I
accepted the old gentleman's invitation so far as to stop at
Vallejo to breakfast.
The United States Navy Yard, at Mare Island, near Vallejo, is
large and well placed, with deep fresh water. The old
Independence, and the sloop Decatur, and two steamers were there,
and they were experimenting on building a despatch boat, the
Saginaw, of California timber.
I have no excuse for attempting to describe my visit through the
fertile and beautiful Napa Valley, nor even, what exceeded that in
interest, my visit to old John Yount at his rancho, where I heard
from his own lips some of his most interesting stories of hunting
and trapping and Indian fighting, during an adventurous life of
forty years of such work, between our back settlements in Missouri
and Arkansas, and the mountains of California, trapping the
Colorado and Gila,-- and his celebrated dream, thrice repeated,
which led him to organize a party to go out over the mountains,
that did actually rescue from death by starvation the wretched
remnants of the Donner Party.
I must not pause for the dreary country of the Geysers, the
screaming escapes of steam, the sulphur, the boiling caldrons of
black and yellow and green, and the region of Gehenna, through
which runs a quiet stream of pure water; nor for the park scenery,
and captivating ranchos of the Napa Valley, where farming is done
on so grand a scale,-- where I have seen a man plough a furrow by
little red flags on sticks, to keep his range by, until nearly out
of sight, and where, the wits tell us, he returns the next day on
the back furrow; a region where, at Christmas time, I have seen
old strawberries still on the vines, by the side of vines in full
blossom for the next crop, and grapes in the same stages, and open
windows, and yet a grateful wood fire on the hearth in early
morning; nor for the titanic operations of hydraulic surface
mining, where large mountain streams are diverted from their
ancient beds, and made to do the work, beyond the reach of all
other agents, of washing out valleys and carrying away hills, and
changing the whole surface of the country, to expose the stores of
gold hidden for centuries in the darkness of their earthy depths.
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