a mass of weeds and litter, with
bad roads, poor fences, and an almost impassable corduroy bridge over a
little ditch. On the contrary, in half the time it would be a model of
cleanliness and order; it would have the best roads, the neatest cottages,
the cleanest grounds, the most thorough culture; and when the Indians had
produced this effect, they would not fail to be in love with it.

Nor is it impossible to do all this with Indians. But it needs men used to
command, well educated, and with habits of discipline--the picked men
of the army. At present, an Indian reservation differs from an Indian
rancheria or village only in that it contains more food, more vice, and
more lazy people.

[Illustration: VIEW ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE REDWOODS AND THE SAW-MILL COUNTRY OF MENDOCINO.

Some years ago, before there was a wagon-road between Cloverdale and
Mendocino City, or Big River, as it is more commonly called up here on
the northern coast, the mail was carried on horse--or, more usually, on
mule--back; and the mail-rider was caught, on one stormy and dark night,
upon the road, and found himself unable to go farther. In this dilemma
he took refuge, with his mule and the United States mails, in a hollow
redwood, and man and mule lay down comfortably within its shelter. They
had room to spare indeed, as I saw when the stage-driver pointed out the
tree to me and kindly stopped until I examined it.

At a road-side inn I found they had roofed over a hollow stump, and used
it as a capacious store-room.

All these were large trees, of course; but there is no reason to believe
that they were the biggest of their kind; and when you have traveled for
two or three days through the redwood forests of the northern coast of
California you will scarcely be surprised at any story of big trees.

The redwood seems to be found only near the coast of California; it needs
the damp air which comes from the sea and which blows against the mountain
slopes, which the tree loves. The coast, from fifty miles north of San
Francisco to the northern border of Humboldt County, is a dense redwood
forest; it is a mountainous and broken country, and the mountains are cut
at frequent intervals by streams, some but a few miles in length, others
penetrating into the interior by narrow canons forty or fifty miles, and
dividing in their upper waters into several branches.

The man who wondered at the wisdom of Providence in ca