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Around the World on a Bicycle V1

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




It grows pitchy dark ere I leave the ca¤on on my way to Carlin. Farther
on, the gorge widens, and thick underbrush intervenes between the road
and the river. From out the brush I see peering two little round
phosphorescent balls, like two miniature moons, turned in my direction.
I wonder what kind of an animal it is, as I trundle along through the
darkness, revolver in hand, ready to defend myself, should it make an
attack. I think it is a mountain-lion, as they seem to be plentiful in
this part of Nevada, Late as it is when I reach Carlin, the "boys"
must see how a bicycle is ridden, and, as there is no other place suitable,
I manage to circle around the pool-table in the hotel bar-room a few
times, nearly scalping myself against the bronze chandelier in the
operation. I hasten, however, to explain that these proceedings took
place immediately after my arrival, lest some worldly wise, over-sagacious
person should be led to suspect them to be the riotous undertakings of
one who had "smiled with the boys once too often." Little riding is
possible all through this section of Nevada, and, in order to complete
the forty miles a day that I have rigorously imposed upon myself, I
sometimes get up and pull out at daylight. It is scarce more than sunrise
when, following the railroad through Five-mile Canon - another rift through
one of the many mountain chains that cross this part of Nevada in all
directions under the general name of the Humboldt Mountains-I meet with
a startling adventure. I am trundling through the ca¤on alongside the
river, when, rounding the sharp curve of a projecting mountain, a tawny
mountain lion is perceived trotting leisurely along ahead of me, not
over a hundred yards in advance. He hasn't seen me yet; he is perfectly
oblivious of the fact that he is in "the presence." A person of ordinary
discretion would simply have revealed his presence by a gentlemanly
sneeze, or a slight noise of any kind, when the lion would have immediately
bolted back into the underbrush. Unable to resist the temptation, I fired
at him, and of course missed him, as a person naturally would at a hundred
yards with a bull-dog revolver. The bullet must have singed him a little
though, for, instead of wildly scooting for the brush, as I anticipated,
he turns savagely round and comes bounding rapidly toward me, and at
twenty paces crouches for a spring. Laying his cat-like head almost on
the ground, his round eyes flashing fire, and his tail angrily waving
to and fro, he looks savage and dangerous. Crouching behind the bicycle,
I fire at him again. Nine times out of ten a person will overshoot the
mark with a revolver under such circumstances, and, being anxious to
avoid this, I do the reverse, and fire too low. The ball strikes the
ground just in front of his head, and throws the sand and gravel in his
face, and perhaps in his wicked round eyes; for he shakes his head,
springs up, and makes off into the brush. I shall shed blood of some
sort yet before I leave Nevada. There isn't a day that I don't shoot at
something or other; and all I ask of any animal is to come within two
hundred yards and I will squander a cartridge on him, and I never fail
to hit the ground.

At Elko, where I take dinner, I make the acquaintance of an individual,
rejoicing in the sobriquet of "Alkali Bill," who has the largest and
most comprehensive views of any person I ever met. He has seen a paragraph,
something about me riding round the world, and he considerately takes
upon himself the task of summing up the few trifling obstacles that I
shall encounter on the way round:

"There is only a small rise at Sherman," he rises to explain, " and
another still smaller at the Alleghanies; all the balance is downhill
to the Atlantic. Of course you'll have to 'boat it' across the Frogpond;
then there's Europe - mostly level; so is Asia, except the Himalayas - and
you can soon cross them; then you're all 'hunky,' for there's no mountains
to speak of in China." Evidently Alkali Bill is a person who points the
finger of scorn at small ideas, and leaves the bothersome details of
life to other and smaller-minded folks. In his vast and glorious imagery
he sees a centaur-like cycler skimming like a frigate-bird across states
and continents, scornfully ignoring sandy deserts and bridgeless streams,
halting for nothing but oceans, and only slowing up a little when he
runs up against a peak that bobs up its twenty thousand feet of snowy
grandeur serenely in his path. What a Ceasar is lost to this benighted
world, because in its blindness, it will not search out such men as
Alkali and ask them to lead it onward to deeds of inconceivable greatness.
Alkali Bill can whittle more chips in an hour than some men could in a
week. Much of the Humboldt Valley, through which my road now runs, is
at present flooded from the vast quantities of water that are pouring
into it from the Ruby Range of mountains now visible to the southeast,
and which have the appearance of being the snowiest of any since leaving
the Sierras. Only yesterday I threatened to shed blood before I left
Nevada, and sure enough my prophecy is destined to speedy fulfilment.
Just east of the Osino Ca¤on, and where the North Fork of the Humboldt
comes down from the north and joins the main stream, is a stretch of
swampy ground on which swarms of wild ducks and geese are paddling about.
I blaze away at them, and a poor inoffensive gosling is no more. While
writing my notes this evening, in a room adjoining the "bar" at Halleck,
near the United States fort of the same name, I overhear a boozy soldier
modestly informing his comrades that forty-five miles an hour is no
unusual speed to travel with a bicycle. Gradually I am nearing the source
of the Humboldt, and at the town of Wells I bid it farewell for good.
Wells is named from a group of curious springs near the town. They are
supposed to be extinct volcanoes, now filled with water; and report says
that no sounding-line has yet been found long enough to fathom the bottom.
Some day when some poor, unsuspecting tenderfoot is peering inquisitively
down one of these well-like springs, the volcano may suddenly come into
play again and convert the water into steam that will shoot him clear
up into the moon. These volcanoes may have been soaking in water for
millions of years; but they are not to be trusted on that account; they
can be depended upon to fill some citizen full of lively surprise one
of these days. Everything here is surprising. You look across the desert
and see flowing water and waving trees; but when you get there, with
your tongue hanging out and your fate wellnigh sealed, you are surprised
to find nothing but sand and rocks. You climb a mountain expecting to
find trees and birds' eggs, and you are surprised to find high-water
marks and sea-shells. Finally, you look in the looking-glass and are
surprised to find that the wind and exposure have transformed your nice
blonde complexion to a semi-sable hue that would prevent your own mother
from recognizing you.

The next day, when nearing the entrance to Moutella Pass, over the Goose
Creek Range, I happen to look across the mingled sagebrush and juniper-spruce
brush to the right, and a sight greets my eyes that causes me to
instinctively look around for a tall tree, though well knowing that there
is nothing of the kind for miles; neither is there any ridable road near,
or I might try my hand at breaking the record for a few miles. Standing
bolt upright on their hind legs, by the side of a clump of juniper-spruce
bushes and intently watching my movements, are a pair of full-grown
cinnamon bears. When a bear sees a man before the man happens to descry
him, and fails to betake himself off immediately, it signifies that he
is either spoiling for a fight or doesn't care a continental password
whether war is declared or not. Moreover, animals recognize the peculiar
advantages of two to one in a fight equally with their human infer! - superiors;
and those two over there are apparently in no particular hurry to move
on. They don't seem awed at my presence. On the contrary, they look
suspiciously like being undecided and hesitative about whether to let
me proceed peacefully on my way or not. Their behavior is outrageous;
they stare and stare and stare, and look quite ready for a fight. I don't
intend one to come off, though, if I can avoid it. I prefer to have it
settled by arbitration. I haven't lost these bears; they aren't mine,
and I don't want anything that doesn't belong to me. I am not covetous;
so, lest I should be tempted to shoot at them if I come within the
regulation two hundred yards, I "edge off" a few hundred yards in the
other direction, and soon have the intense satisfaction of seeing them
stroll off toward the mountains. I wonder if I don't owe my escape on
this occasion to my bicycle. Do the bright spokes glistening in the
sunlight as they revolve make an impression on their bearish intellects
that influences their decision in favor of a retreat. It is perhaps
needless to add that, all through this mountain-pass, I keep a loose eye
busily employed looking out for bears.

But nothing more of a bearish nature occurs, and the early gloaming finds
me at Tacoma, a village near the Utah boundary line. There is an awful
calamity of some sort hovering over this village. One can feel it in the
air. The habitues of the hotel barroom sit around, listless and glum.
When they speak at all it is to predict all sorts of difficulties for
me in my progress through Utah and Wyoming Territories. "The black gnats
of the Salt Lake mud flat'll eat you clean up," snarls one. "Bear River's
flooding the hull kintry up Weber Ca¤on way," growls another. "The
slickest thing you kin do, stranger, is to board the keers and git out
of this," says a third, in a tone of voice and with an emphasis that
plainly indicates his great disgust at "this." By " this" he means the
village of Tacoma; and he is disgusted with it. They are all disgusted
with it and with the whole world this evening, because Tacoma is "out
of whiskey." Yes, the village is destitute of whiskey; it should have
arrived yesterday, and hasn't shown up yet; and the effect on the society
of the bar-room is so depressing that I soon retire to my couch, to dream
of Utah's strange intermingling of forbidding deserts and beautiful
orchards through which my route now leads me.






CHAPTER III.





THROUGH MORMON-LAND AND OVER THE ROCKIES.

A dreary-looking country is the " Great American Desert," in Utah, the
northern boundary line of which I traverse next morning. To the left
of the road is a low chain of barren hills; to the right, the uninviting
plain, over which one's eye wanders in vain for some green object that
might raise hopes of a less desolate region beyond; and over all hangs
an oppressive silence - the silence of a dead country - a country destitute
of both animal and vegetable life. Over the great desert hangs a smoky
haze, out of which Pilot Peak, thirty-eight miles away, rears its conical
head 2,500 feet above the level plain at its base.

Some riding is obtained at intervals along this unattractive stretch of
country, but there are no continuously ridable stretches, and the principal
incentive to mount at all is a feeling of disgust at so much compulsory
walking. A noticeable feature through the desert is the almost unquenchable
thirst that the dry saline air inflicts upon one. Reaching a railway
section-house, I find no one at home; but there is a small underground
cistern of imported water, in which "wrigglers " innumerable wriggle,
but which is otherwise good and cool. There is nothing to drink out of,
and the water is three feet from the surface; while leaning down to try
and drink, the wooden framework at the top gives way and precipitates
me head first into the water. Luckily, the tank is large enough to enable
me to turn round and reappear at the surface, head first, and with
considerable difficulty I scramble out again, with, of course, not a dry
thread on me.

At three in the afternoon I roll into Terrace, a small Mormon town. Here
a rather tough-looking citizen, noticing that my garments are damp,
suggests that 'cycling must be hard work to make a person perspire like
that in this dry climate. At the Matlin section-house I find accommodation
for the night with a whole-souled section-house foreman, who is keeping
bachelor's hall temporarily, as his wife is away on a visit at Ogden.
>From this house, which is situated on the table-land of the Bed Dome
Mountains, can be obtained a more comprehensive view of the Great American
Desert than when we last beheld it. It has all the appearance of being
the dry bed of an ancient salt lake or inland sea. A broad, level plain
of white alkali, which is easily mistaken in the dim distance for smooth,
still water, stretches away like a dead, motionless sea as far as human
vision can penetrate, until lost in the haze; while, here and there,
isolated rocks lift their rugged heads above the dreary level, like
islets out of the sea. It is said there are many evidences that go to
prove this desert to have once been covered by the waters of the great
inland sea that still, in places, laves its eastern borders with its
briny flood. I am informed there are many miles of smooth, hard, salt-flats,
over which a 'cycler could skim like a bird; but I scarcely think enough
of bird-like skimming to go searching for it on the American Desert. A
few miles east of Matlin the road leads over a spur of the Red Dome
Range, from whence I obtain my first view of the Great Salt Lake, and
soon I am enjoying a long-anticipated bath in its briny waters. It is
disagreeably cold, but otherwise an enjoyable bath. One can scarce sink
beneath the surface, so strongly is the water impregnated with salt. For
dinner, I reach Kelton, a town that formerly prospered as the point from
which vast quantities of freight were shipped to Idaho. Scores of huge
freight-wagons are now bunched up in the corrals, having outlived their
usefulness since the innovation from mules and "overland ships " to
locomotives on the Utah Northern Railway. Empty stores and a general air
of vanished prosperity are the main features of Kelton to-day; and the
inhabitants seem to reflect in their persons the aspect of the town;
most of them being freighters, who, finding their occupation gone, hang
listlessly around, as though conscious of being fit for nothing else.
>From Kelton I follow the lake shore, and at six in the afternoon arrive
at the salt-works, near Monument Station, and apply for accommodation,
which is readily given. Here is erected a wind-mill, which pumps the
water from the lake into shallow reservoirs, where it evaporates and
leaves a layer of coarse salt on the bottom. These people drink water
that is disagreeably brackish and unsatisfactory to one unaccustomed to
it, but which they say has become more acceptable to them, from habitual
use, than purely fresh water. This spot, is the healthiest and most
favorable for the prolific production of certain forms of insect life I
ever was in, and I spend the liveliest night here I ever spent anywhere.
These people professed to give me a bed to myself, but no sooner have I
laid my head on the pillow than I recognize the ghastly joke they are
playing on me. The bed is already densely populated with guests, who
naturally object to being ousted or overcrowded. They seem quite a
kittenish and playful lot, rather inclined to accomplish their ends by
playing wild pranks than by resorting to more austere measures. Watching
till I have closed my eyes in an attempt to doze off, they slip up and
playfully tickle me under the chin, or scramble around in my ear, and
anon they wildly chase each other up and down my back, and play leap-frog
and hide-and-go-seek all over my sensitive form, so that I arise in the
morning anything but refreshed from my experience.

Still following the shores of the lake, for several miles, my road now
leads over the northern spur of the Promontory Mountains. On these hills
I find a few miles of hard gravel that affords the best riding I have
experienced in Utah, and I speed along as rapidly as possible, for dark,
threatening clouds are gathering overhead. But ere I reach the summit
of the ridge a violent thunder-storm breaks over the hills, and I seem
to be verily hobnobbing with the thunder and lightning, that appears to
be round about me, rather than overhead. A troop of wild bronchos,
startled and stampeded by the vivid lightning and sharp peals of thunder,
come wildly charging down the mountain trail, threatening to run quite
over me in their mad career. Pulling my six-shooter, I fire a couple of
shots in the air to attract their attention, when they rapidly swerve
to the left, and go tearing frantically over the rolling hills on their
wild flight to the plains below.

Most of the rain falls on the plain and in the lake, and when I arrive
at the summit I pause to take a view at the lake and surrounding country.
A more auspicious occasion could scarcely have been presented. The storm
has subsided, and far beneath my feet a magnificent rainbow spans the
plain, and dips one end of its variegated beauty in the sky-blue waters
of the lake. From this point the view to the west and south is truly
grand-rugged, irregular mountain-chains traverse the country at every
conceivable angle, and around among them winds the lake, filling with
its blue waters the intervening spaces, and reflecting, impartially
alike, their grand majestic beauty and their faults. What dreams of
empire and white-winged commerce on this inland sea must fill the mind
and fire the imagery of the newly arrived Mormon convert who, standing
on the commanding summit of these mountains, feasts his eyes on the
glorious panorama of blue water and rugged mountains that is spread like
a wondrous picture before him. Surely, if he be devotionally inclined,
it fails not to recall to his mind another inland sea in far-off Asia
Minor, on whose pebbly shores and by whose rippling waves the cradle of
an older religion than Morrnonism was rocked - but not rocked to sleep.

Ten miles farther on, from the vantage-ground of a pass over another
spur of the same range, is obtained a widely extended view of the country
to the east. For nearly thirty miles from the base of the mountains,
low, level mud-flats extend eastward, bordered on the south by the marshy,
sinuous shores of the lake, and on the north by the Blue Creek Mountains.
Thirty miles to the east - looking from this distance strangely like flocks
of sheep grazing at the base of the mountains - can be seen the white-
painted houses of the Mormon settlements, that thickly dot the narrow
but fertile strip of agricultural land, between Bear River and the mighty
Wahsatch Mountains, that, rearing their snowy crest skyward, shut out
all view of what lies beyond. From this height the level mud-flats appear
as if one could mount his wheel and bowl across at a ten-mile pace; but
I shall be agreeably surprised if I am able to aggregate ten miles of
riding out of the thirty. Immediately after getting down into the bottom
I make the acquaintance of the tiny black gnats that one of our whiskey-
bereaved friends at Tacoma had warned me against. One's head is constantly
enveloped in a black cloud of these little wretches. They are of
infinitesimal proportions, and get into a person's ears, eyes, and
nostrils, and if one so far forgets himself as to open his mouth, they
swarm in as though they think it the "pearly gates ajar," and this their
last chance of effecting an entrance. Mingled with them, and apparently
on the best of terms, are swarms of mosquitoes, which appear perfect
Jumbos in comparison with their disreputable associates.

As if partially to recompense me for the torments of the afternoon, Dame
Fortune considerately provides me with two separate and distinct suppers
this evening. I had intended, when I left Promontory Station, to reach
Corinne for the night; consequently I bring a lunch with me, knowing it
will take me till late to reach there. These days, I am troubled with
an appetite that makes me blush to speak of it, and about five o'clock
I sit down - on the bleached skeleton of a defunct mosquito! - and proceed
to eat my lunch of bread and meat - and gnats; for I am quite certain of
eating hundreds of these omnipresent creatures at every bite I take. Two
hours afterward I am passing Quarry section-house, when the foreman
beckons me over and generously invites me to remain over night. He brings
out canned oysters and bottles of Milwaukee beer, and insists on my
helping him discuss these acceptable viands; to which invitation it is
needless to say I yield without extraordinary pressure, the fact of
having eaten two hours before being no obstacle whatever. So much for
'cycling as an aid to digestion. Arriving at Corinne, on Bear River, at
ten o'clock next morning, I am accosted by a bearded, patriarchal Mormon,
who requests me to constitute myself a parade of one, and ride the bicycle
around the town for the edification of the people's minds.

" In course they knows what a ' perlocefede' is, from seein' 'em in
picturs; but they never seed a real machine, and it'd be a 'hefty' treat
fer 'em,"is the eloquent appeal made by this person in behalf of the
Corinnethians, over whose destinies and happiness he appears to preside
with fatherly solicitude. As the streets of Corinne this morning consist
entirely of black mud of uncertain depth, I am reluctantly compelled to
say the elder nay, at the same time promising him that if he would have
them in better condition next time I happened around, I would willingly
second his brilliant idea of making the people happy by permitting them
a glimpse of my " perlocefede " in action.

After crossing Bear River I find myself on a somewhat superior road
leading through the Mormon settlements to Ogden. No greater contrast can
well be imagined than that presented by this strip of country lying
between the lake and the "Wahsatch Mountains, and the desert country to
the westward. One can almost fancy himself suddenly transported by some
good genii to a quiet farming community in an Eastern State. Instead of
untamed bronchos and wild-eyed cattle, roaming at their own free will
over unlimited territory, are seen staid work-horses ploughing in the
field, and the sleek milch-cow peacefully cropping tame grass in enclosed
meadows. Birds are singing merrily in the willow hedges and the shade-trees;
green fields of alfalfa and ripening grain line the road and spread
themselves over the surrounding country in alternate squares, like those
of a vast checker-board. Farms, on the average, are small, and, consequently,
houses are thick; and not a farm-house among them all but is embowered
in an orchard of fruit and shade-trees that mingle their green leaves
and white blossoms harmoniously. At noon I roll into a forest of fruit-
trees, among which, I am informed, Willard City is situated; but one can
see nothing of any city. Nothing but thickets of peach, plum, and apple
trees, all in full bloom, surround the spot where I alight and begin to
look around for some indications of the city. "Where is Willard City. "
I inquire of a boy who comes out from one of the orchards carrying a can
of kerosene in his hand, suggestive of having just come from a grocery,
and so he has. " This is Willard City, right here," replies the boy; and
then, in response to my inquiry for the hotel, he points to a small gate
leading into an orchard, and tells me the hotel is in there.

The hote l -like every other house and store here - is embowered amid an
orchard of blooming fruit-trees, and looks like anything but a public
eating-house. No sign up, nothing to distinguish it from a private
dwelling; and I am ushered into a nicely furnished parlor, on the neatly
papered walls of which hang enlarged portraits of Brigham Young and other
Mormon celebrities, while a large-sized Mormon bible, expensively bound
in morocco, reposes on the centre-table. A charming Miss of -teen summers
presides over a private table, on which is spread for my material benefit
the finest meal I have eaten since leaving California. Such snow-white
bread. Such delicious butter. And the exquisite flavor of "spiced peach-
butter" lingers in my fancy even now; and as if this were not enough
for "two bits" (a fifty per cent, come-down from usual rates in the
mountains), a splendid bouquet of flowers is set on the table to round
off the repast with their grateful perfume. As I enjoy the wholesome,
substantial food, I fall to musing on the mighty chasm that intervenes
between the elegant meal now before me and the "Melican plan-cae " of
two weeks ago. "You have a remarkably pleasant country here, Miss," I
venture to remark to the young lady who has presided over my table, and
whom I judge to be the daughter of the house, as she comes to the door
to see the bicycle.

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