On explaining my situation, he very good-naturedly informed me that I was in the wrong road entirely; and that I ought to have taken the right hand turning several miles back, at somebody's ranch. I thanked him, and promised to follow his directions to the very letter, if ever I travelled that way again, but what I wanted to know then was the nearest way to Georgetown. Opening his mouth, and setting his eyes very hard on vacancy, while he pressed his forefinger on his nether lip, he appeared to meditate for a moment; and then replied, pointing with his whip, that the nearest way was over that hill yonder, but if he was me he should go right on to Greenwood Valley and take a clean start from there.
I very reluctantly followed his advice, and having obtained a drink of water from a lonely shingle-maker I encountered in the forest, I hastened on, and came in due time to the prettiest village I had seen in California. The single broad street with its bright white houses, of canvass indeed, instead of painted clapboards, reminded me strongly of New England; but I had just then little relish of beauty of any sort, and was passing through in very ill humour, when I was saluted with, "Hullo, stranger! is that you?" and turning round, I recognised, to my equal pleasure and surprise, one of the company who had started with us from Mormon Island and afterwards left us, as already narrated, on their way to Rector's Bar. The judge was there also, keeping a bowling alley and its usual concomitants; and a little further down the street two more of the company partners in a store and boarding house. They confirmed the accounts we had already heard of Rector's; on their arrival at that place in April, they found the ground white with snow, provisions enormously dear, and no possibility of doing any thing for months. They finally broke up their camp, and came down to Greenwood, where theyhad been so far successful as to make them forget their former losses.
A tedious walk of eight miles brought me to Georgetown, where I stopped half an hour to rest, very foolishly as it happened; for when I prepared to go, I could hardly rise from my seat, and did not succeed in gaining an erect position till I reached the bottom of the hill at Cañon Creek. Sitting down on a log that bridged the sluggish current, I bathed my feet in the muddy water, and, thus refreshed, made my way down the mountain at Ford's Bar, just as the miners were returning from their day's work.
The next morning, the river having now fallen sufficiently, we made trial of the spot where we had designed building a wing-dam, but found that the great depth of water at that place rendered such an undertaking altogether impracticable. We spent several of the succeeding days in running up and down the river, in pursuit of some of those rich pickings we had so confidently expected; but without success. Lest the reader should think this was entirely our own fault, I would add, that we did not find them, because they were not there. The banks, instead of improving as the waters receded, became even worse and worse—the first miners, naturally, commenced at low-water mark, and they had done their work so effectually, that nothing was left for their successors.
Before leaving Ford's Bar, we determined, however, to make one more trial of damming, and selected for that purpose a portion of the river just above the mouth of Otter Creek. For two whole days I stood up to my middle in water, painfully scooping out the sand and gravel with a long-handled shovel; and, in all that time, owing to the peculiar difficulties of the situation, only succeeded in digging a hole four feet in depth. As there was very little gold in any of the earth I had thrown out, we went no further; but another party, undeterred by our example, at once took possession, and having, after several weeks, completed their dam, found,to their own chagrin and our equal complacency, that the place was, as we had concluded, entirely worthless.
We now made up our minds to leave the Middle Fork as soon as possible, and sent Tertium on in advance to make a rapid and comprehensive survey of the diggings for a distance of ten or fifteen miles above Mormon Island.
While he was gone, we still continued to mine here and there along the banks. Returning, one day, from a longer tramp than usual, we came to a tent occupied by a party we had met several months before, on their first arrival in the mines. They were then in fine spirits; not even the clumsy packs, that bent them almost double, could crush their vigorous hope; and though I tried, with most disinterested benevolence, to moderate their extravagant expectations, it was easy to see that they gave no credit to my assertions. One of their number now lay in his graveclothes before their door; and his companions, themselves enfeebled by sickness, were waiting till some one should pass who would assist in carrying the body to the grave.
We offered our services, and, each taking a handle of the rude bier to which the body was lashed, we walked on in silence, our companions leading the way. After proceeding a quarter of a mile down the river, over such a path as we have already described, we turned to the left and began to ascend the mountain at the only place practicable in that neighbourhood. It was extremely steep and slippery; and it was only by clinging to the bushes, and sliding the bier along the ground, that we at length reached the elevated shelf or plateau where the grave had been dug. A few handfuls of fern were thrown over the body, wrapt simply in a blanket; two boards laid upon it, in the form of a roof; the earth thrown in, and all was over. Our companions thanked us for our assistance, and we returned to the bar, to inform the doctor that the patient he had seen almost well the day before, was dead and buried.
Sunday, came a letter from Tertium, advising us to return to Mormon Island, or Natoma, as it was now called; and the next Wednesday we packed our luggage on two mules, almost extinguishing them beneath the cumbrous load, and began, for the last time, painfully to ascend the winding path by which alone we could reach the lofty table-land above. We were obliged to halt repeatedly to re-adjust some perverse rocker or impracticable frying-pan; and, once or twice, the whole concern, mule and all, was only saved from rolling, in an avalanche of legs and tin kettles, down the mountain, by our catching sudden hold of the bridle, and, with the other hand, griping fast the bushes. Having reached the top in safety, we stopped awhile to breathe; then, filing softly on through the glorious pine forest, demolishing a whole colony of ant-lions at every step—like some moon-headed giant, striding from one planet to another, and unwittingly dusting away with his foot Broadway or St. Paul's—we came in a few hours to Georgetown, where we stopped till the next day.
We took supper at an eating-house kept by an honest Missourian, who had come across the Plains, and brought with him his whole family. He had the highest opinion of California, and well he might; one of his children, an interesting little girl of five, having already received quite a handsome dowry, a pint cupful of gold, presented to her at different times by the hard-fisted miners, whom her infantile grace had so pleasantly reminded of their own distant firesides.
We found very comfortable and genteel lodgings under an immense hay-rick, containing several hundred tons, in one corner of the village; and the next morning, having found a wagon going down to Sacramento, engaged the driver for ten dollars, to carry our luggage as far as Natoma. We rode this last part of the way, and had thus an opportunity of learning each other's experience. Our driver was comparatively a novus homo; he had been but a few months in the country, yet had already made several thousand dollars, andevidently placed no faith in our assertions, that we had, thus far, met with nothing but disappointment. He could not understand how a man could be a whole year in California without acquiring at least a moderate fortune. He had a store far up on the Middle Fork, where he was doing a fine business; and was now going down to Sacramento for a fresh supply of goods. It was not in human nature to feel no touches of envy, as we listened to his confident anticipations; yet I was really sorry on hearing, several months after, that he had lost his whole property by the failure of an extensive damming operation, in which he was largely interested. This is but a specimen of the ups and downs of California life.
Friday, August 10th, we arrived at Natoma, neither richer nor poorer than when we left that place four months before, but yet congratulating ourselves that it was no worse. Hundreds, who had like us illustrated the fable of the Dog and the Shadow, had not escaped half so easily, having lost not only the whole summer, but all their previous earnings. Nowhere else is it so true that a rolling stone gathers no moss; and nowhere else has the said stone the same temptation to roll as in California.
We found Tertium domiciliated with Number Four in a tent which the latter had erected with such taste and elegance as might in the mines fairly be termed magnificent. The interior was decorated with bright blankets of different colours, and festoons of cedar;—the floor covered with a carpet of snowy canvass; and the cot bedsteads standing on opposite sides seemed to promise the highest possible amount of single blessedness. Some Vandal had applied a torch to our former camp, and nothing now remained but a black unsightly blot. We pitched our tent hard by, and having concocted a savoury lobster salad, fell to thinking most vigorously what we should do next. By the time we had discussed the salad, we had come to the conclusion to make another attack upon the bank we had deserted in the spring, where we hoped to find work enough to last till winter, and gold enough to take us home, and buy a suit of clothes in which to present ourselves to our admiring friends. We had long beforethis been compelled to abandon our original purpose of returning home like princes in disguise, clothed in rags and tatters, but having a royal ransom hidden beneath every patch.
The spot we now selected for our encampment was in the centre of the short ravine already described, and a little beyond the part we proposed to work. Close by the side of the tent the bank rose abruptly to the height of ten or twelve feet, and leaning over it, on its very verge, stood a gigantic pine, with long heavy branches,—its roots, bare and knotted, seeming, like the barky claws of the Arabian roc, to gripe fast hold of the soil. Between the ravine and the river rose a small rocky island, or what would have been such ages before, with a few bushes resembling the horse-chestnut growing on the scanty patches of earth among bald masses of polished granite. Directly in front of this island a party of miners called the South Fork Damming Company were making preparations to drain the river; and among its numbers we found the same ubiquitous individual so often mentioned as the Judge. Between this point and Mormon Island several other companies were occupied in the same manner, and large piles of lumber, to be used in constructing their various flumes, were already scattered here and there along the banks.
Our old claim still remained as we left it, no one having had the hardihood to assail its impregnable front now baked into yet greater hardness by a five months' drought. It was easy to see at a single glance that there was work enough there for a hundred men; as to the gold, that remained to be decided. We were in no hurry, however, to commence the attack; it was necessary first to reconnoitre the bank; digging with the pick was very laborious, and we might perhaps devise some easier way; the heat was excessive, and in the mean time we had enough to do in making our home more comfortable. We built a bower before the door to serve as a dining-room, and drove a number of stout stakes into theground to support the smooth stone slab that furnished us with a table. At a little distance we built a rude fireplace of stones. The pine-cones that covered the ground made an excellent fuel; our frying-pan and coffee-pot set up their wonted song as cheerfully as ever, and once more our little Lares and Penates came frisking and capering round our hearthstone. We now made up our minds to remain another winter.
On Mormon Island, standing like a goose on one leg in the edge of the river, was a tall awkward water-wheel, turning round with the current, and dipping up with its long arms a quantity of water, which falling into a wide spout was thence conducted into a shallow trough fifteen feet long and as many inches in width. A miner standing by the side of the trough threw into it, from time to time, several buckets of earth, which being carried along by the water to a riddle or sieve at the lower end, fell in a hundred little streams into a shallow box below. Its contents were thus kept in a constant state of agitation, and the gold working its way beneath the surface was saved, while the greater part of the sand and gravel was floated off by the water. This simple apparatus was called by the imposingly suggestive title of Long Tom. The advantage it possessed over the common cradle in enabling us to wash a larger quantity of earth was more than counterbalanced by the difficulties that would beset the use of so cumbrous an ally as the wheel. Yet the wheel was with us the principal attraction,—the splash of its paddles made a pleasing concert, and it performed its task so easily and cheerfully that it was a comfort to look at it.
My urgency having at length prevailed over the wiser counsels of St. John, Tertium maintaining a strict neutrality, we were yet obliged to wait several weeks for the big-bellied carpenter to construct the apparatus, and for the South Fork company to turn the river into their canal, on the edge of which we proposed to set up our works.
In the mean time we were led to embark in an enterprise more weighty than any of our previous operations, and which, after various disappointments, was at length, and in the most unexpected manner, crowned with success.
A quarter of a mile above our tent, a party of miners were engaged in repairing a dam that had been built the preceding summer, and had paid its original proprietors over fifty thousand dollars. The new-comers, who had taken the name of the Washington Damming and Mining Company, had already made considerable headway in the undertaking, and expected in another week to get to work in the bed of the river. One of the members, intending to leave the mines, offered us his share for one hundred and fifty dollars; after some hesitation, we paid the money; and the next day I listened, with becoming gravity, to the reading of the constitution and by-laws, signed my name to that important document, and went to work with the rest.
The company consisted, chiefly, of English sailors and adventurers from Australia, hard-workers and hard-drinkers, but possessing little Yankee adaptation. Their names were generally Tom, Dick, and Harry; the three more prominent members who alternated through the different offices alone rejoicing in the dignity of a surname. Yet in the division of our labour we maintained strict republican equality, each, in turn, wielding the shovel and the pick, and in due time exchanging them for the more laborious task of carrying earth and stones in buckets along the narrow pathway of the dam.
The dam itself was an immense structure, and its massive solidity had enabled it partially to withstand the freshets of the preceding winter. Half the foundation was formed by a pine three feet in diameter and a hundred feet in length, which had been drawn into the river by oxen, and was now held firmly in its place by the jagged rocks against which it rested. On this were laid, at right angles, their blackened butts projecting like a close array of pikes, a large numberof stout saplings; and on these, again, a second timber, much smaller, however, than the first. Large stones were then thrown in on the upper side of this rude breastwork; other logs successively added—and, when the whole had thus attained a sufficient elevation, it was made tight with stones and gravel, and, finally, the finest earth we could procure. When I joined the company, about half the dam was completed, but a large part of the river still found its way through the farther extremity. The dam was here ten feet high, and twelve feet wide at the base; and all this mass of earth and stones had to be carried to the spot in buckets, a distance of two hundred and fifty feet, the labour being but slightly relieved by a small flatboat that was employed to bring earth from the opposite bank.
As the long forenoon dragged slowly on, many a chiding look was cast towards two towering pines that stood just one hour apart, high up on the hillside. When the sun at last had reached his meridian tower above the southernmost pine, the buckets and picks and shovels fell from our willing hands; the rest of the party got into the boat and paddled slowly across the river, while I, wearily and with long breaths, picked my way over the rocks—crossed one or two deep ravines—till, reaching the Red Bank, I descended with a bound, and, stretching myself on my blankets, lay in cloddish immutability till called to dinner. At two our long afternoon commenced, and, ah! how earnestly we desired the shadow, bringing with it health and refreshing. Slowly but gently our work went on, like the coral island rising from the deep Pacific. As we hemmed in the headstrong river, the pond above our dam continually enlarged, and more of the water was compelled to find its way through the canal.
But now my companions were impatient to obtain the reward of their labour, and they all said, "Let's go to work in the river bed and earn a little money."
We dug holes here and there in the gravel, but the waterfilled them like so many wells, and we were compelled to work higher on the bank. Still we made little or nothing, and again returned to the dam.
There were several ugly leaks that defied all our efforts; boat-load after boat-load of earth was emptied on the spot—bushels of old clothes, enough to make the fortune of all the rag merchants of Little Germany, collected in the neighbourhood, and carefully stowed away at the bottom by the most amphibious of our party, who used to emerge from his bath, dripping like a river-god and shivering as in an ague—all was in vain. It was really too bad; we had stopped the whole river, but we could not stop that trifling leak.
And just now, too, our boat was sunk. Pushing heedlessly off from the shore, it went down, full of earth, in ten feet of water; and when we reproached the crew for their clumsiness, we received no other consolation than that of knowing they had lost their boots.
The next day was cold and cloudy—a few wild geese flying south, dripped upon us some drops of rain.
"Well, boys," cried our democratic president, "and what shall we do now?"
"The rainy season is coming! we must go to work, and make what we can, each one for himself!" cried half the members.
We made, during the forenoon, fifty dollars. "This will never do," said the president; "we must have another meeting." We sat round on stones—the surnames argued with a deal of heat and acrimony, to which Tom, Dick, and Harry, opposed an impregnable front of sullen disdain.
The president, by far the ablest man in the company,—though, like all the rest, hasty and passionate,—resigned his office in disgust; and all my persuasive flattery could not induce him to resume it. Theywouldgo to work in the river, in spite of my remonstrances; so I left them, and returned to assist in working the Long Tom.
The wheel, some eight feet in diameter, was attached to the end of a long, heavy shaft, projecting two or three feet over the current, and supported at a single point by an iron bolt passing through a stout post set firmly among the rocks at the edge of the canal into which the river had been diverted. By means of this shaft, we could raise or depress the wheel at pleasure. The earth we proposed first to wash was a gentle slope, rising from the river towards our bank, and consisting of a fine sand almost free from stones, and paying from three to ten, or even twenty cents to the bucket.
Thursday morning, September 12, we commenced operations. Round goes the restless wheel, scooping up the dizzy water. The canvass hose rises and falls with its frequent pulse, like the great artery of a whale. The thirsty sand drinks eagerly the cooling stream that dissolves and sweeps it away, leaving bright grains of gold sticking here and there on the bottom of the trough. So, if nothing happens, we shall get rich, after all.
"But seems to me, the river is rising," cries St. John.
"So it is, I declare; what in the world is to pay now, I wonder; there comes Cameron; perhaps he can tell us."
"Well, Mr. Raven," cried Cameron, as well as he could for want of breath, "the dam's gone."
"Dam gone! how? where? when?"
"Just now, down the river, swept away. The Missouri Dam has burst, and the flood has swept the top of ours clean off; I just saved the tools and that's all."
"That's what made the river rise?"
"Yes, it has so."
There was our two thousand vanished into thin air; we all looked rather foolish, and then and there decided that damming was a very unprofitable business, and we would have nothing more to do with it.
It was now twelve o'clock; so raising the wheel out of the water, we walked up to our tent; where we spent an hour ortwo very pleasantly in forming a comparison between our own situation and that of the great mass of our fellow adventurers. It was of course highly gratifying to find that we belonged to that numerous and respectable class whose praises have been sung in all ages from Solomon to Dr. Franklin; and if half of our acquaintance had more, the other half had even less than had fallen to our share.
Full of this consolatory reflection, and strong in faith, we resumed our labours in the afternoon; but had hardly washed a dozen buckets when suddenly the water in the canal fell two feet or more—the wheel ceased its revolutions—St. John dropped the uplifted shovel—Tertium rested on the handles of the wheelbarrow—and we all stared with open mouth at this new wonder. The flume just above had burst, letting half the river back into its original channel, and we could do nothing until the breach was stopped. I laid my hand on the shaft, intending to raise the wheel, when the whole fabric slowly toppled over into the water. We at once threw off our nether garments, and wading out into the rapid current, which rose nearly to our shoulders, succeeded by a violent effort in restoring the post to its upright position. The cause of this accident was the water undermining a large stone that supported the post.
We worked like beavers all Friday morning in repairing damages, and in the afternoon succeeded in washing two hundred buckets, when the spout that received the water from the dippers, getting entangled in the wheel, was instantly torn from its position, and tossed scornfully into the stream. The wheel itself suffered severely in this encounter, and on setting it in motion the next morning its dizzy efforts to perform its stated task were pitiable to behold, and we found it necessary to strengthen it by passing a strip of hoop iron round its whole circumference.
Sunday, the 15th, there was a slight shower, accompanied by heavy thunder, the first we had ever heard in California.Monday, our wheel worked to our entire satisfaction, but not so with the Tom. A hundred wheelbarrows, equal to six hundred buckets, yielded only sixteen dollars instead of thirty; Tertium and St. John were out of all patience, and it was as much as I could do to persuade them to another trial. We raised the trough so as to increase the fall of water into the box several inches, and now our receipts were nearly doubled.
For several days we went on swimmingly, and I began to exult over my companions; when on the 22d we were alarmed by a few drops of rain, followed the same night by a violent tempest. The wind, and the rain that soaked our blankets through and through, kept us awake till long after midnight; the next morning, however, was unusually pleasant—the river showed no signs of the rain, and after a hard day's work, we retired to rest with minds unprophetic of danger.
I was awaked about midnight by a whistle coming along the ravine. It stopped just at our door, and informed us in few words that the river had risen and swept every thing away. Hurrying down to the shore, the scene of ruin and uproar that presented itself was so appalling, that we rubbed our eyes to make sure that we were awake. The moon then riding high shone upon a proud and angry flood ten times as large as the placid stream we had parted from a few hours before, and bearing helplessly along the mingled wreck of the dams and flumes that had presumed to arrest its course. Our wheel, still standing on its one leg far out in the stream, dipped its paddles into the taller waves as they shot beneath—the other articles had floated away, and we found them lying quietly at anchor in an eddy not far below.
Thus disastrous was the termination of this experiment. "I told you so," cried Tertium—"Just what I expected," said St. John; while I had not a word to offer in defence.
We had now been in the mines a year, and our affairs, as will be seen from the following calculation, were in a very flourishing condition:
CALIFORNIA,Dr.Submarine armour,$420.00One share in Washington Dam,150.00Travelling expenses, freight, &c.,350.00Rockers, shovels, pans, &c.,200.00Long Tom and wheel,125.00Clothing,150.00Provisions,1400.00Tent, and incidental expenses,150.00————Total,$2945.00Cr.Cash on hand,$75.00Small tent and furniture,50.00Tools, provisions, &c.,50.00Sixty feet front in Red Bank,200.00Experience,1500.00————Total in favour of California,$1875.00
Naturally supposing that the rains would render the roads almost impassable this winter, as they had done the last, and thereby cause a great advance in the price of provisions, we determined to lay in a stock sufficient to last until spring. We accordingly bought five hundred pounds of flour, one hundred of sugar, thirty of pork, besides rice, butter, coffee, dried apples, &c., &c. We also found it necessary to purchase canvass sufficient for a new tent, the small one we had brought back from our hunt in the mountains being too small to afford comfortable winter quarters.
Our new house, as it should properly be called, was of nearly the same dimensions as that we had occupied the preceding winter; but instead of being set up in the usual manner, the canvass walls and roof were stretched over a slender frame of posts and boards four inches wide. We were occupied nearly a week in building the house and bedsteads, and arranging the other furniture to our satisfaction. We knocked in the head of our hogshead, and transporting its contents, one by one, up the river to our new domicile, disposed them in the same relative position they had formerly occupied. When we commenced moving our provisions, we were suddenly put to flight by a storm of yellow-jackets that had invaded our sugar bags, and did not seem inclined to give them up without a struggle. In the contest that ensued I received several severe stings, but the enemy were finally routed with a loss of five or six thousand that we decoyed into an ambush in the shape of a large pickle jar. They had carried off, before we interrupted their depredations, several pounds of sugar; but this loss was trifling compared with the annoyance they inflicted upon us at dinner, when lured by the smell of fresh meat, as vultures are by carrion, they hung around us in countless throngs, buzzed in our soups or molasses, and levied contributions on every morsel as we conveyed it to our mouth. There were other insect plagues yet more familiar, but the subject is a sore one, and I forbear.
The new year commenced with a considerable improvement in our style of living. Since our first arrival in the mines our table expenses had not varied materially from a dollar a day; but prices had so far diminished that we were now enabled to indulge freely in certain aristocratic luxuries that we had then tasted not oftener than once a week. We had butter in plenty at only 70 cents a pound, and sweet and Irish potatoes at only twenty dollars a bushel. A regular meat market had been established in the village, where we could obtain tolerably good beef at only twenty-five cents a pound. The wildcattle of the country were driven in in large numbers by men armed with lassoes, and shut up in a kraal or pound formed by planting stout posts close together.
They often manifested the greatest unwillingness to enter the kraal, and the most amusing scenes were then presented. An ox would start suddenly off, pursued by half a dozen horsemen at full gallop, and after baffling them for a long time would turn fiercely upon his enemies; but the horses were well trained, and apparently entered into the contest with as much spirit as their riders, so that accidents seldom happened. On one occasion, a horse hard pushed by the infuriated animal, suddenly gathered himself up, and as his antagonist came within reach, dealt him such a kick between the eyes as fairly stretched him on the ground.
Not far from the kraal there dwelt a little Dutch shoemaker of those fair proportions doubtless intended by the illustrious Knickerbocker, when he compared one of his progenitors to a robustious beer-barrel mounted on skids. This little Dutchman was sitting one evening in the door of his tent, tranquilly smoking his pipe, and watching the horseman ineffectually striving to drive an unusually vicious animal into the pound, when the fierce beast suddenly made a dash in his direction. There was no safety but in flight, so hastily starting up, he rushed into his tent, hoping thus to elude the attack; but the ox, too cunning to be deceived so easily, or unable to check his headlong career, dashed in after him, and the next moment burst madly down the hill, carrying the tent on his horns. It was at first thought that the unlucky shoemaker had shared the same fate; but when the bystanders came up, half dead with laughter, to the place where the tent had stood, they found him stuck fast in the chimney, where he had finally taken refuge, while his dumpy legs, the only part of him that was visible, were feebly beating the ashes below.
On being extricated from his awkward position he exclaimed, looking distractedly about him, "Dis ish von tamcountry vish I never did see. I vash schmoked myself mit a pipe, and tinking I vished I vash at home, and Hans, I say, you ish von great fool; why you don't go home? ven all to vunst, I see te pull put ish head in his tail, and come like von vat you call him? von shteam locofoco; and I run and get into mine chimney, and ven I tries to get up, den, mein himmel! I vash not able to get town; and ven I tries to get town, I vasht not able to get up; and ven dey pull me town, de teufel ish in mein tent, and meinself and mein chimney ish out of te doors."
Being now snugly settled in our winter quarters, with an abundant supply of provisions for several months, we began to cast about in our thoughts for some foolish easy way of getting at the treasures locked up in the bank above us. The most natural and direct way would have been to put the earth in buckets, carry it down to the river, and wash it there in small rockers as we had done before. But we were tired of small rockers. We never could see a full-grown man sitting on a wet stone as if hatching his one solitary egg by the side of one of those ridiculous machines, his body bent forward at an angle of twenty-five degrees, and his knees as high as his chin, without a strong indication to laugh. The Long Tom demanded no such fruitless incubation, and was in other respects especially fitted for the plan we now adopted.
Our bank ran back from the river some two hundred yards with an almost level surface, then rose abruptly in irregular spurs or promontories. The gulleys between these had been the preceding winter the channels of small streams, that would together have furnished an abundant supply of water for a Long Tom. By building a dam at the foot of one of these gullies, a small pond would be formed from which as a reservoir we could bring the water in a canal to the middle of our claim, and thus avoid the necessity of carrying the earth to the river. If this expedient should be successful, five or six cents to the bucket would enable us to make half an ounce aday; and as the quantity of earth was almost unlimited, five hundred to a thousand dollars apiece seemed no very extravagant estimate for our winter's work. As the rainy season, however, would not probably set in for several weeks, we deferred the execution of our design till the last moment.
October 8th, I walked with St. John to Sacramento, in hopes of obtaining letters, as we had not heard from home for several months. The reader will, doubtless, suppose that I must have been very miserable, indeed, when he remembers the prancing hopes on which I had bounded over the same road only one short year before. But this is a great mistake. True, I had no horse, as I had so fondly imagined; but, then, I was a very clumsy rider, nor was I encumbered with those awkward saddle-bags. Besides, the day was most delightful and exhilarating. The air, the trees, the dull earth seemed drenched, through and through saturated with the transparent light. When we had gone about three miles, we met a man gnawing a biscuit. "How far is it to Willow Spring?" said St. John. The man held out his biscuit, that we might see how much he had eaten. "I bought this at the house," said he, "so you can see it is not very far." In about a quarter of a biscuit, we came to the Spring; the little green slope was still there, but not quite so green as it was before, and I showed St. John just where we had slept, and the little circle of ashes where we had boiled our coffee, and the half-burnt stones. Heigho! how very funny it seemed.
But the road was no longer so lonely; many new inns or ranches had been built in the edge of the forest, with such enticing names as "Missouri House," "New England Hotel," &c., besides two or three half-way houses—a most inhospitable sound, as if nobody ever thought of stopping, but was perpetually hurried on to some mysterious somewhere beyond.
Presently we came to one, the air of which at once attracted our attention. A little room had been built out at oneside, with a veranda in front. A rocking-chair stood in the veranda, and through the open door and window we saw a bit of carpet and the snowy sheets of a four-poster. "Women and children!" cried St. John.
"Women—yes; but where are the children?"
"There; don't you see?"
Under a noble oak that shaded one side of the house was suspended a lofty swing, with its polished, shining bit of board.
"Children, to be sure, God bless 'em! but who'd have thought of ever seeing a swing in California?"
We met several little troops of dusty miners going up into the country to take possession, with their everlasting frying-pans, shovels, and tin kettles. On such occasions, not to lose entirely the pleasurable emotions of being an object of envy, we would assume a lofty and swelling demeanour, and stalked by them with a conscious air, all which, I noticed, had a great effect.
We got a lift on a wagon the last five or six miles, and arrived at Sacramento about four o'clock. On entering this famous city, I could hardly credit my senses at sight of the changes effected in a single year. We rode for a mile through Jay street; and every where there was the same crush of carts and wagons, the same endless variety of goods, and the same emulous activity. A tall Chinese, mounted on a high wagon, gaped upon us as we approached, as if he thought all who were moving in an opposite direction must needs pass down his throat. He was the first Celestial I had seen, and his portentous ugliness was altogether beyond any thing indigenous to the western hemisphere.
We took supper at one of the eating-houses, that, next to the gambling saloons, were the most striking feature in Sacramento, and slept on the counter of a store kept by one of our acquaintance by day, and an innumerable host of rats by night. These animals are not—so I was told—native to the country, but have, in a few years, increased so rapidly, thatprobably no place in the world except the slaughter-houses of Paris could send forth an equal army. I was actually afraid to walk after dark along the sidewalk, where there were piles of flour and similar articles—the whole space being apparently alive with rats, and the pattering of their feet sounding like a gentle shower. The great freshet at Sacramento drove them back into the country; and it was said that they then, for the first time, made their appearance in the mines.
The gambling-houses at Sacramento were on the same magnificent scale as those already described at San Francisco, but a new and important attraction had been added. Bands of skilful musicians were employed to play at intervals during the evening, the expense being defrayed by the keepers of the bar and of the different tables. Gaming, however, seemed to have lost much of its reckless character, and thousands were now seldom lost and gained by the turn of a single card.
We obtained only one letter, but were gratified by meeting some old acquaintances, one of whom gave us several papers published in our native city, which we read through, word by word, and with peculiar relish. The second day we set out on our return to Natoma, where we arrived, long after dark, and in a very exhausted condition.
All the month of October, we waited diligently for rain, as we had before waited for spring, and then for summer. November having arrived, and the rainy season being, as we supposed, near at hand, we thought it time to commence operations on our canal. By means of a straight-edged board and a plumb-line, we found that the deepest cut would have to be about four feet; the extreme length was five hundred feet; and nearly the whole was dug through the stiffest and most impracticable rubble. The dam was forty feet long, ten feet high in the middle, and built precisely on the same plan as a beaver's, with one addition, suggested by the purpose for which the dam was intended, a sluice or gateway at bottom, that we could open and shut at pleasure.
Our task was lightened by the delightfulness of the season, and by the pleasing hope that we had at last hit upon a plan that would render us superior to fortune. When, after a day's toil, we returned to our tent, in which, from its protected situation, we could hear the wind without feeling its effects—when the candle was lighted, the coffee-pot simmered on the stove, and we had exchanged our heavy boots for comfortable slippers,—we gratefully acknowledged that even this life had its peculiar charms. An interesting book would sometimes keep us up till nine, but seven was our usual hour—long practice and attention having bestowed an extraordinary facility in sleeping. Our conversation had now become astonishingly sententious and idiomatic. It was condensed into a kind of shorthand or phonography. We had become so familiar with each other's modes of thought—like those unfortunates confined for years in the same dungeon—that a single word was often enough to fire the whole train. Certain sentences were now so oppressed and pregnant with meaning, that they seemed fairly to stagger under the weight. In five years, I am persuaded that we should have refined away all articulate language, and nothing more would have been required for the most abstract conversation than the vowels' sounds, accompanied by almost imperceptible shrugs and winks.
I had once the pleasure of listening to a very interesting dialogue between two savans, with whom I was but slightly acquainted, but whose proficiency in this difficult art excited my unqualified admiration. The accent is here all-important.
"You save?" says the first.
"Yes, me save; doyousave?"
"Oh,yes!Isave."
Now, to any one—even if he had mastered Spanish without a master—who was unacquainted with the mode of speaking here employed, these brief sentences would seem an unintelligible jargon; and, before the least glimmer of light couldreach his understanding, it would be necessary to dilute or translate them into at least as many pages of modern English. Yet, not only those who took part in the dialogue, but I myself, and all who listened to it, were in the highest degree edified and delighted at this instance of unequalled condensation, which I would respectfully commend to the consideration of all windy orators.
It was not till the 19th of November that the rainy season apparently commenced. During the night it rained moderately, and the wind blew with tremendous violence. The great pine overhead wrestled fearfully with the tempest, with its long-twisted arms, and occasionally sent down upon the tight drum-head of our canvass roof a shower of cones as big as a pineapple, that fell on our startled ears with the burst of a bombshell. We found it impossible to sleep, and, having roused the drowsy candle, huddled round the stove and amused ourselves with cracking pinenuts, of which we had, at different times, collected a plentiful supply. These nuts grow in the cones just mentioned, closely resemble in size and shape the meat of the almond, and are of a peculiarly rich and oily flavour.
Early the next morning, before we had finished breakfast, the heavy tramp of armed men, and a number of voices, called us hastily to the door. A large party were already assembled on the bank above us; and, through the tall hemlock that covered the hill towards the village, we saw all along the narrow winding path the glitter of polished pick and shovel. Hardly more sudden was the apparition of Clan Alpine's warriors on the side of Benledi.
Instant, through copse and heath, aroseBonnets, and spears, and bended bows;On right, on left, above, below,Sprung up at once the lurking foe.From shingles gray these lances start;The bracken bush sends forth the dart;The rushes and the willow wandAre bristling into axe and brand;And every tuft of broom gives lifeTo plaided warrior armed for strife.
Instant, through copse and heath, aroseBonnets, and spears, and bended bows;On right, on left, above, below,Sprung up at once the lurking foe.From shingles gray these lances start;The bracken bush sends forth the dart;The rushes and the willow wandAre bristling into axe and brand;And every tuft of broom gives lifeTo plaided warrior armed for strife.
Instant, through copse and heath, aroseBonnets, and spears, and bended bows;On right, on left, above, below,Sprung up at once the lurking foe.From shingles gray these lances start;The bracken bush sends forth the dart;The rushes and the willow wandAre bristling into axe and brand;And every tuft of broom gives lifeTo plaided warrior armed for strife.
Our visitors, however, were bound on a more peaceful errand. Some wag had started a wonderful story about the rich diggings in the Red Bank, which had produced just such an excitement in Natoma as the California fever in the Eastern States—all were anxious to obtain a share, and in a short time the whole bank, three or four hundred feet long, was staked off among the different claimants. The various disputes that arose were all amicably adjusted by arbitration, in which we as the earliest settlers were allowed the highest authority. Our decisions were marked by the strictest impartiality, and even indifference, for we believed the whole bank to be absolutely worthless; but after the leads were fairly opened, we discovered, to our infinite surprise and mortification, that several of them were far more valuable than our own. For months we had been lying idle, encamped in the very midst of riches; and now these new comers, aliens and foreigners to the bank, had taken them, as it were, out of our hands. Our folly, however, will appear more excusable when it is known that the whole place had already been prospected again and again, and even worked for weeks in two distinct locations by successive parties who had one after another given up in despair. We had ourselves made several trials in front of what afterwards proved to be the richest claim, and finding nothing, concluded, according to what was then considered the universal laws in such cases, that the bank would yield less and less the farther it receded from the river. An entirely new feature, however, was now introduced—instead of growing poorer, the bank became richer as the miners advanced, till they came in some instances to earth paying nearly a dollar to the bucket, when the lead gradually failed. This rich streak ran diagonally across the bank, so that,while at the upper end it was very near the front, it was found by those working at the lower extremity fifty or a hundred feet farther back. The value of all these claims was greatly diminished by the depth to which they ran, a superstratum of earth varying from five to fifteen feet in thickness having to be thrown off before they came to that containing the gold.
Our quiet camp now became the centre of a bustling neighbourhood—a road was laid out through the ravine close by our door for the purpose of carting earth to the river, and huge piles of earth and stones rose around us on every side. A party of slaves and free blacks, at work for an extensive landed proprietor who claimed a front of sixty feet, kept up an incessant laughing and chattering which would have shamed a monkey or a yahoo.
There was no longer any pleasure in being idle, and we determined to go to work with the rest without waiting any longer for rain. We made almost nothing in the morning, and I began really to doubt if we should ever succeed in earning enough to get home with; but the afternoon's work was much more encouraging. Our schemes were now all exhausted; we had nothing more to rely upon but patient, unremitting toil, and we determined henceforth to lose no more time in idle dreaming, but to work as long and hard as we could wherever we could make four dollars a day. We continued to mine in the immediate vicinity of our tent for the next two months, sometimes in our bank, and at others in the wide sandy slope between it and the river; and at the end of that time, besides paying all our debts, we found ourselves worth in dust nearly one hundred dollars apiece.
Though our harvest had not been very plentiful, we were unwilling to let Thanksgiving pass unnoticed. Number Four took dinner with us, and we did our best, as usual on such occasions, to provoke appetite to the utmost and yet give it an overwhelming defeat. Our first course consisted of roast beefnicely baked under a cheese box, potatoes, onions, and apple-sauce ad libitum. This was succeeded by a regular oldfashioned Christmas pudding, the crowning glory of the occasion, wanting nothing but eggs and milk, flanked on either side by a molasses pie, and a dish of tarts well stuffed with delectable currant jelly, and bravely supported by a dessert of raisins and English walnuts.
The pies would hardly have passed muster with Aunt Chloe; "they were pies sartin, but then what kind o' crust?" but perhaps that renowned "perfectioner" would have experienced some difficulty in making her "rale flecky paste" if she had had to roll it out with a bottle on the under side of a three-legged stool.
Christmas, Number Four returned the compliment and invited us to take supper at his tent, when China furnished her choicest teas and chouchou or preserves of infinite variety. We had promised ourselves the agreeable addition of Dr. Browne to our little circle, but he did not make his appearance till the next afternoon. A dam at Ford's Bar, in which he had invested all his earnings, had proved a failure, owing to nearly the same causes that had disappointed our own expectations; he had abandoned mining and was now on his way to the Sandwich Islands. In spite of his reverses he was still full of ardour as ever, and urged us strongly not to leave that part of the world at present. It was impossible not to be somewhat infected by his enthusiasm, and we found in our own dreams an additional reason for resting in the same conclusion. Whenever we dreamed of being at home, which we did repeatedly, our regret and vexation were so extreme that the remembrance of what we had suffered on waking was sufficient to quiet our homesick impatience for weeks.
The last of January, our old claim no longer yielding over four dollars a day, we moved a quarter of a mile up the river to a bar not far above the American Dam. The next dayNumber Four came up to bring us some letters, accompanied by two of his fine city or village acquaintance.
Dr. Ripsome was a notable instance of what may be accomplished by care and industry even under the most unfavourable circumstances. It would be difficult to find even in our most fashionable cities a more nicely dressed gentleman. His elegance was a perpetual wonder, a continued miracle. His ruffled shirt-bosom was without a spot, and his collar seemed made of enamelled tin, so boldly did it rise on either side of his carefully trimmed jet whiskers. Not a speck could be detected on his immaculate trowsers, nor on those boots that looked as if they belonged to a blacking bottle; indeed, dust and he seemed to have no affinity, but to be rather in a constant state of repulsion. He carefully dusted a smooth stone with his cambric handkerchief and sat down while we read our letters.
They contained various interesting items, all suggestive of the length of our absence from home. S. had got married—Tom had got whiskers and was become a great ladies' man—and little St. Johnny had begun to talk and was stoutly demanding when his California uncles would get home. Ah lo que es el mundo! why couldn't they have waited a little longer?—by the time we do get home, everything will be over, and nothing left to happen. This is the worst part of going away from home,—if one could only seal up what he left behind him with a certainty of finding everything undisturbed on his return, or if, like the sun in Ajalon or a clock whose pendulum has ceased its vibrations, home would stand still waiting his touch to set it again in motion, a long journey would no longer be such an ugly gap in existence, but like a break in an electric current, throw its light over our whole path.
The first of February we again changed the scene of our labours, and commenced working on American Bar within a few rods of our dam. This bar had been originally extremely rich, but having been already dug over by three or four successive parties, nothing now remained but the bare granite and numerous piles of paving-stones with a little sand sifted among them. Nevertheless, we worked here for three weeks, and in that time took out about three hundred dollars; almost all of which we found embedded from one to six inches in the soft granite. Here follow a few extracts from my most meagre journal.
Monday, Feb. 10.Worked all the last week without knowing one day where to go the next; yet our earnings, one hundred dollars, exceeded those of any other week this season. The last three days have been unusually delightful,—there has been a something in the air like the first warm summer days at home, when the earth dries, as it were, all at once, and the boys hurry to the ball-ground.
Wednesday, 12.Came home in the middle of the afternoon with only six dollars—found a man who had been buried under a mass of earth in the red bank laid on one of our beds. After he had sufficiently recovered he informed us that when he found himself unable to move, his only anxiety was to tell his wife where to look for his life policy, and the next moment he fell asleep.
Thursday, 13.In a fit of desperation I went to work onour bank—Tertium prospected, and St. John went to try his fortune once more on American Bar. He did so well that I joined him in the afternoon.
Friday.All worked on the bar—made fourteen dollars and a-half.
Monday, Feb. 17.Dr. Ecossais sold his claim in the red bank, together with his tools, for eight hundred and fifty dollars, to a Captain Sampson, who has just come in from the southern mines.
Tuesday.Sold our claim to Dr. Ecossais for fifty dollars. I worked on the bar alone—St. John and Tertium prospected—in vain.
Wednesday.Rain sent us home at ninety buckets. We begin to hope to make something out of our dam, and St. John and I think of remaining till fall. Thus the time for our return continually flies from us.
Friday.A melancholy, lugubrious, opaque morning—rain at a hundred and twenty buckets, and an undecided afternoon.
This it so happened, though we had no such expectation at the time, was our last bank mining in California.
We had sold our claim as above mentioned, not because we believed it to be entirely exhausted, but chiefly from want of patience to contend longer with such a stubborn foe. What the result would have been if the same quantity of rain had fallen as in the preceding winter I can only conjecture, but have no doubt our engineering operation would have been highly profitable. The two seasons, however, were in this respect widely different—the first year it rained according to our observation fully one third of the time from the 1st November to the end of March; while during the second there was hardly as much rain as commonly falls in a New England summer. The weather was also cooler—hoar frosts were frequent—and several mornings we found the ground frozen to the depth of three or four inches.
This scarcity of rain, however, though it interfered so materially with the plan of our winter operations, was full of promise for the approaching summer. The rivers would probably be unusually low; and it was this circumstance that led us, in spite of our former disappointment, to turn once more a favourable eye upon our unlucky dam. As early as the 5th of January I had put up a notice signifying my intention to work the claim the next summer, which Cameron, our bonny Scot, no sooner discovered than he scrawled his own name beneath, and by this characteristic stroke of policy made at once two hundred and fifty dollars. The other members of the company having destroyed their constitution and dispersed in different directions, we anticipated no trouble from that quarter; but we regarded with considerable uneasiness the movements of another party who, seeing the claim abandoned, had also put up a notice, and of an earlier date than my own. As they were already in possession, however, of another claim a mile below the island, and as my having been a member of the Washington Company gave us, in spite of my long neglect, no slight advantage, we determined to maintain our ground, and tore down their notices without further ceremony. Still more to strengthen our hands, we now proposed to form an alliance with two of the principal miners in the red bank, whose numerous retainers would enable us, if need were, to repel force by force. The first, whom we have already mentioned by the name of Capt. Sampson, was a New York Texan, who had patched the cautious calculation of his native State with the sudden enterprise of the frontier. The two tempers had not united—there was the iron and the carbon, but not the steel. He made money and he lost it with equal facility.
Dr. Ecossais was the other, whom we, or rather Capt. Sampson, proposed as a partner in our new enterprise. He had also made money, by keeping a tavern in the village; and he had also lost all he had made, by speculating in dams.He was one of the first to settle on the red bank, where he was now in a fair way to retrieve his losses.
While this important negotiation was still in progress, I went down to San Francisco to attend to certain matters which required our attention. I left Natoma on foot, hoping soon to fall in with a wagon that would carry me to Sacramento, but none overtook me till I had walked more than half the distance. We arrived at Sacramento about noon, and at two I started in the steamer Confidence for San Francisco. An exciting race with the Senator made the first half-hour pass pleasantly enough, but when we at length yielded the palm, and I had gone through the boat and sufficiently admired the fine engravings in the saloon, I became impatient even of twenty miles an hour. My only companion was Dr. Ripsome, with his enamelled dickey, who, having tried both doctoring and digging in vain, was now going to practise his profession at San Francisco. We reached that city about nine, and my companion led me blunderingly to a hotel at the head of Sansome street, where, for the first time since leaving home, I crept in between the snow-white sheets, with an awkwardness that seemed to say that I had no right in such dainty lodgings. An alarm of fire during the night—the ringing of the bells and the hoarse cries of the boys—made me believe myself for a moment at home, but a glance at the bare rafters of my narrow cell soon dispelled that illusion.
San Francisco had not changed so much as Sacramento. The most striking feature was the old hulks lying in the very heart of the city, with streets and houses all about them, and suggesting vague and puzzling analogies to the ark on Mount Ararat.
I saw here a number of my fellow-passengers in the Leucothea, and having obtained a large supply of books and papers, the first of which I bought at the stalls that were to be found at every corner, I returned in the Senator to Sacramento, and the next day to Natoma. I had very unadvisedlytaken my blankets with me, and I had now, in addition to this burden, two thick coats, the eighth volume of the Spectator, the first volume of Macaulay's History—both large octavos—and five small volumes of Gil Blas, besides a bundle of papers. I was very glad on reaching Willow Spring to throw my pack into a wagon, and thus lightened I made the rest of my way with tolerable facility.
During my brief absence river stock had rapidly risen, and the prospect for the summer was more favourable than ever. Cameron had agreed to sell his half of the Washington Dam for two hundred and fifty dollars, and my brothers had then disposed of it to Sampson and Ecossais at a slight advance. The next day, however, they refused to complete the purchase, for fear of trouble from some members of the Washington Company, who had at this late hour set up a claim. We walked two or three miles up the river to the place where these unreasonables were at work, to hold a palaver, and if possible effect a compromise; but finding them fixed in their resolution of working on the dam the next summer, we told them they shouldn't, and came home very much discouraged.
Tuesday, March 11, we went to work on the race in order to get the start of our numerous competitors. Cameron at first refused to join us. "You'll lose your share then," said St. John. "I'll chance it," he cried, but finally consented and went. We worked several hours clearing out the canal, which was in many places almost obliterated by the rubbish that had been thrown into it. In the afternoon St. John had a long talk with Capt. Sampson, and represented our superior claims so strongly that he agreed to make the proposed arrangement if Dr. Ecossais would join him.
"We are all inclined to buy out Cameron at all events, but the risk is almost too great. Fourp. m., Sampson changes his mind once more and concludes to buy—while we are talking about it, Cameron comes in in his usual hurry—aftera little haggling sells for two hundred and fifty dollars—then runs a mile up the river to communicate the intelligence to another party with whom he had about completed a bargain."
Wednesday, we sold one of our remaining shares to a young Missourian for two hundred dollars, and the next day went to work with eight men. The party below having heard of our operations now sent out a small detachment to reconnoitre the ground, and if possible reason us out of the claim. Possession in California is more than nine points of the law, and we paid little heed to their arguments. They had one effect, however, which at the time was rather disheartening—the young Missourian, not having yet paid for his share, was frightened at the first appearance of a storm, and at night quietly removed his tools without saying a word to any one, and we did not discover his defection till the following morning. A few days after, our rivals made us a second visit in larger numbers, accompanied by a famous orator, who endeavoured to persuade us to settle the matter by arbitration. We held a meeting in the evening, and having chosen Capt. Sampson president, and framed a constitution and by-laws, determined unanimously, in our corporate capacity, to make no such concession. The whole red bank was ready to take up arms in our defence, which strengthened our stomachs mightily, but we had no further trouble from any quarter. We continued our labour in the raceway for nearly a week, when a succession of violent rains, that raised the river higher than it had been during the whole winter, interrupted our work, and we were not able to resume it till the last of June.
The 25th of March we left our snug quarters under the bank, our tent interfering with the operations of a New York lawyer behind us, and removed to a point farther up the river and directly opposite the centre of our claim. The place we had now selected was the most delightful and picturesque we occupied in California. Our tent was pitched on the brow ofa steep hill that descended at two bounds to the river a hundred feet below. On the south we were protected by a small but leafy oak springing from the base of a huge isolated rock, whose perpendicular sides rose higher than the roof. A numerous and contented family of squirrels had dug their winding burrow under its friendly walls—and we often saw the father or mother scampering over the grass, and the young ones playing before the door. Behind and around us spread the open parklike forest, and in front an immense extent of elevated table land stretching away over to the North Fork. Our river claim, which was very large, comprised three distinct hollows—the upper nearly hidden from sight by a projecting buttress of the hillside, while the second and smallest lay as round as a cup and deep as a well directly at our feet. The river here turning at right angles plunged into this little basin over a fall formed by a bar of the wildest and most cunningly balanced rocks, producing a pleasing murmur, and imparting an air of coolness to the landscape that was indescribably refreshing in the torrid heats of midsummer. On the opposite side of the river was American Island, about a thousand feet in length, with our canal winding round it and occasionally betraying its course by the flashing foam on its surface. With the assistance of some of our neighbours we moved our tent almost bodily to this new location, and at the end of the second day everything was finally arranged to our satisfaction; though a peevish rain that continued the whole week rendered this undertaking anything but agreeable.
A few nights after our removal we were far more seriously annoyed. A violent storm of wind and rain, after keeping us awake for several hours, had at last lulled us to sleep by its ceaseless beating, when we were all at once roused by the lively warning of a rattlesnake in some part of our tent. Communicating our fears to each other by one of those expressive grunts supposed to be characteristic of the North American Indian, but which our experience had shown to bethe natural language of all who have lived a long time in the same limited and therefore close communion, we at length succeeded in lighting a candle without venturing on to the floor, and then arming ourselves with long sticks, we took up an advantageous position on bags and boxes and began industriously to stir up the enemy. A small pile of firewood lay near the stove, and in this the unwelcome guest had taken up his abode for the night, and was now apparently busy in warming his toes and fingers. Suddenly his ugly head was thrust waggishly out of a small opening as if to inquire the reason of his being disturbed at such an unseasonable hour—the next moment, being provoked by an ineffectual blow, he made a wide-awake spring that tumbled us all backward upon our beds. Mutually confirming each other's resolution we speedily returned to the attack, and having disabled our antagonist by a lucky thrust we despatched him by repeated blows. He measured nearly five feet in length—was as big as a man's arm—and had eleven rattles. I afterwards while hunting in the neighbourhood encountered and shot two others, neither of them, however, so large as the first. Snakes of a different species, and apparently harmless, were far more numerous—the big rock that overhung our tent was their favourite resort, and I often saw them gliding among the crevices or lying motionless in watch for some unlucky lizard.
The 1st of May, Tertium left us to return home. We had already sold two of our shares to miners on the red bank, reserving only one apiece; and as his could be worked to almost equal advantage by hired labour, and nothing could be done at present, he could no longer resist the temptation to anticipate the time fixed upon for our return. The prospect was at this time far from encouraging. The rain, which had kept off all winter, had now come in earnest, so that the time of commencing our operations seemed farther off than ever. Furthermore, our claim was considered by nearly all the miners in the neighbourhood absolutely worthless, and wewere made the laughing-stock of the whole river. Yet under all these adverse circumstances the price of shares had steadily advanced, and our hopes were insensibly borne onward by the swelling tide. When we had first put up our notice signifying our intention to rebuild the dam, we had offered the whole concern for three hundred dollars. A month afterwards, we would gladly have sold for fifty dollars a share. Even so late as March, Number Four, to whom we proposed a partnership, was unwilling to give one hundred dollars, but now a share could not be bought for less than four hundred.
In the mean time our days passed pleasantly in reading the books I had brought from San Francisco, and in roaming at will through those fresh and untamed solitudes. Every morning after breakfast, says my journal of May 24, we take our guns, both double-barrelled—St. John hangs a dirty game bag round his neck—we fasten the tent with an ingenious catch of T.'s invention, and away into the woods. If game is scarce, there is a fine opportunity for revery and castle building, or from the top of one of the many hills we enjoy a vast and dreamy prospect. Sometimes we get separated from each other and imagine all kinds of accidents. After our return, while enjoying, with a hunter's relish, the quail and pigeons or hares and squirrels we have conquered, we recount all the incidents of our morning's sport, the stratagems we have employed, and the mishaps we have met with.
There is perhaps no country in the world more delightful for such rambles than that part of California. There is such a pleasing variety of hill and valley—the trees are arranged with such perfection of art that one is continually led on from one point to another without knowing when to stop; while the absence of all natural or artificial obstructions, such as fences or tangled underbrush, communicates a feeling of most entire liberty and independence. I have wandered thus for miles without encountering any human thing, except, now andthen, a deserted roofless cabin standing in some lonely ravine, or the white tents seen miles away among the woods.
Often, especially in misty weather, I climbed to the summit of a lofty hill several miles from our camp, and, resting upon a projecting crag, seemed for a while to lose myself in the great soul of the universe. "The grandeur, the astonishing melancholy of that picture, cannot be expressed in human language. In vain in our cultivated fields the imagination seeks to extend itself—it encounters on all sides the habitations of men; but in those wild countries the soul delights to plunge itself into an ocean of forests; to alight on the mysterious summits of the distant mountains; and, so to speak, to find itself alone with God."
The game that we found in greatest abundance was the quail that were now leading forth exultingly their timid young. Their flesh, however, was dry and tasteless compared with that of the pigeon, which was as juicy as the nicest steak. Besides the moaning dove already mentioned, and which was no bigger than a lark, there were three distinct varieties of pigeon, the largest of which was fully equal in size to the crow. The squirrels also attained an unusual size, one that we shot measuring twenty-seven inches from the end of his nose to the tip of his tail, and their flesh furnished us with many a savoury stew.
Our attention was one day attracted by a great commotion in a little thicket near which we were passing. On coming nearer to ascertain the cause, we discovered an owl that had tarried too long at the night's banquet, and was now surrounded by a crowd of noisy chatterers, like the unfeeling persecutors that hedge the way of the luckless toper who has continued all night over his cups. Anxious, if possible, to secure him alive, I advanced slowly till within about thirty yards, and fired. He fluttered feebly a few feet to a log on which he was compelled to alight, when I ran up and hastily extinguished him with my hat. On taking him out I found,to my amazement, that he had shrunk from the size of a hen to be no bigger than a pigeon, the downy texture of his feathers and his immense wings having caused the illusion. He seemed at first quite unwell, but recovered soon after my reaching home, and having tied a stout cord round his leg, I placed him on the ground to observe him more carefully. He was very gaily drest in bright yellow and ash, and, as if to display his attractions to the utmost, again swelled out his feathers, and expanding his wings stood looking us straight in the face, and teetering slowly from one foot to the other in a manner evidently intended to be in the highest degree dignified and imposing. His beauty, however, was somewhat marred by large yellow eyes that resembled those of the cat, and had moreover a most uncompromising squint. Two small tufts of feathers on the top of his head, shaped like the ears of a cat, completed the resemblance, and added still more to the grotesque of what Dr. Browne would have called his tootin cymbal; so that it may be doubted if a more purely comic character ever existed. I kept him a week, but as he firmly refused to eat during all that time, and I was ignorant of the art of stuffing, I felt constrained to give him his liberty. He floated away on his ash-coloured wings, as large as those of a goose, without any apparent effort, like a gossamer or soap-bubble, and we saw him several hours after again surrounded by his officious satellites.