tiresome it is to write _sensible_(?) things! But I have one comfort:
though my epistle may not be interesting, you will not deny, my dear
M., that I have achieved my ambition of making it both commonplace and
utilitarian.
LETTER _the_ SIXTEENTH
[_The_ PIONEER, _June_, 1855]
BIRTH--STABBING--FOREIGNERS OUSTED--REVELS
SYNOPSIS
California mountain flora. A youthful Kanaka mother. Her feat of
pedestrianism. Stabbing of a Spaniard by an American. The result of a
request to pay a debt. Nothing done and but little said about the
atrocity. Foreigners barred from working at Rich Bar. Spaniards
thereupon move to Indian Bar. They erect places for the sale of
intoxicants. Many new houses for public entertainment at Indian Bar.
Sunday "swearing, drinking, gambling, and fighting". Salubrity of the
climate. No death for months, except by accidental drowning in
floodwater. Capture of grizzly cubs. "The oddest possible pets". "An
echo from the outside world once a month."
Letter _the_ Sixteenth
BIRTH--STABBING--FOREIGNERS OUSTED--REVELS
_From our Log Cabin_, INDIAN BAR,
_May_ 1, 1852.
You have no idea, my good little M., how reluctantly I have seated
myself to write to you. The truth is, that my last tedious letter about
mining and other tiresome things has completely exhausted my scribbling
powers, and from that hour to this the epistolary spirit has never
moved me forward. Whether on that important occasion my small brain
received a shock from which it will never recover, or whether it is
pure physical laziness which influenced me, I know not; but this is
certain, that no whipped schoolboy ever crept to his hated task more
unwillingly than I to my writing-desk on this beautiful morning.
Perhaps my indisposition to soil paper in your behalf is caused by the
bewildering scent of that great, glorious bouquet of flowers which,
gathered in the crisp mountain air, is throwing off cloud after cloud
("each cloud _faint_ with the fragrance it bears") of languid
sweetness, filling the dark old room with incense and making of it a
temple of beauty, like those pure angelic souls which, irradiating a
plain countenance, often render it more lovely than the chiseled finish
of the most perfect features.
O Molly! how I wish that I could send you this jar of flowers,
containing, as it does, many which, in New England, are rare exotics.
Here you will find in richest profusion the fine-lady elegance of the
syringa; there, glorious white lilies, so pure and stately; the
delicate yet robust beauty of the exquisite privet; irises of every hue
and size; and, prettiest of all, a sweet snow-tinted flower, looking
like immense clusters of seed-pearl, which the Spaniards call "libla."
But the marvel of the group is an orange-colored blossom, of a most
rare and singular fragrance, growing somewhat in the style of the flox.
This, with some branches of pink bloom of incomparable sweetness, is
entirely new to me. Since I have commenced writing, one of the Doctor's
patients has brought me a bunch of wild roses. Oh, how vividly, at the
sight of them, started up before me those wooded valleys of the
Connecticut, with their wondrous depths of foliage, which, for a few
weeks in midsummer, are perhaps unsurpassed in beauty by any in the
world. I have arranged the dear _home_ blossoms with a handful of
flowers which were given to me this morning by an unknown Spaniard.
They are shaped like an anemone, of the opaque whiteness of the
magnolia, with a large spot of glittering blackness at the bottom of
each petal. But enough of our mountain earth-stars. It would take me
all day to describe their infinite variety.
Nothing of importance has happened since I last wrote, except that the
Kanaka wife of a man living at The Junction has made him the happy
father of a son and heir. They say that she is quite a pretty little
woman, only fifteen years old, and walked all the way from Sacramento
to this place.
A few evenings ago a Spaniard was stabbed by an American. It seems that
the presumptuous foreigner had the impertinence to ask very humbly and
meekly that most noble representative of the Stars and Stripes if the
latter would pay him a few dollars which he had owed him for some time.
His high mightiness the Yankee was not going to put up with any such
impertinence, and the poor Spaniard received for answer several inches
of cold steel in his breast, which inflicted a very dangerous wound.
Nothing was done and very little was said about this atrocious affair.
At Rich Bar they have passed a set of resolutions for the guidance of
the inhabitants during the summer, one of which is to the effect that
no foreigner shall work in the mines on that bar. This has caused
nearly all the Spaniards to immigrate upon Indian Bar, and several new
houses for the sale of liquor, etc., are building by these people. It
seems to me that the above law is selfish, cruel, and narrow-minded in
the extreme.
When I came here the Humboldt was the only public house on the Bar. Now
there are the Oriental, Golden Gate, Don Juan, and four or five others,
the names of which I do not know. On Sundays the swearing, drinking,
gambling, and fighting which are carried on in some of these houses are
truly horrible.
It is extremely healthy here. With the exception of two or three men
who were drowned when the river was so high, I have not heard of a
death for months.
Nothing worth wasting ink upon has occurred for some time, except the
capture of two grizzly-bear cubs by the immortal Yank. He shot the
mother, but she fell over the side of a steep hill and he lost her.
Yank intends to tame one of the cubs. The other he sold, I believe for
fifty dollars. They are certainly the funniest-looking things that I
ever saw, and the oddest possible pets. By the way, we receive an echo
from the outer world once a month, and the expressman never fails to
bring three letters from my dear M. wherewith to gladden the heart of
her sister, Dame Shirley.
LETTER _the_ SEVENTEENTH
[_The_ PIONEER, _June_, 1855]
SUPPLIES _by_ PACK-MULES--KANAKAS _and_ INDIANS
SYNOPSIS
Belated arrival of pack-mule train with much-needed supplies.
Picturesque appearance of the dainty-footed mules descending the hills.
Of every possible color. Gay trappings. Tinkling bells. Peculiar urging
cry of the Spanish muleteers. Lavish expenditure of gold-dust for
vegetables and butter. Potatoes forty cents a pound. Incense of the
pungent member of the lily family. Arrival of other storm-bound trains,
and sudden collapse in prices. Horseback ride on dangerous trail. Fall
of oxen over precipice. Mountain flowers, oaks, and rivulets. Visit to
Kanaka mother. A beauty from the isles. Hawaiian superstition. An
unfortunate request for the baby as a present. Consolatory promise to
give the next one. Indian visitors. Head-dresses. "Very tight and very
short shirts". Indian mode of life. Their huts, food, cooking,
utensils, manner of eating. Sabine-like invasion leaves to tribe but a
few old squaws. "Startlingly unsophisticated state of almost entire
nudity". Their filthy habits. Papooses fastened in framework of light
wood. Indian modes of fishing. A handsome but shy young buck. Classic
gracefulness of folds of white-sheet robe of Indian. Light and airy
step of the Indians something superhuman. Miserably brutish and
degraded. Their vocabulary Of about twenty words. Their love of
gambling, and its frightful consequences. Arrival of hundreds of people
at Indian Bar. Saloons springing up in every direction. Fluming
operations rapidly progressing. A busy, prosperous summer looked for.
Letter _the_ Seventeenth
SUPPLIES _by_ PACK-MULES--KANAKAS _and_ INDIANS
_From our Log Cabin_, INDIAN BAR,
_May_ 25, 1852.
The very day after I last wrote you, dear M., a troop of mules came
onto the Bar, bringing us almost-forgotten luxuries, in the form of
potatoes, onions, and butter. A band of these animals is always a
pretty sight, and you can imagine that the solemn fact of our having
been destitute of the above-mentioned edibles since the middle of
February did not detract from the pleasure with which we saw them
winding cautiously down the hill, stepping daintily here and there with
those absurd little feet of theirs, and appearing so extremely anxious
for the safe conveyance of their loads. They belonged to a Spanish
packer, were in excellent condition, sleek and fat as so many kittens,
and of every possible color,--black, white, gray, sorrel, cream, brown,
etc. Almost all of them had some bit of red or blue or yellow about
their trappings, which added not a little to the brilliancy of their
appearance; while the gay tinkle of the leader's bell, mingling with
those shrill and peculiar exclamations with which Spanish muleteers are
in the habit of urging on their animals, made a not unpleasing medley
of sounds. But the creamiest part of the whole affair was--I must
confess it, unromantic as it may seem--when the twenty-five or thirty
pretty creatures were collected into the small space between our cabin
and the Humboldt. Such a gathering together of ham-and-mackerel-fed
bipeds, such a lavish display of gold-dust, such troops of
happy-looking men bending beneath the delicious weight of butter and
potatoes, and, above all, _such_ a smell of fried onions as
instantaneously rose upon the fragrant California air and ascended
gratefully into the blue California heaven was, I think, never
experienced before.
On the 1st of May a train had arrived at Rich Bar, and on the morning
of the day which I have been describing to you one of our friends arose
some three hours earlier than usual, went over to the aforesaid bar,
bought twenty-five pounds of potatoes at forty cents a pound, and
packed them home on his back. In less than two days afterwards half a
dozen cargoes had arrived, and the same vegetable was selling at a
shilling a pound. The trains had been on the road several weeks, but
the heavy showers, which had continued almost daily through the month
of April, had retarded their arrival.
Last week I rode on horseback to a beautiful bar called The Junction,
so named from the fact that at that point the East Branch of the North
Fork of Feather River unites itself with the main North Fork. The
mule-trail, which lies along the verge of a dreadful precipice, is
three or four miles long, while the footpath leading by the river is
not more than two miles in length. The latter is impassable, on account
of the log bridges having been swept away by the recent freshets. The
other day two oxen lost their footing and fell over the precipice, and
it is the general opinion that they were killed long before they
reached the golden palace of the Plumerian Thetis. I was a little
alarmed at first, for fear my horse would stumble, in which case I
should have shared the fate of the unhappy beeves, but soon forgot all
fear in the enchanting display of flowers which each opening in the
shrubs displayed to me. Earth's firmament was starred with daphnes,
irises, and violets of every hue and size; pale wood-anemones, with but
one faint sigh of fragrance as they expired, died by hundreds beneath
my horse's tread; and spotted tiger-lilies, with their stately heads
all bedizened in orange and black, marshaled along the path like an
army of gayly clad warriors. But the flowers are not all of an oriental
character. Do you remember, Molly dear, how you and I once quarreled
when we were, oh, such mites of children, about a sprig of syringa? The
dear mother was obliged to interfere, and to make all right she gave
you a small brown bud, of most penetrating fragrance, which she told
you was much more valuable than the contested flower. I remember
perfectly that she failed entirely in convincing _me_ that the dark,
somber flower was half as beautiful as my pretty cream-tinted blossom,
and, if I mistake not, you were but poutingly satisfied with the
substitute. Here, even if we retained, which I do not, our childish
fascination for syringas, we should not need to quarrel about them, for
they are as common as dandelions in a New England meadow, and dispense
their peculiar perfume--which, by the way, always reminds me of Lubin's
choicest scents--in almost sickening profusion. Besides the
above-mentioned flowers, we saw wild roses and buttercups and flox and
privet, and whole acres of the wand-like lily. I have often heard it
said, though I cannot vouch for the truth of the assertion, that it is
only during the month of January that you cannot gather a bouquet in
the mountains.
Just before one reaches The Junction there is a beautiful grove of
oaks, through which there leaps a gay little rivulet celebrated for the
grateful coolness of its waters. Of course one is expected to
propitiate this pretty Undine by drinking a draft of her glittering
waters from a dirty tin cup which some benevolent cold-water man has
suspended from a tree near the spring. The bank leading down into the
stream is so steep that people generally dismount and lead their
animals across it, but F. declared that I was so light that the horse
could easily carry me, and insisted upon my keeping the saddle. Of
course, like a dutiful wife, I had nothing to do but to obey. So I
grasped firmly the reins, shut my eyes, and committed myself to the
Fates that take care of thistle-seeds, and lo! the next moment I found
myself safely on the other side of the brook, my pretty steed--six
weeks ago he was an Indian pony running wild on the prairie--curveting
about and arching his elegant neck, evidently immensely proud of the
grace and ease with which he had conveyed his burden across the brook.
In a few moments we alighted at the store, which is owned by some
friends of F., whom we found looking like so many great daisies in
their new shirts of pink calico, which had been donned in honor of our
expected arrival.
The Junction is the most beautiful of all the bars. From the store one
can walk nearly a mile down the river quite easily. The path is
bordered by a row of mingled oaks and firs, the former garlanded with
mistletoe, and the latter embroidered with that exquisitely beautiful
moss which I tried to describe in one of my first letters.
The little Kanaka woman lives here. I went to see her. She is quite
pretty, with large lustrous eyes, and two great braids of hair which
made me think of black satin cables, they were so heavy and massive.
She has good teeth, a sweet smile, and a skin not much darker than that
of a French brunette. I never saw any creature so proud as she, almost
a child herself, was of her baby. In jest, I asked her to give it to
me, and really was almost alarmed at the vehement burst of tears with
which she responded to my request. Her husband explained the cause of
her distress. It is a superstition among her people that he who refuses
to give another anything, no matter what,--there are no exceptions
which that other may ask for,--will be overwhelmed with the most
dreadful misfortunes. Her own parents had parted with her for the same
reason. Her pretty girlish face soon resumed its smiles when I told her
that I was in jest, and, to console me for the disappointment which she
thought I must feel at not obtaining her little brown treasure, she
promised to give me the _next_ one! It is a Kanaka custom to make a
present to the person calling upon them for the first time, in
accordance with which habit I received a pair of dove-colored boots
three sizes too large for me.
I should have liked to visit the Indian encampment which lies a few
miles from The Junction, but was too much fatigued to attempt it. The
Indians often visit us, and as they seldom wear anything but a _very_
tight and _very_ short shirt, they have an appearance of being, as
Charles Dickens would say, all legs. They usually sport some kind of a
head-dress, if it is nothing more than a leather string, which they
bind across their dusky brows in the style of the wreaths in Norma, or
the gay ribbons garlanding the hair of the Roman youth in the play of
Brutus. A friend of ours, who has visited their camp several times, has
just given me a description of their mode of life. Their huts, ten or
twelve in number, are formed of the bark of the pine, conically shaped,
plastered with mud, and with a hole in the top, whence emerges the
smoke, which rises from a fire built in the center of the apartment.
These places are so low that it is quite impossible to stand upright in
them, and are entered from a small hole in one side, on all fours. A
large stone, sunk to its surface in the ground, which contains three or
four pan-like hollows for the purpose of grinding acorns and nuts, is
the only furniture which these huts contain. The women, with another
stone, about a foot and a half in length and a little larger than a
man's wrist, pulverize the acorns to the finest possible powder, which
they prepare for the table(?) in the following manner. Their cooking
utensils consist of a kind of basket, woven of some particular species
of reed, I should fancy, from the descriptions which I have had of
them, and are so plaited as to be impervious to fluids. These they fill
half full of water, which is made to boil by placing in it hot stones.
The latter they drag from the fire with two sticks. When the water
boils, they stir into it, until it is about as thick as hasty-pudding,
the powdered acorns, delicately flavored with dried grasshoppers, and
lo! dinner is ready. Would you like to know how they eat? They place
the thumb and little finger together across the palm of the hand, and
make of the other three fingers a spoon, with which they shovel into
their capacious mouths this delicious compound.
There are about eighty Indians in all at this encampment, a very small
portion of which number are women. A hostile tribe in the valley made a
Sabine-like invasion upon the settlement a few months since, and stole
away all the young and fair muchachas, leaving them but a few old
squaws. These poor withered creatures, who are seldom seen far from the
encampment, do all the drudgery. Their entire wardrobe consists of a
fringe about two feet in length, which is formed of the branch or
root--I cannot ascertain exactly which--of a peculiar species of shrub
shredded into threads. This scanty costume they festoon several times
about the person, fastening it just above the hips, and they generally
appear in a startlingly unsophisticated state of almost entire nudity.
They are very filthy in their habits, and my informant said that if one
of them should venture out into the rain, grass would grow on her neck
and arms. The men, unhappy martyrs! are compelled to be a little more
cleanly, from their custom of hunting and fishing, for the wind _will_
blow off _some_ of the dirt, and the water washes off more.
Their infants are fastened to a framework of light wood, in the same
manner as those of the North American Indians. When a squaw has
anything to do, she very composedly sets this frame up against the side
of the house as a civilized housewife would an umbrella or broom.
Some of their modes of fishing are very curious. One is as follows.
These primitive anglers will seek a quiet deep spot in the river, where
they know fish most do congregate, and throw therein a large quantity
of stones. This, of course, frightens the fish, which dive to the
bottom of the stream, and Mr. Indian, plunging head foremost into the
water, beneath which he sometimes remains several minutes, will
presently reappear, holding triumphantly in each hand one of the finny
tribe, which he kills by giving it a single bite in the head or neck
with his sharp, knife-like teeth.
Hardly a day passes during which there are not three or four of them on
this Bar. They often come into the cabin, and I never order them away,
as most others do, for their childish curiosity amuses me, and as yet
they have not been troublesome. There is one beautiful little boy,
about eight years old, who generally accompanies them. We call him Wild
Bird, for he is as shy as a partridge, and we have never yet been able
to coax him into the cabin. He always wears a large red shirt, which,
trailing to his little bronzed feet, and the sleeves every other minute
dropping down over his dusky models of hands, gives him a very odd
appearance. One day Mrs. B., whom I was visiting at the time, coaxed
Wild Bird into the house to see Charley, the hero of the
champagne-basket cradle. The little fellow gazed at us with his large,
startled eyes without showing the least shadow of fear in his
countenance, but his heart beat so violently that we could actually see
the rise and fall of the old red shirt which covered its tremblings.
Mrs. B. made our copper-colored Cupidon a pretty suit of crimson
calico. His protectors--half a dozen grim old Indians (it was
impossible to tell which was his father, they all made such a petted
darling of him)--were compelled to array him in his new suit by main
strength, he screaming dreadfully all the time. Indeed, so exhausted
was he by his shrieks that by the time he was fairly buttoned up in his
crimson trappings he sank on the ground in a deep sleep. The next day
the barbarous little villain appeared trailing, as usual, his pet shirt
after him at every step, while the dandy jacket and the trim
baby-trousers had vanished we never knew whither.
The other morning an Indian appeared on the Bar robed from neck to
heels in a large white sheet, and you have no idea of the classic grace
with which he had arranged the folds about his fine person. We at first
thought him a woman, and he himself was in an ecstasy of glee at our
mistake.
It is impossible to conceive of anything more light and airy than the
step of these people. I shall never forget with what enchanted eyes I
gazed upon one of them gliding along the side of the hill opposite
Missouri Bar. One would fancy that nothing but a fly or a spirit could
keep its footing on the rocks along which he stepped so stately, for
they looked as perpendicular as a wall. My friend observed that no
white man could have done it. This wild creature seemed to move as a
cloud moves on a quiet day in summer, and as still and silently. It
really made me solemn to gaze upon him, and the sight almost impressed
me as something superhuman.
Viewed in the most favorable manner, these poor creatures are miserably
brutish and degraded, having very little in common with the lofty and
eloquent aborigines of the United States. It is said that their entire
language contains but about twenty words. Like all Indians, they are
passionately fond of gambling, and will exhibit as much anxiety at the
losing or winning of a handful of beans as do their paler brothers when
thousands are at stake. Methinks, from what I have seen of that most
hateful vice, the _amount_ lost or won has very little to do with the
matter. But let me not speak of this most detestable of crimes. I have
known such frightful consequences to ensue from its indulgence, that I
dare not speak of it, lest I use language, as perhaps I have already
done, unbecoming a woman's lips.
Hundreds of people have arrived upon our Bar within the last few days;
drinking-saloons are springing up in every direction; the fluming
operations are rapidly progressing; and all looks favorably for a busy
and prosperous summer to our industrious miners.
LETTER _the_ EIGHTEENTH
[_The_ PIONEER, _July_, 1852]
FOURTH _of_ JULY FESTIVAL--SPANISH ATTACKED
SYNOPSIS