The Overland Monthly/Volume 1/A Breeze from the Woods
THE
Overland Monthly
DEVOTED TO
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY.
Vol. 1—JULY, 1868—No. 1.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by A. Roman & Co., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of California.
A BREEZE FROM THE WOODS.
"SHALL we go to the Springs this year?” asked a demure woman as she handed the tea and toast across the table.
Now there are more than five thousand springs in the Coast Range which have never been defiled. It isn’t necessary for the preservation of one’s mortal system that it should be daily saturated with a strong solution of potash or sulphur. As a pickle, I much prefer a few gallons dipped up from the ocean, or a spring bath from a little mountain stream. Do you think it is evidence of sanity in a hungry man to expect a wholesome dinner in a country hotel kept expressly for city boarders? We will have a vacation nevertheless. If our homes were in Paradise, I think we should need it. One might get tired even of looking at sapphire walls and golden pavements. Did you observe how promptly that artisan dropped his tools when he heard the mid-day warning? Many aman gets more than one significant warning to drop his tools—all his instruments of handicraft and brain work—at mid-summer and be off. If he does not heed this protest of nature, there will come a day when the right hand will lose its cunning and the brain its best fibre. It is better to sit down wearily under the shadow of a great rock and take a new baptism from the ooze and drip, than to trudge on as a money-making pilgrim up the bald mountain, because forsooth some men have reached it at mid-day—and found nothing. What we need is not so much to seek something better in the long run than we have found. There may be a sweet, even throb to all the pulsations of domestic life, and no small comfort in gown and slippers, and the unfolding of the damp evening newspaper. But the heaven, of what sort it is, may seem a little fresher by leaving it for a month’s airing. It is a point gained to break away from these old conditions and to go forth somewhat from one’s self. The lobster breaks his shell and next time takes on a larger one. He is a better lobster for that one habit of his. The trouble with many men is that they never have but one shell, and have never expanded enough to fill that. They do not need a vacation, when the beginning and end of them is vacuity. It is possible that the horizon may shut down too closely about one and be too brazen withal; and that as we go the weary round the cycle of our own thoughts will be finished with every revolution of the earth. There is no great difference after all in a desert of sand and a desert of houses, when both by a law of association suggest eternal sameness and barrenness. There is a wearisome sameness in this human current which is shot through the narrow grooves of the great city. What inspiration does one get from this human concussion? Are there any sparks of divine fire struck off, or struck into a man by it? In all this jostling crowd is there any prophet who knows certainly what his dinner shall be on the morrow? The struggle is mainly one for beef and pudding, with some show of fine raiment, and possibly a clapboard house in which there is no end to stucco. The smallest fraction may yet be used to express the value of that element of civilization which teaches society how much it needs rather than how little will suffice.
Argenti, the banker, fared sumptuously every day. But you noticed that he had the gout cruelly. You didn’t find him at any fashionable watering-place, last summer. His pavilion was under an oak tree, with the padding of a pair of blankets. His meat and drink for six weeks was broiled venison and spring water. What his rifle did not procure and the spring supply, he utterly refused to swallow. He went up the mountain-side with muffled feet and a vexed spirit. He came down per saltem singing something about the soul of one Brown, which he said was marching on. It is not necessary that our modern pulpiteers should go back to the diet of locusts and wild honey. But there is comfortable assurance that there is no gout in that fare. And if more of naturalness and fiery earnestness would come of that way of living, it might be worth the trial. There is fullness of meat and drink, and much leanness of soul. It only needs some manifestation of individuality, with an honest simplicity, to suggest a commission of lunacy.
“This,” said the divinity who served the toast and tea, “is your vacation philosophy. How much of it are you going to reduce to practice?”
As much as we can crowd into three weeks, or more of rational living. There might be a charm in savage life if it were not for the fearfully white teeth of the wolf and the cannibal. There is nothing in Blot’s book which teaches how a missionary should be cooked; and a roast pig, that pleasant adjunct, is only well done by the Fejee Islanders. And so, after some further discussion, oracular and otherwise, it was agreed that precedents should go for nothing ; and that the vacation of three weeks should be spent with a rational regard for health, economy and pleasure. Ourselves, including a half-grown boy, would count three, and our neighbors—husband and wife—would make up the convenient number of five. It was agreed, moreover, that we should not enter a hotel, nor accept any private hospitality which included in-door lodging. No journeys for the benefit of baggage smashers. No more notable incident will happen on this part of the planet, for some time to come, than the fact that two females, not averse to a fresh ribbon in spring-time, consented to a journey of three weeks without taking along a trunk of the size of a Swiss cottage, or so much as a single bandbox. Railroads, steamboats and stages were to be given over, as things wholly reprobate. There happened to be on the farm of one of the party, three half-breed horses, well broken to harness and saddle. These, with a light, covered spring wagon, should suffice for all purposes of locomotion—a single span before the wagon, and the third horse with a saddle, to admit of an occasional change. The half-breed horses, which would not sell in the market for fifty dollars each, are the best in the world for such a campaign. They never stumble, are not frightened at a bit of bad road; under the saddle they will pick their own way, jumping over a log or a small stream with the nimbleness of a deer. A tether on the grass at night keeps them in good trim. Bred in the country, they are the proper equine companions with which to plunge into the forest and to go over unfrequented roads. They have an instinct which is marvelously acute. They will take the scent of a grizzly in the night sooner than the best trained dog, and are quite as courageous; for both dog and horse will break for camp, at the first sniff of one of these monsters. When stage horses start on a tearing run over a mountain road at midnight, look for bear tracks in the morning. It is but fair to say that bruin does not generally meddle with people who are not of a meddlesome turn of mind. When put upon his mettle, he goes in for a square fight; and as far as my scanty data may be relied upon, he whips in a majority of instances. A Henry rifle, two shot-guns, a small mili tary tent, some heavy blankets, and a good supply of fishing-tackle, with two or three cooking utensils and some small stores, made up the equipment. No wonder-mongering was to be done. It was not in order, therefore, to go to the Big Trees, Yosemite or the Geysers. There are more wonders on a square mile of the Coast Range than most of us know anything about.
No vacation is worth having which does not, abruptly if need be, turn one away from all familiar sights and sounds, all the jarring, creaking and abrasion of city life. The opening vista in the redwood forest where the path is flecked with tremulous shadows and gleams of sunlight, will lead near enough to Paradise, provided one docs not take a book or a newspaper along, and never blasphemes against nature by enquiring the price of stocks. The young lady who undertook to read Byron at the Geysers last summer, was greeted with an angry hiss of steam which made her sitting place very uncomfortable. There was but one snatch of Norma sung during this excursion. Something was said about its being sung "divinely;" but the fact that every grey squirrel barked, and every magpie chattered within the space of forty furlongs, left a lingering doubt about the heavenliness of that particular strain of music. It is useless to mock at nature, for in the end she will make all true souls ashamed. An excursion into the woods calls for some faith in Providence, and some also in rifles and fishing gear; and when dinner depends upon some sort of game which is flying over head, or running in the bushes, one must walk circumspectly withal, and remember to keep the eye of faith wide open. It is of no use to cite the instance of the prophet who was fed by ravens. He had a fit of the blues, and could not have drawn a bead upon a rifle. Besides, if he knew that game was coming to him, what was the use of going after it?
Here and there a pair of doves were flitting about, and now and then a cottontail rabbit made an awkward jump from one clump of bushes to another. It was a handsome beginning for the youngster, who sent a stone into the hazel bush and took bunny on the keen jump as he came out. It was a sign that there would be no famine in the wilderness. Another brace of rabbits and half a dozen wild doves settled the dinner question. Wild game needs to be hung up for a season to mellow; the quail does not improve in this way, but pigeons and wild ducks and venison are vastly better for it. A trout affords an excellent mountain lunch, and the sooner he is eaten after coming out of the water the better. And so of all the best game fish.
Did it ever occur to you that while women may be skillful fishers of men, and will even make them bite at the bare hook—they make the poorest trout fishers in the world? There is an awkward fling of the line, as if the first purpose was to scare every fish out of the water. There is a great doubt if any trout of the old school ever takes a bait thrown in by feminine hands; if indeed he is tempted into taking it, he makes off with it, and that is the last sign of him for that day. That last remark is uttered at some peril, if the most vehement feminine protest means any thing serious. Two speckled fellows were taken from a little pool under a bridge, the most unlikely place in the world according to common observation, and yet chosen by the trout because some sort of food is shaken down through the bridge at every crossing of a vehicle. Two more from a pool above, and there were enough for lunch. There may be sport in taking life thus. But whoever puts the smallest life out in mere wantonness, and for the sport of slaying, without reference to a human want, is a barbarian. These carniverous teeth show that we are creatures of prey. But conscience ought to be the Lord's game keeper and give us unmistakable warning when we have slain enough. Had there been a mission to shed innocent blood for the love of it, a couple of will cats which were traveling along a narrow trail, with the ugliest faces ever put upon any of the feline tribe, would have come to grief. Their short, stumpy tails and bad countenances came near drawing the fire of one of the pieces. But although wild game is better than tame meat, there is no evidence on record that a wild cat is any better than a tame one. They only needed handsome tails to have been taken for half-grown tigers. If every creature with an unlovely countenance is to be put to death on that account, what would become of some men and women who are not particularly angelic? The pussies are out for their dinner, and so are we. We cannot eat them, and they must not eat us. Each of them may feast on a brace of song-birds before night. But it may be assumed that each of the females who make up the party are competent to make way with a brace of innocent doves for dinner.
If it were not for the fox, the wild-cat and the hawk, the quail is so wonderfully prolific here that it would overrun the country, destroying vineyards and grain fields without limit. I suspect, also, that the great hooded owl drops down from his perch at night, and regales himself on young quails, whose nightly covert he knows as well as any bird in the woods. It is easy enough to find out what the owl eats, but does anybody know who eats the owl? You may criticise him as a singing bird, and he is rather monotonous along in the small hours of the morning. But worse music than that may be heard in-doors, and not half so impressive, withal. There is no harm in noting that the two or three attempts to sing Sweet Home by the camp-fire on the first night were failures. At the time when the tears should have started, there was a break and a laugh which echoed far up in the ravine. Nobody had lost a home, but five happy mortals had found one, the roof of which was of emerald, supported by great pillars of redwood, which cast their shadows far out in the wilderness, as the flames shot up from the campfire. The game supper was no failure. One only needs to throw overbeard twothirds of the modern appliances of the kitchen, including the cast-iron stove—that diabolical invention of modern times—to insure perfect success in the simple business of cooking a dinner. Do not, good friends, forget the currant jelly, or you may weary of doves and cottontails, as the Israelites did of quails and manna. And if you want the elixir of life, make the tea of soft spring water, which you will never find issuing out of any limestone or chalk rock, or where flints much abound.
The little white tent had a wierd aspect, as though it might have been a ghost in the forest. It was absurdly intrusive, and harmonized with nothing in the woods or fore-ground save the white wall of mist that every night trended landward from the ocean, but never touched the shore. After a little time, the novelty of the camp wears off, and a blessed peace comes down on weary eyes and souls. There is no use in keeping one eye open because a dry stick cracks now and then, or the night-hawk sputters as he goes by. Daylight comes at four o'clock, and the woods are thronged with animated life. The song-sparrow begins to twitter, finches and linnets hop about; and down in the oaks the robins sing, and the woodpeckers are tapping the dry limbs overhead. The grey squirrel arches his handsome tail and runs along in merry glee; and there is such a wealth and joy of abounding life—such a sweet concord of sounds and brimming over of gladness—that Heaven seems a little nearer for the morning anthem. But a heavenly state is not inconsistent with a reasonable appetite.
Never did trout bite more ravenously than at sunrise that morning. The shadows were on the pools, and the gamey fellows more than once jumped clear out of the water for an early breakfast. In losing theirs, we got our own. In the long run, the losses and gains may be nicely balanced. Mem.: It is far better that the trout should be losers at present. The philosophy may be fishy, but it points towards a good humanizing breakfast. And it cannot have escaped notice, that the greater part of that philosophy which the world is in no hurry to crucify points towards the dinner-table.
Did it ever strike you that the asceticism of the middle ages, which retreated to the cloister content with water-cresses as a bill of fare, was never very fruitful of high and profound discourse? The philosopher who goes up into the clouds to talk, and prefers gruel to trout before going, makes an epigastric mistake. He has taken in the wrong ballast; and has omitted some good phosphorescent material, which might have created a nimbus around his head as he entered the clouds. A mistake in the gastric region leads to errors of the head and heart. I do not know whether there is any ground of hope for a people who have not only invented cast-iron stoves, but have invented "help" in the form of the she-Titans who have made a wholesome dinner well nigh impossible. Death on a pale horse is poetical enough. But death in the black stove of many a kitchen is terribly realistic. If these trout were to be cooked by "hireling hands," the very woods would be desecrated, and the smoke of the sacrifice would be an abomination.
Does a brook trout ever become a salmon trout? But the former goes down to the sea, and comes back the next year a larger fish. He ascends the same stream, and may be a foot or more in length, according to the size of the stream. I refer, of course, to those Coast Range streams which communicate with the ocean. If a bar or lagoon is formed at the mouth of a stream, so that it is closed for a few months, and nearly all the fish are taken out by the hook, on the opening of the lagoon or creek a fresh supply of trout will come in from the ocean, differing in no conceivable way from brook trout, except that they are larger. They take the grasshopper and the worm like honest fish bred up to a country diet. Some icthyologist may show a distinction without a difference. The camp-fire reveals none.
The ocean slope of the Coast Range is much the best for a summer excursion. The woods and the waters are full of life. There is a stretch of sixty miles or more from the San Gregorio Creek in San Mateo County, to the Aptos Creek on Monterey Bay, in Santa Cruz County, where there is an average of one good trout stream for every five miles of coast line. There are wooded slopes, dense redwood forests, and mountains in the back ground where the lion still has a weakness for sucking-colts, and the grizzly will sometimes make a breakfast on a cow, in default of tender pigs. But neither lion nor bear is lord of the forest. Both are sneaking cowards, the lion not even fighting for her whelps. It is better however, on meeting either, not to prolong the scrutiny, until you have surveyed a tree every way suitable for climbing. The "shinning" having bwen done, you can make up faces and fling back defiance with some show of coolness. Then all along there is a foreground of yellow harvest fields, farmhouses and orchards; the cattle cluster under the evergreen oaks at mid-day. Wide off is the great sounding sea with its fretting shore line and its eternal reach of waters—so near and yet so remote. Low down on the horizon are the white specks of ships drawing near from the other side of the globe—coming perhaps from the dear old home to lay treasures at your feet in the new one—linking the new and the old together by this swift and silent journey begun as of yesterday, and ended to-day. There is no place afar off. The palms lift up their "fronded" heads just over there; and the cocoanut drops down as from an opening heaven—more is the shame that those frowsy, low-browed cannibals are not content therewith, but so affect the rib roast of a white man, and that too in a tropical climate! If men would always look up for their food they might become angels. But looking down, they may yet become tadpoles or demons. It needs but a little Buddhism grafted on to the development theory to turn some of the human species back into devil-fish. For when one is wholly given up to seek his prey by virtue of suction and tentacula, he might as well live under water as out of it. It might be hard to go back and begin as a crocodile; but if some of our species have once been there and show no improvement worthy of mention since, why, the sooner these voracious, jaw-snapping creatures are turned back, perhaps the better. Ketchum has made a hundred thousand dollars this year in buying up doubtful titles and turning widows and orphans out of their homes. Tell me, oh Brahmin, if this man was not a crocodile a thousand years ago? And if he slips any where a link in his chain of development, where will he be a thousand years hence?
It is a good thing to pitch the tent hard by the sea shore once in a while. Salt is preservative; and there is a tonic in the smell of sea weed. Your best preserved men and women have been duly salted. The deer sometimes come down to get a sip of saline water, and are partial to mineral springs, which one can find every few miles along the mountain slopes. The sea weeds, or mosses, are in their glory. Such hues of carnation and purple, and such delicate tracery as you shall never see in any royal garden. A hook was thrown in for the fish, perchance, with the dyes of Tyrian purple. But there came out a great wide-mouthed, slimy eel, which was kicked down the beach into the water, with a hint never to reveal so much ugliness again on any shore of the round world. Your sea-lion has no beauty to speak of; but he is an expert fisher and knows how to dry himself upon the rocks. When a hundred of them take to the water, with their black heads bobbing about, they might be taken for so many shipwrecked contrabands. How many ages were required for the ocean to quarry these grains of sand, which under a glass become cubes and pentagons as goodly as the stones of Venice? No more under this head, for "quahaugs" and mussels are terribly anti-suggestive.
The young quails are only half-grown; but they run about in very wantonness in all directions. How keen is the instinct of danger in every tenant of the woods; and yet birds hop about in all directions with a consciousness that no evil will befall them. A couple of woodpeckers on a trunk of a tree just overhead, have curiously ribbed and beaded it up with acorns fitted into holes for winter use. So nicelyis the work done, and so exact the fit, that the squirrels cannot get them out. And yet the wild doves which we want for our breakfast, flit away upon the first sign of approach. The era of shot guns is nota millennium era, and the screech of a bursting shell is not exactly a psalm of life. The tenderness of the Hindoo in the matter of taking life for food, I suspect, is because of his philosophy. Soul transmigration holds him in check, otherwise he might be found eating his grandmother. But a school-girl riots on tender lambs, and is not a whit afraid of eating her ancesters. There is a curious linking of innocence with bloodshedding in our times, enough to suggest an unconscious cannibalism, one remove from that of the happy islanders.
An old farmer came up to see us, attracted by the white tent, and hiving a lurking suspicion that we might be squatters. He confirmed the theory that the flow of water from springs in this region was permanently increased by the great earthquake. "You see," said he, "it gave natur a powerful jog." After the shock, a column of dust arose from the chalk cliffs and falling banks on the shore line, which could have been seen for twenty miles. There was a noise as of the rumbling of chariots in the mountain tops, and the smoke went up as from the shock of armies in battle. The great sea was silent for a moment, and then broke along the shore with a deep sigh as though some mighty relief had come at last. All the trees of the mountain sides bowed their heads as if adoring that Omnipotence which made the mountains tremble at its touch. one could have been just here, he might have seen the grandest sight of ages; for this was the the very focus of the earthquake. As it was, we got no impression of that event above a suspicion that a mad bull was butting away at the northwest corner of a little country church, with some alarming signs that he was getting the best of the encounter.
One learns to distinguish the sounds of this multitudinous life in the woods after a few days, with great facility. The bark of the coyote becomes as familiar as that of a house dog. But there is the solitary chirp of a bird at midnight, never heard after daylight, of which beyond this we know nothing. We know better from whence come the cries, as of a lost child at night, far up the mountain. The magpies and the jays hop around the tent for crumbs; and a coon helped himself from the sugar box one day in our absence. He was welcome, though a question more nice than wise was raised as to whether, on that occasion, his hands and nose were clean. There is danger of knowing too much. It is better not to know a multitude of small things which are like nettles to the soul. What strangely morbid people are those who can suggest more unpleasant things in half an hour than one ought to hear in a life time! Did I care before the question was raised, whether the coon's nose were clean or otherwise. Now there is a lurking suspicion that it was not. If you offer your friend wine, is it necessary to tell him that barefooted peasants trampled out the grapes? Is honeycomb any the sweeter for a confession that a bee was also ground to pulp between the teeth? We covet retentive memories. But more trash is laid up than most people know what to do with. There is great peace and blessedness in the art of forgetfulness. The memory of one sweet, patient soul is better than a record of a thousand selfish lives.
It was a fine conceit, and womanly withal, which wove a basket out of plantain rods and clover, and brought it into camp filled with wild strawberries. Thanks too, that the faintest tints of carnation are beginning to touch cheeks that were so pallid a fortnight ago. Every spring bursting from the hill side is a fountain of youth, although none have yet smoothed out certain crow tracks. The madrona, the most brillant of the forest trees, sheds its outer bark every season: when the outer rind curls up and falls off, the renewed tree has a shaft polished like jasper or emerald. When humanity begins to wilt, what a pity that the cuticle does not peel as a sign of rejuvenation! There is also a hint of a sanitary law requiring people averse to bathing to peel every spring.
There is a sense of relief in getting lost now and then in the impenetrable fastness of the woods; and a shade of novelty in the thought that no foot-fall has been heard in some of these dells and jungles for a thousand years. It is not so easy a matter to get lost after all. The bark of every forest tree will show which is the north side, and a bright cambric needle dropped gently upon a dipper of water is a compass of unerring accuracy. A scrap of old newspaper serves as a connecting link with the world beyond. The pyramids were probably the first newspapers—a clumsy but rather permanent edition. Stereotyping in granite was the pioneer process. Then came the pictured rocks— the illustrated newspaper of the aborigines, free, so far as I know, from the diabolism which pollutes the pictorial papers of our time. There are some heights of civilization which are the fruitful subject of gabble and mild contemplation. But who fathoms the slums so deep and bottomless, out of whose depths spring the inspiration of some of the illustrated prints of our time? Photography is the herald of piciorial illustrations which are yet to flood the world. The mentotype has not yet been discovered—a little machine to take the impression of the secret thoughts of a friend, as now his features are transfixed in the twinkling of an eye. The world is not yet sober and circumspect enough for this last invention. And these interior lives might lose something of imaginary symmetry by turning inside out.
But let us hope that the musician is born who will yet come to the woods and take down all the bird songs. What a splendid baritone the horned owl has? Who has written the music of the orioles and thrushes? Who goes to these bird operas at four o'clock in the morning? There is room for one fresh, original music book, the whole of which can be written at a few sittings upon a log just where the forests are shaded off into copses and islands of verdure beyond.
It is something to have lived three weeks without a sight of the sheriff, the doctor, or the undertaker. Something of a victory to have passed out from under the burden of intense anxiety into a condition of serene indifference as to how this boisterous old world is getting on. If so much as a fugitive letter had reached us, it would have been construed into a mild case of assault and battery. The business of rejuvenation commences with lying down on the ground at night with the head due north, that the polar current may strike the weary brain first and gently charge the whole mortal system. The days of renewal may end by circumventing a two-pound trout, or with a long range rifle shot at a running deer. But as no pilgrim ever reached the gates of Paradise with a pack on his back, so it is reasonably certain that heaven never came down to one who carried his burden into the wilderness in vacation.
What a great repose there is in these mountains draped in purple and camping like giants hard by the sea! And yet what an infinite shifting of light and shadow there is on sea and shore! Is the artist yet to be born on this soil who will paint the mountains in the glory of an evening transfiguration; or who will catch the inspiration of these grand defiles, opening vistas, and landscapes ripened and subdued under the harvest sun? We will leave him our bill of fare that he may take heart on finding that while fame follows translation, a good dinner may safely precede that event. And as for you, oh friend, with the sallow face and sunken eyes—you had better get to the woods and read it for very life.