I started alone, and as oxen travel very slowly, I was three days and a half getting to the farm. On my way I met a good-looking fellow with black beard and moustaches, who asked me in French the way to the nearest log hut. I entered into conversation with him, and found that he was a Normandy man of the name of Lebret. He had a gun, and a game bag, and gaiters on; in fact, he was a “Frenchman out shooting� all over, with nothing in his game-bag. I found that he was hard up and wanted employment, so I told him where I was going, offered him a berth, and with an “Eh bien!� up he jumped, and after crossing Russian River, for which we were just in time, as it was much swollen, I landed my cargo and Frenchman safe and sound at the farm, which, after my temporary absence, seemed home in every sense. And it was so. The very dogs knew it for a happy place as they bounded out to bid me welcome back. Home speaks in the grip of Barnes’s bony hand; in the studied polish that my rifle bears as it hangs above my bed; and home speaks in the eager faces that group around the fire and listen to my brief recital of what befel me since we parted.
* * * *
I had a favourite little spot on my hunting ground that I always selected for my halt; it was a little clump of sheltered rocks, and, after poking about with my loading-rod, to turn out any rattlesnake that might be there, I would sit down and enjoy the luxury of the cool shade and a pipe. All good sportsmen agree, and with great truth, in the impropriety of smoking whilst working up to game; but, after walking a few hours in the hot sun, a pipe is a great luxury, and I was always glad to reach this cover where I could indulge my propensity without fear of tainting the surrounding atmosphere.
I have often mused, as I have sat in this little den, on the life I was leading, and reflected with regret that its charms must some day succumb to use, and that, in time, even deer hunting would pall on the taste, and the excitement of a wild life become monotonous. With health beating in every pulse, with God’s best gifts strewed round him in profusion, and intellect to fashion them to use, a man acknowledges instinctively the infinite wisdom of the Creator, and feels a proportionate gratitude for His gifts.
It is easy to be grateful when one has health, strength, and freedom, and easy to flatter oneself into the belief that a life so primitive is more natural than one more civilised; but it is but the lazy gratitude of one who has nothing else to live for but himself, and who is freed, not alone from the conventionalities which a more civilised state imposes, but from all claim upon his self-denial. Freed in fact from the presence of all evils which beset man elsewhere, and tax his fortitude, his courage, and his virtue; living but for himself, with himself alone to study, he indulges in selfishness, and is happy. And this is the great foundation-stone of the charms we hear associated with a wild free life.
One night a herd of deer jumped our railings, and passing close to the hut, crossed the river at great speed, evidently under the influence of fear. We listened, and shortly afterwards heard a pack of wolves, giving tongue in the distance. The next morning the ground, which was soft, gave evidence that there had been an estampede the night before. Herds of deer had crossed and recrossed in every direction until they had forded the stream, when they made a clean bolt for the mountains. Not a hare was to be seen; and for several days we had an empty larder,—living during that time on wheat cakes, for, unfortunately, we had expended all our small shot. I imagine that wolves are very uncommon in the country, from the facts of the game becoming so much excited at their presence, and that we never heard their bark again. We did not see a wolf, but their “signâ€� was unmistakeable. One day we observed the trail of a panther near the brook, and searched for him without success; but Barnes bagged him next day to his own gun. He was up a tree when Barnes saw him, and came down with great rapidity on being shot through the skull. He was a heavy beast, a male, and of a tawny colour. This animal is called in the country the Californian lion.
The tiger cat is a beautiful animal, and very ferocious for its size; we saw two or three of these, about the size of a wild cat, and beautifully marked in the coat. I shot but one, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I could induce him to resign his life without having his skin spoilt. I was agreeably surprised, on my return one day to the hut, to find a horse, saddled and bridled, attached to our railing, and I ascertained that its owner was a countryman of mine who had been “prospectingâ€� the surrounding country, and had been directed by March to our camp. They say we are a stiff and formal people: perhaps so; but in the mountains, an Englishman needs no further introduction than to know a man for a countryman to place the best he has at the stranger’s service. You show him the river and give him a towel: you supply him with a tin plate and spoon, and he helps himself from your smoking pot: you produce a bottle of whiskey in his honour, and after placing the tobacco cannister at his elbow, and pointing out the bundle of blankets that will form his bed, you enter into social conversation. When you part from the man the next morning, you feel quite sorry, and hope to see him again, although there is little probability of that, for these are chance meetings. It is my belief that there is an honest purpose in the hearty wring of the hand that such a stray visitor gives you as he mounts his horse to depart. Whether or no, he can’t go away and say your rooms are damp, and your claret is sour, that your wife is a fright, and your pictures are trash, as people sometimes do in more civilised countries, after enjoying the hospitality of their friends. Our guest produced from his pocket, a number of Punch, and one of the Illustrated News—about five months old. I had had opportunities of reading these publications in a great many out-of-the-way parts of the globe, but I never expected that they would reach my log hut. But English periodicals creep in everywhere; and I remember that the first indication I received of some family news of importance was when, at a pic-nic at Mount Lebanon, I picked up a scrap of newspaper which had contained the mustard of some party who had preceded us, and casually glanced at its contents.
The rainy season was now approaching, and the heat became occasionally intense. At times the Indians would fire the surrounding plains, the long oat-straw of which would ignite for miles. The flames would advance with great rapidity, leaving everything behind them black and charred. At these times a dense smoke would hang over the atmosphere for two or three days, increasing the heat until it became insupportable. I had a thermometer with me during the whole of my stay in California, and could produce an elaborate[6] meteorological table; but as people say you should write as you talk, I shall dismiss the subject of the temperature of Russian River by remarking that in summer it was sometimes as warm as Hong Kong, and in the rainy season it was as cold as an average English winter. We have an officer of scientific renown in our naval service, who is selected by the Admiralty to explore the least known portions of the globe; of which parts, when he returns, he publishes an account, which would be interesting in the extreme, but, that, alas! his scientific knowledge oozes out in every line, and the reader, after hopelessly following him through a maze of figures, which are particularly addressed to, and understood only by, the Geographical Society, shuts the book in despair, and remains for life in ignorance of the habits of the Chow-chow Islanders.
The Digger Indians burn the grass to enable them to get at roots and wasps’ nests; young wasps being a luxury with them. These fires have the good effect of destroying immense quantities of snakes and vermin; and one can scarcely imagine the extent to which these might multiply were they not occasionally “burnt out.� The wasps are so numerous here in summer, as to destroy with rapidity everything they attack. Fleas not only abound in the skins of every beast you kill, but even live on the ground, like little herds of wild cattle; and ants are of all shapes and sizes, and stand up savagely on their hind legs and open their mouths, if you only look at them. The wasps attack any meat that may be hanging up, and commence at once cutting out small pieces, which they carry home, and it is astonishing the quantity they will carry away with them. What they do with it when they get home, I never ascertained; but I presumed that they “jerked� it for winter use, as the Spaniards do.
It was hard work at dinner-time, to know who the meat belonged to, for these wasps used to sting on the slightest provocation; and it was the worst part of Thomas’s duty to take a hare down from a peg and cut it up.