The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 (part 2)

Difficulty experienced in writing amid the charms of California mountain scenery. Science the blindest guide on a gold-hunting expedition. Irreverent contempt of the beautiful mineral to the dictates of science. Nothing better to be expected from the root of all evil. Foreigners more successful than Americans in its pursuit. Americans always longing for big strikes. Success lies in staying and persevering. How a camp springs into existence. Prospecting, panning out, and discovery that it pays. The claim. Building the shanty. Spreading of news of new diggings. Arrival of the monte-dealers. Industrious begin digging for gold. The claiming system. How claims worked. Working difficult amidst huge mountain rocks. Partnerships then compulsory. Naming the mine or company. The long-tom. Panning out the gold. Sinking shaft to reach bed-rock. Drifting coyote-holes in search of crevices. Water-ditches and water companies. Washing out in long-tom. Waste-ditches. Tailings. Fluming companies. Rockers. Gold-mining is nature's great lottery scheme. Thousands taken out in a few hours. Six ounces in six months. "Almost all seem to have lost". Jumped claims. Caving in of excavations. Abandonment of expensive paying shafts. Miner making "big strike" almost sure prey of professional gamblers. As spring opens, gamblers flock in like birds of prey. After stay of only four days, gambler leaves Bar with over a thousand dollars of miners' gold. As many foreigners as Americans on the river. Foreigners generally extremely ignorant and degraded. Some Spaniards of the highest eduction and accomplishment. Majority of Americans mechanics of better class. Sailors and farmers next in number. A few merchants and steamboat-clerks. A few physicians. One lawyer. Ranchero of distinguished appearance an accomplished monte-dealer and horse-jockey. Said to have been a preacher in the States. Such not uncommon for California.

Letter the Fifteenth

Mining Methods—Miners, Gamblers, Etc.

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

April 10, 1852.

I have been haunted all day, my dear M., with an intense ambition to write you a letter which shall be dreadfully commonplace and severely utilitarian in its style and contents. Not but that my epistles are always commonplace enough (spirits of Montague and Sévigné, forgive me!), but hitherto I have not really tried to make them so. Now, however, I intend to be stupidly prosy, with malice aforethought, and without one mitigating circumstance, except, perchance, it be the temptations of that above-mentioned ambitious little devil to palliate my crime.

You would certainly wonder, were you seated where I now am, how any one with a quarter of a soul could manufacture herself into a bore amid such surroundings as these. The air is as balmy as that of a midsummer's day in the sunniest valleys of New England. It is four o'clock in the evening, and I am sitting on a cigar-box outside of our cabin. From this spot not a person is to be seen, except a man who is building a new wing to the Humboldt. Not a human sound, but a slight noise made by the aforesaid individual in tacking on a roof of blue drilling to the room which he is finishing, disturbs the stillness which fills this purest air. I confess that it is difficult to fix my eyes upon the dull paper, and my fingers upon the duller pen with which I am soiling it. Almost every other minute I find myself stopping to listen to the ceaseless river-psalm, or to gaze up into the wondrous depths of the California heaven; to watch the graceful movements of the pretty brown lizards jerking up their impudent little heads above a moss-wrought log which lies before me, or to mark the dancing water-shadow on the canvas door of the bakeshop opposite; to follow with childish eyes the flight of a golden butterfly, curious to know if it will crown with a capital of winged beauty that column of nature's carving, the pine stump rising at my feet, or whether it will flutter down (for it is dallying coquettishly around them both) upon that slate-rock beyond, shining so darkly lustrous through a flood of yellow sunlight; or I lazily turn my head, wondering if I know the blue or red shirted miner who is descending the precipitous hill behind me. In sooth, Molly, it is easy to be commonplace at all times, but I confess that, just at present, I find it difficult to be utilitarian; the saucy lizards, the great orange-dotted butterflies, the still, solemn cedars, the sailing smoke-wreath, and the vaulted splendor above, are wooing me so winningly to higher things.

But, as I said before, I have an ambition that way, and I will succeed. You are such a good-natured little thing, dear, that I know you will meekly allow yourself to be victimized into reading the profound and prosy remarks which I shall make in my efforts to initiate you into the mining polity of this place. Now, you may rest assured that I shall assert nothing upon the subject which is not perfectly correct; for have I not earned a character for inquisitiveness (and you know that does not happen to be one of my failings) which I fear will cling to me through life, by my persevering questions to all the unhappy miners from whom I thought I could gain any information? Did I not martyrize myself into a human mule by descending to the bottom of a dreadful pit (suffering mortal terror all the time, lest it should cave in upon me), actuated by a virtuous desire to see with my own two eyes the process of underground mining, thus enabling myself to be stupidly correct in all my statements thereupon? Did I not ruin a pair of silk-velvet slippers, lame my ankles for a week, and draw a "browner horror" over my already sunburnt face, in a wearisome walk, miles away, to the head of the ditch, as they call the prettiest little rivulet (though the work of men) that I ever saw? Yea, verily, this have I done for the express edification of yourself and the rest of your curious tribe, to be rewarded, probably, by the impertinent remark, "What! does that little goose Dame Shirley think that I care about such things?" But, madam, in spite of your sneer, I shall proceed in my allotted task.

In the first place, then, as to the discovery of gold. In California, at least, it must be confessed that, in this particular, science appears to be completely at fault, or as an intelligent and well-educated miner remarked to us the other day, "I maintain that science is the blindest guide that one could have on a gold-finding expedition. Those men who judge by the appearance of the soil, and depend upon geological calculations, are invariably disappointed, while the ignorant adventurer, who digs just for the sake of digging, is almost sure to be successful." I suppose that the above observation is quite correct, as all whom we have questioned upon the subject repeat, in substance, the same thing. Wherever geology has said that gold must be, there, perversely enough, it lies not; and wherever her ladyship has declared that it could not be, there has it oftenest garnered up in miraculous profusion the yellow splendor of its virgin beauty. It is certainly very painful to a well-regulated mind to see the irreverent contempt shown by this beautiful mineral to the dictates of science. But what better can one expect from the root of all evil? As well as can be ascertained, the most lucky of the mining Columbuses have been ignorant sailors, and foreigners, I fancy, are more successful than Americans.

Our countrymen are the most discontented of mortals. They are always longing for big strikes. If a claim is paying them a steady income, by which, if they pleased, they could lay up more in a month than they could in a year at home, still they are dissatisfied, and in most cases will wander off in search of better diggings. There are hundreds now pursuing this foolish course, who, if they had stopped where they first camped, would now have been rich men. Sometimes a company of these wanderers will find itself upon a bar where a few pieces of the precious metal lie scattered upon the surface of the ground. Of course they immediately prospect it, which is accomplished by panning out a few basinfuls of the soil. If it pays, they claim the spot and build their shanties. The news spreads that wonderful diggings have been discovered at such a place. The monte-dealers—those worse than fiends—rush, vulture-like, upon the scene and erect a round tent, where, in gambling, drinking, swearing, and fighting, the many reproduce pandemonium in more than its original horror, while a few honestly and industriously commence digging for gold, and lo! as if a fairy's wand had been waved above the bar, a full-grown mining town hath sprung into existence.

But, first, let me explain to you the claiming system. As there are no state laws upon the subject, each mining community is permitted to make its own. Here they have decided that no man may claim an area of more than forty feet square. This he stakes off, and puts a notice upon it, to the effect that he holds it for mining purposes. If he does not choose to work it immediately, he is obliged to renew the notice every ten days, for, without this precaution, any other person has a right to "jump" it, that is, to take it from him. There are many ways of evading the above law. For instance, an individual can hold as many claims as he pleases if he keeps a man at work in each, for this workman represents the original owner. I am told, however, that the laborer himself can jump the claim of the very man who employs him, if he pleases so to do. This is seldom, if ever, done. The person who is willing to be hired generally prefers to receive the six dollars per diem, of which he is sure in any case, to running the risk of a claim not proving valuable. After all, the holding of claims by proxy is considered rather as a carrying out of the spirit of the law than as an evasion of it. But there are many ways of really outwitting this rule, though I cannot stop now to relate them, which give rise to innumerable arbitrations, and nearly every Sunday there is a miners' meeting connected with this subject.

Having got our gold-mines discovered and claimed, I will try to give you a faint idea of how they work them. Here, in the mountains, the labor of excavation is extremely difficult, on account of the immense rocks which form a large portion of the soil. Of course no man can work out a claim alone. For that reason, and also for the same that makes partnerships desirable, they congregate in companies of four or six, generally designating themselves by the name of the place from whence the majority of the members have emigrated; as, for example, the Illinois, Bunker Hill, Bay State, etc., companies. In many places the surface soil, or in mining phrase, the top dirt, pays when worked in a long-tom. This machine (I have never been able to discover the derivation of its name) is a trough, generally about twenty feet in length and eight inches in depth, formed of wood, with the exception of six feet at one end, called the "riddle" (query, why "riddle"?), which is made of sheet-iron perforated with holes about the size of a large marble. Underneath this colander-like portion of the long-tom is placed another trough, about ten feet long, the sides six inches, perhaps, in height, which, divided through the middle by a slender slat, is called the riffle-box. It takes several persons to manage properly a long-tom. Three or four men station themselves with spades at the head of the machine, while at the foot of it stands an individual armed "wid de shovel an' de hoe." The spadesmen throw in large quantities of the precious dirt, which is washed down to the riddle by a stream of water leading into the long-tom through wooden gutters or sluices. When the soil reaches the riddle, it is kept constantly in motion by the man with the hoe. Of course, by this means, all the dirt and gold escapes through the perforations into the riffle-box below, one compartment of which is placed just beyond the riddle. Most of the dirt washes over the sides of the riffle-box, but the gold, being so astonishingly heavy, remains safely at the bottom of it. When the machine gets too full of stones to be worked easily, the man whose business it is to attend to them throws them out with his shovel, looking carefully among them as he does so for any pieces of gold which may have been too large to pass through the holes of the riddle. I am sorry to say that he generally loses his labor. At night they pan out the gold which has been collected in the riffle-box during the day. Many of the miners decline washing the top dirt at all, but try to reach as quickly as possible the bed-rock, where are found the richest deposits of gold. The river is supposed to have formerly flowed over this bed-rock, in the crevices of which it left, as it passed away, the largest portions of the so eagerly sought for ore. The group of mountains amidst which we are living is a spur of the Sierra Nevada, and the bed-rock, which in this vicinity is of slate, is said to run through the entire range, lying, in distance varying from a few feet to eighty or ninety, beneath the surface of the soil. On Indian Bar the bed-rock falls in almost perpendicular benches, while at Rich Bar the friction of the river has formed it into large, deep basins, in which the gold, instead of being found, as you would naturally suppose, in the bottom of it, lies, for the most part, just below the rim. A good-natured individual bored me, and tired himself, in a hopeless attempt to make me comprehend that this was only a necessary consequence of the undercurrent of the water, but with my usual stupidity upon such matters I got but a vague idea from his scientific explanation, and certainly shall not mystify you with my confused notions thereupon.

When a company wish to reach the bed-rock as quickly as possible, they sink a shaft (which is nothing more nor less than digging a well) until they "strike it." They then commence drifting coyote-holes, as they call them, in search of crevices, which, as I told you before, often pay immensely. These coyote-holes sometimes extend hundreds of feet into the side of the hill. Of course they are obliged to use lights in working them. They generally proceed until the air is so impure as to extinguish the lights, when they return to the entrance of the excavation and commence another, perhaps close to it. When they think that a coyote-hole has been faithfully worked, they clean it up, which is done by scraping the surface of the bed-rock with a knife, lest by chance they have overlooked a crevice, and they are often richly rewarded for this precaution.

Now I must tell you how those having claims on the hills procure the water for washing them. The expense of raising it in any way from the river is too enormous to be thought of for a moment. In most cases it is brought from ravines in the mountains. A company, to which a friend of ours belongs, has dug a ditch about a foot in width and depth, and more than three miles in length, which is fed in this way. I wish that you could see this ditch. I never beheld a natural streamlet more exquisitely beautiful. It undulates over the mossy roots and the gray old rocks like a capricious snake, singing all the time a low song with the "liquidest murmur," and one might almost fancy it the airy and coquettish Undine herself. When it reaches the top of the hill, the sparkling thing is divided into five or six branches, each one of which supplies one, two, or three long-toms. There is an extra one, called the waste-ditch, leading to the river, into which the water is shut off at night and on Sundays. This race (another and peculiar name for it) has already cost the company more than five thousand dollars. They sell the water to others at the following rates. Those that have the first use of it pay ten per cent upon all the gold that they take out. As the water runs off from their machine (it now goes by the elegant name of "tailings"), it is taken by a company lower down, and as it is not worth so much as when it was clear, the latter pay but seven per cent. If any others wish the tailings, now still less valuable than at first, they pay four per cent on all the gold which they take out, be it much or little. The water companies are constantly in trouble, and the arbitrations on that subject are very frequent.

I think that I gave you a vague idea of fluming in a former letter. I will not, therefore, repeat it here, but will merely mention that the numerous fluming companies have already commenced their extensive operations upon the river.

As to the rockers, so often mentioned in story and in song, I have not spoken of them since I commenced this letter. The truth is, that I have seldom seen them used, though hundreds are lying ownerless along the banks of the river. I suppose that other machines are better adapted to mining operations in the mountains.

Gold-mining is nature's great lottery scheme. A man may work in a claim for many months, and be poorer at the end of the time than when he commenced, or he may take out thousands in a few hours. It is a mere matter of chance. A friend of ours, a young Spanish surgeon from Guatemala, a person of intelligence and education, told us that after working a claim for six months he had taken out but six ounces.

It must be acknowledged, however, that if a person work his claim himself, is economical and industrious, keeps his health, and is satisfied with small gains, he is bound to make money. And yet I cannot help remarking that almost all with whom we are acquainted seem to have lost. Some have had their claims jumped. Many holes, which had been excavated and prepared for working at a great expense, caved in during the heavy rains of the fall and winter. Often, after a company has spent an immense deal of time and money in sinking a shaft, the water from the springs (the greatest obstacle which the miner has to contend with in this vicinity) rushes in so fast that it is impossible to work in them, or to contrive any machinery to keep it out, and for that reason, only, men have been compelled to abandon places where they were at the very time taking out hundreds of dollars a day. If a fortunate or an unfortunate (which shall I call him?) does happen to make a big strike, he is almost sure to fall into the hands of the professed gamblers, who soon relieve him of all care of it. They have not troubled the Bar much during the winter, but as the spring opens they flock in like ominous birds of prey. Last week one left here, after a stay of four days, with over a thousand dollars of the hard-earned gold of the miners. But enough of these best-beloved of Beelzebub, so infinitely worse than the robber or murderer; for surely, it would be kinder to take a man's life than to poison him with the fatal passion for gambling.

Perhaps you would like to know what class of men is most numerous in the mines. As well as I can judge, there are upon this river as many foreigners as Americans. The former, with a few exceptions, are extremely ignorant and degraded, though we have the pleasure of being acquainted with three or four Spaniards of the highest education and accomplishments. Of the Americans, the majority are of the better class of mechanics. Next to these, in number, are the sailors and the farmers. There are a few merchants and steamboat-clerks, three or four physicians, and one lawyer. We have no ministers, though fourteen miles from here there is a rancho kept by a man of distinguished appearance, an accomplished monte-dealer and horse-jockey, who is said to have been, in the States, a preacher of the Gospel. I know not if this be true, but, at any rate, such things are not uncommon in California.

I have spun this letter out until my head aches dreadfully. How tiresome it is to write sensible(?) things! But I have one comfort: though my epistle may not be interesting, you will not deny, my dear M., that I have achieved my ambition of making it both commonplace and utilitarian.

Letter the Sixteenth

[The Pioneer, June, 1855]

BIRTH—STABBING—FOREIGNERS OUSTED—REVELS

SYNOPSIS

California mountain flora. A youthful Kanaka mother. Her feat of pedestrianism. Stabbing of a Spaniard by an American. The result of a request to pay a debt. Nothing done and but little said about the atrocity. Foreigners barred from working at Rich Bar. Spaniards thereupon move to Indian Bar. They erect places for the sale of intoxicants. Many new houses for public entertainment at Indian Bar. Sunday "swearing, drinking, gambling, and fighting". Salubrity of the climate. No death for months, except by accidental drowning in floodwater. Capture of grizzly cubs. "The oddest possible pets". "An echo from the outside world once a month."

Letter the Sixteenth

Birth—Stabbing—Foreigners Ousted—Revels

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

May 1, 1852.

You have no idea, my good little M., how reluctantly I have seated myself to write to you. The truth is, that my last tedious letter about mining and other tiresome things has completely exhausted my scribbling powers, and from that hour to this the epistolary spirit has never moved me forward. Whether on that important occasion my small brain received a shock from which it will never recover, or whether it is pure physical laziness which influenced me, I know not; but this is certain, that no whipped schoolboy ever crept to his hated task more unwillingly than I to my writing-desk on this beautiful morning. Perhaps my indisposition to soil paper in your behalf is caused by the bewildering scent of that great, glorious bouquet of flowers which, gathered in the crisp mountain air, is throwing off cloud after cloud ("each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears") of languid sweetness, filling the dark old room with incense and making of it a temple of beauty, like those pure angelic souls which, irradiating a plain countenance, often render it more lovely than the chiseled finish of the most perfect features.

O Molly! how I wish that I could send you this jar of flowers, containing, as it does, many which, in New England, are rare exotics. Here you will find in richest profusion the fine-lady elegance of the syringa; there, glorious white lilies, so pure and stately; the delicate yet robust beauty of the exquisite privet; irises of every hue and size; and, prettiest of all, a sweet snow-tinted flower, looking like immense clusters of seed-pearl, which the Spaniards call "libla." But the marvel of the group is an orange-colored blossom, of a most rare and singular fragrance, growing somewhat in the style of the flox. This, with some branches of pink bloom of incomparable sweetness, is entirely new to me. Since I have commenced writing, one of the Doctor's patients has brought me a bunch of wild roses. Oh, how vividly, at the sight of them, started up before me those wooded valleys of the Connecticut, with their wondrous depths of foliage, which, for a few weeks in midsummer, are perhaps unsurpassed in beauty by any in the world. I have arranged the dear home blossoms with a handful of flowers which were given to me this morning by an unknown Spaniard. They are shaped like an anemone, of the opaque whiteness of the magnolia, with a large spot of glittering blackness at the bottom of each petal. But enough of our mountain earth-stars. It would take me all day to describe their infinite variety.

Nothing of importance has happened since I last wrote, except that the Kanaka wife of a man living at The Junction has made him the happy father of a son and heir. They say that she is quite a pretty little woman, only fifteen years old, and walked all the way from Sacramento to this place.

A few evenings ago a Spaniard was stabbed by an American. It seems that the presumptuous foreigner had the impertinence to ask very humbly and meekly that most noble representative of the Stars and Stripes if the latter would pay him a few dollars which he had owed him for some time. His high mightiness the Yankee was not going to put up with any such impertinence, and the poor Spaniard received for answer several inches of cold steel in his breast, which inflicted a very dangerous wound. Nothing was done and very little was said about this atrocious affair.

At Rich Bar they have passed a set of resolutions for the guidance of the inhabitants during the summer, one of which is to the effect that no foreigner shall work in the mines on that bar. This has caused nearly all the Spaniards to immigrate upon Indian Bar, and several new houses for the sale of liquor, etc., are building by these people. It seems to me that the above law is selfish, cruel, and narrow-minded in the extreme.

When I came here the Humboldt was the only public house on the Bar. Now there are the Oriental, Golden Gate, Don Juan, and four or five others, the names of which I do not know. On Sundays the swearing, drinking, gambling, and fighting which are carried on in some of these houses are truly horrible.

It is extremely healthy here. With the exception of two or three men who were drowned when the river was so high, I have not heard of a death for months.

Nothing worth wasting ink upon has occurred for some time, except the capture of two grizzly-bear cubs by the immortal Yank. He shot the mother, but she fell over the side of a steep hill and he lost her. Yank intends to tame one of the cubs. The other he sold, I believe for fifty dollars. They are certainly the funniest-looking things that I ever saw, and the oddest possible pets. By the way, we receive an echo from the outer world once a month, and the expressman never fails to bring three letters from my dear M. wherewith to gladden the heart of her sister, Dame Shirley.

Letter the Seventeenth

[The Pioneer, June, 1855]

SUPPLIES by PACK-MULES—KANAKAS and INDIANS

SYNOPSIS

Belated arrival of pack-mule train with much-needed supplies. Picturesque appearance of the dainty-footed mules descending the hills. Of every possible color. Gay trappings. Tinkling bells. Peculiar urging cry of the Spanish muleteers. Lavish expenditure of gold-dust for vegetables and butter. Potatoes forty cents a pound. Incense of the pungent member of the lily family. Arrival of other storm-bound trains, and sudden collapse in prices. Horseback ride on dangerous trail. Fall of oxen over precipice. Mountain flowers, oaks, and rivulets. Visit to Kanaka mother. A beauty from the isles. Hawaiian superstition. An unfortunate request for the baby as a present. Consolatory promise to give the next one. Indian visitors. Head-dresses. "Very tight and very short shirts". Indian mode of life. Their huts, food, cooking, utensils, manner of eating. Sabine-like invasion leaves to tribe but a few old squaws. "Startlingly unsophisticated state of almost entire nudity". Their filthy habits. Papooses fastened in framework of light wood. Indian modes of fishing. A handsome but shy young buck. Classic gracefulness of folds of white-sheet robe of Indian. Light and airy step of the Indians something superhuman. Miserably brutish and degraded. Their vocabulary Of about twenty words. Their love of gambling, and its frightful consequences. Arrival of hundreds of people at Indian Bar. Saloons springing up in every direction. Fluming operations rapidly progressing. A busy, prosperous summer looked for.

Letter the Seventeenth

Supplies by Pack-Mules—Kanakas and Indians

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

May 25, 1852.

The very day after I last wrote you, dear M., a troop of mules came onto the Bar, bringing us almost-forgotten luxuries, in the form of potatoes, onions, and butter. A band of these animals is always a pretty sight, and you can imagine that the solemn fact of our having been destitute of the above-mentioned edibles since the middle of February did not detract from the pleasure with which we saw them winding cautiously down the hill, stepping daintily here and there with those absurd little feet of theirs, and appearing so extremely anxious for the safe conveyance of their loads. They belonged to a Spanish packer, were in excellent condition, sleek and fat as so many kittens, and of every possible color,—black, white, gray, sorrel, cream, brown, etc. Almost all of them had some bit of red or blue or yellow about their trappings, which added not a little to the brilliancy of their appearance; while the gay tinkle of the leader's bell, mingling with those shrill and peculiar exclamations with which Spanish muleteers are in the habit of urging on their animals, made a not unpleasing medley of sounds. But the creamiest part of the whole affair was—I must confess it, unromantic as it may seem—when the twenty-five or thirty pretty creatures were collected into the small space between our cabin and the Humboldt. Such a gathering together of ham-and-mackerel-fed bipeds, such a lavish display of gold-dust, such troops of happy-looking men bending beneath the delicious weight of butter and potatoes, and, above all, such a smell of fried onions as instantaneously rose upon the fragrant California air and ascended gratefully into the blue California heaven was, I think, never experienced before.

On the 1st of May a train had arrived at Rich Bar, and on the morning of the day which I have been describing to you one of our friends arose some three hours earlier than usual, went over to the aforesaid bar, bought twenty-five pounds of potatoes at forty cents a pound, and packed them home on his back. In less than two days afterwards half a dozen cargoes had arrived, and the same vegetable was selling at a shilling a pound. The trains had been on the road several weeks, but the heavy showers, which had continued almost daily through the month of April, had retarded their arrival.

Last week I rode on horseback to a beautiful bar called The Junction, so named from the fact that at that point the East Branch of the North Fork of Feather River unites itself with the main North Fork. The mule-trail, which lies along the verge of a dreadful precipice, is three or four miles long, while the footpath leading by the river is not more than two miles in length. The latter is impassable, on account of the log bridges having been swept away by the recent freshets. The other day two oxen lost their footing and fell over the precipice, and it is the general opinion that they were killed long before they reached the golden palace of the Plumerian Thetis. I was a little alarmed at first, for fear my horse would stumble, in which case I should have shared the fate of the unhappy beeves, but soon forgot all fear in the enchanting display of flowers which each opening in the shrubs displayed to me. Earth's firmament was starred with daphnes, irises, and violets of every hue and size; pale wood-anemones, with but one faint sigh of fragrance as they expired, died by hundreds beneath my horse's tread; and spotted tiger-lilies, with their stately heads all bedizened in orange and black, marshaled along the path like an army of gayly clad warriors. But the flowers are not all of an oriental character. Do you remember, Molly dear, how you and I once quarreled when we were, oh, such mites of children, about a sprig of syringa? The dear mother was obliged to interfere, and to make all right she gave you a small brown bud, of most penetrating fragrance, which she told you was much more valuable than the contested flower. I remember perfectly that she failed entirely in convincing me that the dark, somber flower was half as beautiful as my pretty cream-tinted blossom, and, if I mistake not, you were but poutingly satisfied with the substitute. Here, even if we retained, which I do not, our childish fascination for syringas, we should not need to quarrel about them, for they are as common as dandelions in a New England meadow, and dispense their peculiar perfume—which, by the way, always reminds me of Lubin's choicest scents—in almost sickening profusion. Besides the above-mentioned flowers, we saw wild roses and buttercups and flox and privet, and whole acres of the wand-like lily. I have often heard it said, though I cannot vouch for the truth of the assertion, that it is only during the month of January that you cannot gather a bouquet in the mountains.

Just before one reaches The Junction there is a beautiful grove of oaks, through which there leaps a gay little rivulet celebrated for the grateful coolness of its waters. Of course one is expected to propitiate this pretty Undine by drinking a draft of her glittering waters from a dirty tin cup which some benevolent cold-water man has suspended from a tree near the spring. The bank leading down into the stream is so steep that people generally dismount and lead their animals across it, but F. declared that I was so light that the horse could easily carry me, and insisted upon my keeping the saddle. Of course, like a dutiful wife, I had nothing to do but to obey. So I grasped firmly the reins, shut my eyes, and committed myself to the Fates that take care of thistle-seeds, and lo! the next moment I found myself safely on the other side of the brook, my pretty steed—six weeks ago he was an Indian pony running wild on the prairie—curveting about and arching his elegant neck, evidently immensely proud of the grace and ease with which he had conveyed his burden across the brook. In a few moments we alighted at the store, which is owned by some friends of F., whom we found looking like so many great daisies in their new shirts of pink calico, which had been donned in honor of our expected arrival.

The Junction is the most beautiful of all the bars. From the store one can walk nearly a mile down the river quite easily. The path is bordered by a row of mingled oaks and firs, the former garlanded with mistletoe, and the latter embroidered with that exquisitely beautiful moss which I tried to describe in one of my first letters.

The little Kanaka woman lives here. I went to see her. She is quite pretty, with large lustrous eyes, and two great braids of hair which made me think of black satin cables, they were so heavy and massive. She has good teeth, a sweet smile, and a skin not much darker than that of a French brunette. I never saw any creature so proud as she, almost a child herself, was of her baby. In jest, I asked her to give it to me, and really was almost alarmed at the vehement burst of tears with which she responded to my request. Her husband explained the cause of her distress. It is a superstition among her people that he who refuses to give another anything, no matter what,—there are no exceptions which that other may ask for,—will be overwhelmed with the most dreadful misfortunes. Her own parents had parted with her for the same reason. Her pretty girlish face soon resumed its smiles when I told her that I was in jest, and, to console me for the disappointment which she thought I must feel at not obtaining her little brown treasure, she promised to give me the next one! It is a Kanaka custom to make a present to the person calling upon them for the first time, in accordance with which habit I received a pair of dove-colored boots three sizes too large for me.

I should have liked to visit the Indian encampment which lies a few miles from The Junction, but was too much fatigued to attempt it. The Indians often visit us, and as they seldom wear anything but a very tight and very short shirt, they have an appearance of being, as Charles Dickens would say, all legs. They usually sport some kind of a head-dress, if it is nothing more than a leather string, which they bind across their dusky brows in the style of the wreaths in Norma, or the gay ribbons garlanding the hair of the Roman youth in the play of Brutus. A friend of ours, who has visited their camp several times, has just given me a description of their mode of life. Their huts, ten or twelve in number, are formed of the bark of the pine, conically shaped, plastered with mud, and with a hole in the top, whence emerges the smoke, which rises from a fire built in the center of the apartment. These places are so low that it is quite impossible to stand upright in them, and are entered from a small hole in one side, on all fours. A large stone, sunk to its surface in the ground, which contains three or four pan-like hollows for the purpose of grinding acorns and nuts, is the only furniture which these huts contain. The women, with another stone, about a foot and a half in length and a little larger than a man's wrist, pulverize the acorns to the finest possible powder, which they prepare for the table(?) in the following manner. Their cooking utensils consist of a kind of basket, woven of some particular species of reed, I should fancy, from the descriptions which I have had of them, and are so plaited as to be impervious to fluids. These they fill half full of water, which is made to boil by placing in it hot stones. The latter they drag from the fire with two sticks. When the water boils, they stir into it, until it is about as thick as hasty-pudding, the powdered acorns, delicately flavored with dried grasshoppers, and lo! dinner is ready. Would you like to know how they eat? They place the thumb and little finger together across the palm of the hand, and make of the other three fingers a spoon, with which they shovel into their capacious mouths this delicious compound.

There are about eighty Indians in all at this encampment, a very small portion of which number are women. A hostile tribe in the valley made a Sabine-like invasion upon the settlement a few months since, and stole away all the young and fair muchachas, leaving them but a few old squaws. These poor withered creatures, who are seldom seen far from the encampment, do all the drudgery. Their entire wardrobe consists of a fringe about two feet in length, which is formed of the branch or root—I cannot ascertain exactly which—of a peculiar species of shrub shredded into threads. This scanty costume they festoon several times about the person, fastening it just above the hips, and they generally appear in a startlingly unsophisticated state of almost entire nudity. They are very filthy in their habits, and my informant said that if one of them should venture out into the rain, grass would grow on her neck and arms. The men, unhappy martyrs! are compelled to be a little more cleanly, from their custom of hunting and fishing, for the wind will blow off some of the dirt, and the water washes off more.

Their infants are fastened to a framework of light wood, in the same manner as those of the North American Indians. When a squaw has anything to do, she very composedly sets this frame up against the side of the house as a civilized housewife would an umbrella or broom.

Some of their modes of fishing are very curious. One is as follows. These primitive anglers will seek a quiet deep spot in the river, where they know fish most do congregate, and throw therein a large quantity of stones. This, of course, frightens the fish, which dive to the bottom of the stream, and Mr. Indian, plunging head foremost into the water, beneath which he sometimes remains several minutes, will presently reappear, holding triumphantly in each hand one of the finny tribe, which he kills by giving it a single bite in the head or neck with his sharp, knife-like teeth.

Hardly a day passes during which there are not three or four of them on this Bar. They often come into the cabin, and I never order them away, as most others do, for their childish curiosity amuses me, and as yet they have not been troublesome. There is one beautiful little boy, about eight years old, who generally accompanies them. We call him Wild Bird, for he is as shy as a partridge, and we have never yet been able to coax him into the cabin. He always wears a large red shirt, which, trailing to his little bronzed feet, and the sleeves every other minute dropping down over his dusky models of hands, gives him a very odd appearance. One day Mrs. B., whom I was visiting at the time, coaxed Wild Bird into the house to see Charley, the hero of the champagne-basket cradle. The little fellow gazed at us with his large, startled eyes without showing the least shadow of fear in his countenance, but his heart beat so violently that we could actually see the rise and fall of the old red shirt which covered its tremblings. Mrs. B. made our copper-colored Cupidon a pretty suit of crimson calico. His protectors—half a dozen grim old Indians (it was impossible to tell which was his father, they all made such a petted darling of him)—were compelled to array him in his new suit by main strength, he screaming dreadfully all the time. Indeed, so exhausted was he by his shrieks that by the time he was fairly buttoned up in his crimson trappings he sank on the ground in a deep sleep. The next day the barbarous little villain appeared trailing, as usual, his pet shirt after him at every step, while the dandy jacket and the trim baby-trousers had vanished we never knew whither.

The other morning an Indian appeared on the Bar robed from neck to heels in a large white sheet, and you have no idea of the classic grace with which he had arranged the folds about his fine person. We at first thought him a woman, and he himself was in an ecstasy of glee at our mistake.

It is impossible to conceive of anything more light and airy than the step of these people. I shall never forget with what enchanted eyes I gazed upon one of them gliding along the side of the hill opposite Missouri Bar. One would fancy that nothing but a fly or a spirit could keep its footing on the rocks along which he stepped so stately, for they looked as perpendicular as a wall. My friend observed that no white man could have done it. This wild creature seemed to move as a cloud moves on a quiet day in summer, and as still and silently. It really made me solemn to gaze upon him, and the sight almost impressed me as something superhuman.

Viewed in the most favorable manner, these poor creatures are miserably brutish and degraded, having very little in common with the lofty and eloquent aborigines of the United States. It is said that their entire language contains but about twenty words. Like all Indians, they are passionately fond of gambling, and will exhibit as much anxiety at the losing or winning of a handful of beans as do their paler brothers when thousands are at stake. Methinks, from what I have seen of that most hateful vice, the amount lost or won has very little to do with the matter. But let me not speak of this most detestable of crimes. I have known such frightful consequences to ensue from its indulgence, that I dare not speak of it, lest I use language, as perhaps I have already done, unbecoming a woman's lips.

Hundreds of people have arrived upon our Bar within the last few days; drinking-saloons are springing up in every direction; the fluming operations are rapidly progressing; and all looks favorably for a busy and prosperous summer to our industrious miners.

Letter the Eighteenth

[The Pioneer, July, 1852]

FOURTH of JULY FESTIVAL—SPANISH ATTACKED

SYNOPSIS

Fourth of July celebration at Rich Bar. The author makes the flag. Its materials. How California was represented therein. Floated from the top of a lofty pine. The decorations at the Empire Hotel. An "officious Goth" mars the floral piece designed for the orator of the day. Only two ladies in the audience. Two others expected, but do not arrive. No copy of the Declaration of Independence. Preliminary speeches by political aspirants. Orator of the day reads anonymous poem. Oration "exceedingly fresh and new". Belated arrival of the expected ladies, new-comers from the East. With new fashions, they extinguish the author and her companion. Dinner at the Empire. Mexican War captain as president. "Toasts quite spicy and original". Fight in the barroom. Eastern lady "chose to go faint" at sight of blood. Cabin full of "infant phenomena". A rarity in the mountains. Miners, on way home from celebration, give nine cheers for mother and children. Outcry at Indian Bar against Spaniards. Several severely wounded. Whisky and patriotism. Prejudices and arrogant assurance accounted for. Misinterpretation by the foreigner. Injustices by the lower classes against Spaniards pass unnoticed. Innumerable drunken fights. Broken heads and collarbones, stabbings. "Sabbaths almost always enlivened by such merry events". Body of Frenchman found in river. Murder evident. Suspicion falls on nobody.

Letter the Eighteenth

Fourth of July Festival—Spanish Attacked

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

July 5, 1852.

Our Fourth of July celebration, dear M., which came off at Rich Bar, was quite a respectable affair. I had the honor of making a flag for the occasion. The stripes were formed of cotton cloth and red calico, of which last gorgeous material no possible place in California is ever destitute. A piece of drilling, taken from the roof of the Humboldt, which the rain and the sun had faded from its original somber hue to just that particular shade of blue which you and I admire so much, served for a union. A large star in the center, covered with gold-leaf, represented California. Humble as were the materials of which it was composed, this banner made quite a gay appearance floating from the top of a lofty pine in front of the Empire, to which it was suspended.

I went over to Rich Bar at six in the morning, not wishing to take so fatiguing a walk in the heat of the day. After breakfast I assisted Mrs. B. and one of the gentlemen in decorating the dining-room, the walls of which we completely covered with grape-vines, relieved here and there with bunches of elder-blow. We made several handsome bouquets, and arranged one of syringas, white lilies, and the feathery green of the cedar, to be presented, in the name of the ladies, to the orator of the day. You can imagine my disgust, when the ceremony was performed, to observe that some officious Goth had marred the perfect keeping of the gift by thrusting into the vase several ugly purple blossoms.

The exercises were appointed to commence at ten o'clock, but they were deferred for half an hour, in expectation of the arrival of two ladies who had taken up their abode in the place within the last six weeks, and were living on Indian Bar hill. As they did not come, however, it was thought necessary to proceed without them. So Mrs. B. and myself were obliged to sit upon the piazza of the Empire, comprising, in our two persons, the entire female audience.

The scene was indeed striking. The green-garlanded hills girdling Rich Bar looked wonderfully beautiful, rising with their grand abrupt outlines into the radiant summer sky. A platform reared in front of the Empire, beneath the banner-tasseled pine, and arched with fragrant fir boughs, made the prettiest possible rustic rostrum. The audience, grouped beneath the awnings of the different shops, dressed in their colored shirts,—though here and there one might observe a dandy miner who had relieved the usual vestment by placing beneath it one of calico or white muslin,—added much to the picturesqueness of the scene. Unfortunately, the committee of arrangements had not been able to procure a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Its place was supplied by an apologetic speech from a Mr. J., who will, without doubt, be the Democratic candidate for state representative at the coming election. This gentleman finished his performance by introducing Mr. B., the orator of the day, who is the Whig nominee for the above-mentioned office. Before pronouncing his address, Mr. B. read some verses which he said had been handed to him anonymously the evening before. I have copied them for your amusement. They are as follows, and are entitled—

A FOURTH of JULY WELCOME to the MINERS

Ye are welcome, merry miners, in your blue and red shirts all;

Ye are welcome, 'mid these golden hills, to your nation's festival;

Though ye've not shaved your savage lips nor cut your barb'rous hair,

Ye are welcome, merry miners, all bearded as ye are.

What though your brows are blushing at the kisses of the sun,

And your once white and well-kept hands are stained a sober dun;

What though your backs are bent with toil, and ye have lost the air

With which ye bowed your stately heads amid the young and fair,

I fain would in my slender palm your horny fingers clasp,

For I love the hand of honest toil, its firm and heartfelt grasp;

And I know, O miners brave and true, that not alone for self

Have ye heaped, through many wearying months, your glittering pile of pelf.

Ye of the dark and thoughtful eyes beneath the bronzèd brow,

Ye on whose smooth and rounded cheeks still gleams youth's purple glow,

Ye of the reckless, daring life, ye of the timid glance;

Ho! young and old; ho! grave and gay,—to our nation's fête advance.

Ho! sun-kissed brother from the South, where radiant skies are glowing;

Ho! toiler from the stormy North, where snowy winds are blowing;

Ho! Buckeye, Hoosier, from the West, sons of the river great,—

Come, shout Columbia's birthday song in the new Golden State.

Ho! children of imperial France; ho! Erin's brave and true;

Ho! England's golden-bearded race,—we fain would welcome you,

And dark-eyed friends from those glad climes where Spain's proud blood is seen;

To join in Freedom's holy psalm ye'll not refuse, I ween.

For now the banner of the free's in very deed our own,

And, 'mid the brotherhood of states, not ours the feeblest one.

Then proudly shout, ye bushy men with throats all brown and bare,

For, lo! from 'midst our flag's brave blue, leaps out a golden star.

After reading the above lines, Mr. B. pronounced beautifully a very splendid oration. Unlike such efforts in general, it was exceedingly fresh and new, so that, instead of its being that infliction that Fourth of July orations commonly are, it was a high pleasure to listen to him. Perhaps, where nature herself is so original, it is impossible for even thought to be hackneyed. It is too long for a letter, but as the miners have requested a copy for publication, I will send it to you in print.

About half an hour after the close of the oration the ladies from the hill arrived. They made a pretty picture descending the steep,—the one with her wealth of floating curls turbaned in a snowy nubia, and her white dress set off by a crimson scarf; the other with a little Pamela hat placed coquettishly upon her brown braided tresses, and a magnificent Chinese shawl enveloping her slender figure. So lately arrived from the States, with everything fresh and new, they quite extinguished poor Mrs. B. and myself, trying our best to look fashionable in our antique mode of four years ago.

The dinner was excellent. We had a real live captain, a very gentlemanly person, who had actually been in action during the Mexican War, for president. Many of the toasts were quite spicy and original; one of the new ladies sang three or four beautiful songs; and everything passed off at Rich Bar quite respectably. To be sure, there was a small fight in the barroom, which is situated just below the dining-room, during which much speech and a little blood were spouted. Whether the latter catastrophe was caused by a blow received, or the large talking of the victim, is not known. Two peacefully inclined citizens, who at the first battle-shout had rushed manfully to the rescue, returned at the subsiding of hostilities with blood-bespattered shirt-bosoms, at which fearful sight the pretty wearer of the Pamela hat—one of the delinquents being her husband—chose to go faint, and would not finish her dinner, which, as we saw that her distress was real, somewhat marred our enjoyment.

On our way home, half a dozen gentlemen who preceded us stepped in front of a cabin full of infant phenomena and gave nine cheers for the mother and her children; which will show what a rarity those embodiments of noise and disquiet are in the mountains. This group of pretty darlings consists of three sweet little girls, slender, straight, and white as ivory wands, moving with an incessant and staccato (do you remember our old music lessons?) activity which always makes me think of my hummingbirds.

About five o'clock we arrived at home, just in time to hear some noisy shouts of "Down with the Spaniards," "The great American people forever," and other similar cries, evident signs of quite a spirited fight between the two parties, which was, in reality, taking place at the moment. Seven or eight of the élite of Rich Bar, drunk with whisky and patriotism, were the principal actors in this unhappy affair, which resulted in serious injury to two or three Spaniards. For some time past there has been a gradually increasing state of bad feeling exhibited by our countrymen (increased, we fancy, by the ill-treatment which our consul received the other day at Acapulco) towards foreigners. In this affair our own countrymen were principally to blame, or, rather, I should say, Sir Barleycorn was to blame, for many of the ringleaders are fine young men who, when sober, are decidedly friendly to the Spaniards. It is feared that this will not be the end of the fracas, though the more intelligent foreigners, as well as the judicious Americans, are making every effort to promote kindly feeling between the two nations. This will be very difficult, on account of the ignorant prejudices of the low-bred, which class are a large proportion of both parties.

It is very common to hear vulgar Yankees say of the Spaniards, "O, they are half-civilized black men!" These unjust expressions naturally irritate the latter, many of whom are highly educated gentlemen of the most refined and cultivated manners. We labor under great disadvantages, in the judgment of foreigners. Our peculiar political institutions, and the prevalence of common schools, give to all our people an arrogant assurance which is mistaken for the American beau-ideal of a gentleman.

They are unable to distinguish those nice shades of manner which as effectually separate the gentleman from the clown with us as do these broader lines which mark these two classes among all other nations. They think that it is the grand characteristic of Columbia's children to be prejudiced, opinionated, selfish, avaricious, and unjust. It is vain to tell them that such are not specimens of American gentlemen. They will answer, "They call themselves gentlemen, and you receive them in your houses as such." It is utterly impossible for foreigners to thoroughly comprehend and make due allowance for that want of delicacy, and that vulgar "I'm as good as you are" spirit, which is, it must be confessed, peculiar to the lower classes of our people, and which would lead the majority of them to—

Enter a palace with their old felt hat on;

To address the King with the title of Mister,

And ask him the price of the throne he sat on.

The class of men who rule society(?) in the mines are the gamblers, who, for the most part, are reckless, bad men, although, no doubt, there are many among them whose only vice is that fatal love of play. The rest of the people are afraid of these daring, unprincipled persons, and when they commit the most glaring injustice against the Spaniards, it is generally passed unnoticed.

We have had innumerable drunken fights during the summer, with the usual amount of broken heads, collar-bones, stabs, etc. Indeed, the sabbaths are almost always enlivened by some such merry event. Were it not for these affairs, I might sometimes forget that the sweet day of rest was shining down upon us.

Last week the dead body of a Frenchman was found in the river, near Missouri Bar. On examination of the body it was the general opinion that he had been murdered. Suspicion has, as yet, fallen upon no person.

Letter the Nineteenth

[The Pioneer, August, 1855]

MURDER, THEFT, RIOT, HANGING, WHIPPING, ETC.

SYNOPSIS

Three weeks of excitement at Indian Bar. Murders, fearful accidents, bloody deaths, whippings, hanging, attempted suicide, etc. A sabbath-morning walk in the hills. Miners' ditch rivaling in beauty the work of nature. Fatal stabbing by a Spaniard. Afterwards parades street with a Mexicana, brandishing a long bloody knife. His pursuit by and escape from the infuriated Americans. Unfounded rumor of conspiracy of Spaniards to murder Americans. Spaniards barricade themselves. Grief of Spanish woman over corpse of murdered man. Miners arrive from Rich Bar. Wild cry for vengeance, and for expulsion of Spaniards. The author prevailed upon to retire to place of safety. Accidental discharge of gun when drunken owner of vile resort attempts to force way through armed guard. Two seriously wounded. Sobering effect of the accident. Vigilance committee organized. Suspected Spaniards arrested. Trial of the Mexicana. Always wore male attire, was foremost in fray, and, armed with brace of pistols, fought like a fury. Sentenced to leave by daylight. Indirect cause of fight. Woman always to blame. Trial of ringleaders. Sentences of whipping, and to leave. Confiscation of property for benefit of wounded. Anguish of the author when Spaniards were whipped. Young Spaniard movingly but vainly pleads for death instead of whipping. His oath to murder every American he should afterwards meet alone. Doubtless will keep his word. Murder of Mr. Bacon, a ranchero, for his money, by his negro cook. Murderer caught at Sacramento with part of money. His trial at Rich Bar by the vigilantes. Sentence of death by hanging. Another negro attempts suicide. Accuses mulatto Ned of attempt to murder him. Dr. C. in trouble for binding up negro's self-inflicted wounds. Formation of "Moguls," who make night hideous. Vigilantes do not interfere. Duel at Missouri Bar. Fatal results. A large crowd present. Vigilance committee also present. "But you must remember that this is California."

Letter the Nineteenth

Murder, Theft, Riot, Hanging, Whipping, &c.

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

August 4, 1852.

We have lived through so much of excitement for the last three weeks, dear M., that I almost shrink from relating the gloomy events that have marked their flight. But if I leave out the darker shades of our mountain life, the picture will be very incomplete. In the short space of twenty-four days we have had murders, fearful accidents, bloody deaths, a mob, whippings, a hanging, an attempt at suicide, and a fatal duel. But to begin at the beginning, as, according to rule, one ought to do.

I think that, even among these beautiful hills, I never saw a more perfect bridal of the earth and sky than that of Sunday, the 11th of July. On that morning I went with a party of friends to the head of the ditch, a walk of about three miles in length. I do not believe that nature herself ever made anything so lovely as this artificial brooklet. It glides like a living thing through the very heart of the forest, sometimes creeping softly on, as though with muffled feet, through a wilderness of aquatic plants, sometimes dancing gayly over a white-pebbled bottom, now making a sunshine in a shady place, across the mossy roots of the majestic old trees, and anon leaping with a grand anthem adown the great solemn rocks which lie along its beautiful pathway. A sunny opening at the head of the ditch is a garden of perfumed shrubbery and many-tinted flowers, all garlanded with the prettiest vines imaginable, and peopled with an infinite variety of magnificent butterflies. These last were of every possible color, pink, blue and yellow, shining black splashed with orange, purple flashed with gold, white, and even green. We returned about three in the evening, loaded with fragrant bundles, which, arranged in jars, tumblers, pitchers, bottles, and pails, (we are not particular as to the quality of our vases in the mountains, and love our flowers as well in their humble chalices as if their beautiful heads lay against a background of marble or porcelain,) made the dark old cabin a bower of beauty for us.

Shortly after our arrival, a perfectly deafening volley of shouts and yells elicited from my companion the careless remark that the customary sabbath-day's fight was apparently more serious than usual. Almost as he spoke there succeeded a deathlike silence, broken in a minute after by a deep groan at the corner of the cabin, followed by the words, "Why, Tom, poor fellow, are you really wounded?" Before we could reach the door, it was burst violently open by a person who inquired hurriedly for the Doctor, who, luckily, happened at that very moment to be approaching. The man who called him then gave us the following excited account of what had happened. He said that in a mêlée between the Americans and the foreigners, Domingo, a tall, majestic-looking Spaniard, a perfect type of the novelistic bandit of Old Spain, had stabbed Tom Somers, a young Irishman, but a naturalized citizen of the United States, and that, at the very moment, said Domingo, with a Mexicana hanging upon his arm, and brandishing threateningly the long, bloody knife with which he had inflicted the wound upon his victim, was parading up and down the street unmolested. It seems that when Tom Somers fell the Americans, being unarmed, were seized with a sudden panic and fled. There was a rumor (unfounded, as it afterwards proved) to the effect that the Spaniards had on this day conspired to kill all the Americans on the river. In a few moments, however, the latter rallied and made a rush at the murderer, who immediately plunged into the river and swam across to Missouri Bar. Eight or ten shots were fired at him while in the water, not one of which hit him. He ran like an antelope across the flat, swam thence to Smith's Bar, and escaped by the road leading out of the mountains from The Junction. Several men went in pursuit of him, but he was not taken, and without doubt is now safe in Mexico.

In the mean while the consternation was terrific. The Spaniards, who, with the exception of six or eight, knew no more of the affair than I did, thought that the Americans had arisen against them, and our own countrymen, equally ignorant, fancied the same of the foreigners. About twenty of the latter, who were either sleeping or reading in their cabins at the time of the émeute, aroused by the cry of "Down with the Spaniards!" barricaded themselves in a drinking-saloon, determined to defend themselves as long as possible against the massacre which was fully expected would follow this appalling shout. In the bakeshop, which stands next door to our cabin, young Tom Somers lay straightened for the grave (he lived but fifteen minutes after he was wounded), while over his dead body a Spanish woman was weeping and moaning in the most piteous and heartrending manner. The Rich Barians, who had heard a most exaggerated account of the rising of the Spaniards against the Americans, armed with rifles, pistols, clubs, dirks, etc., were rushing down the hill by hundreds. Each one added fuel to his rage by crowding into the little bakery to gaze upon the blood-bathed bosom of the victim, yet warm with the life which but an hour before it had so triumphantly worn. Then arose the most fearful shouts of "Down with the Spaniards!" "Drive every foreigner off the river!" "Don't let one of the murderous devils remain!" "Oh, if you have a drop of American blood in your veins, it must cry out for vengeance upon the cowardly assassins of poor Tom!" All this, mingled with the most horrible oaths and execrations, yelled up as if in mockery into that smiling heaven, which, in its fair sabbath calm, bent unmoved over the hell which was raging below.

After a time the more sensible and sober part of the community succeeded in quieting, in a partial degree, the enraged and excited multitude. During the whole affair I had remained perfectly calm,—in truth, much more so than I am now, when recalling it. The entire catastrophe had been so unexpected, and so sudden in its consummation, that I fancy I was stupefied into the most exemplary good behavior. F. and several of his friends, taking advantage of the lull in the storm, came into the cabin and entreated me to join the two women who were living on the hill. At this time it seemed to be the general opinion that there would be a serious fight, and they said I might be wounded accidentally if I remained on the Bar. As I had no fear of anything of the kind, I pleaded hard to be allowed to stop, but when told that my presence would increase the anxiety of our friends, of course, like a dutiful wife, I went on to the hill.

We three women, left entirely alone, seated ourselves upon a log overlooking the strange scene below. The Bar was a sea of heads, bristling with guns, rifles, and clubs. We could see nothing, but fancied from the apparent quiet of the crowd that the miners were taking measures to investigate the sad event of the day. All at once we were startled by the firing of a gun, and the next moment, the crowd dispersing, we saw a man led into the log cabin, while another was carried, apparently lifeless, into a Spanish drinking-saloon, from one end of which were burst off instantly several boards, evidently to give air to the wounded person. Of course we were utterly unable to imagine what had happened, and, to all our perplexity and anxiety, one of the ladies insisted upon believing that it was her own husband who had been shot, and as she is a very nervous woman, you can fancy our distress. It was in vain to tell her—which we did over and over again—that that worthy individual wore a blue shirt, and the wounded person a red one. She doggedly insisted that her dear M. had been shot, and, having informed us confidentially, and rather inconsistently, that she should never see him again, never, never, plumped herself down upon the log in an attitude of calm and ladylike despair, which would have been infinitely amusing had not the occasion been so truly a fearful one. Luckily for our nerves, a benevolent individual, taking pity upon our loneliness, came and told us what had happened.

It seems that an Englishman, the owner of a house of the vilest description, a person who is said to have been the primary cause of all the troubles of the day, attempted to force his way through the line of armed men which had been formed at each side of the street. The guard very properly refused to let him pass. In his drunken fury he tried to wrest a gun from one of them, which, being accidentally discharged in the struggle, inflicted a severe wound upon a Mr. Oxley, and shattered in the most dreadful manner the thigh of Señor Pizarro, a man of high birth and breeding, a porteño of Buenos Aires. This frightful accident recalled the people to their senses, and they began to act a little less like madmen than they had previously done. They elected a vigilance committee, and authorized persons to go to The Junction and arrest the suspected Spaniards.

The first act of the committee was to try a Mexicana who had been foremost in the fray. She has always worn male attire, and upon this occasion, armed with a pair of pistols, she fought like a very fury. Luckily, inexperienced in the use of firearms, she wounded no one. She was sentenced to leave the Bar by daylight,—a perfectly just decision, for there is no doubt that she is a regular little demon. Some went so far as to say she ought to be hanged, for she was the indirect cause of the fight. You see, always it is the old cowardly excuse of Adam in Paradise,—the woman tempted me, and I did eat,—as if the poor frail head, once so pure and beautiful, had not sin enough of its own, dragging it forever downward, without being made to answer for the wrong-doing of a whole community of men.

The next day the committee tried five or six Spaniards, who were proven to have been the ringleaders in the sabbath-day riot. Two of them were sentenced to be whipped, the remainder to leave the Bar that evening, the property of all to be confiscated to the use of the wounded persons. O Mary! imagine my anguish when I heard the first blow fall upon those wretched men. I had never thought that I should be compelled to hear such fearful sounds, and, although I immediately buried my head in a shawl, nothing can efface from memory the disgust and horror of that moment. I had heard of such things, but heretofore had not realized that in the nineteenth century men could be beaten like dogs, much less that other men not only could sentence such barbarism, but could actually stand by and see their own manhood degraded in such disgraceful manner. One of these unhappy persons was a very gentlemanly young Spaniard, who implored for death in the most moving terms. He appealed to his judges in the most eloquent manner, as gentlemen, as men of honor, representing to them that to be deprived of life was nothing in comparison with the never-to-be-effaced stain of the vilest convict's punishment to which they had sentenced him. Finding all his entreaties disregarded, he swore a most solemn oath, that he would murder every American that he should chance to meet alone, and as he is a man of the most dauntless courage, and rendered desperate by a burning sense of disgrace which will cease only with his life, he will doubtless keep his word.

Although, in my very humble opinion, and in that of others more competent to judge of such matters than myself, these sentences were unnecessarily severe, yet so great was the rage and excitement of the crowd that the vigilance committee could do no less. The mass of the mob demanded fiercely the death of the prisoners, and it was evident that many of the committee took side with the people. I shall never forget how horror-struck I was (bombastic as it now sounds) at hearing no less a personage than the Whig candidate for representative say that the condemned had better fly for their lives, for the "Avenger of Blood" was on their tracks! I am happy to say that said very worthy but sanguinary individual, the Avenger of Blood, represented in this case by some half-dozen gambling rowdies, either changed his mind or lost scent of his prey, for the intended victims slept about two miles up the hill quite peacefully until morning.

The following facts, elicited upon the trial, throw light upon this unhappy affair. Seven miners from Old Spain, enraged at the cruel treatment which their countrymen had received on the Fourth, and at the illiberal cry of "Down with the Spaniards," had united for the purpose of taking revenge on seven Americans, whom they believed to be the originators of their insults. All well armed, they came from The Junction, where they were residing at the time, intending to challenge each one his man, and in fair fight compel their insolent aggressors to answer for the arrogance which they had exhibited more than once towards the Spanish race. Their first move, on arriving at Indian Bar, was to go and dine at the Humboldt, where they drank a most enormous quantity of champagne and claret. Afterwards they proceeded to the house of the Englishman whose brutal carelessness caused the accident which wounded Pizarro and Oxley, when one of them commenced a playful conversation with one of his countrywomen. This enraged the Englishman, who instantly struck the Spaniard a violent blow and ejected him from the shanty. Thereupon ensued a spirited fight, which, through the exertion of a gentleman from Chile, a favorite with both nations, ended without bloodshed. This person knew nothing of the intended duel, or he might have prevented, by his wise counsels, what followed. Not suspecting for a moment anything of the kind, he went to Rich Bar. Soon after he left, Tom Somers, who is said always to have been a dangerous person when in liquor, without any apparent provocation struck Domingo (one of the original seven) a violent blow, which nearly felled him to the earth. The latter, a man of "dark antecedents" and the most reckless character, mad with wine, rage, and revenge, without an instant's pause drew his knife and inflicted a fatal wound upon his insulter. Thereupon followed the chapter of accidents which I have related.

On Tuesday following the fatal sabbath, a man brought news of the murder of a Mr. Bacon, a person well known on the river, who kept a ranch about twelve miles from Rich Bar. He was killed for his money by his servant, a negro, who, not three months ago, was our own cook. He was the last one anybody would have suspected capable of such an act.

A party of men, appointed by the vigilance committee, left the Bar immediately in search of him. The miserable wretch was apprehended in Sacramento, and part of the gold found upon his person. On the following Sunday he was brought in chains to Rich Bar. After a trial by the miners, he was sentenced to be hanged at four o' clock in the evening. All efforts to make him confess proved futile. He said very truly that whether innocent or guilty they would hang him, and so he "died and made no sign" with a calm indifference, as the novelists say, worthy of a better cause. The dreadful crime and death of Josh, who, having been an excellent cook, and very neat and respectful, was a favorite servant with us, added to the unhappiness which you can easily imagine that I was suffering under all these horrors.

On Saturday evening, about eight o'clock, as we sat quietly conversing with the two ladies from the hill,—whom, by the way, we found very agreeable additions to our society, hitherto composed entirely of gentlemen,—we were startled by the loud shouting, and the rushing close by the door of the cabin, which stood open, of three or four hundred men. Of course we feminines, with nerves somewhat shattered from the events of the past week, were greatly alarmed.

We were soon informed that Henry Cook, vice Josh, had, in a fit of delirium tremens, cut his throat from ear to ear. The poor wretch was alone when he committed the desperate deed, and in his madness, throwing the bloody razor upon the ground, ran part of the way up the hill. Here he was found almost senseless, and brought back to the Humboldt, where he was very nearly the cause of hanging poor Paganini Ned, who returned a few weeks since from the valley; for his first act on recovering himself was to accuse that culinary individual of having attempted to murder him. The mob were for hanging one poor Vattel without judge or jury, and it was only through the most strenuous exertions of his friends that the life of this illustrious person was saved. Poor Ned! It was forty-eight hours before his corkscrews returned to their original graceful curl. He threatens to leave us to our barbarism, and no longer to waste his culinary talents upon an ungrateful and inappreciative people. He has sworn war to the knife against Henry, who was formerly his most intimate friend, as nothing can persuade him that the accusation did not proceed from the purest malice on the part of the would-be suicide.

Their majesties the mob, with that beautiful consistency which usually distinguishes those august individuals, insisted upon shooting poor Harry, for, said they,—and the reasoning is remarkably conclusive and clear,—a man so hardened as to raise his hand against his own life will never hesitate to murder another! They almost mobbed F. for binding up the wounds of the unfortunate wretch, and for saying that it was possible he might live. At last, however, they compromised the matter by determining that if Henry should recover he should leave the Bar immediately. Neither contingency will probably take place, as it will be almost a miracle if he survives.

On the day following the attempted suicide, which was Sunday, nothing more exciting happened than a fight and the half-drowning of a drunken individual in the river, just in front of the Humboldt.

On Sunday last the thigh of Señor Pizarro was amputated, but, alas! without success. He had been sick for many months with chronic dysentery, which, after the operation, returned with great violence, and he died at two o'clock on Monday morning, with the same calm and lofty resignation which had distinguished him during his illness. When first wounded, believing his case hopeless, he had decidedly refused to submit to amputation, but as time wore on he was persuaded to take this one chance for his life for the sake of his daughter, a young girl of fifteen, at present at school in a convent in Chile, whom his death leaves without any near relative. I saw him several times during his illness, and it was melancholy indeed to hear him talk of his motherless girl, who, I have been told, is extremely beautiful, talented, and accomplished.

The state of society here has never been so bad as since the appointment of a committee of vigilance. The rowdies have formed themselves into a company called the "Moguls," and they parade the streets all night, howling, shouting, breaking into houses, taking wearied miners out of their beds and throwing them into the river, and, in short, "murdering sleep" in the most remorseless manner. Nearly every night they build bonfires fearfully near some rag shanty, thus endangering the lives (or, I should rather say, the property, for, as it is impossible to sleep, lives are emphatically safe) of the whole community. They retire about five o'clock in the morning, previously to this blessed event posting notices to that effect, and that they will throw any one who may disturb them into the river. I am nearly worn out for want of rest, for, truly, they "make night hideous" with their fearful uproar. Mr. Oxley, who still lies dangerously ill from the wound received on what we call the "fatal Sunday," complains bitterly of the disturbances; and when poor Pizarro was dying, and one of his friends gently requested that they be quiet for half an hour and permit the soul of the sufferer to pass in peace, they only laughed and yelled and hooted louder than ever in the presence of the departing spirit, for the tenement in which he lay, being composed of green boughs only, could, of course, shut out no sounds. Without doubt, if the Moguls had been sober, they would never have been guilty of such horrible barbarity as to compel the thoughts of a dying man to mingle with curses and blasphemies, but, alas! they were intoxicated, and may God forgive them, unhappy ones, for they knew not what they did. The poor, exhausted miners—for even well people cannot sleep in such a pandemonium—grumble and complain, but they, although far outnumbering the rioters, are too timid to resist. All say, "It is shameful," "Something ought to be done," "Something must be done," etc., and in the mean time the rioters triumph; You will wonder that the committee of vigilance does not interfere. It is said that some of that very committee are the ringleaders among the Moguls.

I believe I have related to you everything but the duel, and I will make the recital of this as short as possible, for I am sick of these sad subjects, and doubt not but you are the same. It took place on Tuesday morning, at eight o'clock, on Missouri Bar, when and where that same Englishman who has figured so largely in my letter shot his best friend. The duelists were surrounded by a large crowd, I have been told, foremost among which stood the committee of vigilance! The man who received his dear friend's fatal shot was one of the most quiet and peaceable citizens on the Bar. He lived about ten minutes after he was wounded. He was from Ipswich, England, and only twenty-five years old when his own high passions snatched him from life. In justice to his opponent it must be said that he would willingly have retired after the first shots had been exchanged, but poor Billy Leggett, as he was familiarly called, insisted upon having the distance between them shortened, and continuing the duel until one of them had fallen.

There, my dear M., have I not fulfilled my promise of giving you a dish of horrors? And only think of such a shrinking, timid, frail thing as I used to be "long time ago" not only living right in the midst of them, but almost compelled to hear, if not see, the whole. I think I may without vanity affirm that I have "seen the elephant." "Did you see his tail?" asks innocent Ada J., in her mother's letter. Yes, sweet Ada; the entire animal has been exhibited to my view. "But you must remember that this is California," as the new-comers are so fond of informing us! who consider ourselves "one of the oldest inhabitants" of the Golden State.

And now, dear M., adios. Be thankful that you are living in the beautiful quiet of beautiful A., and give up "hankering arter" (as you know what dear creature says) California, for, believe me, this coarse, barbarous life would suit you even less than it does your sister.

Letter the Twentieth

[The Pioneer, September, 1855]

MURDER—MINING SCENES—SPANISH BREAKFAST

SYNOPSIS

Ramada, unoccupied, wrecked by log rolling down hill. Was place of residence of wounded Spaniard, who died but a few days previously. Murder near Indian Bar. Innocent and harmless person arrested, said to answer description of murderer. A humorous situation. A "guard of honor" from the vigilantes while in custody. Upon release his expenses paid. Had a rest from hard work. Tendered a present and a handsome apology. Public opinion in the mines a cruel but fortunately a fickle thing. Invitation to author to breakfast at Spanish garden. The journey thereto, along river, with its busy mining scenes. The wing-dam, and how it differs from the ordinary dam. An involuntary bath. Drifts, shafts, coyote-holes. How claims are worked. Flumes. Unskilled workmen. Their former professions or occupations. The best water in California, but the author is unappreciative. Flavorless, but, since the Flood, always tastes of sinners. Don Juan's country-seat. The Spanish breakfast. The eatables and the drinkables. Stronger spirits for the stronger spirits. Ice, through oversight, the only thing lacking. Yank's tame cub. Parodic doggerel by the author on her loss of pets. A miners' dinner-party with but one teaspoon, and that one borrowed. An unlearned and wearisome blacksmith.

Letter the Twentieth

Murder—Mining Scenes—Spanish Breakfast

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

September 4, 1852.

If I could coax some good-natured fairy or some mischievous Puck to borrow for me the pen of Grace Greenwood, Fanny Forester, or Nathaniel P. Willis, I might be able to weave my stupid nothings into one of those airy fabrics the value of which depends entirely upon the skillful work, or rather penmanship, which distinguishes it. I have even fancied that if I could steal a feather from the living opal swinging like a jeweled pendulum from the heart of the great tiger-lily which nods its turbaned head so stately within the mosquito-net cage standing upon the little table, my poor lines would gather a certain beauty from the rainbow-tinted quill with which I might trace them. But as there is nobody magician enough to go out and shoot a fairy or a brownie and bind it by sign and spell to do my bidding, and as I have strong doubts whether my coarse fingers would be able to manage the delicate pen of a humming-bird even if I could have the heart to rob my only remaining pet of its brilliant feathers, I am fain to be content with one of "Gillott's Best,"—no, of "C. R. Sheton's Extra Fine," although I am certain that the sentences following its hard stroke will be as stiff as itself. If they were only as bright, one might put up with the want of grace, but to be stiff and stupid both, is too provoking, is it not, dear M.? However, what must be, must be; and as I have nothing to write about, and do not possess the skill to make that nothing graceful, and as you will fret yourself into a scold if you do not receive the usual amount of inked pages at the usual time, why, of course I am bound to act (my first appearance on any stage, I flatter myself in that character) the very original part of the bore, and you must prepare to be bored with what philosophy you may.

But, without further preface, I will begin with one of the nothings. A few days after the death of the unfortunate Spaniard, related in my last letter, a large log, felled by some wickedly careless woodman, rolled down from one of the hills, and so completely extinguished the little ramada in which our poor friend lay at the time of his death that you would never have imagined from the heap of broken branches that remain that it had once been a local habitation with such a pretty name. Providentially, at the time of the accident, none of those who had been in the habit of staying there were within. If Señor Pizarro had survived the amputation of his leg, it would only have been to suffer a still more terrible death,—an accident which would have deepened, if possible, the gloom which we have suffered during the melancholy summer.

There has been another murder committed within a few miles of this place, which has given us something to gossip about, for the committee of vigilance had the good nature, purely for our amusement I conclude, to apprehend a lucky individual (I call him lucky advisedly, for he had all his expenses paid at the Humboldt, was remunerated for his lost time, enjoyed a holiday from hard work, had a sort of guard of honor composed of the most respectable men on the river, and was of more consequence for four days than ever he had been in the whole of his insignificant little life before) whom somebody fancied bore a faint resemblance to the description of the murderer. This interesting lion—I was so fortunate as to catch a glimpse of him one morning, and am convinced that he would "roar you as gently as any sucking dove"—was fully cleared from the suspected crime; and if, before his acquittal, one might have fancied from the descriptions of his countenance that none but that of Mephistopheles in the celebrated picture of the Game of Life could equal its terrific malignity, after-accounts drew it a very Saint John's for sweet serenity of expression. What was then called sullenness now took the name of resignation, and stupidity was quiet contempt. Indeed, I began to fear that they would give him a public triumph, and invite me to make the flag with which to grace it. I confess that I would almost have voted him a procession myself, in gratitude for the amusement which he had given us. However, the committee were content with making him a handsome apology and present, and paying his expenses at the Humboldt. O public opinion in the mines, thou art in truth a cruel thing, but, thank God, most fickle!

The other day we were invited by a Spanish friend to breakfast at a garden situated half a mile from The Junction, and owned by another Spaniard. It was a lovely morning in the latter part of August, and as we started about six o'clock, the walk was a most delightful one. The river, filled with flumes, dams, etc., and crowded with busy miners, was as much altered from its old appearance as if an earthquake had frightened it from its propriety.

I suppose that you are quite worn out with descriptions of walks, and I will spare you this once. I will not tell you how sometimes we were stepping lightly over immense rocks which a few months since lay fathoms deep beneath the foaming Plumas; nor how sometimes we were walking high above the bed of the river, from flume to flume, across a board connecting the two; nor how now we were scrambling over the roots of the upturned trees, and now jumping tiny rivulets; nor shall I say a single word about the dizziness we felt as we crept by the deep excavations lying along the road, nor of the beautiful walk at the side of the wing-dam (it differs from a common dam, in dividing the river lengthways instead of across), the glittering water rising bluely almost to a level with the path. I do not think that I will ever tell you about the impromptu bath which one of the party took by tumbling accidentally into the river as he was walking gallantly behind us, which said bath made him decidedly disagree in our enthusiastic opinion of the loveliness of the promenade.

No; I shall not say a single word upon any of these subjects, but leave them all to your vivid imagination. Corkscrews could not draw a solitary sentence from me, now that I have made up my mind to silence. But I will tell you about the driftings in the side of the hill, which we visited on our way,—not so much from a precious desire of enlightening your pitiable ignorance upon such subjects, you poor, little, untraveled Yankee woman! but to prove to you that, having fathomed the depths of shafts, and threaded the mazes of coyote-holes, I intend to astonish the weak nerves of stay-at-homes, if I ever return to New England, by talking learnedly upon such subjects, as one having authority.

These particular "claims" consist of three galleries lying about eighty feet beneath the summit of the hill, and have already been drifted from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet into its side. They are about five feet in height, slightly arched, the sides and roof, formed of rugged rocks, dripping with moisture, as if sweating beneath the great weight above. Lights are placed at regular distances along these galleries to assist the miners in their work, and boards laid on the wet ground to make a convenient path for the wheelbarrows which convey the dirt and sand to the river for the purpose of washing it. Wooden beams are placed here and there to lessen the danger of caving in, but I must confess that in spite of this precaution I was at first haunted with a horrible feeling of insecurity. As I became reassured I repeated loudly those glorious lines of Mrs. Hemans commencing with—

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,

O God, our fathers' God!

And a strange echo the gray rocks sent back, as if the mine-demons, those ugly gnomes which German legends tell us work forever in the bowels of the earth, were shouting my words in mockery from the dim depths beyond.

These claims have paid remarkably well, and if they hold out as they have commenced, the owners will gather a small fortune from their summer's work.

There is nothing which impresses me more strangely than the fluming operations. The idea of a mighty river being taken up in a wooden trough, turned from the old channel along which it has foamed for centuries perhaps, its bed excavated many feet in depth, and itself restored to its old home in the fall,—these things strike me as almost a blasphemy against nature, And then the idea of men succeeding in such a work here in the mountains, with machinery and tools of the poorest description, to say nothing of the unskilled workmen,—doctors, lawyers, ministers, scholars, gentlemen, farmers, etc.

When we arrived at the little oak-opening described in a former letter, we were, of course, in duty bound to take a draft from the spring, which its admirers declare is the best water in all California. When it came to my turn, I complacently touched the rusty tin cup, though I never did care much for water, in the abstract, as water. Though I think it very useful to make coffee, tea, chocolate, and other good drinks, I could never detect any other flavor in it than that of cold, and have often wondered whether there was any truth in the remark of a character in some play, that, ever since the world was drowned in it, it had tasted of sinners!

When we arrived at what may be called, in reference to the Bar, the country-seat of Don Juan, we were ushered into the parlor, two sides of which opened upon the garden and the grand old mountains which rise behind it, while the other two sides and the roof were woven with fresh willow boughs, crisply green, and looking as if the dew had scarcely yet dried from the polished leaves.

After opening some cans of peaches, and cutting up some watermelons gathered from the garden, our friends went in to, or rather out to, the kitchen fire (two or three stones are generally the extent of this useful apartment in the mines) to assist in preparing the breakfast—and such a breakfast! If "Tadger could do it when it chose," so can we miners. We had—but what did we not have? There were oysters which, I am sure, could not have been nicer had they just slid from their shells on the shore at Amboy; salmon, in color like the red, red gold; venison with a fragrant spicy gusto, as if it had been fed on cedar-buds; beef cooked in the Spanish fashion,—that is, strung onto a skewer and roasted on the coals,—than which I never tasted better; preserved chicken; and almost every possible vegetable bringing up the rear. Then, for drinkables, we had tea, coffee, and chocolate; champagne, claret, and porter, with stronger spirits for the stronger spirits. We lacked but one thing. That was ice; which we forgot to bring from the Bar. As, only four miles from our cabin, the snow never melts, that is a luxury we are never without, and, indeed, so excessively warm has been the season, that without it, and the milk which has been brought us daily from a rancho five miles from here, we should have suffered. I must say that even though we had no ice, our mountain picnic, with its attendant dandies in their blue and red flannel shirts, was the most charming affair of the kind that I ever attended.

On our return we called to see Yank's cub, which is fast rising into young grizzly-bearhood. It is about the size of a calf, very good-natured, and quite tame. Its acquirements, as yet, are few, being limited to climbing a pole. Its education has not been conducted with that care and attention which so intelligent a beast merits, but it is soon, I hear, to be removed to the valley and placed under teachers capable of developing its wonderful talents to the utmost.

We also stopped at a shanty to get a large gray squirrel which had been promised to me some days before; but I certainly am the most unfortunate wretch in the world with pets. This spiteful thing, on purpose to annoy me I do believe, went and got itself drowned the very night before I was to take it home. It is always so.

I never had two humming-birds,

With plumage like a sunset sky,

But one was sure to fly away,

And the other one was sure to die.

I never nursed a flying-squirrel,

To glad me with its soft black eye,

But it always ran into somebody's tent,

Got mistaken for a rat and killed!

There, M.; there is poetry for you. "Oh, the second verse doesn't rhyme."—"Doesn't?"—"And it ain't original, is it?" Well, I never heard that rhyme was necessary to make a poet, any more than colors to make a painter. And what if Moore did say the same thing twenty years ago? I am sure any writer would consider himself lucky to have an idea which has been anticipated but once. I am tired of being a "mute inglorious Milton," and, like that grand old master of English song, would gladly write something which the world would not willingly let die; and having made that first step, as witness the above verses, who knows what will follow?

Last night one of our neighbors had a dinner-party. He came in to borrow a teaspoon. "Had you not better take them all?" I said. "Oh, no," was the answer; "that would be too much luxury. My guests are not used to it, and they would think that I was getting aristocratic, and putting on airs. One is enough; they can pass it round from one to the other."

A blacksmith—not the learned one—has just entered, inquiring for the Doctor, who is not in, and he is obliged to wait. Shall I write down the conversation with which he is at this moment entertaining me? "Who writ this 'ere?" is his first remark, taking up one of my most precious books, and leaving the marks of his irreverent fingers upon the clean pages. "Shakespeare," I answer, as politely as possible. "Did Spokeshave write it? He was an almighty smart fellow, that Spokeshave, I've hear'n tell," replies my visitor. "I must write hum and tell our folks that this 'ere is the first carpet I've seen sin' I came to Californy, four year come next month," is his next remark. For the last half-hour he has been entertaining me with a wearisome account of the murder of his brother by an Irishman in Boston, and the chief feeling which he exhibits is a fear that the jury should only bring in a verdict of manslaughter. But I hear F.'s step, and his entrance relieves me from the bore.

I am too tired to write more. Alas, dear M. this letter is indeed a stupid one—a poor return for your pregnant epistles. It is too late to better it. The express goes at eight in the morning. The midnight moon is looking wonderingly in at the cabin window, and the river has a sleepy murmur that impels me irresistibly bedward.

Letter the Twenty-first

[The Pioneer, October, 1855]

DISCOMFORTS of TRIP to POLITICAL CONVENTION

SYNOPSIS

Visit to the American Valley. Journey thither. Scenes by the way. Political convention. Delegates from Indian Bar. Arrival at Greenwood's Rancho, headquarters of Democrats. Overcrowded. Party proceed to the American Rancho, headquarters of Whigs. Also overcrowded. Tiresome ride of ladies on horseback. Proceed to house of friend of lady in party. An inhospitable reception, but the author entertains herself. Men of party return to American Rancho. Inroad upon the eatables. Landlord aghast, but pacified by generous orders for drinkables. California houses not proof against eavesdroppers. Misunderstandings and explanations overheard by the author. Illness of hostess. Uncomfortable and miserable night, and worse quarters. Handsome riding-habit, etc., of the hostess. Table-service, carpeting, chests of tea, casks of sugar, bags of coffee, etc., "the good people possessed everything but a house". "The most beautiful spot I ever saw in California". Owner building house of huge hewn logs. The author returns to the American Rancho. Its primitive furniture, etc. Political visitors. The convention. Horse-racing and gambling. The author goes to Greenwood's Rancho. More primitive furniture and lack of accommodations. Misplaced benevolence of Bostonians. Should transfer their activities to California.

Letter the Twenty-first

Discomforts of Trip to Political Convention

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

October 16, 1852.

Since I last wrote you, dear M., I have spent three weeks in the American Valley, and I returned therefrom humbled to the very dust when thinking of my former vainglorious boast of having "seen the elephant." To be sure, if having fathomed to its very depths the power of mere existence, without any reference to those conventional aids which civilization has the folly to think necessary to the performance of that agreeable duty, was any criterion, I certainly fancied that I had a right to brag of having taken a full view of that most piquant specimen of the brute creation, the California "elephant." But it seems that I was mistaken, and that we miners have been dwelling in perfect palaces, surrounded by furniture of the most gorgeous description, and reveling in every possible luxury. Well, one lives and learns, even on the borders of civilization. But to begin at the beginning, let me tell you the history of my dreadful pleasure-tour to the American Valley.

You must know that a convention had been appointed to meet at that place for the purpose of nominating representatives for the coming election. As F. had the misfortune to be one of the delegates, nothing would do but I must accompany him; for, as my health had really suffered through the excitements of the summer, he fancied that change of air might do me good. Mrs. ——, one of our new ladies, had been invited to spend a few weeks in the same place, at the residence of a friend of her husband, who was living there with his family. As Mr. —— was also one of the delegates, we made up a party together, and, being joined by two or three other gentlemen, formed quite a gay cavalcade.

The day was beautiful. But when is it ever otherwise in the mountains of California? We left the Bar by another ascent than the one from which I entered the Bar, and it was so infinitely less steep than the latter, that it seemed a mere nothing. You, however, would have fancied it quite a respectably hill, and Mr. —— said that so fearful did it seem to him the first time he went down it, that he vowed never to cross it but once more,—a vow, by the way, which has been broken many times. The whole road was a succession of charming tableaux, in which sparkling streamlets, tiny waterfalls, frisky squirrels gleaming amid the foliage like a flash of red light, quails with their pretty gray plumage flecked with ivory, dandy jays, great awkward black crows, pert little lizards, innumerable butterflies, and a hundred other

Plumèd insects, winged and free,

Like golden boats on a sunny sea,

were the characters, grouped in a frame of living green, curtained with the blue folds of our inimitable sky.

We had intended to start very early in the morning, but, as usual on such excursions, did not get off until about ten o'clock. Somebody's horse came up missing, or somebody's saddle needed repairing, or somebody's shirt did not come home in season from the washer-Chinaman (for if we do wear flannel shirts, we choose to have them clean when we ride out with the ladies), or something else equally important detained us. It was about nine o'clock in the evening when we reached the valley and rode up to Greenwood's Rancho, which, by the way, was the headquarters of the Democratic party. It was crowded to overflowing, as our ears told us long before we came in sight of it, and we found it utterly impossible to obtain lodgings there. This building has no windows, but a strip of crimson calico, placed half-way from the roof and running all round the house, lets in the red light and supplies their place. However, we did not stop long to enjoy the pictorial effect of the scarlet windows,—which really look very prettily in the night,—but rode straight to the American Rancho, a quarter of a mile beyond. This was the headquarters of the Whigs, to which party our entire company, excepting myself, belonged. Indeed, the gentlemen had only consented to call at the other house through compassion for the ladies, who were suffering from extreme fatigue, and they were rejoiced at the prospect of getting among birds of the same feather. There, however, we were informed that it was equally impossible to procure accommodations. In this dilemma we could do nothing but accept Mrs. ——'s kind invitation and accompany her to the rancho of her friend, although she herself had intended, as it was so late, to stop at one of the hotels for the night. We were so lucky as to procure a guide at this place, and with this desirable addition to the party, we started on.

I had been very sick for the last two hours, and had only kept up with the thought that we should soon arrive at our journey's end; but when I found that we were compelled to ride three miles farther, my heart sank within me. I gave up all attempts to guide my horse, which one of the party led, leaned my head on the horn of my saddle, and resigned myself to my fate. We were obliged to walk our horses the entire distance, as I was too sick to endure any other motion. We lost our way once or twice, were exhausted with fatigue and faint with hunger, chilled through with the cold, and our feet wet with the damp night-air.

I forgot to tell you that Mrs. ——, being very fleshy, was compelled to ride astride, as it would have been utterly impossible for her to have kept her seat if she had attempted to cross those steep hills in the usual feminine mode of sitting a horse. She wore dark-gray bloomers, and, with a Kossuth hat and feather, looked like a handsome chubby boy. Now, riding astride, to one unaccustomed to it, is, as you can easily imagine, more safe than comfortable, and poor Mrs. —— was utterly exhausted.

When we arrived at our destined haven, which we did at last, the gentleman of the house came forward and invited Mr. and Mrs. —— to alight. Not a word was said to the rest of us, not even "Good evening." But I was too far gone to stand upon ceremony. So I dismounted and made a rush for the cooking-stove, which, in company with an immense dining-table on which lay (enchanting sight!) a quarter of beef, stood under a roof, the four sides open to the winds of heaven. As for the remainder of the party, they saw how the land lay, and vamosed to parts unknown, namely, the American Rancho, where they arrived at four o'clock in the morning, some tired, I guess, and made such a fearful inroad upon the eatables that the proprietor stood aghast, and was only pacified by the ordering in from the bar of a most generous supply of the drinkable, which, as he sells it by the glass, somewhat reconciled him to the terrific onslaught upon the larder.

In the mean time behold me, with much more truth than poetry literally alone in my glory, seated upon a wooden stool, with both feet perched upon the stove, and crouching over the fire in a vain attempt to coax some warmth into my thoroughly chilled frame. The gentleman and lady of the house, with Mr. and Mrs. ——, are assembled in grand conclave, in one room, of which the building consists, and as California houses are not planned with a view to eavesdroppers, I have the pleasure of hearing the following spirited and highly interesting conversation. There is a touching simplicity about it truly dramatic.

I must premise that Mrs. —— had written the day before to know if the visit, which her husband's friend had so earnestly solicited, would be conveniently received at this time, and was answered by the arrival, the next morning, for the use of herself and husband, of two horses, one of which I myself had the pleasure of riding, and found it a most excellent steed. Moreover, when Mr. —— gave her the invitation, he said he would be pleased to have one of her lady friends accompany her. So you see she was "armed and equipped as the law directed."

Thus defended, she was ushered into the presence of her hostess, whom she found reclining gracefully upon a very nice bed hung with snow-white muslin curtains, looking—for she is extremely pretty, though now somewhat pale—like a handsome wax doll.

"I am extremely sorry to find you unwell. Pray, when were you taken? and are you suffering much at present?" commenced Mrs. ——, supposing that her illness was merely an attack of headache, or some other temporary sickness.

"Ah," groaned my lady, in a faint voice, "I have had a fever, and am just beginning to get a little better. I have not been able to sit up any yet, but hope to do so in a few days. As we have no servants, my husband is obliged to nurse me, as well as to cook for several men, and I am really afraid that, under the circumstances, you will not be as comfortable here as I could wish."

"But, good heavens, my dear madam, why did you not send me word that you were sick? Surely you must have known that it would be more agreeable to me to visit you when you are in health," replied Mrs. ——.

"Oh," returned our fair invalid, "I thought that you had set your heart upon coming, and would be disappointed if I postponed the visit."

Now, this was adding insult to injury. Poor Mrs. ——! Worn out with hunger, shivering with cold, herself far from well, a new-comer, unused to the makeshift ways which some people fancy essential to California life, expecting from the husband's representations—and knowing that he was very rich—so different a reception, and withal frank perhaps to a fault, she must be pardoned if she was not as grateful as she ought to have been, and answered a little crossly,—

"Well, I must say that I have not been treated well. Did you really think that I was so childishly crazy to get away from home that I would leave my nice plank house,"—it rose into palatial splendor when compared with the floorless shanty, less comfortable than a Yankee farmer's barn, in which she was standing,—"with its noble fireplace, nice board floor, two pleasant windows, and comfortable bed, for this wretched place? Upon my word, I am very much disappointed. However, I do not care so much for myself as for poor Mrs. ——, whom I persuaded to come with me."

"What! is there another lady?" almost shrieked (and well she might, under the circumstances) the horror-stricken hostess. "You can sleep with me, but I am sure I do not know what we can do with another one."

"Certainly," was the bold reply of Mrs. ——, for she was too much provoked to be embarrassed in the least. "Availing myself of your husband's kind permission, I invited Mrs. ——, who could not procure lodgings at either of the hotels, to accompany me. But even if I were alone I should decidedly object to sleep with a sick person, and should infinitely prefer wrapping myself in my shawl and lying on the ground to being guilty of such a piece of selfishness."

"Well," groaned the poor woman, "Jonathan" (or Ichabod, or David, or whatever was the domestic name of her better half), "I suppose that you must make up some kind of a bed for them on the ground."

Now, M., only fancy my hearing all this! Wasn't it a fix for a sensitive person to be in? But, instead of bursting into tears and making myself miserable, as once I should have done, I enjoyed the contretemps immensely. It almost cured my headache, and when Mrs. —— came to me and tried to soften matters, I told her to spare her pretty speeches, as I had heard the whole and would not have missed it for anything.

In the mean time the useful little man, combining in his small person the four functions of husband, cook, nurse, and gentleman, made us a cup of tea and some saleratus biscuit, and though I detest saleratus biscuit, and was longing for some of the beef, yet, by killing the taste of the alkali with onions, we contrived to satisfy our hunger, and the tea warmed us a little. Our host, in his capacity of chambermaid, had prepared us a couch. I was ushered into the presence of the fair invalid, to whom I made a polite apology for my intrusion. My feet sank nearly to the ankles in the dirt and small stones as I walked across her room.

But how shall I describe to you the sufferings of that dreadful night? I have slept on tables, on doors, and on trunks. I have reclined on couches, on chairs, and on the floor. I have lain on beds of straw, of corn-husks, of palm-leaf, and of ox-hide. I remember one awful night spent in a bedbuggy berth, on board of a packet-boat on one of the lakes. In my younger days I used to allow myself to be stretched upon the Procrustes bed of other people's opinion, though I have got bravely over such folly, and now I generally act, think, and speak as best pleases myself. I slept two glorious nights on the bare turf, with my saddle for a pillow and God's kindly sky for a quilt. I had heard of a bed of thorns, of the soft side of a plank, and of the bed-rock. But all my bodily experience, theoretical or practical, sinks into insignificance before a bed of cobblestones. Nothing in ancient or modern history can compare with it, unless it be the Irishman's famous down couch, which consisted of a single feather laid upon a rock, and, like him, if it had not been for the name of it, I should have preferred the bare rock. They said that there was straw in the ticking upon which we lay, but I should never have imagined so from the feeling. We had neither pillows nor sheets, but the coarsest blue blankets, and not enough of them, for bedclothes; so that we suffered with cold, to add to our other miseries. And then the fleas! Well, like the Grecian artist who veiled the face whose anguish he dared not attempt to depict, I will leave to your imagination that blackest portion of our strange experiences on that awful occasion.

What became of Mr. ——, our host, etc., on this dreadful night, was never known. Mrs. —— and I held council together, and concluded that he was spirited away to some friendly haystack, but as he himself maintained a profound silence on the subject, it remains to this hour an impenetrable mystery, and will be handed down to posterity on the page of history with that of the man in the iron mask, and the more modern but equally insolvable riddle of "Who struck Billy Patterson?"

As soon as it was light we awoke and glanced around the room. On one side hung a large quantity of handsome dresses, with a riding-habit, hat, gauntlets, whip, saddle and bridle, all of the most elegant description. On the other side, a row of shelves contained a number of pans of milk. There was also a very pretty table-service of white crockery, a roll of white carpeting, boxes of soap, chests of tea, casks of sugar, bags of coffee, etc., etc., in the greatest profusion.

We went out into the air. The place, owned by our host, is the most beautiful spot that I ever saw in California. We stood in the midst of a noble grove of the loftiest and largest trees, through which ran two or three carriage-roads, with not a particle of undergrowth to be seen in any direction. Somewhere near the center of this lovely place he is building a house of hewn logs. It will be two stories high, and very large. He intends finishing it with the piazza all around, the first-floor windows to the ground, green blinds, etc. He informed us that he thought it would be finished in three weeks. You can see that it would have been much pleasanter for Mrs. —— to have had the privilege of deferring her visit for a month.

We had a most excellent breakfast. As Mrs. —— said, the good people possessed everything but a house.

Soon after breakfast, my friends, who suspected from appearances the night before that I should not prove a very welcome visitor, came for me, the wife of the proprietor of the American Rancho having good-naturedly retired to the privacy of a covered wagon (she had just crossed the plains) and placed her own room at my disposal. Mrs. —— insisted upon accompanying me until her friend was better. As she truly said, she was too unwell herself to either assist or amuse another invalid.

My apartment, which was built of logs, was vexatiously small, with no way of letting in light, except by the door. It was as innocent of a floor, and almost as thickly strewn with cobblestones, as the one which I had just left; but then, there were some frames built against the side of it, which served for a bedstead, and we had sheets, which, though coarse, were clean. Here, with petticoats, stockings, shoes, and shirts hanging against the logs in picturesque confusion, we received calls from senators, representatives, judges, attorney-generals, doctors, lawyers, officers, editors, and ministers.

The convention came off the day after our arrival in the valley, and as both of the nominees were from our settlement, we began to think that we were quite a people.

Horse-racing and gambling, in all their detestable varieties, were the order of the day. There was faro and poker for the Americans, monte for the Spaniards, lansquenet for the Frenchmen, and smaller games for the outsiders.

At the close of the convention the rancho passed into new hands, and as there was much consequent confusion, I went over to Greenwood's, and Mrs. —— returned to the house of her friend, where, having ordered two or three hundred armfuls of hay to be strewn on the ground, she made a temporary arrangement with some boards for a bedstead, and fell to making sheets from one of the innumerable rolls of cloth which lay about in every direction, for, as I said before, these good people had everything but a house.

My new room, with the exception of its red-calico window, was exactly like the old one. Although it was very small, a man and his wife (the latter was the housekeeper of the establishment) slept there also. With the aid of those everlasting blue blankets I curtained off our part, so as to obtain some small degree of privacy. I had one large pocket-handkerchief (it was meant for a young sheet) on my bed, which was filled with good, sweet, fresh hay, and plenty of the azure coverings, so short and narrow that, when once we had lain down, it behooved us to remain perfectly still until morning, as the least movement disarranged the bed-furniture and insured us a shivering night.

On the other side of the partition, against which our bedstead was built, stood the cooking-stove, in which they burnt nothing but pitch-pine wood. As the room was not lined, and the boards very loosely put together, the soot sifted through in large quantities and covered us from head to foot, and though I bathed so often that my hands were dreadfully chapped, and bled profusely from having them so much in the water, yet, in spite of my efforts, I looked like a chimney-sweep masquerading in women's clothes.

As it was very cold at this time, the damp ground upon which we were living gave me a severe cough, and I suffered so much from chillness that at last I betook myself to Rob Roy shawls and india-rubbers, and for the rest of the time walked about, a mere bundle of gum elastic and Scotch plaid. My first move in the morning was to go out and sit upon an old traveling wagon which stood in front of my room, in order, like an old beggar-woman, to gather a little warmth from the sun.

Mrs. —— said, "The Bostonians were horror-stricken because the poor Irish, who had never known any other mode of living, had no floors in their cabins, and were getting up all sorts of Howard benevolent societies to supply unfortunate Pat with what is to him an unwished-for luxury." She thought that they would be much better employed in organizing associations for ameliorating the condition of those wretched women in California who were so mad as to leave their comfortable homes in the mines to go a-pleasuring in the valleys.

My poor husband suffered even more than I did, for though he had a nominal share in my luxurious bed with its accompanying pocket-handkerchief, yet, as Mrs. —— took it into her head to pay me a visit, he was obliged to resign it to her and betake himself to the barroom, and as every bunk and all the blankets were engaged, he was compelled to lie on the bar-floor (thank Heaven, there was a civilized floor there, of real boards), with his boots for a pillow.

But I am sure you must be tired of this long letter, for I am, and I reserve the rest of my adventures in the American Valley until another time.

Letter the Twenty-second

[The Pioneer, November, 1855]

The OVERLAND TIDE of IMMIGRATION

SYNOPSIS

Exoneration of landlords for conditions at Greenwood's Rancho. The American Valley. Prospective summer resort. Prodigious vegetables. New England scenery compared with that of California. Greenwood's Rancho. Place of origin of quartz hoax. Beautiful stones. Recruiting-place of overland immigrants. Haggard immigrant women. Death and speedy burial on the plains. Handsome young widow immigrant. Aspirants to matrimony candidates for her hand. Interesting stories of adventures on the plains. Four women, sisters or sisters-in-law, and their thirty-six children. Accomplished men. Infant prodigies. A widow with eight sons and one daughter. Primitive laundering, but generous patrons. The bloomer costume appropriate for overland journey. Dances in barroom. Unwilling female partners. Some illiterate immigrants. Many intelligent and well-bred women. The journey back to Indian Bar. The tame frog in the rancho barroom. The dining-table a bed at night. Elation of the author on arriving at her own log cabin.

Letter the Twenty-second

The Overland Tide of Immigration

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

October 27, 1852.

In my last epistle, my dear M., I left myself safely ensconced at Greenwood's Rancho, in about as uncomfortable a position as a person could well be, where board was fourteen dollars a week. Now, you must not think that the proprietors were at all to blame for our miserable condition. They were, I assure you, very gentlemanly and intelligent men, and I owe them a thousand thanks for the many acts of kindness and the friendly efforts which they made to amuse and interest me while I was in their house. They said from the first that they were utterly unprepared to receive ladies, and it was only after some persuasion, and as a favor to me, that they consented to let me come. They intend soon to build a handsome house, for it is thought that this valley will be a favorite summer resort for people from the cities below.

The American Valley is one of the most beautiful in all California. It is seven miles long and three or four wide, with the Feather River wending its quiet way through it, unmolested by flumes and undisturbed by wing-dams. It is a superb farming country, everything growing in the greatest luxuriance. I saw turnips there which measured larger round than my waist, and all other vegetables in the same proportion. There are beautiful rides in every direction, though I was too unwell during my stay there to explore them as I wished. There is one drawback upon the beauty of these valleys, and it is one peculiar to all the scenery in this part of California, and that is, the monotonous tone of the foliage, nearly all the trees being firs. One misses that infinite variety of waving forms, and those endless shades of verdure, which make New England forest scenery so exquisitely lovely. And then that gorgeous autumnal phenomenon, witnessed, I believe, nowhere but in the Northern States of the Union, one never sees here. How often, in my far-away Yankee home, have I laid me down at eve, with the whole earth looking so freshly green, to rise in the morning and behold the wilderness blossoming, not only like the rose, but like all other flowers besides, and glittering as if a shower of butterflies had fallen upon it during the silent watches of the night. I have a vague idea that I "hooked" that butterfly comparison from somebody. If so, I beg the injured person's pardon, and he or she may have a hundred of mine to pay for it.

It was at Greenwood's Rancho that the famous quartz hoax originated last winter, which so completely gulled our good miners on the river. I visited the spot, which has been excavated to some extent. The stone is very beautiful, being lined and streaked and splashed with crimson, purple, green, orange, and black. There was one large white block, veined with stripes of a magnificent blood-red color, and partly covered with a dark mass, which was the handsomest thing of the kind I ever saw. Some of the crystallizations were wonderfully perfect. I had a piece of the bed-rock given me, completely covered with natural prisms varying in size from an inch down to those not larger than the head of a pin.

Much of the immigration from across the plains, on its way to the cities below, stops here for a while to recruit. I always had a strange fancy for that nomadic way of coming to California. To lie down under starry skies, hundreds of miles from any human habitation, and to rise up on dewy mornings to pursue our way through a strange country, so wildly beautiful, seeing each day something new and wonderful, seemed to me truly enchanting. But cruel reality strips everything of its rose tints. The poor women arrive looking as haggard as so many Endorian witches, burnt to the color of a hazelnut, with their hair cut short, and its gloss entirely destroyed by the alkali, whole plains of which they are compelled to cross on the way. You will hardly find a family that has not left some beloved one buried upon the plains. And they are fearful funerals, those. A person dies, and they stop just long enough to dig his grave and lay him in it as decently as circumstances will permit, and the long train hurries onward, leaving its healthy companion of yesterday, perhaps, in this boundless city of the dead. On this hazardous journey they dare not linger.

I was acquainted with a young widow of twenty, whose husband died of cholera when they were but five weeks on their journey. He was a judge in one of the Western States, and a man of some eminence in his profession. She is a pretty little creature, and all the aspirants to matrimony are candidates for her hand.

One day a party of immigrant women came into my room, which was also the parlor of the establishment. Some observation was made, which led me to inquire of one of them if her husband was with her.

"She hain't got no husband," fairly chuckled one of her companions. "She came with me, and her feller died of cholera on the plains."

At this startling and brutal announcement the poor girl herself gave a hysteric giggle, which I at first thought proceeded from heartlessness, but I was told afterwards, by the person under whose immediate protection she came out, and who was a sister of her betrothed, that the tender woman's heart received such a fearful shock at the sudden death of her lover, that for several weeks her life was despaired of.

I spent a great deal of time calling at the different encampments, for nothing enchanted me half so much as to hear about this strange exodus from the States. I never weary of listening to stories of adventures on the plains, and some of the family histories are deeply interesting.

I was acquainted with four women, all sisters or sisters-in-law, who had among them thirty-six children, the entire number of which had arrived thus far in perfect health. They could, of themselves, form quite a respectable village.

The immigration this year contained many intelligent and truly elegant persons, who, having caught the fashionable epidemic, had left luxurious homes in the States to come to California. Among others, there was a young gentleman of nineteen, the son of a United States Senator, who, having just graduated, felt adventurous, and determined to cross the plains. Like the rest, he arrived in a somewhat dilapidated condition, with elbows out, and a hat the very counterpart of Sam Weller' s "gossamer ventilation," which, if you remember, "though not a very handsome 'un to look at, was an astonishin' good 'un to wear!" I must confess that he became ragged clothes the best of any one I ever saw, and made me think of the picturesque beggar boys in Murillo's paintings of Spanish life.

Then there was a person who used to sing in public with Ossian Dodge. He had a voice of remarkable purity and sweetness, which he was kind enough to permit us to hear now and then. I hardly know of what nation he claimed to be. His father was an Englishman, his mother an Italian. He was born in Poland, and had lived nearly all his life in the United States. He was not the only musical genius that we had among us. There was a little girl at one of the tents who had taught herself to play on the accordion on the way out. She was really quite a prodigy, singing very sweetly, and accompanying herself with much skill upon the instrument.

There was another child, whom I used to go to look at as I would go to examine a picture. She had, without exception, the most beautiful face I ever saw. Even the alkali had not been able to mar the golden glory of the curls which clustered around that splendid little head. She had soft brown eyes, which shone from beneath their silken lashes like "a tremulous evening star"; a mouth which made you think of a string of pearls threaded on scarlet; and a complexion of the waxen purity of the japonica, with the exception of a band of brownest freckles, which, extending from the tip of each cheek straight across the prettiest possible nose, added, I used to fancy, a new beauty to her enchanting face. She was very fond of me, and used to bring me wild cherries which her brothers had gathered for her. Many a morning I have raised my eyes from my book, startled by that vision of infant loveliness—for her step had the still grace of a snow-flake—standing in beautiful silence by my side.

But the most interesting of all my pets was a widow whom we used to call the "long woman." When but a few weeks on the journey, she had buried her husband, who died of cholera after about six hours' illness. She had come on; for what else could she do? No one was willing to guide her back to her old home in the States, and when I knew her she was living under a large tree a few rods from the rancho, and sleeping at night, with all her family, in her one covered wagon. God only knows where they all stowed themselves away, for she was a modern Mrs. Rogers, with "nine small children and one at the breast." Indeed, of this catechismal number the oldest was but fifteen years of age, and the youngest a nursing babe of six months. She had eight sons and one daughter. Just fancy how dreadful! Only one girl to all that boy! People used to wonder what took me so often to her encampment, and at the interest with which I listened to what they called her stupid talk. Certainly there was nothing poetical about the woman. Leigh Hunt's friend could not have elevated her commonplace into the sublime. She was immensely tall, and had a hard, weather-beaten face, surmounted by a dreadful horn comb and a heavy twist of hay-colored hair, which, before it was cut, and its gloss all destroyed by the alkali, must, from its luxuriance, have been very handsome. But what really interested me so much in her was the dogged and determined way in which she had set that stern, wrinkled face of hers against poverty. She owned nothing in the world but her team, and yet she planned all sorts of successful ways to get food for her small, or rather large, family. She used to wash shirts, and iron them on a chair, in the open air of course, and you can fancy with what success. But the gentlemen were too generous to be critical, and as they paid her three or four times as much as she asked, she accumulated quite a handsome sum in a few days. She made me think of a long-legged very thin hen scratching for dear life to feed her never-to-be-satisfied brood. Poor woman! She told me that she was compelled to allowance her young ones, and that she seldom gave them as much as they could eat at any one meal. She was worse off than the

old woman who lived in a shoe,

And had so many children she didn't know what to do.

To some she gave butter, to some she gave bread,

And to some she gave whippings, and sent them to bed.

Now, my old woman had no butter, and very little bread; and she was so naturally economical that even whippings were sparingly administered. But, after all their privations, they were, with the exception of the eldest hope, as healthy-looking a set of ragged little wretches as ever I saw. The aforesaid "hope" was the longest, the leanest, and the bob-sidedest specimen of a Yankee that it is possible to imagine. He wore a white face, whiter eyes, and whitest hair, and walked about looking as if existence was the merest burden and he wished somebody would have the goodness to take it off his hands. He seemed always to be in the act of yoking up a pair of oxen, and ringing every change of which the English alphabet is capable upon the one single Yankee execration, "Darnation!" which he scattered, in all its comical varieties, upon the tow head of his young brother, a piece of chubby giggle, who was forever trying to hold up a dreadful yoke, which wouldn't "stay put," in spite of all the efforts of those fat dirty little hands of his. The "long woman," mother-like, excused him by saying that he had been sick, though once, when the "Darned fools" flew thicker than usual, she gently observed that he had forgotten that he was a child himself once. He certainly retained no trace of having enjoyed that delightful state of existence, and though one would not be so rude as to call him an old boy, yet, being always clad in a middle-aged habit, an elderly coat, and adult pantaloons, one would as little fancy him a young man. Perhaps the fact of his wearing his father's wardrobe in all its unaltered amplitude might help to confuse one's ideas on the subject.

There was another dear old lady to whom I took the largest kind of a liking, she was so exquisitely neat. Although she too had no floor, her babe always had on a clean white dress, and face to match. She was about four feet high, and had a perfect passion for wearing those frightful frontpieces of false hair with which the young women of L. were once in the habit of covering their abundant tresses. She used to send me little pots of fresh butter,—the first that I had tasted since I left the States,—beautifully stamped, and looking like ingots of virgin gold. I, of course, made a dead-set at the frontpiece, though I do believe that to this distorted taste, and its accompanying horror of a cap, she owed the preservation of her own beautiful hair. To please me she laid it aside, but I am convinced that it was restored to its proud eminence as soon as I left the valley, for she evidently had a "sneaking kindness" for it that nothing could destroy. I have sometimes thought that she wore it from religious principle, thinking it her duty to look as old as possible, for she appeared fifteen years younger when she took it off. She told me that in crossing the plains she used to stop on Saturdays, and taking everything out of the wagons, wash them in strong lye, to which precaution she attributed the perfect health which they all enjoyed (the family, not the wagons) during the whole journey.

There is one thing for which the immigrants deserve high praise, and that is, for having adopted the bloomer dress (frightful as it is on all other occasions) in crossing the plains. For such an excursion it is just the thing.

I ought to say a word about the dances which we used to have in the barroom, a place so low that a very tall man could not have stood upright in it. One side was fitted up as a store, and another side with bunks for lodgers. These bunks were elegantly draperied with red calico, through which we caught dim glimpses of blue blankets. If they could only have had sheets, they would have fairly been enveloped in the American colors. By the way, I wonder if there is anything national in this eternal passion for blue blankets and red calico. On ball-nights the bar was closed, and everything was very quiet and respectable. To be sure, there was some danger of being swept away in a flood of tobacco-juice, but luckily the floor was uneven, and it lay around in puddles, which with care one could avoid, merely running the minor risk of falling prostrate upon the wet boards in the midst of a galopade.

Of course the company was made up principally of the immigrants. Such dancing, such dressing, and such conversation, surely was never heard or seen before. The gentlemen generally were compelled to have a regular fight with their fair partners before they could drag them onto the floor. I am happy to say that almost always the stronger vessel won the day, or rather night, except in the case of certain timid youths, who, after one or two attacks, gave up the battle in despair.

I thought that I had had some experience in bad grammar since I came to California, but these good people were the first that I had ever heard use right royal we instead of us. Do not imagine that all, or even the larger part, of the company were of this description. There were many intelligent and well-bred women, whose acquaintance I made with extreme pleasure.

After reading the description of the inconveniences and discomforts which we suffered in the American Valley,—and I can assure you that I have not at all exaggerated them,—you may imagine my joy when two of our friends arrived from Indian Bar for the purpose of accompanying us home. We took two days for our return, and thus I was not at all fatigued. The weather was beautiful, our friends amusing, and F. well and happy. We stopped at night at a rancho where they had a tame frog. You cannot think how comic it looked hopping about the bar, quite as much at home as a tame squirrel would have been. I had a bed made up for me at this place, on one end of a long dining-table. It was very comfortable, with the trifling drawback that I had to rise earlier than I wished, in order that what had been a bed at night might become a table by day.

We stopped at the top of the hill and set fire to some fir-trees. Oh, how splendidly they looked, with the flames leaping and curling amid the dark green foliage like a golden snake fiercely beautiful. The shriek which the fire gave as it sprang upon its verdant prey made me think of the hiss of some furious reptile about to wrap in its burning folds its helpless victim.

With what perfect delight did I re-enter my beloved log cabin. One of our good neighbors had swept and put it in order before my arrival, and everything was as clean and neat as possible. How grateful to my feet felt the thick warm carpet; how perfect appeared the floor, which I had once reviled (I begged its pardon on the spot) because it was not exactly even; how cozy the old faded-calico couch; how thoroughly comfortable the four chairs (two of them had been thoroughly rebottomed with brown sail-cloth, tastefully put on, with a border of carpet-tacks); how truly elegant the closet-case toilet-table, with the doll's looking-glass hanging above, which showed my face (the first time that I had seen it since I left home) some six shades darker than usual; how convenient the trunk, which did duty as a wash-stand, with its vegetable-dish instead of a bowl (at the rancho I had a pint tin pan when it was not in use in the kitchen); but, above and beyond all, how superbly luxurious the magnificent bedstead, with its splendid hair mattress, its clean, wide linen sheets, its nice square pillows, and its large, generous blankets and quilts. And then the cozy little supper, arrayed on a table-cloth, and the long, delightful evening afterwards, by a fragrant fire of beech and pine, when we talked over our past sufferings. Oh, it was delicious as a dream, and almost made amends for the three dreadful weeks of pleasuring in the American Valley.

Letter the Twenty-third

[The Pioneer, December, 1855]

MINING FAILURES—DEPARTURE from INDIAN BAR

SYNOPSIS

Dread of spending another winter at Indian Bar. Failure of nearly all the fluming companies. Official report of one company. Incidental failure of business people. The author's preparations to depart. Prediction of early rains. High prices cause of dealers' failure to lay in supply of provisions. Probable fatal results to families unable to leave Bar. Rain and snow. The Squire a poor weather prophet. Pack-mule trains with provisions fail to arrive. Amusement found in petty litigation. Legal acumen of the Squire. He wins golden opinions. The judgment all the prevailing party gets. What the constable got in effort to collect judgment. Why Dr. C.'s fee was not paid. A prescription of "calumny and other pizen doctor's stuff". A wonderful gold specimen in the form of a basket. "Weighs about two dollars and a half". How little it takes to make people comfortable. A log-cabin meal and its table-service. The author departs on horseback from Indian Bar. Her regrets upon leaving the mountains. "Feeble, half-dying invalid not recognizable in your now perfectly healthy sister."

Letter the Twenty-third

Mining Failures—Departure from Indian Bar

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

November 21, 1852.

I suppose, Molly dear,—at least, I flatter myself,—that you have been wondering and fretting a good deal for the last few weeks at not hearing from Dame Shirley. The truth is, that I have been wondering and fretting myself almost into a fever at the dreadful prospect of being compelled to spend the winter here, which, on every account, is undesirable.

To our unbounded surprise, we found, on our return from the American Valley, that nearly all the fluming companies had failed. Contrary to every expectation, on arriving at the bed-rock no gold made its appearance. But a short history of the rise, progress, and final fate of one of these associations, given me in writing by its own secretary, conveys a pretty correct idea of the result of the majority of the remainder.

"The thirteen men, of which the American Fluming Company consisted, commenced getting out timber in February. On the 5th of July they began to lay the flume. A thousand dollars were paid for lumber which they were compelled to buy. They built a dam six feet high and three hundred feet in length, upon which thirty men labored nine days and a half. The cost of said dam was estimated at two thousand dollars. This company left off working on the twenty-fourth day of September, having taken out, in all, gold-dust to the amount of forty-one dollars and seventy cents! Their lumber and tools, sold at auction, brought about two hundred dollars."

A very small amount of arithmetical knowledge will enable one to figure up what the American Fluming Company made by their summer's work. This result was by no means a singular one. Nearly every person on the river received the same stepmother's treatment from Dame Nature in this her mountain workshop.

Of course the whole world (our world) was, to use a phrase much in vogue here, "dead broke." The shopkeepers, restaurants, and gambling-houses, with an amiable confidingness peculiar to such people, had trusted the miners to that degree that they themselves were in the same moneyless condition. Such a batch of woeful faces was never seen before, not the least elongated of which was F.'s, to whom nearly all the companies owed large sums.

Of course with the failure of the golden harvest Othello's occupation was gone. The mass of the unfortunates laid down the shovel and the hoe, and left the river in crowds. It is said that there are not twenty men remaining on Indian Bar, although two months ago you could count them up by hundreds.

We were to have departed on the 5th of November, and my toilet-table and wash-hand-stand, duly packed for that occasion, their occupation also gone, have remained ever since in the humble position of mere trunks. To be sure, the expressman called for us at the appointed time, but, unfortunately, F. had not returned from the American Valley, where he had gone to visit a sick friend, and Mr. Jones was not willing to wait even one day, so much did he fear being caught in a snowstorm with his mules. It was the general opinion, from unmistakable signs, that the rainy season would set in a month earlier than common, and with unusual severity. Our friends urged me to start on with Mr. Jones and some other acquaintances, and leave F. to follow on foot, as he could easily overtake us in a few hours. This I decidedly refused to do, preferring to run the fearful risk of being compelled to spend the winter in the mountains, which, as there is not enough flour to last six weeks, and we personally have not laid in a pound of provisions, is not so indifferent a matter as it may at first appear to you. The traders have delayed getting in their winter stock, on account of the high price of flour, and God only knows how fatal may be the result of this selfish delay to the unhappy mountaineers, many of whom, having families here, are unable to escape into the valley.

It is the twenty-first day of November, and for the last three weeks it has rained and snowed alternately, with now and then a fair day sandwiched between, for the express purpose, as it has seemed, of aggravating our misery, for, after twelve hours of such sunshine as only our own California can show, we were sure to be gratified by an exceedingly well got up tableau of the deluge, without that ark of safety, a mule team, which, sister-Anna-like, we were ever straining our eyes to see descending the hill. "There! I hear a mule-bell," would be the cry at least a dozen times a day, when away we would all troop to the door, to behold nothing but great brown raindrops rushing merrily downward, as if in mockery of our sufferings. Five times did the Squire, who has lived for some two or three years in the mountains, and is quite weather-wise, solemnly affirm that the rain was over for the present, and five times did the storm-torrent of the next morning give our prophet the lie. In the mean while we have been expecting, each day, the advent of a mule train. Now the rumor goes that Clark's mules have arrived at Pleasant Valley, and now that Bob Lewis's train has reached the Wild Yankee's, or that Jones, with any quantity of animals and provisions, has been seen on the brow of the hill, and will probably get in by evening. Thus constantly is alternating light and gloom in a way that nearly drives me mad.

The few men that have remained on the Bar have amused themselves by prosecuting one another right and left. The Squire, bless his honest, lazy, Leigh Huntish face, comes out strong on these occasions. He has pronounced decisions which, for legal acumen, brilliancy, and acuteness, would make Daniel Webster, could he hear them, tear his hair to that extent—from sheer envy—that he would be compelled to have a wig ever after. But, jesting apart, the Squire's course has been so fair, candid, and sensible, that he has won golden opinions from all; and were it not for his insufferable laziness and good nature, he would have made a most excellent justice of the peace. The prosecuting party generally "gets judgment," which is about all he does get, though sometimes the constable is more fortunate, as happened to-day to our friend W., who, having been detained on the Bar by the rain, got himself sworn into the above office for the fun of the thing. He performs his duties with great delight, and is always accompanied by a guard of honor, consisting of the majority of the men remaining in the place. He entered the cabin about one hour ago, when the following spicy conversation took place between him and F., who happened to be the prosecutor in this day's proceedings.

"Well, old fellow, did you see Big Bill?" eagerly inquired F.

"Yes," is the short and sullen reply.

"And what did you get?" continued his questioner.

"I got THIS!" savagely shouts the amateur constable, at the same time pointing with a grin of rage to a huge swelling on his upper lip, gleaming with all the colors of the rainbow.

"What did you do then?" was the next meek inquiry.

"Oh, I came away," says our brave young officer of justice. And indeed it would have been madness to have resisted this delightful Big Bill, who stands six feet four inches in his stockings, with a corresponding amount of bone and muscle, and is a star of the first magnitude in boxing circles. F. saved the creature's life last winter, having watched with him three nights in succession. He refuses to pay his bill "'cos he gin him calumny and other pizen doctor's stuff." Of course poor W. got dreadfully laughed at, though I looked as solemn as possible while I stayed him with cups of coffee, comforted him with beefsteaks and onions, and coaxed the wounded upper lip with an infinite succession of little bits of brown paper drowned in brandy.

I wish that you could see me about these times. I am generally found seated on a cigar-box in the chimney-corner, my chin in my hand, rocking backwards and forwards (weaving, you used to call it) in a despairing way, and now and then casting a picturesquely hopeless glance about our dilapidated cabin. Such a looking place as it is! Not having been repaired, the rain, pouring down the outside of the chimney, which is inside of the house, has liquefied the mud, which now lies in spots all over the splendid tin mantelpiece, and festoons itself in graceful arabesques along the sides thereof. The lining overhead is dreadfully stained, the rose-garlanded hangings are faded and torn, the sofa-covering displays picturesque glimpses of hay, and the poor, old, worn-out carpet is not enough to make india-rubbers desirable.

Sometimes I lounge forlornly to the window and try to take a bird's-eye view of outdoors. First, now a large pile of gravel prevents my seeing anything else, but by dint of standing on tiptoe I catch sight of a hundred other large piles of gravel, Pelion-upon-Ossa-like heaps of gigantic stones, excavations of fearful deepness, innumerable tents, calico hovels, shingle palaces, ramadas (pretty arbor-like places, composed of green boughs, and baptized with that sweet name), half a dozen blue and red shirted miners, and one hatless hombre, in garments of the airiest description, reclining gracefully at the entrance of the Humboldt in that transcendental state of intoxication when a man is compelled to hold on to the earth for fear of falling off. The whole Bar is thickly peppered with empty bottles, oyster-cans, sardine-boxes, and brandied-fruit jars, the harsher outlines of which are softened off by the thinnest possible coating of radiant snow. The river, freed from its wooden-flume prison, rolls gracefully by. The green and purple beauty of these majestic old mountains looks lovelier than ever, through its pearl-like network of foaming streamlets, while, like an immense concave of pure sapphire without spot or speck, the wonderful and never-enough-to-be-talked-about sky of California drops down upon the whole its fathomless splendor. The day happens to be the inner fold of one of the atmospheric sandwiches alluded to above. Had it been otherwise, I doubt whether I should have had spirit enough to write to you.

I have just been called from my letter to look at a wonderfully curious gold specimen. I will try to describe it to you; and to convince you that I do not exaggerate its rare beauty, I must inform you that two friends of ours have each offered a hundred dollars for it, and a blacksmith in the place—a man utterly unimaginative, who would not throw away a red cent on a mere fancy—has tried to purchase it for fifty dollars. I wish most earnestly that you could see it. It is of unmixed gold, weighing about two dollars and a half. Your first idea on looking at it is of an exquisite little basket. There is the graceful cover with its rounded nub at the top, the three finely carved sides (it is triformed), the little stand upon which it sets, and the tiny clasp which fastens it. In detail it is still more beautiful. On one side you see a perfect W, each finely shaded bar of which is fashioned with the nicest exactness. The second surface presents to view a Grecian profile, whose delicately cut features remind you of the serene beauty of an antique gem. It is surprising how much expression this face contains, which is enriched by an oval setting of delicate beading. A plain triangular space of burnished gold, surrounded with bead-work similar to that which outlines the profile, seems left on purpose for a name. The owner, who is a Frenchman, decidedly refuses to sell this gem, and you will probably never have an opportunity to see that the same Being who has commanded the violet to be beautiful can fashion the gold, crucibled into metallic purity within the earth's dark heart, into shapes as lovely and curious.

To my extreme vexation, Ned, that jewel of cooks and fiddlers, departed at the first approach of rain, since when I have been obliged to take up the former delightful employment myself. Really, everybody ought to go to the mines, just to see how little it takes to make people comfortable in the world. My ordinary utensils consist of,—item, one iron dipper, which holds exactly three pints; item, one brass kettle of the same size; and item, the gridiron, made out of an old shovel, which I described in a former letter. With these three assistants I perform absolute wonders in the culinary way. Unfortunately, I am generally compelled to get three breakfasts, for sometimes the front-stick will break, and then down comes the brass kettle of potatoes and the dipper of coffee, extinguishing the fire, spilling the breakfast, wetting the carpet, scalding the dog, waking up F. from an eleven-o'clock-in-the-day dream, and compelling poor me to get up a second edition of my morning's work on safer and more scientific principles.

At dinner-time some good-natured friend carves the beef at a stove outside, on condition that he may have a plate and knife and fork at our table. So when that meal is ready I spread on the said table, which at other times does duty as a china-closet, a quarter of a sheet, which, with its three companion quarters, was sanctified and set apart, when I first arrived here, for that sacred purpose. As our guests generally amount to six or eight, we dispense the three teaspoons at the rate of one to every two or three persons. All sorts of outlandish dishes serve as teacups. Among others, wine-glasses and tumblers—there are always plenty of these in the mines—figure largely. Last night, our company being larger than usual, one of our friends was compelled to take his tea out of a soup-plate. The same individual, not being able to find a seat, went outside and brought in an empty gin-cask, upon which he sat, sipping iron tablespoonfuls of his tea, in great apparent glory and contentment.

F. has just entered, with the joyful news that the expressman has arrived. He says that it will be impossible for mule trains to get in for some time to come, even if the storm is really over, which he does not believe. In many places on the mountains the snow is already five feet in depth, although he thinks that, so many people are constantly leaving for the valley, the path will be kept open, so that I can make the journey with comparative ease on his horse, which he has kindly offered to lend me, volunteering to accompany F., and some others who will make their exodus at the same time, on foot. Of course I shall be obliged to leave my trunks, merely taking a change of linen in a carpet bag. We shall leave to-morrow, whether it rain or snow, for it would be madness to linger any longer.

My heart is heavy at the thought of departing forever from this place. I like this wild and barbarous life. I leave it with regret. The solemn fir-trees, whose "slender tops are close against the sky" here, the watching hills, and the calmly beautiful river, seem to gaze sorrowfully at me as I stand in the moonlighted midnight to bid them farewell. Beloved, unconventional wood-life; divine Nature, into whose benign eyes I never looked, whose many voices, gay and glad, I never heard, in the artificial heart of the busy world,—I quit your serene teachings for a restless and troubled future. Yes, Molly, smile if you will at my folly, but I go from the mountains with a deep heart-sorrow. I took kindly to this existence, which to you seems so sordid and mean. Here, at least, I have been contented. The "thistle-seed," as you call me, sent abroad its roots right lovingly into this barren soil, and gained an unwonted strength in what seemed to you such unfavorable surroundings. You would hardly recognize the feeble and half-dying invalid, who drooped languidly out of sight as night shut down between your straining gaze and the good ship Manilla as she wafted her far away from her Atlantic home, in the person of your now perfectly healthy sister.

PRINTED BY THOMAS C. RUSSELL
AT HIS PRIVATE PRESS,
SEVENTEEN THIRTY-FOUR NINETEENTH AVENUE
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA