Jules Verne

“ One afternoon, about the 27th of February, the Fair Rambler reached the foot of the Sierra Nevada gorges. For four or five days to come, this rugged pass through the chain would cause them much toil and labor. It would be no light task, for man or beast, to climb half-way up the mountain. The men would have to put their shoulders to the wheels along the narrow paths which skirt the giant's sides. Although the weather continued to grow milder, thanks to the early influence of Californian spring, the climate would still be inclement at certain latitudes. ”

“ It is evident that two horses could only walk with so heavy a vehicle. In truth the load was no light one. Not to speak of its inhabitants, did not the Fair Rambler convey, on its roof, the canvas for the tent, and the poles, and the ropes, and, underneath between the fore and the hind wheels, a swinging board laden with various articles, a large drum and a smaller one, a horn, a trombone and other utensils and accessories, the real tools of the showman? Let us put on record likewise the costumes of a noted pantomine, “The Brigands of the Black Forest,” on the repertory of the Cascabel family. ”

“ And still, is not a carriage a movable house? Why do gypsies enjoy a monopoly of the pleasures of “yachting on terra firma?”
In reality, the showman's wagon constitutes a complete flat, with its various rooms and furniture; it is “home” on wheels; and Cæser Cascabel's was beautifully adapted to the requirements of his gypsy life.
The Fair Rambler was the name they had given it, as though it were a Norman schooner ”

“ Despite their numbers, the ruminants fed by these prairies are unable to wear out the carpet of grass that nature keeps on renewing for ever under their feet. Too great emphasis could not be laid on the vegetative power of that Californian soil, to which no other can be compared. It is the granary of the Pacific, and the merchant navy, that takes its produce away, cannot exhaust it. The Fair Rambler went on its way, at its usual speed, a daily average of eighteen or twenty miles—not more. ”

“ Cascabel determined to keep on the alert.
The men hired at the farm were skillful drivers; that could not be denied. The first day passed by without any accident: that was something to be thankful for, first of all. A wheel giving way, an axle tree in halves, and the occupants of the Fair Rambler, away from all human dwellings, without any means of repairing the damage, would have been in a sorry plight. ”

“ A healthy mode of traveling, if ever there was one, seeing that not one member of the little troupe had ever been ill, save and except John Bull, whose fits of indigestion were anything but few, his instinctive knavery making it easy for him to satisfy his inconceivable gluttony. ”

“ We have yet to mention that the two dogs, Wagram and Marengo, in consequence of their being on night-duty, slept among the baggage under the wagon, where they tolerated the company of John Bull, the ape, in spite of his restlessness and his propensity for playing tricks, and that Jako, the parrot, was housed in a cage hooked on to the ceiling in the second compartment.
As to the horses, Gladiator and Vermont, they were quite free to graze round about the Fair Rambler nor was there any necessity to fetter them. ”

“ Nothing is to be dreaded more than the floods of rain, the fearful snowdrifts, the bewildering squalls you encounter at the turns of those gorges in which the wind gets imprisoned as in a gulf. Besides, the upper portion of the passes rises above the zone of the permanent snow, and you must ascend to a height of at least six thousand feet before reaching the downward slope toward the Mormon district. ”

“ But, a few weeks more, and once again California would be the land exuberant among all others, that fruitful land, where cereals multiply a hundredfold, where the most varied productions, both of the tropics and of the temperate zone, luxuriate side by side, sugar cane, rice, tobacco, oranges, lemons, olives, pineapples, bananas. ”

“ True, they then stopped in every town of the Confederacy to increase the amount of their takings; while in this journey, from west to east, there was no thought of dazzling the populations. No artistic tour was this; this time, it was the journey home toward old Europe, with the Norman farms away in perspective. ”