Being a Series of Twenty-three Letters from DAME SHIRLEY (mrs. louise amelia knapp smith clappe) (continued 3)

There is quite a band of this wild people herding a few miles below us, and soon after my arrival it was confidently affirmed and believed by many that they were about to make a murderous attack upon the miners. This man, who can make himself understood in almost any language, and has a great deal of influence over all Indians, went to see them, and told them that such an attempt would result in their own certain destruction. They said that they had never thought of such a thing; that the Americans were like the grass in the valleys, and the Indians fewer than the flowers of the Sierra Nevada.

Among other oddities, there is a person here who is a rabid admirer of Lippard. I have heard him gravely affirm that Lippard was the greatest author the world ever saw, and that if one of his novels and the most fascinating work of ancient or modern times lay side by side, he would choose the former, even though he had already repeatedly perused it. He studies Lippard just as other folks do Shakespeare, and yet the man has read and admires the majestic prose of Chilton, and is quite familiar with the best English classics! He is a Quaker, and his merciless and unmitigated regard for truth is comically grand, and nothing amuses me more than to draw out that peculiar characteristic. For instance, after talking at him the most beautiful and eloquent things that I can think of, I will pitilessly nail him in this wise:—

"Now, I know that you agree with me, Mr. ——?"

It is the richest and broadest farce in this flattering and deceitful world to see him look right into my eyes while he answers smilingly, without the least evasion or reserve, the astounding truth,—

"I have not heard a word that you have been saying for the last half-hour; I have been thinking of something else!"

His dreamland reveries on these occasions are supposed to be a profound meditation upon the character and writings of his pet author. I am always glad to have him visit us, as some one of us is sure to be most unflatteringly electrified by his uncompromising veracity. I am, myself, generally the victim, as I make it a point to give him every opportunity for the display of this unusual peculiarity. Not but that I have had disagreeable truth told me often enough, but heretofore people have done it out of spitefulness; but Mr. ——, who is the kindest-hearted of mortals, never dreams that his merciless frankness can possibly wound one's self-love.

But the great man—officially considered—of the entire river is the "Squire," as he is jestingly called. It had been rumored for some time that we were about to become a law-and-order-loving community, and when I requested an explanation, I was informed that a man had gone all the way to Hamilton, the county seat, to get himself made into a justice of the peace. Many shook their wise heads, and doubted, even if suited to the situation, which they say he is not, whether he would take here; and certain rebel spirits affirmed that he would be invited to walk over the hill before he had been in the community twenty-four hours, which is a polite way these free-and-easy young people have of turning out of town an obnoxious individual. Not that the Squire is particularly objectionable per se, but in virtue of his office, and his supposed ineligibility to fill the same. Besides, the people here wish to have the fun of ruling themselves. Miners are as fond of playing at law making and dispensing as French novelists are of "playing at Providence." They say, also, that he was not elected by the voice of the people, but that his personal friends nominated and voted for him unknown to the rest of the community. This is perhaps true. At least, I have heard some of the most respectable men here observe that had they been aware of the Squire's name being up as candidate for an office which, though insignificant elsewhere, is one of great responsibility in a mining community, they should certainly have gone against his election.

Last night I had the honor of an introduction to "His Honor." Imagine a middle-sized man, quite stout, with a head disproportionately large, crowned with one of those immense foreheads eked out with a slight baldness (wonder if, according to the flattering popular superstition, he has thought his hair off) which enchant phrenologists, but which one never sees brooding above the soulful orbs of the great ones of the earth; a smooth, fat face, gray eyes, and prominent chin, the tout ensemble characterized by an expression of the utmost meekness and gentleness, which expression contrasts rather funnily with a satanic goatee,—and you have our good Squire.

You know, M., that it takes the same kind of power—differing, of course, in degree—to govern twenty men that it does to rule a million; and although the Squire is sufficiently intelligent, and the kindest-hearted creature in the world, he evidently does not possess that peculiar tact, talent, gift, or whatever it is called, which makes Napoleons, Mahomets, and Cromwells, and which is absolutely necessary to keep in order such a strangely amalgamated community, representing as it does the four quarters of the globe, as congregates upon this river.

However, I suppose that we must take the goods the gods provide, satisfied that if our King Log does no good, he is too sincerely desirous of fulfilling his duty to do any harm. But I really feel sorry for this mere young Daniel come to judgment when I think of the gauntlet which the wicked wits will make him run when he tries his first cause.

However, the Squire may, after all, succeed. As yet he has had no opportunity of making use of his credentials in putting down miners' law, which is, of course, the famous code of Judge Lynch. In the mean time we all sincerely pray that he may be successful in his laudable undertaking, for justice in the hands of a mob, however respectable, is, at best, a fearful thing.

Letter the Ninth

[The Pioneer, October, 1854]

THEFT of GOLD-DUST—TRIAL and PUNISHMENT

SYNOPSIS

The "Squire's" first opportunity to exercise his judicial power. Holding court in a barroom. The jury "treated" by the Squire. Theft of gold-dust, and arrest of suspect. A miners' meeting. Fear that they would hang the prisoner. Regular trial decided upon, at the Empire, Rich Bar, where the gold-dust was stolen. A suggestion of thrift. Landlords to profit by trial, wherever held. Mock respect of the miners for the Squire. Elect a president at the trial. The Squire allowed to play at judge. Lay counsel for prosecution and defense. Ingenious defense of the accused. Verdict of guilty. Light sentence, on account of previous popularity and inoffensive conduct. Thirty-nine lashes, and to leave the river. Owner of gold-dust indemnified by transfer of thief's interest in a mine. A visit to Smith's Bar. Crossing the river on log bridges. Missouri Bar. Smith's a sunny camp, unlike Indian. Frenchman's Bar, another sunny spot. "Yank," the owner of a log-cabin store. Shrewdness and simplicity. Hopeless ambition to be "cute and smart". The "Indiana girl" impossible to Yank. "A superior and splendid woman, but no polish". Yank's "olla podrida of heterogeneous merchandise". The author meets the banished gold-dust thief. Subscription by the miners on his banishment. A fool's errand to establish his innocence. An oyster-supper bet. The thief's statements totally incompatible with innocence.

Letter the Ninth

Theft of Gold-Dust—Trial and Punishment

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

October 29, 1851.

Well, my dear M., our grand Squire, whom I sketched for you in my last letter, has at length had an opportunity to exercise (or rather to try to do so) his judicial power upon a criminal case. His first appearance as justice of the peace took place a week ago, and was caused, I think, by a prosecution for debt. On that momentous occasion, the proceeding having been carried on in the barroom of the Empire, it is said that our young Daniel stopped the court twice in order to treat the jury!

But let me tell you about the trial which has just taken place. On Sunday evening last, Ned Paganini, rushing wildly up to our cabin, and with eyes so enormously dilated that they absolutely looked all white, exclaimed that "Little John" had been arrested for stealing four hundred dollars from the proprietor of the Empire, and that he was at that very moment undergoing an examination before the Squire in the barroom of the Humboldt, where he was apprehended while betting at monte. "And," added Ned, with a most awe-inspiring shake of his corkscrews, "there is no doubt but that he will be hung!"

Of course I was inexpressibly shocked at Ned's news, for Little John, as he is always called (who, by the way, is about the last person, as every one remarked, that would have been suspected), seemed quite like an acquaintance, as he was waiter at the Empire when I boarded there. I hurried F. off as quickly as possible to inquire into the truth of the report. He soon returned with the following particulars.

It seems that Mr. B., who on Sunday morning wished to pay a bill, on taking his purse from between the two mattresses of the bed whereon he was accustomed to sleep, which stood in the common sitting-room of the family, found that four hundred dollars in gold-dust was missing. He did not for one moment suspect Little John, in whom himself and wife had always placed the utmost confidence, until a man, who happened to be in the barroom towards evening, mentioned casually that Little John was then at the Humboldt betting, or, to speak technically, "bucking" away large sums at monte. Mr. B., who knew that he had no money of his own, immediately came over to Indian Bar and had him arrested on suspicion. Although he had lost several ounces, he had still about a hundred dollars remaining. But as it is impossible to identify gold-dust, Mr. B. could not swear that the money was his.

Of course the prisoner loudly protested his innocence, and as he was very drunk, the Squire adjourned all further proceedings until the next day, placing him under keepers for the night.

On the following morning I was awakened very early by a tremendous "Aye," so deep and mighty that it almost seemed to shake the cabin with its thrilling emphasis. I sprang up and ran to the window, but could see nothing, of course, as our house stands behind the Humboldt, but I could easily understand, from the confused murmur of many voices and the rapidly succeeding "ayes" and "noes," that a large crowd had collected in front of the latter. My first apprehension was expressed by my bursting into tears and exclaiming,—

"Oh! F., for God's sake, rise; the mob are going to hang Little John!"

And my fear was not so absurd as you might at first imagine, for men have often been executed in the mines for stealing a much smaller sum than four hundred dollars.

F. went to the Humboldt, and returned in a few minutes to tell me that I might stop weeping, for John was going to have a regular trial. The crowd was merely a miners' meeting, called by Mr. B. for the purpose of having the trial held at the Empire for the convenience of his wife, who could not walk over to Indian Bar to give her evidence in the case. However, as her deposition could easily have been taken, malicious people will say that it was for the convenience of her husband's pockets, as it was well known that at whichever house the trial took place the owner thereof would make a handsome profit from the sale of dinners, drinks, etc., to the large number of people who would congregate to witness the proceedings. Miners are proverbial for their reverence for the sex. Of course everything ought to yield where a lady is concerned, and they all very properly agreed, nem. con., to Mr. B.'s request.

The Squire consented to hold the court at Rich Bar, although many think that thereby he compromised his judicial dignity, as his office is on Indian Bar. I must confess I see not how he could have done otherwise. The miners were only too ready, so much do they object to a justice of the peace, to take the case entirely out of his hands if their wishes were not complied with, which, to confess the truth, they did, even after all his concessions, though they pretended to keep up a sort of mock respect for his office.

Everybody went to Rich Bar. No one remained to protect the calico shanties, the rag huts, and the log cabins, from the much talked of Indian attack—but your humble servant and Paganini Ned.

When the people, the mighty people, had assembled at the Empire, they commenced proceedings by voting in a president and jury of their own, though they kindly consented (how very condescending!) that the Squire might play at judge by sitting at the side of their elected magistrate! This honor the Squire seemed to take as a sort of salve to his wounded dignity, and with unprecedented meekness accepted it. A young Irishman from St. Louis was appointed counsel for John, and a Dr. C. acted for the prosecution. Neither of them, however, was a lawyer.

The evidence against the prisoner was, that he had no money previously, that he had slept at the Empire a night or two before, and that he knew where Mr. B. was in the habit of keeping his gold-dust, with a few other circumstances equally unimportant. His only defense was, of course, to account for the money, which he tried to do by the following ingenious story.

He said that his father, who resides at Stockholm,—he is a Swede,—had sent him, two months previously, five hundred dollars through the express, which had been brought to him from San Francisco by a young man whose name is Miller; that he told no one of the circumstance, but buried the money (a common habit with the miner) on the summit of a hill about half a mile from Indian Bar; that, being intoxicated on Sunday morning, he had dug it up for the purpose of gambling with it; and that Mr. M., who had gone to Marysville a week before, and would return in a fortnight, could confirm his story. When asked if he had received a letter with the money, he replied that he did, but, having placed it between the lining and the top of his cap, he had unfortunately lost it. He earnestly affirmed his innocence, and, through his counsel, entreated the court, should he be condemned, to defer the execution of his sentence until the arrival of Miller, by whom he could prove all that he had stated. Notwithstanding the florid eloquence of W., the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and condemned him to receive thirty-nine lashes at nine o'clock the following morning, and to leave the river, never to return to it, within twenty-four hours; a claim, of which he owned a part, to be made over to Mr. B. to indemnify him for his loss. His punishment was very light, on account of his previous popularity and inoffensive conduct. In spite of his really ingenious defense, no one has the least doubt of his guilt but his lawyer and the Squire. They as firmly believe him an innocent and much-injured man.

Yesterday morning I made my visit to Smith's Bar. In order to reach it, it was necessary to cross the river, on a bridge formed of two logs, to Missouri Bar. This flat, which has been worked but very little, has a path leading across it, a quarter of a mile in length. It contains but two or three huts, no very extensive diggings having as yet been discovered upon it. About in the middle of it, and close to the side of the trail, is situated a burial-spot, where not only its dead repose, but those who die on Indian Bar are also brought for interment. On arriving at the termination of the level, another log bridge leads to Smith's Bar, which, although it lies upon the same side of the river as our settlement, is seldom approached, as I before observed, except by crossing to Missouri Bar and back again from that to Smith's. The hills rise so perpendicularly between this latter and Indian Bar that it is utterly impossible for a woman to follow on the trail along their side, and it is no child's-play for even the most hardy mountaineer to do it.

This level (Smith's Bar) is large and quite thickly settled. More gold has been taken from it than from any other settlement on the river. Although the scenery here is not so strikingly picturesque as that surrounding my new home, it is perhaps infinitely more lovely, and certainly more desirable as a place of residence, than the latter, because the sun shines upon it all winter, and we can take long walks about it in many directions. Now, Indian Bar is so completely covered with excavations and tenements that it is utterly impossible to promenade upon it at all. Whenever I wish for exercise, I am compelled to cross the river, which, of course, I cannot do without company, and as the latter is not always procurable (F.'s profession calling him much from home), I am obliged to stay indoors more than I like, or is conducive to my health.

A short but steep ascent from Smith's Bar leads you to another bench, as miners call it, almost as large as itself, which is covered with trees and grass, and is a most lovely place. From here one has a charming view of a tiny bar called Frenchman's. It is a most sunny little spot, covered with the freshest greensward, and nestling lovingly, like a petted darling, in the embracing curve of a crescent-shaped hill opposite. It looks more like some sheltered nook amid the blue mountains of New England than anything I have ever yet seen in California. Formerly there was a deer-lick upon it, and I am told that on every dewy morning or starlit evening you might see a herd of pretty creatures gathering in antlered beauty about its margin. Now, however, they are seldom met with, the advent of gold-hunting humanity having driven them far up into the hills.

The man who keeps the store at which we stopped (a log cabin without any floor) goes by the sobriquet of "Yank," and is quite a character in his way. He used to be a peddler in the States, and is remarkable for an intense ambition to be thought what the Yankees call "cute and smart,"—an ambition which his true and good heart will never permit him to achieve. He is a great friend of mine (I am always interested in that bizarre mixture of shrewdness and simplicity of which he is a distinguished specimen), and takes me largely into his confidence as to the various ways he has of doing green miners,—all the merest delusion on his part, you understand, for he is the most honest of God's creatures, and would not, I verily believe, cheat a man out of a grain of golden sand to save his own harmless and inoffensive life. He is popularly supposed to be smitten with the charms of the "Indiana girl," but I confess I doubt it, for Yank himself informed me, confidentially, that, "though a very superior and splendid woman, she had no polish"!

He is an indefatigable "snapper-up of unconsidered trifles," and his store is the most comical olla podrida of heterogeneous merchandise that I ever saw. There is nothing you can ask for but what he has,—from crowbars down to cambric-needles; from velveteen trousers up to broadcloth coats of the jauntiest description. The quality of his goods, it must be confessed, is sometimes rather equivocal. His collection of novels is by far the largest, the greasiest, and the "yellowest-kivered" of any to be found on the river. I will give you an instance of the variety of his possessions.

I wanted some sealing-wax to mend a broken chess-piece, having by some strange carelessness left the box containing mine in Marysville. I inquired everywhere for it, but always got laughed at for supposing that any one would be so absurd as to bring such an article into the mountains. As a forlorn hope, I applied to Yank. Of course he had plenty! The best of it is, that, whenever he produces any of these out-of-the-way things, he always says that he brought them from the States, which proves that he had a remarkable degree of foresight when he left his home three years ago.

While I sat chatting with Yank I heard some one singing loudly, and apparently very gayly, a negro melody, and, the next moment, who should enter but Little John, who had been whipped, according to sentence, three hours previously. As soon as he saw me he burst into tears, and exclaimed,—

"Oh! Mrs. ——, a heartless mob has beaten me cruelly, has taken all my money from me, and has decreed that I, who am an innocent man, should leave the mountains without a cent of money to assist me on my way!"

The latter part of his speech, as I afterwards discovered, was certainly a lie, for he knew that a sum amply sufficient to pay his expenses to Marysville had been subscribed by the very people who believed him guilty. Of course his complaints were extremely painful to me. You know how weakly pitiful I always am towards wicked people; for it seems to me that they are so much more to be compassionated than the good.

But what could I say to poor John? I did not for one moment doubt his entire guilt, and so, as people often do on such occasions, I took refuge in a platitude.

"Well, John," I sagely remarked, "I hope that you did not take the money. And only think how much happier you are in that case, than if you had been beaten and abused as you say you have, and at the same time were a criminal!"

I must confess, much as it tells against my eloquence, that John did not receive my well-meant attempt at consolation with that pious gratitude which such an injured innocent ought to have exhibited, but, F. luckily calling me at that moment, I was spared any more of his tearful complaints.

Soon after our return to the cabin, John's lawyer and the Squire called upon us. They declared their perfect conviction of his innocence, and the latter remarked that if any one would accompany him he would walk up to the spot and examine the hole from whence the culprit affirmed that he had taken his money only three days ago, as he very naturally supposed that it would still exhibit signs of having been recently opened. It was finally agreed that the victim, who had never described the place to the Squire, should give a minute description of it, unheard by His Honor, to F., and afterwards should lead the former, accompanied by his counsel, (no one else could be persuaded to make such martyrs of themselves,) to the much-talked-of spot. And, will you believe it, M.? those two obstinate men actually persevered, although it was nearly dark, and a very cold, raw, windy night, in walking half a mile up one of the steepest hills on what the rest thought a perfect fool's errand! To be sure, they have triumphed for the moment, for the Squire's description, on their return, tallied exactly with that previously given to F. But, alas! the infidels remained infidels still.

Then W. bet an oyster-supper for the whole party, which F. took up, that Miller, on his return, would confirm his client's statement. For fear of accidents, we had the oysters that night, and very nice they were, I assure you. This morning the hero of the last three days vanished to parts unknown. And thus endeth the Squire's first attempt to sit in judgment in a criminal case. I regret his failure very much, as do many others. Whether any one else could have succeeded better, I cannot say. But I am sure that no person could more sincerely desire and try to act for the best good of the community than the Squire.

I suppose that I should be as firm a believer in John's innocence as any one, had he not said to F. and others that if he had taken the money they could not prove it against him, and many other similar things, which seem to me totally incompatible with innocence.

Letter the Tenth

[The Pioneer, November, 1854]

AMATEUR MINING—HAIRBREADTH 'SCAPES, &C.

SYNOPSIS

Three dollars and twenty-five cents in gold-dust. Sorry she learned the trade. The resulting losses and suffering. Secret of the brilliant successes of former gold-washeresses. Salting the ground by miners in order to deceive their fair visitors. Erroneous ideas of richness of auriferous dirt resulting therefrom. Rarity of lucky strikes. Claim yielding ten dollars a day considered valuable. Consternation and near-disaster in the author's cabin. Trunk of forest giant rolls down hill. Force broken by rock near cabin. Terror of careless woodman. Another narrow escape at Smith's Bar. Pursuit and escape of woodman. Two sudden deaths at Indian Bar. Inquest in the open. Cosmopolitan gathering thereat. Wife of one of the deceased an advanced bloomer. Animadversions on strong-minded bloomers seeking their rights. California pheasant, gallina del campo of the Spaniards. Pines and dies in captivity. Smart, harmless earthquake-shocks.

Letter the Tenth

Amateur Mining-Hairbreadth 'Scapes, &c.

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

November 25, 1851.

Nothing of importance has happened since I last wrote you, except that I have become a mineress, that is, if the having washed a pan of dirt with my own hands, and procured therefrom three dollars and twenty-five cents in gold-dust, which I shall inclose in this letter, will entitle me to the name. I can truly say, with the blacksmith's apprentice at the close of his first day's work at the anvil, that I am sorry I learned the trade, for I wet my feet, tore my dress, spoilt a pair of new gloves, nearly froze my fingers, got an awful headache, took cold, and lost a valuable breastpin, in this my labor of love. After such melancholy self-sacrifice on my part, I trust you will duly prize my gift. I can assure you that it is the last golden handiwork you will ever receive from Dame Shirley.

Apropos of lady gold-washers in general, it is a common habit with people residing in towns in the vicinity of the diggings to make up pleasure-parties to those places. Each woman of the company will exhibit, on her return, at least twenty dollars of the oro, which she will gravely inform you she has just panned out from a single basinful of the soil. This, of course, gives strangers a very erroneous idea of the average richness of auriferous dirt. I myself thought (now, don't laugh) that one had but to saunter gracefully along romantic streamlets on sunny afternoons, with a parasol and white kid gloves perhaps, and to stop now and then to admire the scenery, and carelessly rinse out a small panful of yellow sand (without detriment to the white kids, however, so easy did I fancy the whole process to be), in order to fill one's work-bag with the most beautiful and rare specimens of the precious mineral. Since I have been here I have discovered my mistake, and also the secret of the brilliant success of former gold-washeresses.

The miners are in the habit of flattering the vanity of their fair visitors by scattering a handful of "salt" (which, strange to say, is exactly the color of gold-dust, and has the remarkable property of often bringing to light very curious lumps of the ore) through the dirt before the dainty fingers touch it, and the dear creatures go home with their treasures, firmly believing that mining is the prettiest pastime in the world.

I had no idea of permitting such a costly joke to be played upon me; so I said but little of my desire to "go through the motions" of gold-washing, until one day, when, as I passed a deep hole in which several men were at work, my companion requested the owner to fill a small pan, which I had in my hand, with dirt from the bed-rock. This request was, of course, granted, and the treasure having been conveyed to the edge of the river, I succeeded, after much awkward maneuvering on my own part, and considerable assistance from friend H., an experienced miner, in gathering together the above-specified sum. All the diggers of our acquaintance say that it is an excellent "prospect," even to come from the bed-rock, where, naturally, the richest dirt is found. To be sure, there are, now and then, "lucky strikes," such, for instance, as that mentioned in a former letter, where a person took out of a single basinful of soil two hundred and fifty-six dollars. But such luck is as rare as the winning of a hundred-thousand-dollar prize in a lottery. We are acquainted with many here whose gains have never amounted to much more than wages, that is, from six to eight dollars a day. And a claim which yields a man a steady income of ten dollars per diem is considered as very valuable.

I received an immense fright the other morning. I was sitting by the fire, quietly reading "Lewis Arundel," which had just fallen into my hands, when a great shout and trampling of feet outside attracted my attention. Naturally enough, my first impulse was to run to the door, but scarcely had I risen to my feet for that purpose, when a mighty crash against the side of the cabin, shaking it to the foundation, threw me suddenly upon my knees. So violent was the shock that for a moment I thought the staunch old logs, mossed with the pale verdure of ages, were falling in confusion around me. As soon as I could collect my scattered senses, I looked about to see what had happened. Several stones had fallen from the back of the chimney, mortar from the latter covered the hearth, the cloth over­head was twisted into the funniest possible wrinkles, the couch had jumped two feet from the side of the house, the little table lay on its back, holding up four legs instead of one, the chessmen were rolling merrily about in every direction, the dishes had all left their usual places, the door, which, ever since, has obstinately refused to let itself be shut, was thrown violently open, while an odd-looking pile of articles lay in the middle of the room, which, upon investigation, was found to consist of a pail, a broom, a bell, some candlesticks, a pack of cards, a loaf of bread, a pair of boots, a bunch of cigars, and some clay pipes (the only things, by the way, rendered utterly hors de combat in the assault). But one piece of furniture retained its attitude, and that was the elephantine bedstead, which nothing short of an earthquake could move. Almost at the same moment several acquaintances rushed in, begging me not to be alarmed, as the danger was past.

"But what has happened?" I eagerly inquired.

"O, a large tree, which was felled this morning, has rolled down from the brow of the hill." And its having struck a rock a few feet from the house, losing thereby the most of its force, had alone saved us from utter destruction.

I grew sick with terror when I understood the awful fate from which Providence had preserved me, and even now my heart leaps painfully with mingled fear and gratitude when I think how closely that pale death-shadow glided by me, and of the loving care which forbade it to linger upon our threshold.

Every one who saw the forest giant descending the hill with the force of a mighty torrent expected to see the cabin instantly prostrated to the earth. As it was, they all say that it swayed from the perpendicular more than six inches.

Poor W., whom you may remember my having mentioned in a former letter as having had a leg amputated a few weeks ago, and who was visiting us at the time, (he had been brought from the Empire in a rocking-chair,) looked like a marble statue of resignation. He possesses a face of uncommon beauty, and his large, dark eyes have always, I fancy, a sorrowful expression. Although he knew from the first shout what was about to happen, and was sitting on the couch which stood at that side of the cabin where the log must necessarily strike, and in his mutilated condition had, as he has since said, not the faintest hope of escape, yet the rich color for which he is remarkable paled not a shade during the whole affair.

The woodman who came so near causing a catastrophe was, I believe, infinitely more frightened than his might-have-been victims. He is a good-natured, stupid creature, and did not dare to descend the hill until some time after the excitement had subsided. The ludicrous expression of terror which his countenance wore when he came in to see what damage had been done, and to ask pardon for his carelessness, made us all laugh heartily.

W. related the almost miraculous escape of two persons from a similar danger last winter. The cabin, which was on Smith's Bar, was crushed into a mass of ruins almost in an instant, while an old man and his daughter, who were at dinner within its walls, remained sitting in the midst of the fallen logs, entirely unhurt. The father immediately seized a gun and ran after the careless woodman, swearing that he would shoot him. Fortunately for the latter (for there is no doubt that in the first moments of his rage the old man would have slain him), his younger legs enabled him to make his escape, and he did not dare to return to the settlement for some days.

It has heretofore been a source of great interest to me to listen to the ringing sound of the ax, and the solemn crash of those majestic sentinels of the hills as they bow their green foreheads to the dust, but now I fear that I shall always hear them with a feeling of apprehension mingling with my former awe, although every one tells us that there is no danger of a repetition of the accident.

Last week there was a post-mortem examination of two men who died very suddenly in the neighborhood. Perhaps it will sound rather barbarous when I tell you that as there was no building upon the Bar which admitted light enough for the purpose, it was found necessary to conduct the examination in the open air, to the intense interest of the Kanakas, Indians, French, Spanish, English, Irish, and Yankees, who had gathered eagerly about the spot. Paganini Ned, with an anxious desire that Mrs. —— should be amused as much as possible in her mountain-home, rushed up from the kitchen, his dusky face radiant with excitement, to inform me that I could see both the bodies by just looking out of the window! I really frightened the poor fellow by the abrupt and vehement manner in which I declined taking advantage of his kindly hint.

One of the deceased was the husband of an American lady lecturess of the most intense description; and a strong-minded bloomer on the broadest principles.

Apropos, how can women, many of whom, I am told, are really interesting and intelligent,—how can they spoil their pretty mouths and ruin their beautiful complexions by demanding with Xanthippian fervor, in the presence, often, of a vulgar, irreverent mob, what the gentle creatures are pleased to call their "rights"? How can they wish to soil the delicate texture of their airy fancies by pondering over the wearying stupidities of Presidential elections, or the bewildering mystifications of rabid metaphysicians? And, above all, how can they so far forget the sweet, shy coquetries of shrinking womanhood as to don those horrid bloomers? As for me, although a wife, I never wear the—well, you know what they call them when they wish to quiz henpecked husbands—even in the strictest privacy of life. I confess to an almost religious veneration for trailing drapery, and I pin my vestural faith with unflinching obstinacy to sweeping petticoats.

I knew a strong-minded bloomer at home, of some talent, and who was possessed, in a certain sense, of an excellent education. One day, after having flatteringly informed me that I really had a "soul above buttons" and the nursery, she gravely proposed that I should improve my mind by poring six hours a day over the metaphysical subtleties of Kant, Cousin, etc., and I remember that she called me a "piece of fashionable insipidity," and taunted me with not daring to go out of the beaten track, because I truly thought (for in those days I was an humble little thing enough, and sincerely desirous of walking in the right path as straitly as my feeble judgment would permit) that there were other authors more congenial to the flowerlike delicacy of the feminine intellect than her pet writers.

When will our sex appreciate the exquisite philosophy and truth of Lowell's remark upon the habits of Lady Redbreast and her esposo Robin, as illustrating the beautifully varied spheres of man and woman?—

Speaking of birds reminds me of a misfortune that I have lately experienced, which, in a life where there is so little to amuse and interest one, has been to me a subject of real grief. About three weeks ago, F. saw on the hill a California pheasant, which he chased into a coyote-hole and captured. Knowing how fond I am of pets, he brought it home and proposed that I should try to tame it. Now, from earliest childhood I have resolutely refused to keep wild birds, and when I have had them given to me (which has happened several times in this country,—young bluebirds, etc.), I have invariably set them free, and I proposed doing the same with the pretty pheasant, but as they are the most delicately exquisite in flavor of all game, F. said that if I did not wish to keep it he would wring its neck and have it served up for dinner. With the cruelty of kindness—often more disastrous than that of real malice—I shrank from having it killed, and consented to let it run about the cabin.

It was a beautiful bird, a little larger than the domestic hen. Its slender neck, which it curved with haughty elegance, was tinted with various shades of a shining steel color. The large, bright eye glanced with the prettiest shyness at its captors, and the cluster of feathers forming its tail drooped with the rare grace of an ostrich-plume. The colors of the body were of a subdued brilliancy, reminding one of a rich but somber mosaic.

As it seemed very quiet, I really believed that in time we should be able to tame it. Still, it would remain constantly under the sofa or bedstead. So F. concluded to place it in a cage for a few hours of each day, in order that it might become gradually accustomed to our presence. This was done, the bird appearing as well as ever, and after closing the door of its temporary prison one day I left it and returned to my seat by the fire. In less than two minutes afterwards, a slight struggle in the cage attracted my attention. I ran hastily back, and you may imagine my distress when I found the beautiful pheasant lying lifeless upon the ground. It never breathed or showed the faintest sign of life afterwards.

You may laugh at me if you please, but I firmly believe that it died of homesickness. What wonder that the free, beautiful, happy creature of God, torn from the sight of the broad blue sky, the smiling river, and the fresh, fragrant fir-trees of its mountain-home, and shut up in a dark, gloomy cabin, should have broken in twain its haughty little heart? Yes, you may laugh, call me sentimental, etc., but I shall never forgive myself for having killed, by inches, in my selfish and cruel kindness, that pretty creature.

Many people here call this bird a grouse, and those who have crossed the plains say that it is very much like the prairie-hen. The Spanish name is gallina del campo, literally, hen of the field. Since the death of my poor little victim, I have been told that it is utterly impossible to tame one of these birds, and it is said that if you put their eggs under a domestic fowl, the young, almost as soon as hatched, will instinctively run away to the beloved solitudes of their congenial homes, so passionately beats for liberty each pulse of their free and wild natures.

Among the noteworthy events which have occurred since my last, I don't know how I came to forget until the close of my letter two smart shocks of an earthquake to which we were treated a week ago. They were awe-inspiring, but, after all, were nothing in comparison to the timber-quake, an account of which I have given you above. But as F. is about to leave for the top of the Butte Mountains with a party of Rich Barians, and as I have much to do to prepare him for the journey, I must close.

Letter the Eleventh

[The Pioneer, December, 1854]

ROBBERY, TRIAL, EXECUTION—MORE TRAGEDY

SYNOPSIS

Theft of gold-dust. Arrest of two suspected miners. Trial and acquittal at miners' meeting. Robbed persons still believe accused guilty. Suspects leave mountains. One returns, and plan for his detection is successful. Confronted with evidence of guilt, discloses, on promise of immunity from prosecution, hiding-place of gold-dust. Miners, however, try him, and on conviction he is sentenced to be hanged one hour thereafter. Miners' mode of trial. Respite of three hours. Bungling execution. Drunken miner's proposal for sign of guilt or innocence. Corpse "enwrapped in white shroud of feathery snowflakes". Execution the work of the more reckless. Not generally approved. The Squire, disregarded, protested. Miners' procedure compared with the moderation of the first Vigilance Committee of San Francisco. Singular disappearance of body of miner. Returning to the States with his savings, his two companions report their leaving him in dying condition. Arrest and fruitless investigation. An unlikely bequest of money. Trial and acquittal of the miner's companions. Their story improbable, their actions like actual murder.

Letter the Eleventh

Robbery, Trial, Execution—More Tragedy

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

December 15, 1851.

I little thought, dear M., that here, with the "green watching hills" as witnesses, amid a solitude so grand and lofty that it seems as if the faintest whisper of passion must be hushed by its holy stillness, I should have to relate the perpetration of one of those fearful deeds which, were it for no other peculiarity than its startling suddenness, so utterly at variance with all civilized law, must make our beautiful California appear to strangers rather as a hideous phantom than the flower-wreathed reality which she is.

Whether the life which a few men, in the impertinent intoxication of power, have dared to crush out was worth that of a fly, I do not know,—perhaps not,—though God alone, methinks, can judge of the value of the soul upon which he has breathed. But certainly the effect upon the hearts of those who played the principal parts in the revolting scene referred to—a tragedy, in my simple judgment, so utterly useless—must be demoralizing in the extreme.

The facts in this sad case are as follows. Last fall, two men were arrested by their partners on suspicion of having stolen from them eighteen hundred dollars in gold-dust. The evidence was not sufficient to convict them, and they were acquitted. They were tried before a meeting of the miners, as at that time the law did not even pretend to wave its scepter over this place.

The prosecutors still believed them guilty, and fancied that the gold was hidden in a coyote-hole near the camp from which it had been taken. They therefore watched the place narrowly while the suspected men remained on the Bar. They made no discoveries, however, and soon after the trial the acquitted persons left the mountains for Marysville.

A few weeks ago, one of these men returned, and has spent most of the time since his arrival in loafing about the different barrooms upon the river. He is said to have been constantly intoxicated. As soon as the losers of the gold heard of his return, they bethought themselves of the coyote-hole, and placed about its entrance some brushwood and stones in such a manner that no one could go into it without disturbing the arrangement of them. In the mean while the thief settled at Rich Bar, and pretended that he was in search of some gravel-ground for mining purposes.

A few mornings ago he returned to his boarding-place, which he had left some hour earlier, with a spade in his hand, and, as he laid it down, carelessly observed that he had been out prospecting. The losers of the gold went, immediately after breakfast, as they had been in the habit of doing, to see if all was right at the coyote-hole. On this fatal day they saw that the entrance had been disturbed, and going in, they found upon the ground a money-belt which had apparently just been cut open. Armed with this evidence of guilt, they confronted the suspected person and sternly accused him of having the gold in his possession. Singularly enough, he did not attempt a denial, but said that if they would not bring him to a trial (which of course they promised) he would give it up immediately. He then informed them that they would find it beneath the blankets of his bunk, as those queer shelves on which miners sleep, ranged one above another somewhat like the berths of a ship, are generally called. There, sure enough, were six hundred dollars of the missing money, and the unfortunate wretch declared that his partner had taken the remainder to the States.

By this time the exciting news had spread all over the Bar. A meeting of the miners was immediately convened, the unhappy man taken into custody, a jury chosen, and a judge, lawyer, etc., appointed. Whether the men who had just regained a portion of their missing property made any objections to the proceedings which followed, I know not. If they had done so, however, it would have made no difference, as the people had taken the matter entirely out of their hands.

At one o'clock, so rapidly was the trial conducted, the judge charged the jury, and gently insinuated that they could do no less than to bring in with their verdict of guilty a sentence of death! Perhaps you know that when a trial is conducted without the majesty of the law, the jury are compelled to decide not only upon the guilt of the prisoner, but the mode of his punishment also. After a few minutes' absence, the twelve men, who had consented to burden their souls with a responsibility so fearful, returned, and the foreman handed to the judge a paper, from which he read the will of the people, as follows: That William Brown, convicted of stealing, etc., should, in one hour from that time, be hung by the neck until he was dead.

By the persuasions of some men more mildly disposed, they granted him a respite of three hours to prepare for his sudden entrance into eternity. He employed the time in writing, in his native language (he is a Swede), to some friends in Stockholm. God help them when that fatal post shall arrive, for, no doubt, he also, although a criminal, was fondly garnered in many a loving heart.

He had exhibited, during the trial, the utmost recklessness and nonchalance, had drank many times in the course of the day, and when the rope was placed about his neck, was evidently much intoxicated. All at once, however, he seemed startled into a consciousness of the awful reality of his position, and requested a few moments for prayer.

The execution was conducted by the jury, and was performed by throwing the cord, one end of which was attached to the neck of the prisoner, across the limb of a tree standing outside of the Rich Bar graveyard, when all who felt disposed to engage in so revolting a task lifted the poor wretch from the ground in the most awkward manner possible. The whole affair, indeed, was a piece of cruel butchery, though that was not intentional, but arose from the ignorance of those who made the preparations. In truth, life was only crushed out of him by hauling the writhing body up and down, several times in succession, by the rope, which was wound round a large bough of his green-leaved gallows. Almost everybody was surprised at the severity of the sentence, and many, with their hands on the cord, did not believe even then that it would be carried into effect, but thought that at the last moment the jury would release the prisoner and substitute a milder punishment.

It is said that the crowd generally seemed to feel the solemnity of the occasion, but many of the drunkards, who form a large part of the community on these bars, laughed and shouted as if it were a spectacle got up for their particular amusement. A disgusting specimen of intoxicated humanity, struck with one of those luminous ideas peculiar to his class, staggered up to the victim, who was praying at the moment, and, crowding a dirty rag into his almost unconscious hand, in a voice broken by a drunken hiccough, tearfully implored him to take his "hankercher," and if he were innocent (the man had not denied his guilt since first accused), to drop it as soon as he was drawn up into the air, but if guilty, not to let it fall on any account.

The body of the criminal was allowed to hang for some hours after the execution. It had commenced storming in the earlier part of the evening, and when those whose business it was to inter the remains arrived at the spot, they found them enwrapped in a soft white shroud of feathery snowflakes, as if pitying nature had tried to hide from the offended face of Heaven the cruel deed which her mountain-children had committed.

I have heard no one approve of this affair. It seems to have been carried on entirely by the more reckless part of the community. There is no doubt, however, that they seriously thought they were doing right, for many of them are kind and sensible men. They firmly believed that such an example was absolutely necessary for the protection of this community. Probably the recent case of Little John rendered this last sentence more severe than it otherwise would have been. The Squire, of course, could do nothing (as in criminal cases the people utterly refuse to acknowledge his authority) but protest against the whole of the proceedings, which he did in the usual legal manner.

If William Brown had committed a murder, or had even attacked a man for his money; if he had been a quarrelsome, fighting character, endangering lives in his excitement,—it would have been a very different affair. But, with the exception of the crime for which he perished (he said it was his first, and there is no reason to doubt the truth of his assertion), he was a harmless, quiet, inoffensive person.

You must not confound this miners' judgment with the doings of the noble Vigilance Committee of San Francisco. They are almost totally different in their organization and manner of proceeding. The Vigilance Committee had become absolutely necessary for the protection of society. It was composed of the best and wisest men in the city. They used their power with a moderation unexampled in history, and they laid it down with a calm and quiet readiness which was absolutely sublime, when they found that legal justice had again resumed that course of stern, unflinching duty which should always be its characteristic. They took ample time for a thorough investigation of all the circumstances relating to the criminals who fell into their hands, and in no case have they hung a man who had not been proved beyond the shadow of a doubt to have committed at least one robbery in which life had been endangered, if not absolutely taken.

But by this time, dear M., you must be tired of the melancholy subject, and yet if I keep my promise of relating to you all that interests us in our new and strange life, I shall have to finish my letter with a catastrophe in many respects more sad than that which I have just recounted.

At the commencement of our first storm, a hard-working, industrious laborer, who had accumulated about eight hundred dollars, concluded to return to the States. As the snow had been falling but a few hours when he, with two acquaintances, started from Rich Bar, no one doubted that they would not reach Marysville in perfect safety. They went on foot themselves, taking with them one mule to carry their blankets. For some unexplained reason, they took an unfrequented route. When the expressman came in, he said that he met the two companions of R. eight miles beyond Buck's Rancho, which is the first house one finds after leaving Rich Bar, and is only fourteen miles distant from here.

These men had camped at an uninhabited cabin called the "Frenchman's," where they had built a fire and were making themselves both merry and comfortable. They informed the expressman that they had left their friend (?) three miles back, in a dying state; that the cold had been too much for him, and that no doubt he was already dead. They had brought away the money, and even the blankets, of the expiring wretch! They said that if they had stopped with him they would have been frozen themselves. But even if their story is true, they must be the most brutal of creatures not to have made him as comfortable as possible, with all the blankets, and, after they had built their fire and got warm, to have returned and ascertained if he were really dead.

On hearing the expressman's report, several men who had been acquainted with the deceased started out to try and discover his remains. They found his violin, broken into several pieces, but all traces of the poor fellow himself had disappeared, probably forever.

In the mean while some travelers had carried the same news to Burke's Rancho, when several of the residents of that place followed the two men, and overtook them, to Bidwell's Bar, where they had them arrested on suspicion of murder. They protested their innocence, of course, and one of them said that he would lead a party to the spot where they had left the dying man. On arriving in the vicinity of the place, he at first stated that it was under one tree, then another, and another, and at last ended by declaring that it was utterly impossible for him to remember where they were camped at the time of R.'s death.

In this state of things, nothing was to be done but to return to B.'s, when, the excitement having somewhat subsided, they were allowed to proceed on their journey, the money, which they both swore R. had willed in his dying moments to a near relation of one of these very men, having been taken from them, in order to be sent by express to the friends of the deceased in the States.

Although they have been acquitted, many shake their heads doubtfully at the whole transaction. It seems very improbable that a man, accustomed all his life to hard labor and exposure, even although slightly unwell, as it is said he was, at the time, should have sunk under the cold during a walk of less than twenty miles, amid a gentle fall of snow and rain, when, as it is well known, the air is comparatively mild. It is to be hoped, however, that the companions of R. were brutal rather than criminal, though the desertion of a dying friend under such circumstances, even to the last unfeeling and selfish act of removing from the expiring creature his blankets, is, in truth, almost as bad as actual murder.

I hope, in my next, that I shall have something more cheerful than the above chapter of horrors to relate. In the mean while, adios, and think as kindly as you can of the dear California, even though her lustrous skies gaze upon such barbarous deeds.

Letter the Twelfth

[The Pioneer, February, 1855]

A STORMY WINTER—HOLIDAY SATURNALIAS

SYNOPSIS

Saturnalia in camp. Temptations of riches. Tribute to the miners. Dreariness of camp-life during stormy winter weather. Christmas and change of proprietors at the Humboldt. Preparations for a double celebration. Mule-back loads of brandy-casks and champagne-baskets. Noisy procession of revelers. Oyster-and-champagne supper. Three days of revelry. Trial by mock vigilance committee. Judgment to "treat the crowd". Revels resumed on larger scale at New Year's. Boat-loads of drunken miners fall into river. Saved by being drunk. Boat-load of bread falls into river and floats down-stream. Pulley-and-rope device for hauling boat across river. Fiddlers "nearly fiddled themselves into the grave". Liquors "beginning to look scarce". Subdued and sheepish-looking bacchanals. Nothing extenuated, nor aught set down in malice. Boating on the river. Aquatic plants. Bridge swept away in torrent. Loss of canoe. Branch from moss-grown fir-tree "a cornice wreathed with purple-starred tapestry". A New Year's present from the river. A two-inch spotted trout. No fresh meat for a month. "Dark and ominous rumors". Dark hams, rusty pork, etc., stored.

Letter the Twelfth

A Stormy Winter—Holiday Saturnalias

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

January 27, 1852.

I wish that it were possible, dear M., to give you an idea of the perfect saturnalia which has been held upon the river for the last three weeks, without at the same time causing you to think too severely of our good mountains. In truth, it requires not only a large intellect, but a large heart, to judge with becoming charity of the peculiar temptations of riches. A more generous, hospitable, intelligent, and industrious people than the inhabitants of the half-dozen bars, of which Rich Bar is the nucleus, never existed; for you know how proverbially wearing it is to the nerves of manhood to be entirely without either occupation or amusement, and that has been preeminently the case during the present month.

Imagine a company of enterprising and excitable young men, settled upon a sandy level about as large as a poor widow's potato-patch, walled in by sky-kissing hills, absolutely compelled to remain on account of the weather, which has vetoed indefinitely their exodus, with no place to ride or drive even if they had the necessary vehicles and quadrupeds; with no newspapers nor politics to interest them; deprived of all books but a few dog-eared novels of the poorest class,—churches, lectures, lyceums, theaters, and (most unkindest cut of all!) pretty girls, having become to these unhappy men mere myths; without one of the thousand ways of passing time peculiar to civilization, most of them living in damp, gloomy cabins, where heaven's dear light can enter only by the door; and when you add to all these disagreeables the fact that, during the never-to-be-forgotten month, the most remorseless, persevering rain which ever set itself to work to drive humanity mad has been pouring doggedly down, sweeping away bridges, lying in uncomfortable puddles about nearly all of the habitations, wickedly insinuating itself beneath un-umbrella-protected shirt-collars, generously treating to a shower-bath and the rheumatism sleeping bipeds who did not happen to have an india-rubber blanket, and, to crown all, rendering mining utterly impossible,—you cannot wonder that even the most moral should have become somewhat reckless.

The saturnalia commenced on Christmas evening, at the Humboldt, which, on that very day, had passed into the hands of new proprietors. The most gorgeous preparations were made for celebrating the two events. The bar was retrimmed with red calico, the bowling-alley had a new lining of the coarsest and whitest cotton cloth, and the broken lamp-shades were replaced by whole ones. All day long, patient mules could be seen descending the hill, bending beneath casks of brandy and baskets of champagne, and, for the first time in the history of that celebrated building, the floor (wonderful to relate, it has a floor) was washed, at a lavish expenditure of some fifty pails of water, the using up of one entire broom, and the melting away of sundry bars of the best yellow soap, after which I am told that the enterprising and benevolent individuals who had undertaken the herculean task succeeded in washing the boards through the hopeless load of dirt which had accumulated upon them during the summer and autumn. All these interesting particulars were communicated to me by Ned when he brought up dinner. That distinguished individual himself was in his element, and in a most intense state of perspiration and excitement at the same time.

About dark we were startled by the loudest hurrahs, which arose at the sight of an army of india-rubber coats (the rain was falling in riverfuls), each one enshrouding a Rich Barian, which was rapidly descending the hill. This troop was headed by the "General," who, lucky man that he is, waved on high, instead of a banner, a live lantern, actually composed of tin and window-glass, and evidently intended by its maker to act in no capacity but that of a lantern. The General is the largest and tallest, and with one exception I think the oldest, man upon the river. He is about fifty, I should fancy, and wears a snow-white beard of such immense dimensions, in both length and thickness, that any elderly Turk would expire with envy at the mere sight of it. Don't imagine that he is a reveler. By no means. The gay crowd followed him, for the same reason that the king followed Madam Blaize,—because she went before.

At nine o'clock in the evening they had an oyster-and-champagne supper in the Humboldt, which was very gay with toasts, songs, speeches, etc. I believe that the company danced all night. At any rate, they were dancing when I went to sleep, and they were dancing when I woke the next morning. The revel was kept up in this mad way for three days, growing wilder every hour. Some never slept at all during that time. On the fourth day they got past dancing, and, lying in drunken heaps about the barroom, commenced a most unearthly howling. Some barked like dogs, some roared like bulls, and others hissed like serpents and geese. Many were too far gone to imitate anything but their own animalized selves. The scene, from the description I have had of it, must have been a complete illustration of the fable of Circe and her fearful transformations. Some of these bacchanals were among the most respectable and respected men upon the river. Many of them had resided here for more than a year, and had never been seen intoxicated before. It seemed as if they were seized with a reckless mania for pouring down liquor, which, as I said above, everything conspired to foster and increase.

Of course there were some who kept themselves aloof from these excesses, but they were few, and were not allowed to enjoy their sobriety in peace. The revelers formed themselves into a mock vigilance committee, and when one of these unfortunates appeared outside, a constable, followed by those who were able to keep their legs, brought him before the court, where he was tried on some amusing charge, and invariably sentenced to "treat the crowd." The prisoners had generally the good sense to submit cheerfully to their fate.

Towards the latter part of the week, people were compelled to be a little more quiet, from sheer exhaustion, but on New Year's Day, when there was a grand dinner at Rich Bar, the excitement broke out, if possible, worse than ever. The same scenes, in a more or less aggravated form, in proportion as the strength of the actors held out, were repeated at Smith's Bar and The Junction.

Nearly every day I was dreadfully frightened by seeing a boat-load of intoxicated men fall into the river, where nothing but the fact of their being intoxicated saved many of them from drowning. One morning about thirty dollars' worth of bread (it must have been tipsy-cake), which the baker was conveying to Smith's Bar, fell overboard, and sailed merrily away towards Marysville. People passed the river in a boat, which was managed by a pulley and a rope that was strained across it from Indian Bar to the opposite shore.

Of the many acquaintances who had been in the habit of calling nearly evening, three, only, appeared in the cabin during as many weeks. Now, however, the saturnalia is about over. Ned and Chock have nearly fiddled themselves into their respective graves, the claret (a favorite wine with miners) and oysters are exhausted, brandied fruits are rarely seen, and even port-wine is beginning to look scarce. Old callers occasionally drop in, looking dreadfully sheepish and subdued, and so sorry, and people are evidently arousing themselves from the bacchanal madness into which they were so suddenly and so strangely drawn.

With the exception of my last, this is the most unpleasant letter which I have ever felt it my duty to write to you. Perhaps you will wonder that I should touch upon such a disagreeable subject at all. But I am bound, Molly, by my promise to give you a true picture (as much as in me lies) of mining-life and its peculiar temptations, nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice. But, with all their failings, believe me, the miners, as a class, possess many truly admirable characteristics.

I have had rather a stupid time during the storm. We have been in the habit of taking frequent rows upon the river, in a funny little toppling canoe carved out of a log. The bridge at one end of our boating-ground, and the rapids at the other, made quite a pretty lake. To be sure, it was so small that we generally passed and repassed its beautiful surface at least thirty times in an hour. But we did not mind that, I can assure you. We were only too glad to be able to go onto the water at all. I used to return loaded down with the magnificent large leaves of some aquatic plant which the gentle frosts had painted with the most gorgeous colors, lots of fragrant mint, and a few wan white flowers which had lingered past their autumnal glory. The richest hothouse bouquet could never give me half the pleasure which I took in arranging, in a pretty vase of purple and white, those gorgeous leaves. They made me think of Moorish arabesques, so quaint and bizarre, and at the same time dazzlingly brilliant, were the varied tints. They were in their glory at evening, for, like an oriental beauty, they lighted up splendidly. Alas! where, one little month ago, my little lake lay laughing up at the stars, a turbid torrent rushes noisily by. The poor little canoe was swept away with the bridge, and splendid leaves hide their bright heads forever beneath the dark waters.

But I am not entirely bereft of the beautiful. From my last walk I brought home a tiny bit of outdoors, which, through all the long, rainy months that are to come, will sing to me silently, yet eloquently, of the blue and gold of the vanished summer, and the crimson and purple of its autumn. It is a branch, gathered from that prettiest feature of mountain scenery,—a moss-grown fir-tree. You will see them at every step, standing all-lovely in this graceful robe. It is, in color, a vivid pea-green, with little hard flowers which look more like dots than anything else, and contrast beautifully with the deeper verdure of the fir. The branch which I brought home I have placed above my window. It is three feet in length, and as large round as a person's arm; and there it remains, a cornice wreathed with purple-starred tapestry, whose wondrous beauty no upholsterer can ever match.

I have got the prettiest New Year's present. You will never guess what it is, so I shall have to tell you. On the eve of the year, as the "General" was lifting a glass of water, which had just been brought from the river, to his lips, he was startled at the sight of a tiny fish. He immediately put it into a glass jar and gave it to me. It is that most lovely of all the creatures of Thetis, a spotted trout, a little more than two inches in length. Its back, of mingled green and gold, is splashed with dots of the richest sable. A mark of a dark-ruby color, in shape like an anchor, crowns its elegant little head. Nothing can be prettier than the delicate wings of pale purple with which its snowy belly is faintly penciled. Its jet-black eyes, rimmed with silver within a circlet of rare sea-blue, gleam like diamonds, and its whole graceful shape is gilded with a shimmering sheen infinitely lovely. When I watch it from across the room as it glides slowly round its crystal palace, it reminds me of a beam of many-colored light, but when it glides up and down in its gay playfulness, it gleams through the liquid atmosphere like a box of shining silver. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," and truly I never weary watching the perfected loveliness of my graceful little captive.

In the list of my deprivations above written, I forgot to mention a fact which I know will gain me the sympathy of all carnivorously disposed people. It is, that we have had no fresh meat for nearly a month! Dark and ominous rumors are also floating through the moist air, to the effect that the potatoes and onions are about to give out! But don't be alarmed, dear Molly. There is no danger of a famine. For have we not got wagon-loads of hard, dark hams, whose indurated hearts nothing but the sharpest knife and the stoutest arm can penetrate? Have we not got quintals of dreadful mackerel, fearfully crystallized in black salt? Have we not barrels upon barrels of rusty pork, and flour enough to victual a large army for the next two years? Yea, verily, have we, and more also. For we have oysters in cans, preserved meats, and sardines (apropos, I detest them), by the hundred-boxful.

So, hush the trembling of that tender little heart, and shut those tearful and alarmed eyes while I press a good-night kiss On their drooping lids.

Letter the Thirteenth

[The Pioneer, March, 1855]

SOCIABILITY and EXCITEMENTS of MINING-LIFE

SYNOPSIS

Departure Indian Bar of the mulatto Ned. His birthday-celebration dinner, at which the New Year's piscatory phenomenon figures in the bill of fare. A total disregard of dry laws at the dinner. Excitement over reported discovery of quartz-mines. A complete humbug. Charges of salting. Excitement renewed upon report of other new quartz-mines. Even if rich, lack of proper machinery would render working thereof impossible. Prediction that quartz-mines eventually will be the most profitable. Miners decamp without paying their debts. Pursuit and capture. Miners' court orders settlement in full. Celebration, by French miners, of the Revolution of 1848. Invitation to dine at best-built log cabin on the river. The habitation of five or six young miners. A perfect marvel of a fireplace. Huge unsplit logs as firewood. Window of glass jars. Possibilities in the use of empty glass containers. Unthrift of some miners. The cabin, its furniture, store of staple provisions, chinaware, cutlery. The dinner in the cabin. A cow kept. Wonderful variety of makeshift candlesticks in use among the miners. Dearth of butter, potatoes, onions, fresh meat, in camp. Indian-summer weather at Indian Bar. A cozy retreat in the hills. A present of feathered denizens of the mountains. Roasted for dinner.

Letter the Thirteenth

Sociability and Excitements of Mining-life

From our Log Cabin, Indian Bar,

February 27, 1852.

You will find this missive, dear M., a journal, rather than a letter; for the few insignificant events which have taken place since I last wrote to you will require but three lines apiece for their recital. But stop; when I say "insignificant" I forget one all-important misfortune which, for our sins I suppose, has befallen us, in the sudden departure of our sable Paganini.

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! Liberté, égalité, fraternité! 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 Chileño, who with national suavity made the most desperate efforts to understand the questions put to him. Of course Chileño 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, 'Señor, 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. Cañas 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, Cañas 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."