They were nearly ruined
by their bargain with the State, that they would put up the public
buildings if the Capital should be placed at Vallejo, then a town
of some promise.
They spent $100,000, the Capital was moved there,
and in two years removed to San José on another contract. The town
fell to pieces, and the houses, chiefly wooden, were taken down
and removed. I accepted the old gentleman's invitation so far as
to stop at Vallejo to breakfast.
The United States Navy Yard, at Mare Island, near Vallejo, is large
and well placed, with deep fresh water. The old Independence,
and the sloop Decatur, and two steamers were there, and they
were experimenting on building a despatch boat, the Saginaw,
of California timber.
I have no excuse for attempting to describe my visit through the
fertile and beautiful Napa Valley, nor even, what exceeded that
in interest, my visit to old John Yount at his rancho, where I
heard from his own lips some of his most interesting stories of
hunting and trapping and Indian fighting, during an adventurous
life of forty years of such work, between our back settlements in
Missouri and Arkansas, and the mountains of California, trapping in
Colorado and Gila, - and his celebrated dream, thrice repeated,
which led him to organize a party to go out over the mountains,
that did actually rescue from death by starvation the wretched
remnants of the Donner party.
I must not pause for the dreary country of the Geysers, the screaming
escapes of steam, the sulphur, the boiling caldrons of black and yellow
and green, and the region of Gehenna, through which runs a quiet stream
of pure water; nor for the park scenery, and captivating ranchos of
the Napa Valley, where farming is done on so grand a scale - where
I have seen a man plough a furrow by little red flags on sticks,
to keep his range by, until nearly out of sight, and where, the wits
tell us, he returns the next day on the back furrow; a region where,
at Christmas time, I have seen old strawberries still on the vines,
by the side of vines in full blossom for the next crop, and grapes
in the same stages, and open windows, and yet a grateful wood fire
on the hearth in early morning; nor for the titanic operations of
hydraulic surface mining, where large mountain streams are diverted
from their ancient beds, and made to do the work, beyond the reach
of all other agents, of washing out valleys and carrying away hills,
and changing the whole surface of the country, to expose the stores
of gold hidden for centuries in the darkness of their earthly depths.
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