Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 Part 9

The camp was a small cl.u.s.ter of rough shacks, built of logs, split boards and shakes. As if dropped there by accident, they were located without regard for any sort of uniformity. These were the bunk cabins of the miners; some of the diminutive structures being only of size sufficient to accommodate a cot, a camp-stool and a wash-basin. A larger cabin stood at about the center of the group, the joint kitchen and dining-room.

As we drove into the "town," the only person within view was a Chinaman, standing at the door. For most of us this was a first introduction to one of the yellow race. He was evidently the camp cook.

Major Crewdson approached the Celestial with the salutation: "h.e.l.lo, John."

"Belly good," was the reply.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Melican man dig gold"]

Having already heard it said that the invariable result of an untutored Chinaman's effort to p.r.o.nounce any word containing an "r"

produced the sound of "l" instead, we thought little of that error in the attempt of this one to say "Very," but believed that his subst.i.tution for the initial letter of that word was inexcusable.

"What is the name of this place?" continued Crewdson.

"'Melican man dig gold."

"Yes, I know that; but, this town, what do you call it?"

"Yu-ba Dam," the Chinaman answered.

This response was intended to be civil. Near by the Yuba River was spanned by a dam, for mining purposes, known as Yuba Dam, which gave the mining camp its name.

Further on we came to the first house that we saw in California; and it was the first real house within our view since the few primitive structures at Nebraska City, on the west sh.o.r.e of the Missouri River, faded from our sight, the preceding spring. During a period of about four months our company had traveled thousands of miles, through varying wilds, in all of which not one habitation, in form common to civilization, had been encountered. Seldom has civilized man journeyed a greater distance elsewhere, even in darkest Africa, without pa.s.sing the conventional domicile of some member of his own race. Long ago such an experience became impossible in the United States.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pack-mule route to placer diggings]

This house was a small wayside inn, situated where a miners' trail crossed the emigrant route; a roughly-made, two-story, frame building, with a corral adjoining; at which mule pack-trains stopped overnight, when carrying supplies from Sacramento and Marysville for miners working the gold placer diggings along the American and Yuba rivers.

We camped beside the little hotel, and the next morning were for the first time permitted to enjoy a sample of the proverbially generous California hospitality, when the landlord invited our entire company into his hostelry for breakfast.

Our entrance into California was in Nevada County, thence through Placer, Sacramento, Solano and Napa, and into Sonoma.

Over the last one hundred miles we saw evidences that the valleys, great and small, were rapidly filling with settlers.

The last stream forded was the Russian River, flowing southwesterly through Alexander Valley, to the sea. Having crossed to the western sh.o.r.e, our motley throng found itself in the settlement embracing the village of Healdsburg, an aggregation of perhaps a dozen or twenty houses. There our worn and weather-stained troop made its final halt; and the jaded oxen, on whose endurance and patient service so much--even our lives--had depended, were unyoked the last time, on September seventeenth, just four months after the departure from the Missouri River.

Considering all the circ.u.mstances of the journey, through two thousand miles of diversified wilderness, during which we rested each night in a different spot; it seems providential that, on every occasion when the time came for making camp, a supply of water and fuel was obtainable. Without these essentials there would have been much additional suffering. Sometimes the supply was limited or inferior, sometimes both; especially during those trying times in the westerly portion of the Humboldt region; but we were never without potable water nor fire, at least for the preparation of our evening meal.

Nature had prepared the country for this great overland exodus from the populous East; a most important factor in the upbuilding of the rich western empire, theretofore so little known, but whose development of resources and accession of inhabitants since have been the world's greatest marvel for more than half a hundred years.

As I look back, through the lapse of nearly sixty years, upon that toilsome and perilous journey, notwithstanding its numerous harrowing events, memory presents it to me as an itinerary of almost continuous excitement and wholesome enjoyment; a panorama that never grows stale; many of the incidents standing out to view on recollection's landscape as clear and sharp as the things of yesterday. That which was worst seems to have softened and lapsed into the half-forgotten, while the good and happy features have grown brighter and better with the pa.s.sing of the years.

Whether pioneers in the most technical sense, we were early Californians, who learned full well what was meant by "Crossing the Plains."

END.