The post-office clerks got through their work briskly enough when once they commenced the delivery, the alphabetical system of arrangement enabling them to produce the letters immediately on the name being given. One was not kept long in suspense, and many a poor fellow’s face lengthened out into a doleful expression of disbelief and disappointment, as, scarcely had he uttered his name, when he was promptly told there was nothing for him. This was a sentence from which there was no appeal, however incredulous one might be; and every man was incredulous; for during the hour or two he had been waiting, he had become firmly convinced in his own mind that there must be a letter for him; and it was no satisfaction at all to see the clerk, surrounded as he was by thousands of letters, take only a packet of a dozen or so in which to look for it: one would like to have had the post-office searched all over, and if without success, would still have thought there was something wrong. I was myself upon one occasion deeply impressed with this spirit of unbelief in the infallibility of the post-office oracle, and tried the effect of another application the next day, when my perseverance was crowned with success.
There was one window devoted exclusively to the use of foreigners, among whom English were not included; and here a polyglot individual, who would have been a useful member of society of the Tower of Babel, answered the demands of all European nations,and held communication with Chinamen, Sandwich Islanders, and all the stray specimens of humanity from unknown parts of the earth.
One reason why men went to little trouble or expense in making themselves comfortable in their homes, if homes they could be called, was the constant danger of fire.
The city was a mass of wooden and canvas buildings, the very look of which suggested the idea of a conflagration. A room was a mere partitioned-off place, the walls of which were sometimes only of canvas, though generally of boards, loosely put together, and covered with any sort of material which happened to be most convenient—cotton cloth, printed calico, or drugget, frequently papered, as if to render it more inflammable. Floors and walls were by no means so exclusive as one is accustomed to think them; they were not transparent certainly, but otherwise they insured little privacy: a general conversation could be very easily carried on by all the dwellers in a house, while, at the same time, each of them was enjoying the seclusion, such as it was, of his own apartment. A young lady, who was boarding at one of the hotels, very feelingly remarked that it was a most disagreeable place to live in, because, if any gentleman was to pop the question to her, the report would be audible in every part of the house, and all the other inmates would be waiting to hear the answer she might give.
The cry of fire is dreadful enough anywhere, but to any one who lived in San Francisco in those days it must ever be more exciting and more suggestive of disaster and destruction of property than it can beto those who have been all their lives surrounded by brick and stone, and insurance companies.
In other countries, when a fire occurs and a large amount of property is destroyed, the loss falls on a company—a body without a soul, having no individual identity, and for which no one, save perhaps a few of the shareholders, has the slightest sympathy. The loss, being sustained by an unknown quantity, as it were, is not appreciated; but in San Francisco no such institution as insurance against fire as yet existed. To insure a house there would have been as great a risk as to insure a New York steamer two or three weeks overdue. By degrees, brick buildings were superseding those of wood and pasteboard; but still, for the whole city, destruction by fire, sooner or later, was the dreaded and fully-expected doom. When such a combustible town once ignited in any one spot, the flames, of course, spread so rapidly that every part, however distant, stood nearly an equal chance of being consumed. The alarm of fire acted like the touch of a magician’s wand. The vitality of the whole city was in an instant arrested and turned from its course. Theatres, saloons, and all public places, were emptied as quickly as if the buildings themselves were on fire; the business of the moment, whatever it was, was at once abandoned, and the streets became filled with people rushing frantically in every direction—not all towards the fire by any means; few thought it worth while to ask even where it was. To know there was fire somewhere was quite sufficient, and they made at once for their house or their store, or wherever they had any property that might be saved; while, as soon as the alarm wasgiven, the engines were heard thundering along the streets, amid the ringing of the fire-bells and the shouts of the excited crowd.
The fire-companies, of which several were already organized, were on the usual American system—volunteer companies of citizens, who receive no pay, but are exempt from serving on juries and from some other citizens’ duties. They have crack fire-companies just as we have crack regiments, and of these the fast young men of the upper classes are frequently the most enthusiastic members. Each company has its own officers; but they are all under control of a “chief engineer;” who is appointed by the city, and who directs the general plan of operations at a fire. There is great rivalry among the different companies, who vie with each other in making their turn-out as handsome as possible. They each have their own uniform, but the nature of their duties does not admit of much finery in their dress; red shirts and helmets are the principal features in it. Their engines, however, are got up in very magnificent style, being most elaborately painted, all the iron-work shining like polished steel, and heavily mounted with brass or silver. They are never drawn by horses, but by the firemen themselves. A long double coil of rope is attached to the engine, and is paid out as the crowd increases, till the engine appears to be tearing and bumping along in pursuit of a long narrow mob of men, who run as if the very devil himself were after them.
Theiresprit de corpsis very strong, and connected with the different engine-houses are reading-rooms, saloons, and so on, for the use of the members of the company, many of these places being in the same styleof luxurious magnificence as the most fashionable hotels. On holidays, and on every possible occasion which offers an excuse for so doing, the whole fire brigade parade the streets in full dress, each company dragging their engine after them, decked out in flags and flowers, which are presented to them by their lady-admirers, in return for the balls given by the firemen for their entertainment. They also have fielddays, when they all turn out, and in some open part of the city have a trial of strength, seeing which can throw a stream of water to the greatest height, or which can flood the other, by pumping water into each other’s engines.
As firemen they are most prompt and efficient, performing their perilous duties with the greatest zeal and intrepidity—as might indeed be expected of men who undertake such a service for no hope of reward, but for their own love of the danger and excitement attending upon it, actuated, at the same time, by a chivalrous desire to save either life or property, in trying to accomplish which they gallantly risk, and frequently lose, their own lives. This feeling is kept alive by the readiness with which the public pay honor to any individual who conspicuously distinguishes himself—generally by presenting him with a gold or silver speaking-trumpet (that article being in the States as much the badge of office of a captain of a fire-company as with us of a captain of a man-of-war), while any fireman who is killed in discharge of his duties is buried with all pomp and ceremony by the whole fire-brigade.
Two miles above San Francisco, on the shore of the bay, is the Mission Dolores, one of those whichwere established in different parts of the country by the Spaniards. It was a very small village of a few adobe houses and a church, adjoining which stood a large building, the abode of the priests. The land in the neighborhood is flat and fertile, and was being rapidly converted into market-gardens; but the village itself was as yet but little changed. It had a look of antiquity and completeness, as if it had been finished long ago, and as if nothing more was ever likely to be done with it. As is the case with all Spanish-American towns, the very style of the architecture communicated an oppressive feeling of stillness, and its gloomy solitude was only relieved by a few listless unoccupied-looking Mexicans and native Californians.
The contrast to San Francisco was so great that on coming out here one could almost think that the noisy city he had left but half an hour before had existence only in his imagination; for San Francisco presented a picture of universal human nature boiling over, while here was nothing but human stagnation—a more violent extreme than would have been the wilderness as yet untrodden by man. Being but a slightly reduced counterpart of what San Francisco was a year or two before, it offered a good point of view from which to contemplate the miraculous growth of that city, still not only increasing in extent but improving in beauty and in excellence in all its parts, and progressing so rapidly that, almost from day to day, one could mark its steady advancement in everything which denotes the presence of a wealthy and prosperous community.
The “Mission,” however, was not suffered to remain long in a state of torpor. A plank road wasbuilt to it from San Francisco. Numbers of villas sprang up around it,—and good hotels, a race-course, and other attractions soon made it the favorite resort for all who sought an hour’s relief from the excitement of the city.
At the very head of the bay, some sixty miles from San Francisco, is the town of San José, situated in an extensive and most fertile valley, which was all being brought under cultivation, and where some farmers had already made large fortunes by their onions and potatoes, for the growth of which the soil is peculiarly adapted. San José was the headquarters of the native Californians, many of whom were wealthy men, at least in so far as they owned immense estates and thousands of wild cattle. They did not “hold their own,” however, with the more enterprising people who were now effecting such a complete revolution in the country. Their property became a thousandfold more valuable, and they had every chance to benefit by the new order of things; but men who had passed their lives in that sparsely populated and secluded part of the world, directing a few half-savage Indians in herding wild cattle, were not exactly calculated to foresee, or to speculate upon, the effects of an overwhelming influx of men so different in all respects from themselves; and even when occasions of enriching themselves were forced upon them, they were ignorant of their own advantages, and were inferior in smartness to the men with whom they had to deal. Still, although too slow to keep up with the pace at which the country was now going ahead, many of them were, nevertheless, men of considerable sagacity, and appeared to no disadvantage as members of the legislature, to which they were returned from parts of the State remote from the mines, and where as yet there were few American settlers.
San José was quite out of the way of gold-hunters, and there was consequently about the place a good deal of the California of other days. It was at that time, however, the seat of government; and, consequently, a large number of Americans were here assembled, and gave some life to the town, which had also been improved by the addition of several new streets of more modern-looking houses than the old mud and tile concerns of the native Californians.
Small steamers plied to within a mile or two of the town from San Francisco, and there were also four-horse coaches which did the sixty miles in about five hours. The drive down the valley of the San José is in some parts very beautiful. The country is smooth and open—not so flat as to appear monotonous—and is sufficiently wooded with fine oaks; but towards San Francisco it becomes more hilly and bleak. The soil is sandy; indeed, excepting a few spots here and there, it is nothing but sand, and there is hardly a tree ten feet high within as many miles of the city.
IREMAINED in San Francisco till the worst of the rainy season was over, when I determined to go and try my luck in the mines; so, leaving my valuables in charge of a friend in San Francisco, I equipped myself in my worst suit of old clothes, and, with my blankets slung over my shoulder, I put myself on board the steamer for Sacramento.
As we did not start till five o’clock in the afternoon, we had not an opportunity of seeing very much of the scenery on the river. As long as daylight lasted, we were among smooth grassy hills and valleys, with but little brushwood, and only here and there a few stunted trees. Some of the valleys are exceedingly fertile, and all those sufficiently watered to render them available for cultivation had already been “taken up.”
We soon, however, left the hilly country behind us, and came upon the vast plains which extend the whole length of California, bounded on one side by the range of mountains which runs along the coast, and on the other side by the mountains which constitute the mining districts. Through these plains flows the Sacramento river, receiving as tributaries all the rivers flowing down from the mountains on either side.
The steamer—which was a very fair specimen of the usual style of New York river-boat—was crowded with passengers and merchandise. There were not berths for one-half of the people on board; and so, in company with many others, I lay down and slept very comfortably on the deck of the saloon till about three o’clock in the morning, when we were awakened by the noise of letting off the steam on our arrival at Sacramento.
One of not the least striking wonders of California was the number of these magnificent river steamboats which, even at that early period of its history, had steamed round Cape Horn from New York, and now, gliding along the California rivers at the rate of twenty-two miles an hour, afforded the same rapid and comfortable means of traveling, and sometimes at as cheap rates, as when they plied between New York and Albany. Every traveler in the United States has described the river steamboats; suffice it to say here, that they lost none of their characteristics in California; and, looking at these long, white, narrow, two-story houses, floating apparently on nothing, so little of the hull of the boat appears above water, and showing none of the lines which, in a ship, convey an idea of buoyancy and power of resistance, but, on the contrary, suggesting only the idea of how easy it would be to smash them to pieces—following in imagination these fragile-looking fabrics over the seventeen thousand miles of stormy ocean over which they had been brought in safety, one could not help feeling a degree of admiration and respect for the daring and skill of the men by whom such perilous undertakings had been accomplished. In preparing these steamboats fortheir long voyage to California, the lower story was strengthened with thick planking, and on the forward part of the deck was built a strong wedge-shaped screen, to break the force of the waves, which might otherwise wash the whole house overboard. They crept along the coast, having to touch at most of the ports on the way for fuel; and passing through the Straits of Magellan, they escaped to a certain extent the dangers of Cape Horn, although equal dangers might be encountered on any part of the voyage.
But besides the question of nautical skill and individual daring, as a commercial undertaking the sending such steamers round to California was a very bold speculation. Their value in New York is about a hundred thousand dollars, and to take them round to San Francisco costs about thirty thousand more. Insurance is, of course, out of the question (I do not think 99 per cent. would insure them in this country from Dover to Calais); so the owners had to play a neck-or-nothing game. Their enterprise was in most cases duly rewarded. I only know of one instance—though doubtless others have occurred—in which such vessels did not get round in safety: it was an old Long Island Sound boat; she was rotten before ever she left New York, and foundered somewhere about the Bermudas, all hands on board escaping in the boats.
The profits of the first few steamers which arrived out were of course enormous; but, after a while, competition was so keen that for some time cabin fare between San Francisco and Sacramento was only one dollar; a ridiculously small sum to pay, in any part of the world, for being carried in such boats twohundred miles in ten hours; but, in California at that time, the wages of the common deck hands on board these same boats were about a hundred dollars a-month; and ten dollars were there, to the generality of men, a sum of much less consequence than ten shillings are here.
These low fares did not last long, however; the owners of steamers came to an understanding, and the average rate of fare from San Francisco to Sacramento was from five to eight dollars. I have only alluded to the one-dollar fares for the purpose of giving an idea of the competition which existed in such a business as “steamboating,” which requires a large capital; and from that it may be imagined what intense rivalry there was among those engaged in less important lines of business, which engrossed their whole time and labor, and required the employment of all the means at their command.
Looking at the map of California, it will be seen that the “mines” occupy a long strip of mountainous country, which commences many miles to the eastward of San Francisco, and stretches northward several hundred miles. The Sacramento river running parallel with the mines, the San Joaquin joining it from the southward and eastward, and the Feather river continuing a northward course from the Sacramento—all of them being navigable—present the natural means of communication between San Francisco and the “mines.” Accordingly, the city of Sacramento—about two hundred miles north of San Francisco—sprang up as the depot for all the middle part of the mines, with roads radiating from it across the plains to the various settlements in the mountains. In likemanner the city of Marysville, being at the extreme northern point of navigation of the Feather river, became the starting-place and the depot for the mining districts in the northern section of the State; and Stockton, named after Commodore Stockton, of the United States Navy, who had command of the Pacific squadron during the Mexican war, being situated at the head of navigation of the San Joaquin, forms the intermediate station between San Francisco and all the “southern mines.”
Seeing the facilities that California thus presented for inland navigation, it is not surprising that the Americans, so pre-eminent as they are in that branch of commercial enterprise, should so soon have taken advantage of them. But though the prospective profits were great, still the enormous risk attending the sending of steamboats round the Horn might have seemed sufficient to deter most men from entering into such a hazardous speculation. It must be remembered that many of these river steamboats were despatched from New York, on an ocean voyage of seventeen thousand miles, to a place of which one-half the world as yet even doubted the existence, and when people were looking up their atlases to see in what part of the world California was. The risk of taking a steamboat of this kind to what was then such an out-of-the-way part of the world, did not end with her arrival in San Francisco by any means. The slightest accident to her machinery, which there was at that time no possibility of repairing in California, or even the extreme fluctuations in the price of coal, might have rendered her at any moment so much useless lumber.
In ocean navigation the same adventurous energy was manifest. Hardly had the news of the discovery of gold in California been received in New York, when numbers of steamers were despatched, at an expense equal to one-half their value, to take their place on the Pacific in forming a line between the United States and San FranciscoviaPanama; so that almost from the commencement of the existence of California as a gold-bearing country, steam-communication was established between New York and San Francisco, bringing the two places within twenty to twenty-five days of each other. It is true the mail line had the advantage of a mail contract from the United States government; but other lines, without any such fostering influence, ran them close in competition for public patronage.
The Americans are often accused of boasting—perhaps deservedly so; but there certainly are many things in the history of California of which they may justly be proud, having transformed her, as they did so suddenly, from a wilderness into a country in which most of the luxuries of life were procurable; and a fair instance of the bold and prompt spirit of commercial enterprise by which this was accomplished was seen in the fact that, from the earliest days of her settlement, California had as good means of both ocean and inland steam-communication as any of the oldest countries in the world.
Sacramento City is next in size and importance to San Francisco. Many large commercial houses had there established their headquarters, and imported direct from the Atlantic States. The river is navigable so far by vessels of six or eight hundred tons, andin the early days of California, many ships cleared directly for Sacramento from the different ports on the Atlantic; but as the course of trade by degrees found its proper channel, San Francisco became exclusively the emporium for the whole of California, and even at the time I write of, sea-going vessels were rarely seen so far in the interior of the country as Sacramento.
The plains are but very little above the average level of the river, and a levee had been built all along the front of the city eight or ten feet high, to save it from inundation by the high waters of the rainy season. With the exception of a few handsome blocks of brick buildings, the houses were all of wood, and had an unmistakably Yankee appearance, being all painted white turned up with green, and covered from top to bottom with enormous signs.
The streets are wide, perfectly straight, and cross each other at right angles at equal distances, like the lines of latitude and longitude on a chart. The street nomenclature is unique—very democratic, inasmuch as it does not immortalize the names of prominent individuals—and admirably adapted to such a rectangular city. The streets running parallel with the river are numbered First, Second, Third Street, and so on to infinity, and the cross streets are designated by the letters of the alphabet. J Street was the great central street, and was nearly a mile long; so the reader may reckon the number of parallel streets on each side of it, and get an idea of the extent of the city. This system of lettering and numbering the streets was very convenient, as, the latitude and longitude of a house being given, it could be found at once.A stranger could navigate all over the town without ever having to ask his way, as he could take an observation for himself at the corner of every street.
My stay in Sacramento on this occasion was limited to a few hours. I went to a large hotel, which was also the great staging-house, and here I snoozed till about five o’clock, when, it being still quite dark, the whole house woke up into active life. About a hundred of us breakfasted by candlelight, and, going out into the bar-room while day was just dawning, we found, turned out in front of the hotel, about four-and-twenty four-horse coaches, all bound for different places in the mines. The street was completely blocked up with them, and crowds of men were taking their seats, while others were fortifying themselves for their journey at the bar.
The coaches were of various kinds. Some were light spring-wagons—mere oblong boxes, with four or five seats placed across them; others were of the same build, but better finished, and covered by an awning; and there were also numbers of regular American stage-coaches, huge high-hung things which carry nine inside upon three seats, the middle one of which is between the two doors.
The place which I had intended should be the scene of my first mining exploits, was a village rejoicing in the suggestive appellation of Hangtown; designated, however, in official documents as Placerville. It received its name of Hangtown while yet in its infancy from the number of malefactors who had there expiated their crimes at the hands of Judge Lynch. I soon found the stage for that place—ithappened to be one of the oblong boxes—and, pitching in my roll of blankets, I took my seat and lighted my pipe that I might the more fully enjoy the scene around me. And a scene it was, such as few parts of the world can now show, and which would have gladdened the hearts of those who mourn over the degeneracy of the present age, and sigh for the good old days of stage-coaches.
Here, certainly, the genuine old mail-coach, the guard with his tin horn, and the jolly old coachman with his red face, were not to be found; but the horses were as good as ever galloped with Her Majesty’s mail. The teams were all headed the same way, and with their stages, four or five abreast, occupied the whole of the wide street for a distance of sixty or seventy yards. The horses were restive, and pawing, and snorting, and kicking; and passengers were trying to navigate to their proper stages through the labyrinth of wheels and horses, and frequently climbing over half-a-dozen wagons to shorten their journey. Grooms were standing at the leaders’ heads, trying to keep them quiet, and the drivers were sitting on their boxes, or seats rather, for they scorn a high seat, and were swearing at each other in a very shocking manner, as wheels got locked, and wagons were backed into the teams behind them, to the discomfiture of the passengers on the back-seats, who found horses’ heads knocking the pipes out of their mouths. In the intervals of their little private battles, the drivers were shouting to the crowds of passengers who loitered about the front of the hotel; for there, as elsewhere, people will wait till the last moment; and though it is more comfortable to sitthan to stand, men like to enjoy their freedom as long as possible, before resigning all control over their motions, and charging with their precious persons a coach or a train, on full cock, and ready to go off, and shoot them out upon some remote part of creation.
On each wagon was painted the name of the place to which it ran; the drivers were also bellowing it out to the crowd, and even among such a confusion of coaches a man could have no difficulty in finding the one he wanted. One would have thought that the individual will and locomotive power of a man would have been sufficient to start him on his journey; but in this go-ahead country, people who had to go were not allowed to remain inert till the spirit moved them to go; they had to be “hurried up;” and of the whole crowd of men who were standing about the hotel, or struggling through the maze of wagons, only one half were passengers, the rest were “runners” for the various stages, who were exhausting all their persuasive eloquence in entreating the passengers to take their seats and go. They were all mixed up with the crowd, and each was exerting his lungs to the utmost. “Now then, gentlemen,” shouts one of them, “all aboard for Nevada City. Who’s agoin’? only three seats left—the last chance to-day for Nevada City—take you there in five hours. Who’s there for Nevada City?” Then catching sight of some man who betrays the very slightest appearance of helplessness, or of not knowing what he is about, he pounces upon him, saying, “Nevada City, sir?—this way—just in time,” and seizing him by the arm, he drags him into the crowd of stages, and almost has him bundled into that for Nevada City before thepoor devil can make it understood that it is Caloma he wants to go to, and not Nevada City. His captor then calls out to some one of his brother runners who is collecting passengers for Caloma—“Oh Bill!—oh Bill! where the —— are you?” “Hullo!” says Bill from the other end of the crowd. “Here’s a man for Caloma!” shouts the other, still holding on to his prize in case he should escape before Bill comes up to take charge of him.
This sort of thing was going on all the time. It was very ridiculous. Apparently, if a hundred men wanted to go anywhere, it required a hundred more to despatch them. There was certainly no danger of any one being left behind; on the contrary, the probability was, that any weak-minded man who happened to be passing by, would be shipped off to parts unknown before he could collect his ideas.
There were few opposition stages, excepting for Marysville, and one or two of the larger places; they were all crammed full—and of what use these “runners” or “tooters” were to anybody, was not very apparent, at least to the uninitiated. But they are a common institution with the Americans, who are not very likely to support such a corps of men if their services bring no return. In fact, it is merely part of the American system of advertising, and forcing the public to avail themselves of certain opportunities, by repeatedly and pertinaciously representing to them that they have it in their power to do so. In the States, to blow your own horn, and to make as much noise as possible with it, is the fundamental principle of all business. The most eminent lawyers and doctors advertise, and the names of the first merchantsappear in the newspapers every day. A man’s own personal exertions are not sufficient to keep the world aware of his existence, and without advertising he would be to all intents and purposes dead. Modest merit does not wait for its reward—it is rather too smart for that—it clamors for it, and consequently gets it all the sooner.
However, I was not thinking of this while sitting on the Hangtown stage. I had too much to look at, and some of my neighbors also took up my attention. I found seated around me a varied assortment of human nature. A New Yorker, a Yankee, and an English Jack-tar were my immediate neighbors, and a general conversation helped to beguile the time till the “runners” had succeeded in placing a passenger upon every available spot of every wagon. There was no trouble about luggage—that is an article not much known in California. Some stray individuals might have had a small carpet-bag—almost every man had his blankets—and the western men were further encumbered with their long rifles, the barrels poking into everybody’s eyes, and the butts in the way of everybody’s toes.
At last the solid mass of four-horse coaches began to dissolve. The drivers gathered up their reins and settled themselves down in their seats, cracked their whips, and swore at their horses; the grooms cleared out the best way they could; the passengers shouted and hurrahed; the teams in front set off at a gallop; the rest followed them as soon as they got room to start, and chevied them up the street, all in a body, for about half a mile, when, as soon as we got out of town, we spread out in all directions to every pointof a semicircle, and in a few minutes I found myself one of a small isolated community, with which four splendid horses were galloping over the plains like mad. No hedges, no ditches, no houses, no road in fact—it was all a vast open plain, as smooth as a calm ocean. We might have been steering by compass, and it was like going to sea; for we emerged from the city as from a landlocked harbor, and followed our own course over the wide wide world. The transition from the confinement of the city to the vastness of space was instantaneous; and our late neighbors, rapidly diminishing around us, and getting hull down on the horizon, might have been bound for the uttermost parts of the earth, for all we could see that was to stop them.
To sit behind four horses tearing along a good road is delightful at any time, but the mere fact of such rapid locomotion formed only a small part of the pleasure of our journey.
The atmosphere was so soft and balmy that it was a positive enjoyment to feel it brushing over one’s face like the finest floss silk. The sky was clear and cloudless, the bright sunshine warmed us up to a comfortable temperature; and we were traveling over such an expanse of nature that our progress, rapid as it was, seemed hardly perceptible, unless measured by the fast disappearing chimney tops of the city, or by the occasional clumps of trees we left behind us. The scene all round us was magnificent, and impressed one as much with his own insignificance as though he beheld the countries of the earth from the summit of a high mountain.
Out of sight of land at sea one experiences a certain feeling of isolation: there is nothing to connect one’s ideas with the habitable globe but the ship on which one stands; but there is also nothing to carry the imagination beyond what one does see, and the view is limited to a few miles. But here, we were upon an ocean of grass-covered earth, dotted with trees, and sparkling in the sunshine with the gorgeous hues of the dense patches of wild flowers; while far beyond the horizon of the plains there rose mountains beyond mountains, all so distinctly seen as to leave no uncertainty as to the shape or the relative position of any one of them, and fading away in regular graduation till the most distant, though clearly defined, seemed still to be the most natural and satisfactory point at which the view should terminate. It was as if the circumference of the earth had been lifted up to the utmost range of vision, and there melted into air.
Such was the view ahead of us as we traveled towards the mines, where wavy outlines of mountains appeared one above another, drawing together as they vanished, and at last indenting the sky with the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada. On either side of us the mountains, appearing above the horizon, were hundreds of miles distant, and the view behind us was more abruptly terminated by the Coast Range, which lies between the Sacramento river and the Pacific.
It was the commencement of spring, and at that season the plains are seen to advantage. But after a few weeks of dry weather the hot sun burns up every blade of vegetation, the ground presents a cracked surface of hard-baked earth, and the roads are ankle-deep in the finest and most penetrating kind of dust,which rises in clouds like clouds of smoke, saturating one’s clothes, and impregnating one’s whole system.
We made a straight course of it across the plains for about thirty miles, changing horses occasionally at some of the numerous wayside inns, and passing numbers of wagons drawn by teams of six or eight mules or oxen, and laden with supplies for the mines.
The ascent from the plains was very gradual, over a hilly country, well wooded with oaks and pines. Our pace here was not so killing as it had been. We had frequently long hills to climb, where all hands were obliged to get out and walk; but we made up for the delay by galloping down the descent on the other side.
The road, which, though in some places very narrow, for the most part spread out to two or three times the width of an ordinary road, was covered with stumps and large rocks; it was full of deep ruts and hollows, and roots of trees spread all over it.
To any one not used to such roads or to such driving, an upset would have seemed inevitable. If there was safety in speed, however, we were safe enough, and all sense of danger was lost in admiration of the coolness and dexterity of the driver as he circumvented every obstacle, but without going one inch farther than necessary out of his way to save us from perdition. He went through extraordinary bodily contortions, which would have shocked an English coachman out of his propriety; but, at the same time, he performed such feats as no one would have dared to attempt who had never been used to anything worse than an English road. With his right foot he managed a brake, and, clawing at thereins with both hands, he swayed his body from side to side to preserve his equilibrium, as now on the right pair of wheels, now on the left, he cut the “outside edge” round a stump or a rock; and when coming to a spot where he was going to execute a difficult maneuver on a piece of road which slanted violently down to one side, he trimmed the wagon as one would a small boat in a squall, and made us all crowd up to the weather side to prevent a capsize.
When about ten miles from the plains, I first saw the actual reality of gold-digging. Four or five men were working in a ravine by the roadside, digging holes like so many grave-diggers. I then considered myself fairly in “the mines,” and experienced a disagreeable consciousness that we might be passing over huge masses of gold, only concealed from us by an inch or two of earth.
As we traveled onwards, we passed at intervals numerous parties of miners, and the country assumed a more inhabited appearance. Log-cabins and clapboard shanties were to be seen among the trees; and occasionally we found about a dozen of such houses grouped together by the roadside, and dignified with the name of a town.
For several miles again the country would seem to have been deserted. That it had once been a busy scene was evident from the uptorn earth in the ravines and hollows, and from the numbers of unoccupied cabins; but the cream of such diggings had already been taken, and they were not now sufficiently rich to suit the ambitious ideas of the miners.
After traveling about thirty miles over this mountainous region, ascending gradually all the while, we arrived at Hangtown in the afternoon, having accomplished the sixty miles from Sacramento city in about eight hours.
THE town of Placerville—or Hangtown, as it was commonly called—consisted of one long straggling street of clapboard houses and log cabins, built in a hollow at the side of a creek, and surrounded by high and steep hills.
The diggings here had been exceedingly rich—men used to pick the chunks of gold out of the crevices of the rocks in the ravines with no other tool than a bowie-knife; but these days had passed, and now the whole surface of the surrounding country showed the amount of real hard work which had been done. The beds of the numerous ravines which wrinkle the faces of the hills, the bed of the creek, and all the little flats alongside of it, were a confused mass of heaps of dirt and piles of stones lying around the innumerable holes, about six feet square and five or six feet deep, from which they had been thrown out. The original course of the creek was completely obliterated, its waters being distributed into numberless little ditches, and from them conducted into the “long toms” of the miners through canvas hoses, looking like immensely long slimy sea-serpents.
The number of bare stumps of what had once beengigantic pine trees, dotted over the naked hillsides surrounding the town, showed how freely the ax had been used, and to what purpose was apparent in the extent of the town itself, and in the numerous log-cabins scattered over the hills, in situations apparently chosen at the caprice of the owners, but in reality with a view to be near to their diggings, and at the same time to be within a convenient distance of water and firewood.
Along the whole length of the creek, as far as one could see, on the banks of the creek, in the ravines, in the middle of the principal and only street of the town, and even inside some of the houses, were parties of miners, numbering from three or four to a dozen, all hard at work, some laying into it with picks, some shoveling the dirt into the “long toms,” or with long-handled shovels washing the dirt thrown in, and throwing out the stones, while others were working pumps or baling water out of the holes with buckets. There was a continual noise and clatter, as mud, dirt, stones, and water were thrown about in all directions; and the men, dressed in ragged clothes and big boots, wielding picks and shovels, and rolling big rocks about, were all working as if for their lives, going into it with a will, and a degree of energy, not usually seen among laboring men. It was altogether a scene which conveyed the idea of hard work in the fullest sense of the words, and in comparison with which a gang of railway navvies would have seemed to be merely a party of gentlemen amateurs playing at workingpour passer le temps.
A stroll through the village revealed the extent to which the ordinary comforts of life were attainable. The gambling-houses, of which there were three orfour, were of course the largest and most conspicuous buildings; their mirrors, chandeliers, and other decorations, suggesting a style of life totally at variance with the outward indications of everything around them.
The street itself was in many places knee-deep in mud, and was plentifully strewed with old boots, hats, and shirts, old sardine-boxes, empty tins of preserved oysters, empty bottles, worn-out pots and kettles, old ham-bones, broken picks and shovels, and other rubbish too various to particularize. Here and there, in the middle of the street, was a square hole about six feet deep, in which one miner was digging, while another was baling the water out with a bucket, and a third, sitting alongside the heap of dirt which had been dug up, was washing it in a rocker. Wagons, drawn by six or eight mules or oxen, were navigating along the street, or discharging their strangely-assorted cargoes at the various stores; and men in picturesque rags, with large muddy boots, long beards, and brown faces, were the only inhabitants to be seen.
There were boarding-houses on thetable-d’hôteprinciple, in each of which forty or fifty hungry miners sat down three times a day to an oilcloth-covered table, and in the course of about three minutes surfeited themselves on salt pork, greasy steaks, and pickles. There were also two or three “hotels,” where much the same sort of fare was to be had, with the extra luxuries of a table-cloth and a superior quality of knives and forks.
The stores were curious places. There was no specialty about them—everything was to be found in them which it could be supposed that any one couldpossibly want, excepting fresh beef (there was a butcher who monopolized the sale of that article).
On entering a store, one would find the storekeeper in much the same style of costume as the miners, very probably sitting on an empty keg at a rickety little table, playing “seven up” for “the liquor” with one of his customers.
The counter served also the purpose of a bar, and behind it was the usual array of bottles and decanters, while on shelves above them was an ornamental display of boxes of sardines, and brightly-colored tins of preserved meats and vegetables with showy labels, interspersed with bottles of champagne and strangely-shaped bottles of exceedingly green pickles, the whole being arranged with some degree of taste.
Goods and provisions of every description were stowed away promiscuously all round the store, in the middle of which was invariably a small table with a bench, or some empty boxes and barrels for the miners to sit on while they played cards, spent their money in brandy and oysters, and occasionally got drunk.
The clothing trade was almost entirely in the hands of the Jews, who are very numerous in California, and devote their time and energies exclusively to supplying their Christian brethren with the necessary articles of wearing apparel.
In traveling through the mines from one end to the other, I never saw a Jew lift a pick or shovel to do a single stroke of work, or, in fact, occupy himself in any other way than in selling slops. While men of all classes and of every nation showed such versatility in betaking themselves to whatever business oroccupation appeared at the time to be most advisable, without reference to their antecedents, and in a country where no man, to whatever class of society he belonged, was in the least degree ashamed to roll up his sleeves and dig in the mines for gold, or to engage in any other kind of manual labor, it was a very remarkable fact that the Jews were the only people among whom this was not observable.
They were very numerous—so much so, that the business to which they confined themselves could hardly have yielded to every individual a fair average California rate of remuneration. But they seemed to be proof against all temptation to move out of their own limited sphere of industry, and of course, concentrated upon one point as their energies were, they kept pace with the go-ahead spirit of the times. Clothing of all sorts could be bought in any part of the mines more cheaply than in San Francisco, where rents were so very high that retail prices of everything were most exorbitant; and scarcely did twenty or thirty miners collect in any out-of-the-way place, upon newly discovered diggings, before the inevitable Jew slop-seller also made his appearance, to play his allotted part in the newly-formed community.
The Jew slop-shops were generally rattletrap erections about the size of a bathing-machine, so small that one half of the stock had to be displayed suspended from projecting sticks outside. They were filled with red and blue flannel shirts, thick boots, and other articles suited to the wants of the miners, along with Colt’s revolvers and bowie-knives, brass jewelry, and diamonds like young Koh-i-Noors.
Almost every man, after a short residence in California, became changed to a certain extent in his outward appearance. In the mines especially, to the great majority of men, the usual style of dress was one to which they had never been accustomed; and those to whom it might have been supposed such a costume was not so strange, or who were even wearing the old clothes they had brought with them to the country, acquired a certain California air, which would have made them remarkable in whatever part of the world they came from, had they been suddenly transplanted there. But to this rule also the Jews formed a very striking exception. In their appearance there was nothing at all suggestive of California; they were exactly the same unwashed-looking, slobbery, slipshod individuals that one sees in every seaport town.
During the week, and especially when the miners were all at work, Hangtown was comparatively quiet; but on Sundays it was a very different place. On that day the miners living within eight or ten miles all flocked in to buy provisions for the week—to spend their money in the gambling-rooms—to play cards—to get their letters from home—and to refresh themselves, after a week’s labor and isolation in the mountains, in enjoying the excitement of the scene according to their tastes.
The gamblers on Sundays reaped a rich harvest; their tables were thronged with crowds of miners, betting eagerly, and of course losing their money. Many men came in, Sunday after Sunday, and gambled off all the gold they had dug during the week, having to get credit at a store for their next week’s provisions, and returning to their diggings to work for six days in getting more gold, which would all betransferred the next Sunday to the gamblers, in the vain hope of recovering what had been already lost.
The street was crowded all day with miners loafing about from store to store, making their purchases and asking each other to drink, the effects of which began to be seen at an early hour in the number of drunken men, and the consequent frequency of rows and quarrels. Almost every man wore a pistol or a knife—many wore both—but they were rarely used. The liberal and prompt administration of Lynch law had done a great deal towards checking the wanton and indiscriminate use of these weapons on any slight occasion. The utmost latitude was allowed in the exercise of self-defence. In the case of a row, it was not necessary to wait till a pistol was actually leveled at one’s head—if a man made even a motion towards drawing a weapon, it was considered perfectly justifiable to shoot him first, if possible. The very prevalence of the custom of carrying arms thus in a great measure was a cause of their being seldom used. They were never drawn out of bravado, for when a man once drew his pistol, he had to be prepared to use it, and to use it quickly, or he might expect to be laid low by a ball from his adversary; and again, if he shot a man without sufficient provocation, he was pretty sure of being accommodated with a hempen cravat by Judge Lynch.
The storekeepers did more business on Sundays than in all the rest of the week; and in the afternoon crowds of miners could be seen dispersing over the hills in every direction, laden with the provisions they had been purchasing, chiefly flour, pork and beans, and perhaps a lump of fresh beef.
There was only one place of public worship in Hangtown at that time, a very neat little wooden edifice, which belonged to some denomination of Methodists, and seemed to be well attended.
There was also a newspaper published two or three times a week, which kept the inhabitants “posted up” as to what was going on in the world.
The richest deposits of gold were found in the beds and banks of the rivers, creeks, and ravines, in the flats on the convex side of the bends of the streams, and in many of the flats and hollows high up in the mountains. The precious metal was also abstracted from the very hearts of the mountains, through tunnels drifted into them for several hundred yards; and in some places real mining was carried on in the bowels of the earth by means of shafts sunk to the depth of a couple of hundred feet.
The principal diggings in the neighborhood of Hangtown were surface diggings; but, with the exception of river diggings, every kind of mining operation was to be seen in full force.
The gold is found at various depths from the surface; but the dirt on the bed-rock is the richest, as the gold naturally in time sinks through earth and gravel, till it is arrested in its downward progress by the solid rock.
The diggings here were from four to six or seven feet deep; the layer of “pay-dirt” being about a couple of feet thick on the top of the bed-rock.
I should mention that “dirt” is the word universally used in California to signify the substance dug, earth, clay, gravel, loose slate, or whatever other name might be more appropriate. The miners talk of richdirt and poor dirt, and of “stripping off” so many feet of “top dirt” before getting to “pay-dirt,” the latter meaning dirt with so much gold in it that it will pay to dig it up and wash it.
The apparatus generally used for washing was a “long tom,” which was nothing more than a wooden trough from twelve to twenty-five feet long, and about a foot wide. At the lower end it widens considerably, and on the floor there is a sheet of iron pierced with holes half an inch in diameter, under which is placed a flat box a couple of inches deep. The long tom is set at a slight inclination over the place which is to be worked, and a stream of water is kept running through it by means of a hose, the mouth of which is inserted in a dam built for the purpose high enough up the stream to gain the requisite elevation; and while some of the party shovel the dirt into the tom as fast as they can dig it up, one man stands at the lower end stirring up the dirt as it is washed down, separating the stones and throwing them out, while the earth and small gravel falls with the water through the sieve into the “ripple-box.” This box is about five feet long, and is crossed by two partitions. It is also placed at an inclination, so that the water falling into it keeps the dirt loose, allowing the gold and heavy particles to settle to the bottom, while all the lighter stuff washes over the end of the box along with the water. When the day’s work is over, the dirt is taken from the “ripple-box” and is “washed out” in a “wash-pan,” a round tin dish, eighteen inches in diameter, with shelving sides three or four inches deep. In washing out a panful of dirt, it has to be placed in water deep enough to cover it over; the dirt is stirredup with the hands, and the gravel thrown out; the pan is then taken in both hands, and by an indescribable series of maneuvers all the dirt is gradually washed out of it, leaving nothing but the gold and a small quantity of black sand. This black sand is mineral (some oxide or other salt of iron), and is so heavy that it is not possible to wash it all out; it has to be blown out of the gold afterwards when dry.
Another mode of washing dirt, but much more tedious, and consequently only resorted to where a sufficient supply of water for a long tom could not be obtained, was by means of an apparatus called a “rocker” or “cradle.” This was merely a wooden cradle, on the top of which was a sieve. The dirt was put into this, and a miner, sitting alongside of it, rocked the cradle with one hand, while with a dipper in the other he kept baling water on to the dirt. This acted on the same principle as the “tom,” and had formerly been the only contrivance in use; but it was now seldom seen, as the long tom effected such a saving of time and labor. The latter was set immediately over the claim, and the dirt was shoveled into it at once, while a rocker had to be set alongside of the water, and the dirt was carried to it in buckets from the place which was being worked. Three men working together with a rocker—one digging, another carrying the dirt in buckets, and the third rocking the cradle—would wash on an average a hundred bucketfuls of dirt to the man in the course of the day. With a “long tom” the dirt was so easily washed that parties of six or eight could work together to advantage, and four or five hundred bucketfuls of dirt a day to each one of the party was a usual day’s work.
I met a San Francisco friend in Hangtown practising his profession as a doctor, who very hospitably offered me quarters in his cabin, which I gladly accepted. The accommodation was not very luxurious, being merely six feet of the floor on which to spread my blankets. My host, however, had no better bed himself, and indeed it was as much as most men cared about. Those who were very particular preferred sleeping on a table or a bench when they were to be had; bunks and shelves were also much in fashion; but the difference in comfort was a mere matter of imagination, for mattresses were not known, and an earthen floor was quite as soft as any wooden board. Three or four miners were also inmates of the doctor’s cabin. They were quondam New South Wales squatters, who had been mining for several months in a distant part of the country, and were now going to work a claim about two miles up the creek from Hangtown. As they wanted another hand to work their long tom with them, I very readily joined their party. For several days we worked this place, trudging out to it when it was hardly daylight, taking with us our dinner, which consisted of beefsteaks and bread, and returning to Hangtown about dark; but the claim did not prove rich enough to satisfy us, so we abandoned it, and went “prospecting,” which means looking about for a more likely place.
A “prospector” goes out with a pick and shovel, and a wash-pan; and to test the richness of a place he digs down till he reaches the dirt in which it may be expected that the gold will be found; and washing out a panful of this, he can easily calculate, from the amount of gold which he finds in it, how much couldbe taken out in a day’s work. An old miner, looking at the few specks of gold in the bottom of his pan, can tell their value within a few cents; calling it a twelve or a twenty cent “prospect,” as it may be. If, on washing out a panful of dirt, a mere speck of gold remained, just enough to swear by, such dirt was said to have only “the color,” and was not worth digging. A twelve-cent prospect was considered a pretty good one; but in estimating the probable result of a day’s work, allowance had to be made for the time and labor to be expended in removing top-dirt, and in otherwise preparing the claim for being worked.
To establish one’s claim to a piece of ground, all that was requisite was to leave upon it a pick or shovel, or other mining tool. The extent of ground allowed to each individual varied in different diggings from ten to thirty feet square, and was fixed by the miners themselves, who also made their own laws, defining the rights and duties of those holding claims; and any dispute on such subjects was settled by calling together a few of the neighboring miners, who would enforce the due observance of the laws of the diggings. After prospecting for two or three days we concluded to take up a claim near a small settlement called Middletown, two or three miles distant from Hangtown. It was situated by the side of a small creek, in a rolling hilly country, and consisted of about a dozen cabins, one of which was a store supplied with flour, pork, tobacco, and other necessaries.
We found near our claim a very comfortable cabin, which the owner had deserted, and in which we established ourselves. We had plenty of firewood and water close to us, and being only two miles from Hangtown, we kept ourselves well supplied with fresh beef. We cooked our “dampers” in New South Wales fashion, and lived on the fat of the land, our bill of fare being beefsteaks, damper, and tea for breakfast, dinner, and supper. A damper is a very good thing, but not commonly seen in California, excepting among men from New South Wales. A quantity of flour and water, with a pinch or two of salt, is worked into a dough, and, raking down a good hardwood fire, it is placed on the hot ashes, and then smothered in more hot ashes to the depth of two or three inches, on the top of which is placed a quantity of the still burning embers. A very little practice enables one to judge from the feel of the crust when it is sufficiently cooked. The great advantage of a damper is, that it retains a certain amount of moisture, and is as good when a week old as when fresh baked. It is very solid and heavy, and a little of it goes a great way, which of itself is no small recommendation when one eats only to live.
Another sort of bread we very frequently made by filling a frying-pan with dough, and sticking it upon end to roast before the fire.
The Americans do not understand dampers. They either bake bread, using saleratus to make it rise, or else they make flapjacks, which are nothing more than pancakes made of flour and water, and are a very good substitute for bread when one is in a hurry, as they are made in a moment.
As for our beefsteaks, they could not be beat anywhere. A piece of an old iron-hoop, twisted into aserpentine form and laid on the fire, made a first-rate gridiron, on which every man cooked his steak to his own taste. In the matter of tea I am afraid we were dreadfully extravagant, throwing it into the pot in handfuls. It is a favorite beverage in the mines—morning, noon, and night—and at no time is it more refreshing than in the extreme heat of mid-day.
In the cabin two bunks had been fitted up, one above the other, made of clapboards laid crossways, but they were all loose and warped. I tried to sleep on them one night, but it was like sleeping on a gridiron; the smooth earthen floor was a much more easy couch.
WITHIN a few miles of us there was camped a large tribe of Indians, who were generally quite peaceable, and showed no hostility to the whites.
Small parties of them were constantly to be seen in Hangtown, wandering listlessly about the street, begging for bread, meat, or old clothes. These Digger Indians, as they are called, from the fact of their digging for themselves a sort of subterranean abode in which they pass the winter, are most repulsive-looking wretches, and seem to be very little less degraded and uncivilizable than the blacks of New South Wales.
They are nearly black, and are exceedingly ugly, with long hair, which they cut straight across the forehead just above the eyes. They had learned the value of gold, and might be seen occasionally in unfrequented places washing out a panful of dirt, but they had no idea of systematic work. What little gold they got, they spent in buying fresh beef and clothes. They dress very fantastically. Some, with no other garment than an old dress-coat buttoned up to the throat, or perhaps with only a hat and a pair of boots, think themselves very well got up, and look with great contempt on their neighborswhose wardrobe is not so extensive. A coat with showy linings to the sleeves is a great prize; it is worn inside out to produce a better effect, and pantaloons are frequently worn, or rather carried, with the legs tied around the waist. They seemed to think it impossible to have too much of a good thing; and any man so fortunate as to be the possessor of duplicates of any article of clothing, puts them on one over the other, piling hat upon hat after the manner of “Old clo.”
The men are very tenacious of their dignity, and carry nothing but their bows and arrows, while the attendant squaws are loaded down with a large creel on the back, which is supported by a band passing across the forehead, and is the receptacle for all the rubbish they pick up. The squaws have also, of course, to carry the babies; which, however, are not very troublesome, as they are wrapped up in papoose-frames like those of the North American Indians, though of infinitely inferior workmanship.
They are very fond of dogs, and have always at their heels a number of the most wretchedly thin, mangy, starved-looking curs, of dirty brindle color, something the shape of a greyhound, but only about half his size. A strong mutual attachment exists between the dogs and their masters; but the affection of the latter does not move them to bestow much food on their canine friends, who live in a state of chronic starvation; every bone seems ready to break through the confinement of the skin, and their whole life is merely a slow death from inanition. They have none of the life or spirit of other dogs, but crawl along as if every step was to be their last, with alook of most humble resignation, and so conscious of their degradation that they never presume to hold any communion with their civilized fellow-creatures. It is very likely that canine nature cannot stand such food as the Indians are content to live upon, and of which acorns and grasshoppers are the staple articles. There are plenty of small animals on which one would think that a dog could live very well, if he would only take the trouble to catch them; but it would seem that a dog, as long as he remains a companion of man, is an animal quite incapable of providing for himself.
A failure of the acorn crop is to the Indians a national calamity, as they depend on it in a great measure for their subsistence during the winter. In the fall of the year the squaws are busily employed in gathering acorns, to be afterwards stored in small conical stacks, and covered with a sort of wicker-work. They are prepared for food by being made into a paste, very much of the color and consistency of opium. Such horrid-looking stuff it is, that I never ventured to taste it; but I believe that the bitter and astringent taste of the raw material is in no way modified by the process of manufacture.[1]
As is the case with most savages, the Digger Indians show remarkable instances of ingenuity in some of their contrivances, and great skill in the manufacture of their weapons. Their bows and arrows are very good specimens of workmanship. The former areshorter than the bows used in this country, but resemble them in every other particular, even in the shape of the pieces of horn at the ends. The head of the arrow is of the orthodox cut, the three feathers being placed in the usual position; the point, however, is the most elaborate part. About three inches of the end is of a heavier wood than the rest of the arrow, being very neatly spliced in with thin tendons. The point itself is a piece of flint chipped down into a flat diamond shape, about the size of a diamond on a playing-card; the edges are very sharp, and are notched to receive the tendons with which it is firmly secured to the arrow.
The women make a kind of wicker-work basket of a conical form, so closely woven as to be perfectly water-tight, and in these they have an ingenious method of boiling water, by heating a number of stones in the fire, and throwing a succession of them into the water till the temperature is raised to boiling point.
We had a visit at our cabin one Sunday from an Indian and his squaw. She was such a particularly ugly specimen of human nature that I made her sit down, and proceeded to take a sketch of her, to the great delight of her dutiful husband, who looked over my shoulder and reported progress to her. I offered her the sketch when I had finished, but after admiring herself in the bottom of a new tin pannikin, the only substitute for a looking-glass which I could find, and comparing her own beautiful face with her portrait, she was by no means pleased, and would have nothing to do with it. I suppose she thought I had not done her justice; which was very likely, forno doubt our ideas of female beauty must have differed very materially.
Not many days after we had settled ourselves at Middletown, news was brought into Hangtown that a white man had been killed by Indians at a place called Johnson’s Ranch, about twelve miles distant. A party of three or four men immediately went out to recover the body, and to “hunt” the Indians. They found the half-burned remains of the murdered man; but were attacked by a large number of Indians, and had to retire, one of the party being wounded by an Indian arrow. On their return to Hangtown there was great excitement; about thirty men, mostly from the Western States, turned out with their long rifles, intending, in the first place, to visit the camp of the Middletown tribe, and to take from them their rifles, which they were reported to have bought from the storekeeper there, and after that to lynch the storekeeper himself for selling arms to the Indians, which is against the law; for however friendly the Indians may be, they trade them off to hostile tribes.
It happened, however, that on this particular day a neighboring tribe had come over to the camp of the Middletown Indians for the purpose of having afandangotogether; and when they saw this armed party coming upon them, they immediately saluted them with a shower of arrows and rifle-balls, which damaged a good many hats and shirts, without wounding any one. The miners returned their fire, killing a few of the Indians; but their party being too small to fight against such odds, they were compelled to retreat; and as the storekeeper, having got a hint of their kind intentions towards him, had made himself scarce, they marched back to Hangtown without having done much to boast of.
When the result of their expedition was made known, the excitement in Hangtown was of course greater than ever. The next day crowds of miners flocked in from all quarters, each man equipped with a long rifle in addition to his bowie-knife and revolver, while two men, playing a drum and a fife, marched up and down the street to give a military air to the occasion. A public meeting was held in one of the gambling-rooms, at which the governor, the sheriff of the county, and other big men of the place, were present. The miners about Hangtown were mostly all Americans, and a large proportion of them were men from the Western States, who had come by the overland route across the plains—men who had all their lives been used to Indian wiles and treachery, and thought about as much of shooting an Indian as of killing a rattlesnake. They were a rough-looking crowd; long, gaunt, wiry men, dressed in the usual old-flannel-shirt costume of the mines, with shaggy beards, their faces, hands, and arms as brown as mahogany, and with an expression about their eyes which boded no good to any Indian who should come within range of their rifles.
There were some very good speeches made at the meeting; that of a young Kentuckian doctor was quite a treat. He spoke very well, but from the fuss he made it might have been supposed that the whole country was in the hands of the enemy. The eyes of the thirty States of the Union, he said, were upon them; and it was for them, the thirty-first, to avenge this insult to the Anglo-Saxon race, and to show thewily savage that the American nation, which could dictate terms of peace or war to every other nation on the face of the globe, was not to be trifled with. He tried to rouse their courage, and excite their animosity against the Indians, though it was quite unnecessary, by drawing a vivid picture of the unburied bones of poor Brown, or Jones, the unfortunate individual who had been murdered, bleaching on the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, while his death was still unavenged. If they were cowardly enough not to go out and whip the savage Indians, their wives would spurn them, their sweethearts would reject them, and the whole world would look upon them with scorn. The most common-sense argument in his speech, however, was, that unless the Indians were taught a lesson, there would be no safety for the straggling miners in the mountains at any distance from a settlement. Altogether he spoke very well, considering the sort of crowd he was addressing; and judging from the enthusiastic applause, and from the remarks I heard made by the men around me, he could not have spoken with better effect.
The Governor also made a short speech, saying that he would take the responsibility of raising a company of one hundred men, at five dollars a day, to go and whip the Indians.
The Sheriff followed. He “cal’lated” to raise out of that crowd one hundred men, but wanted no man to put down his name who would not stand up in his boots, and he would ask no man to go any further than he would go himself.
Those who wished to enlist were then told to come round to the other end of the room, when nearly thewhole crowd rushed eagerly forward, and the required number were at once enrolled. They started the next day, but the Indians retreating before them, they followed them far up into the mountains, where they remained for a couple of months, by which time the wily savages, it is to be hoped, got properly whipped, and were taught the respect due to white men.