000 feet above the sea. By the light of our lamps we can see that now we are with- in the second and most heavily timbered belt, to which be- long the Sequoia Gigantea. If we dragged slowly up the mountains, we drive furiously down. Once in a narrow place, overhanging an 214 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Ugly-looking gulch, through which a river is roaring, the inner hub grates against the granite ; we are not upset, but a stream of fire is uncomfortably suggestive. Cracking whips, hallooing at the horses, drivers shouting challenges, swinging round spurs, thundering over bridges, racing at a reckless rate, we are quickly at the bottom, having made the distance, four miles and a half, in twenty minutes ! We have arrived at Clark's Ranche, from which we di- verge for a day to the Mariposa grove of Big Trees. The second morning, having reached the end of the stage road by this route, we are in the saddle, and once more on our way to the Yosemite. Crossing the south fork of the Mer- ced river, which runs through this ranche, we begin the ascent of higher mountains. Below, around, above, rising from the very summits, and away through the open- ings, far as the eye can reach, are seen the wonderful pines of which one never wearies. The views grow grander and grander; the openness of the forest, and the all but total absence of small trees, underbrush and rubbish, add much to the grandeur of the scene. All goes well until we come to the most dangerous part of the trail this side of the Yo- semite, when we meet a man mounted on a mule. The trail at this point being rocky and loose, the mustang of the EngHshman, in stepping aside to let the mule pass, missed its footing and rolled over. The rider — whether a piece of good horsemanship or good fortune I hardly know — rolled off on the upper side, thus saving himself from being crushed. I expected to see the beast go to the bot- THE YOSEMITE. 215 torn ; but no — it quickly recovered itself, unhurt and un- disturbed. We. have now reached the Mountain Meadows. The air is getting cool. Here there is frost every night in the year. Off to the right are summits from which the snows never melt. At Paregoy's we halt, dine, and change beasts for the last of the journey. Hitherto I have been riding a mustang ; it had served me faithfully, and I had been wise to ask for another. But to give variety and breadth to my experience, in -an evil hour I asked for a mule. " Yes," said the obliging guide, " I'll try and accommodate you." I fancied afterwards that there was a sly twinkle in his eye when he said this. After some manoeuvring the beast is cornered in the corral, haltered and brought out ; she is plump and sleek, but two broadsides of spur scars stir up my suspicions. The Mexican spur, which is universally used, is a coarse, cruel invention, the rowels being seldom less than an inch long; there are no objections to my getting on; she re- ceives me with a demure, submissive look ; naturally, leisurely, she falls into place — the last in the line. I am impatient to see the Yosemite ; she is not. First, being a Humane Society man, I feed her on the milk of human kindness, but it is as " water spilt upon the ground," it does not quicken her pace ; then I reason with her, but she is irrational ; next, I dig my heels into her ribs, but that logic lacks spur ; finally, driven to desperation by the disappearance ahead of all the company, I spy a thicket 2l6 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. from which I cut a black oak rod, six feet long, and browse her with that to within eighteen inches of the butt. Cruel ! yes, to me ; I worked my passage. Let this be " Mollie's " memorial — she was a stubborn, selfish, thick- skinned shirk. The highest point in the trail is now reached — 7,500 feet above the sea. We are in the third timber belt. The trees, still of immense size, have changed to other species, the silver fir and the tamarack pine ; the former straight, lofty, a generous foliage of delicate green surround- ing it in symmetrical collars. Their outward edge bent gracefully down from the weight of winter snows, presents a striking appearance. They are ampng the most beau- tiful of all the trees of the forest. The foliage, like the feathers of northern birds, comes low down, whilst moss underclothing wraps them warm from head to foot. Thus Nature, ever kindly and ever compensating, clothes her care on these wintry heights. " If thou art worn and hard'heset By sorrows that thou wouldst forget ; If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep — Go to the woods and hills." Something — now I know not what — causes me to lift my eyes to the right. What is it ? It cannot be ; we have several miles yet to go. And yet it can be no other ; there is no mistaking that form ; you would know him among all the giants wTiom God's, hands have made. THE YOSEMITE. 217 Standing forth in the front and face of his followers, mas- sive and majestic, rises El-Capitan ! It was meet that my first introduction should be to the renowned chieftain of the valley. In a few minutes more I am out of the forest, and standing on Inspiration Point. Who has ever described this first view ? Who can ? Various have been the emotions and their manifestations. Some have shouted, others have stood subdued and silent ; whilst others, under the fascination of a mighty spell, have crept to the outer edge, and gazed with awe down into the dizzying depths. On this edge a too venturesome woman once fainted, and had fallen but for her watchful guide. A Httle lower down is Mount Beatitude ; from this point the view is more complete. Hereabouts Bier- stadt made sketches for his great painting of the Yo- semite. At first you cannot take in the wondrous scene ; the eye is dazzled, then dimmed by the marvellous combina- tion of beauty and sublimity. The Rasselas of the red man is a reality. To one, the scene recalls the dome of St. Sophia and the Suliman, as seen from the Bosphorus ; to another, Rome as seen from St. Peter's ; the Alps from Lake Como, or Mount Blanc from Chamouni. But all ordinary figures fail. To what shall I liken it? Where go for a comparison ? Fired with the sublime vision, the imagination rises into higher realms, never resting until in Apocalyptic light it beholds the wonders of the Celestial world. O 2l8 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. We begin the descent. The trail is tortuous and thril- lingly narrow ; a stumble, a single mis-step may be fatal. As if to allay our agitation and reassure our hearts, from far below comes up the gentle murmur of the Merced. Half-way down we pass the Hermit's Hut, a hollow in the huge trunk of a living tree, where an oddity in human form once spent several months, until driven out by inhospit- able winter. In one hour's time, by a sudden backward turn in the trail, we come face to face with the wall from whose edge we had been looking down. Oh, what a sight ! I gaze and gaze enchained to the spot. I know it is an awful height, and yet I cannot measure it. In another half-hour I, even I, am in the far-famed valley, standing on the banks of the River of Mercy. Was the view thrilling from above, it is overwhelming from below. The feelings, though on a sublime scale, are similar to those produced when standing at the entrance of some grand old cathedral ; to take it all in — to see all the em- bodied skill and beauty of architect and artisan, you must pass within and tread the nave from threshold to transept. Having entered the valley at the lower end, we will now follow it slowly upward. The waters of the Merced are babbling away, as if every tongue were loosed and trying to tell the wonders through which they have passed. At the right, on the same side as Inspiration Point, but farther up, is the Bridal Veil Fall, the Indian Po-ho'-no — Spirit of the Evil Wind. To the red man these beautiful THE YOSEMITE. 219 waters are ominous of evil. In the lake whence they come many of his people have perished ; in the high-water season some have been carried down by the raging torrent and swept over the fall. They believe an Evil Spirit haunts the stream, and that they hear the voices of their lost kindred crying out from the troubled waters. An Indian could not be persuaded to sleep by these waters, nor even pass near them, unless on swift foot. The fall, forty feet wide and 940 high, is finest when not at the full, its distinguishing feature being beauty. Swayed by the winds, the waters are ever changing their form ; now undulating and now expanding into gauze, the winds weave them into a long white fluttering veil, sparkling with diamonds, and interwoven by a westerning sun with brilliant rainbow belts. On the other side of the valley, directly opposite, is the Ribbon Fall — the Indian Lung'-oo-too-koo'-yah — Long-and-slender. It is dry at present, but its course is clearly outlined on the walls. Looking again to the other side, a little above Poho'no, is a group of graceful peaks rising 3,750 feet above the valley, and called the Three Sisters — Wa-wa-le-nah. Next these, rising 2,400 feet to the roof, with two spires rising 500 feet higher, comes the Cathedral, Poo'-see-na- chuk'-a — Great Indian Store House. " How excellent is Thy loving-kindness, O God ; therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of 220 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Thine house ; and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasure. " Opposite the Cathedral, with scarce a seam or scar, rising 3,300 feet, is the most imposing mass of granite known, El-Capitan— Tu-tock-nu'-lah— the Chieftain of the Valley. The waters have ceased their babble ; gradually their voices were stilled until in the presence of El-Capitan they are hushed to silence — not a ripple, not a murmur ; subdued and silent, like the woman of Bethany, in lowly homage they wash the feet of their chieftain. It is the vesper hour, and El-Capitan with bared head worships in solemn silence at the gates of the Cathedral. Like Moses in the Mount, he catches the glory of communion ; the rays of the setting sun fall upon his brow in beauteous benediction. ' ' Stupendous mountain ! Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, Great Hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon setting sun Earth with her thousand voices praises God." Next the Chieftain and rising higher, but less imposing, are the Three Brothers — Pom-pom-pa'-sus — Mountains playing-leap frog. Opposite these, rising 3,270 feet, is Sentinel Rock — Lo'-ya — Medicinal Shrub ; on its heights the red man has often kindled his watch-fires. If these stupendous walls, separated a mile and more, THE YOSEMITE. 221 were to fall towards each other, they would smite their foreheads together hundreds of feet above the valley. We have now reached Hutchings' Hotel. Hotel, stage — , telegraph — , and post-office and livery stable, are all embo- died in this one establishment. In the short days of winter the sun rises upon it at half-past one o'clock P.M., and sets in an hour after. During this season there is a mail once in three months, brought in over the mountains by Indians on snow shoes. The hotel accommodations are ample and excellent, except in the height of the sea- son, when the " soft side of a board" is in demand, and thankfully received. The walls of the rooms that aim at elegance, instead of being plastered, are covered with un- bleached cotton. Lime is not to be had ; limestone in the geological strata is hundreds of feet below these granite mountains. Cotton is cheap compared with lime brought in on the backs of mules. The material of these dwellings, all this furniture — chairs, tables, stoves, everything — were brought in on the backs of these much-abused but useful brutes. Pluck and pack mules have done much for the Yosemite. Our host, widely known in connection with the place, is an encyclopaedia of the valley and its surroundings. Soon after the discovery he and one or two others settled here on lands that were never in the market. A few years ago, as in the case of the Mariposa grove of Big Trees, Congress granted to California the Yosemite and sur- roundings, " to be held inalienable to all time, for public resort, use and recreation." These early settlers strove 2 22 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. hard — a fortune was involved — to secure the lands to themselves as personal property. Happily they did not succeed. The State awarded them a generous sum ; but, as stipulated by Congress, reserved to itself the lands, only granting well-guarded leases for a term of years. This wise arrangement will prevent the public being fleeced by unscrupulous men, as the property, had it be- come private, might, unfortunately, have passed from the present proprietors into the hands of unprincipled parties. When God gives to the world such glories of creation, let them be for the world, untaxed by man's greed of gold. We never want repeated the rascalities, the extortionate charges of Niagara. Mr. Hutchings, a gentleman of good judgment and cultivated taste, has chosen his location well ; directly op- posite his house are the Yosemite Falls, the highest in the world. The first fall is a clear plunge of i,6oo feet ; it then flows in cascades 634 feet further, when it makes its final plunge of 400 feet — in all, 2,634 feet, or more than half a mile. Niagara falls only 190 feet. The glory of Niagara is volume ; the glory of the Yosemite, height. The average depth of the latter is two feet, with a width of twenty-two ; in spring this quantity is trebled. Then the waters, waked from their winter sleep into fulness of life, come dancing down the distant slopes — the merry " laughter of the mountains " — and racing along the canyon until reaching the precipice, then impetuously leaping over the lip of massive granite, they break into an THE YOSEMITE. 223 " avalanche of snowy rockets," chasing each other wildly down the plunge, finally falling far below into a rocky basin with the roar of a battle-field. Pausing here a moment, as if to recover breath, they start again in the race, but this time more cautiously in the cascades ; suddenly, stirred by the old spirit, they make a final leap ; then, hke the chastened sons of sorrow, wise from the things they have suffered, they flow quietly on to mingle with the waters of the Merced. Continuing our way up the valley, we pass on the right a stupendous wall rising 3,700 feet — Glacier Point — Eri' na-ting-law-oo'-tooh — Bearskin Mountain. From this height, as from Inspiration Point, is to be obtained one of the most thrilling and comprehensive views. An artist of daring ambition once planted his camera on a narrow point overhanging the awful abyss, and obtained some of the best views of the valley and the regions beyond ever taken. On the opposite side, to the left, are the Royal Arches — To-coy'-ae — Shade to Indian Baby's Cradle Basket. These arches have a sweep in the solid rock of 1,800 feet, with nearly half that in depth. By the side of them, rising over 2,000 feet, is a massive pillar called Wash- ington Tower — Hun'-to — the Watching Eye. Above these pillared arches and resting upon them is the North Dome, rising 3,725 feet. At this point the valley, widening, shapes itself into the letter Y ; having come up the lower part of the letter, the 224 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. trunk, we now take the left branch up the Tenieyae Can- yon, called after an Indian chief captured in the valley at the time of its discovery. A short gallop up this canyon brings us to Mirror Lake, the Ah-wi'-yah of the Indian. In the early morning, before the winds are up to ruffle its surface, the lake reflects with magic vividness the sur- rounding mountains, their outlines showing even more dis- tinctly in the water than against the sky. In a small skiff, half filled with water, I crossed to the other side and cut a cane for a keepsake. Rising from the edge of the lake, and between the arms of the Y, is the greatest wonder of the Yosemite — the South Dome — Tis-sa'-ac — the Goddess of the Valley. From some unknown cause the dome has been split from the top, through the centre, down a perpendicular distance of 2,300 feet ; thence, at an angle of 70°, it slopes to the water's edge. What has become of the separated part science has not settled, unless, falling across the Tenieyae River at its foot, it formed the Mirror Lake. The south half of the Dome, still standing, is as beautiful a piece of native granite as ever the eye looked upon ; it is perfect in form and highly polished by elemental action. Men have essayed to ascend it, but given it up in despair. It, like the summit of Koh Talism, the Mount of the Talis- man in Eastern story, has never been ascended. The Goddess of the Valley lifts her haughtyhead in unapproach- able dignity and grandeur. The world wonders at the genius of Michael Angelo, who reared the dome of St. THE YOSEMITE. 225 Peter's 405 feet high. Lo ! a greater than Angelo is here. This dome rises 6,000 feet ! " Fit part of That Cathedral boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply. Its choir the wind and waves ; its organ thunder ; Its dome the sky." At the foot of Tis-sa'-ac let us rest awhile and listen to a legend, from the lips of an old Indian, connecting her with Tu-tock-ah-nu-lah, the Chieftain of the Valley. The legend, in the highly poetical language of the children of the forest, was first given to the public anonymously by an Easterner signing himself " Iota." " It was in the unremembered past that the children of the sun first dwelt in Yosemite. Then all was happiness ; for Tu- tock-ah-nu-lah sat on high in his rocky home, and cared for the people whom he loved. Leaping over the upper plains, he herded the wild deer, that the people might choose the fattest for the feast. He aroused the bear from his cavern in the mountain, that the brave might hunt. From his lofty rock he prayed to the Great Spirit, and brought the soft rain upon the corn in the valley, The smoke of his pipe curled into the air, and the golden sun breathed warmly through its blue haze, and ripened the crops, that the women might gather them in. When he laughed, the face of the winding river was rippled with smiles ; when he sighed, the wind swept sadly through the singing pines : if he spoke, the sound was like the deep 2 26 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. voice of the cataract ; and when he smote the far-striding bear, his whoop of triumph rang from crag to gorge — echoed from mountain to mountain. His form was straight Hke the arrow, and elastic like the bow. His foot was swifter than the red deer, and his eye was strong and bright like the rising sun. " But one morning, as he roamed, a bright vision came before him, and then the soft colors of the West were in his lustrous eye. A maiden sat upon the southern granite dome that raises its gray head among the highest peaks. She was not like the dark maidens of the tribe below, for the yellow hair rolled over her dazzling form, as golden waters over silver rocks ; her brow beamed with the pale beauty of the moonlight, and her blue eyes were as the far-off hills before the sun goes down. Her little foot shone like the snow-tufts on the wintry pines, and its arch was like the spring of a bow. Two cloud-like wings wavered upon her dimpled shoulders, and her voice was as the sweet, sad tone of the night-bird of the woods. " ' Tu-tock-ahnu-lah/ she softly whispered ; then glid- ing up the rocky dome, she vanished over its rounded top. Keen was the eye, quick was the ear, swift was the foot of the noble youth, as he sped up the rugged path in pursuit ; but the soft down from her snowy wings was wafted into his eyes, and he saw her no more. " Every morning now did the enamored Tu-tock-ah-nu- lah leap the stony barriers, and wander over the moun- tains, to meet the lovely Tis-sa^-ac. Each day he laid THE YOSEMITE. 227 sweet acorns and wild flowers upon her dome. His ear caught her footstep, though it was h'ght as the falling leaf ; his eye gazed upon her beautiful form, and into her gentle eyes ; but never did he speak before her, and never again did her sweet-toned voice fall upon his ear. " Thus did he love the fair maid, and so strong was his thought of her that he forgot the crops of Yosemite, and they, without rain, wanting his tender care, quickly drooped their heads, and shnmk. The wind whistled mournfully through the wild corn, the wild bee stored no more honey in the hollow tree, for the flowers had lost their freshness, and the green leaves became brown. Tu-tock-ah-nu-lah saw none of this, for his eyes were dazzled by the shining wings of the maiden. But Tis-sa^-ac looked with sorrow- ing eyes over the neglected valley, when early in the morning she stood upon the gray dome of the mountain ; so, kneeling on the smooth, hard rock, the maiden be- sought the Great Spirit to bring again the bright flowers and delicate grasses, green trees and nodding acorns. Then with an awful sound the dome of granite opened beneath her feet, and the mountain was riven asunder, while the melting snows from the Nevada gushed through the wonderful gorge. Quickly they formed a lake be- tween the perpendicular walls of the cleft mountain, and sent a sweet murmuring river through the valley. " All then was changed. The birds dashed their little bodies into the pretty pools among the grasses, and flut- tering out again sang for delight ; the moisture crept si- 2 28 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. lently through the parched soil ; the flowers sent up a fragrant incense of thanks ; the corn gracefully raised its drooping head ; and the sap, with velvet footfall, ran up into the trees, giving life and energy to all. But the maid, for whom the valley had suffered, and through whom it had been again clothed with beauty, had disap- peared as strangely as she came. Yet, that all might hold her memory in their hearts, she left the quiet lake, the winding river, and yonder half-dome^ which still bears her name, Tis-sct-ac. As she flew away, small downy feathers were wafted from her wings, and where they fell — on the margin of the lake — you will now see thou-' sands of little white violets. '' When Tu-tock-ah-nu-lah knew that she was gone, he left his rocky castle and wandered away in search of his lost love. But that the Yosemites might never forget him, with the hunting-knife in his bold hand, he carved the outlines of his noble head upon the face of the rock that bears his name. And there they still remain, three thousand feet in the air, guarding the entrance to the beautiful valley which had received his loving care." These magnificent towers and domes, bearing their beautiful Indian names, and rich in charming legendary lore, are, in this utilitarian age, threatened with profana- tion. Two youths from *' Boston town " once wrote in the Yosemite register thus : " I this day name the heights west of the Yosemite Falls, Nevins Heights, in honor of my father, David Nevins, of Boston, Mass," THE YOSEMITE. 229 The second wrote : " I this day name the heights east of the Yosemite Falls ' Milton Heights/ in honor of my father, Thomas Milton, of Boston, Mass." Directly under, the hand of a close-pursuing Nemesis wrote : ** Ye gods ! to think such witless wights Should with such names damn noble heights." Retracing our steps down the Tenieyae Canyon to where the valley branches, and striking across to the other arm, passing Lamon's Orchard on the left and Gla- cier Point on the right, we come face to face with the South Canyon Cataract — Too-lool-we-ack — 600 feet high. A few years ago, swollen by heavy rains and melting snows, the waters tore away their rocky walls, hurling huge boulders over the precipice down into the valley, breaking the biggest pines into fragments as if they were the merest pipe-stems. All around us are masses of granite weighing thousands of tons — infant offspring un- missed by mountain mother from whose sides they have been torn. The trail threads its winding way among these granite masses, along the waters of the main Merced. The River of Mercy is now changed into a river of wrath. Recovering from a fearful fall at the head of the valley, it foams and rages down the declivity with vengeful voice. We have now reached Register Rock ] here toll is taken and " drinks " are dispensed ; I pay the toll, but dispense with the drinks. The rock, an enormous fragment fallen from the walls, is 230 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. all written over — more properly, daubed — from the paint- pots of the aspiring and ostentatious. The Americans — and we, alas ! are only too fast following their example — have a mania for painting their names and nostrums on all the high places from Dan to Beersheba. It is to be hoped that legislation, already at work, will be successful in cleansing the country of this abomination. Sending the guide with the mules by the round-about trail leading above the falls, I take the short cut up the face of the cliffs. The ascent is toilsome, but, helped by a stout staff and stirred by the sound of many waters, I come finally face to face with Vernal Fall — Py-wy'-ack — Showers of Sparkling Diamonds. The waters have worn the walls into a horse-shoe shape. On each side, pressing close, grey and grim, rise the same stupendous granite cliffs. Hugging the walls as if to keep at a safe distance from the plunging, roaring waters, and yet creeping cau- tiously, like human adventurers, towards the fascinating fall, are clusters of evergreens. Directly in front of the fall, the lofty brow bathing in its spray, the stalwart trunk rooted to the spot in unwearied wonder and delight, stands, and has stood for a hundred years, a solitary pine. This fall is not as high as some of the others ; but, as their Indian name signifies, they are very beautiful. " Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood Rolls fair and placid : where collected all, In one impetuous torrent down the steep It thundering shoots and shakes the rocks around. THE YOSEMITE. 23 1 At first an azure sheet it nishes broad ; Then whitening by degrees, as prone it falls, And from the loud resounding rocks below. Dashed in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft A heavy mist and forms a ceaseless shower. Nor can the tortured wave here find repose ; But raging still among the shaggy rocks, Now flashes o'er the scattered fragments ; now Aslant the hollow channel rapid darts ; And falling fast from gradual slope to slope, With wild infracted course, and lessened roar, It gains a safer bed, and steals, at last. Along the mazes of a quiet vale." Continuing our wslj, we reach the top of the fall by a wooden stairway fastened close against the perpendicu- lar wall with iron bands and spikes driven into holes drilled in the granite. Once a half-intoxicated Italian, in ascending the old stairs, still there, but now unused, moved to the outer edge to allow the passing of some ladies who were descending ; he slipped, and perished on the rocks below. Having reached the top, you stand on a rock plateau, still within the valley, still surrounded by the same stupendous walls. Following up the Merced, a few steps brings us to Sil- ver Lake — a large rocky basin, smooth as glass, in which the waters are held awhile, as if to rest and gather cour- age for the fearful leap. We next come to a large granite kettle, into which the waters are tumultuously pouring ; it has been hollowed out by pieces of granite whirled about its sides until they are worn smooth and round 232 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. as cannon balls. I saw one of these balls, weighing more than a man could lift, as perfect in form and finish as a work of art. A workman once dropped his iron crowbar into this kettle, and when fished out, two years afterwards, it was nearly worn away. We have now come to Snow's, a house of entertainment. Though 1,000 feet above the lower valley, we are still enclosed by towering peaks and massive walls^ forming the grand- est of amphitheatres — a lordly place for the " lord of the mountains '' to gather his followers for feast or council. Turning and facing the fall whence we came, our host, directing our attention to a lofty plateau coming out to the edge of the wall on our right, told us that deer and bear were sometimes seen there, wandering up and down the edge, seeking a safe way over. Once a cinnamon bear — it would have given us less pain had it been a grizzly — more plucky than prudent, attempted the de- scent ; he got down — with every bone in his body broken. Once, while a party were dining at Snow's, a vast mass of rock fell from the mountain just behind the house, shaking the valley, and filHng it with dust. The terror- stricken guests sprang to their feet, some unselfishly set- tling their bill, and some selfishly improving all the time to their own account, getting out of the horrible place as fast as their legs would carry them. Occasionally earthquake shocks are felt, one occurring a few years ago of such violence as to shake delf from the boards and sleepers from their beds. Still judging THE YOSEMITE. . 233 from the statements and the quietude of dwellers in the valley, no serious evils from this source are to be appre- hended, unless, as often happens, deliverance breeds in- difference to danger. In the rear of Snow's house, and overtopping it, is the Cap of Liberty — Ma'-tah — Martyr Mountain. Why so called I could not ascertain. On the top, which can be reached from beyond, you see two shrubs ; well, they are juniper trees measuring ten feet in diameter ! But the great attraction here is Nevada Fall — Yo-wi'- ye — Meandering. It owes its name to a twist in the waters occasioned by a curl in the lip of the wall. Its height is 700 feet. Though not the highest, it is considered by many the most magnificent fall of the Yosemite. Its waters flow down the wall four-fifths of the way ; then, striking a smooth shelf of granite, they spread into a broad belt, sparkling in the sun with myriad gems of brilliant hues. We are still unsatisfied ! There is a higher point and more commanding views. " Excelsior " is written on our banner. Following up the trail hewn into the steep sides of Matah Mountain, we reach the Upper or Little Yose- mite. Turning to the left, and passing close to the South Dome, we work our way up. The air grows rarer, and feeble lungs labor. The Chickadee and Chipmonk^are left behind. The trees are stunted and sparse. We have come to the end of the trail. Tying the mules to the last tree, we finish the ascent on foot. We have gained the P 234 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. summit of Cloud's Rest, 6,000 feet above the valley, and 10,000 feet above the sea. It is the highest point in the near vicinity of the Yosemite. Below us lies the valley. Higher up, but still beneath us, unseen and unsuspected from below, is the lovely Lake of Tenieyae, sleeping in sublime solitude. Far away over the mountains winds the trail, forty miles to Lake Mono. Around us, in the shelter of towering peaks, slumber eternal snows. Above us tower the still higher peaks. Mounts Clark, King, Dana, Lyell, Hoffman — no longer in the far distance, but now familiar friends. To the east, south and north, far as the eye can reach, are " mountains high on moun- tains piled." To the west, fifty miles away, spread the beautiful valleys of Sacramento and Joaquin. Farther on, 100 miles, is the Coast Range, stretching north and south, sheltering these fertile valleys from the rude winds of ocean. " I have," said a celebrated member of the Alpine Club, " several times visited all the noted places in Europe, and many that are out of the ordinary tourist's round. I have crossed the Andes in three different places, and been con- ducted to the sights considered most remarkable. I have been among the charming scenery of the Sandwich Islands, and the mountain districts of Australia, but never have I seen so much of sublime grandeur relieved by so much beauty as that which I have witnessed in the Yo- semite." I am satisfied. My friend and I add a stone each to THE YOSEMITE. 235 the monument crowning the crest, m memory of those who have made the ascent, and then we return to the val- ley, having accomplished the undertaking in something over a day and a night. How came this valley ? What force or forces hewed it out ? There are various theories. The Subsidence — the foundations were removed and the mountains settled. The Fissure — the mountains were cloven asunder. The Erosive — the mountains were worn away by water. And the Glacial theory. In the far past the Sierras abounded in living glaciers. They still exist, but in lim- ited numbers and on a smaller scale. In the region of the Yosemite there was a large cluster of these old-time glaciers. The " wombs "—vast basins — wherein they were formed are still clearly seen near the summits of the mountains. Their natural outlet was the comparatively slight depression and descent preceding the present Yo- semite. From these basins, all the way down the canyons leading from them, to the very verge of the great Yosemite gorge, glacial action can be distinctly traced. The granite is scored and polished as only vast masses of ice could have done it. The main Merced, the Toloolweack, the Tenieyae and other canyons poured their overwhelming ice-masses into the common reservoir, hewing out the huge trough of to-day. Not only along these canyons whence the glaciers came, but all along the sides of the Yosemite itself, are, to the eye of science, unmistakable evidence of the glacial action. The Glacial period passed away. 236 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. The moraine which it left behind, combined with the washings of later periods, has turned the rocky abyss into a fertile valley. In spring it is fragrant with the most beautiful flowers. Sweet-scented shrubs and flowering trees grow not only by the water-courses, but along the foot of the rocky walls. The wide-spreading oaks remind one of the EngHsh parks. The pines have root in as rich a soil as on the Sierras. The cedars are lofty as those of Lebanon. Strawberries, grapes, peaches, plums and apples grow abundantly. The trees in Lamon's orchard were breaking under their bur- den, whilst the ground was strewn with rotting fruit. But the distinguishing features of this wondrous valley are not the meandering Merced nor the gifts of its mercy, the fruits and the flowers. The glories of the Yosemite are its cataracts, falling from 500 to 2,500 feet ; its solid granite walls rising, from 3,000 to 6,000 feet; its beautiful domes, resting against the sky — these are the features which, grouped together, make the Yosemite the most singular and the most stupendous sight in the natural world. "Emblem of Omnipotence ! Shaped by His hand — the shadow of His light, The veil in which He wraps His Majesty, And through whose mantling folds He deigns to show Of His mysterious, awful attributes, And dazzling splendors, all man's feeble thought Can grasp uncrushed, or vision bear unquenched." CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE PACIFIC. ^HALL I return to the East by the way I came — across the Continent by rail— or around the Continent by steamer ? By rail will save two weeks' time, but cost at least $50 more. By rail will spare me the horrors of sea-sickness, but rob me of its reputed health-giving virtues. By rail will deliver me from the dangers of the deep, but cheat me out of "crossing the Isthmus," with its won- drous wealth of vegetation and life a hundred years behind the times. Besides, if I return across the Continent, may not my going over the same ground so soon again, instead of confirming, confuse and mar the magnificent panorama but lately stamped upon the me- mory? I resolved to return by sea, and secured a cabin passage by the steamers of the Pacific Mail Steamship 238 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Company for $100 in gold, which covered all expenses for nearly a month's voyage of 5,000 miles. In former days, before the building of the Trans-Conti- nental Railroad, when the Steamship Company enjoyed a monopoly of business, their charges were exorbitant, and their vessels — specially on the Pacific — were cheaply built of wood, with an eye rather to capacity than strength ; but since the rivalry of the railroad, and the wreck of several of their steamers, they have greatly reduced the rates, and paid more attention to elements of safety. Ours is an iron steamer, built rather for the turbulent waters of the Atlantic than those of the peaceful Pacific. The Company, from its " Rings " and " corruptions," is attaining a more than continental notoriety. Deprived of their profits by the overland trafi[ic, and cursed with speculating, unscrupulous officers, they have been brought to the very verge of, if not to actual bankruptcy. One of their Presidents, now the notorious Stockwell, aided by one Irwin, another official, abstracted nearly a million of dollars from the funds of the Company — a portion going to bribe Senators and Congressmen in order to secure increased Government subsidies, and the remainder, it is believed, being appropriated to their own personal aggran- dizement. The history of Stockwell furnishes facts stranger than fiction. When a young man, he was at one time a purser on one of the inland steamers. On one of the trips, among the passengers were Howe, of sewing machine fame, and his daughters, with one of whom Stock- ON THE PACIFIC. 239 well fell in love. Throwing up his situation, and borrowing money for the undertaking, he soon followed them to Europe, where they had gone. He was successful, marry- ing the daughter in London before they returned. Lack- ing in education, but possessing plenty of " cheek," and now money through marriage, he betook himself to Wall Street as an operator in. stocks. Taking a fancy, from the first, to the stock of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, he succeeded, not only in securing a large amount of that, but also his election to the Presidency of the Company. While in this position he paid little attention to its duties, but gave himself up to society and speculation. He was feted and courted as the Beau Brummel of one and the Croesus of the other. But while he was dancing and ban- queting, the boats of the Company were going to the bottom. His star soon began to wane. He strove to redeem his fortunes by gambling in stocks, and by bribing Government to obtain larger subsidies to the sinking ship, but all in vain. Caught in his own " corner," he was kicked out of the Company and out of society. In pros- perity he was " Commodore Stockwell ; " in his decline, " Captain Stockwell ; " in his fall, it was at first plain " Stockwell," then " Old Stockwell " j finally, it was " Old Stockwell," coupled with whatever opprobrious epithet came to hand. " The name of the wicked shall rot." Precisely at twelve o'clock, mid-day, we steam away from the spacious, splendid wharf of the Company, past the " Japan " — since wrecked on the coast of China, with 240 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. great loss of life — past a great variety of shipping belong- ing to all nations, and out through the Golden Gate into the Pacific. Once out at sea, and out of sight of land, we turn to take account of our ship's company. The Cap- tain and officers generally are courteous, and, as far as I know, capable. The crew, composed chiefly of Chinese just arrived from China, are working their passage to Panama, where they are to be employed in the Company's service. Being well officered, and Neptune propitious, they succeeded very well. There are about fifty cabin and sixty steerage passengers ; the latter chiefly Celestials. The passengers are made up of " Greasers " — Mexicans — Castilians, as they delight to call themselves, but really degenerate Spaniards — Germans, French, Italians, Rus- sians, Americans, English, etc. Here is an emaciated German, who years ago left the East and came to California in quest of health. He shifted up and down the State, finally settling in Oregon, from which he is now returning to die in his early Ohio home. Look at these two men, bachelor brothers, for theirs is a sadder story. Nearly twenty years ago, infected with the " gold fever," they left their happy, boyhood home? and came to California seeking their fortune, and had seemingly, succeeded, as far as money goes ; but alas ! like multitudes more, in the race for riches, they have for- gotten God. One of them, the elder, a consumptive, far- gone, and in the care of the younger, is " returning to his ON THE PACIFIC. 24I mother," as he said, " to be nursed and cured." He speaks confidently, but in the merest whisper, of soon again seeing the shores of the Pacific, and with restored health. Deceitful disease ! Deluded victim ! As soon as the chill of the Atlantic off Cape Hatteras strikes him he dies — dies alone with his drunkefi brother. Here are several sound in body, but sick at heart of the Golden State ; they are now on their way to South America to try their fortunes in Chili, which is at present attracting a good deal of attention on the Pacific coast. This young Russian, on his way home to St. Petersburg, is in some respects the most remarkable man among us. He is a polyglot, conversing fluently, in their own tongue, with all nationalities on board except the Chinese. He is also well read in general information. Intended by his parents for the priesthood of the Greek Church, he was favored with every advantage of education ; first at St. Petersburg, and afterwards in Germany and England. Having completed his travels in America, he is now returning, after years of absence, not to enter the priest- hood, but a clever, confirmed sceptic. He came into the cabin on the Sabbath day, and listened with exemplary attention and respect to a sermon on "Jesus, the Rest of the Weary," but afterwards, in private conversation, eagerly strove against the doctrine. Mark these two young men, cousins, returning after a holiday to their employment in South America. They owe their niche on this page to the notoriety of their em- 242 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. ployer, who stole away from San Francisco some years ago, in his own well-furnished ship, leaving behind innumerable debts and gigantic frauds. He directed his prow towards Peru. Being a man of enterprise and good address, he ingratiated himself into the confidence of the Government, and secured, mth large subsidies, contracts for building railroads over the Andes and elsewhere, and is to-day a millionaire ! Let me not fail to add, that either from a sense of duty or a desire to open a door for his return — perhaps both — he has been paying his debts, as well as petitioning for the repeal of the decree of outlawry against him. If I am to give a faithful portraiture of persons figuring prominently on the voyage, then I must accord a place on the canvas to an elderly lady — partly our entertainment, and partly our terror. She is accompanied — she, un- questionably is the head of the house — by her husband and son, all returning to their Kentucky home, after an absence of a year spent in California. Having unwisely delayed securing a state-room until on board, she now attends to it, pressing vigorously through the crowd gathered round the Purser's office. " I say, Purser " — puffing and perspir- ing, but with the utmost good nature — " I say, I want three state-rooms — one on the sunny side of the steamer for my husband, who can't stand the cold ; another, in a quiet part, for my son, who can't stand sea-sickness ; and the other in the cool side of the steamer for myself, who, you see, sir, am pretty stout, and can't stand the heat." ON THE PACIFIC. 243 "Yes, madame, yes ; certainly I'll do all I can to accom- modate you," said the obliging Purser. Then, either from necessity or depravity, he put the three into one room, in the most uncomfortable part of the cabin. The old gen- tleman, a philosopher in his way, accepted the situation without complaining — he had the sunny side ; but to the stout mother and sea-sick son it was a terrible trial, and unpardonable if a practical joke. However, she was not to be put down ; tribulation can not subdue her spirits ; she was an interminable talker — a grievous affliction to an aching head. She would talk — blind, deaf to every sign of distress. One night, nauseated and riled generally, I sought out the most secluded, unapproachable corner on deck, in hope that quiet and the night breezes might bring me some relief Alas ! she found me out, planted herself at my side, and for one half hour — hours to me — poured out an un- broken stream of talk ; then, suddenly checking herself, she exclaimed in a half-soUloquizing tone, ''Well, I do like to sit and Hsten to other people talk ! " " Other peo- ple talk ! " I had hardly uttered a word — indeed I had scarcely tried. I looked longingly towards John China- man, minding his evening duties in silence, and thought of the wise saying of his countryman, " Speech is silvern, but silence is golden." Yet this woman was intelligent, energetic, unselfish ; truly good, I believe, but garrulous. Among the steerage passengers was a Chinaman, whose general appearance particularly interested me. He was well dressed in Chinese costume, wore a look of niore than 244 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. ordinary intelligence, kept himself carefully aloof from his countrymen, and evidently was not working his passage. The Chinese, no matter what their social station or wealth, take steerage passage, because here they can more easily obtain their favorite food, rice, etc., and prepared as they desire it. On addressing myself to this man I found him speaking broken English, and eager to converse. He was a merchant from San Francisco, on his way to Costa Rico, in Central America, where he hoped to estabHsh a branch business. In the course of conversation he asked me if I had called on the Chinese students who had arrived in the city the day before our departure, on their way to be edu- cated in the Universities of the Eastern States. "No; did you?" ** Yes ; so did most of the leading Chinamen." " Did any of these — pointing to other steerage passen- gers — call on them ? " In an instant caste showed itself. " These ! " he exclaimed, in a tone of contempt, " no ; these common Chinaman ; me Chinaman of tone ; me come from Canton ; these come from country — from every- where ; these (with a shrug) common Chinaman." After talking awhile about trade, he suddenly asked, " You merchant ? " "No." Then looking in my face in a half abstracted way, as if weighing the evidence internally whilst gathering it, he added with considerable assurance. ON THE PACIFIC. 245 ''You missionary — you teach Jesus Christ !" Though our conversation had not as yet touched upon rehgion, nor did my dress present the slightest approach to the clerical, still with their accustomed shrewdness of observation he had guessed my calling. "Yes j I teach Jesus Christ. What do you know of Him?" At once and accurately he quoted " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." In further conversation he evinced considerable know- ledge of the Scriptures. He first acquired some knowledge of the English language and of the Bible from the mis- sionaries in China, and had added to his stock since com- ing to Cahfornia ] but still he avowed himself a believer in Buddha. Difficult to convert to Christianity, it is true, and yet may not the truth in him, and in many of his peo- ple, be like the leaven in the meal — silently yet surely working ? The cooks, waiters, chdircibQX-matds — if Chinsimen may be so called — are all Chinese. Bright, willing, easily trained to tidiness, sprightly in their movements, minding well their own business, they usually make excellent ser- vants. The first mate found a good deal of fault with the sluggishness of some of the crew, and occasionally used upon the shirks a stimulus in the shape of a sudden vigor- ous shove, which hastened their movements, but never diminished their good nature. It must be remembered in palliation that these sluggards were pagans, and pagans, too, working their passage. 246 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. One day we were startled by the hurried ringing of the ship's bell and a rush to the pumps and water hose. The ship is on fire ! No ; it is only a regulation of the Com- pany to keep the crew in practice. Another time the men are made to practise getting out and inflating ready for use the huge rubber-float life preservers, capable of sup- porting each a score or more of persons. The steamer is amply furnished with saving resources in case of fire or wreck, and all are kept in good repair through the thor- oughness of its officers. All these precautions inspired a confidence which went far to make the passage one of the pleasantest. The fare is always abundant and varied — the farewell, as is customary, rechenhe and sumptuous. Animal life abounds both in the sea and air. During the earlier part of the voyage large numbers of gulls, the species changing with the latitude, kept us company. As we advance south, the gulls give place to the albatross and Modier Carey's chickens, which revive the memory of the*' Ancient Mariner " and many a story besides of sailor fears and fatalities. We see but one whale, which having re-invested in a fresh supply of air by a few ener- getic spouts, disappears again in the depths. The captain on the iVtlantic side told us that once when commanding a war ship cruising the Pacific, they were accompanied for several days by two whales, one on each side of the ship, within gunshot. At last the superstitious sailors, thoroughly scared, believing their persistent presence be- ON THE PACIFIC. 247 tokened some evil, brought out their guns and fired into them. The small artillery produced as Uttle impression on them as on a peat-stack — the bullets burying themselves harmlessly in the blubber encasing the creature. In cer- tain latitudes, hundreds of turtles, some of enormous size, are seen floating on the sea. Occasionally a shark shows himself with " sails set " — the side, not dorsal fin, standing straight up out of the water. But the most interesting of all are the flying-fish, in appearance not unlike small herring. Startled by the ship's course, vast numbers suddenly rise from the sea ahead of us, and go sailing through the air, shining in the sun like polished silver. Sometimes they mistake their course and land on deck. The most beautiful sight is at night, when the sea is sown as thick with stars as the skies above us. Calmly set in the unbroken waters before, rolling in the wake behind, swaying in the receding swells, dancing, scintillating in the snowy foam flung from the ship's sides, are living mil- lions of phosphorescent jelly-fish. For hours, leaning over the vessel's side, we unweariedly watch the wonders of God's " way in the deep." Occasionally we sight the shore, distant from 25 to 100 miles. Though out of sight of land, we are never at a loss to tell to a point our whereabouts. The science of navigation has been reduced to such a nicety of calcula- tion that in clear weather, even in mid-ocean, one can tell within a quarter of a mile his precise place on the globe. 248 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. At the end of a week, 1,500 miles from San Francisco, half way between it and Panama, the steamer heads in- land for Acapulco, on the coast of Mexico, where it makes the first and only stop during the voyage. Just as the mountain range skirting the coast is growing dim in the dusk of evening, there rises directly over an isolated peak what seems at first a brilliant star of unusual magnitude : it is the light-house lamp, hung to guide the way into Acapulco harbour. The entrance is very difficult of dis- covery, strange ships having had to cruise about for days before finding it. Not until we are close to shore does the narrow entrance appear, running at first, not straight inland, but parallel with the coast; then suddenly doubling back upon itself a short distance, it opens out into a harbor unsurpassed for safety. The harbor is not large, but it is more than sufficiently spacious for all the shipping that will ever visit it while the land is under Mexican rule. Three hundred years ago Acapulco was one of the first Span- ish marts in America. Tempora mutantur^et nos mutamur in illis. As long as Mexico remains priest-ridden and Bible-robbed, no Maximilian from without nor Juarez from within will ever make her people what they might be — wealthy and powerful. Shortly after our leaving Acapulco there occurred in the city a terrible massacre of the Protestants assembled for worship in the newly-organized Presbyterian Church. Five were killed and more wounded. Incited by their priests, this people, in whose veins flow a mixture of ON THE PACIFIC. 249 Indian and Mexican blood, are ready for any deed of treachery and violence. The harbor, though as far north as i6° 55', is, owing to being shut in from both land and sea breezes by the high mountain range running all around it, one of the hottest places in the world. The clothing of the common people is, in consequence, of the slightest and scantiest ; the broad-brimmed sombrero^ a cotton shirt wide open at the breast, and breeches — a short apology of the same stuff — make up the tout e?tsemble. There being no wharf accommodations for vessels of our draught, we are obliged to cast anchor out in the bay, half a mile from shore, in thirty fathoms of water. Our arrival is announced by the firing of a cannon from the steamer's deck, waking up splendid echoes and sleep- ing citizens. Immediately there ensues on shore a wide- spread commotion. Lights are flitting about in all directions and moving towards the beach ; soon a fleet of " dug-outs," each containing from two to five persons, and laden with oranges, limes, pineapples, plantains, paroquets, shells, coral, etc., etc., put out to traffic, every- one striving to reach the steamer first and secure the best place. In a short time the waters about the vessel are covered with canoes carrying flaming torches, which brilliantly light up the darkness, showing off with fine effect the wares spread out in the bottom of the boat, and the natives — men and women — swarming, smoking, shout- ing. One in the stern manages the boat while those in Q 250 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. front attend to the trading. They are such expert thieves that'not a^'soul is suffered on board ship. The canoemen understand the regulations, and come well prepared to trade in spite of this restraint. Every boat is provided withi^a lasso, to which is attached a basket made of matting. First, in broken English, all crying at the same time, they shout up to us the names and prices of their wares. Staple articles, for sale by all, have a setded uniform price 3 but fancy articles, whose value may be very uncertain, and articles of which any boat may have a monopoly, are put up at exorbitant prices ; they will cheat you if they can. It is with them no trick of trade, but a settled, under- stood principle. A bargain having been struck, they dexterously throw up one end of the lasso, retaining the other end themselves. The buyer having drawn up the basket and deposited his money in it, they draw it down and send up the purchase. The usage which insists on payment before the delivery of the goods originated in their being robbed by tricky travellers, who, having first secured their purchases, refused to pay for them. Under the circumstances, the wronged had no means of redress. Occasionally — it occurred once with us — a dishonest native will do as he has been done by — get down the money and then refuse to send up the stuff. Your pro- tection lies in placing a mortgage on the property in the canoe, viz., hold fast your end of the rope. Rather than lose her lasso, on which the night's sale depends, the sharp old hag, serenely smoking her cigarette, after ON THE PACIFIC. 25 1 some ineffectual tugging quietly gives up, and fulfils her contract. The Chinese enjoyed the scene immensely, and though ordinarily cautious of outlay, were on that occasion among the best buyers. Now and then a venturesome maiden, laden with wares and eager to drive business, would, by standing on the nose of the canoe and throwing up the hands, succeed in getting John Chinaman — who was only too willing — to seize them and drag her through a gangway into the steamer. Having remained as long as she dare, she backs out, hindered rather than helped by the teasing crew, sometimes dropping into the canoe, and sometimes into the sea. When the latter occurs shouts of laughter and xheer after cheer go up from the canoes. You could hardly drown one ; they float like corks and swim like ducks. Whilst they were packed close about the vessel, and in the midst of trafficking, the revenue cutter, pulled by a dozen active fellows, and carrying the Customs' officer, came, without a word of warning, crashing in among them. Curses flew thick and fast from both sides. I expected nothing else than to see some of the canoes swamped ; but no — they were used to such collisions. With ready skill they at once cursed and cleared the way. The ofifi- cials boarded us with pomp and ceremony ; . but this mountain of show results in little. We have nothing to land and as little to take on. So undeveloped are the commercial resources of this 252 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. entire coast that a party of San Franciscans and others who had taken passage for Acapulco, expecting to con- nect here with vessels plying to the ports of Central America, were disappointed, there being no immediate connection and the future uncertain ; at doubled expense and serious loss of time they were obliged to go on 1,500 miles farther to Panama, and there make what connections they could back up the coast. The Customs' officer returns to the shore, the Captain and company return to the ship, the anchor is hoisted, the signals given, the canoe squadron scatters in a trice, and we are soon again out at sea. The latter part of the voyage is much the same as the former, excepting the increasing heat and the historic associations of the coast and the islands on our landward side. Central America, whose lofty mountain ranges are seldom lost to view, is a country of fine capabilities but badly governed, the ignorant and narrow-minded having risen into power. Occasionally there are spasmodic stir- rings of enterprize ; schemes for pubUc improvement are set on foot only to fail, and sink the people more deeply in the slough of despond. Such was the fate of the rail- road scheme with its eighteen million European loan ; the money disappeared whilst the road remains unfinished — a mocking memorial of a people still under the enervating influences of the mediaeval ages. The best classes are leaving the country. The remedy is revolution — revolu- tion in Church and State. ON THE PACIFIC. 253 At our left, rising in clear and beautiful outlines, the one 12,000, the other 14,000 feet above the sea, are the vol- canoes Agua — water, and Fuego — fire. From the first there once issued a deluge of water, destroying a vast amount of life and property; whilst the other, 100 years ago, destroyed old Guatemala, built at its base. The Guatemala of to-day is beautifully situated forty miles distant from the old city, on a broad table-land over 4,000 feet above the sea, with a climate of perpetual spring — the thermometer averaging 65° Fahrenheit. Along this coast, and near the steamer's track, com- pletely covered with luxuriant foliage gracefully bending to the water's edge — emerald gems set in a sea of glass — are the three islands, Quibo, Hickori and Hickoron, famous for having been the rendezvous of the buccaneers. Henceforth the foliage is abundant and beautiful be- yond description. The air is soft and balmy, from the breezes blowing off shore. In the evenings I go upon deck, the awning which screened it from the scorching sun during the day having been removed, and, uncovered, sleep for hours with impunity. It is late on Friday after- noon and we are nearing the end of our voyage. Every- body is on deck and forward, each striving to catch the first glimpse of the ancient City of the Isthmus. Mast after mast rises to view, and soon beyond are seen the city walls and turrets. The voyage of over 3,200 miles, taking just two weeks and a few additional hours, is safely accomplished, and we cast anchor in the Bay of Panama, CHAPTER XIX. PANAMA. CRUISE about the bay and a visit to the city, before starting across the Isthmus, will reward us well. And there will be ample time, for the transhipment of our cargo of teas, which are to accompany us on the Atlantic, will delay the passengers a day. The bay is a splendid sheet of water 130 miles across its mouth, and running inland 120 miles. When entering it we were obliged to run 100 miles south in order to round the long neck of land from the north en" closing its waters. On the northern shore, a few miles from the city, is Dead Man's Island, where, in other days, was buried many a California-bound adventurer who had perished from Panama fever. On the same shore and nearer the city are several islands belonging conjointly to the Steamship and Railroad Ji PANAMA. 255 Company. They are all beautiful, abounding in springs and luxuriantly wooded ; but Flamenco, the largest and nearest the city, is the most interesting, being specially used for the Company's offices and employees. As the tide here rises and falls thirty feet, the sloping, sandy shore presents superior facilities for the repairs of shipping. The Chinese employed by the Company are lodged and fed in the huge hulk of a dismantled steamer anchored off the island. They are quite at home in their amphibious quarters, large numbers coming from the great coast cities of the Empire, having been born and bred on the water. Numbers of negroes are also employed by the Company, but as they pride themselves on being superior to the Celestials, abusing them at every safe opportunity, the latter have refused to work with them ; hence each class now works by itself. Whilst watching the transhipment of the cargo I was struck with the appearance of one of the check clerks, a young man not long turned his teens. On acquaintance, he pi-oved to be a Canadian who had left home, as he himself said, " to seek his fortune ; " more properly may I say, to " sow his wild oats." He had foundjmisfortune, until sick both of his service and associations, he would gladly get back even to the long, hard winters of Lower Canada. He was not the first to find that the rainbow recedes at the fortune-hunter's approach, leading Ihim a sorry race. Anchored in the bay are vessels of various nations, 256 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. chief of which, to me, is the EngHsh f[a.g-ship,J?epu/se, commanded by Rear-Admiral Cochrane. The officers, fromLordCochranedown,areevidently of the upper classes while the crew are a noble set. They visited our vessel, and were frequently passing and repassing, presenting as fine specimens of seamen as are to be found the world over. My heart warmed strangely towards them ; and when I looked upon the old flag floating from the mast- head — the flag of a thousand years — the flag that first freed its own oppressed, and then unfurled to shelter the down-trodden and enslaved of every land — I involuntarily raised my hat, unable to check the tears, and scarce able to repress the cheers that trembled to my lips. When some of the men whom I met on shore, found I was a Canadian and leal to the old land, they grasped my hand with a heartiness which recalled Blind Milburn's description of an Englishman's friendship — " He throws his arms around your neck, and holds on till the crack of doom." During the day one of the Company^s new and splendid steamers, having on board President Hatch, just arrived from New York, and other American notabilities, tendered to our company and the officers of the Repulse an invita- tion to an excursion round the bay. A goodly number accepted the invitation, and returned in raptures over the most handsome manner in which they had been enter- tained. A few of us, preferring a " cruise on shore," as it was probably the only opportunity that would ofler, PANAMA. 257 secured a boat and set out. We were anchored in the bay two miles and a half from the city, rocks preventing the nearer approach of larger vessels. The ruins of the old city, destroyed by Sir Henry Morgan in 1661, are six miles south-east of the present Panama. As the heat was intense and our time limited, we were unable to visit them, but it is said they are well worth seeing. The Panama of to-day is a walled city with many a breach, but lays claim to 10,000 of a population. Unless the figures include the lower animals, that mix freely with a portion of the population, I cannot conceive where all these people are. The city is built on a rocky point run- ning from the foot of the volcanic mountain, Ancon, which, covered with a luxuriant foliage, forms a beautiful background. The stately cocoa and other tropical trees rising here and there among the high roofs, and drooping gracefully over the crumbling walls, conceal much uncouth- ness and decay. Going out of our way a mile and more to round a reef we reach the common landing place in the city's rear, at the foot of a flight of stone steps extending to the water's edge. Ascending the stairs and issuing from a low stone archway, we turn for a little to the left, where in a balcony overhanging the sea is gathered a motley crew — South Americans, Mexicans, Spaniards, Indians, Negroes, men, women and children, goats, dogs, cats, chickens, pigs and parrots — all are huddled here in this one narrow, noisy, dirty place, and here they live, buy, sell and get gain. 258 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. And this is not an exaggerated specimen of the prevaiHng population. Turkey-buzzards, protected by law, swarm everywhere, the roofs being often brown with them ; and it is well. Were it not for these diligent scavengers the quick decay- ing offal cast into the ill-kept lanes and alleys would soon breed a plague. The streets are narrow, and in their general appearance quite in the old Spanish style. Shops are numerous and the leading ones fairly stocked at fair prices. Panama is a free port. There is one good hotel, chiefly sustained by the better class of foreigners doing business here. Ruined churches abound. Here and there the rank vegetation, having secured a footing, relieves the naked, roofless walls of some of their desolation. In several crumbling towers are suspended weather-beaten bells, whose silent tongues ceased to tell their story long years ago. I entered one of the churches in use ; it presented a strange blending of simplicity, tawdriness and decay. There was no floor save the beaten earth ; a few plain, rickety benches ; along the sides gloomy, greasy confes- sionals ; on the walls old paintings, cracked and peeled ; within the altars, images set off with the usual tinsel and glitter ; whilst the roof, through whose openings the abun- dant rains freely poured, was supported by worm-eaten and rotten pillars. I was not a little relieved on getting out safe. In the heart of the city, facing on its principal, if not its PANAMA. 259 only plaza, is the greatest architectural attraction in Pan- ama — the Cathedral. It contends with the Cathedral of St. Augustine, in Florida, the claim of being the oldest church on the Continent. The architecture is in the Moorish-Spanish style, somewhat reminding one in its externals, of the Mosque of the Mussulman. The walls are of stone, whilst the roof and turrets, like the houses generally, are covered with semi-cylindrical tiles, in the old style of Southern Spain. After generations of decay, and repeated efforts at restoration, the Cathedral is now being thoroughly renovated. It is a vast and imposing structure. Scattered up and down the interior, without any evidence of reverent regard, but the very opposite, are human skulls, rotted coffins, and boxes of half-decayed bones, which have been gathered from beneath the floor undergoing repairs. Through the good offices of a lady friend, I secured from among the debris a carved wooden book, broken from the gilded paw of a griffin. On its open page, in still legible Latin, was written a portion of the 13th chapter of ist Corinthians. On the streets I met with Monks and Friars, evidently strangers to self-flagellations and hair shirts, but swelter- ing under a scorching sun in their long black, belted gowns, and broad-brimmed beaver hats, I was assured that few save women attend the churches. In coming from the Cathedral, I was startled by a sav- age uproar close by ; on turning to the spot, I saw a drunken Yankee sailor, from one of the ships in the har- 26o TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. bor, Staggering down the street in charge of a cursing Panama poHceman. The sailor had stabbed the officer, who, in turn, had laid open his head by a blow from his baton ; both were covered with blood. The frenzied crowd were screaming " Kill him ! kill him ! " — the sailor. And it seemed as if the maddened officer was quite of the same mind, for he continued to rain down the blows, horribly blaspheming the while. Just then some Ameri- can ladies from our vessel, burning with indignation, fearlessly rushed in among the crowd exclaiming against the brutality, and demanding that the sailor should have justice. The abashed crowd slunk back, whilst Jack was led to the Police Station. The Republic of Panama is built upon the sand. It is subject to a violent change of " Powers," on an average, once in every six months. Each new President enters into office a doomed man ; one of his enemies soon suc- ceeds in shooting him down, whilst busy History records another Revolution. CHAPTER XX. ACROSS THE ISTHMUS. jROSSING the Isthmus is not now what it was in the earlier days of the California gold excitement. Then it was in part by boat over the waters of the Chagres river, and the re- mainder of the way by mules over the mountains, or through morasses reeking with malaria. Then it was a journey of days ; now, of a few hours. Then " eggs were sold four for a dollar, and the rent for a hammock was two dollars a night ; " now there is no need of rest or refreshment by the way. Then the crossing presented the horrors of the " middle passage;" now it is one of the most enjoyable trips in the world. This wondrous change was not readily effected. Central America, sluggish and impoverished, was herself incompetent for the task, but she opened the door to others ; it was persistent Yankee enterprize that 262 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. built a railroad across the Isthmus. The Americans first paid the Granada Government for the privilege of building the road ; then, with their own money, did the work. For hundreds of years the Isthmus was supposed to be an impassable rocky chain running through impenetrable swamps ; but a survey dispelled the delusion, by report- ing serious but not insuperable obstacles. European coun- tries, anxious to shorten the route to China and the East Indies, were fully alive to the immense commercial advan- tage of securing a highway across the Continent, but when appealed to they drew back from the gigantic diffi- culties of the undertaking. True, France, in an impulsive hour, accepted the scheme, made a survey, and actually entered into contract for the construction of the road ; but when she came fairly face to face with the work, and saw the millions required, to accomplish it, she beat a retreat. If the road was ever to be built, it must be by the less cautious, perhaps, but more enterprizing spirit of the Americans. The latter had also the stimulus of greater interests at stake. There were not only general commer- cial interests which they held in common with European countries — though not perhaps in an equal degree — but there were, to them, interests even more vital — their new possessions on the Pacific coast. The voyage round the " Horn " was long and tedious ; the great Trans-Continental Railroad was not then thought of, except by the far-seeing few ; naturally, they turned to ACROSS THE ISTHMUS. 263 the Isthmus for a shorter way to the West, whilst the dis- covery of gold, and consequent rush to California about this time, proved an additional and powerful incentive. Besides all this there came another and more powerful appeal — an appeal to a common humanity, which was not made in vain. From among the thousands of men, women and children constantly crossing on their way to the new El Dorado, hundreds were perishing from fever, which the slowness of their transit by that most malarious " middle passage " was almost sure to bring on. The road must be built, and immediately. In 1849 ^ company was formed in New York, and sur- veyors at once set to work _; they found the location of a line even more feasible than previous surveys had led them to suppose — the mountain difficulty so appalling, in the distance, when approached, proved hardly 300 feet above the sea, whilst the entire distance across the Isth- mus was only forty-eight miles. As soon as the survey was finished, within the same year, the contract for con- struction was let, but owing to circumstances into which I need not here enter, work was not begun until the following May of 1850. The Eastern terminus, where operations began, is on Manzanilla Island, in Navy Bay — the island lying low on its coral foundation, and separated from the mainland by a narrow belt of sea. The ceremony of " turning the first sod " was simple, but significant. Two Americans, accompanied by a few Indians, paddled in a canoe to the 264 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. unpeopled island. Hauling the boat up on shore, the Indians go before, clearing a way with their machetas through the dense undergrowth, whilst the white men follow with their axes felling the trees. " Thus unosten- tatiously," says Dr. Otis, in his " Handbook of Panama," to which I am indebted for valuable information, *' was an- nounced the commencement of a railway which, from the interests and difficulties involved, might well be looked upon as one of the grandest and boldest enterprizes ever attempted." But it is only when they actually put their hands to the work that the appalling difficulties reveal them- selves. The island, a slimy swamp swarming with ser- pents, alligators, and miUions of smaller but more pesti- ferous vermin, sends up, without ceasing, the worst plague of all — deadly vapors. Against the malaria there is little protection, but from the mosquitoes and flies they secure a partial deliverance by wearing veils. Residence in such a spot would be speedy death ; hence they take up their quarters in an old brig in the bay. Fresh accessions to their corps soon crowd the hulk to its utmost capacity. Unable to endure the vermin below, they sleep on deck, by night drenched with the pouring rains of the wet sea- son, which has now set in. Added to these distressing circumstances, the tossings of a restless sea bring on nau- sea, all of which is more than the stoutest can stand, and soon half their number are down with the fever, without a physician, and without any place of rest. Still the corps, crippled as it is, works on. ACROSS THE ISTHMUS. 265 The following month reinforcements arrive, when the old brig is abandoned for roomier quarters in the hulk of a condemned steamer, the vermin persistently keeping them company. It is now June, the depth of the rainy season, and the men are obliged to wade and work in a horrible slime, a mixture of stagnant water and decayed vegetable matter from two to four feet deep. At the close of the day, drenched and exhausted, they drag them- selves back to their wretched quarters. Though every precaution possible in such a place is taken to preserve them in health, yet they fall like leaves in autumn, con- stant arrivals being necessary to keep up the working force. Laborers from England, Ireland and the Conti- nent, American-born and others, are employed, but all alike are speedily prostrated. Large importations are made from Ireland and elsewhere, specially selected in hope of securing more enduring workmen. All is in vain. Many, frightened by the fever, fled ; others, tempted by the offer of higher wages from the old California Tran- sit Company, deserted ; whilst a large number were speed- ily rendered useless. Those who remained were sent away to save their lives. Another venture was the importation of i, coo Chinese. Their native food and stimulants — rice, tea and opium — were brought over with them ; but the result was the same as before, and even worse ; within a month they were seized with melancholy, many committing suicide, and others perishing from fever. Within a few weeks of R 260 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. their arrival only 200 were left, and these, like preceding survivors, were sent away. It is estimated that the build- ing of the road cost a life to every tie, or 1,000 men to every mile. Finally, as a dernier ressort. the Company fetch from the West Indies a regiment of Jamaica Negroes -, these stand proof against parasite and pestilence alike. One great difficulty is now overcome, but others remain to be grap- pled with to the end. The road having now advanced some distance into the interior, it is no longer prac- ticable for the workmen to return at night to their (quarters in the steamer ; so, hauling the material on the backs of the men over three miles through the mo- rass, the first dwelling is reared above the waters on stumps of trees in the " heart of this dank, howling wil- derness.'' The Isthmus is densely wooded, yet little or none of its timber is adapted to the wants of the road ; once cut, it quickly yields to the combined action of climate and insect. The ties are of lignum vitae, and the tele- graph poles — a puzzle to the passenger flying past — are moulded cement. Men, material and provisions — all had to be brought from a distance. At first, in order to secure speedier completion, portions of the track, running across gulches and through swamps, were laid on piles and temporary trestle-work. These portions have since been, mostly or altogether, relaid on more enduring foundations. ACROSS THE ISTHMUS. 267 In January, 1 854, threeyears and nine months from " break- ing ground/' the summit was reached — thirty-seven miles from Aspinwall and eleven from Panama. The party who commenced operations on the Pacific, simultaneously with those on the Atlantic, had pushed their way over the Plains of Panama, through the swamps of Corrisal and Correndu, up the valley of the Rio Grande, and were now climbing the western slopes of the Summit. "■ On the 27th of January, 1855, at midnight, in darkness and rain, the last rail was laid, and on the following day a locomotive passed from ocean to ocean." The road cost in round numbers eight million dollars — our magnificent bridge at Montreal cost six and a quarter millions — and up to one period it declared the largest di- vidend of any railroad in the world. The specie carried over it during the first five years amounted to over 300 million dollars, whilst the mail matter amounted to nearly 100,000 bags. Rates were enormous until the building of its great rival Pacific Railroad. The rates have since, I believe, been reduced, but the passenger fare re- mains as it was — $25. The Panama Railroad was built at a fearful cost of life ; but may it not be shown that through securing speedier transit more lives have been saved than sacrificed ? Aside from the safety secured by speedier transit ; the felling of the forest, opening up thereby to evaporating influence the damp, decaying vegetable mass ; the drying up by drainage, or filling up by grassy vegetation, of mo- 268 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. rasses ; the partial cultivation of plots along the line — all these things, the results of building the road, have greatly added to its healthfulness. During the first four years following its opening 196,000 persons passed over it, and it is not known that a single case of sickness occurred in consequence of crossing. Panama fever there still is, but tra^vellers are endangered only by delaying too long at the termini, Aspinwall and Panama. None of our party — and we were delayed beyond the usual time — suffered in the slightest, except those who indulged too freely in the tempting tropical fruits. " Passengers will get ready for leaving the steamer and crossing the Isthmus at one o'clock p.m. sharp." Such was the notice, posted in prominent places about the vessel, that met our eye on returning from an excursion to the City of Panama. All prudent passengers had made their preparations before going on any excursion. The bag- gage is re-weighed, all over 100 pounds being charged ten cents per pound extra. Never strap your trunks in crossing the Isthmus, for the Negroes in the employ of the road invariably steal the straps, and everything else in the shape of light, loose luggage on which they can lay hands. See that your baggage is corded with well-tarred California rope. Precisely at the time set — one o'clock — a small steam tender comes alongside, and conveys us to the railroad landing, in the north suburbs of the city. The wharf on which the train awaits our coming is a floating one, 250 ACROSS THE ISTHMUS. 269 feet long ; both roof and ribs copper-covered. Here all wooden structures, unless thus protected against insects and climate, cannot last long. Those who put off seeing the city, expecting to do so at this juncture, are sorely disappointed. There is not time enough ; besides, right about us, we find sufficient to occupy the attention of the most curious until the train starts. At the moment of landing we are met by natives with baskets of merchandise — fruits,'shells, corals, trinkets — the cocoa-nut wrought into articles useful and ornamental, being skil- fully carved, and some of it elegantly inlaid with silver. Native women — a mixture of Mexican and Indian — are squatting on the ground, their wares spread out before them. With few exceptions, they are of average height, straight, lean, and not without intelligence ; some are quietly smoking their cigarettes, or daintily holding them between their fingers ; sometimes, where side curls are worn, they are perched pen-like over the ear. Nearly all are dressed in slouchy white muslin j the skirts of a few being elaborately wrought, but draggled in the dirt all the same. All appeared honest, and none seemed eager to sell — the latter trait a very general one in Panama, as far as my observation went. Before starting, an extraordinary ceremony takes place. Since an extensive robbery committed on the cars some years ago by a band of native raiders, a detachment of soldiers is placed to guard each train at starting. After considerable manoeuvring and shouting, the officers 270 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. repeatedly passing up and down the line to see that each man fronts right and toes the mark, they are finally ar- ranged in lines — one on each side of the train. Now and then — for they kept guard over us a full half-hour — the officers would stride down the lines to reverse some gun wrong end down, to order up some head, or stop this unsoldierly fellow from stuffing himself with bananas from an old woman's basket. Everything possible in dress and accoutrements is done to give them an impos- ing appearance — a stiff, high hat, with blazing rosette shooting up in front ; close-fitting black cloth coat, trimmed with scarlet and well padded in front ; heavy wide- spreading epaulettes, and big brass buttons, the wonder and delight of all boys ; swords that would get between their short legs ; and ancient, awful muskets. But all is in vain ; in spite of fine feathers, the daw is a daw still. No man nor monarchy can grow imperial oaks from scraggy shrubs. Neither dress nor drill can ever make a noble- looking soldier out of a citizen of the Panama Republic — if those whom I saw were fair specimens. Gliding out from between our guard, we are soon in the midst of scenes such as are to be found only in this intertropical world. The air, refreshed by recent rains, and the sun, shut out by lingering clouds, unite to make the day most favorable ; whilst the cool, cane-seated cars, wide open on the sides, and running at the rate of only fifteen miles an hour, with frequent stoppages, give us excellent opportunities for sight-seeing. On our left ACROSS THE ISTHMUS. 27! we leave behind Mount Ancon, while to the right there rises in the distance the Hill of the Buccaneers, on whose heights Morgan, on his marauding march across the Isthmus, pitched his tent the night previous to his pillage of Panama. Clusters of Negro huts are found all along the line ; they are built of bamboo rods placed upright in the ground, their interstices either open or filled with a mixture of mud and cow-dung, whilst the four-sided roof, steep to shed the heavy rains, is thickly thatched with the huge leaves of the palm. There is but one room, few furnishings, and no floor save earth, as far as we could see in flying past, or by close inspection at the stations. The occupants lounge and sleep, not in beds but in ham- mocks, which certainly are a great improvement on the former, being cooler, less in the way, and out of reach of vermin. If there be a loft to the hut, which is not usual, the ascent is not by stairs, but by an upright pole in the centre, deeply notched — the same as may sometimes be seen between decks leading from the vessel's hatchway. Pigs, dogs and Negroes dwell together on terms of equal- ity ; the pigs are either indoors or wallowing in the mire without ; whilst the dogs and the darkies are to the fore, ranged in line along the track, the women wearing heavily flounced frocks of limp muslin, off" the shoulders and down in the dirt, and the picaninnies naked as they were born. The laws regulating the possession of landed property were, and may yet be, very peculiar. The Isthmus was the paradise of squatters. Each was entitled to all the 272 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. land, not already taken up, which could be clearly seen from any one given point. Immediately after leaving Panama we enter Paraisa — Paradise — so called from its exceeding beauty, and from the vast vegetable wealth which nature has poured into its plains — a very lap of plenty ; it is shut in and sentinelled by high hills clothed in garments of the richet green. The stations, about four miles apart, are important, not from local trade or travel, of which there is neither worthy the name, but from the close and careful oversight w^hich they secure to the road. The danger from floods is great, the rains sometimes, in a single night, raising the waters in the gulches thirty feet, turning the streamlet into a resistless torrent. Natives furnished with machetas, a huge knife or cleaver, are kept employed cutting away the vegetation that grows up about the track with amazing rapidity. The cherished macheta is to the native what both axe and sword are to others ; with it he both does his work and fights his battles. ^ - On remarking the American look of the station- houses, I was told they were imported ready-made from the United States, and put together on the ground. Num- bers of them appeared, and were, I believe, unoccupied, the American occupants having left, unable to endure a continuous residence in the climate, whilst the care of the road was committed for a season to other hands. In some instances considerable care and taste were displayed in the laying out of the grounds, and the cultivation of ACROSS THE ISTHMUS. 273 flowers and trees. Here nature needs little nursing, but plenty of pruning. A great variety of vegetables and fruits may be grown on the Isthmus, but what we saw along the road were principally plantains and oranges, and these were to be had in abundance. The tall, graceful cocoa, laden with nuts, was growing in some of the gardens. The sensitive plant is found growing everywhere in the greatest pro- fusion. Several times, on stopping, we left the cars to examine its singular habits. Startled at our approach, sensitive even to our presence, its delicate, fern-like leaves shrink from the touch, fold themselves together, and lie close against the stem until the unwelcome visitor is gone. Before the building of the road the crossing was alive with birds, beasts and reptiles peculiar to the tropics. They still abound, but have mostly retired into the in- terior. Many of these creatures, rare and curious, would well repay a careful study ; but a general description is not within the scope of this volume, which is a handful of gleanings rather than a store-house of sheaves. I may however, speak of one of the greatest ornithological curi- osities of the Isthmus — the toucan. This bird was called by the early Spanish missionaries, '' Dios te de " — God gives it thee — because of its strange motions over the water when drinking — a motion which they were quick to construe into the sign of the cross. It is the size of the common pigeon, with a scarlet breast and a saw-edged bill about six inches long. When feeding, it picks up 2/4 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. the food on the point of its beak, tosses it into the air, and, on coming down, catches it deep in the throat. A few monkeys and parrots may be seen about the stations, and very frequently an aUigator lazily floating in the rivers, looking, in the distance, like a weather-beaten log. The iguana, an ugly monster of the lizard tribe, growing to the length of six feet, is a great delicacy with the negroes, its flesh, like the turtle's, being tender and juicy. The eggs of the female are dainty morsels — about the size of a robin's egg, with a yellow, shining shell, shrivelled when dry. But the greatest attraction in crossing the Isthmus, and that of which the tourist will see most, is the abounding, marvellous vegetable life. The limits of this volume, all but reached, force me reluctantly to reject many " notes " on the vegetation, and confine myself to a few of the more striking varieties. Chief among the grasses, its tall and graceful form claiming company and rank with the higher orders of vegetation, is the well-known bamboo. Among bushes the mangrove is chief, and grows in the greatest profusion and perfection about the swamps skirt- ing the shores of Navy Bay. Those on the shores overhang- ing the sea droop deep into the water, and support on their branches immense clusters of Crustacea, the size of small oysters ; they are said to be very palatable. The man- grove growing inland shoots its drooping branches deep into the slimy soil, where, taking root, it sends up other ACROSS THE ISTHMUS. 275 shoots, spreading, strengthening, interlacing, until there is formed a vast, impenetrable tangle of wondrous luxuriance. The cedro and espabe, for size chief among trees, rise limbless for loo feet ; then, Briareus-like, throw out a hundred arms which support a luxuriant growth of foli- age, often 100 feet in diameter; they look like the huge umbrellas of tropical Titans. From the trunk of these trees the natives make their " dug-outs," .which are sometimes of twenty tons burden. But queen among the trees for grace, beauty and use- fulness is the palm, of which over twenty varieties have already been discovered growing in the Isthmian forest. There is the low variety, with large stumpy trunk, growing in the swamps, and sending out leaves of the marvellous length of eighteen feet. Other varieties, tall and slender, grow in great profusion. The ivory palm yields the " vegetable ivory " so well known all over the world. From the membranous covering enclosing the flower or fruit of the glove palm, is obtained a ready-made sac, capable of holding half a bushel. From the sap of the wine palm is distilled an intoxicating liquor. The cab- bage palm sends forth from its top tender shoots, in fla- vor and nutriment not unlike the vegetable after which it is named. From other species are manufactured sugar, sago, cloth and various domestic utensils, whilst their trunks and leaves furnish the chief materials from which are constructed the huts of the natives. Nature, as if rejoicing in her resources, and delighting 276 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. to show the world what she can both do and endure, has given birth to a multitude of parasites — not only given birth to them, but nurses them into marvellous maturity. Whichever way you look there they are, shameless and greedy, creeping, twining, climbing, hanging, always hanging mercilessly oh. Frequently several different species will fasten, vampire-like, to the same support, and intertwining, like serpents in conspiracy to strangle, sel- dom relax their hold until the life of the unfortunate vic- tim is either sucked out or smothered. Even the largest, thriftiest trees yield at last, but they are sometimes up- held and hidden by the well-conditioned parasite, as if it would fain conceal the rotten wreck — the work of its own greed and treachery. Some species, less selfish, by way of compensation bear beautiful flowers. Dropping their seed, it is said, in the ordure of birds deposited on the limbs of trees, they take root and fasten themselves securely to the branches ; then, thread-like vines, they descend without leaf or tendril, reserving all their forces for one final effort, throwing out at the last from the tip downward a trumpet-shaped flower of exquisite beauty. Surrounded by the most gorgeous settings of green, and securely suspended from impressive heights, some- times gracefully swaying in the winds, they are a novelty in nature of surpassing loveliness ; and all this wealth of wonder and beauty generous Nature opens out before our eyes along one of the world's highways. Other flowers there are — fuschias, convolvuli, and the ACROSS THE ISTHMUS. 277 sacred passion flower ; also flowering grasses, flowering shrubs, flowering trees, some brilliant and some fragrant, and some both brilliant and fragrant ; always blooming in the everlasting summer, but reaching their greatest glory in the wet season between May and October, when, scat- tered under foot in the wildest profusion, and festooning pillar, arch and dome of luxuriant green, there is present- ed one of the most gorgeous scenes imaginable. But there is one flower, the rarest, the loveliest of all, upon which we cast our last and lingering look — Flor del Espiritu Santo — the Flower of the Holy Ghost. It, like many other objects in the New World, received its name from the early Spanish missionaries. Inflamed with their religion, superstitious to a degree, their ardent poetical na- ture fertile of fancies, it is not surprising that when they looked upon this strange flower, so strikingly suggestive, they should have bowed before it, reverently calling it what they did. To this day the Indian nurtured in their faith regards it with an awe akin to that which thrilled the ancient Hebrew as from a distance he gazed upon the veiled Ark of the Covenant. The Indian holds sacred the very ground on which this flov/er grows, and the air laden with its perfume. Ban^ It is a bulbous plant, rising as high as seven feet and throwing out lance-shaped leaves in pairs. The flower, of the lily type and of snowy whiteness, is richly fra- grant. Within it — becoming cabinet to hold so rich a jewel — is a drooping dove, its exquisite wings half unfold- 278 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. ed at the sides, the head drawn nesthng down, whilst the tiny bill, delicately tinged with carmine, rests against the alabaster breast. The resemblance is perfect. Human skill could never match it. The Power that " garnished the heavens " painted this. And yet how strange ! this fairest of flowers, this sweetest of symbols, like the Rose of Sharon, springs from the lowliest spots — decayed wood in marshy ground. It was long jealously guarded by the natives ; foreigners could secure them only by overcom- ing many difficulties. Now they are easily obtained at low prices, and though extremely delicate, will, with proper care, live and bloom in every land. CHAPTER XXI. ON THE ATLANTIC. iT is a great trial to leave one's country when you have to cross the sea," said Madame de Stael. Some may say more — it is a great to return to one's country when you have to the sea. Our voyage on the Atlantic may all be put into two words — distress and deliverance. In the dusk of a Saturday evening, under a sky betokening a restless sea, we rolled along the front street of Aspinwall, and out upon the long, covered wharf of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, stopping, finally, alongside the " Colon" — twin steamer to the " Granada," by which we had voyaged on the Pacific. At midnight — amidst gloom and pouring rain — we steamed away, awaking in the early morning, after snatches of sleep, in the Caribbean — ourselves as sorely troubled as the sea. It was the 28o TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. Sabbath, but no day of rest to our tortured bodies. At eleven o'clock A.M., a few — a praiseworthy few — gathered in the cabin for a short religious service, con- ducted by the Captain. Monday morning came, but brought no relief ; and thus things continued, with little variation, until we reached the West Indies, where par- tial shelter secured calmer waters. But so stirred up were we ourselves, that these islands, to which I had been longingly looking forward, had mostly lost their charms. We sighted several of them, but stopped at none, simply passing in the night close by Cuba, herself so filled with troubles, fillibustering and insurrectionary, as seemingly unable to hold out more than one sickly light for the safety of others. By the time we reached the quiet waters of the beautiful Bahamas, the spirits of the few Britons on board rose to a possible cheer at the sight of the Old Flag floating from the fortifications. But once out of range of these islands, the trade winds from the north-east swept us terribly. A hundred miles off Cape Hatteras matters were at their worst ; all previous dis- tress was slight compared to this. It was not always safe, except for " old salts," to be out on deck ; but the head winds, blowing the abominable thousand and one smells of the steerage and engine-room back into the cabin, drove us above in spite of drenching spray and slippery decks > even here the ill odors followed us. A few, driven to desperation, and holding on to whatever was at hand, crawled to the windward side of the smells in the ON THE ATLANTIC. 2^1 forward part of the vessel. Alas ! we had fled from one ill to a worse ; the pitchings of the prow and the shower of spray sent over us, as some great wave struck the steamer, drove us again below. Gallantry, of which there had been a full share among the youthful and gay, was at an end ; even the common courtesies of life were little regarded; class and orders were ignored ; Democracy was having its day ; the most social disappeared in their state-rooms, or, like others, sought out the easiest unoccupied spot in the cabin, and there staid, stolid, sullen, silent, never moved except by internal troubles. Objects of interest there doubtless are, and all about us ; but what are they, what the world, what life itself, to a man nauseated, racked, strained, unstrung, exhausted — all the functions of body, brain, and even soul confused, suspended by sea-sickness ? The inexperienced and incredulous may shrug their shoulders, and hint at " fancy pictures " and *' shams ; " and yet, in all the realm of nature, there is nothing I know so fitted to take the conceit out of self, and to destroy the charms of the *' deep blue sea," as sea-sickness. At last the interminable week ends, the storm still rag- ing. Saturday, at midnight, we "turn in," and utterly overcome, sleep — sleep oblivious of everything. On awaking in the morning I am sensible of a change, but what it is, or where we are, is not at first so clear. Crawling to the window, I get a glimpse that thrills me through and through. " Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant 282 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." Dressing hastily as possible, I creep up on deck, and oh ! what a scene is spread out before our tearful eyes ! What a glo- rious world ! Was there ever so bright, so beautiful a day? The cloudless heavens, the peaceful ocean, the clear, deep blue of sky and sea ; here and there on the horizon an unwrecked sail shining in the sun, the very creatures of the air and waters catching the inspiration of the glad hour. Sea-birds which we had not seen for days, their snowy plumage glistening in the sun, wheel about the ship ; porpoises, playful as children out of school, keep us company for hours — sometimes beneath the surface, but near it, and clearly seen ; sometimes breaking the water in graceful leaps — now on one side of the ship, and now diving, suddenly appearing on the other ; and again, as if conscious of superior powers, chal- lenging us to a trial of speed, and leading the way straight in the steamer's course ; these were the things to which we awoke on that morning of joy. At eleven o'clock we gather for religious service. The Captain, setting aside the regulations of the line restricting to himself the conduct of religious exercises on board, politely requests the writer to take his place. Earnest, thankful hearts unite in the opening service ; then comes the sermon on "Cares committed to God, and the Reward of Peace." Many a fresh and glowing thought did storm and calm suggest. It was good to be there. Jesus was no longer asleep in the ship, but with us in power, speak- ON THE ATLANTIC. 283 ing peace to troubled hearts as to troubled waters. It was the Lord's Day, and we rejoiced and were glad in it. And all these blessings — peaceful waters, clear skies, bright sun, charming ending of our voyage — were ''the result of the storm going before," said the Captain. And so it is in the higher, grander course of the Christian. After the " contrary winds," the " calm ; " after the " chastening," the " peaceable fruit of righteousness ; " after the "weeping for a night," ''joy in the morning;" after the "swellings of Jordan," the "chariot of fire" and the "whirlwind" ride to Heaven ; after "the suffer- ings of Christ," the " glory that should follow." ** * Land ho ! ' from the mast-head swelling, On the breeze its music throws ; Like the tones of angels, telling Where the soul may find repose." As we near the harbor's mouth, the shadows of evening gather around, but the countless lamps hung out in the heavens shine down upon us assuringly; we sleep as peacefully as a babe upon its mother's bosom, undisturbed by the casting of the anchor,' and awake in the morning safe within the harbor. About us is a forest of shipping, some new-launched and untried, and some weather-worn and storm-scarred — some lightly laden and some heavily, but all alike safe-sheltered in the haven. Beyond, to our left, skirting the beautiful bluffs of Staten Island, are the mansions of the wealthy ; whilst before us rises the 284 TEN THOUSAND MILES BY LAND AND SEA. great city from whose towers comes the melody of morn- ing bells, and from whose church spires, pointing ever up and highest heavenward, are reflected the first rays of the returning sun. The exceeding beauty of this golden October morning, unsurpassed if not unequalled in other lands, casts a glamour over the scene, softening down its asperities and glorifying the stricken face of nature with the most gorgeous hues. A subtle, all-pervading magnetism produces wondrous exhilaration of spirits. Indifference and differences melt and disappear in the fervid glow. Caste and conventionalisms are swallowed up in the over- flowing joy. Party lines and sectarian shibboleths scarce receive a thought. Vigorous hand-shakings and hearty congratulations, delightfully general, show the power and the blessing of suffering — of suffering togetJw . To Authors. jJas. Campbell ^ Son, Publishers of the Canadian Prize Sunday School BookSj the National Series of Readers, and other School and Misccl- la7ieous Books, are prepared to FURNISH ESTIMATES TO AUTHORS for the publication of their MSS., and may be consulted personally or by letter. They will engage to have proofs care- fully revised while passing through the press, if required. The facilities possessed by Jas. Camp- bell 6^ Son for the Publication of Books in the best Modern Styles, at the Lowest Prices, and their lengthened experience warrant them in undertaking the Publi- cation of any work submitted to them, and in offering their services to Authors who desire to publish on their own account. Toronto. "yames Campbell 6^ SorCs Publicaiions. CANADIAN Prize Sunday School Books. KATIE JOHNSTONE'S CROSS, A CANADIAN TALE. By A. M. M. Illustrated. 60 cts. JESSIE GREY, OR THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE, A CANADIAN TALE. By N. L. G. Illustrated, 50 cts. THE OLD AND THE NEW HOME, A CANADIAN TALE. By J. E. Illtistrated. 60 cts. SOWING THE GOOD SEED, By ALICIA. A CANADIAN TALE. Illustrated. 50 cts. EMILY'S CHOICE, A CANADIAN TALE. By E. V. N. Illustrated. 60 cts. May be ordered of any Bookseller in the Dominion. 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