Riverside cmd Finis. 311 



die San Joaquin country the universal gopher gets in his work. He is a 

 sort of subsoil surveyor who lays off ground plans for orchards and vine- 

 yards and alfalfa fields wholly different from the plans of the proprietor. 

 He obeys the injunction to multiply and replenish the earth. And this 

 brings me to speak once more and finally of the Marquis of Leap, consid- 

 ered in his tribes and generations. I should judge him to be in his chosen 

 districts the mo^t multiple animal in the world; that is, of his size. I esti- 

 mate that the Marquis, in his full development, weighs anywhere from ten 

 to fifteen pounds. We are here (so long has the reverie continued) nearly 

 to the bottom, or cul-de-sac, of the San Joaquin. The station is Sumner 

 Off yonder to the west, at a distance of some ten miles, is the little town 

 and district of Bakersfield. In this neighborhood the Marquis has organ- 

 ized a republic; and the last census showed about a himdred thousand in- 

 habitants. 



On the Sunday before our first passage through the valley the people 

 of Bakersfield made a rabbit drive. They build a sort of corral, with wings 

 like the wings of a quail net. Then they surround quite a dibtrict of coun- 

 try, and procet d after the manner of a fox-drive in civilized countries. They 

 beat among the yucca palms and cacti until the Marquis is scared from his 

 covert and driven in. It was said not to be a good day for rabbits on the 

 occasion of the drive referred to, but no fewer than 5,800 were slaughtered 

 in the corral. Two weeks before, as I was credibly informed, G,200 had 

 in like manner, been sent to the Land of the Happy Rabbits. At Sumner 

 station I was shown large photographs of the scene of the butchery, and 

 purchased a copy, which is now before me. The thing is a verity, though 

 it might seem to be drawn from the last edition of Munchausen. 



So again we are at the Pass of Tehachapi. In ascending the mountain 

 heights two engines are required to each train ; and they are monsters in 

 their kind. The majority of them weigh seventy to eighty tons apiece; but 

 the better class weigh ninety tons. El Gubernador, standing here, on a 

 side track, at the pass, is a regular Goliath of Gath; he weighs 105 tons— the 

 largest locomotive I have ever seen. The ascent to the pass is for many 

 miles slow and toilsome ; but, when we have once attained the summit, the 

 going down is as easy as coasting. These mountain passes are the marvel 

 of nature's work, such as she gives us in her higher moods. I suppose that 

 all mountain ranges have their passes, if the engineer can find them. The 

 method of it is this: You enter, from the plain which you have just 

 traversed, the mouth of a canon. The canon narrows and ascends as it re- 

 cedes into the mountain. It also winds about. There is a rushing stream 

 of water in the bottom of it. You would think that the whole valley would 

 be watered with this volume; but not so. As soon as it touches the plain 

 it widens, flattens, creeps out into diverse channels, dwindlss, sinks, and is 

 gone. Here is the reason why the lowlands of California are so feebly 

 supplied with running water. It is all far below, in that infinite accu- 

 mulation of decayed granite which has been descending from the mount- 



