Roughing It

Коллекция текстов · travel

Prefatory · Chapter I
Prefatory This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of severa…
Chapter II
The first thing we did on that glad evening that landed us at St. Joseph was to hunt up the stage-office, and pay a hundred and fifty dolla…
Chapter III
About an hour and a half before daylight we were bowling along smoothly over the road—so smoothly that our cradle only rocked in a gentle,…
Chapter IV
As the sun went down and the evening chill came on, we made preparation for bed. We stirred up the hard leather letter-sacks, and the knott…
Chapter V
Another night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil. But morning came, by and by. It was another glad awakening to fresh breezes, vast expa…
Chapter VI
Our new conductor (just shipped) had been without sleep for twenty hours. Such a thing was very frequent. From St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sac…
Chapter VII
It did seem strange enough to see a town again after what appeared to us such a long acquaintance with deep, still, almost lifeless and hou…
Chapter VIII
In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and watching for the “pony-rider”—the fleet messenger who sped across t…
Chapter IX
We passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on the seventh morning out we found ourselves in the Black Hills, with Laramie Peak at our elbow (…
Chapter X
Really and truly, two thirds of the talk of drivers and conductors had been about this man Slade, ever since the day before we reached Jule…
Chapter XI
And sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did hear him again. News came to the Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Montan…
Chapter XII
Just beyond the breakfast-station we overtook a Mormon emigrant train of thirty-three wagons; and tramping wearily along and driving their…
Chapter XIII
We had a fine supper, of the freshest meats and fowls and vegetables—a great variety and as great abundance. We walked about the streets so…
Chapter XIV
Mr. Street was very busy with his telegraphic matters—and considering that he had eight or nine hundred miles of rugged, snowy, uninhabited…
Chapter XV
It is a luscious country for thrilling evening stories about assassinations of intractable Gentiles. I cannot easily conceive of anything m…
Chapter XVI
All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the “elect” have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away…
Chapter XVII
At the end of our two days’ sojourn, we left Great Salt Lake City hearty and well fed and happy—physically superb but not so very much wise…
Chapter XVIII
At eight in the morning we reached the remnant and ruin of what had been the important military station of “Camp Floyd,” some forty-five or…
Chapter XIX
On the morning of the sixteenth day out from St. Joseph we arrived at the entrance of Rocky Canyon, two hundred and fifty miles from Salt L…
Chapter XX
On the seventeenth day we passed the highest mountain peaks we had yet seen, and although the day was very warm the night that followed upo…
Chapter XXI
We were approaching the end of our long journey. It was the morning of the twentieth day. At noon we would reach Carson City, the capital o…
Chapter XXII
It was the end of August, and the skies were cloudless and the weather superb. In two or three weeks I had grown wonderfully fascinated wit…
Chapter XXIII
If there is any life that is happier than the life we led on our timber ranch for the next two or three weeks, it must be a sort of life wh…
Chapter XXIV
I resolved to have a horse to ride. I had never seen such wild, free, magnificent horsemanship outside of a circus as these picturesquely-c…
Chapter XXV
Originally, Nevada was a part of Utah and was called Carson county; and a pretty large county it was, too. Certain of its valleys produced…
Chapter XXVI
By and by I was smitten with the silver fever. “Prospecting parties” were leaving for the mountains every day, and discovering and taking p…
Chapter XXVII
Hurry, was the word! We wasted no time. Our party consisted of four persons—a blacksmith sixty years of age, two young lawyers, and myself.…
Chapter XXVIII
After leaving the Sink, we traveled along the Humboldt river a little way. People accustomed to the monster mile-wide Mississippi, grow acc…
Chapter XXIX
True knowledge of the nature of silver mining came fast enough. We went out “prospecting” with Mr. Ballou. We climbed the mountain sides, a…
Chapter XXX
I met men at every turn who owned from one thousand to thirty thousand “feet” in undeveloped silver mines, every single foot of which they…
Chapter XXXI
There were two men in the company who caused me particular discomfort. One was a little Swede, about twenty-five years old, who knew only o…
Chapter XXXII
We seemed to be in a road, but that was no proof. We tested this by walking off in various directions—the regular snow-mounds and the regul…
Chapter XXXIII
I do not know how long I was in a state of forgetfulness, but it seemed an age. A vague consciousness grew upon me by degrees, and then cam…
Chapter XXXIV
The mountains are very high and steep about Carson, Eagle and Washoe Valleys—very high and very steep, and so when the snow gets to melting…
Chapter XXXV
When we finally left for Esmeralda, horseback, we had an addition to the company in the person of Capt. John Nye, the Governor’s brother. H…
Chapter XXXVI
I had already learned how hard and long and dismal a task it is to burrow down into the bowels of the earth and get out the coveted ore; an…
Chapter XXXVII
It was somewhere in the neighborhood of Mono Lake that the marvellous Whiteman cement mine was supposed to lie. Every now and then it would…
Chapter XXXVIII
Mono Lake lies in a lifeless, treeless, hideous desert, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, and is guarded by mountains two tho…
Chapter XXXIX
About seven o’clock one blistering hot morning—for it was now dead summer time—Higbie and I took the boat and started on a voyage of discov…
Chapter XL
I now come to a curious episode—the most curious, I think, that had yet accented my slothful, valueless, heedless career. Out of a hillside…
Chapter XLI
Captain Nye was very ill indeed, with spasmodic rheumatism. But the old gentleman was himself—which is to say, he was kind-hearted and agre…
Chapter XLII
What to do next? It was a momentous question. I had gone out into the world to shift for myself, at the age of thirteen (for my father had…
Chapter XLIII
However, as I grew better acquainted with the business and learned the run of the sources of information I ceased to require the aid of fan…
Chapter XLIV
My salary was increased to forty dollars a week. But I seldom drew it. I had plenty of other resources, and what were two broad twenty-doll…
Chapter XLV
The “flush times” held bravely on. Something over two years before, Mr. Goodman and another journeyman printer, had borrowed forty dollars…
Chapter XLVI
There were nabobs in those days—in the “flush times,” I mean. Every rich strike in the mines created one or two. I call to mind several of…
Chapter XLVII
Somebody has said that in order to know a community, one must observe the style of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with…
Chapter XLVIII
The first twenty-six graves in the Virginia cemetery were occupied by murdered men. So everybody said, so everybody believed, and so they w…
Chapter XLIX
An extract or two from the newspapers of the day will furnish a photograph that can need no embellishment: FATAL SHOOTING AFFRAY.—An affray…
Chapter L
These murder and jury statistics remind me of a certain very extraordinary trial and execution of twenty years ago; it is a scrap of histor…
Chapter LI
Vice flourished luxuriantly during the hey-day of our “flush times.” The saloons were overburdened with custom; so were the police courts,…
Chapter LII
Since I desire, in this chapter, to say an instructive word or two about the silver mines, the reader may take this fair warning and skip,…
Chapter LIII
Every now and then, in these days, the boys used to tell me I ought to get one Jim Blaine to tell me the stirring story of his grandfather’…
Chapter LIV
Of course there was a large Chinese population in Virginia—it is the case with every town and city on the Pacific coast. They are a harmles…
Chapter LV
I began to get tired of staying in one place so long. There was no longer satisfying variety in going down to Carson to report the proceedi…
Chapter LVI
We rumbled over the plains and valleys, climbed the Sierras to the clouds, and looked down upon summer-clad California. And I will remark h…
Chapter LVII
It was in this Sacramento Valley, just referred to, that a deal of the most lucrative of the early gold mining was done, and you may still…
Chapter LVIII
For a few months I enjoyed what to me was an entirely new phase of existence—a butterfly idleness; nothing to do, nobody to be responsible…
Chapter LIX
For a time I wrote literary screeds for the Golden Era. C. H. Webb had established a very excellent literary weekly called the Californian,…
Chapter LX
By and by, an old friend of mine, a miner, came down from one of the decayed mining camps of Tuolumne, California, and I went back with him…
Chapter LXI
One of my comrades there—another of those victims of eighteen years of unrequited toil and blighted hopes—was one of the gentlest spirits t…
Chapter LXII
After a three months’ absence, I found myself in San Francisco again, without a cent. When my credit was about exhausted, (for I had become…
Chapter LXIII
On a certain bright morning the Islands hove in sight, lying low on the lonely sea, and everybody climbed to the upper deck to look. After…
Chapter LXIV
In my diary of our third day in Honolulu, I find this: I am probably the most sensitive man in Hawaii to-night—especially about sitting dow…
Chapter LXV
By and by, after a rugged climb, we halted on the summit of a hill which commanded a far-reaching view. The moon rose and flooded mountain…
Chapter LXVI
Passing through the market place we saw that feature of Honolulu under its most favorable auspices—that is, in the full glory of Saturday a…
Chapter LXVII
I still quote from my journal: I found the national Legislature to consist of half a dozen white men and some thirty or forty natives. It w…
Chapter LXVIII
While I was in Honolulu I witnessed the ceremonious funeral of the King’s sister, her Royal Highness the Princess Victoria. According to th…
Chapter LXIX
Bound for Hawaii (a hundred and fifty miles distant,) to visit the great volcano and behold the other notable things which distinguish that…
Chapter LXX
We stopped some time at one of the plantations, to rest ourselves and refresh the horses. We had a chatty conversation with several gentlem…
Chapter LXXI
At four o’clock in the afternoon we were winding down a mountain of dreary and desolate lava to the sea, and closing our pleasant land jour…
Chapter LXXII
In the breezy morning we went ashore and visited the ruined temple of the last god Lono. The high chief cook of this temple—the priest who…
Chapter LXXIII
At noon, we hired a Kanaka to take us down to the ancient ruins at Honaunau in his canoe—price two dollars—reasonable enough, for a sea voy…
Chapter LXXIV
We got back to the schooner in good time, and then sailed down to Kau, where we disembarked and took final leave of the vessel. Next day we…
Chapter LXXV
The next night was appointed for a visit to the bottom of the crater, for we desired to traverse its floor and see the “North Lake” (of fir…
Chapter LXXVI
We rode horseback all around the island of Hawaii (the crooked road making the distance two hundred miles), and enjoyed the journey very mu…
Chapter LXXVII
I stumbled upon one curious character in the Island of Maui. He became a sore annoyance to me in the course of time. My first glimpse of hi…
Chapter LXXIII
After half a year’s luxurious vagrancy in the islands, I took shipping in a sailing vessel, and regretfully returned to San Francisco—a voy…
Chapter LXXIX
I launched out as a lecturer, now, with great boldness. I had the field all to myself, for public lectures were almost an unknown commodity…
Appendix (1)
APPENDIX. A. BRIEF SKETCH OF MORMON HISTORY. Mormonism is only about forty years old, but its career has been full of stir and adventure fr…
Appendix (2)
“8. The testimony of R. P. Campbell, Capt. 2d Dragoons, who was sent in the Spring of 1859 to Santa Clara, to protect travelers on the road…
Appendix (3)
This fact it was, which more than anything else, convinced me that by plan and plot I was purposely made powerless in Mr. Winters’ hands, a…