The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 30, 1896, Page 24

24 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 1896. A A Land ‘U nknown Where There Are Names Without Places Life in the Isolated Mountain Towns of Trinity and Siskiyou California is so large in area and so di- versified in climate and surface that'it is like a small worla with all the different types. Half of it knows not how the otber half lives. In the northern part of the State, among the eastern spurs of the Coast Range, is a true unknown land. The world unknowing and by the world un- known, its scattered people live out their isolated lives in content, sinking into their graves in the rocky hillsides, sure that heaven will be someéthing like a mining country hid in the mountains. The mountains and the beds of the many forks of small rivers are full of gold. The mines are worked in a primitive way, necessitated by tkeir position. They can- not be phenomenally rich or they would cause roads to be built and towns to spring up, but I am persuaded were they taken in hand by men used to spending wealth to gain wealth the result would surprise some of those who have shoveled and drifted a lifetime for the food and clothes demanded by nature. There used to be a greater population than there is now. the only evidence of which are names without places. In the middle of a desolate flat will be a pile of stones or the remains of a mud and rock chimney. That, the people will say, is Peterstown, or Ladyslipper, or Lakeview, or Halfway, or half adczen cther names, as the case may be; they all look alike, and are alike desolate and abandoned. In ‘‘early days” there were ateach a re, a blacksmith-shop and a saloon. Now there are three of these deserted villages belween every two settlements. The settlements themseives could hardly be called extensive. There will be two houses. In one somebody lives, and the other is store, postoffice and saloon in one. Sometimes the mail gets dropped behind the whisky barrel and lies there like Ginevra in the chest until the barrel is woved. Tlhe mail comes in two or three timesa week on horseback. The law sits loosely on the carrier, and if he forgets to come 10 one does miore than growl a little, Each ne of any importance bas its store, so the people need go to the *‘town’’ only for mail. All the goods, all the flour, all the min- ing machinery come in during the sum- mer by pack trains. The merchants of the nearest towns, often sixty miles away, have trains of from twenty to fifty mules, and all through the months from June to ©October these trains wind in and out among the hills, leaving a part of the load at each mine or settlement. During the other months there is no communication with the world except by mail, and a deep snow will often keep that out a month or two. The winters are bitterly cold, with snow piled up to the windows and keen winds sweeping down from icy peaks. ' But the people know what to expect, and all sum- mer may be heard the beat of the wood- man’s ax and the whiz of his saw to fill the sheds with stored-up sunshine. .The houses are rough, sometimes of logs, | but oftener of boards siowly cut by the up and down mill turned by a mountain stream. Every house has a big, iron cook- stove to heat red and glowing, and besides a deep fireplace with a back log and plenty of pitch knots. ‘What the men do during the long, dark winter, when there is no mining, no gar- den work and no woodcutting I could never find out. Perhaps they sleep, like the bears. The little ones slide down hill, make snow mea and throw snowballs like little Eskimos, while their mothers make quilt patches, braid rugs and knit. Cbildren there have never seen a four- wheeled vehicle. The little hay cut is iaken to the barn in rudecarts. Iremem- ber once thata big green and yellow Stude- baker wagon was brought up in sections and put together. It was to be used be- tween two mines, but proved a failure. The children looked at it with admiration, almost awe. They asked me if I didn’t think it just lovely. Isaid Idid. The spectacle of a circle of boys and girls in ecstasies over a big ugly freight wagon was unique. It was from this Jand the girlcame who, the first time she saw. telegraph wires, wondered why folks had their clothes lines up so high. There are schoolhouses about thirty miles apart. Each gathers in nearly a score of pupils, while those who live be- tween do without. Many of the children are part white and part Indian. Many learn an Indian jargon at home, and the teacher’s first few weeks is spent in learn- ing to understapd it. One who takes as a matter of course all the privileges and luxuries of contact and civilization can hardly imagine the life of these mountain people, so near to the heart of nature and so far from the arts of men. Just so the children who have not been outside the circling ranges cannot imagine the life of those who dwell in the crowded town. Do not imagine, though, that the moun- tain boy is envious of his city cousin. Rather he pities him the iack of sky- touching peaks to climb, miles and miles of creek to fish in and preserves of deer free to every owner of a gun. It has puzzled me, this perfect content. I have tried crueily to distarb'it by pic- tures and word pictures of ocean, park and town, and tales of the sights and sounds of ety life. Interested? Yes — just a8 you used to be interested in fairy tales, ecalling for more, yet knowing they were only stories. I have known them to be re- moved, to be taken into the centers of life, and they pined for home. I knew one, sent away to school, who could hardly wait 1ill the summer to return to the most lonesome, desolate spot, three days’ trail ride from a town, and a home not the most harmonious, ana who, after four yeurs of civilized existence, married and gettled for | Thousands of Moth- THE UNKNOWN LAND life in the mountains, satisfied that there alone was true uappiness to be found. I spoke to a squaw, whose half-white daugh- ter had married a white man, and had been welcomed into his family, and she said: ““Yes, Mary he come home this sum- mer. Henry he no want come, Mary he come alone, and Mary he no go back—no good down there.” 0Old men and women who came there in their prime or their youth have settied like stones in the bed of the river. The current of life sweeps over them and dis- turbs them not. They never intend to move and they even consider it an evi- dence of bad taste that all who come do not take root too. The water and the air are their great arguments. Nowhere else in the world is there water so pure or air o full of life. As a matter of fact I had my first and only taste of ague in their pure air, and T would ratier breath a deep, damp breath from the ocean any day. But I am a heretic. It was there I saw a regular new wo- man. I had ridden late into the night and asked shelter at the first house. In such a country the unbidden guest is doubly welcome and haspitality is un- | bounded. In the gray dawn,as I was waking, the door opened and I thought a young Japanese boy came in with hot wa- ter. While I stared in shocked surprise, a very sweet girl's voice told me to stay in bed and she would bring my coffee to me. | IN THE MOUNTAINS. /My Jap was a slender brown girl of six- teen, in overalls and blouse, with long hair braided down her back. All summer I climbed the bhills and picked berries, and filled my herbarium, with those same overalls by my side. A sweeter, more feminine girl I never met, nor one who panned out better with intimate acquaintance. The boys' dress bad become a necessity irom a boys' life, and approaching womanhood with its burden of skirts was anything but wel- come. At first she offered to wear, when in my company, a short, scant gingham skirt over the trousers, but the effect was to send us both into fits of laughter and she abandoned the idea of further compromise than her pink sunbonnet. Poor little “Jim!” She was transplanted there, and unlike the natural growth, she longed for the fleshpots of Egypt. When I started for my home beside the lovely bay, the last sight I saw was little Jim looking after me down the trail. This unknown land is one of rare beauty. Nature was in a poetic mood when she piled those masses of mountains and crowned them with white. Itisaland of promise for the hunter, the angler and the botanist—an ideal place for a summer’s outing, far, far from the maddening crowa, a place to teach one anew the beauties of nature and send him home ready toslip into his civilized life with a new appreciation of its privi- leges. Onive HEYDEN. The Great Egg-Eater He's aa;mpior\ in Many Other Lines Smokes Two Gigars in Four Minutes and Walks Fast Ernest Miller, who has already earned the reputation of being the champion egg- eater in the world by his feat, performed last week, of making a meal of six dozen and a half of hen fruit. is modest withal, and does not desire to pose before the public either as a freak or as a glutton. He is particularly undesirous of being looked upon as a gourmand. Miller is slightly above the ordinary height, not stout, but strong and wiry, and has a record for other unusual per- formances than those of eating. He isin the employ of the firm of Uri & Co. in the Clay-street market, and is an expert in the art of dissecting a beef ora calf. He can also carry a greater weight of beef and handle more of this food-stuffina given time than any man employed in the local beefsteak factories. He first began to show his unusual pow- ers about a year ago. In July of 1895 a friend called his ability into question by offering to wager that Miller could not make a meal of two dozen eggs. If Miller sacceeded in stowing away that quantity in his main digestive organ the friend was to pay for them and whatever Miller ate at the same time. If Miller, however, failed he was to stand the expense. Miller won with ease, and this is what his doubt- ing friend had to pay for: A big plate of soup, a huge dish of macaroni, a gen- erous helping of stuffed veal, a three- pound tenderloin steak, twenty-nine eggs, two cups of coffee and aloaf of French bread, garnished with Swiss cheese. Miller’s vanquished challenger was Joe Wertheimer, one of the members of the HE LEARNED ENGLISH IN TWO MONTHS. firm that employed this abnormal feaster, and ever since Joe, as he 1s familiarly called by the people of the.market, has been trying to get even on his giited em- ploye. Shortly after Ernest had so thoroughly demonstrated his gastronomic abilities Wertheimer offered to wager $25 to $12 50 against the leg and lung power of Miller. Miller promptly accepted, and the follow- ing conditions were then arranged and agreed upon: Miller was to walk to the Almshouse and back from the Clay-street market within three hours, and in the course of his jaunt smoke six good- sized imported cigars. In order to see that the performance was duly accomplished Wertheimer followed in a buggy. The dis- tance to the Almshouse ‘is estimated at five and three-quarters miles, Four minutes and a half from the time of leaving the market the corner of Mont- gomery and Market street was reached, and here the stump of the second cigar was banded to Wertheimer. “I did not know what I could do in the line of smoking when 1 started,” said Mil- ler, in speaking of the incident, “and so I puffed away like a locomotive getting up steam in a hurry until Icame to the end of the second cigar. I had to smoke them down to a stump of less than an inch. The walking part of the contract was as soft a snap as the smoking. I reached the Almshouse in just one hour and three minutes after leaving the starting voint. Tne trip out was largely up grade, and if I had wanted I could have made the return in about three-quarters of an hour, but I took it easy coming back and stopped at several places to take a drink. The half- dozen cigars were nearly all smoked when 1 got out to the Almshouse.” Wertheimer’s next attempt to get part of his lost money back was to wager that Miller could not smokesix imported cigars within two and a half hours. “I took him up for $5," said Miller. Then in tones of sad reproach mingled with triumph he added: ‘They soaked the cigars in brandy and drugged them. But it didn’t matter, I got away - with them, and with time to spare.’’ Miller's last achievement in stowing away sixty-six eggs so aroused the admir- ation of hisfrienas that they contributed to the purchase of a belt, which was pre- sented to him last evening with ail due formality. It designates him as the cham- pion destroyerof hen fruitand is dedigned to indicate the honor conferred upon the wearer. The center of the buckle orna- mentation shows the convex side of half an eggshell and grouped about it is a flock of disconsolate and discouraged- looking aenizens of the barnyard. One of the conditions of the presentation is that Miiler shall wear the belt on all staie occasions, and this he has faithfully prom- ised to do. ‘Wertheimer still has hopes of being able to recover some of his wagered dollars and is devoting considerable of his time to de- vising some new gastronomic feat. Liabyrinth of Booksi . Ancient Volumesf in a Dismal Cellar Eaten and Dust- Govered Old Jomes A | On Fourth street, near Stevenson, there | is a second-hand bookstore that has been there for years and years. The interior of the store, that can be entered from the street, is little different from other stores of the same kind; but there is a portion of it that few people see that is most likely the only place .of the kina in the City if not in the whole State. Persons who buy only ordinary books run no chance of seeing the queer place. But ask for some book that was published many years ago and the proprietor will most likely say that he has it. He will then take you out at & backdoor into a yard, where he will lead the way down a flight of steps with damp, moss- covered brick walls on both sides. Open- ing a heavy door and lighting a candle he will ask you inside, saying that you will most likely find what you want there. And what a queer place.you find your- self in. The cellar, for such it proved to be, is in inky darkness except for the faint light shed by the candle. Buton all sides can be seen piles of old books. There are thouvsands of them. Enough to fill any of the large libraries in town. They spread out in all directions and form avenues that appear to have no end. Wandering through them is like a labyrinth. One looses all bearings and could easily get lost as far as knowing which way to turnis concerned. A person in the place without a light might crawl around for hours with- out finding the door to get out. The cellar extends under several build- ings and the books it contains have been accumulating over a quarter of a century. All are thickly covered with dust and that peculiar “bock’ smell fills the air. Although the street is only a few feet away a dead silence reigns. The owner says that months frequently pass without snybody entering the place. The old cellar is itself intensely inter- esting, but many of the books are much more s0. There are parts of storiés on the flyleaves of many of them in the inscrip- tions there. Here is an old Goodwin arithmetic published in 1842. On the title page is the inscription *“Thomas Dickens, Oxford, 1846.” Where is Thomas Dickens now,and what was his career thatled to his schoolbook being stacked away in an old cellar so far away from England? GAMPAIGN TALK Itisfun to listen now. Wherever you are detained for a moment, wherever you ride, there is no need to feel lonesome. People are talking politics. Sometimes they know a little about the subject, sometimes they don't, but they talk and talk just the same. Not one man in a hundred can be changed by argument. You might talk the buttons off the coat of an Eastern man, the descendant of a hundred years THE BLIND. TRRVELER. IN THE LABYRINTH OF MUSTY BOORS of Republican voters, and he would never turn Democrat or Populist. The same amount of good breath wasted on the solid Democrat wouldjthave the same effect. You might get him in a corner and make it impossible to get out without making some damaging admis- sions, but he would vote the straight Democratic ticket. They all talk right ahead, and the man with the loudest voice wins. The part to make one smile 18 the stb- lime ignorance paraded along with the zeal. Verily our sisters will have to try hard if they display a denser ignorance than some of our lords. Bixteen to one is a regular pigs-in-clover puzzle, answered in more ways than one man could hold in memory. Itis joy to ask it in an innocent way as ene who wishes to be enlightened. The replies vary from the common one that sixteen silver dollars will be coined to one of gold to the startling and original one that one gold dollar will buy sixteen silver ones. The other evening there was exhibited an interesting bit of frankness. Two el- derly men were arguing on the street about currency. One had a big, blatant voice, and the other a rather weak but shrill tone. The big voice drowned the little one completely and drove its owner from the field. As he watchea his oppo~ nent stride huffily round the corner, the victor winked at the crowd and asked, “Didn’t I pepper him good? But, say, can any of you fellows tell me what he meant by 16 to 12" One man who talks different politics to every man he knows in order, as he says, to bring out ideas has crushed both Re- publican and Democratic arguers with the same speech. It begins like this: “There is a great similarity between this cam- paign and Lincoln’s.” Then, if he is talk- ing against a Democrat he goes on to speak of solidity of judgment, and if against a Republican he raves and shake his Pad- erewski hair over the silvery tongues of Lincoln and another. Nobody knows how he will vote, though he wears a Bryan button. The climax came last night in Oakland when one of the orators of the City Hall Park began talking for Bryan and Wat- son, switched off on silver, flew the track again to the Chinese and finished by giv- ing a cure for rheumatism, He Lioves PAmerica The Ambition of a Bright Italian Boy Learned English in Two Months While Fishing on the Bay One of the latest additions to the Italian colony of this City is Francis Majano, a 19-year-old boy, who appears to have the making of a good citizen in him. From his conversation he a most estimable character and his aims are of the highest. He says that he comes of one of the most noble families of Italy which lost its posi- tion through devotion to freedom. At present Francis is working for a fish- erman, and spends a large portion of his time on the wharf drying nets and doing other work of a similar nature. But all the while he is thinking of a way to improve his mind, and all of his spare time is given to study. That the boy is smart s a fuci beyond question, because he has been in this country but ten weeks and has already mastered the English language. He can speak on any subject with a gdod accent, although when he left his native land he did not know a word. Francis says that he has been ambitious to come to America ever since he was 15 years old. But he had to work hard for very little money, and it was a most diffi- cult matter to save enough to pay his passage. He was desirous of coming to San Francisco because he knew several people, who have been here some time and who have since his arrival been very kind to him. The forefathers of ‘Francis Majano were all men devoted to ireedom and the in- stincts were born in the boy. He learned all he could of the different governments of the world from books in, his own lan- guage, and after studying them all made up his mind that that of the United States suited him better than any of the others. He at once began to prepare to come here by saving what he could out of the scant salary which he got for acting asdelivery boy in a market. The day when he had the sum was the happiest of his life, and he lost no time in getting started. It was a long journey to an untraveled person, but Francis is glaa that he made it. Fe sings over his work and longs for the day when he shall 1| attain his majority and be eligible to be- come a citizen of this great country. His desire is not simply to be admitted to citizenship, but to be a good citizen worthy of the privilege. He reads the constitution and the Declaration of Inde- pendence constantly and says that they are the greatest documents ever written. He studies them carefully and it has never struck him that they could be improved by changing certain parts. “What I would like to do,” said Francis, in but slightly broken English, ‘is to be- come a lawyer or a physician. Then I feel that I could be of benefit to the world. I would show my people what a grand op- portunity they have when they are allowed to become citizens of this great country. Surely therecould be no greater privilege, and no other country in the world offers the same chanCes for a man to rise. “After I have been here a year I will get a positicn as a clerk where I can have more time to study. I will aiso tind some way to go to a school. Oh, I willdo every- thing because this country does so much for me. Iam sofree. Igo where I please and no king makes me give many years of my life to his army. But when the Amer- ican army needs me to fight I am ready, always ready, to carry arms for freedom.” Blind, but a lTraveler He Walked to Lios Angeles With- out Help A8 Phenomenal Mem- ory Enables Him to Retrace a Path Gilbert Watkins is the name of a blind man who lives on Bush street, near Tay- tor. Although he is so blind he cannot tell day from night,even though he looks directly at the sun, 1t does not interfere with his ability to travel. In fact Wat- kins does more traveling than most other peovle, except drummers, And further- more he does the most of it without any one to guide him. Watkins, when he is in the City, can be seen standing on the corners of some of the downtown streets, where he sells no- tions and other small articles in order to gain a livelihood. But he does not stay long at a time, because e likes to visit different places and meet different people. He always attends the different celebra- tions and fiestas, where he says he is sure to enjoy himself. When Watkins wants to go any place the first time he gets some one to guide him if possible, but after that he can go aloneat any time he wishes. He has been over nearly all of the roadsin California, and only a few months ago he walked from this City to Los Angeles by himself. He says he is always well treated and finds people only too willing to tell him whatis going on. Accoraing to Watkins’ story he is able to do these remarkable things solely by his memory and says that he can be taken anywhere and made to turn as many cor- ners as desired, and that he can find his way back without assistance. In this re- spect he seems to have the same faculty a cat is sdid to have and exercise it in the same wayv. A ‘When the blind man desiresto gotoa certain place hé has never been before he is led to it and as he goes along he takes mental note of all of the objects he passes. Here is a rough crossing, here some as- phaltem pavement, here a dirt road with some slones on it, here some water, eto. ‘When he wants to return he takes them in the reverse order and has no trouble. *The reason I can do this,” he says, ‘‘is because I don’t see a lot of things that dis- tract me. You could do the same thing easy enough. Maybe in a miie I would only have to remember a few objects. It is just the same as if a man who could see was taken through a dark alley but every once in 8 while was given a glimpse of his surroundings by a light being turned on. He could remember what he saw without any trouble, but if he saw a thousand other things he could pot. I know just how many steps it is from the corner to where I live and can walk to the place without even using my cane. Of course I am helped a great deal by the people I pass, because they know Iam blind and always make room for me.’” e e The serpent ring, or ring made in the shape of a serpent, was a favorite in Rome during the later republic. —_———— ‘Thomas Slater has & message every man page 21 Don’t fall to read it e i (Foretells Secasons — Australasia Hasa Bold Weather Sage He Photographs the Glouds and Sees Six Months Ahead “From the .clouds and winds that blow out of the mysterious Antarctic, south of us,” -said Clement L. Wragge, "Chief Weather Forecaster of all Australasia, at the Palace yesterday, ‘‘we are gathering facts so that we will ere long be able to forecast the kinds of seasons we shall have. . “This will be very important informa-. tion for the herdsmen, agriculturists and fruit-growers. If they know whether it will be a wet or a dry season and the de- tails of the storms that are to ensue they can govern themselves accordingly, and millions of dollars will be saved. I have been at the head of the Weather Bureauin Australia since 1887. Prior to that I had charge of the hydrographic station on lofty Ben Nevin, in Scotland. Infact, I established that station. “Since 1 took hold in Australia I have given a great deal.of attention to the strange things in meteorology. The Queens- land Government, of which I am the meteorologist, some time since desired that I would devote considerable time getting facts looking to the correct prophecy of the seasons. “I proceeded to make a large number of cloud photographs, and I also gathered data from observations taken by ships covering the entire region from 40 degrees north latitnde to 55 south latitude, and from 30 degrees east longitude to 130 west. This takes in the Red Sea, the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, India, Southeastern China, Japan, Hawaii, the South Sea Islands, Indian Ocean and the North and South Pacific. “The strange data collected have enabled us to forecast the weather from one to six- teen days in advance of any given disturb- ance. We have found that when droughts prevail in Australia abnormally heavy rains occur in India. “Qne of the things ascertained was the scientific fact of the extraordinarily low pressure within the limit aliuded to, with the variations as indicated, and the ex- traordinary distribution of ice from the Antarctic during the several seasons, All this is most important in elucidating the details in reference to the seasons. *{ hold, however, that, considering the progress we have made, nothing would so readily make clear a way toward a complete forecasting as an Antarctic meteorological expedition. That is some- thing of great importance. The Antarctic is now the greatest field we have for ex« ploration, and at the meeting of the In- ternationai Meteorological Congress in Paris on September 15, to which I am now bound, I shall set forth the whole matter in full. “Queensland has waated to start an ex- pedition to the Antarctic, but has been a little slow, not having the money. 1 hope one of these expeditions will get off ere long. The wealthy men of the world have a chance to immortalize themselves by outfitting an expedition to the Antarctic, “If this is done and trained meteorolo- gists are aboard, I have no doubt that all the details will be collected which will en< able forecasters to tell to a certainty what kind of seasons we shall have. “As to this cloud photography I may say that photography in meteorology has become of as much use as photography in astronomy. It isabsolutely indispensable, and the facts which we are enabled to get from the photographs are settling with wonderful rapidity many of the hitherto great problems of the air. “I am taking fifty of these cloud photo« graphs with me to Paris. . They are large and very beautiful. I think when all the data I have gathered is laid before the scientists there they will agree with me that we may look into the future for months and accurately foretell what is to happen. The mystery of what was befora the unknown will be broken as by a spell.” The great Australasian weather fore. caster_left l1ast evening for Paris. Heis full of enthusiasm regarding his discov- eries and the project of an Antarctic expe« dition, “The word-coloring of your essay wag exquisite.” “Thank you.” “It matched so perfectly the green ribe ton at your throat.” “Oh, thank you very much.” Thus conversed the two sweet girl graduates, and revealed again the subtlety of woman in grasping the esoteric signifi« cance of things. - NEW TO-DAY. Fit Fyom U.8. Journal of Medicine. Prof.W. H. Peeke, whomakes a special- ed and cured more cases than any living is astonish- ing. cases of 20 years’ standing cured by him. He publishes a valuable work cure, free to any sufferer who may send their P.O.and Express address. Prof. W.H.PEEKE,F.D.,4 Cedar St. N.V. Weak Men andWomen ty of Epilepsy, has Physician ; Cured We have on this disease, which he sends We advise anyone wishing a cure SrominnE pAMANA HETERL LS without doubf treat- his success heard of with a large bottle of his absolute to address SUrengti 10 the Sexual Organs