Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific Coast

by James Fowler Rusling

A sojourn of a fortnight or so, at San Francisco, sufficed for rest and bringing up back Reports, and on the evening of May 16th, we took the good boat, Chrysopolis for Sacramento, and thence on to Virginia City. There were posts in Nevada I was ordered to inspect, and this was then the best route to reach them. The weather was raw at San Francisco, but when we got well up the bay and past Benicia, the air became mild and June-like, and the evening was passed delightfully on deck, under such star-lit skies as only California and the Far West can boast. We had a full complement of passengers, of all grades from New York cockneys to Nevada miners; but the proportion of ladies was small, as usually on the Coast. The few children aboard seemed general pets, and many eagerly seized a moment's chat with them. I saw a rough-looking miner, tall, and "bearded like a pard," entice two of them to his side, and, subsequently wander all over the boat with them, talking with the little folks by the hour, about the machinery and whatever else excited their curiosity. At supper, we had a substantial and excellent meal; at bed-time, we found the berths clean and sweet; and the conduct of the boat in general was all that could be desired.

The Sacramento itself is a noble stream, of which any commonwealth might well be proud. To Benicia, and beyond, it is navigable for first-class sea-going vessels, and here upon the bold shores and by the deep waters thereabouts, San Francisco ought really to have been built, as elsewhere intimated. But, unfortunately, the metropolis got itself camped down on the sand-hills, near the Golden Gate, and now will remain there forever.

We reached Sacramento City, one hundred and twenty miles from San Francisco, about 2 a. m. next day, and after an early breakfast and a short walk through the town, took the train at 6½ a. m. for Cisco, then the advance station on the Central Pacific Railroad. This ride, of about a hundred miles, was first up the rich valley of the Sacramento, and then through the foot-hills, and up the Sierra Nevadas. At Sacramento the river was still broad and deep, but with low banks that necessitated levees to guard against overflows. Once a clear mountain stream, fresh from the Sierras, it was now tawnier than the yellow Tiber, with the results of mining on its head-waters and tributaries, and, it was reported, was steadily filling up. Sacramento, indeed, may well have an eye to this; but what she can do to correct or prevent it, it seems difficult to say.

As we advanced, the valley of the Sacramento steadily narrowed, but everywhere appeared rich and fertile. Broad farms stretched out on every side, and clumps of live-oaks, with their deep green foliage, everywhere relieved the golden yellow of the ripening wheat-fields. The general lack of timber continued noticeable, but these scattered live-oaks, sturdy and defiant, relieved the landscape, and they seemed preserved with commendable care. As we approached the foot-hills, the soil grew thinner, the lordly wheat-fields gave place to extensive vineyards, and soon the dense pines of the Sierras made their appearance. Here, too, we struck the mines, and on all sides saw evidences of the spade and rocker. In many places, there were only old placers abandoned, with the hills ragged and torn, and the earth generally topsy-turvy with past operations—cabins empty, ditches dry, sluice-ways falling to pieces; but, in others, the washings were still in full operation, and the hills and streams seemed alive with human industry and energy. Little mining hamlets were perched, here and there, on the edge of mountain torrents; and, where the water did not suffice, broad ditches, improvised for the locality, brought it from some far-off point and carried it wheresoever wanted.

Some of these water-ditches are among the wonders of the Pacific Coast, and deserve more than a passing notice. With surprising engineering, they wind down and around and among the mountains, leaping ravines, crossing ridges, and everywhere following the miner, like faithful servants of his will. Wherever necessary, the miner taps them, and either uses the water in his ordinary sluice-way, or else by his hydraulic pipes hurls it against the hills, and literally washes them to the plain. This hydraulic mining seemed to be most in favor there, and the power developed by some of these streams was immense. The momentum acquired by the water in its long descent, sufficed to melt huge hills of clay and gravel very quickly; and instances were reported where men, and mules even, had been killed by being struck by the water, as it issued from the pipes or hose. The men engaged in mining were rough and hirsute, as miners everywhere are; but they looked bright and keen, and as if they believed in California and her future, come what might.

The change in the climate, as we plunged into the foot-hills, and felt our way up into the Sierras, was very apparent, and soon became disagreeably so. At Sacramento, the weather was close and warm; but hour by hour, as we ascended, the thermometer went down, and long before reaching Cisco, only about a hundred miles or so, we were shivering in winter garments. As I have said, this was then the "jumping off" place or terminus of the Central Pacific road, and is well up into the mountains. We reached there soon after noon, and I must say were surprised at the general excellence, as well as audacity of the road. Some of its grades are over a hundred feet to the mile,[25] and in many places it literally springs into the air, over immense trestle-work bridges or along the dizzy edge of precipices, that seem fraught with peril and destruction; but we reached Cisco safe and sound, and sat down to a smoking dinner, with the snow-drifts still up to the eaves of the roofs of the hotel, and the houses round-about.

Cisco was then a scattered village, of frame tenements, only a few months old; but as the terminus of the road, and depot of supplies for all Nevada, it was bustling with business. The Overland Mail, for Virginia City and the East, left here daily, on the arrival of the train; and, after a hurried dinner, we were off again with the mail. It was now May 17th, and though the advancing summer had melted the snow in the regular roadway, so that wagoning was practicable for some distance, yet the old snow still lay six and eight feet deep on the general level, and our road ran between solid walls of it. We set off from Cisco in stage-coaches (mountain mud-wagons), but soon had to surrender these for sleighs; and then came a long and dreary pull, through slush and mud and ice, for several miles, till we got well across the summit of the Sierras, when we again took coaches and rattled down to Donner Lake, where we arrived at 8½ p. m., having made only eighteen miles since noon. The most of us walked a good part of the way, and found it altogether rather a fatiguing march. The depth of the snow still left on the summit seemed surprising; but a gentleman I met in San Francisco assured me, that when he crossed the Sierras in December previous, he found the telegraph poles, even, in many places snowed under. The stage-people reported the snow as having been fifteen and twenty feet in depth on the level generally, and we could see where they had set up poles and "shakes" long before, to mark out the general course of the road itself.

It was these huge vast snows that the Central Pacific folks had mainly to provide against, and the problem would have appalled most men. But they quietly set to work to board the snows out, and since then have literally housed their road in for thirty miles or more. The surrounding forests furnished them cheap timber, and portable saw-mills shifted from point to point soon converted this into the required lumber. But what a herculean job it really was! These great snow-sheds or snow-galleries consumed in all nearly forty-five million feet, board measure, of sawed timber, and over a million and a quarter feet of round timber, equivalent in the aggregate to fifty-two and a half million feet, board measure, of sawed timber; and nearly a thousand tons of iron and spikes. Two general styles of construction were adopted—one intended for localities where the weight of the snow only had to be supported, and the other for such places as were exposed to "slides," and the slower but almost irresistible "glacial movement" of the snow, as on the steep and rocky slopes near the summit. These galleries have proved a great success, and though frequently covered with drifted snow to a depth of ten or twenty feet, and in some places of more than fifty feet, they afford a safe passage for trains at all seasons, without noticeable detentions.

Near the summit, we came upon John Chinaman again, in all his glory. Here was the "Heathen Chinee," five thousand strong, burrowing and tunnelling a way for the road, through the back-bone of the Sierras. It was a huge piece of work, nearly half a mile long, through the solid granite; but John was patiently pegging away at it, from four different faces, and soon afterwards completed it successfully. They all wore their pig-tails, the same as in San Francisco, but usually had these sacred appendages twisted well around their heads, instead of dangling at their heels; and, with the exception of the universal blue blouse, were dressed like ordinary navvies or laborers. Of course, they had American or English superintendents and foremen of gangs; but these all spoke well of the almond-eyed strangers, and praised them, especially, for their docility and intelligence. A more industrious or orderly set of workingmen, were never seen; and though railroad-building was a new employment for Asiatics, they seemed to take to it very kindly. Subsequently, they pushed the Central down the mountains, and through to Ogden City; and the day is not distant, when they will push such roads, with their thousand civilizing influences, all through the Flowery Kingdom.

We crossed the summit just at sunset, and from that proud altitude—seven thousand two hundred feet above the sea—gazed down upon that gem of the Sierras, Donner Lake—a body of crystalline water, five miles long by over half a mile wide, in the very heart of the mountains. The crest of the Sierras lifts itself boldly along the west, but elsewhere the ridges slope down to the Lake, and the hoary peaks and cliffs seem to hold it in their lap, like a sleeping infant. The sunset itself, that evening, was superb. The clouds became gold, the snow burnished silver, while a purple haze sifted down from the sky, and soon veiled exquisitely the lake and its far-stretching cañons. As the night gathered deeper, the lights and shadows became grandly sublime; and then, as a fitting sequel, came one of those glorious skies, ablaze with stars, for which the Coast is so famed. It was blackest marble, gemmed with silver. It seemed to uplift itself into eternity. The whole scene fixed itself indelibly in the memory, and though we saw Lake Tahoe afterwards I preferred this view of Donner Lake.