Yreka, California

“ The principal towns in these valleys are Jacksonville, in Oregon, and Yreka, in California. These towns are noted for their rapid increase in population, the frequent changes and fluctuations in their markets, rich gold mines, frequent Indian wars, and high prices; but it will be seen by the following prices that the government has not been asked to pay as high prices to prosecute these wars as individuals have frequently paid in time of peace for the necessaries of life, while pursuing their common avocations. Yreka was settled in 1851, and Jacksonville in 1852. ”

“ Neither the interests of the people nor their habits made it requisite. In 1868 the California company had completed their line to Yreka, for which during the period of the civil war, the Oregonians had reason to be thankful, and having taken some long strides in progress during the half-dozen years between 1855 and 1861, they eagerly subscribed to build a line to Yreka from Portland, on being solicited by J. E. Strong, former president of the same company. Of the Oregon company, W. S. Ladd was elected president ”

“ According to the Bureau of Ethnology, “Shasta may be a corruption of Sus-tí-ka, apparently the name of a well-known Indian living about 1840 near the site of Yreka. The name was applied to a group of small tribes in Northern California, extending into Oregon, who were soon extinguished by the development of mining operations.” ”

“ Winter now was approaching ; and while I should have been welcome with the Indians to the end, I preferred to consider my stay with them in the light of a visit, and decided to go on to Yreka (a mining camp then grown to the dignity of a city) , and try my fortune in the mines.
It was unsafe to venture out alone, if not impossible to find the way ; but the two young men who had .assisted as vaqueros in the valley set out with me and led the way till we touched the trail leading from Red Bluffs to Yreka on the eastern spurs of Mount Shasta. ”

“ Don Carlos Ybarra, the husband de my señora, is very reech and very brave and proud—too brave and proud, ay, yi! We have a beeg adobe house with more than twenty rooms, and a corridor for the front more than one hundred feets. Ou'side are plenty other houses where make all the things was need for eat and wear: all but the fine closes. They come from far,—from Boston and Mejico. All stand away from the hills and trees, right in the middle the valley, so can see the bad Indians when coming. Far off, a mile I theenk, is the rancheria ”

“ Beyond Broderson Creek, as Presley advanced, tramping along on foot now, the land opened out again into the same vast spaces of dull brown earth, sprinkled with stubble, such as had been characteristic of Derrick's ranch. To the east the reach seemed infinite, flat, cheerless, heat-ridden, unrolling like a gigantic scroll toward the faint shimmer of the distant horizons, with here and there an isolated live-oak to break the sombre monotony. ”

“ The remains of a vast number of villages in all the valleys of the Sierra Nevada, and among the foot-hills of that range of mountains, show that at no distant day there must have been a numerous population, where there is not now an Indian to be seen. There are a few still retained in the service of the old Californians, but these do not amount to more than a few thousand in the whole territory. ”

“ The house counts for seven sites average 6.3 and since we are here dealing with informants' memories of inhabited houses, not house pits, this number need not be reduced. With respect to family number, the Yurok value of 7.5 is probably too high. For the type of culture characteristic of the Coast Yuki the more conservative value of 6.0 is probably better. This yields a population of 756, or approximately 750. It is difficult to see how this estimate could be reduced. ”

“ You are shut up to the shrewdness and sharpness of the Yankee on the one hand, and the liberality of the Californian on the other. Your choice lies between the two, and I have no hesitation in saying, give me the Californian. If he has a farm, and I have none, he will divide with me; but who ever heard of a Yankee splitting up his farm to accommodate emigrants? Why, he will not divide with his own sons till death has divided him from both. Yankees are good when mountains are to be levelled, lakes drained, and lightning converted into a vegetable manure ”

“ Dyke remarked after a while, his anger somewhat subsided. “My brother and I will take up this hop ranch. I've saved a good deal in the last ten years, and there ought to be money in hops.”
Presley went on, remounting his bicycle, wheeling silently through the deserted streets of the decayed and dying Mexican town. It was the hour of the siesta. Nobody was about. There was no business in the town. It was too close to Bonneville for that. Before the railroad came, and in the days when the raising of cattle was the great industry of the country, it had enjoyed a fierce and brilliant life. ”

“ The river, freed from its wooden-flume prison, rolls gracefully by. The green and purple beauty of these majestic old mountains looks lovelier than ever, through its pearl-like network of foaming streamlets, while, like an immense concave of pure sapphire without spot or speck, the wonderful and never-enough-to-be-talked-about sky of California drops down upon the whole its fathomless splendor. The day happens to be the inner fold of one of the atmospheric sandwiches alluded to above. ”

“ Life in California, although it must have its inconveniences belonging to a thinly inhabited country, yet it cannot be compared to anything like life in new settlements in the Western States or Oregon. If people only were willing to take it easy, they would, ninety-nine out of a hundred, even like it. The population here is much more ready to take at once, or very soon, a more agreeable and polished form than could be expected in any other new country. There is something in the climate—we of course except San Francisco and the Valley of the Sacramento, which predisposes one to contentment. ”

“ I hardly walk out without meeting or making acquaintances. I have already been invited to deliver the anniversary oration before the Pioneer Society, to celebrate the settlement of San Francisco. Any man is qualified for election into the society who came to California before 1853. What moderns they are! I tell them of the time when Richardson’s shanty of 1835—not his adobe house of 1836—was the only human habitation between the Mission and the Presidio, and when the vast bay, with all its tributaries and recesses, was a solitude,—and yet I am but little past forty years of age. ”

“ To know the glory of California scenery, one must live close to it through the changing years. From Siskiyou to San Diego, from Alturas to Tia Juana, from Mendocino to Mariposa, from Tahoe to the Farallones, lake, crag, or chasm, forest, mountain, valley, or island, river, bay, or jutting headland, every one bears the stamp of its own peculiar beauty, a singular blending of richness, wildness and warmth. ”

“ When the sun is sinking slow
Behind the mountains blue and white,
And the mist upon the town is falling low;
When the mocker's sleepy note
Seem to stifle in his throat—
Then to us in California, it is night. ”

“ Avenues of almost endless variety lead off through the circling steeps, and winding through long, shadowy ravines, lose themselves in the vine-clad recesses of the distant hills. It is no wonder California centered her taste, pride and wealth here. ”

“ In their wake are the forerunners of the men and women who will make California [29] a great center of occult knowledge—the alchemical gold, corresponding to her mineral wealth.
“The land! The land! O my beloved country! How art thou humbled by misfortune! I know not thy desolate bosom!” cried Yermah, springing ashore upon the island of Teneriffe, the mountain peak of Poseidon’s kingdom, his lost Atlantis.
“I kiss thy blackened and charred face! Thou mother of the white race! Thou source of all learning! Grant that thy dependencies may not forget and deny thee!” ”

“ Of all that mighty host, not more than one in a hundred remains in California to-day. In neglected graves, in the red earth of the Sierra, in the shadow of the cross of Calvary, under the laurel and willows of Lone Mountain, in the great depths of the sea, in the trenches of innumerable battlefields, in far-off Australia or Southern Africa, in Alaska, in Arizona, in Mexico, in Nicaragua, they sleep their last sleep. ”

“ When night invests the heaven, when the soft pleiads in their storm-rocked cradle sleep, and the sentinel stars on their watch-towers wane dim, her vigil flame still pours its faithful beam, still struggles with the encroaching darkness till the day-spring and the shadows flee away. Of all these sources of solace and hope multitudes in California are now bereft; but the ties of kindred, the quick-winged ship, and the steed of flame, on his iron-paved track, will soon secure them these priceless gifts. ”

“ Dyke and Sidney on the porch of the house. He had forgotten that since the affair at the ditch, Los Muertos had been a home to the engineer's mother and daughter.
“And you, Mrs. Dyke,” he asked as he took her hand, “in this break-up of everything, where do you go?”
“To the city,” she answered, “to San Francisco. I have a sister there who will look after the little tad.”
“But you, how about yourself, Mrs. Dyke?”
She answered him in a quiet voice, monotonous, expressionless:
“I am going to die very soon, Mr. Presley. There is no reason why I should live any longer. ”

“ Every one seems happy, and it is with regret that we leave the gay scene.
Through the hills to the north, across the Arroyo Seco, not dry now, but a swift stream turbulent from the winter rains, we journey on. We pass Eagle Rock, a great bowlder high upon the green hillside, one of the landmarks of the region, and enter the valley of the Los Angeles River. After traveling for several hours, we come to a large plantation of trees, vines, and grainfields, in the midst of which lies the mission of San Fernando. Its land extends for miles on every side and is exceedingly fertile. ”

“ From the summit we look down the northeastern slope of the mountains, upon the wide and beautiful Valley of Santa Clara, and the blue Bay of San Francisco shimmering-in the distance through the light veil of autumnal vapor which hangs over it, and drapes with a robe of royal purple the Valley of Alameda and the mountain heights beyond. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mines are not doing much here or at Yreka on account of water. It has been a very open winter with the exception of last week which was very cold. We were on the road to Yreka with provisions, freight from Jacksonville, but the weather is pleasant again. The roads are muddy. There is a great deal of wheat being sowed in this valley this season. Farmers are going to do well next summer. There are two grist mills going up in this valley this summer. ”

“ Rosalie Leese, the pioneer white child of California, born in 1838, at Yerba Buena, was the first of countless thousands of free-born American children. In the unpolluted West the breath of slavery shall never blight a single human existence. Old Captain Richardson and Jacob Leese, pioneers of the magic city of San Francisco, gaze upon the beautiful ranks of smiling school-children, in happy troops. They have no regrets, like the knights of slavery, to see their places in life filled by free-born young pilgrims of life. ”

“ Once before, when the world was younger, there was a land similar to this,—sea-kissed, mountain-guarded, with such gentle climate and soft skies. Its people, who also lived much out of doors at peace with nature, became almost perfect in health and figure, with mental qualities which enabled them to give to the world the best it has known in literature and art. What the ancient Greeks were, the people of California may become; but with an advancement in knowledge and loving-kindness of man toward man which heathen Athens never knew. ”

“ III The steep hills of San Luis Obispo shot upward like the sloping sides of a well, so round was the town. Scarlet patches lay on the slopes—the wide blossoms of the low cacti. A gray-green peak and a mulberry peak towered, kithless and gaunt, in the circle of tan-coloured hills brushed with purple. The garden of the mission was green with fruit trees and silver with olive groves. On the white church and long wing lay the red tiles; beyond the wall the dull earth huts of the Indians. ”

“ At no time is California so beautiful as in the month of June. De la Vega's wild spirit and savage purpose were dormant for the moment as he rode down the valley toward the mission. The hills were like gold, like mammoth fawns veiled with violet mist, like rich tan velvet. Afar, bare blue steeps were pink in their chasms, brown on their spurs. The dark yellow fields were as if thick with gold-dust; the pale mustard was a waving yellow sea. Not a tree marred the smooth hills. The earth sent forth a perfume of its own. ”

“ And live like hunted beasts. I like the valley; the sun in winter, the cool mountains in summer. If I am victor to-morrow, all the Indians in California will call me chief. They will run here from every Mission and hacienda, and from every hill and mountain, like little ones to their good father; and we will drive the priests out of the country, and make the hidalgos, the caballeros, the soft silk-dressed donas our friends or our slaves—as they wish. California belongs to us. The Great Spirit put us here, not the white man. ”