Part 30 (2/2)
”`Comparisons,' my dear fellow--you know the proverb,” replied Tom Collins; ”don't uphold California at the expense of the continent.
Besides, there are many in this world who would rather a thousand times wander by the cla.s.sic lake of Como, with its theatrical villas and its enchanting suns.h.i.+ne and perfume, or paddle up the castellated Rhine, than scramble here among wild rocks, and woods, and cataracts, with the chance of meeting an occasional savage or a grizzly-bear.”
”Go on, my boy,” said Ned, with a touch of sarcasm in his tone, ”you haven't read me half a lesson yet. Besides, the `many' you refer to, are there not hundreds, ay, thousands, whose chief enjoyment in travelling is derived from the historical a.s.sociations called up by the sight of the ruined castles and temples of cla.s.sic ground--whose delight it is to think that here Napoleon crossed the Alps, as Hannibal did before him, (and many a n.o.body has done after him), that there, within these mouldering ruins, the oracles of old gave forth their voice-- forgetting, perhaps, too easily, while they indulge in these reminiscences of the past, that the warrior's end was wholesale murder, and that the oracle spoke only to deceive poor ignorant human nature.
Ha! I would not give one hearty dash into pure, uncontaminated nature for all the famous `tours' put together.”
Ned looked round him as he spoke, with a glow of enthusiasm that neither badinage nor philosophy could check.
”Just look around thee,” he continued; ”open thine ears, Tom, to the music of yon cataract, and expand thy nostrils to the wild perfume of these pines.”
”I wouldn't, at this moment,” quietly remarked Tom, ”exchange for it the perfume of that venison steak, of which I pray thee to be more regardful, else thou'lt upset it into the fire.”
”Oh! Tom--incorrigible!”
”Not at all, Ned. While you flatter yourself that you have all the enthusiastic study of nature to yourself, here have I succeeded, within the last few minutes, in solving a problem in natural history which has puzzled my brains for weeks past.”
”And, pray thee, what may that be, most sapient philosopher?”
”Do you see yonder bird clinging to the stem of that tree, and pitching into it as if it were its most deadly foe?”
”I do--a woodp.e.c.k.e.r it is.”
”Well,” continued Tom, sitting down before his portion of the venison steak, ”that bird has cleared up two points in natural history, which have, up till this time, been a mystery to me. The one was, why woodp.e.c.k.e.rs should spend their time in pecking the trees so incessantly; the other was, how it happened that several trees I have cut down could have had so many little holes bored in their trunks, and an acorn neatly inserted into each. Now that little bird has settled the question for me. I caught him in the act not ten minutes ago. He flew to that tree with an acorn in his beak, tried to insert it into a hole, which didn't fit, being too small; so he tried another, which did fit, poked the nut in, small end first, and tapped it scientifically home. Now, why did he do it? That's the question.”
”Because he wanted to, probably,” remarked Ned; ”and very likely he lays up a store of food for winter in this manner.”
”Very possibly. I shall make a note of this, for I'm determined to have it sifted to the bottom. Meanwhile, I'll trouble you for another junk of venison.”
It was many weeks afterwards ere Tom Collins succeeded in sifting this interesting point to the bottom; but perhaps the reader may not object to have the result of his inquiries noted at this point in our story.
Many of the trees in California, on being stripped of their bark, are found to be perforated all over with holes about the size of a musket-ball. These are pierced by the woodp.e.c.k.e.r with such precision and regularity that one might believe they had been cut out by a s.h.i.+p-carpenter. The summer is spent by this busy little bird in making these holes and in filling them with acorns. One acorn goes to one hole, and the bird will not try to force the nut into a hole that is too small for it, but flutters round the tree until it finds one which fits it exactly. Thus one by one the holes are filled, and a store of food is laid up for winter use in a larder which secures it from the elements, and places it within reach of the depositor when the winter snows have buried all the acorns that lie upon the ground, and put them beyond the reach of woodp.e.c.k.e.rs. The birds never encroach on their store until the snow has covered the ground, then they begin to draw upon their bank; and it is a curious fact that the bills of these birds are always honoured, for their instinct enables them to detect the bad nuts with unerring certainty, so that their bank is always filled with good ones. This matter of selecting the good nuts is a mere chance with men, for often those sh.e.l.ls which seem the soundest, are found to contain a grub instead of a nut. Even the sagacious Indian is an uncertain judge in this respect, but the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, provided by an all-wise Creator with an unerring instinct, never makes a mistake in selecting its store of food for winter.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
CURIOUS TREES, AND STILL MORE CURIOUS PLAINS--AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY, FOLLOWED BY A SAD ONE--FATE OF TRAVELLERS IN THE MOUNTAINS--A SUDDEN ILLNESS--NED PROVES HIMSELF TO BE A FRIEND IN NEED AND IN DEED, AS WELL AS AN EXCELLENT DOCTOR, HUNTER, COOK, AND NURSE--DEER-SHOOTING BY FIRELIGHT.
During the course of their wanderings among the mountains our hero and his companion met with many strange adventures and saw many strange sights, which, however, we cannot afford s.p.a.ce to dwell upon here.
Their knowledge in natural history, too, was wonderfully increased, for they were both observant men, and the school of nature is the best in which any one can study. Audubon, the hunter-naturalist of America, knew this well! and few men have added so much as he to the sum of human knowledge in his peculiar department, while fewer still have so wonderfully enriched the pages of romantic adventure in wild, unknown regions.
In these wanderings, too, Ned and Tom learned to know experimentally that truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and that if the writers of fairy-tales had travelled more they would have saved their imaginations a deal of trouble, and produced more extraordinary works.
The size of the trees they encountered was almost beyond belief, though none of them surpa.s.sed the giant of which an account has been already given. Among other curious trees they found _sugar-pines_ growing in abundance in one part of the country. This is, perhaps, the most graceful of all the pines. With a perfectly straight and cylindrical stem and smooth bark, it rears its proud crest high above other trees, and flings its giant limbs abroad, like a sentinel guarding the forest.
The stem rises to about four-fifths of its height perfectly free of branches; above this point the branches spread out almost horizontally, drooping a little at the ends from the weight of the huge cones which they bear. These cones are about a foot-and-a-half long, and under each leaf lies a seed the size of a pea, which has an agreeably sweet taste, and is much esteemed by the Indians, who use it as an article of food.
Another remarkable sight they saw was a plain, of some miles in extent, completely covered with shattered pieces of quartz, which shone with specks and veins of pure gold. Of course they had neither time nor inclination to attempt the laborious task of pulverising this quartz in order to obtain the precious metal; but Ned moralised a little as they galloped over the plain, spurning the gold beneath their horses' hoofs, as if it had been of no value whatever! They both puzzled themselves also to account for so strange an appearance; but the only solution that seemed to them at all admissible was, that a quartz vein had, at some early period of the world's history, been shattered by a volcanic eruption, and the plain thus strewn with gold.
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