Byways Around San Francisco Bay Part 5

The Stake and Rider Fence

I love to let my fancy go wandering where it will, To the happy days of boyhood, to the meadow and the hill; To the brooks and quiet places, to the woods that seemed immense, But they always linger fondly at the stake-and-rider fence.

Here, cicadas sing their loudest, and the crickets draw the bow, And the 'hoppers and the locusts join the chorus, soft and low; And you hear the bees a humming like a fiddle with one string, While the air just seems to vibrate with a soothing kind of ring.

There the squirrel scolds and chatters as he runs along the rail, And you hear the rain-crow calling, and the whistle of the quail; And the catbird, and the blue jay, scold with vigor most intense, As they build among the branches by the stake-and-rider fence.

There grew the ta.s.seled milkweed with its bursting silken pods, And the stately, waving branches of the yellow goldenrod; The mullein stalk and asters, with teasels growing dense, G.o.d's garden, in the angle of the stake-and-rider fence.

It was homely, but I loved it, and I wouldn't trade, would you?

For all the hothouse beauties that a florist ever knew.

Yes, I'd give up earthly honors, and count it recompense, Just to wander through the meadow by the stake-and-rider fence.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Moonlight

The beautiful California days, with warm sunshine tempered by the cool winds from the bay, are not surpa.s.sed in any country under the sun.

But if the _days_ are perfect, the brilliant moonlight nights lose nothing by comparison.

To tramp the hills and woods, or climb the rugged mountains by day, is a joy to the nature lover. But the same trip by moonlight has an interest and charm entirely its own, and mysteries of nature are revealed undreamed of at noonday.

The wind, that has run riot during the day, has blown itself out by evening, and the birds have gone to sleep with heads tucked under their wings, or settled with soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s over nestlings that twitter soft "good nights" to mother love. The dark shadows of evening steal the daylight, and canon and ravine lose their rugged outlines, blending into soft, shadowy browns and purples. The moon peeps over the hilltop, the stars come out one by one, the day is swallowed up in night, and the moonlight waves its pale wand over the landscape.

In the deep woods it flickers through the branches, mottling the ground with silver patches, and throwing into grand relief the trunks of trees, like sentinels on duty. It touches the little brook as softly as a baby's kiss, and transforms it into a sheen of gold. It drops its yellow light upon a bed of ferns until each separate frond stands out like a willow plume nodding up and down in the mellow gleam. A flowering dogwood bathed in its ethereal light shimmers like a bridal veil adorning a wood nymph. It lays its gentle touch on the waterfall, transforming it into a torrent of molten silver, and causing each drop to glisten like topaz under its witching light.

Overhead fleecy clouds, like white-winged argosies, sail high amid the blue, or, finer spun, like a lady's veil, are drawn, gauzelike, across the sky, through which the stars peep out with twinkling brilliancy. The scent of new-mown hay laden with falling dew comes floating up from the valley with an intoxicating sweetness, a sweetness to which the far-famed perfume of Arabia is not to be compared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WITCHERY OF MOONLIGHT]

The crickets, those little black minstrels of the night, chirp under the log upon which you are resting, and the katydids repeat over and over again "Katy's" wonderful achievement, though just what this amazing conquest was no one has been able to discover. The cicadas join the chorus with their strident voices, their notes fairly tumbling over each other in their exuberance, and in their hurry to sing their solos. Tree toads tune up for the evening concert, a few short notes at first, like a violinist testing the strings, then, the pitch ascertained, the air fairly vibrates with their rhapsody.

Fireflies light their tiny lanterns and flash out their signals, like beacon lights in the darkness, while, ringing up from the valley, the call of the whip-poor-will echoes clear and sweet, each syllable p.r.o.nounced as distinctly as if uttered by a human voice. In a tree overhead a screech owl emits his evening call in a clear, vibrating tremolo, as if to warn the smaller birds that he is on watch, and considers them his lawful prey. The night hawk wheels in his tireless flight, graceful as a thistledown, soaring through s.p.a.ce without a seeming motion of the wings, emitting a whirring sound from wings and tail feathers, and darting, now and again, with the swiftness of light after some insect that comes under his keen vision.

If you remain quite still, you may perchance detect a cotton-tail peeping at you from some covert. Watch him closely, and do not move a muscle, and when his curiosity is somewhat appeased, see him thump the ground with his hind foot, trying to scare you into revealing your ident.i.ty. If not disturbed, his fear will vanish, and he will gambol almost at your feet.

You are fortunate indeed, if, on your nightly rambles, you find one of the large night moths winging its silent flight over the moonlit glade, resting for an instant on a mullein-stalk, then dancing away in his erratic flight, like some pixy out for a lark.

O the witchery of moonlight nights, when tree, shrub, and meadow are bathed in a sheen of silver; when lovers walk arm in arm, and in soft whisperings build air castles for the days to come, when the honeysuckle shall twine around their doorway, and the moonlight rest like a benediction on their own home nest; when you sit on the porch with day's work done, and the fireflies dance over the lawn, and the voice of the whip-poor-will floats up from the meadow, and you dream dreams, and weave strange fancies, under the witching spell of the silver moonlight!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Mount Tamalpais

There are mountains and mountains, each one with an individuality all its own. There are mountains whose lofty peaks are covered with perpetual snow, like a bridal robe adorned with jewels, with the rising sun kissing each separate fold into glowing splendor; mountains whose rugged summits rise far above the timber line, somber and imposing, with fleecy clouds floating round the rocky pinnacles like fine spun silver.

Mount Tamalpais is not so lofty as Pike's Peak, or Mount Hood, but what it loses in alt.i.tude it makes up in splendor, and a trip to its summit, over the crookedest railroad in the world, offers a view that is unsurpa.s.sed.

Leaving the ferry building, we have a delightful ride on the bay, pa.s.sing close to Alcatraz Island, where the military prison is located, with a view of Fort Point and Fort Baker, pa.s.sing near the United States Quarantine Station on Angel Island, and arrive at Sausalito, perched on the hillside like some hamlet on the Rhine; then by rail to Mill Valley, a beautiful little town nestling at the foot of the mountain like a Swiss village. Here we change to the observation train drawn by a mountain-climbing traction engine, and begin the climb. The ascent is a gradual one, the steepest grade being a trifle over seven per cent, while the train twists and turns around two hundred and sixty curves from the base to the summit. We enter a forest of the giant redwoods, which, enormous in girth, and three hundred feet high, have defied the elements for thousands of years.

Crossing a canon filled with madrones, oaks, and laurels, we look down upon a panorama of exceeding beauty. At a certain point the train seems about to jump off into s.p.a.ce, but it makes a sharp curve around a jutting cliff on the edge of the canon, and a broader view bursts upon us, a view unparalleled for its magnificence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOUNT TAMALPAIS]

About half way up we reach the double bowknot, where the road parallels itself five times in a short distance, and where one can change cars and go down the other side of the mountain to Muir Woods.

We stay by the train, and toil upward, over Slide Gulch, through McKinley Cut, and at last, with aching but beauty-filled eyes, we reach the summit. From the top of most mountains surrounding peaks shut off the view to some extent, but from the summit of Mount Tamalpais there is an unbroken view. Rising as it does almost from the sh.o.r.es of the bay, there are miles and miles of uninterrupted view.

Far below us the ocean and the bay shimmer like a mirror, and majestic ocean liners, outward bound, look like toy boats. To the left Mount Hamilton rises out of the purple haze, while to the right Mount Diablo pushes its great bulk above the clouds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN UNINTERRUPTED VIEW]

It is claimed that twenty or more cities and towns can be seen from the top of Mount Tamalpais. Whether this be true or not, I cannot say, but it is certain that we saw a good many, near and far, and it is also true that on a clear day the Sierras, one hundred and fifty miles distant, can be plainly seen.

From the hotel near the summit one gets an unsurpa.s.sed view of San Francis...o...b..y, the Cliff House, and the Farallone Islands; and if you are fortunate enough to see the sun sink behind the ocean, between the portals of the Golden Gate, you will never forget the sight. All the colors of the artist's palette are thrown across the sky, changing from red to orange, from orange to purple; each white-capped wave is touched with a rosy phosph.o.r.escence, and scintillates like a thousand jewels.

To ascend Mount Tamalpais on foot, following the railroad, is not a difficult task, and is well worth the effort, for then you can take time to enjoy the varied views that burst upon your vision at each turn of the road, and linger as long as you like over each choice bit of scenery. As you descend you feel that the day upon the mountain has been a day of vision and of beauty.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Bear Creek

Over the second range of hills that shut in San Francis...o...b..y on the east is a delightful little trout brook known as Bear Creek. With my camera, a frugal lunch, and an a.s.sortment of trout flies carefully stowed away in my knapsack, I started in quest of this little stream that follows the windings of the canon.

If bears had ever inhabited this locality, and posed as its G.o.dfathers, they had long since disappeared, and many years had pa.s.sed since they had slaked their thirst with its sparkling waters. Only the name remained to remind one of other days, and one name is as good as another to a trout brook.

My object was not so much to tempt the speckled trout with gaudy fly from quiet pool or swirling riffle, as to follow the windings of the stream, and spy out the quiet nooks, where the sun comes filtering through the trees, dappling the water; or resting in the shadows where the thick foliage defies its penetrating rays, and spreads a somber hue on mossy rock or bed of ferns. At one place, perhaps a rod from the margin of the brook, was a sort of amphitheater among the trees, where nature had been prodigal with her colors, touching the woods in spots here and there with ocher, umber, and vermilion. She had even brushed with scarlet many of the shrubs and vines, until they glowed with a warm color against the green background.

The pine trees had shed their needles, making a carpet soft as velvet, where woodland elves might revel or the G.o.d Pan practice upon his pipes, laughing nymphs dancing to the music.

Is there anything in nature more companionable than a mountain brook?

It has its moods both grave and gay, and is as fickle as a schoolgirl.

At times it chuckles at you in a musical undertone as you walk along its banks, and again it seems to warn you from trespa.s.sing on its preserves, scolding in a shrill falsetto as it dodges under the roots of a fallen tree, or dives among the lilypads, as if to hide from your sight. But when it swirls down the eddy, and comes to rest by an overhanging rock, where the shadows are dark and the water deep, its song is hushed, as if in fear of disturbing the wary trout that lie in hiding in the depths of the pool.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHERE THE SHADOWS ARE DARK]

This is a likely place for fish, and I put my rod together and cast my flies, dropping them as lightly as a thistledown, and using all my skill, but no trout rise to my lure; this is evidently their day off, or my flies are too palpable a subterfuge to tempt a self-respecting trout.