Life of Kit Carson, the Great Western Hunter and Guide. Charles Burdett
numbered from ten thousand to twenty thousand and their sheep were nearly as numerous – though some missions had upwards of thrice these numbers – which fed over perhaps a hundred thousand acres of fertile land.
"Near the centre of such farms were placed the mission buildings. These consisted of the church – which was either built of stone, if that material could be procured in the vicinity, or of adobes, which are bricks dried in the sun; and was as substantial, large, and richly decorated an erection as the means of the mission would permit, or the skill and strength of their servants could construct. In the interior, pictures and hangings decorated the walls; while the altars were ornamented with marble pillars of various colors, and upon and near them stood various articles of massy gold and silver plate. A profusion of gilding and tawdry sparkling objects caught and pleased the eye of the simple congregations. Around, or beside the church, and often in the form of a square, were grouped the habitations of the Fathers and their household servants, and the various granaries and workshops of the people; while, at the distance of one or two hundred yards, stood the huts of the Indians. The former buildings were constructed of adobes, and covered with brick tiles, frail and miserable materials at the best. The huts of the Indians were occasionally made of the same materials, but more commonly were formed only of a few rough poles, stuck in the ground, with the points bending towards the centre like a cone, and were covered with reeds and grass. An adobe wall of considerable height sometimes inclosed the whole village. The direction of the affairs of the settlement was in the hands of one of the Fathers, originally called a president, but afterwards a prefect; and each prefect was independent in his own mission, and practically supreme in all its temporal, and nearly in all its spiritual matters, to any human authority.
"Thus the Fathers might be considered to have lived something in the style of the patriarchs of the days of Job and Abraham. They indeed were generally ignorant and unlettered men, knowing little more than the mechanical rites of their church, and what else their manuals of devotion and the treasuries of the lives of the saints taught them; but they seem to have been personally devout, self-denying, and beneficent in their own simple way. They thought they did God service, and perhaps much more the Indians themselves, in catching, taming, and converting them to Christianity. That was their vocation in the world, and they faithfully obeyed its calls of duty. Towards the converts and actually domesticated servants, they always showed such an affectionate kindness as a father pays to the youngest and most helpless of his family. The herds and flocks of the Fathers roamed undisturbed over numberless hills and valleys. Their servants or slaves were true born children of the house, who laboured lightly and pleasantly, and had no sense of freedom nor desire for change. A rude but bounteous hospitality marked the master's reception of the solitary wayfarer, as he traveled from mission to mission, perhaps bearing some scanty news from the outer world, all the more welcome that the Fathers knew little of the subject, and could not be affected by the events and dangers of distant societies. All these things have now passed away. The churches have fallen into decay, deserted by the old worshipers, and poverty-stricken; the adobe houses of the Fathers are in ruins – and there is scarcely any trace left of the slightly erected huts of the Indians, who themselves have deserted their old hearths and altars, and are silently, though rapidly, disappearing from the land. But the memory of the patriarchal times, for they were only as yesterday, still remains fresh in the minds of the early white settlers."
Mr. Young's party did not remain long to enjoy the sumptuous fare at the Mission of San Gabriel; but pushed on to that of San Fernando, and thence to the river and fertile valley of Sacramento. In this neighborhood they trapped for beaver, and Carson displayed his activity and skill as a hunter of deer, elk, and antelope.
CHAPTER IV
Only familiarity with one of like character, by actually seeing it, can give a just idea of the country through which they were traveling. Livingston's descriptions of localities in Central Africa might be transferred to our pages verbatim, to give a word-painting of the desiccated deserts of what is now New Mexico and Arizona. Carson's curiosity, as well as care to preserve the knowledge for future use, led him to note in memory, every feature of the wild landscape, its mountain chains, its desert prairies, with only clumps of the poor artemisia for vegetation, its rivers, and the oases upon their banks, where there were bottom-lands – nor were beaver found elsewhere – with its river beds whose streams had found a passage beneath the surface of the earth, and each other general feature that would attract the eye of the natural, rather than the scientific observer.
In our day, the note book of the pioneer furnishing the data, the traveler carries a guide-book to direct his course from point to point, upon a well trodden road, to those places where grass and water will furnish refreshment for his animals, while he regales himself, not upon the spare-rib of a starved mule, killed because it could go no longer, but upon a variety of good things from the well stocked larder of the pouches of the saddle-bags his pack mule carries, or the provision box of his wagon. Or, instead of the meat-diet of the trapper, when he has been in luck in a fertile locality, the traveler – not trapper – of to-day, perhaps has shot a prairie chicken, and prepares his dinner by making a stew of it, which he consumes with hard bread he has purchased at a station not ten miles away.
Familiarity with the features of the country does not restore the experience of the pioneer of these wilds. The Indian, now, is advised by authority he seldom dares defy, to keep off the roads of the emigrants; and seldom does a party leave the road for any great distance; nor are these roads infrequent, but the country is intersected with them, and the guide-books protect against mistake in taking the wrong direction. The test of character, however, with the trappers, was their ability to endure hardships when they had to be encountered; and to guard against them, when they could be avoided, by a wise foresight in taking advantage of every favor of fortune, and turning each freak or whim of the wily dame to best account.
Carson was delighted with California from the first, and realizing intense satisfaction in his position, yet a youth, on terms of easy familiarity with the other seventeen old trappers, especially selected for this expedition, circumstances conspired to call into play all the activities of his nature, and nothing intruded to prevent his resigning himself to the impulses of the time, and making the most of every occasion that offered.
He had the confidence of Capt. Young and of all his men, who permitted him to do precisely as he chose, for they found him not only intending always to do what was best, but possessed of foresight to know always "just the things that ought to be done," almost without effort, as it seemed to them.
After leaving the Mission of San Fernando, Young's party trapped upon the San Joaquim, but they found that another party of trappers had been there before them, employed by the Hudson Bay Company, in Oregon. There was however, room for them both, and they trapped near each other for weeks. The friendly intercourse kept up between the two parties, was not only one of pleasant interchange of social kindness, but in one sense was essentially useful to Kit, who lost no opportunity of improving himself in the profession (for in those days trapping was a profession) which he had embraced, and he had the benefit of the experience by way of example, not only of his own companions, but of those who were connected with the greatest and most influential company then in existence on this Continent. It is hardly necessary to say that he lost no opportunity of acquiring information, and it is quite probable that he would, if called on, allow that the experience acquired on this expedition was among the most valuable of any which he had previously gained.
When Mr. Young went to the Sacramento, he separated from the Hudson Bay party. The beautiful Sacramento, as its waters glided toward the chain of bays that take it to the ocean through the Bay of San Francisco out at the Golden gate, had not the aspect of the eastern river's immediate tributaries of the Missouri. Its waters then were clear as crystal, and the salmon floated beneath, glistening in the sunlight, as the canoe glided through them.
The very air of this valley is luxurious; and in speaking of it, we will include the valley of the San Joaquim, for both these streams run parallel with the coast, the Sacramento from the north, the San Joaquim from the south, and both unite at the head of the chain of bays which pour their waters into the Pacific.
The Sacramento drains nearly three hundred miles of latitude, and the San Joaquim an hundred and fifty miles of the country bounded by the Sierra Nevada