CHAPTER XIII.

ANOTHER FIRE—MY GEOLOGICAL FRIEND—â€œBURNT OUTâ€�—SACRAMENTO—LEVEE—HULKS—RATS—VIGILANCE COMMITTEE—START FOR VOLCANO—CROCKETT—â€œRIGHT SIDE UP.â€�June, 1851.Shortlyafter my return to Vallejo, a bright glare in the direction of San Francisco indicated too surely that the city was again in flames. The wind was very high, and we had every reason to believe that the conflagration was general. Having roused out the Old Soldier to his intense disgust, I reached Benicia in time to take a passage to San Francisco in the last returning Stockton boat. We met steamers going up river crowded, that stopped and confirmed our worst fears; mine in particular, for I had felt anxious respecting the property of a friend who had shown me unceasing kindness since my arrival in the country. I learnt that his stores had already fallen, and knew that he was ruined. It was with great difficulty we landed, for the fire had extended to the waterâ€™s edge, and in many places the wharves had been disconnected; everywhere deep holes hadbeen burnt in them, and some were drowned that night from this cause.The ruins of the fire were quite deserted, the inhabitants had sought the suburbs, sorrowfully no doubt, for a nightâ€™s rest; and the bright moon looked calmer than ever in contrast to the red angry embers which smouldered on every side.I found myself alone after I had scrambled up a small hill that commanded a view of the fallen city, and I never remember feeling so solitary in my life. Small columns of red-tinted smoke rose lazily in every direction, the blackened shells of brick warehouses stood out here and there in bold relief against the moonlight, whilst every crevice and window in them was fantastically lighted by the glowing embers that still burnt within. Over the ruins of large drug stores ghostly lights of blue and green flickered in a supernatural manner. Where the fire had already been extinguished, dark pits seemed to yawn, and open wells, and deep cisterns, stood ready on all sides, their coverings being burnt, to trap the unwary adventurer who might be led to explore those regions. Not a sound broke the stillness of the night, and as the moon was overshadowed by a passing cloud, I turned and stumbled on what was either a very dead man or a very drunken one,and having seen all there was to see, I descended the hill and rejoined my companions.Lodgings were scarce enough that night, as may be imagined, nor was there a sufficient number of houses standing to accommodate the burnt-out citizens. I was fortunate enough to meet an Hungarian geologist, who was probably the poorest man in San Francisco, for the science he professed could not at this time be put to much account in California. Were it not for the respect in which I hold a learned society at home before which â€œpapersâ€� are read, and by which laws are made for the better regulation of geology, I should say that the reason why the votaries of this science did not succeed in California, arose from the fact, that this eccentric country, had for ages past acted in defiance of the fundamental rules of the society in question: whether or no, whenever my friend set out in search of gold on scientific principles, he generally left that metal farther behind him at every step.Wherever you go now you will meet a few Hungarians, and I have ever found them a superior class of men—quiet and unobtrusive in their habits, and of very liberal education. My geological friend had a small hut built among the sand-hills. As we walked towards it we were called on to deliverby three gentlemen of the road, but as, happening to be both armed, we made the usual demonstration in such cases, we went on our way without molestation. Not but what it would have been a kindness to have robbed the Hungarian, for though he had no money in his pocket, and his clothes were valueless, he was staggering through the deep sand under the weight of an enormous bag of quartz he had collected, every ounce of which I foresaw was destined to be pulverised in a hand mortar and tested, involving a great amount of labour butno profit. I tossed up with my friend who should have his bed, and having won it I was soon asleep, it being now nearly daylight; when I awoke he was gone, and I was at no loss to conjecture that he had sought elsewhere a softer couch than the heap of rocks and fossils that had fallen to his lot.When I reached the burnt city all was again animation, and on every side preparations were being made for rebuilding it of brick and stone.I have alluded to a friend; it was with sorrow that I viewed the wreck of the noble warehouses that had been his: but yesterday, as it were, he had pointed to these buildings with pride as evidencing his successful efforts, though never forgetful to whom success was owing, while to-day a heap of ashes marksthe emptiness of human calculation. A week ago and his glorious hospitality assembled hundreds to commemorate the completion of a stately warehouse,—to-day the firm is hopelessly and irretrievably ruined.He lies now in the cemetery outside San Francisco, and those who have not forgotten the warm grasp of a hand that was ever ready to succour—now that that hand is cold, will recognise this sketch, and will not blame me for recording this slight tribute to his memory.After a diligent search I was directed by the appearance of sundry steel buttons to the ashes of what had been my wardrobe; everything had been destroyed, and among the papers I had lost were the notes and sketches of the country that I had collected to this date, which notes, after three years, I am rewriting from memory.After contemplating mournfully the whitened remains of two little dogs that lay side by side, with the blackened ashes of my dress coat and patent leather boots, I turned from the spot, and shortly afterwards encountered Sir Henry Huntly, who in an equally melancholy frame of mind, had just completed a survey of his â€œashes;â€� we agreed to pay a visit to the northern mines, and made preparations for a start.The wooden wharves had for the most part beenconverted into charcoal, and the steamer was crowded with those who like ourselves were anxious to leave behind them so much desolation.The mail steamer had come in from Panama, and ladies who had just arrived to find their husbands, houseless and ruined, were hurrying careworn from their toilsome journey sorrowfully to seek a temporary shelter in Sacramento. There were troupes of actors, who, forgetting all rivalry in their common adversity, felt the reality of tragedy. The fire bell had arrested their performances, and though they worked ever so manfully at the breaks, the temples of Thespis had been swept away in the storm, and with them their wardrobes and arrears of pay. There were professional gamblers for whom the losing card had now turned up, who, burnt out of their tinsel saloons, were starting for the mines, to commence life again in a thimble-rigging tent, until growing prosperous they could work gradually back again to San Francisco, where the tinsel saloons were already being rebuilt.There were speculators who had a â€œsnug lotâ€� of flour or pork up country, and who were off to fetch it down and lock it up in store-ships, until the wants of the community should make it worth its weight in gold almost. There were small traders, whose debtor and creditor accounts had been, fortunatelyfor them, buried in oblivion by the general ruin, and who talked furiously of their losses, and bespattered their hard fate with curses of the loudest and deepest character. And there were many who like myself had come to satisfy their curiosity, just as we go to the sea-shore and view the wreck of a noble ship; and these grew hilarious upon the strength of having lost nothing, and returned to their homes in famous good humour with themselves and all the world.Passing Benicia we entered Suisun Bay, on the shores of which a city was attempted—New York by name—but failed. There is something to admire in the audacity of speculators, who finding themselves possessed of a few acres of swamp, wave their wands and order a city to appear. The working human tide of California ebbed and flowed past New York with great regularity, but all commands to arrest it, and direct it from its natural course were futile as regarded that city, which really presented no advantage that I could see. It is now dusk, and we enter the Sacramento river. Presently we pass a large steamboat going down, who gives us a close shave, and complimentarily strikes three bells, upon which we strike three bells; and in a few minutes we pass a small steamboat also going down, who gives us a closer shave, and shrieks three times out of something connected with hersteam-pipe, upon which we groan three times out of something connected with our steam-pipe. These salutes are invariably observed, and the greater the rivalry between the boats, the louder they scream at each other.The banks of the river are for the most part marshy, but in the fading light we catch glimpses here and there of small cultivated enclosures, with comfortable-looking shanties peeping between the oak trees. After supper everybody turns in, and at daylight we arrive at Sacramento.Sacramento is built on the banks of the river, from the encroachments of which it is as often drowned as its sister city is burnt. The houses are gaily painted, and the American flag waves in every direction; the streets are wide, and some trees that have been left standing in the town give it a cheerful appearance.It is an American town at the first glance; an immense quantity of sign-boards stare at you in every direction, and if anything would induce a man to purchase â€œHay and Grain,â€� â€œGallego Flour,â€� â€œGoshen Butter,â€� or any other article for which he has no want, it would be the astounding size of the capital letters, in which these good things are forced upon his notice.Every other house is an hotel or boarding-house, for with few exceptions every one is put out toâ€œlivery,â€� as it were, in Sacramento; and in hard times, when cash is scarce, one half of the population may be said to feed the other half gratuitously, or on credit, which often amounts to the same thing, thus affording a beautiful illustration of mutual support and confidence.Sacramento is terribly dusty; the great traffic to and from the mines grinds three or four inches of the top soil into a red powder, that distributes itself everywhere; it is the dirtiest dust I ever saw, and is never visited by a shower until the rainy season sets in, and suddenly converts it into a thick mud.I was introduced to a club of Sacramento gentlemen, who had formed themselves into what they called a literary society. In their rooms was to be found what in those days was scarce, a tolerable collection of books and the periodicals of the day. They were very jovial fellows, well-informed, not so literary as I expected, and certainly quite free from pedantry. The most important ceremony at their meetings consisted in the members standing in a circle, upon which a Chinese hat of teetotum shape was spun in the centre, and the â€œliterary savant,â€� who was indicated by a black mark on the hat when it ceased to spin, stood â€œdrinks for the crowd.â€�BAR ROOM AT SONORAThe weather was oppressively warm, and the iced â€œdrinksâ€�[11]were necessary even to a literary society;—so much so, that the hat was kept continually spinning by public acclamation. There was no lack of sensible and entertaining conversation, and the evenings passed with these gentlemen were to my thinking none the less pleasant, although perhaps less literary, for the twirling of the Chinese hat.A levÃ©e, or sea-wall, has been built in front of the city, to protect it from the river when it rises with the high spring tides; but the river generally undermines these works, and flows over the surrounding plain as it has been wont to do for ages past.A large number of old dismantled hulks, now converted into floating houses, are moored along the front of the levÃ©e, and it is from these probably the rats first landed that are now so distinguished at Sacramento for their size and audacity. These animals come out after dark in strong gangs, as if the town belonged to them, and attack anything that may happen to have been left on the wharf during the night; being very numerous, the destruction they cause to merchandise is a serious loss.Ten thousand dollars were offered, I was told, tothe man who should clear the town, and seduced by this bribe, some one in the rat-catching line volunteered to draw all the rats into the country, and there enclose them in a paddock, to be publicly exposed previous to a massacre; but whether the rats thought it best to leave well alone, and be content with the comfortable quarters and nice pine-apple cheeses they enjoyed in the city, or whether they objected to country air, does not appear; but they never went out to the paddock, except one, who is reported to have approached within a reasonable distance of the vain-glorious rat-catcher, and then standing on his hind legs, after the manner of rats, and scratching the tip of his nose contemplatively with his paw, he turned tail for the city, causing grievous disappointment to five terrier dogs, who ineffectually chevied him in.The conflagrations of San Francisco had been attributed to incendiarists, and as many attempts to fire the town had been frustrated, it is probable that this was the case. A Volunteer-Guard, therefore, patrolled the city of Sacramento at night, to guard against this evil, and to protect the inhabitants from the wholesale plunder of organised bands of burglars. Crime had increased so rapidly of late in San Francisco, and robbers and incendiarists had become so emboldened by the impotence and venality of thejusticiary, that the citizens organised a society styled the Vigilance Committee, for the purpose of affording the protection to life and property that the law would not bestow.So far was well; but this society, composed of men whosmarted under personal loss, attributedperhaps unjustlyto incendiarism, took upon themselves the dispensation of life and death.Men detected, as was supposed, in the act offelony only, were tried, sentenced, and executed, without defence, in the same night.It is useless now to dwell on the summary executions that were put in force in half a dozen cases by the Vigilance Committee; no one would defend their acts, and they met with opposition at the time from the better class of citizens; the memory of them may pass away, but they certainly had the effect at the time of ridding the country of a set of desperate men, and of restoring a degree of security to the inhabitants of San Francisco that had never previously been enjoyed.Colonel D——, a friend of Sir Henryâ€™s, had control of a quartz vein at a place called Volcano, in the northern mines, and we determined upon an inspection of this vein, which was reported to be highly auriferous.We started at daybreak, in a light spring waggon,and, taking with us our blankets, we were soon five miles from Sacramento, and pulled up at the young town of Brighton.Colonel D—— appeared to be the owner of Brighton; and, being a sporting man, he had constructed a race-course here; with the exception of the race-course, and one or two stables, there was not much of the town developed as yet; but being really advantageously situated, I have no doubt that it is well populated by this time.The road was straight and level, and on either side, enclosed by fences, were well-cultivated farms; numerous dwelling-houses lined the road, and it was difficult to believe that the signs of civilisation and industry, that met us on all sides, were the result of two yearsâ€™ occupation of the country by gold hunters.As we left Brighton we overtook long lines of waggons, heavily laden with stores for the mines; and these, drawn by innumerable oxen, ploughed up the deep dust to such an extent as obliged us to cover our faces as we passed them. We met waggons coming in, containing miners, on whom, to judge by their appearance generally, a bath, a shave, and a new suit of clothes would not be thrown away; and I have no doubt they indulged in these luxuries on their arrival at Sacramento.We stopped to breakfast at a house of entertainment kept by one Crockett, who had a very pretty wife; but the possession of this luxury, so far from humanising Crockett, appeared to keep him in a continual fever of irritation; for he was jealous, poor fellow, and used to worry himself because there was ever a dozen or two of hairy miners gazing in a bewildered manner at Mrs. C.; but, if report speaks truly, the bonnet and boots of a â€œfemaleâ€� had been successfully exhibited in this region at a dollar a head, (a glimpse of them being thought cheap even at that price) surely therefore Crockett might have excused the poor miners for regarding attentively the original article when presented gratis in the shape of a pretty woman.Crockett carried a revolver of disproportionate size, he not being a large man, and this instrument he occasionally used upon provocation. A great number of miners had looked at Mrs. Crockett on the morning of our arrival, and her husband had not quite finished foaming at the mouth in consequence, when we entered the house. It was some time before he condescended to be civil; but having at length informed us that he was â€œso riled that his skin cracked,â€� he added that he was a â€œdevilish good fellow when he was â€˜right side up,â€™â€�and commanded us to drink with him. After this he procured us a most excellent breakfast,and, on the strength of our respectable appearance, allowed Mrs. Crockett to preside at this repast, which she did in a nervous manner, as if momentarily under the expectation of being shot.We left our host â€œright side up,â€� and, proceeding on our way, we soon lost sight of the cultivated country and began to traverse undulating plains studded with the dwarf oak. The road now gradually becomes worse, and has long ceased to be level; we pass road-side houses, whose names indicate the localities in which they are placed: â€œRolling Hills,â€� â€œWillow Springs,â€� â€œRed Mountain,â€� and so forth.After travelling twenty miles we ascend the first range of hills; the pine-tree appears, and here and there we catch glimpses of the American Fork River. As we leave the plain, and ascend the wooded hills, trails may be observed indicated by blazed trees, leading to mountain gorges, where diggers are at work. Flowers clothe the hills in the richest profusion, and most conspicuous is the yellow poppy, which lightens up these desolate red hills for a few weeks each spring; growing in rich masses that, in contrast to the bleak and stunted herbage, are like sunbeams, and like sunbeams leave every spot they cheer more gloomy, when, under the influence of the first hot summer wind, they droop in a night and pass away.CHAPTER XIII.AN OLD SHE-GOAT—OUR MINERALOGIST—GOLD DIGGERS—MURDERERâ€™S BAR—THE THEORIST PUZZLED—MINING LAWS—JUMPING CLAIMS—THE MINERâ€™S LIFE—â€œLET HER SLIDEâ€�—HOSTILE INDIANS—WE ARE DISGUSTED—FIRE-PROOF HOUSES.July, 1851.Wereached the Salmon Fall diggings about noon, and, without halting, crossed a wooden bridge that had been built here on the north fork of the American River; we paid five dollars toll to its enterprising owner, and ascended the opposite hill. The road here became so uneven that we got out of the waggon in preference to being pitched out, and we were kept very busy in locking the wheels when it went down hill, and pushing behind when it went up. We passed no houses now, but trails led off on either side, whilst occasionally we encountered solitary miners â€œprospectingâ€� near the road. â€œProspectingâ€� is the term applied to a pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, that is, searching for gold where no trace of it is apparent on the surface.[12]There are plenty ofâ€œprospectorsâ€� in the mines, but the profession scarcely pays, for the â€œprospectorâ€� is the jackall who must search for many days, and, when he has found, the lion, in the shape of the old miner, steps in and reaps the benefit. So that there is something to be learnt in the diggings, for undoubtedly one of the first principles in life is to look on while others work, and then step in and cry â€œhalves.â€�We stopped at dusk at a house a little off the trail, and, having had supper, we spread our blankets on the ground, and being tired were soon asleep; but we soon awoke again, for, separated from us by a canvas screen, was a young goat, whose dismal bleatings made â€œnight hideous:â€� vain were the imprecations that were showered on the goatâ€™s head; daylight discovered him still crying, and us awake and unrefreshed.As we prepared to start, in rather a sullen humour, what was our astonishment when our host accosted us smilingly thus: â€œI had an addition to my family last evening, gentlemen, and as fine a boy as ever you saw!â€� So he must be, thought we, to have a voice like a goat; and, as we went on our way, we recalled the compliments with which, during the night, we had greeted the new-born babe, under the innocent impression that it was a kid; and conjectured to ourselves the feelings of the mother when she heard herself alluded to as an old she-goat!As the waggon followed the trail, we walked through the forest at the side; the botanist of our party had now ample employment, and tortured a new flower at each step; whilst our mineralogist pocketed specimens with such fervour that their accumulated weight began at last to tell severely on his frame, upon which he discharged his gleanings surreptitiously, to our great amusement, for we insisted that he had dropped them by accident, and made him pocket them again. If the people of this world had but to carry their hobbies up a dusty mountain, under a hot sun, in the shape of a bag of quartz, how soon theyâ€™d cast them off!At noon, having reached the ridge of the mountain, we had an extended view of the gold country as itstretched away for miles beyond us in a succession of steep red hills; through these the American Fork rushed impetuously, and huge masses of red-woods clothed the highest mountains; while, in the distance, the white peaks of the Sierra Nevada were perceptible; those famous mountains of which the reputed wealth is still as much the Dorado of the Californian diggers, as were the placer fields before me once the dream of the Mexicans of the sixteenth century. â€œProspectorsâ€� visit these cheerless snows never to return; but, like the discontented squirrel of the fable, who would ascend the sun-lit hills that looked so much like gold, reach them, utter a moral and die.A turn of the road presented a scene of mining life, as perfect in its details as it was novel in its features. Immediately beneath us the swift river glided tranquilly, though foaming still from the great battle which, a few yards higher up, it had fought with a mass of black obstructing rocks. On the banks was a village of canvas that the winter rains had bleached to perfection, and round it the miners were at work at every point. Many were waist-deep in the water, toiling in bands to construct a race and dam to turn the riverâ€™s course; others were entrenched in holes, like grave-diggers, working down to the â€œbed rock.â€� Some were on the brink of thestream washing out â€œprospectsâ€� from tin pans or wooden â€œbatteas;â€� and others worked in company with the long-tom, by means of water-sluices artfully conveyed from the river. Many were coyote-ing in subterranean holes, from which from time to time their heads popped out, like those of squirrels, to take a look at the world; and a few with drills, dissatisfied with natureâ€™s work, were preparing to remove large rocks with gunpowder. All was life, merriment, vigour, and determination, as this part of the earth was being turned inside out to see what it was made of.The air was so still and clear that the voices rose to us with startling distinctness, and when a head appeared from a distant pit, and its owner vociferated, â€œHow are you, Frank?â€� I thought at first he meant me, and was on the point of replying, â€œWell and hearty, thank him. How was he?â€�Small patches of garden surrounded the village, which bore so palpably the stamp of cheerfulness and happy industry, that I was disappointed on learning that its name was â€œMurdererâ€™s Bar;â€� though the appellation was justly conferred in memory of a brutal murder that had been committed amongst its earliest settlers.Had all the diggings been named in accordance with the circumstances that ushered them individuallyinto public notice, there would be more Murdererâ€™s Bars than the traveller would well know what to do with, unless they were numerically arranged like the John Smiths in the muster-roll of a marching regiment.The name is unpleasantly candid; there are plenty of â€œdiggingsâ€� that can record their tales of blood much more forcibly than Murdererâ€™s Bar, but under such peaceful titles as â€œDiamond Springs,â€� or â€œHappy Valley,â€� they bring no shudder to the traveller. So that we learn another thing at the diggings, which is, that it is ridiculous to be a Publican and make a clean breast of it to every stranger, when such great immunity is gained under the garb of the Pharisee.One would ask how it is that Murdererâ€™s Bar, despite its name, is a peaceable village, where each manâ€™s wealth, in the shape of ten feet square of soil, is virtuously respected by his neighbour; it is not because there is enough for all, for every paying claim has long ago been appropriated, and the next comer must go further on. There is a justice of the peace (up to his arms in the river just at present), and there is a constable (who has been â€œprospectingâ€� a bag of earth from the hill, and been rewarded with a gold flake of the value of three cents); these two, one would suppose, could scarcely control two or three hundredmen, with rude passions and quick tempers, each of whom, as you observe, carries his revolver even while at work. But these armed, rough-looking fellows themselves elected their judge and constable, and stand, ever ready, as â€œspecials,â€� to support them.If a man wanted a pickaxe or a shovel, and thought to help himself to one of those that lie about at all times at Murdererâ€™s Bar, he would find it inconvenient if discovered; for, as there is no extenuating clause of hunger or misery in the diggings, theft is held to be a great crime; in all probability the offender would be whipped at the tree; and this brings us again to the perplexing subject of Lynch law as relating to the miners.I venture to say that it will puzzle the theorist to determine how far the roving population of the mining regions in California have been justified in taking measures to eject the bad and worthless from among them; for all rules and precedents fall before the strong argument of self-preservation. When Christian and his shipmates landed at Pitcairnâ€™s Island and made laws for the regulation of their small colony (happily little needed) they acted as much upon the principle of Lynch law as did the miners; for these latter were equally without the reach of the laws under which they had been born. Where,after all, was the great difference in the first trial by jury and the Lynch execution among a colony of men living far from civilisation? Was the peace of a community of honest men to be disturbed by crime and bloodshed, unpunished, when, from circumstances, the law of their country was unable to protect them? These and similar questions would form the basis of the argument in defence of Lynch law in the mountains.On the other hand, the opponent would point to the fearful instances on record of men being hurried to eternity without preparation—victims to the overwrought feelings of an excited mob. The defence of self-constituted law is untenable, yet there are instances in which small communities have seemed to me justified in enforcing, by the only means at their command, the order so necessary in such a state of society as that of the mountain gorges of California.But when we see this law â€œsubverting lawâ€� in a city like San Francisco, then we are forced sweepingly to condemn, once and for all, all that bears the name of Lynch, and we feel loth to admit that in any case the end can ever justify the means. Still it is a question, taken from first to last, that one may split straws on, when we see howpeacefully Murdererâ€™s Bar progresses, not under theexecution, but under thefearof Lynch law. In most mining villages public indignation has been confined to ordering men to â€œleave the campâ€� in twenty-four hours, or otherwise take the consequences; and after being thus warned, the nefarious digger invariably â€œslopes.â€�The mining population have been allowed to constitute their own laws relative to the appointment of â€œclaims,â€� and it is astonishing how well this system works. Had the Legislature, in ignorance of the minerâ€™s wants, interfered and decided that a man should have so much, and no more, of the soil to work on, all would have been anarchy and confusion.Whereas now, every â€œdiggingâ€� has its fixed rules and by-laws, and all disputes are submitted to a jury of the resident miners; excepting in those instances where twenty men or so are met by twenty men, and in these cases there is first a grand demonstration with fire-arms, and eventually an appeal to the district court. The by-laws of each district are recorded in the Recorderâ€™s Office of the county, and these laws are stringent although self-constituted; ill-defined at first, and varying as they did, they were conflicting and troublesome, but though they have been jumbled asit were in a bag, they have come out like Mr. Crockett, â€œright side up.â€�I have had my claim in the digging more than once, of ten feet square; if a man â€œjumpedâ€� it, and encroached on my boundaries, and I didâ€™nt knock him on the head with a pickaxe, being a Christian, I appealed to the â€œcrowd,â€� and my claim being carefully measured from my stake and found to be correct, the â€œjumperâ€� would be ordered to confine himself to his own territory, which of course he would do with many oaths.It is customary to leave your mining tools in your claim, to indicate to all new comers that it is occupied, and as this rule is recognised it saves a great deal of unnecessary explanation; but it has often struck me that if in the quiet and virtuous hamlet of Little Pedlington, a market-gardener were to leave his spade outside as a sign of occupancy, he would not detect that implement in the morning, spite of the vigilance of the one policeman, who guards that blissful retreat.We descended the cliff by a short cut; the mineralogist took a shorter, for a ledge of earth gave way beneath his weight, and enabled him to reach the base about three minutes before us.Gongs sounded at this moment, and the red clayeypopulation flocked in to dine, looking disproportionately dirty in contrast with their white houses: I did not see a woman in the â€œcamp.â€� But these things are being better ordered now, and I can foresee the day when the traveller from Murdererâ€™s Bar shall speak of anxious mothers rushing from the white tents with soap-sud arms to rescue embryo miners from the gutter; and when flaxen-headed urchins shall gaze suspiciously at the approach of such as I, and running back to their parents, will exclaim, â€œOh! daddy, hereâ€™s a Britisher!â€�The gold is found here in coarse flakes, and the bank washings, from all accounts, average five or six dollars a day per man.The days had passed when diggings were abandoned, so soon as they ceased to reward a dayâ€™s toil with less than an ounce or two of gold, and â€œchunksâ€� and â€œbig strikesâ€�[13]were now exceptions to the rule; but the days had passed, also, when to obtain these prizes men laboured painfully under the influence of fever, produced by bad food and poisonous spirits, to die at last, perhaps, disgorging every hard-earned flake of gold to some attendant quack.Much happier the miner, when, as at Murdererâ€™s Bar, his toil is regularly rewarded with a smaller gain,for his health is no longer impaired by feverish excitement and drink, and the necessaries of life are placed within his reach, at prices that enable him to save his gold scales as well as his constitution, for the â€œrainy day,â€� that in one form or the other comes to all at last.Leaving the village and passing some hills, the sides of which were overgrown with the white azalia, we reached another part of the river, where was a ferry-boat, and here we found our waggon. On the opposite side of the river the ascent was very steep, and would have been impracticable for waggons, had not the owner of the ferry excavated a portion of the mountain, and otherwise constructed a road.For this outlay of capital the ferryman was reaping a rich harvest; having thus opened the only practicable trail at this time to the more northern mines, he had secured to himself the toll of every waggon passing to or from those regions, and these tolls amounted in one year to sixty thousand dollars (12,000l.). The original capital was, I understood, the result of successful digging; and I mention this circumstance as it proves two things, first, that fortunes in the mines are not dependent on the discovery of little nests of gold, as some suppose, but on the judicious application in a new country of the small capitalwhich a little steady work with the pickaxe will ensure to any industrious and healthy man; and, secondly, that a large portion of the gold amassed in mining regions is expended upon the permanent improvement of the country; so that the export of the â€œdustâ€� is no criterion of the yield.Bridges, ferries, roads, watercourses, dams, hotels, and stage coaches, have nearly all been started by means of the capital obtained from the soil over which they run, or on which they are constructed. No one knows what a waggon will undergo, until he has mastered Californian trails and gulches. The worst places are the steep descents that skirt the base of a mountain, where the road has an inclination of about thirty degrees towards the precipice beneath.In such places you may fasten a rope to the axle of the waggon, and passing the other end round a tree or rock as a check, you may let her â€œslide,â€� which she will do without any further trouble on your part.We were now approaching a spot where a few days previously the Indians had made some successful descents upon mining parties, cutting off some of their number. The Indians of this region promise to be a great annoyance, for they are mounted and brave, and are gradually becoming possessed of rifles.There is an Indian commission in the country, andportions of territory, called â€œIndian Reserves,â€� have been marked out as in other states, and presented to the Indians from their good father, the President. These â€œReservationsâ€� the Indians accept and occupy, but the lurking idea still remains, that the rest of the country is theirs also, and in the mean time they â€œlift hair,â€�[14]from time to time, to keep their hands in.When Indians, labouring under the ridiculous notion that anything can belong to them that the white man wants, become troublesome, it is customary to drive them back; but the Indians of this region when so driven, will find their revenge in carrying on an exterminating warfare against the overland emigration—at least so it appears to me.Still, the policy of conciliation pursued by the â€œCommissionersâ€� is the only one that lies open, and if they can persuade these savages â€œthat half a loaf is better than no bread,â€� they will have carried out their diplomatic mission to its full extent. But it is easier to lull Indian suspicions than to eradicate them; and unfortunately for all parties, these aborigines cherish morbid ideas relative to the â€œgraves of their fathers,â€� from which, under the influence of diplomacy, they have been induced to retire: and certainly in those cases, where their progenitors have been buriedin auriferous soil, their remains are not more religiously respected than would they have been had their fate consigned them to some of our intramural burying grounds. For although, in a civilised country, oneâ€™s great grandmotherâ€™s skull may be thrown up with impunity, when her lease of the grave is out, these Indians cling to the absurd superstition that the great â€œManitouâ€� looks wrathfully on those who wilfully disturb the dead!We ascended hill after hill, and by noon, being hot, tired, and dusty, the scenery had no longer charms for our eyes; we passed gigantic red-woods only to sneer at them; we pooh-poohâ€™d cascades that fell from masses of black basaltic rock; the honeysuckles that lent their sweetness to the air around us, were pronounced disgusting; and even the botanist reproached the yellow poppies with being â€œstinking,â€� as ifhecouldnâ€™t have borne with them.But when we pulled up at â€œSmithâ€™s rancheâ€� and bathed and dined, we dismissed these unhealthy feelings, and took the honeysuckles to our bosoms again. We now began to experience the change of air consequent on our increased elevation, and the ascent was so rapid here, that thirty miles ahead of us the snow was reported to be lying fifteen feet in depth.Where we now were, the main trail was little worn, but at a certain point we struck off to the right through the forest, and following the â€œblazed treesâ€� we suddenly emerged on a clear and rocky ledge on the side of the mountain. Here was the quartz vein we had come to see, and its thirteen American owners lived upon the spot in a couple of log huts.We were received with great hospitality, although this was of less substantial kind than it would have been, had not our entertainers been â€œout of everythingâ€� but flour, water, and tea. We had fortunately brought some provisions with us, otherwise we might have indulged in the luxury of a mountain appetite longer than was conducive to comfort. During two days we inspected the quartz mine, and having to the best of our ability satisfied ourselves of its wealth, we retraced our road to Sacramento, taking care to avoid the residence of the â€œold she goat,â€� but calling on Crockett, whom we again found with his â€œskin crackingâ€� at some imaginary insult to his wife.When we reached San Francisco we found that preparations were going on, on all sides, for erecting brick and stone buildings in lieu of combustible shanties.The style of architecture in vogue was less remarkable for cunning design than for its sturdy fireproofqualities; and although the square houses, with their thick walls and double doors, and shutters of strong iron, and bomb-proof cellars underground, added little towards the embellishment of the city, it was no time to think of elegant faÃ§ades or imposing friezes when the first object was the security of life and property. Each building, then, was intended to assume the character of a fortress to resist the common enemy of the place; and from that day to this, this end has been fortunately carried out, and the heart of the city is impervious to fire.CHAPTER XIV.JOE BELLOW—STOCKTON—A BEAR TRAPPER—BEAR AND BULL FIGHTS—AN UNEASY BEAR—CALIFORNIAN INNS—NATURAL ROADS—GOOD DRIVING—I KILL A FLEA—SONORA—THE EVENING COMMENCES—FRENCH EMIGRANTS—A DRINKING BAR—NUMBER EIGHTY—A CORRAL AND A MORAL.September, 1851.Somany reports had reached San Francisco at this time of the discovery, in various parts of the mining regions, of auriferous veins of quartz of immense wealth, that all that portion of the population who were in waiting for something to turn up had already departed for the mountains in search of gold rock.Although not exactly belonging to this class, it was my destiny to hear from one Joe Bellow an account of a certain mineral district, a portion of which, it appeared, had been showered by Fortune into his lap. His description was resistless. His natural volubility, trained as it had been by his professional duties as an auctioneer, overcame all obstacles that I could raise, and I succumbed to his earnest entreaty that I wouldvisit the mine in question and feast my eyes, as he had feasted his, on the glittering wealth which nature had here exposed to view, and of which he extracted a specimen from his pocket of the most satisfactory description.The mine was situated in the vicinity of Sonora, the chief town of the southern mines; and as, independently of my curiosity to inspect it, I wished to visit that section of the country, we started at four oâ€™clock one evening in a small river boat called the â€œJenny Lind,â€� bound to Stockton, a town situated on the San Joaquin River.On starting from San Francisco for the mines, it was but natural to bid adieu to cleanliness and comfort for the time being, and, having so fortified myself, I was better able to withstand the intolerable filth of the â€œJenny Lind.â€� She has since â€œblown up,â€� which is about the only thing that could have purified her.At daylight we arrived at Stockton, which I shall allude to more fully by and by, and at once landed and secured our places in the stage then about to start for the town of Sonora.The stage coach was of American manufacture, and of the class known as â€œConcordâ€� coaches. It carried nine inside and two out. Our driver was a colonel,and his name was Reed. He was one of the best of whips, and, as proprietor of the line by which we were now travelling, he was making money very fast. Having been forestalled in the box seat by a very hairy miner, I completed, in company with Mr. Joe Bellow, the complement inside, after paying the gallant colonel an â€œounceâ€� for passage money. This was a â€œreduced fare,â€� occasioned by an opposition having lately made its appearance on the Sonora road; the bare mention of this emulative vehicle raised the colonelâ€™s â€œdander.â€� With a crack of the whip we started at a good pace, behind four well-built, active beasts, not over-groomed, or â€œturned outâ€� very expensively as to harness, but famous goers, and good for ten miles an hour over the plain.Lines of stages now traverse the country in every direction, and there is scarcely a canvass mining village that is debarred from communication in this way with the principal towns. The horses used by these lines are of the best quality, for a Yankee stage driver knows wherein true economy lies; but the capital required to start a line is very considerable, and as soon as the profits begin to â€œtumble in pretty freely,â€� as Colonel Reed remarked, up starts an opposition; for stage-driving is a favourite speculation! Our inside passengers consisted of a youngCanadian woman, who travelled under the protection of an ill-looking dog, a kind of Irish Yankee, who was very quarrelsome and bumptious, and carried his revolver in a very prominent position. We had two or three miners, who, as a matter of course, brought their rifles and blankets with them into the coach, and who squirted their juice at passing objects on the road with astonishing accuracy. We had, however, one decided character. This was a man who, as he gratuitously informed us, was professionally a bear hunter, bear trapper, and bear fighter; who, in fact, dealt generally in grizzly bears. When he shot bears—and it appeared he lived in the mountains—he sold the meat and cured the skins; but when he was fortunate enough to trap a fine grizzly alive, a rich harvest generally awaited him. The grizzly was immediately transferred, bound head and foot, to a large and strong cage; and this, being mounted on the bed of a waggon, the animal was despatched to some large mining town in the vicinity, where notice was given, by means of handbills and posters, that â€œon the Sunday following the famous grizzly bear, â€˜America,â€™ would fight a wild bull, &c., &c. Admission, five dollars.â€�A bull and bear fight is, of all exhibitions of this description, the most cruel and senseless. The bear,cramped in his limbs by the strict confinement that his strength and ferocity have rendered necessary, is placed in the arena; and attached to him by a rope is a bull, generally of fine shape and courage, and fresh from the mountains. Neither animal has fair play, and indeed, in most instances, each one avoids the other. The bullâ€™s power of attack is weakened by the shortness of the tether, whilst the bear, as above mentioned, has scarcely the free use of his muscles.The bull invariably commences the attack, and the immense power of the bearâ€™s fore-arm is then exemplified; for, raising himself on his hams, he meets the coming shock by literally boxing the bullâ€™s ears; but this open-handed blow saves his entrails, and the bull swerves half stunned, whilst his horns graze Bruinâ€™s skin. But if the bull approaches in a snuffing, inquisitive kind of manner, the bear will very probably seize his enemyâ€™s nose and half suffocate him in his grip. The fight generally ends without much damage on either side, for the simple reason that neither of the combatants means mischief.I was sleeping one night at Campo Seco, a mining village in the southern mines, the houses of which were, for the most part, composed of canvass, the â€œbalance,â€� as they say here, being of muslin. Thecamp was very full, as on the day previous, Sunday, a long-expected fight had come off between a grizzly bear and a cinnamon bear. I had heard that, after an uninterrupted embrace between the two of about four hours, the grizzly had been declared the victor, which was not so extraordinary, considering that he weighed about 1200 lbs., and that you could not have driven a tenpenny nail through his hide, whilst the cinnamonâ€™s weight was quoted at 400 lbs. I was â€œputting upâ€� with an acquaintance who kept a store in a small canvass house, and he having, with true mining generosity, opened a bale of new red blankets for my temporary accommodation, I was soon asleep. About daylight I was awoke by what I imagined to be the moaning of a man in pain, and the occasional disturbance of the canvass wall nearest my sleeping-place satisfied me as to the locality. The moaning soon became deeper, and occasionally the canvass yielded to some heavy weight that pressed against it. Presently was heard a smash of crockery and a tremendous roar; upon which my host started up, and, placing a revolver in my hand and seizing his rifle, he rushed out of the tent, vociferating, â€œCome on.â€� Following him into the adjoining room, which formed his kitchen and occasionally a stable for his old mule, my eyes at once lit upon the cinnamon bear, whommy host had provided with lodging at the nightly charge of one dollar. The bear was fortunately chained to a strong stake in the centre of the hut, otherwise, â€œall smarting, with his wounds being cold,â€� he looked, judging from as much of his eyes as one could distinguish in his swollen face, as if it would be grateful to him to set-to with something as much smaller than himself as he was smaller than his late antagonist. Upon an after inspection of his chain I ascertained that its length would have admitted his gratifying this desire on my carcase, had he tumbled through the canvass partition which had separated us for the night.The weather being at this time fine and the roads in good order, we passed, throughout the whole length of our journey, innumerable waggons laden with winter provisions for the mines; and droves of mules—patient little brutes, some as small as donkeys, staggering under barrels of liquor and cases as big as themselves; each drove led, as a matter of course, by an old white mare with a bell.As we neared the Stanislaus River, distant thirty miles from Stockton, every one inside became sociable, except the Irishman, whose jealousy had been aroused to a fearful pitch by J. Bellow, who entertained the fair Canadian in French, a language unknown to herprotector. During our journey J. B. had not been inactive, having already disposed, conditionally, of sundry bags of sugar to the miners, and a box or two of German cigars to the bear hunter; samples of these articles having been extracted from his capacious pocket. Crossing the river Stanislaus at a fordable spot, we pulled up at a large wooden house, and alighted to dine and wash off the dust with which we were covered.The immense traffic carried on on the roads that lead to the mining regions affords an extensive field for the profitable management of houses of entertainment. These may be encountered at almost every mile throughout the whole country, and they vary in size from a wooden two-story house to the very smallest kind of canvass shanty.There seems to be a certain hour of the day for every traveller in California to breakfast, dine, or sup; and should he not arrive at a roadside house at one of these specified hours, he will get no meal; and could the traveller by any possibility be present at each and every hostel at the same moment, he would find a stereotyped bill of fare, consisting, with little variation, of a tough beefsteak, boiled potatoes, stewed beans, a nasty compound of dried apples, and ajug of molasses. He would then sit down at the summonsof a bell in company with all the tagrag and bobtail of the road who might have congregated for the repast in question: and, if inclined to follow the custom of the country, he would, with the point of his knife, (made blunt for this purpose) taste of the various condiments, butter included, that were ranged before him, and, selecting as many of these as were suited to his taste, he would pile them on his plate, demolish them with relish, and depart on his way in peace. Travel where you will in California, you may rest assured that of the foregoing will your meal be composed, and in nearly such a manner must you eat it.Dinner over, we mounted a strong spring waggon in exchange for our covered coach, which had too much top hamper for the mountain trail we had before us. We had now six horses, all American, good sound cattle, that had come to California across the plains, and were well broken in to crossing gulches and mud-holes. We were soon in a different style of country. Hitherto we had been crossing a level track across the Stockton plain, interrupted by an occasional dive into a dry gulch; now we commenced at once to ascend the hilly country which first indicates the approach to the mining regions. The road to Sonora, as indeed to most places in this country,has never been laid out by Government, but is, in fact, a natural trail or path marked out by the first pioneer waggons that passed that way, deviated from, from time to time, as experience indicated a shorter cut; receiving no assistance from the hand of man, and encountering a vast number of obstacles from the hand of nature.For instance, we arrive at a part, that, skirting the base of a hill, presents a rapid declination to the left, which is a very hard and rocky-looking ravine. Colonel Reed exclaims, as he places his foot on the break, which works from the box, â€œHard up to the right!â€� upon which the insiders loll their heads and bodies out on that side of the vehicle to preserve its equilibrium. We had to â€œhard upâ€� a great many times either to one side or the other, during which time J. Bellow always considered it necessary to assist the fair Canadian; whereupon the Irishman looked fierce and talked large, but finally one of the miners told him, in a quiet but unmistakeable manner, that â€œif he didnâ€™t â€˜dry upâ€™ heâ€™d chuck him out of the stage.â€� Whereupon the Irishman did dry up for the rest of the journey; and shortly after arriving at Sonora we heard of his being detected attempting to pass offbogus, or imitation gold dust, and he narrowly escaped being lynched by the mob. In the course ofthe afternoon I obtained the box seat, and engaging the colonel at once on the subject of horseflesh, I soon obtained from him a great amount of useful knowledge on the subject of American stock, of which I am a great admirer. As we neared Sonora, the colonelâ€™s attention was almost entirely occupied by his team, for in many places the trail led through deep gulches, into which previous volcanic eruptions had showered an infinity of small cindery rocks, which, close enough together to prevent wheels getting through them, were just sufficiently high to capsize the cart if the wheels went over them. We arrived at the summit of a â€œused upâ€� crater, and, having a long descent of this description before us, the inside passengers were ordered out; the break was put on, worked by the colonelâ€™s leg on the box. I held on according to orders. We slided down in famous style, first over on one side then the other, the colonel occasionally addressing his team with â€œD—— you, donâ€™t touch one of them!â€� meaning the rocks, through which we were picking our way. But, near the bottom of the hill, we got our off-wheels into amud-holeand declined gently on that side, a fine specimen of volcanic formation preventing the waggon from going over altogether. The colonel, without hesitation, made all his passengers hang their weights tothe near side of the waggon, and, sitting on my lap, with a crack of the whip he started the whole concern, and sent it flying and swaying from side to side to the bottom of the hill. Here we pulled up, and the colonel, relieving me from his weight, observed, in extenuation of what might otherwise have appeared a liberty, â€œthat he was obliged to be a littlesarcyon this road.â€�

ANOTHER FIRE—MY GEOLOGICAL FRIEND—â€œBURNT OUTâ€�—SACRAMENTO—LEVEE—HULKS—RATS—VIGILANCE COMMITTEE—START FOR VOLCANO—CROCKETT—â€œRIGHT SIDE UP.â€�

June, 1851.

Shortlyafter my return to Vallejo, a bright glare in the direction of San Francisco indicated too surely that the city was again in flames. The wind was very high, and we had every reason to believe that the conflagration was general. Having roused out the Old Soldier to his intense disgust, I reached Benicia in time to take a passage to San Francisco in the last returning Stockton boat. We met steamers going up river crowded, that stopped and confirmed our worst fears; mine in particular, for I had felt anxious respecting the property of a friend who had shown me unceasing kindness since my arrival in the country. I learnt that his stores had already fallen, and knew that he was ruined. It was with great difficulty we landed, for the fire had extended to the waterâ€™s edge, and in many places the wharves had been disconnected; everywhere deep holes hadbeen burnt in them, and some were drowned that night from this cause.

The ruins of the fire were quite deserted, the inhabitants had sought the suburbs, sorrowfully no doubt, for a nightâ€™s rest; and the bright moon looked calmer than ever in contrast to the red angry embers which smouldered on every side.

I found myself alone after I had scrambled up a small hill that commanded a view of the fallen city, and I never remember feeling so solitary in my life. Small columns of red-tinted smoke rose lazily in every direction, the blackened shells of brick warehouses stood out here and there in bold relief against the moonlight, whilst every crevice and window in them was fantastically lighted by the glowing embers that still burnt within. Over the ruins of large drug stores ghostly lights of blue and green flickered in a supernatural manner. Where the fire had already been extinguished, dark pits seemed to yawn, and open wells, and deep cisterns, stood ready on all sides, their coverings being burnt, to trap the unwary adventurer who might be led to explore those regions. Not a sound broke the stillness of the night, and as the moon was overshadowed by a passing cloud, I turned and stumbled on what was either a very dead man or a very drunken one,and having seen all there was to see, I descended the hill and rejoined my companions.

Lodgings were scarce enough that night, as may be imagined, nor was there a sufficient number of houses standing to accommodate the burnt-out citizens. I was fortunate enough to meet an Hungarian geologist, who was probably the poorest man in San Francisco, for the science he professed could not at this time be put to much account in California. Were it not for the respect in which I hold a learned society at home before which â€œpapersâ€� are read, and by which laws are made for the better regulation of geology, I should say that the reason why the votaries of this science did not succeed in California, arose from the fact, that this eccentric country, had for ages past acted in defiance of the fundamental rules of the society in question: whether or no, whenever my friend set out in search of gold on scientific principles, he generally left that metal farther behind him at every step.

Wherever you go now you will meet a few Hungarians, and I have ever found them a superior class of men—quiet and unobtrusive in their habits, and of very liberal education. My geological friend had a small hut built among the sand-hills. As we walked towards it we were called on to deliverby three gentlemen of the road, but as, happening to be both armed, we made the usual demonstration in such cases, we went on our way without molestation. Not but what it would have been a kindness to have robbed the Hungarian, for though he had no money in his pocket, and his clothes were valueless, he was staggering through the deep sand under the weight of an enormous bag of quartz he had collected, every ounce of which I foresaw was destined to be pulverised in a hand mortar and tested, involving a great amount of labour butno profit. I tossed up with my friend who should have his bed, and having won it I was soon asleep, it being now nearly daylight; when I awoke he was gone, and I was at no loss to conjecture that he had sought elsewhere a softer couch than the heap of rocks and fossils that had fallen to his lot.

When I reached the burnt city all was again animation, and on every side preparations were being made for rebuilding it of brick and stone.

I have alluded to a friend; it was with sorrow that I viewed the wreck of the noble warehouses that had been his: but yesterday, as it were, he had pointed to these buildings with pride as evidencing his successful efforts, though never forgetful to whom success was owing, while to-day a heap of ashes marksthe emptiness of human calculation. A week ago and his glorious hospitality assembled hundreds to commemorate the completion of a stately warehouse,—to-day the firm is hopelessly and irretrievably ruined.

He lies now in the cemetery outside San Francisco, and those who have not forgotten the warm grasp of a hand that was ever ready to succour—now that that hand is cold, will recognise this sketch, and will not blame me for recording this slight tribute to his memory.

After a diligent search I was directed by the appearance of sundry steel buttons to the ashes of what had been my wardrobe; everything had been destroyed, and among the papers I had lost were the notes and sketches of the country that I had collected to this date, which notes, after three years, I am rewriting from memory.

After contemplating mournfully the whitened remains of two little dogs that lay side by side, with the blackened ashes of my dress coat and patent leather boots, I turned from the spot, and shortly afterwards encountered Sir Henry Huntly, who in an equally melancholy frame of mind, had just completed a survey of his â€œashes;â€� we agreed to pay a visit to the northern mines, and made preparations for a start.

The wooden wharves had for the most part beenconverted into charcoal, and the steamer was crowded with those who like ourselves were anxious to leave behind them so much desolation.

The mail steamer had come in from Panama, and ladies who had just arrived to find their husbands, houseless and ruined, were hurrying careworn from their toilsome journey sorrowfully to seek a temporary shelter in Sacramento. There were troupes of actors, who, forgetting all rivalry in their common adversity, felt the reality of tragedy. The fire bell had arrested their performances, and though they worked ever so manfully at the breaks, the temples of Thespis had been swept away in the storm, and with them their wardrobes and arrears of pay. There were professional gamblers for whom the losing card had now turned up, who, burnt out of their tinsel saloons, were starting for the mines, to commence life again in a thimble-rigging tent, until growing prosperous they could work gradually back again to San Francisco, where the tinsel saloons were already being rebuilt.

There were speculators who had a â€œsnug lotâ€� of flour or pork up country, and who were off to fetch it down and lock it up in store-ships, until the wants of the community should make it worth its weight in gold almost. There were small traders, whose debtor and creditor accounts had been, fortunatelyfor them, buried in oblivion by the general ruin, and who talked furiously of their losses, and bespattered their hard fate with curses of the loudest and deepest character. And there were many who like myself had come to satisfy their curiosity, just as we go to the sea-shore and view the wreck of a noble ship; and these grew hilarious upon the strength of having lost nothing, and returned to their homes in famous good humour with themselves and all the world.

Passing Benicia we entered Suisun Bay, on the shores of which a city was attempted—New York by name—but failed. There is something to admire in the audacity of speculators, who finding themselves possessed of a few acres of swamp, wave their wands and order a city to appear. The working human tide of California ebbed and flowed past New York with great regularity, but all commands to arrest it, and direct it from its natural course were futile as regarded that city, which really presented no advantage that I could see. It is now dusk, and we enter the Sacramento river. Presently we pass a large steamboat going down, who gives us a close shave, and complimentarily strikes three bells, upon which we strike three bells; and in a few minutes we pass a small steamboat also going down, who gives us a closer shave, and shrieks three times out of something connected with hersteam-pipe, upon which we groan three times out of something connected with our steam-pipe. These salutes are invariably observed, and the greater the rivalry between the boats, the louder they scream at each other.

The banks of the river are for the most part marshy, but in the fading light we catch glimpses here and there of small cultivated enclosures, with comfortable-looking shanties peeping between the oak trees. After supper everybody turns in, and at daylight we arrive at Sacramento.

Sacramento is built on the banks of the river, from the encroachments of which it is as often drowned as its sister city is burnt. The houses are gaily painted, and the American flag waves in every direction; the streets are wide, and some trees that have been left standing in the town give it a cheerful appearance.

It is an American town at the first glance; an immense quantity of sign-boards stare at you in every direction, and if anything would induce a man to purchase â€œHay and Grain,â€� â€œGallego Flour,â€� â€œGoshen Butter,â€� or any other article for which he has no want, it would be the astounding size of the capital letters, in which these good things are forced upon his notice.

Every other house is an hotel or boarding-house, for with few exceptions every one is put out toâ€œlivery,â€� as it were, in Sacramento; and in hard times, when cash is scarce, one half of the population may be said to feed the other half gratuitously, or on credit, which often amounts to the same thing, thus affording a beautiful illustration of mutual support and confidence.

Sacramento is terribly dusty; the great traffic to and from the mines grinds three or four inches of the top soil into a red powder, that distributes itself everywhere; it is the dirtiest dust I ever saw, and is never visited by a shower until the rainy season sets in, and suddenly converts it into a thick mud.

I was introduced to a club of Sacramento gentlemen, who had formed themselves into what they called a literary society. In their rooms was to be found what in those days was scarce, a tolerable collection of books and the periodicals of the day. They were very jovial fellows, well-informed, not so literary as I expected, and certainly quite free from pedantry. The most important ceremony at their meetings consisted in the members standing in a circle, upon which a Chinese hat of teetotum shape was spun in the centre, and the â€œliterary savant,â€� who was indicated by a black mark on the hat when it ceased to spin, stood â€œdrinks for the crowd.â€�

BAR ROOM AT SONORA

The weather was oppressively warm, and the iced â€œdrinksâ€�[11]were necessary even to a literary society;—so much so, that the hat was kept continually spinning by public acclamation. There was no lack of sensible and entertaining conversation, and the evenings passed with these gentlemen were to my thinking none the less pleasant, although perhaps less literary, for the twirling of the Chinese hat.

A levÃ©e, or sea-wall, has been built in front of the city, to protect it from the river when it rises with the high spring tides; but the river generally undermines these works, and flows over the surrounding plain as it has been wont to do for ages past.

A large number of old dismantled hulks, now converted into floating houses, are moored along the front of the levÃ©e, and it is from these probably the rats first landed that are now so distinguished at Sacramento for their size and audacity. These animals come out after dark in strong gangs, as if the town belonged to them, and attack anything that may happen to have been left on the wharf during the night; being very numerous, the destruction they cause to merchandise is a serious loss.

Ten thousand dollars were offered, I was told, tothe man who should clear the town, and seduced by this bribe, some one in the rat-catching line volunteered to draw all the rats into the country, and there enclose them in a paddock, to be publicly exposed previous to a massacre; but whether the rats thought it best to leave well alone, and be content with the comfortable quarters and nice pine-apple cheeses they enjoyed in the city, or whether they objected to country air, does not appear; but they never went out to the paddock, except one, who is reported to have approached within a reasonable distance of the vain-glorious rat-catcher, and then standing on his hind legs, after the manner of rats, and scratching the tip of his nose contemplatively with his paw, he turned tail for the city, causing grievous disappointment to five terrier dogs, who ineffectually chevied him in.

The conflagrations of San Francisco had been attributed to incendiarists, and as many attempts to fire the town had been frustrated, it is probable that this was the case. A Volunteer-Guard, therefore, patrolled the city of Sacramento at night, to guard against this evil, and to protect the inhabitants from the wholesale plunder of organised bands of burglars. Crime had increased so rapidly of late in San Francisco, and robbers and incendiarists had become so emboldened by the impotence and venality of thejusticiary, that the citizens organised a society styled the Vigilance Committee, for the purpose of affording the protection to life and property that the law would not bestow.

So far was well; but this society, composed of men whosmarted under personal loss, attributedperhaps unjustlyto incendiarism, took upon themselves the dispensation of life and death.

Men detected, as was supposed, in the act offelony only, were tried, sentenced, and executed, without defence, in the same night.

It is useless now to dwell on the summary executions that were put in force in half a dozen cases by the Vigilance Committee; no one would defend their acts, and they met with opposition at the time from the better class of citizens; the memory of them may pass away, but they certainly had the effect at the time of ridding the country of a set of desperate men, and of restoring a degree of security to the inhabitants of San Francisco that had never previously been enjoyed.

Colonel D——, a friend of Sir Henryâ€™s, had control of a quartz vein at a place called Volcano, in the northern mines, and we determined upon an inspection of this vein, which was reported to be highly auriferous.

We started at daybreak, in a light spring waggon,and, taking with us our blankets, we were soon five miles from Sacramento, and pulled up at the young town of Brighton.

Colonel D—— appeared to be the owner of Brighton; and, being a sporting man, he had constructed a race-course here; with the exception of the race-course, and one or two stables, there was not much of the town developed as yet; but being really advantageously situated, I have no doubt that it is well populated by this time.

The road was straight and level, and on either side, enclosed by fences, were well-cultivated farms; numerous dwelling-houses lined the road, and it was difficult to believe that the signs of civilisation and industry, that met us on all sides, were the result of two yearsâ€™ occupation of the country by gold hunters.

As we left Brighton we overtook long lines of waggons, heavily laden with stores for the mines; and these, drawn by innumerable oxen, ploughed up the deep dust to such an extent as obliged us to cover our faces as we passed them. We met waggons coming in, containing miners, on whom, to judge by their appearance generally, a bath, a shave, and a new suit of clothes would not be thrown away; and I have no doubt they indulged in these luxuries on their arrival at Sacramento.

We stopped to breakfast at a house of entertainment kept by one Crockett, who had a very pretty wife; but the possession of this luxury, so far from humanising Crockett, appeared to keep him in a continual fever of irritation; for he was jealous, poor fellow, and used to worry himself because there was ever a dozen or two of hairy miners gazing in a bewildered manner at Mrs. C.; but, if report speaks truly, the bonnet and boots of a â€œfemaleâ€� had been successfully exhibited in this region at a dollar a head, (a glimpse of them being thought cheap even at that price) surely therefore Crockett might have excused the poor miners for regarding attentively the original article when presented gratis in the shape of a pretty woman.

Crockett carried a revolver of disproportionate size, he not being a large man, and this instrument he occasionally used upon provocation. A great number of miners had looked at Mrs. Crockett on the morning of our arrival, and her husband had not quite finished foaming at the mouth in consequence, when we entered the house. It was some time before he condescended to be civil; but having at length informed us that he was â€œso riled that his skin cracked,â€� he added that he was a â€œdevilish good fellow when he was â€˜right side up,â€™â€�and commanded us to drink with him. After this he procured us a most excellent breakfast,and, on the strength of our respectable appearance, allowed Mrs. Crockett to preside at this repast, which she did in a nervous manner, as if momentarily under the expectation of being shot.

We left our host â€œright side up,â€� and, proceeding on our way, we soon lost sight of the cultivated country and began to traverse undulating plains studded with the dwarf oak. The road now gradually becomes worse, and has long ceased to be level; we pass road-side houses, whose names indicate the localities in which they are placed: â€œRolling Hills,â€� â€œWillow Springs,â€� â€œRed Mountain,â€� and so forth.

After travelling twenty miles we ascend the first range of hills; the pine-tree appears, and here and there we catch glimpses of the American Fork River. As we leave the plain, and ascend the wooded hills, trails may be observed indicated by blazed trees, leading to mountain gorges, where diggers are at work. Flowers clothe the hills in the richest profusion, and most conspicuous is the yellow poppy, which lightens up these desolate red hills for a few weeks each spring; growing in rich masses that, in contrast to the bleak and stunted herbage, are like sunbeams, and like sunbeams leave every spot they cheer more gloomy, when, under the influence of the first hot summer wind, they droop in a night and pass away.

AN OLD SHE-GOAT—OUR MINERALOGIST—GOLD DIGGERS—MURDERERâ€™S BAR—THE THEORIST PUZZLED—MINING LAWS—JUMPING CLAIMS—THE MINERâ€™S LIFE—â€œLET HER SLIDEâ€�—HOSTILE INDIANS—WE ARE DISGUSTED—FIRE-PROOF HOUSES.

July, 1851.

Wereached the Salmon Fall diggings about noon, and, without halting, crossed a wooden bridge that had been built here on the north fork of the American River; we paid five dollars toll to its enterprising owner, and ascended the opposite hill. The road here became so uneven that we got out of the waggon in preference to being pitched out, and we were kept very busy in locking the wheels when it went down hill, and pushing behind when it went up. We passed no houses now, but trails led off on either side, whilst occasionally we encountered solitary miners â€œprospectingâ€� near the road. â€œProspectingâ€� is the term applied to a pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, that is, searching for gold where no trace of it is apparent on the surface.[12]There are plenty ofâ€œprospectorsâ€� in the mines, but the profession scarcely pays, for the â€œprospectorâ€� is the jackall who must search for many days, and, when he has found, the lion, in the shape of the old miner, steps in and reaps the benefit. So that there is something to be learnt in the diggings, for undoubtedly one of the first principles in life is to look on while others work, and then step in and cry â€œhalves.â€�

We stopped at dusk at a house a little off the trail, and, having had supper, we spread our blankets on the ground, and being tired were soon asleep; but we soon awoke again, for, separated from us by a canvas screen, was a young goat, whose dismal bleatings made â€œnight hideous:â€� vain were the imprecations that were showered on the goatâ€™s head; daylight discovered him still crying, and us awake and unrefreshed.

As we prepared to start, in rather a sullen humour, what was our astonishment when our host accosted us smilingly thus: â€œI had an addition to my family last evening, gentlemen, and as fine a boy as ever you saw!â€� So he must be, thought we, to have a voice like a goat; and, as we went on our way, we recalled the compliments with which, during the night, we had greeted the new-born babe, under the innocent impression that it was a kid; and conjectured to ourselves the feelings of the mother when she heard herself alluded to as an old she-goat!

As the waggon followed the trail, we walked through the forest at the side; the botanist of our party had now ample employment, and tortured a new flower at each step; whilst our mineralogist pocketed specimens with such fervour that their accumulated weight began at last to tell severely on his frame, upon which he discharged his gleanings surreptitiously, to our great amusement, for we insisted that he had dropped them by accident, and made him pocket them again. If the people of this world had but to carry their hobbies up a dusty mountain, under a hot sun, in the shape of a bag of quartz, how soon theyâ€™d cast them off!

At noon, having reached the ridge of the mountain, we had an extended view of the gold country as itstretched away for miles beyond us in a succession of steep red hills; through these the American Fork rushed impetuously, and huge masses of red-woods clothed the highest mountains; while, in the distance, the white peaks of the Sierra Nevada were perceptible; those famous mountains of which the reputed wealth is still as much the Dorado of the Californian diggers, as were the placer fields before me once the dream of the Mexicans of the sixteenth century. â€œProspectorsâ€� visit these cheerless snows never to return; but, like the discontented squirrel of the fable, who would ascend the sun-lit hills that looked so much like gold, reach them, utter a moral and die.

A turn of the road presented a scene of mining life, as perfect in its details as it was novel in its features. Immediately beneath us the swift river glided tranquilly, though foaming still from the great battle which, a few yards higher up, it had fought with a mass of black obstructing rocks. On the banks was a village of canvas that the winter rains had bleached to perfection, and round it the miners were at work at every point. Many were waist-deep in the water, toiling in bands to construct a race and dam to turn the riverâ€™s course; others were entrenched in holes, like grave-diggers, working down to the â€œbed rock.â€� Some were on the brink of thestream washing out â€œprospectsâ€� from tin pans or wooden â€œbatteas;â€� and others worked in company with the long-tom, by means of water-sluices artfully conveyed from the river. Many were coyote-ing in subterranean holes, from which from time to time their heads popped out, like those of squirrels, to take a look at the world; and a few with drills, dissatisfied with natureâ€™s work, were preparing to remove large rocks with gunpowder. All was life, merriment, vigour, and determination, as this part of the earth was being turned inside out to see what it was made of.

The air was so still and clear that the voices rose to us with startling distinctness, and when a head appeared from a distant pit, and its owner vociferated, â€œHow are you, Frank?â€� I thought at first he meant me, and was on the point of replying, â€œWell and hearty, thank him. How was he?â€�

Small patches of garden surrounded the village, which bore so palpably the stamp of cheerfulness and happy industry, that I was disappointed on learning that its name was â€œMurdererâ€™s Bar;â€� though the appellation was justly conferred in memory of a brutal murder that had been committed amongst its earliest settlers.

Had all the diggings been named in accordance with the circumstances that ushered them individuallyinto public notice, there would be more Murdererâ€™s Bars than the traveller would well know what to do with, unless they were numerically arranged like the John Smiths in the muster-roll of a marching regiment.

The name is unpleasantly candid; there are plenty of â€œdiggingsâ€� that can record their tales of blood much more forcibly than Murdererâ€™s Bar, but under such peaceful titles as â€œDiamond Springs,â€� or â€œHappy Valley,â€� they bring no shudder to the traveller. So that we learn another thing at the diggings, which is, that it is ridiculous to be a Publican and make a clean breast of it to every stranger, when such great immunity is gained under the garb of the Pharisee.

One would ask how it is that Murdererâ€™s Bar, despite its name, is a peaceable village, where each manâ€™s wealth, in the shape of ten feet square of soil, is virtuously respected by his neighbour; it is not because there is enough for all, for every paying claim has long ago been appropriated, and the next comer must go further on. There is a justice of the peace (up to his arms in the river just at present), and there is a constable (who has been â€œprospectingâ€� a bag of earth from the hill, and been rewarded with a gold flake of the value of three cents); these two, one would suppose, could scarcely control two or three hundredmen, with rude passions and quick tempers, each of whom, as you observe, carries his revolver even while at work. But these armed, rough-looking fellows themselves elected their judge and constable, and stand, ever ready, as â€œspecials,â€� to support them.

If a man wanted a pickaxe or a shovel, and thought to help himself to one of those that lie about at all times at Murdererâ€™s Bar, he would find it inconvenient if discovered; for, as there is no extenuating clause of hunger or misery in the diggings, theft is held to be a great crime; in all probability the offender would be whipped at the tree; and this brings us again to the perplexing subject of Lynch law as relating to the miners.

I venture to say that it will puzzle the theorist to determine how far the roving population of the mining regions in California have been justified in taking measures to eject the bad and worthless from among them; for all rules and precedents fall before the strong argument of self-preservation. When Christian and his shipmates landed at Pitcairnâ€™s Island and made laws for the regulation of their small colony (happily little needed) they acted as much upon the principle of Lynch law as did the miners; for these latter were equally without the reach of the laws under which they had been born. Where,after all, was the great difference in the first trial by jury and the Lynch execution among a colony of men living far from civilisation? Was the peace of a community of honest men to be disturbed by crime and bloodshed, unpunished, when, from circumstances, the law of their country was unable to protect them? These and similar questions would form the basis of the argument in defence of Lynch law in the mountains.

On the other hand, the opponent would point to the fearful instances on record of men being hurried to eternity without preparation—victims to the overwrought feelings of an excited mob. The defence of self-constituted law is untenable, yet there are instances in which small communities have seemed to me justified in enforcing, by the only means at their command, the order so necessary in such a state of society as that of the mountain gorges of California.

But when we see this law â€œsubverting lawâ€� in a city like San Francisco, then we are forced sweepingly to condemn, once and for all, all that bears the name of Lynch, and we feel loth to admit that in any case the end can ever justify the means. Still it is a question, taken from first to last, that one may split straws on, when we see howpeacefully Murdererâ€™s Bar progresses, not under theexecution, but under thefearof Lynch law. In most mining villages public indignation has been confined to ordering men to â€œleave the campâ€� in twenty-four hours, or otherwise take the consequences; and after being thus warned, the nefarious digger invariably â€œslopes.â€�

The mining population have been allowed to constitute their own laws relative to the appointment of â€œclaims,â€� and it is astonishing how well this system works. Had the Legislature, in ignorance of the minerâ€™s wants, interfered and decided that a man should have so much, and no more, of the soil to work on, all would have been anarchy and confusion.

Whereas now, every â€œdiggingâ€� has its fixed rules and by-laws, and all disputes are submitted to a jury of the resident miners; excepting in those instances where twenty men or so are met by twenty men, and in these cases there is first a grand demonstration with fire-arms, and eventually an appeal to the district court. The by-laws of each district are recorded in the Recorderâ€™s Office of the county, and these laws are stringent although self-constituted; ill-defined at first, and varying as they did, they were conflicting and troublesome, but though they have been jumbled asit were in a bag, they have come out like Mr. Crockett, â€œright side up.â€�

I have had my claim in the digging more than once, of ten feet square; if a man â€œjumpedâ€� it, and encroached on my boundaries, and I didâ€™nt knock him on the head with a pickaxe, being a Christian, I appealed to the â€œcrowd,â€� and my claim being carefully measured from my stake and found to be correct, the â€œjumperâ€� would be ordered to confine himself to his own territory, which of course he would do with many oaths.

It is customary to leave your mining tools in your claim, to indicate to all new comers that it is occupied, and as this rule is recognised it saves a great deal of unnecessary explanation; but it has often struck me that if in the quiet and virtuous hamlet of Little Pedlington, a market-gardener were to leave his spade outside as a sign of occupancy, he would not detect that implement in the morning, spite of the vigilance of the one policeman, who guards that blissful retreat.

We descended the cliff by a short cut; the mineralogist took a shorter, for a ledge of earth gave way beneath his weight, and enabled him to reach the base about three minutes before us.

Gongs sounded at this moment, and the red clayeypopulation flocked in to dine, looking disproportionately dirty in contrast with their white houses: I did not see a woman in the â€œcamp.â€� But these things are being better ordered now, and I can foresee the day when the traveller from Murdererâ€™s Bar shall speak of anxious mothers rushing from the white tents with soap-sud arms to rescue embryo miners from the gutter; and when flaxen-headed urchins shall gaze suspiciously at the approach of such as I, and running back to their parents, will exclaim, â€œOh! daddy, hereâ€™s a Britisher!â€�

The gold is found here in coarse flakes, and the bank washings, from all accounts, average five or six dollars a day per man.

The days had passed when diggings were abandoned, so soon as they ceased to reward a dayâ€™s toil with less than an ounce or two of gold, and â€œchunksâ€� and â€œbig strikesâ€�[13]were now exceptions to the rule; but the days had passed, also, when to obtain these prizes men laboured painfully under the influence of fever, produced by bad food and poisonous spirits, to die at last, perhaps, disgorging every hard-earned flake of gold to some attendant quack.

Much happier the miner, when, as at Murdererâ€™s Bar, his toil is regularly rewarded with a smaller gain,for his health is no longer impaired by feverish excitement and drink, and the necessaries of life are placed within his reach, at prices that enable him to save his gold scales as well as his constitution, for the â€œrainy day,â€� that in one form or the other comes to all at last.

Leaving the village and passing some hills, the sides of which were overgrown with the white azalia, we reached another part of the river, where was a ferry-boat, and here we found our waggon. On the opposite side of the river the ascent was very steep, and would have been impracticable for waggons, had not the owner of the ferry excavated a portion of the mountain, and otherwise constructed a road.

For this outlay of capital the ferryman was reaping a rich harvest; having thus opened the only practicable trail at this time to the more northern mines, he had secured to himself the toll of every waggon passing to or from those regions, and these tolls amounted in one year to sixty thousand dollars (12,000l.). The original capital was, I understood, the result of successful digging; and I mention this circumstance as it proves two things, first, that fortunes in the mines are not dependent on the discovery of little nests of gold, as some suppose, but on the judicious application in a new country of the small capitalwhich a little steady work with the pickaxe will ensure to any industrious and healthy man; and, secondly, that a large portion of the gold amassed in mining regions is expended upon the permanent improvement of the country; so that the export of the â€œdustâ€� is no criterion of the yield.

Bridges, ferries, roads, watercourses, dams, hotels, and stage coaches, have nearly all been started by means of the capital obtained from the soil over which they run, or on which they are constructed. No one knows what a waggon will undergo, until he has mastered Californian trails and gulches. The worst places are the steep descents that skirt the base of a mountain, where the road has an inclination of about thirty degrees towards the precipice beneath.

In such places you may fasten a rope to the axle of the waggon, and passing the other end round a tree or rock as a check, you may let her â€œslide,â€� which she will do without any further trouble on your part.

We were now approaching a spot where a few days previously the Indians had made some successful descents upon mining parties, cutting off some of their number. The Indians of this region promise to be a great annoyance, for they are mounted and brave, and are gradually becoming possessed of rifles.

There is an Indian commission in the country, andportions of territory, called â€œIndian Reserves,â€� have been marked out as in other states, and presented to the Indians from their good father, the President. These â€œReservationsâ€� the Indians accept and occupy, but the lurking idea still remains, that the rest of the country is theirs also, and in the mean time they â€œlift hair,â€�[14]from time to time, to keep their hands in.

When Indians, labouring under the ridiculous notion that anything can belong to them that the white man wants, become troublesome, it is customary to drive them back; but the Indians of this region when so driven, will find their revenge in carrying on an exterminating warfare against the overland emigration—at least so it appears to me.

Still, the policy of conciliation pursued by the â€œCommissionersâ€� is the only one that lies open, and if they can persuade these savages â€œthat half a loaf is better than no bread,â€� they will have carried out their diplomatic mission to its full extent. But it is easier to lull Indian suspicions than to eradicate them; and unfortunately for all parties, these aborigines cherish morbid ideas relative to the â€œgraves of their fathers,â€� from which, under the influence of diplomacy, they have been induced to retire: and certainly in those cases, where their progenitors have been buriedin auriferous soil, their remains are not more religiously respected than would they have been had their fate consigned them to some of our intramural burying grounds. For although, in a civilised country, oneâ€™s great grandmotherâ€™s skull may be thrown up with impunity, when her lease of the grave is out, these Indians cling to the absurd superstition that the great â€œManitouâ€� looks wrathfully on those who wilfully disturb the dead!

We ascended hill after hill, and by noon, being hot, tired, and dusty, the scenery had no longer charms for our eyes; we passed gigantic red-woods only to sneer at them; we pooh-poohâ€™d cascades that fell from masses of black basaltic rock; the honeysuckles that lent their sweetness to the air around us, were pronounced disgusting; and even the botanist reproached the yellow poppies with being â€œstinking,â€� as ifhecouldnâ€™t have borne with them.

But when we pulled up at â€œSmithâ€™s rancheâ€� and bathed and dined, we dismissed these unhealthy feelings, and took the honeysuckles to our bosoms again. We now began to experience the change of air consequent on our increased elevation, and the ascent was so rapid here, that thirty miles ahead of us the snow was reported to be lying fifteen feet in depth.

Where we now were, the main trail was little worn, but at a certain point we struck off to the right through the forest, and following the â€œblazed treesâ€� we suddenly emerged on a clear and rocky ledge on the side of the mountain. Here was the quartz vein we had come to see, and its thirteen American owners lived upon the spot in a couple of log huts.

We were received with great hospitality, although this was of less substantial kind than it would have been, had not our entertainers been â€œout of everythingâ€� but flour, water, and tea. We had fortunately brought some provisions with us, otherwise we might have indulged in the luxury of a mountain appetite longer than was conducive to comfort. During two days we inspected the quartz mine, and having to the best of our ability satisfied ourselves of its wealth, we retraced our road to Sacramento, taking care to avoid the residence of the â€œold she goat,â€� but calling on Crockett, whom we again found with his â€œskin crackingâ€� at some imaginary insult to his wife.

When we reached San Francisco we found that preparations were going on, on all sides, for erecting brick and stone buildings in lieu of combustible shanties.

The style of architecture in vogue was less remarkable for cunning design than for its sturdy fireproofqualities; and although the square houses, with their thick walls and double doors, and shutters of strong iron, and bomb-proof cellars underground, added little towards the embellishment of the city, it was no time to think of elegant faÃ§ades or imposing friezes when the first object was the security of life and property. Each building, then, was intended to assume the character of a fortress to resist the common enemy of the place; and from that day to this, this end has been fortunately carried out, and the heart of the city is impervious to fire.

JOE BELLOW—STOCKTON—A BEAR TRAPPER—BEAR AND BULL FIGHTS—AN UNEASY BEAR—CALIFORNIAN INNS—NATURAL ROADS—GOOD DRIVING—I KILL A FLEA—SONORA—THE EVENING COMMENCES—FRENCH EMIGRANTS—A DRINKING BAR—NUMBER EIGHTY—A CORRAL AND A MORAL.

September, 1851.

Somany reports had reached San Francisco at this time of the discovery, in various parts of the mining regions, of auriferous veins of quartz of immense wealth, that all that portion of the population who were in waiting for something to turn up had already departed for the mountains in search of gold rock.

Although not exactly belonging to this class, it was my destiny to hear from one Joe Bellow an account of a certain mineral district, a portion of which, it appeared, had been showered by Fortune into his lap. His description was resistless. His natural volubility, trained as it had been by his professional duties as an auctioneer, overcame all obstacles that I could raise, and I succumbed to his earnest entreaty that I wouldvisit the mine in question and feast my eyes, as he had feasted his, on the glittering wealth which nature had here exposed to view, and of which he extracted a specimen from his pocket of the most satisfactory description.

The mine was situated in the vicinity of Sonora, the chief town of the southern mines; and as, independently of my curiosity to inspect it, I wished to visit that section of the country, we started at four oâ€™clock one evening in a small river boat called the â€œJenny Lind,â€� bound to Stockton, a town situated on the San Joaquin River.

On starting from San Francisco for the mines, it was but natural to bid adieu to cleanliness and comfort for the time being, and, having so fortified myself, I was better able to withstand the intolerable filth of the â€œJenny Lind.â€� She has since â€œblown up,â€� which is about the only thing that could have purified her.

At daylight we arrived at Stockton, which I shall allude to more fully by and by, and at once landed and secured our places in the stage then about to start for the town of Sonora.

The stage coach was of American manufacture, and of the class known as â€œConcordâ€� coaches. It carried nine inside and two out. Our driver was a colonel,and his name was Reed. He was one of the best of whips, and, as proprietor of the line by which we were now travelling, he was making money very fast. Having been forestalled in the box seat by a very hairy miner, I completed, in company with Mr. Joe Bellow, the complement inside, after paying the gallant colonel an â€œounceâ€� for passage money. This was a â€œreduced fare,â€� occasioned by an opposition having lately made its appearance on the Sonora road; the bare mention of this emulative vehicle raised the colonelâ€™s â€œdander.â€� With a crack of the whip we started at a good pace, behind four well-built, active beasts, not over-groomed, or â€œturned outâ€� very expensively as to harness, but famous goers, and good for ten miles an hour over the plain.

Lines of stages now traverse the country in every direction, and there is scarcely a canvass mining village that is debarred from communication in this way with the principal towns. The horses used by these lines are of the best quality, for a Yankee stage driver knows wherein true economy lies; but the capital required to start a line is very considerable, and as soon as the profits begin to â€œtumble in pretty freely,â€� as Colonel Reed remarked, up starts an opposition; for stage-driving is a favourite speculation! Our inside passengers consisted of a youngCanadian woman, who travelled under the protection of an ill-looking dog, a kind of Irish Yankee, who was very quarrelsome and bumptious, and carried his revolver in a very prominent position. We had two or three miners, who, as a matter of course, brought their rifles and blankets with them into the coach, and who squirted their juice at passing objects on the road with astonishing accuracy. We had, however, one decided character. This was a man who, as he gratuitously informed us, was professionally a bear hunter, bear trapper, and bear fighter; who, in fact, dealt generally in grizzly bears. When he shot bears—and it appeared he lived in the mountains—he sold the meat and cured the skins; but when he was fortunate enough to trap a fine grizzly alive, a rich harvest generally awaited him. The grizzly was immediately transferred, bound head and foot, to a large and strong cage; and this, being mounted on the bed of a waggon, the animal was despatched to some large mining town in the vicinity, where notice was given, by means of handbills and posters, that â€œon the Sunday following the famous grizzly bear, â€˜America,â€™ would fight a wild bull, &c., &c. Admission, five dollars.â€�

A bull and bear fight is, of all exhibitions of this description, the most cruel and senseless. The bear,cramped in his limbs by the strict confinement that his strength and ferocity have rendered necessary, is placed in the arena; and attached to him by a rope is a bull, generally of fine shape and courage, and fresh from the mountains. Neither animal has fair play, and indeed, in most instances, each one avoids the other. The bullâ€™s power of attack is weakened by the shortness of the tether, whilst the bear, as above mentioned, has scarcely the free use of his muscles.

The bull invariably commences the attack, and the immense power of the bearâ€™s fore-arm is then exemplified; for, raising himself on his hams, he meets the coming shock by literally boxing the bullâ€™s ears; but this open-handed blow saves his entrails, and the bull swerves half stunned, whilst his horns graze Bruinâ€™s skin. But if the bull approaches in a snuffing, inquisitive kind of manner, the bear will very probably seize his enemyâ€™s nose and half suffocate him in his grip. The fight generally ends without much damage on either side, for the simple reason that neither of the combatants means mischief.

I was sleeping one night at Campo Seco, a mining village in the southern mines, the houses of which were, for the most part, composed of canvass, the â€œbalance,â€� as they say here, being of muslin. Thecamp was very full, as on the day previous, Sunday, a long-expected fight had come off between a grizzly bear and a cinnamon bear. I had heard that, after an uninterrupted embrace between the two of about four hours, the grizzly had been declared the victor, which was not so extraordinary, considering that he weighed about 1200 lbs., and that you could not have driven a tenpenny nail through his hide, whilst the cinnamonâ€™s weight was quoted at 400 lbs. I was â€œputting upâ€� with an acquaintance who kept a store in a small canvass house, and he having, with true mining generosity, opened a bale of new red blankets for my temporary accommodation, I was soon asleep. About daylight I was awoke by what I imagined to be the moaning of a man in pain, and the occasional disturbance of the canvass wall nearest my sleeping-place satisfied me as to the locality. The moaning soon became deeper, and occasionally the canvass yielded to some heavy weight that pressed against it. Presently was heard a smash of crockery and a tremendous roar; upon which my host started up, and, placing a revolver in my hand and seizing his rifle, he rushed out of the tent, vociferating, â€œCome on.â€� Following him into the adjoining room, which formed his kitchen and occasionally a stable for his old mule, my eyes at once lit upon the cinnamon bear, whommy host had provided with lodging at the nightly charge of one dollar. The bear was fortunately chained to a strong stake in the centre of the hut, otherwise, â€œall smarting, with his wounds being cold,â€� he looked, judging from as much of his eyes as one could distinguish in his swollen face, as if it would be grateful to him to set-to with something as much smaller than himself as he was smaller than his late antagonist. Upon an after inspection of his chain I ascertained that its length would have admitted his gratifying this desire on my carcase, had he tumbled through the canvass partition which had separated us for the night.

The weather being at this time fine and the roads in good order, we passed, throughout the whole length of our journey, innumerable waggons laden with winter provisions for the mines; and droves of mules—patient little brutes, some as small as donkeys, staggering under barrels of liquor and cases as big as themselves; each drove led, as a matter of course, by an old white mare with a bell.

As we neared the Stanislaus River, distant thirty miles from Stockton, every one inside became sociable, except the Irishman, whose jealousy had been aroused to a fearful pitch by J. Bellow, who entertained the fair Canadian in French, a language unknown to herprotector. During our journey J. B. had not been inactive, having already disposed, conditionally, of sundry bags of sugar to the miners, and a box or two of German cigars to the bear hunter; samples of these articles having been extracted from his capacious pocket. Crossing the river Stanislaus at a fordable spot, we pulled up at a large wooden house, and alighted to dine and wash off the dust with which we were covered.

The immense traffic carried on on the roads that lead to the mining regions affords an extensive field for the profitable management of houses of entertainment. These may be encountered at almost every mile throughout the whole country, and they vary in size from a wooden two-story house to the very smallest kind of canvass shanty.

There seems to be a certain hour of the day for every traveller in California to breakfast, dine, or sup; and should he not arrive at a roadside house at one of these specified hours, he will get no meal; and could the traveller by any possibility be present at each and every hostel at the same moment, he would find a stereotyped bill of fare, consisting, with little variation, of a tough beefsteak, boiled potatoes, stewed beans, a nasty compound of dried apples, and ajug of molasses. He would then sit down at the summonsof a bell in company with all the tagrag and bobtail of the road who might have congregated for the repast in question: and, if inclined to follow the custom of the country, he would, with the point of his knife, (made blunt for this purpose) taste of the various condiments, butter included, that were ranged before him, and, selecting as many of these as were suited to his taste, he would pile them on his plate, demolish them with relish, and depart on his way in peace. Travel where you will in California, you may rest assured that of the foregoing will your meal be composed, and in nearly such a manner must you eat it.

Dinner over, we mounted a strong spring waggon in exchange for our covered coach, which had too much top hamper for the mountain trail we had before us. We had now six horses, all American, good sound cattle, that had come to California across the plains, and were well broken in to crossing gulches and mud-holes. We were soon in a different style of country. Hitherto we had been crossing a level track across the Stockton plain, interrupted by an occasional dive into a dry gulch; now we commenced at once to ascend the hilly country which first indicates the approach to the mining regions. The road to Sonora, as indeed to most places in this country,has never been laid out by Government, but is, in fact, a natural trail or path marked out by the first pioneer waggons that passed that way, deviated from, from time to time, as experience indicated a shorter cut; receiving no assistance from the hand of man, and encountering a vast number of obstacles from the hand of nature.

For instance, we arrive at a part, that, skirting the base of a hill, presents a rapid declination to the left, which is a very hard and rocky-looking ravine. Colonel Reed exclaims, as he places his foot on the break, which works from the box, â€œHard up to the right!â€� upon which the insiders loll their heads and bodies out on that side of the vehicle to preserve its equilibrium. We had to â€œhard upâ€� a great many times either to one side or the other, during which time J. Bellow always considered it necessary to assist the fair Canadian; whereupon the Irishman looked fierce and talked large, but finally one of the miners told him, in a quiet but unmistakeable manner, that â€œif he didnâ€™t â€˜dry upâ€™ heâ€™d chuck him out of the stage.â€� Whereupon the Irishman did dry up for the rest of the journey; and shortly after arriving at Sonora we heard of his being detected attempting to pass offbogus, or imitation gold dust, and he narrowly escaped being lynched by the mob. In the course ofthe afternoon I obtained the box seat, and engaging the colonel at once on the subject of horseflesh, I soon obtained from him a great amount of useful knowledge on the subject of American stock, of which I am a great admirer. As we neared Sonora, the colonelâ€™s attention was almost entirely occupied by his team, for in many places the trail led through deep gulches, into which previous volcanic eruptions had showered an infinity of small cindery rocks, which, close enough together to prevent wheels getting through them, were just sufficiently high to capsize the cart if the wheels went over them. We arrived at the summit of a â€œused upâ€� crater, and, having a long descent of this description before us, the inside passengers were ordered out; the break was put on, worked by the colonelâ€™s leg on the box. I held on according to orders. We slided down in famous style, first over on one side then the other, the colonel occasionally addressing his team with â€œD—— you, donâ€™t touch one of them!â€� meaning the rocks, through which we were picking our way. But, near the bottom of the hill, we got our off-wheels into amud-holeand declined gently on that side, a fine specimen of volcanic formation preventing the waggon from going over altogether. The colonel, without hesitation, made all his passengers hang their weights tothe near side of the waggon, and, sitting on my lap, with a crack of the whip he started the whole concern, and sent it flying and swaying from side to side to the bottom of the hill. Here we pulled up, and the colonel, relieving me from his weight, observed, in extenuation of what might otherwise have appeared a liberty, â€œthat he was obliged to be a littlesarcyon this road.â€�

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