RAT-CATCHERS--DRAYS--CRESTED PARTRIDGE--A MARVELLOUS STORY--SAILORS
IN THE MINES--A VERDICT--THE QUARTZ HAS THE BEST OF IT--I LEAVE
TUTTLE-TOWN.
_January, 1852._
Rats are very numerous in San Francisco, as also are ratting-dogs. The
roughest Skyes and most ferocious bull-dogs seem to have congregated in
that city; and so much interest do the people take in the destruction of
the common enemy, that a crowd is instantly collected if by chance a
Scotch terrier, arrested by the flavour of a rat, wags his tail over a
heap of shavings. You will one day see a crowd in the street, dense and
excited; you try in vain to obtain a glimpse of what is going on in the
centre; from expressions that reach you, you feel certain that a horrid
murder is being perpetrated, and this opinion is confirmed as you hear
re-echoed the cry, “He is dead!--all over!” As the crowd disperses,
there issues from it the rejoicing owner of two young prize-fighting
quadrupeds, and in his hand is a large rat, now all tail and teeth,
“the balance,” as the owner remarks, having been “considerably chawed
up.”
Great risk and expense attend the shipment of these little dogs to
California; and I was so unfortunate as not to land one of four very
useful brutes that I shipped from the London Docks for that country. A
good horse or dog is a treasure to a Californian; and he will look upon
one or the other as his friend, and treat it with great kindness.
An immense quantity of drays are required in the city for the transport
of goods, and the stranger will be at once struck with the superiority
of breed of the horses, and the high condition in which they are kept.
It has not been worth while of late to send anything commonplace to San
Francisco; the horses therefore that are driven across the plains are
generally strong and showy animals. “Draying” has paid very well here,
and many of the proprietors of these vehicles, although they drive for
themselves, are well to do. The dray harness is often mounted in German
silver; and you may see any day a respectable-looking quiet man in
spectacles carting a load of hay or lumber, with a handsome four-in-hand
team, well groomed, and ornamented with bear-skin trappings.
The new machinery being completed, I again started for the mines, and
arrived at Tuttle-town without accident.
We had tolerable hunting ground in our vicinity, but the game was wild
from having been too much shot at. The deer lived in the mountains, and
to reach them required much walking, as the reader will understand if he
glances at the background of the sketch that forms my frontispiece. The
earth on the side of the red-wood hills is generally friable, and as it
gives way to the pressure of the foot, the toil of ascending is very
great, when the glass is at ninety.
There was, however, ample employment for the shot-gun, as the crested
partridge abounded in our neighbourhood. I have not yet mentioned this
bird; it is smaller than our partridge, and has all its habits, with
this exception, that it will fly to trees when disturbed. This I imagine
arises from an instinctive fear of vermin, with which the country
abounds, the silver grey fox being very destructive,--not to speak of
coyotes, snakes, and birds of prey. There is also little cover on the
ground, with the exception of stones, and when the partridge is
undisturbed, it will busk among these. The call of the male is similar
to that of the English bird. The crested partridge is hard to put up,
being a great runner; harder still to shoot flying, for it is
particularly strong on the wing, and flies low on a ground of much its
own colour. When shot and cooked it is white, dry, and insipid; still it
is a partridge, and as such is much relished.
I will mention a circumstance here in connection with shooting, which
has so much of the marvellous in it that I had determined to omit it.
Whilst encamped at Santa Rosa Valley, after leaving Carrillo’s house, we
were visited one morning by some Sonorians (probably those who
afterwards stole our cattle). As they requested us to fire a few shots
with our rifles at a mark, we consented willingly enough, and being in
good practice and in good luck, we fired with success at dollars and
other small targets.
An hour or two afterwards, the three of us proceeded in search of
venison; it was about mid-day, the sun was very powerful and the sky
cloudless. Making for a shady thicket where we hoped to find, we
unexpectedly started a doe from the long grass; she was out of shot
before we could raise a gun, but there still remained a fawn. Pretty
innocent! there it stood gazing at us wondrously, and I warrant had
there been meat in our larder at home not one of us would have touched a
trigger; but lamb is innocent, and yet you eat it, Madam, and the only
difference between us is that you have a butcher to take life, and I
had not.
The fawn stood motionless as I advanced a few paces and took, as I
imagined, deadly aim. I missed, and still it did not move: the others
fired, and missed also. From the same distance (about seventy-five
yards), we fired each four bullets without success; still the fawn moved
but a pace or two, and our rifle ammunition was exhausted. I then crept
up to the fawn, and within twenty paces I fired twice at it with my
pistol; it then, unharmed, quietly walked away in search of its mother.
We looked at each other in some doubt after this, and for a long time I
was puzzled to conjecture how to account for this apparently charmed
life.
At last I solved the problem in this way, as I thought. The sun was
intensely powerful, and had been reflected back to us from the yellow
grass on which we had kept our eyes throughout a long walk; either this
glare or the rarefaction of the air had, probably, caused an optical
delusion, and the fawn appearing nearer to us than in reality it was, we
fired under it. Had this struck me at the time, I would have searched in
the long grass for the place where the bullets struck, and I have no
doubt, considering the practice we were in, that they would all have
been found in the same range, and short; but on account of the height of
the grass, we were unable to see whilst firing where our balls fell. And
this is the sole way I can account for this curious adventure.
This is the sole marvellous story I have to tell, and is a fact; but so
capricious is reading man, that I dare say many a one who would have
believed me had I related the destruction in one long shot of three
buffaloes, two coyotes, and a digger Indian, will smile incredulously at
my party firing fourteen barrels within seventy paces of a motionless
deer! So be it--and annotators of circulating library books will write
“Gammon!” in black-lead pencil on the margin, and I must grin whilst I
writhe under this infliction.
About three miles from our camp was the Stanislaus River; and crossing
this in a ferry-boat, we would be at once in the vicinity of a famous
digging, “Carson’s Hill,” by name. All that we read of that is bright
and fairy-like, in connection with reported gold discoveries, has been
presented as a Gradgrind fact at Carson’s Hill.
The rivers produced, the hills produced, and even the quartz[23]
produced, having previously been rotted by nature, that man might pick
the gold out with his penknife. “Rich nests,” “tall pockets,” “big
strikes,” lumps and chunks, were the reward of labour at Carson’s Hill;
whilst the miserable population elsewhere were content with ounces of
gold, or, at the best, pounds.
No one knows how many fortunes have been made at Carson’s Hill, nor how
many bloody battles have been fought there for the rich earth--but a
great many. Two small armies met once on the brow of the hill, and
parleyed, weapons in hand and with savage looks, for as much quartz as
you might carry away in a fish-cart.
Mr. James Carson, the discoverer of these diggings, asserts that in 1848
the man who would work could make from fifty to one hundred pounds
sterling a day, and I have no doubt of the truth of this.
At the time when this digging was first yielding such immense profits,
strict honesty was the characteristic of the miners; and a man need have
no fear then, as he has now, relative to keeping his dust after he had
found it, for all had enough, and it is astonishing how virtuous we
become under such circumstances. A sailor once asked his chum if a
bishop was a good man? “He ought for to be,” replies the other, “for he
has nothing to do but to eat, drink, and sleep, and altogether he has a
deuced fine berth of it!” and Jack hit the truth in his own way.
And sailors are, perhaps, after their manner, tolerable Christians
themselves; certainly they swear a little, and are said to devour in a
sandwich the banknote that would serve to enrich a hospital, as from
Bill Bobstay, Esq.; but whenever there is sickness or poverty among
sailors, there Jack is found at the bedside the tenderest of nurses, and
sharing--honest heart!--his last copper with a comrade. A sailor in the
mines is at best a rough and uncomely fellow to the sight; but will you
show me anything more pleasing to contemplate than that sturdy fellow
there who plies his pickaxe to the tune of “Oh, Sally Brown!” that he
may take at night to his sick friend in the tent hard by the luxuries he
needs? The sailors in the mines have been ever distinguished for
self-denial; and whenever I see “prim goodness” frown at the rough,
careless sailor’s oath that will mingle now and then with his “ye-ho!” I
think to myself, “Take out your heart, ‘prim goodness,’ and lay it by
the side of Jack’s and offer me the choice of the two, and maybe it
won’t be yours I’ll take, for all that you are faultless to the world’s
eye.”
Liberality was so great in those days, that if a stranger came to the
mines and had but the appearance of one who would work, he had no
difficulty in borrowing from any one all that was required for starting
him, his muscles and sinews being the sole guarantee for repayment.
It was near Carson’s Hill that poor Boyd worked with a gang of men,
though with what success I do not know. Boyd was an English gentleman of
independence; and in his yacht, the “Wanderer,” he had visited nearly
every place on the globe. He was fitted in every respect for the roving
life he had chosen, and was equally at home whether he roughed it in the
mountains or played the host on board the “Wanderer.” Shortly after he
left San Francisco, he landed at Solomon’s Island to shoot wild fowl,
and there was cruelly murdered by the natives. None who knew him heard
of his fate without regret; and as a finale to the life of this
adventurous man, the “Wanderer” soon after went ashore and was lost.
A gulch which branches off from Carson’s, and which proved very rich,
was discovered under circumstances of great solemnity, and I am indebted
to Mr. Carson for the anecdote.
One of the miners died, and having been much respected, it was
determined to give him a regular funeral. A digger in the vicinity, who,
report said,
[Illustration]
had once been a powerful preacher in the United States, was called upon
to officiate; and after “drinks all round,” the party proceeded, with
becoming gravity, to the grave, which had been dug at a distance of a
hundred yards from the camp. When this spot was reached, the officiating
minister commenced with an extempore prayer, during which all knelt
round the grave. So far was well; but the prayer was unnecessarily long,
and at last some of those who knelt, began, in an abstracted way, to
finger the loose earth that had been thrown up from the grave. It was
thick with gold; and an excitement was immediately apparent in the
kneeling crowd. Upon this, the preacher stopped, and inquiringly said,
“Boys, what’s that? Gold!” he continued, “and the richest kind of
diggings,--the congregation are dismissed!” The poor miner was taken
from his auriferous grave and was buried elsewhere, whilst the funeral
party, with the parson at their head, lost no time in prospecting the
new digging.
The population of the diggings, in 1848, was as varied as can be well
imagined; every nation and calling was represented there, from an
ex-governor to a digger Indian. But amongst this motley crew lawyers
predominated; and if we may judge by the fees they received, and the
quality of the law they exchanged for them, they had brought their
forensic knowledge to a fine market. As magistrates and other officers
were required in the different mining districts, they were elected by a
majority of the miners, and formed a court of law.
All mining disputes were submitted to these courts, and whatever might
be the decision given, _that_ was considered the law, which saved all
trouble of appeal. The following incident will convey some idea of law
in the diggings at this time.
Two Spaniards, who had amassed a large quantity of gold dust by
successful digging, quarrelled over the possession of an old mule that
was scarcely worth her keep, and applied to the alcalde or magistrate
to
[Illustration]
settle the dispute. Before a word was said, however, each “greaser” had
to pay three ounces of dust for expenses of the court; and then, both
speaking at once, each related his own tale in Spanish, which was a
language unintelligible to the court. After this, they were informed by
his Honour, through an interpreter, that they had better leave the case
to the decision of a jury. To this they agreed, and having paid two
ounces more in advance to the sheriff, that officer summoned a jury from
the adjacent diggings. After hearing their statements, which were very
contradictory, the jury retired, and returned with a verdict that the
costs should be shared by the plaintiff and defendant; and as there was
not evidence to show who the mule really belonged to, they were to _draw
straws_ for her!
The bill of costs amounted to twenty ounces,--the _liquor bill_ to three
ounces more. This sum the Spaniards paid, and then they went out to cut
for the animal; but some other Spaniard had already settled the dispute,
for whilst all were inside he had mounted the mule and rode off with it,
nor did it ever, to my knowledge, turn up again. But for the comparative
insignificance of the fees, this trial might have taken place, judging
by the result, in our own Court of Chancery.
A few digger Indians worked occasionally in our vicinity, having
discovered that gold would purchase fine clothes and rum, which was all
they cared for. The outfits they procured with their dust varied
according to taste. One would prefer half a-dozen shirts, and wear them
all at once; another would be content with a gaudy Mexican hat and a
pair of jack boots; so that their partial adoption of civilised costume
only served to render the uncovered parts of their bodies ridiculously
conspicuous.
The Indians of California have a tradition among them which points to
the days when volcanic eruptions devastated the country, and destroyed
all living things but Indians. No traces of an earlier race are to be
found, however, as yet, in Upper California; nor have the Indians the
faintest knowledge of pictorial signs or symbols. I am inclined,
therefore, to think that the present tribes have been migratory.
It is a peculiarity of California, that although it is so rich in
flowers, the wild bee is never found there, nor did I ever hear a
singing-bird. Digging in the mines is suspended by general accord on the
Sabbath, and that day is usually spent very quietly in camp,
particularly as the more boisterous characters go to the nearest town to
amuse themselves. A walk over the mountains, rifle in hand, with an eye
to business in the shape of “prospecting,” is often the employment of
the more sedate; and if the miner sometimes finds on a Sunday what
serves him for an honest livelihood on week days, he is, mayhap, no
worse, sir, than you whose thoughts, even in a church, are not always
separate from the pounds shillings and pence you require for the
engagements of the coming week.
During this time the work at the mines progressed steadily; and the new
machinery being ready, we started it, fully confident of success.[24]
Again was our engine placed under contribution for four horses’ more
power than it was built for, and again did our machinery turn out a
signal failure: in fact we had iron only where we should have had the
hardest of steel, and in consequence, instead of our mill grinding the
quartz, the quartz had the best of it and ground the mill; and as it was
gold I wanted, and not iron filings, I determined for the present to
abandon my third profitless speculation.
Agriculturally, architecturally, and mineralogically, I had been sported
with by fate,--and the plough in the north, the steam-engine in the
south, and the hotel in the middle, had each been accompanied by
pecuniary loss. Yet the days I had passed had been very happy, and
Philosophy said: “You have had health, and contentment, and warm
friendship; and if these were purchasable, many would buy them of you
for twenty times what you have lost in money!” To which I replied, “Very
true, oh Philosophy! but had I taken my steam-engine to Russian River,
and there applied its power to sawing red-woods, and had I with my
plough turned up the fertile hills and valleys at Vallejo, and further,
had I erected my hotel at Sonora, where it was much wanted, I might have
still had the unpurchasable articles you allude to, and the money too.”
Upon which Philosophy, seeing me thus unreasonable, retired from the
contest.
Close upon this disaster there arrived a batch of letters for me. My
friend in San Francisco had died, and letters from home rendered my
return to England necessary. To return again, though--and to
Tuttle-town--on that point I was determined, “wind and weather
permitting,” as we say afloat.
I sold my steam-engine to some wretched favourites of fortune, who took
it to a gulch and made money there and then. I sold Mainspring, and
Tiger, and Bevis, with grief. I might have given them away, but I know
that a man will often give more care and kindness to the animal he has
paid for, than to that he gets for nothing! and many a one who cares
little for the comfort of a horse, is mightily particular in respect of
the hundred guineas the animal is worth!
The tools and houses I left with Rowe, Barnes, and Thomas. The Mexicans
I discharged, and presented them with the bullock hides, and frying-pan,
so that they were not altogether homeless; then I bade farewell to my
mining village, but not yet to the Virginia men, the carpenter Judge or
constable Rowe, for these good fellows accompanied me for the first
thirty miles of my journey. Then we parted, and I firmly believe with
equal regret on either side--why not? there had never been an unkind
word between us in a year of mountain life, and as I reiterated at the
last, “I’ll soon be back, boys!” they knew full well that my resolution
would be upheld by the memory of kindnesses received from them.
Again I plod down on the “Old Soldier,” who has seen the last of
Choctaw, although he does not know it. Is it a wonder that I was
sorrowful when I left behind me so much that had contributed to render
my life happy? But I should have been more so had I known then that I
had seen the last of Tuttle Town and its inhabitants!