J. Ross Browne

“ The surf broke in a white line of foam along the shores of the bay, and its measured swell floated upon the air like the voice of a distant cataract. Fields of verdure covered the ravines; ruined and moss-covered walls were scattered over each eminence; and the straw huts of the inhabitants were almost 25 imbosomed in trees, in the midst of the valley, and jets of smoke arose out of the groves and floated off gently in the calm air of the morning. In all the shore, but one spot, a single opening among the rocks, seemed accessible to man. ”

“ Who would be a slave when all nature calls upon him in trumpet tones to be free? Who would sell his birthright for a mess of pottage when he could lead the life of an honest miner—earn his bread by the sweat of his brow—breathe the 332 fresh air of heaven without stint or limit? And of all miners in the world, who would not be a Washoe miner? ”

“ I rode on, never once relaxing my efforts to get a little more speed out of my mule. The moon rose, and innumerable stars twinkled in the sky. The air became delightfully balmy. Long shadows of rocks and trees swept across the trail. Mystic forms seemed to flit through the dim distance, or stand like ghostly sentinels along the wayside. Often I fancied I could see men on horseback stationed under the overhanging rocks, and detect the glitter of their arms in the moonlight. Stumps of trees riven by the storms of winter loomed up among the rocks like grim spectres ”

“ As the sun rose, and spread over mountain and valley a drapery of glowing light, giving promise of continued life to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, I could not but think with sadness how man—made after God's own image, the most perfect of his works, gifted with reason and intelligence—should so strangely turn aside from the teachings of his Maker, and cast away the pure enjoyments so bountifully spread before him. ”

“ My course seemed clear enough. But here was the difficulty. I could do nothing without my papers. Nor was I content to lose my mule, saddle, and blankets, which I knew to be in their possession.
The tall man, Griff, was restless, and turned repeatedly, moaning in his sleep, "God have pity on me! Oh God, have pity on me!"
It was a sad sight to behold him. No mortal eye could fathom the sufferings that thus moved him. Truly,
"The mind that broods o'er guilty woes
Is like a scorpion girt by fire." ”

“ In fine, we came to the conclusion that it was a glorious life, calculated to enlarge a man's soul; an independent life; a perfect Utopia in its way. "Let us," said we, "spend the remainder of our days here! Who cares about the gold of Ophir, when he can live like a king on this island, and be richer and happier than Solomon in his temple!"
"You'd soon be tired of it," muttered a voice from a dark corner: it was the voice of the Doubter. ”

“ It might have been that some unhappy murderer, goaded to madness by such cruel tortures of body and terrible anguish of mind as drive men to tear even their own flesh when buried before the vital spark is extinct, had grasped out the earth in his desperation, and left the marks in his death agonies upon the clay that entombed him, to tell what no human heart but his had suffered there, no human ear had heard, no human eye had witnessed. ”

“ Every man had literally his pocket full of rocks. It was a curious sight, here in this solitary island, scarcely known to mariners save as the resort of pirates, deserters, and buccaneers, and chiefly to the reading world at home as the land of Robinson Crusoe, to see these adventurous Americans in their red shirts, lounging about the veritable castle of the "wild man in the goatskins," digging out the walls, smoking cigars, whittling sticks, and talking in plain English about California and the election of General Taylor. ”

“ A more cruel series of outrages than those perpetrated upon the poor Indians of Nome Cult never disgraced a community of white men. The state said the settlers must be protected, and it protected them—protected them from women and children, for the men are too imbecile and too abject to fight. The general government folded its arms and said, "What can we do? We can not chastise the citizens of a state. Are we not feeding and clothing the savages, and teaching them to be moral, and is not that as much as the civilized world can ask of us?" ”

“ Nothing could be heard but the moaning of the surf down on the beach.
"A Spaniard! by heavens, a Spaniard! I'll shoot him—I'll shoot him through the head!"
"Don't fire, Brigham," said I, for I wanted a chance to fasten on with the harpoon; "wait till he comes up, and ask him what he wants."
"Ahoy there! What do you want? Answer quick, or I'll shoot you! Speak, or you're a dead man!"
All hands were now in commotion. We rushed to the mouth of the cave in a body, determined to defend ourselves to the last extremity. ”

“ All had to break a way out of the trail. The mules were stampeded, and kicked, brayed, and rolled by turns. The vaqueros were in a perfect frenzy of rage and terror combined—shrieking Maladetto! Carambo! and Caraja! till it seemed as if the reverberation must break loose the snow from above, and send an avalanche down on top of us all. Bridles got foul of stray legs and jerked the owners on their backs; riatas were twisted and wound around horses, mules, and whisky-barrels; packs went rolling hither and thither; men and animals kicked for their bare lives ”

“ A counter-current opposed our progress in the shape of saddle-trains without riders, long lines of pack-mules laden with silver ore, scattering parties of weather-beaten and foot-sore pedestrians, bearing their hard experience in their faces, and solitary stragglers, of all ages and degrees, mounted on skeleton horses, or toiling wearily homeward on foot—some merry, some sad, some eagerly intent on farther speculation, but all bearing the unmistakable impress of Washoe. ”

“ On a slope of mountains speckled with snow, sage-bushes, and mounds of upturned earth, without any apparent beginning or end, congruity or regard for the eternal fitness of things, lay outspread the wondrous city of Virginia.
Frame shanties, pitched together as if by accident; tents of canvas, of blankets, of brush, of potato-sacks and old shirts, with empty whisky-barrels for chimneys; smoky hovels of mud and stone; coyote holes in the mountain side forcibly seized and held by men; pits and shafts with smoke issuing from every crevice ”

“ On we sped, upheaving the loose masses of sod, and whizzing through the tempest as we flew; grasping desperately at every rock, tearing up the shrubs that grew in the clefts, and dashing blindly over gaping fissures that lay hidden with the grass. Great masses of burned rock went smoking down into the chaos of mist below, crashing and thundering as they fell. On, and still on, in our wild career we sped, with the vision of death flitting grimly before us! Atoms we were in the strife of elements, whirled powerless into the dark abyss. There was a confused crash of bushes ”

“ It was a very wild and rugged place—a fit abode for the buccaneers.
The cliff into which the cave runs is composed of great rocks, covered on top with a soil of red, burned earth. The swell of the sea broke upon the base with a loud roar, and the surf, rolling inward into the depths of the grotto, made a deep reverberation, like the dashing of water under a bridge. There was some difficulty in effecting a landing among these subterranean rocks, which were round and slippery. ”

“ I am satisfied, from an acquaintance of eleven years with the Indians of California, that, had the least care been taken of them, these disgraceful massacres would never have occurred. A more inoffensive and harmless race of beings does not exist on the face of the earth; but, wherever they attempted to procure a subsistence, they were hunted down; driven from the reservations by the instinct of self-preservation; shot down by the settlers upon the most frivolous pretexts; and abandoned to their fate by the only power that could have afforded them protection. ”

“ It was a shabby trick, sir; it wasn't bad enough to throw me down here, without jumping on top of me when I couldn't defend myself!"
"I hope you're not much hurt," said Abraham; "it was all accident—I swear it, on my sacred honor!"
"Honor!" groaned the Doubter, contemptuously; "is it honorable to drop a man into a pit, and knock all the breath out of his body, and then jump on top of him! Honor, indeed! ”

“ The horses plunged and stumbled over the rocks, slush, and mud in a manner truly pitiable for them and dangerous for us. In some places the mules had cut through for hundreds of yards, and the trail was perfectly honey-combed. But there was no time for humanity. Dashing the spurs into the bleeding sides of our animals, we pushed on as if all the evil powers of Virginia City were after us. ”

“ The sugar was gone; flour was eighty dollars a sack, and but little to be had at that; barley was seventy-five cents a pound, and hay sixty cents; horses were dying for want of something to eat; cigars were rapidly giving out; whisky might stand the pull another week, but the prospect was gloomy of any thing more nourishing.
In this exciting state of affairs, when every brain was racked to devise ways and means of relief, and when hope of succor was almost at an end, a scout came running in from the direction of the Downerville trail with the glorious tidings of an approaching mule train. ”

“ Washoe! The Comstock lead! The Ophir! The Central—The Billy Choller Companies, and a thousand others, indicating in trumpet-tones the high road to fortune! From the crack of day to the shades of night nothing is heard but Washoe. The steady men of San Francisco are aroused, the men of Front Street, the gunny-bag men, the brokers, the gamblers, the butchers, the bakers, the whisky-dealers, the lawyers, and all. The exception was to find a sane man in the entire city.
HURRAH FOR WASHOE. ”

“ An honorable ambition to serve one's country is one of the highest and most ennobling passions that can govern the human mind. To this may be attributed some of the greatest achievements which have given lustre to ancient and modern history. It has developed the greatest intellects of the Old and New World, and furnished the rising generation with illustrious models of unselfish devotion to the common welfare of mankind. ”

“ We'll have it, sir, as sure as that redolent and inspiring Loominary beckons us on, sir, like a dazzling joo-el on the pre-moni-tary finger of Hope; and the glorious Stars and Stripes, feller-citizens, shall wave proudly in the zephyrs of futurity over the exalted peaks of Joo-an Fernandays!" (Tremendous sensation, during which the orator takes a fresh chew of tobacco, and sits down.)
As soon as the party of annexationists perceived us, they called out to us to heave to, and make ourselves at home. "Come on, gentlemen, come on! No ceremony. We're all Americans! this is a free country. ”

“ It seemed as if some dreadful convulsion of nature had burst forth soon to cover the island with seething lava or ingulf it in the ocean.
"What can it be?" said I. "Isn't it a grand sight? Perhaps a volcano has broken out. Surely it must be some awful visitation of Providence. It wouldn't be comfortable, however, to be broiled in lava, so I think the sooner we get down to the boats the better."
"There's no hurry," said my friend; "it's nothing but the Californians down at the cave. I told them before I left that they'd set fire to the grass if they kept piling the brush up in that way. ”

“ A stream of pure spring water rippled down over the rocks, and wound through the centre of the valley, breaking out at intervals into bright cascades, which glimmered freshly in the warm rays of the sun; its margins were fringed with rich grass and fragrant flowers, and groves of myrtle overhung the little lakelets that were made in its course, and seemed to linger there like mirrored beauties spell-bound. ”

“ Who that has ever visited the mountains, or attended a political convention in Sacramento, does not know the immortal "Dan"—the truest, best-hearted, handsomest fellow in existence; the very cream and essence of a country editor; who dresses as he pleases, chews tobacco when he pleases, writes tremendous political philippics, knows every body, trusts every body, sets up his own editorials, and on occasions stands ready to do the job and press work! ”

“ How I got over the final peak, I can hardly tell; it seems as if I must have been drunk with excitement, and reached the summit by one of those mysterious chances of fortune which not unfrequently favor men whose minds are in a morbid state.
When I looked down on the waters of the bay, I saw the Brooklyn still at anchor. She looked like some big insect floating on its back, with its legs in the air and little insects running about all over it. I staid up on the top of the Nipple only a few minutes. The view on every side was sublime beyond all the powers of language ”

“ Seen through the green shrubberies that abound in every direction, the bright yellow of the cottages, and the smoke curling up in the still air, have a very cheerful effect; and the prattling voices of the children, mingled with the lively bleating of the kids, and the various pleasant sounds of domestic life, might well lead one to think that the seclusion of these islanders from the busy world is not without its charms. ”

“ The Americans were chiefly a party of Texans, who had recently crossed over through Chihuahua, and compared not unfavorably with the Sonoranians in point of savage costume and appearance. Some wore broadcloth frock-coats, ragged and defaced from the wear and tear of travel; some red flannel shirts, without any coats—their pantaloons thrust in their boots in a loose, swaggering style; and all with revolvers and bowie-knives swinging from their belts. A more reckless, devil-may-care looking set it would be impossible to find in a year's journey. ”

“ Nothing was here of that stern and inhospitable character that marked the rock-bound shores of the island. 77 A soft haze hung over the valley; a happy quiet reigned in the perfumed air; the breath of heaven touched gently the flowers that bloomed upon the sod; all was fresh and fair, and full of romantic beauty. Yet there was life in the repose; abundance within the maze of heights that encircled the dreamy solitude. Fields of wild oats waved with changing colors on the hill-sides; green meadows swept around the bases of the mountains; rich and fragrant shrubs bloomed wherever we looked ”

“ Abraham; I thought, when I heard your lamentations, and saw that scratch of a bush on your face, that your own natural cranium was fractured."
"Well, what if you did?" cried Abraham, still irritated. "Would you call that worse? A live skull will grow together, but a dead one won't. And this—this, with such a history to it—to lose this, after all my trouble in finding it—oh, Luff, Luff, it's too bad!" ”