Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/263

 phorescent

sea smitten  by  the  ship's  paddles. While the  mind  is t]ius  burnished  by  the  rolling  of  the  ship,  I  have  felt every throe  of  sea-sickness  to  be  like  the  birth  of  a new  thought,  and  followed  by  mental  exaltation  and ecstasy.

Whether on  sea  or  land  there  were  the  sky  and horizon, and  the  level-round  planet  floor,  and  the  stal- wart men passing  over  it  with  their  wives  and  little ones, and  all  their  belongings,  carrying  them  to  new lands, as  .^Eneas  carried  to  new  lands  the  national  gods of Troy  and  the  sacred  fire  of  Vesta. At Green  river I have  seen  upon  a  background  of  smoky  blue,  light- ening-streaked cloud-walls,  glowing  in  their  anger  like a heated  furnace,  while  from  the  sandy  sky  above  the rain poured  down  in  dusky  streaks.

It might  be  a  summer  holiday  or  it  might  be  misery and death. For among  the  wayfarers  were  women gaunt and  ghastly,  and  men  shrivelled  and  haggard and wan,  the  human  in  them  devoured  by  hunger, leaving only  the  reasonless  and  grotesque.

Give drink  to  the  alkaline  sage-plains  of  Nevada, and a  garden  is  their  smile  of  thankfulness ;  give  these men gold  to  drink,  their  thirsty  heart's  desire,  and they will  rear  before  the  world  a  new  civilization. And this  gold  should  be  theirs ;  they  would  achieve it; what  others  have  done  they  can  do;  and  so  for the time  must  rest  satisfied. This thirst  for  gold, to their  deluded  vision  was  like  snow  seen  through the pellucid  air  from  the  sun-scorched  plain,  lying  on the  seemingly  so  near  3^et  distant  hills.

Over the  treeless  and  birdless  plains,  the  blistered passionless plains;  over  the  waves  of  soapy  ground, round the  sunburnt  hills,  and  along  benches  of  rotten rock, then  down  where  the  tall  grass  borders  putrid pools, and  the  rivers  are  woe-begone,  discouraged  and lifeless, they  come  at  leno:th  to  the  frownino;  side  of the  Sierra,  which  they  bravely  assail,  and  reach  the snowy summits  mottled  with  green  ;  then  dropping gently down  the  seaward  side  they  find  at  the  f