Panhandle

“ Fully one-third of the salmon fisheries of the world are in the Panhandle! One of the largest gold mines in the world (the Treadwell, on Douglas Island) is located here. Great forests of timber (to cut [214] which has been forbidden by the government) cover a large part of the area in question. Here, also, are Juneau, the capital of Alaska; Sitka, the ancient Russian capital; Ketchikan, Wrangell, and many other fishing and trading towns containing more than half the permanent population of the whole of Alaska! ”

“ If we investigates that country we'll find something else than sand storms, poisoned water holes an' blisters."
"Ain't th' Panhandle full of nesters (farmers) ?" inquired Red, doubtfully.
"Along th' Canadian an' th' edges, yas; in th' middle, no," explained Hopalong. "They hang close together on account of th' war-whoops, an' they like th' trails purty well because of there alius bein' somebody passin'."
"Buck ought to send some of th' Panhandle boys up there," suggested Red. "There's Pie Willis an' th' Jordans—they knows th' Panhandle like yu knows poker." ”

“ Up north aways is th' south branch of th' Santa Fé Trail an' it's far enough away not to bother anybody in th' middle Panhandle. Then there's Fort Worth purty near, an' other trails. Didn't Buck say he had all th' rest of th' country searched? He meant th' Pecos Valley an' th' Davis Mountains country. All th' rustlers would have to do if they were in th' Panhandle would be to cross th' Canadian an' th' Cimarron an' hit th' trail for th' railroad. Good fords, good grass an' water all th' way, cattle fat when they are delivered an' plenty of room. ”

“ Not so many years ago the Pan-handle was distinctly a world apart, and a new one. With No-man's Land on the north, Indian Territory on the east and New Mexico on the west, civilization could come only from the south, and it did not come very fast. Indeed there was still plenty of territory to the southward to be subdued—two or three tiers of counties in fact—before the Pan-handle would be reached. So, it was a place apart—an isolated fertile land, justifying the assertion of a tramp that he had lost a hundred thousand dollars there in one year by not having cattle to eat up the grass. ”

“ This prairie would be monotonous were it not dotted with small round ponds, like hand-mirrors for the flitting birds and sailing clouds, were its expanse not spotted with herds of cattle, scattered or clustering like fishing-boats on a green sea, were it not for a cabin here and there, a field of cane or cotton, a garden plot, and were it not for the forests which break the horizon line, and send out dark capes into the verdant plains. On a gray day, or when storms and fogs roll in from the Gulf, it might be a gloomy region, but under the sunlight and in the spring it is full of life and color ”

“ The wrecker on the Florida reefs, who steps from the Peninsula into the marine world, will tell you there is nothing so like the land as the water. The crystal atmosphere of this land of meridional spring, the masses of tawny green in forests of the pine, and the deeper foliage of the live-oak and wild-orange, even that fire of flower in phaenogamous plants peculiar to the Peninsula, have their fellowship and counterparts in the lustrous scenery of the submarine world. Even the beauty of moon-like lakes and river springs is realized in the salt envelope of the under-world. ”

“ The estancia, from its situation in what is termed a rincon or corner, namely, a peninsula nearly surrounded by a bend of the river, possessed great advantages, and as it is one of the most convenient places for passing cattle to the south side, the owner, who keeps a boat on the river, was enabled to do a profitable business with the Indians when they received their rations, by assisting them in ferrying their animals across. ”

“ The interior of the Peninsula is a maze of mountains, forests, mines, fishing waters, plains and high barrens. The area of nearly three million acres is portioned into three counties, Matane, Bonaventure and Gaspé. The north shore has fewer villages than the south, and no railway. Above the Bay Chaleur defiles a splendid range of serrated peaks which climb down to the margin of the sea, terminating there in massive cliffs and ramparts. ”

“ Very different is the view when the gaze is turned eastward along the far-winding bays and promontories of the Gulf of Panama. There the coast is for a long space flat, and a plain runs back toward distant hills. Beyond this plain other ranges rise to the southeast, bordering the Pacific till they sink below the horizon opposite the Pearl Islands. ”

“ A glance at a map of North America must impress one with the belief that the Pacific coast with its great extent of harbourless water-front is far less favourable to the growth or ideas, institutions, and industries than the deeply indented Atlantic shore-line. From the Isthmus of Panama to the State of Washington there is, as we have seen, but one harbour of the first class, the estuary of the Sacramento, and one of the second or third class, the estuary of the Columbia. From Puget Sound northward harbours are numberless. ”

“ The peninsula, which lies to the north of Coro, is called Paragoana, and the isthmus is about a league in width, from which the peninsula stretches from south-west to north-west for twenty leagues. It is inhabited by people of colour and Indians, who breed great quantities of cattle on it, which they ship off clandestinely to Curaçoa, that island being supplied from this place with meat and vegetables, by open boats, which cross over daily. ”

“ Still finding no outlet, the impatient current, like a wild-beast pacing round its cage, courses the Gulf of Mexico, doubles the peninsula of Florida, and pursues its way first to the north-east, and then to the east, crossing the Atlantic in a retrograde direction, until it laves with its warm billows the coasts of Europe. ”

“ The first thing I discovered was that it has about forty million people living within the limits of the peninsula, close to half the population of the United States. Does that sound as if it might be China's appendix? You wouldn't think so if you saw the cities, roads and fields of this great stretch of land literally swarming with human [167] beings, and every last one of them, as busy as ants.
I rode one whole day across the peninsula. I happened to be traveling with a man from Kansas. He was a man interested in farming and wheat-growing. ”

“ The Coastal Plains.—From New York to Key West and thence about the borders of the Gulf of Mexico to the neighbourhood of Vera Cruz, the border of the present land area of the continent is formed by a low plain, from 30 to 50 miles broad in New Jersey, but increasing in width southward to Georgia and Florida, where its somewhat indefinite inland margin is more than 100 miles from the sea, and reaching its greatest development in the delta of the Mississippi. ”

“ The bank of the river is very bold, and the water of sufficient depth to allow vessels to anchor close to the shore; and the navigation inland is uninterrupted for more than a hundred miles. The town is laid out in regular squares. The site is a sort of low flat shelf of land, forming the terminus of a rocky peninsula, above and back of which there is a cluster of lakes or ponds, having an outlet into the Panuco. These ponds, like those in the vicinity of Vera Cruz, are fruitful of yellow fever, which annually ravages this devoted coast. ”

“ There is one continuous line of prairie extending from the gulf of California to the 39th parallel, sometimes a hundred miles wide, and seldom less than ten, opening to the ocean only at the bay of San Francisco, its surface so diversified by fringes of trees along the borders of its streams, and by the wooded capes and peninsulas which break the uniformity of its outline, as to present the appearance of a chain of prairies of every conceivable size and form. ”

“ It is bounded, east by the Sabine river and a line drawn due north from its head waters to Red River—south, by the Gulf of Mexico—west, by the river Neuces, Rio del Norte, and the Cordillera mountains—north, by the Red River, until it hits its eastern boundary.
More than half of the country is prairie. The margin of the streams and the moist highlands are covered with a fine growth of timber. All the seacoast and on the bays, there is a strip of low, level land, extending seventy miles into the country. The prairies are here very rich, but too level to be pleasant or healthy. ”

“ The Peninsula is now reached both by steamer and automobile. Highways lead well up into the foothills from the cities of Port Angeles, Sequim, Port Townsend, Quilcene, Shelton, Aberdeen, Hoquiam, and Hood Canal points, and passable trails thread their way to the summits beyond. It is easy to surprise both deer and elk, confident of safety from the approach of man. Numerous flowering parks display seas of gorgeous colors which make the region famous for its beauty. ”

“ It is unquestionably the prairie conflagrations that keep down the woody growth upon most of the western uplands. The occasional skirts and fringes which have escaped their rage, have been protected by the streams they border. Yet may not the time come when these vast plains will be covered with timber? It would seem that the prairie region, long after the discovery of America, extended to the very banks of the Mississippi. ”

“ The black prairie region succeeds the coast plain on the west. Its western border is sharply defined from the Red river to the Rio Grande, beginning at Denison, passing through or near the cities of Sherman, Dallas, Waco, Austin, and San Antonio, and then deflected westward to Eagle Pass. It is a gently undulating prairie, covered with a rich black soil, and varies in altitude from 300 to 700 feet. (3) The central region extends from the black prairie region on the east to the eastern escarpment of the great plains on the north-west and the trans-Pecos mountains on the south-west. ”

“ A great gulf riven straight across the face of North America.
The path seemed to follow the sun; it bore to the eastward with a slight southern deviation. The mountains it cut like cheese. Passing just north of Fresno it seared through the gigantic Sierras halfway between the Yosemite and Mt. Whitney, through the great desert to southern Nevada, thence across northern Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, entering the Atlantic at a point half-way between Brunswick and Jacksonville. A great canal twelve miles in width linking the oceans. ”

“ Circular Head is a basaltic peninsula, on a flat part of the coast: it takes its name from a large circular bluff, facing the east, and at the south side of which is the anchorage. Portions of the peninsula, which contains about 4,000 acres, are hilly and clothed with wood: much of the soil is good, and notwithstanding some of it is light, it is very productive. On the main land, the coast is sandy, or swampy, and further in, the forest is dense and lofty. ”

“ But all this Coast to Pennobscot, and as farre I could see Eastward of it is nothing but such high craggy Cliffy Rocks and stony Iles, that I wondered such great trees could growe upon so hard foundations. It is a Countrie rather to affright, then delight one. And how to describe a more plaine spectacle of desolation or more barren I knowe not. Yet the Sea there is the strangest fish-pond I ever saw; and those barren Iles so furnished with good woods, springs, fruits, fish, and fowle, that it makes mee thinke though the Coast be rockie, and thus affrightable ”

“ In the Mississippi Valley, the gulf ports, fed of river and railroad, are increasingly busy, partly, to be sure, because they look toward the east-and-west path through Panama, but partly, too, because they lie between the two temperate zones, which must inevitably be brought nearer to each other. We cannot imagine two permanently dissociated or distantly associated temperate civilizations on this globe, which is becoming smaller every day. ”

“ As we reach the Rocky Mountains, we would be unwise did we not pass the narrow space which separates the mountains from the ocean, to secure advantages far greater than the existing advantages of all the country between the Mississippi and the mountains. Sir, our national boundary is the Pacific Ocean. The swelling tide of our population must and will roll on until that mighty ocean limits our territorial empire. ”

“ We established a colony on a beautifully located peninsula running out into the bay of Panama, and almost as much isolated as if it were on an island. Here they could have their gardens, chickens, fruit-trees, etc. The location is naturally one of the prettiest on the bay.
We now have there some fifty lepers, who are living contented and happy. We have a white male trained nurse in general charge; a white female trained nurse in charge of the women, and some four or five other employees. ”

“ It is a vast great Plain, the like I never saw in all that Island: in the midst whereof is a Lake, which may be a mile over, not natural, but made by art, as other Ponds in the Country, to serve them to water their Corn Grounds. This Plain is encompassed round with Woods, and small Towns among them on every side, inhabited by Malabars, a distinct People from the Chingulayes. But these Towns we could not see till we came in among them. Being come out thro the Woods into this Plain, we stood looking and staring round about us, but knew not where nor which way to go. ”