We took the stage here for Red Bluff, the rain pouring in torrents and the night dark as Erebus, it being the beginning of the regular rainy season of this country.  During the night we reached the Sacramento River, which we could almost have imagined to be the Styx, with the sombre Charon for a ferry-man, for we soon learned that we were obliged to cross upon a flat boat.  The wind was blowing in so fierce a gale that the boatmen could not near the shore, and called upon the passengers for assistance.  All the gentlemen responded but one passenger, who, although a man, was not gentle, settled himself upon the back seat and declared he would not pay his passage and work it too.  All attempts of the ladies to shame him into activity were useless.  He could not be induced to leave his snuggery, and even as we talked he was lustily snoring.  So do some selfish natures smoothly slip through the emergencies of life, leaving to others the responsibilities and exertion; and this man I was afterwards told was a professional humorist, actually a humorous writer for the press, and I must accept this as one of his jokes.

After three weary hours we drifted to the shore, and next day went to Red Bluff, a wild, uncanny place, but abounding in wealth and replete with generous hearts, of whose bounty I was a rich recipient.

Thence we went to Shasta, where Mr. Hudson, a cousin of Hattie, had rooms in readiness for us at the American Hotel.  The meeting of the cousins, after a separation of nineteen years, was a joyous one, their animated conversation keeping time with the quick, impetuous throbbing of their hearts.  The pleasure of our day there was also much enhanced by the sprightly—­even brilliant conversation of the hotel proprietress, Mrs. Green, whose three-score years and ten were worn as gracefully as many a maiden’s sweet sixteen.

As a protracted rain seemed inevitable, and all business possibilities were precluded, we assented to Mr. Hudson’s proposition to visit his bachelor quarters in the country, which we found to be one of the most romantic, sylvan shades imaginable, with its little three roomed-cot embowered in vines and running roses, then in full bloom, and after the storm, radiant in color, freighted with perfume and sparkling with liquid gems.  Alone he had occupied this secluded spot for nineteen years, and in his isolation—­

    “Had made him friends of mountains;
    With the stars and the quick spirits of the Universe,
    He held his dialogues,
    And they did teach to him
    The magic of their mysteries.”

He was as familiar as a hunter, with every trail in the vicinity, and he took us through every romantic, winding path, one of which led us to an elevation commanding a view of Mount Shasta, the highest peak of the Coast Range.

Reluctantly we left this “pleasure dome,” which, although less stately than that “in Xanadu of Kubla Kahn,” held all the fairy charms of a bright Eutopia; and with the vain regrets which all must feel who leave some fancy realm for the cold regions of reality, we took the stage route for Weaversville, forty miles farther up the mountain heights, whose crests were now white with snow, and the road in many places running within six inches of the ragged chasms, thousands of feet in depth.