Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/212



.200 THE  VOYAGE  TO  CALIFORNIA.

women, and  children  of  all  classes,  black,  white,  and mulatto, and  herded  like  cattle  without  privacy  or restraint,  without  rooms  or  berths. Thus were  the tired travellers  kept  for  two  or  three  days  and  as many  sickening  sleepless  nights;  the  decent  and  re- fined portion continually  hearing  the  vile  language  of the  obscene  and  blasphemous.

Some there  were,  however,  who  could  forget  their discomforts, and  lose  themselves  in  the  contemplation of nature's  magnificence. Canopied by  broad-topped trees, slender  and  white-limbed,  with  their  bright foliage fluttering  like  spangles  in  the  sunshine,  by lofty  palms  whose  tasselled  branches  bent  gracefully over the  banks  down  to  the  water's  brim,  passing Arcadian isles  rich  in  tropical  plants  and  perfumes, the frouzy  boat  with  its  confused  cargo  of  panting gold-hunters, wound  with  the  winding  stream,  round among snags,  and  shoals,  and  rapids,  up  and  onward toward the  empire  of  their  gilded  hopes.

Dark, deep-red  lignum  vitse  and  caoutchouc,  bananas and plantains  with  their  long  smooth  leaves,  and scattering sugar-cane  with  high  tasselled  crests, shelter lovingly  the  mammoth  red  and  yellow  flowers that fringe  the  stream. Thousands of  black,  brown, and gray  monkeys  hold  their  conventions  on  both  sides of the  river,  and  make  their  exhibitions  on  the  trees, leaping from  limb  to  limb  and  catching  and  swinging themselves violently,  suspended  by  the  tail,  grinning and chattering,  and  screaming  in  jubilant  mocker}^  to the  pitiful  dirt-diggers,  in  whom  they  seem  to  recog- nize a degeneration  of  their  own  species. Surely they of the  forest  are  fittest  and  will  survive.

At an  island  eighteen  miles  from  the  bay,  whose keeper had  a  small  white  neat  board  house  and  a garden,  the  steamboat  stopped  to  wood.

Ascending the  river,  nature  spreads  out  in  broader and ever  increasing  sublimity. The foliage  assumes statelier proportions ;  the  forests  are  grander,  and  the mountains higher. Pendant from  the  limbs  of  tall