AN APOSTLE OF THE TULES
I
On October 10, 1856, about four hundred people were camped in
Tasajara Valley, California. It could not have been for the prospect, since a
more barren, dreary, monotonous, and uninviting landscape never
stretched before human eye; it could not have been for convenience or
contiguity, as the nearest settlement was thirty miles away; it could not
have been for health or salubrity, as the breath of the ague-haunted tules in
the outlying Stockton marshes swept through the valley; it could not have
been for space or comfort, for, encamped on an unlimited plain, men and
women were huddled together as closely as in an urban tenement-house,
without the freedom or decency of rural isolation; it could not have been
for pleasant companionship, as dejection, mental anxiety, tears, and
lamentation were the dominant expression; it was not a hurried flight from
present or impending calamity, for the camp had been deliberately planned,
and for a week pioneer wagons had been slowly arriving; it was not an
irrevocable exodus, for some had already returned to their homes that
others might take their places. It was simply a religious revival of one or
two denominational sects, known as a "camp-meeting."