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How the Cattle got into Newport Bay

An incident of Southern California Pioneer Life.

See the broad and level valley,

Stretching far and stretching farther-
From the mesas next the foot-hills
To the mesas next the ocean-
Flat and level like a table.
Through it winds the Santa Ana,
Scant and sluggish in the summer,
Burrowing in the sands and hiding
From the heats and glare of summer.
But when falls the rain of winter,
Falls the semi-tropic rain-flood,
Then it spreads a turbid torrent,
Overruns its banks of willows,
Fringe of reeds and guatemoles,
Frights the rabbit from his thicket;
Floods the lurking place of coyote,
Rouses from his sleep the badger,
And in hole or deep dug burrow,
Drowns the squirrel and the gopher.

But the valley, fairest valley!
Tempered by soft ocean breezes,
Fertile, healthful, ever lovely.
Here the raisin grape doth flourish,
Thrive the wine grape's juicy cluster,
Thrives the apple and the orange,
Thrives the apricot and walnut,
Olives, figs, pears, plums and peaches,
Nectarines, persimmons, loquats,
Fruits from every clime and country.

Thither from the Mississippi,
Wended once some hardy settlers;
Bought huge tracts of untilled ranchos;
Grazed their cattle and their horses,
Burnt off fields of weedy jungle,
Broke the unaccustomed stubble,
Sowed their corn and sowed their barley;
And in tents or rude adobes
Patient watched the work of nature.

Sweetly blew Pacific's zephyrs,
Glowed the semi-tropic sunshine;

Upward sprang the corn and barley,
Flourished like the hopes of settlers.
"Never saw such corn and barley!
Sure the crop'll beat the dickens!"

But alas for fertile promise!
Dawned a morning bright and lovely ;
Lo! what are those moving creatures?
Far away on corn and barley,
Trampling down its green luxuriance,
Range strange flocks and lowing cattle,
No vaqueros there to guide them,
No vaqueros there to stay them.

And all idly in his "dobe"

Sits and smokes the swart ranchero. "Zounds! but this is past endurance!"

Cries the thrifty, hardy settler.

"Zounds! I'll blow his old black head off!"

Fiercely mounts his fractious bronco,
Seizes whip, all lithe and ready,
Chases off the hungry cattle,
Chases, swears, and sweats with fury.
Then unto the swarthy rancher:
"I won't 'low no more sech foolin';
Damn it! whereat's that ar' cowboy?
He had better mind his bus'ness!
Ef I catch them cattle poachin'

I will shoot them down like rabbits."
Then the Mexican, all slowly :
"Señor, I am very sorry,

But vaqueros are so lazy,
And our cattle are so vagrant.
When you find them in your corn-fields,
When they trample o'er your barley,
Señor, you had better chase them,
Lash and thrash and chase them ever;
But don't shoot them, gentle señor;
Shooting's something two can play at."
And the cool and wily greaser
Laid his hand upon his rifle.
Vexed and baffled felt the Hoosier,
As he rueful viewed his grain fields.
Still, consoled himself by saying:
"There is yet a monster crop left;
Surely now they'll watch their cattle.”
Vain his hope, and vain his trusting.
Ever and again the cattle,
Vagrant, hungry, slyly ranging,
Seek the luscious green of barley;
Trample down the juicy corn-stalks.
While the rude, unkempt vaqueros
Roll their eyes up in amazement;
Say: "O Señor, we did sleepa !
Jesu! Señor, dey veel vanders,
Tires of filari' and clovah."

Yet again the settlers planted;
Yet again strange cattle raided;
Till at last, all patience vanished,

One fair night when glowed the moon-beams,
'Neath a sycamore were gathered
All these stalwart, wrathful Hoosiers,
Counselling in eager whispers
How to outwit such rude neighbors.

And again (the moon full tardy
Lingered long behind Trubuco),
Met upon the plains the Hoosiers.
What are all these moving creatures

Guided by the wily settlers?
They are Mexicano cattle,

Gathered here and gathered yonder,
Piloted by plotting Hoosiers
Softly, slowly, surely southward,
Through the malva and the mustard,
O'er the "filari'" and fox-tail,
By the sloughs and by the tules,
To the mesas near the ocean.
When the moon beyond Trubuco
Rises full-faced and expectant,
Lo! far out upon the mesa
Goaded on by strange vaqueros,
Are those roving, thieving cattle.
No more will they tramp green barley;
No more crunch the juicy corn-stalk ;
Wild-eyed, snorting, plunging, bellowing,
Southward, southward, ever southward,
They are prodded, they are goaded,
Lashed and thrashed to wildest fury.
See! the bay beyond the mesa
Softly glimmers 'neath the moonlight.
Ah! what breaks its dimpling surface?
Churns to foam its deeps and shallows?
Down the steeps that guard its border,
Pell-mell, rolling, leaping, tumbling,
Come these vagrant, poaching cattle!
O'er the cliff they goad each other;
Stain with blood the peaceful waters,
While from hill to hill wild echoes
Each dumb brute's last cry of anguish.
When the sun from o'er Trubuco
Looks again upon the valley,
Scurrying hither, thither, yonder,
Run unkempt, perplexed vaqueros.
"Jesu! Jesu! Oh! car-r-amba!
Hast thou seen our cattle, Señors?"
And each Hoosier, calmly smoking,
Lazily on rifle leaning,

Answers slowly, answers sternly:
"Whereat are those vagrant cattle?
Damn it! I am not your cowboy.
Ef they're not upon my rancho,
In my corn or on my barley,
Where they are is none my fun'ral,
They may go straight to the devil.
Gad! but he's the kind of cowboy
Fittest for sech poachin' creeters!"

Augusta E. Towner.

The Triumph of Art.

The old Greek legend of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, the artist fooled by art itself, was re-enacted a few days ago in San Francisco. On the south side of

Clay street, over the Savings Bank is a suite of rooms well adapted for artists' use. Some years ago they were occupied by Rodriguez and some fellow painters who covered the walls in their leisure hours with every device of the idle brush, making the helpless plaster bear the work of their wild fancies.

Young Barkhaus, the promising young artist, who died recently in Munich, was often there and contributed his quota to the designs. One day he amused himself by painting on the wall in one corner of the room down near the baseboard, a hole in the plastering, as though some ill natured fellow had vented his spite against the world by kicking a hole in the wall.

The picture was capitally done; there was an ugly ragged hole in the plastering with huge gaping cracks radiating from the corners, here and there round the edges of the hole a bit of gray mortar, where the "hard finish" had scaled off and in the middle of all the bare laths, with bits of plaster between them.

Time wore on, and Rodriguez left the rooms; another tenant came in and wanted the place cleaned up and put in order before occupation. Orders were given to repair the walls and kalsomine them. The artist of the kalsomine brush repaired thither with his men, armed with buckets of plaster to fill the numerous nail-holes and scars in the walls. His attention was at once directed to the big hole near the baseboard, and he himself started to repair it. He kneeled down before it, dipped his brush in water to wet the laths before putting on the new plaster, and laid it gently on the supposed board-and then for the first time realized that he was taken in. The artist in oil had deceived his fellow of the kalsomine brush completely.

I will spare his blushes by not giving his name, for he owned up like a man and confessed he was "sold." It is needless to say the "hole" was not kalsomined but remains to take in some future plasterer.

To My Correspondent who writes of the Weather.

Write all about yourself, my dear!
For I don't care, I'm sure-Oh,
Reports as if from "Probs" to hear,
Or from the Weather Bureau.

I wish to hear of you-the straws
That show which way you're blowing;
I want to know your life, because
Your life is worth the knowing.

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Our skies and hills were dear? And how bright

wings

Did glisten in the tangled "hedge-row things" So loved by thee?

Now thou art free

From cumbrous burden of the failing clay,
And know'st the glory of the spirit day,
Dost thou look back upon us here
To this lone spot where, for a year,
Has lain thy form so dear-so dear?

And does our light seem dark to eyes
Grown used to suns of paradise?

This spot where glad free creatures come and go,
And, loitering on the grasses, seem to know
How dear the place to her who lies below ;

This spot where thou didst dream-
Does it in twilight seem,

And we but shadows as we pass,
When kneeling on the scented grass.
We reverent touch the fragrant mould
Which doth such sacred treasure hold?
Or dost thou know, beyond,
Our hearts' deep throb and fond
As we the wild kinnikinnick unbind
And its long shreds about our fingers wind?
O humble shrub, what trust is thine!
Above such dead more closely twine,

And swing thy pink-white bells with churchly pride,

Thy holly-berries for her Christmas tide

Spread bright beneath thy crystal snows;
Anemone and low wild rose,

And every tiny bud that blows,

Make ye mosaics in God's patterns laid
Above this tomb beneath the pine trees' shade.
For O! she knows and loves you still,
All ye wild things upon the hill,
And in the kindling morns and evening glows
Sees you with joy. Grow well-she knows, she
knows.
Amelia Woodward Truesdell.

Robert Fulton.'

BOOK REVIEWS.

This volume insures an interest from its being the biography of the man who made the first practical demonstration of the use of steam as a motive power in the propulsion of vessels. He never claimed to have been the first to suggest steam 'The Life of Robert Fulton and a History of Steam Navigation. By Thomas W. Knox. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1886. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.

navigation, but simply to have devised improvements by which it could be successfully accomplished. Apart from his efforts and experiments in the use of steam, from the crude beginnings up to the successful use of it, there is not much in the book. As a boy or man there was little in his life worth telling; but the early enthusiasm of a mechanical genius is interesting to witness, and his persistent efforts and progress to the consum

mation of his desires make a theme that enlists the attention and ensures the entertainment of most intelligent people.

Robert Fulton was born in Pennsylvania in 1765, and died in New York in 1815. His first successful steamboat was "The Claremont," which was built at a shipyard on the East River, and was completed in the spring of 1807; and the first trial trip was in August of the same year from New York to Albany, making the passage up the river, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, in thirty-two hours, an average of five miles an hour. The return trip was made in thirty hours. The rest of his life was devoted to steamboat building, to working improvements upon his earlier inventions, to litigating with the swarm of persons who crowded about anticipating him in energy sometimes in acquiring patents upon his own inventions, in building ferry-boats, submarine boats, and in the accomplishment of one of his most noted successes, that of the first steam frigate that was ever built, "The Demologos," but subsequently named "The Fulton the First."

The body of Robert Fulton was buried in Trinity church-yard in the city of New York, and it now lies there in the vault of Robert Livingston.

....

"Fulton's name," says his biographer, "is not upon the slab, nor is there any monument near the spot to show that his remains are there...... The grave of the builder of the first successful passenger steamboat and of the first steamship of war that was ever launched, is unmarked by a monument, or even by a stone of any kind, bearing his name...... The grave is but a few yards from the elevated railway, where every day pass hundreds of trains bearing thousands of passengers in their journeys between the business and residence portions of New York. How many of these thousands know where Fulton is buried?"

Scarcely more than a third of this volume is devoted to the life of Fulton. The remainder is given up to a pleasant and concise history of steam navigation since his day, in America, in Europe, and in Asia, the Cunard, the Collins, the Inman, and other great steamship lines, with a full and particular account of the Great Eastern, her achievements and failures, with details of her structure and capacities, and much interesting matter concerning torpedoes and torpedo-boats, iron-clads, and the navies of the world.

Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison.1

Mrs. Madison ("Queen Dolly") deserves a more lively biography than is here given by her grandniece. For sixteen years (1801-17) Mrs. Madison 'Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison. By her Grandniece. Houghton, Mifflin & Co: Boston. 1886. For sale in San Francisco by Chilion Beach.

was, what our society reporters are pleased to call the "first lady of the land" for Jefferson, being a widower, relied upon the beautiful and amiable wife of his Secretary of State to do the social honors of his administration; and when her husband became President, she was already enthroned in the affections of a people susceptible to the charms of womanly grace and goodness.

The influence exercised by Mrs. Madison in her day and generation came entirely from the femininity of her character. Beauty, grace, tact, good memory, and genuine kindness of heart, with warm affections, were all hers and from childhood won for her love and consideration.

Our authoress describes Mary Coles, the mother of her heroine, as a great belle with many admirers, including Jefferson; and then on the next page says of her and her husband, that they were strict members of the "Society of Friends." We may, perhaps, conclude that Mary Coles, after her marriage, changed from a society belle to a strict Quaker; but how can we reconcile her Quaker principles about dress and jewelry, the latter being entirely denied her daughter, with the statement that little Dolly was sent to school each morning "equipped with a white linen mask to keep every ray of sunshine from the complexion, a sun-bonnet sewed on her head, and long gloves covering the hands and arms?" Did mothers in those days, Quaker mothers, too, take such precautions to keep sun and wind from the complexions of their little daughters? While incredulous as to any such custom, yet we find other pictures of life and manners that make one of the chief features of interest in this little volume.

For example, when Dolly, now Mrs. Todd, a young widow, became engaged to James Madison, she and her lover and a party of friends went from Philadelphia where she was living, to the residence of her sister in Virginia, to be married. The weather was fine (September, 1794). The prospective bride with her little son, her maid, and a sister of twelve, occupied a carriage, while Mr. Madison and several friends rode on horse back. The gay cavalcade were a week on the way. What a delightful time they must have had! Railways have spoiled such pleasant journeyings.

Mr. Madison was twenty years her senior and a confirmed bachelor when he first saw the charming young widow. He surrendered at once. His marriage brought him a sympathetic and affectionate wife, as well as a society queen to grace his administration. Her influence did much to soften the asperities of politicians. In his time personal bitterness exceeded anything we have known in ours; "yet she was beloved by all parties, and embittered politicians who never

met save at her hospitable board, forgot all their quarrels under the influence of her gracious tact. The magical effect of her dainty snuff box [sic] was potent." She cared not for study and very little for reading, but her amiability and ready tact made all classes her friends.

The second war with Great Britain came on, and Madison was not intended for a war President. The inefficiency of the defense of Washington seems incredible. He must be held chiefly responsible for the disgraceful panic that gave up the capital of the country to the British without a struggle. Mrs. Madison seemed to forget her husband was the head of a nation, and was mostly concerned for his personal safety. What a sorry figure he cuts, hiding in a hovel in the woods, for fear the British may find him!

At the expiration of his term of office he retires to his plantation in Virginia, his wife apparently not regretting the change. His health, always delicate, becomes miserable, and for nearly twenty years, and until his death at the age of eighty-five, she devotes herself to him, sometimes not leaving the house for months. At sixty-five she is again a widow, and soon returns to Washington and resumes the position in society to which her amiability, tact, and antecedents entitle her. She died at eighty-five, greatly beloved and regretted. One would suppose a more readable book could be made of the materials at the author's disposal. But as Mrs. Madison never said anything or wrote anything to be remembered, but was only a womanly woman, who diffused love and happiness all about her, the memoirs of her life, we suppose, could not be very lengthy, or, to those who did not know her, very entertaining.

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intimates, however, that he left the navy for the navy's good. The language of his first lieutenant about himself and comrade, who both left the service at the same time and for the same cause, was "that our high spirits might be appreciated in social circles ashore, but were an infernal nuisance on board one of her Majesty's ships." Young, reckless, full of animal spirits, he found himself stranded in

The Cruise of the Alabama. By One of the Crew. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1886. For sale in San Francisco by C. Beach.

Liverpool as the Alabama was getting ready for sea, and shipped as a common sailor aboard of her.

The yarn he spins is amusing, but one has a suspicious feeling all the time that it is like other sailor-yarns, and not too highly flavored with truth. Not the least interesting part of it is the comments now and then thrown in about men and affairs. For example: "I have found that wherever the English rule a subject race, they do it justly and well, but they do not win their love and respect. Your Englishman is by nature arrogant and overbearing in manner, and if he does a favor for one that he is not afraid of, he generally accompanies it with a kick, and is appreciated accordingly.

The crew that manned the Alabama were just such blackguards and cut-throats as one would expect on a ship engaged in the business of capturing and burning merchantmen. McGregor, the rigid Calvinist, but "a cool, remorseless, determined villain," is too bad for belief. His tales of murder and piratical adventures shocked even his scoundrelly mess-mates. When these worthies were discussing what single act a man could do that would most likely insure him salvation, they agreed that of their number Flaherty had as good a show as any of them because he once killed a policeman. The book is readable.

Meditations of a Parish Priest.?

The Abbé Joseph Roux discovered himself to the editor of this volume by two or three chansons de geste in the Review of the Romance Languages. A correspondence sprang up between them, and M. Mariéton sought out the Limousin author, only to find him a voluminous writer, behind a great pile of manuscript, not merely of poems, but of meditations upon a multitude of topics, and a publisher of nothing. Seeking a poet, he found a remarkable French prose writer and philologist.

The Abbé Roux was born at Tulle in 1834, of a humble and numerous family. He has lived the life of a priest, apart from the world, a man of melancholy and thoughtful disposition, of poetic sensibility, of fine powers of observation and analysis. With a style pointed and epigrammatic, he has indited his meditations upon a myriad subjects that interest observant and thoughtful people. The result of the acquaintance of M. Mariéton with the Abbé was that the former set about to edit a part of the works of the latter, and make known an author who has now become one of the most widely known among the lettered men of the South of France.

This volume is a welcome contribution to the literature of the paragraphists, and is valuable not

2Meditations of a Parish Priest: Thoughts by Joseph Roux. Introduction by Paul Mariéton-Translated from the third French edition by Isabel F. Hapgood. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1886.

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