AT THE BIG TREES.
With a full moon we had planned to travel most of the way across the
alkali and sandy deserts of Nevada at night, and were on the point of
leaving Salt Lake City to do so when the Grand Army of the Republic
excursion tickets were issued, enabling anyone to go from there to
San Francisco, up to Portland, Oregon, by water and return to Salt
Lake via the Oregon Short Line. Returning by this route would take
us within easy wheeling distance of Yellowstone Park, and with that
inducement, in addition to being taken across Nevada and over the
Sierra Nevada Mountains at half rates, we were not long in deciding
to take the cars. But now the first financial difficulty stared us in
the face. I had no trouble in Denver in getting identified, but, as
I said, we knew no one and no one knew us in Salt Lake City. Letters,
league ticket, and other papers were presented at the bank, but nothing
would prevail on the officials to give us a penny. The only thing to
do was to telegraph home, and that would probably delay us several
days, and, with that discouraging alternative in view, we told our
story to Mr. F. G. Brooks, a member of the bicycle club. "Wait till I
see what father says," said he, and he carried the worthless New York
drafts back to the desk. The elder F. G. Brooks hesitated a moment,
and then wrote his name across the back of those drafts, and we went
to the bank and received $150 in gold. And the old gentleman that did
that kind act was a Mormon, through and through. Surely I had reason
to like the Mormons, in every respect but their religion.
Thus far, in traveling twenty-six hundred miles or more over clay
ruts and mountain roads, I had taken only two tumbles, and was
beginning to think there was no such thing as headers when, in
gliding serenely across the street, in front of the Utah Central
Depot at Salt Lake City, I rode into a ditch, concealed with
fine sand, and instantly--that word makes the time altogether too
long--my nose and chin were scraping along on the hard gravel. I
never took such a tumble. It was like a flash. And the knapsack,
as usual, unkindly butted me on the back of the head as the ground
suddenly brought the trip to a close. With the blood starting from
both nose and chin, and a loosened handle bar, that at first sent a
cold chill all through me with the impression that it was broken, and
with a knee so badly sprained that I could only limp into the cars,
these things, altogether, served to remind me that carelessness and
'cycling are incompatible.
On the way to Ogden we saw several headers at work on the wheat fields,
and these served to awaken me from the dazed condition in which the
only kind of a header I had ever known had put me. The field headers
are mowing machines that go along in front of the horses instead
of behind them, as is usual with mowing machines in the East, and
as it cuts the wheat down--it simply cuts off the tops or heads of
the wheat, hence the name header--the wheat falls on to a long cloth
roller that revolves at right angles to the direction the machine is
going. A large box wagon is driven along at the left of the header
and the wheat is carried up on this cloth roller and loaded into
this wagon. When full another takes its place while the first wagon
is being unloaded at the stack.
The Wasatch Mountains, a range that extends from below Salt Lake
City to many miles above Ogden, are not dwarfed, as is the case with
so many other ranges of mountains, by foot hills at their base, but
they stand out bold and black, excepting where covered with snow, and
are the most impressive of any mountains I have yet seen. At Ogden,
through passengers are delayed two hours between the arrival of the
Union Pacific and the departure of the Central Pacific trains. Half
of this time is a needless delay, for the mail, baggage and express
matter was all transferred long before the train left, but this is
only a sample of the manner in which both roads are run.
The question of fast time is never considered in their operation. A
through Eastern fruit train now makes decidedly better time than the
regular passenger trains; and freight trains, as a rule, run faster
between stations than passenger trains. The time tables seem to be made
with the sole object of helping delayed trains get through on time,
no matter how slow that time is. One train we were on was an hour
and a half late at midnight, but on time before 5 o'clock the next
morning, and we did not run so fast but that passengers could sleep
as usual. There is talk of a new fast train being put on between Omaha
and San Francisco that will shorten the time perhaps a day, but in the
East even that train would not be considered anything very fast. Then
the Central Pacific trains are not only run slow but sure, sure that
everything is all right before they start. A brakeman comes through
from the front end of the train and calls for every one's ticket,
looks at the ticket and hands it back. Pretty soon a man in uniform,
a little higher up than the brakeman, but not so high as the conductor,
comes along through the train from the rear end, examines carefully
all the tickets, reads all the printed matter on them, punches them,
and hands them back, after perhaps taking a passenger out of the cars
to verify his statement in regard to an extra hole in his ticket made
by some other official. Then after the tickets have been examined
from the front to the rear, and scrutinized and punched from the rear
end to the front end of the train, even before the train had started,
to make the thing more binding the conductor himself comes through,
punches all the tickets, and gives each passenger a plain piece of
colored pasteboard without so much as a table of distances printed
on it, a convenience many times to passengers, and which is so rotten
that it breaks and falls to pieces at the least touch. Let a passenger
accidentally destroy one of these valuable pieces of plain rotten
pasteboard during his rolling and tumbling in his seat at night
and he is looked upon by the conductor as a criminal for wantonly
destroying so much valuable property, and financially crippling the
railroad company in consequence, and these priceless pieces of paper
are carefully gathered up at the end of each division of the road
by the economical conductors, who, at night, shake and arouse every
passenger who has so much of this valuable property of the company's
concealed about his person. Most of the postal, express, and baggage
cars used here are now built without doors at the ends. Perhaps the
numerous train robberies have caused this innovation.
Once during that Saturday night, after leaving Ogden, I looked out
of the car window and in the moonlight saw a perfectly level sea
of alkali without so much as a sage bush growing upon it, and then
I went to sleep again more contented than ever with the way I was
crossing this part of the continent.
At one of the stations were some horned toads for sale, the first I had
seen, and as I asked a passenger standing near what kind of animals
they were, "I think," said he, honestly enough, "they are what they
call prairie dogs." All day Sunday it was sand, sage-bush, and a sun
so hot that it would almost blister, and the same kind of a country
we had already seen so much of east of Ogden. So I occupied myself
most of the time writing. During the day at the different stations
situated along the sandy desert the thermometer registered 102° and
104°, and yet I was not uncomfortably warm. The air would blow in at
the windows as if it came direct from some furnace, and yet it was
so very dry that it would not start the perspiration. Until I reached
California there were only three days that were oppressively hot since
the commencement of the trip, and those were in the fore part of July
while crossing Iowa. In Colorado and over the plains the atmosphere
was so very dry that even with the thermometer up to ninety, as it was
in Iowa, one could exercise without feeling the heat nearly as much.
At Truckee we left the train at 12 o'clock at night, and as we wanted
to be off early the next morning for Lake Tahoe, fifteen miles up the
Truckee River, we decided not to go to bed. There were several bales
of hay on the freight house platform, and one had burst open. Into
that hay we crawled and slept till daylight, keeping comfortably
warm till nearly morning, but I had to go behind the freight house
and remove my clothes in order to shake out the innumerable spires
of hay that pricked me from head to foot.
We got started soon after four, and the road was decidedly better than
I had reason to think it would be, and the grade was easy, but the
dust rather uncomfortable. But that is to be expected in a country
that has so little rain in so many months, and where the roads are
used as much as this one is the fine dust gets very deep. Going up,
a couple of young deer remained in the road till I was nearly upon
them, and even when I dismounted they didn't run, but stayed within
six or eight feet of where I stood. They appeared so tame I wanted to
get my hands upon them and stroke their hair, but Hasley, coming up,
drew his revolver, and I hallooed "Don't shoot; they're tame." The
sound of a human voice sent them up the hillside like a streak,
and I saw it was the glistening nickel that fascinated them.
The waters of Lake Tahoe are very clear, and it never freezes over,
as I was told, although the weather is sufficiently cold; but really I
do not see what makes the place so celebrated. It is a beautiful lake,
thirty miles long, surrounded by wooded hills, but place it in New
England and it would hardly be noticed among the many there fully as
beautiful. The clearness of the water is remarkable, but no more so
than the water of any lake situated high up in the mountains, where
there is nothing but the pure white snow to furnish a water supply,
and where there is no loam, mud, or vegetable matter to discolor
it. There are no other attractions, unless it be the Hot Springs,
and as we did not go over there, five miles away, of course I cannot
form an opinion of that place.
A steamer goes around the lake once a day, carrying mail and
merchandise. We rowed and fished some, that is pulled out the same
fish, the minnows, that we threw in, but the rest, lying on the
pebbly beach, with the sound of the swash of the waves in my ears,
was enjoyed the most of any part of the day. And perhaps that is
the very reason why the lake is so noted. People from the East
come to it after days of travel over the sandy plains and alkali
deserts of Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, and the change from the hot,
dusty ride to the clear, cold waters of the lake in the mountains,
is so delightful that the lake gets its full share, and more too,
of the credit for the pleasure in the change.
Both going up and coming down I must have passed hundreds of snake
tracks in the road, some of them two or three inches wide. What size
the snakes must have been to make such tracks I could only imagine;
but the woods were surely full of snakes.
Taking the train again at midnight, I was soon asleep, but something
awoke me just as we were rounding Cape Horn. The brakeman, the night
before, told me it would be seven o'clock before we should pass
that point of interest, so I went to sleep unconcerned about waking
in time, but something startled me as a call in the morning would,
and I rushed out upon the platform, rubbing my eyes open, just as we
were passing around the side of the mountain. It was barely light,
but the sight of two huge locomotives followed by a train of twelve
cars rushing around near the edge of a precipice four or five hundred
feet high will not soon be forgotten, and the manner in which the
railroad twists and turns around the sides of the mountains down into
Colfax is worth getting up pretty early to see. As far as the eye can
see from this point down into the Sacramento valley, California is
of one hue--straw-color. The ripe wheat is, of course, that color,
but the common grass has dried up and changed to the same, whereas
on the plains the dried grass is of nearly the same color as the
soil. The morning was not clear, so the view was not very extended;
but we were soon looking at objects that were of more practical value
to hungry wheelmen than the prevailing color of the country. We had
the best "two-bit" meal at Sacramento we had found in many a week.
The dome of the capitol, which from a distance resembles the dome at
Washington, naturally draws sightseers to visit the capitol building,
but the edifice looks old and out of fashion compared with many
other State structures. Above the first story, which is of granite,
it is built of brick plastered over and painted. The senate chamber
and house of representatives are furnished simply with cushioned and
cane-seated chairs, standing around promiscuously; no desks for any
one excepting clerks and presiding officers. The ascent to the lantern
above the dome is by winding stairs that twist about a wooden pole
in the center of the upper part of the dome, and it seemed as if the
whole building shook as we went up and down these stairs.
Salt Lake is a city laid out with very large blocks and built up of
very small houses, and Sacramento is a city of verandas. All the
sidewalks in the business portion of the city are covered and the
verandas are often two stories high. These add greatly to the comfort
of pedestrians, and we could fully appreciate them with the thermometer
at a hundred and over. Still, notwithstanding this intense, dry heat,
we started out in the middle of the afternoon and made thirty-two
miles before dark over roads that were certainly excellent. The
fine sand which covers the surface of the whole valley, during the
rainy season packs down very hard and the wind keeps the surface of
the roads in many places free of dust, so that they are as hard and
smooth as concrete.
That evening we went out into the farmer's garden and ate all the
fresh figs we wished. These figs are about the same shape and a little
smaller than Bartlett pears and the skin is almost black. They are
pink inside and have a sweetish taste that becomes fascinating. The
figs we have in the East must be of another variety, for the black
skin cannot be removed before drying. The next morning we passed some
century plants growing by the roadside in front of a farm-house.
The roads were good for twenty miles farther, but then we began
to get up into the foot hills and naturally the riding was not so
good; but still after waiting three hours or more in the shade at
noon we made nearly fifty miles more during the day towards the Big
Trees. That evening, after asking in vain for shelter for the night
at two or three places, we laid down under a tree, feeling too tired
to care much where we stayed. There was no particular hardship about
sleeping on the ground, for the night was warm and the ground dry,
and there was no dew. I was asleep in no time, but not for long. The
ants had pre-empted that section long before and were soon active in
finding out who was trying to jump their claim. I did not mind their
crawling up my pant legs or down the back of my shirt, or through my
hair, or across my face, for I could go to sleep with a whole army
walking all over me, but when an ant suddenly took it into his head
to bite it served to unpleasantly disturb my dreams. After wasting a
good part of the night in changing lodgings, I finally slept soundly
whether the ants did or not.
The next day, after riding and walking about equal distances for
thirty miles, we reached the Calaveras Big Trees, a little less than
one hundred and ten miles and two days' journey from Sacramento. The
heat, 102° in the shade, was so intense that the cement softened
under the tire so much that it could easily be removed, and the
three or four inches of hot, fine dust was very hard on the feet;
but after a cold bath and half an hour's rest the verdict was that it
paid. Although there are woods all over the mountains, and trees over
a hundred feet high in many places, yet the grove proper comprises
but about twenty-five or thirty acres.
I must say that trying to describe the trees themselves is beyond my
power. I can only tell what I did. There are smooth drives through the
groves, so I rode. Most of the trees are standing, but there was one
that had fallen. The inside is hollow, and about fifty feet from the
base is an immense hole in the side. Into this hole with my bicycle I
went, and rode through the inside of the tree for nearly two hundred
feet, emerging through another hole into the daylight again. There
is a knothole near this point large enough to allow a man of giant
frame to enter or crawl out of.
The inside of the tree was covered with charcoal, and it was quite dark
in there, so I felt my way along as I rode, getting my hands black,
but I washed some of it off at a pool of water that fills the inside
of the tree at one point. The basin of water is two or three feet
above the level of the ground, and where the water comes from and what
forces it up out of the ground into the hollow of this fallen tree
is a mystery. There is no rain here for months, and evaporation in
this dry air must tend to exhaust the supply wherever it comes from,
and yet the pool always remains at the same level.
This tree, "The Father of the Forest," is one hundred and twelve feet
in circumference at the base, and, judging from what remains of it,
four hundred and fifty feet was its height when standing. I have
no doubt a sixty-inch wheel could be ridden through where I went. A
driveway, or rather a tunnel, has been cut through another standing
tree, and the stage drives through there frequently. I found plenty
of room above and on either side in 'cycling through it. Imagine four
wheelmen abreast riding through such a place.
A pavilion has been built over the stump of another tree that was cut
down several years ago, and I rode around and cut figure eights on the
smooth floor of this stump. The diameter of this tree, at the base, is
thirty-two feet, but it was cut off about five feet from the ground,
and is twenty-five feet in diameter across the top. Five men worked
a month, boring auger holes into it, and when it was completely cut
across it would not fall, and so ropes and pulleys had to be used to
pull it over. When it fell it shook the ground for miles around, like
an earthquake. Thirty-two dancers are easily accommodated on the stump.
There are about ninety trees of similar dimensions in the grove,
and they bear the names of generals, statesmen, noted women, and
others. These trees all show the effects of fire, but younger trees
growing by their side, that are certainly from one to two hundred
years old, have not the slightest marks of the flames upon them. The
date of this ancient fire that burnt the inside out and killed so
many of the trees is beyond conjecture, but the age of these giant
sequoias must be reckoned up among the thousands.
A description of these other trees might be given, but it would simply
be a repetition of wonders. Seeing so many trees all the way up from
Murphy's that, to me, seemed prodigious, when I first reached here
the grove did not impress me, but every time I look at them now they
appear larger. As in looking from the rear end of a moving train,
as soon as the train stops the ties, rails, and everything begin to
enlarge in size, apparently, so with these trees, a couple of days
of rest has given me a much better idea of their immensity than could
be had at first sight.
Distance on the wheel, 2,768 miles.