CHAGRES RIVER.the annoyance I felt at the loss of my mules—a loss which entirely precluded my further advance into the country. Leaving Barnes with the baggage and dogs, Thomas and I proceeded in search of a back-woodsman’s hut, which we had been informed existed in this direction; after following the river for some time, we ascended a steep hill, from the summit of which was presented the most lovely panorama—beneath us the thickly wooded plain extended for miles—on one side bounded by mountains, on the other, melting away in a blue hazy distance;—the windings of the Russian River were marked distinctly in contrast with the dark rocks and foliage that lined its banks, whilst immediately beneath us was a forest of firs and red-wood trees, over which the vultures wheeled incessantly, and not even the sound of an insect disturbed the silence of the scene.From this hill we discovered the hut of which we were in search, situated near a running stream and surrounded by towering red-wood trees. We found the occupant at home; he was a tall sinewy man, a Missourian of the name of March, and he at once cheerfully assisted us. He lent us his mule to bring up our baggage, and by nightfall we were encamped within a few yards of his hut. There were two other backwoodsmen living with March, and these threehad just completed unaided a saw-mill, to which they had applied the power of the stream, by means of an over-shot wheel. The heavy beams that formed the mill-frame, the dam and race, had all been constructed from the adjacent forest trees, and now that the work was completed, wanting only the saw, for which they intended to go to San Francisco, it seemed incredible that so large a frame could be put together by so small a number of men. This saw-mill erected in the forest and of the forest, raising its long beams from the midst of the romantic scenery that surrounded it, was a glorious instance of what energy will accomplish, and of the rapiditywith which each man in an American colony contributes towards the development of the new country’s resources.And it contrasts strangely with the languid inertness of those communities, who with equal brains and handsponderanddreamover the means of supplying wants, even when they have long been felt; to see that here even the uneducated backwoodsman devotes his time and energy to preparing for the wantsto come; buoyed up by an admirable confidence in the rapid growth and prosperity of his country, which confidence is part of his education, and one great secret of his success. If the Americans go a-head, it is principally because they “look a-head.â€� March when he planned his mill and felled his first tree in this solitary forest, ranked with those who wrote from the tents of San Francisco for steam-engines and foundries. Now as I write, these latter are performing their daily work in the city, and have become essential to its wants, whilst March’s mill, seemingly so out of place where I first saw it, can now barely supply the wants of the numerous agricultural population that is settling round about it. March and his companions lived entirely on game, which he assured me abounded; and as for the present at all events I could not proceed, Idetermined at his advice to walk over the hills and look at a valley on which he strongly recommended me to “squat;â€� we therefore started the next morning in search of it, following the directions that March had given us for our guidance to the spot.CHAPTER VI.THE LITTLE VALLEY—THREE MARTYRS—MOUNTAIN LIFE—THE POOR DOES—CASTOR-OIL—A SICK DOG—THE CARPENTARO—GREY SQUIRREL—DIGGER INDIANS—RED-WOOD TREE—AMERICAN RIFLES—GRIZZLY BEAR HUNT—SHELDON WOUNDED—DIFFICULTY IN KILLING THE BEAR—HABITS OF THE BEAR—A THIEF.September, 1850.Thecountry which we now traversed consisted of a series of small round-topped hills, uniform in size but varying in feature. The whole had been long since subjected to violent volcanic action, so whilst one hill was crowned with a grotesque mass of rock and cinder, round which the tall wild oats waved desolately, the next enchanted the eye with a profusion of evergreen oaks and flowering arbutus. These hills altered in character as they had been subjected to, or had escaped from the volcanic shower; thus whilst on one side was a huge mound of lava destitute of all vegetation, on the other was a dense mass of rich underwood, from which rose groups of the stately red-wood tree.We saw several old craters, and the cindery desolation that encircled them for some distance yielded suddenly to the encroachment of vegetation; a strife for mastery between these two had existed, and you may believe, if you please, as I do, the volcanic agency to have been under the management of an evil gnome, the wild vines and arbutus to have been protected by a good fay, and that after numerous fierce engagements, a lasting peace had been concluded and the territory equally divided.We put up several hares and covies of partridges, whose parents had never been shot at, and we fully satisfied ourselves as to the existence in abundance of both bears and deer.Arrived at the summit of a hill, the little valley we were in search of lay at our feet. It was scarcely twenty acres in extent, level as a table, bounded on one side by masses of red-wood trees, and on the other by a fine stream, whose banks were shaded with alders and wild vines. The valley itself was free from shrub or tree, excepting that from the centre there rose a clump of seven gigantic red-woods, which growing in a circle, and meeting at the roots, formed a natural chamber to which there was but one inlet.As the land we were on belonged to the UnitedStates government, I determined to take March’s advice, andsquaton this valley, for I became at once enchanted with it, as indeed were my companions: I therefore affixed to the red-wood trees a paper I had long prepared and kept in my knapsack for immediate use, and which ordered all men to take notice that F. M. claimed, under the laws of pre-emption, one hundred and fifty acres of land measuring from that spot, and that he intended to defend his right by force of arms, &c. &c.Considering that, saving the wild Indians, human foot had probably never crossed the spot, the notice scarcely seemed necessary, and the Indians did not respect it, as I shall have occasion to show hereafter.By the time we had walked thoroughly over the property and discovered fresh advantages, and had drunk of the stream and found the water excellent, it was dusk, and not being sufficiently satisfied with our landmarks, to try our way back to our camp that night, we determined on passing it in the red-wood clump; the fire was soon stacked and lighted—that jolly camp-fire that on the instant suffuses everything around it with its cheerful ruddy glow, and sends its sharp crackle merrily up through the air, throwing a charm over the most inhospitable desert, and giving a zest to the hunter’s meal be it ever so homely.How naturally as we sit around it we recall the memory of wet seasons, When benighted, damp, chilly, and tired, we selected amidst the falling mist, the driest and most sheltered spot in the wet brushwood; how we laugh now at the vain attempt to kindle damp leaves and undergrowth; the partial success that engendered hope, only to render the failure of the last match more intolerable; the dark long night, dreary, drizzling, with one of us on guard for danger, and all unable to sleep, watching impatiently for the morning, with the first dull streak of which we stretch our half stiffened limbs, and shouldering the dead game, that no camp-fire over night converted into a well-earned and needful supper, seek some sheltered spot elsewhere, and make a breakfast of it. The recollection of nights like these—and they fall to the lot of every hunter—causes one to contemplate the blazing embers with a simple gratitude, that is not always engendered elsewhere by the possession of the comforts of this world.We had a leash of hares, which being skinned and cleaned were impaled on withers and placed at the fire to roast, where they looked like three martyrs flayed alive, and staked. Whilst they were cooking we filled the red-wood clump with several armfuls of long oat-straw from the adjacent hill.After worrying the three hares, we lighted our pipes, and picquetting the dogs round us, we gave ourselves up to the pleasures of a comparison of the happiness of our position as compared with that of other men, and then I sunk into a gentle slumber (of course), while my companions snored in unison with the dogs.We rose with the sun; and properly speaking, I should take advantage of that fact to inform the reader what part of the surrounding scenery was first bathed in yellow light, and what remained in obscurity; what the deep blue of the distant mountains contrasted with, and what completed the picture in the foreground: but these things are to be found better described in any book of travels of the day; andmoreover, at the time of which I am writing, I was not gazing at the landscape, but was proceeding rather unpoetically to bathe in the river, munching on my way the leg of a cold martyr.In the course of the day we moved our baggage from March’s Mill to our new possession, where I determined on passing the winter.I decided upon enclosing the valley and rendering it fit for agricultural purposes, but as the winter was approaching, I saw that the first thing requisite was to send for a quantity of useful articles that I had stored in readiness at Sonoma, and which consisted of carpenter’s tools, blankets, powder and shot, books, and a small quantity of groceries. For these I despatched Thomas, and the red-wood clump having been perfected in its internal accommodations, by the addition of a boarded floor, a brushwood roof, with a convenient rack for the rifles, and a secure magazine for the powder, Barnes commenced laying his axe to the red-wood trees on the other side of the stream, whilst I shouldered my rifle and supplied the larder.There is but one species of deer here—the black-tailed—and the venison, though generally fat, is insipid, owing perhaps to the fact that the dry season parches up every blade of green stuff, and the deer live on the long self-made hay, which in some parts is veryplentiful, but not nutritious. The deer are generally found in herds of from five to seven, and it requires great caution to “bag them.â€�As the wind at this season of the year blows with little variation from the same point, my ground was almost always of the same nature, the river being in my rear, and the mountains before me. Stalking was out of the question, for from the peculiar formation of the country, which consisted of a series of undulations, no extended view could be procured of a herd, and the long grass which afforded them cover abounded with rattle-snakes. The only plan in such a country is to keep your eyes about you, not forgetting the ground, and walk the deer up, against thewind of course, taking advantage of any cover that may be in your path, in the shape of a rock, and using great caution in showing yourself over the rising ground. The herd will probably then start up with a bound from the long oat-straw at your feet, but seldom afford a fine shot, as they plunge away half concealed by it; now you throw yourself down, and see, the herd has stopped within a hundred yards of you; and here a buck advances chivalrously in defence of his harem—five paces—ten—now he is troubled; for although there is pride in his nostrils, and anger in his stamping hoof, there is indecision in those working ears, and by his eye you may read that if anything very ugly appears, he will run away. But a doe advances; this nerves her lord to a few paces more;—now you may fire;—full at the shoulder;—crash—poor buck! Now load again, and then rush up and cut his throat, he is stone dead; rattle, tattle, tattle, tattle,—mind the snake! Now flay him, if you want the skin, or quarter him if you don’t: this done you can carry home a haunch, the skin, the antlers, the tongue and the brains, and these, with your accoutrements and the hot sun, will probably tire you before you get home. In the evening the poor does, with their soft hearts still palpitating, from the nasty noise your rifle made, and the veryugly appearance of yourself generally, will stand in a group, and turn their wistful eyes in the direction where last they saw their master, and wonder—poor innocents—why he is not there as usual to lead them proudly down to the stream, and take his station on the bank to ward off any danger whilst they drink. Night comes, but he does not appear; then they wander about, and cry and pass a miserable night, whilst you are making a good supper off the buck, and are speaking jocularly of him as a “fat old rascal.â€�The deer is very inquisitive, and if when you have walked up a herd, and have thrown yourself down, in the long grass, you extend your loading rod above your head, with a piece of rag attached to it, the bucks will, even though they wind you, generally approach within killing distance, which, when shooting as I was, for subsistence, should not be more thanseventy yardsif possible. It is always better to make this rule when shooting for the “larder.â€� Where game is thin, fire at nothing that you don’t think certain, until the day wanes, and necessity and an empty stomach oblige you to shoot at everything you see. Where game is wild and difficult to approach, and you are living on your gun, too much precaution cannot be taken to insure, if possible, the bagging ofeverything you hit; for if anything makes sporting cruel, it is the habit that some have of trying long shots, and sending poor brutes away to die a lingering death in the brush. Moreover, I was much in the position of a man with a preserve, and that not overstocked. I could not afford to drive my game, by careless shooting, out of my own beat, and the nature of my country was such that the want of cover in the undulating hills rendered the deer very alert whilst feeding there, and when they took to the mountains in alarm they were lost to the hunter, if alone, so far as this, that they invariably managed to keep a large sized hill between him and themselves; for the Russian River deer are actuallycunning, and never did I see one take to a ravine, or lay himself open in any way when once he ascended the steep. I have often killed before I have left the house twenty minutes, but far more frequently have walked the whole day without seeing a deer.We recovered some wounded deer with the assistance of the blood-hound, Prince; but just as he became useful, he was attacked by a distemper peculiar to the country, which affects the hindquarters with paralysis, and generally kills. I think I saved Prince’s life by administering a tremendous dose of castor-oil on the first appearance of hissymptoms, but he was a very sick dog for a long time, and staggered like a three days’ old calf. Having mentioned castor-oil, I wish to do justice to its invaluable qualities, which would not perhaps have been so thoroughly tested by us were it not that our sole stock of medicine consisted of two quart bottles of it. It was successfully applied to both man and beast in every complaint, and acted with a little tobacco-leaf, as a balm for all outward wounds.Barnes, who was a famous axe-man and was possessed of unusual physical strength and endurance, soon felled a large number of the giant red-woods in the rear of our valley, in order to split them and convert them into rails for enclosing the farm. If we should speak well of the bridge that carries us over, we should also speak well of the tree that roofs us in for the winter, but the red-wood tree (Arbor Vitæ) deserves especial notice on its own merits, which I shall proceed to detail. The size and height attained by the red-wood in California are very wonderful, and faithful accounts of these trees have been received with incredulity. The average size of the full-grown trees may be quoted at from five to six feet in diameter, and about 150 feet in height. This tree maintains in some instances so perfect a perpendicular, that infelling it on a calm day, if one is cut towards the centre, a very small portion of the heart will sustain the immense trunk. The largest tree we discovered at Russian River was not far from the house. Measuring it six feet above the ground, its circumference was 40 feet, and its height about 200 feet. But in Calaveras county, a group of trees exists which measure respectively, 27 feet, 20 feet, 23 feet, 18 feet, and 16 feet in diameter, and from 200 feet to 250 feet in height. The largest of these was felled and the bark removed to San Francisco, where it was erected in its original position, and formed a capacious room.The timber of the red-wood is very durable, and is so easily worked that a man needs but an axe, a betel and a few wedges, to convert the largest of them, provided they are free from knots, into planks, rails or clap-boards, and I have seen Barnes fell a huge fellow, and in less than a fortnight he has carried it all away but the boughs and the bark. It is a fine sight to watch one of these trees fall to the axe; leaving the perpendicular at first so leisurely; then gathering impetus as it nears the ground, crushing all it meets, making the earth vibrate with its shock, and sending forth a booming echo, that startles the game far and wide. The bark of thered-wood is perforated in every direction, and with great regularity, by a kind of starling, called, from this peculiarity,carpentaro, or carpenter. These birds form cells in the tree with great assiduity, and deposit therein acorns, which fit very tightly. They are very quaint and noisy, and employ themselves continually, when not fighting, in depositing acorns in the red-woods. You may see a dozen of them clinging to the bark of one tree in the most uncomfortable positions, pecking away, each at a hole. But the carpentaros work for the more lazy portion of creation, and one of their enemies is the beautiful grey squirrel which abounds here. I have often watched a grey squirrel ascend a red-wood; for the birds work in the upper part of the tree. He is immediately surrounded by carpentaros, who, knowing him of old, are at no loss to divine his object, but the open day robber, nothing daunted, at once extracts an acorn, and popping it in his mouth, he turns his head from side to side in the quaintest manner possible, as if to say to the birds that chatter around him, “Pray go on, don’t mind my feelings.â€� Then down he comes whisking his beautiful silvery tail. Then the carpentaros assemble round the pillaged hole, and scream over the matter so much that you may imagine them to be abusing the squirrel in theirchoicest slang; and presently up comes grey squirrel again for another acorn, having found the first so good; and then, fresh carpentaros having arrived, the noise becomes so intolerable, that the most enthusiastic of naturalists would walk off with his fingers in his ears. The grizzly bear also takes advantage of the exposed condition of the carpentaro’s winter provision, and climbs the red-wood in much the same fashion as the grey squirrel, though less gracefully; so they say: I never saw a bear in this position, and if unarmed I should not wait to study his habits, if I did; for although naturalists tell us that the bear is graminivorous, there is no doubt that the grizzly would sacrifice all the acorns that grow for a juicy piece of the calf of one’s leg.The carpentaro has a more destructive enemy than even the squirrel or the bear, and a greater beast than either—the Digger Indian. These miserable specimens of humanity will light a fire at the root of a well-stocked red-wood tree until it falls; they then extract the carpentaro’s acorns and fill many baskets full, which they carry away.“Eat as much as you like, but pocket none,â€� the justly indignant carpentaros might say.The red-wood tree is the main-stay of California. The supply is inexhaustible, but nature has beensufficiently capricious to make them most abundant in very inaccessible spots, whilst the level plains are covered with a short-grained dwarf oak, serviceable only for firewood. But, however steep the mountains, the Californian red-wood has to fall and to be fashioned to the use of man, and when a steam saw-mill gets perched upon a mountain-top the romance of the forest is gone; its silent grandeur no longer awes the mind; and the trees, whose size and beauty caused such deep impressions and such grave reflections, fall into insignificance as you see them torn into planks and packed on waggons, whilst the once still forest resounds to the sound of the axe and the shrill whistle of the steam-engine. I have been very disappointed at finding these sudden changes in revisiting some of my old hunting-grounds.Thomas now arrived with our stores, which we unpacked with great pleasure, as they had not seen the light since we had boxed them up ourselves in England, and every article was associated with home. We set to work, and in a fortnight had completed a two-roomed house, close to the red-wood clump: we then converted that apartment into a larder and storehouse.It is not my intention to dwell very much upon the subject of deer-shooting, as, even could I saywhat has not been said before by mightier hunters than I, the subject has interest for sporting men alone.I have mentioned in the early part of this chapter, that bears were said to be plentiful in the country I had chosen for my sojourn. The Californian hunter holds the grizzly bear in great respect; and not without reason, when we consider that this animal is difficult to kill, that he is a relentless pursuer when wounded, and that he can run and climb under ordinary circumstances, with more agility than his assailant. On this account, and from the fact that you must, from the nature of his haunts, attack him on foot, a wounded grizzly bear is a worse enemy to encounter than a tiger. March had promised to make up a bear hunt for us, and in a day or two he came over to the farm with two hunters of the name of Sheldon and Carter; both hard-looking fellows, carrying nothing but their rifles, a knife, and a Colt’s revolver, which latter is invaluable in all kinds of hunting.The Americans carried rifles of their own make; capital make too, though too weak in the lock on account of the cheap price at which they are supplied. The bore of their rifles seemed small for bear-shooting, carrying a half-ounce ball, but they seemed toconsider that their skill in shooting counter-balanced this deficiency. I carried the only rifle that I ever used of those I took out, one of German make, carrying a ball of an ounce and a half. I should say here that our rifles were often the subject of discussion with these honest fellows. I had two Rigby’s with an accumulation of sights, which were perfectly useless for my work, although they were beautifully finished weapons; and Barnes’s friendly disputes concerning the relative merits of the American barrel, with its enormous weight of metal and long point-blank range, and the English lock, with its wholesome click, and the American stock, with its carved butt, that gives so much steadiness to the muscles of the body when you aim, resulted in a combination that was highly approved of by all parties; for all these good qualities were amalgamated by the construction of a new stock, and thus a rifle was produced that amongst ourselves enjoyed great celebrity, and this rifle March has probably in his possession to this day.The German rifle, to which I have alluded, was rather too short, but very true within a hundred yards, and its qualities were expressed by its name, “shoulder-breaker,â€� engraved on the stock. It is a rare thing to get a good rifle carrying a heavy ball.We started at once in search of our bear—six in number—and accompanied by a small dog belonging to Sheldon. It was not until the afternoon that we struck upon a fresh bear sign, of which March had had previous knowledge. The sign led into thick underwood in which the bear seeks shade, but which is the worst of all places for killing him. March disposed us in couples; we then spread and entered the thicket at a partially cleared part. Almost immediately I heard a crash, and an angry roar, and then a shot was fired to the left. It was necessary for us to retrace our steps, on account of intervening jungle, to rejoin our party, which done, the bear was in view. I was astonished at his size; standing on his hind-legs with his mouth open like a thirsty dog, and working himself up and down, he indicated that he felt the inconvenience of the pellet that March had intended for his heart, but which had lodged in his alimentary canal. However, in an instant, and as if by a sudden impulse, he again assumed the position of a quadruped and bounded towards March and Sheldon, clearing as much ground at each stride—for he was as big as an ox—as would have done credit to the winner of the Liverpool steeplechase. A shot from the right altered his course again in that direction, for thegrizzly bear will turn to the last assailant, and this enforces the necessity of bear-hunters supporting each other.A momentary uncertainty on his part gave me an opportunity of troubling him with one of my 1½ oz. balls, but this only elicited a grunt and a rush in my direction. I confess that, as soon as my rifle was discharged, I felt great inclination to disregard March’s directions, which were, not to use my revolver, but if possible toreload my rifle directly I had fired, underall circumstances. Whilst in a curious state of uncertainty on this point, though loading, the bear swerved suddenly on one side in chase of the little high-couraged dog that belonged to Sheldon.This dog had been in other bear-hunts and was generally very useful, for the grizzly has a great suspicion of anything behind him, and if a dog can be trained to worry his hams, the bear will turn round and round and afford much facility to the hunters.I fancy the dog must have got hurt or lost his pluck, for he now rushed straight to his master, and the bear followed; Sheldon fired as the grizzly approached, but without effect, and the next moment poor Sheldon was down bathed in blood, one blow had carried away the flesh entirely from one sideof his face, fracturing his jaw-bone in the most frightful manner.The bear disappeared, and probably retired to die, whilst we carried Sheldon home, with what feelings of grief I need not say. We sent him on to Sonoma as soon as possible, and he afterwards recovered, though dreadfully disfigured, and with the loss of an eye. It was perhaps on account of this accident that we made up no more parties for the express purpose of bear-hunting, but left it to chance to meet them, and as it happened, accident threw very few in our way.The chief difficulty in killing the grizzly bear arises from the formation of his head, which is convex. The ball generally glances off sufficiently to avoid the brain; you have in fact but three vital parts, the back of the ear, the spine, and the heart; and it is said that the grizzly bear will live long enough after being shot in the latter part to do much mischief. He is always in motion, and I think the steadiest of hunters will allow that his conduct when wounded is not calculated to improve one’s aim. The very fact of finding that you hit him so often without effect, destroys confidence, and the sudden rushes that the bear makes at his assailant is a great trial to the hunter’s nerve. There are many accidents of the description I witnessed on record, although I knowone or two instances of bears being killed at the first shot.It appears to me that a recorder of travels has a difficulty to surmount, which falls to the lot of no other writer, for whilst duty admonishes him to give a strictly veracious account of everything that comes before his notice (and of a great deal that does not), inclination and the publisher prompt him to avoid prosiness, for this very good reason, that if he enters into details he bores his readers; but then, on the other hand, if he is not sufficiently specific, he is pronounced a “superficial observer.â€�This observation is induced by the necessity of my introducing, at all costs, further accounts respecting the grizzly bear.When we consider the weight of the grizzly, which often reaches fifteen hundred pounds, the enormous strength of which he is possessed, as evidenced by the limbs of trees which he will wrench from the trunk, and his extraordinary speed and activity, we have reason (speaking as one who lives in his vicinity) for congratulation that the animal is of inoffensive habits, and avoids the presence of man. The sole instance to the contrary is that in which you are unfortunate enough to invade the domestic circle of the she-bear when accompanied by her cubs: sheinvariably gives chase the instant she sees the intruder, who, if he is wise, will “draw a bee-lineâ€� in an opposite direction. In running[5]from a bear, the best plan is to turn round the side of a hill, for the bear having then as it were two short legs and two long ones, can’t, under such circumstances, run very fast. There is but one sized tree that you can climb in safety in escaping from a bear, and you may run a long way before you find it. It must be just too small for your pursuer to climb up after you, and just too large for it to pull down, a nice point to hit. The she-bear is invariably irascible when nursing, and perhaps this accounts for the fact that the male-bear is seldom found in her company; to her he leaves the education and support of their progeny, whilst he seeks amusement elsewhere—I might say at his club, for it is the habit of bears to congregate in threes or fours under a tree for hours, and dance on their hams in a very ludicrous manner, with no apparent ostensible object but that of passing the time away and getting away from their wives.I have heard many anecdotes related of grizzly bears. I choose the following as characteristic of a well-established fact that the bear, even wheninfuriated, not only acts from the instinct of self-preservation, but seems loth to kill and mangle what it attacks.In the hills round San José, an unarmed negro came suddenly on a she grizzly with cubs. She pursued him, and fortunately for him struck him on the head, which knocked him down, but did not of course (he being a nigger) inflict any serious damage on the part assailed. The man wisely remained perfectly still, whilst the bear, who knowing nothing about “darkies’â€�heads, supposed she had gained the day by acoup de main, retired for a short distance. After remaining quiet, as he supposed, sufficiently long, the negro thought of getting up, but his first movement was arrested by a crack on the other side of his head, and down he went again, and the bear retired to watch over his interests. It was a long time before the negro again attempted to rise (for more reasons than one), and this was not until the bear had quitted the spot, apparently satisfied; but no sooner was Quashy up to look about him, than the bear darted out from another quarter, and this time she did poor Darky great injury: she tore his back and knocked him senseless, and then half covered him up with leaves. After this she was quite satisfied, and the negro was shortly afterwardsdiscovered and resuscitated, and felt quite unwell all the next day; but told this story long afterwards to me with great satisfaction, and, I need not add, with unimpeachable veracity.I have mentioned the dexterity with which the Spaniard throws the lasso, and the weapon has been successfully employed in entrapping the bear. The noose is thrown over him when he is near a tree, and by riding in a circle he is secured by a dozen thongs. This is one of the feats which the Spaniards assure you theycando.Although the grizzly’s natural food consists probably of roots and acorns, I suppose he must be ranked as omnivorous, for he certainly crunches a bone with great gusto. The bears cleared off any bones that were lying round our hut; and, in one instance, we shot at a couple that came close to our door at night and stole the bones from under the noses of the dogs. One bear walked away with a large piece of meat and the iron hook on which it hung, but whether he swallowed the hook with the bait, or pulled it out with his fingers, we never ascertained; he never brought it back again, so we indulge in the hope that it sticks in his jaws to this day, and that he has found out “qu’il n’y a point de roses sans des épines.â€�Bear meat is eatable, but very devoid of flavour, and I think the grizzly indulges in too much gymnastic exercise to qualify him for the table of the epicure. He figures in the bill-of-fare at all Californian Restaurants, and, as a great number of the common black bears are caught alive in traps, the San Francisco hairdresser has no difficulty in “sacrificing, on any occasion, a real animal for the benefit of his customers.â€�CHAPTER VII.DEER HUNTING—WILD BULLS—WILD FOWL—A DUCK GUN—DRIVING AN OX-TEAM—I REFLECT—AN ESTAMPEDE—THE TIGER CAT—RAINY SEASON—INDIAN FIRES—WASPS—WE ARE ROBBED BY THE INDIANS—I KILL A BEAR—CROSSING A SWOLLEN RIVER.Christmas, 1850.Torender agreeable a life where men are thrown entirely on their own resources, the chief point is to ensure contentment, and nothing conduces more to this end than to apportion to each one of the party an equal and strictly-defined share of work. Forest life, in my case, never altered the relations that existed between myself and those in my employment, nor will real respect ever vanish under the familiar contact which such a life imposes.I gave Barnes the woods and forests, which was not such a sinecure as it is here, as he had full employment for the winter in felling the red-woods, and splitting them into rails for enclosing the farm. Thomas undertook the “hewing and drawing,â€� the cooking, and the internal cleanliness of the house;and this latter is very essential in mountain life. Take everything out of your hut daily and hang it in the sun; then, water well the floor; this drives away the vermin, which abound in the deer and hare skins; it also ensures you against scorpions and centipedes, which are apt to introduce themselves into the firewood. It devolved on me to supply the larder, and the amount of exertion required for this duty varied considerably. One day an easy walk would bring me to a marsh, and a few shots from my double-barreled gun would secure as many wild-ducks as we required, but on another I might be doomed, after a long journey, to extend myself over the carcase of a buck, and then, exposed to a glaring sun, unaided, flay my quarry and disembowel him, quarter him, and carry him home piece by piece, over four or five miles of successive cindery hills. I had no stout little pony with a shaggy mane and tail, such as one sees carrying home the deer in Landseer’s splendid pictures. I had to take as much meat as I could “pick-a-back,â€� or else leave it to the coyotes, who would appear in sight whilst I was yet at work on the carcase. If this part of a hunter’s duty was entailed upon our fashionable deer-stalkers, many of the deer would reap the benefit, not so much by being flayed and carriedhome by members of the aristocracy, as in being left alone.The monotony of this life was varied by excursions into the adjacent country, and these would last two or three days; during which time we left the hut to take care of itself; and, carrying each a rifle and a blanket, with a few other necessaries, we passed our nights by the camp fire, and in the day discovered wonders of nature that amply repaid us for our journey. The first object that attracted our attention was an immense hill of sulphur, and we discovered hot springs strongly impregnated with this mineral in its immediate vicinity. Round one of the springs was an apparently hard crust of sulphur, but this was treacherous, as Thomas found out, for it was the cause of his tumbling in and getting a medicated bath; and, although he soon dried, he smelt so strongly of lucifer matches for some days afterwards as to be almost unbearable. We brought some of the sulphur, which was very pure, away with us. We also discovered large craters, and igneous rocks, piled in such vast confusion as indicated the blind fury with which the earth had torn and rent itself on some former great occasion. The whole of California has been subjected to more than ordinary violent disturbances, but the vegetation of thousands of years has decomposedsince then, and the huge rocks that were once hurled, red-hot, I dare say, into the air, are now deeply-embedded in the surrounding soil.These excursions opened a new field for our rifles, for, whilst taking a bird’s-eye view one morning from the elevation on which we had encamped, our attention was arrested by the appearance of a herd of wild cattle. Having observed the direction in which they were grazing, and finding that, unfortunately, the direction of the wind prevented our heading them, I adopted a plan which proved successful. Carefully keeping them in sight from the rear, as I knew that water was not immediately ahead of them, I foresaw that towards sunset they would alter their course, and, guided by their instinct, graze towards the nearest spring. This they did in the afternoon; and having now a side wind, we hastened to look for cover in their line of march, glad to exchange the slip-shod pace at which for hours we had followed their movements, for a brisk double in the other direction. As soon as we had hit our line, I sent Barnes out to reconnoitre, and he immediately returned, having discovered the spring and a good cover a little in advance of it. We soon took up our positions, and before long the herd appeared in view: five black bulls, one a young one. They were most beautifulbeasts, with sleek and glossy coats; thin in the flank, broad in the chest, and rather short of horn. They evinced uneasiness at once when within shot, and stared in our direction, snuffing the air and pawing the ground. As the young one presented his broadside, he fell on his knees to “shoulder-breakerâ€� and, tail on end, went the rest of the herd at a long trot over the hills. We walked up to our friend to give the “coup de grâce,â€� but, through a want of caution, not usual with him, Barnes got a bad bruise, for the bull, by a sudden exertion, rose and plunged at him, catching him full in the chest, and knocking him down, then fell down himself, never to rise again. Barnes felt some pain for a day or two, which we allayed with the infallible castor oil: but I rather suspect his chief annoyance was caused by having been floored by a young bull, for whom, under ordinary circumstances, I think he was a match in physical strength.Although wild cattle are not described as being indigenous to the country, I have no doubt, from their appearance, that these were so, and that their cows were not many miles away. It is vexatious to be obliged to leave a fine carcase to the wolves and vultures; but as a bullock is too much for three men, and we were far from home, we cut out the best partof it and returned to camp; and the coyotes made a fine noise, during the night, over what remained.The wild fowl now came over in heavy flights and settled in our vicinity. The geese were in incredible numbers; white and grey geese and brant. Of ducks we had several varieties, many of them quite unknown to me, and I regret that I failed, from want of materials, in my endeavours to preserve specimens of them. The geese are very easily shot when first they arrive, but soon become very wary. The easiest and best plan is to construct little huts of green stuff near the marshes they frequent, and you are sure of good flight shooting at daylight. I had a large duck-gun that I had used in punt-shooting in Norfolk, but it was very rebellious, and kicked so, when used from the shoulder without a rest, that I placed it under Barnes’s especial charge; and whenever he felt in particularly good health, he went out with it, and you might see him returning with geese and ducks suspended from every part of his body; his face wreathed in smiles at his good fortune; but the next morning would disclose a bruise on his right shoulder of about the size and colour of a certain popular green dessert plate. Herons and curlew were plentiful, and very tender, jack-snipe in great abundance, but I never disturbedthem, for I am a bad snipe shot, and the first rule in the mountains is to spare your powder. Hares and partridges were in abundance, yet were also spared, as we wished them about the place; but rabbits were rather scarce and very small. If the love of sport, therefore, was sufficient to chain one to this spot, the above enumeration will show that we had not only ample occupation, but variety; yet I determined on adding farming to my other amusements, and although it recurred to me that when I gave up “gentleman farmingâ€� in England, I registered a vow to leave such things to those who better understood them, I thought there could be no danger in trying “an acre of maiden soil.â€�It was our custom of an evening, after our supper was over, the fire piled up with blazing oak logs, and each man had lighted his pipe and received a noggin of schnappes, after the fatigues of the day, to congregate in one room and there, after lighting a candle, one of us would read a book aloud. I had a good stock of books, though they travelled in a small compass, and as they were, for the most, by Fielding, Smollett, De Foe, Le Sage, Goldsmith, and that class of writers, they all bore reading twice, and more than twice; so that our evenings were passed very sociably. Barnes, too, who was an uneducated man, was takinginstructions in writing from Thomas, and began to learn in this wild spot what they never tried to teach him in the Christian village where he first saw the light. One evening these amusements were set aside for the discussion of the subject of the cultivation of a piece of the farm. Onions were at this time commanding fabulous prices in San Francisco; and a very simple calculation proved, as distinctly as possible,on paper, that one acre planted with onions would realise an enormous profit, provided the onions came up. To ensure this last important point, I engineered a ditch, which was to convey water for their irrigation from our stream; and leaving the others to carry out these works, I started on foot for San Luis, where I arrived, after two days, very footsore. I procured a plough, a waggon, a yoke of strong American oxen, and a fresh supply of groceries, and I then paid a flying visit to San Francisco in a small fishing-boat, and returned to Sonoma with seeds of all kinds, a box of horse-radish roots, which came in very well afterwards with wild bull, and about 500 fine young fruit-trees. The difficulty now was to get my ox-team up to Russian River, for I knew nothing of driving oxen. However, I took lessons from an American teamster; and, as there are but two words of command, and each one, when delivered, isaccompanied by a crack on the head of the ox nearest to you, I found the beasts soon recognised my voice and style of hitting. But I had several rather impetuous streams to pass, some of which were scarcely fordable, for the rain had set in; I was doubtful, therefore, as to the method to be adopted in forcing my team through these. This, my instructor informed me, could only be accomplished by “talking freely to the oxen;â€� and, to my demand for a specimen, he jumped on the waggon, and working himself into a state of apparent phrenzy, he stamped and swore, and beat them, and cracked his whip, and execrated them until they both broke into a round trot. I profited by his advice, and got through my gulches in safety, and I can only hope that the “freedom of speechâ€� I indulged in was justified by the circumstances of the case.I started alone, and as oxen travel very slowly, I was three days and a half getting to the farm. On my way I met a good-looking fellow with black beard and moustaches, who asked me in French the way to the nearest log hut. I entered into conversation with him, and found that he was a Normandy man of the name of Lebret. He had a gun, and a game bag, and gaiters on; in fact, he was a “Frenchman out shootingâ€� all over, with nothing in his game-bag. Ifound that he was hard up and wanted employment, so I told him where I was going, offered him a berth, and with an “Eh bien!â€� up he jumped, and after crossing Russian River, for which we were just in time, as it was much swollen, I landed my cargo and Frenchman safe and sound at the farm, which, after my temporary absence, seemed home in every sense. And it was so. The very dogs knew it for a happy place as they bounded out to bid me welcome back. Home speaks in the grip of Barnes’s bony hand; in the studied polish that my rifle bears as it hangs above my bed; and home speaks in the eager faces that group around the fire and listen to my brief recital of what befel me since we parted.* * * *I had a favourite little spot on my hunting ground that I always selected for my halt; it was a little clump of sheltered rocks, and, after poking about with my loading-rod, to turn out any rattlesnake that might be there, I would sit down and enjoy the luxury of the cool shade and a pipe. All good sportsmen agree, and with great truth, in the impropriety of smoking whilst working up to game; but, after walking a few hours in the hot sun, a pipe is a great luxury, and I was always glad to reach this coverwhere I could indulge my propensity without fear of tainting the surrounding atmosphere.I have often mused, as I have sat in this little den, on the life I was leading, and reflected with regret that its charms must some day succumb to use, and that, in time, even deer hunting would pall on the taste, and the excitement of a wild life become monotonous. With health beating in every pulse, with God’s best gifts strewed round him in profusion, and intellect to fashion them to use, a man acknowledges instinctively the infinite wisdom of the Creator, and feels a proportionate gratitude for His gifts.It is easy to be grateful when one has health, strength, and freedom, and easy to flatter oneself into the belief that a life so primitive is more natural than one more civilised; but it is but the lazy gratitude of one who has nothing else to live for but himself, and who is freed, not alone from the conventionalities which a more civilised state imposes, but from all claim upon his self-denial. Freed in fact from the presence of all evils which beset man elsewhere, and tax his fortitude, his courage, and his virtue; living but for himself, with himself alone to study, he indulges in selfishness, and is happy. And this is the great foundation-stone of the charms we hear associated with a wild free life.One night a herd of deer jumped our railings, and passing close to the hut, crossed the river at great speed, evidently under the influence of fear. We listened, and shortly afterwards heard a pack of wolves, giving tongue in the distance. The next morning the ground, which was soft, gave evidence that there had been anestampedethe night before. Herds of deer had crossed and recrossed in every direction until they had forded the stream, when they made a clean bolt for the mountains. Not a hare was to be seen; and for several days we had an empty larder,—living during that time on wheat cakes, for, unfortunately, we had expended all our small shot. I imagine that wolves are very uncommon in the country, from the facts of the game becoming so much excited at their presence, and that we never heard their bark again. We did not see a wolf, but their “signâ€� was unmistakeable. One day we observed the trail of a panther near the brook, and searched for him without success; but Barnes bagged him next day to his own gun. He was up a tree when Barnes saw him, and came down with great rapidity on being shot through the skull. He was a heavy beast, a male, and of a tawny colour. This animal is called in the country the Californian lion.The tiger cat is a beautiful animal, and veryferocious for its size; we saw two or three of these, about the size of a wild cat, and beautifully marked in the coat. I shot but one, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I could induce him to resign his life without having his skin spoilt. I was agreeably surprised, on my return one day to the hut, to find a horse, saddled and bridled, attached to our railing, and I ascertained that its owner was a countryman of mine who had been “prospectingâ€� the surrounding country, and had been directed by March to our camp. They say we are a stiff and formal people: perhaps so; but in the mountains, an Englishman needs no further introduction than to know a man for a countryman to place the best he has at the stranger’s service. You show him the river and give him a towel: you supply him with a tin plate and spoon, and he helps himself from your smoking pot: you produce a bottle of whiskey in his honour, and after placing the tobacco cannister at his elbow, and pointing out the bundle of blankets that will form his bed, you enter into social conversation. When you part from the man the next morning, you feel quite sorry, and hope to see him again, although there is little probability of that, for these are chance meetings. It is my belief that there is an honest purpose in the hearty wring of the hand that such astray visitor gives you as he mounts his horse to depart. Whether or no, he can’t go away and say your rooms aredamp, and your claret issour, that your wife is afright, and your pictures aretrash, as peoplesometimesdo in more civilised countries, after enjoying the hospitality of their friends. Our guest produced from his pocket, a number of Punch, and one of the Illustrated News—about five months old. I had had opportunities of reading these publications in a great many out-of-the-way parts of the globe, but I never expected that they would reach my log hut. But English periodicals creep in everywhere; and I remember that the first indication I received of some family news of importance was when, at a pic-nic at Mount Lebanon, I picked up a scrap of newspaper which had contained the mustard of some party who had preceded us, and casually glanced at its contents.The rainy season was now approaching, and the heat became occasionally intense. At times the Indians would fire the surrounding plains, the long oat-straw of which would ignite for miles. The flames would advance with great rapidity, leaving everything behind them black and charred. At these times a dense smoke would hang over the atmosphere for two or three days, increasing the heat untilit became insupportable. I had a thermometer with me during the whole of my stay in California, and could produce an elaborate[6]meteorological table; but as people say you should write as you talk, I shall dismiss the subject of the temperature of Russian River by remarking that in summer it was sometimes as warm as Hong Kong, and in the rainy season it was as cold as an average English winter. We have an officer of scientific renown in our naval service, who is selected by the Admiralty to explore the least known portions of the globe; of which parts, when he returns, he publishes an account, which would be interesting in the extreme, but, that, alas! his scientific knowledge oozes out in every line, and the reader, after hopelessly following him through a maze of figures, which are particularly addressed to, and understood only by, the Geographical Society, shuts the book in despair, and remains for life in ignorance of the habits of the Chow-chow Islanders.The Digger Indians burn the grass to enable them to get at roots and wasps’ nests; young wasps being a luxury with them. These fires have the good effect of destroying immense quantities of snakes and vermin; and one can scarcely imagine the extent to which these might multiply were they not occasionally“burnt out.â€� The wasps are so numerous here in summer, as to destroy with rapidity everything they attack. Fleas not only abound in the skins of every beast you kill, but even live on the ground, like little herds of wild cattle; and ants are of all shapes and sizes, and stand up savagely on their hind legs and open their mouths, if you only look at them. The wasps attack any meat that may be hanging up, and commence at once cutting out small pieces, which they carry home, and it is astonishing the quantity they will carry away with them. What they do with it when they get home, I never ascertained; but I presumed that they “jerkedâ€� it for winter use, as the Spaniards do.It was hard work at dinner-time, to know who the meat belonged to, for these wasps used to sting on the slightest provocation; and it was the worst part of Thomas’s duty to take a hare down from a peg and cut it up.But neither ants nor fleas ever troubled our persons; the skins were always sent down to the river whilst yet warm, and the common precautions I adopted in-doors insured us against all annoyance.It now commenced to rain very heavily, but not before I had, fortunately, completed a shed, and laid in a stock of fire-wood, and had also erected anadditional room for drying wet clothes, &c., and for sheltering the dogs. The first rain lasted for four days without cessation; and here again I am unable to state, scientifically, the quantity of water that fell in inches, but on the fourth day the water laid on our valley of such a depth that it just plummed the top of a pair of Cording’s fishing-boots, which came up to about my knees. All the fruit trees and garden seeds were in the ground; and as we had no immediate use for our oxen, and they were up to their bellies in water, we let them run over the hills. Shortly after this the weather cleared up, and we were much distressed at missing my slot-hound. Many days elapsed before we gained any clue to his fate, until, beating up some new ground one day, I came upon what remained of the poor old fellow,—his skin and bones. He had broken away and indulged in a midnight ramble, and had evidently been attacked and overpowered by coyotes, of which two carcasses lay near him. We all felt much regret for the old fellow, for he was a good staunch dog, and had been a great favourite of my late father. We buried his remains and erected a mark to his memory; but, although I experienced the same feeling of regret that most men do when they lose a favourite and faithful hound, I shall refrain from inflicting upon the readerthe doleful stanzas which are generally addressed “To my Dog,â€� on these occasions.January 1.For two months we had alternate rain and sunshine, and nothing of moment occurred. The farm was by this time entirely enclosed, and theonionswith which Barnes had planted an acre, began to appear above the ground. We had also large patches of vegetables for home consumption.When returning one day from an excursion, we found that the Indians had paid our valley a visit, and rifled our house of everything they thought valuable; cooking utensils, blankets, clothes, and tools had disappeared,—but we had taken the precaution of depositing our powder in a secret place which they did not discover. Our rifles, and one blanket each, we had with us on our excursion. The two principal annoyances that resulted from this were, firstly, that the nights being very cold indeed now, and our house very thin, our blankets were a serious loss; secondly, they had stolenall our candles. They also stole our skins; not that I ever intended to bring these trophies away for the benefit of the public, for with the exception of the puma-skin, and some of wild cats, they were of that mild description which are only exhibited in tailors’ shop-fronts, where they assume the form of gentlemen’s hunting inexpressibles. The Indians,it afterwards appeared, were in the habit of annually following the course of our stream to gather the wild grapes which grew on its banks. These people will eat anything, but how they manage the wild grapes is a mystery, for these grapes never ripen, and green gooseberries give no conception of their acidity. In pursuit of these luxuries, however, they came upon our camp, and took away whatever they thought they understood the use of, but evidently departed in a great hurry. I never saw an Indian during the whole of my stay in that part of the country; but, after this robbery, had any ever come within rifle range either of my hut or March’s, he would have been shot like a coyote; for once let an Indian think he can steal with impunity, he will soon attempt to murder you for the clothes on your back.Although I had determined, after Sheldon’s casualty, upon following no more bears into the bush, which is here too thick for the use of the rifle, I still hoped to kill a bear during the winter, trusting to a chance meeting under favourable circumstances; and in this respect I was gratified, inasmuch as I killed a bear to my own gun. Now, in writing from memory, one might almost be excused for a little inaccuracy in point of size and weight; and I must confess that I have an almost irresistible temptation to forget thereal dimensions of the animal that surrendered life on this occasion, and, calling it simply abear, leave its weight and ferocity to be conjectured from my general description of the species. In fact, it was a cub, that I once found playing by itself among some rocks. I should have liked to have taken him home alive, but although his movements were excessively infantine and playful to behold, I have no doubt that had I attempted to capture him, he would not only have bitten me until I had let him go, but would have hallooed for his parents, and brought those amiable persons to the rescue. So I shot him; and I had quite enough to do to carry him home dead, for he was very fat. I must mention here, that although we walked this country for nearly nine months, and continually alighted on the fresh “signâ€� of bear, with the exception of those that visited our hut at night, and the others above mentioned, our party saw but three bears, two of which were wounded, but escaped; and this is probably attributable to the fact that the bear’s sense of hearing enables him to follow up his natural impulse of avoiding the hunter.A Colt’s revolver is invaluable to the deer-hunter, both for self-defence and killing wounded game. Perhaps the best praise I can award to this weaponis in saying that I have had mine for four years, during which time it has been much used andmore abused, but at this moment it is perfect in every respect, and has never required repair.We searched, or “prospectedâ€� the adjacent hills on many occasions, to discover if gold existed in the surface soil, but without success. It is worthy of remark, that this district of country is similar in every respect to that of the mining regions. Here, as there, is a succession of red gravelly hills, interspersed with veins of quartz, all of which have been subjected to volcanic agency that would long ago have ejected the gold from the quartz had there been any in it. But the mountain in labour here brought forth a mouse; whilst a few miles further south it has produced results of a much more satisfactory description. We, however, did discover a peculiar blue quartz, which, upon assay by fusion, was found to contain a large quantity of gold. The presence of silver in small quantities was also evident in another rock we discovered. But, with these exceptions, we found no trace of any description of metal but iron.It was now spring, and I started alone, on foot, for San Francisco, where business required my presence. On arriving at Russian River I found thestream much swollen, but I struck a part of the river where I knew one of the hunters had a log-hut and a dug-out, or canoe. I reached the hut and found no one at home, but the dug-out was hauled up and the paddle was in it.It was easy to launch the dug-out, which was very long and thin; so, seating myself in the stern, I was at once in the current. I need not say that I should never have dreamt of paddling myself over a swollen river in a canoe, had I not accustomed myself to them when in the Borneo rivers; but when I reached the middle of the stream I found the eddies made the dug-out so unmanageable, and the current was so much stronger than I imagined, and the water hissed and bubbled about me to such an extent that I had to keep the dug-out’s head nearly straight up stream, and I began to get quite giddy and bewildered, and wished I was safe on shore. I did effect a landing, an hour afterwards, about a mile lower down the river; I had just strength enough to land, and just sense enough to feel excessively grateful for not having been carried out to sea, or, what is more probable, capsized in the eddies of the stream.
CHAGRES RIVER.
CHAGRES RIVER.
CHAGRES RIVER.
the annoyance I felt at the loss of my mules—a loss which entirely precluded my further advance into the country. Leaving Barnes with the baggage and dogs, Thomas and I proceeded in search of a back-woodsman’s hut, which we had been informed existed in this direction; after following the river for some time, we ascended a steep hill, from the summit of which was presented the most lovely panorama—beneath us the thickly wooded plain extended for miles—on one side bounded by mountains, on the other, melting away in a blue hazy distance;—the windings of the Russian River were marked distinctly in contrast with the dark rocks and foliage that lined its banks, whilst immediately beneath us was a forest of firs and red-wood trees, over which the vultures wheeled incessantly, and not even the sound of an insect disturbed the silence of the scene.
From this hill we discovered the hut of which we were in search, situated near a running stream and surrounded by towering red-wood trees. We found the occupant at home; he was a tall sinewy man, a Missourian of the name of March, and he at once cheerfully assisted us. He lent us his mule to bring up our baggage, and by nightfall we were encamped within a few yards of his hut. There were two other backwoodsmen living with March, and these three
had just completed unaided a saw-mill, to which they had applied the power of the stream, by means of an over-shot wheel. The heavy beams that formed the mill-frame, the dam and race, had all been constructed from the adjacent forest trees, and now that the work was completed, wanting only the saw, for which they intended to go to San Francisco, it seemed incredible that so large a frame could be put together by so small a number of men. This saw-mill erected in the forest and of the forest, raising its long beams from the midst of the romantic scenery that surrounded it, was a glorious instance of what energy will accomplish, and of the rapiditywith which each man in an American colony contributes towards the development of the new country’s resources.
And it contrasts strangely with the languid inertness of those communities, who with equal brains and handsponderanddreamover the means of supplying wants, even when they have long been felt; to see that here even the uneducated backwoodsman devotes his time and energy to preparing for the wantsto come; buoyed up by an admirable confidence in the rapid growth and prosperity of his country, which confidence is part of his education, and one great secret of his success. If the Americans go a-head, it is principally because they “look a-head.� March when he planned his mill and felled his first tree in this solitary forest, ranked with those who wrote from the tents of San Francisco for steam-engines and foundries. Now as I write, these latter are performing their daily work in the city, and have become essential to its wants, whilst March’s mill, seemingly so out of place where I first saw it, can now barely supply the wants of the numerous agricultural population that is settling round about it. March and his companions lived entirely on game, which he assured me abounded; and as for the present at all events I could not proceed, Idetermined at his advice to walk over the hills and look at a valley on which he strongly recommended me to “squat;� we therefore started the next morning in search of it, following the directions that March had given us for our guidance to the spot.
THE LITTLE VALLEY—THREE MARTYRS—MOUNTAIN LIFE—THE POOR DOES—CASTOR-OIL—A SICK DOG—THE CARPENTARO—GREY SQUIRREL—DIGGER INDIANS—RED-WOOD TREE—AMERICAN RIFLES—GRIZZLY BEAR HUNT—SHELDON WOUNDED—DIFFICULTY IN KILLING THE BEAR—HABITS OF THE BEAR—A THIEF.
THE LITTLE VALLEY—THREE MARTYRS—MOUNTAIN LIFE—THE POOR DOES—CASTOR-OIL—A SICK DOG—THE CARPENTARO—GREY SQUIRREL—DIGGER INDIANS—RED-WOOD TREE—AMERICAN RIFLES—GRIZZLY BEAR HUNT—SHELDON WOUNDED—DIFFICULTY IN KILLING THE BEAR—HABITS OF THE BEAR—A THIEF.
September, 1850.
Thecountry which we now traversed consisted of a series of small round-topped hills, uniform in size but varying in feature. The whole had been long since subjected to violent volcanic action, so whilst one hill was crowned with a grotesque mass of rock and cinder, round which the tall wild oats waved desolately, the next enchanted the eye with a profusion of evergreen oaks and flowering arbutus. These hills altered in character as they had been subjected to, or had escaped from the volcanic shower; thus whilst on one side was a huge mound of lava destitute of all vegetation, on the other was a dense mass of rich underwood, from which rose groups of the stately red-wood tree.
We saw several old craters, and the cindery desolation that encircled them for some distance yielded suddenly to the encroachment of vegetation; a strife for mastery between these two had existed, and you may believe, if you please, as I do, the volcanic agency to have been under the management of an evil gnome, the wild vines and arbutus to have been protected by a good fay, and that after numerous fierce engagements, a lasting peace had been concluded and the territory equally divided.
We put up several hares and covies of partridges, whose parents had never been shot at, and we fully satisfied ourselves as to the existence in abundance of both bears and deer.
Arrived at the summit of a hill, the little valley we were in search of lay at our feet. It was scarcely twenty acres in extent, level as a table, bounded on one side by masses of red-wood trees, and on the other by a fine stream, whose banks were shaded with alders and wild vines. The valley itself was free from shrub or tree, excepting that from the centre there rose a clump of seven gigantic red-woods, which growing in a circle, and meeting at the roots, formed a natural chamber to which there was but one inlet.
As the land we were on belonged to the UnitedStates government, I determined to take March’s advice, andsquaton this valley, for I became at once enchanted with it, as indeed were my companions: I therefore affixed to the red-wood trees a paper I had long prepared and kept in my knapsack for immediate use, and which ordered all men to take notice that F. M. claimed, under the laws of pre-emption, one hundred and fifty acres of land measuring from that spot, and that he intended to defend his right by force of arms, &c. &c.
Considering that, saving the wild Indians, human foot had probably never crossed the spot, the notice scarcely seemed necessary, and the Indians did not respect it, as I shall have occasion to show hereafter.
By the time we had walked thoroughly over the property and discovered fresh advantages, and had drunk of the stream and found the water excellent, it was dusk, and not being sufficiently satisfied with our landmarks, to try our way back to our camp that night, we determined on passing it in the red-wood clump; the fire was soon stacked and lighted—that jolly camp-fire that on the instant suffuses everything around it with its cheerful ruddy glow, and sends its sharp crackle merrily up through the air, throwing a charm over the most inhospitable desert, and giving a zest to the hunter’s meal be it ever so homely.How naturally as we sit around it we recall the memory of wet seasons, When benighted, damp, chilly, and tired, we selected amidst the falling mist, the driest and most sheltered spot in the wet brushwood; how we laugh now at the vain attempt to kindle damp leaves and undergrowth; the partial success that engendered hope, only to render the failure of the last match more intolerable; the dark long night, dreary, drizzling, with one of us on guard for danger, and all unable to sleep, watching impatiently for the morning, with the first dull streak of which we stretch our half stiffened limbs, and shouldering the dead game, that no camp-fire over night converted into a well-earned and needful supper, seek some sheltered spot elsewhere, and make a breakfast of it. The recollection of nights like these—and they fall to the lot of every hunter—causes one to contemplate the blazing embers with a simple gratitude, that is not always engendered elsewhere by the possession of the comforts of this world.
We had a leash of hares, which being skinned and cleaned were impaled on withers and placed at the fire to roast, where they looked like three martyrs flayed alive, and staked. Whilst they were cooking we filled the red-wood clump with several armfuls of long oat-straw from the adjacent hill.
After worrying the three hares, we lighted our pipes, and picquetting the dogs round us, we gave ourselves up to the pleasures of a comparison of the happiness of our position as compared with that of other men, and then I sunk into a gentle slumber (of course), while my companions snored in unison with the dogs.
We rose with the sun; and properly speaking, I should take advantage of that fact to inform the reader what part of the surrounding scenery was first bathed in yellow light, and what remained in obscurity; what the deep blue of the distant mountains contrasted with, and what completed the picture in the foreground: but these things are to be found better described in any book of travels of the day; andmoreover, at the time of which I am writing, I was not gazing at the landscape, but was proceeding rather unpoetically to bathe in the river, munching on my way the leg of a cold martyr.
In the course of the day we moved our baggage from March’s Mill to our new possession, where I determined on passing the winter.
I decided upon enclosing the valley and rendering it fit for agricultural purposes, but as the winter was approaching, I saw that the first thing requisite was to send for a quantity of useful articles that I had stored in readiness at Sonoma, and which consisted of carpenter’s tools, blankets, powder and shot, books, and a small quantity of groceries. For these I despatched Thomas, and the red-wood clump having been perfected in its internal accommodations, by the addition of a boarded floor, a brushwood roof, with a convenient rack for the rifles, and a secure magazine for the powder, Barnes commenced laying his axe to the red-wood trees on the other side of the stream, whilst I shouldered my rifle and supplied the larder.
There is but one species of deer here—the black-tailed—and the venison, though generally fat, is insipid, owing perhaps to the fact that the dry season parches up every blade of green stuff, and the deer live on the long self-made hay, which in some parts is veryplentiful, but not nutritious. The deer are generally found in herds of from five to seven, and it requires great caution to “bag them.â€�
As the wind at this season of the year blows with little variation from the same point, my ground was almost always of the same nature, the river being in my rear, and the mountains before me. Stalking was out of the question, for from the peculiar formation of the country, which consisted of a series of undulations, no extended view could be procured of a herd, and the long grass which afforded them cover abounded with rattle-snakes. The only plan in such a country is to keep your eyes about you, not forgetting the ground, and walk the deer up, against thewind of course, taking advantage of any cover that may be in your path, in the shape of a rock, and using great caution in showing yourself over the rising ground. The herd will probably then start up with a bound from the long oat-straw at your feet, but seldom afford a fine shot, as they plunge away half concealed by it; now you throw yourself down, and see, the herd has stopped within a hundred yards of you; and here a buck advances chivalrously in defence of his harem—five paces—ten—now he is troubled; for although there is pride in his nostrils, and anger in his stamping hoof, there is indecision in those working ears, and by his eye you may read that if anything very ugly appears, he will run away. But a doe advances; this nerves her lord to a few paces more;—now you may fire;—full at the shoulder;—crash—poor buck! Now load again, and then rush up and cut his throat, he is stone dead; rattle, tattle, tattle, tattle,—mind the snake! Now flay him, if you want the skin, or quarter him if you don’t: this done you can carry home a haunch, the skin, the antlers, the tongue and the brains, and these, with your accoutrements and the hot sun, will probably tire you before you get home. In the evening the poor does, with their soft hearts still palpitating, from the nasty noise your rifle made, and the veryugly appearance of yourself generally, will stand in a group, and turn their wistful eyes in the direction where last they saw their master, and wonder—poor innocents—why he is not there as usual to lead them proudly down to the stream, and take his station on the bank to ward off any danger whilst they drink. Night comes, but he does not appear; then they wander about, and cry and pass a miserable night, whilst you are making a good supper off the buck, and are speaking jocularly of him as a “fat old rascal.â€�
The deer is very inquisitive, and if when you have walked up a herd, and have thrown yourself down, in the long grass, you extend your loading rod above your head, with a piece of rag attached to it, the bucks will, even though they wind you, generally approach within killing distance, which, when shooting as I was, for subsistence, should not be more thanseventy yardsif possible. It is always better to make this rule when shooting for the “larder.� Where game is thin, fire at nothing that you don’t think certain, until the day wanes, and necessity and an empty stomach oblige you to shoot at everything you see. Where game is wild and difficult to approach, and you are living on your gun, too much precaution cannot be taken to insure, if possible, the bagging ofeverything you hit; for if anything makes sporting cruel, it is the habit that some have of trying long shots, and sending poor brutes away to die a lingering death in the brush. Moreover, I was much in the position of a man with a preserve, and that not overstocked. I could not afford to drive my game, by careless shooting, out of my own beat, and the nature of my country was such that the want of cover in the undulating hills rendered the deer very alert whilst feeding there, and when they took to the mountains in alarm they were lost to the hunter, if alone, so far as this, that they invariably managed to keep a large sized hill between him and themselves; for the Russian River deer are actuallycunning, and never did I see one take to a ravine, or lay himself open in any way when once he ascended the steep. I have often killed before I have left the house twenty minutes, but far more frequently have walked the whole day without seeing a deer.
We recovered some wounded deer with the assistance of the blood-hound, Prince; but just as he became useful, he was attacked by a distemper peculiar to the country, which affects the hindquarters with paralysis, and generally kills. I think I saved Prince’s life by administering a tremendous dose of castor-oil on the first appearance of hissymptoms, but he was a very sick dog for a long time, and staggered like a three days’ old calf. Having mentioned castor-oil, I wish to do justice to its invaluable qualities, which would not perhaps have been so thoroughly tested by us were it not that our sole stock of medicine consisted of two quart bottles of it. It was successfully applied to both man and beast in every complaint, and acted with a little tobacco-leaf, as a balm for all outward wounds.
Barnes, who was a famous axe-man and was possessed of unusual physical strength and endurance, soon felled a large number of the giant red-woods in the rear of our valley, in order to split them and convert them into rails for enclosing the farm. If we should speak well of the bridge that carries us over, we should also speak well of the tree that roofs us in for the winter, but the red-wood tree (Arbor Vitæ) deserves especial notice on its own merits, which I shall proceed to detail. The size and height attained by the red-wood in California are very wonderful, and faithful accounts of these trees have been received with incredulity. The average size of the full-grown trees may be quoted at from five to six feet in diameter, and about 150 feet in height. This tree maintains in some instances so perfect a perpendicular, that infelling it on a calm day, if one is cut towards the centre, a very small portion of the heart will sustain the immense trunk. The largest tree we discovered at Russian River was not far from the house. Measuring it six feet above the ground, its circumference was 40 feet, and its height about 200 feet. But in Calaveras county, a group of trees exists which measure respectively, 27 feet, 20 feet, 23 feet, 18 feet, and 16 feet in diameter, and from 200 feet to 250 feet in height. The largest of these was felled and the bark removed to San Francisco, where it was erected in its original position, and formed a capacious room.
The timber of the red-wood is very durable, and is so easily worked that a man needs but an axe, a betel and a few wedges, to convert the largest of them, provided they are free from knots, into planks, rails or clap-boards, and I have seen Barnes fell a huge fellow, and in less than a fortnight he has carried it all away but the boughs and the bark. It is a fine sight to watch one of these trees fall to the axe; leaving the perpendicular at first so leisurely; then gathering impetus as it nears the ground, crushing all it meets, making the earth vibrate with its shock, and sending forth a booming echo, that startles the game far and wide. The bark of thered-wood is perforated in every direction, and with great regularity, by a kind of starling, called, from this peculiarity,carpentaro, or carpenter. These birds form cells in the tree with great assiduity, and deposit therein acorns, which fit very tightly. They are very quaint and noisy, and employ themselves continually, when not fighting, in depositing acorns in the red-woods. You may see a dozen of them clinging to the bark of one tree in the most uncomfortable positions, pecking away, each at a hole. But the carpentaros work for the more lazy portion of creation, and one of their enemies is the beautiful grey squirrel which abounds here. I have often watched a grey squirrel ascend a red-wood; for the birds work in the upper part of the tree. He is immediately surrounded by carpentaros, who, knowing him of old, are at no loss to divine his object, but the open day robber, nothing daunted, at once extracts an acorn, and popping it in his mouth, he turns his head from side to side in the quaintest manner possible, as if to say to the birds that chatter around him, “Pray go on, don’t mind my feelings.� Then down he comes whisking his beautiful silvery tail. Then the carpentaros assemble round the pillaged hole, and scream over the matter so much that you may imagine them to be abusing the squirrel in theirchoicest slang; and presently up comes grey squirrel again for another acorn, having found the first so good; and then, fresh carpentaros having arrived, the noise becomes so intolerable, that the most enthusiastic of naturalists would walk off with his fingers in his ears. The grizzly bear also takes advantage of the exposed condition of the carpentaro’s winter provision, and climbs the red-wood in much the same fashion as the grey squirrel, though less gracefully; so they say: I never saw a bear in this position, and if unarmed I should not wait to study his habits, if I did; for although naturalists tell us that the bear is graminivorous, there is no doubt that the grizzly would sacrifice all the acorns that grow for a juicy piece of the calf of one’s leg.
The carpentaro has a more destructive enemy than even the squirrel or the bear, and a greater beast than either—the Digger Indian. These miserable specimens of humanity will light a fire at the root of a well-stocked red-wood tree until it falls; they then extract the carpentaro’s acorns and fill many baskets full, which they carry away.
“Eat as much as you like, but pocket none,� the justly indignant carpentaros might say.
The red-wood tree is the main-stay of California. The supply is inexhaustible, but nature has beensufficiently capricious to make them most abundant in very inaccessible spots, whilst the level plains are covered with a short-grained dwarf oak, serviceable only for firewood. But, however steep the mountains, the Californian red-wood has to fall and to be fashioned to the use of man, and when a steam saw-mill gets perched upon a mountain-top the romance of the forest is gone; its silent grandeur no longer awes the mind; and the trees, whose size and beauty caused such deep impressions and such grave reflections, fall into insignificance as you see them torn into planks and packed on waggons, whilst the once still forest resounds to the sound of the axe and the shrill whistle of the steam-engine. I have been very disappointed at finding these sudden changes in revisiting some of my old hunting-grounds.
Thomas now arrived with our stores, which we unpacked with great pleasure, as they had not seen the light since we had boxed them up ourselves in England, and every article was associated with home. We set to work, and in a fortnight had completed a two-roomed house, close to the red-wood clump: we then converted that apartment into a larder and storehouse.
It is not my intention to dwell very much upon the subject of deer-shooting, as, even could I saywhat has not been said before by mightier hunters than I, the subject has interest for sporting men alone.
I have mentioned in the early part of this chapter, that bears were said to be plentiful in the country I had chosen for my sojourn. The Californian hunter holds the grizzly bear in great respect; and not without reason, when we consider that this animal is difficult to kill, that he is a relentless pursuer when wounded, and that he can run and climb under ordinary circumstances, with more agility than his assailant. On this account, and from the fact that you must, from the nature of his haunts, attack him on foot, a wounded grizzly bear is a worse enemy to encounter than a tiger. March had promised to make up a bear hunt for us, and in a day or two he came over to the farm with two hunters of the name of Sheldon and Carter; both hard-looking fellows, carrying nothing but their rifles, a knife, and a Colt’s revolver, which latter is invaluable in all kinds of hunting.
The Americans carried rifles of their own make; capital make too, though too weak in the lock on account of the cheap price at which they are supplied. The bore of their rifles seemed small for bear-shooting, carrying a half-ounce ball, but they seemed toconsider that their skill in shooting counter-balanced this deficiency. I carried the only rifle that I ever used of those I took out, one of German make, carrying a ball of an ounce and a half. I should say here that our rifles were often the subject of discussion with these honest fellows. I had two Rigby’s with an accumulation of sights, which were perfectly useless for my work, although they were beautifully finished weapons; and Barnes’s friendly disputes concerning the relative merits of the American barrel, with its enormous weight of metal and long point-blank range, and the English lock, with its wholesome click, and the American stock, with its carved butt, that gives so much steadiness to the muscles of the body when you aim, resulted in a combination that was highly approved of by all parties; for all these good qualities were amalgamated by the construction of a new stock, and thus a rifle was produced that amongst ourselves enjoyed great celebrity, and this rifle March has probably in his possession to this day.
The German rifle, to which I have alluded, was rather too short, but very true within a hundred yards, and its qualities were expressed by its name, “shoulder-breaker,� engraved on the stock. It is a rare thing to get a good rifle carrying a heavy ball.
We started at once in search of our bear—six in number—and accompanied by a small dog belonging to Sheldon. It was not until the afternoon that we struck upon a fresh bear sign, of which March had had previous knowledge. The sign led into thick underwood in which the bear seeks shade, but which is the worst of all places for killing him. March disposed us in couples; we then spread and entered the thicket at a partially cleared part. Almost immediately I heard a crash, and an angry roar, and then a shot was fired to the left. It was necessary for us to retrace our steps, on account of intervening jungle, to rejoin our party, which done, the bear was in view. I was astonished at his size; standing on his hind-legs with his mouth open like a thirsty dog, and working himself up and down, he indicated that he felt the inconvenience of the pellet that March had intended for his heart, but which had lodged in his alimentary canal. However, in an instant, and as if by a sudden impulse, he again assumed the position of a quadruped and bounded towards March and Sheldon, clearing as much ground at each stride—for he was as big as an ox—as would have done credit to the winner of the Liverpool steeplechase. A shot from the right altered his course again in that direction, for thegrizzly bear will turn to the last assailant, and this enforces the necessity of bear-hunters supporting each other.
A momentary uncertainty on his part gave me an opportunity of troubling him with one of my 1½ oz. balls, but this only elicited a grunt and a rush in my direction. I confess that, as soon as my rifle was discharged, I felt great inclination to disregard March’s directions, which were, not to use my revolver, but if possible toreload my rifle directly I had fired, underall circumstances. Whilst in a curious state of uncertainty on this point, though loading, the bear swerved suddenly on one side in chase of the little high-couraged dog that belonged to Sheldon.
This dog had been in other bear-hunts and was generally very useful, for the grizzly has a great suspicion of anything behind him, and if a dog can be trained to worry his hams, the bear will turn round and round and afford much facility to the hunters.
I fancy the dog must have got hurt or lost his pluck, for he now rushed straight to his master, and the bear followed; Sheldon fired as the grizzly approached, but without effect, and the next moment poor Sheldon was down bathed in blood, one blow had carried away the flesh entirely from one sideof his face, fracturing his jaw-bone in the most frightful manner.
The bear disappeared, and probably retired to die, whilst we carried Sheldon home, with what feelings of grief I need not say. We sent him on to Sonoma as soon as possible, and he afterwards recovered, though dreadfully disfigured, and with the loss of an eye. It was perhaps on account of this accident that we made up no more parties for the express purpose of bear-hunting, but left it to chance to meet them, and as it happened, accident threw very few in our way.
The chief difficulty in killing the grizzly bear arises from the formation of his head, which is convex. The ball generally glances off sufficiently to avoid the brain; you have in fact but three vital parts, the back of the ear, the spine, and the heart; and it is said that the grizzly bear will live long enough after being shot in the latter part to do much mischief. He is always in motion, and I think the steadiest of hunters will allow that his conduct when wounded is not calculated to improve one’s aim. The very fact of finding that you hit him so often without effect, destroys confidence, and the sudden rushes that the bear makes at his assailant is a great trial to the hunter’s nerve. There are many accidents of the description I witnessed on record, although I knowone or two instances of bears being killed at the first shot.
It appears to me that a recorder of travels has a difficulty to surmount, which falls to the lot of no other writer, for whilst duty admonishes him to give a strictly veracious account of everything that comes before his notice (and of a great deal that does not), inclination and the publisher prompt him to avoid prosiness, for this very good reason, that if he enters into details he bores his readers; but then, on the other hand, if he is not sufficiently specific, he is pronounced a “superficial observer.�
This observation is induced by the necessity of my introducing, at all costs, further accounts respecting the grizzly bear.
When we consider the weight of the grizzly, which often reaches fifteen hundred pounds, the enormous strength of which he is possessed, as evidenced by the limbs of trees which he will wrench from the trunk, and his extraordinary speed and activity, we have reason (speaking as one who lives in his vicinity) for congratulation that the animal is of inoffensive habits, and avoids the presence of man. The sole instance to the contrary is that in which you are unfortunate enough to invade the domestic circle of the she-bear when accompanied by her cubs: sheinvariably gives chase the instant she sees the intruder, who, if he is wise, will “draw a bee-lineâ€� in an opposite direction. In running[5]from a bear, the best plan is to turn round the side of a hill, for the bear having then as it were two short legs and two long ones, can’t, under such circumstances, run very fast. There is but one sized tree that you can climb in safety in escaping from a bear, and you may run a long way before you find it. It must be just too small for your pursuer to climb up after you, and just too large for it to pull down, a nice point to hit. The she-bear is invariably irascible when nursing, and perhaps this accounts for the fact that the male-bear is seldom found in her company; to her he leaves the education and support of their progeny, whilst he seeks amusement elsewhere—I might say at his club, for it is the habit of bears to congregate in threes or fours under a tree for hours, and dance on their hams in a very ludicrous manner, with no apparent ostensible object but that of passing the time away and getting away from their wives.
I have heard many anecdotes related of grizzly bears. I choose the following as characteristic of a well-established fact that the bear, even wheninfuriated, not only acts from the instinct of self-preservation, but seems loth to kill and mangle what it attacks.
In the hills round San José, an unarmed negro came suddenly on a she grizzly with cubs. She pursued him, and fortunately for him struck him on the head, which knocked him down, but did not of course (he being a nigger) inflict any serious damage on the part assailed. The man wisely remained perfectly still, whilst the bear, who knowing nothing about “darkies’�heads, supposed she had gained the day by acoup de main, retired for a short distance. After remaining quiet, as he supposed, sufficiently long, the negro thought of getting up, but his first movement was arrested by a crack on the other side of his head, and down he went again, and the bear retired to watch over his interests. It was a long time before the negro again attempted to rise (for more reasons than one), and this was not until the bear had quitted the spot, apparently satisfied; but no sooner was Quashy up to look about him, than the bear darted out from another quarter, and this time she did poor Darky great injury: she tore his back and knocked him senseless, and then half covered him up with leaves. After this she was quite satisfied, and the negro was shortly afterwardsdiscovered and resuscitated, and felt quite unwell all the next day; but told this story long afterwards to me with great satisfaction, and, I need not add, with unimpeachable veracity.
I have mentioned the dexterity with which the Spaniard throws the lasso, and the weapon has been successfully employed in entrapping the bear. The noose is thrown over him when he is near a tree, and by riding in a circle he is secured by a dozen thongs. This is one of the feats which the Spaniards assure you theycando.
Although the grizzly’s natural food consists probably of roots and acorns, I suppose he must be ranked as omnivorous, for he certainly crunches a bone with great gusto. The bears cleared off any bones that were lying round our hut; and, in one instance, we shot at a couple that came close to our door at night and stole the bones from under the noses of the dogs. One bear walked away with a large piece of meat and the iron hook on which it hung, but whether he swallowed the hook with the bait, or pulled it out with his fingers, we never ascertained; he never brought it back again, so we indulge in the hope that it sticks in his jaws to this day, and that he has found out “qu’il n’y a point de roses sans des épines.�
Bear meat is eatable, but very devoid of flavour, and I think the grizzly indulges in too much gymnastic exercise to qualify him for the table of the epicure. He figures in the bill-of-fare at all Californian Restaurants, and, as a great number of the common black bears are caught alive in traps, the San Francisco hairdresser has no difficulty in “sacrificing, on any occasion, a real animal for the benefit of his customers.�
DEER HUNTING—WILD BULLS—WILD FOWL—A DUCK GUN—DRIVING AN OX-TEAM—I REFLECT—AN ESTAMPEDE—THE TIGER CAT—RAINY SEASON—INDIAN FIRES—WASPS—WE ARE ROBBED BY THE INDIANS—I KILL A BEAR—CROSSING A SWOLLEN RIVER.
DEER HUNTING—WILD BULLS—WILD FOWL—A DUCK GUN—DRIVING AN OX-TEAM—I REFLECT—AN ESTAMPEDE—THE TIGER CAT—RAINY SEASON—INDIAN FIRES—WASPS—WE ARE ROBBED BY THE INDIANS—I KILL A BEAR—CROSSING A SWOLLEN RIVER.
Christmas, 1850.
Torender agreeable a life where men are thrown entirely on their own resources, the chief point is to ensure contentment, and nothing conduces more to this end than to apportion to each one of the party an equal and strictly-defined share of work. Forest life, in my case, never altered the relations that existed between myself and those in my employment, nor will real respect ever vanish under the familiar contact which such a life imposes.
I gave Barnes the woods and forests, which was not such a sinecure as it is here, as he had full employment for the winter in felling the red-woods, and splitting them into rails for enclosing the farm. Thomas undertook the “hewing and drawing,� the cooking, and the internal cleanliness of the house;and this latter is very essential in mountain life. Take everything out of your hut daily and hang it in the sun; then, water well the floor; this drives away the vermin, which abound in the deer and hare skins; it also ensures you against scorpions and centipedes, which are apt to introduce themselves into the firewood. It devolved on me to supply the larder, and the amount of exertion required for this duty varied considerably. One day an easy walk would bring me to a marsh, and a few shots from my double-barreled gun would secure as many wild-ducks as we required, but on another I might be doomed, after a long journey, to extend myself over the carcase of a buck, and then, exposed to a glaring sun, unaided, flay my quarry and disembowel him, quarter him, and carry him home piece by piece, over four or five miles of successive cindery hills. I had no stout little pony with a shaggy mane and tail, such as one sees carrying home the deer in Landseer’s splendid pictures. I had to take as much meat as I could “pick-a-back,� or else leave it to the coyotes, who would appear in sight whilst I was yet at work on the carcase. If this part of a hunter’s duty was entailed upon our fashionable deer-stalkers, many of the deer would reap the benefit, not so much by being flayed and carriedhome by members of the aristocracy, as in being left alone.
The monotony of this life was varied by excursions into the adjacent country, and these would last two or three days; during which time we left the hut to take care of itself; and, carrying each a rifle and a blanket, with a few other necessaries, we passed our nights by the camp fire, and in the day discovered wonders of nature that amply repaid us for our journey. The first object that attracted our attention was an immense hill of sulphur, and we discovered hot springs strongly impregnated with this mineral in its immediate vicinity. Round one of the springs was an apparently hard crust of sulphur, but this was treacherous, as Thomas found out, for it was the cause of his tumbling in and getting a medicated bath; and, although he soon dried, he smelt so strongly of lucifer matches for some days afterwards as to be almost unbearable. We brought some of the sulphur, which was very pure, away with us. We also discovered large craters, and igneous rocks, piled in such vast confusion as indicated the blind fury with which the earth had torn and rent itself on some former great occasion. The whole of California has been subjected to more than ordinary violent disturbances, but the vegetation of thousands of years has decomposedsince then, and the huge rocks that were once hurled, red-hot, I dare say, into the air, are now deeply-embedded in the surrounding soil.
These excursions opened a new field for our rifles, for, whilst taking a bird’s-eye view one morning from the elevation on which we had encamped, our attention was arrested by the appearance of a herd of wild cattle. Having observed the direction in which they were grazing, and finding that, unfortunately, the direction of the wind prevented our heading them, I adopted a plan which proved successful. Carefully keeping them in sight from the rear, as I knew that water was not immediately ahead of them, I foresaw that towards sunset they would alter their course, and, guided by their instinct, graze towards the nearest spring. This they did in the afternoon; and having now a side wind, we hastened to look for cover in their line of march, glad to exchange the slip-shod pace at which for hours we had followed their movements, for a brisk double in the other direction. As soon as we had hit our line, I sent Barnes out to reconnoitre, and he immediately returned, having discovered the spring and a good cover a little in advance of it. We soon took up our positions, and before long the herd appeared in view: five black bulls, one a young one. They were most beautifulbeasts, with sleek and glossy coats; thin in the flank, broad in the chest, and rather short of horn. They evinced uneasiness at once when within shot, and stared in our direction, snuffing the air and pawing the ground. As the young one presented his broadside, he fell on his knees to “shoulder-breaker� and, tail on end, went the rest of the herd at a long trot over the hills. We walked up to our friend to give the “coup de grâce,� but, through a want of caution, not usual with him, Barnes got a bad bruise, for the bull, by a sudden exertion, rose and plunged at him, catching him full in the chest, and knocking him down, then fell down himself, never to rise again. Barnes felt some pain for a day or two, which we allayed with the infallible castor oil: but I rather suspect his chief annoyance was caused by having been floored by a young bull, for whom, under ordinary circumstances, I think he was a match in physical strength.
Although wild cattle are not described as being indigenous to the country, I have no doubt, from their appearance, that these were so, and that their cows were not many miles away. It is vexatious to be obliged to leave a fine carcase to the wolves and vultures; but as a bullock is too much for three men, and we were far from home, we cut out the best partof it and returned to camp; and the coyotes made a fine noise, during the night, over what remained.
The wild fowl now came over in heavy flights and settled in our vicinity. The geese were in incredible numbers; white and grey geese and brant. Of ducks we had several varieties, many of them quite unknown to me, and I regret that I failed, from want of materials, in my endeavours to preserve specimens of them. The geese are very easily shot when first they arrive, but soon become very wary. The easiest and best plan is to construct little huts of green stuff near the marshes they frequent, and you are sure of good flight shooting at daylight. I had a large duck-gun that I had used in punt-shooting in Norfolk, but it was very rebellious, and kicked so, when used from the shoulder without a rest, that I placed it under Barnes’s especial charge; and whenever he felt in particularly good health, he went out with it, and you might see him returning with geese and ducks suspended from every part of his body; his face wreathed in smiles at his good fortune; but the next morning would disclose a bruise on his right shoulder of about the size and colour of a certain popular green dessert plate. Herons and curlew were plentiful, and very tender, jack-snipe in great abundance, but I never disturbedthem, for I am a bad snipe shot, and the first rule in the mountains is to spare your powder. Hares and partridges were in abundance, yet were also spared, as we wished them about the place; but rabbits were rather scarce and very small. If the love of sport, therefore, was sufficient to chain one to this spot, the above enumeration will show that we had not only ample occupation, but variety; yet I determined on adding farming to my other amusements, and although it recurred to me that when I gave up “gentleman farming� in England, I registered a vow to leave such things to those who better understood them, I thought there could be no danger in trying “an acre of maiden soil.�
It was our custom of an evening, after our supper was over, the fire piled up with blazing oak logs, and each man had lighted his pipe and received a noggin of schnappes, after the fatigues of the day, to congregate in one room and there, after lighting a candle, one of us would read a book aloud. I had a good stock of books, though they travelled in a small compass, and as they were, for the most, by Fielding, Smollett, De Foe, Le Sage, Goldsmith, and that class of writers, they all bore reading twice, and more than twice; so that our evenings were passed very sociably. Barnes, too, who was an uneducated man, was takinginstructions in writing from Thomas, and began to learn in this wild spot what they never tried to teach him in the Christian village where he first saw the light. One evening these amusements were set aside for the discussion of the subject of the cultivation of a piece of the farm. Onions were at this time commanding fabulous prices in San Francisco; and a very simple calculation proved, as distinctly as possible,on paper, that one acre planted with onions would realise an enormous profit, provided the onions came up. To ensure this last important point, I engineered a ditch, which was to convey water for their irrigation from our stream; and leaving the others to carry out these works, I started on foot for San Luis, where I arrived, after two days, very footsore. I procured a plough, a waggon, a yoke of strong American oxen, and a fresh supply of groceries, and I then paid a flying visit to San Francisco in a small fishing-boat, and returned to Sonoma with seeds of all kinds, a box of horse-radish roots, which came in very well afterwards with wild bull, and about 500 fine young fruit-trees. The difficulty now was to get my ox-team up to Russian River, for I knew nothing of driving oxen. However, I took lessons from an American teamster; and, as there are but two words of command, and each one, when delivered, isaccompanied by a crack on the head of the ox nearest to you, I found the beasts soon recognised my voice and style of hitting. But I had several rather impetuous streams to pass, some of which were scarcely fordable, for the rain had set in; I was doubtful, therefore, as to the method to be adopted in forcing my team through these. This, my instructor informed me, could only be accomplished by “talking freely to the oxen;� and, to my demand for a specimen, he jumped on the waggon, and working himself into a state of apparent phrenzy, he stamped and swore, and beat them, and cracked his whip, and execrated them until they both broke into a round trot. I profited by his advice, and got through my gulches in safety, and I can only hope that the “freedom of speech� I indulged in was justified by the circumstances of the case.
I started alone, and as oxen travel very slowly, I was three days and a half getting to the farm. On my way I met a good-looking fellow with black beard and moustaches, who asked me in French the way to the nearest log hut. I entered into conversation with him, and found that he was a Normandy man of the name of Lebret. He had a gun, and a game bag, and gaiters on; in fact, he was a “Frenchman out shooting� all over, with nothing in his game-bag. Ifound that he was hard up and wanted employment, so I told him where I was going, offered him a berth, and with an “Eh bien!� up he jumped, and after crossing Russian River, for which we were just in time, as it was much swollen, I landed my cargo and Frenchman safe and sound at the farm, which, after my temporary absence, seemed home in every sense. And it was so. The very dogs knew it for a happy place as they bounded out to bid me welcome back. Home speaks in the grip of Barnes’s bony hand; in the studied polish that my rifle bears as it hangs above my bed; and home speaks in the eager faces that group around the fire and listen to my brief recital of what befel me since we parted.
* * * *
I had a favourite little spot on my hunting ground that I always selected for my halt; it was a little clump of sheltered rocks, and, after poking about with my loading-rod, to turn out any rattlesnake that might be there, I would sit down and enjoy the luxury of the cool shade and a pipe. All good sportsmen agree, and with great truth, in the impropriety of smoking whilst working up to game; but, after walking a few hours in the hot sun, a pipe is a great luxury, and I was always glad to reach this coverwhere I could indulge my propensity without fear of tainting the surrounding atmosphere.
I have often mused, as I have sat in this little den, on the life I was leading, and reflected with regret that its charms must some day succumb to use, and that, in time, even deer hunting would pall on the taste, and the excitement of a wild life become monotonous. With health beating in every pulse, with God’s best gifts strewed round him in profusion, and intellect to fashion them to use, a man acknowledges instinctively the infinite wisdom of the Creator, and feels a proportionate gratitude for His gifts.
It is easy to be grateful when one has health, strength, and freedom, and easy to flatter oneself into the belief that a life so primitive is more natural than one more civilised; but it is but the lazy gratitude of one who has nothing else to live for but himself, and who is freed, not alone from the conventionalities which a more civilised state imposes, but from all claim upon his self-denial. Freed in fact from the presence of all evils which beset man elsewhere, and tax his fortitude, his courage, and his virtue; living but for himself, with himself alone to study, he indulges in selfishness, and is happy. And this is the great foundation-stone of the charms we hear associated with a wild free life.
One night a herd of deer jumped our railings, and passing close to the hut, crossed the river at great speed, evidently under the influence of fear. We listened, and shortly afterwards heard a pack of wolves, giving tongue in the distance. The next morning the ground, which was soft, gave evidence that there had been anestampedethe night before. Herds of deer had crossed and recrossed in every direction until they had forded the stream, when they made a clean bolt for the mountains. Not a hare was to be seen; and for several days we had an empty larder,—living during that time on wheat cakes, for, unfortunately, we had expended all our small shot. I imagine that wolves are very uncommon in the country, from the facts of the game becoming so much excited at their presence, and that we never heard their bark again. We did not see a wolf, but their “signâ€� was unmistakeable. One day we observed the trail of a panther near the brook, and searched for him without success; but Barnes bagged him next day to his own gun. He was up a tree when Barnes saw him, and came down with great rapidity on being shot through the skull. He was a heavy beast, a male, and of a tawny colour. This animal is called in the country the Californian lion.
The tiger cat is a beautiful animal, and veryferocious for its size; we saw two or three of these, about the size of a wild cat, and beautifully marked in the coat. I shot but one, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I could induce him to resign his life without having his skin spoilt. I was agreeably surprised, on my return one day to the hut, to find a horse, saddled and bridled, attached to our railing, and I ascertained that its owner was a countryman of mine who had been “prospectingâ€� the surrounding country, and had been directed by March to our camp. They say we are a stiff and formal people: perhaps so; but in the mountains, an Englishman needs no further introduction than to know a man for a countryman to place the best he has at the stranger’s service. You show him the river and give him a towel: you supply him with a tin plate and spoon, and he helps himself from your smoking pot: you produce a bottle of whiskey in his honour, and after placing the tobacco cannister at his elbow, and pointing out the bundle of blankets that will form his bed, you enter into social conversation. When you part from the man the next morning, you feel quite sorry, and hope to see him again, although there is little probability of that, for these are chance meetings. It is my belief that there is an honest purpose in the hearty wring of the hand that such astray visitor gives you as he mounts his horse to depart. Whether or no, he can’t go away and say your rooms aredamp, and your claret issour, that your wife is afright, and your pictures aretrash, as peoplesometimesdo in more civilised countries, after enjoying the hospitality of their friends. Our guest produced from his pocket, a number of Punch, and one of the Illustrated News—about five months old. I had had opportunities of reading these publications in a great many out-of-the-way parts of the globe, but I never expected that they would reach my log hut. But English periodicals creep in everywhere; and I remember that the first indication I received of some family news of importance was when, at a pic-nic at Mount Lebanon, I picked up a scrap of newspaper which had contained the mustard of some party who had preceded us, and casually glanced at its contents.
The rainy season was now approaching, and the heat became occasionally intense. At times the Indians would fire the surrounding plains, the long oat-straw of which would ignite for miles. The flames would advance with great rapidity, leaving everything behind them black and charred. At these times a dense smoke would hang over the atmosphere for two or three days, increasing the heat untilit became insupportable. I had a thermometer with me during the whole of my stay in California, and could produce an elaborate[6]meteorological table; but as people say you should write as you talk, I shall dismiss the subject of the temperature of Russian River by remarking that in summer it was sometimes as warm as Hong Kong, and in the rainy season it was as cold as an average English winter. We have an officer of scientific renown in our naval service, who is selected by the Admiralty to explore the least known portions of the globe; of which parts, when he returns, he publishes an account, which would be interesting in the extreme, but, that, alas! his scientific knowledge oozes out in every line, and the reader, after hopelessly following him through a maze of figures, which are particularly addressed to, and understood only by, the Geographical Society, shuts the book in despair, and remains for life in ignorance of the habits of the Chow-chow Islanders.
The Digger Indians burn the grass to enable them to get at roots and wasps’ nests; young wasps being a luxury with them. These fires have the good effect of destroying immense quantities of snakes and vermin; and one can scarcely imagine the extent to which these might multiply were they not occasionally“burnt out.� The wasps are so numerous here in summer, as to destroy with rapidity everything they attack. Fleas not only abound in the skins of every beast you kill, but even live on the ground, like little herds of wild cattle; and ants are of all shapes and sizes, and stand up savagely on their hind legs and open their mouths, if you only look at them. The wasps attack any meat that may be hanging up, and commence at once cutting out small pieces, which they carry home, and it is astonishing the quantity they will carry away with them. What they do with it when they get home, I never ascertained; but I presumed that they “jerked� it for winter use, as the Spaniards do.
It was hard work at dinner-time, to know who the meat belonged to, for these wasps used to sting on the slightest provocation; and it was the worst part of Thomas’s duty to take a hare down from a peg and cut it up.
But neither ants nor fleas ever troubled our persons; the skins were always sent down to the river whilst yet warm, and the common precautions I adopted in-doors insured us against all annoyance.
It now commenced to rain very heavily, but not before I had, fortunately, completed a shed, and laid in a stock of fire-wood, and had also erected anadditional room for drying wet clothes, &c., and for sheltering the dogs. The first rain lasted for four days without cessation; and here again I am unable to state, scientifically, the quantity of water that fell in inches, but on the fourth day the water laid on our valley of such a depth that it just plummed the top of a pair of Cording’s fishing-boots, which came up to about my knees. All the fruit trees and garden seeds were in the ground; and as we had no immediate use for our oxen, and they were up to their bellies in water, we let them run over the hills. Shortly after this the weather cleared up, and we were much distressed at missing my slot-hound. Many days elapsed before we gained any clue to his fate, until, beating up some new ground one day, I came upon what remained of the poor old fellow,—his skin and bones. He had broken away and indulged in a midnight ramble, and had evidently been attacked and overpowered by coyotes, of which two carcasses lay near him. We all felt much regret for the old fellow, for he was a good staunch dog, and had been a great favourite of my late father. We buried his remains and erected a mark to his memory; but, although I experienced the same feeling of regret that most men do when they lose a favourite and faithful hound, I shall refrain from inflicting upon the readerthe doleful stanzas which are generally addressed “To my Dog,â€� on these occasions.
January 1.For two months we had alternate rain and sunshine, and nothing of moment occurred. The farm was by this time entirely enclosed, and theonionswith which Barnes had planted an acre, began to appear above the ground. We had also large patches of vegetables for home consumption.
When returning one day from an excursion, we found that the Indians had paid our valley a visit, and rifled our house of everything they thought valuable; cooking utensils, blankets, clothes, and tools had disappeared,—but we had taken the precaution of depositing our powder in a secret place which they did not discover. Our rifles, and one blanket each, we had with us on our excursion. The two principal annoyances that resulted from this were, firstly, that the nights being very cold indeed now, and our house very thin, our blankets were a serious loss; secondly, they had stolenall our candles. They also stole our skins; not that I ever intended to bring these trophies away for the benefit of the public, for with the exception of the puma-skin, and some of wild cats, they were of that mild description which are only exhibited in tailors’ shop-fronts, where they assume the form of gentlemen’s hunting inexpressibles. The Indians,it afterwards appeared, were in the habit of annually following the course of our stream to gather the wild grapes which grew on its banks. These people will eat anything, but how they manage the wild grapes is a mystery, for these grapes never ripen, and green gooseberries give no conception of their acidity. In pursuit of these luxuries, however, they came upon our camp, and took away whatever they thought they understood the use of, but evidently departed in a great hurry. I never saw an Indian during the whole of my stay in that part of the country; but, after this robbery, had any ever come within rifle range either of my hut or March’s, he would have been shot like a coyote; for once let an Indian think he can steal with impunity, he will soon attempt to murder you for the clothes on your back.
Although I had determined, after Sheldon’s casualty, upon following no more bears into the bush, which is here too thick for the use of the rifle, I still hoped to kill a bear during the winter, trusting to a chance meeting under favourable circumstances; and in this respect I was gratified, inasmuch as I killed a bear to my own gun. Now, in writing from memory, one might almost be excused for a little inaccuracy in point of size and weight; and I must confess that I have an almost irresistible temptation to forget thereal dimensions of the animal that surrendered life on this occasion, and, calling it simply abear, leave its weight and ferocity to be conjectured from my general description of the species. In fact, it was a cub, that I once found playing by itself among some rocks. I should have liked to have taken him home alive, but although his movements were excessively infantine and playful to behold, I have no doubt that had I attempted to capture him, he would not only have bitten me until I had let him go, but would have hallooed for his parents, and brought those amiable persons to the rescue. So I shot him; and I had quite enough to do to carry him home dead, for he was very fat. I must mention here, that although we walked this country for nearly nine months, and continually alighted on the fresh “sign� of bear, with the exception of those that visited our hut at night, and the others above mentioned, our party saw but three bears, two of which were wounded, but escaped; and this is probably attributable to the fact that the bear’s sense of hearing enables him to follow up his natural impulse of avoiding the hunter.
A Colt’s revolver is invaluable to the deer-hunter, both for self-defence and killing wounded game. Perhaps the best praise I can award to this weaponis in saying that I have had mine for four years, during which time it has been much used andmore abused, but at this moment it is perfect in every respect, and has never required repair.
We searched, or “prospected� the adjacent hills on many occasions, to discover if gold existed in the surface soil, but without success. It is worthy of remark, that this district of country is similar in every respect to that of the mining regions. Here, as there, is a succession of red gravelly hills, interspersed with veins of quartz, all of which have been subjected to volcanic agency that would long ago have ejected the gold from the quartz had there been any in it. But the mountain in labour here brought forth a mouse; whilst a few miles further south it has produced results of a much more satisfactory description. We, however, did discover a peculiar blue quartz, which, upon assay by fusion, was found to contain a large quantity of gold. The presence of silver in small quantities was also evident in another rock we discovered. But, with these exceptions, we found no trace of any description of metal but iron.
It was now spring, and I started alone, on foot, for San Francisco, where business required my presence. On arriving at Russian River I found thestream much swollen, but I struck a part of the river where I knew one of the hunters had a log-hut and a dug-out, or canoe. I reached the hut and found no one at home, but the dug-out was hauled up and the paddle was in it.
It was easy to launch the dug-out, which was very long and thin; so, seating myself in the stern, I was at once in the current. I need not say that I should never have dreamt of paddling myself over a swollen river in a canoe, had I not accustomed myself to them when in the Borneo rivers; but when I reached the middle of the stream I found the eddies made the dug-out so unmanageable, and the current was so much stronger than I imagined, and the water hissed and bubbled about me to such an extent that I had to keep the dug-out’s head nearly straight up stream, and I began to get quite giddy and bewildered, and wished I was safe on shore. I did effect a landing, an hour afterwards, about a mile lower down the river; I had just strength enough to land, and just sense enough to feel excessively grateful for not having been carried out to sea, or, what is more probable, capsized in the eddies of the stream.