Chapter 3

We had introductory letters to Brigham Young. The next day being Sunday, we went to the Tabernacle to attend their religious service. Happily, Brigham Young had returned the night before from St. Joseph, where he had sojourned with the "faithful." The Tabernacle is an enormous building which, we were told, can hold fourteen thousand people. It was filled to overflowing. The seating for the members was arranged in a semicircle of tiers, the minor elders sitting in the lowest seats. As the tiers mounted there were fewer seats and therefore fewer elders, and so on, until the highest point was reached, where the high priest--Brigham Young--sat alone in his glory. On the opposite side was the magnificent organ built in Boston. When they began building the Tabernacle, gigantic as they intended it to be, they did not know that the organ which had been ordered from Boston (probably wrong measurements had been sent) would be bigger than the Tabernacle. When it arrived they found that, instead of the organ having been made for the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle would have to be made for the organ.

To celebrate the Prophet's return they had the communion service. People all stayed in their pews, and the bread, cut in good healthy pieces, was handed about in bread-baskets; after which pitchers with ice-water were passed, and the water was poured in goblets, which were placed before the people. Brigham Young gave his flock a tremendous rating with lowering eyebrows and a thunder-cloud in each eye, and the flock trembled as one man. He said that during his absence they had not behaved themselves as they ought to have done. They had not only been found swearing and drunk, but they had mingled breath with the Gentiles. We feared he referred to Colonel Hooker, whose breath had mingled--the finger of wrath seemed to point that way. We felt very sorry for our companion and sat huddled together, a humiliated group of Gentiles, trembling to meet the glance of the wrathful Prophet.

After the service we were all received at Brigham Young's house, where he seemed to be expecting us. He looked like any old Vermont farmer, with his white fringe of beard under his fat, puffy cheeks, and his thick, jet-black eyebrows over his keen eyes. He talked to us about his mission in this world and told us about the hardships his people had borne when they came to St. Joseph, which was the first place they "struck" after their tramp over the desert, where most of the men died. It was there he received a mysterious message from on high telling him that bigamy would be pardonable under the circumstances. He told Johan that the Danes were some of his best subjects. Johan made his most diplomatic bow, as if he thought that this compliment to his nation ought to be acknowledged. We heard after that Brigham Young had said this because the Danes were known to take the most wives and ask no questions.

It seems that B.Y. is almost a widower now, poor man. He has only twenty-seven wives. Amelia reigns supreme just now; the others sit forlorn in rocking-chairs in their empty parlors, biting their nails and chewing the bitter gum of envy.

Johan thought we ought perhaps to demand an official "audience" of Amelia, but the others repulsed this inspiration. It was amusing to walk by Brigham Young's big house, a long rambling building with innumerable doors. Each wife has an establishment of her own, consisting of parlor, bedroom, and a front door, the key of which she keeps in her pocket.

We walked about after luncheon, and Colonel Hooker drove us through the streets and up the hill to show us the view, which was magnificent beyond words.

We left Salt Lake City next day with regret.

It was telegraphed to Reno that we were to arrive there, to be treated, escorted, and transported to Virginia City free of charge. They began the treating by giving us an excellent breakfast at the hotel. They asked us ladies if we wanted to go down the shaft with the gentlemen to see the famous silver-mine. We cried "Yes" with enthusiasm.

A dressing-room was put at our disposal, and the clothes we were to wear were neatly placed in piles. There were miners' jackets, miner's leather trousers, and felt hats. We chose the suits best fitting our different anatomies, and dressed. My choice fell on a boy's rather clean suit. We felt very rakish in the dressing-room, but very sheepish when we joined the gentlemen outside. In going down the shaft we had to stand on the platform of the cage, which had neither railing nor support of any kind. We went down thirteen hundred feet and stepped out into the alleys of the shining ore. After walking for what seemed miles, they showed us a hole and a shaft. We looked down a hundred feet deeper, where the men who were working were almost naked. The thermometer was fabulously high. There was a tank of cold water where the men who worked could plunge every two minutes out of the five. The air beginning to be rather oppressive, we requested to be taken up to our mother Earth. How glad we were to breathe the fresh air. A bath was awaiting us, and when we became ladies again we were taken all over the works, and saw the process of making silver bricks out of the walls we had been walking between, the beating of the metal, the sifting and weighing, and finally the silver bricks. They have 2,000 men working day and night. They are 1,400 feet below the surface now, and hope to go lower. The "pocket" is 175 feet long, but the poor stockholders' pockets are empty, for all that. (I am a stockholder and ought to know.)

Each lady was presented with a bag of silver ore-rocks they seemed to me. My bag had "500 dollars" written on it, in fun, I am sure. I left it at the hotel, as it was too heavy to carry.

We left Virginia City that evening for Carson City and slept there, glad to shake off the silver dust from our weary feet. The next day at 7 A.M. two carriages, one with four horses and the other with two, were before the door, and we drove up the mountain, took the little narrow-gage railroad which is there to carry the logs down to the lake. Sitting on the front logs, we rode down the mountain. The big beams of timber are brought to the mines in order to prop up the places where the ore has been taken out. These logs do a lot of traveling. They are cut on the other side of Lake Tahoe, dragged over the lake by a tug, sawed the right length by a sawing-mill, then carried up the mountain by this railroad and floated down by means of a wood trough, three feet wide, for twenty-two miles to another railroad, thence to Virginia City.

A steam-launch was waiting for us, and we cruised about this lovely lake, which is of the bluest water and the greenest shadows you ever saw. One sees a hundred feet down; the water is as clear as crystal. J. talked fishing with the pilot, who promised to take him out fishing with him. He caught a beautiful rainbow-trout (as they are called here) from the launch. When he gets home he will tell you how big the biggest fish was he lost.

We arrived at San Francisco at two o'clock. One of the men brought me some splendid cherries, big as plums, and Johan's consul met us on the ferryboat. This last was in a great hurry to get back to his home, as he did not know whether it was a boy or a girl.

We were driven to the Palace Hotel, which is very fine. Each of us had a complete apartment, _salon_, bed, and bathroom. Having been five days and nights in the train, you may imagine we were tired. I was not only tired, but dizzy and glad to go to bed.

Senator Sharon, who owns this hotel, sent us word begging us not to make any engagement for Saturday and Sunday next, as he intends inviting us to his country place. No bill is to be presented to us here. We are not expected to pay for anything. We are his guests, and, strange to say, not one of us knows him, excepting, of course, Mr. Kasson.

The drive out to the cliffs is enchanting. I had never seen a live sea-lion before, and here were thousands of them, barking, diving in the water and wriggling out of it, and basking in the sun on the rocks.

General McDowell took us out for an early tour the next day in his steam-launch. At five o'clock there was a dense fog covering everything, but suddenly it lifted as we approached. We made the circle of the Angel Island, then landed in a paradise of flowers. I don't think I ever saw such flowers as these. The heliotropes looked as big as cauliflowers, and I saw an ambitious and enormous tomato resembling a pumpkin, on the top of a veranda. The fuchsias were as large as dinner-bells, and when the sun rose over the bay no words can describe how beautiful it was--like one of Turner's pictures, only more exaggerated.

I think if I am going to be an angel, as I certainly am, instead of going to Paris when I die, I should prefer to go to this angelic island.

We ladies were invited by a well-known Chinese tea merchant to a Chinese feast. The table looked rather bare, having only a teacup and a plate before each person. The cups are double, the smaller one being placed on the other to keep in the tea-leaves. After drinking the pale water in which the leaves have soaked, we were served the viands. Each dish is brought in separately and put on the table. Every one of them is a _ragoût_ of some kind. The Chinaman dives in with his chopsticks, and aims for the best piece he sees. Everything is eaten from the same plate--indeed, why should the plate be changed, since everything tastes and looks alike? I waited in vain for birds'-nest pudding, but I could probably not have distinguished it from the other _ragoûts_ if it had been there.

The gentlemen went off on a purely masculine tour, with a policeman in tow. They wanted to see opium-dens and slums. They never told us a word of what they did see--the mean things! Philip V.R., accompanied by an American policeman, took us to a Chinese theater in the evening. I was so nervous I hardly dared to look about me.

The dusky mass of uncanny Chinamen with their shaved heads and their black pigtails sitting underneath us in the parquet was not pleasing, and the stage was merely a platform where some privileged of the audience sat unconcernedly. The scenery was--screens. How easy to shift. We had the policeman of course; but, though he kept a vigilant eye on us to prevent anything from happening in the way of an assault, as frequently happens here, the idea of fire frightened us to such a degree that our one wish was to get away. The upper gallery in which our box was situated was so low that you could touch the ceiling with your hand. The gas-jets had no globes, and the flickering flames suggested everything that was horrible. If there had been a fire no one could possibly have been saved. We felt no interest in the play. It had begun a month ago; the hero had not yet advanced further than his childhood. Perhaps next year when he grows up the play will be more interesting.

Nougats and other sweets, which looked as if they had circulated since the hero of the play was born, were passed about to the spectators. We were glad to reach the hotel in safety and bid our nice American policeman good night.

SAN FRANCISCO, _May, 1877_.

My dear Aunt,--The letters of introduction we brought to San Francisco have already procured us many invitations.

We were at a dinner last night, which Governor Stanford gave us. He has only twenty-five millions--hardly worth mentioning. Each of us ladies had a millionaire to take us in to dinner. Mine was most amiable. He passed all the other millionaires _en revue_; I wish I could remember all he said about them, but I only have a sort of vague recollection that every millionaire had come to San Francisco with only fifty cents in his pocket, and that all the millionaires' wives had gone, in former days, about in the streets of San Francisco selling milk or thread and needles. I was not spared the history of any of them. Mr. S. himself told me that he had made his fortune first in hosiery, and then he invested his money in stocks.

There were thirty people present, divided thus: distinguished party, ten; millionaires, twenty.

Every conceivable bird, alive or mechanical, was heard during this repast; besides, there were musical boxes at each end of the room, which made a tremendous confusion. I know to a cent how much this house cost--one million two hundred thousand dollars, my neighbor told me. It is a great, white, wooden, square house with a veranda around it, perched up on a sandy hill without any garden and without a view of any kind, and certainly without the least beauty.

The picture-gallery, which really has some fine pictures, cost four hundred thousand dollars.

They had had Italian workmen brought especially from Italy to put down the mosaic pavement in the hall, which was huge. We wandered through all the rooms, each one in a different style and epoch, and all in bad taste. I looked about in the so-called ballroom for a piano, and was surprised at not seeing one there; but I noticed several in the other rooms, decorated in the style of the room. They were in every color of wood and charged with brass ornaments. Evidently they were there _as ornaments, not to be used_. Some one must have said to Mr. S., "You must have a piano." And he must have answered: "Certainly. Of course we must. Let us have one in each room, by all means."

The servants all had mustaches and hair curled with tongs. I saw the eyebrows of my party go up at an angle when the servants offered them Johannesburg in gold cups, and still higher up when they saw the mustached waiters pouring white wine in glasses which were previously filled with red wine and alternated indiscriminately.

We were taken up-stairs to see Mrs. S.'s bedroom. It was worthy of an empress, having point-lace coverlids, satin down quilts trimmed with real Valenciennes.

What struck me the most in all this splendor was that so much money should have been expended in furnishing a perishable wooden palace which any tuppenny earthquake or fire could demolish in a moment. Another thing I noticed was that, though everything else was so handsome and costly, the glass and porcelain were of the most ordinary kind.

We enjoyed ourselves immensely and compared notes when we reached the hotel. Barring our individual millionaire, we hardly spoke to the others. We were simply insignificant meteors passing hastily in their midst.

Well, we went to the Senator's country place. A carriage with four horses was waiting for us at the station, and we drove up in fine style to the millionaire's mansion, where some Irish servants with baggy trousers, tumbled cravats, and no gloves opened wide the doors, ushering us into a large hall, where a gentleman whom we guessed was our host came forward to greet us.

We were glad that we were going at last to make his acquaintance. He is a millionaire and a Senator. That is all I can say about him at present, except that he is extremely hospitable. He did not know one of us from the other, except Kasson. He knew we were a "distinguished party" because the papers said so. When we were being dealt out to our rooms there was great confusion. Senator Sharon had an ancient _dame de compagnie_--the head priestess--who made it a particular point to dispose of Miss Clymer before any of the rest of us. She said, "Which of these gents is your husband?" At which Miss C. blushed and found no other answer than, "_None_." J. and I finally secured the same room, because when Mr. S. in a moment of despair said, with an all-comprehensive wave of his hand, "Gentlemen, please take your wives," J. and I paired off. The Senator did not notice this little detail, for when dinner was announced he said to J., "Will you please take that young lady in to dinner?" pointing to me. Johan explained in which relation he stood to the young lady. The Senator was not in the least surprised, and merely answered: "Is that so? Well, then, take some one else."

A semi-millionaire took me in. He told me all his early life of poverty and threw in various reminiscences. I never knew the like of millionaires for telling you of their former miseries. They always do! When the ancient dame saw Mr. Kasson and me talking after dinner, she said to us with a kittenish smile, "Husbands and wives mustn't talk together." Hopeless! We did not even try to explain. The evening was forlorn. There were many dreary drawing-rooms, horribly furnished, but brilliantly lighted. A brawling musical box was supposed to enliven us. We talked in that desultory way that one does with people whom you meet for the first time and never want to meet again. Some of the millionaires hovered among us, but failed to impress us either with their past or present fortunes. Oh, joy! Bedtime came at last.

_May 17th._

I have just had time to scribble these few words before the post comes for my letter.

We have been driving about, admiring landscapes, one another, every one else, millionaires! Everything that money can do to spoil Nature has been done here, but Nature will have her own way in the end; and in spite of the millionaires' millions and the incongruity of everything, we cannot but admire this beautiful and wonderful country.

Before our departure the Senator actually knew us one from the other. He said to me, struggling with my names, "Well, Mrs. _Lindermann Hegercrone_, I am very sorry you are going."

* * * * *

We started on visit No. 2--this time to Mr. Lathrop's beautiful place in Menlo Park. The grounds are perfectly laid out. Flowers of all kinds arranged in parterres, clusters of trees such as I had never seen before, roses as big as sunflowers, and the beautiful sparkling lake in front of the window and the blue mountains in the distance, made the place a perfect paradise. The stables were extra fine, the floor and ceiling being inlaid in two kinds of wood found only in California. The room where the bridles were kept had such beautiful polished panels that they shone like mirrors. There must have been harnesses for twelve horses hanging on the walls. Mr. L. gave me a box made of the thirty different kinds of wood found in California.

The following day we drove with four horses to Mr. Rathbone's, who also has a gorgeous place. His picture-gallery is worthy of a Rothschild.

* * * * *

We left San Francisco for Los Angeles; the directors of the road put everything at our disposition as usual. We had a _salon_, bed, and dressing-rooms in one car, and Miss Cadwalader and Miss Clymer had similar ones in another. There were kitchen, dining and reading rooms for the whole party, which had now grown to be sixteen in number, Senator Conover and his wife and some officers going with General Taylor to Fort Yuma having joined us.

We went to Santa Monica, which is the fashionable watering-place of these parts. Here we drove on the beach, which is thirty miles long. A gentleman of Los Angeles was attached to our party and showed us the sights. We saw all kinds of ranches--orange, grape, and bee ranches. Then we drove to a Mexican settlement, where they gave us a gorgeous dinner, really worthy of more time than we could give it, for we had to leave at five o'clock for Los Angeles, where we dined again.

The next day we started off on another tour. We drove through twenty-five miles of banana, pineapple, pomegranate groves and vineyards. We tasted all the wines and fruit-syrups, and drank native port and champagne. We had a special train and arrived at Merced the next morning, to start on our Yosemite Valley tour.

_May 20th._

Just our luck! The first rain for four months pours down to-day. We drove, nevertheless, from 7 A.M. until 6 P.M. (only stopping for our meals), over barren, sandy, and desolate country. We saw whole flocks of sheep dead and dying by thousands from want of care and drought. We (seven and the driver) were packed away in an open three-seated wagon with four horses, and drove over the dreariest road one can imagine. We passed continually places where the ground was all upturned, evidently either worked-out or abandoned gold-diggings. It was very pathetic when one thought of the work, time, and hopes wasted there. At twelve o'clock we reached Hunter's (the name of the hotel), and then we drove over more dismal plains still to a hotel called Clark's. It must originally have been a lovely place, but now it is spoiled by the gold-diggings. Here we stayed all night in a very rough kind of tavern. During the night we heard the howls of wolves and jackals very near the hotel, which was not pleasant. We started at five o'clock the next morning in a big, open _char-à-bancs_, and went through the most beautiful forest. The trees are all from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet high, and from six to seven feet in diameter; hardly any smaller trees among them. And such wonderful ferns! And the ice-plants! This has a brilliant red stalk and flowers coming from under the snow. We were so high up that there was snow on the ground all about us. The trees are perfectly beautiful. The mansanilla, the branches of which are like red coral, and the leaves the lightest of greens, the California laurel, and many others of which I do not know the names, were too beautiful. The white pine has cones one and a half feet long.

We drove up for four hours through the forest, until we reached the height of five thousand feet. Here was a magnificent view, as you may imagine. Then we began going down. That was something dreadful! The driver, with his six horses, drove at a diabolical rate, one foot on the brake, the other planted against the dashboard to keep his balance, holding a tremendously long whip in one hand and the six reins in the other. I shut my eyes and said my prayers. I cannot find words to describe my emotion when I saw the precipice on one side and the mountain on the other, especially when we came to a sharp corner and looked in front, when we actually seemed to be going into space.

We arrived exhausted at the Yosemite Valley, where the feeling of repose at being on flat ground and driving through those green pastures surrounded by the six-thousand-feet-high mountains was delicious. We found the hotel large, comfortable, with a good many other visitors. The _table d'hôte_ dinner was well attended. Outside the hotel we spied an Indian lurking about. They told us that he was the last of the Yosemite tribe; he boasted that he had never spoken to a white man. I am sure no white man would ever care to speak to such an uncouth-looking tramp as he was, dressed in ragged clothes and wearing shabby boots, playing hide-and-seek in the most undignified manner, and utterly unworthy of the traditional Cooper Indian.

J. had time to put in a little fishing. The last of the Yosemites dodged behind the trees, watching him and probably envying him the lone minnow which was brought back in triumph.

The next morning we mounted horses and donkeys and rode up to Cloud's Rest to see the glorious view over the whole Yosemite range. Our horses picked their way most carefully over the stones and water puddles. J. had a donkey who pretended that he was weak in all his four legs. When he went up the mountain his fore legs stumbled at every moment, inviting J. to get off and lead him, and when he came down the mountain his back legs gave way and he sat down, so that J. could not help getting off. The result was that J. had to lead him both up and down and could have dispensed with his services entirely.

The Bride's Veil falls six thousand feet in a straight fall, becoming only a tiny spray and a fine mist before it reaches the rocks at the bottom.