TH DOCTOR'S WANDER DAYS Q- FRANK- LYDSrrON This edilion is limifed fo C:^.....C/... O copi, Hes. I Thc ninnlicr of this copy is '^.. i777 . , cf/r7U^teface in the most romantic portion of the state, may have some features of novelty to many. The characters that are introduced here and there are real. Those who have passed "The Great Divide" were my boyhood's friends, those who are yet liv ing I know well, but it would require a pen far abler than mine to do them justice. Would that I knew them as well as did my father, who is dead and gone. There were none among the Argonauts of '49 who were sturdier than he, none whose lives were more replete with the arduous toil of the pioneer and the dangers and hardships of the early days of "The Golden West." As for my mother, the history of her experience en voyage to California, and for some years after her arrival in that then far-off land, is a veritable romance. My mother's family emigrated from Kentucky in '51, and made the long and dangerous journey to California across the plains. She was but a child, and the events of that trip were so stirring that it is not surprising that her memory of them is vivid. Harassed by hostile Indians and sub jected to innumerable privations, the marvel was that the family ever succeeded in reaching its destination. And the entry into California was by no means a triumphal one. About four days' journey from Preface the California Hne, the escort of eight men which my grandfather had employed deserted in a body, taking with them the bulk of the provisions and supphes. A few dried apples constituted the pabulum of the family for the remainder of the trip. Had the leader of the escort, my mother's cousin, survived, the desertion would not have occurred. He, poor boy, was drowned in the Platte River on the way. The supply of horses gave out long before Cal ifornia was reached. Several valuable animals were bitten by rattlesnakes, others were stampeded and stolen by the Indians. Most of them, how ever, were killed by drinking alkali water on the desert. My mother was fond of horseback riding, and resolved to still enjoy her favorite amusement. A side saddle was accordingly put upon the family cow; she mounted, and, regardless of conven- tionahties, rode her fiery steed during the re mainder of the journey. Her novel entry into California was a nine days' wonder throughout the mining camps. Sooth to say, modern society, and, most of all, our modern young ladies, would con sider such an ordeal not only formidable, but bad form. But there were giants in those days of the Argonauts, and sensible, unpretentious folk they were. 10 ff>ceface I will not apologize for the cursory and col loquial character of the notes and sketches con tained in this volume. I have merely endeavored to take the reader with me on my outing. He must see things with my eyes, and I fancy he will enjoy the trip none the less for the absence of any flavor of cut-and-dried analysis in its description. It is the true dilettante, after all, who sees all things beautiful as they should be seen — who sees them true. The beautiful, the esthetic, and, for the mat ter of that, even the novel and grotesque, are none the more entertaining for being placed under the eye and pen of the hard-hearted analyst. Yes, 'tis the dilettante who gathers the flowers in Life's Garden — Sipping the wine of life as honey sips the bee. He floats on rosy clouds above the callous throng. Delving for gold at the root of the fairy tree And hearing not mid the leaves and blooms the song Of that wondrous bird — the Soul's Delight. O, thou art of living well and ever living, 'Tis truly all of life and happiness to soar Above that hard, cold ambition, ever giving The dross and gnawing discontent of earth — no mere — Burrowing mole-like in endless night. —THE AUTHOR. 11 WAS very tired, there's no doubt about that — tired of practice, tired of teaching, and, worse than all, tired of my self. As to the cause, that's another question — which, by the way, is still open. To be sure, there was that attack of la grippe, but I suspect I caught that interesting microbial omnibus just because it was fashionable, and because I was envious of several of my doctor friends who were convalescing from it. I presume that I could have borne up under the load of envy had I not seen them drinking milk punches, P. R. N. ; which means literally, 13 Panama anO tbe Steruas with us doctors, whenever the patient requires it. My friends' symptoms being many and their de mands large, la grippe seemed to me an al together blissful disease — so I caught it. But I reckoned without my stomach, which betrayed my confidence, and received all too unkindly the bland gustatorial overtures of the milk punches. Thus foiled in my efiforts to be kind to myself, I went to the other extreme and decided to consult a col league. The first gentleman whom I approached on the subject of my health, told me that, in his opinion, I had been working overtime — "between meals." This made me mad, for I had had a whole week's vacation, only twenty-two years before, so I con sulted another and wiser doctor. In fact, after having made the start, the consultation habit be came firmly fixed upon me and I consulted a large number of other and wiser men, each wiser than his predecessor — a matter of auto-estimation on the part of each. Consultations became a source of infinite pleasure. I acquired a mania for them. The man who had no new ideas regarding my "Weary Wilhe" feelings lost caste with me. I built up a little coterie of wiseacres who seemed a part of me, and whom I exalted far above ordi nary doctors — men who had no malaise and no 14 Ob's ibaugbtg Consultants novel opinions thereon. Had all my consultants been housed in the Columbus building I should have organized a private consultation club, but, un fortunately, several of them were denizens of other and less pretentiotis buildings. I knew that the "Columbians" were too exclusive to affiliate with plebeian consultants. Seriously, I never dared let those haughty fellows know that I had consulted any of their humbler brethren. Not being a diplo mat, nor desirous of being professionally ostra cised, I felt that I must keep in touch with the "Columbusters." Why are the "Columbines"* so haughty? Well, that's debatable ground. My own opinion is, that it is because they are so literary. Some time ago the landlord found that his tenants were playing "mumblety peg," whilst beguiling the tedious hours between patients. Objecting to the result ant chipping of the mosaic floors, yet realizing that his tenants must not be allowed to die of ennui, the kind-hearted man founded a free library for them. In that library may be found everything *It is only fair to state that the ofiicial name adopted by my friends over the way, is "Columbiad." This nomenclature is ill-advised, for, while they do make a bit of noise, it is true, they are not all "big guns." IS Panama and tbe Sierras necessary to cloy the most capricious literary ap petite. No efifort has been spared to make it a success. Even the lady librarians are fair to gaze upon. And the efiforts of the philanthropic landlord have not been all in vain. The library is well patronized. I have seen as many as two doctors at once, poring over the works of reference. The librarians say that they are at times over-worked. They are often compelled to chase around all over the building, hunting for publications that the doctors have taken out and forgotten to return. I understand that during the past year several copies of Puck, and Judge, and the Ladies' Home Journal were lost in this way. One of the hbrarians told me the other day that she no longer permitted Texas Siit- ings to be taken out by anybody, and was going to stop subscribing for Godey's Magazine alto gether. But why should intellectual development pro duce hauteur in the "Columbagos?" ^ >^ > And I was proud, and my pride was not without foundation, for had I not neurasthenia, spinal irri tation, lithemia — seventeen varieties — hepatic tor- 16 TPabs fl Xeft Dome por, auto-intoxication — all forms — gastro-motor- insufficiency, dilated cardia, cardio-muscular ex haustion, renal inadequacy, morbus Brightii, nerv ous dyspepsia, and a few other things, the names of which escape me? I will not expatiate upon a kaleidoscopic taste in my mouth, probably contracted from accidentally swallowing a chameleon while in the army, "way down in Floridy." Oh, yes, I was proud. No man could be prouder and live. God help the laity ! It can't wallow in any such diagnostic wealth. We doctors can not only luxuriate in a wealth of diagnostic profusion, but are privileged to select the diagnosis that pleases us best. But my medical advisers all said, "Get up and get!" "See," said one fat, protoplasmic friend of mine, "what rest has done for me," displaying the while an embonpoint that would grace our board of aldermen. He is a rest speciaHst, and a very dear friend of twenty years' standing — and some years' lying. And so, I packed my trunk and made ready to get up and get. And straightway I got — down with appendicitis, forsomuch as 'twas the only disease my anatomy did not already enter tain. Which is how I finally escaped manifold con sultations, for, by the same token, I had the real, venomous, awe-inspiring, fearsome, fashionable 17 Panama an& tbe Sterras thing this time, and there was no room for con flicting opinions ! Oh, yes, appendicitis has some redeeming features. And when I recovered I was persecuted beyond endurance, by my surgeon friends. In my daily walks they dogged me. In my nightly dreams ghostly aseptic fingers clutched at mine ileo-cecal region. The mad, chilly February winds shrieked a dismal wail of reproach in mine affrighted ears — for I had permitted myself to be treated conserva tively, and 'twas a traitorous and ignoble thing to do. Treated conservatively ! Well, I should remark ! I had never received such varied and enthusiastic internal medication since those infantile days when a virtuous and philanthropic maiden aunt — the most unmarried woman I ever knew — was wont to ornament my Department of the Interior with Perry's Pain Killer, and such alluring agents of death. Oh, she was a doctor to the manner born ! She it was who discovered that hive syrup was good for the hives. She was then in her dotage and had developed homeopathic leanings, which, being pathologic, should be condoned. And so, my burden became greater than I could bear, and I fled, ingloriously fled, to the raging 18 H Col& Beginning main, hoping that perchance I might lose mine ap pendix in the throes of mal de -mer, and thus be come rehabilitated in the esteem of my colleagues. if^ ^ ^ I had determined to seek a clime where perspira tion is cheap and lithia salts at a discount. Cali fornia, via the Isthmus of Panama, seemed to ful fill these special indications. Unfortunately, how ever, it was necessary to pass through New York to get to my point of embarkation. "But," quoth I, "who cares for that, in these days of Pullman cars and such things ? Who cares for that beastly old bhzzard that's raging down there, anyhow?" Did you ever get "stalled" in a blizzard, my dear friend? If not, you might have reasoned as I did, but not as I reason now. I have been there. It was evident that New York had resolved to be inhospitable especially for my benefit. There had been no great fall of snow in that region for over a decade. Those who remembered the last severe snowstorm were already beginning to consider themselves old inhabitants. But, by all the gods, the elements made up for lost time on this occa sion ! Never was a convalescent more diabolically 19 Panama anb tbe Sierras entertained. It was blowing great guns and snow ing avalanches by the time Albany was reached. An extra locomotive made progression possible for a time, and the prospect of getting through seemed bright enough, despite the newspaper accounts of the serious efifects of the storm on other roads, when, "all on a sudden," the blizzard opened a post graduate course, attendance upon which was com pulsory. The result was that the West Shore rail road ceased operations then and there, and the ill- fated train upon which I started for a vacation came to a standstill near Haverstraw, about forty miles from New York City. Now, the scenery of the Hudson River is very beautiful in the proper season, but, viewed from a train stuck in a snow bank, with a blizzard howling about one's ears, it is not a vision of delight nor conducive to equanim ity. After a futile effort to move the train a brilliant idea struck the conductor. He reasoned that al though a heavy train of sleeping coaches could not get through, a train of day cars should have no difficulty in doing so. We luckless ones were there upon transferred, bag and baggage, to a day coach on a local train that happened to come along. All went well for about three miles, when, "slumpety slosh !" into a snowbank we went and — ^there we 20 Eastern "toospitaliti? stuck. One engine after another was added to our motive power until four had been impressed into service, but to no purpose — we were evidently doomed to remain stuck in the snow until the spring thaws should free us, or until the railroad company was pleased to send a snow plow up the road. What a delightful time we had, to be sure. For thirty-one hours we remained in that snow drift, apparently forgotten by the railroad com pany and everyone else ! Aside from a few crack ers and a small quantity of corned beef that had seen better days, the passengers had nothing to eat during the entire blockade. Had such an acci dent happened on a western road, anywhere near human habitations, some effort would have been made to relieve the passengers' discomfort. Not so there ; not a soul appeared on the scene to offer assistance or even inquire as to our necessities. The people of the neighborhood actually refused to sell food to those of the passengers who were ven turesome enough to face the storm in quest of it. The railroad officials might, at least, have made an effort to secure food for us, but, probably be cause they held us responsible for the stoppage of the train, they failed to materiaHze. The steam ran pretty low because of scarcity of water, and, taken all in all, the outlook for a worn-out doctor Panama and tbe Sierras just arisen from an appendicitis bed, was not prom ising. Of course, I expected a relapse from the exposure. But a pecuhar combination of circum stances saved me. There happened to be a the atrical company aboard — barnstormers, I fancy — en route for New York. I don't know what their histrionic ability may have been, but their good- fellowship was unquestionable. They were well supplied with mysterious cockle-warming liquids to keep off chill, and, to our delight, fur nished us non-histrionic passengers with a variety of caloric that made us quite thankful that the steam was low. The hea-vy villain was in love with the leading lady, and their soft dalliances gave us one continuous sentimental clinic for the entire period of our imprisonment. As the pert sou- brette was jealous of the leading lady and both were red-headed, we soon forgot the storm — "Blow high, blow low, not all its snow. Could quench our hearth fire's ruddy glow." Within two hours we had opened all the ven tilators to the full, and by midnight were offering to trade our overcoats and sealskin sacques for snowball sandwiches. Even my appendix vermi- formis absorbed some of the rosy-hued romance of the occasion and quit its usual grumbling. 1 JBegin to Ubaw Is it not fortunate that all things disagreeable, like all things pleasant, always have an ending? The snow plows came at last, and we were free once more. How dismal New York seemed to me. Snow, snow, snow, snow everywhere, piled up as high as the tops of the street cars. What a reception for a man bound for the tropics ! Recalling my feelings on that occasion, I remember that I had but one ambition in life — "A boat, a boat, my Kingdom for a boat !" >- 1^ >i Ho, for the tropics ! How irksome and uncomfortable were my over coat and woolens about the fourth day out from New York, and with what joy did I present mine old overcoat, of the vintage of — oh, I'm ashamed to tell — to my cabin boy. And with what hilarity did I "shuck off" my heavy flannels — two suits, an' it please you, my lords and gentlemen — and begin my cold salt showers o'mornings — and Feb ruary mornings at that. In very truth, the great Gulf Stream is a stream celestial, and its warm trade winds are breathed forth from Paradise. 23 Panama an& tbe Sierras Just think of it, only four days since, I had been mixed up with the business end of a blizzard, and there I was luxuriating in sea baths and summer clothing! The officers of the ship became re splendent in white duck and canvas shoes, and the waiters and cabin boys were so happy that they lost their "how I hunger for a tip" expression. Mind you, they only lost the hungry facial expres sion. There was no perceptible change in their appetites. As for myself, I — well, I forgot my patients, aye, even the lancinating memory of mine appendix was lost in the dreamy haze of that semi- tropic sea. *^ >^ > Azure above and below, by day, dusky violet be low and a diamond-bespangled violet dome above, by night — he who fares through the Gulf Stream must needs be soulless indeed, if he be not o'er- whelmed with its manifold beauties. He who, in his quiet study, reads Lafcadio Hearn's description of the emotional effect of vivid blue upon himself, full surely will fail to grasp that most gifted author's meaning. Let him, how ever, with Hearn's description fresh in mind, sail through the Gulf Stream, and he will understand, 24 H Sensuous JSlue even as I — who then comprehended not at all, from my own psychic experience, the relation of color to the higher emotions — at once understood. Quoth Hearn:* "In my own case the sight of vivid blue has al ways been accompanied by an emotion of vague delight — more or less strong according to the lu minous intensity of the color. And in one expe rience of travel — saihng to the American tropics — this feeling rose into ecstacy. It was when I be held for the first time the grandest vision of blue in this world — the glory of the Gulf Stream. A magical splendor that made me doubt my senses — a flaming azure that looked as if a million summer skies had been condensed into pure fluid color for the making of it. "The captain of the ship leaned over the rail with me, and we both watched the marvelous sea for a long time in silence. Then he said : " 'Fifteen years ago I took my wife with me on this trip — just after we were married, it was — and she wondered at the water. She asked me to get her a silk dress of the very same color. I tried in ever so many places, but I never could get just what she wanted till a chance took *"Azure Psychology — Exotics and Retrospectives." 25 Panama anD tbe Sierras me to Canton. I went round the Chinese silk shops day after day, looking for that color. It wasn't easy to find, but I did get it at last. Wasn't she glad, though, when I brought it home to her? She's got it yet.' "Still, at times in sleep I sail southward again over the wonder of that dazzling, surging azure. Then the dream shifts suddenly across the world and I am wandering with the captain through close, dim, queer Chinese streets, vainly seeking a silk of the blue of the Gulf Stream. And it was this memory of tropic days that first impelled me to think about the reason of the delight inspired by the color." ¥¦ iti- ^ And the blue of the Gulf Stream is not all, say I. Seaweeds, in modest brown and tan and orange- red float silently by on their way to the place where the Gulf Stream meets the cold, inhospit able waters from the north. One can almost see, in fancy's eye, the seaweed drifting on and on, dreamily, softly, lazily riding the almost rippleless sea, until it halts, shudderingly, at the margin of the frigid waves that bound, like a frame of chill, the genial way of the life-giving tropic stream. 26 JSreeses of JSalm And color is not all. Breezes laden with balm and scent of spice, warm and sweet and caressing like the breath of the maid who loves you — breezes burdened with the glow and warmth of far-off vales, lying all resplendent 'neath the mystic glim mer of the southern cross — breezes gentler than the whisper of a well-beloved child — ^breezes that waft perfumes sweeter than those of "Araby the Blest" — breezes that cajole, thrill, soothe, capti vate, aye, enslave one in a tangle of sensuous emo tions — ah! it is well to have lived and tasted of their supernal joys. Once more engrossed in the corroding cares of the land of work-a-day, I am wont to conjure from memory's treasure-house a vision of blue, a balmy breath of spice and a sensuous thrill of gentle, tropic warmth that make my hours of dreams more beautiful than of yore. *^ ^ Ai I never appreciated the advantages of being a doctor, until I enjoyed the fact without the distinc tion. The doctor who is in search of recreation and rest must conceal his profession, or his rest will be broken and his recreation slavery. Then, too, one learns so much from the laity. When, for the first time in my life, I, who considered my- 27 Panama and tbe Sierras self proof against the ocean qualms, became most ingloriously, but none the less emphatically, sea sick, I must have appealed strongly to the sym pathies of my fellow passengers. At least, they prescribed for me with great persistency and in variegated forms. I soon discovered that we doc tors do not appreciate the laity as we should. The profession has no specific for sea-sickness, but I will make affidavit that no less than forty infallible cures were tendered me by my advisers. I meekly accepted them all, and, when my collection was complete, dumped the whole lot overboard one fine morning. As I threw the stuff astern, and the ship's log was very "wabbly" that day, the con clusion forces itself upon me that there was great virtue in those remedies. In passing, let me re mark that my fellow passengers evidently did not believe in stimulants for sea-sickness — at least they did not give me any. Which was not regular, and may account for my prodigal offering of drugs and simples to Neptune. Poor old Nep! I re venged myself upon him by the infliction of greater miseries than mal de mer. The advisability of the medical man's concealing his identity while on a vacation, was later most forcibly impressed upon me by my experience in a small town in California. My attention hap pened to be called to a child, evidently suffering 28 Xas Uberapeutics from some naso-pharyngeal trouble. My sym pathies were aroused and I made an examination. Finding a pair of enormous tonsils, I recommended a trip to San Francisco, for the purpose of con sulting a throat specialist. As a reward for my philanthropy I was overrun with patients of one sort or another. I suddenly blossomed out into a specialist in diseases of the head, trunk, and ex tremities. I was, for the nonce, an expert in every thing from tic doloreux to bunions. To illustrate the confidence I inspired and the esteem in which I was held by those simple village folk, the follow ing breakfast-table conversation between a fellow boarder at the little "hotel" and myself is not in appropriate : "Say, mister, be you a doctor?" "Why, y-yes, I am." "Well, say. Doc, do you know anythin' what'll cure catarrh in th' head of a hoss? I've got a little sorrel mare that I'd give some feller a hun dred dollars ter cure, spot cash." Which was a "horse on me," sure enough. I again recommended a specialist, although the novelty of the "spot cash" argument almost tempted me to — well, anyway, I put temptation be hind me and fled to the hills. And so, my "Frisco" specialist friends, if you have been over-burdened with practice lately, I am responsible for it. You 29 Panama anO tbe Sierras may send me express orders for my commissions. Of course' you'll give the usual liberal "diwy." Fifty per cent is the established rate among real high-toned Chicago doctors, and I couldn't take less, you know, not even tho' I didn't "assist" at the operations. Pshaw! I'm getting sea-sick again ! A^ *^ Ai "The Pearl of the Antilles I" The "Sapphire of the Antilles," rather. Small wonder that our Span ish friends objected to losing the fairest jewel in the CastiHan crown. The sun was just setting, as our matter-of-fact old steamer rounded the eastern end of Cuba. It were difficult to imagine a fairer picture than the varying lights and shades of that beautiful island as I then saw it. At the extreme northern angle a Hne of reefs and jagged rocks gave a -vicious beauty to the shore line. Then came a long stretch of surf-beaten sands, shading off into a gently sloping upland, which, to the distant eye, seemed covered with verdure. Not a sign of human habi tation or human handiwork was to be seen for the entire stretch of coast, save a lonely lighthouse and, some distance further south, a luckless steamer that had gone ashore in a gale some weeks 30 H Sappbire ot tbe Seas before. Abandoned and, granting that she was well insured, forgotten, she lay upon the reefs, the surf boiling about her sides and eroding its re morseless way to her shivering ribs, and the winds whistling a lonesome dirge amid her slack and di lapidated rigging. So desolate was the scene that 'twas hard to believe that only a few miles away, upon the southern side of the island, Samp son's guns, a few short months before, had boomed the death knell of fairer and stauncher ships than that poor old trader. Straight up from the fair, sloping upland rose a long line of low hills, a terraced formation that might well pass for a cleverly-devised and well-con structed fortress. Should occasion ever demand its fortification, the eastern end of Cuba could easily be made well-nigh impregnable. Behind the ter races towered range after range of grandly beautiful mountains, cloud-crowned and bathed in the rose- red and gold of the setting tropic sun. Over all was a purple haze that imparted to those terraced hills and majestic mountains a tinge as of a sapphire bathed in flame. ^ if^ v- 31 Panama and tbe Sierras Of all the two-faced frauds that nature ever con structed, the Caribbean sea is the worst. "How beautiful it is!" quoth he upon whom it hath deigned to smile. "How sick I was !" cries the luckless wight who hath traversed its blue waters when the "trades" were blowing adversely. I knew just how it would be. My fellow passengers had enlightened me from all possible standpoints, hence I was prepared — with a palm leaf fan and an extra supply of remedies for sea-sickness, and so I was not surprised to find the Caribbean glassy smooth and as blue as the azure seas of which all poets sing. The scent-laden trade-wind was blowing gently from off shore. Balmy and sweet the breeze, as 'twere a breath from out the gates of a garden of odorous blossoms. We were miles and miles from the nearest shore when land birds of varied and brilliant plumage began to alight upon the ship. Poor little storm-tossed waifs ! The trade--wind had not been gentle for long, and, blowing off the land, had wantonly kidnapped the feathered strays and borne them far out to sea. What tales of hard ship and privation they might have told. While wondering how their feeble wings could have kept the birds out of the maw of the hungry sea for so long, I was fairly startled by what one might 32 H tlarrx) IRaconteur have thought an apparition — a gorgeous, many- hued butterfly, that came floating leisurely along as though out on a holiday in gala attire. The magnificent wayfarer would not condescend to alight on the ship. He seemed astonished at first, by the unexpected intrusion of human kind upon his pleasure paths, then, with a resentful flutter of his beauteous wings, flew up and up, above the bridge, where he hung vibrating until the un sentimental officer on watch made a grab at him, when he whirled contemptuously away toward the open sea and was lost to view. Frail little crea ture, what was thy fate? Was it bird, or fish, or wave? Ai > >- Not the least picturesque feature of my vaca tion days was the bluff old mate of the sturdy Petrel. A rough sea dog of the old regime was he, weather-beaten and to the manner born. "Old Bill," the sailors called him, "off watch" and out of the stern old fellow's hearing, "Mr. Hoskins, sir," when addressing him directly. As I am off watch and he cannot hear me. Old BiH he's going to be. 33 Panama and tbe Sierras Bill was as gay and blithesome a liar as one could wish to meet, but he had a talent for story-telling that appealed to my sympathies, hence I greatly appreciated his yarns, from the statement that he had been "to sea for nigh on forty years, an' never learned to swim," to his blood-curdling yarns of his narrow escape from a Spanish man-of-war that was laying for that same old Petrel during the recent war. As the affair was a stern chase and the Petrel got clean away, the story was a reflection on the valor of the American navy. The Petrel couldn't steam over nine knots an hour to save her engines, and if a Spanish cruiser couldn't catch her, Sampson, Schley & Co. deserve mighty little credit for destroying Cervera's old tubs, anyhow. Patriotism impels me to believe that Bill, as usual, was lying. It is not often that a moldy, antiquated, worm- eaten "chestnut" of a story is worthy of remem brance just because it is a chestnut, but Bill told such a one. I was wont to listen to all of his yarns very attentively; I had heard and read much of the yarns spun by men who "go down to the sea in ships," and was anxious to add some to my reper toire "So, ye want another yarn, do ye. WeH,'mebbe ye never heard this one. 'Twas about a boy that 34 H Salted Cbestnut run away ter sea. He went all 'round the world an' was gone away from home a long time. When he got home again, his old mother asked him ter tell her some of the funny things he'd run across in his travels. 'Well,' says he, 'I've run across some mighty queer things. Why, mother, do-wn in the West Indies where I was last spring, on a ship in the sugar trade, I saw a country where there was mountains all made of sugar. Windin' 'round them sugar mountains was rivers of the finest old Jamaiky rum I ever tasted.' " 'You don't say so !' says the old lady. 'Well, well, well, who'd ha' thought it ? Real old Jamaiky rum!' " 'Oh, that 'aint nothin', says the boy. 'We was anchored off Valparaiso one Sunday mornin,' when all at once we heard some feller hollerin' ; "Hello, there, Cap'n ! I say, hello, there !" We looked all over the ship without findin' anybody, till finally the cabin boy spots a merman, settin' on the haw ser and floppin' his old tail 'round like a mackerel. When he sees the Cap'n, he takes off his hat real polite like an' says, says he. '"Scuse me, Cap'n, but would you mind shiftin' yer anchor a bit? You've dropped it inter my front yard right in front of my door. My wife wants to go to church, an', b'gosh, she can't git out." 35 Panama and tbe Sierras " 'Well, of course, the old man said he'd shift the anchor. The merman says, "Thankee very kindly, sir," an' with a flop o' his fishy tail dove out o' sight.' " 'Do tell,' says the old lady, 'That was real kind of the Cap'n. But say, John, did ye see any queer animals while ye was gone?' " 'Oh, yes,' says John, 'I saw stacks of 'em. Why, mother, ye just orter see the flyin' fish in the Caribbean sea.' " 'Hold on there, John !' says the old woman, 'Did you say flyin' fish?' " 'Yes, mother, flyin' fish.' " 'Now, just lookee here, John,' says she, 'I be lieve what you say about the mountains of sugar an' rivers of rum — I've hearn tell of them — an' that story about the merman is all right, 'cause mermen's wives has ter go ter church same as other folks, but, when you try to stuff yer pore old mother with yarns about flyin' fish, yer goin' a leetle too far, John, jest a leetle too far.' " Of which story, more anon. Ai Ai Afi 36 a 3free*Silverite "Billy Bryan," the sailors called him, whereat I wondered muchly, and made sundry and divers in quiries for enHghtenment. I failed to get much information that could be reHed upon, however. It seems that, while Billy was a highly respectable monkey of the ring-tailed variety, his pedigree and other details of his history were shrouded in the gloomiest gloom — a sort of Stephen Crane gloom, the kind you can "hear" if you Hsten intently. He had been the property of a sailor, who had died at Panama of "Yellow Jack," and had been kept aboard the ship mainly because of his "cussedness," rather than from any sentimental regard on the part of the sailors for the "bunky" that was dead and gone. A dead sailor is to his mates at best, only — a dead sailor. Some said that his previous owner had called the monkey Billy Bryan because he had been caught in Guatemala — a free silver country. Others again, thought he was named after the distinguished statesman from Nebraska because he hadn't a ghost of a show to be elected president of the United States. This was hardly good reasoning as to the monkey's political pros pects, for within the memory of man "monkeys" have been known to rise to that exalted position. Of course, the application was justifiable enough as to the "Boy Orator of the Platte," but, some- 37 Panama and tbe Sierras how, the explanation was not sufficient. The only point of real similarity between Bryan and his Simian namesake lay in the fact that the former is a lawyer, and the latter characterized by preda tory habits. This, too, was insufficient to explain the monkey's name. A mystery, then, it must ever remain. Billy was very wise in his day and generation. He had acquired a thirst for the liquids in the steward's buffet that was a glowing tribute to the memory of Darwin. I had heard of monkeys that were "almost human," but I had never before en countered one that was thoroughly human. Billy would get blind drunk, he was an infernal thief and as big a liar as a fellow who couldn't talk man-talk could possibly be, and would invariably return evil for good whenever he had any choice in the matter. Oh, yes, Billy was a very anthropoidic monk. Billy had the run of the ship from time to time, and on such occasions made life one continual round of enjoyment for the passengers. There Vi^as nothing too mean for him to do. His last exploit was a murderous assault on the cap tain's pet cat.^ Had it not been for the interven tion of one of the sailors, tabby would have been food for the sharks. Billy was proceeding to push 38 •'BILLY" IN VILLAINOUS MEDITATION. Bs /EDean as a ^an her under the bulwark netting and into the sea, when he was discovered and his nefarious plans upset. But I failed to appreciate fully how very human that precious monkey was until I tried to do him a good turn one day. He had been deprived of the freedom of the ship after his felonious — "felini- ous" it should be, I suppose — assault on the cap tain's cat. On fair days, however, he was brought on deck by a sympathetic sailor, who had stuck to the long-tailed rascal through all his evil conduct. He was tethered to a rope near the ship's bell. Here he moped and sulked, and concocted new schemes of villainy. Vvliether he despaired of get ting into any more mischief, became tired of life and, in a fit of melancholy, tried to hang himself, or got into the predicament accidentally, I cannot say — suffice it that I found his monkeyship sus pended by the neck in such a manner that, if help had not been at hand, his gentle spirit would bave been wafted into the monkey heaven quicker than I have written the account of his misfortune. Now, I had no love for that particular monkey, in fact, I hated him as — well, as much as my gentle and forgiving spirit permits me to hate. In general, the prospects of parting company with him was not in the least abhorrent to me, but I lean some- 39 Panama and tbe Sierras what toward Buddhism, and I didn't like to think of that miserable Httle fiend coming back to earth again. He might be transmogrified into a popu list, a "professor" of osteopathy, or worse still, a "kissing bug," (Hobsonia Oscillator ius.)* And so I interposed, got a stay of proceedings, and, by what a distinguished lawyer friend of mine calls a "bill of reviver" — known to medicine as ar tificial respiration — succeeded in resuscitating him. Billy was meek enough for an hour or so after his painful experience — he was too weak to look for mischief. Finally, however, he recovered suf ficiently to enable him to climb to the top of the bell, where he sat in moody silence. Feeling that my assistance in his recent trouble entitled me to the monkey's friendship, I started toward him with the view of condoling with him. He waited until I was fairly within range and then, with a snarl that would have done credit to a Scotch terrier, sprang right at my face. Fortunately he miscal culated and, having reached the end of his rope, landed at my feet. Being willing to seize upon any portion of my anatomy that happened to be handy, he immediately set his vicious teeth in the *Notice is hereby given that this addition to natural history nomenclature is protected by copyright. 40 Just Xifte a patient calf of my right leg. Having thus revenged him self upon the supposed author of his recent misery, the little imp sprang back to his perch upon the bell and proceeded to swear at me in all the shades and variations of the monkey language. Had my friend. Prof. Garner, been there, he might have added some veritable gems to his Simian vocabu lary. Had I ever entertained the slightest doubt as to the correctness of the evolutionary doctrine, this last evidence of human nature in that monkey would have dispelled it. The worst of it was that Billy was not in the habit of brushing his teeth with antiseptics, hence I had a nice little infection in the bite and a resulting ulcer that lasted for some weeks. There is an ugly scar upon my leg, which has decided my political trend whenever, in future, the distinguished apostle of free silver is a candi date for "any old office." I wiU not lend the Hmb for campaign material, however; it might be — well, submitted to too much traction. Queer are the ways of politicians. But I am now superior to the average voter. I'll have some tangible reason for my political creed on election day. Ai ^ Ai 41 Panama and tbe Sierras Sultry, vile-smeHing, dirty old Colon ! In the days of the Argonauts, who, in quest of "The Golden Fleece," traversed the Isthmus of Panama en route to the "land of mines and vines, of Howland and Aspinwall's steamship lines," this ancient town was called Aspinwall, in honor of the founder of the first line of steamships to The Golden West. With all due deference to Mr. Aspinwall, the pres ent name of the town is far more appropriate than its former patronymic. Tt is certainly flattering to the late Christobal — who is too dead to know — and expressive of the anatomic and physiologic re lations of the place to the rest of the American continent. WilHam E. Curtis has enthused over its quaint picturesqueness and beauty. Well, the distinguished W. E. C. must have gazed at the town from the bay through a glass, then shut his eyes and held his breath till well away from the place. The view from the harbor is, however, really very beautiful. As I saw them, the low, quaint buildings, the lofty palms and cocoanut trees, with the haze of the early tropic morning over all, were a picture fair to see. The sturdy sailors who dropped the anchor were matter-of- fact enough, but there was joy for me in the rat tling of the chain and the paying out of the hawser. But, after landing, and the novelty of watching the A MATTER-OF-FACT SUBJECT. Colon, nee Hspinwall dusky, perspiring stevedores and roustabouts and listening to their big, round Spanish oaths and monkey-like chatter has worn off, one sees Colon as it really is, and, unless he be much less fastidi ous than myself, he will not take away pleasant memories of the place. Poor old De Lesseps ! I don't wonder he went wrong. His prolonged resi dence in Colon should expiate any participation he may have had in that most colossal steal of modern times, the Panama canal. Oh, yes, that Colon is a dirty, fever-smitten and generally unhealthful place, and yet, it might be redeemed — I do not say that if it were "flushed,'' it might not — well, I don't like the place, anyhow, and will not be likely to visit it again from choice. Even its apparently secure, land-locked harbor is a delusion and a snare for the unwary mariner. When the breezes blow "for keeps," vessels are oft-times compelled to seek safety outside the bay. Colon is built upon a coral island, less than a mile long and a third of a mile wide. The island is very little above sea level and is connected with the main land by artificial embankments, built chiefly by the railroad company, which has spent $5,000,000 in improving the town. The climate of Colon and vicinity has been satir ically described as being divided into two sea- 43 Panama and tbe Sierras sons. "First, the wet season, from the 15th of April to the 15th of December, when people die of yellow fever in four or five days. Second, the dry or 'healthy season,' from December 15th to April 15th, when people die of pernicious fever in from twenty to thirty-six hours." Colon is a small place, but the time has been known during epidemics when forty or fifty people were buried daily in its cemetery. The town has been burned down once, but a few more first-class fires would be decidedly beneficial. #- j^- ^ "AH aboard for Panama !" How like old friends some things inanimate reahy seem. I am sure I recognized the very en gine that drew me over the isthmus in 186 — ; I don't care to tell what year, for I'm getting a bit "touchy" on the point of age. It had been so long since that memorable ride that I did not expect to see my old asthmatic friend again. But I know that it must have been the same. Somewhat de crepit, it is true, with a more strident and anxious intonation in its spasmodic wheezes, and a denser hue in its smoke and grime, but never-the-less the same old steed. More given to balkiness than of 44 Hn ©Id jfriend yore, and therefore less liable to get there on time, the venerable machine was still worthy of my affec tion and esteem as the first locomotive I had ever seen. Messteurs, the managers of the Panama railroad, don't say that it was not the friend of my youth — the memory of my first railway ride is too vivid. I could not have been mistaken. And the cars, too, must have been the same, else my memory betrayed me. But who cares for smoke, and dust, or bumping, rickety cars, or a wheezy engine, so long as the way Hes through Paradise. The Isthmus of Panama, as seen from the railroad, is a continuous panorama of tropic beauty. Palms and ferns in the wildest profusion, bananas, plantains, bamboos, cottonwoods and tall cocoanut trees line the way. It seemed as though we were traveling through a vast conservatory. Intertwined with the dense, tangled shrubbery were hundreds of wild morning- glory vines of every conceivable variety, and the forest in all directions was illumined by gorgeous orchids and countless other blossoms of many and varied hues. In many places the ivy-tangled trees and shrubbery are so dense that the forest is ap parently impenetrable. Now and again a bird of briUiant plumage flitted by, or a huge, gorgeous butterfly lazily winged his way among the flowers. 45 Panama and tbe Sierras Here and there a narrow pathway may be seen which is by no means inviting to the traveler. The closely-matted underbrush is too suggestive of snakes, which are there so numerous and large. Much of the land is swampy, and an explanation of the prevalence of severe malarial infection is not far to seek. From time to time bouquets of ex quisite flowers were offered for sale on the train, bouquets that would have enthused the coldest of mortals. As we reached the hiHs in the interior of the isthmus the scenery grew semi-tropic — in deed, it appeared very like that of the temperate zone. Only for a few miles, however, and then, down again into fairyland we went — and in fairy land we staid till the city of Panama was reached and that wonderful ride was but a memory. Ai Ai Ai Despite the tumble-do-wn and poverty-stricken appearance of most of the buildings in the towns along the Panama railroad, there are features of picturesqueness, novelty and beauty. Low, dark and decrepit as many of the houses are, their palm- thatched roofs and adobe walls appeal to the ar- 46 oH W OP'JiOa3 o Masside picturesques tistic eye as more pretentious dweOings could not do. In many instances the selection of building materials is most pecuhar. That corrugated iron is a suitable substance of which to construct a tropic habitation I very much doubt, yet a large proportion of the dwellings and stores are built of it. Where the walls are composed of other ma terials the roof is of corrugated iron. When the iron becomes corroded and dilapidated, it forms a most novel ruin. I succeeded in getting a very ex cellent illustration of an old, tumble-down hut of this description. The picture is especially striking in that a native pickaninny accidentally became mixed up with my subject. I had been seeking an opportunity to capture a picture of some of the native children, costumed a la mode, but without success. When my proofs were developed I was quite astonished to find that, in photographing the hut, I had also taken a little native urchin charac teristically arrayed in his "best suit of clothes." He had evidently been swimming in the big wooden bowl that may be seen near the hut, and was prob ably posing for the spanking which mammy was in duty bound to give him — when she caught him. To advertisers of soaps I will say that this urchin's picture is covered by special copyright, tho' with but Httle else. 47 Panama and tbe Sierras The population of the isthmus is most cosmopoli tan. It is especially characterized by Orientals. Typic Chinese, Japanese and Malays are met with. The native population is decidedly mixed. No where is the color line less sharply drawn than here. A large proportion of the people are of negro blood, the Caucasian element being mainly Span ish, as might be expected, considering the national ity of the earliest settlers and the fact that miscege nation is not so unpopular with the Latins as it might be. Pervading the whole is that native Indian blood which gives to the population those peculiar characteristics that distinguish the deni zens of all Spanish-American colonies. Whatever the mingling of bloods may be, Spanish is the uni versal language. At the time of this, my last visit to the isthmus, a "one-horse" revolution was in progress in Colom bia — revolution is the chief industry down there — and extra vigilance was imposed upon the poHce lest filibusters or other suspicious characters enter the country. As a result of this effort to prevent the invasion of their malaria-stricken repubHc by evil-minded marauders, we passengers were sub mitted to investigation by a "one-by-five" poHce officer. The investigation was very severe, con sisting of taking our names in a huge and formid- 48 flstbmian IDigilance able register. The policeman couldn't talk English, nor, I suspect, could he read or write in any lan guage, so we just signed any old name that hap pened to come handy. It may surprise the shade of Ward McAllister to hear that he is on the books of the Panama police, but he's there just the same. I put McAHister's name down because the officer was barefooted, and therefore merited rebuke. In deed, the rebuke was merited by the whole force of the isthmus. So far as I could judge, shoes are tabooed in that region. Ward surely cannot feet hurt by the misappropriation of his name, for he had excellent company. Such names as Admiral Dewey, Teddy Roosevelt, Charles Robert Darwin and General Miles would grace any register. As each distinguished name went down upon the big, dirty book, the officer bowed with the grace of a Chesterfield, smiling the while as though such inti mate acquaintance with great men warmed the very cockles of his heart. There is no isthmian town so humble that it can not afford a police force. Though there be but two huts in the place, one of them is sure to be deco rated with a huge sign announcing that therein is to be found the department of poHce. In the pic ture herewith appended may be seen the entire police force of one little town on duty bent. The 49 Panama and tbe Sierras emergency is evidently a serious one, for the "fin est" has a decidedly untropical "hustle" on him. Surely, nothing short of a riot call or an invasion of filibusters could so move an isthmian policeman. There is too much languor in the Colombian air, and too much restful apathy in the native blood. Ai Ai Ai Let it not be supposed that the photographic fiend has an easy time in securing photographs of the Panama natives. The only "snap" there is is in the machine. I had no end of trouble in getting pictures sufficiently interesting and characteristic to warrant the effort involved. My victims were shy and, I suspect, superstitious. They would have none of me. Such snap shots as I secured were "happy go lucky" and taken on the sly. On one occasion I made liberal offers of real American coin to the female guardians of a particularly bright and clean-looking row of pickaninnies, in the hope of securing a nearer view. FaiHng to cajole my victims, I took a hurried snap shot at them. The result was so iHustrative of the difficulties under which I labored that I am now well pleased vnth what bade fair to be a failure. Two women are SO ,(i.N ISTHMIAN POLICE FORCE ON DUTY BOUND. a Snap«sbooter's ^Troubles seen running away from the "Gringo devil," whilst one, more courageous than the rest, stands shak ing her warning finger at him in vigorous protest. The pickaninnies, four in a row, probably scared stiff by the demonstrations of their elders, and ah too conscious of their Sunday garb, show up like flies in a pan of new milk. Apropos of the children of the isthmus, there seems to be the greatest variance of opinion as to the proper garments for their adornment. I say "adornment" advisedly — protection for their tough little hides is hardly necessary in that tropic cH mate, and ethical considerations would seem to be at a discount. The youngster who has on more than a single garment is rare. Those who have this single shirt-like covering seem envious of those who haven't a stitch of clothing upon them — and these are many. As the shirt is rather abbre viated, the ethical importance of the garment is open to question. The most incongruous groups of children are to be seen ; children black as night, fair-haired and brown-skinned, red-headed and black-skinned, white-skinned and yellow-skinned, children with shirt and trousers, children with only a shirt and that of most unstable equilibrium, chil dren with not a vestige of clothing — whose native modesty is most diaphanous — all playing to- Sl Panama and tbe Sierras gether, as naturally as if there were no such thing as indecency in their language. And who shall say that innocence — and dirt — is not an all-suffi cient garb? But, some of the children I saw were just a trifle old for such costumes, and besides, they "ripen" rather early down there. Many of the children are very beautiful. I have seen, especially in the city of Panama, little dark- skinned beauties who would attract admiring at tention anywhere. In the towns along the road, I noticed that many of the children seemed un healthy. Their faces were pasty and anemic, their limbs spindling and fragile, and their abdomens markedly protuberant. Commenting upon this in the hearing of several gentlemen who live upon the isthmus, I was informed that their sickly appear ance, and especially their protuberant abdomens, resulted from the practice of clay-eating. It is probable that the clay contains arsenic in sufficient quantity to produce the characteristic effects of that drug. How far rachitis enters into the result ing nutritional disturbance is open to question. The principal industry of the isthmus seems to be the Panama lottery. AH along the road obtrude the signs of that more or less worthy institution. In every little town one of the more pretentious buildings is sure to bear the legend, "Lotteria de S2 < o Colombian Soldier? Panama." In one town the lottery agency is situ ated next door to a military barracks. It was quite entertaining to see the soldiers lounging about the door of the lottery office, comparing tickets and engaged in what was evidently a more or less ani mated discussion of the last lucky number. And what martial-looking feHows they were, to be sure ! Shoes and stockings were at a discount with them, their bayonets had no scabbards, half of their guns had no bayonets and some of the bayonets no guns ; their uniforms were — not uniform. But then, there was the commandante — oh, my, the commandante ! Solomon in all his glory was a gray mouse beside that official. How revolutions are possible in that country I cannot see. I can hear the reverberations of that gorgeous red and gold uniform even now. Ye gods ! if he had only had shoes — shades of Bonaparte and Wellington! A^ Ai Ai Not the least remarkable of the interesting fea tures of my several trips across the isthmus were the frequent views of the Panama canal — the grave of so many ambitions, confessedly the grave of De Lessep's honor, very nearly the financial S3 Panama and tbe Sierras grave of the French nation, and the cause of more heartaches and privations than perhaps any enter prise of modern times. How pathetic the fate of the great engineer, to whose fame the Suez canal had guaranteed immortality. Was De Lesseps really particeps criminis in this, the greatest steal of the century, or was he merely a pliant and un suspecting tool in the hands of unscrupulous stock jobbers and swindlers? Charitable though one may be, the impression obtrudes itself that a man of De Lesseps' engineering skiH and practical ex perience must have known that the scheme was a crooked one from start to finish. I do not claim to know much of engineering problems, but to me, a casual observer, the comparison of the tang ible results with the cost of the work up to the time the bubble burst, suggested that there had never been any serious intention of completing the canal, and that the scheme was a gigantic swindle from its inception to the time when the French nation refused to be longer fleeced and the boom in Panama stock collapsed. Evidences of waste and prodigality are seen on every hand. En gines, tram cars, railroad iron and construction material of all kinds, dump cars and steam shovels in suggestive profusion lie rusting along the rail road and the alleged banks of the canal. The ex- S4 VIEW OF THE PANAMA CANAL NEAR CULEBRA. TLbc Panama Canal planation of this enormous waste is not far to seek. Aside from the idle machinery and appli ances incident to an almost complete suspension of work on the canal, the rusting and decaying ma terial bears eloquent if mute testimony to many a fraudulent contract. Were the promoters hun gry for more money? They blithely assessed the stock. But the stockholders were getting restless and must be offered a raison d'itre for the assess ment. "Aha!" cried the promoters. "We will order more material and call upon the lambs to settle the bills." And order they did, and such a doctoring of biUs for suppHes ne'er before was seen. And the poor devils of stockholders had little opportunity to inventory the materials pur chased or to compare the stuff delivered with that ordered and paid for. Itemized and verified ac counts are not to say popular with promoters of huge enterprises. But what of the canal? "There you are !" quoth a fellow traveler who knew the ropes. "Where?" I asked, as guilelessly as only a Chicagoan could. "Why, right over there. Don't you see it ?" Well, I did see a sort of ditch, of a shallowness suggesting that the engineers had been afraid to Panama and tbe Sierras dig very deeply, lest they might discover that the wrong route had been selected. When I expressed my astonishment at the trivial amount of work done, the wise ones said: "Wait until you see the great Culebra cut." And I did wait, and I saw the cut aforesaid, and, while a vast amount of digging had been done, I wondered what on earth the row was all about, anyway. To one familiar with the work of Ameri can engineers, the Culebra cut is not Hkely to be a cause of paralysis or even great emotional excite ment. I am myself by no means phlegmatic, but I did not find the wonderful cut especiaHy exciting nor productive of a rush of blood to the head. Two hundred and fifty-six millions of dollars should have made quite a showing, but the canal itself is hardly big enough to bury that m-uch money in. As I looked at the work and thought of the cost, I wondered what our drainage canal commissioners would have done with that Panama ditch. I don't know how well they could have withstood tempta tion so far away from the stockholders, but I'll wager that, ere this, they would have had ships traversing the isthmus from ocean to ocean. Culebra is on the crest of the Andes, which with us would be called the "divide." It is character ized by the rankest of vegetation. 'Tis said that if 56 THE CULEBRA CUT-PANAMA CANAL- B Deadlg ©ccupatlon the railroad company did not keep men constantly employed in cutting it away from the tracks, the vegetation would hide the road in six months. And the waste and peculation in digging the canal was not aH. Broken hearts and blasted lives there may have been among the stockholders in La belle France, but here the patient toilers in the dirt died Hke poisoned flies. Winding in and out among the swampy plains and mountains of the isthmus slowly creeps the sluggish Chagres River. Who has not heard of the deadly "Chagres fever," the most malignant of malarial infections? Im agine the result when the deadly micro-organisms were stirred up and liberated by the picks and shovels of the laboring thousands, who, tempted by relatively high wages, flocked to work upon the great ditch. The "ready-made graves" along the route of the canal were not long empty. Some chance for his life had the native son of the soil; 'twas as if the sun had baked him until he was case- hardened and resistant to a degree, but the alien laborer — in most instances his doom was sealed. If he escaped a speedy death his after life was wrecked by chronic malarial poisoning with its train of physical ills. Air, water and soil, all were against him. Even slight deference to the laws of hygiene and practical sanitation was impossible. 57 Panama and tbe Sierras And yet, so dire is the struggle for existence that in this warfare with the soil new soldiers were ever ready to take the places of those who feH. And the Plasmodium malaricB, from its lair in the slimy ooze of the swamps, sang songs of praise and thanksgiving for its never-ending stream of vic tims. There are several reasons why De Lesseps should have been called the "Great Undertaker."* Apropos of the Chagres River, the non-expert is likely to wonder why the engineers of the canal did not utiHze it in the construction of the great waterway. Cogent scientific arguments and diffi culties innumerable have been offered in explana tion — but I am puzzled just the same. Would it have so far simplified the problem as to lessen opportunities for fleecing the lambs? I do not know what all the technical obstacles in the way of the construction of the canal may be, but I do not beHeve there are many that American engi neers could not speedily overcome. Such Httle progress as had been made has been through emer gency consultations with American engineers. One thing is evident to me, and that is, that unless. *To those who are desirous of knowing the facts and figures of the obstacles encountered in the construction of the Panama canal, I would recommend the perusal of "Five Years at Panama," by Dr. Wolford Nelson. 58 Slip'Sbod EuQineering American capital and American engineering skiH are applied to its construction the Panama Canal will never be more than it is now — a disagreeable memory in the minds of the surviving stockholders and a bad taste in the mouth of the French na tion. While the great engineering achievements De Lesseps had previously accomplished — notably the building of the Suez Canal — entitle him to our charity in considering the fiasco at Panama, cer tain facts suggest that he was at least in touch with the peculiar financiering of a scheme which almost eclipsed the South Sea Bubble. De Lesseps' ex perience in building the Suez Canal seemed to be ignored by him in his financial estimates and en gineering methods at Panama. Take, for example, the matter of rainfall. The rainfall at Panama is to that of Suez as is 128 to 9. The Panama railroad has been twenty feet under water at times during the rainy season. Was not this a very important point for consideration in making estimates ? One would think it had been forgotten. Was not the experience of the railroad builders suggestive of what might be expected in building the canal? It took five years to build the 47 miles of road, the first 23 miles occupying two years. And the build ers were in a hurry, too, for the travel across the 59 Panama and tbe Sierras isthmus to Cahfornia was then enormous. At one point a forty foot cut was made, which filled up with the first rainstorm. Tlie road-bed was then made on top of the greasy soil and rock that had slipped into the cut. The total cost of the road was $8,000,000. To iHustrate the slip-shod methods of surveying and making estimates, the following is pertinent: A swamp of considerable size was surveyed and contracts let for building the canal through it. When the work was started, however, it was found that below the fourteen feet of swamp ooze and sHme was an undeterminable thickness of solid rock. It was such blind ( ?) calculations as this that lent a somewhat dusky hue to De Lesseps' reputa tion. Surely he was not a fool, and, if not a fool, in what category should we place him? De Les seps set no less than twelve dates for the formal opening of the canal — the opening that never came. This amused the poor devils of stockholders and loosened their grip on their hard-earned francs. Can it be possible that the promoters of the canal did not know the deadly effects of the Pan ama climate and water? The fearful mortality among the laborers is well illustrated by the fate of a gang of 800 Coolies imported to work on the canal. Within a few months 600 had either died 60 Ube Xuxurs of ©fflce of fever or committed suicide. Some of the poor devils would actually go to the beach at Panama at low tide and sit down in the mud and rocks, there to await the rising of the tide. And there they would stolidly sit till the rising waters engulfed them ! Anything was better than a hell upon earth. The few survivors were finally shipped to Costa Rica. A few hundred workmen are shoveling, scooping and dumping earth, here and there along the canal, principally at Culebra — a pitiful attempt to back up the forlorn hope that some foreign power will buy the present company out. The work must not stop, else the Colombian government will seize, not only the canal, but the railroad, which is an integral part of the original canal scheme. But, is the game worth the candle ? I doubt it. A great waterway from the Atlantic to the Pacific there will yet be, and it will be an American national enterprise, but — 'twill not in my opinion be located at Panama. Nelson records some reckless and extravagant expenditures on the part of the Panama canal men that beat Boss Tweed at his own game.* One "Director General" lived in a house costing $ioo,- *W. Nelson, op. cit. 61 Panama and tbe Sierras ooo. His salary was $50,000 per year. He had a private Pullman car costing $42,000 and was al lowed $50 per day for expenses. Blush, aU ye drummers ! Later, he had a summer residence built at a cost of $150,000. One canal boss built a pigeon house for which the company paid $1,500. Another built a bathhouse costing the company $40,000. The Canal Company claimed to have $30,000,000 worth of machinery on the isthmus. Nelson stated twenty years ago that most of it lay rotting in the rain and mud. It wasn't worth tak ing away for old junk when he saw it, hence I can not be accused of exaggeration in my own state ments regarding the waste of material. But the scenery along the railroad is so beauti ful as to compensate somewhat for the disappoint ment experienced in viewing the canal. I presume, however, that its beauties would appeal more strongly to the layman than to a physician in search of rest and health. Artistic I am by instinct, and somewhat by education, but, gazing at the beauti ful landscape through the haze of a tropic morn ing, I could not help thinking of the deadly miasma of the vine-tangled swamps and lowlands that inter mingle with the green hills and smiling uplands of the isthmus. The railroad cost thousands of lives. The white man who did not succumb to fever 62 xrbe Citi? of Panama within six weeks was a phenomenon ; the Mongo lian succumbed still more quickly. The plasmo- dium malarice is not fair to gaze upon ; he is no respecter of persons ; he is vicious ; he is almost incoercible and, by the same token, he is deucedly inartistic as to both predilection and the effects of his handiwork. An engorged liver, an enlarged spleen or a chill and a sweat — an awfully unesthetic lot to select from. Panama is the grave of the Caucasian. During the period of activity on the canal, ready-made graves and second-hand coffins were constantly to be seen in the Panama cemetery — waiting for the next batch of fever victims. Ai Ai Ai Bizarre, picturesque, romantic, dingy, dirty, beautiful, sultry, feverish old Panama! How strange it seems that such a quaint, old-world city is so near us — in miles if not in accessibility. It was very hot in Panama — it is always hot when I am there. And yet, the heat, though oppressive, was made endurable by the uncharitable thought that m.y friends in Chicago were in all probability just then enjoying some of that delightful Febru ary weather which only our lake region affords, perchance even luxuriating in a blizzard. They 63 Panama and tbe Sierras were not sweating, I'll be bound. Oh, no — they were wondering whether an extra suit of flannels wouldn't be the proper thing. Abhor the heat? Not at all. On the contrary, I reveled in it. Despite its narrow, roughly-paved streets, Pan ama is one of the most interesting places conceiv able. Its quaint architecture is alone enough to please the fancy of the artist, but, enlivened as it is by the coloring for which the Latin Americans have such a decided penchant, the effect at first sight is as beautiful as it is striking. The external tints of the buildings run through varying shades of red, yellow, pink, gray and brown. Terra-cotta and pink are the prevailing shades. We of the north would consider such vivid coloring rather outrd I fear, but, somehow, it seems here not only natural, but very pleasing to the eye. It is prob able that the toning down and softening of the colors by age has much to do with the general effect. Many of the buildings are centenarians several times over. Their walls are time-stained and in not a few instances quite decrepit. And the beauty of the varying hues imparted to the one time brilHantly tinted walls bears indisputable evi dence that the long-gone architects builded wiser than they knew. Age brings ugliness alone to 64 THE SEA WALL— PANAMA. flstbmian flconoclasm structures of a modern type. Time, and change, and weather have but added new features of beauty and picturesqueness to these reHcs of generations past. How I wish that my camera might have re produced the coloring of the scenes at Panama. And the same regret applies to the scenes of my entire trip, especiaHy to those of the Central Am erican and Mexican coasts. How Httle that is pleasant has been said ot the Isthmus of Panama. Most of the uncompHment- ary descriptions that have been written of it have emanated from the inner consciousness of inartis tic travelers. Over that same inner consciousness has oftentimes hung the depressing, pall-like in fluence of the sultry climate — the traveler having seen the isthmus during an unfavorable season, and, perchance, under the sombre shadow of ma laria, with its attendant torpid liver and biHous view of things. One female writer descants on the reports she has heard of Panama, as follows : " 'Panama,' echoed one gentleman, 'a heH upon earth! A sink of yellew fever, of intermittent fever, of ague, of dirt, of fiery, burning heat!' 'Panama!' cried another, with a derisive laugh, 'I give you joy of it. Thermometer ranges from 96 to 100 in the shade. If you live six months, thank your stars.' 'Wefl,' a third gentleman observes de es Panama and tbe Sierras cidedly, 'I've never lived there myself, thank God, but I've crossed the isthmus, and I've been three days in the dirty town of Panama. The air of the isthmus laid me prostrate with fever and the bells sent me raving mad while I lay sick — that's all I know of Panama.' " 'Ye little ken, leddy,' says Sandy Partar, in his counsel to Alice Graeme, 'what it is to crass the says, and what a sair land it is ayont 'em. No'but it's pretty to look on, wi' its heaven o' blue an' its gran', fragrant forests, an' bonnie birds an' clear waters. But its' what aul Tam wad ha' called a painted sepulker, fair 'ithout, but 'ithin fu' o' cor ruption. What wi' favers, an' buccaneers, an' sar- pints, an' Spaniards an' 'ither reptiles, its nae place for Christian mon, muckle mair young leddies.' " This same writer, iconoclast that she is, would fain leave no redeeming feature to poor old Pana ma. Quoth she : "And what about Panama hats ? Alas, for the illusions of commerce ! There are reaHy no Panama hats. They are made chiefly in the neighboring republics of Ecuador and Peru, though some are manufactured in the interior of New Granada, but all are merely shipped from Panama." It seems that Guayaquil is the great central depot for Panama hats, the peculiar pita grass of which 66 A CORNER OF THE CATHEDRAL PLAZA - PAN A MA. a Costly Mall they are constructed being found most abundantly in the neighboring province of Christobal. It is also found on the Archipelago del Rey, forty miles south of Panama. This grass must be braided at night or early morning, as the heat of the sun makes it very brittle and renders working it im practicable. It requires three months for a native to make a really fine hat. Some of the hats thus constructed are almost as fine in texture as a su perior grade of linen, and sell for upward of fifty dollars, even at Guayaquil. When the pita grass is properly prepared it may, in an emergency, even be used for surgical sutures. Modern Panama was founded in 1673. Over the entrance of San Felipe Neri church, the most an cient ecclesiastic structure in the town, may be seen the date, 1688. Time was when it was one of the most important ports of the Spanish main. Being a storehouse for vast Spanish treasures, it was made a strong, walled city, with moat, gate and drawbridge. The old-time Spaniards built well, as remnants of their early masonry show. Although built largely by slave labor, the walls of Panama cost $11,000,000. Nelson relates a story of a Spanish king who went down to the coast of old Spain and tried to see Panama. Quoth 67 Panama and tbe Sierras he, "I thought from the cost of the walls, that they would be high enough to be seen from here."* Twenty years ago Panama had a population of fifteen thousand, five-sixths negroes, Spaniards, Indians, mulattoes, half-breeds and Chinese. The same population is claimed at the present day. My own casual estimate is not much more than half that number. The exportation of India rubber is one of the im portant features of Panama's commerce, though not so much is exported as in former years. Time was, evidently, when Panama was a very pious community, as is becoming a good old Catholic town. Much of the energy and wealth of the place in its early history was expended, appar ently, in the construction of churches and cathe drals — for which this particular camera fiend ren ders grateful thanks. One old, tumble-down, aban doned church — St. Dominic — stands as a monu ment of which the spirits of its builders of nearly two centuries ago need not be ashamed. Services were not always held within its walls. In an angle between the walls is a belfry of a practical kind, for here, beneath those time-stained befls, the priests *"Five Years at Panama." 68 cnW PQH.4 pqW ?: W !> m 8 O?: 70 Panama Divinities There is no great difficulty in getting along in Spanish-American countries. AH one has to do is to learn the language, and that is easy. I took a twenty minute, "teach you Spanish while you wait" course from one of the sailors on the way down to Colon, and the thing was done. To be sure, I really mastered only two words, but these sufficed. I was wont to call the men, amigo, and the women folks, bonita, on all occasions demanding con verse. Confidentially, I always wondered where my "amigo" carried his dirk, but as I neither de sired nor affected any degree of intimacy with my dark-skinned and somewhat truculent friends, I managed to preserve that international amity which pervades the relations of our blessed country with all other nations. It was somewhat irritating, of course, to be jeered at and ridiculed as a "Gringo" by half-grown lads and an occasional ribald grown up, but, inasmuch as nobody on earth but a Span ish-American knows just what the epithet impHes, I maintained my equanimity. Precisely on what grounds a grimy-looking sombreroed Mexican greaser, enveloped in a bright red serape, with huge spurs jingling at his heels, considers himself superior to an American citizen would be difficult to conjecture. He none the less regards the latter with contempt, and often with open derision. I 71 Panama and tbe Sierras should have Hked to recommend to some of those Caballeros, the careful study of a Httle affair that once occurred between the United States and Mex ico, but I never irritate sensitive people — especially those who carry knives and things. But about the ladies of Central America: I had heard much of the wondrous beauty of the fair sex in that far-away clime, and was prepared to be as much edified as a well-behaved and respect able middle-aged doctor could be, and stiH preserve his dignity and moral equipose. "Bonita," the beau tiful, eh? WeH, if ever a man equivocated, I did, when addressing those accentuated brunettes. Black and brilliant as to eyes they are, it is true, but black eyes alone can not redeem a greasy, un wholesome-looking skin, an uncleanly appearance and sloppy figure, over all of which hangs the by no means ambiguous savor of garlic. "Bonita!" Wow, wow ! I wot not. Apropos of the language, an American dollar goes a long way in making one's self understood down yonder. The American eagle on that same dollar has a sweet persuasive way with him that quite' captivates the hearts of our Spanish-Ameri can friends. And they are full of wiles, and fertile in resources for capturing our dollar — or such fractional parts thereof as may chance to come 72 Cbeap /rooney their way. I would suggest to the traveler who is unfamiliar with their ways, the advisability of load ing up with some of their own Colombian silver- tin before transacting any business in Panama. The ways of its tradesmen in the matter of ex change are devious and tricky, if their method of computation in figuring out the rate of exchange is to be taken in evidence. At the just and regular rate of exchange there is some satisfaction in trad ing with them, although few of them fail to add an extra tariff for the Gringo, who does not come that way often. Despite the tourist prices the souvenir hunter will be surprised at the cheapness of most things. Still, things are not cheap enough to redeem the still cheaper Colombian money. After one has fiHed his pockets with tinny coin at the rate of five for two, a few times, he is quite likely to question the arguments of the free silver- ites, and, after having had considerable trouble in getting rid of any surplus Colombian coin he may have left on hand on leaving the country, he is apt to raise his hat in reverence and esteem for our own currency as he thinks of the difficulty he has in holding on to his own blissful dollars. My friends of the free silver party, don't argue further with me until I have forgotten my experiences in Spanish America. Your doctrines may be sound, 73 Panama and tbe Sierras but — well, I suppose I am prejudiced, just the least bit. Who wouldn't be? I had always supposed that people in the tropics incline to vegetarianism as a matter of self-pre servation. I do not know how the masses live in Panama, but if the menus of the hotels are a fair criterion, they are not vegetarians by a long way. Meat, meat, meat ! — course after course of meat of varying kind and method of preparation. Being a vegetarian for the nonce, my stay at Panama partook of the nature of fast days. The water being under suspicion, and I being a tee totaller — likewise for the nonce — my lot was a most unhappy one. A^ Ai Ai It is pretty generally known that Panama is not an ideal health resort. Indeed, my own advice to others in search of health or recreation is to either avoid the place altogether or make pretty close steamer connections. I am pleased with my experi ence, and my various trips across the isthmus will always be a source of great satisfaction to me, but, of a truth, I would not again visit Panama save under the pressure of necessity. If one go"«- how ever, there is no time like February. 74 "Glnbealtbfulness of Panama The unsanitary condition of the city of Panama is not surprising. Much of the surrounding coun try is swampy, and the city itself is characterized by streets the picturesqueness of which cannot conceal the fact that they are deplorably narrow and stuffy. The houses are dark, badly ventilated, and, being built largely of adobe, would seem to be poorl)^ adapted to so tropic a climate. The water is said to be bad, but, it is claimed, this has very little bearing upon the health of the community. It certainly has no important status as a beverage, for the inevitable red wine is the universal drink, even among the very poor. The prevalent ab horrence of the external use of water probably has something to do with the general unhealthfulness of the place. That particular application of hydric oxide is apparently not a source of unrest among its population. Bathing for cleanliness' sake is an unknown quantity among the common people. Whatever the cause, yellow fever and severe types of paludal fever are ever present in Panama, and it behooves the traveler to pass through the place as quickly as is compatible with the accom pHshment of the object of his visit. As the maxi mum of danger is during the rainy season, it is wefl to defer visiting the isthmus until later. 75 Panama and tbe Sierras speaking of the houses in Panama reminds me of a very interesting feature of Spanish-American dwellings in general. No matter how stuffy the house may be, there is always an inner court, cor responding to an American backyard, in which the family passes much of its time. Although enclosed by high waHs, perhaps by the waHs of adjoining buildings, this court is still a breathing space, and as cool as may be in so sultry a clime. Adorned with palms, flowers and vines, the effect as seen through the open street doors is most pleasing. The enclosure might appropriately be termed an apartment or conservatory without a roof. To me, this court seemed the most important feature of the houses. Small wonder is it that the inhabitants are most often to be found lolHng about in their own backyards. Business is seemingly a second ary consideration. Manana — to-morrow — is the watchword, life being divided between the mid day siesta and the court of palms. The pearl fisheries of Panama were once fa mous, but, owing to the reckless way in which the natives tore up the oysters, are not very pro ductive. Very large pearls have been taken at the pearl islands of the Panama Gulf. It is interesting to note that pearls are formed by grains of sand 76 Panama from tbe Bay getting within the oyster shell and producing irri tation, with resulting Hme deposit about the for eign body. The bay of Panama is very beautiful, albeit a trifle impractical. It is so shallow, and the rise and fall of the tide is so great, that ships cannot find safe anchorage for several miles from shore. The offing lies among a group of smaH, mountain ous islands in the most picturesque spot imagin able. The sea is here ever smooth, and of a blue- gray hue that is an excellent foil for those verdant, emerald-hued isles that stud the bay like veritable gems of the sea. Upon one of these islands, owned by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, is a pure, sweet-watered spring from which the company's steamers are supplied. At the time of one of my former visits to Panama, a great strike of the dock hands and freight handlers was in progress. Not a steamer had left port for several weeks, hence much shipping had accumulated in the harbor. Fume and fret as the captains and owners might, the dignity of the dollar a day kings was sturdily upheld, until great loss on the one side and empty stomachs on the other compelled a settlement. Meanwhile, the idle ships in the harbor presented 77 Panama and tbe Sierras a picture fair to see — of which I have a pleasant memory, but, alas ! no photograph. Those wretched, wretched films ! As seen from the deck of the little steamer that conveys the traveler to her big sister ship away out in the offing, the city of Panama is a sight long to be remembered. The odd buildings with their beautiful coloring, and, above all, the sea wall with its lights and shades, its reds and browns and, here and there, the bright green patches of grass, de mand a more artistic pen than mine to do them justice. Ah, that beautiful sea wall! But, most beautiful of all was Old Glory, floating joyously in the breeze over the American consulate. As I looked upon that flag I recalled Mark Twain's description of the beautiful stranger ship in In nocents Abroad. Any old town, and any old ship, is beautiful where that flag flies. And, by the way, it means just a little more than it used to when seen in foreign lands, doesn't it? It seems to me that every American flag I see in alien ports now adays has upon it the endorsement of Dewey, and Sampson, and Schley, and a few other celebrities of recent vintage. Such endorsements make the flag good collateral. There was a time when the Eng lish Jack shone more resplendently, and demanded 78 a Sea TlBlanderer more profound obeisance than did the Stars and Stripes, wasn't there ? It used to seem that way to me, anyway. How times have changed since we gave Spain enough Manilla to hang herself with. Oh, my ! Ai Ai Ai Avaunt, ye regular Hnes of steamships ! Give me an old tramp, a "Wandering Willie" of the ocean, that goeth where it pleaseth the captain, and cometh as it pleaseth the elements. Give me a ship that starteth according to no man's watch and arriveth as only the heart of him who loveth the sea could desire. Such an one was the Car- pallo. Seedy as to paint, sooty as to sails, grimy as to sailors, and with engines that coughed and strangled like an old crone with chronic bronchitis, that ancient vessel is yet near and dear to my heart. Shaky old Carpallo — 'twill not be long ere thine ancient bones lie bleaching on the sands of Half-moon bay. Full oft hast thou rounded the classic protuberance of Pigeon's point, but thou art too senile to withstand the elements much longer. And when thou hast fulfilled thy destiny, I know that the last living thing to be seen will be 79 Panama and tbe Sierras thy doughty captain, standing on the bridge, trum pet in hand, waving his weedy red whiskers defi antly at the howling storm, and swearing at his drowning crew in seven languages. And why should not good old Captain Mc Gregor swear? He is braw, he is a canny Scot, and his crew — great guns, what a crew! Of ah the conglomerations of nationalities ever brought together, that crew was the worst. Russians, Japs, Malays, Greeks, Irish, Central-Americans, Ne groes and white Americans, jumbled together with but one bond of union — a common knowledge of Spanish — and but one feature of homogenity — an all-pervading tarry smell. Taken all in all, that crew would have put any ordinary band of ancient corsairs to the blush. Piercing as to eyes, frown ing as to brows, cruel-visaged, swarthy-skinned, and black-moustached — some of the lascars among them had a mien suggestive of midnight attacks, of cut-throats and poor devils of sailors walking the plank. But the crew was really a harmless lot. As the burly first officer expressed it, they were "not so bad, after all." To be sure, the offi cers had to go down in the "foc'sle" with their six-shooters occasionally, to quell an incipient riot, but, aside from an occasional playful stab in some luckless sailor's anatomy there was usually no 80 Sea Surgery harm done. One man was pointed out to me as having been rather worsted in an encounter with one of his mates. The latter had secured a machete while in port, and, coming up behind his luckless co-worker, tried to chop him in two. The blow landed upon his left shoulder blade, cutting through that bone and the superimposed muscles down, down through the ribs to the lung, exposing that important organ over a considerable area. The ship's doctor was not at hand at the time, and consequently the surgery of the case was somewhat crude. The patient's arms were trussed back by his brother sailors and the wound kept covered with a cloth wet with sea water. Strange to say, healing was prompt and the unfortunate sailor was soon on his pins again. Sea air is a great surgeon, and sea water not a bad antiseptic adjuvant, apparently. Ai Ai Ai How very similar are men of the sea. Like the first officer of the Petrel, the rough-and-ready first officer of the Carpallo was a great story-teller. So original, too. One of his stories edified me to a degree: Quoth he — 81 Panama and tbe Sierras "Say, mister, did y'ever hear about th' boy who'd been ter sea for a few years, an' went home, an' was teHin' his poor old mother sich a lot o' tough yarns ?" When the jolly tar began his tale I was gazing pensively over the rail, counting the big turtles that were placidly floating past, hence failed to recognize my old Atlantic friend. But I was soon aroused by — "Say, mother," says he, "down in the West Indies where I was one time, I saw some big mountains of brown sugar and a lot o' rivers a' windin' 'round among 'em that was full o' the best Jamaiky rum you ever — " It was too much ; I fled to the other end of the ship and sat down for a chat with the chief en gineer, a most companionable old fellow, who seemed to have conceived quite a fancy for me. He was taking his evening lay-off on deck and was as sociable as only a man of the sea can be over his pipe. "Ah," I thought, "how much better this is than hearing old chestnuts for the hun- dretli time." "By the way," I said. "Why is it that you sailors don't pick up some new stories. Every man who has told me a story on this trip has given me the same old yarn about " 82 anotber ©Id jfriend "Oh, well," interrupted the engineer, "that's the way with some folks. Now, I always try ter tell a new yarn or nothin', an', by the way, speakin' o' yarns, here's a brand new one that I picked up last trip. Well, you see, 'twas like this. There was a boy up in 'Frisco that went ter sea, an* was gone about four years. V/hen he got home he was tellin' his poor old mother about " "Oh, yes," I said, with a gasp, "about mountains of sugar, and rivers of rum, and anchors, and mermen whose wives go to church, and flying fish and " "Well, by the great horn spoon! Where the devil did you hear that?" "Oh," I replied, "I'm a Buddhist. I have been on earth before, hundreds and hundreds of times. I was at one time an Egyptian, and while in that state I once heard Ptolemy the First whisper that yarn in the patient, long-suffering ear of the lis tening Sphinx. Oh, yes, it is a great old story." And in the poor old engineer's perturbed coun tenance did I find revenge for all that had gone before. But 'twas the last straw, and I went down to visit the monkeys, parrots and things the sail ors were taking home to their friends. I hoped to 83 Panama and tbe Sierras get some new stories, which the same was fraught with disappointment, for the monkeys and birds all talked Spanish, and "amigo" and "bonita" cajoled them not. Ai > Ai Somehow I never grow tired of the sea. There are those who claim that it is monotonous, but, are they not like the man who could not see the woods for the trees ? On the blue Pacific, especially, one should never grow weary. There is always some thing to be seen that is instructive and entertain ing, to say nothing of the things that appeal to the esthetic faculties. The varying lights and shades of the water, the flight of the tireless gulls, the multiform and beauteous clouds, the gorgeous sun rises and sunsets, the many-colored seaweed float ing by, the ever-changing moon, the scurry of the flying fish — these alone are enough. And what en tertainment the fauna of the Pacific affords. Gulls and petrels in infinite variety, flying fish, porpoises, whales, black fish, turtles that would make an epi cure's mouth water and drive a French chef crazy, and snakes ! Don't ever tell me that there are no 84 Sea SnaMes and TTbings such things as sea serpents. I've seen 'em — and, confound your sarcasm, I hadn't been drinking, either ! Striped in black and yellow, zebra-wise, and as "squirmy" as any of their brethren of the land, these reptiles wriggled about upon or near the sur face of the water by hundreds. We ran into their snakeships somewhere off the coast of Guatemala. They swam about us in abundance for a day or two and then disappeared. Now and again, while in harbor, a huge shark would swim lazily about the ship, looking for trouble and provender. In some of the ports num bers of big red-snappers could be seen swimming about in the clear water. Wary fellows they were, too. They turned their noses up contemptuously at lines and hooks, no matter how cleverly they were baited. I tried to harpoon some of them, but my knowledge of the gentle art of spearing fish would not make a large book, and I only suc ceeded in losing the respect of the sailors — ^who had probaibly learned discretion in "harpoonage" by experience. So far as I can recollect, there was but one fish caught on the entire trip. One of the sailors captured a twenty-pounder. Did the scaly prize find his way to our table ? Not much. Down into the foc'sle 'he went, and there he staid until 85 Panama and tbe Sierras the fortunate man and his nearest friends had re duced him to his primitive osteologic elements. My, how my mouth watered for one of those golden-red beauties ! The sailors just missed capturing a hugh shark one evening. A ten-footer got on the hook, and a great fight he made of it. Everybody rushed forward to be in at the death. The water was very phosphorescent at the time, and the great, ugly fish, in his struggles, beat the water into flames and fountains of fire. The sailors had him almost within reach, when, presto change ! the line broke and then — iwell, in the archives of my memory is registered a long, swiftly-moving phosphorescent streak that marked the exit of that wonderful "fish that got away." Apropos of sharks, I took occasion while in the tropics to make inquiry as to their voraciousness in attacking man. Much to the discredit of the "man-eater" of the yellow-covered Hterature of my boyhood's credulous days, I found that most of the people who profess to know all about the shark and his habits, claim that he rarely attacks man. Indeed, many of those who should be good author ity assert that the shark never attacks living man, although, like the buzzard of the sea that he is, he 86 XEbe Bu33ard of tbe Sea IS m no wise averse to devouring dead ones. In the bay of Panama, which is thickly infested with sharks, I saw not only natives fearlessly diving for coin, but white men swimming about with all the sang froid imaginable. I had almost arrived at ¦the point where I would have ibeen willing to go in swimming when — I again changed my mind regarding sharks. I ran across a native boatman in Acapulco, one of whose friends and comrades was then lying in the hos pital with an amputated leg for which a shark was responsible. The poor fellow was diving for clams, when Mr. Shark came along, and, being not at aH prejudiced against a brunette diet, pro ceeded to lunch off the native's leg. The man was rescued, but not tiH the member was so badly lac erated that amputation was necessary to save his life. Having verified the story by other and re liable witnesses, I crystalHzed the question of man- eating sharks as follows : "Do sharks bite?" "They do." "How often?" "Oh, just often enough to keep me from bathing in tropic harbors." Way down in Florida, once on a time, I was frightened by a shark while bathing. One of the 87 Panama and tbe Sierras "oldest inhabitants" tried to make me believe 'twas a porpoise, but as he was "plugging" for that par ticular beach, I knew better. He then proceeded to calm my fears by assuring me that "sharks never bite in less'n ten foot o' water." And so, my nerv ous friends, who fain would tathe on beaches which sharks do muchly frequent, be ye consoled and unafraid. Should a leg be bitten off while in the salt, salt soa, be calm, and measure the depth of the water. An' it chance to be "less'n ten foot," 'twas not a shark, and therefore complain not. I fain would remark, in passing, that this rule is not covered by copyright. The world is welcome to it. For some reason, to me unknown, sharks are not so much in evidence in the Central Ameri can and Mexican harbors as they were on my first trip, many years ago. Their scarcity on mj last trip could hardly have been a coincidence, for the same was true of my second visit, a year before. Time was when they were very thick in those waters. Whether they have been gradually leav ing for less frequented and more congenial spots I cannot say. Still, scavengers as they are, one would expect them to find the more populous places better feeding grounds than wilder spots. Their disappearance could hardly have been due to an ©cean Gymnast their having been hunted, for they are neither use ful nor ornamental, and the native attitude toward them is one of supreme indifference. Ai Ai Ai It is interesting to watch the antics of the pilot fish, who so often dance attendance on the shark. The mackerel-like little fellows may be seen play ing about in the water as though out for a frolic. A piece of meat is thrown overboard, when, presto change, they become very business-like. They ex amine the meat critically and then suddenly dis appear. Presently they return, accompanied by a huge shark. Mr. Shark coolly devours the spoils while the pilot fish hover about waiting for crumbs. Ai Ai Ai What is more graceful or prettier than the antics of a school of porpoises, playing about the bows of a ship? The expression "fat as a por poise," is a vilification of the wonderful creatures. Plump, sleek and round, they may be — they are yet so swift as to shame the fastest vessel. How like lightning they dart recklessly athwart the ibows as 89 Panama and tbe Sierras if defying the ship to strike them. And with what nonchalance they dart away, faHing far astern, or diverging widely from the ship's course, only to overtake the vessel again without apparent effort! Suddenly, without known reason save their erratic playfulness, they disappear and not one is to be seen, perhaps for hours and hours, then they can be seen by the dozen on all sides, leaping and dart ing through the water, always headed toward the bow of the vessel. High up out of the sea they leap, as if vying with each other in porpoise ath letics, the sun shining upon their sleek sides, and the vapor jetting up from their blow-holes like the spouting of so many miniature whales. And how they puff — "like porpoises" — ^as they spurn and churn the water with their powerful double-pad dled tails. When, at night, the water is phos phorescent, a school of porpoises may often be seen careering about the bows with fiery scintilla tions, like so many rockets. Ghostly shapes they seem as they dart to and fro, leaving a silvery, showery trail that marks their course for many yards. On such nights the porpoise might be called, not ineptly, "the comet of the seas." And the porpoise is so sociable, too. He should really be named the "diplo-porpoise," for he travels two and two. He may travel two-four-six, but he evi- 90 a "Scrapper" of tbe Sea dently avoids odd numbers, at least the odd por poise is a rarity. If there is anything happier, jollier, or more agile than a school of porpoises on mischief bent, I have not yet seen it. Ai Ai Ai We have been led to beHeve that, without the modern nev/spaper and its "scrap talk" pugilism would be a lost art. This is not true. We had no newspaper on board to recount the wordy and other battles of the fighters, yet marine champions were greatly in evidence. When a thrasher starts out for championship honors and chances to meet with a huge whale, the casual observer is apt to conclude that marine pugilism is a very earnest affair. The thrasher himself is really a small mem ber of the whale family, but what he lacks in size he makes up in ferocity. He is only a middle weight, at best, but so belligerent is he that he is willing, aye, even anxious, to go out of his class and concede weight. His big relative is his special antipathy, and he will go far out of his way to make life miserable for him. The resulting com bat reminds me of a fight between a king'bird and a hawk. The blubbery leviathan of the seas is 91 Panama and tbe Sierras too clumsy for his smaHer antagonist, and busies himself largely in efforts to escape, meanwhile do ing the best he can to land a "knock-out" with his huge tail upon his foe's anatomy, in which effort he signally fails. On the other hand, Mr. Thrasher, with his nimbler and quicker tail- strokes, slaps away at the big fellow until one wishes that a referee were at hand to stop the one sided rumpus. I have never seen the end of one of these sea fights, but, I presume, the thrasher keeps up the battle until he is tired of the fun or has drowned his gigantic foe. The thrasher is by no means a fair fighter. When he especially wishes to make a finish fight with a whale, he hires a sword-fish to help him, and then 'tis "all day" with the poor leviathan — he is hammered and thrashed, and strangled and punctured, untH he is only too glad to give up the fight — and the ghost. Whales become very numerous along the Pacific coast as the more northern and colder waters are reached. After passing Cape San Lucas, es pecially, they become very abundant. They do not average very large in these waters, however, al though huge fellows are occasionally to be seen, spouting away as if they were employed to furnish 92 a Burial at Sea sea-fountains at so much per day. From these big "right whales" the size scales down to that of those lesser sea mammals which are minimized under the misnomer, "black-fish." Ai Ai Ai It devolved upon a poor unfortunate fellow in the steerage of our -ship to demonstrate conclu sively the dangers of tarrying at Panama. This man had taken passage on a ship upon the Atlantic side, which failed to connect at the city of Panama with any of the regular line steamers. After a few days' delay he secured passage on our ship. It seems that during his stay in Panama the unlucky man stopped with a family in the poorer quarter of the city. For some reason he could not drink other fluids, and especially the universal beverage, wine, and was compeHed to drink the notoriously bad water, which, in his ignorance, was taken un boiled. Whether infected water or germ-laden air was responsible for his illness will never be known, but he was brought aboard the vessel ill and was put to bed, never to rise again. Why he was per mitted to take passage would be difficult to con jecture, for not only the lives of the passengers 93 Panama and tbe Sierras and crew, but also — what was doubtless more im portant in the eyes of the owners — ^the commercial interests of the vessel were put in hazard. But, be that as it may, the person most -vitally interested will never offer an explanation. He died one afternoon while we lay in the port of San Jose de Guatemala. I did not see the case, nor was I even supposed to be a physician, hence it may be presumptuous in me to venture an opinion, but, from the variety of mysterious and inconsistent diagnoses offered by the ship's doctor, the speedy termination of the case, the amount of carbolic acid with which the corpse was inundated, the unseemly haste of the burial, and the naive statement of the doctor in charge that his patient would have gotten well "only his kidneys struck work and he died of uremia," I drew certain inferences which hardly demanded the corroboration afforded by the com ment of one of the dead man's steerage compan ions, that "he was awful jandiced 'fore he died." But then, after aU, Yellow Jack is a nasty thing to appear on a ship's record, and quarantine is so tedious and expensive that I was glad to land at my destination without bother. Again, I don't mind all the yellow fever germs in Central 94 a Burial at Sea America — here in my Chicago home. The bacillus icteroides has no terrors for me, now that I am on dry land amid our lake breezes. My calling should have made me caHous to such experiences, for the physician usually comes to look upon death as being quite as natural as life, and, therefore, not a thing to be abhorred, but, somehow, this was different. I had witnessed a burial at sea before — when a lad — ^but the re sponsibihties of life sat lightly upon me then, and I was more entertained by the novelty of the affair than stirred to my inmost depths by its gravity. But, in the mature and full realization of all that unfortunate death and far-away burial meant to the family and friends of the dead man, who, in the full bloom of health and rugged manhood, had left them only three short weeks before, I could not but be profoundly moved. Were he pauper or mil- Honaire, 'twould have been the same — overboard he would have gone. The wise native authorities of San Jose would not permit a land interment, hence burial at sea was imperative. Ai Ai Ai 95 Panama and tbe Sierras The dusk of the tropic evening was just begin ning to settle upon the hiUs of the Guatemalan coast as we weighed anchor and stood out to sea. The moon -was rising Hke a great orange-red ball, when, at the imperative behest of the signal beH, the engines slowed up and finaHy became stHl. Very few of the passengers and crew knew of the death and con/templated funeral. With bared heads these few stodd silently and reverently around the canvas-wrapped body while the captain read the brief and solemn words of the sea burial service. The long, ghastly canvas cerements, with the weight of clumsy furnace-iron at the foot — for we had no shot^lost all their obtrusive hideous- ness under the folds of our glorious Stars and Stripes. The body, feet foremost, lay upon a plat form extending out over the foc'sle rail, so that only a slight inclination was necessary to precipi tate it into the sea. Just as the captain finished the beautiful service for the dead, the moon, now weU up in the heavens, emerged from behind a bank cf fleece-Hke clouds, illumining the final scene with a flood of dazzling tropic beams. "Let go !" com manded the captain, tersely, as he removed the flag. The platform was tilted over the rail, and "swish!" with a noise like a rocket in beginning flight, down, down went the body into the calra, 96 a Gruesome probability waveless sea. The foot weight was hardly suffi cient, or, perchance, the incline was tipped too much, and the body lurched forward as it fell, strik ing the water with a loud splash that gave one creepy chills to hear. The ghostly thing then set tled slowly down, and with a gurgling sound as of suction, and a wavy undulating motion, disap peared from sight as might so much offal or the carcass of a dead dog. Why should this be hor rible? Well, because the poor fellow was alone and friendless ; because his burial away off there in the broad Pacific added to his death an extra sting for the dear ones he left at home, and more especially because the second mate answered, sen tentiously, when I asked him how deep the water was at the place of burial — "WeH, it's about two miles er thereabouts ter bottom, but he'll never git there." "Oh," I said, "the pressure of the water, you think, will bring the 'body to a standstill. But, you know, that's disputed." "Pressure, h — 1!" he replied; "sharks, sir, sharks !" Afi Ai A^ 97 Panama and tbe Sierras "What is so rare as a day in June?" Pick your spot for the June day, my friend, and I'll more than match it with an evening upon the Pacific. Would that I had the ibrain and pen of a Loti or a Hearn, to depict the exquisite beauty of those tropic nights, so filled with the dreamy, sensuous loveli ness of gHmmering sea and sky, with that faint suggestion of mist, a dim, almost invisible purplish veil, through which blazed forth the glory of tropic stars. Venus, our star of evening, oft threw a slender, brilHant shaft from the jeweled dome o'er- head to the waveless mirror below. Should the imagination wander, it were not difficult to fancy that silver beam a fitting path by which the souls of shipwrecked mariners, supposed to be incar nate in the bodies of roving sea gulls by day, might ascend to rest at night. It is by no means strange that the novelist so pften has recourse to the sea for his love episodes. The quality of the human material from which he manufactures them does not matter much, I fancy. The enchantment wrought by the romantic beauty of a summer night on a southern sea is all-suffi cient. The occasion is so propitious and the stage setting so complete that all the author has to do is to throw a couple of human beings of different 98 Mbite flliabts sexes upon the boards and the deed is done. I suspect that even a novelist of mean ability would not find it difficult to construct a tender romance Sm'ith a couple of mannikins and the assistance of a tropic night at sea. Even the pale, dead moon is thawed and warmed to glowing fiery life, as it emerges from a horizon fanned by breezes of Elysian mildness. The most prosaic nature must needs be inspired by flights of poetic fancy. To me, as I lolled back in my steamer chair and puffed my lonely cigar — iwhich seemed so commonplace — the beauty of those nights had no alloy save its evanescence. Slow as our good ship was, we were leaving the tropics behind all too swiftly. The gulf of space between me and the work-a-day world seemed infinite, yet it would soon be passed. Beyond that gulf lay overcoats, and steam heat, and work — and I don't like work. Oftentimes when the moon was at its fuH, I was wont to go to the bow and watch the play of the phosphorescence upon the water. This phenomenon is especially fine on the Pacific, off Central America, where it transcends all that I have ever read or seen of it.. The waves seemed mingled with lambent fire, which, dazzling \vbite upon their crests, broke into line after line of varying shades of scintillant red, green, lilac and 99 Panama and tbe Sierras blue. As the water was churned up by the ship's bows, the play of beautiful colors spread out and out, fan-wise, for many yards, until they were lost in flickering rosy gleams upon the outermost line of dying waves. Now and again a porpoise leaped out of the sea, the many-colored water dripping from his shining sides, and, plunging back into the depths with a resounding splash, added to the com motion that was so essential to the play of the beautiful, luminous waves. Beneath the water he iwas a meteor, with a trail of showery sparks ; when he leaped out of it, he scattered color about in a prodigal fashion that would have driven an artist out of his -wits. And Sir Porpoise is no mean painter himself. His handiwork may be but a re flection of the joy within him, but it is marvelous, just the same. Such fantastic and varying shapes and masses of color I Just as one exclaims, "Ah ! that's the prettiest yet," the rainbow-crested wave breaks into a dozen new forms, each more beauti ful and fantastic than that which has gone before. Ai Ai Ai 100 a Beautiful Coastline A recent writer in one of our monthly maga zines, in describing a trip down the Mexican and Central American coast, from San Francisco, stig matized the scenery as monotonous and uninter esting. Now, it may be that my taste is per verted, or, perchance, it all depends on whether one is headed toward Frisco or away from that in teresting town. Possibly our captious critic saw so many beautiful features in the landscape that he experienced a surfeit of them. Or, still more likely, he frequented the -wrong side of the boat and grew full sore in that he did not see the shores of the Orient, thousands of miles away. What ever the explanation may have been, that critic had best dip his pen in ink and throw away his indigo bottle the next time he writes of that won derful coast. Seen from the deck of a steamer, the course of which is not too far out at sea, the coast, from Panama clear to Frisco, is one majestic, beautiful panorama. Wonderful mountains, cloud-capped and grim, standing out on the horizon miles away from the coast, yet looking near at hand ; a shore line studded with low 'niHs and rocky cliffs, with here and there a stretch of cottony white surf and snowy sands, and, at frequent intervals, the most remarkable land-locked harbors imaginable — are 101 Panama and tbe Sierras these features of monotony? Many of the hills are parti-colored, the varying shades of the scanty vegetation, rocks and soil that cover them being brought out most beautifully by the rays of the blazing sun, whose heat we must needs condone because of the beauty he lends to the scenery. Viewed in tihe early morning, before the sun has driven away the spectral mists of the tropic night, that coast line is exquisitely beautiful. A bluish haze hangs over all, whilst the biflowy white clouds, receiving as they do the first rays of the rising sun — for Old Sol must needs climib up and over those mountains to the eastward, ere he can make himself felt upon the coast — gleam like masses of snow, yet with a translucency suggestive of huge and massive pearls. Monotonous? Where were your eyes, my gentle critic? Are those tall, feath ery palms and quaint buildings upon the shore, monotonous ? Is there aught of monotony in those gayly-dressed groups of women and children bath ing upon that far-away beach? And can you see naught worthy of admiration or interest in those canoes that flock about the ship whilst in harbor, with their loads of quaint and beautiful things to tempt the curiosity of the Gringo and part him from that good American money? And the mon key-like antics of those brown-skinned natives, as 102 pacific Darbor fl^otes they load the ship with coffee or bullion from the barges — is there nothing picturesque or interest ing about them? Why, man, what would you? Did not nature throw in an active volcano there at Acajutla just to amuse you and stir your blood? Monotonous, indeed ! Go to, get thee to the Union Stockyards in seardh of thine ideals of the picturesque. A^ Ai Ai Punta Arenas, Costa Rica — 'Corinto, Nicaragua — La Libertad and Acajutla, Salvador — San Jose, Champerico, and Ooos, Guatemala — how far away those towns seem now. It was pleasant to visit them under such favorable circumstances. Our good ship staid in each port just long enough to enable me to study the place and its people to the best advantage. A description of one Central American harbor is practically a description of all of them, so far as the oharacteristics of the natives are concerned. Variations in scenery there are, it is true, but to recount these would be an onerous and gratuitous task. That 'twould be a laborious and redundant description will be at once understood when I state 103 Panama and tbe Sierras that our good ship touched at no less than twelve ports on her way up the coast, including several Mexican ports — of which more anon. Some of the harbors are evidently so-caUed for courtesy's sake, as they consist of an unbroken shore line, on which there chance to be no reefs, and ships can therefore come within a reasonable distance- of the shore without danger. Wherever there is a safe anchorage the place is considered a harbor. In many instances, on the other hand, the harbor consists of a land-locked bay or inlet, sur rounded by beautiful mountains. In most of the ports our vessel was detained at least a day, giving me an excellent opportunity for observation. The principal Central American traffic of our ship was in coffee. We subsequently made a specialty of bulHon, at some of the Mexican ports. At the various ports of San Salvador, especially, we took aboard hundreds of bags of coffee. The coffee is brought off in sacks on huge barges, and hoisted aboard the ship by a rope and windlass. As the ground swell of the sea is often consider able, the transportation and unloading is rather slow work at times. Then, too, who ever knew a native Central-American or Mexican to hurry, and, by the rood, they can't hurry, and live. 104 CENTRAL AMERICAN COFFEE BARGES. "iResting as an art Apropos of the deliberation with which the na tives work, however, the infinite capacity of these people for rest is all in their favor. The more ac tive and energetic man from the North goes to work down there and kills himself in a few months. If he doesn't kill himself with work, he does it by worrying about his •^^•ork or his prospects of get ting work. Not so your native. He does his work when he comes to it, not before. If his comrade on the barge is helping to load the rope with sacks of coffee, does he stand around fretting and mak ing suggestions until ihis own turn comes? Oh, no, he gracefully rolls and Hghts a cigarette, mean while lolling back in a comfortable, restful atti tude upon the bags of coffee lying in the bottom of the barge. Every movement, every posture, is characterized by a sinuous grace which announces that his muscles are in a state of comparative rest. Not one bit of energy does he waste. He is a true conservator of energy, likewise a philosopher. Even though he is to have but a few seconds' re pose before his turn comes at the rope, he imme diately falls into a languid, graceful posture and out comes the inevitable cigarette. As he rolls and ligihts his fragrant, inseparable companion, his muscles fafl unconsciously into easy, restful, grace ful curves and lines that in an American would IDS Panama and tbe Sierras seem the height of affectation, but which in him are simply the instinctive accompHshment of mus cular movement along the lines of least resistance — which is synonymous with graceful motion. I -was much amused one morning by the per formances of tihe oarsmen on the coffee barges. A barge lying alongside had not yet finished dis charging cargo. Another, fully loaded, came along and got near enough for its captain to dis cover that his predecessor had a few bags of coffee yet unloaded. Like a flash, the oars were un shipped and incHned against the gunwale, and every man Jack of the leather-hued crew had dis appeared. I climbed up a little way in ithe rigging where I could look down upon them, and there the lazy beggars were, lounging about in graceful abandon upon the coffee sacks. Some were smok ing cigarettes, some engaged in day dreams, oth ers, with their hats over their eyes, were taking a nap, while a few were frolicking with each other as lazily as they could and yet appear to frolic. Within five minutes the other barge made way for them, when up they bobbed and pulled away at the oars as lustily as though they had never thought of resting. But these natives of the tropics can nevertheless accomplish a surprising amount of work. Small, 106 a flaew treatment round-limbed, graceful monkeys that they are, the average northern laborer cannot keep pace with them, day in and day out. The secret of which is that the native laborer works only When his task is before him ; he frets not ; neither does he hasten, but he gets results all *he same. A suggestion, please — only a suggestion, mind you. Would it not be practicable to prepare an anti-neurotic serum from those Central Americans with which to inoculate against the "American disease," neurasthenia? I fancy I could use a few pounds of it in my own practice to good advan tage — 'perchance an ounce or two migtht not be a bad thing for self-treatment. I wouldn't mind rest ing all the time. It was interesting to note the peculiarities of the feet of the natives. They are short, broad and "stubby-toed," with a 'high-arched instep, but the most prehensile feet I have ever seen. As the barefooted fellows move about over the sacks of coffee in the barges, their feet are suggestive of a Simian type, so flexible and prehensile are they. Not that this is to be greatly wondered at — those feet are simply what the human foot should be when free and unconfined for a few generations. It is the baby's foot perpetuated by systematic avoidance of shoes. 107 Panama and tbe Sierras The facilities for getting ashore in Central American ports are a variable quantity. Little in ducement, apparently, is held out to visitors. Two big, round American dollars was the tariff imposed by the genial boatmen -who flocked about us at San Jose de Guatemala. And should the unwary passenger consent to be fleeced by the boatmen, he finds that on reaching the shore he must pay an import duty of a dollar or so on himself, else he cannot land. When he returns he finds an export duty of another dollar laid upon him before he can re-embark en route to the ship. Oh, they know a good thing when they see it, down there at San Jose! Should one wish to go ashore on one of the regular combined passenger and freight barges, he must needs be lowered to the barge from the ship in a sort of box, with a capacity of four persons. In an emergency, four people, a valise and a cat can be crowded into this contrivance. Arriving at the shore a similar box is employed to land the passengers at the pier. The method is safe enough, perhaps, but not at aH pleasant for people with shaky nerves. In some ports, however, no other method of getting to and from the vessel is prac ticable. The swell is so great that a small boat, no matter how seaworthy or skilfully handled, 108 Tnnwbolesome pets would be crusihed against ithe iron sides of the ship like an egg-sheH. I do not know why there should be so many formalities and expenses about landing at San Jose. The town is by no means impressive, albeit the harbor is a very pretty one. The place is, at best, merely -the port of entry for the city of Guate mala, situated some distance inland by rail, which is not only the capital of Guatemala, but a very pretentious city of some sixty thousand inhabitants and considerable social, political and commercial importance. I could enjoy visiting Central American seaport towns much more thoroughly were it not for the buzzards that are to be seen in countless numbers on every hand. Ugh! What nasty, sickening things they are. And -with what insolent familiar ity they hover around the homes of the people, like so many pet chickens. Fences, ridge-poles and roofs are bedecked with them. They hover lazily about, or roost upon the various buildings as thickly as pigeons in a country farmyard. They are useful as scavengers, grant you that, but they disfigure the landscape, and, where people are clean, buzzards do not roost on the front gate. Whatever arguments may be advanced in his fa- 109 Panama and tbe Sierras vor, the buzzard is an unwholesome, unsightly, dis gusting blemish on the face of good old Mother Nature. I, for one, herewith vote for his abolish ment. It is unfortunate that the little Central Ameri can republics cannot get along without frequent . civil strife. A week or two without a revolution is a rarity. Salvador is perhaps the most peaceful, as it is the most prosperous of them, Apropos of revolutions, a good story is told of a recent rumpus in Guatemala. An officer was sent from the capital into the hill country for volun teers for the regular army. A few days later a ser geant appeared with a dozen or so sorry-looking natives, who were about the most unenthusiastic recruits that could be imagined. Some were tied together, two and two, some were mounted on lit tle donkeys, with their bare brown legs tied to gether under the animals' belHes ; still others were tied to the donkeys' tails. The sergeant bore a letter from the recruiting officer to the President, reading — "Your Excellency : — I herewith send a lot of re cruits. If you want more volunteers, send more rope," Ai Ai Ai 110 Some jfellow IDoyagers As we stopped at the various ports we added to our list of passengers. And picturesque additions they v,-ere, too. Native Central-American men, women and (Children, Mexicans, Japanese and Chi nese, of varying social status, v/ith an occasional American or English tourist, were all in evidence. There was a fair sprinkling of coffee planters of different nationalities. The Mexican women were like most of their male compatriots, much given to the smoking of cigarettes — and such powerful cigarettes ! One of those paper-covered atrocities would suffice to kill half a dozen of our American "Willie-boys." And yet, they were not evil-smell ing. Toned down and diluted by the ocean air, they were fragrant enough. But our Mexican lady passengers did not stop at cigarettes — some of them smoked big black cigars. Which is another reason why I cannot enthuse over the Spanish- American type of female. There are no sentiment- provoking properties in the most scientific blend ing of tobacco and garlic. They were a picturesque lot, though, and I spent hours and hours watching them as they stood about in little groups, gayly laughing and chatting, smoking their cigarettes or big cheroots and play ing with their undeniably pretty children. My camera was omnipresent at such times, but I had 111 Panama and tbe Sierras very little opportunity to use it. The women were superstitious, apparently, the children timid, and the men mighty ugly. I was especially desirous of getting a picture of one very interesting Mexican family, and tried as siduously to secure it for some days, without suc cess. Mamima looked upon me with disfavor, her little child was as shy as she was picturesque, and paterfamiHas — my conscience, but he was an ugly brute ! Every time I looked toward his wife and interesting progeny when my camera happened to be in sight, he looked poniards, and machetes, and pistols at me. He kept me wondering how long a dirk he had concealed about him and where he car ried it. But, one fine day, I caught Mr. Mexicano and the old girl off guard. The light was bad and the little one in shadow, but I got a picture all the same. As may be observed, papa and mamma had their ugly mugs turned in the other direction. My suHen-browed Mexican friend heard the snap of the shutter and turned around just too late to catch me. I was serenely counting the gulls that were sailing past. Afi Ai Ai 112 Ube Sailors' pets Speaking of gulls, it may not be uninteresting to those who have never sailed along the Pacific ccast to know that these birds are here to be found in greater numbers and variety than in almost any part of the world. In the ports they may be seen by thousands. On the open sea they are also met with in great abundance. There seems to be a marked difference between the harbor gulls and those en countered outside. Stupidity, laziness, and a gen erally dirty and disreputable appearance character ize the former, while the latter are keener-witted,. more active, cleaner-looking, and as handsome birds as one could wish to see. The harbor gull is a pampered, bloated, fat-bodied loafer to whom a living comes easily, whilst his brother of the open sea is a lean and hungry hustler. Tid-bits do not often come his way, and he fain must fight for all he gets. And what a number of different kinds of these beautiful birds one sees on a voyage up that delightful coast. Even a non-expert has no diffi culty in distinguishing halt a dozen varieties. Just after the steamer passed Cape San Lucas there ap peared a large black species of guH, or, more ac curately, perhaps, a variety of albatross. These are magnificent birds, many of which measure fully eight feet from^ wing-tip to wing-tip. Built for air ships these birds certainly are, for their wings are 113 Panama and tbe Sierras so long and their legs so clumsy that it takes them some time to dispose of these members satisfactor ily when they alight upon the water. The black fellov/s are by no means so friendly as the gray and white ones, but keep a respectful distance from the ship. They also, apparently, treat their smaHer brethren with respect. I suspect that, despite his warlike mien, the black gull is a very non-com bative bird. How a flock of g^Hs manages to keep up with a ship night and day is a mystery. Day after day I have marked them by some peculiarity — a broken leg being very useful in this regard — and have set tled to my own satisfaction the fact that they were the identical birds that had -begun following us at some distant point along the coast. Sailors usu ally claim that the birds roost upon the vessel at night, but I half suspect that this assertion is often made to protect the reputation of their vessel as a fast sailer. This would have been a reasonable as sumption in the case of the Carpallo. My own candid opinion is that the guHs used to take a nap in the water from time to time, and caught up with the ship without much trouble when their nap was out. In the day-time their chief difficulty seemed to be to fly slowly enough to keep abreast or just astern of the pokey old ship. 114 a IReal Xive \t)olcano Just before San Francisco was reached the big black birds disappeared. Soon afterward the clean white and gray fellows who had followed us for so long also vanished, their places being taken by the dirty-looking Frisco harbor guHs. I should have liked to capture a few specimens of gulls for souvenirs, but the superstitious sailors would have none of it. They believe that when a sailor dies his soul enters the body of a gull and never quits the sea, tut sails on and on forever. Afi Ai Ai Perhaps the most interesting of the Central American harbors is Acajutla, Salvador. Not only is the scenery of this harbor picturesque in gen eral, ibut it is enlivened by a real, active volcano, Izalco. At each of my visits to Acajutla, this vol cano was extremely entertaining. Whether to show off before company or not I cannot say, but the smoky old fellow was on his best behavior. At intervals of fifteen or twenty minutes a cloud of smoke and a stream of lava would pour slowly forth, and, settling down about the volcano's apex, conceal it from view for some time. At night the glowing lava was a very pretty sight, indeed. The lis Panama and tbe Sierras natives quite generally hold the opinion that this volcano will one day undergo a serious eruption and destroy the little town. Judging from the number of esttinct volcanoes to be seen along l1t-» coast, however, it is more likely that this one v,-:;l some day meet the fate of its dead companions and also become extinct. Long before reaching Aca jutla, and long after that port was left behind, we could see that lonely volcano belching forth for the information of all and sundry, credentials which proved that it was indeed not "any old hill," but in a special class by itself, so far as that coast was concerned. To be sure, there are other volcanoes scattered along the coast — ^Ohonco, A'^iego, Telico, Santa Clara, Agua, Fuego and Colima. AH these lay claim to the title, but they died long since and have no right to it. ,3^ -JS^ N*^ The loading and unloading of coffee had lost their novelty, and it was vvfith joy that I hailed the news that the next stop would be in ]\'Iexico, and that Guatemala, the coffee paradise, being left behind, we would see no more coffee barges. There had been symptoms of proximity to Hc:::c;-) 116 /DJere Dross for several days. Sombreros had put in an ap pearance among the roustabouts in the harbors, and Vera Cruz cigars at $2.00 the hundred — ^fine cigars they were, too — ^had begun to appear on board. Before long the roustabouts and freight handlers were all sombreroed, and the bags of cof fee were replaced by hundreds of pounds of gold and silver bidHon and pigs of tin. How strange it seemed to see those piratic-looking natives hand ling thousands of dollars' worth of the precious metals as nonchalantly as though they were baser stuff! Looking over the rail one day, I saw lying alongside a barge loaded with bars of silver, worth probably $100,000. On top of the silver was care lessly laid a couple of bars of gold, valued, I was told, at thirty thousand dollars. A fortune this, and had it been in the streets of Chicago it would have 'been guarded by a special detail of police. The only guard there was, however, consisted of a handsome half-grown Mexican lad, who lay sleep ing on some empty coffee sacks in the stern of the barge, his bare brown feet resting against the pile of valualble stuff as if it were so much rubbish. A careless way to handle gold and silver, eh? Don't you ever think it. Gold and silver buHion are too bulky and heavy for a pilferer to get away with 117 Panama and tbe Sierras down in that country. Just imagine that boy grab bing a huge bar of gold and trying to swim ashore with it ! Several Mexican places at which we touched — San Benito, Tonala, SaUna Cruz and Port Angel — are ports of little importance and do not merit de scription. Afi Ai Ai I was sitting on a pile of rope forward one after noon, when, to my surprise, I noticed that the ship seemed to be aiming directly for shore. As it was broad daylight, and the peculiar course of the ves sel seemed to be the result of deliberate intent on the part of the quartermaster at the wheel, I was in no wise disconcerted thereby, yet I took the liberty of asking the first mate for an explanation. "Why," said he, "there's Acapulco, dead ahead. Don't you see it?" Of course, I admitted that I saw it, al though I did not in the least. The ship kept on toward the shore, however, and soon entered the narrow inlet of the bay of Acapulco, Mexico. As the ship passed through the mountain-bordered gateway into the harbor, I wondered how on earth lis acapulco the mate expected me, an inexperienced land-lub ber, to see that blessed town, concealed as it is from view -when one is on the open sea. The bay of Acapulco is far and a-way the best harbor between Panama and San Francisco, with the exception of the bay of San Diego. It is com pletely landlocked, and almost circular in form, connecting with the Pacific by a deep, narrow channel between the hiUs — z channel that could be very easily defended should the necessity arise. The scene that meets the eye on entering the harbor of Acapulco is distinctly tropic. The tall palms along the shore, the numerous varieties of cacti on the sides of the hiHs and the queer palm- thatched huts upon the beach are especially characteristic. As much of the town lies upon sev eral slopes that face the bay, its peculiar bufldings of varying color, intermingled with squalid adobe huts, could be distinctly seen from the deck of our ship. In plain view upon a neighboring hill stands an ancient Spanish convent, which, I believe, is still occupied by the devout sisters. The most unique feature of the bay is an ancient fort — a travesty upon modern fortifications — that surmounts an elevated peninsula immediately upon the water front. Quaintly picturesque is this old fort, with its embrasured walls and pudgy-looking 119 Panama and tbe Sierras cannon, but as a guardian of the rights and safety of the harbor and town, it is a pitiful failure. Time was when this relic of giory past and gone was considered impregnable. Our Mexican friends have ever been slow to appreciate the onward march of improvements in the art of war. They might even now be laboring under the delusion that the old fort is invincible, had it not been for a lit tle incident that occurred during the war between Mexico and the United States. One of our men- of-war that happened to be knocking about on pleasure bent, made a little social call at Acapulco one day, for the purpose of paying the respects of the American government to its commandante. That gentleman being somewhat ruffled in spirit because the captain of the man-of-war was appar ently unafraid of his formidable fort. Was so inhos pitable as to resent the neighborly call and train his guns upon the American ship. The result was that in less than fifteen minutes the conceit which the inhabitants of Acapulco had been harboring for so many generations regarding that wonderful fort was knocked completely out of them. I, for one, am thankful that the fort was not entirely de stroyed, for it is one of the most interesting struc tures I have ever seen. It is now used as a mili tary prison and barracks, and although very Httle 120 QO W a fl Capture a fort is now claimed for it as a fortification, visiting it is hedged around by difficulties. Whether the pow ers that be are afraid that the little white-uni formed, brown-skinned soldiers may be stolen, or desire to keep the plan of the fort and its formid able armament from faHing into the hands of alien powers, is a question. It may have been risky — who knows? — but I took a couple of snap shots, and was later delighted to find that the picturesque old fort, with its ancient moat and drawbridge, showed up to good advantage in the pictures. Ai Ai Ai Did I go ashore at Acapulco? Well, yes, and glad I am that I went. Negotiations were readily made with one of the throng of boatmen who flocked about the ship. As each one clamored that his craft was "de bes' a boat on de bay, seiior," it seemed safe enough to choose one 'hit or miss. My selection proved to be a wise one ; the boat v/as staunch and the rowers, little feHows though they were, strong, sturdy and boatmen to the manner born. And skill is really necessary in those Mexi can harbors. The water is none too smooth, and 121 Panama and tbe Sierras 'tis easy enough to give one a spill in the swell or smasih the little boat against the tough flanks of the ship. The beauties of the harbor impress one more than ever on the boat trip to the shore. The beach, in particular, is very attractive — especially so, I fancy, because of the characteristically- dressed natives who flock to the landing to watch the approach of strangers. A quaint, characteristic old toyvn, that Acapulco, and quaint and ancient-looking it must long re main, for there is no raflroad and very little pros pect of getting one. Like all Mexican towns of any pretensions, Aca pulco has a central plaza, with beautiful palms and a profusion of tropic plants and flowers, surround ing a bandstand, from which the inevitable Mexi can band discourses music every evening. Here the native dandies and their dark-eyed seiioritas promenade — always in opposite directions — and carry on flirtations such as only those people can. I suspect the swains sometimes go out to see a man, just like home folks, you know. Why do I think so? Because upon the front of a building just across the street I saw the legend, "American bar." Great Scott ! An American bar ! Save the mark. I am addicted to soft drinks — prescribed 122 flDusic and more "Rest by a doctor friend of mine who has a weU-stocked sideboard and doesn't want his friends to d- -cove- it — hence there is a reasonable excuse for my leaming something about that American bar way down there on the Mexican west coast. L'gh! Heard near by, die strains of the band on the plaza were not so dulcet as one might infer from the music fumished by the Mexican bands that visit us here in the North occasionaUy. But, soft ened by distance and swelled by the echoes of the neighboring hills, the music of that band, as it reached us on board ship, was incomparably sweeL How delightful that evening in port, -when, after a hard day ashore, we lounged about the deck, swap ping yams and Hstening to the far-away concert. The omnipresent plaza is the loafing place of every Mexican town. There, in the heat of the day, may be fotmd dozens of Mexicanos lounging listlessly about, silent for the most part, dozing in some instances, and none of them moving a finger, unless it be to roU and light a cigarette. Should one faU profoundly asleep, he is allowed to finish his nap. Even should he be so forgetful of his sur roundings as to snore, there is no rude poHceman to teU him to move on. Indeed, the poHceman himself is quite likely to be asleep. 123 Panama and tbe Sierras The native policeman is a most picturesque char acter, by the way. And he is pretty decent, too. In some ways he is a model for American officers. I witnessed a scene one afternoon in Acapulco that suggested the advisability of sending some of our own policemen down yonder to learn at least one branch of their business — caring for drunks. Now, those native policemen are by no means expert in handling a helpless man. They are not athletes, and are too lazy to learn how to shoulder an un conscious man and walk off -with him, but they have patience, and do not club or kick a helpless drunk simply because he is not open to persuasion. Apeon was lying in the street near the plaza, dead drunk. He was discovered by a native policeman, who vainly tried to arouse him. In despair, the officer finally called assistance. A mounted officer soon appeared on the scene, who was picturesquely unlike anytliing I had ever seen in the way of a poHceman. Mounted on a typic mustang, clad in a white linen uniform, topped with a huge straw sombrero, tremendous spurs with the crudest of rowels clinking at his heels, the inevitable lariat at his saddle bow, a knife on one hip and a six- shooter on the other, he was an ideal picture of a cdballero, but a policeman — never! 124 /iDodel policemen Dismounting from his mustang, the officer pro ceeded to assist his subordinate in disposing of the drunk. They tugged and puHed the fellow to a standing posture again and again, only to have him topple to the ground, despite their vigorous bracing, until one would have forgiven them had they lost patience and played just a little rough with their charge. Without the slightest show of impatience, they stood a while deliberating as to the best method of disposing of him. As they could not walk away with hirn, they concluded to carry the fellow on the mustang, and finally, after considerable effort, succeeded in doing so. This, however, was not accomplished without several ludicrous failures. Once, whilst the officers were tugging away at the fellow at either end, the belt that confined his garments at the waist gave way and left the poor devil almost au naturd! But, noth ing daunted, the guardians of the public morals procured a piece of rope and, having restored the continuity of the drunkard's clothing, threw him over the mustang's withers, where he hung as limply as a bag of meal. The officer mounted be hind him and rode off as gayly as you please, the policeman on foot walking along side and holding the drunken man's head as high as he could with out tipping him off the extemporized patrol wagon. 12S Panama and tbe Sierras I do not know how weH supplied Acapulco may be with other amusements, but cock-fighting is very popular. Just opposite the plaza may be seen a sign which, freely translated, conveys the information that a cock fight takes place there every afternoon and evening. The fights begin a little later on Sundays, it seems. The Mexicans evidently respect the Sabbath day, with some res ervation, it is true, but when a Mexican defers a cock fight for an hour or two, he must be actu ated by some very powerful sentiment. Our hu mane society would not be very popular in that country. The people must be amused. Some day, perhaps, cock-fighting will be abolished do-wn there, but not until the higher education prevails and such gentle sports as pugilism and football replace the brutalizing fighting of buHs and chick ens. 'Twere better that ten pugilists had their noses broken, or that ten football players were killed or maimed for life, than that one innocent little rooster should suffer the gaff or the cruel mata dors slay one dear, sweet buH. Out upon you, my Mexican friends ! You are rude barbarians. Even your cock-fights, so far as I could see, are no improvement on the surreptitious American ar ticle, even though a native policeman did handle 126 african»lifte Dwellings the chickens. But, I came, I saw, and— I bet a peso on the wrong rooster; just because he was bald-headed, like Fitzsimmons ! To one who is unfamiliar with old Mexico, and especially its western seaport towns, the peculiar habitations of some of its people are at once a sur prise and a delight. Acapulco, perhaps, has par ticipated less in the march of progress than any of the larger seaports of Mexico. At a little dis tance some of its residence districts resemble nothing so much as an African village. I stood upon a hill near the old fort for some time, ad miring a picturesque colledtion of squat adobe huts in the midst of a grove of great palms and towering cocoanut trees near a Httle insweep of the bay. Palm-thatched as to roof, diminutive as to size, and possibly fairer to the eye from where I stood than when seen at closer range, those huts nevertheless made an exquisite picture. As if to accentuate their primitive character, a lone fisher man, garbed in a style befitting the coast of Africa, was busily engaged in casting a net in the surf a short distance off. I wanted that lone fisherman's picture and forthwith proceeded to stalk him. I caught him jusit as he had returned to shore after a successful haul. The result was 127 Panama and tbe Sierras but indifferent, yet 'twill serve to iHustrate one of the most interesting features of the Mexican coast. ^ Ai Afi' To one of artistic instincts, and even a mod erate degree of sentimentality, the ancient stone paved road leading from the town to the awe some fort of Acapulco were well worth trav eling, even though there were naught of in terest at the end of its winding way. From the edge of the road there is a steep declivity leading down to the beach, where an occasional queer-looking fisherman or clam-digger may be seen lazily plying his vocation. Beyond the gently rolling surf the native barges and small boats fare back and forth with their loads of com modities or passengers, between the ships in the harbor and the docks. A most variegated pic ture, these boats. Those devoted to passenger seryice are gaily decorated with parti-colored awn ings, and bear fanciful Spanish names which tempt one to get aboard whether he have an objective point or not. Lissome fellows — blacks, and tans and olive-browns, the- rowers. Most of them are 128 AN INCIPIENT ROMANCE. "toarbor Ibucftsters undersized, but aH are sturdy and manful at the oar, which often seems many sizes too big for him who mans it. , The tradespeople of the harbor are a quaint lot. Gaily dressed women and young boys predom inate in the management of the merchandise boats. These boats are not infrequently dugouts — about as unseaworthy craft as ever floated. The aver age Caucasian who knows a bit of "boatology" would turn one of those canoes "turtleback" in a jiffy and give the sharks a treat — an omnivorous treat of white meat and "garden sass" at that. But those natives paddle serenely about, or doze in the bottoms of their floating shops as peacefully as if on the most secure of couches. And such an array of commodities ! Wonderful shells of the Pacific, with all the tints of the rainbow, giving forth the imprisoned music of operatic mermaids and the soft murmurings of tropic seas, cocoa- nuts, freshly torn from the graceful trees that fringe the bay, plantains, bananas, oranges and limes, with all the charm of recent picking linger ing about them, odd bright-colored fabrics that are distinctively Mexican — all sorts of wares and commodities are disiplayed 'by those hucksters of the sea. Most characteristic of all are the gro tesque, seldom beautiful, light and papery Indian 129 Panama and tbe Sierras earthenware of the country, gorgeous parrots and an occasional monkey from Corinto, for the pos session of which one may drive as hard a bargain as he wishes, feeling sure that he wiH acquire his object in the end. Beneath the huge trees that border the road and stand out in bold relief against the shimmering background of the bay, is the playground of the children. For aught I know, the grateful shade of those gnarled and twisted giants is the scene of many a tryst. In fact, I was witness to an incipient tryst as I strolled along .the old fort road. Did not my camera prove it? Too young? Well, mayhap, but they begin early down there. Besides, I have great faith in small beginnings. One of the dramatis personee, the girl, -was a typic little Mexican, as beautiful as only a child of the Latin race can be ; the other was a living exem plification of the well-known fact that the color line is none too sharply drawn in Mexico. But he, too, was beautiful. The Latin blood mixes with the African more kindly than does the Cau casian. The result of that kindly mixture has often much of real beauty. What does the future hold for those children who sio accommodatingly, though all unconsciously, gave me a scene worthy 130 CATHEDRAL— MAZATLAN. ffltasatlan of the attention of a professional artist, let alone that of a wandering amateur? Did I in very truth materialize the beginning of a romance? X ^ X The weather at Acapulco had been extremely hot; indeed, most of the passengers seemed to suffer more with the heat than at any time dur ing the voyage. The evenings upon deck were still delightful, as there is always a grateful breeze along that coast, but after retiring to one's state room the tropic climate loses much of its charm. However, sea air and the m'otion of the ship are superb hypnotics, and sleep soon antidotes the heat. And dreamlessly one sleeps, until a resound ing whack upon the stateroom door and the reg ular morning call, "Bath's ready, sir," awakens one to a sensation of stifling sultriness and the consciousness of having been stewed in the secre tion of one's own sweat glands. Languid and enervating that sultriness of the stateroom o' mornings. Yet after a plunge in the cool sea water one experiences a delicious sense of revival and stimulation that lasts for the entire day, if the direct rays of the stm be avoided. 131 Panama and tbe Sierras ManzaniHo and San Bias gave us a more than tropic welcome and I was not sorry to leave them. " "Twill be much cooler after we leave Mazatlan," said the wise ones. Which was the principal rea son why I was glad to see the huge Hghthouse- capped rock at the entrance of Mazatlan bay loom ing up ahead, early one super-heated morning. Mazatlan is the principal seaport town of the west coast of Mexico. It has an excellent har bor, although it is not to be compared ¦with that of Acapulco. Picturesque as the town certainly is, it is not by any means so bizarre as some of the towms further south, as may be readily under stood upon consideration of the relatively cosmo politan tone that it acquires from its commercial relations with other parts of the world, and es pecially with the United States. But it is nev ertheless distinctively Mexican. The inhabitants number, perhaps, 15,000. The buildings are mainly of adobe, and some of them are very pretentious, though very few are more than one story in height. The characteristic court garden is to be found in nearly all of the houses and in many of the stores. A commentary on the mutual confi dence of the Mexicans is presented by the iron bars seen at every door and window. The varia tions of color in the buildings, characteristic of 132 a 25w « o h o Ubc ming of Clubs the Scenic Railway proper begins. A short dis tance from MiU VaUey the hUls below Tamalpais are reached and the raflway begins its winding way up the mountains. In and out among the slopes it winds, upward, ever upward, until Mount Tamalpais itself is surmounted and the train comes to a standstill near the Httle mountain inn where tourists are wont to refresh the inner man. Then comes that ambitious climb on foot to the very peak. And well rewarded is he who climbs. Spread out before him in the distance is a view of San Francisco and its harbor that cannot be excelled. As the city and its surroundings are most picturesque, the beauty of the scene may be imagined. The loveliness of the scenery and the delightful air of the mountain top make one regret the clanging of the locomotive bell that warns visitors that the time for the return trip has arrived. Ai Ai Ai Fortunate, indeed, is the stranger in Frisco who has the opportunity of visiting the Bohemian club. I shall always recaU the few hours spent within its hospitable walls as among the pleasantest of my sojourn upon the Pacific coast. My friend. Dr. George Chismore, is the best of hosts, and 155 Panama and tbe Sierras his extensive acquaintance among the members of the club enables him to enact the role of enter tainer to perfection. Who does not know that the brains and the talent of the city of San Francisco are enrolled in its world-famed Bohemian club? Who has not heard of those wonderful "High Jinks" and "Low Jinks" that characterize its various festal occasions? For its art features alone, the club is well worth visiting. Upon the walls hang pictures that would delight the most captious critic and enchant a connoisseur. And nearly all of these pictures are the work of members of the club ! The first -and oft-times the best- work of many a man who is now not unknown to fame adorns these walls. Not a few talented young artists have been dis covered within the waHs of this king of clubs. There is not a nook or corner of this brightest spot in all Bohemia that does not contain some thing artistic, educational or amusing. I look back upon my all too brief visit to the San Francisco Bohemian club with the pleasantest of recollec tions, and a keen regret that I cannot accept the cordial invitation extended to me as I un willingly said good-bye, to "drop in often." Afi Ai Ai 156 Cbinatown He who visits Frisco and does not -visit China town, misses the most entertaining and instruc tive feature of the city. Chinatown is located in what was once the most fashionable quarter of San Francisco. Dupont street, the present center of the Chinese quarter, was in days gone by a swell residence street. Slowly but surely the Mon golian aliens encroached upon that aristocratic do main until the wealthy white people were com pelled to seek more congenial quarters. Exter nally, most of the buildings are just as they were when the whites left them to the yellow-skinned invaders. A few buildings, however, have been built by the Chinamen themselves and show the Mongolian stamp in their architecture. The Chinaman is a natural tradesman, and his shops in this quarter are run on strictly business principles. The Six Companies control some of the more important stores. The array of curious and beautiful things in the shops of Chinatown is simply bewfldering. As for the prices, bargain days in our own dry goods houses suffer by com parison. To me, the Chinese quarter was most fascinating. I spent evening after evening in roaming about among the stores and shops. My only regret was that my trunk was not of unlimited capacity, so that I might carry away more souvenirs. 157 Panama and tbe Sierras In passing I wifl state that I have never in my experience met with more refined and cultured gentlemen than some of the representatives of the Six 'Companies who are engaged in business in Chinatown. Affability, urbanity and square deal ing are to be met -with on every hand. Shop ping in the various stores is a pleasure and a most profitable experience as well. As much cannot be said of all Caucasian shops in our large cities. On one occasion while visiting Chinatown, I was fortunate enough to be present at a birthday cele bration given by a wealthy Chinese merchant to his friends — both Oriental and American. A very elaborate supper was served to a large party of American ladies and gentlemen in a special apart ment. The main dining-room of the restaurant was devoted to the entertainment of the host's Chinese friends. The quaint dishes and odd customs of the Chi nese on such occasions have been oft described, and were quite famfliar to me, but I confess that I picked up some points in after-dinner speak ing that were very novel. So far as I could glean through the frantic and somewhat incoherent ex planatory efforts of my Chinese guide, the speeches were all eulogistic of the host. There was noth ing striking about this, but to my edification the orators spoke in pairs. They spoke "at" each 153 Post«prandial Cbinese other, and as the oratorical display was going on at each and every table simultaneously, the result may be imagined. The tower of Babel was a pensive whisper beside it. To my untrained ear the theme was "Allee chop chop," with variations. Funny stories seemed to be circulating aU over the room, and, so far as I could judge, were be ing received and appreciated in bunches. Let it not be said that the Chinaman has no sense of humor. If I read the signs aright, Joe Miller and dear old Rabelais together couldn't have equaled those stories. I listened until my brain began to whirl as it never does save when reading edito rials in the — well, a certain, or, rather, uncertain, medical journal, and then called for a change of venue. I made an attempt to say good-night to my host, but he had furnished something original in the entertainment Hne by leaving his guests to their fate — that is, to the speeches — and had gone to burn punk over the remains of a deceased uncle or to some similar diversion. Ai Ai Ai All hail to thee, oh Chinatown! Thou art truly a paradise. Amid all thy one-string fiddles, breastpin 'banjos and resonant tom-toms there are 159 Panama and tbe Sierras no discords. AU is a harmony of sweet sounds,. for ragtime is a thing unknown in Celestial music. Sharks' fins, birds' nests, incense and no ragtime — what would you? But what do I see? A Chinese division of the Salvation Army, as I live! Alas! 'tis the fly in the apothecary's ointment. Ai Ai Ai I had heard much of the difficulty of obtaining photographs of the denizens of Chinatown. I went down one day armed with a camera and bent on a keen pursuit of the elusive pagan, with little hope of success. My later regret was that I had not taken more films with me. The chil dren were, it is true, afraid of the mysterious box in many instances, but on the whole I and my machine were well received. It was amusing to see some of the children elude my snapshots. I would gaze up at the buildings and away from the object of my attention, looking as innocent the while as only a Chicago doctor can look, while I cautiously attempted to get a focus; but it was no use; the little rascals would disappear in the doorways like so many prairie dogs. When- 160 Placating J^ellow TEerrors ever the little fellows were chaperoned by a "big slister" — who was generally several sizes too small for the role — she made it her business to drag her charges out of danger, and usually succeeded in stampeding the whole party. In one instance, however, a little boy was an exception to the rule and made strenuous endeavors to stand for his picture. His chaperon would have none of it, and fought the ambitious youngster to a decided finish, bu't — I got the picture just the same — and 'twas unfit for publication. I noticed that the adult Chinese were amused rather than affronted by the spectacle, which led me to conclude that the wariness of the children was largely due to natural timidity fostered by mamma's counsel against dallying with the guileful "Melican man" and his "ways that are dark." And so I at once opened negotiations with my genial friend, Li Ching Lung, a merchant who had sold me sundry goods and chattels with profit to himself and pleasure to me. From my subsequent experience I am inclined to believe that, with an oily smile and a ten-cent piece, one can capture photographs in Chinatown as long as his money holds out. John Chinaman is a thoroughly good feflow on the average, and quite as susceptible to the seduc- 161 Panama and tbe Sierras tions of the universal language, "smiles and sil ver," as any more civiHzed individual. He has the merit of business thrift without the inordinate greed of his Caucasian brother. Ai Ai Afi The Chinese quarter of San Francisco is sug gestive that some of our pet theories of hygiene and sanitation are fallacious. Huddled together within a few squares are 30,000 of our yeUow "men and brothers." The houses are tumble-down and poorly ventilated, the streets narrow and crowded with shops of all sorts and descriptions, and the quarter altogether unhealthful in appear ance. Odors both strange and familiar are here curiously blended. The not unpleasant incense of joss sticks is by no means completely lost amid the vapors and malodorous emanations from decaying fruit and the odds and ends of fish, flesh and fowl of the Chinese markets, but it is hardly a factor of redemption, certainly not of disinfection. The living and sleeping apartments of the lower class denizens of this highly flavored quarter can hardly be caUed homes. They are dens and burrows, pure and simple — or shall I say impure and complex? Huddled together in windowless tenements or 162 Cbinese paradoxes basements are hundreds of Orientals to whom fresh air and sunshine are seemingly non-essentials, or even accidental features of existence. Such air as they breathe is opium-tainted and tobacco-fla vored. StiU, these Chinamen thrive and wax fat, thus setting our pet theories at naught. Yet, after all, the tenement houses of our large cities offer many Caucasian paraUels. The doctor, as he plods his weary rounds, ofts stumbles over dirty tene ment house "kids" playing in the mud, who are as healthy as so many young puppies, and, as he passes on his way to visit the pampered sick child of some wealthy family, he marvels at the blooming health of the "better dead." Ai Afi Ai And Chinatown is a bundle of paradoxes. The scrupulous attention that the Chinaman gives his person is a case in point. The Chinese barber is a man of many duties — a tonsorial Pooh Bah, as it were. I was especially impressed with the scraping process to which the occasional China man submits his conjunctival mucous membrane. He stoicaUy sits in a low chair whUst the barber passes a sharp, narrow, thin-bladed knife beneath each lid in succession, sweeping it back and forth 163 Panama and tbe Sierras between ball and lid several times and, apparently, scraping the mucous membrane most thoroughly. The deftness of the operator would edify an op- thalmologist, and the stoicism of his patrons is to be commended to the clientele of our eye and ear infirmary. My guide, an Oriental whose knowledge of Pigeon English fell just short of amnesic aphasia — as we doctors call that condition in which a fellow knows just what he wants to say and can't find words to express it — assured me that the scraping process was "belly good f Chinaman's li." Ai Ai Afi The Chinaman is supposed hy many to have no sense of humor. This is an error, for his bump of humor is well developed. He is also a satirist of no mean order. It is not always safe to poke fun at him. I recall an amusing incident which showed that the gay Caucasian sometimes gets pretty 'badly worsted in playing with the almond- eyed alien. While doing Chinatown one evening, I incidentally dropped in upon my friend Sing Fat, who has one of the best appointed and most in teresting shops in that quaintest portion of the city. I was engaged in conversation with the pro- 164 33ellow Dignity prietor, who is a very refined and well educated gentleman, when, a "smart Aleck" eastern tourist, who, in company with some admiring friends, was also doing the Chinese quarter, stepped up and interrupted with, "Hi, John, you gottee rat pies aUee samee?" Whereat my Mongolian friend did make reply : "Please he kind enough to speak to my interpreter there at the desk, sir. I speak only English and Chinese." Which reminds me of a Mongolian waiter who presided over my gastronomic destinies on the CarpaUo. No one seemed to know the Celestial's patronymic. He was variously styled, according to the moral bent of the passengers, "Ah Sin," "Gin Fizz," "Ah Funk," "Wun Lung," and other euphonious alleged Oriental cognomens. Whether or not it was because he was especially "childlike and bland," or more than usually slant-eyed, and consequently innocent-looking, I cannot say, but I was wont to address him as "Wan Lee the Pagan," thus at once honoring him by naming him after one of Bret Harte's heroes and giving him a name sufficiently comprehensive. Wan Lee was patient and long-suffering, and therefore non committal, for some days. But the worm wUl turn, and so wiU a Chinaman — as the world is just now wiUing to acknowledge. Wan Lee turned 165 Panama and tbe Sierras upon me one day and said, in a tone of mingled reproach and scorn that quite overwhelmed me, "You no callee me Wan Lee; callee me ChoUy! Me no Plagan; me aflee samee Mlethodist churchee. Me Chlistian. Sabe?" Ai Ai Ai The weather had changed, and for some days it had been raining. Let me state here that, while Cahfornia is a pretty dry country for most of the year, when the rain does begin it attends strictly to business. It "rains rain" out there, as sundry damp and painful recollections of days gone by prove to my own satisfaction. Notwithstanding the weather, however, I determined to start for the mountains. My wander days were drawing to an end and I was anxious to devote as much time as possible to the scenes of my boyhood. I took the steamer for Stockton, with the double object of shortening my journey by rail so far as possible and seeing something of the Valley of the Sacramento. In the old days one was com pelled to take the steamer unless he preferred to swim or walk. The steamboat company had a nice little monopoly. When I came down from the mountains many years ago en route for "the 166 TUP tbe San Joaquin states," the fare on the steamer was $25. On this occasion the fare was twenty-five cents for the all-night ride. What sweet revenge ! The major part of the steamer route to Stock ton lies up the San Joaquin river, a stream that is insignificant enough during the dry season, but which in the early spring is formidable enough to make a decided impression of its capacity for evil upon the beholder. The inhabitants of the valley could a tale unfold anent this point. The San Joaquin is noted, firstly, for having once been the crookedest navigable stream in the world, and, secondly, for the size and number of its mosquitoes. The river has been straightened considerably of late, but in former years the passengers were in constant fear lest the boat run into the bank, which was always dead ahead. The average tenderfoot is Hkely to mistake the mosquito of the San Joaquin for a fine, toothsome variety of snipe or woodcock, and long for a gun. And small wonder, for he is truly a "bird." He is a buzzard, a hawk and a screech-owl all in one. He certainly is not an insect, unless the tsetse fly is indigenous to the tule beds, or it is possible to cross the spicy yellow-jacket and the tarantula. Oh, yes, I know him ! Ai Afi Ai 167 Panama and tbe Sierras As I walked about the streets of the pretty little city of Stockton, it was hard to realize that it was once thronged with miners who had come down from the hUl country to spend their golden ounces and procure supplies for their camps. Quiet, staid and up-to-date the city is now. I wonder what some of the forty-niners would say if they could return and view the trolley cars, electric lights and natural gas plant of the Stock ton of to-day. Stockton was the scene of an amusing incident in the career of my old-time friend. Bill Starrett, the j oiliest happy-go-lucky I ever knew. Bill and his friend, Tom Dyer, were stranded — flat broke. They were strangers in the town and things looked mighty blue. Their assets consisted of a large and variegated assortment of nerve, a silver watch and a two-bit piece. Tom was in despair. There was no joy for him anywhere. Bill, however, was a man of resources. "Stop yer kickin', Tom," said he. "We've got stuff enough fer a couple o' drinks, an' that's pretty good. Come on; let's licker." Whereupon the two worthies started for the near est saloon. Leaning against the window of the saloon and staring thirstily at the bottles within, was a tough- looking specimen of a miner who had evidently been seeing the tiger and had gotten the worst of 168 a Genuine Wild /Hian the encounter. His shock of red hair was long and unkempt. His beard extended to his eyes and swept his chest in tangled masses. His shirt sleeves and trousers were far too short for de cency and his shirt devoid of buttons, whilst his hat and shoes were well-nigh imaginary. The most peculiar feature of all was the fact that wherever his skin was exposed it showed a cov ering of thick red hair. "Holy smoke. Bill!" exclaimed Tom, as he caught sight of the phenomenon; "Look at the wild man !" Bfll looked the fellow over and cried, "By the eternal, Tom, that's the very feller I've been lookin' fer ! Come with me." Approaching the apparition BiU said, "My friend, would ye like a glass o' beer?" The hairy one allowed that he would, and the party entered the saloon. Bill spent his last cent for the beer and then opened negotiations in this wise : "Say, we're the advance agents o' Barnum's circus and we're lookin' fer talent. How'd ye like a job?" "Well, I dunno but I'd like ter git one fust rate. What kind of a job mout it be?" "Why,"said Bill, getting ready to run, "we'd like ter git y'u fer a wild man." 159 Panama and tbe Sierras Whether it was a case of "necessity knows no law," or because his finer sensibflities were blunted by the beer, I cannot say, but the fellow took kindly to the proposition. The two worthies now pawned the old watch and started out to do business. BUl's palaver got them credit for a week's rental from the owner of an old ramshackle store that happened to be vacant. By similar wheedling at a costumer's, he rented the costume of General Boum in the Grand Duchess. With the money procured by pawning the watch a painter was employed and the front of the proposed show building decorated with a huge sign reading, "The celebrated wfld man of Tahiti now on exhibition. Advance show of Bar num's circus. Admission four bits." The wUd man was stripped to the 'buff and a breech clout put upon him. Around his waist was clasped a huge belt. To this was attached a hea-vy chain secured to the floor by a big staple. After thus preparing his exhibit, BiU said, "Now, my friend, all you've got ter do is ter growl an' tug at the chain. Y'u kin have all the tobacker an' licker ye want, so jest feel as good as ye darn please;" then, in an aside, "Tom, keep the cuss loaded." 170 a IRicftety fl?oad Bin now donned his gaudy costume and started out to arouse the town. He was preceded by a small 'boy whom he had employed to beat a drum. How the boy did pound, and how BiU orated, as they went about the streets announcing to all and sundry the arrival of Barnum's Wild Man, the place of exhibition and the price of admission ! By the time Bfll got back to the show, people were tumbling over each other in their eagerness to see the wonder. The hoys cleaned up several hundred dollars on the deal and would probably have made a tour of the country with their find, had he not devel oped a capacity for liquor that was a menace to the future prosperity of their show business. Besides, he became unduly inflated over the at tention he received and was consequently hard to handle. Ai Ai Ai Recalling the discomforts of the days when stages afforded the only means of transportation to the Sierras, the prospect of traveling up coun try by rafl was pleasing. But, after having tried the latter method, my preference is for the old- fashioned stage. Of all the rickety roads I have ever seen, the Sierra railway is the worst. To 171 Panama and tbe Sierras accentuate its toughness, the heavy rains had sq softened the roadbed that the train ran in an un dulating fashion, the mud yielding under the ties and rails with an audible "squash" as the wheels rolled over them. Here and there, portions of the road had been washed out and getting across without 'being derailed required some fine maneu vering. Get across we did, however, and in due time arrived at the historic town pf Chinese Camp, .Tuolumne county, my first stop en route to my old home in the hills. In the early days of mining in California, Chinese was the center of a wide area of placer diggings. For some reason or other the town was very popular with the Chi nese, large numbers of whom took up their resi dence there. This was the origin of the name of the place. Even to-day, an old guide post may be seen upon the road from Copperopolis to Chinese Camp on which is painted the picture of a Cbinese miner and his pack with the inscrip tion, "Me go Chinese Camp 3 mile i halp." This, it is said, was erected by the miners of a .rival town as a satiric recommendation of the camp. When the Chinese first invaded Tuolumne county, they excited considerable discussion among the Indians, many of whom remained in that sec tion of the state long after the whites had prac- 172 Cbinese Camp tically dispossessed them of their homes. It was held by some of the red men that the features, hair and color of the Chinese proved them to be Indians. It was claimed that the queue was merely an exaggerated scalp-lock. Others insisted that the queer-looking strangers were not Indians, nor even akin to the red man. The controversy ran high and great dissension arose. The ques tion was finally settled in this wise: Quoth the Indians, in solemn pow-wow assembled, "If yel low face man Injun, him heap swim. If no Injun, him heap no swim." And then they proceeded to lay for the almond-eyed aUen, "without process, or warrant, or color of law." A party of Indians chancing to meet two luckless Chinamen crossing the Tuolumne on a rude footbridge, straightway proceeded to make a test case of them. The ver dict was, "YeUow man no Injun. Heap no can swim." Chinese 'Camp was once a lively, bustling town. The hum of honest industry was continually heard, the aforesaid hum being represented by the clink of the miner's ounces, the rattle of chips and the shuffling of cards upon the gaming tables, variegated by an occasional shot from the pistol of somebody or other who had Httle breath to waste in argument. How are the mighty faUen! Poor old Chinese! The streets are deserted, and 173 Panama and tbe Sierras the night I was there the only noise that broke the peaceful quiet of the mountain air was the music of a merry-go-round. The little church yard on the hill speaks volumes on the change from the old to the new. There lie the sturdy pioneers who made this camp in its palmy days a scene of bustle and activity punctuated with "accidents." They died young, for the most part, did those early settlers. The crumbling little head stones tell the story. Inscriptions such as these are not rare in Sierran graveyards : "Here lies the body of John Williams, aged 25 years. Murdered in Big Oak Flat. Mar. 10, 1850." "Sacred to the memory of Peter Walker. Died Jan. I, 1852, aged 40 years. Stabbed in Coulter- yflle." Note the reflection on other towns. The really good citizen was wont to go away to be kiUed. Ai Ai Ai Ahout eight miles ^rom Chinese, on the Milton and Copperopolis road, is Byrne's ferry over the Stanislaus river. The term ferry is a little far fetched at the present day, for a substantial bridge has recently been erected over the site of the old 174 TABLE MOUNTAIN, ON THE STANISLAUS. XEable /fountain ferry. The scenery at this point is among the grandest in California. Here may be seen to the best advantage that wonderful volcanic formation known as Table Mountain. This was originally formed by a mass of lava that flowed into the channel of an ancient river, extending for a dis tance of twenty miles in Tuolumne county. It also traverses a corner of Calaveras county. No where does it show its characteristic conformation so well as at Byrne's ferry. The hiUs that once hounded and confined the river of lava have been washed and worn down for hundreds of feet, leaving the bold and vertical S'ides of the lava bed in such form that it is now itself a mountain, the top of which is truly a table land. Through a rift in Table Mountain the Stan islaus River has forced its way, until it is now a swift-running and most picturesque stream. Stand ing upon the banks of the Stanislaus one can see, away up on the mountain side, several miles dis tant, circling rings of hlue smoke that mark the location of the celebrated Alta mine. Plunging over the edge pf Table Mountain may be seen in the early spring a silvery ribbon of a waterfall. High up on the side of a green-wooded mountain opposite Table Mountain emerges another water- faU. These cataracts fall hundreds of feet. They fall untfl, despite their volume, ¦which is consider- 175 Panama and tbe Sierras able, they vanish in feathery spray. The rays of the sun striking the faUing spray make beautiful rainbows. At the foot of every rainbow is in very truth a pot of gold. High up among the crags on the side of Table Mountain may be seen little white moving dots. These are young buzzards. Like the parent birds, distance lends them an interest and beauty not all their own. In the early days of mining in California, a lode of exceedingly rich auriferous gravel was found in the ancient river bed beneath the lava deposit of Table Mountain. Tunnels were drifted into it in every direction, tapping many paying strata. The flats and gulches in the -vicinity were all found to be very rich and were thoroughly worked out. Ai A^ Afi Chinese boasts a 'brick hotel, once a famous and prosperous hostelry indeed. It was formerly kept by Count Solinsky, who was agent for Wells, Fargo & Co. for thirty-five years. The genial count is gone. Several landlords have come and gone since he left Chinese, -but none were so suave, none so popular as he. In the good old days when the to-wn was prosperous, the honors, so far 176 Cbaracters at Cbinese as popularity went, were about evenly divided be tween the Count and kind old Dr. Lampson, the medical wiseacre of the place. The good old doc tor has long since passed away, but the few old settlers who sitUl remain remember him as their best friend and wisest counselor. But the pres ent Boniface is himself "siome pumpkins." Six feet three in his stockings, and weighing three hun dred pounds, composed mainly of oleaginous good nature, he is an ideal host. So cheerful is he that one feels glad to have him present his bfll. Let it 'be understood that connoisseurs of fe male beauty are wont to linger in Chinese Camp. The helle of Tuolumne county presides over the festive board at the hotel. Sweet, sweat Mame! What a flood of tender recollections — I never or dered steak — surge through my brain as I recall her blithe and saucy air and winsome ways. How bird-like the trill in her musical voice as she gave my order for two fried eggs, "not turned" — "I say, Chimmie, eggs twice, white wings, sunny side up !" I found but one old-timer whom I knew at Chi nese, Archie MacLean, a sturdy old relic of the days when "miners wuz miners, an' don't yer fer- git it." Often when I meet such relics of the glorious days that are gone, I am tempted to believe that 177 Panama and tbe Sierras they Uve in constant expectation of a renaissance of the gold fever. They have an all-abiding faith in the auriferous productiveness of the country, and believe that rich finds must be struck again sooner or later. "The gold that wuz dug outen them gulches, an' creeks, an' river bottoms, must ha' come from somewhar', an' somebody's bound to strike it some day." And the faith of the old-timers of Tuolumne is not without foundation. The m'other lode, as the main fissure vein of gold is caUed, runs for many miles through Tuolumne and Calaveras counties. Somewhere or other among the moun tains is the source of all the placer gold that has been taken out of the Tuolumne valley. One of my boyish dreams was to one day find this hid den source of the gold which I saw the miners digging, and become a Croesus. No one would suspect from the latter-day pov erty of the soil in the gulches and valleys of the old placer mining regions that gold was ever found there in quantity sufficient to pay for working it. Every foot of the sofl, 'however, has been worked 'over three or 'four times, with ever decreasing profit. After the white men got through, coolies in the employ of the Six Companies were set to ¦work to clean up what 178 a TReminiscence gold was left. There was then not enough to tempt a white man to bother with the dirt, but the Chinese, who live on next to nothing, found sufficient to pay them good wages. A Chinaman can live on what a white miner overlooks, but heaven help the man who follows the Chinaman. He will have pretty poor picking. The .Chinese have effectively cleaned up every gold-bearing gulch in California. 'Twould be a very energetic hen that could scratch out a grain of gold in those formerly rich spots. 'Twas at Chinese Camp that an incident oc curred, many years ago, which very nearly made a 'half orphan of yours truly. My father was the legal "Pooh Bah" of Jacksonvifle, and with a single deputy had gone to Chinese to round up several desperadoes. They took with them in lieu of a "Black Maria," a stout hay v/agon. Among other men who were ticketed for a free ride to the Stockton bastile was a huge Coolie who was wanted for murder. My father had the wagon driven down to the Chinese quarter, and having located his man proceeded to arrest him. Now, Mr. Coolie was a very powerful man and chock full of fight, and my respected sire soon had his hands full. But after a few minutes' tussle the two men went down, the Coolie underneath. He was rap- 179 Panama and tbe Sierras idly being choked into submission when the dep uty suddenly cried out, "Look out there, old man; look behind you !" My father turned and saw, not three yards away, toddling toward him as fast as her queer little feet would permit, a Chinese woman brandishing a big two-handed sword, with the pleasant intention of cutting off his head while he was too busy to notice her approach ! Keeping one hand on the Coolie's throat he drew and cocked his six- shooter with the other and aimed it at the on coming female. She gave one frightened look at the gun and then the woman came to the sur face. She dropped the sword and toddled away, shrieking like a Comanche, leaving her Coolie friend, who was now thoroughly submissive, to be tied hand and foot and bundled into the wagon. Ai Ai Afi Over a winding up-and-down road, between lofty green-mantled mountains and past sweet-smelling fields ablaze with poppies and bedecked with blue bells, to Jacksonville, my native town. — How strange it seemed to return to my birthplace after so many years. And I did not go back -with drums beating and colors flying either. The stage driver 180 WHERE MY WG-.'iLD BEGAN. Mbere /iDy World 3Began dumped me and my belongings down at a cross road, saying that he never crossed the creek, but there was a footbridge and I could get across all right. As I had ridden out of town in state when I left the place, the prospect of returning in the role of "Dusty Rhodes" was not pleasing. But I pretended to like it, shouldered my grip and tackled the foot bridge. Twas thus the wanderer retumed. — How everything had changed! When Jackson ville was in its prime it was the most noted min ing town in Tuolumne. At one time it had three thousand inhabitants and now — well, there are twenty-four houses in the town, and some of them are unoccupied. Ah, but that dear old town is abundantly peopled by ghosts ! Boston Pete, Dixie, Mexico, Big Brown, Klamath Joe, Poker Jim, Toppy — 'heroes of my hoyhood — gone, all gone. And the few old-timers that were left seemed to bave forgotten me. When I introduced myself they simply stared blankly. The nearest I came to being recognized was when I found an old fellow who remembered my dog. Diamond, a fa mous hunter, known throughout all the moun tains. I recalled poor old Rip Van Winkle and his dog Schneider, whom nobody remembered, and was consoled. I finally met an old fellow who was postmaster in the old days and was fa lsi Panama and tbe Sierras miliar with the spelling of my name. He remem bered me at once. In introducing me to his wife, however, he said, "Mary, this is Dr. Litz." He immediately corrected himself, but the mystery was explained. It suddenly flashed upon me that those old miners never knew that my father ever had any other name than the nickname given him by his feUow pioneers, in accordance with the miners' custom, immediately upon his arrival in the country. Taking the hint I reintroduced my self to the old settlers. That my welcome was a warm one is one of the pleasantest recollections of my visit. In its early days Jacksonville was known far and wide as the location of wonderfully rich placer mines. Its location is most picturesque. Wfld and crude it always was and now is, but I have never seen a prettier spot than that wild canyon among the foothills of the glorious Sierras, where, at the junction of the historic Wood's creek and the Tuolumne River — "the meeting of the waters" ¦ — nestles my native town. Peopled in my chUd- hood's days with as cosmopolitan and heterogene ous a population as was ever gathered together within the confines of one small town, the place was to be remembered for its novelty, if for noth ing more. 182 w o?-,< Eh w Y,O a o /IDemories Ages and ages of heavy rainfall, with alternately rising and receding waters in the river and creek, and centuries of melting snows on the majestic mountains above, had washed down into the val ley of the Tuolumne those auriferous particles the great abundance of which made the Jacksonvifle of old spring into busy life and prosperity almost in a single day. But the very elements that laid the alluring foundation of the valley's wealth eventually avenged the rifling of its golden stores by the irreverent hands of the modern Argonauts. There came a very heavy rainfafl, in the latter part of the winter of i860 and the spring of 1861. The terrific downpour of rain and the melting snows from the Sierras caused a freshet that inundated the valley and almost wiped Jacksonville out of existence. I recall the terrors of that awful flood as though it were but yesterday. Very few houses were left standing. One of these chanced to be our own Httle cottage. 'My father saved it by passing a rope through a door and window and making it fast to a tree on the side of a hill above the tovim. The house stood triumphant un til five years ago, when another freshet came along and swept it down the river. One of two large fig trees that stood in our front yard is stiU alive 183 Panama and tbe Sierras and thriving. It is now a huge old veteran, and when I last saw it was loaded with fruit. The Tuolumne River is a variable stream, and in the dry season is but a thin, silvery ribbon across which one can almost Walk dry shod in places. In the late spring and early summer it is a swift- running, laughing stream of exquisite beauty. It is difficult to believe that it ever becomes a rag ing, pitiless torrent. Yet in the rainy season it may at any time bring death, destitution and mis ery to that beautiful -vaHey. As I stooped at the river bank and drank of the pure, cold water from the melting Sierran snows, the memory of that avi^ful time in the long ago came back to me all too vividly, and in fancy I could once more see the invincible torrent that practically engulfed the little town and ruined its rich placers. I do not claim that my native town presented in early times an ideal state of civilization. But, despite occasional incidents where "bloodshed alone could atone for some trifling misstatement," life and property were safer there than in many more pretentious communities at the present day. A sense of personal responsibility made the French the politest of all nations. It was the soul that beat back the waves of shot and shell that hailed upon the flower of the old South on many a bloody 184 AH BING ARRAYED IN HIS BEST. ©Id Xandmarfts battlefield. A similar spirit of self-assertion and personal responsibility pervaded the Tuolumne valley and raised its average moral standard above that of many a metropolis of a more vicious and effete civilization. Warm-hearted and impulsive, honest, courage ous, fiery-tempered, quick^triggered Argonauts of the Tuolumne valley — heroes of my boyhood and friends of my later years — a health to those of you -w'ho still live, and peace to the ashes of those who have laid down the pick and pan forever and inspected their sluice boxes for the last time. When the final "clean-up" comes, may the "find" be full of nuggets, sixteen dollars and better to the ounce. Of the old-time buildings in Jacksonville but three remain. The combined inroads of freshets and amhitious miners have swept away the river side of the single street. A typic miner's cabin, built in 1850, stands on the hill above the street, lonely and deserted, as a monument to the old regime. But there are many other .familiar landmarks. The Sheet Anchor ranch, once owned by an uncle of mine, is marked by a little old shanty, built and occupied by an aged Chinaman, a pioneer of the early 50's. The lumber used in its construc tion came from my uncle's deserted house, which. 185 Panama and tbe Sierras was almost destroyed by fire a few years ago. The old Chinaman is a quaintly picturesque char acter. Many tourists have tried to get the old man's picture, but without success. The old fel low remembered me, however, and consented to allow me to take his photograph. To my disgust he insisted on dressing up for the occasion. He rushed into his cabin, changed his hat for one of a different kind of decrepitude and came forth •with a cardigan jacket in his hand. He removed his tattered coat, put on the jacket and then donned his coat again, buttoning it closely around him. Thus arrayed. Ah Bing was serenely con scious of being the proper thing. ¦ Another old landmark is the ruins of Toppy's cabin. Toppy was the special friend of my child hood. Our friendship began when he pulled me out of a mud-bank one day, and was firmly ce mented when he went back later and dug up my first pair of red-topped boots, that had been pufled off my feet by tihe sticky mud. No one knew much of Toppy's history. He had an edu cation; he was a good fellow; he could swing a pick with the best of them, and shoot — wefl, he could shoot well enough to make him respected. That the rough old fellow was good to little 'bo3rs, the painful memory of sundry indigestions due to the goodies he used to buy for me whenever an abandoned placer he went to Frisco, amply testifies. I asked after my old friend, but he was forgotten, save by one or two old-timers. They said he was dead, but they 'had no idea where or when he died, as he had been gone from Jacksonville for many years. To me the most interesting landmark in Tuo lumne is an old abandoned placer mine on the bank of the river. My father wcrkeo! this mine in '49 or '50. It was very rich, and had his thrift been equal to his industry, he need not have worked for the remainder of his life. But money went as easily as it came in these days of rich placers. The miners seemed to think they would never reach hard pan. 'But only too many of them reached it. Very '^ew 01 the pioneer miners had anything to show for their labor and hardship when the bubble burst. Time ,was when the town of Jacksonville sup ported several hotels. The old Empire, built by my grandfather, sturdy eld Robert McCoun, was washed down the river in '61. The Tuolumne house was recently demoUshed to keep it from falling down. This was a far-famed hostelry in its day. Jacksonville is only about sixty miles from the Yosemite vaUey, and tourists formerly came directly through the town, almost invaria bly stopping en route. George Keyse, its old-time proprietor, was a noted character, a Boniface to 187 Panama and tbe Sierras the manner born, who could take a j;un or a knife from an excited boarder as quickly and grace fully as he could turn his own flap-jacks. Still more noted was Dave Smuggins, who offi ciated alternately as clerk, porter and 'barkeeper of the hotel. He was a man of parts, Dave was, and 'twas said was educated for the ministry. His fitness for that calHng was shown by the sing song oratorical display with which he was wont to call the boarders o' mornings: "Arouse, all ye sleepers ! List to the little airly birds singin' praises tew the Lord! D — n yer bloody eyes, git up!" Dave finally met a man who differed -with him on some point of religion or other, and soon there after there was one less of the tribe of Smug- gins. He was buried with miner's honors at a place called McKinney's Humbug, up in Calaveras county, I beHeve. Ai Ai Ai In the palmy days of the placers the Yosemite vaUey road crossed Wood's creek at a ford the safety of which varies with the season, as many a luckless rider or driver has found to his cost. I well remember the drowning of one poor fel- 188 2>ecrtyed Grandeur low just a'fter a spring freshet, who attempted to ford the creek when the water was high. After passing the ford the old road skirted the Tuo lumne river for about three mfles to another ford at what was known as Stevens' Bar. Here the way lay across the river and up one of its tribu taries. Moccasin creek. The route traversed by the road is an ever-changing panorama of pic turesque beauty. Stevens' Bar was probably the richest placer in afl the state. Over $2,000,000 was taken out of the bed bf the river in the -vicinity of the old ford. Since then the sand and gravel have been worked over and over un'til even a Chinaman couldn't find "color." At the bar on the JacksonvUle side stands a relic of former grandeur, that illustrates, perhaps better than any description could do, the fall in the fortunes of the placer mines. It is the ruin of what was once a palatial stone house. The buflder, Charley Deering, expended about $12,000 upon it. Here he kept a miners' exchange and conducted the ferry and toll foot bridge across the Tuolumne. He made a fortune of probably half a million dollars. A few years later all was changed. The placers became profitless, a new road to the Yosemite was bmlt on the opposite side of the river and travelers were then inde- 189 Panama and tbe Sierras pendent of the Stevens' Bar ferry and footbridge. To accentuate the disaster to Deering's business venture, one Moffit built a toll bridge lower down the river, across the Tuolumne canyon. Charley succumhed to the inevitaible, struck camp and went to Frisco, intending to live in comfort the rest of his days on the pile he had made at the ferry. But alas! the fates pursued him. He fell to speculating in stocks, went flat broke and died in an asylum for the insane. How pathetic the story of the old stone house. What dramas have been enacted within its walls. One can almost hear the clink of the golden ounces as the sturdy miners threw down 'tiheir bags of buckskin to be weighed in exchange for coin. Nowhere did I feel the oppression of the wondrous change in the scenes of my childhood more than at Stevens' Bar. Desolate, deserted, beautiful, crumbling relic of the old regime, monument to the enterprise of the early pioneers, thou wert one of the palaces of my dhildish dreams. Thou art a sad memory of my later years. At Moffit's bridge across the Tuolumne canyon is a picturesque little road-house. The builder of the bridge, after -w'hom it was named, formerly lived here and did a thriving business with Yo semite tourislts and travelers going to and from the towns and camps up the river. The bridge 190 • FRENCH TOM OF TUOLUMNE. jFrencb Uom was bought by the county a few years since and toll is no longer exacted. The road-house is now kept by a one-armed German, who, with his in teresting family, is giving an illustration of people content with little. To my surprise he informed me that he was a former Chicagoan — North-sider, of course. Had I needed any evidence that the world is small, this coincidence would have af forded it. a; jsc .X Just opposite the mouth of Moccasin creek, on the right bank of the Tuolumne, stands a lonely, decrepit little cahin. The surrounding scenery is as beautiful as a dream of fairyland, but the spot is far too lonesome for human habitation, and too thronged with ghostly memories of by-gone days and my boyhood's friends to excite my ad miration to the full. There, in that solitary hut, lives old Tom Hayes, the "French Tom" of '49. Solitude has no terrors for this octogenarian, land memory brings no ghosts to disturb his peaceful solitude. To him, the characters of long ago are ever present. They throng his reminiscences and are a part of his very self. They people his daily reveries and nightly dreams — ^they are still actuali ties in his life. Dear old Tom, was there ever such 191 Panama and tbe Sierras another character ? And how glad the old man was to see me. He gave me a welcome the sincerity of which I could not question. How Tom and I reveled in reminiscences of the days when Stevens' Bar was a famous placer and JacksonvUle a boom ing town. The old man remembered everybody of consequence who had ever lived in the Tuolumne valley, and his conversation -was a iveritable feast for me. To the uninitiated, Tom's manner of living would 'be mysterious. Like the tramp, he has no visible means of support. But, as he says, "Two bits a day is enough, and that's not so hard to git." Tom's lines are set o'nights, and many is the fine fish 'he captures. When luck is with him he stops fishing till the catch is eaten. Tom does not fish for fun, but for provender. In the middle of the day he is usually to be seen sitting outside his lonely cabin, smoking an old dudeen and gazing out across the bar toward Moccasin Creek. Hour after hour he sits there dreaming, and apparently unconscious of his solitude. There is not a house in sight, and some day, not so far away, I fear, the old man will die there in his lonely cabin, and no one wifl know of his death for days and days. Such was the fate of old Colonel Buckner, one of the old-timers, who died in a cabin on Kanaka 192 a pioneer's learns Creek, away up in fhe hills back of Jacksonvflle, a few months before my visit. The dead man was not discovered for nearly a week. Tom very rarely goes to town, nowadays. I asked him why, and he replied : "Well, sorr, Oi'm jist as good in me legs as iver Oi wuz, but, ye see, it's this way, sorr. There do be two saloons down there, an' the fellers that kapes thim is good frinds av moine. But -w'hin Oi goes ter wan av thim, the feller that kapes the other wan gits jealous, an' there's the divil ter pay. So Oi jist kapes away altogither." The old man has resources unsuspected by the casual observer. He is a miner to the manner born, and puts in some time each day upon his various "prospect holes." Once in a -while he sells one to some tenderfoot, and then there is joy along the Tuolumne. His opinion of his mining ventures is expressed in his advice to me : "Don't ye iver touch 'em. Dr. Litz. There's not wan in foive hundred that's worth a dam, sorr." This, after he had vainly tried to interest me in some of his prospects. Near the old pioneer's cabin a smaU boat may be seen upon the beach. Tom picks up many a two-bit piece conveying travelers from bank to 193 Panama and tbe Sierras bank of the Tuolumne, on their way to and from Big, Oak Flat, Priest's, Coulterville and the Yose mite. One morning as my old friend and I stood gaz ing across the river, he grew more than usually reminiscent. Pointing his finger at a houlder as big as a good-sized house, a short distance up Moccasin Creek, he said: "Ivry toime Oi luk at that boulder, Oi think av ould Big Brown; — 'Dirty-Shirt Brown the bhoys cafled 'im. Ye see, Brown was a divil. He was a gret han' at poker, but, bedad, yez niver cud tell whin the blackguard was goin' ter cold deck yez. Minny's the toime he druv the gaff inter me. But we niver cud catch 'im at it, tho' we was on to him. But he was a foine feller, was Big Brown, an' we all loiked ter play cards wid him. Well, yer own Uncle Tom was settin' in a game wid Broiwn, an' me, an' a lot more av the bhoys wan noight, an' he got ter roastin' Bro-wn. 'Brown,' says he, 'Oi'm gittin' more con fidence in ye.' 'How's that?' says Brown. 'Well,' says Tom, 'Oi've found somethin' Oi can trust yez wid.' 'An' phats that?' says Brown. 'Oh, wid that big boulder up Moccasin Creek.' "Spakin' av Brown," continued the old man, "did yez iver hear the sthory av his bfled shirt? Well, ye see, 'twas this way. Some of the bhoys up 194 "FRENCH TOM'S" FERRY AT STEVEN'S BAR. Brown's 3Biled Sbirt at Mokelume Hill was givin' a dance. A lot av our bhoys was goin' up, an' Big Brown said he was goin' along. Now, the bhoys wasn't shtuck on him goin'. They wanted to luk purty shweU, an' was afraid ould Brown cudn't stack up wid' em. Ye see, he didn't change his shirt, even on shpecial occasions, an' that's why we called 'im Dirty-Shirt Brown. "There was no way out av it, so the bhoys made up their moinids ter make the besht av it, an' see if they cudn't fix him up. 'Brown,' says they, 'yer a foine, han'some iman, but yez don't do yersilf jus tice, sorr. Yer the foinest man in this town, an' we want yer ter show up in great stoyle at the dance. Now, we want yer ter go down ter Sthockton an' git an illegant biled shirt, an' collar, an' necktie, an' things.' Afther some pursuadin' they got him ter go. When he came back he was luggin' the biled shirt an' other fixin's all done up noice an' toight in brown paspcv. He left the shtuff wid McGinnis, him that kipt the big boardin' house, do ye moind. "Well, yer Uncle Tom goes up ter Brown an' says, says he, 'Lookee here. Brown, do ye shpose we're goin' ter let yez go up ter Mokelume wid that bale av whiskers on the face av yez? Wliy, nobody can see yer bfled shirt! Come along wid me, now, an' git a shave.' So yer uncle takes ould Brown an' plants him in the barber's chair. 195 Panama and tbe Sierras "As soon as the barber gits ter work, Tom goes ter McGinnis' place an' tefls th' ould fool that Brown wants his 'bundle. Mac gives it to him an' Tom takes it to the bhoys. They goes down ter the bank av the creek an' cuts a piece av shlate jist the soize av the shirt, takes out the shirt from the paper an' puts in the shlate. Then they tuck it back ter McGinnis. "Now, ye see, there wasn't inny shtage up ter Mokelume, an' the boys had ter foot it. It's twelve moiles up there, over the hiHs, so it wasn't inny shnap. Av coorse, Brown didn't want ter put the biled shirt on before he got there, so he tucked the bundle under his arrum widout openin' it at all, an' pikes along up the road. Whin he got to Mokelume an' opened that bundle he was plumb spacheless fer a minute. Then he pulled his six- shooter an' tore 'round among the bhoys like a crazy man, lukin' fer the feller that played the thrick on him. But nobody iver tould him who it was. Bro-wn was jist a leetle excoitable an' Jack sonvUle was a paceable town, an' we wanted ter kape it that way." Having in mind sundry incidents that had oc curred in Jacksonville within my own recollection, I said, "But the old town used to break out a lit tle sometimes, didn't it?" 196 a peaceable Community "No, sorr, not a bit av it. She was wan av the paceablest towns in the diggin's. Why, sorr, yer own father was pace officer fer a long toime." "Ah, of course, of course, it really was a peace able town. By the way, Tom, what became of Mexico?" "Why, sorr, don't ye remimber? Wall-eyed Murphy killed Mex. roight in front av th' ould [Empire hotel, the isame that yer grandfather kept in the airly 50s." "Oh, yes, I remember now. And how about Doc. McGregor?" "Begorra, th' ould Doc. had almosht shlipped me moind. Some feller shtuck a knife in th' ould man wan noight over in Shmart's Garden, an' be the same token nobody iver knowed who did it." And there were others, but family pride pre vented me from pressing the subject further. To many persons living in the east or middle west, the stories told of the lawlessness of the California mining towns in early days may seem exaggerated. I would refer skeptics to the "His tory of Tuolumne County."* Some of the items in the chronology of the county are strikingly sug gestive. I quote a few of them: ?Alley's. 197 Panama and tbe Sierras "May 10, 1849. Boyd murdered by Atkins at !Big Bar on Sullivan's Creek. Murderer fined $500 and ordered to leave the district by Alcalde Frazier." A horrible punishment, indeed! "August 25, 185 1. Tindal Newby murdered by A. J. Fuller at Shaw's Flat. The murderer was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment and a fine of $100." Another terrible vindication of justice ! "November 20, 1853. Sam Poole killed at Cur- tisviUe by McCarthy. The murderer was sen tenced to jail for two years." Verily, the chronology of Tuolumne County is a variegated one. I have merely given a few sam ples. It is cheering to read in the same entertain ing volume an account of the hanging of a couple of desperadoes for kUling a Chinaman. Local prejudice must have been responsible for their ex ecution. There was no "close season" for China men in those days. But every town in Tuolumne had its epileptiform spasms of virtue, -when aU sorts of evil-doers had cause to tremble. Such acute attacks of propriety were usually precipitated by a few "sore-heads" who had lost money at the gaming table. The 198 XLbc TRing of tbe IRoad professional gamlblers had to go, leaving the field to the amateurs. While they were about it, the virtuous citizens made a clean sweep, laying sun dry "ladies" and all persons whose habits were not above suspicion under the ban. It was then, "Go, or stretch !" and the banished ones stood not upon the order of their going. Who that has read Bret Harte's "Exiles of Poker Flat" is not rather thank ful for the pioneer custom that made his beautiful story possible? It must have 'been at some such time, I fancy, that hanging those white men for killing a Chinaman was possible in Tuolumne County. But, as I have already said, despite the arbitrament of the six-shooter and bowie, and the tender offices of Judge Lynch, life and property were pretty safe in Tuolumne — safer than- in some higher-toned communities. It is worthy of note that most of Bret Harte's characters were unearthed in Tuolumne and Cal- veras counties. He was not compelled to resort to his imagination for them, for there were plenty and to spare. The people of his stories are, there fore, true to the life. On the old Yosemite road, in the days of that king of bandits, Joaquin Muriata, many stirring, and oft-times tragical, scenes were enacted. I re member an incident in my father's experience that 199 Panama and tbe Sierras well illustrates Joaquin's ruthless character. His band had robbed a party of tourists, and had made a prisoner of a well-to-do Englishman, with the intention of holding him for ransom. My father, with a posse, was in hot pursuit, and 'bade fair to overtake the robbers. As a reward of $50,000 had been offered for Joaquin, dead or alive, the posse was more than anxious to meet the gentleman. The robbers finally took to the timber. In a few moments the officers heard a number of shots, and shortly thereafter found the dead body of the poor Englishman, tied to a tree and fairly riddled with buHets. The murderers finally escaped. Joaquin was supposed by many to bear a charmed life. A shrewd borderer drew his own conclusions on this point from having vainly fired at the bandit at close quarters several times, and the next time he got a shot at him, aimed at his head and "potted" him. The "charmed life" -was found to consist of a fine coat of mail beneath Joaquin's clothing. The bandit's head was after ward exhibited at Frisco at four bits a look. A Mexican woman, who had once been his sweet heart, on seeing the head, exclaimed, "No Joaquin, no Joaquin I" Many old-timers thereafter doubted the genuineness of the gruesome relic. My father, however, went to Frisco, solely to satisfy himself 200 SCENE ON THE TUOLUMNE KIVEK NEAR JACKSONVILLE. a Celestial IRelic that his old enemy was indeed dead. His com ment was that he had "never seen Joaquin looking so well." As he ex:pressed it when he returned home, "Joaquin looked Uke a mighty good feUow, and I think he has reformed." Ai Ai Afi In former times the population of the Tuolumne valley was composed largely of Chinese. When the placer boom exploded, the slant-eyed Celestials disappeared as suddenly as a lot of rats deserting a sinking ship. The Chinaman is a thrifty fellow and has very little time for forlorn hopes. He wastes even less time in sentiment. A few only of the Chinese pioneers remained in the vaUey. Of these, three were living when I visited the place a year ago. Two, Ah Fook and Ah Wong, have since died. The third. Ah Bing, is still living. Queer-looking, interesting characters were they all. Ah Fook in particular was worthy of descrip tion. He was a'bove the average stature of his ;race, and, unUke most Chinamen, possessed of a moustache and imperial. Strange to say, all three of the Mongohan reUcs had either beards or moustache. Ah Fook was 83 years of age and had 201 Panama and tbe Sierras been in the vaUey since '50. He had never learned much English. Many of his race are very non progressive in this respect. I had considerable trouble in making myself known to the old feUow. My knowledge of Chinese has been derived solely from the perusal of fire cracker labels and tea-chest hieroglyphics, and as I have always been concerned chiefly with the quality of the goods rather than the language with which the same is designated, I am not au fait in it. I iwas glad, therefore, to let Ah Fook select his own method of expression and talk "Pigeon English." This jargon does well enough in conversing ¦with such quaint characters, and, I suspect, adds greatly to their picturesqueness. Introducing one's self is always somewhat em barrassing to a diffident person like myself. You needn't grin so sarcastically, my good friend; I am diffident to a degree. Introducing myself to Ah Fook was more than embarrassing; it was a heroic task. I realized that it was of no use to try my civilized name on him, so I said — "You sabe allee samee Litz, long time ago?" Whereat he made reply, "Me heap no sabe allee samee Litz." I then bethought me of the name by which my father was known to the Chinese of the valley, with 202 AH FOOK. ab food's Ibospitality whom he was very popular, and asked-"You sabe allee samee Ah Jim, long, long time ago?" "Hi yah !" he exclaimed, joyfully, "me heap sabe allee samee Ah Jim. Belly good felly. Ah Jim. Long tli-me ago him too muchee glone away." When I made known to the old feUow that I .was "Ah Jim's boy" his expressions of delight were as extravagant as his dialect would permit with out choking him. As I was about to leave his rickety cabin I gave the old man two bits. He was not in the habit of seeing coin very often, and how he lived is a mys tery, but he had not forgotten the courtesy due from the old pioneer to the tenderfoot. Instead of saying good-by, he insisted on accompanying me over the bridge to Moffit's road house, where he took me by the arm, led me into the bar-room and proceeded to "blow" himself in the most approved style. Animal food being interdicted by my con sultants, I couldn't take "rye," which not only grieved my Oriental friend, but, I fear, led him to suspect that I was a counterfeit, and not a former Tuolumne boy at aU. As already remarked, the Chinaman is not senti mental. I am, to an immoderate extent — ^I was especially so in those surroundings ; who wouldn't have been? — and I confess to a choky sensation be hind my collar button during my visit with Ah 203 Panama and tbe Sierras Fook. He was a reHc of the rosy-hued days of my childhood. Playmates were scarce in those days — children were at a premium in the diggings — and the "grown-ups" who were kind to me have never been forgotten. The old Chinaman was one of these. Many and many a time he took me to his house in the Chinese quarter and fed me with .such rice as only he could prepare, and confections the composition of which only Chinamen know, but ,which were delicacies rare to my chUdish palate. I well remember that in the lugubrious days of those crampy aflments that the wise old women of the little town called "wormy," Ah Fook and his goodies were tabooed. My mother enlisted Toppy's sympathies, and the old man — who was to me a sort of demi-god — ^finally weaned me from the Chinese sweets by discovering that some of those waxy, queer-looking cakes were made of the meat of rats and young puppies. Ah Fook resented the slander on his sweet meats. "Toppy aflee samee no glood ! Me no makee lat pHes! Heap no Hkee pup! Sabe?" I half suspected that I was being "jobbed" by my miner friend, but there was enough doubt in my mind to make me eschew the sweetmeats. It was an expensive 'business for Toppy, though. He was obliged to bring an extra supply of toys up from Stockton on his periodic trips down country. 204 /fining transformations It was with genuine sorrow that I heard of the death of my Chinese friend at my last visit to the vafley. He is missed, too, by the handful of old settlers who stfll remain in Jacksonvifle. Heathen though he was, he was a part of them — a link that bound them to a glorious past. Ai Ai Ai To one who is familiar with the old methods of mining in California, the new system seems a mar velous change. With the passing of the placers, individual mining almost disappeared. The old- time miner with his pick and pan, his shovel, cradle and sluice boxes, little dreamed of the vast hoards of auriferous wealth that lay beneath his feet in the heart of the Sierran hills. Even had he known, the gold was inaccessible to him. He had none of the appliances necessary to getting it out from the rock, nor the large capital required to procure them. Indeed, the milling appHances of that day were so extremely crude that quartz mining was not very profitable. The lack of the abundance of water demanded in extensive mining operations was an almost insuperable obstacle to successful mining on a large scale. Even the humble miner with his placer claim and pick and pan was often 20S Panama and tbe Sierras Hmited in his operations by a scarcity of water. There are to-day in CaUfornia rich lodes that are practically valueless because of the scanty supply of water — as many a tenderfoot has discovered, to his cost. In the good old days of '49, the "boys" used to "salt" mines for the tenderfoot. A shotgun was loaded with fine gold and fired into the nearest gravel bank. When Mr. Tenderfoot came along he was given a chance to 'prospect on the target. As might be inferred, color was abundant and the tenderfoot usually bit, and bit so hard that the baths went clear through his gills. But the day of the shotgun is no more. The fashion nowadays is to sell the unwary stranger a prospect that is a "dandy" indeed — only there isn't any water to work it, nearer thjin fifteen miles, and it would cost a dollar a pint to get it to the mine. Many of my friends have been bitten in mining speculations, and I often wonder if any of them have ever inspected the various properties in which they have sunk their hard-earned dollars. Thou sands and thousands of misspent dollars are often represented by an insignificant hole in the side of a hill, scarcely big enough for a short man to enter it without stooping. The owner of the shaft points triumphantly to a pile of dirt and rock near the mouth of the prospect hole, saying: "That, sir, is 206 /fining Unnocents some of the best ore in the state. Why, it assays $100 a ton, sir ! Just think of that ! I'm going to bond it for half a miUion." And he does bond it for half a million, and then it is stocked for a loft more. By and by some body gets rich, but, depend upon it, the bond and stock holders don't get a cent and have nothing but assessment notices and some bits of worthless paper to show for their lost dollars. The promoter is the fellow who drives the snipe. The investors hold the bag. Tuolumne county is perhaps the richest in gold of any portion of California, but it is safe to say that few if any of its numerous incorporated mines are paying dividends. "The dividends are coming; all we need is a little more money for develop ment!" This is the cry of the insiders, and the small stockholders keep on throwing good money after bad as long as they can stand it. They then throw up their hands, the select inner circle gets control and by and by somebody makes money. I have known dozens of men who have gone into mining ventures, but no man of my acquaintance ever made a dollar out of them, save a few pro moters. The rest have lost all they invested. To prospective investors in mining shares I say, "Go and look at that hungry hole in the ground 207 Panama and tbe Sierras before you put your money into it. Having looked, go home and rent a box in a safety deposit vault and lock up your funds therein." As a recent writer has aptly said : "Mining is a game of hazard against nature. Your mine may pay 'from the grass roots,' you may, on the other hand, put a superb fortune — if you can borrow it back East — into a mere hole in the ground; the richest vein may 'peter' to-morrow, and when your mine begins to play out and the grade runs low, you are afraid to sell, lest the purchaser, running a tunnel a few yards further into the mountain, locate ore that would have made you a millionaire." And so the game goes merrily on. But there are some good mining chances in Tuolumne. Men with immense capital -Who can give mining their personal attention can find very profitable ventures there. Small investors had better keep out. The Republican mine is very rich and wfll one day pay well. The same is true of the Shawmut. This latter is a sixty-stamp mill with an almost unlimited supply of good^aying ore in sight. Even these promising mines have, I be lieve, paid no dividends as yet. The Shawmut mine is especiaUy interesting to me. It was originally a rich placer belonging to my grandfather, Roibert McCoun, one of the early pioneers. It was then called, from its location, the 208 VIEW.DOWN THE TUOLUMNE CANYON FROM THE BRIDGE. nt ^igbt l&ave Been Blue Gulch mine. The vein and pockets were finaUy apparently exhausted and the mine aban doned. It fell into other hands and a few years ago was sold for something like $300,000, being afterward stocked for many times that. I wonder what the canny old Scot would have said could he have known the price 'his discarded mine was destined to bring. Little good would it have done him, even had he known the wealth that lay within the hfll that overshadowed his claim. Free gold he could handle, but mUling ore would have been rather cumbersome for him, I fear. The days of rich pockets have been revived some what of late. Every once in a while someone strikes it rich by unearthing a pocket of free gold in the gravel. Hydraulic mining is carried on to a considerable extent in claims where free gold is found or believed to exist. It is by long odds the simplest and most economic method where high- pressure water is available. All the available mining land in California is patented. The sihrewd owner wastes no time in pros'pecting. He leaves the working of his claims to others, for the consideration of 25 per cent of the find. With a number of men at work on his land, he is quite likely to participate, sooner or later, in a "ten strike." He sometimes feels a bit 209 Panama and tbe Sierras disgruntled when the lessee strikes it rich, but as a rule he takes both the find and his percentage philosophically. Ai Ai Ai Apropos of my impressions of the mining in dustry of California, I am reminded of a primitive method practiced by an old fellow in Jacksonvifle. At the junction of the far-famed Woods' Creek with the Tuolumne River is a spot that to me is by far the most interesting in all the world — ^the site upon which formerly sitiood the house of my nativ ity. The ground upon which the house stood has been washed and mined away until a steep bank only remains, at the foot of which is part of what is now the river bed during high water. Upon the bank, at a point corresponding exactly with the site of my birthplace, stands a grotesque con trivance known as a "raster."* This consists of a circular, tub-like trough, floored with flat, rough rocks laid in such fashion that interstices of small size are left between them. In the center is a re volving wooden pivot, from which extend three wooden arms, each of which is provided at its ex tremity with two 'huge stones, arranged so that *Spanish, rastra. 210 an Entbusiastic Itblnct when the pivot revolves they are dragged around upon the rack floor of the trough. Two discon solate horses wearily follow each cither in a foot path around the huge tub, furnishing the power that propels the arms. Into the trough, dirt, gravel and water are poured. These materials are ground up into a soft magma, into which all the free gold is liberated. The gold settles to the bot tom of the mushy stuff and finally gravitates into the interstices of the floor of the contrivance, from which, on "clean up" day, it ds collected. The raster in question was employed in grinding up "tailings" from the mines, which taflings are often productive enough to yield a living to one of mpdes't ambition. On a rude seat fastened upon the central pivot of the queer contrivance, sat an old, old man — eighty years of age at the very least. Like the fel low who spun the yarn of the Nancy BeH, "his hair was weedy, his beard was long, and weedy and long was he." Hour after hour he sat there, half asleep, occasionally rousing himself to expectorate a mouthful of tobacco juice and "cluck" to his pa tient, weary horses. Ever and anon the gazed dreamily at the river bank a short distance away. I followed his gaze and saw four fishing p'oles that were w-orking overtime to provide the old man's supper. A conservation of energy, truly. 211 Panama and tbe Sierras On my last visit to the abridged mill, I en deavored to engage the old man in conversation, in this wise : "Good morning, sir." "Huh?" "I said, good morning, sir." "Oh, yaas, of course. Good mawnin'." "It's a fine day." "Huh?""I said, it's a fine day." "Oh, yaas." "I suppose you are an old-itimer here, sir." "Huh?""Why, I want tP know if you have heen here long?" "Oh, 'bout five years." "Where are you from?" "Huh?""I asked where you are from." "Who, me? Why, I'm from everywhere, mostly." "Are you getting any results?" "Huh?" "I asked if you are getting any color." "Oh, yaas." "I suppose the fishing is pretty good here." "Huh?" 212 >a. a Xittle Brown 5ug "I said, I suppose the fishing is pretty good here?" "Huh, huh." I gave it up as a bad joib. The old man was evi dently as much exhausted as I was. Reaching down, he drew up a sraall jug that was swung to one of the arms of the raster by a strap. He held this out to me in a hosipitably inviting fashion. I declined with thanks — ^and regrets. The old man put the jug to his lips — and I sus pect he is still drinking. There was no referee to yell, "break away," and as the outcome of the struggle hetween the old man and the enemy that steals away men's brains was self-evident, I vamoosed. The last I saw of him as I climbed the bank, was his bunch of weedy whiskers blowing about the jug, as his chin, elevated at an angle of 45 degrees, bade defiance to prohibition. Was it fancy, or did I hear that meUow "gurgle, gurgle," so sweet to the ear of the thirsty pioneer, gently wafted adcxwn the wind and hlending with the rus tle of the leaves of the China trees on the river bank? Or was it, after all, only the music of the crystal waters of the Tuolumne as they rippled over the rocks ? Quien sabe? Ai Ai Ai 213 Panama and tbe Sierras To the mind of the uninitiated, the old-time pio neer is but a rough diamond at best. I wis'h it were possible for my pen to do justice to some of the Argonauts of '49 that I know. Kindly, sym pathetic natures there are among them, and a re finement that the roughness of the frontier, the ravages of time and the vicissitudes of pioneer life have but served to bring out in more m.arked con trast with their rude surroundings. I have one in mind at the present moment whom it is a joy to know. "Old man Keith," his fellow townsmen call him. As "Grandpa Keith" he is best known to the children. Living all alone in his little cabin on the old Yosemite road, just where the Tuolumne bends on its way to that wonderful canyon, where began and ended the rainbows of my ohildhood, the dear old man peacefully dreams of the days when the valley was peopled with eager delvers after ready-made fortunes, patiently await ing the summons to the land where, if his creed be right, he wfll again tread golden streets. Time has laid his hand but tenderly on the head of my old pioneer friend. The passing of the years has 'been as gentle as the falling of rain into a summer sea. There may be something more beautiful than the silver locks of Grandpa Keith, but I have not seen it. There may be sweeter and more lovable char acters than he, but I have never met them. H O HO a Gentle pioneer As I write there comes to mind an incident that shows the gentle sweetness of the old man's nature. CaUing at his ca'bin one bright morning, as was my wont, I met him at the door carrying a large pail of mflk. My way lay up Kanaka Creek, and my old friend informed me that he was "going a piece up the creek" himself, and would "go along, if I didn't mind." Be sure I didn't mind, and we wended our way up the hills together. "You see," he remarked, apologetically, "I'm a little too old to be climbin' these hiHs, but I've got an errand to do. There's a family up yonder that takes milk of me — a quart every day — and the little boy that comes after it didn't show up this morn in'. I'm 'fraid he's sick, an' the baby'll get sick, too, if he don't get his mflk reg'lar, so I jes' thort I'd run up an' see what's happened, and take the milk along." I glanced at the pail, which apparently held sev eral quarts, and remarked, "That must be a husky baby. Your quart measure runs pretty large, doesn't it?" "Wefl," he said, "I alius 'low to give the boy good measure. Wonder what's happened to the poor little kid, anyhow." And for two weary miles, over the hiUs, up and down, through stony gulches and over the rocky beds of half-dry streams, that gentlest of pioneers 215 Panama and tbe Sierras tramped by my side, with a stride that showed no handicap of age or bad condition. The baby got his "fuU measure" that day, and, granting that I am a competent judge of character, that kind old man wiU also get full measure some day, if there are any good things to be had beyond The Great Divide. A^ Ai Ai It was with a sad heart that I said good-bye to m.y kind old friends of the Tuolumne Valley. The beautiful river, the pine-wooded slopes and ver- dure^bedecked mountains were my earliest memory of home, and, although many years had passed since I left those delightful scenes, a vision of home they still seemed. As I waited at the cross-roads for the stage that was to bear me away, perhaps never to return, I bethought me of my German friend at the Tuolumne canyon bridge, and felt that I could not leave without a farewell handshake, and a last glimpse of that wonderful gorge and its swift- running river. My friend of the roadhouse came with me to the bend of the road as the stage came in sight, and bade me "God-speed." Assuring him 216 THE TUOLUMNE CANYON, YOSEMITE ROAD AND FORMER TOLL BRIDGE. IRomance IHndone that I hoped to return some day, I said, as I stepped aboard the stage ; "Well, good-bye, Hora tius !" "Oxcuse me, vat you mean?" he repHed. "Who vas Horatius?" "Oh, I was jesting. Horatius was the fellow that kept the bridge. In ancient times, you know. You must remember the story of — 'How well Horatius kept tJie bridge In the brave days of old.' " "No, sir, you vas make von mees-take. Dere vas no feller py der name of Horatius dot efer kept dot bridge. I vas peen here for four years, und pefore dot it vas Moffitt." I looked back as the stage rolled away, and saw the old German standing in the middle of the road, disputatiously waving his stump of an arm and shaking his head in vigorous protest against m.y ignorance of the history of the toll 'bridge. Ai Ai Ai A fair start counts for Httle in a California stage Tide. In less than half an hour after leaving Jack sonvUle, the sky, which had been as fair as only the sky of that region can be, became overcast and shortly afterward it was "raining rain" in deadly 217 Panama and tbe Sierras earnest. By the time I boarded the train at Chi nese Camp it was pouring cataracts. The pros pect of another slushy trip on the Sierra Raflroad was not inviting. Although there were only about twelve miles between Chinese and my objective point, Sonora, I knew from experience that the way was long enough to permit of plenty of trou ble. And my apprehensions were well-grounded. The train came to a standstill at a washout at "Jim Town,'' four miles from its destination. Bedrag gled and disconsolate, the passengers, among whom were several women and children, were transferred from the cars to several old-fashioned four-horse stages, and, with a cracking of whips, we were off for Sonora. It was dark by this time, and, the curtains of the stage being buttoned closely to protect the passengers from the torrents of rain, the view of the scenery was not especially fine. The road was rough, and what with bump ing into ruts and rocks and occasional logs, our lot was not a happy one. Whilst wondering whether we would arrive in Sonora without a spill, we were edified by an inci dent which is of frequent occurrence on a Califor nia stage route in the rainy season. The stage stopped suddenly, mixing the passengers up some what promiscuously, and depositing a squaUing infant in my lap ! 218 xrbat Gentle Creeft "She's pretty high. Bill," quoth the driver to a friend on the box. "Yep, but I reckon ye kin make it, old man," -was the reply. Crack! went the whip. "Let her go!" howled the driver, and down went the stage into a rush ing stream. The water began to flow into the stage and there was a lively scramble among the passengers to get their feet out of danger. There was a loud splash, and a yell from the driver, "By G — d, Tom, they've lost their feet! Ah, there's bottom again !" We finally reached the opposite bank, to the great relief of everybody. Shut in as we were, the experience was anything but pleasant. As soon as we were on terra firma once more and bumping along the awful road, which now seemed pleasant enough by contrast, I peered through the front curtain and said, "Excuse me, driver, but what river was that?" "River, h — 1!" he replied, con temptuously, "that's Woods' Creek." I was glad to meet with my old friend the creek again, but sorry to note the pernicious activity it had acquired since I left it at Jacksonville in the morning. Such is life on a California stage road in wet weather. I have on several occasions crossed an insignifi cant Httle creek in the morning, and on returning toward nightfafl, have found the water so high that 219 Panama and tbe Sierras my horse 'was compelled to fairly swim across, and I was compelled to put my feet on the dashboard to keep them out of the water that fiUed the box of my buggy. To the uninitiated, this story may seem preposterous, but it is commonplace enough to the people of the CaUfornia mountains. I remember on one occasion, seeing a couple of drummers misled by some imps of boys, who told them that a certain creek was fordable. The un sophisticated greenhorns drove bravely into the stream and narrowly escaped drowning, whereat the boys howled in vociferous and malevolent glee. Two angrier, wetter and more sheepish men than those victims of their own ignorance and the boys' mischievousness were never seen. In passing, let me remark that life on the Cali fornia stage roads in some other respects still has a little of the old-time flavor. Hold-ups are by no means rare. The very day before my experience on the Jim Town stage, a hold-up occurred on the Angels and Milton road. The affair was well worth description. The night was very dark, and as it was raining the side curtains of the stage were drawn. Within the stage, -wliere they could not be seen, sat two ex!press messengers, one armed with that most effective weapon, a sawed-off shot gun loaded with buckshot, and the other with a Winchester rifle. The strong box was beneath the 220 a IReminder ot ©Id Uimes driver's .seat. The stage had arrived at a lonely part of the road about two miles from Angels, when a voice cafled out, "Halt, there! Throw up your hands !" Seeing two men with rifles aimed at him, the driver accommodatingly complied. "Throw out your box !" commanded one of the robbers. "All right, gentlemen, it's under the seat," re plied the driver, stooping over and proceeding to fumble industriously with the coveted box, at the same time saying to the messengers in an under tone, "Plug' em, boys, but don't hit me." "Hurry up there, and quit chewin' the rag, d — ^n you !" yelled the spokesman of the robbers. "All right, I'll hurry, but it's d — d heavy," said the driver, crouching still lower to give his friends plenty of room for gun play. Having located their men, the messengers sud denly rose from behind the seat and gave those luckless gentlemen of the road such a surprise party as they probably had never before experi enced. One fefl mortally wounded, whilst the Other, after firing several harmless shots at the piessengers, escaped with a handful of buckshot in his anatomy, only to be afterward captured and brought to book. I was discussing this attempted robbery a 'few days later with "Canada Joe," an interesting 221 Panama and tbe Sierras Canuck who drives the stage from Milton to Cop per, and he informed me that, while he had never been held up, he "wouldn't mind having it tried on him." His desire was gratified a few months later, and, somehow, the terrible things he pro posed to do to the robber didn't materialize. One lonely man held him up, and as the passengers did not have enough to satisfy the robber, he went ithrough poor Joe a la mode and took everything he had, even to the terrible "seex shooter, Mon sieur le Docteur," with which he had promised to annihilate the first luckless highwayman who should chance to come his way. So bloodthirsty was he that my sympathies were all with the Knights of the Road untfl — ^well, until I had rea son to sympathize with him. "Seventeen dollair an' ze watch, by gar!" Poor old Joe! Ai Ai Ai Sonora is the most important town in Tuolumne county. Its history is practically an epitome of the events of early mining days in California. Be ginning with the advent of a party of Phfladel- phians in the early summer of '48, the history of that section of the country is one unbroken record of the ups and downs, the hazards, successes and 222 Sonora reverses of gold mining. The pick, pan and cradle have made way for the quartz mill, but a halo of romance still rests upon this beautiful region. The first explorers prospected on and about a stream that was afterward named Woods' creek, in honor of a clergyman in the party. A few months later a party of Mexicans located Sono- rian Camp. In 1849 a large number of Ameri cans settled here and changed the name of the town to Sonora. How beautiful the country about Sonora was in the old days, the surviving early pioneers and a few of the sons of The Golden West alone know. It was one of the most picturesque re gions in the world. The noble forests sheltered the red man amd the graceful deer. Sparkling, crystal streams gurgled merrily over the rocks or silently flowed through the soldierly rows of leafy oaks and stately pines. In tihe more tran quil spots of the streams gorgeous trout could Jje seen darting albout hither and thither, as if sur charged with the very joy of Hving. Magnificent sequoias, the like of which can be found nowhere else on earth, towered in majestic grandeur toward the heavens. Deer, antelope, rabbits, squirrels and quail were abundant. Monarch of all he sur veyed, amid this beauteous scene lumbered the clumsy bulk of the fierce grizzly bear. Ever and 223 Panama and tbe Sierras anon could be heard the weird shriek of the moun tain lion, as he called to his mate from his lair among the rocks. From time to time echoed the death cry of some helpless deer, the panther's vic tim. Most fitting background for such a scene loomed up the cloud-capped Sierras, their peaks covered with eternal snows, glistening in the sun like a veritalble diadem of pearls and silver. Half a century has rolled away, and much of the beauty of the scenery has been destroyed by the inroads of mining. The land has been dis figured (and the brooks and rivers defiled — ^or turned from their old-time courses — ^but the re gion about Sonora is stfll beautiful as an artist's ideal. Many ridh placers were found about Sonora. How famihar the names of "Peppermint Gulch," "Sullivan's Creek," "Mountain Brow," and that historic spot where a long-eared quadruped fell down a shaft, "Jackass Gukh." At fhe latter place a claim loo feet square yielded $10,000 worth of gold. Near this claim was discovered a quartz vein that paid from $100 to $300 per day for years. The gold was pounded out of the quartz with a pestle and mortar. Apropos of this crude mode of extracting gold from quartz, I am reminded of a method of "soak ing" the tenderfoot, not hitherto described. After 224 Customs of Sonorian Camp numerous specimens have been pounded in an iron mortar the pestle and inside of the mortar become coated -with fine gold. The yellow metal is, so to speak, beaten into and incorporated with the iron. The tenderfoot secures his own speci mens from the prospect hole he is considering, and the fellow who is after his money gives him an old mortar and pestle in which to pound it up. He gets a wonderful color and fairly tumbles over himself to make an offer for the hole in the ground from which the ore was dug. As the tenderfoot has handled the ore himself there can be no suspicion of fraud, and when he finds the mine valueless he attributes his mistake to the existence of a small, accidental area of high-grade ore ffom which he incorrectly estimated the value of the mine. There were much suffering and hardship in the months that immediately followed the opening of the Sonora placers. Supplies were inordinately high. Flour, hardtack, beans, coffee, saleratus and sugar were held at the uniform price of $31 per pound. Pork was $8 per pound. The wise merchant soon made a fortune. He charged ex orbitant prices for his goods and paid only $8 an ounce in specie, or $16 in trade, for gold. Gambling was the one absorbing passion with all classes in the Tuolumne mines. Spanish monte, 225 Panama and tbe Sierras faro, poker and roulette — all were in full blast. The miner made his money easily and let it go more easily. Rich on Saturday night, he was usually broke on Monday morning. Liquor was a dollar a drink, yet he managed to get drunk without much trouble. How little the miners appreciated their wealth in the golden days of Tuolumne is shown by their careless methods of exchange. A pinch of gold was cafled a dollar's worth; a teaspoonful was sixteen dollars ; a wineglassful a hundred dollars and a tumblerful a thousand dollars. How strange was the spectacle of thousands of adventurous men, who had braved untold dangers to reach the land of promise, throwing away in reckless prodigality the gold they had come so far to seek. Many of them became the possessors of unbounded wealth, only to die eventually in the utmost destitution and debasement. But not all have met this fate. A few struck it rich and kept the find. Another and more numerous class joined the ranks of the professional miners. The fever was chronically in their blood and miners they remained to the end of tihe chapter. They were of the immortals. Die their race cannot, for so long as the world shall last, will be found men as brave and adventurous as the Argonaut heroes 226 an Enduring Uype of my childhood. The passing of the years may dim their eyes and silver their hair, but their hearts will still remain as undaunted as those of the brave settlers of the Stanislaus and Tuolumne. On, and ever on, wfll they pursue The Golden Fleece. The snows of the Klondike have no ter rors for them. The tropic sun beats on their de voted heads in vain. The camp fire of the mining pioneer burns in every cHme, and the echoes of his sturdy pick-strokes resound through all the peaks and crags from Cape Horn to the Arctic Circle. All honor to the early Californian and his pioneer successors. He will pursue the golden bubble un til he fafls into his last prospect hole, and is cov ered forever by that kindly Mother Earth who lures the miner on and on with her golden temp tations, until at last she claims 'him for her own. . And let us not be too harsh in our judgment of the pioneer who has gone to the wall. He is hut a bit of wreckage on the border sea, it is true, but he is a relic of an age of heroes. As the old song has it — ."Here I am, old Tom Moore, a reUc of former days; The people call me a bummer sure, but what care I for praise, 227 Panama and tbe Sierras For my heart is filled with the days of yore, and oft I do repine For the days of old and the land of gold — ^for the days of '49." Ai Ai *^ 'Sonora has stfll many of the ear-marks of a bor der town, but lit has arrived at the dignity of a metropolis, for it possesses a hotel that would grace a much more pretentious city. But I would have been willing to dispense with a few com forts could I have seen the Sonora of old. And yet the town had a certain fearsome quaUty in the old days. 'Twas there that my boyhood's friend, "Three-Fingered Jack," got inextricably tangled up with a quantity of rope. I never could understand why tihe people of Sonora could not appreciate Jack's good qualities. He was one of the most popular men at Murphy's, in Calaveras county, the town to which my father emigrated after a succession of freshets in the lower country had practically ruined him. Jack was very good to me. To be sure, he used to inveigle me into shaking hands with him, during which formality he was in the habit of ja'bbing me in the palm v/ith a little bony s'pur that projected from the stump 228 /B5y /Dbartyred jfriend of a thumb on his crippled hand, but then, he was wont to console me with glistening two-bit pieces and large sections of jujube paste, so I didn't mind his little pleasantries. Jack was for a long time supposed to be an honest miner. He worked many a day side by side with my sire. But the citizens of Tuolumne and Calaveras discovered that he was in the habit of "laying" for belated travelers and separating them from their, valuables. One night a couple of tourists were held up and one of them chanced to get his throat cut. The survivor got a glimpse of the rob ber's hands and noted the peculiar deformity of one of them. The rest was easy. It required no Sher lock Holmes to find tihe murderer. And so my kind friend was taken to Sonora and duly stretched. His last request was that his photograph be taken and sent to my father. The boys forgot the pic ture till after the stretching. They then fulfilled the promise they had m'ade and had Jack photo graphed in his coffin. Ugh! It was a gruesome souvenir that cost me many a nightmare. Well, Three-Fingered Jack was a good fellow, afl the same — in the daytime — ^and I never became quite reconciled to his loss. Both Bret Harte and M'ark Twain were Tuo lumne miners in the long ago. It was their resi dence there that gave to the world much of their 229 Panama and tbe Sierras remarkable character study. Notable characters were plentiful and it needed no literary license to enable one to present them graphically. Descrip tion true to the life was the sole requirement. Bret Harte is one of my household literary gods, but, knowing his literary temperament, I do not wonder that he was inspired to write such won derful tales and beautiful poems. His early en vironment in Tuolumne should have inspired a pen far less able than his. A short distance from Sonora on the Jackson ville road is Poverty Hill. Had the necessary- rhyme chanced to come handy, this town would be famous. Here lived "Joe," the hero of Bret Harte's "Her Letter." It was here that Joe "struck color" in the heart of old Folinsbee's daughter, the "Lily of Poverty Flat." One can imagine her lamenting as she writes from Paris, where she has gone "to be finished," that her papa had ever struck "pay gravel." "But you know if you haven't got riches, And are poor, dearest Joe, and all that. That my heart's somewhere there in the ditches. And you've struck it, on Poverty Flat." The early court records of Sonora and the neighboring towns are something astounding. I 230 Justice IRampant commend them to our Chicago justices of the peace. The pace was set by the first alcalde of Columlbia, one Sullivan. Here are some of his judicial rulings : William Smith had a Mexican, Juan Santa Anna, arrested for stealing a pair of leggings. The pris oner was found guilty and fined three ounces. Smith was mulcted one ounce for making the com plaint ! George Hfldreth lost a pick. It was found in the store of a certain Frenchman. The French man was fined one ounce and mulcted three ounces costs ! A party sued for the recovery of a mule. The ownership of the animal was proven and the thief fined one ounce and mulcted three ounces costs. The guilty party being broke and the accuser rich, Alcalde Sullivan made the latter pay both fine and costs, remarking, "This court can't be expected to sit for its health !" Afi Ai Ai While sitting in the office of the Victoria hotel in Sonora one evening, my attention was attracted to a picturesque-looking man of some sixty-five years of age, who seemed to be entertaining the loungers who were hanging about with stories of Panama and tbe Sierras huge proportions. Now and again some one would caU out from the edge of the crowd, "Say, Jim, will you swear to that?" Whereat the enter tainer would reply, "What's the matter -with y'u, anyhow, ye d — d tenderfoot? Just because you hain't never seen nuthin', you've got a notion that nobody else haint. Say, do you fellows want to hear me out, or not?" Of course, everybody was anxious to have the old man go on with his yarns, and the captious questioner was promptly frowned down. It was not for me to dispute the veracity of the raconteur, so I hung upon the outskirts of the crowd, Hstening to his wonderful tales until long after midnight. "Who is the old man that is tefling stories?" I asked the hotel clerk. "Why," he said, -with some surprise, I thought, "That's Jim Giflis." And then I remembered. Jim GflUs is one of the characters who have made Tuolumne famous. Know ye all and sundry, that he is none other than "Truthful James," made immortal by Bret Harte. Likewise is he Mark Twain's "Jim Smiley," of "Jumping Frog" fame. "Why did Harte call him Truthful James?" I asked. "Because," replied the clerk, "Jim cannot tell 232 a 3Famous Character the truth. Which is where he differs from G. W. He's been drawing the long bow for years and years, and he'fl draw it tfll he dies." "I'm not up to small deceits, or any sinful games, I reside at Table Mountain and my name is Truth ful James." Alas ! Why did you deceive us, Bret ? Jim Gfllis does not live at Table Mountain, but in the classic precincts of "Jackass Hifl." Which doth not make good rhyme. Likewise did the poet falsify when he said that Truthful was not up to sinful games, for the high ways and byways of ye goodly game of poker — the same are not muchly unknown to him. Old Jim was especially good-natured when I saw 'him. He had just been down to Frisco, get ting rid of his percentage of a pocket of $28,000 that one of his lessees had struck while drifting on Jackass Hifl. Most of his lessees think the name of the hfll is by no means a misnomer, but there was evidently one lucky exception. And Jim had succeeded in getting freed from his easily acquired wealth very promptly. Said he: "Y'u see, boys, I'm like th' old Irishman who car ried the hod for seventeen years an' saved up four hundred plunks. He went ter the races one day an' blew it all in on the bosses. A friend of his'n 233 Panama and tbe Sierras wuz sympathizin' with him, an' he says, says he, 'Well, niver moind, Paddy, aisy come, aisy goes.' Which tihe same Irishman wuz a hod sport. Eh, boys?" And the boys lined up and helped the barkeeper tear away a few more of Jim's "come easy, go easy" dollars. Good luck to you, Jim, old boy. May your yarns never run out, nor the pockets in that won derful hill ever fail you. And when you cross The Great Divide you needn't be ashamed of your "come easy, go easy" life. Ask some of 'the many "busted" miners and poor sick fellows that you have staked to say a word for you, and I'll chance you with the best of them. Ai A^ Ai The weather clerk was e-vidently bound to revive all the humid, unpleasant memories for me that he could. There was a terrific rainstorm when I boarded the stage en route for Murphy's, my old home in the mountains. As the stage started at seven in the morning, and Angel's Camp, my first stopping place, would not be reached until noon, there was a fair prospect of getting a taste of a 234 XTbe Golden Dalley freshet. But time was limited and I did not pro pose to have my ardor dampened by even a Cali fomia rainstorm. The road from Sonora to Angel's Camp via Co lumbia has some of the most interesting relics of the early mining days that can be found in any part of the state. Soon after leaving Sonora the way lies along a valley between the Sierras that was once one of the richest areas of mining ground in the world. From the very ground that lay beneath our wheels vast fortunes have been taken. Even to-day, hydraulic mining on a large scale is developing rich mines in locations on the hill sides that the '49ers never dreamed of prospecting. The valley itself they worked over and over, and as usual, were followed by that patient grub, John Chinaman. The pioneers either forgot that the presence of gold in the valley betokened rich de posits in the hflls that inclosed it, or had no means of working them. Profitable quartz mining was, of course, for the most part out of the question, but the red, gravelly soil of the hiUsides could have been easily worked hydraulically. Alas ! for the lack of water. The valley was once the bed of an ancient river that flowed among the Sierras untold ages ago. For an area at least a quarter of a mfle wide, and extending for some miles along the stage road. Panama and tbe Sierras the soil has been cut away to the last grain, ex posing the old-time river bed in all its naked ness. I say, "aU its nakedness" advisedly, for it is composed of volcanic rocks of the most fan tastic shapes and varying sizes, most of them being huge volcanic forms that tower up like mon uments, perfectly bare of earth. Every cre-yice between them, however narrow, has been washed out hy the eager miners. Every rock shows the water erosion of the ancient river. It makes one dizzy to conjecture ¦the age of these rocks, especially considering the fact 'that the old river bed is now nearly 2,000 feet above sea level. The general effect of the grotesque forms of vol canic rock is so like a collection of enormous bones, that I dubbed the valley the "Giant's Grave yard," much to the edification of the stage driver. At one time, in early days, six thousand miners were working in this vaUey like so many bees. As a single claim was then only an area sixteen feet square, it is not surprising that occasional friction should have arisen. "Jumping a claim" was, however, a dangerous pastime in that locality. Every miner carried his own lawyer in his holster. The six-shooter and the bowie never postf>oned cases on legal technicalities. 236 a Jumped Claim But jumping did sometimes occur, nevertheless. I recall an instance in whioh my father and sev eral of his partners, who had joined issues and consolidated their claims, had an unfortunate ex perience with claim jumpers. Whfle walking over their property with Big Brown of Tuolumne, one day, my father's attention was attracted by a noise beneath his feet. He called Brown's attention to it, and remarked, "Those Englishmen on the next claim are drifting on our property, and if they've struck the main lode we're done for." Be it re marked that my father's party had been drifting for some time and had not yet struck pay dirt in large quantity. A call was made upon the English men, and on some pretext or other they were asked to re-stake their claim according to their under standing of its boundaries. This having been done, my father and his partners proceeded to sink a shaft at the spot where the noise was heard. They verified their suspicions by coming down upon the interlopers' heads ! And then there was trouble. Knowing the peculiar customs of the mines in those days, and never ha-ving heard of any resulting international complications, I have drawn my own conclusions as to the outcome. But the denouement came too late. The main lode ran diagonally across my father's claim and had been pretty thoroughly worked out. Most 237 Panama and tbe Sierras of the gold had been shipped to the lower country, ^o there was no chance of redress. However, I'll ¦wager that the heirs in England never got any of the gold. A short distance from the Sonora high road is the little town of Shaw's Flat. This was a famous mining center in former days. The glory of the town has not yet departed, for rich pockets are occasionaUy struck in its -vicinity. Near its out skirts is a hifl, surmounted by an old Catholic church and burying ground. Some time since, an enterprising miner had a claim adjoining the churchyard that he had worked for some time without great results. At last, however, he struck a lode from which he took out $80,000. But alas ! the lode was found in a corner of his claim from whence it ran into the graveyard. The miner tried to buy the church and the hill on which it stands, hut in vain. The pious folk would not allow their dead to be disturbed. How long those moldering bones will lie on beds of gold none may knosw, but that particular miner will have been gathered to his fathcES long ere that sacred hfll is desecrated by the restless seeker after wealth. It has oome to pass that, while the homes of the dead are undisturhed, those of the living are smitten by lihe mining vandal. The little town of Columbia rests upon a part of the ancient river 238 a Stanislaus fferry bed. Its site is rich in gold, and its people are drifting from their own ceUars and sinking shafts in their own back yards. By no means profitless is this vandalism. Some few of the residents have grown rich thereby. Which recaUs Bret Harte's story of Dow, the man who was digging a wefl in his own back lot and made a rich strike. "It was gold in the quartz 'And it ran all aHke, And I reckon five oughts Was the worth of that strike. And that house -with the coopflow's his'iv- Which the same isn't bad for a Pike." Ai Ai Ai The Stanislaus is ever beautiful, and its entire course traverses a country of unsurpassed loveh ness, but the scenery at Parrot's Ferry is the wild est and grandest on the river, though not so pic turesque in some respects as at Byrne's Ferry. The river was quite high from the recent rains, and yiewed from the stage road, high up on the brow of a mountain, was a picture to be remembered. The gorge between the Sierras through which the Stanislaus has forced its way is a very narrow 239 Panama and tbe Sierras one, and, at its fuU, the stream tears along at a terrific rate. No ordinary boat could live in it, and neither man nor horse could swim it. The ferry is a very ingenious contrivance. A huge wire cable is stretched across tihe stream. Upon this run large pulleys, to which the boat is attached in such a manner that the rushing water strikes its sides at an angle and propels it along the cable. On the return journey the angle is reversed and the current propels the boat back to its starting point. I couldn't help won dering what would happen if the cable should snap. I fancy the ensuing few moments would break all marine records— ^nd sundry necks. Ai A^ Ai Angel's Camp, or Angels, as it is now kno'wn, was once so lively that its name was quite satiric. It is now dead enough to almost merit its appel lation. The mining renaissance, represented by the modern quartz mine, has given it something of a boom of late years, but 'tis not the Angels of aforetime. The "boys" say that if they can "keep the d — d raflroad out," they still have hopes that the old town may amount to something. Next to "hoping," the most popular industry would 240 angels appear to be 'the breeding and fighting of game cocks. There is hardly a house that does not have a few coopfuls of these birds. All of which augurs badly for the thrift of the place. The birds represent just so much energy devoted to killing time, and are too suggestive of old Mexico to portend business activity. The people of Angels live principally upon the traditions of the past, when gold, was plenty and the crack of the six-shooter music to the ear. .Who does not remember Bret Harte's "Thomp son of Angels?" "Yet in the 'hamlet of )Angels, -when truculent speeches are uttered, When bloodshed and life alone wfll atone for some trifling mis-statement. Maidens and men in their prime recall the last hero of Angels. Think of and vainly regret the Bald-headed Snipe of the valley." Angels bored me, and despite the torrents of rain I proposed to get out of the place as quickly as I could. There was no stage that day, and I was informed that there might not be any the following day on account of the high water in the creeks. But I had had quite enough of the town 241 Panama and tbe Sierras ^nd was bound to quit it. I cafled a liveryman in consultation and he said, "Well, I ireckon you kin git through with a buggy if ye keep away from the big creek an' go across the little creek on t'other road." He deputized his son, a lad of about fifteen, to drive me, and off we started in the storm. "Little creek," eh ? Great Niagara ! What an ex perience ! Hardly had we started across the stream when the water filled the box of the buggy and was weU up the horse's sides. My young driver tried to back out, but only succeeded in tipping the buggy almost over. I grabbed the reins and whip, gave the horse a sharp cut and proceeded to make the best of the situation. As I couldn't back up, I put both feet on the dashboard out of the way of the water and made a dash for the opposite bank. Whereupon my horse proceeded to float down stream. He finally regained his feet, however, and we managed to get out of that creek, but my hair is stfll inclined to rise when ever it rains hard. What with the rain, the scare and the bumping over the roads, I was soon the worst apology for a convalescent in search of re cuperation that ever struck the stale of Califomia. Afi Afi Ai 242 Ibtstoric /Durpby's Once again I arrived in one of the haunts oi my chfldhood, with what could hardly have beeu styled eclat. I had often pictured to myself a sort of triumphal entry into Murphy's after many years of absence, and the bedraggled, weary and sore condition in which I found myself was quite dispiriting. I waited for the morrow and clear weather before looking uip my friends of other and happier days. I then found many friends and re newed many pleasant associations. Time had not dealt gently with the few pioneers who still remained at Murphy's. But my welcome was none the less cordial. One dear old man, crippled with rheumatism and bent with the weight of over threescore years, mostly years of the "lean kine," tramped five miles over the hflls to greet the man whom, as a child, he had once dandled upon his rugged knee. The mflk of human kind ness is not all gone from this hard old world, but it is chiefly in such communities as Murphy's that we find it. Murphy's Camp is a town well known to fame. Situated in a beautiful valley among the Sierras, within fifteen mfles of the celebrated Calaveras Grove of Big Trees, it has long been the object ive point of the tourist en route to the natural wonders higher up in the mountains. At, and 243 Panama and tbe Sierras prior to, the time I resided there, thirty years ago. Murphy's was a justly celebrated and flourishing mining camp. A desire for improvements in min ing methods ruined the town. A great power com pany was formed to bring water down from the mountains for mining purposes. This water was to be leased to miners at high rates and a large profit was guaranteed. The water company's stock was subscribed for by nearly everybody in Calaveras county. All the miners' savings went into the venture. Unfortunately the engineers had not figured on both ends of the line. They got the water in all right, but there was no way to get it out, after it had been used in the mines, and Calaveras was ruined. The money of Calav eras had aU gone "up the flume." The great flume stands to-day, the gravestone of Murphy's pros perity. The town never recovered its former prestige. It looks like a beautiful, thriving place to-day, when seen from the hills, but it is absolutely dead. How its inhabitants eke out a livelihood is a mat ter for speculation, for the farming thereabouts is almost nil, and the Big Trees are not so popular as they once were. An element of pathos is added to the poverty of this once flourishing mining town by the fact 244 a Dead XCown that it is situated amid an abundance of gold. The hills are still rich, and there is little doubt in my mind as to the existence of a vast quantity of the precious metal in the ground upon which the town is built. I am of opinion that beneath the valley lies a continuation of the same ancient river bed 'that traverses the country adjacent to Columbia. The valley, however, has never been prospected. The founders of Murphy's were , miners, it is true, but there were home-buflders among them who by mutual agreement decided to hold the to-wn site sacred. The pick has never desecrated their home sites. One of these days a gigantic company -wifl be formed that will buy up the entire valley, introduce a practical water power and develop the vast auriferous wealth of this poverty-stricken place. Meanwhile its inhab itants will subsist as best they can. The future of Murphy's matters little to those of the Argo nauts who still live. They are fast joining the sflent majority in God's Acre on the hifl. Only a few remain, and the good-bye that I said to them on leaving that town of ghosts and traditions was by no means conventional. It was fraught with sad meaning. It is strange that the Big Tree Grove of Calav eras has lost its interest for tourists. The num ber of travelers passing through Murphy's en route 245 Panama and tbe Sierras for the trees has grown ismaller year by year. Rival attractions are to a certain degree respon sible for this, but the weary ride by stage has had most to do with it. Time was when this was not so objectionahle as now. Other natural wonders were equally inaccessible. The onward march of railway enterprise has, however, benefited most other wonders, and people in search of novelties in recreation have come to abhor fatiguing jour neys. What 'the ultimate fate of the Big Trees will be is conjectural. The grove has recently been bought by a lumber merchant, who is hold ing it with the -view of selling it to the United States government for a national park. Fafling in this, he proposes to cut down the trees and convert them into lumber. Wfll this crime be per mitted ? I think it will. The temper of the Ameri can people permits such things. A people that per mits the Palisades of the Hudson to be disfig ured with patent medicine advertisements will not be likely to interfere to save the Big Tree Grove — ¦ one of the wonders of the world. Whatever the fate of those giant sequoias, I shall always feel better for having seen them. It is something to have stood beneath the shade of the growth of thousands of years and to have felt one's self a pigmy beside those wonderful specimens of Nat ure's handiwork. And when I stood upon that won- 246 "Cragedies IRecalled derful stump of the original "Big Tree," which had been cut down for timber, and gazed upon that other giant shaft denuded of its bark to supply the East with souvenirs, I could not but despise the sordidp,ess and vandahsm of modern civilization. Ai Ai Ai The sight of the old flume reminded me of a se ries of tragedies that I witnessed in Murphy's many years ago. The old schoolhouse stands on the brow of a hfll of some size a little way out of to-wn. Some rods away is a flat upon which the Indians, who were once plentiful in that region, used to con gregate. One morning, in fuU view of the school childreii, an Indian and a half-breed companion repaired to this flat with a bottle of whisky and, having become gloriously drunk, proceeded to fight for possession of the bottle. The half-breed was getting worsted when he pulled a knife and stabbed his red brother in the abdomen. As the brass-pointed scabbard adhered to the knife, the murderer drove scabbard and all into his victim. The excitement sobered the half-breed and he fled to the hflls. 247 Panama and tbe Sierras The wounded Indian was picked up by his brethren and taken to the woods back of the school-house, where he was laid upon a blanket and a funeral pyre of wood built beside him. The Indians then gathered about the dying man, who stoically watched the preparations for his crema tion, and waited for him to die. We school-boys visited the scene and were highly entertained by the weird chants and grotesque ceremonies of the red-men. The wounded man finally died and was cremated. This custom of cremation among the Indians of the Pacific coast is not generally known. Hutchings, I believe, has also called at tention to it in his wonderful book, "The Heart of the Sierras.'' The sheriff of Calaveras came to Murphy's that day to investigate the murder of the Indian and capture the perpetrator. Some of the boys had meanwhile located the half-breed in his retreat among the hills. The sheriff was glibly informed that the murderer had been seen in the vicinity of Vallecito, and posted off in hot haste in that direction. He was hardly out of sight, before the boys rounded up the half-breed, tied a rope around his neck after a sharp fight, and dragged him down to the point where the flume crosses the Vallecito road. Tying a stone to the other end of the 248 a mecfttie party rope they threw it over the flume, gave a long pull and a strong puU and — the curtain dropped forever on the murderer ! The avengers ( ?) and the audience then quietly dispersed, leaving their victim hanging to the flume and swaying in the wind. "Jest so the sheriff kin find him easy," they said. And the sheriff found him without much trouble. When he expostulated the boys said, "Well, we told ye ye'd find him on the Vallecito road, didn't we? An' ye found him there all right, didn't ye?" The which was unanswerable. Ai Ai Ai The summary visitation of punishment upon Cahfornia criminals in the old days is not without paraUel in modern times. The subject is a grue some one, but I nevertheless venture to reproduce a photograph of an incident that happened only a few years ago. The scene depicted is a flashUght view in front of the county courthouse, Yreka, Siskiyou county, CaUfornia, shortly after midnight of September 26, 1894. It represents the work of a Vigilance Commit tee which was hastily formed in Yreka to dis- 249 Panama and tbe Sierras pense justice to one Johnson, a big, burly black smith. Johnson suspected the fidelity of his wife,. a small, delicate woman, and completely disem boweled her with a knife. This happened near Sawyer's Bar, a mining camp about fifteen miles by stage from Yreka. The murderer was arrested and taken to Yreka for trial, with the result shown in the photograph. At the time Johnson was elevated there hapr pened to be three other men in the county jail charged with murder, and the committee, being. practical economists of energy, thought it well to make a clean sweep. Moreno, a Mexican tramp, and Stemler, a young fellow nineteen years of age, were in jail for kill ing a man on the railroad near Yreka. After tihe hanging the Mexican government demanded and secured an indemnity for the death of Moreno. It was generally thought that Stemler was not a party to the murder, but merely happened to be with the Mexican when the crime was committed. The work of the Vigilance Committee was there fore questioned by some of the prominent men in Yreka. These gentlemen afterward found notes under their doors advising them to do less talk ing — which admonition they obeyed. The com mittee subsequently claimed that it had been very :50 a. 85 /iDan's Unbumanity to flDan merciful to Stemler in breaking his neck, which was done by a .couple of the hanging party jump ing uip and hanging their weight upon him. NuU killed his mining partner, with whom he dis agreed as to the sale of some property which they were operating. The murdered man wished to sell his interest and had accompanied a prospec tive purchaser to view the property. Null became enraged and emptied the contents of a Winches ter into his partner. I commend the picture of the foregoing event to the advocates of capital punishment — legal or illegal. It may not Ibe an object lesson to pros pective criminals, for I hope my circle of readers wiU not comprise any such, but as an illustration of the savagery of man to his fellow man it is superior to anything within my knowledge, save several legal executions I have witnessed.* Ai Ai Ai ?There is a suggestion of humor in the fact that the photographer who took the picture of the Yreka "necktie party " held the office of justice of the peace in that enter prising to'ivn, This gives a flavor of "legality" to the picture, however irregular the entertainment may have been. 2S1 Panama and tbe Sierras Second only to the Big Tree Grove of Calaveras in, interest is its recently discovered cave. This is one of the most wonderful natural curiosities of California, and alone is worth a journey to Murphy's. I should Uke to state how far it is from the town, but I cannot. The road leading to it is a circuitous and mountainous one, said to be a mile and a half long. The road back to town seemed to cover about half a mile. I was a little puzzled to understand this disparity in distances, when I happened to think of the high livery rates that prevail in that unsophisticated place. Were the sign reading "To the Cave" placed upon the short cut, most tourists would walk. Having induced them to ride, the proprie tor of the cave caps the livery man's game by giv ing them the worth of their money. On meeting the proprietor of the cave, one is inclined to wonder how such an unenterprising individual ever came to discover it. I have suc ceeded in elucidating the problem. He was resting at the time. While pursuing this, his favorite occu pation, he chanced to recline against a huge boul der. Noticing a strong current of air blowing upon him, he proceeded to investigate, and found that the air was issuing from a fissure in the face of 252 a monderful Cave the rock. Further exploration discovered the cave, yv'hich extends over one hundred and fifty feet underground. The various chamhers of this cave present some of the most beautiful and varied stalactitic and stalagmitic forms that can be found in Amer ica. In some places the roof and walls present the exact appearance of a coral bed. Here and there this coral-like formation closely imitates beds of beautiful flowers. The "Pansy Bed" is especially suggestive of the flower after which it is named. At the entrance of the passage-way between two of the chambers hangs the "Goose." Had the limestone of whioh it is formed been actually de posited upon the bird whose form it has assumed, the similarity could not be much more striking. The most remarkable formation is the "Angel's Wings," two broad, thin, sheet-like stalactites hanging from the wall of one of the lower cham bers. The nomenclature of these formations is not inappropriate, for their appearance is quite like that of the pinions of picture-book angels. The wings are variegated by bands of different shades of pink and brown, extending from top to bottom. Stfll another remarkable form is the "Miner's Blanket." The resemblance of this phenomenon 253 Panama and tbe Sierras to a blanket is very striking. The resemblance is emphasized by several broad, brownish-pink bands at the lower extremity or border of the formation. A series of stalactites known as the "Chimes" would dehght a xylophone soloist, so soft and sweet are the sounds produced by gently striking them. In ancient times the cave was probably used as a burial place by the Indians. A large number of crumbling human bones that were found here are shown the visitor. And human bones are not all; the scapula of a giant sloth, somewhat en crusted with lime deposit, it is true, but none the less readily recognizable, is one of the features of the cave. The great length of time necessary for the formation of the larger stalactites is shown by the fact that the relic of the giant sloth has but a thin layer of mineral deposit upon it. The cave has not yet been thoroughly explored. There are probably other marvels in store for the tourist. The electric light wfll one day penetrate this lonely place. Its wonders will then be well worth going many miles to see— always providing the beauty of the caye has npt meanwhile been dimmed by the smoky lamps with which the shift less proprietor now lights the tourist's "clamber- some" way. The wave of progress has already 254 Calaveras Gunnery struck the cave. A bar-room is being built at its mouth. Future tourists who patronize the bar will see a multiplicity of beautiful chambers — and some other things — in the cave. They will then go home and tell fearsome stories of the terrible cave snakes of Calaveras. In studying the proprietor of the cave I arrived at the conclusion that the original cave men were not hairy, but woolly. The modern one is woolly, at any rate, and I judge he must be a direct descendant of those of ancient times. I' could smeU the "times" upon the particular cave man under consideration, quite distinctly, and high old times they must have been, if their "aged in the wood" flavor is to be taken in evidence. Ai Ai Ai When Murphy's was in its prirne the main street of the town presented a very lively scene, espe cially after nightfall, -when the miners, having fin ished their arduous labors, came into town to seek excitement. GambHng was rife. There may be towns "vvhere card .playing is more pdpular, but in order to transcend the Murphy's of former days it would be necessary to suspend all other occu pations but gambling. Every store was essen- 255 Panama and tbe Sierras tially a gambling house. There was no store so humble that it did not possess at least a table or two. The doors were kept wide open and the players were in full view of the passers-by. Things went smoothly enough, as a rule, but when a row did start there was serious trouble. The early Californian was peculiar. He had a faculty of mixing in other people's quarrels that was by no means commendable. With him a saloon or gam bling house row was everybody's row, so he usu ally "chipped in." Everything would be lovely in a gambling house when suddenly a shot would resound through the room. On the instant, the barkeeper would put out the lights, while every body who had a gun drew and fired at the near est man! I recall a very funny incident in this connection. A row started in the Fremont saloon, and quite a stiff row it was, too. A fellow was sauntering leisurely down the street whistling. He heard the rumpus, ran across the street to his house, got a shotgun and returning stepped to the door of the place where the fight was going on. Point ing his gun at the struggling mass of men he discharged both barrels, one after the other. His conscience being thus relieved, the man shouldered his gun, resumed his whistling and marched off in the serene consciousness of duty well performed. 256 Early amusements The shooting done in one of these free-for-aU fights, it was the fashion to count noses and see who was hit. Such was the ethics of Calaveras gunnery. The street was occasionally enlivened by im promptu daylight affairs that were quite charac teristic. A type of these entertainments was that afforded by one "Mexican Pete," a Greaser gen tleman who was wont to load up with aguardiente and make things lively for the Murphyites. The towns-^pe'ople had abided him with patience so long that he felt privileged, as the boys afterward said, "ter play the limit." One afternoon he was fuller than usual, if that were possible, and proceeded to "paint the town" in lurid colors. One coat of paint exhausted his resources. Mounting his mustang, with a six-shooter in each hand, he started at a terrific pace down the street. Into stores he rode, upsetting everything and every body that stood in his way, then out again, shoot ing at everybody in sight. Now, the people of Murphy's were not easily nonplused, but on this occasion they M^ere so sur prised that the Greaser had it all his own way for a time. He finally reached the end of the street, and had he been wise would have continued on and left the town. But the game seemed so easy 257 Panama and tbe Sierras that he wanted more of it. Back he came up the street, shooting right and left and whooping like a Sioux. Meanwhfle, the citizens had recovered from their surprise and were lined up along the way to receive him. The immortal six hundred may have gone against a hotter fusilade than did that luckless Greaser, but I douht it. Before he had covered a hundred yards the reception committee opened up ¦on him. "Doc." Jones, who was coroner at the time, brought in a verdict of "suicide while suffer ing from emotional insanity." Incidentally he de livered a homily on the evils of drinking bad liquor. Ai Ai Ai The "pride of the hamlet" were gathered in the bar-room at Murphy's one evening, killing time as best they could. In the center of a group of typic young mountaineers sat my old friend. Bill Loveless, who drove stage in Nevada, and in and out of Murphy's, from '49 to '90. "Col. Bifl," as the townspeople called him, is one of the most vivid recollections of my old home in the Sierras. The chief gala occasions of the old days were the arrival and departure of the stage. The crack of Bill's whip and the ringing whoop that an- 258 a IRelic of tbe IRoad nounced his coming with the mail and a load of strangers from the lower country were music to my boyish ears. Bfll was a hero in those days, nothing less. M'any a time did he let me strap his huge six-shooter around my waist, permitting me to revel in the anticipation of the wonderful things I was going to do when I should be a man and drive a stage. And the rides he used to give mei I would lie in wait for the stage at the out skirts of the town and order old Bill to throw up his hands, whereat he would surrender promptly and allow the small bandit to board the stage and ride triumphantly with his prisoners to the door of the hotel. The old man had long since laid aside his whip forever, but he was still one of the most respected citizens of Murphy's. I entered the bar-room just as the old Colonel .was in the midst of one of his stories of early days, \vhich the younger men never tired of hearing. When the story was finished there was the usual lining up at the bar, where some "took sugar in theirs," whilst others "said to the barkeeper, lightly, 'Y'u kin give us our regular fusel.' " The poison having been concealed in their anatomies, the party again gathered about the table and ex pectantly awaited another story from the old vet eran. He began in this wise: 259 Panama and tbe Sierras "D' ye know, hoys, things hev changed so that life aint wuth livin' no more. Look at stage drivin', for instance. There wuz a. time when we boys used ter git two hundred an' fifty cold plunks a month. Now jest look at it. The game aint wuth playin.' They begrudge a man his keep, ter say nothin' o' wages. The d — d railroads is killin' all sorts o' business, an' speshully stagin'. We jest orter to git out with shotguns an' drive the railroads off'n the earth." To my astonishment, the feeling among the party was that railroads were the invention of the devil and had ruined every mining town they had entered. Said one young man from Angels : "The Sierra railroad has got to Columbia, but you can just bet they'U never get it through Angels. We won't stand for it, and God help tihe first feller that tries to lay a rail anywhere near our town." It seems that the teaming business is a very profitable one for a mining town, and this par ticular enterprise is usually kflled by the intro duction of a railroad. On subsequent inquiry I found that the consensus of opinion in the mining towns that I visited is unfavorable to railroads. "By the way. Colonel Bill," inquired one of the party, "did you ever get held up when you wuz drivin' stage?" 260 Col. Bill's Experiences "WeU, I should say I did git held up. There's a feller settin' there that's held me up lots o' times. ¦Eh, Doc?" I plead guilty, and the old man con tinued : "But speakin' o' the real article, I've been held up fourteen times." "Well," I remarked, "I should think such an experience would 'be likely to produce nervous prostration." The old man grinned and replied : 'Oh, no. Doc. ; it aint so bad as that. Of course, it does shake a feller up some the first few times he bumps inter road agents. But ye git kind o' used to it arter a while. I got so I didn't mind 'em any more'n so many monkeys. Road agents got ter he jest like the changes o' weather — nat'ral conditions like." "But," exclaimed one of the younger men, eagerly, "you surely showed fight, didn't you. Colonel BiU?" "WaU, no, not exactly; that is, not always," replied the old man. "A green feller mout show fight a time er two, but twuz a bad habit ter git inter. Ye see, the cusses most aUus got the drop on a feller. They knowed we wuz a comin', an' had their little surprise party all ready. We didn't know they wuz after us until the guns wuz lookin' our way, an' then 'twas a leetle too late. Besides, 261 Panama and tbe Sierras the road agents wuz strangers to us drivers, an' t'wuz a leetle dangerous ter be famihar with stran gers in them days. I had a few scraps when I fust begun drivin', an' mout have kep' on a-fightin', only I got inter one scrap that cured me." "How was that. Colonel?" asked someone in the crowd. "Let me see, said the old veteran, 'twas in '54, I believe, that I wuz drivin' on the Sonora and Murphy's road. I had a big lot o' gold aboard one night that wuz bein' sent down ter Frisco by Wells-Fargo. There wuz a couple of express messengers along, an' nervy boys they wuz, too. They liked ter fight same as if they wuzn't hired ter do it. We got along all right till we got a little past Columbia, an' wuz allowin' we'd make Sonora all right. All of a sudden a tough-lookin' feller steps from behind some rocks, covers me with a shotgun an' yells, 'Hands up, there !' At the same time four other fellers shows up an' covers the passengers an' messengers — an' covers 'em good an' plenty. Quicker'n a wink one on 'em shoots the nigh lead hoss, an' down he tumlbled deader'n a nit. That settled my chances o' runnin' away, as I used ter do when I got the chance. Don't spose 'twould have made any difference, nohow, for them messengers opened the ball 'fore you could say Jack Roberson. O'f course, I jined in. 262 a Uriple t>old»up The way the guns cracked and the bullets flew wuz a caution. But we druv 'em oft', an' then took tally o' noses ter see who wuz hit. We fetched three of the road agents. O'ue wuz deader'n a smelt, an' one died in less'n an hour. The other fefler — 'well, he wuz the star actor in a necktie party that night. One messenger -wuz hit so bad he never got over it — through his bellows, ye know. I got a bullet through my hat, an' a d — d good hat it wuz, too. Another shot went through the boot o' the stage, right 'between my legs. Which wuz what cured yer Uncle Bill o' mixin' up in otber people's business." But Colonel Bill forgot to mention that the epi sode above described did not permanently cure him of gun fighting in general. The records of Calaveras county show that, even if he was cured on that occasion, he suffered frequent relapses. "Speakin' o' hold ups," continued the old Colonel, "reminds me of a circus I had once when I wuz drivin' fer the Stevens' Company, over in Reno. I had the day run from Reno to Carson, and a dandy run she wuz, too. 'Tvi^uz one day in June, '65, if I remember c'reckly, that we started fer Carson, three stages strong. "Jest 'fore we started, Dick Smithson, my side pardner, who wuz drivin' the stage jest behind me, calls out, 'Say, BiU, did yer count noses? 263 Panama and tbe Sierras We've got thirteen passengers to each stage!' Sure enough, Dick wuz right. And I says to him, 'Three times thirteen is a good enough hand, Dick. Anyhow, we've got ter play it.' "'A good hand, eh?' says Dick. 'D'ye know what day o' the month this is ? It's the thirteenth, sure as shootin." " 'WeU,' says I, 'don't ye care, Dick ; it aint Friday, anyhow, so the cards aint all stacked agin us. An' say. Mister Dick, there's luck in odd nurribers.' Which is where Dick had the laugh on me arterwards, tho' 'twuz mostly hoss an' hoss. "There wuz m'ore'n $40,000 in the strong box under my seat, an' Wells-Fargo expected me ter take keer of it. There wuzn't any messengers — because the boodle wuzn't big enough an' there wuz three stages travelin' close together, I reckon. The passengers wuz mostly stag, but there wuz two or three women folks in each stage. "Now, boys, though I didn't have no super stition in my system, I'll own up that I felt a little queer when my pardner made his little spiel about the thirteens. But, as I said afore, I bluffed it out. "Well, everything wuz lovely an' the goose hung high till we got to a turn in the road, not a great ways from Carson, that wuz called 'Robber's Bend,' 'count o' the hold-ups that come off there 264 a Uborougb Clean«up so often. I wuz jest a thipkin' that if we got around the bend safe we'd land in Carson all right, sure pop, when I heard th' old familiar 'howdy do' of the road agents: 'Hands up, gentlemen!' an' there stood half a dozen fellers with black masks on, coverin' our party with rifles and shotguns. One feller got his gun a leetle too near my nose an' I could pretty nigh see the load in it. It looked like some o' them railroad tunnels. I could al most hear the train a comin'. Ugh ! I aint usually narvous, but I jest had ter ask the feller t' ease off a bit. 'AU right, BiU,' says he. Seein' that I wuz among friends, I watched the subsequent proceedin's with some int'rest. "The fust thing them agents did wuz to line up all the men in a row 'long side o' the road, with their hands behind their backs an' a couple o' fellers standin' behind 'em with shotguns, watchin' 'em like hawks. One o' the others kep' me covered, while the rest o' the gang 'scorted the women folks to an old redwood log an' asked 'em, very perlite like, ter set down an' watch the show. Then they come back, blew open my strong box an' took out the gold an' spiUed it inter a sad dle blanket they'd spread out on the ground. Then they begun to go through the men folks, an' of all the funny sights y'u ever seen, that ragged the bush. The agents didn't leave nothin' on 265 Panama and tbe Sierras them tenderfeet. Watches, rings, di'mond studs, gold specs, greenbacks, specie, everything followed the gold that come out o' the box, inter the blanket. My, but it did make a purty pfle o' stuff 1 You never seen nothin' like it. An' guns ! Gee whillikens, boys, you'd orter seen the guns them passengers wuz packin' 'round ! Shiny little pop pers *^bout as long as yer finger, most on 'em wuz ; the kind that shoots them little homepathicker pills that jest sorter riles ye up 'thout gifting any action on 'em. Every time one o' the agents 'd come across one o' them guns he'd 'haw haw' right out an' say, ' 'Sense me fer takin' yer pop, mister, but I want it fer the kids ter play with. 'Sides, yer mout hurt yerself with it.' One agent said he wanted a breastpin for his wife an' he guessed that little 32 would be jest about the thing. "The women folks wuz plum'b skeered ter death at fust, but arter a while the skeer sort o' wore off an' they began ter enjoy therselves. Every time one o' the passengers would give up his roll the girls 'd all devil him mos' ter death. 'Shell out, Charlie !' says one woman to her husband. 'How about my new dress? Thought yer wuz broke, old boyl' 'Be keerful o' that pretty little gun,' says another one. 'Don't rub the shine off'n it. It belongs to my little Willie at home. Partners in Misery "By the time th' agents got through with their clean out, we heard tother stage comin'. The fel ler who wuz guardin' yer Uncle Bfll, says, very per- litely, 'Now, WUliam, my boy, don't make a noise an' scare yer pardner off, 'cause yer mout scare me, an' if I got narvous this old gun mout go off.' Don't ye ever think I peeped — I knew better, an' besides, I wanted Dick ter get a leetle o' the joke. "Well, the gang laid fer Dick's stage an' gave it the same deal that we got. When the last stage came along it got the same dose. By the time th' agents got through, they had a good-sized com- p'ny o' prisoners, an' th' old log full o' women looked like a sewin' circle. The gang finally div vied up their plunder, straddled 'their bosses an' got clean away. The hull outfit wuz caught in a train robbery 'bout a year arterward an' sent over the road." The old man gave a prodigious sigh at this juncture and said, in conclusion : "In the days o' '49 somethin' serious would ha' happened to them fellers. But times had changed in '65, an' they've been growin' wuss ever since." And we all sorrowed with the Colonel, and "liquidated" our sorrow. Poor old Bifl died a few months ago, at a very advanced age. His death was the passing of the most characteristic relic of the golden days of '49 267 Panama and tbe Sierras that could be found in all Calaveras. How every body loved him, all along the road. Who was braver, hardier and more patient? Who so jolly and reckless? Who was a better friend, and who possessed of all the qualities of good-fellowship in a higher degree? Bfll was not so "devil may care" as some stage drivers I have known. He was an unerring driver, but one who never tempted fate. He never tried to show how near he could come to the edge of a cliff without going over — a fool-hardy trick that has cost many a stage-load of innocent passengers their lives. Bill used to say that if he was travel ing, he would pick out the driver who could drive farthest away from the edge of the cliff and near est the mountain without bumping into it or tip ping over. He practiced as 'he preached, and never lost a passenger. The. old man had his faults, and put away enough liquor in his day 'to float the Oregon, hut he never drove stage when he was drunk. He would drink for "sosheihUity" at any and all times, but never would he transcend the bounds of sobriety save when off duty. Ci-vilization and the passing of the years are slowly but surely exterminating the old-time stage driver, but I question much whether the world is better for the passing of the type of men repre- 268 ®ld Doc. Jones sented by Bill Loveless. Brave, honest, rugged, faithful and picturesque — -w'nat more could civili zation ask ? Ai Ai Afi Just opposite the hotel on the main street of Murphy's, stands an old stone building that was once the office and drugstore of the town oracle, "Old Doc. Jones," as his feflow townsmen cafled him. The old doctor, a gruff Scotchman, had the field at Murphy's entirely to himself for many, jnany years. He was- an ugly customer and did not encourage competition. The only competitor he ever had made a very ephemeral stay in our little community. The first case 'he had was his last. An Italian fruit dealer, whom the boys had dubbed "Mac," as an abridgement of maccaroni, had been rohbed several times. Becoming tired of the excitement, he fixed a spring gun in the back of his money drawer, so that anyone opening it surreptitiously would receive a double load of buckshot in his anatomy. Being called upon to make change in a hurry one morning, poor Mac. forgot the spring gun, and on opening the drawer was "hoist by his own petard." A hole was torn 269 Panama and tbe Sierras in his body which, as one of the boys said, "A cat pould crawl through without bloodyin' her whisk ers." The new doctor was called, and, to the intense amusement of the crowd that had gathered around the dying man, said he had "cured lots o' cases like that one," and would "have Mac. around in a week." The bystanders knew a thing or two about gunshot wounds, and proceeded to chaff the doc tor unmercifully. Just then Doc. Jones came along and pressed his way through the crowd. He took the situation in at a glance, and, realizing that the time was most propitious for downing com petition, grabbed the interloping doctor by the collar and slack of his trousers, ran him to the door and kicked him into the middle of the street, a proceeding that was hilariously applauded by the citizens. He then returned and said to the ItaUan, "Mac, it's all up wi' ye, lad, an' ye ken any prayers, noo's the time for ye ta say 'em." The old doctor stayed in Murphy's as long as there was enough work to warrant his remaining. He finally went to Frisco, and built up an immense practice. He never forgot his old friends in Cala veras, however, and as long as he lived his time was theirs, without money and without price. Many of the old miners used to go down to Frisco to consult him, and it was said that he would make a 270 /iDy first Cbeatre millionaire take a back seat any day while he cared for his rough-and-ready patrons of former years. It is the lot of few men to be loved as was good old Doc. Jones. Bluff as to manner, antique as to methods and by no means a courtier of fas'hion, he was none the less an ornament to the society in which he moved in early mining days. Beneath his veneer of rugged homeliness lay as kindly a heart as ever beat. And he got results that more modern practitioners might well envy. His drugs were unpalatable, and his knife a merciless one, but the old fellow's record was one to be proud of. Woe be to him who chanced to doubt Doc. Jones' skill in the hearing of the Murphyites. The critic usually found himself persona non grata with them and had to emigrate. Ai Ai Ai Many of the old buildings in Murphy's were destroyed by fire, some years since. I looked in vain for the theater of early days, where I first made the acquaintance of the swaggering, barn storming tragedian and the wonderful end-man of the minstrels. I was on the dead-head list in those days, for my father owned and managed the thea ter. The theaters of my later years may be more 271 Panama and tbe Sierras pretentious, but none are so beautiful as -wzs that rude structure. And the plays! There are no such tragedies, no such wonderful minstrels now adays. As I stood upon the site of the old theater I re called one play that had m'ore novel features than any modern play within my knowledge. 'Twas a wild, weird, border drama, full of scouts, and Indians, and captive maidens. What with burn ings at the stake, scalping and tomahawking, my young blood was set a-tingling. But some of our to-wnspeople were not so well pleased as I was. They took exception to the histrionic methods of some of the performers, and proceeded to frankly express their disapproval. The means of expression was somewhat unique. Several raw, "gamey" livers were procured and cut in pieces suitable for target practice. When the fake Indians appeared they were received by the boys with a fusflade of chunks of the unsavory liver that not only disconcerted them, but made them lose their tempers. They were armed with bows and arrows, and were foolish enough to at tempt to use these ineffective weapons. A number of the counterfeit redmen rushed tO the footlights, bow and arrow in hand, with the avowed intention of discharging their weapons at the audience! In an instant they were covered 272 a Sbocfting Cbange by dozens of six-shooters ! Not only were they compelled to refrain from their threatened arrow practice, but the boys insisted on the play being finished. And it was finished in due form, but the rest of the engagement of that particular troupe was forthwith canceled. Promiscuous shooting might have destroyed our theater The scenery did not look quite right for some time. The painted trees and shrubbery were not carnivoro.us and could not dispose of the pieces of liver. The liver looked not unlike some queer variety of fruit or flowers. Verily, the drama at Murphy's was soul-stirring. What though it was not esthetic? Afi Ai Afi The change that the passing of the years had wrought in Murphy's was by no means inspiriting to me, but the revival of old memories and asso ciations mitigated its effects somewhat, and I had settled down to suhstantial enjoyment of my visit, when, as Truthful James remarks, "My feel- in's was shocked in a way that I grieve." The male citizens were gathered, as was their custom, in the bar-room of the old hotel, swapping lies and listening to the reminiscences of several of the old guard of '49. I was in the thick of the 273 Panama and tbe Sierras story telling and enjoying myself immensely. The social features of tihe occasion were unexception able, until an altercation arose between two young fellows who were playing billiards. The score wa? under dispute and a wordy war developed. Neither of tihe contestants was distinguished by any special gift of repartee, hence the cohtroVetsy was 'hardly worth recording until both of the dis putants lost their tenipers, and then there was trouble. Quoth one, "You're a d — ^d liar!" Whereupon his playmate blithely replied, "You're another, d — n you !" I instinctively waited for the shooting to begin, but in vain. The' gentle spiriirs went on with their game as if giving and 'takirig' ' the lie was an everyday matter. The experience broke my heart completely. I had expected a change in the town, had'fouhd it and become recon ciled. But this was more than I could bear. When the party had dispersed I asked for my bill, mucH to the surprise of my old playmate, Mitchelet,'the' hotel proprietor. "Why, say. Doc," said he, "you ain't goin' away, are ye?" "Yes, old man," I replied, "I am threatened with heart faflure. There's too' much excitement here for me. When the He is passed in Murphy's, with never a gun play, it's high time fbr an' old resident ' like myself to seek the lower country." 274 Copper "Cown And my friend the host was ashamed, but made answer, "WeU, say. Doc, the old town ain't what it used to be, that's a fact, but, ye know, times have changed a whole lot and things ain't just what we'd like. We're goin' to have a re-vival of minin', by and hy, an' things'U be livelier an' more like old fimes. You mustn't lay up anything agin the town. We can't have .a funeral every time there's a row nowadays. Why, we wouldn't have any cit izens in less'n a week." But I refused to be consoled, and the morning stage took me away from' Murphy's, perhaps for ever. Ai Ai Ai I had supposed there, was nothing more for me to learn regarding California stage ro^ds- I was mistaken, however. CopperopoHs,, . Calaveras county, my next stopping place after leaving Mur phy's, is only twenty-three miles from the latter town, yet stage connections were such that I was compelled to ride forty-nine weary miles to get to my destination. Verily, he who hath tackled a California stage road in t'he moist and gentle springtime, the same hath a tender memory. CopperopoHs is, if possible, deader than some of the old gold mining towns. Its copper mines were 275 Panama and tbe Sierras then lying idle, and, taken all in all, it had a stronger "has been" flavor than any of the moun tain towns that I had visited. The town is re deemed somewhat by the valuable Royal gold mine at Pine Log, four miles away, but nothing short of a 1,500-volt s'hock will ever make it up. The road from Copper to Milton, the nearest station on the Sierra Railway, lies through a very delightful country. One of the prettiest spots is Salt Spring Valley. Viewed in the early spring, the ranches in this valley present a most beautiful picture. The road leaves tbe mountains abruptly, and just before Mflton is reached traverses the side of a steep hill, from -which one can see a perfect pano rama of fertile plain and rolling land dotted with picturesque and peaceful towns, and, on the distant horizon, the coast range. On clear days the city of Stockton may be seen, dim and shadowy, many, many miles away. Ai Ai Afi Frisco again, a farewell visit to Chinatown — "You aflee samee come back some time" — then all aboard for home. How dreary the line of the Southern Pacific after the glorious Sacramento Vafley is left behind 276 Some jfamous Bipeds and the desert land of OaUfornia is reached. One can hardly believe it possible that he is stifl in California. The monotony is broken somewhat by a short stop-over in Los Angeles and Pasa dena, and hy the subsequent view of Redlands, Riverside and other towns in the midst of the dreary waste, whose very names make one's lungs feel a bit queer. Apropos of Pasadena, I, of course, visited the ostrich farm, and was highly edified thereby. It is quite an honor to be introduced to the "first fami lies" among the ostriches. My guide and sponsor was not only of the earth, earthy, but devoid, ap parently, of all sense of humor. The introductions were in this wise : "This is Mr. and Mrs. Robert Fitzsimmons." "Ah," said I, "very glad to meet you, Fitzy, old boy. But what's the matter with your head, Robert? You seem to be getting bald?" Fitzy glanced at Mrs. Fitzsimmons out of the corner of his eye, with an expression that showed only too plainly who was boss of the coop, and then reached for me with as much vigor as the distinguished gentleman after whom he was named might have done. I managed to prevent him from stepping on my solar plexus and passed on to the next coop. This proved to be the home of "Mr. and Mrs. William McKinley." The president was just 277 Panama and tbe Sierras proving the courage of his convictions as an ex pansionist, by trying to swaUo-w Mrs. McKinley's foot, I noted with some solicitude that a Filipino blackbird was at the same time plucking feathers from, Mr. McKinley's neck, for the purpose of building a nest for himself. I am not a politician, hence pass this incident without Comment. "' "This is Mr. and Mrs. Lillian Russell," quoth the guide. "Beg pardon, but did you say,.fMr. Lillian Rus- sefl?'" ^^/'Yes,^Mr. Ufliari. Russefl." "Ah," I said, "a composite, I presume, and. of a truth, 'a bird.' But why don't you call him by. his 'maiden "liame ?" "And what may that be, sir ?" "i; Pluribus, Ununj." And there was sflence — a silence that was broken only when the coop. of "Mr. James J. Corbett" was reached, and I murmured the usual conventionali ties over his cordial foot-clasp. Having left behind us that portion of Southern California where climate is all, we are again in the midst of a vast desert. Fauna, the jack-rabbit- — the kangaroo 'of the prairie — .the prairie dog and rattlesnake. Flora, the cactus, cacti, more cactus, more cacti and sage brush. The most pathetic sight I ever saw was a jack-rabbit racing parallel 278 Sociable JacRs with the train and more than holding his own. Some of the passengers thought he was guying us — a jackrrabbit winks with his ears— but they were in error. He was merely out in search of a green leaf for breakfast, . and was bound for the east. The nearest green grass was in eastern Texas. It . is quite, the thing for the Texas cotton-tails to ask ..the Arizona jacks to breakfast with thern, It's a "ground-ihog case," and as Mr, Jack need not be away from home for more than an hour or two, he .dines. out very often. My, how those "narrow- gauge mules" can run ! Our engineer must have felt the jack's superiority most keenly, for some thing blew up on the engine and I was called to minister ¦ to sundry scalds on both engineer and fireman. Which the same it is true, and not lit erary license. What a vast number of "thriving towns" may be seen upon the maps of the Southern Pacific. The road is dotted with them until it looks. Jike a string of micrococci. To be sure, the passen gers gee only telegraph poles ,with euphonious, high-sounding town names upon them, but one must go by the maps, willy, nilly. The railroad company shpuld know. How tieautif ul the . green prairies of Illinois -seemed that bright June morning of my return. And why shouldn't they? One might anticipate 279 Panama and tbe Sierras picking magnolias in Hades, after a ride on the Southern Pacific. And Chicago — ^why, the place reafly seemed clean and cheerful! Which sug gests that a vacation inflames the imaginative faculties. Ai Ai Ai My appendix? Oh, yes, I had forgotten. Why shouldn't this book have an appendix? To be sure, I have none, but — It will be remembered that the trip which is re sponsible for this volume was taken under protest. I fle'd to escape the persecution of my brother sur geons, who were frantically reaching for mine ap pendix. Well, they were solidly organized into batallions when I arrived home. But, having al ready had a taste of my retreating powers, they were more diplomiatic than of yore, and tried arbi tration. Various committees waited upon me, day after day, and strove with me in this wise : "Now, my dear fellow, you must be operated on at once. You are sure to have another attack, and it might kiU you, you know. Besides, the honor of the profession demands it. You should have the courage of your convictions. Think of the demor alizing effect of your conservatism upon prospec tive patients. Why, it will be something awful ! For heaven's sake, doctor, don't be obdurate!" 280 Mbicb is Different And the spokesman of each committee was wont to drop a hypothetic tear upon my presumptive grave, to encourage the phantasmagoric grass and weeping -willows, I presume. And then I began my little speech in reply: "Gentlemen of this most touching committee: It is true, as you say, that I may have another at tack of appendicitis, but which of you is offering odds? Hath it come tO' pass that the delectable "cinch" hath permeated appendiceal surgery? If so, when, how, what, where, why and by whom? Honor of the profession, did you say ? Ah, there you touch me near mine 'heart. I could almost listen to such argument as that. But, no, get thee behind me, Satan ! I'fl have none of thee, and be- shrew thine honor! Gentlemen, I mind me well my duty. Patients should be encouraged. I have had a vacation, and mine office is a dreary waste. Yet will I not encourage them by setting a painful example. Why, confound you fellows, anyhow! Do you know whose appendix you are talking about. It's mine, gentlemen, mine! Get out of here, or I'll — " And they fled incontinently. Which shows the difference between faith and works. But my surgeon friends were not to be dis suaded. Arbitration having failed, they again tried systematic persecution. They snubbed me, they 281 pafiama and tbe Sierras ignored me, they no longer called me in counsel. My life "was miserable indeed, so misera'ble that my nervous system at last gave way under the strain and T again fled from Home. I went to New York, and on my arrival telegraphed to Oom ' Paul a tender of my services as 'the ''whole tiling," surgi cal, in his army. He aiiswered in this wise : "Mynheer: — ^We have Some fellow^ over here whose kopjes are just as fnuoh gesweflen a'syoUrs, so don't -miake the trek. If you want a good laager; try Milwaukee. OOM PAUL." ' This was "'awful. ' The very idea of a foreign po tentate diBdiriiilig the services of an Americaii sur geon! Firnever ajjeak to Oom'Paul ^gain. I kriewho^ v^here tio'turn, and had about decided 'to buy a gun, go' homej and annihilate the entire surgical fraternity. Before' leaving, 'however, I cafled upon a friend of mine who runs a "remove your' appendix while you wiait" cHnic. He is a very conservative man." He' never rem'oves the ap- peildix^^until he gets a patient. I felt that I cpuld trust him, so I told liim all iny sorrows, and de scribed the pei-s\:'CUtions to 'which my brethren at home had subjected me. He sympathized with me so manifestly that I let him put me on his table and examine me. At the conclusion of the exami nation he informed me 'that my appendix was 282 Exeunt /[Dine appendix shaped like a string of frankfurters. And then, just to prove his point, my humorous friend gave me laughing gas, and ether, and chloroform and things, and pufled the old thing out. Which is why my surgeon friends at home, who wanted to cut me alive, now cut me dead, wink at each other, and say, "I told you so." That's bad, but I can sleep o' nights now. And I can ride on the street cars without having some fellow yell from the other end of the car, "Say, old man, had it out yet?" And nobody sends me marked arti cles on appendicitis — not any more. And the appendix which did not finish me, but was of this book the beginning, the same shall be of this book — THE END. 283 YALE YALE UNIVERSITY L 3 9002 08837 3874