Yet sing me that well known air once more,For thoughts of youth still haunt its strain,Like dreams of some far fairy shore,I never shall see again.
Yet sing me that well known air once more,For thoughts of youth still haunt its strain,Like dreams of some far fairy shore,I never shall see again.
Yet sing me that well known air once more,For thoughts of youth still haunt its strain,Like dreams of some far fairy shore,I never shall see again.
About the middle of December, Number Four obtained a situation as clerk in the store already mentioned, on the hill behind our tent; but, as he still continued to live with us, this step produced but little change in our household economy.
According to our calculations, it now rained about one-third of the time, though Colonel Oldbuck insisted that the proportion was at least one-half. The river, like all mountain streams, generally rose with great rapidity, and we were not always prepared for these sudden freshets. Going early one morning, after a gentle rain that had fallen interruptedly for several days, to look after our rocker, I found the spot where we had left it, deep under water, while the river, now swollen to a frightful extent, was fretting itself furiously against the jutting rocks that formed its banks. Hundreds of rockers were swept away, and one man below the island took out forty that had found a harbour in an eddy near which he was at work. Our own, though of iron, was forced to the surface by the violence of the current, and lodged against a snag not far below; but the unconscionable wreckers that saved it charged us an ounce for salvage.
As the waters subsided, the impatient miners hastened to resume their operations on the island from which they had been several days excluded. The fierce flood that had swept over it had produced a wonderful change in its surface, and in some cases almost obliterated the ancient landmarks; sothat the different claimants were not a little perplexed to settle the boundaries of this disputed territory. Some also maintained that a fresh deposit of gold had been distributed over the bar; and a single incident that produced a great excitement, seemed for a time to favour this supposition. A young fellow, at work on the upper end of the island, took out several hundred dollars, in a few buckets full of earth, from a part of his claim that he swore positively was entirely bare before the freshet. The gold, however, was much coarser than the minute scales universally characteristic of those diggings, so that the curious were for some time at a loss to account for its mysterious appearance. It was at length recollected that a man at work the preceding summer, on a dam just above the island, had lost a purse containing five hundred dollars; and the conclusion was irresistible that this was the treasure so curiously brought to light. The lucky finder celebrated his good fortune by having a complete "blow out," or jollification, and went roystering about at the head of a party of good fellows, till he had not a particle of his luck remaining.
Our diggings on the bank were now nearly exhausted. We had spent nearly half the working days of the last two months in prospecting—O word of fear!—had dived into the ravines—run up and down the river—tried the bank to-day, and the island to-morrow—and, in fact, fairly reduced ourselves to the verge of desperation. To confess the truth, if the reader has not discovered it beforehand, we were sadly lacking in faith, hope, energy, and perseverance, and, indeed, all those qualities that are capable of being converted into ready money. No one could work harder than we with a certainty of success, but deprive us of that, and our heads hung down like a bulrush.
It was easy enough to work in a hole already opened, but to start a new one in gravel, clay, or loam, all alike dumb, mysterious, inscrutable—to dig five or twenty feet throughunsympathizing sand when it was so improbable that there was any thing there—it was really unworthy of a rational being.
But working on the bank was attended with another inconvenience arising from the difficulty of avoiding the poison-oak. This is a small shrub generally not more than a foot in height, though sometimes as tall as a man's head, with dark venomous looking leaves resembling in shape those of the oak. Its poison is of the most subtile and diffusive nature, approaching more nearly, perhaps, to that of the fabled upas than any other in the vegetable kingdom. Some, indeed, can handle it with impunity, while with others not only the merest touch but even holding it a few inches from the hands or face is followed by most painful consequences. The hands, as being most exposed, are usually the first to discover its presence. Numerous little swellings make their appearance between the fingers and on the wrist, causing an intolerable itching; and the least contact being sufficient to communicate the infection, it soon spreads to the face and other parts of the body. In a few days, with proper precaution, these symptoms commonly disappear, but are sometimes followed by others yet more unfavourable. The parts affected swell to a prodigious size, and become exquisitely painful; pustules form and break until the whole surface becomes an offensive sore, and in some cases death even has ensued. As we were both unusually sensitive to this poison, we were unwilling to expose ourselves to its influence for any thing less than eight dollars a day, and we were once more driven to the island.
This now presented a truly formidable appearance. Imagine an irregular field of about ten acres, with the stones that would rightfully belong to ten thousand acres of the stoniest pasture, collected on its surface in piles of every conceivable form and relative position. The whole had been already turned topsy-turvy, and many parts two or three times in succession yet scattered parties of miners were still at work;—ourneighbours Browne and Oldbuck among them—and we heard now and then of their making fifteen or twenty dollars in a day, though the average would not have exceeded six or seven. They began, it hardly mattered where, by throwing out the stones with their hands till they reached the bottom of rotten granite, and had thus made what is called a good face for their hole; and then, scraping off a few inches of the surface, they washed it together, with the smaller stones and the trifling quantity of earth that still remained. We went to work in the same manner, and after a hard day's labour, found we had made just ten dollars.
It rained gently and at intervals all the next day and night. Wednesday morning I rose early, and stepping to the door of the tent, looked down towards the island. To my great surprise, hardly space enough remained uncovered to pitch a tent on—in twelve hours the river had risen fifteen feet—our rocker was again submerged, and this was the last we ever saw of it. I walked a short distance up the bank, and though I had been over the same ground a hundred times, I was almost bewildered by the novelty of the scene. The usually rapid river now rushed along with the speed of a mill race, and a multitudinous, deafening shout. The rocks among which we had worked, and the path where we had walked, were now all far below the surface. The waters continued to rise until the whole island was covered, but the next morning, though it was still raining, it again heaved its broad back above the waves.
In the evening we received letters from home announcing that a third brother was on his way to join us, and was, perhaps, even then in San Francisco; pleasant news, though we had so little encouragement to give him on his arrival.
Monday, Jan. 20th, we received a visit from our old friend and shipmate, Capt. Fayreweather, now on his way home. It is impossible to imagine a greater contrast than he now presented to his former self. When we sailed from N. Iremembered him in a long camlet cloak, all chirping and officious good humour—not even the ignominy of being hauled up a steep plank, like a beerbarrel in a nightgown, was able to ruffle his abiding complacency. But now, his humour was dry and sarcastic, and had that peculiar tone that persons of his character are apt to assume when they wish to show that they consider themselves slighted or in any way ill-used. Between him and the smallest man in the ship there existed the same sort of antipathy as between the cat and the mouse, or the elephant and the pig. As this sentiment was instinctive on both sides, and such as often manifests itself between two such opposites, I was not a little amused at the manner in which he referred to his puny antagonist—"little Flanders," with a jerking emphasis on the first syllable. It really seemed as if I could hear the bones crack as he mumbled him in his month.
We could not help pitying the old man, and fancying—I hope it was only fancy—that he was not quite so stout and comely as he had been; we invited him to stay all night, and I gladly gave up my bed for his accommodation. As the evening advanced, he waxed more merry and genial, and some faint flashes of his wonted spirit showed what he must have been ere age and disappointment had chilled his blood; but in the morning all his fire was exhausted, or had retired inward to warm and strengthen his heart. He left us immediately after breakfast, and we soon saw him toiling up the steep hill on the other side of the village, on his way to Sacramento.
A scalded dog, says the Italian proverb, fears cold water; though possibly the case might be altered if the scalding were administered on sufficiently scientific principles, or if the said dog should happen to be blest with a taste for scientific investigation. However, it may still be thought that our recent experience with the Burke rocker should have deterred us from any further experiment of a similar nature; but the sameburning zeal, or zeal for burning, that impels that humble victim of science, the moth, already singed by the blaze, again to venture within the charmed circle, and the thrice-escaped navigator to intrude again within the polar seas, was now urging us on to the same fatal catastrophe.
It was but too evident that by the commonplace methods of mining we should never achieve that brilliant fortune our hopes had promised—five dollars a day was only fifteen hundred a year, by all the known rules of arithmetic, and it was therefore incumbent upon us to strike out some bold and original plan of operations, which should at once declare our genius and secure its reward. If we could only get at the beds of the rivers without the slow, painful and uncertain process of damming, and lay our hand upon the riches that had been accumulating there for a hundred generations, as the busy waters winnowed away the chaff, we should have nothing more to ask; but how to accomplish this important object was now the question. Damming, as we have just seen, was attended with the greatest uncertainty—after months of profitless and unremitting toil, the miner often discovered that the portion of the channel thus laid bare was absolutely worthless, and that all his labour had been expended in vain. Our first thought was to convert a hogshead into a diving bell, and invade the possessions of the river gods in this moving citadel; but the difficulties that beset the construction and the use of such an awkward contrivance left no reasonable hope of success. I remembered to have read, years before, of some experiments made in the harbour of New York with a curious invention called a submarine armour, and from my recollection of its operation on that occasion it seemed exactly what was wanted for our present purpose. The more I thought of this project the more pleasing it became—doubt slowly gave way to hope, and hope rapidly ripened into full assurance of success. So I sat down and wrote a letter with trembling fingers to a friend in New York, requestinghim to send me out one of these Fortunatus dresses without delay.
In the mean time, though with so brilliant a prospect before us, we continued to work on the island for the contemptible pittance I have mentioned, and with the merest apology for a rocker, which I had patched up out of the wreck of one we found on the shore nearly embedded in sand. We were thus occupied one afternoon about the beginning of February, Tertium being at the rocker, while I was on my knees scraping up the rotten granite with an iron spoon, when, hearing a voice behind me that sounded tolerably familiar, I threw as much of the California stoop out of my shoulders as possible, to welcome my brother from whom I had parted just a year, and a week, and a day before, and who now recognised us, somewhat to my disappointment, without difficulty, in spite of our rude dress and unshaven faces. As the day was nearly spent, we resisted his importunity to fall at once to work, assuring him that he would soon be able to gratify his natural ardour and curiosity to his heart's content, and in the mean time we were devoured with eagerness to hear what he had to say of friends at home, and of the incidents of his journey.
He finally submitted with a good grace, considering how sore a disappointment such a delay must necessarily be to one just arrived in the mines, and who, like all in that situation, is burning with impatience to make his first dive into the treasures that lie strewn around him.
We took him captive therefore, and led him in triumph to our tent, where it afforded us infinite delight to exhibit our housekeeping, and to listen to his simple questions on matters that had long since lost all mystery to us. His feverish desire to be employed at first occasioned us considerable perplexity—I shuddered when I saw his profane hand thrust into our treasured deposit, and laughed at the scrupulous care with which he cleaned his finger nails of the minute particles thatadhered to them; but I did not feel easy till I had settled him quietly in one corner near the stove, while I proceeded to furnish forth such a supper as befitted the occasion, pleasing myself all the while at the thought of the agreeable surprise that was awaiting him.
The next morning we went all together, a mile up the river, to consider a claim that had lately been offered for sale. As this placer played quite an important part in our mining operations, and was at that time considered an exception to all established rules, scientific or otherwise, it will be necessary to describe it more particularly. About thirty feet above the river, and separated from it by still higher rocks, ran a short ravine or gully, through which, ages before, a portion of the stream probably flowed. The path along the river led directly through this little valley, and hundreds of miners had walked over it without a thought of the riches that lay under their feet.
At length came the first great freshet I have mentioned, burying at once, all the river diggings, and driving the miners every where in search of others. Curiosity led one to prospect in this ravine, when he found, to his equal surprise and gratification, that it paid as much as three or four ounces a day. The news spread like wild-fire, and the whole ground was instantly divided among a dozen claimants; and though it did not all prove equally rich, it continued for several months to yield a better return than almost any other in the vicinity.
At the time of our visit the richer portions in the bottom had been exhausted, and the miners had advanced several feet into the face of the bank which was here about ten feet high, and extended back from the river in a level plain several hundred yards. This bank, like those on the immediate edge of the water, grew constantly poorer the farther it was explored; but a considerable portion yet remained that we thought would yield us each half an ounce a day. Our former experience in buying holes had made us rather shy of this sortof merchandize, but as the price was insignificant, and the prospect satisfactory, we, after some hesitation, paid the money, and took possession in the usual manner by placing a shovel in the hole, which was thus held by as inviolable a tenure as if it had been locked up in an iron safe.
But all this while the reader should have seen the rapturous novelty with which St. John, like a new-fledged butterfly in a flower garden, was disporting him among the rocks. While I was washing one panful of earth after another, in order to be sure we were getting the worth of our money, he also having obtained a pan, went rushing here and there, thrusting his head into all sorts of odd-shaped crevices, and scraping out, to the infinite detriment of his fingers, the few handfuls of dirt and stones that had lodged in them; till having at length filled his pan, he spent another quarter of an hour in washing it out, and then, with an air worthy of some great discoverer, presented it for our inspection.
"Ah! yes," we replied coldly, for we considered it a duty to dash his enthusiasm somewhat, "that is very fair certainly, but is there any more dirt like it?"
"Oh yes!" cried St. John with the utmost animation, "there is plenty more, only see here!" and with these words, he fished out three or four spoonfuls of gravel from a narrow cleft in the ledge.
On his way home his inexperience was continually leading him into fresh vagaries, and I was very glad that neither of the scientific miners happened to be present, as such shocking perversity could not have failed to arouse their most virtuous indignation. He walked with his eyes fixed on the ground, like a man looking for lost treasure, and trod softly, as if he expected to come upon it by surprise. The yellow mica that glittered among the sand was a never-ending source of deception. At every step he discovered a spot that he was sure must have gold in it, or, at any rate, it would do no harm to try. It was in vain that we assured him that wehad tried it already—that we even pointed out to him the very holes we had dug, as indeed they might be seen at intervals of three or four rods all up and down the river; wherever there was room for another hole between two already existing, his ignorant faith and ardour, now in their newest gloss, insisted upon making the experiment. We spared no pains to convince him of his mischievous error—we knew that the unpalatable truth must sooner or later be forced upon him, and the sooner the nauseous draught was swallowed the better for his peace.
We well remembered "with what compulsion and laborious flight we sunk thus low," and would gladly have spared him the same lingering painful process. But instead of gratefully receiving our well meant ridicule and friendly expostulation, he only hardened himself the more, and we were at length compelled to let the disease run its natural course.
The passing gleam of sunshine that shone on us immediately after his arrival, confirmed him in his heretical opinion, and it was not till he had spent several days in prospecting that any change for the better was discernible in his behaviour.
Having thus enlarged our business, a single rocker was no longer sufficient, and we commenced the construction of another that same afternoon. I finished it during the whole of Monday, while Tertium and St. John went up the river to make their first experiment in our new territory. Their report was not very encouraging—they brought back at night only eight dollars; but as St. John attributed this result entirely to the rocker, which was indeed a wretched affair, and I attributed it, in part at least, to my not being there to see, Tertium was the only one seriously disturbed by their ill fortune.
The next day fully justified my expectations. The earth was a most tenacious clay mixed with stones and gravel; the whole forming a solid mass of concrete that yielded slowlyand painfully only to repeated blows. In spite, however, of this extraordinary hardness, and the distance of the bank from the river, one of us found little difficulty in digging and carrying as fast as the other two could wash, the clayey nature of the soil impeding this operation even more than the first. We had now discarded the raisin box, with a hoop nailed to its sides for a handle, which had hitherto served us for carrying earth, and had substituted a couple of aristocratic wooden buckets, and a very convenient implement known in some parts of the country as a sap yoke, which if not very flattering in its associations, at least made our labour a good deal easier. We rested at noon only long enough to eat the luncheon we had brought with us, and returned home at an early hour, where, on weighing the proceeds of our day's labour, we found we had just an ounce and a half.
Our bank continued to pay larger and larger dividends all the rest of the week till Saturday, when from one hundred and eighty buckets we washed out nearly three ounces, more than we had ever obtained before. After this the tide began to ebb, and our earnings gradually fell off from forty to thirty, from thirty to twenty, and from twenty to fifteen, when, it being near the end of March, we finally abandoned the place to go up into the mountains.
The month of February was unusually cold, rainy, and disagreeable; the sky was smooched with clouds, and there were one or two thick flights of snow, which melted, however, as soon as it reached the earth. On the 18th, Dr. Browne, accompanied by the snuffy Scotchman, and several others from the neighbourhood, set out for the mountains; but they encountered a violent snow storm soon after leaving Coloma, and California Hat, who went with them, became disheartened and returned to Mormon Island to wait for a more favourable season. Oldbuck, who had in vain dissuaded his companions from their enterprise, and still remained inactive in his snug quarters, could not conceal his gratification at theturn things had taken, both because he was vexed that they had not, as usual, been governed by his advice, and because his superior sagacity had been so signally illustrated. He now invited Number Four to lodge at his tent, and we were thus relieved from that horror of all saving housewives, the necessity of making up a spare bed every night, as we had done since St. John's arrival.
One Sunday, about the middle of March, while we were sunning ourselves in front of our tent, our attention was attracted by a sudden commotion under the bank, a little to the right of the village, and which was the same so emphatically denounced by the second scientific miner. Hurrying to the spot, we found a large crowd desperately at work digging out two men who had just been buried beneath a large mass of earth. The unfortunate victims of their own guilty imprudence had been picking out the thin stratum of rubble at the bottom of the bank, when the overhanging cliff, which was composed of a fine sand, some twenty feet in depth, fell in sudden ruin on their heads. In about fifteen minutes a shout from one of the workmen proclaimed that one of the bodies had been found. It was a shocking spectacle—blood, and dirt, and death—the head first, falling on the breast, then the nerveless arm, and at last, the whole poor, deserted body—how swift had been the flight of the startled garrison, at that dread alarm, along the winding ways of the heart and veins.
This incident confirmed the remark so often made as to the insensibility of the miner to the fate of his companions. Though there were of course some exceptions, the indifference generally manifested on such occasions seemed to argue that charity and humanity are not the natural spontaneous growth of the human heart, but a forced and artificial production that can exist only in the hot-bed of permanent society. After satisfying their curiosity to hear the name and residence of the deceased, the crowd disperses, and the whole matter isspeedily forgotten amid more exciting interests, or remembered only as a bit of gossip a little out of the common course. If the sufferers have any friends to perform for them the last sad offices, they are carried to their final resting-place with little of that solemnity that seems inseparable from such a ceremony; and if not, they are hurried into the ground with still more indecent haste.
Spring was now rapidly advancing. The air, except during rainy weather, was the most delightful that can be imagined, and far warmer than in corresponding latitudes on the Atlantic; the mercury standing at noon on the 25th of March, at 82° in the shade. Flowers of the greatest beauty and variety sprung up, as if by magic, in a single night; there were here no masses of snow and ice whose gradual thaw keeps back the tardy, lingering spring long after the sun has passed the equator; he looked upon the earth with gladsome eye, and every ray was the birth of a flower.
As we lay in our tent, in listless idleness, through the sultry hours of noon, the uninterrupted buzzing of the flies that already heralded the approach of summer, fell on the ear like the murmur of a brook over its pebbly bed, or the sighing of the wind among the trees; no sight, no unassisted effort of the imagination could recall so delightfully the varied pleasures of that delicious season—closed blinds, open windows, watered streets, white dresses, ices, and fruits, and new-made hay. But we did not go to California for any such purpose as this; it was another shine and another glitter than of sun or flowers that we had come so far to seek; we could not turn them into coin, nor bottle them up for future enjoyment.
Accordingly the second week in April we prepared, with many misgivings, to leave our present comfortable, and even luxurious quarters, to encounter the hardships and privations of a nomadic life among more rude and uncivilised regions. The difficulty attending the choice of a location, and thedoubt that clouded the whole undertaking, inclined St. John to remain where we were; but this counsel was overruled by a majority of the company, and after some hesitation we fixed upon the Middle Fork of the American River as the scene of our summer campaign.
We left Mormon Island early Monday morning, leaving the trees that had supported the ridge-pole of our tent—the heavy fortification around it—and the rude but not inelegant bedsteads where we had slept so many months, still standing in their original position, but looking weird and fantastic now that the tent which had harmonized them so well was at length removed. It reminded me of Eothen's amiable shrinking from giving up again to the desert the little spot of sand that had borne, even for a single night, the print of London boots and patent portmanteaux—and I threw backward many an involuntary glance towards the bit of earth we had so long rescued from the wild, and which seemed now to reproach us for the desertion.
We packed the most valuable of the articles we left behind us in a large cask, as the safest storehouse we could find, and left it in charge of Number Four till our return. We carried with us our tent, bedding, tools, cooking utensils, and a quantity of provisions; and to transport all this baggage we employed the same individual of whom we bought our claim in the bank, and who since that time had been engaged in a sort of peddling between Sacramento and different parts of the mines. Besides our own goods the judge, for so he was called, had agreed to carry nearly as many more for two other parties who lived in a ravine a mile up the river, and were now travelling in the same direction. On arriving at their houses, which were covered with thatch quitedown to the ground, and presented a very picturesque appearance, we found they had made few preparations for departure, and the wagon was consequently obliged to wait several hours. St. John, who had been unwell for nearly a week, had now a violent sick headache, and all the symptoms of a bilious fever; and we tried to persuade him to remain behind a day or two, till his health should be somewhat restored, and he could travel with safety; but he insisted that he should feel better after we had once started, and I finally consented to walk on with him in advance.
After a brisk walk of several miles, we found we had taken the wrong turning, and retracing our steps, we struck into a by-path that we concluded would lead us into the Coloma road, and then hurried on faster than ever, in hopes of overtaking our companions, who we doubted not had entered the path before us. It had been drizzling undecidedly all the morning, but the rain now poured down in torrents, and even an India-rubber coat with which St. John was provided proved but an insufficient protection. We came at last, however, into the right road, and stopping at the first house, or rather skeleton, as there was nothing of it but the frame, we endeavored to learn if our wagon had yet passed.
They could tell us nothing, so we crouched down on the wet floor, and looked enviously at the warm matron that was frying some beef over a cook-stove, the only sight of comfort anywhere to be found. Some parties of miners who joined us, one after the other, looked wringing wet and intensely unhappy. Little puddles collected round their feet, as round a guttered candle, or a dripping umbrella. They slapped their hats forcibly against the posts to free them from the superabundant moisture, and put them back flabbily on to their lank hair. They made no attempt at conversation except by whistling, and the rain took all the tune out of that as effectually as the stiffening out of a dickey.
An hour passed and still no sign of our companions. Thefever in St. John's veins was quelled by the wind that searched us through, and we were compelled to warm our blood by taking once more to the road. We measured back three weary miles, expecting every moment to meet our little caravan; then, fearing lest we should miss them in some of the crossroads, we hurried back to our stopping place, having thus walked ten miles to accomplish not more than three.
The wagon came along at noon; we hailed its appearance with a sigh of satisfaction, and resolved not to lose sight of it again, that day at least. The road for the next four miles was well nigh invisible; but our course was marked with tolerable certainty by the quagmires through which we floundered. Some of the party were kept constantly in advance, sounding the mire with long sticks in order to find the hardest bottom, and it was nearly sundown when we came in sight of our intended stopping place. In sight of it, but not at it, for the road here took a wide circuit to avoid a low piece of ground, where the wagon would have been reduced to a total wreck.
"Don't leave me here, boys!" cried the judge, in despair, as he saw two or three skulking off towards the house, and surveyed with rueful countenance the prospect before him;—"the mules can never get through here in the world—see that now!" and at the word, the wheels on one side sunk quite up to the hub, and probably nothing but the axle prevented them from going quite out of sight. We were now, however, somewhat accustomed to this course of things, so putting our hands to the spokes with sullen resignation, while the driver whipped and shouted on his staggering mules, we in another hour arrived within a hundred yards of the inn, where the wagon stuck fast, nor men nor mules could move it further, every effort only serving to sink it deeper in the mire.
We took out our blankets and carried them to the house, while the judge unharnessed his mules and tied them to a tree in the rear of the building. The dining-room was full ofguests, and I noticed that, without moving their heads, their eyes continually followed the movements of a buxom servant maid, who was darting back and forth between the supper-table and a cook-stove standing in the open porch. The look of quiet complacency that slowly came out on their weary faces was not owing merely to the fragrant steam that was lazily curling from the tempting dishes before them; it was dreamy and imaginative, and showed that their thoughts were far away by their own wives, and children, and cheerful firesides. After supper the tables were crowded to one side, and a single drowsy candle, that could hardly keep its own eyes open, watched over the busy sleepers. We spread our blankets in the open porch or verandah, and threw ourselves down, saturated with mud and water, and anything but enlivened by this dismal commencement of our expedition.
The next morning, however, the sun shone brightly; it dried our damps, revived our spirits, and gave us courage to encounter the dangers of the road, which the travellers who came from that direction represented as far worse than what we had already passed. We found their accounts by no means exaggerated. We had not gone far before one of the mules, stumbling in the slough, fell and broke the pole of the wagon, which we were then obliged to haul out ourselves. After repairing this damage, which was a very tedious operation, we again set forward; but were presently again brought to a stand-still by a long stretch of marshy ground where the mules were entirely helpless. Nothing was left for us but to carry everything across on our shoulders, and then, pulling the wagon over to firmer ground, we reloaded our goods and once more got under way—all in less than an hour. Broken carts and wagons strewed all the road; ten yoke of oxen were sometimes required to extricate one of the lumbering arks that had come over the plains, and we always knew long beforehand when we were approaching any place of unusual difficulty by the shouting, or rather yelling, of the drivers,which in those profound solitudes could be heard to a great distance.
By making incredible exertions, we succeeded in reaching Weaver Creek, ten miles from our last stopping-place, and here we halted for the night. Quite a village had grown up here since my first visit; a stage whirled, or, I should say, crawled through just after dark, and, in spite of the expostulations of the more timid passengers, kept on to Coloma. We slept under the wheels of a huge ox-wagon, over which we had spread the fly of our tent. The night was cold and damp, and in the morning I emptied half a pint of dew out of the hollow of the cloth; yet all the while St. John was drying up with a burning fever, and his strength was so far reduced that he could hardly endure the fatigue of even our short journeys. There was no help for it now, however, but to push on.
The next morning we crossed the creek. It was swollen by the late rains into an impetuous torrent, and it was a fine sight to watch the long train of wagons coming down to the ford one by one;—a splash—a spring—a scramble up the gravelly hill beyond. We crossed it lower down, on a fallen tree, and entered at once into the hill-country. Here we were no longer incommoded with mud, but found nearly as great an obstacle in the loose stones that covered the road, and the jagged rocks projecting from its surface. The forward axle received such a strain in one of these encounters that it snapped just after crossing the new bridge at Coloma, and we were consequently obliged to remain here till the next morning. We made a good supper out of our stores, slept magnificently in a carpenter's shop, and started the next day, about ten, to ascend the great Coloma hill. We had been told that it was utterly impossible for two mules to draw a loaded wagon up this ascent. However, we succeeded in torturing our way by spasmodic efforts to an elevation of several hundred feet, and then, finding it impossible to proceedany further, half of the load was taken out; and while the judge went on to the summit, followed by the rest of our companions, I remained behind, to watch over our goods and assist him in reloading on his return.
The scene before me was one never to be forgotten. Drawn back among the bushes and trees that shaded the hill, I looked down the winding path upon a wide valley, like an immense panorama, with the South Fork glancing, here and there, like a string of pearls among the hills, that peeped over each other's shoulders on every side as far as the eye could reach, bounded only in one direction, by the everlasting snows of the Sierra Nevada. Parties of miners flowed by in a continuous current, generally with packmules, but now and then a loaded wagon. All seemed bent on some urgent business; if they lagged for a few steps, the next moment they roused themselves, and, quickening their pace, urged on their unsympathizing four-footed companions. It was absolutely awful to see the crowds, and I involuntarily drew back farther into my snug retreat.
The whole of the mining region was at this season in a ferment. An ant-hill, just disturbed by some sudden alarm—a crowded steamboat, on the point of starting—afford apt illustrations of the frenzy that had now invaded the entire population. From a plausible conclusion that generally prevailed that the rivers would prove the richer the nearer their source, the great object with many was to penetrate as far into the mountains as possible. Rector's Bar, far up the Middle Fork, was the principal point of attraction in this section, while hundreds and thousands were hurrying with the same breathless eagerness over on to the Sacramento, the Yuba, and the Feather rivers.
Every one was afraid he should be too late—that he should not go to the richest placers—that he should not find the fortune intended for him—that he shouldn't be able to return home the coming winter—in short, that he should not improvethe present golden opportunity to the very utmost. And the question was, in truth, one of no trifling interest. Such an opportunity would never again present itself, and hundreds who had thus far been disappointed, trusted to it as to their last resource,—hoping, in some of these, as they thought, untrodden valleys, to reap the same rich rewards that had fallen to the share of the first adventurers. On their present decision rested, therefore, in great measure, all their subsequent fortune.
We entered into these feelings to the fullest extent. Before us lay an immense tract of mining country; Murderer's Bar, Spanish Bar, Ford's Bar, Big Bar, and Rector's Bar, on the Middle Fork—the more northern rivers still beyond, and cañons without number on every side. We knew nothing of all these except by reports, and those so contradictory that they involved the subject in yet greater perplexity.
After several hours, I heard our wagon jolting down the stony hill. We hastily threw in our goods, and winding up the long and toilsome ascent, at last reached the summit, where we found our companions lying prone at the foot of a steepling pine, the bark of which was punctured as high as we could see with holes just big enough to admit the slender acorn that was stowed in each for winter's use, but whether of bird or squirrel we could not discover.
Georgetown, fourteen miles from Coloma, was the present end of our journey. This is a small and sombre collection of log-houses in the midst of a dark pine forest. There are few objects more pleasing and picturesque than a log-house standing by itself in an open clearing; but twenty or more of them together, in formal rows, are anything but attractive. Their dark rough walls drink up all the sunshine. They are as much out of place as an Indian or trapper in a great city, and have an air of melancholy about them, as if they pined for their native solitudes.
We found here, however, a very decent lodging, where they gave us a good supper, swept the floor clean for our blankets, and charged us only two dollars apiece for all these attentions. The next morning before breakfast the judge hauled our luggage over to a neighbouring hill, where we suspended our tent between two trees, and our companions pitched theirs at a short distance, to wait till one of their number who had "gone a prospecting" should give them the result of his explorations.
Monday, the 15th, they started for Rector's Bar, which they had finally selected as offering the greatest promise. We would gladly have accompanied them, but St. John's illness, which had now become very serious and alarming, obliged us to remain; and before he was well enough to travel, we heard such accounts as induced us to abandon that scheme altogether.
The week succeeding their departure was one of uninterrupted quiet. All around us rose hundreds of "tall and sombrous pines," many of which were scathed and blackened by fire, their naked, branchless trunks standing like mouldering tombstones in a churchyard of giants. The ground sloped away in front into a deep and narrow ravine. There was near us no human sight nor sound—a rising hill hid the drowsy little village entirely from our view, and the whirling tide of which we had so lately formed a part, swept by unheeded.
Often, as we lay reclined on the thick bed of pine that covered the floor of our tent, the wind sounding hollow among the trees imposed upon us the delightful illusion that we heard afar off the bells of our native city; time and space were forgotten—everything about us seemed dreamy and unsubstantial—a curious phantasmagoria, to which we surrendered ourselves without any interfering reflection. A story that I happened to have with me, written by Horace Smith, and the scene of which was laid at Venice, was in perfect harmony with this indolent after-dinner existence.
Friday, a cold dismal rain darkened this agreeable melancholy into gloom, and in the afternoon I padded over to the village in quest of a little excitement. The gambling houses were in full blast, nor was this at all a matter of wonder; in the absence of all rational amusement, and on such a day as this, I rather felt inclined to wonder that I did not gamble myself.
As St. John's health was nearly restored by this week's rest, it seemed time to be looking about us in search of a favourable opening. The rivers, so far as we could learn, had not yet begun to fall, and the accounts we heard from Rector's were so discouraging that we abandoned all present thought of advancing any further into the mountains. There was no lack of ravines in the immediate neighbourhood, from some of which immense sums had been extracted; but almost every foot of ground was appropriated; and the labour, beside being far more toilsome and disagreeable, was entirely different from that to which we had been accustomed. Buried in those deep valleys, shut out from the wholesome light of the sun, breathing the pestilent damps of stagnant water, and a rank vegetation, the unlucky miners who worked there purchased their gold at the highest possible rate, in cramps, and agues, and premature old age.
Our old friend Dr. Browne was only seven miles off, at Ford's Bar; and no better alternative presenting itself, I set out early Monday morning to make him a visit and see what could be done at that point in the way of mining. My path ran at first through the open level of the pine forest, then cutting off the head of Oregon Cañon, made a sudden dive about three miles from Georgetown into Cañon Creek.
Capt. Fayreweather in his wanderings had come as far as this place, and had given us a marvellous account of the steepness of the hill, and the depth of the valley; where, he said, the sun never shone, even at midday, and the miners who entered into it were obliged to climb every evening to the upperair to expel and evaporate the noisome vapours they had absorbed. Perhaps a little incident that occurred at the time may partially explain this bitterness on the part of the too sensitive old patriarch.
One night, after a long and fatiguing day, he found himself far from home, and gladly accepted the invitation of some chance acquaintance to accompany them to their camp; but when, after a long tramp over two or three high hills, they at last reached the spot, instead of the snug log cabin he expected he found nothing but two big logs laid cornerwise; which, however it might suggest the first rudiments or tender shoot of what might in time grow into a royal palace, as yet afforded but little protection against the biting winds. His friends having ushered him into this truly aboriginal bed-chamber, set about preparing and eating their own supper without wasting a thought upon their unhappy visitor, who would undoubtedly have starved before morning with hunger and cold, if he had not fortunately had the precaution to fill his pockets with bread and cheese before leaving home.
Having descended the hill, not without several tumbles, I crossed the narrow stream running through the bottom, and which was diverted from its original channel in a hundred places by the indefatigable miners, and again ascending, came in less than an hour to the brow of the hill overlooking the Middle Fork. Much had already been told me of the rugged wildness of this river, but I was wholly unprepared for the scene that now so suddenly burst upon me. Two thousand feet below, but so near that it seemed as if a vigorous leap would land me in the middle, Ford's Bar, like a mighty wedding cake, lay sleeping in the sun: the stones on its surface dwindled into sugar plums and almonds—the tents into sugar houses, with almost invisible mites creeping among them. Directly opposite, rose a hill of still taller proportions, running in and out, in irregular phalanx, as far as the eye could see up and down the narrow crooked valley—so crooked thatthe first thought was of wonder how the river ever got in—the second of still greater wonder how it could ever get out. A solitary turkey-buzzard, sailing like a practised skater in long swinging curves down the stream, now grazed with his wing the stunted bushes on this hillside, and the next moment threw his shadow athwart the rugged slope of the other.
To venture into such a chasm was like the frogs jumping into the well; but fortifying myself with the reflection that we should never have heard of such a place unless some one had returned from it to the upper world, I commenced the descent. The narrow shelvy path ran in short zig-zags down the face of the mountain, and naturally supposing it to know best, I followed its example. I found this mode of progression much easier than walking, though I was often obliged to check my career by clutching at the low bushes that had thrust their roots among the disjointed rocks, and in half an hour reached the bottom, my knees trembling and knocking against each other so that I could hardly stand.
Dr. Browne was at the upper end of the bar engaged, so he informed me, in the erection of a hospital for the accommodation of his numerous patients; for since his arrival at this place, where he had no longer to divide his profits with the cunning Oldbuck, he had entered in earnest on the practice of his profession. The building or edifice honoured by this lofty appellation, was a tent about six feet square, and barely high enough in the middle for a man to stand upright. It stood in the midst of burning rocks without a rag of shade about it, and seemed in every respect well fitted to test the efficacy of fire-practice in the treatment of diseases.
The prospect on the Middle Fork was not encouraging, and when I left the bar, I fully intended never to return. I was an hour and a half in ascending the hill, whose slaty sides almost crackled under the intense heat of the sun; that now declining from the zenith, levelled his perpendicular rays full against the western slope. But this being past, and themountain forest receiving me into its grateful shadow, I was able to give wider scope to the consideration of the important matter now before me. Wherever I turned, I was headed off by the ugly question, "If you don't go to Ford's Bar, wherewillyou go?" There was no way of dodging it, so we effected a compromise, and I concluded to go over a few days to give the place a trial, the result of which would perhaps enable us to arrive at a final conclusion. So have I seen a long-headed rat arguing to himself the expediency of choosing a trap for his future residence, and finally concluding with equal sagacity to go in, just to give the place a trial.
However, my brothers inclining to the same opinion, early the next morning I quietly submitted to having packed on my back the fly of our tent and one of our cradles, a burden more inconvenient from its size than weight,—St. John was similarly equipped with our blankets,—we each carried in our dexter hand a shovel or a pick, and thus accoutred we went humping along the road, in a strain of the profoundest humility. Tertium accompanied us to the brow of the hill, with the sap yoke and two well-filled buckets; and then returned to Georgetown to wait, in solitary dignity, the arrival of a portion of our goods that had been left behind at Mormon Island.
In addition to our former burden, we now each took one of the buckets in his other hand, and committed ourselves to the descent. Subsequent experience made the difficulties of this passage seem trifling in comparison, but at the time they presented themselves with a most formidable aspect. The elevation, indeed, was inconsiderable, compared even with that of Mount Washington, but the steepness of the path, its uneven, slippery surface, broken into steps a yard high, or covered with minute fragments of slate that afforded no sure foothold, and, more than all, our awkward burdens that sadly dislocated our centre of gravity even on level ground, compelled us to proceed with thesame high-strung intensity of muscle as a dancer on the tight rope.
Once or twice I dropped in haste what I carried in my hands in order to save myself from blundering over a precipice by clinging to the bushes; and the rocker on my back received many an unlucky bump, and my dignity many a grievous affront from the compulsory sittings-down that I encountered. In an hour and a half we reached the bottom in safety, and then picked our weary way stoopedly over the stones to the store where Dr. B. had fixed his quarters. This store, a large oblong tent, stood at the upper end of the bar, near the mouth of a brook called Otter Creek, that found its way down in a succession of small cascades between two spurs of the mountain range, and emptied at this place into the Middle Fork.
We proceeded a short distance up this stream, and kneeling down camelwise upon the ground, contrived, with some difficulty, to ease our shoulders of their unaccustomed burden. Our first object after recovering somewhat from our fatigue, was to find a few poles on which to suspend our tent, or rather the long broad piece of drilling that was to take its place. This was not so simple a matter as it might seem; there was nothing in the immediate neighbourhood but two or three gigantic pines and scattered clumps of bushes; and we had to go a long way up the continuous arbour that shaded the creek before we could find anything fit for our purpose. For bedding we covered the floor with an aromatic shrub resembling the willow, the odour of which was so pungent that it filled our eyes with tears, and brought on an interminable fit of sneezing.
Having thus completed our simple arrangements, we were at leisure to look about us, and see what kind of a world it was into which we had fallen. There were about a hundred miners in this place, some of whom had pitched their tents, like our own, on the banks of the creek; but the greater part were scattered up and down the bar. Besides these, therewas at least an equal number who had camped here and there along the river for several miles above and below, but were in the habit of coming to Ford's Bar to buy their provisions. There were two stores, the one already mentioned, belonging to a merchant in Coloma, and kept by a genuine Nantucketer, smooth-faced, disputatious, lank, cadaverous, and good natured; and another about the middle of the bar, owned by a man who was in every respect the opposite of the first, and went by the name of Dutch Tom.
Wednesday, we went to work in a claim given us by Dr. B., who, having taken up another of greater value, was unable longer to retain possession. In opposition to the prevailing rule, the surface was here richer than the earth below, the first foot yielding fifteen cents to the bucket, and the stratum lying immediately beneath, only four or five. But neither was fifteen-cent dirt at all suited to our notions; we had done far better than that at Mormon Island, and thought it no great things either; so the next day, leaving a pick in the hole, by which, according to the laws of the bar, we could hold possession four days without working, we set off a prospecting down the river, in the confident expectation of lighting upon a spot richer than we had yet seen except in dreams.
The Middle Fork here presented the strange anomaly of a river without banks; the mountains stood face to face, foot to foot, their broad stubbed toes actually fitting into each other, and breaking up the stream into a constant succession of falls and rapids. The bar afforded comparatively easy walking, but this being past, we found ourselves now sidling along the face of a precipice, now leaping from rock to rock at its base. Here and there, a little brook, bubbling out far up among the nodding pines, came trickling, like tears or sweat, down the deep wrinkles of the mountain, till it was drunk up by the spongy moss, and juicy bushes thick with fragrant flowers.
But wherever we came, others had been before us; and,in fact, in all my California rambles—I record it with grief and shame—I never had the exquisite pleasure of going where man had never been before, and never, except once or twice, of digging a hole where there were not others all around in most disheartening proximity.
This river, which we had thought to find an unexplored, almost virgin stream, had been already trampled by a thousand feet, and far more effectually ransacked than even the South Fork itself. This was partially accounted for by the comparatively small quantity of soil, which both in depth and extent bore no proportion to the broad deep banks of the latter river. Except on the bars it was very unusual to find earth more than two feet in thickness; and often there was nothing but the crumbling slate in whose crevices the gold had found a lodging.
The result of our explorations, while it at once precipitated us from the pinnacle of present promise, left us the largest liberty to hope as much as we pleased from the morrow; and thus our fall was broken by the same never-failing feather bed of future anticipation on which the gallant Micawber so often rested. The river must fall some time or other, though it was certainly very long about it; and then, every body said, we should find rich pickings.
In the mean time we were in great perplexity where to spend the next six weeks; we thought at first of returning to Weaverville or Coloma, until the melting snows should cease to swell the rivers, but a natural aversion to taking any step backward interfered.
We passed the evening at the store, where a small party was usually assembled; some engaged in card-playing, others in conversing on various topics, among which the mines furnished the most frequent and the most interesting. Some veteran gold-hunter, with the beard of '48 still on his face, commonly occupied the post of honour, and, with the importance, he had also a full share of the license of the professionalstory-teller. We were of course, like all good citizens, devout believers in every thing appertaining to the early history of our little colony; and Ford, from whom the bar received its name, was with many nearly as great a hero as Captain Kidd. For three weeks in succession he took out seven hundred dollars a day from a particular spot that was ever after regarded with almost religious reverence; but being then taken sick, he was obliged to leave the mines and make the best of his way down to Sutter's Fort, at that time the nearest point where he could obtain the necessary assistance. Before he reached the fort, however, he had not only spent all his previous earnings, but was besides in debt to the amount of fifteen hundred dollars; the enormous price he had to pay for medicine and attendance having swallowed up in a few days what would have sufficed for his whole life.
Whether this story were true or not, the ending was in strict accordance with all my own observation. I had at different times encountered many of the first year miners, but, though they all professed to have met with the like incredible success, not one of them was then a whit the better. They no sooner succeeded in scraping together a few thousands than they either got into a drunken frolic and drank it all up—which was no difficult matter with liquor at fifty dollars a bottle—or went down to San Francisco, where they found at the gaming table a still more expeditious riddance. This universal delirium must be ascribed in part to the ease with which they obtained their wealth; but far more to the character of the men themselves—disbanded soldiers—runaway sailors—and the half savage scouts or pioneers of civilization scattered over California and the adjacent countries.
Having at length concluded to remain at Ford's Bar, we became impatient to make some improvement in our style of living; for, indeed, we were all of us of a somewhat soft and luxurious temper, and began already to pine after the fleshpots of Egypt that we had so unwillingly left behind us at Mormon Island. Our only cooking utensil was a coffee-pot—we dipped our biscuit into a mixture of ants and butter, and sweetened our coffee with ants and sugar in nearly equal proportions. This is, I dare say, very delightful to read of, but for some reason we did not find it so pleasant in actual experience; and accordingly the last week in April St. John walked to Georgetown, and returned the next day with Tertium, bringing another rocker, and the more indispensable of our kitchen furniture. The judge had not yet arrived with the remainder of our goods, and they therefore left the tent still standing in the ghostly forest.
The next thing was to provide ourselves with a more commodious habitation. We ripped the fly apart, and having sewed it together again in the form of a small tent, set it up in a very convenient and agreeable situation, a short distance from that we had hitherto occupied. Between it and the water a flight of rude steps led down a few feet on to a narrow shelf, or platform, terminating on the side next the tent in a low wall, against which we built a fire-place of stones. By the side of this platform, which we intended to use as a kitchen, was another of somewhat narrower limits, which,being on a level with the water and shaded by a low-hanging tree, furnished a pleasant dining-room and place of resort in the small hours of the afternoon.
As we had long wearied of eating nothing softer than ship-biscuit, we now determined to follow the example of all around us, and, like good housewives, bake our own bread. Our first experiments were not very encouraging. The saleratus and citric acid we used instead of yeast produced but a very slight effervescence, and our loaves were nowise remarkable for lightness. For a long time, we were in the habit, on baking a new batch, of throwing a morsel into the creek, and if it floated, which did not often happen, it was considered a prodigious triumph, which only the most fortunate conjuncture of circumstances could hope ever to equal.
But in process of time we abandoned this imperfect method, and first allowing our dough to sour, neutralized the acid with a due proportion of saleratus, and thus succeeded in producing loaves which, as Dr. B. pertinently remarked, may have been surpassed, but have never been equalled. Our first cakes—I think I see them now, round, saffron-coloured, of a lead-and-leathery consistence—were baked in the universal frying-pan, which, like acting in oratory, is the first, second, and third requisite in a California kitchen. But this requiring too much time, St. John, who was something of a tinker, manufactured a baker, or reflector, out of a tin box that had contained salmon or pickled herring, and with this our success was every way satisfactory.
Our claim on the bar, originally of small extent, and, as we have seen, of no great depth, was rapidly lessening, and nothing now remained but a circle of a few yards in diameter. When we first commenced operations, a tent occupied the centre of our ground, and we at once laid siege against it in regular form. We pushed our works nearer and nearer, and with so much spirit and success, that by the fifth day we had obtained possession of one of the most importantoutworks—the kitchen; and having thus stopped his supplies, we had strong hopes of compelling the enemy to an unconditional surrender. He held out, however, nearly a week longer; but then, seeing us about to undermine his outer wall, he sounded a parley, and to avoid the horrors of a storm, agreed to evacuate the premises, and marched out with all the honours of war. This was the general rule, the right of the miners being considered paramount to all others, and no one being allowed to occupy, for building or similar purposes, ground that contained gold enough to pay for washing.
As a few days would finish our work on this spot, it became necessary to look out for another. We could find none, however, of any promise unappropriated, except one a few feet in width, half a mile down the river, and which at present resembled the little Frenchman's water-lots too closely to be of any great value; but trusting that we should not have so long to wait before walking over our property, we threw an old pick into the river, leaving the handle just projecting above the surface, as a notice to all concerned that we intended to work the claim as soon as possible. Some more ingenious individuals kept always on hand a store of worn-out picks and broken shovels to be used for this very purpose; and as long as they were undetected, succeeded in retaining possession of several claims all at the same time; so that the new-comer often found, to his dismay, every available point defended by this superannuated batallion.
Not yet satisfied with our possessions, and tempted by the delicious shade in which the creek was embowered, we determined to give its banks a trial, though they were generally held in very light esteem. We placed our cradle on a rude bridge just on a level with the water; the trees springing from the mossy banks on either side formed a complete arch overhead, and the whole scene presented the strongest possible contrast to the bar bleaching and blistering in the sun. It was the very poetry of mining, and paid about as well aspoetry in general, our whole morning's work yielding only three dollars.
I was so far from being disheartened by this repulse that a few days after I made a second experiment at a spot not far from our own door. The bank at this place had apparently been formed by a landslide from the adjacent mountain, and here both science and experience agreed that gold was especially likely to be found. A pennyweight, nearly a dollar, that I obtained from a single panful of earth at the very outset of my undertaking, lured me on with constant hope of lighting upon some rich deposit, till having at length struck the ledge at the bottom, and found nothing more, I abandoned the project in disgust.
Monday, about the middle of May, I walked alone to Georgetown to bring over to the bar the remainder of our provisions. I obtained also five letters, for which I had to pay ten dollars, the extra postage being charged by the express agent who brought them from San Francisco.
It was easy to see, from expressions in these letters, and indeed in all that we received during our absence, that our friends at home were still in a most deplorable state of ignorance as to the extent of California. They invariably took it for granted either that the mines were in San Francisco, or at least so near that we could go there as often as we pleased. At the same time they seemed to suppose that we knew nothing of what was passing in the great world; and instead of telling us who of our acquaintance was born or married, and similar important and interesting matters pertaining to our little circle, they filled their letters with such impertinent details as the trial of Dr. Webster, the death of President Taylor, or some misbegotten battle in Hungary, in which we either at that distance felt no particular interest, or had read the whole story months before in the New York or Boston papers.
But in spite of this unfortunate misconception, our letterswere well worth all we paid for them; it was impossible wholly to exclude the air of that home where they were written, and even the simple envelope with its familiar superscription came laden with a thousand tender associations.
In order to transport our tent and other articles, I hired two mules and a muleteer at twelve cents a pound as freight, for a distance of only seven miles, the usual charge of one cent a mile being in this instance increased on account of the extraordinary difficulties of the way. This is just two thousand times the cost of transportation in the New England States.
Before the end of May our first claim was quite exhausted, and the river was yet too high to permit us to commence operations in the other. In the mean time three courses presented themselves—one was to go to work on the bar, where we could always make four dollars apiece a day—another was to prospect with the dogged perseverance of a bloodhound, as others were doing, in search of the numerous little patches of richer earth that still remained hidden under the overturned masses of worthless rubbish along the banks—and the third was to do nothing.
Pride and indolence both revolted against the first—we had not a large enough bump of hope for the second—and, finally, the third was far more congenial to our temper and inclinations.
There was a small circulating library at the store, containing, for a wonder, some valuable books; and I found it far pleasanter to sit in our cellar, with my feet in the water, and my back against the tree that embraced me with its shadow, and read such delightful stories as The Home, Picciola, Lamartine's Confidences, and The Ancient Regime, or Reg-i-me, as our doctor had it, than to dig, and carry, and wask, on the burning bar, with the mercury at a hundred in the shade—and all for only four dollars a day.
When we tired of reading, or our spirits craved fiercerexcitement, we strolled over to the store, where every variety of character presented itself for our amusement. A tax which was at this time assessed upon all foreign miners produced a great deal of dissatisfaction among that respectable class of the community; and the question was often argued with considerable bitterness on each side, though Thing, the storekeeper, and champion of the liberal party, generally contrived to put all concerned in good humour by the unanswerable argument in which he always took refuge. After exhausting all the objections usual in such cases, as that the law was unjust, unconstitutional, and the like, and thus rousing his democratic sympathies to the proper level, he would exclaim with admirable pertinency, and pausing for a moment in his labours, with the brimming scoop of sugar or flour in his uplifted hand, "We call America the land of the free and the brave, and all that; and then, when the poor fellows come here and try to earn a little money, we put a tax on their labour!"
At this the assembled Irish, Spanish, Dutch, and all the rest of the free and the brave aforesaid, who happened to be present, would express their admiring satisfaction each in his own fashion, while the natives, equally delighted, would applaud uproariously.
"And by the powers," cried a strapping Hibernian, who rejoiced in the honourable surname of The Tinker, and who was likewise reported to have a D branded somewhere on his person, "and that's what I call the right kind of talk any way."
"Yees," rejoined a paunchy little Dutchman, "me tinks so too; Meester Ting ish a very nice man;" while a dirty Mexican, adjusting his poncho, reiterated his Si Señor! muchas gracias! and other like points of admiration, with all the conscious dignity of a grandee of Old Castile.
But these scenes had sometimes a far more serious termination; and Sunday especially, when the miners came fromevery direction to buy provisions, seldom passed without a drunken frolic. The last Sunday in May was particularly distinguished in this manner; a new rum-shop had been opened, and all the hard drinkers in the neighbourhood signalized the event by swallowing a double allowance of liquor. They went from one store to another, drinking two or three times at each, till after several hours spent in this way, they reached that point when their natural inclinations manifested themselves without restraint.
An Irishman who, when sober, was a very clever fellow, first attacked me, as I sat on a pork-barrel, watching the progress of this strange drama, asserting that I had spoken of his countrymen the day before in a slighting and contemptuous manner, and challenging me to fight. While I was eagerly protesting my innocence, and assuring him that, on the contrary, no one had a better opinion of them than myself, The Tinker thrust himself into our party, and began, in a thick, drunken voice, to give an account of a fight in which he had been the hero, but whether in New York, or Mexico, or green Ireland, we could only conjecture. He illustrated his narrative by sundry vigorous passes in rather unpleasant proximity to the nose of his patriotic countryman, who thereupon taking sudden fire, knocked The Tinker behind a row of barrels that lined one side of the tent, where he lay a long time unable to extricate himself, his face only peering at intervals in drunken grimace over the wall of his prison. His antagonist was rendered almost frantic by this easy victory; he dashed his hat furiously on the ground, and rolling his eyes and twisting his face into horrible contortions, he flung his arms about like a stout-hearted old windmill, defying a thousand or more Don Quixotes to mortal combat.
A wiry little Scotchman, hugging his friend one moment in maudlin affection, and the next launching out into a strain of high moral eloquence—a doctor, young, handsome, and of good family, sitting on the ground and moaning to himself,the very picture of helpless imbecility,—a generous, highspirited volunteer, who had led on his company when three-fourths were cut down by the fire of the Mexicans, and who now whimperingly called on his friends to say if he was a coward,—together with half-a-score of more common soakers, quarrelsome and ill-tempered, were the principal actors; while among the crowd of spectators there was hardly one who was not, more or less, under the same influence.
They finally adjourned into the open air with the intention of going on to the next stopping-place at Dutch Tom's; but to do this it was necessary to cross the creek, here about four feet deep, and bridged only by a single log. All but one crossed in safety,—some running, some creeping on their hands and knees, and others, to show how entirely they were unaffected by the liquor, balancing along in a kind of country dance.
The dizzy pate who had fallen heels over head into the creek, no sooner recovered his footing than, seeing a number laughing at his catastrophe, he burst out with "I spose you think I'm drunk, eh? but it's all one for that; I only jumped in here acoz I was thirsty. Anybody that says I'm drunk,"—here he shook his head, with a look of direful meaning,—"I say, anybody that says I'm drunk—"
"Well," cried another, "what is it?—out with it, man."
"Well, anybody that says I'm drunk—I don't care who 'tis.Youthink I'm drunk?" he added, turning fiercely upon our little doctor, who had incautiously advanced too near the edge of the creek; "do you know, sir, that I was graduated, sir, at Edinboro'?"