PRENTICE MULFORD'S
STORY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES
ROBERT ERNEST COWAN
MULFORL - prentice
Prentice Mulford's story.
"Life by Land and Sea, ilew
York: F. J.i\ieedharn, publisher,
bt., 1889. iv,
52 ''H. 14th
299 pp. 12^.
Published in the
library, jx most
but little known
to California in
ing for sixteen years, and his
story is chiefly of this richly
colored period.
White Cross
charming work,
iaulford canae
1856, remain-
THE WHITE CROSS LIBRARY.
Prentice Mulford's Story
Life by Land and Sea.
PRENTICE MULFORD.
NEW YORK:
F. J. NEEDHAM, PUBLISHER,
52 West Fourteenth St.
1889.
Copyright, 1889
By F. J. NEEDHAM.
CT
CONTENTS.
CHAPTEai PAGE
I. Shadows of Coming Events, .... 5
II. Going to Sea, 14
III. Getting My Sea Legs On, 20
IV. Much Water and Mutiny, 31
V. San Francisco in 1^50, 43
VI. As a Sea Cook, . . . . « . . .51
VII. Sights while Cooking, 61
VIII. Whaling in Marguerita Bay, 71
IX. Our Butter Fiends, 82
X. Guadalupe, 8G
XI. At the Gold Mines, 90
XII. Swett's Bar, 9!)
XIII. One Day's Digging, 105
XIV. The Miner's Rainy Day 114
XV. The Miner's Sunday, ....'.. 122
XVI. The Cow Fever 129
XVII. Red Mountain Bar, 135
XVIII. My California School, 145
XIX. "Jimtown," 157
XX. Romance of Ah Sam and Hi Sing, . . .168
XXI. On a Jury, 174
XXII. Some Culinary Reminiscences, .... 178
J^6U687
IV
CHAPTER PAGE
XXII I. The Copper Fever, 180
XXIV. Rise and Fall of Copperhead City, . . . 193
XXV. Prospecting, 199
XXVI. High Life, 20?
XXVII. Leaving High Life, 217
XXVIII. The Last of High Life, 22;;
XXIX. On the Rostrum, 237
XXX. Running for Office, 246
XXXI. An Early California Canvass, . . . 254
XXXII. Another Change, 262
XXXIII. Editing vs. Writing, 266
XXXIV. Opinions Journalistic 275
XXXV. Recent Antiquity, 279
XXXVI. Going Home, 287
PRENTICE MULFORD'S STORY
CHAPTER I.
SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS.
One June morning-, Avlien I was a boy, Caj)tain Eben
Latham came to our house, and the first g-ossip he un-
loaded was, that "them stories about finding- gold in
Californy was all true." It was "wash da}^" and our
folks and some of the neig-hbors were g-athered in the
" wash house " while the colored help soused her fat
black arms in the suds of the wash tub.
That was the first report I heard from California.
Old Eben had been a man of the sea; was once cap-
tured by a pirate, and when he told the storj^, which
he did once a week, he concluded by rolling- up his
trousers and showing* the bullet-scars he had received.
California then was but a blotch of yellow on the
schoolboy's map of 184T. It was associated onl}^ with
hides, tallow, and Dana's " Two Years Before the
Mast." It was thoug-ht of principally in connection
with long--horned savage cattle, lassoes, and Mexicans.
Very near this in g-eneral vacancy and mystery was
the entire reg-ion west of the Rocky Mountains. What
was known as the Indian Territory covered an area
now occupied by lialf a dozen prosperous States.
6
Texas was then the Mecca of adventurers and people
wlio found it advisable to leave home suddenly. The
phrase in those days, *' Gone to Texas/' had a meaning-
almost equivalent to *' Gone to the ." Then Cali-
fornia took its place.
The report slumbered during- the summer in our vil-
lag-e, but in the fall it commenced kiiidhng- and by
winter it was ablaze. The companies commenced
forming*. It was not entirely a strang-e land to some
of our people.
Ours Avas a whaling- villag-e. Two-thirds of the
male population were bred to the sea. Ever}- bo\'
kncAv the ropes of a ship as soon if not sooner than he
did his multiplication table. Ours was a " trav-elled "
community. They went nearer the North and South
Poles than most people of their time and Behrin.g
Straits, the Kamschatkan coast, the sea of Japan,
Rio Janeiro, Valparaiso, the Sandwich Islands, the
Azores and the names of many other remote localities
were words in every one's mouth, and words, too, which
we were familiar with from childhood. Many of our
whalers had touched at San Francisco and Monterej^
There had recently been a g-reat break down in the
whale fishery. Whale ships for sale were plentiful.
Most of them were boug-ht to carry the " '49 " rush of
iuerchandise and men to California.
By November, 1848, California was the talk of the
villag-e, as it was all that time of the whole countrj^
The g-reat g-old fever rag-ed all winter.
All the old retired wiialin^ captains wanted to g-o,
and most of them did g-o. All the spruce young* men
of the place wanted to go. Companies were formed,
and there was much serious draAving- uj) of constitu-
tions and by-laws for their regulation. In most cases
tlie avowed object of the companies, as set forth m
these documents, Avas "Mining- and trading with the
Indians." Great profit was expected to be gotten out
of the California Indian. He was expected to give
stores of gold and furs in exchange for gilt Avatches,
brass chains, beads, and glass marbles. The companies
bought safes, in which to keep their gold, and also
strange and complex gold-washing machines, of which
numerous patterns suddenly sprang up, invented by
Yankees wlio never sa^v and never were to see a gold
mine. Curious ideas were entertained relative to Cal-
ifornia. The Sacramento River was reported as
abounding in alligators. Colored prints represented
the adventurer pursued by these reptiles. The gen-
eral opinion was that it was a fearfully hot countr^^
and full of snakes.
Of the companies formed in our vicinity, some had
more standing and weight than others, and member-
ship in them was eagerly sought for. An idea pre-
vailed that when this moral weight and respectability
was launched on the shores of California it would en-
tail fortune on all belonging to the organization.
People with the lightning glance and divination of
golden anticipation, saw themselves already in the
mines hauling over chunks of ore and returning home
v/eighed down with them. Five years was the longest
period any one expected to stay. Five years at most
was to be given to rifling California of her treasures,
and then that country was to be throws n aside like a
used-up newspaper and the rich adventurers would
spend the remainder of their da^'S in wealth, peace, and
prosperity at their Eastern homes. No one talked
8
then of going* oat "to build up the glorious State of
California/' No one then ever took any pride in the
thoug-ht that he might be called a " Calif ornian/' So
they went.
People who could not go invested in men who could
go, and paid half the expense of their passage and
outfit on condition that they should remit back half
the gold they dug. This description of Argonaut sel-
dom paid any dividends. I doubt if one ever sent
back a dollar. Eastern shareholders really got their
money's worth in gilded hopes, which with them lasted
for years. But people never put such brilliant antici-
pations on the credit side of the account; and merely
because that, at the last, they are not realized.
As the winter of "'48" weaned the companies, one
after another, set sail for the land of gold. The Sun-
day preceding they listened to farewell sermons at
church. I recollect seeing a score or two of the young
Argonauts thus preached to. They were admonished
frojn the pulpit to behave temperately^, virtuously,
wisely", and piously. How seriously the}^ listened.
How soberly were their narrow-brimmed, straight-
up-and-down, little plug hats of that period piled one
atop the other in front of them. How glistened their
hair with the village barber's hair oil. How pro-
nounced the creak of their tight boots as they marched
up the aisle. How brilliant the hue of their neck-ties.
How patientl^^ and resignedly they listened to the sad
discourse of the minister, knowing it would be the last
they would hear for many months. How eager the
glances they cast up to the church choir, wliere sat
the girls they were to marry on their return. How
few returned. How few married the girl of that
9
period's choice. How little weighed the words of the
minister a year afterward in the hurry-scurry of the
San Francisco life of '49 and '50.
What an innocent, unsophisticated, inexperienced
lot were those forty odd young Argonauts who sat in
those pews. Not one of them then could bake his own
bread, turn a flapjack, re-seat his trousers, or wash
his shirt. Not one of them had dug even a post-hole.
All had a vague sort of impression that Califonna
was a nutshell of a country and that they would see
each other there frequently and eventually all return
home at or about the same time. How^ little they
realized that one was to go to the Northern and one
to the Southern mines and one to remain in San Fran-
cisco, and the three never to meet again! What glit-
tering gold mines existed in their brains even during
the preaching of that sermon! Holes where the gold
was put out by the shovelful, from which an occa-
sional boulder or pebble was picked out and flung
away.
The young Argonaut, church being dismissed, took
his little stiff, shiny plug and went home to the last
Sunday tea. And that Sunday night, on seeing her
home from church for the last time, he was allowed to
sit up with her almost as long as he pleased. The
light glimmered long from the old homestead front
parlor Avindow. The cold north wind without roared
among the leafless sycamores and crashed the
branches together. It was a sad, sad pleasure. The
old sofa they sat upon would be sat upon by them no
more for years. For years ? Forever in many cases.
To-day, old and gray, gaunt and bent, somewhere in
the gulches, "up North" somewhere, hidden away in
10
an obscure mining- camp of tlie Tuolumne, Stanislaus,
or Mokelumnc, up in Cariboo or down in Arizona, still
he recollects that nig-ht as a dream. And she ? Oh,
she dried her eyes and married the stay-at-home five
years after. A girl can't wait forever. And besides,
bad reports after a time reached home about him. He
drank. He gambled. He found fair friends among the
seiioritas. And, Avorse than all, he made no fortune.
By spring- most of the Argonauts had departed.
With them went the flower of the village. Their
absence made a big- social gap, and that for many a
day. The girls they left behind tried for a time to
live on hope, and afterward ^' took up " and made the
most of the younger generation of boys. They re-
membered that after all they were not widow^s. Wh^'
should their mourning be permanent ? Twere selfish
for the departed Argonaut to demand it. And who
knew how these Args might console themselves on
arriving in San Francisco ?
After man}^ months came the first letters from San
Francisco, and then specimens of gold dust and gold
pieces. The gold dust came in quills or in vials, mixed
with black sand. But this dust w^as not ahvays dug-
by the moral Argonauts, from w^hom the most was
expected. It was often the gathering- of some of the
obscurer members of our community. Fortune was
democratic in her favors.
In the course of two years a few of the "boys"
came straggling back. The first of these arrivals, I
remember, walked up our main street, wearing* on his
shoulders a brilliant-hued Mexican serape. It created
a sensation. All the small boys of the village " tagged
11
on behind him/' a sort of impromptu guard of honor.
The serape was about all he did bring- home. He
talked a great deal of gold and brought specimens,
but not in sufficient quantity to pay all outstanding
bills. The next of the returned was a long, gaunt,
yellow case of Chagres fever. He brought only
gloom. Along in 1853-5-4 came a few of the more for-
tunate who had made a ^^ raise." Two returned and
paid up their creditors in full who had been by credi-
tors given over. But few came to remain. They
"staid around '^ home a few weeks, turned up their
noses at the small prices asked for drinks, cigars, and
stews, treated everybody, grew restless and were olT
again. Relatives of the not returned beset them with
inquiries which the}^ found it difficult to answer, be-
cause there was an idea prevalent in the villag'e that
a man in California ought to make mone}^, and wh}^
didn't he ?
Up to 18G0 a "returned Californian" was an object
of curiosity- and of some importance if he brought any
money with him, or rather as long as the money he
brought with him la sted. But " the w^ar " wiped them
out in this respect. The California fortune of that
time was a mere pimple compared with the fortunes
made by the war. A generation now exists to whom
the whole Argonaut exodus is but an indifferent stor3\
Sometimes on visiting my native village I stand'
before one of those old-fashioned houses, from whose
front door thirty-four years ago there w^ent forth for
the last time the young Argonaut on his way to the
ship. There is more than one such house in the vil-
lage. The door is double, the knocker is still upon it.
12
the window panes are smal-l, the front gate is the
same and up to the door the same stones lie upon the
walk. But within all are stiTingers. The father and
mother are past anxious inquiry of their son. The
sisters are married and live or have died elseAvhere.
A new g-eneration is all about. They never heard of
him. The great event of that period, the sailing of
that ship for California^ is sometimes recalled b}^ a
few — a feAV rapidly diminishing. His name is all but
forgotten. Some have a dim remembrance of him.
In his time he was an im^Dortant 3^oung man in the
village. He set the fashion in collars and the newest
style of plugs. Oh, fame, how fleeting! What is a
generation ? A puff. A few old maids recollect him.
What a pity, what a shame tliat we do all fade as a
leaf!
What a sad place; what a living grave is this for
him to return to! Where would he find the most
familiar names ? In the cemetery. Who would he
feel most like ? Like " Rip Van Winkle.^ Who are
these bright and blooming lasses passing by ? They
are her grown-up children — she with whom he sat up
that last Sunday night in the old-fashioned front par-
lor on the old-fashioned sofa. Where is she ? That is
she, that stout, middle-aged woman across the street.
Is she thinking of him? No; she is thinking whether
there shall be cabbage or turnips for dinner. Who is
that codger^^-looking man going up the street. That
is the man she didn't wait for and married. Should
the Argonaut I'eturn home if he could? No. Let him
stay where he is and dream on of her as she was,
bright, gay, lively, blooming, and possiblj^ romantic.
13
The dream is solid happiness compared witli the
reaUt3^
The recollections treated in this chapter are to me
as a commencement and an ending- of the shadows of
a series of coming- events.
14
CHAPTER 11.
GOING TO SEA.
Eight years later I shipped " before the mast " on
the A 1 first-class clipper Wizard bound from New
York to San Francisco.
When I made up my mind to become a sailor, I had
tried several of this world^s calling's and seemed to
find none suitable. I had asked counsel of several
elderly gentlemen in my native village as to the best
wa3^ of securing- all things needful during m^^ sojourn
in this world. The3^ said many wise and good things.
They looked wise and good. But really the wordy
help they offered was unsatisfactory. So I cut the
knot myself and said I would be a sailor. I explained
to my male and female friends that I felt myself des-
tined for a maritime career. I needed more excitement
than could be got out of a shore humdrum life. The
sea was the place for enterprising youthful Americans.
The American merchant marine needed American
officers and sailors. All heard me and agreed. No
doubt it was the best thing. And I talked on and they
agreed with all my arguments. How people will agree
with you when it's all one to them what you. do ! I
was eighteen and in most respects a fool, including
this — that I did not know it.
The Wizard, on which I shipped with five other boys
from my native town, was a first-class clipper. She
was a fine thing to look at from a distance, either as
15
she lay at anchor, the tracery of her spars and rigging
in reUef against the sky, or speeding along under stud-
ding sails rigged out on both sides. But once on
board and inside her symmetrical lines, things were
not so beautiful. Those white, cloud-like sails tore
men's fingers as, hard and heavy with ice or snow, the
sailors tried to furl them. Those graceful tapering
yards, supporting the studding sails, strained and
half-crushed men's backs when lowered and toted
about the deck. There were wooden belaying-pins,
iron marline-spikes and other miscellaneous things to
fling at men's heads b^^ those in authority. Those
cobweb-like ropes had hard, thick ends lying coiled on
deck to lasli men's bodies.
We, the six bo3'S, were obliged to leave our native
heaths because there wasn't room for us on them to
earn our bread and clothes. We were not clearly
aware of this at the time, though an unspoken senti-
ment prevailed there, as it does in most of the older
settled States, that the young man must move away
to "seek his fortune." Ten years previous we should
have entered the whaling service. But the whale fish-
ery had utterly failed. Once it was the outlet for
nearly all the brawn and muscle of our island.
The Captain of the Wizard was from our native
town. Therefore mj'self and the five other bo^^s had
shipped under him, expecting special favors. A mis-
take. Never sail under a Captain who knows j^our
folks at home. You have no business to expect fav-
oritism; he has no business to grant it.
I was the last of the six young lubbers to leave the
town for New York. On the morning of my departure
the mothers, sisters, and other female relatives of the
16
five who had g-one before discovered man}' other things
which they deemed necessary' for the urchins to carry
on the vo^^ag-e. So the^^ bore down on me with them,
and I bade most' of these good people an earthly fare-
well, loaded down, in addition to my own traps, with
an assorted cargo of cakes, sweetmeats, bed quilts,
Bibles, tracts, and one cop^^ of "Young's Night
Thoughts " for the boys.
I ate my last dinner as a free man at a Broadway
restaurant, and then I went to the wharf where the
ship lay. Already the tug Avas alongside, preparatory
to hauling her out in the stream. I went up the i^lank
and over the side. A gentleman in authority asked
me, as I stepped on deck, if I belonged to the ship. I
said I did. " Take off those togs, then, put on 3^our
working" duds and turn to, then,^^ he remarked. The
togs went off. I put on m^^ canvas pants and flannel
shirt, the garb of sea servitude. Hencefoi^th I was a
slave. The ship just then was not a Sunda^'-school
nor a Societ}' for Ethical Culture. It was a howling
pandemonium of oaths and orders. Fully one-third of
the able seamen had not recovered from their closing-
out shore spree, and" had tumbled into their berths or
were sprawled on deck drunk. Carg-o in cases, bales,
boxes, and barrels was still rattled over the bulwarks
and into the hold. Ever^^body seemed to be swearing
— first, each one on his own, private account, and sec-
ondly, all in one general chorus for mutual purposes.
Many people seemed in command. I couldn't distin-
g'uish the officers of the ship from the stevedores.
Still officers continued to turn up everywhere, and
each officer ordered me to some particular and sepa-
rate duty.
17
The world looked pretty black to me then. I wished
there was some way out of it. On shore the i^eriod
between the foremast hand and the position of Cap-
tain was only the duration of a thought. Here it was
an eternity. Day dreams are short, real experience is
long". But all this is often in youth a difficult matter
to realize.
There came along- a short, stout man with a deeper
voice and more sonorous oath than anybody else.
This was the fourth and last mate. It was a relief to
find at last the end of the mates and to know the
exact number of men legitimately entitled to swear at
me. This gentleman for a season concentrated him-
self entirely on me. He ordered me with a broom
and scraper into the ship's pig-pen, which he argued
needed cleaning. This was my first well-defined mai'i-
time duty. It was a lower round of the ladder than
I had anticipated. It seemed in its nature an occupa-
tion more bucolic than nautical. I would have pre-
ferred, also, that compliance with the order had not
been exacted until the ship had left llie wliarf, because
there were several shore visitors on board, and among
them two of my intimate friends Avho had come to see
me olf. There they stood, in all the bravery of silk
hats and fashionably-cut attire, conversing on terms
of equality Avith the first mate. They could talk with
him on the weather or any subject. I, b^^ virtue of
my inferior position, was not at liberty' to speak to
this potentate at all.
I jumped into the pig-pen. Thus destin}^ despite
our inclinations, forces clown our throats these bitter
pills. The fourth mate was not more than a year my
senior. He stood over me during the entire process
18
and scolded, cursed, and commanded. My shore
friends looked on from afar and grinned. Already
they saw the g-reat social chasm which yawned be-
tween me and them, and governed their actions ac-
cordingly. Already did they involuntarily patronize
me. It requires a wise man to detect the wickedness
and deceit in his own nature. Probably I should have
similarh' acted had our positions been reversed. The
mate was very particular. He made me sweep and
scrape every corner with an elaborate and painful ac-
curacy. He sent me into the pig's house to further
perfect the work. I was obliged to enter it in an
almost recumbent position. The pig ran out dis-
gusted. I scraped his floor in a similar mood. Thus
commenced life on the ocean wave.
But I g'ot even with the mate. Destiny' made me
m^^ own involuntary avenger of the indignity' put
upon me. By indignit^^ I don't mean the cleaning of
the pig-pen. That was an honorable, though menial
occupation — at least in theory. Cincinnatus on his
farm may have done the same thing. But I do mean
the scurrility and abuse the young officer bestowed on
me, while I did m^^ best to execute his bidding.
I hauled the young man overboard about three
minutes afterward, but he never knew I did it, and I
never allowed myself to think of the occurrence while
on shipboard, for fear the powers of the air might
ventilate the matter. It came about in this wa}' : A
line was passed through a hawse-hole forward to the
tug, which was puffing, fretting, fuming, and churning
with her screw the mud-ooze and garbage floating in
the slip into a closer fusion. My friend the mate
stood on the fore-chains with the end of the heavy
19
rope in both hands, trymg- to pass it to those on the
tug". This hne running- through the hawse-hole aft
was lying near where I stood. Some one called out:
"Haul in on that line!'' I supposed that the order
referred to nie and the hawser l^'ing at niy side. So I
hauled with all my might. I felt at first some resist-
ance — something like a tug-ging at the other end. I
hauled all the harder. Then something seemed to give
way. It hauled easier. I heard, coincident with these
sensations, a splash, loud cries, much swearing and the
yell of "Man overboard! " I raised my liead over the
bulwarks and there was my mate, floundering amid
dock ooze, rotten oranges, and salt water. It was he
who held the other end of the line, and my hauling had
caused the centre of gravity in his short bod^' to shift
beyond the base, and in accordance with a natural
law he had gone overboard. He was the general
cynosure of all eyes. They fished him out, wet and
swearing. There was a vigorous demand for the mis-
creant who had been hauling on the line. I was as far
as possible from the spot and kept myself very busy.
Bluster went below and changed his clothes. I was
aveneed.
20
CHAPTER III.
GETTING MY SEA LEGS ON.
We were towed into the stream and anchored for
the nig-ht. To look at New York City, with its many
hg'hts and its thousands amusing- themselves in vari-
ous Ava^'s, from the ship's deck, without the possibility
of joining them, was to feel for the first tune the slav-
ery of marine life. Emerging very early next morn-
ing" from the " boys' house," I found everything in tlie
bustle and confusion of g-etting- under way. A long-
file of men were tramping aft Avith a very Avet haAvser.
As I stood lools:ing at them m}^ ear was seized by our
Dutch third mate, Avho accompanied tlie action Avith
the remarl\, ^' Cooms, I puts you to Avork." He con-
ducted me in this manner to the rope and bade me lay
hold of it. I did so. I could have done so with a bet-
ter heart and aa^II had it not been for the needless and
degrading- manner in which he enforced his command.
Most men do their Avork just as Avell for being treated
Avith a certain courtesy of command due from the
superior to the inferior.
At noon the tug- cast off. The Highlands of Nave-
sink sank to a cloud in tlie distance. The voyage
had commenced. All hands Avere mustered aft. The
Captain appeared and made them a short speech.
He hoped Ave Avould all do our duty and that the A^oy-
ag-e Avould be a pleasant one. It Avas not a pleasant
one at all. HoAvever, that Avas all m the future. The
21
first and second mates then chose the men for their
respective watches, commencing- with the able seamen,
then picking" out the ordinary seamen, and finally de-
scending- to the boys. Of course the best of all these
g-rades were picked off first. I think I was among- the
last of the bo^'S who were chosen.
The first nig-ht out was fine. The Wizard slig-htl^^
bowed to the ocean, and the sails seemed g-reat black
l^atches, waving* to and fro ag-ainst the sk}-. The six
boys, so soon to be miserable, gathered in a cluster on
deck. Jed Coles proposed that we "spin 3'^arns."' It
was the nauticall^' correct way of passing- the time.
So we " spun yarns,^' or at least Jed did. He had a
batch ready for the occasion. He sat on a tub, put an
enormous chew of tobacco in his mouth, hitched up
his trousers and felt every inch a sailor. I noticed the
second mate, that incarnation of evil and brutality,
hovering- about us, dark as it was. I saw his fiendish
g-rin and the g-lare of his g-reenish eye. A precious lot
of 3'oung' fools we must have seemed to him. A little
after our yarn spinning- was interrupted by shrieks and
cries of distress proceeding- from the forward part of
the ship. We had then our first exhibition of the
manner of enforcing- American merchant-service dis-
cipline. The second mate was beating- Cumming-s, a
simple being-, who, having- sailed only in "fore-and-
aft " coasting- vessels, had made the mistake of ship-
ping* as an ordinary seaman on a scjuare-rig-g-ed craft,
and was almost as nmcli at sea in his knowledge of the
ropes as the "boys." This officer had sing-led out
Cumnnngs for his awkwardness as the proper man to
"haze." He was showering- upon hnn blows, thick
and fast, with the end of one of the fore braces. It
22
was the first time I had ever seen a man beaten by
one in autlioi'ity. The ci'iiig'ing- attitude, the cries,
sobs, and supplications of a full-g-rown man, and the
oatlis and terrible ferocit^^ of his castig-ator, were in-
expressibly shocking- to me. The incident, which was
often repeated during- the voyage, broke up our ama-
teur yarning and made us very thoughtful.
Jedediah Coles was not at all nautically loquacious
the next night. Then the Gulf Stream gave us a touch
of its tantrums. All during the afternoon the sky
g-rew more and more threatening. By dark it was
blowing hard. The lighter sails one by one were
stowed. Then it blew harder. The mate swore the
harder. The Captain came on deck and swore at
everybod3\ One of the "boys" asked him if he
thought it would be stormy. He considered himself
privileged to ask the Captain that question. He was
a native of the same village. His father and the Cap-
tain were friends, and his mother and the Captain's
wife visited each other. So he deemed it advisable to
establish himself on a sociable footing with the Cap-
tain at the commencement of the voyage. Poor bo}- !
Never again during the trip did he consult the Caj)-
tain meteorologically. He learned speedil}^ the great
gulf which yawus between the cabin and the fore-
castle.
It grew dark, the waves became bigger and bigger,
and the ship seemed taxed to her utmost trying to
clamber them one after another as the^^ presented
themselves. The mates came out in their oilskins.
The order was given to reef topsails. Gangs of men
ran liither and tliitluT, pulling here, hanling there,
and running straight over us wlu^never we got in their
23
way, and it seemed impossible to get out of their way.
Everything- became unsettled and uncomfortable.
The ship would not keep still. New complications of
ropes and hauling-gear were developed. The capstan
in the waist was manned, and round and round went
the sailors, while the deck they trod v»'as inclined in
all manner of uncomfortable angles. Tackle and
great blocks were hooked to ringbolts, and a vast
amount of what seemed to me fruitless hauling went
on. Barrels of water swashed over the bulwarks,
knocking us down and drenching us. Wet and shiver-
ing we clung to belaying pins or anything within
reach, of no earthly use to anybody, thinking of the
cheerfully lit, well-warmed rooms and comfortable tea-
tables even then set but so few miles away on the
shores of Long Island. When the order came to reef,
and I saw the men clambering up the fore and main
rigging, I added myself to their number, though I felt
I should never come down again— at least in one piece.
It was my debut aloft olf soundings. Many a time
had I clambered about the rigging of the old whalers
as tliey lay at the village wharf, but they were not
roaring, kicking, and plunging like this vessel. Heavy
seamen's boots kicked me in the face as I followed their
wearers up this awful ascent; other heavy boots trod
on my fingers; they shook the ratlines, too, in a most
uncomfortable manner. The mast strained and
groaned fearfully. Somehow, after climbing over some
awful chasms, I got on the yard with the men. I
dared not go out far. The foot rope wobbled, jerked,
and gave way under me at times with the weight and
motion of the men upon it. The great sail seemed in
irj humor to be furled. It hauled away from us, bel^
24
lied, puffed, and kept up a g-ig-antic series of thunder-
ing- flaps. Laying over on the yard the men wouUl
gather in as much of the hard, wet, wire-Uke canvas
as possible and then tog-ether haul back on it.
This I objected to. It was risky enough to laj^ out
on an enormous stick sixty feet in the air, while the
wind tore our voices from us and seemed to hurl the
words far away ere the^^ had well got out of our
mouths, and the white-topped waves, dimh^ seen be-
low, seemed leaping up and snatching at us. But at
that heiglit, and amid all that motion, to balance one's
body on the stomach, grasp with outstretched arms a
hard roll of struggling, v\^et canvas, while the legs
were as far extended the other wsiy and the feet rest-
ing only ag-ainst a rope Avorking and wobbling- and
g-ivin^ way here and tliere from the weight of fifteen
hundred pounds of men unequally distributed over it,
was a task and seeming risk too g-reat for my courage.
I dared do nothing- but hold on. The conduct of the
maintopsail was desperate and outrageous. It seemed
straining every nerve — supposing, for the sake of forc-
ible expression, that it had nerves — to pull us off the
yard and " into the great deep." I found myself be-
tween two old sailors, who lost no time in convincing
me of my complete and utter worthlessness aloft. I
concurred. They bade me clear out and get down on
deck. I was glad to do so. Reefing topsails in reality
was very different from reefing them in l>ooks or in
imagination. On reaching the deck I concluded to lie
down. All throucrh the evening I had experienced an
uneasy sensation in the stomach. I argued with my-
self it was not seasickness — something did not agree
with me. But wlien I lay down in the scuppers I ad-
luitted being- seasick. Then I onh^ cared to lie there.
Life was too miserable even to hope in. The tumult
Avent on as ever. The sailors trampled over me. Be-
ing- in the way, they drag'g-ed me aside. I cared not .
Finally some one bawled in my ear, " Sick! g-o below."
I went. The five other bo3^s, all similarly affected, all
caring- naug'ht for life or living-, lay in their bunks.
The boys' house was about the size of a respectable
pig- pen — a single pig- pen. There was room in it for
two boys to turn at once, providing- they turned
slowly and carefully. On g'oing- on l)oard we had b(^-
stowed such of our outfit as coidd be broug-ht into this
pen in tlie manner in which boys of sixteen bestow
thing's g-eneralU^ on first commencing- to "keep house."'
Everything- was arrang-€^d on a terra finna basis. We
made no calculation for the ship's deviating- from an
even keel. When she did commence to pitch every-
thing- fell down. Clothing- fell on the floor; plates,
knives, forks, cups and bottles rolled from shelf and
bunk; bread, meat, and the molasses kegs fell; plum
and si)ong'e cake, pic and sweetmeats fell; for each
boy had a space in liis sea-chest filled with these arti-
cles, placed there b^' kind, dear relatives at home. It
was intended that we should not refer to tliem until
the ship was far advanced on her voyage. But we
never had such larg-e supplies of cake and sweetmeats
at hand before; so we went for these thing's immedi-
ately. The liouse abounded with tliem the first nig'ht
out. The roof leaked. We left our sliding-door care-
lessly open, and a few barrels of the ocean slopped
over the bulwarks into the apartment. At nud night
our combined clothing, plates, nuigs, knives, forks,
bottles, water-keg's, combs, hair-brushes, hats, pants,
26
coats, meat, bread, pie, cake, sweetmeats, molasses,
salt water, and an occasional seasick and despairing-
boy, united to form a wet, sodden mass on the floor
two feet in depth. Above the storm howled and swept
throug-h the rig-ging, with little sail to interrupt it.
Six sick and wretched boys in their berths la}^ "heads
and pints," as the}" pack herring; that is, the toe of
one rested on the pillow of the other, for it was not
possible to lie otherwise in those narrow receptacles
for the living. But the horrors of that second night
are not to be related.
No solicitous stewards with basins and tenders of
broth and champagne attended us. We were not
cabin passengers on an ocean steamer. Barely had
the next morning's dawn appeared when our door was
flung open. In it stood that dreadful second mate of
the greenish eyes, hard, brick-red complexion, horny
fists and raspy voice — a hard, rough, rude, unfeeling
man, who cried : " Come out of that ! Oh, you're
young" bears — your troubles ain't commenced 3'et!"
Then his long, bony arm gripped us one after the other
and tore us from our bunks. How unlike getting up
at home on a cold winter's morning", as, snuggling in
our warm feather beds, we heard our mothers call
time after time at the foot of the stairs: "Come now,
g-et up! Breakfast is ready!" And with the delay
prone to over-indulged youth, we still la}" abed until
the aroma of buckwheat cakes and coffee stealing" to
our bedrooms developed an appetite and induced us to
rise. Out, this dreadful morning, we tumbled, in the
wet clothes wherein we had lain all night, weak, sick,
stagg-ering, g'icldy. A long iron hook was put in my
hand and I was desired to ^o forward and assist \h
hauling" along length after length of the cable prepar-
atory to stowing it away. Sky and sea were all of
iliill, monotonous gray; the ship was still clambering
one great wave after an another with tiresome and
l:'J)oi"ious monotony. All the canvas of the preceding
day had disappeared, save a much-diminislied foretop-
s-.iil and storm staysail. The mates on duty were
alert and swearing. The men, not all fully recovered
from their last shore debauch, were grumbling and
swearing also. The cook, a dark-hued tropical mon-
grel, with glittering eyes, was swearing at something
amiss in his department. It was a miserable time.
But a cure was quickly effected. In thirty-six hours
all seasickness had departed. AVith the delicate pet-
ting process in vogue with wealthy- cabin-passengers
it would have required a week. But we had no time
in which to be seasick.
Life for us on board this ship was commenced on a
new basis. We were obliged to learn "manners."
Manners among modern youth have become almost
obsolete. The etiquette and formality required from
the younger to the elder, and common to the time of
I)erukes and knee-breeches, has now little place save
on shipboard, where such traditions and customs lin-
ger. We were surprised to find it our dut}- to say
" Sir " to an officer, and also to find it imperative to
recognize every order addressed us by the remark;
"Aye, aye, sir! " The sullen, shambling fashion of re-
ceiving words addressed us in silence, so that the
speaker was left in doubt as to whether he was heard
or not, had no place off soundings. In short, we vv^ere
obliged to practice what is not common now to many
boys on shore—that is, an outward show of respect for
28
superiors. If business called us to the " West End '*
of a ship, the quarter-deck, our place was to walk on
the lee side of that deck and leave the weather side the
moment the duty was done. If sent for any article
hy an officer, it was our business to find it Avithout
further recourse to him.
Petted boys have little patience for hunting' for
thing's. At home two minutes is about the limit of time
spent in looking- for a mislaid poker, and then "Ma!"
" Pa ! " or "Aunt ! " is called on to turn to and do this
disag-reeable work. The second mate once ordered me
to find a certain iron hook, wherewith to draw the
pump boxes, and when, after a short search, I returned
and asked him where it mig-ht be I was horrified by
the expression of astonished indig-nation spreading-
over his face as he yelled : " Great Scott, he expects
me to help him find it ! " I saw the point and all it
involved, and never so wounded an officer's dig-nity
ag-ain. It is a sailor's, and especiallj^ a bo3^'s business
on sliipboard, to find whatever he is ordered to. It
must be produced — no matter whether it's in the ship
or not. At all events that's the sentiment reg-arding-
the matter. But it is good discipline for boys over-
nursed at home and onl}^ physically weaned. The
" cold, cold world " would not, in some cases, be so cold
to the newly-fledg-ed 3'outh first trying- his feeble
wing-s outside the famil3^ nest, did parents judiciously
establish a little of this maritime usage at home.
We soon learned on the Wizard how well we had
\ived at home. Our sea fare of hard tack and salt
junk taught us how to appreciate at their true value
the broiled streaks, hot cakes, and buttered toast of
home tables. The quart of very common molasses
29
served out to us weekly soon became a luxury, and
when the steward occasionally broug-ht us "Benav-
lins" (the nautical term for the broken fragments
from the cabin table), we regarded it as very luxuri-
ous living', though a month previous we should have
deemed such food fit only for the swill-tub.
In about two weeks we had settled down into the
routine of life at sea. Sailors are apt to term theirs
a "dog-'s life." I never did. It was a peculiar life,
and in some respects an unpleasant one — like many
others on land. But it was not a " dog-'s life." There
was plenty to eat, and we relished our " lobscouse,"
hard tack, salt junk, beans, codfish, potatoes and Sun-
day's and Thursday's diilF. The hours for labor were
not exhausting-. It was "watch and watch, four
hours off and four hours on." Many a New York re-
tail grocer's clerk, who turns to at 5 in the morning
and never leaves off imtil 11 at night, would revel on
such regulation of time and labor. So would manj^ a
sewing-girl. We had plenty of time for sleep. If
called up at 4 every alternate morning, and obliged to
stand watch until 8 a.m., we could "turn in" at that
hour after breakfast and sleep till noon. Apart from
the alternate watches the work or "jobs" occupied
about six hours per day. True, there was at times
some heavy work, but it was only occasional. Sailoi'-
work is not heavy as compared with the incessant
fagging, wearing, never-ending character of some oc-
cupations on shore. Skill, agilit}', and quickness are
in greater demand than mere brute strength.
Lobscouse is a preparation of hard bread, first
soaked and then stewed with shredded salt beef. It
looks somewhat like rations for a delicate bear when
30
served out by the panful. But it is very good. Salt
beef is wonderfully improved by streaks of fat through
it. These serve the foremast hands in place of but-
ter. I know of no better relish than good pilot bread
and sliced salt junk, with plenty of clean white fat.
On shore that quart of boiling hot liquid, sweetened
with molasses and called tea, would have been pitched
into the gutter. At sea, after an afternoon's work, it
was good. With similar content and resignation, not
to say happiness, we drank in the morning the hot
quart of black fluid similarly sweetened and called
coffee. It was not real coffee. I don't know what it
was. I cared not to know. Of course w^e grumbled
at it. But Ave drank it. It was " filling,'' and Avas far
better than the cold, brackish Avater, impregnated
thickly with iron rust, a gallon of Avhich Avas serA^ed
out daily. For the fresh water Avas kept below in an
iron tank, and, as the deck leaked, a small portion of
the Atlantic had somehoAv gained admission to it and
slightly salted it. It resembled chocolate to the eye,
but not to the palate.
'61
CHAPTER lY.
MUCH WATER AND MUTINY.
On the fourth day out the Wizard was found to
have four feet of water in her hold. The sliip was
pumped dry in about four hours, wh(Mi slie proceeded
to fdl up aij;ain. ^ The Captain seemed a man of many
minds for the next two or tliree days. First the ship
was put hack for New York. This course was altered
and her bows pointed for Africa. Then the foremast
hands became worried, and going- aft one morning- in
a body, asked Captain S what he meant to do
and where he meant to go, because they had shipped
for San Francisco and they did not intend g-oing any-
Avhere else. The Captain answered that his own safety
and that of the vessel were as dear to him as their
lives were to them, and that he intended doing- the
best for the general g-ood. This answer was not very
satisfactory to the crew, who went g-rumbling- back
to their quarters. Ultimately it turned out that we
were to take the leak with us to San Francisco. At
the rate the water was running- in it was judg-ed that
the bone, muscle, and sinews of the crew could manage
to keep it down. So we pumped all the way round
Cape Horn. We pumped during our respective
watches every two hours. In good weather and on
an even keel it took half an hour to "suck the pumps."
If the vessel was heeled to larboard or starboard, it
took much longer. In very rough weather we pumped
32
all the time that could be spared from other duties.
There were two pumps at the foot of tlie mainmast
worked by levers, and these were furnished with ^' bell
ropes " to pull on. Half the watch worked at each
lever, and these were located exactly where on stormy
nights the wild waves were in the habit of flinging-
over tlie bulwarks a hogshead or two of Avater to
drench us and wash us off our feet.
The Wizard was a very " wet ship." She loved giv-
ing us moist surprises. Sometimes on a fine da^^ she
would g-racefuUy, but suddenly, poke- her nose under,
and come up and out of the Atlantic or Pacific ocean
with fifteen or twenty tons of pea-green sea water
foaming over tlie t'galUmt forecastle, cascading- thence
on the spar deck and washing everything movable
slam bang up and sometimes into the cabin. This
took place once on a washda^^ Sailors' washday is
often regulated by the supply of water caug-ht from
the clouds. On this particular occasion the fore deck
was full of old salts up to their bared elbows in suds,
vigorously discoursing washtub and washboard. Then
the flood came, and in a moment the deck was filled
with a great surge bearing on its crest all these old
salts strug-gling among their tubs, their washboards,
their soap and i)artly-washed garments. The cabin
bulkhead i)artly stopped some, but the door being
open others were borne partly inside, and their woollen
shirts were afterward found stranded on the carpeted
cabin floor. One ^^^dufT day ''we had gathered about
our extra repast in the bo\^s' house. The duff and
IS'ew Orleans molasses had just commenced to disap-
I)ear. Then a shining, greenish, translucent cataract
filled the doorway from top to bottom. It struck boys,
33
beef, bread, diitT, and dishes. It scattered them. It
tumbled tliem in various lieaps. It was a brief season
of terror, spitting-, and sputtering- salt water, and a
scrambling- for life, as we thought. It washed under
bunks and in remote corners dulf, bread, beef, plates,
knives, forks, cups, spoons and molasses-bottles. The
dinner was lost. Going- on deck we found a couple of
feet of water swashing- from bulwark to bidwark with
every roll, bearing' with it, heavy blocks and everything-
movable which had been loosened by the shock, to the
g-reat i-isk of leg-s and bodies. But these were trifles.
At least we call them trifles when they are over. I
have noticed, however, that a man may swear as hard
at a jammed fing-er as a broken leg-, and the most effi-
cacious means in the world to quickly develop a furious
temper is to lose one's dinner when hung-ry, get wet
throug:h, then abused b3^ a Dutch mate for not stirring"
around quicker, and finally work all the afternoon set
ting- thingrs to rigrhts on an empty stomach, robbed
and disappointed of its dutt'. This is no trifle.
Learning the ropes isn't all a boy's first lessons
at sea. He must learn also to wash and mend his
own clothes. At least he must try to learn and
go through the forms. I never could wash a flannel
shirt, and how the extraneous matter called dirt,
which the washing process is intended to disperse, is
gotten rid of b}^ soap and muscle at an equal average
over the entire surface of the garment is for me to-
day one of earth's mysteries. I could wash a shirt
in spots. When I tried to convince myself that I
had finished it I could still see where I had washed
clean and where I had not. There is a certain system
in the proper manipulation of a garment in a washtub
34
which to me is incomprehensible. An old sailor is
usually a good washer. It's part of his trade. Those
on the Wizcu'd w^ould reprove the bo^^s for their slip-
shod work. " Such a slovenly washed shirt as that/*
said Conner, an old man-of- Avar's man, "hung- in the
rigging is a disgrace to the shiiD.'^ He alluded to one
of mine. The failure was not from any lack of labor
put on it. The trouble lay in that I didn't know
Avhere to put the labor on. It was easier to tie a
shirt to a line, fling it overboard and let it tow\ This
will wash clothes — Avash all the warp out of them in
time. The practice Avas at last forbidden the bo3'S on
the Wizcu^d, It's a lazy bo^^'s Avash. The adage " It's
ncA^er too late to mend " is not applicable on ship-
board. It should there read " It's never too early to
mend." Of course a boy of sixteen, Avhose mother has
ahvays stitched for him, Avill alloAV his clothes to go
until they fall off his body before using his needle.
As I did. And I scAved myself up only to rip asunder
immediately. I Avent about decks a thing of flaps,
rips, rags, and abortiA^e patches, until they called me
the ship's scarecroAv. And so Avould many another
spruce young man under similar discipline. It's good
once in one's life to be brought thus Ioav.
It was particularly disagreeable at midnight as Ave
assembled at the bell ropes to giA^e her the last
"shake-up," and more asleep than aAvake pulled Avear-
ily Avith monotonous clank. Sometimes at that hour,
Avhen our labors Avere half through, the valves Avould
get out of order. It Avas then necessary to call the
carpenter and haA^e them repaired. This Avould keep
us on deck half an hour or more, for by mutual com-
pact each Avatch Avas obliged to "suck its OAvn pumps."
OO
Such delays made the men very angry. They stopped
singing- at their work — always a bad sig-n— and be-
came silent, morose, and sullen. For the first six weeks
all the " shanti songs '*' known on the sea had been
sung. Regularly at each pumping exercise we had
"Santy Anna," "Bully in the Alley," "Miranda Lee,"
"Storm Along, John," and other operatic maritime
gems, some of which might have a place in our
modern operas of The Pinafore school. There's a
good deal of rough melody when these airs are rolled
out by twenty or thirty strong lungs to the accom-
paniment of a windlass' clank and the wild, shrill
sweep of the winds in the rigging above. But the
men would no longer sing. The fact was reported to
the Captain. He put on his spectacles, walked out on
the quarter-deck and gazed at them mournfully and
reprovingly. The mates tried to incite them to re-
newed melody. But the shipping articles did not com-
pel them to sing unless they felt like it. The pumps
clanked g-loomily without any enlivening chorus. The
Captain went sadly back to his cabin and renewed his
novel.
One night the pumps broke down five minutes be-
fore 12 o'clock. Our watch was at work on them.
The carpenter was called as usual, and after the usual
bungling and fishing in the well for the broken valves,
they were put in order again. It was then nearly 1
A.M. Meanwhile all the able seamen in our w^atch had
at eight bells walked below. The watch newly come
on deck refused to pump the ship clear, alleging it
was the business of the others. The watch below were
bidden to come on deck and perform their neglected
duty. They refused. This was mutiny. The four
36
mates g-ot their pistols, entered the forecastle and
stormed, ordered, and threatened. It was of no avail.
The fifteen able seamen who refused constituted the
main strength and effectiveness of that watch. They
were threatened with being* put in irons. They pre-
ferred irons to pumping out of their turn. They were
put in irons, fifteen stout men, by the four mates, who
then returned and reported proceedings to the Cap-
tain. The men remained shackled until the next morn-
ing. It was then discovered that it was impossible
to Avork the ship without their aid. Of course they
couldn't handle the vessel in irons. In reality double
the number of able men were needed in both watches.
The Wizard rated over 3,000 tons, and many a frigate
of her size would have been deemed poorly off with
less than one hundred men for handling the ship alone.
We rarely secured the lower sails properly in heavy
weather, from the mere lack of physical strength to
handle them. So Captain S pored sadl}^ at his
breakfast through his gold-bowed spectacles, and
when the meal Avas over issued orders for the release
of the fifteen men in irons. In this little affair the
bo3\s and ordinary seamen belonging to the mutinous
watch took no part. The^^ were strictl3^ neutral and
waited to see which side would win. I felt rather un-
pleasant and alarmed. Though not a full-fledged
mutiny and a conversion of a peaceful merchantman
mto a pirate, it did look at one time as if t'he initiatory
steps to such end were being taken.
One of the great aims of existence at sea is that of
keeping- the decks clean. The scrubbing-, swishing, and
swashing is performed by each watch on alternate
mornings, and commences at daylight. It was the
37
one ordeal which I reg-arded with horror and con-
t euipt. You are called up at four in the morning', when
the sleep of a g-rowinir 3^outh is soundest. The mani-
acal wretch of the other watch, who does the call-
Hig-, does it with the glee and screech of a fiend. He
will not stop his "All Ha-a-a-nds!" until he hears
some responsive echo from the sleepers. He is noisy
i\nd joyous because it is so near the time he can turn
in. And these four hours of sleep at sea are such
luxuries as may rarelv be realized on shore. But the
mate's watch is calling us, screeching, howling,
thumping on the forecastle door, and making himself
extremely pleasant. The old sailors being called grad-
ually rise to sitting postures in their berths with
yawns, oaths, and grumblings. If the hideous caller
is seen, a boot or other missile may be shied in that
direction. Otherwise the prejudice and disgust for
his clamor on the part of those called expresses itself
in irritable sarcasms such as, "Oh, why don't you
make a little more noise?" "Think yourself smart,
don't you?" "Say, don't you s'pose we can hear?"
To-morrow morning at 12 or 4 these personalities and
conditions of mind will be reversed. The awakened
irritable grumbler will be the joyous caller, and the
joyous caller of this early morn will be searching
about his bunk for some offensive implement to hurl
at the biped who thus performs the matutinal office
of the early village cock.
We are called and on deck, and stumbling about,
maj'be with one boot half on, and more asleep than
awake and more dead than alive. We ava in the
warm, enervating latitude of the tropics, Avith ever}'
sinew relaxed from the steaming heat. Perhaps there
260687
38
is a lig-ht wind aft. We are carrying" stuclding--sails.
Studding'-sails are beautiful to look at from a dis-
tance. But when once you have sailed in a ship
carrying- them from the royals down and know some-
thing of the labor of rigging them out all on one side,
fore, main, and mizzen-masts, and then, if the breeze
alters a couple of points, taking the starboard sails all
down and rigging out the larboard, or perhaps on both
sides — and this on a Sunday afternoon, when there
are no jobs and you've been exj^ecting plent}^ of leisure
to eat your duff and molasses; or if you have exor
helped carry those heavy yards about the deck when
the ship was rolling violently in a heavy ground swell,
and ever}^ time she brought up, sails, blocks, and
everything movable was bringing up also with a series
of pistol-like reports; or if you have ever laid out on
a ro^^al 3^ard tr\ing to pass a heav^^ rope through the
"jewel block," at the extreme end thereof, while the
mast and yard Avere oscillating to and fro with you
through the air in a rapidly recurring series of gigan-
tic arcs caused by the lazy swell, in the trough of
which your ship is rolling — and at the end of each roll
you find yourself holding on for dear life, lest at the
termination of each oscillation you be shot like an
arrow into the sea from your insecure perch — wh^^ in
all these cases the beauty and picturesqueness of a ship
under studding-sails will be tempered by some sober
realities.
It is 5:30 or G o'clock. The morning light has come.
The cry of "Turn to! " is heard. That is, "turn to"
to wash down decks, an operation which will tax the
already exhausted resources of an emi:)ty stomach
until breakfnst time at 8 o'clock. The mates liaA^e
39
their fragrant " cabin coffee '' and biscuit served them
on the brass capstan aft; we can smell its aroma, but
nothing- warm can get into our stomachs for over two
long hours of work. The basic idea in this regular
washing down decks at sea seems to be that of keep-
ing men bus\' for the sake of keeping them busy. The
top of every deck plank must be scrubbed with a care
and scrutiny befitting the labors of a diamond pol-
isher on his gems, while the under side may be dripping
with foulness, as it sometimes is. I had the post of
honor in scrubbing- the quarter-deck. That was the
drawing of water in a canvas bucket from the mizzen
chains to wash over that deck. The remaining five
boys would pusli wearily about with their brooms,
hand-brushes, squabs, and squilgees, superintended by
our extraordinary fourth mate (always to me an ob-
ject of interest, froxn the fact of the secret carefully
hoarded in \\\\ breast that I had pulled him into the
New York dock), who, with a microscopic oyQ in-
spected each crack and seam after the boys' labors, in
search of atomic particles of dirt, and called them back
with all the dignity of command, and a small amount
of commanding personality behind it, whenever he
deemed he had discovered any. When this labor was
finished I was generally so exhausted as to hav^e no
appetite for breakfast. But a sailor's stomach is not
presumed to be at all sensitive under any conditions.
And above all a " boy " — a boy belonging to a squad
of boys who about once a day were encouraged and
enthused to exertion and maritime ambition by the
assurance conveyed them by one of the mates that
they weren't "worth tlieir salt" — what business had a
l)oy's stomach to put on airs at sea? Most landsmen
40
if called up at 4 o'clock on a niug-gy morning and
worked like mules for a couple of hours on a digestive
vacuum, would probably at the breakfast hour feel
more the need of food than the appetite to partake of
it.
Though I followed the sea nearly two 3^ears, I am
no sailor. The net result of my maritime experience
is a capacity for tying' a bow-line or a square knot and
a positive knowledge and conviction concerning which
end of the ship goes first. I also know enough not
throw hot ashes to windward.
But on a yard I could never do much else but hold
on. The foolhardy men about me would lie out flat on
their stomachs amid the darkness and storm, and ex-
pose themselves to the risk of pitching headlong into
the sea in the most reckless manner while tr3nng to
"spill the wind "out of a t'gallant sail. But I never
emulated them. I never lived up to the maritime
maxim of "one hand for yourself and the other for
the owners." I kept both hands for myself, and that
kept me from going overboard. What would the
owners have cared had I gone overboard? Nothing.
Such an occurrence twenty-five odd years ago would,
weeks afterward, have been reported in the marine
ji(;ws this way : " Common sailor, ver^- common sailor,
fell from t/gallant 3^ard off Cape Horn and lost." The
owner would have secretly rejoiced, as he bought his
Christmas toys for his children, that the t'gallant
yard had not gone with the sailor. No; on a yard in
a storm I believed and lived up to the maxim: " Hold
fast to that which is good." The yard was good. Yet
I was ambitious when a boy before the mast on the
clipper which brought me to California. I was quick
41
to get into the ri«r.2:ing- when there was an^' thing to
do aloft. But once in the rig-ging- 1 was of httle utihty.
The first time I went up at night to loose one of the
royals, I thought I should never stop climbing. The
deck soon vanished in the darkness of a very black
tropical night, the mastheads were likewise lost in a
Cimmerian obscurity — whatever that is. At last I
found the yard. I wasn't quite sure whether it was
the right one or not. I didn't knoAV exactly what to
do. I knew I had to untie something somewhere. But
where ? Meantime the savage Scotch second mate was
bellowing, as it then seemed, a mile below me. I knew
the bellow was for me. I had to do something and I
commenced doing. I did know, or rather guessed,
enough to cast oil the lee and weather gaskets, or lines
which bind the sail when furled to the yard, and then
I made them up into a most slovenly knot. But the
bunt-gasket (the line binding the middle and most
bulky portion of the sail), bothered me. I couldn't
untie it. I picked away at it desperately, tore my
nails and skinning ray knuckles. The bellowing from
below continued as fiercely as ever, which, though not
intelligible as to words, was certainly exhorting me,
and me only, to vigilance. Then the watch got tired
waiting for me. Thinking the sail loosed, they began
hoisting. They hoisted the yard to its proper place
and me with it. I clung on and went up higher.
That, by the way, always comes of holding fast to
that which is good. Then a man's head came bobbing
up out of the darkness. It was that of a good-natured
Nantucket boy, whose name of course was Coffin. Ha
asked me the trouble. I went into a lengthy explana-
tion about the unmananeable knot. "Oh the
42
knot!^' said he. "Cut it!'^ and he cut it. I would
never have cut it. In m^^ then and even present nau-
tical ig-norance I should have expected the mast or
yard to have fallen from cutting- anything- aloft.
Only a few days previous I had seen the Captain on
the quarter-deck jumping up and down in his tracks
with rage because a common seamen liad, by mistake,
cut a mizzen brace, and the second mate, as usual, had
jumped up and down on the seaman when he reached
the deck. I feared to set a similar jumping process
in operation. Coming on deck after my length}^ and
blundering sojourn loosing a royal, I expected to be
mauled to a pulp for 1113^ stupidity. But both watch
and bellowing mate had g-one below and I heard no
more of it.
43
CHAPTER V.
SAN FRANCISCO IN 185G.
The Wizard sailed through a g-rcat bank of fog one
August morning and all at once the headlands of the
Golden Gate came in sight. It was the first land we
had seen for four months. We sailed into the harbor,
anchored, and the San Francisco of 1856 lay before us.
The ship was tied up to the wharf. All but the offi-
cers and "boys" left her. She seemed deserted,
almost dead. We missed the ocean life of the set
sails, the ship bowing to the waves and all the stir of
tlie elements in the open ocean.
The captain called me one day into the cabin, paid
me my scanty wages and told me he did not think I
" was cut out for a sailor," I was not handy enough
about decks.
Considering that for two months I had been crijv
pled by a felon on the middle finger of my right hand,
which on healing had left that finger curved inward,
with no power to straighten it, I thought the charg-e
of awkwardness somewhat unjust.
However, I accepted the Captain's opinion regard-
ing my maritime capacities, as well as the hint that I
was a superfluity on board.
I left the Wizard — left her for sixteen 3^ears of
vai-ied life in California.
44
I had no plans, nor aims, nor purpose, save to exist
from day to day and take what the day might g-ive
me.
Let me say here never accept anj^ person's opinion of
your quahfications or capacities for any caUing-. If
you feel that 3'ou are " cut out " for any calling or tliat
you desire to follow it, abide by that feeling, and trust
to it. It will carr^^ you through in time.
I believe that thousands on thousands of lives have
been blasted and crippled through the discourage-
ment thrown on them by relatiou, friend, parent, or
employer's saying continually (or if not saying it
verbally, thinking it) ''You are a dunce. You are
stupid. You can't do this or that. It's ridiculous for
3^ou to think of becoming this or that."
The boy or girl goes off with this thought thrown
on them by others. It remains with them, becomes a
part of them and chokes off aspiration and effort.
Years afterward, I determined to find out for m^^-
self whether I was "cut out for a sailor" or not. As
a result I made myself master of a small craft in
all winds and weathers and proved to m^^self that if
occasion required, I could manage a bigger one.
San Francisco seemed to me then mostly fog in the
morning, dust and wind in the afternoon, and Vigilance
Committee the remainder of the time.
San Francisco was then in the throes of the great
" Vigilant eeism " of 185G. Companies of armed men
were drilling in the streets at night. In the city's
commercial centre stood "Fort Gunnybags" — the
strong hold of the Vigilantes — made, as its name im-
plied, of sand-filled gunn^^- sacks. Carronades pro-
truded from its port holes, sentinels paced the ram-
45
parts. There was a constant surging of men in and
onb of the building behind the fort, — tlie headquarters
and barracks of the Vigilantes. From its windows a
few days before our arrival they had hung Casey
for the killing of James King — one of the editors
of the Bulletin. I saw two others hung there on
tlie sixth of August. Vigilanteeism was then the
business and talk of the town. The jail had just been
captured from the "Law and Order" men, w ho w^ere
not " orderly " at all, but w ho had captured the citj^'s
entire governmental and legal machinery and ran it
to suit their own purposes.
The local Munchausens of that era were busy; one
day the U. S. ship of war, St. Martfs, was to open fire
on Fort Gunnybags; the next, Governor Johnson,
backed by twenty thousand stahvart men, w^as to fall
upon the city and crush out the insurrection.
The up-country counties were arming or thought
of arming to put down this "rebellion." The "Re-
bellion" was conducted b^^ the respectability and
solidity of San Francisco, which had for a few years
been so busily engaged in money making as to allow
their city government to drift into rather irresponsible
hands; man^^ of the streets were unbridged, many not
lighted at night. Cause — lack of money to bridge and
liglit. The money in the hands of the city officials
had gone more for private pleasure than public good.
I speak of the streets being unbridged because at
that time a large portion of the streets w^ere virtually
bridges. One-fourth of the cit^^ at least, w^as built
over the w^ater. You could row^ a boat far under the
town, and for miles in some directions. This am-
phibious part of the city " bilged " like a ship's hold.
4G
and white paint put on one day Avoiild be lead colored
the next, from the action on it of the g-ases let loose
from the ooze at low tide.
There Avere frequent holes in these bridges into
which men frequently tumbled, and occasional!}" a team
and wag-on. They Avere large enough for either, and
their only use AA^as to shoAv Avhat the city officials had
not done Avith the city^s money.
Then Commercial street betAA^een LeidesdorfT and
Batter}^ Avas full of Cheap John auction stores, Avith all
their clamor and attendant croAvds at night. Then
the old Railroad Restaurant Avas in its priaie, and the
St. Nichokis, on Sansome, Avas the crack hotel. Then,
one saAv sand-hills at the further end of Montgomery
street. To go to Long Bridge Avas a Avear^^, body-ex-
hausting tramp. The Mission Avas reached by omni-
bus. Rows of old hulks Avere moored off Market street
Avharf, maritime relics of " ^49."' That Avas " Rotten
RoAv.^^ One by one the}^ fell A^ctims to Hare. Hare
purchased them, set Chinamen to picking their bones,
broke them up, put the shattered timbers in one pile,
the iron bolts in another, the copper in another, the
cordage in another, and so in a short all time that re-
mained of these bluff-boAved, old-fashioned ships and
brigs, that had so often doubled the stormy corner of
Cape Horn or smoked their try-pots in the Arctic
ocean Avas so maA^ ghastly heaps of marine debris.
I had seen the Niantic, noAv entombed just beloAv
ClaA" street, leave my natiA^e seaport, bound for
the South Pacific to cruise for whale, years ere the
bars and gulches of California AA^ere turned up by
pick and shovel. The Cadmus, the A^essel Avhich
brought Lafayette OA^er in 18:?4, Avas another of our
"blubber hunters," and afterward made her last voy-
ag-e with the rest to San Francisco.
Manners and customs still retained much of the old
"'49" flavor. Women were still scarce. Every river
boat brought a shoal of miners in gray shirts from
" up country." " Steamer Day," twice a month, was an
event. A g-reat crowd assembled on the wharf to wit-
ness the departure of those "going- East" and a Uvely
orang:e bombardment from wharf to boat and vice
versa was an inevitable feature of these occasions.
The Plaza was a bare, barren, unfenced spot. They
fired salutes there on Independence Day, and occasion-
ally Chief Burke exhibited on its area g'ang-s of sneak
thieves, tied two and two by their wrists to a rope-
like a string- of onions.
There was a long- low g-arrt-t in my Commercial
street lodg-ing^s. It was filled with dust-covered sea-
chests, trunks, valises, boxes, packages, and bundles,
many of which had been there unclaimed for years
and whose owners were quite forgotten. They were
the belong:ing"s of lost and strayed Long- Islanders,
ex-whaling- captains, mates and others. For the
"Market" was tlie chief rendezvous. Every Long-
Islander coming- from the " States " made first for the
"Market." Storage then was very expensive. It
would soon " eat a trunk's head off." So on the score
of old acquaintance all this baggage accumulated in
the Market loft and the owners wandered off to the
mines, to Oregon, to Arizona, to Nevada— to all parts
of the great territory lying east, north and south,
both in and out of Cahfornia, and many never came
back and some were never heard of more. This bag-
gage had been accumulating for years.
48
I used occasionally to g-o and wander about that
garret alone. It was like gToping- around your family
vault. The shades of the forg-otten dead came there
in the evening* twilight and sat each one on his chest,
his trunk, his valise, his roll of blankets. In those
dusty packagTs were some of the closest ties, binding-
them to earth, Bibles, mother's g^ifts, tiny baby shoes,
bits of blue ribbon, which years b^^-g-one fluttered in
the tresses of some Long' Island g-irl.
It was a sad, yet not a g-loom^^ place. I could feel
that the presence of one, whose soul in sad memory
met theirs, one who then and there recalled familiar
scenes, events and faces, one who ag-ain in memory
lived over their busy preparations for departure, their
last adieux and their brig-ht anticipations of fortune,
I could feel that even my presence in that lone, seldom-
visited g-arret, was for them a solace, a comfort.
Imag-ination? Yes, if you Avill. Even imag-ination,
dreamy, unprofitable imag-ination, may be a tang-ible
and valuable something- to those who dwell in a world
of thoug-ht.
One nig-ht — or, rather, one morning- — I came home
very late — or, rather, very early. The doors of the
Long Island House were locked. I wanted rest. One
of the window-panes in front, and a larg-e window-pane
at that, was broken out. All the belated Long- Island-
ers stopping- at the place, when locked out at nig-ht,
used to craAvl throug-h that window-pane. So, I
crawled through it. Now, the sentinel on the ram-
parts of Fort Gunm'bags, having nothing better to
do, had been watching me, and putting me up as a
suspicious midnight loiterer. And so, as he looked,
he saw me by degrees lose m^^ physical identity, and
49
vanish into the front of that building-; first, head, then
shoulders, then chest, then diaphragm, then leg's, until
nau<^ht but a pair of boot-soles Avere for a moment
upturned to his g'aze, and they vanished, and darkness
reigned supreme. The sentinel deemed that the time
for action had come. I had just got into bed, congrat-
ulating myself on having thus entered that house
without disturbing the inmates, when there came loud
and peremptory rappings at the lower door. Luther
and John, the proprietors, put their heads out of the
chamber windows. There was a squad of armed Vigi-
lantes on the sidewalk below; and, cried out one of
them, " Tliere's a man just entered your house! " Now
I heard this, and said to myself, " Thou art the man! "
but it was so annoying to have to announce myself
as the cause of all this disturbance, that I concluded
to wait and see how things would turn out. John and
Luther jumped from their beds, lit each a candle and
seized each a pistol; down-stairs they went and let
the Vigilantes in. All the Long Island captains,
mates, coopers, cooks, and stewards then resident in
the house also turned out, lit each his candle, seized
each a pistol or a butcher-knife, of which there were
l)lenty on the meat-blocks below. John came rushing
into my room where I lay, pretending to be asleep.
He shook me and exclaimed, " Get up! get up! there's
a robber in the house secreted somewhere ! " Then I
arose, lit a candle, seized a butcher-knife, and so all
the Vigilantes with muskets, and all the Long Island
butchers, captains, mates, cooks, coopers, and stewards
went poking around, without any trousers on, and
thrusting their candles and knives and pistols into
dark corners, and under beds and behind beef barrels,
50
after the robber. So did I; for the disturbance had
now assumed such immense iDroportions that I would
not have revealed myself for a hundred dollars. I
never hunted for m^^self so long- before, and I did
wish the^^ would give up the search. I saw no use in
it; and besides, the night air felt raw and chill in our
slim attire. They kept it up for two hours.
Fort Gunnybags was on Sacramento Street; I slept
directly opposite under the deserted baggage referred
to. The block between us and the fort was vacant.
About every fourth night a report would be circulated
through that house that an attack on Fort Gunnybags
would be made by the Law and Order men. Now,
the guns of Fort Gunn^'bags bore directly on us, and
as they Avere loaded with hard iron balls, and as these
balls, notwithstanding' whatever human Law and
Order impediments the^^ might meet with while cross-
ing the vacant block in front, were ultimately certain
to smash into our house, as well as into whatever stray
Long Island captains, mat(»s, boat-steerers, cooks, and
coopers mig-ht be hing in then^ path, these reports re-
sulted in great uneasiness to us, and both watches used
frequently to remain up all night, playing seven-up and
drinking i^um and gum in Jo. Holland's saloon below.
I became tired at last of assisting" in this hunt for my-
self. I g-ave mj^self up. I said, " I am the man, T am the
bogus burglar, I did it." Then the crowd put up their
knives and pistols, blew out their candles, drew their
tongues and fired reproaches at me. I felt that I de-
served them ; I replied to none of their taunts,conducted
m^^self like a Christian, and went to bed weighted
down with their reproof and invective. The sentinel
went back to his post and possibly slept. So did I.
51
CHAPTER VI.
AS A SEA COOK.
I DRIFTED around San Francisco for several months
and finally shipped as cook and steward of the schooner
Henry, bound from San Francisco for a whaling-, seal-
ins", abalone curing-, and general " pick up " voyage
along- the Lower Californian coast. My acceptance as
cook was based on the production of an Irish stew
vvhicli I cooked for the captain and mate while the
Henry was ''hove down" on the beach at North point
and undergoing the process of cleaning her bottom of
barnacles. I can't recollect at this lapse of time where
I learned to cook an Irish stew. I will add that it was
all I could cook — positively all, and with this astound-
ing- capital of culinary ignorance I ventured down upon
the great deep to do the maritime housework for twenty
men.
When we were fairly afloat and the Farall ones were
out of sight m^^ fearful mcapacity for the duties of the
position became apparent. Besides, I was dreadfully
seasick, and so remained for two weeks. Yet I cooked.
It Avas purgatory, not only for myself but all hands.
There was a general howl of execration forw^ard and
aft at my bread, my lobscouse, my tea, my coffee, my
beef, my beans, my cake, my pies. Why the captain
continued me in the position, why they didn't throw
me overboard, why I was not beaten to a jelly for my
52
continued culinary failures, is for me to this day one
of the gTeat m^^steries of my existence. We were
away nearly ten months. I was three months learn-
ing- my trade. The sufferings of the crew during those
three months were fearful. They had to eat my fail-
ures or starve. Several times it was intimated to me
by the under officers that I had better resign and go
" for'ard " as one of the crew. I would not. I per-
severed at the expense of many a pound of good flour.
I conquered and returned a second-class sea cook.
The Henry was a small vessel — the deck was a
clutter of Avhaling gear. Where m^^ galley or sea-
kitchen should have been, stood tlie tiy-works for boil-
ing blubber. They shoved me around an^^where. Some-
times I was moved to the starboard side, sometimes
to the larboard, sometimes when cutting in a whale
way astern. I expected eventually to be hoisted into
one of the tops and cook aloft. An^^ well regulated
galley is placed amidships, where there is the least
motion. This is an important consideration for a sea
cook. At best he is often obliged to make his soup
like an acrobat, half on his head and half on his heels
and with the roof of his unstead^^ kitchen trying to
become the floor. My stove was not a marine stove.
It had no rail around the edges to guard the pots and
kettles from falling off during extra lurches. The
Henry was a most uneasy craft, and always getting
up extra lurclies or else trying to stand on her head
or stern. Therefore, as she flew up high astern Avlien
I was located in that quarter, she has in more than
one instance flung me bodily, man unguarded moment,
out of that galley door and over that quarter-deck
while a host of kettles, covers, and other culinary uten-
63
sils, rushed with clang' and clatter out after me and
with me as their commander at their head. We all
eventually terminated in the scuppers. I will not, as
usual, say "lee scuppers." Any scupper was a lee
scupper on that infernal vessel. I endeavored to rem-
edy the lack of a rail about this stove 63^ a system of
wires at jaching" both pots and lids to the galley ceil-
ing-. I "g-uyed " my chief culinary utensils. Still dur-
ing' furious oscillations of the boat the pots would roll
otf their holes, and thoug-h prevented from falling',
some of them as suspended by these wires would swing'
like so many pendulums, around and to and fro over
the area of that stove.
That was the busiest y?ar of my life. I was the first
one up in the morning:, and the last save the watch to
turn in at nig'ht. In this dry-g-oods box of a kitchen
I had daily to prepare a breakfast for seven men in
the cabin, and another for eleven in the forecastle; a
dinner for the cabin and another for the forecastle;
likewise supper for the same. It was m^^ business to
set the aristocratic cabin table, clear it off and wash
the dislies three times daily. I had to serve out the
tea and coffee to the eleven men forward. The cabin
expected hot biscuit for breakfast, and frequentlj^ pie
and pudding for dinner. Above all men must the sea
cook not only have a place for everything* and every-
thing' in its place, but he must have everything- chocked
and wedged in its place. You must wash up your tea
thing's, sometimes holding" on to the deck with your
toes, and the washtub with one hand, and wedging'
each plate, so soon as wiped, intro a corner, so that it
slide not away and smash. And even then the entire
dish-washing apparatus, yourself included, slides gen-
64
tly across the deck to leeward. You can't leave a
fork, or a stove-cover, or lid-lifter lyiiii;' about indifter-
entl}^ but what it slides and sneaks away with the
roll of the vessel to some secret crevice, and is long-
lost. When your best dinner is cooked in rough
weather, it is a time of trial, terror, and tribulation to
bestow it safely on the cabin table. You must harbor
3^our kindling" and matches as sacredl^^ as the ancients
kept their household gods, for if not, on stormy morn-
ings, with the drift flying over the deck and ever}' thing
wet and clammy with the Avater-surcharged air of the
sea, your breakfast will be hours late through inabil-
ity to kindle a fire, whereat the cook catches it from
that potentate of the sea, " the old man," and all the
mates raise their voices and cry with empty stom-
achs, "Let him be accursed.''
One great trial with me lay in the difficulty of dis-
tinguishing fresh water from salt — I mean by the eye.
We sea cooks use salt water to boil beef and potatoes
in; or rather to boil beef and pork and steam the
potatoes. So I usually had a pail of salt water and
one of fresh standing- b^^ the g'alle}^ door. Sometimes
these got mixed up. I alwa^^s found this out after
making salt-water coffee, but then it was too late.
They were particular, especially in the cabin, and did
not like salt-water coffee. On any strictly disciplined
vessel the cook for such an offence would have been
compelled to drink a quart or so of his own coffee, but
some merciful cherub aloft alwaA^s interfered and got
me out of bad scrapes. Another annoyance was the
loss of spoons and forks thrown accidentally overboard
as I flung away my soup and grease-clouded dish-
water. It was indeed bitter when, as occupied in these
55
daily washings I allowed my mind to drift to other and
brig-liter scenes, to see the g'litter of a spoon or fork in
the air or sinking- in the deep blue sea, and then to re-
flect that already there were not enough spoons to g-o
around, or forks either. Our storeroom was the cabin.
Among- other articles there was a keg- of molasses.
One evening- after draining- a quantity I neg-lected to
close the faucet tightly. Molasses therefore oozed over
the cabin floor all night. The cabin was a freshet of
molasses. Very early in the morning- the captain,
getting- out of his bunk, jumped both stockinged feet
into the saccharine deluge. Some men will swear as
vigoroush' in a foot-bath of molasses as they would in
one of coal-tar. He did. It was a very black day for
me, and life generally seemed joyless and uninviting;
but I cooked on.
The Henry was full of mice. These little creatures
would obtrude themselves in my dough wet up for
fresh bread over night, become bemired and die there-
in. Once a mouse thus dead was unconsciously rolled
up in a biscuit, baked with it, and served smoking hot
for the morning's meal aft. It was as it were an in-
voluntary meat-pie. Of course the cabin grumbled;
but they would grumble at anything. They were as
particular about their food as an habitue of Delmon-
ico's. I wish now at times I had saved that biscuit to
add to my collection of odds-and-endibles. Still even
the biscuit proved but an episode in my career. I
cooked on, and those I served stood aghast, not know-
ing what would come next.
After five months of self-training I graduated on
pies. I studied and wrought out the making of pies
unassisted and untaught. Mine were sea mince pies;
50
material, salt-beef soaked to freshness and boiled ten-
der, dried apples and molasses. The cabin pronounced
them *;'ood. This was one of the few featliers in mj^
culinary cap. Of course, their goodness was relative.
On shore such a pie would be scorned. But on a long-
sea- voyag-e almost an^^ combination of flour, dried fruit
and sugar will pass. Indeed, the appetite, rendered
more vigorous and perhaps appreciative by long- de-
privation from luxuries, will take not kindly to dried
apples alone. Tlie changes in the weekly hill of fare
at sea run something thus: Sundays and Thursdays
are "duff da3^s"; Tuesday, bean day; Frida\^, codfish
and potato da3^; some vessels have one or two special
daj^s for pork; salt beef, hardtack, tea and coffee are
fluids and solids to fall back on every day. I dreaded
the making of duffs, or flour puddings, to the end of
the voj^age. Rarely did I attain success with them.
A duff is a quantit^^ of flour and yeast, or yeast-pow-
der, mixed, tied up in a bag and boiled until it is light.
Plum-dutt' argues the insertion of a quantity of raisins.
Plain duff is duff without raisins. But the proper
cooking of a duff is rather a delicate matter. If it boils
too long the flour settles into a hard, putt^^-like mass
Avhereunto there is neither sponginess, lig-htncss, nor
that porousness which delights tlie heart of a cook
when he takes his duff' from the seething caldron. If
the duff does not boil long enough, the interior is still
a iDaste. If a duff stops boiling* for ever so few min-
utes, great damage results. And sometimes dviff* won't
do i)roperl3', an3^wa3^ Mine were generally of the hard-
ened species, and the plums evinced atendenc^^to hold
mass meetings at the bottom. Twice the hands for-
ward rebelled at my duffs, and their Committee on
57
Culinary Grievances bore them aft to the door of the
cabin and deposited them tliere unbroken and uneaten
for the " GUI Man's " inspection. Which pubhc demon-
stration I witnessed from m^^ g'alley door, and when
the duff deputation had retired, I emerged and swiftly
and silently bore that dulf away before the Old Man
had finished his dinner below. It is a hard ordeal thus
to feel one's self the subject of such an outbreak of
popular indignation. But my sympathies now are all
with the sailors. A spoiled duff is a g-reat misfortune
in the forecastle of a whak^r, where neither pi«' nor
cake nor any other delicacy, save boiled flour and mo-
lasses sauce, come from month's end to month's end.
In St. Bartholomew's or Turtle bay, as the Avhalers
call it, where for five months we lay, taking- and cur-
ing- abalones, our food was chiefly turtle. This httle
harbor swarmed with them. After a few hours' hunt
one of our wlialeboats would rctui^n with Ave or six of
these imwieldy creat ures in tlie bottom, some so larg-e
and heavy as to require hoisting- over the side. Often
tlie green fat under the callipee, or under shell, lay
three inches in thickness. I served up turtle fried,
turtle stewed, quarters of turtle roasted and stuffed
like loins of veal, turtle plain boiled and turtles' flip-
pers, boiled to a jelly and pickled. A turtle is a vari-
ously flavored being-. Almost every portion has a
distinct and individual taste. After all, old Jake, our
black boatsteerer, showed us the most delicate part of
the turtle, and one previously thrown away. This was
the tripe, cleansed of a thin inner skin. When the
cabin table had once feasted on stewed turtle tripe
they called for it continuously. After many trials and
much advice and sugg-estion, I learned to cook accept-
58
ably the abalone. The eatable part of this shell-fish
when fresh is as larg-e as a small tea saucer. There
are two varieties, the white and black. The white is
the best. Cut up in pieces and stewed, as I attempted
at first, the abalone turned out stewed bits of g-utta
percha; fried, it was fried g'utta percha. Then a man
from another vessel came on board, Avho taught me to
inclose a single abalone in a small canvas bag* and
then pound it to a jelh^ with a wooden mallet. This
process g-ot the honey out of the abalone. The re-
mains of four or five abalones thus pounded to a pulp,
and then allowed to simmer for a couple of hours,
would make a big- tureen of the most delicious soup
man ever tasted, every drop of which, on cooling-, hard-
ened to the consistency of calves^-foot jell^^ When
my cabin boarders had once become infected with aba-
lone soup they wanted me to keep bring-ing- it along-.
The Americans do not Ivuow or use all the food in the
sea which is g'ood.
I was an experimental cook, and once or twice, while
cutting'-in whale, tried them with whale meat. The
flesh lying- under the blubber somewhat resembles beef
in color, and is so tender as easily to be torn apart by
the hands. But Avhale meat is not docile under culi-
nar^^ treatment. Gastronomically, it has an individu-
ality of its own, which will keep on assei-ting- itself, no
matter how much spice and pepper is put upon it. It
is a wild, untamed steed. I propounded it to my g-uests
in the g"uise of sausag-es, but wlien the meal was over
the sausag-es were there still. It can't be done Shark
can. Shark's is a sweet meat, uiuch resembling- that
of the swordfish, but uo man will ever eat a whale, at
least an old one. The calves miirht conduct themselves
59
better in the fr^ing'-paii. We had many about us
whose mothers we had killed, but we never thought of
frying- them. When a whaler is trying out oil, she is
blackened with the greasy soot arising from the burn-
ing blubber scraps from stem to stern. It falls like a
storm of black snow-flakes. They sift into the tiniest
crevice. Of all this my cookery got its full share. It
tinged my bread and even my pies Avith a funereal tinge
of blackness. The deck at such times was covered
with " horse pieces '' up to the top of the bulwarks.
" Horse picees " are chunks of blubber a foot or so in
length, that being one stage of their reduction to the
size necessary for the try pots. I have introduced
them here for the purpose of remarking that on my
passage to and fro, fi'om galle^^ to cabin, while engaged
in laying the cloth and arranging our services of gold
plate and Sevres ware, I liad to clamber, wade, climb,
and sometimes, in m^^ white necktie and swallow-tail
coat, actually crawl over the greasy mass with the sil-
ver tureen full of "consomme "or "soup Julien," while
I held the gilt-edged aiul enanu'lled menu between my
teeth. Those were trying-out times for a maritime
head butler.
The cook socially does not raidv high at sea. He
staiuls very near the bottom round of the ladder. He
is the subject of many jests and low comparisons.
This should not be. The cook should rank next or
near to the captain. It is the cook who prepares the
material wliich shall put mental and phj'sical strength
into human bodies. He is, in fact, a chemist, who car-
ries on the last external processes with meat, flour,
and vegetables necessar^^ to prepare them for their in-
visii)le and still more wonderful treatment in the labo-
60
ratory which every man and woman possesses — the
stomach — whei'eh^^ these raw materials are converted
not only into blood, bone, nerve, sinew, and muscle,
but Into thoug'hts. A good cook may help materially
to make g-ood poetry, ^n indigestible beefsteak, fried
in grease to leather, may, in the stomach of a General,
lose a battle on which shall depend the fate of nations.
A good cook might have won the battle. Of course,
he would receive no credit therefor, save the conviction
in his own culinary soul, that his beefsteak properl^^
and quickly broiled was thus enabled to digest itself
properly in the stomach of the General, and thereby
transmit to and through the General's organism that
amount of nerve force and vigor, which, acting upon
the brain, caused all his intelligence and talent to at-
tain its maximum, and thereby conquer his adversary.
That's what a cook may do. This would be a far bet-
ter and happier w^orld were there more really good
cooks on land and sea. And when all cooks are Blots
or So^^ers, then will we have a societ^^ to be proud of.
61-
CHAPTER VII.
SIGHTS WHILE COOKING.
St. Bartholomew or Turtle Ba^- is a small, almost
circular, sheet of water and suri'ounded by some of the
dreariest territory in the world. The mountains which
stand about it seem the cooled and liardened deposit
of a volcano. Vegetation there is none, save cactus
and other spined, horned, and sting'ing- growths. Of
fresh water, whether in springs, rividets, or brooks,
there is none. Close b}^ our boat-landing- was tlie
g-rave of a mother and child, ];nid(Hl a few years pre-
vious from a wreck, who had perished of thirst. Co-
3'otes, hares, and birds must have relieved thirst some-
where, possibly from the dews, which are very copious.
Our decks and rig-g-ing" in the morning" looked as thoug-li
soaked by a heavy shower. Reg-ularly at night the
co^'otes came down and howled over that lone g-rave,
and the bass to their fiend-like yelping- were furnished
by the l)oom of the Pacific snrg-es on the reef outside.
To these gloomy sounds in the nig-ht stillness and
blackness, there used for a time to be added the in-
cessant g-roaning- of a wretched Sandwich Islander,
who, dying- of consumption, would drag- himself at
nig-ht on deck to avoid disturbing- the sleep of the
crowded forecastle. Small hope for help is there for
any thus afflicted on a whaler. There is no physician
but the Captain, and his practice dares not go mucli
'63
beyond a dose of salts or castor-oil. The poor fellow
was at last found dead, eai'ly one evening-, in his bunk,
while his countrymen were singing, talking, laughing,
and smoking about him. It was a relief to all, for his
case was hopeless, and such miser^^, so impossible to
relieve, is terrible to witness on a mere fishing-schooner
so ci'owded as ours. The dead man was buried at sea
without any service, much to the disgust of one of our
coopers, who, although not a " professor," believed
that such affairs should be conducted in an orthodox,
ship-shape fashion. Some one, after the corpse had slid
overboard, remarked, " Well, he's dead and buried,"
whereat the cooper muttered, *' He's dead, but he ain't
Avhat I call buried." I don't think the Captain omitted
the bui'ial service through any indifference, but rather
from a sensitiveness to officiate in any such semi-cleri-
cal fashion.
Some rocks not far from our anchorage were seen
covered at early dawn eveiy morning with thousands
of large black sea-birds. They were thickly crowded
together and all silent and immovable, until apparently
they had finished some Quaker form of morning devo-
tion, when they commenced flying off, not all at once,
but in series of long straggling flocks. In simdar si-
lence and order they would return at night from some
far-off locality. Never during all the months of our
stay did we hear a sound from them. Morning after
morning with the earliest lig-ht this raven-colored host
were ever on their chosen rocks, brooding as it were
ere their flight OA^er some solemnity peculiar to their
existence.
The silent birds gone, there came regularly before
sunrise a wonderful mirage. Far away and low down
63
in the distant seaward horizon there seemed vag-iiely
shadowed forth lon^ hnes one above and behind the
other of towers, walls, battlements, spires and the ir-
regular outline of some weird ancient city. These
shapes, seemingly motionless, in reality changed from
minute to minute, yet the movement was not percep-
tible. Now it was a long level wall with an occasional
watch-tower. Then the walls grew higher and higher,
and there towered a lofty, round, cone shaped struc-
ture, with a suggestion of a flight of circular steps on
the outside, as in the old-fashioned Suiulay-school books
was seen pictured the tower of Babel. It would reveal
itself in var^nng degrees of distinctness. But when
the eye, attracted by some other feature of the specta-
cle, turned again in its direction it was gone. A haze
of purple covered as with a gauzy veil these beautiful
morning panoramas. Gazed at steadily" it seemed as
a dream realized in one's waking moments. It was
sometimes for me a sight fraught with dangerous fas-
cination, and often as I looked upon it, forgetting all
else for the moment, have I been recalled disagreeably
to m3" mundane sphere of slops, soot, smoke and dish-
rags, as I heard the ominous sizzle and splutter of
the coffee boiling over, or scented on tlie morning air
that peculiar odor, full of alarm to the culinary soul,
the odor of burning bread in the oven. 'Tis ever thus
that the fondest illusions of life are rudely broken in
upon by the vulgar necessities and accidents of eartlily
existence.
There were ten Sandwich Islanders in the forecastle
of the Henry, one big Jamaica negro, who acted as a
sort of leader for them, and no white men. These
Kanakas were docile, well-beliaved, could read in their
64
own lang-uag-e, had in tlicir possession many books
printed in their own tongue, and all seemed to invest
their spare cash in clothes. They hked fish, very
shg-htly salted, which they would eat without further
cooking", plenty of bread, and, above all things, mo-
lasses. Molasses would tempt any of these Islanders
from the path of rectitude. When not at woi'k they
were either talking or singing. Singl}^ or in groups
of two or three they would sit about the deck at night
performing a monotonous chant of a few notes. This
they would keep up for hours. That chant got mto
my head thirtN^-three years ago and it has never got
out since. Change of scene, of life, of association, in-
crease of weight, more morality, more I'egular habits,
marriage, all have made no difTereiice. That Kanaka
chant, so many thousand times lieard on the Southern
Californian coast, will sometimes strike up of its own
accord, until it tires me out with its imagined cease-
less repetition. It^s there, a permanent fixture. Rec-
ollection will wake it up.
So unceasing was the gabble of these Kanakas that
one day I asked Jake, the negro boat-steerer, who
understood their language, Avhat they found to talk so
much about. "Oh, dey tnlk about anyting," said he;
" dey talk a whole day 'bout a pin." Whereat I re-
tired to 1113-^ maritime scrubbery and kitchen and varied
my usual occupation midst my pots, pans, and unde-
veloped plum dufl's with wondering if the simpler, or,
as we term them, the infei'ior races of men are not
more inclined to express their thoughts audibl}^ than
the superior. I do not think an idea could present it-
self to a Kanaka without his talking it out to some-
body.
Co
But some of these simple children of the Pacific isles
used to pilfer hot biscuits from my g-alley when I was
absent. In vain I set hot stove covers in front of the
door for them to step on and burn their bare feet. I
burned myself on the iron I had prepared for my re-
centl}' civilized, if not converted, heathen brother.
Both the superior and inferior races often went bare-
footed on the Henry while in the lower latitudes.
At times, leaving" a portion of the crew at the St.
Bartholomew's bay station to collect and cure abalone,
the schooner cruised about the coast for sea-elephant.
Not far from the bay are the islands of Cedros (or
Cedars), Natividad and some others. The lirst we saw
of Cedros was her tree-covered mountain-tops floating*,
as it were, in the air above us on a sea of fog\ This
lifting-, we were boarded by a boat containing- two
men. They proved to be two Robinson Crusoes, by
name Miller and Whitney, who had been alone on the
island nearly six months. They, with others, had fitted
out in San Francisco a joint-stock vessel and were left
with a supply of i)i'ovisions on Cedros to seal. Their
vessel was long- ovei-due, their provisions down to the
last pound of biscuits, and they were living- larg-ely on
fish and venison, for thoug-h Cedros is many miles from
the main land, deer have g-ot there somehow, as well
as rattlesnakes. Their vessel never did return, for
their Captain ran away with her and sold her in some
South American port. Miller and Whitney joined our
crew and made the remainder of the voyag-e with us.
They brought on board all their worldly g-oods in two
small trunks; also, a kettleful of boiled venison, a
treat which they were very g-lad to exchang-e for some
long--coveted salt pork. The\- reported that a " stinker "
6(j
was lying" among the rocks ashore. A " stinker " in
whaleman's parlance is a dead whale. In giving
things names a whaleman is largely influenced by their
most prominent traits or qualities, and the odorous
activity of a dead whale can be felt for miles. They
told us, also, that they had nineteen barrels of seal oil
stored on the island of Natividad. Natividad is but a
bleached-topped, guano-covered rock. We sailed
thither but found no oil. The Captain who had stolen
their vessel also included the oil. Miller and Whitney
proved ver}^ useful men. Whitney was a powerful
talker. Miller never spoke unless under compulsion.
Whether in their six months of Cedros isolation such
a pair had been well mated is a matter on which there
ma^^ be variance of opinion. Perhaps from a collo-
quial standpoint some if not man}^ long-married men
can best tell. Miller was a Vermonter, and had spent
seventeen years of his life roaming about among sel-
dom-visited South Sea islands. Could his tongue have
been permanentlj^ loosened and his brain stimulated
to conversational activity, his might have been a most
interesting story. Once in a great while there came
from him a slight shower of sentences and facts which
fell gratefull3^ on our parched ears, but as a rule the
verbal drought was chronic. He had an irritating
fashion also of intonating the first portions of his sen-
tences in an audible key and then dying awa^^ almost
to a whisper. This, when the tale was interesting,
proved maddening to his hearers. He spoke once of
living on an island whose natives were almost white,
and the women well formed and finer looking than any
of the Polynesian race he had ever seen. Polygamy
was not practised; they were devoted to one wife;
b<
and their life, cleanliness and manners, as he described
them, made, with the addition of a little of one's own
imag-ination, a pleasing- picture. Miller's g-reatest use
to mankind la\' in his hands, in which all his brain-
power concentrated instead of his tongue. From
splicing" a cable to skinning- a seal, he was an ultra
proficient. Others might tell how and tell well, but
Miller did it. Talking- seemed to fatig-ue him. Every
sentence ere completed fell in a sort of a swoon.
In St. Bartholomew's, alias Turtle, Bay, we la^^ four
months, taking- abalones. All hands were called every
morning- at four o'clock. Breakfast was quickly dis-
patched, their noon lunch prepared, and everybody
save myself was away from the vessel by five. That
'was the last I saw of them until sunset, and I was very
g-lad to be rid of the whole g'ang- and be left alone with
ni}^ own thoug-hts, pots, pans, and kettles. The aba-
lone cling-s to the surf-washed rocks by suction. It
has but one outer shell. San Francisco is ver^- fami-
liar with their prismatic hues inside, and the same out-
side when g-round and pohshed. Heaps of those shells,
three feet in heig-ht and bleached to a dead white by the
sun, lay on the beaches about us. Of unbleached and
lively -hued shells we took on board several tons. They
were sent to Europe, and there used for inlaid work.
The live abalone must be pried off the rock with stout
iron chisels or wedg-es. It was roug-h work collecting-
them from the rocky ledg-es in a heavy surf. Carried
to the curing- depot on shore, the entrails were cut
away and the round, solid chunk of meat left was first
boiled and then dried in the sun. An inferior pearl is
often found within the body of the abalone. Our one
Chinaman, Ah Sam, was chef of the abalone-curing
GS
kitchen on shore. He was shipped for that purpose.
One live abalone will cling- to the back of another too
tig"htly to be pulled off easil}^ by hand, and you may
in this way pile them on top of one another, and thus
erect a column of abalone as jnany feet in heig'ht as
you choose to build. These fish were intended for the
Chinese market, and the projectors of the voyag-e ex-
pected to g-et forty cents per pound for them in San
Francisco. When some forty tons had been cured we
heard from a passing- steamer that the English had
instituted another of their Christian wars with China,
for which reason abalones m San Francisco broug-ht
only ten cents per pound. Then we stopped cooking-
abalones, hauled up our anchor and hunted the sea-
lion and the whale.
But while in St. Bartholomew's Bay I was left alone
on the vessel all da}' Avith no companions save the
g-ulls in the air and the sharks in the water. Both
were plentiful. The gulls made themselves especially
sociable. They would come boldly on board and feast
on the quarters of turtle-meat hung up in the rigging.
Once I found one in the cabin pecking away at the
crumbs on the table. His gulhble mind got into a
terrible state on seeing me. I whacked him to my
heart's content with the table-cloth. He experienced
great trouble in flying up the cabin stairway. In fact,
he couldn't steer himself straight up stands. His ami
on starting himself was correct enough, like that of
many a young man or Avoman in commencing life; but
instead of going the straight and narrow path up the
companionway he would bring up against a deck beam.
There is no limit to the feeding capacity of those
Pacific-coast gulls. The Avonder is where it all goes
69
to. I have experimentally cut up and thrown in small
pieces to a g'uU as much fat pork as would make a
meal for two men, and the g-ull has promptly swal-
lowed it all, waited for more, and visibly g-ot no big-g-er.
They never gf^t fat. Sometimes I tied two bits of meat
to either end of a long string and flung* it overboard.
Barely had it touched the water when the meat at
either end was swallowed by two of these bottomless
scavengers, and they would fly away, each pulling hard
at the latest received contents of the other's stomach.
The picture reminded me of some married lives. They
pulled together, but they didn't pull the right way.
At low tide the shore would be lined with these birds
vainly trying to All themselves with shellfish and such
cai^rion as the waters had left. It couldn't be called
feeding; a Pacific-coast g-ull does not feed, it seeks
simply to fill up the vast, unfathomable space within.
Eternity is, of course, without end, but the nearest ap-
proach to eternity must be the inside of a gull; I
would say stomach, but a stomach implies metes and
bounds, and there is no proof that there are any metes
and bounds inside of a gull. It was g-ood entertain-
ment to see the coyotes come down and manoeuvre to
catch the g-ulls. There was a plain hard beach, per-
haps a quarter of a mile wide, between coyote and
gull. Of course coyote couldn't walk across this and
eat gull up. So he went to work to create an impres-
sion in gull's mind that he was thereon other business,
and was quite indilferent, if not ol)livious, to all gulls.
He would commence making long straight laps of half
a mile on the beach. At the end of each lap he would
turn and run back a few feet nearer gull; back an-
other lap, another turn, and so on. But he wasn't look-
70
ing" for a gull. He didn't know there was a gull in the
world. He had some business straight ahead of him
which banished all the gulls in the world from his
mind. He kept forg-etting" something and had to run
hack for it. And the gull on the water's edge, trying
to fill its void where men imagined a stomach to be,
liad no fears of that coyote. It realized the momen-
tous and all-absorbing character of coyote's business.
There was no danger. So coyote, getting a little
nearer and a little nearer at each turn, suddenly shot
out of his lap at a tangent, and another gull was for-
ever relieved of the impossible task of trying to fill it-
self.
71
CHAPTER VIII.
WHALING IX MARGUERITA BAY.
Marguerita Bay lies on the Mexican coast about
200 miles north of Cape St. Lucas. On arriving-
the schooner was " kedg-ed " up the lag-oons running-
parallel with the coast fully one hundred miles. This
took two weeks. We passed, as it were, through a
succession of mill-ponds, filled with low, g-reen islands,
whose dense shubbery extended to the water's edg'e.
The trunks of a small umbrella-shaped tree were
washed by the tides to the height of several feet, and
thickly incrusted with small oysters. When we wanted
oysters we went on shore and chopped down a boat-
load of trees. Is it necessary to remark that the trees
did not g-row the oysters. The 03^sters g-rew on the
trees, and they were as palatable as so many copper
cents, whose taste they resembled. When cooked, the
coppery taste departed. The channel throug-h these
lagoons was very crooked. It was necessary to stake
out a portion at low water, when it ran a mere creek
throug-h an expanse of hard sand, sometimes a mile
from either shore. At hig-h water all this would be
covered to a depth of six or seven feet. The Henry
grounded at each ebb, and often keeled over at an angle
of forty-five. From our bulwarks it was often possi-
ble to jump on dry ground. Thiskeeling-over process,
72
twice repeated every twenty-four hours, was particu-
larly hard on the cook, for the inconvenience resulting-
from such a forty-five-deg-ree an^le of inclination
extended to all thing's within his province. My
stove worked hadl^^ at the ang-le of forty -five. The
kettle could he hut half-filled, and only hoiled where
the water was shallowest inside. The cahin tahle
could only he set at an ang-le of forty -five. So that
while the g-uests on the upper side had great difficulty
in preventing" themselves from slipping" olT their seats
on and over that tahle, those on the lower side had
equal difficulty in keeping" themselves up to a con-
venient feeding" distance. Captain Reynolds, at the
head of the hoard, had a hard lot in the endeavor to
maintain his dig"nity and sitting- perpendicuhirly at
the same time on the then permanent and not popular
ang-le of fort^^-five. But I, steward, hutler, cook, and
cahin hoy, hore the hardest tribulation of all in carry-
ing" m}^ dishes across the deck, down the cahin stairs,
and arrang-ing" them on a table at an ang-le of fort^^-
five. Of course, at this time the rack used in roug"h
weather to prevent plates and platters from slipping"
off was broug"ht into permanent use. Transit from g"al-
ley to cahin w^as accomplished by crawling" on two
leg"s and one arm, thus making" of myself a peripatetic
human triang"le, while the unoccupied hand with diffi-
cult^' hore aloft the soup-tureen. It was then I ap-
preciated the g"reat advantag"es afforded in certain cir-
cumstances by the prehensile caudal termination of
our possible remote ancestors. With such a properly
equipped appendag"e, the steward might hav^e taken a
close hitch round an ej^ebolt, and let all the rest of
himself and his dishes safely down into the little
73
cabin. It is questionable whether man's condition has
been physically improved by the process of evolution.
He may have lost more than he has gained. A
monkey can well afford to scorn the relatively
clumsy evolutions of the most skilful human brother
acrobat.
Mar^^uerita Bay was the nursery of the female
whales, or in whaler's parlance, "cows." The long-,
quiet lagoons, fringed with green, their waters warmed
by the sun to a most agreeable temperature, were the
resort during the spring montiis of the mother whales
to bring forth and nurse their young. The bulls gen-
erally remained outside. The cows Avere killed with
tolerable ease in the shoal waters of the bay. Outside
they have, on l)eing struck, the reputation of running
out all the line a boat can spare and then demanding
more. Grant could never have fought it out on one
line with a "California Gray." In the lagoons, so
long as the calf was uninjured, the mother would slow
her own pace, so as to remain by her 3^oung. Thus
she became an easy sacrifice. If the calf was wounded,
woe to the boat's crew. The cow seemed to smell the
blood the moment it was drawn from its offspring.
The first time this happened^the boat-steerer acci-
dentally slipping his lance into the calf — the cow turned
and chased tlie boat ashore. The tables were turned.
The miserable pigmies, who dared strike Leviathan's
child, were saved because their boat could float where
Mrs. Whale couldn't. She drew at least seven feet
of water. A whale is one of the few things read of
that is bigger than it looks. The pigmies hauled the
boat upon the beach, while the whale for full half an
hour swam to and fro where her soundings were safe,
74
and embarg-oecl them. It was, with her, " Come off if
you dare." But they didn't care to dare, and finally
she went awa^^ unkilled. She managed at the start
to give the boat one crack, enough to fill it with water.
But whaleboats are made to be broken. A few hours'
work and the insertion of a few bits of wood in the
light clinker-built sides will restore a whaleboat which,
to an inexperienced eye, looks fit only for kindling-
wood. A whale is much more of an animal than
people generally imagine. There's a great deal of
affection somewhere in that big carcass. I have seen
them close aboard from the schooner's deck play with
their young* and roll and thrash about in mammoth
gambols. They knew the doors to these lagoons lead-
ing out into the ocean as well as men know the doors
to their houses. When strucK, though miles distant,
they made straight for that door, and if not killed be-
fore reaching it they escaped, for no boat, when fast,
could be towed through the huge Pacific breakers.
Pigmy man in such case sullenly cut his line and sul-
kily rowed back to his crowded little schooner to
growl at the cook.
We filled up in six weeks. Our luck was the envy
of the eleven other vessels in Marguerita Bay. This
luck was mainly due to " Black Jake," a huge Jamaica
negro, with the face of a Caliban, the arm of a Her-
cules and a stomach greater than an ostrich's for rum.
When we left San Francisco he had a tier of t\venty-
five bottles, full, stored under his bunk, and not a soul
was ever the wiser for it until all were emptied. He
kept his OAvn head level, his own counsel, and lying in
his berth in tlie early evening hours of his watch be-
low, would roll over, turn his back to the noisy, chat-
teriui;' Kanaka audience of the forecastle, and put the
bottle, but not to his neig'hbors' hps. He was king* of
the forecastle, king" of the Kanaka crew, and king of
the whaleboat when after a " muscle-digger." He could
throw a harpoon twice as far as an ordinary man, and
it was to this force of muscle, added to a certain knack
of his own in working up to the " grayback,'' before
striking", and managing' the boat after, that we owed
our successful voyage. Great was his fame as a whale-
killer in Margiu'rita Bay. Many were the ofTers made
by masters of other vessels to bribe him from us. He
remained true to us. Hard were the knocks the cows
g-ave their boats and sometimes their crews. One
well-appointed schooner lying near us had her boats
stove twenty-six times during our stay. Twelve men
out of the fleet were more or less injured. "Dese
yere whale," Jake would remark to his audiences in
the night yarns when one or two other boats' crews
from other vessels came on board, "dey aint' like oder
whales. Dar ways are 'culiar, and j^e got to mind
sharp how j^e get onto 'em." But nobody ever solved
Jake's " 'culiar way o' getting onto 'em."
A harpoon was not a toasting-fork to throw in the
days when men oftener threw the iron by muscle in-
stead of ])owder. It is a shod, with a heavy wooden
pole five or six feet in length fastened into the socket of
the iron l)ar1). This, with the line attached, makes a
weiglit requiring for 1 Ik^ cast the use of both arms, and
strong arms at that. A inan would not care to carry
a harpoon more than a mile in a hot day. Its own
weight, as much as the impelling force, is depended on
to bury itself in the floating mound of seemingl^^ pol-
ished India-rubber which constitutes a whale above
76
wafcer. And when it first buries itself, there is for a
few seconds some vicious splashing' and ugly flirting*
of fluke or fin. A whale's tail is an instrument of
olTence of about one hundred horse power, and well
adapted to cutting" through a boat as a table knife
g'oes through an egg- shell. The two fins suggest
members between paddles and rudimentary arms. It
is also a member very capable of striking out from
tlie right or left shoulder, and striking very hard.
When a half-dozen men are within six feet of these
weapons, controlled by an enormous black sunken mass,
eighty or one hundred feet long, they are apt to look a
trifle wild and their eyes have a tendency to bulge.
There are stories among whalemen of boat-steerers
who have had all the g'rit permanently taken out of
them by the perils and catastrophes of that moment.
A New Londoner once had the cap swept from his
head by the sweep of the whale's tail over it, and he
was too nervous for boat service ever afterward. It
is no skulking fight, like shooting lions and tigers
from the shelter of trees or rocks. It's a fair stand-
up combat between half a dozen men in an egg-sliell
of a boat on the open sea, and sometimes on heavy
ocean billows, and 500 tons of flesh, bone, and muscles,
which, if only animated by a few more grains of sense,
could ram the whaleship herself as efl'ectually as an
ironclad. As a murderous spectacle the capture and
killing" of a whale, as seen even by a sea-cook from the
galley window, is something ultra-exciting. It makes
one's hair stand upon both ends.
There is the whaleboat, the men sitting motionless
in their seats, the long oars apeak, shooting through
the water, towed by the whale unseen underneath the
surface. Sometimes two or three boats liitoli on, for
the more tlie wliale has to drag- the sooner he becomes
exhausted. Now the}- haul in on him and carefully
coil the wet line in the tubs. Closer and closer they
near him, the passag-e of the great mass under water
being" marked by swirls and eddies on the surface.
Our herculean king, " Black Jake," is at the bow, the
round, razor-edged, long-handled lance lying b^^ him,
his back to the crew, his eye on tlie eddies, his great
bare black arms, now the right, now the left — moving
first in one direction, then another, as thus he signals
to the steersman the direction in which to keep the
boat's head; for although we are being towed as a
tug would tow a skill, we must be kept as near as
possible in a line with the submerged motive power,
and then, with a swash and snort, out of the water six
feet ahead comes twenty, may be forty feet of that
great black mass! It is astonishing how much there
is of him. And he is down and under, with his great
gulp of air, in less time than it takes to write or even
speak these last twenty words, but not before the
lance is out of Jake's hands, driven tliree feet into his
side, and hauled aboard again by the light, strong line
attached. Suddenly the whale line slacks. The boat
ceases its rush through the water. The eddy and swirl
ahead cease. Now look out for squalls. This is one
of Mrg. Grayback's peculiar tricks. She is ambushed
somewhere below. She designs coming up under the
boat's bottom, and constituting herself into a subma-
rine island of flesh, bobbing up like a released cork.
She is resolving herself into a submarine earthquake,
and proposes to send that boat and crew ten feet into
the air, or capsizing them off her India-rubber back.
78
One hundred or five hundred tons of wicked intelhgvnce
is thus g-roping- about in tlie unseen depths for the pur-
pose of attaining- the proper position, and, as it were,
exploding herself like an animated torpedo. Every
seat in the boat is an anxious seat. There is no talk-
ing, but a great deal of unpleasant anticipation. Those
who have seen the thing done before, await in dread
suspense the shock and upset. It's ver^^ much like
being over a powder-magazine about to explode. To
keep up the interest; let us leave his particular boat
and situation in statu quo. Your imagination may
complete the catastrophe or not, as you choose. Final
consummations are not desirable in a thrilling tale,
and this tale is meant to be thrilling-. Therefore, if
you've got a thrill in you, please thrill.
From the schooner's deck, a mile and a half awa^^.
Captain, cook, and cooper — the head, tail, and midriff
of the ship's company — Ave perceive that the white
puff of spra}^ from the whale's blowholes has changed
to a darker color. "Spouting blood," we remark.
The boat is l^^ing quite near b^^ At intervals of a few
minutes a circular streak of Whitewater is seen break-
ing the smooth surface of the lagoon. He's in his
"flurr3^" He is d^^ing. It is a might}^ death, a won-
derful escape of vitality and jiower, affection, and in-
telligence, too, and all from the mere pin's pi-ick of an
implement in the hands of yon meddlesome, cruel, au-
dacious, greed3^, unfeeling- pigmies. Spouting blood,
bleeding its huge life away, shivering in great convul-
sions, means only for us forty barrels more of grease,
and a couple of hundred pounds of bone to manufac-
ture death-dealing, rib-compressing, liver-squeezing
corsets from. And all the while the calf lingers by the
79
dying- mother's side, wondering- what it is all about.
Dead and with laborious stroke towed to the vessel,
the calf swims in its Avake. Made fast along-side, its
beautifully symmetrical bulk tapering- from head to
tail in lines which man copies in the mould of his finest
yachts, the body remains all nig-ht, and in the still
hours of the "anchor watch'' we can hear the feeble
" blow " of the poor calf, as it swims to and fro.
In the morning- the mass wiiich last nig-ht was but
a couple of feet out of water, has swollen and risen
almost to the level of the low bulwark's top, while the
g-as g-enerated b}' the decomposition within escapes
from each lance puncture with a faint sizzle. With
the earliest hg-ht the crew are at work. Skin and
fat are torn off in g-reat strips and hoisted on board.
Round and round the carcass is slowly turned, with
each turn another coil of blubber is unwound and cut
off. The sharks are bus}^ too. Monsters (I use the
term "monsters" merely for the sake of euphony, not
liking- to repeat the word "shai-k" so often) fifteen
and eig-hteen feet long- rush up to the carcass, tear off
great pieces of the beefy-looking- flesh and then quar-
rel with each other for its possession, flirting- the water
with nose and fin, and getting- occasionally- a gash
from a sharp whale-spade which would take a man's
head off. Amid all this, men shouting, swearing, sing-
ing, the windlass clanking, fires under the try-pots
blazing, black smoke whirling off in clouds, sharks
grabbing and fighting and being fought, the moth<M-
less calf still swims about the mutilated carcass, and
when cast adrift, a whity-yellowish mass of cari-ion,
swept hither and thither by wind and tide, it still keeps
it company until dead of starvation or mercifully de-
80
voured by the "monsters." Madame, every bone in
your corset gToans with the guilt of this double mur-
der.
After a whale had been " cut in/' or stripped of his
blubber, an operation somewhat resembling- the un-
winding of a lot of tape from a long bobbin, the whale
answering for the bobbin as he is turned round and
round in the water, and the blubber for the tape as it
is windlassed off, the whity -yellowish, skin- stripped
carcass was then cast adrift, and it floated and swelled
and smelled. Day after day it swelled bigger and
smelled big'ger. It rose out of the water like an enor-
mous bladder. It would pass us in the morning with
the ebb tide and come back with the flood. A coal-oil
refinery was a cologne factory compared to it. Some-
times two or three of these gigantic masses would be
floating to and fro about us at once. Sometimes one
would be carried against our bows and lodge there, the
rotten mass l^^ing high out of the water, oozing and
pressing" over our low bulwarks on deck. We had a
fight with one of these carcasses for half an afternoon
trying to pry it off with poles, oars, and handspikes.
It was an unfavorable mass to pry against. Of course
it smelt. For a dead mass it Avas extremely lively in
this respect. There are no words in which to describe
a powerful smell so closely" as to bring it to the ap-
preciation of the senses. It is fortunate there are
none, for some talented idiot to make his work smell
and sell would be certain to use them. The gulls
used to navigate these carcasses on their regular
trips up and down the lagoons. They served these
birds as a sort of edible ferryboat. You might see
forty or fifty feeding and sailing on a single carcass.
81
But they seemed downcast — the dead whale was too
iiiiich for them. Not that they ever got full of the
carrion, but the}' exhausted themselves in the effort.
The supply was unlmiited; ditto the void within the
^uU, but there were limits to his strength.
82
CHAPTER IX.
OUR BUTTER FIENDS.
In former clays while narrating- the events of this
vo3^ag'e, which I have done some thousands of times,
I used to say " we whaled." But I never whaled,
never went in the boats, never pulled an oar. I had
other fish to fry in the g-alle^-, and now that I
commence to realize what a conscience is, I mention
this for truth's sake as well as to give variety to
the story. We were boarded occasionally by a few
Mexicans. There was one melanchol^Mooking Don
Somebody who seemed alwa^^s in a chronic state of
corn-husk cigarette. When not smoking he was roll-
ing them; when not rolling or smoking he was light-
ing them. He and his companions were persons of
some importance, for Avhich reason Captain Reynolds
tendered them the hospitalities of the Henry and would
ask them to whatever meal was nearest ready. These
two Mexicans had enormous stowage for grub. They
resembled the gulls. They also seemed unfathoma-
ble. There was no filling them. What they did at
table they did with all their might, and when th^y fin-
ished, especially when eating by themselves, as they
frequently did, there was literally nothing left. " Noth-
ing" in this case meant something. It meant in addi-
tion to bread, meat, and potatoes, every scrap of butter
on the butter-plate and every grain of sugar in the
83
su^ar-bowl. I didn't take the hint the first time they
ate with us, deeming" the entire absence of butter and
sug-ar at the end of the repast to be owing- to my plac-
i!ig a small amount on the table. The second time
l hey came on board I remedied this. But on inspection
alter theN' had finished I found left only an empty but-
ter-plate and sugar-bowl. It was so at the third trial.
Butter and sugar seem to be regarded as delicacies by
the natives of Lower California. Nor do they seem to
comprehend the real mission and import of butter and
sugar on the table. The^^ regarded both these articles
as regular dishes and scooped them in. On discover-
ing this, after a consultation Avitli the Captain, I put
them on allowance. Tliesetwo men would have eaten
u}) all our butter and sugar in four weeks.
However it was comparatively a slight toll they
levied on us for carrying off their whale-oil, seal and
abalone. We were miles within their legal boundaries
taking away the wealth of their waters. Twelve other
American whalers lay in Marguerita Bay that season.
It was practically an invasion; only the Mexicans
didn't seem to know they were invaded or didn't care
if th<\v did know. So long as they had plenty of but-
ter and sugar on coming on board and the blubber-
stripped carcasses which came on shore they seemed
satisfied. These carcasses they cut open v.iien stranded
and extracted the fat about the heart, which on being
tried out would yield from one to four barrels of oil
and about three miles of solid stencli. Tlie3' borrowed
from us the vessels wherewith to boil this fat. I was
ordered to loan them all the pots, pans, and kettles
which could be spared from my culinary laboratory.
They never returned them, and I was very glad they
84
did not. No amount of scoiunng would ever have rid
them of the odor of decomposed leviathan. We left
them a dozen or so iron vessels the richer. A Mexican,
at least on that coast, with a kettle is looked up to as a
man of wealth. Beyond scrapes, cig-arette-Ug-hters,
saddles and bridles, the gang- of natives on shore had
few other possessions. They seemed brilliant exam-
ples of contented poverty. The individual Mexican is
a more independent being than the citizen of our own
boasted "independent" nation. His wants are ten
times less. Consequently, he is ten times as independ-
ent. Parties who use horses' skulls for parlor chairs,
whose wooden bowl wherein they mix Hour for tortil-
las, flint, steel, and a small bonfire constitute their en-
tire kitchen range, won't keep many furniture or stove
manufacturers alive.
Some mercantile hopes ma^^ hang on the seiioras and
sefioritas. The few we saw wanted calicoes of g-ay
and diverse patterns. The men will eat butter and
sugar, but whether they will buy these articles re-
mains to be proved. Perhaps furniture sets of polished
and painted horses' skulls might tempt some of the
more aesthetic in the matter of household adornment
to purchase, if put at a reasonable rate. Such are tlie
conclusions drawn regarding the probabilities of trade
with Mexico, at least the frag-ment of Mexico I saw
from my galley. If we wanted an}' service of them
they talked dollars at a very high figure. But they
never abated. They showed no anxiet}^ to tempt a
bargain or an engagement. They went on just as ever,
full to the brim of genuine sang-froid, eternally roll-
ing, lighting, and smoking their cigarettes, and look-
ing as if thej felt themselves a superior race, and knew
85
it all, and didn't want to know an}- more, until we
asked theni to eat. Then they seemed in no hurry,
but clambered lazily down the cabin stairs and lazd3^
set to work to find the bottom of every dish on the
table, including- the sugar-dish and butter-plate. I
learned on that voyage the true sigriificabion of the
term '' greaser," as I fearfully noted the rapidly dimin-
ishing butter keg".
86
CHAPTER X.
GUADALUPE.
Two hundred miles from the Lower Cahfornia coast
lies the lone island of Guadalupe. Guadalupe is one
of the twelve or twenty names which for centuries the
Spaniards have heen applying- to the various geograph-
ical divisions of the earth's surface. Each Spanish nav-
igator, explorer, and discoverer, armed with these
twelve or twent^^ " San Joses,'^ " Santa Marias," " Sac-
ramentos," etc., has gone on naming, taking each one
in regular order, and as the list was exhausted and
more islands, capes, etc., were found, starting again
at the beginning of the list and using it all over again.
Whitney talked of the plentifulness of sea-elephant
on theGuadelupe beaches; I presume the sea -elephant
is identical with the sea-lion. They resemble a lion
about as much as an elephant. So the prow of the
Henry was turned toward Guadalupe. While on this
trip one morning before da^^light I heard at intervals
a strange noise, something between a bellow and a
creak. I thought it at first the creaking of something
aloft, but as it grew lighter I saw a strange-looking
head emerge momentarily from the water. It gave
forth the same cry, dove, and came uj) on the other
side of the vessel. It Avas a seal pup, which the sailors
said had lost its mother and followed the vessel, mis-
taking the hull for its maternal parent. I presume
87
that seals have no recog-nized fathers to look after
them. The poor thing-, uttering- its plaintive hut dis-
cordant cry, must have followed us to sea fort3' or fifty
miles. I know not whether the sailors' explanation of
its conduct he correct. Any \va3% it makes the occur-
rence more pathetic, and were I utterly unprincipled I
should make an entire chapter describing how this pup
seal followed the Henry during the xoj^gQ like a dog,
being regularly fed, and as it grew up came on board
and was taught a number of accomplishments, amon^
the rest that of supplying us with fish. 'Tis thus that
a rigid adherence to veracity spoils many an interest-
ing and thrilling tale, and brings to him who practises
it more poverty than pence.
Guadalupe on the third day came in sight; a lone,
wave-washed, wind-swept isle about forty miles in
length. It seemed the very embodiment of loneliness.
Some would also say of desolation, as man is ever dis-
posed to call any place he does not inhabit. But
though Guadalupe contained not a single representa-
tive of the most intelligent animal on the planet, it
sustained great herds of goats, sea birds, and a little
black and white land-bird, so tame and trustful as to
perch and eat from Miller's and Whitney's tin plates
during their former visit to the island. AH these got
along very well without the presence of the talented
biped who deems every place " desolate " unless he is
there to carry on a monopoly of all the killing of bird
and animal deemed necessary to his comfort and exist-
ence.
It was our business to murder all the mother sea-
lions who had established their nurseries at Guadalupe.
A boat full of murderers was quickly sent on shore.
88
We did not see boat or crew ag-ain for three d?ays.
Most of that period was spent by us in looking- for
the boat, and by ithe boat's crew in looking- at us. They
landed on the first day, found no seal, put off at dusk,
lost us in a fog-, went ashore, swore at the Hoinjs
people for not sighting them, hauled their boat well
up on the beach at the mouth of a deep can^^on, supped
on hard bread and water, and, turning their craft bot-
tom-up, crawled under it for a bed-quilt and went to
sleep on the sands. During- the night a semi-hurricane,
called in those latitudes a "willa wah," came tearing
and howling down the canyon. Striking- the boat, it
rolled it over and over among- the rocks, smashed the
frail sides, and rendered it unseaworthy. For two daj^s
the crew roamed up and doAvn the island, living- on
shellfish and the fresh water left standing in pools, and
trying to signal us by fires built on the mountains.
The Captain was in a state of great perplexity at this
disappearance. But, having left a portion of the crew
at St. Bartholomew's Bay, he had not hands enough
to send another boat ashore, and work the vessel.
Then he dare not come nearer tlie island than three
miles, fearing- sunken rocks and currents setting- in-
shore. On the third night one of their fires was seen
from the Heni^ij. Standing in for it, by daylight the
missing men Avere seen making for us in an old yawl.
Beliind, full of water, was towed the shattei-ed whale-
boat. The yawl had been found on tlie beach, proba-
bly left there by former sealers. By stuffing all the
clothes they could spare in its sun-wai'ped ci-.icks and
constant bailing they managed to keep afloat long
enough to reach us. They crawled on board — a pale,
haggard, famished lot — and I was kept very busy for
89
a time mmistering' to their wants. They ate steadil3'
for an hour. Even with this rescue a greater catas-
trophe than all came near happening. Becalmed and
b}^ means of a treacherous current we were being" rap-
idly carried toward an enormous rock, which towered
sentinel-like alone a mile or more from the north end
of the island. It reached full five hundred feet toward
the clouds. Its perpendicular sides seemed built up
in artificial la^^ers. Toward this the Henry seemed
helplessly drifting, and the " Old Man," under the in-
fluence of combined anger and despair, jumped up and
down in his tracks and howled on the quarter-deck as
he saw the voyage approaching such an unfortunate
termination. Fortunately a providential or accidental
breeze came off the land just in time to give us steer-
age-way. We trifled no more with Guadelupe, but
sailed straight away for our old harbor. As we passed
the last of these towering sentinel rocks at dusk, we
heard from them the howling and barking of what,
judged by the sound, might have been ten thousand
seals. It was as the roaring of a dozen combined
menageries. Had Virgil of old ever sailed by such a
soimd, he would have pulled out his stylus forthwith,
and written of the ^neid an extra chapter about some
classical hell afloat. These seals were howling at our
discomflture. The rock was half veiled in a mist in
which we could indistinctly see their countless forms
seeminirlv writhinir and tumblin"- about.
90
CHAPTER XL
AT THE GOLD MINES.
After a ten months' cruise we went back to San
Francisco with 500 barrels of oil and ten tons of aba-
lones. My share of the proceeds amounted to $250,
having" shipped on a " lay.'' Mine was the fifteenth la3%
which g'ave me one barrel of oil out of every fifty and
a similar proportion in abalones. Then I looked
around for something' to do, didn't find it, spent a
g-reat deal of my money unnecessarily^ in so looking for
a job, shipped at last as cook on a coasting" schooner,
was discharged before she left the wharf, my g"rade
of culinar^^ work not reaching" to the level of the cap-
tain's refined taste.
I resolved to g"o to the mines. I went. By boat and
stag'e, I g"ot over the two hundred miles intervening"
'twixt San Francisco and the ''dig"g"ing"S." I had friends
on Hawkins' Bar on the Tuolumne River in Tuolumne
County. Thither I went. When I " struck " Hawkins'
in 1858, it was on its last leg's. Still it boasted a store
and a dozen houses. Golden hopes were still anchored
in the bed of the river. Expensive river claims were
then being" worked from Red Mountain down to French
Bar. But a premature rain and consequent freshet
swept the river that season from end to end Avith the
bosom of destruction, and sent for the winter the
miners back to their two dollar per day banlv dig"g"ing"S.
91
And from that time henceforward the Bar steadily
decUned. The store was kept open for two seasons
with g-reat loss to its proprietor. He was a new man.
When he came to the Bar the "boys " held a consulta-
tion on a h\g drift log\ They concluded they could go
throug-h him in one season, provided he gave credit.
But he was a discriminating man as regarded g-iving-
credit. So it required two seasons to g.et through
him. Then he moved away forever, and with tears in
his eyes at his losses. The Bar ling-ered on for several
years. Steadily it lessened in houses and population.
The store was torn down and the lumber carted away.
In 18G4 I made a pilgrimag"e thither and found remain-
ing one house and one man. That man was Smith.
Alex. Smith, a '49er, a Baltimoreau and a soldier during
the Mexican war. Smith's house was high up on the
hillside and his back yard broug-ht up against the
camp graveyard. A score of Smith's old companions
there lay buried. And here this man lived alone with
the dead and the memories of tlie last eighteen years.
I said to him: "Smith, how do you stand it here ? Do
you never get lonesome ? "
"Well, yes; once in a while I do," replied Smith;
"but when I feel that way I go up the hill and bring-
down a log for firewood.''
Smith was a philosopher, and thought that the best
remedy for melancholy is physical exertion.
Smith was one of the first settlers at Hawkins' Bar,-
Smith could remember when it contained a voting*
population of nearly eight hundred souls; Smith knew
every point on the river which had yielded richly;
Smith could show you Gawley's Point, where Gawley
pitched his tent in '49 and buried under it his pickle
jars full of g-old dust. The tradition of Hawkins was
that Gawley used to keep a barrel of whiske^^ on free
tap in his tent. And that in the fall of 1850 Gawley,
warned hy the experience of the previous rainy season,
determined to lay in a winter's stock of provisions.
But Gawley's ideas as to the proper cxuantities of food
were vag-ue. He had never before been a purveyor or
provider on a larger scale than that of buyin.^- a week's
" gTub " at the Bar store. He went to the trader and
told him what he wanted. "Make out your order,"
said the merchant. Gawley g-ave it to him verbally.
" I guess,'' said he, " I'll have a sack of flour, ten pounds
of bacon, ten of sugar, five of coffee, three of tea, a peck
of beans, a bag of salt and — and — a barrel of whiskey! "
In 1870 I made another pilgrimage to Hawkins' Bar.
Smith was gone. Nobody lived there. " The fence of
the camp graveyard w^as broken down. The Avooden
headboards were lying prone to the earth. Some
were split in two and most of the inscriptions were
being rapid 1^^ erased through the action of the sun and
rain. But one house Avas standing. It Avas the cabin
Avherein had lived one Morgan DaAis, the former cus-
todian of the Hawkins' Bar library. For as early as
1854 or '55 the Hawkins' Bar " bo^^s " had clubbed their
funds, sent doAvn to San Francisco and there pur-
chased a A'ery respectable librar^^ It Avasa good solid
library, too, leased on a full set of American Encj^clo-
pedias and Humboldt and Lyell, and from such and
the like dispensers of heaA-y and nutritious mental food,
rising into tlie lighter desserts of poetry and novels.
As late as 1858 the "boys" AA^ere in the hal)it of re-
plenishing their library- Avith the latest published sci-
entific works, noA'els, and magazines.
03
But in 'TO, on my last visit, tlie library was gone.
Morgan was dead. His cabin door had fallen from its
hinges; a young- oak tree had sprung up and blocked
the entrance. The flooring had been torn up. The
window sashes had been taken out. A dinner-pot and
bioken stove were all that remaniedof Moj'gan's cook-
ing utensils. Some of the roofing had disappeared. It
was a ghostly place. The trails leading to and from
the Bar were fading out. Here, they were overgrown
with brush. There, the river in some higher rise had
swept away the lower bank and left nought but aeon--
fusion of rough rock over which was no semblance of
a track. It was at Hawkins that I had first " buckled
to the mines." My first " buckling," however, was in
the capacity of a meat peddler. I became the agent
of a firm of butchers up on the mountain for distribut-
ing" their tough steaks to the HaAvkins' Bar miners.
Through the instrumentality of a horse, over whose
back was slung a couple of huge panniers, I continued
the agency for a week. Then one morning the horse
kicked up his heels and ran away. As he ran, at every
kick a raw and bloody steak would fly out of the boxes,
flash in the brilliant morning sunshine, and then fall
in the fine red dust of the mountain trail. I followed
hard after, gathering up these steaks as they fell, and
when the burden became too heavy I piled them up by
the roadside in little heaps of dusty, very dusty meat.
At last, dusty, perspiring and distressed be3'ond
measure, I managed to catch that villainous horse.
For he, after having ejected nearly the whole load of
meat, concluded to stop and be caught. I loaded the
panniers again with the dusty, carnivorous deposits,
led the horse down the steep trail to the river, then
94
mudd}^ and of a rich coffee-color from up country min-
ing- sediment. Herein I washed mj^ steaks, rinsed
them as well as I could of dust, and, as was then the
custom, hung up piece after piece in the gauze-cur-
tained meat-safes at the miners' cabins. I think Haw-
kins' got its share of grit that day in its beef. Shortly
afterwartl I went out of the beefsteak-distributing
bureau.
Then I went into the service of the man who kept
the Bar store, saloon, and boarding-house. I was er-
rand bo3", barkeeper, bookkeeper, woodchopper, as-
sistant cook and g-eneral maid of all work, and possi-
bly Avorthlcssness. One day the storekeeper's horse,
packed with miners' supi3lies, was given into ni}^ charge
to lead three miles up the river to the camp of the
Split-Rock River claim. The load was strapped to a
"cross-jack" saddle. It consisted mostly of flour, po-
tatoes, bacon and a demijohn of whiske3\ I was ad-
vised by the merchant, on setting out, not to let that
horse get ahead of me. If he did it was prophesised
that he would run away, "sure pop." But I had not
gone forty rods from the store Avhen the beast made
a rush, got ahead of me, tore the leading halter out of
jjiy grasp and set off along- the narrow mountain trail
at the rate of twenty knots per hour. I followed on a
run of about ten knots per hour. Hence the distance
between us soon increased. As he ran the motion
burst the bag of flour, ditto the potatoes, and then
the whiskey demijohn broke. It was a fine sight. The
flour rose in the air like a white cloud above the
horse, out of and above which flew potatoes, and the
whole was interspersed with jets of whiske}^ It looked
like a snow scxuall travelling on horseback. When the
95
animal had spilt all the flour, all the potatoes and all
the whiskey, he slowed up and allowed himself to be
caug-ht. His mission was accomplished. I found re-
maining: the saddle and the empty potato sack. The
trail was white with flour for a mile, and so it remained
for months afterward. I led the animal back to the
store. My heart was heavy and his load was light.
The store-keeper gave me his blessing. I did not
thereafter long" remain in the service of that transpor-
tation bureau.
After this I borrowed a rocker and started to wash-
ing some river-bank g-ravel. It took me several days
to become in any degree skilled in the use of the rocker.
I had no teacher, and was obliged to become acquaint-
ed with all its peculiarities b3' myself. First I set it
on a dead level. As it had no "fall" the sand would
not run out. But the hardest work of all was to dip
and pour water from the dipper on the gravel in the
sieve with one hand and rock the cradle with the
other. There was a constant tendency on the part of
the hand and arm emplo^x'd in pouring to go through
the motion of rocking, and vice versa. The hand and
arm that rocked were more inclined to go through the
motion of pouring. I seemed cut up in two individuals,
between Avhom existed a troublesome and perplexing
difference of opinion as to their respective duties and
functions. Such a conflict, to all intents and purposes,
of two difl'erent minds inside of and acting on one body,
shook it up fearfully and tore it all to pieces. I was
as a house divided against itself and could not stand.
However, at last the physical and mental elements
thus warring with each other inside of me made up
their ditferences, and the left hand rocked the cradle
9G
peacefully while the rig-ht hand poured harmoniously,
and the result was about 81.50 per day. Soon after I
fonnd my first mining- partner. He wandered to the
Bar, a melancholy -looking man, with three dogs accom-
panying", and was always in a chronic state of red ban-
dana and nose-wiping. He and I joined forces and went
up the river to " crevice " among the rocks near the
Split Rock claim. He had all the skill, all the ex-
perience, and all the dogs, and I all the general igno-
rance and incapacity. I deemed it a great advantage
to have thus secured a real "old juiner^' for a partner,
and felt that such a man must turn up gold.
We built ourselves a rude brush house on a shelf of
the rocky ledge in a can^^on whose sides sloped at an
angle of forty-five degrees. Even this shelf was not
level. It pitched toward the river, and there was so
little of it that during the night's repose our legs
stuck out of the house-entrance. We Avere obliged to
'* chock " all our supply of provisions in their respect-
ive packages to prevent them from rolling- out of our
wigwams over the brink and into the Tuolumne. If a
potato got loose it ran like a " thing possessed " over
the rocks and down into the mudd^^ raging current.
We were obliged to peg ourselves at night while sleep-
ing to prevent a like catastrophe. It was a perma-
nent and laborious existence at an angle of fort^-five.
To stand erect for any length of time was very tire-
some. More frequently, like Nebuchadnezzar, we lived
on all fours. " Crevicing- " did not prove very profit-
able. By day the bare rocks become heated b^^ the
sun to a blistering capacity. With pick and sledge
and crowbar and bent bits of hoop-iron we pried and
pounded and scraped, and scraped and pounded and
pried all the hot day long", or else were doubled up in
all sorts of back-aching', back-breaking", body-tiring"
positions, drawing up at arm's-length from some
deeper " pothole " or crevice spoonful after spoonful of
yellow mould. It did hold considerable gold, and heav}-
gold too. But it took so long to get the mould. This
was in the latter part of September. The termination
of the dry season was reached. The first rain came.
It came at night. It -drizzled through our brush
house. It sent tin^- streams down the rocky moun-
tain-sides, and some of these streams found their way
under us. We had lain and endured the rain from
above dripping on our faces and wetting our clothes.
In those times one's day suit served for a niglitgown.
But when the aqueous enemy undermined our position
we had to turn out.
It blew a gale. How the wind howled and tore up
the canyon! We tried to kindle a fire. Match after
matcli was blown out. Finally a blaze was attained.
Then the rains descended heavier than ever and put
it out. The chief misery was, we could not at night
find our way out of the canyon to any place of shelter.
Nor could we walk at all to keep warm. There was
" standing room only." All about us were the steeply
inclined rocks, molded into every irregularity of shape.
We were obliged all through the night to "stand and
take it" as it came, shivering in our thin summer
clothing. With daylight we made our way to the
camp of the Split Rockers. They gave us some gin.
It was common g"in — very common*gin — but the com-
fortable and soothing remembrance of that gin after
such a night exists for me even unto this day. I wore
a black cloth cap. The rain had washed out the dye,
08
and this d^^e had coursed over my brow and cheeks in
tiny rivulets of jet. I noticed that I seemed to he
more than a usual object of interest to those about me,
and wondered, until a friend advised me to consult a
mirror. I did so, and found my face marked like a
railroad route map. Such was my inauguration in
mining- at Hawkins' Bar. What glorious old times
they were ! What independence ! What freedom from
the trammels and conventionalities of fashion! Who
cared or commented if we did turn up the bottoms of
our pantaloons, or wear, for coolness' sake, our flannel
shirts outside the trousers? Who then was so much
better than anybody else, when any man might strike
it rich to-morrow ? Who Avould beg for work or truckle
and fawn and curry favor of an employer for the mere
sake of retaining a situation and help that same man
to make mone^^, when he could shoulder pick, shovel,
and rocker, go down to the river's edge and make his
two or three dollars per day ? Though even at that
time this reputed three dollars was oftcner one dollar
and a half.
Even then reports of the pacing capacities of claims
were as apt to be watered as are stocks nowadays.
99
CHAPTER XII.
swett's bar.
I THINK and hope that these attempts of mine to
portray the history of tlie camps on one California
t^old-bearini^ river will touch a responsive chord in the
hearts of some old Californian, for the life and inci-
dent of the bars I describe reflect, in certain respects,
the life, history, and incident of hundreds and thou-
sands of places settled in *' '49,'^ and perhaps abandoned
by '^^GO," which have now no name or place on the
later maps of the State. Your genuine old miner
likes to revisit the camp where first he dug- for g'old,
in thought if not in person. It Avas no common affec-
tion they entertained for these places. If the "boys"
jnoved away to other dig-g'ing-s, they had always to
make a yearly pilgrimage back, so long as the camp
lasted. So, j^early from ValJecito, thirty miles dis-
tant, used Jake Yager to revisit Swett's, and he
tramped the whole distance, too. What was it that
so drew them back ? Perhaps the memory of the new
and exciting life they experienced from " '49 " say till
"^38" or " 'GO," with its " ups and downs," its glitter-
ing surprises in the shape of " strikes," its comrade-
ship so soon developed among men who, meeting as
strangers, so soon found out each other's better quali-
ties, its freedom from the restraints of older commu-
nities, its honest}^ and plainness in the expression of
100
opinion, engendered by such freedom ; all these thought
over and over again during absence brought about
that strong" desire to see the old Bar ag-ain, the scene
of so much experience and private history. Then the
visitor alwa^'S met a hearty welcome. He was an old
" resid enter." Cabin-owners contended for the i^lea-
sure of entertaining- him. No wives or families were
in the way. Conviviality was uninterrupted.
If a black bottle could be produced it could be Avor-
shipped undisturbed until long past midnight. And
such was always produced on the return of the old
acquaintance. When the " boys " at last tumbled into
their bunks and smoked a night-cap pipe abed, there was
no wife in special charge of husband to molest or make
them afraid or disturb their internal peace by reason
of her near presence. Those were the golden seasons
of masculine domestic tranquillity on the banks of the
Tuolumne. AVoman never disturbed the Bar proper
with her presence. It was. always a masculine Bar,
at least on the right bank of the river. On the left,
at a later date, on a flat, where I enjoyed the privilege
of digging for next to nothing for two years, thei-e
did live for a time three foreign households glorified
by woman's presence. But this was after the palmy
days of Swett's Bar proper right bank. I have heard
that Svvett's Bar was named after John S^vett, once
Superintendent of Public Instruction in California. If
so, he never there left any relics or reminders of him-
self—not even a grammar. Swett's lies equidistant
from Hawkins' and Indian Bars. When last I passed
through it the floods had washed out every trace of
man's presence on one side of the river, leaving thei'o
an enormous heap of logs and brush-wood. The Bar
101
proper had been smoothed down by tlie flood, every
hole or boulder heaj:), or heap of "headings" or "tail-
in*;-s/' or the deep pits dug- and laboriouly kept free of
water by machinery, or heavily rock-freighted crib of
logs, the work of miners in the river's bed, had been
planed away. The pebbics and boulders had all been
rearranged, the sands were smooth, white, and glisten-
ing as though "fresh from the Creator's hands;'' and
none save those conversant with the river's histor^^
could have guessed that every foot of the bank adjoin-
ing the river had been turned over and over again in
the search for gold.
We elected one member of the Legislature from
Swett's. When he left the Bar he distributed his
cabin, blankets, and household efl'ects among the re-
maining miners. He confidently thought never to
need these articles again. That was as great a mis-
calculation as when a Swett's Bar or any other bar
miner would resolve and swear violently that never
again would he " strike a pick " in the river. We came
to regard such an oath with a superstitious credulity
that he certainly would strike such pick ag*ain, for
never did such a case occur in my recollection but that
the mad resolver was back next season, ignoring his
vow and striking his pick on some claim generally
poorer than the one he worked the season previous.
So at the end of four months, after cumbering the law
books of the State of California with statutes, whose
very existence was forgotten eight months after their
passage, our Swett's Bar legislator was seen one even-
ing coming down the hill, bearing in one hand two
whiskey bottles tied together b3^ one string — one being
empty and the other full. " Silver and gold have I
102
none/' said ho, as lie came to my cabin door, "but
what I liave give I unto thee/' which he did. Next
day came his trunk. The i^rincipal accession to the
legislative wardrobe Avere three new shirts and a bhie
coat with brass buttons. That, tlie session I think of
1859, was kuc-wn as the " Legislature of ten thousand
drinks." Our law-maker said it had been the " Star
Winter'' of his existence, and he never expected to
see such another. Three days after his arrival at the
Bar he borrowed a pair of blankets, "cabined " with a
chum and contentedly resumed his pick and shovel.
Did Cincinattus do more when he buckled once more
to the plough ? But our Swett's Bar Cincinattus was
never hunted for to save his country. There were too
many other country savers on hand, even in our im-
mediate localit3\
Generally sp(niking, Swett's was divided in two por-
tions. There was the old baron the right bank of the
river, settled in "'49," and there was the flat on the
other side, Avhose golden store was not discovered un-
til 1859. Attempts were made to give this flat a dis-
tinct name. Various settlers and miners craved the
immortalit}^ which they supposed might thus be con-
ferred. For a time it was called "Frazier's Flat,"
from a diabolical Scotchman of that name who lived
there. Onl}^ one of these names would stick, and
finally ever^-body settled down on the okl appellation,
"Swett's." I do not believe that John Swett, if he did
confer his name on this Bar, ever realized the local
fame and reputation of his name. When first we
struck the diggings at Swett's left bank, we had great
expectations. It was a later discDver3^, a " back river
channel." Consequent on the discovery of pay ground
103
1,000 feet back of the river, and the definite fixing- of
the boundary hnes between the various claimants,
there ensued the usual series of disputes, rows, bad
blood, assaults, and threatened shooting's. Nobody
was shot. Not even a mining- law-suit came of it. A
local capitalist tlirew a flume across the river and
broug-ht to bear on tlie flat tlie upland muddy water,
which came down from Cohimbia dig-gings, twenty-
five miles away, through Wood's Creek. That flume
was being- talked of, being- planned, being- hoped for and
very gradually being erected, during^ the years of " '59 "
and " 'GO," while the rest of the nation was agitated
by "Bleeding- Kansas," *' John Brown," "Squatter
Sovereig-nty," "The Douglas Party," "The Little
Giant "and all that foreboding- series of watchword
and motto which preceded "The War." But the
Swett's Bar mind, tlie Swett's Bar hope, the Swett's
Bar expedition, was concentrated principally on a wire
cable, two uprights on either side of the river, and
some 400 feet of rough wooden flume thereby sup-
ported, all of which was to bring us water to wash out
the expected gold. At last the suspension flume was
finished. We had water. We commenced washing-.
The dirt did not pay as we expected. We averaged
week in and week out about three dollars per day, and
one dollar of this went for water money.
After the suspension flume was finished and water
was on the Flat our claim cleaned up for the first week's
work about fifty dollars a piece. We used quicksflver
plentifully in the sluices; and the amalgam was taken
to my cabin in a g-old-pan and put on the hot coals to
drive off the mercury, which it did, and salivated the
four of us besides. The sublimated mineral covered
1U4
walls, tables and chairs with a fine, frost-like coating',
and on rubbing" one's finger over any surface a little
globule of quicksilver would roll up before it. Then
we went to Chinese Camp and gave the doctor about
half our individual week's dividends to get the mer-
cury out of us. Three weeks of sore mouths and loos-
ened teeth followed this intelligent exposure. It was
tlirough such experiences as these that we became in
California practical mineralogists. However, it's an
easy Avay of taking "blue mass." The claim from
which great gains had been expected eventuality set-
tled down to an average of two dollars and a half to
three dollars per da.}'. Break-downs of tlie flume, fail-
ure of water from up country, very stormy weather,
building and repairing reservoirs, cutting tail races
through rock — all caused numerous delays, and every
such delay lessened the average per diem. It was
necessar^^ to build reservoirs, to store the water for
washing, and these reservoii^s broke with the ease and
facility' of a Bowery savings bank.
105
CHAPTER XIII.
ONE day's digging.
We got out of our blankets heavil^^ Legs and back
were apt to be a little stltl in the morning. Or if not
stiff, they lacked action. Working- all the day previ-
ous, possibly in the water, or with it splashing- all
about, tugging at heavy boulders, shouldering wet
shiices, to say nothing of the regular pick-and-shovel
exercise, would make itself felt even when the limbs
and blood were younger than now. Dressmg was a
short job. A pair of damp overalls, a pair of socks, a
pair of shoes, or possibly the heavy rubber mining
boots. Flannel shirts we slept in. A face-swabbing
witli cold water in the tin basin outside and a *' lick
and a promise " for the hair with the comb. That was
about all for week days. Vanity of apparel there was
little for the working miner. Who was there to dress
for? Woman? The nearest was half a mile, fifty
years of age, and married. Then breakfast. The fire
kindled in the contrary little stove. Possibly it was
necessary to attack with a axe that dried old stump
near by and hack off a few chips to cook with. The
miner's wood-pile was generally small. He got in fuel
on rainy days, or at the odd intervals to be spared
from work. You put on the worn tin teapot, lowered
the gauze-covered meat safe from the tree, cut a steak
from the chunk of bull mahogany within called beef.
106
slung" a dab of lard in tlic fiying--pan, put therein the
meat and let it sizzle. Two or thi'ee boiled potatoes
mig-ht be sliced, fried more or less brown in the gravy,
and this, with bread and tea, formed the breakfast.
The bread w^as tlie bread of your own laborious bak-
ing-, the loaf of an irreg-ular shape, the crust very hard
and thick, the color often " pied," being black where it
had burned, brown wliere it had baked, and of a pallid
whiteness where it had not baked at all. Within the
loaf might be close, heavy, and in color either a creamj^
or a canary 3^ellow, in proportion to tli(; improper
amount of yeast powder used.
The table is a broad shelf ag-ainst the wall. There
is no table-cloth. You did not always wash up after
breakfast, for the dishes, as they stood, were all in
place for dinner. Some fastidious miners Avashed
their dishes after each meal; most of us did not. It
was too much to expect of hard-worked humanity.
The cabin door is open while you eat and from it you
look forth on the claim. There lies the bank of red
earth as you left it yesterday after the " cave." There
is the reservoir full of coffee-colored ditch water which
had run in during* the night after being- used for wash-
ing- in a dozen claims "up country." Then you draw
on those damp, clammy rubber boots, either to the
knee or hip hig'h, the outside splashed with the dried
reddish mud, and smelling- disag-reeably of rubber as
3^ou pulled them on a nd smelling- worse as you became
heated and perspiring-. In these you waddle to the
claim. I forgot. Breakfast over, one of the most im-
portant acts of the day was next on the prog-ramme.
That was the filling*, lighting-, and smoking* of your
pipe. Nothing- could hurry youthroug-h this perforin-
107
aiice. The filling' was cut in slivers Avith a careful and
s(3lenin consideration; the Aveed was carefull}' be-
stowed in the bowl; the match was appUed with a de-
liberation savoring' of a religious act; the first puff
rose in the air as incense to the early morn, and smok-
ing thus you waddled in your big boots to the claim.
There you met youi' three partners, all likewise smok-
ing. There they stand on the bank, looking into tlu^
ground-sluice. There is no "good morning" or other
gre«»ting; if anything, grunts. There lay the tools-
shovels, picks, crowbar, and sluice-fork— helplessly
about, as left last eveniug. A little muddy water
trickles through the line of sluices. One of us goes to
the reservoir, a few hundred yards oil", and turns on
the water. Another goes to the tail of the sluices with
the sluice-fork. Then is heard the chcking of the pick
and the grating of the shovel against the red dirt;
down comes the muddy water over the bank and the
day's work has fairly commenced.
We stand in a row, allowing sufficient room between
each for swinging the pick. We are undermining the
bank, the water running at our feet and between us
and the bottom of the bank. Each chunk of red dirt
dislodged by the pick falls into the running water, and
if it be hard and will not readily dissolve it must be
broken up bA' pick' or shovel to k'eep the stream clear
and unimpeded. Tlie large boulders are picked out by
' hand and thrown behind us— not in disordered fashion,
either. Room in the cut is scaixe and must be econo-
mized, so the ever-accumulating bowlder pile is "faced
up ''with a neat wall, laid without mortar, but with
some care and skill. The bed-rock is under our feet.
We are undermining the bank and keeping the stream
108
turned in as much as possible to the part undermined.
The g'l-avel for a foot or six inches is prett}^ hard and
the stones here are harder and closer packed than
those nearer the surface. There the g-ravel is lighter.
Many of the stones are light and rotten; a blow with
the pick dashes them to pieces. This streak just above
the ledge and for a few inches in the crevices of the
ledge is our " pay streak," where ages on ages ago
some stream ran, depositing, as all streams do, the
heavier gravel on the bottom and the lighter above.
Occasionally the pick strikes a firmly embedded boul-
der hard and square on its i)oint, in such a way as to
send the vibration like a shock along the iron, up the
handle and into one's arm and " crazy -bone."' Our
bank of dirt is about eight feet in height. A few inches
of the top is a dark mould, below that is three or four
feet of "hard-pan," below the "hard-pan " light sandy
gravel and rotten boulders, and near the ledge is the
pa3^ streak. This order of formation has varied as we
have worked up and into the bank. At first, near the
river's edge, there was onl3^ mould on a very light allu-
vial sand. This was readily washed off and paid four
dollars or five dollars per day. A little farther back
we struck the edge of the red gravel streak. This for
a time paid better. Farther still came the deposit of
light sandy gravel, and lastly came in the accursed
" hard-pan."
Our claim, on being first prospected, was reported
to pay three cents to the i^an from the top doAvn.
We believed it at first, not haAing learned that "three
cents to the pan from the top down" means the
biggest kind of luck. If you get an aAxrage of
half a cent a pan from the top doAvn, and the dirt
109
would wash easily, we should make monej'. It was
hard even for an "honest mmei^'^ to give as the
result of a prospect anything- less than " three cents
to the pan." But " hard-pan " is our foe. " Hard-pan "
is the essence of brickbats. Its consistency is about
that of chalk. It seems the finest kind of sand cemented
and pressed together. It can be carved into an}^ form
with a knife. It takes as much time to work off a
square foot of hard-pan as ten square feet of soft
gravel. When, after half a day's labor, we succeed in
getting down a cave, it goes into the ground-sluice in
a few great lumps, which must be battened to pieces
with our picks before the water will slowl^^ dissolve
them into mud. And it doesn^t hold a " color " of gold.
The work in the ground-sluice goes on hour after hour.
Pick and shovel and scrape, scrape and shovel and pick,
the water meantime tumbling and roaring over the
bank and making it difficult for us to hear each others'
voices. The sun climbs higher and gets hotter. The
water pail is frequently visited. The backs of tlie gray
shirts are wet with perspiration. In an easy, com-
panionable claim, where the partners are all good fel-
lows and on good terms and not too insane in the
matter of getting an enormous quantity of dirt through
the sluices each day, there may be more or less brief
suspensions from the work, when all hands lean on
their shovels and talk politics, or horses, or last night's
poker game, or have a short service of tobacco smoke,
with the usual solemn preliminaries of cutting the plug
and filling pipes. But if the majority of the "com-
pany" are a mean, crabbed, close-fisted lot, the misery
goes on without cessation.
A queerly assorted group are we thus laboring to-
no
gethcr. Jack Gwin's iiiipc41ing- liopc and life's idea is
to earn enoug-li to pa^^ his passag-e home to Philadel-
phia and buy him a suit of clothes. A decent suit he
has not owned these five years. He Avould be the ter-
ror and distress of his relatives if ever he got back,
for with him five dollars in his pocket over expenses
and sobriety are an impossibility. McFadden dreams
of a cabin, a cow, some g-eese and goats, a horse and a
Avife, and is in a fair way of realizing them all. He
saves most of his earnings, gets drunk wisely only on
holidays, pays his debts regularly, hates the English,
lives in that little black, brownish cabin up yonder,
does all his cooking in two tin pots, sleeps in one i)air
of ancient blankets and a most disreputable bed quilt,
and three dollars will cover the cost of all his domestic
fitting-s and utensils. Bill Furnea, a French Canadian,
has drifted here into this hole in the foothills very
much as he drifted into the world — without aim or ob-
ject in hfe save present enjoyment. He is a good
worker and works because he was brought up to it
and can't help it. He is a goo<l boatman, a good log-
ger, a skilled woodcutter, a dcAotee of poker and gen-
erally^ a successful one, an entertaining scamp, full of
wit and originality, quick to take in the iDeculiarities
and eccentricities of others, something of a dandy, as
far as dandyism can be indulged in this out-of-bhe-w^ay
place, and a born scamp, glib of tongue, unreliable, and
socially the best man of the crowd.
It is near eleven o'clock. There stands in a cool cor-
ner of the claim and carefully shielded from an^^ stray
flying pebble, a black bottle. It is nearl^^ full of wiiiskey
— ver^^ common corn whiskey. It is most welcome at
this hour. Poison it may be, but a draught from the
Ill
till cup brightens up and niakos all thing's now. Tiio
sunshine is more cheerful. All Nature smiles. The
picks descend with increased force and a host of new
day-dreams start into being'. It revives hope. It
quenches despair. It gilds the monotony of our lives.
It was ever thus, and possibly ever shall be, woi-ld
without end. It is .hig-h noon. The sun is over our
heads and the shadows are at their shortest length.
One of our number trudg-es wearily up to the reservoir
to shut olF the water. So soon as its flow lessens we
trudg-e off in wet overalls or heavy rubbers to our re-
spective cabins. We are now ground -sluicing- at or
about the year ISGO, when miners g'enerally had aban-
doned "cabining"'' in S(iuads and each man kept liouse
hy himself. Cause — g-eneral incompatibility of tem-
per, temperament, disposition, and habit. The sober
miner found it disag-reeable to live permanently with
the spreeing- miner, and the miner nice in his domestic
economy and particular about his food soon became
tired of a companion who never aired his blankets and
didn't care whether his bread was light or heav^^
sweet or sour. Trudg'ing- to our cabins, we pick up
the dried twigs in our path. These are to kindle the
dinner fire. Dinner is very much like breakfast, beef
or bacon, bread, tea, dried-apple sauce. The boots are
kicked off and thumped into a corner. The tempera-
ture is up to that notch that induces perspiration with-
out any exertion at all and the ug-l}* little stove makes
it hotter still. We sit down to the noon meal in a
melting- condition and rise from it in the same state.
Dinner is eaten, the '-nooning-'' is over, back ag-ain to
the claim, turn on the Avater, pick, shovel, scrape, pry,
toss back boulders and prop up sluices slipped from
112
tlioir supports. Between two and three o'clock a
snowy-vvliite cloud rises over a distant peak to the east-
ward. It seems hke a great bank of snow ag-ainst the
blue sky and the longer we look at it the farther we
seem to peer into its translucent, clear-Avhite depths.
It rises over that peak at almost the same hour every
afternoon and is almost of the sa^me shape. It is the
condensed vapor of the snow melting on the higher
Sierra summits eighty-six miles distant. It is impos-
ing in its silent imperceptible rising, its wonderful
whiteness, its majesty, its distance. It seems a fit bed
of snow}^ splendor for fairies or some sort of ethereal
beings to bask and revel in. It seems to be looking
down half in scorn half in pit3^ at us four wear^-, mis-
erable worms of the dust, feebly pecking at a bit of
mother earth, muddy, wet, and feebly squirming in and
about this bank of dirt.
At four o'clock there are longer pa uses in our labors.
There is more leaning on shovels and more frequent
glances at our timepiece, the sun, as he sinks in the
western heavens. The shadow of the hill opposite
creeps slowl}" down its side. It is a cool, welcome
shadow. The strongest worker secretl^^ welcomes it.
Though he be a " horse of a man," his muscles also feel
the effects of the long day's labor. It is more his
strong will than his body which keeps him swinging
the pick. We are in duty bound to work till six o'clock'.
Everybody works till six o'clock. Everybody is more
or less tired at four o'clock, but it is not the capacity
of the body for labor that fixes the time. It is custom,
stupid custom. The gauge is the limit of physical
strength, not for the weakest, but the strongest. The
great, brawny-armed, big-boned Hercules of our com-
113
pany doesn't feel it much. He maj^ walk three miles
after supper to the Bar store, play cards and drink
whiskey till nine o'clock and tlien walk back again and
be up fresh for work next morning- by 5 :30 o'clock.
This is ISfiO. In 1870 he showed it, however, and in
the marks of age was ten years ahead of his time. You
can't keep ap this sort of thing — digging, tugging,
lifting, wet to the skin day after day, summer and
winter, with no interval of rest, but a steady drag-
twelve months of the year — without paying for it.
There's dissipation in the use of muscle as well as in
the use of whiskey. Ever^^ old miner knows it now and
feels it. Don't you ? How does the muscle of forty-
five years in 18S-J compare with that of twenty-five in
18G2 ? Of course, man must live by the sweat of his
brow, or the sweat of his brain, but many of you sweat
too long in those days, and I hear 3'ou all saying,
"That's sol" Start anew the fire in the little stove;
thump the wet boots in the corner; drag yourself
do\\ 11 to the spring a few hundred yards ciistant for a
pail of fresh water; hack a few more chips from the
dried stump; mix some flour, water, and yeast pow-
der for the day's baking; set down a minute on your
flour-barrel chair and look on your earthly possessions.
The worn and scarred trunk you brought years ago
from the States; it holds your best suit of a forgotten
fashion, two or three white shirts, a bundle of letters
from home, a few photographs, a Bible, not worn out
with use, a quartz crystal, a few gold "specimens," a
tarantula's nest, the tail of a rattlesnake and six vests.
Do you remember how vests would accumulate in
the mines ? Pants, coat, everything else would wear
out — vests never.
114
CHAPTER XIV.
THE miner's rainy DAY.
No work on tlie claim to-da3^ It rains too hard.
It is the winter rain of California — a warm, steady,
continuous drizzle. The red earth is soft and soppy.
It mires to the ankles. The dark g-reen of the chap-
arral on the hill sides seems to-day almost black. Tiie
hue of the river by my cabin door is yellower than
ever. The water-mark is three feet higher than last
night and it creeps upward everj^ hour. Over the
mountain crags yonder white sheets of foam are tum-
bling" where none has been seen before for many months.
This is an enforced day of rest. I have finished my
breakfast and sit down for a few minutes in a keen
enjoyment of idleness. There is a ceaseless patter of
raindrops on the cabin roof. The river roars louder
than ever over the riffle close by. That roar is tlie
first sound I hear in the morning and the last at night.
It has roared thus for me these three years. In one
sense of times' duration they seem as three hundred
years; in another, they seem not much over three
months. It is three months when I think only of the
date of my arrival on Frazier's flat. It is three hun-
dred years as I attempt to recall the daily round of
experience and thought since I came here. Outwardly
it has been what many would consider a monotonous
experience. Weeks have been so much alike that they
115
leave no disting-uisliing- marks in my memory. A big-
freshet or two, a mining- lawsuit, an election, a few
weeks when the claim "came clown riclV a fig-ht at
the bar store, a big-ger spree than usual, a visit from
county candidates travelling- for votes, a giving- out of
ditch water, a break in the reservoir, a man drowned
in the river— these are the g-reat events on Frazitu-'s
flat.
I wonder how many years more I shall spend here.
I wonder if 1 must live and die here. I am no nearer
fortune than three years ag-o, not so near by three
3'ears. 1 seem more and more chained down here by
force of habit. I seem lit for little else but to dig. I
long to see something- of the great world beyond this
lone foothill nook. Yet without money I feel less and
less capable of g-oing- out and "g-etting- on " in that
world. And as for saving- money— well, we call this a
" three-dollar claim,'' which means an averag-e daily
profit, when all expenses are paid, of two dollars more
or less. These thoug-ht are making- it as g-loomy within
as the weather is without. I must g-et out of this.
My g-ray flannel working- shirt needs mending-. The
rig-ht sleeve is ripped from wrist to elbow. It has
been so ripped for about six weeks. I have rolled that
wet sleeve up to the elbow al)out a hundred times a
day, and at every tenth sti'oke of the pick it has un-
rolled ag-ain and flapped in my face. I sew up the
sleeve with a very larg-e needle and a very coarse thread
doubled. This is a g-ood time to clean up a little. I
wfll be domestic to-day. I will bake a fresh batch of
bread and make a pie. It shall be a mince pie. We
are ten miles from the nearest baker's mince pie. It
shall be made of salt beef previously soaked to fresh-
IIG
ness, dried apples, molasses and vinegar in lieu of cider.
The crust I roll out with a junk bottle on a sniootli,
flat board. I bake it on a shallow tin plate. It will
be, when done, a tliin, wafery pie; but it Avill be a pie
— the shadow of a pie at least — such as I used to eat
at home; only a shadow.
Rain, rain, rain. The wind is up and about too, tear-
ing- around among the trees and shaking the cloth roof
of my cabin. Here and there little trickles of water
are coming through and running down the logs. Mine
is a log cabin of the roughest make. Four logs piled
atop of each other form the sides. A mud chimne^^
at one end ; a door at the other. The logs are very
dr^^ and ver^^ rotten and abound in those insects that
delight in rotten Avood. I have found scorpions under
the bark and occasionally an earwig promenades over
the table. I open the door and look out on the river.
It is rising. Wrecks are coming down — boards, logs,
lumber and an occasional sluice and pieces of fluming.
There is an edd^^ around the turn of the hill above,
where much of this drift runs in. I repair thither and
make a few hauls. I secure a half-dozen good boards,
some pieces of joist, some driftwood for fuel, and pile
it up on the bank out of the swelling water's reach.
" Halloa ! " That cry is from a couple of men on the
other side of the river, plodding down the trail in oil-
skins. I know them. Two of the " bo^^s " from Pov-
ert^' Bar. They are going to Price's store two miles
below — stoi'e, grogshop, boarding-liouse, polling booth
at election, ferry, etc. Being a rainy day they ai-e
going there to get drunk. That is not their avowed
purpose on setting out, but it's as near a certainty as
anything can be in this world.
117
I return to my cabin. The pie has baked. It is
In-owner tlian I intended it sliould be. On one side it
is ahnost black. Is is ornamented about the rim Avith
a row of scollops made by pressure of the thumb. Now
I put in the bread, previously mixed and kneaded. I
am not a g'ood breadmaker. It is always bread too
much baked, or too little, or too sour, or too yellow, or
too heavy. But I don't care. I bake only for myself
and lam unfortunatel}^ too easily pleased and proba-
bl3^ too lazy to take that care and elaborate prepara-
tion necessary for good bread. I never measure accu-
rateh' tlie proportions of flour, water, and yeast powder
necessary for good bread. I throw them tog'ether at
random. It's a "hit or miss" — generally miss. It's
too much trouble to bother about these small details.
A particular friend of mine who sta\'ed with me a few
days reproved me for the poor quality of ni}^ bread
and the general slovenliness apparent about ni}^ cook-
ing utensils.
"You have no pride," said he.
I owned up. What was the use of pride about a tin
kettl(\ This friend w^as my backer. He had set me
up on this claim and put me, after a fashion, on my
feet. He had come to see how I was getting along.
While on this visit a man of some standing from a
camp up the river came along looking for a stray cow.
M}^ friend asked him to dinner — one of my dinners —
graced by about the worst baking of bread I ever ac-
complished. My friend did not realize what he was
about when he asked the future Lieutenant-Governor
of the State of California to that dinner. But when
he sat down to my board and when thc^^ tried to eat
my bread; he sorrowed in secret and gave me some
118
^ood and forcible advice afterward relative to culinary
and domestic matters. In these matters he was a very
particular man. During" his stay he inaugurated a
reign of neatness and for me one of terror and dis-
comfort. He put his whole mind on cooking and cov-
ered the stove Avith dishes. He was an animated bill
of fare. He scoured all the tinware brightly. I was
quite surprised at the new, fresh look of things, and
in secret thought seriously of reform, and hoped he
wouldn't stay long.
But the man didn't enjoy eating his elaborately pre-
pared meals so much as I did. He worked too hard
getting them up. He exhausted too much of his force
In planning, worr^'ing, and cooking. He worked his
mind in too many channels at once. He lacked repose.
There's where I had the best of him. I was reposeful,
and if 3'ou please so to term it, lazy. He is dead — I
am alive. There's the result of different mental con-
ditions. It is noon. I have no clock to tell the hours,
but we acquire a faculty of feeling when noon arrives.
The rain has ceased temporarily, but it Avill soon re-
commence, for which I am glad, as it will prevent work
on the claim during the afternoon. Having eaten
dinner, finishing with a piece of m^^ mince pie, it occurs
to me that this is a good time to write home. It's
hard work writing home. I put it off for weeks and
months. It laj^s a load on my mind. I receive at
times letters from people complaining of my neglect.
I know I ought to write, but what is there to Avrite ?
Nothing but the same old story " Hope soon to do
well." I have written in this strain for the last six
years until I am tired and sick of it. It is of no use
telling an}^ more about the country. All that has
119
been told. If my people onl}' knew how much I suf-
fered m this endeavor to be dutiful, perhaps they would
not insist on my writing- more than the line, " I am
still alive; yours truly." Thousands more of letters
from California wanderers would have been received
by anxious relatives had they been content with this.
But 3^ou w^ere expected to write. Bricks without straw.
It is a hard thing- to realize, and few will realize it,
that no matter how close the tie of relationship, in
reality there can be a wider and wider drifting- apart.
Interests are not the same; associations are not the
same; location, surrounding, environment are not the
same. Through some or all of these influences you
are g-rowing" into another man ; another woman. You
would hardly recog-nizc yourself could 3^ou see your
own identity and individuality as it was ten years agro;
you believe ditferenth', you are another individual.
What is that cry from the old home so far away ? It
is the longing- for some expression from the being of
1850 and not from the one of 18G0, who, did he stand
under the shadow of that roof and sit at that well-re-
membered table, would still after a few days show the
chang-e, proving in himself or herself the lack of some-
thing which once existed, and so prove a disappoint-
ment. The ink in my cabin is thick, the pen a bad one
and my mind seems in this (epistolary elFort thicker
and rustier than ink or pen. " Dear " and then a
big- blot, and then a long- pause and the patter of the
rain and the roar of the river. I write about a page
and a half, feeling as if every stroke of the pen were
encumbered with a ball and chain. I accomplish half
a dozen more blots and I finish in a wretched state of
mind and in a prickl^^ heat. It is a barren, pithless.
120
sapless effort. I will g'o out and g-et a breath of fresh
air and rain. It is four o'clock. Still it rains. Tlie
heavens are dark and already the first shades of the
winter's nig-ht are coming* on. I revisit my haul of
lumber from the river. It is g-one. The river has not
reached the spot where I placed it. It is the w^ork of
those thieving- Chinamen on Chamber's Bar, half a
mile above. Tliere is no use in groing* after them. My
lumber is deposit(Hl and hidden amid the i^iles they
have to-day dragg-ed out of the river.
I spend about an hour g-etting" in fuel. I have a wood-
yard on the hillside yonder. Nature has kindly felled
and seasoned there a few scrub oaks for my use. I
drag down a few branches. The land here is free —
very free. No fences^ no boundary lines, no g-ates, no
proprietors. It's a pretty fiat when the sun sliines.
A dark background of mountain, in front a river, with
its curving- and varied outline of tule and bank up and
down stream, and close about the oaks are so scat-
tered as to give one the impression of a park and an
old mansion hidden somewhere in the background.
What a luxury would be this spot to thousands in
croAvded cities who haven't even the range of a back
yard nor the shadow of a tree ! Yet I am discontented
and would get away to these crowded cities. The
early darkness has come. I light my candle. M^^
candelabra is of glass — dark olive-green — a bottle. I
did use a big potato with a hole therein scooj^ed. But
the esthetic nature requires constant change and I
adopted a bottle. I spread the evening repast. I sit
down alone. From the window I see lights glimmer-
ing in the few other neighboring cabins.
McSkimmins drops in after tea. I know all that Mc-
121
Skimmins will sa^^ for I have often lieard it before ; but
McSkiininiiis is better tlian nobody — or rather better
than one's own thoug-hts, unrefreslied and unreheved
by mixture with any otlier minds' thoug-ht. McSkim-
mins g-oes. I take refuge in the effort to repair m}^
best and only pair of broadcloth pantaloons. I brought
these with me from the States. They show decided
sig-ns of wear. I am putting- in a patch. It is a job I
take hold of at intervals. There is about it a mys-
tery and a complication I can't fathom. I can't g-et
the patch to fit, or, rather, to set. There is more in
the tailor's art than I imagined. Every time I hav(»
put them on I find a difference and a seeming- division
of action and scMitiment between the new cloth I have
sewed inside and the old cloth outside. They won't
hold tog-ether. The stitches rip apart and ever^'thing-
g-oes by the run. I seem to fail in making- the new
cloth accommodate itself to the varying proportions
of this part of the garment. And so the dreary night
wears on. Rain, rain, rain; roar, roar, roar. Is this
livin."- ?
122
CHAPTER XV.
THE miner's SUNDAY.
This is the Sunday' sun that streams through the
cabin window and throug-h the chinks of the cabin wall.
It is the same sunshine as that of the week day.
Yet as the miner wakes and realizes it is Sunda^^ it
has a different appearance and conveys a different im-
pression from that of the weekday sun. Every thing-
seems more quiet, more restful, and even more staid
and serious. There belongs to it and to the landscape
as he looks out a flavor of far-away Eastern Sabbath
bells and Sunday morning's hush and longer famil^^
prayer than usual and Sunday-school. But there is
not a church bell withiii ten miles and there never will
be one heard on this flat. There is not the least ap-
proach to church society or religious organization or
observance. There is not, so far as known, so much as
a man in the least rehgiously inclined. We are a hard
lot. No work on the claim to-day. The pick and
shovel will rest where thrown Saturday afternoon and
only a trickle of yellowish water from the reservoir
will seep through the long line of sluices instead of
yesterday's muddy ' surge rushing through — sand,
gravel and grating pebble and boulder.
But there is work of another sort to be done and a
great deal of it. After breakfast shaving. That small
mirror of most imperfect glass, whose reflection dis-
123
torts the features, screwing- up one side of the face and
enkirging- the other in an unnatural fasliion, is suit-
ably adjusted. A smell of soap pervades the air. He
lathers and shaves and relathers and reshaves with a
tedious and painful precision, the while making- faces
at himself in the glass as he brings one portion of his
countenance after another more directly under the
sweep of the razor. In some cases he comes off with a
few scratches or leaves a hirsute oasis here and there
of uncut bristle. Black pantaloons, a white shirt, a felt
or straw hat, a linen duster and the Sunday boots.
This is his dandy outfit. In his pocket is a buckskin
purse, once yellow, now faded to a dull g-ray, holding-
g-old dust, a few ounces more or less, perhaps five,
perhaps ten. It is the company dust and is to be sold
and turned into bright, yellow gold pieces. And why
all this preparation? "To go to camp." Camp is
three miles away over the mountain yonder. A group
of ramshackle cabins, alternating with saloons, three
grocery stores, a hotel, an express office and a Justice
of the Peace, all in a hot gulch, with hillsides long ago
swept of trees, scarred with cuts and streaked with
patches of dry yellowish ledge. " Camp " to him has
all the importance and interest of a great metropolis.
It is the centre of news. The stage passes through
it on the way to a larger camp. Two boss gamblers
reside there. There is a faro game on occasions, a
billiard table with a mountainous sort of bed, where
the balls roll as they please and after an eccentric
fashion of their own.
The camp is for him the first nerve-centre of civiliza-
tion and the only outlet to the great world which he
has left. You, fresh from the great city, regard this
dilapidated place as an out-of-the-way corner; but to
liim, living- on his remote flat, with but two cabirs in
sight for as many miles, camp is a place of import
ance. The news is fresh here; the cit}^ papers are
here; the political candidates speak here; the one-
horse show comes here and all the minor lawsuits are
tried here. Camp is reached after a long, hot walk.
He suffers in his store clothes from the heat. In his
working every-day flannels he would not so much
mind it, but the restraint and chokiness of starched
linen are fatig-uing. It is laborious even to be " dressed
up " on a hot day. Of this he is not aw^are. He has
not yet so far analyzed into the depth and causes of
sensations, yet it is a labor in tropical weather to wear
and bear good clothes — clothes which cannot safely be
perspired in; clothes which one can't " lop down " in ;
clothes which require care in the keeping, as well as
dignity and uprightness; I mean physical uprightness.
He never so much suffered fi-om the heat on a week
day as on Sundays and the cause was mainly the
difference between clothes which demanded considera-
tion and respect and those which did not.
He repairs first to the Magnolia. He has long in
imagination seen it from afar. How cool is the big"
barroom. The landlord keeps the floor well wet down.
That Magnolia floor is one of the few places where
water, unmixed with other fluid, is useful and grate-
ful. How comforting and soothing- is the first drink.
A long drink in a long tumbler, with plenty of ice,
soda water and whiskey. If heaven be anywhere^ as a
material locality it is in that first cool drink after a
three-mile July tramp over the kiln-dried hills and
herbage of the California foothills. The Magnolia is
125
the social hcart-c.entre of camp. There he finds the
doctor. Tlie doctor drinks with him. The doctor
drinks with everybody. There, too, is the Justice of
the Peace. The Justice drinks with him. Tlie Justice
holds his Court at the Ma<2;-nolia. The proprietor of
the Magnoha is the camp constabhi and betAveen drinks
during- trials calls viva voce the witnesses in the case.
The Judg-e drinks with him. The Judgv; grenerally
drinks. The principal camp g-ambler is at the Mag-
nolia. He takes a light drink. He is a wise man and
knows the advantage and profit of keeping- a cool head.
The reg-ular camp drunkard sits in the rear in one of
the arm-chairs back of the billiard table. He looks so
huiiil)le, so respectful— and so dry, that our miner's
heart moves to ])ity and he "asks him up." He com-
plies, but not with undue haste. This treats of the era
between 1865 and ISTO. The camp drunkard had not
then so "lost his grip" as to be unmindful of a certain
slowness, deliberation and dignity befitting- a g-entle-
man. But when he does arrive at the bar he takes a
"four-fing-ered" drink.
They stand in a row at the bar. The barkeeper is
mixing- the "long-" and the short drinks. Each man
waits, says nothing- and eyes every motion of the bar-
tender. The silence is impressive. All is ready.
Each g-lass is g-rasped and raised, and then from each
to each, and more than all, from all to the drink donor,
there is a nod, that incantatory phrase is uttered,
"Well, here's luck," and the poison is down. As it
rasps, they call "Ahem!" with varied deg-rees of
modulation. But this is a careful and prudent miner
and he now repairs to tlie store. There his dust is
weighed, sold, and the week's provision ordered. His
126
combined partners' " divv^^s " are put aside in a lump
and safely stored. Now the weig-ht is off his mind.
He returns to the attractions of camp.
These are not numerous. There is the Magnoha, the
Bella Union, the Court Exchange, the post and express
office. There are the " bo^^s." He learns the news of
the county or district. The Mount Vernon is paying-
four dollars per day. Long Shortman has gone on
another spree and hasn't done any work for the last
ten days. Jimmy McNeil has sent for his wife's
sister. She is unmarried. Sullivan has had another
row with his wife and she has complained to the
authorities. Sam Gedne^^ is going to run for County
Clerk on the Democratic ticket. Bob Delmame lost
$:300 at the game the other night. A San Francisco
comx^any have bought the Crazy gulch quartz lead
and will put a ten-stamp mill on it. The school-
master was drunk last Friday night. Ford shot at
McGillis the other night, but did not hit him. There
is scandal and talk concerning the Frenchwoman who
keeps the peanut stand and the Justice of the Peace.
The Wiley girls, two sisters who have recently moved
into camp, are making a sensation, and their small
parlor at times won't hold the crowd of semi-bald and
imconsciously middle-aged miners and others who are
calling on them with possible matrimony in prospect-
ive. They may pass along the street about the middle
of the afternoon and such " ragging out " was never
seen before in this camp. The curious have investi-
gated the tracks made by their little gaiters in the
red dust of the upper road and report them the small-
est feet ever seen in this section. Billy Devins of the
Blue-jay claim is thought to have the best show with
127
the eldest, and Goldberry of the hveiy stable with the
yoiiiig-est. No. He won't let his best horse and bug-g-y
to anybody now and takes her out riding- three times
a week. But they're snappy and uncertain, and no-
body can count on them for a certainty. So runs the
week's news, which he picks up with sundry drinks.
He enjoys the luxury of a hotel dinner— a dinner he
is not oblig-ed to prepare with his own hands — a de-
cidedly plain dinner in metropolitan estimation, but to
him, commencing- with soup and ending- with pie, a
sumptuous repast. It is moonlight and he takes his
way back by the old trail home. Old not in years,
but in association. It is l)ut the track of twenty years
or so, yet for him how old is it in thoug-ht. How
many, many times he has travelled over it.
That poker g-ame is going- on in one corner of the
Mag-nolia. The "hard case '' from over the hill is try-
ing- to beat it. He has been so trying- every Sunday
nig-ht in that same saloon and in that same corner for
the last twenty years. He has grown old in trying-.
It has kept him poor, 3'et he thinks he can play poker.
He is encourag-ed in this impression by a considerate
few. He works for them. They " scoop him in " reg--
ularly. He will go home to-morrow morning-, and
during- the week wash out a couple of ounces more for
the benefit of "Scotty " and "Texas.'' It is 11 o'clock
and time to g-o home. That three-mile walk is before
him; he has taken as many drinks as is prudent, pos-
sibly one or two more. The camp saloon revelries are
beginning- to quiet down. Most of the prominent
drunks have fallen in the cause. The chronic drunk of
the camp is talking- at the bar. But he will thus talk all
nig-ht; he never stops talking— or drinking. He has
128
been here more or less drunk ever since 1852. He is phe-
nomenal and not a standard for ordinary- intemperates.
Almost every camp has known such a drunkard. Some
are alive yet. They are of the hnmortal few not born
to die. It would be madness to compete with such.
So he sets out on his lonely walk. Of how much has
lie thought while plodding- over it. Here the same big-
buckeye brushes ag-ainst his face as it did in the
"spring- of '50/' when he was twenty years younger
and had a sweetheart in the " States," whose memory
Avas fresh and warm. It has all died out since. The
letters became less and less, the years more and more,
and then all came to a dead standstill and he received
the village paper, and there, appropriately below the
column of deaths, he read of her marriage, whereat he
went to camp and plunged Avildly into all the concert
saloon could give and made thing's hoAvl and boldly
challenged the chronic poker game and Avon. The
trail turns suddenly- . It has run over the rocks by the
river, its trail at times for many feet almost illegible,
a vague smoothly- worn streak over ledge and loose
boulders, polished and strewn Avith new white sand
and pebbles by souie unusually high freshet. But here
the shelving bank suddenly ceases. It becomes a
precipice. Up the hard-worn j^ath in the red earth he
climbs fort}^, fifty, sixty feet. It is closely hedged
with chemisal. Now he emerges near the brow of the
high rocky bluff. In all its moonlit glory surges, bub-
bles, and roars the river below. Its yelloAV muddiness
of the day is noAv changed to a dark shade of broAvn,
Avitli tremulous silver bars. Night and the moon are
the artists.
129
CHAPTER XVI.
THE COW FEVER.
About this time (18G1) a cow fever beg-an to rag-e
throughout the State. It got hold of people, and im-
pressed them with a burning idea that the road to for-
tune was a cow path, and that fortunes lay in keep-
ing cattle. The cow fever reached the seclusion of
Swett's Bar. We invested all our spare cash in cows
and waited for results. Cattle were spoken of as a
sure card for fortune. Keep cattle. Buy improved
breeds. Raise them. " Cross " them. Feed them for
nothing on the native grass. Buy cows. Cows give
milk. People can live on milk. Milk then to us Avas
a luxury. It paid no milkman to travel up and down
the rough and rocky ledges of the Tuolumne ringing
his bell at miners' cabins half a mile apart. Indeed he
could not so travel without carrying his milk a la
panier on a donkey's back, and by the time it had
reached its place of destination it would have been
agitated to butter. So all of us miners went in for
cows. Improved cows. We bought each an improved
cow. We hauled this cow b}^ ropes across the raging,
eddying, furious river to our side. Frequently she ar-
rived more dead than alive. Then came a season of
hope and expectation as to fortunes through coavs.
We arose at five in the morning, built the fire for
breakfast, went out and sought our cows, generally
130
feeding- or reposing- a mile or more from our cabins,
caught these cows, milked them, returned to the cabin,
finished the cooking of either a burned or cold break-
fast, went forth and labored in the claim till noon,
came home, cooked dinner, Aveflt forth again, at 1 p.m.,
labored till six, went back to the cabins, chopped wood
for fuel, travelled 500 feet or yards to the spring for
water, returned, mixed our bread, put it in the oven,
went out and milked the cow, then bent over the hot
stove for an hour until bread was baked, and then,
heated, flushed, perspiring, exhausted from the day's
labor, and with nerves quivering- by reason of such ex-
haustion, w^e arranged the miner's table, sat down to
the meal, and w^ondered why we had so little appetite.
Keeping cows proved laborious work for miners.
When, in addition to kindling the fire in the morning,
cooking your own breakfast, coming home at night
wet and tired after working all day in the ground-
sluice, then hacking away at some old stump to get
wood enough to cook the supper, travelhng may be an
eighth of a mile to the nearest spring for a pail of
w^ater, and bending and bothering- with meat-frying
and bread-making-, you add, chasing night and morn,
milk pail in hand, some contrary cow all over the flat
in order to milk her, you pile too heavy a load on an^^
man's back. Because, in the matter of housekeeping,
we had ceased the co-operative system. We dwelt all
apart, each a hermit in his own cabin. We were di
verse in habit, and could not get along- with each
other's peculiarities. The neat man couldn't abide the
slovenly man; the economical man couldn't sit pa-
tiently by and see his partner cut potato parings a
quarter of an inch in thickness; the nervous man Avas
131
exhausted by his partner's whistling- or snoring, and
all these and numberless other opposing- peculiarities
at k'.st caused each man hermit-like, to retire into
his own cell.
We had other trouble Avitli our cows, for they were
ravenous after salt. We neglected to "salt them.''
Result : If any article containing: the least incrustation
of salt was left outside our cabins, the entire herd
would g-ather about it at night, lick it, fig-ht for its
possession and keep up a steady g-runting-, stamping-,
lowing-, and bello^^4ng-. They would eat clothing- left
out over nig-ht on the clothes-line to dry. In such
manner and for such reason also would they eat
throug-h the cotton walls of our houses. Once, when
away for three da^'S attending- a county convention
at Sonora, on returning- to my lone cabin, I found it a
scene of ruin and desolation. A cow had eaten throug-h
the cloth wall on one side, and eaten her way out at
the other, and had stopped long- enough inside to eat
up all my flour, rice, and vegetables. Once, when mov-
ing my household effects from one cabin to another,
on a wheelbarrow, I left it near the middle of the flat
for a few minutes. On returning- 1 saw a cow making
off with my best coat. She held it in her mouth b3^
one sleeve. On seeing me she started off on a run, still
thus holding the sleeve in her mouth and making vio-
lent efforts to eject it. The coat-sleeve was a ruin
when I did get it. She had chewed it for salt's sake
to the likeness of a fish net. Keeping cows did not
make our fortunes at Swett's. Then everybody said :
"Keep hogs. They will feed on acorns and inci^ease
very rapidly. In a few years the plains and hills will
groan under the burden of your pork.'' So I bought
132
hogs. I boug-ht a sow and seven pig's. They g-ave me
mucli to think of. Before I had owned them a week
complaints concerning them came from neighboring-
miners, who owned no hog's. These pig-s of mine
brolce throug"h the clotli walls of th(^ cabins and would
consume the miner's entire weekly stock of provisioiis
in a few minutes. Then they would g'o outside and
root from out the hot coals — his " Dutch oven/' wherein
his bread was baking- while he labored afar in his
claim, and this bread when cooled they would also
devour. I had, on bujdng these animals, engaged
that they should " find themselves."
There was no reasoning with the suffering miners
in this matter. I argued that ni}^ pigs had a right to
run at large, and that they should make their houses
more secure. The miners argued that right or not
right, they would shoot my pigs even if found near
their cabins. If that was not suflicient, they might
shoot me. Their positiveness in this matter Avas of an
intense and violent character. There was no such
thing as discussion with them on legal or equitable
grounds. I think now that I and the i3igs had law and
right on our side, but the miners were in the majority
and had might. Nor was this all. These pigs, seem-
ingly recognizing my ownership, came home at night
to sleep. The}^ slept in a pile just outside my cabin
door, and as the night air wafted down from the higher
Sierra summits became cooler, the pigs on the outside
of the pile became uncomfortable. Being uncomforta-
ble they tried to get inside the pile. This the warm pigs
inside resisted. The resistance was accompanied with
squealing and grunting, which lasted all night long and
disturbed my sleep. This pig pile consisted of a rind
133
of cold and uncoinfortablo pi^s and a core of warm
and comfoi'table pig's, and tliere was a continual effort
on tlie part of the cold porcine rind to usurp the j^laces
of the warm and comfortable porcine core. They gave
me no rest, for when, with the warm morning- sun,
this uproar ceased, there came the season of complaint
and threat from my plundered neighbors. Finally a
cold storm chilled half of tliese pigs to death. I sold
the remainder as quickly as possible to a ranchman
who better understood tlie hog business.
During the receding of the waters after one of the
annual spring freshets, I saw several hundred dollars
in gold dust washed out near the base of a pine tree
on the river's bank, between Hawkins' and Swett's
Bar, where probabh' it had years before been buried
by some unknown miner. That is, I saw it after it
had been washed out and found b\' another more for-
tunate miner. In all piM)babilit\' there are many
tliousands of dollars in dust so dug b}- hard-working
hands and so buried in California, there to remain
until the Last Day perhaps longer. Wliere's the
utility of resurrecting the " Root of all Evil '' on the
Last Day, just at the time when people in heaven
or elsewhere are presumed to be able to get along
without it ? Yet it is a mysterious Providence that
impels any poor fellow to dig his pile bury it for safe-
keeping, and then go off and die in some out-of-the-
way place without being al)le to leave any will and tes-
tament as to the exact hole where his savings lay.
Regarding buried treasure, there is a hill near James-
town concerning which, j^ears ago, there hovered a
legend that it held somewhere thousands of dollars in
dust, buried in the early days by a lone miner, who
134
was, for his mone^^'s sake, murdered in his cabin. They
said that by the roots of many trees on that liillside it
had been unsuccessfully dug- for. Anyway, tlie miner
left a memory and a hope behind him. That's more
than many do. If you want to leave a lasting- recol-
lection of yourself behind drop a hint from time to
time ere you depart for "The Bright and Shining
Shore" that you have interred $10,000 somewhere in a
quarter section of land, you will then long be remem-
bered and your money dug for.
m
CHAPTER XVII.
RED MOUNTAIN BAR.
The California niinii^i^ camp was ephemeral. Often
it was founded, built up, flourished, decayed, and had
weeds and herbag-e g-rowing- over its site and hiding-
all of man's Avork inside of ten years. Yet to one wit
nessing- these chang-es it seemed the life of a whole
generation. Of such settlements. Red Mountain Bar
was one. Red Mountain lay three miles above Swett's
Bar, " up river." I lived " off and on " at the " Bar '' in
its dying- days. I saw it decay g'ently and peacefully.
I saw the g-rass, trees, and herbag-e g-radually creep in
and resume their sway all over its site as they had
done ere man's interruption.
I lived there when the few " boys " left used daily,
after the close of an unsuccessful river season, to sit
in a row on a log- by the river's edge, and there, sur-
veying- their broken dam, would chant curses on their
luck. The Bar store was then still in existence.
Thompson was its proprietor. The stock on hand had
dwindled down to whiskey. The bar and one filled
bottle alone survived. On rainy nights, when the few
miners left would gather about the stove Thompson
would take down his fiddle, and fiddle and sing-,
"What can't be cured must be endured," or, "The
King- into his g-arden came; the spices smelt about
the same" — a cxuotation of unknown authorship. Of
130
neig-hbors, living- in their cabins strung- along- th(^
banks for half a mile above the store, there was Keen
Fann, an aged mercantile and mining- Chinaman, with
a colony about him of lesser and faciall}- indistinguish-
able countrymen of varying- numbers. Second, " Old
Harry," an ag-ed neg-ro, a skilled performer on the
bug-le and a sing-er, who offered at times to favor us
with what he termed a "little ditto." He w^as the
Ethiopic king- of a knot of Kanakas g-athered about
hhn. Third, " Bloody Bill," so-called from his frequent
use of the sang'uinary adjective, and, as may be guessed,
an Englishman. Fourth, an old Scotchman, one of
the Bar's oldest inhabitants, who would come to the
store with the little bit of g-old dust, g-athered after a
hard day's "crevicing-" complaining- that g'old was
g-etting- as scarce as " the grace of God in the Heelands
of Scotland." Fifth, McFarlane, a white-bearded old
fellow, another pioneer, who after a yearly venture
into some strange and distant locality to "chang-e his
luck," was certain eventually to drift back ag-ain to
the Bar, which he reg-arded as home. Down the river,
nestled hig-h up in a steep and picturesque g-ulch, stood
the bucke^x^-embowered cabin of old Jonathan Brown,
the ditch tender, a g-reat reader of weekly "story
papers," who lived like a boy in the literature of the
Western Frontier Penny Aivful, and who, coming- to
the store and perching- himself on the counter, would
sometimes break out in remarks about how "Them
thar Indians got the better of 'em at last," to the as-
tonishment of the "boys," who imag-ined at first that
he referred to Indians in the locality, suggesting pos-
sibilities of a repetition of the g-reat Oak Flat uprising-
of 1850.
137
At the "top of the.liill/'a mile and a half away,
stood the "Yankee Ranch," kept by a bustling-, un-
easy, and rather uncomfortable man from Massachu-
setts, aided by his g'ood-natured, easy-g-oing- son-in-
law. One rainy winter's day the " boys " cong-reg-ated
about Thompson's store became seized with a whim
for the manufacture of little pasteboard men turning-
grindstones, which, fastened to the stove, were im-
pelled to action by the ascending- current of hot air.
So they smoked their pipes, and wrought all day until
the area of stovepipe became thickly covered with lit-
tle pasteboard men busily turning- pasteboard g-rind-
stones. Then, George ]VI. G., the son-in-law of the
Yankee Ranch, came down the hill to borrow an axe.
Georg-e was of that temperament and inchnation to
be of all thing-s charmed with a warm stove on a cold,
rainy day, a knot of g-ood fellows about it, a frequent
pipe of tobacco, maybe an occasional punch and the
pleasing manufacture of hot-air-driven little paste-
board men turning pasteboard g-rindstones. He for-
g-ot his axe— sat down and beg-an with the rest the
manufacture of pasteboard men and g-rindstones. And
he kept on till a late hour of the nig-ht, and stayed at
the Bar all nig-ht and all the next day and that next
nig-ht, until the stovepipe was covered to its very top
with little men, all working- away for dear life turning-
g-rindstones; and on the second day of his stay the
exasperated father-in-law suddenly appeared and de-
livered himself in impatient invective with reg-ard to
such conduct on the part of a son-in-law sent forty-
eig-ht hours previously to borrow an axe. Such was
the circle oft g-athered on the long-, rainy winter's eve
about the Thompson store stove. All smoked. Keen
138
Fann frequently dropped in. He stood respectfully,
as a heathen should in such a Christian asseniblaij;'(^,
on its outer edg-e, or humbly appropriated some unoc-
cupied keg", and for the rest — grinned. From his little
piggy eyes to his double chin Keen's face was a per-
manentl}^ settled grin.
Keen Fann had learned about twenty words of Eng-
lish and would learn no more. In his estimation, these
twenty words, variously used, after a sort of gram-
matical kaleidoscopic fashion, seemed adequate to con-
vey everything required. One of his presumed Eng--
lish expressions long puzzled the bo3^s. Asking* the
price of articles at the store lie would say : " Too muchee
pollyfoot.'' At last tbe riddle was correctly g-uessed.
He meant: " Too much profit."
For protection Keen Fann built his house opposite
the store. The Mexicans were then attacking and
robbing isolated bands of Chinamen. At one bar a
few miles beloAv, then deserted by the whites, the
Chinese had inclosed their camp with a high stockade
of logs. Yet one night they were attacked. The
Mexicans besieged their fortress for hours, peppering
them from the hillside with revolvers, and at last they
broke through the Mongolian Avorks and bore off all
their dust and a dozen or more revolvers. Keen
Fann's castle was in dimensions not more than 12x15
feet, and in height two stories. Within it was parti-
tioned oil into rooms not much larger than dry-goods
boxes. The hallways were just wide enough to scpu^eze
through, and very dark. It was intensely labyrin-
thian, and Keen was always making" it more so by
devising new additions. No white man ever did know
exactlv where the structure hei2'an or ended. Keen was
139
a merchant, dealing- principally^ in g-in, fish, and opium.
His store was involved in this curious dwelling", all of
his own construction. In the store was a counter.
Behind it there was just room for Keen to sit down,
and in front there was just room enoug-h for the cus-
tomer to turn around. When Keen was the merchant
he looked imposing- in an immense pair of Cliinc^se
spectacles. When he shook his rocker in the bank l.(^
took oIT these spectacles. He was a larg-e consunu^r
of his own g"in. I once asked him the amount of his
weekly allowance. " Me tink," said he, " one g-allun, hap
(lialf)." From the upper story of the castle protruded
a hug-e spear-head. It was made bj^ the local black-
smith, aiul intended as a menace to the Mexican ban-
dits. As they grew bolder and more threatening',
Keen sent down to San Francisco and purchased a lot
of old pawn-shop revolvers. These being- received,
military preparation and drill went on for several
weeks by Keen and his forces. He practised at target-
shooting-, aimed at the mark with both eyes shut, and
for those in its immediate vicinity with a most omin-
ous and threatening- waver of the arm holding- the
weapon. It was pi'ophesied that Keen would kill
somebody- Avith that pistol. None ever expected that
he would kill the proper person. Yet he did. One
nig-ht an alarm was given. Keen's castle was at-
tacked. The " boys," hearing- the disturbance, g-rabbed
their rifles and pistols, and sallied from the store.
The robbers, finding- themselves in a hornets' nest, ran.
By the uncertain lig-ht of a waning- moon the Bar was
seen covered with Chinamen g-abbling- and wildly g-es-
ticulatin.g. Over the river two men were swimming-.
Keen, from the. bank, pointed his revolver at one^ shut
140
his eyes and fired. One of the men crawled out of
the water and tumbkHl in a heap among- the boukku's.
The "' bo3's " crossed, and found there a strang-e white
man, with Keen's bullet through his backbone.
I experienced about the narrowest escape of my life
in a boat during- a freshet on the Tuolumne crossing.
I counted myself a good river boatman, and had just
ferried over a Svvett's Bar miner. He had come to
purchase a g-allon of the native juice of the grape,
which was then grown, pressed and sold at Red Moun-
tain Bar. When he crossed with me he was loadcnl
with it. Some of it was outside of him in a demijohn
and some of it was inside. Indeed it was inside of us
both. I set him across all right. On returning, by
taking advantage of a certain eddy, one could be
rushed up stream counter to the current coming down
for a quarter of a mile, and at a very rapid rate. It
was very exciting thus to be carried in an opposite
direction, within ten feet of the great billowy swell
coming down. It was a sort of sliding- down hill with-
out the trouble of drawing one's sled up again. So I
went up and dow^n the stream. The Red Mountain
wine meantime was Avorking. Night came on, a glori-
ous moon arose over tlie mountain tops, and I kept
sliding up and down the Tuolumne. I became more
daring and careless. So that suddenly in the very
fury of the mid-stream billow^s I slipped off the stern
sheets at a sudden dip of the boat arid fell into the
river. I was heavily clad in flannels and mining boots.
Of my stay under water I recollect only the thought,
"You're hi for it this time. Tliis is no common bap-
tism/' The next I knew I was clinging to a rock half
a mile below the scene of the submergence. I had
141
been swept under water tliroug-li the Willow Bar, tlie
walls of whose rocky channel, chiselled h}' the current
of centuries, were narrower at the top than on the
river-bed, and throug-h which the waters swept in a
succession of boils and whirlpools. Wet and drippini::,
I tramped to the nearest cabin, a mile and a half dis-
tant, and stayed there that nig-ht. Red Mountain Bar,
on seeing- the misha}:), gave me up for lost — all but one
man, who was negative on that point for the reason,
as he alleged, that I was not*destined to make the
final exit by water. I I'eappeared the next morning
at the Bar. When I told the bo3^s that I had been
swept through the Willow Bar the^^ instituted com-
parisons of similarity in the matter of veracity betwixt
myself and Ananias of old. It Avas the current im-
pressions that no man could pass through the Willow
Bar alive.
Chinese Camp, five miles distant, stood as the me-
tropolis for Red Mountain Bar. It contained but a
few hundred people. Yet, in our estimation at that
time it bore the same relative importance that New
York does to some agricultural village a hundred
miles way. Chinese Camp meant restaurants, where
we could revel in the luxur^^ of eating a meal we were
not obliged to prepare ourselves, a luxury none can
fully appreciate save those who have served for years
as their own cooks. Chinese Camp meant saloons,
palatial as compared with the Bargroggery; it meant
a daily mail and communication with the great world
without; it meant hotels, where strange faces might
be seen daily; it meant, perhaps, above all, the nightly
fandango. When living for months and j^ears in such
out-of-the-way nooks and corners as Red Mountain
142
Bar, and as were thousands of now forg'otten and
nameless flats, g-ulches, and bars in California, cut otf
from all reg-ular communication with the world, where
the occasional passag-e of some strang-er is an event,
the limited stir and bustle of such a place as Chinese
Camp assumed an increased importance and interest.
Chinese Camp Justice presided at our lawsuits. Chi-
nese Cam J) was the Mecca to which all hands resorted
for the gTand blow-out at the close of the river mining
season. With all their hard work what independent
times were those after all! True, claims were uncer-
tain as to yield; hopes of making- fortunes had been
given over. But so long as $1.50 or $2 pickings re-
mained on the banks men were comparatively their
own masters. There w^as none of the inexorable de •
mand of business consequent on situation and employ-
ment in the great city, where, sick or well, the toilers
must hie with machine-like regularity at the earl^^
morning hour to their i)0!^ts of labor. If the Red
Mountaineer didn't " feel like w^ork" in tlie morning- he
didn't work. If he i^ref erred to commence digging
and washing at ten in the morning- instead of seven,
who should prevent him? If, after the morning labor,
he desired a siesta till two in the afternoon, it was his
to take.
Of what Nature could give there was much at the
Bar to make pleasant man's stay on earth, save a
great deal of cash. We enjoyed a mild climate — no
long, hard winters to provide ag-ainst; a soil that
would raise almost any vegetable, a necessity or lux-
ury, with very little labor; grapes or figs, apples or
potatoes; land to be had for the asking; water for
irrigation accessible on every hand ; plenty of pasture
143
room; no crowdiii£;\ A quarter of a section of such
soil and climate, within forty miles of New York City,
would he Avorth millions. Contrast such a land with
the bleak hills about Boston, where half the year is
spent in a strui;-g'le to provide for the other half. Yet
we were all anxious to g"et away. Our heaven was
not at Red Mountain. Fortunes could not be digg-ed
there. We spent time and streng-th in a scramble for
a few ounces of yellow metal, while in the spring- time
the vales and hillsides covered with fliow^ers arg-ued in
vain that the}' had the g-ixnitest rewards for our picks
and shovels. But none listened. We g'rovelled in the
mud and stones of the oft-woi'ked hank'. Yearly it
responded less and less to our labors. One b}' one the
'''old-timers" left. The boarding-iiouse of Dutch Bill
at the farther end of the Bar lon.i^ stood empty, and
the meek-eyed and subtle Chinaman stole from its sides
board after board; the sides skinned off, they took
joist after joist from the framework. None ever saw
them so doing-. Thus silently and mystei-iously, like a
melting- snowbank, the giM^at, ramshackle boarding-*
house disappeared, until naug-ht was left save the
chimney. And that also vanished l)rick by brick. All
of which material entered into the composition and
construction of that irreg-ularly built, smoke-tanned
cong-lomerate of Chinese huts clustered near the Keen
Fann castle.
" Old Grizzly " McFarlane Avent a\vay. So did Bloody
Bill. So the Bar's population dwindled. Fewer trav-
ellers, dot-like, were seen climbing- the steep trail o'er
Red Mountain. Miller, the Chinese Camp news-ag-ent,
who, with mailbag-s well filled with the New York
papers, had for years cantered from Red Mountain to
144
Morg'an's Bar, einptyiiii^ liis sack as he went at tlie
rate of fifty and twenty-five cents per slieet, paid tlie
Bar liis last visit and closed out tlie newspaper busi-
ness there forever. Then tlie County Supervisors
aholislied it as an election precinct, and its name no
loni^-er figured in the returns. No more after the vote
was polled and the result known did the active and
ambitious partisan mount his horse and gallop over
the mountain to Sonora, the county seat, twenty miles
away, to deliver the official count, sig-ned, sealed and
attested by the local Red Mountain Election Inspectors.
Finally the Bar dwindled to Thompson, Keen Fann
and his Mongolian band. Then Thompson left. Keen
Fann g-rieved at losing his friend and protector. He
came on the eve of departure to the dismantled store.
Tears were in his e3^es. He presented Thompson with
a basket of tea and a silver half-dollar, and bade him
farewell in incoherent and intranslatable words of
lamenting polyglot English.
145
CHAPTER ^XVIIL
MY CALIFORNIA SCHOOL.
I WAS not coiiiklont of 1113^ ability to teach even a
-' common school" wiien the situation was olTered me
in a Uttle Tuolumne County mining* camp. I said so
to my okl friend, Pete H., who luid secured me the
position. "Well," said he, after a reflective pause,
"do you retain a clear recollection of the twent^'-six
letters of the alphabet ? For if 3'ou do, you are equal
to any educational demand this camp will make on
you."
It was a reckless "camp." No phase of life was
viewed or treated seriously. They did walk their
horses to th<' grave slowly at a funeral, but liow they
did race back!
It was legally necessary, however, tliat I should be
examined as to my ability by the school trustees.
These were Dr. D., Bill K., a saloon-keeper, and Tom
J., a miner. I met them in the Justice's office. The
doctor Avas an impoi-tant appearing man, rotund, pom-
pous, well-di'cssed, and spectacled. He glared at me
with an expression betwixt sadness and sevei'ity. I
saw he was to be the chief inquisitor. I expected from
him a searching examination, and trembled. It was
years since I had seen a school-book. I knew that in
geography I was rusty and in mathematics musty.
Before the doctor lay one thin book. It turned out
JIG
to be a spelling- book. The doctor opened it, glared on
me leisurely, and finall^^ said : " Spell cat." I did so.
" Spell hat." I spelled. " Rat," said the doctor, with
a look of explosive fierceness and in a tone an octave
hig-her. I spelled, and then remarked: " But, doctor,
you surely must know that I can spell words of one
s^^llable?" ''I don't," he shouted, and propounded
" mat " for me to spell, with an increase of energy in
his voice, and so went on until I had so spelled long
enough to amuse him and the othei- two trustee triflers.
Then he shut the book, saying: "Young man, you'll
do for our camp. I wouldn't teach that school for
$5,000 a year; and there are two boys 3'ou'll have for
scholars that I advise you to kill, if possible, tlie first
week. Let's all go over and take a drink."
My school house was th<^ cliurch, built and paid for
partly by the gamblers and partly b}' the good people
of Jimtown " for the use of all sects " on Sundays, and
for educational purposes on week da^'s.
I was shut up in that little church six hours a day
with sixty children and youths, ranging from four to
eighteen years of age. In summer it was 'a fiercely
hot little church. The mercur^^ was always near 90
by noon, and sometimes over 100, and 3^ou could at
times hear the shingles split and crack on the roof of
the cathedral. A few 3^ears of interior California sum-
mers' suns will turn unpainted boards and shingles al-
most as black as charcoal.
The majorit3^ of iny pupils' parents being from New
England and North America, they brought and car-
ried into effect all their North American ideas of edu-
cation. The California summer heat is, I think, unfit
for educational purposes. It is too hot to herd sixty
147
restloss children tog-ether six hours a day. They
proved this in several cases. Some fell sick suddenh\
Some fainted. But this made no dilTerence. The
school went on in all its misery. I sent a fainting-
child home one daj^and the father returned with it an
hour afterward. He was fierce, and said he wanted
his child kept in school when he sent it to school.
This was in California's earty days. My scholars were
the children of the Argonauts, and in some cases had
come out with them. There was then no regular s^'s-
tem of text-books. Publishers had not commenced
making" fortunes by g-etting- out a new school-book s^^s-
tem every three years.
My scholars came, bring:ing- a g-reat varietj^ of school-
books. They brought *' Pike's Arithmetic,^' which had
come over the i:)lains, and " Smith's Geography,'' which
had sailed around Cai^e Horn. Seldom were two alike.
But the g-reatest variety lay in g-rammai's. There was
a reg-ular nuiseum of Eng-lish g-rammars, Avhose authors
foug-ht each other with different I'ules and called the
various parts of speech by dilTerent names. I accounted
for the g-reat variety of grammars on the supposition
that it is or was the ambition of a larg-e proportion of
schoolmasters to write a work on g-rammar before
they died and say: "I have left another grammar to
bless and confuse posterity."
Besides bring'ing- grammars, most of the bo^^s
broug'ht dog-s. Dogs of nuxny breeds and sizes hovered
around the school-house. They wanted frequently to
come in, and did often come in, to sneak under the
seats and lay themselves at their masters' feet. I had
frequently to kick or order them out, and I noticed
that w^henever a dog was chased out he would take
148
the loncrest road to get out and under as iiiany seats as
possible, in order to receive as many kicks as ijossible
from the youthful owners of the other dog's.
I could not so organize a battalion of ten different
grammars as to act in concert on my grammar class
of twenty pupils. So I put them all on the retired list
and tried to teach this so-called "'science" orally. I
chalked the rules on the blackboaid, as well as the
names of the different parts of speech. I made my
scholars commit these to juemory, standing, although
I will not ai-gue tliat memory takes an^^ stronger grip
on a thing while the i3ui:)il stands. At last I taught a
few Avith good memories to " parse." I worked hard
with that grammar class, and was very proud of their
proficiency until I found that after months of this drill-
ing they neither spoke nor wrote any better English
than before. However, I lost nothing by this experi-
ence, for it helped me to the conviction I have held to
ever since, that the entire grammar system and
method does very little to make one habitually use
correct language, and that a taste for reading and
constant association with correct English-speaking
people does a great deal. As for spending time in
" parsing," I think it would be better to use that force
in learning the bo}^ to shoe horses and the gii^l to make
bread, or let the girl shoe the liorses if she wants to
and the boy make the bread.
The labor of teaching the alphabet to ten infants,
calling them up once an hour " to say their letters,"
is, in my estimation, greater than that of swinging a
pick in the surface gold "diggings." I have tried
both, and inflniteh^ prefer the pick. It is not so nmch
woi'k when you are employed with them as when you
149
are occupied with the other pupils. Then these poor
little alphabetical cherubs can do nothing" but squirm
on their low benches, catch flies, pinch each other,
make and project spit-balls and hold up their hands
for another drink of water. I could not let them out
of doors to play in the sand, Avhere they should have
been, because the North American parent would have
considei'ed himself as defrauded of a part of his infant's
schooling* were the}^ not imprisoned the whole six
hours.
Neither can you set a child to studying A or M or
any other letter. There is not an idea in A or B.
During the two years of m^^ administration I wrought
with one child who never could get successfully be^^ond
F. Her parents ciuestioned my ability as a teacher.
Some days she would repeat the whole alphabet cor-
rectly. I would go home with a load off my mind.
The next day her mind would relapse into an alpha-
betical blank after F. She grew to be an eyesore to me.
The sight of her at last made me sick.
I held public examinations every six months, and
was careful to do all the examining myself. An inter-
loper among tlie audience I invited did me great dam-
age on one of these memorized performances by asking
a simple arithmetical question of the show-ofT geo-
graphical boy. The urchin was brilliant in dealing-
with boundary lines, capes, and islands, but his head
was one that mathematics could not readily be in-
jected into. On the other hand, m^^ specimen gram-
marian was as likel}^ to d;>scribe an island as a body
of land surrounded' — by land as by water. I liad no
heart to And fault with this poor barefooted urchin
who, when in class, was always trying to stand on one
150
leg" like a crane, and sending* Ids rig-lit big- toe on ex-
ploring- scratching- expeditions np his left trouser. He
had been born and brought up in an inland country,
where no body of water was to be seen save an occa-
sional fleeting- mud puddle; and what earthly concep-
tion could he form of the ocean and its islands ?
But the parents who attended these exhibitions of
stufTed memories were struck at the proficiency of the
]orog'en3^, and retired with the impression that their
children knew a g-reat deal because they had parroted
off so much that was all Greek to them; and after I
had been in this occupation a year I would sit in my
empty theolog-ical school-house when they had g-one
and try and convict myself as a profound humbug-, and
one, too, compelled, in order to get a living-, to encour-
ag-e and foster a system which had so much humbug-
in it.
The California scliools were not then " g-raded." They
were conducted on the "g-o-as-^^ou-please" plan, some-
times g-oing- as the teachers pleased, sometimes as the
parents pleased, sometimes as the pupils pleased. The
parents of the youthful brains I was trying- to develop
into future statesmen and presidents wanted me to
teach many things. One father wished his son taug-iit
Latin. It is bringing- extremes pretty near each otlier
to teach Latin and A B C's. But I ^^ taught" the
young man Latin as I was "taught" many things at
school. I started him committing to memory the
Latin declensions and conjugations, and then heard
him "say his lesson." If he got anything out of it I
didn't know what it was, except tough work. He never
reached any translations of the classics, for several
reasons.
151
Another father Avas annoyed because I exercised his
son mathematically in what, in those days, were called
" vid<^"ar fractions." " I don't want," said he, " my son
to have anything- to do with fractions, anyway. Theyr'e
no use in bizness. Ennything- over half a cent we call
a cent on the books, and enny thing- under it we don't
call nothin'. But I want Thomas to be Avell g-rounded
in 'tare and tret.'"
So I grounded Thomas in 'tare and tret.' He grew
up, took to evil ways, and Avas hung- by a vigilance
committee somewhere in Southern California. A boy
wlio stammered very badly was sent me. I was ex-
pected to cure him. Five' or six of my pupils were
Mexicans, and spoke very little Eng-lish.
One of my hardest trials was a g-reat stout boy, so
full of vitality that he could not remain quiet at his
desk. I could not blame him. He had force enoug-h
inside of hiui to run a steam eng-ine. It would have
vent ill some direction. But it would not expend itself
in " leaiMiing- lessons." He would work his books into
a mass of dog-'s ears. His writings book was ever in
mourning- with ink stains. His face was g-enerally \i\ky.
His inkstand was g-enerally upset. He Avould hold a
pen as he would a pitchfork. He seemed also to giv^
out his vitality when he came to school and infect all
the others with it. He was not a regnilar scholar.
He was sent only when it was an "otf day" on his
father's "ranch." In the scholastic sense he learned
notliing".
But that boy at the ag-e of fifteen would drive his
father's two-horse wag-on, loaded with fruit and vege-
tables, 150 miles from California to Nevada over the
roug-h mountain roads of the Sierras, sell the produce
152
to the silver miners of Aurora and adjacent camps,
and return safely home. He was oblig'od in places to
camp out at nig"ht, cook for himself, look out for his
stock, repair harness or wagon and keep an e^'e out
for skulking- Indians, who, if not " hostile," were not
saints. When it came to using the hand and the head
together he had in him '' go," " gumption " and execu-
tive ability, and none of my "teaching" put it where
it Avas in him, either. He may have grown up "un-
polished," but he is one of the kind who are at this
moment liiring polished and s-jcliolarly men to do worlv
for them on wry small wages.
I do not despise" polish "and "culture,' hut is there
not an education now necessary which shall give the
child some clearer idea of the manner in Avhich it must
cope with the worki in a few years ? The land to-day
is full of "culture" at ten dollars a week. Culture
gives polish to the blade. But it is not the process
Avhich makes the hard, well-tempered steel.
The "smartest" boy in my school gave me even
more trouble than the son of the rancher. He could
commit to memorA' as much in ten minutes as the
others could in an hour, and the balance of tlie time
lie was working oil the Satanism with Avhich he was
lilled. His memor}' was an omnivorous maw. It
would take in anything and eA'erything with the small-
est amount of application. It would have required
two-thirds of my time to feed this voracious and mis-
chievous little monster with books for his uuMuory to
devour.
But he was not the boy to drive a team tlirough
a wild countr}^ and dispose of the load in Nevada,
though lie could on such a ti'ip have committed to
153
memoiy several liundred words per day on any sub-
ject, wliether he understood it or not.
My young- lady pupils also g-ave me a g-reat deai of
trouble. The}^ were ver\' independent, and for tliis
reason : Girls, even of fifteen, were very scarce then in
the mines. So were women of any marriageable age.
There were ten men to one woman The result was
that anything" humanly feminine was very valuable,
much sought after and made much of by men of all
ages, ^[y girls of fifteen, as to life and association,
were grown-up women. Young" miners and middle-
ag'ed, seun-l)aldheaded miners, who did not realize how
many of their y(\ars had slipped away since they came
out from the " States," took these g-irls to balls and
whirled them by nig-ht over the dusty roads of Tuo-
lumne County in dusty bug*gries.
It was difficult for one lone man, and he only a
schoolmaster, to enfoix-e discipline with these prema-
turely matured children, who had an average* of two
chances a month to marry, and who felt like any other
woman their power and influence with the other sex.
Half of them did have a prospective husband in some
brawny pick-sling'er, Avho never went abroad without
a battery of portable small artillery slung* at his waist,
and who was half-jealous, half-envious of the school-
master for what he considered the privileg-e of being*
in the same room with his future wife six hours a day.
One needs to live in a country wher(5 tliere is a dearth
of women to realize these situations. When my school
was dismissed at four o'clock p.m., all the unemployed
chivalry of " Jimtown " massed on the street corner at
the Bella Union saloon to see this coveted bevy of
California rosebuds pass on their Ava}^ home. The
154
Bella Union, by the way, was only a few yards from
the church. Extremes got very close tog-ether in tliese
mining camps. But the frequenters of the Bella Union,
who gambled all night on the arid green baize of the
monte table, had more than half paid for that church,
and, I infer, wanted it iu sight so that no other per-
suasion should I'un oil" with it. I was glad when these
girls got married and entered another school of life,
where I knew within a year's time they w^ere likely to
have a master.
I was once " barred out " at the close of a summer
term. This was a fashion imiported from the extreme
southwestern part of what some call "Our Beloved
Union." Returning from dinner I found the doors and
windows of the university closed against me. I par-
le^x'd at one of the windows a few feet from the ground.
I was met by a delegation of the two biggest boys.
They informed me I could get in by coming out with a
disbursement of $2.50, to treat the school to nuts, can-
dies, and cakes. I did not accede, smashed the window
and Avent in. Most of the undergraduates went sud-
denl3^ out. I clinched with the biggest boy. The other,
like a coward, ran away. The two together could
easily have mastered me. Order was restored. The
mutiny did not hang well together. It was not a good
" combine." The Northern-bred scholars did not quite
understand this move, and did not really enter heartily
into it. Their backing had been forced by the two big
boys, and therefore had not good stuff in it.
The big boy had a cut face. So had I. His still
bigger brother met me a few days after and wanted
to pick a quarrel with me about the affair. A quarrel
with his class always lay within eas^^ approach of knife
155
or pistol. Besides, I was a Yankee. He was a Texan.
And this was in 18G2, Avhen the two sections in Cali-
fornia were neighbors, but not very warm friends, and
about equal in numbers.
I was discreet with this gentleman, if not valorous,
and think under the same circumstances now I should
kike the same course. I do not believe in taking great
risks with a ruffian because he abuses you.
My successor, poor fellow, did not get off as easily
as I did. He corrected the son of another gentleman
from the South. The gentleman called at the school-
house the next day, asked him to the door and cracked
jiis skull with the butt of his revolver. The risks then
of imparting knowledge to the young were great.
School teaching now in the mines is, I imagine, a tame
a Ifair compared with that past, so full of golden dreams
and leaden realities.
If I could have taken that portion of my scholars
who were beyond the A, B, C business to a shady grove
of hve oaks near by and talked to them for an hour or
two a day, devoting each day to some special subject,
at the same time encouraging questions from them, I
believe I could have woke up more that was sleeping
in their minds in a week than I did in a month by the
cut-nnd-dried system I was obliged to follow. I would
have taken them out of sight of the schoolhouse, the
desks and all thereunto appertaining, which to most
children suggests a species of imprisonment. I think
that amount of time and effort is enough in one day
for both teacher and pupil. It would not be trifling
work if one's heart was in it, short as the time em-
ployed may seem, because a teacher must teach Inm-
self to teach. Knowing a thing is not always being
156
able to make it plain to otliers. The g-ifted dunderhead
who tried to teach ine to play whist commenced hv
sayini;": "Now that's a heart, and hearts is trumps,
you know," and went on with the i^'ame, deeming- he
]i:ul made things clear enough for anybody.
Woukl not one topic to talk about be enough for one
day ? Take the motive power of steam the first day,
the cause of rain the second, the flight of birds and
their structure for flying the third, the making of soil
aiul its removal from mountain to plain the fourth, a
talk on coal or some other kind of mining the fifth, and
so on. Would not subjects continually suggest them-
selves to the interested teacher? And if you do get
one idea or suggestion per day in the scholar's mind,
is nat that a good day's work ? How many of us wise,
grown-up people can retire at night saying, " I have
learned a new thing to-day ?"
But I am theorizing. I have placed myself in the
ranks of those disagreeable, meddlesome people who
are never satisfied with present methods. So I will
say that I do not imagine that my sugg'estions will
I't'volutionize our educational system, based rather
heavily on the idea that youth is the time, and the only
time, to learn ever^^thing-, and also to learn a great
many things at a time. In after years, wlien we set-
tle down to our work, we tr^^ as a rule, to learn but
one thing at a time. Hoav would a man stagger along-
if it was required of him five days out of seven to learn
a bit of painting, then of horseshoeing, then of printing,
and top olf with a slice of elocution ? It seems to me
like an overcrowding of the upper intellectual stor3%
157
CHAPTER XIX.
" JIMTOWN."
On tlioso hot July ami Aug'u.st afternoons, wlien the
air simmered all alon.i^* the heated earth, and I was
ti'vini^ to keep awake in my seminary on the hill, and
wrestling' with the mercury at 100 deg. and ni}^ sixty
polyglot pupils, the grown up " boys" would be tilted
hack in their chairs under the portico and against the
cool brick wall of the Bella Union. They did not work,
but they spun yarns. How half the boys lived was a
mystery — as much a mystery, I do believe, to them-
selves as any one else. 8ome owned quartz claims,
some horses, and all ran regularly for oOice. They be-
longed to the stamp of men who worked and mined in
earlier times, but come what might, they had resolved
to work in that way no longer. And when such re-
solve is accompanied by determination and an active,
planning, inventive brain, the man gets a long somehow.
It is speculation that makes fortunes, and plan, calcu-
lation, and forethought for speculation, require leisure
of body. A hard-working, ten-hour-per-day digging,
delving miner works all his brains out through his fin-
gers' ends. He has none left to speculate with. When
I w^as mining at Swett's Bar, there came one day to
my cabin a long, lean, lank man ooking iof a lost cow.
The cow and the man belonged near Jacksonville,
twelve miles up the Tuoluume. I dined that man prin-
ir>8
cipally ofT some broad of nw own making, and I had
tho name then of makini^ the best bivad of any one in
\\w liouse, where I lived alone. After dinner the man
sat himself down on one bouldt^r and I on another,
and I asked him if he had a i;-ood claim. Tliat roused
him to wrath. He had, it seems, just reached the last
point of his disg'ust for hard work and mining". Said
he: "Don't talk to me of a good claim; don't. It
sounds like speaking* of a good guillotine, or a beauti-
ful halter, or an elegant rack you're about to be
stretched on." He had gone through his probation of
hard work with his hands and had just resoU'ed to let
them rest and give his head a chance to speculate. So
he did. I don't know that he ever met the cow again,
but eight or nine ^x'ars after I met him in the Legisla-
ture of California. He sat m the big"gest chair there,
and was Lieutenant-Governor of the State.
In 18G0 the certain class of men of whom I speak
were in a transition state. The^^ had left off workiug
with their liands and they wei'e waiting* for something
to turn up on which to commence working* with their
heads. While thus waiting they became boys and
played. The cliuuiteand surroundings were eminently
favorable to this languid, loafing condition of existence,
no long, sharp winters forcing people to bestir them-
selves and provide against its severities; little style to
keep up; few families to maintain; no disgrace for a
man to cook his own victuals; houses dropping to
pieces; little new paint anywhere to make one's e3'es
smart; gates dropping from their hinges; few munici-
pal improvements, with accompanying heavy taxes,
and that bright summer sun for months and months
shining over all and tempting everybody to be perma-
nently tii'od and seek the shade. The boys foriiot their
years; tliey dreamed away their days; they i^'ossipped
all the cool iiig:ht; they shook off di.n'iiity ; they played ;
they built Avaterwheels in the ditch I'liniiing- by the
Bella Union door; they instituted ridiculous fictions
and converted them into realities; they instituted a
company for the importation of smoke in pound pack-
ag^es into Jamestown; Muldoon was President and the
"Doctor*^ Secretary. It was brouij^ht b}" a steamer
up Wood's Creek; the steamer was wi-ecked on a dam
a mile below town; the company met day after day
in old Nielsen's saloon to consult; the smoke was finally
taken to Jamestown and sold ; the proceeds were stored
in sacks at the express office; there was an embezzle-
ment consequent on the settlement; the monej^, all in
ten-cent pieces, was finally deposited in the big- wooden
mortar over Baker's drug- store; this the "Doctor"
was accused of embezzling", having time after time
climbed up the mortar and abstracted the funds dime
after dime and spent them for whiskey. Then came a
lawsuit. Two mule teams freighted with lawyers for
the plaintitl and defendant were coming from Stockton,
and the Pound Package Smoke Company met day
after da^^ in preparation for the great trial. This fic-
tion lasted about four months, and amused everybody
except Captain James S , an ex-Sheriff of the count3%
who, being a little deaf, and catching fi-om time to
time words of great financial import regarding the
Pound Package Jamestown Smoke Company, as they
dropped from Muldoon's and the " Doctor's " mouths,
and being thereby time after time misled into a tem-
porary belief that this fiction was a reality, and so
often becoming irritated at finding himself ridiculously
IGO
mistaken, burst out upon these two wortliies one
day with all the wrath becoming' the dignity of a
Virg'inia g-entleman, and denounced them profanely
and otherwise for their fiivolity and puerility.
Another specimen thinker and speculator of that era
was Carroll. He, too, had forever thrown aside pick
and shovel, and when I met him he was a confirmed
" tilter-back " under the Bella Union portico. Carroll
was the theorist of Jamestown. He broached new ones
daily; he talked them to everybody in Jamestown, ajid
after making' clean work of that hamlet would go uj)
to Sonora and talk there, and lastly' published them in
the Union Democraf. Said Carroll one Monday morn-
ing- to the Presbyterian domine: "Mr. H , I heard
30ur sermon yesterday on ^Heaven.' You arg-ue, I
think, that heaven is really a place. I think it ought
to be a place, too. I've been thinking' about it all
nig-ht. I'm satisfied not only that it is a place, but
that I've g'ot at the locality, or at least have approxi-
mated to it. I've reasoned this out on purely scientific
data, and here tlie^^ are. We have an atmosphere, and
they say it is from thirty-three to forty-five miles high.
Ang-els only live in heaven, and ang-els have wing's. If
ang-els have wings, it's proof that they must have an
atmosphere to fly in. Now, the only atmosphere we
are sure of is that around the earth. Therefore, put-
ting- all these facts and conclusions tog-ether, Fve proved
to myself that heaven must be from thirty-three to
fort^'-five miles from the g'round we stand on.''
On commencing* my pedag'ogical career, I rented a
room of Carroll. He owned at that time a quantity
of real c^state in Jamestown, some of which, including'
the premises I occupied, Avas falling- rapidly and liter-
IGl
ally on his hands. The house I lived in was propped
up several feet from the g-round. The neighbors'
chickens fed under this house from the crumbs swept
tliroug-h the cracks in the floor. It was an easy house
to sweep clean. Rumor said tliat during my land-
lord's occupancy of these rooms man^^ chickens had
strangely disappeared, and that pistol shots had been
heard from the interior oi the house. The floor cracks
did show powder marks, and there was an unaccoun-
table quantitj^ of feathers blowing about the yard. In
a conversation with my landlord he admitted that his
boomerang could beat a six-shooter in fetching a
chicken. Then he showed me his boomerang, which
was of accidental construction, being the only remain-
ing leg and round of an oaken arm-chair. Properly
shied, he said, it would kill a chicken at twenty yards.
French Joe, who kept the grocery next to Keefe's sa-
loon, and it was in Jimtown a current report that
Carroll and Joe had once invited the Catholic priest.
Father A , from Sonora to dinner; that the back-
bone of this dmner was a duck; that at or about this
time Mrs. Hale, five doors down the street, had missed
one of her flock of ducks; that on the morning of the
dinner in question a strong savor of parboihng duck
permeated all that part of Jamestown lying between
Joe's and Mrs. Hale's; that Mrs. Hale smelt it; that
putting two and two — cause and effect and her own
suspicions — together, she armed herself with her bun-
tormentor fork and going from her back yard to the
little outdoor kitchen in Joe's back j^ard found a pot
over a fire and her presumed duck parboihng m it; and
that, transfixing this duck on her tormentor, she bore
it home, and the priest g-ot no duck for dinner.
162
Carroll's mortal aversion was the hog-. His favorite
occupation for ten days in the earl^^ spring- was gar-
dening, and his front fence was illy secured against
hogs, for Carroll, though a man of much speculative
enterx^rise, was not one whose hands always seconded
the work of liis head. There was not a completed
thing on his premises, including a well which he had
dug to the depth of twelve feet and which he had then
abandoned forever. The hogs would break through
his fence and root up his roses, and the well caving in
about the edges became a yawning gulf in his garden,
and during the rainy season it partly filled up with
water, and a hog fell in one night and, to Carroll's joy,
was drowned.
Men did their best in the dead of a rainy night to
g-et the poor animal out, but a hog is not a being pos-
sessed of any capacity for seconding* or furthering-
human attempts at his own rescue. So he drowned,
and was found the morning after a grand New Yeai-'s
ball at the Bella Union Hall hanging by Joyce's clothes-
line over the middle of the street beween the Bella
Union and the Magnolia. The next night they put
him secretly in the cart of a fish-peddler who had come
up with salmon from the lower San Joaquin, and tliis
man unwittingly hauled the hog- out of toAvn.
About four weeks after this transaction, coming-
home one dark, rainy night, I heard a great splashing*
in the well, and called out to Carroll that he had prob-
ably caught another hog. He came out with a lan-
tern and both of us peering* over the brink of the cav-
ity saw, not as we expected, a hog, but a man, a friend
of Carroll's, up to his chest in the water. He was a
miner from Campo Seco, who, on visiting Jimtown on
1G3
one of his three months periodical sprees, had called
on Carroll, and on leaving- had mistaken the route to
the gate ajid walked into the well. We fished him out
with much difficulty, and on gaining" the brink he camc^
near precipitating" us and himself into the unfinished
chasm throug"h the unsteadiness of his perpendicular.
As we turned to leave, looking" down the well b}^ the
lantern's flash I saw what appeared to be another man
half floating on the surface. There was a coat and at
the end of it a hat, and I remarked, '' Carroll, there is
another man down your well." The rescued miner
looked down also, and chattered as he shivered with
cold, " Why, s-s-so there is ! " We were really horri-
fied until we discovered the supposed corpse to be only
Lewell^'n's coat with his hat floating at the end of
it, which he had taken off in his endeavor to clamber
out.
Carroll, unfortunately, allowed his mind to wander
and stray overmuch in the maze of theological mys-
teries and its (to him) apparent contradictions. He
instituted a private and personal quarrel between
himself and his Creator, and for 3'ears he obtruded his
quarrel into all manner of places and assemblages.
He arrived at last at that point where many do under
similar circumstances — a belief in total annihilation
after death, and this serving to make him more mis-
erable than ever, his only relief was to convert others
to the same opinion and make them as wretched as
himself. Occasionally he succeeded. He came to me
one day and on his face was the grin of a fiend. " Fve
got Cummings," said he. " Cummings thought this
morning he was a good Methodist, but Vyq been labor-
ing with him for weeks. I've convinced him of the
164
falsity of it all. I knocked his last plank of faith frmn
under him to-day. He hasn't now a straw to cling: to,
and he's as miserable as I am."
"But Avith Mullins/' he remarked afterward, "I've
slipped up on him. I wroug'ht thi-ee weeks witli Mullins ;
took him throug-h the Bible, step by step — unconverted
him steadily' as we went along- — g'ot liim down to the
last leaf in the last chapter of the last book of Revela-
tions, and there, fool like, I let up on him to go home
to supper. And do you know when I tackled him next
morning-, to close out Mullins' faith in the relig-ion
of his fathers, I found Mullins, in my absence, had g-ot
scared. He'd g-alloped in belief way back to Genesis,
and now, I've g-ot all that job to do over ag-ain."
There was a g-reat deal of life in those little mining-
camps in Tuolumne County like Jamestown. They
mig-ht not have the population of a sing'le block in
New York City, but there was a far g-reater averag-e
of mental activity, quickness, and intellig*ence to the
man, at least so far as getting- the spice out of li«fe
was concerned.
The social life of a g-reat city may be much more
monotonous through that solitude imposed by g-reat
numbers living- tog-ether. Everybody at these camps
knew us, and we knew ever3^body, and were pretty
sure of meeting- everybod^^ we knew. In the town one
Is not sure of meeting- an acquaintance socially, save
^y appointment. There are f(nv loafing- or loung-ing
resoi^ts; people nu'et in a hurry and part in a hurry.
Here in New York I cross night and morning on a
ferry with five hundred p(»ople, and of these 495 do
not speak or know each other.
Four hundred of these people will sit and stare at
165
each other for half an hour, and all the time wish they
could talk witli some one. And many of these people
are so meeting", so crossing', so staring-, and so longing*
to talk year in and year out. There is no doctor's shop
where the impromptu symposium meets dail}^ in the
hack room, as ours did at Doc Lampson's hi Monte-
zuma, or Baker's in Jamestown, or Dr. Walker's hi
Sonora. There's no reception every evenin.g at tiie
Camp g-rocery as there used to he at "Bill Brown's"
in Montezuma. Tliere's no law^-er's othce, where he
f(;els privileged to drop in as we did at Jiulg-e Preston's
in Jamestown, or Judg-e Quint's in Sonora. There's
lu) printing: ofhce and editorial room all in one on the
g-rou.nd floor whereinto the " Camp Senate," lawyer,
Judg-e, doctor, merchant and other citizens may daily
repair in the summer's twilight, tilted hack in the old
hacked arm chairs on the front portico, and discuss
the situation as we used to witli A. N. Francisco of the
Union Deinocrat in Sonora, and as I presume the
relics of antupiit^^ and " '41) " do at that same office to-
day. These are a few of the features which made
" Camp " attractive. These furnished the social anti-
cipations which lig-htened our footsteps over those miles
of mountain, gulch, and flat. Miles are nothing-, dis-
tance is nothing", houses a mile apart and "Camps"
five miles apart are nothing- when people you know and
like live in those camps and houses at the end of those
miles. An evening- at fehe Bella Union saloon in "Jim-
town "was a circus. Because men of mdividuality,
character, and orig-inality met there. They had some-
thing- to say. Man}^ of them had little to do, and,
perhaps, for that very reason their minds the quicker
took note of so many of those little peculiarities of
106
human nature, which whou toKl, or liinted, or su^-
ij;"ested prove t\\o sauce piquant to convei'sation.
When Brown, the hiwA'er, was stu(]yiiii;' French and
read his Teleuiaque aloud by his open office window
in such a stentorian voice as to he heard over a third
of the " camp," and with never a Frenchman at hand
to correct his pronunciation, which he manufactured
to suit himself as he went along-, it was a part of the
Bella Union circus to hear " Yank " imitate him. When
old Broche, the lon.^-, thin, bald-headed French baker,
who never would learn one word of En.ylish, put on
liis swallow-tailed Sunday coat, which he had broug-ht
over from La Belle France, and lifted up those coat
tails when he tripped over the mud-puddles as a lady
would her skirts, it was a part of the Bella Union cir-
cus to see " Scotty " mimic him. When John S ,
the Yirg-inian, impressively and loudU^ swore that a
Jack-rabbit he had killed that da}' leaped twenty-five
feet in the air on beini^ shot, and would then look
around the room as if he longed to find somebody who
dared dispute his assertion, while his elder brother,
alwaj^s at his elbow in supporting distance, also glared
into the eyes of the company, as though he also long-ed
to fight the somebody who should dare discredit
" Brother John's " " whopper," it w^as a part of the cir-
cus to see the " boys " wink at each other when tliey
had a chance. When one heard and saw so man^^ of
every other man's peculiarities, oddities, and Jiianner-
isms, save his own, s(^t off and illusti-ated while the
man was absent, and knew also that his own, under
like circumstances, had been or would be brought out
on exhibition, it made him feel that it was somewhat
dangerous to feel safe on the slim and slippery ice of
167
self-satisfaction and self-conceit. People in ^^Toat cities
haven't so much time to make their own fun and
amusement, as did the residents of so nu\ny of those
lazy, loun.i^-iui;-, tumblin.^-doNvn, ramshackle "'camps"
of the era of " 18G3 '' or thereabouts.
People in the city have more of their fun manufac-
tured for them at the theatres of hig-h and low deg'ree.
Yet it was wonderful how in "camp" the}^ manag^ed
to dig- so many choice bits and specimens out of the
vein of varied human natun^ which lay so near them.
Whenever I visited " Jimtown " my old friend Dixon
would take me into his private corner to tell me " the
last" concerning- a character who was working* hard
on an unal)ridged copj^ of Webster's Dictionary in the
endeavor to make amends for a woeful lack of gram-
matical knowledgre, the result of a neglected education.
" He's running- now on two words," Dixon would say,
"and these are * perseverance' and 'assiduity.' We
hear them forty times a day, for he lugrs them in at
eveiy possible opportunity, and, indexed, at times when
there is no opportunity. He came to business the
other morning- a little unwell, and alluded to his stom-
ach as being- ' in a chaotic state.' And, sir, he can
spell the word ' particularly ' with six i's. How he does
it I can't tell; but he can."
1G8
CHAPTER XX.
THE ROMANCE OF AH SAM AND HI SING.
The ciilminal iii.^- (n'cnts of \hv followin,!;- tale occnrrod
in " Jinilowii " duriiii;- my podai^-oi^ical cnroi^r, and I
was an indefatig'able assistant in tlie d<'tails as below
stated.
Ah Sam loved Miss Hi Sin*;-. Ah Saiu was by [)rofes-
sion a cook in a California miners' boardini^- house and
ti'adin.i;' post combined, at a little mining- camp on the
Tuolumne River. Following minutely the culinary
teachings of his eniployei", having no conception of
cooking, save as a nu re mechanical operation — dead
to the pernicious mental and physical ellect which his
ill-dressed dishes might liave on the minds and stom-
achs of those he served — Ah Sam, while dreaming of
Hi Sing, fried tough beef still tougher in hot lard,
poisoned flour with saleratus, and boiled potatoes to
the last extreme of soddenness, all of v/hich culinary
outrages promoted indigestion anu)ng' tliose who ate;
and this indigestion fomented a general irritability of
temper — from whence Svvett's Camp became noted for
its frequent sanguinar}^ moods, its battles by mid-
night in street and bar-room, with knife and six-
shooter, and, above all, for its burying ground, of
which the inhabitants truthfully boasted that not an
inmate had died a natural death.
Hi Sing was the handmaid of old Ching Loo. Her
109
face was broad, her nose flat, her g-irth extensive, her
gait a waddle, her attire a bkie sacque reaching from
neck to knee, bkie trousers, brass rings on wrist and
ankle, and wooden shoes, whose clattering heels be-
trayed their owner's presence, even as the shaken tail
of the angry rattlesnake doth his unpleasant i^roxim-
ity. She had no education, no manners, no accom-
plishments, no beauty, no grace, no religion, no moral-
ity; and for this and more Ah Sam loved her. Hi
Sing" was virtually a slave, having several years previ-
ously, with many other fair and fragile sisters, been
imported to California by Ching Loo; and not until
meeting Ah Sam did she learn that it was her right
and privilege in this land of occasional laws and uni
versal liberty to set up for herself, become her own
mistress and marry and luimarry whenever oppor-
tunity offered.
But Ching Loo had noticed, with a suspicious eye,
the growing intinuicy between Ah Sam and Hi Sing;
and arguing therefrom results unprofitable to himself,
he contrived one night to ha^•e the damsel packed olf
to another town, which liappened at that time to be
my place of residence; and it is for this reason that
the woof of my existence temporarily crossed that of
Ah Sam and Hi Sing.
Ah Sam following up his love, and discovering in me
an old friend, who had endured and survived a whole
winter of his cooker}^ at Swett's Bar, told me his
troubles; and I, resolving to repa^^ evil with good,
comnumicated the distressed Mongolian's story to my
chosen and particular companion, a lean and cadaver-
ous attorney, with whom fees had ceased to be angels'
visits, and who was then oscillating and hovering be-
170
twecn two plans — one to run for the next State Le.cfis-
laturc; the otlier to migrate to Central America, and
found a new republic. Attorney, Spoke on hearing-
Ah Sam's case, offered to find tlie nuiid, rescue her
from her captors, and marry her to him permanently
and forever in consideration of thirty America u dollars;
to which terms the Mongolian assenting, Spoke and
myself, buckling on our arms and armor, proceeded to
beat up the filthy purlieus of " Chinatown; " and about
midnight we found the passive Hi Sing hidden away
in a hen-coop, whither she had been conveyed by the
confederates of Ching Loo.
We bore Hi Sing — who was considerably alarmed,
neither understanding our language nor our purpose
— to Spoke's office, and then it being necessary to se-
cui-e the services of a magistrate in uniting the couple,
I departed to seek the Justice of the Peace, who was
still awake — for Justice rarely slept in camp at that
hour, but was cominonl^^ engaged at the Bella Union
playing poker, whdst Spoke sought after the groom.
Ah Sam, whom he found in a Chinese den stupid 1 \'
drunk from smoking o[)ium, having taken such means
to wear the vd^^-c ofi' his suspense wliile we were rescu-
ing his afiRanced. Not onh^ was he stupidly- but per-
versely^ drunk ; but he declared in hnperfect English
that he had concluded not to marry that night, to
which observation Attorney Spoke, becoming profane,
jerked him from the cot whereon he lay, and grasping
him about the neck with a strangulating hold, bore
him into the street and toward his office, intimating
loudly that tliis business had been proceeded with too
far to be receded from, and that the marriage nuist
be consummated that night witli or without the con-
171
sent of the principals. Ah Sam resig-ned himself to
matrimony. The ofhce was reached, the door opened
and out in the darkness bolted the bride, for she knew
not what these preparations meant, or whether she
had fallen among- friends or enemies. After a lively
chase we cornered and cang-ht her; and havin,g thus
at last brought this refractory couple tog-ether we
placed them in position, and the Justice commenced
the ceremony by asking- Hi Sing- if she took that man
for her lawful wedded husband, which interrogator3^
being- Chaldaic to her, she replied onl}^ by an unmean-
ing- and unspeculative stare. Spoke, who seemed des-
tined to be the soul and mainspring- of this whole afTair,
now threw light on the Mong-olian mtellect by bring--
ing into play his stock of Chinese English, and trans-
lating to her the lang-uai^e of the Justice thus : " You
like 'um he, pretty g-ood ? " Upon which her face
brigrhtened, and she nodded assent. Then turning- to
the g-room, he called in a tone fierce and threatening-,
" You like 'um she ? " and Ah Sam — who was now only
a passive object in the hands of Spoke, forced and g-al-
vanized into matrimony" — dared not do otherwise than
g-ive in his adhesion, upon which the Justice pro-
nounced them man and wife; whereupon two Vir-
g-inians present with their violins (all Virg-inians fiddle
and shoot well) struck up the "Arkansas Traveller;"
and the audience — which was now large, every bar-
room in Jamestown having- emptied itself to witness
our Chinese wedding- — inspired by one common im-
pulse, arose and marched seven times about tlie couple.
All Sam was now informed tliat he was married
"American fashion," and that he was free to depart
Avith his wedded encumbrance. But Ah Sam, whose
172
intoxicatioR had broken out in full acquiescence with
these proceeding's, now insisted on making* a midnight
tour of all the saloons in camp, and treating every-
body to the deathly whiskey vended by them, to which
the crowd — who never objected to the driving of this
sort of nails in tlieir own cofRns — assented, and the
result of it was (Ah Sam spending* his money very
fi-eely) that when daylight peeped over the eastern
hills the Bella Union saloon was stilLin full blast; and
Avhile the Justice of the Peace was winning Spoke's
thirt^^ hard-earned dollars in one corner, and the two
Virginians still kept the "Ai'kansns Traveller " going
on their violins in another', Stephen Scott (afterward
elected to Congress) was weeping* profusely over the
bar, and on l)eing interrogated as to the cause of his
sadness by General Wyatt, ex-member of the State
Senate, Scott replied that he could never hear pla^x'd the
air of "Home, Sweet Home" without shedding- tears.
Ah Sam departed with his bride in the morning, and
never were a man's prospects brighter for a happy
honeymoon until the succeeding night, when he was
waylaid b}^ a band of disguised Avhite men in the tem-
porary service and pay of old Ching Loo ; and he and
Hi Sing were forced so far apart that the^^ never saw
each other again.
Ah Sam returned to the attoj^ney, apparentl^^ deem-
ing that some help might be obtained in that quarter;
but Spoke intimated that he could no longer assist
him, since it Avas every man's special and pjirticular
mission to keep his own wife after being' married; al-
though he added, for Ah Sam's comfort, that this was
not such an easy matter for the Americans themselves,
especially in California.
173
Upon this Ah Sam apparently determined to be sat-
isfied with his brief and turbulent career in matri-
mony; and betaking- himself again to Svvett's Bar
cooked in such a villainous fashion and desperate vigor,
finding- thereby a balm for an aching- heart, that in a
twelvemonth several stalwart miners gave up theii-
g-hosts through indigestion, and the little graveyard
on the red hill thereby lost forever its distinctive
character of atTording a final resting place only to
those who had died violent deaths.
174
CHAPTER XXI.
ON A JURY.
Year after year, and term after term, the great
case of Table Mountain Tunnel vs. New York Tunnel,
used to be called in the Court held at Sonora, Tuo-
lumne County. The opposing- claims were on opposite
sides of the g-reat mountain wall, which here described
a semicircle. When these two claims were taken up,
it was supposed the pay streak followed the Moun-
tain's course; but it had here taken a freak to shoot
straig-ht across a flat formed by the curve. Into this
g-round, at first deemed worthless, both parties were
tunnelling-. The farther they tunnelled, the richer
g-rew the x^a^^ streak. Every foot was worth a fortune.
Both claimed it. The law Avas called upon to settle
the difficulty. The law was g-lad, for it had then
many children in the county who needed fees. Our
lawyers ran their tunnels into both of these rich
claims, nor did they stop boring- until they had ex-
hausted the cream of that pay streak. Year after
year. Table Mountain vs. New York Tunnel Company
was tried, judg-ment rendered first for one side and
then for the other, then appealed to the Supreme
Court, sent back, and tried over, until, at last, it had
become so encumbered with leg-al barnacles, parasites,
and cobwebs, that none other than the lawyers knew
or pretended to know aught of the rig-hts of the mat-
175
ter. Meantime, the two rival companies kept hard at
work, da^' and night. Every ounce over the necessar}^
expense of working- their claims and feeding and cloth-
ing- their bodies, went to maintain lawyers. The case
became one of the institutions of the county. It out-
lived several judges and attorneys. It grew plethofic
with affidavits and other documentary^ evidence. Men
died, and with their last breath left some word still
further to confuse the great Table Mountain vs. New
York Tunnel case. The count}^ town throve during
this yearh' trial. Each side brought a small army of
witnesses, who could swear and lill up any and every
gap in their respective chains of evidence. It involved
tlie history, also, of all the mining laws made since
'' '49." Eventuall^^ jurors competent to tr^^ this case
became very scarce. Nearly every one had " sat on it,"
or had read or heard or formed an opinion concerning
it, or said they had. The Sheriff and his deputies
ransacked the hills and gulches of Tuolumne for new
Table Mountain vs. New York Tunnel jurors. At
last, buried in an out-of-the-wa}' gulch, tliey found me.
I was presented witli a paper commanding my appear-
ance at the county town, with various pains and pen-
alties affixed, in case of refusal. I obeyed. I had
never before formed the twelfth of a jury. In my own
estimation, I rated only as the twenty -fourth. We
were sworn in; sworn to try tlie case to the best of
our ability; it was I'idiculous that I should swear to
this, for internally I owned I had no ability at all as
a juror. We were put in twelve arm-chairs. The
great case was called. The lawyers, as usual, on
either side, opened hy declaring their intentions to
prove themselves all right and their opponents all
176
wrong-. I did not know wliich was the plaintiff, wliich
the defendant. Twenty-four witnesses on one side
swoi-e to something-, to an ytliiiii::, to everything"; thirty-
six on the other swore it all down again. They thus
swore ag-ainst each other for two days and a half.
The Court was noted for being- an eternal sitter. He
sat fourteen hours per day. The trial histed five days.
Opposing- counsel, rival claimants, even witnesses, all
had maps, long-, brilliant, parti-colored maps of their
claims, which they unrolled and held before us and
swung- defiantly at each other. The sixty witnesses
testified froui 1849 up to 18G4. After days of such
testimon}^ as to ancient boundary lines and ancient
mining- laws, the lawyers on either side, still more to
mystify the case, caucused the matter over and con-
cluded to throw out about half of such testimon^^ as
being- irrelevant. But they could not throw it out of
our memories. The " summing- up " lasted two days
more. By this time, I was a mere idiot in the matter-
I had, at the start, endeavored to keep some track of
the evidence, but they manag-ed to snatch every clue
away as fast as one got hold of it. We were " charged "
by the judg-e and sent to the jury room. I felt like
both a fool and a criminal. I knew I had not the
sliadow of an opinion or a conclusion in the matter.
However, I found myself not alone. We were out all
night. There was a storm^^ time between the three
or four jurymen who knew or pretended to know some-
thing* of tjie matter. The rest of us watched the con-
troversy, and, of tourse, sided with the majority. And,
at last, a verdict was ag-reed upon. It has made so
little impression on my mind that I forg-et now wiiom
it favored. It did not matter. Both claims were then
177
paying- well, and this was a sure indication that the
case would g-o to the Supreme Court. It did. This
was in ISGO. I think it made these yearly trips up to
1867. Then some of the more obstinate and combative
members of either claim died, and the remainder con-
cluded to keep some of the g'old they were dig-g-ing- in-
stead of paying- it out to fee law^^ers. The Table
Mountain vs. New York Tunnel case stopped. All the
lawyers, save two or three, emigrated to San Fran-
cisco or went to Cong-ress. I g-ained but one thing:
from my experience in the matter — an opinion. It
ma^^ or may not be rig'ht. It is that juries in most
cases are humbug-s.
1 i~Q
CHAPTER XXII.
SOME CULINARY REMINISCENCES.
I LIVED once with an unbalanced cook. Ciilinarily
he was not self-poised. He lacked judgment. He was
always taking- too large cooking contracts. He was
lor a time my partner. He was a lover of good living
and willing to work hard for it over a cook stove. He
would for a single Sunday's dinner plan more dishes
than his mind could eventually grasp or his hands
liandle. And when he had exhausted the whole of the
hmited gastronomical repertoire within our reach he
would be sucklenly inspired with a troublesome pro-
pensity to add hash to the programme. In cooking,
as I have said, he lost his balance. His ijuagination
pictured more possibilities than his bod^' had sti-ength
to carry out. So busied in getting up a varied meal,
he would in a few minutes' leisure attempt to shave
himself or sew on shirt or pantaloon buttons. This
put too many irons in the fire. A man who attempts
to shave Avhile a pot is boiling over or a roast i-equir-
ing careful watching is in the oven, will neither shave
nor cook well. He will be apt to leave lather whei'e it
is not desirable, as he sometimes did. Trousers-buttons
are not good in soup. I do not like to see a wet shav-
ing brush near a roast read}- to go into the oven. The
a^sthetic taste repudiates these hints at combination.
Then sometimes, in the very crisis of a meal, he be-
179
came flurried. He rushed about in haste overmuch,
with a big- spoon in one hand and a giant fork in
the other, looking for missing stove-covers and pot-
hds, seldom found until the next day, and then in
strange places. Nothing is well done which is done in
a hurry, especially cooking-. Some argue that men and
women put their magnetic and sympathetic influences
in the food they prepare. If a man kneading bread be
in a bad temper he puts bad temper in the bread, and
that bad temper goes into the person who eats it. Or
if he be dyspeptic he kneads dyspepsia in his dough.
It is awful to think what we may be eating. I think
tlie unbalanced cook puts flurries in Jiis stews, for I
felt sometimes as if trying to digest a whirlwind after
eating this man's dinners. He ruled the house. I was
his assistant. I was his victim. I was the slave of
the spit, and the peon of the frying-pan. When his
energies culminated and settled on hash, when already
the stove-top was full of dishes in preparation, I was se-
lected as the proper person to chop the necessary in-
gredients. We had neither chopping-knife nor tray.
The mining" stores then did not contain such luxuries.
This to him made no difference. He was a man who
rose superior to obstacles, circumstances, and chopping
trays. He said that hash could be chopped with a
hatchet on a flat board. He planned; I executed. He
theorized and invented; I put his inventions in prac-
tice. But never successfully could I chop a mass of
beef and boiled potatoes with a hatchet on a flat board.
The ingredients during the operation would expand and
fall over the edge of the board. Or the finer particles
would violently fly off at each cut of the hatchet, and
lodg-e on the beds or other unseemly places.
180
I do not favor a dinner of many courses, especially
if it falls to my lot to prepare these courses. Few
cooks enjoy their own dinners. For two reasons:
First — They eat them in anticipation. This nullifies
the flavor of the reality-. Second — The labor of prei)a-
ration fatig'ues the body and takes the keen ed<^'(; from
the appetite. You are heated, Hushed, exhausted, and
the nerves in a twitter. The expected relish palls and
proves a myth. Ladies who cook will corroborate my
testimony on this point. It is a great, merciful and
useful vent for a woman that a man can come forward
able and willing- to s^^mpathize with her in regrard to
this and other trials of domestic life. Having- kept
my own house for 3'ears I know whei'eof I speak. Two
liours' w^ork about a hot stove exhausts more than
four hours' work out of doors. Americans in Europe
are shocked or pretend to be at sig-ht of women doing-
men's work in the fields. They are much better off
than the American woman, five-sixths of whose life is
spent in the kitchen. The outdoor woman shows some
blood throug-h the tan on her cheeks. The American
kitchen housewife is sallow and bleached out. I have
in Vienna seen women mixing- mortar and carrying-
bricks to the sixth story of an unfinished house, and
laying- bricks, too. Tliese w^omen w^ere bare-legg-ed to
the knee, and their arms and leg-s were muscular.
The^^ mixed their mortar with an energy sug-g-estive
of fearful consequences to an ordinary man of seden-
tary occupations. The^^ could with ease have taken
such a man and mixed him with their mortar. Coarse,
were they ? Yes, of course the^^ were. But if I am to
choose between a coarse woman, physically speaking:,
and one hot-housed and enervated to that exteii4^ tliat
181
she cannot walk half a mile in the open air, but re-
quires to be hauled, I choose the coarse-gTained fibre.
I once Uved near a literary cook. It was to him by
a sort of natural heritage that fell the keeping of the
Hawkins Bar Library, purchased b^^ the "bo^s"' way
back in the a.d. eighteen hundred and fifties. The
librar^^ occupied two sides of a very small cabin, and
the man who kept it lived on or near the other two
sides. There, during nights and rainy days, he read
and ate. His table, a mere flap or shelf projecting
from the wall, was two-tliirds covered with books and
l)apers, and the other third with a never-cleared-otf
array of table furniture, to wit: A tin i)late, knife,
fork, tin cup, yeast-powder can, pepper-box, ditto full
of sugar, ditto full of salt, a butter-plate, a bottle of
vinegar and anotlier of molasses, and may be, on occa-
sions, one of whiskey. On ever^^ book and paper were
more or less of the imprint of greasy fingers, or
streaks of molasses. The plate, owing' to the almost
entire absence of the cleansing process, was even im-
bedded ill a brownish, unctuous deposit, the congealed
oleaginous overflow of months of meals. There he de-
voured beef and lard, bacon and beans and enc3^clope-
dias, Humboldt's "Cosmos" and dried apples, novels
and physical nourishment at one and the same time.
He went long since where the weary cease from trou-
bling, and the wicked,' let us hope, are at rest. Years
ago, passing through the deserted Bar, I peeped in at
Morgan's cabin. A young oak almost l)arred the door,
part of the roof was gone, the books and shelves had
vanished; naught remained but the old miner's stove
and a few batterrd cooking- utensils. I had some
though-t at the Uiue of camping for the night on the
182
Bar, but this desolate cabin and its associations of
forniei' days contrasted witli tlie loneliness and soli-
tude of the present proved too much for nie. I feared
tlie possible g-host of the dead librarian, and left for a
populated camp. Poor fellow! While living, dyspep-
sia and he were in close embrace. A long course of
combined reading- and eating- ruined his digestion.
One thing at a time; what a man does he wants to do
with all his might.
Eggs in the early days were great luxuries. Eggs
then filled the place of oysters. A dish of ham and
eggs was one of the brilliant anticipations of the miner
resident in some lonesome gulch when footing it to the
nearest large camp. A few enterprising and luxurious
miners kept hens and raised chickens. The coons,
coyotes, and foxes were inclined to " raise " those
chickens too. There was one character on Hawkins
Bar whose coop was large and well stocked. Eggs
were regularly on his breakfast-table, and he was the
envied of many. Generous in disposition, oft he made
holiday presents of eggs to his friends. Such a gift was
(Mpiivalent to that of a turkej^ in older communities.
One foe to this gentleman's peace and the securit}^
of his chickens alone existed. That foe was whiskey.
For whenever elevated and cheered by the cup which
does inebriate, he w^ould in the excess of his royal
nature call his friends about him, even after midnight,
and slay and eat his tenderest chickens. Almost so
certain as Kip got on a sprt.'c there came a feast and
consequent midnight depletion of his chicken-coop — a
depletion that was mourned over in vainw^hen soberer
and Avisei" counsels prevailed. The pioneer beefsteak's
of California were in most cases cut from bulls which
183
had fought bull-fights all the way up fro4ii Mexico.
Firm in fibre as they were, they were g-euerally uuuie
liriuer still by being' fried in lard. The meat w^as
brought to the table in a dish covered with the drip-
ping- in which it had hardened. To a certain extent
the ferocity and comhativeness of human nature pecu-
liar to the days of "'' '49 " were owing- to obstacles thrown
in the way of easy dig-estion by bull beef fried to
leather in lard. Bad bread and bull beef did it. The
powers of the human system were taxed to the utter-
most to assimilate these articles. The assimilation of
the raw material into bone, blood, nerve, muscle, sinew
and brain was necessarily imperfect. Bad whiskey was
then called upon for relief. This completed the ruin.
Of course men would murder each other with such
warring- elements inside of them.
The ideas of our pioneer cooks and housekeepers re-
g-arding- quantities, kinds, and qualities of provisions
necessary to be procured for longer or shorter periods,
were at first vag-ue. There was an Argonaut who re-
sided at Truetts' Bar, and, in the fall of 1850, warned
by the dollar a pound for flour experience of the past
winter, he resolved to la^^ in a few months' provisions.
He was a luck^^ miner. Were there now existing" on
that bar any pioneers who lived there in '40, they
would tell you how he kept a barrel of whiskey in his
tent on free tap. Such men are scarce and win name
and fame. Said he to the Bar trader wiien the No-
vember clouds began to sig-nal the coming- rains, "I
want to lay in three months' provisions.^' "Well,
make out 3'our order," said the storekeeper. This
( roubled G— — . At leng-th he g-ave it verbally thus :
"I guess I'll have two sacks of flour, a side of bacon,
184
ten pounds of sugar, two pounds of coffee, a pound of
tea, and — and — a barrel of vvhiske^^"
My own experience taught me some things uncon-
sidered before. Once, wiiile housekeeping, I bought
an entire sack of rice. I had no idea then of tlie ehis-
tic and durable properties of rice. A sack looked
small. The rice surprised me by its elasticity- when
put on to boil. Eice swells amazingly. My first pot
swelled up, forced oil the lid and oozed over. Then I
shoveled rice by the big spoonful into eveiything
empty which I could find in the cabin. Still it swelled
and oozed. Even the washbasin was full of half-boiled
rice. Still it kept on. I saw then that I had put in
too much — far too much. The next time I tried half
the quantity. That swelled, boiled up, boiU'd ovei* and
also oozed. I never saw such a remarkal)le grain.
The third time I put far h'ss to cook. Even then it
arose and filled the pot. The seeds looked minute and
harmless enoug-h before being soaked. At last I be-
came disgusted with rice. I looked at the sack. There
Avas the merest excavation made in it by the (juantity
taken out. This alarmed me. With my gi-adually
decreasing appetite for rice, I reflected and calculated
that it would take seven years on that Bar ere I could
eat all the rice in that sack. I saw it in imagination
all boiled at once and filling the entire cabin. This
determined m^^ resolution. I shouldered the sack, car-
ried it l)ack' to 1he store and sr.id : "See liciv! T want
you to exchange this cereal for sometliing that won^t
swell so in th<' cooking. I want to exchange it for
something which I can eat up in a reasonable length
of time."
The storekeeper was a kind aiid obliging man. He
185
took it back. But the reputation, the sting" of buying-
an entire sack of rice remained. The "boys" liad
"spotted" the transaction. The merchant had told
tliem of it. I was reminded of that sack of rice years
afterward.
186
CHAPTER XXIIL
THE COPPER FEVER.
In 1862-63 a copper fever rag-ed in California. A rich
vein had been found in Stanislaus County. A " cit}'- "
sprung' up around it and was called Copperopohs.
The city came and went inside of ten years. Wlien
first I visited Copperopolis, it contained 3,000 people.
When I last saw the place, one hundred would cover
its entire population.
But tlie copper fever raged in the beginning. Gold
was temporarily thrown in the shade. Miners became
speedily- learned in surface copper indications. The
talk far and wide was of copper " carbonates," oxides,
" sulphurets," "gosson." Great was the demand for
scientific works on copper. From many a miner's
cabin was heard the clink of mortar and pestle pound-
mg copper rock, preparatory to testing it. The pul-
verized rock placed in a solution of diluted nitric acid,
a knife blade plunged therein and coming out coat(xl
with a precipitation of copper was exhibited triumph-
antly as a prognosticator of commg fortune from the
newly found lead. The fever flew from one remote
camp to another. A green verdigris stain on the rocks
would set the neigliborhood copper crazy. On the
strength of that one '* surface indication " claims would
be staked out for miles, companies formed, shafts in
flinty rock sunk and cities planned. Nitric acid came
187
in great demand. It was upset. It j^ellowed our fin-
g-ers, and burned holes in our clothes. But we loved it
for what it might prove to us. A swarm of men
learned in copper soon came from San Francisco.
They told all about it, where the leads should com-
mence, in what direction they should run, how they
should " dip,'' what would be the character of the ore,
and what it would yield. We, common miners, bowed
to their superior knowledge. We worshipped them.
We followed them. We watched their faces as they
surveyed the ground wherein had been found a bit of
sulphuret or a green stained ledge, to get at the
secret of their superior right under ground. It took
many montlis, even years for the knowledge slowly to
fdter through our brains that of these men nine-tenths
had no practical knowledge of copper or any other
mining. The normal calling of one of the most learned
of them all, I found out afterward to be that of a music
teacher. Old S , the local geologist of Sonora, who
liad that pecuhar uuiversal genius for tinkering at any-
tliiug aud evei-ythiug from a broken wheelbarrow to a
ch:)ck and whose shop was a museum of stones, bones
and minerals collected from llie vicinity, "classified,"
and named, some correctly and some possibly Other-
wise, took immediatel}' on himself the mantle of a cop-
per prophet, and saw the whole land resting on a basis
of rich copper ore. He advised in season and out of sea-
son, in his shop and in the street, that all men, and es-
pecially young men, betake themselves to copper min-
ing. It was, he said, a sure thing. It needed only
pluck, patience, and perseverance. "Sink," he said,
"sink for copper. Sink shafts wherever indications
are found. Sink deep. Don't be discouraged if the
188
vein does not appear at twenty, thirty, sixty or an
liundred feet."
And tliey did sink. For several years they sunk
sliafts all over our county and in many another
county. In remote g-ulches and canons they sunk and
blasted and lived on pork and beans week in and week
out and remained all day underg-round, till the dark-
ness bleached their faces. They sunk and sunk and
saw seldom the faces of others of their kind, and no
womankind at all. They lived coarsely, dressed
coarsely, and no matter what they mig-ht have been,
felt coarsely and m accordance, acted coai'sel^^ They
sunk time and money and years and even health and
strength, and in nineteen cases out of twenty found
nothing- but barren rock or rock bearing just enough
mineral not to pay.
I took the copper fever with the rest. In a few
weeks I became an " expert " in copper. I found two
veins on my former g-old claim at Swett's Bar. I found
veins everywhere. I reall^^ did imagine that I knew a
g-reat deal about copper-mining, and being an honest
enthusiast was all the more dangerous. The banks of
the Tuolumne became at last too limited as my field
for copper exploration and discovery. I left for the
more thickly i^opulated i:)ortion of the county, where
there being more people, there was liable to be more
cox:)per, and where the Halsey Claim was located. The
"Halsey " was having its day then as the King claim
of the county. It had really produced a few sacks
of ore, which was more than any other Tuolumne cop-
pi 'r claim had done, and on the strength of this, its
value was for a few months pushed far up into high
and airy realms of finance.
189
I told some of my acquaintances in Sonora that I
could find the "continuation" of the Halsey lead.
They " staked " me with a few dollars, in consideration
of Avhich I was to make them shareholders in what-
ever I mig-ht find. Then I went forth into the chap-
para I to "prospect." The Halsey claim laj^ about a
mile east of Table Mountain near Montezuma, a min-
mg- camp then far in its decline. Table Mountain is
one of the g-eolo.crical curiosities, if not wonders of
Tuolumne and California. As a well-defmed wall it is
forty miles lon^. Throug-h Tuolumne it is a veritable
wall, from 250 to 600 feet in heig'ht, flat as a floor on
the top. That top has an averag-e Avidth of 300 yards.
The "table" is composed of what we miners call
"lava." It is a honey-combed, metallic-looking- rock,
which on being- struck with a sledg-e emits a sulphur-
ous smell. The sides to the ungeolog-ical eye seem of
a dilTerent kind of rock. But parts of the sides arc
iu)t of rock at all — they are of g-ravel. On the eastern
slope you may see from the old Sonora stage road two
parallel lines, perhaps 200 feet apart, running- along-
thc mountain side. Mile after mile do these marks
run, as level and exact as if laid there by the surveyor.
CUnib u]) to them and you find these lines enlargied to
a sort of shelf or wave-washed and indented bank of
ha I'd cement, like g-ravel. You may crawl under and
sit in the shade of an overhang-ing roof of g'ravel, ap-
parently in some former ag-e scooped out by the action
of waves. Not only on the Table Mountain sides do
you find these lines, but where Table Mountain merg-es
into the plains about Knig-ht's Ferry will you see these
same water marks running around the many low con-
ical liills.
100
Ag^eological supposition. That's what water seems
to have done outside of Table Mountain. Were I a
geoloi^ist I should say that here had been a lake —
maybe a ijrreat lake — which at some other time had
suddenly from the first mark been drained down to
the level of the second, and from tliat had drained off
altoi^-ether. Perhaps there was a rise in the Sieri-a
Nevada, and everything- rising- with it, the lake went
up too suddenh^ on one side and so the Avaters went
down on the other. Inside of Table Mountain there
is an old river bed, smoothly washed b^- the currents
of perhaps as many if not more centuries than any
river now on earth has seen, and this forms a layer
or core of gold-bearing gi^avel. In some places it has
paid richh^: in more places it has not paid at all.
I said to myself: "This Halsey lead, like all the
leads of this section, runs northeast and southwest."
(N. B. — Three years afterw-ard we found there were
no leads at all in that section.) "The Halse^^ lead
must run under Table Mountain and come out some-
where on the other side." So I took the bearings of
the Halsey lead, or what I then supposed Avere the
bearings, for there wasn't any lead anyway, with a
compass. I aimed my compass at a point on the ledge
of the flat summit of Table Mountain. I hit it. Then
I climbed up over the two water shelves oi- banks to
that point. This Avas on the honey-combed lava crags.
From these crags one could see afar north and south.
South, OATT Tuolumne into Mariposa the eye following
the great Avhite quartz outcrop of the Mother or
Mariposa lead. North Avas Bear Mountain, the Stan-
islaus RiA'er and Stanislaus County. This vicAv ahvays
reminded me of the place Avliere one \^ery great and
191
very bad historical persona i2;e of tlie past as well as
the present showed anotlier still greater and mnch
better Bein^- all the kingdoms of the earth. For the
earth wasn't all laid out, pre-empted and fenced in
those days, and its kingdoms were small. Then I ran
my lines over the flat top of Table Momitain, south-
east and northwest. So the}^ said ran all the copper
leads, commencing- at Copperopolis. So then we be-
lieved, while tossing" with the copper fever. Certainly
they ran somewhere, and ran fast too, for we never
caught any paying copper vein in Tuolumne Countj^,
at least any that paid — except to sell.
I aimed my compass down the other side of the
mountain. There, when the perpendicular lava rock
stopped pitching straight up and down, sometimes
fifty, sometimes two hundred feet, was a dense growth
of chaparral — the kind of chaparral we called "chemi-
sal." I got into the chemisal. Here the com-
pass was of no more use than would be a certifi-
cate of Copperhead copper stock to pay a board
bill. It was a furry, prickly, blinding, bewildering,
blundering, irritating- growth, wliich sent a pang
through a man's heart and a pricker into his skin at
every step. At last, crawling down it on all-four%s, for
I could not walk, dirty, dusty, thirsty, and perspiring,
I lit on a rock, an outcrop of ledge. It was g'ray and
moss grown. It hid and guarded faithfully- the trea-
sure it concealed. Like Moses, I struck the rock with
m^- little hatchet. The broken piece revealed under-
neath a rotten, sandy-like, spongy formation of crumb-
ling, bluish, greenish hue. It was copper! I had
struck it! I rained down more blows! Red oxides,
green carbonates, gray and blue sulphurets! I had
192
found the Copperhead lead ! I was rich. I g-ot upon
that rock and danced! Not a g-raceful, but an entlui-
siastic pas sen I. I deemed my fortune made. I was
at last out of the wilderness! But I wasn't.
193
CHAPTER XXIV.
RISE AND FALL OF COPPERHEAD CITY.
I TRUDGED back nine miles to Soiiora, my pockets
full of ''specimens'' from the newly discovered claim,
my head a cyclone of copper-hued air castles. I saw
the "boys." I was mysterious. I beckoned them to
retired spots. I showed them the ores. I told them
of the find. The}^ were wild with excitement. The\^
were half crazed with deli^'ht. And in ten minutes
some of them went just as far into the donuiins of
unrest and unhappiness for fear some one mi^'ht find
and jump the claim ere I ^'ot back to g'uard it. The
Copperhead Company was org-anized that night. The
" Enthusiast/' a man who lived in the very top loft of
copper insanit3% was sent down with me to superintend
the sinking of the shaft. The secret was soon out.
Shares in the vein were eagerly coveted. I sold a few
feet for $500 and deemed I had conferred a great favor
on the bu3'er in letting it go so cheaply. I lived up,
way up, in tens of thousands and hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars. The "company" in Sonora met
almost every night to push things while the Enthu-
siast and myself blasted and burrowed in the rock.
By day they exhausted their spare cash in horse hire,
riding down to the claim in hope of being on hand
when the next blast should reveal a bed of ore, im-
mense in breadth and unfathomable in depth.
ii)4
My Company was made up chiefly- of lawyers, doc-
tors, politicians, and editors. They never realized
how much they were indebted to me. For four months
I made them feel rich, — and if a man feels rich, what
more should he want ? For a millionaire can do no
more than feel rich.
Feeling" certain that the Copperhead was a very
rich claim, and that other rich claiuis would he devel-
oped from the ''extensions," and that a bustliui;- town
Avould be the result, I pre-empted a section of the land
which I deemed most valuable, on which it was in-
tended that " Copperhead City " should be built. This
"city" I partly laid out. I think this was the third
city I had laid out m California. There is a sepul-
chral and post-mortem sui^-g'cstion in the term '*laid
out" which is peculiarly applicable to all the "cities"
Avhich I attempted to found, and which " cities " inva-
riably foundered. Actuated, also, at that time, by
those business principles so larg-el}^ prevalent in most
Christian communities, I " claimed " the only spring- of
good drinking water in the neighborhood of m3^ " cit^^"
My intent in this was in time to realize a profit from
the indirect sale of this water to such of the future
"city's" population as riiight want water — not to sell
it by the glass or gallon, of coiu^se; but if there was
to be a "city" it would need water-works. Th(^
water-works would necessarily lie on my land. I
would not be guilty of the mhumanity of selhng Avater
to parch-tongued people, but I proposed that the
"city" should buy of me the ground out of which came
the water.
But one house was ever erected in Copperhead City
proper, and that had but one room. But three men
195
ever lived in it. Yet the city was tliickly populated.
It was located in a regular juuii'le, so far as a juni^'le
is ever attained in California, and seemed the head-
centre and trysting'-place of all the rattlesnakes, coons,
skunks, owls, and foxes on the west side of Table
Mountain. When the winter wore otT and the Avarm
California spring- w^ore on and merged into the sum-
mer heat of May, and the pools made by the winter
rains dried up, I think all the rattlesnakes and cop-
perheads for miles around went for my pre-empted
spring of pure water. 'The ''city," I mean the house,
was located within a few feet of the spring. Return-
ing thither at noon for dinner, I have started half a
dozen snakes from the purlieus and suburbs of that
spring. Snakes get dry like human beings. Snakes
love water. Snakes, poor things, can't get anything
else to drink, and nuist fill up on Avater. These were
sociable snakes. When startled at our approach they
would not run away from our society. No. They
preferred to remain in the "city," and so, in many in-
stances they ran under the house. It is not pleasant
at night to feel that you are sleeping over a vet-
eran rattler four feet long, with a crown of glory
on lus tail in the shape of fourteen or fifteen rat-
tles. You won't crawl under your house to evict
such a rattlesnake, either. Skunks inhabited our
" city," also. Skunks know their power— their pecu-
liar power.
The evening gloaming seems the favorite time for
the skunk to go abroad. He or she loves the twilight.
There must be a vein of sentiment m these far-smell-
mg creatures. I have in the early evenmg travelled up
the only street our " city " ever laid out— a trail— and
IDG
ahead of me on that trail I have seen a skunk. I was
wilUng' he should precede me. In the matter of rank-
ness I was perfectly walling- to fall a long" way behind
him. Now, if 3^ou have studied skunks you will know
that it is far safer to remain in the skunk's rear
tlian to get ahead of him, because when he attacks
Avitli his favorite aromatic means of oll'ensive defence
he projects himself forward (as it were). I have
tlien, in ni}^ ciU^ liad a skunk keep the trail about
fifty feet ahead of me at a pace which indicated
little alarm at my presence, and, do my best, I could
not frig'hten the animal, nor could I g-et ahead of him
or her. If I ran he ran ; if I walked he concurred in
rapidity of pace. I dared not approach too near the
animal. I would rather break in upon the "sacred
divinity '' Avliich, the^^ say, "doth hedge a king-" than
transg-ress the proper bounds to be observed with
reference to a skunk. Let a king- do his best, and he
cannot punish an intruder as can a skunk.
The skunk is really a pretty creature. Its tail
droops over its back, like the plumes of the Knig-ht
of Navarre. It is an object which can really be ad-
mired visuall3^ at a distance. Do not be allured by
him to too near approach. "Beware! he's fooling-
thee!"
At last it dawned upon the collective mind of the
Copperhead Companj^ that their Superintendent, the
Enthusiast, was dig-g-ing- too much and getting down
too little. They accepted his resig-nation. It mat-
tered little to him, for by this time liis mind was over-
whelmed by another stupendous mining- scheme, to
which the Copperhead was bareh^ a priming-. He had
the liappy talent of living- in these g-olden visions
197
which;, to him, were perfect reah'ties. He hekl the phil-
osophy that the idea, the hope, the anticipation of a
thing" is sometimes more "the thing-" than the thing*
itself. The Enthusiast's rich mines lay principally in
his head, but his belief in them gave him as much
pleasure as if they really existed. It was like marr3^-
ing", sometimes. The long-sought-for,' long-ed-for,
wished-for wife, or husband, turns out, as a reality-, a
very different being' from what he or she was deemed
whii«' iu process of being- long-ed and sought for. The
long-longed-for may have been estimated an ang-el.
Tlie angel, after wedlock, may prove to have been a
myth. The reality may be a devil, or within a few
sliades or degrees of a devil.
So the shaft was sunk, as they said, properl^^ and
scientifically, by the new Superintendent. The rock
got hai'der as we went down, the ore less, the vein
narrower, the quantity of water g-reater, the progress
slower, the weekly expenses first doubled and then
trebled, the stock became less coveted, and as to re-
puted value, reached that fatal dead level which really
means that it is on its downward descent. The share-
holders' faces became longer and longer at their
weekl^^ Sunday afternoon meetings in the Sonora
Court-house.
The Copperhead Claim and Copperhead City sub-
sided quietly. The shareholders became tired of min-
ing for coin to pay assessments out of their own
pockets. They came at last to doubt the ever-glow-
ing hopeful assertion of the Enthusiast that from in-
dications he knew the " ore was forming." The inevit-
able came. Copperhead City was deserted by its
human inhabitants. The skunk, the snake, the squir-
198
rel, the woodpecker, and the buzzard came ag-ain into
full possession, and I bitterly regretted that I had not
sold more at ten dollars a foot when I found the stock
a drug- at ten cents.
199
CHAPTER XXV,
PROSPECTING.
The failure of the Copperhead Claim and the col-
lapse of Copperhead City did not discourage me. The
flame only burned the brig-hter to go forth and unearth
the veins of mineral wealth which imagination showed
me lying far and near in this land still of such recent
settlement.
This was in 18()3-G4. The great silver leads of Nevada
had but recently- been discovered. The silver excite-
ment was at its height. People were thinking that
barely the threshold of the mineral richness of the
Pacific slope had been reached and that untold trea-
sure underground awaited the prospector's exploration
north, south, and east, so far as he could go.
Fired with this all-pervading thought I projected
one of the grandest of my failures. I organized the
" Mulford Mining-, Prospecting, and Land Company,"
whose intent was to take up and hold all the mineral
veins I found and secure all desirable locations I might
come upon for farms, town sites, and other purposes.
"Holdhig" a mineral vein, or whatever I might
imagine to be a mineral vein, could be done after the
proper notices were put up, by performing on such
veins one day's work a month, and such "day's work"
was supposed to be done by turning up a few shovel-
fuls of dirt on the property.
200
M^^ Company consisted of thirty members, who lived
at vaiying- distances apart, within and without tlie
county of Tuohimne. For my services as g-eneral pro-
pector, discoverer, and holder of all properties accumu-
lated (by m^'self) I was to receive from each member
three dollars per month.
I fixed this princel^^ stipend m^^self, being" then ever
in fear that I should ovcn^harg-e others for services
rendered.
By dint of great exertion, I succedeed in getting one-
third of the membei'S together one hot summer aftei'-
noon in a Montezuma gi'ocery. I unfolded then the
Company's Constitution and By Laws, written by
m^'-self at great length on several sheets of foolscap
pasted together. I read the document. It provided
for the Comi:)an3^ a President, Secretary, Treasurer,
and Board of Directors. It set forth their duties and
my duties as " General Prospector." I was particu-
larly- stringent and rigid regarding m^^self and my re-
sponsibilities to the Company.
The fragment of the new Company present assented
to everything, paid in their first instalment of tliree
dollars, and bade me go forth and "strike something
rich " as quick l}^ as possible.
I went forth at first afoot with the few dollars paid
me. I subsisted in a hap-hazard — indeed I must say
beggarly fashion, stopping vvitli mining friends and
dependent to great extent on their hospitality, while
I " held " the few claims I had already- found and found
others in their neighborhood.
At last I found a man who subscribed the use of a
horse for the summer in consideration of being en-
rolled as a shareholder. On similar terms I gained a
201
saddle, a shot-^^nin, a dosr, and some provisions. This
put the " Company " on a more stable footini;', for I
was now no longer dependent on house or hospitality,
and could stop wherever night overtook me, and wood,
water, and grass were at hand.
My horse I think was the slowest of his kind in the
Great West, and my gun kicked so vigorousl^^ when
discharged that I frequently sustained more injury
than the game aimed at.
M}^ field of operations extended ovvv 150 mil(»s of
country, from the foot hills of the Sierras to their
summits and beyond in the Territory of Nevada.
Land, wood, water, grass, and game, if found, were free
in every direction. The country was not fenced in,
the meaning of "trespassing" on land was unknown —
in fact it was then really a free country — a term
also not altogether understood in the older States,
where if you build a camp-fire in a wood lot you run
some risk from the farmer w^ho owns it, and his bull-
dog.
Sometimes, I would be a week or ten days without
seeing a human face. A roof rarely covered me. I
would camp one day near a mountain summit looking
over fifty or sixty miles of territor^^ and the next at
its base with a view bounded b}^ a wall of rock a few
hundred yards distant. Sometimes I was very lone-
some and uneasy at night in these mountain solitudes.
I longed generally about sundown for some one to
talk to. An^'thing human would answer such purpose
then. In the bright clear morning the lonesome feel-
ing was all gone. There was companionship then in
the trees, the clouds, the mountain peaks, far and near,
3^et there were times when the veriest clod was better
202
than all of these. Sometimes nothing but another
human tong'ue will answer our needs, thougli it be a
very pool' one.
The first evening* I spent alone in the forest, I left
mj^ dog- " Put " to guard the camp. He wanted to fol-
low me. I drove him back. He went back like a
good dog" and ate up most of my bacon which I had
not hung- hig-h enoug-h on the tree. 63^ this experi-
ence I learned to hang- my bacon higher. Wisdom
must always be paid for.
I journeyed in the primeval forests of the Sierras.
The primeval forest is dismal and inconvenient to
travel throug-h with fallen and rotten tree trunks inter-
lacing- each other in ever^^ direction. I have travelled
half a da^^ and found m.yself farther than ever from
the place I wanted to reach. I have made at eve a
comfortable camp under a gTeat tree and when all
arrang-ements were completed scrabbled out of it pre-
cipitately and packed my bagg-^ig't" elsewhere on look-
ing- up and seeing* directly above me a huge dead limb
hanging" by a mere splinter, ready to fall at any mo-
ment and impale me. I think I know just how Damo-
cles felt in that sword and hair business. Wolves
soinetimes frig-htened me at nig-ht exceeding-l}-^ Avith
their howling-s. Bands of then unwarlike Indians also
scared me. They were Utes fishing- in the W^alker
River. Five years pi-evious they had l)een liostile.
Oiu-e I stumbled on one of their camps on the river
bank. Before I could sneak off unseen one of tliem
came up to me, announcing- himself as the chief. He
wanted to know who I was, vvliere I came from, and
where I was going-. I answered all the questions this
potentate asked me, acceded to his request for some
203
"hoer^'adi '' (tobacco), and when I found myself half a
mile distant from His ^lajesty with a whole skin and
all of my worldly ij;'oods intact, believed more firmly
than ever in a kind and protecting;- Providence. I
don't suppose I stood in any real dang-er, but a lone
man in a lone country with an average of one white
settler to every five square miles of territory won't
naturally feel as easy in such circumstances as at his
own breakfast table.
I learned never to pass a spot having wood, water,
and grass after four o'clock in the afternoon, but make
my camp for the night there. I learned on staking
my liorse out, not to give him pasture too near my
camp-fire, for more than once in changing his base for
a better mouthful of grass, has he dragged the lariat
over my temporary possessions, upsetting coffee-pot
and frying-pan and knocking the whole camp endways.
I learned to camp awaj' from the main road or trail
leading over the mountains to Nevada, for it was beset
by hungry, ragged men who had started afoot for the
silver mines with barely a cent m their pockets, trust-
ing to luck to get through, and who stumbling on my
camp must be fed. You can't sit and eat in your own
out-door kitchen and see your fellow-beings e^^e you in
hunger. But they ate me at times out of house and
liome, and the provision laid in for a week would not
last three days with such guests. An old Frenchman
so found me one day at dinner. He was starved. I
kept my fresh meat in a bag. I handed him the bag"
and told him to broil for himself over the coals. Then
I hauled off in the bush a little while to look at some
rock. When I returned the bag was empty; two
pounds of beef were inside the Frencfiman and he
204
didn't soom at all abashed or iinoasy. Those experi-
ences tanght me that charity and sympathy for others
must be kept under some g-overnment or our own meal
ba^s, bread baffs, and stomachs may go empty.
Grizzlies were common in those mountain solitudes,
but I never saw one nor the track of one, nor even
thoug-ht of them near as much as I would now, if pok-
ing* about in the chaparral as I did thou. I Avas
camped near a sheep herder one evening, when, seeing
my fire about a quarter of a mile from his cabin, he came
to me and said, " Young man, this isn't a good place to
stop in over night. You're right in the track of the
grizzlies. They've killed twenty-six of my sheep inside
of three weeks. You'd better sleep in my barn." I
did so.
I learned never to broil a steak on a green pitch-pine
branch till I got accustomed to the flavor of the tur-
pentine which the heat would distil and the meat
absorb.
I learned that when you have nothing for bi'eakfast
and must kill the only robin in sight or go without
him, that robin will be ten times shyer and harder to
coax within gunshot than when 3^ou don't hunger for
liim.
I was not strong physically, and ind(Mxl far from
being a well man. It was only the strong desire of
finding a fortune in a mineral vein, that gave me
strength at all. Once I was sick for three days,
camj)ed near a mountain top, and though it was June,
everj^ day brought a snow squall. A prospector from
Silver City stumbled on my camp one day and declared
he would not stay in such a place for all the silver in
Nevada. The wind blew from a different quarter
205
about every hour, and no matter where 1 huilt my Vivv,
mana2;'ed matters so as always to drive the smoke in
my face. It converted me for a time into a behef of
the total depravity of inanimate thhigs.
I pre-empted in the name of the Company some of
the grandest scener^^ in the world — valleys seldom
trodden by man, with clear mountain streams flowin.i^"
throug'h them — lakes, still unnamed, reflecting the
mountain walls surrounding them a thousand or more
feet in height, and beautiful miniature mountain parks.
In pre-empting tliem their commercial value entered
little into my calculations. Sentiment and the pic-
turesque, did. Claimants stronger than I, had firmer
possession of these gems of the Sierras. The chief was
snow, under which they were buried to the depth of
ten or fifteen feet, seven months at least out of the
twelve.
When once a month I came out of the mountains
and put in an appearance among my shareholders, my
horse burdened with blankets, provisions, tools, the
frying-pan and tin cotTee-pot atop of the heap, I w^as
generally greeted with the remark, " Well, struck any-
thing yet ? " When I told my patrons of the land
sites I had gained for them so advantageous for sum-
mer pasturages, they did not seem to catch mj^ enthu-
siasm. They wanted gold, bright yellow gold or silver,
very rich and extending deep in the ground, more than
they did these Occidental Vales of Cashmere, or Cal-
ifornian Lakes of Como. They Avere sordid and sensi-
ble. I was romantic and ragged. They were after
what paid. I was after what pleased.
The monthly three-dollar assessment from each
shareholder came harder and harder. I dreaded to
20G
ask for it. Besides, two-thirds of ni.y company w(mm'
scattered over so much country that the time and ex-
pense of collecting- ate up the amount received, a con-
tingeiuy I had not foreseen when I fixed my tax I'ate.
At last the end came. The man who suhscrihcd
the use of his horse, wanted him hack. I gave him up.
This dismounted the Company. Operations could not
he carried on afoot over a territory larger than tlie
State of Connecticut. I had indeed found several min-
eral veins, but the^^ w^ere in that numerous catalogue
of "needing: capital to develop them." The General
Prospector also needed capital to buy a whole suit of
clothes.
I was obliged to suspend operations. When I
stopped the Company stopped. Indeed I did not find
out till then, that I ^vas virtually the whole " Com-
pany."
CHAPTER XXVI.
HIGH LIFE.
The "Company" died its peaccfal death where I
broil ^crht lip wlien the liorse was demanded of me in
Eureka VaHey, some 8,000 feet above the sea level, at
Dave Hays' mountain ranch and tavern on the Sonora
and Mono road. This was a new road built by the
counties of Stanislaus, Tuohimne and Mono to rival
tlie Placerville route, then crowded with teams carry-
ins: merchandise to Virginia City. The Mono road
cost tliree years of labor, and was a fine piece of work.
It ran along steep mountain sides, was walled in many
places fifteen or twenty feet in heig'ht for hundreds of
3'ards, crossed creeks and rivers on a number of sub-
stantial bridgres, and proved, like many another enter-
pris(^ undertaken in California, a failure. In Eureka
Valley I spent the winter of 18fi4-G5. I had the
company of two men, Dave Hays and Jack Welch,
both g-ood mountaineers, g-ood hunters, g-ood miners,
ranchmen, hotel-keepers, g-ood men and true at an^'-
thing- they chose to turn their hands to. Both are
deserving- of a fair share of immortal fame. Ha^'S
had most of his toes frozen off at the second joint
a winter or two afterward, as he had become over-
confident and thoug-ht he could risk an\'thing- in the
mountains. He was belated one winter night cross-
ing- the "Mountain Brow," distant some forty miles
cast of Eureka Valle3\ Over tlie " Brow " swept
the coldest of winds, and Hays betook himself for
shelter to a sort of cave, and when he enierg-ed in the
morning- lie was as g*ood as toeless. In point of
weatluu' the Sierra summits are fearfully deceitful.
You nuiy cross and find it as fair as an October day
in New En^'land. In two hours a storm nuiy come
up, the air be filled with fine minute particles of
snow blown from the surroundini^ peaks, and these
striking" ag-ainst you like millions on millions of fine
needle-points will carry the heat from your body much
faster than the body can generate it. I was once
nearl^^ frozen to death in one of these snow -driving
g-ales when less than three miles from our house.
Hays built the house we lived in and it would have
been a credit to any architect. It was fift^^ feet in
length by eighteen in width, and made of logs, squared
and dovetailed at the ends. It was intended for a
''^road house." Hays was landlord, cook, chamber-
maid, and barkeeper. I have known him to cook a
supper for a dozen guests and when they were be-
stowed in their blankets, there being no fiour for
breakfast, he would jump on hoi'seback and ride to
Niagara creek, twelve miles distant, supply himself
and ride back to cook the breakfast.
When the winter set in at Eureka Valley, and
it set in very early, it commenced snowing. It never
really stopped snowing until the next spring. There
were intervals of more or less hours when it did
not snow, but there was always snow in the air;
always somewhere in the heavens that grayish-whitey
look of the snow cloud; always that peculiar chill and
smell, too, which betoken snow. It snowed when we
209
went to bed; it was snowiiii];' wlieii we j^ot up; it
snowed all da^^ or at intervals duriiii;- the day; it was
ever monotonously' busy, bus^^; sometimes big* flakes,
sometimes little flakes comiui;' down, down, down;
coming- deliberately sti'aight down, or dri\iug furiously
in our faces, or crossing and recrossing in zigzag lines.
The snow heavens seenicd but a few feet above tlie
mountain-tops; they looked heavy and full of snow,
and gave one a crushing- sensation. We seemed just
between two gi*eat bodies of snow, one above our
heads, one lying: on the ground.
Our house, whose ridge-pole was full eighteen feet
from the ground, began gradually to disappear. At
intervals of three or four days it was necessary to
shovel the snow from the roof, which would otherwise
have been crushed in. This added to the accumulation
about us. Snow covered up the windows and mounted
to the eaves. The path to the spring* was through a
cut high above our heads. That to the barn was
through another similar. Snow all about us lay at an
average depth of eight feet. Only the sloping* roof of
the house was visible, and so much in color did it as-
similate with the surrounding rocks, pines, and snow
lliat one unacquainted with the locality might have
passed witliin a few feet of it without recognizing* it as
a human residence.
December, January, February, and March passed,
and we heard nothing from the great world outside of
and below us. We arose in the morning*, cooked, ate
our breakfast, got out fencing stuff till dinner time,
going and returning from our work on sno\vslioes, and
digging in the snow a pit large enough to work in.
We ate our noon beans, returned to work, skated back
210
to the hoiiso bv half-past tAvo to i^rrt in firoAvood foi-
the nig-ht, and at half-past tliree or four the darlv win-
ter's day Avas oA^er, and we had fifteen hours to hve
throiiiiii before getting* the next day's meai^re allow-
ance of hg-ht, for Eureka Valley is a narrow cleft in
the mountains not oA'er a quai'ler of a mile in Avidtli,
and lined on either side b}' ridges 1,500 to 2,000 feet in
height. The sun merely looked in at the eastern end
about nine a.m., said " good day/' and wns off again.
We rolled in sufficient fireAvood cA^'ry night to supply
any ciA'ilized family for a Aveek. TAvo-tliirds of the
caloric generated Avent up oui* chimney. It did not
haA'e far to go, either. The chimney Avas A'ery Avide
and very 1oaa\ At night a pt^rson imacquainted Avitli
the country might haA^e tumbled into the house through
that chimney. The Avinds of heaA^en did tumble into
it frequently, scattering ashes and sometimes cinders
throughout the domicil. Sometimes they thus assailed
us AA'hile getting breakfast. We consumed ashes
plentifully in our breakfasts; Ave drank small charcoal
in our cofTee; Ave found it in the bread. On cold morn-
ings the flapjacks Avould cool on one side ere the^' were
baked on the other. A Avarm meal Avas enjoyed onl^^
by placing the tin coffee-cup on the hot coals after
drinking, and a similar process Avas necessary with
the other A'iands. The " other A^iands " A\-ere generally
bread, bacon, beans, and beef. It was peculiar beef.
It Avas beef fattened on oak leaves and bark. Perhaps
some of you California ancients ma^^ recollect the tAvo
consecutive rainless summers of "'63" and "'64,"Avhen
tens of thousands of cattle Avere driven from the to-
tally d: ied-up plains into the mountains for feed.
During those years, at the Bock River ranch in
211
Stanislaus County, wliere the plains meet the first
hunnnocks of the Nevada foothills, I have seen that
long-, lean line of stagg-ehng-, starving-, dying- kine
stretching" away as far as the eye could reach, and at
ever^' hundred yards lay a dead or d^^ing- animal. So
the}^ went for days, urg-ed forward hy the vaquero's
lash and their own ag'on}^ for something- to eat. Even
when they g-ained the grass of the mountains it was
on]}' to find it all eaten off and the g-round trodden to
a dry, red, pow^der^' dust b^' the hungry legions which
liad preceded them. It was a dreadful sig-ht, for those
poor brutes are as human in their suffering-s through
deprivation of food and water, when at night the^- la}^
down and moaned on the parched red earth, as men,
women, and cliildren would be. Well, the strong-est
survived and a portion reached the countr\^ about
Eureka Valley. They came in, fed well during- the
sununer, and one-third at least never Avent out ag-ain.
The vaqueros could not keep them tog-ether in that
roug'h country. They wandered about, climbed miles
of mountaii^idi's, found little plateaus or valleys hid-
den away here or tliere, where the}' feasted on the rich
"bunch grass.'' The}' g-ained, by devious windings,
higii mountain-tops and little nooks quite hidden from
their keepers' e^'es and quite past finding- out. The
herdsmen could not collect or drive them all out in the
fall. They were left behind. All went well with them
until the first snows of winter. Then instinctively
those cattle sought to make their way out of the
mountain fastnesses. Instinctively, too, they travelled
westward toward the plains. And at the same time the
first fall of snow was covered with tracks of deer, bear
and Indians, all going- down to the warmer regions.
212
But the cattle were too late. Their progress was slow.
More and more snow came and they were stopped.
Some thus impeded trod down the snow into a corral,
round Avhich they tramped and tramped until they
froze to death. Some of these cattle were thus em-
bayed aloni^- the track of the Sonora and Mono road,
and the white man making- his way out was olilii^'ed
to turn aside, for the wide, sharp-horned beast "held
the fort" and threatened impalement to all that en-
tered. Others, finding- the south and sunny sides of
tlie mountains, lived there until February, browsing on
the oak leaves and bark. These w^e killed occasionally
and buried the meat in the snow about our house.
But it was beef (xuite juiceless, tasteless, tough and
stringy. It was literally starvation beef for those
who ate it, and the soup we made from it was in color
and consistency a thin and almost transparent fluid.
Foxes in abundance were about us, and the^^ stayed
all winter. They were of all shades of color from red
to grayish black. Now a story was current in the
mountains that black-fox skins commanded very high
prices, say from $80 to $100 each, and that "silvery-
grays" would bring $25 or $30. So we bought strych-
nine, powdered bits of beef therewith, scattered them
judiciously about the valley, and wei'e rewarded with
twenty or thirty dead foxes by spring. It requirtHl
many hours' labor to dress a skin properly, for the
meat and fat nuist be carefully scraped away with a
bit of glass, and if that happened to cut through the
hide your skin is good for nothing. Certainly, at very
moderate wages, each skni cost $7 or $8 in the labor
requnx'd to trap, or poison it, if you please, and to cure
and dress it afterward. When the gentle spring-time
213
came and access was obtained to certain opulent San
Francisco furriers, we were offered $1.50 for the
choicest skins and 37| cents for the ordinary- ones.
Whereat the mountaineer g-ot on his independence, re-
fused to sell his hard-earned peltries at such beg-g-arly
prices, and kept them for his own use and adornment.
Then our dog's too would wander off, eat the strych-
nined fox bait, and become dead dogs. We had five
when the winter commenced, which number in the
spring was reduced to one — the most worthless of all,
and the very one wliicli we prayed might get poisoned.
Tliese dogs had plenty of oak-bark fattened beef at
home. They were never stinted in this respect. What
we could not eat — and the most of the beef we cooked
we couldn't eat —we gave freely to our dogs. But that
wouldn't content the dog. Like man, he had the hunt-
ing instinct in his nature. He wanted something new;
something rich, rare, racy, with a spice of adventure
in it; sometliing he couldn't get at home. He wanted
to find a bit of frozen beef in some far-off romantic
spot a mile or two from the house and this on finding
he would devour, under the impression that stolen
waters are sweet, and poisoned beef eaten in secret is
pleasant. And then he would lay himself down by the
frozen brookside and g-ently breathe his life away; or
come staggering", shaking, trembling home, under the
action of the drug, and thus dashing in our domestic
cii'cle scatter us to the four corners of the big log
house, thinking him a mad dog. I lost thus my own
dog, '"Put," named briefly after General Israel Put-
nam of the Revolution, 'a most intellig-ent animal of
some hybrid species; a dog that while alone in the
mountains I could leave to guard my camp, with a
214
certainty that he would devour every eatable thiu^
left witliin his reach ere my return, and meet me after-
ward ^vag•g•ing• his tail and licking his chops, with that
truthful, companionable expression in his eye, which
said plainer than words: "I've done it again, but it
was so good." I shall never own another dog like
" Put," and I never want to. He would climb a tree
as far as one could hang a bit of bacon upon it. He
would in lonesome places keep me awake all night,
growling and barking at imaginary beasts, and th<m
fraternize with the coyotes and invite them home to
breakfast. Near the Big Meadows, in Mono County, a
disreputables female coyote came down fi'om a. moun-
tain side and followed " Put," one morning as I jour-
ne^'ed by on my borrowed steed, howling, yelping, and
fdling the surrounding air with a viragoish clamor. I
presume it was another case of abandonment.
It was a winter of deathly quiet in Eureka V^alley.
Enveloped in snow, it la^^ in a shroud. Occasionally
a tempest would hud its way into the gorge and
rampage around for a while, roaring through the
pines and dislodging the frozen lumps of snow in their
branches, which wiiirled down, bang ! bang ! bang ! like
so many rocks on our housetop. Sometimes we heard
the rumble of rocks or snowslides tumbling from the
mountains. But usually a dead, awful quiet prevailed.
It wore on one worse than any uproar. No sound
from day to da}^ of rumble or rattle of cart or wagon,
no church bells, no milkman's bell, no gossip or chat-
ter of inhabitants, no street for them to walk down or
gossip in, none of the daily clamor of civilized life save
what we made ourselves. It was a curious sensation
to see one or both of my two companioiis at a distance
215
from the house. They looked such insig-nificant specks
in the whitened valley. And to meet the same man
after four or five hours of absence and to know that
he had nothing- new to tell, that he hadn't been any-
where in a certain sense, since without neighbors'
houses or neighboring- villages there was "nowhere"
to g-et that sort of bracing-up that one derives from
any sort of companionship.
We were very cozy and comfortable during those
long winter nights, seated in tlie red glare of our
rudely-built, wide-mouthed fireplace. But sometimes,
on a clear moonlight night, I have, for the sake of
change, put on the snowshoes and glided a few hun-
dred yards away from the house. In that intense and
icy silence the beating of one's heart could be distinctly
heard, and the ci'unching of the snow under foot
sounded liarsh and disagiveabU\ All about the
myriads of tall pines in the valley and on the moun-
tain-side were pointing straight to the heavens, and the
crags in black shadow above and behind them main-
tained also the same stern, unyielding silence. The
faintest whisper of a breeze would have been a relief.
If you gamed an elevation it was but to see and feel
more miles on miles of snow, pines, peaks, and silence.
Very grand, but a trifle awful ; it seemed as if every-
thing must have stopped. In such isolation it was dif-
ficult to realize that miles away were crowded, bab-
bling, bustling, rallying, roaring cities, fall of men and
women, all absorbed and intent on such miserably
trifling tilings as boots and shoes, pantaloons and
breakfasts, suppers, beds, corsets, and cucumbers. We
Avere outside of creation. We had stepped off. We
seemed in the dread, divary outer regions of space.
210
where the sun had not warmed thini;\s into life. It
was an awful sort of church and a cold one. It nii^-ht
not make a sceptic devotional; it would certandy
cause him to wonder wher* he came from or where
he was g'oing' to. A half-hour of this cold, silent
Sierran wi.ter morning was quite enoug-h of the sub-
Ihne. It sent one hack to the fireside with an increased
thankfulness for such comforts as colfee, tobacco, and
warm blankets.
317
CHAPTER XXVII.
LEAVING HIGH LIFE.
N'ear the end of IMarch I resolved to leave Eureka
Varie3'. Sonora, Tuolunnie County, was fifty-six miles
distant. That was my g'oal. Thirty miles of the way
la^' over deep snow, and was to be travelled over on
snowshoes. The Norweg-ian snowshoe is a long- wooden
skate or runner, turned up at the forward end, greased
on the lower side, with a strap in the middle to hold
the foot. The Indian snowshoe is a flat network,
fastened to a frame, in shape something like an en-
larged tennis racket. It is like locomotion shod
with a couple of market-baskets. The principal use
of the pole, carried in tlie hands with the Norwe-
gian shoe, is to serve as a brake and h<'lm while go-
ing downhill. Some put it under the arm and others
straddle it while making a descent. The arm position
is the most dignified. The legs must be kept strad-
(lled at a ridiculous distance apart, and the first few
da^'s' practice seems to split a person nearly in two.
If, with the Indian snowshoe, yon tumble down on a
hillside it is ahnost impossible to get up again, and
the unfortunate must remain in a recumbent position
very much like that assumed by the heathen when
they g-o down on all fours before their god, until some
one unstraps his shoes. I preferred the Norwegian
shoe. The first pair I ever used I made one evening
about dusk. I was going toward Eureka Valley from
218
Sonora, and had met the first fallen snow. From a
mere crisp it g'rew deeper and deeper. I found a pile
of " shakes " — long", roui^'h shing-les used in the moun-
tains — and made m^^ shoes from two of them. They
were not more than a quarter the proper length.
They kept me busy the rest of the nig-ht picking m^'-
self up. I think I must have fallen down some four
hundred times. When we came to a down grade the^^
went of their own accord and ran away with me.
Sometimes but one shoe would slip off and glide down
a bank, sometimes two, sometimes all of us went to-
gether, balance-i)ole included, and a bag I had lashed
to my back would swing over my head and bang me
in the face. It was a lively night's entertainment for
only one man in the heart of the wilderness. There
was no monotonj^ about it; nothing tedious or depress-
mg. Just as fast as I recovered from one fall and
started I got the next. I swon^ a good deal. There
was not anything else to be said. One couldn't argue
with — things. It Avas the only recreation afforded by
that phase of the trip. To have kept one's temper and
remained expletiveless would have been to burst. I
avoided the superior and more expensive epithets as
much as possible and confined m3'self to second-rate
strong language. But Avhen I started for m}^ final
trip out of the mountains, I had become a tolerable
snowshoe amateur. A pack was lashed to my back.
It held a blanket, some meat, bread, colfee, sugar, oik?
fox skin and my worldly wardrobe. The morning
light had not dawned when I started.
After a couple of miles' advance m^^ feet felt like
lumps of ice. I examined my boots. The leather was
frozen hard and stiff. The pain was too great for en-
219
durance. I made my way back to the house, found
Ha\'s and Welch at breakfast, removed my boots and
stockmgs, and saw three waxy-looking' toes, the right
big one included. The^^ were frozen. The heat of the
lire produced additional twinges, hke boring with red-
liot knitting-needles. I wrapped some thicknesses of
flannel around both boots, put them on again, and
made another start. Eureka Valley soon disappeared
behind me. I never saw it again, and probably never
sliall. But its i)icture is indelibl}^ graven on my mem-
ory. We lived in the gem of the locality. All the
landscape gardening skill in the world could produce
nothing to equal it. A clear crystal stream ran by
the door. The grove was a natural park, level as a
floor, with pines all about, 150 feet high. We had a
cascade and little miniature mountains of rock, with
oak and pines springing from their crevices. No tame
tree could be coaxed to grow as did these wild ones of
the mountains. Some were independent of soil alto-
gether, and flourished vigorously rooted in rocky fis-
sures. We had the tiniest of meadows concealed be-
hind these little mountains of our domain. Other
grassy plateaus were perched sixt^^ or eighty feet over
our heads on the mountain. Nor was this all at once
revealed. It required half a day to get over all the
labyrinth of meadow, mount, and dale within half a
mile of our house. All this was set in a gigantic
frame — the dark green, thickly-w^ooded mountain-sides
running up 2,000 feet above our heads, while to the
eastward through the narrow gorge rose bare peaks
twenty and thirty miles away, from whose tops, on
sunshiny, breezy mornings, the snow could be seen
driving in immense vapor-hke clouds and tinged a
220
roseate hue. People who visit the Yosemite have seen
but one of the thousand pictures set in the Sierras.
It was my calcukxtion to get to Hulse's enipt^^
lo^-house, twelve miles distant, and camp there that
nig-ht; but my progress was very slow. The road for
miles ran along a steep mountain-side. It was buried
many feet in snow. It was all a sheet of snow inclined
at an angle most difhcult to travel. In places acres of
snow had slipped in a body from above, covering the
ordinary level five or six feet in depth. These accu-
mulations, while coming down, would have brushed a
human being away with the facility with which a
cart-load of sand dumped on your cellar-door Avould
overwhelm a fly. I saw whole groves of i^ines whose
trunks had been cut off by these slips ten or twelve
feet from the roots. I felt small and insignificant, and
speculated whether, after all, I was of any more im-
portance than a fl^^ or any other bug in the sum total
of things generally. I thought of how much more im-
portance a man was in a newspaper offtce than in the
solitude of these mountains. Then the sun hurried
toward the west and the cold blue imd brassy tints of
the winter's eve merged together. The route along
the " Kiver Hill " side became steeper and steeper, the
siioAV more hummock}' from successive slides and the
way more disorganized. It was very slippery. The
snow had an ice finish on the surface like a hard coat-
in.i;' of (MKimcl. I took off the snowshoes and bore
them and the balancing-pole on my shoulders, picking
my way laboriously, stei) by step. Below me extended
a veiy long, smooth, steep slide, like a white Mansard
roof, several hundred feet in height. Finall}^ I was
obliged to stamp an indentation in the enamelled sur-
221
fpce at every step, with my heels, to secure footini?.
The shppery and reg-ularly e^raded descent heloAV
hroke off occasionally into precipices of fifty or sixty
feet in heig-ht. A person sUppini:;' hQve would, of
course, accomplish portions of the descent on mere
empty air. Tlie trouble was not so much in g-etting-
through the air as in bringing up after going through.
A fall never hurts anybody. It's the sudden stoppage
when you're through. I expected momentarily to slip.
The sun was rapidly going down and I felt a tendency
to follow suit. At the point where I did slip the view
was magnificent. Over full thirty miles of peak and
pine the setting sun was shedding. I saw these peaks
disappear like a flash. The grand curtain of Nature
was not rung down at the call of night. It was I who
fell before the curtain. I went down perhaps three
hundred feet of the incline, generally in a sitting posi-
tion. My long Norwegian sno^vshoes, jerked from my
grasp, sailed down ahead of me, one diverging a little
to the right, the other to the left, and the balancing
pole scooting straight ahead. All of us went together
with a beautiful uniformity and regularity of forma-
tion. The whole descent of 300 feet did not occupy
more than six seconds, yet in that brief space of time
m}^ mind appeared to photograph on itself at least a
dozen phases of the situation and as many past mem-
ories and future possibilities. I saw the stumps seem-
ing to rush past me uphill, while I was really rushing
past them downhill, and the reflection came to me
that if I colhded with even one of them the result
would be worse for me than the stump. This did not
comfort me. As each successive stump hurried up
the mountain I said, by the unspoken operation of
222
thought, " There g-ocs another stump. A miss is as
good as a mile. I may bring- up in one piece yet,
thoug-li, if I g-o ofT one of these precipices, I may make
my hist appearance on any stag-e in several pieces."
I remember, also, the sensation caused hy the seat of
ni}^ outside pantaloons tearing out throug-h the exces-
sive friction. I had on two pairs of pantaloons when
I started. I thought, also, during- all these risks and
ligiitning'-like escapades of my far-away Eastern
liome, of the g'irls I had left behind years before, of the
dear old cool stone door-steps on the sycamore-ein-
bowered Main street of our villag-e, on which the g-irls
used to sit on warm summer and Sunday nig-hts. Yes,
in this inappreciable space of time and under such
extraordinary conditions I thoug-ht of this, and even
wondered if the other fellow sat there now with his
arm hidden in the darkness of the hall, where they
kept no lamp in summer for fear of drawing- mosqui-
toes, trying- to reach round that g-irl. The human
mind is certainly a wonderful piece of business. I
think the more it is shocked, ag-itated, and stirred up
at certain intervals the faster it works ?.nd the more
it takes cog-nizance of. The man who month in and
month out moves backward and forward in a g-roove
of habit is apt to think the same old thoug-hts over
and over ag-ain in the same old way. The man who
is beaten and banged about from pillar to post and
Dan to Beerslieba, Avho is continually tumbling- into
new events and situations, is liable to think a great
many new things and think of them in many new
ways. From a mundane consideration of time on this
slide I soon reached my destination. Regarding my
own mental sensations, the trip seemed one of many
223
miiuites. It was not the bottom of the hill where I
stopped. The bottom of that hill terminated in the
Stanislaus River, and was preceded by a precipice 200
feet high. Had I g-one olT that my journey downward
would have been accomplished on a basis of three of
the four elements loioAvn to the ancients, namely,
earth, air, and water, and from all accounts, and my
own impressions of my deserts at that period, it mig-ht
have ultimately terininated in fire. The snow was soft
where I broug'ht up. I stopped. " It is g'ood for me
to be here,'' I said; "here will I pass the night." I
possessed a little mountain wisdom, and foresaw the
mipossibility and inutility of making- the ascent that
nig-ht. I had belted to my w^aist a sharp hatchet.
Around me were man^^ dead pine limbs, projecting-
from the snow. The mountain-side exposure was
southern. About the roots of a g-reat pine on the lit-
tle plateau where I had broug-ht up the snow had
partly melted away. I enlarg-ed the cavity, using- the
hatchet as pick and shovel. I made my home for the
nig-ht in this cavity. Kindling- a fire with my dead
branches, I chopped directly into it the thick dry bark
of the pine. This supply of fuel alone was plentiful
and lasted me the entire night. I disclaim here all in-
tent of posing- in print as a hero, for on many occa-
sions I am disg-usted by my mental and physical cow-
ardice. But on this particular nig-ht, and it was a
very long- one, I felt no fear; I spent it very pleasantly.
I cooked and ate, and drank my coffee with a relish,
born of mountain air and exercise. M3' coffee-pot was
another peripatetic appurtenance belted to my waist.
Culinarily, I was for myself a travelling- boarding-
house, being- guest, landlord and chambermaid all in
224
one. The fire blazed cheerfully, and the fully-seasoned
oak branches soon made a bed of solid live coals. My
snow hole at the tree's base slowly enlarged as it
melted awa^^ The hillside being- inclined carried
away all the moisture. After supper I sang-. I felt
that here I could sing in safety and without damage
to other ears, because no one could hear me. Music
hath charms to soothe, and all that, but it must not
be savage music. Mine at that time was savage. It
is now. If I feel a tendency' to inflict an3^ vocal misery
on mankind, I go forth into solitude, and commit the
outrage on inanimate defenseless objects which cannot
strike back. After singing, I spoke all the piec(\s of
my schoolboy days. I quoted Shakespeare, and really
admired myself in Hamlet's solilocpiy. I never heard
a more satisfactory rendition. This was another piece
of consideration for my fellow-beings. Others, less
sensitive to the ill they ma^^ do, rush on the stage
and torture audiences. After the dramatic perform-
ance I reheai'sed my political speech. I was even
coming from the mountains with full intent to stand,
or rather run, for the Legislature from Tuolumne
Count}^, which I did, greatly to the misery of the part3\
The speech was impromptu. So the long night wore
away. The day became overcast. The winds occa-
sionally stirred and moaned through the lofty pines
above me. Then the}^ sank to soft mournful whispering
music and ceased. The snapping of the fii'e sounded
sharply in the solitude. From the river far below
came a confused, murmuring, babbling sound like the
clamor of some vast, distant multitude, and this
seemed varied at times by cries weird and louder.
Lumps of frozen sno^v fell from treetops far and near.
225
and as tliey struck branch after branch sounded hke
the pkmging- of horses in the drifts. I dozed fitfully
and awoke with the red coals staring- nie in the face
and the startling* realization that the elements were
preparing for a heavy storm.
236
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE LAST OF HIGH LIFE.
In writing this experience I disdain all intent of
making: myself out a first-class sufferer or adventurer.
Other men by hundreds on our frontiers have endured
far more, suflered far more, passed through numy
more perils, and combated them more courageously.
Mine as compared to theirs is a mere priming, a rush-
light candle to an electric lamp. Our mountains and
lone valleys hold many a skeleton whose unburied,
unrecorded bones are the only relics and proofs of a
live, lingering death, preceded by hours of pain and
misery. Mine was the merest foretaste of their hard-
ships and sufferings, and it is m^^ chief desire that
this story shall help to a clearer realization of the
perils, hardships, and sufferings of our unknown pio-
neers. I passed a very comfortable night at the foot
of my snowslide, save sundry aches in my three frozen
toes. I have passed very man^^ nights far more un-
comfortabl}' when surrounded by all the so-called com-
forts of civilization, in insect-infested beds at slovenly
taverns, in rooms stifling with the midsummer heat of
New York; in cold, ffreless chambers Avith damp beds.
Some of our civilization doesn't civilize in the matter
of comfort. Down there in my snow hole I was bet-
ter off in regard to artificial heat than one-third the
population of France, who, in their damp stone houses,
227'
shiver over a pot of coals from November till April,
while tJioiisaiuls have not even this luxury. I had any
amount of fuel about me,, provisions for days, powder
and shot, and if more snow came I had but to let it
fall, build up the walls of my hole and protect me from
the blasts. I knew of a man caught thus in a storm
on the Summit, who made a hole for himself by kind-
ling" a fire on the snow, allowing' it to melt, and g'oing-
downward with it as it melted. When the storm
ended his cavity was twice the size of a hogshead, and
he emerge i from it and came to oiu^ house in Eureka
Valley. Snow rightly applied, will prove man's great-
est protector from cold, providing it is deep enough.
It is the intensely cold blast sweeping over hard, frozen
ground, that kills both animal and vegetable life.
I looked up at dawn, after finishing my breakfast,
or rather the remains of the banquet which had con-
tinued at intervals all night — for there is nothing like
eating and drinking to keep up one's spirits and keep
out the cold, and one strong cup of coffee under such
conditions is worth a pint of whiskey, since it gives a
renewal of vigor which doesn't flash up and then out
like alcohol. I looked on the contract before me. I
had that three hundred feet of steep icy incline to
climb. There was no getting round it by gradual or
zigzag upward approaches. The wa^- to the right and
left broke off in ugly precipices. A little exploration
to find an easier route satisfied me and sent me back
frightened to my camp. For crossing on what I
deemed snows Avith a firm foundation underneath, I
was startled to find my pole running through this
surface in an empty void beneath. Then the entire
area for twenty feet square suddenly settled down an
228
inch or two witli an ominous scriincli! which sent nn^
lieart seemingly up in ni}' mouth and my liair up on
its various ends. I was walking- on a frail crust of
snow which had formed over the deep gorges ploughed
by the rains and torrents of ages doAvn tlie mountain
side. Some of these were fifteen or twenty feet deej),
with rocky sides almost perpendicular, and such pits,
blocked up at either end with snow, were regular
man-traps. I hauled m^^self up to the place from
whence I had shpped the previous evening*. The job
occupied the entire morning. There were the two
snovvshoes, the pole and my pack to manage, besides
my own earthly organization. In places the descent
was so steep that I was obliged to drag myself and
cargo upward a foot at a time, and then chock my
feet with a knife to prevent slipping back. The moral
of which is, it is easier to go down than to go up, and
easier to fall than to rise in many ways. It does seem
singular that these coincidences sliould be so coinci-
dent between the world of materiality and that of
moralit3^ It was a very laborious task, and when
about noon I reached the top, I was sick from exhaus-
tion, and lay down for some minutes on the ledge of
snow hardly wide enough to hold me. Then, with
shaky knees, I picked my way very slowly over an-
other dangerous mile around the mountain-side, whei'e
every step was furnished with extra accommodation
for slipping, and in many spots where, had I slipped,
I should have gone farther and fared much worse
than on the evening before. I wished I was a goose,
for a goose could in four minutes have accomplished a
distance which took me all da^^ We pride ourselves
on our powers and the ways and means we have de-
220
vised for transporting our clumsy carcases, but after
all, in point of locomotion, we are individually miser-
ably- inferior to a goose, and all our in*^enuity and
mind has not been able only to lift us from the in-
ferior position Avherein nature has in this respect
placed us, as compared with a goose.
I arrived at Hulse's euipty cabin about an hour
before dai'k. The place looked melanchoh', murder-
ous, and cold. The localit}' was higher than ours in
Eureka Valle^^ and not so well protected. Of the
liouse little was visible save the ridgepole. Five feet
of snow lay on the kitchen roof, which could easily be
walked on. I gained entrance with some difficulty
through tho upper sash of a front window. The iloor
was permanently l)arred for the wint<H' by snow. I
was no sooner in the house than the re([uirements of
the situation drove me out again to collect fuel for
the night. There was no rest for the wicked. It
is only when man is entii'ely alone that he realizes
how many things are necessary not only to his com-
fort but his very existence. A bear could have lain
during the night in comfort at that house on a bed of
straw. The assertion that "man wants but little here
below" is not true, and should no longer pass uncon-
ti^adicted. Here was I, at that time, a dweller in the
wilderness with the foxes — a tramp, standing almost
within the threshhold of beggary, ow^ner neither of
house nor lands, and a cipher "on change." Yet I
couldn't get along withou^ iron and steel, phosphoi-us
and sulphur, or jny matches, coffee from the tropics,
sugar from the Indies, salt from somewhere^ x^^PP<'i'
from pepperland, grain ground to flour, chemicals to
"raise it," tea from Cliina, and utensils of tin to keep
230
it in. It is g-ood to be so alone once in one's life to
realize liow much man's present develcpinent is due
to the numberless articles he bring-s from all tlie ends
of the earth for his subsistence and comfort, and what
an endless amount of labor is necessar^^ to keep him
up to his present standard of development.
My fuel was pine bark, stripped from the surround-
ing- trees. It came off easil^^ in great sheets, making-
an imposing--! ooking- pile as heaped in the kitchen, and
burned like shavings. The night passed in alternate
cat naps and firing- up. I would doze, to wake up
shivering-, finding- the room dark and the fire nearly
out. Tlirowing- on more baik, the flames leaped up.
I dozed ag:ain, to wake up in cold and darkness as
before. It was a g-loomier camp than the one of the
nig-ht previous. An empty jiouse always has a tomb-
like atmosphere about it, and, when alone, I prefer a
bivouac under the trees. With morning- came a
heavy snowstorm, or rather a continuation of the
snow that had been falling- all winter. I started out.
The pine boug-hs along- the road brushed my face,
where, in summer, they would have been many feet
over my head. The strap of one of my snowshoes
tore out of the wood, and left me crippled as to
further prog-ress until I impaired it. The snow was
soft, and to g-et off the shoes was to sink in it to the
middle. I was literally afloat on a sea of suoav, and
to g^et overboard w^as to foundc^r and floiuider — an-
other proof of man's miserable helplessness as com-
pared with the g-oose. It beg-an to occur to me that
this storm was one of unusual severitj^-. It blew vio-
k'ntly, and the snow at times came in such whirls
that I could not open my e^^es for several seconds. If
231
I had not in this stoiy determined, in point of det; il,
to reduce everytliing' to a rigid mathematical accurat y
of statement, I mii^lit sa\^ that the snow blinded
me for minutes, since seconds seem very long- under
these circumstances. Time seems to be a quality or a
something', which, in point of length or shortness,, is
largely dependent on one's conditon and sensations.
A good time is always short — a bad time always long-.
The aim on starting- that morning- was to reach
Strawberry Fhit, fourteen miles distant. There is no
road over the Sierras without its Strawberry Flat,
g-enerally so called because no strawberries are ever
found there. Tliis Strawb(.>rry Flat, then, contained a
population of four men, and was reg-arded by us in
Eureka valley as a bustling- place. In two hours I
grave up all idea of reaching- Strawberry Flat, and I
conc(»ntrated my hopes on an empty house four miles
below Hulse s. Given good weather and a crust on
the snow, I could with tolerable ease have made
the fourteen miles between Huls(^'s and Strawberry.
But the wind was ahead, the snow constantly blinded
me, and as it came much more horizontally as driven
b3^ the blast than perpendicularly, and -being- of a
sleety nature, formed at intervals of every few min-
utes a slim film of ice on my face, which, as Avith my
hand 1 swept it off, fell to the ground in broken ice casts
of my ordinary countenance. The empty house was
at last reached. It was past noon. The empty house
was not there. Where it once stood was more empty
than ever. The weight of the snow had crushed the
shanty. A fe v timbers and splinters sticking out told
the story. There was but one thing- to do — return
to Hulse's. To go forward was impossible, and so I
232
foug-ht my way back. It was a hard figlit, for tho
wind and the snow at times seemed as if inspired hy
the demons of the air or some spirit cause or effect
which is expressed by such term. Tliey beat and buf-
feted and blinded me, so that twice I lost my way,
blundered about in circles, and g'ot back to Hulsc's
about three in the afternoon only through the wandci-
ing- of sheer stupidity or the guidance of some special
providence — perhaps both. Tired as I was it was
necessary to go straightway to work and get in more
pine bark for the night. There Avas no lack of busi-
ness on this trip. I nev:^r had a monu^nt to spare
from morning till night. One's body is an imperious
master, and, unsupported by civilizatidu or the help
of one's fellow-beings, it keeps one ou tlie k«MMi jum))
to supply it with food, fuel, and cover.
As I lay stretched in my blankets befoi-e the blaze
that nig-ht I heard from time to time a sharp crack
overhead. I gazcnl upAvard and made a most unpleas-
ant discovery. It Avas another form of Damocles'
SAvoi'd over m<'. The rafters Avere bent like bows
from th(^ great pressure of the snoAV on the I'oof. The
cracking Avas a notice that they might not stand the
strain much longer. The roof might at any time tum-
ble in with several tons of snoAv upon me. This weight
Avas steadily increasing. I could not go out in th(*
storm, nor could I remove the snoAv from the roof.
The situation kept my mind busy Avidle th(^ body was
at rest, and anxiety and susp(Mise aiv about as Avear-
ing as toting in pine bark alter snoAv-shocing all day
in a snoAVstorm. Hulse's Avas my home and anxious
seat for tAvo days. The sword of Damocles hung and
cracked, but did not fall. I found Hulse's store of
233
provision under the boards of the front room floor.
The boards were weig'hted down by a great pile of
shingles. It was this monument of shingles in the
parlor which caused me to suspect the existence of the
cache. Taking from the big box I found underneath
a renewed supph' of flour and pork, and breaking the
face of Hulse's famil^^ clock, also packed therein, a
matter never revealed until this present writing, I re-
closed it, bui'ied it, boarded it over and re-piled the
shingles over it.
On the fourth morning o£ this excursion the storm
was over, the sky clear, the h(\avens brightly blue,
and the newly fallen snow had dressed the x^ines all
in new suits. For the second time I bade HiUse's lone
house a doubtful farewell, for after travelling all day
I had before succeeded only in bringing up there
at night, and know not but that I might do so
again. The newly fallen snow being' very light and
feathery, I made slow progress. A frozen crust grants
the best track for snowshoes. As the sun got higher
it melted this feathery top snow, fusing it into a close,
sodden mass, which stuck and bunched on the bot-
toms of the shoe runners. This delayed me still more.
Other troublesome obstacles were the little rivulets
and brooks, which, cutting through the snow, left
banks on either side six or seven feet in height. To
climb these was difficult. The snow gave way, and
one could only flounder through and up to the top.
Besides, it was necessary to wade the creeks. This
wet my feet and caused more snow to bunch and
freeze on them. Night came, and with it an increase
of cold, which, causing the snow to freeze to a crust on
top, iced and smoothed the track anew for me. But
23-i
with one additional facility for making" proi^Trss^ I
lacked another. That was the streni^th and freshness
with which I had started at morn.
My day had been one of most laborious progress,
wading- creeks, floundering" throug-h their soft snow-
banks, and stopping" every ten minutes to clean my
shoes of damp snow. I had no other g-rease for their
bottoms save a bit of pork, which I wore out upon
them. Snowshoes won't run well unless frequently
g"reased. Then there was no rest for m^^ body. The
supph^ of pines from about Avhose roots the snow
had melted away had g'iven out; to step olf the shoes
was to sink to the middle; to rest at all was to rest
squatting"; a few minutes' trial of this position under
the most favorable circumstances will convince any
reader of its back-aching- tendencies. Man is a lying-
animal; I mean he must Ue down to recuperate. My
meals I cooked on the snow. The regular vie mi was
colTee, bread, and pork. The base of the kitchen was
a big" piece of dry pine bark, ahxTn's at hand, (^n this
the fire was kindled. The evolution of colTee under
these conditions was slow, because the water for mak-
ing it had first to be melted from snow in the coffee-
pot, and snow under these circumstances melts with
an exasperating" slowness. The quantity required to
make a sing-le pint of water is something remarkable.
I think I was obliged to fill that vessel four oi- five
times with snow to get the suitable quantity of water.
Then it must be remembered that the water Avould
not proceed to boil until all the snow was melted. "A
watched pot never boils," but a watched pot of plain
water is velocity itself when compared with a pot of
snow and water watched by a tired and hungry T)eing
2;]5
in the wilderness. Niglit found me twelve miles from
Strawberry Flat. About one in the morning' I found
another empty cabin. This was four miles from the
desired haven. It was desolation inside and out — the
windows gone, the door torn from its hinges, the in-
side a litter of snow and rubbish, and one dead cow in
the kitchen. The cooking-stove remained. I cleared
the grate of snow and attempted a fire. It wouldn't
draw. Of course it wouldn't draw, for the stovepipe
was full of snow. Then I kindled the fire on the top
of the stove and gradually burned up a portion of the
house. Like Sherman and Napoleon, I lived on the
country invaded. The firelight cast its rudd3^ glow on
the surrounding domestic desolation and the red dead
cow, which, being frozen hard as a rock, served for a
seat. I waited for the morn; but the morn would not
come. I saw from the sasliless windows the prelimi-
nary streaks of dawn ever so faintly lighting up the
eastern liorizon full forty times, and found they were
onl3' in my imagination, so covetous for the coming-
day. When the sun did rise he came up in tlie oppo-
site direction.
Impatient of waiting longer, and converting myself
to the false belief that the light was realh^ coming in
what turned out to be the west, I did battle in the
dark with the last four miles of the journey. All went
well until I reached a certain point in the road, which
was now well defined thi'ough the trees. There every
time I brought up in a clump of bushes and lost the
track. Back, time after time, I went, seeking with
careful calculation to make a fresh and truer start,
only to bring up again in brambles and briers. When
the light did come, I had, for tAvo hundred yards, in
this going and coming, beaten a path in the snow
230
which looked as if travelled over for a week. Dajii^srht
showed what a ridiculously trilling- turn had caused
me thus to miss the route. The moral of Avhich is that
man's welfare is often wrecked on some trifling error.
A failure to say, " Good morning" to an acquaintance,
a long', gloomy countenance or putting one's knife in
the mouth, or guzzling down soup or coffee with undue
noise, has repelled one man from another, and such re-
pulsion has sent our fortunes on the wrong track alto-
gether. I was welconu^d at the Strawberry House h}'
six hounds, wiio, in the still faint light, jnade at me as
they would at another heast, and the first few mo-
ments of my arrival on this outpost of civilization was
occupied in energetic attempts to keep Avhat was left
of me from being eaten by the dogs. Indeed, the way
of the transgressor is hard. I had never injured these
dogs. However, the hospitahty I experienced at Pair
mer's stood out in bold relief against the churlishness
of their brute creation.
237
CHAPTER XXIX.
ON THE ROSTRUM.
On reaching Sonora, Tuolumne County, with the
frozen toes alhided to in the great shde down the
mountain, I went to work and dug post-holes for a
living. Inspired by the posts or the holes, I wrote
what I called a lecture. This I learned by heart.
Next I practised its delivery in the woods, behind
barns, and sometimes at early morn in the empty
Court-house— for the Temple of Justice in Sonora stood
open night and day, and he that would might enter
and sleep on the benches, or even in the bar itself, as
many did in those days. Many weeks I drilled and
disciplined this lecture, addressing it to rocks, trees,
barns, and sometimes to unseen auditors wandering
about, whose sudden appearance would cover me with
confusion and send me blushing home. But I dreaded
bringing it to an engagement with the enemy— the
audience. The glories and triumphs of oratory I
eagerly coveted, but the preliminary labor, the pangs
and the terrible chances of speaking in public I dreaded
and avoided as long as possible. But Destiny, despite
all our backAvardness, steadily pushes us on to the
most painful experiences. I required yet feared the
living audience. Rocks, trees, and barn doors will not
do for a speaker the specific work of a few listening
human beings. Listening ears sooner or later teach a
238
man who would speak to iiiiiltiliuk's to modulate his
voice or increase it to a volume, or spend more time
and streng-th in accentuating- each syllable; and above
all, to take things coolly and not get hurried. At
last I concluded to risk myself on an exi^erimental
audience. I borrowed one for the occasion. Going
into the main street of Sonora one evening-, I collected
half a dozen appreciative souls and said, '' Follow me
to the Court-house; I would have a few words with
you.'" There was a County Clerk, his deputy, a popu-
lar physician and saloon-keeper, and an enterprising-
carpenter. They followed me wonderingly. Arrived
at the Court-house I seated them, marched myself to
the Judg-e's bench, stuck two candles in two bottles,
lit them, and then informed the crowd that I had
brought them hither to serve as an experimental au-
dience to a lecture I proposed delivering. After which
I plunged into the subject, and found that portion of
the brain which Avith a speaker always acts inde-
pendent of the rest wondering that I should be really
talking to live auditors. There is a section of a man's
faculties, during the operation of speaking in public,
which will ahvays go wandering around on its own
hook, picking up all manner of unpleasant thoughts
and impressions. Apparently it is ever on the watch
to find something which shall annoy the other half.
It seems to me that no one can become a very success-
ful speaker or actor until this idle, vagrant pai-t of the
mind is put dowm altogether, total forgetfulness of all
else save the work in hand be established, and self-
consciousness abolished. However, I spoke half the
piece to m^^ borrow^ed audience, and then, feeling that
I could really stand fire, told them they could go home.
230
But Dr. , constituting- himself spokesman, rose and
declared that having* served as hearers for half the
lecture they thouglit they were entitled to the other
half. Being' thus encored, I g*ave them the other half.
A great apprehension was now taken from my mind.
I could speak to a crowd without forg-etting my lines,
and deemed mj^self already a lecturer if not an orator.
I did not then realize ho\v vast is the difference be-
tween mere speaking' and the properly delivering' of
words and sentences to a multitude, be it larg:e or
small; how unfit are the tone, pitch, and manner of
ordinary converse to public speaking-; how a brake
must be put on every Avord and S3'llable, to slow down
its accentuation and make it audible in a hall; how
g-reat the necessity for deliberation in delivery; how
the force and meaning- of entire sentences may be lost
by a gabbling, imperfect, and too rapid enunciation;
how the trained speaker keeps perfect control of him-
self, not only as to his delivery, but the mood under-
neath it; wliich should pi-oinpt how much depends on
the establishment of a certain chain of sympathy
betwixt speaker and audience, and how much the es-
tablishment of such chain depends on the speaker's
versatilit3^ to accommodate himself to the character,
intellig-ence, moods, and requirements of different audi-
ences. I state this, having- since m}' debut in the
Sonora Court-house learned these things, and learned
also that Nature has not given me the power to sur-
mount all these dilFicidties. I am not a good speaker,
as man>' doubtless discovered before I did. However,
my friends whom I consulted said by all means give
the lecture in public, knowing, of course, that I wanted
them to encourage me, and feeling this to be the best
240
way of g-etting- rid of me. So I had posters printed
and commenced public life on a small field. I hired a
hall; admittance twenty-five cents. I felt guilty as I
read this on the bills. I read one alone furtivel\' by
moonli<:i-ht, because after they were posted and the
plunij;e taken I was ashamed to appear b^' daylii;ht on
the streets. It seemed so presumptuous to ask iv-
spectable, God-feariui^- citizens of that town to sit and
hear vie. This was a result of the regular oscillations
of my mental and temperamental seesaw.
I was always too far above the proper scale of self-
esteem one day and too far below it the next. Tlie
real debut was not so easy as the preliminary, hoi--
rowed, bogus one. There were the hard, stern, prac-
tical people present, who counted on receiving their
regular "two bits" worth of genuine, solid fact, knowl-
edge and profitable information, who discounted all
nonsense, didn't approve of it and didn't understand it.
I felt their cold and withering influence as soon as I
mounted the platform. Not man^^ of such hearers
were present, but that was enough to poison. I saw
tlieir judgment of my ellort in theii' faces. I weakly
allowed tliose faces, and the opinions I deemed shad-
owed forth on them, to paral^-ze, ps^'chologize and
conquer me. I allow^ed my eyes, numberless times,
to wander and meet their stony, cynical gaze, and,
at each time, the basilisk orbs withc^red up my
self-assertion and self-esteem. Becoming more and
more demoralized, I sometimes cow^ardly omitted or
forgot wiiat I deemed my boldest matter and best
hits. HoAvever, the large majority of the audience
being kindly disposed toward me, heard, applauded
and pronounced the lecture a "success.'' Some ven-
241
tiired,\vhen it was over, to advise me that the subject-
matter was much better tliau tlie manner of its de-
hvery. Of that tliere was not the least doubt. In
speakin;^-, I liad concentrated matter enough for two
liours' proper delivery- into one, and a part of <the men-
tal strain and anxiety durhig the lecture Avas to race
my words so as to finish within the limits of an hour on
time. I feared wearying- the audience, and so took
one of the best methods of doing so. The next day
self-esteem, going- up to fevei'-heat, and my compara-
tive failure not being so bad as the one I had antici-
pated when my estimates of myself were at zero, I
determine on pressing my newly-found vocation and
"starring'' Tuolumne Count3^ Carried by this tran-
sient gleam of self-conceit beyond the bounds of good
judgment, and overwhelmed with another torrent of
composition, I wrote still another lecture, and adver-
tised that. The curiosity, complaisance, and good-
nature of my friends I mistook for admiration. In-
deed, during the fever-, I planned a course, or rather a
constant succession of lectures which might, if un-
checked, have extended to the present time. But, on
the second attempt, I talked largely to empty benches.
A character of audience I have since become accus-
tomed to, and with whom I am on terms of that friend-
ship and sympathy only begotten of long acquaintance.
The benches wei-e relieved here and there by a dis-
couraged-looking liearer who had come in on a free
ticket, and who, I felt, wanted to get out again as
quickly as possible. Then, I knew that my friends did
not care to hear me any more. This was bitter, but
necessary and useful. People will go often to church
and hear dull sermons because of custom, of conven-
243
tionality, and of r('li.i;ious faith and trainincr. Tlu\y
will attend political nieeting-s during- an exciting cam-
paig-n and hear equally dull political speeches because
of patriotic or partisan sympathy or fealty. They
will g-o also to hear noted people because of curiosity,
but they will not hear more thart once a mere man
unbolstered hy any of these outside influences. I next
gave the lecture at Columbia. Columbia, though but
four miles distant, was then the rival of Sonora as the
metropolis of Tuolumne County, and it was necessary
to secure a Columbian indorsement before attempting
to star it through the provincial cities of Jimtown,
Chinese Camp, Don Pedro's, and Pine Log. I billed
Columbia, hired the theatre for two dollars and a half,
and, after my eifort, had the satisfaction of hearing
from a friend that the appreciative and critical mag-
nates of the town had concluded to vote me a "suc-
cess." Then I spoke at Jamestown, Coulterville, Mari-
posa, Snelling's and other places, with ver^^ moderate
success. Perhaps I might have arisen to greater dis-
tinction or notoriety than that realized on the Tuo-
lumne field had I better known that talent of any sort
must be handled by its possessor with a certain dig-
nity to insure respect. Now, I travelled from town to
town on foot. I was met, dusty and perspiring, tramp-
ing on the road, by people who knew me as the newly-
arisen local lecturer. I should have travelled in a
carriage. I posted my own bills. I should have em-
ployed the local bill-sticker. I lectured for ten cents
per head, when I should have charged fifty. Some-
times I dispensed with an admittance fee altogether
and took up contributions. In Coulterville, the trouser-
buttons of Coultervillians came back in the hat, mixed
243
with dimes. Lookiiii:;' back now on that exi^eriencc, I
can sincerely say to such as nia}^ follow me in any
modification of such a career, "Never hold yourself
cheap." If 3^ou put a good picture in a i)oor frame, it
is only the few who will recog-nize its merit. Don't
let your lig'ht shine in a battered, g-reas-y- lamp. It's
all wrong-. We all know the dread that g-euius in-
spires when clad in a seedy coat. Lecturing* frequently
tries a man's soul ; especially when the lecturer's career
is not a very successfid one. If his path be strewn
with roses and success, there ma\^ not be much of a
story to tell. But it is dilferent when his path is
strewn with thorns and he steps on them. It is sad
to hire a hall in a strang-e villag-e and wait for an au-
dience wliich never comes. It is ominous to hear your
landlord, just before supper, remark, " Our people don't
g'o much on lecters. But they'll pile into a circus or
menagrrie or anything- else that isn't improvin'.'^
Tliey say this all over the land. It is sadder when
you offer liim a handful of your free tickets for himself
and family to hear him, "Guess the folks hain't g-ot
time to g-o to-night. There is a ball over to Pappoose-
ville, and everybody's g-oin'." I never did bill myself
yet in a villag-e for a lecture, but that I happened to
pitch on the night of all nig-hts when some g-reat local
event was to take place. Or else it rained. It is sad
to speak to thirty-two people in a hall larg-e enoug-h to
hold a thousand and tr^^ to address those thirty-two
people scattered about at the thirty-two points of the
mariner's compass. Once in New York I spoke to a
fair audience in a hall on the g-round floor. Thing-s
went on beautifully till 9 o'clock, when a big- brass
band struck up in the big-g-er hall over my head and
244
some fifty couples commenced Avaltziii^. It was an
earthquake reversed. It ruined me for tlie ni^ht.
None can realize until the^^ enter the lecture field what
trivial occurrences may transpire to upset the unfoi'-
tunate on the platform and divert and distract the at-
tention of an audience. On one occasion a cat g-ot into
a church where I was speakini:;-, and trotted np and
down a course she had laid out for herself before the
pulpit. She did this with an erect tail, and at times
made short remarks. It is singular that a single cat
acting in this manner is nu)i'e effective in interesting"
and amusing- an "intelligent audience" than any
speaker. Under such conditions Cicero himself would
have to knock under to the cat. He might go on
talking, hut the cat would capture the house. And
then the awful sensation of being obliged to keep on
as though nothing had disturbed you; to pretend you
don't see such a cat; that you are not thinking of it;
and knowing all the while that your audience are get-
ting their money's worth out of the cat and not out of
you! On another fearful occasion 1 was speaking at
Bridgehamptom, Long Island, on the subject of tem-
perance. I lectured on temperance occasionally, though
I never professed teetotalism — for an^^ length of time.
One can lecture on temperance just as well without
being a total abstainer — and perhaps better. Now, I
was born and they attempted to bring me up properly
near Bridgehampton. Every one knew me and my
ancestors, immediate and remote. I had not spoken
over ten minutes Avhen a man well-known in the neigh-
borhood and much moved by the whiskey he had been
driidving all day, arose and propounded some not ver}^
intelligible queries. I answered him as well as I could.
245
Then he put more. Nay, he took possession of the
meeting-. No one ventured to silence him. The3^ are
a ver^^ quiet, orderl^^ people in Bridgehampton. Such
an interruption of a meeting- had never before been
heard of there, and the people seemed totalh^ unable
to cope with the emerg-ency. The wretch delivered
himself of a great variety of remarks, but ever and
anon recurred to the assertion that "he'd vouch for
my character, 'because he not only knew nu^ but my
parents before me." " He was present," he said, "at
their wedding, which he remembered well from the
fact of wine being served there, as well as rum, gin,
and brandy." That for me was a laborious evening.
Sometimes I spoke, and then the inebriate avouUI get
the floor and keep it. He rambled about the aisles,
allayed a cutaneous disturbance in his back by rub-
bing himself against one of the fluted pillars, and,
when I had at last finished, made his way up to the
choir and, intei-polating himself between two damsels,
sang everything- and everybody out of tune from a
temperance hymn-book.
246
CHAPTER XXX.
RUNNING FOR OFFICE.
This is the confession of a political villain; not, how-
ever, a perjured political villain, I never swore to run
for office for my country's good. I did run once for an
ofTlce for my own good. I was unsuccessful. Virtue
has its own reward; so has vice. The Avicked do not
always flourish like green ha^^ trees. Indeed, judging
from a home experience, I am not prepared to say
that they flourish at all. The fall political campaign
of 1 86G-67 came on while I was canwing my comic lec-
ture ahout the camj^s of Tuolumne, Stanislaus, and
Mariposa. A thought one day took possession of me,
'• Wliy not run for the Legislature ? " I helonged to a
l)()]itical party. My frozen toes trouhled me a good
deal and the lecture did not x^ay much over expenses.
I consulted with one of the pillars of our party. He
helonged in Oak Flat. I took the pillar behind Dan
Munn's store on Rattlesnake Creek and avowed my
intention. The pillar took a big chew of tobacco,
stared, grinned, and said: "WhA^not?" I consulted
with another pillar behind Bob Love's store in Monte-
zuma. He was throwing dirt from a prospect-hole
with a long-handled shovel. He leaned on the shovel,
blew his nose au natural without artificial aid, grinned,
and after some deliberation said: "Why not?" I
found another pillar of our party slumming out a res-
247
ervoir near Jamestown. He was enveloped in yellow
mud to his waist, and smaller bodies of mud plastered
liini upward. A short pipe was in his mouth and a
slumg-ullion shovel in his hand. He said: "Go in for
it and win."
With less assurance and more fear and trembling- I
consulted with other and more influential party pillars
in Sonora, the county_town. Some hesitated; some
were dig-nified; some cheered me on; some said, "Why
not?'' I made the same remark to myself, and re-
plied, '' Why not ? " The Assembly was a good g-ate
for entering- the political field. My ideas of its duties
were va^e. Of my own qualifications for the post I
dared not think. They may have been about equal to
those with which I entered th« Heunfs galley as a
sea cook. But what matter? Other men no better
qualified tlian I had g'one to Sacramento, received their
$10 per diem and came back alive. 1 could do that.
They seemed to stand as well as ever in the estima-
tion of their constituents. Then "Why not?" The
die was cast. I announced myself in the county paper
as a candidate for the State Assembly. The County
Convention assembled at Sonora. It was a body dis-
ting-uished for wisdom and jurisprudence. Judg"e Fer-
ral of our city was there. He was then a brig-ht-
eyed, active, curly-haired youth, and liad already g-iven
mucli promise of his successful career. Judg-e Leander
Quint was there. H. P. Barber presided. Tuolumne
County had not then been shorn of its brightest lig-hts
by the necessities of the rest of the State and the
woi'ltl. Somebody nominated me. I arose and i)aid
somebody else five dollars. This was the fii\st price of
ambition. Then I found myself making- my nominatin<^
248
speech. It was a yvry successful speech. I left out
politics altog'ether, made n. pledgvs, discussed no
principles and talked no sense. At first the audi-
ence stared. Then thej' laughed immoderately'. So
did I. Then the^- nominated me by acclamation. It
was one of the proudest moments of my life, although
I did not know it at the time. Taken for all in all,
it was no wonder they laughed. I was obliged to
laugh myself at the whole affair behind the Court-
house when the Convention adjourned. And "Why
not?''
It was the laugh of a fiend! I wanted the position
for the per diem. I was buried in turpitude. My
colleagues were all running on i:)rinciple to save the
country. It is singular that the motive of such a
wolf in sheep's clothing as I was at that time was not
detected. The great and good men, secure in their
own rectitude and pui'ily of pu]-])ose, by whom I was
surrounded, never once guessed at the pres(^nce of the
snake in their grass. Looking back at this occun-ence
after the lapse of nearly twenty-five yeais, I am uu)re
and more astonished that the jiarty sliould have risked
taking such a load as myself on its shoulders. I had
no position, no standing, next to no reputation, no
l)i'()pei-ty, no good clothes, no Avhole shoes, no fixed
habitation and three sore toes. I had not nor did not
realize the responsibilities of a citizen. I had no
family aiid could not realize tlie duties and I'esponsi-
bilities of those wlio wei*e rearing young citizens for
the great Republic. Should such a man be sent to
the State Legislature? Of course not. Are such
men ever sent.? Of course not. I do not think now
that at tlic period spoken of I was even incori'upt-
249
ibie. Should a person who seldom saAV over ten dol-
lars in his possession at any one time be sent where
he mig-ht be " appi-oached " by desii^-ning- men ? Of
course not. Was sue li an one ever sent? Never! The
commonwealth of California ran a fearful risk in my
nomination.
Few, probably none, suspected the mental misery I
endured during- this campaig-n. Because I knew and
felt Tr.y turpitude. I knew my unfitness for the posi-
tion to which I aspired. I knew where la^^ tJie snake
in the g-rass. Could I meet daih' a trusting, credulous
constituency, who believed that my mind was full of
projects for the relief of the State and nation, without
remorse ? Of course not. I liad remorse — bad, but I
dared not back out and off tlie track. So I kept on,
and the vultures gnawed my vitals. Those who think
the wicked have such a g-ood time are sadly mistaken.
Oui* party was firmly grounded on one g-rand belu'r.
It was that nothing the other part3^ could do was right,
and nothing- that we did was wrong-. This at that
lime I (lid not believe. But I pretended to. Oi' i-atlier
I stifled all tlioug-ht on the subject. This was the first
g-reat sin. Unlike my coUej»g-u(\s, I was untrue to my
own convictions, The\' -but liow I wished for their
faith. It could move mountains of doubt. Mine
couldn't. How I hated m^^ conscience. It tormented
me worse than a chronic colic. There I was standing*
shouldei' to shoulder with patriots — battling- bravely
for a cause, a pi-inciple, while I — I cared for naug-ht
save a seat in tlie Assembly at $10 a day.
It was a stirring- campaig-n, that of ISGfi, in and about
Tuolumne County. The antagonism was of the bitter-
est character. Political opponents reviled each other
250
in print and sometimes peppered each other with pis-
tols. BulU'ts Hew ahout ni.i;h1 mid day. It was dan-
.jj;-er()iis in Sonoi"i to sleep in a elapboarded liouse in
the averai;-e line of aim. The i)ax)ers left nothinii;- un-
said whicli could taunt and iri-itate. Editors went
about the streets weighed down hy masked batteries.
It was calculated that 500 pounds of ii'on were daih^
packed about the streets in tlie shape of derringers,
knives, and revolvers. The champions of the opposing-
parties never met on the highway but that people
peered and squinted from door and windoAV for the
bombardment to conunence. Knives were bathed in
g'ore. ' Barroom floors showed bloody stains. Men
died with their boots oi>. Loaded shotg-uns lay in am-
bush behmd front and back doors. The atmosphere
smelt of blood and possible killing. Saloon plate-glass
mirrors showed the track of pistol bullets. Mass
meetings were assemblages of men from town, and
country, secretly armed. People spent most of their
time hating each oth(n'. Ministers went behind the
orthodox j'eturns ajid pn^iched sectional and partisan
politics. Tlie morc^ vital ti^nets of religion were sus-
pended for the time being Avith the writ of habeas
corpus. I canvassed the county with my comic lec-
ture. It took. It was popular Avith both parties. It
was a pleasant relief from the heavier logic and argu-
ment used by heavier and more solid speakers. It
was like the farce after the tragedy. It sent assem-
blies and mass meetings home in good humor. No-
body asked if such a candidate was fit to make laws.
But Ihei'e Tuolumne shoAved wisdom.
They didn't want any more laws made. Everybody
who had been sent to th(^ Legislature since California
251
was created a State had been busy putting" more laws
on the statute books. There was an overplus. People
couldn't keep count of the laws already made. Tuo-
lumne then showed wisdom in its endeavor to send
out' man to the Leg-islature of 1860-6T who, not being-
able to draw up a l)ill, could not have added a single
new law to the mass already made. I g*ave m^^ part\'
a great deal of trouble. Once in a private conversa-
tion with one I deemed a friend, although he belonged
to the opposition, I committed myself in favor of
greenbacks as a legal tender. Our party did not ap-
prove of g-reenbacks. Ours was the old-fashioned hard-
mone^' dollar of our dad's pai-ty. I was hardly aware
of this, through a lamentable ignorance of what we
really did advocate. The County Central Committee,
hearing of my treason, sent after me a messenger
with a missive calling on me to explain. I saw then
the horrible blunder I had made, and wished the earth
would open and swallow me. Then I concluded to re-
sig'n or to run away. But a man bolstered me up and
advised me to deny the report, which I did in an open
nrass meeting. The use of paper then would have
doubled the amount of money in circulation, and that
seemed to me just what the people needed. Ever}"
mother's son of them on being questioned said the^^
wanted more money, and here seemed a means of re-
lieving that want. But the part}' refused to put in a
plank which might have doubled the dollars in every-
body's pockets.
Feeling that I had not done justice to the part}' in
making an active canvass of the county, principall}"
becaus<' I had no money to make a canvass with, by
treating long lines of ever-ready patriots at every bar
252
in Tuolumne, I concluded I would hold a series of pri-
vate mass meeting's in the day time on horseback. I
Avould do this on election day. I would g-allop from
poll to poll and make a speech at each poll. I had a
route laid out embracing- half the county. I made the
initial equestrian speech at Jamestown. Thence I
g-alloped to Shaw's Flat. Shaw's Flat upset me. The
pillar of our party there, at whose saloon the polls
were held, came to his door while I was speaking, took
one look at me and walked off in disgust. I saw the
disgust on his face an inch thick. It smote me. It
threw a wet blanket over all this newly-roused entlm-
siasm. I started for Columbia, but all the wa^^ that
man's face peered into mine. It robbed me of all
courage and confidence. I liad no further heart to
continue the work. It was not at all the regular
thing. It was an innovation on old part^^ usages.
The country" even then was too old for such politico-
equestrkin heroics. I rode back to Jamestown, put
the horse in liis stabh?, and hid myself. The people
did not agree to send me to Sacramento. Perhaps it
was fortunate for them they did not. Probably it was
for me. Wliatever happens to a man in this life is
pi-obably the best thing for him, inasmuch as nothing
else can happen to hnu. I had the profit of an experi-
ence in making a semi-political debut, and the people
profited l)y sending* another man.
Could the past but be recalled, with all its con-
ditions^ contingencies, and accessories; could I once
more renew this episode with the advantage of years
of experience and accumulated wisdom, I might suc-
ceed and fill tlie post of legislator. But the future
is apt to come too late. To be sure it was for mc
253
a period of folly and weakness. My soul even now
squirms with shame to think of it. "And it should,"
1 hear my fellow-human judges saying". Of course
it should. Man's first duty to himself is to hide his
follies and bear himself as thoug'h he never com-
mitted any. Only I can afford to tell what a wretch
I have been. Were I a candidate for olRce I could
not. Some day, when the world is wiser, Avill men
cease strutting- about in their masks of propriety and
wisdom, and publish their own past errors as freely
as now they do those of their fellows? Is it a g'ood
preliminary previous to entrance into that world
where "all things shall be revealed/' where each ac-
tion lies in its true nature, and where each one of us
must "even to the teeth and forehead of our faults
give in evidence." " Why not ? "
25-4
CHAPTER XXXI.
AN EARLY CALIFORNIA CANVASS.
Previous to this election which did not elect me,
Williams and I canvassed the county together. He
aspired to the office of Sheriff. We mounted our
horses, and with long- linen dusters on our backs and
bottles of whiskey in our pockets, rode first to Spring"
Gulch, consisting" of two groceries, six saloons, an
empty hotel, twent^^ miners' cabins, a seedy school-
house, a seedier church, the hillsides around denuded
of earth, torn and scarred by years of hydraulic wasli-
ing", and showing great patches of bare yellow ledge
covered with heaps of boulders. The few men nu't
were m coarse, ragged, g'ra^^ shirts and mud -stained
duck pants, had a worn, worked-out look; over all
sliining the hot afternoon sun, the heated atmosphere
quivering and rising, behind tlie hill-bounded horizon,
a snow-wliite mass of cloud which, at precisely the
same hour everj^ afternoon, attains the same altitude,
then gradually sinks. The e^^e gazes steadily upon it;
there are seen great hollows and depths of shining-
whiteness. It is the vapor coming from tlie melting-
snow on the Sierra peaks eig-hty miles away. The few
loungers about the Washington Saloon see William
Saunders and m3\self riding down the hill. Our dusters
and clean linen proclaim us as " candidates." Candi-
dates means drinks. There is a gradual concentration
of unemployed seediness at the Washington. We dis-
255
mount; soon the coveted and cheering- bottle is placed
on the bar; a line of tumblers in skirniishmg' order
form behind it; every one within sig-lit and hearmg- is
called up; a pause of glad anticipation ensues while
the g'lasses are being- fdled; the precision of bar-room
etiquette is strictly observed, that not a drop be swal-
lowed until all are ready; then the dozen tumblers are
simultaneously raised; the standing- toast "Here's
luck," and the reviving" alcohol fulfils its mission.
This is electioneering.
Sam White is the Bismarck of our interests in Spring-
Gulch. He is the standing delegate to the County
Convention from this precinct. He goes b^- virtue of
a paying claim, a capacity for venturing among the
rocks and shoals of saloons, gaming tables and in-
numerable calls to drink, without losing his head. He
can drink deeply, quietly, and fearfully; he can drink
himself into noise and turbulence and still keep a set
of sober faculties in ieser\'e underneath. We hold a
short cabinet meeting- with Sam behind the bai-n. He
sees clearly the political complexion of Spring Gulch.
Bob O'Leary is doubtful, but may be bought; Jack
Shear and Tom Mead must be braced up to allegiance
by whiskey; Miles and O'Gorman are mad because a
favorite of theirs could not get the nomination for
Supervisor last year, and won't vote anyhow; Bob
Jones is favorable to us, but wants to leave before the
primary meeting comes olf; the rest are sure for us
or sure against us.
We visit the Franklin House just opposite. The
political candidate's money must not all be spent in
one house. This is one of the fundamental principles
in electioneering. Every saloon controls a few votes,
256
or ratlior a few wliiskoy-soddcn ori;-aiiizations, who arc
voted like inacliiiies. The soU'inn oi'deal of an .Ameri-
can treat is aij;aiii witnessed. Jim Brown becomes
atFectionately and patriotically drunk, and as we ridi^
away loudly proclaims himselt* a "white man and in
favor of a white man's govern men t."
We feel that Spring- Gulch is secure. We carry it
in our pocket. We ride a couple of miles over the
ridge to Six-Bit Gulch. Red crags tower upwaid hn-
liundreds of feet; a rividet flows along, and on a little
flat under a spreading live-oak is an old log cabin. In
front is a l)it of vegetable garden inclosed by old sluice
lumber. High up in the branches overhead a gauze-
covered meat-safe; on the trunk is nailed a coff"ee-mill ;
under it hangs a fiying-pan; close by the wash-tub
and wash-board a few fowl peck about; the quail in a
clump of chaparral near by are querously twittering,
scolding and fluttering, and making the preliminary^
ai-rangements for their night's rest.
Sam Lugar, gray and worn, resident in this gulch
for the last sixteen years, sits outside the door smok-
ing his evening pipe.
A hundred yards above is the residence of the
"Judge," another hard-working, whiske^^-drinking lier-
mit. A glance within shows the Judge eating liis
evening meal. A child is inlaying about on the mud
floor, whose creamy complexion ;ind bright bead-like
eyes indicate its Indian origin. Hanging above the
fire-place are a gun, an Indian bow, a quiver full of
glass-tipped arrows; on the shelf bits of gold-studded
quartz, a bunch of crystals, petrifactions, and curiously-
shaped stones found by the " Judge " from time to time
in his diggings. There are boxes full of old magazines
257
and newspapers; on the rude Avindow-sill a coverless,
well-worn copy of Shakespeare. The Judg-e is tall,
straig-ht, and sallow in complexion. He has lived on
this spot since 1849. Six-Bit Gulch was ver^^ ricli.
He has torn up virgiu gold in the g-rass roots. He
lives now on recollections of the hush times. Present
failures and long- past* successes form the staple of his
conversation. His mining- is merely secondary to an-
other occupation, the gTeat aspiration of his life — to
beat a poker g-ame over in Spring Gulch. He has
been unsuccessfully trying- this for the last seven years.
A bundk' of al)orig-inal duskiness enveloped in a brig-ht
calico g-own, hanging' about her adipose proportions,
stirs as we enter. That is the Judg-e's wife^a squaw.
Her family down to the third g-eneration, are camped
in the brush hard by. They visit the Judg-e at stated
intervals, and at such times the family expenses are
trebled. The gray shirt and duck pants tied at the
waist with a string- constitute the Judg-e's only dress-
suit. On the floor near him is a shapeless, wet mass
of India rubber boots, shirt and pants, drenched and
splashed with yellow mud. This man was once a
spruce clerk in a New England store. At seventeen,
the set and whiteness of liis collars, the fit of his boots,
the arrangement of liair and neck-tie were subjects of
long- and painful consideration before the mirror. He
had his chosen one among the village girls; he saw
her regularly home from the Sunday-evening prayer-
meetings. The great gold fever of 1848 seized him.
He saw a vision: A few months picking up nuggets
in California; a triumphant return home; a wedding;
a stylish mansion; a fast horse; a front pew; termina-
tion, a marble monument in the Terry ville cemetery :
258
"Beloved and respected by all who knew him, he sleeps
in hope of a still brig-hter immortality."
We stop at the " Judg-e's " for the night. Wife and
child are sent off to the Indian camp in the chaparral.
Sam Liigar drops in after supper. The Judge is an
incessant talker. The bottles and glasses are placed
on the table. The Judge becomes fatherly as to coun-
sel and admonition against excess in drink. Also
against gambling. He has peculiar theological views.
Moses, he says, was a keen old miner. He and Aaron
put up a plan to gain all the gold in the Israelites'
possession. While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiv-
ing the stone tables, Aaron was counselling the mak-
ing and vA'orship of the golden calf. By such means
did he concentrate in a lump all the Jews' jewelry.
What then? Moses comes down, sees the calf, gets
angry, breaks into pieces, burns it up. But what be-
comes of the gold ? Didn't Moses and Aaron sneak
around that night and " pan it out " of the ashes ?
The Judge is his ow^n theologian.
We visit Price, of Hawkins' Bar. Price is now the
sole constituency of Hawkins'. He ran this bar in its
g'olden infancy; he saw it in its youth; he is steadfast
to it in its decay. Thirtj^-four years ago, eight hun-
dred nien lived here; the Tuolumne banks were lined
with them, shaking their cradles. From the top of
yonder red hill the combined grating of the pebbles
shaken in hundreds of rocker-sieves sounded like the
crash of machinery in a cotton mill.
Old Hawkins first discovered gold here. Price tells
of the pickle-jars full he had buried under the floor of
his cabin. The secret could not be kept. The^^ came
trooping down the steep Red Mountain trail, blankets
259
and tools on their backs, footsore, weary, thirsty, hun-
g-ry — but hiing-rier still for g-old. They put up tents
and l)rush houses, or crept, slept and cooked under
projecting" rocks; they stood all day in ice-cold water;
thej- overworked bodies hitherto unused to manual
labor; they blistered delicate hands; they lived on
bacon and heavy bread of their own making; they
drank raw whiskey by the quart; they died, and were
buried almost where they died, in nameless graves.
Up yonder, but a few yards in the rear of Price's cabm,
IS the old camp grave3'ard. The fence is rottmg away
and stands at various angles. The inscriptions on the
headboards are half effaced b^' time and the elements.
Some are split and have fallen down. Read " Jacob
Peiser, xt. 27." He died close by in the gulch hard
by, with a pistol -bullet through him. A dispute over a
claim. *' Samuel Purdy, 31." Drowned trying" to cross
the river during- a freshet. ''John Wilkins, xt. 35."
Killed by a cave in the bank claim about a hundred
yards away. *' Sanuiel Johnson, xt. 25." He dove
with a sand bag to stop a great leak in the Ford
Chann's head wall, and he stopped the leak in part
with his own body, for the stream sucked him in the
crevice and he never came up alive. " John Weddell,
35." Blown up by the premature explosion of a blast
in the Split Rock quartz claim. *'Abi;am Hewisou,
45." Delirium tremens, sta rk mad at midnight, jumped
into the river from the point yonder, Avhere the stream
whirls round the bend with tremendous force and then
rushes down toward the long deep canon a mile away
in a succession of great white crested billows, whose
sad, never-ceasing murmur seems an eternal requiem
for those lying here.
260
Price has seen all this. That was the climax of his
life. Pi'ice's heaven is not in the future. It is in the
past. It is embraced in a period aoout twenty-fne
years ag-o, when he made " an ounce per day." Those,
lie remarks, w^ere times worth living- for. Eig-lit hun-
dred souls then at Hawkins'; five gambling houses in
full blast every night; music, dancing, and fandangos
at either end of the bar.
The river roars unvexed toward the sea. It has
burst through its dams and choked the races with
sand. The scars and furrows on the hill sides are quite
hidden b}^ the thickly growing vegetation; young oaks
and pines are coming up in the place of the old. Trail
and road are overgrown with brush. Among" the rank
weeds we stumble on traces of man's former presence
— the top of a saloon counter, the mahogany leg and
faded green cushion of a billiard table, rusty tin ware,
broken picks and shovels, a few rude stone chimneys,
about whose blackened fire-places years ago gathered
the hopeful, sanguine men of "'49.'^ It is so still.
The declining afternoon sun is throwing long shadows
from the mountains on the other bank. Slowly they
creej) up and shade the steeps on our side. Every
moan and babble of the Tuolumne falls distinctly on
the ear.
"Civilization" here put in a transient appearance.
It scarred the hill sides with pits and furrows dug for
gold. It cut down the wide-spreading symmetrical
oaks. It forced the Tuolumne through race and flume
from its channels. It built gaudy temples dedicated
to the worship of Bacchus, resplendent with mirrors,
pictures, and cut-glassware, located on the very site
where a few months previous stood the Indian's smok-
261
iiig" wigwam. It brought toiling men, hard-fisted,
awkward, ungainl\', ciuinsy, with all grace and supple-
ness worked out of them and strong only to lift and
dig. It brought all numner of men, educated and ig-
norant, cultivated and coarse, 3^et for whom Christian
training. Christian Church, Christian Bible, Christian
spire in cit^^, town, and village pointing heavenward,
liad failed to convince that gold was not the chief aim
and end of all human effort. By day there was labor
drudging, labor spasmodic, a few prizes, many blanks,
some hope, much more discouragement. By night,
revelry, carousal, gambling, oaths, recklessness, pistol
shots, knife thrusts, bloodshed, death. Bird and beast
fled affrighted to lonelier and more secure retreats
before the advent of the raging, cruel animal man.
But now civilization has flown and nature seems
easier and somewhat improved b}^ its absence. Price
is ours. He will walk nine miles on election day to
Chinese Camj), the nearest precinct, to deposit a ballot
for us. An order on the proprietor of the Phcienix
Saloon for a generous supply of whiskey stimulates
his devotion to his country-. What a glorious land of
hberty is this! See in the clear azure sky above us,
floating a mere speck, the eagle, the bird of freedom !
He poises himself for a swoop. He comes rushing
down on quivering pinion. Nearer! nearer! It is a
turkey buzzard, wlio has scented a dead horse.
Constituencies can only be found where civilization
rages.
%^
CHAPTER XXXII.
ANOTHER CHANGE.
The world seemed coining* to an end, I mean my
world. I had ^'^ran for office" and was not electcnl, I
had lectured and the people did not call for more, my
mines and all they contained were still under i;iH)und.
The cities I had planned wei'e still unbuilt, I had writ-
ten for our county paper and piiiied a small county,
but cashless reputation. The fall of 18GG was at
hand, and I was saying- "Vanity of vanities, all is
vanity,'' when one day I received an lUK^xpected letter
from the publisher of a San Francisco weekly pai)er
(The Golden Kra). He said in substance, "Come to
San Francisco and tr^^ your chances on the lilra. We
will do the best we can for you."
I went and was met by the good and great-hearted
Joseph Lawrence, the principal publisher, and up to
that time an entire stranger to me.
The transformation in my life was sudden and
startling. It Avas from the mountain solitudes to the
bustle of a great city, from the miner's cabin to the
elegancies of the first-class hotel in which my friend
positioned me; from the society of thc^ "boys" to tliat
of artists, actors, editors, and Avi'iters, some since of
Avorld-wide reputation .
It was the sharpest cornc^r I liad ever turned in my
life. It led into a wow road, a new life, new associa-
tions, new scenes, and eventual 1}^ new countries.
263
And this chang:e came sudden, unexpected at tlie
'* darkest hour" and hke "a thief in the nig-ht/'
San Francisco had cliang-ed g-reatl^' since I had k^ft
it eight years previous. Much of the okl " '49 " char-
acteristic had disappeared or was disappearing. The
roughness in garb and manner had abated, the high
silk hat topped more mascuhne heads, the afternoon
feminine promenade on the main sliopping streets was
more elegantly attired, " society " was ckissifying itself
into sets and "circles" more or less pretentious, many
more men had homes to rest in at night, the glare
and splendor of the openly pui)lic gambling house had
g-one, the revolver as an outside g'arniture of apparel
had disappeared.
1 could write with some facility. In other respects,
I was awkward, unassimilative with the new eleuient
al)out me, aud what is called "shy and retiring " which
really iuiplies a kind of vanity demanding that the
world shall conu' and pet you without your having"
the courage to boldly face it and assert your place
in it or whatever you may tliink 3'our place. I was
afraid of being quizzed or made a mark of ridicule
b^^ others, and an^^ pretentious fop could with ease
make me take a back seat and make me keep m3'
mouth shut. One night Mr. Lawrence invited me to
call with him on a noted actress. I refused out of
pure dread. Dread of what? Of an opinion I had
previously- manufactured in my own mind of what the
actress might think of me; when I should probably
have been of about as. much importance to her as a
house ^y. Tlie consequence which we shy and retiring"
people attach to ourselves in our secret mind is ridicu-
lously appalling.
264
Mr. Lawrence romaiiied in San Francisco bnt a few
months after m^^ advent on the Era. Wliile he stayed
he did all in his power to <^ive me, socially and othei"-
wise, a g:ood "send ofi." He introduced me to aspii'ini^'
and successful people, placed me in good material
surroundings and opened for me the door to a success-
ful element. That was all he could do, and in my
estimation about all one persoii can do to really ad-
vance the fortunes of another.
But when he left I descended, hired the cheapest
lodging's, lived on the cheese-paring plan, and was
thereb}^ bi'ought mainly into contact Avith that cheap
element in human nature which longs for the best
things in the world, is willing even in some Avay to
beg for them, looks on the prosperous with envy and
aversion and expends most of its force in anxiety or
grumbling, instead of devising- ways and means to push
forward.
So for the most part I did. I acc(^pted the lowest
remuneration for my services, deeming it the inevita-
ble, went figuratively' hat in hand to those who bought
my articles, and brought my mind at last to think t\u'y
had done me a g-reat favor on paying me my just dues.
I was alwa^^s expecting starvation or failure of some
soi't and for that very reason got a near approach to
it. My cheap lodgings brought me a sneak thief who
stole the first decent suit of clothes I had worn for
years in less than forty-eight hours after I had put
them on. My associations brought me people who
were alwaj^s moaning over their luck, living mentally
in the poorhouse, and therefore we mutually strength-
ened and supported each other on the road to what
was little better than the poorhouse.
265
Like tiiem, I never thought of being else than a
worlver for wages, and ran away mentally at any idea
of taking responsibilities. Like them I regarded the
class wlio did, as living* in a world I never could reach.
Like them I regarded the onl}- sure and safe haven
was a " job,'^ or situation at steady, regular wages.
So, for years I had indilTerent luck, and lived a good
deal on the threadbare side of life. The cause and the
fault lay entirely" in m^^self. Industriousl3', though
unconsciously I sat down on m^-self, punched mj^self
into corners ; as I in mind accepted the bottom of the
heap iis the inevitable I stayed near the bottom.
If I should live that and previous portions of my life
over again, I should probably do the same thing. Be-
cause I believe there is a truth in predestination. In
other words, when you are in a certain mental condi-
tion your physical life and fortune will be an exact cor-
respondence or material reflection of that condition.
When you grow out of that condition and get a differ-
ent mind 3'our surroundings, fortunes, and associations
will be in accordance with that state of mind. Thank
Heaven, we can grow. But the I that existed twenty-
five years ago was predestined to meet the fortunes it
did twenty-five years ago, and those fortunes could
only change as the mind of that " I " changed.
see
CHAPTER XXXIII.
EDITING VS. WRITING.
In course of time I came temporaril3^ to the occu-
pancy of an editorial chair. I became a " We." Be-
cause on becoming- an editor you cease to be an " I,"
you are more. You are several persons rolled into
one. You are tlien the publisher, tlie proprietor, the
paper's biggest pa3ing advertisers, tlie political party
you represent, and the rest of ^our brother editors.
Under these circumstances it is impossible for you
to say what " I " think. Because in some cases you
may not know what 3^our own private opinions really
are, or if they should assert themselves strongly you
might not want to know them. You are a " we," one
advantage of which is that as in a sense you have
ceased to exist as a personality. You are no longer
personally responsible for what you say in print. The
responsibility of the "we'' can be distributed among
so many that it need not stick anywhere and the big"-
ger the paper the larger the area over which it can be
distributed.
I knew there was a difference between "editing" a
paper and writing for one, but how much of a difTer-
ence I did not reahze until my destiny placed me tem-
porarily in charge of the Sunday supplement of a city
daily, which, in accordance with the regulations, or
rather exactions, of modern journalisnit, published a
367
Sunday paper, or rather magazine, of sixteen pages.
I had about forty-six columns to " edit."
To "edit" is not to write. I speak thus phiinly for
the benefit of the many young men and maidens who
are to swell the ranks of the great army now indus-
triously engaged in sending contributions to the edi-
tor's waste basket, and who still imagine that the
editor does nothing but write for the paper.
I pause here a moment to ask where, at the present
increase of size and amount of matter published, are
our Sunday papers to stop. Already the contents of
some Sunday issues amount to more than that of the
average montlily magazine.
While this competition is going on at such a lively
and increasing rate between newspaper pubUshei's to
give the most reading matter for the least money, I
w^onder if the idea may not in due course of time
strike them that they may be giving to tliose wlio
read more than they can really read and digest.
Our business men to-da}^ do not read one-half the
contents of the daily paper. They have only time to
glance at them. They would really be much better
suited could some device of journalism give them their
news iu readable print in the compass of a handker-
chief, and give them no more.
I entered on my duties in a blissful ignoranct* of the
trials that awaited me. I did not know how to "put
a head " on an article or a selected " reprint." I knew
nothing of the hieroglyphics necessary to let the printer
know the various kinds of type in which my headings
should be set up. I did not ivalize that the writer's
manuscript must be, in a sense, ground through the
editoi-'s mill and go through a certain xn^ocess before
208
being" put in the printer's hands. I did know that
soinethini^- was to be done, but the extent of that sonie-
tliing- I did not know. Of the signs to be placed on
manuscript to show whether the type used shoukl be
" brevier " or " minion " or " agate/^ or those to desig-
nate " full-face caps " for my upper headings and " full-
face lower case" for my iower headings, of a "display
heading," of " balancing- the columns," nor that the
headings on a page should not be jammed up together
or too far apart. I was in that condition of ignorance
that the smallest part of a printer was justified in
looking down on me with contempt.
ISr. B. — In the composing room a printer is a much
larger-sized Indian than a mere writer.
You who read the instructive and entertaining col-
umns of ghastliness, accident, and crime in your morn-
ing paper — you who are unfortunately or otherwise
neither writers nor printers, 3^ou think you could easily
write one of tliose staring sensational headings over
the article which tell all about it before you read it
and whet your appetite for reading it. But you might
not. It is not so much the literary ability needed. It
is the printer who stands in the wa3\ It is the printer
who must have just so many words for one kind of
"head " and so many for another. You must get your
sense, sensation, and infoi'mation condensed into say
twenty-four or twenty-six Avords for one part of the
"head" and ten or twelve for another part, and these
must neither run over nor run under these numbers.
If they do and the spaces are uneven that issue of the
paper Avould, in that printer's estimation, be ruined.
If you, the editor, do not "make up "your pages so
200
that the cohimns "balance," the paper, for him, would
be a wreck. The foreman of the composing- room
values a newspaper for its typographical appearance.
This is ri^»-ht. A paper, like a housi^ should look neat.
Only the foreman need not forget that there is
something- in the articles besides types. The magnate
of our composing room called all written matter
" stuff." " What are you going to tlo with this stuff ? ''
he would remark, and he used to put such an inflec-
tion of contempt on that word "stulf '' that it would
have made any but an old tough writer sick to hear
him. Poems literally perspiring with inspiration,
beautiful descriptive articles reeking- with soul and
sentiment, lively humor, manuscript written and re-
written so lovingl^^ and carefully — children of many a
brilliant brain— all with hun was but "stuff"!
During all the years that I had been writing I had
bestowed no attention on the " making up " of a paper.
I had a vague idea that the i)aper made up itself. I
had passed in my articles, and liad seen them in their
places a few hours later, and never dreamt that the
placing of these, so that the columns should end evenly
or that the page should not look like a tiresome ex-
panse of unbroken type, required study, taste, and ex-
perience.
I was aroused from this dream when first called on
to " make up " my eight-page supplement. Of course,
the foreman expected me to go right on like an old
hand, and lay out in the printed form where the con-
tinued story should be and how many columns it
should fill, where the foreign correspondence and illus-
trated articles should appear, where the paste pot and
scissored matter, shorter articles, and paragraphs
270
should be, so that the printer could place his .lialleys
in the form as marked out per schedule.
I was confronted within a sing-le week with all this
mass of my own editorial and typoi^-raphical igno-
rance, and even more than can here be told. It had
not before dawned upon me that an editor should be
— well, we Avill say, the skeleton of a printer. I was
not even the g-host of one. I was not before aAvare
that in the recesses of editorial dens and composing-
rooms the printer stood hig-her than the writer.
"Everybody" writes nowadays. But " everybody ''
does not set type or "make up " papers.
I saw then wiiat I had done. I saw that I had
rashl^^ assumed to g-overn a realm of which I was en-
tirely ig-norant. I made a full and free confession to
our foreman. I put myself before him as an accom-
plished ignoramus. He was a g-ood fellow and helped
me through. It was toug-h work, however, for several
weeks. As Sunday came nearer and nearer, mj^
spasms of dread and anxiety increased. I was seized
in the dead of niglit with fears lest I had not sent up
suITicient "stulT" to fill my forty-six columns. Then
I would be taken with counter fears lest I had sent up
too much, and so run up an overplus on the week's
composing- bill. I worried and fretted so that by Sat-
urday nig-ht I had no clear idea at all or judg-ment in
the matter, and let thing-s take their own course.
But the hardest task of all was dealing: with the
mourners — I mean the manuscript bearers. I found
myself suddenly inside of the place, v/here I had so
often stood outside. I Avas the man in the editorial
chair, the arbiter of manuscript destiny, the despot
who could accept or reject the writer's article. But I
271
was very uncomfortable. I hated to reject anybody's
writing-s, I felt so keerily for them. I had so many
times been thei'e njyself. I wished I could take and
pay for everybody's manuscript. But I could not.
The requirements of the paper stood like a wall 'twixt
m\ duty and my sympathy. The commands from
the manag-ement allowed only a certain amount to be
expended weekly for original articles. I felt like a
fiend— an unwilling- one— as I said "No" time after
time and sent men and women away with heav^^
hearts. In cases I tried even to g-et from the rejected
a little s\'jnpathy for myself. I told them how hard
it was for me to say "No." I tried to convince them
that mine was a much harder lot than theirs, and that
mine was by far the greater misery.
And how many times after I had suffered and re-
jected the ]\rSS. did I try to answer in a manner satis-
factory to them this question : " Did I know of any
newspaper or mag-azine that would be likely to accept
their matter ? " How I tried to say that I did not, in
a cheerful, consoling-, and encouraging- manner, in a
manner which woukl convey to them and fill them
with the idea that the town was full of places yawning-
and gaping for their articles, until they were outside
of my ofhce themselves, when I was willing that the
cold unwelcome truth should freeze them.
Then I received letters asking for the return of
manusci-ipt. On entering on my duties I found the
shelves piled with tliem— legacies left me by various
predecessors -whether read, accepted, or rejected, I
could not find out. But there they lay roll on roll-
silent, dust covered. It seemed a literary receiving
vault, full of corpses.
272
It Avas a siig-g-ostive and solcinn spectacle for a
young- writer to look upon. Those nian^^ pounds of
manuscript — articles wliicli niiii'lit make a sensation if
printed — truths, maybe, wliit-li had not yet dawned
on the Avorld — all lying- unread, dead, eold and uii[)ul)-
lished.
Lone, lorn ladies came to me with the children of
their brains. I referred them at times to the editor
of. the daily up-stairs. He referred them to me back
ag-ain. Sometimes this shuttlecock process was re-
versred. The daily editor fired the applicant down at
me. I fired him up again. The trouble in all these
cases la}^ in the inability of these people to recog-nize
a rejection when it Avas mildly and sympatheticali}^
applied. It was necessary in some cases for us to fire
these people up and down at each other a dozen times
before their weary leg's g-ave th»m a hint of the true
state of the case.
I saw more than once the man who thought to clinch
an aceptance of his matter by giving- me a long- ex-
planation of his article, and its valiu^ to this or that
interest. I liad the traveller from distant lands, who
Avanted to tell in print over ag-ain Avhat he had seen.
I received copies of A'erses, accompanied by modest
notes from the senders that they mig-ht find a ])lac(^
'"in some corner" of the paper. I was beset by a de-
lusionist who had a theory for doing- away Avith death,
and Avho left me, as he said to "prefer death" and die
in mj' sins, because I told him I had r<'ally no desire
to obtain information on the subject.
Then I had the "space gM"\bber '' to deal Avitli — the
poor felloAV Avho Avrites to liA'e at so much per column,
Avho tries to Avrite as many columns as possible, and
273
lialf of Avlioso mind while Avriting- is woi'kiiii;- more to
fill up his cohiinns with words rather tlian ideas. But
our modern system of ek'pliantine journalism is in a
measure responsihle for the '"space gTahhini^" ten-
dency, since our dail^^ and weekly journalistic mam-
moths and meg-atheriums g'ape ever for more and
more matter. There is so much space which must be
filled, and if not filled stuffed. Every demand bring-s
some sort of supi)ly, and as the paper nuist l)e stulfed,
the '* space g-i/abber" is developed to stulf it.
I had also to cope and meet with the literary re-
hashei'. The rehaslier is another journalistic brother
who writes the same stor^^ experience, description,
etc., over and over ag*ain in different ways. He wrote
it years ag-o. It proved a success. He has been w rit-
ing- it ever since. He serves it up roast, baked, boiled,
broiled, fried, stewed.
These processes may endure for several yeai's. Then
he shoves it on your table, covered with a thin disguise
— a g-ravy, so to speak — of his more recent opinion or
experience. But it is about tlie same dish. The older
and more experienced journalistic nose detects it by
the same old smell. Finally it comes up as hash, plain
hash, dry hash, wet hash, baked hash, but after all the
same old liash.
Our papers and magazines even to-day abound a\ ith
the wor): of the rehashei'. It is just as g-ood for the
young- readers. Every ten years a g-eneration conies
along- for whom the rehash is quite new. They do not
know^ that it is the same old hash w^ritten and read
years and years ago by people dead and g-one. The
pretentious magazines dish up more or less of this
hash. It is served up in style, g-arnished with sprig-s
274
of fine lan^i^ua^q-c and sentiment and has often a '^ dress,
ing-" of eleg-ant illustrations poured over it. But it's
the same old hash for all that. If you look over the
mag-azines for a i)eriod sa\' of twenty years, you will
find these rehashes — articles descriptive of Rome,
Egypt, London, the Bayeaux tapesti^^ travels in
countries Avorn footsore by travellers for generations,
the essay on Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe. As for the
frontier romance and "Wild Injun" story, that has
been ground and reground into hash so fine that it
has become "spoon victuals," and is eaten only by
the 3'oung and callow of the reading brood.
A literary colleague, who commands an editorial
chair, says that he allows his rehashers to serve him
the same article four times, providing the garnishing-
and dressing of the dish show artistic cooker3\ But
he shuts down after that. This is not onl}^ charitable
on his part, but possibly a great benefit to the re-
hasher, for if he is allowed to go on unchecked, the
mental rehashing process will become automatic, the
result of which will be the unconscious rehashing of
the same article through all eternity.
This experience gave me, in certain respects, an en-
tire change of heart. I Avill never think hard again of
an editor though he does not return my manuscript
even if I send stamps. I will still continue to think
kindly of him though he "declines with thanks." For
I realize now that the "editor" who would do his duty
must have nerves of steel and a heart of stone.
275
CHAPTER XXXIV.
OPINIONS JOURNALISTIC.
For five 3'cars I wrote for man}' papers in San
Francisco and wrote some thing's good, some bad,
some indiil'erent. I attacked and ridiculed the errors
and foibles of others watli the miraculous confidence
and inferred self-righteousness of a man who had not
as yet begun to realize his own shortcomings. I as-
sailed abuses and Avas sometimes disgusted at what
then I deemed the timidity' and lack of nerve on the
part of newspaper publishers, when they refused to
print my tirades, reproofs, and sarcasms. As a cham-
pion I was very brave to speak on paper in the privacy
of my own room. As a man with no capital at stake,
I was very wise in showing others where to put their
money.
I was rated in San Francisco as a " Bohemian ^^ and
deserved tlie name. I was largely in s^^mpathy witli
the idea that life being short should be Avorked at a
rapid pace for all that could be got out of it, and that
we the dwellers on the top floor of intellect were justi-
fied in regarding with a certain scorn the duller and
generally wealthier plodders on the lower floors of busi-
ness. We were as proud of our comparative poverty
and disregard of money because we held m some way
we never could explain that such poverty argued for
us the possession of more brains, though we were very
g\ad to receive our inone^^ from people we deemed
ourselves so far above. I think this is all nonsense.
I think now that the ability to express ideas well on
paper is a A^astly over-rated and over-praised talent.
A man may wi'ite well and not lia\'e sufRcient execu-
tive ability to build a hen coop or govern one after it
is built;, and brains play a very important part in an,)^
kind of managerial ability, be the field larg-e or small.
Bohemianism as it existed thii'ty jx'ars ago is nearly
dead. It has been discovered that late hours, gin, and
nocturnal out-pourings of wit, brain, and brillianc}^, do
not increase the writer's originality, or fertility of
idea, and that a great deal of force is wasted at such
times which should be turned into dollars ;uid cents.
A man or woman to-day who succeeds permanentl}'
with the pen will not onl^^ live well-ordered lives, but
possess a business ability outside of the pen, in order
to g-et their ideas before the public. Never before
were there so many writers, and never before so many
able writers. The literary mediocrit\^ of to-day would
have made a brilliant reputation sixty years ago.
But of those who are nu;rely writers, even if good
writers, three -fourths as regards compensation ai-e
almost on the same relative plane as the type-writei'.
The supply is greater than the demand. People must
write even if not paid for the pleasure of seeing their
ideas in print, and for this reason to-day do we find
country Aveeklies furnished regulai'ly free of expensi;
with interesting correspondence from abroa.d hy the
editors travelling friends.
As a newspaper num and correspondent, I Avas not
ahvays very particular in Avriting about people, and
dragging their personality before the public. I wanted
subjects and something- or sonieboch' to write about.
These were my capital stock in trade.
I don't wonder that a certain unpopularity with a
class attaches itself to "newspaper men/' "corre-
spondents " and reporters. The tendenc}^ and tempta-
tion is to become social Paul Pry's, especially when
family or individual secrets will swell a column and
bring- dollars. Of all this I did my share, and regard
myself now with small favor for so doing.
The freedom of the Press has developed Press free-
booters male and female, and the Press has now all the
freedom of the village gossip.
On the other hand a great many people like to see
their nam<»s in print. The remark "don't put my
name in tlie paper'' often means "do put my name in
the paper," with little care as to the accompanying
comment.
Many people have a terrible and I think needless
fear of what the newspaper can do and say to make
or unmake them, to give a book or a play a reputation
or kill it outi'ight. T notice that a play often becomes
very popular wlien its first critics condemned it, and the
same can be said of books. Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mark
Twain's Innocents Abroad, Helper's Irrepressible Con-
llict and Bret Harte's Heathen Chinee were not ad-
vertised into notice by the Press. Their force made
the Press advertise them.
The Press, which so often claims to "mould popular
opinion" is in reality moulded by populai' opinion and
follows it, while sometimes claimmg to load it. There
is a pow(M' v.hicji brings men and movements for
greatei- or lesser periods into public notice^ wliicli the
Press does not manufacture.
2T8
The Press wliicli claims indirectly to have so much
of the public nioi'als and the public i^ood in its cai*e
and keepini;- — this "lever of civilization^' which will
delug-e its columns for days and weeks with the pre-
liminaries of a prize fight or f)arades for a similar time
the details of a scandal, places a g'reat deal before the
eyes of every boy and g-irl which seems to me neither
civilized nor civilizing.
I object here neither to the prize fight nor its pub-
lication. But 1 can't think the man Avho spreads it
all bi'oadcast day after day before the comniunity as
a promoter of the highest refinement or civilization.
The Press of to-day is either ridiculing ideas or ig-
noring them entirely, w^hich the Press of a near Future
will treat as most important realities, just as fift}"
3'ears ago, nine-tenths of the American newspapers
treated the subject of human slaver3\ Did the Press
of America mould public opinion in this respect or Avas
it the idea that moulded public opinion first and as
a necessar}^ consequence the Press foUoAved. Not that
I advocate the idea that the editor should express
himself far in advance of public opinion or rather of
public knowledge. It is a very unwise thing to do..
The inevitable result is the kick instead of the copper.
Martyrdom is not the business of a ncAvspaper. Many
a leading editor of to-day deemed conservative and
old fogyish is really more liberal and progressive than
those who rail at hnn. But he is Aviser than they aiul
has learned that ideas which may be accepted and in
full sway a century hence, cannot be argued as if in
full fruition to-day. He may know also how to pa v(^
the way for a new id(*a, and is often doing it while his
readers nevei- realize his intent.
279
CHAPTER XXXV.
RECENT ANTIQUITY.
I WAS soon to leave for the Eastern States. When
I reahzed that I was g'oing-, I found to my surprise
tliat I had made a home in CaUfornia, that it was an
old home and about it clun.ij;" all the memories and as-
sociations of an old home.
I wanted to visit the mines and take a farewell look
at the camps where I had lived and worked in a period
now fast becoming* " old times," and I went.
The term antiquity is relative in its character.
Twent}^ years may involve an antiquity as much as
200 or 2,000. Indeed, as regards sensation and emo-
tion, the m.ore recent antiquity is the more strongly
is it realized and more keenly felt. Standing to-day on
the hillside and looking down on the site of the camp
where you mined twenty-five 3^ears ago, and then
going down that hill and treading over that site, now
silent and deserted, and you realize, so to speak, a live
antiquity. So far as ancient Greece or Rome are con-
cerned, their histories would make no different im-
pression on us if dated GOO years ago or G,000. We are
imposed upon by these rows of ciphers. They convey
i-eally no sense of time's duration. They are but
mathematical sounds. We know only that these na-
tions and these men and women lived, at(% slept, drank,
quamOled, coveted, loved, hated, and died a long time
280
ere vre wqvg horn and that of it all we have but frag*-
luents of their histoiy, or rather frag-ments of the his-
tory- of a few prominent individaals.
But when you stand alone at Dry Bar, where you
mined when it was a livel}^ camp in 1857, with its score
of mudd}^ shiice streams coursing' hitlier and thither,
its stores, its saloons, its hotel and its express office,
and see now hut one rotting pine-log cabin, whose I'oof
has tumbled in and whose sides have tumbled out;
where all about is a silent waste of long-worked-oif
banks or bare ledge and piles of boulders in which
the herbage has taken root; where every mark of the
former houses and cabins has disappeared, save a
mound here, or a i^ile of stone indicating a former
cliimney tliere, you have a livel^^ realization of an-
tiquity, though it be a recent one. You knew the men
who lived here; you worked with them; 3^ou know the
sites of the houses in which they lived; 3^ou have an
event and a memory for ever^^ acre of territor3^ here-
about. Down there, where the river narrows between
tliose two high points of rock, oiu:e stood a rickety'
bridge. It became more and more shaky and danger-
ous, until one day Tom Wharton, the Justice of the
Peace, filed l)y a desire j)^^^^ hono j^uhlico and rather
more than his ordinary quantity of wliiskey, cut the
bi'idge awa^^ with his axe and it floated down stream.
Over yondei', on that sandy point, was the ricliest
claim on llie bar.
Will you go down to Pot-Hole Bar, two miles below?
The trail ran I )y the river. But freshet after freshet
has rushed uvei' the bank and wijxnl out the track
made by th(3 footprints of a few years. There is no
trace of the trail. The chaparral has grown over and
281
quite closed it up. Here and there is a faint trace,
and then it bring-s up short against a j^oung- pine or a
bucke^^e, the growth of the Last ten j^ears. Yet in
former days this path ranked in your mind of the im-
portance of a town street. You had no idea how
(iuickly nature, if left alone, will restore things to
what we term "primitive conditions." If a gTeat
city was desei-ted in these foothills, within twenty
years' time the native growths would creep down
and in upon it, start plantations of chaparral m the
streets, festoon the houses with vines, while winged
seeds would fill the gutters and cornices with verduix\
It is a hard struggle through the undergrowth to Pot-
Hole Bar. No man lives there now. No man goes
there. Even the boulder piles and bare ledges of fifteen
years ago, marking the scarifying work of 3'our race
on mother earth's face, are now mounds overgrown
with weeds. What solitude of ancient ruined cities
equals this? Their former thousands are nothing to
you as individuals; but you knew all the bo^^s at Pot-
Hole. It was a favorite after-supper trip from Dry
Bar to Pot-Hole to see how the "boys" were getting
on, and vice versa from Pot-Hole to Dry Bar.
A cotton-tail rabbit sends a flash of white through
the bushes. His family now inhabits Pot-Hole. They
came back after all of your troublesome race had left,
and very glad Avere the "cotton-tails" of the riddance.
There is a broken shovel at your feet and near bj^ in
the long grass you see the fragment of a sluice's false
bottom, bored through with auger holes to catch the
gold and worn quite thin by the attrition of pebble
and boulder along its upper surface. This is about the
only vestige of the miner's former workc Stop! On
282
the hillside 3'onder is a mound -like elevation and be-
yond that a loni>- green raised line. One marks the
reservoir and the other the ditch. It was the Pot-
Hole Company's reservoir, built after they had con-
cluded to take water from the ditch and Avash off a
point of g-ravel jutting tow^ard the river. The^^ had
washed it all off by 1856, and then the compan^^ dis-
banded and went their respective ways. Pot-Hole lay
very quiet for a couple of years, but little doing there
save rocker washing for grub and whiskey by four or
five men who had concluded that " grub and whiskey "
was about all in hfe worth hving for. A '' slouchy "
crowd, prone to bits of rope to tie up their sus-
penders, unshaven faces, and not a Sunday suit among
them.
The}' pottered about the bar and the bank, working
sometimes in concert and then quarrelling, and every
man betaking himself to his private rocker, pick, and
shovel for a few da3\s or weeks and coming together
again, as compelled by necessity. One of them com-
menced picking into a slim streak of gravel at the base
of the red hard-pan bank left by the pot-holers. It
paid to the pan first two cents and a little farther in
three, and a little farther seven, and then the gold be-
came coarser and heavier and it yielded a bit to the
pan. The blue ledge " pitched in," the gravel streak
grew wider and i-icher, the crowd took up the whole
face of the bank, 150 feat to the man, and found they
had struck fortunes. And then the^^ worked at short
intervals and " went it " at long ones, and all save four
drank themselves to death within four years.
They have all long since gone. They are scattered
for the most part you know not where. Two are liv-
283
ing- in San Francisco and are now men of might and
mark. Another you have heard of far awa^' in the
Eastern States^ living' in a remote villag"e, Avhose name
is never heard of outside the county bounds. One has
been reported to you as "up North somewhere;" an
other down in Arizona "somewhere/' and three you
can locate in the county. Tliat is but seven out of
the one hundred who once dwelt here and roundabout.
Now that recollection concentrates herself you do call
to mind two others — one died in the county almshouse
and another became insane and was sent to Stockton.
That is all. Nine out of the one hundred that once re-
sided at Dry Bar. It is mournful. The river monot-
onously drones, gurgles, and murmurs over the ritHe.
The sound is the same as in "58. A bird on the oppo-
site bank gives forth, at regular intervals, a loud
querulous cry. It was a bii'd of the same species whose
note so woi'e on the nerves of Mike McDonald as he
lay dying of consumption in a big house which stood
yonder, that, after anathematizing it, he would be-
seech his watcher to take a gun and blow the " cussed "
thing's head off. Perhaps it is the same bird. The
afternoon shadows are creeping down the mountain
side. The outline of the hills opposite has not at all
changed, and there, down by the bank, is the enormous
fraguu'nt of broken rock against which Dick Childs
built his brush shelter for the summer and out of
which he was chased hy a sudden fall rise of the river.
But it is very lonesome with all these people here so
vivid in memory, yet all gone, and never, never to
come back.
You wonder if any of the " old crowd " now living,
hve over as you do the past life hei'e; if a single one
284
within the last ten years has ever revisited the spot;
or if an}' of them have an}' desire to revisit it. 8onie
of them did so once. There was Jake Bennett. As
late as '(j2, Jake, who had removed to the next coun-
ty, would come ever}" summer on a pilg'rimag'e to
'^see the boys/' and the boys at Dry Bar were even
then sadh' reduced in number, for the camp ran down
ver}" quickly Avithin the four 3'ears dating" from '58.
But Jake Avas faithful to old memories and associa-
tions, and proved it by the ten-miles' walk he was ob-
lig-ed to take to reach Dry Bar. Dry Bar was never
on a regular stag-e route. Jake was an ex-Philadel-
phian and called rest "west" and violin "wiolin."
But no one comes here now, at least on any such er-
rand. It's a troublesome and rather expensive locality
to reach and mere sentiment does not pay. The near-
est resident is a Missouri hog"- rancher, whose house is
above on the hill a couple of miles away. He neither
knows nor cares for Dry Bar's former histor}-. He
came here but ten years ag-o. His half-Avild swine are
ambushed about in the shelter of the elder and buck-
eye bushes, and fi'ightened at yom* approach plung"e
snorting- into the deeper thickets.
Here it is. The remains of your own cabin chimn(y,
a pile of smoke-blackened stones in the tall g-rass. Of
the cabin every vestig-e has disappeared. You built
that chimney yourself. It was an awkward affair,
but it served to carry out the smoke, and when fin-
ished you surv(n'ed it with pleasure and some pride,
for it was your cliimney. Have you ever felt "snug-
g-er"and more cozy and comfortable since than 3'ou
did on the long-, rainy winter nig-hts, when, the supper
finished and the crockery washed, you and your
285
"pard'^ sat bj' the g-lowing" coals and prepared your
pipes for the evening" smoke ? There were great hopes
and some great strikes on Dry Bar in those days; that
was in '52. Mining was still in the pan, rocker and
long torn era; sluices were just coming in. H^xlraul-
icking 100-foot banks and washing hills otf the face of
the earth had not been thought of. The dispute as to
the respective merits of the long vs. the short-handled
shovel was still going on. A gra^- or red shirt was a
badge of honor. The deep river-beds Avere held to con-
tain enormous store of golden nuggets. River mining
was in its wing and coffer-dam phase.
Perhaps the world then seemed 3'ounger to you
than now? Perhaps your mind then set little store
on this picturesque spot, so wrapped were you in
visions of the future? Perhaps then you wrote regu-
larly to that girl in the States — your first heart 's-
trouble — and your anticipation was ^xed entirely on
the home to be built up there on the gold 3^ou were to
dig here ? Pei'haps the girl never married you, the
home was never built and nothing approaching the
amount of oro expected dug out. You held, then.
Dry Bar in light estimation. It was for 3'ou onh' a
temporary- stopping place, from which you wished to
get its gold as quickly as you could and get away
from as soon as possible. You never expected Dry
Bar, its memories and associations thus to make for
themselves a " local habitation and a name " in your
mind. We live sometimes in homes w^e do not real-
ize until much of their material part has passed away.
A horned toad scuttles along the dry grass and in-
flates himself to terrify you as you approach. Those
rat-like ground squirrels are running from hole to
286
hole, like gossiping* neighbors, and " chipping " shrill3-
at each other. These are old summer acquaintances
at Dry Bar.
Is it with a feeling of curiosity 3^ou take up one of
those stones handled h}' 3'ou thirty-one 3^ears ago and
wonder how like or unlike you may be to yourself at
that time ? Are you the same man ? Not the same
young man, certainly. The face is worn; the eyes
deeper set ; the hair more or less gray and there are
lines and wrinkles where none existed then. But that
is only the outside of your " soul case." Supf)ose that
you, the John Doe of 1883, could and should meet the
John Doe of 1853 ? Would you know him ? Would
you agree on all points with him? Could you "get"
along with him ? Could you " cabin " with him ? Could
you " summer and winter " with him ? Would the
friends of the John Doe of '53, wiio piled up that chim-
ney, be the friends of the present John Doe, wiio stands
regarding its ruins ? Are the beliefs and convictions
of that J. Doe those of this J. Doe ? Are the jokes
deemed so clever b}^ that J. Doe clever to this J. Doe ?
Are the men great to that J. Doe great to tiie jiresent
J. Doe ? Does he now see the filmly, f rotli3^ fragments
of scores of pricked bubbles sailing away and vanish-
ing in air ? If a man die shall he live again ? But
how much of a man's mind may die out and be sup-
planted by other ideas ere his body goes back to dust ?
How much of this J. Doe belongs to that J. Doe, and
how much of the same man is there standing here ?
287
CHAPTER XXXVI.
GOING HOME.
After sixteen years of exile in California, I found
myself rolling" seaward and homeward through the
Golden Gate in the Panama steamer Sacramento.
Tlie parting gun had been fired, the caj)tain, naval
cloak, cap, eye-glass and all, had descended from his
perch of command on the paddle-box, the engine set-
tled steadil}^ to its work. Telegraph Hill, Meigg's
Wharf, Black Point, Alcatraz, Lime Point, Fort Point,
one by one receded and crept into the depressing
glooni}^ fog, the mantle in which San Francisco loves
so well to wrap herself. The heave of the Pacific
began to be plainly felt, and Avith it the customary
misery.
The first two days out are devoted to sea and home-
sickness. Everybody is wretched about something.
No sooner is the steamer a mile be^^ond the Heads
than we, who for years have been awaiting a blessed
deliverance from California, are seized Avith unutter-
able longings to return. All at once we discover how
pleasant is the land and its people. We review its
associations, its life, its peculiar excitements, and the
Avarm friendships Ave haA^e made there. And noAV it
is all fading in the fog: the Cliff House is disappear-
ing, it is going, it is gone. Heart and stomach are
contemporaneously Avretched: Ave bury ourselves in
our berths; we call upon the steward and stewardess;
we wish ardently that some accident ma3^ befall the
ship and oblige her to put back. No! Not more in-
exorable, certam and inevitable is the earth in its rev-
olution, the moon in its orbit, or one's landlord when
tlie rent is overdue, than is the course of the stately
vessel south. SoHth, day after day, she plung'es; the
North Star sinks, the sky becomes fairer, the air
milder, the ocean of a softer l5uie; the sunsets develop
the tints of Fairyland; the sunrise mocks all human
ornamentation in its gorg-eousness. Light coats and
nuisHn drcvsses blossom on the projuenade-deck; the
colored waiters develop white linen suits and faultless
neckties. The sea air on the northei-n edge of the
tropic zone is a bahn for every wound, and forces us
into content against our perverse wills.
We had a medley on board. There was a batch of
sea-captains g"oing East, some with Avives, some with-
out; one of the maritime madams, they said, could
navigate a vessel as well as her husband; she cer-
tainly had a sailor balance in walking the deck in
rough weather. There was a tall Mephistophelicrlook-
ing German youth, who daily took up a position on
deck, fortified by a novel, a cigar, and a field-glass,
never spoke a word to any one, and was reported to
be a baron. There were a dogmatic young Eng-
lishman with a heavy burr in his voice, who seemed
making" a business of seeing the Avorld ; a stock}^ ^'o^^ng"
fellow, one of Morgan's men during the war, and an-
other who had seen his term of service on the Federal
side; a stout lady, dissatisfied with everj^thing, sick
of travelling, dragging about Avith her a thin-legged
husband Avell stricken in years, who interfered feebly
289
with her tantrums; and a A'oiini^ man who at the
commencement of the trip started out with amazing-
celerity^ and success in making- himself popular. This
last was a cheery, chipper^^ 3'oung- fellow ; his stock in
trade was small, hut he knew liow^ to display it to the
best advantage. It gave out in ahout ten days, and
everybody voted him a bore. He took seriousl^^ to
drinking brandy ere we arrived in New York. And
then came the rank and file, without sufficient indi-
viduality as yet developed to be even disagreeable.
But there was one other, a well-to-do Dutchess
County farmer, who had travelled across the continent
to see " Californy," and concluded to take the steamer
on his Avay home to observe as much as he might of
Central America; a man who had served the Empire
State in her legislature; a man mighty in reading.
Such a walking- encyclopa^lia of facts, figures, history,
poetry, metapliysics and philosophy I never met
before. He could quote Seward, Bancroft, Carl
Schurz, Clay, and Webster by the hour. His voice
was of the sonorous, nasal order, with a genuine Yan-
kee twang. I tried in vain to spring on him some sub-
ject whereof he should appear ignorant. One might
as well have endeavroed to sliow Noah Webster a
new word in the English language. And all this
knowledge during the trip he ground out in lots to
order. It fell from his lips dry and dusty. It lacked
soul. It smelt overmuch of histories, biographies, and
political pamf)hlets. He turned it all out in that
mechanical way, as though it were ground through a
cofTee-mill. Even his admiration was dry and lifeless.
So was his enthusiasm. He kept both measured out
for occasions. It is a pleasant sail along the Central
290
American coast, to see the shores Uned with forests
so g-reen, with palms and cocoanuts, and in the back-
ground dark voltanic cones; and this man, in a re-
spectable black suit, a standing collar and a beaver
hat, would gaze thereon by the hour and grind out his
dusty admiration. Among the steerage passengers
was a bugler who every night gave a free entertain-
ment. He played with taste and feeling, and when
once we had all allowed our souls to drift away in
"The Last Rose of Summer,^' the Grinder in the midst
of the beautiful strain brought us plump to earth by
turning- out the remark that " a bewgle made abeout
as nice music as any instrument goin', ef it was well
played." Had he been thrown overboard he would
have drifted ashore, and bored the natives to death
with a long and lifeless story of his escajpe from drown-
ing.
Dames Rumor and Gossip are at home on the high
seas. The^^ commence operations as soon as their
stomachs are on sea-legs. Everybody then undergoes
an inspection from everybody else, and we report to
each other. Mrs. Bluster! Mrs. Bluster's conduct is
perfectly scandalous before we have been out a week:
she nibbling around young men of one-half — ay, one-
fourtli — her age ! The young miss who came on broad
in charge of an elderly couple has seceded from them;
promenades the hurricane-deck very late with a dash-
ing- young Calif ornian; but then birds of a feather,
male and female, will flock together. Mr. Bleareye is
full of brandy every morning before ten o'clock; and
the "catamaran" with the thin -legged and subjected
hus))and does nothing but talk of her home in .
We know the color and pattern of her carpets, the
291
number of her servants, the qiiaUty of her plate, and
yesterday she brouiilit out her jewehy and made
thereof a puhUc exhibition in the saloon. All this is
faithfully and promptl^^ borne per rail over the Isth-
mus, and goes over to the Atlantic steamer. I am
conscientious in this matter of gossip: I had made
resolutions. There was a lady likewise conscientious
on board, and one night upon the quarter-deck, when
we had talked propriety threadbare, when we were
both bursting- with our fill of observation, we met each
other halfway and confessed that unless we indulged
ourselves also in a Uttle scandal we should die, and
then, the flood-gates being opened, how we riddled
them ! But there is a ditfei'ence between criticism of
character and downright scandal, 3'ou know; in that
way did we poultice our bruised consciences.
On a voyage everybody has confidences to make,
private griefs to disclose, to everybody else. This is
especially the case during the first few days out. We
feel so lone and lorn; we have all undergone the
misery of parting, the breaking of tender ties; we
seem a huddle of human units shaken by chance into
the same box, yet scarcely are we therein settled when
we begin putting forth feelers of sympathy and recog-
nition. There was one young man who seemed to me
a master in the art of making desirable acquaintances
for the trip. He entered upon his work ere the Golden
Gate had sunk below the horizon. He had a friendly
word for all. His approach and address were prepos-
sessing. He spoke to me kindh\ I was miserable and
flung myself upon him for sympathy. The wretch
Avas merely testing me as a compagnon de voyage.
He found me unsuitable. He flunc: me from him with
2\)2
easy but cold politeness, and consorted Avith an "edu-
cated German g-entleman/' I revenged myself by
playing the same tactics on a sea- and love-sick Ger-
man carriage-maker. "An e^^e for an eye, a tooth for
a tooth," 3'ou know.
We touched at Magdalena Bay and Punta Arenas.
We expected to stay at Punta Arenas twelve liouis to
discharg-e a quantity of flour. Four times twelve
hours we remained there. Everybody became Aery
tired of Costa Rica. Tlie Costa Rican is not hurried
in his movements. He took his own time in sending
the necessary lighters for that flour. A boat load
went oir once in four hours. The Costa Ricans came on
board, men and women, great and small, inspected the
Sacramento, enjoyed themselves, went on shore again,
lay down in the shade of their cocoanut palms, smoked
their cigarettes and slept soundl}', while the restless,
uneasy load of humanity' on the American steamer
fretted, fumed, perspired, scolded at Costa Rican lazi-
ness and ridiculed the Costa Rican government, wiiich
revolutionizes once in six months, changes its flag once
a year, taxes all imi:)rovements, and acts up to the
principle that government was made for the benefit of
those wlio govern. Many of the passengers went on
shore. Some came back laden with tropical flowers,
others full of brandy. The blossoms filled the vessel
the whole night with perfume, while the brandy pro-
duced noise and badl^'-sung popular melodies.
The Grinder went on shore with the rest. On re-
turning he expressed disgust at the Costa Ricans. He
thought that "nothing could ever be made of them."
He had no desire th it the United States should ever
assimilate with an^^ portion of the Torrid Zone. He
293
predicted that such a fusion would prove destructive
to American eneri^y and intellig'ence. We had enoug"h
southern territory and torpor already. The man has
no appreciation of the indolence and repose of the
tropics. He knows not that the most delicious of en-
joyments is the wakini^' dream under the feathery
palm, care and restlessness flung aside, while the soid
through the eye loses itself in the blue depths above.
He would doom us to an eternal rack of civilization
and Progress-work— grind, jerk, hurry, twist and
strain, until our nerves, by exhaustion unstrung and
sliattered, allow no repose of mind or body; and even
when we die our bones are so infected by restlessness
and goaheaditiveness that they rattle uneasily in our
coffins.
Panama sums up thus: An ancient, walled, red -tiled
city, full of convents and churches; the ramparts lialf
ruined; weeds springing atop the steeples and bel-
fries; a fleet of small boats in front of the cit\'; Pro-
g'ress a little on one side in the g'uise of the Isthmus
Railroad depot, cars, eng-ines, ferry-boat, and red, iron
lighters; a straggling guard of parti-colored, tawdry
and most slovenh'-uniformed soldiers, with French
muskets and sabre bayonets, drawn up at the landing,
commanded by an officer smartly dressed in blue, gold,
kepi, brass buttons and stripes, with a villainous squint
eye, smoking a cigar. About the car windows a chat-
tering crowd of blacks, half blacks, quarter blacks,
coffee, molasses, brown, nankeen and straw colored
natives, thrusting skinn^^ arms in at the windows, and
at the end of those arms parrots, large and small, in
cages and out, monke3's, shells, oranges, bananas,
carved work, and i)earls in various kinds of gold set-
294
ting-; all of which were sorel^^ tempting- to some of the
ladies, but ere nianj^ bargains were concluded the train
clattered otf, and we were crossing the continent.
The Isthmus is a panorama of tropical jungle; it
seems an excess, a dissii)ation of vegetation. It is a
place favorable also for the study of external black
anatomj^ The natives kept undressing more and more
as we roiled on. For a mile or two after leaving Pan-
ama the^^ did affect the shirt. Beyond this, that gar-
ment seemed to have become unfashionable, and tbe}^
stood at their open doors with the same unclothed dig-
nity that characterized Adam in the Garden of Eden
before his matrimonial troubles commenced. Several
young ladies in our care first looked up, then down,
then across, then skleways: then they looked very
grave, and finally all looked at each other and unani-
mously tittered.
Aspinwall! The cars stop; a black-and-tan bat-
talion charge among us, offering to carr^^ baggage.
They pursue us to the gate of the P. M. S. S. depot;
there they stop; we pass through one more cluster of
oi"ange, banana, and cigar selling women; we push and
jam into the depot, show our tickets, and are on board
the Ocean Queen. We are on the Atlantic side! It
comes over us half in awe, half in wonder, that this
boat will, if she do not reach the bottom first, carry
us straight to a dock in New York. The anticipation
of years is developing into tangibility.
We cross the Caribbean. It is a stormy sea. Our
second day thereon was one of general nausea and
depression. You have perhaps heard the air, " Sister,
what are the wild waves saying?" On that black
Friday many of our passengers seemed to be earnestlj^
295
saying- something over the Ocean Queen's side to the
" wild, wild waves." The Grinder went down with the
rest. I gazed triumphantly over his prostrate form
laid out at full length on a cabm settee. Seward,
Bancroft, politics, metaphysics, poetry, and philosophy
were hushed at last. Both enthusiasm and patriotism
find an uneasy perch on a nauseated stomach.
But steam has not robbed navigation of all its
romance. We find some poetry- in smoke, smoke
stacks, pipes, funnels, and paddles, as well as in the
" bellying sails '' and the " white-wmged messengers of
commerce.'' I have a sort of worship for our ponder-
ous walking-beam, which swings its many tons of
iron upon its axis as lightly as a lady's parasol held
'twixt thumb and finger. It is an embodiment of
strength, grace, and faithfulness. Night and day,
mid rain and sunshine, be the sea smooth or tempestu-
ous, still that giant arm is at its work, not swerving
the fractional part of an inch from its appointed
sphere of revolution. It is no dead metallic thing:
it is a something- rejoicing in power and use. It
crunches the ocean 'neath its wheels with that pride
and pleasure of power wiiich a strong- man feels when
he fights his way throug-h some ig-noble crowd. The
milder powers of upper air more feebly impel yon ship;
in our hold are the powers of earth, the gnomes and
goblins, the subjects of Pluto and Vulcan, begrimed
with soot and sweat, and the elements for millions
and millions of years imprisoned in the coal are being
steadily set free. Every shovelful generates a mon-
ster born of flame. As he flies sighing and groaning
through the wide-mouthed smokestack into the upper
air, he gives our hull a parting- shove forward.
206
A death in the steera.i;e — a passenger taken on
hoard sick at Aspinwall. All day long" an inanimate
shape wrapped in the American flag* lies near the
gangway. At four p. m. an assemblage from cabin and
steerage gather with uncovered heads. The surgeon
reads the service for the dead; a plank is lifted up;
with a last shrill whirl that which was once a man is
sliot into the blue waters; in an instant it is out of
sight and far behind, and we retire to our state-rooms,
thinking and solemnly wondering about that body
sinking, sinking, sinking in the depths of the Carib-
bean; of the sea monsters that curiously approach
and examine it; of the gradual decay of the corpse's
canvas envelope; and far mto the night, as the Ocean
Queen shoots ahead, our thoughts wander back in the
blackness to the buried ^x^t unbui'ied dead.
The Torrid Zone is no more. This morning a blast
from the north sweeps down upon us. Cold, brassy
clouds are in the sk^^r the ocean's blue has turned to a
dark,angr3^ brown, fleecked with white caps and swept
by blasts fresh from the home of the nortliern floe
and iceberg. The majority of the passengers gather
about the cabin-registers, like the house-flies be-
numbed by the flrst cold snap of autumn in our
noi'thern kitchens. Light coats, pumps and other
smnmer apparel have given way to heavy boots, over-
coats, fur caps and pea-jackets. A home look settles
on the faces of the North Americans. They snufl"
their native atmosphere : the^^ feel its bracing influ-
ence. But the tawny-skinned Central Americans who
have gradually accumulated on board from the Pacific
ports and Aspinwall, settle inactively into corners or
rcMuaui ensconced in their berths. The air which kin-
dies our energies wilts theirs. The hurricane-deck is
shorn of its awning-s. Only a few old " sliell-back "
passengers maintain their place upon it, and yet five
days ago we sat there in midsummer moonlit even-
ings.
We are now about one hundred miles from Cape
Hatteras. Old Mr. Poddle and his wife are travelling
for pleasure. Came to California b}- rail, concluded
to return by the Isthmus. Ever since we started
Cape Hatteras has loomed up fearfully in their imag-
inations. Old Ml". Poddle looks knowingly at passing
vessels through his field-glass, but doesn't know a
fore-and-aft schooner from a man-of-war. Mrs« Pod-
dle once a day inquires if there's any danger. Mr.
Poddle does not talk so much, but evidently in private
meditates largely on hurricanes, gales, cyclones, sink-
ing and burning vessels. Last night we came in the
neighborhood of the Gulf Stream. There were flashes
of lightning, '* mare's tails" in the sk}^ a freshening
breeze and an increasing sea. About eleven old Mr.
Poddle came on deck. Mrs. Poddle, haunted by Hat-
teras, had sent him out to see if "there was an^^ dan-
ger;" for it is evident that Mrs. Poddle is dicta tress
of the domestic empire. Mr. Poddle ascended to the
hurricane-deck, looked nervously to leeward, and just
then an old passenger salt standing by, who had dur-
ing the entire passage comijrehended and enjoyed the
Poddletonian dreads, remarked, " This is nothing to
what we shall have by morning." This shot sent
Poddle below. This morning at breakfast the pair
looked harassed and fatigued.
The great question now agitating the mind of this
floating communitv is, " Shall we reach the New York
298
pier at the foot of Canal street by Saturday noon ? "
If we do, there is for us all long- life, prosperity and
happiness : if we do not, it is desolation and miser3^
For Monday is New Year's Day. On Sunday we may
not be able to leave the city : to be forced to stay in
New York over Sunday is a dreadful thought for
solitary contemplation. We study and turn it over
in our minds for hours as we pace the deck. We live
over and over again the land-journey to our hearth-
stones at Boston, Syracuse, and Cincinnati. We meet
in thoug'ht our long-expectant relatives, so that at last
our air-castles become stale and monotonous, and we
fear that the reality may be robbed of half its antici-
pated pleasure from being so often lived over in imag-
ination.
Nine o'clock, Friday evening. The excitement in-
creases. Barnegat Light is in sig-ht. Half the cabin
passengers are up all night, indulging in unprofitable
talk and weariness, merely because Ave are so near
home. Four o'clock, and the faithful engine stops,
the cable rattles overboard, and everything is still.
We are at anchor off Staten Island. By the first
laggard streak of winter's dawn I am on the hurri-
cane-deck. I am curious to see my native North. It
comes by degrees out of the cold blue fog" on either
side of the bay. Miles of houses, spotted with patches
of bush^'-looking woodland — bushy in appearance to
a Californian, whose oaks grow large and Avidely
apart from each other, as in an English park. There
comes a shrieking and groaning and bellowing of
steam-whistles from the monster city nine miles awa}^
Soon we weigh anchor and move up toward it. Tugs
dart fiercely about, or laboriously puff with lieavily-
299
laden vessels in tow. Stately ocean steamers surg-e
past, outward bound. We become a mere frag-ment
of the mass of floating life. We near the foot of Canal
street. There is a great deal of shouting and bawling
and counter-shouting and counter-bawling, with ex-
pectant faces on the wharf, and recognitions from
shore to steamer and from steamer to shore. The
young' woman who flirted so ardently with the young
Californian turns out to be married, and that busi-
ness-looking, middle-aged man on the pier is her hus-
band. Well, I never! Why, you are slow, my friend,
says inward reflection. You are not versed in the
customs of the East. At last the gangway plank is
flung out. We walk on shore. It is now eighteen
years since that little floating world society cemented
by a month's association scattered forever from each
other's sight at the Canal street pier.
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
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