第3章 CALISTOGA(1)

IT is difficult for a European to imagine Calistoga, the whole place is so new, and of such an accidental pattern; the very name, I hear, was invented at a supper-party by the man who found the springs.

The railroad and the highway come up the valley about parallel to one another.The street of Calistoga joins the perpendicular to both - a wide street, with bright, clean, low houses, here and there a verandah over the sidewalk, here and there a horse-post, here and there lounging townsfolk.

Other streets are marked out, and most likely named; for these towns in the New World begin with a firm resolve to grow larger, Washington and Broadway, and then First and Second, and so forth, being boldly plotted out as soon as the community indulges in a plan.But, in the meanwhile, all the life and most of the houses of Calistoga are concentrated upon that street between the railway station and the road.Inever heard it called by any name, but I will hazard a guess that it is either Washington or Broadway.Here are the blacksmith's, the chemist's, the general merchant's, and Kong Sam Kee, the Chinese laundryman's; here, probably, is the office of the local paper (for the place has a paper - they all have papers); and here certainly is one of the hotels, Cheeseborough's, whence the daring Foss, a man dear to legend, starts his horses for the Geysers.

It must be remembered that we are here in a land of stage-drivers and highwaymen: a land, in that sense, like England a hundred years ago.The highway robber - road-agent, he is quaintly called - is still busy in these parts.The fame of Vasquez is still young.Only a few years go, the Lakeport stage was robbed a mile or two from Calistoga.In 1879, the dentist of Mendocino City, fifty miles away upon the coast, suddenly threw off the garments of his trade, like Grindoff, in THE MILLER AND HIS MEN, and flamed forth in his second dress as a captain of banditti.A great robbery was followed by a long chase, a chase of days if not of weeks, among the intricate hill-country; and the chase was followed by much desultory fighting, in which several - and the dentist, Ibelieve, amongst the number - bit the dust.The grass was springing for the first time, nourished upon their blood, when I arrived in Calistoga.I am reminded of another highwayman of that same year."He had been unwell," so ran his humorous defence, "and the doctor told him to take something, so he took the express-box."The cultus of the stage-coachman always flourishes highest where there are thieves on the road, and where the guard travels armed, and the stage is not only a link between country and city, and the vehicle of news, but has a faint warfaring aroma, like a man who should be brother to a soldier.California boasts her famous stage-drivers, and among the famous Foss is not forgotten.Along the unfenced, abominable mountain roads, he launches his team with small regard to human life or the doctrine of probabilities.

Flinching travellers, who behold themselves coasting eternity at every corner, look with natural admiration at their driver's huge, impassive, fleshy countenance.He has the very face for the driver in Sam Weller's anecdote, who upset the election party at the required point.Wonderful tales are current of his readiness and skill.One in particular, of how one of his horses fell at a ticklish passage of the road, and how Foss let slip the reins, and, driving over the fallen animal, arrived at the next stage with only three.

This I relate as I heard it, without guarantee.