We found that the path to our house was an Indian trail, winding about a mile up the bluff from the beach; the trees shutting overhead, and all about us a drooping white spirea, a most bridal-looking flower. Here and there, on some precipitous bank, was the red Indian-flame. Every once in a while, we came to a little opening looking down upon the sea; and the sound of it was always in our ears. At last we reached a partially cleared space, and there stood the house; behind it a mountain range, with snow filling all the ravines, and, below, the fulness and prime of summer. We are nearly at the foot of the hills, which send us down their snow-winds night and morning, and their ice-cold water. Between us and them are the fir-trees, two hundred and fifty and three hundred feet high; and all around, in the burnt land, a wilderness of bloom,—the purple fireweed, that grows taller than our heads, and in the richest luxuriance, of the same color as the Alpine rose,—a beautiful foreground for snowy hills.
The house is not ready for us. We are obliged at present, for want of a chimney, to stop with our nearest neighbor. But we pay it frequent visits. Yesterday, as we sat there, we received a call from two Indians, in extreme undress. They walked in with perfect freedom, and sat down on the floor. We shall endeavor to procure from Victoria a dictionary of the Haidah, Chinook, and other Indian languages, by the aid of which we shall be able to receive such visitors in a more satisfactory manner. At present, we can only smile very much at them. Fortunately, on this occasion, our carpenter was present, who told us that the man was called "Hunter," which served as an introduction. Hunter took from the woman a white bag, in which was a young wild bird, and put it into my hands. The carpenter said that this Indian had done some work for him, bringing up lumber from the beach, etc., and had come for his pay; that he would not take a white man's word for a moment, but if, in making an agreement with him, a white man gave him a little bit of paper with any thing written on it, he was perfectly satisfied, and said, "You my tilikum [relation]—I wait."
The neighbor with whom we are stopping says, that, the night before we came, a wildcat glared in at her as she sat at her window.
It looks very wild here, the fir-trees are so shaggy. I think the bears yet live under them. Many of the trees are dead. When the setting sun lights up the bare, pointed trunks, the great troops of firs look like an army with spears of gold, climbing the hills.
July 30, 1865.
To-day, as we were descending by the trail from the bluff to the beach, we saw a funeral procession slowly ascending the wagon-road. It came from the Sailors' Hospital. We waited until it passed. The cart containing the coffin was drawn by oxen, and followed by a little white dog and a few decrepit sailors. There was no sign of mourning, but a reverent look in their faces. The body had been wrapped in a flag by brotherly hands. The deep music of the surf followed them, and the dark fir-branches met overhead.
In California, the poorest of people, by the competition of undertakers, are furnished, at low rates, with the use of silver-mounted hearses and nodding plumes, a shrouding of crape, and a long line of carriages. Even those who have really loved the one who is gone seem, in some incomprehensible way, to find a solace in these manifestations, and would have considered this sailor's solitary funeral the extreme of desolation. But Nature took him gently to her bosom; the soft sky and the fragrant earth seemed to be calling him home.
We found by inquiry that it was the funeral of an entirely unknown sailor, who had not even any distant friends to whom he wished messages sent. His few possessions he left for the use of the children of the place, and quietly closed his eyes among strangers, returning peacefully to the unknown country whence he came.