We left Portland on the night train for San Francisco. I took my gull, the Captain we called him, into the sleeper with me. He was asleep when I placed his basket under my berth, but about midnight he awoke and squawked frightfully.
I rang for the porter but before he arrived the Captain had awakened nearly every one in the car. Angry voices were heard inquiring what that “screeching, screaming thing,” was.
An old gentleman thrust his red night capped head out of his berth next to mine and angrily demanded of me where that nasty beast came from. When I politely told him he said he wished that I had had the good sense to leave it there. Then he said something that sounded dreadfully like swear words, but being such an old gentleman I’ve no doubt that my ears deceived me.
At any rate it was something about sea gulls[161] in general and my own in particular. His red flannel cap disappeared and presently I heard him snoring away up in G. Now my poor gull only squawked on low C. After that the Captain traveled in the baggage car with the trunks and packages.
Traveling south from Portland one passes farms and orchards until the foot of the Sierra Nevada range is reached. Most of the farms are well improved. Many of the orchards are bearing, while others are young.
Here and there in the mountains are cattle ranches. These mountains are not barren, rugged rocks like the Selkirks of Alaska. Here there is plenty of pasture to the very summit of the mountains.
Wolf Creek valley is one vast hay field. Up we go until the far-famed Rogue River valley is reached. This noble valley lying in the heart of the Sierras reminds one of the great Mohawk valley of New York.
Ashland is the center of this prosperous district. The Southern State Normal School is located here.
The seventh annual assembly of the Southern Oregon Chautauqua will convene in Ashland in July. This assembly is always well attended.[162] Farmers bring their families and camp on the grounds. The program contains the names of musicians prominent on the coast. Among the lecturers are the names of men and women prominent in their special fields. Frank Beard, the noted chalk talk lecturer, will be present. So you see that the wild and woolly west is not here, but has moved on to the Philippines.
When the passenger train stops at the station of Ashland a score of young fruit venders swarm on the platform, crying plums, cherries, peaches and raspberries at fifteen cents a box. When the train-bell rings fruit suddenly falls to ten cents and when the conductor cries “All aboard” fruit takes a downward plunge to five cents a box, but the fruit is all so delicious that you do not feel in the least cheated in having paid the first price. “Look here, you young rascal,” said a newspaper man, who travels over the road frequently to one of the young fruit dealers, “I bought raspberries of you yesterday at five cents a box.” “O no you didn’t, mister, never sold raspberries at five cents a box in my life sir, pon honor.” In less than three minutes this young westerner was crying “Nice ripe raspberries here, five cents a box.” “Why,” said I, “I thought you told[163] the gentleman that you never sold berries at five cents a box.” “No, Madam, I didn’t, pon honor,” and the little rogue really looked innocent.
Leaving Ashland with three big engines we climb steadily up four thousand one hundred and thirty feet to the summit of the range.
The Rogue River valley spreads out below us in a grand panorama of wheat, oats, barley fields and orchards. Down the southern slope the commercial interest centers in large saw-mills and cattle ranches.
Off to the east lie the lava beds where Gen. Canby and his companions were so treacherously assassinated by the Modoc Indians under the leadership of Captain Jack and Scar Faced Charley.
Crossing the Klatmath River valley the dwelling place in early days of the Klatmath Indians, the engines make merry music as they puff, puff, puff in a sort of Rhunic rhyme to the whir of the wheels as they groan and climb three thousand nine hundred feet to the summit of the Shasta range. There is something wonderfully fascinating about mountain climbing. Whether by rail over a route laid out by a skilled engineer; on the back[164] of a donkey over a trail just wide enough for the feet of the little beast, or staff in hand you go slowly up over rocks and bowlders, or around them, clinging to trees and shrubs for support. The very fact that the train may without a moment’s notice plunge through a trestle or go plowing its way down the mountain side; the donkey lose his head and take a false step; the shrub break or a bowlder come tearing down the rock-ribbed mountain and crush your life out, thrills the blood and holds the mind enthralled as a bird is held enchanted by the charm of the pitiless snake.
Throughout the mountains mistletoe, that mystic plant of the Druids, hangs from the limbs and trunks of tall trees.
It was with an arrow made from mistletoe that Hoder slew the fair Baldur.
All day long snow-covered Mt. Shasta has been in sight and toward evening we pass near it on the southern side of the range and stop at the Shasta Soda Springs. The principal spring is natural soda water. This is the fashionable summer resort of San Francisco people, who come here to get warm, the climate of that city being so disagreeable during July[165] and August that people are glad to leave town for the more genial air of the mountains.
It certainly is odd to have people living in the heart of a great city ask you during these two months if it is hot out in the country. “Out in the country” means forty or fifty miles out, where there is plenty of heat and sunshine. At Shasta Springs, however, the weather is cooler. The climate is delightful, the water refreshing and the strawberries beyond compare. Boteler, known as a lover of strawberries, once said of his favorite fruit: “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.”
Just beyond the springs stand the wonderful Castle Crags. Hidden in the very depths of these lofty Crags lies a beautiful lake. This strange old castle of solid granite, its towers and minarets casting long shadows in the moonlight for centuries, is not without its historic interest, though feudal baron nor chatelaine dainty ever ruled over it. Joaquin Miller, in the “Battle of Castle Crag,” tells the tale of its border history.
Not far away at the base of Battle Rock a bloody battle was once fought between a few[166] whites and the Shasta Indians on one side and the Modoc Indians on the other.
The Indians of California say that Mt. Shasta was the first part of the earth created. Surely it is grand enough and beautiful enough to lay claim to this pre-eminence. When the waters receded the earth became green with vegetation and joyous with the song of birds, the Great Manitou hollowed out Mt. Shasta for a wigwam. The smoke of his lodge fires (Shasta is an extinct volcano) was often seen pouring from the cone before the white man came.
Kmukamtchiksh is the evil spirit of the world. He punishes the wicked by turning them into rocks on the mountain side or putting them down into the fires of Shasta.
Many thousands of snows ago a terrible storm swept Mt. Shasta. Fearing that his wigwam would be turned over, the Great Spirit sent his youngest and fairest daughter to the crater at the top of the mountain to speak to the storm and command it to cease lest it blow the mountain away. She was told to make haste and not to put her head out lest the Wind catch her in his powerful arms and carry her away.
The beautiful daughter hastened to the summit[167] of the peak, but never having seen the ocean when it was lashed into a fury by the storm wind, she thought to take just one peep, a fatal peep it proved. The Wind caught her by her long red hair and dragged her down the mountain side to the timber below.
At this time the grizzly bears held in fee all the surrounding country, even down to the sea. In those magic days of long ago they walked erect, talked like men and carried clubs with which to slay their enemies.
At the time of the great storm a family of grizzlies was living in the edge of the forest just below the snow line. When the father grizzly returned one day from hunting he saw a strange little creature sitting under a fir tree shivering with cold. The snow gleamed and glowed where her beautiful hair trailed over it. He took her to his wife who was very wise in the lore of the mountains. She knew who the strange child was but she said nothing about it to old father grizzly, but kept the little creature and reared her with her own children.
When the oldest grizzly son had quite grown up his mother proposed to him that he marry her foster daughter who had now grown to be a beautiful woman.
Many deer were slain by the old father grizzly and his sons for the marriage feast. All the grizzly families throughout the mountains were bidden to the feast.
When the guests had eaten of the deer and drank of the wine distilled from bear berries and elder berries in moonlight at the foot of Mt. Shasta, when the feast was over, they all united and built for their princess a magnificent wigwam near that of her father. This is “Little Mt. Shasta.”
The children of this strange pair were a new race,—the first Indians.
Now, all this time the great spirit was ignorant of the fate of his beloved daughter, but when the old mother grizzly came to die she felt that she could not lie peacefully in her grave until she had restored the princess to her father.
Inviting all the grizzlies in the forest to be present at the lodge of the princess, she sent her oldest grandson wrapt in a great white cloud to the summit of Mt. Shasta to tell the Great Spirit where his daughter lived.
Now when the great Manitou heard this he was so happy he ran down the mountain side so fast that the snow melted away under his feet.[169] To this day you can see his footprints in the lava among the rocks on the side of the mountain.
The grizzlies by thousands met him and standing with clubs at “attention” greeted him as he passed to the lodge of his daughter.
But when he saw the strange children and learned that this was a new race he was angry and looked so savagely at the old mother grizzly that she died instantly. The grizzlies now set up a dreadful wail, but he ordered them to keep quiet and to get down on their hands and knees and remain so until he should return. He never returned, and to this day the poor doomed grizzlies go on all fours.
A wonderful feat of jugglery, but a greater was that of the Olympian goddess who changed the beautiful maiden Callisto into a bear, which Jupiter set in the heavens, and where she is to be seen every night, beside her son the Little Bear.
The angry Manitou turned his strange grandchildren out of doors, fastened the door and carried his daughter away to his own wigwam.
The Indians to this day believe that a bear[170] can talk if you will only sit still and listen to him. The Indians will not harm a bear. Now for the meaning of those queer little piles of stones one sees so frequently in the Shasta mountains. If an Indian is killed by a bear he is burned on the spot where he fell. Every Indian who passes that way will fling a stone at the fated place to dispel the charm that hangs over it.
“All that wide and savage water-shed of the Sacramento tributaries to the south and west of Mt. Shasta affords good bear hunting at almost any season of the year—if you care to take the risks. But he is a velvet-footed fellow, and often when and where you expect peace you will find a grizzly. Quite often when and where you think that you are alone, just when you begin to be certain that there is not a single grizzly bear in the mountains, when you begin to breathe the musky perfume of Mother Nature as she shapes out the twilight stars in her hair, and you start homeward, there stands your long lost bear in your path! And your bear stands up! And your hair stands up! And you wish you had not lost him! And you wish you had not found him! And you start[171] for home! And you go the other way glad, glad to the heart if he does not come tearing after you.”[1]
Downward from Mt. Shasta flows the Sacramento river. For thirty miles it goes tumbling over bowlders and granite ledges on its way to the sea. In mid-summer the Sacramento cañon is a paradise of umbrageous beauty, a region of forest and groves, of leafy shrubs, delicate ferns, mosses and beautiful flowers, of roaring, tumbling rivers, shining lakelets and dancing trout streams.
Up in the mountains the dewberries are ripe. They are about the size of currants, but farther down the slope they are larger. Blackberries are also plentiful, also the black raspberry, called by the Indians succotash.
The coniferous forests of the Sierra Nevada range are the most beautiful in the world. Here, where the granite domes which are so striking a feature of the Sierras, we find the most beautiful little meadows lying on the tops of the dividing ridges or on their sloping sides. These meadows are all aglow with wild flowers, rank columbines, stately larkspur, daisies and[172] the lovely lupines, beds of blue and white violets, many strange grasses and beautiful sedges, and the glory of them all, the lily.
The magnificent sunset of the mountains, the afterglow resting on their summits, the many clouds of various hues, borrowing the tints of the rainbow,
“That glory mellower than a mist
Of pearl dissolved with amethyst,”
resting on the snowy peaks, lend an enchantment to the scene that might entice the elf king Oberon himself and all his crew of Pixies and Imps back to earth.
Doubtless God might have created a more magnificent range of mountains than the Sierras, but doubtless God never did.
“If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows thou wouldst forget,
Go to the woods and hills.”
—Longfellow.
“There ain’t nothing like fresh air and the smell of the woods. There’s always a smell from trees dead, or living, and the air is better where the woods be.”
The Pacific slope has a wonderful flora which has been but little studied. Here wonderful ferns and laurels grow the whole year round. With few exceptions all the plants are new and strange. One of the most beautiful trees on the coast is the madrona, graceful and stately, its red trunk contrasting oddly with its green foliage. The dandelion is here but puts on such airs and graces that unless you are quite familiar with him you would never take him for the common weed he is at home. He grows several in a cluster on a delicate stem twelve to fifteen inches long. He is the pale yellow of California gold. His white head when he goes to seed is more frowsy than with us, and the seeds are a little different in shape, but he wings himself over onto people’s lawns with the agility and grace of his Illinois brother.
There are many points of interest in San[174] Francisco and not the least of these is China Town, which has a population of thirty thousand people. A Chinese school is a place of interest. The boys (girls are not sent to school in China Town) stand at long tables running across the room. The pupils all study aloud. Besides their books each pupil is provided with a small camel’s hair brush and a pot of ink with which he writes out his lessons in the characters of his native language. The paper used is very red, while the ink is very black. This is a priest’s school and these little almond-eyed Orientals in their quaint caps and gowns are all studying for the priesthood. They laugh and whisper too, when the teacher’s attention is engaged elsewhere, just like American children. One boy painted a Chinese character on another’s face, then they all laughed and the first boy wiped it angrily off. The teacher had not seen it, so no one was punished. The teacher, a fine looking man in the native dress of his country, with a few strokes of his brush painted for us on red paper an advertisement of his school. Teacher and pupils bowed a good morning as we departed.
At the Christian Mission the Chinese minister,[175] a man of much intelligence, greeted us cordially, asking where we were from. He knew where Chicago was and something about it. He was sorry that the services were over and asked us to come again next Sunday at ten o’clock.
The tea house, which is the club room, is the finest oriental club house in America. The beautiful tables and chairs are all inlaid with marble and pearl.
The Joss House, which is the temple, is magnificently adorned and decorated. A cup of tea, which of course evaporates, is kept setting in front of the god, but his worshipers believe he drinks it. Lamps and incense are kept burning all the time to keep the evil spirits away. The worshipers come and go at all hours. No regular services are held except at New Years and on feast days. Upon request, however, the priest will accompany an individual to the temple and conduct services for him.
The home of an aristocratic Chinaman is full of interest to an American. In the home in which we visited everything except the chairs came from China, and these looked oddly out hostess and her daughter. Our hostess was a large woman, but she proudly displayed her tiny feet, the mark of true aristocracy. She hobbled bravely about on these feet only four inches long and did the honors of her house.
When in exchange for the compliment of seeing these aristocratic feet I quite as proudly thrust out my American ones encased in No. 6 broad-soled mountain climbers, the dear lady bowed and smiled, but made no comment. The six-year-old daughter of the house was suffering the tortures of having her feet bound. When the Chinese become Christians they abandon this practice.
In an opium den an old smoker showed us how he smoked the fateful drug. He first took a large lump of opium on a long needle and holding it in the flame of a candle, burnt the poison out of it, then thrust it into the cup of his long pipe, the tiny opening of which he held near the lighted candle, sucking the blue smoke into his lungs and exhaling it through his nostrils.
In the drug store the druggist was putting up a prescription for a sick Chinaman who was standing near. He took down four different bottles and took some roots out of each. Telling the man to make a tea of them he tied them up and handed them over the counter and received his pay. There were lizards and toads there also to be made into medicine.
In the jewelry store four goldsmiths were at work making rings, bracelets and earrings, all by hand.
In the market all sorts of fish and birds were offered for sale. A big fat pig roasted whole looked tempting indeed. Beans, which had been kept damp until they had sprouted, the sprouts an inch to two inches long were ready to be made into a tempting salad. There were baskets of green watermelons the size of an orange.
This being Sunday the streets were thronged with Chinese in native holiday dress, who sauntered leisurely along or gathered in groups chatting away in their native tongue. Their long queues tied with black ribbon hung down the back or were tucked into the side pocket of the tunic. Here and there an Oriental who had imbibed some of the American energy hurried along dressed in the somber business suit of the American, his closely cropped hair, mustache and American shoes making a strange contrast to the groups on the corner.
There is no Sunday in the calendar of these almond-eyed Orientals,—the stores, markets and opium dens were all open.
Presently the weird music of the Salvation Army broke on our ears. Down the street came the Chinese Salvation band, dressed in American costume, the leader carrying the American flag.
When the first Chinese came to California the Indians were very curious about them. A dispute arose among them as to what country the strangers might hail from, and whether or not they were Indians.
The Indians, wise as the Puritans of old, would apply the water test. If the accused swam they were witches, if they drowned they were innocent.
One day a party of Indians met a party of Chinamen approaching a little stream.
The strangers approached the bridge and started across. The Indians too filed across and meeting the Chinamen in mid-stream pushed two of them into the angry, spuming current below. The test was conclusive. They could not swim. They were not Indians.
In the fire department are exhibited two queer old engines. One was purchased in New York in 1849 and brought around the Horn. The other is a hand engine a little more modern in make. These engines are carefully guarded and never taken out except on rare occasions.
Down toward the wharf there stands a quaint old building, the material for which was brought around Cape Horn in 1850. This was San Francisco’s first hotel.
In the wild days of the early history of this little adobe city, nestled among the dunes and sand hills, Mount Diablo looked down on weird scenes on the plaza in front of this old hotel. Here the famous vigilance committee meted out justice to rogue and outlaw alike.
In the early history of California the eighth day of July, 1846, stands out conspicuously. On that day the Brooklyn dropped her anchor off the island of Yerba Buena, the “good herb,” and flung the Stars and Stripes to the breeze. At noon Captain Montgomery unfurled the American flag on the plaza.
In that good ship came a party of pseudo Mormons, under the leadership of “Bishop” Brannan, the valiant leader of the Vigilance Society. This colony of Latter Day saints[180] brought stout hearts, keen wits, strong arms, pluck, plenty of money and a printing press. Later they quarreled with their bishop and went to law with him and thus gave up their scheme of Mormon colonization and made sport of Brigham Young himself in their tents on the beach.
But they gave to San Francisco her first newspaper pledged to eschew all sectarian dogmas; her first prayer meeting and her first trial by jury. A wonderfully progressive people, those Mormons of the sand dunes.
Washington Bartlett, the first alcalde of Yerba Buena, changed the name to San Francisco.
The name of John C. Fremont stands for California as does that of Dr. Marcus Whitman for Oregon.
We called on the astrologer. When our horoscopes were cast and our future told us, we bade adieu to China Town.
The Golden Gate park is a perfect bower of beauty, a fine piece of landscape gardening.
In the center of the park stands the Hall of Art, a handsome building of Egyptian architecture. From the display in the relic department[181] one easily reads the history of early days in California.
In the department of statuary the loveliest figure was one in the beautiful carrara marble of Merope who was cast out of heaven because she fell in love with a mortal.
A plaster cast of the head of David after the colossal statue by Michael Angelo set in place in Florence in 1504, attracted much attention.
Michael Angelo had his troubles like other mortals. When his David was placed in position the mayor of Florence objected to the nose of the statue, saying it was too large. Angelo, perceiving that his critic’s position gave him a poor light on the figure, took a handful of marble dust, a hammer and a chisel and climbing to the head of the statue gave the nose a few taps, at the same time letting fall the dust. The mayor without changing position declared the nose perfect.
The Second Oregon had come home: Early in the morning the commanders were instructed to get their men ready to march to the barracks. Ten minutes later the regiment was on the wharf, the men wearing the blue shirts, brown trousers and leggins which they wore when[182] charging through the jungles and over the rice fields in the Philippines. The mascot detachment was not so easily landed.
“Here, Walker, take this monkey,” shouted a corporal.
“Grab that goat quick, he is going overboard.”
“Lend me a hand here, you privates; let’s get this menagerie ashore,” commanded the officer of the day.
Order reigned about two seconds when “Monkey overboard” turned order into chaos. Twenty men rushed to the edge of the wharf and strenuous efforts were made to save the life of the little brown fellow who had toppled off the gang plank. Ropes were carried from every corner of the wharf, but the efforts of the men were unavailing and the monkey lost his life. The other monkeys, the parrots, the dogs and the goat were safely landed. The goat chews tobacco and eats it too.
The Oregon band struck up “Home Sweet Home” in quick time and the march to the Presidio began.
For an hour or more a man near me had been talking in a pessimistic way about the war. He said this Philippine scuffle didn’t amount to[183] much anyway. What did we want with their old islands, anyhow? We ought to return them. It was a violation of the constitution to keep them.
Ten minutes later he was saying, “I can’t stand it,” as platoon after platoon went by with decimated ranks. One platoon had left nearly every man in the Philippines.
There were others who “couldn’t stand it.” “Home Sweet Home” sounded like a mockery. Up the street trudged these boys in blue, travel stained and weary, bearing the flag with holes in it, holes made by the death-winged bullets of the Filipinos. How gaunt and sick they looked. War had not been play with them. Not many cheers were heard. There were more “God bless you boys” than “Hurrahs.”
Other bands may play better, other bands may play louder, but none ever played more effectively than the Oregon.
Three big flags flung their folds to the ocean breeze as the regiment marched up the street. One of them was a dazzle of blue and gold and one bright and new, but one was the real Old Glory, torn by shot and shell, raveled and frayed by the Philippine winds. It was the[184] battle stained, tattered emblem of our country’s honor that received the heartiest cheers and warmest welcome. This was the flag that brought the mist before the eyes and brought to the mind Decatur’s noble toast. “Our country. In her intercourse with foreign countries may she always be right; but right or wrong, our country.”
On stretchers borne by the ambulance corps came the sick and wounded. A great contrast, these war-worn soldiers, to the spick and span Sixth Cavalry which escorted them.
Right royally did the Queen of the Golden Gate welcome home Oregon’s noble sons.
Passing the Examiner building nearly a million firecrackers which decorated the building, hanging in great loops and festoons, were set off. In the midst of this noise some one threw out a big bouquet of American Beauty roses. A soldier caught them and sniffed their fragrance. “They’re American Beauties, boys,” he said and passed them on. Up and down the line went those roses, each man burying his face in them for a moment, then passing them on to his brother. When they had passed the rear line they were handed to the next platoon, and so they went on down that battle-scarred line.
The little Filipino boy, Manuel Robels, who accompanied the boys home, caught nearly every eye as he trudged along, a sawed-off Mauser rifle over one shoulder and an American flag over the other. Flowers were showered on him too.
Out at Van Ness street General Shafter sat on horseback with his staff, to review the troops.
Just beyond the place of review a company of wee tots with military hats and lath guns stood at the edge of the side-walk and presented arms. All that gallant regiment, from the colonel to the little Filipino boy, returned the salute of those patriotic tots.
Thus the noble Second regiment of the Oregon Volunteers marched out to the Presidio and to Fame’s eternal camping ground.
The Presidio, now the United States barracks, was established by the Spaniards in 1776. Little dreamed they that out of this camp would come one hundred years later a conquering host.
The camp is delightfully located on the bay[186] north of the city. The grounds include a thousand acres. The officers’ quarters are neat, cosy cottages. The long porches and verandas of the barracks are covered with vines and roses. Rows upon rows of flowers such as only grow in this moist climate decorate the walks on either side.
What temperament is to a man, that climate is to a country. The climate of California is one of the most delightful in the world.
California possesses the wealth of two zones. The ocean current gives it a temperate climate and the mountain ranges intercepting and reflecting the sun’s rays give California a climate distinctly her own.
Fine fruit farms surround San Francisco for fifty miles. Irrigation, combined with a genial climate, produces the delicious fruit for which California is justly famed. In the vineyards the vines are pruned low, from two to four feet high. The Leland Stanford vineyard is one of the finest on the coast, the low pruned vines with their dark green leaves and rich purple fruit making a fine contrast to the red brown soil.
California produces more wine to the acre than any other country in the world. The best[188] American wines come from Sonoma county, the Asti of America, where a thousand foothills are planted in choice wine grapes, and where nature supplies all the moisture necessary to perfectly ripen the fruit.
The vines are planted eight feet apart, intersected by wide avenues, down which the wagons pass in gathering up the boxes into which the pickers have tossed the ripe grapes—only well ripened grapes make good wine. Many of these roadways are lined on either side with olives, palms and other semi-tropical plants.
The pickers are mostly Swiss and Italian, men of practical experience in their own countries. They work in groups and keep up a running fire of jest and fun; ever and anon a happy heart breaks out in native song.
Pitchers of rude crockery are scattered about filled with wine for the workers.
From San Diego to Dutch Harbor wine flows freely, but yet there is no drunkenness to speak of.
The interest in a vineyard centers in the winery and the wine cellars. The grapes are first picked from the stems, then thrown into the great crushers, the juice flowing away through flumes to the fermenting vats. Asti[189] boasts the largest wine-tank in the world. It is dug out of the soft stone which abounds in this country and lined with a thick layer of cement.
No less interesting is the cool, fragrant wine cellar. Here immense casks made of red wood stand upright, holding some of them, thirty gallons of wine.
When California was wild, the entire state was one sweet bee garden. Wherever a bee might fly, within the confines of this virgin wilderness, from forest to plain, from mountain to valley, from leafy glen to piny slope, chalices laden with golden nectar greeted him.
Those halcyon days of our humble brown friend are past. The plow and the sheep have played havoc with those once beautiful gardens. Now the lonely bee who would his trade pursue must fly far afield.
Traveling east and south from San Francisco, the fruit ranches are soon left behind and we enter the wheat district. Here we find no irrigation ditches. Every farm has a wind-mill, which pumps water for the stock and also for the orchard and garden. The yield of wheat is low, averaging only about twenty-five bushels to the acre.
This wheat is not used in the United States, being of a lower grade than Minnesota and Dakota wheat. It is shipped to the eastern markets, China, Japan and the Philippines.
We traveled one hundred and fifty miles through this district during the harvest. The combined harvester and thresher, drawn by forty mules, cuts a wide swath, threshes the grain at once, sacks it and dumps it on the ground ready for shipment. The wheat ripens during the dry season and so thoroughly that it can be threshed immediately after cutting. As the farmer has no fear of rain at this time of the year, he lets the sacks lie in the field until he is ready to sell.
The islands of the San Joaquin river are wonderfully fertile and many of them are under cultivation. The uncultivated islands produce every year a dense growth of bulrushes. Efforts have been made to utilize these in various ways.
This wonderful valley, this marvelous gorge, “touched by a light that hath no name, a glory never sung,” is a puzzle to geologists. It is a granite-walled chasm in the very heart of the mountains. The solid rock walls have split in half, one-half dropping out of sight, leaving only this beautiful valley to tell the tale.
Down the dark, frowning walls, which rise sheer from three to five thousand feet, plunge numerous waterfalls which leap two thousand feet at a bound. Through the valley flows the Merced river. Its water, clear as crystal, is full of that most delicious of all fish, mountain trout. A more pellucid stream does not flow on this continent. Up in the mountain the Merced river is a wild, roaring torrent, but through the valley it flows placidly over its white pebble bed, bathing the brown roots of the trees that fringe its banks. The trout float lazily along, leaping up to catch the insects that fly over the water, or sleeping in quiet pools and shady nooks along the bank. Here the cook drops his line out of the kitchen window and hooks trout for our breakfast.
The air is fragrant with the odor of many blossoms. The murmur of YoSemite falls lulls one to sleep as it goes leaping down five thousand feet over the granite wall to the pool below, clashing with spray the flowers that bloom on its banks.
YoSemite is truly a valley with little suggestion of the cañon about it. The Half Dome towering high above almost conceals the trench of the river, and the gorge of Tenaya creek. Several thousand broad acres spread out in a level tract on its long narrow bottom.
El Capitan is the monarch of the world of rocks. A solid mass of granite, towering skyward three-fifths of a mile, barren except for one lone tree, an alligator pine, one hundred and twenty-seven feet high, growing on a narrow ledge, in a niche a thousand feet above its base. Its rugged face, one and one-half miles across, kissed to a soft creamy whiteness by the suns of summer and the snows of winter. That is El Capitan, the wonder of the world. The Indians call it Tutockahnulah, in honor of their greatest chief.
Scarred and hoary, the Three Brothers stand like severe hierophants, looking down into this mysterious vale.
That marvel of lakes, Mirror lake, called by the Indians Sleeping Water, adds beauty to this wonderful valley, so placid, so clear the water that the rocky wall and every tree and shrub on its banks lie on the bosom of the water as if reflected in a mirror.
“Aloft on sky and mountain wall are God’s great pictures hung.”
The legend of the lovely falls called Bridal Veil runs in this wise:
Centuries ago there lived in this valley one Tutockahnulah and his tribe. One day while out hunting, he met the spirit of the valley, Tisayac. From that moment he knew no peace. He neglected his people and spent his time in dreaming of lovely Tisayac. She was fair, her skin was white and the sun had kissed her hair to a golden brown. Her eyes reflected heaven’s own blue. Her silvery speech like a bird’s song led him to her, but when he opened his eyes she vanished into the clouds.
The beautiful YoSemite valley being neglected by Tutockahnulah, became a desert and a waste. When Tisayac returned she wept at the sight of her beloved valley. On the dome of a mighty rock she knelt and prayed the Good Manitou to restore the valley. In answer to her prayer the Great Spirit spread the floor of the valley with green and smiting the mountains broke a channel for the melting ice and snow. The waters went leaping down and formed a lake. The birds again sang and the flowers bloomed. The people returned and gave the name Tisayac to the great rock where she had knelt.
When the chief came home and learned that Tisayac had returned to the valley his love grew stronger day by day. One morning he climbed to the crest of a rock that towers three thousand feet above the valley and carved his likeness on it that his memory might live forever among his people. There is to this day a face on this rock, but whether carved there by the hand of man or by nature in some of her wild moods, remains a mystery.
Resting at the foot of the Bridal Veil Falls, one evening Tutockahnulah saw a rainbow arching around the form of Tisayac. She beckoned him to follow her. With a wild cry he sprang into the water and disappeared with Tisayac. Two rainbows now instead of one tremble over the falling water.
At the upper end of the valley stands a giant monolith two hundred feet in height, called by the Indians, Hummoo, the Lost Arrow.
Many thousands of snows ago before the foot of white man had trod these romantic wilds there dwelt in this valley the Ahwahnes, the fairest of whose daughters was Teeheeneh. Her hair, black as the raven’s wing, unlike that of her sisters, fell in ripples below her slender[198] waist. Her sun-kissed cheeks and teeth like pearls added beauty to a form graceful as that of a young gazelle.
Kossookah, the bravest and handsomest warrior of his tribe, came a wooing the beautiful princess, wooed and won her.
All that delightful summer time these two, favored of the gods, rambled over the mountains.
The wild torrents sang of the love of Kossookah, the brave, for Teeneeneh, the beautiful. The river murmured it; the lonely mountains echoed the refrain; the very leaves of the trees whispered it; the plumy children of the air gossiped about it, while each sun of the starry sky repeated the story.
Time sped on golden wings, the mountains took on autumn tints, winter was approaching. Every member of the tribe lent a hand to assist in building a wigwam for the fair princess and her knight.
The nuptials were to be celebrated with many ceremonies and a great feast. Teeheeneh assisted by her companions would grind the acorns into flour for the wedding cakes and gather nuts, herbs and autumn leaves with which to garnish and decorate the tables; while[199] Kossookah with the chosen hunters of his tribe would scale the cliffs or climb the walls of the cañon to the mountain fastness in search of game.
The primitive home is completed. Kossookah and his braves depart. At set of sun he will repair to the head of the YoSemite falls and report the success of the hunt to Teeheeneh who would climb the rocks to the foot of the falls to receive it.
The messenger was to be an arrow to which Kossookah would attach feathers of the grouse. From his strong bow he would speed it far out that Teeheeneh might see it, watch for its falling, recover it and read the message.
The day was propitious. Seldom did an arrow miss its mark. Evening came and the hunters had more game than they could carry down in one trip.
Long ago in another clime Plautus said, “whom the gods love die young.”
Kossookah, proud of his success, repaired to the edge of the cliff beyond the falls, prepared the arrow, set it against the string of buffalo hide, stepped forward, when the cliff began to tremble and went down, carrying the brave Kossookah with it.
Long and lovingly did Teeheeneh wait for the signal. Night wrapped the mountains in gloom, but still Teeheeneh waited and wondered. Could Kossookah be dead? Had the chase led him so far away that he could not return in time to keep his word to Teeheeneh? He might even now be coming down the Indian cañon.
This new thought lent hope, and hope wings to the flying feet of Teeheeneh. From rock to rock, from ledge to ledge she sped with tireless feet, escaping many perils she reached the foot of the cliff.
Finding no trace of Kossookah she paced the sands all the long weary night, hoping against hope that every hour would bring some tidings of her beloved.
The pain at her heart increased with the hours, as she sang in the low soft voice of her race a passionate love song. The gray dawn found her still pacing the sands.
Now, like a deer she springs over the rocks and up the steep ascent to the spot from whence the signal arrow was to wing its way to her feet.
Ah, there were tracks in the sand, his tracks, but her call was answered only by the echo of[201] her own sad voice. A new fracture marked a recent cleavage in the rocks. Could it be, Oh, Great Spirit could it be that her beloved had gone down with the rocks and perished. Her heart was almost stilled with agonizing fear. She faltered a moment only. Gathering courage she leaned over the edge of the cliff. There, stilled in death, lay the form of Kossookah, in a hollow at the base of the monolith.
The shock had cleared her mind. Hastily and with steady hands now she builds a signal fire on the rocky cliff. The fire by its intensity interpreted in the light of Indian signal fires, calls for aid in distress. Slowly the hours drag by. At last help arrives. Young saplings of tamarack are lashed together, end to end, with thongs of deer skin. When all is ready Teeheeneh springs forward and begs that no hands save hers shall touch her beloved dead. Slowly strong hands lower her to the side of the prostrate form of Kossookah.
Kissing the pale lips of the dead warrior Teeheeneh unbinds the deer thongs from about her own body. Silently and deftly she winds them about the prostrate form of Kossookah. At a signal from Teeheeneh the lifeless body is drawn up. Again the improvised rope is[202] lowered. Teeheeneh nervously clutches the pole, puts her foot in the rawhide loop and waves her hand as a signal to be drawn up.
Long and silently she gazes into the once love lit eyes of her dead hero. Her slight body sways and trembles like a reed swept by the wintry wind. Still silent, she sinks quivering on the bosom of her beloved. Gently they raise her, but her heart had broken and her soul taken its flight.
The fateful arrow was never found. The Indians say that it was spirited away by Teeheeneh and Kossookah and kept by them as a memento of their plighted troth and the close of their life on earth.
On gossamer floats, their souls were carried, by unseen hands over the mountains to the Elysian Plains beyond, where there are no pitfalls and no broken hearts.
Hummoo, the Lost Arrow, still stands, a monument to the brave Kossookah.
See, “In The Heart of the Sierras,” by J. M. Hutchings. Mr. Hutchings lived twenty-five years in the YoSemite Valley and knows this, the most beautiful, wild, and romantic spot on the American Continent, in all its varying moods of summer calm and wintry storm, and writes of it with a loving and sympathetic touch.
Of all the beautiful places in the world for a schoolhouse, surely “The Valley” is the most beautiful. One rarely hears YoSemite on the coast. It is always with a lingering caress in the voice, “The Valley.” A dainty little white schoolhouse stands in a grove on the border of a glade. Here school is in session six months of every summer. The valley is only seven miles long and one and a half miles in width at its widest point.
There are usually only five or six children of school age in the valley, but in the spring and summer people come into the valley to spend the summer. Many camp while others live at the hotel and in cottages. In many instances their children have left their home school before its close, and in order to make their grades for the ensuing year, attend “The Valley School.”
Here the student of botany may find dainty asters, tiny wild peas, larkspur, monkey flowers, great ferns, the leaves two or three feet long; wild poppies, delicate sunflowers, purple gilias and broad faced primroses. Fiery castillèjas lend color to gray rocks and shady nooks.
Stately pines, silver firs and graceful tamaracks[204] stand massy, tall and dark, make a landscape Mercury himself might pause to behold, no matter how urgent his errand.
The Manzanita trees are now loaded with fruit. Manzanita is Spanish for little apple. The fruit of the tree is a perfect apple about the size of a gooseberry. Leather wood, a strange shrub naked as to leaves but abloom with bright yellow blossoms grows up in the mountains.
For the student of zoology there are the bears which have their dens in the rocks a short distance from the school. Wild deer and lion roam the mountains, while trout disport themselves in the Merced river near by.
The student of astronomy may see the sun rise five times every morning, and the White Fire Maiden, by mortals called the moon, lights up YoSemite falls and the north wall of the valley long before she appears in the blue sea above.
The student in trigonometry will easily find a summer’s work, the geologist a life-time study, while the anthropologist will be interested in the few Indians who inhabit the valley.
The valley is not without its early history when white man and Indian fought for supremacy.
One of the brightest pupils in the primary class is a little Indian girl. This daughter of the red man reads well and is very proud of her accomplishment. She learned the multiplication table before the other members of her class, but does not apply it so readily.
“Tempus Fugit,” we bid farewell to YoSemite, lovely vale, and take the trail over the mountains. The hour was morning’s prime.
Up we go three thousand feet, mules, guides and tourists, over a narrow trail that runs along the rocky ledge of the gorge. The purple atmosphere hangs like a veil over the wild cañon down which sweeps the Merced river, dashing and sparkling over rocks, tumbling over precipices or placidly flowing over its smooth rock bed.
Far above a red flame swept and we caught the odor of Calypso’s fire of cedar wood. The rising smoke mingled with the blue haze above, while the fire swept on, leaving only the blackened, charred remains of the once green forest to tell the tale.
Naiads danced in the sunny water and once methought I heard the soft, low strains of a flute played by a faun in the cool shadows of the trees which overhang the river’s brink.
Not a faun did we see, however, but we met a fool, forsooth, a motley, merry fool. This fool had a silken scarf draped about his foolish head to ward off the warm glances of Old Sol as he peered down the gorge to see what the fool was about. He tripped lightly along, did this merry fool, slipping past the sturdy little mules and their riders on the trail so narrow that one foot of the rider hung over the gorge below, so narrow in many places that one misstep of the faithful little beast meant death to himself and his rider. Past the forty tourists went this untiring fool, frightening the animals and alarming their riders with his strange headdress.
Where were the guides? Right there saying things about the fool, quieting the animals and calming the fears of their riders.
When this remarkably agile fool had reached the head of the caravan, down he would drop in the shade of a tree, his feet dangling in the dust of the trail, his Turkish headdress fluttering in the breeze, again causing the weary climbers to pause. Not every animal paused to look at the fool, the older ones were wiser.
The blue sky, the odor of the pines and the falling, gurgling, murmuring water lent an[207] enchantment to the air, which made us forget the fool, but for a moment only. Here he came again. Untiringly he followed us to the summit of the mountains, eight thousand feet above the sea, where the soft ambient soothes like a benediction, and the soul uplifts in prayer.
As these high altitudes make many people ill we were advised to carry with us a bit of the joyful. Arrived at the summit a dainty flask slipped from the folds of a lady’s gown and fell to the earth with a thud. One of the guides picked it up and gravely presented it to the owner with the remark, “Madam, you have lost something valuable.”
As we stood looking down through the blue mist into the YoSemite below us—a landscape that would have delighted the heart and eye of a Homer—a quaint old lady who had braved the trail that she might view the valley from glacial point, exclaimed:
“It’s lovely, ain’t it? Heaven don’t need to be no purtier and I don’t reckon it is, do you? Purty name, too, but I never kin remember whether it’s Yo-se-mite or Yu-summit.”
A personally conducted party arrived just ahead of us. Mr. Personally, as we dubbed the conductor, was a gentleman, so he informed us, of many qualities. His voice was loud and commanding, he was exceedingly voluble, and from the manner in which he hurried his party about I should say that he was a man of much energy.
He came flying into the ladies’ private boudoir regardless of the confusion of shirt waists, ties, collars and riding habits that were flying through the air, commanding the ladies of his party to hasten to the dining-room for luncheon.
That repast served, Mr. Personally Conductor ordered up the stages which were in waiting to take us down the mountains on the other side. After ordering everyone else to stand back he ordered his party to “climb in,” which they meekly did.
We sat under a clump of silver firs thoroughly enjoying the scene and calm in the consciousness that as the transportation company had carried us to the top of the mountains it was in duty bound to carry us down, either by stage coach, mule back or by rope and tackle, over the rocky ledge and drop us three thousand feet to the valley below.
Two coaches were filled with “personally conducted” when the third drove up to the veranda. Mr. Personally not being in sight the driver requested us to take seats in the coach, as it was growing late and time we were off.
A brilliant man of our party, a New York lawyer, had just taken a seat by the driver, when that remarkable conductor appeared and sprang into the seat between them, pushing at Mr. Lawyer and calling lustily for Dr. Bluker, who was a member of his party. The doctor responded and grabbed our lawyer friend by the leg, attempting to pull him down.
Mr. Lawyer turned to Mr. Personally, saying, “I don’t know who you are sir, but—”
“I am a gentleman, sir,” hastily replied the conductor.
“Ah,” exclaimed the lawyer at this astonishing bit of news, “I am always glad to meet a gentleman,” and at his wife’s solicitation bowed gracefully, relinquishing the seat to Dr. Bluker, a college president who for the moment might have been taken for Sitting Bull, chief of the Sioux.
Ah, good people,
“A chiel’s amang you taking notes,
And, faith, he’ll prent it.”
The descent lay through groves of pine and cedar, beds of beautiful flowers, grassy glades, mountain brooks, tiny lakes, springs of ice cold water, and acres and acres of azaleas.
In the center of a green glade lay a big brown bowlder surrounded by flowers. Just under the side of this bowlder was a spring of ice cold water.
Just as the sun was sliding down the western horizon beyond the snow-capped peaks we arrived again in Wawona valley, where the evening was spent in telling stories and relating adventures.
“When in London recently,” said our lawyer friend, “Chauncey Depew told this story:
“At a hotel where he was dining the waitress said to a young man, ‘We have blackberry pie, peach pie, plum pie, strawberry pie and custard pie.’
“‘Bring me some plum pie and some peach pie, yes, and I’ll take some blackberry pie.’ As the waitress turned to fill the order the young man called her back, ‘You may bring me some strawberry pie, too.’
“‘What’s the matter with the custard pie?’ inquired she.
“The next morning Mr. Depew met a young Englishman on the street, who complimented him on his speech, saying that he really liked it very, very much, you know, but he would like to ask him one question, ‘What was the matter with the custard pie?’”
When the laugh had subsided a young lady in a pink shirt waist leaned forward in her chair, and looking earnestly at the lawyer, softly inquired, “Well, what was?”
In the laugh which followed, the Englishman’s stupidity was lost sight of in astonishment at that of the American girl.
“Excuse me,” said a well dressed lady to me one morning at the hotel in Wawona, “I am a little hazy on my geography, but what I want to know is this—if I go to Denver will I be in Colorado?”
After a week’s fishing, dreaming and resting in this beautiful valley, we returned to the coast.
All up and down the Pacific coast as well as the islands of the sea are wonderful floating gardens. These gardens are composed of kelp, which attached to the bottom and to the rocks, grows from fifty to one hundred feet long, throwing out broad leaves and balloon-like air bulbs which support them. A perfect forest of broad green leaves rise upward, presenting a sharp contrast to the blue water in which they grow. Gracefully turning with every movement of the water they are among the most strikingly beautiful objects of salt sea. When near the shore these huge plants assume an upright position and become floating gardens in very truth, through which vessels plow with much difficulty.
The entrance to the bay at Santa Barbara is a perfect maze of floating sea-weed. The leaves are covered with patches of color, representing parasitic animals, or plants, greens, reds, purples and yellows, a perfect maze of color.
Delicate sea anemones looking exactly like their namesakes on land. The slightest noise causes them to close up, withdrawing their tentacles, and presently blooming out again.
Here are tiny plant-like animals growing in[213] shrub-like forms. Wonderful jellyfish, too, fill the ocean at night with a phosphorescent light.
In place of birds and insects in a sea garden we find shell animals, crabs and fishes clinging to the leaves. Along comes a big octopus throwing out his eight sucker-lined arms in search of food. Disturbed, he throws out an inky fluid, and while you are searching the black hole for him, he slips away. Yonder comes a nautilus holding his shell high over his head, crawling lazily along. Black-hued echini, bristling with pins and needles which, waving to and fro, ward off their enemies. Fish of all sorts and sizes inhabit the sea garden. The beautiful gold and silver fishes gliding in and out remind one of the birds flitting from tree to tree. In comes a big fish, the king of the bass, and the “small fry” scatter right and left. At night these strange gardens are aglow with phosphorescent lights.
Los Angeles has been having a succession of earthquakes.
The houses in San Francisco as well as other coast towns are built to withstand earthquake shocks. On this account very few brick are used. An earthquake hotel is advertised. In[214] this city, too, one may eat Pasteurized ice-cream without fear of the deadly ptomain.
An orange, as every one knows, is a difficult fruit to eat gracefully, but I’ve learned how to do it in this land of the citron. A gentleman assured me that the only proper place to eat an orange was in the bathtub.
Up and down the length of this coast I’ve not been able to get a decent lemonade. Very few places serve that drink at all. Drinks there are plenty, but no lemonade. Now I know what those warnings mean which hang up in every stateroom on the steamers: “Passengers strictly prohibited from getting into bed with their boots on.”
California is rich in stories of her early days. Just east of San Francisco lies a narrow valley bordering on the bay of San Pablo. The first white man to enter this valley was one Miguel and his wife, who named it El Hambre (Hunger) valley.
Miguel built an adobe hut and planted a garden. Later he started to San Francisco, for supplies. Madam Miguel remained at home to tend the garden. Miguel would return in three weeks and all would be well.
Time passed slowly to the lonely woman.[215] When the three weeks had passed Emilia packed a burro and started out on the trail which her husband had taken. At night she tethered the burro and rolled in her blanket slept by the roadside. Dawn saw her on the trail. The third day her burro neighed and was answered by a donkey which proved to be that of Miguel. Hurrying on she found her husband lying on the roadside, dead. She remained there until the sun set, then covered him with a blanket and returned home.
Later some traders wandering through the valley found her skeleton in the garden. The adobe still stands in the now new town of Martinez.
Dick Brown, miner of Misery Hill, was a sort of recluse, who never made any friends among the miners of the Eldorado of the west.
One day while out prospecting, a landslide carried him down the valley and buried him beneath it. His body was recovered and buried, but his ghost walked nightly at the foot of the old shaft.
A lazy, seemingly good-for-nothing sort of a fellow, Wilson by name, began work in Brown’s mine. It was a good mine and paid Wilson well until some one else began working[216] it. Every morning there was evidence that some one had been at work during the night.
One night Wilson loaded his rifle and waited for his nightly intruder. Hearing a noise he started to follow it up.
What was that on yonder tree, which glowed with a phosphorescent light? Wilson crept nearer. There, tacked on a big tree, was a notice, “D. B. his mine. Hands off.”
A moment later the notice was gone. As he passed on he heard the water flowing through the sluice and the sound of a pick in the gravel. There stood Dick Brown. Wilson raised his rifle and fired. A yell, and the ghost of Dick Brown came flying after him as he ran down the hill.
The next morning a pick and shovel were found by the roadside bearing the initials “D. B.” cut on the handle of each. Wilson deserted the claim, but the sluice on Misery Hill ran on for many years.
Leaving San Francisco, a sail of twenty-five miles brings us to the grimly fortified island of Alcatraz, the watch dog of the Golden Gate.
Forty miles inland lies the beautiful Napa Valley. Farm houses and villages dot the landscape. Orchards, vineyards and fields of waving grain heighten the natural beauty of this Rasselas Valley, rich in groves of oak trees from which depend festoons of mistletoe, meadows and running brooks.
At the head of this valley stands Mount St. Helena, once a center of volcanic action. Wasnossensky, the Russian naturalist ascended to its summit in 1841, and named it in honor of his empress, leaving on the summit a copper plate bearing the name of himself and his companion.
The Russians, with a view to commercial and political aggrandisement, did a great deal of exploring in California in the early days of her history.
By stage we travel through the Napa Valley to the geyser fields. On either hand are groves of redwood trees, cousins of the Giant Sequoias. In the springtime the odor of the buckeye fills the delicious morning air, just now the handsome eschscholtzias, commonly called the California poppy, brighten the meadows. Here and there lichen stained rocks lend a deeper tone to the landscape.
Through this valley of strange wild beauty we arrive at the Devil’s Cañon. The nomenclature of this weird place is something audacious and one wishes that he might change it. Here the hero of the cañon has his kitchen, his soup bowl, his punch bowl, and his ink pot. In this spring you might dip your pen and write tales of magic that would rival those of India.
Here, one dreary night, a lonely discouraged miner who had lost his way, sat in meditation, when presently a strangely clad figure approached him. The dark face wore a sinister expression, black eyes sparkled under villainous brows.
“Ha, ha, ha,” laughed the stranger when he discovered the miner.
“What would’st thou? Riches? Sign here and they are thine, or thou may’st toss me into yon caldron.”
Flinging aside the long black cloak that enveloped his figure he stood forth, his scarlet robes gleaming a fiery red in the black night.
“Sign here,” and dipping his fire tipped pen into the ink pot he thrust it into the hand of the astonished miner, presenting a scroll of parchment for the signature.
“Ha, ha, ha,” came in tones diabolical, as the fortune hunter seized the pen in his eager grasp. Knowing better how to wield the pick than the pen he seized the scroll and—made the sign of the cross.
His Satanic Majesty gave an unearthly yell, seized the pen and scroll, and disappeared leaving his ink-pot behind.
The prevailing rocks are metamorphic, sandstone, silicious slates and serpentine. The stratification dips sharply to the bed of Pluton Creek.
There are no spouting geysers here, only bubbling springs, but springs of beauty and interest. Here lies one, its waters a creamy white, and yonder another whose waters are deeply tinged with sulphur, while those of its neighbor are as black as the contents of that bottle the undaunted Luther flung at the head of his Satanic Majesty on that memorable day.
The waters of these springs boil over and mingle as they flow away. Steam jets hiss and sputter continually. Of the many strange springs, pools and caverns, the Witch’s Caldron is perhaps the most remarkable. A very pit of Acheron, this huge cavern in the solid rock, seventy feet in diameter, is filled to an unknown depth with a thick inky fluid, that boils and surges incessantly. The waters of these springs, rich in sulphur, iron, lime and magnesia are said to rival in medicinal qualities those of all the famous German Spas.
The geysers are due to both chemical and volcanic action; to water percolating down through the fissures of the rocks until it comes in contact with the heated mass of hot lava; and to water percolating through the mineral deposits.
Suffice it to say that you have not seen California until you have seen the Napa Valley, and taken the trail to Mount St. Helena and the geyser fields.
The very air of this delightful country is rife with bear stories. Stories in which the bear quite as often as the hunter comes off victor.
A cowboy, newly arrived in California, went out on a bear hunt. He went alone. He wanted to kill a grizzly.
He soon found his bear and lassoed him, but Bruin, contrary to his usual custom of showing fight, took a header down a cañon, horse and rider in full pursuit.
Upon nearing the foot of the ravine the bear fell down. The horse fell down and the man tumbled down on top of the grizzly which so frightened him that when the three untangled themselves he set off up the cañon, and the man let him go. Glad, glad to the heart that he was gone.
Assyria had her winged bull, Lucerne has her lion, and California has her grizzly.
The grizzly stands for California, and only awaits some future Thorwaldsen to perpetuate him on the walls of his own rock-ribbed cañon.
The Indians of California were possessed of many strange superstitions when the Franciscan Fathers established missions among them.
The Fathers called it “devil worship,” but to the simple childlike mind of these primitive people it was a sort of hero worship, and the wild child worshiped on despite the Fathers.
The worship of a god known as Kooksuy was one to which the Indians held with great tenacity. The monks had forbidden the worship of this deity, so Kooksuy had to be worshiped in secret.
A lonely, unfrequented place in the mountains was chosen, and a stone altar was raised to Kooksuy. This consisted of a pile of flat stones five or six feet in height.
It was the duty of every worshipper to toss something onto the altar as an act of homage. This act was called “poorish.”
A Kooksuy altar was a curious affair. The foundation of stone was frequently hidden under a mass of beads, feathers and shells. Even garments and food found their way to the throne of this strange deity. Thus the altar continued to rise for no Indian would dare touch a “poorish” offering.
The priests destroyed the altars and punished the worshipers, but that did not destroy their faith in their god.
At the missions every Indian retired when the evening bell rang. When the good alcalde made his rounds they had counted their beads and shut their eyes. Ten minutes later half a dozen dusky forms might be seen creeping stealthily along in the shadows of the buildings. Arriving at the chosen spot a big fire was built around which the faithful Indians danced calling on their god in a series of weird whistles.
Kooksuy never failed to appear in the midst of the fire in the form of a huge white dragon, but with the destruction of his altars, the neglect of his worshipers and fear of the white man Kooksuy appeared less frequently and finally his visits ceased entirely.
According to the Indians the Great Manitou threw up the Sierra Nevada range with his own hands. Then he broke away the hills at the foot of the lake and the waters drained into the sea through the Golden Gate.
The clouds rested on the water and the setting sun lit up the Golden Gate with the glory of the sea as we steamed across the bay and bade adieu to the land of Pomona and her citron groves.