He
Kindly Invited Me To Camp With Him, And Led Me To His Little Hut.
All
my conjectures as to his nationality failed, and no wonder, since his
father was Irish and mother Spanish, a mixture not often met even in
California.
He happened to be out of candles, so we sat in the dark
while he gave me a sketch of his life, which was exceedingly
picturesque. Then he showed me his plans for the future. He was
going to settle among these canyon boulders, and make money, and marry
a Spanish woman. People mine for irrigating water along the foothills
as for gold. He is now driving a prospecting tunnel into a spur of
the mountains back of his cabin. "My prospect is good," he said, "and
if I strike a strong flow, I shall soon be worth five or ten thousand
dollars. That flat out there, " he continued, referring to a small,
irregular patch of gravelly detritus that had been sorted out and
deposited by Eaton Creek during some flood season, "is large enough
for a nice orange grove, and, after watering my own trees, I can sell
water down the valley; and then the hillside back of the cabin will do
for vines, and I can keep bees, for the white sage and black sage up
the mountains is full of honey. You see, I've got a good thing." All
this prospective affluence in the sunken, boulder-choked flood-bed of
Eaton Creek! Most home-seekers would as soon think of settling on the
summit of San Antonio.
Half an hour's easy rambling up the canyon brought me to the foot of
"The Fall," famous throughout the valley settlements as the finest yet
discovered in the range. It is a charming little thing, with a voice
sweet as a songbird's, leaping some thirty-five or forty feet into a
round, mirror pool. The cliff back of it and on both sides is
completely covered with thick, furry mosses, and the white fall shines
against the green like a silver instrument in a velvet case. Here
come the Gabriel lads and lassies from the commonplace orange groves,
to make love and gather ferns and dabble away their hot holidays in
the cool pool. They are fortunate in finding so fresh a retreat so
near their homes. It is the Yosemite of San Gabriel. The walls,
though not of the true Yosemite type either in form or sculpture, rise
to a height of nearly two thousand feet. Ferns are abundant on all
the rocks within reach of the spray, and picturesque maples and
sycamores spread a grateful shade over a rich profusion of wild
flowers that grow among the boulders, from the edge of the pool a mile
or more down the dell-like bottom of the valley, the whole forming a
charming little poem of wildness - the vestibule of these shaggy
mountain temples.
The foot of the fall is about a thousand feet above the level of the
sea, and here climbing begins. I made my way out of the valley on the
west side, followed the ridge that forms the western rim of the Eaton
Basin to the summit of one of the principal peaks, thence crossed the
middle of the basin, forcing a way over its many subordinate ridges,
and out over the eastern rim, and from first to last during three days
spent in this excursion, I had to contend with the richest, most self-possessed and uncompromising chaparral I have every enjoyed since
first my mountaineering began.
For a hundred feet or so the ascent was practicable only by means of
bosses of the club moss that clings to the rock. Above this the ridge
is weathered away to a slender knife-edge for a distance of two or
three hundred yards, and thence to the summit it is a bristly mane of
chaparral. Here and there small openings occur, commanding grand
views of the valley and beyond to the ocean. These are favorite
outlooks and resting places for bears, wolves, and wildcats. In the
densest places I came upon woodrat villages whose huts were from four
to eight feet high, built in the same style of architecture as those
of the muskrats.
The day was nearly done. I reached the summit and I had time to make
only a hasty survey of the topography of the wild basin now outspread
maplike beneath, and to drink in the rare loveliness of the sunlight
before hastening down in search of water. Pushing through another
mile of chaparral, I emerged into one of the most beautiful parklike
groves of live oak I ever saw. The ground beneath was planted only
with aspidiums and brier roses. At the foot of the grove I came to
the dry channel of one of the tributary streams, but, following it
down a short distance, I descried a few specimens of the scarlet
mimulus; and I was assured that water was near. I found about a
bucketful in a granite bowl, but it was full of leaves and beetles,
making a sort of brown coffee that could be rendered available only by
filtering it through sand and charcoal. This I resolved to do in case
the night came on before I found better. Following the channel a mile
farther down to its confluence with another, larger tributary, I found
a lot of boulder pools, clear as crystal, and brimming full, linked
together by little glistening currents just strong enough to sing.
Flowers in full bloom adorned the banks, lilies ten feet high, and
luxuriant ferns arching over one another in lavish abundance, while a
noble old live oak spread its rugged boughs over all, forming one of
the most perfect and most secluded of Nature's gardens. Here I
camped, making my bed on smooth cobblestones.
Next morning, pushing up the channel of a tributary that takes its
rise on Mount San Antonio, I passed many lovely gardens watered by
oozing currentlets, every one of which had lilies in them in the full
pomp of bloom, and a rich growth of ferns, chiefly woodwardias and
aspidiums and maidenhairs; but toward the base of the mountain the
channel was dry, and the chaparral closed over from bank to bank, so
that I was compelled to creep more than a mile on hands and knees.
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