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Around the World on a Bicycle V1

T >> Thomas Stevens >> Around the World on a Bicycle V1




To day is Sunday, and it rains and snows with little interruption, so
that I am compelled to stay over till Monday morning. While it is raining
at Clipper Gap, it is snowing higher up in the mountains, and a railway
employee 'volunteers the cheering information that, during the winter,
the snow has drifted and accumulated in the sheds, so that a train can
barely squeeze through, leaving no room for a person to stand to one
side. I have my own ideas of whether this state of affairs is probable
or not, however, and determine to pay no heed to any of these rumors,
but to push ahead. So I pull out on Monday morning and take to the
railway-track again, which is the only passable road since the tremendous
downpour of the last two days.

The first thing I come across is a tunnel burrowing through a hill. This
tunnel was originally built the proper size, but, after being walled up,
there were indications of a general cave-in; so the company had to go
to work and build another thick rock-wall inside the other, which leaves
barely room for the trains to pass through without touching the sides.
It is anything but an inviting path around the hill; but it is far the
safer of the two. Once my foot slips, and I unceremoniously sit down and
slide around in the soft yellow clay, in my frantic endeavors to keep
from slipping down the hill. This hardly enhances my personal appearance;
but it doesn't matter much, as I am where no one can see, and a clay-
besmeared individual is worth a dozen dead ones. Soon I am on the track
again, briskly trudging up the steep grade toward the snow-line, which
I can plainly see, at no great distance ahead, through the windings
around the mountains.

All through here the only riding to be done is along occasional short
stretches of difficult path beside the track, where it happens to be a
hard surface; and on the plank platforms of the stations, where I generally
take a turn or two to satisfy the consuming curiosity of the miners, who
can't imagine how anybody can ride a thing that won't stand alone; at
the same time arguing among themselves as to whether I ride along on one
of the rails, or bump along over the protruding ties.

This morning I follow the railway track around the famous "Cape Horn,"
a place that never fails to photograph itself permanently upon the memory
of all who once see it. For scenery that is magnificently grand and
picturesque, the view from where the railroad track curves around Cape
Horn is probably without a peer on the American continent.

When the Central Pacific Railway company started to grade their road-bed
around here, men were first swung over this precipice from above with
ropes, until they made standing room for themselves; and then a narrow
ledge was cut on the almost perpendicular side of the rocky mountain,
around which the railway now winds.

Standing on this ledge, the rocks tower skyward on one side of the track
so close as almost to touch the passing train; and on the other is a
sheer precipice of two thousand five hundred feet, where one can stand
on the edge and see, far below, the north fork of the American River,
which looks like a thread of silver laid along the narrow valley, and
sends up a far-away, scarcely perceptible roar, as it rushes and rumbles
along over its rocky bed. The railroad track is carefully looked after
at this point, and I was able, by turning round and taking the down
grade, to experience the novelty of a short ride, the memory of which
will be ever welcome should one live to be as old as "the oldest
inhabitant." The scenery for the next few miles is glorious; the grand
and imposing mountains are partially covered with stately pines down to
their bases, around which winds the turbulent American River, receiving
on its boisterous march down the mountains tribute from hundreds of
smaller streams and rivulets, which come splashing and dashing out of
the dark ca¤ons and crevasses of the mighty hills.

The weather is capricious, and by the time I reach Dutch Flat, ten miles
east of Cape Horn, the floodgates of heaven are thrown open again, and
less than an hour succeeds in impressing Dutch Flat upon my memory as a
place where there is literally "water, water, everywhere, but not a
drop to -;" no, I cannot finish the quotation. What is the use of lying'.
There is plenty to drink at Dutch Flat; plenty of everything.

But there is no joke about the water; it is pouring in torrents from
above; the streets are shallow streams; and from scores of ditches and
gullies comes the merry music of swiftly rushing waters, while, to crown
all, scores of monster streams are rushing with a hissing sound from the
mouths of huge pipes or nozzles, and playing against the surrounding
hills; for Dutch Flat and neighboring camps are the great centre of
hydraulic mining operations in California at the present day. Streams
of water, higher lip the mountains, are taken from their channels and
conducted hither through miles of wooden flumes and iron piping; and
from the mouths of huge nozzles are thrown with tremendous force against
the hills, literally mowing them down. The rain stops as abruptly as it
began. The sun shines out clear and warm, and I push ahead once more.

Gradually I have been getting up into the snow, and ever and anon a
muffled roar comes booming and echoing over the mountains like the sound
of distant artillery. It is the sullen noise of monster snow-slides among
the deep, dark ca¤ons of the mountains, though a wicked person at Gold
Run winked at another man and tried to make me believe it was the grizzlies
"going about the mountains like roaring lions, seeking whom they might
devour." The giant voices of nature, the imposing scenery, the gloomy
pine forests which have now taken the place of the gay chaparral, combine
to impress one who, all alone, looks and listens with a realizing sense
of his own littleness. What a change has come over the whole face of
nature in a few days' travel. But four days ago I was in the semi-tropical
Sacramento Valley; now gaunt winter reigns supreme, and the only vegetation
is the hardy pine.

This afternoon I pass a small camp of Digger Indians, to whom my bicycle
is as much a mystery as was the first locomotive; yet they scarcely turn
their uncovered heads to look; and my cheery greeting of "How," scarce
elicits a grunt and a stare in reply. Long years of chronic hunger and
wretchedness have well-nigh eradicated what little energy these Diggers
ever possessed. The discovery of gold among their native mountains has
been their bane; the only antidote the rude grave beneath the pine and
the happy hunting-grounds beyond.

The next morning finds me briskly trundling through the great, gloomy
snow-sheds that extend with but few breaks for the next forty miles.
When I emerge from them on the other end I shall be over the summit and
well down the eastern slope of the mountains. These huge sheds have been
built at great expense to protect the track from the vast quantities of
snow that fall every winter on these mountains. They wind around the
mountain-sides, their roofs built so slanting that the mighty avalanche
of rock and snow that comes thundering down from above glides harmlessly
over, and down the chasm on the other side, while the train glides along
unharmed beneath them. The section-houses, the water-tanks, stations,
and everything along here are all under the gloomy but friendly shelter
of the great protecting sheds. Fortunately I find the difficulties of
getting through much less than I had been led by rumors to anticipate;
and although no riding can be done in the sheds, I make very good progress,
and trudge merrily along, thankful of a chance to get over the mountains
without having to wait a month or six weeks for the snow outside to
disappear. At intervals short breaks occur in the sheds, where the track
runs over deep gulch or ravine, and at one of these openings the sinuous
structure can be traced for quite a long distance, winding its tortuous
way around the rugged mountain sides, and through the gloomy pine forest,
all but buried under the snow. It requires no great effort of the mind
to imagine it to be some wonderful relic of a past civilization, when a
venturesome race of men thus dared to invade these vast wintry solitudes
and burrow their way through the deep snow, like moles burrowing through
the loose earth. Not a living thing is in sight, and the only sounds the
occasional roar of a distant snow-slide, and the mournful sighing of the
breeze as it plays a weird, melancholy dirge through the gently swaying
branches of the tall, sombre pines, whose stately trunks are half buried
in the omnipresent snow. To-night I stay at the Summit Hotel, seven
thousand and seventeen feet above the level of the sea. The "Summit"
is nothing if not snowy, and I am told that thirty feet on the level is
no unusual thing up here. Indeed, it looks as if snow-balling on the "
Glorious Fourth" were no great luxury at the Summit House; yet
notwithstanding the decidedly wintry aspect of the Sierras, the low
temperature of the Rockies farther east is unknown; and although there
is snow to the right, snow to the left, snow all around, and ice under
foot, I travel all through the gloomy sheds in my shirt-sleeves, with
but a gossamer rubber coat thrown over my shoulders to keep off the snow-
water which is constantly melting and dripping through the roof, making
it almost like going through a shower of rain. Often, when it is warm
and balmy outside, it is cold and frosty under the sheds, and the dripping
water, falling among the rocks and timbers, freezes into all manner of
fantastic shapes. Whole menageries of ice animals, birds and all imaginable
objects, are here reproduced in clear crystal ice, while in many places
the ground is covered with an irregular coating of the same, that often
has to be chipped away from the rails.

East of the summit is a succession of short tunnels, the space between
being covered with snow-shed; and when I came through, the openings and
crevices through which the smoke from the engines is wont to make its
escape, and through which a few rays of light penetrate the gloomy
interior, are blocked up with snow, so that it is both dark and smoky;
and groping one's way with a bicycle over the rough surface is anything
but pleasant going. But there is nothing so bad, it seems, but that it
can get a great deal worse; and before getting far, I hear an approaching
train and forthwith proceed to occupy as small an amount of space as
possible against the side, while three laboriously puffing engines,
tugging a long, heavy freight train up the steep grade, go past. These
three puffing, smoke-emitting monsters fill every nook and corner of the
tunnel with dense smoke, which creates a darkness by the side of which
the natural darkness of the tunnel is daylight in comparison. Here is a
darkness that can be felt; I have to grope my way forward, inch by inch;
afraid to set my foot down until I have felt the place, for fear of
blundering into a culvert; at the same time never knowing whether there
is room, just where I am, to get out of the way of a train. A cyclometer
wouldn't have to exert itself much through here to keep tally of the
revolutions; for, besides advancing with extreme caution, I pause every
few steps to listen; as in the oppressive darkness and equally oppressive
silence the senses are so keenly on the alert that the gentle rattle of
the bicycle over the uneven surface seems to make a noise that would
prevent me hearing an approaching train. This finally comes to am end;
and at the opening in the sheds I climb up into a pine-tree to obtain
a view of Donner Lake, called the "Gem of the Sierras." It is a lovely
little lake, and amid the pines, and on its shores occurred one of the
most pathetically tragic events of the old emigrant days. Briefly related
: A small party of emigrants became snowed in while camped at the lake,
and when, toward spring, a rescuing party reached the spot, the last
survivor of the partly, crazed with the fearful suffering he had under-
gone, was sitting on a log, savagely gnawing away at a human arm, the
last remnant of his companions in misery, off whose emaciated carcasses
he had for some time been living!

My road now follows the course of the Truckee River down the eastern
slope of the Sierras, and across the boundary line into Nevada. The
Truckee is a rapid, rollicking stream from one end to the other, and
affords dam-sites and mill-sites without limit. There is little ridable
road down the Truckee ca¤on; but before reaching "Verdi, a station a few
miles over the Nevada line, I find good road, and ride up and dismount
at the door of the little hotel as coolly as if I had rode without a
dismount all the way from 'Frisco. Here at Verdi is a camp of Washoe
Indians, who at once showed their superiority to the Diggers by clustering
around and examining; the bicycle with great curiosity. Verdi is less
than forty miles from the summit of the Sierras, and from the porch of
the hotel I can see the snow-storm still fiercely raging up in the place
where I stood a few hours ago; yet one can feel that he is already in a
dryer and altogether different climate. The great masses of clouds,
travelling inward from the coast with their burdens of moisture, like
messengers of peace with presents to a far country, being unable to
surmount the great mountain barrier that towers skyward across their
path, unload their precious cargoes on the mountains; and the parched
plains of Nevada open their thirsty mouths in vain. At Verdi I bid good-by
to the Golden State and follow the course of the sparkling Truckee toward
the Forty-mile Desert.






CHAPTER II.





OVER THE DESERTS OF NEVADA.

Gradually I leave the pine-clad slopes of the Sierras behind, and every
revolution of my wheel reveals scenes that constantly remind me that I
am in the great "Sage-brush State." How appropriate indeed is the name.
Sage-brush is the first thing seen on entering Nevada, almost the only
vegetation seen while passing through it, and the last thing seen on
leaving it. Clear down to the edge of the rippling waters of the Truckee,
on the otherwise barren plain, covering the elevated table-lands, up the
hills, even to the mountain-tops-everywhere, everywhere, nothing but
sagebrush. In plain view to the right, as I roll on toward Reno, are the
mountains on which the world-renowned Comstock lode is situated, and
Reno was formerly the point from which this celebrated mining-camp was
reached.

Before reaching Reno I meet a lone Washoe Indian; he is riding a diminutive,
scraggy-looking mustang. One of his legs is muffled up in a red blanket,
and in one hand he carries a rudely-invented crutch. "How will you trade
horses?" I banteringly ask as we meet in the road; and I dismount for
an interview, to find out what kind of Indians these Washoes are. To my
friendly chaff he vouchsafes no reply, but simply sits motionless on his
pony, and fixes a regular "Injun stare" on the bicycle. "What's the
matter with your leg?" I persist, pointing at the blanket-be-muffled
member.

"Heap sick foot" is the reply, given with the characteristic brevity
of the savage; and, now that the ice of his aboriginal reserve is broken,
he manages to find words enough to ask me for tobacco. I have no tobacco,
but the ride through the crisp morning air has been productive of a
surplus amount of animal spirits, and I feel like doing something funny;
so I volunteer to cure his " sick foot" by sundry dark and mysterious
manoeuvres, that I unbiushingly intimate are "heap good medicine." With
owlish solemnity my small monkey-wrench is taken from the tool-bag and
waved around the " sick foot" a few times, and the operation is completed
by squirting a few drops from my oil-can through a hole in the blanket.
Before going I give him to understand that, in order to have the "good
medicine " operate to his advantage, he will have to soak his copper-colored
hide in a bath every morning for a week, flattering myself that, while
my mystic manoauvres will do him no harm, the latter prescription will
certainly do him good if he acts on it, which, however, is extremely
doubtful. Boiling into Reno at 10.30 A.M. the characteristic whiskey-
straight hospitality of the Far West at once asserts itself, and one
individual with sporting proclivities invites me to stop over a day or
two and assist him to "paint Reno red " at his expense. Leaving Reno,
my route leads through the famous Truckee meadows - a strip of very good
agricultural land, where plenty of money used to be made by raising
produce for the Virginia City market." But there's nothing in it any
more, since the Comstock's played out," glumly remarks a ranchman, at
whose place I get dinner. "I'll take less for my ranch now than I was
offered ten years ago," he continues.

The " meadows" gradually contract, and soon after dinner I find myself
again following the Truckee down a narrow space between mountains, whose
volcanic-looking rocks are destitute of all vegetation save stunted sage-
brush. All down here the road is ridable in patches; but many dismounts
have to be made, and the walking to be done aggregates at least one-third
of the whole distance travelled during the day. Sneakish coyotes prowl
about these mountains, from whence they pay neighborly visits to the
chicken-roosts of the ranchers in the Truckee meadows near by. Toward
night a pair of these animals are observed following behind at the
respectful distance of five hundred yards. One need not be apprehensive
of danger from these contemptible animals, however; they are simply
following behind in a frame of mind similar to that of a hungry school-boy's
when gazing longingly into a confectioner's window. Still, night is
gathering around, and it begins to look as though I will have to pillow
my head on the soft side of a bowlder, and take lodgings on the footsteps
of a bald mountain to-night; and it will scarcely invite sleep to know
that two pairs of sharp, wolfish eyes are peering wistfully through the
darkness at one's prostrate form, and two red tongues are licking about
in hungry anticipation of one's blood. Moreover, these animals have an
unpleasant habit of congregating after night to pay their compliments
to the pale moon, and to hold concerts that would put to shame a whole
regiment of Kilkenny cats; though there is but little comparison between
the two, save that one howls and the other yowls, and either is equally
effective in driving away the drowsy Goddess. I try to draw these two
animals within range of my revolver by hiding behind rocks; but they are
too chary of their precious carcasses to take any risks, and the moment
I disappear from their sight behind a rock they are on the alert, and
looking " forty ways at the same time," to make sure that I am not
creeping up on them from some other direction. Fate, however, has decreed
that I am not to sleep out to-night - not quite out. A lone shanty looms
up through the gathering darkness, and I immediately turn my footsteps
thitherwise. I find it occupied. I am all right now for the night. Hold
on, though! not so fast. "There is many a slip," etc. The little shanty,
with a few acres of rather rocky ground, on the bank of the Truckee, is
presided over by a lonely bachelor of German extraction, who eyes me
with evident suspicion, as, leaning on my bicycle in front of his rude
cabin door I ask to be accommodated for the night. Were it a man on
horseback, or a man with a team, this hermit-like rancher could satisfy
himself to some extent as to the character of his visitor, for he sees
men on horseback or men in wagons, on an average, perhaps, once a week
during the summer, and can see plenty of them any day by going to Reno.
But me and the bicycle he cannot "size up" so readily. He never saw
the like of us before, and we are beyond his Teutonic frontier-like
comprehension. He gives us up; he fails to solve the puzzle; he knows
not how to unravel the mystery; and, with characteristic Teutonic
bluntness, he advises us to push on through fifteen miles of rocks, sand,
and darkness, to Wadsworth. The prospect of worrying my way, hungry and
weary, through fifteen miles of rough, unknown country, after dark, looms
up as rather a formidable task. So summoning my reserve stock of persuasive
eloquence, backed up by sundry significant movements, such as setting
the bicycle up against his cabin-wall, and sitting down on a block of
wood under the window, I finally prevail upon him to accommodate me with
a blanket on the floor of the shanty. He has just finished supper, and
the remnants of the frugal repast are still on the table; but he says
nothing about any supper for me: he scarcely feels satisfied with himself
yet: he feels that I have, in some mysterious manner, gained an unfair
advantage over him, and obtained a foothold in his shanty against his
own wish-jumped his claim, so to speak. Not that I think the man really
inhospitable at heart; but he has been so habitually alone, away from
his fellowmen so much, that the presence of a stranger in his cabin makes
him feel uneasy; and when that stranger is accompanied by a queer-looking
piece of machinery that cannot stand alone, but which he nevertheless
says he rides on, our lonely rancher is perhaps not so much to be wondered
at, after all, for his absent-mindedness in regard to my supper. His
mind is occupied with other thoughts. "You couldn't accommodate a fellow
with a bite to eat, could you." I timidly venture, after devouring what
eatables are in sight, over and over again, with my eyes. "I have plenty
of money to pay for any accommodation I get," I think it policy to add,
by way of cornering him up and giving him as little chance to refuse as
possible, for I am decidedly hungry, and if money or diplomacy, or both,
will produce supper, I don't propose to go to bed supperless. I am not
much surprised to see him bear out my faith in his innate hospitality
by apologizing for not thinking of my supper before, and insisting,
against my expressed wishes, on lighting the fire and getting me a warm
meal of fried ham and coffee, for which I beg leave to withdraw any
unfavorable impressions in regard to him which my previous remarks may
possibly have made on the reader's mind.

After supper he thaws out a little, and I wheedle out of him a part of
his history. He settled on this spot of semi-cultivable land during the
flush times on the Comstock, and used to prosper very well by raising
vegetables, with the aid of Truckee-River water, and hauling them to the
mining-camps; but the palmy days of the Comstock have departed and with
them our lonely rancher's prosperity. Mine host has barely blankets
enough for his own narrow bunk, and it is really an act of generosity
on his part when he takes a blanket off his bed and invites me to extract
what comfort I can get out of it for the night. Snowy mountains are round
about, and curled up on the floor of the shanty, like a kitten under a
stove in mid-winter, I shiver the long hours away, and endeavor to feel
thankful that it is no worse.

For a short distance, next morning, the road is ridable, but nearing
Wadsworth it gets sandy, and " sandy," in Nevada means deep, loose sand,
in which one sinks almost to his ankles at every step, and where the
possession of a bicycle fails to awaken that degree of enthusiasm that
it does on a smooth, hard road. At Wadsworth I have to bid farewell to
the Truckee River, and start across the Forty-mile Desert, which lies
between the Truckee and Humboldt Rivers. Standing on a sand-hill and
looking eastward across the dreary, desolate waste of sand, rocks, and
alkali, it is with positive regret that I think of leaving the cool,
sparkling stream that has been my almost constant companion for nearly
a hundred miles. It has always been at hand to quench my thirst or furnish
a refreshing bath. More than once have I beguiled the tedium of some
uninteresting part of the journey by racing with some trifling object
hurried along on its rippling surface. I shall miss the murmuring music
of its dancing waters as one would miss the conversation of a companion.

This Forty-mile Desert is the place that was so much dreaded by the
emigrants en route to the gold-fields of California, there being not a
blade of grass nor drop of water for the whole forty miles; nothing but
a dreary waste of sand and rocks that reflects the heat of the sun, and
renders the desert a veritable furnace in midsummer; and the stock of
the emigrants, worn out by the long journey from the States, would succumb
by the score in crossing. Though much of the trail is totally unfit for
cycling, there are occasional alkali flats that are smooth and hard
enough to play croquet on; and this afternoon, while riding with careless
ease across one of these places, I am struck with the novelty of the
situation. I am in the midst of the dreariest, deadest-looking country
imaginable. Whirlwinds of sand, looking at a distance like huge columns
of smoke, are wandering erratically over the plains in all directions.
The blazing sun casts, with startling vividness on the smooth white
alkali, that awful scraggy, straggling shadow that, like a vengeful fate,
always accompanies the cycler on a sunny day, and which is the bane of
a sensitive wheelman's life. The only representative of animated nature
hereabouts is a species of small gray lizard that scuttles over the bare
ground with astonishing rapidity. Not even a bird is seen in the air.
All living things seem instinctively to avoid this dread spot save the
lizard. A desert forty miles wide is not a particularly large one; but
when one is in the middle of it, it might as well be as extensive as
Sahara itself, for anything he can see to the contrary, and away off to
the right I behold as perfect a mirage as one could wish to see. A person
can scarce help believing his own eyes, and did one not have some knowledge
of these strange and wondrous phenomena, one's orbs of vision would
indeed open with astonishment; for seemingly but a few miles away is a
beautiful lake, whose shores are fringed with wavy foliage, and whose
cool waters seem to lave the burning desert sands at its edge.

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