Walter Colton

“ This is the more appreciated from the fact that there is not a public table or hotel in all California. High and low, rich and poor, are thrown together on the private liberality of the citizens. Though a quasi war exists, all the amenities and courtesies of life are preserved; your person, life, and liberty, are as sacred at the hearth of the Californian as they would be at your own fireside. He will never betray you; the rights of hospitality, in his generous judgment, require him to peril his own life in defence of yours. ”

“ For this, a California horse will leave the best bin of oats that ever waved in the harvest-moon. The first copious shower, which usually occurs in November, destroys it, but around its ruins another grass springs, to throw its green velvet, inwrought with millions of flowers, on the charmed eye. It is no wonder the birds here sing through the year, and forego those migrations to which they are subjected in other climes. The lay of the robin, the whistle of the quail, and the tender notes of the curlew, are always piping in the grove, or filling with melody the garden-tree. ”

“ It is for your faith and philanthropy to say what California shall be when her swelling population shall burst the bounds of her domain. You can write her hopes in ashes, or stars that shall never set. Every school-book and Bible you throw among her hills will be a source of penetrating and pervading light, when the torch of the caverned miner has gone out. 400The images which you impress on her gold age will efface; but the insignia of truth, stamped into her ardent heart, will survive the touch of time, and gleam bright in the night of the grave. ”

“ Shall these permanent shapes, into which society is to be cast, take their plastic features from the impress of blind accident and skeptical apathy, or the moulding hand of religion? These primal forms must remain and wear for ages the traces of their deformity or beauty, their guilty insignificance or moral grandeur. Through them circulates your own life-blood; in them is bound up the hopes of an empire. Not only the destiny of California is suspended on the issue, but the fate of all the republics which cheer the shores of the Pacific. ”

“ The Erie is to take the dispatch-bearer to Panama, and then proceed to the Sandwich Islands. We have not received any letters from home since we sailed from Callao; the year has rolled from the buds of spring into the sear leaf of autumn since any intelligence has reached us from those we love. Death may have stricken them into the grave, but the sad tidings is yet a melancholy secret. We ought to have a regular mail between the United States and California. We seem remarkably eager to possess ourselves of foreign territory, and then leave the wild geese to convey all intelligence. ”

“ They are the miner’s home—his winter quarters—his metropolis, to which he goes for society, recreation, repose, frolic, and fun. Through the livelong night the rafters ring with resounding mirth, while the storm unheeded raves without. Of all the sites for a hamlet which I have met with in the mining region, I should prefer the one at the head of a ravine near the sources of the Stanislaus. It is a natural amphitheatre, throwing on the eye its sweeping wall of wild cliffs and waving shade. From the green bosom of its arena swells a slight elevation, covered with beautiful evergreen trees. ”

“ If you are sick, there is nothing which sympathy and care can devise or perform which is not done for you. No sister ever hung over the throbbing brain or fluttering pulse of a brother with more tenderness and fidelity. This is as true of the lady whose hand has only figured her embroidery or swept her guitar, as of the cottage-girl wringing from her laundry the foam of the mountain stream; and all this from the heart! If I must be cast in sickness or destitution on the care of the stranger, let it be in California ”

“ Your antagonist is too shrewd to hand you up your rifle, or let you come down to get it. You are his prisoner, more safely lodged than in a dungeon, and he will set you at liberty when it suits him. He sleeps not himself at his post; day and night his great flashing eyes are fastened upon you. The lyre of Orpheus may have lulled to sleep the sentinel of Hades, but its magic tones have never charmed to slumber the sentinel of the California forest.
The full-grown California bear measures from eight to ten feet in length, and four or five in girth. His strength is tremendous, his embrace death. ”

“ I can now comprehend why it is the hunter clings to his wild life, and prefers the precarious subsistence of his rifle to teeming stalls. He lives out of himself; his sympathies are with nature; his sensations roll through boundless space. It is for his eye the violet blooms, and the early cloud catches the blush of morn; it is for his ear the bird sings from its green covert, and the torrent shouts from its cliff; it is to cheer his footsteps that the twilight lingers, and the star blazes in the coronet of night: all the changes of the varied year are for him ”

“ The same treason to religion which wrecks the institutions of this country, will sap the foundations of a thousand other glorified shrines. It is for you, Christian brethren, to prevent such a disaster; it is for you to pour into California an unremitted tide of holy light. The Bible must throw its sacred radiance around every hearth, over every stream, through every mountain glen. The voice of the heralds of heavenly love must be echoed from every cliff and chasm and forest sanctuary. On you devolves this mission of Christian fidelity. ”

“ CALIFORNIA ON CHARACTER. Life in California impresses new features on old characters, as a fresh mintage on antiquated coins. The man whose prudence in the States never forsakes him, and whose practical maxim is, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” will here throw all his birds into the bushes, seemingly for the mere excitement of catching them again. He finds himself in an atmosphere so strongly stirred and stirring, that he must whirl with it, and soon enjoys the strong eddy almost as much as the still pool. ”

“ It is one of the greatest calamities that can fall on a civilized nation. It tramples 171on private rights, trifles with responsibility, and cuts the conscience adrift from its moorings. Men are thrown into this eddy of excess, and then act like rudderless ships in a tempest-tost sea. Years will elapse before the moral sentiments which have been unhinged by military violence can be restored. Even California, where revolutions come and go like the shadows of passing clouds, will long show the traces of the one which has now passed over her. ”

“ The circle of engaging objects in a community, just emerging into the refinements of civilization, is never broad; but every phase in the great change going on possesses an intense individuality, and leaves its ineffaceable impression, like a ship sweeping a solitary sea, or a bird scaling a sunset cloud. California will be no more what she has been: the events of a few years have carried her through the progressive changes of a century. ”

“ You can hardly travel through it in midsummer without loading your mule down with provender to keep him alive. The productive forces of such a state as New York, Ohio, or Pennsylvania, sweep immeasurably beyond the utmost capabilities of California. It is the golden coronet that gives this land her pre-eminence, and puts into her hand a magic wand, that will shake for ages the exchanges of the civilized world. ”

“ And even they who now drive the spade and drill in the mines, when their yellow pile shall fill the measure of their purposes, will come here to sprinkle these hills with the mansions and cottages of ease and refinement. Among these soaring crags the step of youth will still spring, and beauty garland her tresses with wild-flowers in the mirror of the mountain stream. Alas! that eyes so bright should be closed so soon, and that a step so light and free should lead but to that narrow house which holds no communion with the pulses which will still roll through nature’s great heart! ”

“ It is the creed of the thousands who wield the plough, the plane, the hammer, the trowel, and spade. It is the palladium of freedom, rolled in from the seaboard, and down from the mountains, and which has caught its echoes from every river, steep, and valley. It is the fraternal oath of a great people, uttered in the presence of God and the hearing of nations. Millions will turn their eyes to the fulfilment of its promises, when time and disaster have engulfed the monuments of their own splendor and strength.
411The 13th of October, 1849, will never fade from the annals of California. ”

“ Into this the ladies are tumbled, when three or four yoke of oxen, with as many Indian drivers, and ten times as many dogs, start ahead. The hallooing of the drivers, the barking of the dogs, and the loud laughter of the girls make a common chorus. The quail takes to the covert as the roaring establishment comes on, and even the owl suspends his melancholy note. What has his sad tone to do amid such noise and mirth? It is like the piping cry of an infant amid the revelry and tumult of the carnival. ”

“ A glow-worm’s light beneath a star that shall never set!
Monday, Sept. 25. San José is sixty-five miles from Monterey, and stands in the centre of a spacious valley which opens on the great bay of San Francisco. It is cultivated only in spots, but the immense yield in these is sufficient evidence of what the valley is capable. A plough and harrow, at which a New England crow would laugh, are followed by fields of waving grain. Within this valley lie the rich lands of Com. Stockton, and they will yet feel the force of his vivifying enterprise. ”

“ Its lands extended fifteen leagues along the seaboard, and back to the mountains, where they swept over many ravines of fertile soil and sequestering shade. Through these roamed vast herds of cattle, sheep, and horses; while the sickle, pruning-knife, and shuttle gleamed in the dexterous hand of the domestic Indian. The earthquake of 1812 threw down the heavy stone church, as if in omen of the disasters which have since befallen the mission. The cattle have gone to the shambles, the Indians are in exile, the mass is over, and the shuttle at rest. ”

“ San Francisco.—This town has thrice been laid in ashes; but the young phœnix has risen on ampler wings than those which steadied the consumed form of its parent. It must be the great commercial emporium of California in spite of competition, wind, and flame. Its direct connection with the sea, its magnificent bay and internal communications, have settled the question of its ultimate grandeur. It may be afflicted with grog-shops and gamblers, and the mania of speculation, but these are temporary evils which time, a higher moral tone, and the more steady pursuits of man will remedy. ”

“ The house of the humbler Californian has often but one apartment, and is without fireplace or floor. Here a family of ten or fifteen tumble in and sleep on the ground. If they have guests, which is often the case, they turn in among the rest. The thicker they lie, of course, the less covering they need. The walls of this promiscuous dormitory are formed of rough piles, driven in the ground, just sufficiently to support a roof that is thatched with flag. Through the chinked piles the night-wind whistles in gusty glee; through the roof the star-light falls in broken flakes. ”

“ The Independence and Lexington are brilliantly dressed; the flags of all nations stream over them in a gorgeous arch. A salute of twenty-eight guns from the Independence has expressed the homage of each state to the occasion. Even here, and among the native population, Washington is known, and his virtues are revered. People speak of him as a being exempted from the weaknesses of our nature—as one commissioned of Heaven for a great and glorious purpose, and endowed with the amazing powers requisite for its accomplishment. It is the character of Washington that will never die. ”

“ There are more happy hearts there than I have met with in any other assemblage since I came to California. This is the sunshine that has followed the war-cloud. This being the last night of the carnival, every one has broken his last egg-shells. But few of them contained cologne or lavender; nearly all were filled with golden tinsel. Ladies and gentlemen too are covered with the sparkling shower, and the lights of the chandeliers are thrown back in millions of mimic rays. ”

“ I expected for a moment to see a desperate plunge from the beast at the courser’s side, but the rider and his steed understood their occupation too well; the lasso fell over his horn, and in an instant he was tumbling in the sand. He recovered himself, but it was only to be thrown again, till a second lasso secured his flying heels, and the knife of the Indian finished the rest. A wave of lava let loose from its crater, an avalanche that has slipped from its Alpine steep, and a wild bull that has broken his lasso, are among the most terrific objects that dash on human vision. ”

“ It is near ten o’clock of the day before the rays of the sun strike its depths; but when they do reach you, it is with a power that drives you at once into the shade. It is twilight in the glen, while the cliffs above still blaze in the radiance of the descending orb. As darkness comes on, the camp-fires of the diggers, kindled along the ravine, throw their light into every recess, where forms are seen, gathered in groups, or glancing about, while every now and then some merry tale or apt joke explodes in a roar of laughter. ”

“ But I would send out no machinery which should have a piece in it weighing over seventy or eighty pounds: no other can be taken through the gorges, and over the acclivities to the lofty steeps where the quartz exists. The machinery which can be readily taken to the mines in Virginia, would cost a fortune in its transportation to the proper localities in California. The heaviest capitalist would find himself swamped before he got to work. ”