Shemites

“ Of the many wild animals, ranging in size from the great, powerful, timid grizzly bear, now almost extinct here, whose Indian name, by the way, is Yosemite, to the tiny shrew of the lowlands, the most frequently seen are the black or brown bear, and the deer, both of which, as compared with their kind in neighborhoods where hunting is permitted, are unterrified if not friendly. Notwithstanding its able protection, the Yosemite will need generations to recover from the hideous slaughter which, in a score or two of years, denuded America of her splendid heritage of wild animal life. ”

“ Boulders of sienite, hornblende rock, silicious slate, sandstone, and quartz, served as so many monuments to testify that heavy oceanic currents had heretofore disrupted the northern stratification, and poured down over these long and gradual geological slopes.
High and open as our position was on this eminence, our old friends the mosquitos did not forget us. Even the Indians could not endure their continued attacks. ”

“ Some are dwellers in the arid recesses of the desert; while others affect the most fertile pastures, or the deepest shades of the thick forest. Others, again, find their home amidst the sedge on the banks of lakes and rivers, passing half their time in the water; while several species—as the Chamois of Europe and the Klipspringer of South Africa—dwell in the mountains, making their way among cliffs and ravines, with an agility scarce equalled by any other animal. ”

“ It will have been observed, while going to the Yosemite, that the chimaso, white-oak and digger-pine are upon the southern slopes, while the thickets of mountain-ash, shrub or Oregon maple, and shrub live-oak, chinquepin and trailing blue and white ceanothus and snow plant are found upon the north side of the ridges, except when found at a greater altitude than is usual for their growth. ”

“ We scramble up to a sort of niche near its summit, p. 158whence, at a height of a hundred feet or more, we can overlook the whole extent of the plain and wait the sunrise. Yet before the highest crags of Shomer are gilt with its first rays, or the long giant shadows of the easterly chain have crossed the level, we see groups of peasants, who, driving their fruit and vegetable-laden asses before them, issue like little bands of ants from the mountain gorges around, and slowly approach on the tracks converging to the capital. ”

“ Thus, this Middle Tertiary period was closed in violence. Volcanic fire, earthquake-shocks, and molten lava destroyed and blotted out all forms of vegetable and animal life. The ages roll on, and once more living forms of plant and animal haunt the shores of these shallowing lakes. The oak, the yew, the willow, have left their prints in the sedimentary rocks; and the bones of new creations of animal life, such as the camel and the horse, accompany them. But these, too, in turn suffer extinction by violence; the whole country being covered more than thirty feet deep in volcanic ashes. ”

“ The floating branches turned lazily over and over to the lapping of the sluggish current, and the green slime oozing from the clustered beaver lodges of the far side might hide either a miry bottom, or a treacherous hole.
A naked Indian came pattering back through the brush, looking into every hollow log, under fallen trees, through clumps of shrub growth, where a man might hide, and into the swampy river bed. It was only a matter of time when he would reach my hiding-place. Should I wait to be smoked out of my hole, like a badger, or a raccoon? ”

“ Hurrying onward with ominous rapidity, slaughtering all who fell in their path, and with their weapons goading forward the herds of sleek cattle which teemed in every valley, the wild host now poured like an overwhelming torrent down the flowery slopes—now breasted the steep sunny acclivity like flames driven before the wind—and now wound in Indian file along the edges of cliffs affording scanty footing for a wild cat, where the loose soil, crumbling at every step, left the naked precipitous rock as the only available passage. ”

“ At such times, though the native mind is probably not much impressed with the aspects of the landscape, the effect on a stranger who comes suddenly in sight of the hunters is strong. To see them stalking through the forest with their spears in their hands, now in the deep shades and sunless depths of some cleft in the mountains, where their forms are only occasionally visible, as they pass through the thick undergrowth of shrubs, or beneath the broad green shelter of the tree-ferns—or, again, as they ascend some steep slope, with their faces towards the sun ”

“ Miles and miles it swept and relied and heaved to lose its waves in apparent darker level. A round, red rock stood isolated, marking the end of the barren plain, and farther on were other round rocks, all isolated, all of different shape. They resembled huge grazing cattle. But as Shefford gazed, and his sight gained strength from steadily holding it to separate features these rocks were strangely magnified. They grew and grew into mounds, castles, domes, crags—great, red, wind-carved buttes. One by one they drew his gaze to the wall of upflung rock. ”

“ The plants consist chiefly of zamites, calamites, equiseta, and ferns, and, upon the whole, are considered by Professor Heer to have the nearest affinity to those of the European Keuper.
The equiseta are very commonly met with in a vertical position more or less compressed perpendicularly. It is clear that they grew in the places where they are now buried in strata of hardened sand and mud. I found them maintaining their erect attitude, at points many miles apart, in beds both above and between the seams of coal. ”

“ I explained to them that it was a loaded shell, that would explode and blow the blacksmith and his people to pieces, if he were to place it on the fire. They went away with their shell, evidently doubting my explanation.
On the 10th February, having as usual presented the natives with two cows, we started at 6 a.m., and marched ten miles. The country was even more lovely than before, comprising fine rocky scenery and beautiful park-like views. The undulations terminated in stony bottoms or water-courses; the rocks were all syenite, gneiss, and large masses of snow-white quartz. ”

“ It is conceivable that over a vast tract covered with dry grass, dry ferns, and withered and powdered gum leaves (which, owing to the oil they contain, are highly inflammable) ; the long rubbing together of dry boughs, agitated by the wind; or the tread of a heavy animal, such as the kangaroo or the native bear, on masses of hard pyritous quartz rocks, causing them to strike and grind against one another—might cause a conflagration. ”

“ In caves and 'kitchen-middens' or rubbish-heaps over the entire length and breadth of the American continent numerous evidences of the presence of populous centres have been discovered. Mingled with the shells of molluscs and the bones of extinct animals human remains, weapons, and implements are to be found, with traces of fire, which prove that the men of those early days had risen above the merely animal existence led by the first-comers to American soil. ”

“ More herds of zebras and gnus, and small troops of Grant’s gazelles and of impallah-antelopes have come into sight, and now they are joined by a whole crowd of hartebeests, which so far have kept themselves hidden in a side valley of the velt full of thick tall grass.
And now the moving mass of animal life is ever more abundant, more varied. I notice in the valley at the foot of my hill a string of guinea-fowl; how they hurry and scurry about, flutter up with sounding strokes of their wings, and then soon drop down again! ”

“ Axe and plough were equally active on the Mustang, and on many smaller streams in the vicinity, where civilization had set its foot. Thus whole patches of forest disappeared before man's busy hand, and the soil was robbed of its natural protection: the roots were turned up to be burnt or rot, and the earth was thus forced to receive and generate seeds foreign to it. ”

“ The bones of land animals are, for the most part, left unburied on the surface and are soon destroyed by chemical agencies. Even where, as in the swamps of river, flood plains and in other bogs, there are preserved the remains of plants, and sometimes insects, together with the bones of some animal drowned or mired, in most cases these swamp and bog deposits are sooner or later destroyed by the shifting channels of the stream or by the general erosion of the land. ”

“ The time of the growth of these species is, probably, much less, in the temperate latitudes, and in fertile soils, than is commonly supposed. I am inclined to think, from a hasty survey, that the whole deposit is the result of the slow accumulation of both ordinary interment, and the periodical deposit or re-interment of exhumed bones brought from contiguous hunting camps and villages. To this, pestilence has probably added. The ridge is said to be the apex or highest point of the table lands, and would therefore recommend itself, as a place of general interment, to the natives. ”

“ In the Shetlands, at least, it is possible to do this in perfect safety, for the strata of the rock have often been tilted up to such an extent that, whilst the precipice formed by their broken edges is of the most fearful description, their slope, even on the landward side, is so steep that when one has climbed it, and flung oneself full length at the top, one's head looks down—as mine does now—as from a slanting wall, against which one's body leans. ”

“ The number of wild animals driven together by the natives, which included zebras, quaggas, gnus, cow-antelopes, blessbock, springbocks, and ostriches, was estimated at five-and-twenty thousand. The number killed on this one day was reckoned at about six thousand animals, and a number of natives were trampled to death by the herds of wild beasts. ”

“ In the few dry parts oaks and pines grew, and, between them a brushwood so thick that man or beast could hardly penetrate; on the long, rich grass of these parts wild cattle fed, unassailed by the hand of man, save when they ventured beyond the confines of the swamp. There were wolves, deer and other wild animals, and wilder men, it was said, were seen here, supposed to have been the children of some of the Indians who had either been lost or left here, and had thus grown up like denizens of this wild, dismal swamp. ”

“ The ubiquity of this people is marvellous. They scent their prey with the unerring instinct of the carrion-bird. I had encountered them all over the world, chasing the omnipotent dollar, notwithstanding the gigantic war they were carrying on at home; and here was this little village of Bagdad, on the Texan border, as full of them as an ant-hill is of ants; and the human ants were quite as busy as their insect prototypes. Numerous shanties had been constructed on the sands, out of unplaned boards. Some of these shanties were hotels, some billiard-saloons, and others grog-shops. ”

“ The chief obstacles to travel and development in the valley are the broken or flooded nature of the country, the impenetrable forests, through which, except off the few trails, the traveller has to hack his way by means of the machete, wielded by his Indians. The heavy rains, the mosquitoes and the malaria, the unreliability of the natives. Dangers from wild beasts have been exaggerated. The worst of these is the mosquito! The forests are not teeming with beasts of prey, although they are to be met with. ”

“ When a hunting tribe of North American Indians, a horde of Bedouins, or Hottentots or Caffres, a Turcoman family, or a gipsy encampment, a Cape Boer, or an Australian sheep-farmer, sit down by stream, or valley, or lake, they no more influence the soil than a troop of antelopes or buffaloes. ”

“ Without stopping here to enter upon a disquisition on the hypothesis assumed, that these mounds, as they are termed, are as much the results of natural causes, as any other prominences on the surface of the globe: I will only remark, that it is a fact well known to frontier men, that the Indians have been in the habit of burying their dead on these ridges and hillocks, and that in our light, spongy soil, the skeleton decays surprisingly fast. ”

“ The Indians smear the hands and face with a mixture of grease and soot, which prevents the pest from biting. At some seasons in this country they are in such dense swarms that at night they will practically cover a mosquito netting, fairly touching each other and crowding through any kind of mesh. I have heard it asserted by people of experience that they form cooperative societies and assist each other through the meshes by pushing behind and pulling in front. ”

“ The possibility that this unknown land was roamed by savage tribes caused them grave anxiety. But none had been seen in the neighbourhood of the Promised Land. The only danger there was from the attacks of a few wild animals, outside the actual district—bears, tigers, lions, and serpents—amongst others one enormous boa-constrictor, which had penetrated as far as the outer premises of Rock Castle, and to which the ass fell a prey.
The following are some of the native products from which M. Zermatt derived much advantage, for he had a very full knowledge of natural history, botany, and geology. ”