mysterious labels. Tall plumes of peacock's feathers in the corners and
some irregularly placed chairs were all the furniture. The orchestra sat
in chairs at the back of the stage. Some of them smoked in the
intervals, some drank tea. A little boy who drummed went out when he
felt like it; and the fellow with the biggest gong had evidently no plan
of operations at all except to gong as long as his arms could bear it,
then rest a minute, then gong again.
"Oh, well," said we, as we wedged and squeezed through the narrow
passage-way which led to our box, "it will only last a few minutes. We
shall not entirely lose our hearing." Fatal delusion. It never stopped.
The actors came out; the play began; the play went on; still the
hideous hubbub of din continued, and was made unspeakably more hideous
by the voices of the actors, which were raised to the shrillest falsetto
to surmount the noise, and which sounded like nothing in nature except
the voices of frantic cats....
At first, in spite of the deafening loudness of the din, it is ludicrous
beyond conception. To see the superbly dressed Chinese creatures,--every
one of them as perfectly and exquisitely dressed as the finest figures
on their satin fans or rice-paper pictures, and looking exactly like
them,--to see these creatures strutting and sailing and sweeping and
bowing and bending, beating their breasts and tearing their beards,
gesticulating and rushing about in an utterly incomprehensible play,
with caterwauling screams issuing from their mouths, is for a few
minutes so droll that you laugh till tears run, and think you will go to
the Chinese Theatre every night as long as you stay in San Francisco. I
said so to the friend who had politely gone with me. He had been to the
performance before. He smiled pityingly, and yawned behind his hand. At
the end of half an hour, I whispered, "Twice a week will do." In fifteen
minutes more, I said, "I think we will go out now. I can't endure this
racket another minute. But, nevertheless, I shall come once more, with
an interpreter. I must and will know what all this mummery means."
The friend smiled again incredulously. But we did go again, with an
interpreter; and the drollest thing of all was to find out how very
little all the caterwauling and rushing and bending and bawling and
sweeping and strutting really meant. The difficulty of getting an
interpreter was another interesting feature in the occasion. A lady, who
had formerly been a missionary in China, had promised to go with us;
and, as even she was not sure of being able to understand Chinese
caterwauled, she proposed to take one of the boys from the missionary
school, to interpret to her before she interpreted to us. So we drove to
the school. Mrs. ---- went in. The time seemed very long that we waited.
At last she came back, looking both amused and vexed, to report that not
one of those intelligent Christian Chinese would leave his studies that
evening to go to the theatre.
"I suppose it is an old story to them," said I.
"Not at all," said she. "On the contrary, hardly a boy there has been
inside the theatre. But they cannot bear to lose a minute from their
lessons. Mr. Loomis really urged some of them; but it was of no use."
In a grocery store on Kearny Street, however, we found a clever young
man, less absorbed in learning; and he went with us as interpreter.
Again the same hideous din; the same clouds of smoke; the same hubbub of
caterwauling. But the _dramatis personae_ were few. Luckily for us, our
first lesson in the Chinese drama was to be a simple one. And here I
pause, considering whether my account of the play will be believed. This
is the traveller's great perplexity. The incredible things are always
the only things worth telling; but is it best to tell them?
The actors in this play were three,--a lady of rank, her son, and her
man cook. The play opened with a soliloquy by the lady. She is sitting
alone, sewing. Her husband has gone to America; he did not bid her
farewell. Her only son is at school. She is sad and lonely. She weeps.
Enter boy. He asks if dinner is ready.
Enter cook. Cook says it is not time. Boy says he wants dinner. Cook
says he shall not have it. This takes fifteen minutes.
Mother examines boy on his lessons. Boy does not know them; tries to
peep. Mother reproves; makes boy kneel; prepares to whip; whips. Mother
weeps; boy catches flies on the floor; bites her finger.
Enter cook to see what the noise means. Cook takes boy to task. Boy
stops his ears. Cook bawls. Cook kneels to lady; reproves her also;
tells her she must keep her own temper, if she would train her boy.
Lady sulks, naturally. Boy slips behind and cuts her work out of her
embroidery frame. Cook attacks boy. Cook sings a lament, and goes out to
attend to dinner; but returns in frantic distress. During his absence
everything has boiled over; everything has been burned to a crisp.
Dinner is ruined. Cook now reconciles mother and son; drags son to his
knees; makes him repeat words of supplication. While he does this cook
turns his back to the audience, takes off his beard carefully, lays it
on the floor, while he drinks a cupful of tea.
This is all, literally all. It took an hour and a half. The audience
listened with intensest interest. The gesticulations, the expressions of
face, the tones of the actors, all conveyed the idea of the deepest
tragedy. Except for our interpreter, I should have taken the cook for a
soothsayer, priest, a highwayman and murderer, alternately. I should
have supposed that all the dangers, hopes, fears, delights possible in
the lives of three human beings were going on on that stage. Now we saw
how very far-fetched and preposterous had probably been our theories of
the play we had seen before, we having constructed a most brilliant plot
from our interpretation of the pantomime.
After this domestic drama came a fierce spectacular play, too absurd to
be described, in which nations went to war because a king's monkey had
been killed. And the kings and their armies marched in at one door and
out at the other, sat on gilt thrones, fought with gilt swords, tumbled
each other head over heels with as much vigor and just as much art as
small boys play the battle of Bunker Hill with the nursery chairs on a
rainy day. But the dresses of these warlike monarchs were gorgeous and
fantastic beyond description. Long, gay-colored robes, blazoned and
blazing with gold and silver embroidery; small flags, two on each side,
stuck in at their shoulders, and projecting behind; helmets, square
breastplates of shining stones, and such decorations with feathers as
pass belief. Several of them had behind each ear a long, slender
bird-of-Paradise feather. These feathers reached out at least three feet
behind, and curved and swayed with each step the man took. When three or
four of these were on the stage together, marching and countermarching,
wrestling, fighting, and tumbling, why these tail feathers did not
break, did not become entangled with each other, no mortal can divine.
Others had huge wings of silver filigree-work behind their ears. These
also swayed and flapped at each step.
Sometimes there would be forty or fifty of these nondescript creatures
on the stage at once, running, gesticulating, attacking, retreating,
howling, bowing, bending, tripping each other up, stalking, strutting,
and all the while caterwauling, and all the time the drums beating,
the gongs ringing, and the stringed instruments and the castanets and
the fifes playing. It was dazzling as a gigantic kaleidoscope and
deafening as a cotton-mill. After the plays came wonderful tumbling and
somersaulting. To see such gymnastic feats performed by men in long
damask nightgowns and with wide trousers is uncommonly droll. This is
really the best thing at the Chinese Theatre,--the only thing, in fact,
which is not incomprehensibly childish.
My last glimpse at the Chinese Empire was in Mr. Loomis's Sunday-school.
I had curiosity to see the faces of the boys who had refused our
invitation to the theatre. As soon as I entered the room I was asked to
take charge of a class. In vain I demurred and refused.
"You surely can hear them read a chapter in the New Testament."
It seemed inhuman as well as unchristian to refuse, for there were
several classes without teachers, many good San Franciscans having gone
into the country. There were the eager yellow faces watching for my
reply. So I sat down in a pew with three Chinese young men on my right
hand, two on my left, and four in the pew in front, all with English
and Chinese Testaments in their hands. The lesson for the day was the
fifteenth chapter of Matthew. They read slowly, but with greater
accuracy of emphasis and pronunciation than I expected. Their patience
and eagerness in trying to correct a mispronunciation were touching. At
last came the end of the chapter.
"Now do you go on to the next chapter?" said I.
"No. Arx-play-in," said the brightest of the boys. "You arx-play-in what
we rade to you."
I wished the floor of that Sunday-school chapel would open and swallow
me up. To expound the fifteenth of Matthew at all; above all, to expound
it in English which those poor souls could understand! In despair I
glanced at the clock: it lacked thirty minutes of the end of school; at
the other teachers: they were all glibly responding. Guiltily I said,
"Very well. Begin and read the chapter over again, very slowly; and when
you come to any word you do not understand, tell me, and I will try to
explain it to you."
Their countenances fell. This was not the way they had usually been
taught. But with the meekness of a down-trodden people they obeyed. It
worked even better than I had hoped. Poor souls! they probably did not
understand enough to select the words which perplexed them. They
trudged patiently through their verses again without question. But my
Charybdis was near. The sixth verse came to the brightest boy. As he
read, "Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your
tradition," he paused after the word tradition. I trembled.
"Arx-play-in trardition," he said.
"What?" said I, feebly, to gain a second's more of time. "What word did
you say?"
"Trardition," he persisted. "What are trardition? Arx-play-in."
What I said I do not know. Probably I should not tell if I did. But I am
very sure that never in all my life have I found myself, and never in
all the rest of my life shall I find myself, in so utterly desperate a
dilemma as I was then, with those patient, earnest, oblique eyes fixed
on me, and the gentle Chinese voice reiterating, "What are trardition?"
MARIPOSA GROVE AND YOSEMITE VALLEY.
CHARLES LORING BRACE.
[Our sketches of travel in America will not be complete without
descriptive narratives relating to its great natural wonders,
of which the United States possesses more examples than any
other country on the globe. The present selection, therefore,
from Brace's "The New West, or California in 1867-68," is
devoted to a brief account of the monster trees of that State
and the scenic marvels of the Yosemite Valley.]
The great pleasure of the American continent will hereafter be the
journey to the Yosemite. There is no one object of nature in the world,
except Niagara, to equal it in attraction. Whenever the Pacific road
brings the two coasts within a fortnight of each other, innumerable
parties will be made up to visit it. I have been tolerably familiar, by
foot-journeys, with Switzerland, Tyrol, and Norway, and I can truly say
that no one scene in those grand regions can compare equally, in all its
combinations, with the wonderful Canyon of the Yosemite. It is a matter
of congratulation, also, to me, that I saw it before any road, or coach,
or rail-car had approached it. It ought not to be visited otherwise than
as our party journeyed to it,--on horses winding in picturesque train
over velvety trails, beneath the gigantic pines of the Sierras....
Among all my many travelling experiences in various countries, I do not
think I can ever forget the romance and the delicious beauty of that
first night's ride towards the Yosemite. The trail was barely wide
enough for two to ride abreast, winding under majestic pines, over
mountains, and down wide, deep dells, each step of the horses springing
elastic from soft pine-leaves. The sun soon set, and a magnificent moon
arose, giving us at one time a broad belt of light over the path, and
then leaving us to descend into a mysterious gulf of darkness, and then
casting strange shadows and half-lights through the pine-branches over
our procession of riders. As we penetrated farther into the forest we
began to wind about beneath trees such as few of us had ever seen,--the
superb sugar-pine, perhaps the most perfect tree in nature, here
starting with a diameter of from seven to twelve feet, and mounting up
with most symmetrical branches to the height say of Trinity Church spire
(two hundred and fifty to two hundred and sixty feet); on the ends of
its branches cones hanging a foot long. Sometimes we came forth from the
forest for a few moments, and had grand glimpses of great mountain
valleys, only partly revealed in the glorious moonlight. Most of the
party were old travellers, and were rather impervious to sensations,
but we all agreed that this was a new one, and gave a most promising
augury of the Yosemite excursion. After fourteen miles--an easy ride--we
all reached Clark's Ranch at a late hour, ready for supper and bed.
[The next morning] we started at not too early an hour for a forest-ride
to the Trees, Mr. Clark kindly guiding us. What may be called the avenue
to these hoary monuments of antiquity lies through a gigantic forest of
sugar-pines, themselves some two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet
high; so that when you reach the mighty towers of vegetation you lose a
little the sense of their vast height. I searched curiously as we rode
through the forest for the conditions which should produce such monsters
of growth. It must be remembered that the _Sequoia gigantea_ is not
found merely here, or at Calaveras and its neighborhood. There appears
to be a belt of them running along the slope of the Sierras, about four
thousand and five thousand feet above the sea-level, and as far south as
Visalia. They are so plentiful near that place as to be sawed for
lumber, though what so light a wood could be used for I can hardly
think. In the neighborhood of the latter place the Indians report a
tree, far in the forest, surpassing in grandeur anything ever seen; but
thus far no white man has ever cast eyes on it. It is a mistake, too, to
suppose the race wearing out. I saw, both here and in Calaveras, young
giant _Sequoiae_, beginning patiently their thousand years of growth with
all the vigor of their grand ancestors; some of but four hundred years,
mere youths, were growing splendidly. There are fewer young trees here
than in Calaveras, because fire or some other cause has swept among the
underbrush of all trees, and must have destroyed many of these burly
saplings.
The Sequoia grows on mountain-slopes, where the slow wash of water,
through ages, brings down minute particles of fertilizing rocks, and
the decayed vegetation of countless centuries, with the moisture of
eternal springs, water and feed its roots. It enjoys a sun of the
tropics without a cloud for six months, and has the balmy air of the
Pacific, with incessant and gentle moisture, and a warm covering of snow
for its winter. Beneath its roots, the ground never freezes. As has been
well said, "It has nothing to do but grow;" and so with all the
favorable conditions that nature can offer--air and sun and moisture--it
pumps up its food from the everlasting hills, and builds up its slow,
vegetable-like substance during century after century into a gigantic,
symmetrical, and venerable pile, while nations begin and pass away
beneath its shadow.
Think of lying under a tree beneath which the contemporary of Attila or
Constantine might have rested, and which shall defy the storm, perhaps,
when the present political divisions of the world are utterly passed
away, and the names of Washington and Lincoln are among the heroes of a
vague past.
But how to give an impression of its size! If my readers will imagine a
Sequoia placed beside Trinity Church, he must conceive it filling up one
of our largest dwelling-houses, say a diameter of thirty feet, with a
circumference of ninety feet; the bark of this gigantic trunk will be
light, porous, and reddish in color, with many scars upon it of fire
(its great enemy); then, perhaps, at the height of the Trinity belfry
(say one hundred feet), two opposing huge branches will protrude, it may
be, themselves, of the size of large trees (say eight feet in diameter);
these will be twisted and much broken; above them will come forth other
heavy branches, which show the marks and blows of the storms of a
thousand years or more, for the giant, so far above his fellows, meets a
continual battering from the gales of the mountains.
There is no symmetry in his top, or delicacy and grace in his outline;
he has battled and struggled with the storm for too many centuries to
preserve an artistic appearance. He looks the giant of the forest,
broad-rooted and strong-limbed, rough and weather-beaten, but defying
snow and frost and hurricane for thousands of years, and still
sheltering bird and beast and cattle beneath his grand shadow....
We visited one big tree in Calaveras which had been blown over two years
before. The enormous weight which each tree carries makes it more
difficult to bear the gales, as it overtops the forest. Perhaps any
ordinary wood, such as oak or maple, would increase the specific
gravity, so that at three hundred feet high the leverage on the roots
would be too great to bear any strain of a gale; but this wood is almost
like cork,--lighter than any wood on the Eastern coast. The fall of this
mighty tower, they say, was heard for miles around, and made the earth
tremble. Where it fell it has buried its top deep in the ground, so that
there is quite a ravine made by the blow in the earth. You strike the
trunk where it is still a large tree, and then walk upon it some two
hundred feet towards the roots. When you reach the roots you are upon a
height equal to the roof of a moderate-sized house, and a fall from the
trunk would be dangerous. You descend by a ladder.
If I recollect rightly, there were three hundred and sixty-five trees in
this Mariposa Grove. I measured one trunk, broken off at the top, where
it was a foot in diameter, which was about two hundred and ninety feet
in length, and estimating thirty feet as the length of the part broken
off, it must have been some three hundred and twenty feet high. We
lunched near a "camp" of the Geological Survey, in the heart of the
grove, lying on our backs beneath the gigantic canopies, and feeling
like pigmies at the feet of these giants. The younger trees were often
wreathed with a strange, yellow, hanging moss. Our ladies were deeply
interested in a remarkable flower which grew beneath the snow, a few
patches of which still remained here in June. It was a blood-red flower
of a fleshy-like substance, like the Pyrola, or "Dutchman's pipe,"
growing somewhat like a garden hyacinth. Its stems were clustered, from
six to ten inches high, with long, erect scales, broader below and
gradually narrower, and finally becoming bracts. The flowers were
numerous, and occupied the upper half of the stem. It is the _Sarcodes
sanguinea_.
[Leaving the Big Tree grove, the travellers made a farther ride
of twenty-five miles through the Sierras to the Yosemite, the
first view of which impressed them deeply.]
No aspect of nature I have ever looked upon, no sight of the desolate
ocean, heaving and lashing in mighty surges beneath wintry storm, or
sudden view of Alpine snow-peaks through rifts of black thunder-clouds,
or glimpses of Norwegian coast-glaciers through the lulls of an Arctic
gale, or even Niagara itself, was so full of the inspiration of awe as
this first opening view of the Yosemite Canyon. All other scenes of
grandeur and beauty must fade away in my memory when this vision is
forgotten. Before the mighty powers which had shaped this tremendous
gorge, and in presence of this scene of unspeakable and indescribable
beauty and majesty, man and his works seemed to sink away to
nothingness.... I almost felt as if I had known nothing of the canyon
before, so surprising were the effects of coloring and shadow. It must
be remembered we had struck the gorge on one of its lateral walls, say
about four miles from its western end. There is no approach to it from
below up the stream. As we lay on the edge of the cliff we gazed up a
narrow green valley perfectly flat, from a mile to half a mile wide,
and winding, some six miles above, between enormous cliffs and
precipices, a small, bright, sparkling stream in the middle, fringed
with green grass or forest-trees. The wall, over the edge of which we
were looking, was nearly three-quarters of a mile high, and far below,
the oaks and willows and poplars and pines in the green intervale looked
like little shrubs. On the other side, a short distance beyond, was the
grand bluff of El Capitan, a sheer precipice of nearly four thousand
feet, its light granite pile, in the evening light, the most majestic
cliff that human eye has looked upon, beyond were other bluffs and
precipices, pearly gray and purplish-white, with green fringes below,
and dark archways or fantastic figures traced by shadows on their
surface. There were buttresses, as of gigantic cathedrals, and archways
such as might support hills of granite, and domes where a mountain was
the substructure, and half domes, and peaks whose regular succession has
given them the name of "Brothers,"--all varying in color and shadow,
incessantly, with the receding light; some with the delicious cool gray
of the rock color, some white, with a reddish shade; others faint
purple; others resplendent in pink and brilliant purple; while over
their edges, giving a joyous life to the scene, rushed sparkling silver
streams, in innumerable waterfalls, dashing into the green valley
below.... But the scene was changing. Over the valley, the heavy shadow
of El Capitan continually increased its gigantic breadth of shade;
beyond him the "Arches," which, to be seen at that distance, must be a
thousand feet in height, grew each instant more strongly marked, but
still farther beyond to the east the North Dome and the Half Dome were
golden and purple in the evening light, and yet beyond the still white
peaks of the Sierras towered above in the pale blue.
On our side of the vast gorge the foot of the various precipices and
cliffs was covered with detritus, making, near the bottom, a
considerable slope, on which grew many evergreen trees.
On the other side there was one line of massive rock, which fell
apparently plumb, without a break or curve, for nearly four thousand
feet, and at its base, so hard was the material, there seemed no recent
detritus at all. One could evidently touch the very bottom of the
immense fall of rock....
The form of the canyon is unique, nothing in Europe resembling it: the
immense vertical walls rising so abruptly from the green vale; the
peaks, too, which surround it, being original, even in the Sierras; the
immense, inaccessible, concentric masses of granite,--domes, or
half-domes, as if melted in some gigantic mould, and then, when cooled,
left standing in the air.