Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Volume 3 (1858-1859) (592 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 592
INCIDENTS IN CALIFORNIA LIFE.
Many are the incidents connected with
life in California, and more particularly
in the mountains of the GoLpen SratE;
and so strange, so full of adventure, are
a number of them that, related, to many
minds they would seem incredible and be
looked on as recitals unworthy of belief.
Yet, among the Sierra Nevadas of California and their almost innumerable foothills, many astonishing scenes have transpired which, strange as they may appear,
are nevertheless realities. More especially in the early days of our young and
beautiful State, incident after incident
took its place among the marvelous.
When the stout-hearted came, enlisting
their names as pioneers to the far West,
full of hope, looking to the future with
bright anticipations of realizing a fortune
in the wilds of California, then were these
strange adventures more frequent, succeeding one another day by day, some to
be recorded on the pages of her future
history, others to be engraved on memory’s page, and some to be forgotten and
allowed to pass unremembered in the silent tomb of oblivion, to slumber forever
quietly there. Recalling to mind many
of these scenes of early life in the mountain fastnesses of this State, in some of
which the writer figured most conspicuously, he is carried back to what is called
the “flush times,’ when, to use the expression of some peculiar individual,
“every other man apparently had plenty
of money, while the next one seemed to
have just as much.” At that time trayeling in the mountains was in very many
places attended with the greatest difficulty, and many obstacles were overcome
by the pioneers, which seem as astonishing as they are true. Deep mountain
gorges, cafions, so thick with tangled
brushwood as to be seemingly impassable,
were penetrated by the hardy pioneer in
his search for gold ; rocky mountain passes, where never foot of man had pressed
the ground before, then echoed to the
tread of man, in pursuit of the treasure
which had led him to endure hardships
and surmount difficulties otherwise unthought of, and massive hills, rude as
when left by nature’s hand, catching the
sound, would re-echo it to mountains,
from whose lofty peaks it floated forth on
the mountain air, Rude as were these
places when first beheld by the traveler,
there was a something of beauty and
loveliness that lingered about them. The
wild mountain flower, fragrant and beautiful, blooming around them on the mountain side, and down, deep in the mountain recesses, where the rivulet rippled
along with a gentle murmur; the fresh
mountain air, laden with the sweet perfume of fowers—the glad songs of birds
singing from the towering pines—these,
with much else that was pleasant, made
mountain life agreeable to the daring
adventurers. Amid all this the pioneer
selected a home, and cabin after cabin
“cluster’d o’er the vale” and on the
mountain side. Places where the grizzly
bear had made his home became the
abodes of the white man, while the lair
of the California lion was broken in upon
by the adventurous miner, and strange
indeed must this have seemed to the
prowlers of the forest when thus disturbed by those they knew not.
At the early day alluded to the writer
was witness to an incident so ludicrous
and interesting as to be well worthy of
recital at this day. He who is familiar