The Gentleman from Everywhere Part 19

As I was obliged to go or die, I accepted the offer of my wife's brother, a member of the publishing firm of Webster's Dictionaries, and went to California to fight their battles against the new Standard Dictionary which was rapidly driving the Webster books out of the markets of the entire Pacific slope.

The trial took place during my enforced absence; my enemies' crafty attorney told the jury that my failure to appear was a sure evidence of guilt; my doctor's affidavit that he sent me away to save my life was not allowed to be presented in court; each plaintiff claimed to have heard the statements imputed to have been made by me to the others, one of them making love to, and afterwards marrying one of my most important witnesses, and so the verdict was against me.

But curses often "come home to roost," and my enemies were ultimately not benefited at all, as the lawyer-sharks devoured all they received from me.

In the meanwhile, during their worrying and falsifying, I was speeding away in a palace-car, confident that my spirit brother's declaration would prove true that truth is mighty and will prevail, if not in the brief here, yet surely in the eternal hereafter. It is very saddening to see how many, who claim to be your friends while you are prosperous, are the first to a.s.sail with poisoned arrows when you are attacked in the courts or in the public prints; but my conscience is clear, and

Serene, I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind, or tide or sea.

I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, For soon my own shall come to me.

Asleep, awake, by night or day, The friends I seek are seeking me; No wind can drive my bark astray, Nor change the tide of destiny.

The stars come nightly to the sky; The tidal wave into the sea; Nor time, nor s.p.a.ce, nor deep, nor high, Can keep my own away from me.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CAMPAIGNING IN WONDERLAND.

This delightful journey was a wonderful revelation of the greatness, power, and grandeur of this glorious republic in which we live. I gazed with amazement for many hours as we flew over the marvelously fertile and beautiful prairies of Kansas; here miles upon miles of wheat, corn, and alfalfa waving like vast seas, irrigated by means of numberless windmills; there, herds of cattle, numerous as the leaves of autumn; here, long lines of steam plows breaking thousands of acres of virgin soil; there mammoth steam reapers devouring vast areas of gold mines of grain; the food of the nations pouring into bags at one end, while the stalks were bound midway ready for the fattening of cattle. The chaff flew in clouds, and quickly, from these machines, millions of bushels of wheat were soon on their way to the markets of the world. What wonder that our country now has in Washington over five hundred millions of gold dollars; the richest treasury ever known on earth?

Now we catch glimpses of vast mines of coal and salt; then of great cities which have sprung up as by magic; and soon my eyes were greeted with a vision of heavenly splendor in Colorado. Three hundred miles of the Rocky Mountains, Pike's Peak towering 14,000 feet towards the stars; great clouds of snow blowing from the summit into the valleys; there cascades of mighty rivers flowing to irrigate lovely valleys; here the great city of Denver, having 125,000 population, and one mile higher up in the air than Boston.

In this city I met my former college professor, now the multi-millionaire United States senator, burdened with many crushing cares, knowing about as much peace and quietness as a toad under a two-forty-gait harrow.

Then on went the mighty train; here a glimpse at Manitou of the "Garden of the G.o.ds," with cathedral spires of old red sandstone towering hundreds of feet towards the clouds which capped their summits with halos; on through the grand canyon of the Arkansas River, in places two miles nearer heaven than Boston; here we see gigantic natural castles with battlements, bastions and fortresses whose leveled cannon you almost instinctively dodge to escape their imaginary bomb-sh.e.l.ls. Now we climb almost perpendicular heights, thousands of feet; now we slide down into chasms barely escaping the rushing waters; then we shoot through a tunnel two miles long under 1,500 feet of solid rock; now we rush over vast plateaus 10,000 feet above the sea; then we catch glimpses of herds of cattle, now of great caves, lone trees with not a bit of earth visible about their roots; now we rush into Leadville, a mining camp of 10,000 people. At midnight a huge stone rolled down the mountainside onto the track, delaying us for two hours. Had it fallen a minute later we would have been crushed into nothingness.

In the morning I awoke in Utah, rode all the forenoon over arid plains; gaunt, hungry wolves scud away, cayotes ran yelping, and jack rabbits hopped out of sight for dear life; then we arrive at Salt Lake City, which the Mormons have transformed from a howling wilderness into a fine city, with a surrounding country budding and blossoming with bounteous harvests. The peak towers aloft where the United States Regulars halted after their terrible march over the mountains, near where the famous Nauvoo Legion of the Mormons surrendered, after their rebellion to make Brigham Young their king, though he said that by a wave of his hand he could hurl back the b.a.l.l.s of the national cannon to annihilate the soldiers of the republic.

I drank in with delight the music of the grand organ and the four hundred trained singers of the Mormon choir in the vast tabernacle.

Then on thundered the train by the great Salt Lake, one hundred miles long and forty miles wide, so salt that it buoys you up on its surface like a feather; then on over the sage-brush desert to Reno, Nevada, where is the world-renowned Comstock mine, from which over one hundred millions of dollars' worth of silver has already been taken.

Then we climbed the Sierra Nevada Mountains, around and around in a circle, shot through a snow shed forty miles long; then lumber chutes appear many miles in length, through which enormous logs are shot down by water power from the mountain lake. Four billion feet of lumber are cut here in a year.

Then on we go past Lake Tahoe, twenty-two miles long, surrounded by mountains two miles in height; then past Cape Horn, along precipices down which I threw a stone which fell 2,500 feet into the American River.

We slide down the mountains to Auburn, California, and find fruit trees in blossom, gra.s.s green, and crops several inches high. A sudden change in a few minutes from deep snow and severe cold to blossoms and roses. On we go to Sacramento, surrounded by great ranches with vast herds of cattle and sheep feeding on the wild gra.s.ses; then on to San Francisco, the Golden Gate, and the unpacified Pacific.

The princ.i.p.al occupation of the street cars in 'Frisco, is climbing almost perpendicular heights, and then sliding down hill. All very pleasant except when the cogs in the cable slip, and you become part and parcel of a promiscuous mix-up, all pa.s.sengers tumbling over and on to each other into the front end of the car, and if you are at the bottom of the struggling heap, with your nose banged against the door, and suffocating fat parties wedged on top of you, this rapid transit slide is not quite so delightful as when you ride on the top of the crowd.

Here you can get a good meal with a bottle of wine thrown in for "two bits" (twenty-five cents), you can buy three different kinds of newspapers for the same price as one, as they have no coins smaller than a nickel. For a nickel you can ride for miles to the Cliff House which is at the Golden Gate, where are acres of giant flowers of every conceivable variety, all beautiful, but odorless; you watch the sea lions nearly the size of oxen, and who roar and fight on the boulders.

Then we enter a bath-house, acres in extent, covered with gla.s.s, where you can swim in sea water warmed by steam-pipes, listen to the band, examine the mult.i.tude of wild animals and curiosities collected from all parts of the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Golden Gate of the Unpacified Pacific.]

Then we visit the city park of twelve hundred acres, once nothing but flying sand. At first they planted on these dunes, gra.s.s roots from South America; these fastened themselves to the sand and formed a little soil; then were planted shrubs to stop the sand storms, then trees, and now the real estate is not all in the air.

This little nickel will take you to a mountaintop overlooking city and ocean, where you can sit under the Eucalyptus trees which shed their bark instead of their leaves, and enjoy the music and the not overmodest dramas, without extra charge.

The saloons, stores and theatres are open seven days and nights in the week, and mult.i.tudes of all nationalities, clad in their peculiar costumes, hobn.o.b with each other in the most free and easy manner imaginable, without waiting for introductions, in this the most cosmopolitan city on earth.

Sometimes you will see the harbor literally covered with the most delicious fruits and vegetables, dumped into the water, because the transportation charges to market would more than eat up the proceeds of their sale. I visited at San Jose, the large flourishing fruit orchard of a college cla.s.smate who had spent years of hard labor and the earnings of a lifetime, to bring his trees into bearing; but I found he had deserted his ranch because he could not make a living thereon, and had gone to preach for a little church far away, at five hundred dollars per annum.

I saw at Riverside large crops of oranges frozen upon the trees; but the real estate sharks never allow these facts to be published, because they fatten on the profits made by selling lands to the gullible "tender feet" from the east, who, when they have bought these farms at enormous prices, find to their utter discouragement, that they must also buy water for irrigation from monopolists, at ruinous rates, else the soil is worthless. Here as nowhere else is ill.u.s.trated the truth of the Scriptural adage: "To him that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."

When you go to a place scarcely thirty miles distant, which, in New England, you would reach in an hour, you are obliged to travel all night, as you must climb cloud-touching mountains, going many miles to cover what would be only one mile in a straight line; now you glide along close to the long, lazy waves of the great Pacific Ocean, where the gra.s.s kisses the salt lips of the sea; now from the tops of the Santa Cruz mountains, you survey the world at your feet; now you rush through the red-wood primeval forests, giants touching the clouds with their tops, while in the hollow trunk of one of these trees a family of twelve can live quite comfortably; then on to Los Angeles,--"City of the angels," they call it--a beautiful city for those possessed of means or who are dispossessed of bodies which must be clothed and fed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Dome of Mount Shasta Gleams like "the Great White Throne."]

Some have "struck oil" here, and the stench and grime from the spouting wells have ruined the houses of hundreds who have reaped no profit from the petroleum, because they did not own the adjoining lots where it was found; then on we go to lovely Pa.s.sadena on a table-land surrounded by snow-capped mountains; but the winds from the cold summits come suddenly when you are melting with the heat, bringing plenty of catarrh for all; then on to San Diego on the hill by the sea, where the fog is sometimes so thick you can cut it into blocks with an axe; then on to the far-famed Coronado Hotel, close by the sea.

In the boom-time, this was claimed to be the veritable "Garden of Eden," and soil was considered worth its weight in gold, but now my guide offered me six house lots which cost him three thousand dollars, for two hundred dollars; the bubble had burst, a few had become rich, while hundreds of speculators had lost their all.

I swam in the s.p.a.cious warmed-water sea-baths, communed with the wild ducks, cormorants and pelicans, looked with amazement at the giant ostriches, and sympathized with their seeming wonderment as to why we were all sent into this sad, bewildering maze of life.

At National City the refluent wave of the boom had left many of the houses and business blocks dilapidated and unoccupied save by bats, spiders and flies. You could occupy free of rent many buildings with none to molest or make you afraid.

Thence on dashes the train to the celebrated Hotel Delmonte, at Monterey, the show place of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which, by its extortionate transportation charges, has ruined many struggling fruit raisers in this state where monopoly holds such mighty sway.

There are many hotels in Florida which far surpa.s.s this as far as the buildings are concerned; but the grounds are extensive and very beautiful, and the wide piazzas are embowered in a profusion of all kinds of climbing vines covered with the loveliest blossoms.

Stretching away until earth and sky meet, is an imperial domain, covered with n.o.ble trees which were giants when Adam was a baby, many festooned with English ivy and flowering trumpet creepers almost to the stars. Then we walked under long Gothic arches, cool and fragrant.

Here is every arrangement conceivable for entertainment; on one side the Pacific ocean; on the other the Coast Range Mountains, a very pleasant resort for the very rich; but we found there at this time more servants than guests.

The town of Monterey is interesting only for its ruins of ancient monasteries and convents, where a few lazy half-breeds alone remain to tell the tale of mult.i.tudes over whom the Catholic priests reigned supreme, reducing their dupes to beggary by their extortions. Once these mountains were covered with vast flocks of sheep, but the foolish reduction of the tariff on wool by the Wilson bill, destroyed all profits, and the flocks disappeared into the hungry mouths of the people.

Thence the iron horse took us back to 'Frisco, and we sailed all day and all night to Sacramento. The scenery was grand, but the cold weather chilled us to the very bones. Islands of old red sandstone loom like sentinels along the coast, covered with lighthouses to warn the mariners. The twin peaks of Montepueblo covered with perpetual snow, seemed to support the heavens as do the pillars the dome of the capitol.

Swarms of screaming sea gulls fill the air, some of which, benumbed by cold alighted on the steamer's deck. Lonely ranches are seen, hemmed in by the everlasting hills.

Our great, lazy boat, propelled by a stern wheel as big as a barn, paddled slowly over the muddy waters of the great Sacramento River, made yellow by the turbid waters sent to it from scores of hydraulic mines on the mountains. On one island is an immense smelting furnace, the tall chimneys of which send forth volumes of poisonous smoke, dangerous to breathe, and covering everything with a coating black as soot. Inhaling this, some of the operators die of lead poisoning. Many islands are here scarcely above the water's edge, having little houses built on stilts occupied by the salmon fishers who are seen pulling their nets, and around whose heads whirl and scream flocks of fish hawks, ravenous for their prey.

After a successful book fight at the capital city, I went to Red Bluff where I was broiled and roasted in a day and night temperature of a hundred and twelve degrees in the shade. I survived only by keeping my head wrapped in ice water; I could neither eat nor sleep, and like d.i.c.kens, I longed to "take off my flesh, and sit in my bones." It was a veritable h.e.l.l on earth.

The county superintendent of schools here, told me he sold his prune crop that year for five thousand dollars, and went away leaving the purchaser to pick the fruit. On his return, he found that the red spiders had antic.i.p.ated the pickers, and destroyed the entire crop, so that his work of years came to naught, as the buyers of course refused to pay to feed the spiders.

Thence I went to San Luis Obispo, and on the way we struck the Coast Range Mountains. The tortuous upclimbing and downsliding of the train disclosed scenery imposing and grand. You looked down the precipitous rock-ribbed sides thousands of feet to the narrow, beautiful valleys, made productive by the irrigation from many foaming waterfalls. We circle the mountains many times before reaching the valleys, traveling many hours to gain a straight-line mile.

These valleys are lovely to look down upon; but the fogs much of the time hang over them like a pall, and catarrh and rheumatism render life one of misery to many of the people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Above the Clouds.]