# A La California/Chapter 8

NAPA VALLEY AND MT. ST. HELENA.
From San Francisco to Vallejo.—What we Saw while Crossing the Bay of San Pablo.—The Valley of Napa.—A Moonlight Evening in the Mountains.—Calistoga by Moonlight and Sunlight.—The Baths.—Hot Chicken-Soup Spring.—The Petrified Forest of Calistoga.—The Great Ranch and Vineyards.—Ascent of Mount St. Helena.—What we Saw from the Summit.—Reminiscences of the Flood.—Story of the Judge and the Stranger.—"Presently, sir, presently!"—Good Joke on the Robbers.—What happened to Me in Arizona.—A Good Story, but too Appreciative an Audience.
A soft September afternoon; cloudless, warm, quiet, hardly a breath or breeze to ruffle the Bay of San Francisco. The summer winds, the curse of San Francisco, have died out, and one can enjoy life once more in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis of the Pacific. Brown, and looking as old as the hills on which she stands, is San Francisco, the wonderful city of a day, in her russet coat of summer dust, as we look back at her from the steamer's deck. Straw color, mauve, and ashes of roses, are the tints displayed by all the mountains around the Bay, save old Tamalpais, who, clad in royal purple, looks grandly down upon us on the westward as our steamer glides swiftly past frowning Alcatraz, Angel Island and the Red Rock, the Dos Hermanos and the Dos Hermanas (Two Brothers and Two Sisters, ​curious round rocks rising from the bosom of the Bay), and glide into the Bay of San Pablo, with the pretty old town of San Pablo peeping out from beneath the evergreen live oaks, and exotic shade trees, on the Contra Costa shore on the right, and San Ouentin, with its gloomy State Prison, on the Marin county shore on the left; and beyond, nestled in a little valley away up under the dark shadow of Tamalpais, the picturesque village of San Rafael, a noted health-resort for San Franciscans. Through the Bay of San Pablo, past Mare Island, with its navy- yard and barracks, our steamer moves, and turning abruptly northward, just as we catch a glimpse of the straits of Carquinez, opening eastward towards Martinez and Benicia, rounds to at the railroad wharf at Vallejo, some thirty miles from San Francisco. We saw two schools of porpoises playing in the waters of San Pablo Bay; thousands of pelicans and shags crowding the rocks at the Dos Hermanos, a number of huge fish, sturgeon or salmon, or both, leaping bodily out of the smooth waters; and a remarkably pretty girl, Spanish- American we judge, among the numerous passengers upon the steamer, as we came along. Masculine and human, we paid comparatively little attention to the birds and fishes.
Vallejo, a large, straggling, ambitious village, standing where a city, like one of those which cluster around New York, may stand years hence, claims and receives but a passing glance, and we are on board the cars, gliding swiftly northward, out of the reach of the cool ocean breezes, and into one of the fairest valleys ​that ever the sun shone on, Napa. At the lower end of this valley we pass through the thriving, prosperous-looking, young city of Napa, with its grain warehouses on the banks of a navigable creek, and vessels' masts showing over the housetops, as in Chicago. The streets are wide, and the houses, which have a neat and homelike Eastern air, are surrounded with blooming gardens and orchards, laden with red and golden fruit, and vines borne down to the very earth with luscious white, flame-colored, and purple grapes. Napa looks an attractive place for a quiet home, and such its people consider it.
The sun has gone down in the purple west, and the full, round autumn moon climbs the Eastern horizon as we glide away northwards through the valley of Napa. The still, pure air is illuminated by the rays of the moon to an extent hardly to be credited in less favored lands beyond the Rocky Mountains; and trees, rocks, houses, vineyards, orchards and shadowy mountains stand out clear and distinct; every object within a range of many miles is seen almost as if by daylight. The valley is one wide, yellow stubble-field, only broken by patches of vineyard, long banks of grain in sacks, piled up in the fields, and left uncovered for months with perfect impunity in this rainless season; huge stacks of straw and hay, pressed into bales for the, market, and white farm-houses, many of them very costly, indicating the possession of wealth and taste by their proprietors. At intervals we pass through natural parks, where the mighty live-oaks are scattered through the whole broad valley, like apple trees in an ​orchard. The mountains on either side of the valley grow more abrupt and rugged as we advance northwards. The deep green chemisal covers their sides, save where they are patched with vineyards, or the white lavatic rock beneath is laid bare by long, winding wagon-roads and bridle-trails, leading over them into minor valleys beyond.
By our faith, it is a glorious land.
Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see What Heaven has done for this delicious land! What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree— What glorious prospects o'er the hills expand!
We gaze upon the swiftly-passing panorama for an hour in silence, and then to turn our companion on the next seat.
"Charley, did you ever see anything more beautiful in your life?"
"Beautiful! magnificent! gorgeous! sublime! Our language has no fitting terms for it. Why her eyes would have driven Mohammed mad—her teeth are bands of pearls, and her blue-black hair would shame-"
'Twas ever thus! We might have known it from the start. That Spanish girl has set him as mad as a March hare. Well, well, we too were young once; and come to think of it to-night, it don't seem such a very long time ago either.
The bell has been rung, and the name of the station called for the last time, and a long-drawn, exultant whistle from the locomotive startles Charley at last from his dream of Paradise and "the black-eyed girls in green," as it announces our arrival at Calistoga. ​Declining the proffered carriage, we walk down a wide avenue into the hotel grounds, see rows of neat cottages stretching away on either hand, with families and groups lounging on the piazzas, telling stories, singing, and mayhap love-making in the moonlight—enter the hotel, dine sumptuously—washing down our broiled chicken, trout and quail with the rich, fruity red wine of Calistoga; and finally, well pleased with the world, ourselves, and mankind in general, retire to our cottage, disrobe, draw the drapery of our couch around us, and lie down to pleasant dreams.
MOUNT ST HELENA, FROM CALISTOGA.
​are here provided for by nature—only the houses for hiding the bathers from general observation being a work of art. Centuries ago, the unlettered Indians of the Pacific coast were accustomed to resort here to soak away rheumatism and the many ills which aboriginal flesh is heir to, by wallowing in the hot, black, sulphurous mud, which boiled and bubbled like the witches' broth in infernal cauldrons. Wide grain fields, trim vineyards, and tea plantations spread away in all directions from the hamlet which surrounds the hotel. The proprietor of all this magnificent—I may say princely—estate of Calistoga, is Samuel Brannan, one of the most enterprising of the early business men of the Pacific coast. He has recently disposed of all his productive property in the heart of San Francisco, and come here to make his homeland devote the autumn of life to building up as a monument of his energy, taste and public spirit, the great health and pleasure resort of California. The soil is wonderfully productive; the air in autumn, winter, and early spring pure and bracing; in summer tropical; the mountains round about are filled with attractions for the tourist and pleasure-seeker, and altogether Calistoga is one of the pet institutions of California. Just across the way from the hotel piazza is a little house, enclosing a spring of peculiar character. The water is clear as crystal, scalding hot, and impregnated with mineral substances of wonderfully health-restoring properties. A dash of salt and pepper causes a bowl of it to become, so far as sight, taste and smell can distinguish, the exact counterpart of fresh chicken broth. Many ​an invalid has swallowed a bowlful of it with keen relish, and then learned with indignant surprise that the soup was cooked in the reeking kitchen of his Satanic Majesty down deep in the bowels of the earth, and was as innocent of any contact with even the shadow of terrestrial chicken as any you could obtain at the best hotel in Saratoga, or the most fashionable boarding-house in New York. An iron pipe has been driven down deep into the earth at this point, and on letting down some fresh eggs in an open-work wire cage through the tube, you can have them hard boiled in Nature's kettle inside of three minutes.
In front of the hotel stands a curious rude grotto or summer-house, apparently composed wholly of short sections of tree-trunks, unhewn and rough, placed endwise one upon another. A closer inspection reveals the fact that the trees from which these sections were broken were of solid stone. Ages and ages ago there stood upon the summit of one of the mountain ridges on the west of the valley, some seven miles from the present site of Calistoga, a grove of great redwood trees, which, by some process of nature, became changed into stone, more enduring and permanent than the "everlasting hills" themselves. For years the fact of the existence of this phenomenon was unknown to the residents of the vicinity, the thick chapparal effectually hiding the fallen trunks from view. In 1870, one of the terribly destructive fires which sweep over the mountains of California and Oregon year after year, laid bare the summit of this hill range, and the ground was found strewn ​with the petrified trunks of giant trees, at intervals for several miles. This locality is now the subject of much curious investigation, and the origin of the "Petrified Forest of Calistoga" has been speculated upon learnedly by many scientists. The wood retains its grain perfectly, no difficulty being found in counting the consecutive rings supposed to indicate the years of growth of each fallen giant of the forest. The color is a whitey-brown, and there are occasional layers of clear white quartz in small crystals, apparently the result of water deposits. Evidences of remote volcanic action abound in the vicinity, the whole surface of the ground being composed, in fact, of tufa, ashes, and coarse, broken sandstone, mixed with metamorphic rock, ascribed to the cretaceous age, and indicating disturbance by severe earthquakes or volcanic convulsions of a comparatively recent date. None of the trees are perfect—only the trunks and main roots appearing to have been petrified—and all are lying flat upon the ground, or half buried in it, scattered and broken, as if blown down by a sudden gale or whirlwind. Some of the trunks are from fifty to seventy-five feet in length, and nearly perfect, and others mere stumps and fragments, from ten to thirty feet long. Tourists visit the locality almost daily, and sample the trees so freely that a few years will suffice to obliterate all traces of the now famous grove. The stone takes a fine polish, and is much prized for seal-rings and jewelry.
Professor Marsh, of Yale College, who examined the petrifaction, on the ground, in 1870, came to the ​conclusion that the trees had first been overthrown by earthquake force, and buried beneath the debris from some ancient eruption of Mount St. Helena, the summit of which is fully ten miles distant in a northeastern direction on the other side of the valley; then petrified by the action of acids contained in these volcanic deposits, and in the lapse of time again uncovered by the wearing away of the overlaying tufa by the action of the rains and storms. There are grave difficulties in the way of the acceptance of this theory. The locality is situated at an elevation of not less than 2,000 feet above the sea, and from 1,000 to 1,200 feet above the valley which intervenes between these hills and the mountain from whence the volcanic matter is supposed to have come.
I hazard a purely unprofessional and gratuitous suggestion, that the trees were gradually petrified while they were yet upright and living, through the slow absorption at the roots of silic acid, which exuded from the rocks beneath and impregnated the soil around them. As the process of petrifaction progressed and extended upwards, the trees became top-heavy, and fell over from their own weight, the roots having become too brittle through decay or petrifaction to assist in sustaining them in their natural erect position. The fact that the roots and lower parts of the trunks only were petrified—no fragments of the boughs are to be found—strengthens this last hypothesis. However, there is nothing on earth so cheap as theories—certainly nothing more worthless—and the reader can take his choice, or reject them all and ​form one of his own, if he pleases. On the whole, it is quite likely that he or she will get along just as well without any theory whatever—the petrified trees are there anyhow—and in doing so, save himself and mankind generally a world of trouble. I have observed in my capacity as a journalist, that the detective or other officer who forms a theory in regard to the perpetration of a crime, invariably warps all the facts to accommodate them to that theory, and in nine cases out of ten ends by going wide of the truth, and having-the mortification of seeing some dull-headed, non-theorizing plodder carry off the reward for the discovery of the criminal. As a rule, what is cheap is not worth having at any price, and the mere fact that a theory on any subject costs nothing at the start, is rather against it than otherwise. I used to have theories on politics and religion and social economy years ago, but I found that they kept me in hot water all the time, so I discarded them all, and have had abundant reason to thank a merciful Providence for having done so. As a rule, theories don't pay. It is true there are exceptions. I once knew a famous southern journalist who retired from the pursuit of his profession, and settled down as a theoretical and practical sheep-raiser, in Coural county, Texas. He had a theory. It was, that the sure road to fortune—for others—lay in buying blooded sheep for improving the native breed. He succeeded in convincing his fellow-citizens of the Lone Star State of the truth of this theory, and became rich by selling them the sheep at round prices. But you will readily observe ​that he ran his theory, instead of following the usual custom, and allowing his theory to run him. Most people are run by their theories, and fail. Having never been able to sell my theories to others, and being determined not to buy any, or keep any on hand, I have retired from the theory business entirely, and do not propose to go back to it.
The road leading up to the Petrified Forest from Calistoga is a romantic and beautiful one, and the trip on a pleasant morning or evening in the early springtime, when the hills are clad in vivid green, and the manzanita and the madrono are in blossom, loading all the air with their sensuous fragrance, is one to be enjoyed to the utmost, and ever after remembered with pleasure.
"There is no beauty in star or blossom
Till looked upon with a loving eye;
There is no fragrance in spring-time breezes
Till breathed with joy as they wander by."
Beautiful for aye to me are the stars which look down in their glory on this valley and these mountains; more fragrant than the winds from the sweet south, which have passed over "the Gardens of Gul in their bloom," are the soft breezes which I have here breathed with a tender joy unutterable. A two- mile ride through the fertile valley takes one to the foot of Mount St. Helena, and a winding carriage-road, supplemented by a bridle-path, leads thence to the summit of the grand old mountain. The tourists who every summer are whirled through this valley up to the Geysers and back again in hot haste, vainly imagining that they are seeing, when they ​are in truth only "doing" California, know not what a treat they are missing in passing by Mount St. Helena without ascending it. The mountain rises only 4,345 feet above the sea, its altitude being really less than that of Mount Washington, in New Hampshire, but it so far overtops the surrounding hills and lesser mountains, that the view from its summit is grand and extended beyond the power of words to depict. From the broad Pacific on the west, to the snow-capped Sierra Nevada, which skirts the whole eastern horizon, and from San Francisco and the mountains of San Mateo, Alameda, and Santa Clara in the south, to the Black Buttes of Marysville and the valley of Russian River, the redwood forests of Mendocino and Sonoma, and the high mountain country of the Lakes on the northeast, northwest and north, the view is unbroken and uninterrupted, save by the isolated peaks of Mount Diablo, Tamalpais, and a few lesser landmarks of the Golden Land. The view from the summit of Tamalpais is worth a journey from Europe to behold—that from St. Helena is worth a hundred of it. To the stranger there is enchantment in the scene; to the old Californian, history, romance, suggestive memories, in every feature of the scene. Look over there to the eastward beyond the intervening coast-range foot-hills into the valley of the Sacramento! Who, standing here and looking down for the first time upon that broad, straw-colored valley, dry as the dust of the highway, and glimmering in the hot sunshine, would believe that a few years since it was one wide sea of turbid waters, forty miles from ​bank to bank, and stretching from the Bay of Suisun to the Black Buttes of Marysville and beyond? Yet such it was. In the winter of 1861-2, steamers went twenty miles inland from the banks of the Sacramento, and from tree-tops, hay-stacks, and the roofs of houses and barns, or fixed rafts constructed of house and fence materials, rescued hundreds of families who otherwise must have perished in the raging floods. Those were indeed dark days for the dwellers in the valley of the Sacramento, and it seemed for a time that the whole country must be abandoned forever by man. For more than forty days and forty nights the windows of Heaven were opened, and the rain poured down almost incessantly. San Francisco was filled with refugees, supported by the charity of her citizens; and all the towns of the valley country were flooded, or saved from destruction only by incessant labor upon their levees.
In those days people joked and laughed in the midst of their misfortunes with true California humor. Well do I remember hearing a party of the "drowned out," standing on the deck of a steamer which was carrying them to San Francisco, and relating with grim facetiousness the mishaps and adventures of the hour. One rough-bearded fellow, with a pale, shrinking, feeble woman by his side, and a half-clad, sick child in his arms, told how, while the family were clinging to the boughs of a tree just above the surging waters, they saw a house going swiftly down the stream, with a Chinaman sitting quietly astride the ridge of the roof. "Halloa, John! where are you ​bound for?" called out one of the party as John was swept swiftly past. "Me no shabbe!" was John's prompt but half-despairing-reply. Let us hope that he brought up in some safe harbor at last. Another of the group told, with an evident hearty relish and keen appreciation of the absurdity of the matter, how he had passed on a raft in the immediate vicinity of a country house, which, firmly anchored to two giant trees, held its own stiffly against the flood. The water stood four feet deep on the ground floor, and the children were looking composedly out of the chamber window at the old lady, who, armed with a long pole, was wading around armpit deep in the water some distance from the house. From time to time, she would turn the end of the pole downwards and feel about in the water for something. The party on the raft hailed her to know if any of her family had been drowned, intending if such was the case to offer to stop and help her search for the body. "No, thank you; family all safe, but the child'n is terribly dry, an' I never like to let 'em drink river water, 'cause its so agery, an' I'm jest try in' to find the confounded well. If I don't think hit's gone an' floated away, drown me, stranger; an' it cost us a heap o' money!" was the poor distressed woman's half-despairing reply. This prejudice against river water is doubtless to some extent justifiable, as, in the summer season, the amount of vegetable matter held in solution in it must be considerable; nevertheless, I incline to the impression that the old lady was rather running it into the ground under all the circumstances. ​Away over there in the northwest, among the forest-clad hills which skirt the Valley of Russian River, is the favorite stamping-ground of certain amateur hunters and fishermen from San Francisco: members of the bar and occupants of the bench, who come here to spend the summer vacation, "camping out," roughing it, shooting, fishing, swapping anecdotes by the blazing camp-fires far into the glorious nights, and growing little poorer in pocket, while growing rich to abundance in the health, strength, and elasticity of spirit which they carry back to the city with them. Judge ———, of the U. S.———— Court, in San Francisco, is one of these choice spirits. He is as captivating a talker as you may meet in many a long year's journeyings around this sinful world. His fame has gone out through the land, and everybody now knows him by sight, or reputation at least. It was different years ago. Once upon a time, a party of these city sports were camping in the mountains, and having a jolly good time. One evening a stranger came into camp, and as he appeared to be a nice, quiet, sociable, intelligent gentleman, he was made free to everything for the night. He soon showed himself not only a good story-teller, but something still dearer to the Judge's heart—a good listener. After supper, he seated himself upon a log before the blazing camp-fire, and the Judge, placing himself between him and the fire, crossed his hands under his coat-tails, bent his face in close proximity to that of his victim, and went for him for all he was worth. An hour—two, three hours passed, and still the Judge talked on; and still ​the stranger maintained his position, holding on to the log with both hands, and looking his honor fixedly in the face. One of the party called another to one side, and said to him anxiously: "For Heaven's sake, call the Judge off, or we won't sleep a wink to-night." Number two approached the Judge quietly, pulled him by the sleeve, and said:
"See here, Judge, I have something that I would like to speak to you about for a few moments!"
"Presently!"
An hour passed and the manoeuvre was repeated, with the same reply—
"Presently!"
Another hour, and another member tried it on.
"Presently, sir; presently, I tell you!" was the Judge's somewhat impatient reply.
Another and another tried it with like success, or want of success, and at last all gave it up and turned into their welcome blankets. All through the weary night the party turned uneasily in their blankets from time to time, and still heard the Judge going on—and on—and on—the stream of talk flowing as steadily and remorselessly as the stream of Time, which singeth as it flows—
"And men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever."
Morning broke over the grey mountains at last, and the party arose to prepare for breakfast. The fire had gone out, but the Judge stood there as he had been standing on the evening before, with his hands clasped behind him, his back bent towards ​where the fire had been, and his face toward the foe—still talking on—and on—and on. And the stranger? He sat there still, with his eyes fixed in a dull, stony stare straight in the Judge's face—mad, hopelessly mad! They pulled the Judge away by main force, and compelled him to notice the condition of his victim, something he had utterly omitted to do before. It was too late; reason had given way at last before the terrible strain, and she never recovered her throne. To this day, a grey-haired, quiet, hopelessly-afflicted patient wanders around in the public ward of the Insane Asylum at Stockton, looking with a fixed, stony stare before him, and never speaking to any human being; only at long intervals muttering half incoherently, "Presently, presently!" while the Judge goes on the even tenor of his way, dealing out justice to his fellow-men, and sleeping at nights like a Christian—when he has nobody to talk to.
Years passed on, and the "road agents" who had long made it lively for the travelers and expressmen in the Sierra Nevada and the gold districts of the foothill country of California, finding the old stamping-ground becoming comparatively unproductive, shifted their base of operations over to the western and southern parts of the State, and set to work with fresh energy to gain a livelihood by the industrious practice of their profession. In the spring and summer of 1871 they affected Sonoma county to a disagreeable extent, and cleaned out stage-load after stage-load over there in the northwest, about Cloverdale. You can see the road with the glass, there where it winds ​over the divide coming out of the Russian River Valley. One night in August a party of San Franciscans went up the valley from Santa Rosa, bound on a hunting expedition into the mountains, and the gentlemen of the road, mistaking their ambulance for the regular stage, came quietly out into the road from the dusty chapparal on either side, like so many ghosts, in slouched hats and black crape veils, and presenting their shot-guns, ordered the party to stand and deliver. The party, never dreaming of such a misadventure, had their guns all stowed away in their cases in the bottom of the carriage, and were in no condition to resist. The beau and wit of the party arose, and with a deprecatory gesture commenced to address the veiled figures before him:
"Gentlemen, I regret to disappoint you and give you so much unnecessary trouble, but the fact is, you have made a trifling mistake. This isn't a stage. We are a party of peaceful citizens bound on a hunting and fishing expedition, and haven't got so much as a dollar in cash, a watch or a ring in the party. We don't carry 'em when we go on such a trip. It isn't safe. You know how it is yourselves!"
"Oh, cut it short! Save the rest for the next party. Git down there d—d quick!" was the emphatic remark of the leader of the gang. The beau and wit got down in despair, and held up his hands. Then a woe-begone visage was protruded from the side of the vehicle, and in solemn, sepulchral accents, a new address commenced as follows:
"Gentlemen, it is not often that I am called upon ​to make any remarks in a case like this. It seems to me that the matter may be stated briefly as follows: Firstly, the———
"Great G—d, boys!" fairly yelled the leader, as he recognized his man, "if this ain't old Judge——, I'll be d—d! Let's get; for if he gets to talking to us, we'll die right here of old age or starvation!" and in half the time it would take me to tell it, the whole gang broke, as from the presence of the cholera, and disappeared in the chaparral from whence they came, never halting even to say good-by.
That reminds me of the fellow who came up to me with an Apache arrow sticking in his back, on the Skull Valley road, in Central Arizona. He ———
It pains me to be compelled to cut that story short at the above point, but love of truth impels me to say that I never had an opportunity of finishing it in the presence of that company. Just as I started to tell what the poor fellow did, I heard one of the party remark to another, "No insane asylum in mine, if I know it!" and a moment after observed them all, one by one, my beloved and trusted companions, crawling off over the rocks, like so many skulking Apaches, toward the spot where the horses were tied. When I overtook them, just as they were getting into their saddles, they assured me that they always liked that story about the Judge. They considered it "very neat and very appropriate." Well, so they did, and so do I; but I cursed in my heart the set of over-appreciative wretches who could draw a moral so fine, and put it in practice so suddenly. I like fun; but ​practical jokes and practical jokers I detest. I was so disgusted that I never looked behind me to see what else was to be seen from the summit of Mount St. Helena, and in sorrow and in silence rode away down the mountain to Calistoga again.