In the early days, a Frenchman brought to Nevada half a dozen camels, which he placed on his ranche, on the Carson River, a few miles below Dayton. The climate and the herbage of the country appear to be well adapted to the requirements of the animals, and they have thriven and increased and multiplied until the herd now numbers about forty, of all ages. These camels are used in packing salt from the deserts, for carrying wood, hay, and freight of all kinds, and they carry quite as large loads as do the camels of Arabia. They are not allowed to be brought into the streets of Virginia City during daylight, for the reason that they frighten mules and horses, and cause dangerous runaways. Mules cannot endure the sight of them. Of nights, however, the camels come into town and pass along the back streets.
One moonlight night, as the animals were solemnly stalking along an unfrequented street, a pair of Teutons, who had probably been enjoying themselves at some festival until a late hour, turned into the street through which the camels were passing: “O, Sheorge,” cried one of the men, to his companion, “yoost see dem awful big gooses!”
The other took one look, and said: “Mine Gott, Levi, we petter run home quick. I dinks dare coomes der raisurrection!” and both took to their heels.
CHAPTER L.
ORIGINAL CHARACTERS.
Occasionally persons not usually found training in the ranks of the festive throng of Comstockers are out until the “wee sma’” hours, and meet with adventures quite as strange as was that of the two Germans who encountered a herd of camels at a time when they supposed that there were no animals of the kind nearer than the desert of Sahara.
One of the pillars of the church, a powerful exhorter and a liberal disburser of psalmody before the Lord, went astray one Fourth of July night, and even got into a German dance-house before his patriotism was fully expended. However, he recollected himself presently, and took his departure. As he was meandering along the street, with his hat resting in a style of graceful bravado on his left ear, he was met by a policeman who knew him and advised him to get home.
“Home? No, sir!—no sir!” cried the exhorter. “Live while you live. Life is short, sir; we are like flowers of the field, sir—lilies of the valley. Let us not be proud nor puffed up, for we are all worms of the dust! I’m not proud, sir—nozur! I’ve been among the daughters of the Teuton, sir; even among the cunning dancers whose feet are beautiful on the mountains—whose feet twinkle as alabaster in the waters of the Jordan—also have I been among the sons of Jubal, even such as handle the harp, the fiddle, and the psaltry. I have danced even as David danced, and drank wine even as Noah, when he began to be a husbandman. But tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Virginia!” The policeman—a “son of Belial,” the fuddled pillar called him—now began to talk very plainly, and the godly reveller caught a glimpse of the error of his ways, and changed his tune.
“Woe is me!” cried he, “how could I dare to burn incense unto Baal and walk after strange gods! Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, but who shall be able to keep shekels of silver, wedges of gold, or rings of jasper from these greedy Delilahs—Delilahs not to be appeased with hair, whose hands a whole wig would not stay! For the mountains I will take up a wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation. I flee from the daughters of the Teuton; they are as black as the tents of Kedar. How can I face that good woman, Hanner?—bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh—for in the day that I see her face will there come, that selfsame day, a blowing of trumpets, a breaking of seals, and a pouring out of vials! No, sir; don’t talk to me or wrestle with me, even as the angel wrestled with Jacob at the ford of Jabbok; whither thou goest I cannot go; whither thou lodgest I cannot lodge. I’m the speckled bird of the mountains of Gilboa—a hungry pelican in the wilderness, sir! I go to the unsealing—to the breaking of seals, and the blowing of trumpets—yea, I go to face Hanner!” and the “speckled bird of Gilboa” spread its wings and took its zigzag flight to meet the good Hannah, mighty blower of trumpets, breaker of seals, and outpourer of vials before the Lord.
These matters—churches and pillars of churches—bring up the “old French Doctor,” of Virginia City, who was one of the oddities of the place. Whole volumes of his curious sayings might be given. The old man is now dead, but he is still remembered and quoted along the Comstock by those who knew him in life. The old doctor—for a wonder—had been to church, and came away delighted.