"The race is not forever got by them that fastest runs,Nor the battle by those people that shoot with the longest guns."
"The race is not forever got by them that fastest runs,Nor the battle by those people that shoot with the longest guns."
"The race is not forever got by them that fastest runs,Nor the battle by those people that shoot with the longest guns."
Our scientific machine—the great Virginia Burke rocker—the patent bee-hive, from which we had expected to take every day at least two pounds of the precious comb—was now nothing but so much useless lumber.
Capt. Bill could not bear this unexpected reverse; he had set his heart upon the Burke rocker, and could never descend to the common cradle. Mining with the one was honourable; with the other, base and contemptible. It was as if one should descend from the dignity of a horse and wagon to a hand-cart, or as if the captain of a Liverpool packet should decline into the skipper of a fishing-smack. From this time mining lost its charms, and a favourable opportunity presenting itself about the middle of October, he accepted a situation as clerk in one of the mining districts, at a salary of three hundred dollars a month and his board; thus depriving us, at once and forever, of all that advantage we had hoped to derive from so propitious an alliance. His good fortune excited no envy, for the mines were still untried.
After his departure our little company, now reduced to its original number, was conducted on a different principle, our gains being no longer shared in common. Number Four bought a cradle on his own account, together with a hole, a crowbar, a shovel, and a cheese-box; while Tertium and myself still continued in partnership. We also bought a cradle of sheet-iron, for which we had to pay seventy dollars; and after one or two trials of different localities, we settled downon the same part of the bank where we had made our first experiment with the pan. The bank here as elsewhere was high and steep, consisting of an irregular ledge of soft granite that had been originally covered with a thin coat of soil, but was now, for a width of forty or fifty feet from the water, picked as clean as the bones of a thanksgiving turkey. Owing to this circumstance we seldom remained long in one place; but, like bone and rag-pickers hurrying from one barrel to another, we gleaned a bit here and a bit there, comforting ourselves with the hope of suddenly lighting upon some of those rich deposits of which we had heard such seductive stories, just as the magnanimous gentry last mentioned are forever soothed and excited by a pleasing delusion of silver spoons and gold watches.
So we worked all the rest of the month, making about twenty dollars a day, on the solitary bank of the river, listening soberly to the eternal bass of its waters, and the sharp, sudden crash of some distant rocker keeping faithful time to the beating of its master's heart.
There was then no laughing in California; everybody was terribly in earnest, and a settled look of more than Puritanic severity was in every face. There was such depth of passion that only the fiercest commotion could stir up the bubble laughter from the bottom of the heart; and, for my own part, I seem almost entirely to have lost that human faculty, as if I had tarried too long in the cave of Trephonius.
The extraordinary sickness that prevailed during that season may partially account for this all-pervading austerity; hardly a tent in which there was not one prostrated by scurvy or dysentery—hardly a miner who had not suffered in his own person from one or both of these dreadful diseases. Every one of our own party had been attacked at different times and with different degrees of severity; but I was the most unfortunate. It was several months before I found any relief either from medicine or change in diet, and during the wholeof my first year in the mines I was never free from apprehension, the least imprudence being sufficient to bring on a relapse.
We had thus far enjoyed uninterrupted fine weather,—a few drops only of rain had fallen through the whole of October; but November was ushered in under very different conditions. The little party of Bostonians, our next door neighbours, who had been for some time preparing to move into the dry diggings, had hardly stowed the last of their baggage in the wagon, when a sullen shower commenced, that quenched at once their deserted camp-fire, and continued almost without cessation for a whole week. The conical firmament of our tent, usually almost transparent in its brightness, except when fleckered with the dancing shadow of the leaves, now assumed a uniform, leaden and opaque hue, corresponding to the lowering character of the sky. Heavy drops collected on the inside, and, rolling half-way down, fell maliciously on our heads. Sitting on our low bedsteads, with knees drawn up to the chin, we shrank into the smallest possible compass; while we found a whimsical amusement in wondering where the next drop would fall, and in rallying each other on our involuntary contortions. Mowbray, and a Dr. Collyer, with whom we had been some time acquainted, were now almost our only visitors. The latter, a middle-aged man, of a peculiarly sour and morose temper, seemed to find no employment so congenial as grumbling, and the subjects on which he most delighted to expatiate were California and the Burke rocker.
"Well, gentlemen," he would exclaim, with nasal bitterness, "California is a miserable country, a very poor country; it is as much as a man's life is worth to remain here through the winter;" and then, like Sairy Gamp, to give greater emphasis to his words, he would reverse the objurgatory phrase till he had run it through all its changes, while we, in our feeble way, echoed assent to every one of his propositions,glad to find one who understood so thoroughly the true merits of the question.
Mowbray, on the other hand, never very talkative or vivacious, and now doubly oppressed by the untoward aspect of the weather and the uncertainty of his future movements, hardly spoke except in monosyllables.
Cooking, in such weather, was plainly impossible; and the ship-bread and molasses to which we were consequently reduced, were never very thankfully received. Once, indeed, during a brief lull in the storm, I ventured out, and succeeded in boiling a pot of coffee and in frying a little pork, and these two smoking dishes somewhat dispelled the chill that was creeping over us.
The fifth night the storm increased. The wind blew with fearful violence, and drove the rain in sheets through that side of the tent most exposed to its fury. Tertium was awakened by a choking sensation, and found himself lying with his face in a puddle of water almost deep enough to drown him. On my side it was rather better; my outer blankets were thoroughly saturated, but the inner one still remained tolerably dry.
The tent writhed and struggled with the tempest. The fastenings on one side at length gave out, and as it flapped its wet and clinging folds about our faces, we expected every moment to hear it fly bodily away, leaving us entirely exposed to the pelting of the pitiless storm. We were finally compelled to leave our beds, and leaning against the bags and boxes in the middle of the tent, we fell asleep, like the ship-boy on the high and giddy mast, in all that elemental uproar.
Returning sunshine wrought a wondrous alteration in our feelings. The country, always beautiful, now presented a still more attractive appearance. After months of drought and dust, Nature seemed to have washed her face and put on her best attire, while the birds singing in every tree, and the freshgreen of the shooting grass, were far more suggestive of May than of November.
The fine weather, however, brought with it one disagreeable necessity—that of working without knowing where we could do it to advantage. There were, indeed, plenty of places where we could make five dollars a day, but we were not yet, thank heaven, reduced to that extremity. We had sunk our expectations from thousands to hundreds, and were willing to work for any reasonable compensation; but there was a point at which such poverty of spirit ceased to be a virtue. We were confirmed in this lofty temper by hopes of what we would do in the spring. There were other rivers not yet so completely turned over as the South Fork, and other places not so entirely worn out as Mormon Island; we would be among the first to force our way into these new diggings, when we should easily make up for all we had lost.
In the meantime the best thing we could do was to make ourselves as comfortable as possible; and our late experience had shown that to this end nothing was so essential as a fire in rainy weather. Our neighbours had generally effected this by building a heavy chimney of stones and earth against one side of their tents; but, aside from the difficulty of such an undertaking, the quantity of fuel that would be thus required was a very serious objection. We thought ourselves, therefore, very fortunate in obtaining a small sheet-iron stove of the rudest construction, that had been manufactured the preceding year for a trader in the village, for the very moderate sum of two hundred and eighty dollars. On bringing it home, we found no room for it in the tent, except just within the door, where it stood like a sturdy little three-legged Dutchman, valiantly presenting its gaping blunderbuss of a funnel in the very face and eyes of the audacious intruder, who verily thought that if he escaped being blown to pieces, he should infallibly be suffocated by its pestilent fumes. To tell the truth, however, greater part of the smoke made itsway directly back into the tent, when it seemed to find huge delight in circling round a hornet's nest in the very summit of the sugar-loaf, and to wonder strangely that it could not get out; till Tertium happily conceived the idea of fitting an old boot bereft of its toe, on to the other end of the funnel, after which the smoke found no difficulty in walking in a different direction.
Mowbray having determined to leave the mines, we seized the opportunity of laying in a stock of winter provisions. We bought half a barrel of sour flour, the same quantity of syrup, of sugar and salt pork, together with half-a-dozen Dutch cheeses, as many boxes of sardines, fifty pounds of soda crackers, and a variety of smaller articles.
All this wealth added to what we had before, rendered a larger tent indispensable; and as we could find none for sale in the vicinity, I went with Number Four to examine one belonging to a man on the North Fork.
It is impossible to describe the beauty and glory of California at that fine season. The crisp frosty air of the morning is quickly succeeded by a warm hazy glow resembling that of our Indian summer. It is not summer, nor spring, nor autumn, but a most artful and delicious combination of all three. The country is an endless succession of hills, whose distant slopes remind one continually of thrifty apple orchards, while from every summit a prospect is presented apparently out of all proportion to the trifling elevation.
Our course led us first a mile down the South Fork to where it unites with the North to form the American river; crossing the boiling current in a dug-out, we ascended the steep-hill on the other side, and walking a few rods up the North Fork, came to the store where our old friend Capt. Bill was clerk. It was a log-house, long and low, and divided into two apartments, one of which served for the store, and the other for a dining-room. A large number of miners were at work in the neighbourhood, and some of them boarded atthis establishment; which thus united the dignity of a grocery or variety store to that of a village tavern.
The salutations and inquiries usual on such occasions were followed by the never-failing invitation, "Well, boys, what 'ill you take to drink?" and an enumeration of all the various liquors supposed to be suited to our different palates.
We had not then, however, been long enough in the country to accommodate ourselves to this fashion; and soon after, continuing our walk, we came in a few minutes to the tent of which we were in search. Finding it to our liking, we weighed out two-and-a-half ounces, and at once set out on our return, with the tent on our shoulders, stopping every now and then to call each other's attention to some prospect of unusual beauty—to the hares and squirrels that sported carelessly among the rocks—or to the striped acorns that covered the ground almost as long and taper as a lady's finger.
The next day, in spite of the threatening sky, we went to prospect some ravines four miles from the island on the Sacramento road. Dr. Collyer had already moved to this locality and had promised to send us word if he found it favourable for mining; but as we heard nothing from him, we determined to make a personal examination. The walk, though totally unlike that of the day before, was in some respects even more agreeable. Far to the left a range of low hills seemed to hold up the sky, while the leaden clouds, oozing down between, communicated their own dark mysterious hue to the softened slopes and winding valleys.
On arriving at his tent, which was pitched in a very damp, unwholesome ravine, we found the doctor was not at home; but keeping on from one gulch to another we at last spied his hat just dodging behind a bank of earth in which he was at work. He seemed far more surprised than pleased at our sudden advent, and after a few moments' conversation, suddenlyjerking out his watch, exclaimed, "Well, it's nearly twelve, and I must be going home to dinner; good morning, gentlemen," and away he hurried, leaving us divided between laughter and indignation; but inwardly resolving that it must be a very bad conscience indeed that could put a watch a whole hour out of the way. After his unceremonious departure we continued to prospect the ravines in the neighbourhood, but found none worth coming so far to seek. There was very little water running in any of them, and the two or three miners we saw at work were obliged to use the same scanty supply till it became too muddy to answer the purpose.
We spent the next three or four days in putting up our new tent and arranging the furniture within; for, as we expected to remain here several months, we did everything in the most substantial manner. The tent itself was nearly square, being twelve feet wide and fifteen feet long. Near the two sides, which were about three feet in height, we set several thick posts with stout crotches at the top, and laid in these heavy logs to which we secured the ropes that served to stretch the roof. As the tent was made of cotton drilling which we had already found insufficient to keep out the rain, we bought cloth enough to make a second roof, called a fly, which we stretched over the first, leaving a space of several inches between. The ridgepole, which was formed of the spouts belonging to the Burke rocker, and projected at each end beyond the roof, was supported by the tall stumps of two oaks we had cut off for the purpose, and was also strengthened in the middle by a pole passing through the centre of our little table. The whole was surrounded on every side but one by a thick array of branches, like a chevaux-de-frize, that broke the force of the wind, and imparted an appearance of great snugness and security.
The stove thrust its pipe out of one of the gables, just at the left of the door, and smoked away right lustily, day and night, as if conscious that a good deal depended upon itsvigilance and fidelity. Altogether our new abode was of a very picturesque character, and I doubt not that many a humdrum citizen, yawning fearfully in his luxurious apartments, would consider it a very desirable residence—for a single day.
The interior was fitted up in a style of corresponding simplicity and elegance. A dry-goods' box that stood on end between the door and stove, and did duty as a sideboard, seemed to give an air of dignity and refinement to the apartment. It may not be in very good taste to parade the price of one's furniture; but as I know that many, at the present day especially, are apt to be curious in such matters, I will simply mention that our sideboard, though of pine, could not have been bought for less than fifty dollars.
Half a dozen tin plates and dippers—we could have had gold if we had pleased, but that was too common—two or three pans and pewter mugs—a large tin pail for making soup—a frying pan and coffee-pot, together with a squad of battered boxes that had once contained sardines or preserved meats, composed the list of our culinary utensils.
We had been sometime seeking to add a stewpan to our possessions, and meeting one day a party who were about leaving the mines, we inquired if they had such an article to dispose of. In reply they introduced us to a coffee-pot as tall as a two-year-old infant, and lifting the lid, Number Four peered curiously down into the capacious interior, as into the crater of an extinct volcano. It was a perfect geological curiosity. Beef, pork, beans, rice, potatoes, and onions, lying in distinct strata, or mingled into a dense conglomerate, rose half way to the top, while a faint and steamy odour from all these various ingredients drove us back as from the witches' cauldron.
At the foot of one of our beds and in the centre of the tent, stood the table—a few boards laid on the top of a flour barrel; the corner behind the door was used as a store room for our provisions, while all the remaining space was occupied by ourbeds. These were framed of sticks and grapevines, and covered, instead of a mattrass, with grass and moss; we carpeted the floor with the same material, and then, having exhausted our ingenuity, had nothing left to do but run in and out, and admire our own handiwork.
Many trifling improvements were subsequently added during the tiresome monotony of stormy weather. Tertium fitted the sideboard with shelves and a swinging door, and paved the space around the stove with smooth stones. He contrived a fastening for the door so artfully that he could not open it himself in less than half an hour, and even carried his ingenuity so far as to make a pair of bellows that blew equally well on all sides at once. I succeeded in manufacturing a pair of tongs out of an iron hoop, and then undertook to build an oven, but desisted after labouring at it several weeks, by which time it bid fair to rival the biggest of the Egyptian pyramids.
Thanksgiving came as usual, and found us still in the bustle of house-building, but as we had been invited to dine out, we did not intermit our labours till noon, when we dressed ourselves in our cleanest shirts, and walked over to our entertainers.
The party to which we would now introduce the reader had been some time our nearest neighbours, and since the departure of all our other acquaintance, we had contracted a sudden intimacy which afterwards ripened, with one of them at least, into a lasting friendship.
Colonel Oldbuck, the eldest of the party, was a man of about the middle size, with a neck much too large and long for his body, and which seemed to have bulged out a little at the top in order to form a head. He had a narrow rounded forehead, thick features, and a bilious complexion. His voice was very agreeable, and like his walk, slow and measured. Even when in a passion, and he was a very choleric individual, he never lost this advantage, and would bespatter his adversarywith all the unsavoury epithets at his call without rising for a moment above the imposing barrytone of his ordinary conversation. The same peculiarity was discovered in the self-sufficiency that was his most notable characteristic. His conceit was none of your vulgar blustering sort, clamorously betraying its own weakness, but, on the contrary, it was exceedingly quiet and genteel, and if it is not a contradiction, modest and unassuming. It was undoubtedly this very thing that made it so effective. It came upon you before you were aware—it aroused no opposition—excited no suspicion. A nearer acquaintance discovered that in spite of this seeming moderation, it was really most grasping and comprehensive. Nothing was too high for it, or too low—it pervaded his whole being, and seemed to envelope him, wherever he went, like a cloud.
At home he had been a man of very extensive influence, and the scene that was enacted at his departure somewhat resembled the parting of Washington and his army. The tears which were shed on that occasion, as a distinguished orator observed, after falling and watering the earth, ascended magnanimously and triumphantly into the firmament, when they marshalled themselves into a cloud that should accompany their hero in all his wanderings.
Though only a farmer and country trader, the redoubtable Oldbuck had, by sheer force of genius, attained the office of Justice of the Peace—Colonel in the state militia, and others equally responsible. No one could read the Declaration of Independence so touchingly as he, or was so popular an orator at cattle shows and country fairs. His fellow-citizens were even now impatiently awaiting his return that they might hear from his lips how much to believe of that mighty humbug that was now convulsing the whole world. He had distinguished himself no less in his military capacity. We listened to his simple, unpretending narrative of his heroic exploits with thrilling interest, and each in his heart wished thatheaven had made him such a man, when we saw in fancy, the keen edge of his ruthless sword describing a horrid circle in the air, and then, at one tremendous blow, cutting in twain the unhappy watermelon, if it should not rather be considered happy in so glorious a death—held meanwhile between the hands of one of his compeers. This performance was a happy union of the achievements of both Richard and Saladin, demanding for its successful execution, the ponderous strength of the one, and marvellous sleight of hand of the other; and it carried me back to the chivalrous times of those glorious old Knickerbockers, who erewhile waged such doubtful war with those pestilent pumpkins.
The same noble ambition that had carried our hero to such heights of fame at home still burned in his heart, inciting him to gain fresh laurels in this new field of action. During his stay at Mormon Island an election was held for alcalde, and by the advice, or, as he would say, the urgent entreaty of many of his friends, the Colonel proposed himself as a candidate. But though he arrayed himself for the occasion in an imposing suit, consisting of a blue jacket that came half-way up to his shoulders, and a pair of tight trowsers that came half-way up to his knees, and in this guise walked up and down before the crowd of admiring fellow-citizens assembled at the polls, he, for some reason I could never fathom, failed to produce his wonted impression; and the office, to his infinite mortification, was given to another.
In addition to his other good qualities, Colonel Oldbuck was an excellent mimic—told a good story, with broad Dutch humour—and was in fact a very entertaining companion. He occupied the post of honour at our little table.
Crowded up into one corner of the tent—his corner—sat a shy, quiet Scotchman, who read incessantly, except when working and sleeping, and lived in a perpetual atmosphere of snuff.
The third, and much the youngest of the party, was alittle doctor, who signed his name with a vanity to be pardoned in no one else, C. Fox Browne. As doctors were plenty in California, and we ourselves became acquainted with no less than four bearing this ancient and honourable cognomen, some such distinction seemed necessary. But among his friends our doctor needed no such meretricious addition; his plain Charles Browne was better than the tandem titles of the most name-tormenting pedigree.
Any one, on slight acquaintance, might have been inclined to charge him with vanity. But if so, vanity with him was elevated and ennobled into a virtue. No one could possibly object to it, or wish it had been less. One might as well wish that he had been less disinterested or good-natured. But what these careless observers would call vanity was really a very different quality. It was simply a disposition to be easily pleased, and to look on the bright side of our cloddish humanity. Vanity begins and ends at home; it is essentially egotistical, and must finally refer everything to self. It comes from the company of its own swollen imaginations, like Gulliver from among the Brobdingnags, and in the same way looks on common men as dwarfs. But our doctor's complacency was of the most catholic nature. It made no invidious comparisons; if he thought highly of himself, he had even a better opinion of others, and his eyes were as blind to their faults and open to their virtues as to his own.
Oldbuck, who could never bear the least approach to a jest at his own expense, was continually making game of his companion. "Browne—he did this or that," was his favourite exordium on such occasions; and his eye would begin to twinkle, and his mouth to twitch, as premonitory symptoms of the low, hearty chuckle that was sure to follow, while the doctor seemed to enjoy the whole thing as much as any of us.
These three were now the solitary remnant of a party that had originally consisted of forty members. Half only, however, came to California, to encounter the perils andhardships of the mines; while the others paid all the expenses of the expedition, and sat secure at home. They had brought with them various improved and scientific machines, and among them one for dredging in the bottom of the rivers, of which they seemed to have formed the same idea as myself. Assuming as a basis the accounts that had reached home of the wealth of California, they had sat down, coolly and deliberately, with pen and paper, to calculate the profits they might safely expect from two years' labour. The result at which they arrived was every way pleasing and satisfactory; indeed, so much so that even their inflated imaginations were unable to receive it in all its vast proportions. They accordingly went over the work again with an excess of caution deserving the highest credit, and finding all correct, gradually settled down into the comfortable belief that at the end of two years they would each be worth just half a million.
Dr. Browne's whole time was to be occupied in amalgamating and weighing the gold; and, if practicable, casting it into ingots. Murray, the quiet Scotchman, had brought with him twelve tin boxes, each containing a quart of snuff; and he confidently expected, as fast as they were emptied, to fill them with another dust yet more precious and titillating. When I heard this story of their magnificent conceptions, I felt vexed and ashamed at my own comparatively grovelling notions; for it certainly must have been a fine thing to believe oneself, for ever so short a time, the possessor of such a princely fortune, and thus familiarize the mind to these ennobling contemplations. One could hardly fail to think and speak more loftily for it all his life, as the humblest individual who should become a lord or a king, even for a single day, could never lose the smack of greatness thus acquired.
Dinner was waiting when we entered, and we at once took our places, without loss of time in idle ceremony. A sailor's chest, covered with a real table-cloth, and raised to a convenient elevation by two low boxes, formed a very commodioustable, the difficulty we experienced in disposing of our legs, and which compelled us to lean gracefully forward at an angle of forty-five degrees, being the only material objection. And this trifling annoyance was soon forgotten at sight of the truly royal banquet prepared by our munificent entertainers, and which I will describe at greater length, to remove, if possible, an odious impression, as I fear too generally prevalent, that the California miner absolutely eats nothing but pork and flapjacks.
The great advantages secured by division of labour were here apparent. Instead of each member of the company taking his turn, day by day or week by week, in performing all the culinary operations, as was the usual custom, each one had exclusive charge of some particular department. Oldbuck superintended the meats, the bread and pastry were confided to the doctor, while Murray, being only a noviciate and as yet unequal to the higher branches, was serving an apprenticeship at washing the dishes.
As might have been expected from so judicious an arrangement, everything was excellent and in perfect keeping. The first course consisted of boiled ham, roast venison, a venison stew or pasty (Friar Tuck's was not half so good, though, I take it, the best pasty in the world), and potatoes at a dollar a pound. After we had done ample justice to each of these dishes, and washed them down with a brimming cup of coffee, the plates—real china, by the way—were removed and expeditiously rinsed outside the tent by Murray, while we testified our growing complacency by a between-course of jests and sly allusions to the decidedly aristocratic pretensions of the colonel's establishment. The second course consisted of a huge platter of molasses gingerbread and indisputable peach-pie, accompanied by two bottles of wine; but where they came from, whether from Madeira or Kamtschatka, is beyond my conjecture. Colonel Oldbuck fidgetted a little at this unexpected apparition, for he was a teetotaller, and carriedhis principles with him to California, and, what is more, kept them there—an example that the great Kneel Down himself might have found it hard to follow.
Songs and stories now succeeded. "The youngest gentleman in company blew his melancholy into a flute," and fortunately managed also to blow considerable out of it, and about four o'clock we rose from table highly gratified with our first Thanksgiving in the mines.
It was now the beginning of winter, but the weather continued mild and favourable. The nights were cold, and the ground in the morning sometimes covered with frost; but our tent was always abundantly warm, and the sun no sooner rose above the hills than the whole atmosphere became of a most delightful temperature. The change was equally sudden at night, the disappearance of the sun being followed by an instant chill, that seemed to settle down upon the earth like a mantle, and drove us from our work at an early hour. During rainy weather the wind was invariably warm from the south-east.
Our life now moved on with great regularity. We rose at daybreak. The fire, which usually kept alive all night, was soon wide awake, and the coffee-pot sung cheerily on the stove. A little practice had enabled us to acquire a very tolerable proficiency in the noble and primitive art of cooking. A few weeks before, we had smacked our lips over certain flapjacks of the most amazing toughness and solidity, every one of which seemed to say, "Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow," and seldom failed to attain its aspirations. They were made of unleavened flour, with a plentiful admixture of rice, the latter substance alone affording any reasonable hope of a speedy digestion. Yet even Mowbray condescended to express his approbation of them, and once manifested considerable curiosity to learn the secret of their composition. But they were only my first essay, as inferior to my subsequentproductions as the first feeble rhymes of a fledgling poet to his maturer efforts, and I felt vexed that he should have gone away with such an inadequate estimate of my powers as these crude conceptions were calculated to produce. In the mean time, I extended my researches in every direction. Our little frying-pan was no longer large enough for the purpose. It answered very well for those earlier cakes, as round and thick as the shield of Ajax, but required too much time for the delicate, almost transparent wafers that now alone satisfied our refined palates. In going to and from our work, I had often passed an old Dutch oven, that, having a large hole in one side, was no longer fit for its legitimate purpose. One day a happy idea seized me. I took possession of the oven, and carrying it home, knocked off the remaining sides, and having cleaned it with fire, converted the bottom into a very commodious griddle.
Robinson Crusoe could have felt no greater pride and exultation when he drew his first rude crockery from the expiring embers. I now knew that nothing was too hard for me—frying pork, that had once seemed the summit of attainable excellence, no longer affected my imagination—the mysteries of beef and venison, of which we had at this time a satiety, became palpable and commonplace, and I found, like Newton, the circle of scientific discovery continually widen as I advanced.
My next achievement surpassed all that had preceded it. For several days I had been unusually silent and abstracted. My companions attributed this change to a constitutional melancholy with which I am at times afflicted, but it was really owing to the pains of travail in which my genius now laboured. It was on the eventful morning of the 13th of December, that I first took from the top of the stove, where they had reposed all night under a polished cheesebox, a tin pan of undeniable baked beans, the classic time-honoured dish of old New England. Such a thing had never before been knownin the diggings, where indeed stewed beans—procul procul à nobis—were plenty with their pale watery complexions, but baked beans never, with their rich brown, almost golden, hue. My triumph was complete. Oldbuck and the doctor, between whom and ourselves there had long existed a kind of rivalry, began to cavil and detract, but were convinced and silenced at the first mouthful.
After this I went no farther. Amazed and almost terrified by the boldness of my conceptions, I felt how impossible it was ever again to equal them. I rested my claims upon this single effort, with the same calm assurance with which Columbus rested on his discovery of America—to surpass either, one must needs "find out new heavens, new earth."
Having eaten our breakfast of savoury fritters, or less pleasing ship-biscuit, molasses, and fried pork, and thoroughly warmed our inner man with a pint of coffee, black as night, we sallied forth to our work, leaving our tent and all its contents in perfect security, even if we should be gone for weeks. In no country in the world were life and property ever more secure than at that time in the mines of California. We had now moved someway down the river, and were at work among huge toppling rocks, where in the intervening crevices we found a scanty proportion of black vegetable mould that, according to the prevailing theory, should have contained no gold, but actually paid sometimes as much as thirty cents to the bucket. In fact I never saw any description of earth in California that did not, in some situation or other, afford the miner a very fair return.
Our labour was by no means hard for one in health, and if our success had equalled our expectations, would have been in the highest degree agreeable. But continued disappointment disposed us to regard everything in the least favourable light. We were glad when it was noon, and still more pleased when the sun, "wheeling his broad disc" behind the opposing hills, warned us to bring our day's labour to a close. The largepan beneath the rocker was usually by this time half full of black sand and gravel, the successive accumulations of our afternoon's washings. To wash or float out these baser substances, leaving the gold nearly unmixed in the pan, was a long and tedious process, with the mysteries of which, however, I suppose the reader is already sufficiently familiar. While one is thus occupied, the other, first removing the cradle from the edge of the river to a place of greater security, hurries home to make the necessary preparations for supper, followed in due time by his companion, whose walk, heavy and slow, or erect and springing, affords a very fair index of the success they have met with. Arrived at home, the pan is placed a few minutes over the fire to dry the small quantity of black sand still remaining, which is then blown out by the breath, leaving nothing but the pure bright yellow. The pan is now passed from one to another, that each may express his opinion of its value.
"Humph," says the first, scanning the gold curiously out of one corner of his eye, as a hen takes the dimensions of a worm or a grasshopper, "is that all? I thought we should have had at least an ounce apiece. If our hole is agoing to retort out at that rate, it's high time to be looking about for something else; but if I know where to go, I hope to be swowed."
"Here," cries another, "let me have a squint at it;" and after a careful examination, "Well, I don know; that ain't so bad; there's hard on to forty dollars, and we should ha' thought that pretty good day's wages in the States."
But it is astonishing what a glow a little gleam of success throws over the whole party—their stoop disappears—they have actually grown an inch taller; while every one has some merry quip fit for the occasion. They are unwilling to let the gold out of their hands—they slide it back and forth across the pan, making it assume every grotesque and pleasing variety of form. Hardly any sight can be more delightfully suggestive—gold coin is nothing to it, dull heavy slave thatit is! If I were required to name those hours when I have enjoyed the greatest happiness, next to that arising from inward and inexplicable sources, I should fix upon such an evening in the mines, when each one has a hundred dollars for his day's labour. If there is anything better, it is when he has two hundred, with the added hope of getting as much more to-morrow.
In our particular instance a much smaller amount was sufficient to produce a general hilarity. When each had guessed its weight, it was slid carefully into the scales, thence transferred to sundry vials or tin boxes, and the amount duly registered in a book kept for the purpose. By this time supper was ready; we drew our kegs and boxes up to the table, and fell to work on the fried beef or venison with hearty good will. This was by far the pleasantest meal of the day; we lingered over our coffee, and dwelt with prolonged relish on every mouthful, ere we reluctantly dismissed it down our expectant throats; and thought how much we should enjoy the surprise, if some of our friends at home could suddenly pop in upon us.
After supper our pipes were lighted—we stretched ourselves on our beds, and conversed at intervals of the day's work, of what we should do next summer, and of going home. Number Four, whose spirits never flagged, hummed some old-time airs, or breathed them through that simple and classic instrument styled the harmonicon. It was pleasant in stormy weather to lie and listen to the rain pattering on the well-stretched canvass, and watch the sides of the tent flapping and bellying like sails at sea; while occasionally, in the pauses of the tempest, we caught brief snatches of the doctor's melancholy sounding strange and unearthly like the wail of a departing spirit. We could hear the wind apparently coming for miles up the river. A short lull would be succeeded by a faint, almost inaudible murmur like the distant tramp of an army—it came nearer and louder—now it had reached thevillage—we heard it hurtling through the trees at the foot of our hill, and the same moment it rushed by with headlong speed, holding us breathless with excitement, and rolled away up the valley.
Never before had I so fully realized the winds of the heathen poets—the names which had seemed so unmeaning, now impressed me as actual existences; and Notus, Eurus, and Auster, with ten thousand of lesser degree, seemed "now fighting on firm ground a standing fight, then soaring on main wing tormented all the air."
We thought ourselves very fortunate whenever we succeeded in borrowing a book from any of our neighbours, but were still more interested in the papers that we obtained usually as often as once a month. We read them through, advertisements and all, often two and three times; and I have not yet lost the relish thus acquired for that sort of reading.
Oldbuck and the doctor used sometimes to come in and spend the evening in singing, gossiping, and telling stories. When conversation flagged, "Come, Browne!" Oldbuck would cry, "suppose you run down cellar, and fetch a basket of apples and a pitcher of cider;" and the conceit never failed to give general satisfaction, though he might as well have asked for a roc's egg, or the dome of St. Peter's.
"Apples and cider!" repeated the doctor, "Jerusha, don't I wish I had some?" and then a pause ensued, while each thought himself again at home, basket in hand, cautiously descending the rickety cellar stairs, groping his way along to the bin or barrel, and, as he filled his basket, reserving the finest for the pleasant voice calling after him encouragingly from the upper air. But there are no cellars in California, and no apples to put in them;
Andthee, aye me! the seas and sounding shoresHold far away.
Andthee, aye me! the seas and sounding shoresHold far away.
Andthee, aye me! the seas and sounding shoresHold far away.
There were half a dozen tents in our immediate neighbourhood,and in the course of the winter we became somewhat intimate with their occupants. We remained however a long time ignorant of their names, and were consequently obliged to return to the ancient custom of designating an individual from some natural or acquired peculiarity, as Blackbeard, Greybeard, Brushhouse, and California Hat.
Brushhouse was a stumpy little fellow, not more than five feet high, who obtained his name from living most of the winter under a pile of pine branches, into which he crept like a wild beast into its den. I thought when I first saw him that he was a Bohemian or gipsy, but afterwards learned that he was from the north of Ireland. It was impossible to determine his age with any certainty, as he knew nothing about it himself, and his face showed only that he was somewhere between twenty-five and fifty;—and though his various adventures seemed to confirm the latter supposition, his beardless face, high squeaking voice, rapid utterance, and almost childish simplicity, were as much in favour of the former. His geographical knowledge was by no means contemptible—he had heard of Australia, which he believed to be in Bombay and to belong to Austria; and when, in answer to some inquiry, I had assured him that Brazil was independent, "Oh yes," he cried, "I know—Independent Tartary."
One day, when he had come into our tent to thaw his fingers at the stove, I asked him where he was working.
"Oh! I been't working anywhere now," he replied, in his peculiar rapid manner, which had about it such a winning, supplicating air as would melt the heart of a stone. "I had a hole up here in the ravine, and there was two other men working by the side of me, and they kept working so" (here he illustrated his words by putting his two forefingers together at an acute angle), "and bimeby I hadn't any hole, and they gave me an ounce not to say anything about it, and I thought I had better take the ounce, though the hole was worth a good deal more than the ounce."
Poor fellow! we could not help laughing at his simplicity, though we condemned the selfish cunning that would stoop to take advantage of it. In the spring, Brushhouse joined himself to two Dutchmen to go up into the mountains, and the three together bought a mule to transport their luggage. But just before reaching Coloma the wary mynheers demanded of him a certain sum for freight, and because he had nothing to pay, having exhausted his all in his previous preparations, they took his share of the mule and departed, leaving the unlucky dwarf sitting by the roadside, trying in vain to find out how it happened that he had to buy a mule and then pay freight besides.
Greybeard, who was "a good portly man i' faith, and a corpulent, his age some fifty, or by'r lady inclining to three-score," used often to come in on a rainy afternoon, on which occasions the following conversation invariably took place:
"Well, sir, and how do you feel to-day?" one of us would say, with a full assurance of what was to follow.
"Oh! I don't know," he would reply, with a long-drawn sigh, and placing his hand on his heart; "I feel so weak about here, it seems as if I could hardly breathe. I shall never be any better as long as I stay in the mines. I was never sick before in my life. When I left the ship I weighed a hundred and eighty, now I don't weigh a hundred and fifty. I can't sleep more'n half the night, and there's that Glass—he'll lie there and snooze—he don't care, and I took him in. The whole tent and everything in it is mine. I knew his father, at home; he's a nice likely man, but none of his boys take after him. He was sick a long time and couldn't help himself, and I had to take the whole care of him. I had a claim at the time that was paying more'n an ounce a day, and I lost it; and now he's got well, he won't do a thing. He made some soup t'other day, and 'twas all burnt so't I couldn't taste a mouthful. How much room you seem to have here! I declare I don't see how 'tis, our tent isa'most as big as yours, and we've hardly room to turn round. But there's that Glass—I told him, when he was fixing his bed, 'toughtn't to be way out in the middle—I should ha' fixed things different, but there's that Glass—I could chop faster when I wan't more'n ten years old, but he don't know nothing—his father's a nice likely man, but none of his sons take after him. Your stove seems to work first-rate—ours smokes awfully. I knew 'twould;—but there's that Glass"—and here he had to stop for want of breath.
The effect of this long series of anathemas was infinitely enhanced by that artful dropping of the last syllable, by which his indignation seemed to be condensed and compressed into tenfold bitterness. If he had simply said, "There's that Glassford," it would have been nothing; but there's that Glass, was positively awful. It at once curtailed the unfortunate object of his spleen of half his fair proportions, and reduced him to a minim of a man. It was as good as conjuring. It reminded me of some scene in Arabian story where a fairy first transformed her enemy into a monkey, and then slew him with a bodkin. "There's that Glass" at length became with us a household word, which was constantly applied when any one attempted to shift the burden of his own remissness on to the shoulders of another.
Other sources of amusement were not wanting. A checkerboard, made on a box-cover with chalk and charcoal, wiled away many a heavy hour; and Tertium now and then passed nearly a whole day tramping over the hills in search of deer, and was sometimes so fortunate as to catch a glimpse of their tails as they went whisking past. The keen sportsmanlike zest with which he used to enlarge upon his success, reminded me of that devoutest of anglers who, after waiting patiently in one spot from morn till noon, from noon to dewy eve, was at last rewarded by a glorious nibble.
But there were places at no great distance from the island where more skilful hunters had little difficulty in securingtheir game. A regular business was carried on in this way, and for several months our market was supplied with an abundance of venison, which was usually sold for forty cents a pound. Now and then a deer, ignorant of the changes a single year had wrought in his hitherto undisturbed domain, came boldly to drink in the same river where he and his fathers had quenched their thirst for centuries; but now found every pass guarded by lurking foes. A fine buck ran one morning directly before our door: he had evidently been hard pressed by the hunters, and his heavy sobs confessed his fatigue; but a hundred enemies starting up on every side compelled him once more to plunge into his native solitudes.
There was so little to distinguish Sunday from other days in the week that I sometimes thought we should have to resort to the same expedient practised by Crusoe, and notch the time upon a post. Most of the miners, it is true, ceased on that day from their ordinary labours, but it was far from being on that account a day of rest. The stores were all open, and three times as busy as usual. The gambling houses were thronged—the bars drained dry—the week's wages wasted in a day's debauch. Those who avoided these vices, filled up the time with a great variety of occupations. First, their clothes were to be washed, but this was speedily accomplished, as all they had to do was to tie them to a rope, and let them swim half a day in the river. Then there were letters to write, tools to mend, walking, hunting, and prospecting, for which last many considered the day especially lucky. If there were several rainy days during the week, some of the more skilful casuists among the miners counted them as Sunday, and went to work on that day without scruple. Others who would not have made this transfer wittingly, were sometimes betrayed into it through ignorance.
Walking one Sunday half a mile up the river, I found our little friend Brushhouse hard at work in a small ravine.
"What!" said I, in affected surprise, for I really didn't suppose the poor fellow had any more notion of religion than a Hottentot, "do you work Sunday?"
"Why!" piped he, innocently, "is this Sunday? I thought yesterday was Sunday, and I didn't do any work at all."
I afterwards made a similar blunder, though I was so far out of the way as to mistake Sunday for Friday; nor was I convinced of my error till I had referred the vexed question to all our neighbours.
So, easily our days slipt away, like skaters on a frozen river. Ah, gay and gaudy time! and shall I ever grow too old for thee? Shall those rose-coloured recollections, with wings softer than the softest cloud, ever cease to rise in my soul? As I sit and gaze steadfastly into the past, all those well-known scenes sweep like a fairy pageant across my aching sight. Now waves of slow and stately music fill the air, floating faintly from that distant shore. Oh for some charm to make the spell perpetual! But I know 'twas no such thing. This pleasant dream is all a delusion—that life that now seems so fair was then weary, dreary—then as now, walking in the cold shadow, I saw the distant prospect, behind and before, rioting in the golden light.