The St. Louis Republic. [volume], July 30, 1905, SUNDAY MAGAZINE, Page 9, Image 53

About The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919

Image provided by: State Historical Society of Missouri; Columbia, MO

                
SUNDAT MAGAZINE fmr JULY St. IMS
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT JINKS
Bohemian Club Festivities in the
Wilds of California Redwoods
By ERNEST C. PEIXOTTO
ON a bend of the Russian River about eighty
miles to the north of San Francisco there
stands a forest of redwood trees, never
touched by the woodman's ax, a grove whose
mighty tree-trunks, massive as the clustered columns
of a Gothic -cathedral, lift their beads skyward in
stately and imposing order, devoid of branches to
a height of ninety feet. In distant perspectives of
these dim-lit forest aisles, the boughs of far-off
tree-tops interlace in flowing traceries, framing
peeps of sky in mullkmed windows of strange and
beautiful design. Sunbeams filter through the
shimmering leaves and play in brilliant spots upon
the ground, but the light falls sparingly, as in the
rich gloom of some church interior.
Did you ever rest in the nave of the Milan cathe
dral? Did you ever follow the lift of its mighty
piers, the arch of its soaring vaults, the far per
spectives of aisle and transept and chapel, the
broad sweep of the pavement? So in these forest
aisles. The shafts, nerved with bark, the inter
lacing feathery boughs, the colored sky windows,
the floor carpeted with pine needles droppings of
ages, softer underfoot than the priceless weaves of
the"Savonnerie." No sound breaks the eternal soli
tude except at times the tap of a woodpecker, the
occasional chirp of a squirrel or the wind sighing
through the pine-boughs high upon the summit of
the trees, radiant in the sunshine.
Once and once only each year these woods wake
to life and dimly echo to the voice of man. An
nually at the full of the harvest moon people gather
in this solitude; for the grove belongs to the Bohe
mian Club of San Francisco, which here celebrates
its Midsummer Jinks in full consciousness that the
night will be clear and the air balmy, the California
summer bring without rain.
Two weeks before the date set for the Jinks,
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the Sire and his assistants and a corps
of workmen and dub-servants go up
to the grove and make camp. The
winter's brushwood is cleared away,
the electric fittings, the stage, the plat
form, prepared for the big night.
Tents are pitched in a portion of
the grove where the shade is less
dense, where the sweet-smelling bay,
the oak and the California laurel
sweep then feathery branches in
fairy arches. The teats are arranged
with comfort and shaded with red
wood boughs; the artist membsrs
busy themselves in the "studio,"
painting caricatures, signs and quaint
devices to decorate the camp streets.
And what an appetite the men de
velop in this outdoor life, and bow
good to have it catered to by a well
regulated cuisine!
Each afternoon a private train
brings up a fresh quota of members,
and the days take on a merrier tone.
In the evening all gather round the
camp-fire, whose spluttering blase
lights up a unique circle of seats
made of felled logs of such immense
size that seat and back at once have
been made by the removal of a
quadrant. Here the night passes
in song, jest and story. The com
pany grows larger and larger as the
great day approaches, until on the
Saturday of the Jinks a special train
brings the main bulk of the club
membership to the grove just in time
for dinner a dinner of three hun
dred covers, prepared, cooked
and served with the same
care and precision as in the town club
house. And a merry dinner it is, the
members sitting at concentric circular
tables so that all may be as close to
gether as possible, the millionaire elbow
ing the artist, the judge the actor
all brother Bohemians at this festal
board.
The High Jinks is not, as its name
might imply, purely an effervescence of
hilarity. It is a dignified proceeding,
elaborately planned and most painstak
ingly carried out.
For the last twenty years the Mid
summer Jinks has been a feature of
the club's life. At first of a simpler
form, consisting mainly of papers, music
and poems read in the fitful blaze of the
camp-fire, with succeeding years it has
taken on a more ambitious tone, until
now it has become an entertainment as
elaborate as any theater could produce,
but with a setting and an opportunity
for surprise such as no theater in the
world can boast, for there is no stage,
properly speaking the characters at
times appearing most unexpectedly in
bursts of light on hillsides, the processions
weaving half a mile through glooms of
woodland solitudes.
Each time the Jinks varies in
theme. There have been Indian
Jinks and Shakespeare Jinks, Gypsy
Jinks . and Aztec Jinks; but two of
the most remarkable that I ever have
witnessed were the so-called Buddha
Jinks and the Druid Jinks.
For the first-named a white statue
was erected against the redwood back
ground a copy of the famous Daihut
su of Kakamura. sixty feet in height,
in whose folded hands six men might
st anl. Before it a circle was inclosed
by walls three hundred feet in cir
cumference, and at its feet seven al
tars were erected and trimmed with
boughs. After dinner the memliers,
donning white kimonos, marched in
procession toward this woodland tn-
ranged; themselves
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round the circle to greet the seven high priests
as they entered, robed in rich vestments specially
sent from Japan for the occasion. The cere
monies that followed were conducted with the
most imposing dignity. A church organ, sunk
into the ground and played by means of an electric
attachment, supplied weird and unearthly accom
paniment to the chants of many voices, and to the
priests as each intoned a sonnet the Voice of the
Grove, the Murmuring Waters, the Voices of the
Trees: the Redwood, the Madrone, the Bay-tree.
Before each priest blue wreaths of smoke ascended
from cressets of incense and sandalwood and
mingled with the play of tinted lights upon the
huge impassive figure from calciums hidden in the
surrounding foliage.
For the Druid Jinks the ntise en sttite was far less
elaborate: a pile of logs for seats, a rough sort of
altar and a rude gateway built of giant stones. The
Jinks had begun in the usual way. by an address
from the Sire and a musical number by the great
chorus massed on the left, when a horn was heard
far off in the woods. A second unlooked-for blast,
and the Sire dispatched a messenger to find out
who could thus .break the silence of the forest
meeting at this strange hour. The messenger, re
turning in a moment, reported that a strange com
pany was without and demanded admittance. Upon
receiving the Sire's consent, a weird and fantastic
procession entered the inclosure through the rude
gateway: six tall priests all in white, with long white
beards that hung below their waists, bearing upon
their shoulders a coffin decorated with twisting
snakes and the skulls of oxen; following them more
priests, and then a double file of prisoners of sad
and dejected mien, bound hand and foot to a chain;
next a lumbering wagon with solid wooden wheels,
drawn by a pair of cream-white oxen and licaring
the High Priest, a pale and venerable patriarch, in
reality a man of eighty years.
On arriving liefore the Sire's stand, the High
Priest, perched ujn his creaking cart, demanded by
what riht men had invaded this Druid Temple,
where from time immemorial his people had offered
up their yearly sacrifices. He then demanded that
the Sire vacate the altar. The Sire consented, pro
vided his men !c permitted to remain and witness
the sacrificial rites. To this the High I"ricst ac
quiesced, and then explained that each year his clan
gathered to sacrifice their prisoners, barbar-