Ping
Bttt
what should I do but walk up to a great pine-tree in a portion of the wood which had escaped so much as scorching, strike a match, and apply the flame gingerly to one of the tassels.
The tree went off simply like a rocket; in three seconds it was a roaring pillar of fire. Close by I could hear the shouts of those who were at work combating the original conflagration. I could see the wagon that had brought them tied to a live-oak in a piece of open; I could even catch the flash of an axe as it swung up through the underwood into the sunlight. Had any one observed the result of my experiment my neck was literally not worth a pinch of snuff; after a few minutes of passionate expostulation I should have been run up to a convenient bough.
To die for faction is a common evil;
But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.
I have run repeatedly, but never as I ran that day. At night I went out of town, and there was my own particular fire, quite distinct from the other, and burning as I thought with even greater spirit.
Everyone should do the 17-Mile Drive at least once in their life.
Today, he'd be hailed by alphabet people as a proud Pyro-American.
I recently read this in a partial collection of RLS’s travel writing that I found at the used book store. It was very interesting.
“Part I”
What of the remainder???
Some 40 or 50 years earlier, Richard Dana visited that area, and San Francisco Harbor as a working sailor. He did not have a detailed description of the fires, but noted that they periodically swept that area.
My memory does not carry any detail, but it would serve to re read “Two Years Before the Mast” by him.
It was California, but one we don’t recognize any more.