and adequate development of resources which so far have been no
more than skimmed, and casually and carelessly skimmed at that.
This region of the six counties alone will some day support a
population of millions. In the meanwhile, O you home-seekers, you
wealth-seekers, and, above all, you climate-seekers, now is the
time to get in on the ground floor.
Robert Ingersoll once said that the genial climate of California
would in a fairly brief time evolve a race resembling the
Mexicans, and that in two or three generations the Californians
would be seen of a Sunday morning on their way to a cockfight with
a rooster under each arm. Never was made a rasher generalisation,
based on so absolute an ignorance of facts. It is to laugh. Here
is a climate that breeds vigour, with just sufficient geniality to
prevent the expenditure of most of that vigour in fighting the
elements. Here is a climate where a man can work three hundred
and sixty-five days in the year without the slightest hint of
enervation, and where for three hundred and sixty-five nights he
must perforce sleep under blankets. What more can one say? I
consider myself somewhat of climate expert, having adventured
among most of the climates of five out of the six zones. I have
not yet been in the Antarctic, but whatever climate obtains there
will not deter me from drawing the conclusion that nowhere is
there a climate to compare with that of this region. Maybe I am
as wrong as Ingersoll was. Nevertheless I take my medicine by
continuing to live in this climate. Also, it is the only medicine
I ever take.
But to return to the horses. There is some improvement. Milda
has actually learned to walk. Maid has proved her
thoroughbredness by never tiring on the longest days, and, while
being the strongest and highest spirited of all, by never causing
any trouble save for an occasional kick at the Outlaw. And the
Outlaw rarely gallops, no longer butts, only periodically kicks,
comes in to the pole and does her work without attempting to
vivisect Maid’s medulla oblongata, and–marvel of marvels–is
really and truly getting lazy. But Prince remains the same
incorrigible, loving and lovable rogue he has always been.
And the country we’ve been over! The drives through Napa and Lake
Counties! One, from Sonoma Valley, via Santa Rosa, we could not
refrain from taking several ways, and on all the ways we found the
roads excellent for machines as well as horses. One route, and a
more delightful one for an automobile cannot be found, is out from
A Collection of Stories
30
Santa Rosa, past old Altruria and Mark West Springs, then to the
right and across to Calistoga in Napa Valley. By keeping to the
left, the drive holds on up the Russian River Valley, through the
miles of the noted Asti Vineyards to Cloverdale, and then by way
of Pieta, Witter, and Highland Springs to Lakeport. Still another
way we took, was down Sonoma Valley, skirting San Pablo Bay, and
up the lovely Napa Valley. From Napa were side excursions through
Pope and Berryessa Valleys, on to AEtna Springs, and still on,
into Lake County, crossing the famous Langtry Ranch.
Continuing up the Napa Valley, walled on either hand by great rock
palisades and redwood forests and carpeted with endless vineyards,
and crossing the many stone bridges for which the County is noted
and which are a joy to the beauty-loving eyes as well as to the
four-horse tyro driver, past Calistoga with its old mud-baths and
chicken-soup springs, with St. Helena and its giant saddle ever
towering before us, we climbed the mountains on a good grade and
dropped down past the quicksilver mines to the canyon of the
Geysers. After a stop over night and an exploration of the
miniature-grand volcanic scene, we pulled on across the canyon and
took the grade where the cicadas simmered audibly in the noon
sunshine among the hillside manzanitas. Then, higher, came the
big cattle-dotted upland pastures, and the rocky summit. And here
on the summit, abruptly, we caught a vision, or what seemed a
mirage. The ocean we had left long days before, yet far down and
away shimmered a blue sea, framed on the farther shore by rugged
mountains, on the near shore by fat and rolling farm lands. Clear
Lake was before us, and like proper sailors we returned to our
sea, going for a sail, a fish, and a swim ere the day was done and
turning into tired Lakeport blankets in the early evening. Well
has Lake County been called the Walled-in County. But the
railroad is coming. They say the approach we made to Clear Lake
is similar to the approach to Lake Lucerne. Be that as it may,
the scenery, with its distant snow-capped peaks, can well be
called Alpine.
And what can be more exquisite than the drive out from Clear Lake
to Ukiah by way of the Blue Lakes chain!–every turn bringing into
view a picture of breathless beauty; every glance backward
revealing some perfect composition in line and colour, the intense
blue of the water margined with splendid oaks, green fields, and
swaths of orange poppies. But those side glances and backward
glances were provocative of trouble. Charmian and I disagreed as
to which way the connecting stream of water ran. We still
disagree, for at the hotel, where we submitted the affair to
arbitration, the hotel manager and the clerk likewise disagreed.
I assume, now, that we never will know which way that stream runs.
Charmian suggests “both ways.” I refuse such a compromise. No
stream of water I ever saw could accomplish that feat at one and
the same time. The greatest concession I can make is that
sometimes it may run one way and sometimes the other, and that in
the meantime we should both consult an oculist.
A Collection of Stories
31
More valley from Ukiah to Willits, and then we turned westward
through the virgin Sherwood Forest of magnificent redwood,
stopping at Alpine for the night and continuing on through
Mendocino County to Fort Bragg and “salt water.” We also came to
Fort Bragg up the coast from Fort Ross, keeping our coast journey
intact from the Golden Gate. The coast weather was cool and
delightful, the coast driving superb. Especially in the Fort Ross
section did we find the roads thrilling, while all the way along
we followed the sea. At every stream, the road skirted dizzy
cliff-edges, dived down into lush growths of forest and ferns and
climbed out along the cliff-edges again. The way was lined with
flowers–wild lilac, wild roses, poppies, and lupins. Such
lupins!–giant clumps of them, of every lupin-shade and -colour.
And it was along the Mendocino roads that Charmian caused many
delays by insisting on getting out to pick the wild blackberries,
strawberries, and thimble-berries which grew so profusely. And
ever we caught peeps, far down, of steam schooners loading lumber
in the rocky coves; ever we skirted the cliffs, day after day,
crossing stretches of rolling farm lands and passing through
thriving villages and saw-mill towns. Memorable was our launch-
trip from Mendocino City up Big River, where the steering gears of
the launches work the reverse of anywhere else in the world; where
we saw a stream of logs, of six to twelve and fifteen feet in
diameter, which filled the river bed for miles to the obliteration
of any sign of water; and where we were told of a white or albino
redwood tree. We did not see this last, so cannot vouch for it.
All the streams were filled with trout, and more than once we saw
the side-hill salmon on the slopes. No, side-hill salmon is not a
peripatetic fish; it is a deer out of season. But the trout! At
Gualala Charmian caught her first one. Once before in my life I
had caught two . . . on angleworms. On occasion I had tried fly
and spinner and never got a strike, and I had come to believe that
all this talk of fly-fishing was just so much nature-faking. But
on the Gualala River I caught trout–a lot of them–on fly and
spinners; and I was beginning to feel quite an expert, until
Nakata, fishing on bottom with a pellet of bread for bait, caught
the biggest trout of all. I now affirm there is nothing in
science nor in art. Nevertheless, since that day poles and
baskets have been added to our baggage, we tackle every stream we
come to, and we no longer are able to remember the grand total of
our catch.
At Usal, many hilly and picturesque miles north of Fort Bragg, we
turned again into the interior of Mendocino, crossing the ranges
and coming out in Humboldt County on the south fork of Eel River
at Garberville. Throughout the trip, from Marin County north, we
had been warned of “bad roads ahead.” Yet we never found those