They Have Every
Indication, Even To The Unscientific Eye, Of Having Been Upheaved By
Volcanic Action.
Perhaps that accounts for the uncanny impression they
impart.
A walk of twenty-one or two miles without food, in any kind of weather,
is apt to produce an aching void. My first efforts on reaching
Marysville were therefore directed to finding the sort of place where I
could eat in comfort. The emphasis which Robert Louis Stevenson employs
when upon this most important quest would be amusing were it not also a
vital problem in your own case. There is nothing humorous per se in
hunger or thirst; at any rate, not until both are appeased. With the
black coffee and cigar, you can tip your chair at a comfortable angle
against the wall, and watching the delicate wreaths of smoke in their
spiral upward course, previous to final disintegration, smile at the
persistent energy with which an hour ago you systematically worked the
town from end to end, anxiously peering in the windows of uninviting
restaurants until you finally found that little "hole in the wall" for
which you were looking, with the bottle of Tipo Chianti, the succulent
chops and the big red tomatoes, in the window. It is always to be found
if you have the necessary perseverance. The genial Italian proprietor,
with the innate politeness of his countrymen, will not bore you with
questions as to where you have come from, whither you are going, or what
you are walking for, anyway, etc., etc. He accepts you just as you are -
haversack, camera, big stick and all, hanging them without comment on
the hook behind your head; while you simply tell him you want a good
dinner, the best he can give you, but to include the chops, tomatoes and
Tipo Chianti. With a smile and that artistic flip of the napkin under
his arm, which only he can achieve, he sets about giving his orders.
Later on, after a hot bath, a shave and the luxury of a clean shirt,
feeling at peace with the world and refreshed in body and soul, you set
out to examine the town in comfort and at your leisure.
In the mining days, Marysville ranked next to San Francisco, Sacramento
and possibly Stockton, not only in interest but in actual volume of
business transacted. It was the natural outlet for all the foot-hill
country tributary to Grass Valley, Nevada City, and Smartsville. There
the miners outfitted and there, when they had "made their pile," they
began the process - subsequently completed in Sacramento and San
Francisco - of reducing it to a negligible quantity. That, of course, is
merely a reminiscence, but as the center of one of the most prosperous
grain and fruit-raising sections of the Sacramento Valley, Marysville is
still a place of considerable importance. The old town is very much in
evidence; so much so that, in spite of the numerous modern buildings,
the general effect produced is of age, as age is understood in
California. I doubt if San Francisco before the fire, or Sacramento
today, could show as many substantial, solid buildings dating back to
the fifties.
Chapter IX
Bayard Taylor and the California of Forty-Nine. Bret Harte and His
Literary Pioneer Contemporaries.
And here in old Marysville, the county seat of Yuba County and situated
on its extreme western boundary, I ended my tramp, having covered a
distance of approximately two hundred and fifty miles, exclusive of
retracements. The ideal time to visit the Sierra foot-hills would be in
the late Spring or early Autumn. I was compelled to grasp the
opportunity when it offered or forego the pleasure altogether. Nor is it
necessary, of course, to walk; the roads, whilst generally speaking not
classed as good going for automobiles, are at least passable. I was
surprised at the number of high grade machines in evidence, in all the
towns of importance mentioned in this narrative. There remains also the
alternative of a good saddle horse, or, better still, a light wagon with
camping outfit, thus rendering hotels unnecessary, the elimination of
which would probably pay the hire of horse and wagon.
Half a century is a long period. You could probably count on the fingers
of one hand persons now living in the Sierra foot-hills who have any
recollection of ever having seen Bret Harte. It must also be remembered
that in the fifties his reputation as an author had not been
established. Of all that group of brilliant young men who visited the
mines in early days, which included for a brief space "Orpheus C. Kerr"
and "Artemus Ward," I can well imagine that Bret Harte attracted the
least attention. It is extremely doubtful to "my mind if he ever had
much actual experience of the mining camps. To a man of his vivid
imagination, a mere suggestion afforded a plot for a story; even the
Laird's Toreadors, it will be recalled, were commercially successful
when purely imaginary; he only failed when he subsequently studied the
real thing in Spain.
Bret Harte was a man who in a primitive community might well escape
notice. In appearance, manner and training, he was the exact antithesis
of Mark Twain. He was a student before he was a writer and possessed the
student's shy reserve. I can well imagine him, a slight boyish figure,
flitting from camp to camp, wrapped in his own thoughts, keeping his own
counsel. Yet he alone of that little band, unless you except Mark Twain,
possessed the divine spark we call "genius." Centuries after the names
of all the rest are buried in oblivion, Bret Harte's stories of the
Argonauts in the mining towns of California will remain the classics
they have already become.
Yet as before stated, when once I got fairly started on the road, the
pioneers themselves and their worthy descendants absorbed my interest
and assumed the center of the stage to the exclusion, for the time
being, of the romancers; who, after all, each in his own fashion,
depicted only what most appealed to him in the characters of these same
men and their contemporaries.
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