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Alexander Dumas (1802-70) http://tinyurl.com/ADumas

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Sacramento Salmon

From A Gil Blas in California, 1852.Read Online

Reader: Wm Leslie Howard

Today, television and cinema have projected the California mystique across the globe. Yesterday, California's fame depended on letters, journals—and beloved writers of fiction.

Ostensibly the journal of a young Frenchman who traveled to California during the Gold Rush, A Gil Blas in California is rich with the kind of detail only a skilled novelist like Alexander Dumas could provide, as in this passage describing salmon running the Sacramento River.

Salmon jumping upstream. Larger.

In Sacramento are found great quantities of salmon which are also numerous throughout its affluents. The salmon leave the sea in spring and ascend the river in swarms for 500 miles. By following the main stream no obstacles are encountered, but on beyond, whether following the Sacramento or venturing up its affluents, their ascent is impeded by cascades, by dams made by the Indians or erected by farmers for some definite purpose, or even by gold-seekers, exploiting the rivers.

Here the fish struggle in vain to cross these bars or barricades. When approaching the limb of a tree or rock which might retard their progress, they approach, swim along it, dart underneath, trace an arc, then mustering every ounce of strength jump frequently twelve or fifteen feet up in the air. Their leap is always so gauged that they will fall into the upper waters toward which they are moving.

Alexander Dumas—author of books like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask—never saw California, making the vibrant descriptions contained in the 1852 book A Gil Blas in California especially remarkable.