We had now been in the mines a year, and our affairs, as will be seen
from the following calculation, were in a very flourishing condition:
CALIFORNIA, _Dr._
Submarine armour, $420.00
One share in Washington Dam, 150.00
Travelling expenses, freight, &c., 350.00
Rockers, shovels, pans, &c., 200.00
Long Tom and wheel, 125.00
Clothing, 150.00
Provisions, 1400.00
Tent, and incidental expenses, 150.00
--------
Total, $2945.00
_Cr._
Cash on hand, $75.00
Small tent and furniture, 50.00
Tools, provisions, &c., 50.00
Sixty feet front in Red Bank, 200.00
Experience, 1500.00
--------
Total in favour of California, $1875.00
Naturally supposing that the rains would render the roads almost
impassable this winter, as they had done the last, and thereby cause
a great advance in the price of provisions, we determined to lay
in a stock sufficient to last until spring. We accordingly bought
five hundred pounds of flour, one hundred of sugar, thirty of pork,
besides rice, butter, coffee, dried apples, &c., &c. We also found it
necessary to purchase canvass sufficient for a new tent, the small one
we had brought back from our hunt in the mountains being too small to
afford comfortable winter quarters.
Our new house, as it should properly be called, was of nearly the
same dimensions as that we had occupied the preceding winter; but
instead of being set up in the usual manner, the canvass walls and
roof were stretched over a slender frame of posts and boards four
inches wide. We were occupied nearly a week in building the house and
bedsteads, and arranging the other furniture to our satisfaction. We
knocked in the head of our hogshead, and transporting its contents,
one by one, up the river to our new domicile, disposed them in the
same relative position they had formerly occupied. When we commenced
moving our provisions, we were suddenly put to flight by a storm of
yellow-jackets that had invaded our sugar bags, and did not seem
inclined to give them up without a struggle. In the contest that
ensued I received several severe stings, but the enemy were finally
routed with a loss of five or six thousand that we decoyed into an
ambush in the shape of a large pickle jar. They had carried off,
before we interrupted their depredations, several pounds of sugar;
but this loss was trifling compared with the annoyance they inflicted
upon us at dinner, when lured by the smell of fresh meat, as vultures
are by carrion, they hung around us in countless throngs, buzzed in
our soups or molasses, and levied contributions on every morsel as we
conveyed it to our mouth. There were other insect plagues yet more
familiar, but the subject is a sore one, and I forbear.
The new year commenced with a considerable improvement in our style
of living. Since our first arrival in the mines our table expenses
had not varied materially from a dollar a day; but prices had so far
diminished that we were now enabled to indulge freely in certain
aristocratic luxuries that we had then tasted not oftener than once a
week. We had butter in plenty at only 70 cents a pound, and sweet and
Irish potatoes at only twenty dollars a bushel. A regular meat market
had been established in the village, where we could obtain tolerably
good beef at only twenty-five cents a pound. The wild cattle of the
country were driven in in large numbers by men armed with lassoes,
and shut up in a kraal or pound formed by planting stout posts close
together.
They often manifested the greatest unwillingness to enter the kraal,
and the most amusing scenes were then presented. An ox would start
suddenly off, pursued by half a dozen horsemen at full gallop, and
after baffling them for a long time would turn fiercely upon his
enemies; but the horses were well trained, and apparently entered
into the contest with as much spirit as their riders, so that
accidents seldom happened. On one occasion, a horse hard pushed by the
infuriated animal, suddenly gathered himself up, and as his antagonist
came within reach, dealt him such a kick between the eyes as fairly
stretched him on the ground.
Not far from the kraal there dwelt a little Dutch shoemaker of those
fair proportions doubtless intended by the illustrious Knickerbocker,
when he compared one of his progenitors to a robustious beer-barrel
mounted on skids. This little Dutchman was sitting one evening in
the door of his tent, tranquilly smoking his pipe, and watching the
horseman ineffectually striving to drive an unusually vicious animal
into the pound, when the fierce beast suddenly made a dash in his
direction. There was no safety but in flight, so hastily starting up,
he rushed into his tent, hoping thus to elude the attack; but the ox,
too cunning to be deceived so easily, or unable to check his headlong
career, dashed in after him, and the next moment burst madly down the
hill, carrying the tent on his horns. It was at first thought that the
unlucky shoemaker had shared the same fate; but when the bystanders
came up, half dead with laughter, to the place where the tent had
stood, they found him stuck fast in the chimney, where he had finally
taken refuge, while his dumpy legs, the only part of him that was
visible, were feebly beating the ashes below.
On being extricated from his awkward position he exclaimed, looking
distractedly about him, "Dis ish von tam country vish I never did
see. I vash schmoked myself mit a pipe, and tinking I vished I vash at
home, and Hans, I say, you ish von great fool; why you don't go home?
ven all to vunst, I see te pull put ish head in his tail, and come
like von vat you call him? von shteam locofoco; and I run and get into
mine chimney, and ven I tries to get up, den, mein himmel! I vash not
able to get town; and ven I tries to get town, I vasht not able to get
up; and ven dey pull me town, de teufel ish in mein tent, and meinself
and mein chimney ish out of te doors."
Being now snugly settled in our winter quarters, with an abundant
supply of provisions for several months, we began to cast about in
our thoughts for some foolish easy way of getting at the treasures
locked up in the bank above us. The most natural and direct way would
have been to put the earth in buckets, carry it down to the river,
and wash it there in small rockers as we had done before. But we were
tired of small rockers. We never could see a full-grown man sitting
on a wet stone as if hatching his one solitary egg by the side of
one of those ridiculous machines, his body bent forward at an angle
of twenty-five degrees, and his knees as high as his chin, without a
strong indication to laugh. The Long Tom demanded no such fruitless
incubation, and was in other respects especially fitted for the plan
we now adopted.
Our bank ran back from the river some two hundred yards with an almost
level surface, then rose abruptly in irregular spurs or promontories.
The gulleys between these had been the preceding winter the channels
of small streams, that would together have furnished an abundant
supply of water for a Long Tom. By building a dam at the foot of
one of these gullies, a small pond would be formed from which as a
reservoir we could bring the water in a canal to the middle of our
claim, and thus avoid the necessity of carrying the earth to the
river. If this expedient should be successful, five or six cents to
the bucket would enable us to make half an ounce a day; and as the
quantity of earth was almost unlimited, five hundred to a thousand
dollars apiece seemed no very extravagant estimate for our winter's
work. As the rainy season, however, would not probably set in for
several weeks, we deferred the execution of our design till the last
moment.
October 8th, I walked with St. John to Sacramento, in hopes of
obtaining letters, as we had not heard from home for several months.
The reader will, doubtless, suppose that I must have been very
miserable, indeed, when he remembers the prancing hopes on which
I had bounded over the same road only one short year before. But
this is a great mistake. True, I had no horse, as I had so fondly
imagined; but, then, I was a very clumsy rider, nor was I encumbered
with those awkward saddle-bags. Besides, the day was most delightful
and exhilarating. The air, the trees, the dull earth seemed drenched,
through and through saturated with the transparent light. When we had
gone about three miles, we met a man gnawing a biscuit. "How far is
it to Willow Spring?" said St. John. The man held out his biscuit,
that we might see how much he had eaten. "I bought this at the house,"
said he, "so you can see it is not very far." In about a quarter of
a biscuit, we came to the Spring; the little green slope was still
there, but not quite so green as it was before, and I showed St. John
just where we had slept, and the little circle of ashes where we had
boiled our coffee, and the half-burnt stones. Heigho! how very funny
it seemed.
But the road was no longer so lonely; many new inns or ranches had
been built in the edge of the forest, with such enticing names as
"Missouri House," "New England Hotel," &c., besides two or three
half-way houses--a most inhospitable sound, as if nobody ever thought
of stopping, but was perpetually hurried on to some mysterious
somewhere beyond.
Presently we came to one, the air of which at once attracted our
attention. A little room had been built out at one side, with a
veranda in front. A rocking-chair stood in the veranda, and through
the open door and window we saw a bit of carpet and the snowy sheets
of a four-poster. "Women and children!" cried St. John.
"Women--yes; but where are the children?"
"There; don't you see?"
Under a noble oak that shaded one side of the house was suspended a
lofty swing, with its polished, shining bit of board.
"Children, to be sure, God bless 'em! but who'd have thought of ever
seeing a swing in California?"
We met several little troops of dusty miners going up into the country
to take possession, with their everlasting frying-pans, shovels, and
tin kettles. On such occasions, not to lose entirely the pleasurable
emotions of being an object of envy, we would assume a lofty and
swelling demeanour, and stalked by them with a conscious air, all
which, I noticed, had a great effect.
We got a lift on a wagon the last five or six miles, and arrived at
Sacramento about four o'clock. On entering this famous city, I could
hardly credit my senses at sight of the changes effected in a single
year. We rode for a mile through Jay street; and every where there
was the same crush of carts and wagons, the same endless variety of
goods, and the same emulous activity. A tall Chinese, mounted on a
high wagon, gaped upon us as we approached, as if he thought all who
were moving in an opposite direction must needs pass down his throat.
He was the first Celestial I had seen, and his portentous ugliness was
altogether beyond any thing indigenous to the western hemisphere.
We took supper at one of the eating-houses, that, next to the
gambling saloons, were the most striking feature in Sacramento, and
slept on the counter of a store kept by one of our acquaintance by
day, and an innumerable host of rats by night. These animals are
not--so I was told--native to the country, but have, in a few years,
increased so rapidly, that probably no place in the world except
the slaughter-houses of Paris could send forth an equal army. I was
actually afraid to walk after dark along the sidewalk, where there
were piles of flour and similar articles--the whole space being
apparently alive with rats, and the pattering of their feet sounding
like a gentle shower. The great freshet at Sacramento drove them back
into the country; and it was said that they then, for the first time,
made their appearance in the mines.
The gambling-houses at Sacramento were on the same magnificent scale
as those already described at San Francisco, but a new and important
attraction had been added. Bands of skilful musicians were employed to
play at intervals during the evening, the expense being defrayed by
the keepers of the bar and of the different tables. Gaming, however,
seemed to have lost much of its reckless character, and thousands were
now seldom lost and gained by the turn of a single card.
We obtained only one letter, but were gratified by meeting some old
acquaintances, one of whom gave us several papers published in our
native city, which we read through, word by word, and with peculiar
relish. The second day we set out on our return to Natoma, where we
arrived, long after dark, and in a very exhausted condition.
All the month of October, we waited diligently for rain, as we had
before waited for spring, and then for summer. November having
arrived, and the rainy season being, as we supposed, near at hand,
we thought it time to commence operations on our canal. By means of
a straight-edged board and a plumb-line, we found that the deepest
cut would have to be about four feet; the extreme length was five
hundred feet; and nearly the whole was dug through the stiffest and
most impracticable rubble. The dam was forty feet long, ten feet high
in the middle, and built precisely on the same plan as a beaver's,
with one addition, suggested by the purpose for which the dam was
intended, a sluice or gateway at bottom, that we could open and shut
at pleasure.
Our task was lightened by the delightfulness of the season, and by
the pleasing hope that we had at last hit upon a plan that would
render us superior to fortune. When, after a day's toil, we returned
to our tent, in which, from its protected situation, we could hear
the wind without feeling its effects--when the candle was lighted,
the coffee-pot simmered on the stove, and we had exchanged our heavy
boots for comfortable slippers,--we gratefully acknowledged that even
this life had its peculiar charms. An interesting book would sometimes
keep us up till nine, but seven was our usual hour--long practice and
attention having bestowed an extraordinary facility in sleeping. Our
conversation had now become astonishingly sententious and idiomatic.
It was condensed into a kind of shorthand or phonography. We had
become so familiar with each other's modes of thought--like those
unfortunates confined for years in the same dungeon--that a single
word was often enough to fire the whole train. Certain sentences were
now so oppressed and pregnant with meaning, that they seemed fairly to
stagger under the weight. In five years, I am persuaded that we should
have refined away all articulate language, and nothing more would have
been required for the most abstract conversation than the vowels'
sounds, accompanied by almost imperceptible shrugs and winks.
I had once the pleasure of listening to a very interesting dialogue
between two savans, with whom I was but slightly acquainted, but whose
proficiency in this difficult art excited my unqualified admiration.
The accent is here all-important.
"You save?" says the first.
"Yes, me save; do _you_ save?"
"Oh, _yes_! _I_ save."
Now, to any one--even if he had mastered Spanish without a master--who
was unacquainted with the mode of speaking here employed, these brief
sentences would seem an unintelligible jargon; and, before the least
glimmer of light could reach his understanding, it would be necessary
to dilute or translate them into at least as many pages of modern
English. Yet, not only those who took part in the dialogue, but I
myself, and all who listened to it, were in the highest degree edified
and delighted at this instance of unequalled condensation, which I
would respectfully commend to the consideration of all windy orators.
It was not till the 19th of November that the rainy season apparently
commenced. During the night it rained moderately, and the wind blew
with tremendous violence. The great pine overhead wrestled fearfully
with the tempest, with its long-twisted arms, and occasionally sent
down upon the tight drum-head of our canvass roof a shower of cones
as big as a pineapple, that fell on our startled ears with the burst
of a bombshell. We found it impossible to sleep, and, having roused
the drowsy candle, huddled round the stove and amused ourselves with
cracking pinenuts, of which we had, at different times, collected a
plentiful supply. These nuts grow in the cones just mentioned, closely
resemble in size and shape the meat of the almond, and are of a
peculiarly rich and oily flavour.
Early the next morning, before we had finished breakfast, the heavy
tramp of armed men, and a number of voices, called us hastily to the
door. A large party were already assembled on the bank above us; and,
through the tall hemlock that covered the hill towards the village,
we saw all along the narrow winding path the glitter of polished pick
and shovel. Hardly more sudden was the apparition of Clan Alpine's
warriors on the side of Benledi.
Instant, through copse and heath, arose
Bonnets, and spears, and bended bows;
On right, on left, above, below,
Sprung up at once the lurking foe.
From shingles gray these lances start;
The bracken bush sends forth the dart;
The rushes and the willow wand
Are bristling into axe and brand;
And every tuft of broom gives life
To plaided warrior armed for strife.
Our visitors, however, were bound on a more peaceful errand. Some wag
had started a wonderful story about the rich diggings in the Red Bank,
which had produced just such an excitement in Natoma as the California
fever in the Eastern States--all were anxious to obtain a share, and
in a short time the whole bank, three or four hundred feet long, was
staked off among the different claimants. The various disputes that
arose were all amicably adjusted by arbitration, in which we as the
earliest settlers were allowed the highest authority. Our decisions
were marked by the strictest impartiality, and even indifference, for
we believed the whole bank to be absolutely worthless; but after the
leads were fairly opened, we discovered, to our infinite surprise and
mortification, that several of them were far more valuable than our
own. For months we had been lying idle, encamped in the very midst of
riches; and now these new comers, aliens and foreigners to the bank,
had taken them, as it were, out of our hands. Our folly, however,
will appear more excusable when it is known that the whole place had
already been prospected again and again, and even worked for weeks in
two distinct locations by successive parties who had one after another
given up in despair. We had ourselves made several trials in front of
what afterwards proved to be the richest claim, and finding nothing,
concluded, according to what was then considered the universal laws
in such cases, that the bank would yield less and less the farther
it receded from the river. An entirely new feature, however, was now
introduced--instead of growing poorer, the bank became richer as the
miners advanced, till they came in some instances to earth paying
nearly a dollar to the bucket, when the lead gradually failed. This
rich streak ran diagonally across the bank, so that, while at the
upper end it was very near the front, it was found by those working at
the lower extremity fifty or a hundred feet farther back. The value
of all these claims was greatly diminished by the depth to which they
ran, a superstratum of earth varying from five to fifteen feet in
thickness having to be thrown off before they came to that containing
the gold.
Our quiet camp now became the centre of a bustling neighbourhood--a
road was laid out through the ravine close by our door for the purpose
of carting earth to the river, and huge piles of earth and stones rose
around us on every side. A party of slaves and free blacks, at work
for an extensive landed proprietor who claimed a front of sixty feet,
kept up an incessant laughing and chattering which would have shamed a
monkey or a yahoo.
There was no longer any pleasure in being idle, and we determined
to go to work with the rest without waiting any longer for rain.
We made almost nothing in the morning, and I began really to doubt
if we should ever succeed in earning enough to get home with; but
the afternoon's work was much more encouraging. Our schemes were
now all exhausted; we had nothing more to rely upon but patient,
unremitting toil, and we determined henceforth to lose no more time in
idle dreaming, but to work as long and hard as we could wherever we
could make four dollars a day. We continued to mine in the immediate
vicinity of our tent for the next two months, sometimes in our bank,
and at others in the wide sandy slope between it and the river; and at
the end of that time, besides paying all our debts, we found ourselves
worth in dust nearly one hundred dollars apiece.
Though our harvest had not been very plentiful, we were unwilling to
let Thanksgiving pass unnoticed. Number Four took dinner with us, and
we did our best, as usual on such occasions, to provoke appetite to
the utmost and yet give it an overwhelming defeat. Our first course
consisted of roast beef nicely baked under a cheese box, potatoes,
onions, and apple-sauce ad libitum. This was succeeded by a regular
oldfashioned Christmas pudding, the crowning glory of the occasion,
wanting nothing but eggs and milk, flanked on either side by a
molasses pie, and a dish of tarts well stuffed with delectable currant
jelly, and bravely supported by a dessert of raisins and English
walnuts.
The pies would hardly have passed muster with Aunt Chloe; "they were
pies sartin, but then what kind o' crust?" but perhaps that renowned
"perfectioner" would have experienced some difficulty in making her
"rale flecky paste" if she had had to roll it out with a bottle on the
under side of a three-legged stool.
Christmas, Number Four returned the compliment and invited us to
take supper at his tent, when China furnished her choicest teas and
chouchou or preserves of infinite variety. We had promised ourselves
the agreeable addition of Dr. Browne to our little circle, but he did
not make his appearance till the next afternoon. A dam at Ford's Bar,
in which he had invested all his earnings, had proved a failure, owing
to nearly the same causes that had disappointed our own expectations;
he had abandoned mining and was now on his way to the Sandwich
Islands. In spite of his reverses he was still full of ardour as ever,
and urged us strongly not to leave that part of the world at present.
It was impossible not to be somewhat infected by his enthusiasm,
and we found in our own dreams an additional reason for resting in
the same conclusion. Whenever we dreamed of being at home, which we
did repeatedly, our regret and vexation were so extreme that the
remembrance of what we had suffered on waking was sufficient to quiet
our homesick impatience for weeks.
The last of January, our old claim no longer yielding over four
dollars a day, we moved a quarter of a mile up the river to a bar
not far above the American Dam. The next day Number Four came up to
bring us some letters, accompanied by two of his fine city or village
acquaintance.
Dr. Ripsome was a notable instance of what may be accomplished by care
and industry even under the most unfavourable circumstances. It would
be difficult to find even in our most fashionable cities a more nicely
dressed gentleman. His elegance was a perpetual wonder, a continued
miracle. His ruffled shirt-bosom was without a spot, and his collar
seemed made of enamelled tin, so boldly did it rise on either side of
his carefully trimmed jet whiskers. Not a speck could be detected on
his immaculate trowsers, nor on those boots that looked as if they
belonged to a blacking bottle; indeed, dust and he seemed to have
no affinity, but to be rather in a constant state of repulsion. He
carefully dusted a smooth stone with his cambric handkerchief and sat
down while we read our letters.
They contained various interesting items, all suggestive of the length
of our absence from home. S. had got married--Tom had got whiskers
and was become a great ladies' man--and little St. Johnny had begun
to talk and was stoutly demanding when his California uncles would
get home. Ah lo que es el mundo! why couldn't they have waited a
little longer?--by the time we do get home, everything will be over,
and nothing left to happen. This is the worst part of going away
from home,--if one could only seal up what he left behind him with a
certainty of finding everything undisturbed on his return, or if, like
the sun in Ajalon or a clock whose pendulum has ceased its vibrations,
home would stand still waiting his touch to set it again in motion,
a long journey would no longer be such an ugly gap in existence, but
like a break in an electric current, throw its light over our whole
path.