eighty; through a culpable combination of ignorance and folly, they loitered many weeks on the route, when, upon gaining the sierra, the snows set in, the trails became blocked up and impassable, and they were obliged to encamp for the winter; their provisions were shortly exhausted, their cattle were devoured to the last horse's hide, hunger came upon them, gaunt and terrible, starvation at last—men, women and children starved to death, and were eaten by their fellows—insanity followed. When relief arrived, the survivors were found rolling in filth, parents eating their own offspring, denizens of different cabins exchanging limbs and meat—little children tearing and devouring the livers and hearts of the dead, and a general apathy and mania pervaded all alike, so as to make them scout the idea of leaving their property in the mountains before the spring, even to save their miserable lives; and on separating those who were able to bear the fatigue of travelling, the cursings and ravings of the remainder were monstrous. One Dutchman actually ate a full-grown body in thirty-six hours! another boiled and devoured a girl nine years old, in a single night. The women held on to life with greater tenacity than the men—in fact, the first intelligence was brought to Sutter's fort, on the Sacramento, by two young girls. One of them feasted on her good papa, but on making soup of her lover's head, she confessed to some inward qualms of conscience. The young Spaniard, Baptiste, was hero of the party, performing all labor and drudgery in getting fuel and water, until his strength became exhausted; he told me that he ate Jake Donner and the baby, "eat baby raw, stewed some of Jake, and roasted his head, not good meat, taste like sheep with the rot; but, sir, very hungry, eat anything,"—these were his very words. There were thirty survivors, and a number of them without feet, either frozen or burnt off, who were placed under the care of our surgeons on shore. Although nothing has ever happened more truly dreadful, and in many respects ludicrously so, yet what was surprising, the emigrants themselves perceived nothing very extraordinary in all these cannibalisms, but seemed to regard it as an every day occurrence—surely they were deranged. The party who went to their relief deserved all praise, for they, too, endured every hardship, and many were badly frostbitten. The cause of all this suffering was mainly attributable to the unmeaning delay and indolence attending their early progress on the route, but with every advantage in favor of emigration, the journey in itself must be attended with immense privation and toil. The mere fact, that by the upper route there is one vast desert to be travelled over, many hundred miles in width, affording very little vegetation or sustenance, and to crown the difficulty, terminated by the rugged chain of Californian mountains, is almost sufficient in itself to deter many a good man and strong, from exposing his life and property, for an unknown home on the shores of the Pacific.
CHAPTER XII.
Tarrying a fortnight at Yerbabuena, we then crossed the bay and dropped anchor beneath the lofty hills of Sousoulito, where we busied ourselves filling up with fresh water. This anchorage is a great resort for whale ships, coming from the north-west fishing grounds, for water and supplies; the procurante of which was an Englishman, for many years a resident in the country, and possessing myriads of cattle, and a principality in land and mountains; among other valuables, he was the sire of the belle of California, in the person of a young girl named Marianna. Her mother was Spanish, with the remains of great personal charms; as to the child, I never saw a more patrician style of beauty and native elegance in any clime where Castillian doñas bloom. She was brunette, with an oval face, magnificent dark grey eyes, with the corners of her mouth slightly curved downward, so as to give a proud and haughty expression to the face—in person she was tall, graceful and well shaped, and although her feet were encased in deer skin shoes, and hands bare, they still might have vied with any belles of our own. I believe the lovely Marianna was as amiable as beautiful, and I know her bright eye glancing along the delicate sights of her rifle, sent the leaden missive with the deadly aim of a marksman, and that she rode like an angel, and could strike a bullock dead with one quick blow of a keen blade, but notwithstanding these domestic accomplishments and anglo-Saxon lineage, she held the demonios Yankees in mortal abhorrence; but who could blame her, they had murdered a brace of her handsomest lovers, and this in California, where lovers were scarce, was a crime not to be forgiven.
One morning I shouldered a rifle—indebted to Don Ricardo for horses, and his beautiful daughter for a cup of water, and being attended by a little truant ship-boy as guide, who had been left to cure hides during the absence of his vessel, we dashed inland. Crossing a belt of mountains, we struck the sea shore, and turning to the northward, ascended a succession of steep hills, until we had gained a rocky table-land above—there was no timber to be seen, and except the stunted undergrowth netted together in valleys and ravines, all was one rolling scene of grass, wild oats and flowers. Near by was a small sheet of fresh water, caught by the rain and held in by a narrow plateau, swarming with water fowl, and framed by broken masses of huge rocks. It was a great resort for deer, and I found them herding in large bands of thirty and forty together, but from the nature of the country, so open and free from foliage, it required the utmost caution to approach within striking distance. However, I managed to pop the death billets into the hearts of two noble bucks, and while creeping down a gully for a shot at a third, I was startled by the shouts and gestures of the boy, "Here's a grizzly a-coming! here's a grizzly." Gott in heimmell, I mentally ejaculated—there is going to be a race. Away I clambered and ran to the nearest height—there was a huge black monster, the size of a bullock, coming from the direction of the lake, and tearing up the opposite ridge towards where the horses were picketed. The frightened beasts scenting their enemy, were plunging and snorting terrifically, until at last they broke their riatas, and plunged like mad down the steep—the boy was making his heels fly as if provided with a steam engine in his trowsers; then looking upon the mission as fully accomplished, I tightened my belt, and leaped in the tracks of my companion. I have no accurate means of determining the rapidity of my flight, but should any one feel disposed to test the full capacity of his lungs and legs, he can do so to the utmost, with a grizzly behind him. I little thought, the last time I saw one at the Jardin des Plantes, and took such interest in watching children feeding him with sweet buns, enclosing nice bits of tobacco, or a pinch of snuff, that I should encounter one of his brethren among the wilds of California, with the joke entirely the other way. We never halted until a good mile lay between Bruin's paws and our own, then we could see him lazily walking along the crest of a hill, with a saddle of venison in his dainty jaws. One of the horses in his anxiety to be foremost in the race, leaped over the boy, inflicting an unpleasant hoof tap on the ribs—fortunately the injury was not serious, and we contrived to catch one and lasso the other; but may the devil catch that bear, I was obliged to leave my strapping bucks to his tender mercies, and return to the ship, scared and chagrined beyond measure—laughed at, of course; still I deemed it far preferable than to be hugged to death, with the only consolation left in knowing that what part of one is not devoured will be carefully buried, according to custom, for another meal.
There is scarcely a resident in the mountains of Upper California who has not, at one time or another, been attacked by these formidable beasts. I saw the scars, left by the claws of one, on the broad back of a fine old Irishman; and he informed me, that after being torn from the saddle, he feigned death, until his friends, who were in sight, came up, and drove some balls into the beast, who never for a moment before removed his powerful jaws from within two inches of his victim's face. They are extremely hard to kill, and unless the bullets take effect in the head or heart, are only rendered the more infuriated.
Previous to the adventure at Sousoulito, I had been in the habit of expending all my powder and prowess on Angel Island. It is a very picturesque little spot, about three miles in circumference, rising to the height of near eight hundred feet, and radiating in numberless ridges and ravines down to the water's edge. There are many fertile slopes luxuriating in fine trees and vegetation, and on all sides pure rills of water leaping into the bay. Lying in a wide sweep of the San Francisco, within a mile of the main land, the deer resort there in great numbers, to feed on the palatable herbs growing on the northern sides, and also for the close shelter afforded, beneath multitudes of the densest network of tangled thickets that ever man or quadruped has explored. Angel Island will for ever be a bright oasis in my hunting career, as it was the ground of my maiden prowess.