298 Beyond the Sierras. 



in the hands of their driver, who was an old Forty-niner. The carriage and 

 saddle-horses seen on the boulevards winding out from San Francisco to the 

 Golden Gate are as tine and swift as those that dash with uplifted heads 

 through the drives of Central Park, or the Bois dv Boulogne, at Paris. 



The schedule for the Santa Rosji e.xcursion carries us tirst through the 

 city and onward to the little town of Guerneville. As you ascend the valley 

 that unevenness of surface of which I spoke above becomes more pro- 

 nounced. In fact, by the time we reach (iuernoville we are again among 

 the mountains. At least, they press us pretty clusely on either hand, espe- 

 cially the right. It is a general fact in the landscape of California that the 

 mountain chain begins from the valley. There does not seem to be any 

 broken region or hill country between the range and the lowlands. I saw 

 only a single hill in all California, and that was a mound. It rises on the 

 east side of Pasadena. Here, about Guerneville, are some mounds. You 

 might call them hills, but the language is not orthodox. On their slopes are 

 vineyards clear to the top. There is running water in this region, a thing 

 most grateful to the eyes of our people, and willows grow on the banks, and 

 cotton-woods— which brings us to the subject of trees again. 



It was the tree that brought us to this place, the big tree, the redwood, on 

 his native heath. And here, sure enough, before we reach Guerneville, and 

 still more abundantly beyond, is the redwood forest — that is, was the redwood 

 forest before it was murdered by the lumbermen. man, whoever thou art,^ 

 thou shouldst see the stumps thereof. Here is the big bottom about the little 

 town of Guerneville, and the whole area is covered with the stumps of the 

 giants fallen. " It came to pass on the morrow," saith the Scripture, " that 

 the image of Dagon was fallen from his place, and his hands and his feet 

 were broken off, so that nothing was left of Dagon but the stump of him."^ 

 So it is, alas! with these gigantic trees. 



The general good fortune that attended us on our excursion now failed 

 us for a day. The railway which has brought us hither is called. I believe^ 

 the Pacific and Oregon Railway ; at any rate, it is the road owned and con- 

 trolled by Mr. Donahue, who honored us with his presence on the following 

 day at San Rafael. On the night before our excursion to Santa Rosa a heavy 

 rain fell in the district between Cloverdale and Guerneville and washed out 

 some bridges. This accident prevented us from reaching the living redwood 

 forest. We were obliged to stop at the town and content ourselves with 

 wandering among the stumps ; but the scene was enough to astonish as an 

 indication of what had been, before the devastating saw-mill had done it& 

 work. 



The reader must understand that the big trees, so-called, of California 

 are of two species : the redwood, Serjuoia sempervirens, such as we found 

 among the low mounUiins between Santa Cruz and San Jos^, and such as we 

 find here about Guerneville. These, however, are not the true big trees of 

 Mariposa. The latter are called the Seqiuda gigantea,i\u(\ are considerably 

 larger and more grand than any true redwood. The stumps which we find 



