These beasts had the audacity to approach us within a few yards. We killed some, wounded many, and the dogs drove them away in every direction, still they always congregated somewhere and sent forth their hideous yell in chorus, first from one side of us, then from another, and not until dawn appeared would these brutes allow us to rest; then they disappeared, and I congratulated myself on being able to resume my slumbers; but almost immediately after the “coyotes� had gone, the sun appeared, and there was an end of the luxuries of an oat-straw bed al-fresco, for that night at least. The mules submitted more readily to be loaded this morning, and followed quietly in the steps of the white mare.
On approaching Napa, which is distant from Benicia about twenty miles, we entered a very beautiful valley about three miles in breadth, studded with oak trees, and bounded on either side by mountains that rose abruptly from the plain, and whose summits were crested with heavy masses of the red-wood tree and white pine. As yet there was no sign of cultivation or enclosure, nor did we see a dwelling-house until the village of Napa appeared in sight; but the whole of this rich and fertile valley was shortly to be made productive, and it was to supply the wants of the many settlers, who were now on the eve of improving this wild tract, that the little bunch of houses called “Napa City� had sprung into existence.
We had to cross a small stream in a ferry-boat to enter Napa, and we found the little place in a very lively state. Music was playing, the stars and stripes were waving from each house, whilst the street was thronged with people. The outside settlers had come in to celebrate their fourth of July, it was now the fifth, and they were in the thick of it, and there was to be a “ballâ€� in the evening. At twelve o’clock they prepared to fire a salute from three old honeycombed cannons that had probably been fished up out of the river; whether or no, a serious accident immediately occurred—the first gun fired exploded like a shell, blowing off the arm of one man and destroying the sight of another, besides peppering the spectators more or less seriously. This damped temporarily the pleasure of the afternoon, but the public dinner, which took place under an enormous booth, seemed to restore cheerfulness. The settlers were nearly all “Western people,â€� small farmers from Missouri, and other Western states, who emigrated with a wife and half-a-dozen children to California in search of good land; on this they squat until the land-claims are decided, and with their thrifty habits make money, not only more surely and comfortably, but faster than the miners, whose wants they supply.
The soil here is admirably adapted for the growth of wheat, barley, and potatoes; and although the price of labour is so great that these immigratory agriculturists, having little or no capital, can only till a patch of land at first, yet so rare a luxury as yet is a vegetable, that large profits attend their earliest efforts, and the settler of these valleys, if prudent, is a rising man from the moment his spade first raises the virgin sod.
During the day a Mexican tight-rope dancer performed to the crowd: I considered him rather a bungler at his work, but my opinion was not shared by the spectators, one of whom, an old farmer, “kinder, reckoned it was supernatural,� in which he was supported by an old back-woodsman, who said “It warn’t nothing else.� I left these good folks in the height of enjoyment, and should not perhaps have said so much about them, but that having all very lately come from the United States across the plains, they had brought with them, and as yet retained, the simple manners and wants of a rural population. These people form the most valuable portion of the emigration, for they come as permanent settlers, and they continue permanent improvers. Under their hands forests are cleared, and valleys enclosed, grain is raised and mills are erected, the country no longer relies on foreign ventures for its chief wants, and monopolising flour companies cease to fatten at the expense of a hard-working population.
I did not wait for the “ball,� as I wished to reach Sonoma that night, the luggage having gone on. On our first arrival at the Creek, the ferryman, who was an American, had refused all toll on the strength of the “Anniversary.� We could not but admire such a striking instance of real charity, as it enabled many of the surrounding farmers to cross over with their numerous families, which at the rate of one dollar for each person they could not have afforded to do. But there was nothing said about going back for nothing, and our Yankee friend having succeeded in filling the village gratis, had now the satisfaction of emptying it at a dollar a-head. So there they were like the nephew of “Gil Perez,� caught like a rat in a trap. The scenery still improves in beauty as we approach Sonoma, the valleys are here sprinkled with oak trees, and it seems ever as if we were about to enter a forest which we never reach, for in the distance the oaks, though really far apart, appear to grow in dark and heavy masses. Sonoma was one of the points selected by the early Spanish priests for a mission; the remains of the mud church and other buildings used by the priests still exist. It has been chosen as a military station, and about a couple of dozen United States dragoons are quartered here.
General Vallejo, a native Californian, who is owner of a large portion of the surrounding valley, resides at Sonoma; he took part in some skirmishing which occurred, previous to the cession of California to the United States, between the natives and a handful of adventurers, who hoisted a flag with a Grizzly Bear on it, and took the field under that standard. The General was also on one occasion taken prisoner, and perhaps it was during his term of incarceration that he designed a tall square building, which he afterwards erected here, of mud bricks, and which is now the principal feature of the place; as the General informs his friends that this was intended for a fortress, they take his word for it, though it has neither guns or embrasures. Overlooked by the fortress is a quadrangle of mud huts, these are now converted into stores intended to supply the farmers who are fast settling on the surrounding plains.
But there are too many stores in Sonoma; there are so many people in California who can only live by keeping small retail shops, that directly a good opening for making money in this way appears, there is a regular rush of small speculators in soap and candles, who all arrive at the desired spot about the same time, each one undoubtedly congratulating himself that he alone has been struck with the bright idea. A man who came to the country in 1848, told me that he managed with great toil and at great expense to get a large cask of whiskey to some rich diggings on the banks of the Yuba, where he commenced retailing it at immense profits; but on the second day his customers fell off, and he found that another Yankee had also rolled up a cask and was underselling him higher up the river. So he moved higher up again by a circuitous route, until again supplanted; and these two continued “cutting each other out,� and living a life of uncertainty until they formed a junction, with the intention of jointly reaping the profits that attend a monopoly of the article in demand. But almost as soon as the new concern was started, up went a canvass house by the side of them, and out went a board on which was written, “Liquor Store.� So with every opening where the chances of large profits are held out, where there are so many calculating speculative people, competition steps in and monopoly is destroyed. This is partly the reason why the San Francisco markets are so uneven and fluctuating.
Brown is a clever fellow, and says to himself, Coals will be very scarce next fall, I’ll write for coals; every one else, being as clever as Brown, writes for coals from the same motives, and the spring sees coals tumbling in on all sides: or Brown says, everybody will be writing for coals for the spring, I shall advise my correspondents not to ship; every one else thinks as Brown thinks, no one writes for coals, and next spring coals can’t be had at any price.
We pitched our tents outside the fortress, and the only event that occurred worthy of notice was in the fact of an enormous bull making a clean bolt at it, about the middle of the night. The moon was up, and I presume its reflection on the white canvass annoyed him; he annoyed us excessively, for he not only tore down the tent, but we narrowly escaped being trodden upon. As he stood in the bright moonlight pawing the ground at a short distance, meditating another charge at us, I shot him in the head, and he fell, never again to rouse honest gentlemen from their sleep in the dead of night, or wantonly to destroy private property for the gratification of a senseless animosity.