Our scientific machine--the great Virginia Burke rocker--the patent
bee-hive, from which we had expected to take every day at least two
pounds of the precious comb--was now nothing but so much useless
lumber.
Capt. Bill could not bear this unexpected reverse; he had set his
heart upon the Burke rocker, and could never descend to the common
cradle. Mining with the one was honourable; with the other, base and
contemptible. It was as if one should descend from the dignity of a
horse and wagon to a hand-cart, or as if the captain of a Liverpool
packet should decline into the skipper of a fishing-smack. From this
time mining lost its charms, and a favourable opportunity presenting
itself about the middle of October, he accepted a situation as clerk
in one of the mining districts, at a salary of three hundred dollars
a month and his board; thus depriving us, at once and forever, of all
that advantage we had hoped to derive from so propitious an alliance.
His good fortune excited no envy, for the mines were still untried.
After his departure our little company, now reduced to its original
number, was conducted on a different principle, our gains being no
longer shared in common. Number Four bought a cradle on his own
account, together with a hole, a crowbar, a shovel, and a cheese-box;
while Tertium and myself still continued in partnership. We also
bought a cradle of sheet-iron, for which we had to pay seventy
dollars; and after one or two trials of different localities, we
settled down on the same part of the bank where we had made our first
experiment with the pan. The bank here as elsewhere was high and
steep, consisting of an irregular ledge of soft granite that had been
originally covered with a thin coat of soil, but was now, for a width
of forty or fifty feet from the water, picked as clean as the bones of
a thanksgiving turkey. Owing to this circumstance we seldom remained
long in one place; but, like bone and rag-pickers hurrying from one
barrel to another, we gleaned a bit here and a bit there, comforting
ourselves with the hope of suddenly lighting upon some of those rich
deposits of which we had heard such seductive stories, just as the
magnanimous gentry last mentioned are forever soothed and excited by a
pleasing delusion of silver spoons and gold watches.
So we worked all the rest of the month, making about twenty dollars
a day, on the solitary bank of the river, listening soberly to the
eternal bass of its waters, and the sharp, sudden crash of some
distant rocker keeping faithful time to the beating of its master's
heart.
There was then no laughing in California; everybody was terribly in
earnest, and a settled look of more than Puritanic severity was in
every face. There was such depth of passion that only the fiercest
commotion could stir up the bubble laughter from the bottom of the
heart; and, for my own part, I seem almost entirely to have lost that
human faculty, as if I had tarried too long in the cave of Trephonius.
The extraordinary sickness that prevailed during that season may
partially account for this all-pervading austerity; hardly a tent in
which there was not one prostrated by scurvy or dysentery--hardly
a miner who had not suffered in his own person from one or both of
these dreadful diseases. Every one of our own party had been attacked
at different times and with different degrees of severity; but I was
the most unfortunate. It was several months before I found any relief
either from medicine or change in diet, and during the whole of my
first year in the mines I was never free from apprehension, the least
imprudence being sufficient to bring on a relapse.
We had thus far enjoyed uninterrupted fine weather,--a few drops
only of rain had fallen through the whole of October; but November
was ushered in under very different conditions. The little party of
Bostonians, our next door neighbours, who had been for some time
preparing to move into the dry diggings, had hardly stowed the last
of their baggage in the wagon, when a sullen shower commenced, that
quenched at once their deserted camp-fire, and continued almost
without cessation for a whole week. The conical firmament of our tent,
usually almost transparent in its brightness, except when fleckered
with the dancing shadow of the leaves, now assumed a uniform, leaden
and opaque hue, corresponding to the lowering character of the sky.
Heavy drops collected on the inside, and, rolling half-way down,
fell maliciously on our heads. Sitting on our low bedsteads, with
knees drawn up to the chin, we shrank into the smallest possible
compass; while we found a whimsical amusement in wondering where the
next drop would fall, and in rallying each other on our involuntary
contortions. Mowbray, and a Dr. Collyer, with whom we had been some
time acquainted, were now almost our only visitors. The latter, a
middle-aged man, of a peculiarly sour and morose temper, seemed to
find no employment so congenial as grumbling, and the subjects on
which he most delighted to expatiate were California and the Burke
rocker.
"Well, gentlemen," he would exclaim, with nasal bitterness,
"California is a miserable country, a very poor country; it is as
much as a man's life is worth to remain here through the winter;" and
then, like Sairy Gamp, to give greater emphasis to his words, he would
reverse the objurgatory phrase till he had run it through all its
changes, while we, in our feeble way, echoed assent to every one of
his propositions, glad to find one who understood so thoroughly the
true merits of the question.
Mowbray, on the other hand, never very talkative or vivacious, and
now doubly oppressed by the untoward aspect of the weather and
the uncertainty of his future movements, hardly spoke except in
monosyllables.
Cooking, in such weather, was plainly impossible; and the ship-bread
and molasses to which we were consequently reduced, were never very
thankfully received. Once, indeed, during a brief lull in the storm, I
ventured out, and succeeded in boiling a pot of coffee and in frying a
little pork, and these two smoking dishes somewhat dispelled the chill
that was creeping over us.
The fifth night the storm increased. The wind blew with fearful
violence, and drove the rain in sheets through that side of the tent
most exposed to its fury. Tertium was awakened by a choking sensation,
and found himself lying with his face in a puddle of water almost
deep enough to drown him. On my side it was rather better; my outer
blankets were thoroughly saturated, but the inner one still remained
tolerably dry.
The tent writhed and struggled with the tempest. The fastenings on one
side at length gave out, and as it flapped its wet and clinging folds
about our faces, we expected every moment to hear it fly bodily away,
leaving us entirely exposed to the pelting of the pitiless storm. We
were finally compelled to leave our beds, and leaning against the bags
and boxes in the middle of the tent, we fell asleep, like the ship-boy
on the high and giddy mast, in all that elemental uproar.
Returning sunshine wrought a wondrous alteration in our feelings.
The country, always beautiful, now presented a still more attractive
appearance. After months of drought and dust, Nature seemed to have
washed her face and put on her best attire, while the birds singing in
every tree, and the fresh green of the shooting grass, were far more
suggestive of May than of November.
The fine weather, however, brought with it one disagreeable
necessity--that of working without knowing where we could do it to
advantage. There were, indeed, plenty of places where we could make
five dollars a day, but we were not yet, thank heaven, reduced to that
extremity. We had sunk our expectations from thousands to hundreds,
and were willing to work for any reasonable compensation; but there
was a point at which such poverty of spirit ceased to be a virtue. We
were confirmed in this lofty temper by hopes of what we would do in
the spring. There were other rivers not yet so completely turned over
as the South Fork, and other places not so entirely worn out as Mormon
Island; we would be among the first to force our way into these new
diggings, when we should easily make up for all we had lost.
In the meantime the best thing we could do was to make ourselves as
comfortable as possible; and our late experience had shown that to
this end nothing was so essential as a fire in rainy weather. Our
neighbours had generally effected this by building a heavy chimney of
stones and earth against one side of their tents; but, aside from the
difficulty of such an undertaking, the quantity of fuel that would
be thus required was a very serious objection. We thought ourselves,
therefore, very fortunate in obtaining a small sheet-iron stove of
the rudest construction, that had been manufactured the preceding
year for a trader in the village, for the very moderate sum of two
hundred and eighty dollars. On bringing it home, we found no room for
it in the tent, except just within the door, where it stood like a
sturdy little three-legged Dutchman, valiantly presenting its gaping
blunderbuss of a funnel in the very face and eyes of the audacious
intruder, who verily thought that if he escaped being blown to pieces,
he should infallibly be suffocated by its pestilent fumes. To tell the
truth, however, greater part of the smoke made its way directly back
into the tent, when it seemed to find huge delight in circling round
a hornet's nest in the very summit of the sugar-loaf, and to wonder
strangely that it could not get out; till Tertium happily conceived
the idea of fitting an old boot bereft of its toe, on to the other end
of the funnel, after which the smoke found no difficulty in walking in
a different direction.
Mowbray having determined to leave the mines, we seized the
opportunity of laying in a stock of winter provisions. We bought half
a barrel of sour flour, the same quantity of syrup, of sugar and
salt pork, together with half-a-dozen Dutch cheeses, as many boxes
of sardines, fifty pounds of soda crackers, and a variety of smaller
articles.
All this wealth added to what we had before, rendered a larger tent
indispensable; and as we could find none for sale in the vicinity, I
went with Number Four to examine one belonging to a man on the North
Fork.
It is impossible to describe the beauty and glory of California at
that fine season. The crisp frosty air of the morning is quickly
succeeded by a warm hazy glow resembling that of our Indian summer. It
is not summer, nor spring, nor autumn, but a most artful and delicious
combination of all three. The country is an endless succession of
hills, whose distant slopes remind one continually of thrifty apple
orchards, while from every summit a prospect is presented apparently
out of all proportion to the trifling elevation.
Our course led us first a mile down the South Fork to where it unites
with the North to form the American river; crossing the boiling
current in a dug-out, we ascended the steep-hill on the other side,
and walking a few rods up the North Fork, came to the store where our
old friend Capt. Bill was clerk. It was a log-house, long and low, and
divided into two apartments, one of which served for the store, and
the other for a dining-room. A large number of miners were at work in
the neighbourhood, and some of them boarded at this establishment;
which thus united the dignity of a grocery or variety store to that of
a village tavern.
The salutations and inquiries usual on such occasions were followed
by the never-failing invitation, "Well, boys, what 'ill you take to
drink?" and an enumeration of all the various liquors supposed to be
suited to our different palates.
We had not then, however, been long enough in the country to
accommodate ourselves to this fashion; and soon after, continuing our
walk, we came in a few minutes to the tent of which we were in search.
Finding it to our liking, we weighed out two-and-a-half ounces, and at
once set out on our return, with the tent on our shoulders, stopping
every now and then to call each other's attention to some prospect of
unusual beauty--to the hares and squirrels that sported carelessly
among the rocks--or to the striped acorns that covered the ground
almost as long and taper as a lady's finger.
The next day, in spite of the threatening sky, we went to prospect
some ravines four miles from the island on the Sacramento road. Dr.
Collyer had already moved to this locality and had promised to send
us word if he found it favourable for mining; but as we heard nothing
from him, we determined to make a personal examination. The walk,
though totally unlike that of the day before, was in some respects
even more agreeable. Far to the left a range of low hills seemed
to hold up the sky, while the leaden clouds, oozing down between,
communicated their own dark mysterious hue to the softened slopes and
winding valleys.
On arriving at his tent, which was pitched in a very damp, unwholesome
ravine, we found the doctor was not at home; but keeping on from one
gulch to another we at last spied his hat just dodging behind a bank
of earth in which he was at work. He seemed far more surprised than
pleased at our sudden advent, and after a few moments' conversation,
suddenly jerking out his watch, exclaimed, "Well, it's nearly twelve,
and I must be going home to dinner; good morning, gentlemen," and away
he hurried, leaving us divided between laughter and indignation; but
inwardly resolving that it must be a very bad conscience indeed that
could put a watch a whole hour out of the way. After his unceremonious
departure we continued to prospect the ravines in the neighbourhood,
but found none worth coming so far to seek. There was very little
water running in any of them, and the two or three miners we saw at
work were obliged to use the same scanty supply till it became too
muddy to answer the purpose.
We spent the next three or four days in putting up our new tent and
arranging the furniture within; for, as we expected to remain here
several months, we did everything in the most substantial manner. The
tent itself was nearly square, being twelve feet wide and fifteen feet
long. Near the two sides, which were about three feet in height, we
set several thick posts with stout crotches at the top, and laid in
these heavy logs to which we secured the ropes that served to stretch
the roof. As the tent was made of cotton drilling which we had already
found insufficient to keep out the rain, we bought cloth enough to
make a second roof, called a fly, which we stretched over the first,
leaving a space of several inches between. The ridgepole, which was
formed of the spouts belonging to the Burke rocker, and projected at
each end beyond the roof, was supported by the tall stumps of two
oaks we had cut off for the purpose, and was also strengthened in
the middle by a pole passing through the centre of our little table.
The whole was surrounded on every side but one by a thick array of
branches, like a chevaux-de-frize, that broke the force of the wind,
and imparted an appearance of great snugness and security.
The stove thrust its pipe out of one of the gables, just at the left
of the door, and smoked away right lustily, day and night, as if
conscious that a good deal depended upon its vigilance and fidelity.
Altogether our new abode was of a very picturesque character,
and I doubt not that many a humdrum citizen, yawning fearfully
in his luxurious apartments, would consider it a very desirable
residence--for a single day.
The interior was fitted up in a style of corresponding simplicity and
elegance. A dry-goods' box that stood on end between the door and
stove, and did duty as a sideboard, seemed to give an air of dignity
and refinement to the apartment. It may not be in very good taste to
parade the price of one's furniture; but as I know that many, at the
present day especially, are apt to be curious in such matters, I will
simply mention that our sideboard, though of pine, could not have been
bought for less than fifty dollars.
Half a dozen tin plates and dippers--we could have had gold if we had
pleased, but that was too common--two or three pans and pewter mugs--a
large tin pail for making soup--a frying pan and coffee-pot, together
with a squad of battered boxes that had once contained sardines or
preserved meats, composed the list of our culinary utensils.
We had been sometime seeking to add a stewpan to our possessions, and
meeting one day a party who were about leaving the mines, we inquired
if they had such an article to dispose of. In reply they introduced
us to a coffee-pot as tall as a two-year-old infant, and lifting the
lid, Number Four peered curiously down into the capacious interior,
as into the crater of an extinct volcano. It was a perfect geological
curiosity. Beef, pork, beans, rice, potatoes, and onions, lying in
distinct strata, or mingled into a dense conglomerate, rose half way
to the top, while a faint and steamy odour from all these various
ingredients drove us back as from the witches' cauldron.
At the foot of one of our beds and in the centre of the tent, stood
the table--a few boards laid on the top of a flour barrel; the corner
behind the door was used as a store room for our provisions, while all
the remaining space was occupied by our beds. These were framed of
sticks and grapevines, and covered, instead of a mattrass, with grass
and moss; we carpeted the floor with the same material, and then,
having exhausted our ingenuity, had nothing left to do but run in and
out, and admire our own handiwork.
Many trifling improvements were subsequently added during the tiresome
monotony of stormy weather. Tertium fitted the sideboard with shelves
and a swinging door, and paved the space around the stove with smooth
stones. He contrived a fastening for the door so artfully that he
could not open it himself in less than half an hour, and even carried
his ingenuity so far as to make a pair of bellows that blew equally
well on all sides at once. I succeeded in manufacturing a pair of
tongs out of an iron hoop, and then undertook to build an oven, but
desisted after labouring at it several weeks, by which time it bid
fair to rival the biggest of the Egyptian pyramids.
Thanksgiving came as usual, and found us still in the bustle of
house-building, but as we had been invited to dine out, we did not
intermit our labours till noon, when we dressed ourselves in our
cleanest shirts, and walked over to our entertainers.
The party to which we would now introduce the reader had been some
time our nearest neighbours, and since the departure of all our other
acquaintance, we had contracted a sudden intimacy which afterwards
ripened, with one of them at least, into a lasting friendship.
Colonel Oldbuck, the eldest of the party, was a man of about the
middle size, with a neck much too large and long for his body,
and which seemed to have bulged out a little at the top in order
to form a head. He had a narrow rounded forehead, thick features,
and a bilious complexion. His voice was very agreeable, and like
his walk, slow and measured. Even when in a passion, and he was a
very choleric individual, he never lost this advantage, and would
bespatter his adversary with all the unsavoury epithets at his call
without rising for a moment above the imposing barrytone of his
ordinary conversation. The same peculiarity was discovered in the
self-sufficiency that was his most notable characteristic. His conceit
was none of your vulgar blustering sort, clamorously betraying its
own weakness, but, on the contrary, it was exceedingly quiet and
genteel, and if it is not a contradiction, modest and unassuming. It
was undoubtedly this very thing that made it so effective. It came
upon you before you were aware--it aroused no opposition--excited no
suspicion. A nearer acquaintance discovered that in spite of this
seeming moderation, it was really most grasping and comprehensive.
Nothing was too high for it, or too low--it pervaded his whole being,
and seemed to envelope him, wherever he went, like a cloud.
At home he had been a man of very extensive influence, and the scene
that was enacted at his departure somewhat resembled the parting of
Washington and his army. The tears which were shed on that occasion,
as a distinguished orator observed, after falling and watering the
earth, ascended magnanimously and triumphantly into the firmament,
when they marshalled themselves into a cloud that should accompany
their hero in all his wanderings.
Though only a farmer and country trader, the redoubtable Oldbuck
had, by sheer force of genius, attained the office of Justice of the
Peace--Colonel in the state militia, and others equally responsible.
No one could read the Declaration of Independence so touchingly as
he, or was so popular an orator at cattle shows and country fairs.
His fellow-citizens were even now impatiently awaiting his return
that they might hear from his lips how much to believe of that mighty
humbug that was now convulsing the whole world. He had distinguished
himself no less in his military capacity. We listened to his simple,
unpretending narrative of his heroic exploits with thrilling interest,
and each in his heart wished that heaven had made him such a man,
when we saw in fancy, the keen edge of his ruthless sword describing
a horrid circle in the air, and then, at one tremendous blow, cutting
in twain the unhappy watermelon, if it should not rather be considered
happy in so glorious a death--held meanwhile between the hands of
one of his compeers. This performance was a happy union of the
achievements of both Richard and Saladin, demanding for its successful
execution, the ponderous strength of the one, and marvellous sleight
of hand of the other; and it carried me back to the chivalrous times
of those glorious old Knickerbockers, who erewhile waged such doubtful
war with those pestilent pumpkins.
The same noble ambition that had carried our hero to such heights of
fame at home still burned in his heart, inciting him to gain fresh
laurels in this new field of action. During his stay at Mormon Island
an election was held for alcalde, and by the advice, or, as he would
say, the urgent entreaty of many of his friends, the Colonel proposed
himself as a candidate. But though he arrayed himself for the occasion
in an imposing suit, consisting of a blue jacket that came half-way up
to his shoulders, and a pair of tight trowsers that came half-way up
to his knees, and in this guise walked up and down before the crowd of
admiring fellow-citizens assembled at the polls, he, for some reason I
could never fathom, failed to produce his wonted impression; and the
office, to his infinite mortification, was given to another.
In addition to his other good qualities, Colonel Oldbuck was an
excellent mimic--told a good story, with broad Dutch humour--and was
in fact a very entertaining companion. He occupied the post of honour
at our little table.
Crowded up into one corner of the tent--his corner--sat a shy, quiet
Scotchman, who read incessantly, except when working and sleeping, and
lived in a perpetual atmosphere of snuff.
The third, and much the youngest of the party, was a little doctor,
who signed his name with a vanity to be pardoned in no one else, C.
Fox Browne. As doctors were plenty in California, and we ourselves
became acquainted with no less than four bearing this ancient and
honourable cognomen, some such distinction seemed necessary. But among
his friends our doctor needed no such meretricious addition; his
plain Charles Browne was better than the tandem titles of the most
name-tormenting pedigree.
Any one, on slight acquaintance, might have been inclined to charge
him with vanity. But if so, vanity with him was elevated and ennobled
into a virtue. No one could possibly object to it, or wish it had
been less. One might as well wish that he had been less disinterested
or good-natured. But what these careless observers would call vanity
was really a very different quality. It was simply a disposition to
be easily pleased, and to look on the bright side of our cloddish
humanity. Vanity begins and ends at home; it is essentially
egotistical, and must finally refer everything to self. It comes from
the company of its own swollen imaginations, like Gulliver from among
the Brobdingnags, and in the same way looks on common men as dwarfs.
But our doctor's complacency was of the most catholic nature. It made
no invidious comparisons; if he thought highly of himself, he had even
a better opinion of others, and his eyes were as blind to their faults
and open to their virtues as to his own.
Oldbuck, who could never bear the least approach to a jest at his own
expense, was continually making game of his companion. "Browne--he did
this or that," was his favourite exordium on such occasions; and his
eye would begin to twinkle, and his mouth to twitch, as premonitory
symptoms of the low, hearty chuckle that was sure to follow, while the
doctor seemed to enjoy the whole thing as much as any of us.
These three were now the solitary remnant of a party that had
originally consisted of forty members. Half only, however, came to
California, to encounter the perils and hardships of the mines; while
the others paid all the expenses of the expedition, and sat secure
at home. They had brought with them various improved and scientific
machines, and among them one for dredging in the bottom of the
rivers, of which they seemed to have formed the same idea as myself.
Assuming as a basis the accounts that had reached home of the wealth
of California, they had sat down, coolly and deliberately, with pen
and paper, to calculate the profits they might safely expect from
two years' labour. The result at which they arrived was every way
pleasing and satisfactory; indeed, so much so that even their inflated
imaginations were unable to receive it in all its vast proportions.
They accordingly went over the work again with an excess of caution
deserving the highest credit, and finding all correct, gradually
settled down into the comfortable belief that at the end of two years
they would each be worth just half a million.
Dr. Browne's whole time was to be occupied in amalgamating and
weighing the gold; and, if practicable, casting it into ingots.
Murray, the quiet Scotchman, had brought with him twelve tin boxes,
each containing a quart of snuff; and he confidently expected, as
fast as they were emptied, to fill them with another dust yet more
precious and titillating. When I heard this story of their magnificent
conceptions, I felt vexed and ashamed at my own comparatively
grovelling notions; for it certainly must have been a fine thing to
believe oneself, for ever so short a time, the possessor of such a
princely fortune, and thus familiarize the mind to these ennobling
contemplations. One could hardly fail to think and speak more loftily
for it all his life, as the humblest individual who should become a
lord or a king, even for a single day, could never lose the smack of
greatness thus acquired.
Dinner was waiting when we entered, and we at once took our places,
without loss of time in idle ceremony. A sailor's chest, covered with
a real table-cloth, and raised to a convenient elevation by two low
boxes, formed a very commodious table, the difficulty we experienced
in disposing of our legs, and which compelled us to lean gracefully
forward at an angle of forty-five degrees, being the only material
objection. And this trifling annoyance was soon forgotten at sight
of the truly royal banquet prepared by our munificent entertainers,
and which I will describe at greater length, to remove, if possible,
an odious impression, as I fear too generally prevalent, that the
California miner absolutely eats nothing but pork and flapjacks.
The great advantages secured by division of labour were here apparent.
Instead of each member of the company taking his turn, day by day
or week by week, in performing all the culinary operations, as was
the usual custom, each one had exclusive charge of some particular
department. Oldbuck superintended the meats, the bread and pastry were
confided to the doctor, while Murray, being only a noviciate and as
yet unequal to the higher branches, was serving an apprenticeship at
washing the dishes.
As might have been expected from so judicious an arrangement,
everything was excellent and in perfect keeping. The first course
consisted of boiled ham, roast venison, a venison stew or pasty
(Friar Tuck's was not half so good, though, I take it, the best pasty
in the world), and potatoes at a dollar a pound. After we had done
ample justice to each of these dishes, and washed them down with a
brimming cup of coffee, the plates--real china, by the way--were
removed and expeditiously rinsed outside the tent by Murray, while
we testified our growing complacency by a between-course of jests
and sly allusions to the decidedly aristocratic pretensions of the
colonel's establishment. The second course consisted of a huge platter
of molasses gingerbread and indisputable peach-pie, accompanied by
two bottles of wine; but where they came from, whether from Madeira
or Kamtschatka, is beyond my conjecture. Colonel Oldbuck fidgetted a
little at this unexpected apparition, for he was a teetotaller, and
carried his principles with him to California, and, what is more,
kept them there--an example that the great Kneel Down himself might
have found it hard to follow.
Songs and stories now succeeded. "The youngest gentleman in company
blew his melancholy into a flute," and fortunately managed also to
blow considerable out of it, and about four o'clock we rose from table
highly gratified with our first Thanksgiving in the mines.