Part 28 (1/2)

[16] ”Pioneer Times in California.”

[17] Mr. Kipling, who visited California in the year 1898, speaks of ”the remarkable beauty” of the women of San Francisco,--descendants in most cases of the Pioneers.

[18] The Reverend Walter Colton, ”Three Years in California.”

[19] Just across the river, in the State of Illinois, is another Pike County, similar in soil and population; and this Illinois county was the scene of John Hay's ”Pike County Ballads.”

[20] Eliza W. Farnham, ”California, Indoors and Out.”

[21] Bayard Taylor, ”El Dorado.”

[22] Edwin Bryant, ”California.”

[23] See Thornton's ”Oregon and California in 1848.”

[24] _A Waif of the Plains._

[25] _When the Waters Were Up at ”Jules'.”_

[26] In _A First Family of Tasajara_ he gives the same explanation for the beauty of Clementina, which is described as ”hopelessly and even wantonly inconsistent with her surroundings.”

[27] ”The coa.r.s.e, the h.o.r.n.y-handed, the bull-throated were the most successful. They set the fas.h.i.+on, those great men of the pickaxe and the pistol, and a fine, fire-eating, antediluvian, reckless fas.h.i.+on it was.”--W. M. Fisher, ”The Californians.”

[28] How long this continued to be the California point of view is shown by an interesting reminiscence of Professor Royce's. ”I reached twenty years of age without ever becoming clearly conscious of what was meant by judging a man by his antecedents, a judgment that in an older and less isolated community is natural and inevitable, and that, I think, in most of our Western communities grows up more rapidly than it has grown up in California, where geographical isolation is added to the absence of tradition.”

[29] D. B. Woods, ”Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings.”

[30] G. K. Chesterton, in ”The Critic.”

[31] ”Perils, Pastimes and Pleasures of an Emigrant,” by J. W.

[32] Eliza W. Farnham, ”California, Indoors and Out.”

[33] Dancing was a common amus.e.m.e.nt among the miners even when there were no women to be had as partners. ”It was a strange sight to see a party of long-bearded men, in heavy boots and flannel s.h.i.+rts, going through all the steps and figures of the dance with so much spirit, and often with a great deal of grace; hearty enjoyment depicted on their dried-up, sun-burned faces, and revolvers and bowie-knives glancing in their belts; while a crowd of the same rough-looking customers stood around, cheering them on to greater efforts, and occasionally dancing a step or two quietly on their own account.”--Borthwick's ”Three Years in California.”

[34] _The Romance of Madrono Hollow._

[35] The Reverend Walter Colton, ”Three Years in California.”

[36] W. M. Fisher, ”The Californians.”

[37] Mrs. D. B. Bates, ”Incidents on Land and Water.”

[38] J. M. Letts, ”California Ill.u.s.trated.”

[39] ”Our Italy.”

[40] This quality seems to have persisted, if we can trust Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who wrote in the year 1899: ”San Francisco is a mad city....

Recklessness is in the air. I can't explain where it comes from, but there it is. The roaring winds off the Pacific make you drunk, to begin with.”