-f'^ 
 

^ OuE N:e]w West. 
 
 EECOEDS OF TEAYEL 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 The Mississippi Eiver and the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 OYER THE PLAINS-OVER THE MOUNTAINS THT^nnrTi 
 THE GREAT INTERIOR BASIN-OVER THrsZi^^^ 
 NEVADAS-TO AND UP AND DOWN 
 THE PACIFIC COAST. 
 
 WITH 
 
 Details of the Wonderful Natural Scenery, Agriculture, Mines, 
 Business, Social Life, Progress, and Prospects 
 
 OP 
 
 COLORADO, WYOMING, UTAH, IDAHO, MONTANA NEVADA 
 CALH^ORNIA, OREGON, WASHINGTON, ^d"^^' 
 BRITISH COLUMBIA; 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 1 Full Description of the Pacific Eailroad • 
 
 AND 
 
 Of the Life of the Mormons, Indians, and Chinese. 
 
 WITH MAP, PORTRAITS, AND TWELVE FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 By SAMUEL BOWLES. <^'" 
 
 PUBLISHED BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY 
 
 HARTFORD PUBLISHING CO., HARTFORD CT 
 J. D. DENNISON, NEW YORK. 
 
 J. A. STODDARD, CHICAGO, ILL. 
 1869. 
 
 o 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
 
 SAMUEL BOWLES, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of 
 
 Connecticut. 
 
 f^'^^ 
 \^1^ 
 
 SAMUEL BOWLES AND COMPANY, 
 
 TRINTERS, ELECTROTYPEKS AND BINDERS, 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 
 
TO 
 
 SCHUYLER COLFAX, 
 
 SpjaKcr of Congress, anb 0ia ^rtsibmt of l^c Wimitb f talcs ; 
 
 TRUSTED AND BELOVED ABOVE ALL OTHER PUBLIC MEN BY THE 
 AMERICAN PEOPLE ; 
 
 WHOSE PAST AND PRESENT ARE BOTH THE PLEDGE AND 
 PROMISE OF HIS FUTURE; 
 
 VriTH WHOM THESE JOURNEYS THROUGH "OUR NEW WEST," WHOSE 
 
 EXPERIENCES AND RESULTS ARE HERE RECORDED, 
 
 WERE MADE ; 
 
 This Volume is Dedicated, 
 
 BY HIS GRATEFUL FRIEND AND FELLOW-TRAVELER, 
 
 SAMUEL BOWLES. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 • ♦• 
 
 Frontispiece (on Steel) — Portraits op Vice-President 
 
 Colfax, Lieutenant-Governor Bross and Mr. Bowles. 
 
 Map of States and Territories beyond the Mississippi, 
 
 AND showing the SEVERAL PACIFIC RaILROAD ROUTES, 22 
 
 Emigrants Crossing the Plains, 29 
 
 Laying the Track of the Pacific Railroad, ..... 45 
 
 A First View of Polygamy — A Mormon and his Family, . 61 
 
 "Lo, the Poor Indian" — A Company of Ute Braves, . . Ill 
 
 The March of Civilization — An Indian Encampment and 
 
 A Miner's Cabin, 177 
 
 View of Salt Lake City, 206 
 
 Salt Lake City — Brigham Young — Proposed Mormon 
 
 Temple, 233 
 
 A Representative Mining Town — Austin, Nevada, . . . 272 
 
 Views in San Francisco, 333 
 
 Representative Portraits, 395 
 
 Washing for Gold, 416 
 
 Scenery of the Columbia River, 473 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ♦ ♦♦■ 
 
 The Pacific Eailroad unlocks the mysteries of Our New 
 West. It opens a new world of wealth, and a new world of 
 natural beauty, to the working and the wonder of the old. 
 The eastern half of America offers no suggestion of its west- 
 ern half. The two sides of the Continent are sharp in con- 
 trasts of climate, of soil, of mountains, of resources, of produc- 
 tions, of everything. Nature, weary of repetitions, has, in 
 the New West, created originally, freshly, uniquely, majes- 
 tically. In her gifts, in her withholdings, she has been 
 equally supreme, equally complete. Nowhere are broader 
 and higher mountains; nowhere richer valleys; nowhere 
 climates more propitious; nowhere broods an atmosphere 
 so pure and exhilarating; nowhere more bountiful deposits 
 of gold and silver, quicksilver and copper, lead and iron ; no- 
 where denser forests, larger trees; nowhere so wide plains; 
 nowhere such majestic rivers ; yet nowhere so barren deserts, 
 so arid steppes; nowhere else that nature has planted its 
 growths so thickly and so variously, and feeds so many appe- 
 tites so richly ; yet nowhere that she withholds so completely, 
 and pains the heart and parches the tongue of man so deeply 
 by her poverty. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 To give in detail some clear impressions of this vast and 
 various region, its wonderful features of natural scenery, its 
 illimitable capacities of growth and wealth, its present crude 
 and conflicting civilizations, — its mining populations, its Mor- 
 mons, its Chinese, and its Indians, — and still its sure promise 
 of the finest race, and the broadest, freest, most active and 
 most aggressive society, commerce and industry, that the 
 world has yet developed, — this is the excuse and the promise 
 of this book. The author has spent two summers in intimate 
 travel over the regions comprehended in the volume. The 
 first (1865) was before the Railroad was begun, when he trav- 
 eled by stage from the Missouri Eiver to the Pacific Ocean, 
 and thence north to Oregon, Washington Territory, and 
 Puget's Sound ; stopping for leisure study of Colorado, of 
 Utah and its Mormons, of Nevada and its mines; and visit- 
 ing all the distinctive points of interest, either for scenery, 
 for business improvement, or for social characteristics. Again 
 in 1868, he passed over the then already completed Railroad 
 to the crest of the great continental mountain ranges, and, 
 thence descending among the great folds of Mountains and 
 elevated Parks that distinguish Colorado, and make it the 
 geographical center and phenomenon of the Continent, spent 
 some weeks in camp life in that future Switzerland of Amer- 
 ica. The company of so distinguished and popular public men 
 as Mr. Colfax, the Speaker and the Vice-President, and Lieu- 
 tenant Governor Bross of Illinois, during both summers, 
 smoothed all our ways, and unlocked for our study all the 
 mysteries of social and business life. "We were welcomed to 
 generous hospitality of head and heart, and gained at once 
 completest knowledge of the states and territories visited. 
 Study, then and since, of all local records and authorities, has 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 completed and kept alive my acquaintance with the growth, 
 cliaracter, and capacity of this new kingdom of our Continent. 
 The author must therefore be at fault if, in this compila- 
 tion of the original records of his two summers' journeys, 
 corrected and reviewed by the help of all other sources of 
 information, he shall fail to convey some true idea of the 
 present and promise of this Western Half of the American 
 Continent. He invites particular attention to his chapters 
 on the Central Parks and Mountains of Colorado ; on the 
 Mormons and their polygamy and political pretensions; on 
 the Sierra Nevadas and their scenery in California, including 
 that wonderful valley of the Yo Semite, the one unrivalled 
 sublimity of nature in all the known world, and its neighbor- 
 ing groves of Mammoth Trees; on the Chinese, and their 
 place in the industry, domestic life, and business of the Pa- 
 cific States; on the Willamette Valley of Oregon; on the 
 Scenery of the Columbia, the only continental river that 
 breaks through the continental ranges of mountains ; on the 
 forests of Washington Territory, and the beauties and capaci- 
 ties of Puget's Sound ; on the conditions and principles of 
 Mining in Colorado, Nevada, and California ; on the Agricul- 
 ture of Colorado, California, and Oregon; and on the grand 
 commercial and industrial future of this interior and Pacific 
 Coast Empire of ours. He will fail, if the reader does not 
 come to share the impression, that here is a nature to pique 
 the curiosity and challenge the admiration of the world ; an 
 atmosphere to charm by its beauty and to heal by its purity 
 and its dryness ; a wealth of minerals and a wealth of agricul- 
 ture that fairly awe by their boundlessness; an aggregation 
 of elements and forces that, with development, with increase 
 and mixture of populations, with facility and cheapness of 
 
VIU PKEFACK 
 
 intercourse, — witli steamships on the Pacific Ocean, and rail- 
 roads across the Continent to the Atlantic, — are destined to 
 develop a society and a civilization, a commerce and an 
 industry, a wealth and a power, that will rival the most 
 enthusiastic predictions for our Atlantic States Empire, and 
 together, if we stand together in the future, will present on 
 the North American Continent such a triumph of Man in 
 race, in government, in social development, in intellectual 
 advancement, and in commercial supremacy, as the world 
 never saw, — as the world never yet fairly dreamed of. 
 
 S. B. 
 Springfield, Mass., March, 1869. 
 
INTRODTICTOEY LETTERS 
 
 FROM VICE-PRESIDENT COLFAX AND GOVERNOR BROSS. 
 
 ■•♦♦ 
 
 Washington, February 10, 1869. 
 BIy Dear Me. Bowles : — 
 
 The notice of your publishers that you intend to incorporate the 
 sketches of the two long journeys we had together, amplified, revised, 
 and illustrated, in a new and more permanent work, brings again 
 vividly before my mind, like a panorama, the stirring incidents of these 
 expeditions, the magnificent scenery, the constantly changing and novel 
 experiences, the explorations down into the bowels of the earth and up 
 to the summits of lofty mountains, the dashing rides down the Sierras 
 and at the Geysers, the Oceans of Water, and of Land, and the open 
 door of Opportunity which everywhere invited us to enter, and to add 
 so largely to our stock of information as to "Our New West." I have 
 not forgotten the Indian hostilities, which threatened us on both 
 journeys ; but I remember far more delightfully the boundless Plains ; 
 the snow-capped Mountains ; the majestic Columbia; our Mediterranean 
 of the North-west, Puget's Sound ; that magic City, San Francisco ; the 
 wonderful Geysers ; the Mammoth Trees ; and the peerless Yo Semite. 
 
 If our people, who go to Europe for pleasure, travel and observation, 
 knew a tithe of the enjoyment we experienced in our travel under our 
 own flag, far more of them would turn their faces toward the setting 
 sun ; and after exploring that Switzerland of America, the Rocky 
 Mountains, with their remarkable Parks and Passes, go onward to that 
 
X INTRODUCTOEY LETTERS. 
 
 realm -wbicli fronts upon tlie Pacific, whose history is so romantic, and 
 whoso destiny is so sure; and which that great highway of Nations, 
 the Pacific Railroad, will, this Spring, bring so near to all of us on 
 the Atlantic slope. 
 
 These cannot now realize our long-drawn two thousand miles of 
 staging West, and one thousand Northward from the Golden Gate ; for 
 palatial cars and lightning trains will render travel a pleasure, instead 
 of a fatigue ; but your graphic sketches of what is to be seen will, 
 wherever they are read, increase the numbers of those who will not 
 only add to their enjoyment and knowledge, but also strengthen the 
 patriotic ties which bind together such distant regions, as the Atlantic 
 and Pacific States, into one harmonious Republic, by following so far as 
 possible in our path across the Continent. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Schuyler Colfax. 
 
 Tribune Office, Chicago, ") 
 
 February 20, 1869. ) 
 To THE Hartford Publishing Company: — 
 
 I learn, with much pleasure, that you propose to publish a revised and 
 illustrated edition of Mr. Bowles's already famous book, ** Across the 
 Continent," to include also his sketches of travel and camp life in the 
 Rocky Mountains the past summer. The journey of Vice-President 
 Colfax and his party to California, in the summer of 1865, seems to 
 have marked the commencement of a most important era in the prog- 
 ress of the country. When we left the Missouri River in May, work 
 had scarcely begun on the Union Pacific Railway ; but we found the 
 energetic President of the Central Pacific, Governor Stanford, and his 
 contractors, vigorously engaged in pushing their line up the western 
 slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and forty-two miles of the road 
 were completed. When we returned, in the latter part of September, 
 the forces of the Union Pacific were fully organized, since which time 
 
INTRODUCTORY LETTERS. XI 
 
 they have performed the most astonishing feats in railway building 
 ever achieved. The managers of the Central Pacific have been work- 
 ing, perhaps, with equal energy, as the engineering difficulties to be 
 overcome by them were immensely more formidable, and I have every 
 reason to believe that the lines will connect at or near the head of Salt 
 Lake within the next two months. Thus the great Continental Rail- 
 way, regarded only four years ago by perhaps a majority of our people 
 as a chimerical project, will become an accomplished fact, — a magnifi- 
 cent reality. 
 
 The completion of the road and the rush of tens of thousands of 
 our people to the Central Territories and to the Pacific Coast will render 
 the new edition of Mr. Bowles's book none the less acceptable and 
 valuable to the public. His descriptions of the country, through which 
 the road runs, and through most of which we passed, are so compre- 
 hensive and accurate ; his observations are so discriminating, graphic 
 and just ; his estimates, based on figures and personal inspection of the 
 vast mineral resources and the commercial advantages of the country, 
 are so new, suggestive and exciting, that his work should be carefully 
 read by every tourist before he sets out upon his journey ; and it will 
 be consulted by him with great advantage at every stage of his progress. 
 The information it has imparted to the Nation has, in my judgment, 
 been immensely more varied and valuable than they have derived from 
 all previous sources put together. Certainly no former work has ever 
 circulated so widely among the people, and they have profited largely 
 by the new, varied and most valuable facts it contains. 
 
 Wishing you all possible success, 
 
 I am very truly. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 William Bross. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 PAGE, 
 
 Our New West — Its Extent and Importance, and Four Great 
 Divisions — The Cordilleras of South America and their Progress 
 Through North America — The First Great Division, the Plains 
 — The Second, the Rocky Mountains — The Third, the Great 
 Interior Basin — The Fourth, the Sierra Nevadas and the Pacific 
 Coast— The Characteristics of Each — The Promise of the Book, 23 
 
 n. OVER THE PLAINS BY STAGE. 
 
 The Rival Depots for the Traffic of the Plains— An Indian Scare 
 to Begin With — The Richness of the Country for Two Hundred 
 Miles — Scenes on the Plains — The Prairie Schooners by Day 
 and Night— A Hail and Thunder-Storm— The Week's Ride and 
 the Plains Summed Up— The Civilization of the Country— The 
 Meals at the Stations — Life and Death in Contrast — Personal 
 Sketches : Vice-President Colfax and Governor Bross — The Ad- 
 vent of the Mountains, . 31 
 
 HL THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 The Story of the Pacific Railroad— The Pullman Cars— Omaha 
 and Council Bluffs— Over the Plains by Rail— Cheyenne— The 
 Mountain Pass and its various Revelations of Plain, Desert and 
 Mountain — The Architecture of Wind, Rain and Sand— Echo 
 and Weber Canyons — Around Salt Lake and Across the Great 
 Interior Basin — Scenes along the Route — Up and over the Sierra 
 Nevadas — Donner Lake — The Greatest Triumph in Railroad 
 Building in the World — Through California — The Continental 
 Railroad Reviewed and Summed up — Its Beginning, its Execu- 
 tion and its Results, 47 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 TV. COLORADO: ITS MOUNTAINS AND PARKS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Back to the Rocky Mountains — Their Finest Scenery Away From 
 the Railroad Line — Colorado, the Center and Backbone of the 
 Continent — Its Three Grand Divisions — Its Majestic Moun- 
 tains — Its Great Natural Parks — North, Middle and South 
 Parks — Summer Scenes Among the Mountains and Parks — 
 The Western Division of Colorado — The Stage Ride from 
 Cheyenne — Night in a Stage-Coach — Experiences on the Road 
 — Denver, its Growth and Promise, and its Panoramic Moun- 
 tain View — Salt Lake City and Denver Compared, 75 
 
 V. LIFE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The Roads from Denver into the Mountains — What they Reveal to 
 the Traveler — How Pleasure Parties Travel and Camp — The 
 North Clear Creek and Central City—The South Clear Creek 
 Valley, and its Attractions — Idaho and its Springs — Outfit for 
 a Camping Experience — The Mule — Over the Mountains by 
 Berthoud Pass to Middle Park — The Flowers and the Forests 
 of the Upper Mountains — The Camp at Night, 94 
 
 YI. THE MIDDLE PARK AND THE UTE INDIANS. 
 
 A Day's Ride Across the Middle Park — An Indian Encampment, 
 and our Reception thereat — The Mountain Raspberries — The 
 Hot Sulphur Springs — The Ute Indians; How they Live, Move 
 and have Being — A Lingering Farewell to Middle Park — Over 
 the Boulder Pass — A Winter's Morning and a Summer's Noon on 
 the Mountains — Night in a Barn, 110 
 
 YIL MOUNTAIN CLIMBING AND CAMP LIFE. 
 Up Gray's Peak from Georgetown — The View from it — A Satur- 
 day Night Camp on the Snake River — Sunday with a " Pros- 
 pector" — A Butter and Milk Ranch in the Mountains — The 
 Valley of the Blue and its Mining Operations — Over the Breck- 
 inridge Pass in a Thunder Storm — Hamilton and South Park — 
 Reunion with the Grand Party — Ascent of Mount Lincoln — A 
 Snow Storm on the Summit — Montgomery — The Everlasting 
 Plattes— The Side Valleys of the South Park, ....... 129 
 
 VIIL AN INDIAN "SCARE" AND THE INDIANS. 
 
 Our Experiences with Indian Wars — A Terrible " Scare " in the 
 Mountains — A Night in Camp with Indian Expectations — The 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 Indian Question Generally, Past, Present and Future— The 
 Arkansas Valley— The Twin Lakes and their Beauties of 
 Scenery and Life—Down the Valley and Across South Park 
 Again— A Grand Camp Scene— Who we Were and How we 
 Liyed— An Evening with Friendly Indians— The Last of our 
 Camp Experiences— Out of the Park, Through the " Garden of 
 the Gods," and Back to Denver— A Motley Procession Through 
 the Town, 
 
 151 
 
 IX. THE MINES AND THE FAEMS OF COLORADO. 
 
 The Beginning, Growth and Present Condition of the Mining In- 
 terests of Colorado— 1859 to 1869— Central City and its Opera- 
 tions—Georgetown and its Silver Mines— Gulch Mining and its 
 jievival— The Certain Future Growth of the Mining Wealth of 
 the State— The Greater Agriculture Wealth of Colorado— Its 
 Rapid Development— Fertile Valleys and Astonishing Crops- 
 Cost of Living— Stock Raising— Coal and Iron and Manufac- 
 tures—Professor Agassiz and the Glaciers— The Population of 
 Colorado and its Characteristics— When to Visit its Moun- 
 tains and Parks— The Resort of Pleasure Seekers and Health 
 Hunters, 1'^^ 
 
 X. BY STAGE INTO UTAH. 
 
 The Old Stage Lines Across the Continent — Features of Do- 
 mestic Life among the Mountains— Some of the Women of the 
 Border— Things in Cans— Game, the Antelope and the Grizzly 
 Bear— A Rapid Stage Ride Down the Mountains— Entrance 
 into the Salt Lake Valley— View of Salt Lake City— Its Beauty 
 of Location, its Capacities of Wealth, and its Future Realiza- 
 tions—The Reception by the Mormons— A Sunday Morning 
 Hot Sulphur Bath, '^^^ 
 
 XL A WEEK IN SALT LAKE CITY. 
 
 The Hospitalities of Mormons and Gentiles— What we Saw and 
 What we Didn't See— The Beginning and Growth of Utah— 
 The Organization of Labor and Immigration — Character of the 
 Population and of the Rulers— The Close Church and State Gov- 
 ernment— Education— " The Tithings"—Brigham Young and 
 his Power — Dining with the Twelve Apostles— Bathing in Salt 
 Lake— The City and How it is Located and Built — The Taber- 
 nacles and Brigham Young's Harem— Irrigation and Crops— 
 
 ^ 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Basin Filling Up with Water — Are the Mormons to be 
 Drowned Out? — The Productions of the Mormons — The In- 
 troduction of Manufactures — Gold and Silver Mining, and Brig- 
 ham Young's Views on it — An Evening at the Mormon Theatre, 207 
 
 XII. MEN AND WOMEN, OE POLYGAMY, IN UTAH. 
 
 Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Other Leading Apostles — 
 Long Interviews and Talks with Them — Discussion about 
 Polygamy — Suggestion of a New Revelation against it — Later 
 Extension of Polygamy — The Sabbath Services of the Mormons 
 — Preaching by Brigham Young — Extracts from Mormon Ser- 
 mons — Mr. Colfax in the Mormon Pulpit — How does Polygamy 
 Work?— The Children— The Husband and the Wives— What the 
 Latter Say and How they Bear it — Illustrations of Polygamous 
 Life and Habits — Brigham Young's Children and Wives — Beauty 
 and the Beast — List of Young's Harem, 232 
 
 XIIL THE FUTURE OF THE MORMONS. 
 
 What of the Church and Polygamy? — How the Problem will bo 
 Solved — No Fit Successor for Brigham Young — The Past Neg- 
 lect and Present Duty of the Government — The Division of the 
 Territory — How the Soldiers Attack Polygamy — The Order of 
 Danite Assassins, and their Bloody Work — The Mountain 
 Meadow Massacre — The Rebellious Morrisites and Josephites — 
 Summing up of Observations in Utah and our Conclusions — Our 
 Stage Driver " The Coming Man," .259 
 
 XIV. THROUGH THE DESERT BASIN BY STAGE. 
 
 From the Rocky Mountains to the Sierra Nevadas by Stage — 
 Through Central Utah and Nevada — Characteristics of the 
 Country — A Fast Ride — The Alkali Deposits and the Dust 
 — The Compensations in Nature — Reese River Valley, and 
 Austin, a Representative Mining Town — A Classical Retreat — 
 Virginia City and Gold Hill — The Neighborhood of the Sierras 
 — The Rich Valleys — Steamboat Springs — The Anomalies of 
 the Great Basin —Why, Whence, What? 273 
 
 XV. THE MINES OF NEVADA. 
 
 The Beginning of Silver Mining in Nevada and its Results — 
 The Comstock Lode — Review of the JVIines at Austin — How 
 
COiN^TENTS. XVU 
 
 PAQE. 
 
 the Ore is Reduced — Details of Operations at Virginia City 
 and Gold Hill — The Comstock Lode Nearly Used Up — Inspect- 
 ing the Mines — A Tour through the Gould & Curry Mne — 
 "Nature Abhors a Vacuum" — New Discoveries in Nevada — 
 The White Pine Mines and their Promise — A Warning to Brig- 
 ham Young — How the Miners Divide their Fat Things— The 
 Fascination of Mining— The Ease with which People are Swin- 
 dled — Mines vs. "Faro Banks" — Advice in General and in 
 Particular to those who have the Gold and Silver Fever, . .284 
 
 XVI. OYER THE MOUNTAINS TO THE OCEAN. 
 
 The Stage Ride over the Sierra Nevadas — The Mountain Toll 
 Roads and Freighting and Staging upon them — Rapid Riding 
 — A Break-neck Pace — The Scenery of the Sierras — Lake Tahoe 
 — Placerville — Sacramento — A Steamboat Ride to San Francisco 
 — The Patriotic Traveler on Reaching the Pacific Coast — The 
 Unity of the American People — The Wonderful Development 
 of the Pacific States, . . . . » 308 
 
 XVIL CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The Extent and Variety of California's Surface — Her Two Ranges 
 of Mountains — The Sacramento Basin — The Coast Valleys — 
 The Forests of the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevadas — The 
 Lakes of the State — The Lake District of the Continent — The 
 Harbors on the Coast — The Bay of San Francisco — The Dry 
 Climate of California — Amount of Rain in the Valleys and of 
 Snow in the Mountains — The Contrasts with a Former Era — 
 The Peculiarities of San Francisco's Climate — The Varieties of 
 Heat and Cold to be had in the State — The Glory of Spring in 
 California — The Grand Features of Nature in the State — Her 
 Revolutions and Revelations in Nature and in Science — The 
 Growth of California — Her Railroad System, 317 
 
 XVm. SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 The Mysterious Fascination of "Friscoe" — An Early Error in 
 Laying Out the City — The Winds and Real Estate — The Grand 
 Views from the City's Hights — The Garden-Yards of the Town 
 — The Peculiarities of its Climate — The Anomalies and Contra- 
 dictions of its Social and Business Life — The Smartness of the 
 Old Californians — The Women of San Francisco — A Scandal- 
 Making and Scandal-Loving Town — The Feminine Lunch Par- 
 2 
 
XVlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB. 
 
 ties — The Tempering Influences of Time and the Railroad — 
 Hotels and Restaurants — The " What Cheer House" — The 
 Wells-Fargo Express Company — The Markets of San Francisco 
 — Fruit, Fish, Flour and Meat — Prices Here and in the East — 
 Buildings and Earthquakes — The Excursion to the Cliflf — The 
 Seals and the Pelicans — Morals, Education and Religion — The 
 Dominance of Northern and National Sentiments — School- 
 Houses and Churches and Ministers — The Commerce and Man- 
 ufactures of San Francisco — Interesting Statistics — The Cer- 
 tainties of the Future — London, New York and San Francisco 
 Contrasted, 332 
 
 XIX. COUNTRY EXCURSIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Southern California — Los Angelos, etc. — The Country About San 
 Francisco — Oakland, Santa Clara, San Jose, etc- — A Ride Around 
 the Bay — The Old Mission Establishments and their History — 
 The Country in Summer — A Trip to the Geysers — Russian 
 River, Napa and Sonoma Valleys and their Characteristics — 
 " Hell on Earth" Indeed— The Fashionable " Baths" of Califor- 
 nia — A San Francisco Girl " Takes a Drink" — The Wines of 
 California — Champagne the Mother's Milk of the True Cali- 
 fornian — Back to the City, ^ . . 362 
 
 XX. THE YO SEMITE VALLEY AND THE BIG TREES. 
 
 The Impressions of the Valley — General Description of its Features 
 — Its Columns of Rock — Its Water-falls — How to Pronounce Yo 
 Semite — The Journey to the Valley — The Big Tree Grove and 
 the Yo Semite Dedicated to Public Use — June the Season for 
 the Excursion — The High Sierras above and around the Valley 
 — What they Reveal — The Coulterville Road and Bowers' 
 Cave — The Big Tree Groves — Interesting Facts about the 
 Trees — The Largest Excursion Party to Valley and Trees, . . 374 
 
 XXI. THE CHINESE. 
 
 The Human Nature Curiosity of California — The Sixty Thousand 
 Chinese — Their Character, Habits and Occupations — The Pacific 
 Railroad built by Them — How they are treated by the People — 
 The Indian and the Chinaman — The Limitations of the Chinese 
 Mind — Stony Soil for Missionary Labor — The True Elements of 
 Influence over Them — The Bath-House and the Restaurant the 
 Real Missionaries of Civilization and Christianity — The Morals, 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 FIGX. 
 
 Keligion and Vices of the Chinese — The Opium-Eater — A Grand 
 Chinese Banquet to Mr. Colfax — A Specimen of " Pigeon Eng- 
 lish" — The Dinner and how we Ate it, — and then went out to get 
 Something to Eat — Summing up of the Chinaman in America, 394: 
 
 XXII. MINING IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 California the Child of Gold — Her Total Production and Present 
 Yield — The Mineral Belt of the State — The Different Processes of 
 Mining — The Dead Rivers, the Deep Diggings and Hydraulic Min- 
 ing — The Quartz Mines and Mills — The Fremont Fizzle in Mari- 
 posa — The Increasing R€liability of Mining as a Business — The 
 Providence in the Gold and Silver Discoveries — Decrease in the 
 Production of the Precious Metals in America and the World — 
 Valuable Statistics on the Subject — The Other Mineral Wealth 
 of California, . . . . , 417 
 
 XXIII. FARMING IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The Romance of California's Agriculture — Its History and its 
 Present Condition — The Wheat Production — The Vineyards 
 and the Wine — Mulberry Trees and Silk — The Vegetables and 
 Fruit — The Culture of Oranges — The Nuts and Dried Fruits 
 — The Cheapness of Production — The Strange Facts of Climate 
 and Culture in California — Six Months of Seed-time and Six 
 Months of Harvest — No Manure and No Turf in California — 
 The Wheat and its Flour — No Irrigation Required — The Mois- 
 ture in the Soil — Land and its Price — The Need of Small Farms 
 and Diversified Culture — The Growth of the Agricultural Coun- 
 ties — Advice to Emigrant Farmers, 430 
 
 XXIV. OREGON— WASHINGTON— BRITISH COLUMBIA. 
 
 Overland to the North — The Surprises of Oregon, Washington 
 and Puget's Sound — A Week's Ride in a " Mud Wagon" — Up 
 Through the Sacramento Valley — Chico and General Bidwell, 
 Red Bluffs and the John Browns— The Mingling Mountains and 
 New Valleys — Shasta, Yreka and Jacksonville — Mount Shasta 
 and Pilot Knob — The Forests in Whole and in Detail — Joe 
 Lane and Jesse Applegate — The Willamette Valley, the Garden 
 of Oregon — The Rains of Oregon — Portland — The New England 
 of the Pacific — Through Washington Territory to Puget's Sound — 
 The " Square Meal" Feature of Pacific Coast Civilization — The 
 Lumber Wealth, and Water and Forest Beauty of Puget's 
 Sound — Victoria and Vancouver's Island — New Westminster 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 and British Columbia — British Taxation and Rebellious Sub- 
 jects — Decrease of Population and Wealth — A Good Time at 
 Victoria — John Bull and Brother Jonathan Fraternize Over 
 Food and Drink — The San Juan Dispute — The Hudson Bay 
 Company's Depots — The Snow Mountains and the Summer 
 Gardens of Victoria — Contrasts there and with the East, . . 445 
 
 XXV. THE COLUMBIA HI VERBID AHO— MONTANA. 
 
 The Extent and Importance of the Columbia River — The Scenery 
 of its Conflict with the Mountains — Fort Vancouver and General 
 Grant — The Cascades and The Dalles — The Railroad Portages — 
 No River Scenery so Grand as that of the Columbia — Mount 
 Hood — The Rivalry of the High Mountains — The Extent of the 
 Navigation of the Columbia, East, North and South — Railroad 
 Connections with Salt Lake and the Rest of Mankind — The Stage 
 Ride over the Blue Mountains, Through Idaho, to Salt Lake — 
 The Shoshone Falls, the Rival of Niagara — The Stage Lines 
 Through Idaho and Montana — A Trip Through Montana — Its 
 Mountains and its Mines — The Northern Pacific Railroad — Mon- 
 tana's Present Development and Future Prospects — The Boat 
 Ride Down the Missouri River Home, 472 
 
 XXVL SANDWICH ISLANDS— COLORADO CANYON. 
 
 Hospitalities to Mr. Colfax — What was Left Unseen — The Sandwich 
 Islands — Their Past, Present and Future — Their Sugar, Scenery, 
 Volcanoes and Climate — Alaska and Arizona — The Country to be 
 Opened by the Southern Pacific Railroad — The Canyon of the 
 Colorado — The Unknown Land of the Republic — The Solitary 
 Passage of the Canyon — Underground Rivers and the Secret of 
 the Gulf Stream — Scientific Explorations of the New West — The 
 Slang Words and Phrases of Colorado and California — The Indians 
 of the Pacific States — Sentimental Leave-taking at San Francisco, 493 
 
 XXVII. HOME BY THE ISTHMUS. 
 
 The Steamship Line between San Francisco and New Y"ork by the 
 Isthmus — Its Business, and its Relations to the Pacific Coast 
 Life — Its Revolution by the Railroad — Our Voyage Home — Life 
 on a California Steamer — The Scenery Along the Coast — Panama 
 and its Bay — The Ride Across the Isthmus — Tropical Sights and 
 Experiences — The Quick Trip on the Atlantic Side to New York 
 — The Continental Journey Ended and Summed Up — America 
 Realizes Herself and Recognized by the World, 510 
 
OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ■ ♦♦♦ 
 
 I. 
 
 INTEODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Our New West — Its Extent and Importance, and Four Great Divis- 
 ions—The Cordilleras of South America and their Progress Through 
 North America — The First Great Division, the Plains — The Second, 
 the Rocky Mountains— The Third, the Great Interior Basin— The 
 Fourth, the Sierra Nevadas and the Pacific Coast— The Characteris- 
 tics of Each — The Promise of the Book. 
 
 Our New West, — cut through its center by the 
 east and west line of the Pacific Eailroad, and only 
 now and thus opened freely to the knowledge and 
 the occupation of the American people, — is the larger 
 half of the territory of the United States. From the 
 Missouri Kiver to the Pacific Ocean is fifteen hundred 
 to eighteen hundred miles; from British America on 
 the north to Mexico on the south is from one thou- 
 sand to twelve hundred miles. The great mountain 
 chain of the Continent with its subdivisions separate 
 this region into four marked sections. 
 
 The Cordilleras of South America, marching in un- 
 broken and firm column from its south to its north, 
 
24 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 and making the most magnificent mountain range in 
 the world by its length, its hight. and its unity, hum- 
 bles itself almost to the sea in crossing the Isthmus, 
 but rears its columns anew in Central America and 
 Mexico, with occasional individual peaks that are as 
 famous for hight and majesty as any in all its hemi- 
 spherical sweep, and yet nowhere renews that un- 
 yielding unity that is its distinguishing southern char- 
 acteristic. Approaching the broader sections of West- 
 ern North America, as if feeling the appeal for a 
 wider parentage, it breaks into several lines, two 
 especially so majestic and firm and distinctive, that 
 each might almost fairly claim to be the parent range. 
 The m.ain line, unmistakably, however, passes easterly 
 with but little disorder, and becomes what we call 
 the Kocky Mountains of North America, on from Cen- 
 tral Mexico through New Mexico into Colorado, where 
 it centers and readjusts its powers, and, again and 
 more widely spreading, stretches northward through 
 British America to the Arctic Ocean. The rival line 
 of the Sierra Nevada has its birth or separation 
 in Lower California, and, forming the bold and mag- 
 nificent eastern boundary of California, goes north 
 through Oregon and Washington Territory, and 
 spreads itself over the coast lines of British Columbia, 
 furnishing, both in California and Oregon, some of the 
 highest and finest individual peaks to be found in the 
 whole territory of the United States. As it enters 
 California on the south, it sends a minor line of 
 mountains west near the coast, which is carried with 
 considerable uniformity into Northern California, there 
 rejoins the Sierra Nevada, but again opens to form 
 
THE PLAINS AND THE MOUNTAINS. 25 
 
 that garden of Oregon, the Willamette valley. Be- 
 tween these mountain ranges in California, and 
 among the folds of each, lie the great wealth, the 
 great beauty, the great variety of soil, climate and 
 production, of that wonderful and representative state 
 of the Pacific coast. 
 
 Beginning on the east with the Missouri Eiver, and 
 going west, there is an open, treeless, nearly level 
 stretch of plains, five hundred miles wide, to the 
 Kocky Mountains. For the most part, it is high table- 
 land, gradually but imperceptibly rising from the 
 river to the mountain line ; stretching from the Brit- 
 ish borders on the north to the Hke table-lands of 
 Mexico on the south ; with three or four great rivers 
 flowing through its whole width, and many lesser 
 streams freely watering its eastern and southern bor- 
 ders; yet for the great part too dry for general agri- 
 cultural purposes, and only now inviting use as the 
 great pasture-ground of the Nation. It seems to be 
 covered with the wash of the mountains; and this 
 grand ocean of land makes up the first section of 
 the journey across the Continent, and is called The 
 Plains. 
 
 Next comes the Eocky Mountains section, and this, 
 too, from where the Plains end over into the basin 
 of Salt Lake, is five hundred miles, — a broad line of 
 mountains and rolling table-lands, ranging from seven 
 thousand to fourteen thousand feet high; full of the 
 most unique forms of nature; rich in inspiration to 
 the poetic traveler; and rich in mineral wealth to the 
 patient, persevering miner. 
 
 The third section, another five hundred miles still, 
 
26 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 begins with the end of the Eocky Mountain ranges in 
 the Salt Lake valley, and stretches on west to the 
 Sierra Nevadas. The central parts of this section, 
 comprising the bulk of Utah and Nevada, form the 
 great interior basin of the Continent. It is five 
 hundred miles from east to west, and an average of 
 half that distance from north to south. The scanty 
 waters of this interior region find no outlet to either 
 ocean. The great Salt Lake of Utah is its principal 
 body of water, and this has no visible outgo, though 
 richly fed from various quarters. Lines of mountains 
 or high hills pass north and south every twelve or 
 twenty miles through it. The streams, that flow out 
 of them, lose themselves in the sands of the valleys. 
 There are few trees and but little verdure on hill or 
 plain. Gi;eat patches of salt and alkali deposits in- 
 tensify the general barrenness of the scene, and load 
 the dry air with painful exhalations. The whole re- 
 gion is high ; rising gradually from four thousand feet 
 above the sea level at Salt Lake to seven thousand 
 and eight thousand feet at the center, it as gradually 
 falls away to the original four thousand feet under 
 the Sierra Nevadas. The valleys adjoining the Rocky 
 Mountains in Utah, and those near the Sierras in Ne- 
 vada, with one or two intermediate ones, are suf- 
 ficiently watered to return good crops, and irrigation 
 widens this area and enriches the yield; but for the 
 most part the whole basin is a desert, not so much 
 from poverty of soil as from lack of moisture. 
 
 But for the patient industry of the Mormons in 
 Utah and the temptations of the rich silver mines in 
 Nevada, this country would have still remained un- 
 
THE INTERIOR BASIN — CALIFORNIA. 27 
 
 peopled and unknown, and the Pacific Eailroad still a 
 mere problem of our progress. To the north of this 
 independent basin, the Columbia and its branches 
 enter; and to the south, the Colorado, and yet they 
 do not essentially change the character of the region 
 they water; and Idaho and Eastern Oregon on the 
 one hand, and Southern Utah and Nevada and Ari- 
 zona on the other, save in narrow valleys that the 
 streams cannot get through without enriching, present 
 little that is lovely in nature or inviting to the farmer. 
 The richness of mineral deposits tempts the greedy 
 explorer, and where he is fortunate, agriculture will 
 follow under whatever restrictions; and occasional 
 rare phenomena in rock or river, like the Grand Can- 
 yon of the Colorado and the rival of Niagara in the 
 Shoshone Falls in Idaho, seduce the traveler from the 
 through route. 
 
 Fourth, and finally, are the Sierra Nevadas and the 
 country between them and the Pacific Ocean, — a 
 width of about two hundred miles, which, both in 
 California and Oregon, compensates for the dreary 
 wastes behind in a wealth and majesty of forest, such 
 as the world can offer nowhere else, and in a variety 
 and richness of agricultural production, that unites 
 the offerings of temperate and tropical zones, forms 
 the sure basis of a permanent and unmeasured wealth, 
 and laughs poverty and famine to scorn. 
 
 Into and through these regions, — with more of fa- 
 miliarity than form, with more of grand result of 
 knowledge than of detail of facts, with the authority 
 of two summer journeys among them, and with con- 
 scientious study of their nature and resource and so- 
 
28 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ciety, — this book invites the reader. It opens to him 
 the present state and the future promise of the larger 
 part of the American Republic, — new yet to the 
 world in every sense, but destined surely to a mighty 
 influence upon all the after growth of Republic and 
 world, and to be counted prominently in the advance 
 of all our civilization. 
 
II. 
 
 OYEK THE PLAINS BY STAGE. 
 
 The Rival Depots for the Traffic of the Plains— An Indian Scare to 
 Begin With— The Richness of the Country for Two Hundred Miles — 
 Scenes on the Plains— The Prairie Schooners by Day and Night — A 
 Hail and Thunder- Storm — The Week's Ride and the Plains Summed 
 Up— The Civilization of the Country— The Meals at the Stations- 
 Life and Death in Contrast— Personal Sketches: Vice-President 
 Colfax and Governor Bross — The Advent of the Mountains. 
 
 From the Missouri Eiver to the Mountains, — 
 now a raih'oad ride of twenty-four hours, — was in the 
 summer of 1865 a stage ride of six days and nights. 
 Atchison, in northern Kansas, was then the point of 
 departure ; Omaha, above, was but a feeble rival for 
 the outfitting of emigration and freight trains to Col- 
 orado and Utah; Leavenworth and Kansas City, be- 
 low, were struggling vainly to maintain a suprem- 
 acy they had but lately enjoyed. Long trains of 
 heavily loaded wagons, drawn by mules and oxen, 
 were moving out daily ; but warehouses and yards 
 were crowded with heavy machinery for saw-mills 
 and gold-mills, with food to eat and clothes to wear, 
 with agricultural implements for new farms beyond^ 
 waiting their turn in the great summer's commerce 
 
32 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 Everytliing was carried by the pound; six to ten 
 cents from the river to the mountains ; twelve to 
 eighteen through to Utah; so that eastern prices 
 were doubled and trebled to the settlers in and 
 around the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 Our fine Concord coach and its team of six gay 
 horses waited for the delayed incoming stage, and 
 when it came, a bunch of Indian arrows lodged in 
 its sides, and the broken nerves of its passengers, in- 
 cluding a mother and children, confirmed their story 
 of an Indian attack some one hundred and fifty miles 
 out. But we were all well armed, and the brave 
 General Connor, then commanding on the Plains, was 
 our companion and escort. We represented the great 
 American nation, — it would not do to be afraid or to 
 hesitate, — and so we drove on and out, — our hopes 
 our fears belying, our fears our hopes. 
 
 For the first two hundred miles west from the river, 
 through northern Kansas and southern Nebraska, the 
 country presents the characteristics of the finest prai- 
 rie scenery of the West, — illimitable stretches of ex- 
 q^uisite green surface, rolling like long waves of the 
 sea, and broken at distances of miles by an intervale 
 with a small stream, along whose banks are scattered 
 trees of elm and cotton-wood. Here and there was a 
 "ranch" or farm with cultivated land, but these grew 
 rarer and rarer ; the uniform view was one wide roll- 
 ing prairie, freshly green, spreading out as far as the 
 eye could reach, with the distant fringe of thin forest 
 by the water-course, and sending forth and receiving 
 the sun at morning and evening, as the ocean seems 
 to discharge and accept it when we travel its track- 
 
SCENES ON THE PLAINS. 33 
 
 less space. No land could be richer ; no sight could 
 more deeply impress one with the measureless extent 
 of our country, and its unimproved capacities, than 
 that of these first two days* ride west from the Mis- 
 souri River. 
 
 Then the waves of land ceased ; the soil grew thin 
 and dry; a dead level spread before the unresting 
 eye ; and we entered upon the region of the Platte 
 River and the Plains proper. The streams were few 
 and scant, and the water muddy; but wells gave good 
 drinking water all along the route, though oftentimes 
 they had to be sunk as deep as fifty or seventy-five 
 feet. It was too early then (May) for many of the 
 prairie flowers ; but the rich, fresh green of the grass 
 satisfied the eye. Scattered through it we caught 
 frequent glimpses of the prairie hen, multiplying for 
 the hunter's harvest in November ; from its bare, last 
 year's stalks floated out the liquid music of the larks ; 
 the plover, paired as in Paradise, and never divorced 
 even in this western country of easy virtue and cheap 
 legislation, bobbed up and down their long necks, or 
 fluttered their wide wings in flight at every rod ; little 
 blackbirds accompanied us in great flocks ; a lean, hun- 
 gry-looking wolf stole along at a distance, with one eye 
 on us and the other on the carcass of a horse or ox, 
 dropped in sickness or fatigue from some passing train ; 
 away off" near the horizon scampered, most daintily 
 and provokingly, a half-dozen antelopes, — too near for 
 restful palates, too far for waiting rifles ; and over all 
 and illuminating all floated an atmosphere so pure, so 
 rare, so ethereal, as pictured every object with a pre- 
 Raphaelite distinctness, made distant things appear 
 
34 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 near, and sent tlie horizon far away in an unbounded 
 stretch of slightly rounding green earth. Added to 
 these a constant breeze, tempering the sun to a most 
 grateful softness, and bearing an inspiring tonic to 
 lungs and heart; sunsets and sunrises that rival Italy 
 or the Connecticut valley; a twilight prolonged as 
 in England ; and a dryness and purity to the atmos- 
 phere that is certainly not known in New England, 
 and guards the most exposed against colds, — and the 
 reader may form some idea of the life of our senses 
 and sensibilities in our stage ride over the Plains. 
 
 One great feature in the constant landscape was 
 the long trains of wagons and carts, with their teams 
 of mules and oxen, passing to and fro on the road, 
 going in empty, coming out laden with corn for man 
 and beast, with machinery for the mining regions, 
 with clothing, food and luxuries for the accumulating 
 populations of Colorado, Utah and Montana, and all 
 intermediate settlements. The wagons were covered 
 with white cloth ; each drawn by four to six pairs of 
 mules or oxen ; and the trains of them stretched fre- 
 quently from one-quarter to one-third of a mile each. 
 As they moved along in the distance, they reminded 
 me of the caravans described in the Bible and other 
 ancient Eastern books. Turned out of the road on 
 the green prairie, for afternoon rest or a night's re- 
 pose, the wagons drawn around in a circle, as a barri- 
 cade against Indians or protection against storm, and 
 the animals turned loose to feed, and wandering over 
 the rounding prairie for a mile, — " cattle upon a thou- 
 sand hills ; " at night their camp fires burning ; — in 
 any position or under any asjpect, they presented a 
 
A STORM ON THE PLAINS. 35 
 
 picture most unique and impressive, indeed, summon- 
 ing up many a memory of oriental reading. The mule 
 trains made from fifteen to twenty miles a day; and 
 the oxen about twelve to fifteen. They depended 
 entirely upon the grass of the Plains for food as they 
 went along; and indeed the animals grew stronger 
 and fatter as they moved on in their summer cam- 
 paign of work, coming out of their winter rest poor 
 and scrawny, and going back into it in the fall, fat 
 and hearty. It was thus that, before the Kailroad, all 
 emigration and all merchandise moved into our great 
 New West. 
 
 Another of our marked early experiences was a ter- 
 rible storm of thunder and lightning, hail and rain, upon 
 the open Plains. First came huge, rolling, ponderous 
 masses of cloud in the West, massing up and separating 
 into sections in a more majestic and threatening style 
 than our party had ever before seen in the heavens. 
 Then followed a tornado of wind. Horses, coach and 
 escort turned their backs to the breeze, and, bending, 
 awaited its passing. It stripped us of every loose bit of 
 baggage ; and we sent our scouts for their recovery. 
 Next fell the hail, pouring as swift rain, and as large 
 and heavy as bullets. The horses quailed before its 
 terrible pain. Our splendid quartette of blacks ca- 
 reered and started over the prairie ; we tumbled out 
 of the coach to save ourselves one peril, and so met 
 the other, — the fire of the heavenly hail; it bit like 
 wasps, it stunned like blows. But horses and coach 
 were to be saved ; and after a long struggle, in which 
 the coach came near overturning, and the horses to 
 running away, in dismay and fright, and our driver 
 
36 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 and military friends proved themselves real heroes, 
 and everybody got wet, the hail subsided into a pour- 
 ing rain, the horses were quieted and restored to their 
 places, and we got into a drowned coach, ourselves 
 like drowned rats, and hastened to cover, over a prai- 
 rie flooded with water, in the barracks of old Fort 
 Kearney. 
 
 From Monday to Saturday, day and night, stopping 
 every ten or twelve miles to change horses, and every 
 forty or fifty to eat a meal, were we upon this stage 
 ride over the Plains. The days were warm and mo- 
 notonous; the nights cold and tedious; sleep in a 
 jolting stage-coach was hard and fitful; and we fast 
 grew careless in toilettes and barbaric in manners. 
 We were alert for an Indian attack, but none ap- 
 peared; and not even buffalo or antelope gave us 
 opportunity to test our vaunted prowess with fire- 
 arms. We had a wide and smooth road; an occa- 
 sional gully or dry ditch offered the only break in its 
 uniform levelness, and a rare stretch of sand inter- 
 rupted its hardness ; it seemed easy, with light coach 
 and frequent change of horses, to keep up a speed of 
 eight to ten miles ; but the average rate of the 
 coaches, with heavy mails and full loads of passen- 
 gers, was but four to six. The road lay for the most 
 part along the Platte River, — a broad, shallow, swift 
 and muddy stream ; useful then and now only for 
 drinking purposes, but destined to flow out in side 
 ditches and make almost a second Nile Valley in agri- 
 cultural richness. The soil of the Plains is a cold, 
 dry, sandy loam, the wash of the great range of 
 mountains beyond them; yielding a rich though 
 
THE EANCHES ON" THE PLAINS. 37 
 
 coarse grass, that, green or dry, is the best food for 
 cattle that the Continent can offer. From the river 
 to the mountains, there is a steady though imper- 
 ceptible rise in the land, averaging ten feet to the 
 mile ; half way across, dew ceases to fall, and at Den- 
 ver and Cheyenne, where the mountains begin, the 
 Plains bear an elevation of near six thousand feet 
 above the sea level. 
 
 This whole intermediate region was and still is sub- 
 stantially uninhabited; every ten or fifteen miles 
 was a stable of the stage proprietor, and every other 
 ten or fifteen miles, an eating-house ; perhaps as often 
 a petty ranch or farm-house, whose owner lived by 
 selling hay to the trains of emigrants or freighters ; 
 every fifty or one hundred miles we found a small 
 grocery and blacksmith shop ; and about as fre- 
 quently a military station with a company or two 
 of United States troops for protection against the 
 Indians. This made up all the civilization of the 
 Plains. The barns and houses were of logs or prai- 
 rie turf, piled up layer on layer, and smeared over or 
 between with clayey mud. The turf and mud made 
 the best houses, and the same material was used for 
 military forts and for fences around the cattle and horse 
 yards. The roofs were often a foot thickness of turfs, 
 sand, clay and logs or twigs, with an occasional in- 
 side lining of skins or thick cloth. Floors were often- 
 est such as nature offers only ; and, as at some of the 
 Washington hotels, the spoons at the table did not 
 always go around. Mexican terms prevailed : an in- 
 closure for animals was called a "corral;" a house of 
 turf and mud is of "adobe;" and a farm-house or 
 
38 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 farm a " rancli." Our meals at the stage stations con- 
 tinued very good throughout the ride; the staples 
 were bacon, eggs, hot biscuit, green tea and coffee; 
 dried peaches and apples, and pies were as uniform ; 
 beef and antelope were occasional, and canned fruits 
 and vegetables were furnished at least half of the 
 
 time. 
 
 As we went on, and the Plains grew more barren, 
 the prickly pear and the sage bush became plenty in 
 their tough unfruitfulness ; the road was marked more 
 frequently with the carcasses of oxen and horses, — 
 scarcely ever were we out of sight of their bleaching 
 bones; and occasionally the pathos of a human grave 
 gave a deeper touch to our thoughts of death upon the 
 Plains, deepened, too, by the knowledge that the wolf 
 would soon violate its sanctity, and scatter the sacred 
 bones of father, mother or child over the waste prairie. 
 The wiser instinct of the Indian showed itself, once 
 in a while, in the sepulture of his kindred above 
 ground; for, rolling his dead in a blanket, he places 
 the body in mid-air between two forked poles, six or 
 eight feet high, and so, if not poised for an upward 
 flight, it is at least safe from vulgar profanation. 
 Anon we grew gay over the lively little prairie 
 dogs, looking half rat and half squirrel, as they scam- 
 pered through the grass, or dove, with a low, chirrup- 
 ing bark, back into their holes. These animals are 
 smaller and more contemptible than I had expected ; 
 their holes, marked by a hillock of sand, are congre- 
 gated in villages, sometimes extending a quarter or 
 half a mile along the roadside. Only a pair occupy 
 each hole, but we hear the same story, which earlier 
 
PERSONAL SKETCHES — MR. COLFAX. 39 
 
 travelers record for us, that a snake and an owl share 
 their homes with them. The snakes we did not see ; 
 but the owl, a species no larger than a robin, solemn, 
 stiff and straight, stood guard at many of the holes. 
 The water at last showed its bitter alkali taint; and 
 we passed through a patch where the soda deposits 
 whitened the soil, and so poisoned the springs, that 
 for man or beast to drink, after fresh solutions by a 
 rain, was dread danger of death. Fremont Spring, an 
 oasis in this desert, gains its name from the discovery 
 and use of it by the gallant captain, who almost first 
 introduced this country to public acquaintance; and 
 we found it pure and sweet, with an original sulphur- 
 ous smack. 
 
 In the long reaches of this slow coach ride, and 
 thus early in the experiences and observations that 
 we are all to share together, there are at least two of 
 our traveling party that I am justified in introducing 
 personally to my readers. These are Mr. Colfax and 
 Governor Bross, for they are of public renown, and 
 their presence has made these journeys very much 
 affairs of politics and government. The one distinc- 
 tion of the former, perhaps, is that he has more per- 
 sonal friends, — people who, whether they have ever 
 seen him or not, feel a personal attachment to and 
 interest in hinj, — than any other public man in the 
 country. He is more than the Henry Clay of this 
 generation; for the love and respect borne towards 
 him are not confined to his political party, as that of 
 Mr. Clay practically was. A member of Congress 
 now for fourteen years ; the Speaker of its House for 
 six; and elevated from that, the third, to the second 
 
40 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 political station in our government, — the Yice-Presi- 
 dency, — he stands before the country one of its fresh- 
 est yet one of its ripest, one of its most useful, and 
 certainly one of its most popular and promising public 
 men. But this is not all, nor the best of the man. 
 He is not one of those to whom distance lends en- 
 chantment; he grows near to you, as you get near to 
 him; and it is, indeed, by his personal qualities of 
 character, by his simplicity, frankness, genuine good 
 nature, and entire devotedness to what he considers 
 right, that he has principally gained and holds so large 
 a place in the personal esteem of the nation and upon 
 its public arena. Mr. Colfax is short, say five feet 
 six, weighs one hundred and forty-five, is in the prime 
 of life, forty-five years, has brownish hair and light 
 blue eyes, is lately married, after a long widowerhood, 
 drinks no intoxicating liquors, smokes almost as much 
 as General Grant, is tough as a knot, was bred a prin- 
 ter and editor, but gave up the business for public 
 life, and was the idol of South Bend and all adjacen- 
 cies before he became that of the country at large. 
 There are no rough points about him; kindliness is 
 the law of his nature ; — while he is never backward 
 in differing from others, nor in sustaining his views 
 by arguments and by votes, he never is personally 
 harsh in utterance, nor unkind in feeling, and he can 
 have no enemies but those of politics, and most of 
 these find it impossible to cherish any personal ani- 
 mosity to him. In tact, he is unbounded, and with 
 him it is a gift of nature, not a studied art; and this 
 is perhaps one of the chief secrets of his success in 
 life. His industry is equally exhaustless; — he is al- 
 
GOVERNOR BROSS. 41 
 
 ways at work, reading, writing, talking, seeing, study- 
 ing, — I can not conceive of a single unprogressive, 
 unimproved hour in all his life. He is not of brilliant 
 or showy intellectual qualities, not a genius, as we 
 ordinarily apply that slippery word; but the absence 
 of this is more than compensated by these other qual- 
 ities I have mentioned, — his great good sense, his 
 quick, intuitive perception of truth, and his inflexible 
 adherence to it, his high personal integrity, and his 
 long and valuable training in the service of the people 
 and the government ; and in any position or capacity, 
 even the highest, he is sure to serve the country 
 faithfully and well. He is one of the men to be tena- 
 ciously kept in public life; and I have no doubt he 
 will be. Some people talk of him for President; but 
 his own ambition is wisely tempered by the purpose 
 to perform present duties well. He certainly makes 
 friends more rapidly and holds them more closely 
 than any public man I ever knew; wherever he goes, 
 the women love him, and the men cordially respect 
 him; and he is pretty sure to be always a personal 
 favorite, as now, with the people at large. 
 
 The other official of the party, Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor Bross of Illinois, is indeed our paterfamilias, our 
 "governor." Hale and hearty in body and mind; 
 ripe with fifty-six years and a wide experience and 
 culture in school, college and journalism ; cheery in 
 temperament, enjoying rough, out-door life like a true 
 unspoiled child of Nature ; sturdy in high principles ; 
 unaffected and simple in manners and feeling as a 
 child ; a ready and most popular stump speaker ; en- 
 thusiastic for all novel experience, we all give him 
 
42 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 our heartiest sympathy and respect, and constitute 
 him the leader of the party. Our best foot, we al- 
 ways put him foremost, whether danger, or dignity, 
 or fun is the order of the occasion. Governor Bross 
 was born in New Jersey, — and so says he never can 
 be president, as the Constitution requires that officer 
 to be a native of the nation ; lumbered on the Sus- 
 quehannah; went through Williams College, Massa- 
 chusetts; taught school in Franklin and Berkshire 
 counties of the same State ; continued a teacher and 
 married in New York ; and, following the star of em- 
 pire, went to Chicago, and entering on the editorial 
 profession, has gone on from small to great things, 
 until he is now the senior editor and proprietor of 
 the leading journal of the North-west, and has been 
 for four years the second officer in the State govern- 
 ment of Illinois. 
 
 There were beauties of character that the world 
 little recks among the other members of our travel- 
 ing party; but their place of honor is the private 
 station ; and I may not rob it of their secrets even as 
 example for a needy generation. Besides, — now, the 
 morning sun lights up the mountains, and the long 
 embattlement of snow and rock rises abruptly in the 
 distance to end the Plains, and marshal in new scenery 
 and new experiences. No vision could be more grand 
 and imposing, — none was more welcome to eyes, weary 
 with the monotony of plains and tired with a week's 
 sleepless travel. From Long's Peak in the north 
 to Pike's Peak in the south, — a full hundred miles 
 of mountains, continental in position, continental in 
 bight and breadth and majesty, — spread before our 
 
DENVER. 43 
 
 eyes and lifted us up from selves to a new conception 
 of the Infinite. The roll and richness of prairie began 
 again as we neared the mountains, and their waters 
 flowed out freer and purer in different directions. And 
 soon we exchanged greetings with Denver, under the 
 shadows of the hills, the commercial and political 
 capital of Colorado. 
 
ni. 
 
 THE PACIFIC EAILEOAD. 
 
 The Story of the Pacific Railroad — The Pullman Cars — Omaha and 
 Council Bluffs — Over the Plains by Rail — Cheyenne — The Mountain 
 Pass and its various Revelations of Plain, Desert and Mountain — 
 The Architecture of Wind, Rain and Sand — Echo and Weber Can- 
 yons — Around Salt Lake and Across the Great Interior Basin — 
 Scenes along the Route — Up and over the Sierra Nevadas — Donner 
 Lake — The Greatest Triumph in Railroad Building in the World — 
 Through California — The Continental Railroad Reviewed and Sum- 
 med up — ^Its Beginning, its Execution and its Results. 
 
 So completely is the Pacific Kailroad henceforth 
 the key to all our New West ; so thoroughly must all 
 knowledge of the characteristics of the latter radiate 
 out from the former as a central line, that its story 
 should be told almost at the outset, even to the antici- 
 pation of earlier experiences. Marked, indeed, was the 
 contrast between the stage ride of 1865 and the Eail- 
 road ride of 1868 across the Plains. The then long- 
 drawn, tedious endurance of six days and nights, 
 running the gauntlet of hostile Indians, was now 
 accomplished in a single twenty-four hours, safe in 
 a swiftly-moving train, and in a car that was an ele- 
 gant drawing-room by day and a luxurious bedroom 
 at night. 
 
46 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 The long lines of travel in our wide and fresh West 
 have given birth to more luxurious accommodations 
 for passengers than exist in Europe or the Atlantic 
 States. With the organization of travel over the 
 Pacific Kailroad come cars that will carry their occu- 
 pants through from New York to San Francisco, with- 
 out stop or change, and with excellent bed and board 
 within them. Only America could have demanded, 
 conceived and organized for popular use such accom- 
 modations as the Pullman Palace and Sleeping Cars 
 of the West. To some, as to ours, are added the 
 special luxury of a house organ ; and the passengers 
 while away the tedious hours of long rides over 
 unvarying prairies with music and song. 
 
 Omaha, in 1865, a feeble rival of Atchison, Leaven- 
 worth and Nebraska City in outfitting emigrant and 
 merchandise wagons for Colorado and Utah, and with- 
 out a single mile of railroad within one hundred miles, 
 has already become the greatest railroad center of the 
 Missouri and Mississippi Valleys. It is the starting- 
 point of the Pacific Kailroad, which stretches a com- 
 pleted line of eighteen hundred miles west to the 
 Pacific Ocean; to the east are two or three com- 
 pleted lines of five hundred miles across Iowa and 
 Illinois to Chicago, and others are in progress; to 
 the south are open roads to St. Louis across Missouri ; 
 and to the north is a finished road to Sioux City, and 
 fast stretching on to St. Paul. The three great States 
 of the Mississippi Valley, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, 
 the garden and granary of the nation, and seat of its 
 middle empire, are slashed in all directions by rail- 
 road lines, completed or rapidly constructing, meet- 
 
THE RAILROAD Olif THE PLAINS. 49 
 
 ino: as a western focus at Omaha and Council Bluffs, 
 sister towns on either bank of the Missouri, and con- 
 verging on the east into either Chicago or St. Louis. 
 Their consequent development, in population and 
 wealth, is perhaps the most wonderful illustration of 
 modern American growth. It is within this area that 
 New England is pouring the best of her emigration, 
 and reproducing herself, in energy and industry and 
 intelligence, on a broader, more generous and more 
 national basis. 
 
 Council Bluffs, on the Iowa bank of the Missouri 
 River, opened the year 1869 with eight thousand in- 
 habitants, having erected thirteen hundred new build- 
 ings in 1868, while Omaha, opposite, counted nearly 
 double that number. In both cases the railroads cen- 
 ter upon the bottom lands, but the beautiful bluffs 
 back and above invite the living areas of the towns. 
 Council Bluffs is almost hidden amid the folding circles 
 of its hills, and has the fascination of mysteries in the 
 distance ; but Omaha stands out with bolder and more 
 even front upon a grand amphitheater over the river. 
 Besides the railroads, these towns have a river navi- 
 gation two thousand miles north into Montana and to 
 the British line, and two thousand miles south to 
 New Orleans and the Gulf 
 
 Out now upon the continental Railroad. For five 
 hundred miles, a straight, level line, across the broad 
 Plains, along the valley of the Platte. It was but 
 play to build a railroad here. Yet there is a steady 
 ascent of ten feet to the mile; and for the first two 
 hundred miles the country has the exquisite roll and 
 the active fertility of the Iowa and Illinois prairies. 
 
50 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 Through this region the growth of Nebraska shares 
 that of those two States ; and she has the advantage 
 of them, generally, in climate, in water, and in wood. 
 But beyond this limit, — out upon the real Plains, — 
 the first results of the Kailroad are to kill what settle- 
 ment and cultivation they had reached under the 
 patronage of slow-moving emigration, stage-travel, 
 and prairie-schooner freightage. The ranches which 
 these supported are now deserted; the rails carry 
 everybody and everything; the old roads are sub- 
 stantially abandoned; the old settlers, losing all their 
 improvements and opportunities, gather in at the rail- 
 way stations, or move backwards or forwards to greater 
 local developments. They are the victims, in turn, 
 of a higher civilization; they drove out the Indian, 
 the wolf, and the buffalo; the locomotive whistles 
 their occupation away; and invites back for the time 
 the original occupants. 
 
 The day's ride grows monotonous. The road is as 
 straight as an arrow. Every dozen or fifteen miles is 
 a station, — two or three sheds, and a water-spout and 
 wood-pile; every one hundred miles or so a home or 
 division depot, with shops, eating-house, "saloons" 
 uncounted, a store or two, a few cultivated acres, and 
 the invariable half-a-dozen seedy, staring loafers, that 
 are a sort of fungi indigenous to American railways. 
 We yawn over the unchanging landscape and the un- 
 varying model of the stations, and lounge and read 
 by day, and go to bed early at night. But the clear, 
 dry air charms ; the half dozen soldiers hurriedly mar- 
 shalled into line at each station, as the train comes 
 up, suggest that the Indian question is not disposed 
 
CHETE:ra"E. 51 
 
 of yet; we catch a glimpse of antelopes in tlie dis- 
 tance ; and we watch the holes of the prairie dogs for 
 their piquant little owners and their traditional com- 
 panions of owls and snakes, — but never see the snakes. 
 The Plains proper and the first day's ride end at 
 Cheyenne, five hundred and sixteen miles from Oma- 
 ha. Here a branch road goes oJ0f south a hundred 
 miles to Denver, where it connects with the St. Louis 
 or Eastern Division of the Pacific road. Cheyenne is 
 also a great railroad work and supply shop, as be- 
 comes its location adjoining the mountain and winter- 
 exposed section of the road. It was the first of the 
 towns created by the advance of the road to assume 
 permanency and importance; and though Denver 
 watches its growth with some jealousy, there is no 
 real rivalry between them. Well located on the open 
 Plains, watered by fresh streams from the near moun- 
 tains, it has the secure elements of agricultural wealth 
 around it, and in a brief first year took on the or- 
 ganization and completion of a first-class Western 
 town, with several thousand inhabitants, daily papers, 
 stores, taverns, and all the luxuries and many of the 
 comforts of civilization. A hight of six thousand feet 
 gives it a share of mountain air, and a climate but a 
 degree rougher than that of Denver, which is more 
 like that of St. Louis and Philadelphia, with greater 
 dryness, than like the top of Mount Washington in 
 New Hampshire, with whose altitude both Denver and 
 Cheyenne correspond. The new Territory of Wyom- 
 ing depends on Cheyenne at present for its chief im- 
 portance ; but the town lies so near to Colorado that 
 the latter half claims it. 
 
52 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 The second or Eockj Mountain section of five hun- 
 dred miles of the Kailroad track, — from Cheyenne to 
 Ogden in the Salt Lake Yalley, — divides itself again 
 into three peculiar portions. The first of one hun- 
 dred and fifty miles mounts up a rapidly ascending 
 plain, — for nature has smoothed down the mountains 
 for an easy path, — to the crest of the Black Hills, 
 the outermost line of the continental mountains. In 
 thirty-two miles, the track ascends over two thousand 
 feet, but so uniformly that the grade is nowhere over 
 eighty feet to the mile, and at Sherman or Evans's 
 Pass it is eight thousand two hundred and sixty-two 
 feet above the sea level, which is the highest point 
 the road has to run in all its line. But this is not the 
 continental divide, and all this section is through an 
 open, half-plain country. The ruins of the old moun- 
 tain tops stand around in grotesque, individual forms ; 
 away in the far distance rise the unmoved ranges; 
 but along our path, winding to escape an occasional 
 hill, is a compact red granite gravel, that upturned to 
 plow and scraper, and has made a model bed for the 
 sleepers and the rails. 
 
 Descending by easy grade a thousand feet or so, 
 the road enters broader areas, and we recognize the 
 Laramie Plains ; a repetition of the elevated Parks of 
 Colorado. These are fifty miles by one hundred in 
 extent, being seven thousand to eight thousand feet 
 high, with trout-brooks in adjoining and embraced 
 hills, and, in the summer, most strongly inviting the 
 weary traveler, the sportsman or the invalid to linger 
 for days and weeks. They were famous hunting- 
 grounds for the Indians; agreeable resting-places for 
 
THE QUAINT ARCHITECTURE OF NATURE. 53 
 
 the emigrant caravans of old ; and long the chief out- 
 post of the army in the mountain region. The Rail- 
 road makes a division station here, and a town of 
 some importance seems likely to grow up. 
 
 The country grows more broken and less interest- 
 ing as this section of one hundred and fifty miles 
 comes to an end at the crossing of the North Platte. 
 But up to this point the ride from Cheyenne pos- 
 sesses the greatest novelty and charm for the fresh 
 traveler. The senses all dilate with w^hat is spread 
 before and around him; rich black mountains bound 
 the horizon north and south; a dash of snow on peak 
 or side occasionally enlivens the view and deepens 
 the coloring; along our pathway are fine valleys or 
 broader plains, rich in grass and flowers ; nature has 
 fashioned it for a railroad ; scattered around in vallev 
 or plain, as the track approaches the summit, are 
 monuments of rock, grotesquely or symmetrically ar- 
 ranged; here a wall as if for a bulwark, there the 
 ruin of cathedral or fort, again a half-finished build- 
 ing, anon the fashion of a huge, dismasted screw 
 steamer, with paddle astern and pilot-boat ahead; 
 over all an atmosphere so pure that the eye seems 
 to take in all space, and so dry and exhilarating that 
 life titillates at every avenue, and we mount as if on 
 angel's wrings. Here would seem to be the fountain 
 of health ; and among these upper hills and plains ad- 
 joining the Railroad is surely to be many a summer 
 resort for the invalid and the pleasure-seeker in the 
 by no means distant future. 
 
 The middle of the mountain sections, — a second 
 one hundred and fifty miles, — begins with the North 
 
54 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 Platte and stretches to Green Eiver. It is a sad con- 
 trast to its predecessor. No living streams are found 
 in it; few living springs have been discovered; and 
 in building the Railroad through it, water had to be 
 brought up from behind, not only for the workmen 
 and animals to drink, but for the locomotives to make 
 steam with. The water found on or near the surface 
 is unfit for either purpose; but deep wells will prob- 
 ably in the future relieve this difficulty. A high, 
 rolling, desert country is this, with scarcely any vege- 
 tation but the rank, coarse sage bush, and the soil a 
 fine, alkali-laden dust. To all slow-traveling emigrant 
 trains and stage passengers, this region is a memor- 
 able pain. The eye has no joy, the lips no comfort 
 through it; the sun burns by day, the cold chills at 
 night; the fine, impalpable, poisonous dust chokes 
 and chafes and chaps you everywhere. The sage 
 bush is a vulgar exaggeration of our garden sage; 
 growing rugged and rough from one to three feet 
 high; dry and strong and repulsive; yet through 
 such wastes as this, mules and cattle sometimes eat 
 it, because they must or die, and it does make quick, 
 hot fire for the emigrants* and wagon-drivers' kettles. 
 But think of savoring your food with soap and sage 
 tea; think of putting a soap factory and an apothe- 
 cary shop into one room, and that your kitchen ! 
 
 Within this desert of the mountains, the divide of 
 the Continent occurs both on the old stage road and the 
 new Railroad line; and here, in the summer of 1868, 
 we witnessed the building of the track over the part- 
 ing of the waters. The last rail on the Atlantic slope 
 and the first on the Pacific were laid in our presence ; 
 
HOW THE TEACK WAS LAID. 55 
 
 and Governor Bross pinned them down with stalwart 
 blows upon their spikes. As yet, still, no mountains 
 appear in the path of the track, and it winds easily 
 along through these rolling sand-hills, occasionally 
 helped over a deep dry gulch, and spanning a feeble 
 or possible river. But the whole section is mountain- 
 ously high, from seven thousand to eight thousand 
 feet above the sea level. 
 
 We witnessed here the fabulous speed with which the 
 Railroad was built. Through the two or three hun- 
 dred miles beyond were scattered ten to fifteen thou- 
 sand men in great gangs preparing the road bed ; 
 plows, scrapers, shovels, picks and carts ; and, among 
 the rocks, drills and powder were doing the grading as 
 rapidly as men could stand and move with their tools. 
 Long trains brought up to the end of the completed 
 track loads of ties and rails ; the former were trans- 
 ferred to teams, sent one or two miles ahead, and put in 
 place upon the grade. Then rails and spikes were re- 
 loaded on platform cars, these pushed up to the last 
 previously laid rail, and with an automatic movement 
 and a celerity that were wonderful, practiced hands 
 dropped the fresh rails one after another on the ties 
 exactly in line, huge sledges sent the spikes home, 
 the car rolled on, and the operation was repeated; 
 while every few minutes the long heavy train behind 
 sent out a puff from its locomotive, and caught up 
 with its load of material the advancing work. The 
 only limit, inside of eight miles in twenty-four hours, 
 to the rapidity with which the track could thus be 
 laid, was the power of the road behind to bring for- 
 ward the materials. 
 
56 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 As the Railroad marched thus rapidly across 
 the broad Continent of plain and mountain, there 
 was improvised a rough and temporary town at its 
 every public stopping-place. As this was changed 
 every thirty or forty days, these settlements were 
 of the most perishable materials, — canvas tents, 
 plain board shanties, and turf-hovels, — pulled down 
 and sent forward for a new career, or deserted as 
 worthless, at every grand movement of the Railroad 
 company. Only a small proportion of their popula- 
 tions had aught to do with the road, or any legiti- 
 mate occupation. Most were the hangers-on around 
 the disbursements of such a gigantic work, catching 
 the drippings from the feast in any and every form 
 that it was possible to reach them. Restaurant and 
 saloon keepers, gamblers, desperadoes of every grade, 
 the vilest of men and of women made up this "Hell 
 on Wheels," as it was most aptly termed. 
 
 When we were on the line, this congregation of 
 scum and wickedness was within the Desert section, 
 and was called Benton. One to two thousand men, 
 and a dozen or two women were encamped on the 
 alkali plain in tents and board shanties ; not a tree, 
 not a shrub, not a blade of grass was visible ; the dust 
 ankle deep as we walked through it, and so fine and 
 volatile that the slightest breeze loaded the air with 
 it, irritating every sense and poisoning half of them ; 
 a village of a few variety stores and shops, and many 
 restaurants and grog-shops ; by day disgusting, by 
 night dangerous ; almost everybody dirty, many filthy, 
 and with the marks of lowest vice ; averaging a mur- 
 der a day ; gambling and drinking, hurdy-gurdy danc- 
 
THE DESCENT INTO SALT LAKE VALLEY. 57 
 
 ing and the vilest of sexual commerce, the chief busi- 
 ness and pastime of the hours, — this was Benton. 
 Like its predecessors, it fairly festered in corruption, 
 disorder and death, and would have rotted, even in 
 this dry air, had it outlasted a brief sixty-day life. 
 But in a few weeks its tents were struck, its shanties 
 razed, and with their dwellers moved on fifty or a 
 hundred miles farther to repeat their life for another 
 brief day. Where these people came from originally; 
 where they went to when the road was finished, and 
 their occupation was over, were both puzzles too in- 
 tricate for me. Hell would appear to have been 
 raked to furnish them; and to it they must have 
 naturally returned after graduating here, fitted for 
 its highest seats and most diabolical service. 
 
 The country changes for the better as the road 
 crosses Green River, and enters upon the third sec- 
 tion of the Mountain Pass, which ends with the Salt 
 Lake Valley at Ogden. Nothing on the whole line, 
 unless it be the passage over the Sierra Nevadas in 
 California, rivals this section in grand and pictur- 
 esque scenery. It has also, with the same exception, 
 been the hardest part of the road to build; for here 
 are real mountain ranges to be^ crossed, to be scaled 
 and to be descended, in order to reach the Salt Lake 
 Basin. Deep cuts, heavy embankments, numerous 
 tunnels are found in the pathway of the track. But 
 at first, we pass through long troughs, like beds of 
 departed rivers, with mountain walls on either bank, 
 often bearing most unique forms, models for the archi- 
 tect, puzzles for the brain of artist. High winds, heavy 
 rains, and columns of swiftly moving and revolving 
 
58 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 sand appear to have been at work among these hills 
 to waste and to reconstruct. Tall, isolated rocks, sur- 
 mounting a hill, sometimes round, but always even 
 and smooth as if work of finest chisel; immense col- 
 umns and fantastic figures upon the walls of rock that 
 line a valley for miles ; solitary mountains upon the 
 plain, fashioned like a fortress, or rising like Gothic 
 cathedral, and called huttes (a French word signifying 
 isolated hill or mountain), separated from their family 
 in some great convulsion of nature ; long lines of 
 rock embankment, one above another, formed some- 
 times into squares like a vast fort, and again running 
 along for miles, a hundred feet above the valley, look- 
 ing like the most perfect of railroad embankments, 
 with an open breach occasionally for a water-course, 
 — these are some of the labors of these architects of 
 nature, and with details indescribable and ever pic- 
 turesque, they will be a constant excitement and in- 
 spiration to the traveler. 
 
 One of the most curious and famous of these grand 
 fantastic shapes on the route is the " Church Butte." 
 It lies directly by the old stage road, and not far from 
 the Kailroad track. At a distance, it looms up on 
 the level plain, a huge, ill-shapen hill; near by, it 
 appears the most marvelous counterfeit of a half- 
 ruined, gigantic, old-world Gothic cathedral, that can 
 be imagined. We stopped before it just as the sun 
 had gone down in the west, and as the full moon 
 came up the eastern horizon, and the soft, contrasting 
 lights, deepening slowly into shadowy dimness, gave 
 exquisite development to the manifold shapes and the 
 beautiful and picturesque outlines, that rock and clay 
 
THE WIND AND THE SAND. 69 
 
 had assumed. The Milan or the Cologne cathedral, 
 worn with centuries, ill-shapen with irregular decay, 
 could not have looked more the things they are or 
 would be, than this did. Everything belonging to 
 the idea was there in some degree of preservation. 
 Porch, nave, transept, steeple, broken columns, bent 
 roof, caryatides, monster animals, saints and apostles, 
 with departed nose or foot, worn and crumbling fea- 
 tures, were all in their places, or a little out, but 
 recognizable and nameable. We walked around this 
 vast natural cathedral of sandstone and clay, — a full 
 half mile, — and greater grew our wonder, our enthu- 
 siasm. Flowing out from the Butte on all sides was 
 a thick, solid stream of fine stone and clay, that told 
 how the work was done, how it was going on still, 
 refining, pointing, carving, chiseling, but gradually 
 and surely leveling, as all mountains, the world over, 
 are being leveled, and the whole surface of the globe 
 making into one vast plain. 
 
 The share which the high winds and the sand they 
 take up and blow with powerful force in right lines, 
 and in curves, and in whirls, have in this great work, 
 both of construction and destruction, is such as can 
 hardly be realized by those who have not experienced 
 or witnessed them. Sand showers or sand whirlpools 
 are of almost daily occurrence in these high central 
 regions of the Continent. They load the atmosphere 
 with sand; they carry it everywhere; among rocks, 
 into houses, through walls, into the bodies of every- 
 thing animate and inanimate, and there keep it at its 
 work of revolution. There is a window amono: the 
 mountains of Colorado that a single storm of this sort 
 
60 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 has changed from common glass into the most per- 
 fect of ground glass; and the fantastic architecture 
 of its creation among the rocks of the country, from 
 the North Platte to Fort Bridger, can only be under- 
 stood and appreciated by being seen. 
 
 Soon, passing over crests of mountains, amid patches 
 of snow and fields of yellow flowers, — such contrasts 
 were offered us in June, — the road seeks its way into 
 the Salt Lake Yalley by Echo and Weber Canyons. 
 These, their approaches and their connections, are 
 variously wonderful regions. Narrow gorges them- 
 selves, with towering walls of rock on each side, nar- 
 rower gorges open out from them, and lead up among 
 timber and to mountain tops. Streams, pure and 
 lively, course through them, seeking home in the mys- 
 tery of Salt Lake. Wherever the valley is bold enough 
 to widen, fertile meadows gladden the eye, and Mor- 
 mon thrift and Mormon polygamy begin to show their 
 results. More women and children than men are a 
 new and strange sight in this far-away country. 
 
 Out from the rugged Weber Canyon, the road 
 comes plumply into the Salt Lake Valley, and at 
 Ogden, a branch connects the main line with the 
 capital city of the saints, thirty-nine miles distant. 
 But here we are among the most prosperous farming 
 settlements of Utah; and following the central road 
 up the valley to reach the northern point of Salt 
 Lake, we see Mormon civilization in villages and 
 farms, for forty or fifty miles or more. Crossing Bear 
 River near its mouth in Salt Lake, whence the stages 
 for Montana will in future start from the Railroad, 
 the line passes out of the Salt Lake or Wahsatch 
 
AROUND SALT LAKE — HUMBOLDT EIYER. 63 
 
 Valley, and in skirting the lake, has to attack and 
 mount the Promontory Mountains that come sharply 
 down into the lake from the north. Here at Prom- 
 ontory Point, the two companies, the Central Pacific 
 and the Union Pacific, one building from the west 
 and the other from the east, joined their tracks, and 
 completed the grand Continental Railroad. 
 
 Continuing west, the road completes the northern 
 circuit of the lake through a desert region, and goes 
 out towards Nevada with uninviting surroundings. 
 Pilot Peak, in the Ombre Mountains, is the first 
 noticeable feature in the landscape ; lying twelve to 
 fifteen miles south of the Railroad, it commands a 
 grand view of all the Salt Lake country and the 
 desert north and west of the water. The general 
 line of the road from Salt Lake to the Sierra Ne- 
 vadas is along a high trough of rolling desert country, 
 with occasional narrow fertile meadows ; to the north 
 high volcanic table-lands that intervene between it 
 and the waters of the Columbia ; to the south the 
 mountain ranges of Nevada, and their almost equally 
 barren valleys, that come to their northern ends here. 
 The Humboldt River begins one hundred and forty 
 miles west of Salt Lake, in Humboldt Wells, where 
 the East Humboldt Mountains, the chief of the Ne- 
 vada ranges, taper down into the trough. Here are 
 several hundred acres of good meadow land, rich with 
 springs, and capable of large crops of grass. The 
 East Humboldt range is the backbone, as it were, of 
 the Great Interior Basin, and some of its peaks are 
 eleven thousand and twelve thousand feet high, and 
 carry their snow caps through the year. 
 
64 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 From the source of the Humboldt, the road follows 
 the river for near three hundred miles to its sink. 
 The stream is for the most part sluggish and muddy, 
 with but a narrow fringe of arable land. A few 
 ranches, raising hay and barley, flourish in favored 
 spots; but there can be no very extensive farming 
 through the valley without irrigation. An occasional 
 kindred stream comes into the Humboldt from out 
 the hills, north and south. One from the north is 
 known as Maggie Creek, so named for a sweet little 
 Scotch girl, who was a pet of one of the emigrant 
 parties that crossed the country by this route many 
 years ago. Up its valley lies the nearest available route 
 to Idaho from the California end of the main road, 
 and Carlin, the village at the junction, has hopes of a 
 future. Near by, the South Fork of the Humboldt, its 
 main tributary, comes down out of the East Humboldt 
 range, and up this lies the stage route to the new min- 
 ing regions of South-eastern Nevada at White Pine and 
 Pahranagat, the former one hundred and forty miles 
 distant, and possibly the route for a cross or branch rail- 
 road to Southern Utah and Nevada and Northern Ari- 
 zona, there connecting with the future southern conti- 
 nental road. Near the Kailroad in this region, too, is a 
 favorable specimen of the hot springs that abound all 
 through the Interior Basin country. It seems to lie 
 in the basin of an old crater, on top of a knoll fifty 
 feet high from the river, and fills a mammoth pool, one 
 hundred and fifty feet long by seventy-five wide, with 
 water as hot as the hand can bear it, and afibrding a 
 most delicious bath. Farther on west, the road passes 
 the foot of Reese River Valley, ninety miles up which 
 
THE DESERT OF THE TRUCKEE. 65 
 
 lies Austin, in Central Nevada, the second most famous 
 mining settlement of the State, and near its center. 
 
 Approaching its end, the Humboldt River passes 
 between the West Humboldt Mountains on the south 
 and the Trinity on the north, both which have for 
 several years been the more hopeful than successful 
 theaters of considerable mining operations. Those of 
 the Trinity have proven the more fruitful of the two ; 
 and Orcana is their central settlement. At the end 
 of the West Humboldt range is another broad Park, 
 known as Lassens' meadows, and similar to those of 
 Humboldt Wells at the beginning. Leaving the Hum- 
 boldt River to run south and waste itself in the sands 
 of the valley, the Railroad soon turns, more westerly 
 into and across another purely arid plain, covered with 
 sage bush, varied by white alkali flats, holding but 
 little water and that bad; with hot springs here and 
 there ; lizards and jackass rabbits the principal inhab- 
 itants; no timber save the sparsely scattered nut-pine 
 in the higher parts of some of the mountain ranges; 
 mountains in view on either hand, picturesque in out- 
 line, but bare, brown and dry. Thirty miles of this 
 desert of deserts brings the road to Wadsworth on 
 the Truckee River, and we taste the fresh waters and 
 begin to feel the inspiration of the strong life of the 
 Sierra Nevadas. 
 
 The track of the road from Salt Lake to the Truckee 
 is on a very uniform elevation of four thousand to five 
 thousand feet; the grades are all light, and the work 
 of construction was easy. From Wadsworth, it as- 
 cends the Truckee Yalley into the mountains, stop- 
 ping at Reno to send off a branch of seventeen miles 
 
66 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 to Virginia City and Gold Hill, the oldest and largest 
 mining towns in Nevada, built up over and by the 
 famous Comstock Lode, and beyond to Carson, the 
 capital of the state. Near by are the Steamboat 
 Springs, where sulphurous waters seethe with threat- 
 ening roar just beneath the surface, and find vent 
 through little cracks in the earth, pouring forth huge 
 volumes of steam and rivulets of boiling water. From 
 these, — last illustration of the heat and aridity of the 
 desert, — it is a grateful sensation for the traveler to 
 get among the grand woods and the bright pure 
 waters of the mountains ; and the track mounts 
 two thousand feet to the tops of the Sierras (seven 
 thousand feet high) in thirty-three miles. Near the 
 summit, beautiful lakes adjoin the road, most espe- 
 cially Donner Lake, which strongly invite delay for 
 the leisurely enjoyment of the grand scenery of the 
 upper Sierras. In the days of early emigration, 
 Donner Lake was the theater of a sad tragedy. An 
 Illinois party were overtaken here by winter and 
 snow, lost their way, grew short of provisions, and 
 many died from cold and starvation, and the survivors 
 only existed on the fiesh of their companions. It is 
 difl&cult, amid the summer beauty and sweetness of 
 this scene, to call up this thrilling, horrible experi- 
 ence, that gave the lake its name, and will forever 
 cling to its history. For twenty or thirty miles along 
 the summit section, the Kailroad track is covered with 
 a stout roof to protect it from the heavy winter snows, 
 and this shuts out what the traveler is most eager to 
 see. Going down on the California side, the moun- 
 tains run off very rapidly; the rivers lie in deep 
 
THE EOAD OVER THE SIERRAS. 67 
 
 gorges, and cannot well be reached or followed by 
 the track; and so the rails are laid along and around 
 the more evenly descending ridges out into the val- 
 leys, and by winding back and forth on the hill-sides, 
 occasionally crossing a deep gorge by majestic span 
 of bridge, they manage to get down seven thousand 
 feet in one hundred miles, with grades of from sev- 
 enty-five to one hundred and sixteen feet. These 
 two hundred miles of road, ascending and descending 
 the great California range of mountains, are without 
 parallel, for so long a distance, in expense and diffi- 
 culty of construction, and in variety and magnificence 
 of scenery, among the entire railroad system of the 
 world. A million dollars in gold was spent for blast- 
 ing powder alone in the construction of this section ; 
 the average cost of grading was one hundred thou- 
 sand dollars a mile; and some single miles cost as 
 high as three hundred thousand dollars each. About 
 a dozen tunnels carry the track through projecting 
 angles or bold hills of rock, and for miles it is fairly 
 cut into the solid, perpendicular mountain sides. Con- 
 sidering that this mountain range, with all its doubts 
 and difficulties and cost of railroad construction, reared 
 itself at the very beginning of the whole enterprise on 
 the Pacific side, — that it had to be attacked first, the 
 courage and the faith of the California pioneers and 
 executors of this grand continental roadway, rise to 
 the front rank of all the high qualities required and 
 put into its perfection ; and in the distribution of his- 
 torical honors growing out of it, to them should be 
 given the lion's share. 
 
 There is a genuine exhilaration in the scenery of 
 
68 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 California, after the long ride through the Great In- 
 terior Desert Basin ; along wooded gorges, through 
 broad groves, under hill-sides, already green and 
 purple with the grape, over rolling meadows, golden 
 with grain or brown with the ripened, decaying sea- 
 son's grass, into villages dead with the decay of min- 
 ing, or alive with the birth of agriculture and manu- 
 factures, — for it is thus the Eailroad passes into and 
 across California. At Sacramento, its capital, low- 
 lying by the river, the center of the great interior 
 valleys of the State, rival lines invite the traveler for 
 the remnant of his journey to the Coast at San Fran- 
 cisco. Steamboats down the river; a short, direct 
 railroad to the upper end of San Francisco Bay, leav- 
 ing a ferriage of twenty-two miles to the city ; or a 
 half-circle sweep of road through Stockton to Oakland, 
 across the narrow part of the bay from San Francisco; 
 or, adding another circle, by the southern shore of the 
 bay, the train passes into the very center of the great 
 city of our Pacific Empire. 
 
 There will speedily be other railroads across our 
 Continent. The rivalries of sections, the temptations 
 of commerce, the necessities of our political system, 
 will add at least two more through lines within a 
 generation's time. But this, the first, will forever re- 
 main the one of history; the one of romance. Its con- 
 struction in so short a time was the greatest triumph 
 of modern civilization, of all civilization, indeed. The 
 work was seriously begun on the California side in 
 1864; on the eastern end in 1866; and the early 
 part of the year 1869 witnessed its entire completion. 
 Considering that its length is over eighteen hundred 
 
THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT GRANTS. 69 
 
 miles; that much of it lay through an almost un- 
 known and unexplored country ; that it crosses two 
 great continental ranges of mountains, and almost 
 innumerable sub-ranges; that even the feeble cen- 
 ters of population along the line were five hundred 
 miles apart; that for distances of from two hundred 
 to five hundred miles there was no timber for ties ; 
 and for distances of fifty to two hundred miles there 
 was no water for even drinking uses, and no grass to 
 feed animals ; that all the iron for one-half of the road 
 had to be shipped around Cape Horn or across the 
 Isthmus of Panama, and for the other to be freighted 
 across the country from Pennsylvania, — thinking of 
 all these elements of delay, difficulty and cost, surely 
 neither argument nor rhetoric is necessary to place 
 this work in its true proportions and its true rela- 
 tions before the world and in the pages of history. 
 
 The generous government grants were of course 
 the moving power in this wonderfully rapid work. 
 They proved more royal than it was supposed they 
 were when made ; but they lay practically unim- 
 proved for some three or four years. But when their 
 wealth of gift was realized, and the war renewed the 
 faith of the capital and liberated the labor of the 
 country, the two companies, chartered to execute the 
 work, the one beginning in California and moving east, 
 and the other on the Missouri Kiver and moving west, 
 entered into a race for the completion and posses- 
 sion by each of as much of the line and as much of 
 the generous government bounty as could be secured. 
 Though the California Company began first, the heavy 
 labor of grading over their mountains forbade them 
 
70 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 to move so rapidly as the Eastern Company, whose 
 first five hundred miles were over the open, level 
 plain, and whose next three hundred miles had little 
 of heavy or expensive work upon it. The result is, 
 counting the line from San Francisco to Omaha, that 
 the California or Central Pacific Company built about 
 seven hundred miles, and the Eastern or Union Pacific 
 about eleven hundred miles, and the point of conjunc- 
 tion is Salt Lake. The government money bounty 
 averaged thirty thousand dollars to the mile, or over 
 fifty millions of dollars in all ; while, by its acceptance 
 of a second mortgage as security for this, the com- 
 panies were enabled to issue and sell an equal amount 
 of first mortgage bonds of their own. Thus their cash 
 funds to do the work amounted to sixty thousand 
 dollars a mile, or over one hundred million dollars in 
 all. Despite the expense of construction through so 
 new and in some places barren and mo.untainous a 
 country, and the waste consequent upon such rapidity, 
 the cost has undoubtedly been considerably below this. 
 For their boldness and their energy, the men, who 
 have performed this great work, have won immense 
 fortunes. The direct profits cannot well be less than 
 twenty million dollars ; and behind this there remain 
 the capital stock of the two companies, whatever it 
 may prove to be worth, and the royal land grant of 
 half the real estate for twenty miles each side the 
 road, or twenty-five millions of acres in all. Besides 
 all this, the California Company had direct local aid 
 and grants worth four million dollars. Never was an 
 enterprise so richly endowed ; never in America so 
 grand a speculation as the construction and ownership 
 
HOW THE RAILKOAD IS BUILT. 71 
 
 of this road. The profits are on a scale with the 
 work ; and both are worthy of each other. But even 
 the excess of bounty was a good investment for the 
 Nation; the time gained, in the completion of the 
 road, by such appeal to cupidity, was worth all that 
 such excess has taken from the government. And 
 the business already seeking the road proves clearly 
 enough that, with honor on the part of its managers, 
 the loans of the Nation will be returned with interest 
 in direct repayment. 
 
 The manner of the construction of this great work 
 has been much discussed. With such haste, there 
 must have been not only waste, but imperfection and 
 incompleteness, in the details. To avoid rocks or hills, 
 as well as to increase the distance for which the gov- 
 ernment would issue its bonds, circles have also been 
 substituted in some places for straight lines. But the 
 builders have, after getting ahead with the line, gone 
 back to improve and perfect it; and though they may 
 not bring it up to the highest standard of even Ameri- 
 can railroads, the more intelligent judgment is that 
 they have made and are making fair return for their 
 opportunity. The road is so sure to be valuable to 
 own and operate, that self-interest invites them to a 
 solid and safe construction throughout; and the gov- 
 ernment will not be likely to let go its hold upon its 
 various grants until this is secured. 
 
 To the East, to the world at large, the opening of 
 this Railroad is but opportunity for new wealth, a revo- 
 lution to the courses of commerce, by putting America 
 into intimate relations with Asia, and sending the 
 traf&c of the Indies across our Continent, a fresh im- 
 
72 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 pulse to civilization, and the founding of a new em- 
 pire on the Pacific Coast. But to the pioneers in the 
 mountains and on the plains of the interior, and along 
 the States of the Pacific shore, it is something more, 
 and deeper. It is moral and social refreshment and 
 rehabilitation. It was touching, even to tears, when 
 we first visited these regions in 1865, to hear the ap- 
 peals of the people for this that they now have so 
 much more quickly than they then dreamed of The 
 first question, from man or woman, was of the Pacific 
 Eailroad. "When will it be built?" "Do use your 
 influence to hasten it on." "We starve in soul and 
 in heart and in pocket for that." It was the hunger, 
 the prayer, the hope of all these peoples. For then, 
 and without this chord of quick sympathy and com- 
 munication, they did not feel at ease or at home in the 
 far West. None of them ever spoke of California or 
 Nevada as their home. "Home" was in the East. 
 They were ever talking of going "Home." "When I 
 was home last;" "I mean to go home next year," or, 
 "just as soon as the Railroad is done;" "I have never 
 been home since I came out;" "I fear I shall never 
 see home again," — these and kindred phrases, un- 
 consciously uttered almost, told where the heart was, 
 — told of the yearning hunger of these pioneer spirits, 
 not simply for "the cots where they were born," not 
 merely for the circles of their kindred, nor the hills 
 and the valleys amid which they were reared, — all 
 these and something more, — but for the close contact 
 and quick sympathy with the completer social, moral 
 and intellectual life of the East, the absence of which 
 every earnest spirit, orphaned in far away regions, 
 
WHO BUILT THE ROAD. 73 
 
 feels above all other lackings. The Railroad is the 
 chord along whose quick lines moves this food for the 
 early settlers of our New West. It brings them home ; 
 more, it carries home to them. Though they may 
 never see its rails, or ride in its trains, they will feel 
 its influence, and be more content and richer in their 
 lives. It puts the great sections of the Nation into 
 sympathy and unity; it marries the Atlantic and the 
 Pacific ; it destroys disunion in the quarter where it 
 was ever most threatening; it brings into harmony 
 the heretofore jarring discords of a Continent of sepa- 
 rated peoples; it determines the future of America, as 
 the first nation of the world, in commerce, in govern- 
 ment, in intellectual and moral supremacy. Who 
 shall say that any price was too great to pay for these 
 results ? 
 
 The story of this great enterprise would not be 
 complete without the names of a few at least of the 
 many leaders of men and of capital, under whose 
 auspices the work was initiated and constructed. Of 
 the California Company, Leland Stanford was presi- 
 dent, C. P. Huntington vice-president, Charles Crocker 
 superintendent of construction, and S. S. Montague 
 and George S. Gray engineers; of the Eastern or 
 Union Pacific Company, Oliver Ames was president, 
 Thomas C. Durant vice-president and superintendent 
 of construction, G. M. Dodge and Silas Seymour en- 
 gineers. Further down the list, among the contract- 
 ors, deputy-superintendents and engineers, were men 
 who perhaps contributed more to the rapid comple- 
 tion and real labor of the enterprise than even some 
 of these ; it was a work that called for the highest 
 
74 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 executive talent and the most indomitable energy to 
 be found among the American people ; and it not 
 only gathered these to itself, but by the inspiration 
 of its own magnitude, it called these qualities out 
 freshly, and put them into their most vigorous exer- 
 cise. No other people than ours, — daring in concep- 
 tion, rapid in acquirement, bold in execution, beyond 
 any other nation, — could have both educated the men 
 for such a work, and done it, too, all within five years 
 of time. The Pacific Eailroad is another such an 
 illustration, such a triumph of the American people, 
 as the war and its peace. Both were original, and 
 not only without precedent, but even without com- 
 prehension by another people. 
 
IV. 
 
 COLOEADO : ITS MOUNTAINS AND PAEKS. 
 
 Back to the Eocky Mountains— Their Finest Scenery Away From the 
 Railroad Line — Colorado, the Center and Backbone of the Conti- 
 nent — Its Three Grand Divisions — Its Majestic Mountains — Its 
 Great Natural Parks— North, Middle and South Parks— Summer 
 Scenes Among the Mountains and Parks — The Western Division 
 of Colorado— The Stage Ride from Cheyenne — Night in a Stage- 
 Coach — Experiences on the Road — Denver, its Growth and Prom- 
 ise, and its Panoramic Mountain View — Salt Lake City and Denver 
 Compared. 
 
 But, after all, this Eailroad, like railroads gener- 
 ally, fails to exhibit the most striking and attractive 
 features of the country. The iron track seeks level 
 lines and smooth ways, and runs through the back 
 yards of towns, across the desert plains of the inte- 
 rior, and over the mountains in their humbler moods, 
 away from commanding hights and picturesque atti- 
 tudes. So, in bringing my reader back to show him 
 the Eocky Mountains and to picture to him the attrac- 
 tions of Colorado, I must take him away from the 
 main line of the continental railway. Nature graded 
 a grand pathway for the locomotive across our Conti- 
 nent; the mountains fall back to the right of us and 
 to the left of us, — so far away that we catch only the 
 
76 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 dim outline of their greatness, leaving but here and 
 there a quaint ruin of or majestic monument to her 
 mighty labor, — that civilization may go by steam from 
 ocean to ocean. The great mountain center of the 
 Continent lies below the present railroad line; it 
 looms up in the distance at Cheyenne; it marches 
 along the southern horizon as you sweep up and 
 across the magnificent Laramie Plains; it cheers you 
 through the rolling alkali dust of the Bitter Creek 
 country; and it shoots its spurs in beauty and in 
 power before you, as you seek, more slowly, a de- 
 scending path into the Salt Lake Basin. But would 
 you behold it in all its majestic grandeur, its multi- 
 plied folds of hight, with fields of ice and snow and 
 rock, its beauty of infinite form and color, its wealth 
 of flora, and its wealth of gold and silver, — all the 
 grand landscape and the hidden promise of the finest 
 mountain region that the world holds, — then you 
 must switch off from the main road, and come into 
 the heart of Colorado, which is the very heart of our 
 western Continent. 
 
 As Pennsylvania is the key-stone in the Atlantic 
 belt or arch of States, so is Colorado the key-stone 
 in the grand continental formation. She holds the 
 backbone, the stiffening of the Republic. Lying a 
 huge square block in the very center of the vast 
 region bounded by the Mississippi Yalley on the east, 
 the Pacific Ocean on the west, and British America 
 and Mexico north and south, the continental moun- 
 tain chain here dwells in finest proportions, exagger- 
 ates, puffs itself up and spreads itself around with a 
 perfect wantonness and luxuriance of power, — great 
 
THE PLAINS SECTIOIST OF COLORADO. 77 
 
 fountains of gold and silver, and lead and copper, and 
 zinc and iron, — great fountains of water that pours 
 itself in all directions through the interior of the 
 Continent, feeding a wealth of agriculture that is 
 little developed and never yet dreamed of even, — 
 great fountains of health in pure, dry and stimulating 
 air, — great fountains of natural beauty- she may 
 proudly bid the Nation come to her for strength, for 
 wealth, for vigor, — for rest and restoration, — and may 
 well call her mountains the Sierre Madre, the Mother 
 Mountains of the Continent. 
 
 Her geographical prominence and parentage are 
 but type and promise of her future relations to the 
 developed and developing life of the Nation. Stretch- 
 ing two hundred and sixty miles north and south, and 
 three hundred and seventy-five miles east and west, 
 her territory has three natural subdivisions. The 
 eastern third is of the Plains, and forms their western 
 section, — a high rolling plateau from four thousand to 
 five thousand feet above the sea level, richly watered 
 by streams from the mountains, the strips along the 
 rivers ripe for abundant harvests of grains and fruits 
 and vegetables, the whole already the finest pasture 
 land of the Continent, and with irrigation, for which 
 the streams afford ready facility, capable of most suc- 
 cessful cultivation, — beautiful in its wide, treeless sea 
 of green and gray, with waves of land to break the 
 monotony and lift the eye on to the great panorama 
 of mountains, snow-slashed and snow-capped, that 
 hangs over its western line through all its length of 
 two hundred and sixty miles, and marks the second 
 or middle division of the State. This is of about equal 
 
78 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 widths — mountains one hundred, one hundred and 
 fifty, two hundred miles deep, — on, on to the West, 
 till even this pure air tires of carrying the eye over 
 peak on peak, range on range. You think you must 
 look over Brigham Young's fertile valleys, and trace 
 the Colorado River out of its grand mystery, even if 
 the outer and faintest rim of the horizon does not 
 shadow forth the Sierra Nevada of California. 
 
 Starting from an elevation at the end of the Plains 
 of five thousand to ^yq thousand five hundred feet, 
 these mountains rapidly carry you up to eight thou- 
 sand, ten thousand, thirteen thousand, near to fifteen 
 thousand feet above the sea level. Nine, ten, and 
 twelve thousand feet peaks are scattered everywhere, 
 — they are the mountains, — while those that mount 
 to thirteen or fourteen thousand are plenty enough 
 to be familiar, and are indeed rarely out of sight. 
 They do not form a simple line, ascending from one 
 and descending to another plain or valley, but are a 
 dozen lines folded on, and mingling among each other, 
 in admirable confusion; opening to let their super- 
 fluous waters flow out; closing to hold their treasures 
 and defy the approach of man ; gathering up all their 
 strength, as it were, to make a peak or two of extra 
 massive proportions, cold with snow and dreary with 
 rock; and shading down into comparatively tender 
 hills that woo the forests and the flowers to their 
 very summits. The line of peaks that divide the 
 waters that flow to the Atlantic from those coursing 
 into the Pacific, — "the divide," par excellence, — 
 twists and turns through the State, very much in the 
 style of a long and double-backed bow, making an 
 
THE GREAT PARKS OF COLORADO. 79 
 
 almost entire circle sometimes, and then coming back 
 to its mission as a north and south line. Within its 
 huge folds are other " divides/' separating the feeders 
 to rival rivers of the same continental side, or rival 
 feeders of the same river, and other ranges with peaks 
 as high as the parent range ; and within and among 
 them all, the hills, as if tired of hight and perpen- 
 dicularity, give way to wide plains or prairies, with 
 all the beauties and characteristics of plains and prai- 
 ries outside the mountain region, and the added 
 charm of holding little baby mountains of their own 
 to diversify the landscape and feed forest and stream, 
 while up and around them grow, through woods and 
 grassy openings, the grand parent ranges that guard 
 and enfold what are well called Natural Parks. 
 
 These Parks are a distinctive and remarkable fea- 
 ture of this mountain center or belt of Colorado. 
 They open upon the traveler at frequent intervals in 
 charming unexpectedness ; rich with grass and water, 
 with trees and flowers, with soft beauty of outline 
 and warm beauty of color, in most admirable contrast 
 to the rough rocks and white snow of the high ranges 
 around. Most of these Parks are, of course, petite, — 
 little wide valleys around the heads of single streams, 
 or the conjunctions of several, or the homes of sweet 
 lakes; but there are four great ones that mark the 
 phenomenon and give the name. These are North 
 Park, Middle Park, South Park and San Luis Park, 
 varying in size from tw^enty by fifty miles to one 
 hundred by two hundred, or say from Rhode Island 
 to Massachusetts, — little episodes and interjections 
 among these mountains, by whose size, as thus stated. 
 
80 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 you may take in some sense of the extent and maj- 
 esty of the region, of which they are a sub-feature, 
 as a whole. 
 
 The North Park extends up to the northern hue 
 of the State and within thirty or forty miles of the 
 Pacific Railroad; through and out of it flow the head 
 waters of the North Platte; its streams are thicker 
 with trout, and its sage bush and buffalo grass and 
 wooded hill-sides offer more deer and wolves and 
 antelopes and bears than are found in the lower and 
 more frequented Parks, but its soil is colder, as its 
 elevation is higher, and its charms of color and vege- 
 tation more stinted. Middle Park lies next below, 
 and separated by a single but high sub-range of the 
 main mountains. This is fifty miles wide by seventy 
 miles long, and as the continental divide sweeps 
 around on its eastern side, all its waters flow into the 
 Colorado of the West and so into the Pacific. But it 
 embraces within itself several high ranges of hills 
 and two or three different valleys. The great peaks 
 of the Territory lie marshaled around it, — Long's 
 Peak, Gray's Peaks, and Mount Lincoln, north-east, 
 south-east and south-west, each from fourteen thou- 
 sand to fourteen thousand five hundred feet high ; and 
 snow-capped mountains circle its whole area. Milder 
 and more beautiful in landscape than the North, it 
 yet falls behind its neighbor on the other side, the 
 South Park, which is thirty miles wide and sixty 
 long, and, fellowshipping with the North Park, comes 
 into the inner tail of the bow, carries the continental 
 divide on its west, and furnishes the waters of the 
 Arkansas and the South Platte. 
 
THE SOUTH AND SAK LUIS PAEKS. 81 
 
 This (the South) is the most beautiful of the Parks 
 and the better known. Mining discoveries within 
 and around it have opened roads through it, and bor- 
 dered it with settlements. It offers a remarkable 
 combination of the beauties of the Plains and those of 
 the Mountains. They mingle and mix in charming 
 association. Wide areas of rich prairie open out 
 before the level eye; upraise it or turn one side, and 
 grand snowy mountains carry the sight up among 
 the clouds ; and between these types of natural beauty 
 are plentiful shadings in gently rolling hills, long level 
 banks, thick and diversified forests, bright and bounti- 
 ful streams, — all the grand panorama of natural beauty 
 that hill and valley, mountain and plain, winter and 
 summer, snow and verdure, trees and rocks, water 
 and waste can produce in combination and compari- 
 son, is here spread before the spectator, not from a 
 single spot or in a single hour of his travel, but from 
 mile to mile, from day's journey to day's journey, 
 ever the same various scene, yet ever shifting in its 
 kaleidoscopic alliances and changes. 
 
 The San Luis Park lies along and around the Ar- 
 kansas and its tributaries in Southern Colorado and 
 Northern New Mexico, is the largest and perhaps the 
 most varied of the series of great Parks, centers about 
 a grand lake, and is rich alike in agricultural and 
 mineral promise. The Indians robbed us of our 
 promised peep into its lines, and we know it only 
 by its kinship to those we have visited, and the en- 
 thusiastic descriptions of those to whom it is familiar. 
 But the South Park as yet takes the palm among the 
 Coloradians, perhaps only, however, because it is the 
 
82 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 more accessible, and its beauties have been more 
 thoroughly explored. Certainly it lies more closely 
 in the lap of the great mountains ; and Mount Lin- 
 coln and Pike's Peak, perhaps the most noted and 
 remarkable of all the high peaks of the State, sentinel 
 it north and south, feed it from their snows, protect it 
 from the rough winds, shadow it from the sharp suns. 
 In spite of these great elevations, the traveler 
 carries summer skies as he keeps summer scenes 
 with him at this season, in most of his excursions 
 among the mountains and their parks in Colorado. 
 We borrow our ideas of mountain travel and moun- 
 tain hights from Switzerland and the White Mountains 
 of New Hampshire. Among them both, vegetation 
 ceases at about five thousand feet above the sea level, 
 and perpetual snow reigns among the Alps at seven 
 thousand to eight thousand feet, and would in the 
 White Mountains if they went as high. But here in 
 these vaster mountain regions than either of Western 
 America, the hills themselves only begin to rise from 
 the Plains at an elevation of five thousand five hun- 
 dred feet. And at that hight, though the nights are 
 always deliciously cool, the summer days are as warm 
 as, if not warmer than they ever are in the valleys of 
 the New England States, and snow enough for sleigh- 
 ing or to force the cattle to shelter or other food than 
 the prairie grass is only a rare chance, — a memory of 
 the oldest, or a dream of the youngest inhabitant. 
 At six thousand or seven thousand feet, in the valleys 
 of the mountains, the small grains and the tenderer 
 vegetables are successfully cultivated, and at seven 
 thousand five hundred and eight thousand ^\e hun- 
 
THE s:n'Ow o:n" the mountaii^s. 83 
 
 dred feet, potatoes, turnips and cabbages thrive. The 
 Middle Park ranges from seven thousand seven hun- 
 dred to nine thousand feet high in its level sections, 
 and the South from six thousand fiye hundred to 
 seven thousand ^ye hundred, while the higher plains 
 and embraced hills of both run up to ten thousand 
 and even eleven thousand feet. Yet grass grows 
 richly and abundantly through both ; hay is a great 
 natural crop, and is cured already for all the wants 
 that can be reached ; and in the lower parts of the 
 South Park, cattle winter out of doors, and the smaller 
 grains and hardier vegetables are grown with great 
 success and profit. Flowers are beautiful and abun- 
 dant up to ten thousand or eleven thousand feet, — 
 so beautiful and abundant that I must reserve them 
 for special description, — the largest and best timber 
 grows at nine thousand to eleven thousand feet, and 
 trees do not cease till you pass above eleven thousand 
 five hundred feet, while the real, absolute and per- 
 petual snow line, — such snow and ice as are found 
 universally in Switzerland at eight thousand feet,— is 
 not reached at all in these mountains. At twelve 
 thousand feet it begins to lie in great patches on the 
 shaded sides of the hills, or in deep ravines, and goes 
 on to multiply in such form as the mountains rise to 
 their greatest hight at fourteen thousand to fourteen 
 thousand five hundred feet. But it absolutely covers 
 no mountain peak ; the tops of Gray's Peaks and 
 Mount Lincoln, the highest points in the whole re- 
 gion, are dry and bare, at least at midday, through 
 August, though in reaching them you may go over 
 snow-fields twenty or thirty feet deep and miles long, 
 
84 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 though nearly every morning's sun may glance bril- 
 liantly off the freshly whitened peaks of all the high 
 mountains in sight, and though it makes everywhere 
 and at all times a significant feature in all the land- 
 scape visions of the country. 
 
 The full mountains of snow and the vast rivers of 
 ice that belong to Switzerland are not here, and are 
 certainly missed by the experienced mountain trav- 
 eler; but for their absence we have many compensa- 
 tions, — a more varied and richer verdure, a wider 
 range of mountains, with greater variety of form and 
 color, these elevated Parks, that have no parallel any- 
 where for curious combination of landscape feature 
 and beauty and practical use, a climate in summer 
 that fosters comfort and makes high mountain travel 
 both much more possible and agreeable, and an atmos- 
 phere that, in purity and dryness, in inspiring influ- 
 ence upon body and mind, can find no match in any 
 part of Europe, nor elsewhere in America. 
 
 The third or western great division of Colorado is 
 comparatively unknown. Explorers have crossed it 
 here and there; adventurous miners have penetrated 
 into this and that of its valleys ; but it holds no real 
 population, and its character is known only in a gen- 
 eral way. The great mountain ranges shade down 
 irregularly through it into the vast interior basin of 
 the West, instead of breaking off almost abruptly, as 
 they do on their eastern side, into the level plains; 
 the Grand, the White, the Green and the Gunnison, 
 the great feeders of the Colorado of the West, slash 
 freely through it, often by narrow and unapproach- 
 able gorges, often too through wide and rich valleys; 
 
THE KOADS TO DENVER. 85 
 
 many a high park, with rough sage bush and tall 
 grass, spreads itself out, cold and dreary in the north, 
 warmer and more fertile in the south. Many a fable 
 of rich mines, of beautiful valleys, of broken and 
 ruined mountains, — the debris of great conflicts of 
 nature, — many a deep faith in untold wealth and un- 
 numbered beauties do I hear of and about this sec- 
 tion of the State; but the fact remains that it has 
 few settlers and no especial history, — and I gather 
 the conclusion that it is in every way less interesting 
 to traveler, less enticing to speculator or settler, than 
 the middle and eastern divisions. New and thorough 
 explorations are in progress through its lines; another 
 year will add something to our knowledge of its val- 
 leys and mountains ; but for the present it is perhaps 
 as much unknown land as any section of equal size 
 in the United States. 
 
 To reach the heart alike of the civilization and the 
 scenery of Colorado, the traveler now leaves the main 
 Pacific Railroad at Cheyenne. A branch track will 
 soon, if it does not already, carry him quickly through 
 the hundred miles south to Denver. The more direct 
 line of the St. Louis or Eastern Division Railroad is 
 within two hundred miles of Denver on the east, and 
 is under engagement with the government to continue 
 its track to that point. The completion of this line 
 will give Colorado two railroad connections with the 
 East to the good fortune of both sections. But our 
 second entrance into Denver, in the summer of 1868, 
 was by a stage ride of twenty-two hours from Chey- 
 enne. The road lay across the last fifty miles of the 
 Plains, — through high rolling green prairies, cut every 
 
86 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 fifteen or twenty miles by a vigorous river, with bor- 
 der of rich and cultivated intervale, and line of trees 
 marking its progress from mountain debouch to the 
 slow-sinking, wide-reaching horizon, — to the right the 
 grim mountains with towering tops of rock and snow, 
 — to the left the unending prairie ocean, with only 
 an occasional cabin and scattered herd of cattle to 
 break its majestic solitude and indicate human settle- 
 ment ; there was such magnificent out-doorness in the 
 continuous scene as no narrower or differently com- 
 bined landscape can offer, and so long as the day 
 lasted it was a thing of beauty and of joy. 
 
 But the night cometh, when the landscape is shut 
 out, and dreary weariness comes over the coach- 
 crowding passengers. It is the first step that costs in 
 all experience ; and of nothing is this more true than 
 of the first night in a long stage-coach ride. It is 
 more intolerable than the combination of the succeed- 
 ing half-dozen, were the journey prolonged for a 
 week; the breaking-in is fearful, — the prolongation is 
 bearable. The air gets cold, the road grows dusty 
 and chokes, or rough and alarms you ; the legs become 
 stiff and numb, the temper edges ; everybody is over- 
 come with sleep, but can't stay asleep, — the struggle 
 of contending nature racks every nerve, fires every 
 feeling; everybody flounders and knocks about 
 against everybody else in helpless despair; perhaps 
 the biggest man in the stage will really get asleep, 
 which doing he involuntarily and with irresistible 
 momentum spreads himself, legs, boots, arms and head, 
 over the whole inside of the coach; the girls screech, 
 the profane swear; some lady wants a smelling-bottle 
 
THE STAGE RIDE AND '' SQUARE MEALS." 87 
 
 out of her bag, and her bag is somewhere on the 
 
 floor, — nobody knows where, — but found it must be; 
 
 everybody's back hair comes down, and what is nature 
 
 and what is art in costume and character is revealed 
 
 — and then, hardest trial of all, morning breaks upon 
 
 the scene and the feelings, — everybody dirty, grimy, 
 
 faint, "all to pieces," cross,— such a disenchanting 
 
 exhibition! The girl that is lovely then, the man 
 
 who is gallant and serene,— let them be catalogued 
 
 for posterity, and translated at once,— heaven cannot 
 
 spare such ornaments; and they are too aggravating 
 
 for earth. 
 
 But the horses are gayer and go faster than three 
 years before; and the meals at the "home stations" 
 are greatly improved; no more single-roomed turf 
 cabins, bare dirt floors, milkless cofiee, rancid bacon, 
 stale beans, and green bread, and " if you don't like 
 these help yourself to mustard;" but comfortable 
 little taverns of dressed timber and planed boards, 
 with carpeted parlors and separate dining-rooms, 
 fresh meat and milk and butter, trout and eggs, 
 everything "square" in fact, and a hearty welcome. 
 The road crosses half-a-dozen hearty streams, pour- 
 ing away from the mountains, and finally aggregating 
 in the Platte, but furnishing along their lines rich 
 intervale land, now being rapidly taken up and sue- 
 cessfully cultivated for farms. Several villages of 
 growing importance we found at the principal river 
 crossings. Only once, in the ride, did we fail of 
 cheery greeting ; but it was a trifle rough to wake 
 up the landlady at one o'clock in the morning for an 
 early breakfast. She could get it, she said ; 1)ut she 
 
88 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 didn't quite like to. But who could resist the gallant 
 Vice-President, whether pleading for ballot or break- 
 fast ; or the offers of help from the ladies ; or the 
 final suggestion of the driver ? She wavered at the 
 first; the second operated as a challenge to her ca- 
 pacity; and the third was irresistible. There is no 
 king on his route like a stage driver, — he has a 
 "dreadful winning way" with him, both for horses 
 and women. The philosophy of it I do not under- 
 stand, but the fact is universal and stubborn ; he is 
 the successful diplomat of the road; no authority 
 goes back of his ; no meal can be begun till he is in 
 place ; and there are no vacant seats for the men 
 passengers on the box when there are ladies in the 
 party. So, at two o'clock in the morning, we sat 
 down to beef and ham and potatoes, tea and coffee, 
 bread and butter, pies, cakes, and canned fruits, — not 
 even the edges of the "squareness" of the meal 
 rubbed off, and good humor everywhere. 
 
 Denver looked even more charming than three 
 years ago, as we tumbled out of the stage, long after 
 " sun up," feeble and flabby, hungry and humble, with 
 a dreadful "morning after" feeling and appearance 
 and movement about us. The town has, indeed, 
 passed its hot, fickle and uncertain days, when gam- 
 blers reigned, and "to be or not to be" was the ever- 
 lasting question that fretted everybody who owned 
 real estate, and with which they, in a sort of your- 
 money-or-your-life manner, assaulted every stranger 
 the moment he got out of the stage. Now, though 
 trade was dull while waiting for the Eailroad to come, 
 and we saw but a single street fight while in the 
 
DENVER. 89 
 
 town, the Denverites all wear a fixed fact sort of air, 
 and most of them are able to tell you, in a low and 
 confidential chuckle, calling for envy rather than 
 sympathy, that they own a quarter section just out 
 there on the bluff, to which the town is rapidly 
 spreading, and where the capitol buildings and the 
 fine residences will all be located, or a few corner lots 
 down near the river, where the mills and the factories 
 are destined to rise in the near future. Long lines 
 of brick stores already give permanent and prosper- 
 ous air to the town; its dry and its wet rivers are 
 both newly bridged; irrigating ditches scatter water 
 freely through streets, lawns and gardens, and now 
 flowers and fruits, trees and vegetables lend their 
 civilizing influences and their permanent attractions 
 to the place; national banks emit their greenbacks 
 and will " do " your little note most graciously at from 
 one to two per cent a month and "a grab mortgage" 
 behind it; Episcopal Bishop Eandall from Boston has 
 established an excellent school for girls ; the Catholics 
 have a larger educational establishment; the Metho- 
 dists have the handsomest church and wear the best 
 clothes; the Baptists and Congregationalists are lively 
 and aggressive; the stores are closed Sundays; the 
 nights are quiet and the police have a sinecure; free 
 schools are organized; and three daily papers and 
 two independent weeklies are published in the town. 
 Kitchen girls are scarce and a dear luxury, with pay 
 at fifty dollars to seventy-five dollars a month; but 
 the consequence is that the cooking is excellent, and 
 people live "first rate." The dwelling-houses are 
 mostly small, a single story or a story and a half, but 
 
9b OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 within are comforts and luxuries in abundance, and 
 one house boasts a true Van Dyke. The emigrant 
 and the traveler must "move on" by Denver if he 
 would get beyond the organization of the best Amer- 
 ican social and intellectual life. 
 
 I see I have spoken of Denver's "dry river/' which 
 calls for a parenthetical paragraph in explanation. 
 The South Platte sweeps around the lower part of the 
 town, broad and turbulent, of certain volume but 
 uncertain track, useless for navigation but excellent 
 for irrigation; but more sharply through the center 
 of the business section lies Cherry Creek, now a broad 
 bottom of dry sand, and only occasionally enlivened 
 with any water. For years after the founding of the 
 town, none appeared in its bed, and supposing it to 
 have been deserted altogether, the people builded and 
 lived in the bottom. Stores^ shops and dwellings, 
 streets and blocks appeared there; it was the heart 
 of the town; the printing ofiice was there, also the 
 city records ; but of a sudden, after a heavy rain, there 
 came a flood pouring down the old river bed, not 
 gradually and in rivulets, to warn, but a full-blown 
 stream marched abreast with torrent force and almost 
 lightning speed, reclaimed its own, and swept every- 
 thing that had usurped its place into destruction. 
 Since then, the people have paid respect to Cherry 
 Creek; at some seasons of the year there is still a 
 little water in its sands, but for the most part it is dry 
 through the town; but nobody builds in the bed, and 
 bridges over its path pay tribute to what it has been 
 and may be again. Farther up its line, there is water 
 in it now; but the sands consume and an irrigating 
 
THE MOUNTAIN VIEW FROM DENVER. 91 
 
 ditch seduces it all away before it reaches the limits 
 of the city. 
 
 Her central location, under the Mountains, in the 
 Plains section of the State, gives Denver a fine cli- 
 mate the year through ; is favorable for trade to all 
 parts of the State ; secures to her the outgo and the 
 income of the mining districts; makes her also the 
 chief market for all the productions of the farming 
 counties, and the focal point for all travel to and 
 from the Mountains, as well as north to the Eailroad, 
 and south to New Mexico ; and endows her with a 
 scene of mountain panoramic beauty, one hundred 
 miles long, now touched with clouds, now radiant 
 with sunshine, then dark with rocks and trees, again 
 white with snow, now cold, now warm, but always 
 inspiring in grandeur, and ever unmatched by the 
 possession of any other city of Europe or America. 
 The finest views of these Mountains are obtained 
 farther out on the Plains, where the more distant 
 peaks come into sight, and the depth and variety, as 
 well as the hight and beauty of the range, are real- 
 ized ; and wider and older travelers than I, — who 
 have seen the Cordilleras of South x\merica from the 
 sea, as well as the Alps from Berne, — -join in the 
 judgment that no grand mountain view exists that 
 surpasses this, as seen from the high roll of the prai- 
 rie just out of Denver, and over which the town is 
 fast spreading, and so on for twenty to forty miles 
 farther east. 
 
 With these charms of climate and landscape, with 
 a settled and intelligent and prosperous population 
 already of four thousand to five thousand, with busi- 
 
92 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 ness connections and facilities, social order and attrac- 
 tions, religious and educational institutions, all well 
 organized, and fed by their own interior force, — grow- 
 ing from within out, and not simply by fresh importa- 
 tions of eastern material, — and holding the conceded 
 position of the social, political and commercial capital 
 of the State, Denver has a gratifying future of growth 
 before it. Another year will bring through it the 
 Pacific Railroad on the St. Louis route, connecting 
 here with the branch of the main or central road that 
 drops down from Cheyenne; a railroad is already 
 commenced, also, towards the mining centers of the 
 mountains by the Clear Creek Yalley ; and it cannot 
 be long before a southern road will be demanded, 
 down from Denver, along the base of the mountains 
 to Southern Colorado and Santa Fe. Not unlikely, 
 indeed, it will prove wiser to carry the first Southern 
 Pacific Eailroad around this way, rather than to strike 
 diagonally across to Santa Fe from the present ter- 
 minus of the St. Louis Road, as is proposed, for this 
 route is through a rich and already partly developed 
 agricultural country, while that goes by half or wholly 
 barren table-lands, not likely to be at all occupied for 
 many years, and never capable like this of holding 
 a large population. 
 
 Coal and iron and clay are found in the neighbor- 
 hood ; the hills give timber ; the valleys every grain 
 and vegetable and many fruits ; and Denver cannot 
 well escape a steady and healthy growth, and the 
 destiny of becoming one of the most permanently 
 prosperous, as it will be certainly one of the most 
 beautiful of our great western interior cities. I 
 
DENVER VS. SALT LAKE CITY. 93 
 
 rank it along with Salt Lake City. Both are off 
 the main line of the continental Railroad ; but both 
 have locations, amid developed natural wealth and 
 conceded natural beauty, that must command their 
 future, and make it one of power and prosperity for 
 each. Six hundred miles apart, with the continental 
 range of mountains separating them, there can be 
 no rivalry between them, save in social graces and 
 pleasure attractions, and here the Mormon supremacy 
 in Salt Lake will give Denver great advantages. 
 
Y. 
 
 LIFE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The Roads from Denver into the Mountains — What they Reveal to the 
 Traveler — How Pleasure Parties Travel and Camp — The North 
 Clear Creek and Central City — The South Clear Creek Valley,, and 
 its Attractions — Idaho and its Springs — Outfit for a Camping Ex- 
 perience — The Mule — Over the Mountains by Berthoud Pass to 
 Middle Park — The Flowers and the Forests of the Upper Moun- 
 tains — The Camp at Night. 
 
 All the mining in Colorado is up among the 
 mountains, and this has provided roads in all direc- 
 tions. To the north-west from Denver, one leads up 
 Boulder Creek, first through forming villages, and 
 then among mining camps, till it carries us to the 
 very tops of the range. More directly west are the 
 roads to Golden City, Black Hawk, Central City, 
 Nevada, Idaho, Fall River, Mill City, Georgetown 
 and Empire, in the valleys of Clear Creek; while 
 south-west are roads into and across the South Park 
 to Hamilton and Fairplay and Breckinridge, and on 
 over into the mining regions of the upper Arkansas 
 Valley. Daily stages go up into the Clear Creek 
 Valleys, where at least ten thousand people are sup- 
 ported or are hoping to be supported by the gold 
 and silver mines. 
 
ALONG THE MOUNTAIN EOADS. 95 
 
 All these roads introduce one delightfully to close 
 companionship with the mountain scenery,— first 
 through the long, wide prairie; then into narrow 
 valleys; occasionally a bold gorge or canyon and a 
 broken mountain; up and among and over high hills, 
 commanding majestic views of higher summits be- 
 yond; through little wooded parks or open fields, 
 where grain grows and flocks feed, and somebody 
 keeps "a ranch;" hy lively streams with tangles of 
 willows and hops and clematis, and fruity shrubs up 
 the drier and higher banks; among flowers every- 
 where, growing finer and plentier the higher you 
 chmb ; out and in forests of various species of cotton- 
 wood and evergreen, often brown and dead through 
 wasting fires that have swept the hill-sides, or half 
 cleared for the consuming rage of the gold and silver 
 furnaces, but still a rich possession of beauty and 
 wealth for the country; under a sun always searching 
 with heat, but through an atmosphere growing rarer 
 and rarer and drier and drier, and ever fresh and 
 cool,— the day's ride is thus a perpetual pleasure and 
 surprise to the new-comer. 
 
 How the mind runs back to our youthful, vague, 
 mythical knowledge of the Eocky Mountains in their 
 actual presence ! How difiicult to realize that, where- 
 as, twenty years ago, they and their location and 
 character, and the region about them were almost un- 
 known, now, only a week from the Atlantic shores, 
 we are sporting familiarly under their shadows, fol- 
 lowing tediously up their sides, galloping in the saddle 
 around their summits, drinking from their streams, 
 playing snow-ball in midsummer with their imperish- 
 
96 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 able snow-banks, descending into their very bowels, 
 and finding companionship and society as various and 
 as cultured and as organized as in New England; 
 cities of thousands of inhabitants, not only at their 
 base, but away up in their narrow valleys, eight and 
 nine thousand feet above the sea level! All this 
 seems dream-like, yet abundant experience with every 
 sense testifies to the reality. 
 
 Our party went at first in various ways and by 
 Various roads up into the mountains; some on the 
 stage; others on horseback; others still in wagons 
 with camp equipage, stopping wherever hunger or 
 night overtook us, and establishing board and lodging 
 out in the open air, by free-running stream, and under 
 inviting trees. This independent camping habit is 
 almost the rule for all pleasure parties into the moun- 
 tains. It grew up with the necessities of the early 
 settlements, and out of the roving, straggling habits 
 of the miners. The taverns are not now frequent or 
 good; the climate favors the outdoor life in the sum- 
 mer season; and with provision in abundance, as 
 blankets, a coffee-pot, a frying-pan, and a sack of flour 
 and a side of bacon, either in a wagon, or packed on 
 an extra horse, if you are journeying in the saddle, 
 even pleasure-travelers find it much the more com- 
 fortable and decidedly the more independent mode, 
 while to the old settler, and especially to a miner, it 
 is altogether a matter of course. One of these hangs 
 his blanket and his coffee-pot and frying-pan, with a 
 joint of meat and a bit of bread, around his saddle, 
 and, without extra animal or companion, is good for 
 a week's journey among the mountains. What he 
 
CAMPING OUT — CENTRAL CITY. 97 
 
 lacks for food he finds in the streams or woods, or 
 buys at the occasional ranch, and at night a deserted 
 cabin, which is nearly always at hand, where miners 
 have been and are not, or a roadside tree and an 
 open camp fire furnish him shelter and warmth. He 
 sleeps the sleep of the tired, and if it rains and he 
 gets wet, the renewed fire dries him, and the climate 
 never encourages colds. So with the multiple of our 
 single traveler; with companions, conveniences and 
 comforts increase, but the fashion is the same ; and 
 whole families, — mothers and babies included, — will, 
 with covered wagon and a saddle-horse or two, make 
 a pleasure visit to the mountains, after this fashion, 
 and live literally on the country for days and weeks, 
 in delightful and refreshing companionship with Na- 
 ture. It was this sort of life that we were all entering 
 upon, with all its strange novelty and stimulating in- 
 fluences. 
 
 The road by Golden City offers more striking 
 mountain and rock scenery; that by Mount Ver- 
 non is generally the more inviting. The North 
 Clear Creek Yalley is hardly more than a ravine, 
 through which for ^yo miles are huddled the chief 
 gold-mining operations of the State. Black-Hawk, 
 Central City and Nevada run into and over each 
 other, and form really but a single town. The clang 
 of mills, the debris of mines, the waste of floods leave 
 nothing that is inviting, except money-making; and 
 unless the traveler is interested in studying this form 
 of it, he will be content with a passing glance, and seek 
 the more pleasing neighboring valley of the South 
 Branch. Here, below Idaho, gulch mining, which is 
 
98 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 pretty lively and successful still, despoil® the prospect 
 so far as man can; but the dozen or fifteen miles 
 from Idaho, up by Fall River, Mill City and Empire, 
 to Georgetown, is quite the nicest bit of the inhabited 
 portion of the mountains. The valley is not wide, 
 indeed you can heave a stone across it in the nar- 
 rower, and fire a rifle from hill to hill at its wider 
 parts ; but it breaks out frequently into little nooks 
 of plateaus or bars ; it opens up into seductive side 
 valleys or canyons, and it winds and turns about, and 
 sends up its high mountain walls in form and manner, 
 to present a constantly varying but ever beautiful 
 scene. At the upper end, winter confronts you in 
 snow-covered peaks; below, nature looks warm and 
 summer-like ; and though the valley is from seven 
 thousand five hundred to eight thousand ^ye hun- 
 dred feet high, the days are like June and October, 
 and the winter is not long or severe. Till you 
 reach Georgetown, where the hills shut in the valley 
 sharply, and the rich silver section has its center, 
 there is not much mining, and the villages are but 
 neighborhoods of six to a dozen houses each. Idaho 
 and Fall River have good hotels, and are favorite 
 summer resorts. The former has a wonderful hot 
 soda spring that furnishes most refreshing and health- 
 giving baths. Over it rise a family group of three 
 peaks, distinguishable in all mountain views, and 
 known as the Chief, Squaw and Papoose, and up 
 from the valley here you rise to Chicago Lake and 
 Chicago Mountain, familiar as the foreground scene 
 in Bierstadt's " Storm in the Rocky Mountains." 
 All these mountains go sharply up from two to 
 
AN OUTFIT FOR CAMP LIFE. 99 
 
 four thousand feet above the valley, often past the 
 timber-line, and end in snow or bare, grim rocks. 
 They offer unending fascination to the lover of 
 mountain-climbing and mountain views- while to 
 lie on the grassy banks just above the river, — that, 
 in practical parenthesis, it should be noted, runs 
 swift and strong down the rapid descent of the 
 valley, and is full of " water power," — in the warm 
 sun, and look through the snowy fleece of grass- 
 hoppers, that with outstretched wings fill the air, 
 up and among the hills, — masses of forest and rock 
 and patches of snow, — to the line of brightened blue 
 sky they border,— this is just comfort and rest, and 
 IS worth the coming to experience. 
 
 Up here, we stripped for a pure saddle and camp 
 trip over into Middle Park. The ladies and super- 
 fluous baggage were returned to town, and we came 
 down to " bed-rock," as the miners say, i. e. an extra 
 flannel shirt and a pocket-comb. My individual out- 
 fit may serve both to show our manner of travel and 
 life, and as a model for the reader who shall follow 
 our experiences. First, woolen stockings and winter 
 under-clothing ; and of these, an extra set, with two 
 extra handkerchiefs and two towels, soap, comb and 
 tooth-brush and slippers, only moderately filled a pair 
 of light saddle-bags on my own animal. Over the 
 undershirt was worn a dark and thick cassimere shirt, 
 with turnover collar of same and pocket in breast, 
 which, coming nowhere in contact with the body, 
 may be worn for weeks without disrespect to your 
 washerwoman. A pair of very thick, high-top riding 
 boots, of extra size, my last winter's thick pantaloons 
 
100 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 and heavy sack coat, and an old soft liat, flexible as a 
 rag, and answering as well for a nightcap, completed 
 my clothing. No vest or waistcoat, no suspenders ; a 
 strap around the waist held things together, and carried 
 a revolver and a tin cup. Over the saddle-bags be- 
 hind were strapped a thin woolen overcoat, — it would 
 have been better thick, — and a loose rubber cloth coat; 
 both which were frequently in use, and were always 
 valuable at night ; and as often in mid-day they had 
 the company around the saddle of the sack-coat, and I 
 rode under the warm sun in pantaloons and shirts. It 
 was a neat, complete and compact personal outfit; 
 everything that was needed for a trip of two or three 
 weeks, and the only modification I would make, in 
 going again, would be to substitute a pair of old shoes 
 for the slippers, and to have the rubber overcoat so 
 modified that it would closely cover the legs in the 
 saddle down to the boot-tops. All this was carried on 
 and around my own saddle ; my bedding alone went 
 on the pack animals, and this consisted of two pairs 
 of heavy blankets, a buffalo robe, a rubber blanket 
 and a pillow, — all strapped into a tight roll or bundle, 
 — no more than one restless sleeper needs in the cold 
 nights of these outdoor mountains, but equally abund- 
 ant for two square and fair sleepers who will turn over 
 at one and the same time and don't kick the clothes off. 
 My mule, — did you ever ride a mule ? There is 
 no other experience that exactly fits one for this. 
 As far as a mule's brains go, he is pretty sensible, — 
 and so obstinate! But it takes a long while to beat 
 a new idea into his head, and when it dawns on him, 
 the effect is so overpowering that he just stops in 
 
I CELEBRATE THE MULE. 101 
 
 amazed bewilderment, and won't move on again until 
 he is relieved of the foreign consciousness, and gets 
 back to his own original possessions. The whole 
 process is startlingly human ; it inspires you with 
 faith in the idea of the transmigration of souls. I 
 know so many people who must have been mules 
 once, or will be, — else there is no virtue in the fitness 
 of things ! But my mule belonged to the best of the 
 race ; he was prudent, — he never went in any doubt- 
 ful places until somebody else had gone before and 
 proved the way; he was very patient, — he would 
 always stop for me to get ofi", or to get on ; he was 
 very tough,- — my spurs never seemed to annoy him 
 one atom, and my riding him didn't wear any skin off 
 of his backsides, not a bit. But after we grew ac- 
 quainted, and he came to appreciate the more delicate 
 shades of my character, we got on charmingly to- 
 gether for the first half of the day ; in the afternoon, 
 when he grew lazy and tired, and I nervous, we often 
 had serious discussions, — sometimes with sticks, — but 
 he generally got the best of the argument. 
 
 If a well-broken Indian pony or a "broncho" (a 
 California half-breed horse) can be got, either is prob- 
 ably better than a mule ; more springy in tread and 
 quicker in movement, and equally careful in moun- 
 tain-climbing and fording streams and ditches; but 
 otherwise, the mule is the better animal for your 
 work on these expeditions. A "States" horse cannot 
 stand the hard riding and tough climbing, and besides 
 must have grain to keep him up, while the mule and 
 the Indian and "broncho" ponies will live on the rich 
 grasses of the country. The latter are apt to be 
 
102 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 wilful and wicked, and should only be taken, in pref- 
 erence to the mules, upon good references as to 
 character and a trial to boot. 
 
 But our select party of a dozen gentlemen, led now 
 by the local Governor Hunt, are already far ahead. 
 We have passed the beautifully located village of 
 Empire City, and are up where the Clear Creek is 
 but a lively brook. The valley has become a de- 
 file, a gorge, wooded and flowered, rock-strewed and 
 briskly watered, — a wild Alpine scene. The moun- 
 tains rise sharp and sheer, one thousand and two 
 thousand feet above the road, and wide walls of red 
 granite hang over it. The stream turns and twists, 
 and foams, and we follow a half-made road along, 
 over, in its rugged path. There was an attempt 
 made a few years ago to build a stage road through 
 the mountains and over into Utah by this route ; 
 many thousand dollars were spent upon it; but it 
 was found too big a job, and it is passable now for 
 only a few miles farther on. It takes the traveler 
 into and among rich mountain beauties; even to 
 come up here and go back, without an objective 
 point beyond, is abundant recompense. 
 
 We turn sharply from the road up the steep moun- 
 tain side, a narrow trail guiding us along precipitous 
 lines. The mis-step of the m.ule would send animal 
 and rider rolling over and over among the sparse 
 trees down the declivity; but mules don't mis-step, 
 and even the top-heavy pack jacks, — mountains on 
 mole-hills, indeed, — carried their burden and them- 
 selves unharmed to the top. The thin and thin- 
 ning air offered severer trial, however, and the 
 
THE MOUNTAIN FLOWERS. 103 
 
 beasts struggled like huge bellows for wind, and 
 trembled beneath us in the effort to take in enough 
 to keep agoing ; to get off and walk was to undergo 
 the same trial ourselves, and, walking or riding, we 
 had every few rods to stop and adjust the lungs of 
 man and beast to the rare and growing rarer air. 
 There was temptation to stop, too, in the widening 
 views of the upper mountains ; their snowy fields and 
 gray or red or brown walls and peaks lifted into 
 sight, on all sides, close and familiar, distant and 
 stranger, but making us feel, for the first time, their 
 real companionship, — that nearness to great and sub- 
 lime nature that awes and uplifts like the presence 
 of God himself 
 
 Passing the sharp mountain side, we came, at a 
 hight of ten thousand feet, to pleasant little park 
 openings, ascending by easy grade, half-wooded, and 
 whose bright grass and abundant flowers and deep 
 evergreens tell of fertile soil and protecting hights 
 around. Such spots are frequent in all these high 
 mountain ranges, and are exceeding fair to look 
 upon. They were in their glory at this August sea- 
 son of the year; it is but a little while back to last 
 year's snows, and a few weeks forward to another 
 wintry embrace ; and they make the most of their 
 stinted time. So in July and August they compress 
 the growth and the blossom of the whole year ; and 
 we see at once flowers that are passed and flowers 
 that are yet to come in the Plains below ; dandelions 
 and buttercups, violets and roses, larkspurs and hare- 
 bells, painter's brush and blue gentian, — these and 
 
 their various companions of spring, summer and au- 
 7 
 
104 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 tumn^ here they all are^ starring the grass, drooping 
 over the brook, improving every bit of sunshine 
 among the trees, jealous of every lost hour in their 
 brief lives. 
 
 I wish I could repeat the roll of this army of 
 beauties for the benefit of my flower-learned readers ; 
 I know most of them very well by sight, as the lad 
 said of his unlearned alphabet, but cannot call them 
 by name. Blue and yellow are the dominant colors; 
 of the former several varieties of little bell and trum- 
 pet-shaped blossoms, pendant along stalwart stalks; 
 again, a similar shaped flower, but more delicate, — a 
 little tube in pink and white, seems original here; and 
 of the golden hues, there are babies and grand-babies 
 of the sun-flower family in every shade and shape. 
 One of these, about the size of a small tea-saucer, 
 holds a center stem or spike of richest maroon red, 
 with deepest yellow leaves flaring away from it, — 
 each color the very concentration and ripeness of itr 
 self, as if dyed at the very fountain head. The hare- 
 bell is at home everywhere ; drooping modestly and 
 alone on the barren and exposed mountain sides at 
 eleven thousand or twelve thousand feet, as well as 
 ill the protected parks among all its rivals; but the 
 fringed gentian is more fastidious, and grows only 
 where nature is richer, but then in such masses, with 
 such deep blueness and such undeviating uprightness 
 of stem, as to prove its birthright here. The painter's 
 brush, as familiarly called here, is a new flower to 
 me ; something like the soldier's pompon in form, it 
 stands stiff and distinct on a single stalk, about six 
 inches tall, with three inches' length and one inch in 
 
THE FEOST YS. THE FLOWERS. 105 
 
 thickness or diameter of flower, in every shade of 
 
 red from deepest crimson to pale pink, and again in 
 
 straw colors from almost white to deep lemon. We 
 
 picked on a single morning's ride seven of different 
 
 shades of red. A bunch of the brightest of this 
 
 flower, with sprinkling of those of milder hues and 
 
 a few grasses, such as could be gathered in ^ye 
 
 minutes in many a patch of Alpine meadow we 
 
 passed through, was enough to set a flower-lover 
 
 crazy with delight. It was a beacon, a flame of 
 
 color, and would make a room glow like brilliant 
 
 picture or wood fire on the hearth. But perhaps the 
 
 most bewitching of the flowers we discovered was a 
 
 columbine, generous but delicate, of pale but firm 
 
 purple and pure white,— it was very exquisite in 
 
 form and shading. Higher up, where only mosses 
 
 could grow for rock and snow, these were in great 
 
 variety and richness, with white, with blue and with 
 
 pink blossoms. 
 
 All this wonderful wealth and variety of flower is 
 marked with strength but not coarseness ; the colors 
 are more deep and delicate than are found in garden 
 flowers ; and though frost and snow may stiffen their 
 blossoms every morning,— for at ten thousand feet 
 high and above, the temperature must go down to 
 freezing every night,— the dryness of the air preserves 
 them through their season, and they keep on growing 
 and flowering until their September and October 
 winter fairly freezes them out. 
 
 There is no such variety and beauty in the forests 
 of the Eocky Mountains as those of the East and 
 the extreme West alike offer. The oak, the maple. 
 
106 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 the elm, the birch, all hard woods are unknown. 
 Pines, firs and spruces of various species, and the 
 cotton-wood, a soft maple or poplar, with delicate 
 white wood and a pale green and smooth leaf, are all 
 that this region can offer for trees. Nor are these 
 generally of large size. The forests seem young and 
 the individual trees small, even by the side of those 
 of New England ; there is no hint among them of the 
 giants of the Pacific Coast. The probability is that 
 they are young, that the Indians kept them well 
 burned off, and that, with settlement and civilization, 
 in spite of the wanton waste now in progress, and 
 against which there should be some speedy protec- 
 tion, the forest wealth will increase. Perhaps not in 
 these first years, but by and by, when coal takes the 
 chief place for fuel, and self-interest and legislation 
 work out their care of the trees, and prevent devas- 
 tating fires. But many a fine grove of thick and tall 
 pines, that would warm the heart of any ship-builder, 
 have we passed through; and their deep colors and 
 firm forms, contrasting with the light and free-moving 
 cotton-wood, give a pleasing and animated life to the 
 forest landscape. 
 
 But the silver spruce is the one gem of the trees ; 
 a sort of first cousin of the evergreen we call the 
 balsam fir in our New England yards, but more richly 
 endowed with beauty of shape and color. It is scat- 
 tered plentifully through these mountain valleys, and 
 looks as if a delicate silver powder had been strewn 
 over its deep green needles, or rather as if a light 
 white frost had fallen all upon and enshrouded it ; and 
 you cannot help wondering why the breeze does not 
 
THE EVERGREENS OF THE MOUNTAINS. 107 
 
 shake the powder off, or the sun dissipate the frost, so 
 ever present is the one illusion or the other. But it 
 holds its birthright persistently, — a soft white-blue- 
 green combination of positive power that comes into 
 the rather hardish gray neutral coloring of the gen- 
 eral landscape with most agreeable, even inspiriting 
 effects. This and another spruce often throw them- 
 selves into a very charming form of growth ; gather- 
 ing around an old pine, they will shoot up numerous 
 spires, thin and tall, thicker and shorter, and so shade 
 down to a close, spreading mass in a wide semicircle 
 around, — a bit of natural cathedral-like posturing in 
 tree and shrub life, so often repeated as to suggest art, 
 so effective as to call out the delight and envy of every 
 landscape artist who sees it. Everywhere among these 
 high mountains, in barren rather than in fertile spots, 
 we unexpectedly find the " Mahonia Holly," a favorite 
 but winter dying shrub of our eastern lawns ; they 
 call it here the Oregon grape, for it bears a little berry, 
 and it is evidently killed to the root every winter, for 
 it gets only a few inches of growth, and I do not 
 find it massed at all. But in its freely scattered little 
 specimens, its deep, smooth and hard green leaves 
 kept company with us until we had passed the timber 
 line, and come out among the snow-fields. 
 
 After three or four hours' hard riding, from the 
 upper Clear Creek, we suddenly came out of the 
 tree»3 into an open space of scanty green, bordered by 
 snow, a gap or sag in the mountains, — and behold we 
 are at the top of Berthoud Pass. The waters of the 
 Atlantic and Pacific start from our very feet; the 
 winds from the two oceans suck through here into 
 
108 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 each other's embrace; above us the mountain peaks 
 go up sharp with snow and rock^ and shut in our 
 view; but below and beyond through wide and thick 
 forests Hes Middle Park, a varied picture of plain and 
 hill, with snowy peaks beyond and around. To this 
 point;, at leastj I would advise all pleasure travelers in 
 Colorado to come; it is a feasible excursion for any 
 one who can sit in the saddle ; it can be readily made 
 with return in a day from Empire, Georgetown or 
 even Idaho; and it offers as much of varied and sub- 
 lime beauty in mountain scenery, as any so compara- 
 tively easy a trip within our experience possibly can. 
 But until improved paths are made, — which must 
 soon be, however, — a heroic spirit and a tough body 
 are needed for the descent into the Park. Through 
 a tangle of trees and rock and morass, down a very 
 steep mountain side, sliding, stumbling, scrambling, it 
 was a long and hard afternoon's work to master it 
 all. It was near dark, after traveling from twenty 
 to twenty-five miles in all, when we stopped for the 
 night in the woods, just without the open section of 
 the Park. A bit of meadow with tall grass was at 
 hand for the animals, and, relieved of saddles and 
 packs, away they went, without let or hindrance to 
 enjoy it. The only precaution taken is to leave the 
 lariat, a rope of twenty to thirty feet long, dragging 
 at their necks, by which to catch them the more 
 easily in the morning. Only a portion of the herd 
 are thus provided, however. They rarely stray away 
 far from camp ; and if they should, these people make 
 little of an hour or two's hunt to find them, which 
 they are quite sure of doing wherever the best grass 
 
AROUND THE CAMP FIRE. 109 
 
 grows. The animals are picketed only when there is 
 danger from the Indians, or a prompt start is neces- 
 sary. 
 
 A big fire was soon blazing ; a part prepare the 
 supper, — tea and coffee, bacon, trout, potatoes, good 
 bread and butter, and, to-night, a grouse soup, the 
 best use Governor Hunt can make of an old bird 
 he shot on the road to-day, and very good use it 
 proved, too, by the help of tin pail, potatoes and but- 
 ter ; others feed the fire, bring the water, and prepare 
 the camp for sleeping. An old canvas cloth serves 
 for table ; we squat on our blankets around it, and 
 with tin cups, tin plates, knife and fork and spoon, 
 take what is put before us, and are more than con- 
 tent. Eating rises to a spiritual enjoyment after such 
 a day ; and the Trois Freres or Delmonico does not 
 ofier a "squarer meal" than Governor Hunt. The 
 " world's people " make their beds against a huge 
 tree, and cut and plant boughs around the heads to 
 keep out the cold wind ; but the old campers drop 
 their blankets anywhere around the fire ; and after 
 going back over the day and forward to the morrow 
 in pleasant chat, sitting around the glowing mass of 
 flame and coal, we crawl in under our blankets, in 
 a grand circle about the now smouldering logs, say 
 our prayers to the twinkling stars up through the 
 trees, and, — think of those new spring beds just in- 
 vented in New England ! 
 
YI. 
 
 THE IVHDDLE PAEK AND THE UTE INDIANS. 
 
 A Day's Ride Across the Middle Park — An Indian Encampment, and 
 our Reception Tiiereat — The Mountain Raspberries — The Hot Sul- 
 phur Springs — The Ute Indians ; How they Live, Move and have 
 Being — A Lingering Farewell to Middle Park — Over the Boulder 
 Pass — A Winter's Morning and a Summer's Noon on the Mountains 
 — Night in a Barn. 
 
 It was nine o'clock the next morning before we 
 could move off into the Park. It is not an easy 
 matter to make an earlier start when we have to 
 carry our homes with us; cook and eat breakfast; 
 wash the dishes ; catch the animals ; pack up beds 
 and provisions; clean up camp, and reconstruct not 
 only for a day's journey, but for a family moving. A 
 short ride brought us into miles of clear prairie, with 
 grass one to two feet high, and hearty streams strug- 
 gling to be first into the Pacific Ocean. This was the 
 Middle Park, and we had a long twenty-five miles 
 ride northerly through it that day. It was not mo- 
 notonous by any means. Frequent ranges of hills 
 break the prairie ; the latter changes from rich bot^ 
 tom lands with heavy grass, to light, cold gravelly 
 uplands, thin with bunch grass and sage bush ; slug' 
 
"LO, THE POOR INDIAN."— A Company of Uxe Braves. 
 
ACKOSS MIDDLE PARK. 113 
 
 gish streams and quick streams alternate; belts of 
 hardy pines and tender looking aspens (cotton-wood) 
 lie along the crests or sides of hills ; farther away are 
 higher hills fully wooded, and still beyond, ^Hhe range'* 
 that bounds the Park and circles it with eternal snows. 
 The sun shines warm; there are wide reddish walls 
 of granite or sandstone along many of the hills ; some 
 of the intervales are rich with green grass ; and the 
 sky is deep blue ; and yet the prevailing tone and im- 
 pression of the Park is a coldish gray. You find it 
 on the earth ; you see it in the subdued, tempered, 
 or faded greens of leaf and shrub and grass ; it hangs 
 over the distant mountains ; it prevails in the rocks ; 
 you feel it in the air, — a certain sort of stintedness or 
 withholding impresses you, amid the magnificence of 
 distance, of hight and breadth and length, with which 
 you are surrounded, and which is the first and great- 
 est and most constant thought of the presence. 
 
 We scattered along wildly enough; some stopping 
 to catch trout; others humoring lazy mules and horses; 
 others to enjoy at leisure the novel surroundings, — 
 meeting, with fellow-feeling, for lunch and the noon 
 rest, but dividing again for the afternoon ride. All 
 had gone before, — leaders, guides, packs, and were 
 out of sight, — when my comrade and myself rose 
 over the last hill of the day's ride, and looked down 
 into the valley that was our destination. It was a 
 broad, fine vision. Eight and left, several miles apart, 
 ran miniature mountain ranges, — before, six miles 
 away, rose an abrupt gray mountain wall; just be- 
 neath it, through green meadow, ran the Grand Eiver; 
 up to us a smooth, clean, gradual ascent; along the 
 
114 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 river bank, a hundred white tents, like dots in the 
 distance, showed the encampment of six to eight 
 hundred Ute Indians, awaiting our party with "heap 
 hungry " stomachs \ in the upper farther corner, under 
 the hill-side, a faint mist or steam in the air located 
 the famous Hot Springs of the Middle Park, — the 
 whole as complete a picture of broad, open plain, 
 set in mountain frame, as one would dream of It 
 spurred our lagging spirits, and we galloped down 
 the long plane, whose six miles seemed to the eye 
 not a third so long in this dry, pure air. 
 
 Beaching the river, through the Indian encamp- 
 ment, whose mongrel curs alone gave fighting greet- 
 ing, it looked deep and was boisterous ; our animals 
 hesitated ; and we thought sympathetically of Bayard 
 Taylor's sad fortune in making this hard journey into 
 the Middle Park to see and try the Hot Springs, and 
 then being obliged by the flood to content himself 
 with a distant view from this bank of the river. But 
 our comrades had gone over ; and the only question 
 was where. Looking for their track, directly there 
 came galloping to our relief a gayly costumed Indian 
 princess, — we were sure she was, — bare-backed for 
 her haste to succor, and full of sweet sympathy for 
 our anxiety, and tender smiles for our — attractiveness 
 in misfortune. Plunging boldly into what seemed to 
 us the deepest and swiftest part of the stream, — as 
 doubtless it was, — she beckoned us to follow, with 
 every enticing expression of eye and lips and hand ; 
 and follow we, of course, did, — had it been more 
 dangerous we should, — and by folding ourselves up 
 on the highest parts of our animals, we got through 
 
A TROUT AND EASPBERRY SUPPER. 115 
 
 without serious wetting. But it proved that we 
 crossed in the wrong place, and that our beautiful 
 Indian princess, with beads and feathers and bright 
 eyes and seductive ways, was only a plain young 
 " buck," — not even a maiden, not so much as a squaw, 
 not, to come down to the worst at once, so near to 
 glory and gallantry as a first cousin to the Chief 
 Nothing less than the welcome we had from one of 
 the best women of Colorado, — whom we parted from 
 last in Fifth Avenue, and now found spending the 
 summer with her family in a log cabin of one room, 
 with eight hundred Indians for her only neighbors, — 
 and the arrival of her husband from his afternoon's 
 fishing with two bushels of fine trout packed over his 
 horse's back, — ^here only was adequate soothing and 
 consolation for our chagrin. And we didn't go into 
 camp that night till after supper, — after supper of 
 fresh biscuits, fried trout, and mountain raspberries! 
 Let me celebrate these high mountain raspberries 
 before the taste goes from my mouth. They grow 
 freely on the hill-sides, from seven thousand to ten 
 thousand feet up, on bushes from six to eighteen 
 inches high, are small and red, and the only wild 
 fruit of the region worth eating. They are delicate 
 and high-flavored to extreme; their mountain home 
 refines and elevates them into the very concentra- 
 tion and essence of all fruitiness; they not only 
 tickle but intoxicate the palate, — so wild and aro- 
 matic, indeed, are they that they need some sugar 
 to tone the flavor down to the despiritualized sense 
 of a cultivated taste. Yet they are not so sour as 
 to require sweetening, — only too high-toned for the 
 
116 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 stranger stomach; after sharing their native air a 
 few days, we found them best picked and eaten from 
 the vines. It is one of the motives of family excur- 
 sion parties into the mountains at this season to lay 
 in a supply of raspberry jam for the year; while the 
 men catch trout, the women pick raspberries, cook 
 and sugar them in the camp-kettle, and go home 
 laden with this rare fruity sweetmeat. Here in the 
 Middle Park, we were kept in full supply of the fresh 
 fruit by the Ute squaws, who, going off into the hills 
 in the morning, often two together astride the same 
 pony, and a little papoose stra23ped on its board over 
 the back of one, would come back at night with cups 
 and pails of the berries to exchange with the whites 
 for their own two great weaknesses, sugar and bis- 
 cuit. But the bears get the most of the raspberries 
 so far. They are at home with them during all the 
 season, and can pick and eat at leisure. 
 
 The Hot Sulphur Springs of the Middle Park are 
 both a curiosity and a virtue, and its chief distinction. 
 They are a considerable resort already by Coloradians, 
 and when convenient roads are made over into the 
 Park, there will be a great flow of visitors to them. 
 We found twenty or thirty other visitors (in the ripe 
 summer,) there, scattered about in the neighborhood, 
 while parties were coming and going every day. The 
 springs for bathing, and the rivers for fishing, are 
 the two great attractions. On the hill-side, fifty feet 
 above the Grand River, and a dozen rods away, these 
 hot sulphurous waters bubble up at three or four dif- 
 ferent places within a few feet, and, coming together 
 into one stream, flow over an abrupt bank, say a dozen 
 
THE HOT SULPHUPw SPRINGS. 117 
 
 feet higli, into a little circular pool or basin below. 
 Thence the waters scatter off into the river. But the 
 pool and the fall unite to make a charming natural 
 bathing-house. You are provided with a hot sitz bath 
 and douche together. The stream that pours over 
 the precipice into the pool is about as large as would 
 flow out of a full water pail turned over, making a 
 stream three to five inches in diameter. The water 
 is so hot that you cannot at first bear your hand in 
 it, being 110° Fahrenheit in temperature, and the 
 blow of the falling water and its almost scalding heat 
 send the bather shrieking out on his first trial of 
 them ; but with light experiments, first an arm, then 
 a leg, and next a shoulder, he gradually gets accus- 
 tomed to both heat and fall, and can stand directly 
 under the stream without flinching, and then he has 
 such a bath as he can find nowhere else in the world. 
 The invigorating effects are wonderful; there is no 
 lassitude, no chill from it, as is usually experienced 
 after an ordinary hot bath elsewhere ; though the 
 water be 110° warm, and the air 30° to 40° cold, the 
 shock of the fall is such a tonic, and the atmosphere 
 itself is so dry and inspiring, that no reaction, no un- 
 favorable effects are felt, even by feeble persons, in 
 coming from one into the other. The first thing in 
 the morning, the last at night did we renew our trial 
 of this hot douche bath during our brief stay in the 
 neighborhood, and the old grew young and the young 
 joyous and rampant from the experience. Wonder- 
 ful cures are related as having been effected by these 
 springs ; the Indians resort to them a good deal, put 
 their sick horses into them, and are loth to yield con- 
 
118 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 trol of them to the whites ; and in view of their prob- 
 able future value, there has been a struggle among 
 the latter for their ownership. They are now in the 
 hands of Mr. Byers of the Rocky Mountain News at 
 Denver, under a title that will probably defy all dis- 
 putants; and he proposes to improve the access to 
 them and the accommodations for visitors. The wa- 
 ters look and taste precisely like those of the Sharon 
 Sulphur Springs in New York. The difference is that 
 these are hot, those cold. They have deposited sul- 
 phur, iron and soda in quantity all about their path, 
 and these are their probable chief ingredients. 
 
 Over a little hill from the springs, by the side of 
 the Grand River, — the hill, the stream, and a half 
 mile between us and the Indian encampment, — we 
 settled down in camp for two days and a half, study- 
 ing Indian life, catching and eating trout, taking hot 
 douche baths in the springs, and making excursions 
 over the neighboring hills into side valleys. The 
 river before us offered good fishing, but better was 
 to be found in Williams Fork, a smaller stream a few 
 miles below, where a half day's sport brought back 
 from forty to sixty pounds of as fine speckled trout as 
 ever came from the brooks or lakes of New England 
 They ranged from a quarter of a pound up to two 
 pounds weight each, and we had them at every meal. 
 
 The Indians were very neighborly; hill, stream 
 and distance were no impediment to their attentions; 
 their ponies would gallop with them over all in ^yq 
 minutes; and from two to a dozen, men and boys, 
 never the squaws, were hanging about our camp fires 
 from early morning till late evening. Curiosity, beg- 
 
THE UTES IN MIDDLE PARK. 119 
 
 ging and good-fellowship were their only apparent 
 motives; they did no mischief; they stole nothing, 
 though food and clothing, pistols and knives, things 
 they coveted and needed above all else, were loosely 
 scattered about within reach; they only became a 
 nuisance by being everlastingly in the way and spoil- 
 ing the enjoyment of one's food by their wistful 
 observation. Mrs. Browning says, you remember, 
 that observation, which is not sympathy, is simply 
 torture. And not a bit of sympathy did they show 
 in our eating except as they shared. We were as 
 liberal as our limited stores would allow; but the 
 capacity of a single Indian's stomach is boundless; 
 what could we do for the hundreds ? 
 
 These Utes are a good deal higher grade of Indian 
 than I had supposed. They are above the average 
 of our Indian tribes in comeliness and intelligence; 
 and none perhaps are better behaved or more amen- 
 able to direction from the whites. There are seven 
 different bands or tribes of them, who occupy the 
 Mountains and Parks of Colorado and adjoining sec- 
 tions of New Mexico and Utah. The bands number 
 from five hundred to one thousand each. This one 
 consisted of about seventy-five "lodges" or families, 
 each represented by a tent of cloth stretched over a 
 bunch of poles gathered at the top, and spreading 
 around in a small circle. The poles leave a hole in 
 the top for the smoke of a fire in the center beneath, 
 and around which the family squat on their blankets 
 and pile their stores of food and skins and clothing. 
 Probably there were six hundred in the camp near 
 us, men, women and children. They look frailer and 
 
120 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 feebler than you would expect ; I did not see a single 
 Indian who was six feet high or would weigh over 
 one hundred and sixty-five pounds; they are all, in- 
 deed, under size, and no match in nervous or phys- 
 ical force for the average white man. Some of both 
 sexes are of very comely appearance, with fine hands 
 and delicate feet, and shapely limbs, with a bright 
 mulatto complexion, and clear, piercing eyes; but 
 their square heads, coarse hair, hideous daubs of yel- 
 low and red paint on the cheek and forehead, and 
 motley raiment, — here a white man's cast-ofi* hat, coat 
 or pantaloons, if squaw a shabby old gown of calico 
 or shirt of white cloth, alternate with Indian leggins 
 and moccasins, bare legs and feet, a dirty white or 
 flaming red blanket, beaded jacket of leather, feath- 
 ers, and brass or tin trinkets hanging on the head, 
 from the ears, down the back or breast, — all these 
 disorderly and unaccustomed combinations give them 
 at first a repulsive and finally a very absurd appear- 
 ance. The squaws seem to be kept in the back- 
 ground, and, except when brides or the wives of a 
 chief, dress much more plainly and shabbily than the 
 bucks. They are all more modest and deferential in 
 appearance and manners than would be expected; 
 and I saw no evidence of a taste for strong drink 
 among this tribe, — none of them ever asked for it, 
 while their desire for food, especially for sugar and 
 biscuit, was always manifest. The sugar they gobble 
 up without qualification, and such unnatural food as 
 this and fine flour breed diseases and weaknesses that 
 are already destroying the race. Coughs are frequent, 
 and dyspepsia; sickness and deaths are quite common 
 
HOW THE INDIANS LIVE. 121 ! 
 
 among the children; and this incongruous mixture of 
 white man's food and raiment and life with their own, 
 which their contact with civilization has led them into, 
 is sapping their vitality at its fountains. To make 
 matters the worse, they have got hold of our quack 
 medicines, and are great custom.ers for Brandreth and 
 other pills, with the vain hope of curing their maladies. 
 In short, they are simple, savage children, and in that 
 definition we find suggested the only proper way for 
 the government to treat them. 
 
 Their wealth consists in their horses, which they 
 breed or steal from their enemies of other tribes, and 
 of which this tribe in the Middle Park must have a 
 couple of hundred. They live on the game they can 
 find in the Parks and among the Mountains, moving 
 from one spot to another, as seasons and years change, 
 the proceeds of the skins of the deer and other ani- 
 mals they kill, roots, nuts and berries, and the gifts 
 of the government and the settlers. It is altogether 
 even a precarious and hard reliance ; the game is fast 
 disappearing, — save of trout we have not seen enough 
 in all our travels among the mountains to feed our 
 small party upon, if it had all been caught; and the 
 government agents are not always to be depended 
 upon in making up deficiencies. Our neighbors had 
 lately come over from the North Park, where they 
 had hunted antelope to some purpose and with rare 
 fortune, killing four thousand in all in two or three 
 weeks, half of them in a single grand hunt. They 
 cut the meat into thin slices and dry it, so that it 
 looks like strips of old leather; and as we went about 
 
 their camp we saw the little, weakly children pulling 
 8 
 
122 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 away at bits of it, apparently with not very satisfac- 
 tory results. Our tribe was in trouble about a chiefs 
 the old one was dead, and there were two or three 
 contestants for the succession ; but the wrangle was 
 not half so fierce as would arise over a contested 
 election for mayor of a white man's city. 
 
 Affairs always seemed very quiet in the Indian 
 camp in the day-time ; the braves played cards, or did 
 a little hunting ; the squaws gathered wood, tanned 
 skins, braided lariats, or made fantastic leather gar- 
 ments ; the boys chased the ponies ; but at night they 
 as invariably appeared to be having a grand pow- 
 wow, — rude music and loud shouting rolled up to our 
 camp a volume of coarse sound that at first seemed 
 frightful, as if the preparatory war-whoop for a grand 
 scalping of their white neighbors, but which we 
 learned to regard as the most innocent of barbaric 
 amusements. Though these Utes are quite peaceable 
 and even long-suffering towards the whites, they bear 
 eternal enmity to the Indian tribes of the Plains, and 
 are always ready to have a fight with them. Each 
 party is strongest on its own territory, — the Arapahoes, 
 Camanches and Cheyennes on the prairies, and the 
 Utes among the hills ; and each, while eager to receive 
 the party of the other part at home, rarely go a-visit- 
 ing. The Plains Indians are better mounted and bet- 
 ter armed ; chiefly because, keeping up nearly constant 
 warfare with the whites, they have exacted prompter 
 presents and larger pay from the government. The 
 Utes complain, and with reason, that their friendliness 
 causes them to be neglected and cheated ; while their 
 and our enemies thrive on government bounty. 
 
long's peak. 123 
 
 There is now a plan for all the Ute tribes to go to- 
 gether into the south-western corner of Colorado, 
 away from the mines and the whites, and there, upon 
 abundant pastures and fruitful mountains, engage in 
 a pastoral and half agricultural life ; to set up stock- 
 raising on a large scale, and such tillage as they can 
 bring themselves to, under the j^rotection and aid of 
 the government. The scheme is a good one ; the In- 
 dians agree to it ; and the bargain has been made by 
 the government agents here, — all that is needed is for 
 the authorities at Washington to furnish the means 
 for carrying it into execution. So far as our observa- 
 tion extends, the greatest trouble with our Indian 
 matters lies at Washington ; the chief of the cheating 
 and stupidity gathers there ; while the Indian agents 
 here upon the ground are, if not immaculate, certainly 
 more intelligent, sensible, and practical, and truer to 
 the good of the settler and the Indian, than their 
 superiors at the seat of government. 
 
 We were loth to leave the Hot Springs and the 
 Middle Park; but our time was up. We looked 
 longingly through the hills up the valley of the 
 Grand; beyond I knew there lay a wilder country 
 than we had seen, and under the shadow of Long's 
 Peak, Grand Lake itself, a large and fine sheet of 
 water, alive with trout, and rich in commanding 
 beauty. Long's Peak, too, just ascended for the first 
 time, offered glorious temptation in a hard mountain 
 climb, and recompensing views of continental sweep 
 and grandeur. No fewer than thirty-nine lakes on 
 the sides of that and the neighboring mountains, and 
 all as high up as ten thousand feet, can be seen at 
 
124 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 once from this peak. We galloped over the bare hills 
 the other way, and looked off down the valley. Bits 
 of rare stone, agates and jaspers and crystals and 
 petrifactions, lay everywhere about; and over the 
 river, a dozen miles off, was the famous " moss agate 
 patch," where these peculiar crystallizations covered 
 the ground ; Williams Fork came rollicking down the 
 opposite hill-sides through a line of trees, with in- 
 numerable breakfasts of uncaught trout, and a wide 
 green meadow at the mouth for camping ground ; 
 while far on in the landscape, the Grand found mag- 
 nificent pathway for twenty-five miles through a 
 broad field of heavy grass, — the gem, the kernel of 
 the Middle Park ; then turning abruptly west, it shot 
 through the mountains by a canyon, lapped up the 
 Blue on the other side, and, thus strengthened, poured 
 out southward for the Colorado and the Pacific Ocean. 
 It was this way we would have gone out, — down the 
 Grand and up the Blue, all within the capacious 
 boundaries of the Middle Park, — had not time and 
 the provision bag forbade. 
 
 So, turning reluctantly back on our entering path, 
 we compromised with our hunger for new scenery by 
 taking the Boulder Pass out. This lies opposite the 
 Berthoud at the lower end of the Park. Our party 
 was reduced by the earlier return of Governor Hunt 
 and the Indian agent, who, having some negotiations 
 with the Indians, had taken out a dozen or twenty 
 of the leading braves with them, to seek arguments 
 where freights were not so expensive. The Indian 
 sees the point of an idea always through a full stomach 
 and a warm back, and it required a whole beef and 
 
AN AUGUST SNOW-STORM. 125 
 
 several barrels of flour and sugar and a dozen blankets 
 to prove to them that a petty technical amendment by 
 the Senate to their last treaty was just right. Going 
 up the Boulder ascent, we found thicker and greener 
 grass and richer forests and flowers than in the open 
 Park, and camped by a beaver settlement at the hight 
 of ten to eleven thousand feet. In the morning, the 
 water was freezing, and the grass and shrubs were 
 stiff with frost, so stiff and yet so dry from lack of 
 moisture in the air, that neither then, nor after the 
 sun had softened them, was there any water to be 
 rubbed off from them. It was a perfectly dry freeze, 
 and this is why these summer frosts do no more harm 
 to vegetation, and delicate flowers thaw out and go 
 on in their sweet short life in these high mountains. 
 The clouds gathered, and the rain-drops fell, as we 
 finished breakfast and packed and saddled for the cold 
 hard ride over the mountains. In an hour we were 
 out of the timber, and a dreary waste of rock, relieved 
 only by a thin grass at first, then by mosses, and al- 
 ways by flowers, lay before and all around us. The 
 storm grew thick and fast, hail and snow; the trail 
 wasted itself in the open area; the ground was being 
 rapidly covered with the white snow ; straggling was 
 forbidden, and " close up " and " push on " were the 
 orders from the front. The promised view of park 
 and plains, of range on range, was lost ; only thick, 
 dark clouds, hanging over impenetrable abysses, were 
 around and below us ; the storm beat and bit like an 
 outraged conscience; beards gathered snow and ice; 
 the mules and horses winced under the blast, — it was 
 a forlorn looking company for a pleasure party. 
 
126 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 But there was exhilaration in the unseasonable 
 struggle; there was something jolly in the idea of 
 thus confounding the almanacs, and finding February 
 in August. At the summit of the Pass, — thirteen 
 thousand feet high, — the storm abated its intensity 
 to let us dismount and pick out of the snow the little 
 yellow flowers that crept up among the rotks every- 
 where. Then it rolled over again, and now with 
 thunder and lightning, pealing and flashing close 
 around us. Here our laggard pack mules Y\^ith their 
 drivers came hurrying up and forward; the leader 
 saying as he spurred them by that perhaps we might 
 like it, but for him "hell was pleasanter and safer than 
 a thunder-storm on the range." 
 
 But as we descended the elements calmed; the 
 clouds opened visions of the new valleys, and flashes 
 of sunlight unveiled the great mysteries of the up- 
 per mountains. Summer was again around us; and 
 though it was hardly noon, the spot we had reached 
 was so rarely charming, and the sun so refreshing, 
 that we halted, loosed our animals, made our cofiee, 
 lunched, and basked on the rocks in the sunshine for 
 a long, delightful hour. We were on a narrow ridge 
 of the mountain, shooting out into the valley, and not 
 over twenty feet wide. On either side there was a 
 sharp almost perpendicular descent for at least one 
 thousand feet in one case, and seven hundred and 
 fifty in the other. At the foot on our right were two 
 lovely lakes, one almost an absolute circle, rock and 
 grass bound, fed by great snow-banks between us and 
 them, and feeding in turn the South Boulder Creek. 
 On our left, a grassy slope, so steep that it was im- 
 
WE SLEEP IN A BAKN. 127 
 
 possible to walk down except in long zigzags, and far 
 away at tlie bottom among the trees ran tlie North 
 Boulder from out the mountains. Everywhere about 
 us, where the snow and the rocks left space, were the 
 greenest of grass, the bluest of harebells, the reddest 
 of painter's brush, the yellowest of sunflowers and 
 buttercups. All, with brightest of sun and bluest of 
 sky, made up such a contrast to our morning ride that 
 we were all in raptures with the various beauties of 
 the scene, and feel still that no spot in all our travel 
 is more sacred to beauty than this of our noon camp 
 on Boulder. But, as if to frame and fasten the pic- 
 ture still more strongly, we were hardly in the saddle 
 again, before the storm set in anew, and we rode all 
 the afternoon under snow or rain. 
 
 There is what is called a road over into Middle Park 
 by this Pass, and strong wagons with oxen or mules 
 make the passage ; but the difiiculties they encounter 
 are frightful, — mud and rocks, rivers and ravines, — 
 it is hard to imagine how any wheels can surmount 
 them and remain whole, — and few do. Our trail fol- 
 lowed the road only in part ; it made short cuts over 
 hills, through woods, and across valleys, and was full 
 of variety, annoyance, sometimes of difliculty ; but 
 we found all less vexatious than the descent of Ber- 
 thoud Pass, and, following the South Boulder Creek, 
 came at last, wet and weary, into the nearly deserted 
 mining village of South Boulder. Here we found 
 welcome around the fire of the post-office ; a deserted 
 cabin was thrown open to us for our baggage and our 
 meals ; and a big barn's loft with fresh hay furnished 
 a magnificent bedroom. We dried, we ate, having 
 
128 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 fresh meat, cream and vegetables added to our bill of 
 fare, and' we slept, all in luxury. Half the village 
 was preoccupied by a large party of men and women, 
 some twenty to thirty, from the villages farther down 
 the valley, on their way into the Park by the road 
 we had come out. They had ox teams for their bag- 
 gage, saddle animals to carry themselves, and a cow 
 to furnish fresh milk; and thus generously equipped 
 were jollily entering upon camp life among the moun- 
 tains for ten days or a fortnight, after the manner of 
 the residents of the State. 
 
 A rapid morning gallop over intervening hills, waste 
 with the axman's greedy work, or the miner's greedier 
 wash, brought our party into the civilization of the 
 Clear Creek Valley, — to taverns, telegraphs, and stage 
 lines. 
 
YII. 
 
 MOUNTAIN CLIMBING AND CAMP LITE. 
 
 Up Gray's Peak from Georgetown— The View from it— A Saturday 
 Night Camp on the Snake River— Sunday with a "Prospector"— 
 A Butter and Milk Ranch in the Mountains— The Valley of the 
 Blue and its Mining Operations— Over the Breckinridge Pass in a 
 Thunder-Storm— Hamilton and South Park— Reunion with the 
 Grand Party — Ascent of Mount Lincoln — A Snow-Storm on the 
 Summit— Montgomery— The Everlasting Plattea— The Side Valleys 
 of the South Park. 
 
 With appetites only whetted for mountain experi- 
 ences, with curiosity only stimulated to observe the 
 phenomena of the grand elevated Parks of Colorado, 
 by our week's trip into Middle Park, we were soon in 
 the saddle again for a cHmb up the two most con- 
 spicuous peaks of the central range. Gray and Lin- 
 coln, and a journey through the South Park. There 
 were but three of us to make the ascent of Gray's 
 Peak ; and such a load as we put on our single pack 
 mule : a great overtopping cube of blankets and sacks 
 of meat and bread, and four little feet sticking out 
 beneath, were all that could be seen as it went shak- 
 ing along on a mysterious trot. Sending the outfit 
 and our guide by an easier path over to where we 
 intended to camp for the night, our Httle party started 
 
130 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 early of a clear August morning from Georgetown, — 
 distance fifteen miles to Gray's Peaks, and, by virtue 
 of mines among the mountains, a good wagon road 
 two-thirds the way. 
 
 It was an object to get to the summit as soon as 
 possible, before afternoon haze or cloud should dim 
 the view, and we galloped rapidly through aspen 
 groves, then among larger pines, by the side of rap- 
 idly descending streams, around and around, up and 
 up, and finally out above the trees, where grass and 
 flowers had all life to themselves, and again above 
 these and only thin mosses lived among the stones, 
 and yet still higher, where the mountains became 
 great walls of rock, or immense mounds of broken 
 stone, as if they had been run through a crusher for 
 the benefit of Mr. Macadam. Such was the character 
 of Gray's Peaks. Great patches of snow divided 
 place with the rocks, and fed the clear, cold rivulets 
 that started out from every sheltered nook or side of 
 the mountains; but they only added to the cold 
 dreariness of the scene. The only life was grasshop- 
 pers, — here they were still by thousands, by millions, 
 sporting in the air and frisking over the snow, but 
 the latter's chill seemed soon to overcome their life, 
 for they lay dead in countless numbers upon its white 
 surface. In some places the dead grasshoppers could 
 have been shoveled up by the bushels, and down at 
 the edges of the snow cold grasshopper soup was to 
 be had ad libitum. There was a feast here for the 
 bears, but we could see none enjoying it. 
 
 Gray's Peaks, — great mounds or monuments of 
 loose, broken stone, — shoot up sharply from a single 
 
 \ 
 
THE SUMMIT OF GRAY's PEAKS. 131 
 
 base, in the midst of very high mountains all about. 
 Their sharpness exaggerates their superior hight. 
 Below, the two seem but a rifle shot apart; above, 
 they are manifestly several miles away from each 
 other; but their common paternity, their similarity 
 in form, effect and views, entitle them to bear the 
 common name, which was given to them by Dr. C. C. 
 Parry of St. Louis, who has been, so far, the most 
 thorough scientific explorer of the higher mountain 
 regions of Colorado, and in honor of the distinguished 
 Cambridge botanist. Professor Gray. There are now 
 trails for horses to the top of each, — that to the higher 
 was nearly finished while we were there ; and though 
 the path to the lower is the more easy and familiar, 
 our ambition was not content with anything less than 
 the highest, and spite of fatigue and cold we struck 
 out for it. Going through a snow-drift at least fifteen 
 feet high, and coming out above all snow deposits, we 
 fastened our animals with stones at the end of the 
 path, and slowly toiled the remaining quarter of a 
 mile over the loose rocks, — the thin air obliging us to 
 stop every three minutes to gain our breath, — and at 
 high noon sat upon the highest peak of the highest 
 known mountain of the great Eocky Mountain range. 
 Dr. Parry made the lower peak fourteen thousand 
 two hundred and fifty-one feet high; the higher must 
 be at least fourteen thousand five hundred. 
 
 The scene before us was ample recompense for 
 double the toil. It was the great sight in all our 
 Colorado travel. In impressiveness, — in overcoming- 
 ness, it takes rank w^ith the three or four great natu- 
 ral wonders of the world, — with Niagara Falls from 
 
132 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 the Tower, with the Yo Semite Valley from Inspira- 
 tion Point. No Swiss mountain view carries such 
 majestic sweep of distance, such sublime combination 
 of hight and breadth and depth ; such uplifting into 
 the presence of God; such dwarfing of the mortal 
 sense, such welcome to the immortal thought. It 
 was not beauty, it was sublimity ; it was not power, 
 nor order, nor color, it was majesty; it was not a 
 part, it was the whole ; it was not man but God, that 
 was about, before, in us. Mountains and mountains 
 everywhere, — even the great Parks, even the un- 
 ending Plains seemed but patches among the white 
 ranges of hills stretching above and beyond one an- 
 other. We looked into Middle Park below us on the 
 north; over a single line of mountains into South 
 Park, below us on the south, — but beyond both were 
 the unending peaks, the everlasting hills. To the 
 west, the broadest, noblest ranges of mountains, — 
 there seemed no breaks among them except such as 
 served to mark the end of one and the beginning of 
 another, and no possible limit to their extension. The 
 snow whitened all, covered many, and brought out 
 their lines in conspicuous majesty. Over one of the 
 largest and finest, the snow-fields lay in the form of 
 an immense cross, and by this it is known in all the 
 mountain views of the State. It is as if God has set 
 His sign. His seal. His promise there, — a beacon upon 
 the very center and hight of the Continent to all its 
 people and all its generations. Beyond this uplifted 
 what seemed to be the only mountain in all the 
 range of view higher than the peak upon which we 
 stood. It is named Sopris Peak upon some of the 
 
THE YIEW FKOM GKAY'S PEAKS. 133 
 
 maps, but has never been explored, and is more com- 
 pletely covered with snow than any other. 
 
 Turning to the east we find relief in the softer and 
 yet majestic and unending vision of the Plains, — on, 
 on they stretch in everlasting green and gray until 
 lost in the dim haze that is just beginning to rise 
 along the horizon. Directly below us, great rough 
 seams in the mountain sides, as if fire and water had 
 been at work for ages to waste and overturn ; dreary 
 areas of red and brown and gray rocks; masses of 
 timber ; bits of green in the far-down valley ; flashes 
 of darkness where little lakes nestled amid the rocks, 
 fed by snow, and feeding the streams, — Nature every- 
 where in her original forms, and her abounding waste 
 of wealth, as if here was the great supply store and 
 workshop of Creation, the fountain of Earth. Look- 
 ing from side to side, above, below, and around, — im- 
 pressed, oppressed everywhere with the presence of 
 the Beginning; it was almost unconsciously and in- 
 stinctively that we turned again and at last, as Mrs. 
 Browning makes Komney Leigh, "toward the east :" — 
 
 " where faint and fair, 
 
 Along the tingling desert of tlie sky, 
 Beyond the circle of the conscious hills, 
 Were laid in jasper-stone as clear as glas3 
 The first foundations of that new, near Day, 
 Which should be builded out of heaven, to God." 
 
 It was difficult to leave this citadel of earth, this 
 outpost of heaven; but our time and our strength 
 were both exhausted. The long gallop, the hard 
 climb, more, the excitement of the vision of earth 
 and sky at this elevation of over fourteen thousand 
 
134 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 feet above the ocean level had used up our nerve- 
 power; the cool breezes^ too, chilled us; and after 
 lunching, we regained our horses, and pushed down 
 the other side of the mountain from that we came up. 
 
 There was only a dim trail to follow, running hither 
 and thither around and among the hills, and then 
 across and along the valleys of the streams that came 
 in from every mountain crevice and snow-bank. We 
 crossed Colfax Park, a little gem of grass and flowers, 
 with Colfax Lake at its head, a great rock bowl of 
 clear water, high in the hill-side, and pouring its sur- 
 plus over a sharp natural wall of stone, — so named by 
 an enthusiastic and appreciative miner in the lower 
 valley, who would hardly be reconciled with us that 
 we had not brought the Yice-President to witness how 
 happily and fitly he had been honored here. We 
 passed also through many a beaver village ; but the 
 inhabitants gave us no visible welcome; they mod- 
 estly let their works speak for them. The woods 
 grew thick and mellow; the aspen tender, the spruce 
 silver-hung and silver-tongued; and we came at last, 
 — a long ten miles from the summit of Gray's Peak, — 
 to our proposed camping spot, the junction of two 
 forks of the Snake River and of the two trails from 
 Georgetown. 
 
 Here, the grass was abundant, the stream ran pure 
 and strong, unpolluted by miner's mud, fuel was 
 plenty, even the mosquitoes sang a welcome, but no 
 guide, no pack-mule was to be seen, no blankets, no 
 food, no nothing, that belonged to us, but weariness 
 and hunger. We sounded the war-whoop of the 
 country, — a shrill, far-reaching cry; and back the 
 
THE CAMP ON SNAKE EIYER. 135 
 
 voices came, not only from our lagging outfit, but 
 from miners here and there among the hills, just 
 finishing their day's work, and wondering who had 
 come into their wilderness now. The mules took up 
 the refrain, and bellowed from "depths that overflow" 
 their welcome to each other. Soon we were at home, 
 the coffee brewing, the ham stewing, and a hole 
 through the peach can ; under the frosts of night and 
 the smoke of the camp fire, the merry mosquitoes 
 flew away ; our tent was raised, our blankets spread ; 
 and the peace of Saturday night and a day richly 
 spent reigned over us four and no more. 
 
 But camp life is not all comfort. That very blessed 
 Saturday night on the Snake River, the wind took 
 turns in coming out of the three or four valleys that 
 converged upon our camping-ground, and blew the 
 virulent smoke in upon us. Shift the fire, change 
 the blanket, still the smoke followed us, as if charmed, 
 and was discomfort and sleeplessness to all, poison to 
 at least one. There was a yearning for something 
 delicate for the Sunday morning breakfast, — a bit of 
 cream toast, or a soft egg, and some milk-amelior- 
 ated coffee ; but the knurly little " Jack," that carried 
 our " bed and board," had no provision for sensitive 
 stomachs, and we had to take our victual and drink 
 "straight," — plain ham and bread and butter and 
 black coffee, — or go without. But that best and 
 cheapest of doctors and nurses, the sun came to our 
 relief; and later in the day a pitcher of buttermilk 
 completed and capped his healing triumphs. One of 
 my companions of three years ago, records my then 
 sarcastic contempt for buttermilk, but I take it all 
 
136 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 back now, — no cup of it shall ever pass from my lips 
 again other than empty. It comes to a faint and for- 
 lorn stomach like woman's sympathy to a bruised heart. 
 
 We sauntered ten or a dozen miles that day, down 
 the close bound Snake Valley, chiefly through woods, 
 occasionally across an open park, fishing a little, and 
 chatting a good deal with Commodore Decatur, a 
 quaint old miner of the valley, who, "prospecting" 
 for society that day, had struck a "lead" in us. If 
 I could tell you his story, it would rival one of Charles 
 Eeade's most romantic and mysterious novels, and 
 show you how thickly studded an American life can 
 be with tragedies. He is an old Greek philosopher, — 
 with an American variation; as wise as Socrates, as 
 enthusiastic as a child, as mysterious in life and pur- 
 pose as William H. Seward or an Egyptian sphynx, 
 as religious as a Methodist class-leader. Our morning 
 ride brought us out into a grand opening in the valley. 
 The timber disappeared; the hills sharpened into a 
 dead wall on one side, and swept away in soft rolling 
 outlines on the other ; a wide stretch of intervale lay 
 between, while pretty groves of trees tempered the 
 distant knolls and broke the abruptness of forests 
 beyond. We were again, indeed, in Middle Park, 
 though a high range of mountains and a long, hard 
 ride separated us from that part of it which we visited 
 the week before. 
 
 Under a bluff in this fine area, we came upon the 
 "Georgia Ranch." Here in a cabin of two rooms, 
 with a log milk-house outside, the only dwellers in 
 this rich pasture park, were a man, his wife and 
 daughter; their home and farm were in Southern 
 
A MILK AND BUTTER EANCH. 137 
 
 Colorado, but they had come up here in the spring 
 with forty or fifty cows, and were making one hun- 
 dred and forty-five pounds of butter a week, and sell- 
 ing it to the miners in the cabins and camps among 
 the hills ten to fifteen miles around, for seventy-five 
 cents a pound. When the snows begin to fall in 
 October, they will drive the herd back to their south- 
 ern pastures; the increase of the cows will pay all 
 expenses, and the one hundred dollars or more a 
 week cash for butter and milk is clear profit. The 
 dairy cabin was a "sight to behold," such piles of 
 fresh golden butter, such shelves of full pans of milk, 
 — there wasn't room for another pound or pan; and 
 yet the demand far exceeds the supply, — it was a 
 favor to be allowed to purchase the treasures of 
 " Georgia Ranch." It was our Commodore's Sunday 
 diversion to ride down these dozen miles, fill his 
 weekly butter-pail and his milk-can, and gallo23 back 
 in season for a Sunday night supper with his cabin 
 comrade of " mush and milk." 
 
 These mining hermits in the mountains manage to 
 live well, — they become adepts in cooking; with flour 
 and meal and fresh meat, potatoes and onions, dried 
 and canned fruits, the bill of fare is ap^Dctizing ; and 
 the cost of the "best tables" is from seventy-five 
 cents to one dollar a day. Nor are they always thus 
 exiles from society; their season in the hills, hunting 
 new lodes or developing old ones, is confined to the 
 summer; when cold and snow come, they flee to the 
 villages or to Denver, — to live as leisurely and lux- 
 uriously as what they have made the past season or 
 hope to make the next will permit 
 
138 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 We "packed" a bottle of cream, filled our water 
 canteen with milk, took Decatur's Methodistic ben- 
 ediction, — "May the Lord take a liking to you," — 
 with a hearty " amen," and rode down the valley, by 
 numerous soda and other mineral springs, three or 
 four miles farther, to our camp for the night. This 
 was at a still more picturesque spot, — a trinity of 
 rivers, a triangle of mountains. The Blue and the 
 Snake Eivers and Ten Mile Creek all meet and 
 mingle here within a few rods ; each a strong, 
 hearty stream from its own independent circle of 
 mountains ; and while the waters unresisting swam 
 together, the hills stood apart and away, frowning in 
 dark forest and black rock, and cold with great snow- 
 fields, overlooking the scene, which green meadows, 
 and blue sky, and warm sun mellowed and brightened. 
 A neck of land, holding abundant grass and fuel, be- 
 tween the three rivers at the point of junction, of- 
 fered a magnificent camping-ground. It is a spot to 
 settle down upon and keep house at for a week. Ten 
 Mile Creek overflows with trout ; one of our party took 
 ten pounds out of a single hole in a less number of 
 minutes, — a single fish weighing about three pounds; 
 and deer and game birds must be readily findable in 
 the neighborhood. The Blue isn't blue, — its waters 
 have been troubled by the miners, and it gives its 
 name and mud color to the combined stream, which 
 flows ofl* through an open, inviting valley to join the 
 Grand, and thence to make up the grand Colorado of 
 the West. 
 
 We had a lesson in precaution, after unloading, and 
 proceeding to make camp here, by finding that no- 
 
UP THE VALLEY OF THE BLUE. 139 
 
 body had any matches -, we could not shoot flame out 
 of our metallic-cartridge pistols ; nor had we the Li- 
 dian accomphshment of rubbing fire out of two sticks; 
 so the best mule was put over the road to the "Ranch" 
 and back at a very un-mule-like-gait^ to bring us the 
 means of kindling our camp fire. But we had a 
 sumptuous supper of cream toast and trout, with 
 milk for our coffee, and a sweet night in camp, 
 though lulled to sleep by the roll of thunder and 
 the patter of a brisk shower, with high w^ind and 
 sharp lightning ; and we turned reluctantly up the 
 valley of the Blue, the next morning, with the reso- 
 lution to come to stay at this point another season. 
 
 The day's ride was along the Blue to its source in 
 the mountains, over these and down into the South 
 Park. The first eight miles was through a fine open 
 grazing country, and we found a magnificent herd of 
 fat cattle, strongly marked with Durham blood, enjoy- 
 ing its rich grasses. They had been sent up here to 
 fatten for the summer from some of the ranches of 
 the lower valleys, and, perhaps, to furnish fresh beef 
 to the mining camps, which are quite numerous among 
 the side valleys of the neighborhood. All the morn- 
 ing we were in sight of the ditches that had been 
 built to carry water to the rich beds of sand that 
 were in course of being washed over for gold deposits 
 at various localities in the valleys. One of these 
 ditches is twelve miles long ; tapping the Blue away 
 up in the mountains, it takes a vigorous stream along 
 and around the mountain sides, up and down, from 
 gulch to gulch, parting with portions at different 
 points on the route to little companies of miners at 
 
140 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 SQ much per foot; and, deployed into sand-banks, 
 swept through long boxes, tarried in screens and by 
 petty dams, it does its work of separating the tiny 
 particles of gold from the earth, and finds its way 
 back to the parent stream, miles from where it left it, 
 but bringing the pollutions of the world and of labor 
 with it. Many thousands of dollars are invested in 
 these ditches; sometimes they are made and owned 
 by individuals, who also work the mines or deposits 
 of gold to which they lead, but oftener now they 
 belong to companies that have no other interest than 
 to sell water from them to those who mine alone. 
 Generally they have passed out of the hands of their 
 builders, who rarely realized anything but exjDCcta- 
 tions, vast and vain, from them. 
 
 Breckinridge, a village of twenty cabins, ten thou- 
 sand feet high among the mountains, is the center of 
 these upper mining interests. Pleasant enough in 
 summer, life here in winter, when the miners gather 
 in from their surrounding camps, must be little better 
 than hibernation. There are good wagon roads from 
 the village, into all the neighboring valleys and over 
 the Breckinridge Pass in the continental range, to 
 South Park. We rode up through open woods, flower- 
 endowed meadows, a broken, various and interesting 
 mountain country, often giving majestic views of 
 the higher and snow-crowned peaks, with glimpses of 
 valleys and parks below and beyond. The Pass is i 
 
 just above the timber line, about twelve thousand 
 feet high, and as we mounted it, a cold storm gath- 
 ered upon the snow-fields above us, wheeled from 
 peak to peak in densely black clouds, and soon broke 
 
THROUGH THUNDER, LIGHTNING AND HAIL. 141 
 
 in gusts of wind, in vivid lightning, in startlingly close 
 and loud claps of thunder, in driving snow, in pelting 
 hail, in drizzling rain. We were below the storm's 
 fountain, but near enough to see all its grand move- 
 ments, to feel its awful presence, to be shaken with 
 fear, to gather inspiration. The rapidity of its pas- 
 sage from side to side, from peak to peak, was wonder- 
 ful ; the crashing loudness of its thunderous discharges 
 awful; one moment we felt like "fleeing before the 
 Lord," the next charmed and awed into rest in His 
 presence. 
 
 But it was dreary enough, when the thundering 
 and the flashing ceased, and the clouds stopped their 
 majestic movement, and hung in deep mists over all 
 the mountains and the valleys, and the rain poured 
 ceaselessly down. The poetry was gone, and gather- 
 ing overcoats and rubbers closely about us, we bent 
 our heads to the undeviating shower, and pushed 
 gloomily and ghastfully on. It seemed a long ride 
 down mountain side and through valley to Hamilton, 
 — woods that made us feel even more pitiful; open 
 valleys that made the rain more pitiless; streams 
 twisted out of place and shape by ruthless miners ; 
 desolated cabins, doorless, windowless, — even the 
 storm was more inviting ; Tarryall, where thousands 
 dug and washed sands for gold three and four years 
 ago, and now only two or three cabins, mud-patched 
 and turf-warmed, sent forth the smoke of home ; a 
 solitary dirt-washer, trudging along from his day's 
 mountain work, with dinner-pail and pickax; — out at 
 last, where, through the opening mists, we could see 
 the long, level reaches of South Park, and into Ham- 
 
142 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ilton, — fifty or more vacant and decaying cabins and 
 two log hotels, — where one thousand men mined in 
 '60 to '64^ and gayety and vice reigned, and now a 
 dozen or twenty men and three or four women were 
 the entire population ; a grimy, dirty-looking village 
 of the past, for all the world in the storm like an old 
 Swiss mountain village, with manure heaps in front 
 of the houses, and a few sorry looking horses and 
 mules scattered about the pastures. 
 
 It was a comfortless promise after so comfortless a 
 ride. We passed on by the village to a plateau above 
 the river, and tried to make camp ; but everything 
 was wetj — the water especially so, and very muddy ; 
 we couldn't start a fire ; our guide was obstinate for 
 going to the hotel, and after long struggling against 
 it, we capitulated and went. We gained shelter and 
 warmth, and a good supper, and chapters of country 
 experience around the fire with the tobacco, and a 
 small bed for two ; but there are more real comfort 
 and better air and greater cleanliness and real inde- 
 pendence in camp than in these pent-up mountain 
 inns. It was hard to accept such compromise with 
 civilization after the luxuries we had enjoyed in our 
 ground and tent homes. 
 
 But with the morning at Hamilton came sunshine 
 and beautiful views of the South Park country, that 
 lay spread out before us in unending stretches of 
 green prairie ; here lifted up by a perfect embank- 
 ment to a new level, and going on again in another 
 plain ; there rolling off into hills with patches of ever- 
 green ; now bringing down from the mountains, still 
 through pastures green, tributaries to the main river; 
 
THE SOUTH PAKK — EEUNIO]^". 143 
 
 offering on every hand glimpses of beckoning repeti- 
 tions of itself through and over hills ; while ail around 
 in the distant horizon huge mountains stood sentinel, 
 guarding this great upper garden-spot of the State, 
 as if jealous lest its frontiers be invaded, its lands 
 despoiled. No so fine a combination of the grand 
 beauty of the plains, of the lovely beauty of the 
 hills, of the majestic beauty of the mountains, ever 
 spread itself before my eyes. Water-courses were 
 abundant, groves and forests were placed with suffi- 
 cient frequency to diversify the scene and relieve and 
 kindle the eye, while mountains, near and remote, 
 gave their impressive sanction and completeness to 
 the picture. The coloring was brighter yet softer 
 than in Middle Park; and we felt that Colorado had 
 indeed reserved her choicest landscape treasures for 
 us to the last. 
 
 Before noon, six miles away, we caught sight of 
 our companions from Denver, coming over the hill, — 
 some on horseback, some in light carriages, and the 
 rest in wagons with the baggage ; Vice-President, 
 Governors, Indian Agents, mothers, sons, daughters, 
 wives, babies, — two or three dozen of them in all. 
 They looked like one of the patriarchal families of 
 Old Testament times, sons and daughters, servants 
 and asses, moving from one country to another, in 
 obedience to high commandment; and as if repre- 
 sentatives of another tribe, w^e rode out to greet and 
 welcome them to our goodly land. We propitiated 
 their stomachs with our treasured big trout; and 
 after lunch upon the open prairie, the grand caravan 
 moved on, in somewhat disorderly array. 
 
144 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 We made a dozen miles, along the northern line of 
 the Park, over a rich, rolling country, starred by oc- 
 casional lakes, darkened by frequent forests, shadowed 
 by the everlasting snow-fields of the mountains. The 
 inevitable afternoon storm came upon us midway, and 
 we rode into Fairplay, the most considerable town of 
 the South Park country, variously wet and considera- 
 bly disgusted. The ladies stopped by the hospitable 
 fires of the village, while the men went on, and made 
 camp on a hill overlooking the valley, shaded by a 
 few old and stunted pines, and circled by a miner's 
 ditch full of furiously running water. Here half a 
 dozen fires were kindled, as many tents stretched, and 
 the storm passing away, everybody came into camp, 
 and sleep followed supper to the satisfaction of all. 
 
 It was a happy thought to call the parent mountain 
 of this region, of the whole Rocky mountain range 
 proper, for the President who guided the Nation so 
 proudly through civil war and slavery to peace and 
 freedom. Peer among presidents and mother among 
 mountains is Lincoln. The higher Gray's Peak is as 
 high, possibly a hundred or two feet higher; but 
 Mount Lincoln is broader, more majestic, more moun- 
 tainous. Out from its wide-spreading folds stretch 
 three or four lines of snow-covered mountains ; within 
 its recesses spring the waters of three great rivers, 
 the Platte, the Arkansas and the Colorado, that fertil- 
 ize the plains of half the Continent, and bury them- 
 selves, at last, two in the Atlantic and the third in the 
 Pacific Ocean. This is the initial point in our geog- 
 raphy, and a fountain-head of national wealth and 
 strength. This geographical parentage, the repre- 
 
ASCENT OF MOUNT LINCOLN. 145 
 
 sentative association of its name and office, and the 
 enthusiasm kindled by our accounts of the view from 
 Gray's Peak, spread a zest among the larger party for 
 climbing Mount Lincoln; and though the morning 
 was strewn with showers, and huge black clouds hung 
 over the mountain tops in alternation with great rifts 
 of sunshine, these revealing fresh-fallen fields of snow, 
 we determined to take our chances, and galloped ofi", 
 a dozen strong, women and men, up the valley to 
 Montgomery, a dozen or fifteen miles from Fairplay. 
 
 The rain poured relentlessly for the first two hours' 
 ride ; but then the sunshine came out, and joined by 
 half a dozen more at Montgomery, we turned directly 
 up the mountain side. For two or three miles there 
 is a rough wagon road ; beyond that not even a trail 
 that is fixed. Catching sight of the distant goal, we 
 scattered irregularly over the intervening slopes and 
 ravines ; first through richest grasses and most abun- 
 dant and high-colored flowers ; then across huge snow- 
 fields, so soft under the summer sun, that our animals 
 could not bear us without floundering in dangerous 
 depths, and we had to dismount and walk and lead ; 
 next over wide but steep fields of thin mosses, deli- 
 cate in leaf and blossom to the last degree, pink and 
 white and blue, — the very final condensed expression 
 of nature ; all beauty, all tenderness, all sweetness in 
 essence ; and at last, beyond all growth, beyond all 
 snow, out upon miles of broken stones, immeasurably 
 deep, as steep as they could li^ 
 
 To ascend over these . was tough work ; the wind 
 blew biting cold ; clouds charged with hail and snow 
 every few minutes swept over, through us; the air 
 
146 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 was so rare that the animals labored for breath at 
 every step ; the sides so steep and the stones so loose 
 as to render the footing fickle, even dangerous; we 
 could only make upward progress in slow degree by 
 long^ zigzag courses back and forth; and every few 
 minutes the panting, trembling horses and mules 
 would come to a stubborn stop in very fear of their 
 footing. Then we had to dismount and reassure 
 them by leading the way, or find firmer paths. But 
 at last we got as far as horses could go; and a climb 
 of ^Ye hundred feet remained for ourselves of even 
 steeper and still loose-lying rocks to the summit. 
 Then we found our hearts and lungs, if never before ; 
 work as fast as they could, shaking our very frames 
 in the haste to keep up with their duty, we still had 
 to stop and rest every thirty or forty feet, and let 
 them get even with the air. 
 
 Finally on the very crest of the mammoth moun- 
 tain, the one spot higher than all others, than all 
 around so far as could be seen. Our hopes our fears 
 belied, our fears our hopes in turn; the sweep of the 
 horizon was broken by thick clouds; and we could 
 not compare the view with its rival, from Gray's 
 Peak; but the contending elements lent a new maj- 
 esty, almost a terror to the scene. Sunshine and 
 storm were continually at war ; clouds and clearness 
 constantly changing places; now it was all light to 
 the east, and Gray's Peak and all the intervening 
 mountains to the Plains, the Plains themselves, Den- 
 ver itself glowed in golden sunshine, while in the 
 west everything was shrouded in blackness and des- 
 pair; then the clouds came upon and over us, pelting 
 
THE VIEW FROM MOUNT LINCOLiN". 147 
 
 US with snow, and passing by opened great lines of 
 brightness to the west, and we could see on to inde- 
 finable distances of snow-covered mountains, — Sopris 
 Peak, the mountain with the snow-cross, a continent 
 of rocks and snow, dreary yet beautiful in color, ma- 
 jestic yet. fascinating in form. So w^e caught long 
 narrow glimpses of the South Park, and the Arkansas 
 Valley, south of us; and Pike's Peak in one direction 
 and Long's Peak in another were not denied us, — 
 sentinels of nature in the far off corners of the State, 
 rising above clouds, over intervening storms; while 
 deep chasms, yawning recesses opened in ghasthness 
 through the clouds below us on every side. 
 
 The whole vision, fickle, forbidding in many fea- 
 tures, always surprising, never satisfying, piquing 
 us by what was withheld, astonishing us by what was 
 given, though disappointing our hopes, yet was vastly 
 finer than our fears. It was the wildest of mountain 
 views and mountain experiences, such as may be 
 welcomed as a variety, though not chosen as the re- 
 ward for a single excursion. Similar experiences in 
 the high Alps are tamer every way; there is less 
 variety in the landscape ; less color in the mountains 
 and the atmosphere ; above all, less sweep of distance, 
 less piling of mountain on mountain, through the 
 long openings in the clouds. 
 
 We waited as long as the freezing air and the driv- 
 ing snow would let us for wider views of earth and 
 sky; but clouds and storm growing denser, and hav- 
 ing finished our lunch of sandwiches and sardines, 
 pickles and peaches, and, coffee being out of the 
 question, a necessary flask of whisky, we retraced 
 
148 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 the tedious, hard-going way to the valley. Far up, 
 where only rocks reigned, beautiful white and blue 
 birds, like large doves, but called mountain partridges, 
 trotted or flew tamely about us ; and a revolver sadly 
 repaid the faith of some of them. Back among the 
 flowers, we gathered large bouquets of bright paint- 
 er's brush, harebells, fringed gentians, lupins and 
 quaint grasses, and rode into Montgomery aglow with 
 color and excitement, and wet alike from perspiration, 
 snow and rain. 
 
 The whole excursion up from and back to Mont- 
 gomery occupied five hours. The distance cannot be 
 more than six miles to the top ; and the hight of the 
 mountain, though never exactly measured, must ex- 
 ceed fourteen thousand feet above the sea level. The 
 wildest estimates are made by the local population of 
 these higher peaks of Colorado; but unless it be 
 Sopris Peak in the far West, it is not probable that 
 any one of them rises as high as Mount Whitney in 
 the Sierra Nevada of California, which is known to 
 be above fifteen thousand feet. Gray, Lincoln, Pike's 
 and Long's Peaks are the four great mountains of ex- 
 plored Colorado ; they are all above fourteen thou- 
 sand feet high, but probably no one goes higher than 
 fourteen thousand five hundred. 
 
 Montgomery, which lies close at the foot of Mount 
 Lincoln, on the inside, and is about ten thousand feet 
 high, is another of the deserted mining towns of | 
 
 Colorado. There are a hundred or two houses stand- 
 ing, but only one now occupied. Several years ago, 
 the mines in the hill-sides were rich and remunerative, 
 and a population of two or three thousand were 
 
THE EVERLASTING PLATTES. 149 
 
 gathered there. There was an opera house, and 
 saloons and stores by the dozens; but the more readily 
 worked ore gave out, there were no means to reduce 
 profitably what followed in the mines, and fresher dis- 
 coveries elsewhere invited the people "to move on." 
 "Buckskin Joe" is another similar town, ^yo miles off, 
 under another spur of Mount Lincoln. There are 
 good and rich mines at both places, and new ones are 
 even still being discovered ; but, like most of the ores 
 of Colorado, they await cheaper labor and simpler 
 and more searching processes of treatment for their 
 profitable use. 
 
 The Platte Eiver divides, subdivides and redivides 
 almost indefinitely ; and when we get up here amono- 
 its head waters, the brain fairly grows confused with 
 the number of its forks or branches. The same name 
 extends to the remotest subdivision ; and we have the 
 north branch of the south fork of the South Platte ; 
 and the middle fork of the north branch of the south 
 fork of the South Platte, and so on ad infinitum. I 
 wish the Coloradians would abolish the sinuosities and 
 multipHcations, and put the Plattes into numerals, as 
 Platte 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on. I verily believe they 
 would run up to the hundreds ; but that would be bet- 
 ter than the " Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled 
 peppers" nomenclature. Perhaps, though, they mean 
 to make their geography take the place of classics as 
 a discipline for the youthful mind ; if so, ihey have 
 hit upon a very ingenious substitute, not to say im- 
 provement. As between learning the Plattes and 
 conjugating a Greek verb, where's ih^ choice for 
 hardness ? All the time we were in the South Park, 
 
150 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 we were among Plattes, and getting to the heads of 
 Plattes, and each was big enough and independent 
 enough to go alone, and to deserve a name to itself. 
 Fairplay lies on the Platte, and so did every one of 
 our camping grounds for a week. 
 
 I believe I have exhausted my adjectives and every 
 known variety of picture fram.e in trying to set the 
 South Park landscapes in the mind's eye of the reader. 
 But their soft coloring, their rich variety of outline, 
 their long sweep of distance, their grayish-green 
 grasses, their deep-green evergreens, their silvery- 
 green aspens, their summer pictures in their winter 
 frames, — here August, there rising around always 
 January, — only seeing can be feeling and believing. 
 Especially beautiful and exhilarating to sense and 
 spirit are the approaches to the mountains out from 
 the central basin or prairie. First, over slight and 
 soft-rolling hills, through wide valleys, around spurs 
 of the mountains into new valleys, each succeeding 
 one narrower, finally into canyons or chasms, and 
 then up the abrupt hill-side ; flowers that had deserted 
 the plains now beginning, then trees ceasing, and 
 snow-banks appearing ; and finally catching the cold 
 western wind as it sweeps over the crest of pass or 
 hill. Occasionally, in the open prairie country, a 
 ranch where some successor of David tends his flocks ; 
 in the narrow valleys, or on the hill-sides, the deserted 
 cabins of gold-hunters, who had passed on; every six 
 or eight miles a new Platte to cross; and at each 
 ascended mountain top the beginning of a new Platte 
 running through tender grass out of a little round 
 lake, or oozing from under a huge snow-bank. 
 
VIII. 
 
 AN INDIAN "SCARE" AND THE INDIANS. 
 
 Our Experiences with Indian Wars — A Terrible " Scare ** in the Moun- 
 tains — A Night in Camp with Indian Expectations — The Indian 
 Question Generally, Past, Present and Future — The Arkansas 
 Valley — The Twin Lakes and their Beauties of Scenery and Life — 
 Down the Valley and Across South Park again — A Grand Camp 
 Scene — Who we Were and How we Lived — An Evening with 
 Friendly Indians — The Last of our Camp Experiences — Out of the 
 Park, Through the " Garden of the Gods," and Back to Denver — A 
 Motley Procession Through the Town. 
 
 We ran into the edge of an Indian war on both 
 our journeys into the far West. The experience of 
 an Indian scare,^ — that finish to all border life, — was 
 granted to our party each year. Though we rode 
 across the Plains in 1865, under apprehensions, we 
 escaped interruption or delay ; but in continuing our 
 stage journey over the Mountains to Salt Lake, at 
 that time, the hostile redskins broke in on our track, 
 stole the horses, killed their tenders, and obliged us 
 to lie by, in dreary cabins, in the wilderness of the 
 Bitter Creek desert country, till other horses and 
 soldierly protection could be procured. Less real 
 danger but greater alarm visited our excursion 
 among the mountains of Colorado in 1868. Before, 
 
152 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 we were all men, and well armed ; now we had a 
 large company of women and children, and were but 
 poorly prepared for fighting. So we had a temporary 
 share in the horrible excitement of the settlers, when 
 the hostile Indians put on their war-paint, raise their 
 war-whoop, and dash wildly upon the life and prop- 
 erty of the whites. 
 
 The day after our grand mountain experience on 
 Lincoln, we pushed on west out of the South Park, 
 over another range of mountains, and into the valley 
 of the upper Arkansas Kiver. The South Park coun- 
 try is free from rocks or stones; the waste of the 
 mountains is broken and pulverized before it reaches 
 the valleys; and even when we mount above grass 
 and trees and earth, the "rock-ribbed hills" are simply 
 great deposits of small stones, or, more correctly, 
 broken rocks. This is one great element in the soft- 
 ness of its scenery. But as we go over the moun- 
 tains into the Arkansas Valley, there is a change ; the 
 roads become rough with stones; boulders lie along 
 the path or in the hill-sides, and the water-courses 
 have thrust themselves through high walls of solid 
 rock. There is more ruggedness and coarseness in 
 nature; and while the want of it was not felt, now 
 we welcome the new materials in the landscape. Our 
 heavy baggage teams were slow in working up the 
 huge hills and down, and we went into camp at the 
 first passable widening of the side valley. 
 
 But just as we were spreading blankets, and dis- 
 playing tents, — weary with mountain travel, and our 
 heaviest teams far behind, — there dashed in, on a 
 gaunt white horse, a grim messenger from Denver, 
 
THE INDIANS AFTER US. 153 
 
 with official advices to Governor Hunt that the In- 
 dians of the Plains, — the Cheyennes, Arapahoes and 
 Sioux, — were on the ^^war path;" that from seeming 
 friends they had suddenly turned again to open foes ; 
 and were raiding furiously all among the settlements, 
 east, north and south of Denver, stealing horses and 
 shooting the people. We were besought to keep 
 among the mountains, — the home of the friendly 
 Utes, — as the only place of safety, for our company 
 of territorial and federal officials would be a tempting 
 prize for the red men; but the messenger, who 
 proved to be a villainous sensationist, — though of 
 course we did not know this then, — added to his 
 written reports the alarming story that he had met 
 the hostile Indians in the mountains, only that very 
 day, that they had pursued and shot at him, — the 
 rascal even showing as proof the bullet-holes in his 
 saddle, — that he barely escaped by rapid riding, and 
 that they were probably but a few miles back, and 
 on our path. 
 
 Here was serious business, indeed, for such a party; 
 burdened with overloaded wagons, tired horses and 
 defenceless women and children; and all on pleasure 
 and not on war intent. Messengers were sent back 
 to hasten to camp all stragglers, and to warn the 
 Indian agent, with his load of goods and rifles in 
 the Park, to be on his guard, and to come forward. 
 The secret could be kept from no one; the confusion 
 and the excitement quickly grew intense; and that 
 peculiar recklessness or indifference as to ordinary 
 matters, that follows the presence of a deep emotion, 
 was singularly manifest. Tents were shabbily put 
 10 
 
154 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 up; camp was disorderly made; supper was eaten in 
 that mechanical, forced way, without regard to quan- 
 tity, quality or clean plates, that happens when death is 
 in the house ; and elaborate toilets were dispensed with. 
 But we huddled close in together; the animals were 
 picketed near at hand; our fire-arms were put in 
 good order; and up and down the road trusty sen- 
 tinels were posted. On each side were high abrupt 
 hills; it was a "lovely spot" for an ambuscade; but 
 the nearest anybody came to being killed was when 
 one of our sentinels, during the midnight blackness 
 of storm, suddenly entered upon the ground of the 
 other. Indian-shod in sandals, and moving with that 
 noiseless, stealthy tread that hunters unconsciously 
 adopt, the one was almost upon the other before the 
 latter discovered a foreign presence. There was a 
 sudden click of the rifle's cock, a peremptory demand 
 for "personal explanation" without delay, and then, 
 — a friendly instead of a deadly greeting. 
 
 But it was a night to remember, with a shiver, — 
 lying down in that far-off wilderness with the reason- 
 able belief that before morning there was an even 
 chance of an attack of hostile Indians upon our camp, 
 more than half of whose numbers were women and 
 children, — after an evening spent in discussing the 
 tender ways Indians had with their captives, illustrated 
 from the personal knowledge of many present; aroused 
 after the first hour's feverish rest by a new messenger 
 from another quarter, galloping into camp, and shout- 
 ing, as if we were likely to forget, that " the Indians 
 were loose, and hell was to pay;" followed by the 
 coming of furious storm of rain and hail and thunder 
 
HOW TO DEAL WITH THE INDIANS. 155 
 
 and lightning, sucking under our tents, beating througli 
 them, to wet j^illows and blankets, — at any other time 
 a dire grievance, now hardly an added trial; every 
 ear stretched for unaccustomed sound, every heart 
 beating anxiously, but every lip silent; all eagerly 
 awaitino; the slow-coraino* mornino; to brino; renewal 
 of life and the opportunity to go farther on and to 
 safer retreats. 
 
 The experience brought serious thought to us all 
 of the whole Indian question, that puzzle to Congress 
 and Eastern public opinion generally. And the fail- 
 ure, which this unexpected outbreak carried to the 
 last and most promising experiment with the so-called 
 but miscalled " peace policy," has already led to a more 
 intelligent study and understanding of the whole sub- 
 ject by the country, and in the end will procure a 
 resolute reformation of our past treatment of it. The 
 truth here, as in many another dispute, lies between 
 the two extremes of opinion and policy. The wild 
 clamor of the border population for the indiscriminate 
 extermination of the savages, as of wolves or other 
 wild beasts and vermin, is as unintelligent and bar- 
 barous, as the long dominant thought of the East 
 against the use of force, and its incident policy of 
 treating the Indians as of equal responsibility and 
 intelligence with the whites, are unphilosophical 
 and impracticable. The conflict between these two 
 theories, with the varying supremacy of each, has 
 brought us nothing but disaster and disgrace ; we 
 have alternately treated these vagrant children of 
 the wilderness as if we were worse barbarians than 
 themselves or downright fools. It is time we re- 
 
156 OUB NEW WEST. 
 
 spected ourselves and commanded their respect. Now 
 we do neither. 
 
 In the first place, the care of the Indians should 
 be put into a single department at Washington. Its 
 division between the War and Interior secretaries is 
 the cause of half our woes. The war office, as repre- 
 senting force, which is the first element in any suc- 
 cessful dealing with ignorance and dependence, should 
 monopolize their care. Then we should stop making 
 treaties with tribes, cease putting them on a par with 
 ourselves. We know they are not our equals; we 
 know that our right to the soil, as a race capable of 
 its superior improvement is above theirs ; and let us 
 act openly and directly our faith. "The earth is the 
 Lord's; it is given by Him to the Saints for its im- 
 provement and development; and we are the Saints." 
 This old Puritan premise and conclusion are the faith 
 and practice of our people; let us hesitate no longer 
 to avow it and act it to the Indian. Let us say to 
 him, you are our ward, our child, the victim of our 
 destiny, ours to displace, ours also to protect. We 
 want your hunting-grounds to dig gold from, to raise 
 grain on, and you must "move on." Here is a home 
 for you, more limited than you have had ; hither you 
 must go, here you must stay ; in place of your game, 
 we will give you horses, cattle and sheep and grain; 
 do what you can to multiply them and support your- 
 selves; for the rest, it is our business to keep you from 
 starving. You must not leave this home we have 
 assigned you; the white man must not come hither; 
 we will keep you in and him out; when the march of 
 our empire demands this reservation of yours, we will 
 
THE TREATY-MAKING SWINDLE. 157 
 
 assign you another; but so long as we choose, this is 
 your home, your prison, your playground. 
 
 Say and act all this as if we meant it, and mean it. 
 If the tribes would go and submit peaceably, well 
 and good; if they would not, use the force necessary 
 to make them. Treat them just as a father would 
 treat an ignorant, undeveloped child. If necessary 
 to punish, punish; subject any way; and then use 
 the kindness and consideration that are consistent 
 with the circumstances. Use the best of these white 
 men of the border, these Indian agents, many of 
 whom are most capable and intelligent and useful 
 men, to carry out and maintain this policy, so far as 
 is possible; use the army so far as is necessary to 
 enforce it, but withhold the soldiers whenever it is 
 not, — for their presence on an Indian reservation is 
 demoralizing to both parties, — but let all authority 
 proceed from a single head, and that head represent 
 a single force. 
 
 Above all, stop the treaty -making humbug. It is 
 the direct parent of all our Indian woes and theirs 
 too. Neither party keeps the bargain. The Indian 
 is cheated; the Senate changes the provisions; a 
 quiddling Secretary of the Interior or Indian Com- 
 missioner refuses to carry it out ; and from secretary 
 down through contractors and agents, something is 
 taken off the promise to the ear by each, till it is 
 thoroughly broken to the hope of the poor savage. 
 What the Indian wants is to be fed and clothed; the 
 treaty and those who fulfill it on our part may or 
 may not do this for him, oftenest not; he cannot tell 
 what or how much he wants beforehand for these 
 
158 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ends, and if he did, and bargained for it, the chances 
 are ten to one that he fails to get it; or getting it, 
 squanders it at once, and now, hungry and naked, he 
 goes forth to seek relief by the simplest law of na- 
 ture ; and hence his excuse and the excuse of his 
 white sympathizers for war. 
 
 But establish Force for Bargain ; Eesponsibility 
 for Equality; Parentage for Antagonism; see that 
 he is put apart and kept apart from the tide of 
 settlement and civilization; that he has food and 
 clothing, not in gross, but in detail; supplying him 
 the means to help himself in the simplest forms pos- 
 sible, — stock raising is practicable to all the tribes, 
 and tilling the soil possible to most, — and furnishing 
 the rest from day to day; add such education as he 
 will take, such elevation as he will be awakened to, 
 and then let him die, — as die he is doing and die he 
 must, — under his changed life. 
 
 This is the best and all we can do. His game flies 
 before the white man ; we cannot restore it to him if 
 we would ; we would not if we could ; it is his des- 
 tiny to die ; we cannot continue to him his original, 
 pure barbaric life ; he cannot mount to that of civil- 
 ization; the mongrel marriage of the two, that he 
 embraces and must submit to, is killing him, — and 
 all we can do is to smooth and make decent the path- 
 way to his grave. All this is possible ; and it need 
 not cost so much as the mixed state of war and bar- 
 gaining that we have heretofore pursued. In the 
 beginning there must be the display and the use of 
 power to unlearn in the Indians the false ideas our 
 alternately cowardly bargaining and cowardly bully- 
 
THE ARKANSAS YALLET. 159 
 
 ing policy towards them has engendered ; but once 
 inaugurated, it will be simple and successful, — it will 
 give us both peace and protection, and the Indians 
 an easier path to the grave than lies before them 
 now. More briefly and soldierly, General Sherman, 
 now alive at last to the true nature of the question, 
 expresses the new and necessary policy : " Peace and 
 protection to the Indians upon the reservations ; war 
 and extermination if found off from them." 
 
 But to return to our own experiences. The scare 
 wore off under the tonic of a cool, clear morning, with 
 splendid visions of fresh fields of snow glancing in the 
 sunlight, the arrival of our load of rifles and Indian 
 goods safe, a good breakfast of trout and Governor 
 Hunt's best griddle-cakes, and the following summons 
 to horse for the Twin Lakes. Never party moved out 
 of camp more gladly ; and a few miles farther on, the 
 Arkansas Yalle}^ welcomed us into a new country, full 
 of the light and the freshness and the joy of a newly 
 awakened nature. There was a California roll to the 
 hills that led down to the river ; the sage bush that 
 covered them was greener and more stalwart than 
 that of the Middle Park ; and the river bottom held a 
 deeper toned grass, and was alive with grazing cattle; 
 while the Sahwatch range of mountains, that divides 
 the Arkansas Valley from the Pacific waters, was con- 
 tinuously higher than any we had yet looked up to, 
 and its bold majestic peaks bore and brought far down 
 their middles that thin new snow, which is such a 
 touching type of purity, and is never seen without a 
 real enthusiasm. Governor Bross and Vice-President 
 Colfax, who had been off spending the night among 
 
160 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 the miners of an upper gulch, greeted us, too, with 
 felicitations on our safety, and with a company of vol- 
 unteer cavalry, that did not desert us until all appre- 
 hensions of danger had passed away. 
 
 Crossing the river, descending the valley, and then 
 turning up among the western hills, over one, two 
 lines of them, racing and roystering along with our 
 new companions, and in our new joys, we suddenly 
 came out over the Twin Lakes, and stopped. The 
 scene was, indeed, enchanting. At our feet, a half a 
 mile away, was the lower of two as fine sheets of 
 water as mountain ever shadowed, or wind rippled, 
 or sun illuminated. They took their places at once 
 in the goodly company of the Cumberland Lakes of 
 England, of Lucerne in Switzerland, of Como and 
 Laggiore in north Italy, of Tahoe and Donner in Cal- 
 ifornia, and no second rank among them all. One is 
 about three miles by a mile and a half; the other say 
 two miles by one; and only a fifty-rod belt of grass 
 and grove separates them. Above them on two sides 
 sharply rise, — dark with trees and rocks until the 
 snow caps with white, — the mountains of the range ; 
 sparsely-wooded hills of grass and sage bush mount 
 gracefully in successive benches on a third, — it was 
 over these that we came into their presence; while 
 to the south a narrow, broken valley, pushed rapidly 
 by the mountains towards the Arkansas, carries their 
 outlet stream to its home in the main river. Clear, 
 hard, sandy beaches alternate with walls of rock and 
 low marshy meadows in making the immediate sur- 
 roundings of both lakes. The waters are purity it' 
 self, and trout abound in them. 
 
THE TWIJ^ LAKES. 161 
 
 Here we camped for that and the next day, which 
 was Sunday; restored our Indian -broken nerves; 
 caught trout and picked raspberries; bathed in the 
 lakes; rode up and around them; looked into their 
 waters, and on over them to the mountains, — first 
 green, then blue, then black, finally white, and then 
 higher to clouds, as changing in color under storm, 
 under sun, under moon, under lightning. Every 
 variety of scene, every change and combination of 
 cloud and color were offered us in these two days; 
 and we worshiped, as it were at the very fountains 
 of beauty, where its every element in nature lay 
 around, before and above us. 
 
 Also, not to live forever in poetry, we patched our 
 clothes, greased our boots, washed our handkerchiefs 
 and towels, — one would dry while another was being 
 washed, in the dry, breezy air, — and ate boiled onions 
 and raspberry short-cake to repletion. Bayard Tay- 
 lor's letters are at least a guide to the opportunities 
 for good dinners in Colorado ; and ostensibly with the 
 purpose to explore the lakes, and see the falls in the 
 river above^ possibly with a thought to fall upon such 
 hospitality as he experienced in the little neighboring 
 village of Dalton, — another collection of vacant cabins, 
 with a new court-house, and only two occupied tene- 
 ments, — a few of us stole quietly ofif for a Sunday 
 excursion. 
 
 We circled the lakes, as beautiful in detail as in 
 grand effect; picked out many a charming camping- 
 ground for future visits ; found along the shores one 
 or two resident families, and a tent with a stove-pipe 
 through it, where a Chicago invalid was spending the 
 
162 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 summer, gaining vigorous strength and permanent 
 health, and drying quantities of trout, — think of trout 
 so jDlenty as to suggest drying them ! — followed up 
 the bed of the stream two miles or more above the 
 lakes to a very pretty waterflill, and a deep pool, 
 worn out of solid rock, thick with visible trout, whom 
 we could poke with long sticks, but could not se- 
 duce with the fattest of grasshoppers; lunched off 
 the mountain raspberry vines ; tracked a grizzly bear; 
 and looked up the far-stretching gorge through rocks 
 and bushes and vines that were very seducing, — ^but 
 came back to Dalton in time to get our invitation to 
 dinner. There was white table-cloth, and chairs, and 
 fresh beefsteak, and mealy potatoes, and soft onions, 
 and cream for coffee, and raspberry short-cake "to 
 kill," and a lady and gentleman for hostess and host ; 
 everything and more and better even than Taylor 
 had two years before. Going back by the lakes to 
 camp just at sunset, they were in their best estate of 
 color, of light and shade ; and water and mountain 
 and sky met and mingled, and led on the eye from 
 one glory to another, till the joy of the spirit over- 
 came and subdued and elevated the satisfaction of 
 the senses. 
 
 We had entered the Arkansas Yalley so far up that 
 its head was visible. It leads to the lowest pass in all 
 the mountains over to the Pacific slope, not rising 
 above the timber line. Like all the passes of the 
 range, it is ambitious of a railroad, and certainly seems 
 more reasonably so than many others. But for many 
 years to come our continental railroads will find lower 
 and smoother paths both north and south of Colorado. 
 
DOWN THE AKKANSAS YALLEY. 163 
 
 The plan of our journey had been to go from the 
 Twin Lakes down the Arkansas, around the outside of 
 South Park, so nearly as the rock-bound banks of the 
 river would allow, through Canyon City and Colorado 
 City, and up by the Plains, under the eastern line of 
 the mountains, to Denver. Thus we should have 
 circuited all the great central portions of the State, 
 and except San Luis Park, which we should have left 
 in the south, have seen all the principal centers of her 
 population, all the distinguishing features of her 
 geography and her natural beauty. But this would 
 have taken us directly into the path of the now ram- 
 pantly hostile Indians; so we drew in our lines, and 
 made a narrower circle across the South Park, and up 
 to Denver. We lost little or nothing that was dis- 
 tinctive, though some repetitions and modifications of 
 beautiful scenery already or to be made familiar to us. 
 But I urge all who come after us to follow our intended 
 route, and even to extend their trip over into San 
 Luis Park. Here, though the testimony is contra- 
 dictory, will be found a country rich in beauty and 
 resources, and with some features not characteristic 
 of the other great Parks. 
 
 First we rode some twelve miles down the valley. 
 With a mounted escort of about twenty gallant young 
 gold miners, and the addition of two or three camping 
 parties that sought our company home as a sedative 
 to the nervousness of the Indian stories, we made up 
 a grand "outfit." All together, there were from 
 seventy-five to one hundred persons, and as many 
 animals, as it moved back over the mountains into 
 South Park again. The first eight miles were through 
 
164 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 a broken, hilly country, the mountains coming down 
 to the river on each side in great gashes or rolls, 
 occasionally a broad inclined plain, frequently a dry 
 ravine. The soil was light and cold, and sage bush 
 and coarse grass and thin forests were its products, 
 other than gold. Of the latter it holds in deposit 
 a plentiful sprinkling almost everywhere ; and we 
 passed the prosperous mining villages of Granite and 
 Cash Creek, their peoples tearing up the ground all 
 about in eager search for the precious metal. 
 
 Little canyons and big canyons drove our road 
 away from the river and over hills and bluffs for 
 much of these eight miles ; but at the end we came 
 down into a wider and richer opening, and there 
 spread before us a fine agricultural section, the garden 
 of the upper Arkansas. For thirty-five miles now, 
 the river, hugging the hills on the east, lays open a 
 broad, clean, rising plain of from one to ten miles in. 
 width, before the rocks and forests of the western 
 mountains begin. Beyond these thirty-five miles, 
 the river canyons again for a long course, and farm- 
 ing is at an end, and travel down the valley is turned 
 off into South Park till the stream emerges again 
 from its rock embraces. Tributaries of the main 
 stream slash and fertilize this great meadow ; and it 
 bears large crops of grain, grass and roots. Some 
 twenty farmers have brought under profitable culti- 
 vation about seven hundred acres of this valley ; the 
 mines in the valleys above and over in South Park 
 furnish the markets ; a Frenchman, one of the first 
 of these ranchmen, and whose bread and milk we 
 devoured as we went by, returned an income of from 
 
A PAETIXG GLANCE OF THE ARKANSAS. 165 
 
 twelve to fifteen thousand dollars in 1866, as the 
 results of a single season's farming, crops being good 
 and prices high; and, spite of grasshoppers and 
 drouth, the business is uniformly more successful than 
 mining 
 
 Crossing the river through the hospitable French- 
 man's grounds, we turned up the hills, and began to 
 leave this inviting country almost as soon as we had 
 entered it. It beckoned us back by scenes of ex- 
 quisite beauty, clothed in warm sunshine, and at 
 every convenient spot in the ascending hills, we lin- 
 gered for longing looks, up and down, and across its 
 lines. All around on the lower hills, down to the 
 river, guarding its passage, were magnificent ruins of 
 mountains ; huge boulders ; fantastic shaped columns ; 
 lines of palisades; the kernels which water could not 
 wash nor abrasion wear away; groves of rocks; fort- 
 resses upon the river shore, — the Rhine is not more 
 thickly peopled with ruined castles; with pines and 
 aspens and coarse bushes growing upon and among 
 them all, including a new species, called pinyoUy a 
 stunted, sprawling, thick-growing pine, looking, as set 
 in a grove a little way off, like an old apple orchard. 
 Starting from the opposite bank, the open, rising 
 meadow, a great inclined plane of gray and green, 
 stretching miles away up the sides of the grand 
 Sahwatch Mountains, w^hose tops formed a line of 
 snow-fields that overlooked and cooled the whole 
 warm scene of sunshine and life below. Up and 
 down hills we toiled all the afternoon, refreshed only 
 and yet tantalized by occasional glimpses of the beau- 
 tiful valley behind, which seemed to spread out all 
 
166 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 its beauty of form, of scene, of color, to harrow us 
 for so early deserting it. 
 
 The only other sensation of the afternoon's ride 
 was the sudden dashing into our line from behind of 
 a dozen or twenty Ute chiefs and warriors. As we 
 had not learned to know one kind of Indians from 
 another, their galloping in among us stirred the blood 
 a trifle ; but we soon found they were friends, and, 
 pairing off among our mounted men, they were grunt- 
 ing and gesticulating their story into all our ears. 
 They proved to be the leaders of a band of Utes liv- 
 ing down in the San Luis Park country, who had 
 learned, in the mysterious and speedy manner of sav- 
 ages and wildernesses, of the uprising of the hostile 
 Indians of the Plains, and of the presence of Gov- 
 ernor Hunt and our party in this region, and so, trav- 
 eling day and night, they had hurried up to meet us, 
 and see if they were wanted, either to protect us or 
 take the field against their and our enemies. Not with- 
 out selfish thought, too, perhaps, for blankets and beef 
 They camped with us that night, were well fed and 
 well promised, and went back home the next day. 
 The Governor had neither authority nor means to 
 put them into the field against the Plain Indians; 
 nor was it clear that there was any occasion for it. 
 
 "We pushed up near to the tops of the mountains, 
 riding far into the evening, before camping, and 
 finally pitched our tents in a great meadow, heavy 
 with grass, and interspersed with little wooded knolls, 
 within and around one of which we built our fires and 
 laid our blankets for the night. We needed them 
 all, for it was drearily cold before morning, and water 
 
SALT SPRINGS AND MOEE INDIANS. 167 
 
 froze in our cups on the way from the brook, half a 
 mile off! But the forenoon's sun and saddle brought 
 summer warmth back; and we were not long in get- 
 ting over the range and down into South Park again. 
 We entered it about at the middle, and it seemed 
 tamer and less green than in the upper sections. Al- 
 kali and salt deposits whitened the surface in great 
 patches, and so rich are 'the springs with salt at one 
 spot, that a large establishment for evaporating the 
 water and making salt is in operation, and holds a 
 profitable monopoly of the salt market of the State. 
 We made a fine noon camp by one of the everlasting 
 Platte s, and trout-catching was brisk for an hour. 
 
 Here, too, we had another Indian raid, — the out- 
 posts of our old Middle Park Utes, who had heard the 
 story of the Plain Indians coming up into the South 
 Park, and moved over in a body to dispossess them, 
 came wildly and joyfully riding in upon us, a dozen 
 of two, with some white friends from Fairplay. So 
 our escort doubled, and we traveled across the Park 
 with as large and as motley a retinue as ever Oriental 
 prince moved among over the deserts of Asia. Only, 
 with true American individuality, we scattered wildly 
 about, and lingered or hurried at pleasure over the 
 wide open plains, dotted with occasional hill and lake, 
 the latter repeated by mirage in the distance, or by 
 the deceptive resemblance of an alkali field, and cir- 
 cled by the far-distant, far-reaching mountains. Every- 
 thing else failing or fatiguing, from sheer abundance, 
 — mountain, field, grass, forest, color, — the atmosphere 
 remained, a feeling of beauty that ministered to sev- 
 eral senses without ever palling the appetite of either. 
 
168 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 We made grand camp that niglit about a mile 
 beyond Fairplay, on a gently sloping plateau^ backed 
 by a thick aspen grove, watered at its base by a fresh 
 stream, fronted by the broad Park meadows, looking 
 towards sundown, and taking the best light of the full 
 moon through its nightly circle of the horizon. The 
 dozen or twenty Utes enlisted to go through with us 
 to Denver, and made a camp for themselves a few rods 
 away among the trees. The mounted men were 
 usually the first in camp ; they stripped their animals 
 of saddles and bridles and blankets, and sent them 
 galloping off for grass and water. As fast as the 
 wagons came up, they took their places in the grand 
 circle of the camp-ground, and were unloaded of tents, 
 baggage and provisions, and their horses loosened to 
 join the others. Smooth spots were chosen for the 
 tent^ in a semicircle, and the tents put up by the 
 most adroit in that business. There was one for 
 Governor Hunt and his family ; another for Mr. Witter 
 and his, consisting of himself, his wife (Mr. Colfax's 
 sister), a babe eight weeks old, — think of that, you 
 tender mothers in four-walled and close-roofed houses 
 in civilization ! — and Mr Colfax's mother and father ; 
 a third for the young ladies ; Governor Bross and the 
 Yice-President used one of the large covered wagons 
 for lodgings ; my friend and myself had a little tent 
 by ourselves; and the rest, despising such paltry 
 interventions of effeminacy, lay around in the softest, 
 shadiest places, under the wagons, under trees, always 
 near the fires. The little sheet-iron cooking-stoves, 
 one for each of the two messes into which our original 
 party was divided, were simultaneously planted and 
 
COOKING SUPPER IN CAMP. 169 
 
 fired up. The open fires were located, and the Vice- 
 President, Governor Bross, Mr. Thomas of "The Rocky 
 Mountain News/' and any other idle and otherwise 
 incompetent persons, were detailed to fetch wood for 
 them. Soon a huge fire blazed in front of each tent. 
 Then the wood-haulers became water-carriers. Next 
 the fastidious made their toilets ; and Governor Hunt 
 called for assistant cooks. 
 
 This night we were to have an extra meal. To 
 start with, and especially to provide quantity for 
 the capacious Indian stomachs, a herd of cattle were 
 driven up from the meadow, and Mr. Curtis, the 
 Indian interpreter, passing them in review, rifle in 
 hand, and, choosing a fat young cow, sent a ball un- 
 erringly into her forehead, and she fell dead in- 
 stantly. It was the first time I had ever seen this 
 speedy, humane manner of butchering; and Mr. 
 Bergh, the anti-cruelty man, ought to demand its 
 universal use. The animal was soon cut up, and a 
 few choice pieces brought to our camp, but the In- 
 dians carried off the bulk to theirs, and, with forked 
 sticks and open fire, and a little salt, were soon filling 
 up their waste places. The village furnished us cream 
 and fresh supplies of sugar. Soon we had beef- 
 steak frying, mush and milk in proper progress, oys- 
 ters and tomatoes stewing, hominy warming, a huge 
 section of ribs of beef roasting on a forked stick 
 before the fire, coffee and tea brewing, biscuits bak- 
 ing at one mess, and slapjacks browning at another. 
 Governor Bross earned his supper by grinding coffee 
 for half an hour, and afterwards, his hand having 
 grown supple, you could have seen him, seated on 
 11 
 
170 OUR NET^ WEST. 
 
 an empty whisky-keg, turning the griddle-cakes to 
 perfection ; and the writer won his glory and victual 
 by making the " long-sweetening," i, e. white sugar 
 melted into a permanent syrup. Then there were 
 canned peaches and raspberries for dessert. All this, 
 seated on our haunches on the ground, or on bended 
 knees around the board and box that served for 
 tables, each with a tin plate and cup, and knife and 
 fork and spoon to match, and all with appetites 
 worthy the food. We generally " boarded around," 
 that is, ate at the mess which happened to have the 
 most inviting meal, and as there is no knowledge 
 so satisfactory as the experimental on such a subject, 
 it commonly resulted in our eating at both. It is 
 surprising how excellent food can be had in such a 
 camping expedition with a little painstaking and tact 
 in providing and cooking. Governor Hunt was mas- 
 ter of all the arts of camp-life, and under his care we 
 " fared sumptuously every day." The slapjacks and 
 their "long-sweetening" were an incomparable dish, 
 and took the place of bread at Governor Hunt's 
 table. 
 
 Supper over, and the dishes washed, in which last 
 operation "equal rights" were sometimes allowed the 
 women, all gathered around the central camp-fires, 
 with shawls, buffalo robes and blankets for protection 
 from the ground; our friends traveling in company, 
 who had made separate camps adjoining, came over 
 to spend the evening ; to-night our escort party from 
 the Arkansas Valley had supped with us, and were 
 about to say farewell; and their Indian successors, 
 having become happy and hilarious, were invited 
 
GALA NIGHT IN CAMP — THE INDIANS SING. 171 
 
 and welcomed into the circle ; and thus re-enforced 
 and diversified, we made a gala night of it. It was 
 a very curious scene indeed. The blaze of the camp- 
 fire contrasted sharply with the light of the moon, 
 and brought out in fine relief all the hundred va- 
 rying faces and strange costumes gathered around. 
 Speeches were made and songs sung ; Mr. Colfax ad- 
 dressed the Utes, and his words were interpreted to 
 them by Mr. Curtis, and the reply of their chief to 
 us ; and then we called for songs from them. Stimu- 
 lated by a pile of white sugar that Governor Hunt 
 threw down at their feet, they got up and responded 
 with spirit. Standing in a row, shoulders touching, 
 and swaying to and fro in a long line by one motion, 
 they chanted in a low, guttural way, all on one key, 
 and only musical as it was correct monotone. Then 
 there were more songs and sentiments from the 
 whites ; the Indians were dismissed ; our kind friends 
 from the Arkansas said good-by; and soon the fires 
 of camp were dull, and all its life still in sleep, — a 
 sleep of trust and safety, there under the open sky, 
 with a village of all sorts of people a mile away, and 
 a band of savages within six rods. It was all so in- 
 congruous and anomalous to our home thought and 
 life ; and yet we felt as safe, and were as safe, as in 
 double-bolted houses on police-patrolled streets. Only 
 the contrasts forced themselves into the wakeful 
 moments of night and morning, as we turned over 
 and refastened the blankets, and piled more baggage 
 over chilly feet, and peered out into the dead stillness 
 of the camp, broken may-be by the dull snoring of a 
 heavy sleeper, and the far-off browsing of a greedy 
 
172 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 mule; sounds brought near and made loud by the 
 hush of human life, and the reign of nature's peace. 
 
 Out of the Park and into the hills that separate it 
 from the Plains the next day. The way was familiar, 
 the road for the most part good. We scattered along, 
 two or three together, through five or six miles ; clos- 
 ing up for lunch, and again for night camp. Our In- 
 dian escort, familiar with every rod of the country, 
 roamed at will, taking short cuts over the hills, and 
 appearing first in the rear, then far in advance. We 
 had a beautiful camp, after twenty-five miles ride, in 
 a narrow but long little valley, that bowed the sun 
 out at one end, a?? it welcomed the moon up at the 
 other. The next day, too, all among the hills, rid- 
 ing another twenty-five miles; the roads improving; 
 ranches thickening, — no lack now of buttermilk or 
 cream; travelers grew numerous; daily newspapers 
 coming in; and the end dawning. It was a pleasant 
 mountain country, open, free, lightly wooded, abun- 
 dantly watered, and the valleys rich for grass and 
 grain. The streams, too, hold trout, and the hills are 
 thick with raspberries, — it is up here that the Den- 
 verites come for their briefer mountain excursions, 
 and this is the common road for commerce and for 
 pleasure into the South Park. 
 
 Our night camp now was the last of the excursion. 
 It was near the junction of the roads leading to Den- 
 ver by the Plains and to Idaho through the moun- 
 tains. There was a rivalry among the cooking-stoves 
 for the best farewell supper; but the slapjacks gave 
 Governor Hunt the victory, — there was no equalling, 
 no resisting them. Around the camp-fire, we " talked 
 
OUT OF THE MOUNTAINS. 173 
 
 it over;" hilarious with a vein of sadness; humorous 
 with a touch of pathos ; Mr. Colfax made his excel- 
 lent speech, beginning, "this is the sadde.«t moment 
 of my life;" we sang auld-lang-syne, and prepared for 
 an early start in the morning. 
 
 The breakfast dishes were packed dirty, — " after us 
 the Deluge," — and camp was broken by eight o'clock 
 with the cry, " Ho, for Denver." The going out of the 
 mountains was very fine. The several miles through 
 Turkey Creek Canyon, the road winding along with 
 the stream at the bottom of a high gorge of rocks, 
 were fresh and exhilarating; we had gone around 
 canyons before, painfully and laboriously ; now to 
 follow one by a narrow but firm road ojQfered new and 
 picturesque views. This was not unlike the Via Mala 
 of Switzerland ; and coming out, the road circled a 
 high precipitous hill midway in its side, an expensive 
 and excellent bit of road-making, such as is rarely 
 seen anywhere in America. 
 
 Here we overlooked the grand ocean of the Plains, 
 and came upon the struggles of nature to leave off 
 mountain and begin plain. Along here, as at other 
 points below, there seems to have been an especial 
 and antagonistic fold thrown up almost abruptly from 
 the level plain. Pike's Peak, which is distinct from 
 the main range, is the chief endeavor or culmination 
 of this throe of the formation. And around it, as 
 here, are grouped monuments or remains of moun- 
 tains, alike grotesque, commanding, impressive; tak- 
 ing all shapes, and giving the thought that a Power 
 greater and higher than man's had made here fa- 
 miUar home. The collection of these ruins near 
 
174 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 Pike's Peak and Colorado City, which we missed see- 
 ing because of the Indian war, is called " The Garden 
 of the Gods," and the name not unfitly clothes the 
 impression they make. They are not boulders or 
 piles of rock, but what is left of mountains washed 
 and worn away by waters and winds. The body is 
 a fine reddish granite ; and they stand sentinelled 
 about upon the bare closing bluffs of the hills, with 
 forms of such majesty and such personality, as arouse 
 one's wonder and deepen curiosity into awe. 
 
 Down into the last ravine, and out upon the long 
 rolls of the Plains. The Platte and its branches wind 
 about in the far distance, with their gardens of grain 
 and their groves of trees, making a pleasantly varie- 
 gated map of green of the vast picture. Bear Creek 
 especially offers a charming principality of its own. 
 And far in the thin haze the steeples and blocks of 
 Denver stand upon the sky. Herds of grazing cattle 
 are scattered along on both sides of the road; and 
 with a common hunger for home and civilization, 
 beasts and drivers spur each other into rapid gait. 
 Our day's ride of twenty-five miles is finished by two 
 o'clock, and we stop before entering the town to "serry 
 the ranks," and try the unaccustomed draughts of a 
 suburban brewery. 
 
 A circus would have been a poor show compared 
 to the procession that then passed into Denver. First 
 were the faithful Utes, gay with bright blankets and 
 yellow and red paint; a bride among them, beaded 
 and bespangled from head to foot; then our own 
 cavaliers and cavalieresses, their plumage not over 
 gay after a fortnight's mountain use, their animals 
 
RE-ENTKEE TO DENVER. 175 
 
 worn and sorry from hard riding and no oats; next 
 carriages, ambulances and baggage-wagons, out of 
 which peered flapping sun-bonnets and browned faces, 
 with every other wheel bound in huge sticks from the 
 forest to keep them from dropping to pieces; and 
 finally Governor Evans's carriage, altogether minus 
 two wheels, and just lifted from the ground by two 
 poles that dragged their slow length along behind. 
 Despite the solemnity of the town over the Indian 
 raids; despite the dignity of demeanor due to high 
 officials, — Ute chiefs, Colorado chiefs, Illinois chiefS;, 
 Washington fathers, — the street broke into a horse, 
 nay a mule laugh, that rolled along from block to 
 block, and turned the back doors out in affi'ight lest 
 Cherry Creek had come to town again. And then 
 we were dismissed to assure our friends of our iden- 
 tity, and reconstruct ourselves. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE MINES AND THE FAEMS OF COLORADO. 
 
 The Beginning, Growth and Present Condition of the Mining Interests 
 of Colorado — 1859 to 1869 — Central City and its Operations — 
 Georgetown and its Silver Mines — Gulch Mining and its Revival — 
 The Certain Future Growth of the Mining Wealth of the State — 
 The Greater Agriculture Wealth of Colorado — Its Rapid Develop- 
 ment — Fertile Valleys and Astonishing Crops — Cost of Living — 
 Stock Raising — Coal and Iron and Manufactures — Professor Agassiz 
 and the Glaciers — The Population of Colorado and its Character- 
 istics — When to Visit its Mountains and Parks — The Resort of 
 Pleasure Seekers and Health Hunters. 
 
 It remains for us^ before going over into the Great 
 Basin of the Continent, to consider the industrial 
 interests, growth, prosperity and promise of Color- 
 ado. These have only been incidentally alluded to 
 so far; but they deserve special exhibition. The 
 discovery of gold among the sands of the mountain 
 valleys in 1859 was the beginning of the present 
 State. Thousands flocked across the Plains in that 
 year in eager scramble for the fabled wealth. For- 
 tune ebbed and flowed with them as in all mining 
 ventures ; the few won, many struggled and suflered 
 for a bare subsistence, nearly as many more lost all 
 they brought with them, even their hopes, and went 
 
THE MARCH OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Ax Indian Encampment and a Miner's Cabin. 
 
THE TRIAL TIMES OF COLORADO. 179 
 
 back despondent, or went on over the mountains to 
 California or Idaho, desperate. The war sent out a 
 new class of emigrants, neutrals or cowards, willing 
 to run any risks but those of fighting either for their 
 section or their nation. The dirt-washers swept eagerly 
 over the rich surface deposits, moving like grazing 
 herds from spot to spot for fresher fields -, and quartz 
 mining came in to renew the fading hopes, and fix 
 both capital and labor. 
 
 When we first visited the country, in 1865, the 
 original era of speculation, of waste, of careless and 
 unintelligent work, and as little of it as possible, of 
 living by wit instead of labor, of reliance upon east- 
 ern capital instead of home industry, was, if not at 
 its hight, still reigning, but with signs of decay and 
 threatening despair. In the next two years, 1866 
 and 1867, affairs became desperate; the population 
 shrunk ; mines were abandoned ; mills stopped ; east- 
 ern capital, tired of waiting for promised returns, 
 dried up its fountains ; and the secrets of the rich 
 ores seemed unfathomable. Kesidents, who could not 
 get away, were put to their trumps for a living ; and 
 economy and work were enforced upon all. Thus 
 weeded out, thus stimulated, the population fell back 
 on the certainties; such mining as was obviously 
 remunerative was continued ; the doubtful and losing 
 abandoned ; the old and simple dirt washing for gold 
 was resumed, and followed with more care ; and farm- 
 ing rose in respectability and promise. The discovery 
 and opening of specially rich silver mines near 
 Georgetown kept hope and courage alive, and fresh- 
 ened speculation in a new quarter; but the main fact 
 
180 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 of the new era was that the people went to work, 
 became self-reliant, and, believing that they "had a 
 good thing" out here, undertook to prove it to the 
 world by intelligent and economic industry. 
 
 These were the kernel years of Colorado; they 
 proved her ; they have made her. Her gold product 
 went down, probably, to say a million dollars, in each 
 of 1866 and 1867; but it began at once, under the 
 new order of things, to rise ; and agriculture also at 
 once shot up and ahead, and directly assumed, as it 
 has in California, the place of the first interest, the 
 great wealth. No more flour, no more corn, no more 
 potatoes at six cents to twelve cents a pound freight, 
 from the Missouri River; in one year Colorado be- 
 came self-supporting in food; in the second an ex- 
 porter, the feeder of Montana, the contractor for the 
 government posts and the Pacific Railroad; and now, 
 in the third year, (1868,) with food cheaper than in 
 " the States," she forces the Mississippi and Missouri 
 Valleys to keep their produce at home or send it East. 
 She feeds the whole line of the Pacific Railroad this 
 side the continental divide, and has even been send- 
 ing some of her vegetables to Omaha. Her gold and 
 silver product ran up to at least two millions in 1868, 
 got out at a profit of from twenty-five to fifty per 
 cent., and is certainly to be at least three millions in 
 1869. Her agricultural products were near twice as 
 much, certainly three millions for 1868, and perhaps 
 four millions ; though it is difficult to make as certain 
 estimates in this particular, and the Indians worked 
 great mischief with the ingathering of the crops the 
 past fall. 
 
THE QUARTZ-MIN-ING AT CENTRAL CITY. 181 
 
 Central City, in the midst of the mountains on 
 the north branch of Clear Creek, continues to be 
 the center of the gold quartz-mining- and business 
 there was never more healthily prosperous than now, 
 though the population is not so large (in 1868-9) 
 as in 1864-5. But all its stamp mills were in opera- 
 tion in the fall of 1868, and more were being erected ; 
 for after wearily waiting through two or three years 
 for more effective processes for reducing the ores, 
 their owners have set these in operation again, sim- 
 plified, perfected and economized their working, and, 
 from about forty mills and seven hundred and fifty 
 stamps, were then producing near fifty thousand dol- 
 lars of gold a week, at a cost for both mining and 
 milling of from two-thirds to three-quarters that sum. 
 This season is expected to see say fifty mills and one 
 thousand stamps at work in that valley. The most 
 valuable ores of the neighboring mines are not put 
 through this process, but are sold at about one hundred 
 dollars a ton to Professor Hill's smelting or Swansea 
 works, now established there, and working the richer 
 and sulphuretted ores with an economy and com- 
 pleteness that the plain stamp mills cannot do. The 
 ores worked in the latter form the principal product 
 of the mines, and produce under the stamps about 
 twenty-five dollars a ton, while the cost for mining 
 and milling is about fifteen dollars. If steam is used 
 the cost goes up to twenty dollars. The Swansea 
 and the plain stamp mill are the only " processes " 
 now in use in the valley. Professor Hill has proved 
 the success and profit of the former, at least for all 
 high-class ores. He was giving from eighty to one 
 
182 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 hundred and twenty-five dollars a ton for such ore 
 (in 1868), and probably made from thirty to forty 
 dollars a ton on it ; and his purchases amounted to 
 some twenty thousand dollars a month. He was 
 already doubling his furnaces. But the problem is 
 to apply his process profitably to lower class ores; 
 to such as hold from twenty-five to fifty dollars a 
 ton, of which there are almost literally mountains 
 in Colorado. The free or simple gold ores of this 
 grade can be worked well enough by stamps and 
 amalgamation, as in Central City and California, and 
 the cost thereof can be ultimately reduced to prob- 
 ably one-half of present prices ; but these constitute 
 only a fraction of the rich ores of Colorado. Most of 
 them hold both silver and gold, combined with sul- 
 phurets of iron, and a process which gets one leaves 
 the other, except, of course, smelting, which at pres- 
 ent is too expensive for any but highly-freighted ores. 
 This is why thousands of mines are unworked to-day; 
 why scores of mills with unperfected processes, or 
 plain stamps, stand idle, rotting and rusting in all 
 parts of the State ; and why deserted cabins and 
 vacant villages lie scattered in all the valleys about, 
 — telling their tragic tales of loss and disappointment, 
 monuments of the enthusiasm and the credulity of 
 miner and capitalist, who laborexi and invested wildly 
 and before their time. 
 
 The villages of the Central City region lie most 
 uncomfortably squeezed into little narrow ravines, 
 and stuck into the hill-sides, on streets the narrowest 
 and most tortuous that I ever saw in America ; some 
 houses held up in dizzy hights on stilts, others bur- 
 
GEOKGETOWN AND ITS SILVER MINES. 183 
 
 rowed into the stones of the hill, with a gold "lode" 
 in the back yard, and often a well issuing from a rock 
 of precious metals. But here they have struggled 
 into a hopeful permanency, with four to five thousand 
 inhabitants, thriving, orderly, peaceable, busy, sup- 
 porting two daily papers, with churches and schools, 
 and all the best materials of government and society 
 that the East can boast of Down in the close val- 
 leys, and up the steep hill-sides to the very top, rise 
 the mills for grinding out the gold, or the shanties 
 that cover the shafts that lead down after the ore. 
 Farther away, on the mountains, thick as ant-hills or 
 prairie-dog-holes, and looking the same, are "lodes" 
 or leads of mineral, discovered, dug into, pre-empted, 
 but not worked, — hundreds, thousands of them, with 
 fortunes or failures involved in their development, 
 ready to be tried when the discoverer gets time or 
 money, or turned over to a Wall street stock company 
 of ^Ye millions capital. 
 
 Some silver mine discoveries have recently been 
 made in the Central City region ; indeed, there is sil- 
 ver in all the gold ores, and gold in all the silver ores 
 of the State, and lead and copper in most besides; 
 but the head-quarters of the silver business is at 
 Georgetown, ten or a dozen miles over the mountains 
 from Central City, at the head of the south branch of 
 Clear Creek. Around and above this now thriving 
 and most beautifully located of the principal mining 
 villages of Colorado; at nine thousand, ten thousand, 
 on even to twelve and thirteen thousand feet above 
 the sea level, almost unapproachable save in summer, 
 and then only by pack mules or on foot, are many 
 
184 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 marvelously rich silver veins in the rocks. Hundreds 
 of mines have been opened- but only a dozen or 
 twenty are now being actually worked with profitable 
 results. The rest await purchasers from their " pros- 
 pectors," or capital to develop them. The ore from 
 the leading mines ranges in value from one hundred 
 to one thousand dollars a ton. Only two mills for 
 reducing the ore were in operation in 1868; one 
 treated the second class ore, such as will average say 
 two hundred dollars a ton, reducing it by crushing or 
 stamping, then washing with salt to oxidize it, and 
 then amalgamating with quicksilver, at a cost of from 
 fifty to one hundred dollars a ton; and the other 
 smelting the higher priced ores, at a cost probably of 
 one hundred to two hundred dollars a ton. The lat- 
 ter establishment buys outright most of the ore it 
 reduces, and has paid all the way from five hundred 
 to six hundred and seventy-five dollars a ton for it. 
 Both processes get out from seventy-five to ninety 
 per cent, of the assay value of the ore ; but they are 
 imperfect and expensive, and much of the best ore 
 is now sent East for treatment. The Equator mine, 
 owned by a party of railroad men from Chicago, is 
 one of the two or three prizes there, and sends its 
 first-class ore, worth from nine hundred to one thou- 
 sand dollars a ton, all the way to Newark, N. J., to be 
 reduced. Thirty tons, sent East in September, 1868, 
 realized over twenty-two thousand dollars in silver. 
 Georgetown now has a population of about three 
 thousand, and the best hotel in the State. It is one 
 of the places that every tourist should visit, partly 
 for its silver mines, partly because the road to it up 
 
THE CAUSES OF MINING FAILUEES. 185 
 
 the South Clear Creek is through one of the most 
 interesting sections of the mountains, and partly that 
 it is the starting-point for the ascension of Gray's 
 Peaks. The traveler can go up to the top of that 
 mountain and back to Georgetown between break- 
 fast and supper -, and if he will not take his tour by 
 the Snake and Blue Kivers to the Middle or South 
 Park, he should certainly make this day's excursion 
 from Georgetown. 
 
 Scattered about, in Boulder District, on the Snake, 
 over on the upper Arkansas, up among the gulches 
 of the South Park hills, are a few more quartz mills, 
 some in operation, more not ; but the principal busi- 
 ness of quartz mining is done in the sections I have 
 named, in Gilpin and Clear Creek Counties. Mill 
 City, Empire, and Idaho are villages in this section, 
 with their mines and mills, doing a little something, 
 struggling to prove their capacity, but hardly in a 
 single case making money, partly because of the 
 poverty of the ore, but chiefly because it is refractory, 
 and will not yield up its possessions to any known 
 and reasonably cheap process. Time, patience, and 
 cheaper labor will bring good results out of many of 
 these investments ; but others will have to go to swell 
 the great number of failures that stand confessed all 
 over this as all over every other mining country. 
 
 There are great tunneling schemes proposed or 
 started in the Georgetown silver district, by w^hich 
 the various ore veins of a single mountain are to be 
 cut deep down in their depths, and their wealth 
 brought out of a single mouth in the valley, at a much 
 cheaper rate than by digging down from the top on 
 
186 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 the vein's course and hauling up. The "Burleigh 
 drill" from Massachusetts, that has been in use in the 
 Hoosac tunnel, has been introduced there for this 
 purpose ; and successful mining on a grand scale will 
 soon take this form, not only there, but in Nevada, 
 and indeed in most of our mining States. 
 
 The other form of mining, known as gulch-mining 
 or dirt-washing, is increasing again, and employed full 
 three hundred men during the season of 1868. Fifty 
 to seventy-five of these were at work in the Clear 
 Creek and Boulder Valleys; but the great body of 
 them were scattered through Park, Lake and Sum- 
 mit Counties, on the Snake and other tributaries of 
 the Blue Kiver ; on the upper Plattes in South Park; 
 and on the upper Arkansas and its side valleys. They 
 averaged twelve dollars a day to a man the last 
 year ; but the season for this kind of mining is less 
 than half the year, in some places because of ice 
 and snow; in most for lack of water. The year's 
 product from gulch-mining certainly footed up half 
 a million dollars, probably a hundred thousand more. 
 New gulches and fresh "bars," or deposits of sand, 
 brought down from the hills by the streams, were 
 opened last year in preparation for another season's 
 work; and it is not unreasonable to look for a 
 million of dollars from gulch-mining in 1869. 
 
 These figures seem small compared with the amounts 
 reported to be got out in the years following the first 
 gold discoveries in 1859, — in '60 to '64, — when one 
 year's production ran up as high as six or eight 
 millions, and for several years averaged probably 
 four ; when hundreds, if not thousands, of eager miners 
 
THE GULCH-MINING AND ITS DITCHES. 187 
 
 were gathered in a single gulch^ and ran over its 
 sands with a reckless waste, taking off the cream of 
 the deposits, and then moving on to new places, and, 
 finally exhausting both their own first enthusiasm, 
 and all the best or most obvious chances, turning 
 away in disgust at a " played out" territory. But the 
 business is now resumed in a more systematic, intelli- 
 gent and economical way ; labor is cheaper ; miners 
 are satisfied with more moderate returns ; and there 
 is really almost no limit to these valleys and banks, 
 under the hills and along the rivers, whose sands and 
 gravel hold specks of gold in sufiicient quantity to pay 
 for washing over. An intelligent investigator of the 
 subject tells me that the whole of South Park would 
 pay three to four dollars a day for the labor of wash- 
 ing it over. But I pray it may not be done while I 
 live to come to these Mountains and the Parks ; for 
 gold-washing leaves a terrible waste in its track. 
 
 In the valley of the Blue and its tributaries, more 
 extensive works for gulch-mining exist than in any 
 other district ; there, not less than eighty-four miles 
 of ditches to bring water to wash out the gold with 
 have been constructed, and the amount of water they 
 carry in the aggregate is eight thousand seven hun- 
 dred and fifty inches. One of these ditches is eleven 
 miles long; two others seven miles each; another 
 five, and so on ; and they cost from one thousand to 
 twelve hundred dollars a mile. Says Mr. Thomas of 
 "The Kocky Mountain News," from whose careful 
 and elaborate investigations last summer and fall, I 
 draw many of the facts of this chapter : — " The facili- 
 ties and opportunities for gulch-mining in this county 
 12 
 
188 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 (Summit) are equal if not superior to any in Color- 
 ado. Many of the gulches now worked will last for 
 years to come, while much ground remains yet un- 
 touched. The Blue River will pay for ten miles or 
 more, at the rate of five to ten dollars per day to the 
 man. Many places will pay from three to five dollars 
 per day to the man, and will be worked when labor 
 becomes lower and living cheaper." 
 
 In the Granite district of the upper Arkansas, 
 quartz gold is found in simple combinations, or 
 "free," as in California, which can be mined and 
 reduced for eight to ten dollars a ton, while it yields 
 from fifteen to one hundred dollars; but these are 
 ores from near the surface, and it is yet a problem 
 whether they will not change on getting down in the 
 veins, as in other Colorado mines, and become "re- 
 fractory," and impossible of working at a profit by 
 any yet known process. 
 
 The Cinnamon mines, just over the southern border 
 in New Mexico, have attracted much attention for the 
 last two years. Several quartz mills are in operation 
 there ; but the main yield, so far, is from the gulches, 
 and the total product this year is about a quarter of 
 a million dollars. San Luis Park, too, is believed to 
 be rich in mineral deposits ; some promising discov- 
 eries have already been made there; and indeed in 
 almost every quarter of the State are the beginnings 
 of developments that inspire great faiths, each in its 
 own particular circle of prospectors and prophets. 
 
 There is apparently no limit, in fact, to the growth 
 of the mineral interests of Colorado. The product of 
 1868 was full two millions; this year it will be at 
 
THE AGRICULTUEE OF COLORADO. 189 
 
 least a million more; and the increase will go on 
 indefinitely. For the business is now taken hold of 
 in the right way ; pursued for the most part on strictly 
 business principles; and every year must show im- 
 provements in the ways and means of mining and 
 treating the ores. The mountains are just full of ores 
 holding fifteen to fifty dollars' worth of the metals per 
 ton; and the only question, as to the amount to be 
 got out, is one of labor and cost as compared with the 
 profits of other pursuits. 
 
 But inexhaustible as is Colorado's mineral wealth ; 
 progressive as henceforth its development; predom- 
 inant and extensive as are its mountains ; high even 
 as are its valleys and plains, — in sj)ite of all seeming 
 impossibilities and rivalries, Agriculture is already 
 and is destined always to be its dominant interest. 
 Hence my faith in its prosperity and its influence 
 among the central States of the Continent. For agri- 
 culture is the basis of wealth, of power, of morality ; 
 it is the conservative element of all national and 
 political and social growth; it steadies, preserves, 
 purifies, elevates. Full one-third of the territorial 
 extent of Colorado, — though this third average as 
 high as Mount Washington, — is fit, more, rich for 
 agricultural purposes. The grains, the vegetables and 
 the fruits of the temperate zone grow and ripen in 
 profusion; and through the most of it, cattle and 
 sheep can live and fatten the year around without 
 housing or feeding. The immediate valleys or bottom 
 lands of the Arkansas and Platte and Rio Grande and 
 their numerous tributaries, after they debouch from 
 the mountains, are of rich vegetable loams, and need 
 
190 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 no irrigation. The uplands or plains are of a coarse, 
 sandy loam, rich in the phosphates washed from the 
 minerals of the mountains, and are not much in use 
 yet except for pastures. When cultivated, more or 
 less irrigation is introduced, and probably will always 
 be indispensable for sure crops of roots and vegetables; 
 but for the small, hard grains, I have no idea it will 
 be generally found necessary. It is a comparatively 
 dry climate, indeed ; but showers are frequent, and 
 extend over a considerable part of the spring and 
 summer. 
 
 At a rough estimate, the agricultural wealth of 
 Colorado in 1867 was a million bushels of corn, half a 
 million of wheat, half a million of barley, oats and 
 vegetables, 50,000 head of cattle, and 75,000 to 
 100,000 sheep. The increase in 1868 was at least 50 
 per cent. ; in the northern counties at least 1 00. 
 Indeed, the agriculture of the northern counties, 
 between the Pacific Kailroad at Cheyenne and Denver, 
 which has grown to be full half that of the whole 
 State, is the development almost entirely of the last 
 three years. South, in the Arkansas and Eio Grande 
 Valleys, the farming and the population are older, 
 going back to before the gold discoveries. This is 
 the Spanish-Mexican section, and was formerly a part 
 of New Mexico. Its agriculture is on a large but 
 rough scale, and only the immense crops and the 
 simple habits of the people, — chiefly ignorant, de- 
 graded Mexicans, — permit it to be profitable. The 
 soil yields wonderfully, north and south. There was 
 authentic evidence of 316 bushels of corn to the acre 
 in the neighborhood of Denver last season -, 60 to 75 
 
THE CROPS OF COLORADO. 191 
 
 bushels of wheat to the acre are frequently reported ; 
 also 250 bushels of potatoes; and 60 to 70 of both 
 oats and barley. These are exceptional yields, of 
 course, and yet not of single acres, but of whole fields, 
 and on several farms in different counties. Probably 
 30 bushels is the average product of wheat; of corn 
 no more, for the hot nights that corn loves are never 
 felt there ; of oats say 50, and of barley 40, for the 
 whole State. Exhaustion of the virgin freshness of 
 the soil will tend to decrease these averages in the 
 future ; but against that we may safely put improved 
 cultivation and greater care in harvesting. The mel- 
 ons and vegetables are superb ; quality, quantity, and 
 size are unlike unsurpassed by any garden cultivators 
 in the East. The irrigated gardens of the upper parts 
 of Denver fairly riot in growth of fat vegetables; 
 while the bottom lands of the neighboring valleys 
 are at least equally productive without irrigation. 
 Think of cabbages weighing from 50 to 60 pounds 
 each ! And potatoes from 5 to 6 pounds, onions 1 to 
 2 pounds, and beets 6 to 10 1 Yet here they grow, 
 and as excellent as big. But hardly a beginning has 
 been made in the occupation of the arable lands 
 of the valleys and plains. The Cache-a-la-Poudre, 
 the first branch of the Platte below Cheyenne, has 
 200,000 acres of tillable land, only 5,000 of which are 
 as yet cultivated. Its oat crop in 1868 averaged 48 i 
 bushels to the acre, and its cows paid for themselves 
 in butter in that single season. The Big Thompson 
 and Boulder and the Platte itself are the other prin- 
 cipal farming valleys north of Denver; and oats, 
 wheat, potatoes and butter are their chief productions. 
 
192 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 The southern valleys, the South Platte, its tributary 
 Bear Creek, and the Arkansas and its branches, grow 
 more corn, having the warmer nights, which that 
 crop loves. Even with the loose farming ways of 
 the Arkansas region, where the old Spanish-Mexican 
 habits more or less prevail, the grains average 30 to 
 50 bushels of corn, 20 to 40 of wheat, and 40 to 45 of 
 oats per acre. Provisions are cheaper now in Denver 
 than in New England ; beef, indeed, is only half as 
 much ; and with such bountiful results from the soil, 
 and the ease and certainty of all farming operations, 
 they must continue rapidly to recede. All other 
 prices are indeed past assimilating to the Eastern 
 standards; but the essential articles of food will al- 
 ways henceforth be even lower. 
 
 Stock-raising on the Plains is simple and profitable 
 business. The animals can roam at will, and a single 
 man can tend hundreds. The only enemies are the 
 Indians and the diseases that the Texas cattle bring 
 up from the South. But the former are the great evil; 
 the confusion, danger and loss they created last sea- 
 son sum up a serious blow not only to stock-raising, 
 but to all farming. Even if the evil is suppressed 
 hereafter, last season's raids are a year's loss to the 
 agricultural interests of Colorado. Many farmers 
 have given up in despair from danger and disaster, 
 and retired from the field; others hesitate and refuse 
 to come, who otherwise would* be there at once and 
 in force of capital and energy, to enter upon the 
 business. 
 
 These great interests of mining and farming shade 
 naturally into others, and already there are the be- 
 
THE MANUFACTURES OF COLORADO. 193 
 
 ginnings of various manufacturing developments, as 
 there are the materials and incentives for such under- 
 takings without stint. Some fifteen or twenty flour- 
 ing-mills are in operation throughout the State. The 
 Colorado wheat makes a rich hearty flour, bearing a 
 creamy golden tinge ; and I have eaten nowhere else 
 in America better bread than is made from it. The 
 wheat will rank with the very best that America pro- 
 duces, but is more like the California grain than that 
 of "the States." Coal mines are abundant, and sev- 
 eral are being profitably worked along the lower 
 range of the mountains; as, indeed, they have been 
 found and opened at intervals along the line of the 
 Pacific Eailroad over the mountains, and are already 
 supplying its engines with a most excellent fuel, — a 
 hard, dry, brown coal, very pure and free-burning ; in 
 Boulder Yalley and Golden City, iron is being manu- 
 factured from native ore; at Golden City, there is 
 a successful manufactory of pottery ware and fire- 
 brick; also a paper-mill and a tannery, and three 
 flouring-mills ; the State already supplies its own salt; 
 soda deposits are abundant everywhere, and will be 
 a great source of wealth; woolen mills are projected 
 and greatly needed, as wool-growing is the simplest 
 of agricultural pursuits there; a valuable tin mine has 
 been lately discovered and its value proved, up in the 
 mountains; and this very year the Railroad will be 
 one of Colorado's possessions, and bring harmony and 
 unity and healthy development to all her growth, 
 social, material, and political. Also, in another year, 
 she will be formally admitted to the Union, and so re- 
 sponsible for her own government, be it good or bad. 
 
194 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 As we came out of Colorado, Professor Agassiz was 
 leading a new party in among its plains and moun- 
 tains. He was already seething with enthusiasm ; all 
 Brazil was nothing, he said, to what he had seen of 
 natural beauty and scientific revelation in crossing 
 the Plains; but the half was not told him. When he 
 came face to face with the mountains, — the moun- 
 tains in perfection and the mountains in ruin, — and 
 their phenomena of parks and wealth of verdure, then 
 indeed he might feel he was among the "Gardens 
 of the Gods." The Professor found abundant mate- 
 rials to sustain his wide-spread glacial theories; all 
 these vast elevated plains, from Missouri River to 
 Mountains, from Montana to Mexico, — the very heart 
 of the Continent, — are but in his eye the deposit of 
 great fields of ice, stretching down from these hills 
 and washing down their bights. What must they 
 have been once to have lost so much and remain so 
 Titanesque ! — to be still the Mother Mountains of the 
 Continent ? 
 
 The settled population of Colorado is now at least 
 fifty thousand, perhaps sixty thousand. About one- 
 quarter is Mexican, all in the southern section, and 
 ignorant and debased to a shameful degree. The rest 
 are as good a population as any new State can boast 
 of They are drawn from all eastern sources ; but the 
 New England leaven, though possibly not the New 
 England personality, is dominant in their ambition, 
 their education, their morality, their progressive spir- 
 ituality. The pioneer miners, the " prospectors," are 
 a class of characters by themselves. Properly they 
 never mine ; to dig out and reduce ore is not their 
 
WHEN TO YISIT COLORADO. 195 
 
 vocation ; but they discover and open mines, and sell 
 them, if they can ; at any rate move on to discover 
 others. Men of intelligence, often cultivated, gener- 
 ally handsome, mostly moral, high-toned and gallant 
 by nature, sustained by a faith that seems imperisha- 
 ble, putting their last dollar, their only horse, possibly 
 their best blanket, into a hole that invites their hopes, 
 working for wages only to get more means to live 
 while they prospect anew and further, they suffer 
 much, and yet enjoy a great deal. Faith is comfort, 
 and that is theirs; they will "strike it rich" some 
 day ; and then, and not till then, will they go back to 
 the old Ohio, Pennsylvania or New England homes, 
 and cheer the fading eyes of fathers and mothers, and 
 claim the patient-waiting, sad-hearted girls, to whom 
 they pledged their youthful loves. The vicious and 
 the loafers, the gamblers and the murderers, have 
 mostly "moved on;" what is left is chiefly golden 
 material ; and the men and the mines and farms of 
 Colorado, all alike and together, are in a healthy and 
 promising condition, and insure for her a large growth 
 and a generous future. The two things she lacketh 
 chiefly now are appreciation at the East and women ; 
 what she has of both are excellent, but in short sup- 
 ply ; but the Railroad will speedily fill the vacuums. 
 August is the best month in which to visit Color- 
 ado, for that is nearest summer in the high moun- 
 tains; the streams are lower, purer and more readily 
 forded; the weather most uniformly clear. But any 
 time from June 15 to September 15 will answer for 
 visiting either or all its great Parks; and I beg every 
 Across the Continent traveler to give at least a week 
 
196 - OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 and if possible a month to the interior regions of Col- 
 orado. To us their skies and their waters repeated 
 the fabled fountain of perpetual youth. It is to them 
 that we believe America will go, as Europe to Switzer- 
 land, for rest and recreation, for new and exhilarat- 
 ing scenes, for pure and bracing air, for pleasure and 
 for health. They offer no wonderful valley like the 
 Yo Semite; no continental river breaking through 
 continental mountains like the Columbia; no cata- 
 ract like Niagara; no forests like those of the Sierra 
 Nevada range, no nor the equals, in diversified form 
 and color and species, of those of New England or 
 of Pennsylvania; and yet I am greatly mistaken if 
 the verdict of more familiar acquaintance by the 
 American people with America is not, that here, — 
 among these central ranges of continental moun- 
 tains and these great companion parks, within this 
 wedded circle of majestic hill and majestic plain, 
 under these skies of purity, and in this atmosphere 
 of elixir, lies the pleasure-ground and health-home 
 of the nation. 
 
X. 
 
 BY STAGE INTO UTAH. 
 
 The Old Stage Lines Across the Continent — Features of Domestic 
 Life Among the Mountains — Some of the Women of the Border- 
 Things in Cans — Game, the Antelope and the Grizzly Bear — A 
 Rapid Stage Kide Down the Mountains — Entrance into the Salt 
 Lake Valley — View of Salt Lake City — Its Beauty of Location, its 
 Capacities of Wealth, and its Future Realizations — The Reception 
 by the Mormons — A Sunday Morning Hot Sulphur Bath. 
 
 Our stage ride of 1865 from Denver to Salt Lake 
 City is an experience now of the past. With delays 
 by the Indians, it was a full week through scenery 
 already described in the account of the Railroad 
 route, but hardly to be enjoyed now in the quick 
 movement of the trains. The stage enterprises of 
 that day and this region were mammoth undertak- 
 ings. The proprietors made and repaired the roads; 
 bridged the streams; settled and subdued the coun- 
 try, — building ranches every ten or fifteen miles, and 
 wherever possible gathering harvests of hay and 
 grain for their horses; fought the Indians, protected 
 and supplied the emigrants and the freighters, and 
 literally "run" the whole civilization and barbarism of 
 all the interior West Mr. HoUaday, who owned most 
 
198 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 of the continental lines then, covering nearly three 
 thousand miles, had some six thousand horses and 
 mules, and about three hundred coaches, paid a gen- 
 eral superintendent ten thousand dollars a year, had 
 to draw all his corn for the first thousand miles from 
 the Missouri River at a cost often of ten to fifteen 
 cents a pound, his hay frequently hundreds of miles, 
 and his fuel fifty or a hundred miles ; and though the 
 government paid a great price for the mails and the 
 fares were high, the business was very uncertain, and 
 some years he lost money. 
 
 Two or three features of domestic and social life 
 among the mountains and along the stage road con- 
 stantly impressed themselves upon us. Housekeeping 
 in large families, — and children do accumulate sur- 
 prisingly there, — was a very serious burden to the 
 wives and mothers. Their Eastern sisters, in their 
 direst woes with poor servants, can have but faint 
 appreciation of the burdens of living and entertain- 
 ing there, where cooks and waiting girls were not to 
 be had at any price. We went to rich dinners and 
 bountiful teas at the homes of distinguished and 
 wealthy citizens, and sat and ate without the com- 
 pany of hostess or any other ladies. She and her 
 friends were busy in the kitchen, and came out only 
 to stand behind our chairs, and change the plates and 
 pass the viands. There is an uncomfortable feeling 
 in being thus entertained ; but it was the necessity 
 of the country, and all parties made the best of it. 
 
 But how women, especially, can live contentedly 
 in some of those out-of-the-way places on the borders, 
 working hard and constantly, among rough and self- 
 
CANNED FKUITS AND VEGETABLES. 199 
 
 isli men, and preserve their tender femininity, keep 
 themselves neatly and sometimes even gracefully 
 dressed, and not forget their blushes under free 
 compliments, would be passing strange, if we had 
 not seen it daily in our journey, and did not know 
 it by the whole history of the sex. We certainly 
 have seen young women out here, miles away from 
 neighbors, knowing no society but their husbands 
 and children and the hurried travelers, — depending 
 on the mails for their chief knowledge of what the 
 world is doing, — who could pass, without apology or 
 gaiicherie, to presiding over a Boston dinner party or 
 receiving in state at Washington. Not all, indeed, 
 are such, but they are frequent enough to be noted 
 with both surprise and pleasure. 
 
 Here, too, in the mining camps of the Mountains, 
 and along the continental pathway, — away from home 
 orchards and gardens, and city markets, — we wonder 
 at as we enjoy the free use of canned vegetables, fruits, 
 fish and meats. We realize for the first time how 
 great is the extent of the business of their prepara- 
 tion, — how useful and beneficent is the invention of 
 the process. They are on every table ; few New Eng- 
 land housekeepers present such a variety of excel- 
 lent vegetables and fruits, as we found everywhere 
 here, at every hotel and station meal, and at every 
 private dinner and supper. Corn, tomatoes and beans, 
 pine-apple, strawberry, cherry and peach, with oys- 
 ters and lobsters, are the most common; and all of 
 these, in some form or other, you may frequently find 
 served up at a single meal. These canned vegeta- 
 bles and fruits and fish are sold, too, at prices which 
 
200 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 seem cheap compared with the cost of other things 
 out here. They range from fifty cents to one dollar 
 a can of about two quarts. Families buy them in 
 cases of two dozen each. And every back yard is 
 near knee deep in old tin cans. 
 
 Though the Indians did not dare to attack us, — so 
 proudly did we sweep over the mountains with our 
 armory of rifles^ double-barreled guns and" revolvers, 
 — and game scented our approach and fled away; 
 even a party of emigrants in our rear were thrown 
 into terrible alarm by our firing at a mark in our 
 frontj — ^yet the ridiculous little prairie dogs and the 
 funnier and littler squirrels, — beautifully striped with 
 black, and hardly bigger than a mouse, — sported 
 carelessly in our warlike presence. One rifle brought 
 down an antelope, five hundred yards away, as he 
 stopped to gaze through his limpid, liquid eyes in 
 wonder on our turn-out; and we found him and his 
 successors most luscious eating, — the most delicate of 
 the deer family, tender, melting and digestible. The 
 antelopes weigh from sixty to eighty pounds, are 
 fawn-like in color and appearance, have short, branch- 
 ing horns, and are plenty at all seasons upon the 
 high plains and in the mountains of the region. The 
 elk, as large as a small cow, and with horns from four 
 to six feet long, and the black-tailed deer, are rarer 
 game ; this was not the season for shooting them ; 
 and they cling closer to the mountains. 
 
 Only to the grizzly bear, terror yet tempter of all 
 hunters, did we give the honors of the road ; finding 
 him in our path, the stage made a detour, as a trib- 
 ute of respect. An old across-the-continent traveler, 
 
ENCOUNTER WITH A "GRIZZLY." 201 
 
 who had met and slain every other enemy, tells the 
 story of his at last finding his ambition gratified by 
 coming into close range with one of these tough and 
 hugging fellows. He had the advantage of seeing 
 and not being seen by the animal. Now was the 
 hour of his opportunity and his glory. Putting his 
 rifle in order, and looking up his pistols, he again 
 regarded the beast. How he had grown, meanwhile ! 
 But my hero quickly drew his rifle upon him; yet 
 the strange animal grew so rapidly in size that he 
 bethought himself of the means of escape, if he should 
 miss a fatal fire. Satisfying himself as to these, he 
 raised his rifle again; but the bear had grown into 
 such a monster now that the himter thought dis- 
 cretion was, on the whole, the better part of valor, 
 and that if the animal would let him alone, he would 
 let him, and withdraw from the scene while he could, — 
 and he did! 
 
 Out of the Indian dangers, across the dreary Bitter 
 Creek desert, over the continental divide, into a wel- 
 come bed and breakfast at Fort Bridger, and then on 
 over the rough but greener hills towards Salt Lake, 
 our stage now rolled rapidly through summer and 
 winter scenes, with sky of blue and air of amber 
 purity ; and when the round moon came up out from 
 the snowy peaks, giving indescribable richness and 
 softness to their whiteness, we kept on and on, now 
 up mountain sides, now along the edge of precipices 
 several hundred feet high, down which the stumble 
 of a horse or the error of a wheel would have plunged 
 us ; now crossing swollen streams, the water up to the 
 coach doors; now stammering through morass and 
 
202 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 mire, plunging down and bounding up so that we 
 passengers, instead of sleeping, were bruising heads 
 and tangling legs and arms in enacting the tragedy 
 of pop-corn over a hot fire and in a closed dish; and 
 now from up among the clouds and snow, we tore 
 down a narrow canyon at a break-neck rate, escaping 
 a hundred over-turns and toppling on the river's brink 
 until the head swam with dizzy apprehensions. 
 
 Finally, of a hot Sunday morning in June, the 
 stage, winding through a long, dusty, narrow can- 
 yon, emerged from the hills, and came out upon the 
 plateau or "bench," as they call it here, that over- 
 looks the valley of the Jordan, the valley alike of 
 Utah Lake and the Great Salt Lake, and the valley 
 of the intermediate Great Salt Lake City. It was a 
 scene of rare natural beauty. To the right, upon 
 the plateau, lay Camp Douglas, the home of the 
 soldiers, and a village in itself, holding guard over 
 the town, and within easy cannon-range of tabernacle 
 and tithing-house ; right beneath, in an angle of the 
 plain, which stretched south to Utah Lake and west 
 to the Salt Lake, — "and Jordan rolled between," — 
 was the city, regularly and handsomely laid out, 
 with many fine buildings, and filled with thick gar- 
 dens of trees and flowers, that gave it a fairy-land 
 aspect; beyond and across, the plain spread out five 
 to ten miles in width, with scattered farm-houses and 
 herds of cattle ; below, it was lost in dim distance ; 
 above, it gave way, twenty miles ofi", to the line of 
 light that marked the beginning of Salt Lake, — the 
 whole flat as a floor and sparkling with river and 
 irrigating canals, and overlooked on both sides by 
 
GKEAT SALT LAKE CITY. 203 
 
 hills that mounted to the snow line, and out from 
 which flowed the fatness of water and soil that makes 
 this once desert valley blossom under the hand of 
 industry with every variety of verdure, every prod- 
 uct of almost every clime. 
 
 No internal city of the Continent lies in such a 
 field of beauty, unites such rich and rare elements of 
 nature's formations, holds such guarantees of great- 
 ness, material and social, in the good time coming of 
 our interior and Pacific development. We met all 
 along the Plains and over the Mountains, the feeling 
 that Salt Lake was to be the great central city of 
 this West ; we found the map, with Montana, Idaho, 
 and Oregon on the north, Wyoming and Colorado on 
 the east, Nevada and California on the west, Arizona 
 on the south, and a near connection with the sea by 
 the Colorado River in the latter direction, suggested 
 the same ; we recognized it in the Sabbath morning 
 picture of its location and possessions; we are con- 
 vinced of it as we see more and more of its opportu- 
 nities, its developed industries, and its unimproved 
 capacities. The only drawback lies in the Mormon 
 and polygamous rule of Brigham Young and his asso- 
 ciates, which repels freedom of settlement, and denies 
 independent social, business and political action here, 
 and keeps the city out of sympathy with the grand 
 free movement of American life. But stubborn and 
 fanatical as this element is, it must give way, I am 
 sure, to the forcible logic of self-interest. The lust 
 for many wives is weaker, after all, than the lust for 
 many dollars. 
 
 Mr. Colfax's reception in Utah was excessive if not 
 13 
 
204 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 oppressive. There was an element of rivalry between 
 Mormon and " Gentile " in it, adding earnestness and 
 energy to enthusiasm and hospitality. First "a troop 
 Cometh/' with band of music, and marched us slowly 
 and dustily through their Camp Douglas. Then, es- 
 caping these, our coach was waylaid as it went down 
 the hill by the Mormon authorities of the city, on 
 hospitable duty intent. They ordered us to dismount ; 
 we were individually introduced to each of twenty 
 of them; we received a long speech; we made a long 
 one, — standing in the hot sand with a sun of forty 
 thousand lens-power concentrated upon us, tired and 
 dirty with a week's coach-ride: was it wonder that 
 the mildest of tempers rebelled? — transferred to other 
 carriages, our hosts drove us through the city to the 
 hotel; and then, — bless their Mormon hearts for the 
 thought, — they took us at once to a hot sulphur bath, 
 tlmt nature liberally offers just on the confines of the 
 city, and there we washed out all remembrance of the 
 morning suffering and all the accumulated grime and 
 fatigue of the journey, and came out baptized in fresh- 
 ness and self-respect. A stream of hot sulphurous 
 water like a big brook poured into a great basin that 
 had been prepared for its reception; and swimming 
 in its luxury of freshness and abundance, with antici- 
 pations of the tens of thousands that the Railroad 
 will bring; of invalids seeking strength, of the dirty 
 seeking cleanliness, of connoisseurs in life seeking 
 comfort, we dedicated Salt Lake City to the use and 
 the enjoyment of the great American people. 
 
^'^V^*l/fWPlll!iifl|j|||| 
 
 ma 'JiiJii: iiwwiii :i'»'''ii™!''-"i"'''»'^ 
 
XI. 
 
 A WEEK IN SALT LAKE CITY. 
 
 Tlie Hospitalities of Mormons and Gentiles — What we Saw and what 
 we Didn't See — The Beginning and Growth of Utah — The Organ- 
 ization of Labor and Immigration — Character of the Population and 
 of the Rulers — The Close Church and State Government — Education 
 — " The Tithings" — Brigham Young and his Power — Dining with the 
 Twelve Apostles — Bathing in Salt Lake — The City and How it is 
 Located and Built — The Tabernacles and Brighaln Young's Harem — 
 Irrigation and Crops — The Basin Filling Up with Water — Are the 
 Mormons to be Drowned Out? — The Productions of the Mormons — 
 The Introduction of Manufactures — Gold and Silver Mining, and 
 Brigham Young's Views on it — An Evening at the Mormon Theater. 
 
 We had a week and an extra Sunday in Salt Lake 
 City, all passed under the most favorable circum- 
 stances for acquiring knowledge of its people, its in- 
 stitutions, and the natural beauties and phenomena 
 of the neighborhood. Mr. Colfax and his friends 
 were the official guests of the city authorities (Mor- 
 mons,) who showered every attention, public and 
 private, upon them, and, with Brigham Young and 
 other high dignitaries in church and state, seemed 
 eager to gain their respect and propitiate their favor. 
 These representative Mormons asserted their right- 
 mindedness towards the government, reasonably be- 
 
208 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 fore and again since in doubt; talked vigorously 
 against the South and slavery; explained freely and 
 frankly the condition and affairs of their country; 
 discussed polygamy with us alike on social, moral 
 and religious grounds; gave us most excellent food 
 and drink; and were every way hospitable, courte- 
 ous, and as refined in manners and treatment as men 
 can be who call their wives "women" and treat them 
 as servants. They certainly " put their best foot fore- 
 most" in our presence; if it turned out, in some 
 respects, a cloven foot, — for not long after we got 
 away, they began abusing the party, assailing the 
 government with vituperative language, and perse- 
 cuting with new zeal the anti-Mormon elements of 
 their population, — it was not perhaps strange, cer- 
 tainly it was no more than we expected. Such an- 
 tagonisms as their peculiar institution of polygamy 
 necessarilv create, — such debasement of otherwise 
 healthy natures as it produces, sufficiently explain 
 these inconsistencies. 
 
 But their hearts and homes were open to us for the 
 time; also, their most luxuriant and then strawberry- 
 bearing gardens ; nothing was denied to us except fa- 
 miliar intercourse with their families. I am not quite 
 certain whether this arose from the disposition to shut 
 us out from the testimony of the wives on the polyga- 
 my question, or from their regarding the women so low 
 as to be unworthy our attention ; probably it was from 
 a mixture of both reasons that the doors of their 
 harems were not open to us. Prominent Mormons, 
 who had but one wife each, were not slow to give us 
 the pleasure of their society; but I remember only 
 
THE GENTILES. 209 
 
 one case where we were freely presented to double 
 wiveSj — and then I know I felt more embarrassed than 
 they seemed, in being introduced, one after another, 
 to two Mrs. Jones's by the common husband. Though 
 pretty and tidy, they acted the part and bore the 
 manner of mere servants in his presence ; and since, 
 he growing wealthy and more saint-like, younger and 
 prettier companions have been added to his retinue. 
 At the time of our visit, the " Gentiles," as the non- 
 Mormons are called, had both a pleasant and vigorous 
 social organization in Salt Lake City. They had con- 
 gregational worship, a Sunday-school, a daily paper, 
 and frequent social festivities; and, though only two 
 or three hundred in number, they comprised many 
 families of culture and influence, merchants, federal 
 civil officers, agents of telegraph and stage lines, and 
 officers of the army, stationed near by, and were 
 making a pretty strong aggressive warfare on the 
 faith of the saints. Some of them were repentant and 
 rebellious Mormons; and altogether they seemed the 
 "cloud no bigger than a man's hand" that would 
 spread over the whole Mormon heavens. But since 
 that time, the life has been greatly stamped out of 
 them by Brigham Young's cunning persecutions. 
 Their men of business have been overawed by with- 
 drawal of Mormon patronage; in one or two cases, 
 where Gentiles undertook to maintain legal rights 
 against Mormons, they have been waylaid and shot; 
 they have had no encouragement or help from the 
 government at Washington, — for a full year a reign 
 of terror prevailed among them, and their minister 
 and many others retired from the field of conflict; 
 
210 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 and only now again is there a positive nucleus of 
 Gentile influence, social, religious and materialj re- 
 newed in the city. Both Catholic and Episcopal mis- 
 sionaries are upon the ground; and with the results 
 of railroad communication to aid them, — its additions 
 to, and diversifications of, the populations and inter- 
 ests of the city and territory, — the Gentile elements 
 seem sure to increase, to grow bold, and to make a 
 permanent and successful contest for fair play and 
 equal rights in this center of a religious, social and 
 political despotism, as exclusive and as cruel as that 
 of slavery ever was in the South. 
 
 It is over twenty years since the pioneer band of 
 Mormons, driven oflf by the persecutions of their 
 neighbors in Illinois and Missouri, and led by Brigham 
 Young, though he was not yet the real head of the 
 church, wandered wildly across the Plains and over 
 the Mountains in search of a new home. Coming 
 out of the last range of the Rocky Mountains, into 
 this beautiful basin, no wonder they had a revelation 
 to stop and plant their banners here. But it was 
 then dry and unfruitful ; the summer sun baked the 
 earth ; the winter's snows covered it ; only by living 
 on roots and coarse herbs and meanest of animals 
 did they survive the first year ; only by patient toil, 
 and the introduction of irrigation over their lands, 
 were they able to produce recompensing crops. But 
 a fanatical zeal inspired them ; necessity drove them ; 
 the will of a master-spirit in Young led them ; and 
 they established themselves, and sent back for their 
 associates, scattered through the border States of the 
 then West. 'With, these began, too, the overland 
 
MOEMON IMMIGRATIOISr FROM EUROPE. 211 
 
 emigration to California, inspired by the gold dis- 
 coveries of 1849, and out of the latter, thej drew 
 recruits, and better, they got a market for their sur- 
 plus products. Thus they gained a foothold • thus, — 
 by gold and silver discoveries in territories beyond 
 and around them, — have they largely gained their 
 subsequent growth and wealth. California, Nevada, 
 Idaho and Montana have each in turn contrib- 
 uted to the success of Utah. No industry, living 
 within and on itself, no mere zeal of religion, no mere 
 lust of flesh could have planted such a State, could 
 have bred such a power as centers now in the valley 
 of Salt Lake. 
 
 But the second great fact in the history of Utah is 
 the recruiting of its population direct from Europe. 
 America might furnish the leaders, but never the 
 followers for such a society as this; and almost at 
 the beginning, missionaries were sent among the igno- 
 rant and struggling farmers, miners and mechanics of 
 England and the north of Europe, to gain converts 
 and recruits. The appeals to their desire for greater 
 physical comfort, — for a home of independence and 
 plenty, — with the offer of the means of emigration, 
 — firing them, where possible, with a simple religious 
 zeal, — polygamy being in no general sense one of 
 the motives offered, or doctrines preached, — brought 
 abundant followers; and thus has the population of 
 Utah been made up. Of its hundred thousand or 
 more residents, five-sixths at least are the direct re- 
 sults of these emigration movements. Keaching here, 
 their homes and their lives were assigned them; their 
 industry organized and enforced; and they were made 
 
212 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 not only self-supporting but contributors to the com- 
 mon wealth of the church. The expenses of their 
 emigration were charged to them, and thej were 
 obliged to work them out. It is in the organization 
 of this emigration, and of its labor after coming 
 here, that the great ability has been displayed in the 
 creation and maintenance of this State. No so wide- 
 spread a community in the country probably has, on 
 the average, so industrious and thrifty, and yet so 
 ignorant a population. It thinks little, but works 
 much; the dependence and mental debasement of 
 their European life are continued ; their only improve- 
 ment is in physical well-being; their sole intellectual 
 stimulus is in the direction of a coarse, material re- 
 ligion and a fanatical faith in the fathers of the church. 
 For never on the American Continent was there 
 organized so complete a union of church and state as 
 here. The political, social and business organizations 
 of Utah are, each and all, subservient to that of the 
 church. The machinery of that is complete and in- 
 timate ; it reaches everywhere, it controls everything. 
 Never was there a more perfect religious autocracy 
 than governs Utah. The federal officers, sent here 
 as the executive and judicial organization of the 
 Territory, find themselves powerless. The Territo- 
 rial Legislature, the juries, and the local police, are 
 made up entirely of Mormons, subservient to the 
 church organization. There is no sympathy here 
 with the federal government, only a hollow, cheat- 
 ing recognition of it. Without an army, none of its 
 laws can be enforced; no jury can be found even to 
 recognize offenses under them. So the federal office- 
 
HOW THE MORMONS REIGN AND RULE. 213 
 
 holders either settle into a profitable and pleasant 
 subserviency to Brigham Young; fret themselves 
 with vain endeavors to uphold the central authority 
 and resist the Mormon defiance; or stand and wait, 
 spectators and witnesses of offenses they cannot pre- 
 vent or punish, bearing a vain testimony so far to 
 the unity and completeness of a power as utterly 
 foreign to the spirit of the Republic, as utterly an- 
 tagonistic to its authority, as a branch of the Turkish 
 empire, set down in the interior of our Continent, 
 would be. 
 
 Conflict with federal authority is, however, care- 
 fully, cunningly avoided. It is a passive not an open 
 resistance that is set up against it. And so thorough 
 is the organization of the church, so subservient are 
 the people, that this policy is not so difficult to main- 
 tain as it would be in any other American com- 
 munity. City and Territory are parcelled out into 
 districts, with a bishop or elder, closely affiliated 
 with the central authority, set over each. This 
 man, bound by comphcity in the cardinal sin of 
 polygamy and the common opportunity of money- 
 making, is preacher, chief of police and magistrate 
 alike ; monopolizes or shares in the trade of his pre- 
 cinct; and expounds and administers the law to the 
 generally ignorant people of his precinct, who are 
 kept to the simple industries of the farm and the 
 household, and forbidden by the enforced levies of 
 the church and the high prices charged for every- 
 thing they may wish to buy, as well as by the feeble- 
 ness of their ignorance, from ever rising above that 
 sphere. Hard vv^ork and a simple morality are strictly 
 
214 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 enforced habits. They rank along with faith in Brig- 
 ham Young, subserviency to his decrees, and hatred 
 of Gentiles, as the cardinal doctrines of Mormonism. 
 Distilling and liquor-selling are monopolized by the 
 church and its officers; three or four " Gentile " liquor 
 shops are permitted in Salt Lake City, but they are 
 burdened with license charges of three hundred dol- 
 lars a month each by the Mormon authorities; while 
 the followers of the church are strictly forbidden to 
 frequent them. Disorder, child of independence, 
 would be a fatal element, and so everything which 
 leads to either is most carefully eliminated from Mor- 
 mon society. Thus, in the name of thrift and order 
 and morality, is the subserviency necessary to Mor- 
 mon rule maintained ; and the conceded results of 
 temperance and industry and aggregate wealth, so 
 often pointed at with pride by the Mormon writers 
 and orators, are purchased by the destruction of 
 everything that marks or secures individual growth. 
 As a matter of course, general education is not in 
 great favor. In 1865, there were no Sunday-schools 
 in the Mormon Church, and no day schools but pri- 
 vate ones, and these under the patronage and con- 
 trol of the church authorities. The criticism and 
 example of the Gentiles, and the demands of the 
 better class of their own parents, have since driven 
 the Mormon managers to introduce Sunday-schools, 
 and to increase the opportunities for general instruc- 
 tion. But the schools are still practically private ; 
 though the school-houses are built by the public, i. e., 
 the church, tuition fees are charged ; the teachers are 
 of a low order and exclusively Mormons ; the instruc- 
 
BEIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS POWEE. 215 
 
 tion is narrow and limited, and embraces, as a cardinal 
 feature, faith in the Mormon rules ; and such as it is, 
 the last statistics show that only half of the children 
 in the Territory, between the ages of 4 and 16, are 
 able or are allowed to avail themselves of it. 
 
 Brigham Young is at the head of everything; all 
 tributes pour into him ; all authority flows out from 
 him as the center of church and state. He dispenses 
 favor; he administers justice and injustice; he re- 
 ceives the revenues, and he spends them, — both with- 
 out any apparent accountability ; the best farms are 
 his; the largest saw-mills, the most prospering manu- 
 factories; of all the good things, whether women, or 
 lands, or forests, coal mines, or contracts, he has, if 
 not the monopoly, certainly the first choice, and the 
 disposition of all. There is immense wealth in his 
 possession; but what proportion of it he calls his 
 own, and what the church's, no one knows, — he ap- 
 parently recognizes no distinction. The church rule, 
 that every man shall contribute one-tenth of all his 
 productions or profits each year to the church, is 
 rigidly enforced wherever possible without serious 
 rebellion. The most of the population, particularly 
 all those who cultivate the soil, observe it, paying 
 their contributions "in kind;" and this practically 
 gives the church the control of all the produce mar- 
 kets of the country. The few rich manufacturers 
 and traders, who some years harvest great profits, 
 but who are generally closely affiliated with Young, 
 either escape the "tithing" altogether, or compound 
 for it by a special money contribution. Some of the 
 "Gentile "merchants have heretofore kept the peace 
 
216 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 with the authorities by respecting, directly or indi- 
 rectly, the "tithing" rate of the church; but lately 
 Young and his coadjutors have undertaken to crush 
 out all opposition by establishing, as a strict rule of 
 the church, that Mormons must, on no aceount, trade 
 with any but Mormons. The pains and penalties of 
 exclusion from the church and utter damnation after 
 death are threatened for those who disobey this rule. 
 The first effects of this were greatly injurious, if not 
 fatal, to many Gentile merchants in Salt Lake City; 
 but its full results are not yet determined. It is 
 probably not universally obeyed, and its force will 
 weaken rather than increase with the movement of 
 population and competition consequent upon the 
 Kailroad. There are certainl}^ several very large and 
 wealthy Gentile mercantile houses in Salt Lake City; 
 and a considerable percentage of the trade and busi- 
 ness life of the town is in such hands. 
 
 Next to Young, whose title is President, and whose 
 province is unlimited, are a Council of Twelve 
 Apostles, the first of whom is Vice-President. Below 
 these is the order of the Seventies, included in 
 which are the Bishops and Elders ; and these, with a 
 small circle of capable business men, attached to 
 Young and the church, apparently by mercenary or 
 lustful motives alone, make up the entire governing 
 power of City and Territory. Five hundred must be 
 a large allowance for the men in authority and in 
 influence, and half of these I should say were only 
 powerful by reason of a narrow, bigoted zeal, that 
 made them useful in carrying out the decrees of men 
 of broader power and more mixed motives. Brigham 
 
HOW WE PASSED OUR WEEK. 217 
 
 Young is not the only man of real power in this or- 
 ganization; and it is not safe to say it would crumble 
 to pieces with his death ; but the number of those, 
 both capable and willing to lead a crusade for its 
 maintenance, I do not believe exceeds a dozen. It is 
 easy to recognize among many of the most prominent 
 men in this autocracy mere camp followers, who 
 would never, of choice, endanger either lives or 
 property in its maintenance. Under strong pressure 
 or temptation, they would hasten to make terms for 
 themselves. But for the time, the organization is 
 compact and vigorous, and apparently able and ready 
 to make a fight for its existence and independence. 
 
 But this is not describing how we passed our week 
 among the Saints and Sinners of Salt Lake City. We 
 went out in the mornings to see the city ; the wonder- 
 ful hot sulphur springs, baths for all the rheumatics 
 and dyspeptics of our especially rheumatic and dys- 
 peptic American nation ; the cotton-factory and model 
 flouring-mill of President Young; the orchard and 
 garden of "Brother" Felt; the great store and the 
 new tannery of "Brother" Jennings; the silk-worm 
 beginnings of "Brother" Watt, who wanted to marry 
 his half-sister, but Brigham Young, finding she was 
 pretty, "sealed" her to himself; but, finding she was 
 false, "sealed" her back again, and she is now one of 
 her brother's wives ; up the canyons for the water- 
 works and the view of the valley; and so on. In the 
 afternoons, we dined out with the " twelve Apostles," 
 on fat and juicy mutton, rich and rare roast beef, 
 turkeys of the New England Thanksgiving pattern, 
 vegetables to match in every variety, and plum-pud- 
 
218 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ding a la King George, with golden seal champagne 
 and deep old port to moisten their digestion, — what^ 
 ever these Apostles preach to their followers, they 
 are not necessarily ascetics themselves ; — while in 
 the evenings, we went to Gentile strawberry festi- 
 vals and danced with pretty girls who were content 
 to have many lovers but one husband, or took a quiet 
 tea with a one-wive Mormon. Again we spent the 
 day with the soldiers at Camp Douglas, back of the 
 city, and heard the black, sad side of Mormonism, as 
 told to them by its victims, or made a long excursion 
 over to Rush Valley, where the discharged California 
 soldiers were hopefully developing silver mines. Our 
 Mormon hosts took us, one day, on a picnic excur- 
 sion to Salt Lake, — a "stag" picnic, be it noted, — 
 so we could bathe mi naturel, our friends said, — so 
 we should not ask their "women" how they liked 
 polygamy, we thought. 
 
 This Lake is, indeed, the phenomenon of the whole 
 interior basin. It lies across the valley fifteen miles 
 from the city, is very irregular in shape, but about 
 fifty miles wide by a hundred long, and Salter than 
 any ocean ; so salt, indeed, that fish cannot live in it, 
 that three quarts will boil down to one quart of fine 
 pure salt, and on whose dense waters the bather can 
 float like a cork, though the sharp brine must be kept 
 from his mouth and eyes under penalty of severe 
 smarting. High rocky islands stud its area; under 
 the free wind of the open country, its waves have an 
 ocean roll, and will breed sea-sickness at short notice ; 
 but its picturesque surroundings, the superb sunsets 
 within its waters, and the buoyant brine, all invite to 
 
THE LOCATION OF THE CITY. 219 
 
 pleasure-sailing upon its surface. What elements 
 these, and the plentiful sulphur springs of the neigh- 
 boring hills, and the charming scenery of the whole 
 valley, and especially the fine location and premature 
 development of the city, all are in the making of Salt 
 Lake the great interior watering-place of the Conti- 
 nent ! Invalids and pleasure-seekers will flock hither 
 by the thousands ; and the simplicity of Mormon life, 
 with its single indulgence, will sooner or later be sup- 
 planted by the various resources of pleasure that 
 fertile and self-indulgent fashion can combine around 
 a new and greater Saratoga. But when we came out 
 of our bath in Salt Lake, a thin crust of fine salt dried 
 upon our bodies, and in rubbing ourselves off with 
 towels, we had a most excellent substitute for a rough 
 flesh-brush. 
 
 The city has, indeed, a most charming location, and 
 is happily laid out and improved. Coming out of the 
 mountains on the east and north, we enter upon a 
 high plateau or "bench" of land, commanding the 
 valley for forty or fifty miles to the south, and west 
 tq Salt Lake and the mountains that seem to rise 
 from out of the water, and, stretching southward, 
 guard the valley in that direction. The city lies 
 directly below, on a second or third bench or grada- 
 tion, as the open plain falls away into the lower val- 
 ley, through which the River Jordan sluggishly winds 
 its way from Utah Lake, forty miles in the south, into 
 Salt^Lake itself, the home of all the streams of the 
 mountains and valleys around. Between river and 
 lake, and under the highest mountains, on what seems 
 almost a level plain, but holding a grade that keeps 
 
220 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 the irrigating streams in quick motion, and promotes 
 dryness and health, — with wide sweep of fertile val- 
 ley before it, Salt Lake shimmering with the sunlight 
 in the far distance, and the delaying Jordan ribbon- 
 ing the gardens of grain and grass below, — with 
 mountains behind white-capped in snow even under 
 the summer's sun, and hills in front that often rival 
 them in hight and garniture, — Salt Lake City spreads 
 itself with luxuriance of space, and with luxuriance 
 of garden and orchard growth, that almost hides its 
 buildings. 
 
 The streets are broad and regular, — one hundred 
 feet from curb to curb, — dividing the town into 
 squares of just ten acres, and these again are di- 
 vided into eighths, which leaves an acre and a quar- 
 ter for each home. Only in the business streets and 
 in the lower and poorer quarters are these home 
 lots subdivided. The houses were originally alto- 
 gether of adobe, or mud bricks dried in the sun; 
 now, stone and red brick are introduced for the 
 larger buildings and stores, and lumber varies with 
 the earlier material in dwellings and second-rate busi- 
 ness establishments. The houses are mostly small, 
 and a story or a story and a half in hight; they 
 often suggest the peculiar institution of the country 
 by a long frontage with numerous distinct entrances. 
 The number of wives a man has is frequently indi- 
 cated by the number of front doors to his house. 
 
 A full square of ten acres in the center of the city 
 is devoted to the central church edifices. Here is the 
 old Tabernacle, a large, low, barn-like structure, hold- 
 ing several thousand people ; also the new Tabernacle, 
 
BRIGHAM young's SQUARE. 221 
 
 which will contain from ten to fifteen thousand, is two 
 hundred and fifty feet long, one hundred and fifty 
 feet wide, and ninety high, built of stone, covered by 
 a grand arched dome, and looks in the distance like a 
 huge deep platter turned bottom up. In the most 
 conspicuous location of the same square lie the foun- 
 dations of the Grand Temple, begun many years ago, 
 and to be finished when the church has leisure and 
 money enough. The plan proposes a structure that 
 rivals the cathedrals of Europe, and is grander than 
 any church edifice in America. This square is sur- 
 rounded by a strong, high wall of adobe brick and 
 plaster. 
 
 Similarly guarded from cunning eyes or profane 
 entrance by a high, strong wall, is Brigham Young's 
 entire square, opposite. Within this are the "tith- 
 ing-house," where are gathered in the tenth part of 
 every man's yearly productions or profits, the other 
 offices and store-houses of the church, two large 
 houses for Young and his extensive family and his 
 private offices, a school-house with cupola for his 
 children, immense barns and sheds for his animals, 
 and far in the rear his grand model flouring-mill. 
 Fine gardens and orchards fill up the vacant places. 
 Here is the central life and authority of the State. 
 The telegraph of the church, extending all over the 
 Territory, centers here, and here is the office of the 
 special church newspaper organ. 
 
 The principal business street is long and well built. 
 
 There are a few stores of the very first character, 
 
 both in size, amount and variety of goods, and extent 
 
 of business done. There are several firms, some 
 
 14 
 
222 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 Mormon, others not, that do a business of a million 
 and over each every year. The great Mormon estab- 
 lishments often connect manufacturing of some kind 
 with their business, and frequently have branch stores 
 all over the territory ; but they are all in the hands 
 of close allies, relatives, or subservient instruments of 
 Brigham Young, and are under his sharp surveillance. 
 The hotels, two of which are large and well managed, 
 are all kept by Mormons ; and so far as possible, all 
 the avenues to money-making, all the instrumen- 
 talities of life in the city, are in the hands of creatures 
 of the head of this Church and State organization. 
 If a Mormon is suspected of unsoundness, or is getting 
 too rich and powerful, he is persecuted out of the 
 way, or " called of God " to go as missionary some- 
 where, and leave his business in somebody else's 
 hands, or the " tithings " are applied so sharply as to 
 keep his fortune within reasonable bounds. Many 
 cases are given in illustration of these and other ways 
 of enriching the church and preventing the growth 
 of individual power. 
 
 Within the last few months, a new plan has been 
 devised for extending and compacting the business 
 affiliations of the church. It is that of putting all 
 extensive trade and manufacturing operations into 
 cooperative associations, and inviting all the Mormon 
 population to take shares in them. The great Mor- 
 mon stores in Salt Lake City have been thus con- 
 verted, and the principle is rapidly extending to all 
 business enterprises in every part of the Territory. 
 It has two advantages, — that of extending the com- 
 mon interests of the grand organization, and ensuring 
 
irrigatio:n' and the crops. 223 
 
 the enforcement of the rule that Mormons shall buy 
 only of Mormons, and that of distributing the losses 
 of any revulsions in business, or any break-down of 
 the Mormon rule, growing out of the revolutionary 
 influences of the Railroad. It strengthens the power 
 of the leaders, and it enables them to change their 
 investments, or, as they say in Wall street, to ^'un- 
 load." 
 
 The long dry summers of all our New West render 
 irrigation a necessity to all diversified culture of the 
 soil. The Mormons were the first people in the United 
 States to resort to this means of counteracting the pe- 
 culiarities of this western climate. They began it at 
 once on their arrival in the Salt Lake Yalley, and have 
 carried it to a good degree of perfection, especially 
 in the city and its neighborhood. The streams that 
 come out from the mountains are diverted and di- 
 vided through the streets of the town, and among the 
 farms of the valley above the River Jordan. Thus 
 lively brooks course down the gutters of the streets, 
 keeping the shade trees alive and growing, supplying 
 drink for animals and water for household purposes, 
 and delightfully cooling the summer air; besides be- 
 ing drawn off in right proportion for the use of each 
 garden. Once a week is the rule for thus watering 
 each crop ; to-day a man takes enough for one portion 
 of his garden; to-morrow for another; and so through 
 his entire possessions and the week. Under this reg- 
 ular stimulus, with a strong soil, made up of the wash 
 of the mountains, the finest of crops are obtained; 
 the vegetable bottom lands of the New England rivers 
 or of the interior prairies cannot vie with the prod- 
 
224 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ucts of the best gardens and farms of these western 
 valleys and plains nnder this system of irrigation. 
 There needs to be enough rain in the spring or win- 
 ter moisture remaining to start the seeds, and there 
 generally is; after that, the regular supply of water 
 keeps the plants in a steady and rapid growth, that 
 may well be supposed to produce far finer results, 
 than the struggling, uneven progress of vegetation 
 under dependence upon the skies, — a week or a 
 month of rain, and then a like prolongation of sun- 
 shine. The gardens in the cities and villages are 
 tropical in their rich greenness and luxuriance. I 
 do not believe the same space of ground anywhere 
 else in the country holds so much and so fine fruit 
 and vegetables as the city of Salt Lake to-day. 
 
 The soil of this and the smaller neighboring valleys 
 is especially favorable to the small grains. Fifty and 
 sixty bushels is a very common crop of wheat, oats 
 and barley; and over ninety have been raised. Pres- 
 ident Young once raised ninety-three and a half 
 bushels of wheat on a single acre. I should say the 
 same soil located in the East, and taking its chances 
 without irrigation, would not produce half what it 
 does here with irrigation. Laborious and expensive 
 as the process must be, the large crops and high 
 prices obtained for them have made it a very profit- 
 able recourse. 
 
 But a singular change seems to be creeping over 
 all our Western regions under settlement, in this 
 matter of climate and of rain. Summer rains are 
 palpably on the increase, and the necessity of irri- 
 gation is lessening, especially for the grains and slow- 
 
EXTENT OF THE MORMON" SETTLEMENTS. 225 
 
 growing vegetables. When the Mormons first came 
 here, there was no rain from April to November; but 
 now summer showers are of frequent occurrence. It 
 is so in Colorado and in California, — there is a growth 
 in the moisture of the summer and a lessening need 
 of artificial watering for the main crops. The phe- 
 nomenon is peculiar, and has jet received no satis- 
 factory explanation. Connected with this change, it 
 is observed here that Salt Lake is growing in size 
 and freshness, and the Jordan increasing in width 
 and sluggishness of movement. In broader phrase, 
 the whole basin, once evidently filled with water, is 
 slowly returning to its old condition. The Lake is 
 rising at the rate of a foot a year. General Connor's 
 little steamboat, that has been carrying ties for the 
 Kailroad across the Lake during the last year, cer- 
 tainly rode for a mile over w^hat was good grazing- 
 ground five years before. Does Providence propose 
 to drown the Mormons out, and with water solve the 
 problem that is puzzling our moral philosophers and 
 statesmen ? 
 
 The country drained by the Great Salt Lake is 
 about one hundred and fifty miles east and west, and 
 two hundred and fifty north and south. Four or ^Ye 
 large streams of fresh water pour into it ; and the 
 facts already stated, that it has no visible outlet, and 
 that its waters are one-fourth salt, mock science and 
 make imagination ridiculous. Other salt is found in 
 the country ; there is a mountain of rock salt a few 
 miles away ; and below in Arizona is a similar moun- 
 tain, whose salt is as pure as finest glass, and a beauti- 
 ful specimen of which Brigham Young showed to us. 
 
226 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 The Territory of Utah covers the region drained 
 by the Salt Lake, and perhaps one hundred miles 
 more, both in breadth and length. But the Mormon 
 settlements extend one hundred miles farther into 
 Idaho on the north, and perhaps two hundred miles 
 into Arizona on the south, clinging close, through 
 their entire length of six hundred to seven hundred 
 miles, to a narrow belt of country hardly more than 
 fifty miles wide ; for on the east of this are the moun- 
 tains, and to the west the great Central American 
 Desert, that forms part of the great internal basin of 
 this section of the Continent, and leads the traveler 
 on to the Sierra Nevada Mountains of the Pacific 
 States. These settlements are mostly small, counting 
 inhabitants by hundreds, gathered about the course 
 of a mountain stream ; but there are several places 
 of considerable importance, as Provo in the south^ 
 and Ogden, where the Railroad enters the valley, in 
 the north. They tempt a railroad line down to the 
 Colorado River, which is navigable to a point six 
 hundred miles south of Salt Lake City, and doubt- 
 less one will sooner or later be built. In 1865, be- 
 fore the Pacific Railroad was so quickly promised, 
 the Mormons were making promising experiments 
 in bringing their goods by steamboat up the Colo- 
 rado River, and thence by teams up through the 
 line of their settlements to the capital, as likely to 
 be cheaper than teaming them across the Plains and 
 over the Mountains from the Missouri ; and this route 
 is quite sure to be developed and improved in the 
 near future. 
 
 The population of the Territory is probably from 
 
MANUFACTURES IN UTAH. 227 
 
 one hundred thousand to one hundred and twenty- 
 five thousand; of whom from twenty-five thousand 
 to thirty-five thousand are in Salt Lake City. Before 
 the entrance of the Raih^oad into the valley, not more 
 than three or four thousand were non-Mormons or 
 Gentiles. The policy of the leaders has been to con- 
 fine their people to agriculture; to develop a self-sus- 
 taining rural population, quiet, frugal, industrious, 
 scattered in small villages, and so manageable by the 
 church organization. So far, it has been admirably 
 successful; and it has created an industry and a pro- 
 duction here, in the center of the western half of our 
 Continent, of immense importance and value to the 
 future growth of the region. The land is cut up into 
 small sections, and most of the farms are very small. 
 Indeed, of the forty-three million acres that the Ter- 
 ritory measures, only about half a million are sup- 
 posed to be capable of culture, and the number under 
 cultivation is estimated at one hundred and thirty- 
 four thousand, or about one acre to an inhabitant. 
 Every man is encouraged to raise everything possible 
 needed for his sustenance, and this gained, and the 
 church securing its share, there is not apt to be much 
 left for profit. 
 
 Following out the principle of self-support and 
 independence, the simple manufactures have been 
 gradually introduced. Several small cotton-mills and 
 one or tw^o woolen-mills are in successful operation; 
 hides are plenty, and there is a tannery, also a manu- 
 factory of boots and shoes; cotton grows in the 
 southern settlements, and persistent and partially 
 successful efibrts have been made to introduce the 
 
228 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 silk worm. Wood and lumber are scarce and high, 
 the former fifteen dollars a cord, and the latter forty 
 to sixty dollars a thousand. Coal is found in the 
 mountains, but fifty miles away, and before the Rail- 
 road was open it cost in the city thirty to thirty-five 
 dollars a ton. There are at least a hundred flouring- 
 mills in the Territory, and flour, grain, butter, bacon, 
 home-made socks and yarn, and dried peaches are 
 the principal productions in excess of consumption. 
 Probably two hundred thousand pounds of dried 
 peaches were sold to the Idaho and Montana miners 
 in the year ( 1864 ) of the greatest emigration to 
 those territories. Alive not only to all opportunities 
 for making money, but to the necessity for supplying 
 every want of their population, that there may be no 
 room for an antagonistic element, the Mormon leaders 
 are now alert to introduce such other and higher 
 classes of manufactures as an increased prosperity 
 and the facilities of the Railroad may put in demand. 
 Among these are wagons and agricultural implements, 
 for which a company is formed and other preparations 
 made. 
 
 With wise instinct of its depraving distractions and 
 its rarely recompensing pursuit, Brigham Young has 
 persistently discouraged all mining operations among 
 his people. He has been fortunate in having no rich 
 discoveries made within his lines to tempt them to 
 break his commands. Occasionally there has been a 
 temporary excitement over placer diggings here and 
 there in the mountains, or over discoveries of dc' 
 posits of gold or silver ores; but none of them have 
 ever amounted to much. The Gentiles have, liow^ 
 
THE SALT LAKE THEATER. 229 
 
 ever, wasted much labor and money in prospecting 
 and trying to work some silver mines in Rush Valley, 
 about twenty-five miles from Salt Lake City, but 
 though here and at other points there are undoubted 
 deposits of the precious metals that, by and by, with 
 cheap labor and simple processes for reduction, will 
 pay to work, as yet nothing in this line has proved 
 recompensing. Iron, the Mormons admit, exists in 
 large quantities, particularly in the southern moun- 
 tains; they have made some efforts to develop and 
 work it, but failed for want of proper workmen and 
 materials. But as to gold and silver, they are in- 
 credulous; and not only that. President Young argues 
 that the world has many times more of both than 
 it needs for financial purposes; that the country is 
 poorer to-day for all the mining of gold and silver 
 in the last twenty years; and that for every dollar 
 gained by it, four dollars have been expended. 
 
 Chief among the distractions of the week was a 
 performance at the Salt Lake theater in honor of 
 the distinguished guests. For the worldly wisdom 
 that presides here has made generous provision for 
 the amusement of the people. The theater is one of 
 the finest and largest buildings in the city; it com- 
 pares well with the best opera-houses of the East 
 in size and appointments; and the performances in 
 it are always respectable and sometimes very supe- 
 rior. There is generally a star actor or two from 
 the East or from California; but the principal por- 
 tion of the performers are amateurs, — merchants and 
 mechanics, clerks and laborers, wives and daughters 
 of citizens of Salt Lake City. The scenery and dresses 
 
230 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 are all first-class, and there is evidently a stage mana- 
 ger who understands his business. We had a drama 
 and a spectacular farce for our evening's entertain- 
 ment ; and I have rarely seen a theatrical perform- 
 ance more pleasing and satisfactory in all its details 
 and appointments. Yet the two principal men charac- 
 ters were by a day-laborer and a carpenter ; one of 
 the leading women parts was by a married daughter 
 of Brigham Young, herself the mother of several chil- 
 dren ; and several other of his daughters took part 
 in the ballet, which was most enchantingly rendered, 
 and with great scenic effect. 
 
 The house was full in all its parts, and the audience 
 embraced all classes of society, from the wives and 
 daughters of President Young, — a goodly array, — 
 and the families of the rich merchants, to the families 
 of the mechanics and farmers of the city and valley, 
 and the soldiers from the camp. Babies were in 
 plenty; and these, with long rows of wives, and a 
 patriarchal-looking old gentleman at the head, testi- 
 fied to the polygamous institution. Out of respect to 
 the strangers, Brigham Young sat with his "first wife" 
 in a private box, and did not thrust the retinue of his 
 lechery before us. He built and owns the theater, 
 which cost $200,000. It is run in the name of and 
 for the benefit of the church; and as most of the 
 actors and actresses cost nothing, and the institution 
 is naturally popular, it is understood to be quite 
 profitable. The prices of admission are nominally 
 high; but the doorkeeper takes pay in "produce," 
 and many a farmer from the valley drives up with 
 the whole or part of his family, and a load of grain, 
 
"GARDEN SASS LEGAL TENDER IN UTAH. 231 
 
 pork, or "garden sass/' to buy their entrance to the 
 evening's entertainment in the theater. It proves, 
 indeed, a most useful and popular social center and 
 amusement for the whole people, and its creation was 
 a wise and beneficent thought. 
 
 But even all these were not the most interesting 
 or important features of our week's experiences and 
 observations in Salt Lake City. 
 
xn. 
 
 MEN AND WOMEN, OR POLYGAMY, IN UTAH. 
 
 Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and other Leading Apostles — 
 Long Interviews and Talks with Them — Discussion about Polyq;amy 
 — Suggestion of a New Revelation against it — Later Extension of 
 Polygamy — The Sabbath Services of the Mormons — Preaching by 
 Brigham Young — Extracts from Mormon Sermons — Mr. Colfax in 
 the Mormon Pulpit — How does Polygamy Work? — The Children 
 — The Husbands and the Wives — What the Latter Say and How 
 they Bear it — Illustrations of Polygamous Life and Habits — Brig- 
 ham Young's Children and Wives — Beauty and the Beast — List 
 of Young's Harem. 
 
 Of course we had a good deal of curiosity, while in 
 Utah, to study the persons and characters of the 
 Mormon leaders and the operation of polygamy 3 and 
 though one avenue to information was largely denied 
 us, every other was freely open, and the lacking 
 in that was measurably made up to us by plenty of 
 second-hand testimony from and about the fractional 
 wives of the saints. When we arrived, Brigham 
 Young was away from the city; but he soon came 
 back in grand state, for he travels among his subjects 
 like an oriental prince, with procession of carriages 
 and men on horseback. He takes with him always 
 two personal servants, one a barber, and the other 
 
S.Lr Lak. Cxxr-BB:aH.M Yoo.o-Pkoposkb Mo;:;;;^p,, 
 
HOW BRIGHAM YOUNG LOOKS. 235 
 
 one of his wives. Directly lie came, with half a 
 dozen of his Apostles, to pay his respects to Mr. 
 Colfax, — for the Speaker had given out that he 
 should observe Washington etiquette, and not call 
 first on him, which pleased the Gentiles, — and they 
 spent most of a morning with us. We had free and 
 familiar talk of the Territory and its industries, of 
 the scenery, of irrigation, of the Indians, of every- 
 thing but the one theme upon which both sides were 
 the most eager to compare notes. Young explained 
 to me the Mormon policy as to the Indians ; in brief, 
 it was that they had found it cheaper and easier to 
 feed them than to fight them. But, he said, they 
 could not last long ; the food and the diseases of civ- 
 ilization are killing them off; even white bread, of 
 which they are very fond, weakens and destroys their 
 constitutions. And he told of an Indian boy, whom 
 he took into his family, robust and healthy, but, 
 thouo:h he fared as well as his own children, he soon 
 sickened and died. 
 
 Brigham Young is a well-preserved, good-looking 
 man of now near seventy years; stout, smooth-faced, 
 self-controlled; slow and careful of speech; with a 
 light gray eye, cold and uncertain; a thin, short un- 
 der-lip and chin, betraying great power of will, and 
 which shrank and curled and quivered under feeling 
 with a most devilish ugliness. That lip and that 
 chin were the only indexes to his character, as ex- 
 hibited in his life, that I could find either in his face 
 or manner; but they showed that he would allow 
 nothing to stand in the way of his purposes. There 
 was not the faintest sign of rashness or weakness, but 
 
236 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 abundant token of the spirit that would send and has 
 sent men to a sudden grave, in the most cool and 
 relentless manner, for resisting his authority or stand- 
 ing in the way of his purposes. He is physically a 
 handsome man, and takes great pains with his dress; 
 but he was to me repellant in personal atmosphere. 
 In conversation, he is cool, quiet, but intelligent and 
 suggestive, has strong, original ideas, but conveys 
 them with rather coarse and ungrammatical language. 
 He was somewhat formal, but courteous, and at the 
 last affected frankness and freedom, if he felt it not; 
 and when his eye did sparkle and his lips soften, it 
 was with most cheering, though not warming, effect; 
 it was pleasant but did not melt you. 
 
 Heber C. Kimball ranked next to Young in church 
 and state, when we were there, and was accounted by 
 the Mormons to hold the gift of prophecy in even 
 more divine degree than his leader. But he seemed 
 to us, from all we saw and heard of him, a blessed old 
 rascal; unctuous in looks and manners as Macassar 
 hair oil, and pious in phrase as good old Thomas a 
 Kempis ; but a consummate hypocrite, hard and tricky 
 at a bargain in worldly matters, and tyrannical to his 
 long retinue of sorry-looking wives, the happiest day 
 of whose lives was that of his death. His office 
 appeared to be that of keeper of the seals of Heaven, 
 and the fulminator of the Divine wrath or the dis- 
 penser of the Divine grace, and he distributed both 
 about with equal vulgarity and repulsiveness. 
 
 George A. Smith is another of the head Apostles, 
 and succeeded Kimball as Vice-President. He is one 
 of the oldest and most faithful Mormons, very intelli- 
 
THE APOSTLES AND THEIR WIVES. 237 
 
 gent in their history, and a heavy, full-orbed man, 
 with solid qualities of body and mind, who contents 
 himself with five wives. Two of the Apostles, Amasa 
 Lyman and Franklin Richards, are Massachusetts 
 men 3 several others are Englishmen, who are now 
 creeping into place and power in the church; and 
 they all average four wives each. Perhaps the most 
 refined man of our hosts in personal appearance and 
 manners was a Mr. Felt, originally from Salem, Mass. ; 
 he lived in a very neat two-story cottage, embowered 
 with trees, and with two or three suggestive front 
 doors. But the American proportion, both of leaders 
 and followers, is fast decreasing. Brigham Young 
 himself says that fifteen out of every twenty of the 
 original American Mormons have apostatized; and 
 Apostle Smith says five out of six. 
 
 Two or three of the party who called on us had 
 fine faces, — such as you would meet in intellectual 
 or business society in Boston or New York, — but the 
 strength of most of them seemed to lie in narrowness, 
 bigotry, obstinacy. They looked as if they had lived 
 on the same farms as their fathers and grandfathers, 
 and made no improvements; gone to the same 
 church, and sat in the same pews, without cushions; 
 borrowed the same weekly newspaper for forty years ; 
 drove all their children to the West or the cities; 
 and if they went to agricultural fairs, insisted on 
 having their premiums in pure coin. 
 
 When we came to return their call, and met at 
 Brigham Young's office pretty nearly the same com- 
 pany of prominent Mormons, there was a full hour's 
 frank talk of the whole matter of polygamy. He 
 
238 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 had, just before we entered, been bothered by a man 
 who could not keep his "women" straight, and either 
 wanted a reinforcement of authority from head-quar- 
 ters, or Hberty to take an additional wife by way of 
 equalizing the contending forces ; and it was not long 
 after we were seated ere he blurted out the blunt 
 question to Mr. Colfax — " Well, now you have con- 
 quered the South and abolished slavery, what are 
 you going to do with us and our polygamy?" With 
 his usual tact, Mr Colfax replied that he had no au- 
 thority to speak for the government; but for himself, 
 if he might be permitted to make the suggestion, he 
 had hoped the prophets of the church would have a 
 new revelation on the subject, which should put a 
 stop to the practice of polygamy. He added further 
 that, as the people of Missouri and Maryland, without 
 waiting for the action of the general government 
 against slavery, themselves believing it to be wrong 
 and an impediment to their prosperity, had taken 
 measures to abolish it, so he hoped the people of the 
 Mormon church would see that polygamy was a hin- 
 drance and not a help, and move for its abandon- 
 ment. Mr. Young responded quickly and frankly, 
 and apparently as much to the surprise of his friends 
 as to our own, that he should readily welcome such a 
 revelation; that polygamy was not in the original 
 book of the Mormons; that it was not an essential 
 practice in the church, but only a privilege and a 
 duty, under special command of God; that he knew 
 it had been abused; that people had entered into 
 polygamy who ought not to have done so, and 
 against his protestation and advice; and that wives 
 
THE BIBLE DOCTRINES APPLIED. 239 
 
 and husbands, in polygamy, were constantly fretting 
 him with their troubles. At the same time, he de- 
 fended the practice as having biblical authority, and 
 as having, within proper limits, a sound, moral and 
 philosophical reason and propriety. 
 
 The discussion, thus opened, grew general and 
 sharp, though ever good-natured. Mr. Young was 
 asked how he got over the fact that the two sexes 
 were about equally divided all over the world, and 
 that if some men had two, five, or twenty wives, 
 others would have to go without altogether. His 
 reply was that there was always a considerable pro- 
 portion of the men who would never marry, who were 
 old bachelors from choice. But, retorted one, are 
 there any more of such than of women who choose to 
 be old maids ? Oh yes, said he, most ungallantly ; 
 there is not one woman in a million who will not 
 marry if she gets a chance ! Mr. G. Q. Cannon, an 
 Englishman, and probably the most learned of tho 
 Apostles, strongly pressed the biblical usage and au- 
 thority for many wives, as above all laws and consti- 
 tutions, but was asked as to the effect of the same 
 usage and authority for human sacrifice, — would you, 
 for instance, if commanded by God, ofier up your 
 son or your enemy as a sacrifice, killing them ? Yes, 
 he promptly replied. Then the civil law would lay 
 its hands upon you and stop you, and would be justi- 
 fied in doing so, was the apparently efiective answer. 
 
 In the course of the discussion, Mr. Young asked, 
 Suppose polygamy is given up, will not your govern- 
 ment then demand more, — will it not war upon the 
 Book of the Mormons, and attack our church organ- 
 15 
 
240 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ization? The reply was, emphatically, No, that it 
 had no right, and could have no justification in doing 
 so, and that we had no idea there would be any dis- 
 position in that direction. The Mormons would then 
 take rank and take their chances with the other 
 Protestant denominations, — the Methodists, Baptists 
 and Episcopalians, — and all would be left free to 
 work and quarrel together on the same platform of 
 equal rights. 
 
 The talk, which was said to be the freest and 
 frankest ever known on that subject in that pres- 
 ence, ended pleasantly, but with the full expression, 
 on the part of Mr. Colfax and his friends, of their 
 hope that the polygamy question might be removed 
 from existence, and thus all objection to the admis- 
 sion of Utah as a State be taken away ; but that, until 
 it was, no such admission was possible, and that the 
 government could not continue to look indifferently 
 upon the enlargement of so offensive a practice. And 
 not only what Mr. Young said, but his whole manner 
 left with us the impression that, if public opinion and 
 the government united vigorously, but at the same 
 time discreetly, to press the question, there would be 
 found some way to acquiesce in the demand, and 
 change the practice of the present fathers of the 
 church. 
 
 But this indication of a change of base was not well 
 received by the Mormon leaders generally. They pro- 
 tested against it, and very soon after we left, it was 
 disowned or explained away, and polygamy took a 
 fresh start. There has seemed, indeed, to be an effort 
 to extend its complications and influences, and get 
 
BEIGHAM YOUNG ON SLAYERT ET AL. 241 
 
 everybody into it of any character or power in tlie 
 church or in society. When we were there, it was 
 estimated that not more than one in six or eight of 
 the men had embraced the practice ; but since, it has 
 increased from fifty to one hundred per cent., and one 
 in three or four of the men have more than one wife 
 each. So the evil has grown to formidable propor- 
 tions, and its eradication, even its limitation, seems 
 much harder to compass than it did in 1865. 
 
 Our afternoon's talk with Young and his associates 
 included the proper way of treating the leading rebels 
 and the merits of slavery in the abstract. He boldly 
 espoused slavery jper se as established by Divine 
 authority, like polygamy, but denounced the chattel 
 system of the South ; and he opposed the hanging of 
 any of the rebel chiefs as an unwise and aggravating 
 policy. Now that peace is established, let all be par- 
 doned, he said; but early in or during the war, he 
 would have disposed of the rebel chiefs that fell into 
 the hands of the government without mercy or hesi- 
 tation. Had he been President when Mason and 
 Slidell were captured, he would have speedily put 
 them " wliei^e iJiey never would peejpl' and negotiated 
 with England afterwards. As he said this, the thin 
 lip shortened and the lower jaw worked, most dia- 
 bolicallj^; and I felt sure he could be as good as 
 his word, and no longer doubted where the inspira- 
 tion for the Mountain Meadow massacres, the slaugh- 
 ter of the recusant Josephites, or the various assas- 
 sinations by the " Danites " of individual rebels from 
 the church or uncompromising Gentiles, came from. 
 Young thoroughly believes in punishing his enemies 
 
242 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 with fire and sword, and all in the name of the Lord 
 his God. He is a resolute and literal Old Testament 
 Christian in theory and practice, — thus far at least. 
 
 On both Sabbaths we attended the Mormon religious 
 services in the Church square. Meetings are held 
 every Sunday, also, and on some week-day nights, in 
 the church edifices in each of the twenty wards of 
 the city, where the local bishops and elders drill the 
 people in all the duties of life, instructing them with 
 a plainness and with an autocratic authority as to 
 their entire line of thinking and acting, that any 
 other Protestant people or even any American Catho- 
 lics would resent with indignation. But their igno- 
 rant, fanatical followers seem to take it all as law and 
 gospel, and are under such strict surveillance and au- 
 thority that most of them would not even dare to 
 disobey or protest. At the Tabernacle building, the 
 gathering is from the whole city, amounting com- 
 monly to several thousands, and the services are con- 
 ducted by some of the Apostles. The congregations 
 are naturally not of a very high grade, either of phys- 
 ical beauty or mental capacity, — they were as dread- 
 fully commonplace as you can imagine the refuse of 
 the English factory towns, with a sprinkling of the 
 peasantries of Germany, Finland, Sweden, Scotland, 
 Norway, even Iceland, would be. Yet they exhibited 
 improvement over their probable former life in tidi- 
 ness of dress and better living. But the small nar- 
 row heads told of limited brains and shallow thought. 
 The handsome girls were few ; the fine-looking women 
 even fewer; intelligent, strong-headed men were more 
 numerous ; but the great mass, alike in size, looks and 
 
THE MORMOIS" RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. 243 
 
 dress, were below the poorest, hardest-working and 
 most ignorant classes of our eastern large towns. 
 
 The gatherings and the services, both in speaking 
 and singing, reminded me of the Methodist camp- 
 meetings of fifteen or twenty years ago. The sing- 
 ing, as on the latter occasions, was the best part of 
 the exercises, simple, sweet, and fervent. "Daugh- 
 ters of Zion," as sung by the large choir one Sunday 
 morning, was prayer, sermon, song and all. The 
 preacher that day was Apostle Richards, but beyond 
 setting forth the superiority of the Mormon church 
 system, through its presidents, councils, bishops, elders 
 and seventies, for the work made incumbent upon 
 Christians, and claiming that its preachers were in- 
 spired like those of old, his discourse was a rambling, 
 unimpressive exhortation, such as you may have 
 heard from a tonguey deacon in any country Baptist 
 or Methodist meeting-house of the last generation. 
 The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is used 
 with the same authority as by all Protestants; the 
 Mormon Scriptures are simply new and added books, 
 confirming and supplementing the teachings of the 
 original Scriptures. The rite of the sacrament is ad- 
 ministered every Sunday, water being used instead 
 of wine, and the distribution proceeding among the 
 whole congregation, men, women and children, and 
 numbering from three to five thousand, while the 
 singing and the preaching are in progress. The 
 prayers are few and simple, undistinguishable, except 
 in these characteristics, from those heard in all Prot- 
 estant churches, and the congregation all join in the 
 Amen. 
 
244 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 The next Sunday, especially for our edification, 
 Brigham Young himself preached -, but he was very 
 unsatisfactory and disappointing in his effort. There 
 was every incentive for him to do his best ; he had an 
 audience of four or five thousands spread out under the 
 " Bowery/' adjoining the Tabernacle, where the summer 
 meetings are held ; before him was Mr. Colfax, who had 
 asked him to preach upon the distinctive Mormon doc- 
 trines; around him were all his elders and bishops, in 
 unusual numbers; and he was fresh from the exciting 
 discussion of the day before on the subject of polyga- 
 my. But his address lacked logic, lacked effect, lacked 
 wholly magnetism or impressiveness. It was a curi- 
 ous medley of scriptural exposition and exhortation, 
 bold and bare statement, coarse denunciation and vul- 
 gar allusion, cheap rant and poor cant. So far as his 
 statement of Mormon belief went, it amounted to this : 
 that God was a human, material person, with like flesh 
 and blood and passions to ourselves, only perfect in all 
 things ; that he begot his son Jesus in the same way 
 that children are begotten now; that Jesus and the 
 Father looked alike and were alike, distinguishable 
 only by the former being older; that our resurrection 
 would be material, and we should live in heaven with 
 the same bodies and the same passions as on earth ; 
 that Mormonism was the most perfect and true re- 
 ligion ; that those Christians who were not Mormons 
 would not necessarily go to hell and be burned by 
 living fire and tortured by ugly devils, but that they 
 would not occupy so high places in heaven as the 
 Latter Day Saints ; that polygamy was the habit of 
 all the children of God in the earlier ages, and was 
 
BRIGHAM young's SERMON. 245 
 
 first abolished by the Goths and Yandals who con- 
 quered and reconstructed Rome ; that Martin Luther 
 approved of it in a single case at least ; that a clergy- 
 man of the Church of England once married a man 
 to a second wife while his first wife was living ; and 
 that in England now, if a man wanted to change his 
 wife, he had only to offer her at auction and knock 
 her off for a pot of beer or a shilling, and marry an- 
 other. A good deal of boasting of the success of the 
 Mormons, their temperance, frugality and honesty, 
 and a sharp denunciation of the "few stinking law- 
 yers who lived down in Whiskey street, and for five 
 dollars w^ould attempt to make a lie into a truth," 
 were the only other noticeable features of this dis- 
 course of the President of the Church of the Latter 
 Day Saints. It was a very material interpretation of 
 the statements and truths of Scripture, very illogic- 
 ally and roughly rendered ; and calculated only to 
 influence a cheap and vulgar audience. Brigham 
 Young may be a shrewd business man, an able or- 
 ganizer of labor, a bold, brave person in dealing with 
 the practicalities of life, — he must, indeed, be all of 
 these, for we see the evidences all around this city 
 and country; but he is in no sense an impressive or 
 efiective preacher, judged by any standards that I 
 have been accustomed to. 
 
 A good many Mormon sermons have been reported 
 and published, some by themselves, others by Gentile 
 listeners. Their language in many instances is shock- 
 ingly blasphemous ; in others, where rebellious or 
 vain or wicked w^omen are denounced, or the young 
 girls are instructed in their duty to become con- 
 
246 " OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 cubines and bear children as soon as the laws of 
 nature will permit; it is positively filthy and disgust- 
 ing, such as would not be tolerated elsewhere out of 
 the vilest dens of great cities. As specimens, not of 
 such sermons, but of the more decent sort, I quote a 
 few independent sentences, — they are from Brigham 
 Young, and Apostles Smith and Pratt : — 
 
 "WBen a man comes rigbt out like an independent devil, and says 
 
 *D Mormonism and all the Mormons,' and is off with himself to 
 
 California, I say he is a gentleman by the side of a nasty, sneaking 
 apostate, who is opposed to nothing but Christianity. But now, you 
 Gladdenites [a band of recusant Mormons,] keep your tongues still, 
 lest sudden destruction come upon you. I say, rather than that apos- 
 tates should flourish here, I will unsheath my bowie-knife and conquer 
 or die." 
 
 "There are sins that men commit for which they cannot receive for- 
 giveness in this world, or in that which is to come; and if they had 
 their eyes open to see their true condition they would be perfectly will- 
 ing to have their blood spilt, that the smoke thereof might ascend to 
 heaven as an offering for their sins, and the incense would atone for 
 their sins. I know when you hear my brethren telling about cutting 
 people off from the earth that you consider it strong doctrine ; hut it is 
 to save them, not to destroy them. It is true that the blood of the Son 
 of God was shed for sins through the fall and those committed by men, 
 yet men can commit sin which it never can remit. There are sins which 
 can be atoned for by an offering upon an altar as in ancient days, but 
 there are also sins which the blood of a lamb, of a calf, or of turtle 
 doves cannot remit; hut they must he atoned for hy the hlood of the man" 
 
 "No wonder that you grope in the dark; that you are subject to 
 doubts and fears concerning your eternal salvation. The law of celes- 
 tial marriage is right, but you will not obey it, and those of you who 
 do not accept the Gospel of Christ can expect nothing but darkness. 
 There is no inducement for any man to become a Latter Day Saint 
 unless he accepts the Spirit of God in his heart and obeys His teachings." 
 
 "If an elder has borrowed from you, and you find he is going to 
 apostatize, then you may tighten the screws upon him; but if he is 
 
MR. COLFAX 11^ THE MOKMOI^ PULPIT. 247 
 
 willing to preach the Gospel without purse or scrip, it is none of your 
 business what he has done with the money he has borrowed from you. 
 If you murmur against that elder, it will prove your damnation! No 
 man need judge me. You know nothing about it, whether I am sent 
 or not; furthermore it is none of your business, only to listen with open 
 ears to what is taught you and serve God with an undivided heart." 
 
 "How was it with Mary and Martha, and other women who followed 
 Jesus? In old times, and it is common in this day, the women, even 
 Sarah, called their husbands lord. The word is tantamount to husband 
 in some languages. Master, lord and husband are synonymous. When 
 Mary came to the sepulchre, Jesus said unto her, Mary! She said 
 unto him, Rabboni, which is to say master. Is there not here mani- 
 fested the affection of a wife? These words were the kindred ties and 
 sympathies that are common between husband and wife." The same 
 discourse declared that Jesus was himself the bridegroom at the mar- 
 riage in Cana of Galilee, and that Mary and Martha were both his 
 wives ! 
 
 These are fair illustrations of the intellectual and 
 religious husks on which these poor people are fed 
 from Sunday to Sunday. Perhaps they are above 
 the average in propriety and piety of expression ; but 
 they show, better than any characterization of mine, 
 the spirit both of priests and people ; how brutal is 
 that of the one, how debased that of the other. 
 
 Mr. Colfax's presence in their pulpit was certainly 
 a novelty for the Mormon audience. On the Sunday 
 evening after Brigham Young's sermon, he repeated 
 there, by request, his eulogy on the life and principles 
 of President Lincoln, then a fresh theme everywhere 
 in our broad land. The audience was swollen to five 
 or six thousands; and, dull of comprehension and 
 fanatically devoted to Young and his Apostles as most 
 of them were, they could not have failed to feel that 
 they were listening to a higher order of eloquence 
 
248 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 and patriotism, — to nobler thoughts in nobler garb, — 
 than those which were usually doled out to them. At 
 least they listened with rapt attention and apparent 
 sympathy; and it is rare that they hear so lofty and 
 loyal sentiments from that platform. The Mormon 
 preachers never allude to the national government 
 but to criticise, belittle and abuse. 
 
 But of polygamy in practice ? How does it oper- 
 ate? — what are its results? — what its prospects? 
 Most obviously, first, there are plenty of children. 
 The houses and yards and streets swarm with them. 
 The Divine injunction to increase and multiply, that 
 they may people the earth, is held in great respect 
 by the Mormon patriarchs. They quote it often in 
 defense to Gentile doubters, or as injunction to hesi- 
 tating believers, men or women, who fear to launch 
 away on the sea of polygamy. The care of the chil- 
 dren is obviously not of the best; it would not be 
 strange if many of them were not wise enough to 
 know their own fathers; but this is not the worst 
 form of their ignorance. There are fathers who are 
 loyal, there are mothers who are tender, of course, even 
 the more tender because of their own sufferings, and 
 the church exhorts and enforces a certain degree of 
 care and instruction; but the general life of the 
 Mormons is simple, material and hard; there is not 
 only little unity in polygamous families, but a good 
 deal of discord, and the children cannot avoid sufier- 
 ing, not only from neglect and from the general de- 
 basement and materiality of life, but sharply and 
 especially from the inevitable revenge that out- 
 raged nature, unelevated and undisciplined by cul- 
 
HOW THE WIYES BEAR IT. 249 
 
 ture, is forever certain to wreak on those nearest 
 and even dearest to it. 
 
 Their religion is of course the great reason for 
 polygamy; it is the excuse of the men; it is the rec- 
 onciliation of the women. Many, perhaps most of 
 both sexes really believe in it as a religious duty; 
 but I find this part of their religion is much easier 
 and more acceptable to the men than to the women. 
 The former go to the sacrifice with a certain brutal 
 joy; the latter with a hard, sad resignation. When 
 men talk with men, as men, the truth cannot help 
 but crop out as to such a matter as this; and the 
 chances are two to one, that before you get through 
 discussing polygamy with a many-wived Mormon, he 
 will commend it, with a lustful leer, to the master- 
 passion of the sex. But with the women, ignorant 
 and degraded as most of them are, the universal testi- 
 mony of all but their husbands is, that it is a grievous 
 sorrow and burden; only cheerfully submitted to and 
 embraced under a religious fanaticism and self-abne- 
 gation rare to behold, and possible only to women. 
 They are taught to believe, and many of them really 
 do believe, that through and by it they secure a 
 higher and more glorious reward in the future world. 
 "Lord Jesus has laid a heavy trial upon me," said one 
 poor, sweet woman, "but I mean to bear it for His 
 sake, and for the glory He will grant me in His king- 
 dom." This is the common wail, the common solace. 
 
 In some cases the common wives live harmoniously 
 and lovingly together ; oftener, it would seem, they 
 have separate parts of the same house, or even sep- 
 arate houses. The first wife is generally the recog- 
 
250 OUH NEW WEST. 
 
 nized one of general, especially of Gentile society, 
 and frequently assumes contempt for the others, re- 
 garding them as concubines, and not wives. But it 
 is a dreadful state of society to any one of fine feel- 
 ings and true instincts ; it robs married life of all its 
 sweet sentiment and companionship ; and while it 
 degrades woman, it brutalizes man, teaching him to 
 despise and domineer over his wives, over all women. 
 It breeds jealousy, distrust, and tempts to infidelity ; 
 but the police system of the church and the commu- 
 nity is so strict and constant that it is claimed and 
 believed the latter vice is very rare. As I have said, 
 we had little direct communication with the women of 
 the Saints 3 but their testimony came to us in a hun- 
 dred ways, sad, tragic, heart-rending. One woman, i 
 an educated, handsome person, as yet a single wife, 
 said, with bated breath and almost hissing fury, to 
 one of our party, in some aside discussion of the sub- 
 ject, — "Polygamy is tolerable enough for the men, 
 but it is hell for the women." Poor creature, she has 
 now bitterly realized in her own what she then saw 
 in other lives, for her brute of a husband has since 
 had "sealed" to himself, not only for eternity but for 
 earth, two or three young and fresh girls. 
 
 The only half wives we saw intimately were two 
 young Englishwomen, of nearly equal years; they 
 appeared together in the parlor and in public with 
 their husband, and dressed alike ; but they had the 
 same quiet, subdued, half-sad air that characterized 
 all the Mormon women, young and old, that I saw 
 in public or private. There is certainly none of that 
 "loudness" about the Mormon ladies that an East- 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLYGAMY. 251 
 
 ern man cannot help observing in the manners of our 
 Western women generally. And I hardly think the 
 difference is to be attributed to the superior refine- 
 ment and culture of the sisters of the Salt Lake 
 Basin ; it rather and really is the sign and mark of 
 their servitudCj their debasement. Indeed, we have 
 the frequent testimony of the husbands, and even of 
 Briorham Youno; himself, to the irreconciliation of 
 wives with the polygamous state. Said Young in a 
 public sermon : ^' It frequently happens that women 
 will say they are unhappy; and husbands testify that 
 * my wife, though a most excellent woman, has not 
 seen a happy day since I took my second wife.'" 
 And then he proceeded to scold them for their re- 
 bellious feelings, and to enjoin upon them the Divine 
 duty of sweet submission ! 
 
 The first generation of Mormon-born girls and boys 
 is just now coming to maturity. Despite their educa- 
 tion they are not very eager to embrace the Divine 
 institution. But it is hard to escape its meshes. 
 Some of the girls have bolted and married Gentiles ; 
 but more have been gobbled up as fresh victims for 
 the middle-aged and old men of the church. The 
 elders preach submission to this to the girls with sanc- 
 timonious solemnity as a Christian duty, and then 
 make haste to take advantage of the conviction they 
 have gained. Two unmarried Mormon young men 
 stated the case very humanly when they said : " This 
 polygamy would be all right, only the women, you 
 know, ^pull hair' so like darnation!" 
 
 Polygamy introduces many curious cross-relation- 
 ships, and intertwines the branches of the genealogical 
 
252 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 tree in a manner greatly to puzzle a mathematician, 
 as well as to disgust the decent-minded. The marry- 
 ing of two or more sisters is very common; one young 
 Mormon merchant in Salt Lake City has three sisters 
 for his three wives. There are several cases of men 
 marrying both mother (widow) and her daughter or 
 daughters ; taking the " old woman " for the sake of 
 getting the young ones ; but having children by all. 
 Please to cipher out for yourselves how this mixes 
 things. Consider^ too, how these children of one 
 father and many mothers, — the latter often blood 
 relations, — are likely to become crossed again in new 
 marriages, in the second or third, if not the first, 
 generations, under the operations of this polygamous 
 practice -, and it is safe to predict that a few genera- 
 tions of such social practices will breed a physical, 
 moral and mental debasement of the people most 
 frightful to contemplate. Already, indeed, are such 
 indications apparent, foreshadowing the sure and ter- 
 rible realization. 
 
 In many cases, the Mormon wives not only support 
 themselves and their children, but help support their 
 husbands. Thus a clerk or other man, with similar 
 limited income, who has yielded to the fascinations 
 and desires of three or four women, and married them 
 all, makes his home with number one, perhaps, and 
 the rest live apart, each by herself, taking in sewing 
 or washing, or engaging in other employment, to 
 keep up her establishment and be no charge to her 
 husband. He comes around, once in a while, to 
 make her a visit, and then she sets out an extra 
 table and spends all her accumulated earnings to 
 
BRIGHAM YOUNG AND HIS WIYES. 253 
 
 make him as comfortable and herself as charming 
 as possible, so that her fraction of the dear sainted 
 man may be multiplied as much as may be. Thus 
 the fellow, if he is lazy and has turned his piety to 
 the good account of getting smart wives, may really 
 board around continually, and live in clover, at no 
 personal expense but his own clothing. Is not this a 
 divine institution, indeed ! 
 
 Brigham Young's wives are numberless; at least 
 no one seems to know how many he has ; and he has 
 himself confessed to forgetfulness in the matter. The 
 probability is he has from sixteen to twenty genuine 
 or complete wives, and about as many more women 
 "sealed" to him for heavenly association and glory. 
 The latter are mostly pious old ladies, eager for high 
 seats in the Mormon heaven, and knowing no surer 
 way to get there than to be joined on to Brigham's 
 angelic procession. Some of these sealed wives of 
 his are the earthly wives of other men; but, lacking 
 faith in their husbands' heavenly glory, seek to make 
 a sure thing of it for the future by the grace of gra- 
 cious Brigham- Down East, you know, many a hus- 
 band calculates on stealing into heaven under the 
 pious petticoats of his better wife ; here the thing is 
 reversed, and women go to heaven because their 
 husbands take them along;. The Mormon reho;ion is 
 an excellent institution for maintaining; masculine 
 authority in the family ; and the greatness of a true 
 Mormon is measured, indeed, by the number of wives 
 he can keep in sweet and loving and especially obe- 
 dient subjugation. Such a man can have as many 
 wives as he wants. But President Young objects 
 
254 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 to multiplying wives for men who have not this rare 
 domestic gift 3 and he finds great annoyance in being 
 teased by men, unfit to drive double teams of women, 
 to let them try their hands. 
 
 Brigham Young has in all some sixty or seventy 
 children; the younger ones, as seen in his school, to 
 which we were admitted, looked sprightly and bright 
 and handsome , and some of his grown up daughters 
 are comely and clever; but his older sons give no 
 marked sign of then* father's smartness. Brigham, 
 Jr., and Joseph A. have set up as polygamists and 
 prophets for themselves. They are big and burly 
 fellows; Brigham has shown some business capacity, 
 and has been a good deal of the time for years in 
 England and New York, forwarding the emigration 
 of the church; but the accomplishments of the other 
 are summed up as smoking good cigars, drinking 
 good liquors, playing poker, licking his wives, and 
 preaching the Mormon Gospel. It cannot be said, 
 surely, that he does not practice what he preaches. 
 
 The grand Head of the Church manages his house- 
 hold on strict business principles. A son-in-law acts 
 as commissary; the wives have nothing to do with 
 the table or its supply; and whenever they want 
 new clothes or pocket-money, they must go to this 
 chief of staff or head of the family bureau. He does 
 not allow any of them to come begging or whining 
 about him for any cause, — when he wants one, he 
 sends for her. And the rule for children, "Speak 
 when you are spoken to, and not otherwise," is tho 
 law of his domestic economy. Considering his oppor. 
 tunities, he seems to have made a rather sorry selec^ 
 
THE GRAND HAEEM. 255 
 
 tion of women on the score of beauty. The oldest 
 or first is a matronly-looking old lady^ serene and 
 sober ; the youngest and present pet, who was ob- 
 tained, they say, after much seeking, is comely but 
 common-looking, despite the extra millinery in which 
 she alone of the entire family indulges ; while all be- 
 tween are very "or'nary" indeed. Handsome women 
 and girls, in fact, are scarce among the Mormons of 
 Salt Lake, — the fewer Gentiles can show many 
 more of them. Why is this ? Is beauty more es- 
 thetic and ascetic? Or, good-looking women being 
 supposed to have more chances for matrimony than 
 their plainer sisters, do they all insist upon having 
 the whole of one man, and leave the Mormon hus- 
 bands to those whose choice is like Hobson's ? 
 
 The following list and description of Brigham 
 Young's family, made up from various sources by 
 Mr. Coffin of Boston, who visited Salt Lake City in 
 1868, agree substantially with the information we 
 obtained concerning them during our earlier visit. 
 The extract will help my readers to a personal apjDre- 
 ciation of the fact and operation of polygamy ; but 
 it is an institution, after all, whose realities neither 
 description nor imagination can fairly set before the 
 mind : — 
 
 "This is the harem. A covered passage leads from the ground floor 
 to another building East in which is the general business office of 
 Brigham Young, and from which telegraph wires run to every hamlet 
 in the Territory. Another passage leads to the private office of Brigham 
 — back of which is his private bedroom, where his concubines wait 
 upon him, — Amelia to-day, Emeline to-morrow, Lucy the day after. 
 
 " Brigham's lawfully wedded wife was Mary Ann Angell, — a native 
 of New York, — the mother of five children, — Joseph, or " Joe " as he 
 16 
 
256 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 is called at Salt Lake, Brigliam A., John, Alice and Luna. She 
 married the prophet while he was a young man, before he was a 
 prophet, and with him accepted the revelations of Joseph Smith. She 
 lives in a large stone building in the rear of the harem. Brigham does 
 not often visit her now. 
 
 " His first concubine is Lucy Decker. She is the lawful wife of Isaac 
 Seely, mother of two children ; but Brigham could make her a queen 
 in heaven, and so, bidding good-by to Isaac, she became first concu- 
 bine, and has added eight children to the prophet's household. 
 
 ** Her younger sister, Clara Decker, also aspired to be a heavenly 
 queen, and became his second concubine, and is the mother of four 
 children. 
 
 " The third is Harriet Cook, mother of one turbulent boy, who does 
 pretty much as he pleases, as does the mother. When in her tan- 
 trums she does not hesitate to send Brigham to the realm of evil spirits. 
 
 " Lucy Bigelow is said to be one of the most lady-like of all the 
 concubines. Mrs. Waite, wife of one of the United States Judges of 
 the Territory, who saw all of the ladies of the harem, describes her as 
 of middling stature, dark brown hair, blue eyes, aquiline nose and a 
 pretty mouth. She is pleasant and affable. 
 
 "Miss Twiss has sandy hair, round features, blue eyes, low fore- 
 head, freckled face, but as she has no children, is not of much account 
 in the eyes of the prophet. She looks after his clothes, sews buttons 
 on his shirts, and acts the part of a housewife. 
 
 *' Martha Bowker is another of the same sort, quiet, neat in dress, 
 childless, and therefore of little account. 
 
 " Harriet Barney, like Lucy Decker, left her husband and three chil- 
 dren to become a concubine that she might have exaltation in Heaven, 
 but has not been honored in the harem, not having added any children 
 to the household. 
 
 "Eliza Burgess is the only English woman in the harem, small of 
 stature, black eyes, quick-tempered, but mother of several children. 
 
 " Ellen Rockwood, daughter of the jail-keeper, is another of the 
 unfortunate women — not having had children. 
 
 " Mrs. Hampton, whose first husband died at Nauvoo, afterward 
 married a man by the name of Cole, who left her at Nauvoo and went 
 to California. Brigham, hearing of his departure, sent for the wife, 
 who obeyed the summons and became a concubine, lived in the harem 
 
LIST OF beigham's wiyes. 257 
 
 eight years, then was cast out by Brigham. She now lives at Ogden 
 City with her son, Nephi Hampton. 
 
 " Mary Bigelow is another castaway. She lived in the harem several 
 years, but Brigham became tired of her and sent her away. 
 
 " Margaret Pierce is another who, not having added to the glory of 
 the prophet by being a mother, is of little account, though still in the 
 harem. 
 
 "Emeline Free, as described by Mrs. Waite, is the ''light of the 
 harem," tall, graceful, mild, violet eyes, fair hair, inclined to curl. 
 She was a lively young lady, and Brigham fell in love with her. Her 
 father and mother were opposed to polygamy, but Emeline had am- 
 bitious projects, accepted his proposal and became the favorite of the 
 harem. The favor shown her brought on a row. The other concu- 
 bines carried this jealousy to such a pitch that the prophet had a private 
 passage constructed from his bed-room to Emeline's room, so that his 
 visits to her and her's to him could be made without observation. She 
 has contributed greatly to his glory in the future world by presenting 
 him with eight children in this. 
 
 *' The poetess of the church is Eliza Snow, said to be quite intellectual. 
 In one of her poems published in Brigham's paper, the ' Deseret News,' 
 she thus exalts the Mormon religion; 
 
 * We have the ancient order, 
 
 To us by prophets given : 
 And here we have the pattern 
 
 As things exist in heaven.' 
 
 " From which we are to understand that there are harems in heaven ! 
 So the Turk believes. 
 
 "Zina Huntington also writes poetry and acts as a sort of governess 
 to the numerous children of the prophet. Zina came to Salt Lake with 
 her lawfully wedded husband. Dr. Jacobs. Brigham liked her, sent 
 the doctor on a missionary tour to England, took his wife into the harem, 
 and became the spiritual father of her children, — made her his temporal 
 concubine that he might also exalt her to be a queen in heaven ! The 
 doctor returned from his mission, apostatized, and went to California, 
 where he now resides. 
 
 "Amelia Partridge has added four children to the prophet's house- 
 hold. She is said to be of a sweet disposition and is not jealous when 
 the prophet turns his attentions to the other concubines. 
 
258 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 "Mrs. Augusta Cobb was formerly a Bostonian, became converted 
 to Mormonism eigbteen years ago, left ber bome and accepted a position 
 in tbe barem. 
 
 " Mrs. Smitb, a devout Mormon, wisbed to be sealed to Brigbam for 
 eternity, but tbe propbet did not care to make ber a beavenly queen. 
 He sealed ber to Josepb Smitb for eternity and to bimself for time. 
 
 **One 'poor unfortunate,' Clara Cbase, became a maniac, and bas 
 gone to wbere tbe wicked cease from troubling. 
 
 ** Amelia Folsom, a native of Portsmoutb, N. H., is tbe mistress of 
 tbe barem. Sbe entered it on tbe 29tb of January, 1863. Sbe was 
 tben about nineteen and tbe prophet sixty-tbree. Sbe bas tbings 
 pretty mucb ber own way, — private box at tbe tbeater, carriage of ber 
 own, silks, satins, a piano, parlor elegantly furnisbed. If tbe propbet 
 sligbts ber, sbe pays bim in bis own coin." 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE FUTUEE OF THE MOEMONS. 
 
 What of the Church and Polygamy? — How the Problem will be 
 Solved — No Fit Successor for Brigham Young — The Past Neglect 
 and Present Duty of the Government — The Division of the Territory 
 — How the Soldiers attack Polygamy — The Order of Danite Assas- 
 sins, and their Bloody Work— The Mountain Meadow Massacre — The 
 Rebellious Morrisites and Josephites — Summing up of Observations 
 in Utah and our Conclusions — Our Stage Driver " The Coming Man." 
 
 What will become of the Mormons ? Is polygamy 
 to be fastened upon our social institutions, and are 
 we to have a State of polygamists ? If not, how is 
 the evil to be cured ? These are questions that every 
 visitor in Utah, every student of the anomaly there 
 so flourishing, asks of himself and of his neighbor. 
 They seemed easier of answer in 1865 than now in 
 1869, for both polygamy and the power of the church 
 that backs it have greatly increased since then ; and 
 yet I cannot but think we are nearer the solution of 
 the problem, — not only as to time, but in means, — 
 now than then. The whole spirit of the social life, the 
 religion, the political government in operation there, is 
 in such antagonism to everything American, to every- 
 thing modern, that it must give way. It is Romish, 
 
260 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 barbaric, monarchical; it crushes and degrades the 
 individual, to uphold a system as tyrannical over per- 
 sons and property as that of any Czar ever was, as 
 supreme over the mind as that of any Pope, as en- 
 slaving to woman as that of any Sultan. The Rail- 
 road now crosses the Territory; it will soon pass up 
 and down through it ; and though the Apostles say 
 they are not afraid of its influences, either upon the 
 Mormon church or its "peculiar institution," and 
 Brigham Young declares that his "must, indeed, be 
 
 a poor religion, if it cannot stand one railroad," he 
 
 and they will find out that it cannot and will not. 
 Thousands of Gentiles will come in now, where tens 
 came before; the railroads must have great work 
 and supply shops at important points in the Terri- 
 tory ; and they will bring a power of numbers and of 
 influence, that cannot be met by the social, business 
 or murdering persecutions, that have heretofore kept 
 all foreign and resisting elements timid and weak. 
 
 What precise form the revolution will take, — where 
 the wedge will be entered that shall split this rotten 
 trunk to pieces, no one can wisely predict. The gov- 
 ernment cannot longer be So indifierent and neglect- 
 ful of the situation here as it has been ; it must come 
 here with authority and power to protect citizens who 
 are not Mormons, and will not be subservient to them, 
 who will try titles to property with them, who will 
 claim the right to marry their superfluous wives, who 
 will set up rival churches and schools and papers, and 
 all the other enginery of freedom and revolution. The 
 work maybe slow, — sapping the strength of the church 
 by the processes of education, discussion and law, and 
 
NO SUCCESSOR TO BRIGHAM YOUNG. 261 
 
 polygamy may fade away by degrees through the 
 death of the old, and the absence of new disciples, 
 — or it may come suddenly and sharply in a violent 
 collision between the new settlers and the old, with 
 the government taking the side of the former as the 
 side of its long-neglected, long-outraged laws. But 
 come it must and will. To doubt would be to ques- 
 tion progress, to deny civilization, to outrage God. 
 
 I can discover no successor to Brigham Young. 
 He has men of ability, — men of fanaticism and cour- 
 age, — around him; able instruments for his will; but 
 I see no "coming man" for his place; no one who 
 can stand alone in his shoes, who can command such 
 obedience among followers, such fear among out- 
 siders, such serene victory over himself Most of 
 his wisest and ablest associates, men inspired with 
 the traditions of the church, and inspiring the faith 
 of its members, are all old like himself They and 
 he must soon die ; and, if not before, then will enter 
 in the elements of doubt and difference and disinte- 
 gration, in response to the elements of change and 
 revolution and re-creation that follow the banners of 
 civilization and of democracy everywhere. No Mor- 
 mon will admit this, perhaps ; but it is truth by a 
 diviner sight than any that he possesses. Devout as 
 a Mussulman, devoted as a Eomanist, zealous as a 
 Methodist, there is a higher truth than he has mas- 
 tered, — the truth of revolution in the interests of 
 equality, of individuality, and of woman's independ- 
 ence. These are against him; these will conquer him, 
 pray he ever so sacredly, fight he ever so valiantly. 
 Brigham Young, Louis Napoleon, the Sultan and the 
 
262 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 Pope are all doomed by the same law. Slavery 
 went down under it, j)olygamy will follow. 
 
 But the government should no longer hold a doubt- 
 ful or divided position toward this great crime of the 
 Mormon church. Declaring clearly both its want of 
 power and disinclination to interfere at all with the 
 church organization as such, or with the latter's influ- 
 ence over its followers, assuring and guaranteeing 
 to it all the liberty and freedom that other religious 
 sects hold and enjoy, the government should still, 
 as clearly and distinctly, declare, by all its action 
 and all its representatives here, that this feature of 
 polygamy, not properly or necessarily a part of the 
 religion of the Mormons, is a crime by the common 
 law of all civilization and by the statute law of the 
 Nation, and that any cases of its extension will be 
 prosecuted and punished as such. Now half or two- 
 thirds the federal officers in the Territory are polyg- 
 amists; and others bear no testimony against it. 
 These should give way to men who, otherwise 
 equally Mormons it may be, still are neither polyg- 
 amists nor believers in the practice of polygamy. 
 No employes or contractors of the government should 
 be polygamists in theory or practice. 
 
 Here the government should take its stand, calmly, 
 quietly, but firmly, giving its moral support and 
 countenance, and its physical support, if necessary for 
 fair play, to the large class of Mormons who are not 
 polygamists, to missionaries and preachers of all other 
 sects, who choose to come here, and erect their 
 standards and invite followers ; and to that growing 
 public opinion, here and elsewhere, which is accumu- 
 
HOW THE PROBLEM MAT BE SOLVED. 263 
 
 lating its inexorable force, against an institution which 
 has not inaptly been termed a twin barbarism with 
 slavery. There is no need and no danger of physical 
 conflict growing up ; only a hot and unwise zeal and 
 impatience on the part of the government represent- 
 atives, and in the command of the troops stationed 
 here, could precipitate that. There is a possibility 
 still, as there was probability in 1865^ that, upon such 
 a demonstration by the government, as these pages 
 urge, the leaders of the church would receive new 
 light on the subject themselves, — perhaps have a 
 fresh revelation, and abandon the objectionable feat- 
 ure in their polity. No matter if they did not, — it 
 would soon, under the influences now rapidly aggre- 
 gating, and thus reinforced by the government, aban- 
 don them. 
 
 In this way, all violent conflict would, I believe, 
 be successfully avoided; and all this valuable popu- 
 lation and its industries and wealth may be retained in 
 place and to the Nation, without waste. Let the people 
 continue to be Mormons, if they choose, so long as 
 they are not polygamists. They may be ignorant 
 and fanatical, and imposed upon and swindled even, 
 by their church leaders ; but they are industrious, 
 thriving, and more comfortable than, on the aver- 
 age, they have ever been before in the homes from 
 which they came hither; and there is no law against 
 fanaticism and bigotry and religious charlatanry. All 
 these evils of religious benightment are not original 
 in Utah, and they will work out their own cure here, 
 as they have done elsewhere in our land. We must 
 have patience with the present, and possibly forgive- 
 
264 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ness for supposed crimes in the past by the leaders, 
 because we have heretofore failed to meet the issues 
 promptly and clearly, and have shared, by our con- 
 sent and protection to their authors, in the alleged 
 wrongs. 
 
 Though the Territory has abundant population for 
 a State, there is and should be no disposition in Con- 
 gress or the country to endow it with that organiza- 
 tion, so long as its people continue to be so at variance 
 with all the democratic principles of our nationality. 
 It must be kept, at least, where the federal govern- 
 ment can reach and govern it, so long as its local 
 organization is such a pure religious autocracy, ruling 
 in a manner defiant alike of the laws and constitution 
 of the United States, and the first principles of a 
 republican government. Not only is a free press and 
 a free speech practically denied ; not only is justice 
 driven out of the courts ; but the simplest rights of a 
 man over his own property are outraged. Yfhen a 
 Mormon dies, the church assumes control of his 
 estate, — it goes practically into the common cofiers, 
 and the widows and children, however numerous, get 
 henceforth only what the church chooses to give 
 them. The idea of dividing the Territory up among 
 the adjoining Territories is not practicable now; un- 
 der it, the Mormons, instead of being divided and 
 conquered, would divide and conquer ; for, with their 
 numbers and discipline, they could out-vote and out- 
 manage three territories. The changes of population, 
 by the opening of the Kailroad and the discovery of 
 new mines in adjoining sections of Nevada, will soon 
 suggest the practical manner of reforming the Mor- 
 
THE WOMEN FLEE FROM POLYGAMY. 265 
 
 mens, — very likely reform tliem by their own operor 
 tion, and without the government being more than a 
 policeman on guard to keep the peace. 
 
 The soldiers at Camp Douglas, near Salt Lake 
 City, were, during our visit, illustrating one of the 
 ways in which polygamy will fade away before the 
 popular principle. Two companies, who went home 
 to California in the fall of 1864, took about twenty- 
 five wives with them, recruited from the Mormon 
 flocks. There were in 1865 some fifty or more women 
 in the cam23, who had fled thither from town for pro- 
 tection, or been seduced away from unhappy homes 
 and fractional husbands; and all or nearly all found 
 new husbands among the soldiers. Only the week 
 we were there, a man with three daughters, living in 
 the city, applied to Colonel George for leave to move 
 lip to the camp for a residence, in order, as he said, 
 to save his children from polygamy, into which the 
 bishops and elders of the church were urging them. 
 The camp authorities tell many like stories; also of 
 sadder applications, if possible, for relief from actual 
 poverty and from persecution in town. The Mor- 
 mons have no poor-house, and say they have no poor, 
 permitting none by relieving all through work or gifts. 
 But a late winter was so long and so severe, with wood 
 at thirty and forty dollars a cord, that there was much 
 real suffering, and the soldiers yielded to extensive 
 demands upon their charity, that the church authori- 
 ties had neglected to fulfill, or absolutely denied. 
 
 We hear less of late than in past years of the order 
 of the "Danites," a band of secret Mormon assassins, 
 who, under the direction of Brigham Young, put out 
 
266 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 of the way any particularly threatening or provoking 
 opponents of the church. But of their existence and 
 diabolical operations there can be no doubt. In the 
 fall of 1857 a Mormon sued Brigham Young for false 
 imprisonment; the day before the suit came to court 
 he was shot in his own house. In 1858, two men 
 obtained a judgment of the court against a leading 
 Danite, and both were shot in cold blood. About the 
 same time, Mr. Babbitt, Secretary of the Territory, 
 had a quarrel with Young, and was murdered. In 
 1866, Mr. Beanfield of Austin, Nevada, a highly re- 
 spectable gentleman, had some difficulty with the Mor- 
 mons, and was shot. In October, the same year. Dr. 
 Eobinson, Surgeon of the United States Army, who 
 had taken possession of unoccupied land, was called 
 from his house at night to visit a patient, and was 
 shot. In August, 1867, three men, — Potter, Wilson 
 and Walker, — who had given offense to the church, 
 were arrested on the pretense of stealing a cow and 
 put into jail. At midnight sixteen Avengers, dis- 
 guised, broke open the jail and murdered all three. 
 The United States Marshal arrested them, but the 
 Mormon Sheriff permitted them to escape, without 
 any effort to retain them ; and the "Deseret News," 
 the organ of the church, published a threatening let- 
 ter to Judge Titus and backed it up by editorials, 
 warning the Chief Justice to leave the Territory, 
 and menacing him with death if he remained! 
 
 Some of these sharp and swift punishments for 
 offending or resisting the Mormons have been on a 
 larger scale. The Mountain Meadow massacre of a 
 dozen years ago, in the southern part of the Terri- 
 
THE MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE. 267 
 
 tory, is one of the most notable cases. Its history is as 
 follows: — One of the Mormon missionaries, Parley P. 
 Pratt, was in Southern California preaching, and made 
 a convert of a married woman, whose husband was 
 absent. She left home, joined herself to Pratt, and 
 became his concubine. The husband determined to 
 be revenged, followed them to Salt Lake, then to Ar- 
 kansas, where Pratt was preaching, and took venge- 
 ance by shooting him. Months passed on. One day 
 a party of emigrants from the county in Arkansas in 
 which the homicide was committed reached Salt Lake, 
 on their way to Southern California. It was a party 
 well to do in the world, — forty wagons and about one 
 hundred and fifty persons. In one wagon was a piano. 
 One emigrant, with his family, rode in a well built 
 carriage. They purchased provisions of the Mormons 
 and passed on, reached the green meadow among the 
 mountains and stopped to recruit their stock before 
 entering the desert. Several Mormon settlements 
 were near by; some houses within sight. Suddenly 
 they were attacked by Indians, or white men disguised 
 as Indians. It was at daylight. The emigrants fought 
 from behind their wagons, threw up a ditch and kept 
 the assailants at bay. The fighting lasted a week. 
 One morning a Mormon advanced, told them that if 
 they would give up their arms, the Indians would not 
 harm them. They complied with his request. Then 
 began the massacre. All but seventeen children were 
 killed, and the oldest of these was only six years old, 
 — too young to give certain testimony, except that 
 their fathers were shot down, their mothers and sis- 
 ters outraged, and then had their brains beaten out 
 
268 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 by men, who, though wearing an Indian dress, could 
 speak the English language. A few days after the 
 massacre, the wagons, horses, carriages, and clothing of 
 the murdered ones, were brought to Salt Lake and 
 sold. Ten per cent, of the proceeds went into the 
 treasury of the church. Brigham Young bought the 
 carriage for his own use, and the piano is now owned 
 by one of the leading Mormons. 
 
 There have been two or three prominent apostasies 
 from the church in the Territory during its history. 
 The two most important were those of Joseph Morris 
 in 1860, and of Joseph Smith, Jr., son of the original 
 prophet, in 1863-5. Of the followers of Morris, some 
 were killed and nearly all robbed by the Mormon 
 leaders in Salt Lake City in 1862, under pretense of 
 enforcing the confiscations of the church against them 
 for their rebellious conduct; and those who held out 
 against this assault and the continuous persecution of 
 the church, some eighty families, moved off to Idaho 
 Territory, and have made a settlement there. The 
 disciples of Joseph Smith, Jr., or " Josephites," are 
 scattered in Missouri and Iowa, number about fifteen 
 hundred, and include several hundred who left Utah 
 in 1864-5, under government protection, for fear of 
 massacre by the instruments of Young. Smith is a 
 man of sincerity and purity, but lacks the courage and 
 the force to cope fairly with the combination under 
 Brigham Young at Salt Lake City. His creed de- 
 nounces Young and his followers as apostates from 
 the true Mormon church, forbids polygamy, and pro- 
 fesses loyalty to the government. The Josephites 
 are thus reduced to a mere sect of Protestantism, as 
 
POLYGAMY THE DEGRADATION OF WOMAN. 269 
 
 Mormonism would be in the overthrow of polygamy 
 and the severance of its church government from 
 State craft. 
 
 All our experience and observation in Utah tended, 
 however, to increase our appreciation of the value of 
 its material progress and development to the nation ; 
 to justify congratulations to the Mormons and to the 
 country for the wealth they have created and the 
 order, frugality, morality and industry that have been 
 organized in this remote spot in our Continent; to 
 excite wonder at the perfection and power of their 
 church system, the extent of its ramifications, the 
 sweep of its influence ; and to enlarge our respect for 
 the personal sincerity and character of many of the 
 leaders in the organization; — but also, on the other 
 hand, to deepen our disgust at their polygamy, and 
 strengthen our convictions of its barbaric and de- 
 grading influences. They have tried it and practiced 
 it under the most favorable circumstances, perhaps 
 under the mildest form possible; but, now as before, 
 here as elsewhere, it tends to and means only the 
 degradation of woman. By it and under it, she be- 
 comes simply the servant and serf, not the companion 
 and equal of man; and the inevitable influence of 
 this upon all society need not be depicted. 
 
 And so we could not, and cannot yet, doubt that, 
 sooner or later, before the influences of emigration, 
 civilization and our democratic habits, an organiza- 
 tion so aristocratic and autocratic as the Mormon 
 church now is must modify its rule ; it must compete 
 with other sects, and take its chance with them. And 
 especially, that its most ^aristocratic and uncivilized 
 
270 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 incident or feature of plurality of wives must fall first 
 and completely before contact with the rest of the 
 world, — marshalled with mails, daily papers, railroads 
 and telegraphs, — ciphering out the fact that the men 
 and women of the world are about equally divided, and 
 applying to the Mormon patriarchs the democratic 
 principle of equal and exact justice. Nothing can 
 save this feature of Mormonism but new flight and a 
 more complete isolation. A kingdom in the sea, en- 
 tirely its own, could only perpetuate it; and thither, 
 even, commerce and democracy would ultimately fol- 
 low it. The click of the telegraph and the roll of 
 the overland stages were its unheeded death-rattle ; 
 the whistle of the locomotive will speedily sound its 
 requiem; and the pickax of the miner is already 
 digging its grave. Squatter sovereignty must ere 
 long settle the question, even if the government con- 
 tinues to coquette with the offense and humor the 
 offenders, as it has done. Our bachelor stage-driver 
 out of Salt Lake, who said he expected to have a 
 revelation soon to take one of the extra wives of a 
 Mormon saint^ is a representative of the Coming Man. 
 Let the Mormons look out for him ! 
 
XIY. 
 
 THEOUGH THE DESERT BASIN BY STAGE. 
 
 From the Rocky Mountains to the Sierra Nevadas by Stage— Through 
 Central Utah and Nevada — Characteristics of the Country — A 
 Fast Ride— The Alkali Deposits and the Dust— The Compensa- 
 tions in Nature— Reese River Valley, and Austin, a Representative 
 Mining Town— A Classical Retreat— Virginia City and Gold Hill— 
 The Neighborhood of the Sierras— The Rich Valleys— Steamboat 
 Springs— The Anomalies of the Great Basin— Why, Whence, What? 
 
 Our summer stage-ride of 1865, through the cen- 
 ter of the Great Interior Basin of the Continent,— 
 six hundred miles from the shadows of the Rocky 
 Mountains to the shadows of their twin, the Sierra 
 Nevadas, — was an experience that the Railroad now 
 denies the opportunity for repeating. Dreary as the 
 passage is by the cars, many times more dreary was 
 the journey across it by stage. The route of the 
 former lies along its only river ; it is passed over in 
 a single day; the path of the stage lay along its 
 center, crossing many a range of mountains, often 
 a dry ravine, rarely a feeble, sickly brook, and re- 
 quired a week of day and night travel. 
 
 The Salt Lake Yalley belongs to the Great Basin, 
 is its proem, gem and sub-specimen. Passing out 
 17 
 
274 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 of it, up the Jordan River to Utah Lake, and through 
 the mountain range that stretches southward from 
 Salt Lake, the stage road crossed sixty miles of 
 almost pure sand, that even water could not seduce 
 into verdure, and then entered upon the general 
 characteristics of the Basin country, — a dry, vol- 
 canic soil, absorbing all the water it could get, and 
 hungrily begging for more, bearing the sage bush in 
 profusion, and scantily the bunch grass, rarely an 
 animal or bird, never a human being but such as the 
 stage line necessitated, a succession of bare, brown, 
 vacant hills and valleys, gradually rising from the 
 Salt Lake country at four thousand feet above the 
 sea-level to nine thousand feet in the center, and 
 then as gradually falling away under the Sierra Ne- 
 vada range to four thousand again. Mountain and 
 plain are alike above dew point; rain is a rarity, — 
 near neighbor to absolute stranger; and only an oc- 
 casional range of the hills mounts so high as to hold its 
 winter snows into the summer suns, and yield the 
 summer streams that give, at rare intervals, sweet 
 lines of green, affording forage for cattle and refresh- 
 ment and rest for traveler. Springs are even more 
 infrequent, but not altogether unknown, and water 
 may sometimes, though very hardly, be got, when all 
 else fails, by digging deep wells. Such streams as 
 rise from springs or snow-banks in the mountains, be^ 
 gin to shrink as they reach the plains, and end in 
 salt lakes, or sink quietly into the famishing earth. 
 
 But such a ride as the stage men gave us across 
 this country ! They doubled the ordinary speed of 
 the horses, and made for us the quickest trip on 
 
THE om:n"ippwEsent alkali dust. 275 
 
 record. The stations for the stages were ten to 
 fifteen miles apart; at every station fresh horses, 
 ready harnessed, took the places of the old, with 
 a delay of from two to four minutes only; every 
 fifty miles a new driver took his place on the box; 
 wherever meals were to be eaten, they were ready 
 to serve on arrival; and so, with horses ever fresh 
 and fat and gamey, — horses that would shine in 
 Central Park and Fifth Avenue equipages, — with 
 drivers, gentlemanly, intelligent and better dressed 
 than their passengers, and a division superintendent, 
 who had planned the ride and came along to see it 
 executed, for each two hundred miles, — we were 
 whirled over the rough mountains and through the 
 dry and dusty plains of this uninhabited and unin- 
 habitable region, as rapidly and as regularly as we 
 could have been over macadamized roads amid a 
 complete civilization. The speed rarely fell below 
 eight miles an hour, and often ran up to twelve. 
 But so wisely was all arranged, and so well executed, 
 that not an animal suffered; to horses and men the 
 ride seemed to be the work of every day, as indeed 
 it was in everything but our higher rate of speed. 
 
 But we were content with the single experience. 
 The alkaU dust, dry with a season's sun, fine with 
 the grinding of a season's stages and freight trains, 
 was thick and constant and penetrating beyond ex- 
 perience and comparison. It filled the air, — it was 
 the air ; it covered our bodies, — it penetrated them ; 
 it soared to Almighty attributes, and became omni- 
 present, and finding its way into bags and trunks, 
 begrimed all our clean clothes, and reduced every- 
 
276 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 thing as everybody to a common plane of dirt, with 
 soda, soapy flavor to all. 
 
 This alkali element in the western soil has yet 
 received, as I can find, no intelligent scientific ex- 
 planation. We met with it first on the Plains ; then 
 again in the Bitter Creek desert country in the Moun- 
 tains; and now, in still greater degree, in the valleys 
 and peculiarly desert plains of the Great Basin region. 
 In some spots it prevails to such an extent as to clean 
 the ground of all, even the scantiest vegetation ; and 
 wide, smooth, bare alkali plains stretch out before the 
 eye sometimes for miles, and white in the distance like 
 a snow-bank. In other places so strong is it that the 
 earth when wet rises like bread under yeast. It taints 
 the water everywhere, and sometimes so strongly that 
 bread mixed with it needs no other "rising." Yet we 
 found neither in Utah nor Nevada evidence of any 
 general unhealthy efiect from its presence, as was 
 reported farther east ; animals eat the grass and drink 
 the water flavored with it; and though the dust 
 chokes all pores and makes the nose and lips sore, the 
 inconvenience and annoyance seem to be but tem- 
 porary from even large doses of it. 
 
 In this grand desert ride, the joltings of the rocks 
 and the "chuck holes" of the road, to which the 
 drivers in their rapid progress could give no heed, 
 kept us in a somewhat perpetual and not altogether 
 graceful motion. There was certainly small sleep to 
 be enjoyed during this memorable ride of three days 
 and nights; and though we made the best of it with 
 joke and felicitation at each other's discomfort, there 
 was none not glad when it was over. 
 
WHAT CAN" WE DO WITH IT? 277 
 
 It is an interesting problem whether these un- 
 promising valleys, gray and brown with an unnatural 
 sunshine, can ever be subdued to the service o the 
 population that the mineral wealth of these hills in- 
 vites and will inevitably draw into them. For most 
 of our journey, there was nothing in the soil itself 
 that forbade valuable uses. It is made up of the 
 wash and waste of the Rocky Mountains, and wher- 
 ever even moderately watered is very productive. 
 Some theorists contend that with the occupation and 
 use of the country, rains will multiply; and the ob- 
 servations of the Mormons give encouragement to 
 this idea. Another theory is, that by plowing durino- 
 the later rains of spring, and sowing during the long, 
 dry summer rest, the smaller and hardy grains will 
 sprout with the fall rains, strengthen in the winter, 
 and quickly ripen in the early spring. Such treat- 
 ment involves a year's fallow, as the harvest would 
 be too late for another plowing the same spring. 
 This culture is doubtless practicable, as it has been 
 proven, in the high sage bush plains in California; 
 but it would seem as if these alkaline valleys of the 
 Great Interior Basin were too cold, and go dry too 
 long, for like successful treatment. It is worthy in- 
 telligent and persistent experiment, however; for I 
 observe that wherever the sage bush can grow, other 
 things can and will with the addition of water. 
 
 Do not think such a country is altogether without 
 beauty or interest for a traveler. Mountains are al- 
 ways beautiful; and here they are ever in sight, 
 wearing every variety of shape, and even in their 
 hard and bare surfaces presenting many a fascination 
 
278 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 of fornij — running up into sharp peaks ; rising up and 
 rounding out into innumerable fat mammillas, ex- 
 quisitely shapen, and inviting possibly to auriferous 
 feasts ; sloping down into faint foot-hills, and mingling 
 with the plain to which they are all destined; and 
 now and then offering the silvery streak of snow, 
 that is the sign of water for man and the promise of 
 grass for ox. Add to the mountains the clear, pure, 
 rare atmosphere, bringing remote objects close, giving 
 new size and distinctness to moon and stars, offering 
 sunsets and sunrises of indescribable richness and 
 reach of color, and accompanied with cloudless skies 
 and a south wind, refreshing at all times, and cool and 
 exhilarating ever in the afternoon and evening ; and 
 you have large compensations even for the lack of 
 vegetation and color in the landscape. There is a 
 rich exhilaration, especially, in the fresh evening air, 
 dry, clear and strengthening, that no eastern moun- 
 tain or ocean breeze can rival. In looking out through 
 it after sunset on the starry heavens, and taking in 
 its subtle inspiration, one almost forgets alkali, and 
 for the time does not remember flowers and grass 
 and trees. 
 
 Two-thirds the journey across the Basin, — half way 
 through Nevada, — we came to Keese River Valley, 
 and there, in the mining town of Austin, we struck 
 the first wave of Pacific Coast life. Reese River is 
 but a sluggish brook, that the shortest-legged man 
 could step across at its widest, and yields itself up to 
 the hot sands after greening a very narrow line in 
 the broad plain through which it runs. And yet it is 
 the largest and almost only stream that we met in 
 
AUSTIN AND ITS ATTRACTIONS. 279 
 
 traveling westward from the Jordan which waters the 
 valley of Salt Lake; and the two are four hundred 
 miles apart ! 
 
 Here, ^yo hundred miles west of San Francisco, 
 and two hundred from the Sierra Nevadas, huddled in 
 a narrow canyon with steep hill-sides, just out of the 
 valley, was the most representative mining town we 
 had yet seen. Beginning in 1863, Austin had in a 
 year's time a population of six to eight thousand, fell 
 away in 1865 to four thousand, and now probably has 
 no more than three thousand. Its houses are built 
 anywhere, everywhere, and then the streets get to 
 them as best they can; one side of a house will be 
 four stories, the other one or two, — such is the lay of 
 the land; not a tree, not a flower, not a blade of 
 green grass anywhere in town; but the boot-blacks 
 and baths and barbers are of European standards; it 
 has a first-class French restaurant and a daily news- 
 paper; the handsomest woman, physically, I ever 
 saw presided, with almost comic queenliness, over one 
 of its lager beer saloons ; gambling went on openly, 
 amid music, in the area of every "saloon" — miners 
 risking to this chance at night the proceeds of the 
 scarcely less doubtful chance of the day; while the 
 generally cultivated and classical tone of the town 
 may be inferred from this advertisement in the daily 
 paper : — 
 
 " Mammotli Lager Beer Saloon, in the basement, corner Main and 
 Virginia streets, Austin, Nevada. Choice liquors, wines, lager beer 
 and cigars, served by pretty girls, who understand their business and 
 attend to it. Votaries of Bacchus, Gambrinus, Venus or Cupid can 
 spend an evening agreeably at the Mammoth Saloon." 
 
280 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 All this appealed, of course, to our scholarly appe- 
 tites, and we went early in search of so classical a 
 bower of the senses. Kesult, — a cellar, whitewashed 
 and sawdusted; two fiddles and a clarionet in harsh 
 action in one corner- a bar of liquors glaring in an- 
 other; while a fat, coarse Jew girl proved the sole 
 representative and servant of all these proclaimed 
 gods and goddesses. "We blushingly apologized, and 
 retired with our faces to Mistress Venus, Cupid, etc., 
 as guests retire from mortal monarchs, — lest our pock- 
 ets should be picked; and concluded we should take 
 our mythology out of the dictionaries hereafter. 
 
 We stole a march by our rapid riding on Virginia 
 City and Gold Hill, two hundred miles farther west 
 than Austin, and got into town, had our bath, and 
 were asleep in bed, when the patriotic citizens mar- 
 shalled their procession, and were about to go out on 
 the road, with brass band and welcoming speech, to 
 give greeting to the distinguished visitors. We found 
 in Virginia, the original " Washoe " of mining history, 
 many contrasts to and improvements upon Austin. 
 It is three or four years older; it puts its gambling 
 behind an extra door; it is beginning to recognize 
 the Sabbath, has many churches open, and closes part 
 of its stores on that day; is exceedingly well built, 
 in large proportion with solid brick stores and ware- 
 houses; and though the fast and fascinating times of 
 1862-63 are over, when it held from fifteen to twenty 
 thousand people, and Broadway and Wall street were 
 not more crowded than its streets, and there are to- 
 kens that its great mines are nearly dug out, it still 
 has the air of permanence and of profit, and contains 
 
VIRGINIA AND ITS NEIGHBOEING VALLEYS. 281 
 
 a population of seven or eight thousand, besides the 
 adjoining town or extension of Gold Hill, which has 
 about three thousand more. 
 
 The situation of Virginia is very picturesque; above 
 the canyon or ravine, it is spread along the mountain 
 side, like the roof of a house, about half way to the 
 top. Directly above rises a noble peak, fifteen hun- 
 dred feet higher than the town, itself about six thou- 
 sand feet high; below stretches the foot-hill, bisected 
 by the ravine; around on all sides, sister hills rise in 
 varying hights, rich in roundness and other forms of 
 beauty, but brown in barrenness, as if shorn for prize 
 fight, and fading out into distant plain, with a sweet 
 green spot to mark the rare presence of water and 
 verdure. 
 
 A few miles now bring us within the freshness of 
 the Mountains, and the Desert is over and past. Ad- 
 joining Virginia City and Gold Hill are fertile val- 
 leys, in one of which the capital of the State, Car- 
 son City, is located, feeding upon the overflow of the 
 gold ores of the mines for reduction, and upon the 
 agriculture that the neighboring market invites, and 
 the surrounding meadows permit. Just here, in fact, 
 in the valleys of the Truckee, the Washoe, and the 
 Carson Rivers, coming down from the mountain, is 
 the garden of the State. Before "Washoe" was, 
 it was occupied by a few Mormon farmers, colonists 
 from the central settlement at Salt Lake, the whole 
 territory from the Eocky Mountains to the Sierras 
 then being Utah. But now the Mormons are dis- 
 placed by a more vigorous and varied population, 
 prosperous with farming, with lumbering among the 
 
282 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 rich pines of the Sierras, and with quartz mills for 
 reducing gold ores. 
 
 A not unfrequent phenomenon of the Great Basin 
 lies just off the stage road in one of these valleys. 
 For a mile or more along a little stream, underneath 
 a thin crust of earth, water immeasurable is seething 
 and boiling, and occasionally breaking through in col- 
 umns of steam and in bubbling spouts and streams, — 
 too hot to bear the hand in ; — the waste drawn off to 
 a neighboring bath-house where chronic rheumatisms 
 and blood affections are successfully treated, or tem- 
 pering the cool river below. The boiling springs are 
 flavored with sulphur and soda, and are similar to 
 the more celebrated Geysers in California. In the 
 winter the vapor fills the valley, and from this and the 
 rumbling, bubbling noise of the seething waters, comes 
 the name of Steamboat Springs, which is given them. 
 Similar but more pronounced springs lie in Whirl- 
 wind Valley, a few miles south of the railroad line in 
 the Humboldt Valley. They seem to be the faint 
 breathings of dyin^ volcanoes, or the gathering mut- 
 terings of new ones. 
 
 Indeed this whole Basin region of the Continent 
 is full of the strangest anomalies of nature, puzzling 
 the science and defying the industry of man, and 
 almost insulting the beneficence of God. The ques- 
 tions why, whence, and what ? — why was it so con- 
 stituted, whence the forbidding and incongruous ele- 
 ments thrown together here, and what can man do 
 with it? — press themselves upon every observing 
 traveler. Nature seems to be incomplete here. Man 
 has entered before she was ready for him, and finds 
 
THE SALT FIELDS OF THE BASm. 283 
 
 her unprepared for his reception. And yet, between 
 the fanaticism of a religion and the passion for gold 
 and silver, much has been done towards its settle- 
 ment and subjugation. One State has grown up by 
 agriculture, and another by mining, all within this 
 strange desert land. And after learning her new con- 
 ditions, her new laws here, Man comes to find Nature 
 still a friend, still willing to minister to his wants. 
 But she piques his curiosity, she challenges his flexi- 
 bility of character and capacity as never before, as 
 nowhere else. The great salt fields in the Basin 
 are already put to use. A salt pasture of two thou- 
 sand acres in the Smoky Yalley, near the center of 
 Nevada, furnishes all the neighboring settlements, 
 including Austin, with salt for domestic purposes, 
 and for reducing the ores. It gathers on the sur- 
 face a thin deposit of half an inch to an inch, and 
 is scraped ofi! The rain dissipates it; but the sun 
 renews it. Perhaps the alkali fields w^ill yet serve a 
 practical purpose; and the deposits of sulphur around 
 the bursting springs. But without an increase of 
 rain, enlarging the areas of agriculture, no great 
 population can be supported. There must be more 
 grass and trees and grain, or even the rich deposits 
 of minerals in the hills can never be worked with 
 certain advantage. 
 
XY. 
 
 THE mNES OF NEVADA. 
 
 The Beginning of Silver Mining in Nevada and its Eesults — The 
 Comstock Lode — Review of the Mines at Austin — Hq-w the Ore is 
 Reduced — Details of Operations at Virginia City and Gold Hill — 
 The Comstock Lode Nearly Used Up — Inspecting the Mines — A Tour 
 through the Gould & Curry IMine — "Nature Abhors a Vacuum" — 
 New Discoveries in Nevada — The White Pine Mines and their 
 Promise — A Warning to Brigham Young — How the Miners Divide 
 their Fat Things — The Fascination of Mining — The Ease with 
 which People are Swindled — Mines vs. " Faro Banks" — Advice in 
 General and in Particular to those who have the Gold and Silver 
 Fever. 
 
 In 1859, Nevada was not; and its mineral wealth 
 was unknown. The whole Interior Basin was Utah; 
 its sole inhabitants, beside Digger Indians, Mormons, 
 who not only had not discovered any mines, but were 
 told as of God not to look for them. In that year, 
 the outcroppings of the great Comstock lode, at what 
 is now Virginia City, were revealed by some wander- 
 ing prospectors, and directly there followed the famous 
 "Washoe" fever in California. Probably no other min- 
 ing excitement in our country was ever so wild and 
 wide-spread as this, or led to such reckless emigration 
 and speculation. Adventurers of every sort hurried 
 
THE mINES AT AUSTIN-. 285 
 
 over the mountains from California, regardless of 
 weather, or means, or any other element of comfort 
 and success. There were of course wide disappoint- 
 ment and terrible suffering, much social disorder, and 
 shocking political anarchy. But the greatest silver de- 
 posit in America was revealed ; the science of minino- 
 was rapidly carried to a greater perfection than was 
 ever reached before ; and Nevada soon became a State, 
 with a smaller population and a larger territorial area 
 (Texas, California and Oregon excepted,) than any 
 other in the Union. Her mines are almost exclusively 
 of silver, — that is, the silver greatly predominates, — 
 and the precious metal is found only in its original 
 form of rock veins in the mountains. From the Com- 
 stock lode, explorations have been made in all direc- 
 tions over the entire State; but nothing elsewhere 
 has yet been found to compare with that grand de- 
 posit. Near one hundred millions of bullion have 
 been worked out and taken to market from the State 
 since 1859,— about one-third of which was gold, and 
 the rest silver, — and at least eighty millions of it all 
 came out of the Comstock mines. 
 
 At Austin, the second settlement of the State in 
 size, we found the hill-sides dotted with huge ant-hills 
 denoting discoveries. About six thousand locations 
 had been made; yet no more than seventy-five mines 
 have ever been worked up to the producing point, and 
 probably not more than a dozen have really been 
 profitable. The production of that district has been 
 as high as one million a year, but it is not estimated 
 now at above half that. The veins of precious de- 
 posit are very small, of inches, and rarely of feet in 
 
286 OUR KEW WEST. 
 
 thickness, but lie near together all around. If they 
 are ever extensively and at the same time profitably 
 worked, it must be by running a tunnel in under the 
 mountain which shall reach a large number of veins 
 at once. The ore is rich; from fifty to four hundred 
 dollars a ton; but the silver is closely held with sul- 
 phurets, and can only be got out by roasting the ore 
 with salt, or by smelting, and the former process cost 
 about one hundred dollars a ton when we were there 
 in 1865. The Kailroad, which lies ninety miles north 
 of Austin, will bring to it cheaper labor, food and 
 fuel; more likely it will take away its ores to be 
 worked where all are cheaper still than they ever 
 can be there. 
 
 If the reader has never seen the process of getting 
 gold and silver out of the ores, he will be interested 
 in a brief account of it, as we saw the work done at 
 Austin. The precious metal can rarely be seen in 
 the rock, and only the signs of its presence are de- 
 tected by the practiced eye. After the quartz or rock 
 has been extracted from the mine, it is taken to the 
 mill, broken into pieces of from half a pound to two 
 pounds in weight, thoroughly dried by the application 
 of heat, and then crushed to powder in the mill. The 
 crushing is done by stamps, or the dropping of heavy 
 weights upon the quartz. Five stamps are usually 
 arrayed side by side, weighing from ^yb to seven 
 hundred pounds each. They are raised a distance of 
 from eight to ten inches, and dropped from sixty to 
 eighty-five times a minute. The powdered rock then 
 goes through a wire sieve, whence it is taken to a 
 furnace, mixed with salt, which assists in freeing the 
 
HOW THE OKES AKE REDUCED. 287 
 
 silver and gold from its surroundings or combina- 
 tions^ and then subjected to the action of a stream of 
 flame from five to eight hours, during which time it 
 is constantly stirred. As this flame carries off* some 
 silver bodily, it is made to pass through a long cham- 
 ber, and exposed to cooler air before reaching the 
 chimney, so that the silver can be saved. After being 
 thus roasted, the pulverized quartz is ready for amal- 
 gamation. At the Midas Mill, which was considered 
 to be the best mill at Reese River, the amalgamation 
 is done by the Freiburg barrels, into which loose and 
 irregular pieces of iron are placed for the purpose of 
 mixing the quicksilver with the pulp, (as the pulver- 
 ized quartz is called,) and which are then revolved 
 over and over. In other mills, the pulp is put into 
 tubSj and stirred in water for nearly an hour, and 
 then the quicksilver is applied, and the mass is stirred 
 by means of iron flanges for three hours. About 
 seventy-five pounds of quicksilver are allowed for 
 one thousand pounds of pulp, the quicksilver amal- 
 gamating with or taking up the little unseen particles 
 of silver now separated from their original associa- 
 tions. After this, the water is drawn ofl*, and a proc- 
 ess like the distillation of cider brandy is resorted 
 to for the purpose of saving the quicksilver, and 
 the amalgam, composed of silver and quicksilver, is 
 squeezed, to get out the quicksilver, after which it is 
 put into the retort, and upon being subjected to heat 
 more quicksilver passes off in fumes, and is saved, and 
 the crude bullion which is left is ready to be taken to 
 the assay ofiice. This is substantially the process 
 used at Reese River, where dry crushing is necessary, 
 
288 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 on account of the presence of tlie baser metals. In 
 Virginia and its vicinity^ where the ore is of a different 
 character^ and far less rich, it is crushed wet, and not 
 roasted, and the expense is much less. The common 
 gold ores of Colorado and California are also treated 
 in the latter way. Crushing by stamps and amalga- 
 mating with quicksilver are the two fundamental and 
 universal features of all processes for reducing gold 
 and silver ores, except that of smelting. 
 
 The operations on the Comstock lode at Virginia 
 City and Gold Hill next and more thoroughly com- 
 manded our attention. Midway of a long hill-side, 
 this ledge of metal-bearing rock runs for several 
 miles; the towns are built in part directly over it; 
 the excavations beneath in shafts and drifts foot up 
 about thirty-five miles, and amount to much more 
 than all the streets of the towns above; and the 
 timber used in a single one of the forty mines that 
 extend along upon the lode, for sustaining the walls 
 of the excavations, exceeds all that employed in the 
 buildings of Virginia City, \7itK its ten thousand 
 inhabitants ! Occasionally the crust over a mine has 
 broken in, and buildings have been swallowed up as 
 in the vortex of an earthquake. The deepest shafts 
 of the mines go down from seven hundred to eight 
 hundred feet, and out from these long tunnels or 
 chambers are opened at different points upon the 
 line of the precious rock. 
 
 The richness and extent of this lode have intro- 
 duced the most thorough system into the business of 
 mining and milling ; and the education of America in 
 the science and practice of mining gathers around 
 
THE GOULD & CURRY AND OPHIR MINES. 289 
 
 the history of operations here. At the first there 
 were great extravagance and wanton waste; all the 
 machinery used and all the means of living had to be 
 drawn over the mountains from California at enormous 
 cost ; but the lode was thought to be inexhaustible, 
 and the great profits made by a few of the mines 
 seduced all into the freest expenditures and reckless- 
 ness. The history of the Gould & Curry mine, one 
 of the largest and most famous upon the lode, may 
 be given in illustration both of the character of the 
 property and its management. It owns twelve hun- 
 dred feet on the up|)er surface of the lode, cost the 
 stockholders originally but one hundred and eighty 
 thousand dollars, and has yielded fourteen million 
 dollars in gold and silver, and spent all but four 
 millions, which the stockholders have received in 
 dividends, in development, experiments, and improve- 
 ments. It has a mill for reducing the ore which cost 
 one million dollars. Had there been a railroad from 
 San Francisco to Virginia City at the beginning, this 
 mine's profits would have been twice as much. But 
 now its glory has departed, and within the last two 
 years it has had to call upon its stockholders for 
 assessments to pay expenses. Another great com- 
 pany, the Ophir, has taken out thirteen millions of 
 dollars, but used it nearly all up in expenditures, and 
 probably not returned to the stockholders so much 
 as they have paid in. 
 
 The Comstock ledge ore is, as already stated, with 
 small exceptions, much more simple in its combina- 
 tions than that at Austin, and the metal is extracted 
 by simply crushing and amalgamating. Fifty dollars 
 18 
 
290 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 was always a good average yield per ton; and this 
 has now decreased so that the average of all the 
 mines for the last two years has been less than forty 
 dollars. To meet this lower yield per ton, however, 
 is a greatly decreased cost of working the ore, and 
 the whole expense of mining and reducing does not 
 exceed twenty-five dollars a ton, and is even brought 
 as low as eighteen and twenty dollars by the Gould 
 & Curry company. The probability is that even this 
 cost may be much reduced, and that ore which will 
 yield but ten and fifteen dollars to the ton can soon 
 be worked with profit. The great element in the 
 cost of reduction is the high price of wood, which 
 has often to be brought from long distances, and sells 
 for from fifteen to twenty dollars a cord. There are 
 nearly eighty mills or reduction works employed on 
 ore from the Comstock lode, scattered through a re- 
 gion of twenty miles in extent, in order to be near 
 as may be to wood and water. They get out but 
 about two-thirds the metal in the ore; the rest is 
 wasted, or remains to be obtained by reworking 
 under a cleaner and cheaper process. 
 
 But now this great deposit of precious mineral 
 gives signs of being nearly worked out. The sur- 
 rounding walls of barren rock are closing in at the 
 bottom of the mines ; and though there is much valu- 
 able ore left on the sides of most, and at the bottom 
 of many, of the mines, the more intelligent scientific 
 opinion is, that there is henceforth to be a gradual 
 lessening of the production of the lode, and a conse- 
 quent gradual decay in the towns to which it has 
 given birth and support. The total yield of all the 
 
HOW WE EXPLORED MINES. 291 
 
 mines in the lode up to January 1^ 1869, is little 
 short of ninety millions of dollars, beginning in 1859 
 with fifty thousand dollars, going up to sixteen mil- 
 lions in 1864, and to sixteen and a half millions in 
 1867, — its year of greatest production, — but falling 
 suddenly off in 1868 to about eight millions, which 
 it will probably never again exceed. It is held, how- 
 ever, by many intelligent and interested parties, that 
 deeper excavations will develop new deposits, and 
 that, instead of the lode being nearly used up, there 
 is really no end to it. Such theorists urge the con- 
 struction of a great tunnel, from far down the valley, 
 into the mountain and the lode, to be about four 
 miles long, and to strike the deposits of mineral, — if 
 it remains, — at a depth of two thousand feet from the 
 surface. By this means, the mines would be easily 
 drained of water, which, as they descend, often comes 
 freely in and now requires to be pumped out at great 
 cost; while the ore could be rolled out of the tunnel 
 much cheaper than it is now drawn up the shafts. 
 But it is doubtful if there is faith enough in the con- 
 tinuance of the deposit among the capitalists of Ne- 
 vada and California to secure the necessary two mil- 
 lions dollars for this great work; and the application 
 to Congress for aid is simply preposterous, and will 
 not be granted. 
 
 We had a good deal of experience, both at Austin 
 and Virginia, in exploring the mines. At the former 
 place, the prospectors were all anxious we should see 
 every one of their several thousands of holes, and were 
 a good deal disgusted that our party had but three 
 days to spare for them. That is not time enough, 
 
292 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 they said; you cannot begin to see what we have got; 
 you might as well not have come. But let us try, 
 was the reply; show us Avhat you can in three days, 
 and then see what is left that is new and strange. 
 So we mounted ; and there was an extensive cavalcade 
 of local officials, practical miners, speculators, and 
 genteel bummers generally. We went over and 
 around hills, down into mines, through mills, every- 
 where that our guides led us; finding naturally great 
 similarity of sights and testimony all about. By 
 afternoon, our hosts had dwindled one-half The next 
 morning, instead of a dozen, we had but three or four 
 guides; at noon, they were reduced to one, and at 
 night we had exhausted not only his strength and 
 patience, but all he had to show us. We had seen 
 Austin and its mines, and had a day to spare ! 
 
 The newer mines, whose shafts are but fifty or one 
 hundred feet, are descended by a simple rope and 
 bucket, worked by a common hand windlass ; older 
 and deeper ones, by the same contrivance, with steam 
 power : if, as is often the case, the vein runs at an 
 angle, or is reached below in that way, a little car 
 runs down a steep track, held and drawn by a heavy 
 rope and steam engine ; while other shafts are pro- 
 vided with ladders, winding around, or set perpen- 
 dicularly up and down. The latest and safest and 
 readiest contrivance for descending a perpendicular 
 shaft is a cage or box, let down by a rope with steam 
 power, but provided with sharp, opening arms that, in 
 case the rope breaks, will catch into the walls with 
 such power as to hold the cage and its load. Its 
 certainty was proven to us by cutting the rope with 
 
EXPEEIENCE IIS" A MINE. 293 
 
 an ax, when the cage sent out its fingers and clung 
 midway in its passage. We reached the insides of 
 other mines by long tunnels, running into the veins 
 from the surface, far down the hill-sides on which they 
 were located. 
 
 The great Gould & Curry mine at Virginia has four 
 or five miles' length of shafts and tunnels, and it 
 is a full half day's work to explore it thoroughly. 
 We entered it through a long tunnel, that strikes 
 the vein several hundred feet below the surface. 
 There were half a dozen of us in the procession, 
 each with a lighted candle, which would go out 
 under the out-going draft, and so we soon contented 
 ourselves with groping along in the dim, cavernous 
 light. It seemed a very long journey, and the nerves 
 had to brace themselves. The most stolid person, 
 stranger to such experience, will hardly fail to find 
 his heart beating a little quicker, as he goes into 
 these far-away, narrow recesses in the bowels of 
 the earth. I never failed to remember the principle 
 that "Nature abhors a vacuum," and to wonder if 
 she wouldn't take the present occasion to close up 
 this Httle one that I was in ! At last we reached the 
 scenes of the ore and the work after it; and among 
 these we clambered and wandered about, down shaft's 
 to this or that level, and then out on side tunnels 
 through the vein in both directions; up again by 
 narrow, pokerish ladders to a higher set of cham- 
 bers, in and out, up and down, till we were lost in 
 amazing confusion. Here was, indeed, a city of 
 streets and population far under the surface of the 
 earth. Many of the chambers or streets were de- 
 
294 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 serted ; in others we found little coteries of miners, 
 picking away at the hard rock, and loading up cars 
 of the ore, that were sent out by the tunnels or up 
 by the shafts to the surface above. Here, too, was 
 a building in a wide hall under ground, and a steam 
 engine to help on the work. Some of the chambers 
 had closed in after being worked out of ore ; others 
 have been filled up to prevent caving in and caus- 
 ing great disaster overhead ; but many of the open 
 jDassages were stayed or braced open still with huge 
 frame-work of timber. The annual cost of lumber 
 for such purposes in all the mines of the Comstock 
 lode is about a million and a half of dollars. In 
 many of these passages, such is the outward pressure 
 into the vacuum, that these timbers, as big as a man's 
 body, are bent and splintered almost in two. Great 
 pine sticks, eighteen inches square, were thus bent 
 like a bow, or yawned with gaping splinters; and 
 the spaces left in some places for us to go through 
 were in this way reduced so small that we almost 
 had to crawl to get along. Do you wonder that 
 we began to grow weary, and thought we had seen 
 enough ? Besides, the mine was oppressively hot 
 and close ; the mercury was up to one hundred de- 
 grees and more, and the sweat poured from us like 
 water. One of our party grew faint and feeble, and 
 we voted to take the nearest way out. This hap- 
 pened to be the most perilous and trying; but we 
 did not realize that, and our miner guide, unsensitive 
 from experience, did not think of it. So he took us 
 into a long shaft, running straight up and down for 
 several hundreds of feet, damp and dark as night, 
 
NEW DISCOVERIES IN NEVADA. 295 
 
 with no breaks or landing-places, and there started 
 nSj one after another, up a perpendicular ladder fas- 
 tened to its side. We only took in a sense of the 
 thing after we had got started ; each must carry his 
 lighted candle, hold on, and creep ahead ; a single 
 misstep by any one, the fainting of our invalid, or of 
 any of us, all weary and unstrung, would not only 
 have plunged that one headlong down the long fatal 
 flight, to become a very Mantilinean cold body at the 
 bottom, but would have swept everybody below him 
 on the ladder, like a row of bricks, to the same des- 
 tination and destruction. There was, you may well 
 believe, a stern summoning of all remaining strength 
 and nerves, a close, firm grip on the rounds of the 
 ladder, a silent, grave procession, much and rapid 
 thought, and a very long breath, and a very fervent 
 if voiceless prayer, when v/e got to the dayhght and 
 the top. Our part of the shaft and the ladder was 
 about one hundred and. fifty feet; it seemed very 
 long; and we were content to call our day's work 
 done when it was over. Brains won the victory over 
 body ; but both were weary enough at the end. But 
 if I prolong this story any further, you will almost 
 wish I had never got out of that shaft ! 
 
 While the great silver deposit, which gave birth and 
 being to Nevada, is apparently rapidly declining in 
 richness, other discoveries are made in various parts 
 of the State, new centers of mining and population 
 are created^ and the aggregate productiveness and 
 the total number of inhabitants bid fair to increase 
 rather than decrease. Nevada's claim to the name of 
 the Silver State is not only good yet but brightening. 
 
296 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 And, so, spite of the poverty of her soil and climate, — 
 forcing her to depend mainly on her neighbors for 
 food to eat, and clothes to wear, and lumber to build 
 with, — she vindicates her star's place on the Union 
 flag. Many dispute whether she has yet paid ex- 
 penses, — that is, returned as much money as has been 
 expended upon her, — but she certainly has greatly 
 stimulated the settlement of the Great Interior Basin 
 of the far West, and redeemed it from its traditional 
 dedication to desert and death. So, let us join in the 
 popular toast, " Long may she wave ! " 
 
 How well these later mining discoveries and de- 
 velopments are distributed over the broad area of 
 the State will be impressed upon every student of 
 the map. Beginning with Utah, they are scattered 
 freely all through the central belt of the State to the 
 California line, while north, to and along the Hum- 
 l^oldt River, and south-east to the neighborhood of the 
 Colorado River, and south-west to the Owens' Valley 
 country in south-eastern California, more or less nu- 
 merous mining camps are established, and more or 
 less machinery, carted all the way from California at 
 ten to thirty cents a pound, is pounding away on 
 hopeful silver ores. The Humboldt, Austin, Belmont, 
 Aurora, Silver Peak, Egan Canyon, Pahranagat, Cor- 
 tez and Palmetto districts, representing every section 
 of the State, are each probably good for half a mill- 
 ion of silver a year on the average ; while the new 
 White Pine district threatens to rival the Comstock 
 lode itself These last discoveries are situated in 
 the far easterly section of the State near Utah and 
 south of the central line, one hundred and forty miles 
 
THE WHITE PINE MINES. 297 
 
 south of the Eailroad at Elko, and about seven hun- 
 dred miles east of San Francisco, and perhaps one 
 hundred and fifty south-west from Salt Lake City. 
 They are located high up on the mountains, — from 
 seven thousand to nine thousand feet above the sea 
 level, — and great size of ore veins and great richness 
 of ore are alike claimed for them. Two million dol- 
 lars' worth of silver had been taken out of two or three 
 of the mines before the 1st of January of this year, 
 and ore containing an equal amount was at hand for 
 workino; from a sino-le mine a month later. No such 
 excitement has been known among the miners and 
 mining speculators of the Pacific Coast, since the 
 early days of the Comstock lode revelations, as has 
 been awakened over White Pine by these pretensions 
 and facts. From four thousand to five thousand 
 people have been spending the winter there ; a few 
 at work, more waiting impatiently for the snow to 
 go away that they may work, but the most living 
 by their wits and their vices. The great elevation 
 of the location, the deep snows, the want of lumber, 
 the scarcity of houses, even of shanties and tents, 
 the distance from markets, and the high prices of 
 everything, have combined to make the early days 
 of White Pine exceed in severity of suffering and 
 wantonness of life the ordinary experience of new 
 mining settlements. We quote some of the winter 
 prices of 1869 there: — 
 
 Lumber, $250 to $300 per thousand; hay, $300 
 per ton; barley 15 cents per pound; flour $16 per 
 cwt. ; bacon, 45 cents; salt pork, 40 cents; beans, 
 28 cents; sugar, 35 cents; coffee, 70 cents; tea, 
 
298 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 $1.50 per pound ; butter, $1 ; cheese, 40 cents ; 
 rice, 38 cents; fresh meats, from 22 to 40 cents; 
 sausages, 50 cents ; lard, 38 cents ; board per week, 
 $15; lodgmgs, $1 per night; laborers get from $5 
 to $6 per day, and mechanics from $8 to $10. 
 
 Probably the summer of 1869 will witness the gath- 
 ering in that region of fifteen thousand to twenty 
 thousand people, — some estimates are of twice these 
 numbers, — but even if the mines prove as rich as re- 
 ported, — which is not at all probable, — the majority 
 will share the usual experience of those who rush 
 wildly after such excitements, and suffer disappoint^ 
 ment, loss, ruin, and probable depravation in body 
 and soul. 
 
 But the development of so great an interest and 
 the gathering so large a population will plant a stub- 
 born colony of Gentiles on the southern border of 
 Utah, and if the early discoveries prove half whai 
 they promise, there will speedily be a railroad down 
 through Nevada or Utah to that section, seeking 
 ultimately a connection with the Colorado Elver 
 and the Southern Pacific Railroad. And then will 
 Brigham Young, under like circumstances of alarm, 
 repeat the prayer of the representative of the " twin 
 barbarism," Jeff Davis, and ask, too late, to be "let 
 alone." 
 
 With this record of the beginning' of a new and 
 important mining settlement, our readers, who are 
 unaccustomed to the history of mining develo^Dments, 
 will be interested to know how the discoverers and 
 first-comers in such cases arrange their claims, and 
 protect their rights to the precious land. The man- 
 
THE LAWS OF THE MINEES. 299 
 
 ner of their proceeding is an illustration of the adapt- 
 ability of the American people to self-government, 
 and their strong instinct for fair play. At the outset 
 the miners of a particular region get together, of 
 their own motion, fix the limits and name of their 
 district, and establish a series of rules, which may be 
 altered in methods therein prescribed, for the loca- 
 tion, holding and working of mines. The funda- 
 mental idea which runs through all of these rules 
 is, that he who finds a mine shall have the right to 
 locate upon the ledge a certain number of feet in his 
 own name, after which other locations may be made 
 by anybody. In practice the discoverer usually lo- 
 cates a number of claims in the names of his friends. 
 The validity of these locations depends upon doing 
 upon the ledge a certain amount of work within a 
 certain time. Provisions are also inserted which are 
 designed to meet such contingencies as can be fore- 
 seen; but, although the general principles are in ac- 
 cordance with just views of what is right, it is of 
 course impossible to provide for every condition of 
 things; and, besides, the rules themselves are ex- 
 pressed in language not always clear. In more fa- 
 miliar way, because we have been doing that ever 
 since the organization on board the Mayflower, the 
 miners organize their social and political government; 
 and if that fails, or proves them false, they speedily 
 rectify it with vigilance committees. Where mines 
 prove valuable, there are apt to be many conflicting 
 claims, some real, others bogus, and lawyers^ and I 
 am sorry to suspect judges also, often get very rich, 
 suddenly, in the adjudication of such cases. Ques- 
 
300 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 tions of fact constantly arise, whether enough work 
 has been done to hold a claim, and whether two 
 veins which appear on the surface to be different do 
 or do not in fact ultimately run into each other. If 
 they do come together the oldest location prevails. 
 It is well understood that there is a government title, 
 which, if ultimately insisted on, is beneath all titles 
 to mining property; but Congress has already suf&- 
 ciently settled the principle that the claims of the 
 discoverers and miners, and those who hold under 
 them, as established by the laws of the mining dis- 
 trict, shall be respected by the government. It 
 should be added that the miners' rights are superior 
 to all other rights of property except the government 
 title. The survey, location and ownership of a piece 
 of land as real estate gives no right, under the miners' 
 laws, to the minerals which it contains. 
 
 Nothing is so extraordinary in human history as 
 the fascination of mining for the precious metals, and 
 the readiness with which people engage or invest in 
 it, against the testimony of all experience, not merely 
 to its uncertainty, but to its general direct loss. Ex- 
 cept from the incidental, indirect results, as the open- 
 ing up a new country, with the commerce and agri- 
 culture, that follow the original movement to the 
 mines, the search for the precious metals has proba- 
 bly never, on the whole, paid expenses. Certainly 
 Brigham Young's assertion to that effect is yet to 
 be disproved. California has received a hundred mill- 
 ion dollars in silver and gold from Nevada; but her 
 wisest business men say, she has spent more than an 
 equal sum to get it, — in roads, machinery, buildings^ 
 
MINES VS. FARO BANKS. 301 
 
 labor, etc. The blanks are largely in excess of the 
 prizes in the lottery of mining, even when every- 
 thing is conducted honestly and wisely. But the 
 swindling that enters into the business, and the suc- 
 cess with which it imposes on the public, are equally 
 astounding in extent. There were, for instance, seven 
 hundred companies organized in California to work 
 on the Comstock lode alone ; yet only a hundred of 
 them ever had real property there; and of these but 
 about forty ever worked mines, and less than half of 
 this reduced number ever paid dividends. One com- 
 pany, that owned and worked a mine, even on that 
 rich lode, spent a million dollars, and got back nothing. 
 Boston people have within five years put at least two 
 million dollars into the mines of Colorado, and Reese 
 River, Nevada, — and got back nothing! To those of 
 us, who have traveled into these mining regions, and 
 learned the facts upon the ground, it is indeed per- 
 fectly surprising to observe the recklessness with 
 which investments in gold and silver-mining property 
 have been made at the East. Prudent, sagacious, 
 and experienced persons, who would not pay ten 
 thousand dollars for a country house, or five hun- 
 dred dollars for a horse, without careful considera- 
 tion and examination, appropriate much larger sums 
 to the, purchase of mining interests, merely upon 
 the representations of the sellers. Some purchasers 
 invested with so little care that they will never 
 be able to find even the ground where their pre- 
 tended property lies, — lies, indeed it does! I do 
 not wonder at the remark of a citizen of Nevada, 
 that he didn't see why Eastern gentlemen invested 
 
302 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 SO freely in mines out there when there were "faro 
 banks" so much nearer home ! Probably he had 
 no mines to sell ! 
 
 But spite of all the warnings of experience, and 
 the advice of the intelligent, the story of the gross 
 swindlings and the foolish speculations of Washoe, of 
 Eeese Kiver, of Idaho and Montana, is likely to be 
 repeated with White Pine, and again and still again 
 with whatever successors that now latest El Dorado 
 may have. Yet I brave anew the weakness of human 
 nature, and sum up in a few words of advice the 
 results of our wide observation in the mining coun- 
 tries of the great interior : — 
 
 1. No investments should be made in mines except 
 after the most intelligent and complete study of the 
 whole subject, and of the merits of the s|)ecial enter- 
 prise offered, either by the capitalist himself, or by 
 some one in whom he can place the most implicit 
 confidence. Not only the mine itself should offer 
 assured evidence of value, and of favorable location, 
 but the capitalist should also be satisfied of its man- 
 agement by persons of both intelligence and integrity. 
 This point is as vital as the other, and as difficult, 
 more difficult indeed, to be secured. These qualities 
 of intelligence and integrity are rare in the market 
 out here, and command a high price. They can 
 generally do better than to work for other people. 
 Eastern capitalists, investing largely, — and it is cer- 
 tainly best to invest enough to command their per- 
 sonal attention, or not at all, — will always find it 
 wise to send out one of their own number, or a 
 person equally reliable, to oversee the expenditures 
 
cautio:n' as to the yalue of ores. 303 
 
 and direct the financial part of tlieir operations, and 
 let liim find here that scientific and practical knowl- 
 edge on the subject of mining that he cannot of course 
 possess. This he will obtain in mining engineers of 
 repute, and in old practical miners, the latter most 
 often men who have been foremen or overseers in 
 mines or mills. The discoverers and prospectors of 
 mines are a class by themselves, and are rarely the 
 right men to work a mine for other people. But the 
 working miners as a body are of a higher grade than 
 Eastern laborers, and they offer many individuals fit 
 for the upper places in the business. I was impressed 
 with the wisdom of an organization which a party of 
 Ehode Island capitalists had made in Colorado. They 
 combined four or five different mines and mills, each 
 distinct in its affairs, under the general management 
 or overseership of an experienced scientific miner 
 from California, and sent along with him from home 
 a common treasurer and accountant. In this way 
 they got the benefit of the best talent and experi- 
 ence, and the most reliable guardianship over the 
 expenditures, without making the cost thereof too 
 heavy; but I believe they are still a million or two 
 ^^ short" of their original investments. 
 
 2. When somebody offers you a mine, whose ore 
 assays one thousand or ten thousand dollars a ton, 
 you need not necessarily disbelieve him, but do not 
 necessarily conclude that all its ore, for an indefinite 
 distance into the earth, is of equal value. The Corn- 
 stock ledge was opened with a chunk that yielded 
 twenty thousand to thirty thousand dollars per ton, 
 or at that rate ; but as I have told you, the mines on 
 
304 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 that ledge that are paying at all, do not average forty 
 dollars from their ore. Every day new discoveries 
 are being made, south and north, in the State, of 
 lodes whose surface ore pays, according to report, 
 any amount this side of one hundred thousand dol- 
 lars a ton ; yet it does not follow that the mine below 
 it will even pay for working. For these are among 
 the doubtful things that are very uncertain in their 
 progress. Even the poorest mines have their streaks 
 and chunks of rich ore; do not, therefore, judge by a 
 single iist-fuU nor by an assay; but invest your 
 money only after you have ascertained how much 
 your mine will practically work out, cart-load by 
 cart-load, without culling. 
 
 3. Above all things, do not buy mills, ^^ processes" 
 or reduction works of any kind, until you are sure of 
 your ore. Colorado is especially full of blunders of 
 that sort, — expensive mills and no ore, or at least un- 
 proved mines; the money all spent in buildings and 
 machinery, and none left to prove the real quality of 
 the mines. There is a superabundance of mills and 
 machinery in all the mining States and Territories 
 already. Colorado probably has nearly or quite one 
 hundred mills and "processes," not more than half of 
 which are at work now, and all are not worth one- 
 quarter what they cost. Nevada has an equal num- 
 ber of mills, and probably a greater amount of ma- 
 chinery in all her mining districts, the lumber coming 
 from the Sierra Nevadas and the machinery from San 
 Francisco, and drawn over the mountains and across 
 the desert by horses and mules, at a total cost of full 
 seven millions dollars, and yet the whole not worth 
 
ADVICE ABOUT MINING INVESTMENTS. 305 
 
 to-day, more than two or three millions. At least 
 two-thirds of these are probably at work now, and 
 half of them profitably. The first business in every 
 mining enterprise is to work the mine and get out 
 the ore, which can be crushed at the custom mills, al- 
 ready or soon to be abundant, in the neighborhood 
 of all the mining centers; and then, measuring the 
 profits thus realized, and finding them sure and relia- 
 ble, the managers can decide whether it is best to 
 extend operations with them, by buying and working 
 more mines or by running their own mills. 
 
 4. Do not make the capital of your mining com- 
 pany out of all proportion to the value or cost of the 
 enterprise. Avoid putting up a property, that has 
 cost one hundred thousand dollars and needs a work- 
 ing capital of as much more, to two millions, because 
 you may hope sometime to pay a ten per cent, div- 
 idend on such a sum. And then, again, do not insist 
 on having a dividend at the end of the first thirty 
 days, unless you are ready to pay an assessment at 
 the beginning thereof to meet it. 
 
 5. And if you have neither time nor money enough, 
 nor disposition, perhaps, to go largely into these min- 
 ing enterprises, and follow their management intelli- 
 gently, but still would like to make some small 
 ventures to fortune in this direction, seek out some 
 company that are in or going into the business, on 
 these principles, and that have got a reasonably sure 
 thing of it, and make your investment with them; 
 and then be content with twenty-five per cent, re- 
 turn for your money. If it yields more, give it away 
 in charity, — if less, or even nothing, don't swear or 
 
 19 
 
306 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 mention it to your wife, for the confession will give 
 her an undue advantage over you. 
 
 6. Those who undertake mining purchases in Ne- 
 vada or elsewhere, or indeed any investments in this 
 quarter, must not think to find these people out here 
 wanting in sharpness at a bargain. Wall street is 
 easily out-managed by Montgomery street, and an 
 old miner, who is generally a traditional Yankee with 
 large improvements, will fool a dozen spectacled pro- 
 fessors from your colleges in a single day. The lat- 
 ter «ort of people are, indeed, at a great discount in 
 this region, as all the rules of science with which 
 they come equipped, are outraged and .defied by the 
 location and combination of ores, rocks, oils and soils 
 on this side of the Ro6ky Mountains. 
 
 7. Finally, while it is true that the opening of the 
 Pacific Railroad, reducing the cost of living and of 
 labor, carrying ores to fuel, or fuel to ores, and ma- 
 chinery to mines, will greatly lessen the cost of min- 
 ing in the interior States and Territories, I fall back 
 on the testimony of an eminent scientific authority, 
 Professor J. D. Whitney of the California State Sur- 
 vey, for proof that my advice and my warnings hold 
 good as to the business of mining everywhere and 
 under the most favorable circumstances : — 
 
 " Extremely few metalliferous veins are equally rich for any consider- 
 able distance, either lengthwise or up and down ; the valuable portions 
 of the ore are concentrated in masses which are frequently very limited 
 in extent, compared with the mass of the vein, in which they are con- 
 tained. Indications of valuable ores on the surface do not always, nor 
 once in a hundred times, lead to masses of ore beneath the surface of a 
 sufficient extent and purity to be worked with profit. There are, liter- 
 ally and truly, thousands of places in New England where ores of the 
 
PROFESSOR WHITNEY ON MINING. 307 
 
 metals, including silver, copper, tin, lead, zinc, cobalt and nickel, tave 
 been observed ; many of these have given rise to mining excitements, 
 and have been taken up, worked for a time, abandoned, taken up again, 
 abandoned again, off and on for the last fifty or even a hundred years, 
 and always with partial, and usually with a total, loss of the money in- 
 vested. There may be one solitary mine in Vermont which is paying a 
 small profit to the share-holders ; but with the exception of this, and a 
 few mines of iron ore on the border of Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
 there is not one which has not cruelly burned the fingers of those who 
 have meddled with them. Even on Lake Superior, that region which 
 is commonly appealed to as made up of solid copper, there have been 
 many hundreds of companies formed, and at least a hundred mines 
 opened and worked more or less extensively ; but for ten years after 
 mining had begun to be actively carried on there, only two of the mines 
 had paid back to the stockholders one cent of dividend. Even in Eng- 
 land, it is the opinion of Mr. Hunt, the Keeper of Mining Records, 
 who has devoted many years to the investigation of the statistics of this 
 branch of the Nation's wealth, that mining for the metallic minerals, 
 with the exception of iron, is not on the whole remunerative. There is 
 a wonderful fascination about the mining business, which seems to blind 
 the eyes and bewilder the senses of those who come within the sphere 
 of its influence. The organ of hope seems to swell up and predomi- 
 nate over all the others : — what phantasmagoria will men not follow, if 
 there is any metallic luster about it ! " 
 
XVI. 
 
 OVER THE MOUNTAINS TO THE OCEAN. 
 
 The Stage Hide over the Sierra Nevadas — The Mountain Toll Roads 
 and Freighting and Staging upon them — Rapid Riding — A Break- 
 neck Pace — The Scenery of the Sierras — Lake Tahoe — Placerville 
 — Sacramento — A Steamboat Ride to San Francisco — The Patriotic 
 Traveler on Reaching the Pacific Coast — The Unity of the American 
 People — The Wonderful Development of the Pacific States. 
 
 It was with fresh feelings that we turned away 
 from Nevada, and began the last stage of our jour- 
 ney to the Pacific Ocean. The long looked-for Sierra 
 Nevada Mountains confronted us; but their bights 
 invited and not repelled, for they bore the compan- 
 ionship of Nature's life and glory, for which our 
 hearts were hungry. Long on the desert plain and 
 the barren mountain, — sad-eyed with weeks away 
 from forests and sparkling waters, and the verdure 
 of grass and vines and flowers, — they offered to us 
 indeed the golden pathway to the Golden Gate of 
 the Pacific. 
 
 The ride over the mountains, down their western 
 slopes, on to the ocean, was a succession of delights 
 and surprises. The surging and soughing of the 
 wind among the tall pines of the Sierras came like 
 
THE MOUNTAIN EOADS TO CALIFOENIA. 309 
 
 sweetest music, laden with memories of home and 
 friends and youth. Brass bands begone, operas 
 avaunt ! in such presence as we found ourselves 
 on the mountain top of a moonlight night, by the 
 banks of Lake Tahoe, among forests to which the 
 largest in New England are but pigmies, lying and 
 listening by the water to the coming of the Pacific 
 breeze and its delicate play upon the high tree-tops. 
 All human music was but sound and fury, signifying 
 nothing, before such harmonies of high nature. The 
 pines of these mountains, indeed, seemed to us mon- 
 sters, — three, four, five feet through, and running up 
 to heaven for light, straight and clear as an arrow by 
 the hundred feet. Rich green-yellow mosses clung to 
 many a trunk ; while firs and balsams filled up the 
 vacant spots between the kingly pines ; and laughing 
 waters sported lustily before our unaccustomed eyes, 
 among the rocks in the deep ravines, along and far 
 below the road on which our horses galloped up hill 
 and down at a fearful pace. 
 
 Our journey now, — be it borne in mind, — was 
 before the Railroad, which has destroyed this, the 
 finest bit of stage travel in all our continental jour- 
 ney. There were two well-graded toll roads over the 
 mountains, from Sacramento in California to Virginia 
 City in Nevada ; one by Placerville and Lake Tahoe, 
 the other by Dutch Flat and Donner Lake, and each 
 about one hundred and sixty miles long. The Rail- 
 road takes substantially the route of the latter; but 
 in the days of staging and teaming, the Placerville 
 road was the favorite. The amount of traffic upon 
 it was immense. Two or three stage loads of passen- 
 
310 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 gers passed each way daily. Mercliandise and ma- 
 chinery were carried in huge freight wagons, holding 
 from five to ten tons each, and drawn by ten or twelve 
 large, strong horses or mules, moving to the music of 
 bells attached to their harnesses. In 1863, no less 
 than twelve million dollars were paid for freight over 
 the Placerville road, and the tolls received by the 
 builders of the road amounted to six hundred thou- 
 sand dollars. In 1864, a year of less business, seven 
 thousand teams passed over the road. The charges 
 for freight varied from ^Ye to ten cents a pound. To 
 keep the road hard and in repair, as well as to allay 
 the fearful dust that would otherwise have made the 
 ride a trial rather than a pleasure, nearly the whole 
 line was artificially watered during the long, dry 
 summer. Luxurious as this seems, — the daily sprink- 
 ling of one hundred and fifty miles of mountain road, 
 — and expensive as it was, it was found to be the 
 simplest and cheapest mode of keeping the road in 
 good repair. The stages were drawn by six fleet, 
 gay horses, changed every ten miles, without the 
 driver's even leaving his seat. 
 
 Thus munificently prepared, and amid the finest 
 mountain scenery in the world, we swept up the hills 
 at a round trot, and rolled down again at the sharp- 
 est gallop, turning abrupt corners without a pull-up, 
 twisting among and past the loaded teams of freight 
 toiling over into Nevada, and running along the 
 edge of high precipices, all as deftly as the skater 
 flies or the steam car runs; though for many a mo- 
 ment we held our faintins; breath at what seemed 
 great risks or dare-devil performances. A full day's 
 
LAKE TAHOE. 311 
 
 ride was made at a rate exceeding ten miles an hour ; 
 and a continuous seven miles over the rolling hills 
 along the crest of the range was driven within twen- 
 ty-six minutes. The loss of such exhilarating ex- 
 perience is enough to put the traveler out of conceit 
 with superseding railroads. 
 
 All over the Sierras on our road, the scenery was 
 full of various beauty; some of its features have 
 already been mentioned; but another chief one was 
 the high walls of rock, rising abruptly and perpen- 
 dicularly 'from the valley for many hundreds of feet. 
 Many a rich boulder, again a hill, and a frequent 
 mountain peak of pure rock, thousands of feet high, 
 like pyramids of Egypt, are seen along the passage. 
 The whole scenery of the Sierras is more like that of 
 the Swiss Alps than any other in America, and has 
 even features of surpassing attraction. 
 
 Near the very summit, we stopped for a trout 
 breakfast and an initial steamboat ride across Lake 
 Tahoe, one of the largest and most beautiful of the 
 mountain lakes of California. It is located six thou- 
 sand five hundred feet high, overlooked by snow- 
 capped peaks, bordered by luscious forests; stretches 
 wide for eight by fourteen miles in extent, with wa- 
 ters clear and rare almost as air, — so rare, indeed, 
 that not even a sheet of paper can float, but quick- 
 ly sinks, and swimming is nearly impossible; and 
 abounds in trout: — where, indeed, are more elements 
 of lake beauty and attraction ? Already, though far 
 from large populations, it has its mountain and lake 
 hotel, and draws many summer visitors from Calilbr- 
 nia and Nevada. 
 
312 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 Placervllle, the first large town in California^ gave 
 ■QS a most hearty welcome. Mr. Colfax had to eat 
 a grand dinner at midnight^ and make three speeches 
 to his enthusiastic hosts. Early in California his- 
 tory^ i. e. in 1850^ Placerville was the center of pros- 
 perous gold-mining; indeed, only twelve miles away, 
 were the first gold discoveries in the State made; 
 but that interest has since gone into decay. Next 
 the outfitting for the mountain traffic to Nevada 
 kept the town busy and prosperous; it built a rail- 
 road to Sacramento, and hoped to be on the line of 
 the through continental track; but disappointed in 
 that, its old life has faded away, and now it is fall- 
 ing back successfully on the capacities of the soil; 
 and vineyards and mulberry groves and sheep-walks 
 place its future beyond the chances of speculation 
 and the shifting currents of trade. Lying in valley 
 and on hill-side, well watered and with quick-answer- 
 ing soil, already it is a village of verdure; flowers 
 and vines and fruit-trees almost hide its houses; and 
 no place among the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevadas is 
 better worth a stran goer's visit. 
 
 Sacramento gave us the next greeting, with roses 
 and fruit, and a luxurious breakfast, and speeches, 
 and the inevitable brass band. The town lies flat 
 and low, and yet most pleasantly, at the foot of the 
 Sacramento Valley proper, and the head of heavy 
 navigation on that river from San Francisco, fairly 
 in the center of the State, the gathering point of its 
 interior commerce, the diverging point for all its 
 railways, the political capital, and a charming social 
 focus and inland residence, — answering very much 
 
DOW^ THE EIYER TO SAIS" FRANCISCO. 313 
 
 to such Eastern towns as Springfield and Hartford, 
 Cleveland and Columbus. Floods in the river have 
 threatened its existence ; but high banks now deny 
 them entrance ; manufactories of machinery of every 
 grade, of cars and engines, of boots and shoes, of pre^ 
 pared lumber, of flour, pottery, glue and brooms, are 
 already in profitable progress ; excellent schools and 
 fine churches are provided ; a State capitol of mag- 
 nificent proportions is in rapid course of construc- 
 tion ; and with a population of twenty thousand to 
 twenty-five thousand, engaged in a diversified indus- 
 try or a legitimate trade, and rapidly increasing, the 
 town will fully keep its place as the second in im- 
 portance in the State, and always be one of the most 
 interesting points for the traveler to tarry at. 
 
 An afternoon and evening ride, on a spacious 
 and elegant steamboat, rivalling the best that ply on 
 Long Island Sound or Hudson Kiver, down the Sacra- 
 mento Eiver; through rich alluvial lands, yellow with 
 ripening corn, or brown with harvested wheat, or 
 amidst wide-reaching marshes of tule grass, — out into 
 and across the broad circling bay of San Francisco ; 
 under the shadows of Mount Diablo, representative 
 of the coast mountains, — thus our journey was com- 
 pleted, and we landed upon the long rolls of sand- 
 hills that the Pacific Ocean has thrown up as a bar- 
 rier to her own restless ambition, and over which 
 San Francisco roughly but rapidly creeps into her 
 position as the second great city of America. 
 
 Seven weeks of steady journeying, — four thousand 
 miles of travel in a direct line, within hail of a single 
 parallel, east to west, and still the same people, the 
 
o 
 
 14 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 same Nation ! Still the same Fourth of July, — for it 
 was on its eve that we reached San Francisco; still 
 the old flag, — the town was gay with its beauty that 
 day; and best of all, still among hearts aglow with 
 the same loyalty to and pride in the American Union, 
 and the same purpose and the same faith for its 
 future. Great the wonder grows with such experi- 
 ence as ours at the extent of the Republic; but 
 larger still our wonder at the mysterious but unmis- 
 takable homogeneity of its people. San Francisco, 
 looking westward to the Orient for greatness, cooling 
 its summer heats with Pacific breezes, thinks the 
 same thoughts, breathes the same patriotism, burns 
 with the same desires, that inspire New York and 
 Boston, whose outlook is eastward, and which seem 
 to borrow their civilization with their commerce from 
 Europe. Sacramento talks to-day of the same themes 
 and with the same judgment as Hartford or Cleve- 
 land or Chicago; while Nevada, over the mountains, 
 almost out of the world, anticipates New England in 
 her opinions, and makes up her verdict, while those 
 close to the "Hub of the Universe" are looking over 
 the testimony. 
 
 It is this that is the greatest thing about our coun- 
 try; that makes it the wonder of nations, the marvel 
 of history, — the unity of its people in ideas and pur- 
 pose; their quick assimilation of all emigration, — 
 come it so far or so various; their simultaneous and 
 similar currents of thought, their spontaneous, con- 
 current formation and utterance of a united Public 
 Opinion. This is more than extent of territory, 
 more than wealth of resource, more than beauty of 
 
A FIKST LOOK AT SAN FKAjq^CISCO. 315 
 
 landscape, more than variety of climate and produc- 
 tions, more than marvelous material development, 
 more than cosmopolitan populations, because it ex- 
 ists in spite of them, and conquers them all by its 
 subtle electricity. 
 
 It was very interesting, indeed, to pass through 
 and stand amid this civilization of half a generation ; 
 to see towns that were not in 1850, now wearing an 
 old and almost decaying air; to walk up and down 
 the close built streets of the Pacific metropolis, and 
 doubt whether they look most like Paris or New 
 York, Brussels or Turin; to count the ocean steam- 
 ers in the bay, or passing out through the narrow 
 crack in the coast hills beautifully called the Golden 
 Gate, and wonder as you finish your fingers where 
 they all came from and are going to; to find an agri- 
 culture richer and more various than that of Illinois; 
 to feast the senses on a horticulture that marries the 
 temperate and tropical zones, and makes of every yard 
 and garden and orchard one immense eastern green- 
 house; to observe a commerce and an industry that 
 supply every comfort, minister to every taste, and fill 
 the shops with every article of convenience and lux- 
 ury that New York or Paris can boast of, and at 
 prices as cheap as those of the former city to-day; 
 to find homes more luxurious than are often seen in 
 the Eastern States, and to be challenged unsuccess- 
 fully to name the city whose ladies dress more mag- 
 nificently than those of San Francisco. 
 
 Yet none of this surprises me. I had large ideas 
 of the Pacific Coast and its developments ; and I long 
 ago gave up being surprised at ai y victories of the 
 
316 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 American mind and hand over raw American matter. 
 Still, Nevada and California, with towns and cities of 
 two to fifteen years' growth, yet to-day all full-armed 
 in the elements of civilization, wanton with the luxu- 
 ries of the senses, rich in the social amenities, sup- 
 plied with churches and schools and libraries, even 
 affecting high art, are wonderful illustrations of the 
 rapidity and ease with which our people organize 
 society and State, and surround themselves with all 
 the comforts and luxuries of metropolitan life. The 
 history of the world elsewhere offers no parallels to 
 these. 
 
XYII. 
 
 CALIFOENIA. 
 
 The Extent and Variety of California's Surface — Her Two Ranges 
 of Mountains — The Sacramento Basin — The Coast Valleys — The 
 Forests of the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevadas — The Lakes of 
 the State — The Lake District of the Continent — The Harbors on the 
 Coast — The Bay of San Francisco — The Dry Climate of California — 
 Amount of Rain in the Valleys and of Snow in the Mountains — The 
 Contrasts with a Former Era — The Peculiarities of San Francisco's 
 Climate — The Varieties of Heat and Cold to be had in the State — 
 The Glory of Spring in California — The Grand Features of Nature 
 in the State — Her Revolutions and Revelations in Nature and in 
 Science — The Growth of California — Her Railroad System. 
 
 It is well for us to dwell briefly upon the great 
 natural features and characteristics of this foremost 
 and representative State of the Pacific Coast, — Cali- 
 fornia, — amid whose scenery and society we now 
 passed a hurried but most delightful summer month. 
 Seven hundred miles long on the Ocean, — from 32° 
 to 42°, and representing the space from Charleston, 
 B C, to Boston, Mass., on the Atlantic Coast ; near two 
 hundred miles in width; with two great ranges of 
 mountains running through its length, meeting and 
 mingling both in the north and in the south, opening 
 in the center for a wide plain-like valley or basin, and 
 
318 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 protecting uncounted smaller valleys in closer em- 
 brace ; peaks running up to fifteen thousand feet of 
 hight, — valleys on a level with the sea, one indeed 
 below it; what wonder that it offers all climates^ all 
 varieties of soil and production, all phases of nature, all 
 elements of wealth ! The Coast Kange and the Sierra 
 Nevadas are one in the south, become two through the 
 central portion of the State, and mark and make its 
 peculiar natural features, and again become one in the 
 north, — still again in Oregon to part, and repeat on 
 lesser scale to that State in the Willamette Yalley, 
 the gift of the Sacramento to California. 
 
 This great central valley, or Sacramento Basin, is 
 about four hundred miles long and fifty wide. It 
 is nearly down to the sea level, and is drained by 
 two great rivers, the Sacramento coming down from 
 the north, and the San Joaquin coming up from the 
 south, meeting in the center and flowing out to- 
 gether, with wide, delaying bays, through the Coast 
 Eange to the Ocean. These main rivers draw their 
 waters from numerous streams coming out of the 
 Sierra Nevada Mountains, which, by a peculiarity 
 that the Coast Range repeats, confine nearly all 
 their overflow of water to their western slopes. As 
 the Coast Mountains contribute little water to the 
 Sacramento Basin, sending all their streams directly 
 to the Ocean, so the Sierras are sparing of their gifts 
 to the consuming desert lands of Nevada, and en- 
 dow the interior of California with the bulk of their 
 hoarded treasures of rain and snow. The Sacra- 
 mento Basin is occasionally broken by terraces, and 
 beautiful with frequent oak groves, but generally is 
 
THE TREES OF THE COAST RANGE. 319 
 
 a level, treeless valley, with a deep, rich, alluvial 
 soil, especially favorable for the smaller grains. In 
 the north, the valley is studded with lonely peaks 
 or Buttes rising two thousand feet above the dead 
 level around. 
 
 The Coast Mountains average only about half the 
 hight of the Sierras, are more broken and irregular in 
 line, and offer numerous valleys, strikingly picturesque 
 in shape and surroundings, and abundantly rich with 
 grass and trees, — the beautiful burr oak, with grace- 
 ful, elm-like branches, distinguishing them, — and a 
 soil for general culture. The wealth and beauty of 
 the State lie very largely in these Coast Valleys. 
 The hills about are for the most part bare of trees, 
 but are beautiful in rounded outlines : thouo-h alono- 
 the crests of many, and in the close canyons of 
 nearly all are bountiful gifts of forest, — oaks and 
 pines predominating, but the laurel, the cypress and 
 the madrona alternating with their strange beauty. 
 The redwood finds its home in the Coast Hills, also ; 
 a fine-grained, light, soft wood, white and red in 
 color, much used for building purposes, belonging to 
 the general cedar family, and closely akin to the 
 peculiarly Big Trees of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 
 The madrona is an open growth evergreen tree, of the 
 laurel species, with oval leaves, pea-green beneath 
 and dark and shining above, and a smooth bark 
 that peels off every year, and when new is greenish 
 yellow, and when mature a bright red. This and the 
 manzanita bush are two of the more striking peculi- 
 arities of the forest country of California to the visitor 
 from the Eastern States. In bark and fruit, they bear 
 
320 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 a resemblance to each other, though one is a tree and 
 the other a shrub ; and while the birds are fond of 
 the berries of the madrona, the bears and the Indians 
 live on those of the manzanita. 
 
 The forests of the Sierra Nevadas are more various 
 and abundant. There is a wide variety of oaks and 
 pines and firs and cypresses and cedars, varying in 
 character and size from the first faint foot-hills to the 
 highest mountain tops. The sugar pines are, ex- 
 cepting of course the distinctive mammoth trees, the 
 larger and more remarkable of them all, and are dis- 
 tinguished by huge cones like ornamental tassels 
 hanging all over their tops. Not unfrequently these 
 trees are three hundred feet high and eight or ten feet 
 in diameter, and they furnish the finest timber of the 
 Pacific Coast region. Some of the firs are also re> 
 markable for size and beauty. The Eocky Mountains 
 do not compare with the Sierras in the variety and 
 majesty of their forest wealth; and the richness of 
 the AUeghanies is poverty by the side of the Pacific 
 States mountains in this respect. Fine timber grows 
 as high as nine thousand and ten thousand feet in 
 the Sierras. 
 
 California is distinguished, also, for the wealth of 
 water in reserve in her lakes, not only in and on the 
 mountains, but under and around them. The Coast 
 Range furnishes a few of these ; but the Sierras ofier 
 at least two hundred in a distance of four hundred 
 miles. Nearly all are of bright, pure, fresh waters ; 
 the reservoirs of melting snows ; the sources of rivers 
 wearing deep canyons in their eager course to the 
 Sacramento and San Joaquin; the feeders of ditches 
 
THE PACIFIC COAST LAKE DISTRICT. 321 
 
 that the miners have laid to their banks of gold, and 
 that, outlasting this use, will minister to orchards and 
 vineyards and gardens, and thus heal their former 
 wounds of nature ; some sunk deep in rocky chasms; 
 some enriching a wide, tender meadow, a rich summer 
 home and a safe winter retreat for game, for stock 
 and for Indians ; " some no bigger than the pettv tarns 
 of the English hills, while others would float a navy, 
 and can mimic the commotion of the sea." The north- 
 eastern section of California is part of an especially 
 grand lake country, destined perhaps to be the most 
 distinguished in this respect of any portion of America, 
 but now almost unknown. It extends over into 
 southern and eastern Oregon, and includes part of 
 northern Nevada and western Idaho. A portion of its 
 waters flow down into the Sacramento ; other lakes are 
 the sources of the Klamath Eiver, running through 
 southern Oregon and northern California to the Pa- 
 cific; others seek the Willamette; many pour east 
 into the Snake, and more directly north into the 
 Columbia; while still another portion of its lakes are 
 the reservoirs of the rivers flowing east from the 
 Sierra Nevada into the Great Basin, and have no out- 
 let. Here, in a region bordering upon and chiefly 
 north of the Great Interior Basin, a section of country 
 from three hundred to ^Ye hundred miles square, is a 
 perfect network of mountains, rivers, lakes and deserts, 
 the home of several powerful Indian tribes, whom 
 General Connor and General Crook have within a few 
 years whipped into submission and a reservation, and 
 across which a branch railroad from the main line in 
 the Humboldt Yalley is likely to be speedily built to 
 20 
 
322 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 the "Willamette Yalley in Oregon. Then its wealth of 
 nature, especially its wealth of lakes^, will be revealed, 
 and the claim for it, by the few who have traversed 
 its imsettled wilds, of the name of the District of the 
 Lakes, will be vindicated. 
 
 Turning to the Ocean, California is generously, even 
 curiously, endowed with fine, open harbors and inland 
 bays. They can float in perfect safety a world's com- 
 merce. There are along her coast four similar large 
 inland bays, with entrances of from half a mile to a 
 mile each, and of lengths varying from twelve to 
 fifty miles. The best is that of San Francisco, which 
 is eight miles broad and fifty long, and opens out 
 farther inland into two other bays, one ten miles each 
 way, and the other four miles by eight, and through 
 which are received the grand flow of the rivers of 
 the Sacramento Basin; the whole having an outlet 
 into the Ocean, only a mile in width, but deep and 
 well guarded; while all this wide wealth of inland 
 sea is protected from the Ocean by a peninsula of 
 high-rolling sand-hills six to fifteen miles in breadtL 
 On the inner head of this peninsula, like an oriole 
 balancing over the edge of his long, pocket nest 
 below, stands San Francisco, looking down her far- 
 stretching bay, looking around through the Golden 
 Gate crack in the rocks to the Ocean, looking up, 
 with wide, open eyes, over the grand expanse of 
 waters that float down from the interior, and, meet- 
 ing the tides of the Ocean, delay and spread about in 
 very wantonness of space. Humboldt Bay, near the 
 northern end of the State, and San Diego, near the 
 southern, are the best of the similar bays; they are 
 
THE DRYNESS OF CALIFORNIA'S CLIMATE. 323 
 
 indeed miniature reproductions of that of San Fran- 
 cisco ; and the three, in place and in character, seem 
 like a providential promise of the grand commercial 
 future of the State. That of San Diego lies on the 
 line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and will be its 
 direct ocean terminus. Humboldt Bay is the center 
 of a rich lumber region, already greatly developed, 
 and a railroad through the Coast Valleys will soon 
 connect it with San Francisco. 
 
 The distinctive feature of the climate of California 
 is dryness. It represents if it does not lead all our 
 New West in this peculiarity. Out of the Sierra 
 Nevada Mountains, the fall of rain in all parts of the 
 State is less than half the average of that in the 
 States on the Atlantic Coast. It amounts in San 
 Francisco and Sacramento to about twenty-one inches 
 a year against forty to fifty in New England and New 
 York. Then it all comes between November and 
 June ; practically there is no rain in California through 
 six months of the year; and for those six months, at 
 least nineteen out of every twenty days are days of 
 clear sunshine; while for the other six months, or 
 rainy season, at least half the days are pleasant. 
 Absolutely no rain falls at Sacramento in the three 
 summer months ; while San Francisco is only able to 
 report the thirteenth of an inch as the average of 
 many years. Thunder and lightning storms are al- 
 most unknown in California. The rain fall increases, 
 however, as we ascend the slopes of the Sierras, and the 
 excessive water supply from the rain and snow upon 
 these mountains, compensates in some degree for the 
 scant fall of the valleys and coast lines, and keeps 
 
324 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 the streams full the year through. Sixty feet of snow 
 fell in one winter on the crest of the mountains near 
 the railroad line; and the rain fall of the Sierras in 
 the season of 1867-8 amounted to one hundred 
 inches. There are exceptional years in the fall of 
 rain in the lower and western parts of the State; 
 thus in 1861-2, when there was a great flood, there 
 were forty-five inches of rain at San Francisco in the 
 four winter months ; and at the same time nearly one 
 hundred inches in the foot-hills of the mountains, 
 and, reducing snow to rain, over one hundred inches 
 on the crest of the mountains. By contrast, some 
 winters have passed without rain, and for eighteen 
 months at one time the valleys and coast regions 
 received no moisture. But that was before the present 
 settlement and organization of the State. 
 
 The tendency of the climate appears to be towards 
 greater evenness, if not to an increase of moisture. 
 The researches of Professor Whitney indicate that at 
 one time the climate of all the Pacific region was as 
 moist as it now is dry; that snow fell in the summer 
 on the mountains, as it rarely or never does in this 
 era, then producing and feeding glaciers, that the 
 dryness of the climate at present forbids, and that, in 
 fact, the now desert valleys of the Great Interior 
 Basin of Utah and Nevada were, in the wet langsyne, 
 vast inland seas! The surrounding mountains, now 
 utterly bare of forest life, would then naturally have 
 been clothed with the thickest and largest of trees. 
 The contrast of present facts with this theory of the 
 past is almost too great for the imagination to compre- 
 hend. What mighty means created the revolution ? 
 
THE CLIMATE OF SAN FRANCISCO. 325 
 
 Of course, with such extent of territory and such 
 varieties and contrasts of elevation, all degrees of 
 temperature, at every season of the year, are offered 
 in California. The general facts are that the winters 
 are warmer and the summers cooler than in the same 
 latitudes and elevations at the East. The nights, even 
 of the hottest days of the summer, are always cool, 
 whether in mountain or valley, and it is very rare 
 that a double blanket is not necessary as bed cover- 
 ing in any part of the State. The summer sun is 
 very fierce, even in the hills, but the atmosphere is so 
 dry and always in such brisk motion that the heat is 
 much less oppressive than the same degree of tem- 
 perature in a moister climate with stiller air; while 
 the nights are restoring and recompensing. 
 
 Along the coast, and especially at San Francisco, 
 the Ocean winds temper the summer heat and the 
 winter cold most remarkably. The climate of San 
 Francisco is almost an idiosyncrasy; it is probably 
 the mildest, — that is, freest from excess of heat or 
 cold, — and most even of any place in the world. The 
 average temperature for the year is 54° ; the coldest 
 month is January, which averages 49°; the warmest 
 September, which averages 58°; while the other 
 months range between these figures. Snow rarely 
 falls, water as rarely freezes, in the Pacific metropolis 
 during the winter, which is usually the more equable 
 and pleasant season of the year there. The Ocean 
 wind and mist pour in sharply in the summer after- 
 noons, and, after a struggle with the dry atmosphere, 
 which resists the attack bravely for a long time, they 
 generally gain a partial victory, and make a frequently 
 
326 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 disagreeable evening. Such a contrast as 97° at noon 
 and 46° in the evening has been known in San Fran- 
 cisco in July ; but the usual range in July and August 
 is from 50° to 70°. Woolen clothing of about the same 
 warmth is needed constantly in that city, and no 
 matter how warm the summer's morning may be, the 
 stranger should never be tempted out for the day 
 without his overcoat. For robust, vigorous bodies, 
 there is no so favorable a climate as that of that city ; 
 it preserves health and keeps up the tone and strength 
 of the system, and secures more working days in the 
 year than that of any other town in America or the 
 world; but to a weak constitution, and for a quiet, 
 sedentary life, it is too cold. The men like it better 
 than the women do. The doctors say it is the easiest 
 place to keep well, but the hardest to get well in; 
 and they usually order their invalids into the country. 
 But it is not difficult, as we have suggested, to find 
 any shade of climate at short notice in California; by 
 moving from one place to another, we may be in per- 
 petual summer, or constant winter. The southern 
 coast of California is softer than South Carolina ; the 
 Colorado desert country in south-eastern California is 
 warmer than New Orleans ; many a shaded spot upon 
 the coast is an improvement over southern France or 
 Italy; and the Sandwich Islands, which California 
 holds to be a half-dependency, offer a climate to 
 which all our tender invalids will soon be hastening, — 
 the thermometer at Honolulu rising neither to 80° nor 
 falling to 70° in any month of the year. The great 
 Sacramento Basin escapes the San Francisco fogs and 
 sea-breezes, and is four degrees colder in winter, and 
 
THE climate's EFFECTS UPON THE EACE. 327 
 
 16° to 20° warmer in summer. The summer days 
 are often quite hot there ; 100° is not an uncommon 
 report from the thermometers in the shade ; but the 
 cool nights are invariable. And would we have the 
 tonic of frost, the High Sierras will give us fresh ice 
 nearly every morning the summer through. A rail- 
 road of two hundred miles^ running south-easterly 
 from San Francisco, through Stockton, Sonora, the 
 Mariposa Big Trees, the Yo Semite Valley, and reach- 
 ing the tops of the Sierras at ten to twelve thousand 
 feet, would offer any tolerable degree of heat and cold 
 on every summer's day. 
 
 But the evenness of the climate between the moun- 
 tains and the sea in California, and the indescribable 
 inspiration of the air, are the great features of life 
 there, and the great elements in its health. There is 
 a steady tone in the atmosphere, like draft of cham- 
 pagne, or subtle presence of iron. It invites to labor, 
 and makes it possible. Horses can travel more miles 
 in a day than at the East; and men and women feel 
 impelled to an unusual activity. 
 
 It is too early yet to determine the permanent in- 
 fluences of the climate of the Pacific Coast upon the 
 race. The fast and rough life of the present genera- 
 tion there is not sure basis for calculation. But the 
 indications are that the human stock will be improved 
 both in physical and nervous qualities. The children 
 are stout and lusty. The climate invites and permits 
 with impunity such a large open-air life, that it could 
 hardly be otherwise. There is great freedom from 
 lung difficulties ; but the weakness of the country is 
 in nervous affections. 
 
328 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 The best season for seeing the coast mountains, 
 valleys, and Sierra foot-hills of California is the early 
 spring, from February to June. Then the rains are 
 dwindling away to greet the summer drouth, and 
 vegetation of all sorts comes into its freshest, richest 
 life, and then, according to all testimony, is the most 
 charming season for the stranger. All these August 
 bare and russet hills, these dead and drear plains, are 
 then alive with vigorous green, disputed, shaded and 
 glorified with all the rival and richer colors. The 
 wild flowers of California fairly carpet all the unculti- 
 vated ground. No June prairie of Illinois, no garden 
 of eastern culture can rival them. For luxuriance, 
 for variety and depth and hight of color, for complete 
 occupation of the hills and the plains, all agree that 
 there is nothing like it to be seen anywhere else in 
 nature. Then, too, the trees are clean and fresh ; the 
 live oak groves are enriched to brilliant gardens by 
 the flowers and grass below; and the pine and fir 
 forests hold majestic yet tender watch over all the 
 various new life of the w^oods. But in these spring 
 months of fresher nature, before the sun sears and 
 the dust begrimes, the interesting regions of the higher 
 Sierras are denied us; and most pleasure travelers 
 will visit California in mid-summer, from June to 
 September. Then the paths to the Big Tree groves, 
 to the Yo Semite Valley, and to the lakes on the 
 mountain tops, are open and inviting; and as the 
 flowers and grass and trees of those regions are at 
 that season condensing their spring and summer 
 growth, we shall find there some compensation for the 
 decayed nature of the lower regions of the State. 
 
NATUEE's AI^OMALIES in CALIFORNIA. 329 
 
 While the novelties of climate, the strange and won- 
 derful variety of surface and form in nature, the com- 
 bination of the beautiful and the anomalous, the 
 fascinating and the repulsive, that California every- 
 where presents, arouse every enthusiasm and excite 
 every interest, it is to the student of science that she 
 seems the most original and proves the most engaging. 
 He finds here not only revolutions in forms and facts, 
 but revolutions in theory, and sees that he must begin 
 anew to observe and recreate the science of the world's 
 history. There are evidences of glaciers that surpassed 
 those of Switzerland ; there are proofs of volcanic revo- 
 lutions that utterly changed the form of the Continent, 
 and the nature of vegetable, animal and human life 
 upon it ; where these mountains now rise were once 
 grand rivers ; out of their depths have been dug the 
 bones of a gigantic race that lived farther back in the 
 ages than human life was ever before known, or 
 perhaps suspected by the most audacious theorists ; 
 the State has diluvial deposits fifteen hundred feet 
 deep, and granitic mountains twelve to fifteen thou- 
 sand feet high, and others of lava and slate and meta- 
 morphic rock of nearly equal hight; silent craters are 
 open upon many of her highest peaks ; where Switz- 
 erland has one mountain thirteen thousand feet hio-h 
 California has a hundred ; she has a waterfall fifteen 
 times as high as Niagara ; she has lakes so thin that 
 a sheet of paper will sink in their waters ; others so 
 voracious that they will consume a man, body, boots 
 and breeches, within thirty days ; she has inexhaust- 
 ible mines of gold, quicksilver and copper ; she keeps 
 a miniature hell in blast as warning to the wicked 
 
330 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 sons of men ; she has dreary deserts with poisonous 
 waters, where life faints ; she has plains and valleys 
 that will grow more wheat and vegetables than any 
 other equal space in the whole Nation ; — in short, her 
 nature is as boundless in its fecundity and variety, as it 
 is strange and startling in its forms ; while her men are 
 the most enterprising and audacious ; her women the 
 most self-reliant and the most richly dressed ; and her 
 children the stoutest, sturdiest and the sauciest of any 
 in all the known world ! 
 
 The future of a State, of such various and bounds 
 less gifts ; so favorably located with reference to the 
 world's commerce; so inviting to enterprise, so en- 
 couraging to labor, can hardly be measured by any 
 imagination. She has now a population of half a 
 million, of whom nearly one-third are held by her com- 
 mercial city. In twenty years, the whole extent of 
 her life, she has both developed and subdued gold- 
 mining, outgrown its vicissitudes and conquered its 
 dangers ; created an agriculture hardly second to that 
 of any State in the Union, and twice the value of her 
 mines; and organized manufactures and commerce 
 that are each of equal value with her mineral produc- 
 tion. The world never witnessed elsewhere such 
 growth in all the elements of wealth and power and 
 social and political order. 
 
 Active now at all points, and increasing rapidly in 
 wealth and population, California is fast perfecting 
 wide-reaching railroad connections, both within and 
 without the State. Besides the main Pacific Eailroad, 
 that stretches across her central borders, from Nevada 
 to the Ocean, a distance of nearly three hundred 
 
THE EAILROADS OF CALIFORNIA. 331 
 
 miles, she has an eighty mile line due south from San 
 Francisco, the beginning of the Southern Pacific Eoad; 
 a second short track from San Francisco Bay to Sacra- 
 mento, and thence on north into the Sacramento Basin, 
 reaching out towards Oregon ; several short roads into 
 the rich valleys among the coast mountains and into 
 the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada, all tributary to both 
 Sacramento and San Francisco ; — in total, at least six 
 hundred, perhaps seven hundred, miles of railroad 
 track will be laid and in use within the State before 
 the year 1869 closes. Yery soon all her central sec- 
 tions will be thus bound to her political and commer- 
 cial capitals ; and but two or three years at the most 
 can pass before her remotest south and her remotest 
 north, — her tropic and her arctic regions, the orange 
 groves of Los Angelos and the snows of Shasta, — will 
 be brought within a day's ride of her temperate 
 central life. Five years ago, her railroads were less 
 than one hundred miles in all; and ten years ago 
 the only winter communication California had with 
 Nevada was by a single express messenger, who 
 traveled on foot with snow-shoes, and whose claims 
 for pay for the service are not yet settled ! 
 
XVIII. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 The Mysterious Fascination of " Friscoe" — An Early Error in Laying 
 Out the City — The Winds and Real Estate — The Grand Views from 
 the City's Hights — The Garden- Yards of the Town — The Peculiari- 
 ties of its Climate — The Anomalies and Contradictions of its Social 
 and Business Life — The Smartness of the Old Californians — The 
 Women of San Francisco — A Scandal-Making^ and Scandal-Loving 
 Town — The Feminine Lunch Parties — The Tempering Influences 
 of Time and the Eailroad — Hotels and Restaurants — The " What 
 Cheer House" — The Wells-Fargo Express Company — The Markets 
 of San Francisco — Fruit, Fish, Flour and Meat — Prices Here and 
 in the East — Buildings and Earthquakes — The Excursion to the 
 Cliff — The Seals and the Pelicans — Morals, Education and Religion 
 — The Dominance of Northern and National Sentiments — School- 
 Houses and Churches and Ministers — The Commerce and Manufac- 
 tures of San Francisco — Interesting Statistics — The Certainties of 
 the Future — London, New York and San Francisco Contrasted. 
 
 "Friscoe/' or "the Bay," as the miners in the 
 Mountains and over in Nevada familiarly call their 
 pet city by the sea, holds a first place in all the life 
 of the Pacific Coast. Capital and commerce center 
 here ; it is the social focus and the intellectual 
 inspiration, not only of California, but of Nevada, 
 Oregon and Idaho as well; an annual visit here is 
 the one bright spot in the miner's desolate life ; and 
 scold they ever so much at its pretensions and its 
 
VIEWS IN SAN FEANCISCO. 
 
 Part of the Bay, Mare Island, San Francisco. 
 
 Montgomery Street, San Francisco. 
 
 Market Street, San Francisco. 
 
THE SAND-HILL SITE OF SAN FRANCISCO. 335 
 
 absorbing influenceSj all the people west of the Eocky 
 Mountains feel a peculiar personal pride in San Fran- 
 cisco, andj if they would confess it, look forward to no 
 greater indulgence in life, no greater reward in death, 
 than to come hither. 
 
 Why this fascination it is not so easy to see or say. 
 It is like the magnetism of an ugly or very improper 
 person. The town sprawls roughly over the coarse 
 sand-hills that the Ocean has rolled and blown up, and 
 is still rolling and blowing up, from out its waters. 
 The business streets are chiefly on made land under 
 the hills and by the bay. Up and out from these, the 
 streets roll on irregular grades over the hills to the 
 homes of the population. The early comers, having 
 begun wrongly on the American straight line and 
 square system of laying out the city, are tugging 
 away at these hills with tireless energy, to reduce 
 the streets to a grade that man and horse can ascend 
 and descend without double collar and breechino; 
 help ; but there is w^ork in it for many a generation 
 to come. They might have better accepted the situa- 
 tion at the first, made Nature engineer and architect 
 in chief, and circled the hills with their streets and 
 buildings, instead of undertaking to go up and then 
 through them. Such a flank attack w^ould have been 
 much more successful and economical, and given them 
 a vastly more picturesque city. Boston had the ad- 
 vantage of cow-paths to establish its streets by ; but 
 no estray cow ever visited these virgin sand-hills of 
 San Francisco, as innocent of verdure as a babe of 
 sorrow or vice. Many of the streets up and over 
 the hills are so steep that it is impossible to drive 
 
336 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 upon them ; and where, in the progress of shovel and 
 cart, they are cut down, we shall see houses perched 
 up a hundred feet or more in the air on the ancient 
 grades of nature. 
 
 Wherever the hill-sides and tops are fastened with 
 houses or pavements, or twice daily seduced with 
 water, there the foundations are measurably secure, 
 and the deed of the purchaser means something ; but 
 all elsewhere, all the open lots and unpaved paths 
 are still undergoing the changing and creative proc- 
 ess. The daily winds from the near Ocean swoop up 
 the soil in one place and deposit it in another in great 
 masses, like drifts of snow. We shall often find a 
 suburban street blocked up with fresh sand ; the 
 owner of vacant lots needs certainly to pay them 
 daily visit in order to swear to title ; and the chance 
 anyway is that, between one noon and another, he 
 and his neighbor will have changed properties to 
 an indefinite depth. Incidental to all this, of course, 
 are clouds of sand and dust through all the resi- 
 dence and open parts of the city, making large mar- 
 ket for soap and clothes-brushes, and putting neat 
 housekeepers quite in despair for their furniture. 
 Naturally enough, there is a looseness on the sub- 
 ject of cleanliness that would shock your old- 
 fashioned New England housewives. 
 
 But then, as compensation, the winds give health, 
 — keeping the town fresh and clean; and the hills 
 offer wide visions of bay and river, and islands and 
 sister hills, — away out and on with varying life of 
 shipping, and manufactures, and agriculture ; and, 
 hanging over all, a sky of azure with broad horizons. 
 
THE OPEiq" CONSERYATORIES. 337 
 
 Oceanward is Lone Mountain Cemetery, coverino- one 
 of the hills with its scrawny, low-running, live oak 
 shrub tree, and its white monuments, conspicuous 
 among which are the erections to those martyrs to 
 both Western and Eastern civilization and progress, 
 — Broderick, the mechanic and senator, James Kino- 
 of William, the editor, and Baker, the soldier. Here 
 is the old Mission quarter, there the soldiers' camp, 
 yonder, by the water, the bristling fort, again the 
 conspicuous and generous Orphan Asylum, monu- 
 ment of the tenderness and devotion of the women 
 of the city, and to the left of that still, the two 
 Jewish Cemeteries, each with its appropriate and 
 tasteful burial chapel. No other American city 
 holds in its very center such sweeping views of 
 itself and its neighborhood ; and every visitor must 
 make sure to secure them from the best points 
 within and around the city • they are in themselves 
 revelations of the future Pacific Coast Empire, cer- 
 tainly of San Francisco's security as its metropolis. 
 
 Then the little yards around the dwellings of the 
 prosperous, even of those of moderate means, are 
 made rich with all the verdure of a greenhouse, 
 with only the cost of daily watering. The most 
 delicate of evergreens ; roses of every grade and 
 hue^ fuchsias vigorous and high as lilac bushes; 
 nasturtiums sweeping over fences and up house 
 walls ; flowering vines of delicate quality, imknown 
 in the East ; geraniums and salvias, pansies and 
 daisies, and all the kindred summer flowers of New 
 York and New England, grow and blossom under 
 these skies throughout the whole year, — the same 
 
338 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 in December and January as in June and August, — 
 with a richness and a profusion that are rarely at- 
 tained by any out-door culture in the East. The 
 public aqueducts furnish water, though at consider- 
 able expense, and pipes convey and spread it in fine 
 spray all over yard and garden. The result is, every 
 man's door-yard in the city is like an Eastern con- 
 servatory; and little humble cottages smile out of 
 this city of sand-hills and dust, as green and as yel- 
 low, and as red and as purple, as gayest of garden 
 can make them. 
 
 San Francisco weather, as has been intimated, is 
 altoo-ether original; you cannot palm off old Thomas's 
 almanac on the weather question, — "calculated for 
 Boston, but equally applicable to any other meridi- 
 an," — in this town. There is nothing like it, either 
 here on the Pacific Coast, or elsewhere so far as 
 Bayard Taylor has traveled, or Fitzhugh Ludlow 
 imagined in "Hasheesh." The anomaly is very 
 much because the town is constantly " in the draft." 
 While elsewhere, along shore, the Coast Hills un- 
 interruptedly break the steady north-west breeze 
 from the Ocean in summer, here they open just 
 enough to let out the waters of the Sacramento 
 Eiver and San Francisco Bay, and let in like a tide 
 of escape steam the Ocean breeze and mists. When 
 winter comes, the wind changes to south-east, and 
 blows to softer scale, and between showers, — for then 
 comes the rain, — the sky is clearer and the air balmier 
 • than in summer. Thus the people of San Francisco 
 boast of their winters, and apologize for their sum- 
 mers ; and invalids need to flee away from town in 
 
THE SMART MEN OF SAN FRANCISCO. 339 
 
 the latter season. The ladies wear furs in July and 
 August ; every man, not lined with a patent air-tight 
 coal-stovC;, never ventures out without his overcoat ; 
 and many a day of our August visit did it feel as if 
 the weather was coming down upon us with a snow- 
 storm. 
 
 Kindred anomalies and contrasts force themselves 
 upon the observant visitor in the business, social and 
 intellectual life of San Francisco. Some of the finest 
 qualities are mingled with others that are both shabby 
 and " shoddy." There is sharp, full development of 
 all material powers and excellencies ; wealth of prac^ 
 tical quality and force ; a recklessness and rioting 
 with the elements of prosperity ; much dash, a cer- 
 tain chivalric honor combined with carelessness of 
 word, of integrity, of consequence; a sort of gam- 
 bling, speculating, horse-jockeying morality, — born 
 of the uncertainties of mining, its sudden hights, its 
 equally surprising depths, and the eager haste to be 
 rich, — that all require something of a re-casting of 
 relationships, new standards, certainly new charities, 
 in order to get the unaccustomed mind into a state 
 of candor and justice. People, who know they are 
 smart in the East, and come out to California think- 
 ing to find it easy wool-gathering, are generally apt 
 to go home shorn. Wall Street can teach Mont- 
 gomery Street nothing in the way of "bulling" and 
 "bearing," and the "corners" made here require both 
 quick and long breath to turn without faltering. 
 
 Men of mediocre quality are no better off in San 
 Francisco than in older cities and States. Ten or 
 fifteen years of stern chase after fortune, among the 
 21 
 
340 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 mines and mountains and against the new nature of 
 that original country, has developed men here with 
 a more various and toughening experience in all the 
 temporalities of life, and a wider resource for fighting 
 all sorts of " tigers/' than you can easily find among 
 the present generation in the Eastern States. Nearly 
 all the men of means in California to-day have held 
 long and various struggle with fortune, failing once, 
 twice or thrice, and making wide wreck, but buckling 
 on the armor again and again, and trying the contest 
 over and over. So it is throughout the Pacific Coast 
 States ; I have hardly met an old emigrant of '49 and 
 '50, who has not told me of vicissitudes of fortune, of 
 personal trials, and hard work for bread and life, that, 
 half-dreamed of before emigrating, he would never 
 have dared to encounter, and which no experience 
 of persons in like position in life in the East can 
 parallel. 
 
 In consequence partly of all this training, and 
 partly of the great interests and the wide regions to 
 be dealt with, the men we find at the head of the 
 great enterprises of the Pacific Coast have great 
 business power, — a wide practical reach, a boldness, 
 a sagacity, a vim, that can hardly be matched any- 
 where in the world. London and New York and 
 Boston can furnish men of more philosophic^ and 
 theories, — men who have studied business as a sci- 
 ence as well as practiced it as a trade,— but here 
 in San Francisco are the men of acuter intuitions 
 and more daring natures ; who cannot tell you why 
 they do so and so, but who will do it with n force 
 that commands success. Illustrations of such men. 
 
THE TONE OF ^^ SOCIETY. 341 
 
 and their bold and comprehensive operations may be 
 seen in the Bank of California, — the financial king of 
 the Pacific States, with ^Ye millions of capital, — the 
 California and Oregon steam navigation companies, 
 controlling the inland navigation of these two States, 
 the great woolen mills and machine shops of San 
 Francisco, the Wells-Fargo Express and Stage Com- 
 pany, in the mining companies, especially on the 
 Comstock lode, in the Central Pacific Kailroad Com- 
 pany, even in the large farms of the interior valleys, 
 and in the wheat dealing ^^ rings" of the city. 
 
 "Society," too, is audacious and original, though 
 somewhat difficult of characterization, in this repre- 
 sentative town of the Pacific Coast. It holds in 
 chaos as yet all sorts of elements 5 the very best, 
 and the very worst, and all between. There is much 
 of New York in it, much of St. Louis and Chicago, 
 and a good deal that is original and local ; born of 
 wide separation from the centers of our best social 
 civilization ; of the dominating materialism and mas- 
 culineism of all life in San Francisco ; of comparative 
 lack of homes and families and their influences; of 
 the considerable European and Asiatic elements min- 
 gling in its unsettled civilization. There are probably 
 more bachelors, great lusty fellows, who ought to be 
 ashamed of themselves, living in hotels or in " lodg- 
 ings " in this town, than in any other place of its size 
 in the world. There is want of femininity, spirituality 
 in the current tone of the town ; lack of reverence 
 for women ; fewer women to reverence, than our 
 Eastern towns are accustomed to. You hear more 
 than is pleasant of private scandals , of the vanity 
 
342 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 and weakness of women ; of tlie infidelity of wives. 
 " It is the cussedest place for women/' said an ob- 
 servant Yankee citizen, some two or three years from 
 home, and not forgetful yet of mother, sister and 
 cousin, — " a town of men and taverns and boarding- 
 houses and billiard-saloons." 
 
 Yet there seem to be plenty of women, — such as 
 they are ; and Montgomery Street will offer the 
 promenader as many pretty and striking faces, per- 
 haps more in proportion, than Washington Street or 
 Broadway. But the dominating quality, like mercy, 
 is not strained ; it savors of the mannishness^ the 
 materialism, the "fastness" and the " loudness " of the 
 country; and, paradoxical as it may appear, by con- 
 trast with Eastern society, the men seem of a higher 
 grade than the women, — better for men than the lat- 
 ter for women. Nor is this inconsistent with reason; 
 the men, dealing with great practical necessities and 
 duties, are less harmed, on the whole, by the dominant 
 materialism of life here than the women, whose press- 
 ing responsibilities are lower and fewer ; — as a fine, 
 delicate blade is more roughened in cutting the way 
 through bramble and brush than a tough and broader 
 edge. 
 
 All which is not only natural, but inevitable. In 
 all new countries, where the first fight is for life and 
 wealth with rough nature, the masculine quality 
 must ever be dominant; and the feminine elements 
 must be influenced by it, more than they influence it 
 in turn. The senses rule the spirit. All civilization, 
 all progress tends to the increase of the feminine 
 element in our nature, and in life ; contrast the cen- 
 
HOW THE LADIES DRESS. 343 
 
 turies, and we see it creeping in everywhere, in men 
 and women alike, in religion, in intellectual culture, 
 in art, in social intercourse, — softening, refining, hal- 
 lowing, — the atmosphere of all modern life pictures. 
 Women, who possess and represent this blossom of our 
 civilization, are by no means wanting in California,^ — 
 no more perfect specimens have we ever met any- 
 where ; tender, tasteful, true ; and gaining in aggre- 
 gate influence over society day by day ; but yet not 
 to-day representing, or, at least, controlling, what is 
 called " society." 
 
 The ladies generally dress in good taste. Paris is 
 really as near San Francisco as New York, and there 
 are many foreign families here. But the styles are 
 not so subdued as in our Eastern cities ; a higher or 
 rather louder tone prevails ; rich, full colors, and sharp 
 contrasts ; the startling effects that the Parisian demi- 
 monde seeks, — these are seen dominating in balls and 
 the public streets. In costliness of costume, too, there 
 is apparent rivalry among the San Francisco ladies. 
 Extravagance is lamented as a common weakness 
 among them, and leading, where fortune is so fickle 
 as here, to many a worse one often. Perhaps in no 
 other American city would the ladies invoice so high 
 per head as in San Francisco, when they go out to 
 the opera, or to party, or ball. Their point lace is 
 deeper, their moire antique stiffer, their skirts a trifle 
 longer, their corsage an inch lower, their diamonds 
 more brilliant, — and more of them, — than the cos- 
 mopolite is likely to find elsewhere. 
 
 Another "society" item, and we will pass on. The 
 common dining hour being five or six o'clock, the 
 
344 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 women are denied the esthetic, gossiping tea-party, so 
 peculiar to New England. The "lunch party" is their 
 substitute, and a famous feature of feminine social life 
 it is. The hour is from high noon to two o'clock, 
 when the men are busy at their work, and the women 
 have this dissipation all to themselves. Richer and 
 more various as a meal are the lunches than the teas 
 they substitute ; the eating and attendant gossiping 
 often absorb a whole afternoon, leaving the particle 
 pants appetiteless, it is true, for the family dinner, but 
 with what compensating material for garnishing the 
 meal for the household ! We have never even so 
 much as seen through a crack in the door one of these 
 California feminine lunch parties; but confidential 
 confessions lead us to give them a high place in the 
 social features and distractions of the life of the town. 
 And yet for high art in the line of the delicate but 
 industrious scandal-mongering and the virtuous plot- 
 ting against masculine authority, that we are wont to 
 attribute to these exclusive gatherings of our dear 
 sisters, it does still seem to me that the New England 
 conjunction of twilight and green hyson are much 
 more favorable. Doubtless, these California Eves are 
 bolder in their habits, as becomes their life and the 
 grosser evils they are the victims of; but how much 
 more daintily and delicately the stiletto and the 
 tongue, the knitting-needle and the eye, can do their 
 sweet work under a little softening of the shadows 
 and the inspiration of hot tea on a stomach that has 
 already done its duty for the day 1 
 
 But time tempers, and association softens, this re- 
 dundancy and coarseness of fresh life in San Fran- 
 
THE HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS. 345 
 
 ciscOo Already the Railroad and the telegraph carry 
 its force back to the Atlantic cities, and bring in 
 return the self-control and steadiness of an older 
 society and a riper civilization. Henceforth San 
 Francisco will rapidly rival our Eastern cities in the 
 steadiness and certainty of business operations, and 
 in the refinements and amenities of social life. The 
 Raih^oad is the great channel for the elements of order 
 and elevation to come in. It introduces and fosters 
 the things that make for peace. Praying for its con- 
 struction, forecasting its influence, Rev. Horatio Steb- 
 bins well said in one of the San Francisco pulpits 
 during our visit of 1865 : — 
 
 *' Whatever promotes the assimilation of mankind, whatever brings 
 nations and peoples into communion, thus supplementing each other in 
 the completeness of humanity, is a step in the advancing kingdom of 
 God. This earth is a musical instrument not yet fully strung. When 
 every Coast shall be peopled, every mountain barrier overcome, every 
 abyss spanned, and the peoples of the earth shall flow together as in 
 prophetic vision to the mountain of the Lord's house, and harmony of 
 common good shall persuade the lion and the lamb ; when laws shall be 
 greater than conflict, and order than violence ; when manners shall en- 
 robe the races as a garment of beauty, and religion conserve society as 
 virtue conserves the soul, — then this earth shall give its sound in har- 
 mony with the Infinite intelligence, and the Providential purpose shall 
 gleam from every summit as the beacon lights of mankind," 
 
 In many of the materialities of life, — in excellence 
 of hotels and restaurants, in facilities of inter-com- 
 munication, in all ministrations to the sensuous wants 
 of human nature, — San Francisco and California al- 
 ready set many an example to older communities. 
 The hotels of the city are the equals of the very best 
 of the Atlantic States ^ the restaurants the superiors. 
 
346 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 The European habit of living in lodgings and taking 
 meals at restaurants is very much in vogue in San 
 Francisco, and has stimulated the character and equal- 
 ized the prices of the latter. A dinner of several 
 courses with wine is served in admirable style after 
 the French form at the best of them for one dollar 
 and a half; while a like meal in one of the fashion- 
 able eating-houses of New York and Boston would 
 cost four or five dollars. Among the hotels, the 
 " What Cheer House " is a California peculiarity ; it 
 is what would be called a second or third class hotel, 
 but serves excellent meals and lodgings at fifty cents 
 each; and grew up to popularity and fortune under the 
 patronage of the miners, who, when they come into 
 town from their distant camps and cabins, are not 
 inclined to be satisfied with anything second-rate in 
 the way of creature comforts, though somewhat in- 
 different to mere "style." The "What Cheer" has 
 an especial ofiice for receiving clothes to be washed 
 and mended, a well chosen popular library with ^yq 
 thousand volumes, full files of newspapers and maga- 
 zines, an extensive and valuable cabinet of minerals, 
 and a beautiful collection of stuffed birds, all for the 
 accommodation and entertainment of its guests. Its 
 reading-room is generally well filled with plain, rough- 
 looking men, each with book or newspaper in hand. 
 The rule of the establishment is for every guest to 
 buy a supply of tickets for meals and lodgings on his 
 arrival, at the uniform rate of fifty cents each, and 
 the proprietor redeems with cash what have not been 
 used up when the customer leaves. 
 
 Another illustration of how well certain asrencies 
 
THE WELLS & FARGO EXPRESS. 347 
 
 of life's convenience are organized in this country is 
 the Wells & Fargo Express Company. Tt is our East- 
 ern express company perfected and glorified. It 
 extends to every village, almost to every mining 
 camp in all these Pacific States and Territories. It 
 anticipates, almost supersedes, the government in 
 carrying letters ; it does errands of every sort and to 
 every place; it exchanges gold and greenbacks; it 
 buys and sells gold and silver in the rough ; it owns 
 all the principal stage lines of the interior; it brings 
 to market all the productions of the gold and silver 
 mines; and, in brief, is the ready companion of 
 civilization, the omnipresent friend and universal 
 agent of the pioneer, his errand-man, post-boy, and 
 banker. The first three establishments set up in a 
 new mining town are a restaurant, a billiard saloon, 
 and a Wells & Fargo office. With these three, its 
 first stage of civilization is complete. In the carryino- 
 of letters, this company has proven how, even in a 
 new country, it is practicable for the government to 
 abandon the post-office business without any very 
 great inconvenience to the people. For years, it car- 
 ried many more letters on the Pacific Coast than the 
 government did; for, though it first paid the govern- 
 ment postage on every one, and then added its own 
 charges, the certainty and promptness of its carriage 
 and delivery, together with its appearance on the 
 ground before the representatives of the post-office, 
 made this department of its agency very much in 
 favor with the public. At all its offices are letters 
 received and delivered as in a government post-office, 
 and in a single year the number of letters going 
 
348 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 through the hands of the express company was nigh 
 upon three millions. In this and in many other ways, 
 the express agency of the Pacific Coast is far in 
 advance, in usefulness and omnipresence, of that of 
 the East. 
 
 The food markets of San Francisco will cerj^ainly 
 be a delight, perhaps a surprise, to the stranger. In 
 supply, in variety, and in perfection of quality, — the 
 results of the various climates, and the fruitful waters 
 and soils of the State, — the markets of no other city 
 ajDproach them. Here are spring, summer and fall 
 vegetables of every kind, all the time, and of the largest 
 size and healthiest growth ; here strawberries may be 
 bought twelve months in the year ; here, for months 
 in succession, are grapes of many varieties from 
 two to twelve cents a pound. Black Hamburghs, 
 Muscats and Sweetwaters at the higher price ; here 
 are apples from Northern California and Oregon, 
 pears, figs, peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums and 
 blackberries from the neighboring valleys, oranges, 
 lemons, limes and bananas from the Southern coun- 
 ties, all in fullest perfection of form and ripeness 
 and at moderate prices by the pound, — for fruits 
 and vegetables are uniformly sold by weight ; then, 
 too, here is flour at half Eastern prices ; and salmon 
 throughout the year at ten to twenty cents a pound, 
 with smelts, soles, herrings, cod, bass, shrimps, every 
 treasure of the sea; while the variety of game is 
 unequalled, and meats of all kinds are at least as 
 cheap, and often cheaper, than in New England and 
 Middle State towns. The materials for living are 
 in as rich supply, indeed, as the art of their prep- 
 
LIVING AND WAGES IN SAN FKANCISCO. 349 
 
 aration is perfected ; and it will not take the thrifty 
 mind long to calculate that, so far as food is con- 
 cerned, a family can be supported more cheaply in 
 San Francisco than in New York or Boston. The 
 prices quoted are of course specie, — for the Pacific 
 States have persistently refused greenbacks and bank 
 bills ; but wages and profits are also in specie, and are 
 higher, generally, than currency wages and profits in 
 Eastern cities. But the fastidious Yankee, who never 
 forgets his home or his mother's pies and preserves, 
 insists that the quality of the fruit and vegetables is 
 below that of the productions of the orchards and 
 gardens of the Middle States and New England, — 
 that there is just a lower flavor and delicacy in 
 them ; a sacrifice of piquancy and richness to per- 
 fection of shape and bulk. It may be this is only 
 an illustration of that great moral truth that Burton 
 used to impress upon his Chambers Street Theater 
 audiences, " that the sassengers of infancy never re- 
 turn j" and yet I am inclined to believe there is 
 really something in it. 
 
 It is not easy to draw any very exact comparisons 
 between wages and profits, and the expenses of living, 
 in San Francisco and in the Eastern cities. Prices 
 are fickle now everywhere; and a comparison true 
 to-day would be false to-morrow by reason of changes 
 in the value of money, always going on at the present 
 time, and always impending. Food is certainly much 
 cheaper, on the whole, in San Francisco than in cor- 
 responding cities of the East ; and wages and profits 
 are as undoubtedly higher. But there is a ' rapid 
 tendency to equalization ; and the difference in favor 
 
350 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 of the Pacific Coast will gradually but speedily fade 
 away. At present the gold or silver dollar buys 
 perhaps twenty per cent, more in San Francisco than 
 the paper dollar in New York, and can be got with 
 say twenty per cent, less labor. But, on the other 
 hand, there is less settled economy here than there. 
 The free and easy, reckless extravagance of early 
 California times is not wholly outgrown ; in luck to- 
 day a man drinks champagne and flaunts his jewelry 
 at the Occidental; while, fortvme frowning, to-morrow 
 he is sponging his dinners and his drinks from his 
 friends, and takes a fifty-cent lodging at the What 
 Cheer House. Large profits are generally demanded 
 by the traders; nothing is sold for less than "two 
 bits" (twenty-five cents); and a fifty-cent piece is the 
 lowest coin that it is respectable to carry, or throw to 
 the man who waters your horse. At the best hotels, 
 the Occidental and Cosmopolitan, the price is three 
 dollars a day in gold, which is cheaper than the 
 four dollars and a half currency charged by the 
 fashionable hotels of Boston and New York. A 
 "drink" at an aristocratic San Francisco bar is two 
 bits (twenty-five cents); at a more democratic estab- 
 lishment one bit (ten cents). There is no coin in use 
 less than a dime (ten cents) ; one of these answers as 
 " a bit;" two of them will pass for two bits, or twenty- 
 five cents; but the man who often offers two dimes 
 for a quarter of a dollar is voted a " bummer." Kents 
 and real estate are both high and advancing, and 
 are probably above those of any Eastern city save 
 New York. 
 
 The business portions of the city are handsome and 
 
excursio:n" to the oceak. 351 
 
 substantial with brick and stone. There are a few 
 distinctively fine structures as the Bank of California 
 and the halls of the Mercantile and Young Men's 
 Christian Associations. Several churches are also 
 attractive for size and architectural pretensions. But 
 the earthquakes, to which the city and the coast are 
 always exposed, and which within a few years have 
 frequently visited them, admonish the citizens to 
 build strong and low, even for business purposes ; 
 and, with the greater abundance and less price of 
 lumber as a building material, lead them more to 
 detached and w^ooden dwellings than is common in 
 large cities. Brick tenement blocks are compara- 
 tively rare. Most of the homes are separate cot- 
 tages, large and pretentious with the few, small and 
 neat and simple with the many. The wide reach of 
 the sand-hills and intervening valleys, that make up 
 the peninsula on w^hich the city is located, encour- 
 ages this independent, spreading habit of building ; 
 and the extent of the street railroads of the city, 
 about twenty-seven miles in all, shows w^iat a large 
 area has already been covered by its population. 
 
 We shall be of a very indifferent sort of persons, 
 and have no friends, to escape during the first week 
 of a visit to San Francisco an invitation to drive out 
 to the Cliff House for breakfast and a sight of the 
 sea-lions. This is the one special pet dissipation of 
 the city, the very trump card in its hospitality. A 
 night among the Chinese houses and gambling holes 
 is reserved as a choice tit-bit for the pruriently curi- 
 ous few; but the Cliff and the seals are for all ages 
 and conditions of men and women. And, indeed, it 
 
S52 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 is a very pleasant, exhilarating excursion. A drive 
 of five or six miles, along a hard-made road over the 
 intervening sand-hills, brings us out to the broad Pa- 
 cific, rolling in and out, " wide as waters be." We 
 strain our eyes for Sandwich Islands and China, — 
 they are right before us ; no object intervenes, and 
 we feel that we ought to see them. Just at the 
 right, around the corner, is the Golden Gate ; and 
 vessels are passing in and out the Bay. A rare cliff 
 rock places us beyond the sands, within the Ocean ; 
 and a fine hotel on its very edge offers every hospi- 
 tality, — at a price. Out upon half a dozen fragment- 
 ary rocks, like solid castles moored in the Ocean below 
 and before, are the seals and the pelicans. The rocks 
 are covered and alive with them. You remember Bar- 
 num's seals at New York and Boston, don't you ? — 
 great sleek and slimy amphibious calves, — all bodies, 
 small heads and short, webby feet, — bobbing up and 
 down in their water tanks, and almost making you 
 weep with their large, liquid human eyes, like a 
 hungering, sorrowing woman's ? Well, here are their 
 native water and rock ; from these homes they were 
 stolen away, and here by twenties and fifties you see 
 their relations. Crawling up from the water, awk- 
 wardly and blunderingly like babe at its first creep- 
 ing, they spread themselves in the sun all over the 
 rocks, twenty and thirty feet high sometimes, and 
 lie there as if comatose ; anon raising the head to 
 look about and utter a rough, wide-sounding bark; 
 often two or three, provoked by a fresh squatter on 
 their territory, get into combat, and strike and bite 
 languidly at one another, barking and grumbling 
 
THE SEALS AND THE PELICAN. 353 
 
 meanwhile like long-lunged dogs; and again, tired 
 of discord or weary of heaven, they plunge, with 
 more of spring than they do anything else, back into 
 the deep sea. An opera-glass brings them close to 
 us upon the hotel piazza, and there is a singular fas- 
 cination in sitting and watching their performances. 
 They are of all sizes from fifty pounds weight up to 
 two hundred and three hundred; and the biggest, 
 burliest and most pugnacious one of all is known as 
 "Ben Butler." Sea gulls and pelicans, the latter 
 huge and awkward in flight as turkeys, dispute pos-* 
 session of the rocks ; resting in great flocks, or with 
 loud flaps flying around and around, overlooking the 
 water for passing food. Weary of these sights, we 
 seek neighboring charming coves among the rocks 
 below, and lie there out of the wind, watching the 
 rolling waves rising and breaking over the island 
 rocks, and sweeping in up the seducing sands to toy 
 with our feet. And again, mounting horse or car- 
 riage, we ride swiftly and smoothly along the neigh- 
 boring broad beach of hard sand for several miles ; 
 the unbroken, wdde-reaching, long-rolling Ocean is 
 before our sight ; and our horse's feet dance in merry 
 race with the incoming surf; — and thus solemnly 
 awed with ocean expanse, alternate with dainty titil- 
 lation of amused senses, we close our charming half 
 day at the Clifll We ride back to town by another 
 and longer road, see its proud Orphan Asylum and its 
 old Mission grounds on the way, and appreciate how 
 much room for growth these wide-rolling sand-hills 
 afford. 
 
 In affairs of public morals, and education and re- 
 
354 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ligion^, there is much activity in San Francisco ; a high 
 attainment is already reached ; and a healthy progress 
 in the right direction is visibly constant. The New 
 England elements are clearly dominant here and 
 through the whole Pacific Coast region ; softened in 
 many of their old Puritanic notions and habits, — 
 marrying themselves to the freer and more sensuous 
 life of a new country with a cosmopolitan population, 
 but still preserving their best qualities of decency, of 
 order, of justice, of constant progress upward in mor- 
 ality and virtue. The " Pikes " were the first people 
 all over this country, — emigrants from Missouri, to 
 which again they had been emigrants from the 
 Southern States, — and, joined to some direct importa- 
 tions from the home of the chivalry, they gave tone 
 to society, and law, or rather want of law, to the 
 government of city and State. But the Vigilance 
 Committee revolution of 1855, — a mob in the interest 
 of justice and order and morality, — inaugurated a 
 new era. That was the North against the South, — 
 the clash of their civilizations ; and the North, seizing 
 the instrumentalities of violence, rose and destroyed 
 violence itself There was, again, at the opening of 
 the civil war, a fresh suffusion of the Northern and 
 national spirit. It came like a whirlwind, and swept 
 away all opposition, all questioning in its path. 
 Unionism became a passion, rather than a sentiment; 
 and all who sympathized with the South, all who 
 hesitated to espouse the side of the North, were 
 relentlessly persecuted. It was in voicing this up- 
 rising of nationality, in seeming to lead and inspire 
 It, indeed, that T. Starr King, then the Unitarian 
 
SCHOOL-HOUSES AND CHURCHES. 355 
 
 minister in San Francisco, won such renown abroad, 
 such faith and popularity here ; and only his early 
 death prevented his assuming a prominent and per- 
 manent position in the politics of the Pacific Coast 
 These eras of political and moral and social reforma- 
 tion have fixed the character of San Francisco and 
 the Pacific States; put it in sympathy with our best 
 Eastern civilization ; and most strikingly illustrated 
 the capacity of the American people for progressive 
 self-government; for conquering and curing the in- 
 firmities of social disorder and political corruption, 
 whenever they grow into threatening preponderance! 
 A moral throe, an uprising, a revolution, and behold, 
 without the firing of a gun, or the loss of a life 
 perhaps, the evil is sloughed ofif, and its very servants 
 are reformed, and minister henceforth to the good. 
 
 Ambition and pride in the things that are respect- 
 able and proper are singularly prominent in all 
 this new society of the Pacific States; and men con- 
 tribute lavishly to build fine school-houses and sup- 
 port churches, whose lives are not especially controlled 
 by the influences that school-houses and churches 
 create. The gamblers give way graciously to the 
 progress towards decency and respectability, and join 
 m outward observance of the Sabbath, help to build 
 churches, and make orderly the street life of the 
 towns. It is very interesting to watch the various 
 stages of this progress upward, from the new mining 
 town of one or two years' life, up to San Francisco 
 and Portland, which are the fullest flower of Pacific 
 civilization. The order and decorum of the streets 
 of these two cities are as perfect as those of Boston ; 
 
ggg OUR" NEW WEST. 
 
 the San Francisco police system is admirable, and a 
 woman may walk the streets of that city in the even- 
 ino- with less danger of insult and annoyance than in 
 those of many an inland Eastern city even. 
 
 Money is lavished, even, on the school-houses, which 
 are the most stately and elegant buildings m town; 
 and the schools themselves have all the "modern im- 
 provements," good and bad. There is special life 
 too in the churches ; the Sabbath is certainly as well 
 observed as in New York; the congregations are 
 large, day and evening; the Sunday-schools even 
 boast of a larger attendance, in proportion to he 
 population, than those of any other city m the 
 country ; new church edifices are constantly gomg 
 up; and, as many Eastern parishes have reason to 
 know, there is an eager seeking of the broadest and 
 best pulpit talent to fill them. The demand seems 
 to be for smart, effective orators, as well as holy men; 
 and the churches are not easily pleased. There is 
 naturally a letting-down from some of the strict dis- 
 cipline of the Eastern churches in matters of social 
 life and public amusement. We meet good Presby- 
 terians at the opera and at balls, as we should not do 
 in the Eastern States. 
 
 The population of San Francisco is now about 
 one hundred and fifty thousand, which is nearly one- 
 third that of the whole State. Commerce and manu- 
 factures are the great interests of the town ; and the 
 growth of both is now very rapid. Already the 
 third, San Francisco will speedily rank as the second 
 commercial city of the RepubUc ; about forty ocean 
 steamers go and come in her waters,— to Chma and 
 
THE COMMEKCE OF SAN FRANCISCO. 357 
 
 Japan, Mexico, Sandwich Islands, Oregon, British Co- 
 lumbia, and Panama ; and over three thousand sail- 
 ing vessels entered her Bay in 1868. Most of the 
 latter are employed in the coast trade for lumber 
 coal and grain ; but the importation of merchandise 
 from Europe and the Atlantic States, and the expor- 
 tation of wheat and wool in return, have employed a 
 large fleet of first-class ships. The foreign imports 
 for 1868 were over fifteen millions of dollars in value; 
 the domestic imports, from the Atlantic States and 
 the coast ports, are not calculable, but those coming 
 in by the steamers from Panama alone amounted in 
 value to fifty millions of dollars ; the freight-money 
 paid for all imports amounted for the year to near 
 ten millions of dollars ; the merchandise exports for 
 1868 were of the value of twenty-three millions, of 
 which seventeen millions w^ere of domestic products, 
 the principal items being, flour three millions, wheat 
 eight and a half millions, wool two and a half mill- 
 ions ; the exports of bullion (gold and silver) aggre- 
 gated thirty-six and a half millions, of which nearly 
 seven millions went direct to Asia; the United States 
 Mint at San Francisco coined over seventeen millions 
 of gold and silver in 1868; the duties on imports w^ere 
 eight and a half millions ; and the internal revenue 
 paid by San Francisco for the last year was four mill- 
 ions of dollars. 
 
 Some other statistics of the business done in San 
 Francisco will be useful in further illustration of its 
 importance : Ten millions of dollars were disbursed 
 for army expenses in 1868 at that city, as head- 
 quarters for all the army operations in the Pacific 
 
358 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 States ; three millions (or a falling off of one million 
 from 1867) were paid in dividends from gold and 
 silver mining companies, operating mostly on the Corn- 
 stock lode in Nevada and in the Grass Valley mines of 
 California, but all chiefly owned in San Francisco; 
 banking, gas, water, insurance and similar local corpor- 
 ations paid two millions and a half of dollars in divi- 
 dends for 1868 ; the northern cod fisheries brought 
 half a million dollars worth of fish into the city last 
 year; there were six thousand seven hundred sales of 
 real estate amounting in all to over twenty-seven mill- 
 ions of dollars, and three thousand mortgages were 
 made representing eleven and a half millions, while 
 two thousand releases of mortgages were executed, 
 representing over five millions of property ; the aver- 
 age price of flour during 1868 was $6.39 a barrel, of 
 wheat $2.12 per hundred pounds ; number of hides 
 received at San Francisco during the year, one hun- 
 dred and six thousand ; amount of wool received 
 over fifteen millions of pounds ; number of ships 
 sailing with cargoes of wheat, one hundred and ninety- 
 two, including ninety-seven to Great Britain, forty- 
 seven to Atlantic States, eleven to China and twenty- 
 two to Australia. These figures show the variety as 
 well as present extent of San Francisco's traffic ; but 
 they are only the faint beginnings of its future ; and 
 soon she will have no other rivals in commercial im- 
 portance than London and New York. 
 
 The extent and variety of the manufactures of the 
 city are equally significant and promising. They are 
 already worth thirty millions of dollars a year, or 
 more than the product of all the gold mines of the 
 
THE MANUFACTURES OF SAN FRANCISCO. 359 
 
 State, and equal the value of the wheat crop. Ma- 
 chinery and woolens are the two most conspicuous 
 and perfected branches of the manufacturing business. 
 They already leave no room for importations, except 
 of the very choicest articles. Cars, locomotives, 
 steam-engines, all machinery for mining purposes, 
 everything that the best machine shops of Massachu- 
 setts and Pennsylvania can produce, are here made 
 as well and at as fair prices. The woolen business is 
 carried to an even higher degree of perfection ; for all 
 substantial goods, there is nothing better to be had 
 anywhere than those which the San Francisco mills 
 manufacture ; and their blankets are not equalled in 
 any country for use, beauty, or durability, — they are, 
 indeed, among the real curiosities of the Coast. Fine 
 jewelry is also extensively manufactured; all the 
 powder needed in the Pacific States is made not far 
 from the city; cotton mills are running in the city 
 and its suburbs; and sugar-refining is an important 
 business, the raw material coming from the Sandwich 
 Islands ; while furniture, pianos, type, carriages, boots 
 and shoes, brooms, cigars, clothing, glue, soap, candles, 
 cutlery, fire-works, and hose and belting, are among 
 the numerous articles already successfully and ex- 
 tensively made here in the city. Cigar-making is an 
 especially extensive business, no fewer than fifty mill- 
 ions of cigars being made annually. San Francisco 
 leads off for the State and Coast in all these manufiic- 
 turing operations ; but her example as her capital 
 are rapidly extending them on every hand ; and vast 
 as must always be California's wealth in commerce, 
 agriculture and minerals, it seems evident that manu- 
 
360 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 facturing will speedily take a first rank in the ele- 
 ments of her power and prosperity. The materials 
 are most abundantly at hand; the markets are those 
 of the whole Pacific Coast, from end to end ; and the 
 certainty of the business will be welcome in contrast 
 to the sickening doubts of mining, and the fickleness 
 of a vast system of agriculture, dependent on a cli- 
 mate so tricky as that of California, and on the dis^ 
 tant markets of Europe and Asia, for its reward. 
 
 Location, surroundings, climate, facilities, these 
 briefly sketched beginnings, all give certain assur- 
 ance of a grand future for San Francisco. Never, 
 does it seem, were such elements of sure and rapid 
 growth gathered over another city, as now gather 
 about this. What London is to Central and Western 
 Europe, what New York to the Atlantic States, that 
 certainly San Francisco will be to the Pacific Coast 
 region. Then she is nearer that great store-house of 
 population and wealth, Asia, than either of her rivals. 
 She has a nearer and more various agriculture, also, 
 than either can boast of. She is the center and sea- 
 port of the great mineral-producing region of the 
 continent, of the world. Our East, Europe, Asia will 
 alike come to her for gold and silver and for wheat. 
 What greater evidence of her advantage and their 
 dependence, than this simple fact. Her population 
 is more likely to treble than to double in ten years; 
 and wonderful as the changes upon these sand-hills in 
 the twenty years since gold was discovered in Cali- 
 fornia, still more complete and revolutionary will 
 those of the next ten years be. 
 
 Even now San Francisco will impress all her visitors 
 
THE NEW ENGLAND "TAINT." 361 
 
 deeply in many ways. They will see it is very new ; 
 yet they will feel it is very old. Civilization is better 
 organized here in some respects than in any city out 
 of Paris; some of its streets look as if transplanted 
 from a city of Europe; others are in the first stages 
 of rescue from the barbaric desert. Asia, Europe and 
 America have here met and embraced each other; 
 yet the strong mark of America is upon and in all; 
 an America, in which the flavor of New England can 
 be tasted above all other local elements; an America 
 in which the flexibility, the adaptability, and the all- 
 penetrating, all-subduing power of its own race, are 
 everywhere and in everything manifest. 
 
XIX. 
 
 COUNTRY EXCURSIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Southern California — Los Angelos, etc. — The Country About San 
 Francisco — Oakland, Santa Clara, San Jose, etc. — A Ride Around 
 the Bay — The Old Mission Establishments and their History — 
 The Country in Summer — A Trip to the Geysers — Russian River, 
 Napa and Sonoma Valleys and their Characteristics — "Hell on 
 Earth" Indeed — The Fashionable " Baths" of California — A San 
 Francisco Girl " Takes a Drink" — The Wines of California — Cham- 
 pagne the Mother's Milk of the True CaUfornian — Back to the City. 
 
 Far away in the south of California, where the 
 tropical fruits grow so luxuriantly and where the 
 Spanish-Mexican life still holds sway, though rapidly 
 yielding to the tide of American influences, are most 
 interesting regions for the traveler. San Diego, Los 
 Angelos, San Bernadino, and Santa Barbara, and the 
 valleys and hills about, are full of natural beauty and 
 wealth; of immense flocks, of wide vineyards, of 
 orange and lemon groves, of grand wheat and barley 
 fields; and no one can be said to have fully seen Cal- 
 ifornia who has not visited them, taken in a sense of 
 their vast capacities, and studied the mingling Span- 
 ish and American civilizations there planted. But the 
 general characteristics of climate and scenery are the 
 same as in the more central regions of the State; 
 
THE SUMMER IN THE COUI^TRT. 363 
 
 intervening are less interesting and still more lago-ard 
 counties; and few mere summer visitors will care to 
 go so far from San Francisco, until the Kailroad, now 
 pushing rapidly down into and through all this South- 
 ern Coast section of the State, to meet and bring north 
 the Southern Pacific Kailroad as it comes across the 
 Continent, is completed. 
 
 That which is most interesting to be seen in Cali- 
 fornia, out of the Sierra Nevadas, lies in the counties 
 around and adjoining San Francisco Bay, north and 
 south. These are the present garden of the State; 
 here the best and the most of its rural populations, 
 its largest and finest vineyards, its most fruitful or- 
 chards, its most remunerative wheat fields; here, too, 
 the best of that charmingly close union of hill and 
 valley, of grove and open plain, of mountains crowned 
 and canyons filled with forests, and mountains naked 
 in every part, that so wonderfully characterize the 
 Coast Range region of California. 
 
 The long summer drouth and the sharp summer 
 sun had made everything dry, dusty and brown; ex- 
 cept the sprawling evergreen oaks, looking in the 
 distance like huge apple-trees, there was absolutely 
 nothing green for the eye to rest upon, outside the 
 vineyards and orchards and irrigated gardens; and 
 unless the wind blows against the traveler's course at 
 this season, he is almost constantly clouded in dust. 
 But taking the always fresh breeze aright, e very thin o- 
 is pure and sweet, and an open ride over these hills 
 and through these valleys,, within fifty miles of San 
 Francisco, is exquisite, exhilarating pleasure. The 
 dry pure air, clear and sharp and yet softening shapes 
 
364 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 and colors with a thin haze that the eye feels but 
 rarely sees, is one element of this satisfaction; while 
 another lies in these bare rounded hills, "so sleek and 
 so dainty, the despair of artists, the inspiration of all 
 observers; green in winter, thousand-blossoming in 
 spring, and in summer and autumn golden-browned 
 yet many colored under the soft clear sunshine," — 
 their fascination is, indeed, wonderful and indescribable. 
 It seems to be mere beauty and satisfaction of shape. 
 
 Directly across the Bay, seven miles from San 
 Francisco, and connected by hourly steamboats, lies 
 Oakland, the principal suburban town. A great oak 
 grove of fifteen hundred acres was its location, now 
 well covered with pleasant cottage homes for seven 
 thousand people, away from the cold summer breezes 
 of the city. Here are the favorite schools for the 
 young, the embryo but ambitious State University, 
 the asylum for the deaf and dumb and blind, and 
 here the first cotton mill on the Pacific Coast began 
 its work. Eanges of the Coast mountain hills radiate 
 out from the town, and protect choice orchards and 
 gardens for the city markets. 
 
 Below the city, along the Bay, another string of 
 charming suburban towns, San Mateo, Redwood City, 
 Santa Clara and San Jose, occupy fertile valleys, and 
 stretch up into forested nooks among the hills that 
 keep ofi" the sea breeze. A ride around the Bay, 
 down one side and up the other, a hundred miles in 
 all, offers most recompensing experiences. Railroads 
 already cover most of the journey, which is better 
 made more leisurely in carriages, however, so as to 
 linger in some of the grand orchards and gardens, that 
 
THE OLD SPANISH MISSIOJ^S. 365 
 
 wealth and taste have developed, observe in detail the 
 rich gifts that agriculture has brought to this country, 
 and visit the old Mission churches and homes, and eat 
 figs and peaches and pears and plums from their over- 
 grown gardens of the last century. 
 
 There are several of these old Mission establish- 
 ments around San Francisco Bay, and many others in 
 Southern California. They were the outposts of the 
 Spanish and Catholic civilization in Mexico, planted 
 one hundred and more years ago, among the Indians 
 of California. Soldiers and priests carried the ban- 
 ners of the sword and the cross together ; and made 
 short and sharp work of converting a feeble race of 
 savages, who became the simple slaves of their new 
 masters, and wasted away under the influences of a 
 Christianity without compassion and a civilization 
 without conscience. The construction of these quaint 
 old churches and long capacious dwellings, built slowly 
 up of clay and stones, without wood or nails, was 
 performed by the Indians under the lead of their 
 Spanish taskmasters, while the savages themselves, 
 more wretched than in their original condition, were 
 crowded into miserable adjacent huts. The cultiva- 
 tion of the soil, and the variety of food that resulted, 
 were the only real gifts bestowed upon the natives ; 
 such salvation of soul as soldier and priest united 
 to confer could hardly have been a blessing. But 
 the capacities of the country for fruits and grains 
 were thus first developed by these missionary pio- 
 neers; their example and their triumph here are 
 all that remain for which the present generation 
 has to thank them, unless it be for beginning the 
 
366 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 work of civilizing the Indians out of existence. Mod- 
 ern convents and churches prove the continued pres- 
 ence of the same Catholic elements, but so changed 
 in character that their old and new civilizations 
 would hardly recognize one another. Now they 
 offer the best education that our Puritan emigrants 
 to California can give their children here, and tem- 
 per the winds of their religion to the shorn lambs of 
 this free and material California life. 
 
 The season was over, and nature was at rest in all 
 these valleys; the oaks occasionally made parks in 
 the open plains; or the orchards and gardens pre- 
 sented green, oasis-like spots in the landscape; but 
 for the most part, the ground was yellow with the 
 stubble of the grain, or brown with the dry grass, 
 that is hay ungathered, and rich feed still for cattle 
 and horse. And yet, form and color and sky gave 
 the abundant recompense; and we yielded to the 
 fascinations of a new nature; for, spite of all the 
 reasonings of experience and education, here were 
 beauty and exhilarating life, without rain for many 
 months, without forests, without green grass or bright 
 flowers, without fresh rivers. 
 
 A lonorer and more varied excursion was that into 
 the counties north of San Francisco, through the Pet- 
 aluma, Santa Rosa, Russian River, Napa and Sonoma 
 Valleys, to see the Geysers, or famous boiling springs, 
 and the vineyards. There is more variety of scenery 
 in this region than directly around the Bay; and it 
 is all thickly-strewn with pleasant, thriving villages, 
 whose prosperity is the out-growth of the soil. We 
 went by steamboat across the northern branches of the 
 
THE RIDE TO THE GEYSERS. 367 
 
 Bay, up Petaluma Creek to Petaluma, and then took 
 horses for the rest of the trip of three days. Largest 
 and most bountiful of these Coast Range valleys, that 
 we visited, was that of Russian River, distinguished 
 for its kindliness to our New England crop of Indian 
 corn, and its toothsome grouse, the honne hoiiche of 
 the gourmand's dinner in town, and grand with wide 
 openr fields of grain, as beautiful with frequent oak 
 groves, the hills about guarding the area from the 
 entrance of rough winds, and framing the whole in 
 a picture of imposing beauty. 
 
 Sunrise the second morning found us whirling along 
 a rough road over the mountains to the especial ob- 
 ject of the excursion. But the drive of the morning 
 was the more remarkable feature. We supposed the 
 Plains and Sierras had exhausted possibilities for us 
 in that respect. But they were both beaten here ; 
 and for bold daring and brilliant execution, our driver 
 that morning must take the palm of the world, I verily 
 believe. The distance was twelve miles, up and down 
 steep hills, through enclosed pastures ; the vehicle an 
 open wagon, the passengers six, the horses four and 
 gay, and changed once ; and the driver, Mr. Clark T. 
 Foss, our landlord over night and owner of the route. 
 For several miles the road lay along "The Hog's 
 Back," the crest of a mountain that ran away from 
 the point or edge, like the sides of a roof, sev- 
 eral thousand feet to the ravines below ; so nar- 
 row that, pressed down and widened as much as 
 possible, it was rarely over ten or twelve feet 
 wide, and in one place but seven feet ; and 
 winding about as the crest of the hill ran; — 
 
368 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 and yet we went over this narrow causeway on the 
 full gallop. 
 
 After going up and down several mountains, hold- 
 ing rare views of valleys and ravines and peaks, un- 
 der the shadows and mists of early morning, we came 
 to a point overlooking the Geysers. Far below in the 
 valley, we could see the hot steam pouring out of the 
 ground ; and wide was the waste around. The de- 
 scent was almost perpendicular ; the road ran down 
 sixteen hundred feet in the two miles to the hotel, 
 and it had thirty -five sharp turns in its course. "Look 
 at your watch," said Mr. Foss, as he started on the 
 steep decline ; crack, crack went the whip over the 
 heads of the leaders, as the sharp corners came in 
 sight, and they plunged with seeming recklessness 
 ahead, — and in 7ime minutes and a half they were 
 pulled up at the bottom, and we took breath. Going 
 back, the team was an hour and a quarter in the same 
 passage. When we wondered at Mr. Foss for his peril- 
 ous and rapid driving down such a steep road, he said, 
 " Oh, there's no danger or difficulty in it, — all it needs 
 is to keep your head cool, and the leaders out of the 
 way." But nevertheless I was convinced it not only 
 does require a quick and cool brain, but a ready and 
 strong and experienced hand. The whole morning 
 ride was accomplished in two hours and a quarter; 
 and though everybody predicts a catastrophe from 
 its apparent dangers, Mr. Foss has driven it, after 
 this style, for many years, and never had an accident. 
 
 The Geysers are exhausted in a couple of hours. 
 They are certainly a curiosity, a marvel; but there 
 is no element of beauty; there is nothing to be stud- 
 
ON THE CONFINES OF HELL. 369 
 
 ied^ to grow into or upon jou. We had seen some- 
 thing similar, though less extensive, in Nevada 3 and 
 like a three-legged calf, or the Siamese twins, or any 
 other monstrosity, once seeing is satisfactory for a 
 life-time. They are a sort of grand natural chemical 
 shop in disorder. In a little ravine, branching off 
 from the valley, is their principal theater. The 
 ground is white and yellow and gray, porous and 
 rotten, with long and high heat. The air is also hot 
 and sulphurous to an unpleasant degree. All along 
 the bottom of the ravine and up its sides, the earth 
 seems hollow and full of boiling water. In frequent 
 little cracks and pin holes it finds vent; and out of 
 these it bubbles and emits steam like so many tiny 
 tea-kettles at high tide. In one place the earth 
 yawns wide, and the "Witches' Caldron," several feet 
 in diameter, seethes and spouts a black, inky water, 
 so hot as to boil an egg instantly, and capable of re- 
 ducing a human body to pulp at short notice. The 
 water is thrown up four to six feet in hight, and the 
 general effect is very devilish indeed. The "Witches' 
 Caldron" is reproduced a dozen times in miniature, 
 — handy little pools for cooking your breakfast and 
 dinner, if they were only in your kitchen or back 
 yard. Farther up you follow a puffing noise, exactly 
 like that of a steamboat in progress, and you come 
 to two fitful volumes of steam struggling out of tiny 
 holes, but mounting high and spreading wide in 
 their force and heat. You grow faint with the 
 heat and smells; your feet seem burning; and the 
 air is loaded with a mixture of salts, sulphur, iron, 
 magnesia, soda, ammonia, all the chemicals and com- 
 
370 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 pounds of a doctor's shop. You feel as if the ground 
 might any moment open, and let you down to a genu- 
 ine hell. You recall the line from Milton, or some- 
 body : " Here is hell, — myself am hell." And, most 
 dreadful of all, you lose all appetite for the breakfast 
 of venison, trout and grouse, that awaits your return 
 to the hotel. So you struggle out of the ravine, 
 every step among tiny volumes of steam, and over 
 bubbling pools of water, and cool and refresh your- 
 self among the trees on the mountain side beyond. 
 Then, not to omit any sight, you go back through 
 two other ravines where the same phenomena are 
 repeated, though less extensively. All around by 
 the hot pools and escape valves are delicate and 
 beautiful little crystals of sulphur, and soda, and 
 other distinct elements of the combustibles below, 
 taking substance again on the surface. 
 
 All this wonder-working is going on day and night, 
 year after year, answering to-day exactly to the de- 
 scriptions of yesterday and five years ago. Most of 
 the waters are black as ink, and some as thick ; others 
 are quite light and transparent; and they are of all 
 degrees of temperature from one hundred and fifty to 
 five hundred. Near by, too, are springs of cool 
 water ; some as cold as these are hot, almost. The 
 phenomena carries its own explanation ; the chemist 
 will reproduce for you the same thing, on a small 
 scale, by mixing sulphuric acid and cold water, and 
 the other unkindred elements that have here, in 
 nature's laboratory, chanced to get together. Vol- 
 canic action is also most probably connected with 
 some of these demonstrations. 
 
CALISTOGA AND WARM SPRINGS. 371 
 
 There must be utility in these waters for the cure 
 of rheumatism and other blood and skin diseases. 
 The Indians have long used some of the pools in this 
 way, with results that seem like fables. One of the 
 pools has a fame for eyes ; and, with chemical exam- 
 ination and scientific application, doubtless large 
 benefits might be reasonably assured among invalids 
 from a resort to these waters. At present there is 
 only a rough little bathing-house, collecting the 
 waters from the ravine, and the visitors to the val- 
 ley, save for curiosity, are but few. It is a wild, 
 unredeemed spot, all around the Geysers; beautiful 
 with deep forests, a mountain stream, and clear air. 
 Game, too, abounds; deer and grouse and trout 
 seemed plentier than in any region we have visited. 
 There is a comfortable hotel ; but otherwise this val- 
 ley is uninhabited. The entire region for two miles 
 in length and half a mile in breadth, including all the 
 springs, is owned by one man, who offers it for sale. 
 Who would speculate in a mundane hell ? 
 
 Back on the route of our morning ride, we soon 
 turned off into the neighboring valley of Napa, cele- 
 brated for its agricultural beauty and productiveness, * 
 and also for its Calistoga and Warm Springs, charm- 
 ingly located, the one in the plain and the other 
 close among the mountains, beautifully embowered 
 in vines and forests, and both serving as fashionable 
 summer resorts for the San Franciscans. The water 
 is sulphurous ; the bathing delicious, softening the 
 skin to the texture of a babe's ; the country every 
 way charming; but we found both establishments, 
 though with capacious head-quarters and numerous 
 23 
 
372 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 family cottages, almost deserted of people. A rail- 
 road now connects these Springs with San Francisco ; 
 and their use and popularity will increase and be per- 
 manent. In the attractions of nature and the ap- 
 pointments of art for the comfort of strangers, they 
 are more like some of those charming country "baths" 
 in Germany than anything we have in the Eastern 
 States. It was here, at the " Warm Springs," that 1 
 saw a " loud " San Francisco belle, young and hand- 
 some and beautifully dressed, march up to the open 
 bar and take her "night-cap drink" with some of the 
 first gentlemen of the town. 
 
 Past farms and orchards, through parks of ever- 
 green oak that looked as perfect as if the work of 
 art, we stopped at the village of Napa, twin and rival 
 to Petaluma, and from here, crossing another spur of 
 the Coast Eange, we entered still another beautiful 
 and fertile valley, that of Sonoma. There we lin- 
 gered most of a day, among the vineyards, in wine 
 cellars, upon grand estates like those of English noble- 
 men or German princes. But we did not find the 
 wines very inviting; they partook of the general 
 character of the Rhine wines and the Ohio Catawba, 
 but were rougher, harsh and heady, — needing appar- 
 ently both some improvement in culture and manufac- 
 ture and time for softening. As doctors are said never 
 to take their own medicines, the true Californian is 
 slow to drink his own wine. He prefers to import 
 from France, and to export to the East ; and prob- 
 ably both kinds are improved by the voyages. More 
 French wines are drank in California, twice over, 
 than by the same population in any part of the East- 
 
AGRICULTURAL JEWELS OF CALIFORNIA. 373 
 
 ern States. Champagne is mother's milk, indeed, to 
 all these people ; they start the day with " a cham- 
 pagne cock-tail," and go to bed with a full Lottie of 
 it under their ribs. At all the bar-rooms, it is sold 
 by the glass, the same as any other liquor, and it 
 answers to the general name of "wine" with both 
 drinker and landlord. 
 
 From Sonoma, over another hill, to our steamboat 
 of three days before, and by that back in a few hours 
 to the city. These few days seemed long, they had 
 been so rich in novelty and knowledge, in beauty of 
 landscape, in acquaintanceship with the best riches 
 of California. These valleys are, indeed, her agricul- 
 tural jewels, and should be held as prouder posses- 
 sions by the State than her gold mines. The small 
 grains, fruits and vegetables are their common, chief 
 productions ; and the yields are enormous, while cul- 
 ture and care are comparatively light. No part of 
 California is more readily accessible to the stranger; 
 and none more abundantly repays a visit than this. 
 
 But our longest and most recompensing excursion 
 in California was to the Yo Semite Valley and the 
 Big Tree Groves in the Sierra Nevada Mountains; 
 and this invites a special chapter. 
 
THE YO SEMITE VALLEY AND THE BIG TEEES. 
 
 Tlie Impressions of the Valley — General Description of its Features — 
 Its Columns of Rock^Its Waterfalls — How to Pronounce Yo Semite 
 — The Journey to the Valley — The Big Tree Grove and the Yo Sem- 
 ite Dedicated to Public Use — June the Season for the Excursion — 
 The High Sierras above and around the Valley — What they Re- 
 veal — The Coulterville Road and Bowers' Cave — The Big Tree 
 Groves — Interesting Facts about the Trees — The Largest Excursion 
 Party to Valley and Trees. 
 
 The Yo Semite ! As well interpret God in thirty- 
 nine articles as portray it to you by word of mouth 
 or pen. As well reproduce castle or cathedral by a 
 stolen frieze, or broken column, as this assemblage of 
 natural wonder and beauty by photograph or paint- 
 ing. The overpowering sense of the sublime, of awful 
 desolation, of transcending marvelousness and unex- 
 pectedness, that swept over us, as we reined our 
 horses sharply out of green forests, and stood upon 
 the high jutting rock that overlooked this rolling, 
 upheaving sea of granite mountains, holding far down 
 its rough lap this vale of beauty of meadow and 
 grove and river, — such tide of feeling, such stoppage 
 of ordinary emotions comes at rare intervals in any 
 life. It was the confrontal of God face to face, as in 
 
THE GRAND FEATURES OF THE TO SEMITE. 375 
 
 great danger, in solemn, sudden death. It was Niag- 
 ara, magnified. All that was mortal shrank back, all 
 that was immortal swept to the front and bent down 
 in awe. We sat till the rich elements of beauty came 
 out of the majesty and the desolation, and then, eager 
 to get nearer, pressed tired horses down the steep, 
 rough path into the Valley. 
 
 And here we wandered and wondered and wor- 
 shiped for four days. Under sunshine and shadow; 
 by rich mellow moonlight; by stars opening double 
 wide their eager eyes; through a peculiar August 
 haze, delicate, glowing, creamy, yet hardly perceptible 
 as a distinct element, — the New England Indian sum- 
 mer haze doubly refined, — by morning and evening 
 twilight, across camp fires, up from beds upon the 
 ground through all the watches of the night, have we 
 seen this, the great natural wonder of our western 
 world. Indeed, it is not too much to say that no so 
 limited space in all the known w^orld offers such ma- 
 jestic and impressive beauty. Niagara alone divides 
 honors with it in America. Only the whole of Switz- 
 erland can surpass it, — no one scene in all the Alps 
 can match this so vividly before me now in the things 
 that mark the memory and impress all the senses for 
 beauty and for sublimity. 
 
 The one distinguishing feature of the Yo Semite is 
 a double wall of perpendicular granite, rising from 
 half a mile to a mile in height, and inclosing a val- 
 ley not more than half a mile in width on the aver- 
 age, and from six to eight miles in length. It is a 
 fissure, a chasm, rather than a valley, in solid rock 
 mountains; there is not breadth enough in it at many 
 
376 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 points for even one of its walls to lie down ; and yet 
 it offers all the fertility, all the beauties of a rich 
 valley. There is meadow with thick grass; there are 
 groves of pine and oak, the former exquisite in form 
 and majestic in size, rising often to one hundred and 
 fifty and even two hundred feet in hight ; there are 
 thickets of willow and birch, bay trees and dogwood, 
 and various flowering shrubs ; primrose and cowslip 
 and golden rod and violet and painted cup, more 
 delicate than Eastern skies can welcome, made gay 
 garden of all the vacant fields in August ; the aroma 
 of mint, of pine and fir, of flower, loaded the air; the 
 fern family find a familiar home everywhere; and 
 winding in and out among all flows the Merced River, 
 so pure and transparent that you can hardly tell 
 where the air leaves off" and the water begins, rolling 
 rapidly over polished stones or soft sands, or staying 
 in wide, deep pools that invite the bather and the 
 boat, and holding trout only less rich and dainty than 
 the brook trout of New England. The soil, the trees, 
 the shrubs, the grasses and the flowers of this little 
 Valley are much the same in general character and 
 variety as those of the valleys of New England ; but 
 they are richer in development and greater in num- 
 ber. They borrow of the mountain fecundity and 
 sweetness; and they are fed by occasional summer 
 rains as those of other California valleys rarely are. 
 
 Now imagine, — can you? — rising up, sheer and 
 sharp, on each side of this line of fertile beauty, 
 irregularly-flowing and variously-crowned walls of 
 granite rock, thrice as high as the Connecticut Val- 
 ley's Mounts Tom and Holyoke, twice as high as 
 
THE DOMES OF THE YALLEY. 377 
 
 Berkshire's Graylock, and quite as high as New 
 Hampshire's Mount Washington. The color of the 
 rock greatly varies. A grayish drab or yellow is the 
 dominant shade, warm and soft. In large spots, it 
 whitens out ; and again it is dark and discolored as 
 if by long exposure to rain and snow and wind. 
 Sometimes the light and dark shades are thrown 
 into sharp contrast on a single wall, and you know 
 where the Zebra and Dr. Bellows' church were bor- 
 rowed from. More varied and exquisite still are 
 the shapes into which the rocks are thrown. The 
 one great conspicuous object of the Yalley is a mas- 
 sive, two-sided wall, standing out into and over the 
 meadow, yellowish-gray in color, and rising up into 
 space, unbroken, square, perpendicular, for full three" 
 quarters of a mile. It bears in Spanish and Indian 
 the name of the Great Jehovah; and it is easy to 
 believe that it was an object of worship by the bar- 
 barians, as it is not difficult for civilization to rec- 
 ognize the Infinite in it, and impossible not to feel 
 awed and humbled in its presence. 
 
 In other places these mountain walls of rock take 
 similar and only less majestic shapes; while as fre- 
 quently they assume more fantastic and poetical 
 forms. Here and there are grand massive domes, 
 as perfect in shape as Boston's State-house dome, and 
 bigger than the entire of a dozen State-houses. The 
 highest rock of the Valley is a perfect half-dome, split 
 sharp and square in the middle, and rising near a 
 mile or five thousand feet, — as high as Mount Wash- 
 ington is above the level of the sea, — over the little 
 lake which perfectly mirrors its majestic form at its 
 
378 OUR :^fEW west. 
 
 foot. Perfect pyramids take their places in the wall; 
 then these pyramids come in families, and mount 
 away one after and above the other, as "The Three 
 Brothers." "The Cathedral Kocks" and "The Ca- 
 thedral Spires" unite the great impressiveness, the 
 beauty and the fantastic forms of the Gothic archi- 
 tecture. From their shape and color alike, it is easy 
 to imagine, in looking upon them, that you are under 
 the ruins of an old Gothic cathedral, to which those 
 of Cologne and Milan are but baby-houses. 
 
 The most common form of the rocks is a slightly 
 sloping bare wall, lying in long, dizzy sweeps, some- 
 times horizontal, sometimes perpendicular, and stretch- 
 ing up and up so high as to cheat the Valley out of 
 hours of sunshine every day. Here huge arches are 
 carved on the face ; there long, narrow shelves run 
 midway, along which and in every available crevice, 
 great pines sprout and grow, yet appearing like 
 shrubs against the broad hight of the wall; again, 
 the rock lies in thick folds, one upon another, like 
 the hide of a rhinoceros; occasional columns stand 
 out as if sculptured upon the surface ; sometimes it 
 juts out at the top over the Yalley like the brim of 
 a hat; and then it recedes and sharpens to a cone. 
 Many of the various shapes and shades of color in 
 the surface of these massive walls of rock come from 
 the peeling off of great masses of the granite. Frost 
 and ice get into the weak crevices, and blast out 
 huge slices or fragments, that fall in boulders, from 
 the size of a. great house down to that of an apple, 
 into the Yalley below. 
 
 Over the sides of the walls pour streams of water 
 
THE WATER FALLS. 379 
 
 out of narrower valleys still above, and yet higher 
 and farther away, rise to twelve and thirteen thousand 
 feet the culminating peaks of the Sierra Nevadas, 
 with ever visible fields of melting snows. All forms 
 and shapes and colors of majesty and beauty cluster 
 around this narrow spot; it seems created the home 
 of all that is richest in inspiration for the heroic in 
 life, for poetry, for painting, for imaginative religion. 
 The Water Falls of the Valley, though a lesser inci- 
 dent in all its attractions, offer much that is marvel- 
 ous and beautiful. Our August visit was, however, 
 at the season of their feeblest power. It is in May 
 and June, when their fountains are freshest, that they 
 appear at their best, and assume their proper place 
 in the grand panorama of beauty and sublimity. In 
 the main portion of the Valley, the Bridal Veil is the 
 first conspicuous fall, — now a dainty rivalet starting 
 over a precipice nine hundred feet high, but nearly 
 all lost at once in delicate spray that sways and scat- 
 ters in the light breeze, and fastens upon the wall, as 
 sign of its being and its beauty, the fabled rainbow 
 of promise. The name of this fall is well chosen; it 
 is type of the delicate gauze, floating and illusory, by 
 which brides delight to hide their blushes and give 
 mystery to their charms. Farther up, before the 
 hotel, you see the Yo Semite Fall, perhaps twice the 
 size in volume of the Bridal Veil, but distinguished 
 for its hight, — the greatest hight of any water-fall 
 yet discovered in the world. It is broken about two- 
 thirds the way down its high wall of rock by pro- 
 jecting masses of the mountain, giving it several 
 hundred feet of cataract passage; but counting its 
 
380 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 whole fall from top to bottom, it is two thousand six 
 hundred feet in hight, which is only fifteen times as 
 high as Niagara Falls! Now, it was a mere silvery 
 ribbon of spray, shooting down its long passage in 
 delicate rockets of whitened foam. Earlier in the 
 season, when ten times the volume of water pours 
 down, it must, indeed, be a feature of fascinating, 
 wonderful beauty. 
 
 The Valley above this point separates into three 
 narrow canyons, and these are soon walled in by the 
 uprising rocks. At the end of one of these, the main 
 branch of the river falls from its upper fountains over 
 two walls, one four hundred feet high and the other 
 six hundred, at points half a mile apart. The lower 
 and lesser fall is called the Yernal, and pours down 
 its whole hight without a break, and forms at the base 
 a most exquisite circular rainbow, one of the rarest 
 phenomenon in all nature. The upper fall bears the 
 name of Nevada, breaks as it comes over its crest 
 into a grand blossom of spray, and strikes, about half 
 way down its six hundred feet, the obtruding wall, 
 which thence offers just sufficient slope to keep the 
 water and carry it in chasing, circling lines of foam 
 to the bottom. This is the fall of falls, — there is no 
 rival to it here in exquisite, various, fascinating 
 beauty ; and Switzerland, which abounds in water- 
 falls of like type, holds none of such peculiar charms. 
 Not a drop of the rich stream of water but is white 
 in its whole passage, — it is one sheet, rather one 
 grand lace-work of spray from beginning to end. As 
 it sweeps down its plane of rock, each drop all dis- 
 tinct, all alive, there is nothing of human art that 
 
THE NAME OF THE VALLEY. 381 
 
 you can compare it with but innumerable snow-wbite 
 point-lace collars and capes; as much more delicate 
 and beautiful and perfect, however, as Nature ever is 
 than Art. For half the distance between the two 
 falls, the river runs swift over a solid plane of granite, 
 clean and smooth as ice, as if Neptune was on a grand 
 eliding-down-hill frolic. 
 
 The excursion to this head of the chasm from the 
 stopping-place below is through narrow defiles, over 
 fallen rocks, up the sides of precipices, and over per- 
 pendicular w^alls by ladders, for a total distance of 
 about four miles, and is the most difficult and fatiguing 
 one that confronts the visitor ; but both in the beauty 
 of its water-falls, and the new and rare shapes of rock 
 scenery that it offers, it is most richly compensating, 
 and never should be omitted. 
 
 The name that has attached to this beautiful 
 Yalley is both unique and euphonious. It rolls off* 
 the tongue most liquidly when you get the mas- 
 tery of its pronunciation. Most strangers render it 
 Yo Se-mite, or Yo Sem-ite; but the true style is 
 Yo Sem-i-te. It is Indian for Grizzly Bear, and prob- 
 ably was also the name of a noted chief, who reigned 
 over the Indians in this, their favorite retreat, and 
 from this chief comes the application of the name to 
 the locality and its marvelous scenery. The foot of 
 white man never trod its limits, — the eye of white 
 man never looked upon its sublime wonders till 1851, 
 when he came here in pursuit of the Indians, with 
 whom the settlers were then at war. The red men 
 had boasted that their retreat was secure ; that they 
 had one spot which their enemies could never pene- 
 
382 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 trate ; and here they would gather in and enjoy their 
 spoils unmolested. But to the white man's revenge 
 was now added the stimulus of curiosity; and hither 
 he found his way, and, coming to kill and extermi- 
 nate, he has staid, and will forever henceforth stay, 
 to wonder and worship. 
 
 The journey from San Francisco to this sublime 
 charm in California scenery is at present long and 
 tedious. The Yo Semite Valley lies about a hundred 
 and fifty miles south-east of the city, in a direct line, 
 far up among the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Stock- 
 ton, at the foot of the San Joaquin Valley, is the 
 real point of departure for the Valley, and from here 
 the distance varies from a hundred to a hundred and 
 forty miles, according to the route traveled. Stock- 
 ton is a hundred and twenty miles from San Francisco 
 by water, — an evening and night steamboat ride ; but 
 the Pacific Railroad passes through it on the way from 
 Sacramento to San Francisco, and by the cars it is 
 but a three or four hours' ride from either of those 
 places. At present, the best route on from Stockton 
 is the longest, and by way of Mariposa. A day's 
 stage ride up the San Joaquin Valley, — a broad and 
 rich area, now greatly given up to wheat-growing, 
 and dry and dusty to suffocating degree in summer, 
 — leaves the traveler at Bear Valley or Mariposa for 
 the night. These are villages on the famous Fre- 
 mont estate, and offer better accommodations for 
 visitors than the neighboring mines return dividends 
 to their stockholders. Here horses, guides, and, if 
 desired, tents, blankets and food, for continuing the 
 journey, may be procured. The wagon road con- 
 
THE EOAD TO THE TO SEMITE. 383 
 
 tinues twenty-five miles beyond Bear Yalley, or 
 twelve from Mariposa, to White and Hatch's, which 
 may be reached for dinner the second day from 
 Stockton; and Clark's Ranch, twelve miles farther 
 up among the Mountains, along a narrow but safe 
 trail, up and down steep hills, through grand woods 
 of firs and pines, invites us to supper and rest. Here 
 w^e shall stop over a day, to visit the Mariposa Grove 
 of Big Trees, some four or five miles off the trail to 
 the Yo Semite. Mr. Clark is the State's agent for the 
 care of the Yo Semite Yalley and the Grove, and a 
 genuine child of the great Nature around him ; and 
 w^hether within his wide-spreading cabins, or under 
 his protecting hay-stack, or in our own tent by the 
 side of his grand open-air fires, he will care for us as 
 father for children, feed us on trout and venison, and 
 be proud to have us praise his trees, his river and his 
 mountains. 
 
 It is twenty-five miles now to the Grand Yalley; 
 and taking our lunch along, w^e shall ride it comfort- 
 ably in a single day, and find hotel accommodations 
 at night within the Yalley. The day's ride takes us 
 as high as eight thousand feet above the sea level, 
 treats us to the finest forest and meadow scenery of 
 the Sierras, and drops us down by a very precipitous 
 trail to the scenes that have invited and will so richly 
 compensate us. The Yalley itself is about four thou- 
 sand feet above the sea level; the mountain w^alls 
 rising up from it range from two thousand to five 
 thousand feet higher, or from six thousand to nine 
 thousand feet high, while on beyond the crests of the 
 great range add three to five thousand feet to these. 
 
384 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 It is not at all necessary that visitors should bring 
 camping and cooking outfits with them; hotels and 
 ranches are scattered along either route with sufficient 
 frequency to give all essential accommodations ; but, 
 if they do, they will reap great satisfaction in the 
 independence that follows. With plenty of blankets, 
 a safe, dry and comfortable bed is ever at hand, and 
 the limit of the day's journey is always your own 
 choice. All the distinctive features of the Yalley 
 may be seen in three daysj indeed, its great beauties 
 lie at once and together before the eye; we nearly 
 see the end from the beginning; and the Valley closes 
 up so sharply, both above and below, that it is easier 
 to get in and out by scaling the walls than by follow- 
 ing the stream. But no week in any life could be 
 more memorable than the one that should be spent 
 under the rocks and by the side of the waters of the 
 Yo Semite. 
 
 The Yalley, together with the Mariposa Grove of 
 Big Trees on the road to it, were some years since 
 wisely voted by Congress to the State of California, 
 on condition of their preservation for public use. 
 They have been put in charge of a Commission, with 
 a local agent to protect the trees from destruction and 
 the limited lands from misuse; and the purpose of 
 these officers is to improve the access to these great 
 natural attractions, and furnish every facility to visit- 
 ors for seeing all their interesting features at the least 
 cost of labor, time and money. The idea is a noble 
 one, and, though somewhat obstructed temporarily 
 by the claim of several squatters in the Yalley to 
 tiearly all its available lands, we cannot doubt it will 
 
WHEN TO VISIT THE VALLEY. 385 
 
 in time be fully realized. It is a pity that other great 
 natural objects of interest and points of attraction for 
 travelers in our country could not be similarly res- 
 cued from subjection to speculating purposes, or de- 
 struction by settlement. If Niagara Falls, for instance, 
 and a fifty miles square of the Adirondacks in New 
 York, and a similar area of Maine lake and forest, 
 could be thus preserved for public use, what a blessing 
 it would be to all visitors, what an honor to the Nation ! 
 
 On the whole, June is the best month for this ex- 
 cursion. It is early spring among the mountains, 
 then, and there may be an occasional snow-drift in 
 the path; but nature is at its freshest, and, above all, 
 the water-falls in the valley are then in their fullest 
 force and beauty. Besides those we have mentioned, 
 others at that season trickle in bright beauty over 
 the high rock walls of the Yalley; and the Bridal 
 Veil, the Yo Semite, the Yernal and the Nevada are 
 vastly more impressive and beautiful than later in 
 the summer. There is a rapid falling off in the 
 amount of water flowing in these streams after May 
 or June. Clouds are rare visitors to California's sky 
 in any part of the summer; and the deep haze that 
 may be found in many famous paintings of Yo Semite 
 scenery is an addition of the artists, not a gift of 
 nature. In later summer there is a thin, soft haze, 
 hardly perceptible, and only just tempering the clear, 
 sharp sunlight that is the characteristic of California's 
 atmosphere. But the photographs do more exact 
 justice to this than the painters have. 
 
 How was this curious freak of Nature formed ? is 
 a question that every visitor at least will ask. It is 
 
386 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 a puzzle to the imagination, and baffles even the 
 scientific student. Professor Whitney of the State 
 Survey discusses the question elaborately in his ad- 
 mirable volume upon the Yo Semite, the Big Trees 
 and the High Sierras, which, with its maps, should 
 be the companion of every one who visits these re- 
 gions. Pie rejects, as impossible, the idea of water 
 having worn it out; or that it was the work of a 
 glacier ; or that it was split open by a convulsion of 
 nature ; but concludes, as the only practicable sup- 
 position, that the bottom dropped out ! There is no 
 other way of accounting for what is gone but that it 
 is sunk below. It is not carried down stream; it 
 does not remain in the Valley, — there would be no 
 valley if it did ; there are but comparatively small 
 deposits of rock in the Valley under the walls^ — no 
 more than the waste, by frost and ice and water, of a 
 few generations at the most; and, indeed, there seems 
 no other supposition that meets the mystery than 
 that the missing rocks are swallowed up below. It 
 would appear, too, as if the chasm had not been long 
 filled up to its present point, and that originally, and 
 until within a comparatively recent period, the whole 
 Valley was a grand, deep lake. This is a peculiar 
 theory; it applies but rarely to the strange forms 
 of nature scattered over the earth's surface ; but the 
 Yo Semite is a peculiar phenomenon, — it justifies, it, 
 indeed, demands a peculiar explanation, and no other 
 fits it so reasonably as this. 
 
 In connection with this excursion, the visitor to 
 California should, if possible, take another week to 
 mount the High Sierras above and around the Yo 
 
EXCUBSIOK TO THE HIGH SIEEEAS. 387 
 
 Semite Yallej. In their grand majesty and sublimity, 
 they are nowhere else more representative or more 
 easy to reach, than at this point. With guide and 
 camping outfit, there is no hardship to one accus- 
 tomed to out-door life in the trip; there are well-de- 
 fined trails to all the desirable points; rich meadows, 
 sparkling streams and beautiful lakes not only lend 
 a sweet variety to the grand mountain rocks, but 
 furnish fine camping-grounds; while abundant trees 
 offer shade for the noon sissta and fuel for cooking 
 and the cool nights. Few persons have as yet visited 
 this region for pleasure ; but the search for mines or 
 for the wild sheep of the mountains has made the 
 paths familiar to many people in the neighborhood; 
 and Professor Whitney's enthusiastic description of 
 the grand views to be obtained, in the circuit, not only 
 into the Yalley of iihe Yo Semite, but over and along 
 the crest of the SierraSj — here reaching to twelve 
 and thirteen thousaiJ feet high; — great masses of 
 rock varying with great fields of snow, relieved with 
 dark and deep lakes, and patches of meadow and 
 forest, furnishing the near, and the distant ranges of 
 the Interior Basin, with their vast desert valleys, the 
 remote landscape, — all will kindle the curiosity of the 
 traveler and lead many to follow out the trails and 
 the suggestions his book lays down. 
 
 This upper mountain excursion carries us to the 
 head waters of the streams that pour over the Yo 
 Semite walls ; it brings us to the shores of beautiful 
 Lake Tenaya ; by a detour of a few miles it will lead 
 us to another Yo Semite Yalley on the Tuolumne 
 River, called the Hetch-Hetchy Yalley, which but for 
 24 
 
388 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 its grander rival would have a world-wide fame, and 
 will yet be a favorite resort of Sierra pleasure travel ; 
 it exhibits to us the scene of former glaciers, that 
 must have been eight hundred and a thousand feet 
 thick with ice and snow, and a mile and a half wide ; 
 it lifts us to the top of representative peaks as Hoff- 
 man and Dana, whence the world seems to start away 
 from our feet, — so central and vast the view ; it will 
 lead us, if we choose to branch off from our circuit, 
 on down the eastern slope of tne range to Mono 
 Lake, a large sheet of water, dense, sluggish, bitter, 
 acid and corrosive, forbidding all life within, consuming 
 all life from without, — the bodies of a party of Indians 
 who jumped into these death waters to escape their 
 pursuers being thoroughly decomposed, with all their 
 clothing, in a few weeks, — an outpost warning, indeed, 
 against the Desert and Death's Valley beyond ; after 
 which we may return with delight to fresher waters, 
 and stand over the grand Nevada Fall of the Yo 
 Semite, and see the Little Yo Semite, a continuation 
 in miniature of the Yalley we have adored; then pass 
 under the shadows of Mount Starr King, one of the 
 grandest of the outlying peaks of the Yalley ; next 
 come to the top of the Sentinel Dome, whence we get 
 the finest views into and of the Yalley, and especially 
 of its highest column, the Half Dome ; and now finish 
 our circuit by reaching the main Mariposa trail. 
 This scenery of the Upper Sierras is of a type of its 
 own, as distinctive as that of the Swiss Alps, as that 
 of the Parks and Mountains of Colorado, as that of 
 the Yo Semite itself below; unlike either, but en- 
 titled to rank with them all in the first place among 
 
THE BIG TREE GROVES. 389 
 
 the grand Nature of the world. In the two elements 
 of sublimity and grandeur, it probably surpasses all 
 the others; while it lacks the beauty and variety that 
 give them a tenderer hold upon human sympathy. 
 The Eocky Mountains are vast piles of broken stone ; 
 these Upper Sierras are great smooth castellated peaks 
 or rounded domes of solid granite, sometimes unbroken 
 and unscarred almost for thousands of feet, but often 
 made up of vast concentric layers of rock, reaching 
 from a broad base to conical pinnacles, like cathedral 
 spires, and to the eye almost toppling in their dizzy 
 hight. 
 
 Entering the Yo Semite region by the Mariposa 
 road, it is best to go back by the Coulterville track. 
 Thus new scenes are spread before the traveler, and 
 all the various beauty and wonder of the California 
 mountains are impressed upon his mind. On the 
 Coulterville road is Bowers' Cave, a great hole in 
 the rock, one hundred and thirty-three feet long, 
 eighty-six wide and one hundred and nine deep, and 
 opening out below into recesses that may be fol- 
 lowed for a considerable distance. A large pool of 
 water is at the bottom, and three maple trees start- 
 ing below send their tops out into the open world 
 above. The bottom of the cave can be reached by 
 steps, and a boat offers a ride upon its subterranean 
 waters. 
 
 Included in the Yo Semite excursion, as already 
 indicated, will no^turally be a visit to one or more of 
 the Big Tree Groves of California. No other one of 
 the natural curiosities of the Pacific States has be- 
 come so notorious as these trees. They were dis- 
 
390 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 covered in 1852, and their fame ran rapidly over the 
 world, accompanied with greatly exaggerated state- 
 ments as to their size and age. The first sight of 
 them is therefore generally disappointing; they are 
 not so big, generally, as has been reported ; and they 
 do not seem to be as big as they are. In no case 
 do these mammoth trees make an exclusive forest 
 of their own ; but they have been found scattered 
 among the other trees of the mountain forests at 
 some eight different places along the sides of the 
 Sierras, at elevations of from four thousand to seven 
 thousand feet, and within a distance of one hundred and 
 fifty miles south of the center of the State. None 
 have ever been found out of this line ; and the only 
 trees to which they bear any close resemblance are 
 the Eedwoods of the Coast Mountains. Both are pecu- 
 liarly California trees, and one is confined exclusively 
 to the Coast and the other to the Sierra Mountains. 
 They bear the common name of the Sequoia, in honor 
 of the celebrated Cherokee Indian who made an alpha- 
 bet and a language for his tribe ; but the Big Trees 
 proper add the distinguishing title of Gigantea, The 
 Eedwood frequently makes up an exclusive forest of 
 its own, and some of its individual trees are fifty feet 
 in circumference and two hundred and seventy-five feet 
 high ; so that it even challenges attention and divides 
 glory with the Gigantea itself One Eedwood stump 
 is reported, indeed, as having a diameter of thirty- 
 eight feet, and, having been burnt out, it held thirty- 
 three pack mules at one time, which is as large a 
 story as can be told of any one of the Big Trees 
 proper. 
 
THE SIZE AND BEAUTY OF THE TREES. 391 
 
 The Calaveras Grove of Big Trees is the most 
 northerly of the series, was the first discovered, and 
 by itself is the most rec.iiy visited. But the Mari- 
 posa Grove or collection is the one selected by Con- 
 gress and the State for public use, and, lying near 
 the favorite road to the Yo Semite Yalley, is likely 
 to prove the most popular hereafter. Besides, it is 
 the most numerous, and some of its trees are larger 
 than any in the Calaveras collection. The hight of 
 the larger trees in both groves ranges from two hun- 
 dred and thirty to three hundred and twenty-five 
 feet, and the circumference of their trunks from 
 thirty to one hundred feet. The Mariposa Grove, 
 located, as noted, only four or five miles from Clark's 
 Ranch, holds about six hundred trees, one hundred 
 and twenty-five of which are over forty feet in circum- 
 ference each, and several from ninety to one hundred 
 feet each. " The Grizzly Giant" is one of the largest 
 and most notable, though far from being so comely 
 as many others ; it is ninety-three feet in circumfer- 
 ence, and at ninety feet above the ground sends out 
 a branch which is six feet in diameter, or as large as 
 the biggest trees known in any of the Eastern forests. 
 
 But these mammoth trees are quite as impressive 
 for their beauty as their bigness. The bark is an 
 exquisitely light and delicate cinnamon color, fluted 
 up and down the long, straight, slowly-tapering trunk, 
 like Corinthian columns in architecture • the top, rest- 
 ing like a cap upon a high, bare mast, is a perfect 
 cone; and the evergreen leaves wear a bright, light 
 shade by which the tree can be distinguished from 
 afar in the forest. The wood is a deep, rich red in 
 
392 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 color, and otherwise marks the similarity of the Big 
 Trees to the Redwoods of the Coast, but it is of even 
 finer grain than the flesh of their lesser kindred; 
 and both that and the bark, the latter sometimes as 
 much as twenty inches thick, are so light and deli- 
 cate, that the winds and snows of the winter make 
 frequent wrecks of the tops and upper branches. 
 Many of the largest of these trees are, therefore, 
 shorn of their beautiful cones. One or two of the 
 largest in the grove we visited are wholly blown 
 down, and we rode on horseback through the trunk 
 of an old one that had been burned out. Many more 
 of the noblest specimens are scarred by fires that 
 have been wantonly built about their trunks, or swept 
 through the forests by accident. The trunk of one 
 huge tree is burned into half a dozen little apart- 
 ments, making capital provision for a game of hide 
 and seek by children, or for dividing up a picnic of 
 older growths into sentimental couples. 
 
 Wild calculations have been made of the ages of 
 the larger of these trees; but one of the oldest in 
 the Calaveras Grove being cut down and the rings of 
 its wood counted, its age proved to be thirteen hun- 
 dred years ; and probably none now upon the ground 
 date back farther than the Christian Era. They be- 
 gan with our Modern Civilization; they were just 
 sprouting when the Star of Bethlehem rose and stood 
 for a sign of its origin; they have been ripening in 
 beauty and power through these Nineteen Centuries; 
 and they stand forth now, a type of the Majesty and 
 Grace of Him with whose life they are coeval. Cer- 
 tainly they are chief among the natural curiosities 
 
OUR EXCURSION PARTY. 393 
 
 and marvels of Western America, of the known 
 world; and though not to be compared, in the im- 
 pressions they make and the emotions they arouse, 
 to the great rock scenery of the Yo Semite, which 
 inevitably carries the spectator up to the Infinite 
 Creator and Father of all, they do stand for all that 
 has been claimed for them in wonderful greatness and 
 majestic beauty. 
 
 Our excursion to the Yalley and the Trees was 
 made with one of the largest parties of ladies and 
 gentlemen that ever visited them in company. We 
 exhausted all the horses of the kingdom of Fremont, 
 and created famine in our path. Lodgings were 
 abundant, however, for whom house and tent did 
 not hold, the wide expanse of heaven safely covered, 
 and the hay-stack warmed. The out-door beds, in- 
 deed, came to be at a premium; for in the dry, pure 
 air of this region, there is not only no harm, but 
 actual health in sleeping upon the ground either 
 under tents or wholly in the open air. The moun- 
 tain pastures, — scattered meadows rich at this season 
 with a vernal green, — furnish mutton sweeter and 
 richer than even English breeders or butchers can 
 give you; the forests yielded their deer, and the 
 rivers their trout to our appetites; the Yalley has its 
 one vegetable garden, — so that, however our imme- 
 diate successors fared, we had no complaint to make 
 of the commissary department. 
 
XXI. 
 
 THE CHINESE. 
 
 The Human Nature Curiosity of California — The Sixty Thousand 
 Chinese — Their Character, Habits and Occupations — The Pacific 
 Railroad built by Them — How they are treated by the People — The 
 Indian and the Chinaman — The Limitations of the Chinese Mind — 
 Stony Soil for Missionary Labor — The True Elements of Influence 
 over Them — The Bath-House and the Restaurant the Real Mission- 
 aries of Civilization and Christianity — The Morals, Religion and 
 Vices of the Chinese — Picture of an Opium-Eater — A Grand Chinese 
 Banquet to Mr, Colfax — A Specimen of " Pigeon English" — De- 
 scription of the Dinner and how we Ate it, — and then went out to 
 get Something to Eat — Summing up of the Chinaman in America. 
 
 But Human Nature, too, has its curiosities in Cali- 
 fornia. The presence of the Chinese in such large 
 numbers in all the Pacific States, but especially in 
 California, and the share they have taken already in 
 the industry and growth of the country, will be a 
 surprise to most strangers. They are freely scattered 
 everywhere west of the Kocky Mountains and Utah ; 
 every considerable town has its Chinese quarter; 
 they fairly line the Pacific Railroad ; they swarm in 
 the old mining gulches of the mountains; and in 
 every village of California, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, 
 and even of British Columbia, we shall find them in 
 more or less of the kitchens, or gardening in the out- 
 
REPRESENTATIVE PORTRAITS. 
 
 Two Chinese Merchants, San Francisco. 
 
 Indian Girl, Oregon. 
 
 Indian Chief, Oregon. 
 
THE LIMITATION OF THE CHINESE MIND. 397 
 
 skirts^ or "taking in" washing and ironing, which, by 
 a sort of prescription, has fallen almost exclusively 
 into their hands in all the Pacific Coast States. They 
 began to come in 1852, when there was an immi- 
 gration of about twenty thousand ; in all, over one 
 hundred thousand have emigrated to California, but 
 full forty thousand have returned, and the present 
 number in all the States is about sixty thousand. 
 They do not come to stay or become citizens, but 
 simply to make their fortunes and go back home and 
 enjoy them. Neither their families nor their priests 
 follow them; they show no desire to domesticate 
 themselves here ; they dread nothing more than to 
 die and be buried here, and nearly every China-bound 
 steamer or ship carries back home the bodies of 
 Chinamen, overtaken, as death overtakes us all, in 
 the struggles of their labor and ambition. 
 
 There are a few men of great intelligence and wealth 
 and ability among them. These are of larger stature 
 and finer presence than the rest, who, although not 
 the poorest and most debased classes of the Chinese, 
 — not the Coolies proper, — are yet of a low type, 
 mentally and physically, and show little capacity 
 for improvement. Most of them can read and write, 
 but all their education lies in a simple, narrow range, 
 and here, as in their work, they all show a certain 
 sure and uniform attainment, beyond which it seems 
 impossible for them to go. They can beat a raw 
 Irishman in a hundred ways; but while he is con- 
 stantly improving and advancing, they stand still in 
 the old ruts. It is this power as well as disposi- 
 tion for illimitable growth, that distinguishes the 
 
398 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 European races in contrast with, the Asiatic, who 
 seem to have been cast in an iron mould ages old. 
 The superior men of the Chinese have somewhat the 
 same limitation, though their type is broader and 
 higher than the rest. They are mostly merchants, 
 supplying their countrymen, and also dealing heavily 
 in teas and silks with the Americans and Europeans 
 here. They are generally men of personal and busi- 
 ness honor, with aristocratic manners and impressive 
 presence, and are much respected by the American 
 citizens. Grouped around these as leaders or mana- 
 gers are gathered all the Chinese on the Coast. They 
 are divided into six different companies, representing 
 the different sections or localities in China from which 
 they came ; each company has head-quarters in San 
 Francisco, to which all its followers resort for assist- 
 ance and protection ; and the managers send out for 
 new immigrants, or return those who wish to go back 
 to their homes, and engage to transmit the bodies of 
 those who die for burial in China. They act, indeed, 
 as jobbers in Chinese labor, and guardians of the in- 
 terests of their countrymen in America. 
 
 The occupations of these people are various. There 
 is hardly anything in the way of manual labor that 
 they cannot turn their hands to, — the work of women 
 as well as men. They do the washing and ironing 
 for the whole population ; and sprinkle the clothes as 
 they iron them, by squirting water over them in a 
 fine spray from their mouths. Everywhere, in village 
 and town, you see rude signs informing you that See 
 Hop, or Ah Thing, or Sam Sing, or Wee Lung, or 
 Cum Sing, wash and iron; How Tie is a doctor, and 
 
WHAT THE CHINESE DO. 399 
 
 Hop Chang and Chi Lung keep stores. They are 
 good house servants ; cooks, table-waiters, and nurses; 
 better, on the whole, than Irish girls, and as cheap, — 
 fifteen to twenty-five dollars a month and board. 
 One element of their usefulness as cooks is their 
 genius for imitation; show them once how to do a 
 thing, and their education is perfected; no repetition 
 of the lesson is needed. But they seem to be more 
 in use as house servants in the country than the city ; 
 they do not share the passion of the Irish girls for 
 herding together, and appear to be content to be alone 
 in a house, in a neighborhood, or a town. 
 
 Good farm hands are the Chinese, also; in the sim- 
 pler and routine mechanic arts they have proven 
 adepts; in fact, there is hardly any branch of plain 
 labor in which, under proper tuition, they do not or 
 cannot succeed most admirably. The great success 
 of the woolen manufacture here is due to the admir- 
 able adaptation and comparative cheapness of Chinese 
 labor for the details. They are quick to learn, quiet, 
 cleanly and faithful, and have no " ofi" days," no sprees 
 to get over. As factory operatives they receive 
 twenty and twenty-five dollars a month, and board 
 themselves, though quarters are provided for them on 
 the mill grounds. Fish, vegetables, rice and pork are 
 the main food, which is prepared and eaten with such 
 economy that they live for about one-third what 
 Yankee laborers can. Four or five hundred of the 
 Chinamen are employed in the San Francisco woolen 
 mills; there are two thousand of them makino^ ci£>:ars 
 in the same city ; and seven hundred and fifty are 
 enrolled washermen. Indeed, they are participating 
 
400 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 in all the various big and little manufactures that are so 
 rapidly springing up in San Francisco; and their 
 cheap and reliable labor lies at the bottom of the 
 diversified manufacturing wealth of California. 
 
 Many are vegetable gardeners, too. In this even 
 climate and with this productive soil, their painstak- 
 ing culture, much hoeing and constant watering, 
 make little ground very fruitful, and they gather 
 in three, four and five crops a year. Their garden 
 patches, in the neighborhood of cities and villages, 
 are always distinguishable from the rougher and 
 more carelessly cultured grounds of their Saxon 
 rivals. But the greater number, as many as thirty 
 thousand it is estimated, are gleaners in the gold 
 fields of the interior. They follow in crowds after 
 the white miners, working and washing over their 
 deserted or neglected sands, and thriving on results 
 that their predecessors would despise. A Chinese 
 gold washer is content with one to two dollars a day; 
 while the white man starves or moves on disgusted 
 with twice that. A very considerable portion of the 
 present gold production of California must now be 
 the work of Chinese painstaking and moderate ambi- 
 tion. The traveler meets these Chinese miners every- 
 where on his road through the State ; at work in the 
 deserted ditches, or moving from one to another, on 
 foot with their packs, or often in the stage, sharing 
 the seats and paying the price of their aristocratic 
 Saxon rivals. 
 
 But for the Chinese, too, the Pacific Railroad must 
 have been delayed some years, and cost a third more 
 money. Substantially, the grading of the whole road, 
 
PERSECUTION OF THE CHINESE. 401 
 
 through California and Nevada, was done by them; 
 and as many as twelve thousand were employed upon 
 the work at once during the last year. Their wages 
 were about one dollar a day and board, which was 
 half the cost of ordinary white labor. This is the 
 usual proportion between the wages of the Chinese 
 and other laborers; and though the former are not 
 so strong as the Americans and Europeans, lack the 
 force and flexibility of the latter, and fail in execu- 
 tive or superintending duties, yet they are so deft 
 in details, so patient and plodding in their industry, 
 so reliable and prompt always, that their work is, on 
 the whole, worth about as much as that of the whites 
 with whom they compete. 
 
 Labor, cheap labor, being the one great palpable 
 need of the Pacific States, — far more, indeed, than 
 capital the want and necessity of their prosperity, — 
 we should all say that these Chinese would be wel- 
 comed on every hand, their emigration encouraged, 
 and themselves protected by law. Instead of which, 
 we see them the victims of all sorts of prejudice and 
 injustice. Ever since they began to come here, even 
 now, it is a disputed question with the public, whether 
 they should not be forbidden our shores. They do 
 not ask or wish for citizenship ; they show no ambi- 
 tion to become voters ; but they are even denied pro- 
 tection in persons and property by the law. Their 
 testimony is inadmissible against the white man ; 
 and, as miners, they have long been subject to a tax 
 of four dollars a month, or nearly fifty dollars a year, 
 each, for the benefit of the County and State treasuries. 
 Thus ostracised and burdened by the State, they, of 
 
402 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 course, have been the victims of much meanness and 
 cruelty from individuals. To abuse and cheat a China- 
 man ; to rob him ; to kick and cuff him ; even to kill 
 him, have been things not only done with impunity 
 by mean and wicked men, but even with vain glory. 
 Terrible are some of the cases of robbery and wanton 
 maiming and murder reported from the mining dis- 
 tricts. Had "John," — here and in China alike the 
 English and Americans nickname every Chinaman 
 " John," — a good claim, original or improved, he was 
 ordered to " move on," — it belonged to somebody else. 
 Had he hoarded a pile, he was ordered to disgorge ; 
 and, if he resisted, he was killed. Worse crimes even 
 are known against them ; they have been wantonly 
 assaulted and shot down or stabbed by bad men, as 
 sportsmen would surprise and shoot their game in 
 the woods. There was no risk in such barbarity ; if 
 " John " survived to tell the tale, the law would not 
 hear him or believe him. Nobody was so low, so 
 miserable, that he did not despise the Chinaman, and 
 could not outrage him. Ross Browne has an illus- 
 tration of the status of poor "John," that is quite 
 to the point. A vagabond Indian comes upon a 
 solitary Chinaman, working over the sands of a de- 
 serted gulch for gold. ^^Dish is my land," — says he, 
 — ^^^you pay me fifty dollar." The poor Celestial 
 turns, deprecatingly, saying : " Melican man (Ameri- 
 can) been here, and took all, — no bit left." Indian, 
 
 irate and fierce, — " D Melican man, — you pay 
 
 me fifty dollar, or I killee you." 
 
 There is now a steadily growing improvement in 
 public opinion on this question, however. It is less 
 
SLOW JUSTICE TO "JOHN." 403 
 
 popular to curse and persecute the Chinese than it 
 was; and the benefits conferred by their labor are 
 more and more realized and confessed. In some 
 branches of work they unquestionably come in com- 
 petition with white labor, both male and female, and 
 tend to degrade its character and cheapen its price; 
 but it is so clear that, except for them, many interests, 
 now prosperous, never could have been developed; 
 much wealth, now secure, never could have been har- 
 vested; many public improvements, now complete or 
 in progress, would hardly be thought of, except as 
 unattainable, that their value and their necessity 
 stand vindicated and acknowledged. The clamor 
 against them is mainly based upon the prejudices 
 and jealousy of ignorant white laborers, — the Irish 
 particularly, — who regard the Chinese as rivals in 
 their field, and clothes itself in the plausible conceit 
 about this being a "white man's country," and no 
 place for Africans or Asiatics. But without regarding 
 fealty to our national democratic principle of welcom- 
 ing hither the people of every country and clime, the 
 white man of America needs the negro and the Chi- 
 naman quite as much as they need him; the pocket 
 appeal will override the prejudices of his soul, — and 
 we shall do a sort of rough justice to both classes, 
 because it will pay. 
 
 There is no ready assimilation of the Chinese with 
 our habits and modes of thought and action. Their 
 simple, narrow, though not dull minds, have run too 
 long in the old grooves to be easily turned off. They 
 look down even with contempt upon our newer and 
 rougher civilization, regarding us barbaric in fact, and 
 
404 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 calling us in their hearts, if not in speech, " the foreign 
 devils." And our conduct towards them has inevit- 
 ably intensified these feelings, — it has driven them 
 back upon their naturally self-contained natures and 
 habits. So they bring here and retain all their home 
 ways of living and dressing, their old associations and 
 religion. Their streets and quarters in town and city 
 are China reproduced, unalleviated. Missionaries 
 have found it hard, slow work to make progress 
 among them with our education and our religion. 
 But latterly an entering wedge has been made with 
 Sunday schools and evening schools for teaching the 
 English language. The latter appeal especially to a 
 necessity of their success among us, and several hun- 
 dreds are now gathered in attendance upon these 
 schools. It is also proposed to found in San Fran- 
 cisco a high school or college for thoroughly edu- 
 cating such of the Chinese as wish, in our language 
 and science. 
 
 But as laborers in our manufactories and as ser- 
 vants in our houses, besides their constant contact 
 with our life and industry otherwise, these emigrants 
 from the East cannot fail to get enlargement of 
 ideas, freedom and novelty of action, and familiarity 
 with and then preference for our higher civilization. 
 Slowly and hardly, but still surely this work must 
 go on ; and their constant going back and forth be- 
 tween here and China must also transplant new ele- 
 ments of thought and action into the home circles. 
 Thus it is that we may hope and expect to reach 
 this great people with the influences of our better 
 and higher life. It is through modification and rev- 
 
MORALS AND RELIGION OF THE CHINESE. 405 
 
 olution in materialities, in manner of living, in man- 
 ner of doing, that we shall pave the way for our 
 thought and our religion. Our missionaries to the 
 Five Points have learned to attack first with soap 
 and water and clean clothes. The Chinese that come 
 here are unconsciously besieged with better food and 
 more of it than they have at home. The bath-house 
 and the restaurant are the avant couriers of Christian 
 civilization. 
 
 The morals and the religion of these Chinese are as 
 much an anomaly to the American mind as the singu- 
 lar contrast of their mental attainment and mental 
 limitation. Their literature overflows with a senti- 
 mental moralism. The "be good and you will be 
 happy " philosophy they know by heart. The wisdom 
 of Confucius is on all their lips. But they are mean 
 and nasty in their vices; cunning, revengeful and 
 wicked in their differences with each other. Assas- 
 sination is not uncommon among them. Leavino- 
 their wives at home, they import Chinese prostitutes, 
 like merchandise, and fight among each other for the 
 possession of them. In many cases these base women 
 are taken as a sort of temporary wives, and children 
 are reared by them. But as a rule there are no 
 Chinese homes here. They live in close quarters, 
 not coarsely filthy like ignorant and besotted Irish, 
 but bearing a savor of inherent and refined unclean- 
 liness that is almost more disgusting. Their whole 
 civilization impresses me as a low, disciplined, per- 
 fected, sensuous sensualism. Everything in their life 
 and their habits seems cut and dried like their food. 
 There is no sign of that abandonment to an emotion, 
 25 
 
406 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 to a passloiij good or bad, that marks the western 
 races. Their great vice is gambling; that is going 
 on constantly in their houses and shops; and com- 
 mercial women and barbaric music minister to its 
 indulgence. Cheap lotteries are a common form of 
 this passion. Opium-smoking ranks next; and this 
 is believed to be indulged in more extensively among 
 them here than at home, since there is less restraint 
 from relatives and authorities, and the means of pro- 
 curing the article are greater. The wildly brilliant 
 eye, the thin, haggard face, and the broken nervous 
 system, betray the victim to opium-smoking ; and all 
 tense, all excited, staring in eye and expression, he 
 was almost a frightful object, as we peered in through 
 the smoke of his half-lighted little room, and saw him 
 lying on his mat in the midst of his fatal enjoyment. 
 The Chinese have no Sunday; they are ready to 
 work seven days in the week, if it is desired, and they 
 are paid for it. Their religion is the Buddhistic 
 idolatry of India ; and on their holidays, or occasions 
 of death or departure of friends, they worship, in a 
 cheap, sentimental way, various graven images in 
 their little " Josh " Houses, that are, in style and or- 
 nament, an exaggeration of the ruder chapels among 
 an ignorant Romish peasantry. These "Josh" Houses 
 are not numerous, but seem to be run on commercial 
 principles for whoever can own or control them. 
 There are no public gatherings in them, — no forms 
 of public worship, — only individual offerings of gifts 
 to the gods, — or their owners, — with the burning of 
 candles, and similar childish rites. The whole matter 
 of the Chinese religion seems very negative and in- 
 
A GRAND CHINESE DINNER. 407 
 
 conclusive ; and apparently it has very little hold 
 upon them. There is no fanaticism in it^ — no appre- 
 ciable degree of earnestness about it. 
 
 The impressions these people make upon the Amer- 
 ican mind, after close observation of their habits, are 
 very mixed and contradictory. They unite to many 
 of the attainments and knowledge of the highest civ- 
 ilization, in some of which they are models for our- 
 selves, many of the incidents and most of the ignor- 
 ance of a simple barbarism. It may yet prove that 
 we have as much to learn from them as they from us. 
 Certainly here in this great field, this western half of 
 our Continental Nation, their diversified labor is a 
 blessing and a necessity. It is all, perhaps more 
 even, than the Irish and the Africans have been and 
 are to our Eastern wealth and progress. At the first, 
 at least, they have greater adaptability and perfection 
 than either of these classes of laborers, to whom we 
 are so intimately and sometimes painfully accustomed. 
 
 The managers of the six Chinese companies and 
 the leading Chinese merchants of San Francisco all 
 hold friendly relations with the leading citizens and 
 public men of California. Occasionally, when dis- 
 tinguished people are visiting here, they extend to 
 them the courtesy of a grand Chinese dinner. Such 
 honor was proffered to Mr. Colfax and his companions. 
 The preliminary formalities were stately and exten- 
 sive, — they would have sufficed for a banquet of the 
 royal sovereigns of Europe, or the pacification of the 
 ambitions and jealousies of the first families of Vir- 
 ginia; but when these were finally adjusted, ques- 
 tions of precedence among the Chinese settled, and a 
 
408 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 proper choice made among the many Americans who 
 were eager to be bidden to the feast, all went as 
 smooth as a town school examination that the teacher 
 has been drilling for a month previous. 
 
 The party numbered from fifty to sixty, half Chi- 
 nese, half white citizens. The dinner was given in 
 the second story of a Chinese restaurant, in a leading 
 street of the city. Our hosts were fine-looking men, 
 with impressive manners. While their race generally 
 seem not more than two-thirds the size of our Amer- 
 ican men, these were nearly if not quite as tall and 
 stout as their guests. Their eyes and their faces 
 beamed with intelligence; they were quick to per- 
 ceive everything, and alert and aufait in all courtesies 
 and politeness. An interpreter was present for the 
 heavy talking; but most of our Chinese entertainers 
 spoke a little English, and we got on well enough so 
 far as that was concerned; though hand-shaking and 
 bowing and scraping and a general flexibility of coun- 
 tenance, bodies and limbs had a very large share of 
 the conversation to perform. Neither here nor in 
 China is it common for the English and Americans to 
 learn the Chinese language. The Chinese can and 
 do more readily acquire ours, sufficiently at least for 
 all business intercourse. Their broken or '^pigeon" 
 English, as it is called, is often very grotesque, and 
 always very simple. Here is a specimen,— a "pigeon- 
 English" rendering of "My name is Norval," etc.: — 
 
 My namee being Norval topside that Glampian Hillee, 
 
 My father you sabee my father, makee pay chow-chow he sheep, 
 
 He smallo heartee man, too muchee take care that dolla, gallo? 
 
 So fashion he wantchee keep my, counta one piece chilo stope he own side, 
 
AT THE DINNER TABLE. 409 
 
 My no wantchee long that largee mandoli, go knockee alia man; 
 
 Littee turn Joss pay my what thing my father no like pay 
 
 That mourn last nightee get up loune, alia same my hat, 
 
 No go full up, no got square ; that plenty piece 
 
 That lobbie man, too muchee qui-si, alia same that tiger. 
 
 Chop-chop come down that hillee, catchie that sheep long that cow, 
 
 That man, custom take care, too muchie quick lun away. 
 
 My one piecie owne spee eye, look see that ladlone man what side he 
 
 walkee, 
 Hi-yah! No good chancie, findie he, lun catchie my flew: 
 Too piecie loon choon lun catchie that lobbie man ! he 
 No can walkee welly quick, he pocket too much full up. 
 So fashion knockee he largee. 
 
 He head man no got shutte far 
 My knockie he head, Hi-yah ! my No. 1 strong man, 
 Catchie he jacket, long he toousa, galo! You likee look see? 
 My no likee takee care that sheep, so fashion my hear you got fightee 
 
 this side. 
 My takee one servant, come your country, come helpie you. 
 He heart all same cow, too muchie fear lun away. 
 Masquie, Joss take care pay my come your house. 
 
 We were seated for the dinner about little round 
 tables, six to nine at each table, and hosts and guests 
 evenly distributed. There was a profusion of ele- 
 gant China ware on each table ; every guest had two 
 or three plates and saucers, all delicate and small. 
 Choice sauces, pickles, sweetmeats and nuts were also 
 plentifully scattered about. Each guest had a saucer 
 of flowers, a China spoon or bowl with a handle, and 
 a pair of chop-sticks, little round and smooth ivory 
 sticks about six inches long. Chi Sing-Tong, Presi- 
 dent of the San Yup Company, presided at Mr. Col- 
 fax's table. 
 
 Now the meal began. It consisted of three differ- 
 ent courses, or dinners rather, between which was a 
 
410 OUR NEW WEST. ^ 
 
 recess of half an hour, when we redred to an ante- 
 room, smoked and talked, and listened to the simple 
 rough, barbaric music of a coarse guitar, viol drum 
 and violin, and meanwhile the tables were reset and 
 new food provided. 
 
 Each course or dinner comprised a dozen to twenty 
 different dishes, served generally one at a time, though 
 sometimes two were brought on at once. There were 
 no joints, nothing to be carved. Every article of food 
 was brought on in quart bowls, in a sort of hash form. 
 "We dove into it with our chop-sticks, which, well han- 
 dled, took up about a mouthful, and, transferring this 
 to our plates, worked the chop-sticks again to get it 
 or parts of it to our mouths. No one seemed to take 
 more than a single taste or mouthful of each dish ; so 
 that, even if one relished the food, it would need 
 something like a hundred different dishes to satisfy 
 an ordinary appetite. Some of us took very readily 
 to the chop-sticks ; others did not, — perhaps were glad 
 they could not; and for these a Yankee fork was pro- 
 vided, and our Chinese neighbors at the table were 
 also prompt to offer their own chop-sticks to place a 
 bit of each dish upon our plates. But as these same 
 chop-sticks were also used to convey food into the 
 mouths of the Chinese, the service did not always 
 add to the relish of the food. 
 
 These were the principal dishes served for the first 
 course, and in the order named : Fried shark's fins and 
 grated ham, stewed pigeon with bamboo soup, fish 
 sinews with ham, stewed chicken with water-cress, 
 sea-weed, stewed ducks and bamboo soup, sponge 
 cake, omelet cake, flower cake and banana fritters, 
 
WHAT AND HOW WE ATE. 411 
 
 bird-nest soup, tea. The meats seemed all alike; 
 they had been dried or preserved in some way; were 
 cut up into mouthfuls, and depended for all savori- 
 ness upon their accompaniments. The sea-weed, 
 shark's fins and the like had a glutinous sort of taste ; 
 not repulsive, nor very seductive. The sweets were 
 very delicate, but like everything else had a positive- 
 ly artificial flavor; every article, indeed, seemed to 
 have had its original and real taste and strength dried 
 or cooked out of it, and a common Chinese flavor put 
 into it. The bird-nest soup looked and tasted some- 
 what as a very delicate vermicelli soup does. The 
 tea was delicious, — it was served without milk or 
 sugar, did not need any such amelioration, and was 
 very refreshing. Evidently it was made from the 
 most delicate leaves or flowers of the tea plant, and 
 had escaped all vulgar steeping or boiling. 
 
 During the first recess, the presidents of the com- 
 panies, — the chief entertainers, — took their leave, and 
 the prominent Chinese merchants assumed the post 
 of leading hosts; such being the fashion of the peo- 
 ple. The second dinner opened with cold tea, and a 
 white, rose-scented liquor, very strong, and served in 
 tiny cups, and went on with lichens and a fungus- 
 like moss, more shark's fins, stewed chestnuts and 
 chickens, Chinese oysters, yellow and resurrected 
 from the dried stage, more fungus stewed, a stew of 
 flour and white nuts, stewed mutton, roast ducks, rice 
 soup, rice and ducks' eggs and pickled cucumbers, 
 ham and chicken soup. Between the second and 
 third parts, there was an exchange of complimentary 
 speeches by the head Chinaman and Mr. Colfax, at 
 
412 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 which the interpreter had to officiate. The third and 
 last course consisted of a great variety of fresh fruits ; 
 and the unique entertainment ended about eleven 
 o'clock, after a sitting of full five hours. The Ameri- 
 can resident guests furnished champagne and claret, 
 and our Chinese hosts, invariably at the entrance and 
 departure of each dish, invited us, with a gracious 
 bow, to a sip of the former, in which they all faith- 
 fully and with evident relish joined themselves. 
 
 The dinner was unquestionably a most magnifi- 
 cent one after the Chinese standard ; the dishes were 
 many of them rare and expensive ; and everything 
 was served in elegance and taste. It was a curious 
 and interesting experience, and one of the rarest of 
 the many courtesies extended to Mr. Colfax on this 
 coast. But as to any real gastronomic satisfaction 
 to be derived from it, I certainly "did not see it." 
 Governor Bross's fidelity to the great principle of 
 " when you are among the Romans to do as the Ro- 
 mans do," led him to take the meal seriatim, and eat 
 of everything; but my own personal experience is 
 perhaps the best commentary to be made upon the 
 meal, as a meal. I went to the table weak and hun- 
 gry; but I found the one universal odor and flavor 
 soon destroyed all appetite ; and I fell back resign- 
 edly on a constitutional incapacity to use the chop- 
 sticks, and was sitting with a grim politeness through 
 dinner number two, when there came an angel in 
 disguise to my relief The urbane chief of police of 
 the city appeared and touched my shoulder : " There 
 is a gentleman at the door who wishes to see you, 
 and would have you bring your hat and coat." There 
 
THE DINNER AND THE CHINESE SUMMED UP. 413 
 
 were visions of violated City ordinances and " assist- 
 ing" at the police court next morning. I thought, too, 
 what a polite way this man has of arresting a stranger 
 to the city. But, bowing my excuses to my pig-tail 
 neighbor, I went joyfully to the unknown tribunal. 
 A friend, a leading banker, who had sat opposite to 
 me during the evening, and had been called out a 
 few moments before, welcomed me at the street door 
 
 with : " B , I knew you were suffering, and were 
 
 hungry, — let us go and get something to eat, — a good 
 square meal!" So we crossed to an American res- 
 taurant; the lost appetite came back; and mutton- 
 chops, squabs, fried potatoes and a bottle of cham- 
 pagne soon restored us. My friend insisted that the 
 second course of the Chinese dinner was only the 
 first warmed over, and that that was the object of 
 the recess. However that might be, — this is how I 
 went to the grand Chinese dinner, and went out, 
 when it was two-thirds over, and " got something to 
 eat." 
 
 Every visitor to San Francisco will be piqued with 
 the presence of these Orientals and the problems they 
 suggest. He will be tempted to peep into their quar- 
 ters, attend one of their theaters, look in at the brazen 
 altars and idols of their "Josh" Houses, — certainly 
 be seduced into their attractive stores, where genuine 
 Chinese silks and Chinese wares are set out by first 
 hands, and sold by Chinese grandees for the highest 
 prices they will fetch. He will see that, though our 
 American and European laborers quarrel with and 
 abuse these strange people ; though the law gives 
 them no rights, but that of suffering punishment; 
 
414 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 though they bring no families, and seek no citizen- 
 ship ; though all the Chinese women here are not 
 only commercial, but expressly imported as such; 
 though they are mean and contemptible in their 
 vices as in their manners ; though they are despised 
 and kicked about on every hand ; still they come and 
 thrive, slowly improve their physical and moral and 
 mental conditions, and supply this country with the 
 greatest necessity for its growth and prosperity, — 
 cheap labor. What we shall do with them is not 
 quite clear yet ; how they are to rank, socially, civilly 
 and politically, among us is one of the nuts for our 
 social science students to crack, — if they can; but 
 now that we have depopulated Ireland, and Germany 
 is holding on to its own, and so the old sources of our 
 labor supply are drying up, all America needs them, 
 and, obeying the great natural law of demand and 
 supply, Asia seems almost certain to pour upon and 
 over us countless thousands of her superfluous, cheap- 
 keeping, slow-changing, unassimilating, but very use- 
 ful laborers. And we shall welcome, and then quarrel 
 over and with them, as we have done with their Irish 
 predecessors. Our vast grain, cotton and fruit fields; 
 our extending system of public works ; our multiply- 
 ing system of manufactures, all need and can employ 
 them. But must they vote ; and if so, to what effect? 
 
XXII. 
 
 MINING IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 California the Child of Gold — Her Total Production and Present Yield 
 — The Mineral Belt of the State — The Different Processes of Mining 
 — The Dead Kivers, the Deep Diggings and Hydraulic Mining — The 
 Quartz Mines and Mills — The Fremont Fizzle in Mariposa — The 
 Increasing Reliability of Mining as a Business — The Providence in 
 the Gold and Silver Discoveries — Their Mission Nearly Over — 
 Decrease in the Production of the Precious Metals in America and 
 the World — Valuable Statistics on the Subject — The Other Mineral 
 Wealth of California. 
 
 California is the child of gold, and, though only 
 twenty years old, has outgrown her parentage, and 
 depends more upon agriculture, commerce and manu- 
 factures than upon mining for her prosperity. Yet 
 in these twenty years, she has added eight hundred 
 millions of dollars in gold to the world's wealth, and is 
 still producing every year about twenty-five millions. 
 No other State or Territory yet produces so much 
 yearly as California still does ; and though mining is 
 now her third or fourth interest, she is, and is likely 
 long to be, not only from her past but by her present 
 and continuing production^ the leading and representa- 
 tive mining State of the Nation. Her greatest yield of 
 gold was in 1853, when the production ran up to sixty 
 
418 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 millions of dollars, since which time it has been gradu- 
 ally falling to twenty-five millions a year, where it 
 seems to be stationary. Her gold-bearing territory 
 lies along the whole western slope of the Sierra Ne- 
 vada Mountains ; but it is richest in the central coun- 
 ties. The maps of five years ago show this section 
 crowded with the names of mining villages, while all 
 the rest of the State seemed bare of settlements; 
 but now half of these are wholly deserted, and the 
 others, with few exceptions, are in a decaying con- 
 dition, with many houses and stores unoccupied, 
 and often with only a small proportion of their old 
 populations. Many of those who remain in them 
 have turned their attention to other pursuits ; and 
 though the population of the twelve principal min- 
 ing counties shows a falling off of from one hun- 
 dred and forty thousand to one hundred and thirteen 
 thousand only since 1860, it is fair to state that no 
 more than half as many people are now engaged in 
 mining in California as in 1860. 
 
 The great mineral belt of California bears no silver; 
 it is on the opposite slopes of the Mountains, in Ne- 
 vada, that the silver ore predominates ; and though 
 it is more than twenty years since the first discoveries 
 were made, still the greater portion of California's pro- 
 duction is obtained from the sand and gravel wash- 
 ings rather than the quartz rock deposits. The lat- 
 ter is of course the original and natural condition of 
 the precious metals. But so grandly has Nature 
 worked in California in rqducing the gold-bearing 
 rock to powder, and leaving the gold particles free 
 in the beds of rivers, dead and alive, under the eaves 
 
WASHING FOR GOLD. 419 
 
 of the mountains, that there seems to be more wealth 
 of mineral lying in this form than in the original 
 rock. Washing with water is the universal means 
 of getting at these deposits of the gold. But the 
 scale on which this work is done, and the instrument- 
 alities of application vary, from the simple hand- 
 pan and pick and shovel of the individual and 
 original miner, operating along the banks of a little 
 stream, to grand combination enterprises for chang- 
 ing the entire course of a river, running shafts down 
 hundreds of feet to get into the beds of long-ago 
 streams, and bringing water through ditches and 
 flumes and great pipes for ten or twenty miles, 
 wherewith to wash down a hill -side of golden 
 gravel, and get at its precious particles. The 
 simple individual pan-washers have mostly " moved 
 on" for the richer surface sands of Idaho and Mon- 
 tana; what of this sort of gold seeking remains in 
 California is iu the hands of patient and plodding 
 "John Chinaman," who works over the neglected 
 sands of his predecessors, and is content to reap 
 as harvest a dollar's worth a day. 
 
 But all the forms of gold- washing run into each 
 other, and companies of two or three, sometimes of 
 Chinamen, with capitals of hundreds of dollars, buy 
 a sluice claim or seize a deserted bed, and with shovel 
 and pick and small stream of water, run the sands 
 over and over through the sluice-ways, and at end of 
 day, or week, or month, gather up the deposits of gold 
 on the bottoms and at the ends of their sluices. From 
 this, operations ascend to a magnitude involving hun- 
 dreds of thousands of dollars, and employing hundreds 
 
420 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 of men as partners or day laborers for the managers. 
 Sometimes, too, the enterprise is divided, and compa- 
 nies are organized that furnish the water alone, and 
 sell it out to the miners or washers according to their 
 wants. The raising of auriferous sands and gravel 
 from the deeply covered beds of old streams, by run- 
 ning shafts down and tunnels out into and through 
 such beds^ and then washing them over, is called 
 "Deep Diggings," or "Bed-rock Diggings," and in their 
 pursuit the bottoms of ancient rivers will be followed 
 through the country for mile after mile, and many 
 feet below the present surface of the earth. The min- 
 ers in this fashion go down till they reach the bed- 
 rock, along which the water originally ran, and here 
 they find the richest deposits. These dead rivers are 
 not dry, open beds, be it understood, but huge strata 
 of sand, gravel and quartz, filling up what were once 
 river channels, and lying now from a hundred to a 
 thousand feet beneath the foot-hills of the mountains. 
 They lie parallel with the mountains and diagonally 
 to the rivers now coming out of the mountains ; they 
 were sponged up and filled up by the upheaval of 
 the mountains; and their place was made known by 
 the modern streams cutting down through them, re- 
 vealing on the walls of the canyons the peculiar gold- 
 bearing materials that now occupy their beds. Out 
 of these dead rivers, three hundred millions of gold 
 have been taken, and they still yield eight millions a 
 year. 
 
 Kindred with the work upon these deep diggings 
 is what is known as Hydraulic Mining, in which 
 powerful streams of water are brought to bear on 
 
THE HYDKAULIC MINING. 421 
 
 great masses or hills of soil above the supposed gold 
 deposits, with such force as to tear them down and 
 wash them away with a rapidity that shames shovels 
 and wheelbarrows. The water is brought long dis- 
 tances from mountain lakes or rivers, through ditches 
 and flumes, sometimes supported by trestle-work fifty 
 to one hundred feet high, to near the theater of 
 operations. Then it is let from flumes into large and 
 stout iron pipes, which grow gradually smaller and 
 smaller; out of these it is passed into hose, like that 
 of a fire engine, and through this it is fired with a 
 terrible force into the bank or bed of earth, which is 
 speedily torn down, and washed, with resistless, sepa- 
 rating power, into narrow beds or sluices in the lower 
 valleys, and as it goes along these, hindered and 
 seduced at various points, the more solid gold particles 
 deposit themselves. Usually, in large operations of 
 this kind, the main stream of water is divided in the 
 final discharging hose into two or more streams, which 
 spout out into the hill-side as if from several fire 
 engines, only with immensely more force. One of 
 the streams would instantly kill man or animal that 
 should get before it, and frequent serious and even 
 fatal accidents occur from this cause. Near Dutch 
 Flat, where extensive hydraulic mining is in progress, 
 a water company taps lakes twelve to twenty miles 
 off in the mountains, and turns whole rivers into its 
 ditches; and as further illustration of its majestic 
 operations, we learned that it spent eighty thousand 
 dollars in one year in building a new ditch, and yet 
 made and divided one hundred and twenty thousand 
 dollars in additional profits that same year. Up near 
 
422 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 Yreka, in northern California, a ditch thirty miles 
 long, and costing two hundred thousand dollars, was 
 constructed for this business ; but in this instance the 
 enterprise did not prove profitable. 
 
 The extent of the operations of this description 
 may be inferred from the fact, that there are in the 
 State over six thousand miles of artificial ditches for 
 carrying water to the gold-washings, which cost over 
 fifteen millions of dollars. Some of the investments 
 of this sort have paid grand profits; others have been 
 ruinous failures. But increased certainty is being 
 secured to this form of gold seeking; new and exten- 
 sive enterprises in it are added every year; and it bids 
 fair to long continue as the most productive phase 
 of mining in the State. The returns obtained in 
 some cases of extensive deep diggings and hydraulic 
 mining are very great. A thousand dollars a day are 
 often washed out by a company holding rich soil and 
 employing a large force; and "runs of several weeks" 
 averaging fifty dollars and one hundred dollars a day, 
 to the hand, are frequently recorded. A single "clean- 
 ing up," after a few weeks' washing in a rich place, 
 has produced fifty thousand dollars in gold dust and 
 nu2:2:ets : and in other cases, even one hundred thou- 
 sand dollars are reported. 
 
 Of course all these enterprises create a wide waste 
 in their path. Tornado, flood, earthquake and vol- 
 cano combined could hardly make greater havoc, 
 spread wider ruin and wreck, than are to be seen 
 everywhere in the track of the larger gold-washing 
 operations. None of the interior streams of Califor- 
 nia, though naturally pure as crystal, escape th^ 
 
"YUBA dam" THE QUARTZ GOLD. 423 
 
 change to a thick yellow mud, from this cause, early 
 in their progress out of the hills. The Sacramento 
 is worse than the Missouri. Many of the streams are 
 turned out of their original channels, either directly 
 for mining purposes, or in consequence of the great 
 masses of soil and gravel that come down from the 
 gold-washings above. Thousands of acres of fine 
 land along their banks are ruined forever by the de- 
 posits of this character. There are no rights which 
 mining respects in California. It is the one supreme 
 interest. A farmer may have his whole estate turned 
 to a barren waste by a flood of sand and gravel from 
 some hydraulic mining up stream; more, if a fine 
 orchard or garden stands in the way of the working 
 of a rich gulch or bank, orchard and garden must go. 
 Then the torn-down, dug-out, washed to pieces and 
 then washed over side-hills, that have been or are 
 being subjected to the hydraulics of the miners, are 
 the very devil's chaos, indeed. The country is full 
 of them among the mining districts of the Sierra 
 Nevada foot-hills, and they are truly a terrible blot 
 upon the fixce of nature. The valley of the Yuba, 
 a branch of the Sacramento, was one of the worst 
 illustrations our journeying has presented; and when 
 we came to the sign over the "grocery" of a now 
 deserted mining camp, indicating that this was "Yuba 
 Dam," we thought of the famous anecdote connected 
 with this name, from its repetition, without the benefit 
 of spelling, to ai\. inquiring colporteur, and were fain 
 to confess that the profane compound fairly repre- 
 sented the spirit of the lawless miner. 
 
 The quartz mines are mostly in the same neighbor- 
 26 
 
424 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 hoods with present or past gold-washings ; in the hills 
 back and above the rich stream beds and gravel banks. 
 Theirs is the universal and familiar process of all 
 rock mining, following the rich veins into the bowels 
 of the earth with pick and powder, crushing the rock, 
 and seducing the infinitesimal atoms of metal from 
 the dusty, powdered mass. The gold in the California 
 quartz is generally free from sulphur ets or pyrites, 
 and is worked in the simplest manner. It is also 
 nearly uniform in its value, where valuable enough 
 to pay for working ; that of the best and most profit- 
 able mines yielding from twelve to seventeen dollars 
 a ton. But ore yielding only eight and ten dollars a 
 ton can often be profitably worked. Ore worth over 
 fifty dollars a ton is very rare, and is found only in 
 small quantities. There are now over four hundred 
 quartz mills in existence in the State, using ^yq 
 thousand stamps, and costing about six millions of 
 dollars. Many of these, — how large a proportion it is 
 impossible to say, but probably a great majority, — 
 are idle part or all the time; and the total annual 
 production of the quartz-mining of the State is not 
 more than a third of the whole gold product, or say 
 seven millions a year. It is increasing in amount, 
 however, and in certainty. 
 
 The most successful quartz-mining is in Amador and 
 Nevada Counties ; and the Grass Valley district in 
 the latter is peculiarly and persistently prosperous in 
 this form of mining. It is almost the only mining 
 locality in the State that has continued steadily to 
 grow in wealth and population. Mariposa County 
 is a sad ruin in comparison. Here is the famous 
 
THE MISSION OF THE MINES. 425 
 
 Fremont property. Its mines have rarely paid a 
 profit^ and now only two or three of them are being 
 worked. The population is decreasing ; the few in- 
 habitants that remain are only held together by a 
 combination of hope and despair, and the slow intro- 
 duction of agricultural operations; and much more 
 money has been made on Mariposa stock and bonds 
 in Wall Street than from Mariposa gold in California. 
 Indeed, the only great capacity there ever seemed to 
 be in the property here was in carrying an immense, 
 a magnificent indebtedness. The illustration of the 
 whole lies best, perhaps, in the sincere boast attributed 
 to its most gallant but never thrifty original owner. 
 "Why," said General Fremont, "when I came to 
 California I was worth nothing, and now I owe two 
 millions of dollars !" Yet there are certainly several 
 of the mines, on this estate, that, if worked by pri- 
 vate parties whose living depended upon success, 
 would return a reliable and reasonable profit. 
 
 There is an increasing permanency and reliability 
 in the business of gold and silver mining in America, 
 more especially in California. It is being reduced to 
 a level with other industries; and though the degree 
 of order and certainty, that belongs to agriculture and 
 commerce and manufactures, can never attach to min- 
 ing, it is forced to come into competition with them, 
 and so to submit to the same general laws. One re- 
 sult is, that, though there are fewer occasional rich 
 returns, there are less fearful losses; and the demor- 
 alizing influences of the business upon society are 
 growing weaker and weaker. 
 
 The grand mission of the gold and silver discoveries 
 
426 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 in all parts of this Western half of our Eepublic is 
 realized in their settlement and civilization. No other 
 passion than that excited by the presence of the pre- 
 cious metals could have done this work so speedily and 
 completely. But the possession secure, the States or- 
 ganized, their share in the work declines, and other 
 interests come in to sober the people, and lead them 
 on to a higher civilization and a surer prosperity. 
 The hand of a grand Design, of a wonderful Provi- 
 dence may thus be seen in all the history of gold and 
 silver mining on this Continent. The most remote 
 and forbidding parts of our national domain are now 
 under occupation and development through its leader, 
 ship; and as fast as other interests come in, and each 
 State becomes able to stand and grow without its stim> 
 ulus, that element falls away and becomes secondary. 
 The gold and silver production of America is now 
 slowly decreasing. The falling off in California from 
 sixty millions of dollars in 1853 to twenty-five mill- 
 ions in 1866-7 and 8, has been made up by Nevada, 
 Idaho, Colorado and Montana; and the production of 
 the whole country was probably at its maximum in 
 1866 or 1867, when the total yearly yield was about 
 seventy-five millions of dollars. But since, there has 
 been a certain and general decrease. The amount of 
 gold and silver centering at San Francisco in 1868 
 was not far from fifty millions of dollars ; made up in 
 round numbers of twenty-five millions from California, 
 seventeen from Nevada, two millions from Oregon and 
 Washington, four millions from Idaho, and one million 
 each from British Columbia and Arizona. Montana 
 yielded perhaps eight millions, and Colorado two, — 
 
DECREASE IN THE GOLD PRODUCTION. 427 
 
 these going East to market, — and making a gran^ ag- 
 gregate of sixty millions, which, though perhaps not 
 distributed with exactness in the above statement, un- 
 doubtedly fully covers the whole production of the year. 
 The White Pine discoveries in Nevada will probably 
 no more than compensate for the falling off in the pro- 
 duction of other sections of the same State ; and there 
 is more probability that the gold and silver product 
 of the United States will fall back to fifty millions 
 than that it will rise again above sixty millions. Yet 
 at no time before was the business so uniformly profit- 
 able as now; there are fewer "grand strikes," but, on 
 the contrary, much fewer terrible losses and wastes 
 of labor and capital ; and henceforth there is reason 
 to believe that the mining foi: the precious metals in 
 America will pay a direct profit, which few students 
 of the subject have been bold enough to claim for it 
 heretofore. 
 
 The same fact of decrease in the yield of gold and 
 silver, that we thus perceive in America, is evidently 
 true of other parts of the world. Australia, the great 
 rival of California, has fallen off in the same propor- 
 tion, or from sixty millions of dollars in gold in 1853 
 to thirty millions in 1867. The total production of 
 gold and silver in the world was in 1853 nearly two 
 hundred millions of dollars; but in 1867 it was re- 
 duced to one hundred and eighty millions, and prob- 
 ably fell below one hundred and seventy-five millions 
 in 1868. As the first rich gleanings of the surface 
 deposits are exhausted, the production rapidly falls 
 off; and the gold and silver era of 1848 to 1868, — in 
 which three and a half billions of dollars' worth were 
 
428 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 added to tlie world's stock of the precious metals, — 
 will probably never be repeated again. The depen- 
 dence of the production upon quartz-mining and such 
 similarly systematic and expensive processes as are 
 involved in the hydraulic mining of Californiaj inevit- 
 ably takes away the more abnormal elements from 
 the business, and brings it into fair competition with 
 the other avocations of man, and so necessarily limits 
 the yield to the great laws of comparative supply and 
 demand. 
 
 California is rich in many minerals besides gold; 
 but copper and quicksilver are the only others that 
 she has produced to an exporting extent. Of these, 
 she has exported an annual average of a million of 
 dollars' worth each for the last ^we years; but the 
 copper business is now depressed, and its export for 
 1868 was but a quarter of a million of dollars, while 
 the value of the quicksilver exported in that year 
 was a million and a quarter. The New Almaden 
 quicksilver mine of California has no rival in rich- 
 ness and extent in the world but the old Almaden 
 mine of Spain; and together they control the quick- 
 silver markets everywhere. Deposits of coal, lead 
 and iron are found in various parts of the State, but 
 not of sufficiently good quality or large quantity to 
 supply the home wants as yet. Better coal is found 
 on the Northern Coast; but a large part of the supply 
 for the steamships and for manufacturing purposes 
 is brought around Cape Horn from the Atlantic States 
 in sailing vessels. The State has gone through her 
 petroleum fever ; at one time she thought herself su- 
 premely rich in deposits of oil ; but hardly in a single 
 
CALIFOKNIA INDEPENDENT OF HER MINES. 429 
 
 case has the boring for the luscious liquid been at- 
 tended with profitable results. Few States are so 
 richly endowed with mineral wealth as California; 
 by it she was wakened into being ; but scarcely an- 
 other State in the Nation is more independent of it 
 now for her future growth and prosperity. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 FARMING IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The Eomance of California's Agriculture — Its History and its Pres- 
 ent Condition — The Wheat Production — The Vineyards and the 
 Wine — Mulberry Trees and Silk — The Vegetables and Fruit — The 
 Culture of Oranges — The Nuts and Dried Fruits — The Cheapness 
 of Production — The Strange Facts of Climate and Culture in Cali- 
 fornia — Six Months of Seed-time and Six Months of Harvest — 
 No Manure and No Turf in California — The Yield of Grain per 
 Acre — The Wheat and its Flour — No Irrigation Required — The 
 Moisture in the Soil — Land and its Price — The Need of Small 
 Farms and Diversified Culture — The Growth of the Agricultural 
 Counties — Advice to Emigrant Farmers. 
 
 There is tlie same element of romance in the his- 
 tory and character of the agriculture of California, 
 that is seen in all else relating to her growth. The 
 old Spanish missionaries proved the adaptability of 
 her soil both to fruits and grains ; and thirty and 
 forty years ago the Russian and English settlements 
 in the North sent to them for their surplus wheat. 
 The Mexican ranchero or herdsman followed the 
 missionaries, and great droves of wild horses and 
 cattle roamed over the Southern hills and valleys. 
 Hides and beef fat became the staples of California 
 commerce ; and up to 1849, these were the only ob- 
 
THE GROWTH OF WHEAT CULTURE. 431 
 
 jects of attraction for American or European vessels. 
 In that year the gold discoveries brought a new and 
 strange population and broke up the habits of the 
 old. The former could not believe that, with such a 
 rainless, parching summer, agriculture was at all prac- 
 ticable; while the lesser latter, who knew better, 
 were swept into the eager hunt for gold ; so that for 
 years California was fed on flour from New York. In 
 1852, flour sold for $50 a barrel at wholesale in San 
 Francisco, while among the mining camps its cost was 
 almost fabulous, and a famine was threatened. Such 
 prices and the disappointments of mining drove atten- 
 tion back to the soil ; and by 1855, wheat-growing and 
 grinding had become a considerable business, and by 
 1858, the production had exceeded the home demand. 
 From that time on, California has been an exporter 
 of wheat; but not until 1866 did the business assume 
 such proportions as to impress the grain markets of 
 the world, and fairly revolutionize the industry of 
 California. Then with a great crop came heavy de- 
 mands from England; high prices and large profits 
 resulted; and with true California vehemence the 
 people rushed into wheat raising. The year 1867 
 yielded a still larger crop, and the Eastern States 
 were added to Europe as customers. The fever thus 
 fed spread wider ; there was a great speculation 
 in agricultural lands; the area of cultivation was 
 immensely enlarged; a third favorable season was 
 passed, and 1868 reahzed the largest wheat crop 
 ever harvested in California, and she became one of 
 the first three if not the very first wheat-growing 
 State in the Union. Look at the revolution : in 
 
432 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 1848 the State raised nothing ; in 1858 just enough 
 for her own population ; in 1864, a year of winter 
 drouth, she had to send to Chili for supplies; and 
 in 1868, she had the largest surplus of any State in 
 the Republic ! The wheat crop of 1866 was fourteen 
 millions of bushels, that of 1867 the same, and that of 
 1868 at least fifteen millions and probably seventeen. 
 With three continuous years of such crops, and im- 
 proved harvests in Europe and the East in 1868, the 
 supply exceeded the demand, prices fell away, and 
 California carried over into 1869 a balance of wheat 
 equal to her own wants for a full year, and is accept- 
 ing the lesson that diversification in agriculture is as 
 necessary to permanent profit as in any other pursuit. 
 But though she has made wheat-growing her one 
 great interest for two or three years, her other agri- 
 cultural products are almost startling in rapidity of 
 development and degree of attainment. The crop 
 of barley, which is the staple feed for horses and 
 cattle, for 1868 was between eight and nine millions 
 of bushels ; that of oats between two and three mill- 
 ions ; while the wool crop, which was less than half 
 a million of pounds in 1865, and four millions in 1866, 
 was in 1868 over fifteen millions of pounds; and 
 potatoes yielded a million and a half of bushels ; but- 
 ter over five millions of pounds ; cheese over three 
 millions ; and hops over half a million. The receipts 
 of agricultural produce at San Francisco during 1868 
 amounted in value to near forty millions of dollars ; 
 and the total value of the agricultural products of the 
 State for that year is not unreasonably estimated at 
 sixty millions of dollars, or twice and a half the value 
 
THE VINEYARDS AND WINE. 433 
 
 of the products of the mines. Of these, over twenty 
 millions' worth were exported, and the rest consumed 
 or stored up at home. The chief items of the agri- 
 cultural exports were, wheat and flour about twelve 
 millions of dollars' worth, and wool two and a half 
 millions of dollars' worth. 
 
 After the grains and wool, in the agricultural 
 wealth of California, come the vineyards. There is 
 scarcely a limit to the possible production of the 
 grape in the State. Her valleys and her foot-hills are 
 alike favorable to its growth. The volcanic soil of 
 the lower hills of the Sierra Nevadas is proving, in- 
 deed, the most congenial home of the vine, and there, 
 rather than in the Coast Valleys, which have here- 
 tofore been the chief fields of its culture, is destined 
 to be its greatest triumphs. The grape was intro- 
 duced by the old missionaries, and in their choice 
 locations it grew and flourished most luxuriantly. A 
 notable vine in the southern part of the State is fif- 
 teen inches thick, and bore in one year six thousand 
 five hundred pounds of grapes. Until within a very 
 few years there has been no other variety than that 
 domesticated by the missionaries and known as the 
 Mission grape. Nearly thirty millions of vines of 
 this variety are now in bearing condition in the whole 
 State ; they are capable of yielding fifteen millions of 
 gallons of wine, and one million of gallons of brandy a 
 year; but the wine production of 1868 was not over 
 seven millions of gallons, though this was twice the 
 yield of 18G6. Most of this is still held in the State, 
 the export of wine for 1868 not exceeding a quarter 
 of a million of dollars in value. 
 
434 OUR KEW WEST. 
 
 The counties of Santa Clara, Sonoma and Napa 
 near San Francisco, and of Los Angelos in the south- 
 ern part of the State are at present the most forward 
 in this business; but it is rapidly extending in all 
 quarters, and more especially and promisingly in the 
 districts under the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The 
 vine and the mulberry are apparently destined to 
 take the place of the mines in these districts, and 
 stay their decay in wealth and population. The 
 Mission grape varies in quality with the soil and cul- 
 ture ; but everywhere it is strong and hearty, both as 
 a vine and a fruit, and rich in all wine-making qual- 
 ities. At first the wines were crude and coarse and 
 heady; and they still lack the delicacy of the best 
 European wines; but age and increased skill in the 
 manufacture are exhibiting great improvements; and 
 the California wines are early destined to a high and 
 wide popularity. They already are distinguished for 
 a high fruity flavor, a rich saccharine body, and a 
 purity that the ease of culture and manufacture is 
 likely to protect. New and better varieties of grape 
 are rapidly coming into cultivation, and the admixture 
 of these with the native, and the tempering of the viru- 
 lence of the strong, fresh soil by use, will both fast 
 contribute to the improvement of the wines and bran- 
 dies of the State. The Catawba and the Isabella, the 
 Muscat, Black Prince, White Malaga, Black Hamburg 
 and Rose of Peru are already grown very extensively, 
 and though the choicer of these varieties are thus 
 far largely absorbed for eating, they will all speedily 
 be so productive as to be used for wine-making. This 
 last year (1868), these foreign varieties were sold for 
 
SILK, FRUIT AND VEGETABLES. 435 
 
 wine-making in considerable quantities at two to three 
 dollars per hundred pounds, or about double the price 
 paid for the Mission grape. Grape-growing and wine- 
 making are becoming two separate interests; the 
 growers of the grapes selling the fruit by the pound 
 or the juice by the gallon to the manufacturers, who 
 have, in some cases, large and expensive establish- 
 ments and machinery for the treatment of the prod- 
 uct. Hock or white still wine, port, angelica, a 
 sweet reddish wine, and champagne are the principal 
 kinds of wine so far made; but sherries and clarets 
 are being successfully introduced. At first hands, 
 the white wine sells for twenty-five cents a gallon, 
 the red wine for thirty to thirty-five, and port and 
 angelica at sixty cents. 
 
 Another interest, already firmly planted and rapidly 
 extending, is that of silk-growing. Five millions of 
 mulberry trees are now growing to furnish the food 
 for the worms ; the chmate is favorable alike to tree 
 and worm; and the production of silk cocoons, of 
 which twenty-five thousand dollars' worth were sent 
 to market in 1868, is certain to move as rapidly for- 
 ward as wheat and wool-growing and wine-prod ucino- 
 have done, and become a prominent element in the 
 agricultural wealth of the State. 
 
 The capacity of the State for fruits and vegetables 
 of every variety has already been alluded to. Green 
 garden food is in perpetual, inexhaustible supply; 
 potatoes can be dug from the ground ten months in 
 the year; beans and peas are green in the market 
 from March to January; cabbages, lettuce, beets, 
 celery, cauliflowers, artichokes, spinach, turnips, car- 
 
436 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 rotSj and parsnips, all stand green in the garden the 
 year round; strawberries and tomatoes are ripening 
 through eight months in the open air. All these 
 reach their fullest perfection and grow to enormous 
 size with the stimulus of a strong soil. We read of 
 cabbages of seventy-five pounds, onions of four, tur- 
 nips of twenty-six, and watermelons of eighty. As 
 large a section of the State as all Massachusetts is 
 favorable to orange culture ; and Los Angelos County 
 has ten thousand trees in bearing condition, and one 
 hundred thousand more coming forward ; while there 
 are many protected points in the central counties 
 where the fruit can be successfully grown. The 
 orange of Southern California is also of the finest 
 quality; it begins to ripen in December, is in its 
 prime in January, and lingers in market till April. 
 The profit of its culture is generous ; it requires ten 
 years to bring an orange grove into bearing; but 
 then a single tree will return fifty dollars a year, and 
 an acre of trees three thousand dollars. The lime 
 and the lemon ripen where the orange does ; the 
 olive flourishes still farther north ; the ^g grows in 
 all the valleys of the State, producing two crops a 
 year in the south, and one in the center and north; 
 the date palm, the pomegranate, the almond, and 
 the walnut, all flourish and ripen their fruit in the 
 southern and central counties ; the pine-apple and ba- 
 nana are alone of all the leading tropical fruits limited 
 and uncertain; while forty varieties of grapes are 
 already grown successfully in California, that would 
 not live in the Eastern States north of the Carolinas ; 
 and peaches, plums, pears, apples, cherries and apri- 
 
MYSTERY OF CALIFORNIA'S PRODUCTIVENESS. 437 
 
 cots, all the fruits of the temperate zone, find con- 
 genial homes and perfect development in the valleys 
 and on the hill-sides of the central and northern coun- 
 ties. The dried fruits, cured by sharp sunshine and 
 dry air, hold in rich supply the juices of their ripe- 
 ness, and furnish a sauce far surpassing all ordinary 
 dried fruits in acceptance to the palate and grateful- 
 ness to the stomach. 
 
 But the great security of California's agricultural 
 wealth lies not alone in the richness of her soil nor in 
 the wonderful variety of her productions. The cheap- 
 ness with which her crops can be grown is the more 
 pregnant and assuring fact. With labor from twenty- 
 five to fifty per cent, dearer than in the Eastern States, 
 she' yet offers food of nearly every variety as cheap if 
 not cheaper than it is sold for in the East, and harvests 
 a more generous profit on its production. San Fran- 
 cisco sells flour to-day at half the prices of New York, 
 and with a profit at every stage of its manufacture. 
 California would like no better assurance of wealth 
 than to raise wheat and grapes at two cents a pound 
 year by year, or beef at half New England prices. Yet 
 this is the country that Eastern emigrants in 1849-50 
 cursed for its barrenness, while they ate flour from 
 Michigan and Indiana, by way of New York and Cape 
 Horn, at twenty-five and fifty cents a pound. But how 
 such fruitfulness can be, when for six months of every 
 year no rain falls, and no dew drops, and the dusty 
 valleys and the parched hill-sides testify to the death 
 of nature, is still a mystery to everybody who has not 
 wintered and summered in California, and yet the 
 occasion of wonder to all not born and reared on the 
 
438 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 soil. That here, where all the laws of nature, as we 
 have been accustomed to learn and see them, are vio- 
 lated, nature should be more bountiful than any where 
 else, mocks our intelligence, and almost makes us feel 
 as if Providence had insulted us. 
 
 Let us consider some of the salient facts of the cli- 
 mate and cultivation of California. There are but two 
 '^seasons in the year; in the mountains, winter and sum- 
 mer; in the plains and valleys, spring and summer. 
 With the rains of November, spring and seed-time 
 commence with the farmer. Then the grasses green, 
 and the fruits and flowers prepare to bud. As soon as 
 the ground gets fairly wet, by December generally, the 
 farmer begins to plow and plant; and this work he can 
 keep up till April. May and June perfect his crops, 
 and from then till October is harvest time. He is not 
 limited to thirty days for his planting, nor to another 
 thirty for his harvesting. The season waits on his 
 leisure, and invites him to an unlimited area of culture. 
 Full half the days of his winter or spring are bright 
 and pleasant, and the rest are showery rather than 
 rainy; all the days of his summer are fair and dry. 
 From May to November, he need not lose a day for 
 himself or his laborers. He may cut his grain in June, 
 and not gather it till September or October. No barns 
 are needed for his harvests ; the kindly sky, the dry air 
 protect them till they are sent to market. The thrash- 
 ing, the winnowing, the packing for shipping are all 
 done upon the ground. Nor do his animals require 
 cover; they need no kindlier protection than nature 
 grants; even his laborers sleep sweetly and safely up- 
 on the field through the long, dry summer. 
 
NO MANURE — NO TURF. 439 
 
 A single ploughing and planting secures two crops 
 of grain. The waste of the first crop is abundant 
 seed for the second, and this ^^ volunteer" yield is only 
 twenty or twenty-five per cent, less than the original, 
 and it costs nothing save the gathering. The plough- 
 ing is shallow, only four to six inches deep; for the 
 farmers say deeper ploughing evaporates the moisture 
 of the land. But the soil is light and open when the 
 crops are growing, and only gets baked and hard when 
 the long dry summer has spent its hot suns upon it. 
 Then it must wait for rain before the plough can move 
 through it. There is no manuring yet, except from 
 the burning of the straw upon the ground. Stable 
 manure does not rot, but dries up, and its goodness 
 evaporates, so that something else must take its place 
 to keep up the fertility of the soil in California. But 
 if manure thus spoils, meat does not, and the farmer 
 can cut and come again from the same quarter of 
 beef in midsummer for a month. Most of the har- 
 vesting is done by machinery; "reapers" or "head- 
 ers" sweep over the wide grain fields; more or less 
 directly their gatherings are brought to a huge 
 threshing-machine, run by steam or horse-power, 
 which, amid terrible dust and din, separates grain 
 and chaff, when the former is sacked and piled up on 
 the ground to await sale and transportation to market. 
 There is no turf in California; the long summer 
 kills the grass at the roots; oats and barley, cut 
 green and cured in May or June, answer for hay; but 
 wild oats, bunch grass, and other wild and nutritious 
 grasses and grains start up freshly under the rains, 
 are converted into standing hay and grain by the 
 27 
 
440 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 summer sun, and afford luxurious and abundant food 
 for the vast herds of cattle, horses and sheep on the 
 mountain ranges, and in the unsubdued valleys. Their 
 only time of trial is in November, when the rains 
 beat down their old feed, and have not started the 
 new. Never but once did they fail to sustain them- 
 selves in their open roamings. The year 1864 was 
 distinguished by a winter's drouth, and of course 
 this left the summer barren of their food. The re- 
 sults were terrible; thousands of animals perished 
 from starvation and thirst; it is estimated that half 
 the native herds of the State were thus lost; and the 
 business of herding has not yet recovered from this 
 blast. 
 
 The soil of the State is everywhere more or less 
 volcanic. It is permeated with alkaline elements. 
 The air, too, is rich in ammonia. These are the 
 secrets of the great crops, and the slow deterioration 
 of the soil under continued cultivation. Barley is 
 the surest and cheapest crop ; it yields on the average 
 forty bushels to the acre, but special cases of one him- 
 dred and even of one hundred and twenty bushels to 
 the acre are recorded. Oats are not much less sure or 
 bountiful. The average wheat yield is twenty bushels 
 to the acre ; but it is not uncommon to see sixty 
 and seventy bushels produced to the acre, and well- 
 proved instances of a yield of eighty-four bushels are 
 reported. But, under careless culture and continued 
 cropping without rest or the replenishing of the soil, 
 the production is decreasing per acre, and the quality 
 of the grain is degenerating. The wheat is ordinarily 
 of a high grade; it bears a hard shell, a white, pure, 
 
nature's irrigating processes. 441 
 
 rich kernel^ very dry, and requires more moisture in 
 the manufacture into bread than our eastern wheats. 
 With the proper treatment, California flour takes the 
 first rank in all the markets of the world. Rye is 
 almost unknown, and buckwheat is rarely cultivated 
 in California ; and Indian corn is generally unremu- 
 nerative ; the cool nights and want of moisture in 
 the summer are very unfavorable to its perfection. 
 
 It has taken some years to teach California culti- 
 vators how independent they really are of irrigation. 
 They resort to it less and less every year. By fol- 
 lowing the suggestions of nature, and ploughing and 
 planting amid the early rain, every crop will get such 
 strength and perfection before the summer drouth, that 
 it is independent of any more moisture. So it is with 
 trees and vines ; they obtain such a hold in the win- 
 ter or spring months, as to require no farther help 
 than nature has granted to perfect their fruit. If 
 fresh flowers and grass and vegetables are desired 
 through the long summer, then irrigation is required. 
 But this answers to eastern culture under glass. Na- 
 ture is fully up to man's reasonable wants in Califor- 
 nia, and will rarely or never cheat him, provided he 
 only follows her teachings. Then the soil is wonder- 
 fully retentive of moisture ; the roots of trees and 
 vines seem to riot all the summer in depths of unseen 
 moisture below; and by a curious provision, that 
 seems like a miracle, when the six months of drouth 
 are half over, and the trying time seems to have come, 
 then, in August and September, the hidden secretions 
 rise up anew to the surface, the ground and the plants 
 seem to have been rained on from below, and dried 
 
442 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 up springs begin to show freshness and even dead 
 channels of winter streams trickle with a new and 
 unexpected life. Orchards and vineyards were at 
 first thought to be only safe and profitable in the 
 lower and moister valleys ; but now they are seen to 
 thrive best and to produce a higher quality of fruit as 
 they are planted high up among the foot-hills of the 
 mountains. 
 
 Though there has been a rapid increase m the 
 amount of land cultivated in California during the 
 last few years, not over two millions of acres, out of 
 a total of sixty-five millions adapted to agriculture, 
 are yet improved. There has been a vast amount 
 of land bought up by speculators, however, within 
 two years ; and the larger part of the twelve millions 
 of acres of valley land in the great Sacramento Basin 
 are now taken out of the first hands of the govern- 
 ment. All the lands of the Coast Valleys around the 
 waters of San Francisco Bay have been in even 
 greater demand, and are held at high prices. Here 
 are the great farms of the rich men of San Francisco. 
 It is here that the chief of the wealth that the last 
 three years have drawn from the soil of California has 
 been garnered. Much of these lands neighboring to 
 the City and the Bay are held at from one hundred to 
 five hundred dollars an acre. But there is plenty of 
 good land to be had in more remote but still access- 
 ible parts of California for from two to ten dollars an 
 acre. The speculators cannot hold on to what they 
 have hastened to gobble up ; and millions of acres still 
 remain to be pre-empted from the government. 
 
 What California agriculture now needs is diverse 
 
THE GROWTH OF AGRICULTUPwE. 443 
 
 fied farming. She has overdone vast vineyards and 
 sea-like wheat-fields for the present. She may well 
 glory in single vineyards of a million vines, and wheat- 
 fields of a thousand acres, producing fifty thousand 
 bushels of grain at a single harvest; but she now re- 
 quires more small farms and small farmers, making 
 homes of comfort and luxury upon the land, intro- 
 ducing variety in its culture, and thus improving the 
 gifts of both climate and soil by multiplying the 
 products of the State. There is scarcely anything, 
 that is food for man, which these do not offer to her ; 
 and to develop and secure all, to make her own 
 people independent of other markets, and to minister 
 to the wants and tastes of as many other nations as 
 they can reach with their surplus, — this is the rare 
 opportunity and this the selfish duty of California. 
 Even her wide swamp wastes, along her great rivers, 
 known as the tule lands, from the coarse reed that 
 covers them, have the capacity for redemption to 
 cotton and rice culture. Asia is learning to eat her 
 wheat, and will welcome her surplus rice ; while the 
 entire Pacific Coast, north and south, cannot escape 
 the economy and necessity of living upon her surplus. 
 The organization and development of the agricul- 
 tural wealth of California is, in fact, almost as won- 
 derful a phase in her history as was her gold-mining; 
 and close upon these now treads a manufacturing era, 
 that promises to be as rapid in progress, as far-reach- 
 ing in effects, as either of its preceding industries has 
 proven. The twelve principal agricultural counties of 
 the State have grown in population from seventy-nine 
 thousand in 1860 to one hundred and fortv-five thou- 
 
444 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 sand in 1868, and in property valuation from thirty-four 
 millions of dollars to fifty millions ; but San Francisco, 
 which represents her commerce and manufactures, ex- 
 hibits a development twice as great, twice as rapid. 
 
 The " Overland Monthly Magazine " of San Fran- 
 cisco, from whose pages we have supplemented our 
 own observations with many facts on these questions, 
 says there is now no room in California for clerks and 
 merchants, but for farmers, soil, climate and markets 
 are all inviting. And we conclude this chapter with 
 a quotation from its pages : — 
 
 '* Farmers who have means to buy a house and maintain themselves 
 one year have a sure thing if they will enter into more varied culture 
 than only wheat. The garden and orchard go far to supply the table 
 the whole year in this climate, if you have water for the farmer. Every 
 place has grapes. These pay, if you can make and hold your wine, 
 and they have a sure future, not far off. Mulberry trees grow like 
 weeds. There are five millions now growing. You can get them one 
 year old. In two years these will feed silk-worms. Any quantity of 
 reeled silk is salable. All your family can work at this; and two 
 crops of cocoons are certain. There is no such country for silk, in 
 quantity and quality. Flax, castor bean, hops, tobacco and many such 
 things might be mentioned. Wood planting in this treeless country 
 would pay largely, and ten years give growth that other climates and 
 soils would not give in twenty years; for all winter long the growth 
 keeps on with little interruption. The dairy farm pays at once and 
 handsomely. We still import butter and cheese. Farm hands and 
 miners would find steady work at large wages in gold. Miners get 
 three dollars a day. In conclusion, California is especially recom- 
 mended to persons whose health demands a genial atmosphere. Drink 
 no spirits; but domestic wine in moderation. Eat sparingly of meat, 
 take your coffee weak, and avoid speculative excitements. Then, if 
 you bring a liver not entirely leathered and lungs not over half con- 
 sumed, and choose from a variously distributed climate the locality best 
 adapted to your complaint, you may live yet long in the land." 
 
XXIV. 
 
 OREGON— WASHINGTON— BRITISH COLUMBIA. 
 
 Overland to the North — The Surprises of Oregon, Washington and 
 Puget's Sound— A Week's Ride in a "Mud Wagon"— Up Through 
 the Sacramento Valley — Chico and General Bidwell, Red Bluffs 
 and the John Browns — The Mingling Mountains and New Valleys 
 — Shasta, Yreka and Jacksonville — Mount Shasta and Pilot Knob — 
 The Forests in Whole and in Detail — Joe Lane and Jesse Apple- 
 gate — The Willamette Valley, the Garden of Oregon — Its Beauty, 
 Fertility and Settlements — The Rains of Oregon — The Web Feet 
 — Portland — The New England of the Pacific — Through Washing- 
 ton Territory to Puget's Sound — " Shookem Chuck " and Olympia — 
 The Forests of Washington — The " Square Meal" Feature of Pacific 
 Coast Civilization — The Lumber Wealth and Water and Forest 
 Beauty of Puget's Sound — Victoria and Vancouver's Island — New 
 Westminster and British Columbia — British Taxation and Rebel- 
 lious Subjects — Decrease of Population and Wealth — A Good Time 
 at Victoria — John Bull and Brother Jonathan Fraternize Over 
 Food and Drink — The San Juan Dispute — The Hudson Bay Com- 
 pany's Depots — The Snow Mountains and the Summer Gardens of 
 Victpria — Contrasts there and with the East. 
 
 Between our California excursions, we made an 
 overland toiir through Oregon and Washington and 
 into the British Provinces of the North. Its revela- 
 tions of beautiful scenery, of natural wealth, of ma- 
 terial development were more unexpected than those 
 of California. For the latter we were in a measure 
 prepared^ but the former had somehow been hidden 
 
446 OUPw NEW WEST. 
 
 from us. The audacity both of California nature 
 and of California life had thrust her fully before the 
 public, and shaded the quality and the growth of her 
 less sensational but scarcely less interesting neigh- 
 bors. So we had the always delicious element of 
 unexpectedness in the scenes and experiences of our 
 northern tour. But there was some rebellious flesh 
 among us, when we were told that to see Oregon we 
 must take another week of day and night stage rid- 
 ing; much of it over rough mountain roads, and in a 
 "mud wagon" at that. We thought to have been 
 through with that sort of travel. Yet no week's rid- 
 ing gave us greater or richer variety of experience ; 
 more beauty of landscape ; more revelation of knowl- 
 edge; more pleasure and less pain, than this one up 
 through Northern California and Middle Oregon, be- 
 tween the Coast Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas. 
 It is six hundred and fifty miles from Sacramento 
 in mid California due north to Portland in mid Ore- 
 gon. The beginnings of the Railroad that is to con- 
 nect them carry us on fifty or sixty miles through 
 Marysville to Oroville. These are the principal, as 
 they are very pleasant and prosperous, towns in the 
 Sacramento Yalley, above the capital. But they are 
 even hotter and drier in summer than Sacramento or 
 Stockton. For one hundred miles more, we rode 
 through the broad alluvial fields of the Yalley, — some- 
 times rolling in waves of earth, then flat and wide as 
 flattest and widest of Illinois prairies, often treeless 
 and uncultivated, though never uncultivatable ; and 
 again charming with old oak groves, and fruitful 
 with grain fields and orchards, that yield an increase 
 
"old joh:^^ browi^'s" family. 447 
 
 unknown in all Atlantic valleys or Mississippi basin 
 bottoms. Chico was one of its first and most attrac- 
 tive settlements ; the central feature being the home 
 of General Bidwell, a pioneer of California life, and 
 now a leading citizen, with a grand estate here of 
 twenty thousand fertile acres, on nine hundred of 
 which he raised so long ago as in 1863 thirty-six 
 thousand bushels of wheat. His garden and orchard 
 occupy one hundred acres alone. When we stopped 
 and took supper with him, he was a newly elected 
 Congressman and a forlorn bachelor; now he is an 
 ex-Congressman and a happy husband. The fates 
 were certainly propitious to rescue him, unscathed, 
 from such double perils. 
 
 On through a like productive country, crossing 
 streams whose banks are lined with an almost trop- 
 ical growth of trees and vines, along roads bordered 
 with fences and trees, past farms and orchards rich in 
 grams and fruits, we made our first night ride, pass- 
 ing in the gray morning the prosperous little town 
 of Red Blufis, which is noteworthy as the head of 
 navigation on the Sacramento River,— some three 
 hundred miles from its mouth,— and so a central 
 pomt of commerce for all Northern California and 
 Southern Oregon, and as the present home of the 
 widow and three daughters of the immortal John 
 Brown. They straggled in here, weary and poor, 
 from their overland journey, but found most hospit- 
 able greeting from the citizens and have secured a 
 permanent home. A subscription among the Cali- 
 fornians gave them a nice cottage home; Mrs. Brown 
 was earning both love and support as a successful 
 
448 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 nurse and doctor, particularly for children; and her 
 daughters were teachers in the j)ublic schools. 
 
 Now the Great Central Basin of California begins 
 to narrow; and soon the Coast Range and Sierra 
 Nevada Mountains, breaking up their lines, meet and 
 mingle. For the remaining two hundred miles of 
 California, and the first two hundred of Oregon, our 
 road winds painfully among and over the hills, and 
 up and down narrow valleys, first of tributaries of 
 the Sacramento, and then of minor though earnest 
 streams, — Trinity, Klamath, Rogue and Umpqua, — 
 that steal their way, among the scattered and em- 
 bracing ranges of the Coast and the Sierra Nevada, 
 west to the Ocean. 
 
 Shasta and Yreka are the two remaining villages 
 of importance in California, with perhaps fifteen hun- 
 dred inhabitants each. Born of rich placer gold 
 diggings in neighboring valleys and gulches, but 
 bereft of half of their former populations by the dis- 
 covery of more tempting fields elsewhere, and the 
 inherent migratory character of gold seekers, they 
 present the sad array of unoccupied stores and houses, 
 so common to the interior mining towns of California. 
 Their second reactionary stage has since begun, how- 
 ever ; a more careful and intelligent working of the 
 gold sands and banks proves them still profitable, — 
 in some cases richly so ; the Chinese are coming in 
 to work over the neglected courses, satisfied with 
 smaller returns than the whites ; and best of all, agri- 
 culture, hitherto despised, is asserting its legitimate 
 place as the base of all true and steady prosperity. 
 The valleys, though small, are fruitful, and many of 
 
MOUNT SHASTA — JACKSONVILLE. 449 
 
 the hill-sides are equally rich for grain and fruit. 
 These hills of Northern California and Southern Ore- 
 gon seem, indeed, the true home of apple, pear and 
 grape, and are sure to have a large place in the 
 future fruit-growing and wine-making prosperity of 
 the Pacific Coast. A little ^\e years' old orchard, on 
 the hill-sides near Shasta, produced in 1864 three 
 thousand bushels of peaches, one thousand ^ve hun- 
 dred bushels of apples, and grapes by the ton, for 
 which the owner found market among the miners in 
 the mountains around, and in the villages north and 
 south. 
 
 Along here, individual mountains assumed a rare 
 majesty; snow peaks were visible, ten thousand and 
 eleven thousand feet high; and soon, too, Mount 
 Shasta, monarch of the Sierras in Northern Cali- 
 fornia, reared its lofty crown of white, conspicuous 
 among hills of five thousand and six thousand feet, 
 alike for its vast fields of snow, its perfect shape, 
 and its hight of fourteen thousand four hundred feet 
 above the sea level. We saw it from various points 
 and all sides, and everywhere it was truly a King of 
 the Mountains, and is entitled to rank among the 
 first dozen mountain peaks of the world. 
 
 Jacksonville was the first conspicuous town in Ore- 
 gon, and showed obvious first-cousinship to Yreka and 
 Shasta. But its neighboring gold diggings made bet- 
 ter report; many of the five hundred men engaged 
 upon them in the county were very prosperous, and 
 all were making good wages ; promising quartz mines 
 were also discovered; and we found, everywhere al- 
 most in these mountain counties of Northern Cali- 
 
450 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 fornia and Southern Oregon, gathering evidences of 
 much gold jet unwashed or undug, that would still 
 form the basis, with cheaper and more abundant labor 
 and capital, of a large population and a new material 
 growth for this region. The northern county of Cali- 
 fornia (Siskiyou) counted no fewer than two thousand 
 Chinese among its population, and of these, eleven 
 hundred were engaged in gold digging, from whom 
 as foreigners the State gathered a tax of four dollars 
 a month each, or from fifty thousand to sixty thou- 
 sand dollars a year. That they could stand this 
 enormous tribute, and still keep at work, showed well 
 enough that it paid them to wash and re-wash the 
 golden sands of these valleys. 
 
 The scenery of this region is full of various beauty. 
 Of conspicuous single objects. Pilot Knob, a great 
 chunk of bare rock standing on a mountain top, 
 ranks next to Mount Shasta ; it must be eight hun- 
 dred to one thousand feet high in itself, and, seen 
 from all quarters, it has been famous as a pilot to the 
 early emigrants in their journey across the moun- 
 tains. The hills are rich with pine forests, and these 
 grow thicker and the trees larger and of greater 
 variety, as also the valleys widen and seem more 
 fertile, as the road progresses into Oregon. Firs 
 rival the pines and grow to similar size, one hundred 
 and two hundred feet high and three to five feet in 
 diameter. Farther up in Oregon, about the Colum- 
 bia Kiver, the fir even dominates, and is the chief 
 timber, and specimens of it are recorded that are 
 twelve feet through and three hundred feet high ! 
 The oak, too, has its victories in the valleys, and we 
 
THE TREES OF THE FORESTS. 451 
 
 ride through groves and parks of it that are in- 
 describably beautiful. That fascinating parasite 
 of British classics, the mistletoe, appears also, and 
 shrouds the branches of the oak with its rich, ten- 
 der green, and feeds on its rugged life. Many an 
 oak had succumbed to the greedy bunch boughs of 
 the mistletoe, that fastened themselves upon it, and, 
 despite its beauty and the sentimental reputation it 
 brings to us from British poets, I came to shrink from 
 its touch and sight. More graceful and inviting and 
 less absorbing of life, — rather token of death, — was 
 the pendent Spanish moss, hanging gray and sere 
 and sad from the pine branches and trunks, along our 
 way in Southern Oregon. 
 
 The birch, the ash, the spruce, the arbor vitae, and 
 the balsam, all contribute to these forests. Only the 
 transcending elm of the New England valleys was 
 lacking to give every variety of tree beauty. But 
 for extent of forest wealth, for size and beauty of 
 pines and spruces and firs, for amount and quality of 
 timber, as timber, and for groves of oaks, there can 
 be no competition in the East to the Sierra Nevadas 
 and the Coast Mountains and their intermediate val- 
 leys in California and Oregon. Their forests become 
 the perpetual wonder and admiration of the traveler, 
 and are destined to prove the wealth of many a gen- 
 eration of settlers. 
 
 The cross valleys of the Kogue and Umpqua Rivers 
 present many rich fields for culture. The soil is a 
 gravelly loam, warm and fertile, and more favorable 
 for fruits, especially the grape and the peach, than 
 the more northern valleys of Oregon. But the way 
 
452 OUR KEW WEST. 
 
 to market is long and hard ; and the products of 
 agriculture here must mainly go out to the world on 
 the hoof or in wool, until the Railroad comes. So that 
 the temptation to the farmer is not yet very strong. 
 Still we found a few rich farms and prosperous gentle- 
 men farmers. "Joe" Lane, famous in the politics of 
 Oregon, had an estate near the road ; and we stopped 
 and breakfasted with another and more worthy pio- 
 neer of the country, Mr. Jesse Applegate. He came 
 here from Missouri near thirty years ago, — for Oregon 
 dates back farther than California, farmers and poli- 
 ticians coming hither from Missouri, and Methodist 
 missionaries from New England, full ten years before 
 the gold discoveries of the Golden State, — and has 
 had a constant share in the material, moral and 
 political growth of the State. But a reformer and 
 philosopher by nature, he has kept his thought so far 
 in advance of the popular current, — abreast, indeed, 
 of the Greeleys and Sumners of the East, — that he 
 has failed to be placed in representative positions. 
 It was both surprise and refreshment to meet in this 
 almost hermit of the woods so pure and vigorous a 
 thinker on our current politics ; and we learned then 
 and afterwards to place Jesse Applegate foremost 
 among the men of Oregon. Sending his three sons 
 to fight for the country, he staid at home to carry 
 on their farm of two thousand acres. But farmino; 
 here, he says, is but a cheap, careless process ; labor 
 is so dear, and grain grows so easily, and the market 
 is so distant, that there is no incentive for real 
 cultivation and care in the business. Grass grows 
 naturally, abundantly; timothy seed, thrown upon 
 
THE WILLAJSIETTE YALLEY, OREGON. 453 
 
 the "unbrokeii soil, gives the best of permanent mow- 
 ing; and so mild are the winters, and so abundant 
 the feed upon hill and plain, that even that is only 
 improved as a precaution against exceptional snow. 
 Though he feeds cattle by the hundreds some seasons, 
 and thousands in others, he had then one hundred 
 and twenty-five tons of hay that he cut two years 
 before, but for which he had yet had no use. 
 
 Two days and a night of rough riding from Jack- 
 sonville over rather unmilitary roads, built for the 
 government some years ago by the since famous 
 General Hooker, brought us out, of a sweet. June- 
 like afternoon, upon the hill that overlooks the head 
 of the Willamette (Wil-lam-ette) Yalley. Here the 
 mountain ranges cease their mazy dancing together, 
 and take their places again east and west, feeding a 
 river that runs midway north one hundred and 
 twenty-five miles to the Columbia River, and water- 
 ing a valley through that length and for fifty miles 
 wide. This is the Willamette River and Yallej', — the 
 garden of Oregon, — itself Oregon; that which led 
 emigrants here years before the gold discoveries on 
 the Pacific Coast; the home of nearly two-thirds of 
 all the inhabitants of the State; the chief source of 
 its present strength and prosperity, and its sure secu- 
 rity for the future; lifting it above the uncertainties 
 of mining, and giving guaranty of stability, intelli- 
 gence and comfort to its people. 
 
 We were led down into this indeed paradisiacal val- 
 ley through richest groves of oak ; the same are scat- 
 tered along the foot-hills on either side, or people 
 the swelling hills that occasionally vary the prairie 
 
454 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 surface of its central lines; while tlie river, strong 
 and free and navigable through the whole valley 
 a part of the year, and through the lower half at 
 all times, furnishes a deep belt of forest along the 
 very middle of the valley. Never beheld I more 
 fascinating theater for rural homes; never seemed 
 more fitly united natural beauty and practical com- 
 fort; fertility of soil and variety of surface and pro- 
 duction; never were my bucolic instincts more deeply 
 stirred than in this first outlook upon the Willamette 
 Yalley. The soil is a strong, clayey, vegetable loam, 
 on a hardpan bottom, holding manures firmly, and 
 yielding large crops of the small grains, apples and 
 potatoes. Wheat and apples are the two great crops 
 at present; much of the improved land being set 
 out with apple orchards, that come into full bearing 
 in from two to three years after planting. Wool and 
 beef are, also, as in the lower valleys, leading items 
 in the agricultural wealth of the Willamette. The 
 hills and valleys of interior Oregon furnish almost 
 inexhaustible and continuous pasture grounds. The 
 spring is too cold and wet for peaches; the summer 
 nights are too cold for corn, though it is grown to a 
 limited degree; but Isabella and Catawba grapes 
 ripen perfectly; it is the home of the cherry; and 
 pears, plums and all the small berries reach high per- 
 fection. The average yield of wheat in the valley is 
 twenty-five bushels to the acre ; but fifty is often ob- 
 tained with careful cultivation. 
 
 Though this valley supports a population of sixty 
 thousand by agriculture only, probably not one-sixth 
 of its area has yet felt the plough, and certainly not 
 
THE OEEGONIANS WEB-FOOTED. 455 
 
 much over one-half is under fence. Its best lands can 
 be bought for from ten to thirty-five dollars an acre 
 depending upon improvements and nearness to vil- 
 lages and river. Only specially favored farms go 
 higher, as some do to fifty and even one hundred 
 dollars an acre. Much of the farming is unwisely 
 done ; the farms are generally too large, the original 
 locations bemg mostly of six hundred and forty acres 
 each; and the agricultural population are largely 
 Missourians, Kentuckians and Tennesseeans, of that 
 class who are forever moving farther west, and only 
 stop here because there is no beyond but the Ocean 
 The Eastern men proper in Oregon, of whom there are 
 mdeed many, are mostly in the villages and towns, 
 leaders in trade, and commerce, and manufactures, as 
 well as m the professions. 
 
 The long summer drouth, that distinguishes the 
 climate and tries the agriculture of Utah, Nevada 
 and California, is unknown in Oregon. There is no 
 suggestion of irrigation here. Her fertile region,— 
 so made fertile, indeed,— between the Coast°Moun- 
 tams and the Sierras, or the Cascades, as the interior 
 range of mountains is called in Oregon, is abundantly 
 supplied with rain the year round. There is enouc^h 
 m summer to ripen the crops, and not too much to 
 mterfere with harvesting; and the winter is one 
 long shower of six months. The Californians call 
 their northern neighbors the Web Feet; and from all 
 accounts there is something too much of rain and mud 
 during the winter season ; but the fertUity and per- 
 fection, which its agriculture enjoys in consequence, 
 leave the practical side of the joke with the Oreo-o- 
 
456 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 niaiis. There is no snow in the valleys of Middle and 
 Western Oregon ; only rain and mist deaden the dor- 
 mant season; but February is usually a clear and 
 warm month, and the work of the farmer then actively 
 begins. The summers are long and favorable, with 
 warm days but cool nights, — more endurable for 
 the human system than New England summers, and 
 kinder for all vegetation, with the single exception, 
 perhaps, of Indian corn. The average temperature 
 of the \yillamette Yalley for the six summer months 
 is from sixty-five to seventy, and of the six winter 
 months from forty to forty-five degrees. And grass 
 grows through all the so-called winter. 
 
 Eugene City, Corvallis, Albany, Salem, Oregon 
 City and Portland are the chief centers of popula- 
 tion in the Willamette Yalley, in the order in which 
 we passed them, coming down to the Columbia. Sa- 
 lem is the State capital, and is a beautifully located, 
 thriving, inland town, with woolen mills and the 
 State institutions and excellent schools for the evi- 
 dences and means of its progress in civilization. 
 
 From Salem, we took steamboat passage, fifty miles, 
 to Portland, the commercial and business center of 
 the State, half rival to San Francisco itself, and the 
 only other town, indeed, of prominence on the Pacific 
 Coast, that showed signs of steady, uninterrupted 
 prosperity during the summer of our visit. At Ore- 
 gon City, part way between Salem and Portland, we 
 paid respect to the original capital of the Territory, 
 inspected a new and extensive woolen mill that cost 
 seventy-five thousand dollars in gold, and were rail- 
 roaded around the falls of the Willamette, which, 
 
PORTLAND^ OREGON. 457 
 
 though not a brilliant feature in the natural scene^ 
 offer temptations and almost inexhaustible water- 
 power for the manufactures, that the agricultural pro- 
 ductions of the State invite, and the enterprise of 
 its citizens is already wisely and eagerly reaching 
 forward to. 
 
 Portland, by far the largest town of Oregon, lies 
 very pleasantly on the banks of the Willamette, 
 twelve miles before it joins the Columbia River, and 
 one hundred and twenty miles from where the Co- 
 lumbia meets the Pacific Ocean. Ships and ocean 
 stean^-ers of highest class come readily hither; from 
 it spreads out a wide navigation by steamboat of the 
 Columbia and its branches, below and above; here 
 centers a large and increasing trade, not only for the 
 Willamette Valley, but for the mining regions of 
 Eastern Oregon and Idaho, Washington Territory on 
 the north, and parts even of British Columbia beyond. 
 Even Salt Lake and Montana, too, have taken gro- 
 ceries and dry goods through this channel, and may 
 yet find it advantageous to buy more and continu- 
 ously; such are the attained and the attainable water 
 communications through the far-extending Columbia. 
 
 The population of Portland is now from eight to 
 ten thousand, who keep Sunday with as much strict- 
 ness almost as Puritanic New England does, which 
 can be said of no other population this side the Rocky 
 Mountains at least. Whether this fact has anything 
 to do w^ith it or not, real estate we found to be very 
 high in Portland, — four hundred dollars a front foot 
 for best lots one hundred feet deep on the main 
 business street, without the buildings. In religion, 
 
458 OUR KEW WEST. 
 
 the Methodists have the lead^ and control an academic 
 school in town and a professed State university at 
 Salem; the Presbyterians are next, with a beautiful 
 church and the most fashionable congregation, and 
 favor a struggling university under Rev. S. H. Marsh, 
 located twenty miles off in the valley ; perhaps the 
 Catholics rank third, with a large Sisters of Charity 
 establishment and school within the city. Iron mines 
 are successfully worked in the neighborhood, and the 
 city has prosperous iron foundries and machine shops, 
 and is reaching forward to other manufacturing suc- 
 cesses. But ao-riculture is the first interest of the 
 State ; wheat and wool and apples are her principal 
 exports ; her commerce is wide-reaching and am- 
 bitious; her gold mines, in the eastern and southern 
 parts of the State, yield about one million of dollars 
 a year ; and her people and their prospects make in 
 many ways a pleasant and hopeful impression upon 
 the traveler. 
 
 The Oregonians lack many of the advantages of 
 their neighbors below ; their agriculture is less varied 
 and rampant, but it is more sure ; mining has not 
 poured such irregular and intoxicating wealth into 
 their laps ; they need, as well, a more thorough farm- 
 ing and a more varied industry; they need, also, as 
 well, intelligent, patient labor and larger capital ; but 
 they have builded what they have got more slowly 
 and more wisely than the Californians ; they have 
 less severe reaction from hot and unhealthy growth 
 to encounter, — less to unlearn ; and they seem sure, 
 not of organizing the first State on the Pacific Coast, 
 indeed, but of a steadily prosperous, healthy and 
 
ACROSS WASHII^GTON TERRITORY. 459 
 
 moral one,— they are in the way to be the New Eno;- 
 land of the Pacific Coast. 
 
 We unrolled our maps now and looked up towards 
 the North Pole. So near the north-western limit of 
 the Eepublic and not to touch it; so close to John 
 Bull and not to shake his grim paw, and ask him 
 what he thinks of the preposterous Yankees since 
 they have re-established and re-invigorated the Ee^ 
 public by war and freedom ; so near to that rarely 
 beautiful sheet of water, Puget Sound, and not to sail 
 through it, and know its commercial capacities and 
 feel its natural attractions,— it would never do. So 
 we put out of Portland, steamed down the Columbia 
 for fifty miles, and up its Cowlitz branch for two 
 miles (all that is now navigable), and landed on the 
 Washington Territory side, at two houses and a stage 
 wagon, bearing the classic name of Monticello. Mr. 
 Jefferson of Virginia was not at home ; but in his 
 place was the everlasting and all-subduing Massa- 
 chusetts Yankee, testifying, like all the rest of these 
 border settlers, away from schools and churches and 
 society, that there was no such other country any- 
 where, and that you could not drive them back to 
 the snows and cold winters of ^^ the States.'* 
 
 The next question was, how to put eleven passen- 
 gers in an open wagon that only held seven, for a 
 nmety-mile and two-day drive across the Territory. 
 It was successfully achieved by putting three of them 
 on saddle horses and the other extra one in some- 
 body's lap ; and off we bounced into the woods at 
 the rate of three or four miles an hour. Most un- 
 poetical rounding to our three thousand miles of 
 
460 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 staging in these ten weeks of travel, was this ride 
 through Washington. The road was rough beyond 
 description ; during the winter rains it is just impass- 
 able, and is abandoned ; for miles it is over trees and 
 sticks laid down roughly in swamps; and for the 
 i^est, — ungraded, and simply a path cut through the 
 dense forest, — the hight and depth are fully equal 
 to the length of it. Those who worked their pas- 
 sage, by whipping lazy mules whose backs they 
 strode, and paid twenty dollars for the privilege, 
 made the best time, and had the easiest experience. 
 Yet for days afterwards I observed that, with tender 
 memories of hard saddles, they preferred to "stand 
 and wait" to sitting upon wooden chairs. 
 
 But the majestic beauty of the fir and cedar forests, 
 through which we rode almost continuously for the 
 day and a half that the road stretched out, was com- 
 pensation for much discomfort. These were the 
 finest forests of all we had traversed or beheld, — 
 the trees larger and taller and standing thicker ; so 
 thick and tall that the ground they occupy could not 
 hold them cut and corded as wood ; and the under- 
 growth of shrub and flower and vine and fern, almost 
 tropical in its luxuriance and impenetrable for its 
 closeness. Washington Territory must have more 
 timber and ferns and blackberries and snakes to the 
 square mile than any other State or Territory of the 
 Union. We occasionally struck a narrow prairie or 
 a tbread-like valley; perhaps once in ten miles a 
 clearing of an acre or two, rugged and rough in its 
 half-redemption from primitive forest; but for the 
 most part it was a continuous ride through forests, 
 
OLYMPIA AJ^D ITS YICTUAL. 461 
 
 SO high and thick that the sun could not reach the 
 road, so unpeopled and untouched, that the very 
 spirit of Solitude reigned supreme, and made us feel 
 its presence as never upon Ocean or Plain. The 
 ferns are delicious, little and big, — more of them, and 
 larger than can be seen in any of the Eastern States, 
 — and spread their beautiful shapes on every hand. 
 But the settlers apply adjectives less complimentary 
 to them, for they vindicate their right to the soil, in 
 plain as well as forest, with most tenacious obstinacy, 
 and to root them out is a long and difficult job for 
 the farmer. 
 
 We dined on the second day at Skookem Chuck 
 (which is Indian for " big water,") and came at night 
 to the head of Puget Sound, which kindly shortens 
 the land-passage across the Territory one-half, and 
 were ushered into Olympia, the capital, amid the roar 
 of cannon, the din of brass band, and the waving of 
 banners, by its patriotic and enthusiastic citizens. It 
 lies charmingly under the hill by the water-side ; 
 counts its inhabitants by the hundreds, though still 
 the largest town of the Territory, save the mining cen- 
 ter of Wallula, away down in the south-east towards 
 Idaho ; numbers more stumps than houses within its 
 city limits ; but is the social and political center for 
 a large extent of country ; puts on the airs and holds 
 many of the materials of fine society ; and entertained 
 us at a most comfortable little inn, whose presiding 
 genius, a fat and fair African of fifty years and three 
 hundred pounds, robed in spotless white, welcomed 
 us with the grace and dignity of a queen, and fed us 
 as if we were in training for a cannibal's table. 
 
462 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 If there is one thing, indeed, more than another, 
 among the facts of civilization, which the Pacific 
 Coast organizes most quickly and completely, it is 
 good eating. From the Occidental at San Francisco 
 to the loneliest of ranches on the most wilderness of 
 weekly stage routes, a "good square meal" is the 
 rule ; while every village of five hundred inhabitants 
 has its restaurants and French or Italian cooks. I 
 say this with the near experience and the lively 
 recollection of one or two most illustrious exceptions, 
 where the meals consisted of coarse bacon, ancient 
 beans and villainous mustard, and where, o' nights, 
 the beds could e'en rise and walk with fleas and bed- 
 bugs. When the Puritans settled New England, their 
 first public duty was to build a church with thrifty 
 thought for their souls. Out here, their degenerate 
 sons begin with organizing a restaurant, and supply- 
 ing Hostetter's stomachic bitters and an European or 
 Asiatic cook. So the seat of empire, in its travel 
 westward, changes its base from soul to stomach, 
 from brains to bowels. Perhaps it is only in obedi- 
 ence to that delicate law of our later civilization, 
 which forbids us to enjoy our religion unless we have 
 already enjoyed our victual, and which sends a dys- 
 peptic to hell by an eternal regard to the fitness of 
 things. And, certainly, the piety that ascends from 
 a grateful and gratified stomach is as likely to be 
 worthy as that fitfully fructified by Brandreth's pills. 
 
 Is it not a little singular that only our forty-oddth 
 State should bear the name of Washington ? That 
 it was left to this day and to this far away corner 
 Territory to enroll his name among the stars of the 
 
WASHINGTON TERRITORY — PUGET SOUND. 463 
 
 Republic's banner? Washington Territory is the 
 ■upper half of old Oregon^ divided by the Columbia 
 Eiver and the fortieth parallel for the southern 
 boundary, and extending up to the forty-ninth, to 
 which, under the reaction from the unmartial Polk's 
 "fifty-four-forty or fight" pretensions, our northern 
 line was ignominiously limited to. Its population is 
 small, not more than twenty thousand, and not likely 
 to grow fast, or make it a State for some years to 
 come, unless the chance, not probable, of rich gold 
 and silver mines within its lines should flood it with 
 rapid immigration. But it holds sure wealth and a 
 large future through its certain illimitable forests and 
 its probable immense coal deposits. Of all its surface, 
 west of the Cascade or Sierra Nevada Mountains, not 
 more than one-eighth is prairie or open land ; the 
 rest is covered by a growth of timber, such as, both 
 in density and in size, no other like space on the 
 earth's surface can boast of Beyond the mountains, 
 to the east, the country partakes of the same charac- 
 teristics as that below it; hilly, barren of trees, un- 
 fruitful, whose chief promises and possibilities are in 
 the cattle and sheep line. Its arable land this side 
 the mountains, where the forests are cleared or inter- 
 rupted, is less fertile than that of Oregon and Cali- 
 fornia; but it sufficeth for its present population, and 
 even admits of considerable exports of grain and 
 meat for the mining populations in British Columbia, 
 and will grow in extent and productiveness probably 
 as fast as the necessities of the Territory require. 
 
 We were a full day and night in passing down 
 through Puget Sound to British Columbia, on the 
 
464 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 steamer from Oljmpia ; loitering along at the villages 
 on its either shore, and studying the already considera- 
 ble development of its lumber interests, as well as re- 
 galing ourselves with the beauty of its waters and its 
 richly-stored forest shores. Only the upper section 
 of the southern branch of these grand series of inland 
 seas and rivers, that sweep into the Continent here, 
 and make Vancouver's Island, and open up a vast 
 region of interior country to the Ocean, is now called 
 Puget Sound, — only forty miles or so from Olympia 
 north. Formerly the whole confines went by that 
 name ; and rightfully it should remain to all which 
 runs up into Washington Territory from out the 
 Strait of San Juan de Fuca, for this has a unity and 
 serves a similar purpose. For beauty and for use, 
 this is, indeed, one of the water wonders of the 
 world ; curiosity and commerce will give it, year by 
 year, increase of fame and visitors. It narrows to a 
 river's width ; it circles and swoops into the land 
 with coquettish freedom ; and then it widens into 
 miles of breadth ; carrying the largest of ships any- 
 where on its surface, even close to the forests' edge ; 
 free of rocks, safe from wind and wave ; the home of 
 all craft, clear, blue and fathomless. 
 
 It is the great lumber market of all the Pacific 
 Coast. Already over a dozen saw-mills are located 
 on its shores ; one which we visited was three hun- 
 dred and thirty-six feet long, and turns out one 
 hundred thousand feet of lumber daily; three ships 
 and two barks of ^ve hundred to one thousand tons 
 each were loading with the product direct from the 
 mill; and the present entire export of the Sound, 
 
THE BIG TEEES OF WASHINGTON. 465 
 
 in prepared lumber and masts and spars, reaches 
 nearly to one hundred millions of feet yearly, and 
 yields at the average price of ten dollars a thousand 
 about one million of dollars. San Francisco is the 
 largest customer; but the Sandwich Islands, China, 
 all the Pacific American ports, south and north, and 
 even Buenos Ayres around on the Atlantic, come 
 hither for building materials, and France finds here 
 her cheapest and best spars and masts. Much of the 
 shipping employed in the business is owned on the 
 Sound ; one mill company has twelve vessels of from 
 three hundred to one thousand tons each. The busi- 
 ness is but in its very infancy ; it will grow with the 
 growth of the whole Pacific Coast, and with the in- 
 creasing dearth of fine ship timber in other parts of 
 the world ; for it is impossible to calculate the time 
 when, cut and saw as we may, all these forests shall 
 be used up, and the supply become exhausted. 
 
 The size of these Washington Territory trees was 
 rather overpowering, — for we had not then seen the 
 Big Trees of California, — and not daring to trust un- 
 accustomed eyes, we resorted to the statistics of the 
 lumbermen. Trees, six and seven feet in diameter, 
 and two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet high, 
 are very common, perhaps rarely out of sight in the 
 forest; eight feet in diameter and three hundred feet 
 high are rarer, but still not at all uncommon; — the 
 builder of the telegraph line had hitched his wire in 
 one case to a cedar (arbor vitee) which is fourteen 
 feet in diameter; a monster tree that had fallen, — 
 the forests are full of fallen trees, — measured three 
 hundred and twenty -five feet long; and another tree, 
 
466 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 at the distance of ninety feet from its root^ was seven 
 feet in diameter! Masts for ships are readily procur- 
 able, straight as an arrow, and without a knot for one 
 hundred feet, and forty inches in diameter at thirty 
 feet from the base. 
 
 Out of the Sound and straight across the Strait, 
 twenty miles, we encounter the rocky shore of Van- 
 couver's Island; searching along we meet a hidden 
 hole in the wall, and, steaming in, there opens out a 
 little wash-bowl of a bay; and here is Victoria. It 
 was a charming surprise, — the prettiest located and 
 best built town on the Pacific Coast, and next to Port- 
 land in size and business, — a healthy copartnership of 
 American enterprise and enthusiasm, and English so- 
 lidity and holdfastness. The population ranged from 
 twenty-five hundred in summer and dull times to five 
 thousand in winter and the flush season, when the 
 mining across on the main land of British Columbia 
 had paid well, and the miners came to town to spend 
 their harvest. Out of the town and its trade, tbe 
 Island offers little development; there are some poor- 
 paying gold-mines; good bituminous coal is found in 
 abundance, and profitably worked; here and there is 
 farming in patches, which is extending, but most of 
 the food eaten on the Island comes from California 
 and Washington. The whole population of Van- 
 couver's Island did not exceed five thousand, at least 
 half of whom were Americans. Across the Gulf, in 
 the province of British Columbia proper, were per- 
 haps an aggregate of seven thousand people more, 
 but scattered from its capital of New Westminster, at 
 the mouth of Frazer River, north and east for six 
 
THE TAXATION OF THE ENGLISH COLONIES. 467 
 
 hundred miles to the gold diggings of the Upper 
 Frazer, the Carriboo country, and the Kootenay, a 
 branch of the Columbia River. 
 
 There was little or no wealth in either province 
 but such as came from the fickle and now fading 
 gold-mines and the also lessening fur-gatherings of 
 the Hudson Bay Company. The majority of the 
 miners were emigrants from California and Oregon, 
 and were animated by no loyalty to the British au- 
 thorities. Yet both at Victoria and New Westminster 
 there were set up the cumbersome and expensive 
 machinery of English colonial governments. The 
 governors were almost more numerous than the 
 governed ; and the latter made bitter complaint of 
 the severe taxes that were levied upon them for the 
 benefit of the former. The year we were there, 
 nearly half a million dollars had been squeezed out 
 of the people of little Victoria alone by a system of 
 taxation, much more burdensome than our civil war 
 had thrown upon the American people, and including 
 a tax on all sales, special licenses for every kind of 
 business, and an income tax at the end. The taxa- 
 tion in one province averaged one hundred dollars a 
 year to each resident, and in the other to seventy 
 dollars. Since 1865, the two provinces have been 
 consolidated, and one set of government machinery 
 saved ; but the governor of these ten or twelve 
 thousand people, — for there are no more than that 
 in all British Columbia, — still has a salary equal to 
 that of the President of the United States, and his 
 subordinates are paid in proportion ; while baronial 
 castles have been built for their homes at the ex- 
 
468 OUR KEW WEST, 
 
 pense of the people. Good roads to the mines, built 
 hy the government, and importations free of duty 
 are the only compensations offered in return. But 
 all the mines of British Columbia, which began to be 
 discovered in 1858, and produced three millions of 
 dollars of gold in 1863, and have yielded in all about 
 twenty millions, are now reduced to one million of 
 dollars a year. Agriculture has little to offer as a 
 source of permanent prosperity, in competition with 
 that of California and Oregon. So the province is 
 not growing or likely to grow in wealth and popula- 
 tion, and the aristocratic and expensive foreign gov- 
 ernment over them is becoming more and more ab- 
 surd and distasteful to the people. Probably a ma- 
 jority of them are ripe for annexation to the United 
 States; and if this would not give them, as many 
 blindly believe it would, a new prosperity, it certainly 
 would relieve them of full half their present burden- 
 some taxation. And now that we have bought the 
 country north of theirs, these lightly-held, half-rebel- 
 lious colonists of Great Britain hardly need an invita- 
 tion to desert to the American flag. 
 
 But our day and a half in Victoria made a very 
 charming experience. The American residents gave 
 Mr. Colfax and his friends cordial welcome; the 
 English were no whit less hearty in demonstration 
 of good feeling and respect; there was what the 
 French call a "grand dinner,'' the eating whereof 
 lasted from seven to ten p. M., and the speaking 
 whereat continued from ten to three A. M., — the result 
 of which was that all little international differences 
 and accounts were amicably adjusted, Andy Johnson 
 
SAN JUAN — THE HUDSON BAT CO'S STORES. 469 
 
 and Queen Victoria were married, and the two grand 
 nations of the Anglo-Saxon race were joined into one 
 overpowering, all-subduing, all-fructifying Republic! 
 "And what a bloody country that would be," ex- 
 claimed an enthusiastic Britisher at one of the clock 
 in the morning. 
 
 How could the little question of the title to a 
 group of small islands in this inland sea, and known 
 by the name of the largest, San Juan, be thought of in 
 such a fraternal baptism ? And, indeed, by the cool of 
 the morning after, it seemed a very small affair. The 
 question turns on the point whether the boundary 
 line runs from strait to gulf by one channel or the 
 other, this side the islands or that. Meantime, each 
 government supports a captain and corporal's guard 
 of soldiers on San Juan; all Irish emigrants, prob- 
 ably, only distinguishable one from the other by 
 the blue and the red of their uniforms, and frater- 
 nizing daily, doubtless, over a game of cards and a 
 whisky bottle. Palpably, by the map, and by the 
 course of ocean travel, the American claim to these 
 islands is the right one ; but in view of the certainty 
 of all this apple falling into our lap as soon as it is 
 ripe enough to be really valuable, the present status 
 may as well as not go indefinitely on. 
 
 Victoria has an importance, also, as the great depot 
 of the Hudson Bay Company ; all their business from 
 the Pacific Coast to the Red River of the North, 
 beyond Minnesota, centers here ; and their ware- 
 houses of accumulating furs and of distributing goods 
 to pay for them are among the chief curiosities of 
 the place. They do a general trading business wher- 
 
470 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ever they have stations or stores ; and you can buy 
 calicoes and cottons, hardware and rum at their 
 counters, as at any old-fashioned country store of the 
 last generation in New England. 
 
 Up here, above the latitude of Quebec and Mon- 
 treal, we basked in the smile of roses that are even 
 denied to us in New England. Mounts Shasta and 
 Hood of California and Oregon are more than rivaled 
 in deep snow fields and majestic snow peaks by 
 Mounts Kainier and Baker of Washington ; sailing 
 down Puget Sound, we take in the former from base 
 to three peaked summit of thirteen thousand feet in 
 hight, all aglow with perpetual white, — a feature of 
 deep beauty and impressiveness ; along the sea coast, 
 on the opposite side, the hills also rise to the region 
 of continuous snow, and look down bald and white 
 through the long summer days into the tropical 
 flower gardens and orchards and hot streets of Vic- 
 toria ; and here, within this circle of the softening sea, 
 everywhere under these wintry shadows, reigns a year 
 that knows no zero cold, and rarely freezing water 
 or snow ; that winters fuchsias and the most delicate 
 roses, English ivies and other tender plants, and sum- 
 mers them with rioting luxuriance ; that grows the 
 apple, the pear, and all the small fruits to perfection, 
 and only cannot grow our Indian corn. 
 
 The climate of all this Pacific Coast certainly pre- 
 sents many solaces and satisfactions in comparison 
 with that of our own New England. I do not wonder 
 its emigrants here find new health and life and much 
 happiness in the greater comparative evenness; but I 
 do not yet recognize that which would compensate 
 
THE CLIMATES OF EAST AKD WEST. 471 
 
 me for the loss of our slow, hesitating, coying spring 
 times, our luxuriously-advancing, tender, red and 
 brown autumns, aye, and our clear and crisply-cold 
 winter days and snow-covered lands, with the con- 
 trasting evergreens, the illuminated sky, the deli- 
 cately fretted architecture of the leafless trees, the 
 sunsets, the nerve-giving tonic of the air. Surely 
 there is more various beauty in the progress of a 
 New England year than any which all the Pacific 
 Coast can offer. 
 
 29 
 
XXV. 
 
 THE COLUMBIA EIVER— IDAHO— MONTANA. 
 
 The Extent and Importance of the Columbia River — The Scenery of its 
 Conflict with the Mountains — Fort Vancouver and General Grant 
 — The Cascades and The Dalles — The Railroad Portages — No River 
 Scenery so Grand as that of the Columbia — Mount Hood: — The 
 Rivalry of the High Mountains — The Extent of the Navigation of 
 the Columbia, East, North and South — Railroad Connections with 
 Salt Lake and the Rest of Mankind — The Stage Ride over the Blue 
 Mountains, Through Idaho, to Salt Lake — The Scenery and the 
 Mines on the Route — The Shoshone Falls, the Rival of Niagara — 
 The Stage Lines Through Idaho and Montana — A* Trip Through 
 Montana — Its Mountains and its Mines — The Northern Pacific Rail- 
 road — Montana's Present Development and Future Prospects — The 
 Boat Ride Down the Missouri River Home. 
 
 "Whek an enthusiastic Oregonian told me the Co' 
 lumbia Kiver was the largest of the Continent, and 
 watered a wider section of country than any other, I 
 thought of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, and 
 smiled with mild incredulity. But unroll your map, 
 and trace its course into the heart of the North-west- 
 ern interior, through the Cascade Mountains, back 
 into the great basin between them and the Rocky 
 Mountains, and then, by its main branches, stretch- 
 ing up north and winding out through all British 
 Columbia, and south and east into Idaho, and over 
 
SCENERY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 
 
 Mount Hood. 
 
 Scene on the Columbia River. 
 
 Castle Rock. 
 
THE COLUMBIA EIYEK. 475 
 
 into the bowels of the Kocky Mountains^ toueh- 
 ing with its fingers all the vast area north of the 
 Great Desert Basin and west of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains; then sail with me up and down its mile and a 
 half wide sweep of majestic volume, at the distance 
 of one hundred and fifty miles above its mouth; see 
 what steamboats already navigate its waters, and the 
 points to which they reach ; and listen to the wide 
 plans of the navigators for the use of its most dis- 
 tant upper waters, in British Columbia and Idaho, — 
 sapping the very vitals of British dominion in the 
 North-west, and practically tapping the Pacific Eail- 
 road as it comes west at Salt Lake for the benefit of 
 Portland and Oregon, — do all this, and we will make 
 our bow together to the Oregonians and their great 
 river. 
 
 Only more full surveys can determine the literal 
 correctness of their claims to the superiority of their 
 great river to all others in the Continent ; the Colum- 
 bia, with its chief division, the Snake, may be any- 
 where from twelve hundred to two thousand miles in 
 length; — but that it ranks among the three or four 
 great rivers of the world, and that it is the key to 
 vast political and commercial questions and inter- 
 ests, — giving to its line the elements of a powerful 
 rivalry to the great central commercial route of our 
 Continent, of which San Francisco is the Pacific 
 terminus, — no one who examines its position and ex- 
 tent, and witnesses the various capacity of the terri- 
 tory it waters, can for a moment doubt. 
 
 As yet, however, the Columbia is most known 
 abroad for the rare beauty and majesty of the seen- 
 
476 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 ery developed by its passage througli the great An- 
 dean range of North-western America. Alone of all 
 the rivers of the West has it broken these stern bar- 
 riers, and the theater of the conquering conflict offers, 
 as might naturally be supposed, many an unusual 
 feature of nature. River and rock have striven to- 
 gether, wrestling in close and doubtful embrace, — 
 sometimes one gaining ascendancy, again the other, 
 but finally the subtler and more seductive element 
 worrying its rival out, and gaining the western sun- 
 shine, broken and scarred and foaming with hot 
 sweat, but proudly victorious, and forcing the with- 
 drawing arms of its opponent to hold up eternal 
 monuments of its triumph. 
 
 In order to witness these scenes, before leaving 
 Oregon, our party made an excursion up the Colum- 
 bia, through and beyond the mountain range. As 
 comfortable and capacious steamboats cut its waters 
 as those of the Hudson ; and it was like sailing on an 
 inland sea to pass up and down its broad and majestic 
 track upon them. Out of the Willamette, we soon 
 felt the grand movement of the mountain conqueror. 
 Near at hand on the river shore was Vancouver, a fa- 
 mous spot in this valley, first as a leading station of 
 the Hudson Bay Company for many years, and since 
 and now as the chief military post of the United 
 States in the interior North-west. Here many of 
 our prominent military men have served apprentice- 
 ship, — Grant, Hooker, McClellan and Ingles among 
 them. They are all well remembered in the days of 
 their captaincies in Oregon by the old inhabitants. 
 Grant was the same quiet, close-mouthed man then 
 
THE CASCADES AND THE DALLES. 477 
 
 as now^ but gave no indication of that great mas- 
 tery of himself and of others, that he has within these 
 few years so nobly, and to such high purpose, demon- 
 strated. It was while here that he left the army 
 originally, to come back to it in the hour of the 
 Nation's need, a new and nobler man. 
 
 Fifty miles of steaming up through heavily wooded 
 banks brought us to the foot-hills of the Cascade 
 Mountains, and soon we were upon the charmed 
 ground. High walls of basaltic rock rose slowly on 
 either side ; huge boulders, thrown off in the convul- 
 sion of water with mountain, lay lower down the val- 
 ley, or stood out in the stream, — one so large, rising 
 in a rough egg-shape some thousand feet up into the 
 air, as to become a conspicuous and memorable ele- 
 ment in the landscape. The river gets too fast here, 
 at the Cascades, as they are called, for farther prog- 
 ress by boat; we change to a railway of five miles, 
 under rock and along river, at the end of which we 
 come to navigable waters again, and find, to our sur- 
 prise, another large and equally luxurious steamer. 
 During these five miles of the Cascades, the river 
 makes a descent of forty feet, half of it in one mile, 
 but it takes the form of rough and rocky rapids, and 
 not of one distinct, measurable fall. The second boat 
 took us from the Upper Cascades to the Dalles, forty- 
 five miles, all the way through the mountains. The 
 waters narrow and run swift and harsh ; the rocks 
 grow higher and sharper; and their architecture, by 
 fire and water, assumes noble and massive forms. 
 The dark, basaltic stones lie along in even layers, 
 seamed as in the walls of human structure ; then they 
 
478 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 change to upright form, and run up in well-rounded 
 columns, one after another, one above another. Often 
 there is rich similitude to ruined castles of the Ehine ; 
 more frequently, fashions and forms, too massive, too 
 majestic, too unique for human ambition and art to 
 aspire to. Where the clear rock retires, and sloping 
 sides invite, verdure springs strong, and forests, as 
 thick and high as in the valleys, fill the landscape. 
 
 At The Dalles lies the second town in Oregon, 
 bearing the name of The Dalles, and holding a pop- 
 ulation in 1865 of twenty-five hundred. It is the 
 entrepot for the scattered mines in Eastern Oregon, 
 for we are now on the eastern slopes of the moun- 
 tains, and very much also for the Boise and Owyhee 
 mines in Idaho. The miners come in here to winter, 
 send their earnings in here, and buy here many of 
 their supplies. Two millions of dollars in gold dust 
 were brought in from Eastern Oregon and Idaho 
 during the single month of June, 1865. 
 
 At this point, too, there is another interruption to 
 the navigation of the river, and another railway port- 
 age of fifteen miles is in use. The entire water of the 
 Columbia is compressed for a short distance into a 
 space only one hundred and sixty feet wide, lined, bot- 
 tom and sides, with stone, from which came the French 
 name of The Dalles to this whole section of the river. 
 Through this it pours with a rapidity and a depth, that 
 give majestic, fearful intensity to its motion; while 
 interfering rocks occasionally throw the stream into 
 rich masses of foam. Through these second rapids of 
 fifteen miles, the rock scenery at first rises still higher 
 and sharper, and then fast grows tame; the moun- 
 
THE PRE-EMINENCE OF THE COLUMBIA. 479 
 
 tains begin to slink away and to lose their trees; the 
 familiar barrenness of the Great Interior Basin reap- 
 pears ; and the only beauty of the hills is their richly 
 rounded forms, often repeated, and their only utility 
 pasturage for sheep and horses and cattle. The 
 fifteen miles of railway, which, with the lower port- 
 age of five miles, are built as permanently, and served 
 as thoroughly, with the best of locomotives and cars, 
 as any railroads in the country, landed us on still 
 another large and luxurious steamboat, — "and still 
 the wonder grew," — built far up here beyond the 
 mountains, but with every appointment of comfort 
 and luxury that are found in the best of eastern 
 river craft, — large state-rooms, long and wide cabins, 
 various and well-served meals. 
 
 Our last steamboat carried us beyond the moun- 
 tain range, — out into the dry, treeless, half-desert 
 country of Eastern Oregon, — where, the scenery 
 becoming common and tame, we turned back, after 
 having gone as far as two hundred and sixty miles 
 above the mouth of the grand River. Retracing its 
 passage through the mountains and forests to Port- 
 land, we worshiped anew, and fixed our first impres- 
 sions that here was the grandest river scenery in the 
 world. It has much of the distinguishing elements 
 of the Hudson in its palisades, of the Rhine in its 
 embattled, precipitous and irregularly shaped sides, 
 and of the Upper Mississippi in its overhanging clifis. 
 Each of these holds a beauty that is not here ; but 
 the Columbia aggregates more than any one the 
 elements of impressiveness, of picturesque majesty, 
 of wonder-working, powerful nature. There is, how- 
 
480 CUE NEW WEST. 
 
 ever, a general uniformity in its characteristics ; one 
 five miles, repeats another ; and once seen, you are 
 indiiFerent as to a second sight, — before next year, or 
 unless with the accompaniment of new and beloved 
 eyes. 
 
 A distinguishing feature in the landscape of this 
 ride up the Columbia, — apart from it, yet bounding 
 it, shadowing it, yet enkindling it with highest maj- 
 esty and beauty, — is Mount Hood. This is the great 
 snow peak of Oregon, its Shasta, its Kainier, its 
 Mount Blanc. Lying oJ0f twenty or thirty miles 
 south of the river, in its passage through the moun- 
 tains, it towers high above all its fellows, and is seen, 
 now through their gorges, and again at the end of 
 apparent long plains, leading up to it from the river. 
 Most magnificent views of it are obtained through 
 nearly all the boat ride up and down from Portland. 
 That which Bierstadt has chosen for its perpetuation 
 on canvas, and which is thus familiar to eastern eyes, 
 is the most complete and impressive, end is recog- 
 nized upon the steamboat. In it, the mountain 
 seems to rise, apart, out from an upward-going plain, 
 snow-covered from base to summit, oppressive in its 
 majesty, beautiful in form, angelic in its whiteness, — 
 the union of all that is great and pure and impress- 
 ivCc The Oregonians, in their pride, claim for it a 
 greater hight than that of any other of the represen- 
 tative peaks of the North-west ; but the fact is that 
 it does not exceed thirteen thousand feet, is certainly 
 below Shasta in Northern California, and probably be- 
 low the high peaks of Washington Territory, Rainier 
 and Adams. 
 
THE SNOW PEAKS OF THE NORTH-WEST. 481 
 
 The contest for the highest mountain peaks in the 
 United States, though narrowing down rapidly, is 
 still an unsettled one. Shasta is the highest of those 
 of the North-west, being fourteen thousand four hun- 
 dred and forty feet; but Colorado has three or four 
 peaks that press closely upon similar figures. No 
 one of them is yet known to be fourteen thousand 
 ^Ye hundred feet high ; but Long's, Pike's and Gray's 
 Peaks and Mount Lincoln are all over fourteen thou- 
 sand feet, and it is not certain that one or more of 
 them will not prove, on an accurate measurement, 
 to rise as high as Shasta. The palm is so far won, 
 however, by Mount Whitney in Southern California, 
 which was visited in 1864 by a delegation of the 
 California Geological Survey, and found to reach to 
 fifteen thousand feet. The only possible disputant 
 for this hight, now in the field, is Sopris Peak, in 
 Western Colorado, which has never been measured, 
 but looks as if it might mount still higher than Whit- 
 ney. Our new Arctic Territory of Alaska has threats 
 ened to bear off the prize with Mount St. Elias ; but 
 the greatest hight authentically claimed for that grand 
 old volcano is inside of fifteen thousand feet (14,970), 
 and, in fact, it has never been accurately measured. 
 Besides, Alaska is hardly naturalized territory yet. 
 
 But wherever the highest may lie, there are none 
 so beautiful as these grand snow-covered mountains 
 of the North-west. And of all these, that we saw in 
 our journeyings, none appeared to so fine advantage 
 as Mount Hood from the Columbia Kiver, — it is hard, 
 indeed, to imagine a more magnificent snow moun- 
 tain; and adding this crowning element to the seen- 
 
482 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 erj of the Columbia River, it is probably just to say 
 of it, that this excursion offers more of natural beauty 
 and wonder to interest and excite the traveler, than 
 any other single journey or scene which the Pacific 
 Coast presents, except the Yo Semite Valley. That 
 must, of course, stand first, unrivaled and unapproach- 
 able. But to this I give the second place. 
 
 The part, which the navigation of the Columbia 
 River is to play in facilitating railroad connections 
 with the North-west and settling the lines and 
 points of continental commerce, is an important one. 
 With the help of the two short railroad portages 
 already described, steamboats run up the river con- 
 tinuously to the junction of the Snake or southern 
 branch with the northern fork, a distance of four 
 hundred miles from the mouth of the Columbia. This 
 is the present starting-point for land travel and 
 freight to Idaho and South-eastern Oregon. The 
 business of these boats amounted in 1864 to twenty- 
 two thousand tons of merchandise and thirty-six thou- 
 sand passengers. The navigation company owned 
 eighteen or twenty steamboats, the railroad portages, 
 extensive warehouses, altogether a property of two 
 millions of dollars, all, and more too, made out of the 
 profits of the business. By a wagon road of one 
 hundred and fifty miles north from the junction of 
 the forks of the Columbia, we can reach a portion of 
 the northern branch, which is navigable for steam- 
 boats for two hundred miles farther north into the 
 very center of British Columbia and the Hudson Bay 
 Company's territory; and already a boat has been 
 built and set in motion on these far away upper 
 
THE BRANCH RAILROAD TO OREGON. 483 . 
 
 waters. It reaches into some of the richest of the 
 fur and gold regions of British Columbia, its w histle 
 and its wheels arousing the wilderness as far north 
 as the fifty-second and fifty-third parallels. 
 
 Turning to the Snake River fork, for half the year 
 it is navigable for one hundred miles beyond the 
 junction, or to Lewiston, where the boundaries of 
 Oregon and Washington and Idaho meet together. 
 But starting from the junction of the forks at or near 
 Wallula, a wagon road of one hundred and ten miles 
 through the Blue Mountains, and across a wide circle 
 of unnavigable waters, strikes the Snake at the Powder 
 River, whence it is navigable for steamboats through 
 the heart of Idaho for one hundred and fifty or two 
 hundred miles on the direct route towards Salt Lake, 
 and to within one hundred or one hundred and fifty 
 miles of thQ present Pacific Railroad at that point. 
 Thus about three hundred miles of railroad over 
 these two parts of the route from Salt Lake to the 
 main Columbia River, would secure steamboats and 
 cars all the way to Portland, Oregon ; or, skipping 
 the navigable part of the Snake River, and making a 
 railroad track all the way to the Columbia at Wallula, 
 only five hundred miles would have to be built to 
 secure quick, certain and constant steam communica- 
 tion with the Pacific Coast through Oregon, while 
 Idaho would be opened by the same means directly 
 to the railroad connections of the Continent and to 
 the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 The construction of this branch or extension of 
 the present Pacific Road is the ambition of the Ore- 
 gon people, and the purpose of the Union Pacific 
 
484 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 Kailroad Company. It would give the latter a direct 
 connection of their own with the Pacific Ocean, and 
 render them in a certain sense independent of the 
 California company. Then a railroad through the 
 woods of Washington Territory, for but ninety miles 
 north from the Columbia Kiver to Puget's Sound at 
 Olympia, would bring the far North-west into the 
 circle of steam travel and traffic, and go far to antici- 
 pate the service allotted to the Northern Pacific 
 Eailroad. Montana would alone, under this arrange- 
 ment, be unprovided for; but the Union Pacific Com- 
 pany have also in contemplation a branch road into 
 that Territory from their line either at the Green 
 River crossing or from the Salt Lake Valley. But 
 this is a more doubtful and less inviting enterprise 
 than the Idaho, Oregon and Puget's Sound line. 
 
 On the other hand, the company owning the Cali- 
 fornia end of the Pacific Road propose to reach and 
 accommodate Oregon by a branch starting out from 
 their track in the lower part of the Humboldt Valley, 
 and running north-west through tbe lake region of 
 Southern Oregon and over the Cascade Mountains to 
 the head of the Willamette Valley, up which the Ore- 
 gon people are already rapidly constructing a rail- 
 road line. From a similar starting-point in the Hum- 
 boldt Valley, the California Pacific Railroad Company 
 propose to annex Idaho to their end of the route 
 by a branch running north-east. Thus, without wait- 
 ing for the through northern continental line, whose 
 completion, whatever its claims and necessities, must 
 apparently be postponed for some years, perhaps to 
 another generation, the whole North-west of Idaho, 
 
OYER THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 485 
 
 Oregon, Washington and British Columbia are cer- 
 tain to be speedily joined to the rest of the Nation 
 in the blessed bands of iron, and made near to us 
 by the swift coursers of steam. 
 
 But I invite the traveler into our New "West not 
 to postpone seeing Oregon, Idaho, or even Montana 
 until even the earliest of these advantageous routes 
 are open. Instead of returning down the Columbia, 
 as our party did in 1865, let him go on and take the 
 dehghtful stage ride from the end of navigation at 
 Wallula through Idaho, back to the present railroad 
 line at Salt Lake. The Blue Mountains of Eastern 
 Oregon are to be crossed before we enter Idaho ; but 
 the ascent and descent are easy, the roads hard and 
 smooth, and not only the mountains themselves, but 
 the Grand Eonde Yalley, beneath and among them, 
 offer most agreeable and picturesque scenery, with 
 different features from those we have witnessed before. 
 Sometimes we pass high up along the very edge of a 
 deep ravine, where a capsize on the wrong side would 
 precipitate us hundreds of feet into the rocky gorge 
 below; again, we are upon a lofty mountain top, 
 where the scenery, as far as vision can reach, is as 
 wild and beautiful as eye ever rested upon ; then we 
 are in the bottom of a deep gorge, where mountains 
 above us, covered with immense forests, tower almost 
 Qut of sight; and now we find ourselves in a natural 
 park, stretching miles away, studded with bright yel- 
 low pines and carpeted with luxuriant grass. Thus 
 the panorama is ever changing, ever inspiringly grand 
 and enchanting. The first day's ride leaves us at an 
 already improved watering-place. Several springs of 
 
486 OUR KEW WEST. 
 
 warm sulphur water offer most welcome and health- 
 ful baths ; and we go on under a new inspiration. 
 
 The Blue are often pronounced " the best moun- 
 tains in America;" the most gradual of ascent, with 
 the finest soil, grass and timber. Upon their highest 
 summits, where the timber is not too thick to permit 
 their growth, the best qualities and greatest quantities 
 of natural grasses are found. The Grand Ronde Val- 
 ley is a beautiful, level tract of country, from forty to 
 fifty miles in length and twenty or thirty in width, 
 surrounded on every side with mountains. It is a 
 pleasant spot to look upon, but much too elevated for 
 general agricultural value. For years the emigrant 
 to Oregon has passed through this valley on his weary 
 way to the Willamette. Occasionally a late party 
 would winter here, on account of the abundant grass, 
 and resume their journey in the spring. But all 
 were deterred from settling by the long winters and 
 late and early frosts. 
 
 The ride now grows less interesting; the valleys 
 are more barren, the plains and hills treeless and vol- 
 canic ; but we cross the Snake Eiver and enter upon 
 the gold and silver mining regions of Idaho, in the 
 gulches of its eastern branches. The precious metals 
 were discovered here in 1862; and at one time there 
 was a population of about thirty thousand in the 
 Territory; but it is not now over half that number. 
 Probably thirty millions of dollars' worth of gold and 
 silver have been taken from its placer diggings and 
 quartz mines ; the largest yield of eight millions being 
 in 1866; but the production of 1868 was probably 
 not more than five millions of dollars, perhaps not 
 
IDAHO — THE SHOSHONE FALLS. 487 
 
 over four millions, and the latter is as large a yield 
 as can now be calculated upon, without new discover- ^ 
 ies. The Boise Basin and South Boise, north and 
 east of the Snake River, and Owyhee, south and west 
 of it, are the three principal mineral districts. There 
 are thirty-five stamp-mills with three hundred and 
 fifty stamps for the reduction of quartz ores in the Ter- 
 ritory; and several of the rock mines have proved 
 very remunerative. But the majority of those 
 opened or offered for sale, — many being put upon 
 the market that were never opened even, — have, as 
 elsewhere, proved absolutely worthless, or not rich 
 enough to pay for working till prices recede and 
 machinery is cheaper and more searching. 
 
 There is nothing in Idaho to attract the traveler 
 or the emigrant but the mines; and these have no 
 greater interest, on the whole, than those of several 
 other States and Territories. The name of the Ter- 
 ritory has a prettily poetic meaning, — " the gem of 
 the mountains;" — but only a comparatively small 
 portion of its vast surface is susceptible of tillage, and 
 mining must ever continue its principal interest. In 
 the moimtains a great depth of snow falls in the 
 winter; but the climate is milder than in like lati- 
 tudes and altitudes on the Atlantic side. 
 
 But in the southern part of the territory, along 
 the Snake River, and within from one hundred to 
 one hundred and thirty miles of the north end of 
 Salt Lake, are to be found several peculiar and grand 
 freaks of nature, which the traveler should leave the 
 stage for a day or two, to observe. The first, coming 
 east, is the canyon of the Malade River, a branch of 
 
488 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 the Snake on the north ; for miles it flows through a 
 narrow gorge of solid lava rock, in some places fifty 
 feet deep, and yet only eight or ten feet across, the 
 confined waters coursing rapidly and angrily along 
 below. Next at Snake River Ferry, the waters of its 
 Lost River branch, having sunk beneath the ground 
 a long distance back, emerge to light again just at 
 the point of junction, and pour over rocks one hun- 
 dred and fifty feet high into the main stream. Ten or 
 fifteen miles from this point, though only seven miles 
 from the stage road at another place, are the Shoshone 
 Falls in the Snake River itself. They rank next to 
 Niagara in the list of the world's water-falls, and by 
 some visitors are held to be entitled to the first place 
 in majesty of movement and grandeur of surrounding 
 feature. All about is volcanic rock — wide lava fields 
 give an awful silence for this grand voice of nature 
 to speak in. The river, two hundred yards wide, 
 deep and swift, has worn itself a channel one hundred 
 feet down into the rock ; then, as if in preparation 
 for the grand leap, it indulges in a series of cascades 
 of from thirty to sixty feet in hight, and, now gather- 
 ing into an unbroken body, it swoops down, in a grand 
 horse-shoe shape, twelve hundred feet across, a two 
 hundred and ten feet fall, into the bottomless pit 
 below. The river is not so wide as Niagara, nor the 
 volume of water so great, but the fall is higher, and 
 quite as beautiful. It is difficult to get near to the 
 falls, because of the high, rough and perpendicular 
 walls of rock that guard the stream ; but they can be 
 reached with hard climbing both above and below. 
 A perpendicular pillar of rock rises one hundred feet 
 
A VISIT TO MONTANA. 489 
 
 in the midst of the rapids above; islands stand in the 
 stream just over the cataract; and two huge rocky 
 columns have a place on each side of the falls, as if 
 to sentinel the scene, and guard it from sacrilegious 
 hands. Either by a day's detour in the trip from the 
 Columbia River to Salt Lake, as we have suggested, 
 or by a special journey of three or four days from the 
 railroad at the latter point, these distinctive and 
 distinguished marvels of nature will soon be freely 
 visited by Pacific Eailroad travelers, and the details 
 of their sublimity more thoroughly catalogued by pen 
 and photograph for the general public. 
 
 The stage lines for Idaho and Columbia Eiver, and 
 also for Montana, now leave the railroad route near 
 the head of Salt Lake. The distance to the capital 
 of Idaho is two hundred and fifty miles, and to the 
 Columbia River ^ye hundred. On the Montana line, 
 it is three hundred miles to Virginia City, four hun- 
 dred and twenty-five to Helena, and ^Ye hundred and 
 sixty through to Fort Benton, the head of navigation 
 on the Missouri River. The rates of stage travel are 
 about twenty cents a mile, and the meals at the sta- 
 tions along the roads generally one dollar and a half 
 This is the quickest route for reaching Montana. The 
 only alternative is to go up the Missouri River on 
 steamboats to Fort Benton, which is within one hun- 
 dred miles of the heart of the Territory. But the 
 river journey is long, near two thousand miles, and 
 tedious, requiring from two to three weeks. The 
 mere visitor to Montana, at least, should go by the 
 stages from Salt Lake, cross to Fort Benton, and then 
 
 pass down the river either by steamboat or on an 
 30 
 
490 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 open floating boat to Omaha. Such a trip would take 
 in all three weeks to a month, but be a very interest- 
 ing and recompensing circuit. The stage service on 
 the Montana route is perhaps the best on the Conti- 
 nent, the roads are hard and excellent, the scenery, 
 through an open mountain country, fresh, picturesque 
 and every way inviting. 
 
 Montana lies three hundred miles north of the Cen- 
 tral Eailroad line, chiefly on the eastern slopes of the 
 Rocky Mountain range, and amid the head waters of 
 the Missouri River, the Gallatin, the Jefierson and the 
 Yellowstone, and their branches. Its mountains are 
 lower and more open than those of the same range in 
 Colorado, and high grazing plains and fertile valleys 
 lie freely and spread widely among them. Frequent 
 and favorable passes through the range invite easy 
 communication with the western slopes, where the 
 head-waters of the Columbia start with such volume 
 and gather force so quickly, as, in Clark's Fork, within 
 the Territory, to become navigable for steamboats, 
 and lead on readily to the main waters and the Pa- 
 cific Coast through Oregon. So freely is Montana 
 thus slashed with streams on both sides her moun- 
 tains, so closely does one series interlock with the 
 other, and so low and gradual are her passes, that 
 her Territory oflers perhaps the most favorable line 
 in the whole length of the Republic north and south 
 for a continental railroad. Though three hundred 
 and four hundred miles north of the present Central 
 Railroad, the route of the proposed northern road 
 is much less exposed to winter snows than that of 
 the former. Though hard to conceive or explain, 
 
THE GOLD MINES OF MONTANA. 491 
 
 this fact seems to be well-assured, and, with the rich- 
 ness of Montana, both in mineral and agricultural 
 wealth, it offers abundant security for the completion 
 and profitable use of the northern continental road. 
 Though delayed, as it probably will be, till after a 
 second and more southern road than the present is 
 constructed, this cannot long remain unbuilt. No line 
 is so short, no other road can probably be built so 
 cheaply, or will be so richly aided by water connec- 
 tions and tributaries, or will pass through a more 
 uniformly fertile country. 
 
 The gold mines of Montana were first discovered 
 in 1862, and have produced in all up to 1869 about 
 fifty millions of dollars. Claims are made for them 
 as high as eighty-five millions; but the lower esti- 
 mate is the more reasonable. The years 1865 and 
 1866 were those of the greatest excitement and emi- 
 gration and gold production in the Territory. In the 
 latter year, probably thirty-five thousand people were 
 there, and twelve to fifteen millions of dollars were 
 taken out, mostly from the sides and bottoms of 
 gulches. Two men alone washed out a ton of gold, 
 and from a single "bar" in Confederate gulch three 
 companies took a million and a half of dollars' worth. 
 All kinds of gold-mining are in progress in the Terri- 
 tory; the several forms of dirt-washings, — panning, 
 "long-toms," sluicing and hydraulic, — and vein or 
 quartz excavations with stamp-mills ; and those who 
 wish to witness the various processes, and all stages 
 of every process, can see them nowhere so well as in 
 Montana. Bannock, Virginia City and Helena are 
 the centers of the three principal mining districts; 
 
492 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 some twenty-five or thirty quartz-mills, with two 
 hundred and fifty stamps, have been set up ; and the 
 present gold production of the Territory is about 
 eight millions of dollars a year, and its population 
 twenty-five thousand. 
 
 The protected valleys and high plains, all richly 
 watered, have encouraged a rapid agricultural de- 
 velopment. Wheat often yields fifty bushels to the 
 acre, and enough of the staple articles of food for 
 home consumption are already produced in the Ter- 
 ritory. All the small grains and vegetables grow 
 freely, and there is rich grazing for animals the year 
 round. The snows are not heavy, nor do they lie 
 long; Helena reports but ten days of sleighing for 
 the winter of 1869. Timber grows freely along the 
 rivers; saw-mills, tanneries, flouring-mills, and me- 
 chanic shops are in active and profitable operation; 
 the feverish days have passed in the history of the 
 gold-mining, and by no means exhausted the rich and 
 recompensing deposits ; so that, with a climate almost 
 as favorable as that of Colorado, and a soil nearly as 
 fertile, and an industry similarly diversified, Montana 
 seems reasonably sure of a steady and healthy growth 
 henceforth, and an important place in the future of 
 the central regions of the New West. The boat ride 
 down the Missouri to his home the traveler will find 
 monotonous; for the river is muddy, the banks are 
 barren; but it will be a new experience in his 
 western touring, and give him opportunity for re- 
 viewing and digesting all the various impressions and 
 instructions that his summer's journey has garnered. 
 
XXYI. 
 
 SANDWICH ISLANDS— COLORADO CANYON. 
 
 Hospitalities to Mr. Colfax — What was Left Unseen — The Sandwich 
 Islands — Their Past, Present and Future — Their Sugar, Scenery, 
 Volcanoes and Climate — Alaska and Arizona — The Country to be 
 Opened by the Southern Pacific Railroad — The Canyon of the Col- 
 orado — The Unknown Land of the Republic — The Solitary Passage 
 of the Canyon — Professor Powell and His Plans — Underground 
 Rivers and the Secret of the Gulf Stream — Scientific Explorations 
 of the New West — The Slang Words and Phrases of Colorado and 
 California — The Indians of the Pacific States — Sentimental Leave- 
 taking at San Francisco. 
 
 We came back to San Francisco by steamer from 
 Victoria. The first welcome was renewed, and we 
 passed our remaining days there in a round of hospi- 
 talities, public and private, as generously offered as 
 they were gratefully received. The greetings with 
 which Mr. Colfax was welcomed everywhere in his 
 journeyings through the Pacific States showed equally 
 his wide-spread and deep-felt personal popularity and 
 the hearty enthusiasm of the people. His was almost 
 the first visit of a leading public man to these in- 
 terior and Pacific States for the simply patriotic pur- 
 pose of informing himself of their interests ; and the 
 compliment was most generously reciprocated at 
 
494 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 every point and on every hand. No courtesy was 
 omittedj no attention withheld from him or his com- 
 panions; and the party gained rapid and complete 
 knowledge of the countries and the people they 
 came out to see. But wide as was our travel, close 
 as was our observation, time made a limit to them; 
 and we left some inviting regions unvisited, some 
 interests unexhausted, — to tempt other travelers, to 
 seduce ourselves again. 
 
 The Sandwich Islands, for instance, so foreign a 
 country in the thought of the people of the Eastern 
 States, are but outlying provinces of our New West, 
 and offer many peculiar attractions both to the lovers 
 of fresh scenery and the students of our political and 
 commercial growth. Between New England mission- 
 aries and whalers, the graces and the vices of Chris- 
 tian civilization have been distributed among their 
 native populations, with fatal results. Like the na- 
 tives of the American Continent, they have proven 
 incapable of the trials of civilization, and are so 
 rapidly dying out that by the year 1900 there is a 
 promising prospect that none of the original stock 
 will be left. When Captain Cook first introduced 
 them to the world in 1742, there were three hundred 
 thousand of them; they had eaten each other down 
 one-half by 1820, when our missionaries first went 
 among them; and since then, the measles, whooping- 
 cough, small-pox, influenza, syphilis and other Chris- 
 tian diseases, supplanting cannibalism, have reduced 
 them to fifty thousand. But the condition and habits 
 of those who linger are, on the whole, greatly im- 
 proved; and the rate of decrease will probably be 
 
THE SUGAR CROP OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 495 
 
 sensibly lessened in the future. But the mission- 
 aries, who went to teach and pray, have staid to trade 
 and cultivate the soil; commerce has invited Ameri- 
 can merchants; and the natives have gladly sought 
 Americans to help them on in government. The 
 English and the French are both considerably repre- 
 sented on the Island; but by far the greater part of 
 the forty-five hundred white population are Ameri- 
 cans, mostly men and women of intelligence and 
 character, and leading the Island by sure tendencies 
 into the arms of the American Kepublic. The Cali- 
 fornians see and seek this result, the Islanders, native 
 and foreign, very largely accept it. Few suppose 
 the independence of the Islands will last beyond the 
 reign of the present King, and his deposition and 
 their annexation may be precipitated at almost any 
 moment. 
 
 The business of the Islands is mostly with San Fran-, 
 cisco; they send hither annually over a million dol- 
 lars' worth of raw sugars and tropical fruits, and take 
 in return dry goods, wheat and flour, and the material 
 ministries of life generally. Sugar is their great 
 crop ; but not one quarter of their capacity for its 
 production is improved; the business has been badly 
 conducted, and of late years very much depressed; 
 but it is now passing into more vigorous management, 
 directed or inspired from California, and the produc- 
 tion for 1867 was forty millions of pounds. It in- 
 vites emigration, skill, capital and labor, and receiving 
 all, these Islands will rapidly become the producers 
 of all the sugar and molasses consumed in our Pacific 
 Coast States. Steamers ply twice a month between 
 
496 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 Honolulu and San Francisco, the voyage being made 
 in about eight days, and sailing vessels are moving 
 constantly back and forth in twice or thrice the time ; 
 and the familiarity with which the Eastern visitor 
 finds "the Islands" spoken of in California; — the 
 accounts he receives of their strange scenery, their 
 wonderful volcanoes, their delightful climate, their 
 various and rich tropical fruits, — all will strongly 
 invite him to make them a visit. Indeed, though his 
 portfolio may contain choicest specimens of coloring 
 and of contour, new harmonies of tint, new measures 
 of grandeur, fresh surprises of form, — gathered in 
 sojournings among the mountains and parks of Colo- 
 rado, or in the deep canyons of the Sierra, yet he 
 must not close it, feeling that he has exhausted the 
 revelations that this Western World has to make to 
 him, until he has added a few sketches at least of the 
 yet more unique scenery of the Hawaiian Islands. 
 
 Breezy and sunny, a group of a dozen, though only 
 half the number inhabited, these Islands lie two thou- 
 sand miles south-west from San Francisco, and we 
 reach them through a voyage of serene softness, and 
 are welcomed in Honolulu to a mixture of the New 
 England country village and the New England sea- 
 shore town, clustered imder tropic-laden hills by the 
 sea. Beyond the general features of tropical coun- 
 tries, tempered by the circling ocean of this island 
 home, — narrow, sharp valleys, almost fissures in ab- 
 rupt hills, again broad fields for the sugar cane, and 
 high rolling hills, everywhere covered with the broad 
 leaves, the sprawling trees and shrubs, the interweav- 
 ing vines, all of the deep but varying greens of south- 
 
THE VOLCANOES OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 497 
 
 em climes, fed here especially by abundant rains and 
 a high even temperature, — the volcanoes play the part 
 of special curiosities, and irresistibly invite the trav- 
 eler to their localities. The live Kilauea volcano, 
 high up on the lofty Mauna Loa Mountain, on the 
 Island of Hawaii, and the stupendous extinct Halea- 
 kala on the island of Maui are the two representa- 
 tives of this phenomenon, that no one can excuse 
 himself for not seeing. Though the smaller, so vast 
 is Kilauea that it is impossible to get any idea of its 
 gigantic proportions till we have climbed down its 
 almost perpendicular walls, and traversed its ten mile 
 circuit. The condition of its activity varies greatly 
 at different times; sometimes a chain of fiery lakes, 
 connected by subterraneous channels, hems in the mol- 
 ten mass; sometimes it overleaps its barriers, and 
 pours out rivers of fire over the floor of the crater. 
 No words could depict the awful fascination of those 
 fiery cauldrons, boiling and hissing and roaring, and 
 tossing up fountains of liquid flame. The most 
 effective time to see it is at evening. Then the 
 whole sky is lighted up with the reflection of the 
 fire, and the surrounding darkness serves to highten 
 the effect of the glowing, seething mass. But Halea- 
 kala is a cone ten thousand feet high, with a crater 
 three times the size of Kilauea, or thirty miles in cir- 
 cumference, and over a thousand feet deep. No 
 scene could possibly combine more elements of the 
 grand and the beautiful than that presented upon its 
 edge at the time of the setting sun ; the soft floccu- 
 lent masses of clouds silently rolling in and out of 
 these Tartarean depths, through the great gap in the 
 
498 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 mountain wall, toward the sea, occasionally breaking 
 to reveal the frightful blackness beneath; then, as 
 the sun sinks, it touches the whole cloud-landscape 
 with a rose-gray glow ; long lines of trade-wind cloud- 
 lets, like fleets of phantom ships, go scudding over 
 the sea; the three lofty summits of Hawaii, and the 
 lesser hights of the islands surrounding Maui, repeat 
 the sunset tints, and the whole seems like a scene of 
 enchantment. Little steamers connect the principal 
 of the Islands; but for the rest of his travels, the 
 traveler must depend upon his own horse, — to be 
 bought for from five to twenty dollars, — and the 
 never-failing hospitality of the scattered white resi- 
 dents, — planters and missionaries, — who welcome 
 every guest, and send him away with a new appre- 
 ciation of the kindly elements in human nature. 
 
 As the natural wonders and beauties of these 
 Islands will invite the curious, and the adaptability 
 of their soil for sugar, coffee, sweet potatoes, wheat, 
 corn, oranges, bananas, pine-apples and cocoa-nuts 
 will welcome cultivators and attract merchants, so 
 will the climate, — which unvaryingly presents just 
 that delicious blending of heat and coolness ■ that 
 leaves one puzzled to know whether he is only com- 
 fortably warm or refreshingly cool, — encourage the 
 visits and residence of the invalids. The lowest the 
 mercury ever goes is 60°, the highest 88°, while the 
 average temperature of no month is less then 71° 
 (January), or more than 79° (August). Could trop- 
 ical suns and ocean breezes combine to produce any- 
 thing more kind to human weakness than this ? It 
 imposes no burden; it takes away no strength; the 
 
ALASKA AND ARIZONA. 499 
 
 world may be searched in vain for a softer and more 
 even climate. 
 
 The more distant portions of our widely-spread 
 western possessions, — Alaska on the north, stretching 
 to Behring's Straits and the Arctic Ocean, and Lower 
 California, Arizona and New Mexico on the south, 
 reaching close on to the Halls of the Montezumas, 
 where the " Sick Man " of America feebly reigns, — 
 remain unfamiliar to ordinary travelers, and are 
 almost unknown lands to the general public. But 
 while they invite the curiosity, they alarm the love 
 of comfort. Their promises of pleasure or profit are 
 not yet sure enough to overcome the hardships of 
 travel among them. Alaska offers rich stores of fish 
 and furs, and in Mount St. Elias, a claimant to the 
 highest mountain in the United States ; but accompa- 
 nies them with a long, severe winter, and a short, hot 
 summer, with little of grace or beauty in landscape, 
 or fertility in soil. The plains of Arizona, New 
 Mexico and Lower California are dry and barren for 
 most of the year, and very hot for much of it. It is 
 spiritually reported of an acclimated inhabitant of 
 this region, that, after translation to the warmest 
 departments of that bourne whence no traveler re- 
 turns, — however he may rap back his feelings and 
 thoughts, — wrote to his old home with shivering suf- 
 ferino; to beo; that his blankets midit be sent to him 
 per first express! Arizona holds out the assurance 
 of the richest gold-quartz on the continent ; but the 
 Apache Indians, the sturdiest of the American sav- 
 ao-es, and the least amenable of all our old settlers to 
 bribery or bullets, stand guard over them. Lower 
 
500 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 California promises copper and grain, coffee and rice, 
 but waits for cheap labor and more abundant capital. 
 
 The Southern Pacific Eailroad will reveal the mys- 
 teries and awaken the capacities of all this southern 
 tier of Territories, between Missouri, Arkansas and 
 Texas, and the Pacific Coast. It has a wealth of 
 rivers, especially in its eastern portions, that are 
 guaranty of fertile valleys; we know it offers high 
 and broad and dry plains; the latitude assures us of 
 a mild climate; and if the precious metals prove 
 scant or unremunerative, we may be certain that 
 agriculture has treasures untold within its lines. Of 
 all our grand continental area, we popularly know 
 the least of that broad belt, stretching from the Mis- 
 sissippi River south of St. Louis through to the Pacific 
 Ocean, — between the thirty-seventh and thirtieth par- 
 allels, — yet we are likely to be the more astonished 
 at its revelations under the unveiling of the second 
 continental railroad, whose track will pierce through 
 near its center, than we have been over all that set- 
 tlers and travelers have told us of the now more 
 familiar northern sections of our New West. 
 
 But the great mocking mystery of our geography 
 is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and the region 
 of country along and around it. The government 
 maps, noting only what is absolutely known, carry 
 a great blank to represent it. Rivers end abruptly, 
 and, three or four hundred miles below, their common 
 receptacle, a monster stream, begins as abruptly. 
 This vacant region comprises the northern part of 
 Arizona, and the south-eastern part of Utah, and is 
 three hundred miles from north to south and two 
 
A TEKRIBLE VOYAGE. 501 
 
 hundred miles from east to west. Is any other nation 
 so ignorant of such a piece of itself? We know this 
 simply of it, — that it is generally high, barren table- 
 land, of a volcanic rocky character; that the waters 
 of the western slopes of the Kocky Mountains in 
 Colorado and Wyoming and Utah, making up the 
 Grand and Green Bivers, come together within it, and 
 form the grand Colorado of the West; and that this 
 stream then flows for three hundred miles between 
 massive walls of solid rock, averaging three thousand 
 feet of perpendicular hight, up which no one can 
 climb, down which a safe descent is impossible, and 
 between which the confined stream courses always 
 rapidly, often madly, with falls and eddies, ever fear- 
 fully to whoever should commit himself to its waters. 
 Every one, who has ever come to these high banks, 
 has found it impossible to reach the waters beneath; 
 no one has ever dared knowingly to enter the Canyon 
 from above and go down the stream; and its ascent 
 from below has been too severe an undertaking for 
 any personal enterprise. 
 
 We have only one authentic account of a passage 
 through this mysterious, majestic Canyon. It was a 
 terrible voyage, indeed; unwittingly begun, almost 
 miraculously completed. Three men, hunting for 
 gold in south-western Colorado in the summer of 
 1867, were attacked by Indians while in camp near 
 where the San Juan Eiver enters the Colorado; one 
 was killed, the others with a part of their provisions 
 escaped, and took to the stream on a rough raft. 
 With little knowledge of what they were doing, they 
 drifted into the Colorado, here with open banks, and 
 
502 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 on down its broad smooth current; soon they found 
 themselves within the high walls, and among foaming 
 rapids; but on the second day, the provisions and one 
 of the men was swept off and lost in going over a 
 cataract ; the other, James White, having lashed him- 
 self to the logs, remained, and, alone, and without 
 food, upon these strange waters, the sun almost con- 
 suming him with its direct rays, rapids and whirlpools 
 tossing him hither and thither, and calling on all his 
 strength to keep from following the fate of his com- 
 rade, the rocky walls on each side never less than one 
 thousand feet high, and often as he thought a mile 
 and a half, wild berries on little islands at first giving 
 him trifling nourishment, and in their absence the 
 lizards tantalizing his hunger by escaping his reach, — 
 thus this unconscious pioneer of, perhaps, the most 
 wonderful phenomenon of the world, with sufferings 
 of body and mind indescribable, made the long voy- 
 age, and at the end of fourteen days, for seven of 
 which he had no food whatsoever, came out of the 
 prison walls of the stream, and reached the Indian 
 and white settlements near Callville, the head of 
 navigation on the Colorado Eiver. He was scarcely 
 alive, and one of the first persons who saw him ex- 
 claimed, "My God, that man is a hundred years old!" 
 But he recovered, and lives as testimony to what had 
 been before a marvelous fable, and is still a fact that 
 calls keenly for further exploration and description. 
 
 We shall not now wait long for this probably. 
 Before even this experience was known. Professor 
 Powell, an enthusiastic geologist of Illinois, had se- 
 cured government assistance in a personal plan for 
 
PEOF. POWELL AND THE CANYONS. 503 
 
 exploring the Parks and Mountains of Colorado, and 
 then going down the Canyon of the Colorado. He 
 and a corps of young scientific assistants spent the 
 summer of 1868 in carrying out his first purpose, 
 and passed the winter of 1869 in camp on one of the 
 tributaries of the Colorado, with the intent of enter- 
 ing the Canyon the ensuing summer. The progress 
 of the expedition will be awaited with great interest 
 Professor Powell is well educated, an enthusiastic, res- 
 olute, and gallant leader, as his other title of Major and 
 an absent arm, won and lost in the war, testify, — 
 seemingly well-endowed, save in his single arm, physi- 
 cally and mentally for the arduous work of both body 
 and brains that he has undertaken. 
 
 Nearly all of the rivers of Colorado and Utah and 
 many of those of California run for brief distances, 
 from one to twenty-five miles, through such gorges 
 of rock; or they "canyon," as, by making a verb out 
 of the Spanish noun, the people of the country de- 
 scribe the streams as performing the feat of such rock 
 passages, where their banks are inapproachable, and 
 trails or roads are sent over or around; but this rock- 
 guarded career of the great river of the Interior Basin 
 of the Continent is the Grand Canyon of the world, 
 and one of its most wonderful marvels. Its passage 
 in well protected boats by careful navigators can 
 scarcely be deemed impracticable, however danger- 
 ous; but the general judgment of residents in Col- 
 orado and Arizona is, that it should be made from 
 below, ascending the stream with the help of poles 
 and ropes, rather than descending it from above, which 
 would expose the navigators to the freaks of falls^ 
 
504 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 rapid currents, and whirling eddies, that they will 
 come upon without warning. White, the hero of the 
 first voyage, estimates that he must have gone near 
 five hundred miles upon the river, for most of the way 
 within the confined Canyon, impassable as a fortress, 
 a dungeon over a cataract. 
 
 This secret being explored, who shall next solve 
 the deeper enigma of two great under-ground rivers, 
 larger and longer each than Mississippi or Colum- 
 bia, one running beneath the Rocky Mountains from 
 north to south, and debouching unseen into the Gulf 
 of Mexico, and the other coming up under the South 
 American Andes, and entering the Caribbean Sea, — 
 both heated by the internal volcanic fires through 
 which they pass, their volume and force of outflow 
 not only accounting for the elevation of the waters 
 of the gulf and sea above the ocean, but originating 
 that mysterious river of the ocean, the Gulf Stream? 
 That such things be is the faith of Mr. George Cat- 
 lin, who, having exhausted the Indians of North 
 America, has of late turned his studies to its moun- 
 tains and rocks and rivers, with this result. His grand 
 theory has the advantage certainly of not being read- 
 ily disproved. But most travelers and scientific ex- 
 plorers will find enough to do for a generation to 
 come, at least, in unraveling the mysteries and cata- 
 loguing the curiosities above ground in all this New 
 World of ours; and Mr. Catlin's theory must wait 
 for its proof till the Colorado gold-miners dig down 
 into his grand river beneath their mountains. 
 
 The hand of science has as yet touched but lightly 
 here and there over the vast area of Western Amer- 
 
THE SLANG OF THE -WEST. 505 
 
 ica. Professor Whitney has done much to reduce 
 California to intelligent order, but much also remains 
 to complete so intricate and important a work. Pro- 
 fessor Powell's gleanings in Colorado through all the 
 fields of science will be valuable as guides for more 
 thorough explorations in the future ; and Mr. Clar- 
 ence King is completing with government assistance 
 an important reconnoissance of the mineral deposits 
 and agricultural capacities along a hundred-mile belt 
 between the Plains and California, through the center 
 of which runs the first Pacific Railroad. Beyond 
 these, our exact knowledge of what this country w^as, 
 is and may be rests upon the imperfect reports of 
 emigrants, gold and silver seekers, and superficial 
 railroad surveys; and these, though valuable, provoke 
 and confuse the scholar, rather than satisfy his thirst 
 for information. 
 
 The fresh idiomatic phrases and ^^ slang" words, 
 that pour in on the ear of the traveler through our 
 New West, and especially in its mining districts, will 
 greatly amuse and interest him. The language seems 
 to be finding an invigoration among these hearty and 
 candid residents of the borders of civilization. They 
 are not drawn, indeed, from "the well of English 
 undefiled;" but they bubble up from fresh springs, 
 sometimes all sparkling with wit and meaning, and 
 many of them will win their way and keep their 
 place in the common stream of our mother tongue. 
 What wealth of new words and new meanings for 
 old ones would Shakespere not have gathered up in 
 a week's life among the miners of White Pine for 
 
 instance? "You bet" is an emphatic afiirmative; 
 31 
 
506 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 ^^get up and get" an earnest command to go; "pan 
 out/' borrowed from washing sands for gold, signifies 
 turning out or amounting to, — thus a man or a specu- 
 lation "pans out" good or bad as the case may be; 
 "weaken" is widely used to express all kinds of fail- 
 ing or failure; a finely dressed woman "rags out;" 
 a humbug or cheat is a "bilk;" a loafer is a "bum- 
 mer;" "shebang"*' is applied to any sort of a shop, house 
 or office; "outfit" to anything new you have got; and 
 "affidavit" comprehends everything for which no 
 other word is handy; "bull-whacking" is driving an 
 ox team, a business in which the present Senator 
 Stewart of Nevada began his life in that State; 
 "how" is adopted from the Indians as an abbrevi- 
 ation for "how do you do?" or "how are you?"; 
 "peter out" stands again for failure; "bed rock" for 
 the end or bottom of things; "show" or "color" in- 
 dicates promise or prospect; the Spanish "corral" is 
 adapted to any sort of capture or control, — as that a 
 broker had "corralled" the stock of a certain company; 
 a "biled shirt" is a white one; "square" anything 
 excellent or perfect; "on it" signifies an earnest pur- 
 suit of any special end, and applied to a woman set- 
 tles her character the wrong way; "you can't prove 
 it by me," a general doubt or denial; "none of it in 
 mine," a declination; — and so on indefinitely almost, 
 a new phase or word coming up into society from 
 below every little while, having its run and trial, and 
 becoming a permanency or being banished, as it is 
 found to stand the tests of taste and of genuine 
 meaning, or not. 
 
 Except the Apache tribe in Arizona, who are a 
 
THE INDIAI^S AND ^'ROAD AGENTS." 607 
 
 strong, warlike and implacable race, the Indians are 
 generally subdued and inoffensive throughout all the 
 Pacific Coast region. In California, they numbered 
 over one hundred thousand in 1823, while now they 
 are reduced to twenty thousand, or less. These live 
 mostly on reservations, and engage successfully in 
 agricultural labors. The Indian tribes of California 
 and Mexico seem alike a branch of the Asiatic races, 
 rather than kindred to the genuine North American 
 Indian. In Oregon, and Nevada, and Washington, 
 the Indians are also few and fading, and rarely now 
 come into collision with the whites. Those of British 
 Columbia and Alaska develop the characteristics of 
 the Esquimaux, and the white settlers have little 
 serious trouble with them. In Idaho and Eastern 
 Oregon, the tribes have been at times rebellious 
 against their destiny, and now make travel in some 
 sections dangerous. But as a rule, the Indians west 
 of the Eocky Mountains are peaceful, have ceased to 
 struggle against their conquerors, and take such 
 terms as they can get, and stoically look decay 
 and death in the face. Travel is more likely to en- 
 counter trouble from white highway robbers, or "road 
 agents," in the vernacular of the West, than from the 
 enfeebled red men. These adopt the style of the 
 Italian and Mexican bandits, mask themselves, stop 
 the solitary traveler, or a stage-coach of passengers, 
 despoil them of money and valuables, under threat of 
 instant death from levelled muskets at any resistance, 
 and then let their victims pass unharmed bodily, but 
 very empty in pocket and sheepish in feelings. The 
 interior is destined, probably, to pass through an era 
 
508 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 of this sort of crime; already it has broken out on 
 the remote roads of California, and on the regular 
 routes in Nevada and Idaho. The vicious and va- 
 grant populations that followed the progress of the 
 Eailroad in its building, and have been set loose by 
 its completion ; the similar elements turned adrift by 
 the failure of mining enterprises, both furnish the 
 needy and desperate characters for the business. 
 Not unlikely they may grow bold enough to stop 
 and "go through" a railroad train. But the S23irit 
 of the country will meet such violence with sharp 
 punishment. The "road agents" will get no benefit 
 from the law's delay, and their career will not be 
 long. 
 
 But we must not linger longer on the interesting 
 themes that scenery, society and civilization so thickly 
 present to us in this new land of Western America. 
 We grew sentimental as the close of our experiences 
 on the Pacific Coast approached. With ball and din- 
 ner, with flowers and friendship, our hosts made the 
 parting both sweet and sad. Dainty in phrase as 
 hearty in feeling, the San Franciscans, half French- 
 man and wholly American, gave the coup de grace to 
 such a summer of hospitality, both of sense and spirit, 
 as was never ours before. 
 
 But all is over now, — the Speaker has made his 
 farewell speech ; Governor Bross has addressed the 
 last Sunday-school ; the brass band is hushed, — 
 
 "And silence, like a poultice, comes, 
 To heal the blows of sound ; — " 
 
 the final photograph is taken, — and rare photographs, 
 indeed, both of faces and scenery, do the skill of the 
 
THE LAST LOOK AT CALIFORNIA. 509 
 
 artist and clearness of the air combine to produce 
 on this Coast : the tongue has wagged its last good- 
 bye; and the hour of waving and drying handker- 
 chiefs is passing! Through the Golden Gate, the 
 "Golden City" takes us out into the Pacific Sea; 
 and we turn our eyes and our thoughts forward for 
 Home. But California and her sister States enlarge 
 upon the inward, the backward vision. It runs 
 quickly and surely to a world-encircling commerce, 
 a world-embracing civilization, an Empire that shall 
 be the glory and the culmination of the American 
 Kepublic! 
 
XXVII. 
 
 HOME BY THE ISTHMUS. 
 
 ITie Steamship Line between San Francisco and New York by tne 
 Isthmus— Its Business, and its Relations to Pacific Coast Life— The 
 Revolution of the Railroad— Our Voyage Home— Life on a Cali- 
 fornia Steamer— The Scenery Along the Coast— Panama and its 
 Bay— The Ride Across the Isthmus— Tropical Sights and Experi- 
 ences—The Quick Trip on the Atlantic Side to New York- The 
 Continental Journey Ended and Summed Up— America Realizes 
 Herself and Recognized by the World. 
 
 Though the Pacific Kailroad entirely changes the 
 manner and course of travel between the Atlantic 
 and Pacific States, no account of California life is 
 complete, no review of the social and business devel- 
 opment of our Pacific Coast Empire can be intelligent, 
 that does not present the steamship service by the 
 Panama route. This has been the grand avenue of 
 travel and of business between our East and our 
 West. Previous to 1869, where one person went to 
 Nevada or California or returned, overland, one hun- 
 dred at least went and came by the steamers and 
 crossed the Isthmus. This travel built the Railroad 
 across the Isthmus, and created lines of ocean steam- 
 ers, that carried more passengers, and with greater 
 
THE BUSINESS OF THE STEAMERS. 511 
 
 comfort and luxury, than any other steamship line 
 in the world. 
 
 Back and forth on this line for years have passed 
 from three to six thousand persons a month; it car- 
 ried to the Pacific States in 1868 nearly fifty thou- 
 sand passengers, and brought back over twenty 
 thousand. In the same year over fifty-five thousand 
 tons of merchandise were carried into San Francisco 
 over this steamship and Isthmus route; their total 
 value being nearly fifty millions of dollars, and the 
 charges for freight nearly three millions of dollars. 
 Here alone was freight enough from New York to 
 San Francisco to load a railway train of thirty cars 
 with five tons each, every morning in the whole year! 
 The average tariff of charges by the steamers for the 
 service in 1868 was forty-five dollars a ton; while in 
 1867 they carried only about half as many goods at 
 sixty-five dollars a ton. These figures do not include 
 the freight coming from California to the East, which 
 of course is not near so much as that going the other 
 way, though during the Eastern demand for flour 
 last year, very heavy; but they serve to exhibit 
 the great amount of business done upon the steam- 
 ship and Isthmus route, and convey an idea of the 
 traffic which the Continental Raih^oad, — performing 
 the same service in less than half the time, — has 
 offered to its competition in the beginning. The 
 steamers will, of course, lose all freight in which speed 
 is a first object, and the greater part if not the whole 
 of their through passengers; but they expect to so 
 increase their general merchandise business, from the 
 enlarged traf&c of the two sides of the Continent, 
 
512 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 and the diversion of much of the Asiatic trade in 
 this direction, as to maintain their lines profitably. 
 
 The glory of their history is departed, however; 
 the romance, the comedy, the tragedy of a trip to or 
 from California, down to and through the tropics and 
 across the Isthmus, and back again on another shore, 
 are all over. The steamers will be deserted of the 
 gay, the rich and the beautiful; and Love has lost 
 one of its great American opportunities. How can 
 sentiment flourish on a whistling, wheezing, bouncing 
 railioad train, every passenger begrimed with dust, 
 and denied all opportunity of clean clothes, even of 
 a tolerable toilet ? Only the coarse freight, only the 
 poor emigrants, to whom money is more than time, 
 will now occupy the steamers. The world henceforth 
 goes with Pullman by rail; and the poetry of the 
 California journey, which has so long fluttered in 
 white linens and delicate muslins, and lounged along 
 broad and canopied decks, or cooed in capacious state- 
 rooms, is supplanted by the plain prose of repellant 
 cloth and paper collars, and a single seat and a nar- 
 row berth in a crowded car. 
 
 But our return home in 1865 was made when 
 the steamship service was in its best estate ; the trip 
 introduced us to strange scenery and society, — to 
 the life and peoples of the tropics, — to varied and 
 unique experiences with nature and human nature; 
 and it was a fit rounding of our gay and anomalous 
 Pacific Coast summer. The European voyage is ten 
 or a dozen days of a rough sea, out of sight of land, 
 and with a hundred or two of people very like your- 
 self; often a dreary confinement in tossing berth, — n, 
 
THE BABIES ON THE BOAT. 513 
 
 penitentiary without its security. But the California 
 sea trip is to this as kaleidoscope to common spec- 
 tacles ; it occupies over three weeks ; we sail for most 
 of the way on seas as smooth as inland lakes, by 
 shores rich with tropic greens; our vessel is larger, 
 more convenient and luxurious; we have a thousand 
 companions, — more or less, and oftener more than 
 less, — of the all-est sorts of people ; we sit down to 
 tables as varied and abundant as those of first-class 
 hotels ; and everything invites a season of repose, of 
 luxury, of the senses. 
 
 The crowd is the only source of standing discom- 
 fort. We are as thick as flies in August; four and 
 five in a state-room ; we must needs divide into eat- 
 ing battalions, and go twice for our meals : would we 
 have chairs to sit in shade around the decks, we must 
 buy and bring them: there is no privacy; gamblers 
 jostle preachers; commercial women divide state- 
 rooms with fine ladies ; honest miners in red flannel 
 sit next my New York exquisite in French broad- 
 cloth : — and as for the babies, they fairly swarm, — 
 the ship is one grand nursery; and like the British 
 drum-beat, the discordant music of their discomfort 
 follows sun, moon and stars through every one of 
 every twenty-four hours. There were at least one 
 hundred of them on our ship ; and new and kinder 
 notions of old King Herod prevailed among sufier- 
 ing passengers. The new historian Froude makes 
 saint and anchorite of wife-changing, woman-killing 
 Henry the Eighth : why should not some ambitious 
 rival, gaining new light from the California voyage, 
 make public benefactor of baby-slaughtering Herod ? 
 
514 OUB NEW WEST. 
 
 The Coast hills along California make rough and 
 barren work of the shore view; but as we get down 
 to Mexico, the hills open and become clothed with 
 deep green. The weather, never cold, grows hot; 
 flannels come off; the fortunate in white linen blos- 
 6om out in spotless garb; the close and crowded 
 etate-rooms turn out their sleepers on the cabin 
 floors, the decks, everywhere and anywhere that 
 iSL breath of air can be wooed ; babies lie around 
 <oosely and au naturel ; you have to pick your way 
 ftt night about the open parts of the ship, as tender 
 visitor to fresh battle-field. The languor of the 
 tropics comes over you all; perspiration stands in 
 great drops, or flows in rivulets from the body; a 
 creamy, hazy feeling possesses the senses; working 
 is abandoned; reading becomes, an effort; card-play- 
 ing ceases to lure ; dreaming, dozing and scandal^ 
 talking grow to be the occupations of the ship's com- 
 pany, — possibly scandal-making, for the courtesans 
 become bold and flaunt, and the weak and imprudent 
 ehow that they are so. 
 
 Half way down, at the end of the first week, we 
 stop at Acapulco, the chief Mexican port on the 
 Pacific Coast, founded by Spain, and famous in the 
 days of her prosperous American commerce. It lies 
 beautifully under the hills, back of an island, which 
 forms an exquisite and safe bay. Here we taste of 
 tropical life on shore ; here we sample the Mexicans 
 and Mexican Republic. It is a pitiful civilization 
 that they present, and not very inspiring of sympa- 
 thy or hope. The Mexican population is several 
 thousands, and there are only two or three famijies 
 
THE MEXICANS AT ACAPULCO. 515 
 
 of whites. The Mexicans are a mulattoish race, an 
 apparent cross between Indians and negroes, with 
 here and there a vein of Spanish blood. Indolence 
 and incompetency mark their life and character. 
 The principal local industry appears to be the sup- 
 plying of the passengers on the steamships, that 
 stop here, going either way, for coal and provisions, 
 with fruits and fancy shell-work. The houses are 
 low, adobe, and with thick walls, and whitewashed 
 on the outside; the streets no wider than a gener- 
 ous city sidewalk ; the plaza or church square opens 
 broad but barren, — and here is the market-place, 
 where, from little stands or on the pavement, the 
 simple wares and food and fruits and fancy shells 
 of the people, are offered for sale by gross women, 
 dreary old hags, or precocious girls; and chaffering 
 goes on day and evening with citizen and stranger. 
 A few of us landed and spent the evening on shore ; 
 it was a weird scene that the market-place presented 
 under the rude and scant torch-light. Occasionally 
 we found a comely girl among the stands, with rounded 
 arm and bright eye, and such usually got the best 
 bargains from our party. A trick of their trade is 
 to make the stranger a present of some petty article, 
 even to force it upon him, with flattering manner and 
 speech; and then to exact gallant and munificent re- 
 turn in coin. This is type of tropical trading the 
 world over, and in all ages, I believe. Did not Abra- 
 ham or other of the old prophets buy land for burial- 
 place for his kindred under such embarrassing cir- 
 cumstances ? Close and heavy was the evening's 
 heat; and the people, not busy trading with the 
 
516 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 Yankees, lay around loose in hammocks, or on the 
 floors of piazza, thinly raimented, stolid, indifierent 
 and idolent. 
 
 Though Aeapulco is the largest town in the west 
 of Mexico, and its chief Pacific port, there is not a 
 single road out from it to the interior ; there is no 
 ingress or egress save on foot or horseback ; no other 
 means of communication between it and the capital. 
 The town has no wheeled vehicle of higher preten- 
 sions than a wheelbarrow. What can be done for a 
 people who, with two hundred years and more of 
 contact with civilization, can do no more for them- 
 selves ? It was season of religious festivity when we 
 were there; and among the distinguished personages 
 we were presented to, was a fat old mulatto priest, 
 who had come in from the interior to preside at the 
 church ceremonies, and had brought along with him, 
 for Christian solace and refection for himself and fol- 
 lowers, a couple of hundred rare fighting cocks ! But 
 here were the groves of palm, of banana, of cocoa- 
 nut; here, luxuriant in the open air, the broad leaves 
 and rich colors of many plants that are seen in the 
 temperate latitudes only in hot-houses; here, fresh 
 from trees, on the trees, were the delicious fruits that 
 come to us at home only after long voyages, and 
 often stale and tasteless. 
 
 On down the Coast again, past Mexico, out of sight, 
 of course, but not out of thought of its mammoth vol- 
 cano, Popocatapetl, the highest known mountain of 
 North America, (seventeen thousand seven hundred 
 and eighty-three feet); across the gulf Tehuan tepee; 
 past Guatemala; past its wonderful and beautiful vol- 
 
PANAMA AND ITS BAY. 517 
 
 canic mountains, peaceful now, but exquisite in out- 
 line, perfect in cone-shapes, and rising to thirteen and 
 fourteen thousand feet in hight; past San Salvador; 
 amused with the lively little flying fishes that single 
 or in shoals skipped from wave to wave, flashing in 
 the sunlight, as dexterous boy skips bright stone over 
 the water, and awed with tropical lightning that made 
 the heavens all aglow with wide and frequent flashes; 
 past Nicaragua, where one of the American lines of 
 steamers stop, and their passengers cross to Atlantic 
 waters; then Costa Kica; steering easterly all this 
 while to keep the tapering Continent; last. New Gra- 
 nada; and on early morning, at the close of a fort- 
 night from San Francisco, rounding into the wide, 
 warm bay of Panama, where the narrow neck of land, 
 that connects and divides two seas and two Conti- 
 nents, confronts us. It is a charming scene, as we 
 go past the richly-green islands of the bay, one with 
 thriving-looking town at its base, another holding 
 sacredly exclusive the sad burial-place for strange^ 
 travelers, another the depot for the steamships, 
 others undisputed with luxuriant and grasping na- 
 ture, and anchor, amid all, in front of the quaint 
 old city of Panama. The harbor itself is center for 
 wide commerce North and South, gathering here to 
 cross the Isthmus, and reach American and European 
 centers ; but a bad bar forces the slow use of lighters 
 for passengers and freight. 
 
 Panama we found to be only an improvement over 
 Acapulco; it mingled more modern quality with its 
 as ancient features; the streets were broader; the 
 houses of two stories; and carts and rickety omni- 
 
518 OUE NEW WEST. 
 
 buses, and a fine carriage or two, as well as retail 
 stores by Jews or Yankees, and large warehouses 
 under English or American superintendence, showed 
 the innovations and elevations of commerce. There 
 was a flavor of Spanish about everything, however; 
 the food, the churches, the stores, the town generally; 
 decayed, effete, luxuriant, tropical Spanish. The na- 
 tives were a good deal mixed, bearing all the mu- 
 latto shades; the women flaunting in narrow, sleazy 
 white gowns, rich with wide negro ruflles and furbe- 
 lows ; and the children rollicking in single, short, wide 
 chemises, or unblushing and bold with utter absence 
 of covering. The churches, ancient, cheap and moss- 
 grown, won no veneration except for their antiquity ; 
 they told of no interest in religion ; of nothing but a 
 tawdry, vulgar fanaticism; a lazy, cock-fighting priest- 
 hood, and an indifferent parish. We found the bats 
 flying about in the arches above and behind the altar, 
 and priests and boys firing guns at them, among the 
 poor tinselry of the worship, with results more dam- 
 aging to "bell, book and candle" than birds. 
 
 At mid-day, the long and crowded passenger train 
 started across the Isthmus, — treasure and baggage 
 waited for a second, — and we had that ever-memo- 
 rable ride, in the experience of all who have ever 
 made this trip, between the Continents, from Ocean 
 to Ocean, in the very fullness of the tropics, over rails 
 fairly built upon human bodies, so fatal was the 
 miasma of the country to nearly all classes of im- 
 ported laborers. The road is fifty miles long, and 
 the run is made in two to three hours. Monopolizing 
 the commerce of all the Pacific Coast of both North 
 
THE SCENES ON" THE ISTHMUS. 519 
 
 and South America, the gateway for all travel from 
 Continent to Continent, it is a rich possession to its 
 owners. The fare for this two hours' ride is no less 
 than twenty-five dollars, and freights are correspond- 
 ingly high. The sleepers and ties of the track are 
 of lignum-vita3 wood, the telegraph posts of cement, 
 as thus only are both protected from rot and insect. 
 The road is well appointed in other respects, and the 
 service unexceptionable. 
 
 But the ride was rare revelation. All was sub- 
 stantially new and strange to our unused northern 
 eyes; and we stared and wondered and absorbed 
 through all this tropical passage. The sun was not 
 fierce ; one will suffer more from heat in a ride from 
 Springfield to New York of a dry and dusty August 
 day; but the warmth was deep and high, — it lay in 
 thick, heavy, sensuous folds in the air, — it did not 
 fret, but it permeated and subdued and enriched. 
 With Nature, it was season of rest, — colors were 
 dulled from the spring and early summer hues, — 
 but what quantity! what ripeness and fullness! what 
 luxuriant, wanton rioting! There was no limit to 
 variety or aboundingness of tree and shrub, and 
 plant and flower and grass. Waste and robbery, 
 there could not be in such abundance ; the vacancy 
 of to-day's ax or fire is filled to-morrow; only daily 
 use of hatchet and scythe keeps open path. Palms 
 everywhere, singly and in groves, with great rough 
 fruit, rich in oil; ferns as trees and in forests; clus- 
 ters of bananas as big as an honest two-bushel char- 
 coal basket, yet hidden by the generous leaves of 
 their tree; bread-fruit and cocoa-nuts ripening and 
 
520 OUR NEW WEST. 
 
 rotting out of reach of man or beast; tall oaks and 
 short oaks; little trees and big trees of every family, 
 interlaced so closely that you could not tell where 
 one begun and the other left off; vines^ tender and 
 strong, marrying everything to everybody, running 
 up, and running down, and running around, dropping 
 down lines straight and stiff like ropes, all through 
 the woods, making swings everywhere, but permit- 
 ting no place for their play; great, coarse, flaming 
 flower, and delicate, tender microscopic blossom hold- 
 ing up its cup by roadside, between rails, on every 
 hand; occasionally bright plumage of gay bird flut- 
 tered across the vision among thick foliage, and hid 
 behind leaves so wide and long that we knew why 
 Adam and Eve needed no tailor or mantua-maker, — - 
 one would sufiice for all ordinary length of naked- 
 ness: — thus and more like it and continuously was 
 our ride across the Isthmus. 
 
 At frequent intervals along the road are well-built 
 stations with handsome yards and gardens and Amer- 
 ican occupants. Adjoining, and at other points, we 
 passed crowded negro hamlets and villages; their 
 houses frequently thatched both on top and side with 
 the generous leaves of the adjoining forests, and 
 their food the easy-growing fruits and vegetables of 
 the tropics. What work they will do the Kailroad 
 probably furnishes. The mark of the white man is 
 among them; if dead, he yet liveth in the blood of 
 the native; but the habit of the negro is dominant. 
 The climate and their rude wants invite a lazy, sen- 
 sual life, and such is theirs. There is small expendi- 
 ture for clothes; boys and girls, even of full growth, 
 
ASPINWALL AND NEW YORK. 521 
 
 stroll freely about before the passing trains, and 
 among their fellows, with not a rag of clothing to 
 their bodies ; and the men, when they do work, strip 
 as fully to the task. 
 
 We pass by the thick and sinuous Chagres River, 
 up and down which in flat-boats the early passengers 
 by this route were pushed by the negro ; along whose 
 banks in this slow and painful passage many laid 
 down to die; and out of whose fetid breath came 
 many a long-lurking and finally fatal fever. The 
 passage is now made so quickly in the cars, that 
 there is little danger at any season of taking the 
 fever of the country. 
 
 We came into Aspinwall, in the first rain storm 
 that we had felt since rain and hail pelted us so mer- 
 cilessly on the Plains near Fort Kearney, nearly four 
 months before, and found that a dreary new town of 
 one street, lined with hotels and shops and Jamaica 
 negroes and negresses. These people are proof 
 against this climate; they luxuriate and thrive from 
 the start here, and it was due to their importation 
 that the Eailroad was finally completed, as it was, 
 after all other importations, white and black alike, 
 had fallen in their tracks along its line of rotting 
 nature, stirred to revengeful miasma by shovel and 
 pick. Aspinwall has no past like Panama, no present 
 and no future but what the Railroad and Steam-ships 
 make for it ; and we w^elcomed the summons to the 
 new steamer for New York. 
 
 The finest of weather, and the quickest trip ever 
 made from the Isthmus to New York, — six and a 
 half days, — waited upon us. The September equi- 
 32 
 
522 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 noctial was past due^ but we escaped even tlie breath 
 of it; the Carribbean Sea forgot its accustomed 
 crispness and spared our stomachs and appetites; 
 and, threading our way through the West India 
 Islands; stopping at none, and catching glimpse of 
 but few ; passing near but outside Cuba, and waving 
 our hands to its eastern shores, we swept up on calm 
 waters, under summer skies, into the broad Atlantic; 
 caught the Gulf Stream and crossed it; cherished 
 our fears of a rough time " off Hatteras/' and awoke 
 to find the dreaded spot the smoothest sea of all; 
 and passed into ever beautiful and now dearly wel- 
 comed New York harbor on a soft September morn- 
 ins:. It is five thousand miles from San Francisco to 
 New York by this route ; our trip was made in 
 twenty-one days; it could easily be brought within 
 eighteen; but the steamers more often occupy twenty- 
 four. 
 
 Thus we closed our tour of the American Conti- 
 nent; from longitude one degree to longitude thirty- 
 four degrees; from latitude fifty to latitude seven; 
 journeying in all some twelve thousand miles, half 
 by sea, and a third by stage ; crossing the great 
 mountain ranges of the Continent; exploring the 
 forests, the mines, the commerce of a new world; 
 seeing and learning the field of a new empire; enjoy- 
 ing the most generous of hospitality in every possible 
 and imaginable form; and came back to our homes 
 in a trifle more than four months from the day of 
 leaving them, rich with knowledge and growth, with 
 fuller measure of the American Republic and larger 
 faith in its destiny. What few saw then is admitted 
 
OUTLINE OF AN OYERLAIS'D TRIP. 623 
 
 now; what was then promised is now half-realized; 
 the continental railroad, then but just begun, is now 
 completed ; and over its swift line, through its quick 
 development, America sees and welcomes her New 
 West, and the World recognizes America ! 
 
 A TWO MONTHS' JOURNEY 
 
 TO AND THROUGH THE PACIFIC STATES BY THE PACIFIC 
 
 RAILROAD. 
 
 DAYS. 
 
 From Omaha to Cheyenne and Denver, 2 
 
 Excursions in Colorado, 9 
 
 To Salt Lake City, 2 
 
 Stay in Salt Lake City, 2 
 
 To Virginia City and there, 2 
 
 To San Francisco, with two days to stop on the way, 3 
 
 In and about San Francisco, 7 
 
 Yo Semite Valley and Big Trees, Iq 
 
 Overland to Oregon, g 
 
 From Portland to Victoria, through Washington Territory and 
 
 Puget's Sound, and back, 7 
 
 From Portland to Salt Lake by Columbia Eiver, Idaho and Sho- 
 shone Falls, g 
 
 From Salt Lake to Omaha, 2 
 
 Total, ^ 
 
 This is obviously a short allowance for so compre- 
 . hensive a journey ; but every traveler can enlarge it 
 
 to suit his comfort and convenience. He cannot ad- 
 vantageously cut down Colorado, San Francisco and 
 its neighborhoods, or the Yo Semite, but may well 
 add a week to each. Another month would allow 
 the traveler to return through Montana and down 
 the Upper Missouri, besides scattering an extra week 
 
524 OUK NEW WEST. 
 
 along through the previous portions of his journey. 
 Two months more still, — or from June 1 to November 
 1^ — would include, with all the above, a liberal excur- 
 sion to the Sandwich Islands. And the weather in 
 all these five months would be favorable for every 
 part of the grand trip ; only in the Islands would 
 water-proofs and umbrellas be needed. For the two 
 months' journey, we would recommend July and Au- 
 gust; for the three, July, August and September. 
 California is in its summer glory in April and May; 
 but that is too early for its mountains or the Yo 
 Semite; and the Parks and Mountains of Colorado, 
 though passable in June, are much more accessible in 
 July and August. 
 
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V 
 
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