CHAPTER IV.
Geister’s Journey to the Rocky Mountains.
HOW potent is the spell of a master-mind! How few objections had I been able last night to advance against Geister’s scheme, and how easily had they been overturned. So perfectly feasible did the whole appear, that even now, when I could judge of it calmly, and without prejudice from the sympathetic influence of enthusiasm—even now I could find no defect to cavil at. True, I still preserved that innate antagonism with which I had at first listened to what seemed to me simply an utter impossibility, and therefore not worthy of serious consideration; but now the aspect of the matter was considerably changed, so that I could hardly, as a rational being, advance this prejudice of feeling against a scheme that reason had tested and had not found wanting.
There was one thing, however, which it seemed to me had been overlooked. Was it not possible that the repelling substance, supposing it to be in existence, might continue such for only a limited time—that is to say, might not the repelling tendency be of an evanescent character? This I thought highly problematical; but still more was I doubtful of the truth of the monk’s narrative. The locality seemed sufficiently described; but my knowledge of California and Sonora, and the region eastward, was too limited to enable me to determine the situation of a particular mountain or river by the names and description of them given in the Legend.
In such thoughts the following day wore away, slowly and uneasily; for not wishing to break in upon the privacy of Geister, I forbore to enter the library where he was closeted, but spent the time in reading in my own study, varying this with sundry futile endeavours to render accurately a very ingenious musical puzzle, if I may so call it—one of those mazy marvels of modulation and complication at which German composers so much excel, and a particular favourite of Geister’s.
Night came on, and as it was possible that he would wish to see me before he retired to rest, I sat up till a late hour. Sleep, however, at length overcame me, and without seeking him, I resigned myself to its welcome rest from thought, and did not wake till near noon.
I was hurriedly dressing myself, when a servant entered my chamber with a letter, which he said he had been ordered by Herr Geister to deliver to me as soon as I arose. My astonishment at its contents may be imagined.
“Dear Howard,—Your surprise on learning from this letter that I am gone, I fully anticipate. The departure of a guest in so clandestine a manner, and at the same time without any ostensible reason, must at first appear wholly inexplicable. Doubtless your servants—if witnesses of any manifested astonishment on your part—will at once pass the plate in review, and feel disappointed of a hoped-for excitement when not a spoon shall be found missing. To you, however, I will at once present my motives.
“Extraordinary as my late conversation may have appeared to you, I have not vanished thus suddenly with a view to effect; for I see no merit in being mysterious for the love of mystery, or singular only to avoid the commonplace. Let me, then, explain.
“I proved, I think, satisfactorily to you, the practicability of my scheme; the Legend alone was accepted on presumptive evidence, which I then believed I could furnish. I was mistaken. Spite of the apparent completeness of the topographical portion of the narrative, I am unable to arrive at a definite conclusion as to the exact position of the mountain and river mentioned therein—to point to any one chain of the Rocky Mountains, among which I calculate the event must have taken place. It is, therefore, necessary that I should determine by personal search the truth or falsity of the statements contained in the monk’s letter; and so eager am I to do this, that, having casually learnt that a ship leaves Cadiz three days hence for the Isthmus of Panama, I at once determined to take passage by this vessel.
“Such sudden resolution, and action so immediately following that resolution, may surprise you, particularly if you have hitherto, as I believe, accounted me a dreamer only—a man of theories. It may do this; it will do more; for it will also show you that I am one of those who bear never so much, toil never so persistently, as for an idea.
“For the manner of nay leaving you there may, however, appear less reason. What reason there is must be attributed to my sensitiveness. I thought that were I to stay to bid you adieu personally, you would imagine that I was desirous of your accompanying me, which might have involved two disagreeable consequences—your declining, with excuses and compliments, and my having to listen to a refusal where I had not even made a request. Think not, for one moment, that my thus unceremoniously leaving you, evinces indifference on my part to your feelings and opinions; on the contrary, I assure you there is no man living I more respect and esteem than yourself, or am more inclined to desire as the friend of a life-time.
“After this statement, you will, I know, pardon my abrupt departure.
“I will write to you from the more important stages of my journey. Regarding you, as I do, not only as necessarily somewhat interested in my intended search, but with a feeling of friendship more decided than I have ever before experienced for anyone, I shall return to you direct, so soon as my object shall be accomplished. Farewell!
“Your true appreciator,
“Carl Geister.”
Let me hasten over the reminiscences of what I may call my existence—not life—during the next few mouths. Deprived thus suddenly of the society of an intellectual man, whose conversation, from his almost universal knowledge, his active, observant mind, and a love I had remarked in him for the quaint and curious in language, was always entertaining, generally worthy of remembrance, and often most absorbedly interesting—this loss alone, without the additional snapping of the newly-formed tie of friendship, would account for the apathetic listlessness with which I returned to my former course of life.
It was not till the seventh month from Geister’s departure, that I received a letter from him. It was stamped with the San Diego (California) post mark. This told me at once that he had not swerved from his purpose. I broke the seal with greedy impatience, and read as follows:—
“San Pablo, California.
“In a miserable town on the banks of the river Colorado, where the administration of law is a mockery—a town filled with the lowest castes of Spanish-American society,—political refugees from Mexico, felons expelled from the Mormon community at Utah, and native half-breeds, the most degenerate class in the country—in a wretched casa lies Carl Geister, sick and ill, but not despairing.
“My route has been from Cadiz to the Isthmus of Panama, thence by a tedious coasting voyage to the Gulf of California, up the gulf to the mouth of the river Colorado, and thence to San Pablo. My intention was to proceed at once up the Colorado to the Rocky Mountains; but, being attacked by fever, the very first day of my arrival at San Pablo, I have been obliged to lay up for a month.
“One of the servants of the casa, a free negro, named Rodolph, has shown such great care for me during my illness, that, feeling the want of a servant and a companion, I have engaged him. This engagement he persists in understanding to be a reward for his kindness to me when sick, and I am assured of his fidelity by the daily evidences he affords me of his gratitude.
“San Pablo is situated near the junction of the rivers Colorado and Gila, and is, I may say, the last town going north from the peninsula of California, on the borders of a country inhabited by wandering tribes of Indians, whose ferocity is proverbial. I had at first determined to trace the Colorado to its source in the Rocky Mountains; but, on inquiry, I ascertained that the entire features of the river were so distinct from those depicted in the Legend, that I was forced to come to the conclusion that this was not the river which flows at the base of El Monte del Milagro. Here I should have been at a loss how to act,—as a perilous journey of several hundred miles is too weighty an enterprise to be undertaken on pure supposition—had it not been for Rodolph, the negro. Whilst I was confined to my room by debility after fever, he made inquiries amongst the trappers and hunters in the town and neighbourhood, and at last met with an old Rocky Mountain man, who gave him the following information:—
“There is a range of mountains, called by the Mexican hunters, Los Monies del Sud, which run south-west from the Rocky Mountains. Intersecting this chain or spur, the Rio de la Esperanza flows in the same direction for some fifty miles, when it turns south, and mingles its waters with those of the river Gila. The fifty miles south-west in which the mountains and river keep together, are comparatively unknown to hunters, from the many falls and rapids in the river impeding navigation, and the ferocity of the tribes of that region, who seem to be antagonistic to the whites on principle. And there is one mountain of volcanic origin, which resembles in two important points the description of El Monte del Milagro. There is a lake of water several hundred feet above the level of the river, on a table land formed by an irregularity in the volcanic construction of the mountain; and a concave precipice represents the river side of the mountain.
“These two coincidences may be only freaks of Nature, of which many exist throughout the world; but I regard as a happy omen the name of this river (the river of hope) and intend to prosecute my search from its rise to its junction with the Gila, as soon as I have sufficiently recovered my strength to support the hardships of the journey. On questioning the old hunter myself, I found that he had only once been through that part of the country, on his way to New Mexico. His advice was to go up the Colorado to La Concepcion, and inland to Los Monies del bud; and he further offered to act as guide for a certain sum. Now, the advantages of this offer were apparent, and therefore I at once accepted his terms, and shall, I hope, before this letter gets to San Diego, have set out.
“I must admit, that—true citizen of the world as I have considered myself to be—there is, spite of self-reliance and devotion to a grand design, something in the thought of leaving civilization discordant to the tastes of an educated man. If it were the wilderness alone, solitary and impressive, one could brave its perils without fear; but that wilderness tenanted by ruthless savages—its solitude broken by the avenging shout of one tribe and the death-shriek of another,—presents a picture certainly more akin to the tastes of a trapper than to those of a student.
“Yet I, a student, am well content to run risks far greater than are now presented, for the advancement of science. The child of nature may be brave by impulse, and temporarily; but sustained courage and resolution will only be found in him who has a far nobler object in view than the fur of the beaver or the scalp of the red man.
“Despite my efforts to be stoical, lest disappointment should await me, I am all anticipation—all eagerness, to commence the journey. My one hope is, that, by the time this letter reaches you, I may have again recorded on the tablets of my life-history, the word—Success!”