The gun, rod and saddle; or, nine months in California. By Rev. Isaac Mast, A. M. Philadelphia: Methodist Episcopal Book and Publishing House, 1018 Arch Street. Rev. J. B. McCullough, Agent, 1875. 17.3x11.8 cm (small octavo), pp. [1-2] 3-278 [279-280: blank], 3 inserted plates with woodcut illustrations, original pictorial blue cloth, front panel stamped in black and gold, spine panel stamped in gold, rear panel stamped in blind, yellow endpapers. First edition. An important, detailed narrative of an itinerant minister who spent nine months hunting and fishing in California in 1873. He arrived in San Francisco by ship by way of the Isthmus of Panama on 11 January 1873 and left for Philadelphia by way of the transcontinental railroad on 10 October 1873. After five days in San Francisco Rev. Mast traveled by train to Visalia where he remained for four weeks, boarding at the hotel and later with the family of Mr. D. T. Atwell. He took a job offered by "Doc" Swanson who had a ranch in Grouse Valley (north of Springville) where he "could work some for my board, and hunt as much as I wished." The party arrived in Grouse Valley 14 February. The following day the valley received five inches of snow. Soon after his arrival Rev. Mast partnered with a Mr. Calhoon, a local professional hunter and mountain man, and together they hunted in the foothills of the Kaweah River basin. Rev. Mast spent several months hunting and exploring in the Great Western Divide region (now part of the Sequoia National Forest and Sequoia National Park), including trips into the High Sierra backcountry and to Giant Forest. He then traveled by horseback to Yosemite Valley by way of the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, Peregoy's, Glacier Point and the "rough" four-mile trail into the valley, the floor of which he reached on 2 July. He left the valley by the northern route and reached Garrote (now Groveland) on 4 July. Rev. Mast then traveled to the Geysers, to Little Lake (Mendocino County), where he hunted and fished for two months, and to Southern California from San Francisco by steamship and back to the city by stage and rail. The narrative of his six-month sojourn in the southern and central Sierra Nevada provides a wealth of detail: pioneer ranching, hunting equipment and technique, observations of climate and temperature, excellent word pictures of the Sierra landscapes (the view of the Sierra Nevada from Visalia, etc.), and more. The Sierra content comprises pages 69-176. Cowan (1933), p. 419. Phillips, p. 255. Cloth worn at edges, mainly spine ends and corners, some scattered foxing in the text, a sound, good copy. (#166409).
No statement of printing.