If this brief narrative should induce anyone to "gird up his loins,"
shoulder his pack and essay a similar pilgrimage, the author will feel
that he has not been unrewarded. And if a man over threescore years of
age can tramp through seven counties and return, in spite of intense
heat, feeling better and stronger than when he started, a young fellow
in the hey-day of life and sound of wind and limb surely ought not to be
discouraged.
Thomas Dykes Beasley.
A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country
Chapter I
Reminiscences of Bret Harte. "Plain Language From Truthfulful James."
The Glamour of the Old Mining Towns
It is forty-four years since the writer met the author of "The Luck of
Roaring Camp" - that wonderful blending within the limits of a short
story of humor, pathos and tragedy - which, incredible as it may seem,
met with but a cold reception from the local press, and was even branded
as "indecent" and "immodest!"
On the occasion referred to, I was strolling on Rincon Hill - at that
time the fashionable residence quarter of San Francisco - in company
with Mr. J. H. Wildes, whose cousin, the late Admiral Frank Wildes,
achieved fame in the battle of Manila Bay.
