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diff --git a/44764-h/44764-h.htm b/44764-h/44764-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0381692 --- /dev/null +++ b/44764-h/44764-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6439 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of California, by Sutton Palmer and Mary Austin. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1{ + text-align: center; + clear: both; + margin-top: 6em; +} + +h2 {text-align: center; + clear: both; + margin-top: 4em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + font-size: 1.2em; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: left; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; +} +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: 33%; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +hr.l15 { width: 15%; + margin-left: 42%; } + +.center { text-align: center; } + +.smcap { font-variant: small-caps; } + +.caption { + font-weight: bold; + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 15%; + text-align: center; + margin-bottom: 2em; +} + +ul.none { list-style-type:none; + margin-left: 20%; } +.alpha {margin-top: 1.5em;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.poetry-container { text-align: center; } + +.poem { + display: inline-block; + font-size: 95%; + margin-bottom: 1em; + text-align: left; +} + +@media handheld { + .poem { + display: block; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; + } +} + +.poem .stanza { + margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em; +} + +.poem p { + margin: 0; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} +.p6 {margin-top: 6em;} + +.b20 {font-size:2.0em;} +.b13 {font-size:1.3em;} +.s08 {font-size:.8em;} +.s05 {font-size:.5em;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + empty-cells: show; +} + +td {padding-left: 1em; + padding-right: 1em; + padding-top: .3em; + padding-bottom: .3em; + vertical-align: top; +} +.tdr { text-align: right; } + +.tdh { text-indent: -1em; + margin-left: 1em; + padding-bottom: 1.25em;} + +.tnbox { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + margin-bottom: 8em; + margin-top: auto; + text-align: center; + border: 1px solid; + padding: 1em; + color: black; + background-color: #f6f2f2; + width: 25em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44764 ***</div> + +<div class="tnbox"> +<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></p> +<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. +Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original +document have been preserved.</p> +<p>On page 18, "arroya" should possibly be "arroyo."</p> +<p>On page 53, "gaumet" should possibly be "gamut."</p> +<p>On page 134, the text is "Noriegas'." The Index shows "Noriega's."</p> +<p>"Tamalpias" should possibly be "Tamalpais."</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i001" id="i001"></a> +<img src="images/i-001.jpg" width="404" height="550" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">THE THREE BROTHERS, YOSEMITE VALLEY +</p> +</div> + +<h1> +CALIFORNIA +</h1> + +<p class="center p6"> +<i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i> +</p> + +<hr class="l15" /> + +<p class="center"> +THE LAND OF LITTLE RAIN<br /> +A WOMAN OF GENIUS<br /> +THE LOVELY LADY<br /> +ETC. +</p> + +<p class="center p4"> +AGENTS +</p> + +<table summary="Publishers"> +<tr> +<td><span class='smcap'>America</span></td> +<td class="tdh"><span class='smcap'>The Macmillan Company</span><br /> + <span class='smcap'>64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><span class='smcap'>Australasia</span></td> +<td class="tdh"><span class='smcap'>The Oxford University Press</span><br /> + <span class='smcap'>205 Flinders Lane, Melbourne</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><span class='smcap'>Canada</span></td> +<td class="tdh"><span class='smcap'>The Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd.</span><br /> + <span class='smcap'>St. Martin's House, 70 Bond Street, Toronto</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><span class='smcap'>India</span></td> +<td class="tdh"><span class='smcap'>Macmillan & Company, Ltd.</span><br /> + <span class='smcap'>Macmillan Building, Bombay</span><br /> + <span class='smcap'>309 Bow Bazaar Street, Calcutta</span></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div class="figcenter p6"> +<img src="images/i-006.jpg" width="324" height="550" alt="titlePage" /> +</div> + +<p class="center p6"> +<span class="b20">CALIFORNIA</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="b13">THE LAND OF THE SUN</span></p> + +<p class="center p2">PAINTED BY<br /> +<br /> +<span class="b13">SUTTON PALMER</span><br /> +<br /> +DESCRIBED BY<br /> +<br /> +<span class="b13">MARY AUSTIN</span></p> + +<p class="center p4"><span class="b13">ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK</span><br /> +4, 5, & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.</p> + +<p class="center p6 s08"> +<i>Published Autumn 1914</i> +</p> + +<h2> +CONTENTS +</h2> + +<table summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td colspan="2"> </td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="s08">PAGE</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">I.</td> + <td><span class='smcap'>The Sparrow Hawk's Own</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">II.</td> + <td><span class='smcap'>Mothering Mountains</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">III.</td> + <td><span class='smcap'>The Coasts of Adventure</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> + <td><span class='smcap'>The Port of Monterey</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">V.</td> + <td><span class='smcap'>Old Spanish Gardens</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> + <td><span class='smcap'>The Land of the Little Duck</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> + <td><span class='smcap'>The Twin Valleys</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VIII.</td> + <td><span class='smcap'>The High Sierras and the Sage-brush Country</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_vii' name='Page_vii'>[vii]</a></span> +</p> + +<h2> +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS +</h2> + +<table summary="List of Illustrations"> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">1.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i001">The Three Brothers, Yosemite Valley</a></td> + <td class="tdr"><i>Frontispiece</i></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="s05">FACING PAGE</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">2.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i021">San Diego, looking across the Bay toward Point Loma</a></td> + <td class="tdr">9</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">3.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i034">Redlands, looking toward San Bernardino Range</a></td> + <td class="tdr">16</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">4.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i053">A Eucalyptus Grove</a></td> + <td class="tdr">33</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">5.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i066">Glendale, Valley of the San Gabriel</a></td> + <td class="tdr">40</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">6.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i077">A Cañon in the Sierra Madre</a></td> + <td class="tdr">49</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">7.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i090">The Cemetery, Santa Barbara Mission</a></td> + <td class="tdr">56</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">8.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i095">Sycamores, a Coast Range Cañon</a></td> + <td class="tdr">59</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">9.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i104">Tall Chaparral, Santa Cruz</a></td> + <td class="tdr">62</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">10.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i109">Looking down on Monterey and the Bay</a></td> + <td class="tdr">65</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">11.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i122">Pescadero, a Chinese Fishing Village, Monterey Bay</a></td> + <td class="tdr">72</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">12.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i127">Cypress Point, near Carmel</a></td> + <td class="tdr">75</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">13.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i136">Santa Cruz Mountains, the Coast Range</a></td> + <td class="tdr">78</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">14.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i150">The Patio, Old Spanish Residence</a></td> + <td class="tdr">88</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">15.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i171">The Golden Gate and Black Point, from Hyde Street, San Francisco. (Site of the Panama Exposition, 1915)</a></td> + <td class="tdr">107</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">16.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i180">Tamalpias</a></td> + <td class="tdr">110</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">17.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i185">Mill Valley, and Backwater of San Francisco Bay</a></td> + <td class="tdr">113<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_viii' name='Page_viii'>[viii]</a></span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">18.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i198">Waiting for Duck—Los Baños</a></td> + <td class="tdr">120</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">19.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i209">Mirror Lake, Yosemite</a></td> + <td class="tdr">129</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">20.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i215">Among the Redwoods of the Great Twin Valleys</a></td> + <td class="tdr">131</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">21.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i224">Clear Lake, Lake County</a></td> + <td class="tdr">134</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">22.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i230">Castle Crag, Rattlesnake Cañon</a></td> + <td class="tdr">136</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">23.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i235">McCloud River, Upper Sacramento Valley</a></td> + <td class="tdr">139</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">24.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i244">Donner Lake, on the old Emigrant Trail</a></td> + <td class="tdr">142</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">25.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i249">Laurel Lake, Upper Sacramento</a></td> + <td class="tdr">145</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">26.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i262">Yosemite Falls</a></td> + <td class="tdr">152</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">27.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i267">Blue Lake, Lake County</a></td> + <td class="tdr">155</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">28.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i276">Lake Tahoe, the High Sierras</a></td> + <td class="tdr">158</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">29.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i281">Mount Shasta—Sierra Glow</a></td> + <td class="tdr">161</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">30.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i287">Valley of the Yosemite</a></td> + <td class="tdr">163</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">31.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i296">The Half Dome, Yosemite</a></td> + <td class="tdr">166</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">32.</td> + <td class="tdh"><a href="#i302">Shasta—Snow Clouds</a></td> + <td class="tdr">168</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class="center"> +<i><a href="#i314">Sketch Map at end of Volume.</a></i></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_1' name='Page_1'></a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_3' name='Page_3'></a></span></p> +<h2> +I +<br /><br /> +<span class="s08"> +THE SPARROW-HAWK'S OWN + +</span></h2> + +<p> +For a graphic and memorable report of the +contours of any country, see always the aboriginal +account of its making. That will give you the +lie of the land as no geographer could sketch it +forth for you. California was made by Padahoon +the Sparrow-Hawk and the Little Duck, who +brooded on the face of the waters in the Beginning +of Things. +</p> + +<p> +There is no knowing where the tale comes +from, for Winnenap the Medicine-Man who told it +to me, was eclectic in his faiths as in his practice. +Winnenap was a Shoshone, one of the group +who had been forced southward into Death +Valley when the great Pah Ute nation had split +their tribes like a wedge. In the last of their +wars he had been taken as a hostage by the Paiutes +and brought up by them. He might have remembered +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_4' name='Page_4'>[4]</a></span> +the story, or his wife might have +told him. She was a tall brown woman out of +Tejon, and <i>her</i> mother was of that band of captives +taken from San Gabriel by the Mojaves, Mission-bred. +Wherever it came from, the tale has its +roots deep in the land it explains. +</p> + +<p> +Padahoon, being wearied of going to and fro +under the heavens, said to the Little Duck that +it was time there should be mountains; so the +Little Duck dived and brought up the primordial +mud of which even the geographers are agreed +mountains are made. +</p> + +<p> +As he brought it the Sparrow-Hawk built a +round beautiful ring of mountains enclosing a quiet +space of sea. Said the Little Duck, "I choose +this side," coming up with his bill full of mud +toward the west. Whereupon the Sparrow-Hawk +built the other side higher. When it +was all done and the Little Duck surveyed it, +he observed, as people will to this day, the +discrepancy between the low western hills and +the high Sierras, and he thought the builder had +not played him fair. "Very well, then," said +the Sparrow-Hawk, "since you are resolved to +be so greedy," and he bit out pieces of the Sierras +with his bill, and threw them over his shoulder. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_5' name='Page_5'>[5]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +You can see the bites still deep and sharp about +Mt. Whitney. +</p> + +<p> +But the Little Duck would not be satisfied; +he took hold by the great bulk of Shasta and +began to pull, and Padahoon pulled on his side +until the beautiful ring was pulled out in a long +oval and began to break on the west where the +bay of San Francisco comes in. So they were +forced to divide the mountain range north and +south and make what they could of it. But the +Sparrow-Hawk, remembering the pieces he had +thrown over his shoulder, chose the south, where +you can still see him sailing any clear day about +four in the afternoon, over all his stolen territory. +</p> + +<p> +There you have the bones of the land as neatly +laid out for you as they could do it in Kensington +Museum: the long oval, breaking seaward, the +high, bitten, westward peaks, and the Sparrow-Hawk's +Own, tailing south like the quirk of an +attenuated Q. +</p> + +<p> +They serve, these fragmentary ranges, for the +outposts of habitableness between the sea wind +and the forces of pure desertness. Always there +is skirmish and assault going on about them. +Showers rush up the slope of San Jacinto, all +their shining spears a-tilt. Great gusts of wind +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_6' name='Page_6'>[6]</a></span> +roar through the Pass of San Gorgiono, the old +Puerto de San Carlos. Seasonally they are +beleaguered by stealthy rushes of the fogs that +from the Gulf hear the peaks about Whitney +calling, or by the yellow murk of sand-storms +on which the whole face of the desert is lifted +up as it travels toward its destiny in orchard row +and vineyard. Always the edge of the wind is +against the stone. They shine, the frontlets of +the sentinel saints, in that keen polish, as the faces +of saints must with benignity. +</p> + +<p> +Just beyond the pilæ of the broken mountains—the +Pillars of Hercules of the West—the desert +winds about the eastern bases of the range in deep +indented bays, white-rimmed with the wave marks +of its ancient sea. Out a very little way, where +the shuddering heat-waves trick the imagination, +it seems about to be retaken by the ghost of +tumbling billows. Nothing else moves in it; +nothing sounds. Plantations of growing things +near the Pass lean all a little toward it, edging, +peering—the wild, spiny, thorny things of the +desert to enter the rain-fed paradise, the full-leafed +offspring of the sea wind plotting to take the unfriended +sandy spaces. They creep a little forward +or back as the years run wet or dry. The green +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_7' name='Page_7'>[7]</a></span> +things stand up, they march along the cliffs, they +balance on the edge of precipices, but desperation +is in every contorted stem of <i><span lang='es_ES'>mesquite</span></i> and <i><span lang='es_ES'>palo +verde</span></i>. And with all this struggle, so still! East +on the desert rim the Colorado ramps like a stallion +between its walls, westward the Pacific rings the +low foreshore with thunder; but the land never +cries out, quartz mountains disintegrate but they +do not murmur. +</p> + +<p> +It is odd here in a land rife with the naked +struggle of great pagan forces, to find the +promontories so lend themselves to the gentle +names of saints. Perhaps the Padres were not so +far from nature as one thinks; in the southerly +range which, with San Bernardino on the north, +sentinels the Pass by which the iron-rimmed +Emigrant trail enters the coast valleys, they +rendered for once the pagan touch. San Jacinto—St. +Hyacinth—was he ever anything but a +Christianised memory of a Grecian myth, or does +it matter at all so long as there are men to see, +in the deep purple light that dies along the heights, +the colour of blood that is shed for love? Perhaps +the best thing beauty can say to Greek or Christian +is that there are still things worth dying for. +No doubt the veins of Padre Jayme Bravo were +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_8' name='Page_8'>[8]</a></span> +as rich in martyr passion as the stained air of +the mountain is in purples, paling to rose at +morning, thinning at noon to pure aerial blues. +</p> + +<p> +Seen from the coast the range has a finny contour +as of some huge creature risen from the sea, +with low hills about it like dolphins playing; but +the prevailing note of the landscape is always blue, +repeating the tints of the wild brodiæa that may +be found on the lomas early in April, sending up its +clustered heads between two slender curving spears. +</p> + +<p> +Near at hand the masking growth is seen to be +green, the dark olivaceous green of the chamisal. +Nowhere does one get the force of the Spanish +termination <i><span lang='es_ES'>al</span></i>—the place where—as in that word. +The chamisal is the place of the chamise: miles +and miles of it, with scarcely another shrub allowed, +spread over the mesa and well up into laps and +bays of the hills. It grows breast high, man high +in the favoured regions; but even where under the +influence of drouth and altitude it creeps to the +knees, it abates nothing of its social character. +Its ever-green foliage has a dull shining from the +resinous coating which protects it from evaporation, +and a slight sticky feel, characteristics that no +doubt won it the name of "greasewood" from +the emigrants who valued it chiefly because it +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_9' name='Page_9'>[9]</a></span> +could be burned green. The spring winds blowing +up from the bay whip all its fretted surface to a +froth of panicled white bloom, that, stirring a little +as the wind shifts, full of bee-murmur, touches the +imagination with the continual reminder of the +sea. Higher up the thick lacy chaparral flecks +and ripples, showing the light underside of leaves, +and tosses up great fountain sprays of ceanothus, +sea-blue and lilac-scented. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i021" id="i021"></a> +<img src="images/i-021.jpg" width="550" height="328" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">SAN DIEGO, LOOKING ACROSS THE BAY TOWARD +POINT LOMA +</p> +</div> + +<p> +All the human interest of this region centres +about the city on the bay of San Diego, a low +locked harbour with a long spit of sand breaking +the mild Pacific swell, as it bides its time for +the shipping of the south-western world. It has +already waited longer than most people suppose. +Just fifty years after the landing of Columbus on +the Bahamas, Cabrillo discovered it; Sir Francis +Drake, romping up that coast with his buccaneers, +must have seen it though he left no note of any +visit, and in 1602 Sebastian Viscaino anchored +there and gave it its present name. Just about +the time the mixed Dutch and English on the +Atlantic coast were beginning to think of themselves +as Americans and to act accordingly, the +Franciscan <i><span lang='es_ES'>Frailes</span></i> settled on San Diego bay. +Nobody will know why it was reserved for the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_10' name='Page_10'>[10]</a></span> +brown-skirted brothers of St. Francis to undertake +the subjugation of Alta California, until it is +known why the King of Spain quarrelled with the +Jesuits. They were accused of plotting against +His Majesty, but in those days it was possible to +accuse the Jesuits of almost anything without +going very far wrong in the popular estimate. I +have my own opinion about it, which is that a +great land, like a great lady, has her way with men. +And no land has called its own as has California:—poet +or painter or pioneer, the world's rim under. +No better patron could be found for this blossoming +West than Francis of Assisi, who preached to his +little brothers of the air and would have made a convert +of the coyote. Perhaps the first settlers of a +country leave their stripe on all the land's later offspring: +if it was a way the West took to breed fervour +and faith and the spirit of prophecy in the young +generation, who shall say she has not succeeded? +</p> + +<p> +In January of 1769 two expeditions by land and +sea set forth in the name of God and the King of +Spain, under the patronage of Señor San Jose, +indubitable patron of all journeys since the flight +into Egypt. In April the ship <i>San Antonio</i> +anchored in the placid bay, there to await the live +stock driven up from Velicatá. So the old world +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_11' name='Page_11'>[11]</a></span> +came to the new with a whole collocation of sainted +personages flocking like doves to her banners. +</p> + +<p> +But it was not saints that the land wanted so +much as the stuff that goes to make them. The +expedition starved, sickened; their eyes were +holden. Governor Portola, with the greater part +of the expedition, made a long <i><span lang='es_ES'>pasear</span></i> on foot to +find the lost port of Monterey, and came back, +with armour rust on his doublet sleeves and +nothing much gained beside, to declare the expedition +a failure. But Padre Serra—Junipero +Serra, father president of Missions, juniper of +God's own planting, sapling of that stock of which +the founder of the order had wished for a whole +forest full—Padre Serra claimed a churchman's +privilege. He demanded time for a <i><span lang='es_ES'>novena</span></i>, a +nine days' cycle of prayer to the patron who was +so unaccountably hiding the relief ship in the fogs +and indecisions of the uncharted coast. It is my +belief that the Padre chose the <i><span lang='es_ES'>novena</span></i> simply +because it was the longest possible time he could +hope to delay the return of the expedition. Nine +days they drew in their belts and told their beads, +and on the last hour of the last day, far on the sea +rim, behold the white wings of succour! +</p> + +<p> +The Patron, who could never be at a loss for an +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_12' name='Page_12'>[12]</a></span> +expedient, contrived that the ship should lose an +anchor which compelled it to put in at San Diego, +where they had no expectation of finding any of +the party. It was so that the land tried them out +and approved, for from that day the founding went +forward steadily. +</p> + +<p> +There is a fine growing city now on the site of +the early landing, regularly stratified through all +the architectural periods of California, from the +low thick-walled adobe of the Spanish occupation +to the newest shingle-stained bungalow of the +latest one-lunged millionaire; but the land has not +lost, in a century and a half, one mark by which +the brown-skirted <i><span lang='es_ES'>Frailes</span></i> found their way about +in it. It has its distinctive mark, the Sparrow-Hawk's +land, the seal of a private and peculiar +affection. Here about the mouth of one of its +swift seasonal rivers, and touching as with a finger-tip +the opposing shore of the island of Santa Rosa, +is the habitat of the Torrey pine. Japanesque, +unrelated, drinking the sea air, never spreading +inland, it hugs the sea-worn edges of La Jolla, as +though, as some botanists believe, the species +came to life there out of the jewel-tinted water +and the spirit of the desert dust. +</p> + +<p> +It is also possible to think of it as a relict of +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_13' name='Page_13'>[13]</a></span> +the land of which the broken Channel Islands +were made, but in any case it is a pity that science +could not have retained for this lonely, restricted +species the name the <i><span lang='es_ES'>Frailes</span></i> gave to its fostering +waters, Soledad—the solitary. Behind the town +the mesa rises abruptly, knife-cut by the gullies +of intermittent streams; and far back where the +mountains break down into foothills, and these +into the lomas—little low mounds of detritus—the +sea air collects all the blue rays of the diffused +light and holds them there all day in the hollows, +in memory of the sea from which they rose. +</p> + +<p> +In April of the year of the Occupation the +white panicles of the chamise would be tossing +here and there, and the yellow violets run thin +lines as of fire among the grasses. You would not +believe there were so many yellow violets in the +world as a day's riding will still show you. At +this season, <i><span lang='es_ES'>islay</span></i>, the wild cherry, will be shaking +out its fine white spray of bloom, the button +willow begins, the sycamore, the buckthorn, <i><span lang='es_ES'>cascara +sagrada</span></i>; the great berried manzanita, which shed +its waxen bells as early as December, will be +reddening its apples. Here also the chia, the true +sage, the honey-maker, bread of the wild tribes, +makes itself known by the penetrating pungent +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_14' name='Page_14'>[14]</a></span> +odour of its unfolding foliage. Binding all the +leafy thickets, runs the succulent starry bloom of +the megarrhiza that, from its hidden root, as large +as a man's body, sends up smothering tendrils so +sensitive to their opportunity that you have only +to sit down beside them on one of these long growing +afternoons, to find all their tips curling in your +direction and the stems moving sensibly across the +grass in the direction of support. As early as +February the foot-long vines can be seen locating +the nearest shrub or the cañon wall, farther away +than you could detect it by any tactile sense. +And how quickly, once the objective is sensed, the +questing Force is withdrawn from the unsuccessful +members! Perhaps this one to the right may keep +on in the direction in which it has caught the +invisible communicating thread from the nearest +buckthorn, but the other three or four green +tentacles, finding no invitation from any quarter, +not only stop growing but seem to shrink and +dwindle in the interests of the climbing brother. +Sometimes in a particularly lusty growth, all the +young vines will be drawn toward some conspicuous +support, so that by the third day those that lay out +starlike, with inquiring tips raised a little, delicately +feeling, will swing through all their points +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_15' name='Page_15'>[15]</a></span> +to the one hopeful direction. These warm +sensuous days toward the end of April, just after +rain, when the very earth is full of a subtle intoxication, +one has but to thrust a finger among the +bourgeoning tips and tendrils of the megarrhiza to +see them stir with live response. One must suppose, +since the megarrhiza is of no discoverable use +to anybody, that the Force uses it to its own ends, +an ascending, uprearing Force, rehearsing itself for +a more serviceable instrument.—This, however, is +a digression; probably the Padres found no time +for philosophising about anything, much less so +useless a specimen as the wild cucumber. +</p> + +<p> +What the Franciscans saw first in Alta +California was what all pioneers look for in new +lands—the witness of their faith. They saw the +waxberry bush from which they were to gather +the thin coating of the berries into candles for +their improvised altars, saw the crepitant, aromatic +<i><span lang='es_ES'>yerba buena</span></i>, and the shrubby, glutinous-leaved +herb of the Saints, given to them for healing. +</p> + +<p> +More than all else they must have seen in the +month of the Virgin Mother, high on the altar +slopes of San Jacinto and San Bernardino, the +white thyrses of the yucca, called The Candles of +Our Lord. Back where the green exclusiveness +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_16' name='Page_16'>[16]</a></span> +of the chamise gives place to the chaparral, the +tall shafts arise. They grow in blossoming, the +bells climbing with the aspiring stalk until as +many as six thousand of them may hang pure and +stiff along the lance-like stem between the bayonet-bristling +leaves. Long after the white flame has +burnt out, the stalks remain, rank on rank, as +though battalions of Spanish spearmen had fallen +there, holding each his spear aloft in his dead hand. +</p> + +<p> +It is only back there where the yuccas begin, +that the small, swift life of the mesa goes on, +very much as it did in the days of the Spanish +<i><span lang='es_ES'>Frailes</span></i>. The doves begin it, voicing the mesa +dawn in notes of a cool blueness; then the sleek +and stately quail, moving down in twittering +droves to the infrequent water-holes. The rhythm +of a flock in motion is like the ripple of muscles +in the sides of a great snake. After them the +road runner, <i><span lang='es_ES'>corredor del camino</span></i>, the cock of the +chaparral, crest down, rudder aslant, swifter than +a horse, incarnate spirit of the hopeful dust +through which he flirts and flits. Then the blueness +is folded up, it lies packed in the cañons, +the mountains flatten; high in his airy haunts +the Sparrow-Hawk sails, and the furry, frisk-tailed +folk begin the day's affairs. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_17' name='Page_17'>[17]</a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i034" id="i034"></a> +<img src="images/i-034.jpg" width="550" height="366" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">REDLANDS, LOOKING TOWARD SAN BERNARDINO RANGE +</p> +</div> + +<p> +The secret of learning the mesa life is to sit +still, to sit still and to keep on sitting still. The +only other secret is to be learned in the wattled +huts stuck like the heaps of the house-building +rats in the dry washes, inwoven with the boughs +of buckthorn and <i><span lang='es_ES'>islay</span></i>, except for size scarcely +distinguishable from them. For the Indian has +gone through all that green woof with the thread +of kinship and found it an ordered world. He is +choke-full as is the chamisal of wild life, of the +tag ends of instincts and understandings left over +from the days when he was brother to the beast—those +sleek-bellied rats, stealing to lay another +foot-long, dried stick to the characterless heap of +their dwelling,—bad Indians to him, trying to +remember their ways when they were men; +that brown feathered bunch, in and out of the +chia bush,—she was present at the making of man. +Your aboriginal has the true sense of proportion: +not size but vitality. You can cover the sage wren +with the hollow of your hand, but you cannot hop +so far for your size nor be so brave about it. +</p> + +<p> +Very different from the spring flutter and fullness, +must have been the look of the land in the +year of the martyrdom of Padre Jayme Bravo, +which was the year of Bunker Hill and the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_18' name='Page_18'>[18]</a></span> +Republic. The green of the chamisal was overlaid +then by the brown tones of its seeding. <i><span lang='es_ES'>Islay</span></i> had +shed its crimson drupes; the cactus fires had died +down to the dull purples of the fruiting prickly +pear; the sycamores by the dwindling waters of +the arroya had scarcely a palsied leaf to wag. The +Mission had been moved, for what reasons must be +guessed by whoever has had occasion to observe +the effect of a standing army on the subjugated +peoples, back from the sea marsh to a little valley +of what is known now as Mission River. Sixty +converts had come down out of the hills to receive +the Medicine of the Soft-Hearted God. That is +the way they must have looked at it—rood and cup +and sprinkling water, and the bells louder than the +medicine drums. Back in the dry gullies the +drums would have been going night and day where +the <i>tingaivashes</i>, the Medicine-Men, lashed themselves +into a fury over this apostasy. Certain of +the renegades heard them between their orisons; +they fled back to the muttering roll and the +pound of the dancing feet. In the night after +that, eight hundred of the Dieguenos, clothed in +frantic fervour and very little else, came down to +make an end of the "long gowns." How the soul +of Padre Jayme must have leaped up as he heard +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_19' name='Page_19'>[19]</a></span> +them yelling outside his unguarded hut: the +appetite for martyrdom is deeper than all our +dreaming. He ran toward them with arms extended. +"Love God, my children!" he cried, and +received their arrows. When it was reported to +the Padre President at Monterey, "Thank God," +he said; "now the soil is watered." It did indeed +repay them such a crop of souls as any watering +produces in that soil; but at San Juan Capistrano, +where a new foundation was in progress, they +buried the bells and returned to the presidio. +</p> + +<p> +Few people understand why Californians so +love their Missions, the meagre ruins of them, +scant as a last year's nest. But two priests, a +corporal, and three men in the unmapped land with +eight hundred angry savages—it is the mark of the +Western breed to love odds such as that! It is not +to the campanile at Pala nor the ruined arches of +San Luis Rey that men made pilgrimages but to +the spirit of enterprise that built the West. +</p> + +<p> +All about the upper mesa there are traces, +scarcely more evident to the eye than the Missions, +that the inhabitants of it have been dreamers, +dreaming greatly. I do not now refer to the court +of San Luis Rey, from the roofs of which a joyous +populace once cheered a governor of California in +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_20' name='Page_20'>[20]</a></span> +the part of toreador, in a neighbourhood where +Raphael-eyed muchachitos who have never heard of +the Five Little Pigs that Went to Market can still +repeat you the rhyme that begins +</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p> +Up in Heaven there is a bull fight,</p> +<p> +The bull has horns of silver and a tail of gold.</p> +</div></div></div> + +<p> +Heaven enough under those conditions to the +children of the Occupation! Nor am I thinking +of a road on which, when there is a light wind +moving from the sea, you can still hear at midnight +the pounding feet of the Indian riders +galloping down to the bay, only to see their +beloved Padre blessing them from the ship's side +in departing. I do not think even—because I +make a practice of thinking as little as possible +of a matter so discreditable to us as our Indian +policy—of the procession of the evicted <i>Palatingwas</i>, +even though the whole region of Warner's +ranch is still full of the shame of it and the +rending cry. The struggle of men with men is +at best a sick and squalid affair for one of the +parties; but men contriving against the gods for +possession of the earth is your true epic. The +brave little towns which start up there with their +too early florescence of avenue and public square, +the courageous acres which the vineyardist clears +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_21' name='Page_21'>[21]</a></span> +in the chamisal and the chamise takes again! +All along the upper mesa, Pan and the homesteader +keep up the ancient fight. And with +what unequal weapons! The wild gourd, the +bindweed, the megarrhiza, at the mere rumour +of a cleared space, come beckoning and joining +hands. Though he goes gunning all day without +finding one young rabbit for his pot, the bark of +the homesteader's orchard trees will be gnawed +by them at the precise sappy moment. At dawn +the quail may be heard with soft contented +noises between the rows of bearing vines, plunging +their beaks in the ripest berries. Then the mule-deer +will spend the night in the carefully fenced +enclosure, ruining the largest bunches with +selective bites; after which the homesteader, +if he is wise, will know that he is beaten. The +mule-deer can go over any fence, though usually +he prefers to go between the wires, which he +can do without altering his stride. Detected, +even at its most leafless, the antlered chaparral +makes cover for him until, after hours of following, +he is glimpsed at last, scaling at his stiff +bounding gait some inaccessible rocky stair from +which nothing comes back but the bullet's deflected +whine. Now and then some pot-hunter +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_22' name='Page_22'>[22]</a></span> +who remembers when the mule-deer could be +heard barking to the does in any deep gully, +when the moon rose hot on the flushed trail +of the October day, will tell you that there +are no more of his kind on San Jacinto. But +so long as there are homesteaders to be fended +from the hill borders, the mule-deer will come +back. And when the mule-deer is gone there +will still be drouth. Let the coast currents swing +out a few degrees, or the Gulf winds blow contrarily +for consecutive seasons, and the stoutest +homesteader fails. After a few years you can +guess where he has been by finding the chamise +growing taller in the ploughed places. +</p> + +<p> +Incurable wild hills and wild sufficing sea, and +the little strip between which they give to one +another—Indian giving!—conceded by the years of +rain and demanded back by drouth; shoals that the +tide piles and the sea eats again! It lies like a many-coloured +dancer's scarf, and hearts are still caught +in its folds as in the days of the Spanish Occupation. +</p> + +<p> +There's a stripe of aquamarine turning to chrysoprase, +that's for the sea; amber then for the +hollow cliffs of La Jolla and San Juan, smugglers' +cliffs eaten well under the shore; a stripe of scarlet, +spangled with viscid diamond dew, that's for the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_23' name='Page_23'>[23]</a></span> +mesembryanthemums crowding the foreshore; pale +green of the lupins with a white thread through it +of the highway, green again for the chamisal, and +blue of the mountains' unassailable sea thought. +</p> + +<p> +Nature is a great symbolist; what she makes +out of her own materials is but the shadow of +what man in any country will make finally of +his. San Diego by the sea dreams of a great +sea empery. What by all the signs she is bound +to produce, is a poet. There in the scarf-coloured, +low shore is the vocal forecast of him in the night-singing +mocking-bird. Especially in the fringing +island of Coronado out of the waxberry bush +he can be heard gurgling like a full fountain +with jets and rushes of pure crystal sound. From +moonrise on until dawn he scatters from a tireless +throat, music like light and laughter. It is +as impossible to close the eyes under it as in +the glare of the sun. And if the moon, the +measurer, be gone on a journey to the other +side of the world, still he sings, all his notes +muffled by the dark; he sways and sings, dozes +and sings, dreaming and wakes to sing. So it +should be with poets whether anybody wishes +them to or not. "The lands of the sun expand +the soul," says the proverb. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_25' name='Page_25'>[25]</a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_24' name='Page_24'></a></span> +</p> + +<p> + +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_27' name='Page_27'></a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_26' name='Page_26'></a></span> +</p> + +<h2> +II +<br /><br /> +<span class="s08"> +MOTHERING MOUNTAINS + +</span></h2> + +<p> +It is all part of that subtle relation between the +observer and the landscape of the west, which +goes by the name of "atmosphere," that one +returns again and again to the reality of Christian +feeling in the Franciscan Pioneers, as witnessed +by the names they left us—one of the most +charming proofs, if proof were wanted, of the +power of religion to illuminate the mind to a +degree often denied to generations of art and +culture. How many book-fed tourists rounding +the blue ranks of San Jacinto to face the noble +front of the Coast Range as it swings back from +the San Gabriel valley, would have found for it +a name at once so absolute, so understanding as +Sierra Madre, Mother Mountain? +</p> + +<p> +There you have it all in one comprehensive +sweep: the brooding, snow-touched, virginal peaks, +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_28' name='Page_28'>[28]</a></span> +visited and encompassed by the sacred spirit of +the sea, and below it the fertile valley, the little +huddling, skirting hills fed from her breast. The +very lights that die along the heights, the airs that +play there, the swelling fecund slopes, have in +them something so richly maternal; the virtue of +the land is the virtue that we love most in the +mothers of men. And if you want facts under +the poetry, see how the Sierra receives the rain +and sends it down laden with the rich substance +of her granite bosses, making herself lean to fatten +the valleys. The great gorges and swift angles of +the hills which fade and show in the evening glow, +are wrought there by the ceaseless contribution of +the mountain to the tillable land. And what a +land it has become! There have been notable +kingdoms of the past of fewer and less productive +acres. Yet even in the great avenues of palms +that flick the light a thousand ways from their wind-stirred, +serrate edges, is a reminder of the host of +bristling, spiny growth the land once entertained. +It is as if the sinister forces of the desert lurked +somewhere not far under the surface, ready at +any moment to retake all this wonder of fertility, +should the beneficence of the Mother Mountain +fail. The Padre pioneers must have felt these +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_29' name='Page_29'>[29]</a></span> +two contending forces many a time when they +lay down at night under the majestic Sierra, for +they named the first spot where they made an +abiding place, in honour of the protecting influence, +<i><span lang='es_ES'>Nuestro Señora, Reina de Los Angeles</span></i>, Our Lady +the Queen of the Angels. There she hovered, +snow-whitened amid tall candles of the stars, while +south and west the coyote barked the menace of +the unwatered lands. Now this is remarkable, and +one of the things that go to show we are vastly +more susceptible to influences of nature than some +hard-headed members of society suppose, that in +this group of low hills and shallow valleys between +the Sierra Madre and the sea, the most conspicuous +human achievement has been a new form of domestic +architecture. +</p> + +<p> +This is the thing that most strikes the attention +of the traveller: not the orchards and the gardens, +which are not appreciably different in kind from +those of the Riviera and some favoured parts +of Italy, but the homes, the number of them, +their extraordinary adaptability to the purposes +of gracious living. The Angelenos call them +bungalows, in respect to the type from which +the later form developed, but they deserve a +name as distinctive as they have in character +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_30' name='Page_30'>[30]</a></span> +become. These little thin-walled dwellings, all +of desert-tinted native woods and stones, are as +indigenous to the soil as if they had grown up +out of it, as charming in line and the perfection of +utility as some of those wild growths which show +a delicate airy florescence above ground, but under +it have deep, man-shaped, resistant roots. With +their low and flat-pitched roofs they present a +certain likeness to the aboriginal dwellings which +the Franciscans found scattered like wasps' nests +among the chaparral along the river,—which is only +another way of saying that the spirit of the land +shapes the art that is produced there. +</p> + +<p> +One must pause a little by the dry wash of this +river, so long ago turned into an irrigating ditch that +it is only in seasons of unusual flood it remembers +its ancient banks, and finds them, in spite of all that +real estate agencies have done to obliterate such +natural boundaries. This river of Los Angeles betrays +the streak of original desertness in the country +by flowing bottom-side up, for which it receives +the name of <i><span lang='es_ES'>arroya</span></i>, and even <i><span lang='es_ES'>arroya seca</span></i> as against +the <i><span lang='es_ES'>rio</span></i> of the full-flowing Sacramento and San +Juan. A <i><span lang='es_ES'>rio</span></i> is chiefly water, but an <i><span lang='es_ES'>arroya</span></i>, and +especially that one which travels farthest from the +Mothering Mountains toward the sea, is at most +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_31' name='Page_31'>[31]</a></span> +seasons of the year a small trickle of water among +stones in a wide, deep wash, overgrown with button +willow and sycamores that click their gossiping +leaves in every breath of wind or in no wind at +all. Tiny gold and silver backed ferns climb down +the banks to drink, and as soon as the spring +freshet has gone by, brodiæas and blazing stars +come up between the boulders worn as smooth +as if by hand. +</p> + +<p> +Farther up, where the stream narrows, it is +overgrown by willows, alders, and rock maples, +and leaps white-footed into brown pools for trout. +Deer drink at the shallows, and it is not so long +ago that cinnamon bear and grizzlies tracked the +wet clay of its borders. This is the guarantee +that this woman-country is in no danger of too +much mothering. No climate which is acceptable +to trout and grizzlies is in the least likely to prove +enervating; men and beasts, they run pretty much +to the same vital, sporting qualities. +</p> + +<p> +All that country which extends from the foot +of the Sierra Madre to the sea, is so cunningly +patterned off with ranks of low hills and lomas +that its vastness is disguised, or rather revealed +by subtle change and swift surprises as a discreet +woman reveals her charms. This renders it one of +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_32' name='Page_32'>[32]</a></span> +the most delightful of motoring countries. The +car swings over a perfect road into snug little +orchard nooks as safe and secret seeming as a +nest, climbs a round-breasted hill to greet the +wide horizon of the sea, or a mesa stretching +away into blue and amber desertness, which when +adventured upon, discloses in unsuspected hollows +white, peaceful towns girt by great acres of orange +groves, or the orderly array of vines trimmed low +and balancing like small, wide-skirted figures in a +minuet. And then the ground opens suddenly +to deep, dry gullies where little handfuls of the grey +soil gather themselves up and scuttle mysteriously +under the cactus bushes, and dried seeds of the +megarrhiza rattle with a muffled sound as the pods +blow about. Here one meets occasionally the last +survivors of the old way of life before men found it: +<i><span lang='es_ES'>neotoma</span></i>, the house-building rat, with his conical +heap of rubbish; or a road runner, tilting his tail +and practising his short, sharp runs in the powdery +sand under the rabbit brush; here, too, the lurking +desert shows its spiny tips like a creature half-buried +in the sand, not dead, but drowsing. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i053" id="i053"></a> +<img src="images/i-053.jpg" width="398" height="550" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">A EUCALYPTUS GROVE +</p> +</div> + +<p> +As artists know colour, and poets know it, this is +the most colourful corner of the world. The blue +and silver tones of the Sparrow-Hawk's land give +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_33' name='Page_33'>[33]</a></span> +place to airy violets, fawns, and rich ambers. It is +curious, that obstinate preference which a locality +has for colour schemes of its own adoption; man +can break up and re-form them, but he can never +quite overcome the original key. Here the bright, +instant note of the geraniums that shore up the +bungalows, even the insult of the magenta-coloured +Bougainvillea is subdued by the aerial softness that +lies along the hills like the bloom on fruit. The +sheets of Eschscholtzia gold that once spread over +miles of the San Gabriel valley, and still linger in +torn fragments about Altadena, have been sheared +by the plough, to vanish and reappear again in the +solid globes of orange, distilled from the saps and +juices of the soil. +</p> + +<p> +One of the most interesting of the instruments +by which the cultivated landscape has gathered +up and fixed the evanescent greens that spread +thinly yet over the uncropped hills in spring, +is the eucalyptus. All the tints are there, from +the olive greens of the chaparral to the sombre +darkness of the evergreen oak; young shoots of +it have the silvery finish of the artemisia which +once gave the note of the mesas about Riverside +and San Bernardino. No other imported tree has +quite to such a degree the air of the <i>habitué</i>; one +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_34' name='Page_34'>[34]</a></span> +wonders indeed if it could have been half so much +at home in Australia, from whence it has returned +like some wandering heir to the ancestral acre. +</p> + +<p> +It proves its blood royal by its facile adaptiveness +to the prevailing lines of the landscape, taking the +rounded, leaning outline of the live oaks on the +wind-driven hills, or in sheltered ravines springing +upward straight as the silver firs. Perhaps its most +charming possibilities are revealed in the middle +distance where, lifted high on columnar stems, its +leaf crowns take on the blunt, flowing contours of +the hills. At all times it has a beautiful resilience +to the wind, bowing with a certain courtliness without +compulsion, and recovering as if by conscious +harmonious movement. The pepper tree, however, +most magnificent specimens of which may be +found lining the avenues of Pasadena, or in some +unexpected corner of the hills marking the site of +some old Spanish hacienda, is always an alien. +It is like the Spaniards who brought it, perhaps, +in its drooping grace, in the careless prodigality +with which it sheds its fragile crimson fruits. +Something of old-worldliness persists in its spicy +odours, and in the stir of its lacy shadows; when +the moon comes over the mountain wall and the +wind is moving, there is the touch of mystery one +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_35' name='Page_35'>[35]</a></span> +associates with lovely señoritas leaning out of +balconies. One fancies that the pepper tree will last +so long as the dying race of Dons and Doñas, and +with them will cease to be a feature of local interest. +</p> + +<p> +There is hardly more than a trace in the modern +city of Los Angeles of <span lang='es_ES'><i><span lang='es_ES'>Nuestra Señora, Reina de +los Angeles</span></i></span>. The last time I passed through the +old plaza, the streets of offence encroached upon +it from the east, and a corner of the sacred precinct +had been sacrificed to the trolley. The Church of +Our Lady, over whose door may still be traced the +fading inscription from which the city takes its +name, was never a mission, but one of the six +chapels or <i><span lang='es_ES'>asistencias</span></i> centred about the Mission +San Gabriel. It was here the first expedition +passed northward looking for the port of Monterey, +on the day of the feast of Our Lady in the year +when the Atlantic Colonies were making up their +minds to fight the English. It was close to this +spot and along Downey Street were enacted the +most pitiful of all the tragic incidents which +marked the recession of the aboriginal races. +Bereft of their lands and the protection of their +Church, they became a prey to the greed of the +dominant peoples, and used regularly to be incited to +drunkenness upon their wages on Sunday, arrested +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_36' name='Page_36'>[36]</a></span> +while in that condition, and sold each Monday +morning for the amount of their fines to the +neighbouring ranchers. Things like this lurking +under the surface of commercial enterprise, as the +desert lies in wait in sandy stretches, advise us +that much of our insistence on democracy grows +out of our inability to trust ourselves to deal equitably +with our fellows under any other conditions. +We can keep to the rules of the game we have set +up more easily than to the unfenced humanities. +Here in the old plaza full of sleepy light, which +still retains the indefinable stamp of the people +to whom to-morrow was always a better day for +doing things, one sighs for the short-sighted self-interest +which so wasted the native children of +the soil. +</p> + +<p> +But after all the land couldn't have loved them +as it does the race for which it brings forth +its miraculous harvests. Not that there weren't +miracles in those days; in fact they began here, +or rather at San Gabriel, six miles or so beyond +the river which in those days was called Porcincula, +a name that linked the old world with the new by +way of the little chapel in Italy in which the +beloved Francis received such heavenly favours. +The miracle of San Gabriel relates to a display +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_37' name='Page_37'>[37]</a></span> +of a canvas presentiment of Our Lady, at the +mere sight of which the wild tribes experienced +exceeding grace. Looking up suddenly at the +Mother Mountain brooding above the plain, it +is easy to understand how the symbol of aloof +but solicitous care came home to the primitive +mind, always peculiarly open to suggestions of +humaneness in nature. +</p> + +<p> +The heads of the Sierra Madre are rounded, the +contours of great dignity. The appeal it makes to +the eye is of mass and line. Its charms, and it has +many, of forested slope, leaping waters, and lilied +meadows, do not offer themselves to the casual +glance, but must be sought after with great pains. +The bulk of the range is of warm, grey granite, +clothed with atmospheric colour as with a garment. +It borrows more from the sky than the sea, taking +on at times an aerial transparency, the soul of the +mountain about to pass trembling into light. +Pinkish tones are discoverable in even the bluest +shadows, and at times the peaks are touched with +the rich, roseate orange of the Alpine-glow. But +the variations of temperature and atmospheric +conditions are not sufficiently pronounced to +present themselves to the sense as the source of +its aspects of tenderness, of majesty, of virginal +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_38' name='Page_38'>[38]</a></span> +aloofness. Rather such changes seem to be +occasioned by palpitations of the Mountain Spirit, +remote in sacred meditation, glowing, dimming, +defining itself from within. +</p> + +<p> +It may be that the immense vitality of the land, +its abundance, the bursting orchards, the rich +variety of native growth, somehow dwarfs the +earliest impression of the Sierra Madre, since few, +if any, gather at first an adequate idea of the +actual mass and height it represents. It is only +after appreciation of the really amazing activities +of the Angelenos is a little dulled by familiarity, at +early morning when the groves are sleeping and +the bright plantations of the gardens lack the sun +to flash their brilliance on the sight, or at evening +when a sea mist covers the teeming land, one is +prepared to hear that many of these peaks are +higher than the Simplon, and that it would be +possible to wander for months in the intricacies +of its cañons without having time to grow familiar +with a single one of them. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes the mere mechanics of the land, the +pull of the wind up the narrow gorges as you pass, +advises the open mind of power and immensity +residing in the thinly forested bulks. Passing +what appears a mere shadowy gulf in the mountain +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_39' name='Page_39'>[39]</a></span> +wall, you are aware of a murmurous sound as of +the sea in a shell, and feel suddenly the push of +the draught on your windshield like a great steady +hand. In places above San Bernardino, the steady +pouring of invisible wind rivers has swept the soil +for miles and defied three generations of artificial +plantations. And sometimes the mountain speaks +directly to the soul. I recall such an occasion one +late spring. We had been skirting the range +toward Riverside all afternoon, having the fall of +the land seaward always in view, noting how, in spite +of the absurd predilection of men for square fields +and gridiron arrangements, the main lines of +cultivation were being pulled into beauty by the +sheer necessity of humouring the harvest. It was +that lagging hour between the noon splendour and +the gathering of the light for its dramatic passage +into night. The orange orchards lay dead green +in the hollows, unplanted ridges showed scarcely a +trace of atmospheric blueness; unlaced, unbuskined, +the land rested. And all in the falling of a leaf, +in the scuttle of a horned toad in the dust of the +roadway, it lifted into eerie life. It bared its teeth; +the veil of the mountain was rent. Nothing +changed, nothing stirred or glimmered, but the +land had spoken. As if it had taken a step +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_40' name='Page_40'>[40]</a></span> +forward, as if a hand were raised, the mountain +stood over us. And then it sank again. While +the chill was still on us, the grip of terror, there +lay the easy land, the comfortable crops, the red +geraniums about the bungalows. But never again +for me would the Sierra Madre be a mere geographical +item, a feature of the landscape; it was +Power, immanent and inescapable. Shall not the +mother of the land do what she will with it? +</p> + +<p> +Entering the cañons of the San Gabriel, one is +struck with the endearing quality of their charm. +In a country which disdains every sort of prettiness, +and dares even to use monotony as an element of +beauty, as California does, it is surprising to find, +cut in the solid granite wall, little dells all laced +with fern and saxifrage, and wind swung, frail, +flowery bells. Little streams come dashing down +the runways with an elfin movement, with here and +there a miniature fall "singing like a bird," as +Muir described it, between moss-encrusted banks. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i066" id="i066"></a> +<img src="images/i-066.jpg" width="550" height="371" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">GLENDALE, VALLEY OF THE SAN GABRIEL +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Into the open mouths of such cañons have +retreated the hosts of wildflowers that once in the +wet seasons overran all that country from San +Bernardino to the sea,—the white sage, most +honeyful of all the sages, the poppies, gilias, +cream cups, nemophilias which twenty-five years +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_41' name='Page_41'>[41]</a></span> +ago were as common as meadow grass, as thick as +the planted fields of alfalfa which have usurped +them. Settlers who came into this country when +the trail over the San Gorgiono had not yet +hardened between iron rails, tell of riding belly +deep for miles in wild oats and waving bloom, +and where the trail goes out over the San +Fernando, toward Camulas, the yellow mustard +reached its scriptural height, and the birds of the air +built their nests in it. Now and then in very wet +years a faint yellow tinge, high up under the bases +of the hills, is all that is left of the seed which, +by report, the Padres sowed along the coastwise +trails, to mark where they trod the circuit of the +Missions. +</p> + +<p> +Everywhere within the cañons, honeyful flowers +abound, and up from the rocky floors the slopes +are stiff with chaparral. This characteristic growth, +which, seen from the open valley flooded by dry +sun, appears as a mere scurf, a roughened lichen +on the mountain wall, is in reality a riot of +manzanita, mahogany, ceanothus, cherry and black +sage, from ten to fifteen feet high, all but impassable. +Elsewhere in the ranges to the north, the +chaparral is loose enough to admit fern and herbaceous +plants, carpeting the earth, but here the rigid, +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_42' name='Page_42'>[42]</a></span> +spiny stems contend for three or four feet, thick as +the carving in old cathedral choirs, before they +attain light and air enough to put forth leaf or +twig. On the seaward side of the mountains, miles +and miles of this dense growth flow over the +ranges, parted here and there by knife-edge ridges, +or by huge bosses of country rock, affording a +great sweep to the eye, reaching far to seaward. +From here the lower country shrinks to its proper +proportion—a toy landscape planted with Noah's +Ark trees—and the noise of men is overlaid by the +great swells of the Pacific which come thundering +in, lifting far and faint reverberations along the +ranges. +</p> + +<p> +On either side of these vast conning towers +it is still possible to trace the indefinite tracks +which wild creatures make, running clear and +well defined for short distances and then melting +unaccountably into the scrub again. Occasionally +still they discover traces of the wild life in which +the Sierra Madre once abounded. Deer are known +to take advantage of such natural outlooks in +protecting themselves from their natural enemies, +and from the evidence of frequent visits here, bears +and foxes and bobcats must have made much the +same use of them. From such high escarpments +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_43' name='Page_43'>[43]</a></span> +the Indians would have seen Cabrillo's winged +boats go by, and from them, all up the coast, +ascended the pillars of smoke that attended the +galleon of Francis Drake. +</p> + +<p> +Once within the portals of the range, the granite +walls sheer away from sequestered parks of oak, +madroño, and Douglas spruce. The trees are not +thickly set here as in the north, but admit of sunny +space and murmurous bee pasture between their +gracefully contrasting boles, and to a thousand +bright-feathered and scaled things unknown to +the all-pine or all-redwood forests. Such parks +or basins vary from a few yards to an acre or +two in extent, threaded like beads upon a single +stream. One thinks indeed of the old-fashioned +"charm string" in which each meadow space has +its peculiar virtue:—open sunny shallows, arrowy +cascades, troops of lilies standing high as a man's +head, forested fern, columbine, delphinum, and +scarlet mimulus along the water borders. +</p> + +<p> +They grow slighter as the trail ascends—it is +possible now to make nearly the whole distance +in gravity cars for that purpose provided, but I +recommend a sure-footed mule for the true +mountain-lover—until above the source of the +streams, from dips and saddles of the range, above +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_44' name='Page_44'>[44]</a></span> +the summer-shrunken glaciers, where the trees +are bowed and the chaparral creeps as if awed +and dizzy, it is possible to have a glimpse of the +still unconquered and unconquerable "sage brush +county." All along the back of the Sierra Madre +wall the desert laps like a slow tide, rolling up and +receding with the drouths and rains. The eye +takes it in no less slowly than the imagination. +It stretches, in fact, to the Colorado, but a haze +of heat obscures its eastern border; long whitened +lines of alkali, like wave marks, set the seasonal +limit of its encroachments. Here and there shows +the dark checkering of fertile patches, spilled over +from the rich west-lying valleys; trending east by +south lies the Sierra Madre like an arm, guarding +the favoured region. +</p> + +<p> +And yet in her very favour the Mother Mountain +is impartial, for equally as she saves the south from +desertness, she has denied to us the one instrument +by which the desert could be mastered. Mighty +as man is in transforming the face of the earth, he +is nothing without the Rains. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_45' name='Page_45'>[45]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_47' name='Page_47'></a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_46' name='Page_46'></a></span> +</p> + +<h2> +III +<br /><br /> +<span class="s08"> +THE COASTS OF ADVENTURE + +</span></h2> + +<p> +Old trails, older than the memory of man, go out +from the southern country by way of Cahuenga, +by Eagle Rock, toward that part of the shelving +coast where the Padre's mustard gold lingered +longest, as if to mark the locality where the gold +they missed was first uncovered. But suppose, +on that day of the year '41, Francisco Lopez, +<i>major-domo</i> of the Mission San Fernando, had not +had an appetite for onions? Who knows how +history would have made itself? +</p> + +<p> +The speculation is idle; anybody named Lopez +has always a taste for onions because they are +the nearest thing to garlic. Señor Francisco,—I +suppose one may grant him the title at this +distance—rested under an oak and dug up the wild +root with his knife, and the tide of the world's +emigration set toward the Coasts of Adventure. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_48' name='Page_48'>[48]</a></span> +I have, holding my papers as I write, an Indian +basket reputed to be one of those in which, in +those days, placer gold was washed out of the +sandy loam; it was given me by one who had it +from Don Antonio Coronel, and has a pattern +about it of the low serried hills of the coast district. +Where it breaks, as all patterns of Indian baskets +do, to give egress to the spirit resident in things +dedicated to human use, there are two figures of +men with arms outstretched, but divided as the +pioneers who carried the cross into that country +were from those who followed the lure of gold. +The basket wears with time, but the pattern holds, +inwoven with its texture as Romance is woven +with the history of all that region lying between +San Francisco on the north and Cahuenga where, +after a bloodless battle, was consummated the +cession of California from Mexico. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i077" id="i077"></a> +<img src="images/i-077.jpg" width="550" height="416" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">A CAÑON IN THE SIERRA MADRES +</p> +</div> + +<p> +From the white landmark of San Juan Capistrano +to a point opposite Santa Inez, saints thick +as sea-birds, standing seaward, break the long +Pacific swell: San Clemente, Santa Catalina, +Santa Rosa—their deep-scored cliffs searched by +the light, revealing their kinship with the parallel +mainland ranges. But there are hints here, in the +plant and animal life and in the climate, milder +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_49' name='Page_49'>[49]</a></span> +even than that of the opposing channel ports, hints +which not even the Driest-Dustiness dare despise, +of those mellower times than ours from which +all fables of Blessed Islands are sprung. Islands +"very near the terrestrial paradise" the old Spanish +romancer described them. Often as not the imagination +sees more truly than the eye. I myself am +ready to affirm that something of man's early Eden +drifted thither on the Kuro-Siwa, that warm +current deflected to our coast, which, for all we +know of it, might well be one of the four great +rivers that went about the Garden and watered it. +Great golden sun-fish doze upon the island tides, +flying-fish go by in purple and silver streaks, and +under the flat bays, which take at times colour that +rivals the lagoons of Venice, forests of kelp, a-crawl +with rainbow-coloured life, sleep and sway upon +tides unfelt of men. There are days at Catalina +so steeped with harmonies of sea and sun that the +singing of the birds excites the soothed sense no +more than if the lucent air had that moment +dripped in sound. These are the days when the +accounts that Cabrillo left of his findings there, of +a civil and religious development superior to the +tribes of the mainland, beguile the imagination. +</p> + +<p> +One thinks of the watery highway between the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_50' name='Page_50'>[50]</a></span> +west coast and the channel islands as another +<i><span lang='es_ES'>Camino Real</span></i> of the sea, where in place of mule +trains and pacing Padres, went balsas, skin canoes, +galleons, far-blown Chinese junks, Russian traders, +slipping under the cliffs of San Juan for untaxed +hides and tallow, Atlantic whalers, packets rounding +the Horn, sunk past the load line with +Argonauts of '49, opium smugglers dropping a +contraband cask or an equally prohibited coolie +under the very wing of San Clemente. So many +things could have happened—Odysseys, Æneids—that +it is with a sigh one resigns the peaks of the +submerged range, paling and purpling on the west, +to the student of sea-birds and sea-nourished +plants. +</p> + +<p> +Looking from the islands landward, the locked +shores have still for long stretches the aspect of +undiscovered country. Hills break abruptly in +the surf or run into narrow moon-shaped belts of +sand where a mountain arm curves out or the sea +eats inward. And yet for nearly four centuries +the secret of the land was blazoned to all the ships +that passed, in the great fields of poppy gold that +every wet season flamed fifty miles or more to +seaward. +</p> + +<p> +One must have seen the Eschscholtzia so, smouldering +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_51' name='Page_51'>[51]</a></span> +under the mists of spring, to understand the +thrill that comes of finding them later scattered as +they are, throughout the gardens of the world. I +recall how at Rome, coming up suddenly out of +the catacombs—we had gone down by another +entrance and had been wandering for hours in the +mortuary gloom—memory leaped up to find a +great bed of golden poppies tended by brown, +bearded Franciscans. They couldn't say—Fray +Filippo, whom I questioned, had no notion—whence +the sun-bright cups had come, except that they +were common in the gardens of his order. It +seemed a natural sort of thing for some Mission +Padre, seeking a memento of himself to send back +to his Brothers of St. Francis half a world away, +to have chosen these shining offsprings of the sun. +There was confirmation in the fact that Fray +Filippo knew them not by the unspellable botanical +name, but by the endearing Castilian "dormidera," +sleepy-eyed, in reference to their habit of unfolding +only to the light; but the connecting thread was +lost. Channel fishermen still, in spite of the +obliterating crops, can trace the blue lines of lupins +between faint streaks of poppy fires, and catch +above the reek of their boats, when the land wind +begins, blown scents of <i><span lang='es_ES'>islay</span></i> and ceanothus. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_52' name='Page_52'>[52]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +No rivers of water of notable size pour down +this west coast, but rivers of green flood the shallow +cañons. Here and there from the crest of the +range one catches an arrowy glimpse of a seasonal +stream, but from the sea-view the furred chaparral +is unbroken except for bare ridges, wind-swept even +of the round-headed oaks. This coast country is a +favourite browsing place for deer; they can be +seen there still in early summer, feeding on the +acorns of the scrub oaks, and especially on the +tender twigs of wind-fallen trees, or herding at +noon in the deep fern which closes like cleft waters +over their heads. Until within a few years it was +no unlikely thing to hear little black bears snorting +and snuffing under the manzanita, of the +berries of which they are inordinately fond. This +lovely shrub with its twisty, satiny stems of wine-red, +suffusing brown, its pale conventionalised +leaves and flat little umbels of berries, suggests +somehow the carving on old Gothic choirs, as +though it borrowed its characteristic touch from an +external shaping hand; as if with its predetermined +habit of growth it had a secret affinity for man, and +waited but to be transplanted into gardens. It +needs, however, no garden facilities, but shapes +itself to the most inhospitable conditions. About +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_53' name='Page_53'>[53]</a></span> +the time it begins to put forth its thousand waxy +bells, in December or January, the toyon, the +native holly, is at its handsomest. This is a late +summer flowering shrub that in mid-winter loses +a little of its glossy green, and above its yellowing +foliage bears berries in great scarlet clusters. +Between these two overlapping ends, the gaumet +of the chaparral is run in blues of wild lilac, reds +and purples of rhus and buckthorn and the wide, +white umbels of the alder, which here becomes a +tree fifty to sixty feet in height. It is the only one +of the tall chaparral which has edible fruit, for +though bears and Indians make a meal of manzanita, +it does not commend itself to cultivated +taste. More humble species, huckleberry, thimble, +and blackberry, crowd the open spaces under the +oak-madroño forests, or, as if they knew their +particular usefulness to man, come hurrying to +clearings of the axe, and may be seen holding hands +as they climb to cover the track of careless fires. +In June whole hill-slopes, under the pine and madroños, +burn crimson with sweet, wild strawberries. +The wild currant and the fuchsia-flowered gooseberry +are not edible, but they are under no such +obligation; they "make good" with long wands of +jewel-red, drooping blossoms, and in the case of the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_54' name='Page_54'>[54]</a></span> +currant, with delicate pink racemes, thrown out +almost before the leaves while the earth still smells +of winter dampness. Though nobody seems to +know how it travelled so far, the "incense shrub" +is a favourite of English gardens where, before the +primroses begin, it serves the same purpose as in +the west coast cañons, quickening the sense into +anticipations of beauty on every side. +</p> + +<p> +Inland the close, round-backed hills draw into +ranks and ranges, making way for chains of fertile +valleys which also fill out the Californian's calendar +of saints. But, in fact, your true Californian prays +to his land as much as ever the early Roman did, +and pours on it libations of water and continuous +incense of praise. Every one of these longish, +north-trending basins is superlatively good for +something,—olives or wheat, perhaps; Pajaro +produces apples and Santa Clara has become the +patroness of prunes. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing could be more ethereally lovely than +the spring aspect of the orchard country. It begins +with the yellowing of the meadow lark's breast, +and then of early mornings, with the appearance, +as if flecks of the sky had fallen, of great flocks +of bluebirds that blow about in the ploughed lands +and are dissolved in rain. Then the poppies spring +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_55' name='Page_55'>[55]</a></span> +up like torchmen in the winter wheat, and along +the tips of the apricots, petals begin to show, +crumpled as the pink lips of children shut upon +mischievous secrets; a day or two of this and then +the blossoms swarm as bees, white fire breaks +out among the prunes, it scatters along the foothills +like the surf. Toward the end of the blooming +season all the country roads are defined by thin +lines of petal drift, and any wind that blows is +alive with whiteness. After which, thick leafage +covers the ripening fruit and the valley dozes +through the summer heat with the farms outlined +in firm green, like a patchwork quilt drawn up +across the mountains' knees. +</p> + +<p> +The tree that gives the memorable touch to the +landscape of the coast valleys is the oak, both the +roble and encinas varieties. There are others with +greater claims to distinction, the sequoia, the "big +tree," lurking in the Santa Cruz mountains, the +madroño, red-breeched, green-coated, a very Robin +Hood of trees, sequestered in cool cañons, and the +redwood, the <i><span lang='es_ES'>palo colorado</span></i>, discovered by the first +Governor, Don Gaspar de Portola, on his search +for the lost port of Monte Rey. All these keep +well back from the main lines of travel. The most +that the rail tourist sees of them is a line of redwoods, +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_56' name='Page_56'>[56]</a></span> +perhaps, climbing up from the sea-fronting +cañons to peer and whisper on the ridges above the +fruiting orchards. But the oaks go on, keeping +well in the laps of the hills, avoiding the wind +rivers, marching steadily across the alluvial basins +on into the hot interior. They are more susceptible +to wind influence than almost any other, and mark +the prevailing direction of the seasonal air currents +with their three-hundred-year-old trunks as readily +as reeds under a freshet. You can see them hugging +the lee side of any cañon, leaning as far as they +may out of the sea-born draughts, but standing +apart, true aristocrats among trees, disdaining alike +one another and the whole race of orchard inmates. +When in full leaf, for the <i><span lang='es_ES'>roble</span></i> is deciduous, they +are both of them distinctly paintable, particularly +when in summer the trunks, grey and aslant, +upbearing cloud-shaped masses of dark green, +make an agreeable note against the fawn-coloured +hills. The <i><span lang='es_ES'>roble</span></i> is a noble tree, high-crowned, +with a great sweep of branches, but seen in winter +stripped of its thick, small leafage, it loses interest. +Its method of branching is fussy, too finely divided, +and without grace. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i090" id="i090"></a> +<img src="images/i-090.jpg" width="550" height="371" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">THE CEMETERY, SANTA BARBARA MISSION +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Around Santa Margarita and Paso Robles filmy +moss spreads a veil over the <i><span lang='es_ES'>robles</span></i> as of Druid +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_57' name='Page_57'>[57]</a></span> +meditation; one fancies them aloof from the stir +of present-day life as they were from the bears +that used to feed on the mast under them. A +hundred years or so ago the Franciscans drove +out the bears by an incantation—I mean by the +exorcism of the Church enforced with holy water +and a procession with banners around the Mission +precinct: "I adjure you, O Bears, by the true God, +by the Holy God ... to leave the fields to our +flocks, not to molest them nor come near them." +But bears or <i>homo sapiens</i>, it is all one to the oaks +of San Antonio; indeed, if legend is to be credited, +the four-footed brothers would have been equally +as acceptable to the patron of the Mission where +this interesting ceremony took place. I can testify, +however, that after all this lapse of time the exorcism +is still in force, for though I have been up and +down that country many times I have seen no bears +in it. +</p> + +<p> +Things more pestiferous than bears are driven +out, humours of the blood, stiffness of the joints, +by the medicinal waters that bubble and seep along +certain ancient fissures of the country rock. This +has always seemed to me the very insolence of +superfluity. Who wishes, when all the air is censed +with the fragrance of wild vines, to have his nose +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_58' name='Page_58'>[58]</a></span> +assaulted with fumes of sulphur, even though it is +known to be good for a number of things? But +there are some people who could never be got to +observe the noble proportions of five-hundred-year-old +oaks with the wild grapes going from tree +to tree like a tent, except as a by-process incident +to the drinking of nasty waters. So the land has +its way even with our weaknesses. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i095" id="i095"></a> +<img src="images/i-095.jpg" width="550" height="370" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">SYCAMORES, A COAST RANGE CAÑON +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Besides these excursions inland, which bring us in +almost every case to one of the ancient Franciscan +foundations, there are two or three ports of call on +the sea front worth lingering at for more things +than the pleasant air and the radiant wild bloom. +One of these is Santa Barbara which Santa Inez +holds in its lap, curving like a scimitar opposite the +most northerly of the channel islands. Understand, +however, that no good comes of thinking +of Santa Barbara as a place on the map. It is a +Sargossa of Romance, a haven of last things, the +last Mission in the hands of the Franciscans, the +last splendour of the Occupation, the last place +where mantillas were worn and they danced the +<i><span lang='es_ES'>fandango</span></i> and <i><span lang='es_ES'>la jota</span></i>; an eddy into which have +drifted remnants of every delightful thing that +has passed on the highways of land and sea, which +here hail one another across the curving moon-white +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_59' name='Page_59'>[59]</a></span> +beach. Summer has settled there, California +summer which never swelters, never scorches. +Frost descends at times from Santa Inez to the +roofs, but lays no finger on the fuchsias, poinsettias, +and the heliotropes climbing to second-story +windows. The wild thickets which connect the +territory with the town, are vocal with night-singing +mocking-birds; along the foreshore white +pelicans divide the mountain-shadowed waters. +The waters, taking all the sky's changes, race to +the fairy islands, the chaparral runs back to the +flanks of Santa Inez showing yellowly through +the distant blue of pines; overhead a sky clouded +with light. This is not a paradox but an attempt +to express the misty luminosity of a heaven filled +with refractions of the summer-tinted slope, the +glaucous leafage of the chaparral, the white sand +and sapphire-glinting water. The sky <i>beyond</i> the +enclosing mountains has the cambric blueness of +the superheated interior, but directly overhead it +has depth and immensity of colour unequalled +except along the Mediterranean. +</p> + +<p> +Santa Barbara is a port of distinguished visitors; +more, and more varieties, of sea-birds put in there +on the long flight from the Arctic to the Isthmus +than is easily believable. In the Estero—<i><span lang='es_ES'>esteril</span></i>, +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_60' name='Page_60'>[60]</a></span> +sterile—an ill-smelling tide pool lying behind the +town, may be found at one season or another, all +the western species that delight the ornithologist. +The black brant, going by night, and wild swans, +as many as a score of them together, have been +noted in its backwaters, and scarcely any stroll +along the receding surf but is enlivened by the +resonant, sweet whistle of the plover. In hollows +of the sands thousands of beach-haunting birds +may be seen camping for the night, looking like +some sea-coloured, strange vegetation, and early +mornings when the channel racing by, leaves the +bay placid, tens of thousands of shearwaters sleep +in shouldering ranks that sway with the incoming +swell as the kelp sways, without being scattered +by it. One can see the same sight, augmented as +to numbers, around Monterey, a long day's journey +to the north as the car goes, long enough and +lovely enough to deserve another chapter. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_61' name='Page_61'>[61]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> + +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_63' name='Page_63'></a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_62' name='Page_62'></a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i104" id="i104"></a> +<img src="images/i-104.jpg" width="550" height="407" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">TALL CHAPARRAL, SANTA CRUZ +</p> +</div> + +<h2> +IV +<br /><br /> +<span class="s08"> +THE PORT OF MONTEREY + +</span></h2> + +<p> +Without doubt history is made quite as much by +the mistakes of men as by their utmost certainties. +The persistent belief of the ancient geographers in +the existence of the Straits of Anian, the traditional +North-West Passage, led to some romancing, +and to the exploration of the California coast a +century or so before it was of any particular use to +anybody. It led also to the bluest bay. Viscaino +took possession of it for Philip of Spain as early +as 1602, nearly two hundred years before the +Franciscans planted a cross there under Viscaino's +very tree. During all that time the same oaks +staggered up the slope away from the wind, and +the scimitar curve of the beach kept back the +brilliant waters. There is a figure of immensity in +this more terrifying than the mere lapse of years. +Not how many times but with what sureness for +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_64' name='Page_64'>[64]</a></span> +every day the sapphire deep shudders into chrysoprase +along the white line of the breakers. We +struggle so to achieve a little brief moment of +beauty, but every hour at Monterey it is given +away. +</p> + +<p> +The bay lies squarely fronting the Pacific swell, +about a hundred miles south of the Golden Gate, +between the horns of two of the little tumbled +coast ranges, cutting back to receive the waters of +the Pajaro and the Salinas. From the south the +hill juts out sharply, taking the town and the +harbour between its knees, but the north shore is +blunted by the mountains of Santa Cruz. The +beach is narrow, and all along its inner curve +blown up into dunes contested every season by the +wind and by the quick, bright growth of sand +verbena, lupins, and mesembryanthemums. The +waters of the rivers are set back by the tides, they +are choked with bars and sluiced out by winter +floods. For miles back into the valleys of Pajaro +and Salinas, blue and yellow lupins continue the +colour of the sand and the pools of tide water. +They climb up the landward slope of the high +dunes and set the shore a little seaward against +the diminished surf. Then the equinoctial tide +rises against the land that the lupins have taken +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_65' name='Page_65'>[65]</a></span> +and smooths out their lovely gardens with a swift, +white hand, to leave the beach smooth again for +the building of pale, wind-pointed cones. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i109" id="i109"></a> +<img src="images/i-109.jpg" width="550" height="368" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">LOOKING DOWN ON MONTEREY AND THE BAY +</p> +</div> + +<p> +The valley of the Salinas, which has its only +natural outlet on the bay, is of the type of coast +valleys, long, narrow and shallow, given over to +farming and to memories of Our Lady of Solitude +lying now as a heap of ruins in a barley field. It +is a place set apart, where any morning you might +wake to find the sea has entered between the little, +brooding hills to rest. +</p> + +<p> +Gulls follow the plough there, and pines avoid +the river basin as though each of them knew very +well their respective rights in it. One has, however, +to make a point of such discoveries, for the entrance +to the valley is obscured by its very candour, lying +all open as it does to drifting dune and variable sea +marshes. +</p> + +<p> +It is even more worth while to follow the flat-bordered +Pajaro into the shut valley where dozes +the little town of San Juan Bautista, taking on its +well-sunned mesa, those placid lapses of self-forgetfulness +which are to the aged as a foretaste +of the long sleep. Here it was that the magic muse +of Music came into the country. It came in a +little tin-piped, wooden hand-organ, built by one +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_66' name='Page_66'>[66]</a></span> +Benjamin Dobson of 22 Swan Street, London, in +the year 1735, but of all its history until it was +unpacked from mule-back by Padre Lausan in +1797, there is not a word current. Our acquaintance +with it begins on the day that the Padre set it up +in the hills and played, "The Siren's Waltz," "Lady +Campbell's Reel," and all its repertoire of favourite +London airs, of which the least appropriate to its +present mission must have been the one called +"Go to the Devil." Which only goes to prove +that the spirit of the Franciscans was often superior +to their means, for what the simple savages did do +as soon as they had overcome their superstitious fear +of the noise box, was to come to Mass to hear it as +often as possible. There remain three old volumes +of music written later for the Mission which came +true to its founding and excelled in all sweet sounds, +but none, it is said, pleased the Indians so much +or so raised their spirits as "The Siren's Waltz." +No doubt its inspiriting strains added something to +the warlike spirit which led here to the only local +resistance opposed to the American invasion, for it +was on the Gavilan heights above the little town +that Frémont, on the tallest tree that he could find, +raised the Stars and Stripes, gallantly if somewhat +prematurely. It was from San Juan that Castro's +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_67' name='Page_67'>[67]</a></span> +men marched to the final capitulation of Cahuenga, +and finally from here the last remnant of the old +life drains away. One hears the echo of it faint +as the sea sounds that on rare days come trembling +up the valley on the translucent air. +</p> + +<p> +Returning to the bay, one finds all interest +centering about the Point of Pines, a very ancient, +rocky termination of the most westerly of the +coast barriers. The Point, which is really a +peninsula, is one of the most notable landmarks +between Point Conception on the south and Fort +Point at San Francisco. Its lighthouse stands well +out on a rocky finger, ringed with incessant, +clanging buoys; between it and Santa Cruz light +is a roadstead for an empire. A windy bay at best, +deep tides, and squally surfaces, the waters of +Monterey have other values than the colourist +finds in them. Sardines, salmon, cod, tuna, yellow +tail run with its tides. At most seasons of the +year whales may be seen spouting there, or are +cast upon its shoals. At one time the port +enjoyed a certain prosperity as a whaling station, +of which small trace remains beside the bleaching +vertebræ that border certain of the old gardens and +the persistent whalebone souvenirs of the curio +dealer. Lateen-rigged fisher fleets flock in and +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_68' name='Page_68'>[68]</a></span> +out of the harbour, butterfly winged; and all about +the rock beaches creep the square-toed boats of +the Japanese and Chinese abalone gatherers. +Thousands of purple sea-urchins, squid, hundred-fingered +star-fish, and all manner of slimy sea +delicacies, these slant-eyed Orientals draw up +out of the rainbow rock pools and the deeps below +the receding surf. They go creeping and peering +about the ebb, their guttural hunting cries borne +inshore on the quiet air, seeming as much a native +sea speech as the gabble of the gulls. So in their +skin canoes and balsas the Indians must have crept +about the inlets for as long as it requires to lay a +yard or two of mould over the ancient middens of +the tribe, as long as it takes to build a barrier of +silver dunes half a mile seaward. Even at that +distance the plough turns up the soil evenly +sprinkled with crumbling shell which holds to the +last a shred of its old iridescence. Far inland, past +the Sierra Wall even to the country of Lost +Borders, I have found amulets of this loveliest of +the pearl shells, traded for and treasured by a +people to whom the "Big Water" is a half-credited +traveller's tale. +</p> + +<p> +About five hundred yards outside the surf, from +Laboratory Point, circling the peninsula to Mission +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_69' name='Page_69'>[69]</a></span> +Point on the south, the submerged rocky ridge +has grown a great, tawny mane of kelp. Every +year it is combed and cut by the equinoctial tides, +and cast ashore in brown, sea-smelling wind-rows, +and every year it grows again to be the feeding-ground +of a million water-haunting birds. Here +the Ancient Murrelet fattens for the long flight to +the Alaskan breeding-grounds, and in the wildest +gales the little nocturnal auklets may be heard +calling to one another above the warring thunder +of the surf, or when the nights are clear and the +mists all banded low beneath the moon, they +startle the beach wanderer with their high keen +notes and beetle whirring wings. Long triangular +flights of curlew drop down these beaches against +the westering sun, with wings extended straight +above their heads, furling like the little lateen sails +come home from fishing. Sandpipers, sanderlings, +all the ripple runners, the skimmers of the receding +foam, all the scavengers of the tide, the gulls, +glaucous-winged, ringbilled, and the species +that take their name from the locality, may +be found here following the plough as robins do in +the spring. When the herring school in the bay +nothing could exceed the multitude and clamour +of the herring gulls. They stretch out in close +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_70' name='Page_70'>[70]</a></span> +order, wing beating against wing, actually over +square miles of the ruffling water between Point +Pinos and the anchorage. But any attempt to +render an account of the wild, winged life that +flashes about the bays of Carmel and Monterey +would read like an ornithologist's record. +</p> + +<p> +After storms that divide the waters outside the +bay into great toppling mountains, in the quiet +strip between the kelp and the beaches, thousands +of shearwaters may be seen sleeping in long, +swaying, feathered pontoons, shoulder to shoulder. +The island rocks standing within the surf, from +the Point of Pines all down the coast to Point Sur, +are famous rookeries of cormorant. Watchful and +black against the guano-whitened rocks, they guard +their ancestral nests, redecorated each season with +gay weed, pulled from the painted gardens of the +deep; turning their long necks this way and that +like revolving turret-tops, they beat off the +gluttonous gulls with a devotion which would +seem to demand some better excuse than the +naked, greasy, wide-mouthed young. Warm +mornings these can be seen stretching black-stemmed, +gaping bills from the nesting hollows, +waving this way and that like the tips of voracious +sea anemones. Other rocks, white with salty +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_71' name='Page_71'>[71]</a></span> +rime, are given by mutual consent to rookeries of +the yelping seals, the "sea lions" of this coast. +Moonlight nights they can be seen playing there, +with the weird half-human suggestion as of some +mythical sea creatures. +</p> + +<p> +Other and less fortunate adventurers on the +waters of Monterey have left strange traces on +that coast; one stumbles on a signboard set up +among the rocks to mark where such and such a +vessel went to pieces in a night of storm. Buried +deep in the beach beyond the anchorage is the +ancient teakwood hull of the <i>Natala</i>, the ship that +carried Napoleon to Elba. It brought secularisation +to the Missions also, after which unfriendly +service the wind woke in the night and broke it +against the shore. Just off Point Lobos, the +Japanese divers after abalones report a strange, +uncharted, sunken craft, a Chinese junk blown out +of her course perhaps, or one of those unreported +galleons that followed a phantom trail of gold all +up the west coast of the New World. Strange +mosses come ashore here, tide by tide, all lacy and +scarf-coloured, and once we found on the tiny strand +below Pescadero, a log of sandal-wood with faint +waterworn traces of tool marks still upon it. +</p> + +<p> +Most mysterious of all the hints held by the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_72' name='Page_72'>[72]</a></span> +farthest west—for behold, when you have come to +land again, sailing from this port, it is east!—of a +time before our time, is the Monterey cypress. +</p> + +<p> +Across the neck of the peninsula, a matter of +six or eight miles, cuts in the little bay of Carmel, +a blue jewel set in silver sand. Two points divide +it from the racing Pacific, the southern limb of +Punta Pinos, and the deeply divided rocky ledge +of Lobos—Lobos, the wolf, with thin, raking, +granite jaws. Now on these two points, and +nowhere else in the world, are found natural +plantations of the trees that might have grown +in Dante's Purgatorio, or in the imagined forests +where walked the rapt, tormented soul of Blake. +Blake, indeed, might have had a hint of these from +some transplanted seedling on an English terrace, +for the Monterey cypress is quick-growing for the +first century or so and one of the most widely +diffused of trees; but only here on the Point and +south to Pescadero ranch do they grow of God's +planting. With writhen trunks and stiff contorted +limbs they take the storm and flying scud as +poppies take the sun. Incredibly old, even to the +eye, they have no soil, nor seek none other than +the thousand-year litter of their scaly needles, the +husk of their nut-shaped, woody cones—the Spirit +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_73' name='Page_73'>[73]</a></span> +of the Ancient Rocks come to life in a tree. +Grown under friendly conditions the young trees +spire as do other conifers, but here they take +on strange enchanted shapes. Their flat, wind-depressed +tops are resilient as springs; one may +lie full length along them, scarcely sunk in the +minutely-feathered twigs, and watch the coasting +steamers trail by on seas polished by the heat, or +the winter surf bursting high in air. Or one +could steal through their thick plantations unsuspected, +from twisty trunk to trunk in the black +shade, feeling the old earth-mood and man's +primeval fear, the pricks and warnings of a world +half made. The oldest of the cypresses are attacked +by a red fungus rust, the colour of corroding +time. It creeps along the under side of boughs +and eats away the green, but even then the twisted +heart wood will outlast most human things. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i122" id="i122"></a> +<img src="images/i-122.jpg" width="550" height="398" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">PESCADERO, A CHINESE FISHING VILLAGE, +MONTEREY BAY +</p> + +</div> +<p> +The pines of Monterey, though characteristic +enough of the locality to take on its identifying +name, are thoroughly plebeian: prolific, quick-growing, +branching like candelabra when young; +but in a hundred years or so their wide limbs, +studded with persistent cones, take on something +of the picturesque eccentricity that may be noticed +among the old in rural neighbourhoods. They +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_74' name='Page_74'>[74]</a></span> +grow freely back into the hills till they are warned +away from the cañons by the more sequestered +<i><span lang='es_ES'>palo colorado</span></i>. The Monterey pine is one of the +long-needled varieties, but of a too open growth +perhaps, or too flexile to have any voice but a +faint rustling echo of the ocean. The hill above +Monterey, crowned with them, is impressive +enough; they look lofty and aloof and dark against +the sky, but growing in a wood they are seen to be +too spindling and sparse-limbed to be interesting. +The oaks do better by the landscape, all of the +<i><span lang='es_ES'>encinas</span></i> variety, bearing stiff clouds of evergreen +foliage in lines simple enough to compose beautifully +with the slow scimitar sweep of the bay and +the round cloud-masses that, gathering from the sea, +hang faintly pearled above the horizon. There +are no redwoods on the peninsula; straggling lines +of them look down from Palo Corona on Carmel +Bay, walking one after another, with their odd +tent-shaped tops and long branches all on the +windward side, like a procession of friars walking +against the wind. On the Santa Cruz coast, and +in small groups near Carmel, grows the tan bark +oak, not a true oak, but of the genus <i>Pasania</i>, +whose nearest surviving congeners are no nearer +than Siam. How it came here, survivor of an +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_75' name='Page_75'>[75]</a></span> +earlier world, or drifting in on the changing +Japanese current, no one knows. Apparently no +one cares, for the only use the Santa Crucians have +found for it is to tan shoe leather. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i127" id="i127"></a> +<img src="images/i-127.jpg" width="550" height="371" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">CYPRESS POINT, NEAR CARMEL +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Three little towns have taken root on the +Peninsula: two on the bay side, the old pueblo +of Monterey with its white-washed adobes still +contriving to give character to the one wide +street; Pacific Grove, utterly modern, on the surf +side of Punta de Pinos, a town which began, I +believe, as a resort for the churchly minded—a +very clean and well-kept and proper town, absolutely +exempt, as the deeds are drawn to assure +us, "from anything having a tendency to lower +the moral atmosphere," a town where the lovely +natural woods have given place to houses every +fifty feet or so, all nicely soldered together with +lines of bright scarlet and clashing magentas and +rosy pinks of geraniums and pelargoniums in a +kind of predetermined cheerfulness; in short, a +town where nobody would think of living who +wanted anything interesting to happen to him. +Above it on the hill, the Presidio commands +the naked slope, fronting toward Santa Cruz, +raking the open roadstead with its guns. It was +under this hill on the harbour side, where a little +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_76' name='Page_76'>[76]</a></span> +creek still runs a rill in the rainy season, that +Viscaino heard the first mass in California, and +nearly two hundred years later, Padre Serra set up +the cross. +</p> + +<p> +On June 30, 1770, that being the Holy Day +of Pentecost, was founded here the Mission of +San Carlos Borromeo, afterward transplanted for +sufficient reasons, over the hill six miles away, on +Carmel River. The town is full of reminders of +the days of the Spanish Occupation, when it was +the capital of Alta California. Old gardens here +have still the high adobe walls, old houses the long +galleries and little wrought-iron balconies; times +yet the tide rises in the streets of the town, and +still the speech is soft. +</p> + +<p> +It is also possible to buy <i><span lang='es_ES'>tomales</span></i> there and +<i><span lang='es_ES'>enchiladas</span></i> and <i><span lang='es_ES'>chile concarne</span></i> which will for the +moment restore your faith in certain conceptions +of a hereafter that of late have lost popularity. +</p> + +<p> +Half a mile back from the beach, and divided +from the town by the old cemetery, in a deep +alluvial flat grown to great oaks and creeping +sycamores, is situated one of the famous winter +resorts of the world, Hôtel Del Monte. I can +recommend it with great freedom to those curiously +constituted people who have to have an excuse for +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_77' name='Page_77'>[77]</a></span> +being out of doors. The Del Monte drives and +golf links are said by those who have used them, +to provide such excuse in its most compelling +form. Those who suffer under no such necessity +will do well to take the white road climbing the +hill out of old Monterey, and drop down the other +side of it into Carmel. +</p> + +<p> +From the top of this hill the lovely curve of the +bay, disappearing far to the north under a violet +mist, is pure Greek in its power to affect the +imagination. Its blueness is the colour that lies +upon the Gulf of Dreams; the ivory rim of the +dunes, the shadowed blue of the terraces set on +a sudden all the tides of recollection back on +Salonica, Lepanto, the hill of Athens. You are +reconciled for a moment to the chance of history +which whelmed the colourful days of the Spanish +Occupation. They could never have lived up +to it. +</p> + +<p> +But once on the Carmel side of the peninsula, +regret comes back very poignantly. The bay is a +miniature of the other, intensified, the connoisseur's +collection,—blue like the eye of a peacock's feather, +fewer dunes but whiter, a more delicate tracery on +them of the beach verbena, hills of softer contours, +tawny, rippled like the coat of a great cat sleeping +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_78' name='Page_78'>[78]</a></span> +in the sun. Carmel Valley breaks upon the bay +by way of the river which chokes and bars, runs +dry in summer or carries the yellow of its sands +miles out in winter a winding track across the +purple inlet. It is a little valley and devious, +reaching far inland. Above its source the peaks +of Santa Lucia stand up; for its southern bulwark, +Palo Corona. Willows, sycamores, elder, wild +honeysuckle, and great heaps of blackberry vines +hedge the path of its waters.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i136" id="i136"></a> +<img src="images/i-136.jpg" width="415" height="550" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS, THE COAST RANGE +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Where the valley widens behind the low barrier +that shuts out the sea, sits the Mission of San +Carlos Borromeo, once the spiritual capital of Alta +California. Here Junipero Serra, and after him +the other Padre Presidentes, held the administration +of Mission affairs, and from here he wandered forth +on foot, up and down this whole coast from San +Diego to Solano, with pacification and the seeds of +civilisation. Here on the walls, faintly to be traced +beneath the scorn of time, he blazoned with his +own hands the Burning Heart, the symbol of his +own inward flame. Here, in his seventy-first year, +he died and was buried on the gospel side of the +altar. It is reported that his last act was to walk +to the doorway to look once, a long look, on the +hills turning amber under the August sun, on the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_79' name='Page_79'>[79]</a></span> +heaven-blue water and the white hands of the surf +beating against the cliffs of Lobos; looked on the +fields and the orchard planted by his own hand, on +the wattled huts of the neophytes redeemed, as he +believed them, to all eternity, after which he lay +down and slept. It is further reported in the +annals of the Mission that it was necessary to +place a guard about the wasted body in its shabby +brown gown, to defend it from the crowding +mourners craving each a relic of the blessed +remains. Had I lived at that time I should have +been among them, for he was a great soul, and +have I not felt even at this distance of the years +the touch of his high fervours! San Carlos is one +of the best-conditioned of these abandoned fortresses +of the faith: the ancient pear trees are still in +bearing, the wild mustard yellows in the fields, its +architecture still betrays the uncertain hand of the +savage; back in unsearchable recesses of the hills +linger still some Indians whose garbled greeting is +a memory of the <i><span lang='es_ES'>Ama Dios</span></i> which the padres +taught them. Until a few years ago the prayer-post, +a rude slab with the triple-knotted cord of +the Franciscans carved around it, still stood on the +hill at the end of the path their devout feet made, +resorting to it for courage and consolation. These +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_80' name='Page_80'>[80]</a></span> +mementos fade, but year by year the impress of +the great spirit of Serra grows plainer, like one of +those trodden paths of long ago which show not +at all if you seek them in the grass or near at +hand, but from the vantage of Palo Corona are +traceable far across the landscape. +</p> + +<p> +The modern Carmel is a place of resort for +painter and poet folk. Beauty is cheap there; it +may be had in superlative quality for the mere +labour of looking out of the window. It is the +absolute setting for romance. No shipping ever +puts in at the singing beaches. The freighting +teams from the Sur with their bells a-jangle, go by +on the country road, but great dreams have visited +the inhabitants thereof. Spring visits it also with +yellow violets all up the wooded hills, and great +fountain sprays of sea-blue ceanothus. Summer +reddens the berries of the manzanita and mellows +the poppy-blazoned slopes to tawny saffron. +Strong tides arrive unheralded from some far-off +deep-sea disturbance and shake the beaches. +Suddenly, on the quietest days, some flying +squadron of the deep breaks high over Lobos and +neighs in her narrow caverns. Blown foam, +whipped all across the Pacific, is cast up like weed +along the sand and skims the wave-marks with a +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_81' name='Page_81'>[81]</a></span> +winged motion. Whole flocks of these foam-birds +may be seen scudding toward the rock-corners of +Mission Point after the equinoctial winds. Other +tides the sea slips far out on new-made level +reaches, and leaves the wet sand shining after the +sun goes down like the rosy inside pearl of the +abalone. +</p> + +<p> +The forests of Point Pinos are sanctuary. It is +still possible to hear there at long intervals the +demoniac howl of the little grey dog of the wilderness, +"Brother Coyote," the butt, the cat's-paw, the +Jack Dullard of Indian folklore, and sometimes in +the open country below Point Lobos to see one +curious and agaze from brown, naked bosses of the +hills. Any warm afternoon, by lying very still a +long time in the <i><span lang='es_ES'>encinal</span></i>, one may observe the +country-coloured bobcat, tawny as the grass in +summer, slipping from shade to shade. Sometimes +if startled he will turn and face you with his blinking, +yellow, half-hypnotic stare before he returns +to his unguessed errand. Any morning you may +find about your bungalow innumerable prints as of +baby palms pressed downward in the dust, the +tracks of the friendly little racoons who may be +heard bubbling in the shallow cañons any moonlight +night. Often I have left a cut melon under +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_82' name='Page_82'>[82]</a></span> +my window for the sake of seeing, an hour after +moonrise, two or three of them scooping out the +pink heart, spatting one another for helpings out +of turn, keeping, in spite of the little gluttons you +know them to be, a great affectation of daintiness. +The night-cry of these little creatures is difficult +to distinguish from the love-call of the horned owl, +who on the undark nights of summer skims the +low foreshore for the sake of the field-mice and +gophers that feed on the seeds of the beach grasses. +Every sort of migratory bird that passes up and +down this coast lingers a while in the neighbourhood +of Monterey, and some species, like the Point +Pinos juncos, take from it their distinctive name. +But if, when you walk in the woods, the Stellar +jay has first sight of you, you will find them +singularly empty, for these blue-jacketed policemen +of the pines permit nothing to pass them unannounced. +Of all the wood-folk, the wise quail +alone ignores their strident warnings. The quail +have learned not only the certainty of safety but +its absolute limit. I have seen whole flocks of +them, scared by the gun, whirring out of the public +lands to a point not out of gunshot but within the +forbidden ground, from which they send back soft +twitterings of defiance. It is not, however, their +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_83' name='Page_83'>[83]</a></span> +habit to flush except in great danger, but to run to +cover, moving with a peculiar elusive rhythm, like +the rippling of a snake. This plump little partridge, +for it is only in the common speech that he becomes +a quail, is the apt spirit of the chaparral—cheerful, +social, strong in the domestic virtues; his crest not +floating backward in warrior fashion, but cocked +forward over an eye, he has all the air of the +militant bourgeois, who could fight of course, but +finds that running matches better with his inclinations. +Just at the end of rains, before mating begins, +hundreds of them may be seen feeding in the flock +on open hillsides, and the thickets of buckthorn +and ceanothus ring with their soft Spanish +<i><span lang='es_ES'>Cuidado!</span></i>—Have a care! +</p> + +<p> +Three roads go up out of the peninsula to +entice the imagination—that which we have +already taken to the hills of Salinas and the little +town of San Juan, the road to Carmel Valley, and +the adventurous trail which leads all down the well-bitten +coast past Sur and Pieoras Blancos. The +Valley road turns off at the top of the divide +between Carmel and Monterey; it passes on the +landward side of the Mission into the river-bottom +and skirts the narrow chain of farms, rising with +the rise of the thinly-forested hills toward Tasajara, +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_84' name='Page_84'>[84]</a></span> +the Place of Springs. Here it is lost in the +intricacies of the "back country." Deer-hunters +go that way in the season, and those whose delight +it is to lose themselves in the wilderness, to taste +wild fruit and know no roof but the windy tent of +stars. Years since there used to come out of that +country shy-spoken, bearded men with bear-meat +to sell and wild honey in the honeycomb, rifled +from hiving rocks and hollow trees; but I fancy +they are all dead now, or translated into the tall +moss-bearded pines. +</p> + +<p> +The coast road, after it leaves Point Lobos +behind, goes south and south, between high trackless +hills and the lineless Pacific floor. From the +Point you can see it rise over bare, sea-breasting +hills, and disappear in narrow cañons down which, +it is reported, immeasurable redwoods follow the +white-footed creeks almost to the surf. Dim, +violet-tinted islands rise offshore to break the sea's +assault. Now and then one ventures in that direction +as far as Arbolado, to return prophesying. +But the most of us are wiser, understanding that +the best service the road can render us is to remain +a dramatic and unlimned possibility. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_85' name='Page_85'>[85]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_87' name='Page_87'></a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_86' name='Page_86'></a></span> +</p> + +<h2> +V +<br /><br /> +<span class="s08"> +OLD SPANISH GARDENS + +</span></h2> + +<p> +Dona Ina Manuelita Echivarra had come +to the time of life when waists were not to be +mentioned. It took all the evidence of her name +to convince you that her cheek had once known +tints of the olive and apricot. Tio Juan, who +sunned himself daily in her patio, had achieved +the richness of weathered teak; his moustachios +were whitened as with the rime that collects on +old adobes sometimes near the sea-shore. But +Dona Ina, who missed by a score of years his mark +of the days of <i><span lang='es_ES'>mañana por la mañana</span></i>, was muddily +dark, and her moustache—but one does not suggest +such things of a lady, and that Dona Ina was a +lady could be proved by a foot so delicately arched +and pointed, an ankle so neat that there was not +another like it in your acquaintance save the mate +to it. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_88' name='Page_88'>[88]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +Once you had seen it peeping forth from under +the black skirt—have not Castilian ladies worn +black immemorially?—you did not require the +assurance of Tio Juan that there was no one in +her day could have danced <i><span lang='es_ES'>la jota</span></i> with Dona Ina +Manuelita. +</p> + +<p> +She would clack the castanets for you occasionally +still, just to show how it was done, or with +the guitar resting on the arm of her chair—laps +were no more to be thought of than waists were—she +would quaver a song, <i><span lang='es_ES'>La Golindrina</span></i> for choice, +or <i><span lang='es_ES'>La Noche esta Serena</span></i>. But unquestionably +Dona Ina's time had gone by for shining at anything +but conversation. She could talk, and never +so fruitfully as when the subject was her garden. +</p> + +<p> +A Spanish garden is a very intimate affair. It +is the innermost under-garment of the family life. +Dona Ina's was walled away from the world by +six feet of adobe, around the top of which still +lingered the curved red tiles of Mission manufacture. +It was not spoken of as the garden at +all, it was the patio, an integral part of the +dwelling. There was, in fact, a raw hide cot on +the long gallery which gave access to it, and +Dona Ina's drawn-work chemises bleaching in +the sun. The patio is a gift to us from Andalusia; +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_89' name='Page_89'>[89]</a></span> +it is more Greek than Oriental, and the English +porch has about as much relation to it as the +buttons on the back of a man's coat to the sword-belt +they were once supposed to accommodate. +The patio is the original mud-walled enclosure of +a people who preferred living in the open but were +driven to protection; the rooms about three sides +of it were an afterthought. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i150" id="i150"></a> +<img src="images/i-150.jpg" width="550" height="438" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">THE PATIO, OLD SPANISH RESIDENCE +</p> +</div> + +<p> +The Echivarra patio did not lack the indispensable +features of the early California establishment, +the raised grill or cooking platform, and the ramada, +the long vine-covered trellis where one took wine +with one's friends, or the ladies of the family sat +sewing at their interminable drawn work, <i><span lang='es_ES'>enramada</span></i>. +The single vine which covered the twenty-foot +trellis was of Mission stock, and had been planted +by Dona Ina's father in the year the Pathfinder +came over Tejon Pass into the great twin valleys. +In Dona Ina's childhood a wine-press had stood in +the corner of the patio where now there was a +row of artichokes, which had been allowed to seed +in order that their stiff silken tassels, dyed blue +and crimson, might adorn the pair of china vases +on either side the high altar. Dona Ina was +nothing if not religious. In the corner of the +patio farthest from the gallery, a fig-tree—this +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_90' name='Page_90'>[90]</a></span> +also is indispensable—hung over the tiled wall like +a cloud. There was a weeping willow in the midst +of the garden, and just outside, on either side the +door, two great pepper trees of the very stock of +the parent of all pepper trees in Alta California, +which a sea captain from South America gave to +the Padre at San Luis Rey. Along the east wall +there were pomegranates. +</p> + +<p> +A pomegranate is the one thing that makes me +understand what a pretty woman is to some men—the +kind of prettiness that was Dona Ina's in the +days when she danced <i><span lang='es_ES'>la jota</span></i>. The flower of the +pomegranate has the crumpled scarlet of lips that +find their excuse in simply being scarlet and folded +like the petals of a flower; and then the fruit, warm +from the sunny wall, faintly odorous, dusky flushed! +It is so tempting when broken open—that sort +opens of its own accord if you leave it long enough +on the bush—the rich heart colour, and the pleasant +uncloying, sweet, sub-acid taste. One tastes and +tastes—but when all is said and done there is +nothing to a pomegranate except colour and +flavour, and at least if it does not nourish neither +does it give you indigestion. That is what +suggests the comparison; there are so many +people who would like to find a pretty woman +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_91' name='Page_91'>[91]</a></span> +in the same category. Always when we sat +together nibbling the rosy seeds, I could believe, +even without the evidence of the ankles, that +Dona Ina had had her pomegranate days. Only, +of course, she would not have smelled so of musk +and—there is no denying it—of garlic. Thick-walled +old adobes of the period of the Spanish +Occupation give off a faint reek of this compelling +condiment at every pore, and as for the musk, +it was always about the gallery in saucers and +broken flower-pots. +</p> + +<p> +And yet Dona Ina was sensitive to odours: she +told me that she had had the datura moved from +the place where her mother had planted it, to +the far end of the patio, where after nightfall its +heavy, slightly fetid perfume, unnoticeable by day, +scented all the air. She added that she felt +convicted by this aversion of a want of sentiment +toward a plant whose wide, papery-white bells +went by the name of "Angels' trumpets." +</p> + +<p> +On the day that she told me about the datura, +which I had only recognised by its resemblance +to its offensive wayside congener, the "jimson +weed," the Señora Echivarra had been washing +her hair with a tonic made of oil expressed from +the seeds of the megharizza after a recipe which +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_92' name='Page_92'>[92]</a></span> +her mother had had from <i>her</i> mother, who had +it from an Indian who used to peddle vegetables +from the Mission, driving in every Saturday in +an ancient caretta. I was interested to know if +it were any more efficacious than the young shoots +of the golden poppy fried in olive oil, which I had +already tried. So we fell to talking of the virtues +of plants and their application. +</p> + +<p> +We began with the blessed "herb of the saints," +dried bunches of which hung up under the rafters +of the gallery as an unfailing resort in affections of +the respiratory tract, and <i><span lang='es_ES'>yerba buena</span></i>, in which she +was careful to distinguish between the creeping, +aromatic <i><span lang='es_ES'>del campo</span></i> of the woodlands and the <i><span lang='es_ES'>yerba +buena del poso</span></i>, "herb of the well," the common +mint of damp places. When she added that the +buckskin bag on the wall contained shavings of +<i><span lang='es_ES'>cascara sagrada</span></i>, the sacred bark of the native +buckthorn, indispensable to all nurseries, I knew +that she had named two of the three most +important contributions of the west to the modern +pharmacopœia. This particular bag of bark had +been sent from Sonoma County, for south of +Monterey it grows too thin to be worth the +gathering. The Grindelia, she told me, had come +from the salt marshes about the mouth of the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_93' name='Page_93'>[93]</a></span> +Pajaro, where Don Gaspar de Portola must have +crossed going northward. +</p> + +<p> +"And were you then at such pains to secure +them?" +</p> + +<p> +"In the old days, yes," she assured me. In +her mother's time there was a regular traffic carried +on by means of roving Indians in healing herbs +and simples; things you could get now by no +means whatever. +</p> + +<p> +"As for instance——?" I was curious. +</p> + +<p> +Well, there was creosote gum, which came from +the desert beyond the Sierra Wall, valuable for +sores and for rheumatism. It took me a moment +or two, however, to recognise in her appellation +of it (<i><span lang='es_ES'>hideondo</span></i>, stinking) the shiny, shellac-covered +<i><span lang='es_ES'>larrea</span></i> of the arid regions. There were roots also +of the holly-leaved barberry, which came from wet +mountains northward, and of the "skunk cabbage," +which were to be found only in soggy mountain +meadows, where any early spring, almost before +the frost was out of the ground, bears could be seen +rooting it from the sod, fairly burying themselves in +the black, peaty loam. +</p> + +<p> +But when it came to <i><span lang='es_ES'>yerba mansa</span></i>, Dona Ina +averred, her mother would trust nobody for its +gathering. She would take an Indian or two and +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_94' name='Page_94'>[94]</a></span> +as many of her ten children as could not be trusted +to be left at home, and make long <i><span lang='es_ES'>pasears</span></i> into the +coast ranges for this succulent cure-all. I knew it +well for one of the loveliest of meadow-haunting +plants; wherever springs babbled, wherever a +mountain stream lost itself under the roble oaks, +the <i><span lang='es_ES'>yerba mansa</span></i> lifted above its heart-shaped +leaves of pale green, quaint, winged cones on +pink, pellucid stems. But I had never heard +one half of the curative wonders which Dona +Ina related of it. Efficacious in rheumatism, +invaluable in pulmonary complaints, its bruised +leaves reduced swellings, the roots were tonic and +alterative. +</p> + +<p> +I spare you the whole list, for Dona Ina was +directly of the line of that lovely Señorita who +had disdainfully described the English as the race +who "pay for everything," and to her mind it took +a whole category of virtues to induce so much +effort as a trip into the mountains which had +not a <i><span lang='es_ES'>baile</span></i> or a <i><span lang='es_ES'>fiesta</span></i> at the end of it. Other +things that were sought for by the housewives +of the Spanish Occupation were <i><span lang='es_ES'>amole</span></i>, or soap-root, +the bulbs of a delicate, orchid-like lily which +comes up in the late summer among the stems +of the chaparral, and the roots of the wild gourd, +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_95' name='Page_95'>[95]</a></span> +the <i><span lang='es_ES'>chili-cojote</span></i>, a powerful purgative. Green fruit +of this most common pest, said Dona Ina, pounded +to a pulp, did wonders in the way of removing +stains from clothing. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was artemisia, romero, azalea, the +blue-eyed grass of our meadows, upon an infusion +of which fever patients can subsist for days, and +elder, potent against spells, and there was Virgin's +bower, which brought us back to the patio, for a +great heap of it lay on the roof of the gallery, +contesting the space there with the yellow banksia +roses. I had supposed, until the Señora Echivarra +mentioned it, that its purpose was purely ornamental, +but I was to learn that it had come into +the garden as <i><span lang='es_ES'>yerba de chivato</span></i> about the time the +barbed-wire fences of the gringo began to make +a remedy for cuts indispensable to the ranchero who +valued the appearance of his live stock. When the +eye, travelling along its twisty stems and twining +leaf-stalks, came to a clump of yarrow growing +at the root of it I began at once to suspect the +whole garden. Was not the virtue of yarrow +known even to the Greeks? +</p> + +<p> +There was thyme flowering in the damp corner +beyond the dripping faucet, and pot-marigold, +lavender, rosemary, and lemon verbena, all plants +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_96' name='Page_96'>[96]</a></span> +that grow deep into the use and remembrance +of man. +</p> + +<p> +No friend of our race, not even the dog, has +been more faithful. The stock of these had come +overseas from Spain—were not the Phœnicians +credited with introducing the pomegranate into +Hispaniola?—and thence by way of the Missions. +</p> + +<p> +All the borders of Dona Ina's garden were +edged with rosy thrift, a European variety; and +out on the headlands, a mile away, a paler, native +cousin of it bloomed gaily with beach asters and +yellow sand verbenas, but there was no one who +knew by what winds, what communicating rootlets, +they had exchanged greetings. +</p> + +<p> +Observation, travelling by way of the borders, +came to the datura, which was to set the conversation +off again, this time not of plants curative, +but hurtful. We knew of the stupefying effects +of the bruised pods and roots of this species, and—this +was my contribution—how the Paiute Indians +used to administer the commoner variety, called +<i>main-oph-weep</i>, to their warriors to produce the +proper battle frenzy, and especially to young +women about to undergo the annual ordeal of +the "Dance of Marriageable Maidens." +</p> + +<p> +Every year, at the spring gathering of the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_97' name='Page_97'>[97]</a></span> +tribes, the maidens piled their dowries in a heap, +and for three days, fasting, danced about it. If +they fell or fainted, it was a sure sign they were +not yet equal to the duties of housekeeping and +childbearing; but I had had Paiute women tell +me that they would never have endured the trial +without a mild decoction of <i>main-oph-weep</i>. +</p> + +<p> +"It was different with us," insisted Dona Ina; +"many a time we have danced the sun up over +the mountain, and been ready to begin again the +next evening...." But I wished to talk of the +properties of plants, not of young ladies. +</p> + +<p> +The mystery of poison plants oppressed me. +One may understand how a scorpion stings in +self-protection, but what profit has the "poison +oak" of its virulence? It is not oak at all, but +<i>Rhus trilobata</i>, and in the spring whole hillsides +are enlivened by the shining bronze of its young +foliage, or made crimson in September. But the +pollen that floats from it in May in clouds, the +sticky sap, or even the acrid smoke from the +clearing where it is being exterminated, is an active +poison to the human skin, though I had not heard +that any animal suffered similarly. Dona Ina +opined that there was never an evil plant let loose +in the gardens of the Lord but the remedy was +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_98' name='Page_98'>[98]</a></span> +set to grow beside it. A wash of manzanita tea, +Grindelia, or even buckthorn, she insisted, was +excellent for poison oak. Best of all was a paste +of pounded "soap root." She knew a plant, too, +which was corrective of the form of madness induced +by the "loco" weed, whose pale foliage and +delicately tinted, bladdery pods may be found +always about the borders of the chaparral. For +the convulsions caused by wild parsnip there was +the wonder-working <i><span lang='es_ES'>yerba del pasmo</span></i>. This she +knew also as a specific for snake-bite and tetanus. +So greatly was it valued by mothers of families +in the time of the Spanish Occupation, that when +a clearing was made for a house and patio, in any +country where it grew, a plant or two was always +left standing. But it was not until I had looked +for it, where she said I would find it between the +oleander and the lemon verbena, that I recognised +the common "grease-wood," the chamise of the +mesa country. +</p> + +<p> +"But were there no plants, Dona Ina, which +had another meaning, flowers of affection, corrective +to the spirit?" +</p> + +<p> +"Angelica," she considered doubtfully. Young +maids, on occasions of indecision, would pin a sprig +of it across their bosoms, she said, and after they +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_99' name='Page_99'>[99]</a></span> +had been to church would find their doubts resolved; +and there was yarrow, which kept your +lover true, particularly if you plucked it with the +proper ceremony from a young man's grave. +</p> + +<p> +Dona Ina remembered a fascinating volume of +her mother's time, the <i>Album Mexicana</i>, in which +the sentimental properties of all flowers were set +forth. "There was the camelia, a beautiful woman +without virtue, and the pomegranate——" +</p> + +<p> +"But the flowers of New Spain, Dona Ina, was +there nothing of these?" I insisted. +</p> + +<p> +"Of a truth, yes, there was the cactus flower, not +the opunta, the broad-leaved spiny sort, of which +hedges were built in the old days, but the low, +flamy-blossomed, prickly variety of hot sandy +places. If a young man wore such a one pinned +upon his velvet jacket it signified, 'I burn for +you.'" +</p> + +<p> +"And if he wore no flower at all, how then?" +</p> + +<p> +Dona Ina laughed, "<span lang='es_ES'><i><span lang='es_ES'>Si me quieros, no me +quieros</span></i></span>"; she referred to the common yellow composite +which goes by the name of "sunshine," or in +the San Joaquin, where miles of it mixed with +blue phacelias brighten with the spring, as "fly-flower." +"In the old Spanish playing-cards," said +Dona Ina, "the Jack of spades had such a one +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_100' name='Page_100'>[100]</a></span> +in his hand, but when I was a girl no caballero +would have been caught saying, 'Love me, love me +not!' They left all that to the señoritas." +</p> + +<p> +There was a Castilian rose growing beside me. +Now a Castilian rose is not in the least what you +expect it to be. It is a thick, cabbagy florescence, +the petals short and not recurved, the pink hardly +deeper than that of the common wild rose, the +leafage uninteresting. One has to remember that +it distinguished itself long before the time of the +tea and garden hybrids, and, I suspect, borrowed +half its charm from the faces it set off. For there +was never but one way in the world for a rose +to be worn, and that is the way Castilian beauties +discovered so long ago that centuries have not +made any improvement in it. Set just behind the +ear and discreetly veiled by the mantilla, it suggests +the effulgent charm of Spain, tempered by mystery. +The Señora Echivarra had followed my glance, +and nodded acquiescence to my thought. "In +dressing for a <i><span lang='es_ES'>baile</span></i>, one would have as soon left +off the rose as one's fan. One wore it even when +the dress was wreathed with other flowers." +</p> + +<p> +"And did you, then, go wreathed in flowers?" +</p> + +<p> +"Assuredly; from the garden if we had them, +or from the field. I remember once I was all blue +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_101' name='Page_101'>[101]</a></span> +larkspurs, here and here ..." she illustrated on +her person, "and long flat festoons of the <i><span lang='es_ES'>yerba +buena</span></i> holding them together." +</p> + +<p> +"It would have taken hoop skirts for that?" I +opined. +</p> + +<p> +"That also. It was the time that the waltz +had been learned from the officers of the American +ships, and we were quite wild about it. The good +Padre had threatened to excommunicate us all +if we danced it ... but we danced ... we +danced...." Dona Ina's pretty feet twitched +reminiscently. The conversation wandered a long +time in the past before it came back to the patio +lying so still, divided from the street by the high +wall, the clouding fig, and the gnarly pear tree. +Beyond the artichokes a low partition wall shut off +the vegetable plot; strings of chili reddened against +it. There was not a blade of grass in sight, only +the flat, black adobe paths worn smooth by generations +of treading, house and enclosing walls all of +one earth. +</p> + +<p> +"But if so much came into the garden from the +field, Señora, did nothing ever go out?" +</p> + +<p> +Ah, yes, yes—the land is gracious; there was +mustard of course, and pepper grass and horehound, +blessed herb, which spread all over the west +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_102' name='Page_102'>[102]</a></span> +with healing. The pimpernel, too, crept out of the +enclosing wall, and the tree mallow which came +from the Channel Islands by way of the gardens +and has become a common hedge plant on the +sandy lands about the bay of San Francisco. +Along streams which ran down from the unfenced +gardens of the <i><span lang='es_ES'>Americanos</span></i>, callas had domesticated +themselves and lifted their pure white spathes +serenely amid a tangle of mint and wild blackberries +and painted cup. The almond, the rude +stock on which the tender sorts were grafted, if +allowed to bear its worthless bitter nuts would +take to hillsides naturally. It is not, after all, +walls which hold gardens but water. This is all +that constrains the commingling of wild and +cultivated species; they care little for man, their +benefactor. Give them water, said Dona Ina, and +they come to your door like a fed dog, or if you +like the figure better, like grateful children. They +repay you with sweetness and healing. +</p> + +<p> +A swift darted among the fig, marigolds, and +portulacca of the inevitable rock-work which was +the pride of the old Spanish gardens. Great +rockets of tritoma flamed against the wall, on the +other side of which traffic went unnoted and +unsuspecting. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_103' name='Page_103'>[103]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +"But we, Dona Ina, we Americans, when we +make a garden, make it in the sight of all so that +all may have pleasure in it." +</p> + +<p> +"Eh, the <i><span lang='es_ES'>Americanos</span></i> ..." she shrugged; she +moved to give a drink to the spotted musk, flowering +in a chipped saucer; the subject did not interest +her; her thought, like her flowers, had grown up in +an enclosure. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_105' name='Page_105'>[105]</a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_104' name='Page_104'></a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i171" id="i171"></a> +<img src="images/i-171.jpg" width="550" height="334" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">THE GOLDEN GATE AND BLACK POINT, FROM HYDE +STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. (SITE OF THE PANAMA +EXPOSITION, 1915)</p> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_107' name='Page_107'>[107]</a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_106' name='Page_106'></a></span> +</p> + +<h2> +VI +<br /><br /> +<span class="s08"> +THE LAND OF THE LITTLE DUCK + +</span></h2> + +<p> +Where the twin rivers set back the tides from +the bay, the Land of the Little Duck begins. The +tides come head-on past the Golden Gate and the +river answers to their tremendous compulsion far +inland, past the point where the Sacramento and +San Joaquin flow together. On the lee side of the +headland which makes the southern pilaster of the +Gate, sits San Francisco, making of the name she +borrowed from the bay a new and distinguished +thing, as some women do with their husbands' +titles. A better location for a city is Carquinez +Strait; the Mexican comandante resident at Sonoma +would have had it there, bearing the name of his +wife, Francesca. Said he to the newly arrived +American authorities, "Do so, and I will furnish +you the finest site in the world, with State house +and Residence complete." But it appears the land +has chosen its own name. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_108' name='Page_108'>[108]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +All the years after the Pope had divided the +New World between Spain and the Portuguese, the +harbour lay hidden. Cabrillo, Drake, Maldonado, +Juan de Fuca, Viscaino passed it in the night or +veiled in obscuring fogs. And then Saint Francis +showed it clear and lovely to Don Gaspar Portola, +having for that revelation led him with holden +eyes past his journey's objective. Likewise, when +the time was ripe, he put it into the mind of the +Yankee alcalde at Yerba Buena, a trading-post in +the neighbourhood of Mission Dolores, that if the +hamlet should be called San Francisco it might +catch by implication the vessels clearing all ports +of the world for San Francisco bay. +</p> + +<p> +O Chance, Chance! says the historian and turns +another page. But it is my opinion that among +the birds to which Saint Francis preached was +included the Little Duck. +</p> + +<p> +The piers of the city front east, they face the +Berkeley Hills, the Oaklands, the lands of the +Sycamore, or, as the first settlers named them, the +Alamedas. From thence vast settlements take +their name, feeding the city as sea-birds do, from +their own breasts. Back and forth between them +the shuttling ferries weave thin webs of glistening +wakes, duck-bodied tugs chugg and scuttle, busy +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_109' name='Page_109'>[109]</a></span> +still at world-building. From the promontory +which makes the northern barrier of the Gate, +Tamalpias swims out of atmospheric blueness. On +its seaward slope, hardly out of reach of the siren's +bellowing note, Muir Park preserves the ancient +forest, rooted in the litter of a thousand years. +And round about the foot of city and mountain +the waters of the bay are blue, the hills are bluer. +The hills melt down to greenness in the spring, +the water runs to liquid emerald, flashing amber; +the hills are tawny after rains, the waters tone to +the turbid, clayey river-floods; land and sea they +pursue one another as lovers through changing +moods of colour; they have mists for mystery +between revealing suns. Unless these things count +for something, San Francisco is the very worst +site in the world for a city. You take your heart +in your mouth every time you go out to afternoon +tea in the tram-cars that dip and swing like cockles +at sea. They cut across streets so steep that grass +grows between the cobbles where no traffic ever +passes, to plunge down lanes of dwellings perched +precariously as sea-birds' nests on the bare bones of +hills that for true hilliness shame Rome's imperial +seven. The bay side of the peninsula is mud, the +Pacific side is sand. There great wasteful dunes +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_110' name='Page_110'>[110]</a></span> +blow up, they shift and pile, they take the contours +of the wind-lashed waters—the very worst site in +the world for a great city's pleasure-ground, and +yet somehow it is there. +</p> + +<p> +For this city is one of those which have souls; +it is a spirit sitting on a height, taking to itself +form and the offices of civilisation. This is a thing +that we know, because we have seen the land +shake it as a terrier shakes a rat, until the form of +the city was broken; it dissolved in smoke and +flame. And then as a polyp of the sea draws out +of the fluent water form and perpetuity for itself, +we saw our city draw back its shapes of wood and +stone, and statelier, more befitting a spirit that has +endured so much. Nobody knows really what a +city is except that it is something more than a +collocation of houses. From Telegraph Hill, where +the old semaphore stood, which signalled the far-between +arrivals of ships around the Horn, you +can see the trade of the world pass and repass the +pillars of the Gate, the wall-sided warships. But +none of these things really explain how San +Francisco came to be clinging there to the leeward +of a windy spit of land, like a great, grey sea-bird +with palpitating wings. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i180" id="i180"></a> +<img src="images/i-180.jpg" width="550" height="374" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">TAMALPIAS +</p> +</div> + +<p> +True to her situation, San Francisco is nothing +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_111' name='Page_111'>[111]</a></span> +if not dramatic. One recalls that the earliest +foundation was dedicated to Our Lady of Dolors, +<i><span lang='es_ES'>Nuestro Señora de Dolores</span></i>; the Indians fought here +as they did nowhere else against Christian dominion. +There were more burials than baptisms, and in the +old cemetery of Yerba Buena the dead were so +abandoned of all grace that the sand refused to hold +them. One who spent his boyhood in the shifting +purlieus of the old Laguna told me how in the +hollows where the scrub oaks shrugged off the wind +and the sand waved like water, the nameless coffins +were covered and uncovered between a night and +day. But if the dead could not hold their tenancy, +the living succeeded. They did it by the very +force of that dramatic instinct awakened by the +plot and counterplot of natural forces. +</p> + +<p> +No Greek tragedy moved to more relentless +measures than the moral upheaval of '56, when +the whole city, in solemn funeral train behind +the victim of one of those wild outbursts of lawlessness +peculiar to the "gold rush," saw the lifeless +bodies of the perpetrators hanging from the upper +windows of the Vigilance Committee. Fifty years +later came a wilder rout, down streets searched +out by fire, snatching at humour as they ran, as so +many points of contact for the city's rebuilding. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_112' name='Page_112'>[112]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +The very worst location in the world, as I have +remarked, is this windy promontory past which the +grey tides race, but so long as a city can dramatise +itself, one situation will do as well as another in +which to render itself immortal. +</p> + +<p> +The bay of San Francisco with its contingencies +is one of the most interesting of inland yachting +waters, full of adventurous weather. It is possible +to sail in one general direction from Alviso to the +city of Sacramento, a hundred and fifty miles, and +that without attempting the thousand miles of +estuary and slough through which the waters slink +and wind. +</p> + +<p> +At this season of the year the river is pushed +backward by the tide a matter of ten miles or +more above Sacramento City: on the San Joaquin +it is felt as far as Crow's Landing. At Antioch it +begins to be saltish, and down through Suisun and +Carquinez the river-water fights its way as far as +San Pablo before its identity is wholly lost. At +flood-times it may be traced, a yellowish, turgid +streak, as far as Alcatraz. This is the islet of the +albatross which lies south of the tide race, as +Tiburon is on the north, fragments all of them of +that salt-rimed ledge outside the gate where hoarse +sea-lions play, and brother to the castellated cloud +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_113' name='Page_113'>[113]</a></span> +far along on the sea's horizon, the very capital of +the kingdom of the Little Duck. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i185" id="i185"></a> +<img src="images/i-185.jpg" width="550" height="357" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">MILL VALLEY, AND BACKWATER OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY +</p> +</div> + +<p> +The Faralone Light is the last dropped astern +by the Island steamships sagging south to the +equator; it is also the sea-birds' city of refuge. +This is the great murre rookery of the west coast, +and formerly thousands of dozens of eggs were +regularly taken from the Faralones to the San +Francisco market; but since the islands became a +Government station the murres have no enemy +but the pirates of the air. In clefts and ledges +close against the wall-sided cliffs they defend their +shallow nests against the sheering gulls, or, hard +beset, will push their single, new-hatched nestling +into the friendlier sea, darting to break its fall with +incredible swiftness, for a swimming gait is one of +the things that come out of the shell with the +native-born at the Faralones. On the same +shelving rocks puffins rear their ratty young in +burrows or under sheltering boulders, and the ashy +petrel, the "little Peter" of the sea, walking by +night before the storm, comes ashore here to hide +his seldom nest. On the south Faralone the +fierce cormorant builds her house of painted weed, +which often the gulls steal from her as fast as she +brings it ashore, for the gulls are the grafters of +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_114' name='Page_114'>[114]</a></span> +the sea-birds' city. This particular variety, known +as the western gull, neither fishes for himself nor +forages for building material. He feeds on the eggs +and nestlings of his neighbours, or waits to snatch +the day's catch from the beak that brought it up +from the sea. He has the virtue of all predatory +classes, an exemplary domesticity. His nest is soft +and clean, his nestlings handsome. The western +gull is often found marauding far up the estuary of +Sacramento, but it is his congener, the herring gull, +who follows the long white wake the ferries make +ploughing the windy bay; or, distinguished among +the silent shore birds for multitude and clamour, +scavenges its reedy borders. +</p> + +<p> +Except for the promontories north and south, +and the bold front of the Berkeley Hills opposing +the Gate, the inland borders of the bay are flat +tide-lands and sea-smelling lagunas. Stilts, avocets, +herons, all the waders that haunt this coast or visit +it in their seasonal flights, may be seen stalking the +shallows for minnows, or where the marsh grass +reddens, poised like some strange tide-land blossom, +lifted on two slender stems. Low over them any +clear day may be seen the grey old marsh hawk +sailing, or the "duck hawk," the peregrine of +falconry, following fiercely in the wake of the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_115' name='Page_115'>[115]</a></span> +migrating hordes of water-fowl. All about Alviso +the guttural cry of the black-crowned night-heron +sounds eerily above the marshes, along with the +peculiar "pumping" love-song of the bittern. +</p> + +<p> +For some reason the air of the marshes is +friendly to the mistletoe infesting the oaks and +sycamores which stand back from the tide-line; +but the marshes themselves are treeless. They +have their own sorts of growth, cane and cat-tails +and tule, goosefoot, samphire, and the tasselled +sedges. This samphire of Shakespeare, <i><span lang='es_ES'>l'herbe de +Saint Pierre</span></i> of the Normandy Marshes, is the glory +of the Franciscan tide-lands; miles of it, barely +above the level of the slow-moving water, spread +a magic carpet of blending crimsons, purples, and +bronzes. Under the creeping mists and subject +to the changes of the water, beaten to gold and +copper under the sun, it redeems the flat lines +of the landscape with a touch of Oriental +splendour. +</p> + +<p> +For it is a flat kingdom, that of the Little +Duck—the hills hanging remotely on the horizon, +the few trees and scattered hugging the low shore +of the sloughs as the shipwrecked cling to their +rafts, desperate of rescue. The rich web of the +samphire, the shifting colour of the water, faintly +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_116' name='Page_116'>[116]</a></span> +reminiscent of Venice, borrow another foreign touch +from the names under which the borders recommended +themselves to attention:—Sausalito, "little +willows," Tiburon, Corta Madero, San Quentin, +San Raphael. Approached from the water, these +names, with the exception of San Quentin, do no +more than stir the imagination. San Quentin, on +one of those courtesy islands newly rescued from +the primordial mud, shows itself uncompromisingly +for what it is, one of those places for the sequestration +of public offenders, which is itself such an +offence to our common humanity—to say nothing +of our common sense. Free tides, free sails go by, +and long, untrammelled lines of birds; south above +the blue bay and bluer shore, the ethereal blue +dome of Diablo lifts into the free air. Across +the upper end of San Pablo Bay, which is really +the north arm of the bay of San Francisco +extending inland, Mare Island lies so low on the +water that if it had not been made a naval +reserve station it is difficult to know to what +other use it could be put. One expects to have +the land dip and swing from under like the ship's +deck. It is in line with the guns which lie beside +the Gate like watchful, muzzle-pointed dogs, and +commands the whole upper bay and the opposing +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_117' name='Page_117'>[117]</a></span> +bluffs of Contra Costa in a manner highly commendable +to those curious persons whose chief +excitement lies in anticipating an Asiatic invasion. +Nevertheless, along with the bastions of San +Quentin it strikes, somehow, the note of human +distrust amid all this charm of light and line and +elusive colour, as if suddenly one should discover +the tip of a barbed tail under the skirt of some +seductive stranger. +</p> + +<p> +Between San Quentin and the Straits, all +about the curve of the bay, winding, wide-mouthed +sloughs give access to a land as fertile +as Egypt. A slough is a mere wallow of unprofitable +waters, waters unused by men and still +reluctant of the sea. Pushed aside by the compelling +tides, too undisciplined to make proper +banks for themselves, they are neglected by all +but a few fringing willows and shapeless sycamores +in which the herons nest. +</p> + +<p> +Often at evening the white-faced ibis can be +seen flying in long, voiceless lines, just clearing the +twilight-tinted water, to their accustomed night +perches in the wind-beaten willows. They return +there, if undisturbed, year after year, accompanied +in few and far-between seasons by the egret and the +snowy heron, grown man-shy, or if they but knew +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_118' name='Page_118'>[118]</a></span> +the purpose for which their nuptial plumage is +sacrificed, woman-shy, and seldom seen even by the +most wishful eyes. +</p> + +<p> +At Napa a few bull-headed oaks come down +almost to the tide-line, and in Sonoma a clump +of alien blue gums huddles aloof and unregarded, +but from the water little is visible beside the stilted +cabins of some gun club or the ramshackle resorts +of the flat-nosed, slow craft that wind on mysterious +errands between the sunken lands. Whole families +of half-amphibious humans appear to live comfortably +on these drifting scows, but one never by any +chance catches them doing any distinctive thing. +</p> + +<p> +The waters of the sloughs come down from the +little inland valleys, where summer nests and broods +in a blue haze along the redwood-serried hills. +Whether it is white with cherry bloom at Napa, +or purple with winy clusters at Sonoma, there is +always something interesting going on there of the +large process by which granite mountains are made +food for man. It is worth a visit if only to learn +that a country which does that sort of thing +supremely well, finds it also worth while to do +it beautifully. Yachting off San Rafael, it is +possible to catch at times the scent of roses on an +off-shore wind above the salt smell of the marshes. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_119' name='Page_119'>[119]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +The last rip of the tide is through the Straits +of Carquinez into the back-water of Suisun. From +here on, it is a rhythmic heaving to and fro as of +well-matched wrestlers, the river-water is set back +to Crow's Landing on the San Joaquin, and miles +above Sacramento it returns again past Antioch +and the Suisun islands. It is lost in a wilderness +of tules, through which the sluggish currents blindly +wind. Here we have nothing to do with men, our +business is all with the tribe of the Little Duck: +mallard, teal, tern, coot, heron, eared grebe, and +awkward loon. +</p> + +<p> +The tule is a round leafless reed. It springs up +along the tide-lands or in the stagnant back-water +of the rivers, or by any least dribble of a desert +spring. No condition daunts it but absolute dearth +of water; far-called, it travels on the wind over +mountain ranges, over great wastes of waterless +plain to find the one absolute condition, a pool—white +rimmed with alkali or poisonous green with +arsenic. I have seen it flourish by springs so +charged with mineral that each slender column is +ringed with its stony deposit, but I do not recall +any standing water where tules are not. The +stems are filled with papery pith so light that the +Indians of the San Joaquin made boats of bundles +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_120' name='Page_120'>[120]</a></span> +of them, faggoted together and tied upon a +wooden frame. +</p> + +<p> +Year by year the tules reclaim the muddy +confluence of the twin rivers. They make an +annual growth, die palely, and are beaten down by +the wind; between their matted stems the young +green comes up again. In the Land of the Little +Duck, miles upon miles of them, and not one other +thing, stand up on either side the winding water-lanes, +man-high and impenetrable. +</p> + +<p> +The Tulare—the place of the tule—is the haunt +not only of water-birds but innumerable insect-catchers, +and especially of the red-winged blackbirds. +In the spring these betake themselves to +the reed-fringed marshes in hundreds, building their +nests in such neighbourly proximity that the young +can hop from rim to rim of the tight-slung, grassy +hammocks. Great clouds of the young birds can +be seen, just before mating and after nesting in the +fall, rising from the low islands of the river-junction. +In the season also the male yellow-headed blackbird +may be heard singing his sweet but noisy +cheering-song to his sombre mate as she weaves +marsh grass and wet pond-weed together as a +foundation for her home, always prudently completed +some weeks in advance of any need of it. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_121' name='Page_121'>[121]</a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i198" id="i198"></a> +<img src="images/i-198.jpg" width="550" height="371" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">WAITING FOR DUCK—LOS BAÑOS +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Where the tules thin out along the moving currents, +numerous woven balls of marsh vegetation hang +like some strange fruit safely above the summer rise +of the waters. These are the nests of the tule wren, +built by the industrious male, with who knows +what excess of parental care or what intention to +deceive. All the while he is at work upon them, in +one, the least conspicuous and apparently the least +skilfully built, the mother bird nurses the brown +nestlings with which, suddenly at the end of July, +all the whispering galleries of the tulares are alive. +</p> + +<p> +One who has the courage to penetrate deeper +within the tulares, past the crazy wooden landings +of nameless ports at which the flat scows put in, +past the broken willows where the herons nest and +the weedy back-waters lie all smoothly green with +the deceptive duck-weed, will see many wished-for +sights. Just before dawn and after nightfall the +inner marshes are vocal with the varied cries of +coot and mallard and the complaining skirl of the +mud-hen, the whistling redwing, the bittern booming +from his dingy pool, and all the windy beat of +wings. But by day a stillness falls through which +the clicking whisper of the reeds and the croon +of the great rivers cradling to the sea reaches the +sense almost with sound. The air is all alive with +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_122' name='Page_122'>[122]</a></span> +the metallic glint of dragon-flies; now and then +the plop of some shining turtle dropping into the +smooth lagoon, or the frightened splash of a +marsh-nesting bird, flecks the silence with a flash +of sound. Here one might see all the duck kind +leading forth their young broods, or the eared +grebe swimming with her day-old nestlings on her +back. If the day is dark—black clouds with +lightnings playing under—one may hear the voice +of the loon sliding through his sonorous scale to +shaking, witless laughter. Or perhaps the day's +sight might be a flock of pelicans on their way to +their nesting-ground in Buena Vista, breasting the +shallows, and with beating wings driving a school +of minnows into some tiny inlet where they may +be scooped up in the pouched bills, a dozen to a +mouthful. Better still, some morning mist might +rise for you suddenly on a strip of sandy shore the +cranes had chosen for their wild dances, from which +the stately measures of the Greek are said to be +derived. Against the yellow sand, as on the background +of a vase, the dipping figures and white outstretched +wing draperies make the connection clear +to you for the moment, along with some other +things long overlaid in the racial memory. +</p> + +<p> +Always at evening in the tulares the air is +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_123' name='Page_123'>[123]</a></span> +winnowed by the clanging hordes of geese and +ducks. Triangular flights of teal wing by you, +whizzing like bullets, hazy with speed. Beach-nesting +birds, paddlers in the foodful creeks, go +seaward. Now and then some winged frigate of +the open sea, an albatross perhaps blown inland on +a storm, will climb the air to the sea-going wind. +Low on the twilight-coloured waters the tule fog +creeps in. +</p> + +<p> +You emerge properly from the vast intricacies +of the tulares—if you emerge at all, and are not +completely mazed and lost in them—at Sacramento, +a city but barely rescued from the marsh, and still +marsh-coloured with the damp-loving lichens. +<i><span lang='fr_FR'>La Dame aux Camelias</span></i>, to the eye, rich in that +exotic blossom as no city in the world, but with +a past, oh, unmistakably, and a touch of hectic +disorder. The Russians possessed her, and then +the breed of Jack Hamlin, and then—but it is +unfair to list the lovers of a lady of so much charm +and such indubitable capacity for reformation. +Sacramento is the State capital, the geographical +pivot of the great twin valleys; she divides with +Stockton on the San Joaquin the tribute of their +waters. It was here on her banks that the overland +emigrant trains sat down to wait for the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_124' name='Page_124'>[124]</a></span> +subsidence of waters in the new world of the +West, from here they scattered to all its hopeful +quarters. +</p> + +<p> +If the part the city has played in history has +been that of a hostel, a distributing station, at least +she has played it to some purpose. There are few +empires richer than the land the twin rivers drain. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_125' name='Page_125'>[125]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_127' name='Page_127'></a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_126' name='Page_126'></a></span> +</p> + +<h2> +VII +<br /><br /> +<span class="s08"> +THE TWIN VALLEYS + +</span></h2> + +<p> +It is geographical courtesy merely, to treat of intramontane +California as a valley; it is in reality a +vast, rolling plain. Several little kingdoms of +Europe could be tucked away in it. North and +south it has no natural line of demarcation other +than the rivers meeting for their single assault +upon the sea, but its diversity deserves the double +name. They make, the Sacramento rushing from +the wooded north and the sluggish San Joaquin, +one of the most interesting waterways of the world. +I should say they made, for of the San Joaquin one +must be able to speak in the past also, to understand +it. One must have seen it before man had +tamed it and taught it, supine as a lioness in the +sun. +</p> + +<p> +To arrive at a proper feeling for the continuity +of the great central plain, it must be approached +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_128' name='Page_128'>[128]</a></span> +from the south, by way of the old Tejon Pass, up +from San Fernando, or down the Tehachapi grade +where the railroad loops and winds through the +confluence of the Coast Range with the Sierra +Nevada. Here the hills curve graciously about +the vast oval of the lower San Joaquin. The +downthrow of the mountain, stippled with sage-brush, +gives way to tawny sand glistening here +and there with white patches of alkali, mottled +with dark blocks of irrigated land. Its immensity +is obscured by the haze of heat. +</p> + +<p> +One is reduced to the figures of the real estate +"booster" for terms of proportion. That modest +checkering of green, hours away to the left, is a +forty-mile field of alfalfa; beyond it lie the vineyards +that in less than a quarter of a century +relegated Spain to a second place in the raisin +industry of the world. This is the San Joaquin +of to-day and to-morrow. The white-tilted vans +of the Argonauts saw it as one vast, overlapping +field of radiant corollas, blue of lupins, phacelias, +nemophilias, gold of a hundred packed species of +composite. Wet years it is still possible for the +settler in the unirrigated districts to wake some +morning to blossomy lakes of sky-blueness in the +hollows; from San Emigdio in the Temblors, I +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_129' name='Page_129'>[129]</a></span> +have seen, across the whole width of the valley, +the smouldering poppy fires along the bluffs of +Kern River. On the mesa below Tejon the moon-white +gilia that the children call "evening snow" +unfurls its musky-scented drifts mile after mile. +But the prevailing note of the San Joaquin is +tawny russet; gold it will be in the season, +resplendent as those idols which the Incas overlaid +yearly with fresh-beaten leaf, and in September +the barrancas above Bakersfield and Visalia as +yellow as brass, but all up and down the hill-rimmed +hollow is every lion-coloured tint contending +still with the thin belts of planted orchard. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i209" id="i209"></a> +<img src="images/i-209.jpg" width="391" height="550" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">MIRROR LAKE, YOSEMITE +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Twenty-five years of cultivation have served to +shift the lines of greenness but not greatly to +modify the desert key. Once it was all massed +in the tulares which fringed the series of lakes +and connecting sloughs, continuing northward from +the lowest point of the San Joaquin. Kern, Kings, +Kaweah, Tule, Merced, and Tuolumne, mighty +rivers, and a hundred lesser singing streams fed it. +Elk by thousands ramped in its reedy borders. +It was a haven of nesting water-birds. Whole +islands were populated by pelicans, repairing there +annually for the strange, sidling wing-dances that +attend their mating. Blue herons nested in the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_130' name='Page_130'>[130]</a></span> +tulares; they could be seen trailing their long +dangly legs for hours above the shallows. Indians +paddled in their frail balsas, built of papery, dry +reeds, down intricate water-lanes in which white +men venturing, lost themselves and were mazed +to madness. Malaria of a surpassing virulence +rode up and down that country on the "tule fogs." +Even yet it is the dread of the cities of the plain +to find themselves beleaguered by the thick, ghost-white +mists that at long intervals roll along the +ground, retaking the ancient marshes. +</p> + +<p> +Into this potential opulence the cattleman precipitated +himself. He bought—it is more exact to +say he acquired—vast acreage of Spanish grants; +along the rim of the Coast Ranges, territory equal +to principalities was given over to long-horned, +lean herds. All about the old beach-line of the +San Joaquin may still be seen the remnant of the +cattle ranches, low formless houses with purlieus +of pomegranate and pampas grass and black figs, +and the high, stockaded, acrid-smelling corrals, +to mark the receding waves of the cattle industry. +On the Sierra side the guttered mesas, the hoof-worn +foothills advertise the devastation of the +wandering flocks. Early in the 'sixties these +appeared, little, long-armed French and Basques, +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_131' name='Page_131'>[131]</a></span> +with hungry hordes of sheep at their heels, pasturing +on the public lands. They ate into the roots +of the lush grass and left the quick rains to cut +the soil. The wool in the hand was always worth +the next season's feed to the sheep-herder. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i215" id="i215"></a> +<img src="images/i-215.jpg" width="550" height="373" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">AMONG THE REDWOODS OF THE GREAT TWIN VALLEYS +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Never was a land so planned for the uses of +man, its shielding mountains, its deep alluvial +terraces sloping gently to the sun. Men read it +in the hieroglyphic the glistening waters spelled +between the dark patches of the tulares, but it +took some experimenting to read the message +aright. +</p> + +<p> +After the cattle and the flocks came the wheat. +Up from the meeting waters the land billowed +with grain. Owners buckled the ploughs together +and drove them with engines by tens and twenties +across the thousand-acre fields. But men and +engines, they were alike driven by the drouth. +In wet years the wheat rancher rode to view his +shoulder-high harvest, but when the rains, going +high and wide over the valley to break along the +saw-teeth of the Sierras, left the wheat unwatered, +the same thing happened to the crops that had +happened to the cattle and the sheep. And at +last, amid the rotting carcases and the shrivelled +acres, the message came clear—not the land, but +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_132' name='Page_132'>[132]</a></span> +the water. So they shut up the rivers in the +cañons and the day of the orchardist began. +</p> + +<p> +Geographically it begins at Bakersfield, below +the gap where the Kern comes down from the +giant sequoias and is constrained to the wide, +willow-planted canals, governed by head-gates and +weirs. Such waters as find again their ancient +levels, do so by way of the loose sandy soil through +which they are filtered in vineyard and orchard. +The tulares have been turned under; the elk are +strictly preserved in the hope that enough of them +will breed to serve the purposes of curiosity. The +antelope bands that once flashed their white rumps +from bench to bench of the tawny mesas were +reduced, the last time I saw them, to a scant half-score +roving the Tejon under the watchful eye of +the superintendent. But with all this change, +nowhere as at this diminished end, does one gather +such an impression of the variety, the imperial +extent of the San Joaquin. For at Bakersfield is +one of the world's largest petroleum fields. The +gaunt derricks rear along the unwatered hills like +half-formed prehistoric creatures come up out of +the ground to see what men are about. Reservoirs, +fed with the stinking juices of a time decayed, +squat along the barrancas, considering with a slow +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_133' name='Page_133'>[133]</a></span> +leech-like intelligence the tank cars in the form of +a Gargantuan joint-worm of the same period that +produced the derricks, as they clank between the +oil-fields and the town. One of the largest oil-fields +in the world—and yet the turn of the road +drops it out of sight in the valley's immensity! +</p> + +<p> +Bakersfield is a heaven of roses. Doubtless +there are other things by which the inhabitants +would be glad to have it remembered, but this is +the item that the traveller in the season carries +away with him. Roses do not die there, they fall +apart of their own sweetness, wafts of which +envelop the town for miles out on the highway. +After nightfall, when each particular attar distils +upon the quiescent air, the townspeople walk +abroad in the streets and the moon comes up full-orbed +across the Temblors at about the level of the +clock-tower. Overhead and beyond it the sky +retains a deep velvety blueness until long past +midnight. Traces of colour can be seen sometimes +in the zenith when the glimmer along the knife-edge +of the Sierras announces the dawn. +</p> + +<p> +North of Bakersfield, as the valley widens, the +Coast Range fades to a mere shadow mountain, +the peaks of Kaweah stand out above the banded +haze, angel-white like the ranked Host. As the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_134' name='Page_134'>[134]</a></span> +road swings in to the Sierra outposts, broad-headed +oaks begin to appear; it skirts the foot of the +great Sierra fault close enough for the landscape +to borrow something from the dark, impending +pines. But for the most part what the observer +has to consider is soil and water and the miraculous +product of these two. One must learn to think of +the land in terms of human achievement. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i224" id="i224"></a> +<img src="images/i-224.jpg" width="550" height="371" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">CLEAR LAKE, LAKE COUNTY +</p> +</div> + +<p> +North from the delta of Kern River lies a +hundred miles of country scarcely disputed with +the flocks, far-called and few, which still at the set +time of the year forgather in green swales behind the +town for the annual shearing, for the herders to play +hand-ball at Noriegas', to grow riotously claret drunk +and render an evanescent foreign touch to the brisk +modern community. And every foot of that +hundred miles is rife with the seeds of life, awaiting +the touch of the impregnating water. One holds +to that conviction as to a friendly assuring hand. +In the presence of that vast plain, palpitating with +the heat, the sluggish, untamed water lolling in the +midst of it, the white-fanged Sierra combing the +cloudless blue, beauty becomes a poor word: +appreciation is shipwrecked and cast away. With +relief one hails the beginning of a stripe, dark green +like a scarf, scalloping the foothills—the citrus belt. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_135' name='Page_135'>[135]</a></span> +From Portersville, Lindsay, Exeter it runs north +past the meeting of the waters into the valley of the +Sacramento, and for quality and early fruiting +sets the figure of the world market. As if its +waters had some special virtue, wherever a river is +poured out upon the plain some particular crop is +favoured. About Fresno it is raisins, at Madera +port wine, sherry, and mild muscatel. The Merced, +which takes its rise in the valley of Yosemite, is +partial to melons and figs. But everywhere are +prunes, peaches, apricots, almonds, sugar-beets, +alfalfa, unmeasurable acreage of barley, beans, and +asparagus. Anything is impressive if the scale be +large enough, even a field of onions. Here the +league-long rows are as terrible as an army. +</p> + +<p> +Up and down this empire belt proceed two +great companies, the hordes of "fruit-hands" and +the army of the bees, following its successive +waves of fruit and bloom. Gangs of pruners, +pickers, and packers are shifted and shunted as the +crop demands. Interesting economic experiments +transact themselves under the worried producer's +eye; alien race contending with alien race. The +jarring interests of men have by no means worked +out the absolute solution, but the bees have long +ago settled their business. They kill the drones +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_136' name='Page_136'>[136]</a></span> +and gather the honey for the gods who kindly +provide them with hives—the more fortunate +perhaps in knowing what their particular gods +require. +</p> + +<p> +Wherever along the belt the rivers fail, the +pumps take up the work; strenuous little Davids +contending against the Goliaths of drouth. They +can be heard chugging away like the active pulse +of the vineyards, completing the ribbon of greenness +that spans from ridge to ridge of the down-plunging +hills. +</p> + +<p> +And then one must take account of the +cities of the plain! Twenty-five years ago they +fringed the Sierra base, mere feeders to the mines, +the cattle ranches, the sheep country. They had +the manners of the frontier and the decaying, +tawdry vices that filtered down from San Francisco, +sluiced out by intermittent spasms of reform. +They were "wide open." Hairy little herders +with jabbering tongues knifed one another in the +shearing season, vaqueros "shot up the town" +occasionally; it is still within memory that +prominent citizen "packed a gun" for prominent +citizen. Twenty years ago the last, most southerly, +of the chain of settlements was a very cesspool of +the iniquities driven to a last stand by the influx +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_137' name='Page_137'>[137]</a></span> +of home-seekers. I who went through the years +of change with it could tell tales if I would—but, +thank Heaven, nobody would believe them! Now +in those old places of unsavoury renown rise +handsome "business blocks," the true mark of cities. +Homes heaped with roses spread on either side of +miles of palm-fringed boulevard. Over it all flows +the clear, inspiring current of Sierra-cooled air, +sliding down from the ranked peaks that, whitened +from flank to flank by perpetual snows, hover like +phalanxes of protecting wings. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i230" id="i230"></a> +<img src="images/i-230.jpg" width="550" height="377" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">CASTLE CRAG, RATTLESNAKE CAÑON +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Into the very thick of the cities drop down +from the high Sierras trails to all its places of +delight, the sequoia groves, King's River cañon, +and all the lordly peaks about Mt. Whitney +and Yosemite; and setting hillward from San +Francisco the old Stockton-Sonora road along +which surged the undisciplined rout of the gold-seekers +of 'forty-nine. It leads, this earliest of +valley highways, across the basin of the Stanislaus, +past places made famous by the red-shirted, lusty +miners, the sleek-coated gamblers of Bret Harte. +It passes the twenty-eight Mile House where Jack +Hamlin ran a poker game, and many a scene +rendered memorable by the gay ladies of Poker +Flat. It reaches, by way of a deep-rutted, ancient +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_138' name='Page_138'>[138]</a></span> +track, choked with the characteristic red dust of +the country, Table Mountain, the home of Truthful +James. Table Mountain, having consideration +for the near-by Sierras, is a hill merely, with a flat +deposit of <i><span lang='es_ES'>malpais</span></i>, the "black rock" of regions +far north and east. Beyond Sonora lie the old +placer "diggings," every foot of which has been +combed and sifted for gold. The bones of the +earth are laid bare; all the masking clay, tossed +and tumbled, clogged with rusty pipes and decaying +sluices, lies in heaps and depressions where the +gold-seekers cast it. The sense of violation is +heightened by the hue of the soil, redder than the +hills of Devon, redder than a red heifer—but the +river furnishes the more descriptive figure, the +martyr hue of the Sacrament. In the flood season +it carries the tint of its ensanguined clays far down +into the bay's blueness. +</p> + +<p> +The remnant of that riotous life,—the abandoned +cabins, the towns falling into dissolution,—like the +remaining specimens of the fir and redwood forests +cut off to timber the Mother Lode, is left standing +by unfitness. The best of it is a little nugget of +remembrance of Francis Bret Harte and Mark +Twain. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i235" id="i235"></a> +<img src="images/i-235.jpg" width="415" height="550" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">McCLOUD RIVER, UPPER SACRAMENTO VALLEY +</p> +</div> + +<p> +It was at Angels in the foothills of Calaveras +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_139' name='Page_139'>[139]</a></span> +that Twain, to his everlasting fame, was so +impressed with the performance of the Jumping +Frog. But life at Angels and all up and down +that placer country is as heavy with desuetude as +the frog was after the bar-keeper had fed him with +buckshot. As well try to get a draught of that +old time as a drink at any of the dismantled bars, +high, ornate, black walnut affairs across which, in +dust and nuggets, passed and repassed probably as +much gold as would serve to buy the orange belt +of the San Joaquin—and for a figure of magnificence +you would find nothing more acceptable to +its inhabitants. +</p> + +<p> +Much of the history of that country is written +in the names. Here the soft Spanish locutions +give place to harsher, but not less descriptive, +Americanisms—Jimtown, Jackass Hill, Squaw +Creek; the cañons become "gulches," the mesas +"flats." Later both of these were overlaid by +-villes and -tons, the plain rural names of Anglo-Saxon +derivation, Coulterville, Farmington, Turlock. +They smell of orchards. Prosperity is +coming back on the surface of the fruitful waters, +but the redwood forests have not come back. +Centuries, nothing less, are required for the building +of one of these towers of greenness, and it is +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_140' name='Page_140'>[140]</a></span> +barely forty years since all that district was one +roaring blast of mining life, rioting, jostling, +snatching each from each. In the language of the +country, the Italian truck gardeners will "beat +them to it." They have smoothed over the old +"slickens" and comforted the land with crops. +</p> + +<p> +As one travels north, the bulk of the Sierra +lessens, the pines climb higher, the oaks march +well down into the middle valley to catch the wet +coast winds, the character of the plantations +change, there are more grain fields, more neat +little farms. Finally the old Overland emigrant +trail climbs down from Donner Lake and Emigrant +Gap, and you find yourself deep in the Valley of +the Sacramento. +</p> + +<p> +By an air-line from the meeting of the waters, +its geographical frontier is passed in the neighbourhood +of Sonora; perhaps the bridge over the +Mokelumne is a better indicator, since that river +joins the San Joaquin at the estuary, but it is not +until the Overland road is crossed that the +character of the country definitely betrays the +upper valley. +</p> + +<p> +Ascending the river, the works of man are +less and less, the forest and the mountains more. +The rapid rise of the wooded slopes keeps the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_141' name='Page_141'>[141]</a></span> +Sacramento troublous. Tributaries, not large +but swift and of tremendous volume, pour into it. +Occasionally from dark cañons is heard the steady +pound of the quartz mill, working some ancient +lead, or a smelter blocks out a whole forested slope +with its poisonous exhalations; but for the most +part the northern valley is given over to brooding +quiet, to unending green, and streams as swift as +adders. +</p> + +<p> +In Mendocino county, on the coast side, the +Range begins to lift toward the snow-line; on the +Sierra side the alpine crest shears away. From +time to time the "logging" industry cuts a wide +track down the redwood forest. One hears above +the singing rivers, the clucking of the donkey-engine +or the rip of a mill still going in the midst +of its self-created, sawdust desert. The glutting of +the lumber region has been accomplished as wastefully, +as violently, as the search for gold. All up +the valley tall prophets of the rain have been +butchered to make a lumberman's fat purse. But, +link by link, the forestry bureau is closing in the +line of the reserves against the lumber "kings," +the Ahabs of a grasping time. +</p> + +<p> +The hills fall into a certain order, serried rank +on rank. Deciduous growth of the lower slopes +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_142' name='Page_142'>[142]</a></span> +gives way to redwoods and Shasta fir. Miles +upon miles of them stand so thick that when one +dies it does not fall but remains erect in the arms +of its brothers. Great columnar boles rise out of +the river-basins, soaring high over what, except for +their dwarfing proportions, would be a considerable +grove of graceful oak and bay and glistening, +magnolia-leafed, crimson-shafted madroño. Over +these the redwoods rise, as over the heads of +worshippers the clustered columns of Milan seek +the dome. High up the tops are caught in a froth +of pale-green foliage through which the sunlight +filters blue. This characteristic refraction from +their yellowish, inch-long needles dwells about the +redwood as an aura, and far on the horizon +distinguishes their ranks from the hill-slopes +masked with pines. So, blue ridge on ridge, they +advance on the imperious height of Shasta. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i244" id="i244"></a> +<img src="images/i-244.jpg" width="550" height="395" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">DONNER LAKE, ON THE OLD EMIGRANT TRAIL +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Shasta is a brother of Fuji and Tacoma, one of +those solitary crater peaks whose whiteness is the +honourable age of fiery youth, a good mountain +dead and gone to heaven. Do not go up on it; +you will see a great deal more of what you have +seen, wooded hills on hills and perhaps the sapphire +belt of the sea, the glitter of lovely, sail-less lakes, +but you will not understand it any better, for +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_143' name='Page_143'>[143]</a></span> +Shasta has no more to do with the abutting ranges +than a great genius with the stock which produced +him. This is a prophet among mountains, a vent +from the burning heart of creation. One is not +surprised to learn that the Indians hereabout +count their descent from the Spirit of Shasta +and the Grizzly Bear. That dark belt of forest +circling the mountain's base looks to be the proper +haunt for him, the lumbering, little-eyed embodiment +of brute creation. It is well to think of +those two things together, the rip of those mighty +claws with a ton or two of brute bulk behind +them, and the awful witness towering to the blue, +and suffer the soul-satisfying fear that lies in wait +for man in the great places of the earth. All our +modern fears are mean, fears of the common +opinion and the bill collector. Shasta will have +done its best for you if it enables you to quake in +the very marrow of consciousness. +</p> + +<p> +After this it is well to turn southward along the +Coast Range, camping by the trout-abounding +rivers, losing yourself in the stiff laurels and +azaleas of Mendocino, fishing at the clear lakes +cupped in the hollows. If the season is right +there will be salmon running in Klamath and +Trinity rivers or deer in the steep-sided cañons. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_144' name='Page_144'>[144]</a></span> +And everywhere there will be the redwoods. It is +not, however, in the crowds that the tree reveals +itself. Far down the deforested hills of Sonoma, +in isolated groves, in small groups or singles on the +tops of bossy, brass-coloured hills, it takes on +character and charm. +</p> + +<p> +A redwood grove is a three-story affair. On +the ground floor, turned rusty brown, as though the +sunlight filtering through had mellowed there a +thousand years, creep the wild ginger, the rosy-flowered +oxalis, trilliums, and violets. All these +lower rooms are crowded with dogwood, with the +great berried manzanitas, woodwardias, man-high, +and glistening bays, silver-tipped with light. By +one of those strange but charming affinities of wild +life, the redwood grove is the peculiar haunt of +lilies. Every variation of the soil—the peat bogs +of the coast, the high sandy ridges, the damp +meadows—has each its appropriate variety; and +not merely lilies, but droves of them, hundreds of +swaying stems, files of them up the line of seeping +springs or round the bases of great boulders, lilies +breast high, lilies overhead, ruby-spotted, golden-throated, +shining white, dowered with the special +genius of perfume. Along the chaparral-covered +slope and deep within the cañons one tracks +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_145' name='Page_145'>[145]</a></span> +them by the subtle, intoxicating scent spreading, +as I am persuaded no other perfume does, by a +conscious distillation on the melting air. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i249" id="i249"></a> +<img src="images/i-249.jpg" width="381" height="550" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">LAUREL LAKE, UPPER SACRAMENTO +</p> +</div> + +<p> +The second redwood story, that wondrous space +of blue-diffusing sun, between the deciduous underforest +and the fairy web of redwood green, is bird +and squirrel haunted. Jays flash back and forth, +bright flickers of the humming-bird go buzzing by. +Woodpeckers may be heard calling the ever-missing +"Jacob, Jacob!" who must in their opinion +be concealing himself somewhere about the upper +story. The wire-drawn warble of the brown creeper +follows the singer up and down the deeply +corrugated trunks. Wrens, sparrows, juncos, all +manner of little feathered folk in whose coats the +tones of brown predominate, frequent the pillared +middle rooms. Once I heard what I thought to +be a hermit thrush, singing out of the dusk of +Muir Wood. But I have not the art of knowing +birds by note. People who live much in the redwoods +find them silent; I think it might more easily be +that the great trunks and green-shot glooms have the +same quality of dwarfing sound as size. Redwoods, +as I know them, are really lighter and more alive +than any other coniferous forests, but the <i>effect</i> of +umbrageous stillness is induced by vast proportions. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_146' name='Page_146'>[146]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +As for what goes on in the upper rooms, who +has been there? What birds arise to their three- or +four-hundred-foot heights? The few and slight +boughs, the feathery layers of foliage rounding in +age to sloping crowns, who knows them but the +wind and the snows that neither stir nor are stayed +by them? There are some matters that the great +Twin Valleys keep even from the men for whom +they have borne an empire. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_147' name='Page_147'>[147]</a></span> +</p> + +<p> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_149' name='Page_149'></a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_148' name='Page_148'></a></span> +</p> + +<h2> +VIII +<br /><br /> +<span class="s08"> +THE HIGH SIERRAS AND THE +SAGE-BRUSH COUNTRY + +</span></h2> + +<p> +The proper vehicle for mountain study is not yet +available. A great mountain range is like a great +public character, there is much more to it than is +presented to the observation, and it is not open to +familiarity. But if one could fly high and wide +over its cloud-lifting summits, one might learn +something of its private relations. +</p> + +<p> +From such a vantage it would instantly appear +how distinct are the Nevadas (<i><span lang='es_ES'>nieve</span></i>, snowy) among +the Sierras of California. A very Bonaparte of +mountains, new-born and lording it over the +ancient ranges, not content with its vast empery +but swinging north into the unpre-empted icy +regions. San Bernardino and San Jacinto are as +far from it as the Faubourg St. Germain from an +island in the sea. Sierra Madre is of the Coast +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_150' name='Page_150'>[150]</a></span> +Range; Shasta a fire-hole, a revolutionist; the true +Sierra is the midriff of a continent. From its +northern extremity one sees the sun in a circle +and the Northern Lights; that portion of it we +know as Sierra Nevada swings into the state above +Honey Lake, and ends southward in a tumble of +blunt peaks below Kern River. This is quite +enough, however, for Californians to make free +with, and more than they can appreciate. +</p> + +<p> +Geographically the range begins on the south +at Tehachapi, but at Walker's Pass, a day's +journey to the north, is the first appearance of +its most salient characteristic, the great Sierra +Fault. In its youth the range suffered incredible +cataclysms. For two hundred miles the great +eastern plain dropped; weighted as it was with +its withered aristocracy of hills—how weazened +and old you can see to this day—it tore sharply +downward, and the depth of that fall from the +heaven-affronting peak of Whitney to the desert +valley of Inyo is a matter of two miles of sheer +descent. +</p> + +<p> +The whole Sierra along the line of faultage +has the contour of a wave about to break. It +swings up in long water-shaped lines from the +valley of the San Joaquin, and rears its jagged +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_151' name='Page_151'>[151]</a></span> +crest above the abrupt desert shore. Seen from +close under, some of these two- and three-thousand-foot +precipices have the pitch of toppling waters. +As they rose new-riven from the earth their +proportions must have been more than terrifying. +</p> + +<p> +Later the Ice Age bore downward from the +north, and through immeasurable years carved the +fractured granite into shapes of enduring beauty. +It rounded the great jutting fronts, it insured +them against the tooth of time with the keen +icy polish with which they shine still against the +morning. It gouged narrow wall-sided cañons, +cut the course of rivers, and sinking like a +graver's tool into the heart of the range, scooped +out deep wells of pleasantness. Afterward, when +the ice was old, it must have moved more slowly, +for the lines it left, retreating northward, are +more flowing, the hill-crowns rounder. And then +the mountain was besieged with trees. They +stormed it, scaled its free precipices; you can +see by the thick mould of the valleys what +ranks and ranks of them went down, and along +the snow-line how by the persistence of assault +they are bent and contorted. +</p> + +<p> +This is the whole effect of the sombre swathes +of pine that mask the Sierra slopes. They march +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_152' name='Page_152'>[152]</a></span> +along the water-courses, they climb up sheer +precipices in staggering files, trooping in the +passes; across the smooth meadow spaces they +lock arms, they await the word of command. +By a very little observation they are seen to +be ranged in orderly companies. Here a warm +current of air travelling steadily from the superheated +valleys carries the life zone higher, there +a defiant bony ridge drops it a few thousand +feet, but the relative arrangement of species does +not greatly vary. The broad oaks, like reverend +grandsires, from the foothills see the procession go +by, they follow as far as the gates of the mountain, +crutched and bowed. All the lower cañons are +full of a rabble of deciduous trees, chinquapins, +scrub oak, madroño, full of gay camp-followers, +lilac, dogwood, azaleas, strumpet penstemons, +flaunting lupins, monk's-hood, columbine. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i262" id="i262"></a> +<img src="images/i-262.jpg" width="343" height="550" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">YOSEMITE FALLS +</p> +</div> + +<p> +The grey nut pine, wide-branched, unwarlike +but serviceable, opens the ranks of conifers. Then +the long-leaved pines begin, <i><span lang='es_ES'>ponderoso</span></i>, <i>Coulteri</i>, +and the slender, arrowy, fire-resisting <i>attenuata</i>. +On the western slope, increasing as they go northward, +the redwood holds all the open country, but +it is no climber like <i><span lang='es_ES'>monticola</span></i>, the largest of all +true pines, the captain of the Sierra forests. The +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_153' name='Page_153'>[153]</a></span> +firs usurp the water-borders and the low moraines; +clannish, incommunicable, they seem not to find +it worth while to grow unless they grow stately. +Above all these range the thin-barked pines, the +lodgepole, Douglas spruce, librocedrus, and hardy +junipers in windy passes. About the meadows +and lake-borders the quaking asps push like +children between the knees along the line; and +highest, most persistent, the creeping-limbed, +wind-depressed white-barked pine, under whose +matted boughs the wild sheep bed. +</p> + +<p> +The trees have each their own voice—a degree +of flexibility or length of needles upon which the +wind harps to produce its characteristic note. The +traveller in the dark of mountain nights knows his +way among them as by the street cries of his own +city. The creaking of the firs, the sough of the +long-leaved pines, the whispering whistle of the +lodgepole pine, the delicate frou-frou of the redwoods +in a wind, these come out for him in the +darkness with the night scent of moth-haunted +flowers. But there is one tree that for the footer +of the mountain trails is voiceless; it speaks no +doubt, but it speaks only to the austere mountain-heads, +to the mindful winds and the watching stars. +It speaks as men speak to one another and are not +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_154' name='Page_154'>[154]</a></span> +heard by the little ants crawling over their boots. +This is the "big tree," the sequoia. In something +less than a score of forest patches about the rim +of the Twin Valleys, the sequoia abides, out of +some possible preglacial period, out of some past +of which nothing is left to us but the fading +memory of the "giants in those days." The age +of individual big trees can be computed in terms +of human history. There are evidences written +in the rings of these that they endured the +drouth which made the famine in the days of +Ahab the king, against which Elijah prayed. +These are growing trees whose seeds are fertile. +</p> + +<p> +One might make a very dramatic collocation of +the rise and fall of empires against the life period +of a single sequoia, and that would be easier than +to transcribe by mere phrases the impression of +one of these green towers of silence on the sense. +Single and deeply corrugated as a Corinthian +column, with only a lightly-branched crown for a +capital, they spire for five thousand years or so, and +then the leaf-crown becomes rounded to a dome +in which the winds breed. Warm days of Spring, +their young nestling zephyrs come fluttering +down the deep wells of shade to shake the saplings +of a hundred years. In Summer the fine-leafed +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_155' name='Page_155'>[155]</a></span> +foliage catches the sun like spray, diffusing +vaporous blueness; but the majesty of their +gigantic trunks is incommunicable. After a while +the stifling sense of awe breaks before it, and +you go on with your small affairs as children will +go on playing even in the royal presence. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i267" id="i267"></a> +<img src="images/i-267.jpg" width="550" height="378" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">BLUE LAKE, LAKE COUNTY +</p> +</div> + +<p> +The name <i>Sequoia</i> is one of the few cheering +notes among our habitual botanical stupidities—an +attempt to express quality as it is humanly +measured in a name. There was once an +American Cadmus, Sequoyah, a Cherokee who +invented an Indian alphabet and taught his tribe +to read. Seeing them outnumbered in their own +territory, he started west with the idea of founding +a great Indian empire. He was last seen trailing +north across the desert and was heard of no more. +Tradition has it that he reached the forest of the +upper Kern River and gave the trees his name. +At least no botanist with his nose in a book has +usurped it. +</p> + +<p> +Forests are for cover. They mask not only the +naked rock, but the paths of deer and bear and +bighorn. Under the spire-pointed ranks of conifers +that look so black from above, verging to blueness, +a world of furtive folk goes on. A world of +birds is in its branches, squirrels nimble as +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_156' name='Page_156'>[156]</a></span> +sparrows, but scarcely anything of this is visible +to the watcher on the heights. Rabbits playing +on your lawn would be more noticeable in +proportion than the seldom-seen bighorn leading +his light-footed young from ledge to rocky ledge. +The jealous trees cover the trails and obscure the +passes. +</p> + +<p> +As you come up through them you observe +the flat, soddy spaces of old lake basins, green as +jewels, and the hanging meadows gay with cascades +of flowers, the stream tangles, the new-made +moraines bright with bindweed and sulphur-flower. +But from the heights all this lovely detail is +hidden by the overlapping tents of boughs. Here +and there a stream leaps forth at the falls like a +sword from a green scabbard, or higher up, may be +traced as the silver wire on which are strung +unrippled lakes as blue as cobalt. Great chains of +such lakes lead down from the snow-line to the +foothill borders, encroached upon by the silent +ranks of trees. As they go down they show +soddy borders, they tend to fill and to grow +meadows where presently deep-rooting trees +assume their stations. This is the strategic rule +for the taking of a granite mountain. First the +grinding ice and the disintegrating water; what the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_157' name='Page_157'>[157]</a></span> +streams wash down collects in the glacier-ploughed +basins. It makes lake borders by which the +grass comes in—the small grass that is mightier +than mountains, that eats them for its food. +Lakes at the lower levels become meadows, then +trees arrive; they overrun the soddy ground, the +snow-manured moraines. The trees themselves +take centuries to fruition. At a later stage men +dispossess the forest and build cities, but this has +not yet come to the Sierras. There is something +indomitable in the will of the trees to spread and +climb. In the floor of Yosemite and Hetch +Hetchy there are hundred-year-old oaks of full +form and generous growth, and on the slopes +above them the same oaks and of almost the same +age are so dwarfed by drouth and altitude that +they are not knee-high to a man, but they keep +the due proportions of their type. A white bark +pine will climb where the weight of the winter +drifts is so heavy that it is never able to lift its +decumbent trunk from the ground, clinging like +ivy to the wall in which it roots. +</p> + +<p> +In the Spring the rich florescence of the conifers +sheds pollen in drifts that, carried down the melting +water, warn the sheep-herder and the orchardist +a hundred miles away of the advancing season. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_158' name='Page_158'>[158]</a></span> +A pine forest in flower is one of the things worth +seeing which is most seldom seen, for at its best +the high passes are still choked by snow, the lakes +ice-locked, the trails dangerous. And then the +blossoms, yellow and crimson tassels and rosy +spathes, are carried on the leafy crowns high over +the heads of the most adventurous foresters. +What one finds, as late as the end of June when +the trails are open, is a stain of pollen on the +lingering snow, and great clouds of it flying wherever +a bough is brushed by a light wing. In the +autumn the whole wood is full of the click and +glint of the winged seeds. Storms of them, like +clouds of locusts, are carried past on the wind, to +be dropped in the nearest clearing or to find a +chance lodging in a moss-lined crevice of the +weathered headlands. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i276" id="i276"></a> +<img src="images/i-276.jpg" width="550" height="359" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">LAKE TAHOE, THE HIGH SIERRAS +</p> +</div> + +<p> +But from the heights, all feeling for the process +of the forest is lost in the sense of its irresistible +march—it creeps and winds, it waits darkly for the +word. Above the tree-line no sound ascends but +a faint vibration, the body of sound making itself +felt in the silence. On windless days the forest +lies black like weed at the bottom of a lake of air +as clear as a vacuum. When the great wind +rivers pour about the peaks, it can be seen lashing +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_159' name='Page_159'>[159]</a></span> +like weed in the currents, but still almost soundlessly—the +roar of it passes down the cañons, and +is heard in the cities of the plain. But if the peaks +cannot hear what the trees are plotting about, it is +not so with the voices of the water. These are +sharper, more definitive; they rise re-echoing from +the rocky walls and are recognisable each by its +distinctive note at incredible heights of the sheer, +glassy, granite frontlets. +</p> + +<p> +In the glacial valleys, such as Yosemite, Tehipite, +and Hetch Hetchy, where young rivers drop +from the headlands in long streaming falls, the +noise of them contending with the wind makes +mimic thunder. Immense curtains of falling +water are tossed this way and that, they are +caught up and suspended in mid-air, and let fall +crashing to the lower levels. When the wind +blows straight up the cañon they will rear +against it, and leap out a shining arc, shattering +in mid-air like bursting bombs of spray. But +later in the season, when the streams are heavy +with the melting snows, the wind itself is +shattered by the weight of falling water—it +exhausts itself in obscuring clouds of silver dust. +When from Whitney or Williamson or King's +Mountain you can see half-a-hundred such young +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_160' name='Page_160'>[160]</a></span> +rivers roaring to the morning, it is as beautiful +and as terrifying as the sight of youth to timorous +age. They go leaping with their shining shields, +and their shouting shakes the rocks. Neither you +nor they believe that the most and the best they +will come to is an irrigating canal between sober +rows of prunes and barley. +</p> + +<p> +Higher than the forests, or the waters rising +out of them, is the <i>Py-weack</i>, the Land of Shining +Rocks. They shine with glacier polish; horses on +the high trails sniff suspiciously at their glittering +surfaces. Time can lay slight hold on them by +thunder, by frost, and the little grey moss; it has +not yet subdued the front of Oppapago. Here +between snowless ribs and buttresses are the +shrunken glaciers that feed the streams, little toy +models of the ancient rivers of ice. The snowfields +of the Sierras are not so inconsiderable as +they seem: they are dwarfed by the precipices +among which they hide. Inaccessible to ordinary +mountain travel, they make their best showing +from the surrounding plains, where, lifted in the +middle air, they glow with ethereal whiteness. +Close by they display a bewildering waste of +broken ice, boulders, and crevasses, made bleaker +by the cobalt shadows. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_161' name='Page_161'>[161]</a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i281" id="i281"></a> +<img src="images/i-281.jpg" width="550" height="373" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">MOUNT SHASTA—SIERRA GLOW +</p> +</div> + +<p> +North the line of peaks stretches, broken by the +passes that give access to the west. Between +them, above the source of streams, in the ice-gouged +hollows, lie unfathomable waters that take +all their life from the sky. Or perhaps they are +reservoirs from which the sky is made, fluid jade +and azulite and hyacinth and chrysoprase, as if +the skies of many days had run their colours in +those bleak bowls. For at this altitude the wave +contour of the range comes out most sharply; the +sky is strangely deep and darker, as if through its +translucence one glimpsed the void of space. One +sees the moon and the planets wandering there with +pale lamps held aloft. +</p> + +<p> +No life of any sort is visible from here. Farther +down toward the coast, over the forested moraines, +the condor may be seen leaning against the wind at +sunrise. On the edge of the abysmal cañons eagles +make their nests and go dropping down the +shadowy depths to seek their food from God, but +they do not rise to these stark heights. Sometimes +a clanging horde of water-fowl, beating up +from the Gulf of California overland to the +Canadian marshes, will grow bewildered in the +face of the great wall-sided cliffs; circling they +attempt the forward flight, only to circle and +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_162' name='Page_162'>[162]</a></span> +rise anew, until, wing-weary in that thin air, they +sink exhausted to the margin of a mountain lake, +satisfied at last to thread their way humbly along +the creek-beds to open country. +</p> + +<p> +The live forces of the High Sierra are the +forces of wind and light. One feels the push +of tremendous currents flowing between the +peaks as among rocky islands. Day by day +they may be charted by the cloud fragments +floating on them, by the banners of dry snow +dust, streaming out like long grass from the +island shores. Thundering fleets of cumuli drift +up the wind rivers and assault the great domes +of Whitney and Oppapago. The light breaks +through all the varying cloud strata, and colours +them with splendour; the glow of the clouds +reflected on the snow is caught by the watchful +mountain-lover far down the valleys of Inyo and +San Joaquin. This painted hour of sunset is the +apotheosis of mountains, but for me it has less +of majesty than the morning after deep snows. +These come usually early in the season. The +air for days will be full of the formless stir, then +the range withdraws itself behind a veil which +closes from tented peak to peak, and includes +sometimes the parallel desert ranges which lie +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_163' name='Page_163'>[163]</a></span> +along its eastern coast. Twenty feet will fall in +a single session of the white gods behind the veil. +Then comes a morning blue and sharp as a +spear-thrust. Every tree is like an arrow feathered +in green and white. Airy bridges built upon the +bending stems shut in the water-courses; the +moraines are smooth and soft as the backs of +huddled sheep. By night the range shows from +the valley as a procession of winged figures holding +the snows upon their bosoms. And that, after +all, is the business of mountains. The western +front of the Sierra Nevada, which receives the +full force of the Pacific storms, is rewarded +with the stateliest forests. Before those extended +snowy mountain arms lie the great Twin +Valleys; behind them stretches the illimitable sage-brush +country, the backyard of the Sierra. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i287" id="i287"></a> +<img src="images/i-287.jpg" width="550" height="365" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">VALLEY OF THE YOSEMITE +</p> +</div> + +<p> +"Sage-brush country" is one of those local +terms that stand for a type of landscape as +distinctive as the moors of England and the +campagna of Italy. It means first of all, open +country, great space of sky, what the inhabitants +of it call "eye-reach," treeless except for a few +cotton-woods and willows along the sink of intermittent +streams, and stippled with low shrubs of +artemesia. This is the true "sage-brush," though +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_164' name='Page_164'>[164]</a></span> +it is no sage, the sacred bush of Diana, <i>Artemisia +tridentata</i>. It may grow in favoured districts +man-high, but ordinarily not more than two or +three feet in the arid regions which it haunts. +Other social shrubs will be found pre-empting +miles of the territory to which the artemesia +gives its name, <i>coleogeny</i>, <i>pursia</i>, <i>dalia</i>, "creosote," +but none other gives it the distinctive feature, the +web of pale, silky sage-green against the sun-burned +sand. +</p> + +<p> +Other items of the sage-brush landscape are so +constant that they are immediately suggested by it: +mountains hanging on the horizon in opalescent +haze, low flowing lines of hills overlaid by old +lava-flows, the "black rock" simulating cloud +shadows on the distant ranges, dry red cones of +ancient volcanic ash, and great flat table-topped +"buttes" of the painted desert. +</p> + +<p> +White-crested ranges on the one hand and +buttes on the other mark the limits of the sage; +for where snow-caps are, there are trees, and where +the buttes begin the cactus and the palo verde +reign. +</p> + +<p> +A sage-brush country is a cattle country +primarily; perhaps there may be mines; where +there is water to be stored for irrigation there will +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_165' name='Page_165'>[165]</a></span> +be towns, but the virtue of the sage is that it +grows in lands that man, at least, has found no +other use for. +</p> + +<p> +It can thrive on an allowance of water that will +support no larger thing than a chipmunk or a +lizard, and, growing, feeds the cattle on a thousand +hills. Therefore it is indispensable to any picture +of the sage-brush country that there should be +herds at large in it and vaqueros riding, or far +down the bleached valley the dust of a rodeo rising. +It is impossible to think of such a land and not +think of these things, free life, and air as clear and +vibrant with vitality as a bell. I can never think +of it myself without seeing, in addition, the +vultures making a merry-go-round over Panamint, +and up from Coso the creaking line of a twenty-mule +team. +</p> + +<p> +The sage-brush country of California begins +properly at the foot of the Sierras where the state-line +sheers east by south from Lake Tahoe. It +covers the high valleys that divide the true Sierra +from the older, lesser ranges that keep it company +as far south as Olancha. Below Mono Lake, that +part of the gold region made immortal by Mark +Twain, it gives to the chrome- and ochre-tinted soil +its distinguishing characteristic. From the long +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_166' name='Page_166'>[166]</a></span> +arm of Death Valley it begins to be encroached +upon by the mesquite, and at Indian Wells it is +driven close under the lee of the last Sierra. The +range of which San Bernardino and San Jacinto +are outposts carries the artemisia farther desertward, +almost to the Colorado River in fact, and +south again about the Salton Sea it holds its own +with sahuro and palo verde. Its eastern border, +like that of the wild tribes along the Mojave line, +is lost in pure desertness. Formerly much of that +country from San Bernardino to the sea was native +to the sage, and all the southern end of the San +Joaquin. But now all this is replaced with +orchards, for the artemisia proves nothing so much +of the soil on which it grows as that, given a due +allowance of water, it is as desirable for other +things. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i296" id="i296"></a> +<img src="images/i-296.jpg" width="550" height="409" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">THE HALF DOME, YOSEMITE +</p> +</div> + +<p> +All this country which I have described to you +has so recently been sea that the mark of its old +beach-line is plainly to be traced along the east +Sierra wall. Still the evaporating water leaves +vast deposits of salt and alkali, blinking white in +the sink of Death Valley. There are lakes there +still where the salt crusts over hard and clear like +ice, and deep thick puddles of bitter minerals, the +lees of that ancient inland ocean. From the top +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_167' name='Page_167'>[167]</a></span> +of any of the denuded desert ranges it is possible +to trace the winding bays and estuaries, and, with +an eye for location, to choose the points at which +one may fairly expect to find potsherds, amulets, +fire-blackened hearthstones, and the middens of a +nameless people who built their primitive towns +along its beaches. It must have had much to +recommend it in those days before the sage-brush +took it, for this inland sea, rather than the more +mountainous Pacific shore, was the route taken by +the ancient migratory peoples who left their +undecipherable signs scored into the rocks from +the Aztec country to the Arctic. On isolated +igneous rocks near their old encampments, and high +on the walls of the box canons, such as might have +been tide-rifts, high above any mechanical contrivance +of the present-day Indians, the records +resist equally the shifts of sea and sand and the +efforts of modern science to read them. +</p> + +<p> +Whether the ghosts of the departed peoples ever +revisit the ancient beaches, the ghosts of waters +haunt there daily. Morning and mid-afternoon the +rivers of mirage arise; they well out of the past +and are poured trembling on the plain; phantom +fogs blow across them, wraiths of trees grow up +and are reflected in false streams. Often in very +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_168' name='Page_168'>[168]</a></span> +early light there are strange suggestions of——dunes +and boulders perhaps? Only no boulders +in that country are flat-topped like the houses +built in lands of the sun, and no dunes are wall-sided. +Mirage, we are told, is but a picture of +distant things, mirrored on atmospheric planes, but +then maybe a ghost is only a mirage deflected on +our atmosphere from worlds outside our ken, and +it is always easy in the desert to see things that +you cannot possibly believe. Whatever they are, +mirages are real to the eye. I mean that they are +not to be winked away nor dissipated by contact. +I have watched a vaquero ride into one of them +and drown to all appearances, or seem to be +swimming his horse across its billows, all of him +below its surface as completely hidden as by rivers +of water. Moreover, mirages tend always to occur +under given conditions and in the same places. I +recall one of the stations on the old Mojave stage +road, which, approached from the north about +an hour after sunrise, would instantly duplicate: +two houses, two lines of poplars, two high +corrals. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i302" id="i302"></a> +<img src="images/i-302.jpg" width="550" height="391" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">SHASTA—SNOW CLOUDS +</p> +</div> + +<p> +Occasionally along the edge of the sage-brush +country one may see that surpassing wonder, the +moon mirage, poured like quicksilver along the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_169' name='Page_169'>[169]</a></span> +narrow valleys, as if the thirsty land had dreamed +of water. +</p> + +<p> +It is odd how this suggestion of sea and river +clings to a country where there is nothing harder to +come by than good water to drink. For any other +purpose it is not to be thought of. After one of +those terrible wind storms, the only really incommoding +desert weather, it is possible to find great +spaces all rippled and lined in water-markings like +a sea that has suddenly undergone a magic transformation +into sand. The contours of the desert +ranges are billowy; they rise out of the plain like +the grey-backed breakers of open sea. The valleys +between are narrow and trough-like; the shores of +them are lined with crawling dunes that, under +the steady pressure of wind currents, are for ever +sliding up their own peaks and down the other side, +changing place without ever once losing the long +slope to windward and the abrupt landward fall of +waves. +</p> + +<p> +Another item which adds to the suggestion of +the illimitable spread of sage-brush country, like +the sea, is the way the sparse forests of the +mountain-tops appear to be islanded by it. For +the sage-brush extends on across the Great Basin, +it stretches into Montana and south to Arizona +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_170' name='Page_170'>[170]</a></span> +and New Mexico, it works about the lower end +of the Rocky Mountains and well into the great +central plain. The ranges lie thick in it as ocean +swells, as I have said, and stepping from crest to +crest has come the fox-tail pine, <i>Pinus flexilis</i>, all +the way from Humboldt Mountain to San Jacinto. +A sinewy, thinly-branched species, as straight-backed +as an Indian, it has little affinity for its +noble congeners of the Sierra forests, but keeps to +the dry and open ridges, nourished by clouds and +by infrequent shallow snows. With it, but at +lower levels to which the <i>flexilis</i> will never come, +is found frequently the one-leaved piñon pine, the +food-crop of the wild tribes. But the piñon is a +pushing sort, it establishes itself upon the slightest +invitation. +</p> + +<p> +There is a story told in the desert of how this +grey, round-headed tree was once a very great +<i><span lang='es_ES'>capitan</span></i>, who, in order that his death might be as +beneficent to his people as his life had been, was +changed into the foodful pine. Whether the legend +is true or not, certain it is that if you sit down by +a piñon, wherever found, and stay long enough, +you will see Indians. They might come in the +Spring looking for <i>taboose</i>, or later for willows and +grasses for basketry, for seeds of sunflower and chia, +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_171' name='Page_171'>[171]</a></span> +to shoot doves by the water-holes or to hunt chuckwallas. +A chuckwalla is a lizard, a kind of dragon in +miniature, barred black and white, and as offensive +to look at as he is harmless, in fact very good +eating and not too plentiful. Mojaves, Shoshones, +Paiutes, Pimas, all the tribes of the sage-brush +country, have this in common, that they live very +close to the earth; roots, seeds, reptiles, thick pads +of the cholla cactus, even the grass of the field, +serve them. They look, indeed, as though they +had been made of the earth on the very spot that +produced them, of the black rock, the brown sand, +and the dark water that collects in polished basins +of the wind-denuded ranges. +</p> + +<p> +Very little rain gets past the heaven-raking +crest of the Sierra Nevada into the sage-brush +country; the most that falls is blown up from the +Gulf of California along the draw created by the +close, parallel desert ranges. It is precipitated +usually under atmospheric conditions that produce +violent drops and changes. All that the traveller +is likely to find of it is in these rock reservoirs +under the run-off of some bare granite cliff, or in +the rare, persistent "water-holes" hollowed out by +beasts or men, marked in the landscape by one +lone tree perhaps, or a clump of shrubby willows. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_172' name='Page_172'>[172]</a></span> +Often there will be no mark at all except the +frequency along the trail of skeleton cattle or wild +sheep, pointing all in one direction, as they died +on their way to the far-between drinking-places. +There are districts in this back-door country where +evaporation from the body is so rapid that death +overtakes the chance prospector even with water in +sight or in his canteen across his back. For years +a notorious outlaw protected himself in the Death +Valley region, by filling in all the springs in a circle +about the territory to which he had retreated. +Beyond that waterless rim even the law could not +penetrate. +</p> + +<p> +And yet how the land repays the slightest +moisture! Years when the Kuro-Siwa swings +closer to our coast and the winds are friendly, I +have seen all that country, from Tehachapi, outside +the wall, to San Gorgiono, one sheet of blue and +gold. Seeds of a hundred tender annuals lie in the +loose sands for years between the shrubby sage, +their vitality unimpaired by the delayed resurrection +of a chance wet spring. Often I have sifted the +sand in my fingers looking for a sign of the life-giving +principle which bursts so suddenly into +beauty, without finding it. Yet after years in +which there is no alteration in the aspect of the +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_173' name='Page_173'>[173]</a></span> +country, except the insensible change of the sage +tints from grey to green and grey again, the miracle +takes place, the blossomy wonder is upon the +world. +</p> + +<p> +As a matter of fact, the sage-brush country is by +no means the desert that it looks to the casual eye. +Besides the social shrubs which have each their own +blossom and seed time, even the driest years will +afford a few blooms of crimson mallow, and in the +shelter of every considerable shrub some dwarfed +and delicate phacelia or nemophilia. Even out of +dunes which bury its hundred old trunks to the +new season's twigs, the mesquite will bear its sweet +foodful pods. If you know at what hours to look +for it, wild life is never absent, but it is not ordinarily +to be found by white men blundering about in +broad noon. +</p> + +<p> +It is only when you meet, in the midst of great +open valleys wherein there is nothing growing +higher than the knees of your horse, and nothing +moving bigger than the little horned toad under +the cactus bush, bands of Indians well fed, cushiony +with fat of mesquite meal and chia, that you +understand how little you know of the land in +which you move. +</p> + +<p> +There is a Paiute proverb to the effect that no +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_174' name='Page_174'>[174]</a></span> +man should attempt the country east of the Sierras +until he has learned to sleep in the shade of his +arrows. This is a picturesque way of saying that +he must be able to reduce his wants to the limit of +necessity. Those who have been able to do so, and +have trusted the land to repay them, have discovered +that the measure is over-full. +</p> + +<p> +A man may not find wealth there, nor too much +of food even, but he often finds himself, which is +much more important. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_175' name='Page_175'>[175]</a></span> +</p> + +<h2> +INDEX +</h2> + +<p class="center"> +<i>The illustrations are indexed in italics.</i> +</p> + +<ul class="none"> +<li class="alpha"> +Alcatraz, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> +</li> + +<li> +Alviso, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> +</li> + +<li> +Angels, <a href="#Page_138">138</a> +</li> + +<li> +Antioch, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> +</li> + +<li> +Arbolado, <a href="#Page_84">84</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Arroya," definition of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Bakersfield, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> +</li> + +<li> +Berkeley Hills, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Blue Lake, Lake County</i>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a> +</li> + +<li> +Buena Vista, <a href="#Page_122">122</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Cabrillo, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> +</li> + +<li> +Cahuenga, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> +</li> + +<li> +Calaveras, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> +</li> + +<li> +Camulas, <a href="#Page_41">41</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Cañon in the Sierra Madres</i>, <a href="#i077">49</a> +</li> + +<li> +Carmel, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> +</li> + +<li> +Carmel River, <a href="#Page_76">76</a> +</li> + +<li> +Carmel Valley, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> +</li> + +<li> +Carquinez, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> +</li> + +<li> +Carquinez Strait, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Castle Crag, Rattlesnake Cañon</i>, <a href="#Page_137">136</a> +</li> + +<li> +Castro, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> +</li> + +<li> +Catalina, <a href="#Page_49">49</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Cemetery, The, Santa Barbara Mission</i>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a> +</li> + +<li> +Cession of California from Mexico, <a href="#Page_48">48</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Clear Lake, Lake County</i>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Coasts of Adventure, The," <a href="#Page_47">47</a>-<a href="#Page_60">60</a> +</li> + +<li> +Colorado River, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> +</li> + +<li> +Contra Costa, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> +</li> + +<li> +Coronado, <a href="#Page_23">23</a> +</li> + +<li> +Coronel, Don Antonio, <a href="#Page_48">48</a> +</li> + +<li> +Corta Madero, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> +</li> + +<li> +Coso, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> +</li> + +<li> +Coulterville, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Cypress Point, near Carmel</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Death Valley, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Donner Lake</i>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a> +</li> + +<li> +Donner Lake, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> +</li> + +<li> +Drake, Sir Francis, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Eagle Rock, <a href="#Page_47">47</a> +</li> + +<li> +Emigrant Gap, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Eucalyptus Grove, A</i>, <a href="#i053">33</a> +</li> + +<li> +Exeter, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Faralones, The, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> +</li> + +<li> +Farmington, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> +</li> + +<li> +Fort Point, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> +</li> + +<li> +Francis of Assisi, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> +</li> + +<li> +Franciscan "Frailes," <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a> +</li> + +<li> +Frémont, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> +</li> + +<li> +Fresno, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> +</li> + +<li> +Fuca, Juan de, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +<i>Glendale, Valley of the San Gabriel</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> +</li> + +<li> +Golden Gate, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Golden Gate and Black Point</i>, <a href="#i171">107</a> +</li> + +<li> +Gulf of California, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_176' name='Page_176'>[176]</a></span> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +<i>Half Dome, The, Yosemite</i>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> +</li> + +<li> +Hamlin, Jack, <a href="#Page_137">137</a> +</li> + +<li> +Harte, Bret, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a> +</li> + +<li> +Hetch Hetchy Valley, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> +</li> + +<li> +"High Sierras and the Sage-Brush Country, The" <a href="#Page_149">149</a>-<a href="#Page_174">174</a> +</li> + +<li> +Hôtel Del Monte, <a href="#Page_76">76</a> +</li> + +<li> +Humboldt Mountain, <a href="#Page_170">170</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Indian Wells, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> +</li> + +<li> +Inyo Valley, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Jackass Hill, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> +</li> + +<li> +Jimtown, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> +</li> + +<li> +Jumping Frog, the, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Kaweah Mountain, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> +</li> + +<li> +Kaweah River, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> +</li> + +<li> +Kern River, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a> +</li> + +<li> +King's Mountain, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> +</li> + +<li> +King's River, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> +</li> + +<li> +King's River Cañon, <a href="#Page_137">137</a> +</li> + +<li> +Klamath River, <a href="#Page_143">143</a> +</li> + +<li> +Kuro-Siwa Current, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Laboratory Point, <a href="#Page_68">68</a> +</li> + +<li> +Lake Mono, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> +</li> + +<li> +Lake Tahoe, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Lake Tahoe</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Land of the Little Duck, The," <a href="#Page_107">107</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Laurel Lake, Upper Sacramento</i>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a> +</li> + +<li> +Lindsay, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Looking down on Monterey and the Bay</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> +</li> + +<li> +Lopez, Francisco, <a href="#Page_47">47</a> +</li> + +<li> +Los Angeles, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a> +</li> + +<li> +Los Angeles River, <a href="#Page_30">30</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +<i>McCloud River</i>, <a href="#i235">139</a> +</li> + +<li> +Madera, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> +</li> + +<li> +Maldonado, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mare Island, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mendocino Country, <a href="#Page_141">141</a> +</li> + +<li> +Merced River, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Mill Valley</i>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Mirror Lake, Yosemite</i>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mission Dolores, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mission Point, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mission River, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mission of San Carlos Borromeo, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mission San Fernando, <a href="#Page_47">47</a> +</li> + +<li> +Missions, ruins of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mokelumne River, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> +</li> + +<li> +Monterey, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Monterey, the Port of," <a href="#Page_63">63</a>-<a href="#Page_84">84</a> +</li> + +<li> +Monterey Cypress, <a href="#Page_72">72</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Mothering Mountains," <a href="#Page_27">27</a>-<a href="#Page_24">24</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mount Oppapago, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mount Shasta, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Mount Shasta</i>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mount Whitney, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> +</li> + +<li> +Mount Williamson, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Napa, <a href="#Page_118">118</a> +</li> + +<li> +Noriega's, <a href="#Page_134">134</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Olancha, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Old Spanish Gardens," <a href="#Page_87">87</a>-<a href="#Page_103">103</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Pacific Grove, <a href="#Page_75">75</a> +</li> + +<li> +Padre Jayme Bravo, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a> +</li> + +<li> +Padre Lausan, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> +</li> + +<li> +Padre Serra (Junipero Serra), <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> +</li> + +<li> +Paiute Indians, <a href="#Page_96">96</a> +</li> + +<li> +Pajaro, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> +</li> + +<li> +Pajaro river, <a href="#Page_64">64</a> +</li> + +<li> +Pala, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Palatingwas," <a href="#Page_20">20</a> +</li> + +<li> +Palo Corona, <a href="#Page_80">80</a> +</li> + +<li> +Panamint, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> +</li> + +<li> +Pasadena, <a href="#Page_34">34</a> +</li> + +<li> +Paso Robles, <a href="#Page_56">56</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Patio, The, Old Spanish Residence</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Pescadero, Monterey Bay</i>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a> +</li> + +<li> +Pieoras Blancos, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> +</li> + +<li> +Point Conception, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> +</li> + +<li> +Point Lobos, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a> +</li> + +<li> +Point of Pines, <a href="#Page_67">67</a> +</li> + +<li> +Point Pinos, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_177' name='Page_177'>[177]</a></span> +</li> + +<li> +Point Sur, <a href="#Page_70">70</a> +</li> + +<li> +Portersville, <a href="#Page_135">135</a> +</li> + +<li> +Portola, Don Gaspar de, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +<i>Redlands</i>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Redwoods</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Rio," A, <a href="#Page_30">30</a> +</li> + +<li> +Riverside, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Sacramento, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sacramento River, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Sage-Brush country," meaning of term, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> +</li> + +<li> +Salinas, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> +</li> + +<li> +Salinas River, <a href="#Page_64">64</a> +</li> + +<li> +Salton Sea, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sausalito, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Antonio, <a href="#Page_57">57</a> +</li> + +<li> +"San Antonio," the, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Bernardino, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Carlos, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Clemente, <a href="#Page_48">48</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Diego, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Diego, Bay of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>San Diego, looking towards Point Loma</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Emigdio, <a href="#Page_128">128</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Fernando, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Francisco, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Francisco, Bay of, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Gabriel, <a href="#Page_36">36</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Gabriel Valley, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Gorgiono, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Gorgiono, Pass of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Jacinto, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Joaquin, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Joaquin River, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Joaquin Valley, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Jose, Señor, <a href="#Page_10">10</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Juan, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Juan Bautista, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Juan Capistrano, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Luis Rey, <a href="#Page_19">19</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Pablo, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Pablo Bay, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Quentin, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> +</li> + +<li> +San Raphael, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a> +</li> + +<li> +Santa Barbara, <a href="#Page_58">58</a> +</li> + +<li> +Santa Catalina, <a href="#Page_48">48</a> +</li> + +<li> +Santa Clara, <a href="#Page_54">54</a> +</li> + +<li> +Santa Cruz Coast, <a href="#Page_74">74</a> +</li> + +<li> +Santa Cruz Mountains, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Santa Cruz Mountains, the Coast Range</i>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> +</li> + +<li> +Santa Inez, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a> +</li> + +<li> +Santa Margarita, <a href="#Page_56">56</a> +</li> + +<li> +Santa Rosa, <a href="#Page_48">48</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sequoia, origin of name, <a href="#Page_155">155</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Shasta—Snow Clouds</i>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sierra Madre, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sierra Nevada, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sierra Nevada, origin of name, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sierras, the, <a href="#Page_4">4</a> +</li> + +<li> +Solano, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sonoma, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sonoma County, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sonora, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Sparrow-Hawk's Own, The," <a href="#Page_3">3</a>-<a href="#Page_23">23</a> +</li> + +<li> +Squaw Creek, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> +</li> + +<li> +Stanislaus River, <a href="#Page_137">137</a> +</li> + +<li> +Stockton, <a href="#Page_123">123</a> +</li> + +<li> +Suisun, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a> +</li> + +<li> +Sur, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Sycamores, a Coast Range Cañon</i>, <a href="#i095">59</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Table Mountain, <a href="#Page_138">138</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Tall Chaparral, Santa Cruz</i>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a> +</li> + +<li> +Tamalpias, Mount, <a href="#Page_109">109</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Tamalpias</i>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a> +</li> + +<li> +Tasajara, <a href="#Page_83">83</a> +</li> + +<li> +Tehachapi, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a> +</li> + +<li> +Tehipite Valley, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> +</li> + +<li> +Tejon, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> +</li> + +<li> +Tejon Pass, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a> +</li> + +<li> +Temblors, The, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>"Three Brothers, The," Yosemite</i>—<i><a href="#i001">Frontispiece</a></i> +</li> + +<li> +Tiburon, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_178' name='Page_178'>[178]</a></span> +</li> + +<li> +Trinity River, <a href="#Page_143">143</a> +</li> + +<li> +Truthful James, <a href="#Page_138">138</a> +</li> + +<li> +Tulare, the, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> +</li> + +<li> +Tule River, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> +</li> + +<li> +Tuolumne River, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> +</li> + +<li> +Turlock, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> +</li> + +<li> +Twain, Mark, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a> +</li> + +<li> +"Twin Valleys, The," <a href="#Page_127">127</a>-<a href="#Page_146">146</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +<i>Valley of the Yosemite</i>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> +</li> + +<li> +Visalia, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> +</li> + +<li> +Viscaino, Sebastian, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +<i>Waiting for Duck—Los Baños</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a> +</li> + +<li> +Walker's Pass, <a href="#Page_150">150</a> +</li> + +<li> +Warner's Ranch, <a href="#Page_20">20</a> +</li> + +<li class="alpha"> +Yerba Buena, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> +</li> + +<li> +<i>Yosemite Falls</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a> +</li> + +<li> +Yosemite Valley, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a> +</li> +</ul> + +<p class="center p4"> +THE END +</p> + +<p class="center s08 p4"> +<i>Printed by</i> <span class='smcap'>R. & R. Clark, Limited</span>, <i>Edinburgh</i>. +<span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_179' name='Page_179'>[179]</a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="i314" id="i314"></a> +<img src="images/i-314.jpg" width="481" height="550" alt="" /> +<p class="caption">SKETCH MAP ACCOMPANYING "CALIFORNIA" BY SUTTON PALMER AND MARY AUSTIN (A. AND C. BLACK, LONDON). +</p> +<p class="caption"><a href="images/i-314lg.jpg">View larger image</a></p> + +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a id='Page_180' name='Page_180'>[180]</a></span> +</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44764 ***</div> +</body> |