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

by James Fowler Rusling

After concluding my duties at Fort Churchill, some thirty miles east on the road to Austin, we returned again to Virginia City, and on the morning of May 22d took the coach for California again. As we had come over by Cisco and Donner Lake, we decided to return by Lake Tahoe and Placerville, and thus see as much of the country both ways as possible. Our route lay first through Carson City and Genoa, and thence across the Sierras by Lake Tahoe to Placerville. The sun shone clear, but cool, as we swung out of the Silver City, amidst rolling clouds of dust; but when we reached the grease-wood and sage plains, it speedily grew warmer. We found Carson a diminutive "city," noted chiefly for its penitentiary, and pushed rapidly ahead all day. We threaded the valley of the Carson, and striking the Sierras skirted their base for miles; but finally turned square west, and zigzagged over the first range, by a splendid turnpike, that is unsurpassed anywhere. The range was so abrupt, and the road so sharp, that the summit seemed higher than it really was; but when we reached there, we were repaid by a magnificent view of the valley of the Carson, and the far-stretching sage and alkali plains of Nevada. So far, we had encountered no snow; but when we approached the second range, or Mother Ridge of the Sierras, we found it snow-crowned still, and prepared ourselves for the worst.

At Yank's Station, where we changed horses just at nightfall, they reported the road ahead as not good enough for sleighs, and too bad for coaches; but concluded, on the whole, we had better risk a coach. So, after a hearty supper, we set off in a Concord coach, being the first one over the Placerville route that spring. We had a full load—nine passengers inside and four outside, including two ladies and three children; but our six horses were fresh and gamey, and for a time we swung along at a spanking pace. Halfway up the range, however, we struck the ice and slush, and soon came to a dead halt, with a request from the driver for all to get out and walk, except the ladies and children. With only these on board, the coach forged ahead for a mile or so more, when again it halted, and these, too, were ordered out. Two of the children were small, only four or five years of age, and these the rest of the passengers chivalrously agreed to shoulder and carry by turns. The road was itself quite steep; its bed, mingled ice and slush; while on either side were still four or five feet of snow, as on the Donner Lake route. It ascended the range by long zigzags, and some who attempted a "short cut" across these, trusting the snow, soon found themselves up to their waists or shoulders in it. It was slow and painful travelling at best, especially with a child on your back; but the coach progressed still slower, and often we heard it floundering along far below us, or wholly stalled in some villainous chuck-hole, worse than the rest.

Reaching the summit at last, near midnight, by such long and toilsome climbing, we there found a rough station, where we dried our feet and clothes, and got fresh horses, after which we pushed on again—now, however, sticking by the coach, and helping to lift it out, and urge it along from time to time as needed. Sometimes, it seemed hopelessly stalled, especially when it got wedged in, besides, against one of the snow-walls; but by lifting and prying, and much faithful shouting, we always managed somehow to pull out, and at last struck terra firma again along toward morning. But we were six mortal hours, in making less than ten miles, across this range; and what with trudging through the slush, helping the ladies forward, and carrying the children, it was altogether one of the worst night-journeys I ever experienced. If anybody thinks differently, let him try his hand at carrying fifty pounds of childhood, up a slushy road, six miles more or less across a mountain, through the chilly night air, about midnight and after. When happily we regained the coach, after passing the snow, we supposed our troubles about over; but an ambitious mother from Virginia City, en route to San Francisco, left her Gertrude Jane unselfishly to me, while she herself sank gracefully into a corner of the coach, and went deliberately to sleep. It was, perhaps, characteristic of her sex on the Coast, where women are so few, they are over-appreciated; but to the Eastern mind, I confess, it seemed somewhat too much of a good thing, considering the premises.

Once out of the snow, we struck comparatively good roads again, and whirled along down and out of the mountains at a magnificent rate. Our general pace was a good square trot, but we swung around the zigzags usually at a sharp gallop, and often shaved the edge of cliffs so closely, that it made the goose-flesh come and go, or one's hair about stand on end. With the first break of day, I sought the outside of the coach, and revelled in the ride through the breezy pines of the Sierras—monster coniferæ, ten and twelve feet through, and running up straight as an arrow by the hundred feet—and so down the range to Lake Tahoe. This (Tahoe) is the gem of the Sierras, par excellence, according to all good Californians; and one scarcely wonders at their immense pride in it. Itself six thousand feet above the sea, skirted with primeval forests, rimmed about with snow-clad peaks, it stretches wide for ten or twelve miles, and its waters are so pure and clear, that trout may be seen at all depths in it. It had already become a popular resort for all the Pacific Coast, and waited only for the completion of the railroad, to welcome visitors from the East. Here was the limpid heart of the Sierras; and the wild, the picturesque, and the sublime, all combined to enhance its conceded beauty. California herself, ever alive to her own interests, was also entertaining some very utilitarian views with regard to it. A long-headed, broad-minded German engineer proposed to tap it, by tunnelling through the Sierras, and conducting its crystal waters across the State—first utilizing them as water-power and a grand irrigating canal en route as wanted, and at the terminus supplying San Francisco with unimpeachable water. It was a gigantic project, involving many millions; but was already much talked of, and was just the kind of scheme to interest the minds, and lighten the pockets, of good Californians.

Past Lake Tahoe, we whirled over and down the mountains at a telling pace—by the side of rushing torrents, amidst aromatic pines, along the dizzy edge of precipices—it was the very romance of stage-coaching—and drew up at Shingle Station, on the Placerville and Sacramento Railroad, at 11 a. m., having come 116 miles since leaving Virginia City, only the day before, despite the snow on the summit. At Placerville, we struck the original gold-fields of California, and saw abundant evidences of past washings on all sides of us. These were now mostly abandoned, except by the Chinese, who here and there were still patiently at work, content to glean what Americans despised. Placerville itself, in the then early spring, was one mass of perfect roses and foliage. The balmy breath of summer seemed everywhere at work, and the climate reminded one rather of Charleston or Savannah in May or June. Her ragged hillsides, abandoned by the miner, were everywhere changing into vineyards and orchards, while skillful irrigation was rapidly converting her waste lands into productive farms. Once out of the foot-hills, we again struck the lordly wheat-fields, and thence on to Sacramento we were never out of sight of broad acres of waving grain.

At Sacramento, we found hearty welcome, and good hotels, and tarried there for a day or so. It was then a city of fifteen or twenty thousand people, and though not prospering as in former years, as capital of the State and the centre of a magnificent farming district, was yet certain of its future. Here, as at Placerville, the wealth of roses was something surprising, and indeed the whole city seemed to be a wilderness of color and perfume. It is difficult for one residing on the Atlantic slope, to realize how richly California is endowed with flowers. To us, here, they were a constant wonder and delight, though this may have partly come from our sudden transition from the snows of the Sierras.

From Sacramento, we rode over to Stockton, some fifty miles, leaving at 6 a. m. and reaching there at 1 p. m. As there were but few passengers, we had the coach pretty much to ourselves, and the ride proved delightful, barring the dust. Our route lay mainly down the valley of the Sacramento proper, and we found the country a dead level or gently rolling, not unlike an Illinois prairie, though diversified here and there with groups of live-oaks, festooned with Spanish moss. Now and then these oaks thickened into respectable groves, but nowhere did they seem to amount to much as timber. The soil was everywhere black and deep, all a farmer's heart could wish, and there appeared to be literally no end to the wide-stretching wheat-fields. They skirted the road for miles, on every side, and our driver was continually pointing out to us this hundred or that thousand acre wheat-field. Wheat seemed too much their main crop, though vineyards and fruit-orchards were not infrequent, and on the "divides" we here and there saw some large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, quietly feeding under their native rancheros. Evidently their breadth of wheatland was constantly extending. When California first began to grow wheat, for several years it was thought the bottom-lands were the only ones worth cultivating. But it was found that good crops could also be grown on her uplands, and year by year more of these were now being reclaimed and sown. Unlike other crops, her wheat nowhere requires irrigation; but, sown late in the fall or early winter, it germinates beneath the December rains, grows rapidly all winter, and by May is ready to harvest. Her long and rainless summer affords ample leisure to gather and market it—no granaries or barns being required; and the reported yield—50 to 80 bushels to the acre—seems fabulous to any one, but a Californian.

Her fruit and vegetable fields require regular irrigation, the same as in Colorado and Utah; and wherever these appeared, long-armed windmills wearily beat the air, pumping water to the surface. The steady sea-breeze of the long summer renders these very reliable, and California everywhere had been quick to adopt them. All about Stockton, they stood gaunt and skeleton-like against the sky, like a cordon of ghostly sentinels; but they seemed to serve their purpose admirably well, and this was the main thing. The water they lifted to the surface was conducted by troughs and ditches hundreds of yards away, as needed, everywhere converting the parched and arid earth into bountiful fields and gardens. Stockton seemed literally embosomed in these, foliage and flowers abounding on all sides, and her climate appeared perfect even for California. At the head of steamboat navigation on the San Joaquin, she gathered into her lap the trade and travel of a wide district there, and was already a busy and thriving town of several thousand inhabitants. Of course, she has no great and magnificent future, like San Francisco; but as an important inland city, doubtless she will continue to grow and prosper for many years to come.