On A Donkey's Hurricane Deck Part 49

Landing at Porte Costa, I was directed on the shortest route to Oakland, and amid cheers and hearty well-wishes started to climb the trail over the hills which border the river from that point to some distance south.

It was after dark when, descending the bluffs and trailing a few miles along the river, I rode into the little village of San Pablo. The streets were quite deserted, and the few men I talked with answered my inquiries in Spanish. Finally, I entered a humble tavern whose Irish proprietor directed me on the right road. Only a few miles now lay between me and Oakland, and although tired and hungry I did not stop for supper, but pushed onward over the level road, now and then walking a half mile to rest my tired yet uncomplaining mounts or to ease my joints, until I rode into the city at midnight. c.o.o.nskin met me on the road and cheered me with the information that all the duties a.s.signed to him were attended to, then piloted me to the hotel and the animals to the stable.

After getting something to eat I retired.

c.o.o.nskin had interviewed the reporters, and the morning press heralded my advent in long and sensational notices. When I went to the stable everybody seemed to identify me with the traveler pictured in the papers. I inwardly chuckled when I thought of my dilapidated garb and general unkempt appearance. I was still lame and felt that I had walked around the world in eighty days.

My poor little donks were lying down when I went to their stalls.

The twenty-eight-mile tramp of the preceding day had told on them.

Mac rose to his feet and stuck up his nose to be rubbed.

"You have almost earned your pension, too," I said. "But now come to the smith's to have your new shoes put on. They are of pure silver, and befitting one that has made such a record in the field of travel." The little fellow smiled, and playfully pulled the handkerchief out of my pocket while I adjusted his bridle. And when he walked out of the shop "in" his pretty new shoes he looked as proud as any lad in his first pair of pants.

c.o.o.nskin and I lunched early. The customary crowd followed my party to the ferry, and some crossed with us on the boat to 'Frisco. How happy I felt while drifting over San Francis...o...b..y! I pointed toward the goal, and to a bystander, said: "During my 340 days'

journey, I have had only a vague vision of the city before me, but the day I started from New York I felt as confident of reaching it as I do now." Several pa.s.sengers laughed incredulously; nevertheless I spoke the truth.

The ferry approach in 'Frisco was choked with a rabble. Upon landing c.o.o.nskin and I rode our little long-eared animals up Market street to a prominent hotel, a cheering throng of men and street gamins tagging behind or following by the walk on both sides of the street. And when at two o'clock the gla.s.s doors to its great white court were thrown open to us, I was just twenty-two hours ahead of schedule time.

The several rows of balconies were crowded with hotel guests and friends waving handkerchiefs and hats, and cheer upon cheer rose to the crystal roof and descended to our ears. The court was packed. I called a porter.

"Bring a rug for my silver-shod donkey to stand on," I ordered.

The darkey looked mystified, and had the insolence to question my strange request, but he soon brought the rug. The reporters aided me to urge back the crowd to give the spectators in the balconies a view of Mac's silver-shod hoofs, all four of which c.o.o.nskin lifted, one after the other, for them to see.

"Three cheers for Mac A'Rony!" some one shouted from the balcony.

It was the signal for a general outburst of applause; and Mac, c.o.xey and Don, each, respectively, brayed or bayed his deafening acknowledgment of the popular ovation.

Then I briefly reviewed my long and tempestuous voyage of 4,096 miles on a donkey's hurricane deck in 340 days and two hours.

Frequently I was interrupted with laughter or cheers, as I cited some ludicrous experience, and the unbridled throng, many of them mere street loungers, laughed and yelled and whistled until, finally, the incensed manager was attracted to the Court. The police were unable to cope with the crowd, so I was requested to remove the cause of the disturbance. Indeed I was grateful for the excuse to get away from that wild scene. c.o.o.nskin took the animals to the stable, and I, after registering, immediately sought a more exclusive hotel, to whose landlord I bore a letter of introduction from a distinguished gentleman friend.

I must have looked as if I had crossed Central Africa and had fought fifty tribes of cannibals. My clothes, hat and leggings were in shreds, my sleeves were fastened to my coat with bale-wire, and blue cotton hung in view.

"Do you take tramps at this hotel?" I inquired of the astonished clerk of the Occidental, as I leaned on the office counter. He stopped sorting letters and eyed me with curiosity, but before he recovered his reason, the junior proprietor appeared, and said: "Sometimes," then with a knowing smile extended his hand in greeting.

"I believe this is Mr. Pod," he said. I nodded and handed him the letter. When he had read it the affable young gentleman extended me the freedom of the hotel and three days later got up a coaching party in my honor.

I was soon a transformed man. After a shave and hair-cut and bath, I dressed and appeared at the office attired as a gentleman on parade, and was hardly recognized by the clerk to be the same man.

c.o.o.nskin, too, I had fitted out completely; besides I gave him a sum of money and an honorable discharge. In a few days he secured a situation in a hotel, but later set out for a mining camp in the Sierras to dig for gold.

I presented one donkey to Golden Gate Park, and sold the other, but I retained possession of my dog. Frequently afterward I called at the park to see dear old faithful Mac A'Rony.

In conclusion, let me state that I had eleven donkeys on my overland trip, never more than five at one time. I wore out ten pairs of boots, and put one hundred and forty-eight shoes on my animals at an average cost of ninety cents each, and arrived at my journey's end with several hundred dollars in pocket and weighing thirty-three pounds more than I did the day I set out from New York with ninety-nine cents.

"I am as free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in the woods the n.o.ble savage ran."

EPILOGUE

This tale will be hard to swallow, because truth is stronger than fiction.

The trip was more healthful for Pod than for me.

There are four distinct distances across the American continent, viz:

Three thousand miles as the crow flies.

Three thousand five hundred as the train steams.

Four thousand by overland trail for a man.

A million miles as a donkey goes.

The most monotonous constant companion for a long journey is a man.

There are more people who descend to the level of a jacka.s.s than donkeys that rise to the plane of man.

If Pye Pod had been killed or drowned, or had died on the journey he would have been condemned and ridiculed as a fool by the same people who now applaud and envy him for his achievement.

If I had died on the first day of the trip the world would have called me lucky; now that I lived through it, I'm d----d lucky!

M. A'R.

TRANSCRIBER ENDNOTE:

End-of-line hyphens have been retained or discarded to maintain internal consistency, when possible.

In table of contents, for page 213, "XXVII." changed to "XXVIII."

For page 219 entry, "Accross" changed to "Across".

Page 49: in "he did it them.", "them" to "then".

Page 50: the quotation mark at the end of the paragraph that ends with "[...] to his quarters." has no obvious mate, unless at the beginning of the paragraph on page 49 "Those who were not 'let in' to [...]" If so, then this would be a long quotation containing five paragraphs, with only two quotation marks, other than embedded short quotations. It has been formatted (e.g. by indentation) as such herein.

Some instances of the odd use of quotation marks have been retained.

Others--which seemed clearly wrong or misleading, have been changed.

Some were changed silently, but a few of these are listed below.

Page 102: one "the" removed from "visiting the homes of the the great".

Page 107: "protographs" to "photographs".

Page 109: "into his hay loft.." to "into his hay loft." Similar corrections on page 121 and 126. Also fixed a double comma on page 255.

Page 120: "semed" to "seemed".