The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 | Page 7

done by the insertion of a word or phrase, or by some other simple emendation, changes were generally made. The extract (post, p. 11) following is printed just as it appeared in the Pioneer.
As a frame to the graceful picture, on one side rose the Buttes, that group of hills so piquant and saucy; and on the other tossing to Heaven the everlasting whiteness of their snow wreathed foreheads, stood, sublime in their very monotony, the glorious Sierra Nevada.
Besides changes in capitalization and punctuation, the words, "the summits of," are inserted before "the glorious Sierra." Compare Bret Harte's lines,--
Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting, The river sang below; The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting Their minarets of snow.
By the word "Sierras" the mountain-range called the Sierra Nevada is not meant, but merely teeth-like summits thereof, which uplift their snow-clad peaks, or "minarets." The Spanish word "sierra" means, in English, a saw, and also a ridge of mountains and craggy rocks. "Nevada" means here, in connection with "Sierra," snowy. Thus, "the snowy ridge of mountains and craggy rocks," or, to express the meaning more clearly in English, the snowy serrated mountain-range. Bret Harte's capitalization of "Sierras" may be safely challenged. The lines are from his poem, Dickens in Camp.
The Buttes mentioned by Shirley are the Marysville Buttes. "Butte" is French, and descriptive, and French trappers bestowed the name.
Shirley sometimes uses an adverb instead of an adjective. Thus on page 332, speaking of a tame frog on the bar at a rancho, she says,--
You cannot think how comically [comic] it looked hopping about the bar, quite as much at home as a tame squirrel would have been.
An old San Francisco printer once heard a newspaperman say that this little incident furnished the suggestion to Mark Twain for his Jumping Frog of Calaveras, but, unfortunately, regarded the remark as of no more importance than much other gossip current among printers and newspapermen.
Shirley, like many another writer, used marks of quotation improperly, when the language of the author cited was altered or adapted. Worse than this are many instances of gross misquotation. In the former case, the quotation-marks were deleted; in the latter, accuracy was the aim.
On page 79 quotation-marks are deleted, the language used being adapted, thus, "clothe themselves with curses as with a garment." Compare Psalms cix, 18, "He clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment."
On page 101 a correction is made; thus, "As thy day is, so shall thy strength be" (Deut. xxxiii, 25). In the Letters this read, "As thy days, so," etc.
On page 268 quotation-marks are deleted, as the language used is adapted, and in a strict sense is also inaccurate; thus, "The woman tempted me, and I did eat." Compare Genesis iii, 12, 13.
12. And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
Blunders and mistakes of all sorts might be set out, but it is not deemed advisable to pursue this matter any further. It is, however, necessary to say something further of THE PIONEER itself, and the paper-cover title of the May, 1855, number is reprinted here, with an outline drawing of the crude woodcut vignette printed in the original. It was impossible to secure a satisfactory facsimile of the title. The names of some of the agents of the magazine are of historical interest.

The PIONEER
or
California Monthly Magazine
[Illustration]

May, 1855
SAN FRANCISCO PUBLISHED by LE COUNT & STRONG Nos. 111 & 113 MONTGOMERY STREET
For SALE at all the BOOKSTORES in the CITY
AGENTS
J. W. JONES, Benicia; CHAS. BINNEY, Sacramento; R. A. EDDY & CO., Marysville; GEO. VINCENT & CO., Coloma; LANGTON & BRO., Downieville; A. ROMAN, Shasta; ROMAN & PARKER, Yreka; NASH & DAVIS, Placerville; ADAMS & CO., Jackson; ADAMS & CO., Georgetown; ADAMS & CO., Mud Springs; C. O. BURTON, Stockton; CANNADAY & COOK, Sonora; A. A. HUNNEWELL, Columbia; J. COFFIN, Mokelumne Hill; MILLER & CO., Chinese Camp; ELLIOTT REED, San Jos��; ALEXANDER S. TAYLOR, Monterey; R. K. SWEETLAND, Volcano; LANGTON & BRO., Sierra County; DR. STEINBERGER, agent Adams & Co., Oregon; HENRY M. WHITNEY, Honolulu, S.I.
MONSON & VALENTINE, Printers, 124 Sacramento Street
But few copies of the Pioneer are known to be in existence. Odd numbers are sometimes found, but these are generally in a mutilated condition, while the bound volumes lack the advertisements.
The first number was issued in January, 1854, and the last in December, 1855. The first letter of the Shirley series appeared in the initial number, and the last one in the final issue. The magazine seems to have been well received in the East, and the Eastern magazines reviewed it