[Albert S. Evans, Trip to the White Pine Silver Mines, Alta California, November 25, 1868]

 

TRIP TO THE WHITE PINE SILVER MINES.

__________

[SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF THE ALTA CALIFORNIA.]

__________

On the Road — Simpson's Park — Nevada Dust — The Progressive Shoshones — Streams of Travel —The Promised Land.

__________

HAMILTON, November 17th.

            My last closed at Austin, on the eve of our departure for Hamilton — White Pine District. At 9 A. M. Saturday, November 14th, twelve full-grown and able-bodied free white male citizens of the United States of America, your humble servant included, piled into and upon one of Shannon & Co.'s stages, packed in with our luggage and blankets like so many sardines in a box, and were off up the long grade, towards the summit of the hill above Austin, on our way to White Pine.

From Austin to Hamilton.

            A more dreary landscape or a more tedious journey than that before the traveller between Austin and the White Pine Mountain at this season of the year could hardly be imagined, certainly not adequately described. Apparently barren plains, covered only with sagebrush and scattered bunches of sand and bunchgrass — reddish brown hills, dotted with stunted juniper, cedar, nigger-pine and mountain mahogany — and great mountain ranges, white with snow, make up the entire landscape. Having taken one good look from any one point, you may just as well put your head in the coach again and let it stay there for the remainder of the trip ; you have seen all in that line which you will have to see. Some eight or ten miles from Austin, going eastward, you emerge from the mountain range in which that town is situated into the Great Smoky Valley, through which "The Pathfinder of Empire" blundered on his way to California, The valley spreads away to the southwest to the limit of the vision, the great Toiyabe Range, white with snow and glittering like frosted silver in the clear sunlight of winter, on the northwest and the Monitor Range on the southeast.

            The land is level and of a dull whitey brown clay. The whole plain is covered with sage brush and bunch grass, and we see at intervals herds of fat, sleek-looking cattle and sheep feeding contentedly on this apparently uninviting fodder. There is a species of dwarf sage brush, which, from its color, is denominated "white sage" in contradistinction to the common green variety, growing in patches over these vast plains and in the cañons along the base of the mountain ranges. On this white sage, after the first frosts of autumn have bleached it, the cattle feed with avidity, and I can testify that finer or fatter beef and mutton than is here produced cannot be found in the San Francisco markets. We see one band of 500 head of young beef cattle being collected together for driving toward White Pine to supply the silver miners there this winter, also a drove of 300 sheep. This does not look as though fresh meat was to be very scarce there for the present.

            Simpson's Park is left to the north as we proceed on our journey, and before reaching the White Pine range we cross the Diamond, Newark and Pancake ranges with their intervening valleys. Two P. M. found us at Dry Creek, a lonely roadside station in the Smoky Valley, 30 miles on our journey from Austin, and 90 from Hamilton, where we dined not over-sumptuously at $1 per head. Evening found us 15 miles further on, at Twin Springs, where we got an excellent supper at the same price, and changed horses for the second time. Then came a long, cold dreary night, which we passed in trying — for the most part in vain — to sleep, listening to the cry of wolves which hovered near us, and the constant rippling of the dust from the wheels as they ploughed through the heavy roads. This Nevada dust is an institution in itself, and, thank Heaven, utterly unlike anything else in that line to be found on earth. The whitish clay soil, well impregnated with alkali, is ground into an impalpable powder as soft as silk and permeating as quicksilver, by the wheels of the stages and other vehicles now lumbering constantly over it, and as it is lifted into the air the heavier portion falls back with a noise so exactly like that of water running off a roof that, as you sit in the tightly closed stage coach listening to it, you can hardly realize that it is only dust to dust, not a regular rain storm, which is falling on the vehicle. The lighter portions fill the vehicles in spite of every precaution, and cover with a thick creamy white coating, horses, drivers and passengers alike. Every man on the road is clad in the same pipe clay costume, his clothes completely saturated with the all-penetrating powder, his hair and whiskers of the same hue, and his lungs and nostrils converted into dust heaps and ash bins. The alkali contained in the dust causes it to irritate the hands and face like so much wood ashley, and keeps one coughing and sneezing incessantly, while the lips and nostrils become raw from the constant irritation. If the Lord when he created man out of the dust of the earth had selected his material from Lander County, Nevada, the human race would have been so unutterably mean and contemptible that I would sooner become a professional patriot and politician at once, than to be recognized as belonging to it in any shape. Our trip consumed some 32 hours, and it was near sunset on the second day when we reached Hamilton.

Lo, Again.

            At Austin we caw numbers of Indians, male and female, representing "Young" or "Progressive Shoshone." They mostly dress in cast-off American costume; some even wear very good clothing and the men employ their time in cutting wood for the whites, running on errands, working at odd jobs around the houses, riding their ponies through the town and eating. What the women do I only know from hearsay. This is, as I have said, Young Shoshone. Old Shoshone still adheres to the ancient custom of the tribe, frequents the desolate mountains, lives in rags, filth and utter destitution. The miserable wretches have not sense enough to erect any kind of permanent habitation, they plant no crops, and live literally "from hand to mouth." Wherever night overtakes them, they pile up a lot of sage brush into a semi-circular wall, three or four feet in height, to break the wind on one side, build up a fire, and there sit doubled up and shivering over the embers until morning. They get a small supply of grass seeds and piñons when the season is propitious, catch some fish from the Humboldt, occasionally get a rabbit or a sage hen, and for the rest subsist on a little barley or other grain procured from the whites, or go hungry, They are not known as thieves, but a more miserable set of half-naked half-human creatures cannot be found on earth. They have a breed of dogs which appear to be half wolf, having sharp ears, pointed muzzles, and the regular coyote eyes, hair, and bushy tails. These dogs are as lean and hungry looking as their owners, and have neither the honest bark of the watch dog, nor yet the lung howl or sharp "yap ! yap ! yahoo !" of the wolf, being able to offer only a miserable whine as an apology for either. Morning found us at Shannon's Station, some 40 miles from Hamilton. Here we saw a party of Shoshones huddled around a fire in the open ground eating barley picked out of the manure at the corral. One of the "se-quaws," as they term the squaws, had a child strapped to her back. The infant was naked to the waist, though water was freezing solid by its side in the open air, and the wind cut like a knife. I don't know how they stand it, but they do.

The Scene on the Road.

            The story of the great discoveries of the precious metal at White Pine has gone abroad already through all the land, and the tide of adventurers pressing forward to the locality is widening and broadening and deepening at every point as we advance. Plodding along with slow-moving ox teams, laden with supplies for the coming winter; on horseback, leading horses or mules packed down with food and tools for prospecting; in light wagons, in heavy wagons, in buggies, in prairie schooners, in carts, in stages, in fast-freight wagons, and on foot, in an unbroken line came the dust-begrimmed heroes of the struggle for sudden wealth. In clouds of dust on the yellow plain, up the hill-sides, down the cañons, through all the weary day, through the long reaches of the silent night, tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching. Look forward, and the line stretches out across the plain to the mountains: look backward, and you see them streaming forth like a mountain torrent from the cañon. We find them encamped in the sage brush, around their wagons, or shivering in their blankets in the hay-stacks — when there are any — at the lone wayside stations. Hunger and cold and weariness in the present; poverty and possible destitution, hunger and suffering in the not remote future, do not deter them. Look in the face of each and you see the same fixed, determined expression, the distinctive expression of the representative American; the man who is ever ready to rush off to scenes of any new excitement, to fight the Indian or the rebel, to attempt the grandest enterprises ever conceived by man, to organize a new Territory, "start" a new paper, found a new party or sect ; the most determined, self-reliant, restless, aggressive, enterprising and relentless in purpose individual to be found on the face of God's earth. Success go with him.

First View of the Promised Land.

            We climbed the Diamond Range in advance of the stage, in the sharp frosty morning, immediately on leaving Shannon's Station, and from the summit of the Pass beheld, towering in the northeast across the plain and above the intervening range of lesser mountains, the bold, snow-cupped summit of the White Pine Mountain, behind which was lying hidden the great silver deposits towards which our steps were bent. Though having an altitude of ten thousand feet above the sea, the mountain rising above the plain only to the apparent height of Mount Diablo, which it greatly resembles in outline as seen from a distance. Crossing the plain through dust so deep that it impeded our progress at every step like a heavy mud, we passed over the Pancake Range, through a narrow valley, and towards evening entered a long, winding cañon leading up into the bosom of the White Pine group, in which Hamilton, Treasure Hill and Silver Springs, with the wondrous wealth of silver deposits, are situated.

Sunset in the Heart of the Continent.

            Looking back to the northward and northwestward, before reaching Hamilton, our eyes fell on a scene of savage grandeur, loneliness, and, withal, wondrous beauty, such as we might vainly seek through years of travel in other lands. A great valley stretched away to the northward a hundred miles to the Humboldt. On the northwest was the Diamond Range, lonely, barren and uninhabited ; on the northeast the great mountains which skirt Ruby Valley towered into the blue air, white and cold and sharply outlined as the icebergs that skirt the Arctic Ocean. The sky above was blue as the sapphire, and the mountain tops glistened brightly in their icy coats of mail, against a horizon of deep, soft purple, surmounted by a belt of the rich red hue of coral, which seemed to widen and contract, rise and fall, like the aureola of the Northern Light. Grandeur, silence and wild desolation were epitomized in that glorious scene.

            Almost reluctantly we turned again and wended our way up into the straggling town which has sprung up in a day, as it were, at the entrance to the great White Pine Silver District, of the wonders of which I will tell you and the public through the Alta to-morrow.

E.

[Note. — We shall publish to-morrow a full and detailed report of the White Pine mines, the condition of the country, etc., from the pen of our special correspondent .—Eds. Alta.J