Sacramento

“ It seems hardly possible that one of these is the lordly Sacramento, whose waters are thick with the earth from a thousand hills, being washed down by the miners in their search for gold, and on whose bosom is borne the commerce and treasure of the State, and the lands beyond the Sierra. Coming in from the southwest is another winding stream of somewhat purer water, and the eye follows it up through vast, treeless plains to the southward, until the limit of vision is reached, and it glitters in the sunlight on the edge of the horizon like a broken bit of rainbow on a cloud ”

“ The country bordering the Upper Sacramento for two hundred miles from the Californian capital is level and comparatively tame, so that no artistic advantage would have resulted from following the bank on horseback. From the little steamer the view became a perpetual pleasure. About twenty miles above Sacramento we passed the mouth of Feather River, disgorging coffee-colored mud from the innumerable gold-diggings along its course, and came into lovely blue water, pure as the cradling snow-ridges between which it issued. ”

“ Sacramento has fine schools and churches, while the gardens, and shrubbery about the houses, combined with the trees along the streets, give it a most refreshing, home-like, and attractive appearance. ”

“ On arriving at Sacramento on August 5th, a day of intense, almost stifling heat, we went at once to Mrs. Van Every, who kept the most elegant boarding house in the city, whose spacious apartments seemed filled with the breath of Paradise, which added a grateful welcome to our travel-tired bodies. Mrs. Van Every's mien of pure and native dignity, her voice of silvery sweetness, gave the charm of a welcome and ease to her greeting ”

“ The mountains above the Sacramento approach each other from the east and west, and narrow the intermediate plain to the width of about six miles; and on the Sacramento itself, where new spurs of mountains project, to about 3 miles. The road from the Arroyo Seco to the Sacramento leads at first over a high plain; but as soon as the Sacramento comes in sight, it descends abruptly to its valley and to the left bank of the creek. Near where the road begins to descend, a ravine, with an opposite long hill, runs to the left or east of it, and a level plain spreads out to the right or west of it. ”

“ Nothing out of dreams is more peacefully enchanting than the embowered stretches of clear water rippled into silver arabesque through a long moonlight night, or the hazy vistas, impurpled by twilight, into which one swings around the short curves of the Sacramento, amid a silence that would be absolute but for his own motion, while beyond either woody margin the great plains spread away untenanted, a waving wilderness of wild grass and tulé. ”

“ I have elsewhere spoken of the endless Winter of Mono, California, and but this moment of the eternal Spring of San Francisco. Now if we travel a hundred miles in a straight line, we come to the eternal Summer of Sacramento. One never sees Summer-clothing or mosquitoes in San Francisco—but they can be found in Sacramento. ”

“ Sacramento—Fort Sutter—Nomadic Indians—Marysville—Shasta City—Adventure with a Bear—Weaverville—The Miners—The Rocky Mountains—Eureka—Return to San Francisco.
I spent a year at San Francisco, and, during that time, paid a visit to Sacramento, which is the second large city of California. The steamer took me there in a single day, and gave me an opportunity of admiring the river scenery. The city of Sacramento stands in the midst of a flat and fertile district, somewhat resembling the cultivated plains of France. ”

“ Sacramento, largest river of California, rises in the NE. in the Sierra Nevada; follows a south-westerly course, draining the central valley of California; falls into Suisund Bay, on the Pacific coast, after a course of 500 miles, of which 250 are navigable.
Sacramento (29) , capital of California, situated at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers, 90 m. NE. of San Francisco; industries embrace flour and planing mills, foundries, potteries, &c.; has an art gallery, court-house, &c.; the tropical climate is tempered at night by cool sea breezes. ”

“ Judging by appearances, there are more saloons in proportion to the other shops of Sacramento than in any other town in California, unless it be San Francisco. The town is well shaded. One sees many wooden buildings of old-fashioned architecture, the old mansard roof being much in evidence. A most pleasant spot in Sacramento is the beautifully kept park around the fine State House. ”

“ The early emigrants from the East, who sought fortune on the Pacific slope after the gold discoveries of 1848-49, found a paradise in the fragrant and prolific valley of the Sacramento, which, beautiful at all times, was to them, after a journey of almost unbearable hardships across the burning sands of the American Desert, a region of incomparable delight. There is, indeed, no contrast in all nature so sudden and so great as that afforded between Nevada and California, the line of separation being the Sierras. ”

“ Several intermediate places having been stopped at, in which our traveler obtained accommodation for a night, we hasten on with him to Sacramento, where, on November twenty-first, he found himself again surrounded with all the appliances of civilization. Sacramento has a population of twenty-five thousand. ”

“ The birds were singing, chattering, and flitting from tree to tree, through the romantic and picturesque valley where we had slept during the night. The scenery and its adjuncts were so charming and enticing that I recommenced my travels with reluctance. No scenery can be more beautiful than that of the small valleys of California. Ascending the range of elevated mountains which border the Cache creek, we had a most extensive view of the broad plain of the Sacramento, stretching with islands and bells of limber far away to the south as the eye could penetrate. ”

“ The last time Thure had stood where he was now standing, only a little over a year ago, and looked across the Sacramento River, not a sign of a human habitation was in sight where now shone the thousands of lights of a busy city!
"Isn't it a wonderful sight!" exclaimed Bud, as the two boys stood a little later on the river bank, staring, with fascinated eyes, across the water. "Looks more like a dream-city, or a scene in fairyland, than it does like a real town inhabited by real people." ”

“ Boo!
"Billy, we've been misinformed," said I, "the oranges in California are N. G."
"Right you are, Windy, but as they didn't cost us anything we oughtn't to kick."
After eating and resting, we took in the town. We found Sacramento to be a sizeable place, containing about fifty [Pg 29] thousand people, and the people to us seemed sociable, chatty and friendly. We both liked the place first class, and as we were broke, concluded to try our luck there for awhile. We struck a street cleaning job and held it down for a week. ”

“ Frank repeated in surprise.
"Yes, all; the headstrong young woman would not be left behind, and she is at Sacramento now, that is if she hasn't been shot by some of these red-shirted miners, or come to her end some other way. We stayed two days at San Francisco. I have wandered about a good deal, but I thought before I saw Sacramento and these places, that city was the residence of the roughest and most dangerous set of rascals I ever met. ”

“ He left San Diego Mission in July, 1769, with sixty-five retainers, and first reached the Golden Gate.
Beyond the Coast Range lies a "terra incognita." A few soldiers only have traversed the Sacramento and San Joaquin. They wandered into the vales of Napa and Sonoma, fancying them a fairyland.
The sparkling waters of the American, the Sacramento, the Yuba, Feather, and Bear rivers are dancing silently over rift and ripple. There precious nuggets await the frenzied seekers for wealth. There are no gold-hunters yet in the gorges of these crystal streams. ”

“ In Sacramento it is fiery Summer always, and you can gather roses, and eat strawberries and ice-cream, and wear white linen clothes, and pant and perspire, at eight or nine o'clock in the morning, and then take the cars, and at noon put on your furs and your skates, and go skimming over frozen Donner Lake, seven thousand feet above the valley, among snow banks fifteen feet deep, and in the shadow of grand mountain peaks that lift their frosty crags ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. ”

“ Here I determined to cross the Sacramento, climb the mountains of the other side, pierce the splendid forests, and reach the valleys of McCloud at the base of Shasta.
In my mind, the wigwams still sent up their smoke through the dense firs of the McCloud, and pretty maidens still bore water on their heads in willow baskets from the river to the village. I almost heard the ancient, wrinkled squaws, grinding acorn bread, and the shouts of the naked children at their sports. ”

“ THIS IS A LILY POND IN THE GROUNDS OF ONE OF OAKLAND’S FOREMOST RESIDENTS
ON THE FOOT-HILLS OF THE COAST RANGE IN OAKLAND, ACROSS THE BAY FROM SAN FRANCISCO, ARE MANY BEAUTIFUL HOMES—HERE IS ONE OF THEM
Sacramento is a modern city with many miles of electric railway and paved streets running out to suburban orange and olive groves in the attractive suburbs, and past the capitol building and surrounding park. ”

“ It is our best chance. To go back to the lake, among savages of whom we know naught, would be folly; to go on southward, seeking some better passage, would be folly. Here we are; there are the mountains; just on the other side is the Valley of the Sacramento. It can’t be more than a hundred miles. We’ve all heard Kit tell of the beautiful Valley of the Sacramento, with its rich pastures and its fat game, where there is no winter. ”

“ Had we taken the Lincoln Highway literally from ocean to ocean, we should have driven direct from San Francisco to Stockton. As it was we saw California first, and came in at Stockton.
It was a bright, sunny day, the thirteenth of [Pg 112] June, when we left Stockton for Sacramento. We drove along an excellent asphalt road, through grain fields and orchards, the almond orchards being loaded with their green, velvety fruit. It was late afternoon when we reached our hostel, the Sacramento Hotel. Sacramento is even to-day more or less a frontier town. ”

“ This harbour is upwards of forty miles long, by about twelve miles broad at its widest point, and receives at its northern end the waters of the noble Sacramento river, into which all the other rivers in California flow.
Nearly opposite to the mouth of the Sacramento, on the southern shores of the bay, stands the famous city of San Francisco, close to which the Roving Bess let go her anchor and clasped the golden strand.
The old adage that, “truth is strange, stranger than fiction,” was never more forcibly verified than in the growth and career of this wonderful city. ”

“ The difference between the society of Los Angeles and Sacramento City, is wide, and affords a good contrast between the restless, enterprising, utilitarian spirit of the Americans, and the indolent, pleasure-loving spirit of the Californians. With the Americans, in the cities where they are in the majority, business is the uppermost consideration upon all occasions, and profit and loss, and chances of obtaining a competency, the constant subject of thought. With the Californians, the enjoyment of the present, which alone is theirs, is at all times a matter of prime importance ”

“ Sacramento also became a canvas city, whose dust-clouds whirled, and men, mules, and oxen toiled; where boxes, barrels, bales innumerable, were piled in the open air, no shelter being needed for months. For the City Hotel, Sacramento, thirty thousand dollars per year was paid as rent, although it was only a small frame building. The Parker House, San Francisco, cost thirty thousand dollars to build, and rented for fifteen thousand dollars per month.
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,
in Mining Camps.
DECEMBER 7.
The prospector is the advance agent of progress, civilization and prosperity. ”

“ Sacramento City, like San Francisco, they found to be a collection of temporary houses, half the population living in tents, which were pitched under the old forest trees, so recently standing there in solitude. The streets were more regularly laid out, and filled with a motley crowd, the teams of emigrants and miners arriving and departing constantly. The canvas-covered stores were as busy as if they had been the most respectable brick warehouses, quick sales and large profits being the order of the day. ”

“ I can’t imagine any city in America hotter than Sacramento in the summer, or more unpleasantly cold in the winter, apart from which there was nothing about the place that caused it to be very deeply impressed on my memory, saving that I met a man in one of the streets one day who was so exactly like an old Clifton College master called Tait that I believed it was he, and accosted him accordingly. ”

“ Large steam vessels ply between this city and San Francisco. The fare is from thirty to forty dollars.
Sacramento City is at the head of ship navigation on the Sacramento, but small vessels can go above.
In the spring of 1849 this place began to be boomed as a city and now it contains several thousand inhabitants, and is a smart business place. Everything here is life and bustle, where fortunes are made in a day and are lost as quickly. A large amount of sickness prevails at the present time.
Dr. Haines and C. S. Fifield, who left us on Raft River, are both in the city at the present time. ”

“ By day, new occupations, strange callings, and the labor of organizing a business community, engage all men. The ebb and flow of going and returning miners excite the daylight hours. From long wharves, river steamers, laden to the gunwales, steam past the city shores to Sacramento. At night, deprived of regular homes, the whole city wanders in the streets, or crowds flashy places of amusement. Cramped on the hilly peninsula, there are no social lines drawn between good and bad. Each human being is at sea in a maelstrom of wild license. ”