CHAPTER VIII.
MULE-HUNTING EXPEDITION FROM VANCOUVER ISLAND TO SAN FRANCISCO—THE ALMADEN QUICKSILVER MINES—POISON-OAK AND ITS ANTIDOTE.
TheCommission, in 1860, were to commence the work of marking the boundary-line on the eastern side of the Cascades. A large addition to our staff of pack-mules being indispensable, I was despatched to San Francisco to purchase them; and instructed to rejoin the Commission, as soon as practicable, at the Dalles, already mentioned as a small town on the upper part of the Columbia river.
I introduce the journal of my mule-hunting adventures at this part of the volume, as it enables me to explain the systems of transport and travelling resorted to in wild countries, where roads and railways are unknown. I transcribe my journal, the events of each day as hastily recorded:—
Feb. 29th, 1860.—Left Esquimalt Harbour inthe steamer ‘Panama,’—my destination San Francisco,—my mission to purchase mules. The island is still in its winter garb; not a bud has burst into leaf, and very few migratory birds have made their appearance. At 10.30 a.m. we are steaming out of the harbour; no wind, water smooth as a lake; run pleasantly down the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and pass Cape Flattery about 4 p.m. Wind blowing unpleasantly fresh, and a heavy tumbling swell makes the ‘Panama’ disagreeably lively. Passengers rapidly disappear; various gulping sounds, heavy sighs, and impatient calls for the steward, tell clearly enough that the most terrible leveller next to death, seasickness, has begun its work below.
March 1st.—A bleak misty morning, a heavy sea, wind dead ahead, and cold driving hail-showers. The ship, rolling from side to side, renders it difficult for even practised hands to guide anything spillable to the mouth; and walking, save to a sailor or a housefly, is an impossible performance.
March 2nd.—Managed to scramble on deck about 7 a.m., by going through a series of acrobatic performances, that came near to dislocating all my joints; wind moderated, but a heavy sea still rocked us very rudely. We are close inshore, passing Cape Blanco, 350 miles below Cape Flattery. Port Orford, a place celebrated for its cedar, is just visible through the haze; the rounded hills behind it are quite white with snow. Kept close inshore all day, but the weather is too cold, and sea too rough, for one to enjoy the scenery.
March 3rd.—Scrambled on deck again about 7 a.m.; wind still ahead, but altogether a better morning than yesterday. Had a good look at Cape Mendozena, a bold rocky headland, to the south of which is Mendozena city, consisting of a few houses and a groggery. The coast-line is exceedingly picturesque and pretty: between this headland and Point Arena a series of undulating hills, capped with massive pine-trees; their sides and grassy slopes, reaching down to the sea-line, remind me of English hayfields; it seems almost like enchantment, the change in the vegetation three days only from Vancouver Island.
March 4th.—At sunrise I am on deck, called by the captain, to get a peep at the ‘Golden Gate.’ There is just enough light to reveal a stupendous mass of bold mountain scenery, rising apparently from the sea, and towering up 3,000 feet and over, until lost in the haze of the morning.Under the shadow of these hills we are puffing towards an opening, as if cut purposely through a solid wall of rock. On the right stands an immense fortress, built of red brick. Alcatraz Island, right ahead, is dimly visible, like a grey spot in the line of water. The ripple, touched by the sunbeams that are slanting into the bay, seems converted into revolving cylinders of brilliants. As we steam through this magnificent portal, the finest harbour in the world opens out to the southward and westward. On the curving shore of the bay, I can see the city of San Francisco, built on the slopes of three hills; to the left the island of Yerba Buena; farther to the right a forest of masts, from which flags representing every nation flutter in the breeze; ahead a long stretch of water, as far as eye could follow it—the continuation of the harbour.
We ran alongside an immense pier at 6 a.m. I am mobbed by touters from every hotel in San Francisco, and have hard work to keep my luggage from being equally divided amongst them. Passengers appear, for the first time since leaving Vancouver Island, blanched like celery or seakale. By dint of strong arms and stronger language, I get my luggage fastened to a grating that lets down by machinery, at the end of anomnibus marked ‘Oriental Hotel.’ I am hustled into the ‘bus with three pale passengers, and we are rapidly whirled off to the ‘Oriental.’ The mail-packet from Panama has also just arrived; all the beds are taken at the hotel, so I bide my chance of some one leaving before night.
Called on the Consul, and through his kindness am located in the Union Club House, a grand improvement on the ‘Oriental.’
March 5th.—Occupied in giving my letters of introduction, and arranging money-matters. The club-house in which I am staying is a massive granite building. The granite, beautifully faced and fitted, was all hewn in China; the house was put together there, to see everything was properly finished, then taken to pieces, packed, and shipped for San Francisco. Chinese builders came with it, brought their own scaffolding (made entirely from bamboo), put it together, built up the granite edifice in which I transcribe this, as handsome a structure as any San Francisco can boast of.
March 6th.—Having nothing particular to do, determine to visit the New Almaden quicksilver mines. There are two routes to these mines—one per stage the whole distance (56 miles), the other per steamer to the head of the Bay of SanFrancisco, and thence by stage to San José. Past experience had taught me, whenever possible, scrupulously to avoid stage travelling. Being tossed in a blanket, or rolled down a steep hill in a cask, produce much the same bruised and general state of sprain and dislocation as a day’s ride in a stage. Choosing the steamer lessened the chance of jolting by quite one-half, at the same time affording a good opportunity of seeing the famed Bay of San Francisco.
I embark at seven from a wooden pier—early as it is, alive with the hum, buzz, and bustle of the awakening city—and steam away over the unrippled waters of the bay. The temperature is delicious; a few fleecy clouds are swept rapidly over the clear blue sky by a light breeze blowing softly from the land, laden with the perfume of wild flowers and forest trees. A run of a few hours brought us to the embarcadero, or landing, at the head of the bay, from whence a stage bumped me over the road about four miles, to the old town of San José.
Pueblo San José stands at the entrance of a lovely valley. The town consists of a collection of adobe houses; a few in the main street are built of wood, painted white, with brilliant green jalousies outside the windows. The older housesare scattered round an open space, the plaza: trees of greenest foliage, in double rows, shade one from the burning sun, and everywhere spacious orchards and flower-gardens testify to the fertility of the soil.
Having a note from a friend in San Francisco to the host of ‘—— House,’ more than ordinary civility was accorded me, and by some superhuman means a buggy would be ready in about two hours to take me to the mines. Crossing the Alameda, a grove of willows and oaks, planted by the padres, leads to the old crumbling walls of what was once a very spacious mission, now rapidly falling to decay. The interior of the old church is decorated with rude carvings, paintings of the Crucifixion, and frescoed figures of saints and martyrs, clad in garments of dazzling colours. One old shaven priest, with a particularly dirty cassock, and a face so begrimed with layers of filth as to be mosquito-proof, was the only ecclesiastic visible. Thousands of cliff swallows (Hirundo lunifrons) were busy building their bottle-shaped mud nests under the dilapidated roof.
Discovered little worth looking at in the town. Found the buggy waiting: my coachman, a regular Yankee, puffing vigorously at an immense cigar, was seated in readiness, his legs resting on the splash-board. Without removing the cigar from his mouth, he drawled out, ‘Say, Cap’en, guess you’d better hurry up if you mean making the ranch before sundown. Bet your pants this child ain’t agwine that road in the dark nohow.’ ‘What’s to happen?’ I mildly enquired. ‘Happen! Wal, maybe upset; maybe chawed up by a grizzly; maybe cleaned slick out by the greasers. You’d better believe a man has to keep his eye skinned in the daytime; so hurry up, Cap.’ Without further parley I scrambled in, and away we went.
Our road lay over broad plains and through occasional belts of timber; deep, gravelly arroyos, in and out of which we dashed with a plunging scramble, marked the course of the floods. Everything was steaming hot; the baked ground reflected back the scorching sun-rays, until the atmosphere quivered as one sees it over a limekiln; the mustangs in a fog of perspiration; the Jehu, denuded of coat and vest, continually yelled ‘A git along,’ with a rein in each hand, steering rather than driving, was red-hot in body and temper. But this was nothing to my state of broil. Exposed to a temperature that would have made one perspire sitting in theshade; to be kept in a state of bodily fear of instant upset; to undergo a continuous exercise that would have been good training for an athlete, to avoid being shot out of the buggy like a shell from a mortar, would have set an Icelander in a glow. The rapidity with which we whirled along, and the eccentric performances of the vehicle, destroyed, in a measure, the enjoyment of a scene quite new to me.
We rattled through the splendid valley of Santa Clara, passing here and there a fertile ranch; on either side, the wooded slopes looked like lawns of Nature’s own contriving; far on my left, the bay glimmered like a line of silver light, the ground carpeted with flowers, brilliant escholtzia and blue nemophila were most conspicuous amidst a natural harvest of wild oats and grass; and on all sides, from amongst the clumps of buck-eye and oak, the cheery whistle and chirp of birds rang pleasantly on the ear.
Reaching the ‘Halfway House’ (as a small wooden building is named, midway betwixt San José and the mine), we stopped to water the mustangs and refresh the inward man—a respite most acceptable. A ‘tall drink’ worked wonders on my hitherto taciturn coachman, who, as we jogged along the remaining half the journey,related such wonderful stories, that it seemed to me we had hardly left the ‘Halfway House’ ere we rattled under a grove of trees completely shutting out the fading light, and pulled up with a sudden jerk, that well-nigh pitched me over the mustangs. ‘Guess we’ve made it, Cap’en; this here’s the manager’s.’
Giving my letters of introduction to Mr. Young, a hospitable invitation to be his guest was readily accepted. I cannot help devoting a line to the praise of a house most enjoyable in its minutest details, with a host and hostess it refreshes one’s heart to recall to memory.
The lower village of Almaden consists of a long row of very pretty cottages, the residences of the workmen employed in smelting the ore; each cottage was completely buried with honeysuckle and creeping roses the gardens in front filled with flowers, and at the back with vegetables and fruit. A small stream of water, clear and cold, ripples past the frontage, brought from a mountain-burn that runs swiftly at the back, a barrier dividing the gardens from the surrounding hills. An avenue of trees leads from the cottages to the spacious brick buildings used for smelting.
The discovery of these fabulously rich mines ofquicksilver is briefly told. Long ere gold was discovered in California, the padres and early settlers knew of a cavern in the hillside, about a mile and a half from the present village. Deeming it merely a natural fissure or cleft in the rock, explorations only were made by the more adventurous as to its extent, which proved to be in length one hundred feet, running into the mountain horizontally. No one ever thought it was an artificial excavation of great antiquity. When the vaqueros and old dons of the neighbourhood were questioned by a new-comer about the cave, a shrug of the shoulders, and the usual reply, ‘Quien sabe? son cosas muy antiguas,’ was the sole information obtained.
A gold-seeker, assaying some of the rock, salivated himself, and thus discovered it was rich in quicksilver. A grant, with the land adjoining, was procured, and the original opening widened; in clearing away the rubble and dirt at the end of the cave, several skeletons were discovered, together with rude mining-tools and other curious relics, clearly proving it an old excavation made by the natives for the purpose of procuring vermilion, so much used by all savages to paint themselves. The position of the skeletons in the rubbish covering them left no doubt that, havingfollowed the vein of cinnabar without exercising due precaution to prop the loose ground overhead, they had been literally buried alive in a grave of their own digging. Further research soon revealed the immense value of the deposit. Many years rolled away, and very little was done until it passed from the hands of an English company into that of an American firm.
The mine is about a mile and a half from the smelting-works, on the side of a mountain; an admirable road leads to it by a gentle ascent, down which waggons drawn by mules bring the ore to be smelted. On reaching the summit I rested on a level plateau, on which the upper works are built; I am to descend presently into the depths of the mine to see how the ore is deposited, and trace, step by step, the various processes it has to go through before it is marketable.
The main entrance is a tunnel ten feet high, and about an equal width throughout, in which runs a tramway leading to the shaft. At the end of this tunnel a small steam-engine does the work of the poor ‘tanateros,’ or carriers, who, until very recently, brought the ore and rubbish from the bottom of the mine on their backs, a system still adopted in Spain and Peru, each manhaving to bring up a load of two hundred pounds, in a bag made of hide, fastened by two straps passing round the shoulders, and a broader one across the forehead, which mainly sustains the load. It was fatal work to the poor Mexicans who had to do it, the terrible muscular strain soon producing disease and death!
On reaching the engine I am undressed and rigged as a miner, a costume far more loose and easy than becoming. Three dip-candles dangled from a button on my jacket by the wicks, and one enveloped in a knob of clay for my hand, completed my toilet. The next process is to be lowered down into the mine. Squeezing myself into a huge kind of bucket, and assuming as near as practicable the shape and position of a frog, my candle lighted, ‘All right!’ says somebody, and I find myself rapidly descending a damp dismal hole, dripping with water like a shower. Of course I shudder, and have horrible ideas of an abyss, ending no one knows where; the candle hissed, sputtered, and went out; the bucket swang as the chain lengthened, and bumped unpleasantly against the rocks; now a sudden stop, and a lively consciousness of being dragged bodily out like a bundle of clothes, discloses the fact of my safe arrival at the bottom.
The swarthy Mexican miner deputed as guide leads the way along a narrow gulley, and down an incline to the mouth of another hole, the descent to which has to be effected on a slanting pole, with notches cut in it, very like a bear-pole, called by the miner anescalera, requiring a saltatory performance that would not have been so bad if I had only known where I should have landed in case of falling. After this we scramble down a flight of steps cut in the rock, and reach the lowest excavation, about one thousand feet from the surface.
The cinnabar is found in large pockets, or in veins, permeating a kind of trap-rock; and as the miners dig it out, large columns or pillars are left to support the roof, and prevent the chance of its falling in. A small charcoal-fire burned slowly at the base of one of these massive columns, and as its flickering light fell dimly, illuminating with a ruddy glow the bronzed faces and nearly nude figures of the miners, the vermilion hue of the rugged walls and arched roof, sparkling with glittering crystals, forcibly reminded me of a brigand’s cave, such as Salvator Rosa loved to paint.
All the work is done by contract: each gang taking a piece of ground on speculation, ispaid according to the amount of ore produced; the ore averaging about thirty-six per cent. for quicksilver, although some pieces that I dug myself produced seventy-five per cent. Many mines in Europe have been profitably worked when the cinnabar has yielded only one per cent.
A shrill whistle rings through the mine; the miners from all directions rush towards the pillars. Thinking, at least, the entire concern was tumbling in, I was about to scamper off, when the guide, seizing my arm, drags me behind a projecting mass of rock, simply saying, ‘A blast!’ For a while there was a deathlike silence—not a sound save the hiss of the fusee, and the heavy breathing of the men; then the cave lighted up with a lurid flash, shedding a blinding glare over every object like tropical lightning. The dark galleries appeared and disappeared in the twinkling of an eye, whilst the report, like countless cannon, was echoed and reechoed through the cavernous chamber. Showers of fragments came rattling down in every direction, hurled up by the force of the powder. On the smoke clearing, the miners set to work to collect the scattered fragments of cinnabar. If a blast has been successful, often many tons of rock are loosened andtorn out, to be broken into small pieces and conveyed to the bucket, and hauled by the engine to the surface. The mining operations are continued night and day, seventy-four pounds of candles being consumed every twenty-four hours.
I finish the survey of this singular mine perfectly free from foul air or fire-damp; ascend as I came down; and, by vigorous rubbing with soap-and-water, am slowly restored from bright vermilion to my normal colour.
The ore, on reaching the surface, is conveyed by the tram-cart to the sorting-shed, where it is broken and carefully picked over by skilful hands, great caution being needed in selection, as much valuable ore might be thrown away, or a large quantity of useless rock taken to the smelting-furnaces. The picked ore is placed in large bags made of sheepskin, weighed, and then hauled by the mules to the lower works.
Near the mine is a primitive kind of village, the abode of the miners, sorters, and ore-carriers, who are principally Mexicans; dirty señoras in ragged finery, dirtier children devoid of garments, together with dogs, pigs, poultry, and idle miners playing monte on the doorsteps, contrast sadly with the exquisite little village at the works.
Descending from the mine to the level ground by a short track down the hillside, through scenery indescribably picturesque, I reach the smelting furnaces; these, occupying about four acres of land, are built of brick, admirably neat, and well contrived. As quicksilver is found in several forms—namely, native quicksilver, occurring in small drops, in the pores or on the ledges of other rocks, argental mercury, a native silver amalgam, and sulphide of mercury or cinnabar, different processes are requisite for its reduction. Here it is found solely in form of cinnabar, and to reduce it a kind of reverberatory furnace is used, three feet by five, placed at the end of a series of chambers, each chamber seven feet long, four wide, and five high. About ten of these chambers are arranged in a line, built of brick, plastered inside, and secured by transverse rods of iron, fitted at the ends with screws and nuts, to allow for expansion. The top is of boiler iron, securely luted.
The first chamber is the furnace for fire, the second for ore, separated from the first by a grated partition, allowing the flame to pass through and play over the cinnabar. This ore-chamber, when filled, contains ten thousand pounds of cinnabar. The remaining chambersare for condensing the metal, communicating by square holes at the opposite corners; for instance, the right upper corner and lower left, andvice versâ, so that the vapour has to perform a spiral course in its transit through the condensers. Leaving the chambers, the vapour is conducted through a large wooden cistern, into which a shower of water continually falls, and thence through a long flue and tall chimney carried far away up the hillside.
The mercury is collected, as condensed, in gutters running into a long conduit outside the building, from which it drops into an iron pot sunk in the earth. As the pot fills, the mercury is conveyed to a store-tank that holds twenty tons. So great is its density, that a man sitting on a flat board floats about in the tank on a lake of mercury without its flowing over the edges of his raft. From this tank the metal is ladled out, and poured into iron flasks containing each seventy pounds (these flasks are made in England, and sent to New Almaden): in this state it is shipped for the various markets.
Although every possible care has been taken to prevent the mercurial fumes from injuring the smelters, still a great deal of it is necessarily inhaled, most injurious to health. Clearing outthe furnace is the most hurtful process, the men employed working short spells, and resting a day or two between. A furnace charged with ore, I am told, takes about eight days to sublime and cool.
It is difficult to obtain a correct statement of the absolute yield of this mine; proprietors, for many reasons, deeming it inexpedient to let the world know the extent of their riches. The export of quicksilver from San Francisco, a few years back, may, I think, be averaged at 1,350,000 pounds of mercury per annum, valued at 683,189 dollars; and this, together with the large amount consumed in California, was the sole produce of the New Almaden mines.
There are fourteen furnaces, arranged with passages ten feet wide between them, the whole covered with a roof sufficiently high to allow a current of air to circulate freely. Between the furnaces and on all the open spaces are innumerable bricks, just as we see them in a brickyard to harden before baking. On inquiring what these were made for, I discover that all the fragments and dust-cinnabar are pounded together, mixed with water, and made into bricks: in this form the ore can be conveniently built into the furnace, securing intervening spaces for theflame and heat to act on; thus more perfect sublimation is secured, and a great saving of metal effected. There are blacksmiths’ and carpenters’ shops and a sawmill adjoining the furnaces.
Until recently all the ore was brought down from the mine packed on the backs of mules, a most costly system of transport as compared to the one now in use. The vegetation only suffers immediately round the chimney, and even there not to any alarming degree. The flue, being of great length, carried at a moderate slope up the hill, and terminating in a very tall chimney, completely condenses all mercurial and arsenical fumes. Before this flue and stack were constructed, even the mules and cattle grazing in the pastures died from the poisonous effects of the mercurial vapour; and its deadly action on vegetation was like that of the fabled upas-tree. The workmen now, as a rule, enjoy very good health, and are admirably cared for; the village boasts a capital hotel, and stages run daily to San José and San Francisco.
A spring of native soda-water, bubbling up in the centre of the village, protected and fitted like a drinking-fountain, is said to work wonders as a curative agent in all maladies arising from the effects of mercury. This spring is supposed to be under the especial care of a ‘Saint Somebody,’ a lady whose image, attired in very dirty finery, figures in niches cut in the rocks at the mine. No miner ever leaves or enters the mine without prostrating himself before this dirty effigy.
March 9th.—Return to San Francisco by road; dine at San Mateo, as lovely a spot as I ever gazed on. The grass is kneedeep, and the chimps of buck-eye (Esculus flava) and handsome oaks besprinkling the rounded hills and banks of the clear stream winding its way past the village to the Bay of San Francisco, like a lake glistening in the distance, reminded me of a park in fertile Devonshire. Completely shut in, and sheltered from the wind that blows nearly all the summer, withering up the vegetation exposed to its influence, everything round about this favoured spot grows in wild luxuriance. In the garden belonging to the roadside house, the summer flowers are in full bloom, and vegetables of all kinds in rare abundance, such as for size and quality equal anything Covent Garden Market can show.
The bay runs inland about forty miles, and the land on its shores is particularly fertile, and employed in great measure for dairy-farms and stock-ranches.
For the first time I gather the poison-oak (Rhus toxicodendron), a pretty plant, that climbs by rootlets, like the ivy, and trails gracefully over both rocks and trees. Some persons are most seriously affected by it, especially such as are of fair complexion, if they only venture near where it grows. It produces swelling about the eyes, dizziness, and fever; the poisonous effects are most virulent when the plant is bursting into leaf. I picked, examined, and walked amidst the trees over which it twined thickly, but experienced not the slightest symptoms of inconvenience. Still, I know others that suffer whenever they come near it. Where the poison-oak thrives, there too grows a tuber known to the settlers as Bouncing Bet, to the botanist asSaponaria officinalis, the common soapwort. The tuber is filled with a mucilaginous juice which, having the property of entangling air when whisked up, makes a lather like soap. This lather is said to be an unfailing specific against the effects of the poison-oak—the poison and its antidote growing side by side!