It would be hard to express the chagrin which we felt on looking from the window of the Bay View Annex on the morning following our arrival to find a heavy fog, almost bordering on a drizzle, enveloping everything and even shrouding the near-by ocean from view. We were told that such fogs often lasted a week or more, so it did not seem worth while to wait another day at the Bay View in hope of clear weather. We set out with the forlorn hope that the fog might clear away as the sun rose higher.
For the first four or five miles out of the town we skimmed along over the most perfect boulevard of our tour—a wide, perfectly level, hard, smooth, dust-free surface, yet a road which cost nothing per mile and never had an hour’s work expended upon it by any man. It was the hard, firm, ocean beach which we traversed, so close to the sullen gray water that it lapped our wheels as we glided onward. And lo, we beheld, skipping joyously along on this same beach our unwelcome passenger of the previous day. He had evidently begged or bought transportation from Patrick’s Creek to Crescent City and was now away on a hundred-mile hike to Eureka, unless he could work his nerve on some passing car as he did on us. Nothing daunted by his rebuff at our parting, he cheerfully signified his desire to continue with us for the day, but we bade him hail and farewell without slackening the car’s sharp pace.
Our fine beach road ended all too soon in a wild plunge through the soft deep sand to the mainland, where we almost immediately began the ascent of a stiff, long grade, winding with many sharp turns through the closely standing pines. About midway a large car was parked with a broken axle, leaving barely room to squeeze past. Time and again as we ascended the mighty slope we came out upon bold headlands which on clear days afford endless views of the ocean a thousand feet or more below. We could hear the angry swish of the sea among the broken rocks at the base of the cliff, but the gray mist hid it from our eager eyes. It was, indeed, a disappointment, but we found some compensation as we climbed still higher on the fern-banked road. Near the summit we again entered the mighty redwoods which towered hundreds of feet above us. We were rising above the fog and the weirdly glorious effect of the sun’s rays as they shot through the thin vapor among the hoary trees was as fascinating as it is indescribable. The forest monarchs seemed literally ablaze with pale fire. The dull gray fog merged into a silvery vapor which floated among the titanic trunks and branches and long shafts of light radiated from their tops like a mighty halo. As we continued to ascend the air gradually cleared and a sky of the intensest blue shone above the trees—but it was only due to the altitude, for, coming out on a headland, we beheld the envious fog still shrouding the ocean far below. The sullen booming of the surf and the screams of sea birds came weirdly mingled from the unseen deeps, giving a strange sensation of mystery.
Back into the mighty forest we turned and for many miles followed the winding road, closely bordered by the giant trees. The corduroy on this road was in much better repair, some of it being new and made of closely laid square slabs. Here, again the riotous greenery beneath the trees delighted and amazed us. Fern fronds six feet long were common and moss, shrubbery, and vines flourished in wild profusion everywhere. We emerged on an open headland covered with bronzed fern and scattered shrubs, and strained our eyes for a glimpse of the silver sea through the lightening mass of vapor and we were rewarded with a faint shimmer here and there. Then came more miles of redwoods crowding the road so closely that we found difficulty in passing another car which met us here. The forest was strangely silent; we saw nothing of bird or animal life and only the boom of the ocean when we happened to come near the coast broke upon the uncanny stillness.
Again we came abruptly into the open and a long, sinuous descent brought us to Requa, a forlorn-looking little hamlet on the broad inlet of the Klamath River. They told us that half the people of the village were Indians and those whom we saw wore white man’s clothes and had the appearance of modest prosperity. Salmon fishing and two canneries employ the population during the fishing season. The wide, still river is crossed by ferry, a rude barge propelled by a gasoline launch, lashed alongside and capable of carrying three or four cars.
During our crossing our interest was centered on the ferryman’s daughter, a little miss of seven or eight summers, who swung on the chain at the bow of the boat. Utterly unconscious of her picturesque beauty or that she was being observed, she made one of the most delightful studies we had seen in many a day and made us long for the skill to execute a rapid sketch. Her dark olive, oval face was regular and pleasing in features and her cheeks were tinged with red roses from the fresh sea air. Her heavy black hair was woven in a long braid and coiled about her head. She wore a plain slip of a dress and her deft little fingers were working on a head-dress of red and green cambric, which at times she fitted over her raven tresses with the air of a Fifth Avenue belle judging the merits of the latest Parisian creation in millinery. Then she removed it and eyed it critically; evidently it did not meet her artistic ideals, for she ripped it to pieces and began rearranging the brightly colored scraps.
We were so much interested in her beauty and unconscious antics that we forgot all about the broad, green river we were crossing and therefore paused when we had scrambled up the opposite bank to gaze up the valley. We saw a noble stream, gleaming through the thin vapor that hovered above it and sweeping far up the canyon until it vanished in the densely wooded hills. The picturesque valley is included in the proposed Redwood National Park, which the citizens of Northern California hope to see established before the wholesale slaughter of these forests is begun.
We ran for a good many miles through a flat, swampy country dotted with reedy lagoons, re-entering the redwoods near the Humboldt County line. We encountered a long, steady ascent with grades up to twenty per cent, which ultimately brought us to the ocean, which we had left for a time. The road, with occasional bends to the inland, followed the shore for the remainder of our day’s run and presented a continual panorama of delightful scenery. The sun was still tempered by the soft white mists and the ocean shone like burnished silver in the subdued light. The shore is exceedingly rugged and in many places out in the ocean were mighty detached rocks upon which the incoming waves broke into white, foaming masses.
The redwoods continued for many miles—mighty, symmetrical trees whose dimensions were hard to realize, but many were twenty feet in diameter and upwards of two hundred and fifty feet in height. It was only by comparison with some small object that their colossal size could be realized; we had grown so used to the gigantic that it palled upon our senses. Often they grew in groups, two, three, or more stems from a single base whose dimensions were simply staggering. We could not contemplate the majesty and beauty of these forest giants without a tinge of sadness—we know that the railroad is daily creeping nearer and that unless prompt measures are taken to protect them the time is not far away when only burned and blackened stumps will show where they stood, as we saw nearer Eureka. We parted company with them as one who leaves a very old and wise friend whom he feels that he may never see again, breathing meanwhile the prayer:
“O, forest Titans, may it be
Long, long, ere man with steel and fire
Comes hither on his errand dire
To end your centuried reverie.”