The next day was our first Sunday in the mines. It had not come
any too soon. Through the long sultry hours I lay stretched on my
blankets, watching the coquettish play of the leaves drawn on the
camera obscura of our canvass walls, and dreaming, oh! how dreamily!
of all we had left behind. At noon, Number Four made his appearance,
not at all fatigued by his journey; and, as it was probable that we
should now remain some time at Mormon Island, we determined to remove
to a pleasanter locality. We selected for this purpose the hill on
which the second scientific miner and his party had pitched their
tent, and by Monday night were snugly settled in our new quarters.
Having, as before, hung our tent on the north side of an evergreen
oak, we strewed the floor with pine twigs, and a species of coarse
hummocky grass that grew in great abundance on the rocky hill sides.
Our narrow bedsteads, hastily constructed of rough poles, resting
on low crotches driven into the ground, were made to fit into the
circumference of the tent, so that I could only sleep on my right
side, and Tertium could only sleep on his left, and there was no
turning over except by changing beds. A barrel of biscuit, a half
barrel of sugar, together with sundry bags of beans, and rice, and
pork, filled all the centre of the tent, leaving only room enough to
get in and out.
The hill, on which we had thus encamped, and where we remained several
months, rose directly from the river, and was agreeably shaded by
white and evergreen oaks, not standing close together or in clumps,
but at almost as regular intervals as the trees in an orchard, which
at a short distance they closely resembled. In front, looking down
the river, and towards the sunsetting, was the sleepy little village,
with its scattering suburbs of tents, peeping out among the hills, and
now and then, a heavy baggage-wagon, attended by a party of impatient
miners, slowly creeping down the Sacramento road beyond--the river
more to the right winding round the rocky island, swarming with men
like a great ant-hill--and, far beyond all, and forming a fitting
back-ground to the picture, a hill of surpassing beauty, rising in
successive terraces, as sharp and regular as if formed by art, to a
height of several hundred feet.
Five or six parties were encamped in our neighbourhood, and on the
summit of the hill, a hundred yards behind us, was a large tent,
occupied as a store by the same enterprising individual to whom we had
sold our tinware at Sacramento.
Tuesday, the Captain and Number Four were employed by the second
scientific miner in working his machine, for which they received the
usual wages, eight dollars a day, and also acquired some knowledge of
its operation. At the same time, as Tertium and I did not wish to be
idle, and had not yet obtained a rocker, we set to work on the river
bank with pans, modestly limiting our expectations to an ounce a piece.
Panning is to the beginner a very curious and mysterious operation. An
old miner had initiated my brother in the process, and he now gave me
the result of his experience. "You must do so, and so, and so," said
he, suiting the action to the word. I accordingly did as I was told,
shaking and whirling, and dipping with all my might, though with a
strange mixture of faith and unbelief as to the result.
There was nothing in the appearance of the earth to distinguish it
from what I had seen a thousand times at home. It was simply a mass
of sand, and stones, and gravel, such as is often found on our
sea-shores, and in the beds or along the banks of our more rapid
rivers. Yet this was the earth I had come twenty thousand miles to
seek, and in that earth, unnoticed among the baser substances, but
worth more than all of them, there lurked, so I was told, and so I
partly believed, divers grains of gold.
While I thus wondered, I had gradually thrown out the lighter sand
and gravel, but a portion of black sand still remained; and now, as
with gentle violence I sank the edge of the pan beneath the surface,
the inrushing water brought to view a few brighter grains contrasted,
and in appearance multiplied by this intimate mingling with their
sooty brethren. Good! I said, there must be at least two dollars; but
when the black sand was all floated out by the dipping process just
mentioned, I found, to my great mortification, that there was not more
than twenty-five cents.
That part of the bank which we had selected had already been once
dug over, and most of its riches abstracted; but as the first miners
had done their work in a careless and slovenly manner, contenting
themselves, as I had thought to do, not indeed with the biggest lumps,
but with the richest portions, they had left numerous little patches
scattered among and under the rocks that afforded very good pickings
to their successors. Our labour was not, however, in this instance
very profitable; we made only three dollars, and were glad the next
day to change our employment.
Number Four set out on an expedition of inquiry among the miners on
the North Fork,--Tertium took his place at the Virginia rocker--and I
was engaged to assist as a journeyman carpenter in putting up a small
iron house belonging to a Mr. Mowbray, who had lately arrived in the
diggings in such style as to produce an immense sensation.
He was a young man of good family and rather genteel figure--rich
and well educated--understood thoroughly the art of spending money,
but had probably never earned a dollar in his life. Tired at length
of this barren inactivity, and seized with a dreamy ambition to do
something in the world, he had pitched upon California as a suitable
field for his first essay. His plan of operations was equally bold
and ingenious; he determined to conquer nature, and transport the
comforts of civilization into her rude and rugged fastnesses. He had
no objection to the romance and excitement of a miner's life, but he
would have none of its accompanying hardships.
Naturalists have described a species of spider that, in order to
gratify its amphibious propensity, makes a diving bell of bubble, and
dwells in this palace of light secure beneath the waters. So Mowbray
plunging into an unaccustomed element, still carried about him his
bubble of old associations. In spite of the seeming greatness of the
change, his atmosphere was still the same; his nature had undergone
no transformation, and he walked now over the hills of California as
formerly along the pavements of Broadway. Others might sleep on the
ground, and live on pork and flapjacks, but he would sleep softly and
fare luxuriantly--they might toil for an ounce a day, he sought no
lesser game than thousands.
And if the most lavish expenditure of money had been all that was
wanting, his success would have been placed beyond all doubt. During
the three months of preparation previous to his departure, he had
forgotten nothing, however trifling, necessary to his undertaking.
You would have thought him a second Robinson Crusoe about to embark
voluntarily for his desert island. First and foremost came a chest of
tools, though I grievously fear that our dainty crusader could hardly
have told a chisel from a handsaw. But then, fortunately, he had a
scientific dictionary in two fat volumes, from which he could easily
obtain the necessary information. Next there was a horse-power, a
heavy mass of iron-wheels, so called, I suppose, because nobody but a
horse could move it--india-rubber pontoons, looking marvellously like
the skin of a huge black snake--a large tent of the same material to
use in prospecting--together with a whole army of picks and shovels,
to look at which you would suppose our hero had as many arms as
Briareus.
He had, too, a most knowing belly, and one that evidently abhorred
a vacuum as much as Dame Nature herself. According to the strictest
calculation, and assuming as a standard the most primitive of all
measures, the capacity of the respectable functionary mentioned in the
first line of this paragraph, there was of sugar, three hundred and
fifty--of Stewart's syrup, ditto--of cheese, sixty--of flour, eight
hundred--of tea and coffee, a thousand--of spices, pickles, preserves,
&c., six hundred--of pork, two hundred--and of beans, horresco
referens, not one.
These various luxuries, together with the house already mentioned,
and more than all, two mahogany bedsteads with mattrass and pillow,
excited the unqualified admiration of less fortunate or less sagacious
adventurers.
Certain sturdy miners indeed, who could carry all they owned upon
their backs, shrugged their shoulders at all this, and even laughed
outright at the mahogany bedsteads; but they were poor creatures who
could never by any possibility be made to appreciate an enterprise
conducted with such liberality and magnificence.
To supply his own want of practical knowledge, and thus make assurance
doubly sure, Mowbray had brought with him a companion of a very
different temper, and who seemed by his habits and education fitted
to make as useful an ally as the simple-hearted Friday; that most
delectable of blacks till Uncle Tom came to divide our sympathies. The
idea was a good one, but his selection was unfortunate. Our Friday was
a genuine cockney, who had never been out of the sound of Bow-bells,
or out of sight of St. Paul's. He had lived, to be sure, several
years in the United States, and professed to entertain the highest
admiration of our institutions, but had not really gained a new idea.
Indeed, he was not a man of ideas, but of education, or, to speak more
accurately, of instruction, and had no more to do with the formation
of his own mind than an india-rubber shoe has with that of the mould
that shapes it. He was obsequious to a fault, and even slavish in
his dependence, so that, as Capt. Bill observed, one wanted to kick
him for his humility. He had neither the versatility of a Yankee, or
of a cat in his composition--he could "make the thing, but not the
machine that makes it,"--and every sudden emergency took him entirely
by surprise. In the hands of a master he would undoubtedly have made
an efficient instrument, but in the hands of Mowbray he was worse than
useless.
It was to assist this character in erecting his house, that I was now
employed by Mowbray, who was himself suffering from dysentery, and
therefore unable to attend to it in person. The frame, which was only
ten feet by twelve, had been prepared under Friday's supervision; yet
the work had been done in such a bungling manner, that we were three
whole days in putting it together and fitting in the iron sheets that
formed the walls. When all was done, however, a very comfortable house
was the result, presenting in its air of snugness and security, a
marked contrast to the loose open tents by which it was surrounded.
Mowbray at once took possession, and assumed, by tacit consent of the
pork-and-flapjack democracy about him, some such state and dignity as
usually attaches to the great house of a country village.
Number Four returned on Friday; he had seen a number of our old
shipmates, who were mining on the North Fork, but though they were
generally doing better than with us, the advantage was too slight to
counterbalance the evils of a removal, and we accordingly made up our
minds to remain where we were.
The next Tuesday, which was the second of October, the long-looked
for machine for which we had finally bargained with the scientific
miner, made its appearance in an oblong box somewhat bigger than
a coffin. The omen was unfortunate, but in our infatuation we
disregarded every warning and rushed blindly on our fate. We found
the difficulty of putting the parts together greatly increased by
the carelessness of the construction and the improper nature of the
materials; and our vexation at this delay received a fresh accession
every time we compared the exorbitant price of the machine with its
actual value. Besides, we had insensibly come to regard the unwieldy
monster with doubt, if not with absolute aversion. I can not explain
now any more than I could then the sort of somnambulic process by
which we had arrived at this state of unbelief, but in some way the
conviction had been forcing itself upon us that neither the Virginia
rocker, nor California itself, were all we had so fondly imagined.
We had not yielded even so much as this without a struggle; machines
of a very similar construction were already at work on the island
and their owners were by no means getting rich, but then, as the
second scientific miner said, they were not exactly the same, and on
this apparently unimportant distinction depended the very secret of
success. There was one, however, exactly the same, but it had not
been thoroughly tried. Old miners smiled significantly at us as they
passed, and sneered at the company's expectations. But it was only
envy. Thus we disputed every inch of ground, still hoping against
hope, when our best friend would have been a wise despair.
The whole week was consumed in various operations. After putting
together the machine, and the heavy frame on which it rested, we
erected a stout scaffold ten feet high to support the pump and the
man who worked it, and who was thus raised to a very doubtful dignity
above his fellows. Spouts were also required to convey the water from
the pump to the rocker, and to make these we cut up the coffin already
mentioned, into long strips three or four inches wide. In all this it
is but fair to mention that we derived great advantage from the chest
of tools possessed by our friend Mowbray.
In the meantime we had bought for fifty dollars a claim on the island,
abandoning one that we already held, and which afterwards proved by
far the more valuable; and the first of the week, everything being in
readiness, Tertium mounted the scaffold--Number Four took his station
at the handle of the rocker--I assumed the responsible office of
feeder--and our two hired men, Capt. Bill being sick with dysentery,
were appointed hod carriers; the said hod being a large half-barrel
slung between two poles, and weighing, when full of earth, about as
much as three barrels of flour.
And now began the hardest labour I ever encountered--such labour as
that must be, when man is yoked, as it were, together with a lifeless
piece of mechanism, and compelled to keep time to its undeviating
regularity. Having once started there was no cessation--the rocker
must rock--the pumper must pump--and the digger must dig, as if life
depended upon their exertions,--the only rest was by change of labour.
As one hand left the handle of the machine, another slid into its
place--the one at the pump could not vacate his high office until his
successor had already mounted the scaffold, and the diggers must keep
ahead of us all.
"More dirt, more dirt," cries the feeder, and the next moment two
slender figures are seen rounding the corner of the hole, and
tottering, staggering, half running, half walking under their awkward
burden. Their poor legs, fit only for counter-jumping, seem fairly to
bend and buckle like a whalebone, as they slip and stumble over the
uneven path, and their faces, like our own, shrivel under the fire
that streams from the burning sun above, and burning stones below.
We rested three hours at noon, and finished our day's work of ten
hours about seven. And now for the gold!--a hundred hods of earth had
passed through the machine, and out of that quantity it should have
digested at least a hundred dollars. We should not wonder if there
were two hundred, but should feel satisfied, as it was the first day,
with only one. We gathered round, we three, and put our heads together
over the trough, now drawn part way out of its place, while our hired
men peeped respectfully over our shoulders.
Tipping the rocker first to one side, and then gently reversing the
position, the pure liquid quicksilver ran rapidly across the bottom,
while the amalgam lingered behind. Number Four scraped it up with his
fingers, and having squeezed and moulded it in his hand, disclosed
to our view a lump about as big as a bullet, and worth three or four
dollars.
On further examination we found that several pounds of quicksilver had
escaped from the rocker; and as this was worth quite as much as the
gold we had obtained, our first day's labour left us just one ounce in
debt. None but an Irishman could get rich in this way, so we betook
ourselves at once for consolation to the second scientific miner, who
somewhat reassured us by saying that it was no more than was to be
expected; that it required thirty or forty dollars to saturate the
quicksilver, which it seemed would do nothing until it had gorged
itself to repletion, and that the next day we should do better. He
also sent one of his company, a young gentleman who, either because
he had very long legs, or a good deal of whisker, and that sort of
nobility, was called Count Eggenheim, to discover the secret of our
losing so much quicksilver. The Count directed us to set the rocker
steeper, and rock more rapidly, seventy beats to a minute: and these
various alterations effected such an improvement that we made the
next day twenty dollars. But I will not weary the reader with a more
continued detail; at the end of five days, after paying for our hole
and hired labour, we had left just fifty cents apiece; and though
Capt. Bill still retained something of his early predilection for our
patent bee-hive, the rest of the party were so opposed to giving it
any further trial, that the whole scheme was then and there abandoned.
Subsequent observation convinced us that we were right in our
decision, and that the Virginia rocker, so far from being what it had
been represented, was in no respect superior to the common cradle,
while its great size and weight were very serious objections. With the
cradle the miner was perfectly independent--he moved from one spot to
another at pleasure, and washed only the richer portions. The Virginia
rocker, on the other hand, was comparatively a fixture, and to move it
even a short distance so arduous an operation that it was avoided as
long as possible.
It will be recollected that the first scientific miner, among other
arguments in favour of this machine, had stated that the hemispherical
cakes which he exhibited had been obtained from earth that had
already been through the common cradle. We now learned in what sense
these words were to be understood; a miner who had been at work on
the island all the time the company had their machine in operation,
assured us that several small rockers were in use at the same time,
and that their contents had been twice a day passed through the
Virginia rocker for the purpose of separating the black sand and
gold by amalgamation. So in the famous partnership between the dwarf
and the giant, the giant carried off all the glory from his humble
companion--so in a nest, the big glutton starves his weaker brethren,
and so always the rich absorbs the profit for which the poor man
sweats.
But it was a comfort to know that, after all, the scientific miner
had told nothing but the truth, though his distance from the scene
of operations and his scientific method of viewing matters had kept
him in ignorance of some important particulars. The company of which
he was chief proved their own faith in the machines by subsequently
setting up ten of them on the island in a single body; water was
brought on in a flood by means of a trough several hundred feet long,
and a waterwheel erected at an expense of three or four thousand
dollars, to rock the machines, though the same labour could have been
performed far better and cheaper by hand. Their whole object seemed to
be to wash as much earth as possible, or rather to force it through
the rocker. They worked in this distracted manner only a short time
when the rainy season set in, their waterwheel was washed away--the
company was dispersed, their state and magnificence forgotten, and all
their thousand machines might have been bought for a song.
Mowbray had watched the progress of their experiment with intense
solicitude, either because he was a silent partner in the concern, or
because he intended, if they were successful, to make his fortune in
the same way.
About this time he bought a pair of mules and a large wagon, and
filling it with stores set out on a prospecting expedition through the
northern mines, accompanied by his trusty body-servant Friday. It was
usual in the mines, when one went a prospecting, for him to sling his
blanket on his back, and, with his pick in one hand and his shovel
in the other, creep slowly up and down the rivers, sleeping at night
on a rock, and solacing his labour with a slice of salt pork and a
bit of biscuit. If his journey were long, and he were able to afford
the expense, he would sometimes aspire to the dignity of a mule to
transport his tools and provisions, and perhaps himself; but it was
reserved for Mowbray to introduce so magnificent an innovation. He
returned in a few weeks with an account of a rich bar he had visited
on the Yuba, where claims had been offered him at a price so monstrous
that they must needs be of extraordinary value. Nothing, however,
could be done till spring, and in the meantime he thought he should
find the south of California or the Sandwich Islands a much more
agreeable residence than the mines. He accordingly sold his house,
his mules, his provisions, and everything else for which he could
find a purchaser, and turned his back on the mines, I believe for
ever. Overwhelming as was the contrast between the beginning and the
end of his adventures, he would yet have been, if he had succeeded,
even more remarkable, and almost the only one of his class. The
respectable Busby's sarcastic depreciation of educated men found but
too many striking instances in California. Of all with whom I became
acquainted, I remember only one or two who were finally successful in
mining; they either never made anything, or were sure to throw it away
on some monstrous project that would never have occurred to any one
else.
To return from this digression, which has led us several weeks in
advance of our story. Our party was not the only one that had stumbled
over the Virginia rocker. It had found its way into all parts of the
mines; Capt. Fayreweather, at Coloma, though already provided with the
most ingenious invention of his wary Nantucketer, had wasted time and
money on this more pretentious novelty; and in our own neighbourhood
several parties had discarded it, as we had done, after a longer or
shorter trial.
A small company of Bostonians, who had pitched their tent just in
front of our door, and afterwards assisted in working our machine,
were among the most unfortunate. They, too, had been so happy as to
make the acquaintance of the scientific miner; and it so happened,
oddly enough, that their energy and intelligence had also excited
his admiration. They had bought the machine, and in their anxiety to
secure so invaluable a treasure, had actually paid for it in advance;
and furthermore, sent one of their number on to Mormon Island to
select a favourable spot for its operation. He remained at the island
several weeks, boarding at an expense of three dollars a day, and when
his companions arrived, led them triumphantly to the claim he had so
vigilantly maintained. But as, unfortunately, he had not thought
it necessary to make any comparative trial of its value, contenting
himself with washing a few pansful a day in order to hold possession,
the claim turned out to be good for nothing; while twenty others
that had been subsequently appropriated were paying very handsome
dividends. They continued, however, to work their machine for more
than a month, but finally abandoned it, as we had done, though, as
might have been expected, with yet greater reluctance.
A little incident that occurred while we were yet at work on the
island, will admirably illustrate the strange vicissitudes of
California adventure.
Three men who left home after we did, but had been in the mines long
enough to make their piles, and were now returning, stopped a moment
on their way to visit the island. While they stood observing our
operations with complacent curiosity, a second party approached, among
whom they recognised several of their acquaintance who had left home
in the same ship with themselves, but had been delayed, they knew not
how long, on the isthmus. They had, in fact, just arrived, and were
now anxiously inquiring where they could find the best diggings. Their
more fortunate associates, with a disinterested benevolence that did
them infinite credit, gave them all the information in their power,
and even described minutely the very spot where they themselves had
taken out their thousands, whereby the others could not help being
greatly comforted and encouraged.
As they turned away, "Ah," sighed Number Four, who, like myself, had
dabbled a little in Spanish, "Ah, lo que es el mundo!" while Tertium
hummed,
"The race is not forever got by them that fastest runs,
Nor the battle by those people that shoot with the longest guns."