With the World's Great Travellers Volume Ii Part 5

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 peac.o.c.k'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 pa.s.sage-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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 pa.s.s 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 cla.s.s. 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 cla.s.ses 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 p.r.o.nunciation than I expected. Their patience and eagerness in trying to correct a misp.r.o.nunciation were touching. At last came the end of the chapter.

"Now do you go on to the next chapter?" said I.

"No. Arx-play-in," said the brightest of the boys. "You arx-play-in what we rade to you."

I wished the floor of that Sunday-school chapel would open and swallow me up. To expound the fifteenth of Matthew at all; above all, to expound it in English which those poor souls could understand! In despair I glanced at the clock: it lacked thirty minutes of the end of school; at the other teachers: they were all glibly responding. Guiltily I said, "Very well. Begin and read the chapter over again, very slowly; and when you come to any word you do not understand, tell me, and I will try to explain it to you."

Their countenances fell. This was not the way they had usually been taught. But with the meekness of a down-trodden people they obeyed. It worked even better than I had hoped. Poor souls! they probably did not understand enough to select the words which perplexed them. They trudged patiently through their verses again without question. But my Charybdis was near. The sixth verse came to the brightest boy. As he read, "Thus have ye made the commandment of G.o.d of none effect by your tradition," he paused after the word tradition. I trembled.

"Arx-play-in trardition," he said.

"What?" said I, feebly, to gain a second's more of time. "What word did you say?"

"Trardition," he persisted. "What are trardition? Arx-play-in."

What I said I do not know. Probably I should not tell if I did. But I am very sure that never in all my life have I found myself, and never in all the rest of my life shall I find myself, in so utterly desperate a dilemma as I was then, with those patient, earnest, oblique eyes fixed on me, and the gentle Chinese voice reiterating, "What are trardition?"

MARIPOSA GROVE AND YOSEMITE VALLEY.

CHARLES LORING BRACE.

[Our sketches of travel in America will not be complete without descriptive narratives relating to its great natural wonders, of which the United States possesses more examples than any other country on the globe. The present selection, therefore, from Brace's "The New West, or California in 1867-68," is devoted to a brief account of the monster trees of that State and the scenic marvels of the Yosemite Valley.]

The great pleasure of the American continent will hereafter be the journey to the Yosemite. There is no one object of nature in the world, except Niagara, to equal it in attraction. Whenever the Pacific road brings the two coasts within a fortnight of each other, innumerable parties will be made up to visit it. I have been tolerably familiar, by foot-journeys, with Switzerland, Tyrol, and Norway, and I can truly say that no one scene in those grand regions can compare equally, in all its combinations, with the wonderful Canon of the Yosemite. It is a matter of congratulation, also, to me, that I saw it before any road, or coach, or rail-car had approached it. It ought not to be visited otherwise than as our party journeyed to it,--on horses winding in picturesque train over velvety trails, beneath the gigantic pines of the Sierras....

Among all my many travelling experiences in various countries, I do not think I can ever forget the romance and the delicious beauty of that first night's ride towards the Yosemite. The trail was barely wide enough for two to ride abreast, winding under majestic pines, over mountains, and down wide, deep dells, each step of the horses springing elastic from soft pine-leaves. The sun soon set, and a magnificent moon arose, giving us at one time a broad belt of light over the path, and then leaving us to descend into a mysterious gulf of darkness, and then casting strange shadows and half-lights through the pine-branches over our procession of riders. As we penetrated farther into the forest we began to wind about beneath trees such as few of us had ever seen,--the superb sugar-pine, perhaps the most perfect tree in nature, here starting with a diameter of from seven to twelve feet, and mounting up with most symmetrical branches to the height say of Trinity Church spire (two hundred and fifty to two hundred and sixty feet); on the ends of its branches cones hanging a foot long. Sometimes we came forth from the forest for a few moments, and had grand glimpses of great mountain valleys, only partly revealed in the glorious moonlight. Most of the party were old travellers, and were rather impervious to sensations, but we all agreed that this was a new one, and gave a most promising augury of the Yosemite excursion. After fourteen miles--an easy ride--we all reached Clark's Ranch at a late hour, ready for supper and bed.

[The next morning] we started at not too early an hour for a forest-ride to the Trees, Mr. Clark kindly guiding us. What may be called the avenue to these h.o.a.ry monuments of antiquity lies through a gigantic forest of sugar-pines, themselves some two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet high; so that when you reach the mighty towers of vegetation you lose a little the sense of their vast height. I searched curiously as we rode through the forest for the conditions which should produce such monsters of growth. It must be remembered that the _Sequoia gigantea_ is not found merely here, or at Calaveras and its neighborhood. There appears to be a belt of them running along the slope of the Sierras, about four thousand and five thousand feet above the sea-level, and as far south as Visalia. They are so plentiful near that place as to be sawed for lumber, though what so light a wood could be used for I can hardly think. In the neighborhood of the latter place the Indians report a tree, far in the forest, surpa.s.sing in grandeur anything ever seen; but thus far no white man has ever cast eyes on it. It is a mistake, too, to suppose the race wearing out. I saw, both here and in Calaveras, young giant _Sequoiae_, beginning patiently their thousand years of growth with all the vigor of their grand ancestors; some of but four hundred years, mere youths, were growing splendidly. There are fewer young trees here than in Calaveras, because fire or some other cause has swept among the underbrush of all trees, and must have destroyed many of these burly saplings.

The Sequoia grows on mountain-slopes, where the slow wash of water, through ages, brings down minute particles of fertilizing rocks, and the decayed vegetation of countless centuries, with the moisture of eternal springs, water and feed its roots. It enjoys a sun of the tropics without a cloud for six months, and has the balmy air of the Pacific, with incessant and gentle moisture, and a warm covering of snow for its winter. Beneath its roots, the ground never freezes. As has been well said, "It has nothing to do but grow;" and so with all the favorable conditions that nature can offer--air and sun and moisture--it pumps up its food from the everlasting hills, and builds up its slow, vegetable-like substance during century after century into a gigantic, symmetrical, and venerable pile, while nations begin and pa.s.s away beneath its shadow.

Think of lying under a tree beneath which the contemporary of Attila or Constantine might have rested, and which shall defy the storm, perhaps, when the present political divisions of the world are utterly pa.s.sed away, and the names of Washington and Lincoln are among the heroes of a vague past.

But how to give an impression of its size! If my readers will imagine a Sequoia placed beside Trinity Church, he must conceive it filling up one of our largest dwelling-houses, say a diameter of thirty feet, with a circ.u.mference of ninety feet; the bark of this gigantic trunk will be light, porous, and reddish in color, with many scars upon it of fire (its great enemy); then, perhaps, at the height of the Trinity belfry (say one hundred feet), two opposing huge branches will protrude, it may be, themselves, of the size of large trees (say eight feet in diameter); these will be twisted and much broken; above them will come forth other heavy branches, which show the marks and blows of the storms of a thousand years or more, for the giant, so far above his fellows, meets a continual battering from the gales of the mountains.

There is no symmetry in his top, or delicacy and grace in his outline; he has battled and struggled with the storm for too many centuries to preserve an artistic appearance. He looks the giant of the forest, broad-rooted and strong-limbed, rough and weather-beaten, but defying snow and frost and hurricane for thousands of years, and still sheltering bird and beast and cattle beneath his grand shadow....

We visited one big tree in Calaveras which had been blown over two years before. The enormous weight which each tree carries makes it more difficult to bear the gales, as it overtops the forest. Perhaps any ordinary wood, such as oak or maple, would increase the specific gravity, so that at three hundred feet high the leverage on the roots would be too great to bear any strain of a gale; but this wood is almost like cork,--lighter than any wood on the Eastern coast. The fall of this mighty tower, they say, was heard for miles around, and made the earth tremble. Where it fell it has buried its top deep in the ground, so that there is quite a ravine made by the blow in the earth. You strike the trunk where it is still a large tree, and then walk upon it some two hundred feet towards the roots. When you reach the roots you are upon a height equal to the roof of a moderate-sized house, and a fall from the trunk would be dangerous. You descend by a ladder.

If I recollect rightly, there were three hundred and sixty-five trees in this Mariposa Grove. I measured one trunk, broken off at the top, where it was a foot in diameter, which was about two hundred and ninety feet in length, and estimating thirty feet as the length of the part broken off, it must have been some three hundred and twenty feet high. We lunched near a "camp" of the Geological Survey, in the heart of the grove, lying on our backs beneath the gigantic canopies, and feeling like pigmies at the feet of these giants. The younger trees were often wreathed with a strange, yellow, hanging moss. Our ladies were deeply interested in a remarkable flower which grew beneath the snow, a few patches of which still remained here in June. It was a blood-red flower of a fleshy-like substance, like the Pyrola, or "Dutchman's pipe,"

growing somewhat like a garden hyacinth. Its stems were cl.u.s.tered, from six to ten inches high, with long, erect scales, broader below and gradually narrower, and finally becoming bracts. The flowers were numerous, and occupied the upper half of the stem. It is the _Sarcodes sanguinea_.

[Leaving the Big Tree grove, the travellers made a farther ride of twenty-five miles through the Sierras to the Yosemite, the first view of which impressed them deeply.]

No aspect of nature I have ever looked upon, no sight of the desolate ocean, heaving and lashing in mighty surges beneath wintry storm, or sudden view of Alpine snow-peaks through rifts of black thunder-clouds, or glimpses of Norwegian coast-glaciers through the lulls of an Arctic gale, or even Niagara itself, was so full of the inspiration of awe as this first opening view of the Yosemite Canon. All other scenes of grandeur and beauty must fade away in my memory when this vision is forgotten. Before the mighty powers which had shaped this tremendous gorge, and in presence of this scene of unspeakable and indescribable beauty and majesty, man and his works seemed to sink away to nothingness.... I almost felt as if I had known nothing of the canon before, so surprising were the effects of coloring and shadow. It must be remembered we had struck the gorge on one of its lateral walls, say about four miles from its western end. There is no approach to it from below up the stream. As we lay on the edge of the cliff we gazed up a narrow green valley perfectly flat, from a mile to half a mile wide, and winding, some six miles above, between enormous cliffs and precipices, a small, bright, sparkling stream in the middle, fringed with green gra.s.s or forest-trees. The wall, over the edge of which we were looking, was nearly three-quarters of a mile high, and far below, the oaks and willows and poplars and pines in the green intervale looked like little shrubs. On the other side, a short distance beyond, was the grand bluff of El Capitan, a sheer precipice of nearly four thousand feet, its light granite pile, in the evening light, the most majestic cliff that human eye has looked upon, beyond were other bluffs and precipices, pearly gray and purplish-white, with green fringes below, and dark archways or fantastic figures traced by shadows on their surface. There were b.u.t.tresses, as of gigantic cathedrals, and archways such as might support hills of granite, and domes where a mountain was the substructure, and half domes, and peaks whose regular succession has given them the name of "Brothers,"--all varying in color and shadow, incessantly, with the receding light; some with the delicious cool gray of the rock color, some white, with a reddish shade; others faint purple; others resplendent in pink and brilliant purple; while over their edges, giving a joyous life to the scene, rushed sparkling silver streams, in innumerable waterfalls, dashing into the green valley below.... But the scene was changing. Over the valley, the heavy shadow of El Capitan continually increased its gigantic breadth of shade; beyond him the "Arches," which, to be seen at that distance, must be a thousand feet in height, grew each instant more strongly marked, but still farther beyond to the east the North Dome and the Half Dome were golden and purple in the evening light, and yet beyond the still white peaks of the Sierras towered above in the pale blue.

On our side of the vast gorge the foot of the various precipices and cliffs was covered with detritus, making, near the bottom, a considerable slope, on which grew many evergreen trees.

On the other side there was one line of ma.s.sive rock, which fell apparently plumb, without a break or curve, for nearly four thousand feet, and at its base, so hard was the material, there seemed no recent detritus at all. One could evidently touch the very bottom of the immense fall of rock....

The form of the canon is unique, nothing in Europe resembling it: the immense vertical walls rising so abruptly from the green vale; the peaks, too, which surround it, being original, even in the Sierras; the immense, inaccessible, concentric ma.s.ses of granite,--domes, or half-domes, as if melted in some gigantic mould, and then, when cooled, left standing in the air.