FOOTNOTE:[4]Appeared originally in theNineteenth Century.
[4]Appeared originally in theNineteenth Century.
[4]Appeared originally in theNineteenth Century.
If the reader has ever undergone the Ordeal by Baggage at an American railway station in the middle of the night, he will appreciate our feelings when we learnt that we should not reach Emigrant Gap until 1 a.m.
Emigrant Gap is situated near the summit, or the highest point attained by the Central Pacific Railway in its passage of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.En routefor San Francisco we had arranged to halt there for some quail shooting, and in due course the train deserted us, half asleep, upon a little wayside platform in the middle of a snow-shed. I have a hazy recollection of being introduced to a friend of my companion's, who met us there, a Western giant named Shin, who greeted me as cordially as if,instead of being a stranger, I was a rich relation. In a few minutes, comfortably installed in his cottage, we were sleeping soundly.
Next morning, when I awoke, a flood of golden sunlight was streaming in at my bed-room window, and through the open door was thrust a Velasquez head in a broad, black sombrero, which shaded bronzed features, a crisp black beard, and a curly upturned moustache. There was a careless, genial air about the face, and a twinkle of humour in the dark eyes that was as infectious as it was irresistible. It was Shin, come to wake me.
"Thought I'd just see if you were right before I went to bed," he said.
I blinked at the dazzling window.
"That's only our Sierra moonlight," he continued imperturbably. "You'll get used to that; but if it keeps you awake, I'll pull the blind down."
Here a burst of laughter from an adjoining room interrupted us.
"Oh, pshaw!" cried B.'s voice. "Don't listen to that coon; you get up."
"Coon?" repeated my visitor attentively. "Coon!..."
But here his head was abruptly withdrawn and an amusing colloquy ensued in the next room.
I turned out and soon joined them. Shin and B. were old friends; both, too, were "old Californians." The conversation of an old Californian is generally amusing. And so, another cup of coffee, and another yarn; and another yarn, and yet another cup of coffee, prolonged breakfast far into the morning.
Our plan of campaign was to drive slowly to Soda Springs and back, halting to shoot when and wherever we heard quail calling. Early in the afternoon, a buggy drawn by two horses appeared at the gate; and, lighting our pipes, we started. Scarcely had we left the outlying cottages a hundred yards behind us when:
"Quails!" said B.
"H'm—quails, sure!" coincided Shin judicially.
I said, "quails!" also, although without any very definite reason for doing so.
We pulled up.
"Hush!" whispered B.
"Hush!" repeated the giant.
I also said, "hush!" The driver made the samepertinent observation—the only remark he contributed that day. Then we all "hushed" in chorus, which started the horses, and quieted the quails. (Par parenthèse, may I inquire if you ever hush, when told to do so? Systematic experiments upon all sorts and conditions of people have led me to conclude that the impulse to "hush" back at once is one that human nature cannot resist.)
Silence being restored, we listened. Soon the quails' calling burst forth again away up the hill-side, and, hastily alighting, we plunged into the forest and followed them.
In a few minutes a bird suddenly rose before me, and vanished behind a bush. Whilst debating in my own mind whether it were a quail or not, another bird rose and whisked round another bush. I shot the bush. And then another bird got up, and I shot another bush. And then another bird got up, and there being no bush in its immediate vicinity, I stopped it, and proceeded to pick up my first Californian mountain quail.
What a pretty bird it is, with its long drooping top-knot, and its mottled breast and thighs! Of the sad-coloured birds, few can excel it in beauty of shapeor marking. It has that symmetrically prosperous, that æsthetically fastidious, confidently reposeful, felicitously demure appearance, only to be observed in perfection in wealthy, wicked, and juvenile widows. Shin, an exquisitely bad shot (so bad indeed that he rarely succeeded in killing a quail, unless he caught one sitting for its photograph), used to assert that: "They would roll about on the granite boulders with their heels in the air, and laugh till they moulted, when they sawhimcoming with a gun." I cannot say that I myself ever witnessed in the quail any so striking an example of their just appreciation of the humorous as this; but my informant was a man of thoughtful habits, keen powers of observation, and unimpeachable veracity. Moreover, it is well known that certain birds do laugh, and that, too, under less provocation than Shin's quails experienced. To the curious collector of ornithological data I can, therefore, commend this instance.
Having bagged a couple more birds, a sugar-pine, and a granite boulder, I rejoined the buggy, where the others soon met me, and, remounting, we drove slowly on again. In a few minutes the same proceedings were re-enacted, and this continuedthroughout the afternoon. It was the easiest sport that I ever enjoyed. Quail shooting after this fashion has all the attractive simplicity of vice. It induces that pleasurable exultation which, until detection supervenes, always, I believe, attends an infraction of the law. Enjoyment of such kind seldom fails to stimulate even the jaded appetites of the wicked, but more especially doth it afford a relish to those who, never having impaired their moral palates by intemperate indulgence in crime, are still able to sin with the sentiments of novelty and zest that ever reward moderation. Need I say that our moral palates were yet susceptible of these delightful impressions.
At length the driver pulled up on the summit of a grade. The shadows had grown longer and deeper, the day had waxed old and weary, rich in colour and in gilded glory, but in breathing faint and low. Both near and far away the granite peaks were lurid with purple and with blood-red lights, as if the sun shone on them through stained glass. The crests of the ridges had become fringed with a lace-work of coruscated fire, that glittered through the dark pine-quills, and shot soft, luminous rays and ways down into thedelicately pencilled pools of twilight in the bottoms, whose leafy edges seemed like pebbled shores. And at one point, where the hidden trout stream, winding on its course, had widened for itself a resting-place, deep in a wilderness of foliage and shade there gleamed a strange hieroglyphic in thread of gold, that flashed upon the shifting eddies of the water-node, as though some magic beetle circled there.
The squirrels and the chipmunks had vanished. No longer did the challenge of the doughty quail call us to arms. It was that transient interlude betwixt the minstrelsy of day and night. Dumb stillness had fallen upon all the forest, and not a breath of wind wooed any flower, nor whispered round any cone, till, with one long, low sigh, like a lost, lonely note of music singing to seek its fellows in the brown whorls of curléd leaves—those forest shells of daintiest biscuit-work—the dirge of day stole through the valley and passed on. There was only the murmur of the rock-embosomed stream, and from afar off, the fitful tinkling of a wether-bell came faintly down our way.
"Hence, thou lingerer, light!Eve saddens into night."
"Hence, thou lingerer, light!Eve saddens into night."
"Hence, thou lingerer, light!
Eve saddens into night."
"Drive on to Campbell's—we'll stay there to-night. It is getting too late to shoot," said Shin.
The wheels grated once more on the stony track, and on we went to Campbell's hostelry.
Very many of the pleasantest days in life are the most poverty-stricken in regard to incident. In all this week, only one episode occurred which would make you really laugh, and that, I regret to say, Shin would not like me to relate. Do not infer though, that, because the current of the trip was placid, it necessarily was dull. So far from such being the case, we did not pass a single dull half-hour. An exhilarating freshness, an evanescent crispness is in this mountain air, which absolutely defies dulness. Moreover, we had started in that state of helpless good humour in which anything serves as food for laughter. It was not recorded that any one made a sensible remark during the whole drive; we talked pure nonsense exclusively. In this congenial spirit we were encouraged by the fact that, our wooden-visaged, saturnine driver—an eminently matter-of-fact and sensible man—preserved, throughout, impenetrable reserve. He sat on the box-seat in dignified silence, a mute protest againstthe egregious imbecility of human nature as exemplified in ourselves. Evidently he had been designed without any reference to the rules of risible acoustics. He was angular and flat all over. People constructed on this principle are not adapted for the expression of merriment. If he ever had laughed, the displacement of solemnity would have been so tremendous, that he would never have recovered his centre of gravity, and would probably have died mentally upside down, and mad. He only made one spontaneous observation during the excursion. We were talking of chipmunks and squirrels.
"Chipmunks——" he ejaculated. And then he paused and thought for a while. "Chipmunks," he resumed, later in the day, "is alegant food."
Up the hill we were slowly toiling towards Campbell's, when a ragged boy in a broad-leafed hat, seated upon a ragged pony, whose tail coquetted with his heels, came jogging on the down-grade towards us.
"Say!" exclaimed Shin, "now when this fellow passes, we'll all take off our hats to him. Don't say anything; just bow and watch him."
Accordingly, when the boy drew near we greetedhim with three sweeping bows. Probably he had never seen any one bow before; evidently he was not familiar with this form of salutation. He pulled up, and was staring after us in dumb astonishment, when, a thought seemed to strike him. Removing his own hat, he carefully examined it. But there was nothing the matter with that, and he rammed it on again with an air of dogged perplexity. Anon, he shouted something—our inability to catch which was perhaps not to be deplored; and when, some minutes later, we turned a corner and lost sight of him, he was still where we had left him, gazing after us.
À propos des bottes: this unkempt, young mountaineer possessed aquiline features of the purest type; and it appears to me, as a superficial observer, open to correction, that these will distinguish the American of the future. The fusion of races in America is remarkably rapid. Distinctive physical peculiarities vanish not less swiftly than do national idiosyncrasies in character. And the mould in which these disappear is one that bears a striking resemblance to that formerly prevalent among the higher class Indian nations of the continent. The typicalAmerican is aquiline-featured, stern or impassible in expression of countenance, spare of frame, chary of speech, impassive in demeanour, endued with unusual self-control and determination. But these traits—which, if further example were necessary, could be multiplied—were all once distinctive of the Indian; and that they should reassert themselves thus uniformly in the descendants of the divers alien races settled in America, opens a physiological problem of unusual magnitude and interest. Doubtless, in process of time, the citizen of the republic will become tinged with copper. A tone of brass is already noticeable occasionally.
Next morning saw us early under way; and during all the forenoon the road led through rocky passes, or was blasted in the steep sides of sombre valleys. On we drove amidst a network of crumbled light, whose shadowed meshes were cast by the vast trunks of cedars, sugar and yellow pines, red and silver firs, tamaracks, and spruces. Nothing in the forest races can match the stately beauty of these straight-limbed giants, clad in dark plumes. They are an order of knights, a dynasty of kings amongst trees. Where they have fallen, they lie likevanquished Titans, and seem even grander stretched out beneath clinging palls of moss than when upreared, archetypes of strength and grace, they toss their quilled foliage in the winds, and tower majestically above the earth.
Ever and anon the continuity of their solemn crypts and corridors was interrupted by some still glen, a cache of dreams and summer beauty. And here—scattered amidst enormous boulders, or gray and grim, or worked with gorgeous blazonry in lichens—red-leaved sumachs, golden-foliaged aspens, and masses of flushed flowers blent in the rich arabesque of purple, brown, and russet bracken, had writ an idyl in a silent language, whose words were colour, and whose characters were leafy tracery, delicate and ever new. Yonder, by the lucent gleam of sunbeams, its tinted poetry was touched with fire, and there in the pearly shadows of midday it was yet coolly sleeping.
Long must have been the list of killed and wounded in theQuail Gazetteafter that morning's work. At times the forest rang and re-echoed like a choice covert in England. Towards noon, having finished a beat before the others were ready, I walked on ahead of the buggy to a turnpike gate to ask for aglass of water. Instead of a crusty old gate-keeper I was agreeably surprised to see, tripping bare-headed from the neighbouring cottage, a pretty dark girl with black eyes, a "peart" air, and a smartsang de bœufbow under her chin. In the course of some conversation which ensued I mentioned that Mr. Shin was on the road, and inquired whether she knew him. A smile rose immediately on her cherry lips.
"Shin? Well, you'd better believe I do; he's pretty well known around. Say, Alice! d'ye hear?" she cried, raising her voice, "Shin's coming 'long."
A merry laugh from the interior of the log-house greeted this announcement.
"There ain't another just like Shin from here to Panama," explained the damsel. "He's a genius. He's bound to be foolin' all the time, and he looks so sad with it—like he'd got a pain somewhere, or was making up poetry. Oh! Shin's a whole show, and he plays the music himself."
We lunched here, the gate-keeper's daughter kindly undertaking to cook quails for us if we would pluck them. Shin "played the music."
In the afternoon we set forth again through the forest, and its clearings, and its old deserted villages,that had flourished when the route we were following was the high-way betwixt Sacramento and Virginia City, when placer mining was carried on in the district, and before the railway had usurped the traffic. Now, owing to neglect, and to the destruction caused by heavy rains, the track appears to have lain disused for centuries instead of for little more than a decade. Many a yarn had Shin and B. to relate of the days when this same dried watercourse was a well-kept road, and they rattled up and down its steep grades on the mail-coach. One, and not the least curious of the wayside features, is the still standing trunks of pine-trees that were sawn off twenty and thirty feet from the ground, when the snow lay that deep on the Sierras.
We had come in our old weather-stained hunting garments, and, in order not to burden the buggy, had brought with us very little extra clothing. During the day's work the dust had accumulated upon us, until it almost seemed as if we were fulfilling the biblical prophecy and returning to the original component of man. It was anything but comforting, therefore, to hear Shin remark, as we turned off the main road in the direction of Soda Springs, that it was the time ofyear when visitors were numerous there. He, however, was right. When, in due course, we issued from the forest, and crossing a rustic bridge drew up before the hotel, we found its verandah full of pretty faces and well-dressed men.
Soda Springs is a summer resort, consisting merely of a hotel, a few outhouses, and a private cottage, all prettily situated in a valley. A dashing trout stream runs hard by, and there is some fair shooting in the neighbourhood.
To visit Soda Springs without ascending Tinkler's Nob was to incur an everlasting stigma of reproach. Nevertheless, as I sat smoking in the verandah next morning (Sunday), eyeing askance that most uncompromisingly perpendicular mountain, my heart opened towards the stigma. It was so hot. I suggested this to B., he merely remarked that it was nothing to what we should experience half-way up the Nob. B. had determined that I should go up. I indulged in another long and careful survey of the disagreeable eminence with the cacophonious appellation. It looked more inaccessible than ever. I observed that, the farther you were from mountains the finer they looked; that when once you had scaled a mountain you seemed tolose all respect for it; and that I had a reverence for Tinkler's Nob which I should be loth to disturb.
But I had to deal with one of those energetic men who love to get to the top of everything. I confess to a preference for the base end, at any rate, of mountains and high places. It is shadier and safer, and not so far off where I generally am. However, after exhausting a variety of excuses, Tinkler's Nob and the path of duty still lay directly in front of me, B. was still sternly pointing at them, and the thermometer was still rising.
Shin did not accompany us. We reluctantly left him with a cool drink, a long cigar, and a newspaper in the verandah. He said that the only thing he had promised his parents when he left Kentucky, twenty years before, was, "to sit around and reflect on Sunday mornings;" that the more he sat around and reflected, the more he became convinced that there was "something in it;" and that as soon as he "struck a Bonanza," he meant to sit around and reflect on week-days too. He said, moreover, that he didn't believe mountains were ever intended to be ascended, or they would have been arranged somehow differently, perhaps bottom upwards—he wasn't sure;the question was too deep a one to go into on so warm a morning.
We started without a guide, and when half the ascent was completed, lost the track. After some time spent in vainly seeking it, we laid the reins upon our horses' necks, and commended ourselves to their sagacity. They did not immediately bear us to our destination without guidance, although they must have known every pebble in the route; they started straight down hill, fast. With some difficulty we put them about, and eventually invented a way of our own to the summit.
I had carefully abstained from spoiling the effect of the finalcoup d'œilby studying the panorama in detail as we ascended. Lavishly was my patience rewarded. Far as the eye could reach on every side stretched a confused sea of keen-crested rocky billows. Ridge behind rugged ridge rose up, and bluff behind leonine bluff appeared like mountains couchant. Peak towered over peak, from the vast iron helmets near at hand to the thin, blue, palpitating spectres of hills upon the verge of the horizon; from Devil's Point and Fremont's granite roof away to Imperial Shasta "diademed with circling snow," queen of them all.And grim as sentinels, keeping a silent watch throughout all time over the pine-shut valleys, they reared their furrowed brows far up above the clouds that sought to veil their majesty, but only lay a wreath of snowy fleece about their mighty shoulders. The world lay below us. What solitudes were there not there, what distances, what joyous mood, what melancholy, what fields of light, what cloud-cast drifting wastes of shadow! Beside hollows of lapis-lazuli, brimming with golden haze, might be seen gulfs of sullen gloom; through the mantle of purple pines showed flanks of naked stone. Even summer noon but half beguiled the scene of its savage character.
"There was wide wandering for the greediest eye."
"There was wide wandering for the greediest eye."
"There was wide wandering for the greediest eye."
Yonder was Emerald Bay; the Sacramento Valley there; there ran the railways, covered in for miles and miles by snow-sheds. Elsewhere two forest fires headed by columns of smoke crept on their devastating march. And in the distance, in the midst of all this wild scenery, like a great opal upon the iron bosom of the Sierras, slept crystal Tahoe beneath hazy curtains, its gray and silver ripples shivering in cold light, andwinking through the atmospheric dimness with countless rapid flashes.
Here, reader, upon the extreme summit of Tinkler's Nob, I purpose to abandon you: you must find your own way down. Shin met us when we returned half baked to the verandah. He said that he had changed his mind about going up, and if we cared to turn round and repeat the ascent, he would now come with us.
What followed was but a repetition of what had gone before. On the next day we started to return to Emigrant Gap, and parting there from Shin, the pleasantest of companions and hosts, sped on to San Francisco.
"At what time does the stage start for Magdalena?" I inquired of the bar-tender at the "Metropolitan Hotel," Tucson, where the Southern Pacific Railway had just landed me.
"Magdalena?" he drawled. "Well, guess you'll have to wait here till Saturday now. Stage went out this morning at eight o'clock."
It was nine o'clock on Tuesday.En routefrom the station I had seen quite enough of Tucson to put my ill-luck in its strongest light. But the bar-tender did not seem to realise that there could be any misfortune in a delay of four days there.
"Take a drink?" said he. "There's worse places than Tucson; there's places where you can't get a drink."
I took a drink, in which my new acquaintance joined me.
"Is Mr. Maroney in?" I asked. Mr. Maroney was the proprietor of the hotel, and I had a message of introduction to him.
"Mr. Maroney ain't long gone to bed. The boys was having a little game of 'freeze out' last night. I guess he'll be around at midday."
A bed-room, or rather a loose-box, was assigned me in the quadrangle at the back of the saloon, and after breakfasting I strolled out to enlarge my acquaintance with the town.
Until twelve months previously, Tucson had been an unimportant adobe village; now it was growing rapidly. Edifices of brick were springing up in all directions. Practically it is the gateway between Mexico and the far Western States of America, and as such its future is assured.
Under the shop awnings in the main street loitered a crowd of handsome, bearded, bronzed miners from the neighbouring mining districts. To and fro flitted a few busy store-clothed store-keepers and clerks, and here and there a knot of men might be seen examining some specimen of quartz. Acouple of leather-overalled cowboys, ostentatiously "heeled" or armed, rode down the street on their Mexican-saddledbronchos; a Chinaman stole swiftly and silently by; a half-breed led a lame horse along; a couple more "greasers" seated one behind the other went past on another equine scarecrow; sundry dogs—one dragging a swollen run-over leg after him—loafed about; and a chain-and-ball gang of convicts slowly advanced, sweeping the dusty road.
The town was gay with the bunting displayed in the store signs, advertisements, and invitations to "walk in."
The "Head Quarters" store is "selling out at cost price," boots, shoes, bacon, lard, flour, stores, hardware, etc., with all intermediate articles, forming the stock to be sacrificed. A Saddle and Harness manufactory, outwardly rich in signs and specimens of its work, is followed by a "Nobby Clothing" store that even surpasses it in its ticketed display of "pants" and "vests." Inside, a customer, with his feet on the counter, leans back in his chair and chats to the shopman, who is perched on his own cask. "Ladies' Dress Goods," "Fancy Goods," "Gents'Furnishing Goods," "Stores and Tinware," "The Alhambra Billiard Saloon," "The Tucson Restaurant," "Markets," "Estate Offices," diagrams of gouty-looking boots, swollen loaves, gigantic pipes, guns, bottles, etc., etc., without end, in black upon a white linen ground, invite attention everywhere.
In a town of this kind, next to the drinking saloons, the barber's shop is the chief place of resort. The barber, in importance, ranks second only to the artistic mixer of cool drinks. He is hail-fellow-well-met with every one. Especially cheery and amusingly ceremonious is Figaro if he happen to be a coloured man. His memory is prodigious. Men enter that he has not seen for months, and with whom he is perhaps only slightly acquainted; yet he resumes the conversation precisely where it terminated when they parted. He reminds his visitor of what he has said, and of what his projects were when he last was shaved there, and he persistently inquires how far those assertions have been verified, and those intentions fulfilled. Having posted himself up to the latest date in all that concerns the victim of his curiosity, he proceeds, in return, to furnish him with biographical sketches of such later passages inthe lives of his friends as may have escaped his knowledge.
In the barber's shop that I entered the three chairs were all occupied. A slender, graceful, "interesting young man," of an Italian type of face, dressed in a blue shell-jacket bound with yellow, a good deal of loud jewellery, and a "dandy-rig" generally, operated on one customer; a "wooden-mugged down-Easter," with bushy eyebrows, and quick, twinkling eyes, who sang over and over again, absently, though still with heart-wrung pathos, "Oh, my little darling, I love you! Oh, my little darling, yes, I do!" had the second in charge; the third was at the mercy of a black man, who was cross-questioning him very closely as to a recent trip to Tombstone.
I fell to the hands of the dude, and was sheeted and soaped by him with a theatrical flourish that led me to anticipate the rest of the performance with interest. Three various strops were necessary to put an edge on the razor that was to execute me. The first, a rough one, scraped like a file; the second made the razor ring like a bell beneath the reckless strokes of its dashing manipulator; over the third it slid likesoap. I was prepared for some fancy shaving, and was not disappointed. After a few false starts the young man, at one fell swoop, slid the razor through the stubble on my face from one end of the cheek to the other. For a little while he sliced about in a fashion that irresistibly reminded one of cutlass drill, and then settled down to more delicate work. Certainly he had a sure and dainty touch, but to be shaved by him often would take years off a nervous man's life. Even when the rougher work was finished he was sufficiently alarming. Running his fingers over my chin he would discover a hair that had escaped him, and, as if he were flicking a fly off a wall with a whip-lash, sweep down upon it and smooth it off at one fell stroke. As for the coloured gentleman, he arrayed himself in magnificent clothing and went out; the "down-Easter," having finished his task, took up a guitar and croaked a few amorous ballads in a decayed voice.
Returning to the hotel, I found that Mr. Paul Maroney had arisen. I also found a card of invitation from (I think it was) the "Union Club" awaiting me. Being dubious with regard to the nature of a club in Tucson, I interrogated Maroney on the subject.
"Do you want to play monte?" he asked, weighing the card between his finger and thumb.
"No."
"Well...."
That "well" drawled out and sustained, with the look that accompanied it, told me quite as much about the Club as I desired to know. Paul and I christened our acquaintance with cocktails.
Conversation at any time, on any topic, or with any person in Tucson (as elsewhere on the frontier), invariably led to this ceremony. Cocktail drinking has a charm of its own, which lifts it above drinking as otherwise practised. Your confirmed cock-tail drinker is not to be confounded with the common sot. He is an artist. With what exquisite feeling will he graduate his cup, from the gentle "smile" of early morning, to the potent "smash" of night! The analytical skill of a chemist marks his unerring detection of the very faintest dissonance in the harmony of the ingredients that compose his beverage. He has an antidote to correct, a tonic to induce every mood and humour that man knows. Endless variety rewards a single-hearted devotion to cocktails, whilst the refinement and ingenuity that may be exercised inthe display of such an attachment, redeem it from intemperance. It becomes an art; I am not sure that it ought not to be termed a science. It is drinking etherealised, rescued from vulgar appetite and brutality, purified of its low origin and ennobled. A cocktail hath the soul of wit, it is brief—it is a jest, a bon-mot, happy thought, a gibe, a word of sympathy, a tear, an inspiration, a short prayer. A list of your experienced cocktail drinker's potations for the day constitutes a complete picture of life, and the secret joys and sorrows that he hides from all the world may almost be said therein to stand betrayed to the eye of a brother scientist.
The four days' waiting passed at length, and seated in the corpulent old coach, with its team of four wheelers and four leaders, we rumbled slowly out of Tucson.
The passengers were a Mexican dame with a baby, a Mexican, an American miner, and myself. A sort of second whip sat beside the driver, armed with a short but heavy weapon, with which he made excursions from the box-seat to the ground, and whilst the coach was still in motion fought it out with any refractory member of the team, as he ranbeside him. Collecting a pocketful of the wickedest stones that he could find, he would then return, and pelt thebronchosfrom his former elevation. Another of his duties was to disentangle the team, when, as not unfrequently occurred, so many of the leaders faced the wheelers that further progress was impossible. It also fell to his lot to tie the coach together with thongs and string when its dissolution appeared imminent. In the performance of his various duties this individual displayed considerable agility, ability, and resource.
The Mexican woman was frightful, the infant very like her, only by no means so quiet. Mother and child left us at the end of the first stage. The Mexican slept all day; towards evening he awoke and reduced himself to a state of complete intoxication withmascal. The miner never opened his lips until the following morning just before entering Magdalena, when we happened to see a jackass rabbit.
"Next jackass rabbit we see, I'll be durned if I don't shoot him," he said.
He forthwith produced and cocked a long Colt's revolver. But, as we saw no more rabbits, I missed this exhibition of his skill.
From the pace at which we proceeded during the night, I presumed that the Mexican's bottle ofmascalwas not the only one we had on board. The jolting was terrific. Besides encountering the ordinary ruts and irregularities in the ground, we struck every now and then, when going at full gallop, against a loose boulder, or the projecting corner of a rock, the shock of which brought our heads in stunning contact with the brass-capped nails that studded the roof of the coach. I was sometimes in doubt a moment whether my neck were broken or not. When Magdalena was reached my scalp was raw, and every angle of my body bruised.
Stage travelling in Mexico, if this were a fair sample of it, is neither luxurious nor speedy. Owing to the irregularity with which the service is conducted, it is impossible for relays to be in attendance. Not until the coach arrives is apeonsent out to drive in fresh horses from the country. As they roam free over the broadvegas, they may be miles from home; consequently it is no unusual thing for the best part of a day to be wasted before they are found. Outward bound, we were singularly fortunate in this respect. On the return journey, our delays were all prolonged,in some cases exceeding even five or six hours. The wattled sheds and huts at which these intervals were passed were of the filthiest description.
Some of our teams were curiously mixed. One consisted of three donkeys, two mules, and threebronchos. Most of them were partly composed of mules. Some were poor, others were remarkably good. Particularly noteworthy was the performance of a level team of sturdybronchos, that we picked up late in the afternoon, and that of a fine team of mules that took us into Magdalena on the following morning. The stages were about sixteen and eighteen miles respectively, but with the exception of a few short stoppages, caused by trouble with the harness, were covered at full gallop; notwithstanding which, the teams pulled up almost as fresh as they had started.
In one instance a deficiency of stock necessitated the lassoing and breaking in of a horse that had never been used before. He fought gallantly for nearly half-an-hour, and several times was thrown half-strangled on the ground, when the lasso was loosened and he was given a few minutes to recover. Eventually he allowed himself to be harnessed, and once in the team had to go withthe rest. I must do our driver the justice to say that he handled the ribbons with admirable skill and boldness.
To add to the interest of the trip, it was expected that we should be stopped by cow-boys. These gentlemen had lately "gone through" the coaches with great regularity, and, in anticipation of trouble, our whip and second whip were armed to the teeth. Fortunately, the journey was without incident of this kind.
With demoniacal yells, and a furious cracking of both whips, we dashed into Magdalena, and pulled up in theplaza. It was Sunday. The good people were just issuing from church. Mexican maidens, in white or brilliant robes, trooped out in twos and threes, and hand in hand went laughingly homewards. And here I feel the scribbling traveller's temptation to romance. A fanciful picture of some dark-eyed beauty, with proud Castilian features, and bewitching dignity and grace of manner, would fit my tale so well. Besides, in a Mexican sketch, one expects a pretty woman, even as one looks for lions in African, and elephants in Indian scenery. But I was so disgusted in this respect myself, that it willbe of some satisfaction to me to have you disappointed also. Expect, therefore, no glowing description of female loveliness from me. Good-looking women doubtless exist in Mexico; but, in the few miles that I went over the border on this occasion, I saw none. A hazy recollection of flowers in connection with this scene of church-going damsels haunts me, but whether they were worn in the hair, or in the dress, or simply carried, I no longer remember. Men in their colouredzarapas, and broad-brimmed hats, chatted and smoked the eternal cigarette. Old women in black robes loitered in knots (very like old wives elsewhere) and gossiped. Thecommandanteand a few officials sat on one of the old, carved stone seats. A few miners loafed before the "American Hotel," kept by a plump, jovial, masterful American woman, and her subdued matter-of-fact English husband, by name Bennett. Here I breakfasted, and in the afternoon rode out, twenty-three miles, to the mine of a friend of mine, whom I had come down to visit.
Past the Sierra Ventana (so called on account of the hole that completely perforates one shoulder of it), and over wave after wave of rolling country,sparsely covered withmesketis-bush, my guide and I rode on towards some hills in the distance; and dusk had fallen and night had come when we ascended the spur on which the mine was situated. The stalwart form of my friend (whom I will call by his local sobriquet, Don Cabeza) appeared at his cottage door as I drew up, and, not expecting me, in the dark he took me to be a new hand in quest of work.
"Buenas nochas, señor, said I.
"Buenas nochas."
"Habla V. Castellano?"
"No hablo so much as all that comes to."
Then I burst out laughing.
"Why——! If it isn't Francis!"
What a warm-hearted greeting he gave me! How hospitably he spread the best of everything before me, and even would he have relinquished his own bed to me had I allowed it. I had a big budget of news from San Francisco about mutual friends, but much as he wished to hear it, he insisted on its narration being deferred until I had slept and rested.
It was odd. When I had last seen and known Don Cabeza, it had been in an atmosphere of clubs and drawing-rooms, where his wit, good-nature,geniality, and a certain old-fashioned thoughtfulness and courtesy of manner had made him one of the most popular men in a pleasant circle. Here, with that adaptability to circumstance which is so marked a characteristic of Americans (whenthey choose to exert the faculty), he had shed the drawing-room air, and appeared, for the time being, as a bluff, light-hearted, practical miner. The white linen, patent leather, and general fastidiousness of speech and taste, formerly so marked, were temporarily laid aside for the flannel shirts, top boots, Western slang, and sublime indifference to fare and comfort peculiar to the dweller in a mining camp. And yet he had not changed either. There is a tinge of old world chivalry in the character of those who came in early days to California. They are lost in a crowd of a different type and of later date now; wherever you do find one though, you find a large-hearted, generous man, with nothing small or mean in his whole composition. In the better type of old Californian, there is less of the snob than in any man in the world; and in supporting what he thinks is manly and unselfish, he is as fearless of what others may think, as of what they may do. Animated by the love of adventure,the Don had left a luxurious home in the East to come in early times to California, and had there "toughed through" all those scenes and times that now read like pages from a fascinating romance. And a fine type of "old Californian" he was.
The Santa Ana was a new purchase that he had come down there to prospect. It promised well, but was not as yet worked on a large scale.
Those were pleasant days up at the mine. Lazy? Well, yes; I fancy everything in Mexico is more or less lazy. We were so entirely out of the world; the trip, moreover, was so utterly disconnected with anything that came before or followed it, that it stands out now in solitary relief.
Anadobecottage, of three rooms, had been built for the Don and his foreman, and here we lived. Below us, in wattled huts, dwelt the Yaqui miners and their families. A little removed from the adobe was an open arbour, with wattled roof, in which we took our meals. Near it was a stunted tree, that served for various purposes, besides being shady and ornamental. Lodged in the first fork was our water-barrel. The coffee-grinder was nailed to its trunk. In a certain crevice the soap was always tobe found. Upon one bough hung the towels, the looking-glass depended from another. One branch supported the long steel drill, that, used as a gong, measured with beautifully musical tones the various watches of the miners. Amidst the exposed roots the axe in its leisure moments reposed. Our tree, in short, was a kind of dumb waiter, without which we should have been lost.
The country teemed with quail and jackass rabbits. We bought an old Westley Richards shot-gun in Magdalena, and did great slaughter amongst them. Deer were reported to be numerous, but during my stay we saw none. A good deal of our time was spent in cooking. The "China-boy," nominallychef, was so wondrously dirty, that one day we rose against him, and degraded him to the post of scullion, and being, both of us, proud of our culinary skill, we undertook the preparation of our meals ourselves. Jerked beef, bacon, quails, jackass rabbit, beans, rice, chilies, and potatoes were the articles that we had to work upon.
Don Cabeza mixed the introductory cocktail, and took sole charge of the jerked beef and beans; the quails and jackass rabbit fell to my care, theremaining items were mutual property, with the exception of the rice, which the Celestial was still permitted to boil. Most elaborate (at least in titles) were themenuswe produced. One Mexican dish that the Don used to prepare of jerked beef, pounded and fried to a crisp in butter, with a few chopped chilies, was worthy of note. Jerked beef and jackass rabbit! We laughed as we compared these frugal meals with the extravagant dinners and breakfasts of the year before, at the "California," "Marchands," and the "Poodle Dog," in San Francisco. And, by-the-way, if you are known at either of the above restaurants, you can be served there in a style that neither "Voisin's" nor "Bignon's" could easily excel.
Every now and then, some Yaqui men or women would come up from their little colony below to purchase something from the store room, which, owing to the distance that we were from town, it was necessary to keep for their convenience; and great was their mirth to see Don Cabeza and me cooking. They said we were "loco," or mad. Good-tempered creatures they were, and certainly easily pleased, for they regarded it as a signal compliment if I sketched either of them.
I never could understand why time sped so rapidly here. There was really no occupation for us. Yet morning had scarcely broken fairly, it seemed, before evening approached, and what evenings they were!
In the rear of the cottage, the spur on which we lived led up to rocky cañons and gaunt ridges before it, vastvegasstretched like a sea away to a far-off horizon of mountains, that, in the distance, looked as soft as low-down clouds. Behind these purple veins betwixt sky and landscape, the sun—a molten mass of palpitating fire, was lost at night. And as it passed away, swift shadows fell and dimmed the scenery, knitting its distances together with imperceptible process, and shrouding the intervals in mystery and obscurity. Soon only the deceptively near sky-line was clearly visible, and above it the glow of orange deepening into red still suffused the heavens with subdued illumination. Thus, on the one hand might be seen, high set in fathomless blue, amidst glittering hosts of stars, or far or near, twinkling or fixed, blue, and white, and red, and yellow, the silver beauty of a crescent moon; on the other, the lingering glory of the vanished sun. The effect was curious.
The foreman went early to bed, and was early abroad. Not so Don Cabeza and I. When the mocking-bird in themesketis-bush had ceased its plaintive song, and save for the sound—like dropping water—of crickets, silence fell upon the land, we would light our largest pipes, endue us in our easiest garments, and sit (he on a carpenter's bench, I in a barrow) smoking and yarning, yarning and smoking, without thought of time, through the still watches of those enchanting southern nights. Many a swift and pleasant hour did we spend thus! But then Cabeza possessed a fund of crisp wit, and an inexhaustible store of anecdotes, experiences, quaint theories, and views.
Occasionally we went into Magdalena for stores and letters. Magdalena can boast a past of some prosperity; a more important future lies before it. At present it bears a stamp of dilapidation, poverty, and squalor. Probably not a dozen of its inhabitants are unencumbered with debt; nevertheless, everybody, even to the beggar in the street, possesses from two or three to ten or a dozen mines. It sounds absurd to hear a fellow in rags discoursing glibly about "his mines." Still more ridiculous does itseem when you know that many of them are of great value. The iron safe, however, is only to be opened by a golden key, and a coined dollar in Magdalena is worth a fortune underground. Little doubt exists that, when the railways, now (1882) entering from the States, are completed, and capital and energy pour into the country, enormous wealth will be found hidden in its quartz. The hills around Magdalena give evidence of gold, silver, and galena ore in every direction. Nor is gold wanting in the river beds and valleys. All that is required is a little capital and systematic industry.
The area of country suitable for cultivation is circumscribed by reason of the scarcity of water, but where this is obtained and utilised, its effect is magical, and the fertility of the land becomes almost incredible. Not a tithe of that which is eligible is cultivated, for the indolence of the natives is remarkable. Even such ordinary vegetables as potatoes and onions are extremely difficult to obtain. Azarapa, a handful of beans, and a little tobacco, suffice for all the Mexican's requirements. If his vocabulary were limited to "Porque?" and "Poco tiempo," it would not greatly inconvenience him.
Northern Sonora derives its chief support from cattle. In most instances the ranches are of large extent, but poorly stocked. Formerly, they were in better condition, but they suffered severely from Apache raids, from which they are said never to have entirely recovered. The Indians drove off or killed all but the poorest animals, and the ranches have been restocked by the slow process of breeding from those that they left. Latterly a few bulls and stallions of a better class have been imported from the States.
One day the Don and I came into Magdalena with the avowed intention of hiring a cook. The foreman had been despatched once or twice, unsuccessfully, on the same errand; but Cabeza was undiscouraged, and said that "He guessed, if we went ourselves, and they saw how real nice we were, they would all want to come." Accordingly we enlisted all the store-keepers in the place in a search for "a real way-up cook, who could make chile-con-carne, tamales, and all the best Mexican dishes, besides understanding American cookery." "And say," Cabeza would conclude, in giving his directions, "she's got to be a beautiful woman, too, because we're good-lookingourselves, and we don't like to see homely women about the place."
Having posted our requirements in the various stores, we went off to the American hotel, where, by dint of making desperate love to the plump hostess, we succeeded in obtaining a sack of potatoes and half a sack of onions—part of a consignment that she had lately received from Hermosillo. She had just been engaged in a battle royal with the waiter, whom she had demolished with the kitchen coal-shovel. She was inclined, therefore, to be very affable, and even volunteered, for a consideration, to come out to the mine and cook for us herself.
"You want a boss cook and a beauty, Don Cabeza, eh? Well, I guess, I'm both. What'll you give me to come out to the mine and cook?"
"Mrs. Bennett," we said, "if we got you out there we should lose the only pleasure we have to look forward to—the only ray of golden sunlight that illuminates our desolate path in life. We should no longer have the treat of coming in here to see you. We mustn't kill the goose that——I mean, we mustn't be greedy, of course."
The subdued condition of Bennett, and thebandaged head of the waiter, were not happy auguries for the peace of any household that Madame Bennett took charge of. And we probably should not have borne our chains as philosophically as did her husband. Bennett's dry, matter-of-fact spirit was aptly illustrated in a story that I heard here. A miner named Hess was recounting the following incident in his career as a soldier during the North and South war to him.
It appeared that at Bull's Run Hess had a difference with the colonel of his regiment, and, refusing to fight, went off and sat on a rail by himself. A corporal's guard was sent to bring him into action, but Hess said that he "scared the filling out ofthemdurned quick." A sergeant and a file of men then came, but he "got away with them, too." A lieutenant and half a company was despatched in search of him, but he "cleaned them out." A captain and a full company appeared, but this brave man "made them get." Finally half the regiment came down, and the invincible Hess did not hesitate to say that, he "stood them off." Old Bennett heard him to the end without a smile. Then he said: "Hess, I never hurt you any, did I?" "No." "Will you do me a favour, then?" "Why, cer'nly, if I can." "Well, I've got abet of ten dollars, with Mike Sheppard, that Doc Brown is the biggest liar in Sonora, and if ever you tell that tale in public I shall lose the money, sure." And Hess said that he would not tell it again.
In the principal square of Magdalena stood the old church, near which were the ruins of a still more ancient edifice. To the latter, called the church of San Francisco, a legend was attached. I give it as it was given to me by a miner.
"Yer see, this here San warn't always a saint, San warn't. They do say as he was 'customed to go on a scoop—on a bend, occasionally, as it were. However, he took a pull in time, and caught on to this preaching racket, and finally he came to be a bishop. Right here was all in his claim. Wal, happened once when he was prospecting around jest to see that the sky pilots under him was keeping at it, that the outfit banked up here for the night. Next morning, when they was all hitched up and ready for a start, and come to hoist old San on his meule, they couldn't prize him up anyhow. They put on fresh hands and tried all they durned knew. But San, he'd kinder taken root, and thar he sot, like the sawed off stump of a Sierra pine, and jest about as nimble too. 'Boys,'says he, at last, 'let up hauling! ye can quit that soon as ye please' (Independent as a clam at high tide the old cuss was even then). 'Guess I'll stay right here,' says he. 'Waltz in and put up a church right away.' And that's how this church and town come to be built—least, so folks say hereabouts." Then he added reflectively after a pause: "But they do lie here, too."
After the dusty and dirty town we returned to the prettily situated adobe cottage at the mine with renewed pleasure.
At length the time came for me to depart. The horses were driven in from the vega; the near fore-wheel of the cart (which, when not in use, was invalided, and kept in water to prevent the wood shrinking from the tire) was fixed on, the old waggon lined with hay and blankets, and, one night after dinner, we started to drive into Magdalena for the last time.
The day had been oppressive, but now there was a refreshing coolness in the air. At every pace, as we jogged along, hares lolloped across the road, or played amidst the scatteredmesketis-bush on either side of it. Occasionally the howl of a distant coyote might be heard. Night-hawks and owls flitted silently to and fro, and "shard-borne beetles" hummed drowsily asthey wheeled in the dreamy welkin. The stars, the stillness, and the silken winds combined to work a charm. Night wore her richest jewellery, sang low her softest melody, whispered her sweetest poem, and showed her beauty all unveiled even by the lightest fleece of cloud. Until I saw these Mexican skies I never knew how much more beautiful night was than day. For every star dimly distinguishable in Europe a thousand are clearly visible there. Their number and refulgence are astonishing. Were I to live in Mexico I should be strongly tempted to rise at sundown and go to bed at dawn.
Once more the corpulent coach looms in view. Once more am I uncomfortably ensconced therein. With a torrent of Spanish invective, and a terrific cracking of whips, we slowly start. The coach turns round a corner, and I catch a last glimpse of Don Cabeza, with his hat off, in the road, waving a kindly adieu to me.
Note.—The following sketch has, locally speaking, no place in the present collection. But since it is somewhat similar in its nature to the others, since it describes a day's fishing with the well-known angler to whom the book is dedicated, and since, moreover, it serves to mark the interval which elapsed between the time when the foregoing and succeeding sketches were written, I nevertheless introduce it.
Note.—The following sketch has, locally speaking, no place in the present collection. But since it is somewhat similar in its nature to the others, since it describes a day's fishing with the well-known angler to whom the book is dedicated, and since, moreover, it serves to mark the interval which elapsed between the time when the foregoing and succeeding sketches were written, I nevertheless introduce it.
There is a wind which belongs only to spring mornings and they are chary of it. Soft, and yet fresh, if winds were subject to the condition of age, this one might be supposed to be in its first sunny childhood. It has no care nor business. If it blew with all its strength it could never stir a mill-sail, or set a ship in motion. A butterfly rides out its silken gales, and its boldest blast, like the whispered secret of a child, beguiles you of an involuntary smile. Imagine such a breeze fitfully exploring the Winchester Water Meads. Now it hesitates, now lingers, nowpauses altogether; anon with a dainty tinkling of herbage resumes its progress. And a fair march it has.
Once more the sumptuary laws of winter have been repealed, the fashions of a newrégimeadopted. The time has come when "the fields catch flower." Tall buttercups, and dandelions, and knots of the great marsh marigold strew the thick grass with ingots of gold. Myriads of daisies and "milkmaids" powder it with snowy flakes. "Welshman's buttons" and anemones fill every sheltered nook, and stud the borders of each turf-cut drain. Here and there an early plume of sorrel shows like a vein of rust in this floral mosaic work, and each blade or flower, still wet with dew, flashes brilliantly in the sunlight as it trembles in sweet air.
On all sides the air is thrilling with the full melody of larks. A couple of plovers, that are nesting in the neighbourhood, wheel and turn with plaintive cries aloft; and a solitary cabbage butterfly, the melancholy forerunner of its clan, wanders away across the water towards Winnal moors in quest of fellows.
But marigolds and "milkmaids," larks and solitary butterflies aside! The Itchen and its trout are athand, the rod is ready, and the momentous question is: "The fly?"
The swifts and swallows are ranging high, or at any rate totally ignoring the stream, sufficient proof that there is but little of entomological interest for them on the water.
"There's a rise!" ejaculates my companion, however, "and there's another. But they are only feeding on larvæ."
Fish are rising occasionally without absolutely breaking the water, and it is evident that their attention is devoted not to the casual insects floating on the surface, but to the larvæ ascending from the river bed, which they seize before they reach the upper world. We catch a specimen of the full-fledged fly (a Light-Olive), and, having matched it closely in the fly-book, commence operations.
It is ticklish work, this Hampshire trout fishing. Long education has developed in the natives of these waters a degree of sagacity that is almost supernatural. Their appreciation of the faintestnuanceof exaggeration in colour of wing or body, in the artificial flies offered them, is unerring.
Time was, when to take six or seven brace offish was a common occurrence. But in the memory of chalk-streamhabituésthere has been a gradual and steady diminution in angling averages; and now, unless the trout have a silly interval, a brace and a half or two brace is a good day's sport, and to catch these demands far greater knowledge, and the exercise of far more skill and patience than was formerly dreamt of. Then men walked boldly along the river bank, and fished with ordinary tackle and a wet fly. Now, albeit the flies used are miracles of diminutive workmanship, the gut a filament of fineness, that, with any consideration for its strength, can scarcely be reduced, to stalk and capture a two-pound trout necessitates the use of a dry fly, and a degree of caution and address scarcely less than is required for successful moose hunting.
As the best fly-fisherman in Hampshire said to me: "You want to put the exact fly just over your fish the first time, if he doesn't take it he doesn't mean to. By changing flies, and sticking to him half the day, youmayworry him into an indiscretion, but it is a hundred to one that you are only educating him."
What fishing will eventually become in thesestreams it is difficult to imagine, for the decrease in sport arises from no reduction in the stock of fish, which are more numerous now than they ever were.
To-day I am not wielding the rod, but act merely as gillie for a master of the art, on whom the mantle of old Isaac Walton has descended. Gradually we work up stream, trying to convert these Winnal incarnations of perversity from their unholy appetite for larvæ, with exquisite imitations of various Olives and of the Red Quill. But they remain obdurate. They come, but come short. They roll up and leisurely inspect the fly, and with not less contemptuous deliberation turn tail upon it.
At length a far cast under the opposite bank is followed by a slight break in the water, a quick tension of the line, and a good fish is in difficulty. But almost immediately the point of the rod flies up, and, owing to the knot attaching the gut to the eyed hook having drawn, the fish escapes.