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WARM CLIMATE OF PACIFIC COAST.

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CHAPTER XXXIII.

ON our west coast, the isothermal line bends abruptly northward. San Francisco, in the latitude of Richmond, has the climate of Savannah. Victoria, on Vancouver Island, far north of Quebec is as warm as New York. In Portland, Oregon, roses grow in open air throughout the year. Walla Walla, in Washington Territory, latitude forty-six degrees north, corresponds in temperature to Washington City, in thirty-nine; Clark's Fork, Idaho, in fortyeight, to St. Joseph, Missouri, in forty; Bitter Root Valley, Montana, in forty-six, to Philadelphia, in forty.

All points on the Pacific slope are as warm as those from six to ten degrees further south on the Atlantic side. This difference is sometimes imputed to the numberless hot springs among the headwaters of the Columbia-indeed, everywhere from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. But the more prevalent theory refers it to a current of warm water and air from the Indian ocean, striking the coast at an acute angle, near San Francisco, and thence flowing northward. The Coast Range and Cascade mountains arrest and condense the clouds, causing the winters of western Oregon, in which the sun seldom shines on the evil or on the good, and the rain steadily falls both upon the just and the unjust. Satirical Californians call their northern neighbors 'Web-feet.'

The stage route from Oroville, (railroad terminus seventy miles north of Sacramento,) to Portland, Oregon, is six hundred and forty-two miles long. In summer the trip consumes less than a week. In winter, stage-travelers pay their fares for the privilege of being jolted in mud-wagons, or dislocated on horseback, or mired on foot. Then the trip seems interminable, and there are rumors of passengers who have died of old age upon the road.

394

SCENE OF A CALIFORNIA STORY.

[1865.

But starting on the thirteenth of July we found the summer journey speedy and agreeable. At Grass Valley, in addition to the warm reception accorded him, the programme required Mr. Colfax to kiss a bevy of eight or ten bright-eyed young ladies. He gave the greeting with that zeal and resignation which he brings to all the duties and cares of public life.

Near Marysville we passed the little village of Yuba Dam, the scene of an early California story, which Harper's Monthly first made public. It avers that on a quiet Sunday morning a traveler reached the three little houses which comprise the town.

'My friend,' he asked of a citizen, 'what village is this?" 'Yuby Dam.'

The stranger, shocked at such impoliteness and profanity, put spurs to his horse. At the door of the next cabin stood a decent housewife, broom in hand. He repeated the inquiry:

'Madam will you please tell me the name of this village?' 'Yuby Dam.'

Still more scandalized, the interrogator rode on until he met a little boy playing in the street. Here at least he might obtain a

proper answer:

My son, what is this place called?' 'Yuby Dam!'

'Heavens!' exclaimed the astounded stranger as he galloped out of the town. 'What a place is this, where even the women and children swear-and on Sunday too!'

At Chico we encountered General John Bidwell, Congressional representative from northern California. He resided here upon his ranch of twenty-thousand acres long before the country was settled by Americans, and is still one of the most extensive farmers in the United States.

The enormous corn, green meadows, and great fields of stubble with barley stacks and wheat sheaves began to wear the parched, fading look of the rainless months. We passed the grave of a rich citizen, buried upon his own farm, whose monument bears the inscription, written by himself:

'Thomas M. Wright, lived and died an atheist, fearing no hell, hoping for no heaven -a friend and advocate of mental liberty.'

1865.]

THE WIDOW OF JOHN BROWN.

395

At midnight we passed through the little town of Red Bluffs, Tehama (lowlands), county, head of navigation on the Sacramento river. Here lives the widow of old John Brown, wholly dependent upon her own labor. Her daughters teach in the public schools, while she ministers as nurse and physician among neighboring families, by whom she is greatly loved.

MOUNT SHASTA CALIFORNIA, FROM SHASTA VALLEY.

This sparsely-settled mountain region abounds in tall pines, with long hairy strands of brown Spanish moss pendent from their boughs, and straggling white-oaks festooned with misletoe of vivid green, yellowing as death approaches. This parasite, absorbing the sap of the tree, soon kills it, and then itself perishes.

Eighty miles to the east of our road, Shasta, one of the highest California peaks, northern monarch of the Sierra Nevadas, rears its broken crest fourteen thousand feet above sea-level. Its summit, reached with difficulty, commands a grand, inspiring view. Among its eternal snows gushes a boiling-hot sulphur spring. Shasta is an isolated, extinct volcano-a mountain of dazzling white, beyond green, wooded valleys and the purple hills. of the horizon. It is about one thousand feet higher than Pike's Peak and more impressive, because the contrasting vegetation is warmer and richer.

396.

SPELLING 'YREKA BAKERY' BACKWARD. [1865.

The hills abound in glossy evergreen oaks, whose long branches droop to the ground. The exquisite mountain lily, of bluish white, with stems three or four feet high and blossoms somewhat like those of the peerless water lily, also enriches the landscape.

Yreka, the northern settlement of California, is a mountain town thirty-five hundred feet above the sea. It is the site of considerable placer mining. The city and the gold-diggers are supplied with water by a canal one hundred miles long. The name-pronounced Wy-reka'-is derived from a tribe of Indians. Here a pioneer baker placed over his door the sign: 'Yreka Bakery;' and puzzled strangers were often invited to try the experiment of spelling the two words backward.

Crossing a little stream of the Siskiyou mountains, three hundred miles north of Sacramento, we were in Oregon. From the summit, five thousand five hundred feet above the sea, we saw Pilot Mountain, named by Fremont, and crowned by an enormous granite bowlder, apparently a mile in diameter. Descending, we found a changed vegetation, new wild flowers, and abundance of oak, maple and madrona or mountain laurel. The latter is an evergreen of rarest beauty, sometimes seventy feet high, with vivid, shining leaves and bark which deadens and drops off yearly, leaving smooth stem and branches of delicate pale red.

In general, southern Oregon is little inhabited, and its sterile mountains are densely timbered. But our road threads lovely valleys of tall timothy and golden wheat, among dazzling white farm-houses, their porches and verandas shaded with locusts and willows and flanked by immense barns for the long winters; young orchards heavy with ripening plums and pears, apples and peaches; clear rills which pour down the hill-sides to the settlers' doors; log school-houses, 'Where young Ambition climbs his little ladder, and boyish Genius plumes his half-fledged wings.'

In passing from one to another of these narrow valleys, we cross abrupt wooded mountains and go through placer gold-diggings. The gold mines of the young State have already contributed more than twelve millions of dollars to the treasury of the world. But our richest mineral yields in the Northwest are likely to come from the silver of Oregon and Idaho. Treasure to the amount of two million dollars per month sometimes passes down the Columbia

1865.]

REMINISCENCES OF GENERAL GRANT.

397

from these newly-opened regions. It has been well suggested that, as the entrance to San Francisco bay is called the Golden Gate, the mouth of the Columbia should be named the Silver Gate.

At one dwelling an infant grizzly bear, aged ten weeks and weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, is tied to a stake. Checking him with a cart-whip when too playful, the owner frolics fearlessly with young Bruin. When Lola Montez resided in California she also kept a grizzly as a household pet.

At Jacksonville, Jackson county, we learn that a fortunate miner has taken out two hundred and eight dollars within the last twenty-four hours. The placer diggings of the county yield fifty thousand dollars monthly.

At Rocky Point we cross Rogue river upon an excellent tollbridge. A rival bridge-owner, three miles below, made his structure free; and for a time took all the travel. But this original Jacob bought the land on Evans creek, six miles to the eastward and running parallel with the river, at its only fordable point;' fenced up the ford and then bridged the creek, charging toll there for both streams. Discomfited by the shrewd maneuver, the rival retired from the contest. Some of the noble fir trees are one hundred and fifty feet high and three feet in diameter.

There are many local histories and traditions. For a number of years, Ulysses S. Grant, then a captain in the army, was stationed in Oregon. The pioneers give interesting reminiscences of him. His life was commonplace and unnoticeable. He was a reticent, undemonstrative, unambitious officer, habitually addicted to conviviality. How strange are the vagaries of destiny! How few men find the one place and opportunity for showing their highest capacity! But for the great rebellion, Grant had lived and died only to be remembered as an ordinary, silent, honest, infantry captain, of moderate abilities. But for the national contest about the extension of slavery, Abraham Lincoln had been known only as a country lawyer, with unusual capacity for convincing juries, and telling droll, 'pat' stories.

The Pacific coast is the school from which our best officers

graduated. Here Sherman lived for years. Here Jo Hooker, when a captain, constructed a military road over which our coach rolls to-day. It passes Leland post-office, Josephine county, on