More tender, as we every day behold,
Than that all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul—the dinner-bell!”
Sunday, Nov. 19. My companions pushed on last evening to San José—fifteen miles distant. My old Russian friend, who occupies one of the mission buildings, invited me to spend the Sabbath with him; an invitation which I gladly accepted, as it afforded a refuge from the restaurant, with the roar of its revelry and rum. The United States have sent out enough of this fire here to burn up a continent. The conflagration, kindled by the battle-brand or bolt of the electric cloud, may sweep a forest, or lay a city in ashes; but from the smouldering ruins new structures will rise, and a new generation of plants spring; but where the spirit of rum hath spread its flame a desolation follows, which the skill of man and the reviving dews of heaven can never reach. It is barren and verdureless as the sulphurous marl which paves
“The deep track of hell.”
Monday, Nov. 20. For a moment this morning I regretted having parted with my pistols, and thrown myself on the non-resistant principle. I was alone, and on my way to San José, when two horsemen suddenly broke from the covert of the woods on my left, and swept down upon the line of my path. They were well mounted, and had the dare-devil air of the brigand. It was near this spot, too, that a young friend of mine had been recently murdered. To attempt flight on my Indian pony from the lightning hoof of my pursuers, would have given to consternation itself a hue of the ludicrous. I determined to die decently, if die I must. My supposed assailants dashed close to my side, and then, without uttering a word, spurred back to the forest, from which they had debouched. They were foreigners, disguised as Californians; for a native always salutes you, and would, were his hand on the trigger of his pistol. They went as they came, and the secret of their impetuous visit is in their own keeping. I was quite willing to part with their company, and ascribe their intrusion to a violent curiosity, or any other motive untouched by crime, so that they would let me pass in peace to the Pueblo of San José.
Tuesday, Nov. 21. Arriving at the Pueblo, I found my companions had hired four horses, accustomed to the harness, attached them to the wagon, which we had left here, on our way to the mines, and were ready to start for Monterey. I threw my saddle, bridle, and blanket into the wagon, and parted with my Indian pony: he had done me good service, and got me out of a bad fix in the mines; he had pounded me some, it is true; but that was no fault of his; nature never intended him to tread on flowers without bending their stems. May his new owner treat him kindly; and when age has withered his strength, not turn him out on a public common to die! Had we as little mercy shown us as we extend to the noblest animal committed to our care, we should never get to heaven.
The sun was far down his western slope when we reached the rancho of Mr. Murphy, and camped for the night under the evergreen oaks, which throw the soft shade of their undying verdure over a streamlet that murmurs near his door. The old gentleman invited us in to share his restricted apartments, but we had so long slept under trees, that we preferred the free air, the maternal earth, and the stars to light us to our slumber. Truly I never slept so soundly on the garnished couch, and never found in sleep such a renovating refreshment. I can now comprehend why it is the hunter clings to his wild life, and prefers the precarious subsistence of his rifle to teeming stalls. He lives out of himself; his sympathies are with nature; his sensations roll through boundless space. It is for his eye the violet blooms, and the early cloud catches the blush of morn; it is for his ear the bird sings from its green covert, and the torrent shouts from its cliff; it is to cheer his footsteps that the twilight lingers, and the star blazes in the coronet of night: all the changes of the varied year are for him; and around his wild-wood home the seasons lead the hours in perpetual dance; and when his being shall resign its trust, the dirge of the deep wood will sing his requiem, and the wings of the wind, filled with the fragrance of flowers, bear his spirit to its bright abode.
Wednesday, Nov. 22. We broke camp at sunrise, took our coffee, harnessed up, and began to lumber ahead. Our driver, who owned the dull steeds which he reined, was a native of New England, and betrayed his origin in the perpetual hum of a low plaintive tune, which spun on for hours in the same unconscious monotony. Even the crack of his whip, which came in frequently, had only the effect to give some note a slight emphasis, while the low dirge still murmured on, true to its unbroken flow as the tick of the death-watch to its admonitory errand. Thus the hours of the day, their tender requiem being sung, stole silently into the past.
But now occurred a wayfaring incident which could not thus be charmed to rest. Our team, about half-way up the long hill of San Juan, balked, and the wagon began to roll back to its base. We jumped out and clogged the wheels, for we had no idea of returning again to the mines. Having breathed a moment, we made another attempt, but without success; we now put our shoulders to the wheels, while the lash fell fast on the flanks of our horses. But no pushing, coaxing, or whipping availed; our journey for the day was done, and abruptly too as that of a migratory goose struck by a rifle ball. The shadows of the mountain pines were lengthening fast, and we retired into a glen at a short distance, and camped. It was my duty to procure water for coffee; the spring where the horses drank was too full of impurities; I followed up the unseen vein marked by the green willows, till its flowing wave murmured on the ear from the depths of a shadowy chasm. But the method of reaching it puzzled me as much as the faithful proxy of the Patriarch would have been, but for the pitcher and line of the gentle Rachel. How free of affectation and false alarm that daughter of Israel, as her snow-white arms drew the limpid tide to quench the stranger’s thirst! How free of a distrustful spirit, or disdaining pride, when told that one whom her father loved, sued for her bridal hand! The wave which swelled in her milk-white bosom may have trembled a moment, like the leaf stirred in the rosy twilight, and the dream of her pillowed slumber may have flushed through the snow-curl of her cheek, but with the early lark, she was up and away—happy in her own youth and innocence, and in the thought that these were inwoven with the happiness of another. How hollow the pretexts of protracted delay, when touched by the light which glimmers down through ages from the example of this primitive maiden! But where am I?—in the infant world instead of these chasmed rocks, which frown through the wrinkles of its decrepitude and age. How thought annihilates time and space! The flower that first bloomed on the verge of the globe, as it emerged from chaos, and the cinder that will fade last in the embers of its final conflagration, lie side by side in the domain of thought; and the star that hailed its birth, and the planet that will guard its tomb, are twin-born in the eternity of time. But I am off again in a philosophic revery, and must come back to my coffee-pot and chasm! With the aid of a long riata, my bucket was lowered sufficiently to dip the unseen stream; but drawing it up I discovered in its wave, as the surface became tranquil, what might well startle any one whose nerves were not of steel. It was a human face of bronze hue, half covered with tangled locks, and a beard of hermit growth, and so like that bent above, there was a relief in the ripple that destroyed the resemblance. But my camping companions will never, at this rate, get their coffee.