In a Marysville kitchen you'll find him;
Two rusty pistols he girded on,
And his violin hung behind him.
His fiddle is heard no more on all the Bar, and silence reigns through
the calico halls of the Humboldt. His bland smile and his dainty plats,
his inimitably choice language and his pet tambourine, his woolly
corkscrew and his really beautiful music, have, I fear, vanished
forever from the mountains.
Just before he left he found a birthday which belonged to himself, and
was observed all the morning thereof standing about in spots, a perfect
picture of perplexity painted in burnt umber. Inquiry being made by
sympathizing friends as to the cause of his distress, he answered,
that, having no fresh meat, he could not prepare a dinner for the log
cabin, worthy of the occasion!
But no circumstance can put a man of genius entirely _hors de combat_.
Confine him in a dungeon, banish him to an uninhabited island, place
him, solitary and alone, in a boundless desert, deprive him of all but
life, and he will still achieve wonders. With the iron hams, the
piscatory phenomenon referred to in my last, and a can of really
excellent oysters, Ned's birthday dinner was a _chef-d'oeuvre_. He
accompanied it with a present of a bottle of very good champagne,
requesting us to drink it (which we _did_, not having the fear of
temperance societies or Maine-law liquor bills before our eyes) in
honor of his having dropped another year into the returnless past.
There has been a great excitement here on account of the fancied
discovery of valuable quartz-mines in the vicinity of the American
Rancho, which is situated about twenty miles from this place. Half the
people upon the river went out there for the purpose of prospecting and
staking claims. The quartz apparently paid admirably. Several companies
were speedily formed, and men sent to Hamilton, the county seat, to
record the various claims. F. himself went out there, and remained
several days. Now, however, the whole excitement has turned out to be a
complete humbug. The quicksilver which was procured at the rancho for
the testing of the quartz, the victims declare, was salted, and they
accuse the rancheros of conniving at the fraud for the purpose of
making money out of those who were compelled to lodge and board with
them while prospecting. The accused affirm that if there was any
deception (which, however, is beyond the shadow of a doubt), they also
were deceived; and as they appear like honest men enough, I am inclined
to believe them.
Just now there is a new quartz-mine excitement. A man has engaged to
lead a company to the golden and crystallized spot. Probably this also
will prove, like the other, a mere yellow bubble. But, even if as rich
as he says, it will be of little value at present, on account of the
want of suitable machinery, that now in use being so expensive and
wasting so much of the precious metal that it leaves the miner but
little profit. It is thought, however, by men of judgment that in a few
years, when the proper way of working them to advantage has been
discovered, the quartz-mines will be more profitable than any others in
California.
A few days ago we had another specimen of illegal, but in this case at
least extremely equitable, justice. Five men left the river without
paying their debts. A meeting of the miners was convened, and "Yank,"
who possesses an iron frame, the perseverance of a bulldog, and a
constitution which never knew fatigue, was appointed, with another
person, to go in search of the culprits and bring them back to Indian
Bar. He found them a few miles from this place, and returned with them
in triumph, and alone, his friend having been compelled to remain
behind on account of excessive fatigue. The self-constituted court,
after a fair trial, obliged the five men to settle all liabilities
before they again left the river.
Last week the Frenchmen on the river celebrated the Revolution of
February, 1848. What kind of a time they had during the day, I know
not, but in the evening (apropos, part of them reside at Missouri Bar)
they formed a torchlight procession and marched to Rich Bar, which, by
the way, takes airs upon itself, and considers itself a _town_. They
made quite a picturesque appearance as they wound up the hill, each one
carrying a tiny pine-tree, the top of which was encircled with a diadem
of flame, beautifully lighting up the darker verdure beneath, and
gleaming like a spectral crown through the moonless, misty evening. We
could not help laughing at their watchwords. They ran in this wise:
Shorge Washingtone, James K. Polk, Napoleon Bonaparte! Liberte,
egalite, fraternite! Andrew Jacksone, President Fillmore, and
Lafayette! I give them to you word for word, as I took them down at the
time.
Since the bridges have been swept away, I have been to Rich Bar but
once. It is necessary to go over the hill now, and the walk is a very
wearisome one. It is much more pleasant to live on the hills than on
the Bar, and during our walk we passed two or three cozy little cabins,
nestling in broad patches of sunlight, and surrounded with ample space
for a promenade, which made me quite envious. Unfortunately, F.'s
profession renders it desirable that he should reside where the largest
number of people congregate, and then the ascent to the habitable
portion of the hill is as steep as any part of that leading into Rich
Bar, and it would be impossible for him to walk up and down it several
times a day,--a task which he would be compelled to perform if we
resided there. For that reason I make myself as happy as possible where
I am.
I have been invited to dine at the best-built log cabin on the river.
It is situated on the hill of which I have just been writing, and is
owned by five or six intelligent, hard-working, sturdy young men. Of
course it has no floor, but it boasts a perfect marvel of a fireplace.
They never pretend to split the wood for it, but merely fall a giant
fir-tree, strip it of its branches, and cut it into pieces the length
of the aforesaid wonder. This cabin is lighted in a manner truly
ingenious. Three feet in length of a log on one side of the room is
removed and glass jars inserted in its place, the space around the
necks of said jars being filled in with clay. This novel idea is really
an excellent substitute for window-glass. You will perhaps wonder where
they procure enough of the material for such a purpose. They are
brought here in enormous quantities, containing brandied fruits, for
there is no possible luxury connected with drinking, which is
procurable in California, that cannot be found in the mines, and the
very men who fancy it a piece of wicked extravagance to _buy_ bread,
because they can save a few dimes by _making_ it themselves, are often
those who think nothing of spending from fifteen to twenty dollars a
night in the bar-rooms. There is at this moment a perfect
Pelion-upon-Ossa-like pile of beautiful glass jars, porter, ale,
champagne, and claret bottles, lying in front of my window. The latter
are a very convenient article for the manufacture of the most
enchantingly primitive lanterns. Any one in want of a utensil of this
kind has but to step to his cabin-door, take up a claret or champagne
bottle, knock off the bottom, and dropping into the neck thereof,
through the opening thus made, a candle, to have a most excellent
lantern. And the beauty of it is, that, every time you wish to use such
a thing, you can have a _new_ one.
But to return to my description of the cabin. It consists of one very
large room, in the back part of which are neatly stored several hundred
sacks of flour, a large quantity of potatoes, sundry kegs of butter,
and plenty of hams and mackerel. The furniture consists of substantial
wooden stools, and in these I observed that our friends followed the
fashion, no two of them being made alike. Some stood proudly forth in
all the grandeur of four legs, others affected the classic grace of the
ancient tripod, while a few shrank bashfully into corners on one
stubbed stump. Some round, some square, and some triangular in form.
Several were so high that, when enthroned upon them, the ends of my
toes just touched the ground, and others were so low that, on rising, I
carried away a large portion of the soil upon my unfortunate skirts.
Their bunks, as they call them, were arranged in two rows along one
side of the cabin, each neatly covered with a dark-blue or red blanket.
A handsome oilcloth was spread upon the table, and the service
consisted of tin plates, a pretty set of stone-china cups and saucers,
and some good knives and forks, which looked almost as bright as if
they had just come from the cutler's. For dinner we had boiled beef and
ham, broiled mackerel, potatoes, splendid new bread made by one of the
gentlemen of the house, coffee, milk (Mr. B. has bought a cow, and now
and then we get a wee drop of milk), and the most delicious Indian
meal, parched, that I ever tasted. I have been very particular in
describing this cabin, for it is the best-built and by far the
best-appointed one upon the river.
I have said nothing about candlesticks as yet. I must confess that in
_them_ the spice of life is carried almost too far. One gets satiated
with their wonderful variety. I will mention but two or three of these
makeshifts. Bottles, _without_ the bottoms knocked off, are general
favorites. Many, however, exhibit an insane admiration for match-boxes,
which, considering that they _will_ keep falling _all_ the time, and
leaving the entire house in darkness, and scattering spermaceti in
every direction, is rather an inconvenient taste. Some fancy blocks of
wood with an ornamental balustrade of three nails, and I _have_ seen
praiseworthy candles making desperate efforts to stand straight in
tumblers! Many of our friends, with a beautiful and sublime faith in
spermaceti and good luck, eschew everything of the kind, and you will
often find their tables picturesquely covered with splashes of the
former article, elegantly ornamented with little strips of black wick.
The sad forebodings mentioned in a former letter have come to pass. For
some weeks, with the exception of two or three families, every one upon
the river has been out of butter, onions, and potatoes. Our kind
friends upon the hill, who have a little remaining, sent me a few
pounds of the former the other day. Ham, mackerel, and bread, with
occasionally a treat of the precious butter, have been literally our
only food for a long time. The rancheros have not driven in any beef
for several weeks, and although it is so pleasant on the bars, the cold
on the mountains still continues so intense that the trail remained
impassable to mules.
The weather here for the past five weeks has been like the Indian
summer at home. Nearly every day I take a walk up onto the hill back of
our cabin. Nobody lives there, it is so very steep. I have a cozy
little seat in the fragrant bosom of some evergreen shrubs, where often
I remain for hours. It is almost like death to mount to my favorite
spot, the path is so steep and stony; but it is new life, when I arrive
there, to sit in the shadow of the pines and listen to the plaintive
wail of the wind as it surges through their musical leaves, and to gaze
down upon the tented Bar lying in somber gloom (for as yet the sun does
not shine upon it) and the foam-flaked river, and around at the awful
mountain splashed here and there with broad patches of snow, or
reverently upward into the stainless blue of our unmatchable sky.
This letter is much longer than I thought it would be when I commenced
it, and I believe that I have been as minutely particular as even you
can desire. I have mentioned everything that has happened since I last
wrote. Oh! I was very near forgetting a present of two ring-doves
(alas! they had been shot) and a blue jay which I received yesterday.
We had them roasted for dinner last evening. The former were very
beautiful, approaching in hue more nearly to a French gray than what is
generally called a dun color, with a perfect ring of ivory encircling
each pretty neck. The blue jay was exactly like its namesake in the
States.
Good by, my dear M., and remember that the _same_ sky, though not quite
so beautiful a portion of it, which smiles upon _me_ in sunny
California bends lovingly over _you_ in cold, dreary, but, in spite of
its harsh airs, beloved New England.
LETTER _the_ FOURTEENTH
[_The_ PIONEER, _April_, 1855]
SPRINGTIDE--LINGUISTICS--STORMS--ACCIDENTS
SYNOPSIS
The splendor of a March morning in the mountains of California. First
bird of the season. Blue and red shirted miners a feature of the
landscape. "Wanderers from the whole broad earth". The languages of
many nations heard. How the Americans attempt to converse with the
Spanish-speaking population. "Sabe," "vamos," "poco tiempo," "si," and
"bueno," a complete lexicon of la lengua castellana, in mind of
Americans. An "ugly disposition" manifested when the speaker is not
understood. Spaniards "ain't kinder like our folks," nor "folksy".
Mistakes not all on one side. Spanish proverb regarding certain
languages. Not complimentary to English. Stormy weather. Storm king a
perfect Proteus. River on a rampage. Sawmill carried away. Pastimes of
the miners during the storm. MS. account of storm sent in keg via river
to Marysville newspaper. Silversmith makes gold rings during storm.
Raffling and reraffling of same as pastime. Some natural gold rings.
Nugget in shape of eagle's head presented to author. Miners buried up
to neck in cave-in. Escape with but slight injury. Miner stabbed
without provocation in drunken frolic. Life despaired of at first. No
notice taken of affair.
Letter _the_ Fourteenth
SPRINGTIDE--LINGUISTICS--STORMS--ACCIDENTS
_From our Log Cabin_, INDIAN BAR,
_March_ 15, 1852.
This fifteenth day of March has risen upon us with all the primeval
splendor of the birth-morn of creation. The lovely river, having
resumed its crimson border (the so long idle miners being again busily
at work), glides by, laughing gayly, leaping and clapping its glad
waves joyfully in the golden sunlight. The feathery fringe of the
fir-trees glitters like emerald in the luster-bathing air. A hundred
tiny rivulets flash down from the brow of the mountains, as if some
mighty Titan, standing on the other side, had flung athwart their
greenness a chaplet of radiant pearls. Of the large quantities of snow
which have fallen within the past fortnight, a few patches of shining
whiteness, high up among the hills, alone remain, while, to finish the
picture, the lustrous heaven of California, looking farther off than
ever through the wonderfully transparent atmosphere, and for that very
reason infinitely more beautiful, bends over all the matchless blue of
its resplendent arch. Ah, the heaven of the Golden Land! To you, living
beneath the murky skies of New England, how unimaginably lovely it is.
A small poetess has said that _she_ could not love a scene where the
blue sky was _always_ blue. I think it is not so with me. I am sure I
never weary of the succession of rainless months, nor of the azure
dome, day after day so mistless, which bends above this favored
country.
Between each stroke of the pen I stop to glance at that splendor, whose
sameness never fails, but now a flock of ring-doves break for a moment
with dots of purple its monotonous beauty, and the carol of a tiny bird
(the first of the season), though I cannot see the darling, fills the
joyful air with its matin song.
All along the side of the hill behind the Bar, and on the latter also,
glance spots of azure and crimson, in the forms of blue and red shirted
miners bending steadily over pickax and shovel, reminding one
involuntarily of the muck-gatherer in The Pilgrim's Progress. But no;
that is an unjust association of ideas, for many of these men are
toiling thus wearily for laughing-lipped children, calm-browed wives,
or saintly mothers, gathering around the household hearth in some
far-away country. Even among the few now remaining on the river there
are wanderers from the whole broad earth, and, oh, what a world of
poetic recollection is suggested by their living presence! From
happiest homes and such luxuriant lands has the golden magnet drawn its
victims. From those palm-girdled isles of the Pacific, which Melville's
gifted pen has consecrated to such beautiful romance; from Indies,
blazing through the dim past with funeral pyres, upon whose perfumed
flame ascended to God the chaste souls of her devoted wives; from the
grand old woods of classic Greece, haunted by nymph and satyr, Naiad
and Grace, grape-crowned Bacchus and beauty-zoned Venus; from the
polished heart of artificial Europe; from the breezy backwoods of young
America; from the tropical languor of Asian savannah; from _every_ spot
shining through the rosy light of beloved old fables, or consecrated by
lofty deeds of heroism or devotion, or shrined in our heart of hearts
as the sacred home of some great or gifted one,--they gather to the
golden harvest.
You will hear in the same day, almost at the same time, the lofty
melody of the Spanish language, the piquant polish of the French
(which, though not a _musical_ tongue, is the most _useful_ of them
all), the silver, changing clearness of the Italian, the harsh gangle
of the German, the hissing precision of the English, the liquid
sweetness of the Kanaka, and the sleep-inspiring languor of the East
Indian. To complete the catalogue, there is the _native_ Indian, with
his guttural vocabulary of twenty words! When I hear these sounds, so
strangely different, and look at the speakers, I fancy them a living
polyglot of the languages, a perambulating picture-gallery illustrative
of national variety in form and feature.
By the way, speaking of languages, nothing is more amusing than to
observe the different styles in which the generality of Americans talk
_at_ the unfortunate Spaniard. In the first place, many of them really
believe that when they have learned _sabe_ and _vamos_ (two words which
they seldom use in the right place), _poco tiempo_, _si_, and _bueno_
(the last they _will_ persist in pronouncing _whayno_), they have the
whole of the glorious Castilian at their tongue's end. Some, however,
eschew the above words entirely, and innocently fancy that by splitting
the tympanum of an unhappy foreigner in screaming forth their sentences
in good solid English they can be surely understood; others, at the
imminent risk of dislocating their own limbs, and the jaws of their
listeners by the laughs which their efforts elicit, make the most
excruciatingly grotesque gestures, and think that _that_ is speaking
Spanish. The majority, however, place a most beautiful and touching
faith in _broken English_, and when they murder it with the few words
of Castilian quoted above, are firmly convinced that it is nothing but
their "ugly dispositions" which make the Spaniards pretend not to
understand them.
One of those dear, stupid Yankees who _will_ now and then venture out
of sight of the smoke of their own chimneys as far as California, was
relating _his_ experience in this particular the other day. It seems he
had lost a horse somewhere among the hills, and during his search for
it met a gentlemanly Chileno, who with national suavity made the most
desperate efforts to understand the questions put to him. Of course
Chileno was so stupid that he did not succeed, for it is not possible
one of the Great American People could fail to express himself clearly
even in Hebrew if he takes it into his cute head to speak that ancient
but highly respectable language. Our Yankee friend, however, would not
allow the poor fellow even the excuse of stupidity, but declared that
he only "played possum from sheer _ugliness_." "Why," he added, in
relating the circumstance, "the cross old rascal pretended not to
understand his own language, though I said as plainly as possible,
'Senor, sabe mi horso vamos poco tiempo?' which, perhaps you don't
know," he proceeded to say, in a benevolent desire to enlighten our
ignorance and teach us a little Castilian, "means, 'Sir, I have lost my
horse; have you seen it?'" I am ashamed to acknowledge that we did
_not_ know the above-written Anglo-Spanish meant _that_! The honest
fellow concluded his story by declaring (and it is a common remark with
uneducated Americans) with a most self-glorifying air of _pity_ for the
poor Spaniards, "They ain't kinder like _eour_ folks," or, as that
universal Aunt Somebody used so expressively to observe, "Somehow, they
ain't _folksy_!"
The mistakes made on the other side are often quite as amusing. Dr.
Canas related to us a laughable anecdote of a countryman of his, with
whom he happened to camp on his first arrival in San Francisco. None of
the party could speak a word of English, and the person referred to, as
ignorant as the rest, went out to purchase bread, which he procured by
laying down some money and pointing to a loaf of that necessary edible.
He probably heard a person use the words "some bread," for he rushed
home, Canas said, in a perfect burst of newly acquired wisdom, and
informed his friends that he had found out the English for "pan," and
that when they wished any of that article they need but enter a
bakeshop and utter the word "sombrero" in order to obtain it! His
hearers were delighted to know _that_ much of the _infernal lengua_,
greatly marveling, however, that the same word which meant "hat" in
Castilian should mean "bread" in English. The Spaniards have a saying
to the following effect: "Children speak in Italian, ladies speak in
French, God speaks in Spanish, and the Devil speaks in English."
I commenced this letter with the intention of telling you about the
weary, weary storm, which has not only thrown a damp over our spirits,
but has saturated them, as it has everything else, with a deluge of
moisture. The storm king commenced his reign (or rain) on the 28th of
February, and proved himself a perfect Proteus during his residence
with us. For one entire week he descended daily and nightly, without an
hour's cessation, in a forty Niagara-power of water, and just as we
were getting reconciled to this wet state of affairs, and were thinking
seriously of learning to swim, one gloomy evening, when we least
expected such a change, he stole softly down and garlanded us in a
wreath of shiny snowflakes, and lo! the next morning you would have
thought that some great white bird had shed its glittering feathers all
over rock, tree, hill, and bar. He finished his vagaries by loosening,
rattling, and crashing upon this devoted spot a small skyful of
hailstones, which, aided by a terrific wind, waged terrible warfare
against the frail tents and the calico-shirt huts, and made even the
shingles on the roofs of the log cabins tremble amid their nails.
The river, usually so bland and smiling, looked really terrific. It
rose to an unexampled height, and tore along its way, a perfect mass of
dark-foamed turbid waves. At one time we had serious fears that the
water would cover the whole Bar, for it approached within two or three
feet of the Humboldt. A sawmill, which had been built at a great
expense by two gentlemen of Rich Bar in order to be ready for the
sawing of lumber for the extensive fluming operations which are in
contemplation this season, was entirely swept away, nearly ruining, it
is said, the owners. I heard a great shout early one morning, and,
running to the window, had the sorrow to see wheels, planks, etc.,
sailing merrily down the river. All along the banks of the stream, men
were trying to save the more valuable portions of the mill, but the
torrent was so furious that it was utterly impossible to rescue a
plank. How the haughty river seemed to laugh to scorn the feeble
efforts of man! How its mad waves tossed in wild derision the costly
workmanship of his skillful hands! But know, proud Rio de las Plumas,
that these very men whose futile efforts you fancy that you have for
once so gloriously defeated will gather from beneath your lowest depths
the beautiful ore which you thought you had hidden forever and forever
beneath your azure beauty!