Lincoln Highway near Soda Springs, Cal.
Title: Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway
Author: Effie Price Gladding
Release date: August 2, 2010 [eBook #33320]
Most recently updated: January 6, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)
Lincoln Highway near Soda Springs, Cal.
New York
BRENTANO'S
1915
Copyright, 1915,
BY
Effie Price Gladding
Manufactured by
Rowland & Ives
225 Fifth Avenue
New York
Dedicated to
Lovers of the open road and the flying wheel.
"My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing."
PAGE
Introduction 7
Chapter I 11
Chapter II 22
Chapter III 37
Chapter IV 57
Chapter V 76
Chapter VI 92
Chapter VII 111
Chapter VIII 142
Chapter IX 169
Chapter X 191
Chapter XI 210
Chapter XII 227
Chapter XIII 257
From the Pacific to the Atlantic by the Lincoln Highway, with California and the Virginias and Maryland thrown in for good measure! What a tour it has been! As we think back over its miles we recall the noble pines and the towering Sequoias of the high Sierras of California; the flashing water-falls of the Yosemite, so green as to be called Vernal, so white as to be called Bridal Veil; the orchards of the prune, the cherry, the walnut, the olive, the almond, the fig, the orange, and the lemon, tilled like a garden, watered by the hoarded and guarded streams from the everlasting hills; and the rich valleys of grain, running up to the hillsides and dotted by live oak trees. We recall miles of vineyard under perfect cultivation. We see again the blue of the Pacific and the green of the forest cedars and cypresses. High Lake Tahoe spreads[Pg viii] before us, with its southern fringe of emerald meadows and forest pines, and its encircling guardians, lofty and snow-capped. The high, grey-green deserts of Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming stretch before us once more, and we can smell the clean, pungent sage brush. We are not lonely, for life is all about us. The California quail and blue-jay, the eagle, the ground squirrel, the gopher, the coyote, the antelope, the rattlesnake, the big ring snake, the wild horse of the plains, the jack rabbit, the meadow lark, the killdeer, the red-winged blackbird, the sparrow hawk, the thrush, the redheaded wood-pecker, the grey dove, all have been our friends and companions as we have gone along. We have seen them in their native plains and forests and from the safe vantage point of the front seat of our motor car.
The lofty peaks of the Rockies have towered before us in a long, unbroken chain as we have looked at them from the alfalfa fields of Colorado.
We have seen the bread and the cornbread of a nation growing on the rolling prairies of Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. We have crossed the green, pastoral stretches of Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania. The red roads of Virginia, winding[Pg ix] among her laden orchards of apples and peaches and pears and her lush forests of oak and pine; the yellow roads of Maryland, passing through her fertile fields and winding in and out among the thousand water ways of her coast line, all come before us. These are precious possessions of experience and memory, the choice, intimate knowledge to which the motorist alone can attain.
The Friends of the Open Road are ours; the homesteader in his white canopied prairie schooner, the cattleman on his pony, the passing fellow motorist, the ranchman at his farmhouse door, the country inn-keeper hospitably speeding us on our way.
We have a new conception of our great country; her vastness, her varied scenery, her prosperity, her happiness, her boundless resources, her immense possibilities, her kindness and hopefulness. We are bound to her by a thousand new ties of acquaintance, of association, and of pride.
The Lincoln Highway is already what it is intended to be, a golden road of pleasure and usefulness, fitly dedicated, and destined to inspire a great patriotism and to honour a great patriot.
October, 1914.
With what a strange thrill I look out from my stateroom window, early one April morning, and catch a glimpse of the flashing light on one of the green promontories of the Golden Gate! I dress hurriedly and run out to find that a light is flaming on the other promontory, and that we are entering the great Bay of San Francisco. It has taken a long preparation to give me the feeling of pride and joy and wonder with which I come through the Golden Gate to be in my own country once more. A year of touring in Europe, nearly a year of travel in the Orient, six months in Australia and New Zealand, and after that three months in Honolulu; all this has given me the background for the unique sensation with which I see the two lights on the long[Pg 12] green promontories of the Golden Gate stretching out into the Pacific. Our ship moves steadily on, past Alcatraz Island with its long building on its rocky height, making it look like a big Atlantic liner built high amidships. There are the green heights of the Presidio and the suburbs of the city of San Francisco. On the left in the distance is Yerba Buena Island. Far ahead of us, across the width of the Bay, are the distant outlines of Oakland and Berkeley. Later I am to stand on the hilly campus of the University of California and look straight across the Bay through the Golden Gate which we have just entered. The tall buildings of San Francisco begin to arise and we are landed in the streets of the new city. What a marvel it is! In the ten days that we were there I must say that still the wonder grew that a city could have risen in nine short years from shock, and flood, and fire, to be the solid, imposing structure of stone and brick, with wide bright streets and impressive plazas, that San Francisco now is. In the placing of its statues at dramatic points on the streets and cross streets, it reminds one of a French city. The new city has fine open spaces, with streets stretching in all directions from these plazas. There[Pg 13] are many striking groups of statuary; among them one whose inscriptions reads:
DEDICATED TO MECHANICS
BY
JAMES MERVYN DONAHUE IN MEMORY OF HIS
FATHER, PETER DONAHUE
The most striking figure in this group, one of five workmen cutting a hole through a sheet of steel, is the figure of the old man who superintends the driving of the bolt through the sheet, while four stalwart young men throw their weight upon the lever. Here is not only stalwart youth and brawn, but also the judgment and steadiness of mature age. The older man has a good head, and adds a moral balance to the whole group. It is a fine memorial, not only to the man whose memory it honours, but also to a host of mechanics and working men who do their plain duty every day.
The most attractive thing about the San Francisco residences is the fine view of the Bay that many of them have. It is the business portion of the city that makes the striking impression upon the stranger. The new Masonic Building, with its[Pg 14] massive cornice, reminding one of the Town Hall in the old fighting town of Perugia, Italy; the towering buttresses of the Hotel St. Francis; the noble masses of the business blocks; the green rectangle of the civic center where the city's functions are held in the open air;—all are impressive. In all of the California cities, one finds no better dressed people and no more cosmopolitan people in appearance than are to be seen on the San Francisco streets. It is more nearly a great city in its spirit and atmosphere than any other metropolis of the State.
The drive through the Golden Gate Park is interesting because of the blooming shrubs, and the lovely foliage. I have never before seen my favorite golden broom blooming in any part of the United States. Here it grows luxuriantly. The Presidio, the site of the military post, is a very beautiful park, and is well worth seeing.
A memorable excursion is one across the Bay to Berkeley, the seat of the State University. In the past fifteen or twenty years the University has grown from a somewhat motley collection of old brick buildings into a noble assemblage of harmonious stone buildings with long lines of much architectural[Pg 15] impressiveness. No one can see the University of California without feeling that here is a great institution against the background of a great State. Two buildings which I particularly like are the School of Mines, built by Mrs. Phœbe Hearst as a memorial to her husband, and the beautiful library. While the two buildings are very different in type, each is noble and appropriate for its particular uses. There are still a few of the original buildings standing, old-fashioned and lonely. Doubtless they will be removed in time and more fitting structures will take their place. The situation of the campus is superb. It lies on a group of green foothills, the buildings rising from various knolls. You literally go up to the halls of learning. The whole campus and the little university city at its feet are dominated by an enormous white C outlined on the green hills far above. It is a stiff climb to that C, but it is a favorite walk for ambitious students. They tell me that occasionally students come up from Leland Stanford University and in teasing rivalry paint over the C at the dead hour of night. The University is rich in beautiful situations on the campus for out-of-door functions. Nothing could be lovelier than Strawberry Canyon,[Pg 16] a green valley with immemorial live oaks scattered here and there; and with clumps of shrubbery behind whose greenness musicians can conceal themselves. We saw the annual masque given by four hundred University women in honour of Mrs. Phoebe Hearst. I carry in memory a lovely vision of dancing wood nymphs, of living flowers, of soft twilight colors, streaming across the greensward; and of a particular wood nymph, the very spirit of the Spring, who played about in irresponsible happiness, all in soft wood browns and pinks and greens. The Greek Theatre is a noble monument to Mr. Randolph Hearst, its donor. A great audience there is a fine sight; so symmetrical is the amphitheatre that it is hard to realize how many thousands of people are sitting in the circle of its stone tiers. Behind the topmost tier runs a wall covered with blooming roses, while back of this wall hang the drooping tassels of tall eucalyptus trees. Nothing could be more fitting as a theatre for music and for all the noblest and most dignified functions of a great institution.
We did not start on our long journey, which was to mount up to 8,600 miles in distance, until the 21st of April. Before that we had a delightful[Pg 17] northern trip of one hundred and twenty miles in a friend's motor car; crossing the ferry and driving through Petaluma, Sonoma Valley, and Santa Rosa, on to Ukiah. Coming through Petaluma our host told us that we were in "Henville." I had supposed that chickens would do well anywhere in sunny California, but not so. There are districts where the fog gets into the throats of the fowls and kills them. Sonoma County is particularly adapted for chicken raising and there are hundreds of successful chicken growers in this region.
As we came through Santa Rosa, we saw the modest home and the office and gardens of Luther Burbank.
Beyond Santa Rosa we entered what our host called the Switzerland of California. The roads are only ordinary country roads and very hilly at that, but the rolling green fields and glimpses of distant hills, with heavy forests here and there, are very beautiful. I saw for the first time in all its spring glory the glowing California poppy. Great masses of bright orange yellow were painted against the lush green of the thick hillside grass; masses that fairly radiated light. Alongside these patches of flaming yellow were other patches of[Pg 18] the deep blue lupine. Some great painter should immortalize the spring fields of California. The wonderful greenness of the grass, the glowing masses of yellow, and the deep gentian blue of the lupine would rank with the coloring of McWhirter's "Tyrol in Springtime." California in the spring is an ideal State in which to motor. We were sorry that we could not accept our host's invitation to motor still farther north into Lake County, a county of rough roads but fine scenery.
Northern California has not yet been developed or exploited for tourists as has the southern part of the State, but there is beautiful scenery in all the counties north of San Francisco. As we drove through Sonoma (Half Moon) Valley, we saw the green slopes of Jack London's ranch, not many miles away. Jack London's recent book, "The Valley of the Half Moon," describes the scenery of this region.
Back of Vallejo, reached by ferry from San Francisco, lies the lovely Napa Valley, filled with fruit ranches. Its southern end is narrow, but as one drives farther north it widens out into a broad green expanse of orderly fruit farms and pleasant[Pg 19] homes, dominated by green hills on either side. Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley were the first of many enchanting valleys which we saw in California. As I look back on our long drive, it seems to me now that in California you are always either climbing a mountain slope or descending into a green valley flanked by ranges of hills. Calistoga, at the northern end of Napa Valley, has interesting literary associations. It was on the slope of Calistoga Mountain that Robert Louis Stevenson spent his honeymoon and had the experience of which we read to-day in "The Silverado Squatters."
San Francisco is a pleasure-loving town. When its people are not eating in public places to the sound of music, they are likely to be amusing themselves in public places. The moving picture, the theatre, the vaudeville, all flourish in this big, gay, rushing city. The merchants of San Francisco have shown great courage and daring in the erection of their big buildings almost immediately on the stones and ashes of the old ones. They have done all this on borrowed money and loaded themselves with heavy mortgages, trusting to the future and to fat years to pay off their indebtedness. They[Pg 20] have done an heroic work in a solid, impressive way, and deserve all the business that can possibly come to them.
In San Francisco I saw for the first time that great California institution, the cafeteria. They pronounce this word in California with the accent on the "i." To a traveler it seems as if all San Francisco must take its meals in these well equipped and perfectly ordered restaurants. You enter at one side of the room, taking up napkin, tray, knife, fork, and spoons from carefully arranged piles as you pass along a narrow aisle outlined by a railing. Next comes a counter steaming with trays of hot food, and a second counter follows with rows of salads and fruits on ice. After one's choice is made, the tray is inspected and the pay-check estimated and placed on the tray by a cashier. You are then free to choose your table in the big room and to turn over your tray to one of the few waiters in attendance. You leave on the opposite side of the room, passing a second cashier and paying the amount of your check.
It is a great game, this of choosing one's food by looking it over as it stands piping hot or ice cold, in its appointed place. The attendants are[Pg 21] evidently accustomed to the weakness of human nature, bewildered by so overwhelming an array of viands. They keep calling out the merits of various dishes as the slow procession passes. "Have some broiled ham? It's very nice this morning." "Try the bacon. It's specially good to-day."
California people are much given to light housekeeping and to taking their meals in cafeterias and other restaurants. Doubtless this fashion may have been inaugurated by the fact that an ever increasing tourist population, living in hotels and lodgings, must be taken care of. But many of the Californians themselves are accustomed to reduce the cares of housekeeping to the minimum, and to take almost all their meals away from their own homes. The servant question is a serious one in California; and this type of co-operative housekeeping seems to commend itself to hosts of people. We enjoyed it as pilgrims and travelers, but one would scarcely wish to have so large a part of the family life habitually lived in public places.
In the heart of San Francisco stands a tall, slender iron pillar, with a bell hanging from its down-turned top, like a lily drooping on its stalk. This bell is a northern guide post of the famous El Camino Real, the old highway of the Spanish monks and monasteries on which still stand the ruins of the ancient Mission churches and cloisters. We purpose to drive south the entire length of the six hundred miles of El Camino Real; and then turning northward to cross the mountain backbone of the State of California, and to come up through the vast and fertile stretches of its western valleys, meeting the Lincoln Highway at the town of Stockton.
It is the morning of the 21st of April when we swing around the graceful bell, run along Market[Pg 23] Street to the Masonic Temple, turn left into Mission Road, and from Mission Road come again into El Camino Real. We first pass through the usual fringe of cheap houses, road saloons, and small groceries that surrounds a great city. Then comes a group of the city's cemeteries, "Cypress Grove," "Home of Peace," and others. We have a bumpy road in leaving the city, followed by a fine stretch of smooth, beautiful cement highway. On through rolling green country we drive, and into the suburb of Burlingame with its vine covered and rose embowered bungalows, and its houses of brown shingle and of stucco. The finer places sit far back from the road in aristocratic privacy, with big, grassy parks shaded by noble trees in front, and with the green foothills as a background.
At San Mateo, a town with the usual shaven and parked immaculateness of highclass suburbs, we have luncheon in a simple little pastry shop. The woman who gaily serves us with excellent ham sandwiches, cake, and coffee, tells us that she is from Alsace-Lorraine. She and her husband have found their way to California. From San Mateo we drive to Palo Alto, where we spend some time in visiting Leland Stanford University. The[Pg 24] University buildings of yellow sandstone with their warm red tiled roofs look extremely well in the southern sun. Here are no hills and inequalities. All the buildings stand on perfectly level ground, the situation well suited to the long colonnades and the level lines of the buildings themselves. It is worth the traveler's while to walk through the long cloisters and to visit the rich and beautiful church, whose restoration from the ravages of the earthquake is about completed. With its tiling and mosaic work, its striking mottoes upon the walls, and its fine windows, it is very like an Italian church.
The town of Palo Alto is a pretty little settlement, depending upon the University for its life.
From Palo Alto we drive on into the Santa Clara Valley. We are too late to see the fruit trees in bloom, a unique sight; but the valley stretches before us in all its exquisite greenness and freshness after the spring rains. Miles of fruit trees, as carefully pruned and weeded and as orderly in every detail as a garden, are on every side of us. Prune trees, cherry trees, and apricot trees; there are thousands of them, in a most beautiful state of cultivation and fruitfulness. No Easterner who[Pg 25] has seen only the somewhat untidy and carelessly cultivated orchards of the East can imagine the exquisite order and detailed cultivation of the California fruit orchards. We saw miles of such orchards always in the same perfect condition. Not a leaf, not a branch, not a weed is left in these orchards. They are plowed and harrowed, sprayed and pruned, down to the last corner of every orchard, and the last branch of every tree.
Through the clean aisles, between the green rows, run the channels for the precious water that has traveled from the mountains to the plains to turn tens of thousands of acres into a fair and fruitful garden.
The Santa Clara Valley is one of the loveliest valleys of all California, and indeed of all the world. Set amid its orchards are tasteful houses and bungalows, commodious and architecturally pleasing; very different from the box-like farmhouses of the Middle West and the East. On either side rise high green hills. It is a picture of beauty wherever one looks.
At Santa Clara, on our way to San José, we stop to see the Santa Clara Mission, just at the edge of the town. All that remains of the first Mission is[Pg 26] enclosed within a wall, the new church and the flourishing new school standing next to the enclosure.
In the middle of the valley is the city of San José, an active, bustling town, full of life and business. We spent a pleasant day at the Hotel Vendome, an old-fashioned and delightful hostel, surrounded by a park of fine trees and flowering shrubs. The Vendome is a good place in which to rest and bask in the sunshine.
When we next motor through the Santa Clara Valley, we shall visit the New Almaden quicksilver mine, twelve miles from San José, and commanding from its slopes a wondrous view of the valley and the Garden City, as San José is called. And there is the interesting trip from San José to Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory. One can motor by a good road to the summit of the mountain, 4,209 feet above sea level, and spend the night at the hotel below on the mountain slope.
Leaving San José, we were more and more charmed with the valley as we drove along through orderly orchards and past tasteful bungalows. This was the California of laden orchards, of roses and climbing geraniums, of green hills rising beyond the valleys, of which we had read. As we approached[Pg 27] the foot hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains we looked back and saw the green valley with its ranks of trees unrolled below us. Passing through the little town of Los Gatos (The Cats), we began to climb. As we turned a curve on the winding mountain road, the green expanses of the Happy Valley were lost to view. We were coming now into the region of immense pine trees and of the coast redwoods, the Sequoia sempervirens. The road was fair but very winding, requiring close attention. We crossed singing brooks and passed wayside farms high in the hills, with their little patches of orchard and grain. We saw a big signboard indicating the two-mile road to the Montezuma Ranch School for boys, and shortly after were at the top of the grade. Then came the descent, the road still winding in and out among the forests. At the Hotel de Redwood, a simple hostel for summer sojourners from the valleys, we saw a magnificent clump of redwoods, around which had been built a rustic seat. At the foot of the hill we turned left instead of right, thus omitting from our itinerary the town of Santa Cruz and the redwoods of the Big Basin. We hope to see this noble group of trees sometime in the future. We took luncheon[Pg 28] in a little café at Watsonville. When I asked the young German waiter for steamed clams he said, "Oh! you mean dem big fellers!" From Watsonville, a bright little town, we drove on toward Salinas, making a detour which took us around the town instead of directly through it. We were crossing the green plains of the Salinas Valley, and before us rose the dark wooded heights of the famous Monterey Peninsula. On through the town of Monterey to Pacific Grove, a mile beyond, and we were soon resting in an ideal bungalow watched over by two tall pines. What a memorable week we spent at "Woodwardia"! A quarter of a mile to our right was the sea, whose sound came up to us plainly on still nights. Less than a quarter of a mile to our left were the forest and the beginning of the Seventeen Mile Drive. We took the drive once and again, paying the seventy-five cent entrance fee at the gate of the Pacific Improvement Company's domain, thus becoming free to wander about in the great wooded territory of the Peninsula. We took luncheon at the picturesque Pebble Lodge, where we had soup served in shining abalone shells, and where the electric lights were shaded by these shells. We halted in leisurely fashion along[Pg 29] the Drive to climb over the rocks and to scramble up the high dunes, with their riot of flowering beach peas. They were ideal places to sit and dream with the blue sea before one and the dark forest behind. We photographed the wind-swept cypress trees, beaten and twisted into witchlike shapes by the free Pacific breezes. We watched the seals, lazily basking in the sun on the rocks off shore. We visited the picturesque village of Carmel, where artists and writers consort. We selected, under the spell of all this beauty, numerous sites for bungalows on exquisite Carmel Bay, where one might enjoy forever and a day the fascination of the sea and the spell of the pine forests.
We visited the Carmel Mission, now standing lonely and silent in the midst of green fields. A few of the old pear trees planted by the Mission fathers still maintain a gnarled and aged existence in an orchard across the road from the church. The church is a simple structure with an outside flight of adobe steps, such as one sees in Italian houses, running up against the wall to the bell tower. At the left of the altar are the graves of three priests, one being that of Father Junípero Serra, the founder of many of the Missions, the devoted Spanish[Pg 30] priest and statesman who more than once walked the entire length of six hundred miles along which his Missions were planted. A wall pulpit stands out from the right wall of the church. The most touching thing in the empty, dusty, neglected little place is a partly obliterated Spanish inscription on the wall of the small room to the left of the main body of the church. It is said to have been painted there by Father Serra himself, and reads, being translated: "Oh, Heart of Jesus, always shining and burning, illumine mine with Thy warmth and light."
A memorable excursion was to Point Lobos beyond Carmel village, a rocky promontory running out like a wedge-shaped plateau into the sea. One approaches the sea across exquisite green, turfy spaces, shaded by pine trees, to find the point of the wedge far above the water, cut by rocky and awesome gashes into which the waves run with a long rush and against whose walls they boom continually. The quiet woods of Point Lobos do not prepare one for the magnificence of its outlook and the wonderful sight of its great rocks rising ruggedly and precipitously far above the water. I have seen the entire three hundred miles of[Pg 31] the French and Italian Riviera, having motored all along that enchanting coast; and I am free to say that Point Lobos is as fine a bit of scenery as one will find, not only on the Pacific Coast but along the Mediterranean shore.
Point Lobos was purchased a number of years ago by a Pacific Grove gentleman who had an eye for its rare beauty and grandeur, and who has built for himself a modest home on a green meadow at the entrance to the promontory. A small admission fee is charged for the Point, largely to exclude those who in former days, when the Point was free to excursionists, abused this privilege.
The owner has established on a little cove a short distance from his house an abalone canning factory. Here the Japanese and other divers bring their boat loads of this delicious shellfish. Monterey Bay is the home of the abalone and it has been so ruthlessly fished for that new laws have had to be made to protect it. The big, soft creature, as large as a tea plate, fastens itself to rocks and other surfaces, its one shell protecting it from above. The diver slips under it his iron spatula, and by a quick and skillful twist detaches it from its firm anchorage. Abalone soup has a delicate flavor, really superior[Pg 32] to clam soup. Both the exterior and the lining of the abalone shell have most exquisite coloring and are capable of a high polish. In the lining of the shell there is often found the beautiful blister or abalone pearl, formed by the same process as the oyster pearl, the animal throwing out a secretion at the point where it is irritated. The result is a blister on the smooth lining of the shell which when cut out and polished shows beautiful coloring, ranging from satiny yellow to changing greens. We spent an hour in wandering about the canning factory, looking over heaps of cast-off shells, admiring their beautiful lining, and choosing some to carry with us across country to a far distant home. That many of the shells had had marketable blisters was shown by little squares cut in the lining.
Another drive was that across Salinas Valley, through the bright and prosperous town of Salinas, up the steep San Juan grade, where one may eat luncheon on a green slope commanding a lovely view, and down into the little old town of San Juan, where stands the mission of San Juan Baptista, with its long cloisters still intact. Next to the Mission is an open square which is said to have been the scene of bull fights in the old Spanish days.
1. Spanish Governor's House at San Juan. 2. San Juan
Batista Mission.
A day was spent in driving over the Salinas road and the Rancho del Monte road, on through a lovely valley, up over the mountain along a shelf-like road, and down into Carmel Valley; then along another mountain road by a stream, and up again to the lush meadows of a private ranch twelve hundred feet above the sea. We left the car at the foot of the hill and drove in a farm wagon to the ranch house. We visited the vineyard on a sunny slope back of the house, so sheltered that grapes grow by the ton. We climbed into heavy Mexican saddles, ornately stamped, with high pommel and back, and rode astride sturdy horses over steep rounding hills through thick grass to view points where we could look down on Carmel Valley and off to the silvery sea. As we retraced our journey in the afternoon sunlight, a bobcat came out from the forest and trotted calmly ahead of us. A beautiful deer ran along the stream, his ears moving with alarm, his eyes watching us with fear and wonder. A great snake lay curled in the middle of the road and we ran over him before we really saw him. He made a feeble attempt to coil, but the heavy machine finished him. He was only a harmless ring snake, whose good office it is to kill the gophers[Pg 34] that destroy the fruit trees, so we were sorry we had ended his useful career. He was the first of many snakes that we killed in California. Sometimes they lay straight across our road; sometimes they were stretched out in the ruts of the road and our wheels went over them before we could possibly see them; sometimes they made frantic efforts, often successful, to escape our machine; we always gave them a fighting chance.
It seemed that we would never tear ourselves away from the Monterey Peninsula. We wandered through the beautiful grounds of the Hotel del Monte with their ancient live oaks. We walked and mused along the streets of Monterey, where Robert Louis Stevenson once walked and mused. We rejoiced in the sight of a lovely old Spanish house at the head of Polk Street, carefully kept up by its present owner. We saw the Sherman Rose cottage, the old home of Sherman's Spanish love, and the Sherman-Halleck quarters, and the old Hall of Records. We stopped to gaze at old adobe dwelling houses, some with thick walls roofed with tile around their yards; some with second floor galleries, supported by plain, slender wooden posts, roses clambering over them.[Pg 35]
We visited the San Carlos Mission on the edge of the town. Unlike the deserted little church at Carmel, San Carlos is in excellent repair, perfectly kept and in constant use. There they show you some of the old vestments said to be Father Serra's own. There you may see his silver mass cards, with their Latin inscriptions engraved upon the upright silver plate, reading: "In the beginning was the Word," etc. The same beaten silver water bucket which Father Serra used for holy water is to-day used by the incumbent priest. On the walls are the adoring angels which Father Serra taught the Indians to paint. One of the special treasures of the Mission is Father Serra's beautiful beaten gold chalice, a consecrated vessel touched only by the priests. Back of the church is kept as a precious possession the stump of the old oak tree under which Father Serra celebrated his first mass and took possession of California in the name of Spain. The spot where the oak tree stood, on the highway between Monterey and Pacific Grove, is marked by a modest stone just below Presidio Hill.
We browsed about the curio and gift shops of Monterey, and the "Lame Duck's Exchange" of Pacific Grove. We saw Asilomar (Retreat-by-the-Sea),[Pg 36] the fine conference grounds of the Young Women's Christian Associations of the Pacific Coast, whose commodious assembly and living halls are the gift of Mrs. Phœbe Hearst. We learned the delicious flavor, on many picnics, of the California ripe olive. One might be dubious about the satisfying quality of Omar Khayam's bottle of wine and loaf of bread "underneath the bough." But with the loaf of bread and plenty of California olives one could be perfectly content. I could have a feast of Lucullus any day in California on abalone soup, with its delicate sea flavor, bread, and olives.
Ah well! one cannot stay forever on the Monterey Peninsula to hear the sighing of the wind in the pines and the lapping of the waves on the shore. One cannot take the Seventeen Mile Drive day after day to see the wind-twisted cypresses, to come upon the lovely curve of Carmel Bay, and to look down from "the high drive" upon the Bay and town of Monterey far below, for all the world like a Riviera scene. Once more we turn our faces southward and drive through the broad streets of Pacific Grove along the mile of coast road to Monterey, and from Monterey into the country where masses of lupine paint the hills blue on the right, and live oaks dot the green valley stretches on the left. Coming into Salinas Valley we drive through hundreds of acres of level beet fields, south of the[Pg 38] town of Salinas. We meet a redheaded, shock-bearded man with his sun-hat tied on, walking alongside a rickety moving-wagon drawn by two poor horses. He responds most cheerfully to our question concerning directions. As we pass his wagon a big family of little children crane their young necks to see us. The mother in their midst, a thin, shabby looking woman, holds up her tiny baby for me to see as I look back, and I wave congratulations in response. Later, near Santa Maria, we pass another moving party eating supper. They are prosperous looking people, very different from the forlorn, toiling little party outside of Salinas. They are comfortably encamped in a grassy spot, and the woman waves to me with a big loaf of bread in one hand and her bread knife in the other. I wave with equal heartiness to her. This is part of the charm of the open road, these salutations and this jolly passing exchange of sympathy, not between two ships that pass in the night, but between two parties who enjoy the air and the open, and who are one in gypsy spirit. It all belongs in the happy day.
Salinas Valley is very different from the lovely valleys which we have thus far seen. Sonoma Valley[Pg 39] is a rolling, irregular valley, part grain fields, part rough, hilly pasturage. Napa Valley, narrow at the south, wide toward the north, with orchards and pleasant homes, breathes of order and shut-in prosperity. Santa Clara Valley is a Napa Valley on a grander scale. Its surrounding hills are higher, its spaces are wider. Salinas Valley is a grain-growing valley, its fields of grain stretching away up into the foothills. As we proceed south we observe that the fields encroach more and more upon the hills, their rich greenness running quite far up on the hill slopes. The line of demarcation between the growing grain and the rough pasture slopes is as clean as if drawn by a pencil. It is here in Salinas Valley that we first notice the park-like appearance of many green stretches of field with live oaks growing here and there. It would almost seem that the oaks had been planted with a view to park effects, instead of being part of the original forest which had been cut down to make way for the grain fields. We pass through the little town of Soledad (Solitude) near which are the poor ruins of the Mission of our Lady of Soledad. We judge that Soledad must have a cosmopolitan population when we read such names as Sneible,[Pg 40] Tavernetti, and Espinosa on the town's signs. Here and there we see where the Salinas River has eaten great pieces out of its banks, during the spring freshets. We had seen the same thing in Carmel Valley, where a man lost a large piece of his orchard by its falling bodily into the raging Carmel river. The streams of California are not like the streams of New England, clear and deep with winey brown depths. They are shallow streams with earth banks, but in the time of the spring rains they become wild torrents. Late in the afternoon we pass King City on the opposite bank of the river, glorified by the afternoon sunshine. It looks like a picture town, its buildings taking on castle-like proportions from a distance. We then come over the Jolon Grade, and descend through a little wooded valley that has a particular charm. I do not know its name, but it cast a certain spell that lingers with me. It is a narrow valley with stretches of thick green grass under forest trees, and has a quality of seclusion that I have not felt in the wide acres of grain in the great Salinas Valley. It is as if the forest had been only partly cut away and the advance of the grazier and the grain grower were but partly accomplished.[Pg 41]
We come into Jolon, a country crossroads hamlet, past "Dutton's," a most comfortable and homelike country hotel, if one may judge by appearances. I am sorry not to stop for the night. I am always attracted to these country inns when they have hospitable porches and a general look of homely comfort. I should be glad, too, to take the six mile detour from the main road in order to see the ruins of the San Antonio Mission. But we have been told that the Mission is in such a ruined state, one of the thick walls having fallen in, that it is as well not to see it.
Our next valley, even lovelier than the others, is Lockwood's Valley, a beautiful stretch of grain fields. By a bend in the road we are driving east with the western sun setting behind us. High hills form a background for the green fields of oats and barley. The whole valley with its few ranch houses and its great fields breathes a country peace. Looking back, I still regret that we could not have had time to go half a mile off the main road and try the merits of the Lockwood Inn.
But we drive on through the valley over a slight pass and come to an adobe ranch house on the left, sitting modestly back on a slight knoll against a[Pg 42] background of bare hills. At the ranch gate is a sign to the effect that this is Aloha Ranch Inn, and that meals can be had at all hours. It is the word Aloha that catches us. Surely someone must live here who knows the lovely Hawaiian Islands with their curving cocoanut palms, and their emerald shores. So we turn into the drive and find a kindly farmer, master of his six hundred acres in this lone valley, who with his wife gives us warm welcome. He does indeed know Hawaii, having lived and worked on the famous Ewa sugar plantation for nearly twenty years. We have a homely but appetizing supper, and a dreamless night's sleep in one of the farmhouse bedrooms. The next morning is gloriously beautiful, and we drive on our way. In order to avoid fording the Salinas river, which is very high, we make our journey by way of Indian Valley, through hilly, rather lonely country. All along the river there are signs of the devastation made by the unusual spring rains. The river banks are gouged out and the railroad bridges are down, the rails being twisted into fantastic shapes. In passing San Miguel we stop to see the Mission, which is in a fair state of repair and in constant use. One of the beautiful toned old bells of the Mission[Pg 43] is hung in a framework outside the church, where the visitor may sound it. The new bell is unfortunately suspended from the top of an immense iron, derrick-like structure which stands outside the church, and is unsightly. The interior of the church is very fine. It is a lofty structure, fifty feet high and one hundred and fifty feet long, its walls covered with frescoes in rich blues and reds, the work of the Indians. There are niches for holy water in the thick old walls and a large niche which was used for the confessional. Above the altar is painted the "All-Seeing Eye." The heavy rafters of the roof extend through the walls and long wooden pins are fitted through the ends to bind the walls together. Not a nail was used in the entire structure.
We take luncheon at Paso Robles (Pass of the Oaks), famed for its healing waters. The hotel is pleasant and the new bath house with its handsome marble and tiling is very fine. Many sojourn here for the medicinal uses of the waters. Between Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo we come through a stretch of very beautiful country, part open forest land, part richly pastoral, the property of the Atascadero Company. The Atascadero[Pg 44] settlement is one of those Utopian plans for happiness and prosperity which bids fair to be realized. The climate is almost ideal, the scenery is charming, the country is richly fertile. They tell us that people are pouring in from the East and that the colony is growing constantly. At the north end of the Atascadero territory we pass a handsome sign swinging over the road, which reads: "Atascadero Colony. North End. Ten Miles Long and Seven Miles wide. Welcome." As we approach the south end of the ten mile stretch we come upon another sign whose legend is: "Come again." Turning back as we pass under the sign we see that its reverse legend is the same as that of the north end sign, save that it is for the south end. So whoever passes along the main road through Atascadero property is bound to have the uplifting welcome and to receive, as he passes on, the kindly farewell. We congratulate the Atascadero colonists on the lovely rolling country in whose midst they are to dwell and on the magnificent live oaks that dot their park-like fields. San Luis Obispo is quite a large town, but the Mission of San Luis Obispo has been spoiled by being incorporated into the new church and school plant. One catches only a glimpse of broken[Pg 45] cloisters within the school enclosure. I stepped into the church as we drove by in the late afternoon, and saw the children coming in for prayer and for confession. Little stubby-toed boys tip-toed in, kneeling awkwardly but reverently, and crossing themselves with holy water; while from the confessional came the low murmur of some urchin making his confession.
Not long after leaving San Luis Obispo, near Nipomo-by-the-Sea, I had the misfortune to lose my leather letter case. We were horror struck when we found it gone and turned about just before reaching Santa Maria to retrace our steps across the long bridge and then across a wide stretch of dry, sandy river bed. The ravages of the floods had torn a much wider path for the river than it now used, so that for nearly a mile we drove over sandy river bottom, the river being a shrunken stream. To our great joy we met another motor car, and found that the three gentlemen in it had picked up my bag and were bringing it along to Santa Maria in the hope of finding the owner. What had promised to be a long and tiring search, involving the questioning of every passer-by and inquiry at every wayside house for miles, turned out to be only a short drive.[Pg 46] We turned toward Santa Maria and went on our way rejoicing.
Santa Maria is a large, prosperous, attractive town. On toward Los Olivos the country is like some parts of New England, attractive but lonely. We are glad to reach in the twilight the hospitable lights of Mattei's Tavern at Los Olivos. Mr. Mattei is Swiss by birth, but has spent many years in California. He has a ranch whose acres supply his unusually good table with vegetables, poultry, and flowers. His house is kept with the neatness and comfort of an excellent Swiss inn, and is a delightful place for a sojourn. We are sorry to come away on the morning of the first of May. We pass dozens of wagons and buggies, the people all in holiday attire, coming into town for the May-day celebrations. Los Olivos was once an olive growing valley, but grain growing has been found more profitable. We wish to see the Santa Ynez mission and therefore take the route to the right, avoiding the road to Santa Barbara by way of Santa Ynez and the San Marcos Pass. The Santa Ynez Mission has a situation of unusual beauty. It stands on a tableland with a circle of mountains behind it, and at its left a low green[Pg 47] valley stretching away into the distance. A Danish settlement of neat new houses of modern type faces the old Mission. The church has been restored, and ten years of loving care have been bestowed upon it by the present priest and his niece. The choice old vestments have been mended with extreme care. The ladies of the Spanish Court are said to have furnished the rich brocades for these vestments, which were sent on from Spain and made up at the Mission. It is an ancient custom for the Indians to wash the handwoven linen vestments, a custom they still observe. The walls of Santa Ynez are about seven feet thick, and the Mission was some thirteen years in building. Roses climb over the cloisters, and the whole Mission is very attractive.
From the Mission we drive over the Gaviota (Seagull) Pass, the mountain road being rough, narrow, and very picturesque. Fine old live oaks and white oaks grow on the rough hillsides. As one approaches the little seaside station of Gaviota the rocks are very grand. Suddenly we come upon the sea, and the blue waters that are part of the charm of Santa Barbara stretch before us. The scenery from Gaviota to Santa Barbara is one of the finest[Pg 48] stretches along the entire coast. Three misty islands are to be seen off the coast, set in an azure sea. They belong to the Santa Barbara group; Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel. As one approaches Santa Barbara one sees farmhouses in the midst of lovely farming country on points jutting into the sea and commanding exquisite views of the water. The last ten miles before reaching Santa Barbara we drive through an unbroken stretch of English walnut orchards, the trees carefully pruned and in admirable condition. We have come through the rolling pastures and grain fields of Sonoma Valley, through the fruit orchards of Napa Valley and Santa Clara Valley, through the unbroken grain fields of Salinas Valley and Lockwood's Valley, and through the diversified cultivation of the valley around Los Olivos; and now we are driving into famous Santa Barbara through ten miles of walnut groves, garden-like in their cultivation.
Reaching Santa Barbara, we have tea at the Studio Tea Room, which utilizes for its purpose a famous old Spanish residence. We then establish ourselves at The Upham, and a very pleasant hotel we find it. For those who wish a larger and more[Pg 49] fashionable inn there are the beautiful Arlington Hotel, with its fascinating, tiny models of the historic caravels San Salvador and Vittoria upon the gate posts at its entrance; and the Potter, by the sea. Santa Barbara lies in a pocket valley with the red brown Santa Ynez mountains rising behind it and the sea in front of it. Some of the most beautiful residences are at the north of the town in the foothills. Italian sunshine, Italian softness of climate, the enchanting colors of the hills, the blue of the sea, charming drives and walks, all these are to be had at Santa Barbara; and there is the Mission with its old church and the dignified priests of its brotherhood. Fine trees stand in the beautiful enclosed garden of the Mission, where five thousand Indians are buried.
Four miles south of Santa Barbara are Montecito Valley and the delightful Miramar Hotel on the sea. A very pleasant suburban colony is grouped around the hotel. The hotel itself has within its grounds its own rose-embowered cottages. One may live in a bungalow and have one's own fireside, one's own sitting room and bed chamber, one's own rose-covered porch, one's own home life, and go into the hotel only for meals and for sociability's[Pg 50] sake. It is an ideal winter life for those who wish all the orderly, luxurious comfort of a well managed inn, together with the privacy of home life in a rose cottage. We drove through lovely little Montecito Valley, catching glimpses of fine houses rising against a picturesque mountain background, some in the Mission style of architecture, some in Italian and some in Spanish style. The lawns of one estate were surrounded by long hedges of pink roses. We turned south through Toro Valley where I recall a most beautiful hillside olive orchard, the trees being planted on the slope sheltered from the sea and facing the mountains. They were as beautiful in their fresh grey-greenness as any olive orchard that we saw in all California. Leaving Miramar we drove on along the coast to Ventura, the road running by the sea and in some places on long platforms built out over the water. At Ventura we turned west and came to Nordhoff, the bridge being down on the Casitas Pass. We had a somewhat lonely evening drive through a green fruited valley from Ventura to Nordhoff, and reached our hostel, the Pierpont Cottages, a few miles from Nordhoff, late in the evening. We were more than ready for supper and for rest in a[Pg 51] lovely private cottage, through whose open casement long sprays of pink roses climbed in. The morning revealed to us the rare beauties of the secluded Ojai Valley, in whose foothills stand the Pierpont Inn and cottages, 1000 feet above sea level.
It would be hard to exaggerate the charm and beauty of the Ojai Valley for those who like its type of scenery. A magnificent wall of stone mountain, whose colors run into greys, pinks, lavenders, and yellows, forms the eastern boundary of the valley. On its level floor are luxuriant orchards. Here in warm protection grow the fig, the olive, the orange, and the lemon. The beautiful Matilija poppies grow in great luxuriance here, their tall grey-green stalks and white crape petals with golden hearts being very effective. I had seen the Matilija poppies for the first time growing in the gardens of Santa Barbara. I now saw them growing wild on the slopes of the Ojai Valley foothills. Above the Pierpont Cottages are the buildings of a famous boys' school high in the foothills. For those who love warmth and glowing color, long tramps and long horseback rides into the mountain defiles above the valley, the Ojai is an ideal place to spend[Pg 52] a charméd winter. We came away in the morning light, driving across the valley to the main road and ascending a steep hill to the Upper Ojai road. A glorious view of the whole valley unrolled before us, level as a floor, with its rich masses of fig trees and its shining orange and lemon trees, their green broken here and there by trim houses. Higher up were the cottages of the Pierpont Inn, and higher still the big building of the school, all over-topped by the great masses of the mountains behind. I felt that I should like to build a bungalow on the spot and live and die there.
We come on by a very rough, narrow, bumpy, and precipitous mountain road, past the summer cottages of Sulphur Springs into the Santa Paula Valley. We pass people planting young orchards of lemons and oranges, and we come through defiles, the bare, rugged hills rising above us on both sides. Sometimes these hills are clay-colored. Sometimes they are painted a delicate lavender by whole hillsides of blooming sage; sometimes sage not yet in bloom covers the hills with a delicate grey-green mantle. Other hillsides are a bright yellow from a yellow, string-like plant that nets itself in great masses over the entire slope. On the[Pg 53] whole the country until we reach Santa Paula is rather bare. At Santa Paula there is a very pleasant inn. It was at Santa Paula that I saw a schoolhouse enclosure surrounded by a hedge-like row of trees, every tree a blooming mass of glorious yellow.
At Sespe we passed a very prosperous lemon and orange orchard of immense size where they were planting fresh orchards of slender young trees. Before we reached Saugus we had to ford the Santa Clara River, the bridge being down. We stuck in the soft sand in mid-river and T. was obliged to wade through the shallow water to the shore behind us, which happened to be nearest, to go in search of a countryman and horses. In the meantime I took off my boots and stockings and waded across to the far side of the stream. There I was just lacing my boots when a young gentleman appeared driving a small car. He debated as to the risk of driving across stream, but decided to try it. Driving slowly he succeeded in getting through and turned to wave his hat in triumph. I waved back and he pushed on his way. Soon T. appeared with a countryman driving two stout horses. They quickly pulled the car across and their master received a dollar for his services.[Pg 54]
After an indifferent lunch at the Saugus railway station we went on over the fine Newhall grade, through Fernando and the great San Fernando Valley, through the brand new town of Van Nuys, and the settlement of Lankershim and the handsome suburb of Hollywood into Los Angeles. The San Fernando Valley, a wide plain with mountains in the far distance, has been turned by the magic of water from a vast, scrubby desert into a fruitful region, rapidly becoming populous. The San Fernando Mission Company has placed in front of the old San Fernando Mission on the broad highway which now runs past the Mission a charming flower garden. The bright flowers blaze out in the afternoon sun against a background of fragments of grey adobe wall. The Mission itself has but little to show. A caretaker lives in the fragment of the old monastery and shows one through the few deserted and dingy rooms. The finest thing in San Fernando Valley is the new boulevard which sweeps through the valley to Los Angeles and is known as the $500,000 boulevard. It is largely due to the generalship of Mr. Whitely, who is a Napoleon of real estate. Through the middle of the boulevard runs the electric car line. On each side of the car line is a border of rose bushes of different varieties. Outside of this border are two fine roads, one on either side; and again outside of these roads is a wonderful border planted in the following order: first, a line of rose bushes, and second, a line of Indian deodars, first cousins to the Lebanon cedars, these deodars alternating in their planting with a flowering shrub; third, comes a line of Austrian and other varieties of pines; fourth, is planted a row of palm trees. At present this planting is in its early stages, but when roses, shrubs, and evergreens are larger, as they will soon be under the bright California sun, the effect will be very rich and beautiful. Van Nuys has a fine new schoolhouse, and shining new dwellings of white glazed brick, built in the Italian and the Spanish style.
1. Harbor of Avalon, Catalina Island. 2. and 3. San
Fernando Mission.
California specializes in schoolhouses and street lamps. In the newest and in some instances in the most isolated settlements, you will find beautiful schoolhouses, an earnest of the children and the education that are to be; and all over California in country villages one finds the main streets lined with ornate lamp standards surmounted by handsome[Pg 56] globes. They give an air even to sordid little streets lined by saloons, country groceries, and dry-goods emporiums.
California is not afraid to spend money for education. Her school buildings, many of them in the Mission style, would make Eastern towns of the same size gasp with amazement.
Hollywood with its lovely villas is a popular and beautiful suburb of Los Angeles, and seems almost like a second Los Angeles save that it is among the hills instead of on the plain.
Los Angeles is unique. Where will you find another city like it, so open, so bright, with such handsome apartment houses, designed for light housekeeping, such multitudes of cafeterias? Where will you find such a green square of civic center with people sitting quietly about, enjoying the sunshine, the splashing of the fountain, the tameness of the starlings? These are the happy, not the unhappy, unemployed. They have come from far and near to live simply in light housekeeping apartments, to bask in the sunshine, many of them to enjoy a sunny old age on a modest but comfortable income. The last census, they tell us, shows that 80 per cent of the Los Angeles people are from the State of Iowa. But from all the Middle West they have fled from the cold winters to[Pg 58] the warmth of this big city which really seems to be not a city at all, but an immense collection of open parks, bright houses, and handsome streets. Thousands of people are pouring into Los Angeles every year. Great fields around the city have been included within the city limits, fine streets with ornate lamps and copings have been cut through them, handsome stucco and shingle villas have been erected. These are homes of well-to-do people who mean to spend at least part of each year, if not the rest of their lives, in Los Angeles. It is all a puzzle, this phenomenal growth of the city. It is not wholly due to business, for the most prosperous business man in Los Angeles is probably the real estate dealer, who has plotted the fields, added new streets, and sold at ever-increasing prices the villa and home sites. The merchant and the provision dealer do well, but after all, their territory is the city itself. There is no great hinterland with which to deal. It is not due to manufacturing interests, for as yet these have been but little developed. It must be, as a lady said to me, "the sale of the climate," an unfailing stock of sunshine that has made Los Angeles the happy, growing, extremely prosperous city that it is.[Pg 59]
One may choose from many hotels one's hostel, or one may live in a beautiful apartment, cook one's own breakfast of bacon and eggs, and sally forth to any one of a dozen cafeterias for luncheon and dinner. We found the Hotel Leighton on West Lake Park eminently satisfactory; a spacious, quiet, well managed establishment with the spaces of the park before it and the cars within three minutes' walk.
From Los Angeles we drove through the San Gabriel Valley, dominated by snow covered Mount San Antonio, to Long Beach. The valley is a panorama of new suburban towns, market gardens, and walnut groves. Long Beach is a mixture of Coney Island, Atlantic City, and a solid, substantial inland town. Its public buildings are very fine, its churches being particularly handsome. Its big Hotel Virginia reminds one of the handsome hotels along the boardwalk at Atlantic City, and its long arcade of amusement halls, cheap jewelry shops, and other booths for seaside trinkets is like Coney Island. This stretch of amusement halls and shops lies along the seashore at a lower level than the city proper, and does not impart its character to the rest of the town. It was at Long Beach that I first heard a night-singing bird, somewhat like the nightingale.[Pg 60] The little creature sang gaily all night long in the park opposite our hotel. Long Beach and San Pedro are both sailing points for Santa Catalina Island, twenty-five miles away, whose purple-grey heights can be dimly seen across the water. The trip to Catalina is in rather small boats, and is likely to be somewhat trying; but the trials of the two or three hours of voyage are amply awarded by the Island itself.
1. Harbor, Catalina Island. 2. Seals on Rocks at Catalina
Island. 3. Catalina Island. 4. Home of Owner of Catalina Island.
Santa Catalina has a curving, sickle-shaped harbor around which cluster the hotels and boarding houses which make the home of the summer guests. This little white village against a background of hilly country, taking on lovely lavender and grey tints at sunset, is not unlike some of the towns on the picturesque coast of Cornwall. Santa Catalina is a paradise for deep-sea fishermen, a lotus eaters' island where one may walk over the hills into the quiet interior or take a boat and dream along the rocks, gazing down for hours at the beauties of the gardens of the sea. I would advise all tourists to take time to visit these swaying groves of kelp and other sea plants in a row boat. One sees them in this way far more intimately and satisfactorily than by a more hurried inspection. In the late afternoon everyone at Catalina gathers at the pier to see the fishermen come in with their spoils. Boat after boat is seen approaching. They round the pier and the big fish are lifted up for all to admire. Then come the weighing and the cleaning of the fish. The seagulls hover near, ready for their share of the spoils, as the entrails of the fish are thrown into the sea. A tame seal swims around from his home on the rocks several miles away in order to have his portion of the feast. At the time of our visit he was in a fit of sulks, as a fisherman had struck him on the head with an oar because he had tried to clamber into a boat in his zeal for his supper. A unique experience at Catalina is an evening ride in a swift motor boat equipped with a powerful searchlight. Faster and faster goes the boat in the darkness, the searchlight swinging from side to side over the wide waters. The flying fish, startled by the sweep of the light upon the water, leap wildly into the air. The air is full of them, and of the sound of their rushing wings. Plump! Here comes one into the boat! and here's another, and another! We shield our faces with our hands, shouting with laughter as the fish fall with a thump into the boat, sometimes on the laps of the passengers.[Pg 62] More than one passenger has been struck by a flying fish, and our landlady tells us of a tourist who went out for an evening ride in the motor boat to return with a black eye from the blow of a frightened flying fish. Flying fish is delicious eating, and our catch is divided up among the passengers. We were attracted to this excursion when we first landed at Catalina by a startling advertisement describing the experience as "Thousands of flying fish tangoing through the air."
Catalina Island is a quiet spot, outside its little rim of houses along its curving harbor. The pedestrian may go inland for a number of miles, taking his luncheon with him, and have only the hills and the birds for his company. We had such a walk, and saw a hawk alight and settle himself calmly upon a fencepost, holding in his talons a newly captured snake. The creature was still alive, its body ringed in a rigid hoop in its effort to escape. But the cruel claws held it fast, and its captor was preparing to finish it with his sharp beak. We were told that the dust from Santa Ana Valley, twenty-five miles away, could be seen approaching in a grey cloud across the water on windy days from shoreward. Our landlady deplored such days, when her[Pg 63] immaculate house was covered with the dust of the distant mainland. Santa Catalina, a grey green agate in the sunlight, a purple amethyst at twilight, ringed by lovely seas, is well worth a visit.
Returning to Long Beach, we drove on toward San Diego, through the Santa Ana Valley to San Juan Capistrano. As we came through the great valley in which lie Santa Ana, Fullerton, and Anaheim, we passed fruitful groves of lemons and vast fields of beets. We observed an odd optical illusion as we came near Tustin. All the fields before us seemed to be covered with water, and we at first thought that the irrigating streams had been turned on and were flowing through them. But as we reached the fields we found them perfectly dry. Field after field stretched before us apparently swimming in water, and field after field as we came near we found dry and brown under the sun. This occurred more than once in southern California as we were driving along in the sunlight.
At San Juan Capistrano we stopped to see one of the most beautiful Missions in all California. The cloisters of San Juan, the ruins of the very fine old church, the bells in their places above the walls, all are extremely picturesque and beautiful. At[Pg 64] San Juan with its quaint little street we found two hotels, both of which had attractions. The Mission Hotel offered us Spanish cooking, attractive to one fond of red pepper and high seasoning. Las Rosas looked like a pleasant country home turned by some enterprising woman into an inn. We chose Las Rosas and had an excellent home dinner there. From San Juan Capistrano we drove on south to Delmar, where we spent the night at the Stratford Inn. This hotel, which sits flower-encircled on its sandy hillside overlooking the blue seas, has every modern appointment and luxury. The settlement does not yet seem to have attracted a large cottage population, but there are some homes of very charming architecture and with beautiful gardens. We walked up the picturesque hills back of the hotel, and came at their summit to the precipitous edge of a great bowl from which we looked down upon a green valley stretching away many miles in extent.
1., 2. and 3. San Juan Capistrano Mission.
From Delmar the next morning we again drove south with the sea on our right and the hills on our left. The road winds over very hilly country through a growth of rare pines known as the Torrey pines, found only here. From the heights of these hills one sees at a distance a point of land stretching into the sea, with a little town shining on its slopes like a jewel in the sun. It looks, as one approaches it from the north, like a Riviera town. This is the enchanted spot on the southern coast known as La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya), a little town frequented by people who love the Spanish warmth of the Southern sun and the blue of the Southern sea. Here is a beautiful Episcopal school for girls, its stucco buildings planned in Spanish fashion. Here is a charming little church of the same architecture. Here, perched on the rocks, looking out to sea along the coast fringe of the town, are flat-roofed stucco houses with a matchless view of the water. Farther back on the hills overlooking the town, are lovely winter homes, also built in the architecture of Southern countries. La Jolla is one of the loveliest spots on the whole Pacific Coast. Its rocks, its caves, its Southern sea, its sunshine, all combine to make it a delightful place in which to spend a winter.
La Jolla is only fourteen miles from San Diego, and it was an easy drive from there into the bright, clean, shining city of the South. San Diego is at present in a state of transition, the transition from[Pg 66] a little city to a big city. She has a matchless harbor, plenty of room in which to grow, and what is becoming a rich surrounding country. She has a perfect situation, with the harbor before her and the hills rising behind her. When the rails connect her with the "back country" she will undoubtedly become a powerful city.
What could be more beautiful than the drive from San Diego out along the point which curves like a great claw into the sea and is known as Point Loma? The road first sweeps along close to the water, passing rows of pretty suburban homes. Then it rises, swings up over the hills on to the high ridge of Point Loma proper, the open sea to the right, the harbor to the left, passing the beautifully kept grounds of the fine property belonging to the School of Theosophy. Beyond, the road still climbs until it comes to the end of the Point, on which stands a little old Spanish lighthouse, now abandoned. High above the sea one looks off to the far away islands. Turning about, one sees the city, white in the sun, the mountains rising in the distance behind it. Running out from the city is a long, narrow strip of land which widens into Coronado Beach, with the red roofs of the hotel and the[Pg 67] green stretches of the beautiful little town of Coronado. Just below is the blue water of the great harbor. It is a grand view, and ranks in my opinion with the noble views of Sydney Harbor in Australia and of Auckland harbor in New Zealand.
San Diego, like her sister cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, is a town frequented by tourists. Many are the hotels and apartment houses, devoted to winter sojourns and light housekeeping, offset by excellent cafeterias. There are plenty of excursions from San Diego, a short one being to the Spanish house in the village of old San Diego, known as the home of Ramona. The old house with its walled garden and its wide porches has been put in order and is now used as a depot for curios and Indian goods. Another delightful trip, somewhat longer, is to Grossmont. Grossmont is, in spite of its name, a little mountain, some fifteen miles back of San Diego. It is an irregular heap of rocks, rising from rather barren surrounding country. Mr. Fletcher of San Diego first saw the possibilities of Grossmont and marked out the road which now runs around the mountain to its summit. Here are the modest houses of an artist and literary colony,[Pg 68] among them the cottage of Madame Schumann-Heinck. From the porches of these cottages, perched high upon the bare rocks, one looks down upon the exquisite little El Cajon (The Box) Valley, where grow lemons, oranges, and other fruits in beautiful green luxuriance. El Cajon could once have been bought for a song, but now its fertile acres, under the spell of irrigation, are worth many thousands.
Beyond El Cajon rise the superb mountains of the South in all their rocky grandeur. They take on most wonderful colors; warm clay yellows, rich browns, lavenders, tints of ashes of rose. They are constantly changing as the day advances, and are a world of color. No wonder that singers, poets, and artists love to look upon the glowing greens below and the glowing lavenders afar. The view from Grossmont is extremely poetic and beautiful.
We should have considered our visit to California very incomplete without having seen San Diego, its Southern seas and its fascinating "back country." It is wholly different from Los Angeles, and the charm of the South is over it all. Were I a young business man, seeking to cast in my lot with a growing California city, I should cast it in San Diego.[Pg 69]
From San Diego we proceeded through El Cajon Valley to the little town of Julian, nearly 4000 feet high. That was a memorable ride, taking us through green valleys and then up, up through broken hill country and past heavy oak and pine forests and rich mountain pastures. In going over Mussey's Grade I saw, for the first time, growing on the rocky hillsides groups of tall yuccas. I could not be content until I had climbed out of the motor and cut one of the towering stalks, springing from a mass of thick, sword-shaped leaves. Its white scented bells covered the stalk from top to bottom. It was a tree of creamy bloom and perfume. I laid it on top of our luggage, enjoying its perfume from time to time; but the beautiful bells began to droop, and by the time the day's long journey was over the flowers had withered. Afterward, I saw many of these yuccas growing in lonely, rocky places, blooming luxuriantly. They were like tall white candelabra.
On our way to Julian, a few miles from the little town, by mistake we turned left instead of right, and had a long wandering through a great mountain country. The roads were narrow, twilight was coming on, and we found ourselves in a seemingly[Pg 70] endless forest. Sometimes from high points we had wonderful sunset glimpses of distant mountains looming above green valleys. Then again we came upon lush meadow patches, wide and lonely in the midst of the hills. Still the road wound on, down through ravines, up over steep hillsides. Not a house was to be seen, only the lonely forest and the deepening darkness. It looked as if we must spend the night in the woods. At last we came out through a rough gate into the main road and reading a sign by the light of a match found that we were a mile from Julian. It was good to reach the tiny village and to find the Robinson House, a very clean and respectable village inn, kept by an old colored soldier and his wife. They gave us an excellent supper and we found a very comfortable bed awaiting us. We had taken a road through the mountain district back of a beautiful summer inn, known as the Pine Hills Inn, and had wandered over the drives planned for the pleasure of summer guests.
We saw the Pine Hills Inn perched upon the hillside, the next morning. It was only a short distance from where we had struck the main road for Julian. We had fully intended to spend a night at this famous little inn, but must leave that for[Pg 71] the next time. Julian is famed for its apples, growing nearly 4000 feet high. We saw a charming picture of blossoming apple trees, grown against a dark background of tall mountain pines which flanked the orchard slope. There is a famous view near Julian. Looking down from a break in the hills one sees far, far beyond and below the grey stretches of the desert and the Salton sea.
From Julian we drove on to Warner's Hot Springs, where many people resort for the healing power of the Springs, and where a pleasant little hotel, surrounded by cottages, makes a delightful stopping place for those who wish to enjoy the sunshine and to pierce the defiles of the mountains back of the valley of the Springs. The Springs are on a great ranch which covers thousands of acres and supports hundreds of cattle. To reach them one drives over long stretches of plain, partly rich grass, where cattle feed, partly somewhat barren country.
Leaving the Hot Springs, we drove again across the vast sandy stretches and the rich green plains of the Warner Ranch, coming from there through picturesque and somewhat broken country to the[Pg 72] little Pala Mission. Before reaching the Mission one comes along a mountain road cut like a shelf into the hill and very high above the valley. The little town which is the seat of the Mission is reached by a long descent. The most interesting thing about the Mission now is its bells, which are set so that the wall in whose open niches they are hung makes a picturesque framework for them. Leaving the town we came on through a deep and rocky canyon, whose scenery was wild and mountainous. From this we emerged into a broad valley which grew more beautiful as we traveled northward. Wide grain ranches stretched away to the right, walled in by the massive ramparts of Nellie Palomar Mountain. Other ranches stretched to the left, ending in the foothills in rich groves of olive trees. We were traveling through Temecula on our way to Elsinore, a town of hot springs. There we spent a comfortable night at a hotel situated on a little lake. The lake in the evening light with the olive orchards stretching down to its waters from the foothills opposite was very charming. From Elsinore we drove on in the morning through an open canyon, where Matilija poppies grew plentifully, to Corona. Corona is a lovely little town belted by an encircling boulevard, broad and shaded. It lies in a fertile valley whose plains and hill-slopes are covered by thousands of lemon trees, tended with a mother's care. Above the valley rise the mountains on the distant horizon. One can see lemons being gathered, flowers blooming, and new groves being planted in the valley, and then look up to snow-capped peaks beyond. Here lemon orchards are valued at $2,000 and more an acre. When the trees have reached the bearing stage and are in good condition, lemon orchard land is a gold mine. We heard of people who rented their orchards on the basis of $2,000 value per acre, receiving interest on that valuation. We heard also of successful lemon growers who had purchased large acreages of lemon-bearing land at $1,000 per acre and who had within two years after purchase marketed a crop of lemons whose selling price covered the entire amount paid for the orchard two years before.
1. Pala Mission. 2. Hillside Orchard in California.
We visited a big packing house and saw dark eyed Sicilians, alert and prosperous, sorting, cleaning, and packing the lemons. Everything proceeded with swiftness and yet with orderliness. Down the long troughs rolled the lemons, each gravitating[Pg 74] through a hole according to its size. Into a bubbling cauldron they were gently railroaded, where brushes from above and from below washed them and pushed them on. With much deftness packers caught a square of tissue paper with the left hand, a lemon with the right hand and wrapped the fruit. The filled box was pushed along a polished runway to the inspector. He deftly and quickly looked the box over, decided whether the packing was close and firm, nailed on a top, and bound the box with supporting iron bands. It was then ready to go into the freight car on the track a few feet away, where experienced men were loading the car with the yellow fruit. We were told that notwithstanding competition with the Sicilian and Italian fruit, California lemons had all the market their owners could wish for. Certainly when one sees the care with which the fruit is grown, the mellow sun under which it matures, and the skillful gathering, cleaning, and packing of the packing houses, one wishes every right of way for California lemons. One lemon grower told us that in the course of the past twenty years he had advanced hundreds of dollars to his Sicilian laborers who had asked his help to bring over their[Pg 75] fathers, their brothers, and other relatives. He said that kinsman after kinsman had been brought over and had added himself and his work to the Corona colony, and that their benefactor had never lost a dollar. All the loans had been conscientiously returned in the course of time.
Californians look forward to a great flood of immigration within the next few years, and hope that Europe will send them the men to till their lands and cultivate their rich valleys and hill-slopes. There is plenty of room for them in this splendid empire of a State.
It was an easy drive from Corona to Riverside, which we reached in the late afternoon in time for a sunset drive up and around the corkscrew road leading to the top of Mt. Rubidoux. No one should miss the view from the top of Rubidoux Mountain. While its summit is not at a great height, yet the mountain is so isolated and the whole surrounding country is so level a valley that the view is very extensive. One looks down upon the town of Riverside, with its pleasant homes and church steeples; and upon miles of lemon and orange orchards groomed to the last degree of fertility and perfection. It is an immense garden. Orchards, towns, grassy spaces with a silver river winding through them, all give one that sense, ever[Pg 77] present in California, of happiness, of genial climate, of unfailing beauty of surrounding.
At Riverside one stays of course, even if but for a night, at the famous Mission Inn, known as the Glenwood. Here is the creation of a man who has brought together in unique and pleasing combination the features of an inn, of a great curio shop, of a cathedral, of a happy lounging place. You may study for hours antique pieces of furniture; old tapestries, old bells, old bits of stained glass. You may spend an evening in the great music hall with its cathedral seats and listen to the organ played by a finished and yet popular artist. You may lounge in an easy chair on a cloistered porch. All these and many other things you may do at the wonderful Mission Inn. But the open road called us and we had time for only one night in Riverside. We drove from Riverside to Redlands, a particularly charming town. It has a better situation than Riverside, being on a slope instead of upon a level plain. It has beautiful streets and hosts of lovely winter homes of most attractive architecture. The drive up to Smiley Heights, where one runs through exquisite gardens along a narrow ridge, looking down upon a green cultivated valley on the[Pg 78] one side, and a polished winter city on the other side, is a delightful experience.
From Redlands we drove on to San Bernardino and thence to Pomona and Claremont. The San Bernardino Valley has miles of grapes, the vineyards being on an immense scale. In California the grapes are not trained upon arbors. The stalks are kept low, and in looking over a vineyard one sees long rows of low growing, stocky vines, and masses of green foliage. In San Bernardino they have a fashion of planting windbreaks of evergreens around their gardens and smaller vineyards; but there are also immense stretches of open country planted with vines. One vineyard of three thousand acres has a sign announcing that it is the largest vineyard in the world. Pomona and Claremont are pleasant towns, Pomona being the seat of a college. From Claremont we drove on to Pasadena. There are lovely drives about Pasadena, and one should not neglect to go up along the foothills and from that point of vantage look down upon the town spread out on the slopes below. There is now a motor drive up Mt. Wilson, from which one has extremely grand views, but the Mt. Wilson drive is to be recommended only to people[Pg 79] with small, light machines which have a short turning base. The mountain road is by no means the equal of the roads one finds in the Alps. It is too narrow and too hazardous for any but small machines. For most tourists the nine miles of the Mt. Wilson road would better be traversed on donkey-back. For those who love to climb, the winding road is a delightful walk with views of changing grandeur. The hotel at the top is a very pleasant place to stay, and one may have there the glories of the sunset and the sunrise.
The most lovely avenue in Pasadena, up and down which one should drive several times, is Orange Grove Avenue. Along the street the feathery pepper tree and the palm alternate. The strikingly handsome electric lamp standards are of bronze. Open lawns are characteristic settings for the beautiful houses which line the avenue. There are many houses of white or yellow stucco, some of them set off by delicate iron balconies. Leaving the finished beauty of Orange Avenue we drove over a great canyon across which is flung a very ornamental bridge. The canyon has been turned into a park, and fine houses stand on its banks, commanding from their heights wonderful views.[Pg 80]
We came on through Burbank and once more into the San Fernando Valley, just being opened up. Here and there were tiny houses and sometimes tents, the first shelters of settlers who were cultivating their newly acquired patches of land. We saw people cleaning and plowing their land. Off to the right were beautiful mountains with houses and ranches nestled in the foothills. We drove through the new town of San Fernando and over the fine highway of the Newhall grade, passing through a tunnel and going on to Saugus by a splendid road running all the way from Pasadena. Just after leaving San Fernando we came through Sylmar, where a big sign told us that we were passing "the largest olive orchard in the world." This is the property of the Los Angeles Olive Growers' Association. We drove for more than a mile past the ranks of grey-green trees which stretched away back to the foothills.
From Saugus we turned toward Mint Canyon. We were now about to cross the great backbone of California, running north and south and dividing the valleys of the coast from the valleys of the interior. We could have crossed by the Tehachapi Pass, but preferred for this time to drive through[Pg 81] Mint Canyon and over the Tejon Pass. All along the Canyon we saw little homesteads planted in pocket valleys. Here and there were green spots; orchards newly set out, patches of grain beginning to grow. Little wooden shacks showed where the homesteaders had first sheltered their household goods. The settlers themselves were working in their fields and orchards. There were long stretches, too, of rough country where tall yuccas, sometimes ten feet high, were blooming. At Palmdale we came out into a great plain, the mountains in the distance. A high wind was blowing, filling our eyes with dust. Somewhere on the plain the searching wind whipped my lightweight motor coat out of the tonneau where I had stowed it and I saw it no more. It was literally blown out of sight and knowledge. We had seen all along advertisements of "Palmdale Acres," and we now came to the little town itself, a tiny settlement with flamboyant signs advertising its high hopes. We read, "Keep your eye on Palmdale, 10,000 people in 1925." Close to the sign was the irrigation ditch with a thick stream of water rushing through. We realized that all the hopes of Palmdale and all the possibilities of future population were centered in that stream, which was[Pg 82] to carry life and fertility to the great dusty plains before us.
We had taken luncheon at Acton, a sordid little place with an extremely unattractive wooden hotel, poor and bare. The luncheon, cooked and served by a hard working landlady, had been better than appearances promised. We had had hot beefsteak, a good boiled potato, some crisp lettuce, and fair tea. Western people are addicted to green tea, a great affliction to one accustomed to black tea. Western hotel keepers would do well to use black tea for their tourists, as the use of green tea is, so far as I know, almost unknown in the East.
Our road was rising now and we were approaching Neenach. We were driving along the foothills on the high side of another great valley. As we came near Neenach we passed an orchard to our right, the trees loaded with beautiful, velvety green almonds. To the left was another orchard, filled with neglected, dying almond trees. We had not known whether we would find at Neenach a little town or a corner grocery store. It turned out to be simply a post office in the home of a young settler who with his wife was just making his start at ranching. He was a delightful young fellow with[Pg 83] shining white teeth, clear eyes, and an enthusiasm that was pleasant to see. A big St. Bernard dog protected his wife, who looked very picturesque in her riding costume. Although the ranchman had been brought up in a city, he had come out to these foothills, bought one hundred and sixty acres at $17.50 an acre, driven his well forty feet, got his water, and planted his cottonwood trees for his first shade. He was soon to plant his orchard and start his garden. He told us that he would have plenty of water, as the mountains on whose foot-slopes the farm lay were nine miles deep and fifteen miles long. I asked him about the orchards which we had just passed, so fruitful on the right, so sad and neglected on the left. He said that the almond orchards on the left had been planted years ago by a little colony of people who had three bad years following their planting. They became discouraged and moved away, abandoning their orchards and houses. The orchards which we had seen full of fruit were of a later planting.
We asked why it was that the great spaces of Antelope Valley which stretched below the hills and off to the mountains beyond had not been taken by settlers. Our young ranchman explained that[Pg 84] the valley which looked to be about eight miles across was really thirty miles wide, and that it was too far from water for people to settle there. I looked over the immense stretches of the valley and at the masses of tall, spiky tree-yuccas, and wished that some way might be found to irrigate those thousands of acres. If some modern Moses could strike water from a rock, which would flow through Antelope Valley, our young settler would someday look down upon hundreds of houses and white tents instead of upon lonely forests of yucca.
We drove on from Neenach to the top of the grade, some 4230 feet. Huge round-shouldered hills, bare and lonely, rose on each side of us. Coming to the Lebec ranch house, we asked shelter for the night. These ranch houses are very hospitable and are willing to take the place of a hotel so far as they are able. We found the head of the house in some confusion and anxiety. His cook had left that morning and the settlement school ma'am had offered to help with the cooking in the emergency. One of the ranchmen volunteered to make the bed in our sleeping room, although he confessed that he had never made a bed in all his life before. We ate our supper with the ranchmen, sitting at an oil-cloth-covered[Pg 85] table. We had hunks of cold meat, noodle soup with very thick, hearty noodles, stewed dried peaches, sliced onions, stewed tomatoes, and good bread and coffee. After a talk before a blazing open fire with two young electric engineers who, like ourselves, had sought shelter for the night, we had a dreamless night's slumber.
In the morning we had a most interesting breakfast with a long table full of hungry ranchmen. Next us sat a big fellow who was in a rather pessimistic mood. He spoke sadly of California and its resources and very warmly of Virginia. "That's the place to live!" he said. "You can drive for a hundred miles here and not see a ranch house or a schoolhouse or a church worth looking at. In Virginia it's just like, as a fellow says, 'every drink you take, things look different.' You drive up on a knoll, and you see before you a lovely farm with a nice farmhouse, and a well-built barn and outhouses. Then you drive over another knoll, and you see another nice farmhouse. Virginia and the East for me! In this country you can walk through foxtail grass until you're ruined, and you see no buildings worth looking at." This started animated discussion as to the merits of California compared[Pg 86] with the merits of Eastern farming country, the young school ma'am vibrating between the little kitchen and the dining room and taking her part in the conversation. She was from Indiana, and told me that while she liked California she did not approve of California's neglect of history in the public schools. She felt that the children were given no knowledge of ancient or of modern history in the teaching scheme. She assured me that her own pupils were taught history very faithfully.
We were sorry to leave the ranch with its low houses and its pretty lake in the foreground. We drove on down the Pass, coming over rather precipitous roads to a last steep slope from whose height we looked off to an immense level valley which seemed to stretch away forever. Violet morning lights hung over it and it looked like an enchanted country. This was our first view of the San Joaquin Valley, through which we were to drive for many miles.
1., 2. and 3. Cowboy Games at Bakersfield.
As we began to cross the valley, coming first through rather dull, scrubby stretches, I saw acres of a delicate pink and white bell-shaped flower, somewhat like a morning glory, growing close to the ground, blooming luxuriantly in the midst of a whorl of green leaves. I later asked a country woman the name of the flower, but she could only tell me that they called the lovely delicate things sand flowers. As we approached Bakersfield the land grew richer and the grass was thicker and greener. Meadow larks were flying about in great numbers, singing their sweet, clear song. At Bakersfield we stopped at the New Southern Hotel, which is, like most Western hotels, European in plan. We found a delightful cafeteria known as the Clock Tower Cafeteria, kept by two women, and with most appetizing home cooking. Bakersfield is one of the most Western of California towns. Something in the swing of its citizens as they walk along, something in the wide sombreros and high boots which the visiting cowboys wear imparts a general breeziness and Western atmosphere. It is a little town with the clothes of a big town. It has very wide streets and is laid out on a generous scale. Its fine Courthouse, its beautiful new schoolhouse, its pretty homes, its residence streets with their rows of blooming oleanders, pink and white, make it an attractive town. But it must be confessed that it is very hot in Bakersfield, as it is in most towns of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys. The most[Pg 88] interesting thing to me in Bakersfield was a leather shop, where I saw handsome Mexican saddles, very intricately and ornately stamped. These are made to order and have any amount of beautiful work upon them. At the same shop I saw handsome stamped belts and leather coin cases, long leather cuffs which cowboys affect, and tall riding boots with ornate stitching. When we left Bakersfield we saw just outside the town a perfect forest of oil derricks towering into the air, some of the wells being new ones, others having been abandoned. Bakersfield is the center of a rich oil territory, from which much wealth has flowed.
In leaving the town we turned by mistake to the right instead of to the left, and found ourselves traveling toward a Grand Canyon on a miniature scale. We were driving over lonely country where the water had worn the hills into fantastic shapes and where the whole country was a series of terraces. Sometimes small tablelands stood up boldly before us, sometimes cone-shaped pieces of plateau, like small volcanoes, appeared in long rows beyond us. Beautiful purple mists and shadows hung over these carvings of nature as the sun began to decline. The country grew lonelier and wilder, and we decided[Pg 89] that we must retrace our journey and find out where we were. As we came near to Bakersfield again we saw the camp of an engineer who was making some borings for oil. He told us that we had taken the wrong turn and directed us on our way, past the tall derricks and northeast to Tulare.
So we turned our backs on the browns, yellows, and slate colors, the pinks and the lavenders of the lonely tableland country and struck north along a very fair road. We drove for twenty miles through rather level, brown, desert country, coming then into a grain country. All along there were pump houses on the ranches, connected with the electric current by heavy wires which ran from the main lines along the road to the little houses in the fields. I liked to think that the magic current streamed down those side wires from the main river of electricity, worked the pumps and brought up the water that made the whole country the fertile, grain-growing region it evidently was. We ate supper at the McFarland Hotel some twenty-five miles from Bakersfield. Our Wisconsin hostess who talked with us while her Japanese cook prepared our supper told us that three years ago there were[Pg 90] only a few people living in tents in this region. Now the wells are down and there is a prosperous little town, the water being found only thirty feet below the surface. We came on through more fields of ripe wheat and green alfalfa. We saw one settler's tent pitched in the midst of a beautiful almond orchard, with great stacks of alfalfa near by. His wellhouse was near, and some day in the golden future he will undoubtedly build his dwelling.
Eleven miles from Tulare a tall country boy came out from the shadows as we passed through a little village and asked if he might ride to Tulare with us. We tucked away his bulky newspaper bundle in the machine and gave him permission to sit on the tool box, which was fastened on the running-board. He thanked us warmly when we reached the quiet streets of Tulare and offered to pay us, but of course we assured him that we were glad to have given him a lift. We did not often do this as we were always afraid some one would be hurt in riding on the running-board. We had a comfortable room at the Hotel St. Maxon, and drove on the next day through the fertile valley to Fresno. Now we were in the region of rich vineyards and luxuriant fig trees. For the first time, as we approached Fresno, I saw whole orchards of fig trees. Fresno is a pretty town with the wide, bright streets and look of prosperity of so many California towns. It is the home of several thousand Armenian and Greek workers. Only that morning the Young Women's Christian Association had welcomed to Fresno a little woman who had come all the way from Constantinople to meet her husband. The town pays the price for being the seat of the raisin industry by being very hot in summer.
1. Old Grizzly, Mariposa Big Trees. 2. Old Sunset,
Mariposa Big Trees.
From Fresno we drove across somewhat uninteresting country, rolling and solitary, diversified only by grain fields and stacks of alfalfa, to Madera. At Madera we turned our faces toward the high Sierras, going on to Raymond with a view to driving over the mountain road to Wawona, one of the gates of the Yosemite and very near to the famous Mariposa Grove of Big Trees.
When we reached Raymond we had left the valleys behind us and were in the rough country preceding the long climb up through the high Sierras to Wawona. It was late afternoon, and as we drove along we enjoyed the wooded hills and the far views over deep gulleys to the mountains beyond, in the afternoon sunshine. We met but few people on the steep, rocky mountain road. At one point we passed a roadside group of campers for the night. They had unharnessed their weary horses, had built a fire, and were preparing their supper. The water-trough used by travelers was close by, and they had pure spring water for their needs. There were two families, with a host of children, going up into the pine woods to one of the sawmills where the men were to work. The young[Pg 93] mother of one family had with her a little three-weeks-old baby, fat and rosy-looking as his proud father held him before the fire. The poor mother was very weary and disheartened. "I am not used to this," she said, as she folded up some bits of clothing that she had been washing for the children. The wagons looked as if furniture and clothing had been piled in "higgledy pigglety." The children and their parents slept as best they could on top of this lumpy mass. One little girl of twelve or so had a tear-stained face and a look of real suffering in her blue eyes. She had hurt her ankle in running up and down the mountain roads with the other children. I felt sorry for the poor child, as it was evident that her sprained ankle would have little care in this itinerant household. We were glad that the tired company had the mild evening air in which to lie down and rest.
As we went on, the scenery grew wilder and the road grew rougher. Something ailed our machine, too. It transpired that we had a bad spark plug and there was nothing for it but to return to Raymond and have things put right in the little garage there. We did so and then we made the foolish mistake of deciding to go on, although the shadows[Pg 94] were deepening, toward Wawona. So once more we climbed the narrow, rutted mountain road. It was astonishing how fast the twilight fell. We had thought that we still had a good hour before darkness came on, but it grew dark alarmingly fast, and we were soon driving along in forest blackness over the uneven road. We kept the horn going for fear of meeting something around the sharp corners which were so numerous, but the road was utterly lonely. Tall pines stood close to the roadside, the lamps of the motor throwing a light here and there upon their massive trunks. Clusters of manzanita branches brushed against our machine, the light flashing upon them, showing their lovely green leaves arranged like shining rosettes around their wine-colored stems. Everything was wet with recent rain and wonderfully beautiful as the light of the lamps flashed here and there. At last we passed a little cottage by the roadside. There was a dim light in the house. The door opened and the figure of a man appeared dark against the background of the lighted room. We called out to him and asked how much farther Miami Lodge was. "Just a few miles," he said, and very kindly offered to telephone to the Lodge that we were coming, so they would have some supper for us. It seemed a long distance to us as we crept cautiously around the shoulder of the mountain, down steep pitches and up long slopes. But at last we saw the welcome lights of the Lodge. How pleasant it was to see an open fire in the sitting room, to eat a hot supper in the delightful dining room, and to find a dainty sleeping room furnished with a woman's taste. Miami Lodge is a half-way house between Raymond and Wawona. It is an ideal resting spot for people who love the pine woods and the quiet and solitude of the forest.
1. Summit of Pass between Raymond and Wawona, entering
Yosemite Valley. 2. Miami Lodge, on way to Yosemite.
In the morning we were on our way to the Big Trees. We decided to leave our car at a humble but very pleasant little forest inn called Fish Camp Hotel, presided over by some Maine people who long ago left the pines of Maine for the pines of California. They have a mountain ranch which they leave in the summer to come up into the higher forests and to keep a little hostel and grocery store. It is a long walk from Fish Camp Hotel to the boundary fence of the National Park where the famous Big Trees are. If one prefers to drive one's car over a somewhat rocky but perfectly passable mountain road and to leave it just outside[Pg 96] the fence, one can do so. In this way, one's walking powers are kept fresh for the memorable expedition among the Big Trees. One needs a long day in which to see the Trees. We felt sorry for the tourists who were being driven about and who had only an allotted time in which to see the Trees. We had our luncheon with us and were independent. We walked miles along the Park drives. We stood under the Trees, of which there are some five hundred, gazing up at their distant tops. We amused ourselves by measuring their enormous girths with our arms. Most of the time we simply gazed at them from one vantage point and another, lost in wonder at their height, so much greater than we had dreamed, and at their bulk, so enormous as to be difficult to take in. The Big Trees were far bigger, far grander, far more beautiful in their coloring than we had been prepared for. When the afternoon sunlight struck their trunks and they glowed with the wonderful soft, deep red which is their color, we were enchanted. We felt awed, too, not only by their great size, but by their great age. We were in the presence of hoary old men, a detached little company of Ancients who were living long, long before our generation ever came upon the scene, and who had passed through much of the world's history. It was with a glowing sense of satisfaction and happiness and wonder that we came away from our leisurely day among the Trees. Some day we hope to go back and to repeat that experience.
1. Camp Ahwahnee, Yosemite Valley. 2. Grizzly Giant,
Mariposa Big Trees. 3. Yosemite Falls. 4. Cabin in Mariposa Grove.
We met later a gentleman who said that he had spent such a day, had had a supper with the forest keeper who sells photographs and souvenirs in his little cottage, and then had lain down to sleep on the pine needles under the great Trees themselves. "I saw the stars pinnacled in their branches," said he.
We had a comfortable night at Fish Camp Hotel, our fellow guests at the next table being a party of Scotch stone-cutters who had come up for a holiday from the granite quarry at Raymond where they were quarrying and shaping stones for some Sacramento public buildings. Bagpipes came out in the evening and the air was full of Scotch music and Scotch jokes. The next morning we drove on to Wawona, passing over the height of the grade and descending a little to come into the lovely Wawona meadows, in whose midst stands the old white wooden hotel which has dispensed delightful hospitality[Pg 98] under the same landlords for forty years past. Mr. Washburn is the only one left of the brothers who built up the Wawona Hotel, and his son now bears the burden of the hotel administration.
People are always coming and going at Wawona. They are either on their way to the Yosemite; or having seen the Yosemite they are on their way out with a look at the Big Trees, eight miles away, as they pass by. We left our machine at the Wawona garage and took the 12 o'clock stage drawn by four splendid horses, to drive through the meadow and along the mountain for thirty miles to the Yosemite Valley. Later, the Wawona road was to be opened to motor travel. But the leisurely way of approach by the stage was very agreeable. The drive ran through the forest. We saw a pheasant in the bracken by the roadside with her brood of little ones. She walked with her head high, affecting a careless dignity to hide her anxiety, while her babies crouched close to the ground and looked like little brown dots as they skimmed along.
In the late afternoon, we saw a coyote out for his supper. Our stage driver cracked his whip at him and shouted his contempt. We saw the beautiful[Pg 99] deer cross and recross the road, coming down to their drinking places. They are protected by the State and come and go with only the mountain lion to frighten them. And at last after twenty miles of drive through tall pines we came to the famous Inspiration Point where the first view of the Valley burst upon us. We had been driving over a high plateau, and now we were to descend more than a thousand feet into the deep cut which forms the Yosemite. Our stage driver evidently took a genuine pleasure, the pleasure of the showman, in reining up his horses at the psychological moment and allowing us to drink in the view that burst dramatically upon us. There was the green level floor of the Valley far below us; there was El Capitan rising in massive grandeur, a sheer wall of rock, in evening greys and lavenders, above the Valley; there was the Bridal Veil—a silver thread of water falling six hundred feet. And beyond were the Valley walls rising in the distance. In my opinion everyone who wishes to have the most striking entrance to the Yosemite should come in by the Wawona road, and have the great view at Inspiration Point fire the imagination first. A little lower down, we came again on the winding road to the[Pg 100] same view, only from a lower vantage point and therefore more intimate. This point is known as Artists' Point; and after this we were hurrying down the mountain slope, the eager horses well aware that they were approaching food and rest.
Soon we were on the Valley floor, walls rising to the left and right of us, and ahead of us. Behind us was the way out of the Valley and above us was the mountain road by which we had just come down. Tourists were dropped at various camps, and we drove on to Camp Curry, the last stopping point of the stage. The Yosemite Valley is somewhat like a blind alley. It has but one entrance on the level of the Valley floor. As you drive to the farther end of the Valley, you become aware that you are approaching nearer and nearer to mountain walls, and ere long you are literally against a barrier, all the way from a thousand to three or four thousand feet in height. Anyone who would leave the Yosemite by other than the entrance on the Valley level at its one end must climb. Camp Curry has the great advantage of being located in the closed end of the valley and thus very near to many of the mountain trails. Its proprietor and landlord has built up Camp Curry to be the big, cosmopolitan, happy, democratic settlement that it now is. The food in the dining pavilion is plain but well cooked, and abundantly served in family fashion. The little tents with their two single beds are very comfortable. The camp fire at night, around which almost the entire camp assembles in that intimacy and yet detachment, which belongs to those who dream before a camp fire, is the heart of the camp life, where Mr. Curry gives nightly a family talk on trees, rocks, flowers, and trails. Hot water is a plentiful luxury at Camp Curry, and the host often says, "Camp Curry is on the water wagon, but it is a hot water wagon."
1. Driving Home the Cows. 2. Meeting in the Great
American Desert. 3. Bridal Veil from Artist's Point, Yosemite Valley.
"A year ago," says Mr. Curry, "we put up 10,000 lunches—that meant 20,000 wooden plates, and some 50,000 pieces of white tissue paper. You can see how necessary it is to burn or bury your luncheon papers when you have eaten your lunch on the trails, or in the forests."
Never in any other place in the United States have I heard so much talk of tramps and trails as at Camp Curry in the Yosemite Valley. Most Americans seem to be too indolent or too unused to walking to have the enthusiasm of the trampers and the mountain climbers whom one meets in Europe.[Pg 102] But I felt that I was back in the atmosphere of the Tyrol and of Switzerland when I reached Camp Curry and saw the people starting off in the morning for long days of walking and climbing. "I arrived at Camp Curry late in the afternoon just as the people were coming from their day's walks," said a young lady to me. "I thought I had never seen such disreputable looking people. Their boots were muddy, their hair was dishevelled, their faces were flushed and sunburnt. But in a day or two I was coming in from long walks in just the same condition myself." But who that can walk and climb would forego the thrilling pleasure of the long climb to Glacier Point, and the long climb past Nevada and Vernal Falls, and down again into the Valley? Who would miss the long climb up to the Yosemite Falls, where one from a perilous and yet protected vantage point just above the Falls sees that great volume of water launch itself for the awful plunge into the air, and so down into the Valley? Fortunately, there are sturdy mules and horses, sure-footed and plodding, for those who prefer riding to climbing. No one need miss the truly grand experience of the view from Glacier Point, where by staying over night at the hotel one may have both sunset and sunrise. What a world of mountains one looks out upon! There is Half Dome, looking as if a gigantic hand had thrust it up through the earth and into the air, leaving its other half far, far below. There stretches before one a vast, upper country of irregular table lands and peaks, many still white with snow. One is really looking far out over the remote regions of the snowy, pine-covered, high Sierras.
1. Royal Arches, Yosemite Valley. 2. View into Yosemite
Valley. 3. Dome and Half Dome, Yosemite Valley.
We took a day for a long excursion to Cloud's Rest. This meant twenty-two miles of mule riding, but it also meant an even more comprehensive and exalted view from the mountain's top, of frozen lakes below, deep canyons, lofty mountain peaks where storms were raging far away, and solitary table lands. Only people of endurance can take such a jaunt, as one's joints grow very weary and aching from the slow riding hour after hour. When we were at Camp Curry, a party of some forty Germans, men and women, were there for the pleasure of "doing" the entire Valley. No climb was too hard for them. They were known as the "German climbing bunch." Every morning one might see them with their paper bags of luncheon and their climbing-sticks, walking gaily along[Pg 104] to the beginning of some one of the mountains trails. They entertained us at the evening camp fire with their German songs, and were altogether an energetic and genial company.
The open air life and the grandeur of the trails were very hard to leave, but we came away one noon and once more drove back to Wawona. There we were detained for a week by a break in the car. We started out one morning when the rain was pouring to take the Mariposa road. We found that with no chains and with the machine slipping and sliding on the steep clay road, progress would be impossible. I tried to help the matter by putting freshly cut branches of odorous balsam fir under the wheels to help them grip. I walked behind the machine with a log, throwing it under the wheels as they advanced foot by foot, T. fighting at the steering wheel like the pilot of a drifting ship. But it was impossible to make headway. We met some teamsters who had evidently been taking something hot to counteract the discomfort of their wet exteriors. One said solemnly of the sun when we expressed a wish that it would appear, "Yes, the sun is our father, and our step-father." Then he added, "I'd worship the sun if I were a heathen.[Pg 105] I kinder do, now." He went on irrelevantly, "I do think Roosevelt's one of the best men we've got. I do think so. I do so." We were close to a deserted logging camp, which looked doubly melancholy in the falling rain. There was the deserted runway, there were the empty cottages, with broken windows and doors swinging open. Back of the cottages were piles of tin cans. One cottage still bore its old name, "Idle Burg." All about were blooming columbines and the odorous balsam.
There was nothing for it but to go back to Wawona, which we did. When we reached there, we found that we had a broken spring. We spent several days waiting for a new spring to come up from Raymond. In the meantime we discovered the loveliness of the Wawona meadows and explored the walks about the hotel. We went down to the blacksmith shop to see the big stage horses shod and the smith handle them as if they were his children. "California is God's country," said he. "I came here forty years ago, but I aint done much for myself until the last two or three years." At last the motor car was ready, and we had once more a drive through the forest, stopping for a delightful dinner and evening at Miami Lodge. The next[Pg 106] day we were dropping down from the high Sierras by the Mariposa road. Turning to the right, before reaching Raymond, the foothills of the Sierras made very rough, broken country for travel, and our road was indifferent. We passed poor little ranches dropped in among the rocks and gulleys. We saw lonely looking women sitting on the porches of unpainted wooden ranch houses, and finally we came to Mariposa, which reminded me of Bret Harte more than any other place I had seen in California.
1. In the Lower Sierras, California. 2. Eastern Slope of
Sierras.
Mariposa is a mining town from which the miners have departed. In mining days it was a busy center, with miners eating and drinking, and walking up and down its little street. But some of the mines have been closed, the miners have gone to other districts, and the town is left high and dry. A few men were hanging idly about in front of the dreary looking little stores. The two places that seemed to be alive were a general department store kept by an Italian, and a little restaurant kept by a Chinaman. We bought our gasoline from Mr. Trabucco and went in to have some tea at John Chinaman's place. He was a shrewd looking, middle-aged Chinaman in a very pessimistic mood. "You see dis town? You see more'n I do," he said sadly. We assured him that we saw very little town. Indeed, Mariposa is just the sad little shell of a town from which most of the life has moved away, leaving the dingy little wooden buildings along the dusty street. Our Chinaman charged us fifteen cents apiece for a single cup of tea, flanked by some very stale store cookies, which he took from the show window. He evidently felt that he should make hay while the sun was shining. From Mariposa, we had a long afternoon drive over lonely, rolling country to Snelling. When we reached its one little hotel, we found that we were too late for supper. California has an eight hour law, and domestic servants cannot be kept over time. In large hotels they have different shifts; but in country places the landlord must let his cook go at the appointed time. However, our host was disposed to be accommodating. "The missus and I are always here," he said, and went over to buy a bit of steak for our supper. We were very tired after the extremely rough driving in the foothills, and slept heavily.
Snelling lies in a valley where there is evidently plenty of warmth and water. The fig trees are[Pg 108] wonderfully luxuriant. We passed some beautiful grain ranches the next morning and so came to Stockton, where at the Hotel Stockton we saw the red, white, and blue sign that was to guide us across the continent. We were at last on the Lincoln Highway, the old road with the new name which runs from ocean to ocean and which is destined to be one of the famous highways of the world.
The Stockton Inn is a beautiful modern hostel, European in plan, with every convenience, not to say luxury. One should go up on its roof garden for an afternoon cup of tea just for the pleasure of looking down on the San Joaquin River, whose headwaters run up into the town. Boats lie all along the piers, and it looks very like a bit of Holland. I could have easily believed that I was looking down on an Amsterdam canal from the roof garden of the Stockton Hotel. All through California, but more particularly between Monterey and Los Angeles and along the coast, we had seen workmen tramping from place to place, sometimes alone, usually in bands of six or seven. They carried their blankets rolled on their backs, and many of them were clear-eyed, respectable looking men. We saw one such man in Stockton on his way to take the river boat. He had his blanket on his back, and he wore a somewhat battered straw hat. His trousers were ragged, and he looked as if he had tramped many a weary mile. He was tall and bony, with a sandy beard. I took him to be a Scot. I was so anxious to help the poor fellow out that I urged T. to speak to him and offer him a suit of clothes. To our surprise the man refused them in a very free and easy, genial way. "O, nay, thank you," he said, "I'm doin' all right."
1. Roof Garden, Stockton Hotel. 2. Head of San Joaquin
River, Stockton.
Stockton is a city with wide streets, an open plaza, and a Courthouse surrounded by a border of green lawn and palm trees. I saw a turbaned Hindoo lying asleep under a palm tree in the afternoon sun on the Courthouse lawn. White men lay asleep near him. It was at Stockton that we saw our first rodeo or round-up. The rodeo is a part professional and part amateur Wild-West show. The cowboys wear their gayest shirts, of red and pink and variegated silks. They wear their handsomest "chaps" or riding trousers, cut very wide, and made of buckskin or of sheepskin with the wool side out. They have on their widest-brimmed, highest crowned sombreros and their most ornately stitched boots. The cowgirls are[Pg 110] in brown or grey velveteen, or perhaps in khaki. They, too, wear broad-brimmed hats and riding boots with spurs. Some of them wear red silk handkerchiefs knotted about their necks. We saw such an exhibition of cattle lassoing and of roping and throwing steers, of rope spinning and of trick riding as we had never before seen. Doubtless it is an old story for Californians, but it was all new and interesting to us. The most interesting feat was the roping and throwing of a steer. Two men ride down the steer, and as one of them approaches the beast he slips off his horse and catches the steer with a lightning stroke around his neck. He endeavors by casting his weight on the beast's neck and by dexterously twisting it to throw the animal. Usually he succeeds; but sometimes a stubborn beast refuses to be taken by surprise, plants his feet firmly, and lowers his dangerous horns. Then follows a locked struggle, and it is a serious matter for the cattleman if his hold slips.
1. and 2. Cowboy Rodeo, Stockton, Cal. 3. Hereford Bull,
Wyoming. 4. Cowboy Rodeo, Laramie, Wyoming.
When we left Stockton we felt that the great adventure had really begun. We were now to traverse the Lincoln Highway and were to be guided by the red, white, and blue marks; sometimes painted on telephone poles, sometimes put up by way of advertisement over garage doors or swinging on hotel signboards; sometimes painted on little stakes, like croquet goals, scattered along over the great spaces of the desert. We learned to love the red, white, and blue, and the familiar big L which told us that we were on the right road. 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. 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. Its walks are shaded by a fine row of palms, another of magnolias which were in full bloom, and yet another of beautiful old cedars. I liked the "Sacramento Bee" building which has two interesting bas reliefs of printers of the Middle Ages working a hand press. Sacramento is very hot in summer, its stone pavements and asphalt streets radiating heat like an open oven.
1. Philips Hotel on Lincoln Highway near Lake Tahoe. 2.
View on Lake Tahoe. 3. Looking up Yosemite Valley. 4. Upper Yosemite
Falls.
Leaving Sacramento, we drove across rolling plains, mostly grain fields, to Folsom. From Folsom to the busy little town of Placerville we had more broken country and a decidedly bumpy road. We found the drive from Folsom to Placerville uninteresting, the forest being scrubby, the road dry and dusty. As soon as we left Placerville we came into beautiful country. We had stretches of distant mountain views and magnificent wooded hills all about us. A mountain stream, the American River, green and foaming, roared alongside the road. The road was in excellent condition and ran on through the forest for miles, flanked by sugar pines, cedars, firs, balsams, and yellow pines. Squirrels darted back and forth in front of us. The wild white lilac was blooming at the roadside. Ascending hour by hour, we passed several pleasant-looking mountain inns and came at last to Phillips', a simple place where they gave us, outside the main house, a tiny cottage all to ourselves. It had one room and from its door we looked straight away into the forest. They gave us some beefsteak, some fried potatoes, some canned corn, carrots, cake, custard, and tea for our supper.
We left our door open at night, that the fresh mountain air might come in freely. I awoke early in the morning and saw the first lights on the hills. Away off in the forest I heard a hermit thrush calling.[Pg 114] After breakfast we drove along through pine forest, the snow on the hills not very far away, and soon came to the summit of the Pass, 7395 feet. A party in a Reo car had been over the Pass three weeks earlier, toiling through the snow, and had posted several signs, painted in flamboyant red: "First car up May 25, 1914." Below us was the marshy valley surrounding the southern end of Lake Tahoe. We saw the exquisite green of these watery meadows and the lovely clumps of pines growing here and there in the valley. Beyond stretched the great lake surrounded by lofty mountains—a glorious view. We drove carefully down the steep hill on to the plain and past Meyers. The road was very sandy, and as we drove among the pine trees it was in some places so narrow that the hubs of our machine just cleared the tree trunks. We went first to Tallac, where there is a very pleasant hotel on the lake. But it was full and we turned back to Al Tahoe, a hotel in a great open space at the southern end of the lake, with pine trees scattered here and there, and a little colony of cottages outside the main building. We established ourselves in one of these cottages, a one-room house with three wooden sides and a long curtain across its open side. The fourth side of the building had been literally lifted up and was supported by wooden props. In this way it became a roof for the little platform of boards which stretched in front of the cottage, and a sheltered porch was thus improvised. At night we drew our calico curtain across the open front of our cottage, and so slept practically in the open air.
1. Mountain Stream in California. 2. Fallen Leaf Lake,
near Lake Tahoe. 3. Mountains around Lake Tahoe.
From Al Tahoe one can make many excursions on foot or by boat. As there was still snow on the road we did not undertake the motor drive from Al Tahoe to Tahoe Tavern and Donner Lake. We did drive the nine or ten miles of mountain road to Fallen Leaf Lake, which is a most exquisite mountain lake right under the shadow of Mt. Tallac. The trails from the hotel at Fallen Leaf Lake are very numerous and attract many enthusiastic mountain climbers. The first rain that we had experienced in all our long journey we had at Al Tahoe. When we left our hotel early in the morning to drive to Carson City the rain was still falling, but it cleared within an hour after our start, and we had no more rain until we reached Ohio. Lake Tahoe on our left was wonderfully beautiful in the morning light. The rich manzanita and other bushes[Pg 116] were shining with moisture, the tall pines were reflected in the clear depths of the lake, the shores were wild and lonely. The road rose high above the lake, and in one or two places ran along the edge of a precipitous cliff. After leaving the lake we came into a rather desolate mountain region where the whole character of the country changed. The road was a narrow shelf along a barren, rocky mountain side. There were but few trees. The color of the rock and of patches of brilliant yellow flowers, growing along the roadside, gave variety to the landscape. Otherwise it was somewhat dreary and forbidding after the rich forest foliage that we had just left along the lake.
As we rounded mountain shoulder after shoulder we began to look off into green cultivated farming valleys. Next we were coming down a steep hill and into Nevada's little capital town of Carson City. The Capitol building stands at the foot of this long hill road, and as one approaches from the top of the hill it looks as if one must drive straight through the Capitol. But the road turns sharply to the left as one reaches the Capitol street. This one long street with its hotel, its pleasant shops, and its Capitol is about all there is of the town. We drove through the town straight on to Reno.
Lincoln Highway near Donner Lake. Donner Lake in
distance.
Reno is a pleasant town, nobly situated on a high plateau with lofty mountains towering near. The Truckee River flows straight down from the heart of the snows through the center of the town and is spanned by a handsome bridge. The substantial Riverside Hotel stands on the bank of the river near the bridge. Somehow my impressions of Reno all seem to cluster around the swift river and the bridge. The library, the hotel, the Y. M. C. A., and other public buildings are close to the river. If you walk up the river you come to a little island in the center of the rushing stream which is a tiny Coney Island for the Reno residents during the summer. Bridges are flung from bank to island on both sides of the river. High above the river rise the houses of the well-to-do people of the town, some of them handsome structures. At the little hairdresser's where I had a shampoo in the delicious soft snow water of the river they pointed out to me the home of "our millionaire." So I crossed the river and went over and up to the higher side of the town, where was a very beautiful stucco mansion[Pg 118] surrounded by wide lawns, with a view over the river on one side and off to the mountains on the other. It was a charming situation, and its charm was enhanced for me by the fact that just a short distance away, outside the town, began the grey-green desert with its sage brush whose pungent, aromatic odor was to be in my nostrils for so many days to come. I asked my hairdresser whether Reno had many people in residence waiting for their divorces. She said that the new law, by virtue of which they must have a year's residence in Nevada, instead of the old period of six months, had cut down, so to speak, the business of divorces. She assured me that the Reno people deplored this as formerly the town was full of boarders and lodgers "doing time." I confess I was somewhat shocked by such a sordid point of view. I found myself looking quietly around the Riverside dining room to see whether I could pick out in the well filled room any candidates for divorce, and then I reflected that they were probably looking at me with the same query in their minds.
1. Crossing Mississippi at Clinton, Iowa. 2. Bridge near
Reno.
At Reno we followed our rule of visiting university buildings. We had seen the famous State University and the equally famous Stanford University in California, and wished to continue our study of college buildings and of the general atmosphere of Western institutions. Unfortunately it was holiday time, but we were shown about most courteously by a young instructor. The Nevada State University buildings are modest and comparatively few in number, but in good taste. They have a fine situation on a high plateau, wind-swept and mountain-surrounded, at the edge of the town. Westerners call these lofty terraces, which drop down one below another in step fashion at the foot of the great mountains, benches.
We had seen the very noble School of Mines at the University of California, erected by Mrs. Hearst to her husband's memory. We were equally interested in the smaller but very pretty building erected by Mr. Clarence Mackay for the University of Nevada School of Mines. A striking statue of Mr. Mackay in his miner's dress and with his miner's pick, stands in front of the building and looks down the green lengths of the open campus.
Our guide told us that the attendance at the School of Mines varies annually with the fluctuations of mining fortunes. In good years when the mines are doing well, the University has between[Pg 120] fifty and sixty students of mining engineering. In poor mining years the attendance drops off. He told us some interesting tales of the "good old days" when miners wore two shirts sewed together at the bottom, thus making a sort of bag, and helped themselves liberally to gold while in the diggings. He said that a miner had been known to pay a mine foreman a thousand dollars for the privilege of working in a rich corner of the mine, with the result that he would be able to make up the price of his privilege within two or three days. He explained that there was a general rule to the effect that a miner should not be stripped for examination except to his shirt; with possible exceptions if he were under very strong suspicion.
I was sorry to come away from Reno. I liked the little town, with the sound of the rushing river coming in at my hotel window, and the feeling of space and freedom that the high situation gave. Reno is 4500 feet above sea level.
From Reno we drove on to Fallon, a little town where we spent the night. I took my last look at the high Sierras as we drove across the grassy plains in leaving Reno. There they were, still snowy, towering above the town. We came along by the river,[Pg 121] but left it later for a more or less hilly road across rather barren country. We stopped at a little roadside place where there was a small grocery next to a tiny dwelling, to ask for some luncheon. The groceryman was very dubious and non-committal and referred us to his wife. I had noticed that at our approach she fled to some improvised chicken coops back of the little dwelling. So I tracked her to her lair and found the poor little thing really standing at bay. She was a small woman, overshadowed by an immense Mexican straw hat. She said to me somewhat defiantly and almost tearfully that she couldn't possibly do another drop of work. She explained that she had the railroad men to care for when they came in from the road, and that she had two hundred chickens to look after. "I carry all the water for them myself," she said tearfully. I looked around at the hot, dusty little settlement, with no spear of grass, and felt sorry for her. I told her that we wouldn't for the world inconvenience her, whereat she softened and told me that if we would drive on to the next settlement we could get some luncheon. Which we did, and a very indifferent luncheon it was. However, it was spiced by an ardent conversation between T. and[Pg 122] a railroad man on the foreign policy of the present Administration. A woman looks on at these encounters, into which men plunge without a moment's introduction or hesitation, and into which they throw themselves so earnestly, with admiration tinged with awe.
1. Smelter near Ely, Nevada. 2. Lahontan Dam, Nevada.
As we drove along the dusty road a short, rather thick snake, its back marked by shining black diamonds, wriggled hurriedly across the road in front of us, escaping to the sage brush. I asked later what this snake was, for I felt certain that it was poisonous. Sure enough, it was a diamond-backed rattle snake. We came soon to another little town where there was a good hotel. Hanging on the wall of the hotel was a painting of the proposed Lahontan Dam and the country which its life-giving streams would touch. We decided, instead of going direct to Fallon, to drive across country to the Dam, making a slight detour. We were very glad that we did so, for we found the young superintendent of the Dam construction, a Brown University man, very courteous indeed. We went to look at the enormous pile of sand and clay which has been banked up day after day and week after week until the Lahontan Dam is the largest earth dam in the world. We saw cement spillways, one on each side of the earth dam proper, their tall steps planned to break the fall of the water at any time of great flood and pressure. We saw the lake itself with its measuring tower and gate already sixty feet under the rising water. Mr. Tillinghast told us that the lake stretches back into the hills and the canyon for twenty miles. We heard of the millions of fertile acres which this water, already beginning to be released in a rushing stream, was to make possible. Some miles back we had seen irrigated country, green and fertile, cut, so to speak, right out of the desert. Alfalfa was growing luxuriantly and was being cured in high green stacks under the sun. Settlers' little cottages were a visible promise of the future, just as they had been in California. We congratulated Mr. Tillinghast on his work, and told him that in days to come he should bring his grandchildren to see the Lahontan Dam, a splendid monument to his work and the work of the men with him.
We saw where he and his assistant engineer lived with their families. They had small but comfortable quarters made of houses built of tar paper. Some chicken yards were near, and an improvised[Pg 124] tennis court was in front of the little row of houses. Near by was a little schoolhouse for the children of the settlement. Here New England women, city born and bred, were living happily with their children while their husbands built the great Dam. One lady told us that her relatives in Providence commiserated her lot. "But," said she, "the boys are so well and live such a free and happy life in this glorious air that we really dread being moved to another piece of work when the Dam is finished." From Lahontan we picked our way across the desert with its sage brush and its spaces, to Fallon.
When we left Fallon we had before us a very trying drive. The country east of Fallon, past Salt Wells Ranch and as far as Sand Springs, was in bad condition because of recent heavy rains. We met heavy wagons drawn by ten, twelve, fourteen, and sometimes sixteen horses and mules, struggling madly and almost hopelessly through the sticky mud. The drivers were cracking their whips, yelling and swearing, and the poor animals' flanks and bellies were thick with mud. The heavy wagons were piled high with bales and boxes. In some instances the horses of one team were being unharnessed to be added to another team where the wagon[Pg 125] stuck hopelessly in the mud. A country woman told me later that she had seen the horses of these trucking teams come in at night, their flanks covered with the dried blood which had streamed down from the wounds made by a pitchfork in the hands of a desperate and angry teamster determined to get his team started out of a mud hole.
We had an advantage because of the broad tires of our machine, and got on very well by picking our way across the plain and keeping well to the left of a long stretch filled with salt water holes and with a fairly large salt lake. A new road had been made by travelers, far away from the regular road, which ran close to this small inland sea and which was a hopeless quagmire. The land about us was dreary and desolate and yet had its own charm. Off to the left were immense sand hills blown up by the wind, and barren, rocky hills, the Wind Mountains. We came at last to the little station known as Sand Springs, which is simply a lodging place for the teamsters and their horses for the night. We could look down from the plateau on which the little house and the barns stood, upon the white and clay-colored, desolate spaces of the salty valley below. The landlady welcomed us cordially[Pg 126] and gave us a plain but hearty lunch. She was a Californian and told me that she and her husband missed the green hills and fields of their own State. She said that they had wonderful salt for curing and packing their winter meats from the lake down in the valley. She said that the salt could be raked up in great heaps, white and coarse but with great strength and savor. She was mourning the loss of her cows, which had disappeared. They had been gone a month and she feared that in wandering away on the mountain ranges they had been driven off by "cattle rustlers."
From Sand Springs we drove on through a more hilly country, the road winding along through an open canyon. We passed Frenchman's Flat, where there was a little restaurant and where a Frenchman came out to pass the time of day. He greeted us very pleasantly and would doubtless have given us a good meal if we had not already had one. We then crossed another great level and passed three ranches known as West Gate, Little Gate, and East Gate. We were coming into a much more fertile country, a high valley with mountains rising on either side. Ahead of us, marked by its tall cottonwood trees, was Alpine Ranch, a part of the big Williams estate and our destination for the night. It was very cheering to drive through the paddock, cross a bubbling little stream, and come up alongside the long, low, pleasant ranch house.
1. On the Lincoln Highway. 2. Ranch House at East Gate,
Nov. 3. Road Scene near Rawlins, Wyoming.
We had had as traveling companion from Fallon, across the Salt Flats and through the hills, a young commercial man from San Francisco driving his Ford car through to Utah. We were both glad to make the journey across the desert in company, hoping to be of mutual assistance in case of any accident to our cars. Mr. N. now proposed to take supper at Alpine Ranch and to travel by night in order to gain time. We warned him that he might get into trouble, but he assured us that he often traveled at night and enjoyed the stillness and the freedom to speed along. We found Mr. and Mrs. Dudley of the ranch hospitable and willing to give us bed and board. It is very pleasant for those who are willing to forego luxuries to stop at farm houses and ranch houses, to take the fare and sleep upon the beds given them, and to enjoy the talk of the people and the contact with real ranch life.
We had a delightful evening with the Dudleys. We ate our supper at a long table filled with ranchmen,[Pg 128] and took part in an animated conversation on the merits of the present Administration. We ate from a red tablecloth, but that did not trouble us. After supper, in the soft evening air, we had a talk with the family as to the advantages of the government ownership of railways. A woman from a nearby town took an earnest share in the conversation and showed herself well acquainted with the arguments for and against such ownership. The master of the ranch told us something of his difficulty in keeping men steadily at work on the ranch. He said that they came and went constantly in spite of good pay, steady work, and kindly treatment. He said that it was very difficult to get a man to stay more than two years. He would bring his roll of bedding, as is Western custom, take his place in the bunk house and at the table and in the fields for a time, but he could not be persuaded to stay long. The wandering habit had too strong a grip upon him.
We went out into the ample paddock to see the mules and horses roving comfortably about. Two of the wild horses of the plains had recently been captured and brought in. Both were going through a course of discipline which the ranchman assured[Pg 129] us would have to be made more severe later on. One was a beautiful young mare with her colt following her closely. She had a heavy yoke bar hanging by a sort of collar from her neck, and so arranged as to clog and trip her if she attempted to run. She was peacefully wandering about, but snorted with fear as we came near her. Her master assured us that she could easily be tamed, and that she was not to be driven or saddled, but was to be used as a bell mare. That is, she was to be the leader of the herd let out on the plains. The ranchman explained that a company of horses will not leave a mare with a young colt, consequently she is used to keep them from straying away long distances. The other horse was a fine animal but much less docile of spirit. "I feel sorry for him," said his master; "he has got a lot to go through with, but he must learn; there is no other way for him." The animal had both his fore legs and hind legs "hand" cuffed, only a short chain being used on the shackles. He was in this way so hobbled that he had to move by little leaps forward, first his fore feet, then his hind feet. By this clumsy hopping he managed to get about. "He must first learn to accept this and then we will go on with his education," said his master. He[Pg 130] looked very wild and untamed of spirit, poor fellow, and made frantic efforts to rush away as we came near him. But he had already found out that his cruel chains were inexorable.
We walked out into the lovely valley and toward the purple hills that rose above it. One can never tire of the evenings and the mornings of the great Western plains and table lands. Nowhere else have I seen such wonderful sunsets; glorious in crimsons, purples, violets, rose lavenders, ashes of roses, and finally soft greys. Nowhere have I seen lovelier dawns, the air so crystal clear, the morning light so full of rose and lavender mysteries, the whole day so full of wide and happy promise.
Mr. N. had insisted on going on after supper at the ranch. We had seen him disappear down the valley, his machine finally hidden in acres of grey-green sage brush.
The next morning we drove on, passing at the end of the valley through a short but rough canyon, with rocky walls to the left and right. There we saw a board sign marking "Water 100 feet down." Doubtless this was a boon to travelers in the old days. Once through the canyon, we came out into another wide valley, lonely and spacious. As we[Pg 131] drove along, we saw ahead of us what seemed to be a small motor car by the roadside.
"I believe that's N's car!" said T. As we came up to it we saw that the two left wheels were hopelessly down in a deep rut. Mr. N. had stuck his card in the windshield of the car, and had written on it, "Gone for some boards; wait until I come back." Soon we saw him coming across the desert with some loose boards in his arms. We found that the poor fellow had been there from ten o'clock the night before until ten o'clock in the morning, the hour of our passing. He had been bowling along comfortably and somewhat sleepily the previous night, when suddenly his car bumped into a muddy rut from which he found it impossible to extricate the machine. He told us that he had worked frantically and futilely until about midnight. Then he put out his lights, wrapped himself up as best he could, and slept until seven. He said that utter stillness and darkness were about him. "Not even a jack rabbit passed." At seven he again began to struggle with his car. He had the sure hope that we would come along sooner or later. He had calculated that we would arrive about eleven. When we found him he had just gone to a deserted, falling[Pg 132] ranch house to find a few boards to be used as levers. He and T., taking our machine, now drove to the ranch house and brought back a goodly supply of boards and some heavier pieces of timber which they had torn from the dropping fences. The boards they put in the rut in front of the wheels in order that they might get a grip when once they started. The heavier timbers they used as levers. And so by dint of hard work and by the help of two young men who passed in their motor half an hour after our arrival, the front wheel was pried out of the sticky mud, and the car was once more gotten on firm ground. It was past one o'clock when we climbed up the bare road to the high town of Austin and went to the International Hotel for our luncheon. What with lack of sleep and his long fast Mr. N. was quite worn out. A good luncheon prepared by a Japanese cook and served by a natty and very debonair Japanese waiter put us all in better trim.
1. Cattle on Nevada Desert. 2. Deserted Mining Town in
Nevada. 3. Mining town Cemetery in Nevada. 4. In the Nevada Desert.
Two miles beyond Austin we were 9000 feet above sea level. As we reached this height we could, looking back, see Austin below us. We also had a fine view of the desert mountains. Here I began to understand the conformation of the Nevada country. We were passing from one great valley into another, hour after hour. When I looked on the map of Nevada, I found a series of short mountain ranges. I could see what we were doing in our travel. We were descending into a valley, crossing its immense width, coming up on to a more or less lofty pass, usually bare, and descending into another valley. It was very fascinating, this rising and falling with always the new vista of a new valley just opening before us.
But now came tribulations. Mr. N. had evidently wrenched his machine in his struggle to free it the night before. He began to have trouble, and traveled more and more haltingly a little way behind us. T. felt a personal responsibility for him and we were continually stopping to wait for him. Finally we halted at the head of a pass before plunging down what turned out to be a long descent. We had just climbed up from a wide valley and could see nothing of our fellow traveler on the slope behind us. T. left the car and went back; and while I waited, looking off at the mountains, two women reached my hilltop, the older one driving the Ford car in which they were traveling. They looked like women of the plains, perfectly[Pg 134] able to take care of themselves and to meet emergencies. They had food supplies with them, and two dogs as fellow passengers. The one, a fox terrier, was tied in a box in the tonneau and looked very unhappy. The other, a spaniel, was running back and forth on the rear seat and whining with anxiety to get out. His mistress told me that he was one of the greatest hunters in Nevada, and that he was anxious to go off in the sage brush on a grand chase. Just here the two men came up the hill with Mr. N.'s Ford car, weary and exhausted from going over its machinery and struggling to get it moving. The women warned us that in the valley at the foot of the hill was a very bad mud hole which we must inevitably negotiate. They said that a stream from the mountains had in a recent freshet overflowed the plain and reduced both the road and the adjoining country to the state of a swamp. They assured us that we simply must go through the mud hole and that we were bound to get stuck in it. They cheered us, however, by telling us that a nearby settler had a sturdy draught horse and that he would in all probability pull us out for the sum of $2.00 a motor car. We[Pg 135] thanked them for their warning and drove down the long hill into the next valley.
I had been interested while waiting for Mr. N.'s machine to come up, to see the beautiful cactus blossoms growing close to the ground on both sides of the road. They were of a rich yellow and a rich magenta color, single petaled and really beautiful. I saw them growing all along through the desert. In some places they made broad patches of color.
Coming on to another wide valley stretching away for eighty miles and more, we saw the mud hole before us and carefully examined the sides of the road to see if we could not make a detour. The spongy, muddy soil assured us that it was hopeless, and that what the women had told us was only too true. In the meantime the settler, working with his wife and baby near at hand in his newly cleared field, kept an eye on us. But he did not come to our rescue until we called him. The Ford, being the machine of lighter weight, started first through the mud hole. Its wheels sank immediately and no turning on of power could push it forward. We then shouted to the settler. He came across the field with his big horse, and as he drew near we[Pg 136] saw that he was a tall, good looking man with an open and kindly face. I was secretly glad that the poor fellow who had so recently cast his lot in this lonely and immense valley had a chance to earn some ready money. After a little pleasant dickering he agreed to pull the machines out for $1.00 apiece. The splendid big horse was harnessed to the machine and at the word he threw his weight against his traces and philosophically pulled away, while Mr. N. at the same instant turned on his power. The machine easily came out of the mud and was soon on dry ground. T. drove our machine forward, was instantly imbedded in the mud and was pulled out in the same way. It was interesting to see how the big horse threw his weight into the pulling at just the proper moment and relaxed as he felt the machine settle on the firm ground. His master told us that the animal had come with their little caravan from Colorado, seven hundred and twenty miles, without turning a hair, while the other horse sickened and died.
This man had only his few supplies and the little tent in which they were living, together with a bit of the rich land already cleared and planted to a crop. He said that he had never seen richer land[Pg 137] than this from which the sage brush had been pulled up and burned off. A thin muddy stream trickled across the road from the hills and was used both for irrigation and for drinking purposes. "But when you come back next year, I shall have a well down," said the brave homesteader. "And, by George, if the County Commissioners won't put in a bridge across this mud hole, I'll put one across myself! Just come back and see a year from now!" We waved him goodbye and went on our way across the lone valley and up another divide. The valley was Monitor Valley, he told us. I can see him standing there in the lovely light of the late afternoon sun, he and his wife and their baby boy waving us farewell. I should like to pass that way again and to see whether he has replaced his tent by a little house and whether his virgin fields are green with a crop.
Some day, I suppose, those wide, far-stretching acres will be dotted with houses and barns and stacks of alfalfa. It is difficult to convey the impression that these vast valleys with the hills in the distance, and with the rich coloring of the sunrise and the sunset, make upon one. They are lonely and yet they are not lonely. They are full of life.[Pg 138] We saw hundreds of prairie dogs. Day after day they scuttled across our pathway, often narrowly escaping. Sometimes they sat on their hind legs by their burrows, waiting as long as they dared until the noise of the machine frightened them into their holes. Sometimes a whole village of them would watch us until we drew near, and then frantically disappear. Sometimes we saw a coyote, usually in the early morning or the late afternoon. We once saw one whose curiosity was so great that he halted perhaps fifty yards away, and looked at us from this safe distance as we passed. Once we saw a rabbit breathing his last near the roadside, his soft eyes filled with a look of far away consciousness and pain. And once we saw a beautiful antelope leaping and bounding over the sage brush so lightly that he looked in the distance like a phantom animal made of thistle down.
I can completely understand how the desert casts its spell over cattlemen and sheepmen so that they love it and its freedom and are continually drawn back to it. The mystery and glory of the desert plains have their devotees just as really as the mystery and glory of the great city have their worshippers who never wish to be far from its lights.[Pg 139]
The many stops of the day had made us very late and it was in darkness that we came through the canyon which makes a long gateway to the town of Eureka. There was something fearsome about those dark rocks, whose mysteries we had never seen by daylight, rising on each side of us, and about the deep chasm that lay in shadow down at the left of the road. We were glad indeed when the lights of our lamps flashed on the stakes with their familiar red, white, and blue markings, the friendly signs of our beloved Lincoln Highway. It was nearly nine o'clock when we came into Eureka, and drew up at the dim lights of Brown's Hotel. Brown's Hotel seemed to be mostly a bar room and lounging place; at least that was the impression made upon me by the glimpse I caught of the lighted room downstairs as I stood on the wooden porch. But we were shown upstairs to a very comfortable, old fashioned, high ceilinged room with heavy walnut furniture of the style of forty years ago. An aged ingrain carpet was on the floor, and a wreath of wax flowers such as our grandmothers rejoiced in, hung, set in a deep frame, on the wall. I thought to myself that these were relics of departed glories and of a day when there was money[Pg 140] to furnish the old hostel in the taste then in vogue. A dim oil lamp assisted our toilet and we went downstairs and out into the town to a restaurant kept by an Italian and his wife. It was the only place where we could get food at that time of night. Eureka is a most forlorn little town, perched high and dry, just as if the waves of traffic and of commercial life had ebbed away and left it far up on the beach forever. They told us that it was once a big and prosperous town. But like Mariposa in California, the mining interests have been transferred to other localities and the town is left lonely. As we walked along its silent and dimly lighted main street, we saw the quaint wooden porches in front of the shops and houses, some high, some low, making an uneven sidewalk. Practically all of the shops were closed, only the saloons being open.
The Italian had named his restaurant The Venezia in honor of his native city. It was a bright, comfortable little room, the kitchen at the back of it lightly screened from the dining room. It adjoined his hotel, quite a large building, where he proudly told us he had twenty-two beds. His wife, a stout, bright-eyed woman, cheerfully took our order. "I am poor," she said smilingly, "so I cook[Pg 141] when other people ask me. If I rich I cook when I feel like it." A savory smell arose from her frying pan, and we were soon eating excellent and generous slices of ham, drinking very respectable tea, and enjoying some good bread and butter. It was a most refreshing supper after a long and somewhat trying day. We expressed our appreciation to our Italian friends and paid the very modest reckoning.
The next morning we had breakfast at Brown's Hotel. The landlord called my attention to a robin who was building her nest in a tree in front of the hotel; the only tree that I recall seeing on the bare, bald, yellow village street.
In our long ride of the day before, we had come through Edwards Creek Valley, the Smith Creek Valley, the Reese River Valley, the Antelope Valley, the Monitor Valley, and other great valleys of whose names I was not sure. We had seen the Clan Alpine Mountains from Alpine ranch, the Toyabee National Range, and other ranges whose names were too many and too local for me to be sure of them. And I had read of 275,000 acres that had been placed on the market in Elko County alone. I had read in the Elko paper that "For years, there[Pg 143] was a popular prejudice in the East that Nevada was one grand glorious desert, the land worthless, and that nothing could be grown out here. But in later years the public back East has been shown that such is not the case, but on the contrary, we have the richest land in Elko County to be found anywhere in the United States, and that the crops here are the best and almost anything can be grown in Elko County."
Having seen the rich land of our brave homesteader in Monitor Valley, I was ready to believe this outburst of local pride.
It was the 23rd of June when the landlord of Brown's Hotel waved his farewell to us and we drove on. All day we were among the hills, not seeing them on far distant horizons, but continually climbing and descending among them. Twenty-three miles from Eureka we saw a wooded mountain, quite different from the bald grey hills we had seen the day before. Short, scrubby green trees, somewhat like our New Jersey junipers, grew on the mountain sides and gave this appearance of foliage and greenness. We saw many of them in our day's ride. When we reached Six Mile House, having passed Fourteen Mile House, we[Pg 144] asked the ranchman's wife to give us some luncheon. She said that she could not accommodate us, having but few supplies on hand. She advised us to go on to Hamilton and said that she would telephone to the Hamilton House that we were coming. In accordance with her directions we took a turn to the right shortly after leaving Six Mile House and climbed up through a narrow, rocky canyon road. Finally, within a mile or so of Hamilton, when we had one more hill to climb, we came upon a morass made by the bursting of a water pipe. We could not go around it and we dared not attempt to go through it, no friendly settler with a powerful horse being in sight. So we turned carefully about, went down the rocky road to the fork where we had turned off, and took the other branch of the fork. Then we climbed up another mountain road until we reached the summit of the pass, 8115 feet. From here we had a grand view of the mountains and we also met the high ridge road from Hamilton. We pressed on down the hill past a deserted ranch house to Moorman's Ranch, a hospitable looking house by the roadside. At Moorman's Ranch we found an unforgettable hospitality. Our host and hostess were Missourians, and[Pg 145] to our question as to whether they could give us any luncheon at 2 o'clock, they gave us a most satisfactory answer. Mrs. Moorman soon had a laden table ready for us, and we sat down to fried bacon and eggs, potatoes, lettuce, radishes, preserved cherries, stewed prunes, milk, tea, and pie. How refreshing it all was! And how pleasant was the soft Southern accent of our hostess which she had not lost in the years on the plains.
Moorman's Ranch is a large ranch with grazing rights in the hills near by. The adjoining ranch with its recently deserted ranch house is now a part of Moorman's Ranch, and there is a large acreage for the cattle. We learned that the wretched coyotes come down from the hills and steal the young calves at every opportunity. Only a few days before, a cow had gone to drink leaving her new born calf for a few minutes. When she came back, the little animal had been struck down by a waiting coyote. We learned too that the mountain lions come down from the hills and sometimes attack the young colts and kill them.
It was with sincere regret that we bade goodbye to Captain and Mrs. Moorman. May their ranch flourish from year to year![Pg 146]
Shortly after leaving the ranch and in crossing another wide valley, we saw a herd of several hundred wild horses feeding on the great plain—a beautiful sight. They were grazing in a rich part of the plain where the grass looked thick and lush.
I must own to having an impression that the trail across Nevada could be marked by whiskey bottles if by no other signs. All along our road across the great State we saw the bottles where they had been thrown in the sand and dust by passers-by.
Many times I thought of the "Forty-niners," as we saw the sign, "Overland Trail." In coming along the Lincoln Highway, we are simply traversing the old overland road along which the prairie schooners of the pioneers passed. How much heart-ache, heart-break, and hope deferred this old trail has seen! I think of it as we bowl along so comfortably over the somewhat rough but yet very passable road. I can appreciate now the touching story in a San Francisco paper of an old lady who came to the rear platform of a fine overland train after passing a certain village station, and threw out some flowers upon the plain. Near here, she told her friends, her little baby had been buried in the desert forty years before, as she and her husband[Pg 147] toiled with their little caravan along the trail. The years had passed and they were prosperous and old in California. And now as she went East on the swift and beautiful train she threw out her tribute to the little grave somewhere in the great desert.
As we drew near Ely, the famous copper city, we passed the huge mountain of earth which forms the wealth of the Ely mines. The Lincoln Highway signs take one to the right on a short detour in order that one may see this mountain of ore, which is being cut away by immense steam shovels, tier above tier. Returning to the main road, we drove on through a canyon and so came into the bright little town of Ely which has many evidences of prosperity. We found the Northern Hotel, European in plan, most comfortable. Next door was an excellent café where we had a supper of which a New York restaurant need not have been ashamed. Leaving Ely on the morning of June 24th, we drove through Steptoe Valley for some forty miles. Where we turned off from the valley it still stretched on for another forty miles. It looked as if it might go on to the world's end. Just out of Ely we passed through McGill and visited the immense[Pg 148] smelting works. There we saw the "concentrators," interesting machines to shake down the heavy grains of copper from the lighter grains of sand and earth. These big, slanting boards keep up a continual shake, shake, shake while a thin stream of water pours over them. They are a little less slanting than the board of a woman's washtub would be, and yet they lie somewhat like a washboard. The shaking of the board and the action of the water combine to roll down the heavy grains of copper. It seems a simple process, and yet the regulation of the board's motion and the angle of its slant are calculated to a nicety. There were hundreds of these "concentrators" at work separating the copper from its native earth. We saw also the great smelting furnaces and realized how it must have been possible for the men who prepared the furnace for the burning of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be burned to death themselves. What a fearful heat rolled out as one of the furnace doors was opened and a molten stream of white-hot slag was raked into the gutter below! And how the copper glowed as we saw it in its enormous melting caldron! For the first time I saw a traveling crane at work. A characteristic sign was near it in both English and Greek. It read, "Keep away from crane. Keep clear and stand from under."
1. Ely, Nevada. 2. Homesteader's Ranch near Lahontan Dam.
3. Copper Mine at Ely. 4. Ely, Nev.
As we left Steptoe Valley and came down a long slope into Spring Valley, we crossed Shellbourne Pass under the shadow of the Shellbourne range. We passed some young people from Detroit, the gentleman driving his car. We also passed some men with their laden burros taking supplies to the sheepmen in the mountain ranges. These sheepmen live their lives apart from the world for months at a time, seeing only the man who brings their supplies at intervals.
We had luncheon at Anderson's ranch, where they treated us very hospitably. I judged that this was a Mormon's household, as Mormon marriage certificates hung upon the wall and as the Deseret Weekly was evidently its newspaper connection with the outside world. Here our friend Mr. N. took on board a young man from the ranch who wished to get back to Salt Lake City. This young fellow was delighted to have such a ride and Mr. N. was glad to have a traveling companion. Later in the day we passed Tippett's ranch and learned that its owner travels thirty-six miles for his mail and[Pg 150] supplies. Toward evening we crossed the Utah border and immediately came upon bad roads. We had a rough stretch until we reached our station for the night, Ibapah. Ibapah consists of a very pleasant ranch house and of a general supply grocery, both house and grocery owned by Mr. Sheridan. We had a comfortable night at the ranch house and purchased some beautiful baskets made by the Indians and brought by them to Mr. Sheridan for sale. The air was so fine and the evening so delightful that we reluctantly retired. Never can I forget the crystal silences of those still nights on the high plains of the West. The next day, June 25th, we had a drive of one hundred and twenty miles across rough and lonely country. From Ibapah we went on through the valley in which the ranch lay, coming to an extremely rough canyon road, practically nothing but the bed of a stream. Then came Kearney's Ranch, where they warned us of some mud holes in the road ahead. We drove around a rocky point, picking our way carefully, some hot springs and a sulphur lake smoking off in the distance on our left. The mountains rose to the right above our route, bare and bald. We came to Fish Springs Ranch in the midst of this lonely
1. American Baptist Home Mission Touring Wagon. 2.
Fish Springs Ranch, Utah.
country and stopped for luncheon. Our host was a tall and powerfully built elderly ranchman in a blue jumper. A younger man lived with him and the two did their cooking and eating in a little log and stone house, near the main ranch house. He explained to us that he kept the little house because it was once a station on the Wells Fargo stage route. "Horace Greeley ate at this table when he came on his historic Western trip, and so I keep the place standing," he said. His young helper cooked our meal in the back room and our host served it in the front one. We had fried eggs, potatoes, pickles, cheese, bread, butter, and tea, and an appetizing cup cake cut in square pieces. I noticed a White House Cook Book lying on a little table near by. Our host was very hospitable. "Have some of them sweet pickles, folks." "Do we raise cattle here? You bet we do. I have had this ranch over thirty years." As we left him he warned us that we were now entering the "Great American Desert" and that we would have sixty miles of dry plain with very little undergrowth and with no water. He told us that if we got into trouble we should start a fire and "make a smoke." "I'll see you with my glasses" he said, "and drive to your[Pg 152] rescue with gasoline and water." I had seen near the ranch house a clear, bubbling spring which doubtless gave its name to the ranch.
We assured him that we were well stocked with gasoline and that we had on our running board a standard oil can filled with water. When we were twenty miles away I could still see the ranch house, a tiny speck upon the horizon. At last we came to a well by the roadside which was marked "County well." The road, though somewhat bumpy, was in many places smooth and excellent, a sort of clay highway. Midway across the desert we met another car and exchanged greetings.
Late in the afternoon as we were climbing up a slight pass, a dust storm overtook us. The sky was overcast, the mountains and plain were blotted out, and we could only drive along slowly and endure the choking clouds of dust until the storm had swept by. It was blessed to come again into clear sunshine and to see the outlines of the mountains appearing once more. Once over the pass, we came into a great ranch valley and saw that we had left the bare plains behind us. We reached the Kanaka Ranch in time for supper and were assured that we could have lodging for the night. The Kanaka[Pg 153] Ranch of eight thousand acres is the property of the Mormon church. It is under the charge of a young manager who looks after the Hawaiians (Kanaka meaning a South Sea Islander) who have been converted to the Mormon faith, and who have been brought to the ranch to work upon its acres and to make their homes there under the friendly shadow of the church's authority. The manager was a dignified young man with a pleasant wife and four dear little children. They gave us a most appetizing supper and breakfast. "The difference between your belief and ours," said our host to T., "is that you believe in a completed revelation. We believe in a continuous revelation."
I heard him talking very fluently in the Hawaiian tongue to some of his disciples who had come in for farm directions.
The next morning was wonderfully fresh and clear, a rain having fallen during the night. We had just a taste of what a rainy trip would be across country, as we slipped about on the greasy mud of the highway. One reason why our long journey was so ideal was because of the dry season. Day after day we came on over perfectly dry roads and under perfectly clear skies. Another advantage[Pg 154] of our journey was that we were traveling East. Every afternoon the sun was behind us, to our great comfort; and the beautiful light fell on the plains and mountains ahead of us. No wonder that we loved to travel late in the afternoon and that we had to make a stern rule for ourselves to follow, to the effect that no matter how tempted we were, we would not travel after sunset.
By dint of creeping slowly along we passed the slippery stretches of road and enjoyed the fine open country with the mountains to the right and the farms to the left. After passing Grantsville we came by some large concentrators and smelters in the shadow of the mountain. Turning left we came around the shoulder of the mountain, and there to our left was Great Salt Lake, sparkling and blue-green in the morning light, a mountainous island in the middle of it. We could see the Casino at the end of the long pier at Saltair, a favorite resort for Salt Lake City people. We passed the miners' homes at Magna and Garfield, someone having written facetiously the sign "Mosquito Park" over the entrance to a swampy district with its little settlement of cottages. Now we came into a beautiful upland country with fine farms and every appearance[Pg 155] of prosperity. Cottonwoods and tall poplars were seen everywhere on the landscape. They are very characteristic of this part of the country. They grow rapidly and the cottonwood sends its roots long distances in search of water. As we approached Salt Lake City, it appeared to us to be a green, wooded city extending down a long slope on the mountain side. The new State House towered high at the upper end of the slope against the background of lofty mountains, still snowy, which guard the city.
I was charmed with Salt Lake City. It has a beautiful situation, high and picturesque. Its streets are very wide and this gives a certain stateliness and air of hospitality to the town. It is laid out on a generous scale. Many of the residence streets have green stretches of flower-adorned park running through the center. The open lawns of the homelike homes, the broad streets, the residences of stone and brick, the masses of pink rambler roses climbing over them, all make a charming impression upon one. Then there are delightful excursions into the canyons of the great mountains near the city. We took such an excursion by electric car line, fourteen miles up into Immigration[Pg 156] Canyon. This is the old trail along which the Mormons came in 1847. At the end of the line is a delightful hotel, the Pinecrest Inn. Had there been time we could have taken many more canyon trips.
"The Utah" is a beautiful hotel with every modern equipment. A great bee hive, the Mormon emblem, glows with light at night on top of the building. Of course we saw the Mormon tabernacle and walked about its splendid grounds. I was particularly interested in the "sea gull monument," designed by Brigham Young's grandson, and erected in memory of the sea gulls that saved the crops the first year of Mormon settlement by coming in flocks and eating the locusts that threatened to destroy everything green. We enjoyed the fine view from the State University buildings on the "bench" high above the town.
In Salt Lake City I purchased some "canyon shoes" of a famous manufacture, and later I found them admirable for heavy walking trips.
We left Salt Lake City by driving through Parley's Canyon, a deep gash in the mountains parallel to Immigration Canyon. It is a favorite local drive to go out through Parley's Canyon and return[Pg 157] to Salt Lake City through Immigration Canyon. The roadway is very narrow, as it shares the canyon floor with a railroad track and with a rushing stream, so one must drive carefully and keep a sharp lookout for trains. We met an itinerant Baptist missionary driving in his big caravan wagon into the country for a preaching trip. After leaving Parley's Canyon we came into open rolling country, and passed the substantial stone buildings of Stevens Ranch and Kimball Ranch. Then came Silver Creek Canyon, more open than Parley's Canyon and with a fair road. We had luncheon at the Coalville Hotel. I was attracted to the little town of Coalville because there were so many yards where old fashioned yellow rosebushes were laden with bloom. We drove on through Echo Canyon, whose red sandstone rocks, chiseled in many forms by wind and weather, have very fine coloring. At Castle Rock the whole formation is like that of a massive fortification. Six miles before we reached the town of Evanston, we crossed the State line and were in Wyoming. It is a pity that these State boundaries are indicated in many places by such shabby, indifferent wooden signs, looking as if they had been put up over night. Doubtless as[Pg 158] the Lincoln Highway is improved there will be dignified boundary stones erected to mark the State lines.
Evanston is a pleasant little town 6300 feet high. Near Evanston is the Chapman Ranch, where many thousands of sheep are handled. We stopped in Evanston only a few minutes and then drove on through delightful desert country, open and rolling, grey-green and blue in its coloring. The Wyoming desert has a sharper and more vivid coloring than that of Nevada. The tableland is more rolling and the mountains are farther away. It is a wonderful sheep country, but the flocks are at present in the mountain ranges. Later, as the autumn comes on and cold falls upon their mountain pastures, the herders will bring them down to these plains over which we are passing.
Mr. Dudley of Alpine Ranch told us that should we visit the ranch in autumn we would find the whole valley covered with sheep. We heard much "sheep talk" in Nevada and Wyoming. We learned about the "shad scale" which the sheep eat, and about certain kinds of sage brush that are very nutritious. Mr. Dudley had pointed out to us a low-growing white plant, somewhat like the "dusty miller" of our childhood, that is extremely nutritious for cattle.
1. Prairie Schooners, Westward Bound. 2. Lincoln Highway
Sign in the Desert. 3. Sheep in the Wyoming Desert.
Here and there on the desert we see fine bunches of beef cattle, feeding in little oases; green, damp stretches of country in the midst of an ocean of sage brush.
Now and then we pass a cattleman or a sheepman riding with that easy give of the body which is so graceful and so characteristic of Western horsemen. I know nothing like it, save the easy posture of those immortal youths who ride forever in the procession of the Elgin marbles in the British Museum. They have the same graceful easing of the body to the motion of the horse, and give the same impression of the harmony of horse and rider. Often we pass white, closely plastered log houses, just such as we saw in Nevada. We see white canopied wagons in the barnyards of almost every ranch house, just as in eastern Nevada. These people think nothing of traveling long distances in their prairie schooners with their supplies for roadside camping at night. They travel in their wagons to pay visits, to transact business and to buy supplies, and make long journeys in the summer months.[Pg 160]
The smell of the sage brush, pungent and aromatic, is in my nostrils from day to day. I love it in its cleanness and spiciness, and shall be sorry when we have left the desert behind us. We have to be watchful for chuck holes made by the indefatigable gophers or prairie dogs. They often burrow in the ruts of the road. Our local guide leaflets, furnished us by garages along the route, are full of warnings about "chucks." Once we come upon a badger, beautifully marked, who has thrown up a large mound of dirt in burrowing his tunnel just in the middle of the road. He sees us coming and scuttles into his hole. We stop the car as we get near the hole and sit motionless. We wait patiently until finally his beautifully marked brown and white head is thrust cautiously out of his shelter. He is very curious to see what this huge black thing is, standing silent near his dwelling. Twice his head appears and his bright eyes peer out curiously. Then the click of the camera frightens him and he disappears to be seen no more.
Occasionally we pass motionless bodies of gophers and rabbits that have been struck by the flying wheel of some passing motor as they madly scrambled for safety.[Pg 161]
Late in the day we passed Fort Bridger with its few old stone houses, probably barracks in the old days. Shortly before coming into Fort Bridger we came upon two draught horses feeding peacefully by the roadside. As they saw us, they immediately came into the road and began to trot just ahead of our machine. First we drove gently, hoping that after their first fright they would turn aside into the great plain which stretched for miles, unbroken by fences, on each side of the road. But no, they trotted steadily on. Then we drove faster, hoping to wear them down and by the rush of our approach to force them off the road. Once they were at the side of the road we could quickly pass them and their fright would be over. To our disappointment they broke into a wild gallop and showed no sign of leaving the road. They were heavy horses, and we were sorry to have them thundering so distressfully ahead of us. Then we dropped into a slow walk and so did they. But as soon as we traveled faster, they broke into a gallop. For ten miles they kept this up. We were quite in despair of ever dropping them, when suddenly we came to a fork in the road. To our joy they ran along the left fork. Our route was along the right[Pg 162] fork and we went on to Fort Bridger glad to be rid of the poor frightened beasts.
A breeze sprang up toward sunset and we came in the twilight to the little town of Lyman where the only hostel was The Marshal, half home and half hotel, kept by Mrs. Marshall. As we came into the town the high, snowy Wahsatch range was on our right. We had first seen its distant peaks about twenty-four miles out of Evanston.
Mrs. Marshall gave us an abundant supper and we slept dreamlessly in a little upper room with one window. Upon what a glory of sunrise did that little upper window look out that morning of the first of July! The vast landscape was bathed in lavender light, the Wahsatch range and the mountains of our Eastern pathway catching the first glory of the coming sun, while the plains were in deeper lavender.
The village street looked like a pathway of lavender. The little wooden, painted houses, the barns, some red, some grey and unpainted, all glowed with transforming light and color. Robins and meadow larks were singing. Far, far to the northeast was a purple horizon line. The air was like wine. I stayed at the window until I was half frozen in the cool morning air, entranced by it all.
1. Wyoming Cattle. 2. The Marshall Hotel, Lyman, Wyoming.
3. Before Shearing, Medicine Bow, Wyoming. 4. After Shearing, Medicine
Bow, Wyoming.
It was at Lyman that we heard talk of the ever smouldering feud between cattlemen and sheepmen. Not far from Lyman is the "dead line" over which sheepmen are not allowed to take their sheep. On the other side of this stern boundary are the cattlemen, and they have issued a warning to the sheepmen which they have more than once carried out. A few years ago a sheepman either purposely or carelessly got over the dead line with his sheep. He was mysteriously shot and two hundred of his sheep were killed in one night. No one knows who the murderer was. Back in the shadows looms the threat of the cattlemen, grim and real.
We had been told in Wyoming of the buying of a big ranch by adjacent ranch people in order that no sheepman might come in to share the water and the ranges with the cattleman.
Cattle will not feed, they tell us, where sheep have fed, as the sheep tear up the earth and also graze very closely. It is impossible for sheep and cattle to graze comfortably on the same ranges.
We left Lyman in high spirits after a good breakfast, driving along with the Wahsatch mountains on our right and with detached mountains[Pg 164] continually appearing on the horizon as we moved eastward. We were now in the region of what they call in the West "buttes," a "butte" being, so far as I know, a detached, isolated mass of mountain. The Wyoming buttes are wonderfully carved by wind and sand and weather and many of them present a mysterious and imposing appearance. Often they are table lands, rising square and massive against the horizon like immense fortresses. On the way to Granger these massive table lands with their square outlines loom up against the grander background of the snowy Wahsatch range.
The first thirty miles out of Evanston we had an excellent road. There was a charming desert flower growing in the dusty road and alongside, white and somewhat like a single petaled water-lily. Its buds were pink, and it sprang from a whorl of leaves like those of a dandelion. Its fragrance was most delicate. There was also the lovely blue larkspur, and there were clusters of a brick-red flower which grew rather tall. Then there were clumps of something very like a dark scarlet clover. The fine mountain scenery, the fantastically carved buttes, sometimes like miniature canyons, the glorious air, all put us in delightful humour with ourselves and[Pg 165] the world. At the little town of Granger on the railroad line we met two young pedestrians who were walking on a wager from Kearney, Nebraska, to Seattle. They were to have $500. apiece if they reached Seattle by the first of August. Their yellow outing shirts bore the inscription, "Walking from Kearney, Nebraska, to Seattle." They told us they were able to make forty miles a day. When they reached Salt Lake City they were to have substantial new walking boots from the merchants at Kearney, the bargain being that at that point they were to return their worn boots to be exhibited in the shop windows of Kearney. They had been halted at Granger because of lack of money, having miscalculated their needs. They had just had a telegram from home, sending them money and assuring them of more help if they needed it. They looked strong and fit and were perfectly confident that they would win the wager. We also met two young motor-cyclists from Akron, Ohio, en route for the coast.
There were several eating places at Granger, but it was too early for luncheon, so we pressed on to Green River, a Union Pacific Railway town. From Granger to Green River the road was poorer and[Pg 166] more bumpy. Fine masses of rock and carved tableland rose on the horizon as we drove along. As we approached Green River a splendid red, yellow, and clay-colored mountain loomed on the horizon, which as we neared the town resolved itself into long lines of buttes back of the town. Teakettle Rock, an immense, isolated butte, rose to the left, and Castle Rock was just back of the town. The butte scenery both approaching and leaving Green River was very fine. The coloring was extremely rich; soft reds, yellows, browns, and clay colors. There were long lines of round buttresses and great concavities of rock, more like the famous Causses of southern France than anything I have ever seen.
We had luncheon at Green River in the spacious dining room of the Union Pacific Station, and felt ourselves quite in touch with the East to be eating in the same dining room with passengers of the long overland train.
Our drive from Green River to Rock Springs and from Rock Springs to Point of Rocks was through lonely, desert country. It was nearly six o'clock when we reached Point of Rocks, but the[Pg 167] sun was still high. Point of Rocks is simply a watering station for the trains and is marked only by a station house, a grocery, and a few little cottages. The young groceryman has fitted up the rooms over his grocery for passing travelers. We established ourselves in the front one, lighted by one little window. It was very clean, though very simply furnished. The floor was bare and our furniture consisted of a bed, a chair without a back, a tin wash basin resting upon the chair, a lamp, a pail of fresh water with a dipper, and a pail for waste water. We had two fresh towels and felt ourselves rich in comfort. Next door to the grocery was a little cottage where a woman cooked for the few railway operatives and for travelers. Our bacon was somewhat salty and our coffee a little weak, but our supper and breakfast tasted good for we had the sauce of hunger. We met there a young railway operative who had come from the East to this high, dry situation for the climate. He told us that when he first came, the change to the stillness and space of the plain from the busy city and from his life as a journalist was so great that he could not keep still. He said that he walked fifteen[Pg 168] miles a day, driven by some inner restlessness; but that he gradually became used to the quiet and now he loved it.
We had an evening talk in the grocery with a young commercial man, who said laughingly that these accommodations were somewhat different from the gorgeous Hotel St. Francis of San Francisco. We assured him that we did not mind simplicity and were deeply interested in seeing our country under all sorts of conditions. He was spending some hours of his time before the solitary train came through in persuading the groceryman to commit himself for a large bill of goods. The commercial man said sadly that never before in his ten years of travel had he seen business so uncertain.
The water at Point of Rocks comes from a thousand feet below the surface and has a slight sulphur taste.
We drove from Point of Rocks to Wamsutter, where we had luncheon. The road from Point of Rocks to Wamsutter is very rough and we were tormented by the plague of these roads of the plains; namely, gutters made across the roadway by running water in time of freshets. One has to be continually on guard for these runnels. Sometimes they are very deep. They give the machine a frightful jar and if one comes upon them suddenly they are likely to break an axle. One must possess one's self in patience and drive at a pace that will enable him to slow down quickly in coming on them. Chuck holes and these gutters across the road are the two chief difficulties of travel across the plains. However, many a backcountry[Pg 170] road of the Eastern States is just as uncomfortable for motor travelers.
On our way to Wamsutter we passed a fellow traveler, a gentleman from New York with his family. His son drove their car, a Pope Hartford, and they were seventeen days out from New York. They had ten days more in which to reach San Francisco if they were to help their friends win the wagers which had been made on the time of their trip across country. We assured them that they would be able to reach San Francisco in ten days, barring serious accidents, if only they would rise early and drive late, making ten hours a day.
Just outside of Point of Rocks we had come upon another and a humbler caravan. A man and his wife were encamped in a canvas-covered moving-wagon by the roadside, having found a patch of grass that promised forage for the horses. We stopped to talk with them and learned that they lived near Pueblo, Colorado. Having planted their crop they had come away on a prospecting tour into northern Wyoming to look up better farming country. They were now returning, traveling by day and camping by the roadside at night. They had[Pg 171] had what is called mountain fever, due they thought to the bites of mosquitoes.
They liked the Wyoming country they had seen, but deplored the heavy drinking. They told us of one man who had said that he did not mean to go into town on the Fourth of July. Everybody got drunk, said he, and he did not want to put himself in the way of temptation. They spoke of a lovely farming country in the midst of which was a little town where saloons were open all night and all day Sunday. They told us of one saloon keeper who had been hauling barrels of whiskey for days in preparation for his business of July 4th. He openly boasted that he meant to take in $3,000. on that day.
As we drive along, we constantly see the remains of former camps by the roadside. Old tin teakettles, pieces of worn-out campstools, piles of tin cans; these are mute and inglorious monuments to the bivouacs of other days. These immense Plateau States are very dependent upon canned foods, and all along tin cans mark the trail. We have many evidences, too, that we are in a sheep and cattle country. We pass the dried up carcasses of sheep[Pg 172] and the bones of cattle and of horses as they lie upon the desert near the road. Often the fleece of the sheep, dried and shrunken by wind and weather, sticks to the bones of the animal. It lies where it fell, only one of a vast herd, sick and dying, perhaps freezing in a blizzard. We asked one countryman what the sheep did in case of the fierce storms that sometimes sweep over the winter plains. "They just hump up and die," he replied. We saw many a shriveled carcass of some poor animal that had succumbed and fallen never to rise again. But so high are these plains and so dry is the atmosphere, that nature quickly shrivels these carcasses and they are not offensive as they would be in damp climates.
Out on the desert we waited for a long freight train to pass as it stood blocking the roadway. The train conductor came along and he and T. exchanged greetings. "It's good to see you," said the conductor; "you motor people are about the only signs of life we fellows see out here on the desert."
Coming into Wamsutter, and later coming toward Rawlins, we flushed numbers of grey-brown prairie chickens, almost as large as hens. They would fly up from the sage brush as the noise of our[Pg 173] machine came near. There were some large flocks of young birds. Between Rawlins and Laramie we met late in the afternoon a large caravan of movers. They looked foreign and were evidently in search of new farms and homes. They were drinking, and watering their tired horses at a small station on the railway. There were plenty of little children in the caravan. One woman dandled a tiny baby. A little farther on we came to a second and smaller camp. These people were traveling from Kansas to Washington. "There is good land there still that can be taken up by homesteaders, fine fruit lands," said they. One man had seen the land and was acting as guide for the others. Their wagons were drawn by horses and burros. The children were sweet, cheerful little people, but the whole party looked somewhat underfed. I would have liked to give them all the luxury of a hot bath in a big tub to be followed by a substantial supper. They had their water with them, having hauled it from the last point where water was to be had. They deplored the fact that they had camped before knowing of the Union Pacific Station a little farther on. Water is a precious thing in the desert. We have passed two places where signs read that[Pg 174] water could be had at the rate of five cents per beast and twenty-five cents a barrel. At the watering stations on the Union Pacific Railroad, the wells are the property of the Road. Before we came into Medicine Bow, we passed through a little mining town, high and bare on the summit of a ridge. Just outside the town was a bare little cemetery, the brown graves decorated with paper crosses and wreaths. An iron fence protected the cemetery, and outside its boundaries was an untidy litter of old wreaths and crosses which had been discarded and had been blown by the wind in tight heaps against the fence.
1. Road in Wyoming costing $50,000 per mile. 2.
Characteristic Sign on Lincoln Highway.
Ten miles beyond Medicine Bow the character of the country suddenly changed. We came from the grey and brown desert into fine rolling uplands dotted with the new homes of homesteaders and green with the precious water of irrigation. This was a country newly settled and bearing every mark of prosperity. At one point on the road we had great difficulty in getting through. A careless settler had allowed the water of his irrigating ditch to run out upon the road. It was with the greatest difficulty that we succeeded in getting through the mud. Only the help of some fellow motorists from San Francisco, who stopped to push the car while T. turned on its power, enabled us to get through. A few miles on we met the road commissioner who proudly called our attention to the work that was being done on the roads of his county. He told us that he was on his way to arrest and fine the careless homesteader who had flooded the road. After this fine stretch of fertile country we plunged once more into a long stretch of desert. It was here that I saw and welcomed the beautiful yucca that I had seen growing in California. I saw too in Wyoming quantities of cactus blooming in broad patches of color, usually buff.
All day we mounted one ridge after another, buttes to the left and to the right of us; driving through a vast country with practically no ranch houses and only isolated stations on the railroad for watering purposes.
As we approached Wamsutter a wonderful great tableland lay to the right of us, very high and with an immense level top. It was like a fortress with its buttresses and ramparts carved by nature. To the left was a butte that was like a side view of the Sphinx, an immense pyramid rising beside it. As we came into Wamsutter, we drove along a ridge[Pg 176] where the road had been laid to avoid a low marshy tract of land.
Red Desert Station, just before reaching Wamsutter, is well named, the buttes having wonderful color.
The day was hot, and it was a relief when the afternoon sun began to decline. We felt that we were dropping with it. But we were dropping toward the East while it was falling toward the West. In the afternoon, out on the great plain, we had crossed the Continental Divide. It had not been marked by any visible elevation of land above the surrounding country. All was open country, rolling and vast, and yet we had ascended the Western slope and were now going down to the Mississippi Valley.
We must soon begin to say farewell to the Plateau States. The long upward climb is practically over. We look forward with the streams to the Atlantic, leaving behind the water courses to the Pacific.
Shortly after crossing the Divide we came to a low head stone and a wooden cross at the left of the road, marking the grave of a man of thirty-five who died in 1900. It is a lone grave on this rolling[Pg 177] ridge, yet it is destined to be passed by many travelers in future years.
Some day the Divide will be marked upon the Lincoln Highway by a monument, and the traveler will have a satisfactory outward expression of the thoughts that fill his heart.
Rawlins was our halting place for the night. It is a pleasant town with wide streets and plenty of sunshine. The post office is a beautiful little building. We fraternized in Rawlins with fellow travelers, a lady and her son who were going on from Colorado Springs to Pasadena in a beautiful Stutz roadster.
In Rawlins as in most Western towns, we stayed at a hotel managed on the European plan and ate our meals in a nearby restaurant. It is always a surprise to me to see the number of people in the restaurants and cafeterias of the West. Even in small towns these places are crowded.
As we came into Rawlins we saw Elk Mountain rising nobly on the horizon beyond us. When we left Rawlins and traveled toward it, it grew more imposing.
Instead of going on to Arlington, directly under the shadow of Elk Mountain, we elected to turn off[Pg 178] to Medicine Bow, made famous by Owen Wister's book, "The Virginian." Elk Mountain rises 12000 feet, and Medicine Bow is 6500 feet, above sea level. It is only a railroad station, a tiny cluster of saloons, a still smaller cluster of shops, a big shearing shed, and a substantial stone hotel called The Virginian.
The landlady of The Virginian told us that their hotel is always full of guests.
It is a busy place. Here the woolmen come to trade and to export their wool, here the sheepmen bring their sheep for the annual shearing. Nearly sixty thousand sheep are shorn annually in the shearing shed, a few minutes' walk from the hotel. Here the plainsmen come from time to time to throw away in a few hours of drinking and gambling the money earned in months spent in the open.
We had an excellent substantial lunch at the hotel and then went over to see the shearing. How hot and uncomfortable the poor sheep looked in the waiting pen, with their heavy fleeces weighing them down! They stood panting in the sun, their broad backs making a thick rug, so tightly were they wedged in together. And how half ashamed they looked when they came out from the shearing, thin and bare![Pg 179]
In this establishment the shearing is all done by machinery. It takes a skillful man to run these rapidly clicking shears over the animal's body and make no serious wound. The overseer told us that in the case of an inexperienced man the sheep would "fight him all over the pen." The shearer reaches out his right hand and grasps one of the three or four sheep that have been pushed into a little compartment from the main pens. The beasts stand stupidly huddled together. The shearer takes one by its left hind leg, and by a skillful twist he throws it on its back and pulls it toward him. Then he yanks it into a sitting position with its back against his knees. Bending over it he takes off first the thick coat of wool on its under-body from throat to tail. It looks very easy, but only skill can guide the shears through that thick mass of wool, taking it off so cleanly and thoroughly, and yet leaving the pink skin unbroken.
Next come the fore legs, then the hind legs, then the wool is trimmed from around the eyes and from the top of the head. The workman moves very carefully here. Then the sheep is righted and the wool is cut from its back and sides. It is interesting to see how quietly the animal submits to it all.[Pg 180] Quickly it is all over and an attendant pushes the sheep through another aperture back into an outer pen. The men work very rapidly and a good shearer can easily handle one hundred sheep a day. Some expert shearers can handle nearly two hundred. These men are paid nine cents a head for their work.
It was a picturesque sight in the long, airy shed. Six men were handling their sheep, the clicking shears moving rapidly over the big animals. A boy gathered up the wool as fast as it dropped from the sheep. Later it would be sorted into its different grades. An important, happy sheep dog ran wildly about, eyes shining, tail wagging, his sharp nose lifted to his master's face. He seemed to be saying, "This is fine, master, but isn't there something that I could do at this moment?" The overseer stood at the end of the shed looking down the row of busy workers.
From Medicine Bow we came to Laramie, reaching there on the eve of the Fourth of July. Laramie boasts a good hotel which was crowded with people. Ranchmen had brought their families for the festivities of the Fourth. Tall cowboys lounged about, wearing their most ornamental tall boots, their best silk shirts, and brightest neckties. The streets in the evening were full of people, some on horseback, some walking. Confetti, those noise-makers known as "cluckers," and the miniature feather dusters called "ticklers," were all in evidence. Everybody was in good humour and in a mood of expectation.
1. Lincoln Highway Sign. 2. Lincoln Highway Sign in
Western Village. 3. Cowboys and Cowgirls in Laramie. 4. Sage Brush in
the Desert. 5. Last View of the Rockies leaving Colorado. 6. Movers'
Camp in Colorado.
The morning of the Fourth we drove out to the edge of the town to see the State University, a modest cluster of good buildings. Then we drove about the town to see the cowboys on their handsome horses, and the young women who accompanied them, riding easily astride. There was to be a morning exhibition of lassoing, racing, and other feats of skill and strength. We met many people riding and driving into town, all in holiday dress. But we pressed on Eastward.
We passed Red Buttes, having a grand view of the wonderfully colored Buttes off to the left. Masses of blue larkspur grew in the fields and alongside the Highway. We had left our beloved desert behind us and were in rolling grass and grain country. Near the Colorado line we turned toward the south to go to Denver, thereby missing the Ames Monument on the direct route to Cheyenne.[Pg 182] The mountains of Colorado now rose in the near distance; rocky peaks, pine clad and snowy. At this point we met some parties of travelers; a motor party from Lincoln, Nebraska, and another from Lexington, Kentucky. Both motor cars were going into Laramie for the celebration of the Fourth. The gentleman from Lexington, who was driving his wife and himself, had a beautiful Locomobile roadster, newly purchased in Chicago. His car had every modern equipment and convenience, and he was mightily proud of it. We all halted to enjoy the grand view of the country toward which they were moving and which we were leaving behind us. Miles of rolling, grassy country, clean and wind-swept, lay to the west. It was an inspiring prospect, and filled us all with a sense of exaltation. Said the Kentucky lady to me, "I felt as if everything bad in me was swept clear out of me when I first looked at this wonderful view." A third party of travelers came along from Cheyenne as we stood gazing. They had a unique outfit, a prairie schooner drawn by four burros abreast. The father and mother, several children, and a friend lived cheerfully in this moving house, making, they told us, about fifteen miles a day. When they were[Pg 183] short of funds, they encamped in some town and the men worked to replenish the treasury. They had their household food supplies neatly packed on shelves running along the sides of their canvas canopy.
"This is our home," said the husband and father. The children were gentle little creatures, but looked thin and underfed. All were bound for some unknown haven on the Pacific coast or in the Northwest. They felt sure that they would find rich farming country there still open to homesteaders.
What a contrast between the elegant Locomobile car and the humble prairie wagon, drawn by four shaggy burros, chosen because they could endure hardships! Our friends of the wagon allowed us to take their picture, and we parted with mutual good wishes.
We passed the Colorado State boundary marked by a very simple board sign, and came into a new country of rocks and hills. We came through a canyon where we found some movers encamped in a pleasant hollow by a mountain stream. Southward we moved, passing some fine rugged buttes to our left. We took luncheon at a pleasant farm house hotel, known as the Little Forks Hotel. Our[Pg 184] farmer host and hostess were very agreeable and gave us a refreshing meal. We left them to drive on through Fort Collins, a very pleasant town in the midst of alfalfa fields.
Just south of Fort Collins we turned to the right, drove across the plains and entered the mouth of the Big Thompson Canyon. We were en route for the famous tract of mountain meadow, of forest and canyon, known as Estes Park.
A long procession of motor cars was entering the park and another line of cars kept passing us. Many people were driving up the Canyon and many were leaving after a day spent in picnicking. For the most part the Canyon road ran very low and close to the bed of the brawling river. It was a most lovely road, winding and picturesque. Finally we came to the end of the Canyon and entered the green meadows which are at the beginning of the Park itself.
We were told that the hotels and camps were crowded, it being holiday time, and that we would do well to stop at the simple but comfortable ranch house located near by. We found ourselves comfortable indeed and were content to make the ranch house a base for our driving expeditions.[Pg 185]
We were on the beautiful Lord Dunraven Ranch, with its rich meadows admirably adapted for cattle grazing. Our host was the manager of the ranch, now largely owned by Mr. Stanley, the manufacturer of the Stanley Steamer. Farther up the valley was the beautiful Stanley Hotel.
I had thought that Estes Park was a smooth and shaven park region, not realizing that it was a vast mountain territory, with high mountain meadows overlooked by lofty peaks and diversified by tracts of mountain forest. There are scores of miles of driving and horseback riding in the Park, plenty of hotels and camps in wonderfully beautiful situations, and glorious fishing and mountain climbing. One may gaze at the mountains from great open meadows and camping sites from 8000 to 9000 feet above sea level. We lamented the fact that we had only a day in which to see Estes Park. We could have spent a week there in driving and walking about.
Colorado is rich in mountain scenery and in beautiful camping places for the lover of hills and streams, the pedestrian and the fisherman.
We came down from the high plateau of the Park by the canyon of the Little Thompson; a still more[Pg 186] precipitous road than that of the Big Thompson Canyon. Reaching Lyons, we turned toward Boulder, driving along with alfalfa meadows to the left and the foot hills of the Rockies to the right. Our undulating road was an excellent one.
We enjoyed the wide sky, the rich grassy plains stretching away to our left, with ranch houses marked here and there by clumps of cottonwood trees. We knew that this was irrigated country, reclaimed from what was once a wide desert. After a time we passed a wagon, canvas covered, drawn by two plodding horses. I thought the driver must be foreign, as he turned out to the left when we came up behind him, but he quickly recovered himself and turned right. We soon left him far behind us.
But suddenly there was a grinding sound. The machine halted and refused to move. We were stalled on the road and no amount of effort availed to move us. Something had gone seriously wrong. There was nothing for it but to push the machine to the side of the road, and wait patiently for the travelers in the covered wagon. We were six miles from Boulder, and evidently had a serious break in[Pg 187] the machine. Later it transpired that our gears were broken.
After a time the wagon came toiling along and its occupants most hospitably invited me to drive into Boulder with them. Two men, one elderly, the other young, were on the driver's seat. In the wagon were their two wives and a troop of little children, the family of the younger pair, and the grandchildren of the older pair. A happy collie dog climbed wildly about over the children. "He's the biggest kid in the wagon," said his master.
The party had been camping in a mountain canyon for their holiday and were now on their way home. The men and women were English, the older couple having been thirty-three years in this country. "I've dug coal for forty-five years," said the older man.
"Tell them you rode with one of the striking miners, one of the sixteen who was put in jail. Put that in your book," he said with a grim twinkle. (How did he know I was writing a book?)
"We're poor but we're gentlemen still. We wouldn't be slaves to Rockyfeller," said the younger man.[Pg 188]
A little later he asked for the jug of spring water, and for "the bottle." The women looked at me dubiously, and tried to quiet him. "Come now," he said laughing, "there's no use delayin' matters. Where's the bottle?" So with some embarrassment on the part of the women and much laughing on the part of the men a full whiskey bottle was produced. Each man had a nip of whiskey and a nip of cold water.
The children were merry little creatures, climbing over one another and playing with the dog. The youngest little girl slept peacefully, being tenderly watched by her mother and grandmother.
When we came into the wide streets of the university town of Boulder, I offered as delicately as possible to pay for my six mile lift. But they would have none of it. "No, no," said the younger man cordially, "we're glad to help anybody in trouble." So I hastened over to the candy shop and bought a box of the best chocolate candy for the children. My last sight of them as they drove out of town was of the little faces crowding happily around the box.
In Boulder we found The Boulderado a delightful place in which to lodge, and the Quality Cafeteria a place for admirably cooked food.[Pg 189]
We had several days to wait for our machine to be repaired, so we were free to enjoy Boulder and to take the interurban electric car for Denver. Boulder has a most picturesque situation, and is a town of delightful homes and of fine State University buildings. I saw at Boulder the same soft sunset colors, the same delicate blues, pinks, and greys that one sees in an Australian sunset.
Later we drove to Denver in our own car and were free to enjoy the drives about the city. "The Shirley" is a very well kept European hotel, and if one wishes to take one's food elsewhere there is "Sell's" with its delicious rolls and excellent coffee, tea, and chocolate; and there is the Hoff-Stauffer Cafeteria, presided over by a woman and offering excellently cooked food to hosts of people.
Every traveler should view the sunset from Cheesman Park in Denver. One can drive there easily over the fine streets of the city. Beside the pavilion, modeled on classic lines, one may sit in one's car and look off at one hundred and fifty miles of mountains, stretching from Pike's Peak on the south to Long's Peak on the north. It is a grand view and should be seen more than once to be fully appreciated. One may sit on the steps[Pg 190] of the fine Capitol building just a mile above sea level, and enjoy the same view.
Or one may take a famous mountain drive, winding up and up a stiff mountain road until one has reached the summit and can look down on miles of plains and on the city of Denver in the distance.
Leaving Denver in the afternoon, we drove to Boulder; from Boulder to Plattville and from Plattville due north to Greeley. All along to the left, between Plattville and Greeley, we had fine views of the whole line of mountains, and particularly of Long's Peak. Again we were impressed by the fertility of the Colorado alfalfa fields and by the rich green of its meadows. Greeley is a very attractive town with wide streets and with pretty homes set in green lawns. It is well shaded, stands high, and looks off to the noble line of mountains to the south. Early on July 15th we left Greeley, taking a last look at the glorious mountains to the south. We passed through fields upon fields of alfalfa and of grain. Great stacks of alfalfa everywhere dotted the country. The greenness of the land was[Pg 192] refreshing. Then we came into more rolling country, less cultivated. We were plainly in a new part of the country, in this northwest corner of the State. The houses were new, and often small. In some places new houses stood alongside the old ones, the earlier ones being made of tar paper and looking like little cigar boxes. Some houses had tents erected near them for use as barns. Some houses were made of sod. There were very few trees, most ranch houses looking bare and bald. We passed quantities of a beautiful blue flower, growing sometimes in great patches. Its bell-shaped flowers, sometimes rose, sometimes lavender, grew on tall green stalks. We also saw a beautiful starry white flower growing along the roadside. At Sterling we had a particularly good luncheon at the Southern Hotel on the main street. We exhorted our host and hostess to put out a Lincoln Highway sign, so that none should miss their excellent table.
We saw our old friends, the Matilija poppies, growing along the roadside as we went along in the hot afternoon. This was one of the hottest days of driving that we had in all our tour, and in it we made our longest run, two hundred and eight miles.[Pg 193] We took early supper at the Commercial Hotel at Julesburg. Not long after leaving Julesburg we came upon a flamboyant sign which announced that we were nineteen miles from Ogallala, Nebraska. The sign also informed us with particular emphasis that Ogallala was "a wet town." We had crossed the State line and had left behind us Colorado with its mountains, its green meadows, its wild yuccas, its Matilija poppies, and its dark masses of pine trees.
As we drove along in the dusky twilight, little owls kept flying low in front of our car, attracted by its lights. Sometimes a rabbit sat in the middle of the road, blinking and bewildered. We always gave him time to recover himself and leap into the shadows of the roadside. We had had another exquisite sunset with the same soft pastel shades that I had seen at Boulder. During the day we had seen many meadow larks, red-winged blackbirds, and doves. We had seen, too, many sparrow hawks, sitting silent on the fence posts, waiting for the approach of evening. In one place we saw a poor young meadow lark, hanging dead from a barbed wire fence. He had evidently in flying struck his throat full against one of the barbs and had hung[Pg 194] there, impaled to death. At Ogallala we found a very comfortable lodging house, The Hollingsworth, built over a garage. We had a good room there, although it was impossible to find a cool spot on that broiling night.
The next morning, as we took breakfast at a nearby restaurant, we learned that Ogallala had had a grand contest and had "gone dry" two weeks before. An enthusiastic gentleman who had taken part in the conflict told us that already the town was wonderfully changed. We congratulated him and urged him to see to it that the sign nineteen miles to the west heralded Ogallala as a dry town rather than a wet one.
The next day was cooler. The mountains had disappeared, and only wide rolling fields, sometimes as level as a floor, lay before us. We were crossing Nebraska. We came by a rather poor road, really a grassy trail, to North Platte, where we had luncheon at the Vienna Café. As we were driving along between Ogallala and North Platte, the grass growing high in the road tracks, we came suddenly upon a bevy of fat quail walking in the road. As they flew somewhat heavily, I felt sure that our wheel had struck some of them. So I went back to see.[Pg 195] Three of them lay dead in the road, having been unable to fly in time to avoid the wheels. The noise of our machine had been muffled by the fact that that we were driving over a grassy road and they had not heard us until we were on them. We were sorry indeed to have killed the beautiful little brown creatures. All through California and Colorado we had seen them, as they were constantly flying up in front of the machine and running off to cover. All along, the killdeer were darting about, calling loudly and piercingly.
Beyond North Platte we came upon a country house which had been pre-empted by a jolly house party of girls from town. They had put out some facetious signs: "Fried Chicken Wanted" and "Votes for Women." We stopped to call upon them and told them of our trip across the country, while they insisted upon serving us with cake and lemonade.
Late in the day we passed some groups of movers, their horses and cattle with them. We saw glorious fields of corn and of alfalfa, and we saw fields dotted with little mounds or cocks of wheat and of millet. Four miles before coming into Kearney, we passed the famous sign which[Pg 196] marks the distance half-way between San Francisco and Boston. We had seen a print of this sign, pointing 1,733 miles West to Frisco and East 1,733 miles to Boston, on the cover of our Lincoln Highway guide, issued by the Packard Motor Car Company. We stopped now to take a photograph of it. A woman living in a farmhouse across the road was much interested in our halt. She said that almost every motor party passing stopped to photograph the sign.
We heard from her of two young women who were walking from coast to coast, enjoying the country and its adventures. Somehow we missed them in making the detour from Laramie to Denver. We had seen their photographs on postcards which they were selling to help meet their expenses. They were sisters, and looked very striking and romantic in their walking dress. They wore broad-brimmed hats, loose blouses with rolling collars, and wide trousers, tucked into high laced boots such as engineers wear. Each carried a small revolver at her belt. We were sorry to have missed seeing them against the picturesque background of the Wyoming plains.
At Kearney we had supper at "Jack's Place,"[Pg 197] and went on in the twilight to Minden, where we proposed stopping at "The Humphrey." We passed through long fields of corn and over lonely rolling prairies. The cornfields with their rows of tasseled stalks were like the dark, silent ranks of a waiting army, caped and hooded, standing motionless until marching orders came. The air was clear and fine, and the electric lights of Minden shone from afar with the brilliance of stars.
From Minden, we came by way of Campbell to Red Cloud, where we had luncheon at the Royal Hotel.
We had made this detour to Minden and Red Cloud in order to call upon a friend who is enthusiastic over his fine ranch near Red Cloud. Galloway cattle are his specialty, and he finds the rolling plains of southern Nebraska a fine place to breed them. From Red Cloud we came on in the afternoon through Blue Hill to Hastings, and through Hastings to Fremont. We were en route for Lincoln, where we hoped to spend the night. Between Minden and Red Cloud the country is very rolling, and sweeps away from the eye in great undulations. High on some of these ridges were fine silhouettes outlined against the sky: loaded[Pg 198] wagons bringing in the sheaves of grain; men standing high, feeding these sheaves to the insatiable maw of the threshing machine; a boy standing in the grain wagon as the thick yellow stream poured into it, leveling the grain with a spade; all these and many other pictures of the Idyl of Harvest. For two hundred miles of our run the smoke of the threshing machines rose in the clear sky.
Sometimes the fields were covered with stacks of wheat looking like great yellow bee-hives. Sometimes the wheat was in rounded mounds or cocks. Surely we were seeing the bread of a nation on these vast Nebraska plains.
Along the roadsides were quantities of "snow on the mountain," its delicate grey-green leaves edged with a pure white border. Across the fields the killdeer were flying, and calling in their shrill, clear notes, which always seem to breathe of the sea. They were not out of place, flying above these long billows of brown earth. The farmhouses were marked by clumps of cottonwood trees, and as we moved Eastward a few low evergreens began to appear.
Around Blue Hill the country is very fine, being a great plateau stretching off into illimitable distances.[Pg 199] As we climbed the hill to the little town we met a farmer in his wagon who had just despatched a bull snake, a thick, ugly-looking creature. We stopped to pass the time of day, and he told us that he came to Nebraska from Illinois in '79 in a covered wagon. He was enthusiastic over Nebraska.
We made another stop to watch at close range the operations of a threshing machine. It was a fine sight. Two yellow streams came from the spouts of the machine; a great stream of chaff which rapidly piled up in a yellow mountain, and another stream of the heavy grain, pouring thick and fast into a wagon. One of the men told us that they had threshed fourteen hundred bushels the day before, working fourteen hours in fine, clear weather.
Everywhere the lovely grey doves were flying. There were hundreds of young meadow larks, too, and great numbers of red-winged blackbirds. It was on the 17th of July that I saw brown thrushes for the first time. It is interesting to watch the movements of the birds as the machine approaches. The doves in the road fly promptly. They do not take chances on being struck by the car. The sparrows wait until the last moment and then[Pg 200] neatly save themselves. I often wondered how they could escape with so narrow a margin. We thought that the redheaded woodpeckers must be rather clumsy, as we saw a number of them that had been struck by other cars, and thrown just off the road.
It was impossible to reach Lincoln that night, so we stopped at a country inn some miles away. Rising early, we drove into Lincoln for breakfast. After a run about the city and a look at the buildings of the State University, we drove on toward Omaha. Unfortunately we attempted to take a cross-cut and found ourselves in an odd situation. We were driving down an unfrequented hill road, in an attempt to cut across to the main road, marked by white bands on the telephone poles. We suddenly found ourselves hanging high and dry above the ruts of the road. The rain had worn them so deep and the middle of the road had remained so hard and dry, that on the hillside we were literally astride the ridge in the middle of the road. This meant a long journey on foot to a farmhouse to borrow a spade and a pick. It also meant much hacking and digging away at the hard earth under the body of the machine to release the axles and[Pg 201] drop the wheels to the road. Finally it was accomplished. We picked up the farmer's children who had come out to see the rescue and drove down the long hill to the farmhouse. There we left our implements and our hearty thanks. How hopeless it seems when one is hung up on the road! And how blissful it is to bowl along freely once more! Still the doves flew about us by the hundred and the brown thrushes increased in number. We had more level country now, and it was only as we approached Omaha that it became hilly.
We left Omaha, after looking about the city, late in the afternoon and drove one hundred and eight miles to Carroll in Iowa. The first twenty miles out of Omaha the road was extremely poor and very dusty. The trees were much more numerous, black walnut, maple, ash, and catalpa being among them.
Just as we felt that one could find his way across Nevada by a trail of whiskey bottles so we began to feel that one could cross Iowa on a trail marked by dead fowls. I had never before seen so many chickens killed by motor cars. Perhaps the explanation lay in the fact that all along our one hundred and eight miles from Omaha to Carroll we passed numbers of farmers driving Ford cars. As[Pg 202] we approached Carroll, we came to a hill top from which we looked down on a valley of tasseled corn fields. It was exactly like looking down on an immense, shining green rug, with yellow tufts thrown up over its green surface. We saw but few orchards. This was a corn country.
Carroll is a pleasant little town, with fine street lamps, and with a green park around its Courthouse. We were surprised to find so good a hotel as Burke's Hotel in a small town. Its landlady and proprietor has recently made extensive improvements in it, and it is a place of vantage on the Highway. The country around Carroll is very fine, being rolling and beautifully cultivated.
We reached Carroll very late in the day and were obliged to take our supper at a restaurant near the hotel. We were interested in a party of four young people who were evidently out for a good time. The two young gentlemen, by a liberal use of twenty-five cent pieces, kept the mechanical piano pounding out music all through their meal. They were both guiltless of coats and waist-coats. We had seen all through the West men in all sorts of public assemblies, more or less formal, wearing only their shirts and trousers. So we had become somewhat[Pg 203] accustomed to what we called the shirt-waist habit.
Many customs of the West strike the eye of the Easterner with astonishment. This custom which permits men to be at ease in public places and in the presence of ladies without coat or waist-coat in hot weather; the custom which permits ladies to sit in church without their hats; these and others which belong to the free West, the Easterner has to become accustomed to and to take kindly. Several times in California, and in Nevada, when we asked a question we received the cheerful, if unconventional response, "You bet!" "Will you please bring me a glass of water?" "You bet!" "We're on the Lincoln Highway, are we not?" "You bet!" These somewhat startling responses simply indicated a most cheerful spirit and a hearty readiness to do you any favor possible.
Leaving Carroll, we come on through Ames, Jefferson, Marshalltown, and Belle Plain, into Cedar Rapids. Out from Carroll we have rather bumpy roads for some time. Then the road improves and is excellent from Ames on until we near Cedar Rapids. But all along work is being done on the roads and their improvement is a matter of[Pg 204] great local interest. We pass a point in Marshall County where they are working with a new machine for cutting down the road. I call it a dirt-eating machine. The commissioner is extremely proud of it, and calls our attention to the immense amount of work it can do, and to the huge mouthfuls of earth which it bites out from the bank, through which the wider road is to run. We are charmed with the lovely country around Marshalltown, and with the very beautiful country between Belle Plain and Cedar Rapids. We drive through the campus and past the buildings of the State Agricultural College at Ames as we come into the town.
We are passing beautiful farms. Here we see a group of splendid dappled grey Percheron draught horses, the pride of a stock-farm. There we pass reddish-yellow shocks of oats. The country is more wooded now. We see maples, oaks, ash, willows, and black walnuts. Here and there are yellow wild flowers, somewhat like black-eyed Susans. One thing we remark in all these Middle Western farms. There seem to be almost no flowers around the farm houses. An English farmhouse or a French farmhouse would have a riot of flowers growing all about and making a mass of color. We[Pg 205] miss this in our Western farms and wonder why it is that we see so little color. We see practically no orchards, and very few grape-vines. This is the country of wheat and oats. We have left the orchards and the vineyards far behind us in lovely California.
Cedar Rapids is a busy city with several hotels. Leaving the city on the morning of July 21st, we drive first through quite heavily wooded country. Then the view opens out and we are once more driving over beautiful, undulating country with rich crops of oats and corn. The perfume of the corn, standing tall and green, is delicious. When we pass through Mt. Vernon, we take a look at the buildings of Wesleyan College, which stands on a high ridge commanding a fine view. All the way to Clinton the country is attractive. After luncheon at the pleasant town of Clinton, we cross the broad Mississippi, looking up and down its green shores with delight. We are in Illinois now, and find Sterling and Dixon attractive towns on the Rock River, a stream dotted with green islands. The country is very open, with long stretches of prairie, green with standing corn or red-yellow with shocks of oats. We spend the night in De Kalb at a funny[Pg 206] old hotel, built, they tell us, by Mr. Glidden, the "barbed-wire king." The hotel is called "The Glidden." Its ceilings are twenty feet high and we feel ourselves to be in "a banquet hall deserted." From De Kalb we make a short detour into Chicago, returning to the Highway at Joliet.
Joliet is a smoky city, full of factories and busy with the world's work. It is late afternoon when we reach Joliet, and we drive on to Elkhart, where we put up at a beautiful hotel with every modern convenience. The Indiana roads are in excellent condition and take us through a lovely rolling country of oaks and beech forests, and of fields of grain breathing pastoral peace and prosperity.
All along through the Middle West we have been pleased to see the immense interest taken in the Lincoln Highway. Everywhere one sees the Lincoln Highway signs used in abundance on the streets through which the Highway passes. The telephone poles, the garages, and sometimes the shops, all are marked with the familiar red, white, and blue. They tell us of a Western town whose citizens were so anxious to have their town on the Highway that they of their own responsibility painted red, white, and blue signs on the telephone poles leading[Pg 207] into and through the town. Later they were reluctantly obliged to paint out these signs, as the Highway was not taken through their town.
The names of the farms in the Middle West are many of them very interesting; as "Rolling Prairie Farm," "Round Prairie Farm," "Burr Oak Valley Farm," "Hickory Grove Farm," and "Hill Brook Farm."
At the entrance to a farm in Illinois a farmer has nailed a shelf to a telephone pole near his gate, and on this shelf he has placed a small bust of Lincoln. I fancy this is a prophecy of many monuments that we shall see along the Lincoln Highway in days to come.
We come into Ohio through the pleasant town of Van Wert, and drive on through fields of corn and wheat to Lima; and here we leave the Lincoln Highway for the present. We are to make a detour into Logan County, and from there we plan to travel southeast into the Old Dominion.
We spend a number of days in Logan County, driving about over the hills and through the valleys. This, too, is rolling country. I know it well, for here I spent my childhood. I know these forests of oak and hickory, and these rich fields of corn[Pg 208] and wheat. I know the delicious scent of clover fields in the warm summer twilights. I recall the names that my girlhood friend and I used to give to the farmhouses as we drove about; "The Potato House," "The Dinner Bell House," "The Little Red House," and others. They are all there, and but little changed, although the people who live in them have probably changed.
We are told by a friend, who is a motor enthusiast, that she recently killed a turkey on the road. In all my motoring experience I have never seen a turkey, a guinea fowl or a duck, killed by a motor. But my friend tells me that they found it impossible to escape this particular turkey, as he refused to get out of the way.
We passed three little girls one day, all astride the same horse, driving the cows home from pasture. We asked them to stand while we took their picture. They were greatly distressed. "We have on our dirty clothes," said they. "Never mind," we said. "But our hair isn't combed!" they exclaimed. "Never mind," we said again. "You will look all right in the picture." And so they do.
The devices and pennants with which motorists advertise themselves and express their enjoyment[Pg 209] are very interesting. Some carry pennants with the names of the towns or the States from which they come. Others carry pennants with the names of all the principal towns which they have visited. Whole clusters of pennants are fastened about the car, and float gaily in the wind. Some carry a pennant across the rear of the tonneau, which reads, "Excuse my dust." Others carry a pennant in the same place which reads, "Thank you."
We infer that this must be by way of courtesy to those cars which turn out for them to pass and fly on ahead. We meet many tourists in the Middle West who have been for more or less extended tours in the States near their own.
We were sorry to leave the wooded hills and the green valleys of Logan County and press on to the southeast. Driving through Delaware, Ohio, we stopped to see the campus and fine buildings of Ohio Wesleyan University, and then came on by way of Columbus to Granville. Leaving Columbus we found the road very wet and heavy from the recent rains, which had fallen after a drought of many weeks. We lost our way in coming into Granville, and had to inquire directions at the house of a farmer. He was so kindly that we were moved to express to him a hope that he might some day have a motor. "Well, I don't begrudge 'em to nobody even if I can't have one myself," said he cheerfully.
We came into the broad main street of Granville,[Pg 211] the lights shining, the leaves of the maple trees glistening with the rain which had fallen earlier in the day. If ever there was a New England town in a Western State, Granville is that town. It was founded more than a hundred years ago by Connecticut people, and it bears the impress of its founders to-day. Its wide street, its old churches, its white houses with green shutters, its look of comfort and cleanliness, all are typically New England. We had a most comfortable night at the old fashioned Hotel Buxton, and drove up on the hill in the beautiful clear morning to see the buildings of Denison University. The University is very finely situated on a high ridge overlooking the wooded town, and commanding a fine view of the green valley beyond. There is a brick terrace on the hillside, with an ornamental sundial, where one may enjoy the rich champaign below. Back of the college buildings, which look out over the valley, the hill plunges down into a fine forest of beeches. The student at Granville has beautiful surroundings for his years of study. Emerson said that the mountains around an institution should be put in the college curriculum. Granville students certainly should include in their curriculum the beauty of[Pg 212] beech forests and the richness of the Ohio farming country.
From Granville on to Zanesville the country increases in charm. It is rich and fertile, gently rolling, diversified by fine beeches and elms. Here and there are plenteous corn fields. But Ohio farmhouses do not seem to cultivate more flowers than do the farmhouses of Iowa and Illinois. Reaching Zanesville we are greeted by a great sign suspended across the road above our heads. It reads, "Hello! Glad you came. Just drive carefully. Zanesville Motorcycle Club." In leaving we pass under a similar sign and find that it reads on its reverse side, "Thank you! Come again. Zanesville Motorcycle Club." We are on the old National Road now, and find it rather poor. It is uneven, and is rendered bumpy by the constant road bars. The country grows more hilly, and the towns are beginning to change character. Newark is an attractive little city, standing rather high. "Old Washington" has very old red brick houses, and St. Clairsville is an attractive old town. The towns remind one of the old Pennsylvania towns. The houses are built flush with the sidewalk just as one sees them in Pennsylvania. Many of the farmhouses are built of substantial[Pg 213] red brick, with white porches.
About nine miles from Wheeling, West Virginia, we come along a fine road to a most beautiful hilltop view. Prosperous farms and farmhouses are all about, the farmhouses standing high on the green, rounded tops of the hills. The National Road being under repair, we take a detour in order to reach Wheeling. A hospitable sign at the entrance to our roundabout road to the right reads, "This road open. Bellaire bids you welcome." We learn later that there are in this region what are called Ridge Roads and Valley Roads. We are entering Bellaire by a Ridge Road, and have fine views of hilltop farmhouses and barns, and of hilltop cornfields, all the way. We drop down a steep hill into Bellaire, turn north to Bridgeport, and from there turn east across the Ohio River into the city of Wheeling.
From Wheeling we drive on into Pennsylvania, through Washington, a hill city, to Uniontown. The whole country is hilly and we are constantly enjoying fine views. Around Uniontown many noble trees are dying. They tell us that this is the locust year, and that these trees are victims of the voracious insects. Beyond Uniontown we sweep up[Pg 214] a long hill, over a splendid road, to the Summit House. The hotel is closed, so we go on over the hills to a simpler hotel which is open all the year. This is the Chalk Hill House, and here we have true country comfort. For supper we have fried chicken, fried ham, fried hasty pudding, huckleberries, strawberry preserves, real maple syrup, water melon rind pickles, cookies, cake, apple sauce, flannel cakes, and coffee. This is Pennsylvania hospitality. Chalk Hill is 2100 feet above sea level, and we have fine mountain air. We learn that Braddock's troops in their famous march to the West passed only 500 yards back of where the Chalk Hill House now stands. We ask our fellow travelers at the inn about a very tall monument which we passed, between Washington and Uniontown, on a hilltop. It is eighty-five feet high, and bears the name of McCutcheon. We are told that Mr. McCutcheon's will directed that all his money should be spent in the erection of this monument to his memory. So there it stands.
Our route lies through Cumberland to Hagerstown, and from Hagerstown through Martinsburg to Winchester, Virginia. We are crossing the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, and coming into[Pg 215] Maryland on the northwest corner; passing through a small triangle of West Virginia, and entering Virginia by the northwest.
Not long after leaving Chalk Hill House we pass on the left the comparatively new monument which marks Braddock's grave. A beautiful bronze tablet on one side of the granite shaft reads: "This bronze tablet was erected and dedicated to the memory of Major-General Edward Braddock by the officers of his old regiment, the Coldstream Guards of England, October 15th, 1913." Another bronze tablet has been placed by the Braddock Memorial Park Association of Fayette County, Pennsylvania. There is also in bas relief a bust of Braddock in military dress. The great seals of the United States and of Great Britain adorn the shaft. The main inscription on the shaft reads:
Here lieth the remains of Major-General Edward Braddock who, in command of the 44th and 48th regiments of English regulars was mortally wounded in an engagement with the French and Indians under the command of Captain M. de Beaujeu at the battle of the Monongahela,[Pg 216] within ten miles of Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg, July 9, 1755.
He was borne back with the retreating army to the old orchard camp, about one-fourth of a mile west of this park, where he died July 13, 1755. Lieutenant Colonel George Washington read the burial service at the grave.
We are on historic ground all along here. A little farther down the road we pass a tablet on a roadside boulder, erected in 1913 by the Great Crossing Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, to mark the old "Nemacolin's trail," so named from the Delaware Indian guide for the Ohio Company. The tablet records that Washington passed this way in 1753, 1754, and 1755.
On the right of the road we pass a very old farmhouse of red brick, back of which in a swampy meadow is the site of the camp of Braddock's forces. We go down the cow lane to see the old camp, whose outlines are marked.
1. Braddock's Monument near Uniontown, Pa. 2. Old
Farmhouse near Braddock's Camp. 3. Historic Inn at Hancock, Md.
We are in a region of fine old stone bridges, and of beautiful orchard country, alternating with rolling hills covered with heavy forest. At Grantsville we pass the old Dorsey House, now called the Hotel Castleman. This used to be a hostel much frequented by the farmers. A small boy who is playing in the street and who is sojourning here for the summer gives us this information, and adds that at the Hotel Castleman you have "lots to eat, and plenty of it." We are sorry that it is not luncheon time so that we could put his statement to the test. Passing through Grantsville we cross the old Castleman Bridge, an immense single span of stone. Another fine old bridge with very solid buttresses spans Conococheague Creek.
After luncheon in Cumberland, we press east to Hagerstown. We are advised that we will find the road far better if we drive east to Hagerstown and then southwest to Winchester, instead of taking the direct southeast route to Winchester from Cumberland. We have an excellent road from Cumberland to Hagerstown, and find the rich orchard country very beautiful. Ten miles from Cumberland, we come upon a point of vantage from which we have a most lovely view. As we near the town of Hancock with its famous old inn the country is still more interesting. We look down on the[Pg 218] gleaming Potomac, winding through green fields and beautifully cultivated orchards. This is famous apple and peach country. Every year more of the virgin forest on the mountainside is cleared and planted to young apple and peach trees. The soil and the climate are most admirably adapted to the growing of fruit, and there are immense investments in these beautiful orchards. What a fair, fair country! After we pass Hancock we look down on the canal near which our road runs. A canal boat passes, the mules walking leisurely along the towpath. A boy stands at the helm looking out on the beautiful landscape of forest, orchard, and field. Clothes flap from the clothes-line on the boat. It is a fine life, we think, this gliding along so securely between green fields and orchards and clumps of forest.
Hagerstown is a pleasant town in which to spend the night. We enjoy walking about the streets and seeing some of the old houses. Even the main street of Hagerstown still has one fine old stone house, low and solid, painted yellow. It is the only residence left on the business street, its owner not yet having been tempted by its increased value to sell it.
1. "Moore House" at Yorktown, Va., where terms were drawn
up after the Surrender of Cornwallis. 2. Castleman Bridge, Md. 3. Old
Church Tower on Jamestown Island.
From Hagerstown there are fine shale roads in our drive south to Winchester. After passing through old Williamsport we cross the Potomac on a long bridge. All along these roads the motorist is annoyed by many toll gates at which he is halted to pay toll. These are the landmarks of other times and of old customs. These roads were originally built and maintained by private companies. They are fast being bought up by the State, and in a few years the toll gates will disappear. As we approach Winchester the country becomes more prosperous in appearance than it is around Martinsburg, West Virginia. Five miles from Winchester we pass two fine old red brick farm houses with white porches. We are at last in the Old Dominion, and look forward with high spirits to a tour among the Virginia towns and cities.
Winchester is a very old town, with a fascination that grows upon one. It is a simple little place, with a certain placidity and quiet that are very soothing. Here is the Winchester Inn with its wide porches and high ceilings. And here is Mrs. Nancy Cobles's private boarding-house, whose very appearance breathes of homelike comfort and Southern hospitality. The Winchester Inn announces[Pg 220] that it is "refurnished, refitted, reland-lorded."
In Winchester is the little old building used as a surveyor's office by young Washington when he was working for Lord Fairfax. Here is fine old Christ Church, endowed by Thomas, Lord Fairfax, whose ashes rest underneath the church.
In Winchester I begin to see very interesting and perfectly clear traces of old Colonial days. There are quaint old names on the grave stones; "Judith," "Mary Ann," "Parthenia." Here is the old English name of Fauntleroy. And here are old houses with fan-lights over the doors.
It is in Winchester, too, that I begin to sense the tragedy and awfulness of the Civil War, as traced by many a sad inscription on many a gravestone. Hundreds of Southern dead are sleeping in the Winchester cemeteries. There are monuments to many unknown dead. "Unknown dead from Winchester battlefield," "Unknown dead from Cedar Creek battlefield," and so on. There are monuments to "the brothers Ashby," and to "the Patton brothers." How young are the ages given on many of these stones! Nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine.[Pg 221]
Our most interesting call in Winchester is upon a lady who is the owner and manager of a farm of 8000 apple trees, 7000 of which she has set out herself within the past five years, "every tree in a dynamited hole, every tree pruned by a government expert." She tells us that all she knows of apple culture she has learned by a careful study of government pamphlets. Her orchard is about five miles from town, and she drives out daily from her pleasant home. She tells us that her apples are sent to Jersey City and there kept in cold storage. Late in the season she sells them, getting sometimes as high as $7.50 a barrel toward the end of the winter. As we talk with her we wonder why it is that more women do not go in for apple culture. Surely it is a delightful vocation, clean, healthful, invigorating, and profitable.
Our friend tells us laughingly that so far as her experience goes, negro servants are "still proving to their former owners that they are free." She relates an experience with a young negro maid, who after eight months of happy service with her, during which time she had the best of training, suddenly left her. She took a new position just across the street and for exactly the same wages as her old[Pg 222] situation had given her. When her former mistress asked her why it was that she was leaving, she giggled and said demurely, "I mus' do de bes' I kin fo' myse'f."
From Winchester we drive to Staunton over a fine road. From the fine country about Winchester, dotted with beautiful orchards, down through Harrisonburg in the midst of great grain and hay farms, we are passing through the famous Shenandoah Valley. We see it at a disadvantage, for the months of dry weather have burned the fields brown and dry and increased the dust of the roads. But it is beautiful still, a fair and prosperous farming country. We pass through Harrisonburg on court day, and the town is filled with farmers who make of this day a general market day.
As we approach Staunton we come again into orchard country. We have been passing through many miles of farms devoted to grain. On the left, as one enters Staunton, is Chilton Hall, standing high above the town. Chilton Hall, kept by a woman, is a fine new private house, transformed into a tourist hostel. It looks most attractive. We go on into Staunton as we wish to be in the heart of the town. We establish ourselves very comfortably[Pg 223] for a few days at "The Shenandoah," also kept by a woman. Here we have for a very moderate price a room with a private bath. We enjoy fresh milk and cream, home-made butter, jams, and jellies, and all the good things of a hospitable Virginia table. We visit the famous Mary Baldwin Seminary, an exquisitely kept institution. We also see the Episcopal Church school in its fine old building, Stuart Hall, and we walk past the Presbyterian manse where President Wilson was born. We visit the fine cemetery and read the sad inscriptions on the head stones. One, erected to a young officer of thirty years, reads, "Here lies a gallant soldier," and adds that he fell fighting "in the great battle of Manassas." In this cemetery there are 870 Southern dead whose names are given. There are also about 700 soldiers lying here, "not recorded by name." The inscription speaks of them as "unknown yet well known." There are quaint names of women on the old stones here, as in Winchester; "Johanah," and "Edmonia." And there are old English names; as Barclay, Warwick, Peyton, Prettyman, Eskridge, and Darrow.
During our stay in Staunton we take a day for a drive to the Natural Bridge. It is charming country[Pg 224] through which we drive, growing more broken and wooded as we go farther south. We find the road bumpy and dusty, but not at all impracticable. We have our luncheon with us, and after paying a somewhat exorbitant fee of one dollar apiece for entrance to the natural park which includes the Bridge scenery, we walk along the ravine beside the little river, to the mighty arch of the Bridge itself. It is a noble span of rock, of an enormous thickness, on so grand a scale that it is difficult to realize its height and width. We have our luncheon beside the stream in the forest, and drive back to Staunton. The wooded Virginia hills and the fields are beautiful in the afternoon sunlight.
In returning to Staunton we stop in Lexington to see the old cemetery where Stonewall Jackson lies buried, and where his statue looks out from a terrace over the open country. We also visit the very beautiful campus of the Washington and Lee University, and the hilltop situation of the famous Virginia Military Institute, where another statue of Jackson stands in commanding position. Were there time, one could linger for hours on the University campus and in the old Lexington cemetery.[Pg 225] I find a very interesting inscription on a simple stone, which reads thus:
Samuel Hays. In loving remembrance for faithful service; this stone is erected by the desire of his master. He was loved, honoured, and trusted, by three generations.
The buildings of Washington and Lee University are of classic type, and the whole campus with its fine trees and its many white porticoes gleaming through them, makes an impression that is best expressed by the old phrase, "classic shades." Some of our more modern universities impress one by their very architecture and atmosphere as being magnificently equipped institutions of business. Washington and Lee University has the old atmosphere of study and of the quiet, ordered life of the scholar. The Virginia Military Institute is particularly interesting to the traveler, because of the vault in its chapel crypt where rest the ashes of the Lee family. Here are buried Lighthorse Harry Lee, and his distinguished son General Robert E. Lee. And here there is a beautiful recumbent[Pg 226] statue of General Lee by Valentine; so realistic that the dead man seems to lie before one wrapped in marble sleep.
We are sorry to leave the hospitable "Shenandoah" when the time comes to go on to Charlottesville. We drive from Staunton out past the National Cemetery which stands on a hill overlooking the valley. We are soon to cross the ridge between the Shenandoah Valley and the other great valley known as Piedmont, the crossing point being at Rock Fish Gap. This is the historic point where the early settlers first saw and laid claim to the Shenandoah Valley in the name of the King of England.
The view from the top of the Gap, which is reached by a very easy climb, is strikingly beautiful. On one side is the Shenandoah Valley from which we have just come up, stretching far into the distance. On the other are the fertile rolling hills,[Pg 228] and the miles of green orchards, of the Piedmont section. Here is a view which shows us the smiling, fruitful Virginia of which we have dreamed. We descend from the Gap by a very fine new road, and shortly after we cross a bridge which is in the last stages, so far as traffic is concerned, of tottering decay. At each end of the old wooden structure there is a card posted by the county commissioners to the effect that they will not be responsible for the safety of travelers crossing the bridge. It strikes one as rather incongruous that they should warn people against using the bridge, save on their own responsibility, and yet offer no alternative. Just beyond Yancey Mills we pass an old, old farmhouse at whose gate there hangs an attractive sign,
We decide to go in for a cup of tea. It is a charming little place, kept by a woman of taste and arranged for parties to sup in passing by, or for a few people to make a short stay. We admire the simple, dainty furniture, the homelike little parlor, and the attractive dining-room. Everything is beautifully clean and we sigh that we cannot make a longer stay. They give us one of the best cups of tea that we have had in all our long journey. The[Pg 229] views about the place are charmingly pastoral, and we feel that with books and walks we could spend an idyllic fortnight here. Coming into Charlottesville we pass the fine campus of the University of Virginia.
Now comes a delightful week in old Charlottesville. To begin with, we insure our comfort by staying at a private boarding house on Jefferson street, where we have the delicious cooking that makes the tables of the old State famous. We find the boarding houses in Virginia to be very pleasant places indeed. We enjoy our Virginia table neighbors and we enjoy the homely comfort of these establishments. When we do not know the address of a boarding house we are accustomed, upon entering a town, to make inquiry at the best looking drug store. We have found this plan admirable, and are indebted for some very kindly and practical advice.
While in Charlottesville we drive about the country over the red clay roads which are so beautiful in the midst of the green meadows and orchards. This is the scenery that is so charmingly described by Mary Johnston in "Lewis Rand." Charlottesville is in the midst of a famous apple country,[Pg 230] where are grown most delicious wine saps. All along in our Virginia travels we have seen evidences of a bumper crop of apples. Never have I seen so many apple trees bowed to the ground with their rosy crop. Each tree is a bouquet in itself; and a whole orchard of these trees with their drooping sprays of apple-laden branches, many of them propped from the ground, is a charming sight. I wish for the brush of a painter to transfer all this color and form to an immortal canvas.
On a hill near Charlottesville we have a never-to-be-forgotten view. Across a little valley on another hilltop is Thomas Jefferson's "Monticello," or Little Mountain. Just in front lies the town of Charlottesville upon its many knolls. And on beyond, rank on rank, stretch 150 miles of the Blue Mountains. The hill on which we stand has a bald top and just below this is a fringe of beautiful young apple and peach orchards. The trees do well on these hills. Lower down is the Pantopps orchard, which once belonged to the Jefferson estate.
1. Conococheague Creek Bridge, Md. 2. "Edgehill," near
Charlottesville, Va. Old Home of Martha Jefferson Randolph. 3. "At the
Sign of the Green Teapot," near Yancey Mills, Va.
One day we drive, by virtue of an introduction, to "Edgehill," a fine old estate where lived Martha Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's daughter. We are only a short distance here from "Castle Hill," the old home of the Rives family and the present residence of the Princess Troubetskoy. Another day we drive, by a stiff hill road winding through the estate, to "Monticello." The trees on the lawn of "Monticello" are our special delight, as are the views from the hilltop plateau on which the house stands. From here Jefferson could see in the distant trees the tops of the buildings of the beloved University which he had founded. No wonder that it is on record that Thomas Jefferson spent 796 days in all at "Monticello" during his two terms as President! In a family cemetery on the hillside, not so very far from the hilltop lawn, rest the mortal remains of Thomas Jefferson. He sleeps with the members of his family about him, and on the plain shaft of Virginia granite are these words, which were written by Jefferson himself and were found among his papers:
"Here was Buried
Thomas Jefferson,
Author of the Declaration of American
Independence,
Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious
Freedom,
And Father of the University of Virginia."
[Pg 232]We spend some time at the University of Virginia, wandering about the campus, and admiring the old buildings of classic architecture. Every visitor should stand upon the terrace of the library, which commands a beautiful view of the quadrangle, flanked by long lines of professors' houses with classic white porticoes and enclosed at its further end by a hall of assembly. On the lawn of the quadrangle stands a statue of Homer. The bard is represented as sitting with his lyre in his hands while at his feet is a youth in the position of a rapt listener and learner.
As we wish to see as much of Virginia as possible we drive from Charlottesville to Culpeper, returning from Culpeper to Richmond. In leaving Charlottesville we drive past Keswick, a little settlement around which the country has been taken by many beautiful estates. Our route runs by Gordonsville and Orange through Madison Mills to Culpeper. Not far from Keswick we pass a sign at an attractive farm gate, which reads, "Cloverfields. Meals for tourists. Golf." We are sorry to be unable to test the hospitality of Cloverfields.
Although our road is more or less indifferent, we are passing through beautiful country. Around[Pg 233] Keswick the fields are beautifully kept, and the entrances to estates are marked by ivy-covered posts of yellow stone, rough hewn. Some of the houses are red brick with white pillars, others are of stucco. There are plenty of turkeys and chickens, and hounds, as everywhere else in Virginia. We begin to see clumps of pine trees from time to time. The oak trees of the forest are very large, many of them of noble height. The juniper trees are in blossom, their blue-green berries making them look as if they wore an exquisite blue-green veil. In Virginia, one is everywhere impressed by the richness and luxuriance of the foliage. All along the roadside banks are clumps of hazel bushes, heavy with clusters of nuts in their furry green coats. The chestnut trees are full of fruit. About a mile north of Gordonsville we pass a plain shaft of light pinkish-grey granite on the roadside bank at the left. The name Waddel is on the shaft and the following inscription:
Near this spot while yet primeval forest stood the church of the blind preacher James Waddel.
A devout man of God and a faithful minister of the Presbyterian Church.[Pg 234]
Born 1739—died 1805.
Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God.
From his sermon as narrated by William Wirt.
This country has just the charm that I should expect it to have from my reading about Virginia. Here are late-blooming honeysuckles in the hedges. Here are men drawing wagon loads of produce along the rather heavy clay highways to market. Sometimes they drive two horses tandem. The rear horse is saddled, and the driver rides him and so guides the team. Sometimes a heavy wagon is drawn by four horses, the driver astride the near horse in the rear. Sometimes we see farmers ploughing with three horses or mules, flocks of turkeys or chickens following in the wake of the plough and picking up the luscious morsels thrown up by the ploughshare. Sometimes we see fine Hereford cattle grazing in the fields. Then come the reddest of red pigs feeding contentedly in big fields of alfalfa. Once we pass a farmhouse with late-blooming yellow roses climbing over the stone posts at the farm entrance. Once we see a man ploughing[Pg 235] in the fields with a mare, her mule baby running by her side as she plods along. Near Madison Mills we cross the Rapidan river, a rushing, yellow stream. As we near Culpeper the wooded country opens out into a beautiful grazing region, the land rising and falling in long undulations. Here and there in the great fields are clumps of trees giving a park-like effect to the country. All this is very beautiful, and one's joy would be undimmed were it not for the traces of the great conflict of fifty years ago. We are coming now to the region of Cedar Mountain which is locally known as Slaughter Mountain. Here is the site of a bloody battle. The Confederates were intrenched in a position of vantage on Cedar Mountain and the Unionists were advancing across the fields and through the forest into a sort of basin below the mountain. It is quite easy to understand the heavy slaughter of the Union troops; for on both sides of the road, here and there in the fields, are stones marking the spots where certain officers and certain groups of men fell. Here is a stone near the road marking the spot where Colonel Winder of the 72nd Pennsylvania fell as he was advancing.
As we see these stones the present peace and[Pg 236] prosperity of these rolling grass lands is emphasized by the bloody background of the past.
We stay in Culpeper at the old railway hotel, "The Waverly." In the morning we drive about the rich country and are decided in our own minds that if we wished to come to Virginia for a great grazing establishment, this is the part of the country to which we should turn. We hear tales of one farm where the owner has made seven cuttings of alfalfa in the course of one year.
We make a hurried trip to the National Cemetery at Culpeper. 12,000 Union soldiers sleep in this cemetery; and Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania all have monuments to their dead. The granite pillar of Pennsylvania, with its bronze tablets, keystone shaped, is particularly fine. The noble inscription begins: "Pennsylvania remembers with solemn pride her heroic dead who here repose in known and unknown graves."
In leaving Culpeper we retrace our path as far as Gordonsville, and there turn toward Mechanicsville, on our way to Richmond. Again we come through alternations of open, rolling, exquisitely pastoral country and lush forest. Between Culpeper[Pg 237] and Madison Mills we notice particularly a little old red brick church set in the forest trees by the roadside. A tablet on the building tells us that this is "Crooked Run Baptist Church. Organized 1777, rebuilt 1910." Crooked Run, a swift, clay-red creek, hurries along through the forest near the church.
One thing that interests us in Virginia is the frequency of family cemeteries, quiet plots near the old farmhouses and mansions. Sometimes they are surrounded by low brick walls, over which the honeysuckle climbs. Sometimes they are open plots on a knoll in some field near the house. After we pass Gordonsville the fine road changes to a comparatively poor one and the open country with its park-like appearance gives way to long stretches of rich forest. There are many fine oaks and clumps of green pines. After passing Louisa we are more than ever in what seems to be back country, lonely and apparently sparsely settled. We drive over long stretches of old corduroy road, the planks now much rotted. Here and there is a comfortable looking negro cabin, and here and there a negro is clearing land. The soil looks very rich and fertile after it has been opened to the sun. At a somewhat[Pg 238] lonely point we come upon three little negro boys and tell them that we wish to take their pictures. I stand them in a row while T. gets his camera, assuring them that each boy is to have two pennies for standing quietly. They are somewhat awed by the occasion; and when T. produces a tripod and begins to pull out its long legs preparatory to getting a high stand for the camera, they are terrified. The face of the oldest one melts into tears, but we reassure him and the picture promises to be a success. We tell the proud mother of the oldest boy that we will surely send her a picture and we are glad to keep our promise later.
1. Three Young Virginians. 2. An Old Homestead on
Tidewater, Va.
Farther on we pass some forlorn looking negroes in a field, clearing the land. By the roadside sits the baby, a round little pickaninny in a rustic baby carriage made of a soap box on wooden wheels. We stop the car and ask if we may take the baby's picture. The older man looks very troubled and says, "I'm afraid not. You see I ain't got any money. I just got this heah land." We assure him that we don't want any money and will be only too happy to send some pictures of the baby if our photograph turns out well. But he is still dubious and troubled, and the baby's brother says, "The baby's mother ain't heah; we dursent do it when she ain't heah." Evidently they think that we mean to involve them in some financial obligation or to cast some sort of spell over little black baby, contentedly sucking her thumb. I don't like to be beaten, but we cannot stay to convince them that they are mistaken, so we say "Good-bye," and drive away. From time to time we pass patches of tobacco, very green and thrifty looking; but there is much uncleared land and there are long stretches of lonely country.
We reach Richmond at six o'clock and are so fortunate as to have the address of a charming boarding house on Franklin Street. Richmond has some excellent hotels; and she also has some very attractive pensions. "Where do you come from?" asks our hospitable hostess, as she shows us to our big, comfortable room. "From California," I respond, and create quite a sensation.
Richmond is worthy of a longer stay than we can possibly make this time. But we drive for a morning and enjoy all that we can of the old city. We go up to Monument Hill and have the fine view from there, looking down on the winding James and on the green fields of Chesterfield County and[Pg 240] Manchester beyond. We drive out to the National Cemetery where 6573 Union soldiers sleep, 5678 of them unknown. We go to Church Hill and see old St. John's Church, where Patrick Henry's pew in which he made his famous speech is marked with a brass plate and an inscription. We drive to the other end of the city and see the new part of Richmond with its wide streets and fine equestrian statues of General Lee and General Stuart. The old houses of the town, built of red brick and adorned with white porches, with pink crape myrtle blooming luxuriantly in their door yards, are particularly attractive to us.
But we must leave the old city and drive on fifty miles to Williamsburg. The road is sandy and somewhat muddy in shady spots, under the heavy forest foliage. Nine miles out from Richmond we pass through the village of Seven Pines, the region of the bloody battle of Seven Pines. All about are extensive forests of pine; and on the left, after we pass through the village, is a National Cemetery surrounded by a brick wall, just as are those of Richmond and Culpeper. This is a smaller cemetery, but there are rows and rows of little white headstones, marking the graves of the fallen.[Pg 241]
We drive for miles through the forest, the fine trees growing close to the road. There is a special fascination in driving through open forest. Here are willow oaks, live oaks, and green, green pines. Here is a heavy undergrowth of young dogwoods. And here by the roadside are persimmon trees, loaded with fruit. Wherever the land is cleared it is rich and fertile. As we come nearer to the sea the forest growth is heavier. Here and there are negroes working in neat little clearings or sitting on the whitewashed wooden porches of their tiny cabins.
We are in water-melon country and great wagon-loads of the fruit are being taken to the nearest station for export. All along the road we see the pink and green fragments of discarded fruit. People eat water-melons at this season as we eat oranges in the North. We can see the remains of many an open air banquet, by the roadside. We stop by one wagon-load and I ask a boy who is driving what a water-melon will cost. "Oh! fifteen cents." "We don't want such a big one," say I. "Can't you sell us a smaller one for ten cents?" "I reckon so." And he picks out a huge water-melon, and passes it over. As we drive along we cut out[Pg 242] cubic pieces of the pink delicacy. Never have we tasted such a water-melon. It has not been wilted by a long, hot train journey, but has just come from the field, and is fresh and delicious.
At Williamsburg we stay at the Colonial Inn, a most pleasant hostel, on old Duke of Glouchester Street. Williamsburg, known then as Middle Plantation, was the settlement to which the Jamestown settlers moved when they found Jamestown Island too damp and malarial for permanent occupancy. It is one of the most interesting Colonial towns in the United States. In Williamsburg I realize that many of our Virginia forefathers were Englishmen of the aristocratic class. The coats-of-arms on the old stones in the cemetery; the quiet elegance of the old parish church with its handsomely draped governor's pew—all the marks of early days' ceremonial are here. A service in Bruton Parish Church is an experience, and it is also an experience to see the communion plate of solid silver and the old prayer-book used in Colonial days. One can see for one's self the pages in the prayer-book where "King of kings" has been scored out and "Ruler of the universe" has been written in on the margin. In this prayer-book the prayer for[Pg 243] the king has been pasted over, a prayer for the president having been written on the paper covering the printed prayer. The parish register of the church has many interesting and amusing entries. In one entry twin slaves have been registered by their master as "Adam" and "Eve."
Miss Estelle Smith, a lady who lives in a most interesting old house on Palace Green, knows the history of Williamsburg thoroughly, and is a very charming guide. Miss Smith's house, where a few paying guests find gracious hospitality, is known as "Audrey House." It was this house that Mary Johnston used as the setting for her heroine, Audrey. On one window-pane of the "Audrey House" an unknown hand traced with a diamond long, long ago these words: "Nov. 23rd, 1796. O fatal day." On another pane there is a name and the date 1734. Miss Smith says that no member of her family knows what the fatal day was, away back in 1796. No tradition or record of that unhappiness has descended.
In Bruton church yard, I am interested to read on a family gravestone a special inscription to "Mammy Sarah, devoted servant of the family who died aged sixty years."[Pg 244]
The gallery of the old church is known as "Lord Dunsmore's Gallery." Lord Dunsmore retired here from the seats of the Burgesses on the floor below, shortly before the Revolution, not being in sympathy with their revolutionary attitude. Later the gallery was assigned to the students of William and Mary College, and its old railing is covered with their initials, cut deep into the wood.
One can read fine old names, and very great names, on the brass tablets which adorn many of the pews and many wall spaces in Bruton church. George Washington, Peyton Randolph, Patrick Henry, and many others. As we read them we feel that we are in a distinguished and patriotic company, silent and yet present.
It is pleasant to wander about the old streets of the village, shaded by gnarled mulberry trees and fine elms. Masses of pink crape myrtle embower some of the old houses, and waxen leaved magnolia trees shade the door yards. At one end of the village there is an interesting stone to mark the site of the old Capitol. We read that "Here Patrick Henry first kindled the flames of revolution by his resolutions and speech against the Stamp Act, May 29-30, 1765." "Here June 12, 1776, was adopted[Pg 245] by the convention the immortal work of George Mason, the Declaration of Rights and on June 29, 1776 the first written Constitution of a free and independent State ever framed."
We drive out past the shaded campus of William and Mary College and over eight miles of sandy road through the forest, to Jamestown Island. We cross a rickety rustic bridge over the saltwater stream which separates the island from the mainland. Driving across grassy fields we come to the present church, incorporating the old tower and surrounding with its brick walls the precious foundations of the early church. The present church is really a protection for these low, broken foundations which are railed off from the possible vandalism of tourists; and the repository of certain old tombs and of an ever increasing number of memorial tablets upon its brick walls. One tablet which pleases me much, reads:
In honour of Chanco
The Christian Indian boy
whose warnings saved
The Colony of Virginia from destruction
In the Massacre of 22 March, 1622.
[Pg 246]
Erected by the Society of Colonial
Dames of America in the State of Virginia.
Another interesting tablet reads:
To the glory of God
An in grateful remembrance of
The adventurers in England
and
Ancient Planters of Virginia
Who through evil report and loss of fortune
Through suffering and death
Maintained stout hearts
And laid the foundations of our country.
A fine statue of Captain John Smith stands on the greensward, near the church, looking out over the broad waters of the James. The Captain is represented in the dress of his day, his wide trousers tied with ribbons at the knee, his broad boot tops falling over in picturesque fashion. On the monument is a simple inscription, "Captain John Smith, governor of Virginia, 1608." A graceful statue of Pocahontas is to stand near that of Captain Smith, facing the water.
Not far from the church and in an open position[Pg 247] stands the tall, fine granite shaft which commemorates the first settlement. Its main inscription reads:
Jamestown
The first permanent colony
of the English people
The birthplace of Virginia
And of the United States
May 13, 1607.
Jamestown Island contains 1600 acres, and is some three miles long. It is owned by Mrs. Barney, who lives upon it and who conducts a farm on part of its acres. She and her husband generously gave the portion of the island containing the church yard to the Society for the Preservation of the Antiquities of Virginia. It is less than fifteen years since the restoration and care of the old Jamestown settlement site has been undertaken. Before that the graveyard was neglected and overgrown, the foundations of the old church were falling to pieces, and the whole place was utterly forlorn and forsaken.
From Williamsburg we drive on to Yorktown, now a small village. One short street, a few old[Pg 248] houses, a shop and a little inn or two are all that remain of Yorktown. No railroad reaches it, and it is therefore rather inaccessible to tourists. The village is most nobly situated on a high bluff overlooking the broad waters of the York River, which stretch away like a great bay. The Yorktown monument, quite as fine and imposing a shaft as the Jamestown one, stands high on the river bank in a striking and dramatic situation. We hear a pretty story of how the President of the United States came down with a party of gentlemen some months ago and walked about the village. No one recognized him save a young girl of fourteen who volunteered her services as a guide, took the party about and explained to them the points of interest. They remained with her nearly two hours. At the end of this time when they were bidding her farewell, she said, nodding to the President, "You are President Wilson, are you not?" We drive out from the village to an old farmhouse known as the "Moore House," where terms of capitulation were drawn up after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. We go into the room where the terms were made, and feel that we are really in the birthplace of our great nation.[Pg 249]
From Yorktown we cross by ferry to Gloucester County, for we purpose to see something of the famous section known as Tidewater Virginia. As Tidewater on Chesapeake Bay is a region where creeks and inlets make a thousand indentations in the coast, the ideal way to see it all would be by motor boat. But our purpose is to drive along the sandy roads and through the forests of Gloucester County for some thirty miles, until we reach the region of Mobjack Bay. As we drive along we pass many negroes, respectable looking people in comfortable buggies and light open wagons. Some are driving mules, and others have very good horses. We find that we must drive slowly, as many of the animals are afraid of our car. We pass old Abingdon Parish Church, and stop to read the names on the tombs with the coats-of-arms in the church yard. A little farther on we turn down a long lane and drive for a mile and a half through fields and trees. Then we come through a gate on to the green lawn of "Newstead," an old estate where they are good enough to take a few paying guests. Sheep and turkeys walk calmly about on the grass under the shade of noble oak trees. Before us are the blue waters of the Bay. We are on that particular arm[Pg 250] of Mobjack Bay known as the North River. Here is the enchanting region of which Thomas Dixon Jr., wrote some twelve years ago when he described his own home in a book called "The Life Worth Living." A long motor boat ride convinces us that Mr. Dixon's descriptions are not exaggerated. All along the river (which is really an arm of Chesapeake Bay) stand pleasant homes surrounded by green lawns and shaded by fine trees. It is so sheltered here that one has the advantages of the real country, as well as of the real sea.
The chestnut oak, the magnolia, the willow oak, the crape myrtle, the fig and the grape all flourish luxuriantly. The grass is thick and green; and yet sail boats and motor boats ride at anchor at private piers and your man can dredge your own oysters from your own oyster-bed just in front of your grass and flowers. The estate of which Mr. Dixon wrote so delightfully is only ten minutes by motor boat from "Newstead."
A mild climate, rich vegetation, fertile soil, birds and flowers and fruits, the best eating in the world, what more does Virginia need to make her a paradise on land and by sea? Only good roads, and[Pg 251] then the motorist will enjoy her rare charms as they have never yet been enjoyed.
We retrace our journey through the thick woods, past fine oaks and beeches to the Yorktown ferry. Crossing again to Yorktown we drive on to Old Point Comfort, taking a little time to visit the extensive buildings of the famous Hampton Institute. At Old Point Comfort we take the boat for Cape Charles City. It is our plan to drive straight up the Maryland Peninsula, having first spent the night in a comfortable little hotel at Cape Charles City.
It is a lovely September morning, clear and bright, as we drive north along bumpy roads, through beautiful forests of pine and oak. We are in Accomac County, Virginia, on the southern end of what is called the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia Peninsula. This seems to be a lonely country through which we are driving, somewhat sparsely settled. And yet between Cape Charles City and Pocomoke City there are twenty-seven prosperous banks, they tell us. And here in Accomac County is harvested five per cent. of the entire sweet potato crop of the United States. The climatic conditions[Pg 252] for fruits and vegetables are almost perfect on this peninsula, and the soil is extremely fertile. All this country is destined to be an immense peninsula garden. As we drive along we see great heaps of yellow sweet potatoes waiting to be packed away in barrels. We see long rows of baskets filled with scarlet tomatoes, stretching down the fields, alongside the denuded tomato plants. What glorious color it is! I should like to come here and paint a tomato field just after the fruit has been picked, the whole field marked by lines of color. First a row of green tomato plants, somewhat grey and dusty in the bright sun; then a row of baskets of scarlet fruit glowing in the sunshine; then a stretch of brown earth. Then another row of the grey-green plants and another row of baskets piled high with scarlet fruit; and so on across many acres of browns and greens and scarlets. We pass immense wagon-loads of tomatoes being hauled to the canneries and to the station. The fruit is placed in the wagon in double decker fashion; the first platform of baskets being surmounted by a second platform upon which the second rows of baskets rest. The wagons are drawn by sturdy mules, sometimes four strong. At Pocomoke City we have[Pg 253] an excellent luncheon at the little hotel. We have crossed the Maryland boundary, and our route is to lead us through Princess Ann and Salisbury off to the northeast to Easton. The country is less heavily wooded now, but the soil is of the same fertile quality, and the cultivated fields are beautiful to see. We are driving along the famous Eastern Shore, where many people have their country seats. The towns through which we are passing, from Cape Charles City clear along the peninsula, show their age. They belong to the days of early settlement.
At Easton we take a day or two to drive about the open country and see the charming country estates, the houses standing on the shores of creeks and inlets, and having the double charm of the country and the sea, just as they do in Tidewater Virginia. We drive out to "The Wilderness," the home of a Pittsburg gentleman. One approaches the old brick house through a long avenue of trees. The house faces on a green lawn which slopes to the waters of a broad stream, with glimpses in the distances of a wide bay. About the house there are broad fields with rich, fertile soil capable of high cultivation. Fine roads run all through the countryside[Pg 254] and there are charming places on the creeks and inlets, each commanding a beautiful water view. You may take your launch in the late afternoon if you are weary, and run about in sheltered water ways commanding fine views of pretty homes set in lovely lawns and trees. Or you may take a sail, venturing out from a small inlet to a wider bay, and so on into the great open water of the Chesapeake.
I know a green lawn on a certain inlet, shaded by luxuriant oak trees, where the sound of bells comes across the water from the village spires of an historic old village. The family boat is just behind the house, rocking gently on the waters of a little stream, which runs up from the larger stream into the mainland. The situation is ideal.
We drive about Talbot County and on into Princess Ann County. Everywhere we find the same fertile, level fields, the same water ways with their lovely glimpses of broader water beyond. Where could one wish for a better luncheon than the one served us at an unpretentious little inn called Queen Cottage, in the old village of Queenstown? Delicious oyster soup, the oysters just out of the water, an omelet that would have done justice to a[Pg 255] French chef, candied sweet potatoes cooked as only a Southern cook knows how, fresh peas, hot biscuits, excellent coffee, and the pink heart of a cool, unwilted water-melon; and all for a most reasonable sum. Queen Cottage would be a sweet spot in which to spend a little time of retreat, bountifully fed and free to wander about quiet streets and fertile open country.
We pass, in driving about, the largest oak tree in the county, standing in the door yard of a country place, and carefully preserved and watched over. Perhaps I should say watched under, as it is an immense green tent of huge spreading branches, each one a tree in itself in its girth and diameter.
From Easton we drive north and northwest to Wilmington over fine roads. The State of Maryland is improving her roads and will in a few years have highways that will be among the finest in the country, while her scenery is that of a smiling country becoming more and more cultivated. On from Wilmington to Philadelphia and from Philadelphia out to Byrn Mawr; and from the parked and shaded beauty of Byrn Mawr over the rolling farming country of Pennsylvania with its beautiful cultivation and its substantial stone farmhouses, up[Pg 256] through Trenton and Newark and across the ferry to New York. We are once more on the Lincoln Highway as we travel northeast from Philadelphia. It is a joy to travel again by the familiar red, white, and blue signs. We know the pleasant open country of New Jersey through which the noble Highway runs for these last miles, and are at last At Home.
The Lincoln Highway is destined to be a much-traveled road. Already the motorists of the West are turning the hoods of their motor cars to face the East and the motorists of the East are starting Westward. Happy is the man who has his hotel or inn situated on the road marked by the red, white, and blue. The traveler is bound to come his way, and the traveler is bound to alight at his door if only he has something to offer that is worthy of the name of hospitality. But he can no longer afford to be careless. There is an unwritten rule of the open road which reads that the traveler shall tell his fellow traveler of places at which to halt and of places to avoid. It is inevitable that in the course of a short time the slovenly and careless inn-keeper must be supplanted by a better man.[Pg 258]
The tourist does not enjoy looking out of his hotel window on piles of old tin cans and heaps of barrel staves and discarded packing boxes. Nor does he enjoy looking at mounds of ashes, and quantities of vegetable parings. He will not long endure a soiled table cloth, horrible green tea, and indifferently cooked food. Nor will he endure a lack of hot water and utterly careless sanitary arrangements. He may say little about them to the landlord who entertains his party, but he will very soon see to it that better inns take the place of the old ones of careless and indifferent management. The hotel keeper congratulates himself that his open door looks out on the Lincoln Highway, and that his own sign proudly bears the three distinguishing bars of red, white, and blue. He must have more than this to make his inn a success. It is surprising how fast the news of a clean, well kept inn, with excellently cooked food, travels from mouth to mouth.
In France there is a roll of honour for inn-keepers under the direction, if I mistake not, of the Touring Club of France. Only those inn-keepers whose houses and whose tables attain a certain standard, not of style but of simple cleanliness and[Pg 259] of wholesome excellence of food, are admitted to this company. I have seen the certificate of the roll of honour hanging on the walls of more than one country inn in France.
It is to the credit of the many places in which we halted for the night that in only one did we find conditions impossible. We slept in a rather indifferent bed-chamber, having reached the inn late. But when we saw the dining-room the following morning, we paid our bill and fled; driving on twenty miles farther for a late breakfast. Surely the average commercial man of the United States who travels in country districts year in and year out must have a charméd digestion and an iron-clad constitution. He may well rejoice that the days of motoring have come, for with the motorist is coming not only the broad Highway, but the clean and comfortable inn. Not necessarily the fashionable hotel, with its expensive and extravagant accessories; but the clean, immaculately kept country inn, with its excellent cooking of the abundant food in which our country is so rich. Perhaps we shall need to import some Swiss inn-keeper to tell us how to do it. Whether we do or do not, the man who knows how and the man who is willing to live[Pg 260] up to his knowledge will inevitably displace the inn-keeper who is careless and indifferent. The biggest bid for a motor tourist is a clean bed-chamber, a comfortable bed, and a well cooked though simple dinner.
If I were crossing the Lincoln Highway again I should take with me a spirit lamp, a little sauce pan, some boxes of biscuits, some excellent tea, some cocoa and other supplies. Not that this is a necessity. But it would be very pleasant to have a luncheon or a cup of afternoon tea al fresco, now and then.
For our own comfort and convenience we laid down for ourselves certain rules of the road.
First: We did not wear our good clothes. The long, dusty journeys are very hard upon clothing, and for a lady a comfortable light weight tweed suit with plenty of washable blouses with rolling collars, covered by an ample motor coat, gives the greatest comfort and satisfaction. The dust of the plains is ground into one's clothing and one should be ready for this. The requirements of the hotels along the road are very simple, and a fresh blouse will usually be all that is needed. We took care to use only such dust robes to cover our luggage as could not be injured by the wear and tear of the[Pg 261] journey. We did not take with us our best rugs and robes.
Second: We did not travel by night. We found it very delightful to travel in the late afternoon, when the lights were particularly fine, but we avoided as much as possible traveling late into the evening. In this way one does not miss the scenery of the country, and one is not over fatigued. We found that when we were obliged to arrive late at our inn, it was wiser to eat supper at the proper supper hour wherever that might find us.
Third: We did not as a rule travel on Sunday. Partly because we wished to attend church in whatever town we might be, partly because we found ourselves fresher for enjoyment and sight-seeing after the rest and quiet of a day.
Fourth: We resolved at the outset to take the days and the roads as they came; not looking for luxury and well satisfied with simplicity. It is surprising how one is fortified for the vicissitudes of the road by such a deliberate attitude of mind.
The Lincoln Highway is not as yet a road for those motorists who wish only luxurious hotels, frequent stops, and all the cushioned comfort of the much-traveled main roads of the favorite tourist[Pg 262] parts of Europe. It is, however, perfectly practicable in its entire length of 3200 miles, and rich in interest and charm for those who care for what it has to give.
We drove a Studebaker car as far as Denver and a Franklin car from Denver to New York. In all the distance traversed we were not conscious of braving any dangers or of taking any particular risks.