The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1896-11-12
Written for The CoMMoNwEALrH1
LETTER FROM
CALIFORNIA,
CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Wonderfully Beautiful Land.

lovely climate. It is so large that on
} half of Its people don't know how tn
other half live, especially in the lso
lated mountain towns of Trinity an,
Siskiyou.
On my arrival In San Francisco, afte
nearly five years travelling around th'
! world, | met a young man whom / hat
not seen Tor more than seven years ant
he knew me at sight. His name i
Mr.. J. E. Bates, and his home is il
Orlando, Fla. He is prospector nov
and has made lots of money. He ha'
found several mines of gold but says ht
sold his interest In them. He has lots
It money. / took three weeks tril
With him not long ago through a part
Il the Trinity and Sisk1you mountains
which are called the unknown lands
by those who live near the large cities
The mountains aud the beds of the
many forks of small riyers are full oi
gold, but it cannot be very thick, OF
they would cause roads to be built and
towns to spring up. There used to be
Il greater population in this country
than there Is now, the only evidence
Of which are names without places.
IN the middle of desolate flat will be
Il pile of stones, or the remains of a
mud and rock chimney. That, the
people will say, is Peterstown Or Lady
Slipper or Lake View or Halfway or
aalf dozen other names, as the case
may be. They all look alike and are
alike desolate and abandoned.
In early days there was at each a
! store, blacksmith shop and saloon.
Now there are three of these deserted
villages between every two settlements.
The settlements themselvs could hardly
be called extensive. There will be two
houses in one somebody lives, the
other Is store, post-office and saloon in
one. Sometimes the mail Is dropped
behind whlskey barrel and stays there
FOR two OK three days, or until the BAR
rel is moved. The mail comes in two
Or three times q week on horseback.
The lazy is very loose in regard to the
carriers, and if he forgets to come no
one does more than growl a little.
Each mine OF any Importance has
It's own little store, SO the people don't
20 to town very often. They use the
pack horses for transferring goods
through these mountains. The mer-
chants who live sixty or seventy miles
from a railroad station, have 40 or so
mules going to ana fro all the time
from June until October. These
trains wind in and out among the hills,
leaving part of the load at each mine
or settlement. During the other
months there is no communication
with the world except by mail and
sometimes deep snow keeps that out
for two or three months. The winters
are bitterly cold with snow piled up to
the windows and keen winds sweeping
down from the icy peaks. Rut the
people know what to expect, and dur
ing the summer you can hear the beat
IF the wood-man's ak and the whiz of
his saw to fill the sheds with wood.
The houses are very rough, sometimes
IF logs, but the most Of them are built
,f boards slowly cut by the up and
down mill turned by a mountain
stream. Every house has big iron
cook stove to heat red and besides
deep fireplace with back log and
plenty of pitch knots. CAT home we
say light-wood knots.)
What the men do during the long
dark winter, when there is no mining,
no garden work and no wood cutting,
I could never find out. Perhaps they
sleep, like the bears.
The school houses are 40 Or so miles
apart. It was from this land the girl
came who, when the first time she saw
the telegraph wire, wondered why the
people had their clothes lines so high.
Many of the children are part white
and part Indian. There are lots OF
them that never saw train. 1t was
there saw regular "new woman" Joe
and myself had ridden late into the night
and we asked for shelter in the first
house we came to. It was beautiful
night for the moon and stars were
shining bright. It was ten minutes to
twelve and we saw house at a snort
distance away. When we arrived at
the house we knocked at the door and
it was long time before any one
would answer us. At last an cid man
opened the door with his shot gun In
hand and inquired what we wanted.
We told him and he said we could stay
all night with pleasure. He was bali
Indian but we thought him white
| man that hight. At gray dawn in the
| morning as I was waking, the door OF
our room opened and thought 1t was
young japanese boy wbo had come
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