The weather during the next 10 days would permit of no outside work, so it gave us an opportunity to acquaint ourselves with our surrounding which we did in a most thorough manner. Preparing ourselves with lunches, we would leave camp reasonably early and tramp up the coast or the opposite direction up the river. I remember on one of our tramps we were headed up the river, when on rounding a bend in the road we suddently [suddenly] came upon a large camp of wood cutters clearing river bottom land. The camp was inhabited at the time by only a few of what I thought was the smallest men I had ever seen. The shanties I concluded, evidently housed a large force of men by the number of them I saw, but where they were were of no interest to me, but the few I saw about the hovels interested me very much. Their size and color was of a race l never before had seen, they were no larger than a 12 year old boy, but developed like mwn of a matured age and upon accosting one it was found he was unable to speak in any language I had ever heard. We fell to guessing their nationality, but arrived at no satisfactory solution. While scrutinizing their camp we were attracted by a yelling further up the river which at times would die almost out then suddintlty [suddenly] the dim would be a perfect bedlam; it did not take us many minutes to decided that we should investigate this uproar, breaking into a run we soon arrived at one of what proved to be almost laughing sight after we found what was causing the excitement, Around a large pool in the river were something like 30 of these strange little men, running backward and foreword, first into the water then out and up the river over rocks and around clumps of brush, out of sight of us. Then back down the river pell mell when suddently {suddenly} two or three would run waist deep into the water and bury his head an shoulders out of sight into the stream, suddently [suddenly} some one of them would let out an unearthly yell and down the river again they would go. Presently on both sides of the pool they would be seen running and yelling back again.
They passed this time on up stream yelling at the top of their voices and on glancing toward their camp we perceived two men running toward us with large bundles which proved to be, when they arrived blankets and bed clothing, which they began hurriedly to tie together and stretch across the stream weighing the loner edge of the blankets with large rocks forming a dam or barrier across the river. When our laughter had subsided somewhat our questions flew fast, “What were they doing?”
Someone advanced the idea that it was a religious rite, another thought it was an open air play or theatrical proformance [performance].
As our discussion grew warm, our entertainers grew warmer even if soaked to the skin. Three men now had taken their hand at the net across the river armed with clubs and large rocks while the mob in general was still carrying on their antics now almost under the bank on which we stood, but for the life of us we could not agree upon what it all meant.
It probably continued at this place for 5 minutes when sundently [suddenly] they turned as one man and beating the water with their clubs and throwing rocks, they ran toward the net yelling like mad. The men at the net caught the spirit of yelling almost as soon as their comrades started toward them. This seemed to be the final climax, for they were closing in an their imaginary enemy, as we thought, and so close did they stare; or march that it grew into a solid compact mass of yelling stamping wild men suddently [suddenly] all went down completely submerged except their backs still fighting and churning the water into a foam for many feet around, but in a moment out of the jungle of human bodies arose one fellow holding as high as he could reach with both hands a salmon. The show was over and they were Japanese, a fact we learned several days later and as we had no doubt everyone of us read of, but few had ever seen.
In the state, at that time, a Japanese was a curiosity, numbering scarcely in the hundreds, while this writing they reach nearly 80,000.
Big Sur…NEXT