To the Base of Shasta. 283 



CHAPTEE V. 



TO THE BASE OF SHASTA. 



Northward Bound. — San Pablo Bay. — Napa City. — The Wine Question. — St. Hel- 

 ena. — Banquet and Excursion. — The Boom Business. — En Route to Sacra- 

 mento. — Hydraulic Miners and Riparians. — Issue of Their War. — Effects of 

 Mining along the Rivers. — Sketches of Sacramento. — The Bancjuet. — ToMarys- 

 ville. — Reception and Drive. — Notes of the Country. — Oroville. — The Mining 

 Region. — Climatic Peculiarities. — Loccd Excursion. — At Chico. — General Bid- 

 ivell. — Excursion Through His Ranch. — The Diggers. — The City. — Greetings 

 of the People. — Vina. — Standford Vineyard and Winery. — Redding Reception 

 and Banqu£f. — Speeches. — Shasta. — Red Bluff Excursion. — The Country. — 

 Woodland. — Tlie Blowers Ranch. — Transformation of California'' s Industries. 

 — The Day of Gold.— The Day of Cattle.— The Day tf Wheat.— The Day of 

 Oranges. 



On the evening of the 30th of January we held in parlor A of the Palace 

 Hotel a somewhat formal meeting, and heard the details of our great excur- 

 sion beginning on the morrow. We are to go into the Napa and Sacramento 

 valleys. Mr. Lauck announces the programme and names the places which 

 we are to visit. Several distinguished persons have dropped in to the meet- 

 ing. Bishop Charles H. Fowler, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is one 

 of the number, and he makes us an interesting and happy speech. Dr. A. 

 F. White, of Santa Rosa, is there, with his committee, inviting us, on our 

 return from the north, to visit the county of Sonoma and the redwood for- 

 ests lying between Guerneville and Cloverdale. It was decided to accept this 

 invitation for the following Friday. After adjournment our company di- 

 vided on the line of the tired and the tireless, the latter going out on an ex- 

 ploration of the city and the former to the quiet and rest of their chambers. 



On the morning of the last day of January we left, in sunny weather, 

 the metropolis and its shining haven, on our way to the valley of Napa and 

 the Sacramento. The Society was in full force; and many gentlemen and 

 ladies from the Pacific States and beyond the mountains joined our com- 

 pany. No part of our tour was a happier voyage than that which now lay 

 before us. At the first we skirted the San Pablo Bay, and then crossed Mar- 

 tinez Strait by ferry. 1 shall not forget the sullen humor with which the 

 old English captain of our ferry declared to a company of us, whom he had 

 invited to the upper deck, that he had never but once in his life been six 

 miles from the sea, and if the Lord should forgive him he never would do 

 that again. He was an Englishman by birth, a sailor, first to the Indies, 

 afterward to Australia, and then a Forty-niner in these harbors of Eldorado. 



Our first stop on our way northward is at the town of Napa. This is 

 the residence of Hon. M. M. Estee, late Eepublican candidate for Governor 

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