XXI.

THE ROCKIES AND PACIFIC COAST.

The Lone Star State—The Sunset Route—Port Arthur—Galveston—Houston—Dallas—Fort Worth—Great Staked Plain—Austin—San Antonio—The Alamo—David Crockett—James Bowie—Sam Houston—Cattle Ranches—Rio Grande River—El Paso—Arizona—Tucson—Phoenix—Prehistoric Cities—Yuma—Canyons of the Colorado—Colorado Desert—Southern California—San Bernardino Valley—San Diego—Coronado Beach—The Early Missions—Climate and Scenery—Los Angeles—Santa Monica Bay—San Gabriel Valley—Santa Barbara—Monterey Bay—Del Monte—Santa Cruz—Santa Clara Valley—San JosÉ—Lick Observatory—San Joaquin Valley—Stockton—Gold Mining—The Big Trees—Yosemite Valley—Rocky Mountains—The Atchison Route—Indian Territory—Oklahoma—Raton Pass—Las Vegas—Santa FÉ—Albuquerque—Mesa Encantada—Flagstaff—Mojave Desert—The Union Pacific Route—Cheyenne—Colorado—Denver—Boulder Canyon—Clear Creek Canyon—Colorado Springs—Pike's Peak—Manitou—Garden of the Gods—Pueblo—Veta Pass—Cripple Creek—Leadville—Grand Canyon of the Arkansas—Marshall Pass—Black Canyon of the Gunnison—Wyoming Fossils—Utah—Echo and Weber Canyons—Ogden—Great Salt Lake—Salt Lake City—The Mormons—Promontory Point—Nevada—Virginia City—Comstock Lode—Lake Tahoe—Donner Lake—Sacramento—The Northern Pacific Route—Butte—Anaconda Mine—Helena—Idaho—Spokane—Columbia River—Oregon—Snake River Canyon—ShoshonÉ Falls—The Dalles—Cascade Locks—The Great Northern Route—The Canadian Pacific Route—Regina—Moose Jaw—Medicine Hat—Calgary—Banff—Mount Stephen—Kicking Horse Pass—Rogers Pass—Mount Sir Donald—Glacier House—Eagle Pass—Great Shuswap Lake—Kamloops—Thompson Canyon—Fraser Canyon—Vancouver—Victoria—Gulf of Georgia—Alaska—Fort Wrangell—Sitka—Juneau—Treadwell Mine—Muir Glacier—Lynn Canal—Chilkoot and Chilkat—Skaguay and Dyea—The Yukon River—The Klondyke—St. Michaels—Cape Nome—Puget Sound—Port Townsend—Everett—Seattle—Tacoma—Mount Tacoma—Mount St. Helens—Portland—Crater Lake—Mount Shasta—Benicia—Mare Island—Oakland—University of California—Menlo Park—Leland Stanford, Jr., University—San Francisco—Point Lobos—The Golden Gate.

THE LONE STAR STATE.

Westward from the Mississippi River the "Sunset Route" to the Pacific leads across the sugar plantations of Louisiana. This Southern Pacific railway passes many bayous having luxuriant growth of bordering live oaks, magnolias and cypress, hung with festoons of Spanish moss, crosses the Atchafalaya River at Morgan City, and beyond, skirts along the picturesque and winding Bayou Teche in a region originally peopled by colonies of French Acadian refugees from Nova Scotia. Ultimately the route crosses Calcasieu River at Lake Charles, and thirty-eight miles beyond, goes over the Sabine River into the "Lone Star State" of Texas, the largest in the Union. The name of Texas comes from a tribe of Indians found there when La Salle made the first European settlement on the coast at Fort St. Louis on Lavaca River in 1685, but after the Spanish occupation in the eighteenth century the country was long known as the New Philippines, that being the official designation in their records. At the mouth of Sabine River is Sabine Lake, where Port Arthur has been established as a prosperous railway terminal, having access to the Gulf by a ship canal with terminating jetties, deepening the channel outlet to the sea. Farther along the coast is Galveston, the chief Texan seaport, built on the northeastern extremity of Galveston Island, which spreads for thirty miles in front of the spacious Galveston Bay, covering nearly five hundred miles surface. The entrance from the sea is obstructed by a bar through which the Government excavated at great expense a channel, flanked by stone jetties five miles long. It is a low-lying city with wide, straight streets, embowered in luxuriant tropical vegetation, while the equable winter temperature makes it a charming health-resort. A magnificent sea-beach spreads along the Gulf front of the island for many miles. Galveston, in September, 1900, was swept by a most terrific cyclone and tidal wave, destroying thousands of lives and a vast number of buildings.

Texas was a Province of Mexico, under Spanish and afterwards Mexican rule, and its many attractions in the early nineteenth century brought a large accession of colonists to the eastern portions from the adjacent parts of the United States. The Americans became so numerous that in 1830 the Mexican Congress prohibited further immigration, and the result was a revolt in 1835, the organization of a Provisional Government, a war which ended in the defeat of the Mexicans in the battle of San Jacinto in 1836, and the final independence of Texas. The people then sought annexation to the United States, but the State was not admitted until 1845, the Mexican War following. Two men of that time were prominent in Texas, Stephen F. Austin, who brought the first large colony from the United States settling on the Colorado and Brazos Rivers, and Sam Houston, who, after being Governor of Tennessee, migrated to Texas, led the revolt, commanded their army, and was made the first President of the independent State. The latter has his name preserved in the active city of Houston on Buffalo Bayou, a tributary of Galveston Bay, and about fifty miles northwest of Galveston. Houston is a busy railway centre, handling large amounts of cotton, sugar and timber, and is rapidly expanding, having sixty thousand people.

The Trinity River is the chief affluent of Galveston Bay, flowing down from Northern Texas, and having upon its banks another busy railway centre, Dallas, with fifty thousand people and an extensive trade. About thirty miles above, on Trinity River, is the old Indian frontier post of Fort Worth, now a town of forty thousand population and the headquarters of the cattle-raisers of Northern Texas. For many miles in all directions are the extensive cattle ranges, and to the north and west spreads the "Great Staked Plain," a vast plateau elevated nearly five thousand feet above the sea, covering some fifty thousand square miles, and being surrounded by a bordering escarpment of erosion to the lower levels, much resembling palisades. The stakes driven by the early Spaniards to mark their way are said to have given this plain its name, and it has now become an almost limitless cattle pasturage. When Austin's American colony settled on the Colorado River west of Houston, his name was given the town which was ultimately selected as the State Capital, where there are now twenty thousand people who look out upon the magnificent view of the Colorado Mountains. Here is the Texas State University with seven hundred and fifty students, and one of the finest State Capitols in the country, a splendid red granite structure, which was built by a syndicate in exchange for a grant of three million acres of land, the building occupying seven years in construction and costing $3,500,000. Two miles above the city an enormous dam seventy feet high encloses the waters of Colorado River for the water supply and manufacturing power, and thus makes Lake McDonald, twenty-five miles long. A heavy storm and flood in the spring of 1900 broke this dam and let out the lake, causing great loss of life and damage in the city.

Eighty miles southwest of Austin is the ancient city of San Antonio, known as the "cradle of Texas liberty," a Spanish town upon the San Antonio and San Pedro Rivers, small streams dividing it into irregular parts, the former receiving the latter and flowing into the Gulf at Espiritu Santo Bay. There are sixty thousand people in San Antonio, of many races, chiefly Americans, Mexicans and Germans, and it is a leading wool, cattle, horse, mule and cotton market. The Spaniards penetrated into this region in the latter part of the seventeenth century and established one of their usual joint religious-military posts among the Indians upon the plan of colonization then in vogue. The Presidio or military station was called San Antonio de Bexar, while during the early eighteenth century there were founded various religious Missions, the chief being by Franciscan monks, the Mission of San Antonio de Valero. There are four other Missions in and near the city, dating from that early period, their ancient buildings partly restored, but some of them also considerably in ruins. To the eastward of San Antonio River was built in a grove of the alamo or cottonwood trees in 1744 a low, strong, thick-walled church of adobÉ for the Franciscans, called from its surroundings the Alamo. When the Texans revolted, they held San Antonio as an outpost with a garrison of one hundred and forty-five men, commanded by Colonel James Bowie, the famous duellist and inventor of the "bowie knife," who was originally from Louisiana. Bowie fell ill of typhoid fever, and Colonel Travis took command. Among the garrison was the eccentric David Crockett of Tennessee, who had been a member of Congress, and joined them as a volunteer. General Santa Anna marched with a large Mexican army against them, arriving February 22, 1836, and the little garrison retired within the church of the Alamo, which they defended against four thousand Mexicans in a twelve days' siege. The final assault was made at daylight, March 6th, a lodgment was effected, and until nine o'clock a battle was fought from room to room within the church, a desperate hand-to-hand conflict at short range, and not ceasing until every Texan was killed; but this was not until two thousand three hundred Mexicans had fallen. Upon the memorial of this terrible contest, at the Texas State Capital, is the inscription: "ThermopylÆ had her messenger of defeat, but the Alamo had none." This butchery caused a thrill of horror throughout the United States. "Remember the Alamo" became the watchword of the Texans, much aid was sent them, and the succor, coming from the desire to avenge the massacre, contributed largely to their ability to defeat the Mexicans in the subsequent decisive battle on San Jacinto River, down near Galveston Bay, which was fought in April. The old Church of the Alamo, since restored, is preserved as a national monument on the spacious Alamo plaza. The name of Houston, the Texan leader, is given to Fort Sam Houston, the United States military post on a hill north of San Antonio. The old Alamo is the shrine of Texas; and as visitors stroll around the place they are weirdly told how the spirits of the departed heroes, Crockett, Bowie, Travis and others, when the storms rage at night about the ancient building, wander through the sacristy with the heavy measured tread of armed troopers. It was in the midst of a storm that the Mexicans broke through a barred window and thus gained entrance in the siege. On the southern border of San Antonio are the extensive Fair Grounds, where Roosevelt's Rough Riders, largely recruited from the neighboring Texan ranches, were organized for the Spanish War in 1898. The most extensive Texas cattle ranches are south and west of San Antonio, the largest of them, King's Ranch, near the Gulf to the southward, covering seven hundred thousand acres, and being stocked with three thousand brood mares and a hundred thousand cattle.

ARIZONA.

The railway from San Antonio goes westward across the cattle ranges to the Rio Pecos, flowing for eight hundred miles down from the Rockies in a region largely reclaimed by irrigation, and then falling into the Rio Grande del Norte, the national boundary between Texas and Mexico. This noble stream, the Spanish "Grand River of the North," comes out of Colorado and New Mexico, and is eighteen hundred miles long. The Southern Pacific Railway crosses the Pecos on a fine cantilever bridge three hundred and twenty-eight feet high, and reaches the Rio Grande a short distance beyond, following it up northwest and passing the Apache Mountains, where at Paisano it crosses the summit grade at five thousand and eight feet elevation, the highest pass on this route to the Pacific coast. It finally reaches El Paso on the upper Rio Grande, a town of twelve thousand people, having on the Mexican bank of the river, with a long wooden bridge between, the twin town of Juarez, or El Paso del Norte, the road over the bridge being the chief route of trade into Mexico. The original Spanish explorer, Juan de Onate, named this crossing "the Pass of the North" in 1598, and after long waiting it has finally developed into an active town in cattle raising and silver mining, and also a health-resort, its balmy atmosphere being most attractive. The muddy river by its periodic inundations has made a very fertile intervale, which has a population of sixty-five thousand, and here are seen picturesque Mexican figures, the men in peaked sombreros and scarlet zarapes, and the women with blue rebozas. Beyond, the route crosses the southwest corner of New Mexico and enters Arizona, passing amid the mountain ranges to Tucson, the chief town of the Territory, having six thousand people, a quaint and ancient Spanish settlement, which has considerable Mexican trade. It was originally an appanage to the old Spanish mission of St. Xavier, nine miles southward, and it now thrives on its cattle trade, mining and magnificent climate, being also the location of the Territorial University.

To the northwest, in the well-irrigated valley of Salt River, is Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, with fifteen thousand population, the irrigation systems having produced great fertility in the adjacent region. The Salt River is a tributary of the Gila, the latter flowing out westward to the Colorado. In these Arizona valleys have been disclosed the remains of several prehistoric cities, chiefly located on a broad and sloping plain beginning at the confluence of the Salt with the Gila, and stretching down to the Mexican boundary. At Casa Grande is a famous ruin of a prehistoric temple with enormous adobÉ walls, the Government having made a reservation for its protection. These people were worshippers of the sun, and there have been discovered the remains of many towns with large population, the Gila Valley for ninety square miles disclosing these ruins, which are relics of the Stone age. Irrigation canals made by these prehistoric people, the oldest in the world, are also found throughout the region. Extensive explorations of these ancient cities have been made, and several have been named, among them Los Acequias, Los Muertos and Los Animos, the last being the largest, and there being strong evidence that it was destroyed by an earthquake which killed many thousands of the inhabitants. The railway follows the Gila Valley westward to its confluence with the Colorado, and here at the California boundary is Yuma, another of the early Spanish missions to the Indians, situated just north of the Mexican border, the Yuma Indians still living on a reservation adjoining the Colorado, their name meaning "the sons of the river." This town has its tragic history, for in 1781 the Indians made a savage raid upon the mission, destroyed the buildings and massacred the missionary priests.

The Colorado and its tributaries drain nearly the whole of Arizona, and it is one of the most remarkable rivers in the world. Its head branches have their sources in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, uniting in the latter State, flowing four hundred miles across Arizona and seventy miles into Mexico to discharge through a delta into the Gulf of California. The river and most of its tributaries in Arizona pass through canyons that are among the wonders of the world, exposing to view geological strata of all the formations in their regular places to the thickness of twenty-five thousand feet. At first, the Colorado flows out of Utah and south into Arizona for one hundred and eighty miles, passing through the Marble Canyon, so called from the limestone walls, nearly four thousand feet deep. It then turns westward by irregular course, flowing nearly two hundred and fifty miles through the Grand Canyon, the most stupendous in existence, and having at places six thousand feet depth and walls spreading at the surface five or six miles apart. These huge walls are terraced and carved into myriads of pinnacles and towers, often brilliantly colored, and far down in the bottom the river is seen like a silvery thread of foam. Major Powell, who first explored it in 1869, went through in a boat. He calls it "the most profound chasm known on the globe," and believes the river was running there before the mountains were formed, and that the canyon was made by the erosion of the water acting simultaneously with the slow upheaval of the rocks. The river has a rapid flow in the canyon, winding generally through a lower chasm and having a descent of five to twelve feet to the mile, sometimes with placid reaches, but frequently plunging down rapids filled with rocks. The surrounding country is largely volcanic, with lava-beds and extinct craters. When the visitor first approaches the brink of the great chasm, he is almost appalled with the sight. There seem to be scores of deep ravines and enclosed mountains, the main wall opposite being miles away, and the intervening space filled with peaks and ridges of every imaginable shape and color, rising from the abyss below. There is a trail down the side of the canyon, a steep and narrow path winding along the face of the Grand View Gorge, giving startling glimpses into ravines thousands of feet deep, and disclosing the massive magnificence of this enormous abyss. Down goes the trail, one gorge opening below another until the verge of the final gorge is reached, in which the river runs at a depth of a thousand feet farther. Everything is desolate, the vegetation sparse, and a few stunted trees appearing, while the river, which seemed from above to be only a far distant silvery streak down below, is expanded by the nearer view into large proportions. This Grand Canyon of the Colorado is one of the most wonderful constructions of nature in its stupendous size and extraordinary character; with the myriads of pinnacles, towers, castles, walls, chasms and profound depths it contains and the gorgeous coloring given most of the surfaces. It is among the greatest of the attractions that America, the land of wonders, presents to the seeker after the picturesque.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

Beyond the California boundary the Southern Pacific Railway traverses the broad Colorado desert. This is a barren, sandy wilderness, growing nothing but yuccas and cactus, and is depressed far below the sea-level. It is an inland salt-water lake that has mostly dried up, the belief being that it was formerly an extension of the Gulf of California. The railway route beyond passes between the San Jacinto and San Bernardino Mountains, crossing the latter. These peaks rise over eleven thousand feet, and beyond is the pleasant fruit-growing San Bernardino Valley, originally settled by the Mormons in 1851. To the southward is Riverside, in the fertile district where the seedless navel oranges are successfully cultivated, the groves giving an attractive exhibition of orange-growing. Here is the famous Magnolia Avenue, one hundred and thirty feet wide and ten miles long, with its double rows of pepper trees, and extending all the way through orange groves. In its park is one of the finest cacti collections in existence. Adjacent is Redlands, also a flourishing orange-growing city, its sidewalks bordered by stately palms, rose-bushes, pepper trees and century plants, while everywhere are orange trees in their perpetual livery of brilliant green. Around it encircle the high San Bernardino Mountains, thoroughly protecting the fertile valley. To the southward the route then runs out to the Pacific Ocean bound to Southern California, and following down the coast near San Juan passes Dana's Point, over which, in the early Californian days, the hides were thrown for shipment, as narrated by Dana in Two Years Before the Mast. Ultimately it reaches the grand bay of San Diego, near the Mexican boundary, which, next to San Francisco, is the best harbor on the Pacific coast.

Here, spreading along the shores of the beautiful bay, is the ancient Spanish town of San Diego, long sleepy, but lately enjoying a "boom" when it found itself becoming a popular watering-place. To the northward is the old Mission of San Diego, the first settlement by white men in California, noted for its prolific olive groves. In the town of adobÉ houses lived "Ramona" of whom Helen Hunt Jackson has written, and there are still preserved here the original church bells sent out from Spain to the colony. The outer arm of San Diego Bay is Coronado Beach, a narrow tongue of sand, stretching twelve miles northward, and ending in spacious expansions known as the North and South Beaches. Upon the South Beach is the famous watering-place of Coronado, with its great hotel alongside the ocean, the tower commanding an extensive view, and its spacious surrounding flower-gardens being magnificently brilliant. There are Botanical Gardens, a Museum and an interesting ostrich farm, with railways for miles along the pleasant shores, and at Point Loma are the lighthouses guarding the entrance from the sea, the uppermost, elevated five hundred feet, being the highest lighthouse in the world. Down near the Mexican boundary is the suburb of National City, surrounded by olive groves, and the visitors sometimes cross over the border to visit the curious Mexican village of Tia Juana, a name which being freely translated means "Aunt Jane." Extensive irrigation works serve the country around San Diego, and the great Sweetwater Dam, ninety feet high, closing a gorge, makes one of the largest water reservoirs in existence.

This wonderful land of California into which we have come has a name the meaning of which is unknown. One Ordonez de Montalva in 1510 published a Spanish romance wherein he referred to the "island of California, on the right hand of the Indies, very near the Terrestrial Paradise." When Cortez conquered Mexico, his annalist, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, gave this name, it is said in derision, about 1535, to the lower peninsula of California, then supposed to be an island, it having been discovered the previous year by the Spanish explorer Ximenes. The Jesuit missionaries came in the seventeenth century to the lower peninsula, and in the eighteenth century to California proper. It is an enormous State, stretching nearly eight hundred miles along the Pacific, and inland for a width of two hundred or more miles. It is mainly a valley, between the Coast Range of mountains on the west and the Sierra Nevada, meaning the "snowy saw-tooth mountains," on the east. The Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers flow in the central valley, which stretches north and south for five hundred miles. To the southward the mountain ranges join, and below them is the special and favored region of Southern California. When first settled, there were established from San Diego up to Sonoma twenty-one Jesuit Missions, whose ruins and old buildings are now found so interesting, and these early establishments converted the Indians, of whom it is said that the charming climate offered them no inducements to develop savagery, so that when the conversion time came they were easily made serfs for the Missions, and worked in a way that few other Indians ever did. There are two California seasons, the rainy and the dry, the former lasting from November to May, while there is almost unchanging dry weather from May till October. The rainy season, however, is not as in the tropics, where there are deluges daily, but it means that then it will rain if ever, and there are in fact days without rain at all. California is a land of climatic attractiveness, where, as it has been well said, "it is always afternoon." Through vast irrigation systems, despite the dry season, much of the surface has been made a garden. Water runs everywhere copiously down from the mountains, and the shrubbery of all parts of the world has been brought hither and successfully grown. The region presents an universal landscape of foliage and flowers, luxuriant beyond imagination. In Southern California the wild flowers, of which the golden poppy is one of the most prominent, are extraordinary in their number, variety and brilliancy. "The greatest surprise of the traveller," writes Charles Dudley Warner, "is that a region which is in perpetual bloom and fruitage, where semi-tropical fruits mature in perfection, and the most delicate flowers dazzle the eye with color the winter through, should have on the whole a low temperature, a climate never enervating, and one requiring a dress of woollen in every month."

LOS ANGELES AND SAN JOAQUIN.

The metropolis of this land of sunshine, fruits and flowers, fifteen miles back from the sea, is La Puebla de la Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles, or "the City of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels;" a lengthy title which the matter-of-fact Americans some time ago happily shortened into Los Angeles. From it Los Angeles River flows south to the sea at San Pedro Bay. The Spaniards founded the town in 1781, but it had only a sleepy existence until 1880, when the railways came along, and it became a centre of the pleasure and health-resorts, and the extensive fruit growing of Southern California, expanding so rapidly that it has seventy thousand people. Originally, the houses were of adobÉ, but now it has many fine buildings and a magnificent development of residences, the whole city being embowered in luxuriant vegetation. In the neighborhood are petroleum wells and asphalt deposits, while the adjacent district has many irrigation canals. Down on the ocean shore is San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, where the harbor has been improved by a large outlay, and twenty miles away is the beautiful mountainous island of Santa Catalina, a popular resort, which is in reality an ocean mountain top. Santa Monica Bay, to the southwest, is the coast bathing-place of Los Angeles, and near by is the popular Redondo Beach, with its spacious Chautauqua Assembly Building. Pasadena is a charming suburb of the city off to the northeast, a perpetual garden and favorite place of residence. It is in San Gabriel Valley, over which rises the great Sierra Madre Range, eleven thousand feet high, the glossy green orange groves on its sides gradually melting into the white snow-capped summits of this towering mountain wall. A railway ascends Echo Mountain north of Pasadena, on which is the Lowe Observatory. To the southeast is the old San Gabriel Mission in the valley, surrounded by vineyards and orchards.

San Buenaventura was another Mission, and is now a health-resort at the coast outlet of Ventura valley, and beyond is Santa Barbara, the "American Mentone," one of the most charming California resorts. The old Spanish Mission, with its towers and corridors, is famous, and was built in 1786, being well-preserved and having a few of the Franciscan monks yet in charge. A curiosity of the neighborhood is La Parra Grande, the "Great Vine," having a trunk four feet in diameter and covering a trellis sixty feet square, its annual product being eight thousand pounds of grapes. Farther along the coast is the charming Bay of Monterey, with the Spanish town of Monterey on its southern shore. In 1770 the Mission of San Carlo de Monterey was founded here, and it was the Mexican capital of California until the American conquest in 1846, then depending chiefly on a trade in tallow and hides. It has not grown much since, however, and the old adobÉ buildings have not undergone change in a half-century. It is now a popular resort, having the noted Hotel Del Monte, the "Hotel of the Forest," located in spacious and exquisite grounds, the park embracing seven thousand acres. Upon the northern side of Monterey Bay is Santa Cruz, its chief town, also a summer-resort, having a background made by the Santa Cruz Mountains. This was a Mission founded in 1791, and five miles northward is the Santa Cruz grove of big trees, containing a score of redwoods or sequoias, of a diameter of ten feet or more, the largest being twenty-three feet. Within a hollow in one of these trees General Fremont encamped for several days in 1847. To the northward is the prolific fruit region, the Santa Clara Valley, where Mission Santa Clara was founded in 1777. The city of this valley is San JosÉ, with twenty thousand people, distantly surrounded by mountains, and, like all these places, a popular resort. The Calaveras Mountains are to the eastward, and here, on Mount Hamilton, twenty-six miles southeast, is the Lick Observatory, at forty-two hundred feet elevation. It was founded by a legacy of $700,000 left by James Lick, of San Francisco, and is attached to the University of California, being among the leading observatories of the world. It has one of the largest and most powerful refracting telescopes in existence, the object-glass being thirty-six inches in diameter. Mr. Lick is buried in the foundation pier of this great telescope which he erected. There is a magnificent view from the Observatory, which is exceptionally well located, its white buildings, shining in the sunlight, seen from afar.

Across the Coast Range of mountains, eastward from San JosÉ, is the extensive San Joaquin Valley, noted as the "granary of California," two hundred miles long and thirty to seventy miles wide between the mountain ranges. It produces almost limitless crops of grain, fruits and wines. Through this great valley the San Joaquin River flows northward, and the Sacramento River southward in another valley as spacious, and uniting, they go out westward to San Francisco Bay. We are told that in the days when the earth was forming, the sea waves beat against the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, but ultimately the waters receded, leaving the floor of this vast valley of central California stretching nearly five hundred miles between the mountain ranges. The first comers among the white men dug gold out of its soils, but now they also get an enormous revenue from the prolific crops. Railways traverse it in all directions. The chief city is Stockton, at the head of navigation on the San Joaquin, a town of twenty thousand people, having numerous factories. Here in the slopes and gulches of the Sierras, stretching far away, were the first gold-mines of California, when the discoveries of the "Forty-niners" set the world agog. Here, at Jackson, was tapped the famous "Mother Lode," the most continuous and richest of the three gold belts extending along the slope of the Sierras, and so-called by the early miners because they regarded it as the parent source of all the gold found in the placers. This lode is in some parts a mile wide, and extends a hundred miles, being here a series of parallel fissures filled with gold-bearing quartz-veins, while farther south they unite in a single enormous fissure. The mineral belts paralleling it on both sides are rich in copper and gold. The country all about is a mining region with prolific "diggings" everywhere, and smokes arising from the stamp-mills at work reducing the ores. Here are Tuttletown and Jackass Hill, the home of "Truthful James," and the localities made familiar by Bret Harte and Mark Twain. Here is Carson Hill, there having been picked up on its summit the largest gold-nugget ever found in California, worth $47,000. What this gold-mining has meant is shown by the results, aggregating since California first produced the metal a total of nearly $1,350,000,000 gold given the world. As the San Joaquin Valley is ascended, it develops its wealth of grain-fields, orchards and vineyards, and displays the grand systems of irrigation which have contributed to produce so much fertility.

Eastward from San Joaquin Valley are the famous groves of Big Trees, the gigantic sequoias, which Emerson has appropriately called the "Plantations of God." There are two forests of giants in Calaveras and Mariposa Counties displaying these enormous trees, of which it is significantly said that some were growing when Christ was upon the earth. The Calaveras Grove, the northernmost, is at an elevation of forty-seven hundred feet above the sea, upon a tract about two-thirds of a mile long and two hundred feet wide, there being a hundred large trees and many smaller. The tallest tree standing is the "Keystone State," three hundred and twenty-five feet high and forty-five feet in circumference. The "Mother of the Forest," denuded of its bark, is three hundred and fifteen feet high and sixty-one feet girth, while the "Father of the Forest," the biggest of all, is prostrate, and measures one hundred and twelve feet in circumference. There are two trees three hundred feet high, and many exceeding two hundred and fifty feet, the bark sometimes being a foot and a half thick. This grove, however, being less convenient, is not so much visited as the Mariposa Grove to the southward. It is in Mariposa (the butterfly) County, at sixty-five hundred feet elevation, and near the Yosemite Valley. The tract of four square miles is a State Park, there being two distinct forests a half-mile apart. The lower grove has a hundred fine trees, the largest being the "Grizzly Giant," of ninety-four feet circumference and thirty-one feet diameter, the main limb, at two hundred feet elevation, being over six feet in diameter. The upper grove contains three hundred and sixty trees, and the road between the groves is tunnelled directly through one of them, which is twenty-seven feet in diameter. Through this living tree, named "Wawona," the stage-coach drives in a passage nearly ten feet wide. These trees are not so high as in Calaveras Grove, but they are usually of larger girth. The tallest is two hundred and seventy-two feet, ten exceed two hundred and fifty feet, and three are over ninety feet in circumference, while twenty are over sixty feet. Many of the finest have been marred by fires. There are eight groves of these Big Trees in California, these being the chief.

YOSEMITE VALLEY.

Into the San Joaquin flows Merced River, coming from the eastward down out of the Sierras through the famous Yosemite Valley. Most of its waters are diverted by irrigation canals leading for many miles over the floor of the broad San Joaquin Valley. The road to the Yosemite leads eastward up the slope, crosses the crest, and at Inspiration Point, fifty-six hundred feet elevation, gives the first view, then steeply descending to the river bank, it enters the western portal. Yosemite is a corruption of the Indian word "A-hom-e-tae," which means the "full-grown grizzly bear," and is supposed to have originally been the name of an Indian chief. This magnificent canyon, on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, is a deep gorge eight miles long, traversed by Merced River, its nearly level floor being about thirty-eight hundred feet above the sea-level. The enclosing rocky and almost vertical walls rise from three thousand to five thousand feet above the river, the space between varying from a half-mile to two miles. Over the valley floor winds the beautiful green current of the diminutive Merced, bordered by trees and vegetation, the surface being generally grass-grown. The high vertical walls, the small amount of dÉbris at their foot, and the character of the Yosemite chasm itself, have led the geologists to ascribe its formation not to erosion or glacial action, but to a mighty convulsion in the granite rocks, whereby part of them subsided along lines of fault-crossing nearly at right-angles. The observer, standing on the floor, can see no outlet anywhere, the almost perpendicular walls towering on high in every direction.

The Valley is a Government Park, which also includes the watershed of the streams flowing into it. Originally it was the home of the Digger Indians, a tribe of ShoshonÉs, and a rather low type, of whom a few still survive. It was first seen by white men in 1851, when a detachment of troops pursuing these Indians came unexpectedly upon it. The attractions soon became widely known, and visitors were numerous, especially after the opening of the Pacific Railways. Entering the Valley, the most striking object is its northwestern buttress, the ponderous cliff El Capitan, rising thirty-three hundred feet, at a very narrow part, its majestic form dominating the view. There are two vertical mountain walls almost at right angles, these enormous bare precipices facing west and south. On the opposite side, forming the other portal, rise the imposing Cathedral Rocks, adjoined by the two slender Cathedral Spires of splintered granite, nearly three thousand feet high. Over these rocks on their western side pours the Bridal Veil Fall, about seventy feet wide, and descending vertically six hundred and thirty feet. As the winds often make the foaming column flutter like a white veil, its title has been appropriately given. Adjoining El Capitan descends the Ribbon Fall, or the Virgin's Tears, falling two thousand feet, but losing much of its waters as the summer advances. Eastward of El Capitan are the peaks called the Three Brothers, the highest also named the Eagle Peak, rising three thousand feet. To the eastward of this peak and in a recess near the centre of the Valley are the Yosemite Falls, one of the highest waterfalls in the world. Yosemite Creek, which comes over the brink with a breadth of thirty-five feet, descends twenty-five hundred feet in three leaps. It pours down a vertical wall, the Upper Fall descending nearly fifteen hundred feet without a break, the column of water swaying as the winds blow with marvellous grace of motion, the eddying mists fading into light summer clouds above. The Middle Fall is a series of cascades descending over six hundred feet, and the Lower Fall is four hundred feet high. This is one of the grandest features of the Valley, but its vigor, too, dwindles as the season advances. There is a high and splendid ice cone formed at the foot of the Upper Fall in the winter. Alongside, upon a projection called Yosemite Point, at over thirty-two hundred feet elevation, is given one of the best views of the famous Valley.

At the head of the Yosemite, it divides into three narrow tributary canyons, each discharging a stream, which uniting form the Merced. The northernmost is the Tenaya, and overshadowing it rises the huge North Dome, more than thirty-seven hundred feet high, having as an outlying spur the Washington Column. Opposite, and forming the eastern boundary of the valley, is the South or Half Dome, of singular shape, towering almost five thousand feet, and like El Capitan, at the other extremity, being a most remarkable granitic cliff. Its top is inaccessible, although once it was scaled by an adventurous explorer by means of a rope attached to pegs driven into the rock. It is one of the most extraordinarily formed mountains in existence, standing up tall, gaunt and almost square against the sky, the dominating pinnacle of the upper valley. Upon the southern side rises Glacier Point, nearly thirty-four hundred feet, giving a splendid view over the valley, having to the westward the Sentinel Dome, nearly forty-three hundred feet high, ending in the conspicuous face of the Sentinel Rock. Thus environed by vast cliffs, this grand valley displays magnificent scenery. Within the upper canyons are also attractions, that of the Merced River, the central gorge displaying the Vernal and Nevada waterfalls. The Vernal Fall is seventy feet wide and descends three hundred and fifty feet, having behind it the Cap of Liberty, a picturesque cliff. Farther up the river is the Nevada Fall, a superb cataract, having a slightly sloping descent of six hundred feet. Just within Tenaya Canyon is the Mirror Lake, remarkable for its wonderful reflections of the North and South Domes and adjacent mountains. Some distance to the eastward is the Cloud's Rest, a peak rising more than six thousand feet above the valley and nearly ten thousand feet above sea-level, that is ascended for its splendid view of the surrounding mountains and the enclosing walls of the valley, which can be plainly seen throughout its length, stretching far away towards the setting sun. This view of the Yosemite surpasses all others in its comprehensiveness and grandeur.

THE ROCKIES

The great "backbone" of the American Continent is the Rocky Mountains, and the summits of its main range make the parting of the waters, the "Continental Divide." Its name of the Rockies is appropriate, for on these mountains and their intervening plateaus, naked rocks are developed to an extent rarely equalled elsewhere in the world. The leading causes of this are the great elevation and extreme aridity, the scanty moisture preventing growth of vegetation, and the high altitudes promoting denudation of the rock-material disintegrated at the surface. Enormous crags and bold peaks of bare rocks, mostly compose the mountains, while the streams flow at the bases of towering precipices in deep chasms and canyons filled with broken rocks. Being unprotected by vegetation, the winds sweep the hills clean of soil and sand, the steep slopes of the valleys are strewn with fragments of the enclosing cliffs, and the rivers are usually without flood-plains or intervales, where soils may gather. In the extensive and highly-elevated plateaus, the streams usually run in the bottoms of deep canyons, their channels choked with dÉbris. Added to this the whole Rocky Mountain region has in the past been a scene of great volcanic activity, many extinct volcanoes appear, broad plains are covered with lava, and scoria and ashes are liberally deposited all about. The aridity is not a feature of the Pacific coast ranges, however, for the moisture from that ocean abundantly supplies water; there are good soils, and in the northern parts usually dense forests. The Rocky Mountain system extends from Mexico up to Alaska and the Arctic Ocean, its greatest development being between 38° and 42° north latitude, where the various ranges cover a breadth of a thousand miles. The highest peak of the Rockies is Mount Logan, in British America, on the edge of Alaska, rising nineteen thousand five hundred and thirty-nine feet. In the United States these mountains rise from a general plateau extending across the country, and reaching its maximum elevation of about ten thousand feet in Colorado, whilst towards the north the surface descends, entering Canada at an elevation of four thousand feet. The plateau descends westward into the basin of the Colorado River, then the surface rises in Nevada to six thousand feet, and thence farther westward it gradually descends to the base of the Sierra Nevada in California. To the eastward the plateau throughout steadily descends in the long, undulating and generally treeless slope of the Great Plains to the Mississippi, the many tributaries of the Father of Waters carving their valleys down through its surface. There are numerous mountain ranges, plateaus and parks, under different names in this extensive mountain region, and the higher peaks in the United States generally rise to thirteen to fifteen thousand feet elevation. These mountains and the plains to the eastward compose the vast arid region constituting fully two-fifths of the United States, where irrigation is necessary to agriculture, and, in consequence, less than ten per cent. of this large surface bears forests of any value. We are told that so scant is the moisture, if the whole current of every water-course in this district were utilized for irrigation it would not be possible to redeem four per cent. of the land. Some of this surface, however, bears grasses and plants that, to an extent, make pasturage. The precious metals and other useful minerals are found in abundance, and various parts of the region have been developed by the many valuable mines, making their owners enormous fortunes.

Through this vast mountain district, over deserts and along devious defiles, a half-dozen great railways lead from the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific slope. The Southern Pacific Railway we have already followed from New Orleans across to Southern California. Northward from its route at El Paso a railway leads through New Mexico to the next great transcontinental line, the Atchison system, coming from Chicago by way of Kansas City and Santa FÉ southwestward The main line traverses Kansas, and branches go south into the Indian Territory and Oklahoma. In the former are the reservations of the civilized tribes of Indians originally removed from east of the Mississippi—the Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws and Seminoles, with some others—who number nearly two hundred thousand souls, most of them engaged in agriculture. To the westward, south of Kansas and Colorado, is the "Boomers' Paradise" of Oklahoma, or the "Beautiful Land," a fertile and well-watered region, originally part of the Indian reserved lands, but bought from them by the Government. People from Kansas long had a desire to occupy this prolific land, and only with great difficulty were they kept out. The portion first got ready was opened to settlement by proclamation at noon on April 22, 1889, a large force of troops being in attendance to preserve order. Over fifty thousand people crossed the boundaries and entered the Territory the first day, taking up farms and starting towns. The "Cherokee Strip" along the northern line was subsequently obtained and opened to settlement in September, 1893, when ninety thousand people rushed in. These great invasions of the "Oklahoma boomers" became historic, cities of tents springing up in a night; but while there then was much suffering and privation from want of food and shelter, yet the new Territory has since become a most successful agricultural community.

The Atchison route, after crossing Kansas, enters Colorado, passing La Junta and Trinidad, and then turning southward rises to the highest point on the line, crossing the summit of the Raton Pass, at an elevation of seventy-six hundred and twenty feet, by going through a tunnel, and emerging on the southern side of the mountain in New Mexico. The railway is then laid along the slope of the Santa FÉ Mountains, and on their side are Las Vegas Hot Springs, about forty of them being in the group, their waters used both for bathing and drinking, and having various curative properties. The Glorieta Pass is subsequently crossed at seventy-five hundred feet elevation, and beyond is Santa FÉ, the capital of New Mexico. This is a curious and antique town, the oldest in the United States next to St. Augustine in Florida. It was an Indian pueblo or town in the very early times, and in 1605 the Spaniards came along, captured it, reduced the Indians to slavery, and worked the valuable gold and silver mines. In 1680 the Indians revolted, expelled the Spaniards and destroyed their churches and buildings, but they recovered control a few years later. There are now about seven thousand people of all races, having a good trade, and being chiefly employed in mining. It is a quaint old place, with crooked and narrow streets and adobÉ houses surrounding the central Plaza, on one side of which is the ancient Governor's Palace, a long, low adobÉ structure of one story, wherein the Governors of Spanish, Mexican and American rule have lived for nearly three centuries. It contains various historical paintings and relics, and here General Lew Wallace wrote Ben Hur while Governor of New Mexico in 1880.

Beyond Santa FÉ is the Rio Grande River, which the railway follows down through a grazing country past Albuquerque, its mart for wool and hides. Turning westward an arid region is traversed, with an occasional pueblo, and near Laguna is the famous Mesa Encantada, or the "Enchanted Table Land." This eminence rises precipitously four hundred and thirty feet above the surface, and is only accessible by ladders and ropes. The summit gives evidence of former aboriginal occupancy, and the tradition of the neighboring Acomas Indians is that their ancestors lived upon it, but were forced to abandon the village when a storm had destroyed the only trail and caused those remaining on the summit to perish. To the westward the "Continental Divide" is crossed at seventy-three hundred feet elevation, but with nothing indicating the change, as it is on a plateau. The Navajo Indian Reservation is crossed, Arizona entered and traversed, and at the Flagstaff Station is the Lowell Observatory, and here the nearest route is taken to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. There rises to the northward the huge San Francisco Mountain, a fine extinct volcano, while off to the southwest are the great United Verde Copper Mines, among the largest in the world, and the town of Prescott, in a rich mineral region. The Colorado River is crossed into California, and then the railway traverses the wide Mojave Desert towards the Pacific coast.

DENVER AND ITS SURROUNDINGS

The Union Pacific Railway route across the Continent was the first constructed, the Government giving large subsidies in money and land grants. It was opened in 1869, and greatly encouraged travel to the Pacific coast. The Union Pacific main line starts at Council Bluffs and Omaha on the Missouri River and crosses Nebraska into Wyoming. Here is Cheyenne, a leading cattle-dealers' town on the edge of the Rockies, five hundred miles west of the Missouri, where there are fifteen thousand people. Fort Russell, an Indian outpost at the verge of the Black Hills, is to the northward. At Cheyenne, the main Union Pacific line is joined by the Denver Pacific branch, which starts on the Missouri River at Kansas City, traverses Kansas, passing Fort Riley and the Ogden Monument there, marking the geographical centre of the United States, and enters Colorado, and at Denver turns northward to Cheyenne.

Denver is the great city of the Rockies, whose snow-capped summits are seen to the westward in a magnificent and unbroken line, extending in view for one hundred and seventy miles from Pike's Peak north to Long's Peak, with many intervening summits, most of them rising over fourteen thousand feet. Denver stands on a high plateau, through which the South Platte River flows, and it is at nearly fifty-three hundred feet elevation. This "Queen City of the Plains" was settled by adventurous pioneers as a mining camp in 1858, and through the wonderful development of mining the precious metals has had rapid growth, so that now there is one hundred and seventy thousand population. It has many manufactures and some of the most extensive ore-smelting works in the world, the annual output of gold and silver being enormous. The high elevation and healthy climate make it a favorite resort for pulmonary patients. There are many fine buildings, and a noble State Capitol with a lofty dome, erected at a cost of $2,500,000, and standing on a high hill, so that it gives a superb outlook. The city was named in honor of General James W. Denver, who was an early Governor of Kansas and served in the Civil War. He first suggested the name of Colorado for the Territory (now a State), and thus his name was given its capital. Denver has built for its water-works, forty-eight miles south of the city, the highest dam in the world, two hundred and ten feet, enclosing a gorge on the South Platte to make an enormous reservoir holding an ample supply.

Being so admirably located, Denver is a centre for excursions into one of the most attractive mountain regions in America. The great Colorado Front Range, or eastern ridge of the Rockies, stretches grandly across the country and has behind it one range after another, extending far westward to the Utah Basin. Towering behind the Front Range is the Saguache Range, the chief ridge of the Rockies, which makes the Continental Divide. Among these complicated Rocky Mountain ranges are various extensive Parks or broad valleys, nestling amid the peaks and ridges, which were originally the beds of inland lakes. Out of this mountain region flow scores of rivers in all directions, the affluents of the Mississippi to the east, the Rio Grande to the south, and the Colorado and the Columbia westward. All of them have carved down deep and magnificent gorges, two to five thousand feet deep, and in places the wonderful results of ages of erosion are displayed in the peculiar constructions of vast regions, and in special sections, where the carvings by water, frost and wind-forces have made weird and fantastic formations in the rocks on a colossal scale, as in the "Garden of the Gods." These mountains and gorges are also filled with untold wealth, and the mines, producing many millions of gold and silver, have attracted the population chiefly since the Civil War, so that the whole district around and beyond Denver is a region of mining towns, which are reached by a network of railways disclosing the grandest scenery, and in many parts the most startling and daring methods of railroad construction. Whenever land can be reclaimed for agriculture or grazing on the flanks of the mountains and in the protected valleys and parks, it is done, so that the district has extensive irrigation canals, in some parts diverting practically all the available flow of water in the streams. This is particularly the case with the Upper Arkansas River, such diversion of the headwaters in Colorado having robbed the river of its water to such a degree that the people of Kansas, whither it flows on its route to the Mississippi, are greatly annoyed and have protracted litigation about it.

COLORADO ATTRACTIONS.

Northwest from Denver is the picturesque Boulder Canyon, and here at the mining town of Boulder is the University of Colorado, with six hundred students. Beyond are Estes Park, one of the smaller enclosed parks among the mountains, having Long's Peak on its verge, rising fourteen thousand two hundred and seventy feet. Westward from Denver is the Clear Creek Canyon, and the route in that direction leads through great scenic attractions, past Golden, Idaho Springs and Georgetown, where silver-mining and health-resorts divide attention, the mountains also displaying several beautiful lakes. Beyond, the railway threads the Devil's Gate, climbing up by remarkable loops, and reaches Graymont at ten thousand feet elevation, having Gray's Peak above it rising fourteen thousand four hundred and forty feet. In this district is the mining town of Central City, while to the northwest is the extensive Middle Park, of three thousand square miles area, a popular resort for sportsmen. Southward from Denver the railway route passes the splendid Casa Blanca, a huge white rock, a thousand feet long and two hundred feet high, and crosses the watershed between the Platte and the Arkansas, at an elevation of over seventy-two hundred feet. Here, amid the mountains, seventy-five miles from Denver, upon a plateau at six thousand feet elevation, is the famous city of Colorado Springs, having twenty-five thousand people and being a noted health-resort. It is pleasantly laid out, with wide, tree-shaded streets, like a typical New England village spread broadly at the eastern base of Pike's Peak. Here live large numbers of people who are unable to stand the rigors of the climate on the Atlantic coast, and it has been carefully preserved as a residential and educational city, saloons being prohibited, with other restrictions calculated to preserve its high character. The settlement began in 1871, but there are no springs nearer than Manitou, several miles away in the spurs of Pike's Peak. The climate of Colorado Springs is charming, and it has, on the one hand, a magnificent mountain view, and on the other a limitless landscape eastward and southward, across the prairie land. Here are the Colorado College and other public institutions, and the National Printers' Home, supported by the printers throughout the country. In the pretty Evergreen Cemetery is buried the authoress, Helen Hunt Jackson, who died in 1885.

Probably the best known summit of the Rockies is Pike's Peak, rearing its snowy top over Manitou, and about six miles westward from Colorado Springs, to an elevation of nearly fourteen thousand two hundred feet. As it rises almost sheer, in the Colorado Front Range, this noble mountain can be seen from afar across the eastern plains. A cog-wheel railway nine miles long ascends to the summit from Manitou, rising seventy-five hundred feet. There is a small hotel at the top, and a superb view over the mountains and glens and mining camps all around. In 1806 General Zebulon Pike, then a captain in the army, led an exploring expedition to this remote region and discovered this noble mountain, which was given his name. Forests cover the lower slopes, but the top is composed of bare rocks, usually snow-covered. Below it a huge tunnel is being bored through the range to connect Colorado Springs with the Cripple Creek mining district to the westward. Manitou has a group of springs of weak compound carbonated soda, resembling those of Ems, and beneficial to consumptive, dyspeptic and other patients. They are at the entrance of the romantic Ute Pass, a gorge with many attractions, which was formerly the trail of the Ute Indians in crossing the mountains. Nearby, upon the Mesa, or "table-land," is the "Garden of the Gods," a tract of about one square mile, thickly studded with huge grotesque cliffs and rocks of white and red sandstones, their unique carving being the result of the erosive processes that have been going on for ages. They are all given appropriate names, and its Gateway is a passage just wide enough for the road, between two enormous bright red rocks over three hundred feet high. Farther south on the Arkansas River is Pueblo, an industrial city of thirty thousand people in a rich mining district, where there is a Mineral Palace, having a wonderful ceiling formed of twenty-eight domes, into which are worked specimens of all the Colorado minerals. The route then crosses the Veta Pass at ninety-four hundred feet elevation, whereon is the abrupt bend known as the "Mule Shoe Curve," and beyond this it descends into the most extensive of the Colorado Parks, the San Luis, covering six thousand square miles. Sentineling its western side is the triple-peaked Sierra Blanca, the loftiest Colorado Mountain, rising almost fourteen thousand five hundred feet. The Rio Grande flows to the southward, and there is Alamosa, and up in the mountains Creede, an extraordinary development of recent silver mining, which began its career when the ore was discovered in 1891, has seven thousand people, and has produced $4,000,000 silver in a year.

Gateway, Garden of the Gods, Colorado