Chapter III: Part 3

In a remote age the ancestors of these Pueblo tribes, or a race of kindred habits, filled most of that vast region which is drained by the Colorado River and its affluents, and spread beyond into the valley of the Rio Grande. The explorers of a great extent of country in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado have found everywhere evidences of the wide distribution and wonderful industry of that ancient people. On the low land which they used to till lie the remains of their villages,--rectangular buildings of enormous dimensions and large circular _estufas_, or halls for council and worship. On the sides of the savage cliffs that wall in or overarch the canons are scattered in every crevice and wrinkle those strange and picturesque ruins which give us the name "Cliff-dwellers" to distinguish this long-forgotten people. And on commanding points, seen far away down the canons or across the mesas, stand the solitary watch-towers where sentinels might signal to the villagers below on the approach of Northern barbarians....

There is no other district which embraces in so small a compass so great a number and variety of the Cliff-dwellers' ruined works as the canyon of the Little Rio Mancos in Southwestern Colorado. The stream rises in a spur of the San Juan Mountains, near the remote mining-camp called Parrott City. Flowing southward for a few miles through an open valley, it is soon enclosed between the walls of a profound canyon which cuts for nearly thirty miles through a table-land called the Mesa Verde. The canyon is wide enough to have permitted the old inhabitants to plant their crops along the stream, and the cliffs rising on either side to a height of two thousand feet are so curiously broken and grooved and shelving, from the decay of the soft horizontal strata and the projection of the harder, as to offer remarkable facilities for building fortified houses hard of approach and easy of defence. Therefore the whole length of the canyon is filled with ruins, and for fifteen miles beyond it to the borders of New Mexico, where the river meets the Rio San Juan, the valley bears many traces of the ancient occupation.

The scenery of the canyon is wild and imposing in the highest degree. In the dry Colorado air there are few lichens or weather-stains to dull the brightness of the strata to the universal hoariness of moister climates: the vertical cliffs, standing above long slopes of debris, are colored with the brilliant tints of freshly-quarried stone. A gay ribbon of green follows the course of the rivulet winding down through the canyon till it is lost to sight in the vista of crags. The utter silence and solitude of the wilderness reigns through the valley. It is not occupied by any savage tribe, and only a few white men within the last few years have passed through it and told of its wonders; and yet its whole length is but one series of houses and temples that were forsaken centuries ago. I can hardly imagine a more exciting tour of exploration than that which Mr. Jackson's party made on first entering this canyon in 1874.

Above the entrance of the canyon the evidences of prehistoric life begin. On the bottom-land, concealed by shrubbery, are the half-obliterated outlines of square and circular buildings. The houses were of large size, and were plainly no temporary dwelling-places, for an accumulation of decorated pottery fills the ground about them, indicating long occupation. No doubt they were built of adobe,--masses of hard clay dried in the sun,--which the wear of ages has reduced to smoothly-rounded mounds. For some miles down the canyon remains of this sort occur at short intervals, and at one point there stands a wall built of squared sandstone blocks. Along the ledges of the cliffs on the right bits of ruinous masonry are detected here and there, but for a time there is nothing to excite close attention. At last a watchful eye is arrested by a more interesting object perched at a tremendous height on the western wall of the canyon. It is a house built upon a shelf of rock between the precipices, but, standing seven hundred feet above the stream and differing not at all in color from the crags about it, only the sharpest eyesight can detect the unusual form of the building and the windows marking the two stories.

The climb up to the house-platform is slow and fatiguing, but the trouble is repaid by a sight of one of the most curious ruins on this continent. Before the door of the house, part of the ledge has been reserved for a little esplanade, and to make it broader three small abutments of stone, which once supported a floor, are built on the sloping edge of the rock. Beyond this the house is entered by a small aperture which served as a door. It is the best specimen of a Cliff-dweller's house that remains to our time. The walls are admirably built of squared stones laid in a hard white mortar. The house is divided into two stories of three rooms each. Behind it a semicircular cistern nearly as high as the house is built against the side of it, and a ladder is arranged for descending from an upper window to the water-level. The floor of the second story was supported by substantial cedar timbers, but only fragments of them remain. The roof, too, has entirely disappeared, but the canopy of natural rock overhanging serves to keep out the weather. The front rooms in both stories are the largest and are most carefully finished. Perhaps they were the parlor and "best bedroom" of some prehistoric housewife. They are plastered throughout with fine smooth mortar, and even in that remote age the mania for household decoration had a beginning: floor, walls, and ceiling were colored a deep red, surrounded by a broad border of white.

The same cliff on which this house stands has on its side many other ruins; some half destroyed by gradual decay, some crushed by falling rocks, none so perfect as the one described; but all are crowded into the strangest unapproachable crevices of the canyon-wall, like the crannies which swallows choose to hold their nests, far removed from the possibility of depredation. Some are so utterly inaccessible that the explorers, with all their enthusiasm and activity, have never been able to reach them. How any beings not endowed with wings could live at such points it is hard to conceive: it makes one suspicious that the Cliff-dwellers had not quite outgrown the habits of monkey ancestors.

As the canyon widens with the descent of the stream, the ruins in the western wall increase in number. One fearful cliff a thousand feet in height is chinked all over its face with tiny houses of one room each, but only a few of them can be detected with the naked eye. One, which was reached by an explorer at the peril of his life, stands intact: ceiling and floor are of the natural rock, and the wall is built in a neat curve conforming to the shape of the ledge.

A mile farther down the stream there is a most interesting group of houses. Eight hundred feet above the valley there is a shelf in the cliff sixty feet in length that is quite covered by a house. The building contains four large rooms, a circular sacred apartment and smaller rooms of irregular shape. It was called by its discoverers "The House of the Sixteen Windows." Behind this house the cliff-side rises smooth and perpendicular thirty feet, but it can be scaled by an ancient stairway cut into it which ascends to a still higher ledge. The stairs lead to the very door of another house filling a niche a hundred and twenty feet long. A great canopy of solid rock overarches the little fortress, reaching far forward beyond the front wall, while from below it is absolutely unapproachable except by the one difficult stairway of niches cut in the rock. In time of war it must have been impregnable. These dwellings have given more ideas about their interior furnishing than any of the others. Among the accumulated rubbish were found corn and beans stored away. In the lower house were two large water-jars of corrugated pottery standing on a floor covered with neatly-woven rush matting. In a house not far above were found a bin of charred corn, and a polished hatchet of stone made with remarkable skill.

From this point onward both the valley and the cliffs are filled with the traces of a numerous population, every mile of travel bringing many fresh ones into sight. Among the cliff-houses there is of necessity a variety in form and size as great as the differences of the caves and crevices that hold them; but among the buildings of the low ground there is more uniformity, not only in this canyon, but in all the valleys of the region. Most of them may be classed as aggregated dwellings or pueblos with rectangular rooms, round watch-towers and large circular buildings. To these must be added a few which seem to have been built only for defence. The straight walls have generally fallen, except the parts supported by an angle of a building; but, as usual in old masonry, the circular walls have much better resisted decay.

About midway down the canyon the curved wall of a large ruin rises above the thicket. It is a building of very curious design. The outer wall was an exact circle of heavy masonry a hundred and thirty feet in circumference. Within, there is another circular wall, concentric with the outer, enclosing one round room with a diameter of twenty feet. The annular space between the two walls was divided by partitions into ten small apartments. Other buildings of the same type occur in this region, some of much larger size and with triple walls. Even in this one, which is comparatively well preserved, the original height is uncertain, though the ruin still stands about fifteen feet high.

The vast quantity of debris about some of them indicates that they were of no insignificant height, and their perfect symmetry of form, the careful finish of the masonry, the large dimensions and great solidity, made them the most imposing architectural works of that ancient people. I find no reason to doubt that they were their temples, and the presumption is very strong that they were temples for sun-worship. The occurrence of a circular room in connection with nearly every group of buildings is of special interest, as seeming to link the Cliff-dwellers to the modern Pueblo tribes in their religious customs.

Most striking and picturesque of all the ruins are the round watch-towers. On commanding points in the valley, and on the highest pinnacles of the cliffs overlooking the surface of the mesa, they occur with a frequency which is almost pathetic as an indication of the life of eternal vigilance which was led by that old race through the years, perhaps centuries, of exterminating warfare which the savage red men from the North waged upon them. To us the suffering of frontier families at the hands of the same blood-thirsty savages is heart-rending. What was it to those who saw year by year their whole race's life withering away, crushed by those wild tribes?

Near the lower end of the canyon stands one of the most perfect of these towers, rising sixteen feet above the mound on which it is built. It was once attached to an oblong stone building which seems to have been a strongly-fortified house. The rectangular walls, as usual, are prostrate, and have left the tower standing as solitary and picturesque and as full of mystery as the round towers of Ireland....

In the Montezuma Canyon, just beyond the Colorado State border, there are some remains built after an unusual manner with stones of great size. One building of many rooms, nearly covering a little solitary mesa, is constructed of huge stone blocks not unlike the prehistoric masonry of Southern Europe. In the same district there is a ruined line of fortification from which the smaller stones have fallen away and are crumbling to dust, leaving only certain enormous upright stones standing. They rise to a height of seven feet above the soil, and the lower part is buried to a considerable depth. Their resemblance to the hoary Druidical stones of Carnac and Stonehenge is striking, and there is nothing in their appearance to indicate that they belong to a much later age than those primeval monuments of Europe.

All the certain knowledge that we have of the history and manners of the Cliff-dwellers may be very briefly told, for there is no written record of their existence, except their own rude picture-writing, cut or painted on the canyon walls, and it is not likely that those hieroglyphics will ever be deciphered. But much may be inferred from their evident kinship to the Moquis of our time; and the resemblance of the ancient architecture and ceramics to the arts as they are still practised in the degenerate pueblos of Arizona gives us many intimations in regard to the habits of the Cliff-dwellers.

It was centuries ago--how long a time no one will ever know--when that old race was strong and numerous, filling the great region from the Rio Grande to the Colorado of the West, and from the San Juan Mountains far down into Northern Mexico. They must have numbered many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. It is not probable that they were combined under one government, or that they were even closely leagued together, but that they were essentially one in blood and language is strongly indicated by the similarity of their remains. That they were sympathetic in a common hostility to the dangerous savage tribes about them can hardly be doubted. They were of peaceful habits and lived by agriculture, having under cultivation many thousands of acres in the rich river-bottoms, which they knew well how to irrigate from streams swollen in summer by the melting snows of the high mountain-ranges. We read of their dry canals in Arizona, so deep that a mounted horseman can hide in them. We know that they raised crops of corn and beans, and in the south cotton, which they skilfully wove. That they had commercial dealing across their whole country is shown by the quantity of shell-ornaments brought from the Pacific coast, which are found in their Colorado dwellings. They did not understand the working of metals, but their implements of stone are of most excellent workmanship. Their weapons indicate the practice of hunting, and while the race was still numerous their forts and their sharp obsidian arrows made easy their resistance to the wandering savage hordes.

I believe that no instance can be cited of a people still in their Stone Age who have surpassed that old race in the mason's art: indeed, I doubt if any such people has even approached their skill in that respect. The difficulty of constructing a great work of well-squared, hammer-dressed stones is enormously increased if the masons must work only with stone implements. Imagine the infinite, toilsome patience of a people who in such a way could rear the ancient Pueblo Bonito of New Mexico, five hundred and forty feet long, three hundred and fourteen feet wide, and four stories high! In one wall of a neighboring building of stone less carefully dressed it is estimated that there were originally no less than thirty million pieces, which were transported, fashioned, and laid by men without a beast of burden or a trowel, chisel, or hammer of metal....

At the time of the Spanish conquest the Pueblo tribes were worshippers of the sun and fire, like all the races of this continent which were above barbarism. To-day, even in those pueblos where a corrupted form of the Roman faith is accepted, there are traces of the old sun-worship mingled with it, and in all pueblos there are large circular rooms, called estufas, reserved for councils and for worship. The invariable appearance of estufas among the ruined towns, and even on the ledges of the cliffs, shows what sacredness was attached to the circular room, which, perhaps, was symbolic of the sun's orb: it indicates a unity of religious faith between the ancients and moderns.

LAKE TAHOE AND THE BIG TREES.

A. H. TEVIS.

[To Rev. A. H. Tevis, author of "Beyond the Sierras; or,
Observations on the Pacific Coast," we owe the following
description of a most charming example of American lake
scenery, one of the varied and striking regions of beauty which
California offers to the tourist.]

Of the many curiosities that nature has scattered over the length and breadth of this coast, Lake Tahoe is one of the most charming.

This is a land of wonders, certainly of curiosities. Providence has made this vast area, between the Rocky Mountains and the sea, his chief receptacle of the wealth of the country. And what folly to travel in foreign countries to see the sights until you have at least seen some of the wonders and treasures of our own great Commonwealth! You can spend your life in exploring these various wonders, and then not find an end,--petrified forests; lost rivers, whose _termini_ no one knows, and of whose source there is great doubt; brackish lakes, whose waters are worse than the Dead Sea, and in which no living thing can exist; bubbling, hissing, thundering geysers, whose awfulness impresses the hardest heart; roaring cataracts, that with a band of silver seem to bind together earth and sky; boiling springs, hither and yon in almost countless profusion, that send their breath of steam as through the throats of some great furnace from Vulcan's forge; geographical and topographical features that are marvellous in themselves; the big trees, whose magnitude is a wonder, and whose age links the present almost to the days of Solomon; Yosemite, unlike anything of the kind in the known world, whose sublimity is beyond description; and charming, silvery, unique Tahoe, or Pearl of the Sierras.

There is no patent on the name, hence we have chosen to christen it thus. And who will say it is a misnomer that has seen its grandeur and enjoyed the beauty of its surroundings? Its name belongs to the Indian tongue, and signifies _clear water_.

This lake in its greatest length is twenty-three miles, and greatest width eleven miles; hence it has an area of two hundred and fifty-three square miles. Its altitude is six thousand two hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea. Here, spread out before me, like the finest of burnished silver, is a lake unlike any other body of water in the world, save one in Switzerland, and that has only a few marks of similarity.

This lies nestled away, like a very jewel, in the summit of the Sierras,--the Alps of America,--at an altitude of a mile and a quarter above the level of the sea. Think of it! A body of water containing an area of more than two hundred and fifty square miles, and deep enough to float the largest vessel that ever traversed the sea, and then have almost immeasurable depths below the keel; think of this being in the very summit of the greatest range of mountains in America!

It has been sounded along the line between Nevada and California, which runs through the lake, to the distance of two hundred and fifty-three fathoms, or fifteen hundred and eighteen feet. But other places have been sounded to the great distance of nearly twenty-five hundred feet. The character of the water is almost incredible to one who has never looked upon it. Coming down from the springs that burst from the canons, and the everlasting snows that crown the mountain-tops, where

"'Tis the felt presence of the Deity,"

the water is almost perfectly pure.

I have leaned over the side of the boat and watched the play of the trout a _hundred and fifty feet_ below the surface. I have dropped a small, shining, metallic button, and watched distinctly its oscillations in sinking for three or four minutes.

The transparent nature of the water is best seen in the morning, when the lake is perfectly calm; not even the small surface ripples that nearly always exist on ordinary streams and lakes are visible.

The various angles of vision present the most charming scene. Yonder the lake looks like a quiet mass of molten silver; yonder, where the rays of the sun meet you, is a gorgeous array of crimson and gold; then there is a range of purest emerald, deepening into blue-black as the scene stretches away from you, bespangled in the distance by the rising white-caps. This, fringed with the green of the deep pine-forests that skirt the mountains, and capped with the everlasting snows, made radiant with the flood of sunlight, furnishes a picture of incomparable beauty, and worthy of a master's brush.

But here by you, right at your feet, is one of the most pleasing features of all: so still in the morning quietness, and such air-like purity withal. You think you can reach down and pick up those shining pebbles, and yet they are twenty, thirty, or forty feet beneath you. And that boat or skiff seems to be poised in mid-air. You can count the small indentures and nail-heads in the very keel.

You cringe with fear as your boat glides towards that huge boulder, as large as a church, thinking surely your vessel will be wrecked; but there is no danger, as the rock is many feet beneath you. The transparency of the water makes the danger seem so near.

How often have I wished this place--mountains, lake, and all--could be the place of one of the grand Eastern camp-meetings! This bracing air, this unique spot, this wonderful lake, this rich, healthful aroma of deep pine-forests, this grand scenery, all combined, make it one of the best of places for religious summer resort.

Yonder is a quaint spot, a veritable Gibraltar on a small scale, a lonely, rocky island in the centre of Emerald Bay. Some foolish man built a tomb in the solid rock on its summit, intending to be buried there, where the marks of decay would come slowly over his grave, and where he might sleep undisturbed amid the incomparable grandeur that would have surrounded him. His sarcophagus and all were prepared, but the treacherous billows of the lake, that occasionally foam and roar with fury, seized him, and he lies buried at the bottom,--no man knows where, for no one going down ever comes up again from these waters.

It was first an artless, genial party of three of us that drank in the poetry of the scenery around Lake Tahoe. The "elect lady," whose presence has ever been an inspiration and encouragement in life's blackest, bitterest hours, her best and dearest friend, Miss Torreyson, and the writer, made up the trio. We were joined by and by with a party of others kindred in spirit, who entered into all our schemes and reconnoissances after pleasure.

Those were memorable six weeks; and now, at this distance of many months on the road of time, that period of frolic and recuperation gleams as with the radiance of youth's happiest sunset scene. How strange that happy days even never look so charming as when they are mellowed in the deep past!...

During the days we enlivened many a bright morning hour with boat-riding, fishing, gathering wild-flowers, and such other amusements as this delightful place afforded. On one of these fishing excursions one of our party came very near falling into the treacherous waters of the lake.

Our favorite resorts, and it is so with all tourists, were Emerald and Carnelian Bays. The former is a beautiful, land-locked arm of the lake, walled in by rugged and towering cliffs. The latter is a long, gravelly beach, where by the hour we have searched for carnelian stones, of which some of the purest quality are found.

The mountains and canons are most delightful points of interest as places of observation and rest, and often charm by the echoes they throw back. We were given to song; and many a time summering here, and travelling over the lake, we united in singing the "Evergreen Mountains of Life" and "A Thousand Years," our favorite lake airs; the former suggested, no doubt, by the towering mountains that surrounded us. The effect is peculiarly fascinating, as the song rings out over the waters, in the pure mountain air, and echoing dies away, after many reverberations of "evergreen mountains of life"--"mountains of life"--"life"--in some deep canyon. Or "a thousand years, Columbia,"--"years, Columbia,"--"Columbia,"--the vowels of the last becoming beautifully distinct in the echoes.

Nearly south of the head of Lake Tahoe, a distance of perhaps a mile and a half, is a little lake that bears the name of Fallen Leaf; and then to the west of this some three miles is Cascade Lake, as charming a little body of water as ever flashed back the sunlight. Of all the objects of interest here, none of its kind is more interesting than this delightful lake, that spreads itself out a half-mile by a mile and a half, and that at an altitude of four or five hundred feet above Tahoe.

Above this, from the summit of Tallac Mountain, it is positively asserted _seventeen_ lakes, varying in size, can be seen at one glance nestled away like a cluster of diamonds in the bosom of the Sierras. All these lakes abound with the finest of trout, and are surrounded by the best of game.

On the east side of Tahoe are Cave Rock and Shakespeare Rock. The former is a bald precipitous peak, that presses its perpendicular side almost to the water's edge, leaving just room enough for the road of the old overland stage-coach. Under this rock is a cave of small pretensions, but with the wild scenery, the bald, dizzy height of the cliff, and the fine view of the lake, it is one of the many frequented places.

Shakespeare Rock stands back perhaps full half a mile from the landing at Pray's Bay, or Glenbrook. It is a perpendicular cliff of well on towards a thousand feet above the waters of the lake. It has its name from a well-defined portrait of a man, moss-formed or wind-chiselled, doubtless, that is seen plainly several hundred feet up the rugged side. It is said to look very much like the old bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. But of this we cannot say; we never saw him.

It was on one of Nature's brightest days that our trio, lunch-armed, toiled up its rugged side, the only accessible point, and flung our handkerchief banners to the breeze from the improvised flag-staff, while we grew enraptured at the rich perspective from the dizzy height. It seemed almost like being on "cloud's rest" as some cloud's shadow fell upon us while there.

Below us lay the bustling, thriving village of Glenbrook, having, perhaps, well on towards a thousand souls as the number of its inhabitants; increased by tourists, and, of course, largely diminished in the winter months, when business here "shuts down." The temperature, however, is generally fine from the last of April to the first of November, or even later. It is not unpleasant now, as I write,--the middle day of January,--to be out boat-riding or rambling by the shore.

This is the outlet of the entire lake and its surroundings; an immense traffic in lumber, etc., is carried on. Five saw-mills give life and activity to the place, as they cut nearly three hundred thousand feet per day, or more than fifty millions during the business months of the year. A hotel, store, post-office, with daily mail, and telegraph-office, add to the convenience of the place. There are six steamers on the lake that run for pleasure-parties and traffic.

From the lake one of the most unique railroads ever built runs to the summit, a distance of nine miles by the route travelled, although the distance by an air line is but three, while the elevation that it gains is eight hundred and fifty feet. It climbs the mountain by zigzag movements, like a letter Z, the engine sometimes hauling its burden, and sometimes pushing the train. More than a quarter of a million of dollars were required to build and stock this novel short line. It is a rare evidence of engineering skill, and certainly is a good illustration of Western enterprise. It lacks at least a dozen miles of connecting with any other railroad point, and its engines, rolling-stock, etc., had to be hauled up the mountain eight thousand feet high.

[To this description of the liquid marvel of California we add
the author's account of one of its land marvels, a grove of the
"big trees," the vegetable giants of the world.]

The Big Trees, as they are technically called, are of a light, bright cinnamon color, and have a diameter at the ground of from twenty-five to forty feet, a height of from three hundred to four hundred and fifty feet, and a bark that will average one foot and a half in thickness where it has not been molested. I have seen blocks of bark that would measure thirty-two inches in thickness, and I have no doubt but some trees have bark that would average nearly three feet. The texture is loose and spongy, and when cut transversely it is often worked into pincushions and such like toys. The wood is light as the cedar, but is susceptible of a very fine polish. I had a cane made from a piece that I bought of the guide, and I found it would polish equal to mahogany. The Mariposa grove is a State park, together with Yosemite Valley, given by the United States government.

This grove, "together with the Yosemite Valley with its branches and spurs, an estimated length of fifteen miles, and in average width one mile back from the edge of the precipice on each side of the valley, with the stipulation, nevertheless, that the State shall accept this grant on the express condition that the premises shall be held for public use and recreation, and shall be inalienable for all time." So it is absolutely impossible to get a bit of bark or piece of wood except from the guide, who is allowed to gather them from the outskirts of the grove from a tree that has fallen or one that stands outside of the prescribed limits.

There has but one fallen, however, since their discovery, and that was felled by men's hands. It was done by immense augers. It took five men twenty-two days to fell the tree, equal to the services of one man for _one hundred and ten days_. Think of that, nearly four months' work, not counting any time lost by Sundays, or rainy days, or sickness, to fell one tree! That tree would have yielded more than a thousand cords of four-foot wood and a hundred cords of bark, more than eleven hundred cords altogether. On the stump of this tree there is a house--"whose foundation is sure"--thirty feet in diameter. This house contains room enough in square feet, if it were the right shape, for a parlor twelve by sixteen, a dining-room ten by twelve, a kitchen ten by twelve, two bedrooms ten feet square each, a pantry four by eight feet, two clothes-presses one and a half feet deep and four feet wide, and still have a little to spare.

The foliage of these trees resembles the cedar somewhat. They bear a cone not more than two inches in length, and a black pitch bitter as gall. The forests at present have a gloomy appearance, as some time in the past, no one knows when, the Indians, the better to facilitate their hunting, burned off the chaparral and rubbish, and, as a matter of course, disfigured the trees by burning off nearly all the bark.

The first sight of these monarchs is one of sore disappointment. For you have travelled many miles where the trees are all large, and here, surrounded as they are by immense pines, their magnitude is not appreciated. But their greatness grows very rapidly upon you, so that if there was at first disappointment, there is now a greater awe. Our first view of interest was the Fallen Monarch, a ponderous old trunk stretched out upon the ground for more than two hundred feet, upon which a stage and four horses could be driven with ease. We had to go a hundred feet towards the top to climb upon the trunk. The diameter of this tree, without bark, at the base is twenty-two feet; one hundred feet from the root it is twelve feet.

How long this monarch has been sleeping no one pretends to know. The guide says it is no more decayed now, to all appearances, than it was when first discovered. The tree of greatest interest is the Grizzly Giant, which has an altitude of more than three hundred feet. The first thing we did to try its magnitude was to surround it on horseback, passing around in single file, the head of one horse to the tail of another. It called into requisition twenty-five horses out of the twenty-eight in our party to complete the measurement. This is not considered strictly correct, mathematically speaking, but it indicates the size of the tree by _horse measurement_.

I had prepared myself with a good-sized string, and, with the help of a friend, made close calculation four feet from the ground, and found it to be ninety-three feet, giving a diameter of thirty-one feet. This tree has a limb one hundred feet from the ground that is six feet in diameter. These trees stand around us in quiet grandeur, but to write of one is to write of many, hence the reader must not be wearied with a notice of each. Pluto's Chimney is a hollow tree, standing upright, into which several of us rode on horseback. Yonder is another that had fallen in some past age, and sixty feet or more of it had burned from the root upward, and then towards the top had burned in two, leaving a barrel-shaped or hollow part of the trunk some fifty feet in length. Through this we all rode without any inconvenience. I have understood that several have ridden abreast through it, which I do not think improbable.

This completed our tour among these forest giants. There are two groves--and, properly speaking, but two--of these _Sequoia gigantea_, the Mariposa and Calaveras groves. The first is about twenty miles south of Yosemite Valley, perhaps a little more, while the latter is some fifty miles northwest of the valley. Thus it will be seen that they are not, as many suppose, in the great Yosemite Valley.

The big trees of California, not of this species, however, are not confined to these two groves. Many of the noted redwood species (_Sequoia sempervirens_) used to grow back of Santa Cruz, many of which are standing yet that were very great in size. We once upon a time, with five others, rode into one of these during a storm. The butt was hollow, and large enough to hold at least twelve men on horseback, and was not less than two hundred and fifty feet in height.

THE CHINESE QUARTER IN SAN FRANCISCO.

HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

[We need not tell who Helen Hunt Jackson is. She is well known
to American readers both of verse and prose for her excellent
ability in both these fields of literature. Born in 1831, at
Amherst, Massachusetts, the daughter of Professor N. W. Fiske,
she married first Mr. Hunt, of the United States Engineer
Corps, and after his death a Mr. Jackson. She died in 1885.
From her work entitled "Bits of Travel at Home," a series of
racy sketches of experience east and west, we extract her
narrative of the odd and amusing things she saw in the Chinese
quarter of San Francisco.]

Sing, Wo & Co. keep one of the most picturesque shops on Jackson Street. It is neither grocer's, nor butcher's, nor fishmonger's, nor druggist's; but a little of all four. It is like most of the shops on Jackson Street, part cellar, part cellar-stairs, part sidewalk, and part back bedroom. On the sidewalk are platters of innumerable sorts of little fishes,--little silvery fishes; little yellow fishes, with whiskers; little snaky fishes; round flat fishes; little slices of big fishes,--never too much or too many of any kind. Sparing and thrifty dealers, as well as sparing and thrifty consumers, are the Celestials. Round tubs of sprouted beans; platters of square cakes of something whose consistency was like Dutch cheese, whose color was vivid yellow, like baker's gingerbread, and whose tops were stamped with mysterious letters; long roots, as long as the longest parsnips, but glistening white, like polished turnips; cherries, tied up in stingy little bunches of ten or twelve, and swung in all the nooks; small bunches of all conceivable green things, from celery down to timothy grass, tied tight and wedged into corners, or swung overhead; dried herbs, in dim recesses; pressed chickens, on shelves (those were the most remarkable things. They were semi-transparent, thin, skinny, and yellow, and looked almost more like huge, flattened grasshoppers than like chickens; but chickens they were, and no mistake),--all these were on the trays, on the sidewalk, and on the cellar-stairs.

In the back bedroom were Mrs. Sing and Mrs. Wo, with several little Sings and Wos. It was too dark to see what they were doing; for the only light came from the open front of the shop, which seemed to run back like a cave in a hill. On shelves on the sides were teacups and teapots, and plates of fantastic shapes and gay colors. Sing and Wo were most courteous; but their interest centred entirely on sales; and I could learn but one fact from them in regard to any of their goods. It was either "Muchee good. Englis man muchee like," or else, "China man like; Englis man no like." Why should I wish to know anything further than that some articles would be agreeable to "Englis man's" palate, and others would not? This must be enough to regulate my purchases. But I shall always wish I knew how those chickens were fattened and what the vivid yellow cakes were made of.

[Next our traveller looks into the shop of Ty Wing & Co., where
nothing appears but darkness, dust and cobwebs, and two Chinese
women eating something unknown with chopsticks; that of Chick
Kee, a druggist, with feathers and banners without and nothing
but old dried roots visible within; and of Tuck Wo, a
restaurant-keeper, where nothing is visible that she has the
courage to taste.]

Moo, On & Co. come next. Their shop is full, crowded full,--bags, bundles, casks, shelves, piles, bunches of utterly nondescript articles. It sounds like an absurd exaggeration, but it is literally true, that the only articles in his shop which I ever saw before are bottles. There are a few of those; but the purpose, use, or meaning of every other article is utterly unknown to me. There are things that look like games, like toys, like lamps, like idols, like utensils of lost trades, like relics of lost tribes, like--well, like a pawnbroker's stock, just brought from some other world. That comes nearest to it.

Moo, On & Co. have apparently gone back for more. Nobody is in the shop; the door is wide open. I wait and wait, hoping that some one will come along who can speak English, and of whom I may ask what this extraordinary show means. Timidly I touch a fluttering bit, which hangs outside. It is not paper; it is not cloth; it is not woollen, silk, nor straw; it is not leather; it is not cobweb; it is not alive; it is not dead; it crisps and curls at my touch; it waves backward, though no air blows it. A sort of horror seizes me. It may be a piece of an ancestor of Moo's doing ghostly duty at his shop door. I hasten on and half fancy that it is behind me, as I halt before Dr. Li Po Tai's door. His promises to cure, diplomas, and so forth, are printed in gay-colored strips of labels on each side. Six bright balloons swing overhead; and peacocks' feathers are stuck into the balloons. I have heard that Dr. Li Po Tai is a learned man, and works cures. His balloons are certainly very brilliant....

Then comes a corner stand, with glass cases of candy. Almond candy, with grains of rice thick on the top; little bowls of pickles, pears, and peppers; platters of odd-shaped nuts; and beans baked black as coffee. As I stand looking curiously at these, a well-dressed Chinaman pauses before me, and making a gesture with his hand towards the stand, says, "All muchee good. Buy eat. Muchee good." Hung Wung, the proprietor, is kindled to hospitality by this, and repeats the words, "Yaas, muchee good. Take, eat," offering me, with the word, the bowl of peppers.

Next comes a very gay restaurant, the best in the empire. Hang Fee, Low & Co. keep it, and foreigners go there to drink tea. There is a green railed balcony across the front, swinging full of high-colored lanterns, round and square; tablets with Chinese letters on bright grounds are set in panels on the walls; a huge rhinoceros stands in the centre of the railing: a tree grows out of the rhinoceros's back, and an India rubber man sits at the foot of the tree. China figures and green bushes in flower-pots are ranged all along the railing. Nowhere except in the Chinese Empire can there be seen such another gaudy, grotesque house front. We make an appointment on the spot to take some of Hang Fee's tea, on our way to the Chinese Theatre, the next evening, and then we hurry home....

After all, we did not take tea at Hang Fee's on our way to the theatre. There was not time. As it was, we were late; and when we entered the orchestra had begun to play. Orchestra! It is necessary to use that name, I suppose, in speaking of a body of men with instruments, who are seated on a stage, furnishing what is called music for a theatrical performance. But it is a term calculated to mislead in this instance. Fancy one frog-pond, one Sunday-school with pumpkin whistles, one militia training, and two gongs for supper on a Fall River boat, all at once, and you will have some faint idea of the indescribable noise which saluted our ears on entering that theatre. To say that we were deafened is nothing. The hideous hubbub of din seemed to overlap and transcend all laws and spheres of sound. It was so loud we could not see; it was so loud we could not breathe; it was so loud there did not seem to be any room to sit down! The theatre was small and low and dark. The pit and greater part of the gallery were filled with Chinamen, all smoking. One corner of the gallery was set aside for women. That was full, also, with Chinese women. Every woman's hair was dressed in the manner I have described ["drawn back from her forehead, twisted tight from the nape of the neck to the crown of the head, stiffened with glue, glistening with oil, and made into four huge double wings, which stood out beyond her ears on either side. It looked a little like two gigantic black satin bats, pinned to the back of her head, or still more like a windmill gone into mourning."] The bat-like flaps projected so far on each side of each head that each woman seemed almost to be joined to her neighbors by a cartilaginous band; and, as they sat almost motionless, this effect was heightened.

The stage had no pretence of secrecy. It was hung with gay banners and mysterious labels. Tall plumes of peacock's feathers in the corners and some irregularly placed chairs were all the furniture. The orchestra sat in chairs at the back of the stage. Some of them smoked in the intervals, some drank tea. A little boy who drummed went out when he felt like it; and the fellow with the biggest gong had evidently no plan of operations at all except to gong as long as his arms could bear it, then rest a minute, then gong again.

"Oh, well," said we, as we wedged and squeezed through the narrow passage-way which led to our box, "it will only last a few minutes. We shall not entirely lose our hearing." Fatal delusion. It never stopped. The actors came out; the play began; the play went on; still the hideous hubbub of din continued, and was made unspeakably more hideous by the voices of the actors, which were raised to the shrillest falsetto to surmount the noise, and which sounded like nothing in nature except the voices of frantic cats....

At first, in spite of the deafening loudness of the din, it is ludicrous beyond conception. To see the superbly dressed Chinese creatures,--every one of them as perfectly and exquisitely dressed as the finest figures on their satin fans or rice-paper pictures, and looking exactly like them,--to see these creatures strutting and sailing and sweeping and bowing and bending, beating their breasts and tearing their beards, gesticulating and rushing about in an utterly incomprehensible play, with caterwauling screams issuing from their mouths, is for a few minutes so droll that you laugh till tears run, and think you will go to the Chinese Theatre every night as long as you stay in San Francisco. I said so to the friend who had politely gone with me. He had been to the performance before. He smiled pityingly, and yawned behind his hand. At the end of half an hour, I whispered, "Twice a week will do." In fifteen minutes more, I said, "I think we will go out now. I can't endure this racket another minute. But, nevertheless, I shall come once more, with an interpreter. I must and will know what all this mummery means."

The friend smiled again incredulously. But we did go again, with an interpreter; and the drollest thing of all was to find out how very little all the caterwauling and rushing and bending and bawling and sweeping and strutting really meant. The difficulty of getting an interpreter was another interesting feature in the occasion. A lady, who had formerly been a missionary in China, had promised to go with us; and, as even she was not sure of being able to understand Chinese caterwauled, she proposed to take one of the boys from the missionary school, to interpret to her before she interpreted to us. So we drove to the school. Mrs. ---- went in. The time seemed very long that we waited. At last she came back, looking both amused and vexed, to report that not one of those intelligent Christian Chinese would leave his studies that evening to go to the theatre.

"I suppose it is an old story to them," said I.

"Not at all," said she. "On the contrary, hardly a boy there has been inside the theatre. But they cannot bear to lose a minute from their lessons. Mr. Loomis really urged some of them; but it was of no use."

In a grocery store on Kearny Street, however, we found a clever young man, less absorbed in learning; and he went with us as interpreter. Again the same hideous din; the same clouds of smoke; the same hubbub of caterwauling. But the _dramatis personae_ were few. Luckily for us, our first lesson in the Chinese drama was to be a simple one. And here I pause, considering whether my account of the play will be believed. This is the traveller's great perplexity. The incredible things are always the only things worth telling; but is it best to tell them?

The actors in this play were three,--a lady of rank, her son, and her man cook. The play opened with a soliloquy by the lady. She is sitting alone, sewing. Her husband has gone to America; he did not bid her farewell. Her only son is at school. She is sad and lonely. She weeps.

Enter boy. He asks if dinner is ready.

Enter cook. Cook says it is not time. Boy says he wants dinner. Cook says he shall not have it. This takes fifteen minutes.

Mother examines boy on his lessons. Boy does not know them; tries to peep. Mother reproves; makes boy kneel; prepares to whip; whips. Mother weeps; boy catches flies on the floor; bites her finger.

Enter cook to see what the noise means. Cook takes boy to task. Boy stops his ears. Cook bawls. Cook kneels to lady; reproves her also; tells her she must keep her own temper, if she would train her boy.

Lady sulks, naturally. Boy slips behind and cuts her work out of her embroidery frame. Cook attacks boy. Cook sings a lament, and goes out to attend to dinner; but returns in frantic distress. During his absence everything has boiled over; everything has been burned to a crisp. Dinner is ruined. Cook now reconciles mother and son; drags son to his knees; makes him repeat words of supplication. While he does this cook turns his back to the audience, takes off his beard carefully, lays it on the floor, while he drinks a cupful of tea.

This is all, literally all. It took an hour and a half. The audience listened with intensest interest. The gesticulations, the expressions of face, the tones of the actors, all conveyed the idea of the deepest tragedy. Except for our interpreter, I should have taken the cook for a soothsayer, priest, a highwayman and murderer, alternately. I should have supposed that all the dangers, hopes, fears, delights possible in the lives of three human beings were going on on that stage. Now we saw how very far-fetched and preposterous had probably been our theories of the play we had seen before, we having constructed a most brilliant plot from our interpretation of the pantomime.

After this domestic drama came a fierce spectacular play, too absurd to be described, in which nations went to war because a king's monkey had been killed. And the kings and their armies marched in at one door and out at the other, sat on gilt thrones, fought with gilt swords, tumbled each other head over heels with as much vigor and just as much art as small boys play the battle of Bunker Hill with the nursery chairs on a rainy day. But the dresses of these warlike monarchs were gorgeous and fantastic beyond description. Long, gay-colored robes, blazoned and blazing with gold and silver embroidery; small flags, two on each side, stuck in at their shoulders, and projecting behind; helmets, square breastplates of shining stones, and such decorations with feathers as pass belief. Several of them had behind each ear a long, slender bird-of-Paradise feather. These feathers reached out at least three feet behind, and curved and swayed with each step the man took. When three or four of these were on the stage together, marching and countermarching, wrestling, fighting, and tumbling, why these tail feathers did not break, did not become entangled with each other, no mortal can divine. Others had huge wings of silver filigree-work behind their ears. These also swayed and flapped at each step.

Sometimes there would be forty or fifty of these nondescript creatures on the stage at once, running, gesticulating, attacking, retreating, howling, bowing, bending, tripping each other up, stalking, strutting, and all the while caterwauling, and all the time the drums beating, the gongs ringing, and the stringed instruments and the castanets and the fifes playing. It was dazzling as a gigantic kaleidoscope and deafening as a cotton-mill. After the plays came wonderful tumbling and somersaulting. To see such gymnastic feats performed by men in long damask nightgowns and with wide trousers is uncommonly droll. This is really the best thing at the Chinese Theatre,--the only thing, in fact, which is not incomprehensibly childish.

My last glimpse at the Chinese Empire was in Mr. Loomis's Sunday-school. I had curiosity to see the faces of the boys who had refused our invitation to the theatre. As soon as I entered the room I was asked to take charge of a class. In vain I demurred and refused.

"You surely can hear them read a chapter in the New Testament."

It seemed inhuman as well as unchristian to refuse, for there were several classes without teachers, many good San Franciscans having gone into the country. There were the eager yellow faces watching for my reply. So I sat down in a pew with three Chinese young men on my right hand, two on my left, and four in the pew in front, all with English and Chinese Testaments in their hands. The lesson for the day was the fifteenth chapter of Matthew. They read slowly, but with greater accuracy of emphasis and pronunciation than I expected. Their patience and eagerness in trying to correct a mispronunciation were touching. At last came the end of the chapter.