Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands Part 12

The means to do all this are obtained by the voluntary contributions of the members, who are all who land at San Francisco from the province which a company represents.

In the Canton company, "Sam Yup," I was told that the members pay seven dollars each, which sum is paid at any time, but always before they go home.

"Suppose a man does not pay?" I asked a Chinese who speaks English very well. He replied, "Then the company loses it; but all who can, pay. Very seldom any one refuses."

"Suppose," said I, "a Chinaman refuses to respect the company's decision, in case of a quarrel?" He replied, "They never refuse. It is their own company. They are all members."

Naturally there are sometimes losses and a deficit in the treasury. This is made up by levying an additional contribution.

"Do the companies advance money to bring over Chinese?" "No," was the reply, "the company has no money; it is not a business a.s.sociation, but only for mutual aid among the Chinese here." Nor does it act as an employment office, for this is a separate and very well organized business. It sends home the bones of dead men, and this costs fifteen dollars; and wherever the deceased leaves property or money, or the relatives are able to pay, the company exacts this sum.

It is evident that the Chinese in California keep up a very active correspondence with San Francisco as well as with China. They "keep the run" of their people very carefully; and the poorer cla.s.s, who have probably gone into debt at home for money to get over here, seem to pay their debts with great honesty out of their earnings. It is clear to me that the poorer Chinese command far greater credit among their countrymen than our laboring cla.s.s usually receives, and this speaks well for their general honesty.

I do not mean to hold up the Chinaman as an entirely admirable creature.

He has many excellent traits, and we might learn several profitable lessons from him in the art of organizing labor, and in other matters. But he has grave vices; he does commonly, and without shame, many things which we hold to be wrong and disreputable; and, altogether, it might have been well could we have kept him out.

The extent to which they carry organization and administration is something quite curious. For instance, there are not only organized bands of laborers, submitting themselves to the control and management of a foreman; benevolent societies, administering charity and, to a large extent, justice; employment societies, which make advances to gangs and individuals all over the State; but there is in San Francisco a society or organization for the importation of prost.i.tutes from China. The existence of this organization was not suspected until during last summer some of its victims appealed to a city missionary to save them from a life of vice. Thereupon suit was brought by Chinese in the courts for money which they claimed these women owed; and, on an examination, I was told, no attempt was made to conceal the fact that a regularly formed commercial organization was engaged in either buying or kidnapping young women in China, bringing them to San Francisco, there furnishing them clothing and habitations, and receiving from them a share of the money they gained by prost.i.tution.

But the Chinaman is here; treaty laws made by our Government with his give him the right to come here, and to live here securely. And this is to be said, that if we could to-day expel the Chinese from California, more than half the capital now invested there would be idle or leave the State, many of the most important industries would entirely stop, and the prosperity of California would receive a blow from which it would not recover for twenty years. They are, as a cla.s.s, peaceable, patient, ingenious, and industrious. That they deprive any white man of work is absurd, in a State which has scarcely half a million of people, and which can support ten millions, and needs at least three millions to develop fairly its abundant natural wealth; and no matter what he is, or what the effect of his presence might be, it is shameful that he should be meanly maltreated and persecuted among a people who boast themselves Christian and claim to be civilized.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAW-MILL.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE MENDOCINO COAST AND CLEAR LAKE--GENERAL VIEW.

Some of the most picturesque country in California lies on or near the coast north of San Francisco. The coast counties, Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, Klamath, and Del Norte, are the least visited by strangers, and yet with Napa, Lake, and Trinity, they make up a region which contains a very great deal of wild and fine scenery, and which abounds with game, and shows to the traveler many varieties of life and several of the peculiar industries of California.

Those who have pa.s.sed through the lovely Napa Valley, by way of Calistoga, to the Geysers, or who have visited the same place by way of Healdsburg and the pretty Russian River Valley, have no more than a faint idea of what a tourist may see and enjoy who will devote two weeks to a journey along the sea-coast of Marin and Mendocino counties, returning by way of Clear Lake--a fine sheet of water, whose borders contain some remarkable volcanic features.

The northern coast counties are made up largely of mountains, but imbosomed in these lie many charming little, and several quite s.p.a.cious, valleys, in which you are surprised to find a mult.i.tude of farmers living, isolated from the world, that life of careless and easy prosperity which is the lot of farmers in the fat valleys of California.

In such a journey the traveler will see the famous redwood forests of this State, whose trees are unequaled in size except by the gigantic sequoias; he will see those dairy-farms of Marin County whose b.u.t.ter supplies not only the Western coast, but is sent East, and competes in the markets of New York and Boston with the product of Eastern dairies, while, sealed hermetically in gla.s.s jars, it is transported to the most distant military posts, and used on long sea-voyages, keeping sweet in any climate for at least a year; he will see, in Mendocino County, one of the most remarkable coasts in the world, eaten by the ocean into the most singular and fantastic shapes; and on this coast saw-mills and logging camps, where the immense redwood forests are reduced to useful lumber with a prodigious waste of wood.

He will see, besides the larger Napa, Petaluma, Bereyessa, and Russian River valleys, which are already connected by railroad with San Francisco, a number of quiet, sunny little vales, some of them undiscoverable on any but the most recent maps, nestled among the mountains, unconnected as yet with the world either by railroad or telegraph, but fertile, rich in cattle, sheep, and grain, where live a people peculiarly Californian in their habits, language, and customs, great hors.e.m.e.n, famous rifle-shots, keen fishermen, for the mountains abound in deer and bear, and the streams are alive with trout.

He may see an Indian reservation--one of the most curious examples of mismanaged philanthropy which our Government can show. And finally, the traveler will come to, and, if he is wise, spend some days on, Clear Lake--a strikingly lovely piece of water, which would be famous if it were not American.

For such a journey one needs a heavy pair of colored blankets and an overcoat rolled up together, and a leather bag or valise to contain the necessary change of clothing. A couple of rough crash towels and a piece of soap also should be put into the bag; for you may want to camp out, and you may not always find any but the public towel at the inn where you dine or sleep. Traveling in spring, summer, or fall, you need no umbrella or other protection against rain, and may confidently reckon on uninterrupted fine weather.

The coast is always cool. The interior valleys are warm, and during the summer quite hot, and yet the dry heat does not exhaust or distress one, and cool nights refresh you. In the valleys and on much-traveled roads there is a good deal of dust, but it is, as they say, "clean dirt," and there is water enough in the country to wash it off. You need not ride on horseback unless you penetrate into Humboldt County, which has as yet but few miles of wagon-road. In Mendocino, Lake, and Marin, the roads are excellent, and either a public stage, or, what is pleasanter and but little dearer, a private team, with a driver familiar with the country, is always obtainable. In such a journey one element of pleasure is its somewhat hap-hazard nature. You do not travel over beaten ground, and on routes laid out for you; you do not know beforehand what you are to see, nor even how you are to see it; you may sleep in a house to-day, in the woods to-morrow, and in a sail-boat the day after; you dine one day in a logging camp, and another in a farm-house. With the barometer at "set fair," and in a country where every body is civil and obliging, and where all you see is novel to an Eastern person, the sense of adventure adds a keen zest to a journey which is in itself not only amusing and healthful, but instructive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOOD-CHOPPER AT WORK.]

Marin County, which lies across the bay from San Francisco, and of which the pretty village of San Rafael is the county town, contains the most productive dairy-farms in the State. When one has long read of California as a dry State, he wonders to find that it produces b.u.t.ter at all; and still more to discover that the dairy business is extensive and profitable enough--with b.u.t.ter at thirty-five cents a pound at the dairy--to warrant the employment of several millions of capital, and to enable the dairy-men to send their product to New York and Boston for sale.

For the coast journey the best route, because it shows you much fine scenery on your way, is by way of Soucelito, which is reached by a ferry from San Francisco. From Soucelito either a stage or a private conveyance carries you to Olema, whence you should visit Point Reyes, one of the most rugged capes on the coast, where a light-house and fog-signal are placed to warn and guide mariners. It is a wild spot, often enveloped in fogs, and where it blows at least half a gale of wind three hundred days in the year.

Returning from Point Reyes to Olema, your road bears you past Tomales Bay, and back to the coast of Mendocino County; and by the time you reach the mouth of Russian River you are in the saw-mill country. Here the road runs for the most part close to the coast, and gives you a long succession of wild and strange views. You pa.s.s Point Arena, where is another light-house; and finally land at Mendocino City.

Before the stage sets you down at Mendocino, or "Big River," you will have noticed that the coast-line is broken at frequent intervals by the mouths of small streams, and at the available points at the mouths of these streams saw-mills are placed. This continues up the coast, wherever a river-mouth offers the slightest shelter to vessels loading; for the redwood forests line the coast up to and beyond Humboldt Bay.

When you leave the coast for the interior, you ride through mile after mile of redwood forest. Unlike the firs of Oregon and Puget Sound, this tree does not occupy the whole land. It rears its tall head from a jungle of laurel, madrone, oak, and other trees; and I doubt if so many as fifty large redwoods often stand upon a single acre. I was told that an average tree would turn out about fifteen thousand feet of lumber, and thus even thirty such trees to the acre would yield nearly half a million feet.

The topography of California, like its climate, has decided features.

As there are but two seasons, so there are apt to be sharply-drawn differences in natural features, and you descend from what appears to you an interminable ma.s.s of mountains suddenly into a plain, and pa.s.s from deep forests shading the mountain road at once into a prairie valley, which nature made ready to the farmer's hands, taking care even to beautify it for him with stately and umbrageous oaks. There are a number of such valleys on the way which I took from the coast at Mendocino City to the Nome Cult Indian Reservation, in Round Valley. The princ.i.p.al of these, Little Lake, Potter, and Eden valleys, contain from five to twelve thousand acres; but there are a number of smaller vales, little gems, big enough for one or two farmers, fertile and easily cultivated.

A good many Missourians and other Southern people have settled in this part of the State. The better cla.s.s of these make good farmers; but the person called "Pike" in this State has here bloomed out until, at times, he becomes, as a Californian said to me about an earthquake, "a little monotonous."

The Pike in Mendocino County regards himself as a laboring-man, and in that capacity he has undertaken to drive out the Indians, just as a still lower cla.s.s in San Francisco has undertaken to drive out the laboring Chinese. These Little Lake and Potter Valley Pikes were ruined by Indian cheap labor; so they got up a mob and expelled the Indians, and the result is that the work which these poor people formerly performed is now left undone.

As for the Indians, they are gathered at the Round Valley Reservation to the number of about twelve hundred, where they stand an excellent chance to lose such habits of industry and thrift as they had learned while supporting themselves. At least half the men on the reservation, the superintendent told me, are competent farmers, and many of the women are excellent and competent house-servants. No one disputes that while they supported themselves by useful industry in the valleys where were their homes they were peaceable and harmless, and that the whites stood in no danger from them. Why, then, should the United States Government forcibly make paupers of them? Why should this cla.s.s of Indians be compelled to live on reservations?

Under the best management which we have ever had in the Indian Bureau--let us say under its present management--a reservation containing tame or peaceable Indians is only a pauper asylum and prison combined, a nuisance to the respectable farmers, whom it deprives of useful and necessary laborers, an injury to the morals of the community in whose midst it is placed, an injury to the Indian, whom it demoralizes, and a benefit only to the members of the Indian ring.

Round Valley is occupied in part by the Nome Cult Reservation, and in part by farmers and graziers. In the middle of the valley stands Covelo, one of the roughest little villages I have seen in California, the gathering-place for a rude population, which inhabits not only the valley, but the mountains within fifty miles around, and which rides into Covelo on mustang ponies whenever it gets out of whisky at home or wants a spree.

The bar-rooms of Covelo sell more strong drink in a day than any I have ever seen elsewhere; and the sheep-herder, the vaquero, the hunter, and the wandering rough, descending from their lonely mountain camps, make up as rude a crowd as one could find even in Nevada. Being almost without exception Americans, they are not quarrelsome in their cups. I was told, indeed, by an old resident, that shooting was formerly common, but it has gone out of fashion, mainly, perhaps, because most of the men are excellent shots, and the amus.e.m.e.nt was dangerous. At any rate, I saw not a single fight or disturbance, though I spent the Fourth of July at Covelo; and it was, on the whole, a surprisingly well-conducted crowd, in spite of a doc.u.ment which I picked up there, and whose directions were but too faithfully observed by a large majority of the transient population. This was called a "toddy time-table," and I transcribe it here from a neat gilt-edged card for the warning and instruction of Eastern topers.

TODDY TIME-TABLE.

6 A.M. Eye-opener. 3 P.M. Cobbler.

7 " Appetizer. 4 " Social Drink.

8 " Digester. 5 " Invigorator.

9 " Big Reposer. 6 " Solid Straight.

10 " Refresher. 7 " Chit-chat.

11 " Stimulant. 8 " Fancy Smile.

12 " Ante-lunch. 9 " Entire Acte _(sic)_.

1 P.M. Settler. 10 " Sparkler.

2 " A la Smythe. 11 " Rouser.

12 P.M. Night-cap.

GOOD-NIGHT.

My impression is that this time-table was not made for the lat.i.tude of Covelo, for they began to drink much earlier than 6 A.M. at the bar, near which I slept, and they left off later than midnight. It would be unjust for me not to add that, for the amount of liquor consumed, it was the soberest and the best-natured crowd I ever saw. I would like to write "respectable" also, but it would be ridiculous to apply that term to men whose every word almost is an oath, and whose language in many cases corresponds too accurately with their clothes and persons.

From Round Valley there is a "good enough" horseback trail, as they call it, over a steep mountain into the Sacramento Valley; but a pleasanter journey, and one, besides, having more novelty, is by way of Potter Valley to Lakeport, on Clear Lake. The road is excellent; the scenery is peculiarly Californian. Potter Valley is one of the richest and also one of the prettiest of the minor valleys of this State, and your way to Lakeport carries you along the sh.o.r.es of two pleasant mountain lakelets--the Blue Lakes, which are probably ancient craters.

Two days' easy driving, stopping overnight in Potter Valley, brings you to Lakeport, the capital of Lake County, and the only town I have seen in California where dogs in the square worry strangers as they are entering the place. As the only hotel in the town occupies one corner of this square, and as in Californian fashion the loungers usually sit in the evening on the sidewalk before the hotel, the combined attack of these dogs occurs in their view, and perhaps affords them a pleasing and beneficial excitement. The placid and impartial manner with which the landlord himself regards the contest between the stranger and the town dogs will lead you to doubt whether his house is not too full to accommodate another guest, and whether he is not benevolently letting the dogs spare him the pain of refusing you a night's lodging; but it is gratifying to be a.s.sured, when you at last reach the door, that the dogs "scarcely ever bite any body."

Clear Lake is a large and picturesque sheet of water, twenty-five miles long by about seven wide, surrounded by mountains, which in many places rise from the water's edge. At Lakeport you can hire a boat at a very reasonable price, and I advise the traveler to take his blankets on board, and make this boat his home for two or three days. He will get food at different farm-houses on the sh.o.r.e; and as there are substantial, good-sized sail-boats, he can sleep on board very enjoyably. Aside from its fine scenery, and one or two good specimens of small Californian farms, the valley is remarkable for two borax lakes and a considerable deposit of sulphur, all of which lie close to the sh.o.r.e.

At one of the farm-houses, whose owner, a Pennsylvanian, has made himself a most beautiful place in a little valley hidden by the mountains which b.u.t.t on the lake, I saw the culture of silk going on in that way in which only, as I believe, it can be made successful in California. He had planted about twenty-five hundred mulberry-trees, built himself an inexpensive but quite sufficient little coc.o.o.nery, bought an ounce and a half of eggs for fifteen dollars, and when I visited him had already a considerable quant.i.ty of coc.o.o.ns, and had several thousand worms then feeding.

It was his first attempt; he had never seen a coc.o.o.nery, but had read all the books he could buy about the management of the silk-worm; and, as his grain harvest was over, he found in the slight labor attending the management of these worms a source of interest and delight which was alone worth the cost of his experiment. But he is successful besides; and his wife expressed great delight at the new employment her husband had found, which, as she said, had kept him close at home for about two months.