end, beyond which but few small ones exist; also a few on the western shores. The mode of burial on this island is different from that previously investigated. The bodies rest in distinct graves by themselves, lying on their backs, feet drawn up, and arms folded over the chest; the head either resting on the occiput, the side, or sunk to the breast. The skeletons, as a rule, were facing the east, although other directions were observed. Some show signs of having been buried in matting coated with asphaltum. Most of the skeletons and implements are laid bare by the winds. Our modus operandi was here changed; spade and pick were dispensed with, and in the first days our party went over the shell-mounds and piled the findings in heaps, which afterward were conveyed to the boat by horses procured of the "governor" of the island (as the old man styles himself), and thence taken by water to our camping-ground for a careful packing in boxes brought with us from San Francisco. We obtained 127 mortars - —a heavy collection by itself-about 200 pestles, cups, trinkets, a small lot of quite unique sculptures, and some articles new to science. The money deposits on this island are remarkable. In some places on the shell-mounds we noticed, apart from the skeletons, and not buried with them, numerous small heaps of shells of the Olivella bipicata, and some of the landshell Helix strigosa; also, a uniform size of pebbles, seemingly blackened by fire, averaging in quantity from a half to one cubic foot, which were evidently stored there, and afterward exposed to the drifts of sand, forming conspicuous diminutive hillocks. We found as many as sixty of these deposits on one shellmound. This, with the position of some of the implements we observed, seems, to point to the fact that the last inhabitants were taken off suddenly. We found, for instance, instead of being buried with the dead, many mortars set in the ground to the rim, the pestle either resting in its opening or lying alongside, as if it had done its duty only some days before. The last island visited was Santa Ca talina. It appears to be a long mountain removed from its base and planted in the wide ocean, whose waters are here wonderfully clear on account of the micaceous bottom. This mountain, seventeen miles in length, descends in innumerable steep gulches and ravines, and often abruptly ends in perpendicular bluffs, some of which are over a thousand feet high. About five miles from its western end the island is almost cut in two by a remarkable isthmus, forming on the northern side Isthmus Cove, and on the other, the southern side, the fine but small port of Catalina Harbor. The eastern and western parts of the island are connected only by narrow strips of made land, not forty feet above water, and about 600 yards from ocean to ocean. The island is well known, and belongs to James Lick, and is settled by squatters, mostly engaged in stock-raising, fishing, etc. mining has been done on the island, but to no advantage. It is well timbered, with plenty of water in wells and springs. The Government barracks are still in good condition, and offer shelter to picnic parties from the neighboring main-land, also to sheep-shearers in the time of wool-clip. In front of the porch we made our collection of rattlesnakes, that creep out from under the brick base of the building to indulge a healthy digestion in the warm sunlight. Some The archæology of this island is said to have been ransacked by a scientific gentleman of merit, who lingered formerly around the picturesque isthmus. He told me himself, some time ago, that he had even spotted the "fat boy”—meaning the image of the temple to the sun, as reported by Padre de la Ascension, new to science. Even the thick singuof Cabrillo fame, whose narratives he larly-shaped cranium, much of a dolistudied in the original. To my deep chocephalic pattern, has already been regret I found that there was but little described by Bret Harte as the preleft for our party to gather, and nothing historic skull of the Stanislaus. THE ECHO. [TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN.] Beloved and good mother, O bear me no ill - will! I'll tell you all about it, if you will patient be— 'Twas the Echo on the hill-side brought this rebuke on me. I sat out on the meadow, he saw me there to-day; And said, "Glad I'd come nearer, did I not think you proud. Then came he to me, and we sat together on the ground; He heard it, and still closer he drew me to his side, "O let me," quoth he tenderly, "call thee henceforth my bride! Now see, dear, how it happened that Robin kissed my brow; Is Robin, dearest mother, not worthy mine to be? J JACK MYERS. ACK MYERS and his crowd owned a claim in the bed of the river, which they turned and worked every summer; and this claim covered the ground occupied by our copper-lode. They had been working all winter in Garrote Flat, about eighteen miles distant, and coming down in the spring took the copper fever severely, and finding we were on a part of their ground, laid claim to such portion of our possessions. I argued that the two claims had nothing to do with each other. Possession of any portion of the river-bed implied possession only of the gravel in it, and the discoverer of any lode of ore in the underlying rock, whether above or below water, was as much entitled to it as though it were ten miles away. Jack Myers was not an arguing man. His first and last resort lay in his pistol. He had always carried his points in this way, and he had always found such process quicker and cheaper than resort to the complicated and costly machinery of courts, law, and lawyers. He could not live comfortably without a fight every few months, and when he failed to pick a quarrel with any outsider he would work off his combativeness on one or other of his three associates, who were completely under his control and influence, and who seemed to like him all the better for an occasional beating. Myers was a thoroughly bad man. There seemed no soft spot, no relieving quality in his nature. His speech to others alternated between a sneer and a growl. He went about always more or less under the influence of liquor-delighting in the dread his presence inspired, for he was as dangerous as a tiger turned loose. Respectable men slipped quietly out of the saloon when he entered. People talked in low and subdued tones while he was by, for he frequently criticised chance remarks, whether coming from a stranger or acquaintance, and made them the pretense for a quarrel. He shot Will Leffingwell while eating his dinner in a restaurant, having construed a few words of Will's, spoken that morning and reported to him by one of his officious toadies, into a threat against himself. He put a ball through Sam Boynton's knee, and lamed him for life, because Sam refused to drink with him. He had knifed a man to death in Aurora, no one could tell why or wherefore at the trial. These were but a moiety of his exploits; yet the law, or what was called by that name, always cleared him. He was as lucky at mining as he was at shooting. He always could and always did command the best legal talent. Next to maiming or killing a fellow-being, he liked being on trial for the offense, on account of the notoriety it gave him. His juries were always composed of picked men, born and brought up in the South and South-west, who had carried arms habitually from early boyhood, and whose estimation of any man increased in direct ratio to the number of his victims. Old Sam McCullough, of Mississippi, was his legal counselor, a great and successful criminal lawyer and eccentric character; in appearance a realization of John Randolph of Roanoke, tall and straight as an Indian, with a leather-colored complexion, a glittering black eye, a shrill squeaky voice; who had never thoroughly read a page of Coke or Blackstone in his life, who was not equal to "Half the ground you claim," said he, "belongs to me; you must leave it. I give you twenty-four hours to get your cabin, traps, and tools off it!" the task of drawing up the simplest le- in compliments or commonplace remark. gal document, and whose chief weapon of argument lay in appealing to that coarse and bloody sentiment which he managed to concentrate in his jury—a sentiment misnamed chivalry, but in reality behind the back murder. This old gentlemen would, on looking over the list of jurors just previous to a murder trial, remark, in his shrill voice, to the clerk of the court: Myers' claim extended over the discovery- hole. "But," said I, "you sold this portion of the bank to the Chinamen. We have come into possession of their claim. How can you, then, in justice ask this “William, where is this man McClos- from us?” ky from?" "Mississippi, I believe." "Good! he'll do for me. And Starbuck, where does he hail from?" "Massachusetts." "I must scratch him off; Yankees won't do on our juries." Myers and his gang came and took possession of their cabin in May. It was but a few hundred yards from my quarters. Their presence brought pandemonium to Swett's Bar, hitherto so quiet and lovely in the California spring. There is at that season of the year, before the grass and flowers become. withered and dried by the intense summer heat, a balminess and freshness which predisposes the mind to a soft waking dream; and at night, with the full moon over you, pouring down such a flood of silver light that any ordinary print may be clearly read, and in the distance the silent mountains seen quite as distinctly as in the day-time, yet entirely changed in shade and color-it seems not to belong to this earth, but to some ideal enchanted region. But Myers and his three disciples poisoned all this beauty. Until late in the night, and every night, their cabin was a scene of carousing, oaths, yells, fighting, and drunken revelry. On the second day of their arrival the desperado called on me. He was a small man, with a face which had more of the weasel in it than any other animal. There was no time wasted by him "Sold them the gravel only," was his reply; "didn't sell 'em the ledge. That's ours. You can buy it of us if you want to." "What is your price?" "One hundred thousand dollars!" We sat silent, facing each other, for a few moments. I didn't know what to do. To "talk up" to the man was to invite instant combat. To cringe before him was equally as bad. He was watching my every motion, ready to draw if he saw a suspicious one on my part-ready at any show of verbal defiance to apply to me some vile term which no man could hear, according to the sentiment of those times, without resenting. To gain time, I said: "Myers, take a drink, and let's talk business afterward." "Certainly," said he, "I'll drink with you." And when he had poured down a tumblerful of my best brandy, which ranked with him no better than the vile whisky he consumed by the gallon, he remarked: "Well, what are you going to do? Trade or travel?" "I don't feel like traveling, Mr. Myers." I said this mildly and quietly. "Well, I do," was his reply. "You get off our ground by to-morrow night, or we'll put you off, that's all." He walked out of the door. Shortly I arose, and, going outside, saw Myers at the farther end of the claim tearing down our notices and putting up his own champion might arise who would beard scrawls in their place. There was not the ruffian; and everybody knew, ala man in my employ on whom I could though no one spoke it, that, no matdepend to aid me. They were willing ter what might be the complexion of to work but not to fight. Soon Munse, the difficulty, the law would make but litmy foreman, met me. He looked a little trouble for the man who killed Jack tle embarrassed and cowed. "The gang has knocked off work," said he; "Jack Myers and his crowd have been tearing around, and, under the circumstances, if he says quit, we've got to quit or fight." "And you won't fight?" I remarked. "Well," replied Munse, digging his heel into the ground, "it's not exactly our fight or our funeral. I think it's an outrage, and I don't like to knuckle down to Myers, but—" Myers. The It was night, my supper was over, and I was alone in my cabin. But I could not remain alone. I felt that a crisis was near. I could not stay quiet. suspense was far worse than the inevitable clash, and I felt impelled to rush toward it. An hour previous and I had been a coward. I had clung to life and knuckled to a bully. I could not see how far I had demeaned and degraded myself until it was all over. Now, "But you're all afraid of him?" I said, when I looked at the picture of the infinishing the sentence. "Suppose you say we're all afraid of him," said Munse, with the slightest possible tinge of sarcasm in his voice. I returned to the house. In an instant my course became clear to me. There must be no more hesitation. It was a matter of life or death between me and Jack Myers. Every circumstance was crowding me on to a personal conflict with him. The law could give me no protection. Its machinery was potent enough, but the despicable public sentiment of the time, which worshiped and toadied to a red-handed murderer, would paralyze every effort it might make in my behalf. I felt no longer depressed. I became cheerfully desperate. Before, I had clung to life. Now, the indignation I felt at being thus crowded to the wall by such a brute, and the shame I had experienced during the crowding process, made life a matter of little moment. Another thought also came into the scale, which made existence the lesser weight. That was the hope of, and, to be frank, the fame also which would be mine in that community by taking Myers off. In secret and for years it had been hoped that a terview between me and Myers, I felt a sensation akin to remorse, as if I had committed some shameful offense. Sometimes I think cowardice to be only another form of selfishness. The moment a man rises to that condition where he may renounce what is very dear to him, he becomes brave. The Swett's Bar store was the common resort at night for almost everybody in camp. It was a place I visited as little as possible, for its greasy deck of cards, its wrangling noisy game of "seven-up," its commingled odor of whisky, tobacco, pork, and codfish, and its rough loungers perched on boxes and barrels dimly seen at night in the dark corners by the uncertain light of a smoky lamp, all these had no attractions for me. I preferred to wander amid the lonely hills. I heard loud talking and laughing within the store as I neared it that evening. I knew what that meant. Myers and his followers were there holding a jubilee over their supposed victory. "Got any more fancy mining superintendents to come up from Frisco and jump Jack Myers' claim? I hope they'll send 'em, for I can chaw 'em up as fast as they come along." |
