The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1876-08-02


left them and came home by Santa Paula
canyon, which made the way some ten
miles shorter, reducing the whole distance
to fifty miles which made In one hot day.
The scenery the whole way to Santa Paula
is very fine. As you enter the canyon from
Ijsi valley, you come across ever so many
asphsltum springs, where
GENUINE AsPHALTUM B0ILs UP OUT OF THE
GROUND
and runs off down the hill, covering acres
of land and the road for some distance, so
that rode sometimes on as good asphalt
tum pavement as L ever saw, except that it
was little soft. There is also here a big
oil we'll, and / crossed stream OF oil OF
considerable volume. The Santa Paula
river comes down this canyon rushing and
tumbling along at tremendous
rate over huge boulders. The waters
are wonderfully clear, and in them uprose
countless trout, that give splendid sport tn
any piscstor that travels that road. / fol-
lowed the stream and canyon some ten
miles, crossing the stream doZ3ns OF times
before coming to Santa Paula, where /
took the high road that runs straight as
an arrow to San Buenaventura. After fol-
lowing it some distance / could see the
point of the mountain at whose loot re-
on account of its one house, but on ac-
count OF a spring of bad water that there
isas to the surface. Well, thought l
would expedite my journey. save sew
ersl mile by going across the country, so
| rode over several farms, reaching the
Santa Clara, which l crossed. 1t is low
now, having about twice as much water
as Fall creek. At high water the quick
sands in this stream are very dangerous,
and there was now nothing but sand, sand
in every direction for miles, but The
mirsgs was very beautiful. / could see
long ponds of water within a hundred
yards of me, and in the distance appeared
large, beautiful lakes with trees and
msrshy land. 1 reached the plains above
the river, where there was a road around
the mountain in semi-circle to SPRING
Vile, bat the ground was as bard rs
board and seemed so bare. and the point
where SDringviile was so near, that j
started of across the country. For about
three miles l gslloped along nicely, for
large herds of sheep kept the country bae
as stone, then went through about two
miles OF burr clover, then the pepper plant
commenced to show itself here and there,
and soon got pref thick. This wild pep
grows very thick and dense, and is two or
three feet over ones head when on horse
back. No animal but a Texas steer can
make its way through it, and it can GO
very slowly. Well, among this pepper Is
a kind of spider (whose bite cannot be
very poisonous, or 1 would not be writing
his letter. that builds its web and
WAITS FOR GRAssHoPPERs.
This spider is black, with red and white
spots, large round body, and is larger a
good deal than the largest ever saw in the
east. As 1 went along they got thicker
and thicker. till at las there were literally
hundreds OF them right around me. did
oot try to keep them of of my body and
legs, but kept all energies at work keeping
the nasty things from off my head aud
neck. l lost my way completely. The
DC pper was over my head, so l took my
course by the sun. 1 made for the point
where | knew the stage road ran. Soon
nv horse after blowing through the pep
per, came to where some other weed also
grew thick, and after scrambling up q
little sand bank, / had the pleasure of
seeing q ion 60 off through the bushes.
had no rifle, had lost my knife, and there
was wItnou a weapon of ary kind
whatever not evon q stick or stone within
miles, and a lion anywhere within three or
Iour yards of me. When / was on the
sand bank, l nearly jumped out of my
sad le, at seeing the roof OF house about
five hundred yards off, and i made for it,
but the only way my horse could go was
tn rear up on his nlnd legs andJump aneau
like deer. / was dread ullv afraid he
would take to buckipg, and then L would
never have gotten out, but he did well and
tipally jnmped bis way to the house. 1t
was old and deserted, but to my Joy there
was a trail leading of, which 1 knew must
take me to some road, and after following
it for mile in a back ward direc ion,
struck wagon trail running through to
pringville, where L arrived after about
six miles of riding, very much TO
nv satisfaction. l had lost some
hours by my foolishness, my
horse was hired, had many miles to go,
and it was 4 O'Clock. watered Pinto,
led him and let him rest for an hour, got
some crackers, cheese and beer for myself
and then started again on my journey.
arrived at Conejo some time in the night,
found the house shut up with no one in il
and nothing to eat but crackers. Fortu-
ustely found some fresh eggs, aud raw
eggs and crackers made me good meal.
After attending to Pinto tumbled into
oed and was off to happy dreams in the
land of the just, where no lions or spiders
and high pepper give trouble to the
weary traveller. ID.